Speaker 1: Welcome to PM mood, the no Talking Points, no Bullshit
Speaker 1: podcast that takes you behind the curtain, off the red carpet,
Speaker 1: and to the front lines of progress with change makers
Speaker 1: and innovators that are doing the work to shift our
Speaker 1: culture and expand our social impact. Folks, I am so
Speaker 1: excited to welcome to PM mood The New York Times.
Speaker 1: A best selling author of I Can't Date, Jesus, Love, Sex, family, race,
Speaker 1: and other Reasons, I've put my faith in Beyonce and
Speaker 1: the author of the new book I Don't Want to Die.
Speaker 1: Poor Michael Arsenau, Thank you so much for joining PM mood.
Speaker 1: How are you doing? Thank you for having me. I
Speaker 1: am as well as can be an a pandemic in
Speaker 1: which we're all fearing for our laws. I'm grateful, yes,
Speaker 1: and I am grateful to have you on. It's wild
Speaker 1: because when I started PM mood, the idea was not
Speaker 1: to talk about current events and to explore different avenues
Speaker 1: of folks like yourself, who are super talented and offer
Speaker 1: so much to explore different things. But we just we
Speaker 1: can't seem to escape the world that we are currently
Speaker 1: living in. So before we jump into your latest book,
Speaker 1: which in all honesty. The conversations around being in debt,
Speaker 1: going through variations and varied levels of brokeness is something
Speaker 1: that now more people than ever are probably sharing. In
Speaker 1: this time where ten million people have now applied for
Speaker 1: unemployment due to the coronavirus. That number is only going
Speaker 1: to continue to go up. So many people are losing
Speaker 1: their livelihoods, their jobs, and so a public health crisis
Speaker 1: has turned into an economic crisis of epic proportions as well.
Speaker 1: So how are you navigating this moment as an author,
Speaker 1: as a content creator? How are you navigating this? Well?
Speaker 1: For me, like, I have a book coming out and
Speaker 1: I have to function, So am I worried about my health? Obviously?
Speaker 1: I'm in New York, which is not the best place
Speaker 1: to be. The only other option I really have to
Speaker 1: go back to Texas, Artifa, Houston, which is not a
Speaker 1: good place to be, particularly even being around my parents.
Speaker 1: So I haven't following the news. I'm a news junkie, obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously, but I'm a news junkie. So I've
Speaker 1: been quietly paying attention to this entire time, and then,
Speaker 1: just in my dumb luck, I've recently been to I've
Speaker 1: been in New York. I've been to New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: I've been to La all within March, and within like
Speaker 1: the two weeks where everything basically shut down. I actually
Speaker 1: got to New York right before shut down. Here I
Speaker 1: am as then as can be. But that is because
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, while I'm not used to
Speaker 1: the doomsday plot aspect of this, including the racist game
Speaker 1: show host kind of leading us to ruin, I do
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be constrained. I know it
Speaker 1: for one reason or another. I know it's like not
Speaker 1: to have a lot of financial options and hardship. So
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with a lot of what people are experiencing
Speaker 1: right now, but I knew for me, like I feel
Speaker 1: very strange asking people to buy my book. I didn't
Speaker 1: invent capitalism, but I don't want to be squallowed whole
Speaker 1: by it either. But I really do believe in my
Speaker 1: book and the messaging of it, and so I to
Speaker 1: be I mean, not to be honest. It's always challenging
Speaker 1: being black and queer and frankly not centering white people
Speaker 1: in your work, and me making sure my narrative is
Speaker 1: not consumed in a way I think sometimes otherness is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's hard for me in general just
Speaker 1: to get into certain spaces. So it was already challenging
Speaker 1: that the coronavirus, this has been even harder to kind
Speaker 1: of get my message out there and try to tell
Speaker 1: people about the book. So I kind of just turned
Speaker 1: to myself. I'm going on Instagram. You know, I appreciate
Speaker 1: people that say you're like naturally good with this. I really,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would love to be doing more of it,
Speaker 1: but frankly, I don't always like doing it. Like I
Speaker 1: wake up every morning. You know, I thought I was
Speaker 1: handling it really well, and then you know, the third week,
Speaker 1: I've wiping up at like one o'clock and one thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning. I can't go back to sleep. I
Speaker 1: go to sleep at seven o'clock. I'm honestly, I hope.
