My friends, today we are up in the studio, ready to play some Vampire Survivors on PC. This is the second time I've played this, and it's so random that I even want to play this right now. I don't even get it, but I love the roguelike games. This is a roguelike game where you basically just play until you die. You don't have save games. There's pretty much no story. It's pretty much all about the gameplay.
Life Is Magical
I have one main message today. Life is magical. Life is not logical or reasonable. Life is magical. Now certainly some things may operate by logic. Ah! I got shredded on. Hope my health can go back up. Life is not logical. Life is not logical or reasonable most of the time. In some cases it is, but it's mostly because that's how we think it is, or think it should be. But life is absolutely magical. I've seen so much proof for how magical life is. The fact that I'm even still alive here is magical. Life is amazing, and life is here, and it's on your side if you'll let it be.
It actually takes more work to be negative, and for life to kind of work against you. Unfortunately, we're just used to doing that work. We're used to putting in the work to be negative — thinking about what we don't want to happen. We're used to putting in that work instead of putting in the work to be positive.
A High School Story I'm Not Proud Of
Yeah, sure, I've got some high school stories. What's one of my best high school stories? Oh, let me tell you. I had a girl that was a friend in high school, and we went to King's Dominion one day. The whole day, just me and her, and just as friends. And we had such a fun time. We rode the roller coaster. She drove, because I didn't have a car. She drove. We had a great time. Then we went back to her house, and I just tried to kiss her all of a sudden. Up to this point, we'd been friends in high school for like two years. Good friends — she was one of my best friends. I got confused. I tried to kiss her, and then she put her finger on my lips and was really nice about it, and let me know that she wasn't interested in me like that.
I didn't take it well. I was real mean to her after that. Told her she was fat, and anything else nasty I could think to be hurtful. I'm not proud of that. You know what? Sometimes in life you've got to go there to get here. That's just how it works. Sometimes you've got to go there to get here.
The Seth Books and the Illuminati
There's a writer named Jane Roberts, and she would go into a trance and narrate these books. They're called the Seth books, or the Seth material. And I hear they're required reading if you want to be in the Illuminati — the Seth books are required reading. And the Seth books basically say that you are God. This is your universe. You're creating and manifesting your reality here.
Oh, God. They got me. Oh, God, they got me right in the middle of this. Ah! Can't feel my legs! Charlie Murphy! I'm dead right now. I'm dead. See, this game — eight minutes. I lasted eight minutes. And it's longer than you lasted, isn't it, Jerry? Oh! You may be right. I may be crazy. Hey, but it just might be a lunatic you're looking for. Turn out the lights, don't try to save me. You may be wrong, but oh, for all I know you may be right.
Let me get that Bible. I'm going to have a Bible orbiting around me. Where's my Bible at? Yeah, look, there's a Bible just going around me — smacking kids with a Bible. Uh oh, I fouled up, my friends, I fouled up. All right, we need to figure out — is that a fire upgrade? That's good. That's much better than getting the dumb XP upgrade. Ah, there's too many bats. This Bible's doing work, though. The Bible's laying them down. I like it.
It's Usually Not Personal
Things often are not personal at all — in all of life. In other words, we can think things are about us, but really, a person's having a bad day for a reason totally unrelated to us, and we have the chance to take it personally or to not take it personally. Like my daughter was a little aggravated after her tennis camp today, and it wasn't anything personal. She was tired. She thought she was getting snow cones today, and she didn't get snow cones. She was aggravated about it. Then she's like, "Dad, can I spend the $20 you gave me in the store?" I'm like, "No, I'm ready to go home." Not trying to — oh, nice, that's health right there. That's cool. I got a little aggravated over her aggravation. I ended up taking it a little bit personally — like, not my problem you didn't get snow cones. But then I told her at home, I'm like, "Look, I'm sorry I was short with you. I wanted to get home. And you know what? Maybe next time we'll go in the store." I don't like being short like that. You know what I'm saying?
I've been getting a lot of compliments on my memory recently. I'm like, it just takes work. It takes forgetting, and being wrong, and intentionally asking someone to help remind you of something you forgot. Having a great memory is just straight-up work. You either put in the work or you don't put in the work.
Do Your Part, Not Everybody Else's
What I'm seeing is this: when you look at how the world is a magical place where anything can happen, it's important to just do your part and not try to do other people's part. Like me taking clips and putting clips out — that's not my part. My part is showing up and making stuff that's worth clipping. My part is showing up and hanging out and talking with you. That's my part. Nobody else can do that. Only I can do that. And therefore I'm focusing completely on doing my part — doing that which no one else is able to do. Oh, oh God, that cost me a little bit of health. So I'm focused on showing up and doing that which only I can do. And the one thing I can do that nobody else can do is go live as me, so to speak. There are lots of you that can make clips and share them, so it doesn't make sense for me to put time and energy into that. That's something that's been a really helpful idea for me to get hold of in my life: just do my part, do my part, and don't do anybody else's part.
What the heck? Oh, this is serious. Why is this happening? There are two dead people in here — there are going to be two dead people in here. Hurry. Dang, that red thing levels you way up. Like, whoa. Leveling way up, like, whoa. Blowing up bats, like, whoa. Vampire Survivors all day, like, whoa. Big load of bats coming in, like, whoa.
Would You Take the Role of a Villain?
I would like to know this: if you were offered a role in a movie, but it was a famous bad character — like a Hitler, a Stalin, something like that, an evil villain — would you take it? Would you take the role of a villain? Oh, you like the garlic. So it says it damages nearby enemies. Would you take the role of, like, a Hitler or something in a movie? Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger — one of his best movies was Terminator. He was such a good bad guy. None of the other Terminators was as good as Arnold Schwarzenegger in that first one. I think villains are great characters to play, too.
