Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe on Conquering Inner Demons and Memento Mori (PT. 2)

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$299 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

0:37Everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with confidence. Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. Why choose a Sleep Number smart bed? Can I make my sight softer? Can I make my sight firmer? Can we sleep cooler? Sleep Number does that. Cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your Sleep Number setting. Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. It's the final days of our Black Friday sale. Recharge this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort. Now only$17.99 for our C2 mattress and bays, plus free premium delivery.

1:11Prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Check it out at a Sleep Number store or sleepnumber.com today.

1:19Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down. Be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

2:10Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I had a weird experience. This weekend, I logged into Facebook for the first time in eight years or so. I don't remember exactly when and why I quit, but my life did get better when I stopped. Every time, actually, I quit a social network, my life seems to get better. I quit a long time ago. I haven't checked it, but I wanted to see about something. Someone told me they were putting out a petition for my high school reunion or something, and I needed to give my info or whatever. It's going to be my 20th year reunion, which is insane to me.

2:45But as I was scrolling through this group, I managed to figure out how to get back into the account. As I'm scrolling through this group, it was like mostly notices about people who had died or people who'd been in a horrible accident and needed a GoFundMe campaign or whatever. And it was not the memento mori reminder I was expecting, but it also makes perfect sense, right? Like this is a group for whom 20 years have passed and not just in the sense that 20 years has passed that none of us will get back, but those 20 years, not everyone got them. And for some people that 20 years was the end of it, which is all of which reminded me of the song I was listening to before today's guest came on.

3:32One of Lamb of God's biggest song is a song, Memento Mori. And that's an overlap between my work, the Stoics, and today's guest. Randy Blythe is the lead singer of the heavy metal band Lamb of God, which has been a band for like three decades. Like they were a band before I was in high school. They were a band for the last 20 years. They have been going for a very long time. And they have a fascinating story, not just because they're one of the, you know, sort of longest running, best heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy metal bands, but because of Randy's story. Randy was thrown in a Czech prison a few years ago, a sort of miscarriage of justice.

4:18It was a surreal and I imagine eye-opening event for him to be not just in a Czech prison, but on trial effectively for a large chunk of your life. And we talked about that when he was on the podcast the first time. He wrote a great book about that period of his life called Dark Days, which was a, I don't want to say a surprise hit, but I think received much more as the literary work that it was than just a sort of heavy metal singer that maybe you don't listen to putting out a book. It was a great book. And he has a new book out called Just Beyond the Light, Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head, which has a bunch of stoicism in it.

5:03I think you'll really like this episode. He came out to the studio. We were able to do it in person. He's actually been out to the bookstore a couple times. He has a friend who lives here in Bastrop named Kirst, who we've gotten to know. He's the one who facilitated this wonderful intro. In part two of the episode, Randy and I are talking about his experience there in a Czech prison, how it changes how he sees challenges and difficulties today. You can imagine it puts things in perspective a little bit. And then in Just Beyond the Light, which we talked about a lot in the interviews, talking about his approach to life, sobriety, art, and what he's learned touring the world as a vocalist in a very successful heavy metal band, but still, I would say a working class heavy metal band and the very real ways he's doing what he can to leave the world a better place, as we all must.

5:53You can follow Randy on Instagram and Twitter at DRandallBlythe. You can pick up signed copies of Just Beyond the Light at The Painted Porch. Do read Dark Days. Listen to their song, Memento Mori, if you want to weigh in to Lamb of God. And let's get into it. Thanks to Randy for coming out. And as I said, I'm going to go see Randy. He's doing a spoken word appearance for Just Beyond the Light. He's touring all over the country, but he's going to be here in Austin, I think on March 5th. So I'm excited to see that. Check out tour dates to see where he is touring in your area. And then of course, check out Lamb of God.

6:28Enjoy.

6:32My first handful of books were very painful to do. Yes. Because I, I mean, I didn't know if I could do them. So that was scary. And I didn't have necessarily a financial security. So there's, there's pressure. Right. But there's an expression, painters like painting, but writers like having written. And I like that expression. I also hate that expression. Like that's an expression that should not be true. That's a stupid expression to be true. Right. If you are getting paid to write a book, that should be pleasurable. Right. And if it isn't, writing is not to blame, you are to blame. To me, the stoic idea, if I'm enduring this unpleasant, painful thing so that it's worth it getting paid at the end or hitting a list at the end or winning an award at the end, then what I'm not doing is stoicism.

7:23Because that is what I'm saying. I'm doing all this stuff contingent on getting some other stuff that's not in my control. Right. And by the way, if you know anything about any of the entertainment industries, you very rarely do people get what they deserve. In fact, you get fucked over a lot. A lot. And so that would be insane for me to torture myself for the low percentage chance of getting something that's not in my control. And so I have tried to work on sitting down and going like, I get to do this today. Yeah. This is fun. Yes. The book that I am saving into Dropbox when I'm finished for the day, that's the book.

