Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Therapy Gecko podcast. Today's episode,
Speaker 1: we're doing gek mail. Gek mail is a thing where,
Speaker 1: you know, normally on this podcast, people will call me
Speaker 1: on the phone and I'll have conversations with them about stuff,
Speaker 1: and it'll be a dialogue. But this time, I'm reading
Speaker 1: emails that people have sent me. And I have a
Speaker 1: special guest on today's episode. I am down in Georgia
Speaker 1: visiting my father, and I decided, I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what I've mentioned, I'm trying to get more guests
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and you know what, screw all the celebrities,
Speaker 1: screw all the you know whatever. I had. I had
Speaker 1: my sister on, and now today I have my father on.
Speaker 2: I was happy to interrupt my nap to be on
Speaker 2: your podcast.
Speaker 1: I was happy you could interrupt your nap too. I
Speaker 1: feel like there's a lot of times where I'm like
Speaker 1: talking on this podcast and I can like hear. This
Speaker 1: will be interesting for me because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times where like I'm talking on this podcast and I
Speaker 1: can hear in my own voice that I'm talking similar
Speaker 1: to you. So the audience will now be able to
Speaker 1: tell me if that's true.
Speaker 2: That happens all the time to me where I'm talking
Speaker 2: and I feel like my father is talking through me
Speaker 2: all the time. That happens. Really, yeah, it's very and
Speaker 2: I think it's actually pretty common in the world that
Speaker 2: people channel their parents, first of all through genetics and
Speaker 2: then you know, just through orientation. You know, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about this the other day. Actually, I was thinking
Speaker 2: about this yesterday when you and I'm pretty open with
Speaker 2: you about things that happened in my life and how
Speaker 2: I feel about things and what I do. And there's
Speaker 2: multiple reasons for that. One reason for that is I
Speaker 2: love you, I trust you, I feel very close to you,
Speaker 2: so it's just natural to have that kind of interaction.
Speaker 2: But there's another kind of a parental reason that I
Speaker 2: do it, which is, you know, at this stage, you're
Speaker 2: totally in adults. You make all of your own decisions.
Speaker 2: You come and go and do whatever makes sense to
Speaker 2: you in your vision of the world in your life,
Speaker 2: and I completely respect that. So you know, the parent
Speaker 2: child roles don't disappear. So the question is what can
Speaker 2: I do as your parents that would add value for
Speaker 2: you and to me just being totally transparent with who
Speaker 2: I am and what I've done and why I've done
Speaker 2: them gives you an opportunity to say, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: I could have a complete model of how I want
Speaker 2: to be as as I moved through life, or how
Speaker 2: I don't want to be as I move through life.
Speaker 2: And I can't imagine a better thing to give you besides,
Speaker 2: you know, bequeathing you all of my worldly possession. It
Speaker 2: will happen at some times.
Speaker 1: Well I hope it doesn't happen for a long time,
Speaker 1: but no, I appreciate that because I feel like the
Speaker 1: it's interesting to say you channel your father through yourself,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I also feel like I like, like, am
Speaker 1: you know, similar to you in many ways because I
Speaker 1: have your genes and so to hear when you're you know,
Speaker 1: transparent with me about your life and you know whatnot,
Speaker 1: I feel like I get more clarification on like my
Speaker 1: own brain because I'm talking to someone who genetically has
Speaker 1: a similar brain to me. And to see how like
Speaker 1: your life plays out and how your thoughts and your
Speaker 1: feelings play out, it it's it's it's very helpful. It
Speaker 1: is it is far more helpful to me than all
Speaker 1: of your worldly possessions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, you know, people who don't have
Speaker 2: children one hundred percent legitimate lifestyle choice. Yeah, no criticism
Speaker 2: of them at all. Yeah, But when you have a
Speaker 2: child and you participate in that child's life and you
Speaker 2: see him or her grow up, you start to recognize
Speaker 2: in that child pieces of yourself. You know that that
Speaker 2: that you have passed on, and then you somewhat recognies
Speaker 2: parts of your parents that are also reflected in the
Speaker 2: child and in yourself.
Speaker 1: Interesting and think about that.
Speaker 2: And it gives you a much I feel deeper understanding
Speaker 2: of yourself in the world. You know, when you see
Speaker 2: when you see characteristics and traits in your child and
Speaker 2: in your your parents that you may have thought was
Speaker 2: within you as well, And it does give you a
Speaker 2: fuller understanding of yourself in the world.
Speaker 1: Right, Like you made a copy of yourself and you
Speaker 1: sent it out into the universe and now you're seeing
Speaker 1: how it's doing things and then you're like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they can give you more perspective on.
Speaker 2: Right, especially when you when you see those traits reflected
Speaker 2: in your parents, those because those traits that that carry
Speaker 2: through three generations. I mean, that's that's deep characteristic.
Speaker 1: Do you see any similarities between me and your dad,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so.
Speaker 2: Many what well, you know, one of the things my
Speaker 2: dad was really really good at was going into places
Speaker 2: where he didn't know anybody, it was a strange and
Speaker 2: alien place, and make himself and the people he was
Speaker 2: with feel comfortable. He was really skilled at sales, and
Speaker 2: part of that was his ability to make himself comfortable
Speaker 2: in unusual in different situations, and make the people he
Speaker 2: was with feel comfortable, you know, in that situation and
Speaker 2: with him. And I mean, I think that's something that
Speaker 2: you are very gifted at. I appreciate that, as is
Speaker 2: evidenced by all of the things that you've done professionally
Speaker 2: over the last half dozen years.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Hmm hmmm.
Speaker 2: And it and it suggests to me that and it
Speaker 2: prompts me to consider whether I have that characteristic.
Speaker 1: Of course you have that characteristic.
Speaker 2: You know. And so so, why do we care what
Speaker 2: we're like? Why does it matter that we know what
Speaker 2: we're like? It matters because if we could recognize things
Speaker 2: in our selves that are our real parts of us, uh,
Speaker 2: and we want and we like that, we can lean
Speaker 2: into that in the in the things that we do
Speaker 2: and we could be more successful in our lives, in
Speaker 2: our relationships, in our careers, in our you know, social life,
Speaker 2: in our hobbies, in our creative pursuits. You lean into
Speaker 2: your strength.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's the thing about like, that's why the
Speaker 1: self knowledge is helpful, because well sell like self awareness
Speaker 1: of like your self awareness, I feel like like introspection.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you have this too, but like,
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like I get too introspective for my
Speaker 1: own good, that I'm like like living in my head
Speaker 1: instead of like in the world, you know, like analy
Speaker 1: like thinking it Like, do you ever feel like thinking
Speaker 1: about yourself too much?
Speaker 2: Nose? No, to me, that's not a problem unless I'm
Speaker 2: having destructive self talk.
Speaker 1: Oh of like, oh I'm not good. Like unless if
Speaker 1: you're built, like you're building a narrative of yourself where
Speaker 1: you suck.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. But otherwise, you know, your thoughts, you
Speaker 2: could have just wonderful thoughts about yourself and how you
Speaker 2: fit into the world. And I don't see a problem
Speaker 2: with doing that unless you have destructive self talk.
Speaker 1: How how often are you having destructive self talk? At
Speaker 1: the age of sixty six? Every day, every day, every
Speaker 1: day It hasn't gotten easier over time? Have you gotten
Speaker 1: better at dealing with it?
Speaker 2: I have gotten much better at dealing with it, because
Speaker 2: you know, when you get older, like I just retired
Speaker 2: a year ago, and you know, as a younger person,
Speaker 2: I had certain specific dreams and goals, and then my
Speaker 2: life changed and I focused on different dreams and goals.
Speaker 2: And now that I'm older, and all of that is
Speaker 2: behind me, and the activity of having dreams and goals
Speaker 2: is not behind me. I still have them.
Speaker 1: I say, you be, the specifics of them.
Speaker 2: Right, But the specifics of them. I can now look back,
Speaker 2: and you know, to a certain extent, my life has
Speaker 2: book ended a little bit, you know, and I can see, well,
Speaker 2: all right, I wanted to do that. When I was
Speaker 2: seventeen years old, I made different choices when I was
Speaker 2: twenty three years old. Why did I make those choices?
Speaker 2: What was it about me that made those choices? And
Speaker 2: that's where you might say, well, why bother? Why bother?
Speaker 2: And that would be a legitimate response.
Speaker 1: Why by the analyzing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, why bother analyzing? But you know, again a lot
Speaker 2: of it comes down to understanding who you are and
Speaker 2: what you're good at and leaning into it. Or what
Speaker 2: you maybe could use a little improvement at and focus
Speaker 2: on improving those areas.
Speaker 1: So what was it. So when you were seventeen, what
Speaker 1: was your dream?
Speaker 2: Oh? I was I went out to California to become,
Speaker 2: you know, a film director. And you know, and I'll
Speaker 2: tell you in stages, I moved away from that at
Speaker 2: various times.
Speaker 1: Like it happened slowly.
Speaker 2: It did happen slowly, And it happened before I ever
Speaker 2: really liked put my heart and soul into doing the thing.
Speaker 1: Oh, before you ever put your heart and soul into
Speaker 1: doing whatever it was you were doing.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you know. I remember, I have a I
Speaker 2: have a really good friend who his name is Fred Decker,
Speaker 2: and I and I drop his name because I admire
Speaker 2: him tremendously and anybody wants to look him up. He's
Speaker 2: had a very interesting career as a filmmaker, as a filmmaker,
Speaker 2: as a writer. And I remember I was at UCLA
Speaker 2: and he had reserved a sound stage to make a
Speaker 2: short movie. And I remember walking by it and looking
Speaker 2: at it and and having this feeling that I don't
Speaker 2: see myself in that environment. That's that's not the right
Speaker 2: place for me. Yeah. So but and then I kind
Speaker 2: of like let that go. And then I I work
Speaker 2: after I graduated from UCLA as a waiter at Bob's
Speaker 2: Big Boy restaurant, and I was going to write a novel,
Speaker 2: and as I was writing the novel, I was thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm not feeling joy from doing this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Those were kind of introspective things, like if I'm not
Speaker 2: introspective about those things, I may not make the right
Speaker 2: decisions for myself.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a I don't know if I think I've
Speaker 1: probably talked about it on this podcast before, but I
Speaker 1: had a moment with that with with stand up comedy
Speaker 1: where I was at a I was at this show
Speaker 1: and I wasn't on the show, but I was like
Speaker 1: a friend's show. And then I had another friend who
Speaker 1: was there who also wasn't on the show, and I
Speaker 1: was talking to my other friend who wasn't on the show,
Speaker 1: and I said to him, doesn't it feel nice to
Speaker 1: just like not have to worry about like performing and
Speaker 1: like being on stage and stuff. And he looked to
Speaker 1: me like I was crazy, and he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: a comedian. I always want to be on stage. And
Speaker 1: I left and I left that night being like fuck,
Speaker 1: if I'm not like that, then I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can do this.
