Nate Hagens

So let me ask you about that.

So somehow in the last five years, I have become...

rather than averting it, I look forward to going for a two-hour bike ride.

Everything else, no.

Like lifting weights, it's a chore.

Meditating, I know I'm supposed to do it.

I don't want to do it.

I had to get to a point with biking that I'm like, no, no, no, I really want to do that.

So you look forward to moments of darkness because it's like a palate cleanser or an oil change or a low-carbon oil change in your life.

A hundred percent.

It's a realignment.

So let me bring this back to the cultural malaise that people don't know what's coming, but I think their nervous systems do, and they feel that something is off.

And let me tie it back to that.

So I understand that in your new book, Total Eclipse of the Mind,

you state that sight and therefore being in the light has a lot of influence on our egos.

So maybe you could briefly unpack what an ego is and how it shapes who we are and how we see the world.

And then what happens to the ego when we let go of our sight in these darkness experiences?

This is another really super rich topic.

So getting back to the ego thing, and you talked about arrested development at a certain age, so would there be presumably a correlation between the people, the humans in today's world or in any time period who have...

the biggest egos would have the most trouble with the darkness retreat?