Mind Meld 124 | I’m Nothing, Thank God! with Myq Kaplan

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Comedian and podcaster Myq Kaplan enters the mind meld to chat psychic dogs, perception and unimaginable tidal waves of mystery. 

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Nobody really knows how their creative output is going to impact people. Some people have a knack, sure, but if you press them on the particulars of their craft, it it’s going to come down to this– They just do what they do over and over again until it works. Even the most brilliant creatives haven’t decoded the inner-workings of their audience’s mind.

During these intros for example, or hell, even Third Eye Drops at large, I’m mostly massaging my own soul. I’m doing what amounts to some sort of cathartic wonder-injection, or whatever my goal is for each particular creative transmission. Even if I were to focus on conjuring up what I think is relevant to you all, I’m still just using my imagination. I’m making a hypothesis informed by my own subjectivity. That’s all I can do (especially because I’m babbling away in a room by myself most of the time).

So, if I bomb, I bomb. If I harmonize, I harmonize.

At least when I put out a stinker, I don’t have to suck one in front of people, live. Which, I guess, is actually a good segue, because comedy requires just that. It’s a craft that forces you to stand up on a stage and let it fly. You’ve gotta be so confident that what you’re going to say will be amusing that you’re willing to suffer to prove it. 

Not only is our partner in this mind meld, Myq Kaplan, a fantastic comedian who’s out there doing exactly what I just described for a living, he’s considered all of the psychic angles of creation in a way few that comedians have; all of the above and more. I say that with confidence from the conversation we had, due to the unique flavor of his comedy and because the man has surfed the psychic swells of psychonautic exploration extensively.

Musings in this mind meld 

• Psychic Dogs?
• Psychics, premonitions and psychology
• Maybe we’re psychics but our extra-perceptory sense sucks
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Why before things happen they’re interesting after they’ve happened, they’re not
• Dan Ariely,The Honest Truth about Dishonesty
• People over-inflate their ability to predict what’s going to happen
• “I wasn’t terrified before I existed”
• Siri can’t find anything about death and rebirth
• Sometimes it feels good to realize you’re tiny and helpless in the shadow of the universe
• The Dunning-Kruger effect and why people over-estimate their cognitive abilities