Go to Instagram now, George. Go to Instagram now. I disappeared, but I'm still there. I'm clicking the button. Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope you're having a beautiful evening, depending where you are. Maybe you're in the Netherlands. Maybe you're in Hawaii. But wherever you are, I'm stoked that you're here with us. I have an incredible guest for you today. Everybody, you know, sometimes people say they don't need an introduction, but I think you're an awesome guy, and I know a lot of people do, and I've prepared an introduction for you, so here we go. Oh, shit. Ladies and gentlemen, to an encounter with a mind, I am introducing you to an encounter with a mind that sees beyond the ordinary. Perry Knoppert, I love the K in there, with over six years as a founder, board member, and philanthropist stands at the forefront. of nonlinear thinking and cognitive diversity. As the visionary behind the Octopus Movement and Brain Forest Alliance, Perry pioneers efforts to celebrate and harness the remarkable abilities of atypical thinkers, empowering them to tackle today's and tomorrow's most complex challenges. A board member at Pick My neurodiverse brain, Perry champions inclusivity and understanding of neurodiversity driven by his passion for authentic transformative conversations. His life story, now a documentary, rich with multifaceted experiences, serves as a beacon of wisdom and inspiration. Philosopher, multi-potentiate, and Octavist Perry, Knoppert redefines leadership and problem solving, connecting deeply with others through his innovative and expansive approach. Perry, thank you for being here today, my friend. I hope you're doing well. Thank you, George. And if I would have heard this four years ago, I would have been laughing and saying, no, no way. Who is he talking about? Oh, fuck, it's me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the bumper sticker we were talking about. Oh, fuck. It's me. Yeah. We're creating. George and Perry are creating a bumper sticker. Oh, fuck. It's me. Doesn't it says everything, George? Oh, fuck. It's me. And that's kind of the secret to living a better life. Oh, fuck. It's me. You know, as soon as you figure that out, your relationships get a lot better. Yep. That's the topic of today, folks. Oh, fuck, it's me. It is. I like that. Yeah, me too. Perry, what is going on, man? I talked to you a while back. You had a documentary coming out. Every time I look over at what you're doing, there's all these incredible... like different tentacles that are beginning to form I saw one with the kids octopus movement I see people coming on board as new founding members and I'm not even sure where to start at man what which one of those is which thread in this beautiful tapestry do you feel like pulling on let's let's talk first about non-linear thinking and yeah maybe people are now thinking oh god here he comes again but this is this is everything for me the the non-linear thinking okay And the interesting part is, is that I'm discovering myself what it is. That's why I want to talk about it because every day I'm discovering more about what nonlinear thinking is. You know, we, we talk about things, but do we really understand what we're saying? Right. It's, are we really aware of what's going on? And. And that nonlinear journey for me is fascinating. And so dive with me, George. Let's explore this. When I talk about nonlinear thinking, I always go to linear thinking first. What is linear thinking? Everybody understands linear thinking, but do we really understand linear thinking? That's my thinking recently. Do we really think that we know linear thinking? I was reading this book, Will AI Replace Us? Love that book. In the beginning of this book, It's writing about the laws of thought. Wow, that triggered so much with me, George. The laws of thought. That sounds fascinating. The laws of thought. And then in combination with linear thinking, isn't that the old brain, the laws of thought? So we're born. Yeah. And Janice, she's a founding member, a podcast host, and she runs the Ambassadors in the Octopus Movement. She always says, I've never seen a linear two-year-old. That's why we're doing the Think Tank series with the kids. There are no two-year-olds that are linear. So for me, linear thinking is a law of thought. It's the thinking we have created. which is there for years and thousands of years in our belief and our systems that we've created and and everything that goes wrong in the world is also based on the laws of thought the wars the horrible way we can interact with other human beings the religions the judgments the discrimination it's all based For me, on the laws of thought, on the thinking, like, oh, fuck, it's me. It's the thinking that we think that that's the reality. And for me, that's linear thinking. It's the old brain. It's this is the reality because we're conditioned that way. And I think for most people, this is like 90% of the time. so and in the beginning I would always say linear thinking is going from a to b to c to d right in the straight but aren't we doing that constantly with everything in our lives right isn't that always the laws of thought in creating how we see things without really thinking about it And then the nonlinear thinking for me is, and that's what we spoke about last time as well, is the space between these thoughts. So the laws of thought is how we're conditioned, how we are trained to think, how we see the reality. And between that, there is nothing, quietness, space. And from that space, ideas common surface you know interesting things appear and and that's for me non-linear thinking it's it's detached from the laws of thought it's your own creation and you can see that online you know you can see with with all kinds of cool techniques that these neurons are connecting with each other in the brain at some point and then we say it's meditation also interesting you know we love systems and methods oh we need meditation I don't know what it is george for me it's just empty space and that allows to create something new kids are very good at it and then we get all older and we're adults and we are completely isolated in the laws of thought And we fuck up things, right? We're not very kind to each other. And we're so tight in achieving what we want to achieve and be judgmental to ourselves and to others and others to you as well. And we're all caught up in these laws of thought. Whereas if we can be quiet a little bit, and create some space. For me, that's nonlinear thinking. And I'm so happy that it's becoming more and more clear now what that is. Nonlinear thinking is not just the creativity. It's already before that. Creativity and nonlinear thinking is the output but it's it starts earlier it starts in an empty space where the laws of thought are irrelevant you're not isolated when you're a non-linear thinker I think when you're very linear and you're caught up with all the laws of thought, and this is how it should be. And this is what I believe. And, and, and all these thoughts think about it, George, all these thoughts constantly fire up their conditions. And, and we think, we think that that's the reality. And, you know, a lot of people talk about what the hell is a reality. We live in a matrix or not, or, you know, choose a different reality. Fine. But it's the thinking. And the thinking is conditioned. And we need to be quiet. Not meaning you can't talk. Of course, talk. But we were just talking about dialogue. you know look at the dialogue within your brain to others dialogue meaning you don't want to convince anyone there's not a statement I'm I'm not here to convince I want to free flow with george because I like george and and I think how you think is awesome and it's fun to free flow not about convincing it's about the exploration of how it works and the only way to get there I think is not to think and therefore be a non-linear thinker and and disconnect of the laws of thought I like the laws of thought and and we were doing recently I was invited to do a a panel discussion and it was about hippie 2.0 let's go back to the 60s nice and someone was talking about the the mantra of of the 60s turn on tune in and drop out and and I decided to use that I like that and I changed it into turn on your non-linear thinking meaning be quiet create some empty space between your thoughts and allow new thoughts to be there that are not from the laws of thought that is there in the world, right? And tune in into the human mycelium. I was talking with a new founding member and he said something so cool, George. He said, the human mycelium is already there. And I like that so much. We're not creating the human mycelium. And for anyone who's listening and thinking the human mycelium, what the fuck? It started with when we started the octopus movement, people were saying, oh, it's such a cool community. And I didn't like the word community. Maybe because my nonlinear brain constantly looks at language as well. yeah you know we use community immediately without thinking the laws of thought oh that's community right but what is it really what really is a community and and does it really stand for what we're doing and I didn't want to use the word community I don't want to go into something and out and batches you know rules it's it's the organic connection we have as human beings anyway and then I saw paul stamets documentary about fungi and how the trees and mushrooms are all connected under the ground you know without bias without judgment without discrimination this is like hey you are really a weird tree we're not gonna help you you know That that's not happening in nature and we are nature, but we're doing that thanks to the laws of thoughts, I think. So I was thinking this is, this is our human mycelium, that connection we have anyway, and we see the connection when we meet each other. So the first time we met, um, we saw that connection, but that connection is there anyway. And. And if we tune into that and create these connections