https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=OCl_UphiIR4

So hello everybody, I am sitting here with Ben Hadke. Ben is a bestselling author artist. He is mostly known for his series, Zeta the Space Girl and also Mighty Jack. I was introduced to his work by Andrew Gould whose opinion is always unfailing to me. Whatever he suggests to me, I immediately look at it. And I found in his stories with my kids as well, just a wonderful, boisterous storytelling, deep understanding of storytelling and of myth and of fairy tale, but also connection to science fiction. Just very well-rounded storytelling. So if you have kids, even as adults, I enjoyed them reading them as adults myself. And so I’m really happy to be able to talk to him. He has a new book coming out next month called Julia’s House Goes Home, which is a third part of a series of picture books. So you can also check that out and make sure to get that as the months coming along. So I’m looking forward to this conversation. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. So Ben, thanks for agreeing to talk to me. I was just wondering if you had any questions about the book, or if you had any questions about the book, or if you had any questions about the book, and thanks for agreeing to talk to me. I was a little surprised that you agreed because you’re kind of a big shot, I guess, in the art world. But I was really… And I found out that your wife, at least you and your wife, have watched my videos, and that Reb kind of follows me. So that was a very interesting connection for me. Yes, you were a big shot in our household, apparently. Well, I’m saying apparently. No, but I mean, like, I’ve often walked into the kitchen and been like, oh, it’s Jonathan Peugeot’s voice again. It’s funny how these things work because it’s the same. When I got the Zeta and Mighty Jack books, then my kids just loved them, like, devoured them. And then the same thing, when I told them that I was going to talk to you, they were like, oh, my dad’s a big shot because he gets to talk to me. It’s kind of like comic books. Yeah, it’s just funny how it works. And so, I mean, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you kind of fell into this world, and then we’ll just jump in. Well, as you know, I was thinking about, well, not that I’m thinking about this all the time, but I was actually thinking about it yesterday because I was making a… My dad has a YouTube account now. Really? Yes, he is an architect. And he just… and he’s an architect that… Oh, boy, if he listens to this, he’s tried to retire a few times, but it never sticks, right? He’s always doing stuff. And he’s started a little YouTube account, the Frog Pond School of Design, which has its own backstory. But it’s interesting architectural tidbits. All the videos are like three minutes. And you’ll be like, what is an Engel Nook? How do we control sway in very tall buildings, right? Just really like stuff like… and then stories from the Renaissance. But I’ve been trying to promote these because I really like him doing these videos. And I was thinking like… and I was writing a little bit about it. And I was like… and my dad, being an architect, is the first person who… Because I deal in storytelling, but I think a lot about words and pictures and how they dance or work together or move together, tell stories. And so, like, you know, my own legend that I tell myself about this is when my mom, who would always bring me to the library, because she had a big cloth bag that she would always fill up the week’s reading, had a lot of stories read to me as a child, a lot of Roald Dahl, a lot of the Narnia Chronicles. But the BFG was huge in our house, and I’m now reading it to my daughter. But my dad always, when I would ask him a question, he was always much more inclined to pull… He always would have pens and note cards in the breast pocket of his shirt. And he would always like pulling out… He was more comfortable explaining something through drawings, as comfortable as with word. And so, I feel like in my deep, deep recesses of my brain, that’s where I realized drawing is not only something that you do for fun, but it’s this incredibly powerful form of communication. And then, you know, obviously, like so many of us, I would read the Sunday Funnies in the morning, or the comic strips every morning, right? And, you know, Garfield moved to Calvin and Hobbes, which was brilliant. Calvin and Hobbes moved to… You know, a lot of the Marvel stuff, I found like Spider-Man comics, got really into that. But another big one was ElfQuest by Wendy and Richard Peany. And I had the great memories of riding my bike up to the used bookstore when I was like 10, 11, 12, and looking through the stacks trying to find… Because I didn’t have the collections. I would have to find… Oh, you’d have to find the actual comics back then. I would find the Marvel reprints. So there were always gaps in my knowledge of what happened in that part of the story. And it was the first thing that really showed me long form… That was my first experience with long form storytelling in comics. Yeah, so, you know, comics ended up always being something that I could… You know, you get… I don’t know. As you grow up, you get positive reinforcement with certain things. Whenever I made comics, people enjoyed them. So I made more comics. And, you know, I ended up… Like even in college, like one thing I did quite a bit was I would always tape a sheet of 11 by 17 paper up in our bathroom, in like our shared dorm bathroom. And I had this ridiculous comic that I would just keep adding to. And that’s positive reinforcement too, because I would hear people laughing from the bathroom. Yeah, yeah. Yes, now I’m going to put more into this comic in our bathroom. Yeah, like other people would come use it just kind of for that. Yeah, and then… Yeah, and so yeah, so there’s like the sort of like… And sort of like I’m thinking a lot about influence and stuff. And there’s definitely just a thread of story that runs through… I don’t know, runs through my life, even though I didn’t like… I didn’t do art school. I studied history. But then, you know, when I was doing freelance art and design after I was married, and just starting out, I was doing just a lot of like design work, like Photoshop work and illustrations for textbooks, things like that. And then got to this point where I wasn’t getting any better. But at that point I had met the group of artists online, the flight guys. So I got I kind of got my break. There was an anthology called Flight, where a bunch of artists of different… We all seem to have like a similar… We all grew up loving the Studio of Ghibli movies, the Rocky movies, and we all kind of had a similar sensibility. And at that point, there wasn’t much in the way of middle grade comics, like young people’s comics. And so this is like all these guys are there. It’s Kazoo Kibwishi, who went on to do the Amulet series, like Reina, who does Smile and all these things. So the whole kind of movement came out of this message board that Kazoo started and this anthology of comics that we all put short stories into. Simultaneously around that time, we spent a year in Italy in my wife’s grandmother’s house, which is like she had passed away. But we kind of was restoring that house in the mountains. And so I spent some time during that time in Florence. So the other side of that coin is I was spending a lot of time learning to paint, like portrait and figure painting, sort of a school that was connected to the lineage of John Singer Sargent and stuff like this. So yeah, those are kind of the two sides of that coin. And then in comics, just to round out a kind of a story that I’ve let go, in comics, the manga comics kind of were coming in and becoming very popular and Jeff Smith’s Bone. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Bone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, Bone was getting big too, but it was over, like it had ended. And Scholastic picked it up. And there just wasn’t a lot else. And there were like mostly comics were still like superhero comics. And they have their own distributor, like the Diamond distributor. But mainstream book publishers were like seeing the Scholastic get the money from Bone and the manga stuff coming over. And they were like, well, there’s money in these comics. And we just thought like all the flight people happened to be in that, in the right space to sign up these books, really on a song. Like what had I done? I had done a few short stories. I had done Zeta the Space Girl as a webcomic, but not a reliably updating webcomic. Like there wasn’t a ton, but they signed me up for a book because they wanted books. And yeah, from there I just, I was able to keep doing it. And yeah, so now I’m making comics and picture books and prose stories and other stuff. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because hearing you mention your influences and just the kind of zeitgeist around what you were doing, all of a sudden, it just makes so much sense, you know, in terms of Bone and all this imagery. Like even when you talk about Miyazaki, I mean, I realize how then all of a sudden it hit me that Zeta is really the kind of feminine character that you find in a Miyazaki movie, this kind of just boisterous, joyful, someone who influences others too, like who has this kind of magnetism that is able to kind of attract others to her cause, you know, and she, anyway, so it makes a lot of sense. I really, it really, and ElfQuest as well in this kind of long form. There’s something about your work really, even when you talk about your father and this architecture side to it, like I really feel that even in the page compositions, you really have a sense of flow in terms of storytelling, but also in terms of general composition for the pages. You can see that the pages are composed as standalone images. You could almost think of them that way, which is something that not a lot of comic artists are able to pull off very well. The architectural element is there, very, it’s present in the sense that even the comic pages, the way that you compose them, there’s a sense of unity in the page itself. And so there’s this flow of movement because a lot of them, like I was looking at them, I was reading again, the Mighty Jack series yesterday, there’s a flow of movement, constant movement, and especially in the Jack story where it’s just this, it’s almost like a chase story, right? It just kind of moves the whole time. But then this ends up being composed within the pages and you feel this flow of the story in the composition of the panel, but