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Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes
LA’s #1 avant-garde personal development program. I'm Emerson Dameron. I love you, personally. Levity saves lives.
The home of Ask a Sadist, Bite-Sized Erotic Thrillers, and the First Church of the Satanic Buddha. Levity saves lives.
Regularly scheduled episodes premiere on the first Wednesday of the month on KCHUNG Los Angeles.
Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes
Let's Build Your New World
This episode dives deep into the labyrinth of human desire, encouraging listeners to uncover and embrace their true wants, which often remain hidden behind shame and societal expectations. By emphasizing the transformative power of confession and the significance of silence, this reflection inspires those who are lost in the chaos of life to find clarity and authenticity in their desires.
- Unpacking the concept of the Metta Bomb as a metaphor for chaos
- The importance of confronting hidden desires and overcoming shame
- Confession as a vital tool for personal growth and liberation
- Navigating the contrasts between societal expectations and authentic wants
- Discovering the power of silence to facilitate self-reflection and clarity
What sets your soul on fire? What do you really, really want? Let's find it... together.
"The Return of Rimbaud" continues the opening story from S4E4: First Blood, Best Blood.
Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes is LA's number-one avant-garde personal development program. New episodes premiere on KCHUNG Los Angeles on the first Wednesday of the month.
The writer, producer, host, and witty and wounded romantic hero is Emerson Dameron, who is wholly responsible for its content.
Levity saves lives.
Got something to say to me? Slide into the DMs.
Available now! https://emersondameron.bandcamp.com/album/crimson-transgressions-a-bite-sized-erotic-thriller-by-emerson-dameron
Sponsored in part by Magic Mind.
CODE: SAMSARAOT20 gets you up to 48% off your first subscription for the next 10 days or 20% off for a one-time purchase. https://www.magicmind.com/samsaraot
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Yes, in the flesh, I love doing this show. It keeps me off the streets. I get to meet people like you fans, sometimes to a disturbing extent, but that's okay. That makes me feel good. It gives me a chance to practice setting and enforcing my boundaries. I don't need to do that with you, though. You get it. We bring out the best in each other. Yes, take a picture of us, post it, tag me. This is pride by association. I'm glad you love the show. I'm glad you understand it. It's complex. Most people don't.
Emerson Dameron:Satire at scale is bound to be badly misinterpreted. If you get it, I'm doing something right that makes everything else worthwhile. That makes me glad people don't get it. Bring it, bring me your ignorance. I'll smoke it right in front of you.
Emerson Dameron:I'm deeply wounded. Scratch a cynic, you get a wounded romantic. I've had a lot of pain in my life. I've been hurt, betrayed. That never goes away. It still hurts when it rains, but I'm a lover, a fighter, and I can keep a secret, can you?
Emerson Dameron:I'm working on something new. If you wanted to destroy everything terrible in the world, or just everything you don't like, how would you do it? That's what I would have thought, as always, if you go against consensus opinion and transgress boundaries, shatter taboos, you'll go into a new place. You'll come back changed. I'm not ready to make this public yet, but I'm working on a way to create profound chaos, destruction up to and including total annihilation.
Emerson Dameron:A certain combination of insight and compassion, kindness, meta and vipassana. They're back in town this time. They're not screwing around. It's called the Meta Bomb. You're the first person I've told I'm still workshopping this. Let's kick some ideas around. It's called the Meta Bomb. You're the first person I've told I'm still workshopping this. Let's kick some ideas around. You can come on to me if you want. I'll be flattered regardless. It takes a lot to make me melt. I'm curious about people, about the world and you. Let's laugh and learn together. It's us against it. You know what I don't have to tell you. We're connected. You get it. You might be clairvoyant and that's rubbing off on me and I like it. I'm experiencing clairvoyance by proxy. It is a trip. Whatever you're smoking, bring some of that to our brainstorm. We'll smoke and then smoke the competition. They're getting smoked. That's what's up. Hell yeah, bring the noise, bring that special noise, the good stuff, the vintage stuff. You know what I'm talking about. I use code and implication, and there's a language developing between us that's unique to us. It's part of our K-Chung, los Angeles 1630 am. Kchungradioorg.
Emerson Dameron:On the World Wide Web, this is Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes, la's number one avant-garde personal development program, home of Ask a Sadist, proudly sponsored by the First Church of the Satanic Buddha, birthplace and habitat of bite-sized erotic thrillers. My name is Emerson Dameron. I'm the writer, producer, host everything. I love you personally. Levity saves lives, thank you.
Emerson Dameron:What do you really want? Do you know? How do you know? That's not what someone else wants for you. We're hardwired to want what we think the people around us want, and it makes it hard to tell what you actually want. If what you want is embarrassing, that's a good indication. I believe that it's legitimate. But it could be money, power, sex, cocaine all wonderful things very much worthy of wanting. In the end, nothing ever really satisfies, as the Buddhists teach us. And yet this life is all we get. We seek pleasure the way plants turn toward the sun. We've got our hedonic treadmill pleasures. The dopamine hits the compulsions that resemble addiction. The work of a lifetime is to find out what our real pleasures are. When we find them, indulge and, in the meantime, take whatever is pleasure adjacent that happens to be in front of us, and love the one we're with and indulge. As we learn from the Satanists, we hide and misunderstand our true desires because they're shameful. I know what you want. I know more about you than you know about yourself. You would be shocked. I'm not going to tell you Right now. It's still a hypothesis. It may become a theory, but not if I taint the experiment by biasing you one way or another. Because you're going to try to impress me, because you want me to like you, because you have a crush on me, don't want to look bad in my eyes. You, because you have a crush on me, don't want to look bad in my eyes. But what you don't realize is that that's what I'm into. Debase yourself. Tell me, what do you really want? What's something you don't want me to know that you want? I believe that you really want that. I don't believe that you don't want me to know that you want that. Yeah, I want to see your face turn pink when you tell me that's sexy. Why? Because you know I can be trusted.