and support each other and listen to each other and be quiet from time to time, it's wonderful. And then drop out of these laws of thought. Get out of there. Be aware of that and just leave it behind. Fuck it's me, sticker. That's dropping out of the laws of thought. And when you're listening, the laws of thought are there immediately. You're listening and you're judging. Oh, listen to him. He really has a Dutch accent. Or, oh, wow, he has a lot of octopuses around him. And why is he Dr. Octopus? And these laws of thought are firing constantly. constantly and you want to be better and you want to do more and you want to be more successful and you want to have more money and you want to have more friends and your status is not good enough these are the laws of thought constantly firing up you can never be in that empty space if if these things are bagging you constantly right it's taking over it's it's So that's why turn on, tune in, and drop out. I love that. So I copied that. It's not me. I borrowed it from the hippies. Yeah. Literally would be proud, I think. I hope so. That would be fun to talk about. Yeah, it would be fun. I think if he was around today, I wonder if the reception would be a much different reception. It seems like the world is more prepared on some level to see the changes that are coming. Here's a question for you. What role do you think language has on conditioning you spoke about linear being a conditioned response and the first conditioning we get is with language when people define words for us but what do you think is the relationship between language and linear thinking but what is language right what are these words it's it's thinking language is thinking so the conditioning using these words are immediately bringing thoughts into our system it's like the turn on switch yeah say a word and something immediately happens it's in the direct correlation between language and thoughts because thoughts is language right yeah if if you look close you can see a pattern Like A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A letter is part of a word. A word is part of a sentence. A sentence is part of a paragraph. A paragraph is part of a story. A story is part of a book. A book is part of an anthology. You can see the linear pathways baked into the cake in the very basic blocks of almost any building, but specifically language. I think language traps. our children into thinking a certain way. You know, when you, when you reach back and listen to some interesting people talk about glossolalia, you know, I know it's runs counter to the ideas of Chomsky to think about glossolalia, but you know, if I come up and I just make a bunch of weird mouth noises, like true shop, please drop something, call some show. She's all lives on for selling. Like, why can't that be something? Like maybe there should be groups when I used to drive, maybe there should be groups with teachers and kids just doing that. And then talking about what that means. Cause that's, I think just as good of a language learning device as it is. This is the noun. This is the verb. And I know you can't do it all the time, but maybe there should be some make-believe which leads to non-linear thinking. Like when you get to define what the words mean as a child, now you've taken the labels off. You've given them some beginning tools where they can think things instead of being, having the law given to them at such an early age. Yeah. Rather than a teacher constantly saying to you, this is not good. This is the law. You must ask for a pass. This is not good. Can you imagine how strong these words are? This is not good. This is not good. And you hear that every, I have dyslexia. I've heard that my entire life. This is not good. Yeah. This is not good. This is a mistake. You're doing it wrong. So strong. It's so strong. And when I was... And George, this is a funny story. When I was in China, talking about weird sounds, I was working in a Chinese company and was one of the only foreigners there. And I was studying Mandarin. But when I started working there, it was Mama Hu Hu. It means... just a tiny little bit. So being in these meetings sounded like what you just did, but it's, it's, it's so interesting that I would be in this meeting and I could feel what it was about. I could sense what was happening, even though I didn't speak the language. And this was a language Mandarin when you're Dutch, those are, you know, That's somewhere else. If I'm listening to Swedish or German or French, that's close. I can understand. I can relate. But Mandarin? Are you kidding me? It doesn't make any sense. But still, you could feel it. And that's how strong language is. We say something. We send a WhatsApp message. so strong it's language you use one word and and and you up by using the wrong word or the wrong sentence and it immediately creates something new and that's the linear pathway he's saying this so we're going there we're not asking questions we're not asking the teacher why is this wrong why is this spelling wrong what does it mean to be wrong in spelling when I have dyslexia tell me what does it mean what does it really mean I would love to ask this to a teacher what does it really mean to make a mistake in spelling when you have dyslexia is it a mistake maybe no no I, I, my daughter has severe dyslexia as well. She was writing a birthday card for my girlfriend and she wrote down happy. Um, so normally it's birthday and she wrote down birth year. I thought it was cool. Yeah. Maybe it's not a birthday. It's birth year. It's another year celebrating your birth. I thought it was very cool. What do we do in a linear response? Oh, it's wrong. It's birthday. Don't call on that kid anymore. They get it wrong all the time. You know? It's not birth year. It's birthday. Says who? Thank you. The laws of thought tells us it's birthday. These are the unwritten rules and the written rules in life. And that's the linear construction. And it's not helping us. You know, if it's serving us well, then fine. But look at where we are in the world. I don't get it, George. People are so angry with each other. We are at war. We're killing each other. Killing. We're killing other human beings based on thinking. Wow. Based on old ideas. And I think what you're seeing, at least in my mind, and I'd love to get your opinion on this, I think what you're seeing right now is the death Or maybe what we're seeing is the birth pangs of non-linear thinking becoming the path forward for everyone. It seems to me like a lot of the ideas that people are struggling with, whether it's economy or money or resources or... different types of land grabs on some level or hate like these are old ideas that no longer serve us and they are at least in my opinion affiliated with linear thinking people that don't think linear don't see this maybe another way to look at linear thinking is one dimensional that's a pretty good what do you think about that linear thinking in one dimensional yeah And it's changing, George. You're absolutely right. Of course it is. And it looks bad. It looks like it's dying. But it needs to. And why are we all looking at this? Why are we all exploring this? I think it also has to do with AI. I think the laws of thought created something that is absolutely wonderful. Think about it. The laws of thought, the thinking, the conditioning, the creating language, we did that together. And it's a language model, AI. It's the base. So we are exploring our own thinking by creating AI. Yeah. how wonderful is that we've we've been able to isolate the laws of thought by creating ai by creating chat gpt within what is it now an iq of 155 it's wonderful and why do I think it's wonderful it's because all the energy going into ai In nature, everything is balanced, right? We agree on that. So if all this energy is going into AI, the other energy, the same amount of energy, is going into human intelligence. So I think by isolating the laws of thought in AI opens up the awareness of nonlinear thinking, of The empty space in our brains that creates new pathways that are unique for human beings. And. And that will change a lot of things. We always talk about education. We always talk about education. And everybody agrees that education should change. This is fascinating. I've never met anyone who said, no, education is fine as it is. We're doing a very good job. Everybody agrees that we should do something about education. nothing is happening I know there are some new schools here and there and some new ideas and we have sir whatever with all these ted talks I i know but it's not changing george it's not changing I have three kids I've it's not changing and opening up this space of non-linear thinking by the isolation of laws of thought within linear thinking in ai I think that will open up a whole new way of looking into education and how we can change that and and that we have to change that we have to change and we have to change things in how we look at them we have to this is not working I just saw a post this morning that in the netherlands the netherlands country right so small and there the numbers are you know nobody knows the exact number and this article was writing about 30 000 people not going to school in the netherlands because they don't fit into the system I heard some other stories it's 60 000 and the official number from the government is 8 000. you know governments are very good in your thinking um They say it's official. But it's between 30,000 and 60,000 kids are not going to school because they don't fit into the system. We have 17 million people in the Netherlands, something like that, 18. I'm not good with numbers. I don't know. It's a tiny country. What the hell are we doing? These kids are, it doesn't fit. We need to do something. Yeah. I think people get into trouble when we think about education because so much of education is indoctrination. It seems to me, at least in the schools that I went to, the idea of the school is to bring about some idea of shared goals and shared