also the pages themselves. So that’s a, it makes it very compelling to read. Oh, I’m glad you find that because like I put, that’s something I think about a lot. Composition is just like, is something, it grabs the hold of that geeky, fine tuning part of your brain where you’re like, I can do this right, I can do this better. And I think a lot about the flow. I think a lot about the flow of an eye through the page, like you say. I think a lot about the top left-hand panel. I design my pages as spreads. Yeah. I don’t do individual pages. When I do my thumbnails, I’m looking at an open page every time. And I think a lot about the top left-hand panel, whatever’s going on the top left and whatever’s going on the bottom right, and then wiggle you across the whole spread that way. And also just keeping, like, it’s interesting to me. I don’t know if it’s interesting or if you’re going to sweat. I really do. Like, there’s so much you can do with composition. And there’s so much you can do that can make it even more. As with prose, you can have difficult to access prose, which is also very rich, right? Or you can have, like, I always admire authors like Neil Gaiman and C.S. Lewis and stuff like that who write richly, but with simple, accessible prose. The Hobbit is an example. Oh, the difference between The Hobbit and oh, gosh, what’s another example? I like the Ryan Jacques Redwall books, but I found them really difficult to read aloud. But then, like, The Hobbit, like, even when I’m tired, if I’m going to read a lot of chapter of The Hobbit, I’m like, yeah, I’m in. It’s fine. It flows. It’s beautiful, but it’s not overly complicated. Yeah. That’s what I think. I want my comics to be accessible to non-comics readers, right? I’ve noticed, like, and this is a real aside, but it kind of ties in. I’m very excited for the Marvel is doing a short series of Hawkeye Disney Plus, and I love it. And they seem to be using a lot of the Matt Fraction, David Asia, a series run on Hawkeye to influence this show, which is one of my favorite superhero comics of all. And because it’s because it is minimalist in its drawings, but like super rich and interesting in what it’s doing with composition. And there is one specific one where the dog solves a murder mystery and you’re getting everything from the dog’s perspective. And so it’s all symbols of what he’s smelling. And it’s very close to black and white. Like it’s the color palettes way down when people are talking. It’s all scribbled out except for words that the dog would pick up on. Yeah, go. Yes. Clint, whatever it is. And it’s a miracle that it’s legible. It’s a miracle that you can read it. It’s also kind of like it’s hard to read. Like I think it’s not beginning comics readers reading, but it’s so interesting. And I read that when I was like, oh, I didn’t know you could do that. And it’s pretty brilliant. Yeah, there’s something about when I think about your pieces, too. I mean, when I think about bone, it just makes a lot of sense. There’s a sparsity of words and a lot of emphasis on character, making the drawings also not kind of like the Marvel chiseled type of drawing. Makes the characters more accessible immediately because you’re able to tap into caricature and to just having the shape of the character be related to their personality. So you don’t have to explain it a lot. You just see them and then they catch you and then they can enter into the action right away without having to without having to give back story or to talk about what their motive or try to show their motivations. You always get it from the drawing itself. So it creates this sparsity that you’re able to keep the action moving the whole time with very few words and not a few, but like very sparse words. But you follow the story completely. Like how much story can I tell before I get to the words? Because one of the other concepts I think about a lot is art is usually defined by its limitations, right? And wonder is when you create something within those limitations that seems impossible. So that’s why we get obsessive about the soft drapery and flesh in Marvel sculptures, right? It’s crystal, it’s marbled, but somehow they’re pulling softness out of the hardness. And that’s why everybody geeked out about perspective when they finally cracked perspective in Renaissance painting. Because it’s like now we’ve got it’s a flat thing, but it’s got depth. Oh my gosh. You know, like that’s magic there. With comics, it’s like one of the challenges is that, you know, you’ve got a page and you’re pressed for space and the words will crowd very, very easily, right? Crowd out what and so the words and the images have to be working together. And one of the ways I one of the things I think about a lot is gesture like like like the way we read each other’s gestures and body language, right? Body language. How much how much can I tell you about what’s going on with the character? They don’t have to say I’m angry. If they say that, then I’m not doing my job. You’re not making a comic. At least it’s it’s it’s reduced from what it could be. One of the things that really impressed me that I enjoyed seeing in the both stories, both the Zita and the Jack stories is the manner in which you play with the relationship between adventure and risk or danger and possibility. You know, in the Mighty Jack story, one of the main tropes is that they built they grow this garden. And this garden is like an alien garden and it is it is it is murderous. It’s super dangerous and you could kill them. But then out of this this kind of murderous, dangerous wild garden, they’re able to gather power, let’s say they were to kind of get both power and then let’s say test themselves in a way that refines their character. And so I mean, I think it’s it’s important to understand that to me it’s something that I found very beautiful, at least for a kid story, especially in a world where kids are just inside all the time. Like we this is our world. Like we have a world of safety that they were people are obsessed with safety. But you seem to kind of explore this danger as also possibility for development. Let’s say I don’t know if you want to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, and also, yeah. Yeah, and also it’s like expanding their world, right, like the garden ends up being a gateway to another world. And, and it’s just making these kids world larger. And yeah, I mean, that was that was the kind of the crux of that book. And, and that, especially when also Jack’s also essentially a caretaker, right. So like, he’s also got this question of like, it’s not just me. Maybe he on his own as a 14 year old kid would be like, sure, let’s let’s let’s go crazy. It’s just me on the line right but he’s got he’s got many to look after. And so that to me that was an interesting question like where does your responsibility. Where, like that that that fuzzy space between responsibility and I don’t know engagement with the world right. And it is a good question. It’s not I don’t think it’s I think it’s a good question for all times it’s Yeah, because even with his sister Maddie who for people who don’t know is autistic it kind of needs to be the. She needs to be washed and she needs to be taken care of. You know the garden, this dangerous space even for her ends up also being the place where she increases her, she has a moment where she speaks because of this garden like she has these little moments where she seems to kind of increase herself and even discover this kind of secret power secret language that she has you know to talk with the dragon there all these little moments with Maddie where you see her kind of become more as you said, even though she’s she’s someone who’s fragile and is maybe more in danger. Yeah, yeah, letting her go into this dangerous world is also what makes her more more as a person. I think there’s an answer. Yeah, exactly where the balance is and and the book you have, you really do. It’s wonderful because you play with that because the garden at some point does become so dangerous that it could basically seems like you could just destroy everything. So Jack has to like burn it down. But then there’s also a sadness which is that okay now this possibility that we’ve given ourselves, and Lily is here with him for burning it down. So it’s obviously murderous when you see it like this this monster come out of the ground. It’s also obvious that it’s like it’s it’s a magical thing that is beyond like anything that they’ll ever come across probably in their lives again. So it’s also like they’re both. They’re both right. They’re both. I don’t know, at least they’re both acting. I’m not answering that question, and neither of them. Completely wrong. I guess I don’t know. Although Lily’s like Lily is a little bit sneaky like she has been stealing seeds from the garden and growing her own in her basement, which is funny to me. But so there’s there’s all of that in the story because there’s this play also. This is something that I tour a lot in my channel where you have these kind of dangerous monsters, but then some of the monsters are, you can say on our side, and then some of the monsters are on the other side and so there’s this interplay. For example, with the image of the dragon, who is obviously extremely dangerous, but then also ends up being an ally against the giants and the same with the Goblins, where the Goblins are obviously very dangerous and the Goblin King is a very scary character, but then, but then they’re able to kind of turn the Goblins around and they become like a like a tool to stop the Giants from the Giants were taken over and then these demons, whatever like it just increases right it’s like these. You have these I often talk about layers of monsters in the world where you have your monsters and then scary monsters and then cosmic monsters that are further up and you need to kind of be attentive to the monsters that are on your side because sometimes they’re annoying and they can be a little dangerous but if you just get rid of them you’re basically removing a veil and then the bigger monsters are coming for you. And it’s hard to it’s hard for people to think that way because we tend to. How can I say this like it’s easy to. It’s easy to see how people that are sometimes on the margin on on on in many ways are annoying, you know, and so we want to kind of cut them off but you don’t realize that there, there’s more, there’s more on the other side like there’s bigger, bigger things and stranger things let’s say. Yeah, I like that I like to play with the idea that just because something looks monstrous doesn’t make it a monster