8:05And so actually I'm not writing like, so when I save my drafts, every day I save the draft as a new file with that date in it. Sure. So if I wake up one day and I think I went on the wrong course, I can just go back in time. Right, right, right. I need to steal this from you instead of replacing the draft, which I've been doing. Also, if like a file gets corrupted or some editor inserts on it, I want to be able to know like, okay, I was working on this when I was here on these dates. So I want to go back to that. But what I've come to see is that each one of those days is a complete book. So like if I wrote today, save that draft, and then I got hit by a bus, that's the book.

8:43Yeah. Right. An editor might work on it or whatever, but that's the book as far as I was able to finish on it. And so I try to see every day as like a complete day. I'm signing the book that day. It's done. And so it better have been one, my best effort that I put everything in there. Right. And then two, it better have been worth it. Not, it was shitty and unpleasant, but it's all worth it for the album release party. Right. For this future cookie that may or may not arrive. Yeah, yeah. For me, I think how writing is for me, it's tough, dude. Like at least nonfiction. Well, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

9:21Yes. There's a difference, I think, between difficult and awful. Yes. Yes. You know? Or difficult and miserable. Yes. Difficult is the level of skill required. Miserable is the mood. Right. Yeah. 100%. You're talking about this stuff. Each day is a complete day. For me, I will say, as I got closer to the end of the book, and this is just my horrible catastrophizing end, I became increasingly aware of my own mortality. And I'm thinking, I have to at least get this in a place where if I die, the editor can take it and put it out, right? I mean, not that that would make any difference to me now that I'm gone, but.

10:06They don't send you a galley. No, they don't send me a galley in wherever I'm going. but I guess it was because I'm trying to write something of worth. Yeah. Something that could be of service to someone. I felt this is important, man. I need to get this done. And, and I had these weird, like I'd be driving. I'm like, pay attention. Don't get in a car wreck right now. You have to finish this book. No, I don't think that it's like, I think about it, like an athlete, right? Like, because athletes are just shrunken down versions of our own mortality arc, right? Because like you only get to play for so long and it's much sooner, the body goes before the mind as an athlete, right?

10:44And so at some point you lace up for your last game. At some point it's your last season. And every athlete I've ever talked to wishes that they'd enjoyed playing more. They don't wish that they tried less hard, right? In some cases, maybe they wish they tried more, but like enjoying it doesn't mean you don't try at practice. It means you're just not bitching at practice. Right. You're grateful that you get to practice. Yes. Because you are aware of the ephemerality and the inevitability of this ending. Yeah. And so I kind of think about it that way. So it's like, it's still really hard. It's still really taxing.

11:24I'm still exhausted. I'm still never sure if it's good or not. Right. But day to day, I'm not allowing myself to say, woe is me. This sucks. I don't - I have to sit at my desk and be a writer. Yeah. And I also don't allow it to give me a pass on my other responsibilities as a human being because this is just one of the things that I'm doing. Right. So I can't - The fact that I'm writing doesn't justify me shuffling around the house in a grouchy mood because I'm the tortured artist. Like, I just think the tortured put-upon artist thing is bullshit. And it's what you are putting on yourself. And you can not put it on yourself if you do the work to take it off.

12:09It's a cultural mythos that is widespread. And I think a lot of artists worth their salt, if they mature enough, they realize the futility of this and the false nature of it. I mean, in my case, you're talking about the tortured artist. In my case, and in many of my friends, this sort of tortured artist identity manifested itself in a nice case of alcoholism, drug abuse, you know? And so then that's another component. And I look at some of the sort of bullshit I bought into as an angst-ridden young man reading Bukowski, reading Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Will Burroughs, all brilliant writers, right?

12:49And I'm sitting there reading this stuff and knowing about their lives because I'm fascinated by authors. Doing a lot of the things these great writers did. I did a lot of drinking. I did a respectable amount of womanizing. Got in a few fistfights even. Did some wild shit. I'm doing all the things that the great writers are doing with the exception of one major thing. That is writing. Right? Sure. I'm practicing to be a writer, I guess. And it wasn't until I got sober, you know, at age 39 that I was able to sit down and write a book. It was after a few years after that. But I had these sort of mental fortitude.

13:30Some people build careers while drunk writing. I don't know how they do it. I built a career as a lunatic singer. That was easier to do for me. But there's that aspect of just it has to be miserable, like the dark artist. I think good art does require some friction to a degree, but I don't think that means you have to be just this miserable, horrible human being. The idea that this stuff is like conducive to the creative process. It's like Hunter S. Thompson was like a zombie for the last 20 years of his life. Like in a creative desert of his own making. Oh, yes. Hemingway blew his brains out.