Speaker 1: I'm rambled. I'm doing the best that I can, and
Speaker 1: I have a schedule. I already maintained a schedule because
Speaker 1: I worked primarily from home. I've been more stringent about
Speaker 1: the schedule. But one thing that I allowed myself to do,
Speaker 1: which is what I didn't used to do before when
Speaker 1: I was really really struggling, I will say that I'm
Speaker 1: scared about what's coming. Yeah, but I'm in a much
Speaker 1: better space than I was yesterday and the year before,
Speaker 1: because last year, when I was writing this book was
Speaker 1: back to a nightmare for me. It reminded me of
Speaker 1: the fragility of all of our situations. That aside, I
Speaker 1: stick to a schedule, But what I really do is
Speaker 1: that I allowed myself to bend from the schedule when
Speaker 1: mentally I'm not there. I try to be there for
Speaker 1: my friends, for who for them this is a new
Speaker 1: reality something my friends have been laid off. They don't
Speaker 1: have a freelance. They work about assurance. I try to
Speaker 1: be present for them, but I also pull away when
Speaker 1: I can't do it because I have to function. Like
Speaker 1: when I have to function, I have to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I have to be clear headed. I have to promote
Speaker 1: my book in this message I really believe in it.
Speaker 1: I have to go online, I have to talk to people.
Speaker 1: I got to check on my family, got to please
Speaker 1: with my mom and everybody else, to stay home. I
Speaker 1: have to do all these things like everybody else, and
Speaker 1: still kind of promote. So I try to be disciplined
Speaker 1: about it. But if I'm like you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't have it in me. Right now, I disconnect and
Speaker 1: I do whatever I need to do to calm down
Speaker 1: that moment and give myself space. Hopefully that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm really big about giving space. It makes
Speaker 1: a ton of sense. I think that. You know, there
Speaker 1: have been so many memes and challenges to try and
Speaker 1: uplift people's spirits, and you know, but in a way
Speaker 1: they also create a lot of pressure, right because there
Speaker 1: is this assumption that we all have all of this
Speaker 1: extra time on our hands and should be focusing on
Speaker 1: being as productive as possible and churning out content if
Speaker 1: that's what you do on a regular basis, And much
Speaker 1: like you, I find myself waking up zapped of any passion,
Speaker 1: of any drive, of any focus, And on those days,
Speaker 1: I just have to be gentle with myself because you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to be creative and upbeat in the midst
Speaker 1: of a global pandemic. And I think that we will
Speaker 1: all struggle through these different waves of this new normal
Speaker 1: and how to deal with ourselves and those that we
Speaker 1: love and care about, and for those of us that
Speaker 1: are still blessed to have work to do, to be
Speaker 1: able to do that work in the best way that
Speaker 1: we can, but understanding that we're under new circumstances, so
Speaker 1: we need to provide ourselves with the space and the
Speaker 1: flexibility and the compassion to just be because being right
Speaker 1: now in this present state is really trying in and
Speaker 1: of itself. So I appreciate you so much offering some
Speaker 1: reflection on how you are moving through. I think that
Speaker 1: one of the things that makes me really excited about
Speaker 1: PM mood and doing this particular podcast is the idea
Speaker 1: of offering people just something else, right, but like not
Speaker 1: denying the current moment and climate of where we are
Speaker 1: in anxiety that people are holding, so expressing that but
Speaker 1: also giving them an opportunity to see and do something else,
Speaker 1: just for a little bit that we all need to do.
Speaker 1: So I deeply appreciate that, and hear you your new book,
Speaker 1: I Don't want to Die Poor, might as well be
Speaker 1: an epitaph that I will have on my headstone and
Speaker 1: hopefully I will have made it and I will not
Speaker 1: and I will not have died poor. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about the title and the premise of this book, because
Speaker 1: you know, I think that it is an act of
Speaker 1: courage and also defiance of the norms that we are
Speaker 1: not supposed to speak about our economic positions, our status.
Speaker 1: We're only ever supposed to boast about it on Instagram
Speaker 1: and show the shots of vacations and new out fits
Speaker 1: and you know and this, that and the other thing.
Speaker 1: But most people don't share their vulnerability. So talk to
Speaker 1: me about coming to this place with I don't want
Speaker 1: to die poor. Thank you. That was really kind, you know.
Speaker 1: I write about how candidate Jesus, how you know there
Speaker 1: is a beauty and a freedom and deviating from what
Speaker 1: you would condition to believe about whatever it is your
Speaker 1: identity is and forging it on your own. But the
Speaker 1: reality in life is freedom is expensive. Life is expensive.
Speaker 1: Choice is expensive. We're not all born into this world.
Speaker 1: We're all born free, but not that free. That really
Speaker 1: does depend on how much access and privilege that you
Speaker 1: are born into and with um. For me, I wanted
Speaker 1: to just really be honest, thank you. What really? If
Speaker 1: I can curse? I hate them fucking narratives about millennials
Speaker 1: that were destroying the economy because the avocado toast or
Speaker 1: ye have paid off their loans like ninety six thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and eighteen months because all they ate was like
Speaker 1: tune up from like identic can and like get push offs.
