It's the author of a new novel, Dragon Day. Matthew, why'd you write this novel? Hey, Luke, it's good to be here. Thank you for having me on. Obviously, we've known each other online for some time, so great to be on your show. Your question is, why did I write this novel? Well, I'm trying to avoid answers that sound too artsy and gay, but it's something that I had been working on for a long while. And I've wanted to write nonfiction. I've written essays and blog posts, but for really as long as I can remember, I also have had aspirations to write fiction. I've been writing fiction a while, and this is my first novel. It's the first sort of long-form thing I've completed. Why did I write this novel? I felt driven to. And the drive to write a novel predates any of my involvement on the sort of online sphere that we're both in, and it predates any of the particular subject matter in this particular novel. I've just always had a drive to write and to ultimately write a novel. So you've been pretty energetic in the two or three years. I've known you. So you've sent your energy in various directions. So why don't you sketch a little bit about your life in Los Angeles to the extent you want to disclose it? Oh, yeah, it's an interesting question. In my case, I would say, because, yes, I've been energetic in terms of a lot of my activity online and in the sort of dissident sphere of which we're both apart. However, I don't consider myself any kind of ring leader or super public figure. I'm kind of Robert Stark's co-host. And I got into this sphere of the internet that we're on in 2018. And I think of it as something more that I've sort of learned from, exposed myself to different points of view, more so than taking any kind of lead role in any one project or the other. Up until this point, I would say this novel is my first really independent project that I put forward that encapsulates a lot of my interests and a lot of my perspectives and such. But in the meantime, yeah, again, doing a lot of work with Robert Stark, obviously, we did that great, very low key. But I'm proud of the work we did. Documentary or docu-podcast, video podcast with you back in 2018, that was one of my first projects. And then I've been consistently a co-host on Robert Stark, whom you had on last night. I've been a consistent co-host on his podcast and writing this novel. And those would be my main activities. And what's going on with David Kohlstein? You've been doing some stuff with him. Have you not? Yeah, David's a friend. I have not been due to a busyness with, you know, the way I'm living, as opposed to the stuff I do online. I haven't really been that involved in the project. That's kind of more him and Robert at this point. But yeah, David's a friend. I think he's a very funny guy. But those currently, the Hutton Gibson documentary is not currently one of my main projects. OK. And where did you write this novel? Where? Sorry. Again, and I've gone into this on some other podcasts, it is not that it's seven years of consistent work, because that wouldn't be something I'd brag about. It's only about a 150-page novel. But it's something that I worked on and off. It's something I worked on and off on for years, for a total of seven years, in fact. So it has been written in quite a few places. I started it when I was in college. So I wrote it on my college campus. And it's set on a college campus, of course. And that's where I did a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of outlining it. But I didn't complete the novel until after I moved to LA, sort of got interested in Robert Stark's podcast and the sphere of the internet. And that's really what pushed me over the edge. There's certain themes in the novel about the main character is a sort of lost and confused freshman in college. Obviously, that was very much, well, to a limited degree, thankfully, influenced by my own experience, an exaggerated version on my college campus. And then it was more exposure to some of these dissident right ideas and other dissident ideas online that kind of pushed me over the edge into where I both had a character with a circumstance and also, I guess, more of a philosophical political backdrop that I'd explored more thoroughly to sort of complete the picture. So you asked, where did I write this? About half on a college campus and about half in Los Angeles, post-college and influenced by the online sphere.  Oh, say that again, sir. I think my reception cut out. Yeah, I said this novel seems a bit dark.  Do you think? I mean, yeah, certainly it is dark. I would hope that there's a degree of, that one could recognize the humor in it. And it's definitely, I am one of those writers who probably channels the darker stuff into writing and in particular into fiction because obviously fiction is fiction. A lot of the sort of darker realms of thought that I've explored in different ways over the years, I wanted to channel into a work of fiction as opposed to letting it come out in my real life. Not to be a total Freudian about it. I'm not buying into the whole package of sublimation as a way of getting rid of antisocial instincts or something like that. But I think there is an extent to which that way of thinking has often informed the way I think about art. I find a certain degree of inspiration in some of these darker, more frightening corners of things that I observed in the real world. And I try to channel them into art and in this case into a novel in hopes, and actually I think this is explicitly stated in the book, not ironically, in hopes that maybe some good can come out of naming the bad, sort of naming the demon in order to slay it perhaps. I don't know if that, you did read the novel, which I appreciate, I don't know if it was your take on it or if you thought maybe it was a little bit more in the realm of something pornographic and terrible. Whatever your honest opinion on that is. But my intention wasn't to write some dark thing and say, to present my own darkness to the world or something as much as I am a believer in exploring the taboo, exploring the dark can have a positive benefit for the writer, for me, but also hopefully for readers and even for society, not that my sites are that large at this point because I'm realistic about the number of readers I actually have. But I do think that exploring things like the alt-right as explored in my novel, like the excesses of Antifa as explored in my novel and quite a few other subjects which I'm sure we'll get into, I think that putting these out as best as clearly as I understand them could have some kind of, promote some more clear understanding of things. And did writing this novel provide your own clear understanding of some things? Yes. For starters, it's just a sense of getting this stuff off of my chest, so to speak, whether it's a dark corner of the internet I've explored politically, there's obviously quite a bit of sexual content in the book as well. And for me personally, writing about these things helps me to sort of put them in their place, recognize what they are, recognize the power that they have, not have them be these unconscious things in my life sneaking up on me, but rather externalize them in a therapeutic manner and then move beyond them. To get more specific about that, I think that the villain in my book, the professor character, Thomas Wallingford, for me he represents all of the most sort of decadent and pagan and dark elements that I found in the dissident right at the alt-right at a certain desire to, yeah, again externalize those, recognize the degree to which they have a propensity for destruction, both personal and societal, place that in its place and then kind of see what's left. Like what, after delineating certain dark themes, it's like, what do I believe? Because it's not that, I don't subscribe to the actions and words of the villain in the book, but these are ideas I've been exposed to, been very intrigued by, I'll be honest about that. But then with them externalized, it's easier for me to, they have less power, if that makes sense. Yeah, so for example, I used to write about the pornography industry and when I wrote about the pornography industry, pornography ceased to have power over me. So when I left the pornography industry, then pornography would reassert its power. So for me, writing about the dark side was a way of taking back power from something that had way too much power over me. Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, I think that, yeah, I think that's probably a good comparison in that, yeah, no, I think that's exactly what I mean. But you're saying once you stopped writing about the pornography industry for a period of time, obviously you've stopped writing about it now for a long period of time, is that power reasserts itself or was there a sense of moving on like once you'd exhausted the topic? No, the power reasserted itself. So whatever power that writing about the pornography industry gave me over this dark side, that power dissipated as soon as I stopped writing about it. I stopped writing this book over a year ago. It was obvious, it takes a little bit for, because I did publish with a publisher, not self-publisher, I published with Terrahouse Press, Matt Forney's Press. I've been done with this book about a year on, I still have a sense of having, you know, moved on from some of these darker topics, but I guess that may depend on the topic and depend on the person to a large extent. So in what specific ways, if you could aim them, did writing this book help you to clarify how you understood life? Yeah, I'll be describing here my own sort of personal states of mind. So hopefully I'll be able to communicate that effectively. Basically, if a certain political topic or a certain way of thinking about politics, I've considered writing, just to touch on this from another angle, I haven't read the work of Eric Voglund extensively, you know, one of the great conservative thinkers of the great American conservative thinkers of the 20th century. I haven't read his work extensively, but I would like to read more of it. And he had an interesting way of viewing the world or reviewing political thought, especially of the 20th century, in terms of Gnostic politics versus not Gnostic politics. And his argument being that Nazism and communism and even extreme rhetoric on the more democratic, liberal democratic side had a certain Gnostic flavor relating to a view of the world. You know, the famous Voglund catchphrases don't immunitize the eschaton. A view of the world which views it in very apocalyptic terms, very absolute terms, like we need to do, the select few need to do this and now in order to make things right, a sort of notion of immunitizing the eschaton that Voglund saw parallel to the sort of Gnostic theologies you know, of ancient Christianity and Judaism, that Gnostic heresies. Voglund draws a parallel between those and certain realms of extreme left and right political thought of the 20th century. I suppose the more intellectual end of my exploration of extreme, and as you know, having read the book, the book explores both far right and far left ideas. And I'm not necessarily a full on subscriber to horseshoe theory, but the commonality that the book draws that I found between certain flavors of far right view and certain flavors of far left view is that they do kind of fit into this Gnostic paradigm of a sort of radical, fiery, chaotic politics. I think there's also significant crossover and the idea of accelerationism of promoting chaos for the chaos sake with the hope of renewal. You get that in certain trends of Marxist thought as well and anyone in the far right sphere online knows there's certainly acceleration of their right as well. And I think what writing this book, what I did was look at these most extreme sorts of political ideology, follow their logic to its conclusion, but again, in the realm of fiction and sort of see where that leads as a sort of experiment for myself.  