Speaker 1: If you want to have a big, juicy, fast moving,
Speaker 1: energetic conversation, you can't really do that unless people have opinions,
Speaker 1: because two people who are really steeped in intellectual humility
Speaker 1: are just going to kind of look at each other
Speaker 1: without words and say, yeah, it's kind of hard to know.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking
Speaker 2: our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast about how
Speaker 2: other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how
Speaker 2: they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our
Speaker 2: guest on this episode is Kelly Corgan. She's written four
Speaker 2: New York Times best selling memoirs in the last decade,
Speaker 2: earning her the title of the poet Laureate of the
Speaker 2: Ordinary from the Huffington Post and Voice of a Generation
Speaker 2: from OH Magazine. Kelly has also penned some very popular
Speaker 2: op eds about applying to college, becoming an empty nester,
Speaker 2: and giving advice to teenagers. Kelly is the host of
Speaker 2: the popular podcast Kelly Corgan Wonders.
Speaker 3: Hi, Kelly, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Welcome to my show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a collaborative episode where we're going to
Speaker 3: just have a conversation where both people who have talked
Speaker 3: to countless other wonderful people. I think you're one of
Speaker 3: the better interviewers out there, and this is something I
Speaker 3: pay attention to, and so we're just going to have
Speaker 3: a collaborative conversation about the different things that come up.
Speaker 3: But why don't we start the way this show always starts,
Speaker 3: which is with the Parable Sure, And in the Parable
Speaker 3: there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 3: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 3: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 3: other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 3: hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think
Speaker 3: about it for a second. They look up at their
Speaker 3: grandparent and they say which one wins, and the grandparent says,
Speaker 3: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 3: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 3: your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: So I have lots of associations with it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I rely on thinking fast and slow. The great Daniel
Speaker 1: Khannoman work as a touch point for me in all
Speaker 1: my thinking, and so I think about system one and
Speaker 1: system two. And then I've done lots of episodes with philosophers,
Speaker 1: like there's this woman at Yale named Tamar Gendler who
Speaker 1: goes through the ancient philosophies and what each of them
Speaker 1: has to teach us about modern happiness. And there's always
Speaker 1: this desire to come up with a metaphor or a
Speaker 1: parable that explains our nature to us in a way
Speaker 1: that's really simple. That there are these two wolves, or
Speaker 1: that there's a elephant and a rider, or there's a
Speaker 1: charioteer and there's two horses, and the one horse is
Speaker 1: you know, your desires and impulses, and the other horses
Speaker 1: your rational mind. And then kind ofman took it to
Speaker 1: the system one and two. So all of that springs
Speaker 1: to life for me. And then this other thing that
Speaker 1: I've said to my kids for a long time when
Speaker 1: I am listening to them and thinking, oh, you're catastrophizing,
Speaker 1: is you live in your head. Make it nice in there,
Speaker 1: you know, almost like decorating a room, Like put in
Speaker 1: a soft rug and give yourself a bean bag chair,
Speaker 1: put pretty things on the walls, like that's where you live,
Speaker 1: that's where where it's happening. That's where you're making sense
Speaker 1: of your identity and your existence and your relationships. And
Speaker 1: so just recognize that there's always agency, because there's always
Speaker 1: you at the back of things, interpreting events, and that
Speaker 1: involves a lot of choice. We're not watching a movie
Speaker 1: of our lives. We're actors in the movie of our lives.
Speaker 1: And we're writers of the movie of our lives. And
Speaker 1: where the directors and where the editors, And so it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that our lives can defy physics, but it
Speaker 1: means that we're playing a role in what it feels
Speaker 1: like to us. So that came to mind too, What
Speaker 1: does it mean to you? How do you think about it?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I've thought about it a lot of
Speaker 3: different ways over reading it all these years, But I mean,
Speaker 3: I think in its essence, it is about choice, right,
Speaker 3: It's about that I have choice and the choices that
Speaker 3: I make about what I do and what I think,
Speaker 3: and what I engage in and what things I feed myself,
Speaker 3: you know, physically, but also in what I read and
Speaker 3: what I watch and what I do. All those things
Speaker 3: are important. They matter. And I also like it because
Speaker 3: it makes it sound like this battle is going on
Speaker 3: inside everybody, which I think normalizes what it's like to
Speaker 3: be human, is it? And I also like it because
Speaker 3: it also sounds like it's kind of close. Like it's
Speaker 3: not like the you know, the good Wolf is running
Speaker 3: away with it, you know, It's like, you know, we're
Speaker 3: not quite sure what's going to happen here.
Speaker 1: So right right, it's anybody's Yeah, it's a toss up exactly.
Speaker 3: Now. I think like all the things that you sort
Speaker 3: of just mentioned, whether it's Commomon System one or two,
Speaker 3: or Jonathan Hate's excellent elephant in the Rider, and all
Speaker 3: of these things, they're all models for something that is
Speaker 3: far more complicated than that. And so this parable is
Speaker 3: a vast oversimplification of our inner landscape. Sometimes it might
Speaker 3: be nice if there were only two things in there
Speaker 3: going on instead.
Speaker 1: Of you know, animal.
Speaker 3: Goals and yeah, exactly, a veritable Noah's Ark in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I went thinking about how it applies very specifically
Speaker 1: to a variety of things as well, like to the
Speaker 1: food you eat, to the media you consume, to the
Speaker 1: way you set up your social media account, like you
Speaker 1: can sort of turn your mind all day long toward
Speaker 1: vitriol or toward beauty, toward inspiration or toward desperation. I
Speaker 1: find those little pockets of agency very encouraging, Like I
Speaker 1: have really tuned my social media feed to something that
Speaker 1: just brings me reels and reels and reels of wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, like an elephant and its baby standing by
Speaker 1: a tree in the serengetti away from the sun, or
Speaker 1: a whale that's opening its mouth and all these fish
Speaker 1: are coming into its mouth and it's like closing in
Speaker 1: on them. Or a painter a time capsule type capture
Speaker 1: of somebody painting something really beautiful, or ballerinas working together
Speaker 1: to make this message if you use a drone camera
Speaker 1: to catch it from overhead, or little kids dancing to
Speaker 1: Beyonce I have created a positive feed by saying yes
Speaker 1: to all the beauty and wonder feeds and saying no
Speaker 1: to all the vitriol and superiority feeds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that speaks to the nature of so
Speaker 3: many of these things in the world that I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people want to label as either good
Speaker 3: or bad and recognizing that their tools, and how do
Speaker 3: we use these tools wisely in a way that is
Speaker 3: best for us. There are amazing things we can see
Speaker 3: on social media if certain things surface. I don't use
Speaker 3: it very much, but today a friend sent me a
Speaker 3: picture of a Boston Terrier. I love Boston Terriers. I
Speaker 3: had one until last fall and she passed. And it's
Speaker 3: Boston terrier running and jumping on this like inflatable ball
Speaker 3: and it goes flying through the air, and you're like
Speaker 3: that this animal is in trouble, and it lands and
Speaker 3: is back after that ball with not the slightest thought.
Speaker 3: It's just the most amazing thing to watch it, and
Speaker 3: it just made my whole morning right right.
Speaker 1: I wonder what that tendency says about us, that we
Speaker 1: want to blame the tool instead of blaming the way
Speaker 1: we use the tool. Like per your earlier point about
Speaker 1: this desire to create a binary where something is good
Speaker 1: or bad, rather than saying like, well, these are the
Speaker 1: functions of social media and we are using it to
Speaker 1: good ends or bad ends, or varied ends. But when
Speaker 1: you take that victim mentality like us been laid on us,
Speaker 1: there's anything we can do about it, it's ruining everything.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're giving away this great opportunity to
Speaker 1: harness it for your own purposes, you know, and hopefully
Speaker 1: they're good purposes. But I just wonder if you have
Speaker 1: an opinion about why it's easier to blame the tool
Speaker 1: than blame the way we use the tool.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it goes to so many different things
Speaker 3: where we grasp for easy answers and there usually aren't any.
