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Speaker 1: I think we think that seeing each other as a

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Speaker 1: passive act, But like when you look at someone, it's

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Speaker 1: doing something to them. Just just the act of observation

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Speaker 1: is doing something to someone. When you look at them,

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Speaker 1: you're making judgments or assessments, and that's enough to shape

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Speaker 1: part of who that person is. We are helping create

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Speaker 1: one another's identities at any given moment, and I think

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Speaker 1: that we're not very conscious of that responsibility. I think

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Speaker 1: that that we we have this paradoxical relationship with labels

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Speaker 1: where we need labels to navigate and make sense of

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Speaker 1: the chast in this world. But then these labels become

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Speaker 1: the thing that we know each other for, and we

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Speaker 1: can't see past them. The labels actually, while they reveal

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Speaker 1: one thing, they conceal everything else at the same time.

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Speaker 1: Who are you? How do you see yourself? How do

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Speaker 1: others see you? Just want to impact the other? These

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Speaker 1: are some heavy, tough questions, questions we usually don't want

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Speaker 1: to think about. But our guest today is asking you

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Speaker 1: to think about it. His one man show turned Hulu

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Speaker 1: documentary in and of itself is taking the Internet, and

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Speaker 1: I will tell you my life by storm. If you

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Speaker 1: have not seen it, hit pause right now, go watch

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Speaker 1: it come back, and then you can finish listening. It's

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Speaker 1: hard to describe Derek DelGaudio. His whole show is about

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Speaker 1: labels and how they're an illusion. But for a little context,

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Speaker 1: He's an artist, a writer, a performer, a creator. He's

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Speaker 1: the one behind In and of Itself, one of the

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Speaker 1: most successful shows in off Broadway history. Is also the

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Speaker 1: co founder of Performers Art Collective Abandoned. While the show,

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Speaker 1: many people would say is indescribable, I would describe it

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Speaker 1: as pure magic. This podcast, the whole idea behind it

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Speaker 1: is about thinking outside of our comfort zone, and Derek

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Speaker 1: del Gaudio has had me thinking for the last year.

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Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and

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Speaker 1: this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. A year ago someone showed me this documentary.

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Speaker 1: It blew my mind when I saw it. Well, a

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Speaker 1: year has passed. In it of Itself is on Hulu.

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Speaker 1: People are seeing it and they are more excited than ever,

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Speaker 1: and I finally have the opportunity to talk to the

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Speaker 1: man behind it all. Derek. Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: joining me. Thank you for having me. I know this

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Speaker 1: is hard because many people listening haven't seen it. So

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Speaker 1: for people who haven't, how would you describe what this

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Speaker 1: production is? I have described it as a as a

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Speaker 1: theatrical existential crisis. Um, And that's the closest I think

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Speaker 1: I can get without tainting it with some sort of

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Speaker 1: description that might ruin it for people in some way,

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Speaker 1: or or or set expectations in a way that it

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Speaker 1: can't meet. Because if I call it a theater show, uh,

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Speaker 1: one man show play, none of these things really set

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Speaker 1: people up for it. It's just difficult to describe by design.

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Speaker 1: So it so it works theatrically and as a as

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Speaker 1: a work of art, but it's horrible for marketing. I

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Speaker 1: was gonna say, an existential crisis is tough on a

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Speaker 1: bumper sticker. Then how was the show born? What is

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Speaker 1: it about? What is it about? It's about you? You

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Speaker 1: just don't know it until it's too late. What do

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Speaker 1: you mean until it's too late? Well, I mean people

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Speaker 1: think it's a show about me because it's autobiographical in

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Speaker 1: a sense, and so they think that they're watching a

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Speaker 1: story that I'm telling about myself. And I'm struggling to

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Speaker 1: find my identity. But it's really just a vehicle to

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Speaker 1: you know, have you think about your identity and how

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Speaker 1: you see others in yourself? Where did it come from?

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Speaker 1: I just felt like this was something I needed to do.

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Speaker 1: I've stayed in the background for a long time. I

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Speaker 1: haven't really stepped into any real spootline. I've done other shows,

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Speaker 1: and i've I've worked on things, and but I've never

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Speaker 1: I've never done anything to put myself out there like this,

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Speaker 1: where my name was on a poster, you know, by

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Speaker 1: itself like that. And so it felt like something I

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Speaker 1: had been working towards. And I knew that if I

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Speaker 1: was going to do it, I needed to do it

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Speaker 1: in a way that I felt comfortable with. I felt

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Speaker 1: trapped by others perceptions. So I decided to do a

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Speaker 1: show about that and started writing and putting thoughts together,

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Speaker 1: and a year later, that's what I came up with.