That would convince you to lose your job, burn bridges because the most important thing is this political truth and knowledge that you've stumbled upon. And you need to be a fighter for that, even if it's accelerationist tipping modernity over. Basically, and I explore those ideas in fiction and therefore kept them at an arm's length from my personal life. And having done so, I don't necessarily find that I'm tempted towards sort of strange accelerationists frames of thought, even having stopped writing on the topic. I find that I'm satisfied with the degree to which I explored all that, again, in a fictional setting and I'm able to focus on a much more sober sorts of politics that don't tap into that chaotic head space, so to speak. And again, this is all me describe my own psychological state in the process of exploring somewhat esoteric realms of philosophical and political thoughts. So hopefully I don't sound like I'm just rambling about nonsense, but that was my experience of writing it. Hey there Luke, sorry, my reception day have pinged out. Can you hear me? Yeah, sorry, problem was on my end. So how did you get to play with dangerous ideas and not get burned? So, how did I get to play with dangerous ideas? You know, they hold a certain intrigue for me as for many other people. It's tempting to, I guess I'll admit this, I've always been attracted to extreme ideas and very dark ideas. How did I not get burned? Yeah, I don't know where I might have cut out before, but I think that for me, the process of making art, of writing, especially in the fictional form, although writing essays too to some extent is a very effective way of channeling the energy, so to speak, of taking the enthusiasm I might have for something potentially destructive and put it into place where I feel that I am satisfying that part of myself in a healthy way that doesn't, there's a healthy boundary to it. It's confined to the walls of my Word document and I don't go around talking about it with my girlfriend's family or something like that. And what were the most challenging parts of writing and publishing this book? The most challenging thing was patience. As a younger person and younger writer, I really just wanted to, I wanted to have written a novel. I mean, I really had this notion, like I got to get a novel under my belt, I have to have it done. And again, it took seven years, not because there's work, but seven years of personal development to garner the perspective to make this thing happen. And that took a lot of patience. And when I was younger, there was frustration, like why can't I finish this? There's something wrong with me, it's my work ethic. But in retrospect, it just, time is the most important ingredient for so many projects, especially deeply personal projects. And I guess just getting used to that was the most challenging thing for me. And did you have an editor or did 40 edit it? And if you had an editor, what was the feedback and direction that you got? So by the time, again, given the timeline of this thing, a lot of different people from different walks of life read parts of this thing and gave me feedback. By the time I was real, by the time I had a complete draft, so going back about two or so years ago, I had done so much editing on my own, I'd really pared it down to a pretty straightforward, effective and entertaining story. So a lot of the feedback I got from the people that I got help from, Robert Stark was someone who helped me with this, various other people in my life. By the time I got into their hands, it was pretty small stuff that they were helping me with. Yeah, ultimately Matt Forney did give it the final proof read, but it was mostly like a little bit of grammar and things like that. Not a lot of wholesale movements of anything in the story happened or not a lot of major cuts happened. And could a happy man have written this book? Yes, I'm a happy man. I think that in the seven years that I wrote the book, was I happy every day? Absolutely not. And maybe some of the bad days are inflected a bit more in the book, but writing it always was a major source of my own happiness. I mean, it's like this, as a person, I have my basic needs and I have a good social life, et cetera, and a good job, et cetera. And those needs are met. And then beyond that, I just need a creative outlet. And that's what makes me happy. So I would say, yes, a happy man could have written the book and did write the book. And that also the book made me a happy man. Then why so dark? I mean, if you're happy, then I don't understand how you could produce something so dark. Because my unhappiness, or put differently, the world's unhappiness I see in the world, suffering I see in the world, problems I see in the world is, I think that's the essence of, I won't say all art, but of literature. Literature is about dealing with problems. So, you know, and look, it's my first novel. And I think sometimes younger people, maybe I'll look back in 10 years and say, I was pushing too hard in the dark direction. That's possible. But I would say that I made darkness, my friend while writing this, and I didn't let it have a power over me. And instead tried to transmogrify it into art. And even if that darkness, yeah, there were dark nights. And there's obviously unhappiness behind some of the novel. But I've always been confident in my ability to spin that into something positive. So, yeah, no, I think that there's a chance that, you know, whatever I write next won't be this dark. But I mean, I think that you can look out into the world and see a lot of happy, satisfied artists who are drawn towards fairly dark and unhappy themes. And what's the most interesting feedback you've received on this book? That's a great question. It's been mostly positive up to this point. I am, you know, to whatever degree you may have negative criticism, I'm open to it. I think that, but since it has mostly been positive, I, that's been a lot of the most interesting stuff. One of the first reviews I got was a English PhD who has a blog on literature. The blog's called Precursor Poets. And he wrote one of the first reviews. He actually wrote one of the blurbs for the novel. And I loved his feedback. It was probably still the high point of my whole process of releasing it because he, you know, he's an English PhD, higher level of education than me. And he was able to articulate themes in a way that sort of reminded me of inspirations I'd had to write the novel that I'd almost forgotten in the years since I'd originally written it, writing about the main character. There's a, the novel satirizes critical theory. And this PhD student, Timothy Wilcox pointed out that the main character is someone who has this deep seated anxiety about being read, quote unquote, both literally. And that captured my sort of anxiety as a writer writing this book, a very personal book. But also, of course we're talking in metaphor here, the main character is scared about how he comes across in any social situation. So I've been very happy with the feedback that I've gotten. I think that people understand what I was trying to accomplish with the novel and understand the themes that underlie, you know, the basic plot. Okay, so my question was, what did you find interesting? And you told me that there are a lot of people who appreciated it, but what did you find actually interesting? And can you be more specific? What's the feedback? Because we can all produce something and offer it to the world, but the way people experience it is often going to be very different from how we experienced and what we expect people to experience it. So beyond the generality that a lot of people liked it, what was the feedback that you found interesting? Hmm, well, I mean, again, a lot of it's been, it hasn't achieved as much of a readership as, you know, obviously I knew it wasn't going to be read by everyone. So again, a lot of it has been positive. I mean, not to get too meta and weird, but I value hearing this from you that it struck you as excessively dark.  