sacrifice, not necessarily based on true accounts of history. So if you look at that as education, you can go, oh... There is no more shared goals. There is no more shared sacrifice. There can't be any education according to the way we were doing it anymore. It has to change. And it is changing. I heard a good quote that said growth and comfort can't coexist. And if you look at our school systems, you can see the shattered paradigm that was education. But like you said, these 30,000 kids in the Netherlands that are not in school, it's not like they're not being educated. They have education on demand. They can join the octopus movement. They have parents for helping them. They can learn things. that they want to learn. And it's changing right in front of our eyes, I think. And it's such a fascinating time to be alive. It's just a matter of time. Here's one for you. There's a kid at my daughter's school who started a YouTube channel. And for anybody that's ever watched that show, Ryan, Ryan's channel is big in the US. And him and his mom started this little channel and they became like a powerhouse. If you go to any target, you'll see this kid's picture on all the board games. on all kinds of stuff. And here's a guy and his mom that were living in Texas. And the next thing you know, they're multimillionaires. I think the resume of the future for children is what have you created? There's no more excuse to say you haven't created anything. Because you can create your idea and bring it to life online. How many people are watching what you're doing? Like you said, kids know some incredible things. And we watch them and we're amazed and we're inspired. And we're like, look at this kid doing this thing. How does he know that? That's the kind of stuff. These are the leaders of tomorrow. And that's the change right there in front of us. It's happening as fast as you can talk about it. What do you think? Is that too crazy? Without rules, right? Yes. Without rules. This is how to create your YouTube channel. This is how to create. What is create, right? There's a problem with this is how to create. That's already in conflict. This is how to create. That's another bumper sticker. That's so funny. Yeah, another bumper sticker. Number two. That's also weird. This is how to create. that's what is creation creation is creating something it's the unexpected bringing together and something new so there cannot be any rules in creation right it's impossible right otherwise it's not a creation and and that's what's going wrong at schools I think we we we're not allowed to make mistakes we're not allowed to make mistakes anyway um also outside of school. I'm not allowed to make any mistakes in this interview. People don't allow me. I don't fucking care if I make a mistake, if it's bullshit what I'm saying or not. I'm just having a fun conversation with my George. That's right. We're not allowed to make mistakes, and we're punished immediately, canceled. Oh, this is bullshit what he's saying. I'm unfollowing him. Yeah, let's cancel the dude. We're not allowed to make mistakes at school. Isn't that the biggest thing? We wrote a white paper on education. That's why I'm saying this. We did the think tank. We came together with all these nonlinear, neurodiverse, crazy dudes, women, and fantastic all over the world. we created a white paper what's going on how do we see this and and and I think the most important thing is mistakes we're not allowing kids to make mistakes how how how can we grow when we're not allowed to make mistakes my god did I make many mistakes in my life george and I keep making them good and And that's how we grow. But we have created this institution of thinking that doesn't allow you to make any mistakes. You get the language. These are the thoughts. Who is saying that these thoughts are real? These, this language is the actual thing you need to learn. And then, and then you're not allowed to make mistakes. So these, this language is coming in. These laws of thought are there and better not make a mistake in repeating these laws of thought. Wow. My daughter said to me one day, during the pandemic, she was at home, you know, and I was homeschooling her. And two dyslexic people together, homeschooling is a lot of fun, really. But it went well and it went fast and we did so much and we had so much fun. And she keeps saying to me, you know, I wish I could be at home with you that you teach me because you understand how I think. Yeah. And it's fun and it's, and I keep saying it's okay to make a mistake. My other son has dyslexia, dyspraxia, sorry. And that means his handwriting is not in line with how it should be. He can't even read his own handwriting. That's how difficult it is. And again, again, you know, it's, it's wrong. It's wrong. This is not how you should write. And he came home one day totally frustrated because he had this Dutch teacher on his back. He was in an international school in Belgium. And she was constantly complaining to him that he should improve his handwriting. You're doing it wrong. This is how it should be. You're not allowed to make mistakes. This is how we agree that handwriting looks like. And I told him, I said, okay, let's take some cards and write down some things for me. And his handwriting is wonderful, George. It's a work of art. And he wrote down, fuck you for me. And I framed it. It's somewhere in my house. It'll come in handy later. And, and, and, and it's, I said, look at this, I'm framing this. It looks so cool. It looks so cool. No, you're doing it wrong. Your handwriting should be exactly like this. Laws of thought, linear thinking, the linear thinking is, this is how it should be. And we believe that nonlinear thinking is being an empty space, allowing something else to happen and say, but this looks cool as well. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be listening to rules or we should ignore all the systems. That's not what I'm saying at all. But now it's 90, 99% of the time it's all linear. Everything that's happening in our heads are linear when you're thinking. It's just wonderful to create some awareness that there's something else as well to be quiet. and create something new and not judge immediately when you see something when you hear something just be be curious ask questions how old is your son he's 16 now okay yeah he's all cool and you know he is okay Yeah. I think you cannot be curious if you're linear, George. Can that be a statement? I think curiosity is trained out of you with laws. Curiosity is finding a way to build a better mousetrap, and people that own the mousetraps don't want you trying to figure out how to build a better one. You know what I mean? That comes back to authority. If we talk about authority, linear thinking, curiosity, and education, I think that we can say us as parents have to be the individuals that are setting an example to be not afraid to be Non-linear. Because so many of us have thoughts that are different than what we're doing. And we've been trapped our lives into authoritarian structures where we're afraid to leave because we're afraid to make a mistake. Like you said, we're afraid to make this mistake. But if we as individuals... We don't show our kids that you got to stand up and fight or, Hey, I'm going to do this regardless because this is the right thing to do. And I think my idea is better. I don't care about their dumb idea. I'm going to do my idea. Watch this. And there's real consequences for that. But if we as individuals don't show our kids that, then we are doing the training of linear thinking. And I have tons of friends that are brilliant, nonlinear thinkers, but they're trapped in the linear world. And they, they, they, are training their kids to be linear. You know, there's, it just seems like that to me. What would you take on that? I think a lot of parents are trapped, are isolated in that area of not being curious about their kids. They have their own trauma, their own frustration, trying to save their kids. And they're in, in. This is difficult, George. Can you imagine? We are all nonlinear thinkers. Then we're conditioned. It makes me want to cry, Perry, to be honest with you. And we're all conditioned. And then we have kids. And we all want the best for our kids. I strongly believe that. I agree. We all want that. And... We have our thoughts, what is good and what is bad and we're conditioned as well. And we bring that to our kids. We imprinted on them. Yes. And I'm, and I'm amazed to see the lack of curiosity towards our own kids, all in that celebration of preparing our own kids to the evil world out there and get a good job, make sure you're, you're safe, you know, be financially independent, be happy. But, but your, your child is something beautiful is, is your nonlinear product. Yeah. It's your child is the empty space. your child is innocent and your child is suffering as well you know thanks to your dna and your own trauma you're giving that to your kid so you better you better fix yourself before you get kids because you're you're you're giving it to them So you better be curious when you have kids. You better be curious. And the only way to be curious is to understand your own nonlinear space. It's there. Everybody has it. Turn on your nonlinear thinking. Turn on your nonlinear thinking and be curious about them because they are wonderful. They have ideas. They have new thoughts. Don't try to push them into the laws of your thinking on what's good for them. You want to raise independent, beautiful, heartwarming thinkers that are human. Are able to connect with others. Don't hurt others. You need to be curious about your own kids. That should be important. When is the last time, right, when you went to your kids? I'm curious. Not, I'm curious how did it go last night when you went out with your friends. I'm not talking about that kind of curiosity. That's not curiosity. You want to know what happened. Right. Fuck, it's not me. you know you want to know what's happened that's not curiosity what is curious