Joe Rogan – David Choe

Now some people in this world are just crazy, but I mean, what would we do without them? What would we do without the first ‘crazy’ person who thought we could go on the moon? What would we do without the first ‘crazy’ man who thought he could attract a deadly natural phenomenon such as lightening and use it to create electricity? The truth is, without crazy people, the world would have lost some of its greatest achievements. To put it another perspective, the world would also lose some of its best sources of entertainment.

In a Joe Rogan podcast, he interviewed a man named David Choe, who may be one of the craziest men who currently walk on this earth. He dropped out of high school at 16 and spent two years hitch hiking across America and traveling across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He did this with barely any money and no plan the entire time. One of the places he traveled to was one of the most dangerous areas in the entire world called the Congo. The Congo is an extremely isolated country in central Africa and is notoriously known for a dangerously high violent crime rate. David was only 19 and had no plan when he traveled to the Congo. The only reason he had for going was because he was bored and read in a National Geographic article that some scientists spotted a Brontosaurus type of creature in the area. So basically, this man traveled to one of the most dangerous places in the world to go dinosaur hunting. If the country wasn’t dangerous enough already, during the time David Choe visited the Congo, they were in the midst of a civil war and ebola outbreak. He may be one of the craziest men but he’s definitely not winning any prizes for being the luckiest.

During this trip, David met a tribe of Pygmys which are hunter gatherers that live deep in the jungle of the Congo. They had never seen a man of David’s asian race before and were very fascinated by him. The Pygmys took him to their village and gave him food. They were very kind to him and showed him how to get out of the forest he had been lost in. He started to give up on his search for the dinosaur and decided to leave the Congo. He eventually came back years later and lived with a Hadza tribe for 4 months, having to adapt to their extremely difficult hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

David and a pygmy tribe in the Congo

He told this story and many more on his podcast with Joe Rogan. As I listened to this podcast, I remember having to pause it multiple times to process the fact that everything this man was saying actually happened. Now while this man was definitely crazy, I had a strong admiration for his determination to do things and fearless actions.

David Choe has experienced a lot throughout his life and because of this it has made him extremely wise. One of my favorite quotes that David stated in his 2014 podcast interview with Joe Rogan was “You’re a perfectly imperfect unrepeatable miracle of the universe”. This quote stuck with me because it is saying how every individual on this earth has such a fundamental worth and value. It is a miracle in itself that we are here where we are today and David recognized it and took advantage of it by seeing as much of the world as possible. While David may be ‘crazy’ he has a better understanding on the true fundamental values of the world than many of us do. Therefore, maybe we all need a little ‘crazy’.

David Choe’s interview with Joe Rogan linked below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7T6__UbhBI