November 24, 2022 • 65 mins
Today we welcome Neal Brennan. He is a director, writer, actor, and comedian most known for co-creating and co-writing the Comedy Central series Chappelle's Show with Dave Chappelle and cult movie classic Half Baked.
Neal received three Emmy nominations for Chappelle’s Show; one for directing, and the other two for writing and producing. He has also performed stand-up on Last Call with Carson Daly, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Lopez Tonight, and Conan. Recently, his comedy special called Blocks was released on Netflix.
In this episode, I talk to Neal Brennan about his comedy and upbringing. As early as 8 years old, Neal has been interested in comedy for its “fairness”. He reveals who his early influences were and what it was like working with Dave Chappelle. In this episode I gave Neal some impromptu psychological tests to help us both understand more about his unique mind. We also touch on the topics of relationships, mindfulness, cognitive distortions, and neurodiversity.
Website: www.nealbrennan.com
Twitter: @nealbrennan
Topics
02:31 Neal’s family background
09:44 When Neal discovered comedy
15:48 Meeting Dave Chappelle
18:00 The aftermath of Half Baked
21:26 The highs and lows of Chappelle’s Show
26:06 “We contain multitudes”
28:20 Neal’s relationships and reality dysmorphia
36:04 Vulnerable narcissism test
44:46 How vulnerable narcissism develops
48:16 Cognitive distortions
55:46 Mindfulness, drugs, and therapy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The world is telling us all one thing right, and
it's not true. It's just the world is lying and
or manipulating us, and comedy gives us a chance to
be like may I, may I give my rebuttal. Hello,
(00:24):
and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Neil
Brennan on the show. Neil is a director, writer, actor,
and comedian most known for co creating and co writing
the Comedy Central series Chappelle Show with Dave Chappelle and
cult movie classic Half Bait. Neil received three Emmy nominations
for Chappelle's Show, one for directing and the other two
(00:47):
for writing and producing. He has also performed stand up
on Last Call with Carson Dally, Late Night with Jimmy,
Fallon Lopez Tonight, and Conan. Recently, his comedy special called
Blocks was released on Netflix. In this episode, I talked
to Neil Brennan about his comedy and upbringing. As early
as eight years old, Neil has been interested in comedy
(01:07):
for its fairness. He reveals who his early influences were
and what it was like working with Dave Chappelle. In
this episode, I also gave Neil some impromptu psychological tests
to help us both understand more about his unique mind.
We also touch on the topics of relationships, mindfulness, cognitive distortions,
and neurodiversity. This was a really fun episode. It was
(01:29):
great chatting with Neil. I really like his comedy, but
I also really like his humanity and his vulnerability. When
I watched his Netflix special, I was especially touched by
his journey to overcome depression, and I reached out to
him because I really wanted to help him. I hope
you enjoyed this episode. So without further ado, I'll bring
you Neil Brennan. Mister Neil, how you doing good. I'm
(01:50):
doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. As you know.
I saw your recent Netflix special Blocks and was really
deeply touched by it, and you know, I'm like laughing
so hard for like three fourths of it, and then
you know, you get really real, you know, and the
whole sort of tone change there at the end, right,
(02:10):
and it's like I went from like to like oh shit,
you know, like what the fuck I'm a therapist and
this is upsetting. Yeah no, but I mean talk about,
you know, being able to manipulate your viewer's emotions, right,
like to kind of really you know, I really empathized
for you, and so I really appreciate talking today, and
I don't want to just jump into the deep end.
(02:31):
I was hoping we could kind of start and to
trace kind of like the development of Neil Brennan and
go back as early as possible. I know you said
at one point that you've kind of felt like an
odd ball your entire life. Is that as early as
you can remember that you've kind of felt that way.
I think, looking back, I always think I felt like
an odd ball and felt like this is not a
(02:51):
good system. That was always the feeling I had where
I was like it born into my family and I
was always kind of like, this doesn't seem to be
right even I have like I have a tiny sample size,
and this seems like incorrect somehow. It's a public school. No, no,
I'm not talking about school. I'm talking about my family.
(03:14):
Oh they're talking about like being three or four, gotcha? Gotcha? Yeah, okay,
and being like this doesn't seem like the best way
to go about whatever we're trying to do here. So
I used to cry like all the time, like like ill,
every they made it, there was a joke like that
I had a streak going where I cried every day
and then they would like make they'd go like, we're
(03:35):
gonna make you cry. If we don't, you didn't, you
didn't know, you didn't cry today, we gotta make your crect.
It was just cold. I'm one of ten kids. I
don't know if that's clear. I was gonna bring that up, actually,
so yeah, let me like, let me lay the pipe,
let me lay, let me lay it out a little bit.
My parents were born in nineteen thirty. That's my dad.
He's one of thirteen. He had a twin my dad,
(03:57):
and the twin died, and prior to his death, my
grandmother was very proud of her twins. And then my
dad's twin died and my grandmother, in true Catholic Irish
Catholic form, said I'll never be proud of anything again
as long as I live. Like God had punished her.
So I think she took it out of my dad,
and then he carried that with him and my mom's mom.
(04:21):
My mom was born in thirty three to a family
of four, and her mom died when she was like
a toddler. And back then there was no They didn't
even pretend men could raise kids on their own. So
my mother and her sisters were all split up, and
(04:41):
so she kind of came from from that. So my
parents met and tried to make a go of it,
and neither of them were from especially as evidenced by
Sea above what I just said, not from very solid foundations,
and I I think they were like, well, if we
keep having kids, maybe it'll be it'll get better. And
(05:04):
they were Catholics, so they had to keep having kids
and it just was chaos. You know, it was chaos
headed by two people who didn't know a ton about
how to do it. And I was the youngest. Yeah,
so you're the youngest. And I have actually been wondering
to what extent you felt like you had to, because
there's all the psychological research that when you're in a
big family like that, you can kind of feel a
(05:25):
sense of like you need to compete to like, for
attention and things like that. And I don't know if
that similar feelings you feel in the comedy field you
know today, you know, stem somewhat from some of those
early kind of things. I'm competitive for sure. I mean
I want to be good at my job. I want
to be high status like, you know, I think that's
(05:48):
any human being or most human beings. I mean, I
have another brothers who's a comedian, So a fifth of
my family, a fifth of ten people are comedians, so
something there's got to be something there. But there's all
so something about like I don't know where's funny. So
in terms of like psychologically what am I doing? Obviously
I like the approval, I like the attention, and but
(06:09):
there's also a big part of me that wants comedy
to be more of like I want it to be
more cohesion and more camaraderie and more of a like,
we're all in this together kind of thing, which I
get disappointed when it's not. I don't know if it's
a contradiction contradiction exactly, but maybe. And and also, comedy
is fair. That's the thing I like about comedy is
(06:31):
it's like it's fair. There's not there's some level of
arbitrariness to it. But for the most part, if you
have a good premise and you write it well and
you perform it well, it's gonna work. You know, you
grew up my father was an alcoholic, and that's not fair.
It's entirely random and arbitrary. So so that's the that's
(06:56):
the that's my That's the thing I like about comedy
is it's like this shit's fair. It just he does
seem like a lot of comedy is is bound up
about being true about not suffering, but maybe like common suffering.
Everyone can kind of resonate with something you just don't
tend to find that. The best or the most poper
comedians are like that that super positive happiness persona, you know,
(07:21):
like I'm just like going up in the stage and
be like everyone you know, like, but so let's all
be happy. It's not useful. That's separate. It's that's a
separate genre. That's that's hallmark, you know. That's not what
comedy's for. Comedy is for Like I mean, people say,
like the job of the comedian. I love when people
(07:41):
say the job of the comedian because I've been in
comedy for thirty years. I've never heard what the job is.
The world is telling us all one thing right, and
it's not true. It's just the world is lying and
or manipulating us, and comedy gives us a chance to
be like, may I give my rebuttal marriage? Marriage? May
(08:04):
I speak quickly or like men and women women, can
I say something very quickly? Or religion, do you mind
if I you know, with all due respect, dogs, you know,
or whatever your thing is. So being optimistic and positive
about it is not not it wouldn't be. I mean,
(08:26):
there is a way to do comedy that's very positive,
but it's in some ways it's still negative. Yeah. No,
I completely agree. I mean there's something inherently funnier about
like if I came up and the first thing and
I was like, hey, when I got some news for you,
like we're all not gonna be okay, you know, there's
something somehow funnier about that than like just come out
Mark Mark Maren has one of the greatest jokes. I
(08:47):
can't believe how great a joke it is. He said,
he's been doing it recently. He said, Look, I don't
I don't want to seem negative, but I don't think
anything's ever gonna get better ever again. Yeah, And there's
something funny about that in that context. It crush it.
But he's talking about society. He's talking about like the earth. Yeah,
(09:10):
and it's so broad. Yeah, and it should be like,
you know, feel people going like the fuck is wrong?
With this guy. But it's so true that people have
to laugh. No, I hear you. I'd like to just
stay on your childhood for a little bit longer because
I'm am a psychologist. So I was wondering, like what
when were you? When did you first discover you were funny?
(09:30):
Like I remember personally, you know, I was sent to
attention a lot because I was just making the kids
laugh because like I was in special ed and like
that was like my way of acting out, Like was
it was it a way of acting out for you
at all? In any way, It's always been an equalizer
to me. It's rarely about something else, you know what
I mean. It's not like my parents are not getting
(09:55):
along so I'm gonna take my dick out at dinner.
It was ever that. It just was never that. It
was more about for me. It was more about like
logic and like wait, it was more just like if
I may. It was always that to me, And and
it was like because I felt like the system that
(10:16):
I was I found myself in was was like broken
and just like this is wrong. It was always that.
It was always like hmmm, it's the face I make
in the blocks fro I'm like a friend of mine
calls it Neil Brennan face where it's like it's like
the fuck, but it's always been that. But teachers loved you.
Teachers did like me. I mean when I tried, the
(10:38):
problem was I uh, I wish I could go to
school now, like I read all the time. I'm studious
and I'm intelligent and stuff and like, but I was
not then. I just was too disorganized, I think emotionally.
Can you give me any examples, like do you have
memories in your head of being like five, six, seven
years old and making everyone laugh around you? Yeah? I
remember getting a lap that was so big I was
(11:02):
embarrassed and I was probably eight nine. Maybe do you
remember what the joke was. I just did an impression
of somebody and it was like it was it just crushed.
So yeah, who are some of your earliest comedic influences.
Brian Reagan. I've never heard Brian Reagan. I saw Brian
(11:22):
Reagan like kill and because my brother's comedian, I got
to go to the comedy clubs when I was in
high school, and I saw Brian Reagan at the Improv
in probably nineteen eighty eight and killing incredibly funny. I mean,
so prior Carlin, those kinds of guys didn't really they
didn't really move me until I was, you know, in
(11:45):
my twenties. But Bill Hicks was really big for me.
Like I saw him live, I made Chappelle come see
him live in ninety two. David Tel friend of my brothers,
Chris Rock really big. I mean in terms of me,
I guess I'm like in terms of people who weren't Dave.
So yeah. So those would be my early early influences.
(12:09):
I guess, yeah, influence is the right word. Hicks would
probably be the number one of those. This is great,
It is amazing. Is there any other can you think
of any other sort of aspects of your odd ball
being that you think may have contributed to your comedic genius?
Do you like when I when I describe it as
comedic genius? I think there's no other There's no other
way to describe it, right, Let's be honest, There's simply
(12:30):
no other word for it. Yeah, fud flattery, ego a
little bit, you know, for the sake of the cover.
You didn't see the show. I don't believe that about myself.
I just never feel like huh and I will say
in comedy, I feel like I belong. But there's you know,
but there's always in this show, there's an anecdote about
(12:52):
people reminded me like not at the level you think,
or not at the way you think, and not the
and even the thing where I was a writer and
all writers thought you seem like more of a comedian.
Comedians are like more of a writer, like there's it's
it's uh. I don't have a lot of peers in
terms of like the my arc, the arc of my career.
I definitely want to get into that more, especially when
(13:13):
I give you like a test, as I'm going to
give you a test a little bit later. I guess
I'm thinking more oddball in the sense of like the
neurodiversity movement, like were you ever diagnosed with like ADHD?
Or like are you an autism spectrum? No, I've never
been diagnosed with any never been diagnosed with anything any
and no, and I mean depression obviously, but like ADHD,
(13:36):
I don't think I don't have an access of energy.
And I've had a lot of people diagnose me over
Instagram in the last week with what with what, which
I actually kind of think is fun and funny and
you like you reached out. This is the best part
of my doing a Netflix special is all the free treatment.
What have people been you with? ADHD, autism? Those are
(14:01):
the two big ones, autism being the number one answer. Gotcha? Okay.