Emerson Dameron:Hiding your true desires is killing you inside and dying to just share it with someone who might understand or who could do a really good job of busting it. I have a guess. I want to hear it from you. I want to hear how you say it, the words you choose and how much shame is in your voice. That is all part of the program. That is information I need for the experiment.
Emerson Dameron:What do you really want? Happiness is knowing what you want and how to get it. Success is doing what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, how you want. If you don't know what you really want, it's going to be difficult to do any of those things. You're going to be pinball wizarding and I think you would probably get what you want anyway. You've got it like that. Don't sell yourself short. But I know you're dying to tell me. Let the denial fall away. Relax. It's going to feel so good if you've unburdened your soul and shared with me what you really really want. Hit me, lay it on me.
Emerson Dameron:What do you really really want? Spice Girl, you're exhausting. That's disappointing, confusing, destabilizes my reality, my friendships are investments. I don't want to back Aliza. I believe in you. There's a light on in there somewhere, but you gotta get on it. Pay attention, get in the game. Be dropping drinks it's not cool, but gotta get on it. Pay attention, get in the game. Could be dropping drinks. It's not cool, I don't like. It Makes me doubt my own judgement. What's the quid pro quo? Just your tit for my tat or vice versa? That sounded dirty. You probably enjoyed that.
Emerson Dameron:I'm not a gutter dweller like you are. I'm not a pervert. I am, but I don't make it obvious like you do. Let's talk turkey Hands off. I have boundaries. I have trouble trusting people. My family weren't huggers. They hugged stuffed animals. Don't treat me like a stuffed animal. I'm a person. Ask first, that's all I ask. I might say yes, only one way to find out. What do you mean by riff and jazz cat or riff-raff, half of a riffraff for the good half or the bad half? Just such a tragedy. It's so confusing and raging. It's a tragedy and it's disgusting. God hurts my heart to be in the same world as that.
Emerson Dameron:You understand social dynamics and psychology at a post-grad level. You should teach the class. It's a seminar. You'll be the one person that gets rich off of teaching. That's how brilliant you are. You're insinuating.
Emerson Dameron:I never would have brought that up. You brought it up. You started this, you finished it. Say you're sorry. Give me a real, authentic apology. Explain what you did. Show me that you understand the impact and that you're going to do better. Specific Specificity kills ambiguity.
Emerson Dameron:If you're contrite, if you feel remorse, if you want to grow and change, is it? You don't? If you're not, it's a grow or go. Your life's going to be boring. If you think you're perfect right now, I don't know why we keep hurting each other.
Emerson Dameron:It didn't used to be like this. As recently as 15 minutes ago, we were copacetic. We were chemically compatible. It's just the new relationship. Energy wore off. It was a fleeting honeymoon. Where's the love? Where is the magic we had? It doesn't have to be like that forever. Make something new. You don't have to let it die like this, tragically, humiliatingly for you. A love like this cannot be watered with golden showers alone.
Emerson Dameron:My friend, if you experience limerence, you know what that is. I'm in a rumination life spiral. I'm taking control, firing motherfuckers. You don't threaten me. People do the worst that you let them get away with. Oh god, it's just so predictable at this point that must be humiliating for you. That's somebody who uh, really, what's their insecurity, block any chance of intimacy or understanding. That's the expression get out of your own way was created for you. Do you have data behind that? I don't know if I agree with you. Who else? Who would co-sign that you've never done anything wrong? You wouldn't know. You're the only one who's been there for all of it. What's your system of morality behind that? Whose laws have you never violated? What do you not transgress? What's sacred to you? Sacred or profane? Pick one. We can start with profane if you want. That's more fun. Sexy.
Emerson Dameron:I want a new drug in the manner of Huey Lewis in the news. I don't want it to make me feel like I do when I'm in love, because sometimes that feels great and sometimes I feel suicidal. I don't want sex. I do Not enough to make that my wish and my plan, because that involves human intimacy and something's bound to go wrong. You just can't plan for all the contingencies when people are involved. I love sex. When it comes to people, I have serious questions. So drugs it is. That also is not necessarily a factor that can be controlled, but in this case it is because I'm making my wish very specific.
Emerson Dameron:I'm wishing for a very particular new drug. It can be anything. It could be PCP crossed with MDMA, it could be psychedelic toe venom, a beta blocker, or it could be much stronger than Viagra and turn sex into the true symphony of feel-good chemicals and the exuberant celebration of human creativity and the peak of rip-roaring physical comedy. It was always meant to be.
Emerson Dameron:I have a different experience with this drug than most people do. With most people it's a roll of the dice. They don't know what they're going to get. It makes the orgies very interesting. If your regular Friday night once a month orgies become stale, get a bag of these and it's going to be much more interesting.