curiosity george curiosity is to discover new things so knowing what he or she did last night it's not curiosity it's being in control yeah curiosity is about how do you see this that's curiosity because you you don't know what they're gonna say How was it at school? It's not curiosity. No way. Yeah. No. I picked up my daughter from school. We were in the car. She was telling me about school. And I said to her, I said, what was the most, you know, what are the new rules you've learned today? She gave me a bunch of weird rules. She is at a strange school. I have to say this. She's not allowed to, but listen to this, George. Okay, let me hear. She's not allowed to talk to her brother during the break because the kids that don't have any siblings at the school could be jealous. That's ridiculous. No, that's weird. That's, you know, what? And so I'm curious. I'm like, where is this coming from? So I sent the school a message. Can we talk about this? Where is this? But they don't want to talk to me. This is too difficult. I don't know. where's your curious and and then she was talking about the second world war and then she was talking about something other that was horrible I said okay so rules war what did you did you learn something today that was beautiful you know did you all draw a flower or did you learn the name of a bird or whatever No, no, no, George. We need to be curious. And we need to be curious to our teachers as well at school. Ask them. So why is it all about rules and war? And why is it not about flowers and birds? What's going on? Why? Tell me. need to be curious we need to be really curious curious in in understanding things we don't understand seeing new patterns seeing new ideas not curiosity to be in control that's not what it's about yeah it's it's interesting to think about if we take it all the way back to language and you look at classes I think you know, often there's English class or there is homeroom class, but maybe there should be a class called curiosity. What did you do in curiosity today? You know, and that, like that would be a great addition. And I realized that it's easy for us to sit here and talk about adding new curriculums and things like that when there's not a whole lot of money involved in public schools. And I'm sure that there's great teachers trying to do their best. However, I think that introducing curiosity into every curriculum on some level would be a step in the right direction. Or semantics on that. How do we explain stuff? Every class could be a semantics class. Everything could be about language. It could be a throwback to the way in which we taught math. a group of people and instead of trying to tell kids what to do, we could bring them up and be like, what young genius is this? What gifts do they have in a structure that is more rewarding and more curious and more able to develop non, look at, we sound like a bunch of non-linear guys, man. Like we have all these awesome ideas, you know? This is what happens. This is what happens, Perry. And please, teachers, don't create a system into curiosity. don't please it it curiosity needs to flee free flow it cannot be I'm thinking I'm listening to you george and I'm thinking and we of course there's a level of curiosity at school you know and then you're curious about something okay do your research and have a presentation there's immediately a system you know this is how you research and this is how you give the presentation and have some American friends, they say, presentation. I never get that. Is it presentation or presentation? I don't get it. Anyway. Present, dessert. Desert, dessert. Forget about it. Be curious. And discover how you want to discover your curiosity. And don't put it into a system, because it makes it linear again. This is how you want to explore. And everybody explores in a different way. Of course, this is education. So make mistakes in your curiosity and teach kids. Well, when you're curious, you can also do this and this. Oh, wow. Maybe inspire them. to fulfill their curiosity in other ways but there cannot be one system to explore your curiosity they cannot be systems are yeah systems sometimes systems are awesome but sometimes systems I was listening to a podcast and someone was talking about this was interesting george I like that when when you have a goal in mind your teacher your coach your guru you know you're george and you want to have 1 million listeners on your youtube channel 10 million whatever make make a living out of your interviews youtube paying you you know that's that's the goal and you work towards that you create a system to go there the problem is That you create the end goal. That's your linear thinking. This is. If I have 10 million listeners. On my YouTube channel. I will make this amount of money. Whatever. Wow. That's. That's your end goal. And that's a linear construct. And you work towards that. With the method. This is how I. What steps to take? Other people creating YouTube videos about how to create that. This is what you need to do, right? So you're in a kind of self, I can't find the word, hypnosis. You're in a self-hypnosis, creating that method to go there. right this is and and this is what people talk about focus you need to focus you need to focus this is where you want to go then go there create a method this is how it works in a linear way right and they prove this is what my focus was I created the method and I got there so it works but this self-hypnosis makes you blind what if the end result is not this end result What if George creates his own TV show? What if George becomes the Saturday Night Live host? What if George creates his own magazine? What if George get into something completely different? But you're not seeing that in your self-hypnosis because this is your end goal. This is the only place I want to go to. So you're missing out on all these other opportunities. And we create this method. And then when it works, we share this method with others. Look, it worked for me. I find this so fascinating. Okay, let me ask you this then. Maybe the linear system is necessary. I heard a gentleman the other day who was talking about if you take a Coke bottle and you smash it just right with the palm of your hand, you can blow out the back of it. but you need the right pressure to do it. Maybe the system is what provides the pressure in order for a mutation to work. And the mutation is nonlinear thinking. Maybe the system is a necessary form of drudgery and pressure in order to make people think nonlinear and find a new way. I always say that I'm very grateful for the system. Okay. I have this research paper from the Institute of Economic Affairs, and it explains what nonlinear thinking is from a perspective of finance, management, economics. Can you imagine? So the system explaining nonlinear thinking. I love it. I'm not making this up. I was going to ask you if you had it. I would love to hear a little snippet from there. Let me get it. Yeah, please take your time. I'm not making this up, really. Chaos management and economics. The implications of nonlinear thinking. They talk about the chaos theory, the paper 125, whatever. A chaotic world is more complex than can be captured by the linear equations generally used by economic modelers and by the conventional analysis of management scientists. The chaotic world is so chaotic that the linear world is saying, uh-uh. No way. Can't measure it. Can't measure it. Scary shit. Yeah. You can't measure it. It doesn't exist. Interesting, huh? It's tragic. The long-term future is inherently unknowable. Economics which cope best with chaotic conditions are likely to be those which promote entrepreneurial adaptations. okay and then it goes on and on and on very cool and then it's writing about so why are people so linear and and this is this explanation is why I always say I'm grateful for the linear system linear thinkers are afraid to look at their own mental state they want to be in control They want to use the laws of thought because then at least they're in control of that. There's no chaos within the laws of thought. Agree? Yeah. So if we know what happens next week, next month, we're in the laws of thought. We are in control. And we don't have chaos in our lives. We wear tight underwear. Everything is in balance. And we're fine. At least we think we're fine. And everything that is close to chaos or different thinking, we turn our backs towards that or them. We don't want to go there. I know. When I became homeless, I know. I've seen it. I've seen people turning their backs on me saying, no, dude, I don't want to be close to you. I don't want to hear anything that's happening with you. Good friends at Georgia. They walked away. They are afraid of their own mental state. They're isolated in the laws of their thinking. And, and this is beautiful because the linear system, that teacher who kept saying to me, you're wrong. This is, this is a mistake. You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. really made me question about my own mental abilities you know if someone is constantly saying to you you're not doing a good job you're you start to think what's wrong with me and that's a good question yeah wrong with me it's a very good question I wish everybody would be thinking what's wrong with me can you imagine these these successful linear thinkers they think they are ruling the world, grabbing and stabbing. And they find themselves normal. They never think about themselves. What's wrong with me? And they continue and continue and they cancel. Not very nice. But that linear system kept saying to me, you're doing it wrong. So I became very curious about myself. What's wrong with me? So I'm I'm okay with my mental state. I'm okay when I'm depressed for a day or two. I'm okay when I'm crying. I'm okay when I'm lost. I'm not afraid of that. I don't mind what happens. I don't mind because I discovered when I was homeless that nothing changed. Nothing changed. inside of me nothing changed outside everything changed inside