Speaker 3: The role of technology in our lives is a very
Speaker 3: complicated and nuanced issue, and so I think there's some
Speaker 3: of that. I think there's some degree, like you're saying,
Speaker 3: of not wanting to take responsibility. I think there are
Speaker 3: valid criticisms to be made of a system in which
Speaker 3: young people are growing up within and the way that
Speaker 3: our attention is, you know, people are trying to manipulate
Speaker 3: it for profit. But I agree with you that I
Speaker 3: think I am a big fan of nuance, and I
Speaker 3: actually can tell from your writing that you are also.
Speaker 3: I've just seen it over and over in your writings
Speaker 3: and in your conversations, this sense of like, well, not
Speaker 3: so fast, Like it's a little more complicated than that.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's what I sense a lot
Speaker 3: in these technology discussions, is people wanting an easy answer.
Speaker 3: You know, it would be nice if we could just
Speaker 3: blame it all on the tech company. Well that's part
Speaker 3: of the story, but it's certainly not the whole story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's kind of like saying like magazines are
Speaker 1: bad or books are bad, Like that's actually how foolish
Speaker 1: a statement it is, because you know, there's The Economist,
Speaker 1: and there's Hustler, and there's Sports Illustrated and there's teen
Speaker 1: Vogue and you know. So, I mean, I guess the
Speaker 1: distinguishing feature of social media is that there's the user
Speaker 1: generated content. But again, those are choices that you can make.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't follow many friends or peers. So
Speaker 1: an example that often gets thrown up around social media is,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's pretending Annie's great lives and then you
Speaker 1: get sucked into this idea that everybody's vacation was better,
Speaker 1: everybody's Christmas morning was better, everybody's running further, exercising more,
Speaker 1: having more time with their grandparents. But that's completely shut outable.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just don't have to use it that way. Yes,
Speaker 1: not to use it at all. It's not a requirement, yep,
Speaker 1: So it's not. I wonder if you have examples at
Speaker 1: the ready of ways that you feed the right wolf,
Speaker 1: Like you must have habits of mind and habits of behavior.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that you're an atteict who's in recovery,
Speaker 1: and I know that oftentimes people add structures to their lives,
Speaker 1: like meetings or meditation or gratitude journals, et cetera, to
Speaker 1: ground them in something that represents their values and their
Speaker 1: sort of deepest desires for their own wellness. I wondered
Speaker 1: if you had a few off the top of your
Speaker 1: head that you use to feed the right wolf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wild that you just use the phrase habits
Speaker 3: of mind and habits of behavior, because I'm working on
Speaker 3: a book right now, and that's one of the underlying
Speaker 3: core ideas, is that we have both habits of mind
Speaker 3: and habits of behavior that we can cultivate and they
Speaker 3: reinforce each other. So just to hear you use that phrase,
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, I was just writing about it yesterday.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that, Yeah, there are some things
Speaker 3: for me, and some things change over time, and some
Speaker 3: things remain very consistent as an addict, and some of
Speaker 3: that addiction I think was driven by depression, which I've
Speaker 3: also dealt with over the years. For me, exercise is
Speaker 3: sort of a non negotiable for me, like it just
Speaker 3: seems to be the one If I could only have
Speaker 3: one thing that I could use really for even my
Speaker 3: mental health, it would be exercise. I've used meditation a
Speaker 3: lot over the years. I think there's a habit of
Speaker 3: mind in general of trying to not believe my thoughts
Speaker 3: too much, or at least like be willing to interrogate them.
Speaker 3: That sounds harsher than it is, but being willing to
Speaker 3: question them and being willing to sort of see that
Speaker 3: everything in many ways is a story. You were referencing
Speaker 3: this a little bit earlier, right, that there are some
Speaker 3: things that are factual, right, You and I are on
Speaker 3: riverside right now having a conversation that's fairly factual, right,
Speaker 3: But the smile on your face. I could be taking
Speaker 3: three different ways, right, I could be making up all
Speaker 3: kinds of stories about what that means, and they would
Speaker 3: all be just that stories because I don't know, and
Speaker 3: so I just think that is a foundational thing for
Speaker 3: me in a habit of mind is always looking at
Speaker 3: that and saying, Okay, what am I making this mean?
Speaker 3: And what else might it mean? You know? Or what
Speaker 3: else could it mean?
Speaker 1: Are you sure?
Speaker 3: Are you sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah? My husband and I have like signal sentences
Speaker 1: to each other like are you sure? And maybe? And
Speaker 1: when we say maybe, what we mean is like you
Speaker 1: might be just making shit up, like this might really
Speaker 1: not be nearly as true as you're letting yourself believe
Speaker 1: it is. So it often happens when we respect relating
Speaker 1: about one of our kids and how they're doing, and
Speaker 1: they live far away from us, and we're imagining, and
Speaker 1: then we're starting to attribute motives to various people in
Speaker 1: the story. A boy who we thought like them doesn't
Speaker 1: like them anymore, or some girl in her sorority who
Speaker 1: we've never met, but somehow in the story, we are
Speaker 1: ascribing motive to all the different characters in this little tale.
Speaker 1: We're telling yep, And then the other person is we're
Speaker 1: really trying to train each other to at least both
Speaker 1: of us not fall for our own nonsense at the
Speaker 1: same time. So assume that we will continue to make
Speaker 1: up stories spontaneously and without being conscious of it. But
Speaker 1: then as the other person's doing it, well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what happened. I mean, when she handed in that
Speaker 1: paper that time, I'm sure the teacher was like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing and why are you at And then
Speaker 1: the other person's just supposed to say maybe, and it's
Speaker 1: just a signal that like, you're making shit up and
Speaker 1: you really don't have very much information here at all.
Speaker 1: And then the other one when it's happening to us,
Speaker 1: when we're telling a story about a problem in our
Speaker 1: own lives. The thing we're trying to practice saying to
Speaker 1: each other is are you sure? Are you sure that
Speaker 1: Tony wants this? And PERSONA wants that? And Alan wants that?
Speaker 1: Like a be sure? Who's like, maybe you should just ask?
Speaker 3: Do you find sometimes that you're fairly invested in a
Speaker 3: story or an emotion around the story, and you hear
Speaker 3: maybe or are you sure? And you you bristle a
Speaker 3: little bit or is it something that you sort of
Speaker 3: right away know what your partner's trying to do there.
Speaker 1: I know Bristle, Yeah, I know, Bristol. I mean I
Speaker 1: have a terrible haven. And I wonder if you haven't
Speaker 1: at all from podcasting where because you know, our jobs
Speaker 1: involved like constant learning in preparing for these conversations and
Speaker 1: then having these conversations, and you meet a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've interviewed probably seven hundred people now between
Speaker 1: the PBS show and the podcast and live events, and
Speaker 1: it has this dangerous potential consequence, which is that you
Speaker 1: sort of think you know things. You know, you sort
Speaker 1: of feel like you understand human nature a little bit
Speaker 1: better because you've interviewed all these people, or you understand
Speaker 1: human relationships because you've interviewed Estera Perell and other famous therapists.
Speaker 1: Or you think that you understand wellness because you've interviewed
Speaker 1: Francis Collins at the NIH, or you understand spirituality because
Speaker 1: you interviewed Father Greg Boyle, or you understand music because
Speaker 1: you interviewed David Byrne. Like it's a natural outgrowth of
Speaker 1: being in this kind of constant learning posture. And I'm
Speaker 1: an enthusiastic learner. And one of the ways that I
Speaker 1: learned is I repeat it back. So if I'm reading
Speaker 1: a book, for sure Edward, my husband will feel as
Speaker 1: though he's reading it as well, because every time I
Speaker 1: put it down, I'll say, here's something for you. Listen
Speaker 1: to this. And when I read the paper in the
Speaker 1: morning and when I read Axios in the morning, I'm
Speaker 1: giving it back to him and he's like, Kelly, I'm
Speaker 1: literally reading the exact same thing right this second. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know, but I need to say it to own it.
