Comedy & Wisdom, John Lloyd

John Lloyd is a legendary comedy producer, who produced some of the biggest comedy hits of the 80s and 90s, including Not the Nine O Clock News, Spitting Image, and all four series of Blackadder.

After a mid life crisis he realised that his success wasn't making him happy, and this led to a lengthy search for meaning and wisdom.

This conversation with Rebel Wisdom's David Fuller covered everything from comedy, to the nature of creativity, and the meaning of life.

They also discuss his relationship with his former flatmate and writing partner Douglas Adams, the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

00:00 Intro
05:17 Personal Life
11:59 Knowing Nothing
16:32 Religion & The Origin of Ideas
26:11 Quite Interesting
30:01 Depression & Focusing on the Other
38:34 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy & Douglas Adams
45:29 Religion & Secular Rituals
54:02 Science & Spirituality
01:02:44 Intelligence, Comedy & Wisdom
01:12:01 Paradigm Shift
01:20:17 Closing

[DannyMulhernComposer]

Wonderful interview. Love John Lloyd. So much gold here. Thank you!! :)

[jezford]

On not knowing everything - “So now I don’t have to be right, I don’t have to win things, I can just sit back and enjoy the conversation.”
Took me 30 years to get there; and it’s very relaxing. Great interview Mr Dave.

[JemBowdenWatercolour]

Magic. What a highly enjoyable talk, with an eloquent and wise human. If not two! Thank you, David and Rebel Wisdom.

[joshbowe-artwork]

Had to watch this immediately again. So much of what John says about comedy is pertinent to the wider arts, especially the - doing so much comedy that you think you know what is funny. I've done a lot of painting in my time, I have no idea what I am doing, aside to say, it seems like memory, and i often think I laugh at things because it triggers my memory in a way only someone else can. Thanks

[chikara]

Listened to this on the podcast version then watched the whole thing again the next day. Absolutely brilliant conversation gents.

[Xtazieyo]

Videos like these are exactly the reason why I have been subscribed to both your YT and your website.

[JoelNTerry]

Amazing to me, as someone who's really rediscovered AA after a brutal lifetime of addiction, but in the wide range of Podcasts I inbibe, a massive majority of them will at least once highlight wisdom from the program...usually expounded on by non-members, but it really blows my mind that, in an age where churches and religions have become greedy and focussed on power, utterly corrupted it seems, a vehicle was formed in the 1940s and structured in such a way that it could survive virally and free from the whims of ego to heal so many lives, not just alcoholics or drug addicts but it seems that it holds forgotten ancient truths that could very well be a path to the cure for what ails the western society in total at this time...

[garycleave]

For me, the emergence of an impending poem
Is signalled by a sudden impression
Accompanied by a thought
A feeling
A rhythm
A rhyme
A meaning
A message
A search for words
Each carefully chosen
Then sculpted and polished one by one
Until like flower petals they blossom into a poem
Emitting a scent all of its own
Intensely personal
Yet somehow universal

[thefinestgreen]

This century the human race is slowly awakening to embrace a simple/eternally complex unified spirituality:

We are One. We are each One. All is One and One is Love. (So no hell in the worst). All one need do is Shine with noble intentions, judge not, and mind your own body.

[craigb]

Thanks for introducing another fascinating thinker! Many of us in the US haven't seen Lloyd before.

[jcb]

Thank you David, great conversation again. Could you let John Lloyd know that David Chalmers (Philosophy / Consciousness, Digital reality...) has found a possible question to the answer 42 ? He shared it during a conversation on "The Michael Shermer Show # 255" 19th March 2022 time 01:27 : "I like the idea that the question was : At what level of the simulation are we and the answer is we're at level 42. This base reality made a simulation made a simulation and there we are 42 levels down."

[roneythetube]

What a fantastic, fabulous and so very interesting interview. Superb!👍❤️

[garycleave]

David, you may enjoy the dialogues between David Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurti. David is the one who died of a heart attack hours after he told his wife in a phone call he’d found the answer to the existential question he’d been seeking to answer his whole life.

[KainTheDamned]

I did not know that man. After that interview I admire that man. A lot.

[justinlaporte]

Really fun watch I loved it! Thank you Rebel Wisdom

[wilmingtonlongman]

That was great. Like a pint on a Sunday on a sunny day

[andrewbuhman]

I loved the section on "where do ideas come from?"

[janicestevenson]

Thank you for this conversation. In Steps to Knowledge, a meditation guidebook, by Marshall Vian Summers, Marshall states the following: "Your life is necessary. It is not a biological accident. It is not a mere chance circumstance that you arrived in this world. If you could but recall what you went through to come into this world...then you would realize the importance of your being here and the importance of the Knowledge that you carry within you... There is no form of conceit here. It is simply a recognition of truth. In your evaluation of yourself, your life is either pathetic or grandiose. Yet the necessity of your life has nothing to do with your evaluation, though your evaluation can bring you closer to or take you further from this one true recognition. Your life is necessary. Understand this and it will banish your sense of self-judgment and condemnation. Understand this and it will bring humility into your self-grandiose ideas.... Consider this statement regardless of your emotions, your circumstances and whatever thoughts are prevailing in your mind, for Knowledge is greater than thoughts and is meant to govern thoughts... Feel the necessity of your own life. It does not require your evaluation... It is merely a profound experience of reality." (MVS, Steps to Knowledge)

[MatthewJohnCrittenden]

Brilliant. Big Douglas Adams fan here too. Sadly missed genius.

[Elgsdyr]

A bit too much all over the place for my autistic mind but still very inspiring. Thank you.