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Speaker 1: When you were creating it, the director Frank Oz asked

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Speaker 1: you at one point, are you gonna be okay if

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Speaker 1: nobody gets this? Yes, he did, and what's the answer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm fine, I'm doing all right. I had to think

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Speaker 1: about it when he asked me that I didn't really

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Speaker 1: have an answer for him. This is a show that

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Speaker 1: requires others, and it requires an audience to do, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't have an audience until the very first night,

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Speaker 1: so it was very hard to kind of rehearse this thing.

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Speaker 1: We've went for a coffee and he asked me, very seriously,

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Speaker 1: are you gonna be okay if no one gets this,

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Speaker 1: like if no one likes this? And I was kind

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Speaker 1: of surprised by the question. I didn't have an honest

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Speaker 1: answer for him. And I thought about it, and I

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Speaker 1: thought about the work as it was, and I realized,

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Speaker 1: like we had already kind of achieved even privately, We've

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Speaker 1: already kind of achieved what I set out to do.

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Speaker 1: It challenged everyone involved, including Frank, and he's an amazing artist,

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Speaker 1: so the fact that it was challenging him too, it

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, we've we've already kind of made a

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Speaker 1: thing here, and so I was. I was proud of

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Speaker 1: it even before we showed it to anyone. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was okay, And I told him so many people

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Speaker 1: listening I haven't seen it. But when you think about

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Speaker 1: or or as you experience performing it, people do call

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Speaker 1: you a magician, an illusionist, a mentalist and you say

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Speaker 1: that's not true. That's fine. They can call me that.

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Speaker 1: That's I have no problem with that. If people see

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Speaker 1: the show and they want to call me a magician,

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Speaker 1: if that's what they think I am, there's nothing I

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Speaker 1: can do about that, and so that's fine. I have

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Speaker 1: no problem with that. I do have a background, you know,

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Speaker 1: as as a magician, and I have implemented a lot

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Speaker 1: of things that I've learned, you know, with that craft

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Speaker 1: into this work. It's totally fair for someone to see

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Speaker 1: it and think that that's what it is. I don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily think that that's an appropriate term to use for

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Speaker 1: this work. In particular, there's very specific imagery that pops

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Speaker 1: into people's minds when they hear the word magician or

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Speaker 1: think of magic. And even if they hold magic and

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Speaker 1: magicians in high regard, which would that would be rare,

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Speaker 1: but let's say they did, it's still an inappropriate term

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Speaker 1: to go into this with that in mind. My job

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Speaker 1: is not to deceive you. That's and it's certainly not

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Speaker 1: what this show is aiming that. It's not about you

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Speaker 1: coming in and me fooling you and you not knowing

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Speaker 1: how things work and having a little bit of wonder.

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Speaker 1: That's not what this is about. Is the show a

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Speaker 1: true story? Yeah? Every word of every word I say,

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Speaker 1: every single word I say, not not some of it,

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Speaker 1: all of it, every single word is true. Um. So

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Speaker 1: the show begins with the words, we're here because I

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Speaker 1: heard a story, and in a nutshell, that story was

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Speaker 1: I was in Spain visiting a friend of mine and uh,

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Speaker 1: while we're in a bar, he introduced me to a

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Speaker 1: man who told me a story. As this stranger told

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Speaker 1: me a story about a sailor who, after returning home,

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Speaker 1: he didn't have much going for him, so he started

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Speaker 1: playing Russian roulette for money, literally literally playing Russian roulette

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Speaker 1: for money. And it turns out he was very good

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Speaker 1: at it, and people didn't know whether it was luck

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Speaker 1: or skill. Somehow he maybe he was cheating the system,

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Speaker 1: but he kept playing and he kept winning. And the

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Speaker 1: man who told me this story related it to me

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Speaker 1: and he said that that I was like that roulette player,

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Speaker 1: the ruletista, and I didn't understand what he meant. And

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Speaker 1: the show is an exploration of me trying to understand

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Speaker 1: why he might have said that. Why why this stranger,

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Speaker 1: someone I didn't know, might have compared me to someone

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Speaker 1: who puts a gun to his seat every single day.

