WEBVTT - The Paradox of Quitting—So That Your Work Can Live

0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:04.519
<v Speaker 1>Everybody.

0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.640
<v Speaker 2>It's spilled courtney from an army of normal folks. Welcome

0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:13.040
<v Speaker 2>into the shop. Hi, Alex, Hello Belle, shop talk one

0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.640
<v Speaker 2>hundred and ten. What happened on hundred ten years ago?

0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.040
<v Speaker 3>Outs it was nineteen sixteen.

0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.440
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I actually could do the bath this time.

0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.840
<v Speaker 4>I should have looked up the pronunciation of this, because

0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:27.680
<v Speaker 4>they're gonna sound like an idiot. Is it the Battle

0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:33.000
<v Speaker 4>of the sum I don't know spell it s mmeme

0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.840
<v Speaker 4>a battle of s o me no, s mme. Oh,

0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:42.800
<v Speaker 4>we're gonna sound like real idiots here after what I'm

0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:44.640
<v Speaker 4>about to say, it doesn't matter. By the end of

0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.680
<v Speaker 4>the battle, more than one million casualties on both sides.

0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:48.920
<v Speaker 1>Was this World War One?

0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:51.720
<v Speaker 3>And yet we don't how to pronounce it?

0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:56.280
<v Speaker 2>Those idiots a million casualties, unbelievable.

0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:57.840
<v Speaker 4>And then the Battle of Verdon, I'm doing how to

0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.280
<v Speaker 4>pronounce that, but seven hundred thousand people died there.

0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:01.880
<v Speaker 1>World War one.

0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.280
<v Speaker 2>You know, people talk about Vietnam and all of that,

0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.679
<v Speaker 2>because obviously we started having cameras and all, but that

0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:15.640
<v Speaker 2>trench warfare and World War One was disgusting, and they

0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.039
<v Speaker 2>barely gained any land. They just killed each other. I

0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:23.039
<v Speaker 2>have nothing to add okay, Shop Talk one ten, I

0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:28.760
<v Speaker 2>quit what had to die so the work could live.

0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:51.560
<v Speaker 2>Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Everybody's

0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.720
<v Speaker 2>shop Talk number one ten, I quit what had to

0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:56.720
<v Speaker 2>die so the work could live.

0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.880
<v Speaker 1>This is from Eric Locksmo.

0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah you got it. We feature it several times.

0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.400
<v Speaker 1>I know, I just I'm so. You know. It's how

0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.600
<v Speaker 1>some words you just get a brain block on it.

0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:16.160
<v Speaker 2>But Eric Loxmoe in his newsletter Out of Wild, I'm done.

0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.079
<v Speaker 2>I'm done playing piano in the brothel and expecting things

0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:25.840
<v Speaker 2>to change. What are great open? Here's the summary. I

0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.280
<v Speaker 2>quit the applause. Applause is cotton candy. It fills you

0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.120
<v Speaker 2>for an hour and leaves you unsatisfied and hungry. I

0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.520
<v Speaker 2>want to make things that would be worth making in

0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.400
<v Speaker 2>an empty room at midnight, with no one watching but

0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:43.400
<v Speaker 2>the creator. I quit the Inner Ring. C. S. Lewis

0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.560
<v Speaker 2>is right. There's always a circle just past the one

0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:48.880
<v Speaker 2>you're in, and the longing to be insight.

0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.079
<v Speaker 1>It will eat your life. I will not.

0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.680
<v Speaker 2>Trade my convictions for a seat at the table that

0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.960
<v Speaker 2>moves every time I get close. I quit the algorithm.

0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.639
<v Speaker 2>I will not chop my thinking to fit a feed.

0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.960
<v Speaker 2>The feed forgets everything by morning. I want to make

0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.560
<v Speaker 2>things that would still mean something in fifty years or

0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:13.079
<v Speaker 2>five hundred, or never reat at all. I quit the swagger,

0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.880
<v Speaker 2>the posturing, the performance of confidence. It's a costume and

0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.160
<v Speaker 2>costumes itch. I'd rather walk lighter and lesser and tell

0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.680
<v Speaker 2>the truth. I quit the latter. Envy is the thief

0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.840
<v Speaker 2>of every good thing. Someone is always further along, someone

0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.400
<v Speaker 2>is always behind, pulling you down. Neither has anything to

0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.080
<v Speaker 2>do with the work in front of me. I quit

0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:40.880
<v Speaker 2>the money first, not money, money first. When money leads,

0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.720
<v Speaker 2>beauty follows it into the ditch. I'd rather make something

0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.120
<v Speaker 2>good and be paid late than make something cheap and

0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.600
<v Speaker 2>be paid now. I quit waiting for permission. No one

0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.000
<v Speaker 2>is coming. There's no gatekeeper holding of a key. The

0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.400
<v Speaker 2>permission was given a long time ago by something older

0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:05.080
<v Speaker 2>than the industry. I quit the urgency. Most of what

0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.400
<v Speaker 2>calls itself urgent is just loud. The deep things are quiet,

0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.400
<v Speaker 2>The eternal things wait. I will work at the pace

0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:15.800
<v Speaker 2>of a tree, not a notification.

0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.000
<v Speaker 1>I quit being interesting, and interesting is in quotations.

0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.560
<v Speaker 2>And I love how lately, whenever we talk about somebody

0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.240
<v Speaker 2>that we like we say they're interesting. I love this.

0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.880
<v Speaker 2>I quit being interesting. Interesting is a trick of the surface.

0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:34.919
<v Speaker 2>I'd rather be true.

0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:35.920
<v Speaker 1>True.

0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.880
<v Speaker 2>Age is well, interesting goes stale by Thursday. I quit

0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.000
<v Speaker 2>the gurus, the frameworks, the funnels, the five step past

0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.600
<v Speaker 2>to a life no one's selling them is actually living.

