Full transcript: Dave Rees on London Real
0:28 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is London Real’s very own David Rees, our motion graphics designer who has just come back from spending eight days and seven nights homeless in London. David, welcome to London Real.
0:42 David Rees: Thanks very much. Thanks very much. Emotional being back. I believe. I believe it is.
0:47 Brian Rose: You know, as opposed to just coming back and telling us all about it in studio, I figured we better well go live so you can tell everybody about this experience and so just to give it some context before I start asking you every book because just for the record I have not spoke to Dave about this at all and I’ve asked him not to tell anybody about it this morning in the studio which is hard but a couple months ago I remember you saying Brian I’m gonna try to spend seven days homeless at the end of December can I have the time off and I remember you know I’ve been around for a long time but I haven’t got that request before as the head of a company and so I started to ask you more questions about it and maybe you can tell us a little of the background before we get into it but I remember thinking wow that’s a tall order it’s gonna be cold I remember I’ve been thinking about this whole kind of Vipassana retreats where you go and you don’t talk to people and you meditate every day but this is kind of in a weird way something like that plus you deal with the elements and all this other stuff that’s what I yeah that’s what I thought and so you know I
1:54 Was I was really impressed that you were doing it and I also know that you didn’t necessarily want to document it or talk about it so so by the way this this wasn’t scheduled and I don’t think you wanted to necessarily talk about it well maybe even give us some background on the whole thing
2:19 David Rees: okay where to begin right so in a nutshell the reason I’m doing this it’s not just like a solo adventure you know like something off my bucket list it’s it’s not that there’s there’s a deeper more honorable reason for me doing this and reason being the been the correct word almost right I’ll say why in a second a few years ago me and a bunch of my friends went away and did ayahuasca for my birthday I think it was 32nd birthday and one of the guys who came with us my friend Sam Sam reason his name and tragically after doing ayahuasca with us killed himself Maybe two months, two months following the ceremony, he tragically jumped in front of a train at Baker Street station one morning, like, oh, nowhere, only left the house to get a haircut, right? Nobody saw this coming.
3:24 No signs of that. zero zero yeah nobody saw it coming he was a guy who had his act together man he was fan of the show just to follow he was a London realer yeah he had a meditation class her hot girlfriend just moved in with her got a dog together the works man yeah and just one morning he just this came out of the blue
3:52 Brian Rose: which is not a typical reaction to an ayahuasca ceremony usually you have transformations you go in but usually you kind of come out with some change and some hope right
4:07 David Rees: yeah yeah this is a rare very very rare freak occurrence but I’m briefly his backstory he had I’ve since found out that he’s got a hell of a lot of childhood trauma that he was dealing with, come back from Iraq. And I remember he told me he had seen some very disturbing things at war that he had trouble living with. So whether he was involved in anything, saw anything, was forced to do anything, who knows. He never went in a deal.
4:44 But what I can only guess is that when he did ayahuasca it had unbottled a lot that he wasn’t prepared for. Because you can have things buried in your body, in your subconscious, in your spirit, like from past lifetimes even, let alone from childhood and when you take iWASKA that stuff comes to the surface and that’s the challenge is then integrated into back into society and back into your life with this new potentially swamp of emotion that you’ve got to live with now and I believe and that’s from what my friends believe is that’s what’s happened to him. So he, when it did ayahuasca with us, unbottled some stuff he was not prepared for and couldn’t live with it.
5:48 Brian Rose: How many months later was it after the ceremony?