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Speaker 1: And so for you, it was so important for you

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Speaker 1: to find out what was it about your character? What

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Speaker 1: did you put out in the universe that would make

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Speaker 1: someone think that of you? Yeah, I mean I met

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Speaker 1: a guy who said you remind me of a guy

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Speaker 1: who tries to kill himself every day. That made me

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Speaker 1: wonder what he saw in me that made him say

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Speaker 1: that that. That's that's worth exploring. You know why he

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Speaker 1: said that, Why he may have said that, And what

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Speaker 1: is my life intersect with that story? And how many

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Speaker 1: different avenues and where does it intersect and why does

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Speaker 1: it intersect? And maybe this is what he meant. Maybe

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Speaker 1: this is what he meant. That man saw the show,

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Speaker 1: he saw the film. I corresponded afterwards and asked him

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Speaker 1: if he would watch the film, and he did, and

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Speaker 1: it was it was amazing because he absolved me of

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Speaker 1: of it. He basically he said, you no longer need

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Speaker 1: to carry the bur of being the realtista, which is

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Speaker 1: the best thing I think anyone could say to me afterwards.

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Speaker 1: But did he tell you why he ever said that

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Speaker 1: to begin with? Because I asked, there are all sorts

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Speaker 1: of labels and experiences that we have in our lives,

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Speaker 1: and some of them may just be accidental, right, some

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Speaker 1: of them A girl one day in the fourth grade

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Speaker 1: could be told by someone hey, fatty, and that could

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Speaker 1: impact the rest of their life. And if you go

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Speaker 1: back in time and find that person who said that

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Speaker 1: to them, that person may be like, I don't even

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Speaker 1: know why I said it. I don't want to know

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Speaker 1: why he said it now, especially I don't want to know.

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Speaker 1: I just I'm I'm glad he did because the journey

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Speaker 1: it send me on was, you know, extraordinary. The relatist

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Speaker 1: say is really a metaphor. It's that thing that you

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Speaker 1: you you believe people think about you, that you think

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Speaker 1: about yourself. Uh, that's he are good or bad. And

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Speaker 1: that's because no matter what you say about like I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm who I am and I don't care what other

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Speaker 1: people think. That's just not how it works. It matters.

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Speaker 1: It matters what other people think, and it doesn't matter

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Speaker 1: like that you need to change your life or do

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Speaker 1: anything differently, but it does matter. I remember I talked

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Speaker 1: to a philosopher. I talked to a few philosophers while

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Speaker 1: making the show, and so this philosopher. He had another

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Speaker 1: thought experiment. If you could divide a person's brain in

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Speaker 1: two pieces and take half of their character and put

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Speaker 1: it into one body and another and the other half

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Speaker 1: and put it into a different body, which one is Bob?

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Speaker 1: And so he drew this on a napkin and he said, so,

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Speaker 1: which one is is the real Bob? And I pointed

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Speaker 1: to one of them and I said that one, And

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Speaker 1: he goes, well, how do you know that? And I said,

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Speaker 1: because that's the one I'm calling Bob. And he's like,

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Speaker 1: that's that's not how this works. I go, sure it is,

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Speaker 1: and he's like, not, how how? And I said, okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: let let's take you, for example, your professor of philosophy

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Speaker 1: at the school, and that's what people know you as. Yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: what if I could convince everyone in this room that

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Speaker 1: you're not weird a restaurant? So what if I cooman

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Speaker 1: is everyone in this room that you're not you're not

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Speaker 1: actually college professor? Um? And then your name isn't even

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Speaker 1: what your name is? And then what if I could

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Speaker 1: do it with everyone in the city, and then everyone

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Speaker 1: in the state, and then everyone in the country, and

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Speaker 1: then everyone in the world. But if I could get

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Speaker 1: everyone in the world to believe that you're not who

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Speaker 1: you claim you are, you know who who are you? Then?

