Penn Badgley: Listening Machines (Re-Release)

29:08And so I think in some ways you could say glory, light and splendor captures the light of these sort of spiritual forces and social forces at work in the world that we live in. And so that's, you know, I'm speaking obviously very broadly here, but that's something of what it means to be a Baha 'i, is to be recognizing that. Does that help you get through season four of Serial Killer? Yeah, I mean, yeah. Just practically like just prayer and meditation as, you know, so many people do in some form. Okay, tell me about your meditation. Okay, all right, here we go. Because, see, I'm obsessed with people's process in that way because it's taken me way longer than it should have to get to actually meditating in my life.

29:52I've had people who I admire for years and years and years and years saying it's a big part of their life. It's a big part of their life. I've tried it and I've tried it. It's just never. And then I'm finally doing TM. Yeah. And that's really so far been the only way that's stuck for me. But what's your process like? Well, so like I started something like 10, 12 years ago. I was always, I mean, really kind of the origins of this for me was I grew up without any kind, I did not think of religion as a valuable resource at all. So just for that reference, like the fact that I could call myself religious now is such a plot twist.

30:32I can't recall if I, what I would have, I was not comfortable with the word God. But somehow life was always this really beautiful mystery to be explored, I think, primarily through art. And music was my thing. So I think I was really desiring to find that sacred sort of stillness, that place of deep reflection that meditation can be. because it reminded me of the reverence that great art and especially great music would create for me as even a young child. Music was always very, very powerful. So I think by the time I was in my late teens, early 20s, I was really interested in that vibe. But back then, man, it's amazing how quickly things progress in a way, like how common meditation is even used as a word, but it was not common even just, what, 20 years ago.

31:28For sure. I did get, so, hmm. Literally, I hate to be so pedantic about it, but like, okay, it's time for you to meditate. What are you doing? Yeah, what do I do? So for me, actually, at this point, this did not used to be the case. I do not, meditation does not exist without prayer for me, personally. It's kind of like a call and response. Because I think a lot of people who meditate are also sort of broadly agnostic in their, I welcome all perspectives and I'm really interested in finding how everybody is actually feeling the same thing using different words for it but the way I relate to this is a belief in God and what I could say maybe that in a more secular sense is like that life is profoundly meaningful has a purpose a profound purpose collectively and then also free of every individual and that to me, I want to tap into that source and that source is conscious, that source is communicative, that source is a deeply personal relationship.

32:31I do call that source God. A lot of people do too, but word is a tough word, right? A lot of people get emotional kind of over that word. This all makes perfect sense to me. Right. And again, I want to keep it about you, but you just described my journey exactly. Okay, yeah. And I, you know, I mean, I do think in our industry, people who, yeah, people in our industry, I think, have to search at some point because otherwise you will end up low, really low, really, really in a hard and bleak place. And actually, you know what? I would say that for everybody. But anyway, that's, I won't generalize.

33:06But yeah, so for me, meditation is actually the space after prayer where I've been sort of, and for me now it's using specifically Baha 'i prayers of which Baha 'u'llah wrote countless, just beautiful, incredible, mystically intoxicating language that for me brings me, you know, I think, so this is something I've even heard in like 12 steps a lot is when we, when we, I'll go ahead and use some really clear sort of traditional. language. Like, you know, you're, you know, you're on the right path when, when you're not praying for your will, but praying to understand God's will, you know, not, not, not, you're not asking for something as much as you were asking to be shown what it is that actually you need and, and want.

33:53And, and at that, you know, and it's almost like if that's all you do, you're good to go. By the way, it makes it a lot, a lot less time consuming than doing the laundry list of things you need in your life. Actually, yeah, I agree. I don't even feel, this is a other thing, other side of thing. I'm not sure this is all good, but like, I don't feel comfortable asking for something that I want in that space. I only want to pray to just sort of be like, all right, this is where I sort of empty my cup. And then the meditation is where the cup is then filled again. You know, it's like, I'm listening.