Emerson Dameron:However, it's a very different experience for me because I can control the experience. I can decide what the drug is going to do for me, and that's because, prior to discovering this stuff, I have utterly mastered meditation down across and around the world and in circles around the moon. I am one of the greatest practitioners who ever lived and as a living organism I'm better than the gods because I remain a work in progress, a process of becoming, and the meditation excellence is not the wish. It's going to take a lot of hard work, especially because I have to front load it into the first few months of the year, because I want to spend a lot of time with this drug, and that's not the wish itself, that's just something that has to happen in order for this to work. I am in complete control of the drug experience, and so I can have basically any drug experience that I want, whenever I want, and it doesn't matter how expensive it is, because I can pay for it. That's another part of this. I have all the money that I need. Like most people, I would anticipate wanting more after I have everything that I need. That's not going to happen. That's part of the plan. If it does, I can take this drug.
Emerson Dameron:This drug allows me to have any experience that I want and to utterly master myself without having to deal with other people, without having to create conflict or issues in the world. I know that it could be more complicated. It doesn't matter if it's addictive, by the way, because I have all the money I need to pay for it. In that case, it involves setting very clear intentions for the experience. I have a worksheet of numerous XX number of contingencies that need to be planned out for every dose. I can't just eyeball it. I have a very sensitive scale that I'm going to be using. I have to get the good stuff, so it includes trusting a drug dealer. Trust is a leap of faith and it doesn't you know.
Emerson Dameron:If things go sideways a little bit, there are things I can do to bring myself back. I can visualize having my feet on the ground Like it's. One of the things that this drug can mimic is the experience of early sobriety, the pink cloud where it seems like everything's going to be okay and this is the ultimate high and you're very excited about it. I can bring about that state even in times of turmoil, simply through visualizing a very specific visualization. I have affirmations that I can use. It is what it is. You are loving, you are loved and you're going to be okay. Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better. Also, fuck all y'all and some other stuff of that nature.
Emerson Dameron:I can very carefully focus my breathing. There are a number of breathing exercises that I can do, which I'm going to list here One, two, three. I can activate my chakras, which I can do by breathing in a certain way, and through practice of mindful masturbation, where I can become the best lover that I've ever had and keep that entirely to myself, because the world does not deserve that. Yet gratitude. Practice is important. I may not be providing the shattering orgasms that I could.
Emerson Dameron:The effects of this drug make me very cognizant and aware of how much generosity and kindness and thoughtfulness and at least courtesy and dignity to get out of other people's way, even if we can't get out of our own, goes into every day of life. I'm very grateful to Greg Lawrence, to Brandon Weatherby, to Jennifer Kinsey and a bunch of other folks for very specific reasons, because I don't want them to get their own idea. And then I can wrap it up with a guided meditation about being in total control of one's environment and purview, one thing that has to be taken into account with this or any other pursuit of this nature. What phase is the moon in All important? It drives people insane. It brings the tides in and out. It's something you can wish on. Every time there's a super moon it changes up the rules on the playlist that I've had going back and forth. So it's important to do this very interesting moon ceremony that I'm going to create when I create the guided meditation. So now I have a couple of new assignments for myself the guided meditation for being in complete control of myself and this and everything else. And a moon celebration Not even a meditation. I don't think it's going to be a salute to the moon, honoring the big guy in the sky.
Emerson Dameron:Part of this, aside from having practice in completely controlling my mind, is going to be the practice of setting intentions. The dangerous thing about it is, once you have this capacity and once you eventually realize you can do it without the drug, you kind of have a responsibility to create your own experience. If life is suffering, you can't it without the drug. You kind of have a responsibility to create your own experience. If life is suffering, you can't really let yourself get away with that anymore. You can also set other people's experience. That's when it gets really exciting. I don't have to worry about that until 2025, if not 2026. I'm kind of holding my cards until I know that we're not going to be living in a dictatorship next year. After that, who is to say Me? I am, I control everything, my entire reality.
Emerson Dameron:Is it more important to improve yourself from here on or to be honest with yourself now about where you're at? I would say that B is a prerequisite for A If you don't know where North is you're going to have a hard time actually improving yourself. So if you don't really want to improve yourself but you want to think that you're improving yourselfy your own darker proclivities but if you actually want to improve yourself, it's a good idea to be aware of all of that stuff actively and cough it up, preferably for another person you can trust. That's why in recovery groups people have sponsors. That's why more and more people have therapists.
Emerson Dameron:It explains the tradition of the confession booth. There's tower and confession. Confession is catharsis. If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you can save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you can destroy you. It will eventually reflect in your physical appearance.
Emerson Dameron:As Camus said, over time everyone gets the face they deserve. If you do not bring forth what is within you, you'll end up looking perverse and distended, like a garbage pail kid. Everybody's wondering what's up with that. In order to get away with something that even you would agree is morally repugnant. It helps if you can believe your own BS. It's not really a lie. It doesn't feel like a lie if you believe it, but you never quite convince yourself and you'll end up like OJ Simpson, just a miserable husk of what you once were corrupted by your own dishonesty, disgusted with yourself and the world for doing the thing and letting you get away with it, respectively. That's the power of confession.
Emerson Dameron:Come on, I know you got something juicy. What do you want to tell me? I can keep a secret, we're friends. I will take it to my grave. I promise I can tell you something equally embarrassing about me. But you have to go first, because then I'll trust you. Well, I know I'm trustworthy. I don't know if you're trustworthy, so you go first. You've got more to prove.