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Speaker 1: And he didn't take me up on it, But the

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Speaker 1: notion being that, like, it does matter if everyone in

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Speaker 1: the world won't acknowledge your existence as you claim to be,

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Speaker 1: and they deny you of who you are? What does

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Speaker 1: that mean in the context of the world you know

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Speaker 1: and others and and identity? Does an existence of acumens

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Speaker 1: understanding that connection between others and ourselves that matters, and

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Speaker 1: also realizing that we are others to other people. So

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Speaker 1: busy fighting to be seen by others, we forget that

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Speaker 1: we are others were judging were But also, like, what

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Speaker 1: if we stop fighting to be seen and we just

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Speaker 1: focused on seeing others? If you just focused on really

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Speaker 1: seeing and acknowledging others, what happens. It's a leap of faith. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a leap of faith. It's and its vulnerability. I

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Speaker 1: don't expect people to be able to accept, you know,

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Speaker 1: the multitudes of everyone. I know, that's a lot to ask.

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Speaker 1: But what you can do is accept the mystery you

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Speaker 1: know and embrace the mystery of others, not putting anything

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Speaker 1: on them or any preconceived notions. What what might fill

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Speaker 1: that blank space? If you can just let mystery be

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Speaker 1: mystery and allowed to live and breathe, who knows what

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Speaker 1: we can discover. We'll be back after the break. You

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Speaker 1: performing this show every night require there's an enormous amount

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Speaker 1: of vulnerability in the audience. You see Deray McKesson, who's

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Speaker 1: one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, You see

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates. The show was supposed to run for ten weeks.

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Speaker 1: It ran for what seventy? Watching it as a film,

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Speaker 1: it appears that it's not The room isn't that dark?

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Speaker 1: You can see the faces of the audience. Is that true? Everyone?

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Speaker 1: Every single person? Yeah? How hard was that? Right? So

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Speaker 1: you're sitting there and not even in a good seat.

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Speaker 1: By the way, Bill Gates is sitting sort of off

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Speaker 1: to the back on top with his arms folded. Hey,

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Speaker 1: do you know when those people are there and be

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Speaker 1: does it impact you? I mean, I love that he

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Speaker 1: had a bad seat. Yes, that one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: parts is that he has a bad seat. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: that's part of it is like no one, no one

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Speaker 1: can have special treatment because they're as special as anyone else.

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Speaker 1: In ever, I try to equalize it in that in

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Speaker 1: that sense, but yes, it's it's obviously it changes the

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Speaker 1: air in the room a little bit when everyone looks

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Speaker 1: over and Bill Gates is standing there. It changes things.

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Speaker 1: At the beginning of the performance, people are encouraged to

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Speaker 1: to choose how they see themselves. Uh, and at the

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Speaker 1: end of the performance, I tie that in and I

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Speaker 1: have private affirmations publicly with these people of how they

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Speaker 1: might see themselves. What title did he get? Leader? He

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Speaker 1: was a leader? But the best ones are the ones

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Speaker 1: where people would surprise us. We had a I won't

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Speaker 1: say the name, but we had a very very extremely

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Speaker 1: notable person and they chose something very vulnerable. It shows

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Speaker 1: add it, you know, and they were really struggling with

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Speaker 1: that at the time. It was like shocking to everyone

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Speaker 1: because they can tell it was genuine. But how liberating

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Speaker 1: for that person. Yeah, it must be to be to

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Speaker 1: be seen, to live in that moment of being known

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Speaker 1: and admitting the thing that they probably conceal. Was it

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Speaker 1: hard on you all? I mean every night people are crying,

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Speaker 1: having these emotional catharsis, experiencing the show. So what was

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Speaker 1: that like for you to go home? Every night after that.

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Speaker 1: It felt like I took the S A T S

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Speaker 1: And attended a funeral every single day, is what it

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Speaker 1: felt like as an artist who devoted this much of

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Speaker 1: his time his craft focused on identity. Why is that?

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Speaker 1: Where did that come from in your life? Um? I

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Speaker 1: think I've been around otherness, you know a lot that

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Speaker 1: grew up with a gay mom, of gay single mother

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Speaker 1: most of my life, and depending on what someone knew

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Speaker 1: about her changed people's perception of her, And so she

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Speaker 1: would go from being a normal mother to a freak

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Speaker 1: within a single word, which was you know, growing up

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Speaker 1: in Colorado in the time when it wasn't really you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of acceptance around me in terms

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Speaker 1: of neighbors, the city I was in, and things. And

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Speaker 1: so I learned the power of a single word and

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Speaker 1: how it can change your world depending not on person,

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Speaker 1: but on the people's perception of that person. How as

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Speaker 1: soon as people knew she was gay, it would absolutely

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Speaker 1: change the air around her, um, and how they treated

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Speaker 1: her and me based on that. Right, think about your

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Speaker 1: your Twitter bio, Right, what does mine say? Probably you

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Speaker 1: know mom, wife TV anchor, New Jersey native, Right, it's

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Speaker 1: how we categorize ourselves and inadvertently even classify ourselves. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: I think this person went to an Ivy League college winner,

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Speaker 1: this person only went to high school? Are they a loser?

