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1:19
Thank you so much for joining us today.
1:30
We have a very special guest coming back on the podcast, he is an Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast alum, and that is Steven Pressfield.
1:30
So you can hear our first interview with Steven on episode 151 of this podcast.
1:35
So if you're not familiar with him or if you didn't catch podcast 151, he's an author of
1:39
historical fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays.
1:42
His first book was The Legend of Bagger Vance, which was later turned into a movie that was
1:46
directed by Robert Redford, starred Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Matt Damon.
1:50
His second book, which is on our 100 books that every modern Christian man should read
1:54
list is Gates of Fire, which is about the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae.
1:58
Also, he wrote The War of Art, Turning Pro, Do the Work, The Warrior Ethos, Tides of War,
2:03
and really over a dozen more.
2:05
But guys, as of today, he's got an extra one.
2:08
Another book is being released.
2:09
So guys, if you are listening to this podcast on time today, the latest novel called A Man
2:14
that Arms has been released.
2:16
Now guys, I just got to tell you, he sent me this book a few months ago, right?
2:21
But I kind of timed it to where I would be finishing the book basically the day before
2:25
or really close to the time of the interview.
2:26
And that's what I did.
2:27
I finished this before, the day before, and it was an amazing book, an absolutely amazing
2:33
book.
2:34
And guys, you should take that, not with a grain of salt, but you should take that as
2:38
an ironclad guarantee, because I've told you a lot before that I don't read fiction.
2:42
It's just really hard for me to keep the character straight.
2:45
It's hard for me to follow the narrative.
2:46
I get distracted easily.
2:48
So for whatever reason, reading nonfiction and kind of garnering the ideas and distilling
2:52
them all down is way easier for me.
2:54
So I might read one or two fiction books a year.
2:56
And guys, if this is the only fiction book you read this year, it's a good one.
3:00
It's definitely worth it.
3:01
But we talk about that in this podcast.
3:04
We also talk about the Warrior archetype, which is a YouTube series that he put out.
3:08
There were 50 little mini episodes.
3:10
He did get into that, so I think you guys will really enjoy that.
3:13
We even talk about his relationship with Jack Carr and kind of how that author is another
3:17
author that he inspired and another artist that he inspired with his work.
3:21
And then we've got something a little bit special after the end of the show today.
3:24
And we're actually going to get into some spoilers in his book.
3:26
And if you haven't read the book, I would not suggest that you do that.
3:29
But guys, Stephen Pressfield is just such an amazing dude.
3:32
He's so fun to talk to.
3:36
He's very deep in terms of his thoughts.
3:38
And there are a few times when you could tell like he was trying to cut off his answers
3:41
so that we can move the interview along.
3:42
And I'm sitting there like, no, no, no, please keep going.
3:45
Like this, this is great stuff.
3:46
So he always gives great answers.
3:48
He gives very thoughtful answers.
3:49
He's incredibly generous with his time.
3:51
And I'm not going to keep him from you any longer.
3:53
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
3:58
Stephen Pressfield.
3:59
Welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
4:01
Kyle, it's great to be here on my second time around.
4:04
And I'm really looking forward to it.
4:06
That's right.
4:07
And welcome back to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
4:09
You were the first return guests.
4:11
You know, we've got some two-part interviews coming up, but you are the first return guests
4:15
and for good reason because you've got a new book coming out.
4:18
Guys, if you were listening to this on time, this is the day his new novel is released.
4:23
It's called A Man at Arms.
4:24
It's a novel.
4:25
It's just another one of your great novels.
4:27
I actually just finished it yesterday.
4:29
So I just wanted to be really, really fresh.
4:32
And another thing I really like to do with authors that come on the show to talk about
4:35
their books.
4:36
And I always like to hear them give their synopsis of the book because, you know, I can read
4:40
the synopsis from Amazon or from your website, but you get a little bit of passion and you
4:45
get a little bit of that inkling of the creativity.
4:47
So if you would give our readers a little bit of a primer as to what A Man at Arms is about.
4:52
This is a book that I've been trying to write for about 13 years and have never been.
4:59
The main character of A Man at Arms is the one man killing machine of the ancient world
5:06
Telemone of Arcadia, the solitary mercenary who is a recurring character, the only recurring
5:11
character in any of my other stories.
5:14
He appears in like three other books as a minor character.
5:19
And for years, I've wanted to do a book that was entirely about him and his journey and
5:25
what he's up against.
5:26
He's sort of like the archetypal warrior pushed to the limit, like a samurai, like
5:31
a Clint Eastwood man with no name type of guy.
5:35
So I just was searching for years.
5:37
I would just do sort of outline, outline, outline, trying to come up with a story that
5:42
would actually work.
5:44
And finally, like a couple of years ago, I had this idea of a character of a young girl,
5:49
like a nine year old mute girl that you know about since you just read it yesterday, Kyle.
5:54
I finished it yesterday.
5:56
And that to me was sort of the key that kind of opened the story that allowed me to kind
6:00
of get into Telemone's progression and where he was going to go, which I didn't really
6:05
know before I kind of plunged into this.
6:07
So for me, this is the completion of something that I really wanted to do for a long time.
6:13
And I'm proud of it and excited to get it out there.
6:17
So where did the idea for you?
6:19
Because again, I know that there are some authors that they'll fall in love with a certain
6:21
character, but they'll just kind of leave them over there.
6:24
Like where did the idea come from that Telemone needed his own journey, needed his own story?
6:30
Where was that?
6:31
I mean, I think it was sort of built into the character in the previous three books that
6:35
he was in, mainly two books.
6:37
He was just a cameo and a third one.
6:39
But he's a guy, he's a warrior, but a thinker as well.
6:44
I would even call him a philosopher.
6:46
He has his whole philosophy about what the goddess that he worships is the goddess of
6:53
strife, which is a very dark philosophy.
6:58
And I kind of felt like he is struggling to get beyond this.
7:03
He's trying to get to the next level of manhood or whatever it is.
7:08
And I sort of wanted to, you know, creativity is a funny thing.
7:14
These characters take over and do their own thing.
7:17
And the only thing you can do as a writer is just sort of hang on for the ride.
7:20
And that's kind of what I was hoping was going to happen with this book and it did.
7:26
So I just wanted to see where he was going to go, what the next stage was of his thinking.
7:30
Well, I got to say, you know, you bring up how, you know, he worships the goddess of
7:34
strife.
7:35
And I got to be honest for me personally, I don't know what this says about me, but I'm
7:39
more attracted to kind of the darker sides of different art forms.
7:44
So even the other day, my wife and I were trying to find a movie to watch.
7:47
And I looked through all the stuff I had saved on my playlist on, you know, Amazon video
7:51
or whatever.
7:52
And it's all, you know, murder mysteries, you know, where there's, you know, some sort
7:56
of horrible rape involved or some horrible drug deal, like everything's like really, really
8:01
dark.