34:24I'm sort of listening and receiving. And by the way, like, I don't pretend that I'm always receiving like true information here. I think what you need to do in order to see about that is like you test it out in action and then you just refine the process of like praying, meditating, reflecting, acting, and then sort of like, you know. Have you ever felt that you've gotten, I don't know, however you want to call it, a download or a direct message or a God shot, they say in the program a lot, where you're like, oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah. And it's like an answer, a message, whatever. You ever had any of those?

35:03So I feel a lot of what you might be able to say is like direct contact. More like through my kind of prayer within this Baha 'i framework to Baha 'u'llah or to, you know, it's like, it's, I don't, to say like direct or that word. You would know it if you had it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't feel that way. You would say, yes, I once had an XYZ. Right, right. Yeah. And I don't. But what I think is interesting is that I have constant closeness to that space. So it's much, what do you call it? Osmosis. I don't ever feel like I've been given that direct thing. But I've gotten a lot of osmosis, which I think is almost in a way, for me at least, it's preferable.

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37:55tell me about your ayahuasca experience i have that in my notes yeah so that so so that was and you read you read do you read is this correct you read from your ayahuasca notes as a bit like a stand-up thing no so okay yes so i was asked once to participate in something called the ayahuasca monologues which was i don't know 10 15 years ago like this well it's the Vagina monologues. Yeah. Remember that show, The Vagina Monologues? Completely, yeah. I mean, I never saw it because it was booming when I was a bit young for it. And I never saw it later. But, yeah, it was kind of like this moth-inspired vagina monologues, but just storytelling thing around people who've participated in an ayahuasca ceremony in some capacity.

38:40And, yeah, I was invited to do that. But, you know, interestingly, that was towards the end of my period where I was really exploring that method a lot for about two and a half years. Were you on actual ayahuasca? No, no. You know, to me, so I, and people can think whatever they want. I took it very seriously. I mean, the only drugs I've ever taken much of were psychedelics, and I pursued them with a sort of clear intent. And I've now been sober for, I don't know, seven, eight years. No one. Me too. And I actually never, of all the great struggles I've had, substance has never really been one.

39:22I actually couldn't really hang with them. My tolerance was always very low and I was very sensitive. But, you know, what I was using those psychedelics for was essentially what I use all this spirituality for now without substance. It's just like it's healing and therapy on one hand and then on the other, contact with a deeper, subtler reality that sort of pervades all things. And I get into the same state with prayer meditation now that I used to rely on psychedelics for. That's insane. And that's the other thing that is now in the consciousness is ayahuasca literally a year ago, I feel like, was this weird thing.

40:05Not many people knew about it. Now you have like Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers talking about. Really? Yeah. I mean, it certainly is way more mainstream. And I and I was and I was, you know, I'd been reading about it since I was in my late teens. There's a book by a man named Daniel Pinchbeck called Breaking Open the Head that I got when I was about like, I think, 18. And so that really influenced me in my pursuit of like, what is it called? Entheogens, you know, and it's just the pursuit of the mystical experience through the use of natural substances that have been used kind of throughout ancient humanity.

40:40But even that, I think now I'm not, I'm, yeah, I just don't, that doesn't interest me at all in the same way that it used to. Let me ask you this. I mean, a devil's advocate thing here with ayahuasca or mushrooms or whatever the hell it is or LSD or microdosing, whatever it is. Like the notion that, yeah, you take that and you get high and you see freaky shit. No fucking kidding. Or you take that and it opens your consciousness in a way where you are receptive and are able to see and intuit real things. Yeah. So I think it's, I think I'm definitely with you in that. I'm not dismissing anybody's valid and valuable experience with their use of this stuff because look, I can't, even though sobriety and, you know, spiritual state of intoxication without the use of substance is, is a, is a core part of my own faith and its principles and my principles.