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Speaker 1: As someone who's so acutely aware of the impact of

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Speaker 1: labels and identity, how is it for you to exist

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Speaker 1: right now at a time when people's political identities, their race,

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Speaker 1: they're they're the region. Therefrom in the United States has

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Speaker 1: become such a deep identification that categorizes people, maybe more

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Speaker 1: than we've ever seen in our lives. I started the

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Speaker 1: show and I wrote started in two and so the

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Speaker 1: election happened and everything changed and the show became something

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Speaker 1: else because people started taking it seriously. Like Charlotte'sville was

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Speaker 1: a big moment when after Charlotte's Ville, how people started

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Speaker 1: identifying themselves. It was much more sincere and also the

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Speaker 1: kind of you could feel it in the room. The

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Speaker 1: room became like a microcosm for the world. When you

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Speaker 1: say the room, you mean the theater, the one room show, Yeah, correct,

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Speaker 1: the theater that I was performing in. You could feel

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere and of that conversation it was. It was

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Speaker 1: really surreal. Yeah, I don't know. It was like I

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Speaker 1: was isolated writing and creating it and then put it

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Speaker 1: into the world, and it was it was just a

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Speaker 1: conversation that everyone is having or ready to have. Then,

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Speaker 1: being someone who is so focused on this had the

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Speaker 1: last four years been hard on you. Right even right now,

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Speaker 1: when you look at how conspiracy theories have taken hold

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Speaker 1: of millions of people, it's hard for you to witness

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Speaker 1: this every day. I wrote a book that's coming out

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Speaker 1: next month. It's called A Moral Man. But this topic

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Speaker 1: is what the book is about. It's about this subjectivity

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Speaker 1: of truth that we're having to deal with in our

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Speaker 1: day to day lives. That was that was there before,

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Speaker 1: but now we've never had people so blatantly exposing the

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Speaker 1: mechanics of deception, like in front of our eyes, like

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Speaker 1: we use. As a journalist and someone who follows politics,

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Speaker 1: you've seen it, but I don't think the general public

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Speaker 1: was aware of how blatant it is. And and now

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Speaker 1: it's part of the dialogue. As a journalist, it's brutal

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Speaker 1: to study every day the mechanics of deception, like at work,

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Speaker 1: and then to go out in your personal life and

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Speaker 1: watch the reverberations of that work make its way to

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Speaker 1: your mom and dad's kitchen table. It's really really hard,

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Speaker 1: it is, it's really painful. Also, they don't even know

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Speaker 1: they're being deceived. I mean, it's really it's it's more

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Speaker 1: of a discussion of truth than it is deception. Like

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Speaker 1: the people who march the capital on the sixth, Like,

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Speaker 1: as horrible as that is, like I would say, most

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Speaker 1: of them believe it. Most of them, it's not. They're

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Speaker 1: living fiction as if it's true. They're the marks of

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Speaker 1: this you know, scam if you will. But that's what

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Speaker 1: makes it terrible. It's so obvious and clunking, but it's happening.

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Speaker 1: At the same time. It makes you, being a witness

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Speaker 1: to this, feel like you're taking crazy pills. Yeah, it does.

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Speaker 1: But being able to see through and have the conversation

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Speaker 1: and talk about what you know, what's happening is really important.