Speaker 1: That is ridiculous. Like everyone is obsessed with wealth and
Speaker 1: presenting a certain way in this country, Yet people don't
Speaker 1: really have any damn money. When you look at the
Speaker 1: median income and you look at certain things, and while
Speaker 1: I am very grateful that you know, I make more
Speaker 1: than the median income, I technically, on paper make a
Speaker 1: good living. But when you're black and you're born with
Speaker 1: like basically with no money, you go to college because
Speaker 1: for a lot of us, that is our actually we're
Speaker 1: told to have social mobility by means of higher education.
Speaker 1: A lot of black people go, and they only can
Speaker 1: really go to more times they're not black schools, and
Speaker 1: if they go to majority schools, they're still not giving
Speaker 1: sometimes the same amount of resources. Then they get saddled
Speaker 1: with all this debt. Then they graduated the fact that
Speaker 1: like white people who have no college degrees can still
Speaker 1: get a job easier than they can. But even if
Speaker 1: they get the job, chances are, if you're an American,
Speaker 1: you're probably being grossly underpaid for your labor unless you're
Speaker 1: the person responsible for that exploit. So you have all
Speaker 1: this debt. In my case and I have a privacy.
Speaker 1: The loon like. The thing is, you could have it
Speaker 1: on your tombstone if I got right now. My mom
Speaker 1: is still going to hook for that debt because of
Speaker 1: a two thousand and three bankruptcy build passed through by
Speaker 1: George W. Bush that Joe Biden had to roll in
Speaker 1: and you must atoned. But that's my reality and so
Speaker 1: for some pod it just to pick it back a
Speaker 1: little about the other question. One thing I've stressed online
Speaker 1: is if you don't have to work. First of all, yes,
Speaker 1: if you can work right now, work from home, you
Speaker 1: are more fortunate than you can imagine, and especially if
Speaker 1: you are black, because very very complackt with can work
Speaker 1: from home. So take that in and be grateful for that. However,
Speaker 1: don't work yourself to death because these people will kill
Speaker 1: you and they don't care. Look at all these people
Speaker 1: they have laid off. So many people in my life
Speaker 1: have rerouted their lives or so many things have happened,
Speaker 1: and they just let them go like it was nothing.
Speaker 1: And then some companies have been better than others, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, we punished the work or we
Speaker 1: don't pay people. It's been like what forty years now
Speaker 1: since I was born in the nineteen eighties. Between Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Bush,
Speaker 1: all of them, we've been running to the ground and
Speaker 1: I just really Instagram, but I just really wanted to
Speaker 1: lend voice to something different, Like I don't really see
Speaker 1: a lot of black working class perspectives in media. The
Speaker 1: reality is most people who can afford to the sacrifices
Speaker 1: to be in media entertainment are middle class. To be
Speaker 1: a middle class in this country is to be a luxury.
Speaker 1: I fink I gonna really believe in middle class, but
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, working class with like a
Speaker 1: little bit more income coming in. So you know, even me,
Speaker 1: I took out free internships, but that's only because my
Speaker 1: mom took out extra work to help me, and I
Speaker 1: was still having to do other stuff to like any money,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like it's just so much
Speaker 1: social ability is so much harder than people make it seem,
Speaker 1: and I really just wanted to offer, Like, look, I
Speaker 1: work really hard, but I punished myself in so many ways,
Speaker 1: not just to taste a dream, but to stay a
Speaker 1: float and not to let my decisions bring down my mother.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to be better than the next generation, yes,
Speaker 1: but like I've carried the burden with me. I've not
Speaker 1: wanting default on my loan because well, I don't come
Speaker 1: from a lot of money. My mom is the only person,
Speaker 1: because of her good credit, who would broadly be able
Speaker 1: to help somebody because she was able to go to school.
Speaker 1: Who would I be to, Like, I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: doing better than her, and I could be when that
Speaker 1: brings her down, You know what I mean, Like it's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. Well, the book is about debt,
Speaker 1: but I'm really writing about the emotional debt that I
Speaker 1: carry with me, the way so many of us carry.