14:06Yeah. Like it cost them and us decades of good shit. And it turns out it wasn't correlated. Like, is Kanye West a great musician because he's a raging egomaniac narcissist asshole? I don't think so. I think he's a great musician because he's a great musician. Great musician. Is Kyrie Irving a great basketball player because he's a wacko? No, he's a great basketball player who's a wacko. And being a wacko has cost him and us a lot of great basketball. Like, I have to imagine that actually Kanye West is very objective and clear-headed when he's doing music. It's probably the only place he's saying because you can't make great shit out of your mind.

14:46Like, I think people totally learn the wrong lesson. Steve Jobs was an asshole who was also a great CEO and leader. Right. And those were disconnected parts of himself. And one often got in the way of the good parts of the self. For sure.

15:10we just took our kids to an outdoor performance the nutcracker they had a snow cone and then uh they went insane in the car ride home and one of the things i try to remind myself when that's happening is that i don't control my kids behavior especially when they're too far gone like that but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr.

15:46Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for good inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It Over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being.

16:28And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County. I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns.

17:10There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course, because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour.

17:48And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours.

18:15You have a great line in the book thinking about like when you're like, oh, woe is me is so hard. You had a great line in the book. He said, like, try spending a few months in a foreign prison. Yes. Does that kind of just turn down the volume on everything? Like when you went through that, you're just like, I'm not in a fucking Hungarian prison or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Check. I'm not in a Czech prison today, so it's a good fucking day. Yeah. On my bookshelf, right by my writing desk, actually, there's a picture of that prison that I took, which if you look at the cover of my last book, Dark Days, it's a self-portrait they made me take because they want your...

18:51I did not want my own photo on the book, but hey, I'm the singer in a heavy metal band. They're like, this sells books. When I had gone back for trial, I felt compelled to return to this prison because it was 137 years old and crumbling, this crumbling edifice. And I took this photo of the outside of the prison with barbed wire on it. And I saw this clock, which was the only clock I had for the whole time I was in there, this crumbling old clock that I would see once a day when they let us out into the yard. But I took this sort of out of focus picture of the prison. That's the cover of my book.

19:26I have a small print of that same photo and it sits on my bookshelf where if I look up to the right, it's above me. And it reminds me, hey, dude, you almost did five to 10 in a Czech prison. You may or may not have come out of that. You're here writing a book. Don't cry. This is the best possible timeline. Yeah. I love that expression. This is the best possible timeline. I wrote about that in my first book. When I was in prison, I was like, you're in prison. This sucks. Your freedom may be taken from you in a foreign country for several years. You know where you're not? Afghanistan. You're not having people shooting at you.

20:13You're not living in a Quonset hut and shitting in a bucket and eating MREs and having your limbs possibly blown off. And you can apply that to basically anything. It's I mean, it's hard to, I don't know, reach a point where you're like someone is not going through something else tougher than me. And for me, I will say, though, you know, going to prison in a foreign country was it puts things in perspective, dude. It puts things in perspective. We were sitting while I was out on bail. Right. And we had to go on tour pretty much immediately because I have five lawyers and they cost a lot of money.

20:50And this is Lamb of God, not Led Zeppelin. Yeah, yeah. So we're touring and everybody's like, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm going to go back to trial. What's going to happen? I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball. And we're cruising around doing this tour. And it was like the last thing I wanted to be doing was, hey, is everybody having a good time tonight? Because you're not. Because I'm not. But think about me, me, me. But no one cares about that. My job is to get there to make them a good time. So we got through that. But at one point I remember sitting in the back lounge of our bus and my, my guitar player, Mark, dear friend, not the biggest fan of touring.

21:24He likes the studio. I hate the studio. Right. He loves it. I hate it. But he, he doesn't like touring. We're sitting there and I guess I'd been out of prison about two months at that time, two or three months. And we're riding along and he's having a bad day and he's like, this feels like prison. And I just looked at him and, and just kind of just smile. Does it? And I'm like, really? Yeah. And he's just, oh, yeah. I was like, this is not like prison, bro. Trust me. Well, you're the guy, Wayne, your friend who you wrote a song about who's dying of leukemia. And you shoot him a text you're complaining about a rough day in the studio.

22:04And he's like, you need a tissue? Yeah. This fan, his dad, who I sent him that chapter. I sent Wayne's family. It's already been in the press. The first chapter of the book is called The Duke, named after a Lamb of God song about this guy, Wayne Ford. He was a fan I'd met and it was terminal with leukemia. But we would text each other and kind of got to know each other during the last couple of months of his life. But I was in the studio and I'm just, I hate the studio. Right. And I'm just like, oh, he's like, how are you doing, man? I'm like, oh, I'd rather chew glass than go into this studio.