of me nothing changed well if if nothing changes when something like that happens that's an amazing feeling and and I think the linear system really helped me and helped a lot of non-linear thinkers to question their own mental state hopefully in a positive way that allows you to be non-linear because When you're a nonlinear thinker, you question yourself. You're curious about your own mental capabilities, capacities, states. You're curious about how that operation system works here. If that happens, you can allow chaos in your life. You can adapt to whatever situation because you're not trapped in all these thoughts. Being an expat, when we came to China, I was amazed. People were living there, expats. You're in a different country. It's a different culture. And some of, most of them, George, it was horrible for them. You know, they don't have any cheese here. What the hell? It's... They can. So the system really, and that's the positive thing of the system in education. So I'm not against suffering. Suffering is wonderful. It opens up so many doors. The only problem is that which way does it go? Does it become trauma or does it become inspiration? Same thing. We need to talk about that. So I'm grateful for the system. I'm grateful for the Institute of Economic Affairs in creating this paper of doing linear research about non-linearity. It's fascinating. And when I was done reading this, I was thinking, why are we not talking? Leadership. We're going to dive into leadership soon with the octopus movement. Leadership is very linear, right? Yeah. These are the thoughts. These are the laws. This is how you should do it. Not for long, though, Perry. Not for long. It's radically changing when an individual can compete with a multinational. And that is happening. at record time I was just speaking with john davidson incredible marketer we were talking about the future of the creator economy we're talking about the lies that are so perpetuated you know and one of them is when we think about the ideas of a large multinational corporation talking about saving the planet, but they have a business model built on excess consumption. The employees know that. Those lies on that level is the cancer that is just cutting into the world. Look at that. Everybody can see it. You know what I mean? There's no linear path there. But it's changing. It's changing at an incredible level, I think. And I think that the business model is going to benefit so much from the creator economy and the nonlinear thinkers. They have so much to add to the future of business, to the future of growth, to the future of success, and to the future of building. That's probably why we're here, man. That's probably a big reason why you started this. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit. human intelligence george I strongly believe in that human intelligence combine that with linear thinking however you want to see it by artificial intelligence or not human intelligence with systems create something wonderful and that's what we're doing in the octopus movement and then I'll explain why I started this but yeah we have five areas we focus on hunger homelessness of course climate change education the and well-being these are the five areas and we always say the octopus movement is the global human mycelium of nonlinear thinkers solving the unsolvable for a sustainable future took us three years took me three years to create that sentence because I had no clue what the I was doing I was just only thinking these non-linear thinkers are cool we need to do something together and I think we that the first focus on these five areas solving the unsolvable makes me smile because something is only unsolvable when you think about It's being unsolvable is linear. You decide what we just talked about, you know, the self-hypnosis we want to go there, but it's not possible. So it's unsolvable. That's ridiculous. Everything is solvable. It's only unsolvable from a linear perspective. look at elon musk you know yeah it's it's landing back on earth with his rockets right everybody said it was impossible he spent an amazing amount of money on failure and he did it And I strongly believe that we can solve hunger, homelessness, climate change, education, and well-being, or at least make a huge difference there. How? Bringing all these nonlinear thinkers together. We have think tanks. We write a white paper on education, George, and it's on our website. It took us 15 minutes. 50 minutes you bring 40 brilliant non-linear thinkers together you work for 50 minutes bam and you write the white paper and writing the white paper okay that took a few days of course but creating it the emptiness and making new connections that creation took 50 minutes i think the solution for homelessness is there of course it's there just have to bring it together hunger in the world when you think about it how can there be hunger in the world how you know so that's and why did I start the octopus movement for this no I i was homeless I survived that was after seven months before that I tried to get a job I went back to the netherlands and gave away everything was on the streets just the bag and the dog staying with friends and survived that nobody wanted to talk to me because my resume looks like george really I've done so many different things that I'm not a specialist you know who is this guy is he marketing is he sales is he what is he doing so getting a job didn't work out for me which was the biggest present I was very very frustrated to send away maybe 150 letters nobody invited me I had not one conversation It's the biggest gift. It's the biggest gift. I'm so happy no one replied. I'm so happy I didn't get a job. So grateful. Maybe it's the whatever organizing this. yeah and and I thought I can survive this I'm I'm okay nothing changed for me if I have a job or not I have a house or not I'm still the same perry and and I decided you know I'm I'm going to create a non-profit if everything is possible what would I do in my life that was really the conversation that I had myself everything is possible what do I do maybe it's a great question for everyone yeah if everything is possible what would I do answer that right and and for me it was I want to create first of all I want to be an artist that's number one I want to be an artist why because art is beautiful art in the artistic way I'm not talking about a painting I paint fine I write I take photographs but art is more than that you know art is the non-linear creation of a feeling of a thought and being an artist for me is everything And it's impossible to explain art. If you say, what is art? Difficult to explain. These books about what is art. The great story about this art gallery owner who dropped his glasses on the floor. And he was in a hurry. And he put up the painting. His glasses dropped. And his phone was ringing. And he came back. And there were all these people standing around his glasses like, yeah, that's interesting. What is art? So I wanted to be an artist. I'm an artist now. And I thought, I want to create a nonprofit and build something beautiful with all these humans that are not being recognized. I've met so many people, George, who said to me, if only people would know I could do so much more. And even with people that are successful, whatever, whatever that may be, maybe financially independent, successful. They also think, if only people would really know who I am, I could do so much more. And I think that's the nonlinear mind talking. And I thought, let's bring them all together and see what happens. That's it. There's no business plan. There's no blueprint. There's no, there's no goal. Just bring it together. Let's build that human mycelium and along the way. So there's no self hypnosis in, in the octopus movement we're creating and along the way with all these arms and all these suckers and all these different colors, things are happening. And then we embrace things that are happening. Oh, let's dive into these five areas. Oh, let's do the think tanks. Let's do art projects. Let's teach at schools. Let's give seminars. Let's do retreats. Let's meet up and talk about these things. I don't know what's happening and what will happen in the coming years. But I know it's growing every day. every day people are joining every day awesome things are happening we now have um the angel donors I have to share this with you yeah please the angel donors I got a a little octopus I was doing a keynote with the railway company in the netherlands And I did a keynote on neurodiversity, but not on neurodiversity, on the space before and after neurodiversity and around neurodiversity. Not particularly about ADHD and autism and dyslexia, but what is diversity? Neurodiversity, I love that word. When we go back to the linear thinking, the laws of thought, and then we created neurodiversity saying, whenever there's a problem, There is neurodiversity. And if there's not a problem, there is no diversity. Uh-huh. Yeah. I can talk for more than an hour about that topic alone. Anyway, they gave me this little octopus. Of course, people give me octopuses. And I love that. But this is such a nice octopus. It's nice and soft. And it has these little balls in its head. And it feels well. And it's like a nice fidget toy. And... this is from nature planet and it's recycled materials and it's um recycled stuffing and organic stuff and you can put it in your mouth it's yeah it's okay and I was thinking in this human mycelium that is there We're sending this little octopus to people that can use a little bit of support or use a little bit of acknowledgement that you're doing an awesome job. So you can hold this in your hand and it feels good. And I thought, how are we going to do this? So we've created the angel donors. small donation into the non-profit so we can buy these little friends and send them all over the world to people who could use a little bit of octopus in their lives and and why an angel donor it's from the angel investors and I discovered that