Emerson Dameron:If you're anything like most people, you have a lot of secrets. Some of them are dark. A lot of them are pathetic secrets. Some of them are dark, a lot of them are pathetic. You're hiding a monster in the basement. It could be a scary, dangerous monster. More likely, it's just a silly monster with a lot of insecurities, kind of a bigot, both paranoid and extraordinarily gullible and terrible in a somewhat endearing way. That also in a way that will make you wonder how you thought so highly of this person. Of course you've got to be careful about to whom you confess. There's a reason that therapists are not allowed to testify against you in court unless it's absolutely necessary. Beware of confessing to anyone who might betray you, which is almost everyone you know. So perhaps there's honor among monsters.
Emerson Dameron:I always suspected that the deal with Catholicism is that once you convert, you can do anything you want, as long as you confess and you get to be a pious hypocrite about it, the hat trick. What I'm getting to is Come on, tell me I know you really want to tell me. Spit it out. Just say it. Doesn't that feel better? I will respect your confidence. Be really careful about what you ask the internet. Assume that everything you type is going to be public knowledge and know that even if it's not traceable to you, it can become part of the public record. Deeply pathetic and maybe kind of endearing. At least you're not alone in your garden variety scumminess, thank you. I feel worn out all the time. If life feels empty and meaningless, maybe it's talking too much that's wearing you out. Maybe you need to shut up. I say that with all love in my heart. Maybe you want to shut up. Maybe that's what's keeping you from crossing the line from good to great. You should at least try it. Shut up. There's too much noise pollution around.
Emerson Dameron:I would know I was a chatterbox when I was a kid. I was skinny, I was loud, I was like a little bouncing skeleton marionette. I made my own music. I never stopped talking about the things that were interesting to me or which were not interesting to others. I did not manage to get a lot of people interested in those things, but I went on to start talking about them and then I hit puberty. My voice dropped conspicuously. I got braces. My teeth were pretty fucked up when I was in my chatterbox years. When I had the braces it was serious business. I had metal in mouth and I was cutting the insides of my mouth. My mouth soared.
Emerson Dameron:Aside from not wanting to talk because my voice sounded weird, I wasn't thinking about anything except sex. I was covered with acne. I was certainly becoming an introvert. I was an introvert for a long time. That's kind of when I learned that it can be sad and frustrating to be alone, to feel like you can't communicate, to feel like you're not heard, to feel like you're shouting into the void and but but, and you learn a lot from shutting the fuck up for a while. Embracing introversion is a lifestyle, and that's how I started reading and developed some interesting hobbies and figured out who some of my friends are, and now I'm kind of in the happy medium.
Emerson Dameron:I can talk up a storm when I'm doing my radio show. I am the number one avant-garde motivational speaker in Los Angeles. I'm changing lives, one at a time, sometimes many at a time. I don't know how many tickets we sell. And that's all because I was able to shut the fuck up. And I just shut the fuck up hardcore for a while, and now I can just do it by choice when I want, and you should follow my lead. Shut the fuck up, try it. Okay, let's get into it. Why? Why should you shut the fuck up? I feel some resistance.
Emerson Dameron:Listen to the things that you say and from that, yeah, if you get a tape recorder, transcribe it, or just stop when you're talking and pay attention to the words that are coming out of your mouth, that you're filling the air with. What the hell are you talking about? What is the point of this? Does this mean anything? Do you believe any of this stuff? Why do you say the things that you say?
Emerson Dameron:Think about that in some depth and look for patterns. What are your can-stop phrases that let the world know and let you know that you can shut down because you're not invested anymore. You don't care, you're not really communicating, you're just talking to talk from the fear of shutting up. Why are we afraid to shut up? Well, they say, a closed mouth don't get fed, and that could be true initially and you might have to get your own food. You might have to figure out how to be worthy of attention, to earn your self-esteem, to have something to talk about, and get out there and live. And that's scary. It's easier to talk than it is to really take risks, but once you start taking risks it gets a little easier. And when you get over the fear of shutting up or just accept it and shut the fuck up anyway, you'll find that your threshold increases and you can do a lot of things you weren't able to do before. But you probably need a plan if you're anything like me, you are what you do every day, so shut up every day as much as possible.
Emerson Dameron:Large blocks of time, hours out of the day, resolve to not say anything unless it's truly an emergency. Immerse yourself pretty hard at first. Go all the way in. Do a silent meditation retreat if you can. I got a scholarship into one. It can be done. They're prohibitively expensive, but don't let that stop you. If you learn to shut up, you can make a lot of money off of it.
Emerson Dameron:Time as an introvert will teach you the greatest lessons of your life. You'll become more self-sufficient. You'll achieve Pascal's thing. He had a quote the reason people can't be happy is they can't spend time alone in rooms with themselves. You will be able to do that and then if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. If you can meet yourself head on and realize all of the noble truths for yourself through direct experience. You're still going to have problems, maybe better ones, different ones, higher quality ones, the problems you deserve. The only problem with problems is we think we're not supposed to have them, so go get some better ones.
Emerson Dameron:You can do that by shutting up, which inevitably leads to paying attention. When you are able to shut up and stop babbling, you need something else to do with your brain, and that's how you cultivate strength. You become stoic when you don't have to talk anymore. You're like Polly Goodfellas you move slow because you don't have to move for anyone. You connect better with other people because you're paying attention to other people's experience and what's really going on around you. You have something interesting to say about what's going on and to people in your orbit. You develop self-compassion. You get a hold of your emotions, your feelings, learn to manage them and be present and strong for others. Back to the closed mouth don't get fed thing when you become silent, but you are participating. Both can be done. Culture is not your friend. You have to participate anyway.