5:53 David Rees: It was like six or seven weeks. Wow, okay. So like it’s definitely connected. Okay. Like I do believe that had he not done ayahuasca he although he may be living with emotional problems he’d probably still be with us right so I have a certain sense of or feeling of responsibility like not that I have blood on my hands but had he not met me or had he not come in contact to me and the group of friends I had then he might still be around so I I felt well okay okay that’s one side of yeah that’s one so I had tremendous healing from your ayahuasca sure sure but coming back that quickly before he died he said he wanted to do seven days being homeless he just never got around to it and why he did a again going back to the military stuff
7:03 He I feel like he’s trying to wipe out a lot of bad karma okay like he was just trying to whatever the hell he was involved with in the army how would going seven days homeless achieve that did he ever say why it was one of the last things he said to me as well like we went for a drink the weekend before he died I remember him sitting and I thought he was insane I was a dude you off your fucking head, you’re gonna seven days be homeless, you know what I’m saying? I was like, I would never do that. I was convinced at the time, I was like, dude you’re on your own man, I’d never do that shit. But he said that that was one of the last things he said to me that he was gonna do. Yeah, and then the following week, yeah, he checked out though.
7:50 But that’s the reason that I went through with this. This is honoring his memory this is one of the last things he never got around to doing was like dude you didn’t have a chance to do it I’ll take your place I was like I I’ll do it for you to honor our friendship your memory it just I feel like you like there’s almost brotherhood like it was like this I don’t warrior thing happening. And honestly, there’s seven days.
8:29 Brian Rose: What made you to finally decide to do it now?
8:33 David Rees: I’ve been talking about it for a long time. I think this was four years ago that he died, but now seemed universally like the right time. Like I’m probably going to go quite cosmic with what we’re talking about because there’s a there’s a spirit to what’s happening to to my life to my incarnation to me even down to me working here me sitting in this chair right now there is there are divine forces at work here that beyond the what we can perceive David Ike talked about it Dorian Yeats talked about it, Edo’s talked about it but there are higher powers operating on the fringes of this reality, almost like moving chess pieces, you know, making sure the right circumstances and the right opportunities align with the person you are, your vibration, the way you’re living your life, gravitationally you will pull the right people, the right surroundings, the right opportunities around you, and this challenge, if you want to call it that, this crusade, whatever you want to call it, it’s the stars aligned that this is the right time.
9:51 And it’s synchronistically happened just suddenly when all of a sudden I’ve got a platform for potentially thousands and thousands of people hearing about what I’ve done. It started out that I was going to do this for charity. Yeah, I’ll raise some money, I’ll try and raise five or ten grand and donated to a homeless charity and that was the plan to begin with but as I started to do that and as I started to tell people and getting to like I know I’ve got friends who were wealthy who would put money into this sort of thing I could feel that this was now straying from the point of why I was going through with this.
10:39 This suddenly was becoming an ego trip. This was becoming, look at me. It was this, oh, look at me. It was because- It was kind of performative. Yeah, right, and that, I could sense then.
10:52 It was just morally, I could feel it. I was like, this isn’t about Sam anymore. This is now about me, and taking a spotlight and stealing his thunder. So, as soon as that started to dawn on me, I thought, yeah, I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s only, like, none of my family know I’ve done this, like, there’s only, I’ve probably come to one hand, the amount of other people that I’ve told, it’s just you guys, because I had to book it off work, but know that I’ve been through, like, what I’ve just done.
11:26 David Rees: What was the question again?
11:28 Brian Rose: No, I think you answered it. So that was kind of why now so let me ask you what how do you prepare for something like this? Like in a nutshell like coming up the week to it before you go in for that first day How do you mentally prepare physically? I know you had been speaking to some homeless people and giving them some money asking for tips things like that But but how do you prepare?
