Psychologist Christopher Ryan Discusses Happiness, Psychedelics, Sex & More!

Christoper Ryan is a psychologist, author and podcaster.  His work has appeared everywhere from Netflix & HBO to CNN & Fox News.  He has been a featured speaker at TED and SXSW, as well as a frequent guest on the Joe Rogan Experience.  In this episode we discuss his books "Sex At Dawn" & "Civilized to Death" as well as happiness, the illusion of luxury, psychedelics, his interview with comedian Neal Brennan and much more!

0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:13 - Comparing American and Spanish Healthcare Systems
0:02:17 - Christopher Ryan Discusses His Relationship with Joe Rogan
0:09:27 - Human Nature Through the Lens of Bonobos and Chimps
0:14:31 - The Evolutionary Roots and Modern Implications of Sociopathy
0:17:50 - The Paradox of Fame and Leadership in Modern Society
0:26:22 - The Illusion of Luxury and True Value
0:30:26 - The Difference Between Private Jets and Commercial Flights
0:33:16 - The True Cost of Never Having Enough
0:33:26 - Balancing Drive and Enjoyment in Personal and Professional Life
0:41:05 - Monogamy Vs. Swingers
0:45:00 - Hysteria of Women & Orgasms
0:47:50 - Female Teachers Having Sex with Students
0:51:15 - Controversy of "Sex at Dawn"
0:54:45 - Asexual People Vs. Toxic Masculinity
1:00:57 - Comedian Neal Brennan
1:05:40 - Helping Each Other Out & Doing Podcasts
1:08:40 - Misinterpretations and Backlash Against 'Sex at Dawn'
1:12:20 - Navigating Non-Monogamy and Parenting in Modern Society
1:16:20 - A Return to Basics: Whole Foods, Self-Sufficiency, and Community
1:18:10 - The Transformative Potential and Risks of Psychedelics
1:28:35 - Healing Concussions and Exploring Ultimate Reality with Psychedelics
1:31:20 - Outro

Christopher Ryan website:
https://chrisryanphd.com/

Chuck Shute Linkree:
https://linktr.ee/chuck_shute

Transcript

Christopher Ryan: 0:13

Fucking quagmire of American health care, yeah. Is it? Is it?

Chuck Shute: 0:18

Is it better in Spain because you lived there for a while, right? Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 0:21

Yeah, it's way better in Spain. I mean, yeah, yeah, you have, first of all, it's, you know, free in the sense free, but it's, you don't pay for services, and doctors don't make that much money in Spain. So people who go into medicine, do it for love of medicine and their fellow man, you know, as opposed to a way to make a shit ton of money. So the motivations are different. Yeah, it seems like we have more of a sick care system than a health care system in this country, which is, I don't know. Like, I try to have these discussions on my podcast and try to kind of like, wake people up to that, but I feel like people don't want to hear it. Yeah, yeah. The whole sort of America's number one narrative is extremely difficult to break through for people who haven't lived elsewhere or even really traveled much. It's it's frustrating. Well, it's like, yeah, it's like, we just value different things. I think we value money. And it's like, you said, like the people that are becoming doctors in America, it's like, they want to make money. Well, how are you going to make money as a doctor? Like, you're not going to make money if you tell somebody to eat healthy and exercise and get sunlight, you're going to make money by prescribing the medications or giving them surgeries or so, that's where all the money is, yeah, well, and the insurance is set up the same way. Insurance will pay for the meds and the surgery, but it won't pay for, you know, a therapist to talk about why you're so stressed out that you have to drink so much. Or, you know what, I mean, it's right, yeah, it's it. The incentives are all wrong in Spain, because the government's paying for the health care. A lot of money goes into preventive measures. So I love I think we should do way more of that. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Chuck Shute: 2:16

I'm recording this part. I mean, is this okay? Oh, okay, all right. Is that okay? Or we can cut that out. I told you I wouldn't talk about health care. No, I just, it's so weird, because I feel like I know you, because I've listened to so many episodes. I listened to a bunch of your episodes on Rogan and then I listened to both your books. I'm like, I feel like I know you, but you have no idea who I am. So it's, it's kind of a spot to put you in.

Christopher Ryan: 2:36

I guess I've watched a couple episodes. Contacted me. Yeah, thank you. Well, because normally I don't do other podcasts. I'm so busy doing doing my own, yeah, I mean, I'll do, you know, a friend's podcast, or, you know, something like that, but I probably do one out of every, you know, maybe 20 invitations or whatever. But I watched your podcast and I was like, wow, this guy really gets into it, you know, like you seems like you've read your guests books when they have books and you're aware of who they are. And I know how hard that is doing a weekly podcast myself, it's very hard to find time for all that kind of, you know, research, yeah, you seem to take it very seriously. So, yeah, well, I

Chuck Shute: 3:24

make it, I make it a priority, but also just find, I find people so fascinating. And if I read, you know, speed, read both of your books on audible, and I they were fascinating books, and then I listened to a bunch of your episodes on Rogan I've only listened a little bit of your pot, the tangent. Tangentially, did I say that? Right? Tangentially speaking, tangentially speaking, yeah, you've had some amazing guests. I need to dive into that more too. But just your episodes with you, and Rogan is, like, it's like, freaking like, Lennon McCartney, like, you guys make such beautiful like, he'll bring up all these fascinating things, and then you'll bring up all these fascinating things. And I'm just, I'm on the edge of my seat, like, wow. Like, what are you guys going to talk about next? Like, I just want to hear it. It's like, so amazing. Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 4:08

yeah. We've had very different lives, very different perspectives on things. It was fun too, because, you know, back in the day, I lived in Topanga Canyon, yeah, north, just north of LA and his studio was right down in the valley, like, 20 minutes from my house. So, you know, we used to, you know, if he had a guest who had to bail for some reason or something, he'd give me a call and be like, dude, I'm recording in an hour and so and so couldn't make it. What are you doing? I'd be like, yeah, sure, I'll come down. So a lot of that stuff was, you know, just so easy and spontaneous. So, yeah, it was, it was really fun. But, you know, people write to me and be like, when are you going on? Rogan, what's going on? You guys have a beef. You know, everybody you know, all these kind of young men think everything is a beef. It's like. Know, dude, I live in Colorado. He lives in Austin. It's not a 20 minute, you know, drive down to his place like it used to be, Oh, that's okay.

Chuck Shute: 5:09

That's, yeah, I wondered that, because I was like, I feel like, you haven't been on there in a while, but you were going, like, it was, like, every year, at least once, and I've been trying to, I think I listened like, five and I was like, and it's so funny, because one of them was like, it's to go back in time and listen to old episodes when things were like current then, you know, like in 2015, of what was going on in the world, and to, like, listen to your reactions. Then it was really fascinating to hear that, yeah, like in real time.

Christopher Ryan: 5:37

Well, you're going to be doing it with your own podcast someday. You know, it's like, I guess I've never gotten around at listening to my own episodes. It's weird. I've been doing this for 12 years, and sometimes someone will discover the podcast, and they'll write to me, and they say, like, Dude, I you know, I heard you whatever, somewhere. And I went and I started at the beginning. And so they're like listening from 2012 2013 2014 and it's such a weird thing, because it's like they're more in touch with who I was eight years ago than I am, you know, like they would, you know, what did you think of x, they would probably know better than I do, because I don't fucking remember, I don't know. No, it's

Chuck Shute: 6:26

funny, yeah, like you because Rogan was saying something about how men can have abortions and like, and just because, now that's something that we talk about, it's like, it's very, you know, it's debatable whether whatever side you're on, but it's something that's talked about, but at the time, it's like, 2015 just the look on your face, you're like, I don't fall Yeah, I'm crying out of like, oh, this, this is 2015 This was before this was, like, even a thing that people talked about. And so it's, I don't know it's really, you guys had some really fascinating discover. I'm glad you guys are both cool, and that's good. I'm like, middle child. I always want everyone to be peaceful together. So I thought, did they have a falling out? I thought that too, yeah, I'm like, one of the bros or whatever. Like you said,

Christopher Ryan: 7:10

no, no, as far as I know, we never had a falling out. You know, life happens, things change and and also, you know, I don't know. I feel like there are relationships that sort of have a built in expiration date, you know, like you kind of talk about what you have to talk about, and then it's like, that's, that's kind of it like, I don't know how much more he wants to talk about, you know, prehistoric sexuality. Or, you know, how many more times we're going to go around the you know, the track of progress is real, or it's an illusion. And, you know, like, we sort of argued our positions, and I don't, it's not really worth flying to Austin to do it again,

Chuck Shute: 7:57

really, because I thought it was so fascinating that you guys touched on so many different things, and it would go from super deep issues, like, you know, you talk, you're listening to one where you're talking about, like, you had a really interesting point about the makeup of people, how we are made up of other organisms. And so then that's what, like people in a community, it's like we're part of something else, like even us as ourselves, though, is not just one thing. We're made up of all these other organisms. I was like, wow, this is just so fascinating. You guys would both bring up such interesting things about see, it's interesting because I reached out, because I thought you're a psychologist, which you are. But I feel like when I listen to the conversations, it's, you're almost more of a sociologist, anthropologist.

