Body Image: Vegan Gains joins the Permanent Vacation Podcast.

i banish yen princes I put my hand out
the girl puts her hand on on the table and another guy puts his hand on top of it she likes that guy that sent chills through her body but she hates and it feels like dog [ __ ] what's the same exact touch huh bah new CN you know but the funny thing is when we switch into this topic of you know serious mental disorders whether it's schizophrenia bipolar disorder you know diagnosed manic depression or something now we're talking about a difference between people that's very real that's very meal and it's in some sense of biological or what-have-you I'm not saying it's your inescapable destiny or you know I've met different people cope with different disorders in different ways but even you know one of my brother's was born dyslexic changes his whole life dyslexia isn't that serious compared to being a schizophrenic but you know III can't give you know so he and I have a lot of the same DNA obviously but he's a totally different person for me from kind of route to branch and if I had been born to sly sick it's very difficult to imagine how different it be just if reading were difficult you know um see you know it is said obviously I I wish I've said before like if durianrider had just stayed in his job as a bike mechanic nobody would even have to mention you know that he has these serious disorders or what have you but yeah when you're talking about someone in a position of real political leadership which is something he now claims he didn't claim that just a few years ago some was in a position of political leadership political movement and someone who's giving like serious health advice other people like telling other people to quit their meds telling people to make decisions that really change they like quit their job quit their meds do all cut and people really take that advice then yes I think the questions of mental health even reliability become very very very serious you know well yeah he it's bad too because he goes after young people who are very easily convinced by the sort of thing and seems like people who aren't getting very good help professionally like through drugs or something or haven't just gotten it yet like he's going after them and it's pretty brutal like Julia bore she seems like she's one of those people who is suffering from untreated depression and yeah then here's durianrider giving some really bad advice eat lots of processed sugar to lose weight which she obviously has a weight issue and it's making her even more depressed and then telling her to only date guys with [ __ ] vasectomies like it's just horrible you know I just say I think the young people are over-represented on camera it's the young people that you see on youtube but one thing's I talked about what there's one professional journalists to talk to me who interviewed me and she's actually gonna interview me again because she's my no she's writing a newspaper story about our fascinating lives as vegans on the internet but one of these emphasized to her I said no like it's kind of same thing with the anti-war movement well like you talking about protest against the Vietnam War or any when you were moving like the newspapers they photograph the young beautiful people and it looks like the protest is just tended by young beautiful but actually there were grandparents there is no and I said to her no like I would just been in Chiang Mai I said no one of the that makes it so sad is that this impacts people who are in the prime of their life people were middle-aged and it impacts people were actually elderly and retired and you see them they're they're just not the ones they're either not on youtube or nobody's watching their channel like they may have a youtube channel with very very few viewers and like in some ways that's that's even more sad so Joe vegan Joe vegan has now come to fame by basically doing a comedy act he had an earlier video before he really started doing the comedy but he just talked about his and his wife's experience that they became true believers in durianrider and then later lost their faith but they you know they went the whole road we're just even small things where they were refused to drink tea that refuse drink any caffeine they refuse to take a taxi to the airport they rode their bicycles to the airport etc they just a whole bunch of funny funny things where they were really trying to live the during right or lifestyle full time and I think he quit his job so they could go to Chiang Mai and meet the great guru like they really became cult-like followers and again obviously it's not like that for everyone but is for some people they were not teenagers know they were married middle-aged people with with normal jobs you know so far as I know so they're not the classic profile of the cult victim and i think that's that's the larger of people there now again someone can correct me wrong I believe that when when unnatural vegan became a true believer when she decided to stop using toothpaste I think she was 27 some work until I might I might be off a little she was not a teenager she'd finished a university degree in philosophy I don't know what job she did I've never heard her mention any job not hating just saying I have no idea what kind of career shed but these are fully grown mature adults um and something hooks though and where they and then they ignore all the red flags you know what I mean um just irresistible temptation kind of thing like oh my god I can eat whatever I want and stay stay slim not have to work a real job I don't know maybe some people just really want that and think they can sort of have that well that's what hooks and then well you know so I study politics also study religion like including cult cult like you know cult aspects of religion but I think the one aspect that's really different about this in veganism from say Buddhist cults or Hindu cults or even Christian cults and and the different political extremists forms of political extremism study is the the body image issue which is you know one of your strengths on your your channel you talk a lot about that this kind of magnetic power of wanting to look like yeah he man are wanting to look like a dragon ball z character what have you I have one woman I'm gonna try to do a skype conversation with her in the future one woman email me and she can she was a fully mature adult and like most of these people she was already in good shape she was already basically sleiman muscular that she wasn't oh she wasn't worried at all she was basically a good looking healthy woman and um she judges couple