Speaker 1: Like that's how I internalize a piece of information is
Speaker 1: I have to say it out loud. I have to
Speaker 1: pass it along somehow. It's probably why a podcast and
Speaker 1: write books, and that can doop you into a state
Speaker 1: of intellectual arrogance where you do feel that when you're
Speaker 1: listening to a kid tell you a story about something
Speaker 1: that happened with their friends or at their summer job,
Speaker 1: that you do have a fairly persuasive true self story
Speaker 1: about what and why, cause you know, you're like weaving
Speaker 1: in a little less stair parale. You're weaving in a
Speaker 1: little Francis Collins, and you know they're big thinkers. And
Speaker 1: I mean I got to talk to Daniel Connoman before
Speaker 1: he died, Like you don't think I was like a
Speaker 1: totally out of control arrogant after that for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, like insufferable. So I don't know what the
Speaker 1: adage is, but it's something about like a little bit
Speaker 1: of information is dangerous, Like brushing up against big time
Speaker 1: thinkers can sometimes have this terrible knock on effect. You
Speaker 1: thinking that you really have a handle on something we
Speaker 1: need probably don't. So when he says maybe, I think, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you you listen, thank you, thank you, Miki. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: although he did just walk in on our podcast recording,
Speaker 1: and although he's done that before and we'll do it again, Eric,
Speaker 1: I do really like and respect the man I'm married too,
Speaker 1: and so I am sort of inclined to be grateful
Speaker 1: for his feedback, generally speaking, not about how I do
Speaker 1: the dishwasher, but you know, like important things.
Speaker 3: I wonder, is there actually an officially right way to
Speaker 3: load the dishwasher, because.
Speaker 1: No, don't even don't touch it with a ten foot polly.
Speaker 1: You're going to put me in the most foul humor.
Speaker 1: It is the dumbest argument we've had it a million times,
Speaker 1: And yes, of course there could be a way where
Speaker 1: you get the maximum number of dishes. That's what he
Speaker 1: would say. But I roll it up one and say,
Speaker 1: is that what we're doing in life? Is that our
Speaker 1: goal right now to get the maximum number of dishes?
Speaker 1: Or our goal to have like a peaceful after dinner
Speaker 1: period of collaborative work in the kitchen so that we
Speaker 1: can finish up and go upstairs and lie our bodies down.
Speaker 1: Is the goal efficiency? Or is the goal the mood?
Speaker 1: And I say to you and to all listeners everywhere,
Speaker 1: the goal is the mood?
Speaker 3: I agree, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank god. I don't have to hang up on you.
Speaker 1: You can hear me getting whipped up about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, I'm not going to try and instruct you
Speaker 3: on the proper way to live with the dishwasher. Just
Speaker 3: I just find it interesting that everybody thinks there's a
Speaker 3: proper way, that's all. It's fascinating that we all have
Speaker 3: a relatively strongly held opinion like everything.
Speaker 1: Don't you think we have strongly held opinions about everything?
Speaker 3: I think we have a tendency.
Speaker 1: It feel safer, there's like a safety in it, sure security,
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's nice to feel like you know what's
Speaker 3: going on and to feel like you know you have
Speaker 3: some answers in this chaotic, sometimes frightening, confusing world.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is that when you cop to
Speaker 1: uncertainty and when you like reconnect to intellectual humility, because
Speaker 1: say your partner said, maybe is, then there's not that
Speaker 1: much to talk about, like in terms of conversational fodder,
Speaker 1: which is this is just like kind of a tactical thing.
Speaker 1: If you want to have a big, juicy, fast moving,
Speaker 1: energetic conversation, you can't really do that unless people have opinions,
Speaker 1: because two people who are really steeped in intellectual humility
Speaker 1: are just going to kind of look at each other
Speaker 1: without words and say, yeah, it's kind of hard to know.
Speaker 1: I don't really know what to do about public education
Speaker 1: in America. Yeah, you know, I don't really know what
Speaker 1: the cutoff dates should be to terminate a pregnancy. Me
Speaker 1: neither kind of hard to say. The conversation would just fall,
Speaker 1: would just disappear.
Speaker 3: And would you say that you're that sort of person
Speaker 3: or you have lots of opinions?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the thing I have the strongest opinion
Speaker 1: about is how we shouldn't have strong opinions, so the
Speaker 1: most animated I get you're hearing it right now, and
Speaker 1: this is the kind of thing that it's about. What
Speaker 1: I feel strongly about is that our nature is driving
Speaker 1: so much of our interactions in a way that is
Speaker 1: counterproductive to what we most want and need. Like if
Speaker 1: let's say that a super need of all mankind is belonging,
Speaker 1: there's a cheap way to get it and just put
Speaker 1: on the same shirt as the other guy, put the
Speaker 1: same bumper sticker on your car, start screaming and yelling
Speaker 1: the same things, like chanting in a crowd with posters,
Speaker 1: and that's very bonding. I mean, you definitely feel that
Speaker 1: you belong, but it's not really based on you and them.
Speaker 1: It's not really that you've found something a special and
Speaker 1: important way to relate to each other. It's that you
Speaker 1: cheaped out and you went for this. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like cheering for a football team, you know, like,
Speaker 1: are you really connected? Am I really connected to every
Speaker 1: other Golden State Warriors fan in the United States? A
Speaker 1: little bit? But not really? I Mean I love that team,
Speaker 1: but not as much as I love people who embrace uncertainty.
Speaker 1: But that's not a team.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone. One of the things that I know many
Speaker 3: of you struggle with is anxiety, and very recently I
Speaker 3: shared some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically,
Speaker 3: I shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice,
Speaker 3: you write down one or two of your core values
Speaker 3: and then if I one action step that aligns with them.
Speaker 3: I find that taking one positive action towards things that
Speaker 3: matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have
Speaker 3: a reflection question, what positive experiences have you had today
Speaker 3: that you could focus on instead of your anxiety. Every Wednesday,
Speaker 3: I send out a newsletter called a Weekly Bye to
Speaker 3: Wisdom for a wiser, happier You, And in it I
Speaker 3: give tips and reflections like you just got and it's
Speaker 3: an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice. It's
Speaker 3: a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful
Speaker 3: to you. Each month we focus on a theme. This
Speaker 3: month's theme is anxiety, and next month we'll be focusing
Speaker 3: on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of weekly wisdom,
Speaker 3: go to Goodwolf dot me slash newsletter. Those things are interesting,
Speaker 3: right because obviously, if you're a fan of the Golden
Speaker 3: State Warriors, you recognize there is a place for that
Speaker 3: communal experience and pulling for the same team, and that
Speaker 3: ultimately it really doesn't mean very much. What's the famous joke, Like,
Speaker 3: it's you know, like rooting for people who all wear
Speaker 3: the same clothes, Like I am notoriously bad at having
Speaker 3: favorite teams and anything, because I just am like I mean,
Speaker 3: I will form an opinion of a group of people
Speaker 3: and be like, well, that's the team I want to
Speaker 3: root for based on the people that are in it,
Speaker 3: not the uniform they're wearing or the traditional which makes
Speaker 3: me the absolute classic fair weather fan. But like you,
Speaker 3: nothing really animates me in the same way except when
Speaker 3: people think they're certain of something, and then I feel
Speaker 3: this perverse need to almost argue with them, even if
Speaker 3: I agree with them, even if I actually hold their
Speaker 3: underlying belief. If they hold it too strongly and they're
Speaker 3: just certain, it just brings up something in me and
Speaker 3: I find myself wanting to argue against it. I do
Speaker 3: this with my partners. I have to watch for it
Speaker 3: because I'm like, Okay, that's the wrong approach, why would
Speaker 3: you want to do that? But it is sort of
Speaker 3: an habitual response in me.