8:02
And so it's interesting when you read a book where the character is kind of working through
8:05
that with an audience watching, but also with the other people watching, do you feel like
8:09
you, you kind of have a, you know, a bias towards kind of the dark side as well?
8:14
I do.
8:15
I think in many ways, my, my own philosophy is dark cut with light.
8:20
It's light, but it's also very dark.
8:22
And I'm like you when I have a playlist, it's full of these horrible, you know, super dark
8:28
movies and the characters that I love are the really the darkest characters, which is one
8:31
of the reasons I love this guy, Talamon, because his, you know, his philosophy is very dark
8:36
until he evolves to the next level.
8:38
Right.
8:39
Well, one thing that I may have picked up and I might be reading something into it that's
8:42
not there at the end of the, you know, the advanced copy that you sent me, which again,
8:46
thank you so much for that.
8:48
There's an acknowledgments page.
8:50
And just how some of your acknowledgments are worded, it makes it seem like this was
8:55
a book that maybe your publishers or maybe people in your life weren't super excited
8:59
about getting out there, maybe it was difficult.
9:02
Now the thing I'm, I'm reading into it is that there might be some resistance because
9:07
there are biblical themes and biblical characters and content inside of the storyline.
9:12
Am I reading something in there that's not there or is there.
9:14
I think you are actually.
9:15
Okay.
9:16
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised to hear that, you know, because actually my, my two editors
9:21
both felt head over heels in love with this book and I actually sort of got in trouble
9:26
with them because I kind of had to choose, you know, I had to, I had to go with, with
9:31
one and not another and they both really wanted it.
9:37
And so, yeah, so that, you know, so no, there was no real reluctance at all.
9:43
It was really the opposite, you know, great enthusiasm for it.
9:46
Well, I'll stop pretending and adding drama to your life.
9:50
That isn't there.
9:51
That'll be the last time I do that, Steven.
9:52
But I got to say, even for me, just reading the synopsis of the book and reading, when
9:57
I started getting into it, that is one thing that kept me very excited and enthralled with
10:01
the story was the time of, you know, the time in history that it was taking place and some
10:07
of the historical figures.
10:08
And I guess at least my next question, which is, you make a lot of historical references
10:12
to that time period, you know, as to where the story takes place, but you also, you're,
10:17
you know, creating characters and creating different places for these characters to act
10:21
out their lives.
10:23
How do you effectively as an author weave historical truths into a story, you know, without overwhelming
10:29
the narrative?
10:30
That's a great question.
10:32
I mean, now the time period is like 20 years after the crucifixion.
10:36
So it's the first century AD, around 55 AD, 50 AD in Jerusalem, in Judea, in the Sinai
10:44
desert, kind of the wilderness of Sinai.
10:47
And you know, it's sort of a technique of historical fiction that you would take actual
10:56
characters from history, Alexander the Great, Leonidas, whatever you want to take, and you
11:01
would insert a fictional character as a kind of an intermediary into the story, kind of
11:08
almost like a fly on the wall, almost like you're beaming its character back into the
11:13
past to kind of watch what's going on and to participate in what's going on.
11:18
And I think not only is that legitimate, but I think it's almost a key thing that you have
11:23
to do to get in there, not always, but sometimes.
11:27
So in this case, the story is about a theme that I needed a character to embody that theme,
11:39
you know, in touching base on the post-crucifixion world, when the Roman Empire was in charge,
11:47
when there was this new faith, this new religion that was starting to come up, and that was
11:52
a big threat to the Roman Empire, and that they wanted to crush this thing before it
11:57
could get going.
11:59
And so that's where I sort of brought, you know, sort of combining my character, my one
12:05
man killing machine character with this era was really, really kind of opened the door,
12:11
along with this little girl character, to really getting into what I wanted to get into about
12:17
that era.
12:18
I don't want to give away too much, you know?
12:20
Yeah, absolutely.
12:21
I want to make sure that we kind of keep people's appetites wedded for this.
12:25
But at the same time, I'm very excited about that time period, because particularly a lot
12:31
of modern Christians, they think when somebody responds to their Facebook post, where they
12:36
post a scripture, and they're like, "Oh, so you still believe in the spaghetti monster
12:40
in the sky?"
12:41
That they think that that is like some sort of trial and tribulation that they're having
12:44
to go through.
12:45
And it's like, and you don't get a lot into, you know, how Christians were treated, you
12:48
know, in specifics.
12:50
But I encourage people to read a lot about the first century church, and what the Romans
12:54
were able to do, because they weren't trying to, you know, push this religion to the side.
12:59
They were trying to stamp it out entirely.
13:01
And so I like that you kind of have that as an underlying theme of the book.
13:05
Yeah.
13:06
It was a fascinating thing for me, like there is one speech that one of the Roman tribunes
13:11
gives to our character of Telemah, where he says, "The Emperor's slumber is not disturbed
13:17
by armies or anything else, because he knows he can defeat those."
13:21
But a new idea, a new faith, that scares him, you know?
13:26
And in fact, in the real world, of course, that is what brought down the Roman Empire,
13:31
you know?
13:32
And Rome became the Vatican, became the center of this new faith, you know?
13:36
Absolutely.
13:38
There's one thing that I pulled out from your book that was in chapter seven, and I think
13:41
this is a theme that our audience will love.
13:44
And guys, there's a lot of reasons to buy this book, but this is an underlying theme
13:50
for a lot of guys that maybe have a father wound or have guys where, you know, fatherhood
13:55
is incredibly important to them.
13:56
So there's a character in the book named David.
13:58
He's a young man in the story, and he becomes an apprentice to Telemah, right?
14:03
That's the mercenary, the man at arms.
14:06
And as we learn from the story, David's father is not a very good or righteous man.
14:12
You know, perhaps we would even categorize him as an evil man.
14:15
So he's certainly not someone that David wants to model himself after, but this leads
14:20
to a very interesting interplay between David and Telemah, and David, and I'll just kind
14:25
of read it here.
14:26
It says, you're my father now, the boy said, the man at arms only grunted.
14:31
And so this is the boy David kind of like expressing to Telemah, you're my father figure.
14:37
You're my dad.
14:38
And I want to, if you'll indulge me, this might be a little weird for you, but I want
14:42
to read about three quarters of the last page of chapter seven, because I think it is absolutely
14:48
incredible.
14:49
One of the biggest things that I wanted to kind of get with you.
14:52
So you, well, you indulge me a little bit as I read through this section.
14:55
All right.
14:56
David knew it once that he would follow this man.
14:59
What he taught David would learn, what he commanded David would perform.
15:03
He the youth would enroll himself in the Academy of the highway in the School of Conflict.
15:09
Such secrets as the man at arms might impart David knew would have to be prized from him
15:13
one lesson at a time, one action, one word.