Speaker 2: And then it was it.
Speaker 1: You know, it ended up being this interesting full circle
Speaker 1: thing because I, you know, I perform as the get
Speaker 1: go and stuff, but I have at like had those
Speaker 1: moments where like I see somebody else like, uh, looking
Speaker 1: like they're really enjoying doing something that I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and then being like, fuck, am is that?
Speaker 1: Am I supposed to feel that way? But are you?
Speaker 1: But it's hard to tell because I'm like, uh, I
Speaker 1: think there there must be a suffering of some kind,
Speaker 1: like in order to write a book or do something like,
Speaker 1: you do have to uh like, you can't expect yourself
Speaker 1: to enjoy every single part of the process, can you,
Speaker 1: You think?
Speaker 2: Well, fair question, and it deserves, you know, a thoughtful response,
Speaker 2: which is, all right, let's look at those two situations
Speaker 2: that I that I told you in my life. Now,
Speaker 2: I could very well have said, all right, I don't
Speaker 2: see myself in that environment regarding that soundstage experience, And
Speaker 2: I could have said, why why don't I see myself
Speaker 2: in that and maybe understood myself better and gotten over that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure baby, yeah maybe maybe.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, same thing with you know, I was
Speaker 2: writing my novel and you know, feeling no joy, I
Speaker 2: would have thought, why am I feeling no joy? And
Speaker 2: maybe if I'd done some investigation, I would have realized
Speaker 2: that every novelist in the history of letters has hated
Speaker 2: writing and just had to get past that because they
Speaker 2: had a voice and they had something to say and
Speaker 2: and that was important to them. So, you know, Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I I feel like I'm leaving your listeners with conflicting
Speaker 2: approaches to me.
Speaker 1: Well the well I mean, if you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think there is a correct approach. You know, I'm very
Speaker 1: one of the hard things about uh, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the hard things about doing this, And I don't
Speaker 1: look I definitely I talk about this all the time
Speaker 1: on here, Like I don't. I try not to give advice.
Speaker 1: I end up doing it on certain situations I feel
Speaker 1: like it. But I feel like I remain I remain
Speaker 1: rather agnostic towards a lot of stuff on here, truly,
Speaker 1: because I will think about the different ways to like
Speaker 1: approach stuff, and I will wind up being like, oh,
Speaker 1: I really don't know which one is the correct approach,
Speaker 1: Like the specific issues you know of, like you know,
Speaker 1: am I supposed to like suffer through the not liking
Speaker 1: of the process of the doing of the thing, Or
Speaker 1: am I supposed to find something where the process of
Speaker 1: doing it it feels good? And I've experienced I've had
Speaker 1: lots of experiences where I did, like overcome the lack
Speaker 1: of desire to do something and it made like a
Speaker 1: really great product that was really proud of. I'm sure
Speaker 1: happy I did it. Deadlines helped with that, of course,
Speaker 1: But then there was a time where I'm life, but
Speaker 1: then there's ship where I'm like, oh, I can really
Speaker 1: tell I enjoy the process of doing this thing.
Speaker 2: Listen. I remember being a practicing lawyer in Los Angeles. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties. This was short. This was shortly
Speaker 2: after let's say three or four years, you know, the
Speaker 2: Cold War was still going, Yeah, in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: and there was a big production of nuclear war that
Speaker 2: came out like in eighty four eighty five that really
Speaker 2: was sobering about what nuclear war was going to be like.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like roughly on your mind. I
Speaker 2: was very lucky. I had beautiful office in Century City,
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, on the nineteenth floor, overlooking all of West
Speaker 2: Los Angeles and on a relatively clear day, I could
Speaker 2: see the ocean and it was just great. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I was writing a brief that I hated writing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I did not want to write it. So I was
Speaker 2: looking after the window and fantasizing that if a nuclear
Speaker 2: bomb hit Los Angeles, I wouldn't have to write the brief.
Speaker 2: I ended up writing the brief and we ended up
Speaker 2: winning the case. But yeah, you have to sometimes you do,
Speaker 2: just have to power through those feelings. You know.
Speaker 1: As funny as you've told me that story before, but
Speaker 1: I never knew that that was like in the context
Speaker 1: of the Cold War. I just imagined that you were
Speaker 1: looking out at your office imagining that a bomb would come.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know that there was a context on
Speaker 1: which other theoretically could have been.
Speaker 2: Well, now it would be like a comet or an asteroid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because we just watched that movie Green Lion. Then we're
Speaker 2: looking forward to Greenland too, which is all about a
Speaker 2: comet hitting the planet. And you know, and you know,
Speaker 2: my wife is a crazy uh apococalypts fan fan.
Speaker 1: Are you do you worry? Do you ever worry about
Speaker 1: the apocalypse?
Speaker 2: Never?
Speaker 1: Is it because of the statistical unlikeness of it happening,
Speaker 1: or because if it does happen, you don't have meaning
Speaker 1: to worry about ever.
Speaker 2: Again, you know, there's the whole concept of control. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and worry. Yeah right, and we all you know, worry
Speaker 2: is kind of a fundamental part of the human condition,
Speaker 2: but it's a very destructive thing. And most of the
Speaker 2: time we're worrying about things that we cannot control. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, So then then the question is, all right, well,
Speaker 2: let's get let's let's drill that and really how all
Speaker 2: right if we can control something, Yeah, why should we
Speaker 2: think about it at all?
Speaker 1: I know it's hard, that's well, well, that's the you know,
Speaker 1: that's the you know, the serenity prayer, right, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's this. This serenity goes something like give me the
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny sideway fucking In the episode I
Speaker 1: did with Chloe, we brought up the serenity prayer of
Speaker 1: like the the well.
Speaker 2: Give me the strength to understand the things I can control,
Speaker 2: and the curse up the whatever the things that I
Speaker 2: can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the cur Yeah, the courage control the things that
Speaker 1: I something. Help me accept the things I can't control
Speaker 1: help me change the things I can. Help me understand
Speaker 1: the difference. I think, for if you worry a lot
Speaker 1: and you have anxiety, to me at least, I don't
Speaker 1: think I I've gotten pretty good at not worrying about
Speaker 1: things I can control.
Speaker 2: I get worried about.
Speaker 1: Things that I can control, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I think I think people. I think having a
Speaker 1: lot of worry and anxiety is about a having trouble
Speaker 1: knowing the difference. But also is I have a lot
Speaker 1: of uh, But also, like I do, I have a
Speaker 1: lot of worrying about things I can control, which stops
Speaker 1: me from controlling them. It's like it's just it just
Speaker 1: takes up. It's like procrastination.
Speaker 2: Well, but that's the great thing, right, because you can
Speaker 2: translate that worry into action. Yeah, right, Action kills fear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to procrastinate a lot.
Speaker 2: Still, I was actually not much of a procrastinator. No,
Speaker 2: I never felt that way about myself. I'm feel like,
Speaker 2: if I'm procrastinating about something, yeah, it's because in my
Speaker 2: subconscious I haven't really decided that it's the right thing
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I I do, But I believe that too.
Speaker 2: I believe that too.
Speaker 1: When I feel intuitively drawn to do something I can,
Speaker 1: I don't have to crass it on it.
Speaker 2: And actually that kind of circles around to something else
Speaker 2: that we were kind of talking about, which was like
Speaker 2: the concepts of powering through And you know, when people
Speaker 2: have come to me and said, I don't know what
Speaker 2: to do about X, Y and Z, what of the situation?
Speaker 2: My first I don't have advice for anybody. Okay, My
Speaker 2: first question is what do you want to do? Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's, in my opinion, the first question you should
Speaker 2: ask you don't know what to do because a lot
Speaker 2: of times people really know what they want to do,
Speaker 2: but they're afraid of the potential consequences. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: then if they can't get there, I say, okay. The
Speaker 2: second question is what's the smart thing to do? That's
Speaker 2: an interesting one. What's the smart thing to do? Which
Speaker 2: is not the first question. That's the second question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know what, those can be conflicting, Those
Speaker 1: can have conflicting answers.
Speaker 2: Of course, absolutely no question about it. Yeah, because look,
Speaker 2: ultimately time is limited in our lives. We should do
Speaker 2: what we want if it's not hurting anyone, If it's
Speaker 2: not you know, leading us to you know, destruction and despair.
Speaker 2: You know, focus on what you want to do because
Speaker 2: it's your life, and you really, I mean, you really
Speaker 2: only get one of them.
Speaker 1: I know. I think a lot of the problems that
Speaker 1: people on this show have, but we'll we can read
Speaker 1: some of these emails at some point is like juggling
Speaker 1: what they want to do with the ever growing external
Speaker 1: requirements of existing on the earth. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's very complicated. Yeah, you know, human civilization, it's just,
Speaker 2: you know, is a massive maze that gets more complex
Speaker 2: with more blind turns daily. By the way, your your
Speaker 2: listeners should know that that this is how we talk. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is this is not like, oh we're doing this
Speaker 2: for a podcast. This is how we talk and then
Speaker 2: people might say, oh, poor Lyle.
Speaker 1: So I'm really happy I asked you to do this.
Speaker 1: This is way better than me just doing this alone. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted there's a thread of okay, all right,
Speaker 1: so just to just to close this thread of okay,
Speaker 1: so you're it's fine. You were on the you were
Speaker 1: on the phone with my uncle last night and you
Speaker 1: were talking about this about how you were on the
Speaker 1: phone uncle last night, and you were you said that
Speaker 1: one of the great things about being older is that
Speaker 1: you get to look at your life and see how
Speaker 1: it all played out. Yes, so now with what you
Speaker 1: told us about how you know, you went out to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles to like do all these things and now
Speaker 1: life has played out, Like, how do you what's your
Speaker 1: reflection on how life has played out?
Speaker 2: I have a great anecdote about that. Yeah, please, having
Speaker 2: to do with Chloe. Yeah. So I was talking to
Speaker 2: Chloe not terribly long ago, it would have been like
Speaker 2: within the last couple of years, and I I was talking.
Speaker 2: I was I was down talking the concept of being
Speaker 2: a dabbler, you know.
Speaker 1: For reference, if some people know what some people don't. Chloe,
Speaker 1: Chloe is my sister, go ahead, so.
Speaker 2: You know, like doing getting really good at majong and
Speaker 2: then learning how to ski Jack of all Trade, Jack
Speaker 2: of all Trades. And I was saying that kind of
Speaker 2: in a negative way, Okay, And then I do something
Speaker 2: that I almost always do. After I say something, I
Speaker 2: think about whether it's really true, you know.
Speaker 1: I do the same. I do the same, Like I'll
Speaker 1: say it first and I'll be like, wait, I do
Speaker 1: I actually is.