I just, a lot of the people who have read it thus far, it only came out a couple of months ago, a lot of people have read it thus far, you know, some were friends or fellow travelers, so to speak. And a lot of it has been positive and basically in line with my understanding of the book. But hearing that you find it to be excessively dark is more of a wrinkle, I suppose, in the feedback. You're the first person who's really highlighted that. I mean, a relative of mine actually read it and said it was dark, but also, you know, that it was interesting or what have you. So yeah, that would be my answer. Why don't you sketch, say, the three main characters in this book? Yes. So the book is narrated by a sort of quiet PhD student named Charles, a PhD student in English who's writing on an absurd PhD topic which claims that the penis size of any male writer can be deduced for his work. This satirizing certain realm of sort of Doridian or Jacques Lacanian realm of critical theory I was exposed to in college, which kind of boils everything down to psychoanalytic sexuality. So he's writing this absurd thesis sort of half committed to it. His advisor is one of the other main characters who is a professor, a young and handsome professor named Thomas Wallingford, who is ostensibly a professor of the sort of far critical theory left. You know, someone who would be very into someone like Jacques Derrida, you know, Deleuze, the list goes on, who commands a hold of the active, like the left-wing activist faction of campus which has anyone who's been on a college campus in the last 10, 15, 20, I don't know, maybe since the 60s, years knows is a significant, significant part of modern college campus life is sort of extreme left fringes. So Professor Thomas Wallingford ostensibly or does have a hold of this, he's a figurehead to this faction of campus. But as we learn as the novel goes on, he has more esoteric views of a much more elitist, a cultist tinged and ultimately fascist or far-right flavor that he keeps esoteric and hidden. So that was to sketch the two of the main characters, but by no, not necessarily on purpose, I left the truly the main character for last, which is the protagonist, Toby. The novel is, again, narrated by Charles, but told from a kind of close third person on Toby's perspective. And he is the sort of naive, buildings-Roman type protagonist. I do consider the novel to be a sort of very, very dark coming-of-age novel. And Toby is a 19-year-old college freshman, isolated, not, some people have called him an incel. I didn't necessarily think of it in those terms. I think of him as being somewhat better socially adjusted than that and not terrible-looking, but just someone who's very quiet and troubled and impressionable. And he's definitely the mainst of main characters because the action of the book happens and ultimately is perpetrated by him. And he's also a fairly disconnected character. He's not, doesn't have many strong attachments to other people. That's right. He doesn't. He has a mother who we see him talk to once or twice. He had someone that he met. So the novel is set in his second semester of his freshman year of college. There's a girl named Zoe that he met in a film class this first semester that he sort of had developed a little bit of an attachment, a little bit of a connection with and she seemed to maybe be interested romantically, but ultimately that doesn't pan out. He's sort of passively friendly with his roommates, but no, no strong friendship at all in his life. Certainly no girlfriend. And he's got a relationship with his mother, but he doesn't really let her in on anything. I don't think I ever mentioned his father. I think in the back of my mind, he's probably from a single mother, though that's never explicitly stated. And because he's so much without attachments he falls under the wing of this Professor Thomas Wallingford character I described who takes him, who manipulates him into some very dark actions and paths. And how was your experience of university compared to what you anticipated? So again, this is, I'm thinking about this in light of what we were talking about earlier. I loved college and I had a great experience with it. Now there was a lots of politically, again, so a very far left milieu on college campuses that I ultimately can to be at odds with. I could complain about it. And well, obviously this book encapsulates a lot of the darkest aspects. However, in my personal life, I liked college quite a bit. I learned a lot. I had plenty of friends. So I'm thinking about it in light of what you said earlier. I am not, this character Toby is based on who I may have felt in certain dark moments of despair like that first year. And then I took that and ran with it in the realm of fiction. But in terms of my own experience of college and how it compared to what I thought. Yeah, I was kind of a happy camper. So I guess that then begs the question, why did I write this novel? And I guess I'll have to think about that more. I mean, I can appreciate sort of what, again, in terms of interesting feedback, it's like, yeah, why did I go in this dark direction? Maybe I overvalued the value of darkness a bit while writing this novel. And I sent you some video of what it looked like walking around the UCLA campus in 1988 when I was there. Anything that struck you about, say, video of university life at, say, UCLA in 1988 compared to your experience of university life? What was it, 2013 to 2017? Yeah, that's right. I was struck by the similarity much more than the difference. People were dressed differently, but college campuses, they have this same look. On most college campuses, the buildings are gonna be 50 to 100 or more years old anyway. So it has the same general look. In that video you sent me, I saw students going about their business, I saw them studying. The most dramatic thing in the video that I recall was a sort of street preacher preaching on the campus of UCLA, that evolution is a lie and things like that. And we got a little bit of that where I went to school. I was struck by the similarity much more than the difference. I think there's something a little bit, I won't say timeless, because obviously our certain experience of college is rooted to the last, I don't know, 100 or so years. But yeah, I could imagine myself walking on that campus and I think that the emotions that were sort of going around, people going to class, people going to study, people's preoccupations with academics and presumably their social lives, all struck me as very similar. I read one professor say that in their first year, freshmen believe everything you say in their second year, they believe nothing you say. And by their third and fourth year, they're able to start putting things in context. What was your experience with believing or not believing what your professor said? Well, I have the same process. It didn't necessarily break down to freshman year, sophomore year, junior year like that. But perhaps for me more so, maybe the first couple of years, or maybe even all through all of college actually for me, I sort of took for granted what I was learning. By the end, yes, I was certainly putting in a lot more context and I certainly was pushing back where I disagreed. But I kind of carried that mindset with me throughout college as a learner and just sort of trusting my professors, not that I took everything they said as God's truth, but just almost like if I was in a class writing and thinking as if these premises were the case. And for me it was more doing that through college and then after college is when I came to believe none of it. And maybe now is when I'm putting things the most into context, if that makes sense. I guess maybe I'm victim to this protracted adolescence we have in contemporary United States where your 20s are kind of an extended teens almost. I wouldn't like to think that, but maybe there's an extent to which I'm still still contextualizing everything, still working through the dialectic of like, taking a certain, the sort of mainstream perspective I garnered in college and then the dissident perspectives I've delved into since and sort of figuring out which of them seem best to me, which make the most sense in contextualizing them. And did you make any important changes? Did your life change in any important way in college? I mean, yeah, in every conceivable way really, I went into it, obviously growth and the growth in maturation is a process. As I've learned heading into the later part of my 20s that's something that just continues and probably kind of continues for your entire life in a way, but in college, it was a lot more stark in terms of what I was learning. I was having a lot of, there were a lot of firsts not to get into all of it, but I had a pretty typical college experience in terms of what I was exposed to. And sorry, what did you ask if there was significant growth? I mean, yeah, I think you have three years. What were the important changes, if any, from in your college experience? Okay, well, I'm thinking this in a three-pronged way. One, academically developing as a thinker, which I kind of answered regarding in your last question. And then, yeah, I did have a girlfriend throughout college, which was my first serious girlfriend. That did end my senior year. And that, the whole process of that, oh, I could go, I could get into that. So, okay, here's a way to answer retroactively one of your other questions in a way that might be interesting. My parents met in college and got married immediately after. And I kind of always wanted that for myself. Not to get weepy and stupid about this, but I always sort of thought that would be my trajectory. And it ended up not happening. And one could point the finger at a cultural climate that is a lot more possible than that. I don't know, obviously there's any number of reasons why a relationship might not work out. But that was an important part of my growth in college was going through that, the ups of that, and then ultimately the downs and sort of realizing that, no, I wasn't my, at least romantically, and in terms of having a family and things like that, my path was not gonna be. Exactly that that my parents took. Realizing that was a major coming of age thing for me. And it was a major inspiration behind the novel, I would say. So if you wanna talk about where some of the unhappiness might have come from at a certain point, well, some of it may have been. So that process was a tremendously important process of growth to me. Sort of, yeah, again, realizing, okay, I'm not gonna follow this exact path that my mom and dad followed, but rather it's, I'm gonna have to go back into the dating world and make my way in the world. And that's still something that I'm going to be doing. That that was, I won't say a trauma, but that was a sort of unexpected growth step I ended up taking and certainly something that is thematically related to the novel. And then also related to that, I think I really developed a lot politically in college in terms of my understanding of society. I wrote this piece called Addendum to Dragon Day, which gets into a lot of the fact behind the fiction, so to speak. I don't know if you had a chance to read it. Yes, yes, I read it twice, yeah. Well, great, well, thank you. That encapsulates a lot of these, I don't talk about the relationship so much, but in terms of my developing political views, I was, I guess what you'd call sort of like an un-normie in college, I was center left presenting because I wanted to fit in and I wanted people around me to like me and they were all sort of left to far left, but then sort of in my mind, I knew I was kind of more center right.  