The Cult of à-Bas-le-Ciel (& The Tofu Goddess, PART THREE)

this whole glory business to me is it's
all about it's all an entertainment Act and generally no because you're not you you can't capture glory unless you're um you know honestly aware of the audience okay you know right in order to get this glory thing you know so you have to be aware of them and even the guy that's even a martyr he doesn't even mind he doesn't mind dinosaur I monitor the mind dying if it's in front of a crowd grave in front of a crowd but you know once a by himself he cries any beg for its life people want to be God figures even though we don't say we want to be those figures those dramatic people maybe in biblical time maybe the Quran maybe yes ancient people that's what we want to be we want to be people of substance I believe the majority of us you want people to look up to us and when we remembered my people that's the vanity about that we don't like to discuss about us that's a really ugly part in society that we want to be something more than we actually are look like I say I mean you know people stop acting like teenagers when they choose to stop acting like teenagers I live a life that's more meaningful than just riding a bicycle up a mountain or just giving diet advice my life is not really about my body and it's not really about other people's bodies that much either and yeah yeah yeah but but but in this context in this context of veganism that is hung up on a course beauty and weight loss and I think that's still worth talking about I still have to think that's worth saying openly is like you know not everyone's life is about that and that's I mean what I'm doing in China right now you know this is an essay about the anthropology of Laos written in Chinese you know was my recent writing assignment you know you know is this meaningless is learning Chinese meaningless and talking about politics and philosophy and history and Chinese is it meaningless maybe you know in a sense I can even say yes in a sense I can say this is a waste of my time but compared to what my compared compared to compared to doing compared to doing what durianrider does with with his with his time right now you know I I think this is a pretty meaningful thing for me to do with my life it's higher learning in general is meaningful especially compared to the average person and how they live their life but yeah just this fascination I suppose that a lot of vegans seem to have just with their physical bodies and they'd be it's beyond them to comprehend that some people just don't really care you know I myself like we kind of talked about it already bit like I myself I just not preoccupied with my physical appearance like I I know how to present myself in a certain manner like just as a woman you know if I show up to an event and like I haven't done my makeup in my hair it kind of stands out so I it's I just have a very pragmatic attitude towards a physical appearance I suppose I don't derive any value from it where or sense of worth from it whereas right like so many of these other geeking youtubers like freely like her physique is everything her you know if she were she just which is you know she's getting older right she's not gonna have that physique forever or something could happen right she could get him to like you know obviously god forbid but like she could get into a horrific accident and she could lose everything that she's worked so hard for and just so this emphasis on the physical I it's just so about it it's so shallow and it's just not what I think veganism really means right now there are so many little tragedies in that but you know there's actually a legit saying from the Buddha in the Pali Canon this is real Buddhist philosophy unlike stuff that got made up in Japan or China centuries later which you know it's memorable because it's the exact opposite of how we think about these things today but there's a statement from the Buddha and this is approximately translating course but it says basically you're better off believing in the body than believing in the mind or the soul and it goes on to say you know like if you believe in the body and it's this kind of thing you're talking about with you know the vanity of freely whatever you know at least it may last for 10 years or 20 years like the beauty of your body the strength of your body you might get a few decades in there but the human mind is changing all the time in this spirit and it's it's it's an interesting past you but it's close because it's the exact opposite of what you're expecting it to say and you know why it says that and so on is worth is worth thinking about it philosophically it is interesting but yeah I mean for me you know what whoa okay I'll say something about me but really I want to come back to the issue raised you know for me I was always kind of planning for my old age I wanted to be setting the foundation for what I was going to be doing as an old man whether in terms of languages scholarship life of the mind intellect but also politics and nail through YouTube I mean it is wonderful I really have a second chance to do that I think long-term exactly people like you because you're Canadian citizen we may long-term next 10 years be able to set up a foundation or multiple foundations we one foundation that just does education give something else tackling other issues etc because I was doing bears or you know more wildlife oriented stuff but no long-term the connections I'm making through YouTube really will give me a foundation to do something meaningful in my old age now even if it takes decades which is wonderful it's it's a very positive thing but what I want to come back to implicit in what you're saying also is actually not the idea of youth and beauty but of a second youth you know and all these people including durianrider including freely they weren't young when they started this but they