Christopher Ryan: 8:40

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm a psychologist, in the sense that I have a PhD in psychology, but it's not clinical, it's a research based PhD. So like, I'm not a I'm not someone you would go to to talk about your relationship with your mother, necessarily.

Chuck Shute: 8:56

But do you feel like those topics interest you more, like the differences? Because that's feel like, when your book, too, like you, you talk a lot about different societies, tribes and things like, it's more that's not kind of more sociology and anthropology.

Christopher Ryan: 9:10

Yeah, yeah, I would say, I would describe myself more in terms of anthropology, primatology, right? You know, like, I know way more about primate testicles than I ever thought I would,

Chuck Shute: 9:27

right? That is meant, I think that's in both of your books, that which I think one of the you talk about chimps. And then, what is the other thing but bonitos or bonobos? Bonobos? Sorry, sorry, yeah, you've mentioned that like, several

Christopher Ryan: 9:41

times I love benitos, though that's great Mexican bonobos.

Chuck Shute: 9:45

Yeah, bonobos. I was like, I don't think I've ever heard that term before. I definitely had not heard it that much until I listened to your books. And I was like, okay, because you said we're way closer to them than we are traditional chimpanzees. That's.

Christopher Ryan: 10:00

That's debatable in terms of DNA, we're equidistant. So to get a little bit technical, our evolutionary line diverged from the line that led to chimps and bonobos five to 6 million years ago, and then their line split about 3 million years ago based on DNA drift, genetic drift. That's a way of measuring, you know, when species sort of split off from a common ancestor. So the way to think of it is, you know, chimps and bonobos are like my twin brothers. They're twins, right? And then I'm their older brother, so I'm very closely related to both of them equidistant, and they're more closely related to one another than they are to me,

Chuck Shute: 10:52

right? And then they're, I forget, the bonobos are more non monogamous, right? Was that? Is that? What it was in the book? Yeah.

Christopher Ryan: 11:01

I mean, they're both non monogamous, but the diff, main difference in terms of sexuality is that bonobos are more promiscuous than chimps. Chimps do have sex when the females not ovulating, and that's very rare among mammals, there's just a handful of mammals that do that. Bonobos have sex throughout the female cycle. Bonobos have sex face to face, which is unheard of in mammals, except for us and bonobos, there's a lot of same sex interaction with bonobos, female, female, male, you don't see a lot of that with chimpanzees. Female bonobos will let other bonobos hold their infants, which chimps will never do because they're afraid. I mean, chimps will kill the infants. Male chimps especially, and there's a lot of violence inherent in in chimpanzee society, so rape and murder and infanticide and organized group conflict, you know, which we anthropomorph anthropomorphize and call war. None of those things have been witnessed in bonobos. There's never been no in the wild, in captivity, no one has ever seen a bonobo kill or rape another bonobo. So what's that

Chuck Shute: 12:27

we're worse in some ways than

Christopher Ryan: 12:29

Yeah, in some ways. I mean, we have a lot in common with them, as I outlined. And then the question is, you know, are we more closely related to bonobos or chimps, or do we contain both? Is, are they like the, you know, the the sort of the bad and the good angel on our shoulders whispering into our ears? You know? It's, it's an interesting situation, how the biology kind of reflects, in some ways, philosophical issues in in humans. But, you know, I argue that humans are more closely related to bonobos behaviorally and spiritually, if that's even a legitimate way to talk about this, because trauma hurts us. You know, it hurts us to see another human being hurt. You know, dentists, tattoo artists, people who are regularly in the presence of someone else's suffering have very high suicide and depression rates. You know, we it's hard for us to be in the presence of someone who's in pain without feeling it ourselves. That's not something that is witnessed in chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are, you know, without compassion. So Frans Duvall, who's a great primatologist who studied bonobos and chimps, and just died a few months ago, he famously said that chimps use violence to get sex, whereas bonobos use sex to avoid violence.

Chuck Shute: 14:05

Hmm, interesting. Yeah. It does seem like most humans are like what you're saying, but there is, have you read that book? I think, is it the sociopath always makes up sociopath and psychopath, but I think it might be called the psychopath next door, and she talks about how it's like, I think it's like one in five people is basically like a sociopath, and not meaning that they're going to be a serial killer, but just necessarily, they just don't have that kind of empathy for other people, or just don't really feel and there's a lot of careers that serve them well for that, like, like being a surgeon, if you think about you couldn't be a surgeon and have People die like you go home and have a breakdown every but if you know, if you just have that cut off sociopath kind of brain, you can do that, no problem, and it's not a big deal. Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 14:51

yeah, I haven't read that book. I'm familiar with the research Wall Street seems to have a lot of sociopaths as well. For

Chuck Shute: 14:58

sure, there's so many like the. Anybody, a lot of the people in the military, I mean, obviously the ones that are not are all these people that have PTSD and that are, you know, that aren't meant and I would be terrible in the army. I'm sure I couldn't, I don't want to kill another person. But there's a lot of people that it's like, no big deal for them, seems like, yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 15:17

these are interesting questions, and for me, it's very interesting to think about them in terms of evolutionary pressures, right? So in a hunter gatherer society, someone who lacks compassion would be at a disadvantage because you're in a small scale society, everyone knows each other. If you talk shit about someone behind their back or you hoard food and don't share. You're not generous. You know any of these sort of anti social behaviors, everyone's going to see them, and you're going to be ostracized, if not killed. You know the hunter gatherer societies are extreme. They're known as fierce egalitarians by anthropologists, and they have all these mechanisms for enforcing pro social behavior. So someone who doesn't get that and doesn't feel a sort of natural inclination toward sharing and taking care of other people is going to have a big problem and probably not reproduce as successfully as those who do display those behaviors, right? But then with the shift to agriculture and hierarchical political systems, and you know armies and invasions, and you know all this violence and all that, suddenly, you know, if you're an ancient Rome and you have the capacity to kill people without feeling anything, you have an advantage now you rise up in the hierarchy, you're gonna have more sex and more offspring and more money and more reproductive success. So it's interesting, you know, these kind of qualities that we're talking about as you know, aspects of human nature, different societies nourish them or limit them, and we happen to live in a society that nourishes some pretty anti social behavior,

Chuck Shute: 17:16

yeah, and I think it's sometimes too it's like people are kind of a little bit of both, like The surgeon I'm discussing, like a surgeon, who could, they could, you know, somebody could die on their table, and they'll be like, Well, I did everything I could, but then they could also be very caring and, you know, generous person to their family or to their wife or whatever. But it's just like they have, like, there's a switch that's in them that they can turn on and off. Like, I don't have that switch. Like, I just have, you know, I care about people. I care about people. I care about everybody, even people I don't know, even people that hate me for some reason, which is, maybe that's a flaw, I don't know, but I care about them, you know. So it is interesting, though, you're right though, yeah, there's if the people that don't really give a shit and care more about power, money or whatever, like, they can do very well in America, and then they're even regarded very highly by a lot of people, like, they're like, Wow, that guy's driving a Lamborghini. He must be amazing person,

Christopher Ryan: 18:07

yeah, yeah, not to get into politics. But, I mean, we've got a guy here who claims to be a billionaire, whose wife clearly hates him, you know, who's whose sons are.

Chuck Shute: 18:18

Is that why she's never, like, in a hasn't come out to events or whatever. Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 18:23

yeah, yeah. I mean, we could go on and on the examples of extremely unhealthy, unhappy, fucked up people that be either become icons in American society or get unhealthy and fucked up by being icons, right? Like Elvis or Michael Jackson, you know, Michael Jordan, like, you know, you like the gangsters.

Chuck Shute: 18:51

Isn't that that's a weird thing. And if you think about it, we like, look up to like, like Billy, the kid you know, was a the guy was a criminal, and he's, like, revered as a hero like Al Capone, these gangsters, like, we're like, well, that guy's so like, we love him. We love like the new dog.

Christopher Ryan: 19:07

Apparently, Snoop was a gangster, right? Like,

Chuck Shute: 19:10

Snoop never really killed anybody, did he? Or it wasn't just into smoking weed and having orgies and stuff. I

Christopher Ryan: 19:18

don't know. He seems peaceful now, yeah, from what I heard, he was like a cripp or a blood or something back in the day, I don't know, right?