15:17
David did not care whatever the price he would pay it.
15:20
Why this one?
15:21
David asked himself now as he trekked in the train of the solitary mercenary.
15:25
Why him and not one of the thousands of pike men and archers and cavalry riders, Jew and
15:30
Gentile whom David had encountered over his short, the keenly observed span of years.
15:35
David sent something about this individual.
15:37
He could not have articulated its essence, even in part, even to himself.
15:42
Yet the boy felt in this man something deeper and more profound than simply strength or
15:46
skill or even Andrea, mainly virtue in the Greek sense.
15:50
This man at arms had a religion too.
15:53
It was not a faith of the lamp or of the blessed by and by.
15:56
It was not of soldiers code or a code of honor.
15:59
It was sterner and more solitary, a doctrine, shorn of pity, even for oneself, but which
16:04
touched somehow David sensed upon the truth as immutable as death and as primal as creation.
16:11
David resolved that he would give all he had and all he ever would have to acquire that
16:17
which this man and arms possessed, this wisdom, this understanding, the knowledge of these
16:22
mysteries.
16:23
He would die to be and to become himself like this man.
16:28
And so the reason why I bring that up is because every boy in my humble opinion needs two things.
16:34
He needs a father and he needs a path.
16:38
And in Telamon, David saw a father figure of sorts, maybe not a biological father figure
16:44
but a father figure and a path.
16:47
Now for me, that is something that defines the book for me and will certainly get more
16:52
into that maybe even later after the credits, which we'll talk more about later.
16:56
But is the father son dichotomy is that father son connection?
17:00
Was that a plan from the beginning to be a huge theme of this book?
17:04
Because that right there, that just carried me through the entire rest of the book.
17:08
That just gave me all kinds of excitement.
17:10
You know, that just again, that's sort of, I really, it's going to be a lot of credit
17:13
Kyle for picking that out.
17:14
I would say that's one of the central themes of the book that you put your finger on.
17:19
In fact, if I can quote another line there, there's a after that when David says to Telamon,
17:25
you're my father now.
17:27
Telamon responds to that after a little while.
17:29
He won't say anything for a little while, but then he says to him, you have shown spirit.
17:36
So I will let you accompany me, but I'm not your father and I'm not your brother and
17:41
not your friend.
17:42
And he says, what you can learn from me by watching, I'm happy to let you learn.
17:48
And if you die as we're on our little adventure here, I'll bury your bones.
17:54
That's what I'll do for you, but I'm not your father.
17:58
And that to me was sort of the essence of that character.
18:01
And of course, not to give too much away, but in the end of the story, the roles reverse
18:07
in a way.
18:09
And it's Telamon who learns from David, you know, but very, very deaf and funny, when
18:16
I started the story, writing it, I didn't have this character of David.
18:21
I didn't have this young apprentice.
18:23
I just had the warrior and somehow I just kind of felt the need for this young boy.
18:30
I felt the need for somebody to look up to Telamon and that Telamon could kind of react
18:36
against and that he could also teach as he went along.
18:40
And as you know, his style of teaching is he never practically says a word.
18:45
He just does things and lets David watch him.
18:48
But yeah, I think absolutely you hit the nail on the head, you know, with a father, a mentor
18:54
and a path.
18:55
And that's what Telamon provides for this young boy, David.
18:58
And guys, we're going to move on to some other subjects.
19:01
But again, I cannot recommend a man at arms more highly.
19:04
And again, this is coming from a guy and I talk about this a lot, Steven.
19:07
I don't really enjoy fiction that much.
19:09
I basically will read one or two fiction books a year and maybe 20 or 25 nonfiction books.
19:14
So I could not recommend this more highly and I'm glad I took it down this early in
19:18
the year.
19:19
But I do want to transition to the warrior archetype.
19:22
So that is your YouTube series that you released.
19:24
And you release 50 kind of mini episodes, typically between five and 10 minutes.
19:29
And this was really going into the subject matter of the warrior archetype.
19:33
And so last time on the last podcast, you'll go and listen, because you already explained,
19:36
you know, why you want to get into that.
19:38
But there were a few things from a few of your episodes I wanted to ask you about.
19:41
And the first one is from episode six and that's called come and take them.
19:45
Okay.
19:46
So this was the war where the 300 Spartans were going against the Persians at the battle
19:50
or thermopoli, and you said that that battle, right, that war was the supreme example of
19:57
the warrior ethos and the warrior archetype.
20:00
And you know, some of the reasons you gave is that it was a good war or righteous war.
20:05
There were crazy odds stacked against the Spartans in the stakes, you know, Western civilization
20:10
was at stake.
20:11
But you say the main reason that it's kind of the supreme example is because the Spartans
20:16
knew they were going to die.
20:18
So why do you think that that makes it the supreme example of the warrior ethos and the
20:23
warrior archetype?
20:24
Well, the sort of the, I would say the supreme expression of warrior honor, warrior valor,
20:33
is to give your life for some for others for a cause that's greater than yourself, you
20:39
know, and like there's a famous story that of some Spartan king where they asked him,
20:45
what was the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed?
20:49
And he answered contempt for death, which I think is absolutely, he was absolutely right.
20:56
And if you think about any other great battles that you can think about, the warriors on
21:04
one side go in either thinking that they can win, right, there's going to be a happy outcome
21:10
they're going to win, or that they'll survive, maybe they'll lose, but they'll survive.
21:16
But almost never is their battle where the people go into it, the alamos, another kind
21:22
of example, where the people on one side say, we're not walking away from this.
21:27
This, you know, we're there.
21:29
This is a suicide mission.
21:30
And we all know it, including, particularly in this case, where your own king is going
21:35
there with you.
21:36
And he knows that he's going to die, so that in many ways, that is to draw an analogy.
21:44
It's like Jesus on the cross.
21:45
I don't mean to get too spiritual here or anything like that, but it is in a communal
21:50
collective level, 300 people together, 300 men together, knowing that they're going to
21:58
die and going through with it.
22:03
He ran away, nobody copped out, everybody went through it, and in fact they saw it as
22:09
a supreme act of sacrifice in the highest way.
22:16
I don't know if they believed in heaven or anything like that, but they certainly felt
22:19
that they would be remembered forever, and that this was a great, great thing they were
22:23
doing.
22:24
And of course it was.
22:25
So that, to me, what separates that particular battle from anything else that I can think
22:31
of.
22:32
Now one thing, just as a short follow to that, and then we'll get into another episode.
22:37
So obviously everyone knows, because of your writings and just because of history, that
22:42
the Spartans were betrayed and that, you know, basically there was a goat path that was allowed
22:46
them to get flanked, and then they were being fought by both sides, and that was basically
22:50
curtains for the Spartans.
22:52
But do you think that they're, they maybe thought that they could withstand the Persian
22:57
army and the immortals and all of that, if they had never been betrayed, if the goat path
23:02
had never been discovered?
