The 2 main points he makes in both videos is that we need each other for change to happen (whether it is personal or cultural change) and that it is important to nurture a sense of connection with something beyond our material lives – whatever we call it – God, Gods and Goddesses, the Divine, Spirit, Life, Source, Energy or Deeper Reality.
And my own experience is that making space and taking the time to connect with this place deep within me and beyond me, nurture that connection, is essential for everything. For my being, my thinking, my feeling, my doing, my talking. It is an anchor for me and an eternal source of love.
Though the word love and idea of love does not capture it at all.
It is unconditional, un-understandable, beyond duality and transactions.
And I don’t find it straight forward to stay connected to this – sometimes I even forget it or stop believing it really exists. It looks like some figment of my useless, childish, irrational imagination…
When I am combined with fear, I don’t come up with good solutions to my problems (…) Fear is a kind of intelligence – so there is information in fear. Fear is a type of awareness. It is stimulating, elevating, it’s useful, it is a tool (…) When it becomes an endless pirouette of force, an endless carousel of feelings, you are in trouble.
Russell Brand
Anger can be a great motivator, to move in to different situations, to confront things you don’t agree with. If you are not in a position to have those confrontations, if you don’t think it will be advantageous to have confrontations, then the anger has to be processed differently.
Russell Brand
Regardless of our politics, regardless of our beliefs. I feel we need to learn how to communicate with one another better, we need to decide who we want to be as individuals, as communities and as a collective. And if we don’t do that – if we stay in the divisions, if we stay in the fear – I feel like we are not going to create a very beautiful culture (…) I feel like we have an obligation to start looking at things differently, to start looking at ‘what are the solutions going to be?’
Russel Brand
In this one he talks about addiction and distress. He makes a couple of points.
The sense of community, that comes from being with other people that identify – not on the basis of some pose, some posture of achievement and success – but on the basis of vulnerability. Meeting people at the point of the wound. That is magical. To listen to other people, because we meet in support groups and hear each others stories and support one another, it inspires you to believe, that you yourself can change.
Russell Brand
By making addiction and mental illness a disease of the individual, you can avoid social responsibility. You can avoid the conclusion that we live in cultures that stimulate fear and desire…
Russell Brand
Living Life Gently 