So kind of trying to reconcile those two things within myself was a major thing I was dealing with throughout college. And then come to Trump's victory, which happened, what was it? 2016. Yeah, of course 2016, but it was, I was just trying to, yeah, it was my senior year. That was a major breaking point for me where I realized that my worldview was very sugar-coated, very, very naive that there were dynamics affecting the country politically that I didn't understand and that I hadn't understood and that I wanted to understand, you know, and that sort of set me off on the trajectory which I guess I still am, which is again, explore, you know, take, you know, I went to a pretty good college and as with any pretty good college, it's gonna be the certain sort of elite mainstream view of the world and, you know, I espoused that and I would say, you know, I was a little bit of a neocon in my way and that whole view of the world, again, Trump's election, you know, coming out of a long-term relationship at the same time for me sort of creatively destroyed my worldview and sort of set me on a path of figuring it back out and, you know, searching more for, you know, what I believe and, you know, what I want to do in life and all that.  It just, I view it as almost a, you know, coming of age thing, you know, becoming a man, so to speak.  No, she doesn't know it exists. What do you mean? The girlfriend I broke up with in college? Yeah, yeah, did she break up with you after reading your novel on your computer? Sorry, the one I have now or the one I had then? The one you had then. No, no, no. She read and liked parts of it, actually. By the way, I was unrelated to that. It was just a sort of phase of life thing.  So it was kind of just that. But the girlfriend I had now liked the novel quite a lot, actually, so that was good. And what was your peer group in high school? Okay, so how to talk about this without doxing myself or whatever. I mean, I'm not that worried about that, but like, I feel people online this before and they're like, that explains a lot, but I was basically, for all intents and purposes, homeschooled. So I would say that maybe one of the central issues of my pre-college years was never feeling like I had a satisfying social life. I had some friends, I did theater. I took classes at a local college. I was a very good student. But heck, I mean, look, maybe some of that loneliness, maybe that loneliness is actually what's inflected more in the novel than what I experienced in college because I definitely, it's not that I was a loser.  It's not that I was like actively bullied by anyone or felt denigrated, just that I simply did not have the social life I wanted and wasn't doing the sorts of things I thought a lot of other teenagers were doing and should be doing and that was a struggle for me. So you definitely hit on something there. And was homeschooling your choice? No, and I have such a mixed relationship with it because it was my parents' choice because they thought I'd get a better education that way. And I'm very, very, very positive that that is in fact the case and that I did get a better education and I'm way more of an independent thinker because of it. The price I paid was social up until I was 18. But yeah, I was homeschooled through preschool elementary school. That was my parents' choice. And come middle school, I wanted very badly to go to school. I was in a Boy Scout troop and I had friends that I would have been going to school with but the school district just wasn't very good, shall we say. And my parents couldn't afford private schools. So I just stuck with homeschooling despite not wanting to personally. And yeah, so short answer, no, it wasn't my choice.  I mean, I didn't know. I mean, that sounds like a total nightmare to me. I mean, there's no way I would have enjoyed being homeschooled.  Yeah, I didn't hate my home and I come from a great family, but just I felt I was, you know, the fear of missing out thing was pretty much to find the first 18 years of my life in a way. Well, I shouldn't say that. Childhood was great. As a teenager, that big issue I was dealing with as a teenager was just feeling like the whole experience of it was passing me by. And what sort of transition was it to college?  I don't mind. By the end of high school, things had improved somewhat in the sense that I was, again, I was taking classes in a college. I was doing theater. I had sort of, by the end of high school, I had forged a bit of a peer group. They were sort of fellow, creatively interested people like me, people in theater, people who wrote, people who played music, things like that. So by the end, I was doing a lot better.  So college was kind of a dream come true when it came around. And I was finally able to be around. I finally felt, I'm trying to think of who the psychologist is, but you see these, and you see them online a lot too, these sort of psychological theories of the necessary steps to take in life, like what's the guy's name? Eric Erickson or whatever, if you're familiar. I think when I first went to college, it was like for the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing the normal steps, like a normal person. So it was a pretty great transition. Well, ironically, given the novel and everything, but again, I mean, maybe you've touched on something, maybe I'm, it was inflicting more high school stuff into some of this, I don't know. And did you come to Los Angeles because there was the furthest you could get away from your family and still be in the United States? No, although it regrettably is. I realized, yeah, no, no, no, not at all. I came here because of the entertainment industry, like so many other people.  I hate that it's so far away from them. Thankfully, there's a lot of cheap airlines nowadays. So I see my family a few times a year, but no, that was a hard transition being so far away. It's not why I came out. And it's my least favorite thing about living here. How many people guessed that you'd been homeschooled? Anyone? I don't pretty much. Well, I don't know. I'm curious if that would have been your perception. But basically, the the reception I get when I tell people is usually first one of surprise, because again, I think I am somewhat socially skilled. I mean, for someone who's someone involved on the dissident right online, I think I'm highly socially skilled. Well, that's a big deal to anyone. But so I think people are surprised. But then it's often like after a couple of beats, the reactions like, oh, but that makes sense. For whatever reason, whether it's just because I'm a little bit off in the way I do certain things or a little bit just strange in the way I approach certain issues and think about things. Basically, it's usually one of a degree of surprise and then give it a few beats and then people kind of connect the dots. Like, oh, that kind of makes sense. So is there still like a core of wholesomeness about you or is that being totally destroyed by now? I, look, it's hard to say that kind of thing about yourself. I think that, yeah, I think that at the end of the day, people probably wouldn't guess it reading the novel, but I think at the end of the day, I don't even mean this to like toot my own horn morally because I think that there's drawbacks to being the quote unquote nice guy. But I think I'm basically a pretty caring and principled person. So and I think that, yeah, definitely growing up and through college, everyone, I only say this because it's like straight what people said, you know, there's always like this sense of me as like this wholesome optimistic person. And I don't think that's been totally destroyed. I think it's been, you know, battered a little bit. I'm a lot more jaded than I once was, but I still kind of identify with that personality trait. And how has your experience of Los Angeles been different from your expectations of Los Angeles? Yeah, in contrast to college, I would say my experience here has been a little bit, I mean, look, I'm moving out here. I knew that it wasn't always gonna be easy, but my first year out here, moving alone to a large city far away where I didn't know anybody, definitely, I was definitely disappointed and surprised at how kind of lonely and isolated I felt that first chunk of time out here because, you know, I had roommates that I met on appartments.com. I was just kind of exploring the world on my own for the first time. I didn't know what to expect from me out here. So I don't know if it contrasted my expectations, but definitely the reality of it was maybe tougher than I'd imagined, but I'm pretty happy now, I'm pretty well rooted and connected now. And would you like to live in Los Angeles? I think so, yeah, I always say every year that I'm out here, I like it more and more. I think California is the most beautiful state in the union, no offense to Texas, which I also love just in terms of physical beauty, but in no offense to any of the other states, I've obviously traveled through a lot of them, but I think California is pretty much top in terms of natural beauty and weather. And every year I'm out here, it's easier for me to, it feels more and more like home. The hard parts again, being so far away from my family, although that's mitigated by the degree to which, you know, can travel back. This is a strange one, but I honestly miss the weather of like the Northeast, the four seasons and rain. That kind of thing took a while to get used to, but at this point, fairly rooted in like my career here, I've got close friends here, I'm very importantly, I also have a long-term girlfriend here who would like me to stay. And yeah, you know, it's not something that's like, it wasn't something that was immediately obvious when I moved here, it wasn't something it's not something that's even immediately obvious to me now, but I tend to see myself staying out here long-term. And I think that, I think that being out here has also been good for me in many ways.   I mean, this had to come up at some point.  And I think that the psychosexual under, again, I don't wanna sound too Freudian about any of this, but the psychosexual undercurrent of the novel has to do with male to male competition, male against male aggression. And the sort of potentially sexual element of that just started to feel, it just became the sort of obvious choice for, again, the darkest realm that this story was gonna go. So that's how it became the inciting incident.  Again, this character of Professor Thomas Wallingford has this view, which he calls sexual dialectics, that sort of everything boils down to sex, everything boils down to domination and submission, men over women, but men over other men as well, that's integral to his worldview.   