I didn't bring those up necessarily because I thought that
they applied to you. Just to be clear, I would
be happy if they did. Someone was. I did Joe
Rogan three or four months ago, and a lady was like,
you have you are on the spectrum and I was
like all right. And she goes take this test and
(14:21):
I passed or whatever, and she's like, you are Aspergracy
or whatever. And I was like, oh, lady, I'll take
it again like I and I passed again. There I'd
be happy. I would be I'd be totally satisfied if
there was a very easy explanation and or modality of
(14:42):
treatment that I can do to make myself feel differently
than how I generally feel happy, like clearly, like the
whole show is kind of about that. Yeah, no, I understand,
I understand I have some hypotheses, but we get that
a little bit later into that. But I wanted to
understand and go back to like when you first met Chappelle,
you were a doorman, is that right? And you were
(15:04):
like eighteen years old or something. Yes, I was doorman
and I was going to NYU Film school. He was eighteen.
He had moved from DC to New York to be
a comedian. And I moved from Philly to to New
York to go to n YU for film school. And
uh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah hunh me and mine
and we became friends and and kind of we would
(15:28):
we would just talk about comedy and movies and stuff,
and we felt like, or I certainly I felt like
we could, you know, do something good. So then I
started writing for other TV shows and then uh and
I would he would. We would talk about jokes for
his act, like maybe say this or say that, and
(15:49):
then I and then and then we wrote them movie
half Baked together, like five years later we were twenty three. Now,
look I loved Half Bait, you know. And yeah, you're
the right. A still love have Baked? Thank you? Like
I love it now? Right? You know? I love it? No, no, no, no,
I'm not saying I didn't like it then, but I
feel like I discovered it later in my life. Let
(16:09):
me save this. Let me save this first. Oh that's funny.
I mean, look, there are here's what I'll say about it.
There are sequences and half Baked that you can watch
and go, these guys are maybe going to do a
great sketch show. That's cool. That would be my take
on it. So the seeds that greatness was there in it.
You can see it. Yeah, I think like the sequence
where he goes on a date and there's that that
(16:31):
the dollars in the corner, and then I think this
stuff would Sir Smoke a Lot where Dave's talking to
himself in essence, like that was the day where it
was like, looking back, we were very like I played
Sir Smoke a lot and he was himself and then
I was him and he was the smoke a lot.
Like it was just very like no one was there
(16:52):
but us. Yeah, I see that. It was just you
know what I mean, Like I it became and it
was like and then tipped fooge And as you're filming it,
I was like, I think I know how to cut
this as a as like a as a with John Cutts,
but I'm aware that it was like a really tough
time for you, Like when that came out and sort
(17:12):
of the initial reception and right for like a year
or so after it came out was that was not
a tough time for you, just a bad just a rejection,
just like a rebuke, you know, and and a setback
career wise, because you know, it was kind of like
you're on your way and it was kind of sit out.
But having said that, I spent a couple of years
writing with a guy named Mike Sure, who's a great writer,
(17:35):
and we wrote a couple of movies that didn't get made.
But it was a fun That was just a fun
period for me. But you lost touch with Dave for
a little bit after a half bank, right, you lost
touch with Dave? Yeah, not like well I didn't have
his number. We just kind of like drifted. We kind
of drifted a little. I think there should be half
big two in that. They're making it right now. Actually,
(17:58):
I just want to say that I want to put
that in the universe, and I'm really glad to hear
that being made. Apparently they just finished filming. I mean,
did you did you write it all for it? You
did that? You manifested that. I just manifested that ship.
Just now, wait, so did you write you don't even
believe in manifestation? You did it? Wait, now, how do
you know I don't believe in manifestations. I'm a scientist
(18:20):
because I don't. I think that goes against your Yeah,
I think it goes against your So you assume that
goes against Anthos. No, I actually believe a lot in
certain karma Buddhist principles. But anyway we can. It's a
whole other conversation. But no, that's that's amazing. So what
was your contribution to Half Baked two? Nothing? Literally? Nothing? Okay,
(18:41):
so you don't even have like a how like nostalgic
would that be? For like if you had a walk
on scene, you know, like Stephen King does in all
his movies. I'm in Half Baked one. I don't know.
They just didn't ask interesting. Well, I look forward to
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(19:01):
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(19:22):
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(19:45):
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(20:30):
now back to the show. Okay, so you co created
and co wrote Chappelle's Show. Some people miss label that.
They call it the Chappelle Show, right, like it's Chappelle's Show.
And that was just obviously wildly successful and made a
huge cultural I mean, it's part of the cultural consciousness.
(20:50):
You know, so much of so many of those skits
and things of that nature. Was it season three? Like
Dave decided he just was going to leave that? What
was that like for you personally? When that show stopped?
You didn't even I believe you weren't even notified that
it was going to be that he was out. Yes,
I was not notified. My focus is on you, So
I'm curious what I was like for you. That was
(21:12):
a very, very very bad period of my life. Arguably,
I wouldn't even say arguably, I would say it was
the worst period of my life. The biggest shock, set back, pain, confusion, anguish,
et cetera, et cetera. You know, it was reliant on
somebody who changed their mind, and it was sort of
(21:34):
it was obviously jarring and obviously like the financial stuff,
that's whatever, fine. It was more about kind of before
it where the where I kind of got low balled
negotiation wise, and and it just kind of sucked because
I felt like I made this big contribution and they
manipulated it to where they didn't have to pay me,
(21:57):
and Dave kind of supported them in it and just sucked.
I'm really sorry to hear that. Yeah, yeah, I mean
it just sucks. So yeah, I mean I appreciate it
in some ways. It's not like I didn't. Yeah, just
kind of I just felt like devalued and then I
would say devalued and then just sort of like basic lifestyle.
(22:20):
It was kind of like a death in all honesty,
and it was three bad years. I would say emotionally.
Were you mad at Deve? Yeah? Yeah. You know, life
is so interesting how we can have these like ups
and downs. We can like kind of feel like we're
on top of the world and then just like boom,
we're like we don't feel that way. I mean, that
(22:42):
must have been an incredible feeling those those first couple
of years, though, when I mean, I'd love to hear
a little bit about, you know, the positive aspect of that.
What was that like to be really on top of
the world. I mean, that was the most popular comedy
show on TV at the time. I believe I was
on Cable, Yeah, on Cable, Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean,
the thing I loved about the show and this speaks
(23:04):
that thing of like the camaraderie that I'm seeking, And
I really love writing with Dave. I really loved directing it.
I really loved coming to ideas. I really loved producing.
I loved the sort of tiny the absolute control over
this thing, and not control for like control's sake, control because,
(23:27):
like I because Half Baked had kind of been like
we kind of got mauled because we were so young,
we were able to like once we did Chappell's show
was more like, I know what our role on the
show needs to be, and it's going to be where
it's every fabric, every lens, every cast, it's all coming
(23:48):
through us. But I also really always felt very strong
connection with Dave creatively from the time we're eighteen, and
it was very fun to just argue and come with
ideas and improve or reject and all that stuff going
both ways. And it came from a very deep I
(24:09):
felt like because Dave wasn't that popular, I felt a
a little responsible because he wrote half Big. He asked
me to write hap Bike with him, and I feel like,
I think, like, psychologically, I feel like I fucked that
up for him, even though that's not true, but like
feel that way. And there was like an anger to
it that was great, you know, like that thing of
(24:33):
I'm I'm Davis said in the past like he's never
met someone more obsessed with justice than me and obsessed
with fairness. So it's a really good It was just
a great outlet. May be spectrum, Oh yeah, logic good man, hmmm,
(24:54):
let's do it, because like you're saying some things here,
like when you were younger as orl as you can remember,
or you were kind of you're probably you know what.
I find a lot about people not to the spectrum,
because and I love people not to the inspectrum. By
the way, I help a lot of kids who are geniuses.
That's one of my jobs helping kids. They're called twice
exceptional kids. But something about a lot of them is
(25:17):
that they're unintentionally funny because they are no bullshit. You know,
they really like to cut all of the fata and
they just say, they just say what they perceive. And
they also can't stand logical inconsistency. This is something that
it sounds like when you were really young that drove
you crazy. Yeah. My brain is very organized. Yeah, and
(25:39):
if I see a logical and consistently I'll be like what, Yeah,
but now you have to call it. You said that.
Now you're saying that like that is a direct contradict
and people don't like it. Like that's the thing that people,
especially in relationships with women. It's like they don't. I
had a woman's fairly recently. I didn't come here to
(26:02):
be consistent and it's like, well I did, But that's funny,
that's I mean, you know, it's that's kind of funny. Yeah, yeah, no,
of course it's funny. Yeah. Human humans aren't. I mean,
that's just not what humans are, you know, and you're
kind of we contain multitudes. I mean, that's the funny
(26:22):
thing about the that that aphorism, that it's from a
Walt Living poem, We contain multitudes. It sounds like it's
this lofty thing. He's basically just going, it's the line
before it is like, do I contradict myself? Yeah? I
contain multitudes? You know what I mean? Like he's like, hey,
what do you know? It's one of my favorite quotes.
(26:42):
It's it. Yeah, it's amazing. I didn't. I didn't realize
the line before until recently. Oh nice, Yes, that quote
opens up my book Wire to Create actually because we
it describes the creative person to a t, you know,
so wow, you actually open up the can of worms
of relate your relationships. And you also you also said, like,
(27:05):
you know, people don't like it that I like logical concy.
That's another theme right about you, is that there are
a lot of things people don't like from your perception
because you you combine lots of things that usually you
don't see all correlated in a single human or put
another way, put another way, and a lot of people
you do things you do see things correlated, but with you,
(27:25):
you break the correlational structure. So you'll be vegan, but
you're not a big drinker. You'll you know, try ayahuasca,
but we'ed, you know, like you're like, I don't I
stay away from weed. You know, like there are lots
of these kind of I can keep going down the list.
You know. Is this resonating with you at all? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
yeah no, that's that's exactly right. Like I do embody
(27:46):
a lot of contradictions in a way that they're they're
they're I don't want to say they're anti social, but
they're they're not They're not like great for social cohesion.
I mean, just not drinking is not eating meat. One
of the impetuses for the show is is that I
(28:07):
was in therapy and I was, you know what, my
female therapist, and she was like said something about relationships.
I was like about finding somebody. I was like, listen
to me. I don't drink, I don't really smoke weed,
I don't eat meat. I work at night. All of
my friends are like super genius, hilarious people, and and
(28:33):
I'm generally disagreeable as a person. It's like I just
have it like that. It just gets smaller and smaller
and smaller and small and smaller and smaller. Like my
the pond. I can fish in something that strikes me
about you, was like, you're almost too honest about yourself
and about things. It's almost like a reality matters so
(28:57):
much to you that I think you shoot yourself in
the sometimes by allowing a certain magic and illusion, a
positive illusion, to emerge. And you know, in relationships, so
much of relationships really is having an illusion that you're
That's what love is, you know, the love emotion. My
colleague Stephen Pinker says that love is a doomsday device
(29:20):
because the emotional love means that when the hotter person
moves in next door, you don't immediately move on to
them because you're so in love. You're so irrationally building
them up on a pedestal because of love that it's
actually evolved as a doomsday device. That's Stephen Pinker's the
notion in how the mind works. Yeah, I feel like
you're like, no, no illusions, you know what I mean.
(29:43):
But you know what's interesting is I have no illusions
and yet I have total dysmorphia about my life and
position in the world. You do, you really do? Because
like you killed it in blocks and I genuinely mean that.
I'm not trying to build up your goal, but I
was dying of laughter, right, and then and then you're
(30:04):
almost like, by the way, stop laughing, I really do suck.
And you didn't say that. You didn't say that, but
it's sort of like, but you're not wrong. Yeah, yeah,
I feel like you do that in a lot of
areas of your life. Probably. I have a joke that
I did with a friend of mine which is, like,
my life is amazing, if I could only experience it
for one minute, if I could really like it, Like
(30:27):
I know how fortunate I am talent wise at this point,
Like I make a great living. I've made a great
living for a long time. I know the some of
the most important people in the world I have access.
I like, there's I had. There's so few areas in
which I'm not doing well. And yet I somehow my
(30:54):
brain is like programmed to look at the negative. Yeah,
I look it. I love your I can't wait to
hear these fucking hypothesis. Yes, yes, I think let's just
jump into that and we can return to other on
greig Worms like relationship all that stuff. But there's morphia
as a huge thing, dude. The dys morphia is a
(31:16):
huge thing about Like it's like reality distortion in a
negative way. It's like the opposite of the Steve Jobs thing,
and it's like I wake up with it, you know,
I have a hypothesis and just want to just just
throw this out here because it's probably something you've never
thought of. So well, I'm going to start with a
(31:37):
quote by the comedian Greg Giraldo. Do you know who
that is? Greg? Yeah? Mine? Yeah, amazing, amazing. Hasn't he
passed away? Yeah, he's been. He's been dead for a
long time, so may he rest in peace. But he said,
I feel like I'm the piece of shit at the
center of the universe. Now, that's a quote of his,
and I noticed that characteristic in a lot of comedians.
(31:59):
I like with you, Yes, there is a neurotic sort
of do you feel like you're kind of broken at
your core? In a way? On the one hand, is
that true? Like how do you feel at the core
of you? What's at the core of Neil? At my core?