Speaker 1: And yeah, thank you. Very passive about the topic though
Speaker 1: I love what you just said, the phrase that freedom
Speaker 1: is expensive. Freedom is expensive, and I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: I think that what we're learning if we talk about
Speaker 1: the current global pandemic, right, and how it fits into
Speaker 1: the narrative that you are exploring around financial debt, emotional debt,
Speaker 1: and just the burden of trying to be right, of
Speaker 1: trying to be better. This is the first generation, right
Speaker 1: Millennials zillennials that will follow behind them are the first
Speaker 1: generation that may in fact not do better off than
Speaker 1: their parents. Right. Part of the American dream that some
Speaker 1: of us have been fed is this idea that you're
Speaker 1: always working one step up, you're working one way up
Speaker 1: in the wrong. And for those people whose parents are
Speaker 1: middle class or you know, a little bit above working class,
Speaker 1: whatever those distinctions mean, you are set up in a
Speaker 1: better way right than your parents parents were. But what
Speaker 1: I have come to understand, just in you know, the
Speaker 1: paying of my own student loan debts, the fact that
Speaker 1: I have multiple degrees and advanced degrees, the fact that
Speaker 1: my mother also has multiple degrees advanced degrees, and my
Speaker 1: sister does as well, that we have been able to
Speaker 1: do incrementally better, you know, than my grandparents who came
Speaker 1: to this country from Jamaica some you know, forty plus
Speaker 1: years ago, because of education, because of the opportunities that
Speaker 1: were afforded and the ability to take small advantages like,
Speaker 1: for instance, a free internship. Right. I remember being in
Speaker 1: college and looking at everybody who was going to work
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill because I was a political science major
Speaker 1: who was going to do these things. And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: to myself, I'm fortunate and I can do this because
Speaker 1: my parents are like, oh, we have the money to
Speaker 1: be able to supplement you doing some shit for free,
Speaker 1: but a majority of people and people a color don't
Speaker 1: have that opportunity. And you just see how it's snowballs.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's what's really terrifying, is that
Speaker 1: you're told, just in the same way that I was told,
Speaker 1: go get an education, and the more education you have,
Speaker 1: the better off you'll be. But what it's turned into
Speaker 1: is that the more education you have, the more debt
Speaker 1: you attain. Right. And you know, for me, I'm the
Speaker 1: child my mom helped desegregate her high school and she
Speaker 1: got HYELVI in first and then went back to school
Speaker 1: because we didn't have money, Like you know, I really
Speaker 1: I come from. And I say this will probably like
Speaker 1: po folk, but people who work really really hard, but
Speaker 1: having given like the structure of even the help like
Speaker 1: her even being able to go to school to go
Speaker 1: back and be able to make more money, the cost
Speaker 1: situation now compared to what it was then might have
Speaker 1: kept her away, which means I might not even have
Speaker 1: the opportunity. Well, and I say, I says, like, I
Speaker 1: don't even come from people who can conceive a free internship.
Speaker 1: I could not even conceive that. But what I had
Speaker 1: to realize is that that is the reality. Like I've
Speaker 1: already made a risk in trying to pursue something like this,
Speaker 1: But if I'm going to be doing like, maybe make
Speaker 1: it as much of a strategic risks as possible. And
Speaker 1: I know it has a lot to do with that.
Speaker 1: But y'all will say, of all the internships that I did,
Speaker 1: and I'm very grateful to all of them, see Span, Blender, Magazine,
Speaker 1: Rest in Peace, MTV radio, warn all these places, because
Speaker 1: the place that I actually learned the most from was
Speaker 1: the one program I did that paid me, which I thought,
Speaker 1: and gave me housing. Chris Warrock used to have a
Speaker 1: comedy writing program the Comedy Central. I had housing. I
Speaker 1: was paid because I worked, and I worked on all
Speaker 1: those internships harder than I did on jobs who are
Speaker 1: actually with video paid. But the one place I was
Speaker 1: actually paid to be there taught me so much more
Speaker 1: than anything else. More other than not, I was just
Speaker 1: kind of doing grunt work and they were exploiting my labor.