Speaker 2: It really true, and then I realized that my whole life,
Speaker 2: I've been uh, and I'm gonna say this proudly a
Speaker 2: grade A dabbler. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're a dabbler.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, I write screenplays, I play music,
Speaker 2: I play chess, I play golf. You know, I like
Speaker 2: to tool around with computers. Uh, you know, over and
Speaker 2: over again. There's there's you know, I love sports. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I've gone through my life and I've looked
Speaker 2: at all the different things that I've done, the extra
Speaker 2: curricular things that I've done, and I feel pretty proud
Speaker 2: about what I've done. And the nice thing is, like,
Speaker 2: I'm sixty six, I still have time to do more things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you what more do you want to do?
Speaker 2: I want to write music. I want you know, I
Speaker 2: have this idea and if somebody wants to steal this idea,
Speaker 2: go right ahead. That's fine. There's there's room for multiple
Speaker 2: people to do it. Ye. Yeah, but they won't because
Speaker 2: your your listener base, I'm guessing probably doesn't know the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine hit song in the year twenty five
Speaker 2: twenty five, I've.
Speaker 1: I probably not, yeah, probably not. I I guess they don't.
Speaker 2: I would urge you to put a link to Spotify
Speaker 2: or Apple Music or YouTube in the subscription to the song.
Speaker 2: I want to make a music video where I play
Speaker 2: the song and then in the song is kind of
Speaker 2: a cautionary tale about the dangers of future technology. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what the song way? What is it?
Speaker 1: I'll look it up in the year twenty five, twenty five,
Speaker 1: year twenty five twenty five. Oh I thought I thought
Speaker 1: you were saying twenty twenty five. Oh, okay, in the
Speaker 1: year twenty five, twenty five, if man is still alive,
Speaker 1: if woman can survive, they might find in the year
Speaker 1: thirty five thirty five, you're not gonna need to tell
Speaker 1: the truth, tell no lie. Everything you think, do or
Speaker 1: say is in the pill you took today. This is
Speaker 1: about like fascism.
Speaker 2: You could interpret it that way.
Speaker 1: How do you interpret it?
Speaker 2: I interpreted it more of like biotechnology.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, sure, you know.
Speaker 2: It's like you take a pill and it just, you know,
Speaker 2: drives everything you do during the day. You kind of
Speaker 2: are sacrificing your agency for the benefit of being able
Speaker 2: to rely upon that technology.
Speaker 1: Would you would you analogize that to social media would
Speaker 1: you analogize that to our our phones perhaps.
Speaker 2: You know, I never thought of it that way. I've
Speaker 2: always taken the songs lyrics pretty much to their face value.
Speaker 2: By the way, this was the number one song yeah
Speaker 2: the day and I'm apologies to conspiracy theorists go ahead.
Speaker 2: The day that Neil Armstrong was the first man to
Speaker 2: walk on the Earth, July twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, this
Speaker 2: was the number one hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was probably can I you know, I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: I bet it was. Do you think it's because people
Speaker 1: were stoked about the future.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think there was a I think I think
Speaker 2: the future was very much on people's minds back then.
Speaker 1: See, I feel so your generation was like tell me
Speaker 1: if you think this is accurate, But it seems like
Speaker 1: your generation was like stoked about the future because like
Speaker 1: was like when they would come out with something, it
Speaker 1: would be cool, like like, oh, we got a man
Speaker 1: walking on the moon, we got like, look look at
Speaker 1: this computer. It's awesome. And now like my generation, like
Speaker 1: when they come out with something, it's like like, I
Speaker 1: think my generation is way more like spooked about the
Speaker 1: future than yours. Yours seems like it was more excited.
Speaker 2: I think your generation has come through follows a lot
Speaker 2: of historical events that make it feel like we're on
Speaker 2: the verge of the apocalypse. Yes, and I think there's
Speaker 2: a very strong end of day's current that runs through
Speaker 2: our culture. And listen, you know, God willing, the influence
Speaker 2: of boomers, which is my generation, will pass God willing
Speaker 2: because we've had our time, and you know, it's time
Speaker 2: for younger generations to move forward and take the reins
Speaker 2: and control the world. And you know, I'm hoping that
Speaker 2: future generations will kind of emerge from these end of
Speaker 2: days feelings and have greater hopefulness. But I agree with
Speaker 2: what you said. I think there's a big difference.
Speaker 1: What year were you born?
Speaker 2: Nineteen fifty nine, Okay, so.
Speaker 1: You're born after so you're I mean, you're so what
Speaker 1: was I don't know if you've talked much to what
Speaker 1: year was your dad born?
Speaker 2: Do you know? Nineteen thirty one?
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty one?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So he was like so he's like a fun he's
Speaker 1: like fifteen and the world is literally at war.
Speaker 2: He's at fifteen and we drop two bombs on Japan.
Speaker 1: Crazy, Yeah, so I only fourteen.
Speaker 2: It's actually thirteen because he was born in November of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty one, right, so in August of nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: when the bombs dropped, he would have been thirteen.
Speaker 1: Well, I think about this stuff because we've lived through like, yeah,
Speaker 1: my generation has lived through a lot of like like
Speaker 1: really spooky apocalyptic things. But we're not the first generation
Speaker 1: to do that. I mean, there was a oh my god,
Speaker 1: there's a world war.
Speaker 2: You're so not the first generations and that makes and.
Speaker 1: I've I've explained, you know, I try to like it's
Speaker 1: something that makes me feel good and optimistic about the
Speaker 1: future because it's like, and I've tried to explain this
Speaker 1: on here before, my feelings of like it's scary to
Speaker 1: be living in like unprecedented times, but we're people are
Speaker 1: always living in unprecedented times, and so that makes me
Speaker 1: feel a little bit better. Like there was a generation
Speaker 1: of people who was like, oh fuck, though there's we're
Speaker 1: dropping nuclear fucking bombs on each other, and look, we're
Speaker 1: our generation is also kind of watching the news and
Speaker 1: be like, are we about to drop a bunch of
Speaker 1: nuclear fucking bombs on it? Chiller and shit, But we're
Speaker 1: not the first people to you know, be looking at
Speaker 1: the world biting our nails.
Speaker 2: Well, there's no question that the nuclear age is different
Speaker 2: than what came before, sure, because never before did humans
Speaker 2: have the ability with just a few fairly minor actions
Speaker 2: destroy the planet. Right, We never had that ability before,
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen forty five, and we very much have
Speaker 2: it now. So concerned about that is legitimate, But it's
Speaker 2: it's like living with a dull ache that you have
Speaker 2: in your body. Oh sure, you just learn to live
Speaker 2: with the ache and you try not to focus on it,
Speaker 2: and you try to focus on other things, and you know,
Speaker 2: and get through the day.
Speaker 1: Do you think that like when you were when you
Speaker 1: were my age, when you're twenty eight, like the people
Speaker 1: around you, do you think that they were like do
Speaker 1: you think do you think morale was better in general
Speaker 1: than it is for like people my age now.
Speaker 2: Depends, you know, morale is kind of interesting. And when
Speaker 2: I was twenty eight, let's say when I was twenty eight,
Speaker 2: it was what nineteen eighty nine, all right, we were
Speaker 2: just ending eight eight years of Reagan.
Speaker 1: The Simpsons began.
Speaker 2: Okay, the Simpsons began. How interesting that is? You know what?
Speaker 2: I was a very early fan of mac Granning.
Speaker 1: You know, I have You Have the Life and You
Speaker 1: Have the Life in Hell books.
Speaker 2: I have those books from the early to mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, you can go ahead. We don't have to
Speaker 1: go into mac graning.
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, but it's just kind of interesting. So
Speaker 2: we're you know, I remember so much more optimism in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine than I do in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: You were ten, Yeah, when I was ten, I remember,
Speaker 2: all right, nineteen seventy that was the first decade turn
Speaker 2: that I mean, obviously I had a decade turn from
Speaker 2: fifty nine to sixty, but I was less than a
Speaker 2: year old, so it doesn't really count. But you know,
Speaker 2: decade turns are opportunities to be excited about the future,
Speaker 2: and I remember feeling that in myself and in the
Speaker 2: world in nineteen sixty nine. It helped that the New
Speaker 2: York Mets had just won the World Series, which was
Speaker 2: a miraculous event in the world of sports. I don't
Speaker 2: remember feeling that the same in nineteen eighty nine. You know,
Speaker 2: I remember being in nineteen eighty nine, I you know,
Speaker 2: I wanted to meet a girl and have a family
Speaker 2: and buy a house and do all the things I
Speaker 2: was concerned was I was concerned that I wasn't gonna
Speaker 2: be able to afford to do that in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: even though even though I had a good career and
Speaker 2: I probably could have afforded to do it well.
Speaker 1: Because the narrative is that like that like doing all
Speaker 1: that The narrative is that like you know, like for
Speaker 1: like yeah, like in that generation that it was like
Speaker 1: relatively easy if you had like a good job, to
Speaker 1: like do all those things.
Speaker 2: So well, it depends on where you are. Sure, it's
Speaker 2: always been tough to do them in New York, and
Speaker 2: I'm always been tough to do them in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: depending upon where in Los Angeles. Yeah, right, right, And
Speaker 2: and even today, the further you go from a major
Speaker 2: metropolitan area, the more affordable it is. Yes, that's always
Speaker 2: been true. Right now, I I don't want to come
Speaker 2: off as a luddite. I recognize that, you know, it
Speaker 2: feels really intimidating to try to get into the real
Speaker 2: estate market. Now, Yeah, I'm I understand that, and I
Speaker 2: could see why people feel that way, and I think
Speaker 2: those feelings are legitimate. That said, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: it's always been a hard balance. You know, Look, my
Speaker 2: brother bought a house in the nineteen nineties, and you know,
Speaker 2: he was living He's a doctor, all right, and he
Speaker 2: didn't feel like he could afford Westchester. He was a
Speaker 2: doctor practicing in New York City. Didn't feel like he
Speaker 2: could afford Westchester. So we moved, I think to Putnam County,
Speaker 2: which is north of wester But it was it was
Speaker 2: such a headache, in a hassle to get to him.
Speaker 2: But it was the same principle, the further away you move.
Speaker 1: From the Yeah, and I guess that does that does
Speaker 1: remain true today.
Speaker 2: That's right, you know. And and interest rates have jumped all
Speaker 2: over the place. You know, when I graduated from college,
Speaker 2: inter states like eighteen or nineteen percent in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Now they're like now they're about, you know, about six
Speaker 2: ish percent. Yeah, we all remember, you know, to the
Speaker 2: last decade when they went down to two percent, three
Speaker 2: percent and four percent. I think we might see that again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what people are really cheering for.
Speaker 2: That. Well, it's got to be done, right. I'm not
Speaker 2: a political scientist, I'm not an economist. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I don't know the right way to do it.