that stop that started in the theater world art so that triggered my interest immediately when the theaters were having trouble financially, their audience were supporting them. They became angel investors in the theater world. And then they used that word to the startup scene. Thoughts, words, language again, George. And it's all about language. So I love the angel donations, the angel investors coming from the art world. So that's why those are the angel donors within the Octopus Movement. And we're sending these little friends all over the world to people that can use a little eight-armed, three hearts and nine brains animal to hold in their hands knowing to rely on their nonlinear thinking and that it's okay. Cool. Yeah, it's a cool policy. How do you identify the people that need them? There's no system, George. Does he just send out random octopus to people? Yeah, of course. There's no checklist. Okay. Does he... I reached out to some people sometimes. There is this clothing brand, Colorful Standard, I think it is. I love that. It's all organic materials and it doesn't have a brand and it's one color. So you can be a one color stain. That's how we call that in the family. You wear a black T-shirt, black pants, black socks, black underwear, black. everything is one color and they have all these colors colorful standard and it's all organic cotton and it's awesome And I reached out to them because on their website, they're saying we're looking for brand ambassadors. But they have a checklist. To be a brand ambassador, you have to have a following of 10,000 on Instagram here. You have to checklist. That always inspires me so much. I reached out to them. I said, I don't have these numbers. We just have an amazing group of nonlinear thinkers. And I would love to... wear your outfit in one color. I think it's so cool. Uh, they, they never replied because I don't, you know, I don't fit in the box. I don't have these numbers, so I'm not a brand ambassador for them. It's okay. I'm still a brand ambassador, even if they don't select me. I'm telling you here how cool this brand is. Of course I'm a brand ambassador. They do something awesome. So there's not going to be a checklist, George. People can sign up. They can just submit a form. I know someone who should deserve an octopus. The question is why? And if the answer is, but that's how I feel, then it's a perfect answer. It's not about how many followers you have on Instagram. It's so irrelevant. someone needs an octopus and then you get this little octopus with a little heart on the label and the octopus movement and and and it's a direct connection into tune in to the human mycelium yeah we support you we think you're doing an awesome job we like you as a human being here's a little animal it's a funny sentence right um and then you can hold it and I'm constantly playing with my little octopus I'm I'm doing meetings like this I'm like a little kid you know but it's comfortable it's makes me feel good when I hold this little octopus so there are no rules people can submit the form I will make sure you get the link George yeah I definitely I gotta I gotta I know people that need them just give me their names and address and we send them an octopus okay I'll do it yeah it it's interesting to see the way in which a movement can begin to snowball and in my mind the act you know there's this great quote that says practice random acts of kindness And if enough random acts of octopus or octopi being sent out to people could change the lives of a few people, and it would. You get a random octopus in the mail that talks about being good enough or, hey, you think different, you know, or whatever sort of message is on there. That's real. That's a real movement, you know, that has the ability to symbolize and catalyst change for the better. It's beautiful, man. I love it. You get your octopus in a little cart saying, George thinks you're awesome. And we, with the octopus movement, love that. Now we're talking. Right? I love it. It's beautiful. Does that come out of a think tank? No. That came out of quietness in my brain, seeing this thing. And then I thought, this little fucker needs to go to other people. I'm so happy with it. I'm so happy with my little octopus. this this feeling is so good that I want to share that that's all I want mine to say oh it's me maybe you should put that on the label as well yeah that would be perfect oh it's me it's me there I am right Oh, Perry, too much fun, man. I love talking to you. This is, we should do it more often. It's, it's, would you, would you got anything coming up or anything, man? Like what's up with the documentary? Documentary is, um, a challenge. Um, humans, human interactions, maybe language. So there's a little hiccup. the filmmaker the artist um I have a meeting with him next month to see how we can finish the documentary it's almost done uh the beauty between thoughts hopefully we can we can finish it soon um we have a monthly theme in the octopus movement now so this is this is interesting george we're creating structure um I have a chief of staff now karen ziegler she is My Watson. Yes, he is. She is my Watson. And we create things together. And she said one day, Perry, you need to create a theme into the monthly structure of the octopus movement. There's so much going on. We need to have clarity on what's happening. So now we have a monthly theme. Here you go. I want one. It's coming, Lonnie. Be ready. um this month it's mental health that's a global theme mental health and I'm thinking what is mental health and we did a think tank on mental health which went very well and tomorrow we will have a live uh dialogue on mental health so that means we have 10 people on stage and we broadcast that live and people can be in the audience and you can be pulled up on stage as well if you want to share something and we're going to do a monthly dialogue on the topic and and the dialogue is interesting as well george we spoke about that yeah before the uh broadcasting today a dialogue is very non-linear as well a good dialogue has no agenda a good dialogue has people who can enjoy the silence as well and are not there to convince There's no dialogue possible if someone wants to convince someone else. It's not a dialogue anymore. A dialogue is really to free flow in that nonlinear space. So the first dialogue session that we will do monthly is happening tomorrow on mental health. And next month, it's all about gender, LHBTQ+. I don't know if I say this correctly. I always make mistakes there. It's about gender. fascinating talking about the laws of thought, right? We're humans. I'm a man. He's a woman. There's neurodiversity. People are lost. What's happening? Why am I different? Maybe my difference is into gender. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's my bipolar. Maybe what's going on? So that topic in June is going to be fascinating as well. So we start with the think tank. on gender then we do a dialogue and then we go to the next theme for july that's the structure we have now people can sign up become a member of the octopus movement then select I want to be in the think tank and then you get an invitation to be in the think tank and think with us the angel donors are very important that we can bring this little friend out into the world we have founding members george Founding members are awesome. Founding members are the inner family of the octopus movement. um they did a donation they made it all possible we were setting up I started with the think tank for the corporate world to tap into the global non-linear brain but we decided not to call it the think tank it's more a non-linear consultancy brain than a think tank um we've been in forbes about this and um More and more organizations, corporates, startups, scale-ups are reaching out and saying, we want to tap into your nonlinear brain. We have an unsolvable issue. We've promised our investors that we would do a turnover of this and it's not happening. What the fuck? We need a bunch of different thinkers to solve this for us. What are we doing wrong? you want to you want to solve this within a few days to do a think tank in 50 minutes to do a consultancy in 50 minutes an hour and go for it you know have a different idea um so that's happening We're organizing events. We have ambassadors all over the world, and we're organizing now real live events within the Octopus Movement so we can tune into the human mycelium, meet each other, have fun, connect, create. And something new is happening in the Octopus Movement as well is that we're working together with an amazing company, Optimatch. founded by jennifer hill founding member as well and we're using her system to create the perfect match and it's it's a questionnaire a test of 22 questions 20 questions something like that and and she discovered the holy grail of connections and she's into that you know she loves connecting with people and making the right connections not just you need to talk to him because he has a lot of money and you need money not that kind of thing but more you're you're alike your souls are alike And it's not Meyer Briggs, you know, oh, you're an ENFP and he's an ENFP. So you need to connect. She discovered something else and we're using her system within the octopus movement. So when you sign up in the octopus moving, you can do the tests starting next week, I think. And then you will be connected to five other octopi that are like you. So you can talk to. five other nonlinear thinkers like yourself that have the same profile as you so you can become friends and you can be yourself and you can drop the mask. Drop the mask. Be yourself. Fuck it's me. And meet new friends. Tune into the human mycelium by doing that. I'm very excited about that. And some other things are happening in the human mycelium too. really support all of you because there's so much potential and you know if if we combine all of that we can change whatever we want to change we want to change education it's the numbers george we now