11:56 David Rees: The actual prep I set aside a day for it. Yeah granted, for the last few months I’ve been speaking to homeless people almost buying advice off them, I’d sit with them and I’d like give them 5 quid and I’d mine wisdom out them sitting there just in the same way you’re doing this man, sit there on my lunch breaks and I’d spend 15 minutes sitting with a homeless kid outside. and I’m just getting like things like is it a territorial thing is there are you have you got to be careful not to be on other people’s patches is there like little crews you know where’s the best place to sleep do you get defensive about your little areas all this sort of thing you know is it dangerous to people trying fuck with you in the night this sort of thing it was more safety was one of the one of the big concerns of mine because without sounding egotistical right it’s I’ve never in my entire life been consumed for physical harm like I’m six foot town skinhead right it doesn’t I’ve never experienced proper trouble in my adult life. However, doing this thing man, I’ve never been so afraid. Like a child, like crying and stuff man, it’s terrifying. But coming back to what you’re saying, the prep I left down to one day, I give myself a day of prep, I finished work on the Friday, Saturday then, that was my first day of sort of getting used to this homeless thing, right?
13:39 And the way I did it, I did it with no money, no phone, no oyster card, no cards, no wallet, nothing. I hid my front door key, couldn’t even get back in the house if I wanted to, right? Gave my front door key to my landlady and I was like, right, I’m coming back in seven days, don’t let me in.
14:01 Brian Rose: And you burned the ships.
14:03 David Rees: Hell yeah.
14:04 Brian Rose: You couldn’t come back.
14:05 David Rees: That’s the point. I knew in my head, if I had an easy way out, when times get tough, I might just be like, oh, fuck it, man. I’ve done two days. That’s good enough.
14:13 David Rees: I’d rather, like, okay, like, have to survive here, right? And I went out.
14:16 Brian Rose: Because I asked you before you left, and I’m like, how long are you going to go? And you’re like, well, I’m going to shoot for seven, but I don’t know how it’s going to go. And then when you came back and I found out you did seven nights in eight days, I I was like, wow, because it would have been easy.
14:30 David Rees: Two days, 48 hours, anyone who’s watching this or anyone who’s inspired to maybe do something, do 48 hours, more than enough. More than enough, right? By day three, every cell in my body wanted to quit. I was cold, hungry, broke, terrified, traumatizing.
14:57 Brian Rose: Okay, I want to get to that day three. What was that first day of prep then? You went out there and just…
15:02 David Rees: Oh, right, right. Yeah, so, first day, so I left the house with only what I was wearing, right?
15:07 So I had a pair of combat, two hoodies, and that was it. And I thought, you know what, worst case scenario, imagine my house burnt down. I’ve got nothing. Imagine I’m a refugee. Like, how the hell do these guys do it?
15:21 It’s like and in a way I feel almost that I’m making too much of a song and dance about it because it’s people live like this like I’m not doing anything special people have been living like this up until what 200 years ago or something people have lived like this just having the items you have living in shelters and just braving the elements like I’m not doing anything really that special, right? Like when you think of people who survived, you know, weapon attacks and war zones and stuff, people have lost arms and then have to live like this, right? So I thought, right, imagine my house burnt down, I’ve got no money, no possessions, no nothing, right? What do I do? First port of call sounds, right?
16:10 Panic stations. Where do I go? What do I do? What’s the first thing I do? And I remembered back then to some of the homeless people I spoke to, and they were like okay first place you want to go is a Salvation Army right in the church so walked did everything on foot right so I probably covered hundred miles over the last week of just walking right I walked straight to the church luckily there was someone there they were having like a tea and biscuits kind of thing at the church and the church give me all the bare essentials I needed man I swear to god the church does more for for homeless people and good and good deeds than I ever realized I had no idea you give me a sleeping bag really huge yes and I’m talking like a thermal sleeping bag one that’s like Arctic people use man thick thing was heavy a sleeping bag a big thick kind of workers jacket with a huge thing loads of pockets on it and stuff like that at a thermal hat like by the end of the first day right I sort of got I did not spend a penny and I tricked myself out with everything I needed to survive a week I and I either found it hustled it but given it or I’ve donated it by the church I’m talking like the universe literally spoon fed me every single item that I need it down to turn to find in like a lighter down to find in like I’m talking I had one of those big like expedition rucksacks right I found it on the side of the road right I’m literally I’ve got all this sleeping bags I’m
18:00 Carrying this shit I need a rucksack I as I thought that I kid you not I look across the street and it’s starting to get dark and between two bins I see like I was like, what the hell was that? Across the road, huge rucksack, right? I was like, bloody hell, okay, there is a god, I’m now a believer, right? This has been sent to me, right? So I pack this thing, right?