Well, it was to me a very vivid metaphor for understanding the kind of extreme politics of domination that Wallingford espouses. And how invested are you in the status quo? How, oh, that's a fascinating question. I would count myself as someone who is tepidly invested in the status quo. I think that there's a lot of issues with the status quo and that's obviously why I'm interested in dissident politics. I think that rates of happiness are going down, suicide rates going up. We could talk about all the sort of Tucker Carlson tonight talking points of what's wrong with United States and I recognize those, but also I'm someone who made the conscious choice to be somewhat of a normie. I have a day job and I have a life and I have a lot of friends who are on the left or just apolitical and I don't wanna mess any of that up. So with regard to that, I'm sort of, I take the status quo seriously. I'm not someone who, again, going back to the whole notion of Gnosticism, I'm not someone who has views at like the world as it is has to be destroyed. That's ultimately what Professor Thomas Wallingford in my book preaches is that the world that is has to be destroyed. That's obviously not my opinion. And so therefore what is my opinion? Well, it's not a wholehearted celebration of the status quo. I simply try to, again, going back to that addendum to Dragon Day that I wrote, I'm somewhat influenced politically by Leo Strauss, although I'm not a neocon per se, but I'm investing this idea of exploring anti-civilized and civilizational ideas while trying to do so in a way that doesn't necessarily negatively affect civilize, or just trying to find that balance of, that sort of moderate balance between analyzing issues of the status quo while also preserving the status quo and protecting elements of the status quo that aren't deserving of ridicule, if that makes sense. Sure. And how was your experience of the COVID pandemic? So I have been working from home for the past year and a half, which I actually like. I enjoy not having a commute anymore. So on a lot of personal levels, it really hasn't been that bad. I moved in, well, I don't want to get too much in personal details, but I'm not alone, thankfully. I'm kind of with a community of people. So that part I've sort of mitigated what would have been the worst. I mean, if it worked for that, if I didn't have enough connections in LA, I would just would have moved home. I would have left because I wasn't gonna go through this alone, but I've managed to have people around me. So I think that's the most important thing. That part's been fine. In terms of the mechanics of working from home, it's been preferred. But that being said, I obviously don't. So basically I've had a fine experience about being said, I'm not glad that COVID happened or anything, it's terrible. But you know. Okay, and what has been your experience of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles compared to what you expected and what you hoped? I don't want to get too much into that, but... You can talk about the general culture.   So when you talk about things that are safe. I just, yeah, yeah. I'll talk about things that are safe. I mean, it has been in one breath pretty disheartening, but you've obviously been around entertainment people in industry too, but also it's like I'm not, I'm not Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. If you've seen that movie, I didn't come here being it was somewhere over the rainbow or anything. I knew it would be, you know, the types of people I would interact with. I knew that it wasn't exactly a hotbed of open creativity for all or anything like that. But even within that, I mean, the most disheartening thing you learn is that about 99, all the creative decisions in Hollywood are made by 1% or less of the people. And the rest of the people in the industry, even people with very good jobs just have absolutely no power.  I'm a big fan of the author, Brett Easton Ellis who wrote American Psycho. I get another writer who basically a happy guy but writes about dark things. I mean, that's the type of stuff that influences me. But I listened to his podcast and he interacts with fans a bit and I once asked him who, I asked Brett online who are the most happy people in Hollywood? And what he said was, whoever has the least at stake he was probably an agent or a producer or like someone who controls the money. Like the most happy people in Hollywood are the people who have the least at stake creatively. And he said that to me over a personal correspondence online and that has also been my experience if I'm being honest, looking around. It's the people who have the least at stake creatively who are the happiest. It's kind of a rough world for the creative side. And so even though I knew Hollywood wasn't going to be a picnic, I guess just realizing the extent to that has been disheartening. That being said, I still believe that that sort of hard work is ultimately or can be not always but it can ultimately be rewarded here and that there are a lot of great people who manage to do great things but it's definitely a pretty hard environment.  Not yet. I don't know what they'd make of this novel. I think you can read it in different ways. I think that you could read it as being homophobic. That's not my own reading of it. I think that you could read it as just an honest exploration of sort of different elements of that lifestyle. They haven't got, it's sort of answered the no, they have not tried to get their claws into me. I don't know what they'd make of me. Whether they'd see me as a fellow traveler on any level or whether they'd try to stuff me, I don't know. And the 1% in Hollywood you have all the power, I assume it's not so easy being a Goy in Hollywood. No comment. No, just kidding. It's not that bad. I get along pretty well. I mean, you're okay with second class citizenship. No comment. And what role does God play in your life? God plays a significant role in my life. That being said, I, how do I answer this? I pray, I try to pray every day. I grew up Catholic, I'm currently practicing that. I cannot say that I'm a very good Catholic or very committed to a lot of it on a philosophical level. But it was the way I was brought up. It is my family connection. So I still attend Mass. And in terms of God, yeah, I am a monotheist and I do pray and it's important to me. That's another element of my life that there's been some sort of back and forth and confusion on as I've developed. But I guess I've always remained rooted in monotheism. And what do you think of the current Pope? Not a big fan.  I'm just like a guy who goes to church. I don't get, I mean, maybe I should, but at this up to this point, at a certain point I'm not like out there pontificating, no pun intended on like my views of the Catholic doctrine. But that being said, no, I'm not. I don't think that Pope Francis is not compelling of a figure. I remember when he first became Pope, I was a fan of him then. A lot of the priests I knew at that time, sort of late high school or college were Jesuits as well. They're charismatic in their own right. But this whole notion, like, I don't think people have started going back to church more because of Pope Francis. And ironically, one of the most clever things I ever heard said about Pope Francis was, was on a podcast and of all people was the basis from the band The Vandals who's apparently, it was just this punk band from the 70s, but there's apparently a Catholic now. The most smart thing I've ever heard about Pope Francis is that everyone, you know, everyone who basically, that everyone who liked Pope Francis is not Catholic. Like I worded that wrong, but I'm... Yeah, I get it. Yeah, like the people, like everyone's like, oh, how could you not like this Pope? He's so popular. He's just charismatic figure. It's like the people who praise him the most are like the least likely to be Catholic. The more not Catholic they are, the more they like him. So it's like this false thing where it's like, oh, Pope Francis is this charismatic head of church. It's like, he appeals to exactly the people who aren't Catholic. Now there's an exception to that, which is like some younger Catholics. I know there's exceptions, but just the world as a whole, people like him because he weakens the Catholic church. And how much anti-Catholicism have you encountered? You mean like an ally or in my life? In your life. Very little. The areas I grew up in, it was the East Coast. It was the Northeast. So it was like, if not majority Catholic, then at least that was like the most significant sect of Christianity. Yeah, not really much of any anti-Catholicism. Obviously in Hollywood and in movies, a lot of stuff is sort of portrayed incorrectly, but I don't get hung up about that too much. I mean, people just don't know the significance of all the different things and may have weird interpretations of it. I think that obviously the church does have a huge problem with the pedophile priest. And that was actually one of the things that turned me away a bit for a while. But even with that problem being very real, I still feel like people, some non-Catholics harp on that a bit too much because it does happen in other religions and in other institutions too. But yeah, anti-Catholicism hasn't been that significant I think. I think the most intellectual anti-Catholicism I've come across is ironically perhaps been in my philosophical political explorations of dissident right stuff. I mean, there's no better source on like why Catholics aren't really American than Ann Coulter. And I don't mean this negatively. Genuinely, I've heard some interesting things from sort of make America Protestant again, types. Not to mention the sort of secular right in the Nietzsche. The Nietzscheans of the Nietzsche, the Nietzsche of it all, obviously there's a certain amount of anti-Catholicism there but that's intellectual stuff. Yeah. Okay. I think we're coming towards the end. Is there anything that I should ask you that I have not asked you? Nothing comes to mind. Appreciate you bringing me on. I imagine you've linked to where people can buy the book if they're interested. It's not for everyone. It's dark as Luke said. It deals with some pretty degenerate type subjects but I'm of the opinion that there is value to this sort of thing exploring the very darkest realms of politics and psychology. And I think it's especially relevant in our chaotic times. Okay, Matt, thanks a lot. Good to talk to you again, man. Thanks.