41:38I told I look I did these things and I and part of the reason why I did these things is because I was in frigging despair at the state of the world and the state of my own heart and mind the state of my family the state of my you know the my like just everything and and and I was seeking it for what I now understand to be as I said healing and therapy now these things are referred to in indigenous cultures often as medicine and I think taken in that context they absolutely are and and can be. And, and, and I think anybody who pursues them with like a pure heart in that manner is, is probably going to benefit.

42:14I just think that we live in an age where we live in such a material as opposed to spiritual age, at least superficially, like we, you know, while we maybe have more spiritual power than ever, we, we don't use that language. We don't use that. And so I think we're, you know, I mean, mental illness, like those rates just keep skyrocketing there's just proliferating all kinds of new specific things that can happen to our mind in a way and i don't think it's all a coincidence i mean to me all of these things are being used as tools to get into contact with a deeper reality and that is a reality though you know now again you can abuse anything little bits of poison are medicinal But in more than moderate amounts, they're toxic.

43:08No, but you've answered, though, what I was really asking was that the use of hallucinogens, whatever, for the type of a better term, I'm using it broadly, is not that you hallucinate. I saw a huge wizard and he was talking. It's a medicine that is able to somehow, in ways we don't really understand, get you in touch with another realm layer of an existing consciousness. Yes. And I do think the most pure form is, again, like the entirely human use of prayer. it's one that we're as a society really out of touch with you know prayer and then action and bringing it into reality bringing it into social reality bringing it into your personal life like to me i think that the reason we need these particular substances as a medicine if we do is is because we're such a a such a deeply um traumatized culture you know you know kind of the world over and and that's okay by the way i think like people using them for that reasons like great but i but i do feel strongly also that it's like we're in an age now where we we need to tap into the power of human potential as opposed to seeking it elsewhere constantly so i so i'm i'm very much of like of two minds on it well i i appreciate my use of it and i certainly wouldn't judge others for it to me i'm like kind of if you need it for healing get it and then continue and not depend on it you know what i mean of course totally shifting gears yeah please by the way there might there might not be a bigger gear shift than this tell me about tiktok all right you so you are like you come on tiktok you've got like 2.2 million followers already how'd you do that well it's because you're on your show and your show's got yeah my show's big your show skews young i think your your audience is younger audience for that show for sure yeah well i I mean, you know, yes, I would never resist that.

45:17But it also seems to be quite broad these days. I mean, it is. Because the show is mature, certainly. It's mature content. It's mature content. Sex and violence, the most mature thing one can depict. You did a lip sync to Taylor's song, Antigone? Yeah, that was the... So for years, actually, I've been thinking, you know, in the right way, I'll get on TikTok. That'd be fun. Yeah, yeah. And actually even years prior, back in what, I think 2018 maybe, 2019, with a friend of mine named Christoph Grisel, who's a musician, he had a song called I Did It that was, it was sort of the iconic precursor to me joining TikTok because it was a viral moment in and of itself.

46:03It was his song. We were lip syncing to it and doing a little dance. Gotcha. And that went very viral. There are a lot of you, meaning me, of the show you memes. so already I think like me Joe Goldberg my character on the show You and then Dan Humphrey my character on Gossip Girl this triangle of characters was already like a me me vaguely zeitgeisty kind of thing and interfaced with TikTok already so I think you know what I mean so it's like it was just waiting for the right moment and then Taylor's song came out And it just, because the whole point is like I'm lip-syncing to her song Antihero and my character Joe is, technically he's not really an antihero, he's a villain, but you know.

46:53But yeah, it makes perfect sense. So it just was a, it was just like a lightning only strikes once kind of thing and it really worked. That's sick. That's so cool. Yeah. Do you, how often do you make TikToks? Well, it's only been, it was like mid or late October. for the first three weeks I was like yeah let's try this let's do this and the last three weeks I've been slammed and just really more in the life of family so I haven't made them but you know I'm like it's fun it's it's using them to sort of with my podcast Podcrushed we make a lot more TikToks that are more directly we're using to just sort of build a fan base for the show so that's like that's kind of how it's working.