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Speaker 1: And having the conversation with empathy so that people who

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Speaker 1: have been deceived cannot feel like fools, because that's what

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Speaker 1: happens is you feel like you've been occurred. So you

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Speaker 1: can't leave. You can't leave, and you can't you can't

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Speaker 1: admit it, you know, you can't admit. But I think

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Speaker 1: that if if even the smartest people admit to their

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Speaker 1: own self deception, I mean, then you can start to

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Speaker 1: have that conversation, whether it's self deception or being explicitly

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Speaker 1: deceived by others. We know what that feels like, and

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Speaker 1: it needs to be treated with empathy when we we

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Speaker 1: encounter others who have been so blatantly deceived and are

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Speaker 1: not living deception. They're living truths, and and it's really

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Speaker 1: hard to strip them of those truths and to to

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Speaker 1: give them new truths to to live by without them

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Speaker 1: feeling foolish. And so we need to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to how to do that. When you think generally about

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Speaker 1: your audiences and the feedback you get for most people,

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Speaker 1: is it a light experience or a dark experience? I

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Speaker 1: think there are some lights you can only experience in

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Speaker 1: the dark. I think that's what this show is. I

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Speaker 1: think that's you know, sometimes some some rays of light

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Speaker 1: you know, are so dim, you know, you need to

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Speaker 1: go to the darkest cave to see him. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's what this is. I think that there is

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Speaker 1: a lot of darkness in it. But and and that's

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Speaker 1: what that's what any deception that is in the show

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Speaker 1: and the illusions, the illusion aspects. They are part of

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Speaker 1: that darkness, but they are used to create a space

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Speaker 1: that allows the light two to come in and illuminate things. Hopefully,

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Speaker 1: that's if you're choosing to listen. What made you continue

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Speaker 1: the show instead of ten weeks? It was seventy weeks

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Speaker 1: and it's seventy weeks. It was at the height of

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Speaker 1: its popularity, and you came in one day and said,

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Speaker 1: I'm done. How did all that work? It just felt

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Speaker 1: like you you got it and doing it more would be,

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Speaker 1: you know, diminishing returns like I don't, I don't I

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Speaker 1: think that. It's just like I don't need to repeat

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Speaker 1: myself anymore. They've heard it. I repeated myself over and

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Speaker 1: over again for you know, for for years, and and

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Speaker 1: then as soon as I saw not in okay, they

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Speaker 1: heard it. I'm done. Now we're good. I've said it.

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Speaker 1: We can go home. And Frank felt that way. He

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Speaker 1: was there all the time. Frank Oz, the director, who

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Speaker 1: is you know, incredible. Two weeks before we closed, we

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Speaker 1: were still making adjustments to the show. Two weeks, two

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Speaker 1: weeks before closing night, and our our crew was just

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Speaker 1: like what you guys are absolutely insane. It wasn't about

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Speaker 1: getting it right. It's like you're trying to say something

401
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Speaker 1: and how much clarity can it be said with and

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Speaker 1: communicated with, even if it's non verbally. And I feel

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Speaker 1: like there's there's like we all have notes inside of

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Speaker 1: us and you try to plug those notes and hope

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Speaker 1: that they reverberate in someone else, and and others can

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Speaker 1: feel it, and it just it felt like there was

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Speaker 1: you could hear the symphony in the room and and

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Speaker 1: everything everyone was vibrating at the same frequency, you know,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of the craft is hidden. But that's

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Speaker 1: one thing Frank and I really related to is that

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Speaker 1: people will never really know the lengths that we go

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Speaker 1: to to achieve we do, because I mean, you can't

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Speaker 1: imagine how hard it was to bring Yoda to life.

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Speaker 1: You know. Frank was, you know, the creator. He brought

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Speaker 1: Yoda the life, eternal life, eternal life. And doing that

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Speaker 1: not just the physicality and the movements of your you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not just a guy with a hand of a

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Speaker 1: puppet and the voice. It's like everything it took to

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Speaker 1: do something like that, or to create the Muppets, you know,

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Speaker 1: to to bring Miss Peggy to life to create life

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Speaker 1: on this earth. You know, like Miss Piggy is a thing,

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Speaker 1: it's a living Hey kidding me? Chose my number one

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Speaker 1: childhood icon I love. I know, I mean'st but like

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Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you put your hand up a puppet

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Speaker 1: and you just use a funny voice. No, you can't

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Speaker 1: comprehend what it takes to do that. There's a reason

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Speaker 1: why Miss Piggy is eternal. Excuse me. She was the

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Speaker 1: first woman of influence to have it all. There's no

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Speaker 1: one like Miss Piggy. Anytime someone thinks of the name

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Speaker 1: Frank Case, everyone conjures something different. You know. Some people

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Speaker 1: think of Miss Piggy. Some people think of what about

