Robin Greenfield on the Rich Roll Podcast

What would life be like if it was premised on owning nothing rather than accumulating more?

While everyone’s existence orbits around possessions, one man is conducting a revolutionary experiment in radical simplicity that challenges our most fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human.

My guest today is Robin Greenfield, an environmental activist who has taken minimalism to its transcendental conclusion. A Thoreau-esque character for our digital age, he pushes the boundaries of essentialism to their outer limits in what amounts to performance art with purpose: shedding modern artifice to connect more deeply with himself and the planet. After walking 1,600 miles down the Pacific Coast with just 44 possessions, Robin arrived in Los Angeles, sat naked in Griffith Park, and relinquished everything — no ID, bank account, phone, or clothing — to live in nature, subsisting solely on strangers’ kindness.

“Whenever there’s a convenience, someone else is paying for it. Be it the Earth, other people, or plants and animals.”
– ROBIN GREENFIELD

Today, we discuss:

The 1,600 Mile Pacific Coast Walk
Living in Griffith Park with Zero Possessions
The Surprising Joy of Non-Attachment
Breaking the Spell of Consumer Culture
Earth Code: Living in Harmony with Nature

For those who prefer a visual experience, the conversation is available on YouTube. As always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Podcast short description:

Robin Greenfield is a transcendental environmental activist who has taken the concept of simplicity to its existential extreme.

This conversation explores how Robin’s radical approach to consumption challenges our assumptions about possessions, examining his 1,600-mile journey down the Pacific coast, his current experiment living in Griffith Park with absolutely nothing, the nature of contentment, our interdependence with Earth, and the liberation found in surrendering attachment.

At one point, he fashions a toothbrush from a California bay branch right before our eyes.

Robin is minimalism personified. This conversation will recalibrate your material perspective. Enjoy!

A personal note from Robin:

I am so deeply grateful to be in connection with Rich Roll. I have known of Rich for over a decade and have respected his work since I first came across him in ~2014. I was so elated to be invited onto his podcast. I am deeply appreciative of how much effort Rich put into this interview, having clearly researched my life’s work at a level I had never expected. I was thoroughly impressed at the depth that he took this conversation to. This conversation is one of the most thorough explorations of my purpose and my activism, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to share it with you.

Some small corrections from the writing on Rich Roll’s website:

In 2020, I had just 44 possessions; however, on the walk I had more, which are documented here.

Although, part of the experiment of non-ownership is the embrace of my interdependence with humanity, it is not accurate to say “subsisting solely on strangers’ kindness.” This experiment was a balance of this interdependence with humanity and also utilizing my skills and relationships with Earth and the plants and animals we share this home with. Also, I don’t live by the concept of strangers and many of the people who came to Griffith Park were people who have followed me for years and that I had formed meaningful relationships with in my last 15 years of activism.

Robin Greenfield on the Rich Roll Podcast in January 2025.

Robin sharing about walking barefoot on the Rich Roll Podcast.

Robin gifted his homemade shoes to Rich Roll.

Transcript: The following is a transcription of This Guy Literally Owns NOTHING: Find More Freedom With Less | Robin Greenfield.

“Here in the United States, we have five percent of the world’s population, but we consume 25 percent of the world’s resources. That, by definition, is extreme. The world can’t handle the way that we exist. The reason that I am so extreme is that I am a product of an extreme society.” Robin Greenfield

[Rich:] Robin Greenfield. He is minimalism in extremis personified. A sort of ‘Thoreauesque’ character for the digital age who is questioning the mores of modernity, pushing the outer boundaries of essentialism and non-ownership through what is sort of this evolving and very public form of performance art awakening in which he continues to shed himself of modern artifice and creature comforts of convenience in order to experience what he would describe as a deeper connection with himself, with others, with life and the planet.

[Robin:] My belief is that a quality existence takes a substantial amount of time. For me, that could mean growing my own food, foraging, harvesting rainwater, really putting deep practice into my relationships. Everything that brings the deepest value into my life takes real time.

[Rich:] Robin is a guy who has gone a year without showering, another year without buying any food, consuming only what he could grow or forage. He’s dumpster dived, done stints in New York City and Los Angeles where he consumed like an average citizen with his only rule being that he would literally wear on his body all the trash his consumption produced. But, none of this compares to Robin’s latest adventure.

After pushing a cart with his last 44 possessions down the Pacific Coast, Robin recently completed this walk in Los Angeles where he relinquished every last item he owned. No ID, no bank account, no phone, no laptop. He even stripped himself of every single item of clothing to take up residence in Griffith Park. Why would anybody do this? What is he trying to experience and what is he trying to communicate to all of us?

[Robin:] If I were just to summarize my life in one way, that could be it. “Live simply so that others may simply live.”

[Rich:] Brother Robin. So nice to finally meet you. I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time. You’ve been on a helluva journey. There’s tons to unpack.

[Robin:] Yes. And I do not know what we’re going to talk about. I want to see what Rich Roll is going to ask me.

[Rich:] I don’t either. Well, the first thing I want to say is, in kind of reflecting upon your life and these choices that you’ve made, there are a lot of parallels, I think, between your journey and that of many ultra endurance athletes that I know who kind of create their own bespoke audacious challenges that are designed, of course, to push themselves, but also to provoke interest, like wider interest in the mainstream around … often around an idea that they’re trying to advocate. And, like them, you’re somebody who creates challenges for yourself. They may be a little less athletic, perhaps, but no less daunting – more daunting, I would say: more existential, more ‘Thoreauesque’ in certain respects. These extreme experiments that show us what’s possible and what being human is really about.

[Robin:] I like the sound of that.
[Rich:] You like that? Is that a fair assessment? I mean, how do you think about these “endurance challenges,” you know, of your own design?

[Robin:] I completely agree. They are much less challenging physically than endurance athletes. But, they do require a lot of the same mental capacity and skillset that you would need in order to run ultra marathons or things like that. In the past, when I first started as an adventurer, I was more geared toward that. And then, I would say, over the years, became much more an explorer of my mind than the physical realm.

[Rich:] But that’s the evolution, right?
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] Transcending kind of one challenge and what is the next rung on the ladder toward my kind of transformation? And, it’s really a transcendental journey, I think, that you’re on.
[Robin:] Yeah.

[Rich:] How do you describe who you are and what you do to people who you meet who aren’t familiar with you?
[Robin:] So that is the hardest … I’m able to answer almost all questions, but that’s one of the ones I have the hardest … putting into a concise response, because I do … I am in a realm of exploring a lot of different areas. But, to put it simply, my objective is to try to exist on this Earth in a way that doesn’t destroy this only home that we have, and actually contribute to the regeneration of this world, and the reconnection of our humanity, and of having deeply meaningful relationships with the plants and animals that we share this home with. So, it’s a really, really simple concept: to simply exist in a way that doesn’t destroy the Earth that we have. That doesn’t contribute to such inequity and injustice and exploitation and extraction. At the very least, to live neutrally, to do no unnecessary harm, but at the very best, to have a life be a truly positive contribution. And to ascend delusionalism, not be … taking … doing good here, but the truth is behind the scenes in order to do good here, we’re actually taking part in exploitation and destruction here. And so, to look at the full picture of our existence, and in the complex times that we live in, dissect them to a level that very few people want to, because it’s very uncomfortable to realize the truth behind our lives. And then, live that, to the deepest levels that I can and then do that as a public experiment so that others can be on this journey with me and then explore their own minds and their own relationships.

[Rich:] Yeah, it’s not exactly an elevator pitch.
[Robin:] No.
[Rich:] It’s a mouthful.
[Robin:] Yes.
[Rich:] You know?
[Robin:] Yes.
[Rich:] I don’t know how you distill that down into anything more concise than what you just shared.
[Robin:] I would like to get my life down to a singular mission. That’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Just to have a lot of … just an utter singular mission. And a lot of the people who have inspired me, a lot of my influences … they have that. They have sort of a singular mission. Except that really when you actually read their full biographies and you actually look at the complexity of their lives, there is no singular mission because we’re taught … these are people who are trying to make meaningful contributions to society and their lives are complex. So, yeah, I am working on … at the heart of my existence is simplicity. Like, that’s from the core beginning, is living simplicity. Living simply. Gandhi is one of my biggest inspirations and he says, “Live simply so that others may simply live.” If I were to try to boil my life down into one singular mission, it would just be whatever Gandhi’s quotes are. Those are the ones where I’m like, yeah, that’s what I’d like to do if I just boiled it down to one simple mission. Live simply so that others may simply live.

[Rich:] But isn’t that, like, one spoke on the wheel of ahimsa? Like, living simply is an aspect of doing no harm, right? There’s a broader kind of sensibility here that’s rooted in strains of philosophical thought and, you know, various spiritual traditions as well. Like, is there one overarching philosophy that you draw upon or kind of tradition that is most influential in how you think about these things, make decisions, pursue your actions and advocacy?

[Robin:] Yeah, the answer to that is a very simple and clear ‘no.’ I do not draw from any one particular area. I get my inspiration from a wide range of human beings who are just ‘out there’ doing their things, shining their light. I actually, from the beginning, was very intentional about not gravitating toward any one particular thought pattern or practice because I wanted to formulate my own mind. And it’s so easy to gravitate into one label or one religion or one whatever and then not really form your own opinions. So my … who would have been my early heroes, like, you mentioned Thoreau, for example. I was very intentional to not read any Thoreau for a long time. And then, to be honest, the first couple times I read it, I didn’t understand it because it was writing from a hundred years ago. I just don’t always get it. But, yeah, I look at what I’m trying to … the philosophy that I’m practicing and working toward – a lot of it is pretty universal in the sense that the sky is above us, the earth is below us, that we are here on this planet with the plants and animals, that we as humanity … we are actually global neighbors and brothers and sisters. We’re actually far more connected than we are separate when you look at all of this. So, I really try to follow the absolute basics of what you could kind of consider universal truths. Of course, when you dissect anything, we don’t know what truth is. But, in the construct in which we live, universal truths. And when you look at these universal truths, of course you see they exist in so many areas. I would say some Buddhist teachings, definitely in the last years have become …. Well, right now, one of the very few things that I have with me is a song book by Thich Nhat Hanh. And I look through here and I think, “Yeah, this is very, very much in alignment with my basic beliefs.”

[Rich:] Yeah. There’s sort of a deconstruction here because obviously we’re all a product of our influences and experiences and they tend to kind of drive what we think and how we act. But for you to say, like, ‘I don’t want to be unduly influenced by all of that and want to kind of explore my mind from a sort of first principles perspective’ is to say … is a vote against separation and a vote for oneness. Like, if you’re saying, like connection is what it’s all about and there is no separation and it’s all One, to then say, ‘well, my thoughts … my thoughts and actions are in alignment with this tradition’ is to then create guardrails that separate more than they unite.

[Robin:] Yeah. And then the key is, of course, we have traditions and philosophies that, at their core, believe that we’re all connected and do not buy into the polarization, the separation. So teachers, for example, like Thich Nhat Hanh who I learn from … he was a Buddhist monk. But he didn’t have a religion. So, a lot of Buddhism, as you know, is not a religion. It’s just a very basic way of approaching the world.

So, any of the philosophies that I gravitate toward are the ones that say, ‘this is a way, not the way’ and it’s not dogmatic and labels. A lot of Indigenous wisdom or a lot of Indigenous creation stories or philosophies I also gravitate toward. Because like, right now, one of the few books that I had this year while I still owned some things is the “Thanksgiving Address” by the Haudenosaunee. It just gives thanks to 17 key elements of life: people, the Creator of Earth, Earth, Mother Earth, plants, animals, birds, trees, et cetera. And it doesn’t say anything about anything being bad or good, right or wrong, it just says we’re thankful for our presence and for all of the interconnectedness of life. So, I certainly gravitate toward certain practices. However, being in the time that we live in, in the 2000s, and growing up in this country, what we call the United States of America, the reality is that I grew up in a very fragmented society. I had no traditions, I had no lineage that I was connected to. I was part of a society that taught me radical individualism rather than community, taught me that I was separate from everything, not connected to. So that’s a huge part of the journey is breaking free from that … that, you could call it radical individualism and coming into these concepts such as Oneness that you mention, that some people hear that and they’re just like, “Woo woo.” But I truly believe that we can work on our minds and work on our relationships in a way where we actually do enter into a state of Oneness, or a relative state of Oneness. I’m excited to see what we talk about today because that’s kind of one of my big focuses right now.

[Rich:] Yeah. I want to get into your origin story and kind of what made you who you are today, but for people who are watching or listening who aren’t familiar like maybe this would be a good moment to just kind of talk about what you just did and what you’re now doing. You know, to kind of anchor this.

[Robin:] Sure.
[Rich:] So, basically, you just walked the Pacific Coast, 1600 miles, which culminated in you being in the Los Angeles area, where you have now basically set up residence in Griffith Park, and given away like every, you know … not that you really owned anything, but like, whatever you did own, you have now, you know, liberated yourself from and, not that this is a Buddhist practice per se, but you are living in this state of independence, dependence and interdependence, where you have no money, you have no bank account, you have no belongings, and you are kind of subsisting on the generosity of others in alignment with, you know, kind of the tunes of nature. That’s about what ….
[Robin:] Yeah. Well put.
[Rich:] Did I capture that?
[Robin:] Can you just … whenever anybody asks what I’m doing, can I just refer them to you?