23:03
Do you think there was any of that, or was it from the beginning?
23:06
Hey, they knew that it was only a matter of time.
23:09
They just thought they would probably hold out a little bit longer.
23:11
I think they absolutely knew, and the reason why I say that is the, when Leonidas, King
23:17
Leonidas selected the specific 300 warriors to go, he selected them all as fathers of
23:24
living sons.
23:26
So that's, and another thing was that, and that the Greeks and particularly the Spartans
23:30
really believed in was prophecies and oracles, and there was a very famous oracle that Sparta
23:35
would survive, but would lose a king, and in this particular case.
23:41
So Leonidas absolutely knew that, and I also think that, that in a way, he knew the battle
23:49
was a holding action.
23:50
He knew there was no way to hold for very long, you know, 4,000 against, you know, millions
23:55
or whatever, and that the real victory, if it came at all, would be produced later on
24:01
in subsequent battles when the other Greek cities, Athens and Corinth and Argos and all
24:06
them would rally and put together, you know, enough of an army or an army and a navy as
24:11
it worked out, that they could hold off the Persian.
24:14
So I think that he really wanted, he wanted the example of Spartan courage in a way they
24:22
wanted to die, because to inspire their other, their fellow countrymen to, to live up to
24:28
there.
24:29
And there's also a great moment in the, in the true story of Thermopylae, not just what
24:34
I wrote in Gates of Fire, but that when the Spartans and their allies, they had about 4,000
24:41
allies from the other Greek cities.
24:45
When they knew they were going to be flanked by the goat path, they had like a couple of
24:48
hours before the actual Persian immortals got behind them.
24:52
So they could have fled.
24:54
And in fact, Leonidas released the allies.
24:57
He said, you guys go home, take the path, get out of here, live to fight another day.
25:03
But the Spartans, we're going to stay here.
25:05
We're going to die.
25:06
And the other footnote to this, not to go on and on and on.
25:09
Now this is great.
25:10
Go.
25:11
Was that this to me was almost the greatest thing of all of the, of that moment was there
25:16
is another city called Thespii, and there was a small unit that joined that was there
25:21
with the Spartans.
25:23
And to a man, they said, we're going to stay too.
25:26
We're not going to go.
25:27
And the other thing is what they called the servants of the battle train, meaning the battle
25:32
squires who would carry the armor, because a warrior in those days had heavy armor, he
25:37
didn't go by himself in the battle, he had a, you know, a squire with him.
25:42
And they, Leonidas freed them, they were basically, you know, serfs or slaves.
25:48
He freed them and let them go.
25:50
But a whole bunch of them said, no, we're not going to go, we're going to stay here
25:55
and die too.
25:56
And these were people with families and children, wives and children.
26:00
And you know, they didn't have to, they weren't going to get any glory.
26:03
Their names were not going to be remembered, but they chose to stay too and out of loyalty
26:09
to their brothers, to their brothers in arms.
26:11
So that was, to me, was even a more supreme example of courage.
26:16
Absolutely.
26:17
Absolutely.
26:18
To fast forward a little bit to episode nine of the series 50, you have something called
26:23
the why study the warrior archetype.
26:25
And so the claim you make in that is that we should study the warrior archetype because
26:30
of the war within basically the war between our own ears, right?
26:34
The war in our heads.
26:35
Yeah.
26:36
So can you elucidate that a little further for our audience?
26:39
I think, well, as a writer, let's say, me being a writer and artist or whatever it is,
26:47
or I have to fight a battle in my own head every day against myself, against my tendency
26:56
to take the easy way out, to procrastinate, to give in to self doubt, to become arrogant,
27:03
to become lazy, to become complacent, all of those things that we do.
27:08
And if you want to expand it farther into being a father or something like that, you
27:12
know that there are all of the forces in your head that conspire to make you favor your
27:19
own ego or your own needs over your children or over the future over your family, right?
27:25
And how do you fight those negative tendencies that we all have?
27:30
And to me, that inner war, we need to be warriors in that inner war and the same virtues that
27:39
are embodied in the warrior archetype, virtues of courage, patience, selflessness, love for
27:45
our brothers, the willing embracing of adversity, those virtues that a warrior would use to
27:52
fight external enemies, that the Spartans would use to fight the Persians or anybody
27:57
else you want to use as an example, that we use those to fight the inner war inside our
28:03
own selves against the, the, what do you call it, the lower angels of ourselves, not the
28:11
better angel, not our nobler self, but our base herself, that is constantly every day
28:17
trying to drag us down.
28:20
So that's what I meant by the inner war.
28:21
And that's why I think we do need to study the warrior archetype.
28:24
Well, that's what you've talked about in, you know, the war of art and different things
28:28
like that, you, you have those issues and for a lot of guys that can become crippling.
28:33
And most guys don't actually, they kind of give short shrift to even figuring out where
28:36
those things come from.
28:37
And so for my worldview and from the worldview of a lot of our listeners, we think those come
28:40
from dark forces, we think those come from satanic forces.
28:44
And you know, we always talk about putting the thoughts in your head through a filter.
28:48
And so if you have kind of the, the God and Satan, you know, ideal and, and world, it's
28:53
like, would God be telling me this that I'm a horrible father that I suck at everything
28:57
and I should probably just die?
28:58
Or is that probably something that Satan would whisper?
29:01
And so, and a lot of times it's not, you know, like someone's yelling at you with a bullhorn.
29:05
It's just a whisper.
29:06
It's just a little glimmer of a thought in the back of your brain that you heard.
29:11
And so again, I think that that's a really good way.
29:13
And guys, we'll put episode nine of the warrior archetype in the show notes so you can check
29:17
that out because I think that would be helpful for you regardless of your worldview.
29:21
But the last one I want to talk about is actually the, the ultimate episode, the last episode
29:25
of your series and that's episode 50, and it's called the warrior going forward.
29:29
And so you said in that episode that the warrior archetype needs to have a moral dimension.
29:36
It needs a moral dimension.
29:38
And if not, the warrior archetype could, could lead to evil, right?
29:41
And you talked about different leaders and the things that they did, conquest and massacres
29:45
and depopulating regions and enslaving people and just all the horrible things that come
29:50
along with that that, you know, we should all know about because we should all be readers
29:53
of history.
29:54
So from your perspective, is it just any morality that will do?
29:59
Is it a specific morality?
30:01
Is it the morality of the times?
30:02
Because in the world that we live in in 2021, it is unrecognizable to the morality that
30:07
we thought we had as a culture even four or five years ago.
30:10
What would you, how would you answer that?
30:13
Well, what I said in that episode, as you know, Kyle, is that I think that there are archetypes
30:18
beyond the warrior archetype as we mature, that the warrior archetype usually kicks in
30:24
maybe from the age 14, 13, 14, through maybe 20, when we're athletes, when we play football,
30:31
when we jump out of airplanes, when we, you know, scuba, we do crazy [inaudible], you know?