Chuck Shute: 19:25

Yeah, but yeah. So it is. It's like a, it's a weird society. When you think about some of these things, when you actually, like, get down, like, we don't. I mean, other than like, Mother Teresa, like, is there a lot of people that are very generous, that share a lot, that devote their life to helping people that are revered and famous and looked up to, like, I we don't even talk about those people. Well, apparently

Christopher Ryan: 19:46

Mother Teresa was a bitch too, according, Oh, really? Christopher Hitchens, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 19:50

this is the fascinating shit. I love that you pull out you're, you know, all this crazy stuff. I didn't so she was not. Oh,

Christopher Ryan: 19:56

Christopher Hitchens wrote a whole book about her, like, debunking, yeah, you. Yeah. But as far as, like, you know, yeah, do we revere people who are healthy and generous? I think it's interesting that fame, you know, the thing is someone who's like politics. Take an example, hunter gatherer society. You become a leader because other people ask you your opinion on things. People look at you and like, oh, you know what chuck, chuck was right? Last time about where we should go, Chuck made a good decision. Chucks a nice guy. He's really generous. He shares everything. He helps people when they're sick. Let's ask Chuck's opinion, because he's wise, right? It's not because you stand up and say, I am the leader. Everyone needs to follow me. I'm so fucking awesome. Trust me, you know, like it's the opposite of what we have now, ego or any kind of inclination to be a leader immediately disqualifies you in a hunter gatherer society, because people think you're ridiculous. If you're walking around saying, I know I'm so fucking smart, they're just like, oh, chucks full of shit. And they you know, it's kind of like the way things operate on smells small scale, like among a group of friends, if somebody gets too big for their britches and is always telling everybody else what to do. They stop getting invited to the party, right? You rise to leadership among a group of friends because people respect you, because you have a track record of being cool and smart and making good decisions. So on a large scale, you know, like political, political, American political system. Everything's the opposite of the way it works in hunter gatherer societies. So we end up with these very unhealthy people rising to the top of the political system, the economic system, you know, entertainment, because they need it, because there's some flaw in them, that they need the attention, they need the power, they need the money. Whereas people are healthy, you don't hear about them because they're at home having a good time. They don't need millions of dollars, a million dollars. Who needs more than a million dollars? I mean, come on, you know? So they get a million dollars, and they say, I'm done, I'm good. I got my house. I got my my woman. I got, you know, kids are cool. We got food. Nobody's going to be hungry. We're good. I'm out. We don't hear about them. We hear about the ones that keep going and going and going because they never have enough,

Chuck Shute: 22:36

right? It's like, this numbers game kind of thing, where they it's like, who's got the most, but not who gives the most, it's who has the who keeps the most.

Christopher Ryan: 22:46

Yeah, exactly. Everything's distorted. Yeah. There's a great anthropologist, Marvin Harris, who wrote some great books, cannibals and kings is a pretty popular one, and he talks about the big man social organization, which was very prevalent in the South Pacific and different parts of Asia 1000s of years ago, and that was exactly what you just said. Someone accrued power and prestige by giving away as much as possible. So the sort of first contact, you know, the missionaries and the explorers who came across these societies would often be very confused, because they come to a village and they want to, like, talk to the leader, which is already a complicated thing, because leadership structures are different in these societies. But generally, it was the person with the smallest hut, with the least amount of possessions, with the shittiest clothing and all that. And they're like, wait a minute, he's the leader. He looks like the poorest guy here. Yeah, because he gives away more than anyone else. That's why we love them. So it's a very backwards kind of everything's upside down and inside out.

Chuck Shute: 24:07

That's interesting. Do you think part part of it too is like, because I'm really into learning new things and like, so part of it for me would be like, a mentoring thing. Like, that's who I would look up to, as someone who could show me how to do it. Like, how did they get so much in the first place? Like, if they could show me how they or show me a skill. Like, I'm not really into learning new things, and I feel like that kind of helps us, like, develop a purpose, too. Because, like, otherwise, like, what I feel like, that's what I struggle with lately as I get older, in my 40s, like, in my 20s, I didn't give a shit. But now I'm like, What is the point of our lives? Like, why are we here? What I feel like it's to help other people in some way, whether that's teaching them a skill, or having these kinds of conversations on a podcast or or sharing something with the world, right?

Christopher Ryan: 24:53

Yeah, could be the world, I mean, you know, or just a tiny little piece of the world. But yeah, I. I feel like when I think, I mean, I'm 62 so I've been sort of thinking of those post 40 issues for a while now, and I think a big part of happiness is not inflating your expectations, which is runs counter to what our particular society tells us. I think most, most of the keys to happiness, are having a very skeptical eye to what your society is teaching you, because we live, in my opinion, as well. You know, having read civilized to death, I think we live in an extremely pathological society. So to be a healthy person in a pathological society, you're always swimming upstream. You're always out of step, you know, with the general public. But yeah, I look at the rule of diminishing returns. For example, you know, if you have, you know, you have one car that works and it's reliable and it's comfortable. Are you going to be twice as happy if you have two of those cars? What if you have 10 of those cars? Are you going to be 10 times as happy like no, you're you're going to have 10 times as many insurance payments and maintenance and all this, and you can only really use one fucking car. So what's the point? You know, and if you look at society in the Western world, so much of it is like that, right? You got to drink crystal. Like, do I $300 a bottle, or whatever the fuck it is? Like, really, could I just have a beer with I mean, am I a bad guy if I just, like, a beer? Like, you know, this whole sort of, you need to have the most expensive taste and you need to be very difficult to please. Like, that's a sign of sophistication. I don't think so. I think that's a sign that you're a sucker and that you've, you know, taken the bait, and you're going to spend all your time and energy trying to impress other people who don't give a fuck about you anyway, like, it's, it's a total scam, you know, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 27:03

it's like, Have you ever seen that, like, YouTube thing where they set up this Italian shoe store, pelesi, and all these people are coming in and they're buying these $500 shoes and, and then they come and they say, actually, this is just Payless. And we just changed the name to policy and and made all this, like, fancy stuff inside to make it look cool, but these are like, $20 shoes, and people were paying and they thought it was so cool. That's like, I feel like that's a lot of that shit, because I've stayed at like, really nice hotels, and I've stayed at like Motel Six, bottom of the barrel, like fleabag motels. There's not that big of a difference, right? I mean, the right, you're unconscious.

Christopher Ryan: 27:42

You're literally unconscious most of the time. You're there, as long

Chuck Shute: 27:45

as it's got a bed and a toilet and a sink and it, you know, I don't think you need a TV now, because everyone's got a cell phone so you can watch stuff on your phone or whatever. And it's like, the same with, like, restaurants I've eaten, like, really, I don't really like fancy right? My girlfriend, I talk about this all the time. We're like, we don't really like fancy restaurants, like, and I've eaten it, like, some of the best food I've had is like, these, like, dive Mexican places that make amazing tacos, like, guys on a street, you know, what do you call that? Like, the pastor, where they shave it off. You ever had that? Like, oh, it's so good. Maybe too, because you're on the beach in Mexico, I don't know, but, yeah, sometimes I think a lot of that stuff is overrated. I think you used an example when you were talking to Rogan about like, Rolex watch. Like, is it really that much better for watch, or is it you're just paying for the name, and it's like, that's so much more. It's like, what is like 50 grand for Rolex or something? Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 28:35

they're all different models. I think I might have pissed them off. I think he's got a few Rolex watches. Oh,

Chuck Shute: 28:41

well, some people really into like cars or watches or what, like, some people that it's like a more of a hobby, I guess, I don't know, like guitars, what I had John masa on, you know, really famous guitar player has a huge guitar collection. He loves guitars, like, so, I mean, that's kind of different, though. I think, I guess it's more of like a hobby, yeah?

Christopher Ryan: 29:02

Well, and I'm sure, to someone like that, every guitar has a different sound, and, you know, different feel, and you know, so if that's your life, then great, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 29:14

the one thing I don't

Christopher Ryan: 29:15

but having said that, I you know, sometimes I'll see these YouTube videos of a little kid in Africa, who's got a stick and a bucket on the bottom and four strings, and he's killing you know? And it's like, okay, talent is talent, you know, you don't need 20 guitars to be a great musician, you know, these you just people have it inside them. So it's cool, if you can afford it, it's cool. But don't make the mistake that many people do of saying, well, if I'm alerting guitar, I need to get a $500 guitar or$1,000 guitar. I need the No, just do it. It's like joining the gym. You don't need to join the fucking gym. Just go for a run. You know, right?

Chuck Shute: 29:59

I think that one thing. Like, because you've traveled a lot, like, that's the one thing that I think, if I ever did to have a lot of money that I think that would be different, is flying like a private jet versus commercial, because I just absolutely hate flying commercial. Maybe first class is like, different. I don't know. I just hate flying commercial, but I love to travel. And that would be the one thing that I would think would be really cool about being, like, mega rich. Is it like you wouldn't have to fly with all the the cattle, you know, like, it's, yeah. Have you ever, yeah, flown in, you probably flown in private jets, I'm guessing, just because of the people you hang out with. Or no,

Christopher Ryan: 30:33

uh, yeah, I have. I've flown business class, you know, the whole gamut. I've also been, you know, in the absolute hideous shit hole in the bottom of a ferry in Indonesia with no windows and human shit washing back and forth as the boat rocked. I, I've, I've experienced the whole spectrum of comfort and discomfort. So

Chuck Shute: 31:02

is that something, though, that is versus, like, a nicer hotel versus a dirt bag hotel? It's really, to me, I don't think it's that big of a difference, but I feel like with travel, it because it gets kind of scary when you're in these, like, tight places. I don't know.