[Rich:] Yeah. So … and this is just, you know, kind of the latest in many chapters of many adventures that you’ve gone on that we’ll talk about, but this is kind of where you’re at right now. So, what was the decision to embark upon this trek? What was that trek all about? What were you trying to do and accomplish and experience? And why are you doing what you’re doing right now?
[Robin:] Sure. Sure, sure, sure. Okay. I’ll try to wrap it up into a few minutes or so.
[Rich:] We have all day.
[Robin:] Alright. So, as far as where we’re at right now …. So, I have for at least eight years wanted to become ‘the human who owns nothing.’ To literally not have a single possession to my name. And I mean absolutely nothing. That’s been a long-term aspiration. Which, I’m sure, a lot of people would have a hard time wrapping their heads around because that’s the last thing in the world they want. Because their needs for safety, stability, security, belonging, acknowledgment – all of those things – they would see them being crumbled, you know, just crushed in being able to get there. For me, I saw this concept of owning absolutely nothing as a form of ultimate liberation and as an opportunity for me to practice so deeply what it is that I want from my life.

So, I actually always thought that I would do that. Recently, I gave up on that. I thought it wasn’t going to happen. We might come back to. But 13 months ago, I was actually sitting in Vipassana, which is a practice … I’m sure you know about Vipassana.
[Rich:] Sure.
[Robin:] So, I was sitting in Vipassana and it just sprang to me: I’m going to walk from Canada to Los Angeles, or Canada to Mexico. I wasn’t exactly sure where. And I had just wrapped … although I had been living simply for some time, in some ways, I had reentered the ‘rat race,’ with running a nonprofit, bringing in resources to manage a team and be able to share trees, fruit trees and seeds with people, I just found that I was actually back in the ‘rat race,’ even though it was for a different cause. It wasn’t for self-enrichment, it was for community enrichment. Here I was, struggling with just living a life of integrity, because of all of the chores and bills that existed within the realm of the nonprofit.

So, I was sitting in Vipassana, and it was Day Six, and it just came to me. Like, I’m going to go for a walk. I’m going to finally go for a long walk. I’ve wanted to go for a long walk for a very long time. I knew I was going to be on the west coast, so that’s where the Pacific Coast highway came from. And then what I decided was, I was going to simplify my life down to everything that I owned, being able to carry with me on this walk. The walk was the vessel that would allow me to simplify my life because if I couldn’t carry it, I couldn’t own it. So, it was the very simple vessel that forced me to resimplify like I hadn’t been before. And then, the objective was that, as I walked from Canada to Los Angeles, I would have an opportunity to shed the past and walk into the future. I gave myself a very practical, literal vessel in order to do a lot of this figurative work. So, I decided that that was the way in which I would give in to the present moment. I would slow down and simplify. Walking does that. There’s no way around it. You have to get more slowed down. You only can go three miles an hour. And I made the commitment that by the time I arrived in Los Angeles, I would have finished everything on my plate or canceled it. So, for the last year, it’s just been cancel, cancel, cancel, delete, delete, delete. Just trying to get my life into a place where I can actually embrace the present moment rather than being overwhelmed and overcommitted.

So, I gave myself six months or so, and I also made the commitment that by the time I arrived in Los Angeles, I would have emptied my mind of all secrets, of anything I was guarding or hiding, and that I would arrive in LA with a completely open mind, with complete transparency and have literally not a single secret.

So, I did that on the walk. And that all prepared me for arriving in LA one week ago – eight days ago – and then being able to give away everything I own, sitting naked in Griffith Park for a little while with just a palm frond covering my front. And all of that was needed because I wasn’t ready for that. The whole last 14-year journey helped me to be ready for that. I never could have done that, but this walk helped a lot with just the day-to-day slow movement, shedding, releasing, and then arriving and being there.

So that’s where I am now. I now have not a single possession to my name. I don’t own anything. Of course, some people are going to say, “What about the clothes that you’re wearing?” So, shall I tell you the six items ….
[Rich:] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Robin:] So, currently I have six items, all of which I’m borrowing. The top and bottom that I’m wearing are from a guy named Ant, who came out to the gathering. The blanket that I have is from a guy named Andrew, who lent me this blanket. I have a sleeping bag which is tucked up in the hills in Griffith Park, not too far from the Greek Theatre, and that was from a guy named Keith who lent it to me. This hat is from a guy named Greens, who lent this to me about three days ago. And then yesterday …. So, I have five items that I’m borrowing. And then yesterday, I was at a Thich Nhat Hanh sangha, you know, community at the Passionate Heart, and I took this little book of songs – songs for connection with the Earth. So, now I have six items that I’m borrowing, and I’m eight days in. No shoes, no socks, no water bottle and, of course, no computer. I got rid of that. So, I’m just practicing … really my whole journey has been a practice of simple living, and this is the deepest that I’ve gone in simple living.

[Rich:] It’s pretty deep. But it’s also the culmination of many stages. Like, it’s not an overnight thing. Like, every kind of challenge that you’ve signed yourself up for is a progression, right, of stripping yourself down more and more and more. And this is kind of like the end point of that. Like, after you’ve given it all up. So it wasn’t like an overnight thing. This is something you’ve been pursuing for many years. And yet, I would imagine that final destination where you’re sitting naked with a leaf, like, what … is this really happening? And you have a rule around borrowing also, right? Like, borrowing means that you set a deadline on how long you’re kind of going to enjoy this thing that’s been shared with you and you give it back.
[Robin:] Yep. Ten days.
[Rich:] So you have two more days where you get to wear this and then you’re going to be naked again unless Ant comes back with something else, or whoever, right?
[Robin:] Yeah, I will be naked again tomorrow night in Griffith Park. And that’s tricky, because the rangers, they know I’m there and they’re watching me, so I have ….

[Rich:] I was going to ask, so how’s it going with the regulatory bodies and, you know, the police and all these people who probably are not smiling too kindly on your experiment?
[Robin:] Well, this has been a beautiful experiment as far as me getting to practice … one of my big practices is Compassionate Communication or Nonviolent Communication, and I love to get to interact with the law force, because that’s one of the most challenging times to practice Compassionate Communication. But, as some people may have figured out by now, but they might not have thought about this is that if I own nothing, that means I have no form of identification.
[Rich:] Yeah. You don’t have a driver’s license, you don’t have anything, right?
[Robin:] Yeah. 2016 I got rid of my driver’s license and my birth certificate (correction: social security card). Gone. You know, like, actual gone. And then in 2022 ….
[Rich:] It doesn’t exist like in ‘the cloud’ somewhere?
[Robin:] Oh, so I have a social security number. That still exists. But there’s no card. There’s no physical ID that exists. So I’m still in the system. I can’t remove myself from it and I don’t know if I even necessarily would. But, there’s still work to do. And then in 2022, I got … I actually lost my passport. And that was, like, alright, this could be the moment where I get rid of my ID, so then the last ID I had was my birth certificate. I got back to Asheville, North Carolina, where I was living at the time, and I composted it.

So, at that point, I had no ID, and it’s been 2 ½ years. And there’s no copies ‘out there.’ I still, yes, am in the system, but I have no form of ID and that was the step that allowed me to get here today, because that was my biggest holdout. Because once you have no ID – I did quite a bit of research – it’s very hard to get a form of ID when you have no ID and no copy. And so, the reason that I brought that up is now when I interact with law enforcement, which has happened now three times since the walk began, when a police officer comes to you and you say, “I have no form of ID,” the most likely scenario is they’re going to be concerned. Like, either you’re hiding from the law, you’re trying to not be known who you are, and so, this is just another one of the elements of the experiment of being a human in the truest sense, having shed even the structure – the concept of needing an ID and being able to say, “Well, why do I need an ID? I’m a human being. Just look. Here I am.”

So, the last thing I’ll say on that as far as answering the question fully is now that I’m in Griffith Park and I’m existing there with nothing, I … I … you know, I am technically sleeping there illegally. I’m not allowed to be there. And everything’s been flowing. The rangers have been around a little bit. But yesterday was the beginning of the rangers showing me that they know that I’m there and they don’t want me there.
[Rich:] Yeah. There’s also a high alert because of the fires and, you know, suspicion around arson and so, kind of, malingerers in … in … in parks like that are not going to be received with immediate kindness.
[Robin:] Yes. It’s very understandable and, of course, I’m not … I’m not … I don’t have … I don’t own a lighter or matches. I’m not cooking in the park. Like, you see what I own. It’s … I have nothing for doing that, so, I’m there in a way that I have full confidence is not doing any harm. And, actually, since I’ve been there, I’ve cleaned up over 1000 pieces of garbage. So that’s one of my services to the community, is that as long as I’m there, this place is going to be more enjoyable and it’s going to be cleaner for people. However, I totally acknowledge that it’s a public space and there’s no … I don’t want to be existing in a way that takes away from anybody else’s connection to this public space, takes away from the community. At the same time, I am testing this concept of Earth Code, which is to say that, for me, as long as the way that I’m living is in alignment with the Earth and does no harm to humanity and to the plants and animals, then that’s what I’m going to follow before I follow any government code. And that is a difficult place to navigate and I’ve had a lot of people who …. Of all the projects that I’ve done, if you would call this a project, I’ve received the most judgment and anger. And it also does play a role that I arrived in Los Angeles at a very, very unique time. And coming into this, when this happened, it was like, “Do I still go?” It was definitely a very difficult decision as to how to navigate this.

[Rich:] I would think that, like, to let go of your passport or any identification at all, like, I hadn’t even thought about that. Like, that’s heavy. I find myself, like, trying, okay, what would I do in your shoes if I’m inhabiting your kind of, like, ethos, and I find myself, like, making bargains or playing games, like, well, I am this activist, and I have a message. You’re a public persona. You’ve done three Ted Talks, like, you’re all over the media, you’ve had all kinds of articles written about what you’re doing and that’s part of your mission: getting this word out and sharing your story with other people and hopefully inspiring them to go on their own journey of reframing their relationship with the planet and others and the plant and animal kingdoms, et cetera.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] And an aspect of that would be the ability to travel to foreign lands to carry that message, right?
[Robin:] Yep.
[Rich:] Like, I could justify, “Well, I should hold onto my passport because this is integral to, like, my mission. And so, to say, “No, I’m even going to let go of that,” like, that’s how hardcore you are. I mean, you make the minimalist sound like an absolute hedonist.
[Robin:] Yes, I … extreme is a word that’s often used to describe me and I am extreme. There’s no question about that whatsoever.

Now, a little bit of a preface to that is that here in the United States, we have five percent of the world’s population, but we consume 25 percent of the world’s resources. That, by definition, is extreme. The world can’t handle the way that we exist. So, the reason that I am so extreme is that I am a product of an extreme society. And to do anything other than go to the extreme would not allow me to even simply exist in a harmonious way. I have to go to this extreme just to even try to get to a place of a truly harmonious way of being. And then, also, my objective is to simply exist in a way that results in the questioning of the status quo and societal norms that are unquestioned and even believed to be unquestionable. Like the concept of non-ownership, which is at the heart of what I’m focused on right now. You know, there’s cultures that don’t even have a word for ownership. There’s not even a concept of owning. But in our – I don’t even know if I’d call it a culture, we’re so fragmented – but in our society, it’s, like, unquestionable. We can own the land, we can own the possessions, we can own the money. You know, a lot of people accept that we can even own people. So, to go to this level of non-ownership, it is extreme, but it is only extreme because, I would say, we are so … yeah, we’ve become so disconnected. And I’m so enthralled by testing the levels of society that are very challenging to test and I have … you know, I just … I’m doing it because I love it. I want to be doing it.

[Rich:] Yeah. You’re poking the bear. It’s sort of like you’re taking a stab at what we consider inalienable truths. Everything in life is about perspective, right? And it’s so true. And when you talk about normalcy, like, things that we don’t question and we just accept as fact, there are plenty out there that we just sort of blindly kind of assume and use as a basis upon which to build a foundation of our lives. And ownership is certainly one of those. Like, what is ownership? We assume it’s a real thing. It’s not a real thing. It’s not real. It is a story. It is a social construct. A social contract, right? That we simply do not challenge, but doesn’t actually exist, and for you to kind of challenge that is deeply confronting. And it’s going to inevitably put you on a crash course, you know, crash collision course with authority and, like, all kinds of institutional structures, right? And, that’s what you’re signing up for. So, should the law enforcement in Griffith Park decide that you need to be, you know, locked up for a night or two, I’m sure you’re aware that that may well be in your near future, right? And you’re okay with that, like, in the same way that, like, Gandhi is, like, okay, nonviolent communication, but also nonviolence in general acceptance. And for you, as this activist, it’s all part of the story that you’re telling.

[Robin:] Yes. And I … I actually … so, I’ve never been to jail, even though there’s plenty of people who would rather me not be able to share my message because it stands against a lot of what corporations would like and what our government would like. I have been pretty effective at poking the bear with a smile on my face.
[Rich:] Yeah.
[Robin:] Where they … so … there’s a lot of people on line ….
[Rich:] But then they just think you’re insane, right?
[Robin:] A lot of people think I’ve gone mad. I’ve done ….
[Rich:] Then you’re, like, “Look, I did Ted Talks.”
[Robin:] That helps.
[Rich:] I mean, you have a gaggle of people around you, right, who are kind of running interference for you? Like, sort of acolytes and the people who are following you who are kind of showing up in Griffith Park, like aunts and the like?
[Robin:] Yeah. I mean, none of them are there enough to if the rangers come they’re going to be able to do anything. You know, if the rangers come and they want to take me away, they can. They will. I don’t have anybody … I don’t have anybody supporting me in that regard really. And one of the reasons why is because … well, I just want to first acknowledge one thing. The activism that I’m doing is … is in a very … it’s in a realm where I’ve been very safe up to this point. I’ve certainly taken a lot of risks. There’s no question about that. I’ve certainly given up a lot of comforts. But the reality is, I live a very comfortable life, even with the fact that I own nothing and have no money. And there’s certain areas in which I think right now is an area of civil disobedience, where I’m … there’s a good chance I will be in jail in the years ahead, because I’m just so deeply wanting to test the things that are likely to bring me there. And I have to say, if I were to spend some time in jail right now, I mean, it’s absolutely perfect.
[Rich:] All your needs are met.
[Robin:] Yeah. Practice non-ownership, I’ll have a bed, I’ll have food. I’ll be able to practice just simple existence. So, I will deeply embrace those days as part of the practice. And who knows, yeah, maybe we can look back at this conversation and go, “Yep, that’s when he started to go to jail after that. But, we’ll see. There could be years before that. I’m not sure exactly how things will go.