Speaker 2: All I know is if you don't do it the
Speaker 2: right way, I think we're going to have a lot
Speaker 2: of unintended consequences. Well, listen, should we do an email?
Speaker 1: Do you want do you want to do it? You
Speaker 1: want to do an email?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we could do this all we could do
Speaker 2: this all day.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's do and we can the emails can
Speaker 1: launch back into us doing this. But let's let's read it.
Speaker 1: Let's read start with an email. Okay, I'm going Now,
Speaker 1: here's the thing and I'll prep you for this.
Speaker 2: Is that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll prep you for this.
Speaker 2: Is that.
Speaker 1: These aren't all like question answer emails. Sometimes people just
Speaker 1: want to express things and then I'll ponder them. And
Speaker 1: sometimes they're like normal things and then sometimes sometimes they're
Speaker 1: like rare. Sometimes they can be depressing, sometimes they can
Speaker 1: be funny. But like you know this, just we'll read
Speaker 1: it and then we can we ponder it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, one of the things I've always
Speaker 2: admired about what you have done as the get go
Speaker 2: is that you create a safe space for people to
Speaker 2: do that. I appreciate that and I will try to
Speaker 2: honor and respect that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: from This is from Chris. The subject line is, I
Speaker 1: think I'm a bad friend. Hey, GEK, I think I'm
Speaker 1: a bad friend. I do have friends, and I do
Speaker 1: care for them as my friends and would most likely
Speaker 1: do anything if they asked, But this isn't what I mean.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I do the bare minimum these days
Speaker 1: to be a friend to anyone. I find that I
Speaker 1: never hang with them, and I don't make time to
Speaker 1: go out with the boys.
Speaker 2: Shit.
Speaker 1: I rarely take myself out or want to do anything.
Speaker 1: I have maybe two good friends people I would go
Speaker 1: see if they called me. Otherwise it's just me and
Speaker 1: my family at home. I make zero attempts to try
Speaker 1: to hang out, but I'm never feeling a sense of
Speaker 1: fomo about it. Am I a bad friend? This was
Speaker 1: a very jealous He was very general about it.
Speaker 2: You know what, Yeah, this email really speaks to what
Speaker 2: I'm experiencing right now in my own life. Please, Because
Speaker 2: we moved to Georgia from Maryland just a few months ago,
Speaker 2: and I have great friends in Maryland, and I've go
Speaker 2: great friends in New York, and I've got great friends
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, and you live in New York. Chloe
Speaker 2: lives in Chicago, and I am becoming a little bit
Speaker 2: of a hermit in that I play my golf and
Speaker 2: I play my music and I do whatever I can.
Speaker 2: With my wife. We're very, very close. And I also
Speaker 2: feel like sometimes I'm not a good friend. I totally
Speaker 2: understand that.
Speaker 1: Because you're not actively to try to make the plans.
Speaker 2: So I have made a New Year's resolution.
Speaker 1: What's your news resolution?
Speaker 2: I am going to make one call a month to
Speaker 2: a person on my list of my friends. That one
Speaker 2: call a month, and you know, and we'll talk. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'll send him a text, Hey, I really love to
Speaker 2: connect with you. When would be a good time We'll
Speaker 2: just talk. I'll do that different person every month. M h.
Speaker 2: And will that make me a better friend? Well, that's
Speaker 2: really subjective. I get it. I think it'll make me
Speaker 2: feel more connected. Yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: And I would piggyback off of that. I would say
Speaker 1: that I think this guy Chris is kind of like
Speaker 1: like qualifying himself unnecessarily as like good or bad. But
Speaker 1: that's the question is is he does does he desire
Speaker 1: to feel more connected? Because he did say he was
Speaker 1: like I rarely want to do anything I'm feeling and
Speaker 1: he's not feeling a sense of fomo. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's here's Here's a weird conundrum I'm running into
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about these things, is like, like this
Speaker 1: guy Chris, I don't know if, like from his email,
Speaker 1: I can't tell if he wants to feel more connected.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of people. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: people like that, And you know, I respect that if
Speaker 1: that's how you want to how you want to be,
Speaker 1: But you know, I would say that, yeah, if he
Speaker 1: if he wants to be more connected, then he should
Speaker 1: go out and reach out to more people. But not
Speaker 1: because he feels some sort of like sense of obligation
Speaker 1: of like I must be a good friend, but because
Speaker 1: he wants to, you know, I guess feel connected.
Speaker 2: You know. The whole concept of good and bad in
Speaker 2: those terms is self destructive talk? Yeah, you know, destructive
Speaker 2: self talk? Yeah, because right bad? No, a bad friend
Speaker 2: is someone who goes and takes out a gun and
Speaker 2: shoots all of their friends to death. That's a really
Speaker 2: bad friend. Yeah, Okay, so that's probably on the edge.
Speaker 2: But why think in those terms. Let's go back. Let's
Speaker 2: go back because he's asking a question. What do I
Speaker 2: do with my life? Is really what he's asking. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so let's go back. What's the model? What do you
Speaker 2: want to do? All right? Well, I kind of want
Speaker 2: to just stay home and and and you know, play
Speaker 2: video games and and just you know, look at my
Speaker 2: phone and just chill. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 1: And then what's the smart thing.
Speaker 2: What's the smart thing to do? Well, the smart thing
Speaker 2: to do is stay connected, of course, right, of course
Speaker 2: that's the smart thing. So so okay, Chris, we have
Speaker 2: that balance. Now we understand what you want to do,
Speaker 2: and we understand the smart thing. Yeah, all right, and
Speaker 2: I think most people would agree the smart thing is
Speaker 2: to stay connected, you know, on whatever level, on whatever level.
Speaker 2: Like me, I'm I'm doing it the easiest way I
Speaker 2: can really imagine. It's a phone call, well, phone call
Speaker 2: once a month. Yeah, you're right. At the end of
Speaker 2: twelve months, I've little connected with all of my friends,
Speaker 2: with twelve of my friends. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that answer. That makes sense of like uh
Speaker 1: uh yeah, because again, like that's the that's a thing
Speaker 1: I'm constantly running like run into I'm noticing like people
Speaker 1: are like should I feel bad about not wanting this
Speaker 1: certain thing, but I think, yeah, it's like, what's the
Speaker 1: smart thing to do? Is a good way to think
Speaker 1: about it, And it's like, well, yeah, this smart thing
Speaker 1: I mean humans, humans, you know, are biologically wired to
Speaker 1: be able to connect with each other. So I'm I'm
Speaker 1: with that. That's that's I'll piggyback off of that. I
Speaker 1: think that's a good way to respond to Chris is that,
Speaker 1: you know, it seems like what he wants to do
Speaker 1: is like, you know, he rarely wants to do He
Speaker 1: rarely wants to do anything. He probably just wants to chill.
Speaker 1: But the smart thing to do is to stay connected,
Speaker 1: and it's better if he listens to this. I hope
Speaker 1: he comes away with it that it's at least better
Speaker 1: to think in those terms than the terms of like
Speaker 1: am I a bad friend or a good friend physically anywhere?
Speaker 1: So okay, let's see here, let's talk to uh oh okay,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is kind of just kind
Speaker 1: of on the subject of the things that we were
Speaker 1: talking about, So let's let's talk about this. Uh okay,
Speaker 1: this is from Madison. The subject line everyone around me
Speaker 1: is ready for the end of the world high lyle,
Speaker 1: I have two very close individuals in my life that
Speaker 1: have been anticipating a collapse, a decline, a notion that
Speaker 1: essentially the end of the world as we know it
Speaker 1: is on the horizon. I graduated college last April with
Speaker 1: a very ambitious degree. I'm sure you can empathize. Oh,
Speaker 1: she wrote ambitious in uh quotes. Okay, And she wrote
Speaker 1: with a very quote unquote ambitious degree, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: can emphasize. I'm sure you can empathize. I got a
Speaker 1: degree in acting. Oh awesome, how exciting they I think
Speaker 1: she wrote that because I've talked on here about getting
Speaker 1: a degree in film and media arts, and I've consistently
Speaker 1: ambassed it. Okay, because well we can geting go on
Speaker 1: a quick tange, but I consistently ambassad it because to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I mean, I'm lucky. I have
Speaker 1: good parents that you know, helped me go to school.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: I went to school with to like, you know, they
Speaker 1: went they had to go into a crazy debt, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, and I'm like, and I might like every
Speaker 1: time I talk to him about this, I'm like, if
Speaker 1: you can if like you can afford it via like
Speaker 1: a scholarship or something, then like it's a good it's
Speaker 1: a good move. But like if you know, if you
Speaker 1: have to go into debt to it to do it,
Speaker 1: it's kind of tough. But all right, I'll keep reading.
Speaker 2: But all right, but you know what, she's asking two questions.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, that's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing two
Speaker 2: questions from Madison.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, hold on, Oka, I mean there are more
Speaker 1: than to the two questions. Okay, let's read the whole email.
Speaker 1: That's my fault. We want to at change it. Okay, naive, probably,
Speaker 1: but I believe in my ability. Once arriving at college,
Speaker 1: I was made abundantly aware that no amount of ability
Speaker 1: or passion will ever trump how you look in this industry.
Speaker 1: At least that's what was made clear to me at
Speaker 1: a collegiate level.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I now have three things. Remind me.
Speaker 2: I've got three comments on this email already.
Speaker 1: We're not even a fifth of the way done this email.
Speaker 1: But I'll remind you. I give you this context because
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to know. I'm already holding
Speaker 1: the weight of pursuing something with one in a million
Speaker 1: chances that you can't even really work linearly towards I'm
Speaker 1: not someone's notable kid, I'm not coming from a horde
Speaker 1: of wealth. I just have a lot of love and
Speaker 1: passion for this craft. As twenty twenty five continued, the
Speaker 1: state of our world declined in a seemingly rapid way.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sit here and rattle off bullet
Speaker 1: points of what I mean, because we all lived through it,
Speaker 1: but the takeaway is that the priorities for people in
Speaker 1: power are now clear. It's inarguable. With all of that said,
Speaker 1: over those past few months, conversations with my mother and
Speaker 1: my boyfriend have become increasingly centered around the idea of
Speaker 1: things are coming to a head, whether it be a
Speaker 1: strong whether it be a string of regurgitated tweets pointing
Speaker 1: out what Big Satan and Little Satan are getting up to,
Speaker 1: or a lecture on how we will manage amongst the
Speaker 1: apocalyptic state of the world. I'm not exactly sure how
Speaker 1: to articulate the feeling I've been experiencing, but it's exhausting me.