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Speaker 1: Bob a Little Shop of Horrors or the guy from

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Speaker 1: the Blues Brothers move be like that. Everyone thinks it's

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Speaker 1: something different. But I asked him. I asked him in

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Speaker 1: an email if he would be willing to direct, how

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Speaker 1: did you explain it to him? It's a show about identity,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to break it apart in front of people.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to use the show as an identity and

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Speaker 1: my identity and explode it right there on stage and

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Speaker 1: blow it apart in every different way. And and have

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Speaker 1: people recognize, you know, the complexities of it and break it,

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Speaker 1: break you know, break it spatially, temporarily, break what they

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Speaker 1: think they know you know. And he appreciated all of

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Speaker 1: those aspects of it. Then I guess my last question is,

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Speaker 1: then does the show have no message or no goal?

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Speaker 1: I'm careful to answer that because of I understand how

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Speaker 1: the work is resonating with people, and I see the

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Speaker 1: reactions that people are having, and I don't want to

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Speaker 1: give people the idea that I'm someone who has answers

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Speaker 1: I don't have. We are all the unreliable narrators of

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Speaker 1: each other stories. And it's just that responsibility of knowing that,

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Speaker 1: like when I get off of this call, people are

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Speaker 1: gonna call me and ask how it went, How is Stephanie?

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Speaker 1: What was she? Like? The point being that responsibility is

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Speaker 1: what I'm aware of, is that, like, I'm shaping who

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Speaker 1: you are in this world the moment I walk away

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Speaker 1: and talk to someone else about you. If I meet

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Speaker 1: someone down the road and they asked, me, oh, you've

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Speaker 1: met Stephanie, how is she? I'm doing something to you

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Speaker 1: even before I opened my mouth. I'm deciding and defining

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Speaker 1: who you are as an individual and what you are

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Speaker 1: in this world. I just want to bring an awareness

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Speaker 1: to that responsibility for for myself, and I believe that

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Speaker 1: if others had that awareness, the world would be a

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Speaker 1: better place for it. Derek Show is so hard to describe.

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Speaker 1: Were so many reasons. It's truly an original artistic endeavor,

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Speaker 1: and it turns everything upside down. And while it resonates

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Speaker 1: on a very deep level with so many people, at

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Speaker 1: the same time, so many people don't actually have the

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Speaker 1: words or the comfort level to delve into a lot

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Speaker 1: of these really complicated issues. I can tell you I

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Speaker 1: was livid when I was praising this film to my

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Speaker 1: producer Rachel and she said, oh, I saw it. I

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Speaker 1: saw it live in New York about a year ago.

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Speaker 1: And I said, why on earth didn't you tell me?

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Speaker 1: And she thought about it for a second and she said, Honestly,

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Speaker 1: I think maybe it's too hard to describe. Derek's entire

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Speaker 1: journey is about identity, how we see ourselves and how

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Speaker 1: we see others. For him, it was a chance running

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Speaker 1: in Spain that led him to a journey of self discovery.

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Speaker 1: What is it for the rest of us? On this podcast,

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Speaker 1: we like to leave you sometime to think and something

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Speaker 1: Eric left me thinking about, Well, he left me thinking

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Speaker 1: about a lot, but specifically, how much of our identity

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Speaker 1: is based off what we think we should be, who

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Speaker 1: we want to be, instead of just who we are?

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Speaker 1: And how much of our identity is based on these

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Speaker 1: labels we give ourselves and the labels we imagine other

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Speaker 1: people put on us. I know we all have very

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Speaker 1: busy lives with a lot of distractions, and it's our

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Speaker 1: instinct to identify, to label, to categorize when we meet

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Speaker 1: somebody within five seconds. But does that really serve us

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Speaker 1: or does it limit us? And can we instead give

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Speaker 1: people the opportunity to show us who they are over time.

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Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules, a

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Speaker 1: podcast from NBC Think, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This

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Speaker 1: podcast is hosted by me Stephanie Rule. Mike Beet and

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Speaker 1: Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior

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Speaker 1: editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast

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00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,360
Speaker 1: is engineered and edited by Josher. Additional production support provided

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Speaker 1: by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum, and Lauren Wynn, and special

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Speaker 1: thanks to Katherine kim Are Global head and digital news

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Speaker 1: right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more thought

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Speaker 1: provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thing