Speaker 1: And I don't begrudge anybody a part of it, because
Speaker 1: you know, system as a system, but I'm glad we're
Speaker 1: now in recent years. I applaud those interns that were
Speaker 1: just like just fuck that and breaking down those things
Speaker 1: because people need to be paid for their work. The
Speaker 1: fact that and even with publishing like my book deal,
Speaker 1: I can't think Jesus was not. I'm glad it's done well.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad to do well. But I didn't get
Speaker 1: much money from that. I've made more money from speaking
Speaker 1: and frankly royalties, and I say this with most officers
Speaker 1: don't earn royalty. But the reason why I got a
Speaker 1: lower advance and being honest, and I've said it before,
Speaker 1: as I'm black and queer, and people thought that was niche,
Speaker 1: which is a key way of you know, people saying
Speaker 1: they have their limitations about what they think a black writer,
Speaker 1: particularly one like me, can do. They lowered my commercial
Speaker 1: viability despite all songs to the contrary, laid out on
Speaker 1: paper and paid me less. That was a sacrifice. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's only wrong. You don't make a lot of money
Speaker 1: off the bat to stuff. But I knew where I was,
Speaker 1: and I knew were other writers who's just so happened
Speaker 1: to be white, who are at my level a little
Speaker 1: bit you know, lower in terms of visibility, still got
Speaker 1: more money than me because the presumption is they still
Speaker 1: have more than we. I could have graduated debt free,
Speaker 1: but I'm still gonna be black, and I'm still gonna
Speaker 1: have to deal with certain stuff like this, and so
Speaker 1: it's always some of the barrier. If it's not an internship,
Speaker 1: it's something else, like it shouldn't be this way for
Speaker 1: any of us. And that's just kind of like the
Speaker 1: online thing that I hope it's from the book from
Speaker 1: insurance to that you know this stuff, it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: this way. When people talk so much about why we
Speaker 1: don't have these perspectives, it's not just even read it.
Speaker 1: It's also just like class, because I also think just
Speaker 1: in terms of like class, I would still like to
Speaker 1: see far more perspectives. It's all very frustrating. It is
Speaker 1: really frustrating, and I you know, I've been wondering, and
Speaker 1: I'll ask you this question. We have no idea. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we're literally in the midst of a global pandemic, right
Speaker 1: so we don't know how this ends. We don't know
Speaker 1: when it ends. But one of the things that I
Speaker 1: have been thinking about is how the younger generations right
Speaker 1: who are the young kids right now in elementary school,
Speaker 1: in high schoo goal what they're going to grow up
Speaker 1: to become, because now they are living in a world
Speaker 1: that is incredibly uncertain. So while those of us went
Speaker 1: to go pursue our passions right, whether that be in media,
Speaker 1: whether it is to write a best seller like you have,
Speaker 1: whether it's to start your own business, what the coronavirus
Speaker 1: has done is showed us exactly who is essential and
Speaker 1: who is not exactly just how a majority of us
Speaker 1: are one paycheck away or one job loss away from
Speaker 1: losing everything. That's not security, right, and so understanding that
Speaker 1: we are all a lot much more vulnerable than I
Speaker 1: think that our imaginations allowed us to really wrap our
Speaker 1: minds around that most people couldn't go panic shopping and
Speaker 1: hold a bunch of supplies because you don't have that
Speaker 1: much money extra right to be able to go and
Speaker 1: do that. I wonder what these young people will grow
Speaker 1: up to be. I wonder if this pandemic will create
Speaker 1: generations of risk takers. Are those that decide to cling
Speaker 1: to safety and stability because they know what it's like.
Speaker 1: They will have had the memories of their family members,
Speaker 1: their parents, their caregivers losing everything in the blink of
Speaker 1: an eye. What do you think, do you? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and again we have no idea. So it's
Speaker 1: just you know, throwing out there a thought of World
Speaker 1: War one, World War two, how it created generations of
Speaker 1: people that had a certain perspective of the world and
Speaker 1: how to maneuver and how to make moves or what
Speaker 1: moves not to make. And I'm kind of wondering what
Speaker 1: this pandemic will do for younger generations of folks. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm thirty five and this is the second great financial
Speaker 1: crisis of my adulthood. So I still can't particularly call
Speaker 1: how it looks with us. I mean, it's hard to predict,
Speaker 1: but I would just say they already are mirroring our
Speaker 1: generation in a lot of ways. It's like we're trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out and adapting. I think they are too,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, like because because to me, I'm
Speaker 1: wrestling with the fact that, as a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends are right now, it's like, for the first times
Speaker 1: in our lives, we finally feel like we were having
Speaker 1: some semblance of security, and a lot of the ways
Speaker 1: what's been happening in stability has stunted not all, but
Speaker 1: a lot of our development of personal growth because we
Speaker 1: just haven't had the means to live in the way
Speaker 1: we were told that that is what its actual life
Speaker 1: is supposed to look like in a fair society. And
Speaker 1: we're still adjusting. So I'm not sure how they will adjust,
Speaker 1: but I think, honestly, we're all kind of just for me.
Speaker 1: It's just like I fell into freelancing, not because of
Speaker 1: my choice, is because the Great Recession media was imploding,
Speaker 1: as I knew it. If the media still doesn't know
Speaker 1: how to make money. So in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: I've been telling friends before, I'm like, you should really
Speaker 1: pay attention because they still don't know how to make
Speaker 1: money outside of advertising revenue, which is a Google Facebook thing.
