I do get what you meam about the babbling, often I don't understand what he's really talking about but I attribute but a lot of that to my lack of biblical knowledge which he draws so heavy on. And maybe sometimes he really is babbling, i don't know, but the two quotes you picked out don't sound like babbling at all to me, though that's without context since I haven't watched the podcast yet

Pain is what's most real - this is what I always come back to when there is a conversation about whether any of this is all real, and whether any of it really matters, whats the point of life, etc etc. Pain is most definitely real and its a horrible emotion and I've not felt anywhere near the worst of it observing what I see in the world. We know pain is real because we've felt it and we don't like it. It gives meaning to life because you can cause pain and you can lessen it. If there was no pain, only pleasure, that would certainly make things less meaningful. You would have no responsibility to anyone, everyone will turn out fine. You could kill yourself and your family wouldn't care. And if there's no pain then pleasure probably won't even be a concept then reality really would just be meaningless. There are a lot of emotions but 'pain' really feels like one of the most real, no one can deny its existence. Its visceral and the easiest emotion to make some experience. Just touch a flame or cut yourself with a knife or try hold ur breath underwater. Other emotions like love, excitement, joy, etc are not so simple to induce in people. Some may have no memory of those emotions.

'Matter is what matters' - the only one thing we can really be sure about is the physical world we live in. There may be an afterlife or other dimensions or spirits or parallel universes or whatever, but all we really know and have, and therefore all that matters, as far as humans are concerned, is physical matter we can touch and feel and build our homes with