Emerson Dameron:You can find ways to do that that don't involve just talk, talk, talking. This show is a lot of talking. I do a lot of talking, so do a lot of doing that goes on behind the scenes. People that know about that appreciate it and everything I want from those people, I make them do my bidding, and that's all because I figured out how to shut the fuck up and that's how I create supportive relationships and I'm not constantly sweet-talking people trying to get them on my side. The words are my stock in trade and when the time comes, I admit to my observations and I have some interesting things to say to you about yourself, your very favorite topic, and you may end up thinking I know you better than you know you, but really it's just because I'm paying attention.
Emerson Dameron:All this stuff is right out there on the table. You can find it. Just take action. Shut the fuck up, pay. This stuff is right out there on the table. You can find it. Just take action, shut the fuck up. Pay attention. Try really shutting the fuck up for weeks at a time and when you have something to say, write it down. If it's important, later, say it. If not, forget it.
Emerson Dameron:Most of the stuff we think about doesn't last in terms of relevance. When you have to deal with setbacks, when you put your foot in your mouth maybe you're not used to running your mouth all the time. When you do it's awkward, you say the wrong thing, that's okay. You don't have to immediately start correcting for it. You just let it pass. You laugh, you learn, you love, you get paid a whole lot because most people rat jack themselves by running their mouths and talking past the sale and saying too much. And you're not going to have to worry about that anymore. You're going to know when to shut up, which is right now, or it was five minutes ago, but right now is also good.
Emerson Dameron:Together we can start combating all this noise pollution, all this wasted thought, wasted time, not even fake intimacy, like we're not even fucking trying. It has nothing to do with intimacy, intimacy or bust. Find your real people. Find the others, the people who you can communicate with on that other level, where you communicate without even having to talk. And then, when you do start talking, watch out, you're going to be finishing and starting each other's sentences and drinking each other's bodily fluids. All you have to do first is figure out how to deliberately, conclusively, as a habit, as a lifestyle, because you love it, because out of respect to the people around you, out of love for yourself, out of desire to know, as part of your quest for self-realization, something you do every day, and then keep doing it and doing it and doing it.
Emerson Dameron:It's a daily practice and anything that you make a daily practice is bound to make your life more interesting. It's psychedelic. It'll make crazy dreams. It'll get into your dreams. Not even silence, room tone, white noise. You will teach yourself, celebrate yourself, you will honor yourself. It will be your form of masturbation and prayer, just to shut the fuck up. Nobody cares. You don't have to say everything, nobody cares. You don't have to say everything, especially not about yourself. Shut up every once in a while Get a system if it helps.
Emerson Dameron:Deep in the shallowness of the half-bad old drizzling rambus times of hammocks strung between flagpoles, a mother swaddled her daughter in an Algerian throw rug and together they escaped the appalling drawling drone of the paranoid priest and potentate in the den of the craven clack-clack-clacking of motorized dentures. Imagine life in a lush, gurgling paradise, in a buoyant harmony with itself, where everyone has everything they need to thrive, evolve and not screw it up for everyone else. A world free of mortal terror and its attendant acts of evil and self-immolating madness. Look, the party's over. The cocaine is all gone. Earth has been trying to kick us out for hours. Human consciousness itself is hell. So choose the optimal existential exit strategy voluntary human extinction and cure the human condition for good.
Emerson Dameron:Historically, I have a definite, measurable pattern of attracting romantic partners German-engineered to make me miserable. They don't do that. Only I can make me miserable. But I find partners that can help facilitate that because they are specifically selected by me, subconsciously, by virtue of their ability to hit me where it hurts, to perhaps talk me off of the ledge, but also talk me off of the pedestal, bring me down to earth, bring me way, way down where I have to dig through the dirt to deal with all of my worst qualities.
Emerson Dameron:I have an image in my mind of my type Not a blonde with freckles and really good at sucking dick. I mean someone who is my ideal partner. In that I feel like she's the yin to my yang, the masculine to my feminine. My completion meaning embodies all of the elements that I deny in myself Things that are part of me I wouldn't perceive them if they weren't part of me but things that I'm not comfortable owning myself and that will probably continue until I make the unconscious conscious. It will rule my life and I'll call it fate. So I end up with people who are very willful, people who are stubborn, won't do what I tell them, and that's, of course, my weird relationship with myself Not following through on things I promise myself. Really trusting myself, pattern of self-sabotage All of these things are certainly very much in effect when it comes time to hit the dating scene.
Emerson Dameron:What do I want? My ideal relationship? Someone submissive but not servile. Someone who's powerful in the world breaks down for me because I give her a place to do that. So I want to be a certain kind of person. I can have that certain kind of partnership, I should probably go about making myself that guy. That's a lifelong process. I'm always going to be getting better.
Emerson Dameron:What are my strengths right now? Well, I've been through the fire over the last few years. I'm able to tell my story because I'm still here. I think my personality has changed somewhat. I'm a little bit more deliberate with setting boundaries. I don't expect people to just go along with them, I expect confrontation. I'm prepared for it. I know that. I know what's right for me. I can figure it out. I know better than you do, because I'm the person who's really rooting for me, and so it really is up to me. That part, the part that takes care of the part that is definable as Emerson Dameron, that's my responsibility. So that needs to be job number one. You always come second to that. That's new for me.