18:25 As I put it on, I hear, what’s that sound? It’s like a little zip, I open it, it’s £2.50 in it. I’m like, oh my god, I got money as well. It was like.
18:34 Brian Rose: It’s crazy, because a lot of people think that if you ever run out of money, then you’ll have nothing and you’ll die and all that stuff, but it’s like, there’s always another level.
18:45 There’s always things that will, people that will provide or things that can be provided.
18:52 David Rees: I went the whole week, I spent less than seven pounds the whole week, and I left with nothing. I left with nothing, not a penny on me. And in fact, at the end of the week, I still had 250 left, which I gave to a homeless person As I finished because I was like technically this doesn’t belong to me. This is kind of Value this this currency has been kind of transferred to me. I’m just passing on the bat. I’m gonna give it to someone else, but
19:25 Brian Rose: Okay, so you start off you got the sleeping bag you got all the clothes sounds like it’s gonna be an awesome week
19:34 David Rees: Honestly the first day the first day I was like this is gonna be a walk in the park, dude man like this is gonna fly by, gonna have a gnarly story to tell people and instantly I get then this this is another thing I look it’s it’s the ego like you’re talking about Vipassana earlier noticing being able to from a bird’s-eye view notice the mechanism this ego is a slippery character man And it loves taking ownership and recognition and that sort of thing.
20:08 It’s very, very expertly skilled in finding crafty ways to feel special and feel superior. So this whole thing, the sense of humility that I’ve somehow learnt over the last seven days man. It’s been a huge test of character.
20:27 Brian Rose: What was that first night like?
20:30 David Rees: Well the first day was the prep day. I actually spent that. Like I slept on the floor that night in my house just to get used to sleeping there. Then the first day I think I left the house at 10 a.m. I thought right I’m not allowed back in this house until 10 a.m. the following week. First night where did I stay?
20:57 Brian Rose: 10 a.m. what are you doing for the first 12 hours are you walking around do you talk with other people because you know on the on our on our programs life accelerator we do a low-media diet which means you can’t check your phone and do all that stuff you are by definition on a low-media diet you got nothing to read you got no one to talk to you got no I mean that that adds up too because you’re in your head the whole time yeah
21:29 David Rees: and that’s what I mean that’s why like this whole thing became almost like an iOS experience or a personal experience because when you haven’t got anything to distract you in the way of your phone or alcohol or any cruxes people have drugs or you know like stimuli and you’re left with yourself and then that’s when you know like emotion starts to come up and you start to question your life and that sort of thing but like the first night well the first day because I had I had £2.50 that I’d found in the rucksack the first the first day I sat outside boots at Liverpool Street station with a little cup so and the plan was I’ll just do what homeless people do I was beg all day and and then I don’t know that that will feed me but at the end of the first day I’d made like 12 quid.
22:28 Brian Rose: What did it feel like begging and how did it how did people treat you?
22:33 David Rees: Very mixed emotion very mixed emotion but begging I think was very good for me in the sense of being able to like a monk to be able to transcend caring what people thought
22:46 About me like again it’s an ego thing because there’s the part of me that holds myself in very high regard that’s prepared to sit on cardboard boxes with a cup in front of me sitting there looking sorry for myself and people giving me change in things and that it’s very strange to to suddenly be in that situation I was like holy shit this is what it feels like but the thing was after the first day it was I’d made 12 quid I’m there about and I thought I it felt wrong suddenly me because essentially I’m a tourist doing this man I’m gonna pass it by you I’m not doing I’m not fully doing this for real but I had I had 12 quid I was like that was I could comfortably in my head I was like look if I just do this every day I’m gonna make 10 15 quid a day it’s enough to eat eat I can sit here I could probably get drunk if I wanted to I could eat biscuits I’m not gonna have such a hard time really I was like that’s not what I’m doing I was like the whole point of this is to really test myself and live like like tears outside my comfort zone I thought right what’s a better test is if I don’t beg and with this money this is gonna last me and feed me for the rest of the week all right so what I have here is now it I’m not allowed to take or accept money off anyone and this sort of thing this money has to feed me and cut coffee anything I need throughout the week this This is it, this is my budget.
