Would you, supposing this is some sort of Matrix existence, would you actually want to escape it or are you actually quite content in the world that you’re in now?

Ah, see, there’s no escape coz there’s nowhere else to go.

Or maybe there is. You don’t know that.

I don’t know that. But I believe I’ve transcended. If there was the matrix, the only thing you need to know is that you need to have awareness of it. Then you can manipulate it, like those dudes that go out of it and then come back in, they’ve got their plugs pulled out and they’re actually real people, it’s almost like I’m that now, coz I know, like, all the bullshit to avoid. You know, people get caught up in their every day lives and they’re filling their car with petrol.

Like you [did]…when you got here?

Yeah, well, I’ve got my car and I’ve gotta look after my car so I need petrol. I don’t normally. Where I live usually, I just walk around it’s so close. Um. Anyway. Uh. Yeah, you know. Buying things from magazines and listening to the songs they hear on the radio and all that kind of stuff…wearing clothes that they buy from the shops that they get told to buy. They’re the ones trapped in The Matrix. But I don’t, I see straight through all that stuff. The bullshit is just bullshit to me.

Do you think that it’s a direct result of taking drugs? Or did you have that mentality before?

Nah. It’s probably because I studied media and culture for so long, coz that’s what I do, and philosophy, I’ve read a shit tonne of philosophy. And it’s like when people are Christian and you’re like,

‘Why are you Christian?’

And they’re like, ‘’Coz I’ve always been Christian.’

‘Would you ever change your mind?’

‘No! It’s the only thing I know.’

‘What if you challenged yourself? What if you read a few other books or if you read the Koran, the Taoist text, and something else from like, Buddhism or something like that and then go back to your Christianity and tell me if you think that’s the only way that things can possibly be?’ And it’s like. ‘Well I don’t necessarily want to do that.’ They don’t want to change themselves. If you challenge the ideas, the preconceived notions in your head that your parents might have told you…you know, you grow up thinking that um, you can’t go into the spareroom, it’s the scariest room, so you tiptoe past it, you don’t know what’s inside, but you can’t go in there, it’s locked. And you realise when you’re a bit older that your mum just keeps all her nice things in there and she doesn’t want you to break it so she didn’t tell you what [was in there.] When you’re a bit older, you see it’s just some cool stuff, but you’re old enough to respect it now and not fuck around with it.

What sort of philosopher’s are you into?

All sorts.

How has their work contributed to your understanding of your trips?

The biggest conundrum I faced was when I read Descartes. I read dualism. Have you heard about dualism?

Yeah. I studied it.

About the clocks?

Not about the clocks…

Ah okay, so the best way to describe Dualism is, you got two clocks, ticking at the same time. They both say, 12.01, 12.02, 12.03. They’re just running on their own batteries. One symbolises your body, one symbolises your mind, or you soul or whatever you want to call it. They’re ticking at the same time. There’s no causality, they’re just running on the same schedule. You could take one clock, stick it in your backpack, go to Nepal, climb a mountain and the clocks still ticking and the other clock on the mantelpiece is still ticking exactly the same. They’re not affected by each other, they’re not unaffected by each other.

They just are.

They just are. They’re just doing what they know at the same time. You could smash one into tiny little pieces and the other one would still tick. You could destroy a mind, but your body still goes. You could destroy your mind, but your body still goes. And then you look a bit further into that kind of stuff and it’s like, ‘What is actually real?’ Is…is…give me your hand. Is that real…is that something I can feel? Can you feel the same thing? Are you actually here or am I just projecting you in my mind and hoping and…that warmth is coming from something else…a different…maybe I’m in a coma in a hospital and this is all just a dream. What if I wake up one day and I was someone different in a different place, an old man in…you know…17^th Century France or something like that, just going like, ‘I had this tripped out fucking nightmare. I felt like I was in it for years and I was this other dude. I don’t know where I was…in some weird ghetto town somewhere else…I’ve never been there before.’

Does that scare you?

It did, for a long time. I couldn’t sleep for weeks. I went into the deepest darkest hole I’ve ever been in after I read Descartes for the first time. But I balanced it out by reading other things.

What’s more positive philosophy for you?

It’s pretty…things like Pantheism, which is like what I was saying before, how everything’s one and there’s no god, but the universe and everything in it’s the universe and you could kill a bug, it’s gonna affect this whole chain reaction that’s going to end back up at your end anyway, so just, just fucking step around it. Take a bit more time and you know, look where you’re going. You don’t have to chop down the tree that’s still alive when a dead one’s two hundred metres away…you might have to drag it up a hill, but fuck it. You know? It’s better.