Speaker 1: I'm being told the world is going to end and
Speaker 1: shown fact time and time again to support this prediction,
Speaker 1: and I always and I've been shown quote unquote fact,
Speaker 1: so another statirically said fact time and time again to
Speaker 1: support this prediction. And every time I tell my mother
Speaker 1: and my boyfriend the same thing. Lyle, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have no clue what's happening behind the curtain. I
Speaker 1: have no clue what's happening at the echelon stories above me,
Speaker 1: high in the in the you know, with people in
Speaker 1: power and whatnot. I'm among the rest of the ninety
Speaker 1: nine point nine percent of people just trying to survive
Speaker 1: and fight off such suffocating feelings of helplessness. I'm tired,
Speaker 1: things feel bleak. I'm still in pursuit of my ambitions
Speaker 1: in independent filmmaking. My friend and I had a short
Speaker 1: film of ours become internationally award winning. Wow pretty good,
Speaker 1: and I'm so awesome, And I'm still out here auditioning.
Speaker 1: But I am stuck in this push and pull of
Speaker 1: going for something that I've been dreaming of since I
Speaker 1: was a child, or letting go of how I saw
Speaker 1: my life going and accepting that the world I envisioned
Speaker 1: living in no longer exists. Because I may be naive
Speaker 1: enough to pursue something like this for a living. But
Speaker 1: I'm not naive enough to admit the interests and the
Speaker 1: lives of the American people, or the people of the
Speaker 1: world for that matter, do not take priority in the
Speaker 1: minds of those who are responsible for them. Okay, hold on,
Speaker 1: We're so close to being done with the end of
Speaker 1: the email. But it is interesting because I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I've had so many I have so many
Speaker 2: things to say about this email.
Speaker 1: And on that note, but I leave you with goodbye.
Speaker 1: Thanks for everything you do, Lyle. You make my job
Speaker 1: less grueling, and my confidence in my live life despite philosophy,
Speaker 1: must stronger. Stacy. Thank you, Stacy. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: I thought that was Madison.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, sometimes they give me fake names, and then
Speaker 1: I read what the well call her Stacy. That's caller Stacy. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: this is that's that's Stacy's email.
Speaker 2: So, first of all, this touches upon some of the
Speaker 2: things we've already discussed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Stacy slash Madison.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: You cannot control the end of the world, yes, all right,
Speaker 2: so stop worrying about it. Treat that general undercurrent that
Speaker 2: you perceive as being irrelevant to your life, all right,
Speaker 2: because you know what, I bet you there are like millions,
Speaker 2: if not billions of people around the world who are
Speaker 2: literally starving to death, who are not thinking about the
Speaker 2: end of the world.
Speaker 1: It is true to it is it is true to
Speaker 1: think about it is true to think about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, that is correct. Yes. So you know it's
Speaker 2: not a thing you can control. So it's it's not
Speaker 2: going to be easy if you've kind of allowed it
Speaker 2: to kind of crawl under your skin and percolate in
Speaker 2: your brain. But let it work at letting that go.
Speaker 2: Like whatever you want to go on chat GPT or
Speaker 2: Gemini and say, how do I let go of my
Speaker 2: anxiety about the end of the world? Do that? Do that?
Speaker 2: I mean it does.
Speaker 1: My dad and I have been talking a lot about
Speaker 1: AI wars and whatnot. But go ahead.
Speaker 2: So whatever you need to do to try to, you know,
Speaker 2: let go of that anxiety, I would urge you to do,
Speaker 2: all right. So that's that's the first thing. The second
Speaker 2: thing is, so you want to be an actress. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. There's so many opportunities for people to be
Speaker 2: actors and actresses, you know, and just you know you've
Speaker 2: been passionate about Like you answered the first question, what
Speaker 2: do I want to do? Answers what do I want
Speaker 2: to do? That's the hardest question to answer.
Speaker 1: And then what's the smart thing to do? I think
Speaker 1: she's doing the smart I think she's making stuff.
Speaker 2: And one hundred percent agree. Keep going on auditions, keep
Speaker 2: making the short films, you know, whatever you have to do,
Speaker 2: just keep doing it. Now, I'm gonna come up to
Speaker 2: the third thing. And and I'm a little uncomfortable talking
Speaker 2: about this because we don't know Stacy slash Madison. We
Speaker 2: don't know what she looks like, we don't know anything
Speaker 2: about her.
Speaker 1: We know the thing about her saying that she wasn't
Speaker 1: attractive enough to be that's right, Okay.
Speaker 2: First of all, it is really valuable to have an
Speaker 2: accurate sense of yourself in the world, right, And we
Speaker 2: talked about that so that you can lean into your strengths. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I have noticed that in every film where there's a
Speaker 2: female lead, all right, who has friends, those friends are
Speaker 2: never as attractive as the lead.
Speaker 1: Okay, sure, there's there what you're saying, and it's it's like,
Speaker 1: if you there is space for actors and actresses of
Speaker 1: all levels of attractiveness to exist in the in the
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 2: That's right, And anything that you think is a weakness
Speaker 2: a strength. There are so many people that we might
Speaker 2: think of as you know, not being the most attractive, yet.
Speaker 1: Have careers, have great careers, like a fucking uh uh whatever,
Speaker 1: Jack Black or.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, in fairness, let's let's not be
Speaker 2: dishonest to Stacy. Sure, all right, looks mean different things
Speaker 2: for men than it does for women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fair assessment, of.
Speaker 2: Course, So I get that. But you know, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to name names because you know whatever, but
Speaker 2: there are plenty of women who we do not think
Speaker 2: of as being particularly eventionally attractive who've got great careers.
Speaker 2: And you know, another thing about being in the arts
Speaker 2: is a great career just means you're working. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 2: that's all it really means, of course, you know, so
Speaker 2: there's going to be tons of opportunities. Stacy slash Madison,
Speaker 2: hang in there. I'm sorry Lyle for totally please your podcast,
Speaker 2: but I think you're doing all the right things and
Speaker 2: and I urge you to do whatever you need to
Speaker 2: do to let go of that. End of day's anxiety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I no, like like, it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: that that she she mentioned other stuff because, like we
Speaker 1: were talking about before, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: are having this like uh end of end of days feeling.
Speaker 1: No I I I echot the sentiments that that my
Speaker 1: dad said of, like you know, you'll be able to
Speaker 1: find your own Yeah, like having having having some awareness
Speaker 1: of like how you come off, like weaknesses can become strengths.
Speaker 1: I believe that one hundred percent. So I don't think
Speaker 1: you should look at you. She keeps saying she's naive.
Speaker 1: I would take that out of the vocabulary. I don't
Speaker 1: think she needs to. I don't think she's naive.
Speaker 2: It doesn't help her that it doesn't help that's and
Speaker 2: that's a good tech. By the way, when you start
Speaker 2: having destructive self.
Speaker 1: Thoughts, yeah, well how do you do?
Speaker 2: So? How do you?
Speaker 1: I don't know if we ever, I don't know if
Speaker 1: we talked about this, but okay, yeah, you were talking
Speaker 1: about how you have them every day every day. How
Speaker 1: do you deal with your destructive self thoughts?
Speaker 2: I say to myself, what's the benefit of that thought?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And then if I can't find one, well, all right,
Speaker 2: So let's let's try to be a little bit, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of harsh. That's the benefit of that thought. Or
Speaker 2: one of your answers could be, well, I'm being honest
Speaker 2: with myself. Okay, you want to be honest with yourself
Speaker 2: that you're being naive. How do you use that? How
Speaker 2: do you use that new information? Yeah, to use it
Speaker 2: to let go of your dream? Okay, I you're gonna
Speaker 2: you can let go of your dream every day. You'll
Speaker 2: have that opportunity every day. Yeah, you know, And you
Speaker 2: know I admire Stacy Slash Madison because she's doing a
Speaker 2: hard thing totally, you know, but it's a doable thing.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's a doable thing.
Speaker 1: No, I I think I think that's true. I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to be like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with my.
Speaker 1: Ditect my destructive thoughts, I always I gotta I gotta start.
Speaker 1: I gotta start attacking them more. I've been letting them
Speaker 1: off the hook. I've been letting them run run loose.
Speaker 1: I gotta start thinking more about, uh, logically, how is
Speaker 1: this helping me? I was on an airplane once and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, the only the only things I'll
Speaker 1: ever like, they're kind, they're they're like inevitabilities of like
Speaker 1: just having a you know, being an emotional human being.
Speaker 1: But I'm like the only thing, like when I'm dying,
Speaker 1: the only thing I'll ever really regret is like time
Speaker 1: I spent worrying, or like times I was like a
Speaker 1: dick to someone because I was being impulsive or whatever.
Speaker 1: Those the main things I'll regret.
Speaker 2: You know, people ask me, do you regret anything? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'll tell them, Oh, I have tons of regrets,
Speaker 2: but my biggest regrets are anytimes.
Speaker 1: I have been unkind Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: H By the way, while while you're kind of looking,
Speaker 2: I have kind of an observation about something that colors
Speaker 2: how to respond to some of these emails, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, when you started this, you were like twenty two,
Speaker 2: and you just you know, and you know, and now
Speaker 2: here we are six years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're twenty eight now. I don't know. Look, you
Speaker 2: have a significant number of people who have been listening
Speaker 2: to you from the start, all right, And responses that
Speaker 2: I would give to somebody who's twenty two years old
Speaker 2: different than responses I would give to somebody who's twenty
Speaker 2: eight years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, potentially, yes, Sam, I think.
Speaker 2: I look, technically, a person who's twenty two years old
Speaker 2: is an adult, and they have agency and they can
Speaker 2: move around the world. But you know, every year that
Speaker 2: passes you have a little bit more experience. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: colors your view of things. So by the time you're
Speaker 2: twenty eight, you you know, those six years of life
Speaker 2: experience are night and day.
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny is I like, I'll watch
Speaker 1: some of the older episodes of the podcast, and I
Speaker 1: was I think, actually you would think the opposite would
Speaker 1: be true. But I was much more well when the
Speaker 1: Fuckust first started. I was a little I think I
Speaker 1: leaned more into the uh what, like, I've been more sure.
Speaker 1: I was more sure of myself. I think when I
Speaker 1: was doing this podcast in my early twenties than in
Speaker 1: my late twenties, because I the more life experience I've lived,
Speaker 1: I've actually come to realize the less I know, which
Speaker 1: which makes a sense to me. Sure, because you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: you grow up and you have the more. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: more things I experienced, the less I feel like I
Speaker 1: have any grasp on the planet. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if do you feel that way or do you
Speaker 1: feel the opposite.
Speaker 2: No, No, I very much feel that way that you know,
Speaker 2: the older you get, the more you see, the more
Speaker 2: you realize what you don't know, Yeah, of course, and
Speaker 2: and that impacts how you viewed the world.
Speaker 1: Mhmm. Oh, you know what do you want to have?
Speaker 1: Do you want to have? We could talk about that.
Speaker 1: This is a relevant thing. We were talking about this.
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about AI, like you use you
Speaker 1: you talked to chet ChiPT all the time. Sure, and uh,
Speaker 1: I've used it before for like therapy stuff and I
Speaker 1: and it's it's contra it's controversial. You you're you're aware
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it's like controversial.