24:32 So I lived on less than a pound a day.
24:35 Brian Rose: How do you do that? What do you eat on less than a pound a day?
24:39 David Rees: I would go to Tesco’s. I would get a loaf of cheap white bread, man.
24:44 David Rees: It’s a ghastly diet, but it was like being a student, right?
24:48 Brian Rose: You’re a guy who takes his time very seriously, like the rest of us do here. But you’re on keto. You’re eating healthy stuff. You train hard.
24:56 David Rees: Vegetarian, like that all had to go out the window. eating meat or had to eat just horrible processed carbs and stuff man but that’s really it’s survival like this isn’t about you know keep my body fat level as you know a certain level this is like okay this is do you want to live you eat this shit man this this is gonna keep you alive so a loaf of bread usually every day that cost me 40 something P a tin of beans I can get ten beans for 28 pence and then dessert was a custard creams, 47p, you get a huge bag of custard creams and they would last me man, it was 400 grams, it’s the same as with lawful bread and I would just sit there and I’d eat these things and that’s what I lived on, I spent less on a pound a day.
25:46 Brian Rose: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah first night. Where did you sleep?
25:50 David Rees: I Tried to sleep. I had a move spot. I was outside boots pharmacy Liverpool Street station in the doorway inside the station Yeah, so the Broad Street or whatever. Yeah, it outside the station. Yeah a little bit outside the station Yeah, you know, so I there well it started off because that’s where that’s where my cup was and I was sat down I was like, oh, it’s a decent doorway, there’s a pub next door to it, like there’s drunk people coming out giving me money.
26:22 And I was like, okay, this is a work. And I thought, because I didn’t have any other mental reference of where to go, I was like, okay, well, this is where homeless people, let’s do some homeless shit, man, right? This is it, this is the spot. I got a sleeping bag out and I put it on and it’s cold as hell, dude, like it’s so cold. I’m in this thing, this is a thermal sleeping bag that like adventurers use and stuff and I got the hood on I’m sitting, I’m shrieking, I’m shrieking But it wasn’t the cold that was hard. It was suddenly I was very aware that I’m alone and It was the safety thing that like that it was like alarm bells. Just like holy shit, dude What the hell are you doing? Get out, abort mission, go home. Come on, you’re giving it a good shot.
27:15 This’ll do, look, you’ve proved your point. You could lie, no one would ever find out, man. You get away with this, and all this is going on in my head, honestly, and that’s the mental battle that you’re trying to… You’re trying to sort of, I suppose, marathon runners or sealers and stuff, you know, when they’re going through training, all this shit that’s going on in their head, trying to dissociate from that and just Like, accept the situation and what kept me awake, I’d lie there for like four hours when I was shaking and people were walking in shits right by me, by looking at me.
27:55 Some dude came by and stole money out of my cup and stole, I could see his, because I was facing like the window and I could see the reflection. homeless dude or just a regular dude I couldn’t tell okay but if he’s homeless hell he needs it more than I do I saw it in my head I’m like but it got to a point where I was like okay this is not a good spot man okay let’s think many feet right right let’s move I just thought right unzip the sleeping bag got my stuff together put my put my rucksack on and the first night I managed to sleep was outside the fire station at Old Street okay yeah cuz it’s weird we didn’t bump into you yeah well it thing was because it’s got and they’re doing some building work so it’s got an overhead and in my head there’s there’s almost a formula to find in a good spot to sleep in mine you want your back against the wall so that you can see your archivision is out there you can see anything coming towards you and you want about 10 or 15 feet between where you’re at and a pavement so you can cure any footsteps and anything but you want back against the wall looking out.