Christopher Ryan: 31:17

Yeah, I think air travel is one of the areas where there's a big difference. But, you know, that's all artificial pricing and all that. You know, the rule of diminishing returns doesn't say there's no difference between a Motel Six and, you know, the Ritz Carlton. What it says is that the amount of improvement decreases the higher up you go. So, like, take a bottle of wine, right? I lived in Spain for 20 years. I drank a lot of wine. You get in Spain for 10 euros, you get a nice bottle of wine now for 20 euros, okay, you probably get, you get a grand Reserva, or is ERVA it's been in the barrel for a few more years. It's a little more oaky, you know, but it's the same grapes, it's the same process, but it's maybe the flavor is a little more complex. For 100 euros, there's no fucking difference, you know, 1500 euros, forget about it. It's all impressing people and labels and whatever, you know. So it's not that there's no difference. There's a difference between a Motel Six and a, you know, renaissance in or something. You know, there's definitely a difference, but the difference gets smaller the higher up you go. So, yeah, I've been on private jets. Was there a difference between the ten million private jet and the $30 million private jet? Not that I noticed

Chuck Shute: 32:51

you didn't have to go through security. That's all I'm saying. That's the boat I paid up on the airport. There's

Christopher Ryan: 32:55

that and you're not there no middle seats, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 32:59

yeah. But I see what you're saying. Yeah, there's, like, a limit where it's like, you have, like you said, if once you have a million dollars, like, you pretty much you have enough to, like, survive. You have to worry about money. You're going to be able to eat and, I mean, unless the dollar crashes, of course, but I mean, you're probably going to be able to live for the rest of your life and be okay and survive. Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 33:17

there's a story a friend told me about Joseph Heller, the writer who wrote catch 22 amazing book. He was at a dinner at some billionaires house, and with, you know, a bunch of people and and the billionaire got called away to some phone call he had to get take, you know. And so they were sitting there waiting for him, and somebody said to Joseph Heller does. Does it occur to you that this guy makes more money in a week than you've made in your whole life? And Heller said, yeah, yeah, but I have something he'll never have. And he said, What's that he's enough? I think that's how much does it cost to have enough, right? When? When do you have enough? Like, if, if you look at every relationship is like, yeah, I could probably find a better woman. I could probably find someone who's, you know, a little taller, a little this, or a little more that, or what. If you never stop yearning for more, then you'll never be happy. You'll never, you'll never get there. You'll just always be swimming toward the next island, and you'll never, you'll never be hanging out on the beach anywhere, you know. So I feel like addiction, you know, we talk about being addicted to Adderall, or addicted to meth, or, what about addicted to success? You know, what about addicted to money? We don't talk about those things because our culture values those things, but I think we should, because a lot more people are addicted to some amorphous concept of success. Less than any drug I can think of, right?

Chuck Shute: 35:04

And for for some people, I feel like it is just, like, they just love the game. They legitimately love that game. And I think, like, doesn't Warren Buffett, doesn't he give like, he still lives in like a, like, kind of a junky old house and drives like a minivan or something. Like, he doesn't really, he's not really into, like, the spending, but he just really loves, like, playing the stock market, whatever. Like, some people really love it, whereas some people, they feel like it's never enough and they always have to get more. I feel like some of the rock stars I've interviewed kind of have that mentality where it's like they're still trying to prove themselves, and it's like, dude, you've had massive success, like, and you're not it's still not enough. They want that next hit. You know? Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 35:41

yeah, it's a hamster wheel. And, I mean, you know, maybe, maybe I'm just like, self justifying or something, but I feel like true success is when you step off the wheel. You know, that's

Chuck Shute: 35:52

true happiness, at least, is what you're saying,

Christopher Ryan: 35:55

yeah, yeah, happy. I mean, you can't be happy if you're always chasing something, right? If you're always chasing some transitory high, that's not happiness, you know. And people talk about marriage is a lot of work. If it's a lot of work, maybe you're married to the wrong person, you know. Maybe things don't need to be so difficult, you know, you don't. People write these books I forget, in the name of the guy who's a Navy Seal or something wrote this book, nothing can hurt me, like dude, lots of things can hurt you.

Chuck Shute: 36:26

David Goggins, yeah, yeah, I love that book. It's, I think he's, he's inspirational, but I don't want to be David Goggins, but I could be like, maybe 10 or 20% more. David Goggins, I think that is good for me personally, but I don't want he to be that crazy, where it's like he never takes a day off, like, I don't think that would be enjoyable. From what I hear, he

Christopher Ryan: 36:49

has trouble walking, and he's fucked up his body. You don't need to push that hard. That's my point. Whether it's about money, it's about, you know, ego, it's about power. It's about fame. You don't need to push that hard. And we idolize these people who go to the max. The max, the max is like a mountain top. You maybe you climb up there, but you don't live up there. Are you kidding? It sucks up there. There's no oxygen. It's fucking cold. The weather sucks. It's windy and snowy. Nobody wants to live on the mountain top. Go up there, tell us how it was, but come back down and, you know, hang out by the waterfall. There's no point in trying to live on a mountain top.

Chuck Shute: 37:34

No, that's exactly. That's so funny that you said that, because that's how I feel like I'll go to the gym. I go to the gym five days a week, but I fucking hate it. I hate the gym, but I go there for my health. I feel better afterwards, obviously. But there's people that like, Oh, I love the gym, like, you're fucked up, like, I don't know why you would like this. This is not fun to work out and lift weights, but yes, it feels good afterwards.

Christopher Ryan: 37:56

Some people need it. This is the thing Rogan and I used to talk about a lot, because he was, like, if I don't work out, yeah, I can't live with myself. I can't sleep, I can't calm. I'm just too agitated. Like, okay, if that's the way you're metabolism,

Unknown: 38:10

I'm wired, yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 38:12

okay, I'm not. You're not.

Chuck Shute: 38:13

So you don't, do you not work out at all, or do you don't do any?

Christopher Ryan: 38:16

I go for walks, I like, chop wood and I move shit around. I live on a way out in the country, so I have shit to do, you know? Well, yeah, but, like, No, I don't. I don't, like, belong to a gym or anything like that. Yeah, I

Chuck Shute: 38:31

love, for me, it's like, the best thing is swimming. I swim 45 minutes a day, and it's just, it's almost like a meditative thing. It's like the one time I take my phone off, you know, like, I'm just there with my thoughts in the sunshine and I'm here in Arizona, it's like, I love it. It's like, it's like, peaceful. It does really help my mental health. I feel like that's something that a lot of people are not aware of, like, mental health in America is like, so off the charts, like people are struggling. I feel like exercise is a big piece that's missing for a lot of people. Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 38:58

yeah, I agree. And swimming is a great exercise. So there's no, there's no traumatic impact on your joints or anything, like running and, you know, basketball and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. I love swimming. I grew up swimming all the time,

Chuck Shute: 39:13

yeah. But you so you don't have that, like, if you don't exercise, it like your your head is fine. You don't start, like, having, like, anxiety and stuff, and start getting you just, you're just mellow kind of guy.

Christopher Ryan: 39:24

I'm pretty mellow, yeah? I wish I had that kind

Chuck Shute: 39:28

See, that's the thing. And I think there's people like David Goggins who it's like, for whatever reason he needs to exercise that much, or he's gonna, like, mentally go crazy.

Christopher Ryan: 39:36

Yeah. And I'm totally fucked by my happy childhood. You know, it just I don't have any drive. Really.

Chuck Shute: 39:47

Well, you do. You wrote two I wish I could write, have the drive to write two books and have a successful podcast and travel the world. I mean, you've done so many cool things like, Yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 39:56

but I everything I did except the second book. Book felt good while I was doing it. So it's not like, gotta buckle down and, you know, be disciplined and, you know, push this out. Every everything I did was just like, this is exactly what I feel like doing, like traveling around the world. I loved it, man, there was nothing I would have rather been doing at the time, and, you know, the study of sexuality and anthropology and all that stuff was just like, I'm fascinated by this stuff, you know, that I just, I want to read this, and then when I had the opportunity to put it together into a, you know, an argument that that seemed that it could help people that was like, awesome, wow, I get to do this. This is fun, you know. And, and anything having to do with sexuality is kind of self propelled, as far as I'm concerned.

