Alcohol.

It was the topic of a recent sit down with my friend Luke on a With Joe Wehbe Podcast Episode. Here’s a short, 9 minute clip from that episode:

While I was doing my editing, the AI assistant came up with this analysis for the video:

They (Joe and Luke) express that while they do not have a desire to "persecute" or "condemn" drinking, they value the ability to challenge the rigid culture surrounding it.

That sums up the sentiment well.

Alcohol’s position in society has always fascinated me. It is the social Swiss-Army Knife, present at every major occasion and milestone. Weddings, funerals, lunches, ‘after work drinks’…

It’s in birthdays. Last week, at a cousin’s 21st, come 9pm, its speech time followed by the yard glass (those things have always terrified me!). My cousin has the first go, does well, splutters, then passes the remainder around his family, like a baton at an Olympic relay.

It’s in dating. Not long ago, a young woman hit me up with a:

Let’s go out for a drink sometime?

Imagine my surprise when I offered to buy her a drink, and she responded, ‘I don’t drink, actually.’

But you asked me to go for a drink!

At least my wallet would benefit.

Last week, at dinner with one of my closest friends of near twenty years, he talked about a change in his relationship with alcohol over time.

Friend: I’ve noticed… well, this isn’t going to sound like much to you, but I’ve noticed lately I’ll go two weeks without a drink and not care, or be thinking about having one.

Me: Interesting. So before, were you hanging out for a drink?

Friend: No. It’s just—

Me: —or were there just that many occasions that popped up involving drinking, that you wouldn’t have gone that long without one?

Friend: That, exactly that.

Alcohol, more than any other substance, is like sand. It just gets in everywhere.

Heck, maybe everything does go better with a drink. But I don’t think it does, all the time.

My Personal Relationship

My friend’s nod and laugh at me—‘this isn’t going to sound like much to you’—is an acknowledgement that my relationship with drinking has never been as committed as most.

Growing up in a family who didn’t really drink, I was never likely to. My dad, known for not drinking, even pretended to get drunk at his own Buck’s Party to stir his friends and cousins (the scotch cokes were just cokes). He says the shock on their faces when he got into his car at the end of the night, was priceless.

I am capable of drinking excessively and having a great time doing so, but equally likely to go long periods, sometimes up to two years without drinking. There doesn’t need to be a major reason for me to go cold turkey—no health kick, ‘Dry July’ trigger, or, more importantly, issue handling the substance causing need for space. Just a lack of reason to drink.

Others aren’t so lucky.

Alcohol is a well-documented accessory to many major crimes. It has been there, like sand, adding the friction to tear families apart, tank careers, and destroy lives.

You could easily condemn it. ‘Get rid of the darned thing!’

It’s been tried… to some extent. Prohibition. Certain religions. Its forbidden in Islam, but one Muslim man I met, who obviously couldn’t drink, instead he smoked weed like a chimney.

Credit to him, he found a loophole.

As usual, we have to look a little deeper.

Removing access to dangerous tools can definitely be effective. Australia’s gun control laws appear to curtail gun violence. But I always wonder how much it changes the underlying desire for, in the example of guns, violence?

In the instance of alcohol, I wonder less about the bottle, then the forces that push that arm carrying it.

The drive to ease anxiety, self-sooth wounds, boost confidence, deliver merriment, and everything else.

It’s always interesting to ask what forces bring us to the well.

As usual, my thoughts are more directed at myself than deriving any broad proclamation, opinions or advice. To myself, the TLDR on alcohol is:

Fine to have it. Important not to need it.

And interesting to observe it.

If you’d like to check out the full podcast episode with Luke and I going deeper into all this, it’s available on all podcast players. Follow the link here:

Podcast Episode

Thanks for tuning in!

As Christmas is the season of giving, here’s the story of how the world beat gift-giving out of me, until I came full circle.

Why I Stopped Buying Gifts

JK Rowling once said there’s an expiration date on blaming your parents. That’s all well and good, but this story starts many years ago with my mother saying:

Please don’t buy me any more dust-collectors.

Dust-collectors. That’s what she called my gifts to her. Not my fault she never used the things we bought her. Not my fault they only sat around, collecting dust. It’s meant to be ‘the thought that counts,’ but apparently the dust counts for more.

It made me reflect, though. How much of a gift’s value is in the ‘thought’? That is, the symbolism.

A gift is usually some version of a particular message:

I got this to say, I thought of you, and care for you.

It’s about showing care. If the gift is useful for the recipient, well, that’s a bonus. If the gift is useful for you, well, that’s genius.

But this is where triviality entered the fray. The symbolic gesture lent itself to obligation.

I can’t not get him a present

I can’t show up empty-handed.

What will they say? What will they think?

The point of giving a gift became avoiding the shame of not giving a gift. Gifts became a box to tick. Things got generic, the meaning got diluted.

Flipping the Script

Many years ago, on a mate’s birthday, I flipped the script.

Group Chat: Everyone want to go in for a present?

Joe: I’m all good, I’m going to organise my own thing

Instead of going in for one fifth of a bottle of scotch for a mate’s birthday (as meaningful as that sounds) I decided I would write this friend a personal letter, celebrating him and our relationship.

Letters are everything a bottle of scotch isn’t. Totally bespoke, personal, thoughtful… low in carbs and sugar… and anything but generic. They are something a person will keep forever. You can bust them out when you’re feeling down, like scotch, but the results are different.

That’s how I started writing people letters for their birthdays—long before ChatGPT. And oh, how they loved it.

Friend: Oh wow. Thanks so much, Wehbe. That’s so thoughtful.

Joe: I thought it’d be better than some bottle of alcohol

Friend: Oh, yeah…? I mean…. I never mind a good bottle of something. Ha-ha.

Joe: Or just money… so impersonal.

Friend: Haha. Yeah… money can be very useful though. Ha-ha.

My friends were touched, but I shrugged. Sure, this type of gift was more meaningful, but also, there was another advantage:

Letters didn’t cost me anything.

The truth is I wrote the letters because I didn’t want to fork out more money on gifts. Realising I could save a lot of money in the long-run, I couldn’t pass the opportunity up. It was my shallowest ever display of thoughtfulness, but it was thoughtful all the same, and it taught me a valuable lesson:

The gift of giving is not in what you receive in return, but merely in the act of giving itself…

BUT

— it doesn’t hurt to save your money either. So you might as well.

It’s the thought that counts—not the financial investment.

In the years to come, I grew tired of letter-writing. It took ages, and I was grasping at straws trying to find new nice things to say every year.

And so I entered a shallow giftless life—right until I rewatched a famous Christmas movie: It’s A Wonderful Life. The film’s message—that each of us is unaware of how many lives we touch, and how the world would be worse without us—was a timely reminder.

Seeing the mistake I’d made, I was very emotional.

I realised I didn’t need to buy anyone a gift (or dust-collector), write them a tender letter, or even go out of my way to say thank you.

I had come full circle, realising that had all been for nought.

I had overlooked something crucial.

That each and every day of my life, I give the people I know (and write for) the greatest gift there is. The real gift.

The Gift of My Presence.

What more could a person ask for?

I encourage you to give people the real gift this Christmas

It’s not too late to hide your wrapped present and keep it for yourself. When that loved one asks,

Did you get me anything?

You should make jazz hands, sing ta-da, and present yourself instead.

Christmas should not be a time of ‘giving’ and saying thank you. Instead we should say:

‘You’re Welcome.’

After all, what is the gifting tradition but another scam from advertisers and soulless business people riding on holiday sentiment to make a quick buck? Don’t give in to this scam. Don’t buy the people you love a Joe Wehbe book this Christmas. They’re not worth it.

Treat yourself right. Buy it for you.

Treat Yourself

The show is Mad Men. The setting, a 1960s New York advertising agency. Don Draper is the slick, womanising, but talented, agency director. Peggy Olsen is one of his firm’s bright up-and-comers.

She’s stayed back late, and Don doesn’t know it’s her birthday. Peggy is missing her own birthday dinner and has broken up with her boyfriend as a result. There are more tensions boiling away: They’ve had to stay back because of Danny, someone Don hired while he was drunk. Consider too, Don’s recent big industry award for one of their commercials. Peggy feels she handed him the idea on a silver platter.

And never got any acknowledgement.

It doesn’t matter that this is the 1960s—the ordeals are universal and timeless, and these two are about to do what people do best.

Argue.

Don: Don’t get personal because you didn’t do your work. And by the way, I know it kills you, but there is no Danny’s idea. Everything that comes in here belongs to the agency.

Peggy: You mean, you.

Don: … while you still work here.

Peggy: Is that a threat? Because I’ve already taken somebody up on one of those tonight.

Don: (Lighting a cigarette, looking up at her in disbelief) Relax.

Peggy: You know what, here’s a blank piece of paper (mimes putting a page in front of him). Why don’t you go turn that into Glowcoat?

Oh, that was sassy.

Don: Are you out of your mind? You gave me twenty ideas and I picked out one of them that was a colonel that became that commercial.

Peggy: So you remember…

Don: I do. It was something about a cowboy. Congratulations.

Argue, argue, argue. And we get to the meat.

Don: It’s your job! I give you money, you give me ideas!

Peggy: But you never say thank you!

Don: THAT’S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR! You’re young, you will get your recognition. And honestly, it is absolutely ridiculous to be two years into your career and counting your ideas. Everything to you is an opportunity. And you should be thanking me every morning when you wake up, along with Jesus, for giving you another day!

Peggy: (Cries)

Don: Oh, come on.

Who is right?

What I love about this scene is how it divides opinion.

The whole thing is grey, and despite the fence post shooting right up into the middle of my crack, I find myself sitting comfortably on the fence. I prefer sitting in the grey on most things these days. Getting down into debates is a little messy, and the answer usually isn’t there.

See, instead of ‘Who is right?’ I’m more interested in seeing where each is coming from: Why, from their reference point, they feel they are right.

What they are trying to say. What they are detecting in the other, reacting to in the other, and not wanting to give in to or feed in the other.

What their justifications are.

The value in argument isn’t so much settling a feud or determining who is right—I think it’s in the opportunity to expose the truth—about how people are feeling, and what they’re thinking. How things look through their lens.

The issue with showing gratitude

On the other hand, the problem with showing appreciation is, well… people don’t always appreciate it. Cue flashback.

Joe: Thanks so much for this. The hard work you’ve put in hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Anonymous: Thanks, Joe. I appreciate that.. it means a lot. But to be honest, while we’re on this subject, I really do think I should be paid more for doing this stuff.

Great. Instead of incentivising me to show them more gratitude in future, I was going to be hesitant, worrying they would use it as a stick to beat the Joe pinata for more money.

Such short-sightedness.

With today’s wisdom and maturity, and time to reflect, I now see the errors of my ways.

I understand how I should have replied:

Don’t ask me for more money—that’s what the thank you is for.

Would the world be better if people gave each other money instead of saying ‘thank you’?

Thank you warms the heart. It’s true. But we’re warm-blooded creatures. We don’t need our hearts warmed.

In economic terms, thank-you has very little utility. You can’t buy stuff with thank you’s. It’s not a good or form of currency, so it can’t be exchanged or invested. If my client gives me a ‘thank you’, I can’t trade it, put it towards a mortgage or use it to buy shares.

Money, on the other hand…

Imagine every time someone said ‘thank you’, they actually handed you a bill—or bank transfer, Beem It, Venmo or Paypal—you get the idea. Imagine what a beautiful world that would be.

I finished doing the dishes, honey.

Okay. Here’s $10.

The beautiful thing is, people wouldn’t throw around thank you’s so casually. They’d really mean them.

Pre-Schooler: Mummy, I made you a drawing!

Mummy: Hmmm…. sorry, this one isn’t “thank you” worthy

I realise there’s a flaw in this. The homeless would suffer. Give them money, they’d be obliged to say ‘thank you’, and give it straight back. But apart from that…

It would be a beautiful world. Transactional? Yes—but beautiful, too.

Man’s Search for Meaning Validation

I suppose it’s shallow to be on the constant lookout for money.

But what about a constant search for validation?

Needing Mummy and Daddy to like our work is okay when we’re a four-year-old, five-year-old, or thirty-one-year old aspiring writer. But in all other cases…

How much is okay?