30:37
Or when we're actually literally warriors, you know, in the military.
30:42
But beyond that, are the other archetypes like the mentor, the father, the artificer,
30:49
the teacher, the king, the sage, and the mystic, as we evolve.
30:54
When I say the sage, I mean somebody like Obi-Wan Kenobi or Gandalf or something like that.
31:00
And I think that this is just my own theory on this, Kyle, and I may be wrong.
31:05
But like when I'm asking myself, you know, because the, as you were saying, the warrior
31:10
archetype in and of itself does not really have a moral dimension.
31:14
It's basically in us versus them, you know, they're the bad guys.
31:19
We're going to kick their ass, right?
31:21
But the soldier can become the stormtrooper, you know, and the commander can become the
31:27
despot and the tyrant.
31:29
So if there's no moral dimension.
31:30
So I'm asking myself, where does this come from?
31:34
Sorry to be long winded here.
31:36
But as we evolve, as we mature and as we go to the higher archetypes, one of the things
31:42
that happens is our view of the world expands and becomes more inclusive.
31:52
And we start to think of the people that we might have considered the enemy before the
32:00
Taliban or the, you know, anybody you want to think of.
32:03
We start to, instead of seeing them as the other with a capital O, we start to be able
32:09
to see them as human beings, exactly like us.
32:12
And we say, their fathers, they love their children.
32:16
They have their own, they would love their own freedom.
32:19
They have their own conception of what is right and wrong.
32:22
Many of them are tremendously honorable.
32:23
We would be happy and proud to have them fighting on our side, if we could, and we could be
32:27
friends with them if we got to know them.
32:30
And that aspect of inclusion, of inclusiveness, hopefully will expand even further, not just
32:38
to physical enemies, but to the environment, to the planet itself.
32:43
And we start to say, we have to be stewards of this planet.
32:46
And we also go beyond that to future generations where we start to say, you know, we really
32:52
care about our grandchildren, our great grandchildren, or even if they're not our children, just
32:56
the future human beings that could be on this planet.
33:01
And as we become more inclusive in our mindset, then it becomes much, much harder to harm
33:08
other people.
33:09
We can't look at another person and say, that's a subhuman, that's, you know, an evil person.
33:15
It's okay for me to do anything to them, you know, a prisoner that might be at our mercy.
33:22
And it's a very tempting when you're in the pure warrior archetype to beat the crap out
33:27
of that person or whatever.
33:29
But once you start to see them as another full human being, then your whole attitude
33:34
changes.
33:35
And I think a moral dimension enters the equation, and that moral dimension tempers the potential
33:43
brutishness of the warrior archetype.
33:46
That's what I was trying to say.
33:47
No, that's great.
33:48
And just so, you know, every time you go off, you say a bunch of cool stuff, so feel free,
33:53
feel free to go off and say that.
33:55
And one, just say, maybe even put a finer point on that.
33:58
I think everyone would agree with that whenever you play some moral dimension, you look at
34:01
people differently.
34:02
You know, in the Christian worldview, you look at the amago day that we were all created
34:06
in the image of God.
34:08
When you're grounding something in morality, and I do want to kind of put a finer point
34:12
on it, what morality?
34:14
Because morality is incredible, we're kind of living this postmodern, post-truth world,
34:19
what's true for you isn't true for me.
34:21
Because the people you're fighting on the other side, they may recognize that you're
34:24
a human as well, but you're an infidel, or you're, you know, you're a murderer, you're
34:29
the great devil, or something like that.
34:31
So what specific morality, like where do we lean to?
34:36
Is there something that we can glean?
34:38
Well, one of the things that, I mean, it sort of comes back to the golden rule of, you know,
34:43
act towards others as you would have them act toward you.
34:46
But if you want to look at it in a, you know, say, Hindu tradition, or Buddhist tradition,
34:51
which I think is a parallel thing, the whole idea of karma, as I understand it, is that
34:58
we are all one, all of us.
35:01
It's an illusion that you are a separate individual from me, and I'm a separate individual from
35:07
you.
35:08
And when I violate that law that we are all one, when I hurt you, because I think it
35:15
doesn't hurt me, even if it's with a word or if it's something physical, that is a debt
35:21
that I incur, a karmic debt that I've got to, you know, it's what goes around, comes
35:26
around, it comes back together.
35:28
So I think the ultimate morality, you know, let me, let me go back to the Spartans for
35:34
a minute, or I'll even go back to Jesus.
35:40
They, I'm a believer that life exists on two levels, at least two levels, there's a material
35:47
plane that we're on now, and then there's a higher plane that we're, that, that you might
35:52
say angels live on, or the gods live on, or whatever you want to say.
35:57
And on this lower plane where we live, there are certain laws that we take as a real.
36:03
And one of those laws is that death is real.
36:06
When you die, you're dead, right?
36:08
It's over.
36:09
Another thing that we, that we accept on this plane is that each individual is different
36:15
from every other.
36:16
I'm separate from you, you're separate from me.
36:18
I can harm you and it won't have any effect on me.
36:22
The other element on this plane that we live on the material plane, in my opinion, is just
36:27
my own theory, is that the predominant emotion is fear.
36:33
Because we know we can die, because we know we have a body, because we know we can be
36:38
hurt.
36:39
We are protective of, of, of ourselves, and we're against, we're always trying to deal
36:44
with the idea of death.
36:45
Like the reason that people try to quote unquote leave a mark in, in their achieve something
36:52
is because something that will outlive death.
36:54
The reason why, or a big part of the reason why people have families and children is to
36:58
extend their own, you know, their DNA or whatever, that I may die, but my sons and daughters
37:05
will live on so and so forth.
37:07
That's kind of the material plane.
37:09
Now on the higher plane, in my opinion, there are different laws.
37:13
And one of those laws is that death is not real.
37:17
You know, the gods are immortal.
37:19
Death is an illusion, as they say in many, many scriptures, right?
37:23
The soul is immortal, the body may die, but the soul continues on.
37:27
Another thing that they say, or that I believe on the higher dimension, is that I'm not
37:33
separate from you, and you're not separate from me, that we are all one and that we know
37:37
that on that plane.
37:39
This comes back to the idea of karma.
37:42
And the third thing that is on the higher plane, in my opinion, is that predominant emotion
37:48
is not fear, but love, and that we're all bound together by love and that God or whatever
37:54
you wanted to call it, the great force, whatever it is, is a binding force of love.
38:00
So that, I believe further, that when we, on this plane, see somebody or some group acting
38:09
according to the laws of the higher plane, it moves us to tears, and we honor them with
38:15
the highest honors.
38:16
And I think that's why the Spartans at Thermopylae, that story lives forever.
38:24
And it still is emotional because they acted, first of all, as if death was not real, right?