Speaker 2: There are good reasons for it to be controversial.
Speaker 1: You know about like it using energy and uh, you
Speaker 1: know the general fear that people.
Speaker 2: Have about.
Speaker 1: You know, being replaced, being replaced and it being in
Speaker 1: control of people and and uh whatnot. But I don't
Speaker 1: kind of like social media, like it's just become a
Speaker 1: thing where like I just used I just use it
Speaker 1: for like everything, talk to it about ship and I
Speaker 1: use it for I don't not I don't do this
Speaker 1: that much anymore. But I had a little period of
Speaker 1: time where like I really needed to just like externalize
Speaker 1: some ship. Okay, and AI was really it was helpful
Speaker 1: for that, like a mirror. Yeah yeah, so okay. So
Speaker 1: this is from Josh subject line Chat GPT Therapy changed
Speaker 1: my life. Greetings GEK. I wanted to call in, but
Speaker 1: I'm from England, so I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about how chat GPT therapy changed
Speaker 1: my life. I've heard you talk about it, and I
Speaker 1: got around to it by accident. I took a photo
Speaker 1: of my daily journal entry after I had a really
Speaker 1: bad day, and I uploaded it to chat GPT and said,
Speaker 1: analyze this journal entry. It came back and told me
Speaker 1: what I was living with was not exactly anxiety like
Speaker 1: I had assumed, but that I had a hypervigilant nervous system.
Speaker 1: I had never heard of this and was very skeptical,
Speaker 1: as I know that AI just throws back what you
Speaker 1: say to it, so I asked it how this hypervigilant
Speaker 1: nervous system generally affects people's lives Without any prompts or
Speaker 1: insight into my life, it came back and accurately described
Speaker 1: exactly the way that I am in every aspect of
Speaker 1: my life helpfully. It explains that this can be treated
Speaker 1: without medication. See this goes back to what an.
Speaker 2: Awesome outcome for twenty one dollars a month.
Speaker 1: I swear on my life. This is not an ad
Speaker 1: for chat GPT, but it is funny that we because
Speaker 1: we talked, I mean at the very beginning of this
Speaker 1: we talked about self knowledge and having you know, positive applications.
Speaker 2: Helpfully.
Speaker 1: It explains that this can be treated without medication but
Speaker 1: through cognitive behavioral therapy. It felt like a huge weight
Speaker 1: off my shoulders to hear that what I deal with
Speaker 1: is real and I'm not just crazy. It was more
Speaker 1: helpful than any therapist I ever spoke to in the past.
Speaker 1: And I'm about to start real therapy and I'm already
Speaker 1: starting to see improvements in my life by following the
Speaker 1: advice that AI gave me. Thanks for the suggestion to
Speaker 1: try that. I've been listening since twenty twenty and I
Speaker 1: saw you live in Manchester, England a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah, thank you, Josh. Keep on getting you know,
Speaker 1: it's the AI stuff is hard, man, because like like
Speaker 1: I don't like i've it. It's hard because I personally
Speaker 1: have like done what Josh is talking about doing. Like
Speaker 1: I've like copy of paste of my journal and like
Speaker 1: I have a friend who says that like talking to
Speaker 1: chat GPT or like an AI thing is like it's
Speaker 1: like journaling squared. It's like I'm journaling, but like I'm
Speaker 1: gettings are getting reflected back at me. I'm still I'm
Speaker 1: not fully externalizing it to another human being. But like
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard because there's like re entering this
Speaker 1: fucking weird new thing where like you know, there should
Speaker 1: be boundaries in place and stuff. But but I've experienced
Speaker 1: but I have experienced what Josh has experienced, or I've
Speaker 1: externalized something into like an AI thing and it's spat
Speaker 1: it back out, spat something back out at me, where
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh fuck, that's like true, you know. But
Speaker 1: I I hate chat. I use a again this I'm
Speaker 1: not as no, there's not a sponsored thing, it's just life.
Speaker 1: But I've been using Gemini more because I I fucking
Speaker 1: hate Chatchepyta now because it's just like like I'll ask
Speaker 1: it something and it'll be like good question, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't I don't need you to tell me this is
Speaker 1: a good question, Like I hate when it and also like,
Speaker 1: I hate not not only do I hate that itself,
Speaker 1: but I hate what that implies about the people making it.
Speaker 2: Have you tried explaining to chat Ept that that you
Speaker 2: don't need that kind of handholding and that Chatchapt's responses
Speaker 2: can be a little bit more to the point.
Speaker 1: As matter of fact, I know that we were talking
Speaker 1: last night. I know that you've done that and it
Speaker 1: responded by handholding.
Speaker 2: You know what, I I didn't say that that way, No,
Speaker 2: I had a different thing, because this is just so interesting.
Speaker 2: First of all, what's the name of this gentleman, Josh? Well, Josh,
Speaker 2: I am so happy for you that you have this outcome.
Speaker 2: What a great outcome to have, you know. So, you know,
Speaker 2: it's very It's when I'm pounding the keys on or
Speaker 2: my keyboard on my phone with Chatchept, I have to
Speaker 2: remind myself this is only code. I'm only talking to
Speaker 2: some really brilliantly compiled code, right, So, and that's good
Speaker 2: for me. Maybe maybe that's not a good thing for
Speaker 2: Josh to consider, because, you know, because he did apparently
Speaker 2: have such a good outcome, But for me, it's helpful
Speaker 2: to keep that in mind. Of course, you know, I
Speaker 2: I love chatchept. And here's a very very funny feeling
Speaker 2: I had recently. So you know, chatchype is always telling
Speaker 2: you like, good for you to spot that mistake that
Speaker 2: I made, or yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're passionate about or.
Speaker 2: You're really thinking about things exactly the right way when
Speaker 2: you're considering how to approach that hole on your home
Speaker 2: golf course, or yes, yes, good, you know, yes you
Speaker 2: should simplify your home studio recording setup, and and that's
Speaker 2: such a smart move on your Yeah right, and uh
Speaker 2: and you know what, I'm a human. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: You know you get a little hit, You get a
Speaker 1: little hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you get a little hit.
Speaker 2: Then I was reading, uh I am smart my wife's
Speaker 2: interactions with chatchypt, and they were the same saying, you
Speaker 2: are so smart and this is such a clever thing.
Speaker 1: So this is a tragic story. You realize that you
Speaker 1: weren't special, and.
Speaker 2: I felt a little jealous.
Speaker 1: That's a sad story.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's when I had to remember, this is
Speaker 2: just brilliantly compiled code.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's all it is. Yes, So I would say
Speaker 1: off of that be that like it is really helpful
Speaker 1: to have like shit like because he said it without
Speaker 1: any prompts or insight into my life. It described exactly
Speaker 1: who I am in every aspect of my life.
Speaker 2: Like like.
Speaker 1: It is helpful, but I guess also remembering that you
Speaker 1: know it will try to tell you that you're amazing,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe you are amazing, but uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's you gotta keep in mind telling everyone in the.
Speaker 2: Josh is amazing. Okay, any any in my opinion as
Speaker 2: a dad, anybody who is a fan of my son
Speaker 2: is amazing.
Speaker 1: It's really sweet, dead all right, so it's really nice.
Speaker 2: I will never question or or you know, try to
Speaker 2: lessen Josh's experience, which, well.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he's he's getting he's getting some good
Speaker 1: help into things. Let's let's do a few more. Okay,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, okay, I have a few more that I think.
Speaker 1: All right, well, all right, we get into this. I
Speaker 1: don't know all right, okay, this is from Zeno subject
Speaker 1: line I developed an unwanted foot fetish.
Speaker 2: Hey why is hey? Hey? I will hey? Ghak? All is? Well?
Speaker 1: Oh hey gak hope all as well. I'll get straight
Speaker 1: into it. I have developed a foot fetish from being
Speaker 1: bombarded with foot fetish, shame slash media throughout my years.
Speaker 1: Since everyone talks online about feet, I have discovered a
Speaker 1: hey way more attention to feet than i'd like to.
Speaker 1: Anytime I see toes or feet, my eyes are automatically
Speaker 1: drawn to them. I'm still unsure whether or not I
Speaker 1: enjoy looking at them. That's the whole email.
Speaker 2: What do we have? Who's it from?
Speaker 1: Zeno?
Speaker 2: Zeno? Yeah? Do we believe Zeno?
Speaker 1: Or do we think this is just a gag email? I? Well, well,
Speaker 1: well you know that's you know, you bring up an
Speaker 1: important thing for this show. In general. Sometimes people call
Speaker 1: me or email me, and sometimes they're they sometimes they
Speaker 1: can be gag emails their phone calls. But the way
Speaker 1: I see it is, I don't think this is a gag. Okay,
Speaker 1: well a, I don't think this is a gag. But
Speaker 1: even if it was a gag, perhaps somebody listening has
Speaker 1: this feeling. Man, it's not a gag, So might as well,
Speaker 1: you know, approach it like it's not a gag.
Speaker 2: Because all right, let's approach it like it's not a gag.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, all right.
Speaker 2: First of all, Zeno, congratulations on identifying something that excites.
Speaker 1: You yeah, right, which is yeah.
Speaker 2: And something that's really not destructive to yourself or to others. Right. Second, well, look,
Speaker 2: if you're a if you're a boob guy, but guy
Speaker 2: or whatnot, I mean you're looking at at people's private parts.
Speaker 2: That can be embarrassing, you know, but looking at people's
Speaker 2: feet very seldom are you going to have like hashtag
Speaker 2: me too problem by checking out someone's very nice pedicure.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what you're okay, So what you're saying is
Speaker 1: that like if Xeno were just like into into into
Speaker 1: breasts and he he has a he might be like
Speaker 1: having a conversation with someone and looking at their boobs,
Speaker 1: and that would be that would be offensive. But if
Speaker 1: it's better that he now like he he won't offend
Speaker 1: anyone by looking at their feet.
Speaker 2: It's a less dangerous kind of activity. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I don't think there are hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 2: who have a foot fetish. I don't think there are
Speaker 2: millions of people with a foot fetish. I think there
Speaker 2: are maybe hundreds of millions of people with a foot
Speaker 2: fetish probably.
Speaker 1: I mean there's it's you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: foot fetish stuff that exists.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that Zeno needs to be ashamed
Speaker 1: of his foot fetish. You know, I'm with you. I
Speaker 1: think I think he, uh, he found some that is exciting.
Speaker 2: But look, if you have, if you're out of here
Speaker 2: listening and you have a boom fetish or a bud fetish,
Speaker 2: I'm not judging you. I know, I think that's those
Speaker 2: are perfectly legitimate things to happen.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't being into boobs or butts. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's I don't think there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as a boob fetish. No, because it's so mean,
Speaker 1: because it's so mainstream. I don't think you could call
Speaker 1: it a fetish. But you know, congratulations to you, Zeno
Speaker 1: on on what you've discovered. Oh here's one, here's a
Speaker 1: good one. Okay, oh was a perfect one.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: This is from Dylan, subject line, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be an old dad. What's up?