I don't think I'm wrong until everyone tells me I'm wrong.
(32:19):
Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I
don't all these points of view. I'm like, why do
you drink? Like why would you do this to your
body to your like, like, why would society promote this
thing that kills you know, there's thirty thousand DUIs a year.
There's half of crime is committed when people are drunk. Like,
the stats are horrible. It ruins your personal health, ruins relationship.
(32:44):
Just none of it's good and people can't stop doing it.
I like am aware of this ruin. It kind of
like was a huge problem in my childhood for my
dad was an alcoholic. So I think I'm right, like, well,
everyone's going to agree with me on this, and then
they don't. They go like, no, fuck you, and I'm like, huh,
fuck me, Okay, let's move on to meet And then
(33:08):
I go that no fuck you, we love me, Okay,
let's go and I just go down the line too,
and then I'm just left by myself. Yeah, I don't
think I'm like right in a way that's like amazing
and incredible. I just it's more just like what it's
the same basic idea I had with as in my family,
(33:31):
which is like, what, this doesn't seem great. I have
a joke. It's or not even a joker, but it's like,
you know what. My favorite part of self loathing is
the self part. It's like it's similar to the Giraldo
thing like that. But I but at the same time,
I really really long for connection with people, and not
(33:52):
in a way that's bullshit, not on way right. No,
First of all, I totally get that from you. I mean,
you like things that are real, meaningful, and you don't
like the you don't like pretense. You're like the opposite
of pretense. You know, I don't. Yeah, I tried it. Yes,
when I'm at my best. Yeah, I can see that clearly.
But I have a test here, and I'm not going
(34:13):
to say what this is a test of. But I
want to score it first before I tell you what
it's a test of. But can I read some items
to you and people at home try to guess what
it's a test ups as we play the game. Yeah, exactly,
because it's it's a construct that I've been studying for
twenty years, but many people are not aware of it
in the general population. But I think it's very important.
(34:34):
So I'm going to read each of these items and
just tell me on a scale of one to five,
one being not at all to five being I agree
very much with that statement. Okay, I can become entirely
absorbed in thinking about my personal affairs, my health, my cares,
or my relations to others. Seven. Five Okay, yeah, I gotcha.
My feelings are easily hurt by ridicule or the slightest
(34:55):
remarks of others. Five. I feel that I have enough
on my hand about worrying about other people's troubles. Three
you know, be bluntly honest with me about these things.
I well, I don't. That's I would need like follow
ups for that. Do you know what I mean? Like
I have like ah, because I do. I'm very codependent,
(35:17):
I agree, incredibly codependent. So yes, and that's correlated with
this construct, by the way, it's correlated with this. I'm
wildly codependent. Okay, Wow, Okay, we're onto something, We're onto something. Okay.
I often interpret the remarks of others in a personal way.
Five I easily, I easily become wrapped up in my
own interests and forget the existence of others. Is that
(35:39):
a three? Five? Five? Okay, I mean, okay, okay, the
right thing? You know. I was editing a video one
time and like missed a flight just I'm in the airport. Yeah.
I dislike being with a group unless I know that
I am appreciated by at least one of those present.
Five I am jealous of good looking people. I don't
(36:00):
know why that's on the scale, too, Yeah too, I don't,
I don't. It's like beautiful dummy. Yeah yeah, that's like
I don't know what that's on the scale, but it
is science, on the scientific scale. I tend to feel
humiliated when criticized. Five I wonder why other people aren't
more appreciative of my good qualities. Ten it's five pretty deep, right.
(36:24):
I am especially sensitive to success and failure. Five. I
have problems that nobody else seems to understand. Five. I
mean this sounds like you were, you've been, You've been
tapping my conversation. This is a this is a this
is a construct. I don't know what this is a
test for, but I have it. I want, I know,
(36:47):
I know. Okay, you're you're, you're, you're. By the way,
you're racing this test so far, you're raising this. I
try to avoid rejection at all costs. Five. My secret thoughts, feelings,
and actions would hard some of my friends. That might
be too dramatic. No, I mean, I'll go four. Yeah,
I tend to become involved in relationships in which I
(37:10):
alternately adore and despise the other person. Four. Even when
I am in a group of friends, I often feel
very alone and uneasy. Five I respect, I resent others
who have what I lack. That's an interesting one. I
don't resent. I don't have a ton of resentments with
(37:30):
that stuff. I'll go too on that. I see that,
by the way, I see how amazingly incurage like supportive
you are of your friends. Who are you know, like
Chris Rock and like Chappelle. I do see that. Yeah.
Chris one time said he's like, you're not competitive with Dave,
because it's I don't. There's here's what, here's the caveat.
(37:50):
I'm competitive with Dave ideologically. Like we used to do
a joke where my my dream for him on his
deathbed his final words to be Neil was right, Like,
that's I want that. But I don't think I'm funnier
than him. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I'm funnier than him.
(38:11):
We have been in situations where I think I have
the funnier idea. But I don't think I'm like this clown,
you know what I mean? Like yeah. Just to clarify
when you say ideology, like, are you talking about like
some of his like things he's coming under fire for recently,
like now ideology thirty years ago? I mean it's thirty
(38:33):
it's a thirty year argument. Gotcha, gotcha? Okay, And this
is just the last question on the test. Defeat or
disappointment usually shame or anger me, but I try not
to show it. Five. Yeah, so you score very high
on this scale. Is it covert narcissism. It's covert narcissism,
that's right, or I call it vulnerable narcissism, which that's
(38:57):
that's charitable. Yes, yes, Well, but the thing is, I
don't I've been really trying to work to help people
and say we have we all have a little bit
of this in us. I don't believe in this notion
of like, oh, there's the narcissis and I'm not the narcissist, right,
like you know, like these are really human characteristics and
kind of try to help people with their growth and
self actualization because it's what's heartbreaking about people who score
(39:20):
high on the scale. And I've written papers about this
in the scientific community from a clinical perspective, and I
can send you my papers on if you want to
read clinical implications of this. The thing is that it's
so strongly correlated with depression, and it's so strongly correlated
with with mental well well being. And this is the thing.
The difference between this and grandiose narcissism narcissm is this
(39:43):
is at the hands of the person themselves. You know,
they are causing their own suffering in so many ways.
And I know what's the what's grandiose n Who's causing that?
It's like the thumping of the chest. I am the
greatest because I'm inherently superior to others. That's great. Fold
of narcissm is different. It's some like an entitlement sort
(40:05):
of grandiose fantasies that are more have shame like involved
with it. You know. It's like I want to be great,
but I also kind of feel shameful that I want
to be great, you know, as opposed to like the
grandiose narciss has no problem saying they want to be great, right,
They're like, I'm great, you know, Yeah, I've been embarrassed
by the positive reaction I've gotten from the blocks. I've
(40:28):
not been embarrassed by the positive reaction. I've been embarrassed
by my reaction to the positive reaction, which is I
really like it, and it I really like it to
the point where I'm like, I told a friend of mine,
I'm like, I'm like a death spot in exile. And
I finally came back to my contrary and I'm like,
(40:49):
fuck you. Yeah, I see that there's like this inner
resistance to just owning your awesomeness to be very Oprah.
That sounds very Oprah, but I love Oprah, so I'm
gonna go there for a second. You know, there's kind
of this like have you been in a relationship, you
know the person is like, wow, I just adore you, Neil,
(41:10):
like you're the best, and that you have this immediate
reaction to kind of like prove that wrong in some way.
Oh that now I'm like, i I'm like, yeah, oh
you're like I am, yeah, I know, you get it,
you get gotcha. And then if if somehow something goes wrong,
they're like that illusion is broken in some way where
they're like, oh, well you're not you know, then shame
(41:33):
you'll feel out of shame, yeah, or I'll like work
hard to prove that wrong. Yeah, yeah, or I'll work
hard to improve myself where I'll like I'm it's like
I can white knuckle any relationship, like I can stay
in a relationship forever, just you know, it's their hard work. Yeah,
I don't. I don't like the label covert narcism, Like
(41:55):
I don't. I'm not trying to call you a narcissist, right,
that's like again, I really believe there's a humanity underneath
all of this, Like all of us want to be loved,
all of us want to belong, all of us want
to be accepted, and then some of us really what
you know, want to be accepted some of us like
really you know, it's it's all continuum. But I feel
I believe the inner the inner your inner world, like
(42:18):
and I had some CBT kind of questions. I wanted
to ask you as well about your inner world, you know,
and the way you think, because maybe if maybe, if
we could just care you, Yeah, if we just change
these thought patterns, like you'll be I think it'll be
so much happier, but maybe you might not be as small.
What's the treatment for COVID narcissism. Well, they're there. Well,
there is a treatment because I have a joke about
(42:39):
narcissists where uh, they have the disease, you have the
side effects and and it's I had another joke the
other day about narcism, which is a buddy mind said
it's like having turets, and I said, yeah, it's like
having turets. But the only word you yell out is me.
(43:03):
So I'm wondering, what the what the like? But that's
grandiose narcissism. Yes, Like this flavor that you have is
is it's turned within this. The harm is self harm.
The harm is not other harm. You know, that's the
that's the major difference here. You know, you are causing
(43:24):
yourself so much unnecessary suffering. What am I trying to
resolve that that the grandiose narcissist? What's the difference in
terms of like the underlying the presumed underlying cause. Yeah,
so usually with this thing is that there's like a
feeling of fragility. There's a sort of like an underlying
(43:44):
idea that you are ultimately fragile, like you can't somehow
handle being whole stop rejected, Like fear of rejection is
actually a big thing. And uh, well, sometimes I don't
want to get too clinical, but vultable narcissm is something
times correlated with borderline personality disorder, for instance, in the
psychological liturture. Now that's a more extreme clinical diagnosis, where
(44:08):
vulnem narcissm is just a personality trait that people differ on.
But the fear of rejection is like so central to
so many of these kinds of things, and shame is
so central, and usually it develops as a result of
being young and not having every time you express your
needs a parental figure would invalidate those needs. So if
(44:33):
you're a young baby, that's usually how it develops. That's
what we found, you know, is like if you're if
you're a kid and even just crying and the parents
that stopped crying right or you're like, I really want
food and the parents says, you know, well, my needs
are more important right now than you wanting food. The
child starts to develop shame for normal, healthy motivations, and
(44:54):
then when they grow up, if they have like big
ambitions in life, they feel shame somehow well, you know,
for even though they feel like they want they really
do want to be great, you know, So there's that
they kind of this residual leftover sort of shame for
being great for fully you know, standing out. Yeah, it's
(45:17):
the conflict of like wanting it and then put at
the same be like, ah, but it does. I mean
I didn't do stand up for that for a long
time because of that. So I was like, what a
low impulse, the same impulse I get when I get
these gale force approval And I'm like, oh, I love it.
But what a hungry hippo I am for wanting this,
(45:38):
you know. But meanwhile everybody wants approval. Yeah, you know,
I mean, like does Chappelle ever, I just can't imagine him,
Like he gets these critics and I feel that instead
of shame, he uses it as fuel. He's like he's
like that my next one, I'm going to like take
them on specifically, you know. Yeah, So here's some cognitive distortions.
(46:03):
I'm gonna send you a book by my friend Seth
Gillahan that's coming out soon called Mindful CBT. I'll just
send you that book because so it'll help you like
change your cognitive distortions. But like I imagine you have
black and white thinking, right, So, like I actually have
examples for each of these in terms of the way
I used to think about women, which was holding me back.
(46:24):
So if I get rejected by this woman, I'm a
total loser in life. That's so black and white, right,
It's like if you know, that's like totally you're either
a loser or you're not. You know what I mean
is that, Yeah, you're black and white thinking catastrophied. Yeah,
I mean, certainly for forty five minutes, it's a referendum.
If she doesn't like you, If that girl doesn't like you,
it's because there's something inherent in you that no woman
(46:47):
will like exactly. The other one is catastrophizing. Yeah, it's
a former catastrophizing, and it's I'm a huge catastroizer anyway.
But but yeah, Larry David used to do a and
it's not it's a joke. It's a funny anecdote, but
I think it's a based and true thing, which is
he used to be a cab driver a taxi driver
in New York and he's like, when I didn't have
(47:10):
a fair, I just thought, I'm never getting another fair
again for as long as I live. No, it's like
I'll teach a class at you know, I'm a professor.
I'll teach a class and like, I'll have like ninety
nine percent positive comments. And if one student's like he
thinks hees a lot funnier than he really is, I'd
be like, I'm never telling a joke ever again in
(47:31):
my life in class, but yeah, fine, then I want yeah, yeah,
it's like one student, right, yeah, no, I totally get it. Minimizing.
Do you undervalue positive events when they happen? Yeah, I
will minimize. I will. It's like yeah, but oh yeah,
but it I'll contextualize it in a bigger picture all
(47:52):
that stuff for sure, Or that's an aberration, like well
I did that well, but false of hopelessness, like being like,
oh well, there's no point in approaching her anyway, I'll
probably just come across as shady. You know that. That's
just an example of like just this false sense of hopelessness.