right like it doesn’t make it evil doesn’t make it evil yeah yeah for me monsters are never evil like I will not never I mean they’re not the idea of a monster is just something wild or something that is beyond your understanding and the way you mentioned it. And so it’s not necessarily like the cherub for me in scripture is a monster like the cherub that guards the the Ark of the Covenant you know, and we have the saints and Christopher who’s this dog headed saint who’s like, obviously a monster. So we have these like holy monsters and then there are gargoyles are a good example of kind of monsters on our side or holy monsters that are not evil they’re just monsters, you know, they’re there to stop the they’re there to stop evil things that are bigger monsters that would want to invade let’s say it’s space. Yeah, no I do I like I like my saints wild that’s cool. Yeah, like yeah, I like I did it. If you poke around I forget where I posted it but if you poke around I did a St. Nicholas once that that because he’s archers sailors thieves and prostitutes right. Yeah. And I’m like, oh, that’s it. That’s it. That’s a great combination, like, who is this guy, who would this guy be if, if I was making the character right like, and I gave him like a wizard staff and huge sword and big old coat. Yeah, well there’s the image of you see this image of St. Nicholas right that slaps areas is one of the favorite means to come out during Christmas time. You have a sense that St. Nicholas is something of a, not a, he’s something of a defender Yeah, that’s why he defends kids and he defends the marginal let’s say, yeah. And so, tell us a little bit about what the inspiration is behind some of your stories because obviously you have this interesting mix of fairy tale, kind of myth making with science fiction that all kind of comes together in a very seamless way. Yeah, it’s a. That’s the soup, right, like that’s the thing about that a lot. So the story I’m working on now is an underworld story and it’s a little bit structurally had a big meeting about it and like, like, everybody wanted to kind of latched on to, to this element where it’s structurally like they were like, this isn’t the kind of story where you examine the structure very closely because it’s very, it’s very Alice in Wonderland, it’s very dream like like there’s it’s not like a, it’s not like a three act structure kind of story. But, but visually, like, I’m like doubling, it’s visually going to be pretty dense and like in that way I was like doubling down on what it where does all this come from and like visually it’s truly the furniture of my brain and a lot of these things. And so actually this kid is traveling down into this underworld and he actually ends up traveling back, kind of through art history in a way through human history but kind of through art so. So anyway, it was on my mind like, like, where, where some of this stuff comes from or what kind of furniture is in my brain and it’s, it’s a lot, it’s like in storytelling I like to keep a lot of things subconscious. So, and then like once you get the story down you’re like oh that’s where that comes from so a lot of it’s just like, but I think part of the job of the storytellers always is living right like, like, you can’t just hold up and make stories, you have to live and take in and take in and you’re kind of a conduit. Always always taking in, and then kind of weeding out and seeing what sticks in your own mind, and then kind of digesting all of that and then telling your story with the voice that only you have. But, like, like, a lot of what informs your voice is is is the things that have stuck have helped that have, you know, managed to stick in there and hold dear. Yeah. One of the one of the things I tried to explain is that storytelling. They did the pattern of storytelling just come from attention. You know, you can understand the ancient myths or the myths that have come down to us or the Bible stories or these ancient stories. The reason why we have we have them is because they grab people’s attention. And then as they were transmitted that attention was maintained. That is that there’s a capacity to pay attention and so you can imagine how stories refine themselves with attention. That is those stories that are able to get keep our attention will survive the generations and those that aren’t will just kind of fade away. And so you end up having these really pure stories with time that just kind of happen on their own almost to a process of natural selection, you could call it, but that you also have that in yourself, which is that the things that you remember. And so that’s the reason why you remember them. They’re not just for sentimental reasons. There’s there’s something about them which we’re able to grab and keep your attention. And so and in that laboratory in your brain or in your in your experience, you know, to gathers that together and to bring out stories without doing it too deliberately, you know, and so let’s say the heroes like the hero’s journey comes out without having to plan it like where people say, Oh, how does this fit with the with the hero’s journey, let’s say. But if you’re if you’re an intuitive storyteller, then that pattern will just appear almost out of. It just makes sense because it’s this this the things that made you care about stories in the first place. Yeah, yeah. So there are a couple threads, I guess, to that. I’m not trying to decide which one to go with. One of the things heroes journey stuff is interesting, but. But just evolution of story is to go to the earlier point evolution of story is something because stories stories live, and they are passed down. And there’s there’s an there’s an interesting way that they, you know, evolve through time. Based on big because stories gain power as they’re retold and but they also claim like they’re also plastic, right? They are shaped and they move as they as they’re retold and. And one of the things I take issue with when I sometimes I hear like, you know, like, you know, like, like corporations are owning like the stories now. But it’s not entirely true because there’s so much. Cosplay and fanfic and freedom of people taking these stories and making them their own right. I’m doing my version of Captain America. And, and they’re like, like, one of my favorite. One of my favorite fan fiction comics that I’ve run across is and it’s gone now because the person stopped making it and then it got old enough that it’s now on the way back machine. I think you can still find it was called Steve Rogers American Captain. And it was his it was that because in the in the early comics, he is an art student before he gets the the super soldier serum. And so and even they kind of reference that there are a couple scenes in the Marvel movies where he’s sketching. Yeah. Right. And so they kind of call back to that. But there’s this one where like there’s this comic and it’s like a journal comic. It’s like a diary comic. And it’s Steve Rogers is woken up in the modern age. He thought he was going to die in that plane crash. He was like, this is my death. And so it picks him up and it’s like, OK, he’s this powerful guy, but he’s also got PTSD from war. And he’s also catching up on art. So he’s like, I’m going to make a journal comic about my experiences. And it’s just the most touching thing where somebody latched onto this character and humanized him so much like as a person. And there’s a there’s one thread where he goes to a gallery show with Pepper Potts and they sit outside. It’s very human. It’s like there’s no battles or anything in it. They just sit outside talking about their lives. And at one point he gets he gets kind of worked up about something. And she’s like, that’s really scary because and you realize he’s realizing in his mind he’s still there’s part of his mind that’s still ninety five pounds. Right. Yeah. And that’s realized that sitting next to Pepper, if he’s like, and then that she’s going to be like, you can you can kill with Iron Man. Yes. So so like there’s a lot of people doing that and like like just taking these stories and making them their own. But then with the hero’s journey, I got into this once a discussion about this kind of with with like a group of onlookers about the hero’s journey and stuff like that. And like I don’t I feel like I never quite made I feel like I have since kind of refined my point about it. I think that some of the story structure stuff that works time and again, because there are a point there is a there are valid points that like a lot of the some of the hero’s journey stuff can carry some cultural baggage. Right. That, you know, every new time can reexamine and say how much of this we want to keep. But I think at a base level, this idea of the structure of the hero’s journey and the way Star Wars plugs into it, stuff like this. I feel like that is a little bit like I feel like it exists. The way rhyme scheme exists outside of us. Right. You can have all these discussions about poetry, but you have to admit like a BBA rhyme scheme is a is a thing. It’s just it’s just a it’s a it exists whether you want it to or not. And so, so, you know, all the all the cultural stuff around it aside the idea of the hero starts out, takes one step back, takes two steps forward. Big, big thing, new status quo right like you move from status quo. Like to we see we see how what the status quo is there is the call to do something different. There’s the refusal of the call. There’s the acceptance of the call. Things get worse and worse and worse until they reach a breaking point. Now we’re in a new status quo, like that’s the hero’s journey and it’s at its like most baseline level. So I feel like like like that just that’s just there and I and I get I. It is exciting to me to look at that as a as a basic rhyme scheme for storytelling and realize that you don’t have to tell stories that way, but it’s a super basic rhyme scheme that you can know. And also, now that you know it, what interesting things can you do with it. Yeah. And a lot of the stories like a lot of the edgy stories or let’s say the experimental stories are the more modern stories, but they’re doing is that they’re not doing that basic story on purpose to make you notice that they’re not doing the basic thing. And then when you kind of go away from this, you know, like, let’s say, like you said like situation problem resolution or return to a sit another situation sometimes doesn’t mean that there’s an actual resolution of the problem, but a transformation and then And then if you look at crazy you know data type storytelling or people try to break