Not that this applies to Peggy, but if there was a person who only did things for acknowledgement, wouldn’t that be transactional, too?

Don: And honestly, it is absolutely ridiculous to be two years into your career and counting your ideas.

If we detect another’s petty quest for validation, are we right to withhold acknowledgement?

Context matters.

Counteract that with…

Peggy in this scene is a young woman trying to make it in a very toxic-masculinity-induced and sexist world. It’s her birthday, she’s been forced to stay late at work, she just broke up with her boyfriend, and her boss got an award and has not made any effort to acknowledge the help he received.

Sometimes, the tank is just low, man.

Maybe a thank you would help.

Hot-take alert

I guess I’m realising a bit of a distinction:

Money is the currency of the economy.

It ‘makes the world go round.’ Figuratively. However:

It is not life’s ultimate currency

Society cultivates a social code that confuses the economy and the market with life itself—like two sets of building plans that have been superimposed over one another to make one confusing set of drawings.

Most of us are aware that money isn’t the be-all and end-all, but we underestimate a deeper infiltration—how our values and means of assessing self-worth are heavily shaped and dictated by financial structures. How this has tainted our view of life and human value.

We all have a standing in the job market, and sit on hierarchies of net worth, asset value and balance sheets. This is not fake, or irrelevant in certain contexts—it is, however, something we’ve constructed, and largely make-believe. A game, like Cops and Robbers, or Monopoly.

It’s an adaptation to surviving in a material world, but it goes far beyond any obvious usefulness.

Beyond it’s financial use, money is also just another symbol and medium through which people can communicate other things—the same way ‘it’s the thought that counts’ when you give a gift.

And so Don’s ‘that’s what the money is for,’ implies something cold in that moment—that their relationship exists only on the constructed economic plain. That the humans operating the characters in this particular workplace game, or drama, are not there by choice, but forced together because of this mutually implicating game—the game of survival that requires them to work.

He implies the relationship is purely transactional, partly because it’s a rooted belief he has, and partly out of retaliation to perceiving Peggy putting emotional burden on him.

I don’t think this is something his character truly believes—perhaps he does, but only in part. After this scene, the tensions boil over, and the relationship resurfaces. There is a tender moment.

It takes more than money to make people go round.

Even when we don’t realise it.

So maybe, if it doesn’t kill you, or weaken your position, or whatever… just say thank you.

Did someone say…

Thank You?

Let your money do the talking—by someone the best possible Christmas present—a book.

Cheap but Meaningful Christmas Present

On my way back, in the middle of the hustle-and-bustle of Sydney’s famous business centre, Martin Place, I see a fellow selling The Big Issue, a magazine established to support homeless people. Persons affected by homelessness can sell it and make an income.

There is this fellow, standing on the square, surrounded. A flock of people pass him by. They’re on their way out of work. Off to drinks, or home.

Go on then, Joe.

I halt that energy that just wants to get home and tuck into a meal. I make eye contact.

‘You take card?’

He smiles.

‘Yep!’

Damn. I’m committed now.

I reach into my pocket as he pulls out one of those miniature pay-wave devices. I remark at it.

‘How good’s technology?’

‘Yes, it’s good. Here you go!’

He holds out my magazine.

‘Sold many today?’

‘This will be the second.’

He beams. I’ve never seen someone so happy reporting so few sales. If he worked in one of these Martin Place towers, he’d have the good sense to wear a frown, curl his tail between his legs, feel ashamed. Perhaps he needs a lecture on KPIs. Another time, perhaps. He explains:

‘I only work at this two hours a day, between 5 and 7.’

The bastard is still smiling. He looks cheery as.

‘Ah, that’s a good time at this spot, you get to see all the happy-looking people on their way home!’

I gesture to the cross-looking suited sons of b’s around us. Not a smile to be found.

He laughs.

‘Yep, that’s right.’

‘Ah well, thanks for the issue…’

And we move on. We’re just two more balls of energy in this crazy universe, passing each other by—with all our gravity, all our orbit, and all we pull into it.

At that point in time, 5:15pm, Thursday 14th November, 2025, he looked the happiest person in Martin Place.

Quite mad, isn’t it?

I go home and read the Big Issue. On page 6, a remarkable woman tells her story. Immigrating to Australia, building a life here, and subsequent run-in with homelessness. I feel like I’ve been taken, by her story, through the invisible Veil of Bullshittery that blocks us from life and through to the ‘other side’, where everything is rainbows.

Her story doesn’t help me develop my marketing muscles, enhance my net-worth, feed my intellectual ego… yet mystifyingly it has just enhanced my experience of life.

It’s marvellously refreshing. Pure oxygen in my lungs. Joyful breaths. Optimism and hope in me little heart. It feels like a tiny pocket of life, before death.

A tiny insight into the other, other side.

Near-Death Experiences, Near-Life Experiences

I’m rather interested in Near-Death Experiences at the moment, accounts of awe-defying experiences of ‘the other side.’ While getting their sneak peak of the next-world, these people report feeling total goodness, calm, love, and absence of fear.

Until they come back, of course.

Back to the madhouse, the poor scoundrels.

However, they typically find themselves refreshed, re-energised, reinvigorated. They tend to emerge with a renewed energy, passion, and appreciation for life.

Well, that seeded in me a funny thought:

Near-Life Experiences.

The opposite of a Near-Death Experience.

In a Near-Death Experience, you’re technically dead for a few minutes and get to experience the beauty of life on the other side.

In a Near-Life Experience, you’re technically alive—same as you always are—but you seem to feel some portion of this ‘beauty’ feeling people describe on the other side.

It’s the other, Other Side.

The ‘other side’ that exists on this side.

I hope I haven’t confused you about what side we’re talking about. Is everyone still onside? Good.

My working theory is that life throws us curveballs, but we’re meant to get back to the good side. That feeling. Everything that stops us from feeling this way, is just part of the Veil of Bullshittery.

In other words, maybe Anthony de Mello had a point:

I wonder, as I do, about the presence of people like this humble fellow selling the Big Issue, and how they exist in the middle of our BIG BUSINESS ****centres. Maybe society develops the homeless as part of its great balancing act—the way disease controls over-crowding and bushfires regenerate forests, and children, whose fresh eyes rediscover the wonder of the world we take for granted, keep us down-to-earth. Maybe such people are here to help rescue us from the Veil of Bullshittery. Maybe they are integral.

Or, maybe not.

I’m not sure who’s happy and who’s not, who’s happiest and who’s saddest. I just like watching it all—eyes open. Proudly advertising that I gave $9 to a homeless guy, the saint that I am. And laughing at it all—how naturally we contemplate life ‘after death’, but not life before death.

Like the Big Issue, it’s not for everyone…

… and maybe two sales in Martin Place is pretty good, considering.

5:15pm, Thursday 14th November, 2025 only happened once.

But I suppose it happens every day.

The Big Issue, Australia

https://thebigissue.org.au/our-programs/the-magazine/

Joe’s Website & Books

https://withjoewehbe.com/book

This topic is triggering for some. Sensitive. Emotional. It’s very fine if you wish to give it a pass, but I’ll enjoy your company if you choose to venture through it with me.

Speaking of triggers, the trigger for this write-up was an episode of a podcast project I’m part of, The Big Tent, a wonderful initiative involving Geraldine Doogue, Julie Thorpe and Grace Brennan.

https://thebigtentpodcast.com/

The theme of this episode is ‘faith unfiltered’. In it, Grace and myself, two non-clergy persons with one foot in and one foot out of the modern Catholic Church, talk rather openly about our faith journeys (Grace more eloquently so, being the fantastic human being that she is).

Before I get into a ramble, you can find the episode below:

Cue Ramble

At the start of the episode, Geraldine references a quote:

‘Everyone Navigates Faith, But Not Everyone Wears A Badge’

Imagine my surprise to learn they were my words.

Whoops.

Such passive-aggressiveness. Why, Joe? That’s not the sentiment you want to communicate (though, emotionally, I do feel this way about religion at times).

Alas, this is as good a place as any to start a conversation.

What is a Catholic?

In the episode, Grace points out she has trouble defining what a Catholic is, and I share that trouble. What is a Catholic? (Or a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist…)

What’s ‘the Church’?

When discussing religious beliefs, so often innocent question becomes debate becomes fight. Cue descension into team sports—ours is the right one, don’t you see?

We’re good, us humans, at throwing spears—and words like daggers—over the great shadow of the imaginary divide between us.

Amongst certain folk, at certain points in time, the most important thing is that you identify with their belief system (or non-belief system). That you go the same places, say the same words. Sit on this side of the parliament-like divide.

Wear the same jersey, the same badge.

How you behave matters. Of course it does. You can’t be a bad person.

But so long as you wear the badge…

Maybe, if I don’t wear my badge, I won’t get a good seat in the afterlife.

That’s okay—a lot of the people wearing badges are really annoying. I wouldn’t mind having my own section.

I must counterbalance this with understanding.

Sometimes, wearing the badge is an ego thing, an insecurity plug. Sign of a deeper struggle.

It can also be harmless pride.

Perhaps it represents an aspiration to be better—to assert a new identity, one that might break through one’s negative patterns, addictions, vices and temptations.

‘I can’t keep doing that, I’m a Christian, and Christian’s don’t ___’

I can relate…

When badge-before-all-else stares me in the face, rage becomes my challenge.

It baits me into reaction and condemnation: ‘Show them the badge-obsession is B.S.!’

Later, when I have my faculties about me, and am calmly restored, I remember: that’s not where it’s at.

Outward focus fades into introspection. The focus goes from them to me.

‘Show them!!!’ makes way for a question:

Why does this behaviour irk me so?

I arrive at ‘Don’t throw stones’ and ‘Don’t judge.’

Yes, it’s a key church teaching. But I’ve also learned this via experience.

I come full circle.

(Besides, if someone threw a stone at me, I’d certainly be inclined to throw a stone back. So it’s logical, too).

I’ve learned these things surface everywhere, and apply to everything.

Work. Relationships. Responding to setbacks, bullying, rejection, conflict, terrors.

How funny—the conclusions we arrive at for reaching the best outcomes in aspects of life, will regularly align with religious teachings.

Not to say people need religion to get there, but there is, undoubtedly, an overlap.

The Messy Brand of Organised Religion

Throughout my adult life, I’ve never ‘lead’ with religion. I never used it as a banner, but it undoubtedly influences me and much of my chosen work.

There was the Nepal-based nonprofit, From the Ground Up. Certainly The Constant Student, and my thousand plus written and podcast works.

Frequently, there’s been a sense of mission.

I figured the right kind of Catholic would resonate with the mission irrespective of the badge, while feeling others would be alienated by a religious banner. See it and their response is, ‘Not for me.’

But compassion, service, generosity, fairness—listening—these things have a bigger fanbase, and no ideological obstacles.

Call it, better branding. It’s the old Smooth Peanut Butter Analogy.

People who like crunchy will eat smooth, but people who like smooth don’t go for crunchy. If my goal is to give people peanut butter, offer most smooth.

Invoke religion, I find people get caught in the sub-conversations—creation story, stances on individual issues, and so forth—rather than (what I consider to be) the big conversation.

A More Meaningful Distinction?

While I am very critical of (organised) religion and see many flaws that inevitably arise from the structure it adopts, I can also acknowledge merits and intentions—even with, for example, the identification emphasis I love to hate, which I see as trying to tip us on the right side of the fence, of two very subtle, but dramatically different ways of being in the world.

Instead of ‘believers and non-believers,’ I find a more useful, still imperfect distinction—people who are connected to a spiritual experience of life, and those who are, at times at least, disconnected from it. This is not so much to do with ‘beliefs’ or even actions—it’s more of an energy thing. Maybe no more than a vibe people give off.

Perhaps its encapsulated by those you call ‘a sweet soul’ versus those you think of as, ‘just a prize prick.’

And a prick with a cross on his neck, is still a prick.

Thall shall not judge, thall shall not judge!

Sorry. I still have eyes 🤪

I believe…

That everyone navigates faith, whether they know it or not, think of it or not.

Even if ‘religion’ isn’t part of their thinking.

People struggle with belief in themselves. They step out into the unknown when marketing, starting a business, or a family.