[Rich:] No computer. You haven’t had a cell phone for a very long time.
[Robin:] Almost ten years now.
[Rich:] Ten years.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] But, you have a digital online presence. So, I assume there’s somebody, kind of, around you who’s capturing these moments that you’re sharing on Instagram and on YouTube and, like, when you were on your walk you had your laptop though, right?
[Robin:] Yes. Yep. So, I’ve been … I’ve been so … I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘addicted’ to devices, to the internet, but they have certainly, you know, I’ve just had a really unhealthy balance for a lot of my life. Those devices. They’re designed for that. Social media is designed to tap into your mind in a way that gets you off balance and you spend as many minutes as possible. And I have been suffering a substantial amount of my life as far as the amount of time I’ve spent looking at screens. It would be so embarrassing if I had a ticker over my head that said the number of hours I’ve spent looking at screens. It’s in the thousands and thousands of hours. And so, part of this practice has been an opportunity to break free from that. I have no computer, I have no device. I can’t reach anybody unless they come to the park. Sometimes that’s things that I’ve scheduled or people arriving. Right now, what my team is, is two people who are supporting things here in Los Angeles. One, her name is Melissa. She’s been following me for some years and then the other one, his name is Daniel, and he just responded to a posting on Craigslist. Daniel’s doing video, Melissa’s on her computer helping to schedule the events in Griffith Park and media. Like, me being here, she helped with that. And how that works is obviously I have no money, but there’s a supporter, his name is David, and he wants to help me spread my message, so he said that he could pay those people directly. And so, in that way, money is fully decentralized from my life, but I’m still able to use it as a tool in order to help me spread my message.

And that’s what my whole life is. I mean, I don’t have particular rules. There’s nothing black and white. I have to figure out how do I, like, do all of this in a way where I can, right now, break free from the crutch of the computer and the damage it does to my mind but still use it. And part of it was, can I … one of my aspirations right now is can I … eventually I’m going to log off for the rest of my life. It’s just a matter of when. Maybe in the next couple of years, maybe longer. And the objective is, can I exist as a human in the present moment who doesn’t own a device and doesn’t touch a device? Yet, reach more people than ever before from this place of integrity. And I believe it’s possible. I believe that it would be very hard, but I think I can do it and that’s … this experiment … this three-month experiment of non-ownership is the beginning of testing those waters. And here we are!
[Rich:] Right.
[Robin:] It’s the biggest podcast I’ve ever done, let’s see what happens!
[Rich:] Well, there’s always another level, right? Like, from one perspective, like, you still own an Instagram account, you own a YouTube channel. I don’t know if those are … I mean, that’s a broader definition of ownership, but ….
[Robin:] Yes.
[Rich:] In the digital realm, there is … there is a tether.
[Robin:] I’m glad you brought that up.
[Rich:] And what is that tether doing to you? Right? Because on the highest level, you’re on this path to attempt to transcend your ego. And these things, you know, are … are … are a war on the ego, right? Especially as a public person. How many people watch my videos? Like, how many people watch my Ted Talks? There is an ego component to that that is, like, inescapable as part of the human condition, right?
[Robin:] Yep.
[Rich:] And can you be an effective advocate and example and activist without that, right?
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] And then you’re really in the hands of others in this interdependent way, reliant upon them to carry this message on your behalf, without, like, without that intermediary kind of, like, pseudoownership of digital spaces.
[Robin:] Yes. I’m really glad that you brought that up and that’s one of the reasons I was excited to have this conversation with you is because we have a long enough period of time to be able to dive into some of these realms that in short form content you just can’t do. You just can’t dive into all of this.

All of this is a gray area. I want people to know that. Like, I don’t have a right or wrong, or a good or bad, I’m just trying to navigate to be the most effectively of service, to use my resources, to use my skills, to minimize my hypocrisy, but acknowledge my hypocrisies where they exist. Certainly, so, you know, I said, I don’t own anything. But my social media channels are a form of ownership. Now, they’re a form because actually the reality is I don’t own them. The social media platforms own them and they can take them away from me at any second or decide they don’t want me there at any second. But it is still an attachment – a form of ownership. My website: the domains. That’s another form of ownership. Now, I work with a nonprofit. The nonprofit owns them, so again, technically, I don’t own it, but it’s an attachment. I’m certainly the one directing it. It’s certainly a form of ownership. And I’m able to direct some funds. I don’t own the funds, but I have that ability to direct things and move it around. So ownership, of course, as we discussed, it’s a concept, and so there is no … there is no, like, “What is it, what isn’t it?” The whole purpose is to discuss what it is.

As far as the ego aspect, you know, you hit the nail on the head there, is that I shed the attachment to money largely. When I was 25, I set the goal of being a millionaire by the time I was 30. I shed that and now I literally own zero dollars. Not a penny. But I have a Facebook page with a million followers, that says, right there, one million, for everybody to see with a ‘blue’ checkmark. And today, in this society, that, in some sense, is more valuable. And if you’re looking for a way to pump up your ego, that’s almost more meaningful than being a millionaire today. And so, the last journey … you know, the last decade has been a very difficult journey in ascending the ego, molding the ego. And when I first got started, I was, you know, I would say …. I don’t like to make labels, so I’m just not going to actually. But, what I would say is, I was heavily ego driven and that the only reason I’ve gotten to where I am today … or a big part of the reason I’ve gotten to where I am today, is because of how big my ego was and still is to motivate me. That’s the reason I did 80-hour weeks on the computer. Because my ego was pumping me along. So, it’s a big part of the journey.

[Rich:] It’s less about the technicalities of what ownership is or isn’t, and much more about where you feel the tug of attachment, right? Like, what would it feel like for you to hit ‘delete’ on your Facebook page, or just remove yourself from it? Like, that’s like triggering, right? ‘Cause you know, if you have that many followers, that you’re in a privileged position where you’re probably not going to starve, because there’s so many people ‘out there’ who want to support you, right? And all you would have to do is have somebody post on one of those channels, “Hey, this is where Robin is. He’s a little hungry.” Or, “he’s cold.” Like, somebody’s going to show up, right?
[Robin:] Absolutely.
[Rich:] So, are you really in a place of surrender if you’re still relying on that, right? Like, there’s always another level, you know?
[Robin:] Yeah. There’s so many more levels. I’m not going to say I’m at the beginning, but I’m still … there’s a long way to go.
[Rich:] You’re further along the way than, you know, probably at least anyone else in North America, voluntarily, I would say. There’s a long history and tradition of this – you know, Hindu and Buddhist monks who, you know, wander the Earth and rely on the … the grace of strangers. This has been going on for a very long time, but what’s different about what you’re doing and the way you’re doing it is that you’ve draped it in this kind of welcoming, populist costume, where you’re sharing everything publicly on multiple channels in a very inviting way that makes people intrigued, interested, encouraged, inspired – all these different emotions. Which is cool, because that’s the groundswell of a movement. And I know that’s the motivation behind you. But the ambition piece, I think is really interesting. Like, where does our ego serve us and where does it derail us? Like, like your earlier challenges – you’ve ridden your bike across America three times, you … you, you know, flew to Rio with no money and somehow made it to Columbia, 7000 miles away, and there’s a documentary about that. You’ve been on all these stages. You did this experiment in New York City and Los Angeles where you basically ate like a normal, you know, average American consumer and then wore all your trash in this giant costume. Like, these are … these are, you know, audacious but ambitious projects and their impact can’t be completely decoupled from the ambition that inspired them. And perhaps there’s a part of ego that’s saying, “Look at me,” and “Look at these amazing things that I’m doing,” but that’s what got you to that place, you know. And now you’re in this, you know, this … this different chapter where you’re trying to shed yourself of all of that. But this is … this is like the hero’s journey, right? Like, this is the path of transcendence, of like, constantly stripping away and getting at what is actually real and true.
[Robin:] Yeah. Real and true. And that’s a very …. And of all the times to live in, to be pursuing real and true. I do really believe that this is one of the most difficult times ever. We live in a world that is just so based on fallacies and delusion. And where it requires so much more shedding in some sense than it ever did in the past. I’m really glad that we’re talking about this and I want to share a bit about my journey of letting go of some of the ego.

I first started to acknowledge my ego in probably around 2013. Like, I realized that I started questioning it. Fortunately there’s teachers out there who brought these concepts up and I, you know, I heard them and I was doing the work. Some of the releasing that I’ve done, this … just this last year I deleted my Twitter account, which was my first letting go of one of those public platforms. It was verified, it was a very useful tool, and I was, like, alright … it was the least important of the four, so I deleted that.
[Rich:] And the one that I first connected with you on many years ago.
[Robin:] Yeah. And when I deleted Twitter, I deleted a lot of opportunity, because there were people who followed me on there who didn’t follow me anywhere else. A lot of journalists followed me on Twitter and not elsewhere. And a lot of journalists go there first to see somebody. And so, it was certainly a challenging thing to do. That was smooth. Like, I forgot that it even existed. I deleted LinkedIn about four years ago. That was a bit of a release, for sure. But the biggest one for me is, I deleted my personal Facebook profile about one year ago. And I cried multiple times over a period of three days. Just, when I did that, I had … originally I had 5000 friends on there. That’s very ego based. Some years ago, I got it down to like 800, where I actually knew every person that was on there. It was actually a person I wanted to have a connection with. So imagine: 800 people. Many of them I didn’t have their personal contact for. That was the only way that we were connected. It was a lot of journalists over the years, a lot of people I met from my world travels in Africa and South America and Asia. Like, people that I would never see again. This was our only real way of connecting, and I knew that when I deleted that that I was ending hundreds of relationships. Because most people need some level of convenience for their relationships to continue. They’re not going to write me a letter.
[Rich:] They wouldn’t know where to send it to.
[Robin:] There is nowhere to send a letter to right now. No. But, so, deleting my personal Facebook was a huge ‘letting go,’ and it’s been tender. You know, like I said, I cried a few times with that. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect to cry when I let go of my personal Facebook profile. But I realized that I was letting go of a very big part of me. I got that profile when I was 18 or 19 years old. My entire adult life I’ve used that as a form of connection. That was … that was a substantial step in that realm. And then the last thing I’ll add to this is that it was about maybe five years ago that one day I thought to myself, I realized that “Whoa, when I’m making decisions, I’m no longer asking how this will benefit me. I’m actually only thinking how this will benefit others.” Which meant two things: either I had deluded myself so well and I was running egomania so well that I had put it in the background, or that I had actually ascended the ego enough to the point where I was no longer primarily acting based upon my own desires. That I was actually interacting based on my desires for what I say, which is the Earth, my community. So that was a moment of realization. And then, it’s hard to talk about this because a lot of people are going to be judgmental. If you say, “Oh, my ego is reduced,” they’ll be, like, “Oh, that means his ego is actually bigger.” But I can just tell you that, especially over the last one year of … as I’ve been shedding and letting go of so much, I can just tell you that most days I never remember that anybody cares one bit about anything that I have to say. That I have a profile with a ‘blue’ checkmark and that anybody would even … yeah, most days I forget that anybody even knows that I exist.

So, I can tell you that, like, the ego has dissolved a lot. And my objective is not to dissolve the ego fully. My objective is to dissolve all aspects of the ego that are only self serving and to keep the aspects of the ego that help me to be of service and help me to accomplish this mission. And when I look at some of the leaders that I’ve learned from, you know, like Mahatma Gandhi: he was majorly ego driven at the start. It took decades of dissolving his ego to the place where he had almost none. Decades of work. And this practice right now of owing nothing? While walking down the highway from Canada to Los Angeles, pushing a baby stroller that I bought for $20 with all of my stuff on it, with shoes that are falling apart, the number of people that thought – assumed I was a tweaker or a bum or homeless … like, all these judgments and labels. And now owning absolutely nothing, this has been such an incredible opportunity to dissolve the ego. Because as I’m sitting here … I was telling this guy, like, man, more than ever in my entire life, I genuinely just feel like a bum. And I’m, like, more than ever I’m, like, wait – people actually want to hear what I have to say and people would actually want me in a room to share this message? So, I still have a lot of work to do with the ego, but I can … I can just share from what … deeply from what I’m feeling what’s bubbling inside of me and the … what my daily operation in heart and mind is, is dissolved by, you know, over the last 14 years of practice has dissolved to maybe 20 percent of what it was before. Five years ago, I felt like maybe it was at 50 percent. And now it may be 20 percent. And, you know, maybe it shoots back up later. Possibly. But at this point, at this point, I would say most days I am not operating from a place of ego, for the most part.