Would you, supposing this is some sort of Matrix existence, would you actually want to escape it or are you actually quite content in the world that you’re in now?

Ah, see, there’s no escape coz there’s nowhere else to go.

Or maybe there is. You don’t know that.

I don’t know that. But I believe I’ve transcended. If there was the matrix, the only thing you need to know is that you need to have awareness of it. Then you can manipulate it, like those dudes that go out of it and then come back in, they’ve got their plugs pulled out and they’re actually real people, it’s almost like I’m that now, coz I know, like, all the bullshit to avoid. You know, people get caught up in their every day lives and they’re filling their car with petrol.

Like you [did]…when you got here?

Yeah, well, I’ve got my car and I’ve gotta look after my car so I need petrol. I don’t normally. Where I live usually, I just walk around it’s so close. Um. Anyway. Uh. Yeah, you know. Buying things from magazines and listening to the songs they hear on the radio and all that kind of stuff…wearing clothes that they buy from the shops that they get told to buy. They’re the ones trapped in The Matrix. But I don’t, I see straight through all that stuff. The bullshit is just bullshit to me.

Do you think that it’s a direct result of taking drugs? Or did you have that mentality before?

Nah. It’s probably because I studied media and culture for so long, coz that’s what I do, and philosophy, I’ve read a shit tonne of philosophy. And it’s like when people are Christian and you’re like,

‘Why are you Christian?’

And they’re like, ‘’Coz I’ve always been Christian.’

‘Would you ever change your mind?’

‘No! It’s the only thing I know.’

‘What if you challenged yourself? What if you read a few other books or if you read the Koran, the Taoist text, and something else from like, Buddhism or something like that and then go back to your Christianity and tell me if you think that’s the only way that things can possibly be?’ And it’s like. ‘Well I don’t necessarily want to do that.’ They don’t want to change themselves. If you challenge the ideas, the preconceived notions in your head that your parents might have told you…you know, you grow up thinking that um, you can’t go into the spareroom, it’s the scariest room, so you tiptoe past it, you don’t know what’s inside, but you can’t go in there, it’s locked. And you realise when you’re a bit older that your mum just keeps all her nice things in there and she doesn’t want you to break it so she didn’t tell you what [was in there.] When you’re a bit older, you see it’s just some cool stuff, but you’re old enough to respect it now and not fuck around with it.

What sort of philosopher’s are you into?

All sorts.

How has their work contributed to your understanding of your trips?

The biggest conundrum I faced was when I read Descartes. I read dualism. Have you heard about dualism?

Yeah. I studied it.

About the clocks?

Not about the clocks…

Ah okay, so the best way to describe Dualism is, you got two clocks, ticking at the same time. They both say, 12.01, 12.02, 12.03. They’re just running on their own batteries. One symbolises your body, one symbolises your mind, or you soul or whatever you want to call it. They’re ticking at the same time. There’s no causality, they’re just running on the same schedule. You could take one clock, stick it in your backpack, go to Nepal, climb a mountain and the clocks still ticking and the other clock on the mantelpiece is still ticking exactly the same. They’re not affected by each other, they’re not unaffected by each other.

They just are.

They just are. They’re just doing what they know at the same time. You could smash one into tiny little pieces and the other one would still tick. You could destroy a mind, but your body still goes. You could destroy your mind, but your body still goes. And then you look a bit further into that kind of stuff and it’s like, ‘What is actually real?’ Is…is…give me your hand. Is that real…is that something I can feel? Can you feel the same thing? Are you actually here or am I just projecting you in my mind and hoping and…that warmth is coming from something else…a different…maybe I’m in a coma in a hospital and this is all just a dream. What if I wake up one day and I was someone different in a different place, an old man in…you know…17^th Century France or something like that, just going like, ‘I had this tripped out fucking nightmare. I felt like I was in it for years and I was this other dude. I don’t know where I was…in some weird ghetto town somewhere else…I’ve never been there before.’

Does that scare you?

It did, for a long time. I couldn’t sleep for weeks. I went into the deepest darkest hole I’ve ever been in after I read Descartes for the first time. But I balanced it out by reading other things.

What’s more positive philosophy for you?

It’s pretty…things like Pantheism, which is like what I was saying before, how everything’s one and there’s no god, but the universe and everything in it’s the universe and you could kill a bug, it’s gonna affect this whole chain reaction that’s going to end back up at your end anyway, so just, just fucking step around it. Take a bit more time and you know, look where you’re going. You don’t have to chop down the tree that’s still alive when a dead one’s two hundred metres away…you might have to drag it up a hill, but fuck it. You know? It’s better.