They worry about things.

Will I ever find the love of my life? Fall pregnant? Beat my illness?

Succeed at work? Beat the addiction?

We all have experiences. We all navigate challenges, deal with pain, and confront uncertainty.

Shit, we’re all the same. Oh no!

We can allow ourselves to turn into a prize prick on any of these pathways, or we can hold fortitude, and navigate them from our soul.

So if one calls it meditation while the other calls it prayer,

And one says, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll happen,’ another ‘trust in the process’, ‘if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,’ while others, ‘it’s in god’s hands.’

What matter it to me?

One says Bonjour while the other says Ni Hao.

I have been greeted all the same.

What is this illusion of separation we suffer?

I’m told:

You can’t just pick and choose what suits you!

and:

You’re trying to create your own religion!

But I feel no matter the badge we wear, or don’t wear, everyone picks and chooses, and everyone forms their own.

I see a common challenge that transcends all these labels and badges, and that has always been my focus. Keeping sight of the big thing.

Yes, I see it at the core of the religion I was raised in. Too often buried by debate over less meaningful features, though, I see it.

But it’s also in Star Wars and Harry Potter.

The Real War

While some are busy playing labels, the real war wages on.

The real war, the real divide, is not between those-who-believe-what-I-believe and those who don’t. What a waste of time…

And to deny it, preach ‘love and acceptance,’ then let subtle, passive-aggressive tension lurk beneath the surface… let me overcome that.

I think the real war is between love and fear.

Fear fears love, and wins when it pulls ‘love’ down to its level, or tricks us into calling it love.

I think fear’s response to uncertainty is to seek control, or power.

Love, meanwhile—true love, tries to love fear.

Love’s response, I think, is faith—letting go. Surrendering.

My relationship with organised religion is rocky, messy. Perhaps I lack understanding.

But when it comes to faith—faith is the only route available to me, when i remember that all I really know is how much I don’t know. How I’m not in control, and that things seem to work out the way they’re meant to.

I did a podcast series a few years ago called ‘The Myth of Failure’. 12 episodes, rambling on as I do. No religious undertones, just interesting observations that all converged on this conclusion—we are caught up worrying about nothing.

A friend from the other side of the world listened and commented, ‘Joe… I think you’re talking about faith.’

Well, I’ll be damned.

I came full circle again.

“The important religious distinction is not between those who worship and those who do not worship but between those who love and those who don’t.”

said Anthony de Mello.

Put that on a badge and I’ll wear it.

🚪 #OpenDoorsForOthers.

Don’t forget the episode if you’re interested:

My Books & Website:

https://withjoewehbe.com/book

So, the other day, when I had to contract some garbage collection guys, I was nervous. But they were really lovely.

The first to show up was an older gentleman, a jovial South African guy.

I helped him pull stuff from the storage cage—the very task for which I was paying him. I know, total defiance. I could hear Capitalism’s voice in my ear saying, ‘Why are you helping him? That’s his job.’

But it made me feel like a humble a person—a man of the people. It was a pleasant down-to-earth experience:

Sweating, not over a deadline, but from actual physical exertion.

Getting my hands dirty by touching dirty cardboard.

No gloves, nothing.

My grandfathers, rest their beautiful souls, would be proud.

As I did this fifty minutes of manual labour, I gleaned a profound insight into the joy of such simple but meaningfully laborious work:

That Not All Menial Work Is Created Equal

It’s funny how most menial tasks drive me insane—emails, admin, bookkeeping, trust accounting—yuck.

These things makes me want to do what my childhood pet goldfish Goldy did—jump out the tank.

I shouldn’t joke about that.

But a healthy bit of manual labour—oh boy. It’s still ‘menial’, isn’t it? Why is it so rewarding?

I dug deeper:

The Cliche of Unfulfilling Work

The cliche of unfulfilling work is epitomised over and over again in popular culture: Neo at the start of the Matrix. Lester at the start of American Beauty.

Corporate. Office job. Sitting in the cubicle. Working ‘for the Man.’

Crushing targets—and souls.

This work can feel quite arbitrary. Trivial, for some reason. Cut-off from purpose.

Insurance. Finance. Law. Marketing. Consulting. B2B Sales. Portfolio Management…

What on earth are these things!?

Made-up roles in made-up companies in made-up industries necessary for our made-up reality to survive and T H R I V E.

Or, to keep us busy.

What’s the menial difference?

Here’s my genius analogy—our working lives are like over-processed food.

The nutrients have been sacrificed for efficiency, mass-production-coordination-and-delivery, and longer shelf-life.

Perhaps physical labour brings out-of-touch folk like myself back to the organic food of life.

Closer to our true, humble spiritual purpose, and the sort of ‘menial’ work that has non-sexy, albeit very satisfying, meaning.

We used to tend land, hunt, gather berries—all the things I hate because the dirt gets under my nails.

Now we do… SPREADSHEETS.

(I actually quite like spreadsheets, but…)

Is it worth it?

A way of life where we need a thirteen year education followed by five-year degree (slash debt accumulation campaign) to form the basic qualification to get an entry-level job which, let’s face it, the degree didn’t even prepare us for.

Only to be all tangled up in this Grand Arbitrary Concrete Jungle, forced to work by the laws of economics, pressured into a whole host of vain pursuits, and trying to resist these forces, trying to protect the endangered species that is our humanity.

Or stave off the senseless, the mind-numbing. The mundane.

Sure, shoots of meaning peek through cracks in the Grand Arbitary Concrete Jungle.

But it’s nothing compared to the salt-of-the-earth experience.

Wouldn’t we be better off with more of this rewarding physical labour in our lives?

I fear we took the wrong path, cultivated the wrong society.

What were we thinking?

‘Ooft, my bloody back, I tell ya’

I hear something, back in the reality of the great storage cage move out.

Collection Guy #1 stretches out his back. He says something about a cramp, I don’t really catch it.

I’m busy, looking on in envy. You don’t know how lucky you are, to have that back pain. That rewarding, rewarding back pain.

Then, the second garbage collection guy shows up.

‘Sorry, we’ve been overwhelmed with jobs today. Back-to-back. Been mental.’

He sure looked overwhelmed—and very sweaty. I really admired his level of sweat. What I would give, to have a reason to sweat like that.

‘Joe here’s been helping us, he’s a champion,’ said the first guy.

It’s always nice, having my humility acknowledged.

‘We’re gong to have to give him a discount.’

I liked that part even better.

They really were nice guys. So, after fifty minutes of tasting what they do day-in, day-out, I thought I’d impart on them a little gem:

‘You guys are so lucky to have this job. Just doing physical work all day, heavy-lifting. Honestly, it’s really fulfilling. I wish I did this instead of all my desk work. I hope you don’t take it for granted.’

In the end, they didn’t give me that discount.

I’m a little puzzled as to why.

Have I ever mentioned that I write…

Books?

1. 18 & Lost? So Were We—a selection of mini-biographies and reflections on life after high school

2. Holy Sh!t, It’s Only… Tuesday?—a satire on the workplace, and the seriousness of life

3. Next in the cue: ‘The Oracle’ (likely a two-parter. Stay tuned).

Three of them were my friend’s workmates—or should I say, former workmates. They used to be in a team of five at a big company, and really enjoyed working together.

I’m impressed at how they’ve stayed together and in touch as a group seeing as, of these five, only one remains at the company.

People leave jobs for all sorts of reasons. People leave jobs for logical reasons.

Just because five people love working together, doesn’t mean they’ll stay together forever.

Life spreads us across the chessboard, moving us back and forth and side-to-side in all sorts of beautiful, chaotic patterns.

This is natural.

The records show that Employee #2375 left for more pay, Employee #2801 changed sectors a few months later, and #2348 went to a rival firm a year after that—around the time #2806 sought a ‘fresh opportunity’.

#2791 is still there.

There’s nothing suspicious to see here. No red flags, no smoke.

It all checks out.

So these reasons go into the file. The file informs reports.

Each becomes another line of data in a pie chart capturing ‘Reasons people leave jobs’.

But we all know the biggest reason people leave jobs, or start to hate jobs.

You don’t need to be a workplace expert to figure it out—just a human being, talking to friends and family members.

In the safety of weekend lunches, birthday parties…

…and weddings.

With the anonymity that doesn’t exist in HR sessions and job interviews, people are free from fear.

They are outside the structure they cannot shake.

Seeing no need to rock the ship they’re fleeing with the truth, their words, their real words, are reserved for these occasions.

Where different reasons emerge.

Reasons that never make the pie chart.

The pie chart sits there, unaltered. It never indicates that before #2375, #2801, #2348 and #2806 moved on, something changed. Something in their team.

The thing that, unfortunately, changes everything—and has done, and will do, over and over again.

The manager.

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1. New workplace project coming soon. Relevant to its only tuesday.

2. Don’t forget to check out books.

Get big.

That meant physically big. Muscular. Ripped.

I started hitting the gym, and I became big—but looking back, I ask, Why? Why did I want to ‘get big’?

I suppose, like other young men, I wanted to look good.

But what was the real reason? And, did getting big fill the hole inside?

What hole?

Some stories stick with you. A few years ago, I asked a friend of mine about her distinguished career in Finance. I’ll never forget her saying:

Back in the 90’s, finance firms like (name withheld) had a remit to hire people like me… people from out West. They called them PHDs. Poor, Hungry, and Desperate for Success.

Here’s a funny, awkward conversation no one really likes having. I’m not talking about Christmas lunch with the relatives—though like that, there’s a lot of tension, and in many cases everyone is a little confused why they’re there.

I’m talking about motivation, and its links with unhappiness, insecurity and desperation.

A Society-in-Progress

Our society celebrates determination, grit, drive and hunger—especially in sport, the arts, and business/career pursuits. As it should. Effort and application are admirable traits.

We also reinforce a certain type of achievement—Olympic podiums, Academy Awards, Forbes’ 30 under 30, reaching a million Instagram followers—achievements relying heavily on recognition from others. Journeys with a ‘Look at me, I did it!’ moment at the end.

There’s a positive side to this—celebrating gifts and the fruits of endeavour with community—encouraging people to dream big, have a go, and persevere. To want it.

But there’s also a trade-off—learning to look outside in order to feel good inside.

It’s a mode of aspiration and deriving self-worth we introduce in school.

How often is the motivation to do, or determination to succeed, really the unconscious search for relief? Especially from feelings of inadequacy and incompleteness—a pressure to live up to an idealised image of ourselves, forged to keep our head above the waters of perceived social expectation.

That matters, right?

Or is Motivation just Motivation?

Or is motivation just motivation?

Society has another puzzling habit—adoring the rich. Drooling over what others have, especially the wealthy, the famous—then tut-tutting at white colour crimes, corporate greed, celebrity divorces and drug abuse scandals.

I knew they weren’t so perfect!

The same society shakes its head when another star dies young, or takes their own life. Everyone’s confused, unable to figure out why. Right on cue, you hear the old cliche:

I guess having all that money doesn’t make you happy…

And for most of us, that’s where the conversation stops.

We don’t connect the dots. You don’t hear people asking:

Was the money and fame the problem, or whatever drove them to seek it?

Instead, we get back to our busy lives.

Beefing up the nest egg…

… taking our careers to ‘the next level’.

Seeking the next challenge…

… or ‘building our legacy.’

A lot of acquire more, and not so much live more.

I guess we confuse the acquire more with the live more.

Serving the wrong master.

‘Do we really want people being more self-aware?’

I hark back to a question asked by the Richard character in our book Holy Sh!t, It’s Only… Tuesday?

Richard is much more empathetic and personable than his boss, Norm, but he’s still cautious about making BRAGG Inc’s staff too ‘self-aware’:

What if they up and quit? he wonders.

It’s a humorous idea—but perhaps, a valid fear. Could self-awareness inhibit application to certain jobs, roles and tasks?

With self-awareness, it would be harder to sell snake-oil, defective cars… or useless self-help books. Self-awareness would make it harder to justify over-charging clients, or using technical language to scare customers into the expensive fix. Ultimately, it would be harder to believe in nonsense, if believing in nonsense is what’s needed to get us through the day.

Does Society Need Desperation and Workaholism?