went back to living like teenagers again you know what I mean durianrider he'd already grown old going to prison and being a drug addict and his whole story and then he reclaimed his youth he reclaimed his vibrancy and freely also that's how she how she frames her narrative so I see a lot of older people also for whom that's extremely seductive there's one guy I think he's still a fan of mine I haven't heard from in a while but he's over 50 and he had one video on YouTube where he was just saying honestly yes these images of going to the beach like really appealed to me that was part of what drew him into veganism and so on yes you know this idea that at age 50 he could get back into shape and take off his shirt and not feel ashamed of himself you know through veganism and exercising this lifestyle that yes this really powerfully appealed to him and he has to admit like you know he was reflecting on it obviously was being a bit full talk about it that it's not really the cow in the slaughterhouse but that for him this was really seductive and motivating and powerful so you know a second youth that's something very different from a first youth and inevitably for guys like with rim it also tends to be connected to seducing younger people to getting into bed with with people who are actually um anyway teenagers are in their 20s or what-have-you so I'll have to censor that out because that's a nonprofit said you know the big controversy with mom but we have simply said there is a sexual component to it there's a sexual component to this quest to recapture your lost youth and my attitude is to say to people you're never going to be young again and really what you're doing is throwing away the responsibilities of being in adults and I'm not even that sex negative if people if people in their 50s want to have love affairs people in their 20s fine you know it's legal it's good it's consenting adults knock yourself out try not to get on an ego trip about it try not to let it ruin either one of your lives but I'm not really that sex negative but the ego trip the second youth and this business of throwing away your responsibilities where you're not you know to me to me that's sad to me I said and we need you know yeah sure we need teenagers in veganism but we also need 50 year olds who actually act like they're 50 years old you know we need responsible adults doing all the things politically and otherwise whether it's politics or publishing books doing something positive didn't pause the things to build a movement if we have all the mature people reverting back to peenie teenager well then how is anything gonna get done that's it but that's a real question I have to ask my fellow my vegans on a face-to-face basis where I'm asking them to step up and again long term you know be involved in some kind of foundation and some kind of much more pragmatic activism and again there were positive surprises out there we were all surprised when the light twins really came forward and they were talking that talk they really I think they're they're looking forward to their middle age they're still young guys or they look young I don't actually know whole thing probably they're probably older than they look but they're they're wanting to take on the responsibilities of being middle-aged adults and that's it that's a beautiful thing it's beautiful a very different way from you know teenagers in bikinis so you know you know actually to get back to like way back now what I was going to say I was gonna ask you a quick question about just the vegan scene in British Columbia because I know I think I vaguely remember you saying that you were disheartened by it or something because that's just a completely contrasting experience to like I've had here in southern Ontario blended Ontario like my city is only about 300,000 or so people but we've got like my University club like there's a lot of like students in that club we've got a separate vegan Club just within the city itself like separate from the University we have like vegan all vegan restaurants like an all vegan bakery and like it's just a very prominent vegan scene so I was I guess I kind of just assumes that British Columbia would be similar southern Ontario is just like almost so progressed over this way I just assumed you've described the scene but you haven't described how those people treated you like to what extent you were welcomed in or to what extent you know I know Christopher I just say so so what but what was your experience I have those people and welcome you have to been opening doors to other than cooperating with you or has it been yeah you know I find that people here are very um like very welcoming like there's a couple people there's a couple people I disagree with strongly with how they go about you know promoting veganism and also who they let into the club so to speak at least at least they talk to you at least they talk to you yeah yeah you know I have oh man well no I look but my answer is no I'll hear more but you see my answer is actually short on this I mostly mentioned this in contrast to YouTube in the internet because a lot of my fellow youtubers feel like the whole digital thing is so shallow and crass and people are just trying people are just rying to make money out of fighting with each other or or what-have-you um but I said no look my experience is the opposite cuz people on YouTube at least will really talk to me they're really interested in cooperating me sometimes short-term and sometimes long-term and no my experience with real world activists or non non digital activist actors who are not YouTube is is completely negative well first of all most leaders refuse to talk to me no answer to an email a refuse to be face to face like you know of real world standing in the same room total exclusion total refusal to you know and you know various forms of hostility games being played for power