that that that structure, you notice, oh you’re trying to break that structure, and then the structure still continues to exist because you keep trying to break it. So any experimental story ends up in a way we even reinforcing that pattern because you notice it as an exception. You see it as something which is trying to be different. And so it just comes back to it just it just becomes like you said almost like a. It’s almost like the pattern of breathing it’s just like how you even recognize it something is a story is because there’s, you know, I keep I keep telling people that the world is full of facts right the world that has a million amounts of facts so if you string them together. And if you remember it, you, it’s not arbitrary the way you do that, it has to have a certain pattern or else people won’t even be able to recognize it as a unit, right won’t you be able to say that’s a story. It’s a, it’s it’s framed with the beginning and an end, right, it has characters that have some kind of continuation inside, or at least some theme or something which holds it together, or else it then it looks fragmented and we struggle to even remember it, let’s say. Sure, sure. But I do think they’re like, I like I do think there are multiple. There are many stories right and like, so I do think like, I do think that you know, like, these stories that I think of as as rhyme schemes. I still have to admit that there’s jazz, right, like, there’s still. And those kinds of experiments, like, you know, breaking out of, of, you know, I’m not a musical expert but breaking out whatever came before is what leads us to to jazz, which brings in its own richness in finding. In like new patterns new new ways of doing things like feel like the same thing happens in mathematics and you know physics and stuff like this. The other thing though that that called the mind with what you were saying was. Another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot is stories as survival information coded. This is a something that I don’t know if you’re familiar with Brian McDonald and he’s written a book called invisible Inc. He’s got a podcast called the, you are a storyteller podcast. And he’s like a master he’s he’s he’s he’s masterful at talking about about story he’s a great screenwriter and storyteller. But he talks about stories as as sort of as at their root, like, you know, at a fundamental like almost evolutionary level it’s coded survival information. You’ve got the Libra Tar Pits you can find, you know, saber tooth tiger in the Tar Pits or no you can find like okay you find a mammoth in the Tar Pits you can find a saber tooth tiger on top of the mammoth in the Tar Pits. You don’t find a person on top of that saber tooth tiger on top of them because they have a story about the Tar Pits. I saw this thing go in there, it didn’t come out right sit story as simple as that. And then like, and then there are certain stories like that. Another proof of the or like example I guess of this would be like, I can say, the tortoise and the hare and you’re like, slow and steady wins the race, right. That it like it like and if I had if I sit down a child and I say now if you go sometimes the slower route is the better route to win the race, like they’re not going to remember that. And if you tell the tortoise and the hare, it’s in there, right and it’s in there and now that you say it and they immediately are thinking so. But anyway, so, so I do like to think about, about that and I think about living stories as the ones that contain. I don’t know, not fact but truth or like, like, like useful information useful. What do you mean by living stories. The stories that that that make it the stories that like, like from a, like, I don’t know if I’ve never thought about like, like, the Darwinism of storytelling but I mean like, I don’t know the ones that the ones that keep the ones that survive yeah there’s like a meta process that you talked about where it’s like the story is about survival, but then the fact that stories survive is also like a meta version of that, like, this is what I was trying to point to before the idea of attention which is that, like, these stories survive because we tell them. Basically that’s what it is like we, we transmit them to the next generation and that’s why they survive but there, there are implicit reasons why we do that, that it’s not arbitrary, you know the, you know the the horrible sitcom, you know that in the 90s that we don’t even remember the name of that we don’t remember it and we won’t pass it on because it was just it just didn’t keep our attention it wasn’t good enough right it just didn’t have what it takes to kind of survive, whereas other stories do survive. So my question is one of the, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot is the difference between our world which is full of entertainment stories, which I appreciate obviously I like them I live in this world, but there’s also a way in which this is from ancient cultures that had participative story. That is, they, they say the ancient Greeks when they told the stories of the heroes and the gods, it was, that was their heroes, it was their gods, it was their story. So they by telling the story they were kind of participating in in the story. And so one of the issues I’ve had right now is that we’ve kind of moved away from participative storytelling. Right, the way that you tell the Iliad or the gospel stories or his or the story of George Washington or these types of stories that are part of us and and on the superhero stories which are completely fictional and that you can’t like you can cosplay but you never really enter into the world of Superman right. Right, but, but you never enter into the world of Zeus either I mean, like, if you were a Greek then Zeus is your God you go to the temple you give sacrifice like, you know the temple. It’s like, you know, there’s a sense in which you’re, you’re actually, if you’re a, if you’re a modern person you go to, you know, San Diego Comic Con, right, like, it’s like those two things don’t seem that far apart to me like the idea that like you are participating in those in the story of the Greek gods. But Zeus is not going to turn into a bull and impregnate you. Like right. Well, not you, but your ancestors, your ancestors, whoever you may be ancient Greek person is not going to like encounter Zeus as a bull. Right. And then like me as a modern person, I can like Adam Savage has just made a tremendous Mark one Iron Man suit and walked around. And it’s like, yeah, but he’s not he’s not bulletproof. Right. It’s not a working, he doesn’t have an actual arc reactor. And, but he’s celebrating that and they were celebrating that I’m not sure that the distinction is that different. So let’s say the distinction is is binding of community. And so let’s say you take Zeus says so Zeus. We celebrate Zeus right we we worship Zeus, and then Zeus binds us together. So, we would. And so when we exist together. Right. We know that we’re all looking towards Zeus as the thing which holds us that say you’re usually not Zeus, let’s say Athena is better because Zeus is a little far off there. So Athena binds us together and so we worship Athena you know we appreciate and we do all these things we sing to her, but then she’s also is the guarantor of our community function. So one of the reasons why we exist as a community because we have the same God. Right. So, in the in the fictional world it’s more complicated, because we don’t have these. So we kind of we kind of celebrate, so we sell it let’s say let’s say here’s a good example. So let’s say we go to Comic Con, or we go to Harry Potter event and we put on the thing and we do the thing and everything. And then we go back to our normal life. And those are disconnected in terms of causality, whereas in a in a traditional culture. So, let’s say the influence of Athena will be felt all the way into the home when the woman walks in and she lights a candle whatever they were doing like she burned some incense or something, which would connect all these levels of reality together, all the way down to, you know, whatever ritual they were using to include an infant into society, whatever so it was like it was a binding of an actual society together, where these these stories are more. They’re like, you can kind of participate them in a very particular thing and then you kind of go back to your mundane reality. I think about maybe you have a solution to this or another way of seeing it but that’s something that I don’t know I don’t I feel like that’s not. I don’t know, I like I hear one of the things I think about a lot is that like, how my lived experience is not always the same as everybody like I see that this could be a thing, but, but in my experience I just feel like I see. I feel like those parallels are so close that it’s not. I guess like, not. It’s tough, because I feel like, like, so let’s let’s take the human story like let’s say you have this human experience where you like dressed up as human and you were under your clothes as a kind of myself. Yeah, and so you have this like human talisman, which would, which would work for you in a sense that would also probably remind you have Prince. He’s trying to make sure I’m. So, so but the idea would be that that they would act as a talisman for you even where the, the human investment would remind you of the values that email, he meant, proposed because he did like there was more there were morals at the end of every show like it was like you know you should act like this and that he man. I think it’s great like I think it has. And it works with you like it actually had almost like a liturgical effect on, like, like, I people are going to think I’m being heretic but also like a sacramental effect on like you wore the thing in formed your values and made you part of the person you are, etc, etc. And so, but now, and so the question is, does it scale like to me that’s the question like this is why I struggle with it. I struggle with these fictional stories and so it works to a certain extent but does it scale like can it bind your family together like can he man bind your family together. Can he man bind a community together, like hold it in. Like is there, like, would you initiate your children into he man. I don’t know. I just I feel like one of my, one of my friends who, who, who loves him and more than I do. He went to, to power con. Right. This is a huge human gathering he went to power con and he met the guy who voiced man at arms and and and man at arms said like, he said something very beautiful to him in the man arms