(48:12):
Personalizing attributing the outcome of a situation as solely the
result of one's actions or behaviors. She said she has
a girlfriend, she must be saying that because she really
is not interested in me and was probably repulsed by me,
you know, kind of like personalizing someone's response. Yeah, I
will have you know, when my agents are they'll be like,
do you want to try to do that? I'm like,
he hates me, don't bother. I saw him. I saw
(48:35):
him Chipotle. He was weird. And they have to go like, wait,
what now is this real? Or are you just a man?
And I'm like, I don't know. I'm just telling you.
I'm almost always right about these things. I will say
I am generally right about my suspicions of like he
doesn't respect me, and I can just you know, tell
shoulding thinking the way we want things to turn out
(48:57):
is how they ought to have turned out. This person
should have liked me. It seems so meant to be.
I mean, that's it's so core. It's not even it's
in the hardware, it's not even software. It's like I
was saying last night that that to a friend of mine,
like I'll explained something. I was like, it's so fundamentally
unfair that I can't. She's like, why do you think
(49:19):
things are going to be fair? And I was like, right,
because they're supposed to be fair. Like what's the point
of anything if it's not gonna be fair? Or when
people don't have a code, or like what are we
friends for if you're not gonna do X. She's like,
you just have to look past that stuff, And I'm like,
look past it to what? Or when people say we
(49:41):
need to like get beyond this, it's like, yeah, but
if we get beyond it, you still did that, and
I know that you did that, So what's the purpose?
What are we getting beyond it to a shittier, shallower relationship?
Oh my gosh, I wonder if we did like have
treatment for this, if you would be less f I
really am deeply curious the extent to which these things
(50:04):
are bound up. I mean, again, it's so like I said,
it's so in the in my in some some ways,
my jokes are a distortion, but most of my jokes
are just a logic test in some ways in a
lot of ways, or like a very good metaphor, which
is a form of logic. I was reading some of
the comments on Twitter about your show, and people were
(50:27):
writing they thought it was brilliant and they loved it
because of its realness and it's it's authenticity. So let's
not let's make sure we're not denigrating that aspect of
what makes makes it awesome. I think I'm good, like
very good. Yeah. Yeah, but as a COVID narcissist, you
(50:48):
know how I feel about it. I don't buy that
thing of like if you get healthy, you'll be less
fun I don't buy that, yeah, because I've gotten healthier
and funnier. Good, Well, just a couple more, because I
think we basically know you have this hard jumping to conclusions,
feeling certain of the meaning of a situation despite little
evidence to support that conclusion. Like I call that being
a white man. Yeah, uh, I called that. I used
(51:13):
to do a bit with Dave called late Arriving Instant
Expert mm hmmm, where I can walk up to it's
like being a white Man's almost like being a doctor,
where like I think, I know what's happening. I'm a
white man, you're doing it, and it's just like Okay.
I wanted to do a thing where I went to
like CBS and just told the employees they could go
(51:34):
on break and see if they did it, just as like, hey,
I'm a white man, you can go on break and
then being like all right, and then they just go
on break. I've never thought of it through that lens,
through a racial lens, but that's really interesting. You got
to where that's where the good stuff is. That's where
the good stuff is. Okay, how about the last one
(51:58):
for this because I have a longer list, but I'm
going to send you this book so we don't need
to do a complete treatment in this hour. But the
last one I have here is I feel like maybe
this is this is a real source of a lot
of your own happiness, and that's it's called outsourcing happiness,
so making outside factors the ultimate arbiter of her happiness,
Like I can't be happy in life unless I dot
(52:20):
dot dot. Yeah, obviously that's a huge I'd argue that's
a huge problem for every everybody and it's kind of
the basis of capitalism. Mm hmm, but true, that's true
consumer capitalism, consumer capitalism, yeah, yeah, consumer society. Sure. However,
whatever whatever clinical terms you want to put on. So yeah,
(52:42):
like I definitely have have had to recalibrate. It's very
hard to to make it manifest deeply. But you know,
going like I hope that I become a well known
comedian because I think then I'll be happy. So I'm
doing comedy to be happy. And I was like, you know,
there's a there's a step in here. You could just
(53:04):
omit and you could just be happy, you know what
I mean? I want to make or I won't be
happy unless I accomplish X. And it's like or again,
just be happy. Do you practice mindfulness at all? Make
the decision to be happy? You know? Do you do?
You meditate it all? Yeah? I do? And as I
was saying that, I like as a reminder, like I
(53:25):
haven't in a couple of days, and it's like, you know,
there's a lot of value to it, and I know
there is. I physically feel better in my body after
So what have you tried? You talk about this in
your in your you know you've tried some You've tried
some drugs. Yeah, I've triedoft, Zoloft, Modafanel, pros act and
(53:45):
like what's the one begins with an M. I think
I've tried probably five medications, five or six. Uh. Some worked,
some didn't, some worked and expired. Some some I took
and then I felt like it and needed any more.
I take beta blockers now when I'm going to do
a big stand up show, and I find them really helpful.
(54:07):
Like they don't take there seems to be no downside,
an all upside because I was getting panic attacks at
one point before I went on or while I was
on stage. Pretty great. I done EMDR, which I found
helpful in a way that I couldn't quite put my
finger on. But like the irony is I've tried somatic therapy.
(54:28):
The irony is when I did EMDR, my I like
trusted the therapist so much that it brought out sematic
sort of. There's a cut to me in the special
where I say, like I tried therapy and like my
shoulders like fucking like sort of pulsating. That's because it
(54:50):
was like a sematic expression because I trusted the therapist. Ketamine.
Didn't like ketamine. I know people that really like it.
It's I just didn't like it. Did it five times,
I think, and then TMS transcrenting on my netic stimulation,
which I liked a lot, and then I did a
Chinese one that's which I also liked. In terms of
(55:12):
the output. Are you aware of what exactly part of
the brain they turned down the electricity on, so to speak?
Like do you know what they targeted? I think they
activated the electricity in this area whatever, Like okay, so
you're in that latitude. Yeah, that's what's most curly with happiness. Yeah,
your left prefontal cortex. Yeah yeah yeah. And then ayahuasca
(55:36):
I did, and you saw God. Ayauasca was beautiful. Yeah.
I mean I was an atheist before and my fourth
ayahuasca I was like, oh, okay, I believe in God.
No sorry, not even four third third ceremony of believed
in God. By the ninth ceremony, I was sort of
like doing weird bodily motions that I wasn't in shar
(55:57):
in control of. I don't it's somatic. It's like, I
don't want to say spirit based, but that's my suspicion.
I have really beautiful experienced hard make no mistake, very difficult,
some really bad experiences, but in the aggregate, really amazing.
(56:20):
And then and I talked about this in the special
in blocks on Netflix five me O, d MT Bufo,
al various, too far, too much, took me five months
to recover, had a reactivation a week after I did it.
(56:40):
That lasted five months, and was I was drowning on incomprehensibility.
My mind was drowning. You don't want that. When I
when I did it, I had the Michael Pollen experience
that he did it and had the same experience. He
said it was the only one of the play medicines
he did that he couldn't figure out the value of
(57:03):
or get anything. I in some ways I agree with him.
But he went to a place that he referred to
us before the Big Bang, which is exactly where I went.
I was in a land before It wasn't a land.
I was in a consciousness before time. I didn't know anything.
(57:25):
I didn't know direction, I didn't know breathing, I didn't
know sight, I didn't know for time itself. Yeah, I
felt like I formed the first sineps, not in human history,
but just like I remember going like it was such
a crazy experience. It's hard to even talk about. I
(57:46):
couldn't talk about it because it was so traumatized for
a few months. But now I find it. It's hard
to explain because there's contradictions within it. I mean, like
where it's like I formed the first sinep, but it's like,
but how do you remember that? You know? Like, what
do you mean you form that? You clearly? I remember
thinking God's I remember hearing or experiences like God's not
here yet. Stuff like, you know, insane realm. How does
(58:11):
this stuff? Insane real? Well? Being on here on earth
knowing that I'm a part of a bigger thing is helpful.
It makes life, I mean, in some ways it might
help the the the the covert, the what do you
call generous narciss, wonderful narciss vulnerable. Yet it may help
(58:31):
that in that it makes things less important, makes things
less like do or die not unimportant, not it's not nihilism,
but it's certainly a lot of perspective. And that's helpful,
really helpful. And I'll say that I'm my brain is
(58:53):
different the way I comparence because of d MT in ayahuasca.
My brain is different, which is a huge, a huge thing. Now,
I wouldn't do it again if you offer me one
billion dollars or a bee. Wouldn't do it again. Wouldn't
like no, thank you. I cannot endure that. The thing
I went through for five months, I cannot endure. I've
(59:15):
done Iowa, I did ayahuasca two weeks ago, but the
five meo DMT I cannot personally endure. But it was
very helpful. Wow. Well, I love that. I love the
idea that it really helped you, yeah, be part of
something larger, yeah than even humans. I remember saying in
(59:36):
therapy and talk therapy like this is in my body.
I can talk about this endlessly. It's in me. And
iahuasca and DMT went into it, like got into it
like it that it like rearranged some of the stuff.
And that's huge, That is huge, That is huge. Maybe
(59:59):
it even help. Do you damper put a damper on
some of these cognitive distortions that are so prevalent in
your head? Yeah, I think that they reduced them, for sure,
they made them less, they made them less potent, potent. Yeah,
they're certainly there, and they're certainly like the headline, but
they're not the nine to eleven headline America attacked. They're
(01:00:24):
like Dow down seven hundred points. And that's exactly what
mindful CBT is, which is a new form of CBT
that combines the best of mindfulness as well as the
best of what we know about CBT. So you can
actually just yeah, somebody suggested mindfulness last night? Love it mindful?
They did? Did they suggest mindful CBT specifically or just mine? Now? Okay,
(01:00:45):
but CBT when I heard, when I read that that
list of cognitive distortions. It was like, oh, say no more. Yeah,
And that's the thing that a lot of people are
saying about this, the my Blox thing is like people
are like, I felt like you, Like you said exactly
the way I feel because it's like, there's only so
(01:01:06):
many programs that we have mm hm as you you know,
it's kind of like what your job is, yeah, is
to analyze and assess what program people are running and
try to that's right, figure out a way for them
to either stop it or optimize it. That's right. Well,
you're such an interesting cat. You obviously are incredibly successful,
(01:01:28):
like having a Netflix special too. You've had two Netflix specials,
and all the work you've done writing is is so
impressive that you you clearly deserve the more swagger. But
what's interesting about you is that swagger would not be
authentic to who you are, because you do kind of
you don't like pretense and you don't like you know,
(01:01:48):
there's a certain personality of you that in a way,
just the more you embrace that, the more people actually
like you. So you're so you're so interesting. The swagger, Well,
well yeah, you could use more slagger. I could talk
about this endlessly, but it's people because of the way
people heard about me or learned about me is I
(01:02:11):
was Dave's partner, right right, That's how most people think
of me. First learned about me, and as Dave's partner.
The first thought is, there's no fucking way you wrote anything.
So when I demand they acknowledged that I wrote anything,
or sort of carry myself like I did the work
that I did, do they don't. People resent it and like,
(01:02:37):
really ben like slag me, and they it becomes a
racial thing pretty quickly, and like I'm cultural vulturing and
it's like Dave asked me to do the show, so
like that, I'm cultural vulturing and I'm pretending to be
all these things whatever. So I have to kind of
play it small in that regard because people were like,
(01:03:00):
you're so cocky. I'm like, okay, all right, I don't know,
so so I have to play it small, even though
I resent them saying that because it's a sign of
their disrespect, Like you you you're cocky and you shouldn't be.
It's like, okay, they call confident acknowledging things you've done,
(01:03:22):
or cocky is like I did this thing. Stop talking
about it. Okay, you're going to bring it up, but okay,
I have a lot of defensive obviously, no, I hear you.
This is by the way, that's I mean, that's a
fascinating question. Who deserves to be cocky? I mean no, Look,
that brings up a lot of other things. But I
don't think anyone who watches your documentary could possibly leave
(01:03:42):
leave it not documentary, listen to me, watch your special
blocks could possibly leave it thinking you're cocky like you
lay out. But that's the point of it, The point
of these specials, The reason I do these, where I'm revealing,
is because I read to people as cocky in an
(01:04:05):
undeserved way. Yeah, cold, superior or bored or like flat affect.
So part of it is specifically neutralizing that. Like where
I'm going like, not only am I not cocky? Let
me bring you into my experience. Yeah, Well, wouldn't it
(01:04:29):
be nice to get to a point some day in
your career where you could just kill it comedically like
you did the first three fourths without feeling any need
for apology. I'm gonna go it's for the first four fifths. Yeah,
but you kill the whole thing and then you drop
the mic and you finally feel complete. Do you know
what I mean? Like, I feel like that's what we
need to get you at some days, a point where
(01:04:50):
you don't feel a need to less to lessen to
yourself at all, or to diminish yourself at all. Yeah. Yeah,
I I hope I'm there, you too, you know me too. Yeah,
well let's leave. Let's leave on that note. It really
really an honor to talk to you, Neil, and I
(01:05:11):
wish you all the best, please yeah, and uh and
I'll send you some books and stuff I I I
dare you. Yeah, yeah, well you've got it. Thank you.