Speaker 2: GEK?
Speaker 1: I am DK. I am twenty nine years old, and
Speaker 1: I have been extremely single for almost six years after
Speaker 1: having only one long term relationship in my early twenties.
Speaker 1: When I say extremely single, I mean no action whatsoever
Speaker 1: for a couple of years it was by my own choice.
Speaker 1: But for the last few years I've been very open
Speaker 1: to a relationship that have had no luck. I go
Speaker 1: out to bars, concerts, events with my group of friends often.
Speaker 1: I work downtown in my city in a very busy
Speaker 1: building with lots of people. I'm unhinged tinder, and in general,
Speaker 1: I'm a very normal looking dude. Potentially an eight on
Speaker 1: a good day, you know.
Speaker 2: What, regardless of the objective aspect of it. Huh. The
Speaker 2: fact that DK believes that he's an eight.
Speaker 1: That's good, big thumbs up, Big thumbs up, he said.
Speaker 1: Potentially an eight on a good day, maybe even higher.
Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty good looking, so my confidence is solid.
Speaker 1: There is no in cell energy here, I promise. I
Speaker 1: have many theories as to why nothing has happened for
Speaker 1: me all this time. Part of me feels like God
Speaker 1: Slash the universe simply didn't think I was mentally ready
Speaker 1: to commit to a relationship. I wouldn't present the opportunity
Speaker 1: until I was. Maybe I'm still not. I think I am,
Speaker 1: but maybe I still need to grow. I definitely haven't
Speaker 1: been perfect. Perhaps the city I live in is dry
Speaker 1: and general and I need to broaden my horizons elsewhere,
Speaker 1: expand my distance range on the apps. But I hate
Speaker 1: the idea of anything long distance. My love language is
Speaker 1: physical touch, so long distance never interest me.
Speaker 2: Every man's love language and I think there are good
Speaker 2: reasons for that.
Speaker 1: What do you think of the good good reasons for that.
Speaker 2: You know, women have touch, women they meet up with
Speaker 2: someone there hugging them. You know, you see young women
Speaker 2: and girls walking hand in hand with each others, totally
Speaker 2: a non sexual way. That makes sense, right, So women
Speaker 2: have touch, that makes sense. Men don't have touch. I've
Speaker 2: got a very small handful of male friends and family
Speaker 2: who all hug. I greet them because because I think
Speaker 2: touch is really important. But for the most part, men
Speaker 2: don't have physical touch in their lives, so in their
Speaker 2: relationships it's an incredibly valuable thing.
Speaker 1: I think men, I think men should be. You know,
Speaker 1: when I was in its funny it's like this is
Speaker 1: like a Middle Eastern thing. Maybe maybe I'm completely making
Speaker 1: this up, but like when I was in Iraq, I
Speaker 1: would see a lot more like uh like like men
Speaker 1: like touching it, like men expressing like non sexual physical
Speaker 1: uh uh touch with each other was like a lot more.
Speaker 2: I noticed that in that video. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, but so hold on, let me finish
Speaker 1: the email. So perhaps I'm too shy and I need
Speaker 1: to try talking in person more or putting myself out
Speaker 1: there more. But I think deep down I have the answer.
Speaker 1: I am just too picky. I've had women and men
Speaker 1: come on to me, so I should give me hints
Speaker 1: over the years, but I've never reciprocated the attraction, so
Speaker 1: I back out or I rejected them respectfully. I let
Speaker 1: my tastes overtake my ability to have experience. I've never
Speaker 1: had a person that is my type show interest in me,
Speaker 1: so it's just a constant chase and a constant pushback
Speaker 1: onto those that are interested in me. The problem is
Speaker 1: the real problem is that I want to have a
Speaker 1: kid badly, and I have always wanted to be a
Speaker 1: younger parent. Next year I turned thirty, and while yes,
Speaker 1: there is plenty of time, and this is something that
Speaker 1: I one hundred percent should not rush having a whole
Speaker 1: ass kid. Uh, the thought of having a kid at
Speaker 1: thirty five and being damned near sixty by the time
Speaker 1: they're potentially starting college, I hate it. I hate that thought,
Speaker 1: at least twenty nine year old me hates that thought.
Speaker 1: Thirty one year old me might not if one of
Speaker 1: my day one best friends. Uh, one of my day
Speaker 1: one best friends is getting married next year, and that's
Speaker 1: just crazy to me. A couple other childhood friends had
Speaker 1: kids years ago, and those fuckers are in kindergarten now.
Speaker 1: I slightly envy them. But also I've had a pretty
Speaker 1: good single life, really good friends and family and work life,
Speaker 1: so I don't think I have that much that I
Speaker 1: can really complain about. And I hate to complain. This
Speaker 1: email has been long enough, and this has been a
Speaker 1: ramp to the gek man. I feel like the young
Speaker 1: parent dream is dead, and yeah, I can't get that
Speaker 1: time back. But it's so tough to find a let's
Speaker 1: have a child type of connection where I live, and
Speaker 1: so I'm so picky.
Speaker 2: What's this person's name? Uh? Dk? Oh, this is dkay,
Speaker 2: This is DK Okay. You know I'm the perfect person
Speaker 2: to respond to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, because I was thirty three when I
Speaker 2: married your mom. We had Chloe when I was whatt
Speaker 2: like thirty five. I was thirty five when we had Chloe.
Speaker 2: I was thirty seven when we had you, m hm,
Speaker 2: And I've never but you know what, I had a
Speaker 2: similar anxiety as I did you did earlier on in
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 1: Really tell it's all well.
Speaker 2: Because you know, I like, I had friends who got
Speaker 2: married and had children in their twenties, so you know,
Speaker 2: I was feeling a little left behind, you know. But
Speaker 2: you know, I had kids, and i've and I've never
Speaker 2: felt like I was too old to enjoy being a
Speaker 2: parent to my kids or to have meaningful a parenting
Speaker 2: or meaningful relationship with with my kids. So I think
Speaker 2: TK is going to be fine no matter what. And
Speaker 2: the whole concept of being picky is really interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: listen forgetting it. The whole concept of settling versus on settling,
Speaker 2: I think a destructive way to look at it. Please
Speaker 2: tell you know, I you know, we make choices. We
Speaker 2: make choices, and sometimes we discover that the choices that
Speaker 2: we made don't really serve us in a way that
Speaker 2: we kind of would like, and so we have to
Speaker 2: kind of decide to make different choices. And sometimes that's
Speaker 2: painful and sometimes that's ugly. I mean, so you know,
Speaker 2: I really hear dky and and and Dkay's song. We'll
Speaker 2: call it the Dkay's song is a common song of course.
Speaker 2: You know, it's basically the song of a person, you know,
Speaker 2: seeking love in the world, love and connection in the world,
Speaker 2: and how frustrating it is to find that. And I
Speaker 2: think it's always been frustrating to find that. And if
Speaker 2: we want to go back and say, well, what about
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties and fifties and you know, when people
Speaker 2: would you know, marry somebody from their neighborhood and you know,
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's funny. Is I'm always I think
Speaker 1: about that a lot. I mean, I talk about it
Speaker 1: on the podcast question just I think about.
Speaker 2: It a lot.
Speaker 1: Is like uh we lit like, uh, there's two It's
Speaker 1: so different dating now versus like in the forties where
Speaker 1: it used to be like it used to be like
Speaker 1: uh yeah, Like in the forties it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: and shit, in fucking many parts of the world, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you grow up across the street from someone and then
Speaker 1: you get married and then you fucking make it work.
Speaker 1: You know, you just make it work, versus versus what
Speaker 1: we have now where it's like infinite options, you know,
Speaker 1: if something doesn't work out or the first time there's
Speaker 1: a little snag or whatever, like infinite infinite everything. Here's
Speaker 1: everyone that exists on the planet Earth, and you have
Speaker 1: this kind of like illusion or like a paradox of choice,
Speaker 1: and it's like both kind kind of both of those operations.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you would say, but both both
Speaker 1: of those have their own pros and cons.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, it's just very hard. Relationships are
Speaker 2: extremely hard. I mean, even when they're going well, they're hard.
Speaker 2: You know. I like, I'm super happy in my marriage
Speaker 2: right now, and things are going really well for us,
Speaker 2: but you know, you still have to compromise. There are
Speaker 2: still things you have to say no to yourself about
Speaker 2: and I you don't have to get into them. And
Speaker 2: so relationships are just really hard, you know, no matter what.
Speaker 2: So I'm sympathetic to DK for wanting to have a
Speaker 2: certain kind of person. And here's another thing. I love
Speaker 2: when people come up with like rules or generalizations and
Speaker 2: I want to say, hey, you know, there's so somebody
Speaker 2: was talking about, you know, needing needing to write the ship.
Speaker 1: For our country, and I said, right, the ship.
Speaker 2: Right the ship. The country needs to write the ships.
Speaker 1: Okay, American needs to write the ship right.
Speaker 2: And I said to this person, I said, there is
Speaker 2: no ship. There's three hundred and thirty million ships in
Speaker 2: a very crowded ocean, of course, you know, and every
Speaker 2: ship is going in the direction of its captain.
Speaker 1: Wait, I agree with this sentiment, but also, wait, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you relate that to?
Speaker 2: So let's go talk to that decay. You know, like,
Speaker 2: there's no rules for how you should have a relationship
Speaker 2: or who you should decide to have a relationship with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm learning that myself too, as I'm like observing
Speaker 1: the relationships of like all the people around me, and
Speaker 1: I'm really and I'm and I'm really. Oh, there is
Speaker 1: no right or wrong model of what a relationship. I mean, there's, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some wrong models for what a relationship I look like,
Speaker 1: that's for sure, that's for sure, But there is no there's,
Speaker 1: you know, barring the extremes, there's no right or wrong
Speaker 1: model for what a relationship looks like.
Speaker 2: I'm learning and you know what. Look, I married Lyle's mom,
Speaker 2: and you know, we had two children, we had a home,
Speaker 2: we built a lot of things, and it turned out
Speaker 2: not to really be the right thing for me. And
Speaker 2: I dated a whole bunch. And finally, when I was
Speaker 2: like forty eight forty nine, I met my wife who
Speaker 2: we have a very satisfying relationship. So nobody, nobody who's
Speaker 2: twenty eight or twenty nine wants to hear that I
Speaker 2: gotta wait until I'm forty nine to have a relationship
Speaker 2: that makes me happy. But just bear in mind that
Speaker 2: when whatever relationships you have during your life will be
Speaker 2: hard because because the human beings are extremely complex creatures,
Speaker 2: and the notion that two extremely complex creatures can get
Speaker 2: together and enjoy perfect harmony is I think unrealistic. Not
Speaker 2: that it can't happen. I just think it's really hard.