[Rich:] That’s amazing. I would … I would imagine for myself … trying to imagine myself in your … in your shoes – we’re going to get to your shoes in a second. [laughs] Your shoes that are worn out. I would vacillate between, you know, thinking I’m just an absolute bum, like an unhoused bum, you know, living off grace of strangers and, you know, just how lame that is, right? And on the other hand, like, look at how badass I am. Like, I’m doing this thing no one’s ever done and, you know, I’m like, I’m like just so much more hardcore than everyone else. Like, as a recovering alcoholic, I’m able to kind of maintain those polarities at the same time, feeling like I’m better than everyone else and the worst piece of shit at the exact same time.
[Robin:] Maybe you could call me a recovering ….
[Rich:] But both are … both are indulgences of the ego. You know, they’re both very ego driven. Just, you know, in different ends of that spectrum.
[Robin:] Yes. And I was going to say, maybe you could call me a recovering ‘attentionholic.’ I’ve, you know, I’ve wanted attention for a long time.
[Rich:] Yeah. And you’re good at getting it. And you come from this, like, marketing background and you know how to, like, game attention. And there’s a dopamine hit with that that goes right to the ego.
[Robin:] Dopamine hit. Now here’s the … here’s the element that I can just share. Again. It’s slightly vulnerable to share this because I know people. We’re talking about ego. This is a place where you get a lot of judgment. But, what I can tell you is I’m feeling no dopamine hits lately. From this stuff. And so, one of the current practices that I have of taking three months of non-ownership and not being online is I’m not asking how many views I’m getting. I don’t know.
[Rich:] And you’re not scrolling.
[Robin:] No, I’m not looking ….
[Rich:] Reading comments.
[Robin:] I did slip up once. No, I’m not reading comments. I don’t really know what’s going on too much. I don’t have the internet. I’m not going to the library. Besides this non-ownership, I’m actually taking three months of being off screens. And so, I did slip up and one of my teammates, Daniel, he looked at one of the videos and he said something like, “Whoa.” And I was, like, “What?” And so, he told me about one of the videos getting a lot of views. And then I ended up having about a five-to-seven minute conversation about which videos are getting views or not and how many views we’re getting. And so, I slipped up a little bit. My intention was for the entire three months to have no idea whether anybody’s paying any attention or not. But what I’ll say is that I used to experience that dopamine hit, and it’s almost a form of ‘manicness,’ I would say, like a mania that I used to experience where … when I would have, you know, sometimes multiple hundred media outlets would be doing a story over a period of a few days as they were syndicated out through things like AFP or these different media services, and I would see, you know, overnight, you know, 10,000 people, 10,000 new followers. I would experience this … it felt like a mania, like this strong … I would imagine people who experience bipolar, like, manic. This was the manic. I never get the low. But I would get that ‘manicness’ and it would almost be like this element of jitteriness a little bit and, like, a heart racing. But, to me, when I say ‘manic,’ I think that’s exactly what that mania feels like. And I just don’t get that anymore. I’m just not focused on that.

And why? It’s because of the practice. I have just, over the last few years, I’ve started to take a lot of silence. I’ve done a lot of detoxes from social media, like weeklong here, two weeks’ long there, monthlong there. I think I’ve done a month – maybe not quite a month. And, all of these practices work. And, the last thing I’ll add in this moment is that I have decided as of recently that my focus is going to be not on outcome. We’re talking about attachment. My biggest attachment has been to outcome. That outcome could be how many more followers I gain this year, or how many people I reached, or did I get onto larger media outlets? Or, you know, those have been some of my main outcomes. Or what quotes the media said, like what great things did they say that lift me up? And, I decided within the last year, that I was no longer going to be attached to outcome. I was just going to do the work. And, I have gotten to the place where that’s what I’m doing. And the reason that I can now tell people about how sometimes I poop my pants, you know, I’ve pooped my pants many times in my adulthood. We all probably have. Most of us aren’t going to say that. And I can now say that because if everybody decides they don’t like me, fine. I’m just going to focus on truth and integrity, not the outcome. And one of the reasons I can do that is because I believe that if I do that, I’ll actually be the most productive I’ve ever been. So, I’m acknowledging that. But, the more that I just say, “I’m not going to focus on outcome, I’m going to focus on just living the message,” the more all of that starts to fade and to fall away.

[Rich:] And every day presents its challenges around how do you align your actions with your integrity and, kind of, these vows that you’ve made about these principled ways of … of living your life. Unforeseen curve balls getting thrown in your direction.
[Robin:] Yes. Every day is a challenge. You know, I have so many friends who are on the same path with me of living a life that’s in alignment with the Earth and focusing on equity and justice, you know, compassion and love. It’s so hard, because the whole society is set up to … as soon as we get there, to drag us back in. You know, just paying rent and having enough for food. It’s very hard in this society that we live in. It’s very fragmented and it’s designed to keep us from getting to that place of true freedom and being truly of service. So, the way I look at it is that this path goes against the grain of society. Every single day is going against the grain of society. Which means, if you don’t keep moving forward, you’re going to go backward in this society. And within a short time, all of the gains can be unraveled. So, it is a constant challenge. However, that being said, my belief is that when you shed enough of it, the grain ceases to exist. It’s still there, but the grain is removed from the mind and you have created enough of a new flow of life that it’s just no longer an issue. Like, that grain, for the most part, is just nonexistent. I’m just able to … to flow in my existence now more than I was before. And there’s no … there’s no sucking me back into it.

[Rich:] What is the biggest epiphany that you’ve had? Or maybe surprising discovery, like a discovery that you didn’t predict?
[Robin:] To give an example of something that I come back to is that a quality existence takes time. We live in a time where the belief is that the more convenience we have will have a higher quality of existence. The more that we can outsource everything, the higher quality of existence that we’ll have. My belief is that a quality existence takes a substantial amount of time. For me, that could mean growing my own food, foraging, building my own items, making my own clothes, harvesting rainwater. Really putting deep practice into my relationships. Everything that brings the deepest value into my life takes real time. And it … and it’s a … you know, for a lot of people that would be an incredible revelation when we think that having everything we want delivered right to our doorstep is going to create the quality existence. I think that creates a hollowness inside of ourselves and that’s what creates depression and anxiety. And that actually taking a substantial amount of time to meet our basic needs; for food, for water, for dealing with our own waste – that’s what creates a truly quality existence.
[Rich:] It’s a radical notion.
[Robin:] In this society, yeah.
[Rich:] I mean, first of all, this idea that everybody’s life is premised upon owning more … the idea of even pursuing what it might be like if your life was premised on not just owning less, but owning nothing? You know? Confrontational. Confronting.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] And that all of the conveniences that we presume and assume are going to make our lives better and easier are actually obstacles to the meaning and the purpose and the richness that we so deeply desire underneath all of it.
[Robin:] I think that’s pretty clear. I think millions of people can feel that inside of themselves. That sure, when all of this was sold to us, it sure seemed like it was going to result in happiness. And in certain ways, we have absolutely benefited. There’s no question about that. Like, I’m not a polarized, black and white person. I can see the incredible benefits of being able to share this message right here, right now, using this technology, for example. But the reality, I think, is very clear that once you have, you know, Annie Leonard of The Story of Stuff was one of my early inspirations. She said something like, “Okay, you might need, say, seven t-shirts. But once you get that eighth t-shirt, is it going to bring real value to your life? Once you move up to 100 t-shirts, are you any happier?” The reality is that fuller closet, for most people today, is resulting in a spiritual crisis – a lack of connection to anything deep and real. And, for me, that’s the Earth, that’s our fellow humans, and that’s the plants and animals that we share this home with. And then, when you go even further, it’s the bacteria, the yeast that we share this with, the fungus, just the air. And the reason why that is is because the more we have everything we need in this consumer material realm, the less we have to tune in to the vibrancy of life … the things that have given us life are all on the side. They cease to exist when we exist inside these homes where they’re climate controlled, we just have to push a button. We have everything we need inside of it. We have everything we want delivered to it. We have endless content on the screens. It sure seemed good, but I think that we are … I know, millions and millions of people are seeing that actually it’s not. Because it’s destroying our souls. And those of us who realize that the only way we can have that convenience and comfort is on the … expense … the burden to others.

That’s the other, you know, for me, big realization that I had, dating back to the beginning of my journey, is that I realized, in this society, whenever there’s a convenience, someone else is paying for it. In order to have our comfort, others are paying for it. Whether it’s the Earth, whether it’s other people, or whether it’s plants and animals. So, just some simple examples of that. You know, when we have these clothes. Where we can just buy them for … you know, a pair of jeans for fifty bucks or a hundred bucks. The reality is that there’s people working in really poor conditions most likely. There might be child labor or slavery. There might be … a lot of our clothes are actually made in prisons by people who are imprisoned. When you actually look back at every single … almost every single one of our consumer goods, and our material objects, that come through convenience, the only reason we can have that convenience is because of the burden we are placing on others. And another way that I look at it is … you know, the concept that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, neither can be these conveniences, these consumer conveniences. Every time there’s a consumer convenience or comfort, it means someone else is paying for it. And so, when we realize that and we really tap into it, that’s when we start to experience existential crisis … a deep suffering. Because now we know that just for us to exist, someone else is suffering. And that we don’t believe in existing in a way that’s causing such destruction and exploitation, but everything we’re doing – the food that we’re eating, the car that we’re driving, the gas we’re pumping into the car, the stuff we’re buying, the trash we’re creating, the money we’re spending, the credit card we’re swiping, the investments that we have, the money in our bank account – it’s all causing destruction. When we tap into that, that is deep suffering. And so, I think, at a very, very deep, deep level, we’re suffering because we … even if we don’t know that yet, a lot of us can feel that. We’ve tapped into that. And so, that’s where Gandhi said, “Live simply, so that others may simply live.” He said that at a time before this form of exploitation, but that’s what he was saying. And that’s why I would go … I would be able to say if I was just to summarize my life in one way, that could be it: “Live simply so that others may simply live.” Because when we live simply to that level of embodiment, it means we have removed ourselves from the hundreds or thousands of ways in which we are tied to the exploitation. And, as we remove each of those, we replace it with a way in which we’re actually connected to something.
[Rich:] Umm. Unless something is created in a truly regenerative way, it is, by definition, exploitive. Either of other humans, of natural resources, the planet, of animals, whatever, right?
[Robin:] And that’s the really good news.
[Rich:] And so, this is so deeply disturbing because I think we’re fundamentally compassionate and nobody wants to, you know, kind of create harm on purpose, so we compartmentalize this and we deny it and we push it down in order to live our lives. But, there is that, like, undercurrent where we know that this is the case, but we can’t quite confront it. And the solution is too extreme. Like, to do what you’re doing, to actually live in integrity, is an impossibility.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] To sign up for that is to sign up for a life of suffering and martyrdom. And who wants to do that, right? But, what you’re here to say is, you’re actually experiencing a richer life of deeper connection and happiness as a result of this radical act.
[Robin:] Yes. I don’t … I suffer. All humans suffer. My belief is that suffering is part of existence. It just is. We all suffer. There’s no way around it. There is no, in my belief, any sort of utopian existence for humanity, never has been and there never will be, most likely. Suffering is a part of the human existence.

The question is: “What do we suffer over?” Do we suffer over a $10,000 watch? Or do we suffer over making sure that our neighbor has enough to eat? You know, do we suffer over getting the raise, or do we suffer over becoming masters of our own mind? Whatever we’re doing, we’re going to be suffering. And so, I suffer, but the reality is that I’m … I’m sure that a lot of people can obviously see I’m experiencing quite a level of contentness and happiness in a … in a moment when a lot of people would assume that I’d be suffering greatly. Like, owning absolutely nothing and sleeping outside, a lot of people would think that I would be suffering. But the reality is that I’m suffering the least over the last eight days than I ever have in my adult life. I’m experiencing right now the highest level of contentedness that I ever have, the most connection, the most Oneness, the most dissolving of the concept of self. All of which is what I was hoping. I thought … I thought owning nothing would do something and the fruits are being harvested in the sense that I’m experiencing the least anxiety that I ever have and the most just existence, you know? Just being here in the actual present moment. But I want to go back one bit and there’s one thing that I want to say, just in case anybody possibly didn’t get this. Now, in order for us to have convenience or comfort doesn’t necessarily … does not inherently mean a burden is being placed on others. It’s only the systems which we’ve created to create that convenience and comfort. We can have convenient and comfortable lives that do not cause a burden and human beings have done that before. And there’s some human beings who still do that today, and there will be more human beings who do that in the future.

We can have a lot of comfort. I have so much comforts that are not causing destruction. So, a new way exists, other ways exist and there’s thousands of ways to tap into an existence where we meet our basic needs for convenience and comfort, and it’s not at the expense of others. I just really want to say that so people know. We can be comfortable without exploiting others. There’s so many ways in which we can do it.