22:38And he's like, you need a tissue, dude? Yeah. Yeah. And have you tried dying of leukemia? Have you tried dying of leukemia? Bro, must be tough to be you. And I'm just like, oh shit. Yeah. Let me shut my mouth. Sure. Yeah. That's the problem with suffering is that there really are no degrees of it. Yeah. So like whatever you're going through is the most important thing in the world to you. And it takes on this enormous outsized significance. Right. Even though objectively, I think at some level, we all understand it could be much worse. And we could be suffering much worse. And we have suffered much worse.

23:14Yes. My ankle hurts, though. You know what I mean? And so, like, it's just hard. And I think part of stoicism is this process. That's what the journaling is about. That's what the exercise is about. It's just getting a smidge of perspective. Yes. Trying to carry it forward because it's easy every morning when I sit down with my daily stoic journal, which I'm on number four. This is the fourth year and I have the leather cover. I was going to give you one. No, I have one. I'll take one for my girlfriend. Sure. But every year, you know, I sit down and I write this. Every morning when I write, I did it this morning.

23:50I try and carry sort of like perspective, you know, give me a smidgen of perspective and thinking about externals a lot into the world. And then something happens, you know. And for me, it's always the more minuscule things. Like in a real crisis, I'm good. Yeah. I'm a calm level. I'm the dependable guy. Yeah. But if the computer stops working and I'm trying to edit a photo, it's like, yeah! It's like if your arm got cut off, you'd be like, I need to get to a hospital. My arm is cut off. Like the home of Def Leppard. And then if I cut my finger on this thing, I'd be like, fuck my finger, you know?

24:34If there, there's something about the body and the mind are, are pretty good when shit really hits the fan. Yeah. Because we know we can't afford the nonsense. Right. Yeah. And so, so some, some, I sometimes try to catch myself when I'm freaking out about something or I'm not handling it well. I go, you're only acting this way because you know, you have the luxury of acting this way. Oh, that's a great, that's a great way to look at it. You know, it is, it is a luxury. I was listening to Mark Maron's podcast with Bill Burr the other day in LA. I was driving in LA, which is, yeah. And Bill Burr is talking the same sort of thing.

25:10You know, he's good. He had to evacuate because of the fires. He's cool. But like his toaster doesn't work. And he's like, fuck, you know, he says, I just say, I say to myself out loud, you don't have to react to this. You don't have to react to this. I'm like, oh, that's good, Bill. He's, he's a great dude. We do that in how we treat people too, right? So like, you know, you can't talk this way to a stranger because you might get popped. You might get punched in your mouth. Or if someone saw, you know, you know, you can't do it, but then you will treat people who will put up with you shitty. Obviously we try not to do this, but the point is we are forgiving of strangers.

25:49And then I'm like, why am I telling you again, not to put your shoes here? Right. You know what I mean? Like, sure. Or you'll tell someone like five times something at work. But then if your spouse or whatever says, what? You know, you're like, ah! You know, Seneca talks about how we rage against the good because we can, because we can get away with it. And that's obviously, that's precisely who we should be the most patient with and the most tolerant of. And so there's something, I think it's similar. It's like, well, in situations where there's a cost to freaking out, we get over it pretty quick.

26:27But when we can be self-indulgent, we're self-indulgent. And there's something self-indulgent about losing your temper, being rude, being frustrated, where you're just telling yourself that they're going to put up with it. And by the way, they're not. At some point, they won't. And then you'll feel horrible and you'll regret it. And so just going like, hey, do I have the luxury here of indulging in whatever emotion? And I think that's – people think stoicism is not having the emotions. No, you have the emotions. You just decide whether that emotion is going to color your behavior or not. It's probably the same in recovery where it's like, well, there's a famous phrase that comes from the recovery world dealing with a specific emotion.

27:09One that I've had issues with is anger. Yeah. It's described as anger is the dubious luxury of normal men. Yes. You, you can't get away with it. No, I can't. I can't let myself become consumed by rage. You know what's beautiful about the expression that anger is the dubious luxury of normal men? Seneca says some version of that in his essay on both anger and clemency. He's ira? Yeah. But his one on clemency is like, look, a regular person can afford to hold a grudge. A regular person can be petty and vindictive. But a person in a position of responsibility or power or influence, there's greater consequences.

27:55Yes. Right. And it falls heavier on other people. It no longer just affects you. Yeah. You know, when they say anger is a poison, you gift yourself. Yeah. Well, that's actually not true when you're in a position of leadership, right. Or a position of power influence because other people bear the consequence. If you, as the head of a band that has a large touring operation, decide to be petty and take your ball and go home. It costs a lot of people, a bunch of stuff. untold people yeah just going like hey i'm i can't afford to be petty and entitled i can't afford this shit anymore because people are counting on me yes 100 and like that's something that you know being in a band in a successful band like if we've ever had to cancel a show it is always i mean it's like you got to be half dead yeah right i got horrific food poisoning one time in Vegas.