for political control what have you uh you know and again I mean people respond to me before they'd seen my youtube channel people were just responding to my charisma like if I sit down in a room and we're all talking about politics I'm pretty good at pathari about politics so do you respond to that as a positive thing and say this guy is a talent we can use or you respond to that as a threat and say this is a guy who could take over the leadership this is a guy who could be more influential than me and I wish logically you would think that the real world vegans would be more positive towards me as my influence on YouTube grew and again it's not really the number of viewers I have it's the depth of the influence I have on them because even back let's say like today I would say there were really two thousand people who are passionate about my channel and maybe five thousand you care about it you know a little bit but like even back when it was just 500 people who cared about it my channel had a really big impact on those people and the discussions were meaningful when have you so again if you're a member of a vegan organization in in Victoria or your you know those vegan organizers they could have responded to me as a talent and an opportunity and so on or they could respond to me as a threat or etc etc so there's both more and let's say with that like I say in a sense it's it's a really short answer no not even from Vancouver because I tried to get in touch with direct action everywhere and those people in Vancouver if if we even one of them to talk to me there'd be a video on my YouTube but you know I could have done a Skype conversation with Matthew and there isn't there isn't one video on my channel with even one person from Victoria or Vancouver not even one so I had a hundred percent hostility zero Confederate cetera and you know any way I could talk about the details of amount situation there but you know we had a kind of weird power struggle for who was gonna control the student club at University of Victoria and there was real dishonesty about that and this guy who's not a student so what he's actually illegal it's contrary to the to the rules okay no no let's go so just gonna open the floor you cuz I mean if look I always say if you have a positive experience and I before you if you're part of any kind of organized I'm happy for you if you know people you can cooperate with having just five people you cooperate with who live in the same city with you it can be tremendously positive and important but if you don't you got to be honest about that too right so that's because that's what I'm into you I'm into admitting the you know the scope of the problem I don't want to pretend I'm part of a movement when I'm not right yeah yeah yeah you know you you I remember you mentioning that quite a bit like you know if you just had like five people or whatever like a good group of people who could get together and just actually make a positive difference you know I'm just sitting there I would be listening to that and I'm because like that's exactly what I have here in London I've got a group of students in this club that we have at my school and like we're super passionate super reliable and we get stuff done and I'm just sitting here I'm like here I have a unique opportunity I don't know the next time I'm gonna have this opportunity right I'm graduating this year and so I like this year I'm just really ambitious like I want to take it I guess to the next level so to speak and so when I hear you talk like that I'm just like no it really I really am sorry I just you know we have like for instance in September our first event is I'd like to hear your thoughts on this are your feelings about dr. William Tuttle yeah I have my opinion about him he I will say this he would have been my first choice but he's good because he'll bring a lot of people in he's a big name like yeah what are your feelings on on Tuttle look will Tuttle everything about him connected to Buddhism he is from my perspective a scam and makes a mistake oil salesman the fact that he calls himself a Dharma master what he says but his background butters and what he says about Buddhism itself so because of my background in Buddhism I regard that aspect of who he is and what he does very negatively now does that mean that he's a bad advocate for veganism no maybe there are also really positive things about him and what he does but for me because of my background in Buddhism my background in Asian Studies and everything else there were just these questions about who he is about what he's done with his life in Buddhism and in Asia and what-have-you and you know maybe I mean if his attitude were that was that that's all in the past and that's over and doesn't matter I'd be willing to take that attitude too but on the contrary the last time I saw his website he's still presenting himself as this spiritual figure as this Dharma master etc and to me that is deeply problematic now already people say about me that I'm a cult leader that some people relate to me that way and no but all my all my life even when I was a teenager I had problems with that there were people who really became followers of mine when I was in high school really my second last year of high school and I was really wary of this at this kind of leadership quality and a people responding to it in that way if people really become your follower so I actually I do have some caution about that but you could imagine where perhaps you cannot imagine what kind of devotion I could be inspiring from people if I had just chosen to put on the self-righteous robe of Buddhists of not to ask these kinds of provocative and difficult questions but to tell people what they want to hear and to appeal to a religious and cultural tradition with those kinds of roots because I have I have had conversations people about philosophy in a Buddhist temple