38:30
They willingly died.
38:31
They acted as if the predominant emotion, or that there was no distinction between one
38:37
of them and another, you know, they were all one, and they acted not out of fear, but out
38:43
of love, out of love for their brothers and love for their countrymen.
38:47
So to get all this back down to what I'm trying to say, I think that the morality that we're
38:52
looking for is the morality of that higher plane.
38:56
The morality that we are all one, and I mean, if we believe that, how would the world be
39:02
completely different, you know, and all of the whole tribalism and all that stuff that
39:08
we're going through now, partisanship and everything, which is vaporized, well, just
39:11
go away.
39:12
In fact, you could say that the state of the United States right now, the tribalism, is
39:17
as far away from the high plane as it could possibly be, we're like, we're like in the
39:24
deepest depths of the of what's what's bad, we're at each other's throats where there's
39:30
no love.
39:31
It's all based on fear, et cetera, et cetera.
39:33
Anyway, again, that's another long answer, Kyle.
39:36
Well, Steven, there's no love and we're definitely not going to send this down a political point,
39:40
but you're right.
39:41
I mean, this is as far from what the founders would have wanted for people.
39:46
They wanted to allow for kind of a disputatious attitude, but they didn't want to allow for
39:51
this level of tribalism because tribalism is what can kill something from the inside.
39:55
Like that's those are the termites eating, eating, you know, the foundation of your house,
39:59
it's eating all the scaffolding.
40:01
And so to move away from politics before we get into that and get ourselves into trouble,
40:05
I want to talk about a lighter thing and that's your friendship with Jack Carr.
40:08
And so Jack Carr, you know, retired Navy Seal author, a bestselling author of the terminal
40:13
list, true believer, Savage Son, and his forthcoming book, The Devil's Hand and his books and really
40:18
his profile exploded after he appeared on the Joe Rogan experience and Joe Rogan basically
40:23
gave him an endorsement of his books and his writing.
40:26
And he appeared on our podcast on episode 168.
40:29
So if you're curious, go back and listen to that as a wonderful interview.
40:32
But the cool thing about Jack Carr is he gives a lot of credit for him being a successful
40:38
author today to you and, you know, to your writings and to your encouragement.
40:44
How do you feel about that?
40:45
Oh, I think it's a great honor and it's a great, a great source of friendship, you know, and
40:52
I'm sort of, I feel kind of modestly about that because Jack's brought all the talent
40:57
and all the, you know, the determination in the world.
40:59
He brought that himself to everything, you know, but so I'm very happy of anything that
41:04
I wrote, I'm not even sure what exactly Jack means and maybe it's the war of art and resistance
41:09
and the idea like that.
41:12
But yeah, it's a great honor.
41:13
I really, I love the guy I admire, he's a tremendous talent and a wonderful guy, a family
41:19
man, the whole, everything down the line.
41:22
And so yeah, any, if I helped him in any way, I'm just honored to do that.
41:29
So to be honest, Stephen, obviously you've given a lot of authors and writers and artists
41:34
just in general motivation and inspiration and all these other positive things.
41:39
So I guess a great thing for me to ask and I think for our audience to learn is who or
41:45
what motivates and inspires you as an artist, as a writer, as an author.
41:50
That's a great question.
41:51
I think I'm, I'm a believer that we all have a destiny.
41:57
We all have a call and we all have a kind of an authentic being that we are.
42:01
And you know, for some it's to be a mother, for other it's to be to care for the vulnerable
42:09
and the weak.
42:10
For others it's to invent something like an iPhone or something like that or to be a
42:16
warrior or something like that.
42:17
And for me, I'm a writer and it took me years and years to be able to say that to myself
42:25
and believe it, but I sort of stumbled onto that path and I tried many times to take other
42:35
paths that were easier.
42:37
I said you're crazy to keep trying to follow this dream because there's no success happening.
42:43
But I just couldn't do anything else.
42:46
If I did anything else, I was just too depressed.
42:49
So it's a mystery to answer the question, Kyle, I'm not even sure why.
42:54
That was my calling when I came into this world and that's what I, what makes me happy.
43:02
Well, it may be a mystery now, but you have to promise us something.
43:05
If you ever figure out the reason you have to come back on here and talk about it, even
43:09
if that's the only thing we talk about.
43:10
Is that fair?
43:11
Okay, that's fair.
43:12
All right.
43:13
Now guys, we're going to do something a little bit special here.
43:16
So this is going to be a special thing just for those of you that have read a man at arms.
43:21
Okay.
43:22
So our normal outro, I'm going to kind of transition this and I'm going to do our outro that we
43:27
do with, you know, the links and everything and hey, this is how you can follow us.
43:31
But then after the music cuts out from my normal outro, we're going to come back and
43:36
Steven has agreed to answer some very, very specific questions about it, man in arms.
43:40
But here is your massive, obvious blinking neon sign, major spoiler alerts ahead.
43:46
So if you just keep the track running after the music goes out and then you plan to read
43:51
this later, you're going to be woefully disappointed.
43:54
It's going to be a bad, bad thing for you.
43:56
So we're going to go ahead and make that transition now.
43:59
So Steven, we appreciate you hanging around.
44:00
All right.
44:02
All right, guys, we are going to do our normal outro for those of you that have not read
44:10
a man at arms.
44:11
But after the post music and all that kind of stuff, we're going to get right back into
44:15
the interview.
44:16
Before we let you guys go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
44:18
As you know, by now at Undaunted Life, our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.
44:22
Specifically, we do that by providing you content like this podcast.
44:25
It helps you forge spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
44:28
So today I've got these links for you.
44:29
I've got the link to the Steven Pressfield website.
44:32
So anything that you want to know about him or ordering his books or anything, you can
44:34
get that there.
44:35
I also have a link to the Amazon page where you can order a man at arms and novel by Steven
44:39
Pressfield.
44:40
And guys, I know Amazon is kind of doing some weird stuff now with like taking books off
44:43
and not selling books anymore.
44:44
So my encouragement to you would be support local businesses as much as you can.
44:49
But I will say Amazon is just kind of a good, easy place where you can read the description
44:52
of the book.
44:53
But I would always suggest that you buy local, support those local bookstores.
44:57
Also, I've got the link to Steven Pressfield's YouTube channel.
45:00
And then I've got the links to those specific Warrior Arc type episodes, Episode 6, 9 and
45:05
50.
45:06
And guys, like I told you, these are all quick.
45:08
These are very, very quick videos.
45:10
And so they're five to 10 minutes long, typically.
45:12
So you could just watch one a day for 50 days while you're on the can or while you're walking
45:16
the dog or something like that.
45:17
They're really, really good things to check out.
45:19
And the other thing I would let you know is that pay attention to our social media.
45:23
We've got some very important things coming up.
45:24
We're going to do some giveaways.