28:50Like I could not move. Yeah. The last thing I remember was my tour manager asking me, dude, are going to have to cancel. I'm like, well, you could wheel me out there in a wheelchair and I could vomit and shit myself on stage. Yeah. Yeah. We got to cancel. It was like, it's such a horrifying prospect to me because people have spent money buying tickets. They've spent money on hotels, airplane fares, just that's just the audience. They have decided they're going to come to this thing and they've built their schedule around this. Yeah. And I feel a responsibility to those people. I also feel like, and that's another reason why when I go on stage, I eat, no matter how tired I am, I never phone it in.

29:36Yeah. I give it all that I can, you know, while I'm there because these people are, it doesn't matter how many people show up either. They've paid good money and taken time out of their schedule to watch you do your thing. You better do your thing to the best that you can. And then beyond them, if we have to cancel, then there's money for promoters. The venue was still booked. The venue was still booked. We employ a lot of people, and God does. This is how they feed their families. It's not a joke. It's the music business. People don't get that. No, it is hard to take care of yourself in those situations because you have— And look, that's what being a leader, being in a position of responsibility is, is that you bear the cost of it.

30:19But yeah, I've had that where I've been like really sick and it's like I made a commitment. Right. You know, and the tension between taking care of myself and the show must go on. Yeah. It's real, you know. And sometimes it's to me, it's a it's an like what's actually the harder decision? Like what actually requires more self-discipline or willpower? Right. The one to be like, no, I actually will harm myself permanently by doing it or whatever, or the show must go on. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. Very difficult. Very difficult. Something, you know, we've definitely struggled with, you know? Yeah. Learning how to say no is a tough one.

31:02Yeah. Right. Or just to say, hey, yeah, I'll do the tour, but I want to do it reasonably. Oh, oof. You know, then that's something we've been fighting because, you know, for years now, because a booking agent and a manager love, love our booking agent, love our manager. They're not the ones playing every night. You know, they don't. Their job is to make a profitable tour, not one that is good for your knees 20 years from now. No, no. And my knees are shot. Lower back is screwed. Sure. Jumping around like a monkey. I think it's funny. I've noticed like bands used to play in like Converse All-Stars.

31:41And now, now they all wear like the, the oldest man shoes. Exactly. It mirrors, you know, athletes use a smoke in the locker room. And now, but, but I think it's just funny watching them get more comfortable as they go because there's a sustained, they realize that, oh, being the young person who looks cool, I'd rather be less cool and be able to do this for next five years. Yes, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. deciding that you want to do this sustainably, whatever it is that you want to do sustainably. I don't mean environmentally. I mean like, I want to do this for a long time. Suddenly you go, oh, I have to care about what I eat.

32:18I have to care about working out. I have to care about not doing drugs and alcohol. All that non-rock and roll stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, longevity isn't yours by right. You earn it. And that's all stuff that as I get older has come into play. Yeah. Watching the diet, quitting drinking and drugs, actually having to exercise now, which for guys like me and you, naturally thin, we can skate by for a long time. And then one day you wake up and you're like, oh, shit. Yeah, yeah. No, if I want to be like I was before, I have to ratchet up certain things and ratchet down certain things. Yeah, 100%.

32:59It's the balance. Yeah. And the type of music that you do, not that rock and roll was ever supposed to be an old man's game. I mean, you know, I hope I die before I get old. But at the same time, there's something a little different about what the who did versus what you do. Yes. Or what, you know, a real heavy, I mean, it's just different vocally. It's different musically. It's different. the sound, the sound that you're subjecting your body to, the sheer amount of decibels and the bass is more taxing. Yeah. All of it. Metallica playing a stadium show is not the same as the Rolling Stones playing a stadium show.

33:39No. I've never seen the Stones. I think about them a lot, though, as like sort of this paradigm of, as you say, sustainability. Or is it an addiction? Do you ever think like, like, why can't you? Like, I think like I'm obviously a huge Ironman fan, but I think it's interesting that Steve Harris has a side project that he tours clubs with. Right. Well, see, I actually. What is that? This is something that I think you and Pressfield were talking about this on the podcast one time. It's either lovely or it's sad. Do you know what I mean? And I don't I don't know him enough. So only some only his daughter or his spouse could tell you whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

34:21Yeah, that's true. But I would look at it as a musician if he loves playing music. Yeah, sure. And like, I love playing music and I'm going to do it as long as I can. It may not be with Lamb of God when I'm 70 years old. That might be a wee bit much, but I'm going to be doing music. And yeah, I would go out and do a side thing. The Rolling Stones are not out touring still after however many years because they need to. Right. They want to, dude. You love making music. And I know for me, and you love making music with a specific group of people. But is there something about, and again, I don't know any of these people, so I'm talking about this more generally.