we know from my perspective I was just talking about philosophy but there are people standing there listening to me and they start to regard me as a kind of divinely inspired being you know where I'm starting to get that kind of devotional which is not not what I'm trying to get it's not responsive I'm looking for but I realized I'm having this effect on people and I've got to say look I'm a normal human being don't you know don't don't no no that's that's very real and so I don't know I mean you know we'll Tuttle my apprehensions about him are all on that side I have never read the world peace diet I've never I've never read any of his books and you know you'll get to see his lecture maybe he's doing something really paused in the world Aaron Janis believes he's doing something positive you know for veganism and ecology and you know I mean veganism you've heard me say this it's such a morally good cause I believe that Catholics can do something positive for veganism and Muslims can do some pose even though I'm totally opposed to the Catholic religion and the Muslim village you know for me as an atheist these are really these are really bad organizations and bad belief systems and bad religions but as it happens my background makes me especially skeptical of an and wary of people attached to Buddhism in exactly the way he he happens to be attached to Buddhism okay yeah yeah I mean I read um you know I have to read the book since I'm on the exact team of this club and he's coming to speak at my university but I've read the first few chapters um I mean I didn't even realized he was a Buddhist but I did pick up on like the eastern philosophical themes in you know he's talking about connected being connected with the universe and the fact that we're not connected with the universe is like causing all the suffering and destruction and whatnot I mean that being said they get like the only amount that I've studied Eastern philosophy was a Western philosopher who was inspired by Eastern philosophy and that has been the extent of my education on that which is disappointing who are you alluding to of is it Schopenhauer who is it I think it is Schopenhauer okay yeah he's the main one he didn't he didn't know much about Buddhism but he was very inspired by the couple of short quotations he read from philosophy exactly what he read we know from from there's historical evidence of exactly what you read and what he didn't read it what ISM which I have studied yeah but look think about how different this conversation would be right now how differently you would think of me if I had taken the same Road will Tuttle took I've lived in Buddhist monasteries I've meditated with Buddhist monks I've studied with some very famous names both put his professors but also Buddhist monks I and when I came on YouTube from the start of my time on YouTube I was open and saying I've lost my faith I never believed in supernatural elements of Buddhism never but I used to believe in it in the same sense you would believe in the green party or veganism you know I believe in it is something positive in the world and I lost that faith I no longer believe that you know in the 21st century Buddhism is going to do anything positive and I don't want to be a part of it you know I've videos reflecting on that but imagine how different everything would be including this conversation you're having with me if I played any of the games will is playing if I just made vaguely positive statements about the universe loves you and you know and if I kept on that robe and if I were coming on YouTube and using those as credentials look hey you know I studied with bhikkhu bodhi bhikkhu bodhi is a famous Buddhist monk hey you know I slept in the same monastery on the top of a mountain in Sri Lanka where bhikkhu bodhi used to sleep you know and I had these amazing insights and experiences when I was meditating it would be so easy for me to play that game and I would get money and sex and a little bit of Fame not that much fame but the money and sex are very real and oh you know what here's the fourth one we don't talk about that much in veganism I would get power money sex fame or a big thing right now in digital veganism but power is coming next you know there isn't yet enough going on for power but religious authority religious authority involves power you know in ways in ways you know that again you may not be able to imagine where you may am you know but like if you hang out in an in a Buddhist temple and even if it's just something like where someone walks in the room and all I have to do is make a hand gesture and everyone's silent you know there are all kinds of power there's power controlling people but controlling money in politics and other things so look I'm I'm in a unique position and I could mean you know I was a real scholar unlike will Tuttle I could actually read the ancient canon and produce quotations and prove things you know I could have been a very legitimate and powerful Buddhist monk or Buddhist layperson or what-have-you in ways the other people can't now if I told you that was ever a temptation for me I would be lying that was never a temptation for me but I'm a very I'm a very unusual person and yeah for the vast majority of people I think that would have been huge temptation and I don't know we'll I don't know him the maybe for him it was a temptation and maybe it still is but look I mean let's keep it real who's the competition is will Tuttle a worse guy than durianrider I doubt it so even even if there are some of those problems there may be I always say different people can contribute in different ways really really quickly I'll just say you know you know hennya mania Haney and I know each other we haven't talked that much I've never had a long conversation like this with her but you know I basically support Hannya doing her thing what'd I ever do what Hannah's doing no do