There’s a narrative that advanced economies require:

1. A circus of workaholics pedalling away at the hamster wheel to keep the lights on

2. People who are desperate enough to do the terrible jobs no one wants to do, and

3. At the top, people crazy and driven enough to start, lead, operate and drive organisations.

I suppose this is true, to some extent.

The fear is, if we ‘wake people up’ (unplug them from the Matrix), we’ll lose too much of the drive that holds society together—too many people will wake up to the raw deal of work, and those working relentlessly from a place of internal bankruptcy—trying to prove themselves, or become a grand version of themselves, and solve internal problems via external achievement—will see the flaws in their drive, realise work will never solve these problems, and just, well… go full monk.

That’s the fear, anyway.

Enter ‘the Oracle’

Following Holy Sh!t, It’s Only… Tuesday?, my next book is called The Oracle.

The story is based on James Elias, who, standing beside his nerdy high-achieving brother, appears to be the least ambitious person in the world. While James’ brother is always doing things to get him in the public eye and earns a somewhat inaccurate reputation as a hotshot young entrepreneur, James is content with the simple things in life—gaming, good TV shows, movies, books, and Saturday nights at home. He doesn’t drink or party, and is rarely bothered going out. Ultimately, he is content to work enough to get by and is low on career ambition.

Despite that, the understated James seems to endear himself to everyone he meets—even those in the highly ambitious circles his brother (accidentally) pulls him into.

That sweetness and lack of threat earns him valuable relationships, coupled with his knack for simple brilliance—he starts to see solutions and answers that the intellectual and brilliant stars around him overlook.

He is dedicated. Obsessive, even—to gaming, TV shows. He is something of a savant, just not in areas that can be commercialised, or professionalised. As his dad says to him, light-heartedly, ‘If only you got that obsessed about things that make money!’

James laughs, knowing his dad is likely right.

James seems incredibly self-content—much more content than the ultra-successful and hyper-ambitious people he encounters his brother’s world.

We assume the world would not function if everyone was like James.

But is that the question?

James never ‘gets big’.

But how ‘big’, do we need to be?

And what is it like, really, to deal with people who have the gaping hole inside?

And so, after thinking long and hard about this for the past ten years, I have finally reached a verdict—a definitive and final answer to my title question:

Do we need a lack of self-content to motivate us?

My answer—Maybe.

I write books

If you’re looking for something to read, go here.

I know these stories never sound credible, but I knew a guy who knew a guy who worked as a psychologist at—well, I won’t use the real name. Let’s call the company Banana.

He said everyone at Banana was ‘batshit crazy,’ and that the company actually recruited crazy types. Another friend in a Banana Store said the same: the culture was intense. Not “team spirit” intense—more like “left the tea bag in and added another one” intense. You get the picture.

And let me say: Banana makes great products (I may or may not be typing this on a Banana product right now).

They’re not alone either. Another outfit we’ll call Galeforce had staff so dialled in they couldn’t stop talking about the company, or posting LinkedIn sermons praising it. I’d think:

“Wow. This person loves Galeforce more than I love my own business.”

And I own mine.

This sort of ideological devotion to an employer is… bizarre. In a previous piece, I called it “Kool-Aid drinking.” I was just getting started, sneakily teeing up this week’s deeper exposé like Scottie Pippen laying up the ball for Michael Jordan to slam home. Today, I’m going deeper into…

The Rise, Danger and Benefits of Cult-Like Workplaces

The Rise

I can’t prove cult-like workplaces are on the rise, but they sure feel more common. Offices of yesteryear seemed more functional—9 to 5, paycheck, climb the ladder. People could be career-obsessed, but that was a Cult of One, not company-wide fanaticism.

Now? Work is loaded with meaning. Narratives abound:

“… Young people today care more about purpose than money…”

“… As religion declines, people seek meaning through work…”

Meanwhile, companies hunt for competitive advantage—new ways to attract, motivate, and retain talent. Previously, the backbone of big companies were desperate people—the ones working late into the night, driven by survival or raw ambition.

The new fashion is Being Happy At Work.

Enter the TED Talker era—

“Companies need to identify their purpose…”
”… Clarify their VALUES”
”… Start with WHY!?”

Translated—add ping pong tables and sleeping pods.

It’s new medication for the age-old malady of work, but without an FDA approval.

No one specified the dosage.

Many went overboard (especially in Silicon Valley).

What Is a Cult-Like Workplace?

There’s no hard line where healthy pride for one’s organisation tips into obsession. There’s no concrete definition or rigid critera I’d put forward to define a cult-like workplace—but you know one when you see it.

• There’s a lot of Meaning-Washing—overstating of purpose, vision and mission.

• A false sense of superiority and exaggeration of the work’s significance.

• Forms of mindless devotion and worship toward a company brand or its leaders.

Some would argue the cult-like workplace is a necessary evil—an adaptation to modern times. Well, it may be hard to believe but there are people out there who work hard, and do well, without this mania. Instead of hammering on about ‘building homes for everyday Australians’, they hammer nails into wood.

The appeal, though, is obvious—for the company, it’s retention and performance. For the individual, it’s the thrill of being swept into something bigger. A little flavour to jazz up reality’s bland cereal.

What’s Wrong With It?

Cult-like workplaces aren’t always evil—but they are bizarre. And cults, generally, don’t have a great track record.

First, there’s the B-word—no not that B-Word—Brainwashing. Replacing individuality with a company-issued identity.

“You’re not just an average Joe, you’re a Moonbucks visionary inspiring the world with caffeine.”

Second, the other B-word: Bullshit. Cults distort reality for the benefit of the few at the top.

An Overcorrection Riddled With Hypocrisy

Cult-like workplaces feel like an overcorrection to the “soulless” Gordon Gekko corporation of Capitalism 1.0—where everyone worked for The Man, and no one pretended otherwise.

Today’s version, usually in tech or “modernised” companies, pile it on. They go overboard in posturing—that they care about their people and are supporting trending social issues. Everything looks great on the surface. Every box is ticked:

• They ask their employees what their personal dreams and ambitions are—even outside of work.

• They run culture-building activities, workshops, education programs, hobby programs, getaways, offsites, team-building tasks—you name it.

But behind the scenes, typical company crimes continue—promises get broken, people get neglected and underpaid—all while their leaders talk about the importance of mental health on LinkedIn.

They preach work-life balance, but look down on staff who don’t work late. Their iteration on the soulless corporation working its people into the ground is to ‘make people want to be there (working late).’

If people don’t want to be there, the answer is that tried and trusted workplace wisdom:

‘This just might not be the place for you. We’re looking for people who fit this culture.’

Next, they are critical of those who are ‘too much about the work’ and not doing enough to make jokes and post memes in the company group chats.

All they ask for, is cult-like devotion.

When does ‘Culture-Building’ become ‘Cult-Building?’

My issue isn’t with purpose or workplace happiness—they’re great in the right dose. My issue is meaning-washing as medicine for the malady of work.

There’s a sweet spot between the soulless corporation and the workplace cult: buy-in without fanaticism, satisfaction without self-abandonment. Work late if you want, but it’s not part of the creed.

Cult-like workplaces will always exist—like dairy. I don’t mind dairy being out in the world, but if too much of it sneaks into my coffee, I’m sprinting to the nearest toilet. After some time without full cream milk, my tolerance has collapsed completely.

So my focus isn’t on the companies. It’s on us.

What makes us so vulnerable to these environments?

What voids are they filling?

And what was meant to fill them in the first place?

Thanks for reading the Doorman

If you’d like to read a satirical (that means funny, entertaining) fiction book about workplace culture, check out ‘Holy Sh!t, It’s Only… Tuesday?’

The Book

‘How are you finding it?’

He shrugged.

‘It’s a job. Like, I can’t complain, I have it so good, we’re so lucky to have work, but…’

You know the story—caught in the slog and monotony of work, not wanting to complain, but at the end of the day things are just… not… quite… great.

Having spent the sum total of five months in a corporate job, I’m in no position to give people like this advice—but I do anyway (I rather enjoy giving advice).

‘Listen…as my friend used to say, workplaces are unnatural environments. So, the way I see it, you have two options.’

He leaned in, expecting wisdom.

‘Option One is to drink the Kool-Aid.’

‘Drink the Kool-Aid?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Drinking the Kool Aid is where you dive in, fully committing to the importance of what you do. You know the kind… We don’t just make coffee—we inspire innovation. I’m not just a real estate agent… I’m a property consultant. They write about their company on LinkedIn all day, about what a privilege it is to work for X company, and tell anyone who’ll listen. They just go on and on, like they’re the Josef Goebbels of their organisation.’

I further explained that ‘Kool-aid people love cult-like workplaces. Companies with a profound mission. Execs who aren’t just business people, but visionaries. They want to go to work believing their little app or gadget is “changing the game”, “disrupting” or “making a difference”. They don’t have any old job, no sir! They’re “changing the world”. The whole thing stinks of unhappiness but hey—that’s what the Kool-aid is for. It’s not so much about fooling anyone else, more self-delusion. Reaching, always, for artificial purpose.’

My friend looked confused, like he wasn’t really registering. ‘Well, what’s the second choice?’

‘The second choice is the one you appear to have taken—functional disillusionment.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re awake to the drudgery and the insincerity, maybe a little bored or unhappy. But you get on with it. Fine, I’ll do my job—I’ll perform. But I don’t have to like it.’ I opened up my palms, as if presenting a grand magic trick. ‘You’re functional. Disillusioned, yes… but functional.’

‘I just want to go buy a farm somewhere, live on a rural property far away from the city.’

‘I know,’ I put a consoling hand on his shoulder. ‘We all do.’

I stopped short of saying but we never will.

I didn’t need to say it.

He knew it, I knew it. He knew that I knew it, and I knew that he knew that I knew it.

That’s not what the rural property dream is about—it’s about a relieving daydream breaking up the day. Believing there’s an out helps us climb the next mountain.

The Stench of False Positivity

Am I a cynical person? I don’t think so. I try to be a realist and in trying to be a realist, I often err on the side of cynicism, only because I prefer it to false positivity.

I don’t like false positivity.

It stinks.

This guy in my old soccer team used to chirp, ‘Chin up, boys! We played really well!’ I usually held my tongue. But every now and then, the urge would get the better of me.

‘Well no, not really. We played pretty shit.’

Wounded faces would glance at me from all corners of the change room. I liked seeing that—I liked giving them something to reflect on. Facing the truth is the first step to getting better. How fragile are we if we can’t admit to a bad game?

The way I see it, there’s helpful optimism and unhelpful optimism—helpful realism and unhelpful realism.

❌ ‘You do, in fact, look fat in those jeans’ (always unhelpful)

✅ You stunk the field up a bit today (blunt, but constructive)

❌ You’ll never make it in the NHL. (Too heavy, too final)

✅ You probably have a ways still to go (Realism, but with hope attached)

False Positivity At Work

There are people who genuinely like their jobs. Many of them, in fact. My functional-disillusionment vs. Kool-aid jibe relates to the experiences we have when we’re on the fringes.

Functional disillusionment is not quite the same as being stuck in complaint. Complaint is a different disease, usually an island of persistent helplessness and victimhood. At face value, it probably seems better to be ‘positive’.

That takes us to the Kool-Aid end of the spectrum. It’s understandable—if you’re going to spend so much of life working, why not believe it’s meaningful? Most of the time it’s harmless, even kind of fun. But sometimes it drifts into cult territory—when a bad situation can’t be called bad, or a spade can’t be called a spade. The danger is that too often, this flight from the mundane and plain ventures too far from reality’s atmosphere and can’t be grounded.

Our culture is saturated with TED talkers and LinkedIn optimists selling the gospel of meaningful work. That’s fine, but the danger is forcing artificial meaning onto everything. Also, artificial meaning inhibits true meaning, the way city lights block out stars.

Real meaning, my friends, is much quieter.

Let Oats Be Oats

So what do you do? Sometimes you find meaning. Sometimes you add sweetener, but too much spoils the cereal. Sometimes you should just eat your oats and call them oats.

And if all else fails—remember that, yes, we can always pool our resources, buy that rural property, and escape.

For real, this time.

At the end of these articles I normally plug my books… but today, I’d like to prompt you to reply, if you like. You don’t need to have thoughts about the article, you can just say g’day.