35:09But there's something that draws one to the arts that is the desire for an audience. You know what I mean? Yes, but there, I think for a long term, it's a need to express yourself through a specific, whatever specific facet of the arts it is. You are drawn to that. And it feels natural to you. Yeah. Like it feels natural to me to express myself with my band. It's something I would, I said this a million times, we love our audience. And yes, we make records and make a good living off this and tour the world and all this stuff. But we love making music. We had zero, zero plan for this to become what it is.

35:54Right. We just wanted to make some good music because it's awesome making music. It's awesome.

36:07This message comes from Capital One. The Capital One VentureX Business Card has no preset spending limit, so the card's purchasing power can adapt to meet business needs. Plus, the card earns unlimited double miles on every purchase, so the more a business spends, the more miles earned. And when traveling, the VentureX Business Card grants access to over 1 ,000 airport lounges. The VentureX Business Card. What's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness.

36:41Well, you mentioned Marc Maron earlier, and he talks about this thing that I relate to, or I think it poses an interesting question that it's worth asking as an artist. He said during the pandemic when no one was doing stand-up and he wasn't doing stand-up. And he was just in his house being a person. Yes. He was like, maybe I'm all better. Like, maybe he's like, I don't need it anymore. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm saying. that there is, like, obviously I like writing and I like doing books. You could also zoom out and go, clearly though, at some level, there's an element of compulsion here because you can't not do it.

37:18And the Stoics ask us to be suspicious of anything that we can't not do. And so I'm always fascinated by, okay, you have all the money in the world. You still do play regularly, but then you're like squeezing it in on nights and weekends, the extra. Is there some part of us that you can't stop. And it's not, you go, oh, he loves music. That's why he's performing. That's why he's touring 150 nights a year and then also touring an extra 50 nights a year. There's a cost to that also. Yes. To people other than you. Right. Right. And so I'm interested in that, the part of us that, I'm not interested, suspicious of the part of us that can't not do this.

37:59Right. I understand that. I don't think though, honestly, if the dude loves playing music that much, that's what he wants to do he's okay with it let him play music no that's what i mean it's either amazing or it's sad right it's like i bet i'm a optimist regrettably i'm gonna go with it's amazing but see i wonder if that's because you love music but like if i if i was describing to you a boxer who just loves boxing right and he just wants one more fight right you'd be like bro There's a difference between getting punched in the head by Muhammad Ali than playing the whatever pub in Birmingham.

38:43But the impulse is similar. The love of the thing. Sure. The consequences is highly different. For me, sometimes it's almost been the same. You know, smash passes. You get what I mean. The love of the game can also, at some point, it either curdles or it becomes a compulsion. You can't stop it. And at some point, inevitably, every boxer retires one fight too late. And, you know, Tom Brady retired one season too late per, you know, the damage to his family and other things. I think that is an endemic part of that same ego drive passion. This is why the Stoics say passions are dangerous. They can burn you.

39:24You love the thing and you love it at a fundamentally illogical, unhealthy level. I don't man I just don't think that comparing music and sports and things like that I think it's apples and oranges maybe like I mean maybe the compulsion is the same but we all have things we're attracted to and maybe it's a matter of the lesser two evils I just don't see like you see like blues legends who played forever they're old men yeah you know down on Beale Street in Memphis Yeah, but those people had children and grandchildren. Sure. They had other things. But they were still musicians when they did it.

40:03No, but what I'm saying is that there's a cost to going on the road and picking up those dates, right? Sure. And there's things that are neglected in the pursuit of that, as lovely as it is. But is there a cost? This guy has how much money? Yeah. He has his own tour bus. Maybe his family comes with him. Maybe they were raised on the road, you know? But I even think individually, right? Like there's something about, and this is sounding like I really have some theory that this particular person is a - Miserable, addicted, club addicted. Because I'm just looking at him to look at myself, right? And looking at all these people to look at myself, which is there is something in a way that's easier about being on the move and doing - Oh, 100%.

40:54Like writing, even on its toughest day, is easier and better for me than regular life. Because I'm a master of it. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's a fake universe I've constructed. Yeah. We live in la-la land. We say that on tour all the time. This is not the real world. I can feel like if I'm in an argument with my spouse or it's crazy at home or I'm not feeling good about this or that, like, I'd be like, I want to get to the fucking office. That's right. You feel almost like you would crave a drug because you're like, I will feel good doing that. Yeah, for sure. And so that part of a work addiction is fundamentally rooted in escapism and not feeling what it is to be a person, which is to say uncomfortable.