45:26
We've got some cool stuff going on.
45:28
So if you're not following us on Instagram, that is going to be the best place for you
45:31
to interact with us.
45:32
Please follow us on Instagram and we will go from there.
45:34
All right, guys.
45:35
Thanks so much for listening to the podcast.
45:36
You really do appreciate it.
45:38
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45:42
or IR radio and refer your friends to listen and share on social media.
45:46
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45:50
know why you like the content.
45:51
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2021.
45:54
So if you want me to come speak on your podcast at your men's event, at your church, just hit
45:57
me up info at undaunted.life, the email is INFO@undaunted.life.
46:02
The website is www.undaunted.life.
46:05
You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undaunted.life or facebook.com/undauntedlife.
46:10
Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app.
46:12
Just search undaunted life under plans.
46:14
And as always, we want to thank the band, August Burns Red, for allowing us to use their
46:18
entire music library for our content.
46:20
The entire outro track on this podcast is our song defender, which is off their latest
46:23
record entitled Guardians.
46:25
The links are in the description.
46:26
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
46:28
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical
46:33
toughness, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
47:03
All right, Steven, you got for some specific questions about a man in arms.
47:14
I'm ready.
47:15
All right.
47:16
So just a few here.
47:17
So at what point, and again, major spoiler alert, major, major spoiler alert for anybody
47:22
that did not listen to me the first time.
47:23
Okay.
47:24
That's your last spoiler alert.
47:25
At what point in the writing process, did you know or decide that David, the apprentice,
47:32
was going to die in a somewhat sacrificial way that he did?
47:38
That's a great question.
47:39
And I have a wonderful editor and my dear friend, Sean Corn, who has been my editor since Gates
47:44
of Fire.
47:45
And I always have him, you know, he goes over everything and advises me, et cetera, et cetera.
47:52
And in my original draft, I had David live.
47:55
And Sean said, no, no, no, no, no, no, he's got to die, he's got to die.
48:00
And I kind of resisted.
48:01
And I said, no, why do we have to die?
48:03
I really love this kid, you know, I don't know.
48:05
But you know, in thinking about it, he was right.
48:09
And in thinking about what, why that sort of is in stories is when one character sometimes
48:16
dies, what happens is in some metaphysical way, they're reborn in another character or
48:25
the death that they, that for instance, after that, since we're doing spoiler alert, it's
48:32
a big part of the final pages of a man at arms is Telemone carrying David's body for
48:40
miles, you know, to give it a decent burial, even though, and if you remember what we were
48:46
talking about earlier in the show where Telemone said, I'm not your father, I'm not your brother,
48:51
and so, so David's sacrifice sort of was the final soul energy that went into Telemone
49:01
that pushed him to the, to his last bit of change, where he really let love, we were
49:06
talking about love on the show earlier here on the podcast.
49:09
So I think that's the reason.
49:12
And if I, if you think about, like you remember the movie Unforgiven Clint Eastwood's movie
49:17
with, you remember the Morgan Freeman character, not only gets killed, but he gets, you know,
49:23
like humiliated and they put him up in a coffin, you know, with a sign around his standing upright
49:28
in a coffin on the main street of town.
49:31
And I think you would say, I mean, when that character died in that movie, I thought, Oh,
49:35
no, he's the best character.
49:37
I love the guy, you know, but you could see that his death changed the character of Clint
49:43
Eastwood, you know, and really hardened him and sort of brought him back to, you know,
49:48
that sort of ultimate, you know, justice bringer that he was in the end.
49:54
So that's why David had to, I still feel a little bad about it, but I think it was the
49:59
right thing to do.
50:00
Well, the funny thing about that is I feel like you kind of swerved me as a reader because
50:04
again, I don't read a lot of fiction.
50:06
I think this thing is going to happen in the movie and it's definitely not what happens,
50:09
but everything in my brain was pointing to the fact that Telamon was surely going to
50:14
die in perhaps in some sacrificial way, or it would have to be a sacrificial ray for
50:20
Ruth and or for David.
50:22
So why did you choose to let Telamon live or why did you and your, your team kind of
50:26
say, okay, David, get out of here, you're dying, you know, you're going to get gut stuck.
50:31
And that's it.
50:32
But then Telamon got to live.
50:33
It's funny.
50:34
I never thought about killing Telamon, and I felt like he has got to go on.
50:40
He's got to go on to whatever the next evolution is.
50:43
And I know that I'm going to have to write that book and I'm terrified of writing because
50:47
I have no clue where he's going to go.
50:49
But I didn't, I didn't think, I think the ultimate moment for Telamon will be when he
50:54
does die.
50:56
That's kind of coming, but I didn't think he was quite there yet, you know, that he
51:01
still had more, more to learn and, and I liked very much the idea of him going off that you
51:08
were talking about the path before, Kyle, go and continually down the path.
51:12
But now with Ruth, which was again from the start of the book, a radical change, you know,
51:20
you would never have thought of that at the start of the book.
51:23
So yeah, it never occurred to me to kill him off at all.
51:27
Maybe come close.
51:28
Maybe come very close, but not quite.
51:30
Yeah.
51:31
It felt close.
51:32
It felt like there was kind of slow deterioration.
51:34
Yeah.
51:35
And then he got the, you know, the little potion from the witch and then he was going to after
51:39
he had fought like three men that it was going to be bad for him after that.
51:43
But you know, Ruth, the character, the young girl, she is a mute until essentially the
51:49
climax of the entire book and it's like, it gave me goosebumps because you just assumed
51:54
this girl's a mute.
51:55
She's a mute.
51:56
We've been told billion for 280 pages that she's a mute.
51:59
Okay.
52:00
It's a choice to keep Ruth a mute until the climax or the end of the book.
52:05
Was it just for that tremendous?
52:07
Cause I feel like you had a great climax anyway, but then you threw the fact that Ruth talked
52:13
on me and it was like, what she talked like she, she just held her tongue through all
52:18
of this.
52:19
So, so why do that?
52:20
Um, you know, I was afraid that readers might, uh, um, suspect that that was coming.
52:29
I wanted it to be a complete surprise, you know, well, Steve, I remember, I'm an idiot.
52:33
I don't read things very well and it's, I have to read slowly and I didn't see it coming
52:37
honestly.
52:38
And, but yeah, so that, that was what I was hoping.
52:41
I was hoping that when she opened her mouth that would blow everybody's mind, you know,
52:46
and particularly with what she was going to say, she wasn't just saying anything random.
52:50
She was saying, you know, the words of the Apostle Paul, which are incredible.
52:55
And I was really afraid that, that they too would sort of make my writing look like [inaudible],
53:00
you know, but, uh, by comparison, but, um, but I really wanted her, the fact that she
53:07
was able to bite her tongue through the whole book, cause you knew that in the end you realized
53:14
she could talk from day one.