Speaker 1: It's such a turnoff to me, certainty. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: such a turnoff. It seems unsophisticated, you know, like when
Speaker 1: people wag their fingers out. I tell you what you
Speaker 1: need to do to fix the transportation in America, and
Speaker 1: then it's like, really, really, you think there's like a
Speaker 1: one sentence answer to transportation in America? Like I do
Speaker 1: think you sound like a fool or you know these
Speaker 1: I just know. I guess I'm old enough to know
Speaker 1: people who have now devoted thirty or thirty five years
Speaker 1: to solving a single kind of societal problem. We know
Speaker 1: this great woman whose kid used to babysit for us,
Speaker 1: who's been working on homelessness in the Bay Area, you know,
Speaker 1: since she was twenty years old. She's seventy. Can't figure
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, So when you hear somebody on television
Speaker 1: or at a cocktail party say I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: they need to do about homelessness, I think or you
Speaker 1: cannot possibly think that you could solve homelessness. You can't,
Speaker 1: possily it's so insulting to this woman that I know,
Speaker 1: who's been on it for fifty years, with a big
Speaker 1: brain and a big heart and she still can't crack
Speaker 1: it like that. Don't mean, don't insult the people who
Speaker 1: are actually doing the work. These kind of sideline man
Speaker 1: not in the arena, people who are so flippant about
Speaker 1: these amazingly complex issues. Yeah. Just it's a huge, huge
Speaker 1: turn off. So tell me about what you need when
Speaker 1: you're feeding the wrong wolts. And how easy is it
Speaker 1: for you to catch yourself like, when was the last
Speaker 1: time you did something that you were like that is
Speaker 1: so antithetical to my actual values and goals in life.
Speaker 1: I cannot believe I'm doing this again.
Speaker 3: There's a saying that I've heard in the past, and
Speaker 3: I think about it a lot, which is that the
Speaker 3: road gets narrower. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 3: the things that I used to do, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: I was a homeless hair an addict at twenty four
Speaker 3: and a you know, just a card carrying criminal. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was just not I was not a great person
Speaker 3: to myself or anybody around me. And so over the years,
Speaker 3: I think what has happened is that the things that
Speaker 3: I do that are sort of off the mark, it
Speaker 3: gets narrower and narrower. And I'm not trying to paint
Speaker 3: myself as a saint. I'm just saying that I don't
Speaker 3: very often have huge moments of like why did I
Speaker 3: do that that was so wrong? I would say that
Speaker 3: my not feeding the good wolf tends to be more
Speaker 3: these days in omissions versus comissions of things right. It's
Speaker 3: not so much that I blew up at somebody that
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have. It's that I missed an opportunity to
Speaker 3: say something that might have deepened the relationship because I
Speaker 3: was afraid. It's those sort of things, and so I
Speaker 3: have to hunt a little bit more for them, because
Speaker 3: it's very easy to justify those sort of things also,
Speaker 3: But I would say that that's probably what it is.
Speaker 3: It's I'm not doing something that would have been good
Speaker 3: to do right or I think I also wrestle with
Speaker 3: the question that I think everybody probably does to some degree.
Speaker 3: But you know, how well am I spending my time?
Speaker 3: Am I using my time to things that I feel
Speaker 3: like really matter? While also recognizing that I can't always
Speaker 3: be doing things that really matter like I just don't
Speaker 3: have the capacity to do it right. And I think
Speaker 3: as I'm getting older, I'm also learning what does the
Speaker 3: energy level look like? And capacity of me in my
Speaker 3: early fifties versus me in my early thirties and trying
Speaker 3: to figure out like, Okay, you know, I'm not playing
Speaker 3: guitar for two hours every night after dinner because I'm
Speaker 3: really tired. Is that okay? Do I just go well,
Speaker 3: that's just kind of where you are right now, or
Speaker 3: do you push so? I mean, there are more subtle things,
Speaker 3: But I would say it's either I'm not taking an
Speaker 3: opportunity to deep in a relationship because I'm frightened of
Speaker 3: a difficult conversation, or I am using my time in
Speaker 3: a way that I wish I was using to be
Speaker 3: more creative or more involved in helping someone or that
Speaker 3: sort of thing. It's not as exciting as it used
Speaker 3: to be when I could be like, well, you know,
Speaker 3: I did three armed robberies last week. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: a more dramatic story than the one I just told, but.
Speaker 1: Well meant hopefully life gets less dramatic as we get older.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, tell.
Speaker 1: Me a little bit about your early twenties, how you
Speaker 1: ended up where you ended up? Yeah, how much repair
Speaker 1: did you have to do after rupturing? What I would
Speaker 1: assume is just about every important relationship in your life,
Speaker 1: plus you're relationship with yourself, plus your relationship with society. Like,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of breakage.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of breakage. I mean there's sort
Speaker 3: of a long version and a short version of you
Speaker 3: know how I ended up where I ended up. The
Speaker 3: short version is that I began, like many teenagers, to
Speaker 3: experiment with drugs and alcohol, and from almost the very beginning,
Speaker 3: had a very strange relationship with them. You know, I
Speaker 3: would do things like people would get together and they
Speaker 3: would go drink in the night, and I would wake
Speaker 3: up in the morning and see some of the alcohol
Speaker 3: left over and be like, well, why not drink that.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it often, but it was strange, right.
Speaker 3: I got drunk on mouthwash, and you know, would lead
Speaker 3: youth church groups that I was involved in, everybody getting
Speaker 3: drunk on mouthwashed when it was a bad influence from
Speaker 3: the very beginning. And then in high school, I started
Speaker 3: a tutoring program for disadvantaged children, and I saw what
Speaker 3: alcohol and drugs in their family's life was doing, and
Speaker 3: I was like, okay. I became basically straight edge for
Speaker 3: a few years, and then I went away on a
Speaker 3: trip and I came back and my girlfriend was dating
Speaker 3: my best friend, and I was just in so much
Speaker 3: pain over that that somebody offered me a drink and
Speaker 3: I said okay. And it was almost as if I
Speaker 3: was just off to the races after that. You know,
Speaker 3: I would be exaggerating if I said I didn't draw
Speaker 3: a sober breath for the next six years, but not
Speaker 3: exaggerating by a ton. It was like some switch just flipped,
Speaker 3: and so it was alcohol, and then alcohol led to marijuana,
Speaker 3: which then led to maybe LSD, which then led to
Speaker 3: maybe cocaine. Was showing. I mean, I was capable of
Speaker 3: abusing any and all of those things. And by the
Speaker 3: time I was about twenty two, I played music and
Speaker 3: bands and I joined a band where I didn't know
Speaker 3: it at the time, but three of the four people,
Speaker 3: the other three people in the band besides me, were
Speaker 3: intervenious heroin users. Wow, And one night somebody said, do
Speaker 3: you want to try it? You know, I tried it,
Speaker 3: and I snorted it, and in just over a relatively
Speaker 3: quick period of time, I became physically addicted to it.
Speaker 3: But I was no more addicted to that than I
Speaker 3: was to alcohol or marijuana. There's just a physical component
Speaker 3: to it. That's different, and it's a far more expensive habit,
Speaker 3: at least it was then than the cheap you know,
Speaker 3: mad dog I could drink or whatever, right, And so
Speaker 3: that all of a sudden then became about having to
Speaker 3: get high and get a fix, which led to criminal activity.
Speaker 1: How much time passed between the first time you did
Speaker 1: heroin and the second time you did.
Speaker 3: Harowin maybe a few weeks.
Speaker 1: And during those few weeks were you thinking about it?
Speaker 1: Were you thinking I'm absolutely going to have to do
Speaker 1: that again?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I don't. I can't recall. I mean,
Speaker 3: because I would have been like really drunk and high
Speaker 3: on you know, marijuana and drinking in between that timeframe, right,
Speaker 3: So it crept up quickly until I do remember one
Speaker 3: night being like, why do I feel so sick? Why
Speaker 3: do I feel so lousy? And I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 3: I have a physical addiction here to this. And sure
Speaker 3: enough I went and used the heroin and I felt
Speaker 3: immediately better.
