https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=RUZd1X0UgdM
How do you construe the relationship between this spiritual orientation that you developed, more classic religious beliefs, let’s say, your family is famously Catholic, I presume that that also applies to you at least by lineage, and also your political aspirations and career? So have you stepped outside of the 12-step ethos into a more classic domain of spirituality? And how do you relate that to the political? I mean, I came from a really firm sort of base of Catholic schools, Catholic body. I mean, my family went to church twice a day during the summertime. Every day we went, we said the rosary every night on our knees, we said prayers at every meal before and after. So there was a consciousness of a kind of present and intervening God throughout our lives, my life. So I had kind of a basis in that kind of orthodoxy when I went. When you’re an addict, you’re living against conscience, and when you do that, you’re pushing God out of your life. So God became a really distant concept to me during the years that I was an addict, an active addict. If you had asked me, I guess, at that time, do I believe in God? I’d say, yeah, but I had no sense of any kind of spiritual experience or authentic religious experience happening in my life. If you ask me where I am on kind of organized religion today, I’m like a sponge. I take whatever I can out of any. I read a lot. I read about other religions, and I’m like a sponge. I take the wisdom out of each source and try to integrate the things that I find useful into my own cosmology. But I’m the least doctrinaire person, and I think orthodoxies are dangerous wherever they are. I think whether they’re religious or secular, orthodoxies are often hateful and sometimes lethal, and being doctrinaire is kind of the enemy of civility and community, ultimately. 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If a central bank digital currency becomes a reality, it will be nice to have some gold to depend on. Again, text Jordan to 98-9898. Now, how does the spirituality that you’ve been pursuing, that’s helped you stay on the straight and narrow, let’s say, on the behavioral path, how does that inform your political enterprise? Well, I mean, my spiritual discipline keeps me centered, which is, I think, where what I need to be, where I don’t, I feel like, you know, God’s in charge, he has a plan, and if he’s not, and if the world appears to be the way it is, and just that, then we’re all screwed anyway. Oh, if, so I have to live as if, you know, God has a plan, and my challenge is to put my, you know, my most deeply held values first, and my relationship with my, you know, higher power and belief system has to be the most important thing in my life. And that, you know, everything I do has to come ultimately out of a spiritual place, and that, you know, and when I’m spiritually centered, I, you know, I’m much more powerful, powerful, much more able to affect the earth, you know, the world around me, the material part of the world. Abraham Lincoln said something to the effect that if he had six hours to cut down a mighty oak tree, that he’d spend five of the hours sharpening the axe. And I think that is true, that if you’re spiritually centered, you, you know, you can wield a power that things become kind of effortless, you know, that monumental tasks occasionally become effortless, you know, so. And how long have you been married? You mean in total, cumulatively, or just to Cheryl? To Cheryl. I’ve been married for nine years. And have you managed to establish a coalition with her on the spiritual and the political faith? Yeah, yeah. She already, without being an addict or having any kind of, you know, sort of particular spiritual training, she had a kind of a spiritual maturity and wisdom that, you know, is completely complete and whole and completely integrated into everything that she does. She’s the most honest human being I’ve ever met. I’ve never heard her say even a single word that was kind of like self-promoting or pretentious or dishonest. She doesn’t exaggerate when she tells a story, you know, she’s accurate and she still makes it funny. But, you know, the word wisdom means a knowledge of God’s will, a knowledge of right and wrong, and she has this instantaneous indistinct. And that’s why one of the things that made her really good at improv, which is how she, you know, her show Curb Your Enthusiasm is an improv show. There’s no script. And the reason she’s good is she just always knows the right thing to say. And she also knows, and that’s just kind of a little emblem of her, you know, of being a fool. Well, that’s a real skill. That’s a real skill. Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.