53:16
That was the whole sort of, um, shows was, was proof to me that she was the supreme warrior.
53:24
Not even tell them on could have done that, because she had so many moments when it must
53:29
have been bursting out of her to just say something, you know, she was so under control.
53:34
But she couldn't do that because she was true to her mission.
53:37
You know, once she did that, the mission was blown, you know, so, um, that was, uh, yeah,
53:44
I intended that from the start that she would, uh, uh, hold her tongue all the way through
53:49
it till the very end.
53:50
Well, I think it also speaks to, again, coming from a Christian worldview that I hold to,
53:57
to the transformational value and power of scripture, because we live in a culture where
54:03
I've got the U version Bible app on my phone.
54:06
I've got the Bible in every language right here on my phone, and yet I don't find enough
54:11
time to read the Bible.
54:12
I have five or six Bibles on my bookshelf over here in the other room were surrounded
54:17
by scripture.
54:18
This time there was obviously there was none of that.
54:21
And so for somebody to be able to speak the words of the apostle Paul, that didn't just
54:27
give goosebumps to me, the reader, like if you were to drop down into the world that
54:30
you created, the, the amount of shock and awe and beauty and power and emotion of that
54:37
moment had to be just completely overwhelming.
54:40
And we lose that here in our modern 21st century context, because scripture is just a thing.
54:46
People just talk about the Bible, even though they don't read it.
54:49
You know what I mean?
54:50
It's just, it's kind of an interesting thing.
54:51
You know what I mean?
54:52
Yeah.
54:53
But of course, but the, the proof that these words work is that they did work in this context
54:59
of the story.
55:00
It took like, you know, 300 pages to build up to that.
55:03
But when they kind of come out those words of the apostle Paul, they really hit you right
55:07
in the face, you know, because they're so beautiful.
55:10
And so, sir, I tell you where that came from Kyle, for me, because I'm not a particularly
55:15
religious person, I'm not a particular Bible reader or anything like that.
55:18
But my niece got married a few years ago, and she asked me to be the officiant at this,
55:24
at the ceremony.
55:25
Actually, her dad, my brother, married her earlier in a secret kind of ceremony, and
55:32
I was going to be the one that did it in public.
55:35
Okay.
55:36
And so I went to the book of common prayer.
55:37
I had to put together, you know, what am I going to say?
55:41
And all of the things that sort of grabbed me were from Paul's letter to the Corinthians.
55:47
You know, we see now through a glass darkly, but then face to face and, you know, love
55:51
suffer, all things, believe it, all things, et cetera, et cetera.
55:55
And so that was kind of in my brain, somewhat, you know, like I say, creativity is a strange
56:01
thing.
56:02
I'm sure that went into the computer, the mental computer, and came out a few years
56:08
later.
56:09
And I just thought those words are so such poetry, they're so powerful.
56:14
You can see how those, I mean, more than the, the gospels in a way, those words are kind
56:21
of central to this new religion that did overthrow Rome.
56:26
And when you consider who Paul was as a person and who was prior to his conversion, that
56:32
carries with it.
56:33
Because when you talk to somebody, I've talked to a lot of people, because I am an evangelical,
56:37
I talk to them about what they believe and kind of, you know, the direction they're heading
56:41
with their life and kind of what is the ultimate destination for those people.
56:45
And you know, a lot of these people, they're like, Oh, I've, I've done too many bad things.
56:48
You know, I've, I've cheated on my taxes and I've cheated on my spouse and I was like,
56:52
so interesting.
56:53
Somebody, did you like go and have the support of the government to go and eradicate an entire
57:00
group of people?
57:01
No.
57:02
Okay.
57:03
Well, Jesus died for, for that person too.
57:05
I think his, his blood is sufficient enough to cover yours.
57:08
But again, I'm not going to, I'm not going to sermonize here because I've got one question
57:11
left for you before we got to let you go.
57:14
And you kind of talked about a little bit earlier.
57:16
And I was just going to ask you, will we see another book detailing what happens next
57:20
for Telamon and Ruth?
57:22
And I guess that is the question because you kind of said you, you want to keep this kind
57:27
of transformation of Telamon from the inside out going, but is Ruth going to be tagging
57:31
along in this potential future novel, which should come soon?
57:35
I mean, I don't, I don't know because things, it's so strange.
57:39
You don't, you wait for the story, but I certainly think she would be very much in there.
57:44
If not the dominant character in there, in fact, she probably will be the dominant character
57:48
in there.
57:49
But, you know, I, I just, I'm waiting, I'm waiting for the views to inspire me.
57:54
I'm not sure what, what that will be.
57:56
But definitely he's, he's got to go on farther and, and she's got to be a central character
58:01
in it.
58:02
Why I'm very much looking forward to that.
58:04
And I know our listeners are as well, but that is all for me.
58:07
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
58:09
I just want, while we're giving spoilers away, the reason that I picked the name Ruth for
58:15
the character is from that, which is quoted, the sorceress says it in the book, the, which
58:21
to me has always been one of the most moving passages.
58:24
You know, I, I'm a King James Bible guy.
58:28
And, you know, when Ruth says to Naomi, um, entreat me not to leave the, or to refrain
58:34
from following after the for wither thou go or stye will go, et cetera, et cetera, et
58:39
cetera.
58:40
I, to me, that's what we were talking before, what I was saying before about us being all
58:44
one on the higher dimension that the Spartans believe that in Jesus and et cetera, et cetera,
58:51
that expression of Ruth to Naomi that, you know, I'm with you, I am not going to leave
58:57
you ever, you know, um, if ought, but death part of the and me.
59:03
So that was what I, I wanted the character of Ruth to be bound both to the character
59:07
of Michael, her, you know, erstwhile father, and to tell them on, and that that would be
59:14
the character, her single characteristic, most most dominant characteristic was the bond
59:20
that she would create with these two men, and then nothing was going to break that bond.
59:26
And I think that's in many ways, the most powerful thing in world, father to child, whatever
59:31
you want to call it, husband to wife.
59:34
It's the most powerful thing.
59:35
And that's what gave her her power in my opinion.
59:37
Excellent.
59:38
Well, that is a tremendous little tidbit, especially for those of you that read the book.
59:42
But again, we really appreciate you coming back on Stephen Pressfield.
59:45
Thanks for coming back on undaunted life of man's podcast.
59:48
Hey, thanks, Colin.
59:49
I got to say to you, I really, nobody has asked me the questions that you're asking me, and
59:54
they're really terrific, they really are going straight to the heart of everything.
59:57
So I take my hat off to you, whatever you're doing, you're keep doing it.
1:00:01
You're doing great.
1:00:02
All right.
1:00:03
We'll call it the muse at this point, or maybe God, whatever.
1:00:05
All right, Stephen.
1:00:06
Thanks so much.
1:00:07
Okay.
1:00:08
Thanks, Kyle.