Speaker 1: And I was like, uh, oh, how many times do
Speaker 1: you think you did heroin?
Speaker 3: Oh? I don't know. I mean, let's say I did
Speaker 3: it for three years maybe, and I did it, you know,
Speaker 3: two or three times? A day, So I don't know.
Speaker 3: A thousand, I don't know. I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker 1: A lot, wow.
Speaker 3: I mean enough that I weighed one hundred pounds at
Speaker 3: the time I had hepatitis CEA. I mean I was dying.
Speaker 3: I mean I was in really bad shape. Between that
Speaker 3: and the fact that when I finally made it to
Speaker 3: treatment quote unquote sort of the last time, you know,
Speaker 3: I was facing fifty years in potential jail time, and
Speaker 3: I mean things were pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Who were your closest relationships the first time you did heroin?
Speaker 1: Or did you not have any? Was that part of no? No?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 3: I did? I would say it was a group of
Speaker 3: friends that I'd been friends with for a few years.
Speaker 3: But they were people who largely, maybe not to the
Speaker 3: extent that I did, but were people who were drinking
Speaker 3: pretty heavily. Right. I played rock music and bands, and
Speaker 3: so I was in that scene and everybody was kind
Speaker 3: of that way. My close friends were.
Speaker 1: So nobody would have said, dude, you're out of control.
Speaker 3: Well, no, people started to okay, even within that group,
Speaker 3: you know, people would start to be like whoa, like yeah.
Speaker 1: Even among heavy users, they were noticing.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but that was kind of the case. I
Speaker 3: feel like from even very early on in my drinking,
Speaker 3: like I was just even around people who partied a
Speaker 3: fair amount, there was something I just had a lightly
Speaker 3: different gear more than all of them, but most of them.
Speaker 1: Were you always aware of that, Like were you in
Speaker 1: a tiny conversation with yourself where you would say, yes,
Speaker 1: this is not the same, We're not having the same
Speaker 1: experience here. I need this more, I want this more.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. I did notice that. I mean I started
Speaker 3: relatively early, you know, maybe a year and a half
Speaker 3: into drinking, and all this where I decided that like, okay,
Speaker 3: I got to get out of Columbus, this is a problem,
Speaker 3: Like this isn't working, and so I decided to move
Speaker 3: in retrospect, a poorly considered decision. But I moved to
Speaker 3: San Francisco and nothing changed, right, I mean, I just
Speaker 3: what happened is I would come out of blackouts and
Speaker 3: not know where I was at all, Whereas in Columbus,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, oh, how did I get here? But
Speaker 3: I would know where I was because I grew up there.
Speaker 3: And San Francisco I'd come out of a blackout and
Speaker 3: be like, well, I don't have the foggiest idea where
Speaker 3: I'm at right now, Like I don't know how to
Speaker 3: navigate from where I am. So nothing really changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the story with your parents?
Speaker 3: Two parents upper sort of middle class, you know, toward
Speaker 3: white collar background, but they both I think had untreated
Speaker 3: mental illness. My father's manifested as rage and my mother's
Speaker 3: manifested as a very withdrawn depression. And so I was
Speaker 3: a troubled child from very early on. I mean I
Speaker 3: was by the time I was ten, I was a kleptomaniac, right,
Speaker 3: And so I can look back and be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: something wasn't right, you know, and I can I can
Speaker 3: theorize on what those things were. And I've I know
Speaker 3: a lot about what things are supposed to happen in
Speaker 3: childhood and attachment and all of that, and I think
Speaker 3: I didn't get what I needed developmentally. I don't really
Speaker 3: have anger at my parents. They were just doing kind
Speaker 3: of what had been done to them, and they were doing,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of the best they could in the circumstances.
Speaker 3: And yet it wasn't kind of what I needed to
Speaker 3: be a person who felt comfortable in their own skin.
Speaker 1: And so what was the turning point like why did
Speaker 1: you stop? How did you not just do it until
Speaker 1: you died?
Speaker 3: It's interesting because, like I said, I'm kind of working
Speaker 3: on a book. I got a book deal with HarperCollins
Speaker 3: recently and I'm working on and so I'm revisiting a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff. And the easy version of the story,
Speaker 3: right is that I just got arrested at work, Like
Speaker 3: I mean, the police came into my place of employment.
Speaker 3: I worked in a restaurant and they came in and
Speaker 3: they arrested me and took me out in handcuffs. And
Speaker 3: it turns out that where I was working was one
Speaker 3: of the ways that I was stealing money. And I
Speaker 3: had been temporarily living in a van that the owner
Speaker 3: of the restaurant had, and so all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: all of that was gone, what little bit of home
Speaker 3: I had this van was gone, My ability to make
Speaker 3: the money that I needed. In addition to stealing, I
Speaker 3: was also working like sixteen hours a day to try
Speaker 3: and keep up with this habit. All that was gone,
Speaker 3: and I just went into treatment detox because I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what else to do right now, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be very sick, and I don't know what
Speaker 3: to do. And while I was there, they said to me,
Speaker 3: you should go into long term treatment, and I said,
Speaker 3: I don't think so, because who knows what possible? What
Speaker 3: I thought I had to get back to. But then
Speaker 3: I went back to my room and I had a
Speaker 3: moment of clarity, and I went, you're going to die
Speaker 3: if you go back out there. By now I knew
Speaker 3: I had hepatitis C, and I just knew, like, you're
Speaker 3: either going to go to jail or you're going to die.
Speaker 3: And so I went to long term treatment, which then
Speaker 3: led to a halfway house. And that was the turning point.
Speaker 3: That's the easy version. The more complicated version is I
Speaker 3: had been working on ways to not be the way
Speaker 3: I was, like I said, since this first move to
Speaker 3: San Francisco, right, which would have been preceded by lots
Speaker 3: of times of me trying to just do less, you know,
Speaker 3: just don't do it so much, huh, and years of that, right,
Speaker 3: And so yeah, there's one moment I can point to
Speaker 3: that was the moment at which I never did it again, huh.
Speaker 3: But that moment was preceded by lots of other little
Speaker 3: moments and was followed far more importantly by countless other
Speaker 3: little moments. Right, if we were going to film the
Speaker 3: movie of my life, there'd be the scene I just
Speaker 3: told you, But that scene wouldn't mean anything if it
Speaker 3: weren't for the thousands of little decisions I made day
Speaker 3: after day after that to get sober. So there's a
Speaker 3: convenient narrative that you hit a bottom, and that's what
Speaker 3: it is, But it tends to be a little more
Speaker 3: complicated than that.
Speaker 1: Isn't that narrative structure so imposing totally? What's the nadir,
Speaker 1: what's the climax, what's the danemol love it? Who's the
Speaker 1: main character, who's the hero, who's the villain? Like, it's
Speaker 1: just so imposing, and it's so easy to look for
Speaker 1: those beats. I mean, even as I'm asking you questions,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of asking you to tell me the story
Speaker 1: in terms of these narrative beats. And that's, not, of course,
Speaker 1: the way it is. Because that's the story we love
Speaker 1: because it has this drama to it that the stories
Speaker 1: we live have much less drama. It's you know, choices
Speaker 1: and thoughts that you're having every single day. It's feeding
Speaker 1: it's feeding the right wolf every day for twenty years. Yes,
Speaker 1: but nobody wants to hear that story. You know that
Speaker 1: the truth of the story is. And then on Tuesday
Speaker 1: I woke up and I said, I think I'll walk
Speaker 1: outside for ten minutes. And then on Wednesday I thought,
Speaker 1: instead of having a drink, I think I'll call my
Speaker 1: old friend. And then on Thursday, and you would just
Speaker 1: go on like that for twenty years, itemizing a list
Speaker 1: of minuscule choices that equal your sobriety, your life.