[Rich:] You mentioned that you made some of your clothes. I want to get back to your … your long walk.
[Robin: Yeah.
[Rich:] We have these shoes in front of us right now, which you came in with.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] These are the, like, moc … like, the handcrafted moccasins that walked down the coast in?
[Robin:] Yep.
[Rich:] I mean, watching these videos of you, like, walking in these things … it’s, like, unbelievable.
[Robin laughs]
[Rich:] So, explain to me, like, what these are and, like, how you did this. You can see the treads on the bottom have been worn off. I mean, this is, like …. How much of the walk was barefoot? How much of it was in these shoes? How did you come up with this? Like, did you make these?
[Robin:] Half and half. Yeah, so, I set out on the walk on July 28th, 2024 ….
[Rich:] Walk me through it holding one.
[Robin:] I like this one more.
[Rich:] You said you washed them, right? They don’t smell bad.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[unintelligible]
[Rich:] This one’s fraying at the front.
[Robin:] So, I set out on the walk on July 28th, 2024, so a little over six months ago, and I had designed these shoes back in December of 2023. And when I designed these shoes, I was not going for a long walk. These shoes were never designed to walk 1600 miles from Canada to Los Angeles.
[Rich:] They were meant to sort of putter around your garden and, like, hang out at home?
[Robin:] They were to keep me warm. Hence the wool. I was staying in a cabin in northern Wisconsin with a woodstove, and I wanted to be able to walk outside and still be warm enough while it’s below freezing. And so, that was the primary thing. And they were in no way, shape or form to walk hundreds or thousands of miles. Like, it just … they weren’t that. When I decided to walk from Canada to Los Angeles, I certainly would have loved to have some different shoes. These were the shoes that I had. And, I didn’t have … I had a lot going on. I didn’t have … I didn’t prep. I didn’t prep for the walk.
[Rich:] Really?
[Robin:] Not at all. I never walked even 15 miles a day prior. Like, I had done as little preparation as possible. Before talking about starting the walk: what are the shoes? So, they are wool felted booties. So, they’re like a wool bootie, basically. And, someone who follows me online, I put the call out saying I was looking for some support with making some of my clothing items. I was switching to 100 percent homemade, natural fiber and naturally-dyed clothing. Clothing that was as closely connected to the Earth as possible. And I accomplished that before the walk.

So, she knitted … or actually I think she crocheted or … let’s just say knitted, I don’t know … I think crocheted is what she did. The …
[Rich:] The upper.
[Robin:] The bootie. The upper. Then she sent them to me. They were made from a local wool, and then … now, you might notice that these do not represent my actual foot size. I’m a size 11.
[Rich:] Yeah, they look like size 15 or something.
[Robin:] Yeah, they’re huge on me. I look like a clown. And that one’s closer to the right size.
[Rich:] They’re different sizes.
[Robin:] Hold that up.
[Rich:] Yeah, it’s a little smaller.
[Robin:] So she … you know, she had never made a pair of shoes before. She wasn’t an expert. And then, what I did is, I felted them over a woodstove. You know, you gotta … you do it in hot water. And then I dyed it with black walnut. That’s what the color of the wool is. And that’s black walnut from the tree in front of my mom’s house. I was staying up in northern Wisconsin. And then, what I had to start with was just a very thin deer leather from a deer that was hunted in Wisconsin and that was tanned with bark. So it was a really very natural process.

When I started this walk with that … and so, the leather was sewed on with deer sinew. So it was a straight up, as close to the Earth shoe as it … as it gets. You know, it was walnuts, deer and sheep. And that’s it.
[Rich:] And the stitching?
[Robin:] The stitching was deer sinew.
[Rich:] Okay. Got it.
[Robin:] So that was basically, the sinew comes off of the muscle of the deer. Most people would waste it, but it’s a very useful ….
[Rich:] It’s not a vegan shoe.
[Robin:] Very not a vegan shoe. It’s almost 100 percent not. Except the concept of doing no harm, there was … you know, that’s another realm, but it … it … it’s a shoe that does a lot less harm than a lot of shoes that are industrial whether they’re vegan or not. So, in some sense, the concept of veganism of doing minimal harm actually is embraced.
[Rich:] You need a more expansive kind of view of that, like, the toxins and the runoff from the factories that poison the waterways and, you know, all these things that occur with the manufacturing of synthetic consumer goods.
[Robin:] Yes. Which is where … that’s where, as you probably see, I don’t really get into labels because it’s hard to really see truth when we’re in labels.
[Rich:] Yeah.
[Robin:] But. So, when I started this, I made it … I was actually hoping to walk the whole journey barefoot. That was … that was my aspiration: 1600 miles barefoot. And I made it the first day, three miles, I just did a little soft start. The next day I made it, like, seven miles barefoot, both days, and then the next day I think I made it about 15 miles barefoot. So, I did the first about 30 miles barefoot. I was in Bellingham, so yeah, about 30 miles from the border in Canada where I started at the Peace Arch national monument. And that’s when I put the shoes on. I realized I could not do it barefoot with the weight on my legs and my … my … my feet from the backpack. And so, within ten miles, the soles had worn out on the bottom of these – the thin leather. And so, the first couple days, I ended up finding some secondhand industrial leather and gluing it on with Super Glue that I got at a hardware store. And I already had really crumbled in my attempt to do it with, like, the level that I was trying of fully … you know, connected to Earth’s stuff. I was using Super Glue and factory farmed leather, although it was scraps, but still. And so, ultimately, to wrap that up, what I found is that I needed to use a much thicker leather. I was hoping to get buffalo leather – that’s some of the thickest – that was from regenerative agriculture, but never was able to get it. So, what I ended up using was mostly scraps of industrial leather. And so, it wasn’t the level of … of, you know, materials connected to the Earth that I knew the true source behind them as I hoped. And I ended up doing 1000 miles on these shoes. And I did 600 miles barefoot. And I was in pain for a good amount of the trip.

[Rich:] I would imagine. Did you get blisters in these things? Or no?
[Robin:] Well, the good news is that I never experienced a single blister. No injuries whatsoever. And, I realized that blisters come from a, of course, a rubbing. And these didn’t have any rubbing. So, no blisters. And also, no … no calluses either. I don’t … I haven’t, like, researched this, but you have soles and you have calluses. Those are not inherently the same thing. I think a lot of people see them as synonymous, where you build up your calluses in order to have tough feet. Maybe you know this. Maybe you have some insight on this, but what I’ve come to see is that calluses develop in a place where you have a consistent constant rubbing. Soles are not built by rubbing. And so, you don’t have those calluses on, say, the bottom. It’s usually on edges, where you have a constant rubbing. And so, I don’t have any callus whatsoever from a thousand … from 1600 miles of barefoot and … and walking. I just have thick soles. Do you want to see? Should I ….
[Rich:] Yeah, let me see.
[Robin:] They’re a little LA dirty right now.
[Rich:] Put those dirty [unintelligible] up there. Yeah. Look at that. No, it’s … like, the sole you develop a toughness in your sole, or a thickness, but the callus is that, like, really rigid, you know, kind of feels like more dried up hardened skin where the rubbing is, and it is usually, like, on an edge.
[Robin:] My take is that calluses are dead skin, soles are alive. What do you think about that?
[Rich:] I don’t know. I’m not qualified to answer that.
[Robin:] Because you can just, like, ….
[Rich:] You’re probably right. You can get a razor blade and kind of slice them off.
[Robin:] Yeah. So that’s my thought. Now the issue that I did have – you might be able to still see. There’s a … does it look kind of like a half moon?
[Rich:] Like a ridge.
[Robin: So, what happened was, you would think that walking barefoot you build up your soles. But on concrete for hundreds of miles, I would see my soles …
[Rich:] They wear down.
[Robin:] … wearing away. Of course, like, look what’s happening to this.
[Rich:] Yeah.
[Robin:] So that’s happening to the feet as well.
[Rich:] So the bottom of your feet were getting raw.
[Robin:] So they would get really raw right on these edges to the point where it was painful, so what I had to do was sort of … I would … I would … get to that point where they never bled, but you could see the pinkness and … and I would have to then put on the shoes. But then the more I wore the shoes, the more I had to resole them because these soles wear out. And I put new soles … the inner sole I put about eight new ones of those in maybe. The outer sole I only replaced twice. But, it was like, okay, either I wear out my sole or I wear out this sole. And doing this journey barefoot and with these shoes was a lot of work. You’re talking about ‘not convenient?’ These are the least convenient shoes that I know of in existence.
[Rich:] Yeah. It’s not like a high recommend.
[Robin:] I do not recommend these.
[Rich:] What you did – the idea, the ambition behind it, Super Glue aside, is … is that everything that you were wearing is biodegradable and, as it wears out along the run, you could discard it and go back to the earth.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] There’s no issue with that.
[Robin:] That was a really sweet experience for me: that every time a sole ran out, I could just bury it in the soil. I would find some deep … you know, deep leaves or some loamy soil, and I would just bury those soles. And that was … that was a beautiful experience for me to think, like, most people doing the PCT or the AT, when they’re done with their shoes, they gotta go in the dumpster. When I was done with those soles, I could bury them right there along the road or right along the trail. And that’s got a very practical sense – I’m literally not putting stuff into the landfill. But, what I’ve experienced of wearing – it’s different now, now that I’m doing this experiment of non-ownership, here I am in these industrial clothes after a year.
[Rich:] Right. You’re wearing sweat pants that look like they came from, you know, Ross Dress for Less or something.
[Robin:] Yep. Totally. But, that’s … that’s an actual … like, I don’t make many sacrifices. That’s an actual sacrifice of this, is going back to that.
[Rich:] Yeah.
[Robin:] But, the thing that I want to share on that is that “Wow,” every time that I was able to bury the soles and return them to the earth, the connection that I felt with the Earth in that moment, knowing that I was creating soil rather than filling up the landfill and that the way that I had designed my life was one that was actually … here I was, taking part in the end of cycle. You know, you have this concept of cradle to cradle. It’s not like … these soles are not cradle to cradle because I got these from an industrial source. But it was closer to … at the very end, I was seeing that these are returning to the Earth. I would love to share another little insight on that, if you’re open to hearing it.
[Rich:] Um hmm.

[Robin:] So, one of my aspirations is to spend long periods of time away from human beings – any human interaction. And the walk did not accomplish that. I was on the Pacific Coast highway. There was very few moments of not seeing people for very long. But, two days before this walk began, I came out of the Olympic National Park. I had just spent one week there, seven nights there, fully alone. I found a little lake on the map and there was no trail in or no trail out. It was by one of the hot springs. Can’t think of the name of the hot springs up there in Olympic National Park. But I found this little lake on the map and I had to climb a thousand feet up and a thousand feet down to get there, in these shoes. And I spent a week there. As soon as I got there, I knew there was no human beings coming down there. Like, it took real work to get up and down. And I spent a week just sitting by that lake, just being … I had 6 ½ pounds of wild rice, less than a pound of … of dried venison, a small amount of dried maitake mushrooms and sea salt I had … well, actually a friend had harvested that. So, all of my food came from the Earth, and then I was eating the berries and the greens and also a few fish there as well. So in that way, I was really a part of the Earth. What was going in and out of me was the Earth. But the part that was kind of astounding for me was, now 100 percent of my clothes were natural fibers. So I was sitting next to the lake, working on the soles of my shoes, or sewing patches onto my clothes, and every piece that came off my clothes, I could simply return it to the Earth, just as a bird would lose a feather or deer would lose its hair. I could return any of this to Earth and it could become a part of the bird’s nest and not feel any guilt over that whatsoever. And that these … every single element that I shed was actually returning to the Earth. And “Wow,” that was astounding as to the dissolving of separateness that existed. Where after about five days, I started … actually, it was less than five days. It was more about three, that I actually started to feel that I belonged there. That I was another animal. I was a human animal. And, I can say that I would not have felt that if I was in synthetic clothes. The natural fibers with the natural dye. That ability to actually watch myself shedding and returning to the earth was definitely a profound moment of … of reconnection. And this I say very lightly. I’ve only said this to a few people, but I’m going to share this because I’m practicing just full transparency and truth, but it’s a very tender thing to say, but I almost felt like I was becoming indigenous to that land. I’m not indigenous. I’m a white person that has roots from, you know, some colonizers and settlers. I’m very much not indigenous. But, with hours a day of just harvesting berries hand to mouth and just existing in the most utter simple way. What I mean by that is that I felt so deeply that I actually belonged there, that I was actually a part of the land. That I was not separate. And I felt … I just … I just imagined myself and just, like, it was almost like a bit of an out-of-bodyness, of just imagining myself there in this … in this existence. And it was such a beautiful feeling. And actually, one of my big inspirations, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass, you know, she’s Potawatomi, and she says we can all become indigenous to the land no matter our … no matter if we’re direct descendants of colonizers and settlers. We can all become indigenous to a land. And I really felt that. And a big part of that was the clothes that I was wearing and the ability for them to simply to shed and to simply assimilate with .. with the environment.
[Rich:] Um hmm. And so, what do you make of that? Like, you … you mentioned that it was a profound experience of Oneness. Like, what … what is the … the thing that you want to share that was so moving about that? You know, for the people that are listening? To better understand why it was profound for you.
[Robin:] So, the first … the part … the reason why I am timid to say it is because as a white man, I would never want to say something that would negate the experience that people who are Indigenous and still exist today have with the land and the level of, you know, the … how the colonizers, the genocide that has happened, that has taken away their ability to have that deep connection with the land. And so, as a white man, to say … to … even just to acknowledge that and say that I felt that element of indigenous with the land, it’s a very difficult thing to say. Because there’s a good chance that some people will hear that and, you know, feel triggered.
[Rich:] Chafe at that.
[Robin:] Yeah. But, I truly believe that all human beings … if we’re ever going to turn things around, we need to deepen our connection to the point where we feel at home on this Earth. Which is … that is another way of saying ‘being Indigenous to the land.’ We actually feel at home here. That we belong here. That we’re part of this place. That we’re not separate. That the deer are our relatives. That the birds are our relatives. That when we’re there, we’re not saying, “My job is to leave no trace.” No, my job is to exist as part of this. And that includes eating the berries. And that includes … that may include trampling some plants. Because if we are never trampling any plants, it means we’re sitting in our air conditioned homes and the plants are being decimated behind closed doors.