Thanks for the help, Brouh, Thank you, thanks for listening
to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like
(01:05:34):
to react in some way to something you heard, I
encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology
podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast.
We also put up some videos of some episodes on
our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check
that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of
the show, and tune in next time for more on
the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.
The world is telling us all one thing right, and
it's not true. It's just the world is lying and
or manipulating us, and comedy gives us a chance to
be like may I, may I give my rebuttal. Hello,
(00:24):
and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Neil
Brennan on the show. Neil is a director, writer, actor,
and comedian most known for co creating and co writing
the Comedy Central series Chappelle Show with Dave Chappelle and
cult movie classic Half Bait. Neil received three Emmy nominations
for Chappelle's Show, one for directing and the other two
(00:47):
for writing and producing. He has also performed stand up
on Last Call with Carson Dally, Late Night with Jimmy,
Fallon Lopez Tonight, and Conan. Recently, his comedy special called
Blocks was released on Netflix. In this episode, I talked
to Neil Brennan about his comedy and upbringing. As early
as eight years old, Neil has been interested in comedy
(01:07):
for its fairness. He reveals who his early influences were
and what it was like working with Dave Chappelle. In
this episode, I also gave Neil some impromptu psychological tests
to help us both understand more about his unique mind.
We also touch on the topics of relationships, mindfulness, cognitive distortions,
and neurodiversity. This was a really fun episode. It was
(01:29):
great chatting with Neil. I really like his comedy, but
I also really like his humanity and his vulnerability. When
I watched his Netflix special, I was especially touched by
his journey to overcome depression, and I reached out to
him because I really wanted to help him. I hope
you enjoyed this episode. So without further ado, I'll bring
you Neil Brennan. Mister Neil, how you doing good. I'm
(01:50):
doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. As you know.
I saw your recent Netflix special Blocks and was really
deeply touched by it, and you know, I'm like laughing
so hard for like three fourths of it, and then
you know, you get really real, you know, and the
whole sort of tone change there at the end, right,
(02:10):
and it's like I went from like to like oh shit,
you know, like what the fuck I'm a therapist and
this is upsetting. Yeah no, but I mean talk about,
you know, being able to manipulate your viewer's emotions, right,
like to kind of really you know, I really empathized
for you, and so I really appreciate talking today, and
I don't want to just jump into the deep end.
(02:31):
I was hoping we could kind of start and to
trace kind of like the development of Neil Brennan and
go back as early as possible. I know you said
at one point that you've kind of felt like an
odd ball your entire life. Is that as early as
you can remember that you've kind of felt that way.
I think, looking back, I always think I felt like
an odd ball and felt like this is not a
(02:51):
good system. That was always the feeling I had where
I was like it born into my family and I
was always kind of like, this doesn't seem to be
right even I have like I have a tiny sample size,
and this seems like incorrect somehow. It's a public school. No, no,
I'm not talking about school. I'm talking about my family.
(03:14):
Oh they're talking about like being three or four, gotcha? Gotcha? Yeah, okay,
and being like this doesn't seem like the best way
to go about whatever we're trying to do here. So
I used to cry like all the time, like like ill,
every they made it, there was a joke like that
I had a streak going where I cried every day
and then they would like make they'd go like, we're
(03:35):
gonna make you cry. If we don't, you didn't, you
didn't know, you didn't cry today, we gotta make your crect.
It was just cold. I'm one of ten kids. I
don't know if that's clear. I was gonna bring that up, actually,
so yeah, let me like, let me lay the pipe,
let me lay, let me lay it out a little bit.
My parents were born in nineteen thirty. That's my dad.
He's one of thirteen. He had a twin my dad,
(03:57):
and the twin died, and prior to his death, my
grandmother was very proud of her twins. And then my
dad's twin died and my grandmother, in true Catholic Irish
Catholic form, said I'll never be proud of anything again
as long as I live. Like God had punished her.
So I think she took it out of my dad,
and then he carried that with him and my mom's mom.
(04:21):
My mom was born in thirty three to a family
of four, and her mom died when she was like
a toddler. And back then there was no They didn't
even pretend men could raise kids on their own. So
my mother and her sisters were all split up, and
(04:41):
so she kind of came from from that. So my
parents met and tried to make a go of it,
and neither of them were from especially as evidenced by
Sea above what I just said, not from very solid foundations,
and I I think they were like, well, if we
keep having kids, maybe it'll be it'll get better. And
(05:04):
they were Catholics, so they had to keep having kids
and it just was chaos. You know, it was chaos
headed by two people who didn't know a ton about
how to do it. And I was the youngest. Yeah,
so you're the youngest. And I have actually been wondering
to what extent you felt like you had to, because
there's all the psychological research that when you're in a
big family like that, you can kind of feel a
(05:25):
sense of like you need to compete to like, for
attention and things like that. And I don't know if
that similar feelings you feel in the comedy field you
know today, you know, stem somewhat from some of those
early kind of things. I'm competitive for sure. I mean
I want to be good at my job. I want
to be high status like, you know, I think that's
(05:48):
any human being or most human beings. I mean, I
have another brothers who's a comedian, So a fifth of
my family, a fifth of ten people are comedians, so
something there's got to be something there. But there's all
so something about like I don't know where's funny. So
in terms of like psychologically what am I doing? Obviously
I like the approval, I like the attention, and but
(06:09):
there's also a big part of me that wants comedy
to be more of like I want it to be
more cohesion and more camaraderie and more of a like,
we're all in this together kind of thing, which I
get disappointed when it's not. I don't know if it's
a contradiction contradiction exactly, but maybe. And and also, comedy
is fair. That's the thing I like about comedy is
(06:31):
it's like it's fair. There's not there's some level of
arbitrariness to it. But for the most part, if you
have a good premise and you write it well and
you perform it well, it's gonna work. You know, you
grew up my father was an alcoholic, and that's not fair.
It's entirely random and arbitrary. So so that's the that's
(06:56):
the that's my That's the thing I like about comedy
is it's like this shit's fair. It just he does
seem like a lot of comedy is is bound up
about being true about not suffering, but maybe like common suffering.
Everyone can kind of resonate with something you just don't
tend to find that. The best or the most poper
comedians are like that that super positive happiness persona, you know,
(07:21):
like I'm just like going up in the stage and
be like everyone you know, like, but so let's all
be happy. It's not useful. That's separate. It's that's a
separate genre. That's that's hallmark, you know. That's not what
comedy's for. Comedy is for Like I mean, people say,
like the job of the comedian. I love when people
(07:41):
say the job of the comedian because I've been in
comedy for thirty years. I've never heard what the job is.
The world is telling us all one thing right, and
it's not true. It's just the world is lying and
or manipulating us, and comedy gives us a chance to
be like, may I give my rebuttal marriage? Marriage? May
(08:04):
I speak quickly or like men and women women, can
I say something very quickly? Or religion, do you mind
if I you know, with all due respect, dogs, you know,
or whatever your thing is. So being optimistic and positive
about it is not not it wouldn't be. I mean,
(08:26):
there is a way to do comedy that's very positive,
but it's in some ways it's still negative. Yeah. No,
I completely agree. I mean there's something inherently funnier about
like if I came up and the first thing and
I was like, hey, when I got some news for you,
like we're all not gonna be okay, you know, there's
something somehow funnier about that than like just come out
Mark Mark Maren has one of the greatest jokes. I
(08:47):
can't believe how great a joke it is. He said,
he's been doing it recently. He said, Look, I don't
I don't want to seem negative, but I don't think
anything's ever gonna get better ever again. Yeah, And there's
something funny about that in that context. It crush it.
But he's talking about society. He's talking about like the earth. Yeah,
(09:10):
and it's so broad. Yeah, and it should be like,
you know, feel people going like the fuck is wrong?
With this guy. But it's so true that people have
to laugh. No, I hear you. I'd like to just
stay on your childhood for a little bit longer because
I'm am a psychologist. So I was wondering, like what
when were you? When did you first discover you were funny?
(09:30):
Like I remember personally, you know, I was sent to
attention a lot because I was just making the kids
laugh because like I was in special ed and like
that was like my way of acting out, Like was
it was it a way of acting out for you
at all? In any way, It's always been an equalizer
to me. It's rarely about something else, you know what
I mean. It's not like my parents are not getting
(09:55):
along so I'm gonna take my dick out at dinner.
It was ever that. It just was never that. It
was more about for me. It was more about like
logic and like wait, it was more just like if
I may. It was always that to me, And and
it was like because I felt like the system that
(10:16):
I was I found myself in was was like broken
and just like this is wrong. It was always that.
It was always like hmmm, it's the face I make
in the blocks fro I'm like a friend of mine
calls it Neil Brennan face where it's like it's like
the fuck, but it's always been that. But teachers loved you.
Teachers did like me. I mean when I tried, the
(10:38):
problem was I uh, I wish I could go to
school now, like I read all the time. I'm studious
and I'm intelligent and stuff and like, but I was
not then. I just was too disorganized, I think emotionally.
Can you give me any examples, like do you have
memories in your head of being like five, six, seven
years old and making everyone laugh around you? Yeah? I
remember getting a lap that was so big I was
(11:02):
embarrassed and I was probably eight nine. Maybe do you
remember what the joke was. I just did an impression
of somebody and it was like it was it just crushed.
So yeah, who are some of your earliest comedic influences.
Brian Reagan. I've never heard Brian Reagan. I saw Brian
(11:22):
Reagan like kill and because my brother's comedian, I got
to go to the comedy clubs when I was in
high school, and I saw Brian Reagan at the Improv
in probably nineteen eighty eight and killing incredibly funny. I mean,
so prior Carlin, those kinds of guys didn't really they
didn't really move me until I was, you know, in
(11:45):
my twenties. But Bill Hicks was really big for me.
Like I saw him live, I made Chappelle come see
him live in ninety two. David Tel friend of my brothers,
Chris Rock really big. I mean in terms of me,
I guess I'm like in terms of people who weren't Dave.
So yeah. So those would be my early early influences.
(12:09):
I guess, yeah, influence is the right word. Hicks would
probably be the number one of those. This is great,
It is amazing. Is there any other can you think
of any other sort of aspects of your odd ball
being that you think may have contributed to your comedic genius?
Do you like when I when I describe it as
comedic genius? I think there's no other There's no other
way to describe it, right, Let's be honest, There's simply
(12:30):
no other word for it. Yeah, fud flattery, ego a
little bit, you know, for the sake of the cover.
You didn't see the show. I don't believe that about myself.
I just never feel like huh and I will say
in comedy, I feel like I belong. But there's you know,
but there's always in this show, there's an anecdote about
(12:52):
people reminded me like not at the level you think,
or not at the way you think, and not the
and even the thing where I was a writer and
all writers thought you seem like more of a comedian.
Comedians are like more of a writer, like there's it's
it's uh. I don't have a lot of peers in
terms of like the my arc, the arc of my career.
I definitely want to get into that more, especially when
(13:13):
I give you like a test, as I'm going to
give you a test a little bit later. I guess
I'm thinking more oddball in the sense of like the
neurodiversity movement, like were you ever diagnosed with like ADHD?
Or like are you an autism spectrum? No, I've never
been diagnosed with any never been diagnosed with anything any
and no, and I mean depression obviously, but like ADHD,
(13:36):
I don't think I don't have an access of energy.
And I've had a lot of people diagnose me over
Instagram in the last week with what with what, which
I actually kind of think is fun and funny and
you like you reached out. This is the best part
of my doing a Netflix special is all the free treatment.
What have people been you with? ADHD, autism? Those are
(14:01):
the two big ones, autism being the number one answer. Gotcha? Okay.
I didn't bring those up necessarily because I thought that
they applied to you. Just to be clear, I would
be happy if they did. Someone was. I did Joe
Rogan three or four months ago, and a lady was like,
you have you are on the spectrum and I was
like all right. And she goes take this test and
(14:21):
I passed or whatever, and she's like, you are Aspergracy
or whatever. And I was like, oh, lady, I'll take
it again like I and I passed again. There I'd
be happy. I would be I'd be totally satisfied if
there was a very easy explanation and or modality of
(14:42):
treatment that I can do to make myself feel differently
than how I generally feel happy, like clearly, like the
whole show is kind of about that. Yeah, no, I understand,
I understand I have some hypotheses, but we get that
a little bit later into that. But I wanted to
understand and go back to like when you first met Chappelle,
you were a doorman, is that right? And you were
(15:04):
like eighteen years old or something. Yes, I was doorman
and I was going to NYU Film school. He was eighteen.