Chuck Shute: 40:55

Yeah, it's interesting. When I when I read your book, I'm kind of like, there's a part of me that's kind of like, Why did you have to write this book? Like, what? Like, you're just basically saying, like, hey, some people don't want to be monogamous. And I'm like, Well, yeah, like, why do we why do we need a book? But it's like, I guess you have to, like, prove your point. To some people say, like, No, everyone needs to be monogamous. But to me, I'm kind of like, well, some people are monogamous and some people don't. And to me, I kind of think, like, whatever do, whatever makes you happy, but be true to yourself. Because I think there's people that go both routes that are not being true to themselves, right? They think, oh, I need to be like a cool guy, like swinger guy, and, like, have sex with a bunch of chicks, but really, they just need to settle down. And then there's people who settle down that should never have settled down, yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 41:38

yeah. And there are lot of people who settle down and then decide they don't really want to be settled down, but they don't want to have those complicated conversations, so they just lie and, you know, live a double life. And of course, that causes all sorts of issues, as far as you know, getting back to happiness and authenticity and those sorts of principles. Yeah, I

Chuck Shute: 42:02

tell you, I'm always interested in relationships. Like, when people talk about tell me if they got divorced, I always ask, like, like, what what happened? Like, why'd you get married in the first place? It seems like a lot of times they got married for the wrong reasons. Either it's because, like, they thought that's what society wanted to do, or they're want they're trying to please their parents, or they just thought this is what they're supposed you know, this is what we should do, like, but they didn't. It was never like, Oh, I really just love this person. I want to spend the rest of my life. You rarely hear that when people get divorced,

Christopher Ryan: 42:30

yeah, maybe it's painful to tell that kind of story if they're getting divorced. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 42:36

definitely. I mean, and then when you, you know, talking about, like, the the billionaires and stuff like, do you think you think that they are doing, like, those Eyes Wide Shut, like, kind of parties and stuff like, is that really a thing that's going on and or is that maybe, like something that people would strive for, for happiness?

Christopher Ryan: 42:54

Yeah, I have a friend who used to host those parties play parties in in major cities, in the US, very kind of exclusive. And some regular attendees at the parties were billionaires, whose names you you would know. And I was surprised. He told me about it. I said, Well, did they? Did everyone have to sign NDAs, and, you know, all this stuff. And he's like, No, they didn't care. They were like, Nah, no problem. Yeah. And they would show up, like, the whole sort of, like, upper echelon of this big company. They used to come to these parties with women who weren't their wives. And he talked to them about it, and they were like, yeah, no, no, we, you know, it's all understood, you know, in our marriages that that it's cool for us to do this kind of stuff, and so no need for NDAs, no problem. And they weren't wearing masks or anything. It was, yeah, you know, I think as far as sexuality goes, basically, it's like taxes. You know, the only people who really play by the rules are the middle, the very rich and the very poor. Do whatever they want. It's the middle that has to sort of maintain this facade of propriety. All the way back to the Victorians. You know, we hear about the Victorians and how uptight they were and but the upper classes, oh, they're having orgies. And, you know, the men were banging their maids and, you know, had concubines all over the place. And the very poor, they do whatever they want because they got nothing to lose. They got no reputation to worry about. So it's always the sort of middle that has to toe the line and pay their taxes and, you know, be good citizens.

Chuck Shute: 44:49

Well, yeah, so then talk about this, because this was one part of the book. When I was reading sex at dawn. I was like, I was like, I think I, like, remembered this before, but maybe I maybe this was, like, fake news, and then you wrote about it in the book. I. I was like, okay, good. This is, like he actually wrote about this part. Because I remember this where you talk about doctors in the I thought it was the 1950s but I think you, in your book, you said it was more like the 20s or the maybe even 1800s were female housewives. They would have this thing called hysteria, and they would go to the doctor, and the doctor would basically make them have an orgasm with using a vibrator. It was like a medical vibrator to cure the female hysteria of these middle class housewives. Yeah, well,

Christopher Ryan: 45:29

they did it manually for a long time before the vibrators were invented. And then, yeah, there is some controversy about this after sex, Don came out, the anthropologist who did the most of the research on this, I forget the technology of orgasm, was the name of her book. I forget the author's name, but some other anthropologists, probably 2012, 13, somewhere in there, came out with a paper critiquing her research and calling into question some of the things she had said about the early use of vibrators. But leaving that aside, there's no question that hysteria was until the 1950s a commonly diagnosed malady of women, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s in us and and in England, doctors treated it with vulva, or massage was the term they would use to provoke a nervous paroxysm, which is the other term they would use to avoid saying orgasm. And it was great because, you know, basically, they would masturbate women to orgasm, but everyone was pretending it wasn't sex. It was just a nervous release, and the woman would feel better for a couple weeks, and then they'd come back for another treatment. So weird

Chuck Shute: 47:05

to think about, like, did the husbands know what was going on? Or

Christopher Ryan: 47:09

it's not sex, if your doctor's doing it too, yeah, right. I mean,

Chuck Shute: 47:15

I mean, it's such weird times that I don't know, like we live in, I feel like the pendulum has swung so far the other way now, because it's like, now there's like every everything's going on. But back then it was like you couldn't do anything, like there was no sex. Now it's like everything's out in the open, like everything's just right out here for you can do whatever the fuck you want, almost. I mean, there's still people fighting and frowning upon things and whatever. But what do you think of like? This is kind of a weird phenomenon that I don't know if this is something that was always happening, and now it's shining a light on. But like, there seems to be this new thing where, in the last, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, I'd say, all these female teachers having sex with male students. What is, as a psychologist and a someone who's written about sex, I don't think that you talked about that in the book. What is going on there is that I don't understand the attraction. If you're like, and these women, if you see the pictures, sometimes they're very beautiful women. They're like 25 peak of their you know, beautifulness, or whatever you'd call it, and they're going after, like, a 1314, 15 year old boy,

Christopher Ryan: 48:22

yeah, yeah. Well, I, first of all, I don't know that these cases are becoming more frequent, or if it's just that they're coming to our attention, right? So that's always a question when you start reading about things in the paper, is it just that, you know, because of cell phones, or, you know, whatever, it's become more sort of evident, as far as you know, what motivates women in that position. I can only guess being a man and and, you know, although I did have, I did date a woman once in Spain who taught high school, and one time she told me she had this big, dark secret, and it was big deal. And finally, she confessed that she had slept with some of her students who were 1516, years old. And so I do have some very limited first hand knowledge of this. And what she said was that, first of all, they wanted it so bad, like they were, they were just praised with desire. And so that turned her on because, in general, women like to be desired. And it also provoked a sense of compassion in her that she was like this poor it would be so easy to make him so happy. You know, that's pretty much what motivated. At her, and you can say that's a good decision, bad decision. I don't know, but I think that's probably a lot of it. It's being extremely desired. Because you know who experiences desire like a 15 year old boy? I don't know what you were like at 15, but yeah, I was, well,

Chuck Shute: 50:20

I just wonder where these women were. I was 15, my teachers were like, you know, like, Mimi from Drew Carey Show. Like, those are the kind of teachers I had. I didn't have these, like, beautiful, 25 year old, young female teachers. Like, it's just, and then, see, it's just an interesting moral thing too, because it's like, the way the media phrases it, they'll be like, you know, it's almost like they say, like the woman, like raped the man. I'm like, is this sexist to say I feel like there's a double standard, like it's different. I'm not saying what the woman, the teacher, female teacher, is doing is right, but it's, it's very different than than a male teacher and a female student. Is it not?

Christopher Ryan: 50:59

I think it is. But you know, I'm out of alignment with American sexual morality.

Chuck Shute: 51:06

I know that's why I'm asking you. Yeah, I mean, you're you're obviously more liberated, liberal, whatever the word is that. And that's what's so interesting about your book. I just like hearing people's different perspectives. I to me, your book wasn't like, that's, I'm saying like, it wasn't, like, really controversial. But some people felt it, it is,

Christopher Ryan: 51:27

yeah, I think a lot of people feel it is, especially people who haven't read it. You know, I get a lot of criticism from people who clearly think they know what the book's about, but haven't read it, and in general, they think it's a book that advocates non monogamy, whereas there's no advocacy at all in the book, other than be honest, be clear, be authentic. Don't lie to your partner. Don't lie to yourself. That you know that's about as far as we went, as far as advocacy goes. But I think that, you know, we need to understand that humans are an extremely sexual species. So what I was, What caslda And I, my co author, what we were trying to do was, was present human sexuality in context, right? So, in the context of human evolution, in the context of other primates, in the context of other mammals, right? Like, what kind of animal are we? And when you look at Homo sapiens from that perspective, what you see is that we're an extremely sexual species. You know, I mentioned earlier, there are only a few mammals. Of the 1000s of species of mammals, there are only a handful that have sex when the female is not ovulating, which is humans, chimps, bonobos, dolphins, and I think that's it. Actually those, yeah, those four are the only and three of them are primates, and there's dolphins. All of them are highly social, highly intelligent species for which sexuality has been co opted from a purely reproductive purpose to a social maintenance mechanism. So you know, when you look at our species and you see that, and that's clear, that's incontrovertible, there's, there's tons of evidence, and that's why you had to write a book, right? Because if you're saying something like that, you have to show the evidence. And once you see that, then you say, Okay, we're a highly sexualized species. What does that mean for me? Personally? Well, it could mean anything for you personally, right? It's, you know, I often compare monogamy to vegetarianism, right? It's not something our, our species has done. We didn't evolve as vegetarians. But if you want to be a vegetarian, like, great, that could be really good for you. It could be good for your body. You can make a very strong argument that it's ethically superior to eating meat, especially when you're looking at factory raised, you know, cruelty based agriculture, but just because you've decided to be a vegetarian doesn't make you an herbivore, right? You're still an omnivore. Your ancestors were omnivores. You're an omnivore who chooses not to eat meat. So you can be you know, you can choose to be a celibate if you want, but it's not going to be easy, because you are from a species that is sexually omnivorous,

Chuck Shute: 54:44

then what is going on with all the and I don't know if this is, I mean, this is my lifetime that I've seen, but I don't know if this is something that's more it seems like it's gotten worse over the years, but maybe it's always been like this. There seems to be a lot of people who are basically asexual. I don't know how else to describe. Like, I mean, they don't, they have no interest in having a boyfriend or girlfriend at all, it appears, unless they're going home secretly and then doing something I don't know. But, like, there's people I've known that I've known them for decades, and they've never had a girlfriend, or they've never had a boyfriend, and they don't seem to have any interest in doing that. Is that something that's like something maybe going on with our with our food supply, or is it just, like, how does that evolve? Because genetically, that wouldn't really make sense for evolution to for to have asexual people this many, it seems like there's a lot.