So, for me, I guess, as far as the message is, is that I really do think that dissolving the illusion of separateness and feeling that connectedness ….. If we don’t do that, I don’t believe that we’ll ever have a shot at having a sustainable future. At true regeneration. At the heart of it is we need to reconnect. To … a couple of key things: One: the Earth; Two: our fellow humans; Three: the plants and animals we share this Earth with; and, Four: ourselves. And we need to feel at home and a part of all of that, not separate from that.

And the last little note on that is that … that’s at the heart of indigenous teachings. Like, when I read Indigenous teachings, that’s what it’s all about. That we’re a part of it all and we give gratitude for it all, and we see our interconnectedness with it all. And, it’s … it’s … it’s definitely what I want to tap into. And, it’s definitely what I’m tapping into some in Griffith Park right now, you know? Just … it’s not the deep wilderness, but having nothing means I spend a lot more time looking up at the sky and listening to the birds, being with the deer and the coyotes, and, yeah, so just more of that. And when we’re doing that, it means we’re not consuming, you know, as we’re just … as we’re just viewing.
[Rich:] Umm. And the occasional brush with law enforcement.
[Robin:] Yes. The more that you fully embrace this, the more likely you may have a few.

[Rich:] Um. How did you become this person? You know, I imagine people might be thinking, like, you must have grown up in a commune with a, you know, a cult leader and the like, but this is not your backstory. At all.

[Robin:] Yeah. Yes. No, I actually grew up really, really, really wanting to be normal. That’s what I wanted more than anything. And. Now. Part of the reason why: there’s … there’s a few key pillars here. So, my mom and dad – now they are Hippies actually. And, now if you ask them, I don’t know if either … either of them would call themselves Hippies, but my mom was a Hari Krishna. Still today, she would call herself Hari Krishna, because there’s no other Hari Krishnas in Ashland, Wisconsin, population 8,260 in northern Wisconsin that’s about 80-90 percent, about 80 percent Catholic or Christian. So, she doesn’t wear the Hari Krishna clothes, but she is an Eastern spiritually-minded type of person. I grew up … you know, I remember the World Wildlife Federation, WWF panda bear, like, stickers on my notebook. My mom contributed to them.1:35:01 2:28 p.m. She loved the Earth. We would go to Earth Day, she conserved water and a lot of electricity. My dad actually would spend a lot of his time talking about his inventions of water purifying devices and pedal powered cars, and alternative energy. And, he never did any of those … he never actually invented those, but that’s a lot of what he considered himself to be – an inventor of renewable energy devices and water purification devices, et cetera.

My dad took me out …. So, my mom and dad were never together. They had … they had two kids: me and my brother, Levi. And we’re, like, 15 months apart. And, my dad and mom were probably not together for more than two years maybe. They never married, so my last name is Greenfield, from my mom.
[Rich:] Umm.

So. Okay. So, I feel like that’s a bit of a sidetrack. But it is connected in that there were two elements. One: I had a deep connection to the Earth. Both of my parents loved the Earth. Both of my parents believed in not harming others. And, you know, my dad was vegetarian for, like, twenty years, and my mom … actually, I grew up semi-vegetarian – we ate chicken and fish, but not red meat. So, there was a lot of that. We ate a lot of tofu as well. And, so there was a lot of elements of that. And, at the same time, my mom was hiding who she was because we lived in this sort of dominator society. We were Jews as well. There was only three Jewish families in the town, and it was almost all Catholic or Christian. So, I had no dad around really. I was Jewish in a Christian society. We were poor. My mom made about $15-18,000 a year working as an Aide, a school Aide on the playground originally. For four kids … there were four kids from three dads.
[Rich:] Wow.
[Robin:] My brother Joe is four years older. His … he was actually born in Oakland. My mom and dad met in Eugene, Oregon. Add all these things together and what I wanted was just to be normal. I didn’t want any of that. I went over to my friend’s house. My best friend’s dad was an anesthesiologist. My other best friend’s dad was a lawyer. Another friend’s dad was a doctor.
[Rich:] Um hmm.
[Robin:] Another was a real estate agent. I happened to have some of the wealthiest friends in town because of the … some of the after school programs that I got into. And so, I would go over to their house and their cereal was stored in plastic Tupperware containers. And at my house, it was in glass jars. So, I saw glass jars as poor and plastic containers as wealthy. And so, basically, I got super drawn into the consumer world. I wanted a nice house and a fancy car and a nuclear family. I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to be loved, to belong, to be acknowledged. And so, that was … my … my upbringing was a juxtaposition of those two things: a great love for the Earth and all the plants … more animals. I wasn’t connected to the plants then. But I loved frogs and turtles and fishing, and also wanting to have … wanting to fit in. Wanting to belong. And I saw belonging and fitting in as material wealth and financial wealth. That’s … that … so that was where, from a young age, I started to pursue the path of materialism.

[Rich:] You were a Boy Scout. You got your Eagle Scout certification. So you’re … you know, you’re self-sustaining in that regard. Like, you’re already wired to be able to survive in … in the wild on some level, right?
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] But you go to college and you have your, you know, typical college experience. You know, you’re drinking beer out of beer bongs and, you know, doing what college kids do. And you set this goal that you want to be a millionaire by 30. You create a marketing agency. Like, you’re kind of like doing the normal thing, right? So, where’s the pattern interrupt? Like, you talk about having this moment of awakening, but I don’t know exactly what that was.

[Robin:] Yeah. So, yeah. I went to university for … for biology and aquatic science, but really I was there for binge drinking and sex. Like, that’s … that’s really what I was doing with my time. Because binge drinking was the … the norm. And having sex was a way of showing that you were worth something. Like, as a man, the way that I knew best to prove my self worth was to have sex with many women and to have sex with women that I considered beautiful. That was … that was my way of not just belonging, but being extra belonging. Like, being loved. And that came through, you know, media … through the mainstream media, the magazines and songs that I was listening to. And … and so, I was pursuing this objective of both being normal, but being better than normal. Fitting into normalcy, but being really, really good at it. Like, being a millionaire. Not just having money, but being a millionaire.

So, after university, I … after about a year, I actually ended up moving out to San Diego, California when I was about 25 years old. And, I had been in sales. And I ended up, after about six months, starting a marketing company. And we sold advertising. And I had the goal of being a millionaire by the time I was 30. And life was going very well. I rented a three-bedroom apartment three blocks from the beach in Ocean Beach. I was making solid money. I … within a couple years had 20 independent contractors at the peak of the company that were selling ads. And I was bringing in over six figures in one … at least the last year before I stopped doing that.

So, I was on path to be a millionaire. I was having romantic relationships. I was … had many friendships. I was … I was … I would have made my childhood self very proud with what I was doing.
[Rich:] Um hmm.
[Robin:] And everyone … people back in my hometown, my small hometown, would definitely be looking up to me as a … you know, living in southern California and being financially successful and all these other ways. And I was happy. And I was healthy. I was still traveling the world. And so, everything was basically going according to plan.

And then something happened and I realized that I wanted to – almost felt like had to – radically transform my life. And a lot of people would think that I must have had some sort of major shakeup, like, a near death experience, or, you know, an experience of, you know, death in the family or, yeah, just some sort of big shakeup. But, I didn’t have anything like that. All that happened was I started to watch documentaries and I started to read books, and I just simply learned that I was living a great hypocrisy. That almost everything that I was doing was causing incredible destruction and injustice and that my life was built into such inequity. What I looked at it was, I was ravelled into this web of consumerism, via thousands of strands. And I was just here, in this absolute web of destruction. But I didn’t want to be. It’s like you said earlier. Nobody wants that actually.

But now I knew. Just by watching, you know, short films like “The Story of Stuff,” or documentaries like “Food, Inc.”. You know, reading Michael Pollan. Many, many, many different people out there who are just sharing the basic truths behind our reality. I just learned that my entire life was not what I thought it was. That most of what I was doing was because corporations had very large advertising budgets. And because societal norms were very powerful. It’s not because it’s what I was wanting to be doing, or so much consciously choosing to do, I was just being a product of my surroundings.

You know, for example, I was wearing Old Spice deodorant. Why? Because they had really solid commercials. And they convinced me that in order to be a contributing member of society, I needed their deodorant. And so, I decided that I wasn’t going to buy into the delusion, I wasn’t going to buy into the lies, the corruption, and that I was going to shed all of that.

And so, it was … it was multi-pronged. It was truth that I was pursuing, it was ascending delusion, which are basically, you know, two ends of the same coin. It was, yeah, ascending corruption and destruction. So, it was … it was sustainability. It was human equity and equality. You know, not wanting to be a part of the great wealth gap. So, it was … it was all of it. It was human, it was Earth, it was animal, it was plant, it was … it was a desire for sustainability. At that time, I didn’t know the word ‘regeneration,’ and I don’t think that was really so much of a popular word at that time. But regeneration, sustainability, equity and truth. And so, it was just … that was what it was. It was just … I decided very quickly that I was going to radically transform my life to be living by that rather than by consumerism, materialism, financial wealth at the expense and the burden of others.

[Rich:] If I went through that bibliography though, of books, documentaries, et cetera, that you were consuming, that gave you this moment of awakening, or this period of awakening, or unfoldment, I’m sure there’s a lot of people in the world who have read those books and watched those documentaries and, perhaps, in the wake of that, lived their lives a little bit more mindfully than they would otherwise. What is it about you, in particular, that … that led you to, you know, have a much more radical reaction? Is it the way you were wired, the way you were brought up? Is there something inside of you that’s different, that has catalyzed such an extreme kind of response to what you learned or discovered?
[Robin:] That I do not know.
[Rich:] And, I think, you know, it’s not like the next day you moved to Griffith Park and gave up everything.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] This has happened in stages.
[Robin:] Yep.
[Rich:] You know, it began with these bicycle adventures, portions of which you were without money and, like, drinking out of fire hydrants and, you know, a lot of dumpster diving. And then, you know, like doing the whole dumpster diving thing. I think you, like … you … you got into, like, something like 2000 dumpsters as a way of showing, like, you know, 50 percent of our food is waste and, you know, while however many millions of people are living in food poverty. You know, all of these things have a message behind them. You could call them stunts or experiences or adventures. But they’re all kind of very consciously crafted to feed a certain type of message, but each one is just a little bit more extreme than the one that preceded it. That has kind of led you to this … to this place.

[Robin:] Yeah. You know that’s … that’s … you could just leave that as a mystery. I don’t know. I don’t know …. Because the reality is that I don’t even know if we have free will. I don’t know if what we’re living is reality or delusion. I don’t know if potentially everything is predestined. I don’t know any of this, so it’s a little hard for me to say, but if we operate within the confines that here we are, human beings living in this reality, I don’t know why because I have so many friends who learn the exact same things as me and they don’t take it as far or even nearly as far. And, I think, I could say a few things: one is that I’ve been wired … I’ve been extreme since a young age. I’ve always been exploring … I’ve always been exploring. Like, when I was in, about, maybe fifth grade, me and my friend Hans biked thirty miles to the next town. And when we got there, we were, like, “Well, what do we do now?” We had to call our moms collect to get picked up. We couldn’t bike back. And then when I was 16, I hopped on a bus from my small town to Florida, 48 hours, on Greyhound that, you know, going far away away at a pretty young age. So, I’ve always been pushing the limits. You know, just to give another example of, like, the extreme things I would do and the level I was willing to go to, you know, there was a … in home economics class there was a chunk of a sponge at the bottom of the drain, and I ate it. You know? Someone gave me $5 and I ate it. I’ve always been, just testing the extreme. Doing really ‘out there’ things. From 5th grade, I was an entertainer. I was the class clown in my high school. That’s what I was nominated. So, there’s always been a desire to test the limits. There’s always been a desire to go outside of societal norms. There’s always been this ability to put myself ‘out there,’ so that all helps. Compared to someone who’s, you know, timid and struggling to put themselves out there, I always have. The other part is that, of course, ego. I have that large ego which allowed me to enter into this realm, because it was also … it was partly ego driven. So that, I would say, played a role. And then, I do think, at the heart of me is this pursuit of … of justice and of truth. That has been there from … also from a very young age. And I’m not sure where that came from. So, these are, I would say, part of the ingredients that have allowed me to be able to do this with relative ease. Like, sure, a lot of this has been hard, but the reality is that at the same time, it’s not … it’s not been that hard. Like, a lot of it has been joyful and flowing. So, those would be some thoughts as to what makes it possible. I’ve always been … I’ve always been a fairly driven and out-of-the-box person. And also critical thinking plays a big role. I’ve always been a critical thinker.

[Rich:] Um hmm. What are your siblings and your high school buddies, your college buddies, think about what you’re doing right now?
[Robin:] So, it goes across the realm of … of opinions. A lot of my former friends … I would still consider them friends, but we haven’t talked in ten years and … or longer. And, certainly … there’s certainly a lot of people who have written me off as just crazy. You know, I just don’t fit into their pattern. Even if they see the success that I’ve had, they’re like, you know, it’s just so far outside of their realm of … and so far outside of what they want to be reality. So, there’s no doubt that there’s people that are, you know, friends from my earlier life, that are, you know, that just think that this is all ridiculous. But there are, I would say more so, people that are inspired and that have played a role and that, you know, enjoy being around me. Because when they are around me, they’re learning. They’re growing, they’re exploring, they’re … they’re deepening. But, I will also say, I’ve done a pretty solid job of compartmentalizing my life in the sense that I don’t bring this into anywhere that doesn’t really want it. So, family and friends. I don’t ask them to do things really. I don’t judge them for what they’re doing or not. Because that just resulted in a lot of struggle and undesirable experiences when I was in my beginning stages. And so, you know, my two best friends, Paul and Dane, you know, we just have kind of a fairly normal time together. Camping and …. Although Dane, you know, he got … he ended up doing a lot of dumpster diving with me and moved in this direction some as well. But, and the last thing I’ll say, like, you know, I have a lot of support from my family. But, as an example, my brother Joe. He doesn’t get it. He thinks I should be making money. I should be capitalizing on this position that I have to make money, to, like, give to my mom, for example. And, me going to Griffith Park and owning nothing, like, this is another level where he’s just like … dude, this is not ….