Your voice was very faint But yeah, thank you so much for praying for us the Lord did hear and so the Lord will answer. Thank you so much Yes, so we have covered Pre-chapters of Colossians we entered Colossians chapter 4 We did up to a six Looking at some basic things that Paul wanted to you know instruct And then verse 7 onwards Colossians 4 verse 7 onwards we have the concluding instructions being given So I wanted us to you know Focus a little bit on that because there are a few things there which can be of use to us so We will begin with verse 7. So if we could have someone you know read out for us Colossians 4 verses 7 to 11 Colossians 4 7 to 11 if someone could read out for us, please Colossians chapter 4 verse 7 to 11 righteous beloved brother faithful Minister and fellow servant in the Lord will tell you all the news about me I'm sending him to you for this very purpose that he may know your circumstances and comfort your heart With on on this mess a faithful and beloved brother who is one of you They will make known to you all things that are happening there I restruct Because my fellow prisoner greet you greets you with mark the cousin of Barnabas about whom you are received Instructions if he comes to you welcome him and Jesus who is justice does these are my Only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are of the circumcision they have Proof to be a comfort to me Thank you, so we just see some concluding remarks over here Tychicus and Onesimus the two persons who are mentioned in verses 7 to 9 They are the people who actually carry this letter to the Colossians so Tychicus we Get to know he's being sent specifically to give information about Paul To the Colossian believers because right now Paul is in imprisonment so the Believers in Colossae are concerned about him. They probably want to know, you know, how things are with him so Paul doesn't want them to stay worried and concerned So he's sending Tychicus to carry news about him to the people Back in Colossae as for Onesimus Onesimus is being sent back To Philemon because he had run away from Philemon He was the slave of Philemon and he had chosen to run away And in we don't really know the details of how he made his way all the way to Rome but when he went over there, he probably you know met Paul at some point of time and Became a believer. So Onesimus is now a believer So here in verse 9 we see Paul addressing him as our faithful and dear brother Who is one of you? He doesn't say that slave on Onesimus. That's not how he addresses him He says about Onesimus our faithful and dear brother Who is one of you, you know? So in Christ, you don't have slave and free in Christ. You don't have Jew and barbarian, you know in Christ We don't have these Differentiations when it comes to our status We all are of equal status and we all are equally loved by God So we're all part of one family. So Here he addresses Onesimus as someone who is one of you, you know So he gives him that respect in the way he addresses him We also have mention of Aristarchus here Who it looks like has also been imprisoned along with Paul So he refers to Aristarchus as a fellow prisoner Aristarchus is the person Who had accompanied Paul and the other and the rest of the team to Ephesus So in acts 1928 to 29 When when we read about the riot which took place in Ephesus, you know when the people were very very concerned The local people were very concerned that everyone is turning away from, you know, the worship of their pagan gods And so they all They come and they attack these Paul and esteem So at that point in the acts 1928 to 29 We are told that the people seized Gaius and Aristarchus Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia and all of them rushed into the theater together Just what it says over there in acts 1929 So Aristarchus is someone who had been serving along with Paul for a long time and Was very faithful and then we have mention of mark the cousin of Barnabas So when mark had abandoned Paul and during the first missionary journey and gone away His cousin Barnabas spoke on his behalf and you know said that he should be given a second chance But Paul was not for that Paul felt that someone who had abandoned them should not be given a second chance And Barnabas, you know spoke for mark so strongly And in fact it led to a you know a strong disagreement between these two ministers of god Until finally Barnabas decided that he would take mark and go separately on a on a separate missionary journey So because of the effort that Barnabas put in and invested in mark's life, it looks like mark, you know Came back to that earlier commitment which he which he had made and so he became a very strong missionary and was of great help to Paul later So we see over here that even Paul was not perfect He took a strict stand and felt that mark should not be given any second chances But because of the kindness of Barnabas because Barnabas was willing to give mark a second chance He was willing to pursue him talk to him counsel him and you know get him back into ministry You know mark His entire future ministry was blessed So The reason that we are going through these concluding remarks is because there are things I know contained over here Which can be beneficial to us in our own ministries So if we know any marks in our own ministry circles, you know Like Barnabas, it is worth it to put in that little bit of extra investment That little bit of extra effort because who knows that person may genuinely in their heart still love the lord and want to serve It's just that maybe they were scared away by circumstances or the toughness of the situation And all they needed was a little bit of encouragement and support from a fellow believer You know, so if there are such marks in our ministries rather than just taking a very strict stand and saying I'm done with this person If we invest in them, who knows, you know, they may they may be they may actually break out of that Whatever it is that is holding them back and they may be willing to pursue the lord in serving and You know, their their entire future ministry will be blessed So many people will be blessed through them and in heaven one day, you know We would be rewarded for making that extra investment and effort in helping that person get back on their feet So we see that about mark over here. Here paul says When he comes to you, you know, welcome him. So, uh, he He now respects mark, uh, and he, you know, loves him and appreciates all that he has contributed towards the ministry another thing that we Yeah, maybe this Verse 11. Yeah verse 11 is where it talks about a person named jesus justice Um, who is also one of the team in Rome And he says these are the only jews among my co-workers Uh, so aristocracy mark and this jesus justice are the only jewish um Missionaries who are willing to identify with paul and you know visit him spend time with him talk to him All the other jewish missionaries seem to have distanced themselves. They are scared, you know, how um, how paul's Arrest will turn out whether he will be given a death sentence or not. And so they want to avoid any problems So they all distance themselves From paul paul had a much larger team earlier But now the all the other jews are kind of scared. So they have backed off But these three jews, you see Even now even though he's in prison and his court cases going on they have chosen to stand by him So this again is a beautiful practical, you know Point that we see regarding ministry Where even when there's a position and uh persecution Some believers will choose to stay You know with those who are in jail, they will choose to is to Attend the court appearances even though it may draw negative attention to them They are willing to take a stand for this believer Who is getting persecuted in jail or being you know being pursued by the police? um, so When we do that, you know, uh, there's a special blessing I think for such people because it says here, you know paul says here They have proved a comfort to me So these three jewish Missionaries who chose to stick with paul They were such a comfort to him. They they were a blessing to paul you know, so A reward would really be given to them for what they therefore the stand which they took So this is another you know principle that we can keep in mind Uh, a third beautiful thing that we see is regarding epa fraz who founded this church in colosseum And if you remember it was not paul who planted this church It was epa fraz who had been trained under paul in emphasis So he comes over here and he starts this church over here and it says about him um, he's always wrestling in prayer for you That you may stand firm in all the will of god I mean the word that is used over there It's not just saying that he's interceding or that he's praying or that he's just putting requests before god It says that that man is literally wrestling in prayer for you You know, because he epa fraz is aware of the weaknesses of the congregations that he's ministering to He knows, uh, you know, what are the temptations that they are facing and he's concerned for them He doesn't want any of them to slip away and go back, you know into their old ways So he literally wrestles for them in prayer Just the way jesus wrestled for peter in prayer earlier if you remember, you know, um Jesus speaks to peter and he says, uh, satan has asked to sift you like wheat So yes, you will be tempted and the temptation will be very strong. In fact, uh, jesus says to peter you will fall You know, you will not be able to successfully withstand the temptation But I have prayed for you. So you will come back. You will get back on your feet You will have a future ministry. You will have a future hope in me So in the same way jesus wrestled for peter and you know secured his future Epaphras was doing that for his people. He it looks like he was in charge of Three to four churches in that, you know region where I mean in in in all those places where he had planted churches and he was spending time in prayer Wrestling for all of those believers so that they would all stand firm in all the will of god it says um And in verse 13 paul again repeats he says he's working hard for you And for those at la odisha and hero police So it looks like he had planted the churches in these three places And he didn't just simply plant those churches and sit back and say oh, I have done my task No He continued to pray for them. He continued to intercede for them. So church planting is a good thing to do Appointing leaders in those churches, you know, which have been planted. That's also good But the opposed to the church planter His job is not done after just appointing local leaders in those churches He continues to um Supervised those churches continues to visit them to encourage the leadership over there And he wrestles in prayer for them so that all the believers over there will continue to stand firm So when we look at these, um these Early church missionaries and leaders They had a very different view of ministry Now, you know, it's more about um Um statistics how many people were you able to save? How many numbers have been added to the church? And then if the numbers are right, then we are satisfied and we sit back But you see these early Ministers and leaders It