Christopher Ryan: 55:34

Yeah, that's a complicated question, and I can't give you a simple answer to it, but I think yes, there are things in the food supply that are affecting hormone levels in males and females. There are clearly, as we established earlier, we live in a somewhat pathological society, and in the United States, we have a very negative attitude towards sexuality, even though we celebrate it and sell it and use it to sell everything, we're very puritanical, and there's a lot of conflict and shame around sexuality. So I can understand people opting out, especially when they have access to porn. And you know, they can keep their all their sexual behavior, isolated and not have to deal with other humans. There are issues around autism or being on the, you know, Asperger's spectrum, you know, discomfort dealing with other people. You know, in Japan, there's a big issue with people just don't want to have any contact with other human beings at all, because they can have everything mitigated through a computer, you know, very sort of sterile interaction with the world. And then there's even evolutionary issues, right? You know if, if we live in a society in which these sorts of things are possible, some people are going to have that proclivity, and when populations reach a certain point, behavior that is not reproductive becomes favored for the species, if not for the individual. So and this is this gets into a kind of complicated area of evolutionary theory where you know, why would someone, for example, why would men, young men, risk their lives to save a woman? Well, one argument is, okay, if you risk your life, then you're brave, then more women are going to want to have sex with you. So it's actually beneficial. It's a risk, but it could be beneficial to you in terms of reproductive success. But a more complicated and subtle argument is that we have certain behaviors that are positive for the species or positive for our social group. If it's a hunter gatherer band, for example, or a village somewhere that even though I die and I won't have any children, the net effect will be beneficial to my social group. So the evolutionary pressure is actually on my group, not on each individual. It's called, I think it's, I forget the phrase, I think it's multi level evolutionary theory, something like that. So there's evolutionary pressure on the individual, there's evolutionary pressure on the family unit. There's evolutionary pressure on the social unit, whether that be a village or a nation or a hunter gatherer band or whatever. So this is one theory for why homosexuality appears to be more prevalent in the West. Some people are argue that, well, homosexuality is a way for a species that's already reached a certain population density to lower its population density toward a healthier level. So it's like a birth control system,

Chuck Shute: 59:11

yeah, and then so on the other end of the spectrum, because then you've got, like, I mean, this term that never was around when I was a kid. And I guess, probably good, because when I was, like, you said when you're 15, and like, you probably had this toxic masculinity. Like, it's weird to me. I mean, because I think I don't, I just don't understand that term. I think there's people who are assholes, definitely that, but I don't know why it's a toxic masculinity. I mean, you can have a high level of testosterone and not be an asshole. So I don't know, like, what do you think's going on there? Like, because I think high levels of testosterone is a great thing, I wouldn't see how that's a flaw.

Christopher Ryan: 59:48

Yeah, well, testosterone has a mixed reputation, right? I mean, it, it's associated with violence and risk taking, and, you know, certain negative things. But it's also associated with appetite for life and higher happiness. And although I really don't subscribe to the like, this hormone does that, or this neurotransmitter, you know, the oxytocin is bonding and serotonin is happiness, like, that's everything's so much more complicated than that. But, yeah, I think, you know, that's more of a sociological question, I think, than a biological or evolutionary question. I think toxic masculinity is a cultural expression of something about, you know, it's, I think we're in a moment where a lot of the sort of previously dominant social groups, or social identities, actually more than social group are being vilified. You know, like, I just saw a thing that Neil Brennan was doing on his stand up. He was talking about how funny it is to be a white heterosexual man right now, because you're the enemy, like, I'm the enemy. And he was like, you know, he would go, he went to the the Woman's March, and he's like, it's a weird thing to be, you know, in a march protesting against yourself. Yeah, you know. And then he was like, and then the George Floyd thing happened, and I had to go to another March, and I took the same sign, which was, you know, like, down with white, you know, hegemony, or whatever,

Chuck Shute: 1:01:34

Bill Brennan's, you had him on your podcast, right? Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, yeah. That's a good point, though.

Christopher Ryan: 1:01:42

That's a mystery to me that Neil, Neil Brandon episode was really, really interesting. I was living in LA at the time, and I got a text from him, and I don't know Neil Brennan. I, you know, I don't know who he was, though, right? Or No, I knew who he was, yeah, but, but I didn't. I just seen three mics his first special, which is one of my favorite comedy specials ever. But, yeah, he texted me, and he was like, Hey, I love your podcast. If you ever want to have me on, I'd be down. And I was like, Neil Brennan. Like, what the fuck like. Why would Neil Brennan want to be on my podcast? You know, like, I never, I've never had the audience numbers that would justify somebody like Neil Brennan wanting to be on my podcast. But I was like, fuck yeah. So he gave me his address. We set up a time I went to his house, and it was uh, it was strange, kind of awkward. He's kind of an awkward dude, you know. And and I could just tell, like, after, you know, an hour or whatever it was, I could just tell like he was done, like it was, like, Okay, now get the fuck out of my house, you know. And so I wrapped it up and but I was like, I had to pack up my mic and my cables and all my shit. And as I was doing that, I was feeling like, he really wants me to get the fuck out of his house, like whatever, you know, capacity, he has to have a stranger in his house, like, we've passed the deadline, you know, and which I get, I mean, that's part of his thing, you know, that he's got this psychological, you know, issues. And anyway, so I'm packing up my stuff, and I said, Neil, weird question, man. But like, why did you do this like there's nothing in this for you. Why? Why did you do my podcast? And he just said, kindred spirits. That was it. Then I shook his hand and I left, and I never saw him again, never heard from him again.

Chuck Shute: 1:03:58

Holy shit. That's a fucking awesome story though, damn. Yeah, that is what you because I thought you were saying something like 50,000 downloads. And I was like, that's a lot, but so he could, you're saying he could do bigger things, or he didn't need to do your podcast. He just did it to as a way to help

Christopher Ryan: 1:04:16

me out. No, and those guys, you know they're doing. You know, he's a really well known comedian. He co created the Chappelle Show. You know, he's got access to every that whole podcast world, you know, Bill Burr and Mark Marin and Joe Rogan and, like, he, he doesn't need me. I'm like, fifth tier. You know, as far as that stuff goes. So there was no professional benefit in him doing my podcast. I don't know. Maybe he read one of my books and liked it, or, you know, maybe he heard some episode and I said something about him that was nice. I don't know.

Chuck Shute: 1:04:58

That's how I felt about you doing. Podcast. So I was like, because I just typed in, I was like, I need to have some more psychologists on the show. So I type in psychologist Joe Rogan. I was like, I bet Joe Rogan's probably had some good ones. And I and your name was the first name it came up, and you've done like, 13 of his episodes. And I was like, well, I'll give it a shot. He probably won't want to do my little show. And then you said yes. And I was like, wow, okay, because you're obviously doing me a favor more than I'm helping you out. You've

Christopher Ryan: 1:05:23

had some big people on your show. I forget who they were, but I looked at your your previous guests, and there were definitely people I recognized, interesting folks,

Chuck Shute: 1:05:33

right? But, I mean, yeah, it's like, you're you, you have a much bigger audience on your own show than than I I mean, I'm, I'll obviously you want to promote both your books and your podcasts and anything, any other projects that you have, but, I mean, you're helping me out more than I'm helping you. I guess I would say,

Christopher Ryan: 1:05:48

well, kindred spirits, yeah, there we go. So, yeah, I

Chuck Shute: 1:05:51

think that's cool. That's, I mean, that's I and that I agree. Like, the more I learn about you, like, that seems to be, like, a cool thing about just the your who you are is, like, you know, which I wish more of society was like that. They just want to help each other out. I want, I was trying to help anybody out. I mean, and I have a small show, but if some smaller show says, Hey, will you be a guest? I'm like, Yeah, of course. Like,