He had moved from DC to New York to be
a comedian. And I moved from Philly to to New
York to go to n YU for film school. And
uh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah hunh me and mine
and we became friends and and kind of we would
(15:28):
we would just talk about comedy and movies and stuff,
and we felt like, or I certainly I felt like
we could, you know, do something good. So then I
started writing for other TV shows and then uh and
I would he would. We would talk about jokes for
his act, like maybe say this or say that, and
(15:49):
then I and then and then we wrote them movie
half Baked together, like five years later we were twenty three. Now,
look I loved Half Bait, you know. And yeah, you're
the right. A still love have Baked? Thank you? Like
I love it now? Right? You know? I love it? No, no, no, no,
I'm not saying I didn't like it then, but I
feel like I discovered it later in my life. Let
(16:09):
me save this. Let me save this first. Oh that's funny.
I mean, look, there are here's what I'll say about it.
There are sequences and half Baked that you can watch
and go, these guys are maybe going to do a
great sketch show. That's cool. That would be my take
on it. So the seeds that greatness was there in it.
You can see it. Yeah, I think like the sequence
where he goes on a date and there's that that
(16:31):
the dollars in the corner, and then I think this
stuff would Sir Smoke a Lot where Dave's talking to
himself in essence, like that was the day where it
was like, looking back, we were very like I played
Sir Smoke a lot and he was himself and then
I was him and he was the smoke a lot.
Like it was just very like no one was there
(16:52):
but us. Yeah, I see that. It was just you
know what I mean, Like I it became and it
was like and then tipped fooge And as you're filming it,
I was like, I think I know how to cut
this as a as like a as a with John Cutts,
but I'm aware that it was like a really tough
time for you, Like when that came out and sort
(17:12):
of the initial reception and right for like a year
or so after it came out was that was not
a tough time for you, just a bad just a rejection,
just like a rebuke, you know, and and a setback
career wise, because you know, it was kind of like
you're on your way and it was kind of sit out.
But having said that, I spent a couple of years
writing with a guy named Mike Sure, who's a great writer,
(17:35):
and we wrote a couple of movies that didn't get made.
But it was a fun That was just a fun
period for me. But you lost touch with Dave for
a little bit after a half bank, right, you lost
touch with Dave? Yeah, not like well I didn't have
his number. We just kind of like drifted. We kind
of drifted a little. I think there should be half
big two in that. They're making it right now. Actually,
(17:58):
I just want to say that I want to put
that in the universe, and I'm really glad to hear
that being made. Apparently they just finished filming. I mean,
did you did you write it all for it? You
did that? You manifested that. I just manifested that ship.
Just now, wait, so did you write you don't even
believe in manifestation? You did it? Wait, now, how do
you know I don't believe in manifestations. I'm a scientist
(18:20):
because I don't. I think that goes against your Yeah,
I think it goes against your So you assume that
goes against Anthos. No, I actually believe a lot in
certain karma Buddhist principles. But anyway we can. It's a
whole other conversation. But no, that's that's amazing. So what
was your contribution to Half Baked two? Nothing? Literally? Nothing? Okay,
(18:41):
so you don't even have like a how like nostalgic
would that be? For like if you had a walk
on scene, you know, like Stephen King does in all
his movies. I'm in Half Baked one. I don't know.
They just didn't ask interesting. Well, I look forward to
seeing that the trauma lost an uncertainty of our world
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(19:01):
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(19:22):
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(19:45):
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(20:30):
now back to the show. Okay, so you co created
and co wrote Chappelle's Show. Some people miss label that.
They call it the Chappelle Show, right, like it's Chappelle's Show.
And that was just obviously wildly successful and made a
huge cultural I mean, it's part of the cultural consciousness.
(20:50):
You know, so much of so many of those skits
and things of that nature. Was it season three? Like
Dave decided he just was going to leave that? What
was that like for you personally? When that show stopped?
You didn't even I believe you weren't even notified that
it was going to be that he was out. Yes,
I was not notified. My focus is on you, So
I'm curious what I was like for you. That was
(21:12):
a very, very very bad period of my life. Arguably,
I wouldn't even say arguably, I would say it was
the worst period of my life. The biggest shock, set back, pain, confusion, anguish,
et cetera, et cetera. You know, it was reliant on
somebody who changed their mind, and it was sort of
(21:34):
it was obviously jarring and obviously like the financial stuff,
that's whatever, fine. It was more about kind of before
it where the where I kind of got low balled
negotiation wise, and and it just kind of sucked because
I felt like I made this big contribution and they
manipulated it to where they didn't have to pay me,
(21:57):
and Dave kind of supported them in it and just sucked.
I'm really sorry to hear that. Yeah, yeah, I mean
it just sucks. So yeah, I mean I appreciate it
in some ways. It's not like I didn't. Yeah, just
kind of I just felt like devalued and then I
would say devalued and then just sort of like basic lifestyle.
(22:20):
It was kind of like a death in all honesty,
and it was three bad years. I would say emotionally.
Were you mad at Deve? Yeah? Yeah. You know, life
is so interesting how we can have these like ups
and downs. We can like kind of feel like we're
on top of the world and then just like boom,
we're like we don't feel that way. I mean, that
(22:42):
must have been an incredible feeling those those first couple
of years, though, when I mean, I'd love to hear
a little bit about, you know, the positive aspect of that.
What was that like to be really on top of
the world. I mean, that was the most popular comedy
show on TV at the time. I believe I was
on Cable, Yeah, on Cable, Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean,
the thing I loved about the show and this speaks
(23:04):
that thing of like the camaraderie that I'm seeking, And
I really love writing with Dave. I really loved directing it.
I really loved coming to ideas. I really loved producing.
I loved the sort of tiny the absolute control over
this thing, and not control for like control's sake, control because,
(23:27):
like I because Half Baked had kind of been like
we kind of got mauled because we were so young,
we were able to like once we did Chappell's show
was more like, I know what our role on the
show needs to be, and it's going to be where
it's every fabric, every lens, every cast, it's all coming
(23:48):
through us. But I also really always felt very strong
connection with Dave creatively from the time we're eighteen, and
it was very fun to just argue and come with
ideas and improve or reject and all that stuff going
both ways. And it came from a very deep I
(24:09):
felt like because Dave wasn't that popular, I felt a
a little responsible because he wrote half Big. He asked
me to write hap Bike with him, and I feel like,
I think, like, psychologically, I feel like I fucked that
up for him, even though that's not true, but like
feel that way. And there was like an anger to
it that was great, you know, like that thing of
(24:33):
I'm I'm Davis said in the past like he's never
met someone more obsessed with justice than me and obsessed
with fairness. So it's a really good It was just
a great outlet. May be spectrum, Oh yeah, logic good man, hmmm,
(24:54):
let's do it, because like you're saying some things here,
like when you were younger as orl as you can remember,
or you were kind of you're probably you know what.
I find a lot about people not to the spectrum,
because and I love people not to the inspectrum. By
the way, I help a lot of kids who are geniuses.
That's one of my jobs helping kids. They're called twice
exceptional kids. But something about a lot of them is
(25:17):
that they're unintentionally funny because they are no bullshit. You know,
they really like to cut all of the fata and
they just say, they just say what they perceive. And
they also can't stand logical inconsistency. This is something that
it sounds like when you were really young that drove
you crazy. Yeah. My brain is very organized. Yeah, and
(25:39):
if I see a logical and consistently I'll be like what, Yeah,
but now you have to call it. You said that.
Now you're saying that like that is a direct contradict
and people don't like it. Like that's the thing that people,
especially in relationships with women. It's like they don't. I
had a woman's fairly recently. I didn't come here to
(26:02):
be consistent and it's like, well I did, But that's funny,
that's I mean, you know, it's that's kind of funny. Yeah, yeah, no,
of course it's funny. Yeah. Human humans aren't. I mean,
that's just not what humans are, you know, and you're
kind of we contain multitudes. I mean, that's the funny
(26:22):
thing about the that that aphorism, that it's from a
Walt Living poem, We contain multitudes. It sounds like it's
this lofty thing. He's basically just going, it's the line
before it is like, do I contradict myself? Yeah? I
contain multitudes? You know what I mean? Like he's like, hey,
what do you know? It's one of my favorite quotes.
(26:42):
It's it. Yeah, it's amazing. I didn't. I didn't realize
the line before until recently. Oh nice, Yes, that quote
opens up my book Wire to Create actually because we
it describes the creative person to a t, you know,
so wow, you actually open up the can of worms
of relate your relationships. And you also you also said, like,
(27:05):
you know, people don't like it that I like logical concy.
That's another theme right about you, is that there are
a lot of things people don't like from your perception
because you you combine lots of things that usually you
don't see all correlated in a single human or put
another way, put another way, and a lot of people
you do things you do see things correlated, but with you,
(27:25):
you break the correlational structure. So you'll be vegan, but
you're not a big drinker. You'll you know, try ayahuasca,
but we'ed, you know, like you're like, I don't I
stay away from weed. You know, like there are lots
of these kind of I can keep going down the list.
You know. Is this resonating with you at all? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
yeah no, that's that's exactly right. Like I do embody
(27:46):
a lot of contradictions in a way that they're they're
they're I don't want to say they're anti social, but
they're they're not They're not like great for social cohesion.
I mean, just not drinking is not eating meat. One
of the impetuses for the show is is that I
(28:07):
was in therapy and I was, you know what, my
female therapist, and she was like said something about relationships.
I was like about finding somebody. I was like, listen
to me. I don't drink, I don't really smoke weed,
I don't eat meat. I work at night. All of
my friends are like super genius, hilarious people, and and
(28:33):
I'm generally disagreeable as a person. It's like I just
have it like that. It just gets smaller and smaller
and smaller and small and smaller and smaller. Like my
the pond. I can fish in something that strikes me
about you, was like, you're almost too honest about yourself
and about things. It's almost like a reality matters so
(28:57):
much to you that I think you shoot yourself in
the sometimes by allowing a certain magic and illusion, a
positive illusion, to emerge. And you know, in relationships, so
much of relationships really is having an illusion that you're
That's what love is, you know, the love emotion. My
colleague Stephen Pinker says that love is a doomsday device
(29:20):
because the emotional love means that when the hotter person
moves in next door, you don't immediately move on to
them because you're so in love. You're so irrationally building
them up on a pedestal because of love that it's
actually evolved as a doomsday device. That's Stephen Pinker's the
notion in how the mind works. Yeah, I feel like
you're like, no, no illusions, you know what I mean.
(29:43):
But you know what's interesting is I have no illusions
and yet I have total dysmorphia about my life and
position in the world. You do, you really do? Because
like you killed it in blocks and I genuinely mean that.
I'm not trying to build up your goal, but I
was dying of laughter, right, and then and then you're
(30:04):
almost like, by the way, stop laughing, I really do suck.
And you didn't say that. You didn't say that, but
it's sort of like, but you're not wrong. Yeah, yeah,
I feel like you do that in a lot of
areas of your life. Probably. I have a joke that
I did with a friend of mine which is, like,
my life is amazing, if I could only experience it
for one minute, if I could really like it, Like
(30:27):
I know how fortunate I am talent wise at this point,
Like I make a great living. I've made a great
living for a long time. I know the some of
the most important people in the world I have access.
I like, there's I had. There's so few areas in
which I'm not doing well. And yet I somehow my
(30:54):
brain is like programmed to look at the negative. Yeah,
I look it. I love your I can't wait to
hear these fucking hypothesis. Yes, yes, I think let's just
jump into that and we can return to other on
greig Worms like relationship all that stuff. But there's morphia
as a huge thing, dude. The dys morphia is a
(31:16):
huge thing about Like it's like reality distortion in a
negative way. It's like the opposite of the Steve Jobs thing,
and it's like I wake up with it, you know,
I have a hypothesis and just want to just just
throw this out here because it's probably something you've never
thought of. So well, I'm going to start with a
(31:37):
quote by the comedian Greg Giraldo. Do you know who
that is? Greg? Yeah? Mine? Yeah, amazing, amazing. Hasn't he
passed away? Yeah, he's been. He's been dead for a
long time, so may he rest in peace. But he said,
I feel like I'm the piece of shit at the
center of the universe. Now, that's a quote of his,
and I noticed that characteristic in a lot of comedians.
(31:59):
I like with you, Yes, there is a neurotic sort
of do you feel like you're kind of broken at
your core? In a way? On the one hand, is
that true? Like how do you feel at the core
of you? What's at the core of Neil? At my core?
I don't think I'm wrong until everyone tells me I'm wrong.
(32:19):
Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I
don't all these points of view. I'm like, why do
you drink? Like why would you do this to your
body to your like, like, why would society promote this
thing that kills you know, there's thirty thousand DUIs a year.
There's half of crime is committed when people are drunk. Like,
the stats are horrible. It ruins your personal health, ruins relationship.
(32:44):
Just none of it's good and people can't stop doing it.