Speaker 3: Equal a life of sobriety. Yeah, yeah, that is the
Speaker 3: way life is. And we were talking earlier about certainty
Speaker 3: and believing you can fix things. Early on in my recovery,
Speaker 3: I believed that now that I had gotten sober, and
Speaker 3: I was in a twelve step program, and twelve step
Speaker 3: programs tend to think they know how to get people sober. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they do know how to get some people sober.
Speaker 3: You know. I thought I know the answer to addiction,
Speaker 3: And thirty years on, I feel less equipped, over and
Speaker 3: over and over again to feel like I know what
Speaker 3: somebody should do to get over addiction.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I know what I did, I know what worked for me.
Speaker 3: I know some things that work. I know some guiding
Speaker 3: principles that I think are useful. But life is complicated,
Speaker 3: and addiction is an enormously complicated syndrome. It is a
Speaker 3: multi causal thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, syndrome is really the right word for it. That
Speaker 1: really helps broaden your sense of it. You know that
Speaker 1: it has all these factors that are interacting with each other,
Speaker 1: with you, and with your environment at all times. When
Speaker 1: you think about what kind of repair has been necessary
Speaker 1: for you, has there been any particular person or group
Speaker 1: of people, including potentially yourself, that has been hardest to
Speaker 1: repare with, hardest to forgive and to be in relationship with.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because in the twelve steps, right, there are
Speaker 3: two steps that are all focused on repairing. There's the
Speaker 3: eighth step, which is you make a list of all
Speaker 3: people you'd harmed, and ninth step you actually go out
Speaker 3: and try and make amends to those people. So, I
Speaker 3: mean it's baked into the heart of the program because
Speaker 3: almost nobody will get to an dear of addiction without
Speaker 3: having done a lot of rupturing. So yeah, there were
Speaker 3: a lot of relationships to repair, but a lot of
Speaker 3: relationships also had to be sort of just let go.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was certainly a lot of relationships that
Speaker 3: did not make the transition, YEA, from my using days
Speaker 3: to my sober days. Now. I was fortunate in that
Speaker 3: a number of people over time started I'm not saying
Speaker 3: I was the only one, but there were a few
Speaker 3: people that started to get sober, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of other people were seeing it and going, oh,
Speaker 3: there's a path, and so it was interesting to see
Speaker 3: a lot of friends that I was sort of like, well,
Speaker 3: that friendship has gone come into recovery, and that was
Speaker 3: a beautiful thing. So there were obviously crimes I'd committed
Speaker 3: that I need to make amends for. Right, the state
Speaker 3: had its own ideas of how I was going to
Speaker 3: make amends for the crimes that I had committed. I
Speaker 3: was extraordinarily fortunate that I did not go to jail,
Speaker 3: and that's probably you could base that ninety five percent
Speaker 3: probably on privilege. You know. I was given opportunities that
Speaker 3: most people aren't given. I was given a diversion opportunity
Speaker 3: where if I completed all the tenets of this thing
Speaker 3: they gave me, the multiple felonies would disappear. And I
Speaker 3: had to do that, right, I mean, I had to
Speaker 3: go make financial amends I had to do a huge
Speaker 3: amount of community service. I had to drug test, you know,
Speaker 3: drug free for years. I had to see a parole officer.
Speaker 3: I mean, there were a lot of things I had
Speaker 3: to do, and if I hadn't, they would have given
Speaker 3: me sort of a maximum sentence. And I was able
Speaker 3: to do those things, thankfully. But again I recognized that
Speaker 3: was that I was given a gift.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, to do that.
Speaker 3: That was probably based to some degree on my background
Speaker 3: and my color.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, how about to yourself, like, how do you
Speaker 1: look at that version of you?
Speaker 3: Primarily I feel a lot of self compassion for that person.
Speaker 3: You know, that person was in a lot of pain
Speaker 3: and just did not have any way of coping and
Speaker 3: existing in the world that wasn't extraordinarily self destructive. And
Speaker 3: a few years earlier, I had formed this tutoring program
Speaker 3: for disadvantaged children, and I was taking high school students
Speaker 3: from around the area that you know, tended to be
Speaker 3: coming from quote unquote better high schools, right, higher high
Speaker 3: schools that you were getting a really good education, and
Speaker 3: we were going into elementary schools that were more disadvantaged.
Speaker 3: And I was organizing all that, and so there was
Speaker 3: that and then a few years later, like I'm a
Speaker 3: completely different person, and so that, yeah, there was a
Speaker 3: lot of Like that's one repair I could never make
Speaker 3: is that program that was off to a great start
Speaker 3: and had this framework that I think could have continued
Speaker 3: and extended fell apart because I wasn't there to shepherd
Speaker 3: it through, you know, a couple of years when it
Speaker 3: would have sort of become self sustaining. There was no
Speaker 3: repair for that. And then I guess I should actually
Speaker 3: say there's like three steps in twelve step programs, because
Speaker 3: there's another step, which is the tenth step, which is
Speaker 3: continue to take personal inventory and when we're wrong, we
Speaker 3: promptly admitted. And that's a big one right for me,
Speaker 3: is the keeping the street kind of clean as I go,
Speaker 3: you know, really recognizing when I've been unkind or when
Speaker 3: I've done something that I don't want to do, or
Speaker 3: fessing up to that and trying to deal with that
Speaker 3: in real time has stopped me from getting into places
Speaker 3: where there's been a whole lot more really big ruptures.
Speaker 3: But I certainly, you know, was out there trying in
Speaker 3: whatever ways I could to make amends to my parents.
Speaker 3: You know, I had really good friends at that time
Speaker 3: that I took really terrible advantage of. You know, I
Speaker 3: would say things like I want to go to treatment,
Speaker 3: but it's a two hundred dollars application fee, and you know,
Speaker 3: get somebody to give me two hundred dollars. I mean
Speaker 3: it's I laugh about it, but you know, and then
Speaker 3: spend it on drugs. You know, there's just lots of
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, you know, stealing from friends, things
Speaker 3: that you know, if I hadn't repaired and if I
Speaker 3: didn't have a real understand of the pain that that
Speaker 3: me was back then I think I might feel differently.
Speaker 3: And then there's the fact that I have been able
Speaker 3: to because of that addiction and a commitment to help
Speaker 3: others who are suffering from it, transform it into something
Speaker 3: that has been I would say a net positive overall.
Speaker 3: Like if you were to look at the total amount
Speaker 3: of pain that I caused then versus the total amount
Speaker 3: of healing I've been able to be involved in since then,
Speaker 3: with a very conscious effort, it balances the scales a
Speaker 3: little bit. Yeah, Yeah, it doesn't balance it for everybody, though.
Speaker 3: There are certain situations that were not repaarable, people who
Speaker 3: did not want to be repaired. It's not like I
Speaker 3: was able to repair everything, but if I was to
Speaker 3: just take a total net good to the world, I
Speaker 3: feel like that was actually a good overall because I
Speaker 3: was young enough. Thankfully, I was young enough that I've
Speaker 3: been able to have all these years in recovery.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So like units of damage versus units of repair,
Speaker 1: you've crossed over, I believe. So.
Speaker 3: I mean another analogy is when I was in the
Speaker 3: halfway house, right, like I was on disability, I was
Speaker 3: taking money, you know, from the government, and there was
Speaker 3: money being given to the halfway house that I was in,
Speaker 3: you know, like probably Medicaid money and all that, and
Speaker 3: in the grand scheme of things. In my case, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying this is the case in everybody's case, but
Speaker 3: in my case, the government came out way ahead right
Speaker 3: by rehabilitating me at that day and age. I have
Speaker 3: paid way more in in tax dollars over the years
Speaker 3: than I actually took out, which I think is the
Speaker 3: way those systems are intended to work. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: they always do, but sometimes they do.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's like that as a side note, that's
Speaker 1: just an important part of the discussion around incarceration because
Speaker 1: that can happen can happen. If we're paying as taxpayers
Speaker 1: year after year after year to keep people on jail
Speaker 1: with no hope of rehabilitation, then there's also no hope
Speaker 1: that they'll become taxpayers. Not only for society does it
Speaker 1: not ever get to balance out, but for that individual.