Christopher Ryan: 1:06:13

that's the way it works, right? Like, you never would have heard of me if Rogan hadn't had me on his show, you know? And it's yeah, it's, yeah. I mean to me, it's not, I mean, I don't do a lot of podcasts because, as I said earlier, like I'm busy doing my own and I'm writing, I got my sub stack, I got all the shit to do, and I'm, you know, doing construction and doing all sorts of stuff around the house here. But to me, it's not about how big someone's audience is, it's about how their mind works and what their motivation is. And, like I said, I don't remember what what it was right now, because it was a week or two ago when you reached out, but I watched a couple of your episodes, and it was just like, Oh, this guy, like, takes it seriously, and he's asking good questions, and, you know, he's engaging people. And it's not like you got a list of questions written down and you're just like looking down at your page, you know, like you're actually in a conversation, as opposed to an interview, which is what I appreciate. I I've done too many fucking interviews now. It's like, if you got the questions written down, email them to me and I'll, you know, if you actually want my time, like, we need to, like, be together, you know

Chuck Shute: 1:07:32

exactly No. That's what I appreciated about your your episodes with Rogan. You guys just had such good chemistry and bounced off each I think those are that's what's so cool about podcasts is that it isn't like those old school interviews that you used to watch as a kid. Like, I mean, I like Howard Stern, but I felt like sometimes he's just, he's too like, He'll interrupt the guests a lot and, and it's not like a real natural conversation. I really appreciate about that's what I've learned from Rogan is just kind of, oh, maybe just sit back and listen sometimes, you know,

Christopher Ryan: 1:08:01

yeah, yeah. That takes practice. In my case, that was one of the things I noticed, you know, back when I started out, I talked way too much, you know. And I would notice when I was editing the episodes, because you can see the wave forms on the two tracks, and it was like, God, damn, oh, there's too much like wave, too much audio on my track there. So, but I wanted it to be conversational. I didn't want it to just be like so tell me about your childhood, and then I'd sit back and, you know, look at my watch for 10 minutes. I had that happen once. It's the worst interview ever, and it was, it was for this, the back page of this big newspaper in Spain, and the vanguardie That's called, and they always did on the back page. They have a profile of some writer, some scientist, whatever. They have a big photo, and then there'd be this interview. And so it was a big moment for me when sexed on came out, it was published in Spain, and they asked me to do this, and I was like, fuck yeah, I'm gonna be on the back page of La Vanguardia. This is awesome. So I go to the offices, and I they take me into this conference room, and I'm sitting there, and I'm waiting like 15 minutes, and nobody comes. Finally, this woman comes in, and you can tell she fucking hates me, like she just, she just doesn't like somebody's making her do this. I think some boss was like, No, get an interview with this guy, this book, whatever she comes in, sits down, looks at me like, I'm a piece of shit, puts her tape recorder on, presses the button and says, Okay, tell me about your book. And then she proceeds to look at her phone. She sits there, looking at her phone, checking her emails, and I'm like, I'm just talking like I'm alone, talking about my book. And she just yeah for. Terrible,

Chuck Shute: 1:10:00

yeah. Because, like, I think you said before that, you thought, like, when the sex of dawn came out, you thought it was gonna be more of these, like, religious, kind of, far right, people that would criticize it, but a lot of it was actually more like these, kind of, like feminists and the toxic masculinity, right? I mean, isn't that a lot of the criticism of the book? Yeah.

Christopher Ryan: 1:10:19

I mean, there was a lot. There were some situations that happened that were people like I said, a lot of the people who have sort of, you know, very negative opinions of the book, haven't read it, and they think that it's saying it's okay to cheat on your partner. It's okay, it's natural, everybody should lie and cheat. And, you know, of course, that's not at all what we said, but that's what some people think it says, because all they've heard is the, you know, the the blurb, you know, oh, it's a book that says monogamy is not natural. So then they fill in the rest that it's therefore not good, therefore anyone who cheats is, you know, just being their natural self and is without blame and so several different situations, like a couple of publishers, a couple of Potential documentary distributors, like people in positions of power, explicitly, said, I'm not gonna promote a book that supports cheating. And it was like, okay, because her husband left her, or, you know, she had some negative experience with some fucking Harvey Weinstein idiot, and she thought that this book was justifying that kind of behavior. So we've run into that a few times. In in some pivotal moments, there was a very powerful woman at HBO and three different producers pitched her sex at dawn documentary, and all three she just said, Get out of my fucking office. I don't want to hear about that book anymore. And it was, you know, and then it got back to us that her husband had cheated on her, and she'd gone through this horrible divorce, and so she was just like, I'm not going to do anything to help that kind of book.

Chuck Shute: 1:12:16

So well, isn't it more? I mean, the book isn't really about that. It's more just like being open and on, like you said earlier, being open and honest with yourself, and being able to have those conversations, like, if a guy is attracted another girl sharing that with his wife or whatever, or maybe not being in a monogamous relationship, then if that's like, kind of having these conversations, maybe before you get into the relationship,

Christopher Ryan: 1:12:39

right? Ideally, you have them very early on, along with the conversations about, you know, do you want to have kids or not? And you know what those sort of deep, essential, you know, questions about what kind of life you want to live. I think monogamy is one of those conversations that should definitely be included.

Chuck Shute: 1:13:03

Yeah. So then, what do you think about like, what do you call it? Like, Mormon or Latter Day Saints? I think they prefer to LDS. Like, those were those marriages where the guy has, like, multiple wives, because I think it's technically illegal, but obviously they just do it anyways. Like, so does that so, I mean, does it, if it works for all those people, if they're all on board with it? Yeah, well, I

Christopher Ryan: 1:13:26

mean, I don't have any moral certainty around these issues, so I kind of come down on the you know, consenting parties can do whatever they want. I think it does get complicated when children are involved, you know, and then children are being raised in a society that says this is wrong, and yet that's, you know, their personal world is in conflict with the broader society. I think those are complicated issues. But, you know, there it's also complicated. If you are honest with your kids and tell them there's no Santa Claus, and then they have to go to school and, you know, keep their mouth shut, you know, so they don't ruin everyone else's illusion. So I don't really know that's one of the reasons I don't have kids. I don't want to get into that situation where my sense of what's right and wrong is in conflict with the society sense of what's right and wrong, and my kids stuck in the middle, you know, right?

Chuck Shute: 1:14:28

Well, I think that's one of the biggest mistakes. I used to work in the schools. I was a school counselor for like, 17 years, and I mean, I felt like a lot of the kids I worked with, you know, were missing either one or both parents, and I felt like maybe those, the people shouldn't have had a kid in the first place, like they didn't really want this kid, now they are dealing with it, and so the kid just feels like he's not wanted, and then he's going to have a lot of issues. And it's really sad to see. So like, I think that's a healthier decision to go I don't really want kids, and then you don't have kids.

Christopher Ryan: 1:14:59

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and as far as the mental health of children, it's pretty clear that the more loving adults kids have around them, the healthier and happier they grow up to be. So again, you know, I think a lot of I feel like a lot of modern society, a lot of the things we're trying to work out are things that our ancestors had. You know, children were raised by it takes a village, right? Children were raised by the band. In many societies, as we outlined in sex at dawn, people don't even know who their biological father is, and they don't really care. It doesn't matter, because all the men take care of the kids, and all the women take care of the kids. Everybody takes care of the kids. So it's not like you know your father has a special responsibility biologically, your biological father. And then some societies believe that a child can have several fathers, if different, several different men have sex with that woman, they think that they're all her the father of her child. So, yeah, it's a it's a very muddled picture in terms of parenting and hunter gatherer societies.

Chuck Shute: 1:16:16

Yeah. So how do you think that, like our society? Do you think we're getting kind of, maybe it seems like there is kind of a little bit of a revolution going on. I wouldn't even call it political, but it just seems like people are trying to kind of get back to more basic things, like, you know, eating whole foods, organic foods and farm foods, and being more self sufficient, doing more things on their own, and not being as reliant on the big machine of society.