47:41That's smart. Pod crushed, everybody. Don't forget if you found this even remotely interesting, which hopefully you did, because I did. You can get pod crushed wherever you get your podcast. Pod crushed. Where you get your pods crushed. Yeah, I have to say, I love TikTok. I'm obsessed with TikTok because the algorithm, I'm on TikTok, I think I do fun stuff on it, but the algorithm knows me better almost than I know myself and shows me just the stuff I'm obsessed with. That's what algorithms do. And by the way, it only, and it shifts on a dime. Like it just, it's really kind of intense. And I hate to say it, but I also think it listens to me.

48:23Because I will say - That's probably true. I'll say a very specific, deep cut dive type of thing. And then the next thing you know, literally the next time I go on TikTok, there's something related to that. and it happens three times a week. Yeah, this is what people say about, so I'm not on the scrolling part of it as much as the, yeah, I'm not as familiar with it as I am with the other platforms and Twitter's kind of falling apart and Instagram, I haven't really been on them. So I feel like I don't get this as much as I hear about this, but so it's definitely a thing. I watched this thing called, what is it, The Social Dilemma on Netflix?

49:02It's like, so the main point that they make there that I think is an interesting question. It's like, where do we fall on how, do we think our devices are listening and then responding? Or do we think that the algorithms are just with scary precision predicting our behavior? I can just tell you with my experience and I can give you literally a specific at least once a week, if not twice. Right. I told a series of jokes the other day on the set with a very specific punchline in various, like a bunch of iterations of the same joke. I went on TikTok and someone was telling that joke. Wow. I've never had a TikTok where someone told a joke, let alone a joke with the exact same setup, the exact same, literally.

49:52And that goes on and on and on and on. On and on and on and on. So this is, man, this is like, this is, so either the algorithms are predicting that, which is just as disturbing. I mean, consider what would be necessary in order to be able to predict that behavior. The algorithms would be pretty sophisticated. And I think in some cases that's what's happening. But if it's specifically being, if we're being listened to in that way by a number of apps and by a number of, so either somebody has to listen to that sound and then respond to it, or there's a machine that's listening and able to respond.

50:24That's a high level of surveillance, no matter which way you slice it. Listen, I, I, and it's probably, look, it's easier for, for, for somebody like me to say, cause my, you know, my anonymity privacy left the barn many, many, many years ago. Yeah. And that horse is through the, it's gone. Yeah. I just assume just that everything is listening to everybody at any time. I sort of, yeah. And look, at the end of the day, if you've got, if you've got nothing to hide and, you know, it's like, okay, all right. What are you going to do? What do you do? I mean, I think it has. I think it to me, it's it's because I'm with you on that because of the sort of lack of privacy and anonymity that that I have.

51:09It's not some to me. It's not about like I don't cherish my personal data, quote unquote. To me, I think this question is more of a moral one is like, who's going to start regulating all of these corporations that have all this information and wield the power with nothing but profit in mind? you know 100 yeah but then and again i feel like that's that horse is out of the barn but my here's my little future prediction i feel like with what's going on with tiktok right now with elon and and i'm just starting to see it with um younger people that i feel like we're we're at the end of the golden age of social media yeah participation as we know it i feel like there's going to be and this comes back to what we talked about with meditation and things like that.

51:55And I think you're going to see where there's going to be a whole movement where people are like, yeah, I'm on a social media fast. And it's going to be cool to not be on social media. I really believe that's coming. Like, look, it'll always be what it is. But there's always the cool kids, right? There's always the group of cool kids. The iconoclasts, they're the ones who go against things. The punk rocks, when there was, you know, Yacht Rock, the punks came up. There's always a group that comes up and sticks their finger in the eye of whatever other person is doing. I think the next movement is to not be on social media.

52:34I think, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think that's probably already happening in smaller numbers. And I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's, man, the future is very unpredictable because. You know, it's like that thing of like, there's not a kid in the world that would be caught dead on Facebook. today. That's true. Yeah, I think that's true. But I remember, because I have kids, I remember when they couldn't get enough of it. Yeah. Everybody, there was like, I remember, I was like, I'm going to change my profile. Is that what the hell used to do? Like we used to, did you have a, or my status, my status.