Speaker 1: You don't get the satisfaction of thinking, I'm putting something
Speaker 1: back in the till it took a lot, and I'm
Speaker 1: putting a lot back in. Yeah, And that must be
Speaker 1: so important to your sense of self and it must
Speaker 1: be a real foundation to stand on in terms of
Speaker 1: self compassion. It is like I'm just going to keep
Speaker 1: trying to add to the good. Yeah, to keep do that.
Speaker 1: If you're incarcerated, I mean, what good can you do
Speaker 1: in there? All you can do is no, it's just
Speaker 1: such a sin. Really.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, My story would probably have been radically different
Speaker 3: had I been sent to jail, even for a few years.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that there are not situations in
Speaker 3: which people do need to go to jail, of course
Speaker 3: there are, but are far better off with rehabilitating people
Speaker 3: and ideally rehabilitating them before we need to rehabilitate them
Speaker 3: from what has happened to them in prison?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not naive on those fronts, but I
Speaker 3: do think we've got the balance wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, thanks for letting me ask all those hard questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, can I ask you a few questions? Sure,
Speaker 3: this quote comes completely out of context, but I have
Speaker 3: to know and we.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear what you're gonna say.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, this is the quote?
Speaker 1: Is it my quote?
Speaker 3: Something I want to Yeah? Something you said? Yeah, dear, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what to say about a man
Speaker 3: who calls it perfectly adorable three year old a fucker,
Speaker 3: but my hero comes to mind that maybe laugh out
Speaker 3: loud when I read it, and just I had to
Speaker 3: be like, what is she talking about? Because again, I'm
Speaker 3: sure it's from a story somewhere in a book, but
Speaker 3: it was just the one line.
Speaker 1: It was like, what, So, I had cancer in my
Speaker 1: thirties at a one year old and a two year old.
Speaker 1: I was in chemotherapy. My hair had finally started falling out,
Speaker 1: and so we shaved my head and I stayed home
Speaker 1: and cried for a couple of days, and then I
Speaker 1: felt like maybe I was ready to go out into
Speaker 1: the world and my kids were one and three, and
Speaker 1: so Georgia, my older daughter, was in preschool at the time,
Speaker 1: and during the early days of my cancer treatment, you know,
Speaker 1: people drove her everywhere all the time, and so I
Speaker 1: was feeling like I really wanted to drive carpool and
Speaker 1: felt like that would be a real victory for me.
Speaker 1: So I put the scarf on my head and I
Speaker 1: put on my scare. I still had eyelashes at the time.
Speaker 1: They fall out two eventually, and I put on my
Speaker 1: favorite jeans and I called my next door neighbor and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to take the kids to preschool today.
Speaker 1: And she said, oh, wow, like you don't have to
Speaker 1: do that, and I said, no, no, I really want to.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm ready to like take my look on
Speaker 1: the road. And then I got Georgia and we went
Speaker 1: over there. And you know, you have to take your
Speaker 1: baby with you wherever you go to So I got
Speaker 1: Clara and a diaper, and I got Georgia in her
Speaker 1: little outfit for preschool, and I get them all situated
Speaker 1: in the car and we go next door and I
Speaker 1: pick up their kid and she says, come on down,
Speaker 1: come on down, And this kid looks up at me
Speaker 1: and says, you look like a monster. And the mom said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. He just saw a monstrous ink. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you mean like the
Speaker 1: one where the person's head is like a giant eyeball.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I look like to this kid.
Speaker 3: She didn't make it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she didn't make it better. So then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I guys got a wave of anxiety, and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, I God, I can't go into a
Speaker 1: preschool because they don't know, they don't have any context
Speaker 1: for this, and they could say anything to me. I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm sturdy enough yet, So I said, I
Speaker 1: think maybe you should take them in here take my car,
Speaker 1: and I gave her my keys and I went home.
Speaker 1: I grabbed the phone and I flapped on the sofa
Speaker 1: and I called Edward and I said, uh, he caught
Speaker 1: me a monster. And Edward said who did? And I said,
Speaker 1: man next door and you said that fucker, And I thought,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've never loved you more that you're
Speaker 1: gonna punch out a three year old for hurting your
Speaker 1: thirty six year old wife's feelings. So that is the
Speaker 1: origin of that line, and that moment. I think a
Speaker 1: lot about it, tunement, and it's such a hit or
Speaker 1: miss thing, you know, even when you love people so
Speaker 1: much and you're trying so hard, you can still just
Speaker 1: miss the note. And there were a lot of occasions
Speaker 1: in that year that I was in treatment where Edward
Speaker 1: picked up the note kind of effortlessly and was right
Speaker 1: where I wanted him to be. Like if I was
Speaker 1: in the mood to start googling stage three cancer life expectancies,
Speaker 1: he would do it with me. And if I was
Speaker 1: in the mood to go on the deck and have
Speaker 1: a corona and listen to Bob Marley, he would do
Speaker 1: it with me. And if I want to cancel plans
Speaker 1: at the last minute, he would do it for me.
Speaker 1: And in that moment, the way he took my side
Speaker 1: like that, it was just sort of a heavenly moment
Speaker 1: of a tunament because he could have said, oh, Kelly,
Speaker 1: do we really care what a three year old said
Speaker 1: about you? He cared more than I did. He was
Speaker 1: madder than I was. And so I have a lot
Speaker 1: of very fond and tender memories from being sick, and
Speaker 1: that was one of them.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful story with a very funny line. Really,
Speaker 3: you were talking about how you and your father both
Speaker 3: had cancer, huh, and that your dad and mom sort
Speaker 3: of turned towards God yes, and you and Edward turns
Speaker 3: towards Google.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: And a friend of yours was able to explain the
Speaker 3: miracle of your father through a rational thing about how
Speaker 3: the doctor knew these things. And you sort of said, well,
Speaker 3: you sort of landed on that neither your parents' faith
Speaker 3: nor the reason of your friend really explained and what
Speaker 3: happened there.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I remember it was so
Speaker 1: interesting to me that the first thing my father did
Speaker 1: when he got diagnosed to the first thing I did.
Speaker 1: So he went to church and I went to Google.
Speaker 1: And then when it was all over and both of
Speaker 1: us survived, his survival a little bit more miraculous than mine,
Speaker 1: my mom said, oh, there were just so many people
Speaker 1: praying for your father, as if that explained it. And
Speaker 1: you know, that's such a troubling statement, because all kinds
Speaker 1: of wonderful people die all the time, for whom many
Speaker 1: people have been praying, right, And I said, gosh, don't
Speaker 1: you think it has more to do with these medications
Speaker 1: that people have labored to develop over time, Like I
Speaker 1: really am alive because of a medication. I had stage
Speaker 1: three her two new ERPR positive cancer, which was not survivable.
Speaker 1: That strand was really not survivable. Twenty years ago, I
Speaker 1: definitely have been gone. And I had a huge tumor
Speaker 1: seven centimeters by four centimeters. So it's just like this
Speaker 1: big piece of calamari. And then you know, the free
Speaker 1: markets and big pharma and some really devoted scientists and
Speaker 1: chemists and biologists got together and they created a set
Speaker 1: of medications and surgical procedures and interventions. And here I
Speaker 1: am talking to you. And so I tried to put
Speaker 1: that in front of my dad, and he said, oh, Levey,
Speaker 1: what do you think makes a person want to work
Speaker 1: that hard to cure cancer? As if I was missing
Speaker 1: the most obvious reflection of God in the world. He
Speaker 1: and my mother both have always put a foot in
Speaker 1: the door for me in terms of faith, like the
Speaker 1: door cannot close because of them. It was such a
Speaker 1: strong part of both their lives, central and a real comfort.