[Rich:] Right. I mean, there is an argument that comes to mind which is, because you have this large platform, you are in a position where you could capitalize on it financially and use that … you know, like, funnel that money into your nonprofit and leverage it and, you know, for the betterment of the planet that is consistent with, that’s integrous with your message, right?
[Robin:] So, that’s probably one of the most common things people say, is that I have this platform and I could monetize it and then by monetizing it, I could do more good with it. And actually, my biggest struggle is that I don’t have the funds to accomplish a lot of what I’d like to. Over the last years, it’s been my limiting factor, has actually been funds. But, I truly believe that the most valuable thing that I have is my integrity. And when I am operating in the monetary world, I am not able to … to live out my integrity to the highest degree and so I actually chip away at the most valuable, meaningful thing that I have. So, that’s my objective right now is to really play into that. Like, that’s … you know, shedding as much of that … shedding anything that doesn’t build my integrity. And that means most attachments to the monetary system for now. And, we’ll see. Like, right now, it is a bit of a surrender game in that I might be … I might render myself a little less effective as I’m moving away from that. Or, maybe just being a human being of a deep level of integrity, people will resonate. They’ll see that. And it will result in me being … you know, more impactful than I ever can be … ever could have been had I decided to monetize.
[Rich:] Yeah. It’s a counter intuitive perspective shift. Like, the idea of doing that in the traditional way versus, like, the real power is in your allegiance to your integrity. And that’s like a nuclear power plant. You know, that, like, attracts opportunities and things that you might not imagine. But it all … it’s all sourced from that. And so, that is the thing you have to protect above … above everything else.
[Robin:] Yeah. That’s where … that’s what I feel and my hopes is that I play my cards right and that I use my life to the best of ability. I definitely ask myself questions, like, “Am I … you know, is this the right move? Am I … am I on the right path?” And I have doubts about it. And I don’t always know, and to be honest, the last few years, I feel like I’ve been the least effective that I’ve ever been. As I was running the nonprofit, and trying to bring in funds to be able to plant more fruit trees and provide more gardens to people, I actually became the least effective that I ever had been. And I think the reason why is because I wasn’t … I was being spread thin and I wasn’t able to be living my message. And I think that’s my best gift: is just to live my message to the utmost degree. And that includes living in a … in a deep form … form of integrity. And so, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m fully set on that. And we’ll see what ends up happening as far as whether my … my dreams of being very, you know, impactful and a meaningful contributor to society happen or I just dissolve into, you know … everything becomes more technological and I continue to not embrace it. And everything becomes, you know, yeah, more where if you take part of it, it’s harder to live in integrity. We’ll see what happens. I … it’s possible that I just render myself obsolete in this lifetime or it’s possible that I hold strong and that I continue to be able to be a pillar in … in this journey that so many of us are on. You know, that’s the reason I can keep doing this. There’s literally millions and millions of people have the same desires for the world. And so, only time will tell whether I play my cards right to be … of … as effective as I’d like to be in creating change.

[Rich:] Well, part of that integrity is decoupling from your attachment to those outcomes though, right?
[Robin:] Yeah. Well, as I was saying that, I could totally hear that. And so, I’m never going to have not … no attachment, because that would mean that I gained full enlightenment. I’m never going to gain full enlightenment. And. But. It’s just a balance. It’s the right level. Like. And also, you can have grand aspirations without having attachments to them, I believe. And the reason I believe that … if you look at people like the Dalai Lama, for example. I truly believe that he’s in the flow state of utilizing his life to be most highly effective of service while still having deep aspirations of using his place on Earth. And so, I see leaders out there who do that. Where it’s obvious they … it’s obvious they have aspirations, but they do detach from the attachment to outcome. And, I think that year after year after year of practicing that, you can enter into the flow state where the attachment disappears but the drive remains. And that’s … that’s something I can say from experience or even having talked to someone who said that before, but I can say that through the observation of …. You know, most of my leaders are in their seventies, eighties, or passed. So you can see their life trajectory and you can see how they changed throughout and that’s … that’s the pattern that I see, is that it is possible to dissolve the attachment while still being driven for the core values that I’m talking about of … of equity, of justice, of harmony. You can be totally, utterly dedicated and use every moment for that without it being a form of attachment, cravings or aversion. However, that requires incredible practice and dedication.

[Rich:] Part of your practice of assuring that your actions are in alignment with those values is this formal practice of setting vows and then renewing them or reviving them, like, in four-year intervals.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] How did that start? And what are your current vows?
[Robin:] Sure. I’ll …. First … well, as far as how is … how it started was, I looked at our leadership and I saw what characteristics so much of our leadership is lacking that our society really needs. And I saw how you corrupt a leader. And, my objective is to be a leader. You know, I want to be a leader for society. Not a leader that has power over, but a leader that has power with. Now, in an ideal world, maybe there would not be … there wouldn’t be leadership. Everything would be decentralized. But under our societal structures, leadership plays a role, and I think we can benefit from leadership. So, my objective is to be a leader that is more or less uncorruptible. And the vows play a role in that.

So, they are simply set as a way to protect myself from the things that would steer me off track. So, the original vows were to earn less than the federal poverty threshold. That’s a lifetime vow. When I made that vow, it was $11,000 per year. Now, the federal poverty threshold is $15,000 a year. So, earning less than that per year. Keeping my net worth at that level or lower, keeping my material possessions at that level or lower. Along with that, 2:00:05 11:37 means not paying federal income taxes for life. Why? Because, you know, some statistics say that about 50 percent of our federal income taxes go to war and the military industrial complex. But when you add in police brutality, the … the prison industrial complex; you add in bailing out the big banks; you add in big pharma, big AG, fossil fuels. So, I’ve made a lifetime commitment to not putting my funds into that, not paying federal taxes.

Another vow is to financial transparency. So, you get to decide. You get to know where my money comes from. Every bit of where my money comes from is documented on my website. That’s a lifetime commitment. So, you can see … you can see where I’m potentially being influenced by.

Another one of my early vows was to making every flight that I take public. So, I can’t go off to places without people knowing where I’m going. And that, I think, if … if all of our leaders did that, “Wow.” And transparency. If all of our leaders and corporations were financially transparent, a lot of our issues would just … they’d be gone.

So, those have been my vows since 2015. And then, my new vows as of this year: two years ago, I started to practice non-sexuality. So, I just decided I was going to take a one-year break from sex and romance. And, that one year turned into two years, and then as of this year, I added that to my vows: another four years of non-sexuality. And one of the reasons for that is one of the easiest ways to corrupt a man is sex. You know, you want sex. You’ll do things that are not in your integrity to have that sex. And then ….

[Rich:] And you got a vasectomy at 25.
[Robin:] Yes.
[Rich:] So this runs deep.
[Robin:] Yeah. I ….
[Rich:] I mean, you’ve had girlfriends over the years.
[Robin:] Yes. Well, up until two years ago, I was a very sex-driven person. I was … I was very much chipping away at my integrity sometimes. Like, I … I remember one time a woman asking me, you know, a handful of years ago, “Are you having sex with me because you want to have sex with me or because you want to be having sex with someone?” And the answer was, I wanted to be having sex with someone. And that was very painful, that I was not living in integrity. That that relationship was not integral in that scenario.

[Rich:] And part of the cathartic aspect of your walk was purging you of these dissonances and kind of coming clean. Doing like a … a … a personal and moral inventory of yourself to kind of disclose your secrets so that you could emerge clean into Griffith Park and part of that was this video that you did on … that was basically a sexual inventory, right? Like a kind of sort of, you know, open disclosure of, you know, your patterns and your behaviors as a way of, like, basically not letting, you know, your past – whatever haunts you in your past – continue to haunt you by, like, disclosing it and being transparent about it.
[Robin:] Yeah. That was the most … one of the more painful things that I’ve done. It was … it was a challenging thing to do because there’s other human beings involved. But, it’s my past and I want to heal. That’s a big part of the truth and transparency: it’s about healing. And, for me, I have minor trauma, but definitely pain and mourning over my sexual past. Why? Because I was born in a society that did not teach me how to respect women really. Like, I was learning from movies, from shows. I was watching movies like “American Pie” during my teenage years. And we didn’t even know the words …. I asked some of my closest friends, we never even heard the word ‘consensuality’ when we were in college. Now, I’m not blaming anyone, but the context is is that I didn’t know how to navigate sexual relationships at a young age in a way that were fully consensual and respectful. And I feel mourning and I feel pain over that, and I want to be a part of the healing process. And, I feel like being fully transparent and open and discussing the nuances, rather than blaming or putting self-guilt or shame upon myself, acknowledging what my past has been, the context of my past, and discussing that. And, one of the reasons that I think that is valuable is because I think millions of … of young men and boys experience just what I did. But today, if you discuss that in public, you risk … you risk being cancelled. And, that was … that was definitely an opportunity for me to say that truth and transparency is more important and if people decide that they’d rather that I’m no longer, you know, here and that you’re going to cancel me, then that’s okay. Because truth and transparency is … is much more important. It’s a very tender and very vulnerable thing to talk about. Especially on a platform like this that’s so large and because it’s also a topic that, you know, I could … that … that video was an hour-and-a-half, where I … where I talked about that. But, I’m glad to be able to talk about it a little bit, because at the heart of all of this is healing. You know, we’ll never be connected with one another if we don’t heal inside of ourselves. And so, a big part of this practice has been … a big part of this whole practice has been healing – becoming whole and complete.

And so, the last vow is I vowed to four years of 100 percent truth. So, 100 percent transparency. Telling only the truth and not telling a lie. And so, I got to the place where I don’t have … I don’t have anything I’m guarding or hiding anymore. I released it all. And I’ve committed to four years of that. And it’s a really relevant time for that, when you look at our presidential situation, imagine if the president only told the truth and didn’t tell a lie. And practiced full transparency. That would dissolve so much of the issues of our time. And so, a big part of my vows, and the reason that I renew them in alignment with the presidential cycle every four years, is that I’m actually saying, “Here’s what our leaders could be doing” with taking … they don’t have to take vows, but just embodying these practices and showing a person who’s a public persona or … or, you know, has a platform, taking these vows. A big part about it … a big part of it is that I want to influence leaders to also go to that depth.

[Rich:] Hmm. What has this experience taught you about happiness?
[Robin:] I would say that it’s very clear and, you know, this sounds cliche’, but more materialism, more material possessions and more money does not have a direct correlation with happiness. As much as people would often think otherwise. I think happiness comes from connection. Connection with all the things that I’ve been mentioning earlier. I think happiness comes from a … a purity inside of us. I think happiness comes from accepting ourselves just the way we are. Mr. Rogers – Fred Rogers – is one of my inspirations as of the last couple of years, and one of the things that he said the most is, “I like you just the way you are.” And, I believe that liking ourselves just the way we are, that’s how we get happiness. That’s how we ascend the materialism and the need for large quantities of money. As soon as we just love ourselves, as soon as we just like ourselves, that’s when wholeness and completeness comes. And when we’re whole and complete, we’re no longer comparing, we’re no longer blaming, judging. It’s no longer based on the right and wrong and the good and bad and the shoulds. It … it … it then comes down to this more of this just inner state of peace. And I would say happiness and peace are rather synonymous in my mind. I would also say integrity and happiness are rather synonymous in my mind. I highly doubt there is a person out there who is fully embodying integrity that is not also substantially happier than the average person out there. So, I think happiness comes through deep practices. Many deep practices, not just one. And that happiness is something that we will get, that we will have, that we will experience, only if we put in the work. Now, of course, we’ll get little happiness here and there without putting in the work. You know, just buying a new pair of shoes can give you happiness for a little while. But true happiness comes from a whole lot of work. A lot of practice, both mental and physical and in our relationship with the world around us.

[Rich:] That’s super interesting. This idea of integrity being synonymous with happiness.
What is integrity? It’s being integrous with your values, right? Your behaviors match your values.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] They’re in integrity. But I can’t help but think that, for the most part, we are captured by the trappings and the incentives of modernity. Like, we’re on the hedonic treadmill, we’re doing what is in front of us to do. We’re trying to meet our responsibilities, and we’re playing a game that we didn’t sign up for, but lack the ability to actually see at a 10,000 foot view and feel powerless to escape because everyone we know is participating in this. And as much as we can lift inspiration from your example and the extremities to which you will go, to kind of advocate for a different way of living, it also feels beyond arm’s reach, right? Like, wow, that’s really cool, okay, now back to my job, like. So what is it, I guess this is a good way to kind of, like, you know, kind of come to a closing with this, like: what is it that you want people to learn or glean from what you’re doing that they can translate into their lives, whether that’s just a perspective on their life or through real specific, you know, kind of behavior changes that would allow them to connect with more meaning and purpose and vitality. And … and … and understand the values, because I think we’re living so disconnected, not just from the planet and, you know, where all our products come from, but disconnected from ourselves, such that ideas like meaning and purpose and what are our values, and what, you know, what would my values even look like if I were to sit down and write them out? Like, we don’t necessarily all have immediate answers to those questions. Those are the result of a deep inner journey and exploration that you’ve been on. So, how would you kind of articulate what it is that you want people to hear and see and take and feel from this profound experience that you’re having?