Christopher Ryan: 1:16:44

Yeah? Well, as I outlined in civilized to death, I feel like we are at this historical moment where we're kind of turning back toward home. I hope, that's what's I hope so too. Yeah. And, you know, yeah, I live in this tiny, little town in Colorado, because I wanted to live in a town where everyone knows each other, and where neighbors help each other, and where the sky is dark at night, and you can see the stars, and you can drink the water from the stream running down from the mountains. And you know, like, like, a lot of the elements of sort of basic human existence are still accessible. And I think a lot of people feel that way. I think, you know, people are finding ways to create their own communities and take care of each other, and, you know, and then there's all the commercialized stuff as well, the Ayahuasca ceremonies and the, you know, Paleo nutrition and paleo movement, and you know paleo sexuality and play. You know paleo everything. People are looking toward the distant past for answers as to what you know, what makes life worth living. And I think that's a good place to look,

Chuck Shute: 1:18:00

yeah, a lot of those more basic things I think. I mean, I'm not a vegetarian. I'm more into eating whole foods, but especially meats. But, uh, yeah, tell me, have you done Ayahuasca? I've heard things I follow. This one podcast the guy, he seems like, like kind of a straight arrow kind of guy, but he raves about ayahuasca and says that he doesn't drink and anything. But he loves doing Iowa sometimes. He said it really helps him see, like outside of himself. Lex Friedman, no, this guy's name is Rob dial. He hosts a podcast called the mindset mentor. It's like one of the I don't really listen to as much anymore. I feel like I've kind of like, it's kind of a very more basic podcast when you first start wanting to, like, work on yourself or do self development, I recommend it, but then I feel like I've, I've kind of, like, got, it's almost like, too basic for me now, like I want to, like, complicated things like Lex Friedman or something, yeah,

Christopher Ryan: 1:18:53

yeah. I've done Ayahuasca a few times. I've done psychedelics many times, mushrooms and LSD primarily, not recently, it was something I did a lot in my 20s. But Ayahuasca can be fascinating. Yeah, I'm hesitant to recommend anything, because, you know, people are listening to this that we don't know, right? And it very much depends on where you are in your life and what your how stable your psyche is, and how much stress you're under and and also what the setting is that you're doing it there. You know, there's a place in Costa Rica which is very good and very careful and does a lot of screening and preparation, and Tamara, it's called and but then there are other people who just, you know, get some ayahuasca and rent a Motel Six room and, mm. Charge a bunch of money and shit luck to you. You know you

Chuck Shute: 1:20:03

can have some side effects, right? Is there a negative thing that can happen? I mean, it wouldn't be, I'm hoping it wouldn't be permanent, but, well,

Christopher Ryan: 1:20:11

any psychedelic can exacerbate pre existing psychological condition. So if someone is having, you know, psychotic episode and they take psychedelics, it's probably going to make it a lot worse. You know, anything where you're sort of grasp on consensus reality is not strong. You want to avoid psychedelics, because, you know, psychedelics are kind of like a can be like an earthquake. It shakes things up. And if you're if you're building is, if your structure is sound, then okay, you'll be fine. It'll just give you this different perspective on things, but if there's a crack in the foundation, and you get a little 4.5 earthquake, that can bring down the whole house. So that's why I say it's really important where someone is in their life. If you know they're going they're grieving, you know, the death of a parent or a good friend or, you know, they're going through a lot of sadness, maybe that's not the time to do this. You know, maybe it is, if you've got a lot of support and you really want to, you know, turbo charge, your grieving process. Maybe, maybe it is, but it's not. I spoke at a psychedelic conference recently in Las Vegas, which is just the concept of psychedelics in Las Vegas is already a mind fuck. But, you know, it was one of these things where there were all these people there with their, you know, micro dose protocols, and they're this, and they're that, and everybody's got a business, and they're trying to monetize everything. And I just felt like I need to be the voice of, I need to be the turd in the in the punch bowl here, because, like, it's not a fucking magic pill. It doesn't give you instant wisdom. You're not going to become a fucking shaman because you've eaten some mushrooms in Peru. You know, the American approach to things, you know, the whole sort of package, it market, it, sell it. You know, that whole approach to things is antithetical to the experience that's available from psychedelics. And so there's a strange, strange bedfellows, bedfellow situation happening right now in America with psychedelics. And I'm not really sure how to wrap my head around it, but at this, you know, when I was in my 20s, I was telling everybody how great psychedelics are. And now in my 60s, I'm I feel more like I want to warn people to be careful. And you know, approach. I look at psychedelics as a teacher that you approach with respect and honor and not, you know, you don't call them up in the middle of the night and say, Hey, dude, let's party. That's not what it is. It's something you approach with preparation and seriousness and intention and dignity and like, that's the kind of uh mentality that's going to lead you to have an amazing, transformative experience. It's not, you know, Burning Man,

Chuck Shute: 1:23:40

right? So for your personal experience, what did you if you feel comfortable sharing like, is there something that you a revelation, that you came to after trying these that, or is it always the same thing? Or is it different every time?

Christopher Ryan: 1:23:56

Yeah, it's like, it's very difficult to put into words, obviously, you know, like describing a dream or something. But I think if I had to sum it up, I would say that what I learned from psychedelics is that there's far more happening than we are perceiving right like right now. There's, if I stop and listen, I hear a dog or a coyote barking in the distance. There's the fan of my computer running. You know, there might be an airplane flying over. There's a fly buzzing in the window. There are all these things happening that 30 seconds ago I was totally unaware of, because the nature of consciousness is to shut everything out except the thing that you're trying to pay attention to. But. Because it's just too much right to be aware of everything all at once. And what it feels like for me to take psychedelics is like those filters come away, and you sort of have this accentuated capacity to perceive. And so you perceive, wow, all this stuff at once, and it doesn't last, but when it goes back to normal, you remember that what it was like. So, you know, I've been in situations. For example, there's a beautiful book called pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, where she describes this. She's not talking about psychedelics, but she just she goes to this creek, and she sits there, and she just doesn't move. And suddenly she starts seeing all these things, all this little frog in the water that she had noticed, and these dragonflies come by, and she notices what they're doing. There's some kind of meeting thing going on with them, and she starts picking up smells. And so the longer she just sits there, and sort of opens the doors of perception, the more comes in. And so you realize that our perception of reality is mitigated by us, by our capacity to perceive, not by what's actually happening. I mean, that sounds like kind of an abstract insight, but I think it's a huge insight, because you it leads you to always doubt your own perception, and to always understand that your perception of the world is framed by your own limitations. It's like you look at the world through a window, but your face is so close to the window you don't realize there's a window there. And then you have an experience like with psychedelics, and it's kind of like you step back and you go, Oh, I see I'm looking at the world through this window, and now I can see the window. So now I incorporate the window into my understanding of what I'm seeing. I don't know if that, if that translates, no, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 1:27:18

that totally does. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a little bit. It's kind of like mindfulness, but then also kind of like what I said earlier with the the podcast that guy that I listened to, he said it was like he kind of was able to step outside of himself and just see things from a different perspective, which I think is is so and I think is that why it also sometimes works with addicts so well, because they're just so into this, like, oh, I need my heroin. I need my heroin. And then when they take a psychedelic, it's like they're seen. They're able to step out and see it from a different perspective, like they're just so stuck, or, like, if it was even grief, they're just so stuck in that grief, like they're addicted to the grief, and they can't think of the different way so that you're saying it can kind of pull you out of, like, something that you're stuck in.

Christopher Ryan: 1:28:01

Yeah, yeah. I think it definitely can, and some are better at that than others. I will gain is extremely effective in helping people break addictions. That's an African psychedelic from the aboga plant. There are some clinics around the world, not in the United States, but in Central and South America, there's some clinics that use Ibogaine, yeah, and it's, it's more effective than any other treatment for heroin and alcohol and tobacco addiction. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 1:28:35

yeah, no, it's crazy. My dad, he wrote this book. You might actually like it. It's called Ultimate Reality, and it's all about, it's kind of like, what you're talking about, but he has all these references and stuff, but it's just funny, because, you know, I grew up and he was very, like, anti drug and all this. Well, like, recently, he fell off a ladder and he had a concussion, and they put him on these, like, pharmaceutical drugs, and it was giving him all these side effects. He had to, like, walk with a cane for a while, and, like, it was, like, really scary. We're, like, really worried about him. So then he did this research, and he's like, oh, you know what? I found out that, like NHL players, when they get a concussion, they take a psych psilocybin and mushrooms, and this helps them, it helps them heal the concussion. So he started micro dosing mushrooms. My dad was just so weird to me, and he raves about he tells everyone about how great it is and and how it helped him. And he said his experience, I mean, besides, it totally healed his concussion. Doctors were baffled. There was, like, no record of it. They'd never seen anything like that. But besides that, he says, like the microdosing, he said it really helps him. And I guess, I guess he's taking more than micro dosing. He takes, like, a whole chocolate bar, which is like crazy, I guess. But he said it just makes them feel love and gratitude. It makes them really feel a lot of gratitude, which is a great thing. I think,

Christopher Ryan: 1:29:46

yeah, yeah, that's awesome. The book is called Ultimate Reality.

Chuck Shute: 1:29:51

Ultimate Reality, yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting. It's all about not necessarily, because I know there's, like, a book I haven't read, this one that you know, Proof of Heaven. It's. He's not, not necessarily. It's not, like a religious thing. I don't think, I mean, that's what I asked him about. Like, what does this all mean? He's like, Well, basically, like, there is another reality. He's like, I don't know. I can't tell you, like, it's this or it's that, it's just, there is proof that there is something else after we die, there is another kind of what you're saying, like, we're seeing different things. Like, there is another reality that we're we only get a piece of it, like through psychedelics, or through dreams or through near death experience, is a big part of what he talks about in the book. And so we're seeing pieces of this. And so there is something there, because there's other people that believe you know you die and you're in the dirt, and that's it. And so according to his book, with like 500 references, there's something more. We just we don't know all the every detail about exactly what it is, but there's something,