Emerson Dameron:I used to put people first. I used to get women who, at some level, would want to be put first. That's what they would tell the feminist book club and that might be what they believe consciously, but in reality they wanted to be dominated. Some of them seemed to want to be put in the hospital. I couldn't deliver that. In the long run. I got pushed around and stopped caring, started thinking outside of the relationship because it was too frustrating. She wasn't submitting. I didn't know how to make her do that. I didn't know she wanted me to make her do that Frustrating stuff.
Emerson Dameron:My ideal relationship would look like I mean, right now I don't want one. I don't want a serious one. I don't know if I'm going to want one at all. I want someone who's not going to send me back years of working on myself, somebody who facilitates my personal growth, somebody who's rooting for me, believes in me. Nasty whore in bed, compassionate, kind, artistic, creative, imaginative, verbal, adept with language. A reader would be nice. Yeah, I think that's probably required. And somebody who gets me a fan, somebody who digs what I do, picks up what I'm laying down, picks up my gems, knows how to find my good stuff and pushes me to lean into my edge to double down on the things that are weird and uncomfortable, because for me that's where the glory is, that's where the action is. Keeps me in the moment because the action is right here. He knows I'm always going to have this depression going on. That's something I have to work with, work around that I'm probably never going to get rid of and he's willing to help me out, knows she can expect some more in return. Very transparent, honest, deep. Tells me things no one else knows. Previously unreleased sexual fantasies are really the ball Anything along those lines because then I know I am able to step in, step up, stand out and she needs me.
Emerson Dameron:I don't think that life gets better at this point. It can. It can get better, it can get significantly better only if you allow yourself to believe preferably with delusional, excessive optimism, optimism that it can. But my point of view is that I do myself no favors by pretending I am not against long odds. I am so tired. It can be done. It's rare and thus remarkable. You hear about it when it happens because it doesn't happen. Most of the time it's a man bites dog. Man in his 40s still has good times ahead of him. His best opportunities have not yet been wasted and squandered with everything else that he had in the way of opportunities or love.
Emerson Dameron:It's not all gone. If you believe that it's not, maybe it's not. If you think that all is lost, it probably is. You will be in dire straits if you sacrifice that one sliver of hope that keeps you moving. I am not good at lying to myself from the way that I do things. I want to know what the odds are, and the odds aren't good. I'm probably done with the better part of my life. I sort of hope I don't know that I want what comes after this. I know that I'm too tired to do the kind of scrambling it would take to make anything of this, this mess that I made when I get home. If I get home, that's a big if. The if is big because it's a high probability that it will happen. The expectation that it will prove to be a yes and to have been a win. Chilling in Schroeder's box, living off of raw cat meat, or was it? It's gonna be fine. This is the hard part, not the last hard thing. Statement of fact as joke. Hell to the fuck. Yeah, don't overthink it.
Emerson Dameron:Approach with confidence, be yourself or someone like you. Craft a persona perhaps. If that makes you feel a little bit of detachment, then you want the same fear of rejection, because it's really not you getting rejected. It would be if you were vulnerable like an idiot that you'd be putting it all on the line, you would be getting sucked in, whereas if you're playing a character, there's some distance and you can use that. If they reject the character, you can always create a different one. If you're trying to be authentic, good luck. Nobody's authentic. People put on a show for each other, manipulate each other all the time. That's how social dynamics work.
Emerson Dameron:It's the dance, it's theater, and once you see that, it gives you superpowers. You cannot see it, nor would you want to, because you can win games of chess on the other side of the earth just with your mind. You can refreeze icebergs and bring penguins back to life, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. These icebergs and bring penguins back to life, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Just approach, introduce yourself, make an observation, communicate some interest, without laying it on too thick or being needy or creepy, and everything will go fine, as long as you do everything correctly. And when it's time to keep going, just continue to exhibit your natural confidence.
Emerson Dameron:Just imagine, before you go out, do some affirmations in the mirror. Just imagine, as you're walking through the city, a building that gets on your nerves yeah, you just swing it and wreck it, and that's how it goes. You create your own reality. You understand power, you understand the dance, you know how it works. You couldn't go back and you wouldn't. Now you have some responsibility to create your own reality and make it the kind of reality you want to live in and have overnight guests in sometimes, or maybe you'll kick them out before they go to sleep, or you could play the away game. That's better.
Emerson Dameron:You get a look at how other people live and that will improve your main skill just being genuinely curious about other people. Have your own passions, have your opinions, be willing to plant a flag, know who you are, know what you like and what you don't like, and let people know that. Be a little bit selfish. If you're not a little bit selfish, we don't know who you are and we can't trust you. But be curious about about other people. Listen actively in a detached way, which you can learn through meditation, where you don't get caught up in the story. You're able to see the world through perspectives other than your own, which is another nice thing about the fact that you're playing a character. See how other people are playing characters too and perhaps get a glimpse of where that connects with their authentic selves. Whatever they think that is there is. No, we don't have a heart of hearts. We just are who we are in relation to other people.