have seven eight thousand members but when we have seven eight million members we we change education like how we change things within a white paper in 50 minutes Yeah, it's amazing to think of relationships as currency. Currency is not the right word, but it's amazing to see, in the octopus movement example, how quickly I can move across the world from Dubai and Jana or talking to Jennifer or reaching out to Karen or reaching just across the islands to different people. But you can reach across the world in just the WhatsApp and the Founder app. I can reach across the world multiple times and learn things and talk to people and get help. And it's really cool. And at 8,000, I can't imagine what it'll be like at 8 million. I can see the possibilities of it, but it's just, it's mind blowing. It's exponential. And I love the fact that we don't have a marketing machine to get the number. We're not doing anything. It's just organic growth, which is the best way. It's not self-hypnosis into a method and to get the 8 million. No, it needs to be organic. It needs to be there. And that's what's happening. Same thing with the think tank for the kids. I've been thinking a long time about that. It's all about the right time and the right language. And then I met Sumi Lim from TailTree. And she's from Korea. She's in Silicon Valley. She has such a wonderful platform for kids. And now we're working together. She's helping out with these kids to do a think tank. These kids have the young brains, not the old ones that are isolated in the laws of thoughts. Kids don't have that. I'm so curious. what they think, also on big topics. Let's ask a group of five to 12-year-olds how they think about homelessness. How should we solve this? Right? So excited about this, George. Yeah. Yeah, it's... Solving homelessness is so easy, a five-year-old can do it. It's interesting to think that they probably... have such an innocent answer. And what we're doing, it's probably, it's pretty obvious on some level, like maybe corporations shouldn't be able to speculate on buying empty homes. You know, at least that would help maybe change it from home from a homeless problem to a houseless problem. And then it kind of goes away. There's plenty of houses. You know what, why don't we put people in houses? Like there's plenty of open ones right there. yeah and sometimes and this is what I discovered when I was homeless george sometimes you just need help this is something we don't want to say up loud as well sometimes yeah and then no we we don't feed them we teach them how to catch fish right again yeah yeah yeah sometimes in your life you just need help yep it's not working sometimes And we go back and it's not okay to make mistakes. Sometimes you make a mistake and you need someone to help you to hold your hands and say, okay, let's fix this. And helping is not giving advice. That's not helping. Helping is not doing a course. Helping is not finding a coach. Helping means someone holds your hand and says, let's do this together. I will do this or I will do this for you. Because it's not working for you right now. You have a blue screen. It's not working. Sometimes we just need help. And then when we're okay or when something is solved, then we can learn. And sometimes it's good not to get help and to be in a space of misery and you have to help yourself and you get into new connections in your brain. But what is not right is that we're caught up in the system making things even worse as they are. Not helping is one thing, but making it worse is another thing. And many systems around homelessness makes it even worse as it is. And we need to talk about that. language again yeah george if I say homeless everybody everybody's linear thinking automatically turns on you have an image of a homeless person you have your ideas you know how it smells you know how it looks it's their fault it's their choice there's so many ideas That people have immediately so many thoughts. You might be wrong. And, and I love, you know, when I'm in the city, I never hardly ever in the city, what I don't need anything. So why would I be in the city? But okay. Recently, I was there with my daughter to buy something for a birthday party. And we saw a homeless guy sitting in the street. So we went for a coffee and something to eat and gave it to him and sit next to him for a few minutes. So happy. Makes me cry because I know the feeling. Nobody sees you. When you were homeless, Prairie, did you, sometimes I think that the symptoms people have, it's not a symptom of the individual. It's a symptom of the society. Like when we have so many homeless people, that's a symptom of a society that's sick. Even though your internal dialogue or your particular thought patterns may be unhealthy, it's probably a set of reoccurring, repeating questions of, I made this mistake, I fucked up, I'm a loser, I'm a loser. It's just this, you're stuck. You're stuck in this rotating loop. But isn't that also fair to say that's a problem of society? That's a direct reflection of how society thinks. Mm-hmm. Well, you use the word unhealthy. Maybe you're unhealthy. Maybe you're sick. Maybe you have a mental disease. Maybe you can't cope with something and you go into drugs to escape the world you live in. I remember so well standing there in line at 6.30 in the morning. at the office of the government, looking at all these people, and I was thinking, I get it. I get it. I understand why you go into alcohol or drugs. I get it. You don't want to be here. Nobody wants to be here. And there are people saying, people that have never been homeless, people that are stuck in the laws of thought, wearing tight underwear, saying it's their choice. They want to be homeless. course they don't want to be homeless and they and they're trying to escape and it's same thing I was talking to jeremy jeremy something he did he worked as a a coach in prisons you know george that 80 of the people in prisons have neurodiversity they didn't know that that's a whole different story you know you don't fit in the box get into trouble and some people find that trouble inspiring and create things for themselves and meet the right people and the right support and the right tribe right and and some of us make mistakes and we're not allowed to make mistakes and I'm don't get me wrong don't hurt anyone don't steal anything You know, that's a mistake. This is mine. This is yours. It's a separation there. And there's no question about it. But it's fascinating to think about that. Why are we using drugs, people? Why are we doing that? Why do we want to escape the thinking? We always say they want to escape the world, but they want to escape. It shuts down the thinking when you're drunk. When you're high on cannabis, it stops your thinking. Something happened that creates these thoughts that you want to remove. Some people need help. I think most of us. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a symptom, you know, and you... I talked to a lot of people in the world of plant medicine, and it seems to me that addiction, PTSD, a lot of the... You could probably throw a dart at anything in the DSM-5, and it's probably... Maybe there's some genetic proclivity, but... It's a symptom of our society. There's that great quote that says, in a society that's sick, the most well-adjusted people are the sickest. People are falling off left and right. There's a huge problem, and it's probably... not a weak individual. It's probably a symptom of the society we live in. And I think that neurodiversity is the answer to that. Like coming to terms with, oh, I'm not dumb. I'm not dumb. You know what? I just do it different. Like that is so liberating, Perry, to so many people that I've talked to in the movement are like, yeah, I remember when I had that moment too. Like for so long, I just thought that I didn't get it or I was stupid or I was dumb or I always got to do this thing forever. But there's real liberation and understanding that the way you think might be better it's definitely better for you you know as an individual yeah I have a good friend he says to me he's so cool perry the system is made for me makes me so happy that's the other side yeah and he comes in his electric porsche and he's very successful lots of money and and he's very happy system works for me but it's That's wonderful. That's why we created the system. But it appears to me that that system is not working for everyone. And it looks like the system is not working for, it's less and less. The number is getting less and less of the people saying the system works for me. And we're trying to fit into that system. And I think that's the biggest problem. We're trying to fit in these laws of thought. And then as long as I do this, and then I'm in this self-hypnosis and I get there, and oh God, if I don't get there, if it doesn't work, where am I then? Who am I? Yeah, identity. That's a crisis. And that's why you could find yourself Without an identity. You know, when you lose everything. And you could speak to this more than anybody you have already a little bit. But when you lose everything, you feel like you lose your identity. But I thought it was right. Maybe you could speak to that. You are who you are. No, you don't. That's the beauty. You think that though, right? You think that. Because, yeah, thank you for addressing this. Read an article. Mark sent this to me. There are two kinds of people. Those that identify themselves based on the relationship. The relationship towards others, the relationship towards your job, your title. So if, George, you identify yourself in a relationship, then you identify the fact that you're a podcast host. People that identify themselves in the relationship to their bank account, to being a father or a mother, a parent, a spouse. be married that's identifying yourself based on the relationship the relationship with your mercedes-benz quite a few people you know identify themselves on the basics of the relationship towards their car they drive and you have people