Speaker 1: So expect the layoff soon. So even with George Bush,
Speaker 1: I mean Donald Trump, I always say this is like
Speaker 1: the Bush administration, except it's dumber, Boulder somehow, more corrupting racists,
Speaker 1: and it's on adderall with a reality show, so everything
Speaker 1: is spet up. So I knew that he was going
Speaker 1: to run the country into the ground and turn into
Speaker 1: the tosh Ma Hall because like the tax cutting, all
Speaker 1: that other ship, well, I didn't expect was like this
Speaker 1: doomsday aspect. So you know, at least for me. I
Speaker 1: get up every morning. I'm doing the best I can.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make money while I can, trying to
Speaker 1: promote my stuff while I can. I'm only trying to
Speaker 1: do the work that I can do. It like in
Speaker 1: front of me with trying to think about tomorrow, but
Speaker 1: just realizing like I really can't call it because and
Speaker 1: I hate to bring him up, but just with Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: I just don't know what to do with that. Anybody
Speaker 1: know what to do with that? I've been I've been
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to what to do with
Speaker 1: that for three and a half years. And because I know, right,
Speaker 1: because I could easily say, you know, if we had
Speaker 1: like an actual person who with intellectual curiosity, we would
Speaker 1: sit down for a month. They would give people money
Speaker 1: and we would all take a hit, but we would
Speaker 1: readjust But because Batman is so hard to predict, I
Speaker 1: just don't know when it ends. And then I think
Speaker 1: once I have an idea of when, I don't know
Speaker 1: when it ends. So it's hard for me to say anything.
Speaker 1: But I hope anyone is just trying to you know,
Speaker 1: I believe in taking risk, but you really should take
Speaker 1: strategic risks because if I'm being blunt, if I graduated
Speaker 1: right now, I would definitely go about writing a much
Speaker 1: different way. But to be fair, I've always been open
Speaker 1: to every type of pustle. I've never just been writing
Speaker 1: coach with criticism and political crementary. I write ad copy.
Speaker 1: I do all types of work. I've been work outside
Speaker 1: of media. I've done every type of job that I
Speaker 1: needed to do to pay my bills and pursue my
Speaker 1: like not just a passion, but to like, I have
Speaker 1: a career and I wanted to keep it going and
Speaker 1: actually be secure. I really felt like I was getting
Speaker 1: to it at this point. But yeah, and then all
Speaker 1: this happened. Yeah, and then show host and then and
Speaker 1: then life happened. Yes, yes, go please so tell me this, Michael.
Speaker 1: One of the chapters in the book that I thought
Speaker 1: was really good, and the title just in and of
Speaker 1: itself kind of brings again to the present moment, which is,
Speaker 1: I love Instagram. It sometimes makes me want to die. Um,
Speaker 1: talk about that, because social media in this moment has
Speaker 1: become more important and a lot more popping than it
Speaker 1: has been, because everybody is home and everybody is social distancing.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about this chapter in particular because I
Speaker 1: know that myself. I love Instagram too, But some days
Speaker 1: I'm just like really really again, like we're doing it
Speaker 1: with the flat timmyt and like everybody having the same face,
Speaker 1: and like you know, the torquing for dollar bills, Like
Speaker 1: this is what we're doing. I have those moments I
Speaker 1: write a book. I worry we're all showing essentially the
Speaker 1: greatest hits of our lives, most of us anyway. Now,
Speaker 1: some people are more off the bat, just very blunt
Speaker 1: about wherever they already in a given moments. Great for them,
Speaker 1: for real, but it's like, I don't think most people
Speaker 1: enter this wanting to show the worst of themselves or
Speaker 1: given false impression about the best of themselves. But the
Speaker 1: reality is that the medium is designed to show the
Speaker 1: best side of ourselves. So we're all showing ourselves our
Speaker 1: best without being honest about our worst. And in many ways, again,
Speaker 1: when most Americans don't have four hundred dollars in that
Speaker 1: favors account and the meeting income is with forty two
Speaker 1: thous something like that, it's low, risch, relatively low. Somebody
Speaker 1: lying when you see all these products and nothing matches.