I like am aware of this ruin. It kind of
like was a huge problem in my childhood for my
dad was an alcoholic. So I think I'm right, like, well,
everyone's going to agree with me on this, and then
they don't. They go like, no, fuck you, and I'm like, huh,
fuck me, Okay, let's move on to meet And then
(33:08):
I go that no fuck you, we love me, Okay,
let's go and I just go down the line too,
and then I'm just left by myself. Yeah, I don't
think I'm like right in a way that's like amazing
and incredible. I just it's more just like what it's
the same basic idea I had with as in my family,
(33:31):
which is like, what, this doesn't seem great. I have
a joke. It's or not even a joker, but it's like,
you know what. My favorite part of self loathing is
the self part. It's like it's similar to the Giraldo
thing like that. But I but at the same time,
I really really long for connection with people, and not
(33:52):
in a way that's bullshit, not on way right. No,
First of all, I totally get that from you. I mean,
you like things that are real, meaningful, and you don't
like the you don't like pretense. You're like the opposite
of pretense. You know, I don't. Yeah, I tried it. Yes,
when I'm at my best. Yeah, I can see that clearly.
But I have a test here, and I'm not going
(34:13):
to say what this is a test of. But I
want to score it first before I tell you what
it's a test of. But can I read some items
to you and people at home try to guess what
it's a test ups as we play the game. Yeah, exactly,
because it's it's a construct that I've been studying for
twenty years, but many people are not aware of it
in the general population. But I think it's very important.
(34:34):
So I'm going to read each of these items and
just tell me on a scale of one to five,
one being not at all to five being I agree
very much with that statement. Okay, I can become entirely
absorbed in thinking about my personal affairs, my health, my cares,
or my relations to others. Seven. Five Okay, yeah, I gotcha.
My feelings are easily hurt by ridicule or the slightest
(34:55):
remarks of others. Five. I feel that I have enough
on my hand about worrying about other people's troubles. Three
you know, be bluntly honest with me about these things.
I well, I don't. That's I would need like follow
ups for that. Do you know what I mean? Like
I have like ah, because I do. I'm very codependent,
(35:17):
I agree, incredibly codependent. So yes, and that's correlated with
this construct, by the way, it's correlated with this. I'm
wildly codependent. Okay, Wow, Okay, we're onto something, We're onto something. Okay.
I often interpret the remarks of others in a personal way.
Five I easily, I easily become wrapped up in my
own interests and forget the existence of others. Is that
(35:39):
a three? Five? Five? Okay, I mean, okay, okay, the
right thing? You know. I was editing a video one
time and like missed a flight just I'm in the airport. Yeah.
I dislike being with a group unless I know that
I am appreciated by at least one of those present.
Five I am jealous of good looking people. I don't
(36:00):
know why that's on the scale, too, Yeah too, I don't,
I don't. It's like beautiful dummy. Yeah yeah, that's like
I don't know what that's on the scale, but it
is science, on the scientific scale. I tend to feel
humiliated when criticized. Five I wonder why other people aren't
more appreciative of my good qualities. Ten it's five pretty deep, right.
(36:24):
I am especially sensitive to success and failure. Five. I
have problems that nobody else seems to understand. Five. I
mean this sounds like you were, you've been, You've been
tapping my conversation. This is a this is a this
is a construct. I don't know what this is a
test for, but I have it. I want, I know,
(36:47):
I know. Okay, you're you're, you're, you're. By the way,
you're racing this test so far, you're raising this. I
try to avoid rejection at all costs. Five. My secret thoughts, feelings,
and actions would hard some of my friends. That might
be too dramatic. No, I mean, I'll go four. Yeah,
I tend to become involved in relationships in which I
(37:10):
alternately adore and despise the other person. Four. Even when
I am in a group of friends, I often feel
very alone and uneasy. Five I respect, I resent others
who have what I lack. That's an interesting one. I
don't resent. I don't have a ton of resentments with
(37:30):
that stuff. I'll go too on that. I see that,
by the way, I see how amazingly incurage like supportive
you are of your friends. Who are you know, like
Chris Rock and like Chappelle. I do see that. Yeah.
Chris one time said he's like, you're not competitive with Dave,
because it's I don't. There's here's what, here's the caveat.
(37:50):
I'm competitive with Dave ideologically. Like we used to do
a joke where my my dream for him on his
deathbed his final words to be Neil was right, Like,
that's I want that. But I don't think I'm funnier
than him. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I'm funnier than him.
(38:11):
We have been in situations where I think I have
the funnier idea. But I don't think I'm like this clown,
you know what I mean? Like yeah. Just to clarify
when you say ideology, like, are you talking about like
some of his like things he's coming under fire for recently,
like now ideology thirty years ago? I mean it's thirty
(38:33):
it's a thirty year argument. Gotcha, gotcha? Okay, And this
is just the last question on the test. Defeat or
disappointment usually shame or anger me, but I try not
to show it. Five. Yeah, so you score very high
on this scale. Is it covert narcissism. It's covert narcissism,
that's right, or I call it vulnerable narcissism, which that's
(38:57):
that's charitable. Yes, yes, Well, but the thing is, I
don't I've been really trying to work to help people
and say we have we all have a little bit
of this in us. I don't believe in this notion
of like, oh, there's the narcissis and I'm not the narcissist, right,
like you know, like these are really human characteristics and
kind of try to help people with their growth and
self actualization because it's what's heartbreaking about people who score
(39:20):
high on the scale. And I've written papers about this
in the scientific community from a clinical perspective, and I
can send you my papers on if you want to
read clinical implications of this. The thing is that it's
so strongly correlated with depression, and it's so strongly correlated
with with mental well well being. And this is the thing.
The difference between this and grandiose narcissism narcissm is this
(39:43):
is at the hands of the person themselves. You know,
they are causing their own suffering in so many ways.
And I know what's the what's grandiose n Who's causing that?
It's like the thumping of the chest. I am the
greatest because I'm inherently superior to others. That's great. Fold
of narcissm is different. It's some like an entitlement sort
(40:05):
of grandiose fantasies that are more have shame like involved
with it. You know. It's like I want to be great,
but I also kind of feel shameful that I want
to be great, you know, as opposed to like the
grandiose narciss has no problem saying they want to be great, right,
They're like, I'm great, you know, Yeah, I've been embarrassed
by the positive reaction I've gotten from the blocks. I've
(40:28):
not been embarrassed by the positive reaction. I've been embarrassed
by my reaction to the positive reaction, which is I
really like it, and it I really like it to
the point where I'm like, I told a friend of mine,
I'm like, I'm like a death spot in exile. And
I finally came back to my contrary and I'm like,
(40:49):
fuck you. Yeah, I see that there's like this inner
resistance to just owning your awesomeness to be very Oprah.
That sounds very Oprah, but I love Oprah, so I'm
gonna go there for a second. You know, there's kind
of this like have you been in a relationship, you
know the person is like, wow, I just adore you, Neil,
(41:10):
like you're the best, and that you have this immediate
reaction to kind of like prove that wrong in some way.
Oh that now I'm like, i I'm like, yeah, oh
you're like I am, yeah, I know, you get it,
you get gotcha. And then if if somehow something goes wrong,
they're like that illusion is broken in some way where
they're like, oh, well you're not you know, then shame
(41:33):
you'll feel out of shame, yeah, or I'll like work
hard to prove that wrong. Yeah, yeah, or I'll work
hard to improve myself where I'll like I'm it's like
I can white knuckle any relationship, like I can stay
in a relationship forever, just you know, it's their hard work. Yeah,
I don't. I don't like the label covert narcism, Like
(41:55):
I don't. I'm not trying to call you a narcissist, right,
that's like again, I really believe there's a humanity underneath
all of this, Like all of us want to be loved,
all of us want to belong, all of us want
to be accepted, and then some of us really what
you know, want to be accepted some of us like
really you know, it's it's all continuum. But I feel
I believe the inner the inner your inner world, like
(42:18):
and I had some CBT kind of questions. I wanted
to ask you as well about your inner world, you know,
and the way you think, because maybe if maybe, if
we could just care you, Yeah, if we just change
these thought patterns, like you'll be I think it'll be
so much happier, but maybe you might not be as small.
What's the treatment for COVID narcissism. Well, they're there. Well,
there is a treatment because I have a joke about
(42:39):
narcissists where uh, they have the disease, you have the
side effects and and it's I had another joke the
other day about narcism, which is a buddy mind said
it's like having turets, and I said, yeah, it's like
having turets. But the only word you yell out is me.
(43:03):
So I'm wondering, what the what the like? But that's
grandiose narcissism. Yes, Like this flavor that you have is
is it's turned within this. The harm is self harm.
The harm is not other harm. You know, that's the
that's the major difference here. You know, you are causing
(43:24):
yourself so much unnecessary suffering. What am I trying to
resolve that that the grandiose narcissist? What's the difference in
terms of like the underlying the presumed underlying cause. Yeah,
so usually with this thing is that there's like a
feeling of fragility. There's a sort of like an underlying
(43:44):
idea that you are ultimately fragile, like you can't somehow
handle being whole stop rejected, Like fear of rejection is
actually a big thing. And uh, well, sometimes I don't
want to get too clinical, but vultable narcissm is something
times correlated with borderline personality disorder, for instance, in the
psychological liturture. Now that's a more extreme clinical diagnosis, where
(44:08):
vulnem narcissm is just a personality trait that people differ on.
But the fear of rejection is like so central to
so many of these kinds of things, and shame is
so central, and usually it develops as a result of
being young and not having every time you express your
needs a parental figure would invalidate those needs. So if
(44:33):
you're a young baby, that's usually how it develops. That's
what we found, you know, is like if you're if
you're a kid and even just crying and the parents
that stopped crying right or you're like, I really want
food and the parents says, you know, well, my needs
are more important right now than you wanting food. The
child starts to develop shame for normal, healthy motivations, and
(44:54):
then when they grow up, if they have like big
ambitions in life, they feel shame somehow well, you know,
for even though they feel like they want they really
do want to be great, you know, So there's that
they kind of this residual leftover sort of shame for
being great for fully you know, standing out. Yeah, it's
(45:17):
the conflict of like wanting it and then put at
the same be like, ah, but it does. I mean
I didn't do stand up for that for a long
time because of that. So I was like, what a
low impulse, the same impulse I get when I get
these gale force approval And I'm like, oh, I love it.
But what a hungry hippo I am for wanting this,
(45:38):
you know. But meanwhile everybody wants approval. Yeah, you know,
I mean, like does Chappelle ever, I just can't imagine him,
Like he gets these critics and I feel that instead
of shame, he uses it as fuel. He's like he's
like that my next one, I'm going to like take
them on specifically, you know. Yeah, So here's some cognitive distortions.
(46:03):
I'm gonna send you a book by my friend Seth
Gillahan that's coming out soon called Mindful CBT. I'll just
send you that book because so it'll help you like
change your cognitive distortions. But like I imagine you have
black and white thinking, right, So, like I actually have
examples for each of these in terms of the way
I used to think about women, which was holding me back.
(46:24):
So if I get rejected by this woman, I'm a
total loser in life. That's so black and white, right,
It's like if you know, that's like totally you're either
a loser or you're not. You know what I mean
is that, Yeah, you're black and white thinking catastrophied. Yeah,
I mean, certainly for forty five minutes, it's a referendum.
If she doesn't like you, If that girl doesn't like you,
it's because there's something inherent in you that no woman
(46:47):
will like exactly. The other one is catastrophizing. Yeah, it's
a former catastrophizing, and it's I'm a huge catastroizer anyway.
But but yeah, Larry David used to do a and
it's not it's a joke. It's a funny anecdote, but
I think it's a based and true thing, which is
he used to be a cab driver a taxi driver
in New York and he's like, when I didn't have
(47:10):
a fair, I just thought, I'm never getting another fair
again for as long as I live. No, it's like
I'll teach a class at you know, I'm a professor.
I'll teach a class and like, I'll have like ninety
nine percent positive comments. And if one student's like he
thinks hees a lot funnier than he really is, I'd
be like, I'm never telling a joke ever again in
(47:31):
my life in class, but yeah, fine, then I want yeah, yeah,
it's like one student, right, yeah, no, I totally get it. Minimizing.
Do you undervalue positive events when they happen? Yeah, I
will minimize. I will. It's like yeah, but oh yeah,
but it I'll contextualize it in a bigger picture all
(47:52):
that stuff for sure, Or that's an aberration, like well
I did that well, but false of hopelessness, like being like,
oh well, there's no point in approaching her anyway, I'll
probably just come across as shady. You know that. That's
just an example of like just this false sense of hopelessness.
(48:12):
Personalizing attributing the outcome of a situation as solely the
result of one's actions or behaviors. She said she has
a girlfriend, she must be saying that because she really
is not interested in me and was probably repulsed by me,
you know, kind of like personalizing someone's response. Yeah, I
will have you know, when my agents are they'll be like,
do you want to try to do that? I'm like,
he hates me, don't bother. I saw him. I saw
(48:35):
him Chipotle. He was weird. And they have to go like, wait,
what now is this real? Or are you just a man?
And I'm like, I don't know. I'm just telling you.