was not about statistics. It was about Serving these people who have been added to the church and bringing them to a level where they have really been Discipled because the great commission was not, you know to build up statistics. The great commission was to make people disciples So discipling will involve a lot more than just simply adding to the numbers it will involve Literally spending time with those numbers with each of those numbers so that they're no longer numbers But they're actually people where you know about the issues that they are facing You know about uh where they are weak and where they are strong so that you can Council them, you know in in the right manner So there's a lot more involved in ministry than just simply, you know adding to the numbers in our congregations so On judgment day when the lord judges us and you know Rewards us for all the things that we have done. He will see what kind of ministry has been done So it's not just enough if I have built up a mega church God will also see In what way I have invested in the lives of the people in that mega church So it's just not enough that I have you know established a mega church God will want to know in what way I discipled the people in that mega church how actively I was involved in their lives So what god expects from ministry is something far greater so um To an extent maybe it is good that we all have you know a smaller numbers of people to Disciple it kind of makes it easier not all of us, you know run mega churches Thankfully, you know Most of us are maybe just in charge of a bible study group or you know We we just maybe teach a small group of people So it it's easier to establish contact with them and you know keep in touch with them Bring them up pray for them encourage them So when we do that that would be considered through ministry um And then verse 14 he next talks about luke and dimus He says our dear friend luke the doctor and dimus send greetings So it's very sad. Here's dimus is sending his greetings to the church in kolose And then later we see that he drifts back into the world That's that we would see that in second timothy where uh paul very sadly writes that dimus has gone back into the world so It's a warning, you know for us, uh, it's in fact in second timothy 4 10 This is what paul says he says for dimus because he loved this world Has deserted me and has gone to the salonica so, uh He was drawn back into material things I mean that's quite a fall for someone who was in full-time ministry Because full-time ministry back then didn't really have any You know money or popularity or anything attached to it It was something very tough at that time to be in ministry So this man dimus along with paul and the rest of the team made a lot of sacrifices to to serve the lord and in work full-time and do all of that But a man like that Got drawn back into the world Because he felt that you know the ways of the world are easier Simpler doesn't involve that much sacrifice and he was drawn back into the world So that should serve as a warning to us That no today while we are busy sending greetings to the people that we know we are ministering to Tomorrow we should not have drifted away And gone back looking for an easier way of life So following christ and carrying our cross every day will sometimes prove quite painful It will involve a lot of sacrifice But carrying that cross on a daily basis is worth it because Jesus said that such people are my true disciples And so it is good for us to stick with the lord until the end and remain his disciples So that you know, we will enjoy the eternal reward that he has for us Um, so that's regarding dimus And then we come to this very, you know sad versus in 1516 um Where paul says give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at laodicia And to nympha and the church in her house After this letter has been read to you see that it is also read in the church of the laodicians And that you in turn read the letter from laodicia So paul has sent a letter to kolossi And he has also sent a letter to the laodicians and he wants them to exchange the letters and read it out You know so that both the congregations will be familiar with all the instructions and all the encouragement that has been given in these letters So it's very very sad, you know that we get to know later that the laodicians Didn't really follow What was written in these letters now? We don't really know what the contents of the laodician letter was But you know what was read out from the kolossian letter To the laodician people they failed to keep it So you know even as we were covering all these previous chapters of of kolossians and you know Did we take those learnings to heart? Or are we in the in the same condition as these laodicians who took those teachings lightly? You know it went in through one year and went out through the other year It didn't stay it didn't take root and so they They they ended up in a very bad condition If you remember, you know when we were doing kolossians chapter three We talked about how because now we have been raised with christ You know we are our mind should be on the things above we are supposed to be seated with christ So we should our mind should be where our spiritual status is Where our spiritual positioning is if we are seated with christ Our mind should also be on the things which are in the heavenlies rather than in the earthly realm And in fact paul says you know in kolossians three he says for you died And your life is now hidden with christ in god So he urges the you know throughout chapter three He gives a lot of instructions saying you know what are the things that they can do to continue to remain hidden in christ The laodicians did not take that seriously And so in revelation chapter three when jesus is talking to them He uses very very strong words in revelation chapter three Verse 17 jesus says to them you say i am rich I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing So jesus says that's what you people are saying about yourselves And then jesus says in verse 17 revelation 3 17 But you do not realize that you are wretched pitiful poor blind and naked I mean this was a church Which thought that they were in a very secure beautiful comfortable position Maybe they even said to themselves look at the amount of wealth we have it's because we are seated in the heavenlies with christ But jesus who was looking at them Could see the pathetic condition that they were in He says you are wretched pitiful poor Blind and naked very strong terms So it is good for us to be doing you know These books you know these epistels one by one But if we don't take to heart the teachings which are there in these epistels and actually practice them Then we will be like the laodicians You know we may in fact have a lot of head knowledge about each of these epistels We may even be able to write an essay You know on maybe one of these epistels But where's the point if we have not practiced it and we have not stayed hidden in christ Then jesus who is looking at us you know will not look at our you know mark's certificate Rather he would look at the Condition that we are in spiritually and he may have end up saying to us you are yes, you have an you know apc Certificate, but you are wretched pitiful and what a tragedy that would be So in that revelation three, um, you know he uh, you know when I was Reading that I was just kind of thinking in my mind. How would epaphras have felt? you know when he when he um Read this letter from john, you know with john would have you know sent this letter to the laodician church At that time I wonder what epaphras would have felt because he had wrestled in prayer for the laodician church But these people had chosen to not follow the teachings and uh, so in revelation three in fact Jesus gives them one more chance.  He says and um, so at the at the at the end of that, uh, you know, um Exhortation was that popular? You know verse which we all know Jesus speaks that in verse 20 revelation three 20 and he says here I am I stand at the door and knock If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with that person and they with me So jesus again coming back to them and saying i'm giving you one more chance to to live a life hidden in me Because you have died with me. You have died to the world Don't go back to the things of the world and he gives them one more chance to come in and you know He says I will come into you and you have give you one more chance to hide your life in mind And keep your mind focused on heavenly things rather than earthly things And he says that if anyone chooses to respond to his voice and take this step I will give the right to sit with me on my throne So it's not enough that we are seated in the heavenlies with christ today. What about in the future? Jesus is very very plain. He says to the one who is victorious. I will give the right to sit with me on my throne Those who do not choose to stay hidden in christ those who act as if though they have not died to the world And know who are still focusing on the things of the world They will not live victorious lives and jesus will not give them the right to sit with him on the throne So where's the point in being seated in the heavenlies? You know in In our spirit today if we can't physically sit with him that day on the throne, you know So it really would be such a tragedy So these are all things that we need to take very seriously These epistels and the instructions given in them are meant even for us in the church today If these are not things which were just written for a church long ago These things apply even to us today and in the same way jesus was closely watching the colossian church the lauditian church Is closely watching our churches today And I wonder what he is thinking in his mind about us and our churches So we need to be very careful about these things Because what he says that that counts his judgment regarding us counts the praise which people are heaping upon our church That secondary You know, they may just look at the uh look at us outwardly and say oh, what a wealthy church or what a what a very pious church But what is god's ruling? What is jesus ruling regarding our us and our churches? This is something that we need to keep in mind So the colossian letter was read out to the lauditians, but they did not take it seriously Uh, we do not know about the colossians themselves Maybe they you know really applied those teachings to their lives and maybe they went on to really Um attain the glory which jesus had reserved for them So uh with that, uh, we kind of come to a conclusion, you know with the colossian epistle Um, I'll switch off the recording and then you know, we will get into the next epistle So we'll switch on the recording again