Speaker 1: And I've noticed of course, during the pandemic, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have tried to keep up their habits. I
Speaker 1: swear it's gonna say about I made it. People who
Speaker 1: were showing, you know, off their bodies. The boys are
Speaker 1: still showing them, but you know, stills trying to get
Speaker 1: the attention that way. People who were talking about like
Speaker 1: the events or even like the personal branding stuff. Everybody's
Speaker 1: trying to keep up this certain idea of like how
Speaker 1: they think they should look. If you can, one, get
Speaker 1: off from social media, if it's not doing you any good,
Speaker 1: get off. I highly recommend it. If it's not good
Speaker 1: for you. I have to be on it for work,
Speaker 1: you know, because if I didn't have a book from
Speaker 1: Ure right now, probably wouldn't be online as much. Be honest,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I would I would read a lot, I
Speaker 1: would keep inform I wouldn't really engage so much. I
Speaker 1: think for me, I'm while I want to keep in
Speaker 1: touch with my friends. Also could probably use a little
Speaker 1: choirt right now because the news can be overwhelming. But
Speaker 1: I also realized, like many of us are isolated, so
Speaker 1: we need that connection the people who are you go
Speaker 1: on Instagram, which is what I've put my own words
Speaker 1: into practice. If I see something and I don't think
Speaker 1: it makes me come fool, make me feel away, either
Speaker 1: get off or I meet that person, because you know
Speaker 1: you can't follow everybody feel away. But Instagram is essentially
Speaker 1: just a giant flea market at gossips and has great
Speaker 1: fitness tips and varying levels of adult entertainment and they
Speaker 1: try to sell you diaretic te correct. It's amazing, but
Speaker 1: it's also the worst thing, which is kind of like
Speaker 1: a lot of things in life. Everything should be in doses.
Speaker 1: So I really hope people are doing their best right
Speaker 1: now because I just have to say, like, we're all connected,
Speaker 1: but so many people are so clearly missing what this
Speaker 1: moment is. It's about being less selfish, being lessened to
Speaker 1: self passionate, being more honest, and so again, whatever you
Speaker 1: need to do to stay sane, do it because Instagram
Speaker 1: will suck you up. Like I love Instagram too, but like, well,
Speaker 1: while it was hitting me up because I wasn't in
Speaker 1: a good place and what I should have done in
Speaker 1: that moment was get off, and I didn't. So if
Speaker 1: you need to get off, get off. I'll stop preaching out. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think that that's right. I think that there are
Speaker 1: so many or something sound like delaries, but there are
Speaker 1: so many ways in which you know, we do. We
Speaker 1: start to what people refer to as yardstick, right, measure
Speaker 1: yourself up against everybody else and how everyone else is
Speaker 1: doing so in the midst of this pandemic, if I'm
Speaker 1: not getting my six pack abs and writing a bestseller
Speaker 1: right and offering inspirational quotes every day, then like I'm
Speaker 1: a terrible person, right, And I think that the beauty
Speaker 1: of your book, right, But I also think the beauty
Speaker 1: of you and general because I've been following you for
Speaker 1: quite some time. Your Twitter is super prolific, and you're writing,
Speaker 1: you know, whether in books or the articles and the
Speaker 1: columns that you have done are just they allow people
Speaker 1: to feel normal. They allow us, yes, they allow us
Speaker 1: to feel like we are normal and that we're not crazy,
Speaker 1: and that we all have like interesting and fun quirks
Speaker 1: about us and there is more that connects us than
Speaker 1: that drives us apart. And I think that for me,
Speaker 1: that's what I really like about your new book. I
Speaker 1: don't want to die poor because I think that too
Speaker 1: many of us are living with crushing debt, are living
Speaker 1: with so many burdens. But because we have this kind
Speaker 1: of stunting for the Graham type of reality that we're
Speaker 1: also living in. You you come into direct opposition with
Speaker 1: your vulnerabilities and your authenticity when you have to stunt
Speaker 1: and perpetrate in a certain kind of way. And it's
Speaker 1: a weird juxtaposition to be in and to navigate. And
Speaker 1: I think that what your writing does and what you
Speaker 1: do in general, is you make that transition that we
Speaker 1: all have to live through and navigate on a regular day.
Speaker 1: You make it easier to bear. That genuinely means a
Speaker 1: lot for me. Thank you so much. I'm really grateful
Speaker 1: to even have a second book. And I just anyone listening,
Speaker 1: and I really do think it reads through my work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're like nothing like me, the
Speaker 1: general point of I can't make Jesus and I don't
Speaker 1: want to that poor, but particularly I don't want to
Speaker 1: that poor. No matter who you are, no matter you're raised,
Speaker 1: your identity, however, you whatever, you're more likely than not
Speaker 1: if you live in this country or any indidustrial like
Speaker 1: you're not probably getting your fair share. We're all born
Speaker 1: into this world conditions to think we need to live
Speaker 1: up to a certain standard, and yet we're not giving
Speaker 1: the tools to even meet that a fair playing field,
Speaker 1: and that affects different people for different reasons. But I
Speaker 1: really do just speak for like folks. I just think
Speaker 1: we deserve our fair share, and we're so hard on
Speaker 1: ourselves and it's not all our fault. And I had
Speaker 1: to learn to forgive myself for a lot of my choices.