voice, and the guy like my friend was like, you know, tears were in my eyes is like it’s amazing. I see this I see this with stories I feel like to say that these stories are. I don’t know, lesser or silly or not as not as important. It makes me nervous like I like. Yeah, because I because I because in my life I have seen people so affected by story and so able to come together with. I owe my whole life to it honestly like like finding my my group online, these flight artists, who we all ended up going on and telling the same kinds of stories like like diving into to this shaped and form my life. And like I treasure the moments that we get to see each other in events and things and I and I see other people doing this whether it’s the cosplay community or. And and like it’s in it’s like I can only see the parallels honestly because like, like you go you go to New York Comic Con and they’re, they are selling you things right like and that’s gross maybe but maybe it’s not maybe, but I mean they were selling you stuff at the temples to like, they were selling those doves that you sacrifice right. There’s always people making a buck off it. So I don’t know and like now I see my my my youngest daughter Ronia. She really latched onto the Mandalorian series. And that’s a whole other. It was really beautiful it was really good and it was like, that’s a whole nother one for me. I kind of wish you never took off the helmet. Yeah, because it allows you Spider-Man is like this was why like like which white like I cried the spider verse at every time because they’ve taken all the all the responsibility lessons and all the self sacrificial lessons from And finally said like, you could be under the mask. It could be. Yeah, I’ve talked about that before which I would I talked about it in the sense that it’s like it really is the desire for religion, but it’s like a weird version of it like it’s a, it’s like it’s basically saying you could be, you know you can, you can kind of live in Christ or you could live, you know you can manifest this in the world but it’s, but it’s weird because it’s like no I mean, not really. Not really. Right. I mean you can’t, you’re not Spider-Man. Right, but Or you can’t like can you, I don’t know like, I mean flip the question I’m struggling to see how how How that works the other direction. Like how it works. So, the other way it works the other direction is that for example you can imitate, or you can you can imitate Christ because Christ basically self sacrifice themselves. And that you can entertain Spider-Man the same way though by sacrificing yourself. Yeah, and may say what I may tell Spider-Man he’s like sometimes, like, like a hero, when she says she’s like heroes, I believe in, there’s a hero in all of us this like something that makes us noble keeps us brave. Yeah, I think it’s true for sure. Sacrifices and then it says and sometimes it means giving up the thing you want most, even your dreams. And that, that I’m still a real sucker for the defining a hero by what he wants and then not giving it to them. Yeah. I mean, I think that for sure in Spider-Man that’s definitely a powerful thing about him, which is that Spider-Man is always sacrificing. That’s his story. He’s always not getting what he would like to have and he has to sacrifice that to a higher order. Right. And that’s like, and that’s where that. Yeah, I just, I don’t see. You don’t see the difference. I don’t see the difference completely. No, I mean, I see how it’s beautifully human and I, I see that Spider-Man is a person given great power, but we all are in some sense. I find those. I find that I find those stories on honestly also a lot about, about puberty really like, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Sometimes when when you change and you become stronger. Men and women happens in different ways and same ways in some ways, but because you just physically get larger you get to the point where you You can explore that in the now you are a danger to your parent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You explore that a little bit in the Jack series. You get a sense that that’s kind of what’s going on with Jack as well. Like that in that transition spot there. And then they have any has that like he has that like, I feel like Zita Zita’s. Yeah, like I like to have characters who like have laws, but they’re always going to be part. They can control them right they learn to control their flaws, but they’re not like over it right like Zita’s whole deal is like her story start because she has a little bit of an impulse control problem right like if you give her a button, she’s going to push it like she can’t not. And she probably gets that under control, but it’s still her first impulse right jacks one of jacks impulses is to control the situation when I’m going to do this. He’s like, I’m going to force you not to and that’s one of the points where things kind of go bad for him. And he and he does it in the next book too. It’s like he doesn’t quite get over that. I just I just, but those are like all those values, I guess, I guess I feel like this idea that like oh some of the Christian values are of sacrifice and all these things are bubbling up in in pop in main current stories right currently told stories, but I also feel like I don’t know what specifically Christian about those values because I found them in in Superman and he man and Spider-Man and they just seem like human values, right. They say like, I don’t know how the other story is more. How is it fundamentally different. Well, if you look at I mean if you look at ancient epics for example like the theme of self sacrifice at least the way that is presented in the Christian story is not really there. It’s maybe hinted at it’s it’s sometimes there’s something which could maybe be around it. But if you think of Achilles, for example, I always give this example. It’s like Achilles in the Iliad is brooding in his tent and doesn’t want to participate in the battle because they took his sex slave away from him. Sure, and and he goes back into battle when they kill his friend and it’s like all right now it’s time to have revenge over my friend because the because he was killed and he goes overboard and there’s all this going on and you see the same with the like, you know, Hercules is a hero, but he also slaughters his children like there’s a sense in which the heroes of the ancient world are these terrible kind of figures that are extremely powerful and that you have to fear and kind of you know, you have to be a hero. You know, you kind of have to be careful of whereas the hero, the Christian hero, which becomes exemplified in the night is the hero that has power which he gives to those that don’t have power. And that’s basically the basic structure of the hero since the advent of the Christian story and and it’s so sort of the less powerful. Yeah, exactly. And so that becomes like a just a trope. And then so you see it in He-Man you see it in Superman you see it in every basically every popular story because it has it’s been a major transformation like it’s a major transformation the way we understand what even hierarchy is like what the purpose of having these people above us is is that they’re there to love that which is below right the purpose is the purpose of the leaders is not to just clamp down on us and and and control us but is to give back and to kind of control the people above us. To give themselves for those that follow them. So that’s that to me that’s like the major Christian difference between ancient stories and stories even you find hints of that in Buddhism like there isn’t a sense in the idea of the bodhisattvas who who refuse Nirvana in order to help those that that are still in the world. And so it’s like yeah that’s actually that’s quite close to the Christian story but it’s not it’s something which is not it’s not an obvious story. It’s obvious to us because we’ve been living in it for 2000 years but it’s not that obvious in terms of ancient myth for sure. Okay, yes. That yeah grant, I will grant you that definitely. Well no I mean like like a lot of ancient myths is like like like a lot of the Christian story is the flipping of might makes right to, you know, the flipping of that power structure right the mighty are there to serve the, the weak, right. Or that that is maybe just our human calling like to to to to serve those below us, but I am still struggling to see like why there’s only one story to tell that really. There is and it’s factually factually wrong with telling it with Spider-Man. Nothing wrong with lesser about telling it with Spider-Man. I think, yes, we get. Once we say like well Spider-Man is the one that said with great power comes great responsibility. So but why can’t I make a character who also lives the value of with great power comes great responsibility and just like Spider-Man is awesome. You can go to Spider-Man if you want but yeah but story. But story there are many stories and the best stories like the tortoise and the hare are true right, but not factual. I guess is what is the deal like like like there are times like you learn from the tortoise and the hare, you know that very often taking the slower methodical route gets you to the end first or if it’s a race or whatever. Yeah. But then like there are times in life when you want to sprint right like that’s the that’s the correct call right is to just go sprint, but if that story becomes too crystallized and formalized and to and that there’s a there’s an and if we look back in history. There’s an actual turtle that tells you you’ve got to take the slow and steady rate that’s otherwise it’s a sin right. Yeah. Okay. That’s the story that’s taking the story is true and then conflating it with fact. Yeah. Yeah, well for sure that these ancient stories are there. How can I say this they’re more organic than that like they don’t they don’t. Like you said, the more that’s why in a lot of these ancient tropes ancient stories sometimes you’ll find you’ll find like adages that are actually the opposite of each other. Sure, and those it coexists together right because it’s like, you know you say, was it far from, I forget, sorry I’m French so it’s like I don’t have the adages and so far from heart far from mind is that it is that an adage in English. Oh, okay I see that right so you can say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Then you say, far from heart far from mind. Yeah, they’re different. Yeah. Right. Okay, so it’s like it’s actually two opposites. So you like if you’re far away from something it makes you forget it if you’re far away from it and makes your heart grow fonder for it. Right. They’re actually both true. Right, but like you said you don’t want you don’t want like it to turn into a rule system. Oh out of sight out of mind out of sight out of mind sorry like sorry I just, I don’t, I’m friends. I was like I know it’s in there. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, but to come back to the idea of, to me it’s all about participation like I said, that’s why I don’t see it like you don’t have to see it as opposed I think that there’s a way in which these, let’s say the bubbles down like bubbles up and kind of fills up and manifests itself in all these, these different stories and that’s great it’s actually wonderful that that happens. But there’s also a way in which, like I said, that I mean I see when you say go to comic con everything I get it like there’s something it’s not nothing, but it’s not it’s not the Mandalorian, I don’t mean to interrupt you but yeah go ahead, but I feel like I’m going to forget this I feel like watching my daughter, my little daughter. She’s 10 and she she latched on the Mandalorian and now she’s got a helmet and we’re like making her some best our armor, and we all as a family enjoyed watching this series together, like, like, like, as a, as an event. And then now she plays Mandalorian in in the yard with her friend. And, you know, like, they’ve got, and they build it out of Legos, they build little worlds little Mando worlds out of Legos, and then also when we, if you play that opening theme that music that goes along with it. Like, it’s just one of those things where we’re all there, right, you can blast that through the house and it’s just like, it’s not. It’s real like I am not quite as formally ritualized. But on the other hand, it’s young. Yeah, but it’s also not like I think that it’s the to me it’s the like, let me paint you the other portrait right, which is a village that has a church in the middle of the village. And the building is actually higher than all the other buildings. So when you look out your window when you’re walking around, you can always see that the steeple above as the point of reference for all the people in the village. And then, you know, like in the Catholic village and say 12 bell rings and then we’re all at the same time in the village, doing, doing, praying together. And so we know we can’t see people doing it but we know that the entire village is praying together at the same time, kind of looking towards the central space. And then on Sundays we kind of go into the church, everybody kind of goes into the church together, and people celebrate the same thing. And then we move out and we go back into our homes, and we and we have a fractal version of that which is that it meals and like I said, when the bell rings then we’ll have this celebration we do together. And so what it does is it creates. So this is the community is bound together by this common celebration. And so in in these fictional world which which, like I said, it works like a Mandalorian. What happens is, you have these little things that pop up. But it’s ultimately you be good we’re watching society kind of fragment. So like, our suburbs are just, you know, suburbs have no center suburbs have no place of communion right suburbs have no common goal or common project. And so it’s like this breakdown, which, and it’s manifesting itself in all these little little smaller versions of liturgy like you said, say the Mandalorian or Marvel or Star Wars and all these are manga or whatever. But ultimately it’s, you can feel this breakdown. Yeah. Okay, I mean I’ve lived there so I will. I had village. Yeah, totally. Yeah, we, we’ve spent, you know, all put together. You know we go for to the Gravonia Montale in Italy, is where my, my wife’s family is from. And it’s a little, little village like, like I think at its height maybe like 300 people live there now it’s more like 60 less than now because it’s very old. And in the middle of it is you know the church highest point, more or less, it’s on a mountain slope so it’s bell rings. Some Bartolomeo is the church I’ve, you know I’ve marched with some Bartolomeo and his played skin. Okay. In the procession around the town. And it’s beautiful, right, like, I totally grant that was, it’s beautiful, but, and it’s binding. True, right, and, and I can see that that is healthy particularly for small communities to have. But I don’t know and I and I also will, like, I don’t know how to solve the suburb problem I get that that’s a. And I apologize for this guy out here. He’s having crazy time. But I guess my, I guess my thing is like, like, it’s great, but. And so you would, would you say like the ancient communities with like the Greek communities had something similar. Yeah, they definitely did. Yeah, they definitely did. And I mean I think that it’s a traditional trope. I think for sure the difference is that the date in a Roman or Greek community, you had that pattern but it was. It didn’t necessarily have the love part as this aspect that we talked about which is that at least ideally, there’s a sense in which the father is also there to help his children right it’s like it was a more hierarchical thing where the household would just And it was it’s which is something which exists in the traditional Christian world as well but at least in the story and in the ideal there’s a sense in which there’s a there’s a top down thing kind of coming down as well and so I think it’s a totally. It’s a universally traditional system. It just the difference is, in my opinion, in, in the, in the Christian story you have a balance between this kind of top down structure. And the idea of how the lesser all the smaller people are the hero image that we talked about the idea of the person above giving themselves for that for those for those that follow him and all that kind of stuff. But it is universal pattern it’s not it’s not just a Christian when that’s that’s a that’s 100% sure. It’s parts of universal pattern, but that idea of binding ritual like the idea of ritual of celebrating, you know of sacrificing, you know all of these gestures that we pose to kind of connect ourselves with something higher and then bind ourselves to those that are around us. Okay. So we’re the Greeks in their rituals, where they like, were they more closer to what you’d say like, like, the Mandalorian or Marvel Cinematic Universe or something like that. What do you mean. Well he keeps saying like, well, it’s different with these fictional stories. Yeah, right. Were the Greeks operating under a fictional story. No, I don’t think so. Okay, so if I think the gods exist yes, I think the gods exist. And Zeus and Zeus included. I think Zeus exists of course the gods I think I’m on a Neil game inside of that I think all the gods exist. Sorry, I guess you didn’t expect. Like, like, how do like, how, in what way. Maybe we’re not understanding this, maybe we don’t know the, maybe we’re not using the same exist in the same way. I don’t know how do you use the word exists. Well, I mean, are you saying they exist in the way that an idea exists. They exist in a way, multiplicity becomes one like they exist in a way that they’re that they are principalities that manage bodies that manage that manage aspects of reality. You’re a little bit beyond me I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying. So, I’m totally interested though I’m not I’m not. I am interested. I’m just I’m just I’m struggling. This is like this is like the worst thing to start into like an hour and a half into our discussion but, but the human stuff. That’s right. We can drop the human. So, so in that so think of it like. Okay, so let’s say a city. Right. Right. And so, is it does a city exist. Sure. Right, but it’s, but it’s also, I mean where like it’s a. It’s a very it’s a very fluid thing like it’s a body right it’s a material that exists as an event as well. Right, but it’s so you can be it, you can, for example, be a New Yorker but still like me in Miami, for example, like you can you can participate in New York, but while physically being in Miami. Yeah, yeah. All right, so it exists so the way it exists is complicated it’s not a simple thing and so it exists under something like a principality. Right in Scripture there’s that it’s like the angel there’s an angel of a city. And it’s a and it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a being, just like you have a bunch of stuff in you like your body, and your body extends even into your books and into your, the things you say online and the you know the the notes that you’ve written right it’s is a lot bigger than what we think when we think of you just as this guy that is there, let’s say that I could, you know that I could touch or that’s right in front of me, you actually your but your being extends beyond that it’s not it’s not as contained as sometimes we think. And so, the way that you like that there’s a part of you or an aspect of you which is one. It’s like your spirit, your soul like whatever word you want to use the pattern which unites all this multiplicity that makes it recognizable that exists at different levels of reality, which is just doesn’t exist for people that exists for for cities exists for exists for passions which is why we say they’re demons like the demon of lust or the demon of this like it. It’s a coherent body, which is managed by a pattern which is what he means which makes you recognize it is a way to understand that. Can it. Can a demon affect the material world. Of course, but not not materially not materially not directly. Yeah, just like your thoughts can affect the material world to not purely, but your will can affect can affect the world you just just not materially your will doesn’t affect it directly. So you can, so you can, you can have spiritual action at a distance right, you can ask your wife to bring you a cup of coffee. And if she does then you’re affecting physical world through meaning through spirit right. Hmm. That’s a lot that’s a lot to chew on. Sorry, sorry. Can I ask another question. Yeah, what about like, so, okay so Zeus in some sense exists. Could there be a new one, could there be new gods that will exist. What they wouldn’t be new. They would they would they would they could they could their bodies could appear in time that’s for sure. So like, oh so we discover new gods that always did exist. Well that not always the word always is complicated because it implies. How can I say this it’s like you could say that all things exist eternally in the mind of God is the best way to understand that and then they manifest themselves