I enjoy her videos of her sitting in an airport camilli were no but different people can contribute in different ways so I am open-minded about that you know what I mean Hania hanging out selling different resources on different contributed maybe we'll Tuttle has something valuable true maybe I'm not gonna sit here and damn the guy out right you know I wish it would be so easy for me to say that about durianrider too if durianrider wasn't such a scumbag I wish I could just sit here and say to you during Ryder has something positive to contribute also but you know he's crossed so many lines you know it's it's so negative that no I can't even say that about him but yeah well I mean Ryder's crossed he hasn't just crossed that line he's made leaps and bounds I mean what are your thoughts do you think he could redeem himself at this point I think he's not going to you know but so many of us have spelled out for him exactly what he needed to do to redeem himself and you know when I made that apology video too freely the apology video on my channel where I apologized to freely that gave him such a positive opportunity to turn that situation around but no look youtube and you're gonna see this different people are playing different games by different rules it's not the case that no rules apply it's just that there's more than one game being played by more than one set of rules and he he has at he and he and freely invented a whole new game it didn't exist before that you know they really invented a whole new game and they're playing by their rules and they are doing it to death and included in that is a very sincere form of paranoia you know Jason could still be friends with them to this day if they weren't paranoid so many people vegan gains vegan gains Keith wanted to remain friends with durianrider but during Ryder's view of the world is so stark either you're my slave or you're my enemy so all these people become enemies you know it's real a real sincere paranoia and ultimately you know that's why he didn't have anyone to beat me up he was he wanted he wanted to have me beaten up but for me one of the turning points and that was realizing just how alone he is you know he's sitting there bragging as if he has a gang a tough guys to follow his orders and you stop a you know for me one day I stopped and realized he's completely alone he doesn't have a gang of tough guys he doesn't even have one tough guy he's really alone and even when you see him on the top of that hill you know with his his fans asking him questions at the top of Joy's suit up he is alone and now at that time he had already broken up with freely in reality it was right at that time whether or not it's a coincidence he broke up with freely right when he was making the threats against me so far as I understand the situation you know so again he's alienated he's made enemies there's so many people he's so incapable of having friends he didn't have anybody to come around and beat me up that's why as soon as I just said okay where do you want to meet me you know he never once invited me to meet him anywhere cuz he knew I'd come didn't even matter didn't even matter if I was gonna get my ass kicked I'd show up fine and fine knock some teeth in I'm out I got to I'm too pretty anyway I got too many teeth you know I like to read writer these are my real teeth by the way no no blood no steroids no plastic surgery unlike the writer but anyway look you know um I would show up and I noticed the contrast so as soon as I said to him look where do you want to meet me any possibility of meeting me disappeared cuz you know yeah he had nobody I don't even think it's anything else I think if he had people to beat me up that's it I would have been beaten up but he switched to threatening Jake Jake Jake Eames who is like oh yeah oh yeah and Jake the only difference is Jake is less than 50% of my body mass he's in really good shape he does he does distance running he's actually he's actually quite athletic but he is small compared to me and was gonna sit without you know with Jake when he made the threats to Jake he was saying things to Jake look why don't you come you know to meet at this at this events you know the qh7 mountains huh I remember I said to Jake is it look he's using the same threats of violence against you against me the difference is he's offering you a place to meet he never did that to me once because he knows that he knows that and he's alone durianrider is alone so that's you know that's the Gainey place as the rules he plays by and yeah ultimately it's it's just a tragedy of what happens when you when you head down that path his his faith in himself is absolute and at any given time there are now just a couple of people who share that faith and you really have a slave-like relationship them you you see that on his channel you know he interviews these few people who are still really devoted to him and again look you know some people are afraid that'll be a cult leader I one of my one of my fans people hate that I use the word fans whatever to me it's natural reward to use one of my fans was telling me that his own girlfriend really criticized them because his girlfriend felt that he was becoming too devoted to my channel or whatever the seven coldly religion I know as they say even as a teenager I could see the kind of follower follower relation get in with people basically all you need to tell people just tell them what they want to hear and people develop devotion to you so you know again I've never been tempted but it is easy for me to imagine going down to a writer's path of trying to cultivate you know those kinds of fans and followers and what-have-you those kinds of relationship just like we were saying but will total but that is not the game I play I play a very different game by very different rules you know so well I just think durian writers whole story I think it's just so