41:42Yeah. And lots of feelings. Yeah. Work is, touring is definitely la-la land. It's definitely not reality. We say that all the time. I mean, where else do I go where like, there are people waiting to see me and they're super stoked. Oh my God, it's you. Yeah. You know? And that's the only thing you have to do that day. Yeah. Like, like that's one of the, like when I speak, I got one on, I got two tomorrow. It's like, I have, I have to do two things tomorrow. I am exempt from essentially all other responsibilities as a person. Yeah. And that's nice. That's not real. No. You know what I mean? Yeah.

42:22Because like, if I get anything else done, if I make my kid breakfast, if I drive him to school, I'm like, people are like, you also did that? You know, like they want to throw you a fucking parade. You know, they're like, you worked out today too? You know, or whatever. Like you didn't just roll out of bed, you know? To be Ryan Holiday. Yeah. So it's not real. It's not real. Yeah. It's all you have. So that, and there's something about the rhythms of being on the road too, that are nice and soothing. It used to be way more difficult when I came off the road to readjust to normal. Reentry? Yeah, dude.

42:59Cause it's like, it's like a train that's going and you're on and you're not really driving. You know, you're just going, going, going and everything. There's a schedule and dinners at this time and you're on stage at this time. And these people will be stoked to see you. and it's going to be this cathartic sort of like physical and emotional workout every night then you come down adrenaline it's this train and just building building but you've been then all of a sudden bam it hits a brick wall and you're you're at home and your girl is like the lawn needs cutting and you're like fuck like it's like um and it's like you just can't this isn't a hotel man yeah yeah you can't just throw your shit all over the place no no no i'm pretty tidy But like it just emotionally, it was very, very strange for a long time to go from 100 to zero in one day, you know, boom.

43:49Now it's it's a lot easier for me. Yeah. I've like. You know, I learning to separate, as you're saying, recognizing what's real. What is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, to put this all, I think we were talking about, you know, it's not as bad as being in a Czech prison. But I think that the exercise of memento mori puts all that stuff in perspective too, right? It does. You're like, hey, this is my only day. This is it. How am I going to spend it? This is it. Yeah. You know, remember you too shall die. Yeah, you gave me this thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you seen those? I like to look at cemeteries.

44:31I like the cemetery where it shows what the person looks like. Like, instead of being, you know, them as an angel or whatever, it shows like a skeleton. And the idea is like, what I, the expression is, what you are, I once was. Yeah. What I am now, you will be. Yeah, yeah. And so they're called skeleton tombs or something. I forget, there's a Latin expression. But the idea is like, instead of the grave representing this peaceful, serene, gentle thing. Yes. They want to show the sort of the decomposition and the tragedy and the decay of it because that's in you also. Yeah. You are on your way to becoming that very thing.

45:20Yeah. Yeah. Most certainly. It's like Alexander the Great and his mule driver. It's one of my favorite lines in meditation. Yeah. Yeah. Both dying and both buried in the same ground. They're both fucking worm food. is what he's saying. Yeah, 100%. Have you been to the catacombs in Paris? Not in Paris, but I've been to a bunch of different catacombs. Right, yeah. And we went last time and got a lot of photos and they had lots of great sayings up there on the walls in different parts. There was a church in Dublin that has a crypt underneath it and you walk in and they have, it's because of the temperature and the depth, it perfectly preserved these bodies that were buried in it.

46:06And they took, you know, they slid the stone off the coffin. And you can see they're basically these natural mummies. And I was telling my kids this because they didn't believe it's true, but that you used to be able to go in. I went 12 years ago and they let you touch the mummy. Whoa. Like its hand is there and you can rub its finger. Wow. And so you're touching what you will one day be. Wow. And the jolting feeling that you get there and you're like, this person died in the fucking Crusades. Wow. Is not just this guy died in the Crusades, but this guy was so abnormally tall that to fit him in this casket, they broke his legs to fold it under him.

46:50One size. One size casket. You're like, you're done, man. You don't need to be comfortable. Right. Yeah, absolutely. It reminds, there's another quote that came from a Roman poet, similar to that line from Marcus Riles. He says, in life, the world could not contain Alexander's ambition, but in death, a coffin was sufficient. Oh, yeah. And so you could want to be the biggest musician in the world, the biggest whatever in the world. You could be fucking physically imposing and intimidating. Yeah. And then your ashes are like a fucking coffee cup. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I write about that in the first chapter too, kind of like how in considering our own deaths, you know, for some people, I believe this may be a rude shock to you, but you are no better than the piece of roadkill who you pass by, you know, you're no, in death, you're no better than the person you made fun of in high school, you know, all this other stuff.