👋 G’day!

He said:

This young man was twelve when he started his first business. Twelve. He’d done a TEDx talk, dropped out of high school, gained admission to university and quickly dropped out of that too—all before his eighteenth birthday.

I used to run this thing called the Constant Student. I stumbled across lots of people like him back then. From a distance, the attribute that marked them apart was talent. They were driven young stars with bright career prospects, the sort big companies line up to hire. I was going to write a book about them. Young A-Players. I announced it on this newsletter, about four years ago.

The talent thing, the drive, that was going to be the hook. The message was going to be something else entirely. The message was going to be about what I saw up close.

The real attribute that marked them apart:

They’d lived an entire lifetime before their twenty-first birthday.

… he probably goes home at 5 and switches off… and I just wonder sometimes, if that’s where it’s at…

If you listen closely in any conversation, you might be lucky to hear the part that goes unsaid. And it just so happens that the part that goes unsaid, is usually the real message.

… and I just wonder sometimes, if that’s where it’s at…

I couldn’t help but smirk. ‘There’s certainly nothing wrong with a life like that,’ I replied. ‘But you want to know what’s most interesting?’

‘What?’

I really couldn’t help my smile.

I never ended up writing Young A Players. Probably for the same reason this young fellow, I later heard, quit his flashy startup job and made a drastic career shift—to be something a lot more like a telephone company repair man. Probably, because of ‘the real message.’

I finally answered, ‘What’s interesting, is that this is the second time you’ve told me that story.’

‘It is?’

‘Yes.’

That’s what gets me. That he told me the story twice. I think that tells you everything you need to know.

Everything you need to know about the real message.

Everything that goes unsaid.

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Joe Wehbe, ‘the Doorman’.

Books here, if you’re interested in reading my bigger stuff. Rest of my website, go here.

And as always, Open Doors for Others.

I call one of these patterns the Group Delusion Project: when a crowd, including the victims, unconsciously conspires in their own deception.

To explain, let’s hop into my rusty grey DeLorean (points if you get the reference) and head back to a time I was almost scammed.

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Part I—A Time I Was Almost Scammed

It’s 2018 or 2019. I’m in my early twenties, naive, hustling to grow a real estate business. My dad sees a Facebook ad for a training day—$45. Why not? I sign up.

Two men run the event. I’ll change their names to protect their identities (I won’t, however, be able to protect their integrity). Let’s call them:

• Real Estate Pitbull — bald, aggressive, the “coach.”

• Slick — smooth-talking, designer suit, claimed to be a venture capitalist with a fashion label and a charity named after himself (apparently “PR people made him do it”).

Pitbull did the real estate spiel, while Slick played the high-flying outsider. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing at a real estate training day, if he owned a VC firm.

“You agents, you work in sales, but you can’t sell yourselves! I love you guys, you’re adorable. So yeah, that’s why I’m here, because I just love helping you guys.”

Ahh, okay. He just loves helping agents… but in humble Epping?

Slick had an answer for that, too. ‘I just flew in from Melbourne. I was like Epping? Where the f###’s that? But [Real Estate Pitbull] invited me and I just had to help him.’

I was starry-eyed. This is who I need to know and who I want to be.

Please remember, I was in my early twenties.

The Hook

The day was cleverly staged. They rolled out clients—agents who swore by their training. Testimonials stacked up, social proof mounted.

Then Slick demonstrated a “perfect sales conversation,” proving agents could charge 3%, 4%, even 5% commission. We watched videos of their bootcamps, packed rooms cheering. It all looked legit.

There I was, firmly on the hook, like an unsuspecting turkey dining on Thanksgiving Eve. They had me, right up until the inevitable climax of the training day…

when the upsells started.

I don’t remember how they did it.

It was all a blur.

But Real Estate Pitbull and Slick proved their coaching packages and bootcamps were worth $50,000 (I can’t remember the working out, it was shotty math, but they PROVED it).

I was still trying to get my head around this $50K valuation when they started SLASHING it!!!!

Rationalising a series of radical, confusing discounts that were available TODAY ONLY!

From $50,000

down to $30,000…

                           What’s the catch here?

… $10,000…

                                     Shit, that’s low…

‘But wait…’

                                     Shit, it can’t go lower, can it?

‘For today only, just because I love agents so much, we’re robbing ourselves blind and selling all this for…’

No, surely not…

$3,999.

😳😱🤯😲🙊🙀

‘But this is only for the FIRST HUNDRED PEOPLE to the back of the room to sign up!’

                               Oh shit! No time to think! What do I do?

The attendees, most of them middle-aged or at least in their forties, run like there’s a bomb threat. Seeing these fully-fledged adults race like mad children to the back of the unassuming RSL hall, rationality finally kicks in for young Joe, and that sneaky feeling in my gut finally overpowers the ‘logic’ of the room.

                                                    Hold up… hold up!

I initiate full retreat. In a nearby cafe, I start googling Slick—and the truth comes out. His charity isn’t real. His sales training, stolen from Tony Robbins. I don’t think he’s a VC, either.

‘Full of value.’

I’m confident these people were full of something…

but it wasn’t value.

Part II—The Group Delusion Project

Looking back, the tactics were obvious—manufactured scarcity, staged testimonials, FOMO. What puzzled me most wasn’t the sales trickery, but the audience. Why did grown, sensible adults sprint to the back of the room?

Here’s my conclusion:

They weren’t just being scammed…

They were in on the scam.

Not consciously, but emotionally.

They wanted it to be true. The idea of a shortcut to success and refuge from mediocrity was too seductive.

This is why I call it a Group Delusion ‘Project’. Like a colony of ants or bee hive, everyone is working together. There’s a hierarchy, and everyone plays a role. Everyone is believing what they want to believe.

• Chief Conspirators (Pitbull & Slick)—Do they believe their own story, or are they knowingly full of it? It doesn’t matter, they validate their opinion either way.

• Disciples (the agents giving testimonials)—even if they’re not getting kickbacks, they’re ideologically bought in, or wanting to get in on this game themselves.

• Subjects (the audience, many hoping to climb this ladder themselves)—they validate the delusion, aiding the spread by creating more so-called social proof.

Together, they generate a reality distortion field. As long as enough people are willing to suspend disbelief, the Group Delusion Project runs on autopilot.

It never sounds like something we’d be dumb enough to fall for. ‘I’m no sheep.’ But our Sheep Mode is always there. When activated, it’s goodbye rationality, goodbye judgement. It defies belief, what even the smartest among us can come to believe, under the right conditions.

That’s why I referred to the Logic of the Room. I use the term ‘logic’, but really, the draw to Slick and Pitbull was something I felt. Like I was infected with an idea virus, an intrusive force warping the insane into the plausible.

When enough people in a space (either literal, or abstract) buy into an idea, their shared belief becomes contagious. It’s an energy thing—an emotional pull, not an analytical one.

Why can some resist while others capitulate?

I think it comes down to a Reality Immune System.

Confidence, self-esteem and skepticism strengthen this immune system. Fear, insecurity, or desperation weaken it. Bring enough low-immune people together, and you get the volatile mix that sustains bubbles, cults, and scams alike.

I always say, easier to convince a thousand people to ride to their certain death in battle, than one on their own.

The Journey To Come…

I paired a lot of thoughts back from this piece to keep it more concise. I had written a lot more about the link between bubbles and cults, and into the psychology that disposes people to being swept up, but I’ll have to save that for another time.

In general, this field has become an unofficial long-term study of mine, certainly a major theme in my next book The Oracle, and many of the articles, podcast episodes and videos to come. So, if you’re interested, you can stay abreast of the progress by subscribing below:

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The younger man, let’s call him Osman, looked up. ‘Passerby, pray tell me, why do you scoff?’

Joe pointed at the book. ‘Apologies, dear friend. I saw your book and had a question.’

‘Pray, ask it.’

‘Why are you reading a book on authenticity?’

Osman replied, ‘My reasons are twofold.’

‘Tell me the first.’

‘Pray, I will, if you will not interrupt me.’

‘I apologise. Pray, do tell.’

The First Reason

‘The first is this—I wish to understand why authenticity is so lacking in our world. Why there are so many fake people about.’

‘Ah, indeed, this is a sad truth about our world. Those people are out there. Now, tell me the second reason.’

The Second Reason.

‘The second reason is this—I am what is known as an open-minded individual. This means I must continually work on myself and be open to ways I might become more authentic.’

Joe inferred from this that Osman thought very highly of himself. ‘But young Osman,’ Joe walked forward, leaning an elbow on his knee, and his chin on the outstretched palm attached to that elbow leaning on that knee. He looked like the Thinker. ‘Aren’t you overlooking something?’

‘Pray, tell me what.’

Riddled with angst, Joe sighed.

‘Nothing is more inauthentic, than trying to be authentic.’

A vacant force took up Osman’s face. ‘Pray, tell me, what dost thou mean?’

‘Nothing is less genuine, than trying to be genuine.’

Osman still looked confused. Joe tried to simplify it. ‘My advice to you is this—stop trying to be authentic.’

‘Stop trying to be authentic?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s very inauthentic.’

‘Explain this to me, oh wise master. I beseech this of you.’

Joe shook his head. ‘I’ve said too much.’

‘But I beseech you!’

‘Oh, right.’

Joe sighed. He stood upright, rolling up his sleeves—for his hands were about to get dirty.

Joe gets his hands dirty

‘There are two types of inauthentic people in the world.’

Osman put down his book and took out his notepad and pen. Seeing this, Joe grew irritable. ‘No don’t write this shit down, just listen.’

Osman, without looking up, wrote in his notepad, ‘Just listen.’

Joe shook his head again. His head was sore because he kept shaking it. He rolled his eyes and continued. ‘The first type are persons of an outwardly and openly inauthentic nature. These people make no attempt to hide or conceal their insincerity. They don’t care they are fake, or don’t realise. They are who they are loudly and in your face. As a result, I cannot help but admire their shameless quality, however horrible or unwelcome their behaviour, attitudes, or beliefs.’

Joe paused so this could sink in. Then he took a sharp breath. ‘Then there’s the second kind—the secretly inauthentic.’

‘Ooh,’ Osman swooned.

The Second Kind

‘These are the people who know, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down they are shallow—hollow—fake, self-centred, and so forth. But they don’t want to be (bless their poor souls), and so they go to great lengths to be good and genuine. They read profound books, seek wisdom, perform great acts of charity, but it is all… well… it reeks.’

‘It reeks?’

‘Aye, it reeks. It reeks and stinks and bothers the air about them with the foul odour of inauthenticity.’

Osman looked upon Joe as if he were speaking Sanskrit, Farsi, or some other niche language. ‘But, does that not make them… genuine?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘But why?’

Joe considered how best to put this. ‘The very nature of inauthenticity is projecting to be that which you are not.’

‘Right.’

‘And so, you can be quite sure that people who try to be genuine are anything but genuine.’

‘That’s… but that’s absurd!’

‘How is it absurd?’

‘But you s… I mean a… aren’t we supposed to be genuine?’

‘Why, young Osman. Of course we are! We’re supposed to BE **genuine, not try to be genuine. My word! Could anything be less genuine, than trying to be genuine?’

‘But… how can you tell the difference between one who is genuine, and one who is merely trying to be genuine?’

‘Easily. Can’t you?’

‘I’m not sure this makes sense.’

‘It makes perfect sense.’

‘I don’t see how that works.’

‘I just explained how it works.’

‘So what is an inauthentic person supposed to do?’

‘Be authentically inauthentic.’

‘Is that advisable?’

‘It’s preferable.’

‘Preferable to what?’

‘To being inauthentically authentic.’

‘That can’t be right.’

‘But it is. If it’s in one’s nature to be inauthentic, they should simply be inauthentic. Anything else would be wildly inauthentic, wouldn’t it?’

‘I fear you are making no sense.’

‘I am making total sense. This problem follows me everywhere. Everywhere I go, people see me—loving, witty, intelligent, caring, genuine. They wish to drop their inauthentic ways to try and be more like me.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

Joe sighed. ‘I already explained—because it’s inauthentic to try to be like someone else. And mighty annoying for the likes of me.’

‘But what’s the alternative!? Who are they supposed to be?’