messages back and forth she talked how she had become a devotee of freely and then eventually lost her faith and she gained weight when she switched if relese diet she she lost all her muscle tone and gainfully at all these other problems but when I pushed on this I said you know this is my analysis situation she wrote back and said yeah you know what when I saw like the first time I saw free Lee's abdomen free Lee's midsection I thought I'm willing to do whatever it takes to look like that and and all she ignored all the red flags after that right she ignored all the obvious warnings yeah it's weird I think body image is just this issue we're having with body image it's sort of a result of just really privileged living I know yeah like even the Egyptians way back when they just had really really easy lives otherwise like they lived right next to the Nile they had easy access to food and super super body conscious people and I think that's what it is maybe I don't know well anyway um yeah it becomes part of your identity though this urge to look a certain way like a lot of bodybuilders and [ __ ] like if they didn't have muscle they wouldn't be anyone like it's so important them to take roids get as huge as they possibly can get ripped and shredded and it's part of their identity and free Lee's kind of made that a part of her identity and I guess other people just want that yeah I mean it's we're uh now again so the very first thing we talked about is that I tell people the time I'm not a nice guy I sometimes warm people look I'm a bit of a jerk in whatever terms are appropriate to the conversation of the relationship I kind of let people know I don't play the games other people do I had a girlfriend white Canadian girlfriend and she was a very nice person she always said hi how are you hope you're having a great day and all that [ __ ] and she was a very attractive person should a beautiful face in many ways her body was very obviously attracted to heterosexual men but you know in terms of like her knees and the shape of her legs like just the bone structure diet and exercise will never change it she was never going to be a woman who showed off her legs and miniskirt she had a lot of advantages in life a lot you know but that was not one of them and I remember I was just stunned we were walking down the street once together and there was woman who was wearing a miniskirt of something like that a revealing skirt another white Canadian woman and my girlfriend she froze up she you know she clung to my my arm a little bit and she looked away and she said I don't know if I can walk down this street cuz like seeing that woman's legs makes me feel so bad about my own body and like you know ah I ok I didn't want to make her feel like garbage but my actual response was to start telling her about a story I had just been reading about a man in Cambodia who has no legs that was the research I was doing at the time I was like no like and it's just saying to honest like I've just never thought of my body that way at all like I know like for you on some deep level you're what and she's with me and she's she's having sex with me on a daily basis there's no competition for me this other woman is not trying to seduce me like I understand really feeling the way if another woman is trying to seduce your man or some psychological accomplished okay I imagine but it's like on some level you feel like you're in competition with every other woman who's breathing for every other man I guess all the time and that gets to you and for me like I really think about my legs as taking me where I want to go which for me included Cambodia look at that time already I was really of a study in Cambodian as a language I was planning to go to Cambodia and do humanitarian work but I'm thinking about digging ditches or working on a farm at Camp oh yeah it's kind of experience I wanted to have you know what I mean I was yeah I'll give people what if you people in Cambodia thing by like my legs are ugly you know so let you know anybody sorry I mean it's shallow and it's deep at the same time but like for me the main reason I'm reflecting on this is that those those issues that category of body image issues and selling a person a dream of what their body can be like that's really different from anything in Buddhism Buddhism communism democracy the different political categories that talk about and ultimately so much of it is just you're just born with it and you can't change it terms of what people obsess over like the shape your legs the shape your knees now it's like a while for me to get over some of my body image issues like a the photos that i use for my profile picture you know the one where i'm doing like a side tricep pose that was in my last bodybuilding show like 23 years ago now that was when I was vegan I was like I was so [ __ ] lean then and I died it's so [ __ ] hard and even despite that I still felt fat like it's weird the body just mark if body dysmorphic disorder zand obsession with body image takes a while um you know getting perspective just getting older and you know getting a girlfriend recently has helped to sow know though I mean like you know some people say I'm an egomaniac or whatever but those types of insecurities have just I've just never felt I've never you know it's never been a struggle i'm not good enough for i'm not i'm not pretty enough and that you know that made that may make me an [ __ ] but all the time here in China you know people talk to people at the gym like asked me to show them how I'm lifting and stuff because it just work out in a different way from Chinese people I'm not an expert on I'm bodybuilding and all or anything and all the time I tell people the only reason I'm exercising is to be prepared for violence that's how I say it in Chinese have seen really simply like that's it and that's how it's been you know my my whole adult life but you know I mean this stuff it's it's not evil people want to be loved people want to feel important people want to feel beautiful I guess I guess that's the most fundamental one though is wanting to feel important and may I guess being beautiful is maybe the the easiest or most obvious way to be important right i banished yen safer as you fly and you got ten chicks that means you have to [ __ ] to om a day you have to file two [ __ ] a day every day of the week sing I cannot count the weekend but you only [ __ ] the girls on mondays on Monday so they don't see you for a whole nother Winx that becomes work the girl you missed Tuesday's she like I see me with eight days let me stop talking this vivian man just give one girl in question