29:14 Brian Rose: And you felt scared?
29:15 David Rees: Terrified. I was not expecting it. I honestly thought that like because you had to sleep
29:21 Brian Rose: And when you’re sleeping, you can’t protect yourself?
29:24 David Rees: Well, yeah, it is, because you have to be… When you’re inside a sleeping bag, you’ve got to do yourself up.
29:31 Brian Rose: Oh, so you can’t… So you are… You’re a sitting duck. If you’re a sitting duck…
29:38 David Rees: Yeah, like, I’m talking like…
29:40 David Rees: Because your arms are pinned to your chest to stay warm, and this thing is zipped up to here, if any nutcase comes up in the night, some drunk or gang of kids or just anybody having a bad day who wants to take it out on someone I’m just I’m a punching bag I just cannot escape and that and even getting out in the morning is tough because it’s velcro thing.
30:07 Brian Rose: How many hours of sleep were you able to get a night?
30:11 David Rees: Not much.
30:11 Brian Rose: Were you sleep to five the whole time?
30:14 David Rees: Yeah two or three.
30:16 Brian Rose: So by day three four and five you must be going out of mind. Did you know you were going out of your mind?
30:24 David Rees: By day six, by day six, I thought I was delirious almost man. Because of the sleep depth. I think so. Or everything. Well I’ve heard from therapists and stuff that when your sleep deprived your emotions 10x and 100x so anything you’re going through is amplified just exponentially and by day six there were moments where I forgot that I was doing a seven-day thing and this was now reality and I forgot that I had a real life to go back to oh my god this is my reality and even things like scenarios going through your head like what if I’m crazy what if I haven’t got a nice job to go back to what if I’ve always been like this and I’m psychotic and all that is a hallucination. I’ve always been homeless. It’s like your mind plays tricks on you. You go round and round in circles.
31:22 Sleep deprivation was tough. And most homeless people are probably sleep deprived. Yeah but I can understand now why a lot of them drink. Like not all. Like I met some amazing characters doing this thing man. Like I wasn’t expecting some amazing down-to-earth, generous, salt-of-the-earth kind of, you know, heart on their sleeve guys, man, I’ve met doing this. I’ve also met the other side which are like crackheads and drunk people and violent lunatics and this sort of thing like it’s you the beauty of it was almost passively just being a complete outside of society being able to kind of look as it like a spectator at this whole ecosystem operate and the whole matrix just seeing it just just being able to sit there he’s got I’m not part of this I’m sorry fly on the wall this whole Organism just pulsing and people going to work and the money and the it’s insane and just thing like Wow this is Like planet Earth like it’s like coming from outer space and just
32:40 Brian Rose: You said you understand why they drink or do drugs. Can you explain that?
32:46 David Rees: Yeah, like if that was my reality Talk and I had no way out Yeah, you can see why you can see why on anything any sort of comfort be like it’s human nature it’s like look whenever you’re depressed lonely upset just life is getting to you what do you do what’s the first thing you do you reach for things and make you comfortable instantly whether it’s a cup of tea Facebook drugs pornography escape
33:18 Anything like even down to meditation that can be a thing that you escape the world with. It’s human nature you just want an end to pain and you think fuck man if 24 hours a day man that’s how you live hell yeah man anything to take the edge off I’d be getting drunk.
33:38 Brian Rose: Did you think about drinking?