Emerson Dameron:Narcissism is thinking that you're so special that there's a part of you that is not revealed in your social interactions. Those are all you are. You are what you do and you are how you relate to other people, and that's it. You don't have a heart of hearts. There is no real you. So you might as well get curious about other people, get fascinated, be passionate about your own interests. Again, people will get hooked on that and a little friction and disagreement goes a long way toward explosive hate. Sex Friction is important. Polarity is important. Difference should be emphasized. Anger is a catalyst for passion. People are afraid of conflict. Without conflict, their relationship dies. It's a mix of conflict and comfort. You need to have both. Conflict is the one that people are afraid of. It is misunderstood. So become a master of that.
Emerson Dameron:Don't be afraid to be a little bit abrasive and aggressive, but also be fascinated with whoever's in front of you. Just really get to know that person inside and out in a way that perhaps they don't know themselves. Don't let them know that. Don't let them know that. Don't let them know that you're interested. You can communicate a little bit of interest and also be willing to talk about sex and let it be known that you're a sexual being and that's how you're presenting yourself, because this is a sex thing and relationships start with sex. Sex starts with a blowjob. Love comes later, once you really get to know each other, which can best be done through wild, brutal, mutually degrading sex. But don't act fascinated. Be fascinated, but then pull back a little bit. Keep them guessing. People like that. They don't like the pressure of being the subject of glimmerant obsession. That always goes wrong. It's annoying. Nobody wants that, so just hold back a little bit. Nobody wants 100% of you and you don't need 100% of anyone else. You're fascinated with anyone and there are a lot of people out there you could be fascinated with.
Emerson Dameron:Right now I only want people in my circle who are 100% loyal. I'm sensitive. Right now my world is small. I have my fantasy world, or it's good to be king. I have a cheerleading squad that wears my favorite color combination. It's always the home colors. Because I don't go out, I stay home. I don't play the away game anymore.
Emerson Dameron:I used to be very gregarious. Now I don't go outside it's partly because I'm afraid I'm also resentful. I don't like people very much. I don't like hanging out with most of the people I do like and I don't trust anyone, so I'm not going to buy it that you're 100% on my side. I don't really trust you, so it's okay if you're lying, but make it convincing. I need 100% loyal people who are enthusiastic about what I do. If they're going to collaborate, it's going to be from the place of being honored to work with a genius Me, not a critical place. Enthusiasm about what we can do together. You're not my client. I don't get paid money to be your friend. Maybe I should. Maybe I should raise the bar a little bit more.
Emerson Dameron:Right now I'm very sensitive. I need kindness. I've had the worst year of my life. I need kindness. I want praise. I want to be wanted. I want to be loved. I want to be seen and appreciated. Maybe seen through rose-colored glasses, the way that I see most people through urine and feces colored glasses. I have the hex codes for those if you want them, point being if you're not 100% down, if you're not down to ride or die, just die. Get out of here, get out of my space, I'm not interested. Back off, thank you. Nothing's more expensive than poverty. Very few things cause the stress that money does and that is by design. That keeps us working, that keeps us under the boot heel, that keeps us sucking up, because we don't want to know how close we are to oblivion. We don't want to get that desperation Speaking for myself. I don't want to sell plasma again.
Emerson Dameron:I first moved to Chicago. It took me a minute to find a job and while I was waiting I went to sell some plasma and in the plasma clinic, as I was lying down with a needle in my arm getting drained, they decided to screen Martin Scorsese's action-packed medical thriller Bringing Out the Dead and I thought this is the low point in my life right now. There will be more, there will be worse. Right now, this is delicious. I haven't had to sell plasma since then.
Emerson Dameron:When I moved to Venice, after I bounced out of my marriage and got my own apartment by the beach, my ex-wife never wanted to live on the beach. She thought it was cold and I thought now I can do everything that she didn't want to do, and having a place on the beach is a requirement for being the most divorced man in Los Angeles, I knew I was creating a challenge for myself. It was going to be harder to pay rent by myself. Even a really bad marriage can be an economic buffer. There were times when my wife was out of work. There were times when I was out of work and we took care of each other, and if we deeply resented it and held each other in contempt, there was material support. But now I was on my own and I created a challenge for myself where I adopted a lifestyle that was a little bit more expensive than I could afford, because I believed then, and still do, that if we create challenges for ourselves that are a little bit above what we know we're capable of, we can summon up capabilities that we didn't know we had and surprise ourselves with our creativity, tenacity and shamelessness.
Emerson Dameron:Los Angeles is famously expensive and thus a wonderful place to find those capacities in yourself. I remember during my first couple weeks in Venice, I was strolling on Oceanfront Walk and I saw a t-shirt for the rapper Youngboy NBA, which stands for Never Broke Again, and I thought that's almost me. That's me. I'm still a young boy and I will never be broke again. Now I feel more like a middle-aged boy and I know what it's like to be broke again.
Emerson Dameron:Divorce is expensive. You get what you pay for. Depression is expensive, poverty is expensive, self-pity is expensive, resistance is expensive. Loneliness is expensive. The more broke you are, the more expensive it is to keep yourself alive. Denial is expensive. Denial is ruinously expensive and we pay the price because we don't want to know how close we are to oblivion.
Emerson Dameron:We envy the rich not because we really want to be rich ourselves. Most of us would screw it up and not be rich for very long. Most of us would get cleaned out post-haste. We'd be right back where we started. Maybe we kind of wanted that on some subconscious level. But we want to relate to rich people because we don't want to know how much closer we are to the guy who's sleeping on Oceanfront Walk than we are to Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos may as well live on another planet and probably will in the next couple of decades. The guy on Oceanfront Walk lives right out the door. All it would take to run a bad luck or just a few bad beats, maybe a minor trauma and an unforced error or two is all it would take for me to be there, to say nothing of you. K-chung Los Angeles. Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes, la's number one avant-garde personal development program. 1630 AM kchungradioorg first Wednesdays of the month, after which it becomes the only good podcast. Thank you.