So think about it. Put that metaphor in terms of life. Now, would you want to play a villain in real life, though? It's one thing to do it as an actor, but who wants to reincarnate and go in being Hitler? That's got to be a rough ride, right? It'd be funny if you pictured all the immortal souls before reincarnating, everybody sitting around: "Hey, who do you want to be?" "I want to be president." "Oh, that's nice." "I want to be a Christian minister." "I'm going to be a doctor." "Well, that's great, man. Who do you want to be?" "Oh, come on." It's like everybody else picked all the good parts, and the part to be Hitler is just sitting up there, and all the souls are like, "Come on, somebody has got to be Hitler. This won't be any fun otherwise." One of the immortal souls raises their hand like, "All right, all right, I'll be Hitler this time." Everybody else is like, "Oh, thank you. Now we can make this movie." And the guy's like, "I'm not playing Hitler again, though. Next time I want to be one of the good guys."
It's actually some of the contrary characters that make things more interesting. Can you imagine one of these Marvel movies if there was no bad guy? It'd be some god circle-jerk fest. "Oh, look at your powers. Look at my powers. What are we going to do with these powers? I don't know — let's get this old lady's cat down from a tree." It really is kind of the bad things and the bad people that make the entire experience satisfying. Now I'm not saying that if you don't feel called to be a bad person, you should do it anyway. But maybe the spirits that are what we might think of as bad, evil, nasty — maybe they have a purpose that's just as worthwhile as the rest of us. Man, this dude is thick. That hurt, Steve.
Somebody in the chat said they played a villain in real life. Hey, me too — I played a villain in real life too, with my alcoholism. And that's why it's important to know that people can change. It's so logical that people can change, but for some reason, in certain parts of our lives, we've forgotten that. I've seen my kids change massively. And rigidity, inflexibility, and unwillingness to change, to me, indicates a move towards death. That which is unwilling and unable to change dies — the trees in the woods, the trees in the woods. Ow! How? Can we power through? How do I get through one of these? Oh, the garlic is clutch. Let's go. Fun. F-U-N, fun, fun. All right, we learned a lot that game. We're going to go back in again. I can't believe how time has been flying playing this game and doing this live stream.
The Naked Massage Math
I don't generally go looking for nudity except when I get a naked massage, but I chose to work with a different therapist today instead of getting a nude massage, because it costs twice as much for a nude massage. I'm like, I can get two massages, or I can get one naked massage. And I see my wife naked at least every other night, so I don't know. Well, my current YouTube income? Less than a thousand a month. I don't know if we need to be throwing $300 at a 90-minute massage.
I think $140 for a 90-minute massage will be just right. Oh — Jerry Banfield gaming.
The Opposite of Addiction Is Connection
Somebody asked me, "Jerry, you ever think you might be replacing one addiction with another?" No. My life is very balanced now. I don't think in terms of addictions anymore — I still go to Alcoholics Anonymous — but I don't think in terms of addictions anymore. I think of leading a life through intuition, through service to others, through understanding, through being connected with people. So I don't even think that way anymore. My life is perfectly balanced today.
The opposite of addiction, to me, is connection. Addiction happens through selfishness, through a lack of perspective with others. The opposite of addiction is connection, where you're connected with other people and you're very aware of how your actions impact them. So when I was first getting sober, I definitely replaced some addictions with others. But to me, the characteristic of addiction is selfishness and self-centeredness, where you're doing things without a consideration of how it impacts others. Because you wouldn't have an addiction otherwise — you wouldn't drink alcohol until you had a hangover and threw up and missed your appointments and missed work if you actually really thought about what that looked like to somebody else in your life. If you pictured what that looked like to your parents, your employer, your kids, your partner — addiction is something that has to be done selfishly. I mean, there are habits, of course, and a habit that gets out of balance can become an addiction. But when you're really connected to other people, in my experience your habits will balance themselves out and adjust pretty smoothly.
Separating Nudity from Sexuality
I've been intentionally removing — or minimizing — the connection between nudity and sexuality, and I think it's really helpful. Because to me, when we have clothes on, it creates a desire to see the layer underneath, which is the body. Well, when we strip down and we're left with the body, it creates a desire to see what's underneath that — and what's underneath the body is the soul. To me, getting naked makes it easier to see into the soul, because now there are no clothes to divide us and help us feel like we're separate and different. You're just down to the soul now.
Oh baby, it's getting crowded. Dude, I need a turkey — give me a turkey. I need some more health, man. I'm so low on health right now. With this play style I need to get closer to them, which is problematic. All right, one more, baby.
See, Steve says when we strip it down, it creates a desire to bang. That's just programming. That's all that is — that's programming. That's how we've been programmed, to associate nudity with sex. But it doesn't have to be that way. It's amazing what you can get used to in life. I think of my dad and my grandpa, who never got a massage in their lives. I think of them and the commentary they'd have for my massage lifestyle — their voices drop into my head sometimes and talk about what different men they'd have been if they could have had a woman touch them that much. Oh man, I don't know. I mean, my grandpa and my grandma were sure banging a lot, because they had five kids and three miscarriages in like 13 years — so they were definitely banging a lot for a while.
What Do I Know?
Dude, this garlic is nasty. You can just wipe whole crowds with this. You've got to watch that they don't touch you, though. But what do I know? I'm just a guy playing video games on YouTube. I trust you to use your own discernment and to ask other people about anything I suggest. If you enjoyed hanging out for this Vampire Survivors run, there's plenty more where this came from on my Games playlist.