[Robin:] Yeah. You know, more and more I have also realized that even in answering that question about happiness just now, I felt almost a little bit uneasy. ‘Cause I realize, my job is not to provide answers. My job is to stimulate thought. My job is to stimulate critical thought. And, to help people to ask questions. More than it is to provide answers. So, what I would like for people is to ask some basic questions: Is the way that … I’ll say it from the First Person. Is the way that I’m living in alignment with my values? Is the way that I’m living the way that I really want to be living?” And if the answer is “Yes,” great. But if the answer is “No,” then it’s … then it’s, “What can I do to bring my life into alignment?” “What can I do to make sure that my actions are in alignment with my beliefs?” And, if that’s where you are, then we get to explore solutions. We get to explore the other ways that are possible. And that’s different for everyone. It’s especially different when you look at we have hundreds of diverse cultures around the world, and within each culture, there’s different scenarios and you’re gonna have different ways of learning to align and learning to connect.

So, that’s the number one thing: it’s just asking ourselves, taking the time in this society that many of us are so busy and so spread thin that we don’t even take the time to ask, “Are we living the lives that we want?” Now, the area that I have expertise to be able to contribute toward, is that if your answer is that you want to be living in a way that is more in harmony with all life and less destructive to all life, then that’s where I have, you know, now 14 years of dedication to learning that and introducing people to other ways of … of doing that.

So, you know, my website is just an absolute plethora of resources, of how to enter into these realms. And, the first resource that I would share is I documented the first 100 changes that I made to transform my life. That’s just at robingeenfield.org/100. And that’s like, you can just go there and you can say, “You know what? I’m really excited to start growing my own food.” Or, “I’m really excited to start reducing the amount of waste and using reusable items.” Or, “I’m really excited to demonetize my life and learn how to meet my needs through community rather than through money.” Or, “I’m really excited to create a … an environmental activism campaign or start a nonprofit.” My website … you know, what I’m … what my job is to do this extreme stuff, but not to leave people hanging. The idea is not that anybody has to do what I do. If anybody’s saying right now, like, “I can’t do what he’s doing, so that’s that.” You know, next podcast. That’s probably a protection mechanism. ‘Cause … a self-protection mechanism, of not having to do anything. The reality is that at the heart of all of this is that there’s thousands of things that we can do to align our actions with our values. And so, my recommendation would be figure it out what you’re most passionate and excited about when it comes to transforming your life. And then make goals to make a few of those positive changes. When I decided to transform my life, I made an objective of making one positive change per week for two years, because that’s 100 positive changes. So, imagine if you woke up tomorrow and you’re doing 100 things differently. You might not even recognize yourself. You might have a crisis. But by making one positive change at a time, you can create the ‘new you,’ if that’s what you’re seeking.

And so, just as far as some simple things that we can do that can make a big difference in our lives: you know, growing some of our own food; learning to forage and harvest our own food from the land; looking into our trash cans and seeing all the ways that we’re creating trash and then finding alternatives, reusable alternatives; learning to fix some of our own items rather than buying new ones; learning just that we don’t need nearly as many things as we do. So, downsizing and simplifying, getting rid of all the extraneous stuff that’s actually taking away value from your life, and shedding it so you can bring more value into your life. Using your body as a means of transportation: walking, running, biking, skateboarding. Whatever it may be. Moving your body via human power. Driving the car less. Composting. You know, turning your food scraps and your … your plants from your yard into soil and experiencing that life. Volunteering more in the community. You know, getting rid of more bills. You know, all the bills, you’re like, “Actually, I don’t need this bill. And shedding that. And then if you have access to a lot of resources, distributing those equitably. You know, looking at what you’re putting on your body. If you’re putting lots of toxic things … toxic chemicals on your body. Finding natural alternatives. Your food: eating more whole foods. Eating a lot more, you know, vibrant fruits and vegetables that are grown locally. The list goes on and on. But these are some of my top ways in which they’re accessible, they’re things we can do and it creates a feedback cycle. We start with what we’re most excited about and what empowers us and we build one step at a time. And I look at it like a foundation. You’re building the brick of a foundation of a more … whatever you want to call it: sustainable, equitable, more connected life. And each of these bricks that you build helps you to add another brick, and then eventually, maybe, you can start to do things you never imagined before.

[Rich:] Your website really is a treasure trove. Like, there’s a ton of resources there. It’s pretty cool. Like, plenty for people to read and experience. And lots of videos and, you know, like, everything you want to know about your world is pretty much on that site.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] How long are you going to be in Griffith Park?
[Robin:] I’ll be there until April 20th.
[Rich:] Assuming they’ll let you. April 20th. Okay.
[Robin:] I’ll still be there. I might not be sleeping there, but I’ll still be hosting all of my gatherings in the green space just north of the Greek Theater. I’ll be gone in two days from now, from … ‘til March 16th, doing five weeks of vipassana, which is something that we didn’t dive into. But five weeks of silent meditation, as well as doing part of it as service, and then I’ll be back March 16th until … until April 20th. And then, most likely, I’m going to do a little California tour from San Diego up to San Francisco, continuing owning nothing, continuing the experiment of non-ownership and doing a little … a little tour of maybe a couple dozen cities or something like that.

[Rich:] And how long do you anticipate this non-ownership experiment to go? Like, is this … have you committed to something? Do you have a sense of how long you’re gonna do it, or are you taking it one day at a time?
[Robin:] I’ve committed to three months. So, ‘til April 20th. And, that is owning nothing. Now there’s a possibility, like, for example, a notebook. Like, I’d like to write. A pen I can borrow. If I’m writing on a piece of paper, I feel like that paper kind of becomes mine. It’s possible that I end up owning some little things within this three months. But three months of non-ownership. And then after that, I’m not sure yet. I might …. What I know for sure is that I’m not going to end up owning a whole bunch of stuff. Right off the bat. When I start to own things again, I’m going to accumulate just the things that help me to meet my basic needs and help me to also be more effective in my work.

I love the idea … part of me contemplates the idea of making this my life … my life. That for the rest of my life, I exist …. By owning nothing, it forces me to be in the public service. I … I … I have to be here in the public, because you can’t own nothing and live without people. It requires people.
[Rich:] Yeah.
[Robin:] And so, part of me very much is drawn to the idea of that this is me. That for my entire life, I practice non-ownership and I exist … exist in society in this way. It’s also possible that I come in and out of ownership and maybe I do a couple years of it. But this is the beginning. This is a three-month experiment. And the idea is that it’s putting me down the path and then I’ll see where exactly the path goes.
[Rich:] Right. I mean, you can’t write another book unless you have a computer or, you know, a notebook, or something to write on. But perhaps we could broaden the definition of borrowing for a period of time or what that means. Like, there … you know, there’s a creek. Like, once you kind of crack that open and say, “Okay, I’m, like, you know, open to a little bit of a shift here,” then it’s, like, you have to be very intentional and wary of, like, what comes your way. [Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] And the rationale. Like, the stories that you’ll make up to justify, like, owning something that perhaps is in defiance of that integrity. That will become, like, the challenge, right?
[Robin:] Well, it’s all about just calling it what it is. You know. If I’m not going to be in non-ownership, I’m not. And if I am, I am. And not … I don’t make … that’s … if anybody really gets to know me, that’s what they’ll see. I don’t try to fit things into a narrative that aren’t … that aren’t what they are. That wouldn’t be integrity. So, that’s why I’ve moved away from labels and instead … and that’s why I rarely ever make short videos. Because the stuff is complex. And that’s my job … is to exist within the complexity.

On that note, I can write a book without ownership. Because I could simply speak the words and someone else could dictate them.
[Rich:] Now you’re going old school. Like, you know, like, serious throwback style. You know, the great teacher is dictating their wisdom and knowledge to others, to let others transcribe.
[Robin:] Yeah. There are plenty of people who would do that. I have … the book that I recently wrote was volunteer edited, so someone … someone spent a lot of time editing that as a volunteer. And then, also, I could … I could do it at the library. You know, the library is a wonderful public service, and I could volunteer at the library for my contribution, and then I could write the whole book at the library. And then, you know, as far as my writing of books goes, I … I have, you know, this book I’ve … I’ve entered into a practice where this book is available as an experiment in the gift economy. And I don’t own this book.
[Rich:] Yeah, you don’t own it. It’s compostable. It’s … it’s, you know, it’s … any … any money that’s made in the exchange of this book doesn’t go to you, it goes to, you know, your … your … your foundation.
[Robin:] Actually, so it does go to the foundation, and then that is all directed to Black and Indigenous-led nonprofits that are working on food sovereignty.
[Rich:] I got it.
[Robin:] So, it comes through us and then is directed – if we make … if we bring in enough … you know, if … right now, we’ve only managed to donate $1500 to other places. It’s a big experiment in the gift economy and the level I’ve gone with non-ownership with that is that it is licensed under a creative commons universal license, which means anybody could reprint that and sell it. I have zero rights.
[Rich:] There’s no copyright on this?
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] I’ve never seen anyone go to that length. Where it’s, like, have at it. You want to, like, copy this and sell it? Go for it.
[Robin:] You’re spreading my message! You know, I’m not … I’m not attached. All I’m … all I’m attached to is sharing the message. Not to the ownership of the message. So, if somebody decided they want to do that, fine. But, also, yeah, nobody’s doing that.
[Rich:] I haven’t seen anyone else do that. It’s wild.
[Robin:] No.

[Rich:] Well, I appreciate not only, kind of like, what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it, the way you show up in the world, the hopefulness and the optimism and the enthusiasm with which you broach topics that are typically associated with, you know, doom and gloom and martyrdom and all the things that we talked about today. You’re very much about what you’re for, without a lot of energy around, like, what you’re against. And, I think that creates, like, a welcome mat for people to kind of come to your page or your website or your books, your videos and, you know, kind of engage you from a place of curiosity rather than having to, you know, kind of confront their own biases or their defense mechanisms, you know, around, like …. around …. Ideas are difficult, you know, because they’re asking us to really confront the reality of how we live. And, you know, we’re not all super enthusiastic about doing that.

[Robin:] Yes. And my … my other biggest practice right now is Compassionate Communication or Nonviolent Communication, which was created by Marshall Rosenberg, and it’s a way of learning to, yeah, not judge, not shame, not guilt, not … not right or wrong. Instead, just seeing people for the full human beings they are. It’s a practice of empathy, and so it’s a language of needs and feelings. So, what I do, at all times now, is whatever someone does, I always think to myself, “What are the needs that they’re trying to meet and what are they feeling.” And that’s what I do for myself as well: “What am I feeling and what am I needing?” And so, this dissolves judgments and it dissolves these concepts of … of shame and such. And so, that’s my … that’s probably what over the last few years I’ve spent more time on than just about anything, is rewriting my language through the practice of … of Compassionate Communication. And that’s definitely what I want people to get when they’re with me. I want people, when they’re with me, to feel empowered and inspired; to be able to question themselves deeper than they’ve ever questioned themselves before. But from a place of excitement and joy, not from a place of self-hatred or self-loathing or anything like that. To see that we are all complex, intricate beings. We live in a very difficult time. The fact that any … the fact that any human being out there is dedicating any of themselves to a positive contribution to the world, that is something to celebrate in the times that we live in. So, I … I celebrate every living human who is here, you know, listening to this, who hasn’t turned away, and is taking any opportunity they can to self-observe, to self-reflect and to try to use their life as a way to contribute to society in a positive manner. So, lots of celebration of life and lots of gratitude. That’s the other big tool is gratitude.

[Rich:] Well, I celebrate you. I appreciate how you show up in the world. The message that you’re carrying. It’s … it’s deeply inspirational – the level of commitment and the integrity with which you’re a, you know, a … a steward of this message. And it was really cool to talk to you, man.
[Robin:] Yeah.
[Rich:] I’d love to talk to you more, like, I only, you know, scratched the surface on a number of topics that I think we could explore, so, consider this, you know, Volume One.
[Robin:] I will be here any time you want. This is a ….
[Rich:] Alright, buddy.
[Robin:] This is a dream come true to be here with you, getting to share with so many people. I’ve wanted to do this for ten years. And so, it’s … it’s … it’s really a beautiful honor to be here.

[Rich:] Very cool. When was the last time you had a shower?
[Robin:] Oh, it’s been about nine days
[Rich:] There’s a shower in the bathroom. You’re welcome to take a shower. We’re gonna load you up with snacks.
[Robin:] So you gave me a harsh. Did I smell?
[Rich:] No. Not at all. I didn’t smell anything.
[Robin:] Oh. Wait. I just gotta show one last thing.
[Rich:] Okay.
[Robin:] The toothbrush! This is all I ….
[Rich:] If you’re listening, he’s pulled, like, a literal twig out of his pocket with, like, leaves on it, and he’s putting it in his mouth right now.
[Robin:] It’s a California Bay tree. It’s antimicrobial. It is powerful and I would love if you would want to try it. It goes around and then also my dental floss is pine needles, and it is … look, look Rich. Oh, that one was too dry and it goes right through.
[Rich:] Alright. I think that’s our signal to end it for today. robingreenfield.org, link up all your Instagram, your whatever, all the stuff, man. And pick up his books. Good times. Peace.
[Robin:] Thank you, brother. Yeah. Peace.