tragic I look at this man and I mean yeah he says that rages things he says inappropriate things things are completely inexcusable but you know I look at his experiences that he's had that have like led to this moment right like it couldn't have yeah I don't know I I guess I just don't assume that people are just born bad maybe that's overly optimistic of me I don't know but yeah so I look at this man and what he's doing with his life and the thing was that he continuously chooses to do over and over it despite the repercussions and I pity him yeah you know he's like twice my age and I pity him so much look you know I felt that way especially when I was doing the medical research on him his paranoid fear of doctors and you know refusal to believe in modern medicine and his crazy claims about curing Crohn's disease when I was looking into that you you see his childhood experience and how it all fits together as you say is this tragic element to it where it's like you know you can see he suffered as a kid and even now with the steroid use and the tough-guy posturing other people have told me that he never went to jail that even that's a lie like most people don't brag about going to jail but people have written to me again I I don't know what's true but saying look it's just not sure we never went to jail and they know from this room this or that record and in Australia or what have you that that's either a complete lie or it's a gross exaggeration that he spent a couple nights in a juvenile detention center and he calls that doing hard time in prison but I mean whether or not that's true what have you but he his tough-guy persona also you can see is built on the experience that he himself talks about it being a sickly weak kid who couldn't get any attention from him I think he said he lost his virginity aged 22 or so he gave a specific age that he was physically sick unhealthy weak that he was never the guy getting into fist fights are dealing with that and he was never the tough guy from the streets and now again it's a second youth he's he's trying to be all those things trying to be everything he wasn't when he was young the first time you know and the idea I keep saying this I'm not a tough guy I'm just tougher there's nice guys I'm not a nice guy but I'm nice these guys the ridiculous thing is I mean anyone who knows again I can say anyone knows me personally but now nobody knows me personally coming back here I was gonna say this in relation to what you're saying about University you know when you leave University you're gonna lose the vast majority of your contacts and friends when you move wherever you're moving to I don't know I will talk about nuns you know be I'll be interested know in the future where you're where you're thinking about living whether it's Asia temporarily or just another city in Canada or where you're gonna hang your hat um but when you leave University the vast majority for friends and contacts you lose and the great thing about YouTube is that you are gonna make friends and contacts that move with you and I'm one of them I want to stay in touch with you I don't care you can move to Cambodia you can move to Alaska whatever you know obviously I want stay in touch to you because of this fundamental vegan thing um the you know political horizons for vegans in the future that's the great thing about YouTube but for me when I left Cambodia I lost all the runs at you Bodi when I left Laos I lost other friends I had in Laos when I left could Ming when I lived here before in the past I lost all the friends I had here again and again and again so from one period of the next to my life there's been nobody who knows me continuously so I even just said now casually passing like anyone who knows me knows I'm not the kind of guy to get into fistfights and go to jail as durianrider boasts he is and again whether or not we believe that whether it's completely false or just in saturation but the sad thing is like there's there's nobody who really knows me anymore except and this this again you can decide if this is positive or negative in your own life because you're gonna be in the situation soon I said to my teacher here my Chinese teacher Chinese language teacher the other day that by the end of this course she will have spent more hours talking to me than any of my brothers or sisters any of them cuz you look at how many hours the course is five days a week four hours a day I'm in class with her right so she's talking to me for 20 hours a week so she knows she will know me by the end of this course better than any of my blood relatives of this generation for those assistants and the same thing could happen with YouTube right there are people who've heard me talking on YouTube for more than 100 hours ever maybe that's a slicer I have more than 300 videos some of them are an hour long some they're 50 ma so maybe it's not a hundred hours I'm sorry but let's say more than 50 hours they've been taught they've heard me talking so yeah me whether it's positive or negative in your life I think you'll see both as you keep going with this thing but there will be people who meet you for the first time you know maybe it's at an animal rights conference or an ecological event or Green Party events or something you know there will be people walk up to you talk to you but because they've watched every single one of your videos they may know you better than your cousin or your friend you went to university with you know the number of hours they listen you talk so that's a very interesting dynamic and that does travel with you whether it's when you leave University or move from one city to the next in in Canada so we want to be we want to be people of substance and wanna be remembered by people that's the vanity about that we don't like to discuss about us that's a really ugly part in society that we want to be something more than we actually are