33:41 David Rees: No no I didn’t I’m only because I don’t drink much anyway but one of the guys at the whole machete was saying if you if you drink alcohol apparently it somehow affects your body temperature so it’s like if you’re gonna get drunk in the night to make you even more cold and I was like yeah screw that man
34:04 Brian Rose: okay do you ever think about sleeping in a church was that an option could you nap in the church during the day
34:12 David Rees: churches around here would actually open in the day apart from a drop-in but to be honest I slept mostly in the daytime it was parks and things but I did actually sleep in a church one night to put outside the church because it seemed pretty safe.
34:31 Brian Rose: What do you do all night if you’re not sleeping?
34:35 David Rees: I mean I sleep with one eye open like that that’s how I kind of learned to sleep was like I have this sleeping bag up napping every now and again just have one eye open. I’d probably do off again for 10-15 minutes and then okay it was like but strangely man you I did tap into something strangely primal and cave manage while I’m doing this and it was a weird sense of like perverse enjoyment at some points when am I surviving I’m just like this is as real
35:10 As it goddamn gets like nothing like this is a back-to-basement it’s back to basics caveman stony and shit like this this like and there was something like satisfying about empowering knowing things without money without you can you can survive and yeah and that’s what I kept telling myself every single day I I wake up, and it’s like, no matter what happens in life, this is, aside from injury, physical injury, losing a limb or something, this is as bad as it gets, like really, like nothing else the universe can throw at me gets worse than right here, right now. So I was like, okay, well there’s a strange sense of freedom that you get from that, because now you’re like, right, I’ve rehearsed the worst-case scenario, I know how this feels, and Seneca talks about it, right, stoic philosopher, and one of the passages, one of the chapters in his book is rehearsing the worst-case scenario, like one of some of the exercises he suggests is like live off one pound or a gimme or a piece of gold.
36:31 Brian Rose: Did he go homeless or something at one point?
36:34 David Rees: I don’t know, something like that.
36:37 Brian Rose: He did something like that.
36:39 David Rees: Yeah, but he says if you, one of the big stoic exercises, if you can rehearse the worst-case scenario, suddenly you’re not afraid. It is like you have another sense of now you felt that you’ve got a reference point and now I’ve rehearsed that I’m not gonna say it doesn’t scare me because it does like don’t terrify me now like have you haven’t lived like that like having experienced those seven days I’m not I’m not totally conditioned to it like that would frighten the hell out of me if that’s how I had to live and that was constantly going through my mind was what if this was real how long would it take me to get back on my feet if this was the real situation and I was plotting it out because the only thing I took with me was a pen and paper that was the only thing that I allowed myself just just to make notes and keep track and I was almost like doing the maths of like okay let’s say I could make this much a day Okay, how many days would that take of saving minus my overheads, which is on my diet and then and if you came business model of How long would it take me?
37:59 Literally to get out of my head and to get myself a part-time job and from there I can get a phone I can get this and I Think I could do it It’d be a couple of months.
38:10 Brian Rose: Okay. Let me ask you a question. When you’re sitting there on the ground outside of Boots and people are giving you those donations that first day, and then as you go throughout day two and day three, at some point, are you looking at everyone, because we’re in central London, right? And you’re obviously, for people that don’t know, you’re in the middle of the financial district.
38:35 You’ve got the high rises and skyscrapers and, you know, tons of wealth and people spending money and the rat race, and you’re watching all these people run from A to B from A to B who are doing this crazy stuff to get this money to spend it done things that they might not need and you’re looking at them thinking wow look at all of you fools yeah like do you ever get that feeling clarity yeah but
39:06 David Rees: yeah it’s just second in everything you just said yes I experienced every everything you just talked about I’m just like man we are in this we’ve built our own prison in a way but on the flip side of that it’s like what’s the alternative nobody we’re in one of the most prosperous parts of the world you’ve got you know the most developed the great health care we’ve got schools we’ve God, you know as a society we’ve got it going on man. We’re bawling but We’ve built we’ve built this kind of Gilded prison around us What’s the alternative like no one throughout society has yet come up with a better solution to this kind of Frantically working your dick off trying to get money to buy shit. You don’t need like there’s not right
40:03 Brian Rose: Okay, so you you recognize it, but you didn’t judge it. You’re like, okay. It is what it is, man. It’s existence. It’s what you can’t until someone invents an app Something like it’s impossible to quantify. This is utopian Society like how would that operate?