53:09I was like, oh, I'm going to change my status was like a big thing. Now they're like, this is what my grandma does. Yeah. So you, you related to it to your kids. I didn't have kids then. Facebook, or at least one's old enough to be um to be on facebook uh and i never i never had it so i don't facebook is the most foreign one to me i weirdly yeah my only opinion is that it was cool at one point and is yes could not be less cool if it tried and i think that's where all of it's headed i think gonna be like ew you're on social media i think you're right man i mean to me what it is is like i think what tiktok is so there's a lot of things about tiktok you could paint as objectively sort of negative But one thing that it is doing, I think it's a reflection of the sort of end of an age of celebrity focus.

53:55Because look, think of the people who are really big on TikTok. They're not coming from our industry. They're, you know, and that's the point. And a lot of celebrities seem to falter on TikTok because there's an expectation that they'll just sort of be received with applause. And it's basically a bunch of kids who are like, what? Who are you? unless you sort of abide by their by their sort of like you know if you could call them social laws on there you know it's and yeah yeah and so even though there's a lot of you know big company stuff with tiktok i'm not saying it's all good but i think the way young people are using it it's reflection of them not being interested in well what is the yeah it's just not a place for like disseminating information the way that it seemed to used to be valuable and that now it's just a place to like create sort of I don't know irreverent ideas and then it's yeah and then hopefully like be on it less and do other things I mean listen I mean I where else am I going to get you dancing to a Megan Chaney or something yeah right you know I mean there's value there's actually nowhere else actually no there actually is nowhere else yeah every now and then I'll post it on Instagram too, but not really.

55:13Yeah. Well, that's good. Well, this is great. Thank you for, I'm going to check out your podcast. It sounds like it's right up my alley. Thanks, man. For sure.

55:26Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go take ayahuasca and meditate. That's my takeaway from this.

55:35You never know what you're going to do. That was so fun for me because I never in a million years thought, I would be down the wormhole that he and I just got in. And it was super fun. But that's why we do this. That's why I do the show. And I hope that's why you listen. Anyway, what's that? Oh, it's the lowdown line.

55:59Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line, where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hey, Rob. Love, love, love your podcast. Grace Grant from Greenville, South Carolina. My favorite Thursday ride to school is with you every Thursday. I am a school librarian at an elementary school. If you ever considered writing a children's book, I think you would make a great book on perseverance or finding your gift or, I don't know, something super cool. I would love for you to write a children's book and, of course, would love for you to come read it to my students.

56:46Keep doing what you do. We love listening to you every Thursday. Thanks. Bye. Oh, that is so sweet. Thank you. I actually did think for a minute about writing a children's book, even before I wrote my memoirs, and never did it. I have a character. My character is Sharky Malarkey. He's a shark, and Sharky Malarkey has a problem with the truth. He likes to exaggerate. He's very lovable. and so maybe I need to write the Sharky Malarkey book. Hmm, okay, you've kind of inspired me. God darn it. Now you've put a good idea into my head. All right, if I write the Sharky Malarkey, I will come to Greenville.

57:31This would be like The Outsiders when the librarian wrote a letter to Francis Ford Coppola and said, would you ever make a movie about the book, The Outsiders? And Francis Ford Coppola did. Then he premiered the movie for the kids around that library. I'll do the same with my book if it ever happens. Thank you. Great idea. I'll see you next week. As usual, why don't you send this to a friend? Send the show out. You know what I mean? Introduce some folks to it. That would be great. I would really appreciate it. And give us a good review on Apple. That's always helpful. And in the meantime, we're going to keep making some good stuff.

58:08And we'll be back next week with more fun here on Literally with I, Rob Lowe. You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Rob Schulte, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar. Our research is done by Alyssa Grahl. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. All of the music on this podcast was composed by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe.

58:51This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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