Speaker 1: Like I did it with all the best intentions. It
Speaker 1: wasn't really like ego. It was one of the better
Speaker 1: life for my mother and me wrestling with the fact
Speaker 1: that maybe my good intentions could have kind of sank everybody.
Speaker 1: But I really thank you for what you said about
Speaker 1: my book. It really means a lot. It was healthy
Speaker 1: right because I was going through some of these things
Speaker 1: at a point where I didn't think I would anymore.
Speaker 1: But once again, that speaks the fragility of many of
Speaker 1: our situations, because you could be making a whole lot
Speaker 1: more money, but a missing check is a missing check.
Speaker 1: It just means you ope more after a while. So
Speaker 1: thank you again for giving me space, especially during this nightmare.
Speaker 1: That I hope with us being better, I hope that
Speaker 1: it ends Honestly, you're right with us being better and
Speaker 1: with us having a lot more gratitude and recognizing you
Speaker 1: know that some of us carry a lot of privilege, right,
Speaker 1: and so the idea that we're able to work from home,
Speaker 1: like you said in the beginning, for those of us
Speaker 1: that are able to work from home, for those of
Speaker 1: us that did have money in oursel savings, for those
Speaker 1: of us that have a place to shelter in place
Speaker 1: are all various levels of privilege. And you know, the
Speaker 1: more gratitude and compassion that we can have in this moment,
Speaker 1: I think the better off we will all be. Michael,
Speaker 1: Before I let you go, one of the questions that
Speaker 1: I always end with PM mood is, you know, the
Speaker 1: idea of the show obviously is getting in the mood
Speaker 1: to use your social impact for something better and bigger.
Speaker 1: So how do you get in the mood to change
Speaker 1: the world. It depends usually music or you know, I can't,
Speaker 1: Dad Jesus. It was a lot of queer black boys
Speaker 1: and nice older white ladies and a few black aunties
Speaker 1: who all sent me messages. One way I know that
Speaker 1: to confirm them my words meant something to them and
Speaker 1: help them either be better in their own lives or
Speaker 1: you know, want to be better to quick people in
Speaker 1: their lives. And then some days it's honestly just like
Speaker 1: maybe a Megan thee Stallion kind of Bob parting. I'll
Speaker 1: just I do my morning jig so you read my tweets.
Speaker 1: So my thought about the morning jig is that I
Speaker 1: think the world can before you even eight am. I
Speaker 1: don't think most people wake up wanting to be sad.
Speaker 1: I wake up wanting to experience the best. But life
Speaker 1: can get hits you really hard quickly. But thinking of
Speaker 1: a student loan people person is harassing you on Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve because I write about it in the book. So
Speaker 1: I get up, I turn on my music and I
Speaker 1: bought because I allowed myself to experience from joy before
Speaker 1: the world tries to take it away and usually win.
Speaker 1: In those moments when I try to have like that joy,
Speaker 1: I am grateful and I feel a sense of purposeness,
Speaker 1: and that is what makes me want to go online
Speaker 1: and spread some joy. I always just want to make
Speaker 1: people laugh and make people think, and dancing or sometimes
Speaker 1: people just reminding me of my own purpose reminds me
Speaker 1: to keep a fill in mind. Yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: gratitude can't cure everything, but it can definitely give you
Speaker 1: perspective and help you get through struggle. And that's really
Speaker 1: I hope with my work in this book particularly points
Speaker 1: out thank you again for having me well. Thank you
Speaker 1: Michael for coming on to PM Mood. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the joy, the honesty, the vulnerability and the humor that
Speaker 1: you share with us on a regular basis. Again, folks,
Speaker 1: the book is entitled I Do Not I Don't want
Speaker 1: to die Poor, So go and pick it up. It
Speaker 1: is available in all the places, and if you're not
Speaker 1: following Michael Arseno, you are missing out, and so do
Speaker 1: that now. Michael, thank you so much for all that
Speaker 1: you do and for joining us. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to this week's PM Mood. My political podcast,
Speaker 1: woke AF Daily is on Patreon for just five dollars
Speaker 1: a month. That's five new hour long shows every week
Speaker 1: for just five dollars a month. Join the conversation now
Speaker 1: at patreon dot com slash woke AF and you can
Speaker 1: continue listening to PM mood every week absolutely free. Now
Speaker 1: more than ever, we see the importance of independent media,
Speaker 1: So thank you for your support and as always, stay
Speaker 1: in a PM mood, to change the world