Speaker 1: It wasn't They weren't righteous about it, they weren't finger waggy,
Speaker 1: They did not use it as a weapon against other
Speaker 1: groups of people. It was like a heated blanket. To them,
Speaker 1: it was like a warm place to rest. But then
Speaker 1: when we got married, the padre, as my uncle Jimmy
Speaker 1: put it, the padre said life is a mystery to
Speaker 1: be lived. And then my uncle Jimmy put his arms
Speaker 1: around us afterwards at the reception and said, I never
Speaker 1: heard anything so true in my life. Life is a
Speaker 1: mystery to be lived. And so I guess where I
Speaker 1: came out was that we'll just stay with the mystery
Speaker 1: on this one. We'll just let it be an unknown.
Speaker 1: We'll just leave the question mark in.
Speaker 3: Place, back to the lack of certainty.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And there's a real joy in that. For me,
Speaker 1: there's like joy and not knowing. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: I'm not required to know. None of us are, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we are small, and there is a lot that
Speaker 1: we haven't figured out yet. And there's tons of things
Speaker 1: that we thought were absolutely true over the centuries that
Speaker 1: are absolutely not true, And so I think best to
Speaker 1: be humble.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm a long time Zen practitioner. And there's a
Speaker 3: saying not knowing his most intimate and.
Speaker 1: I love that. Nice. Yeah, that's really nice. I like it.
Speaker 3: I also love to think about like what do we
Speaker 3: all believe to be completely true today? Scientifically that is
Speaker 3: completely right now, because there's got to be a wide
Speaker 3: swath of it. I just don't know which part of
Speaker 3: it it is, but it's fascinating to think about. Maybe
Speaker 3: we can wrap up by talking about your recent TED
Speaker 3: talk around ordinary moments of bravery. What did you mean
Speaker 3: or what do you mean when you use that phrase
Speaker 3: ordinary moments of bravery? And why did you want to
Speaker 3: give a TED talk on that?
Speaker 1: Well, the theme of the conference was the brave and
Speaker 1: the Brilliant, and it was clear that there would be
Speaker 1: tons about AI and space travel and quantum computing, and
Speaker 1: I just felt that someone should stand up and say
Speaker 1: something about invisible interpersonal bravery. My kids are twenty one
Speaker 1: and almost twenty three, and I have some very close
Speaker 1: friends with whom I share a lot and them reciprocated
Speaker 1: and their sharing with me, And so I know that
Speaker 1: every one of us has been put to the test
Speaker 1: in the most incredible ways, where someone comes to you
Speaker 1: and says, I cut myself, I weigh myself before and
Speaker 1: after every meal, I steal, I bought a gun, I
Speaker 1: stop taking the medication I'm using Again, I hear voices.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are all true things that have been
Speaker 1: said to my friends by their children. And if you
Speaker 1: don't think what happens next is exquisite bravery, you're not
Speaker 1: paying attention because there's so many possible reactions in that moment,
Speaker 1: and ninety nine percent of them are wrong, as in
Speaker 1: damaging or at a minimum unproductive. And I think to
Speaker 1: be brave in the face of such high stakes that
Speaker 1: it's just nothing that you'll care about more than these
Speaker 1: people and their well being. And you're so electrified with
Speaker 1: adrenaline and anxiety. I mean, I don't know what the
Speaker 1: cocktail is that's flowing through your body in that moment,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to say it's as strong as heroine. Like.
Speaker 1: There have been moments where a kid has looked at
Speaker 1: me and said something, and I have been in a
Speaker 1: completely different physical state, and yet you're still required to
Speaker 1: put an expression on your face, shift your posture, and
Speaker 1: say the right thing. And I was positing in the
Speaker 1: Ted talk that the right thing is tell me more
Speaker 1: what else go on? That there's just these seven words
Speaker 1: that you can turn to every single time, because I
Speaker 1: think what's behind them is I don't think this is
Speaker 1: so easy that I can solve it in a sentence.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna dive in and be the hero. I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: of what you're gonna tell me next. I can withstand
Speaker 1: this in its entirety. I don't think everybody does that.
Speaker 1: I think most people either leave one way or the other.
Speaker 1: They take the phone call, they go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: they say they have to work, they have an early flight,
Speaker 1: They somehow wind down the conversation. So that's like one
Speaker 1: way that people miss their opportunity for bravery, and then
Speaker 1: the other way is that they become the hero. They say,
Speaker 1: you know what, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna
Speaker 1: call this person and that person, and if they don't answer,
Speaker 1: we're gonna call this person and the next thing we know,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna take you in that car. We're going
Speaker 1: to put you in that rehabit. We're gonna up, up, up.
Speaker 1: And the bravery that I was trying to elevate was
Speaker 1: really born out of total intellectual humility, which is, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. I wouldn't dream of trying to solve this.
Speaker 1: I don't think I could. I don't think it's my job,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I could, And rather, I'm communicating
Speaker 1: that I don't need to take over, that I believe
Speaker 1: that you will solve it, and that my only work
Speaker 1: here is to facilitate your discovery of the whole story.
Speaker 1: Tell me more what else go on? And it was
Speaker 1: very satisfying to give it to that audience because the
Speaker 1: conference starts on a Monday, and I didn't go until
Speaker 1: Thursday night, so it's basically like the last thing that
Speaker 1: happened before the big dance party. And as I predicted,
Speaker 1: there was a really big emphasis on AI and space travel,
Speaker 1: and here I was talking about this HI human intelligence
Speaker 1: or EI emotional intelligence. And then we went straight to
Speaker 1: the dance party and I just hugged one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty strangers, like people would just point at me and
Speaker 1: come up, and then we just hug and it was
Speaker 1: too loud to talk, and I knew what they were feeling,
Speaker 1: and I knew what I was feeling, and we just
Speaker 1: would jump around and hug, and then the next total
Speaker 1: stranger would come up, the same thing would happen. And
Speaker 1: so I felt certain after it was done that I
Speaker 1: had said something that felt true to other people as well,
Speaker 1: and just kind of an underacknowledged fact.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I watched it, and I love it. I love
Speaker 3: the core idea of ordinary bravery because I do think
Speaker 3: that the number of beautiful, selfless, caring, loving things that
Speaker 3: happened in the world over and over and over, day
Speaker 3: after day after day, there are so many of them.
Speaker 3: And like you're saying, there are these moments you find
Speaker 3: out your father has Alzheimer's, or you know your partner's
Speaker 3: mother has Alzheimer's, these moments they do take a bravery.
Speaker 3: And you said earlier it's you know, required to sit
Speaker 3: down and do that, but actually it's not required. It's
Speaker 3: most and as you said, most people don't, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a very conscious choice to stay in it with people.
Speaker 3: And I thought the talk really spoke to that beautifully.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's all these movies where the most devastating scene
Speaker 1: is a person trying to unburden themselves and the other
Speaker 1: person rejecting the moment. We just we were rewatching Succession
Speaker 1: and Kendall, this kid tries to unburden himself to his
Speaker 1: mother and she says, oh, is this going to be difficult,
Speaker 1: Let's do it in the morning, and then when he
Speaker 1: wakes up, there's just a note that says, I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry I had to go. Maybe we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1: Or like Ordinary People, which was the searing movie in
Speaker 1: my childhood and maybe yours too, where Mary Tyler Moore
Speaker 1: plays this just unapproachable mother and this poor kid Timothy
Speaker 1: Hutton is trying to say what hurts and she just
Speaker 1: can't do it. And when you watch a scene like that,
Speaker 1: or you see one unfold on the pages of a book,
Speaker 1: because that's the only time you're going to see it,
Speaker 1: you will be able to witness it. Otherwise you'd have
Speaker 1: to be a fly on the wall in somebody else's house.
Speaker 1: But when you see these play out in fiction, it
Speaker 1: I just don't think there's anything more devastating, yeah than that,
Speaker 1: like micro rejection of like I don't want to do this,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about this.
Speaker 3: Tell me more what else go on?
Speaker 1: That's right all day long.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great place for us to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, so good to talk to you. Thanks for asking
Speaker 1: to do this. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Kelly.
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