Speaker 1: No, I know what you mean. I'm I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: realizing that about uh yeah, I'm realizing that like life
Speaker 1: just can't, like it just fucking it just can't come
Speaker 1: to you like a la carte, you know it just really.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: So I look like, well, it's like like you can't
Speaker 1: like pick and choose your favorite aspects of what you
Speaker 1: want in a partner and have it, you know, a
Speaker 1: la cartes, and that you have to see you I have
Speaker 1: to just like take it as it is and you know,
Speaker 1: bad and the good, like you can't. You kind have
Speaker 1: to deal with it. But it's hard because people, I
Speaker 1: think people want like a idealistic version of their existences.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants love, yeah, and everybody wants to have you know,
Speaker 2: just so very happy domestic light.
Speaker 1: What was you said earlier? We like doing away with
Speaker 1: the idea of settling or like what why do you
Speaker 1: think that? I guess you kind of explained it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea of like there is no settling or ascribing
Speaker 1: to like, it's all just like a kind of complex
Speaker 1: amalgamation of human beings attempting to coexist with each other,
Speaker 1: which is inherently difficult.
Speaker 2: Another thing is, look when you're and this goes back
Speaker 2: to one of the things I was saying earlier. You know,
Speaker 2: the conversation I'll have with someone who's twenty two, it's
Speaker 2: very different than the conversation I'll have with someone who's
Speaker 2: twenty eight, And not because the person who's twenty eight
Speaker 2: is smarter or more capable than the person who's twenty two.
Speaker 2: It's just that, having gone through different experiences in their lives,
Speaker 2: they perceive things differently and they express themselves differently, and
Speaker 2: you know, and you know a person that you might
Speaker 2: see when you're thirty two if you had maybe you
Speaker 2: had not been attracted to or found that person compelling
Speaker 2: earlier in your life, but later your maturity will have
Speaker 2: changed and developed, your perspective on the world will be different,
Speaker 2: and so you may perceive qualities in this person in
Speaker 2: your thirties that that you missed in your twenties because
Speaker 2: you just weren't ready to perceive that. So, you know,
Speaker 2: you look on social media. I love looking at like
Speaker 2: I read three and I read X and X depresses me,
Speaker 2: and Threads is basically just like you know, there's troubled relationship.
Speaker 1: X X and threads are filled with two different types
Speaker 1: of very extremely insane people.
Speaker 2: True, yes, true, you know, so you know I feel
Speaker 2: for DK. Yeah, I guess I've kind of been where
Speaker 2: DK is. I've never thought of myself as an eight
Speaker 2: or higher. But you know, it's not just looks. I
Speaker 2: think I think to a very limited kind of woman.
Speaker 2: I'm a ten, all right, and fortunately I married woman.
Speaker 1: Fortunately you were able to find a yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So you know that, And you could say that about
Speaker 1: a lot. There's a lot of people, and maybe most
Speaker 1: people it's like listen to a very limited amount of people.
Speaker 1: Whoever you are, you're ten. Yeah, there was a there's
Speaker 1: a there's a woman who called into the show fucking.
Speaker 1: It might have been the last episode or a couple
Speaker 1: of episodes ago, I don't know where. She was talking
Speaker 1: about how she like went she like grew up on
Speaker 1: an army base with this kid when she was like
Speaker 1: they were like in fifth grade, so they was like
Speaker 1: ten years old and they were like good friends, and
Speaker 1: then they both moved away, and like nine years later,
Speaker 1: she like found him on she was She was like,
Speaker 1: she didn't just like, oh, oh, look here he is
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Like, she went like looking for it, Like
Speaker 1: she went to like find a certain really like search
Speaker 1: through a bunch of profiles and whatever, and she found
Speaker 1: like found him, and then they like met up again,
Speaker 1: and then they got together and they started dating. And
Speaker 1: I asked her, I was like, do you think, uh, like,
Speaker 1: what would you have done if you didn't find him
Speaker 1: like attractive after all these years? And she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, even if he even if he came out chopped,
Speaker 1: you know what chopped means no, chopped means chopped is
Speaker 1: another of saying ugly, Oh like if someone's chopped. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she's like, even if he came out chopped, I
Speaker 1: would love him anyway because just the person he is.
Speaker 1: So he said to her, he's a he's a ten.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess you gotta find whoever.
Speaker 2: You know. There's a great book that that articulates this
Speaker 2: concept in a slightly different ways, the book Uh Love
Speaker 2: in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And
Speaker 2: I would urge your listeners to ask Chatchip two to
Speaker 2: give them somewhere between a one thousand or five thousand
Speaker 2: words summary of the book.
Speaker 1: Or they could read the fucking book.
Speaker 2: I assume that nobody's gonna read the book.
Speaker 1: You know, you know what I you know what a
Speaker 1: whole lot. Actually, I want to I want to analyze
Speaker 1: what I just did because it was a really it
Speaker 1: was a really asshole thing to do what I said.
Speaker 1: I want to let me I'm gonna take a second
Speaker 1: to analyze what I just said. It's really asshole thing
Speaker 1: that I just did, because I'm gonna go I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask Ai to give me a summary of
Speaker 1: that book. Now there's just no I'm gonna read the book.
Speaker 1: But if I but if I asked for a summary
Speaker 1: of the book, I'll at least know what the book was.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I just shot it down immediately because.
Speaker 2: No, No, the thing is, first of all, if you're
Speaker 2: gonna use chat chub to ask you to write, what
Speaker 2: is gonna do it? Has not read the book? Ye?
Speaker 2: Not read? I know, I know, we don't and I've
Speaker 2: learned that the hard. I know.
Speaker 1: My dad my dad was asking, we don't have to
Speaker 1: keep talking about Chatchepe my dad. My dad was asking
Speaker 1: Chatchepe Tea to uh summarize like an episode of the
Speaker 1: show pluribus to him, and it tried. And then my
Speaker 1: dad got into an argument with chet Cheepe because he
Speaker 1: was like, you don't you haven't really seen this show
Speaker 1: you and the was like yeah, but it's but anyway,
Speaker 1: what's what's the what's the what's the my father summary
Speaker 1: of the book.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't want I don't want spoilers. I don't
Speaker 2: want to make a spoiler. But wait, hold on, hold on,
Speaker 2: let but that's so stupid, that's it's not it's not
Speaker 2: look we're talking about.
Speaker 1: If you're not hold on, can I just if you're
Speaker 1: not going to read the book. Right, If you're not
Speaker 1: going to read the book, what were I don't. We
Speaker 1: can't live in a universe where we're extending spoiler cautions
Speaker 1: to AI summaries of media. All Right, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: if you're not going to read the book and you're
Speaker 1: just gonna summarize it with a I, then I don't.
Speaker 1: Then you're not. Then I don't think you should be
Speaker 1: entitled to a spoiler.
Speaker 2: I'm not asking your listeners to read the book. I'm
Speaker 2: asking your listeners to consume the story.
Speaker 1: Okay, I get what, I get where you're going.
Speaker 2: They're hugely different, but an important distinction.
Speaker 1: It's like if someone was like, it's like if someone
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to about a movie, and then you're like,
Speaker 1: it's like if you were like, like, uh, oh, have
Speaker 1: you seen Marty Supreme? And you're like, oh, I haven't yet,
Speaker 1: but don't don't tell me how it ends, because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read the Wikipedia synopsis of it. I know it
Speaker 1: sounds stupid, that's exactly what you're saying, but it's.
Speaker 2: Still a legitimate sentiment.
Speaker 1: You know what, In my gut, I know I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be fair to you and I'm gonna be I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be fair because you know what, in my gut, I
Speaker 1: kind of agree with you. We will, we can, we
Speaker 1: can end soon. I know we have to go soon.
Speaker 1: In my gut, I kind of agree with you, but
Speaker 1: I but I I but also I kind of I
Speaker 1: if if you care about spoilers. But in my gut,
Speaker 1: I see it's not that I agree with you. I
Speaker 1: see what you mean. But if you care enough about
Speaker 1: spoilers for this piece of media, like you else, you
Speaker 1: should read it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to give you.
Speaker 2: I was gonna take an end, but I don't know
Speaker 2: will end it when you think we should end it? Okay,
Speaker 2: with a statement that summarizes why I even brought up
Speaker 2: that book in the first place. Okay, let's do that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is that satisfying love is worth waiting for.
Speaker 1: You know what, I think that's I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I hope that's true. Dating is for people who are
Speaker 1: lucky or patient, is what they say. So if you're
Speaker 1: one of those two things, you'll succeed, or if you're
Speaker 1: fucking ripped. I still believe that. I still believe that
Speaker 1: people tell me that but I still believe. People tell
Speaker 1: me that's not true, but I still believe it.
Speaker 2: It means you'll have more sex. It doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 2: you'll find love.
Speaker 1: But the but for but for somebody to love I mean,
Speaker 1: barring in most relationships, I'm gonna go ahead and say,
Speaker 1: in most relationships, somebody has to want to have sex
Speaker 1: with you to I love you, not all.
Speaker 2: In the conventional sense.
Speaker 1: Of in the conventional sense of love relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that involves a sexual.
Speaker 1: That involve a sexual complete It doesn't always that's true. No,
Speaker 1: I agree, it's not true. That's it's it's it's not always. Well, Dad,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you doing this podcast, and then I'm glad
Speaker 1: I asked you to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is much more fun than that. But you know,
Speaker 2: and naps are fun.
Speaker 1: What did you did? You do you have any major
Speaker 1: takeaways from the experience?
Speaker 2: You know, I, I really I like your listeners. I
Speaker 2: like the emails they were they were thoughtful. And you know,
Speaker 2: I have a major criticism of myrs.
Speaker 1: Of your peers, my peers, but you can you define
Speaker 1: your peers real quick?
Speaker 2: Boomers?
Speaker 1: Okay, people around my age give us your major criticism.
Speaker 2: I think they unfairly diminish the the strengths of the
Speaker 2: younger generations. You know, I I don't think the younger
Speaker 2: generations get nearly enough credit from my peers for having intelligence,
Speaker 2: for having sensitivity, for having thoughtfulness, and for contributing to
Speaker 2: the world beautiful.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Dad, I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I had a
Speaker 2: great time, and uh, you know, I look forward to
Speaker 2: reading the comments and asking why my head is not red. Uh.
Speaker 1: This has been the therapy Getcko podcast. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and I will be I will be back in a
Speaker 1: few days with another episode. Jack bless see you around.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening.
Speaker 2: Never Ken goes on the line taking your phone calls
Speaker 2: every night. Never Can goes doing to ride. He's teaching
Speaker 2: you a loud to the mover of your life, but
Speaker 2: he's not read me an expert