‘They should be themselves! Look,’ Joe, his patience wearing thin, took a solemn knee, ‘I didn’t ask for this—it was the good Lord who chose to make me genuine. I didn’t ask to be made sincere, honest, impervious to vices or temptation, caring, compassionate and so forth. This is just my lot—I take my lot.’

Joe continued, ‘These types, their lot is to be, well, insincere and so forth. Rotten, I know, but instead of accepting it, they wrap their inauthenticity with authenticity. They’re selfish, but wanting to appear good and virtuous. They’re egomaniacs, dressing themselves up as saints and scholars. Now what’s more inauthentic—blatant inauthenticity, or inauthenticity masquerading as authenticity? I tell you what, nothing irks me more than the pretence of authenticity. Nothing is so hollow, surely, as an insincere person who pretends to be sincere.’

‘I still don’t see what you propose they do?’

Joe was pulling at his hair now, foaming at the mouth, too. ‘If inauthentic people would only BE inauthentic, they would defy the odds and come full circle to authenticity! They need only be their inauthentic selves! To be the shallow, hollow, morally questionable scoundrel the good Lord made them! But, in trying to be authentic, well, they exhibit greater inauthenticity. Now do you understand? Now do you see?’

‘See what?’

‘Just read your stupid book.’

Osman picked up his stupid book, The Art of Authenticity, and wrote many notes. Joe left, and that was that.

To make matters worse, the book I did with Paul helps authentic people become more authentic, but inauthentic people more inauthentic (inauthentically authentic, to be specific).

I don’t know if it’s worth reading for you or not, even though it’s in audiobook, ebook and paperback versions.

I made no progress on the next book over the last week, because I was busy with other stuff, but that book will also make the authentic more authentic and the inauthentic more inauthentic.

‘An Idiot History Museum!’ I laughed at my own genius, as I often do. ‘Yes, yes, show them an Idiot History Museum. Put one in the book!’

It started as a funny idea, nothing more. ‘No, no, this would actually be very useful,’ I soon realised. ‘What’s even more important—it could even be commerically viable.’

It just made so much sense.

‘Instead of celebrating mankind’s ingenuity and achievements, this museum would document mankind’s blunders, mistakes and failures for the benefit of future generations—which is much more important.’

So let me introduce it to you. First you see these words:

“We don’t need that many lifeboats.”

That’s your introduction to the Titanic Section, acknowledging one of the greatest ever representations of human hubris and overconfidence. I’m thinking a large corner display with the blueprints and other design diagrams strung up on the wall.

It would feature that famous quote, “God himself could not sink this ship”. The quote was never verified, but it sums up the sentiment so well. Such is the curse we bestow upon ourselves when we dare Mother Nature, or the Almighty, with our pride.

As a bonus, you’d have that picture of Jack and Rose in the water. On that darned plank. A reminder of the pitfalls of chivalry. Jack, the poor, fictional fellow neglected the Oxygen Mask Principle and paid the price.

‘More Doctors Smoke CAMELS Than Any Other Cigarette!’

Next there’d be a whole section dedicated to medical history. While it’s not great sport to take pot-shots at those who devote their careers to saving lives, it doesn’t do to overlook medicine’s rocky history.

There’s got to be a whole sub-section on bloodletting. What’s bloodletting, you ask?

Bloodletting is the practice of draining blood from a patient's body, once a widely used medical treatment, but now largely obsolete. It was based on the now-disproven theory of four humors, which posited that imbalances in bodily fluids caused illness.

Lucky the great misdeeds of medicine are contained to the past. There’s a shortage of modern examples and controversies, like say… I don’t know… COVID vaccines.

(Too soon?)

Deep Into History We Go…

Safer to focus on idiocy belonging to the distant past past. Less self-awareness required that way.

You keep walking. What’s that, over there? The Trojan Horse, to remind us not to take gifts from our enemies. Beside it, the Salem Witch Trials, to remind us why ‘guilty until proven innocent’ went out of fashion.

Further down, you see a big map of Russia and the words ‘Invading this not recommended, especially in winter. Just ask these guys…’ There’s one picture of Hitler, another of Napoleon.

Duck your head under the low archway that says, ‘Lived by the sword, died by the sword,’ and you enter upon a more detailed homage to horrific dictators. May I recommend the Josef Stalin plaque. "Five-Year Plans and Fifty Million Graves”.

If mass-starvation is your fancy, turn left and check out the baddy baldy, Chairman Mao. There’s "The Great Leap Backwards”, plus an acknowledgement of his greatest adversary—sparrows (he declared war against them).

The Hall of Economic Disasters

This part could be it’s own spin-off museum. Ah, economics—where the limits of human cognition meet overconfidence and greed. No one understands it, many think they do—the perfect storm. There’s got to be an acronym here… how about,

"Experts Creating Obfuscation, Nonsense, and Ongoing Mayhem In Capitalist Systems”.

It’s going to be hard to believe, for instance, the story of the Dutch Tulip Mania—cited as the first ever economic asset-based bubble, if no one documents it properly.

And debate could rage about going off the gold standard, but it’s got to be acknowledged in there somewhere. What else… Enron, anyone?

Just when you start to think, ‘But we’ve learnt from all this,’ you hear a voice shout out…

‘Jenga, Anyone?’

You walk over rocking planks labelled ‘AAA’—but they don’t feel triple-A rated. Something is being played over the loudspeakers—‘House prices only go up’ on loop. Nostalgia kicks in.

You’ve arrived at the GFC display.

On the wall, a monitor plays scenes from The Big Short. You watch those good-looking celebrities explain it all again. Even with their dumbed down metaphors, you still don’t get it. One day, though. One day I’ll grasp what Margot Robbie’s saying. Maybe, if I’d been in the bath with her, it would have made more sense.

Oh, the GFC. I remember hearing suicide rates jumped 5% :( .

We’ll try to remember that house prices don’t only go up—but what’s more certain than this falsely perceived certainty, is that we’re certain to repeat this mistake again one day.

The Modern Section

We couldn’t avoid it forever.

In you go. You know this section will be beefed out over time, but to start with there’s an NFTs & Crypto display—a grave marks the final resting place of many life savings. Above them, the JPEG someone paid $91.8 million for.

There’d be an orange-haired guy but for the blanket policy of excluding politicians from the Idiot History Museum altogether (otherwise, it’d be too big).

I will, however, include a mini-theatre in which reruns of every ‘Reality’ TV Show are screened. People laugh and take a seat, ready for a session of mockery, only they find themselves hooked, silently applauding the well-crafted drama.

Next is the Hall of Fame………..ously Insane Entrepreneurs. The crowd favourite is the Theranos stand, captioned ‘What happens when no one checks the science’.

This section also features: a library full of self-help books, the Great Wall of Life Coaches, a display of ridiculous dancing TikTok videos, a YouTube feed of get-rich-quick internet gurus…

Oh boy. We’ll never let the future forget it was digitalisation, the internet and the accessibility of the smart phone that made the spread of B.S. go totally nuclear.

Finally, in the corner, there’s a space left over for whichever group loses out in the end—the Flat Earthers or the Flat-Earth Deniers.

Whoever turns out to be wrong about that will look a right fool.

Ah, History

Ah, history. Easy to look backwards, or sideways, and laugh.

But rarely do we ask ourselves what we, the ‘normal **people’, believe now that will seem ridiculous in two hundred years’ time (or two).

Which scams we were sold without suspecting, what bait we swallowed hook, line and sinker. What pointless ideas we threw our weight behind, without leaving room for healthy doubt.

Propelled by the joyful naivety of self-righteousness, we charge forth, rushing to claim our perch of idiot history—reserving our right, and continuing the honourable tradition of our ancestors, to choose strange hills to die on.

I guess we learn more from failure than we do success, but we succeed in failing to remember that.

Want to go deeper into ideas like this? Enjoy satire mixed with deep exploration?

Check out books like Holy Sh!t, It’s Only… Tuesday? or subscribe to stay tuned for the release of my next book, The Oracle.

The first is themed around the workplace, the second will focus more broadly on alternative career culture in the 2000’s.

But, most importantly, remember to Open Doors for Others.

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Beachside suburbs make a great setting for what I call ‘Monuments to Self’. What’s a Monument to Self, you ask? My phrase, of course, for a dream home that goes beyond being a dream home, and serves more as a temple to honour its owner.

How do you say ‘look what I’ve made of myself’ without saying ‘look what I’ve made of myself’? Build a Monument to Self!

This is nothing new, it’s just been modernised, made more accessible and a tad more subtle over time. In ancient civilisations, emperors, kings and powerful rulers erected statues, grand temples and feats of architecture in their image and name—classic apotheosis. Apotheosis, meaning the elevation of a person to god-like status. We, as people, seem to ‘play god’ in all sorts of unconscious ways, maybe to rebel against the impermanence of life.

Anyway, while surveying this graveyard of attempted masterpieces and eyesores, we stumbled upon this one home, mid-build, but already quite the outlier—a sheer architectural delight. The attention to detail, the thought behind it, the creative risks that had come off… it was unique, striking, bold—it belonged in a magazine, maybe an award show.

‘All these others,’ remarked my friend, ‘are attempts, but this… this house is…’

I finished his sentence, ‘It’s art.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘it’s art. It’s a beauty for everyone to look at.’

Why do we build fancy churches?

I remember a Europe trip, many years ago now. A guy in my tour group, looking up at a grand cathedral ceiling, complained, ‘All this money that goes into this church could have gone to the poor.’

Practically speaking, and with a very one-dimensional lens, he’s absolutely right. Of course, multiple things can be true. Our eyes tell us buildings can be art, and the book Fountainhead by Ayn Rand backs this up—great, but what’s the value of artful building design? Do building aesthetics have any ‘utility’ or ‘usefulness’ beyond raising the sale price, or feeding the inhabitant’s ego?

Art has always had a funny relationship with the ‘practical’ part of life. In an overly mechanical view of the world, art is nothing more than a luxury. But when the lens is spiritual or deeply humanistic?

Art is the melody behind everything.

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” — Mr Keating, played by Robin Williams, in Dead Poets Society

The Fine Line

What makes me and my friend regard one house on that street as art, and the others as botched temple jobs? It is not something I can boild down to a formula. It is a sense we get, a feeling, intuition, impression.

I see art as an intangible idea that can apply to almost anything creative. Creation is heavily ingrained in our lives. It is the most pure part of life, not just the creation of things but also procreation, being the creation of more life. It is our connection to the deeper mystery behind all things.

When something falls outside of this idea of art I’m talking about, it slips either one way, into that which is overly robotic, mechanical and mass-produced, or the other way—into the wanky. This is where the snobby film critic lives, the ‘experimental’ film which is really a big turd, the extravagant fashion and overdone hotel foyer that exist only to shout ‘look at me’ and declare superiority. This is the book written to show off the author’s supposed intelligence, the house built as a shameless Monument to Self.

I think we make these mistakes when we’re coming from the wrong place. When we’re being a try-hard, it’s difficult to make ture art.

And what is true art?

True art brings intangible beauty into the world. It has effect. It creates a thing which can be shared and appreciated by many. It is not limited to feeding the ego of one.

True art does not shout ‘look at me’—nor does it hide.

True art sits in the natural field of view. It is content to wait. When the appreciative eye finds it, true art holds that eye—without demand, without ransom.

True art does not engender envy—it seeds inspiration and fills us with wonder.

True art does not declare itself the destination. True art takes us on a journey.

It is a beauty which cannot be categorised, commoditised, or over-commercialised, else it will lose its spark. It exists for the reason we all exist—not because it has to, but because it wants to…

To give of itself.

And to Open Doors for Others.

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If you’re looking for a book to read, check out some of these bad boys.

Minimalism usually = ‘having less’

When you think of minimalism, you probably think of an empty apartment and having few possessions. Sell everything, own as little as possible, and ride a bike everywhere.

That image describes a facade, a lifestyle that commonly results from a minimalistic approach—but does not, for me, embody this timeless philosophy.

I think ‘Minimalism’ is actually a terrible name. It refers more to the wrapping paper, when the core idea is the gift inside.

What, then, is the gift?

The image below is from 2009 film The Joneses—a film with underrated cleverness. In it, a group of good-looking actors are hired to move into a rich neighborhood and pretend to be a family, all so they can promote and sell luxury goods to their neighbours (feels like life, right?).