and those are the more non-linear neurodiverse people that identify themselves based on the values I identify myself on the values of curiosity of love wu-wei that's who I am and wu-wei is chinese for effortless effort to play the game as beautiful as possible end of story and I'm not focused in the end result it's about the game and how we play them and how we live life in a beautiful way it's it's it's an art that's my identification so when you become when you're in a situation that destroys that relationship identification so for me being homeless nothing changed but I can imagine that for others it changes everything because if you identify yourself based on the house you live at the status you have the job you have and you lose everything you're gone And you go into drugs because you can't handle that. But if you're based, if you identify yourself based on your values, then you see nothing changes. And I think that's more healthy. And that's also why, you know, some of the people in corporates They identify themselves based on being colleagues and employee of the company. And now I'm touching a point with you, George. That's why they rob and, and backstabbing and destroying the planet because they identify themselves being a member of that company. And therefore. as members of that identification within the company it's okay to create teflon that creates cancer to everyone there's no there are no values right it's the identification of being together and being colleagues and that's the most important thing that's your identification that's number one you know in the pyramid who are you So when you lose everything and you identify yourself based on the relationship, everything changes. If you identify yourself based on value, nothing changes. And that's more freedom, I think. And that's... Is that why it's a gift? Getting the ability to see yourself anew and realize you're still here. Getting the ability to redefine you. Getting rid of those relationships that were chained to you. Is that why it's a gift to get rid of those? It's creating silence. It's removing all the noise around us. It creates space to really create your own thoughts. It's all making a noise, your job, your house, your family. They're all expectations. So when you remove everything and you don't even have money to buy a bread, I mean everything, no car, nothing. It removes all the noise. It brings you into a quiet space where you can tap into your own true self, your true life, your nonlinear thinking. And when you've been there once, you will never lose it again. I don't think so. And I've seen that with people that are quiet. find that quiet people not conscious you know conscious is conscious is still a word again conscious is still something that is created by the laws of thought and define it as conscious so we cannot define it so then we use the word empty so then it's at least we need to use one word to describe something we can so let's use emptiness silent quiet rather than conscious And these people all say the same thing. They've been there once. They discovered something. They opened up a door. And it will never, it will change their lives. It will never leave ever again. And for me, that was homelessness. For me, the awareness of nothing changes, but it changes everything for the people around me. And they made it even more difficult for me. That changed everything. That made me disconnect to the laws of thought. Okay. Let's disconnect. There's no relationship there anymore. When you say anymore, when you look, was there ever a relationship there? Of course. I was driving my Saab convertible. Right? I was... Driving to France to buy my favorite wine. That's who I was. I've been an asshole. I've done so many things wrong in my life. I tried my best to be someone who I was not. Keeping up appearances, trying to be something else because I had different expectations of myself. Let it go. This is who I am, almost bald, beard, nail polish. I make mistakes when I write and read. I have dyslexia. I make so many stupid mistakes. And I mean well. And sometimes I can be an asshole. I say things that are not appropriate. And I'm not doing it on purpose. This is it. Do you think dyslexic? You know what I mean by that? If you see letters backwards or reverse sometimes, do you also play out situations or events in your life when you play them in your mind? I don't understand your question. So it seems to me like, and correct me if I'm wrong, but in the process of dyslexia, when maybe when you're reading, like you see words or letters inverted or backwards, I'm saying, is that also a similar process in your thought patterns? Like is being dyslexic more than just seeing words on a page differently? Is it also seeing the whole world and relationships differently? I don't know, because this is the only way how I see things. So I cannot compare this with anything else. So I have no clue. Maybe. Sounds cool, but I don't know if that's the case. I just fuck up when I read and write. I write down think I write down meditation and I write down mediation and then someone sends me a message dude what is a global mycelium mediation mediation it's meditation but you wrote down mediation I said oh that's fun you know maybe meditation is a form of mediation I don't know I can't see it george yeah and and the way I think is the way I think and I there is no reference to anything else because that's reality that's in my head so I don't know you know we have dyslexic thinking I like that from a marketing perspective but what the hell does it mean so we see we can see patterns we can see the bigger picture uh yeah maybe in in reference to to what so what is normal you know what is right I i don't know what normal is for me this is the normal yeah and I I'm just aware of the fact that some people freak out when I make a spending mistake and and that's fine you know say to me whenever make a mistake because then I can change that and I'm I don't have a problem with that anymore I used to be very upset when someone would correct me not anymore go for it it's interesting I I'm hopeful perry that the change that we have begun to see is blossoming and it's gaining momentum because I think that a non-linear world a world of non-linear thinkers is a world where there's lots more avenues open to people. And I think that's what's going on, man, at the Octopus. I'm stoked to be a founding member. I've met so many cool people through there. I'm stoked to have these conversations and I'm stoked to see the future of what happens and working as a team and meeting so many like-minded people. But before I let you go, man, where can people find you? What do you got coming up and what are you excited about? TheOctopusMovement.org. Sign up. Reach out. There's also a link to my Pick My Brain profile, and you can book me for 20 minutes of Zoom conversation. sometimes I i get the message from someone else yeah you know they can't reach you everybody can reach me everybody can talk to me you just book me and we have a conversation I'm happy to meet you um so reach out to the octopus movement we're tonight we're doing a well tonight that's tomorrow morning for you george at eight in the morning for you eight in the evening for me We do a Meet the Other Octopi. We do that every other week. And people in the octopus movement and outside of the octopus movement, they come together. We have a special guest. The special guest creates four to five questions, and we go into breakout rooms. It's fun. It's just, hey, who are you? And then you're all of a sudden in a breakout room that with someone you have never seen or you with someone you have seen many times and and you discuss the question of the special guests it's one hour of fun and we do that every other week so that's today tomorrow is the dialogue session we're publishing the white paper on mental health soon sign up to be an angel donor who doesn't want to be an angel right and michelle is an angel thank you michelle who doesn't want to be an angel answer that question to me people who doesn't want to be an angel who doesn't want to get a little octopus in the mail um let's do the test of jennifer hill's optimash and let's connect even more and find like-minded people that rock and roll with that and and create we have the situation room where people can share their ideas and then you can say this is public or private private it only goes to me and the team and public goes on the website and if you have any ideas in how we can do things oh so much is happening george Thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing your dialogues. I think you're doing really a good job with your podcast. I think it's interesting how you share your thoughts, but you don't want to convince your thoughts to the audience. You think about what you're hearing and you're a real nonlinear thinker. So thank you for doing this. Good job. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm thankful to be around cool people and get to participate in some people's dreams. And I'm very grateful for people that participate in mine. So right back at you and to everybody there. And we'll hang on briefly afterwards. I'll just shoot the breeze with you for a moment afterwards. But ladies and gentlemen, everybody that joined in the conversation, everybody that is looking to make a better world, and if you find maybe you don't check a box that you are not a huge fan of the laws of thought, then reach out to the Octopus Movement. The links will be down below. And reach out to Perry. He talks to everybody. He's not joking. He will call you. He will contact you. Set up an appointment. And, um, the octopus movement is doing some really cool things. There's some great people in there and I've met a lot of them. So I hope that I continue to do that. And I hope more people will look at the octopus movement and get involved because we need more people and let's get up to 8 million. That's all we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have a beautiful day. Aloha. Aloha.