47:53we're all going to be equally dead. Conversely, if you're suffering from an inferiority complex, you know, take comfort in the fact that you will succeed effortlessly at being as perfectly dead as the greatest men and women of history. Or the nice way, the more inspirational way to put that is you are as equally alive as the greatest people on the planet. Yeah. You know, you have as much life in you as the most powerful, richest person in the world. Pleasure feels the same. The air tastes the same. It is what it is. This is all there is. Yeah. This is it. You know, enjoy it while it's here. I think, yeah, no one is, not breathes any better than anyone else.

48:48let's see if as my guess maybe well we're talking permanent yes really no no right it it it it it's the great equalizer in the end it's the one prophecy that never fails yeah and uh once it happens it's done yeah yeah and it's going to happen to everyone yeah that's i think that's do you see that documentary on netflix about the dude who's trying to yeah yeah like it's it's interesting some of it like theoretically what they're trying to do but you know what i think when i think about guys like that guys that want think they want to live forever they spend all this money on this longevity shit one of the emperors one of the roman emperors is uh walking by they're they're executing some you know heinous criminal who's wasted his life being awful and uh you know, the criminal sees him and he says, you know, like, you know, please, please spare me or whatever.

49:52And the Empress says, I didn't know you were even alive. Like he was saying, so you're really alive, are you? That's what he says. Like the point is your existence, the thing you're begging to be given a second chance at is not that great. And I think about, there's something fundamentally funny to me about the, that guy's life doesn't seem that amazing. He's not making an argument why his life is so great that he should live forever or he should get another 50 years because he's going to put it to such great use. What he's saying is, I'm going to make my health really good. That's his argument.

50:35His argument is my health should entitle me to more years. Not the quality of my life is worth preserving. Like there's never this much. And look, life is life. And I feel like everyone is entitled. I think health care should be a human right. I think anytime we can improve the longevity of the population as a whole, that is a wonderful blow to strike for justice. So that's not what I mean. but i think it's funny that the people that are most obsessed with living the longest strike me as pretty miserable people yeah and pretty self-absorbed people yes that uh i'm not so uh intrigued by what they're going to do with this extra time because i know the answer is basically just more self-indulgent nonsense well if you i mean even i love vampires yeah huge vampire fan and will take my hand at writing a vampire novel one day go for it but the depictions of vampires their immortality is a curse it's never good yeah no it's right yeah never good it's a curse yeah and i god i can't imagine i would i would not want to live another hundred years no way yeah no way yeah it's like he sucks his blood from his son or whatever the guy in the documentary yeah and it's like i think it's supposed to go the other direction yeah do you know what i mean like he's not like i've decided to put all this time and energy into helping my son live forever because i just love him so much i'd be devastated if anything happened to him he's like how can i suck the youthful energy out of my boy it's being a parent is supposed to make you shift your priorities right precisely the opposite direction, bud.

52:22Yeah. He donated some to his father, some of his plasma, but then it's kind of like you're taking your son's life. That's what the, hopefully the presupposition that your son will one day have kids. Is he supposed to just continually drain them? You're breeding youth fountains or whatever. Yeah. There's a Zen saying, grandfather dies, father dies, son dies, this is a happy story. Because that's how it's supposed to go. And this starts to get pretty metaphysical very quickly. But I think the whole point is that there's no point if we don't die. It's supposed to be, that's what creates the urgency and the clarity.

53:03An infinite game means you get an infinite number of tries. Right. And that's not what life is. Life is a finite game. Yeah, 100%. Even take it to like video games with the cheat code and you just live forever. Like that's no fun. Well, look, if you were going to live forever, you could have done drugs longer. Why'd you quit at 39? Because I was not living. I was utterly miserable. Right. But the idea that you only have one life to live is the reason you cannot waste any more fucking time. Right. Yeah, that's one thing that I think about when I find myself growing nihilistic or when I see people who are just utterly cynical about everything and nihilistic.

53:48I mean, I think cynicism is refuge of the intellectual coward myself. But it's like, okay, suppose everything is pointless and meaningless. Why don't we enjoy right now? And I've found that I get the most enjoyment out of trying to maintain a correctly calibrated moral compass and doing the right thing. So if nothing matters, why be an asshole? Why be an asshole, right? The argument of stoicism is not, hey, if you do this, don't do that, whatever, you're going to go to hell. Right. It's that if you do this or don't do that or whatever, if you sin, your life is hell. Your life is hell. You're living in hell now.

54:32Yeah. Which we know is real. Yes. The other one might be, but we know this hell is real. Yeah. Because we felt it. Yeah, 100%. This was awesome, man. I loved the book. It's great. Thank you so much. You signed it for me? Absolutely. Sweet. I'll walk you through the bookstore. I got some books for you.

54:54Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode.

55:31That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like The Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you an ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free. No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for.

56:15and you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.