I’ll warn you, the image is a proper spoiler, so I’ll leave you a buffer if you want to scroll past it…
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The disservice of possessions and other vices is when they enslave or weigh us down.

If they drown us.

Clothes, houses, cars, watches, they can all become addictions.

But so can…
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Approval. Likes. Attention. Job titles. Career progression.

Health and fitness. Self-help. Self-improvement.

Property. Shares. Success. Fame. Power. Influence.

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Now, one way to avoid addiction is to go cold turkey, or follow what I call ‘the Mr Miyagi approach.’

If you don’t go to the pub or bottle-shop, you can’t be tempted to drink.

If you delete the Instagram app, you can’t get sucked into that doom scroll.

Simple, right? (We’ll come back to that).

On some level at least, the best defence = Don’t be there.

There’s a few words for this…

Abstinence, Avoidance, Renunciation…

Abstinence is reflected in many different forms throughout religion, spirituality and philosophy. Take the Bible for example—‘If your left hand causes you to sin, cut it off’.

Applied to the context of having less, this is where minimalism gets a lot of its branding—from physically having less, amputating or avoiding the trappings of materialism, or lifestyle excess, that weigh us down.

Sever the contact, sever the problem.

Simple, right?

Hmm….

Firstly, abstinence or renunciation is hard to keep up.

— Whatever we’re hiding from can almost always reach us again.

Then, there’s the question of general effectiveness.

— Physical abstinence is one thing, psychological another.

— The designer rugs have been tossed out, the Instagram app taken off our phone… but is the craving gone?

Even then, there’s no point being without possessions if we’re still…

anxious

depressed

unhappy

enslaved to something else

The Real Goal

And so the real goal is probably this thing called freedom.

Freedom, and not merely giving up possessions.

Freedom

Consider the previous two articles I published on this newsletter. Both are really interesting gradients to this conversation of freedom:

• The Greatest Philosopher No One’s Ever Heard Of (Anthony de Mello)

• A Psychological Deconstruction of Walter White (From Breaking Bad)

In the show Breaking Bad, Walter White seeks a business empire at any cost—riches and glory. But, hang on—he isn’t caught up in the trappings of materialism.

He’s not rushing to live in a mansion or buy Gucci slippers.

His frenzy is sign of a much more psychological, existentially rooted addiction—an attempt to nourish a lack of self-worth and power, most likely. You could say he’s after a freedom of sorts, but his pursuit of it is clearly self-enslaving, bordering him in.

It’s funny how often our pursuit of freedom results in self-imprisonment.

Anthony de Mello, the well-regarded spiritual guide, used language like ‘attachments’ and ‘illusions’ to describe our experience of resistance in life. His idea was that happiness is our natural state, and we deny ourselves this happiness mostly through identifying with all sorts of labels and conditioned ideas around what will make us ‘more.’

There’s that idea of being weighed down again! Only it’s broader than materialism. We’ve reach the same message, only the starting place was different.

I think Minimalism is medicine designed specifically in response to the diseases of materialism, workaholism and burnout.

To be effective, it must achieve something other than the mere removal of items.

It must ease the compulsion.

It must help us develop discipline and self-awareness.

It must restore clarity and peace.

Don’t blame fast cars

The Ferrari is just a Ferrari. What’s wrong with the Ferrari?

Oh…

The Ferrari isn’t the problem. It’s our compulsion for the Ferrari, that’s the problem.

‘If your left hand causes you to sin, cut it off’ is too final for me.

And it’s a little besides the point. It’s not my starting place, either. I would start with…

Why am I so desperate to have these things?

Rehabilitation

Really, what we want to do is recover, rehabilitate.

This brings me to going without for a time.

Going without for a time helps us ween ourselves off dependency, to recover from compulsion, addiction, or whatever we want to call it.

This seems to be a big part of many religions and spiritual belief systems. Picture a monk, a nun, your typical priest, Rabbi or pastor… the image called to mind is one of ‘minimalism’—such types are typically disinterested in life’s flashy stuff.

Then, the emphasis on sacrifice and going without—pilgrimage, retreats, fasting, Ramadan, Lent.

I remember when my atheist friend shared what he was giving up for Lent. ‘But why are you giving something up, in you don’t believe in this?’

Cultivating discipline, and freedom. Freedom, I think, from bad types of dependency.

Bad types of need.

Once we have that freedom, that non-attachment, the abstinence feels a little pointless, because what we really want is the space to cultivate strength.

So, I would say, ‘If your left hand causes you to sin, cut if off…

… until you learn to stop sinning—then you should grow it back again, and learn to live with it.’

Only hands don’t grow back.

Perhaps a better metaphor is needed.

Needing Less > Having Less

I am continuing for now with this theme of tying these articles to a recent With Joe Wehbe Podcast / YouTube installment: use this link if the below video doesn’t work.

Desperation wakes something in us

To me Breaking Bad is a WOW show. Its creators also made Better Call Saul, which also has Joe Wehbe WOW status. Even if you’re unfamiliar with these shows, you’ll probably appreciate their central ideas: falling from grace… moral collapse… the stories of innocents becoming corrupted through desperate circumstances. It was only today, long after the full podcast episode / video I made deconstructing the show’s main character did a word pop into my head, a word that had eluded me, teased at me, gnawed away at me…

DESPERATION.

I realised, that’s probably why these shows have such deep appeal and resonance for me. I’m fascinated by the experience of desperation and what it does to people. How it can bring out the best and worst in us, how it can bring out a hidden version of us, a version which might even take over.

As usual, what’s true for individuals, is also true for larger groups and organisations. If you look at any major rebellion, revolution, or corrupt uprising in history, desperation is always there. When people get desperate, they consider radical solutions—radical opinions—radical leaders. In peace time, times of economic stability and liberty, everyone’s happier with the status quo, and serious dark forces struggle to get a foothold.

The drama in Breaking Bad is generated by a terminal cancer diagnosis. Walter White is a very run-of-the-mill family man, with a wife, disabled teenage son and unplanned daughter on the way.

He’s a chemistry teacher and major under-achiever with something of a chip on his shoulder, having left a science research company he co-founded right before it skyrocketed and catapulted his two friends (one of them his ex-girlfriend) to fame and fortune.

Then his world comes crashing down when he gets a terminal cancer diagnosis. With finances tight as is, Walter succumbs to desperation. Desperate to provide for his family, he has his bright idea—to cook up some quick crystal meth, use a former-student-now-junkie-drug-dealer (Jesse Pinkman) to distribute it, and get enough money to support his family after he dies.

Without spoiling too much, it doesn’t quite pan out for Walter…

The Sheer Cleverness of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul

In both the original show, Breaking Bad, and the spin-off, Better Call Saul, you see a range of shades of ‘evil’, as you would in everyday life. Some characters appear pure evil or start on the wrong side of the law when introduced—others, like Walter, begin not only in society’s good books, but with seemingly honest intentions. We watch as they collapse, take very dark paths and gradually escalate into horrific actions.

They have done nothing wrong at the point we enter, but they are, crucially, not ‘perfect’ people—Walter White’s past reveals a wounded ego, him having something to prove and a sense of missing out on what he is owed, of being cheated by the world. All this is evidently what makes him vulnerable to corruption.

It’s fitting that White is a chemistry expert in the show, because what this boils down to for me, is chemistry. Mentos on its own is a sweet treat. Coca Cola on its own is a sugary drink that goes great with rocks and scotch. But mix mentos and Coca Cola?

Chemistry is a great frame of reference for our complicated psychological and emotional inner lives. Somewhere in nature, in reality, there exists a certain situation, threat or stressor that can trigger us or set us off. Often, it’s desperation.

And the curious thing about desperation, as we experience it, is that it might be a mostly psychological and emotional overreaction. A consequence of desperation is that our view of a situation becomes skewed, so we react, not to its reality, but to our misshapen view of it. Look at the things you stress about, historically, and test this for yourself. No wonder high-performing athletes and leaders place so much emphasis on reacting calmly.

What’s very clever about the storytelling in these shows is that they make these moral collapses very plausible. I believe the transition, that this hard-working pro-bono lawyer (Saul Goodman) and innocuous looking family man (Walter White) can become reprehensible, immoral people, capable of terrible deeds.

Not only that, but I love how Breaking Bad exposes White’s cover story.

😲Spoiler warning…

We know Walter starts off looking for a quick drug deal to ‘help his family.’ Pretty quickly, he goes from looking to get enough money for his family, to trying to build a major drug empire.

The whole way along, despite mounting tragedy, bloodshed, danger, close-calls, and lies that tear his family apart, White clings to this story—out loud, at least. ‘I’m doing this for you, Skyler… for our family.’

Yet he refuses to take money from Elliot and Gretchen, from the company he left and feels bitter toward…

And when his cancer is in remission, he doesn’t stop…

When his junky colleague, Jesse, tells Walter they have more than enough money… Walter still wants more.

White even goes as far to encourage his brother-in-law, a DEA agent, to keep looking for the mysterious drug overlord known on the streets as ‘Heisenberg’ (White is Heisenberg).

And so White’s cover story is full of holes. In our society we often ask, ‘when is it enough?’ and ‘What’s enough?’ We all know that feeling… five years ago, we would have bit our hands off for what we have now. But now, we want something else.

But this is not the question. It’s a distraction. It was never about ‘what’s enough?’ for Walter White—it was always about nothing ever being enough.

Shameless plug time… but if you find yourself persevering through this book, you’ll see a lot of the same themes agitated ;) https://www.itsonlytuesday.com.au/

A Show More About Careers & Balancing Family Life, Than ‘Drugs’

In my opinion, it’s pretty easy to read the White character. A wounded ego, having spent a lifetime feeling emasculated and wronged by the world, unknowingly waiting for an opportunity to seize power back, to achieve, to elevate himself above others and feel lofty—so strong it was capable of justifying all sorts of consequences.

In this way, I think this fictional and far-fetched show gives us a beautiful window into our own reality. In our reality, I feel taking ‘the wrong path’ is marked by mounting resistance—pain, suffering, certain setbacks—disguises for opportunity after opportunity to realise our mistakes and take an off-ramp. If we don’t take the off-ramp, the resistance mounts, escalates.

As you see from Breaking Bad, it takes the mightiest of tragedies to stop Walter’s egomaniac power-frenzy.

You could look at this show as an insight into the perils of the drug and crime world—but it is surely much more than that—a metaphor for our lives.

Family life and the tension to provide.

Financial desperation, real or perceived, and how we respond to it.

Being able to justify all sorts of self-centred behaviours in the service of so-called greater goods.

Perhaps one seduction with the idea of pure villains, those who are evil without cause, is that it feeds into the idea that if there’s pure evil, there’s pure good. And it’s nice, and natural, to lean in that direction of feeling we are pure good. Perhaps acknowledging the element of victimhood in a wrongdoer, is to acknowledge we ourselves are some part vulnerable to corruption. That’s a difficult idea to be open to.

Am I trying to get the world to accept, or admit, we are all E V I L…? Not quite.

Consider this… what happens to Walter White if he never gets a terminal illness? If he never encounters Jesse Pinkman while playing cop with his brother-in-law?

In the same breath, I ask what my life would be like were a war to be fought on my doorstep, on the streets I call home. If someone were to attack me or people I care about… chemistry is a fitting backdrop for this show, because there’s an emotional chemistry to all of us, a set of elements which, in very particular combinations and very particular conditions, would explode.

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I find a lot of philosophy gets tangled up in being abstract and sophisticated for its own sake. But if we’re talking about a philosopher as someone who reflects on the mysteries of life and in so doing, creates remarkable clarity to help people experience reality to its fullest, then this guy is up there with the greatest philosophers—and not enough people have heard of him.

Anthony de Mello

Anthony de Mello, the Indian-born Jesuit, Spiritual Teacher and Author, died in the 1980’s at the tender age of 55. In a relatively short life, he left behind many powerful and jolting messages.

Thirty-three years after his death, on the other side of the world, my friend Scott handed me a book. ‘It’s this little known guy, a Jesuit actually. Like no one has heard of him.’