I'm almost always right about these things. I will say
I am generally right about my suspicions of like he
doesn't respect me, and I can just you know, tell
shoulding thinking the way we want things to turn out
(48:57):
is how they ought to have turned out. This person
should have liked me. It seems so meant to be.
I mean, that's it's so core. It's not even it's
in the hardware, it's not even software. It's like I
was saying last night that that to a friend of mine,
like I'll explained something. I was like, it's so fundamentally
unfair that I can't. She's like, why do you think
(49:19):
things are going to be fair? And I was like, right,
because they're supposed to be fair. Like what's the point
of anything if it's not gonna be fair? Or when
people don't have a code, or like what are we
friends for if you're not gonna do X. She's like,
you just have to look past that stuff, And I'm like,
look past it to what? Or when people say we
(49:41):
need to like get beyond this, it's like, yeah, but
if we get beyond it, you still did that, and
I know that you did that, So what's the purpose?
What are we getting beyond it to a shittier, shallower relationship?
Oh my gosh, I wonder if we did like have
treatment for this, if you would be less f I
really am deeply curious the extent to which these things
(50:04):
are bound up. I mean, again, it's so like I said,
it's so in the in my in some some ways,
my jokes are a distortion, but most of my jokes
are just a logic test in some ways in a
lot of ways, or like a very good metaphor, which
is a form of logic. I was reading some of
the comments on Twitter about your show, and people were
(50:27):
writing they thought it was brilliant and they loved it
because of its realness and it's it's authenticity. So let's
not let's make sure we're not denigrating that aspect of
what makes makes it awesome. I think I'm good, like
very good. Yeah. Yeah, but as a COVID narcissist, you
(50:48):
know how I feel about it. I don't buy that
thing of like if you get healthy, you'll be less
fun I don't buy that, yeah, because I've gotten healthier
and funnier. Good, Well, just a couple more, because I
think we basically know you have this hard jumping to conclusions,
feeling certain of the meaning of a situation despite little
evidence to support that conclusion. Like I call that being
a white man. Yeah, uh, I called that. I used
(51:13):
to do a bit with Dave called late Arriving Instant
Expert mm hmmm, where I can walk up to it's
like being a white Man's almost like being a doctor,
where like I think, I know what's happening. I'm a
white man, you're doing it, and it's just like Okay.
I wanted to do a thing where I went to
like CBS and just told the employees they could go
(51:34):
on break and see if they did it, just as like, hey,
I'm a white man, you can go on break and
then being like all right, and then they just go
on break. I've never thought of it through that lens,
through a racial lens, but that's really interesting. You got
to where that's where the good stuff is. That's where
the good stuff is. Okay, how about the last one
(51:58):
for this because I have a longer list, but I'm
going to send you this book so we don't need
to do a complete treatment in this hour. But the
last one I have here is I feel like maybe
this is this is a real source of a lot
of your own happiness, and that's it's called outsourcing happiness,
so making outside factors the ultimate arbiter of her happiness,
Like I can't be happy in life unless I dot
(52:20):
dot dot. Yeah, obviously that's a huge I'd argue that's
a huge problem for every everybody and it's kind of
the basis of capitalism. Mm hmm, but true, that's true
consumer capitalism, consumer capitalism, yeah, yeah, consumer society. Sure. However,
whatever whatever clinical terms you want to put on. So yeah,
(52:42):
like I definitely have have had to recalibrate. It's very
hard to to make it manifest deeply. But you know,
going like I hope that I become a well known
comedian because I think then I'll be happy. So I'm
doing comedy to be happy. And I was like, you know,
there's a there's a step in here. You could just
(53:04):
omit and you could just be happy, you know what
I mean? I want to make or I won't be
happy unless I accomplish X. And it's like or again,
just be happy. Do you practice mindfulness at all? Make
the decision to be happy? You know? Do you do?
You meditate it all? Yeah? I do? And as I
was saying that, I like as a reminder, like I
(53:25):
haven't in a couple of days, and it's like, you know,
there's a lot of value to it, and I know
there is. I physically feel better in my body after
So what have you tried? You talk about this in
your in your you know you've tried some You've tried
some drugs. Yeah, I've triedoft, Zoloft, Modafanel, pros act and
(53:45):
like what's the one begins with an M. I think
I've tried probably five medications, five or six. Uh. Some worked,
some didn't, some worked and expired. Some some I took
and then I felt like it and needed any more.
I take beta blockers now when I'm going to do
a big stand up show, and I find them really helpful.
(54:07):
Like they don't take there seems to be no downside,
an all upside because I was getting panic attacks at
one point before I went on or while I was
on stage. Pretty great. I done EMDR, which I found
helpful in a way that I couldn't quite put my
finger on. But like the irony is I've tried somatic therapy.
(54:28):
The irony is when I did EMDR, my I like
trusted the therapist so much that it brought out sematic
sort of. There's a cut to me in the special
where I say, like I tried therapy and like my
shoulders like fucking like sort of pulsating. That's because it
(54:50):
was like a sematic expression because I trusted the therapist. Ketamine.
Didn't like ketamine. I know people that really like it.
It's I just didn't like it. Did it five times,
I think, and then TMS transcrenting on my netic stimulation,
which I liked a lot, and then I did a
Chinese one that's which I also liked. In terms of
(55:12):
the output. Are you aware of what exactly part of
the brain they turned down the electricity on, so to speak?
Like do you know what they targeted? I think they
activated the electricity in this area whatever, Like okay, so
you're in that latitude. Yeah, that's what's most curly with happiness. Yeah,
your left prefontal cortex. Yeah yeah yeah. And then ayahuasca
(55:36):
I did, and you saw God. Ayauasca was beautiful. Yeah.
I mean I was an atheist before and my fourth
ayahuasca I was like, oh, okay, I believe in God.
No sorry, not even four third third ceremony of believed
in God. By the ninth ceremony, I was sort of
like doing weird bodily motions that I wasn't in shar
(55:57):
in control of. I don't it's somatic. It's like, I
don't want to say spirit based, but that's my suspicion.
I have really beautiful experienced hard make no mistake, very difficult,
some really bad experiences, but in the aggregate, really amazing.
(56:20):
And then and I talked about this in the special
in blocks on Netflix five me O, d MT Bufo,
al various, too far, too much, took me five months
to recover, had a reactivation a week after I did it.
(56:40):
That lasted five months, and was I was drowning on incomprehensibility.
My mind was drowning. You don't want that. When I
when I did it, I had the Michael Pollen experience
that he did it and had the same experience. He
said it was the only one of the play medicines
he did that he couldn't figure out the value of
(57:03):
or get anything. I in some ways I agree with him.
But he went to a place that he referred to
us before the Big Bang, which is exactly where I went.
I was in a land before It wasn't a land.
I was in a consciousness before time. I didn't know anything.
(57:25):
I didn't know direction, I didn't know breathing, I didn't
know sight, I didn't know for time itself. Yeah, I
felt like I formed the first sineps, not in human history,
but just like I remember going like it was such
a crazy experience. It's hard to even talk about. I
(57:46):
couldn't talk about it because it was so traumatized for
a few months. But now I find it. It's hard
to explain because there's contradictions within it. I mean, like
where it's like I formed the first sinep, but it's like,
but how do you remember that? You know? Like, what
do you mean you form that? You clearly? I remember
thinking God's I remember hearing or experiences like God's not
here yet. Stuff like, you know, insane realm. How does
(58:11):
this stuff? Insane real? Well? Being on here on earth
knowing that I'm a part of a bigger thing is helpful.
It makes life, I mean, in some ways it might
help the the the the covert, the what do you
call generous narciss, wonderful narciss vulnerable. Yet it may help
(58:31):
that in that it makes things less important, makes things
less like do or die not unimportant, not it's not nihilism,
but it's certainly a lot of perspective. And that's helpful,
really helpful. And I'll say that I'm my brain is
(58:53):
different the way I comparence because of d MT in ayahuasca.
My brain is different, which is a huge, a huge thing. Now,
I wouldn't do it again if you offer me one
billion dollars or a bee. Wouldn't do it again. Wouldn't
like no, thank you. I cannot endure that. The thing
I went through for five months, I cannot endure. I've
(59:15):
done Iowa, I did ayahuasca two weeks ago, but the
five meo DMT I cannot personally endure. But it was
very helpful. Wow. Well, I love that. I love the
idea that it really helped you, yeah, be part of
something larger, yeah than even humans. I remember saying in
(59:36):
therapy and talk therapy like this is in my body.
I can talk about this endlessly. It's in me. And
iahuasca and DMT went into it, like got into it
like it that it like rearranged some of the stuff.
And that's huge, That is huge, That is huge. Maybe
(59:59):
it even help. Do you damper put a damper on
some of these cognitive distortions that are so prevalent in
your head? Yeah, I think that they reduced them, for sure,
they made them less, they made them less potent, potent. Yeah,
they're certainly there, and they're certainly like the headline, but
they're not the nine to eleven headline America attacked. They're
(01:00:24):
like Dow down seven hundred points. And that's exactly what
mindful CBT is, which is a new form of CBT
that combines the best of mindfulness as well as the
best of what we know about CBT. So you can
actually just yeah, somebody suggested mindfulness last night? Love it mindful?
They did? Did they suggest mindful CBT specifically or just mine? Now? Okay,
(01:00:45):
but CBT when I heard, when I read that that
list of cognitive distortions. It was like, oh, say no more. Yeah,
And that's the thing that a lot of people are
saying about this, the my Blox thing is like people
are like, I felt like you, Like you said exactly
the way I feel because it's like, there's only so
(01:01:06):
many programs that we have mm hm as you you know,
it's kind of like what your job is, yeah, is
to analyze and assess what program people are running and
try to that's right, figure out a way for them
to either stop it or optimize it. That's right. Well,
you're such an interesting cat. You obviously are incredibly successful,
(01:01:28):
like having a Netflix special too. You've had two Netflix specials,
and all the work you've done writing is is so
impressive that you you clearly deserve the more swagger. But
what's interesting about you is that swagger would not be
authentic to who you are, because you do kind of
you don't like pretense and you don't like you know,
(01:01:48):
there's a certain personality of you that in a way,
just the more you embrace that, the more people actually
like you. So you're so you're so interesting. The swagger, Well,
well yeah, you could use more slagger. I could talk
about this endlessly, but it's people because of the way
people heard about me or learned about me is I
(01:02:11):
was Dave's partner, right right, That's how most people think
of me. First learned about me, and as Dave's partner.
The first thought is, there's no fucking way you wrote anything.
So when I demand they acknowledged that I wrote anything,
or sort of carry myself like I did the work
that I did, do they don't. People resent it and like,
(01:02:37):
really ben like slag me, and they it becomes a
racial thing pretty quickly, and like I'm cultural vulturing and
it's like Dave asked me to do the show, so
like that, I'm cultural vulturing and I'm pretending to be
all these things whatever. So I have to kind of
play it small in that regard because people were like,
(01:03:00):
you're so cocky. I'm like, okay, all right, I don't know,
so so I have to play it small, even though
I resent them saying that because it's a sign of
their disrespect, Like you you you're cocky and you shouldn't be.
It's like, okay, they call confident acknowledging things you've done,
(01:03:22):
or cocky is like I did this thing. Stop talking
about it. Okay, you're going to bring it up, but okay,
I have a lot of defensive obviously, no, I hear you.
This is by the way, that's I mean, that's a
fascinating question. Who deserves to be cocky? I mean no, Look,
that brings up a lot of other things. But I
don't think anyone who watches your documentary could possibly leave
(01:03:42):
leave it not documentary, listen to me, watch your special
blocks could possibly leave it thinking you're cocky like you
lay out. But that's the point of it, The point
of these specials, The reason I do these, where I'm revealing,
is because I read to people as cocky in an
(01:04:05):
undeserved way. Yeah, cold, superior or bored or like flat affect.
So part of it is specifically neutralizing that. Like where
I'm going like, not only am I not cocky? Let
me bring you into my experience. Yeah, Well, wouldn't it
(01:04:29):
be nice to get to a point some day in
your career where you could just kill it comedically like
you did the first three fourths without feeling any need
for apology. I'm gonna go it's for the first four fifths. Yeah,
but you kill the whole thing and then you drop
the mic and you finally feel complete. Do you know
what I mean? Like, I feel like that's what we
need to get you at some days, a point where
(01:04:50):
you don't feel a need to less to lessen to
yourself at all, or to diminish yourself at all. Yeah. Yeah,
I I hope I'm there, you too, you know me too. Yeah,
well let's leave. Let's leave on that note. It really
really an honor to talk to you, Neil, and I
(01:05:11):
wish you all the best, please yeah, and uh and
I'll send you some books and stuff I I I
dare you. Yeah, yeah, well you've got it. Thank you.
Thanks for the help, Brouh, Thank you, thanks for listening
to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like
(01:05:34):
to react in some way to something you heard, I
encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology
podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast.
We also put up some videos of some episodes on
our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check
that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of
the show, and tune in next time for more on
the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.
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