and welcome to a real conversation between two native English speakers. I'm Liz Wade, and this is Adam Navas. Hello, everyone. I always feel a little weird just saying your name for you, but I guess, you know, we just had an English show. I just didn't know that you remember.  And today, we are talking about the program High-Speed Trains. Now, if you have not heard or seen that program, we have it all over the internet for you. You can find it at our website where you can listen and read along with the script, and that is www.spotlightenglish.com. You can also listen to it wherever you get your podcasts and then pop on over to our website to read along with the script. And we also have it on YouTube where you can watch the video and watch the words at the same, well, listen to the video and watch the words at the same time. So you can test yourself that way. So you should check out that program and then come back here, join the conversation with us about High-Speed Trains. Yeah, I think that's everything, right? You know, you can check us out on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as well to keep in contact with us. And, Adam, I know you were gonna jump in with this bit of- No, no, no, I'm listening very tele- Information, I'm listening. I know you were gonna jump in with this bit of information, but if you like this video or you like spotlight content, please just press the like button, the little thumbs up underneath this video. It really helps us out. It helps our videos get seen in more places, helps more people find us.  If you're serious about your English learning. Yes, exactly. You can join as a member of the Spotlight English Channel. Tell them what they get, Liz. Yeah, it's great. You can be listed in every video as a member, so we thank you in every video. You get cool badges and emojis, but then also you can get PDF scripts and access to exclusive member videos. And I have to say, a little while ago, we put out a video of our bloopers about when we get prepared for this program. We never make mistakes. And it was great. Well, I thought it was funny. And so people can go back and watch all that content, correct? Yes, yeah, you get all of the content that exists for exclusive member videos. So check that out. It's really cool. It helps support us, helps us make more cool content for you to read along with and listen to and practice and learn. And so all of those things. And so now let's get to this program, High Speed Trains.  I don't, like I never collected toy trains. My young memory is when we would get stopped when we'd be driving in the car and we would get stopped behind a train that was going, not a high-speed train, but a regular train. We would always... I don't actually think we have any high-speed trains in the US. But we would count how many cars were connected. Oh, like train cars. The train cars, yes. So we would say like, it was at a short train because you never really could tell, you see the first car, the engine drive-by and then you'd be like, oh, I'm gonna count. And I think it was my mother's way of keeping us occupied. Quiet. Quiet when we were in the car not going anywhere because we couldn't, because there was a train. What about you? Do you grow up with a love for trains? Our favorite part of that experience, because also, we would come across trains as well, is to watch for the caboose, which is, of course, a very funny and fun word to say. Caboose. Caboose, which is the last train of the car, so. Last part of the train. Yeah, yeah, the best part of the train, the caboose. The caboose. Yeah, so there was a good... That is a fun word, isn't it? What? That is a fun word, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. Like, there's just something about how you form it in your mouth, caboose. Caboose. Sounds like it should be something else, but... Well, I mean, yeah. You can use it slangily. Slangily? Is that a word? Slangily. Slangish. You can use it in some slang. Yeah. No, I never really, we didn't really do anything on trains. I do have a... Because in the U.S., I would say that trains are not actually a common way to travel for most people. If you're going to Chicago or New York or other big cities, you might ride... Some big cities, yeah, yeah. You might ride a metro train, but if we're talking about trains that get you from one city to another, that's actually not a super common way to travel. But I do remember we are located in Michigan and I remember as a child, my family went from our city to Chicago and it was probably a four-hour train ride or something, I would imagine. That's significant. It's not a fast train, but it's... So we went down on the train and we spent the day in the city. I think we went to the museum and then we went back and that's an adventure. It was an adventure to be on a train. Yeah, I think when here in the United States, like you said, if you're in a big city, the train is just part of your life, but if you're not in a big city and you think about the need to travel, you usually go with the car if you can drive or you think of an airplane. Yeah. Because those are both very fast. Here in the United States, we like to travel when we want to travel and sometimes train schedules say, well, you only can go this one time a day and we're like, I don't want that. I'm gonna drive my own car or do something like that. Yeah, it is true. We did a train trip from Chicago to Denver, which took about a day. Yeah. But it didn't feel like a day because what I loved about the train was I wasn't responsible. Yeah, that is really nice. We could get up and move around and there was an observation car where you could look sideways out the train and see the landscape go by and see the country in a different way. And that was really a memorable trip. And yet here I am many, many, many, many years later and I've never done it again. So I don't know how memorable it was. Yeah, there is something about that travel on a train for people who are not used to it. So this program is specifically about high speed trains. So like these trains that we are talking about are, I mean, they go fast, but they don't go like hundreds of miles per hour or hundreds of kilometers per hour for the rest of the world. So I think the most well-known high speed train is the Shinkansen in Japan. Do you know this train? Not personally, no. But you know of it. I have heard of, well, I feel like some of the high speed that I am most familiar with are the ones in France because those are the ones that are most in adventure movies. Are those high speed trains or just trains? I think that the Tejave is a high speed train.  Yeah, spotlight listeners. I'm gonna tell you a little secret. All we do is learn just enough to seem like we know what we're talking about. Oh, I didn't tell all our secret. Please do not tell the rest of the internet that when it comes to certain things, we really have no idea. Okay, so the Shinkansen, as it says in this program, goes 200 kilometers per hour. So how fast is that in miles? Divided by 2.2, so about 100 miles an hour? Oh, over 100 miles an hour, yeah. Okay, about 100 miles an hour, that's pretty fast. That's very fast. Yeah. So where does it go to, though? Wherever it wants. I have actually been on the Shinkansen. Have you? But you know what we were just talking about? Like you always remember those things. I don't actually remember being on it. How do you know you were on it then? Oh, cause I know that we took it. Like I remember, I don't remember like looking out the window. I guess I do, okay, it's all coming back to me now. It was fast enough, maybe like under a tunnel that our ears popped. And it was going, it did feel very fast. Yeah, I remember the experience of, my first time I rode on a train is it felt like I was, you know, the seats reminded me of being on an airplane, but all of a sudden you just start moving. There's no, you know, exits or warnings.  Yeah, like there was actually, okay, so now this is where this conversation turns dark, right? There was actually a big train accident in the US just in the last week or so. Maybe two weeks. Yeah, maybe two weeks from when. Did you hear about this? Yeah. So I wonder like, you know, I did not look this up before this program, but I wonder if the Shinkansen has had any accidents like that. Like is it safer? It's gotta be safer than air travel. Here's my guess. And maybe I'm going with some stereotypes that I have. So if you are Japanese and you disagree with what I'm about to say, leave a comment, tell me I am wrong. I know that Japanese trains are very, they run on schedule. They're efficient. They are very efficient. So I would guess that that efficiency extends to safety and security.  I'm not saying they haven't had mechanical problems. Yeah. I think that's like, I would probably agree with that guess. Let us know in the comments. I'm sure someone from Japan can let us know. Yeah, that's true. The other high speed train that is mentioned to this program is a maglev train, which I always think is so weird because it's magnetic levitation, right? It's not actually touching any tracks. Yeah. Am I understanding this correctly? Yes, you are.  I was gonna say, I anticipated some kind of science fiction reference coming. I didn't know it would be black panther. Of course, they're mining vibranium deep in this mountain. They have a very fast maglev train. So, yep. That's really all I know about maglev trains. Yeah. What? That's factual. Well, you know. I know. Anyway, so I guess if you know more about maglev trains than me. Which won't take a whole lot of comments. Tell me what this is. And I would be interested if our listeners live in places where high speed trains are common. Yeah. And if they've ever been on one. I know that we have some Japanese listeners. I would love to hear what you think about the Shinkansen. Tell us what we've gotten wrong. What? Tell us what we've gotten wrong. Yeah, exactly. I would love to hear if you are from Wakanda, how that may... It hurts. Wakanda forever. No, you can't do that. Anyway, yeah, that's just a joke. I know that Wakanda is not real and that Black Panther is just a movie. But anyway, I would love to hear your experiences with high speed trains. Again, if you have not heard our program about high speed trains, I encourage you to check it out. It is on our website at www.spotlightenglish.com. It is on YouTube and as a video that you can watch and follow along with and it is wherever you can get your podcasts. Check us out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And I think that's it. Until next time, listen, watch, practice, learn. Spotlight out.