It was to be another notch in my COVID-lockdown-induced ready frenzy. But pretty soon, I realised I had stumbled upon something unlike anything I’d encountered before. It had a profound effect on me then, and does so still, five years later.

It’s called Awareness: Conversations With The Masters. Or, simply, AWARENESS. (Amazon Link)

De Mello authored many books, and some like this one, posthumously.

This, and Way To Love, are, for me, right up there with anything I’ve ever read.

Now, for those who don’t know, I’m a quietly hyper-critical S.O.B…

I have a sensitive nose for self-aggrandisement and hidden intentions. I have a disdain for self-help and personal development literature, and a cynicism towards thought leaders, gurus and preachers (what can you expect, when I’ve spent such large portions of my life trying to become all of the above! 😅).

BUT—and it’s a big but—Anthony de Mello sits in a very unique category for me, of remaining and enduring a pure voice. No off-putting words or vibe in all the stuff I’ve listened to, and I feel he was spot on about pretty much everything. His words seem to grow in potency over time, when most others’ weaken. He exudes calmness and peace, and never provocation or alarmism. That’s rare for me.

So, what was his message?

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. —Anthony de Mello

I go through all this in great depth in the video/podcast episode, and full article on my website, but the key tenet in de Mello’s understanding of life is that we are victims of conditioning. We are conditioned into believing nonsense ‘illusions’ and forming unhelpful, albeit tempting ‘attachments’. Illusions and attachments create this invisible barrier between us and the beauty of human experience. To de Mello, that beauty is all around us.

Okay, that’s all just words, and at worst, spiritual/psychological babble. So imagine this… picture the people you know who have this invisible barrier in their lives. Always getting in their own way, complaining about the same things over and over, unable to see how their investment in this idea or that is creating so much of the drama they complain about. This is the gist—I guess it’s another way of explaining the human condition.

We might never break through this wall in a permanent way, granted, but I don’t think I’ve encountered someone, living or dead, real or imaginary, whose words and voice have the power to extract people from this sleep like Anthony de Mello.

He delivered harsh truths with humor, seamless storytelling, and genuine compassion.

De Mello, an Indian-born Jesuit, was a beautiful mix of East and West. He’s not the first person to believe that ‘happiness’ (a word that gets us into all sorts of trouble) is our natural state, or that we struggle to obtain it because it’s something we already have—but he sure put it beautifully:

When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing. When the mind is unobstructed the result is truth. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is joy and love. —Anthony de Mello

In short, our inner journey has little to do with adding, and almost everything to do with subtracting.

Happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels! ― Anthony de Mello

The interesting thing about de Mello’s understanding is that it gave essentially full power and responsibility to the individual for their wellbeing, peace and happiness.

No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. When you bump your knee against the table, the pain is in your knee, not the table. The reality is alright, it’s not problematic.

That negative feeling is in you, it’s not in reality, so stop trying to change reality

Problems only exist in the human mind. Reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, and nature would go on, in all her loveliness and her violence. Where would the problem be? No problem, You ARE the problem

And if I’m to squeeze in one more big de Mello idea, it’s that he called out one of humanity’s greatest delusions—the confusion between love and desire.

I tell you what, this shattered some glass for 25-year-old Joe when he got to that part of Awareness, and is summed up best by the quote in the below video, extracted from my full YouTube piece on de Mello, about ‘the orchestra’.

I feel forever indebted to this man, and so I hope that you consider learning more about him. Sure, I made my video and article, but honestly, one of the best uses of your time would be to read any list of his freely available quotes, which you can find online. Here’s an example.

Go on! If you don’t find yourself getting totally lost in scrolling through all those quotes, let me know, I’ll flick you a copy of my book on the house!

All the best to you, dear friends. Keep Opening Doors.

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🎞️ Full YouTube Video

Today I will discuss themes aired in a conversation between myself and my long-term friend-turned-sporadic podcast co-host, Luke Smith.

Luke’s been with me through the thick and thin of this ‘podcasting and writing’ life chapter, as an early supporter of the pod, turned active contributor. We’ve explored everything from Nassim Taleb and education, to Alan Watts, Aburdism, ambition and the hidden significance in Harry Potter.

This is how the relationship tends to go… I go on long-winded, overthought, philosophical rambles, then Luke responds in a way that extracts the point, but with simplicity, coherence and relevance.

In the lead-up to today’s episode, he asked me what I wanted to talk about. I gave him a list of topics, then suggested we also make a bit of a shift to talk a bit more directly about ‘what’s going on’ for us, personally. And what’s going on just at the minute is a very fascinating life stage—entering our thirties, which coincides with our friends getting married and ‘settling down’.

So we talked about that, then I inevitably dragged the conversation onto some big philosophical points, somehow managing to link modern young adults to Brave New World—Aldous Huxley’s 1932 masterpiece dystopian book about a utopian future. In Brave New World, babies are exclusively bred in test tubes, no one gets married, and everyone is hooked on a side-effect free drug called ‘soma’. Given I have a mammoth video/episode coming soon for you all dedicated to this book, I couldn’t help seeing the parallels.

When you zoom out and ask where the world is headed, things are often gloomy. Wars, missile strikes, nuclear weapons, AI… and on the everyday level, unaffordable living, marrying and child-rearing later in life, aging populations (in Australia). Funnily enough, when you look back at history, you have to say a lot of things have improved. Human rights, technology, access to information, health, knowledge…

In the two part Bullsh*t Manifesto I published earlier this year, we discussed this tension. Society’s development is not straightforward, there’s a lot of X steps forward, Y steps back with any change. There are always challenges. What’s interesting is how we deal with them.

So, are we headed for a Brave New World reality? This is something I’ll keep stewing on. But I’ll say for now, despite any parallels to a dystopian novel, and while we deliberate between pessimism or optimism for the future, I personally find myself having faith in our world’s future, as well as faith in my own.

One wonders whether faith sits on this optimism-pessimism spectrum, or somewhere else.

Extraordinary chats between ordinary people

What was the world like, a hundred years ago, in 1925? The time when Huxley would have been hatching Brave New World. We can read Great Gatsby or historian tales but it will never compare to a direct account from the people of that time. Wouldn’t it be great, for example, if we could listen to a podcast of two thirty year-olds talking about their lives in the year 1925?

That’s what’s really interesting about the internet and content era. If I ever get my act together and have kids of my own, they’ll be able to look back at my material, and probably social media, and see what their dad was like at their age. What he thought about, what he worried about, what occupied him, and what outlandish outfits he wore to dress-up parties… you know, all the important stuff.

Make no mistake—I suffer not from the delusion that there are countless people out there hanging to listen to two relatively ordinary young fellows discussing a very standard life stage. All the same, I love capturing conversations like this. It’s part of my disdain for formal expertise, and preference instead for the rawness of pure, non-performative stories of people’s experiences—fancy speak for, people just talking about how it is—for themselves.

In this latest episode, we talked through a few modern dilemmas—latening marriage ages, and certain career conundrums around balancing family support with enjoyment and passions—as usual, and unlike a proper expert, no answers were offered.

Avoiding Preoccupation With Answers

As I figured out somewhere along the way, that’s where it’s at—avoiding preoccupation with answers. The recurrence of struggle, tension, anxiety, and general obstacles in our lives, is a real necessity of this journey we undertake. We discuss this in the episode, which is relevant to Brave New World, too—while the focus of a struggle or dilemma is looking for the solution, the big picture reality is that the bumps on the path make the journey—they are what bind you together—assuming, if you’re fortunate as I am, to have people around you along the way.

A simple, but important reminder.

So, as always, remember my dear friends to keep opening Doors for each other.

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Full Episode

I have no right to tell you what to do with your life, but I can share with you all the ways I implement the Oxygen Mask Principle in mine:

Serving myself food before I serve others

We all know politeness can get in the way of a good meal. When everyone is too shy to go first, there's an awkward tension that prolongs everyone’s hunger. People start taking less than they want off each plate. It’s a very awkward stand-off from which no one benefits.

A few years ago, I realised how to fix this—I jump in and serve myself first. I first make sure my plate is full before offering to serve others. This breaks the tension, making everyone else feel comfortable. Because no one else is ‘that guy’ rude enough to go first, they’re free thereafter to serve themselves.

If everyone ensures their plate is full, all plates will be full.

I also start eating first at restaurants, even if others at my table are still waiting for food. That way, if anyone else wants to start eating, they’re now free to do so. I’ve taken the bullet, being ‘the impolite one,’ so they don’t have to.

Taking the last cookie, piece of bread, or other

No one wants to take the last cookie or piece of cake. No one wants to be the reason there's nothing left of whatever god darned thing is staring up at them from the bottom of the jar, tempting everyone, even though no one's taking it.

Some time ago, I decided on a simple rule to end this dilemma for good. Jump on the grenade—always take the last cookie.

Pushing my way off a plane first

After sitting patiently on a plane for one, or several, hours, or even half a day, I lose all patience the moment it lands. I can't waste a second more. Everyone is on the same page, needing to evacuate IMMEDIATELY upon landing—even before the seat belt sign is turned off.

By shouldering my way out of the row of seats and through the rush of people clogging up the aisle, I create room for others, becoming one less person in the congestion.

I use a similar rule of thumb when driving. If someone wants to get into my lane, I speed up to create room behind me. There's no point in letting someone in only to whiz through and overtake them thereafter.

Reinvesting in myself before I donate to others

Here’s the reason I don’t give much money to homeless people or charity at the moment.

It’s mathematically illogical.

Consider this: I could give $10 away to a needy person. But my problem is I’m intelligent, crafty and entrepreneurial—for every $10 I could give to a person in need, I could instead reinvest into myself and make $20—which means $10 each to two needy people, instead of $10 to one needy person.

Of course, doing that would be inadvisable. I can reinvest that $20 to make at least $20 more, thus enabling me to help four people in equivalent terms. On and on this goes.

For this reason, it doesn’t make sense to ever give to a needy person, so long as I’m reinvesting in my financial well-being—for the sake of the needy, of course.

I’m loading up for one huge, altruistic pay-off further down the line, way way way way in the future. Those struggling now will come to thank me later.

A Big Problem With Charity

It turns out that old saying is right—in a way.

To help others, you have to help yourself first.

Sometimes, in the process of charity, the charitable effort becomes self-defeating.

This can be emotional—for example, if someone you’re trying to help frustrates and aggravates you to the point where you unravel faster than you’re helping them.

It can be financial—if Joe has $100, and gives $10 to every poor person he sees, then in ten people’s time, Joe will be broke with nothing left to give.

For those of you who don’t know, I spent a few years involved in a nonprofit with this lovely man. Throughout this experience, one of the funniest criticisms I saw lobbed at charitable institutions, nonprofits and NGOs was the ‘How much of it [the money/donation/aid] ends up in the hands of the actual people who need it?’

Donors are horrified to find that in many occasions only 10-30% (extreme cases, ranges a lot) of their donation might end up in the hands of the ‘needy’, while the rest is chewed up by admin, red-tape, organisational costs, or whatever else.

Yet in general business terms, certain industries consider a 20% profit margin healthy. Others, usually operating at larger scales, benchmark a 10% profit margin, and in the biggest of the big businesses, breaking even or even operating at a loss for a time can be a sensible thing to do. There are some obvious reasons for these tighter profit margins—competition for talent and labour, the need to reinvest profits, budgeting for marketing, and the costs of producing or delivering services.

It’s rather odd how, once we decide we’re being altruistic, the rules of business and sustainability that apply in our regular working world cease to exist—and do-good institutions are supposed to operate on something approaching a 100% profit margin. Not only that, but we usually assume things that are free, cheap or low cost are of lesser quality or value—especially when it comes to talent. Few of us expect people, especially good people, to work for free—until it becomes about giving back or helping others.

We’re being generous, so they should be generous, too. Just a lot more generous.

Now there are caveats and nuances to this—lack of accountability, poor feedback loops, the prevalence of people who abuse systems of charity and aid—such realities give us cause to be cynical or critical when we learn donated funds are being chewed up by middlemen (or women) and third parties.

But no one I know can breathe without air.

We should also remember that there is probably no such thing as a truly ‘selfless’ act.

So, ironically, even when we’re being ‘generous’, we’re likely following the Oxygen Mask Principle ourselves…

…to a god-darned tee.

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