Emerson Dameron:I don't find it of particular value to inquire about what this dream might mean. Meaning it's overvalued dream might mean meaning it's overvalued. It feels more useful for me to think of it in terms of what is this dream about? Well, it's a story of living by my wits, by not thinking, which I'm able to do because I'm dissociated, having been cut off from some of my higher thinking capabilities. I'm not able to make decisions as I usually would. I'm not able to read the room, go with the group, I go with the flow, but it's a flow that doesn't necessarily make sense on its face, in fact leads me persistently upstream and into violent entanglements with other dream characters. It has some of the characteristics of a nightmare, but, I believe, like most dreams, and especially nightmares, or challenging dreams, if you want to be euphemistic it is obviously presented to me in service to my health and it's not here to tell me what I already know.
Emerson Dameron:So what's the new information? Well, clearly I'm afraid of my own power. I don't typically think of myself as being invested with that much power. Sometimes I think that makes me unaware of some of the damage that I can do. It's easy for me to make excuses for seriously hurting someone when I feel like I'm too small to really make a difference positive or negative and I've allowed myself to neglect directing my power. I've not confronted the ways in which I feel cut off from that, in the ways that I typically make decisions or think that I'm making decisions.
Emerson Dameron:I believe and sense in real time that I'm possessed of free will. Perhaps that is a convenient delusion. What it's about in relation to my personal affairs is something of a personal matter. I have been through it in the last few years, as many have. We all bear our scars. I feel like I've aged a couple of decades in the last couple of years. My physical appearance reminds me of George W Bush at the end of his second term, and I'm planning to participate in a men's retreat this summer. Thrusting my crotch into the air will be of great service in working out some of these issues, which are hard to talk about in mixed company. But it's interesting that, as conscious as I am of the sense of physical and emotional deterioration that I've gone through as a result of I don't like throwing around the word trauma, but that's clearly what's going on in the dream, so let's just own it.
Emerson Dameron:I'm extremely powerful in the dream. I'm almost a machine with no apparent moral compass that has any effect on my actions, but I retain a direct and intimate connection with nature, which I believe is something that goes back to my childhood. I spent a lot of time in the woods. The day that I stopped believing in God, I went out into the forest alone to hash that out. The first time I was dumped, I did the same and I stayed there for a number of days. People were a bit concerned, but they knew that this was something that I would probably do and they were okay with it and they had their own stuff going on. I think that was around the time when I looked at my parents and I realized these people do not give a crap about me, I am on my own, which is a conclusion that I drew, perhaps too easily that ended up extending to much of the human race, I think.
Emerson Dameron:Like most dreams, this one comes packed with layers of meaning, and I think my enemies, the ones that I choose, but particularly the ones that choose me in the way that SeaTac does in the dream, tell me a lot about myself, that is, my photo-negative side, negative side, the corrupt, vindictive. I'm not any of those things. I have an honor code that is so specific that even I am still making sense of it, but I feel myself living by it and living best in dirt, very much at home with my own natural capacity for violence and with a dark energy living through me, and I wreak a lot of havoc on this town. Now that I come away and I realize that no one was harmed outside of the dream world. If I can get out of my own way and out of my own ass and just let this lightning live through me, I feel much more adapted, optimized, prepared for the transition from comfort into chaos that we all know is coming our way. I'm deeply wounded.
Emerson Dameron:While I'm certainly possessed of a dark masculine energy, I'm not directly conversant with it on an intellectual level, language where I can make sense of it, I'm not sure what I believe. I just find myself acting on it in the dream and in real life I tend to overthink things, the opposite side of the same issue. I don't know what I want. I'm not sure how to get it. I think the message here is get out of your own way and let the lightning live through you, which I'm sure is something I can cultivate through certain daily practices.
Emerson Dameron:But I don't know where or if I belong. There's a pervasive ambient paranoia, a sense of fear that paradoxically drives me to actions that are generally destructive and self-immolating. I'm looking for someone, an ally, who has left the building. He's not going to help me. That trained me up to this point where I have these abilities on a level beyond unconscious competence, on that paradise city level of just pure shine. A dark light, it's true, a black flame, and yet, and yet I don't know who my people are, which raises the question. My people are, which raises the question who's still here? Is it some concept of nature, the wilderness itself? Or do I have a friend somewhere that I'm discounting because of my tendency to fixate on the sense of being under siege, surrounded by hostile forces? Do I know who my friends are? Would I know, know? Would I treat them accordingly? These are not rhetorical questions, but this has been Emerson Dameron's medicated minutes.
Emerson Dameron:Producer is Emerson Dameron, who's responsible for its content in toto, but not what you might do as a reaction to hearing it. That's your business. It's a production of K-Chung kchungradioorg. Levity, combined with tenacity and the ability to get out of your own way and let the lightning flow through you, will save your life, if only temporarily. It may endanger those around you, which is why it's really important to know who your friends are. At first, I thought this was seriously a setup To be continued Steamy, dreamy and way too hot for radio. Crimson Transgressions, a bite-sized erotic thriller by Emerson Dameron. Find it before it finds you.
