Gavin de Becker

I was very heartened during the beginning of COVID that 1984 became the 17th best-selling book in the world in the English language, telling me, ah, people are paying attention.

They see that what they're experiencing here has a degree of 1984 to it.

I think all science fiction stories come true.

I really do.

I see it time after time.

Well, they all know that their dad is a big proponent.

And my first book, which is still a very big book, A Gift of Fear, that book is, I think, still the best-selling book in the world on violence after 25 years.

And that book is all about violence.

Intuition and personal responsibility.

So the very first thing I would say to your listeners, to you, to remind myself as well, is that human beings did not get the biggest claws or the biggest teeth or the biggest muscles.

We got the biggest brains relative to our size.

And the nuclear defense system that all human beings have is intuition, much different from logic.

Intuition, the root of it, by the way, I learned when I was writing that book, is inter, which means to guard and to protect.

So intuition, when you think about it, oh, I just have a feeling I should go back to the apartment and double check such and such.

Did I leave the fire on the pot?

And you go back and you open the door and you didn't leave the fire on the pot.

But something else will always be going on that makes you glad you came back.

I believe that intuition is always right in at least two ways.

One, it always has your best interest at heart.

It's not fucking with you.