40:23 Brian Rose: I’m working so let me ask you what was your best experience and worst experience from the seven days and when I’m saying best Did you ever have this like kind of beautiful moment of clarity? Yeah, I’m assuming you did where you just look out and the Sun is shining and you’re like, wow Yeah, and then what can you explain that and then what was the worst? one of some
40:50 David Rees: Excuse me, I Experience both ends of the spectrum right both peaks of the graph the the most incredible profound beautiful generous acts of human nature. I’ve ever felt them brought me to tears. Just people giving me things or sometimes I didn’t give it giving me anything but sitting with me and just like dude how are you man? Because I seriously taught me what the hell’s going on.
41:18 Non-homeless people. Just regular people people who just care and they’re like man what’s going on like how the hell this cold man’s raining what are you doing here? And just knowing that they’re in the minority, but there are human beings out there who have a bone in their body that are just empathetic, want to care, that hates seeing this inequality. But not just that. Again, I come quickly to the spiritual side of it. I’m convinced that throughout this, man, I’ve had messengers come to me.
41:57 I don’t even call them like angels almost man because people like freakishly accurate things have happened like Synchronistically like like that night when I’m in the boots doorway Freeze it right and this dude comes up to me on my feet of freezing and he comes up to me He’s like I came out of the pub He’s like made like I just had a secret Santa man. I got socks. Do you want them? I was like three pairs of thermal socks, right? So I made the rest of the week I didn’t have cold feet. I had four pairs of socks on total and that’s just out of nowhere.
42:32 It just landed in my lap and the same thing like one night I was in a park and there’s nobody else there. I look shady as hell. I’m dressed all in black, got a big hood on. I’m sitting in this park with a nice rucksack next to me and I was like hell I wouldn’t have brought something in in the park who looked like that in the fucking middle of the night doing it. And out of nowhere this black dude appeared with dreads and he was like, bro, are you homeless? And I was like, I don’t even know where he came from. Like, I was literally the only, I went back against the wall, you see, everything, man. This dude appears and he goes, are you homeless?
43:12 I was like, yeah. And he just pulls out this huge parcel of food, like chocolate and stuff you’ve got my peace be with you I just give you a pound I just disappeared off in the night I was like holy shit I burst out crying like that was I’m convinced a divine moment where there was an angel or something I swear to God I this this whole seven days became spiritual experience just the right things happen in the right time, synchronistically.
43:39 Brian Rose: David, I talked about it, man. As soon as you align with what you’re doing, man, it’s like playing a video game. As soon as you align with what you’re doing, the universe will start throwing you bonuses.
43:52 David Rees: Exactly like playing a video game.
43:54 Brian Rose: You’re playing Mario Brothers. As soon as you get certain stages of the game, you get an extra life. You get a little thing that makes you grow bigger, or a little thing that makes you fly, or run faster.
44:07 David Rees: It was like that. You know, like finding the bag, funny people giving me food with socks coming I was just like god damn and and even like one morning I woke up in the churchyard and the same thing man there’s this black dude sitting there he goes bro do you want some money I was like nah and that that was the thing I eventually stopped telling people I couldn’t lie to people anymore and tell them oh yeah I’m homeless um so I started telling the truth I was like look she was a deal told him about my friend doing a seven day thing
44:40 And this dude goes, no way, I was like, yeah, why? And he goes, do you know what I’m reading? And he goes, it’s the daily stoic. Do you know what passage I’m reading? Continue watching this fascinating conversation for free by clicking on the link below to visit our website and I’ll see you on the inside.