in time and space but that they, they, they obviously all of them have an eternal, like a non space non time existence. So, so of course they could be. They, but I would say it may be yes and no like it’s complicated, like, of course, all. So there’s a theory like a domestic theory and it’s a it’s a theory that a lot of ancient Christians accepted which is that is every time there’s a communion between between beings, there’s an angel. So there’s myriads and myriads of angels like, you know, every time like there’s an angel for our conversation. Because our conversation is more than the sum of its parts. Are there angels for our tangents. What do you mean by our tangents. Is there is there an angel for the human part of our conversation and an angel for the. The. Like, is there an angel of human. No, no, it’s like you say there is an angel for our conversation for the communion for the fact that we’re that we’re coming together, like the union of a multiplicity into one. So as soon as multiplicity kind of joins and you can recognize something, but there’s angels. There what are they distinct. Yeah, they’re distinct angels. They don’t necessarily have another podcast. Is that a different angel or is that the same angel coming back for the next podcast. Where we double down on all this stuff. Um, it’d be interesting. It’d be interesting to think about. That’s a that’s a that’s an idea that doesn’t really have an end. No, it doesn’t. I mean, that’s why it’s like there’s that’s why the I’m not saying that this is necessarily the best way to kind of understand reality, but it’s definitely a one which ancient Christians have have have have accepted not just into Christian. Like even, you know, like it’s a even in Hinduism, you have this kind of idea right that there are myriads and myriads of principalities. Okay. But it’s the problem. It’s a problem of complexity. Like it’s like it’s not a it’s not a religious problem. It’s a it’s a problem of how we’re able to perceive unity in multiplicity. Because it’s like you think it’s obvious that that you have a bunch of stuff in front of you. And all of a sudden you see it as one thing. It’s like why are you seeing it as one thing. It’s not one thing. It’s a bunch of things. And that bunch of things also has another bunch of things at a lower level. Right. It’s a stacking up a bunch of things, but then somehow you’re able to perceive one. So how is it that you’re this one, where is it right so that’s that’s that’s the that’s the ontological problem that these questions are trying to pose. It’s not a it’s not a it’s not a new it’s not a new philosophical or physics problem right where does one thing and the other thing begin like that. But I mean like I don’t know I’ve been reading a ton of physics and and it is it gets slippery and slippery or the more you look at stuff and that I can that I can get on board with the end and I do like like the idea that the edges of things that reality is granular and the edges of things are kind of fuzzy. Yeah, they have margins and they’re, they’re like the corners of the fields right that you need to leave until they’re the, or the the fringe on the vestment the fringe on the garment, there’s a there’s a messiness on the border. Sure, sure sure but I’m, I don’t know, I just, I can’t. I struggle with with with talking about principalities and angels as in that sense as being useful for understanding it like at least it’s not the most useful thing in my toolbox currently. Mental toolbox, I guess I’ll say that. I’m not going there. I mean it’s like you’re coming up with some interesting stuff but I’m struggling to get it, I guess. Yeah, that’s okay I mean it’s not, I didn’t expect us to go in this direction anyways this conversation I’m like I kind of kind of pulled you into, into, into a world of a world is difficult and it’s not the way that modern people think, let’s say, but it’s definitely. It’s something that is that it’s coming up in the problem of complexity and the problem of problem of emergence like how is it that these, how did these phenomena coagulate into one right how is it that quantum fields stack up so that you can say, you know it’s like you can say it’s like that’s a pretty intense. The pretty intense thing that I can notice you that you have unity because you’re you’re you’re a bunch of stuff, not just a bunch of stuff in space but a bunch of stuff in time. And the fact that these joined together into one being is something which is difficult to account for. It’s not something like a platonic structure like it doesn’t. It feels that exists outside of everything that the one true apple. Right, but it’s not in. That’s why in the, in the Christian vision or at least in the orthodox vision, it’s not that simple it’s like it’s not just that the apple that form of the apple exists outside the apples it’s that it existed within all the apples. It’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not disincarnated it’s an incarnated metaphysics you could say, it’s not like there’s a world of the forms of apples. Right and then there are the particular apples it’s that this is actually. It’s an incarnate reality, but the form of the apples are, you can say hiding in the apples and the apples are in the form so that you’re able to perceive the apples as a discrete thing. I feel like I feel like this is going like way off to the 10. But let me let me let me kind of let me rope it back into the right. Talk about the story tell. Well, I’m sorry about I’m thinking like the one. I guess I get nervous when when all of it leads to there being one true story, which is also definitively historical and therefore has primacy over every other story. Like the story of Jesus. That relegates that relegates all the other stories to being glimmers of the one true story. And that is an idea that I have grown uncomfortable with. Yeah. Yeah, but there’s another way to present it, which is not, which is not necessarily all the idea that they’re just glimmers but that there’s a. How can I say this is like a fractal reality, which is that reality is full of, let’s say the story of logos right. Right, but that’s the logo says the logo so the whole thing you’re you’re giving us a fractal reality a center. Yeah, that you mean the fact that that the story of Jesus like encapsulates let’s say all these stories together. And then by definition has to be factual. In a way that the story of Zeus is not historical. Um, I mean, was the mean you mean that it’s that was Zeus was was not embodied in the swamp. Did that happen. Did that happen. Sorry, let it is it let it lead a lead in the swan. I don’t know. Take it. Why am I on a Zeus kick today that’s so weird. The people who was who Zeus dress like turned into animal Zeus and and got pregnant. Yeah, that today. Why are we talking about all the Zeus is raped is that’s what you’re wondering. Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting psychological question going on here. What happened like is like. You could say that it didn’t happen in the same way that we say that the story of Washington crosses the DEL or awake what’s signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, there’s a hierarchy of events in the world, and they don’t necessarily happen at the same level, you know, and some of them have more intensity and more brightness and some of them are less incarnate, also as well you could say. I’m not sure the way that the way that Zeus impregnated his different ladies is not the same way that we talk about the resurrection, let’s say or that we talk about the story of Christ, but I would say that it didn’t happen. I think is. Do we talk about the resurrection of Christ in a similar way to the signing of the. No, I hope not. I hope nobody does that, like, because it’s, it’s obviously not at the same level. It’s hinted at in the scripture right closer to the Zeus level into the, I mean, the idea would be that it’s a it’s a kind of. It’s a place where it all comes together and so in a way it is something that happened but something which is beyond description at the same time but it’s not a, it’s not a. It’s not a fable, at least no Christians believe that it was a fable like that it was something that happened in a in a more subtle way, let’s say. So a lot of the a lot of the old stories are more subtle like they have, they don’t have their. They seem to be happening at the psychic level or seem to be happening at the like the psychic level of the version of a community like something like that like you know how you have ideas and imaginations and so that they a community can have that as well. And so a lot of these stories seem to happen at that level. And so they’re not exactly the same as, as I say, the stories about Jesus. Okay, so but story. Okay. So yeah, those stories are happening at more of a psychic level, which is different from the story of Jesus. Was it happening at a more psychic level than, say, Ford making the first team model T. I don’t know. Yeah, you’re trying to find something that is historical. Well we’re on it we’re on it we’re on it. We seem to be on a. On a, on a, on a, there seems to be like a, what do you call it. Continuum of some kind of types of events yes so like like like we have like the more psychic events which are like, like Zeus, we have more historical events like, like the first light bulb. Things that you can like point to you have, you know, and then we have like where we’re on this continuum is, say the resurrection. I don’t, the resurrection is is very singular because it’s presented as both an event which obviously happened in a way that people could recognize it as happening like it’s happening in the world, but it also points, it’s it’s it’s difficult to contain because the Disciples don’t recognize Jesus. They don’t recognize them and then they do when he reveals himself. And so it’s a very it’s very mysterious I think it’s made to be mysterious. It’s very made to be mysterious on purpose, so that you don’t think that it’s, it’s as mundane as you know you You know you cutting your fingernails, but that it’s also not something which is imaginary or a fable, but that it’s somehow is a place where all of this kind of comes together. And that’s why it’s got primacy and we can toss out Zeus but not that we don’t have to toss out Zeus like I mean we don’t worship Zeus but people remember the story of Zeus right about things that bring communities together, it does not have to be. Yeah, well the stories of the Greek gods ended up participating in the margins of the Christian civilization like they were remembered and they were they were remembered and copied and celebrated as lower on the hierarchy of things, let’s say to remember, but they weren’t forgotten like there were statues of The Greek heroes in Constantinople of the Roman heroes and Greek heroes in Constantinople like they were, you know, they were just part of society. But then the Norse myths are alive and well now with Thor being in the Marvel universe. Yeah. So it’s like, so I get like that but that’s that’s more of the evolution of story like that’s, that’s an organic. I don’t know. Like stories in time growing changing being adopted by different people for different reasons in different ways. Yeah, but there are ways like I mean be interesting to look at it because there are ways in which the story of the story of Jesus, let’s say just the actual story of Jesus, that it takes storytelling to its limit. And so it’s very difficult. It’s very difficult sometimes to go to think, imagine how you could go beyond some of the stories that are told today in his story that the one. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. You go ahead. I’m sorry I’m I have I get excited and I interrupted it. So, like the story of the of the descendants of the underworld is a good example that I like to use, which is that the descendants of the underworld is like a universal story seed in every, in every culture it’s always there like their versions of it different aspects of it and you go down to visit to get some wisdom you go down to save someone you succeed or you don’t succeed. And so you see it in all the in the epics and you see it in the different myths. And so, so now Jesus has a version, which is to go down into the underworld. And then he goes down into death. And then he takes everybody out. And then he destroys death. And so that’s like that’s the end of that story. So it’s not like, I mean you can participate you can have other versions of it still like it’s still kind of fractally will continue to manifest itself, but it’s reached the limit of storytelling, which is that that story of the descent into the underworld has has kind of reached its. Yeah, like their death is abolished. So, So, I mean it’s like you could say why did why is it that they’re the ones who thought of telling that version. Like I mean you could kind of find that one if that’s the one true best ultimate version of that story, the fullness of the underworld story. As me sitting here, I have two questions. That’s the first. So first question number one, with that being the fullness of the underworld story. I sit here today with the book on my desk is writing an underworld story. Yeah. That I feel that that marginalizes my underworld story a little bit. But, but why would I, why would I, the best has already been done. All I can do is be a glimmer or a fractal reflection of that story. Right, but that’s not like that you’re being a fractal reflection of the ultimate story is something that it’s, that’s always what we’ve been doing. It’s not like, it’s not. It’s not like this is, this was always what’s been going on like it’s always been a fractal reflection of some story which we recognize and then we’re kind of participating in and we’re showing different sides of, and so and then everybody can kind of see that this is, this is connecting us to something which we can’t totally describe or that stirs us in a way that we can’t completely exhaust. But that continues to be true. Because, because, because it’s because the point let’s say where that story comes together has been has happened. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t this like joy of participating in it. I don’t know I mean I doesn’t it doesn’t affect me like I, I would still tell an underworld story because Dante still told an underworld story and it was one of the best underworld stories to ever to ever happen, but it didn’t reach the limit, let’s say, of the of the, of the story of Christ like it didn’t. It actually participates in it because it even in Dante’s story you, you get this sense of how all of this is going, it’s been transformed by that event and how it’s also even more interesting hints about how. Yeah, anyways, I won’t go into that but yeah sorry. Okay. So what about like I’m having a hard time figuring out where the line is between and the way the way the way we’re talking about now is takes a lot of thought. But I have this idea, like, do you think if you could see the historical Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, we’ll say, and find that this is a historical person and could could view that history or travel back to that history and see what do you think you would be disappointed. Because the reason I’m asking, can I just just go ahead, flush out that question to my other totem that I have here with me. So I had Prince Adam I also have Robin Hood. Yeah. Who I love, and my daughter Angelica gave me this plastic Disney Robin Hood because I love Disney’s Robin Hood. But, you know, like Robin Hood’s hard to figure out where it all came from. But, you know, there, it’s possible that there are there are like a couple. Like early early medieval contenders for maybe the origin of the Robin Hood story. I feel like if I went back and met one of those guys with, you know, Disney’s beautiful Fox Robin Hood with Errol Flynn with the many other versions in my mind, it would be nothing short of a disappointment. Yeah. I think you’re right. But I think that’s part of the story. It’s actually in the Jesus story, what you’re saying. In the Jesus story is people being disappointed in Jesus and not in the story. And so you’re you’re the way you think about it is completely right, but it’s contained in the story. So there’s a sense in which the logos is hidden in his manifestation and the fruits of that of his hiddenness appear. As the story continues to unfold. And so when when Christ resurrects that, you know, or when the when there’s a big, big, big change in Jesus, he’s not going to be what he was supposed to be. But as the story continues to unfold and so when when Christ resurrects that, you know, or when the when there’s the at when they received the Holy Spirit, you you get a sense that all of a sudden, they now they see all these little aspects of his story and they’re able to connect them in a way that at the time they were too blind to kind of see. But I think you’re right. I think that probably if I if I was there, especially without the knowledge that I have now, I would probably would be one of those people that didn’t recognize the Messiah because because he because yeah, that’s exactly how the story is actually told. Interesting. That’s good. This is all very interesting stuff. We should probably we should probably go I mean it’d be nice to have another conversation. I have run out of questions. Well listen, I, I, I’m sorry I got to took you on this crazy. I didn’t expect it to kind of go in this direction. It was a wild ride. So thank you. Thank you for your time and thank you, especially for your, your books. And, and once again I want to encourage people to to especially if you have kids that are, you know, kind of middle school age, even from like I mean younger is fine too and even in your for adults as well. Like they’re just really great stories and very positive and very boisterous great characters so I really appreciate what you did what you’ve done and I’m happy to. I’m happy that you were willing to talk to me. Oh, thank you so much. It was, it was a pleasure. All right. And also, maybe remind people of the upcoming book. Julia’s house goes up really quick. This is kind of my job to plug this book I guess yeah you have to you have to plug the book. Julia’s house goes home. I had a blast, particularly illustrating this one with my watercolors, so I’m happy with the story. And, and it’s a, I feel like it ended well enough. And, and, and Ben think about all the things you talked about let him all over. I’ll also think, you really provoked me more than a lot of people in terms of the fiction story. And it’s like I’ve been just saying this and now you’re like, oh, pushing me here. So I’ll think about it as well. Maybe we’ll have another conversation at some point. We will. Thank you so much. All right, it was good to meet you. I want to present you a new series of graphic novels called God’s dog. God’s dog is a very loose and epic exploration of the legend of the dog headed warrior Saint Christopher, one of the most surprising and peculiar traditions of the ancient medieval world was written as a screenplay by myself and my brother mature over 10 years ago. And the story was taken up and even recommended by script scouting agency was requested by several Hollywood studios. But this story was of course too big too strange too surprising for Hollywood. And so now, with all the control of its potential, we bring you this groundbreaking story full color as a series of graphic novels. The story is set in a token style mythical version of the biblical world, filled with hidden codes, ancient relics, angels, giants, dragons, and populated with fictional versions of mysterious monks, warrior saints, and more symbolism than you can imagine. God’s dog contains all the intensity and subtlety of our symbolic thinking, the world class layouts and artwork of Courtney Wilson, all of this bound in a mysterious and powerful story arc, which is available to all from wide eyed 10 year olds to the most seasoned of readers. The entire story with all its action and complexity is already completely worked out. And the first book is near completion. Now all we need to do is deliver it to you. We’re crowdfunding this because it is only the first step. We’ve already been contacted by even international publishers for this. But we want to knock this out of the park so that our artists can do this full time and deliver the oncoming books at a regular and steady pace under our control. I myself will personally not be taking any profit from this first book, but rather I want to use this to build what we need to tell this full epic with all its cosmic proportions. So along with the graphic novel, we are also producing a crowdfunding only add-on, the Secrets of God’s Dog Source Book, a beautiful volume in which you will find my original drawings from more than 10 years ago, an exploration of the symbolism of St. Christopher, and an exclusive text by Mathieu Peugeot on the symbolism of the biblical Samson. This is the first thing that Mathieu has published since his groundbreaking book, The Language of Creation. So jump into the margins with us. Be part of this shift in storytelling, where the end becomes the beginning and where the monster carries the king into a new world.