0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.640
<v Speaker 2>I trust the older books. They've outlasted everything. I quit

0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.400
<v Speaker 2>explaining myself. The work is the explanation. If it needs

0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.440
<v Speaker 2>a thread to defend it, it wasn't ready. Let the

0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.280
<v Speaker 2>things stay or fall on its own. I quit hoarding

0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.880
<v Speaker 2>the notebook of somebody, the folder of Allmost ideas are

0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.159
<v Speaker 2>not currency until they're finished. I'll give them away or

0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:16.440
<v Speaker 2>let them go. I quit the identity writer, creator frownder.

0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.360
<v Speaker 2>The label becomes a cage and then a coffin. I'm

0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.080
<v Speaker 2>a person who wants to see others go forward and far.

0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.480
<v Speaker 2>That is enough, that has always been enough. I quit

0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.760
<v Speaker 2>the temporal, the trending, the timely, the hot take that

0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:37.080
<v Speaker 2>cools by dinner. I want to work toward what doesn't change,

0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.479
<v Speaker 2>the human heart, the longing for home, the ache for

0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.680
<v Speaker 2>something just out of reach we never quite been able

0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.719
<v Speaker 2>to name. I quit the small self, the timid one,

0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.520
<v Speaker 2>the one who flinches, the one who creates what's safe,

0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.880
<v Speaker 2>because the true thing might cost something. I'd rather pay

0:05:54.920 --> 0:06:00.600
<v Speaker 2>the cost the piano can stay. I'm walking out.

0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:02.599
<v Speaker 1>I love that, y'all.

0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:09.640
<v Speaker 2>Eric's writing is at Ouda Wilde's dot substack dot com.

0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:14.839
<v Speaker 1>I think, oh, I'm sorry, You're right. I d l

0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.680
<v Speaker 1>e w I l d I s.

0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:24.039
<v Speaker 2>Out of wild is at substack dot com.

0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.320
<v Speaker 1>And this is what the third one of these third

0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:28.880
<v Speaker 1>or fourth.

0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:36.839
<v Speaker 2>But Eric's thoughtful, and he he he will occasionally read

0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.120
<v Speaker 2>these things that he that he writes that are lists

0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:46.640
<v Speaker 2>of thoughts that are independent, but as you intertwine them together,

0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.560
<v Speaker 2>you often get the idea.

0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.640
<v Speaker 1>That he's evoking. And I'm done.

0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.680
<v Speaker 2>I'm done playing the piano in the brothel an expecting

0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:04.880
<v Speaker 2>things to change. And I think the whole point to

0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:10.600
<v Speaker 2>this is we need to be done with with chasing

0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.960
<v Speaker 2>what social media and today's culture and society says we

0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.000
<v Speaker 2>need to be and how we need to act, and

0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.280
<v Speaker 2>constantly feeling empty because we're never able to fully reach

0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.520
<v Speaker 2>what today's culture and society says we need to be.

0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.120
<v Speaker 2>So he's done playing the piano in the broth and

0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:37.720
<v Speaker 2>expecting things to change. And I think his challenge here

0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.280
<v Speaker 2>is to is to get back to the basics. Quit

0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:46.840
<v Speaker 2>the swagger, quit the posturing, quit the algorithm. Quit trying

0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.920
<v Speaker 2>to get into the next ring. Quit worrying about applause.

0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:56.080
<v Speaker 2>Quit worrying about climbing the ladder. Make sure money doesn't

0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:00.600
<v Speaker 2>define you. Quit waiting for permission. Do what you knows right.

0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:10.520
<v Speaker 2>Quit being quote interesting, Just be true, be authentic. Quit

0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:15.440
<v Speaker 2>the gurus, the famebrook the funnels, the five steps, trust

0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.400
<v Speaker 2>the older books. Quit explaining yourself. Just do right. Quit

0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:26.480
<v Speaker 2>hoarding everything like ideas and money, share. Don't worry about

0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:31.880
<v Speaker 2>the identity. Just be who you are. Don't worry about

0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.800
<v Speaker 2>what's trending and timely, worry about what's time tested. And

0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.559
<v Speaker 2>don't be the small self. Don't be timid, don't be

0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.720
<v Speaker 2>the one who flinches. Do all of these things, and

0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.360
<v Speaker 2>don't worry about what culture society in today's world says

0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:53.360
<v Speaker 2>about it. The piano can stay, I'm walking out. That's

0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:54.000
<v Speaker 2>good stuff.

0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.400
<v Speaker 4>It reminds me of the line like, just run your

0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.319
<v Speaker 4>own race, don't worry about everybody else. I'm just in

0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.080
<v Speaker 4>a race with alex in trying to be the best

0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.560
<v Speaker 4>version of myself. And also the quote that comparison is

0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:06.360
<v Speaker 4>the thief of joy.

0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's good stuff. That's true. You know, Alex, that's interesting.

0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:21.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm just kidding. Yeah, that comment makes you interesting. It's

0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.960
<v Speaker 2>just real. It's good stuff, all right, everybody. That's shop

0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.839
<v Speaker 2>Talk number one ten. Uh. If you enjoyed it, please

0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:33.760
<v Speaker 2>share it friends on a social Actually, guys, go to

0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.000
<v Speaker 2>Oda Wilde's dot substack dot com.

0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.199
<v Speaker 4>I wild is dot substack dot is.

0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.640
<v Speaker 2>Out of wildness. Out of wildness is what I said,

0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.480
<v Speaker 2>like an idiot. Back to shop talk number one or nine.

0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.920
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry I screwed up. Out of wild is substack

0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.200
<v Speaker 2>dot com and read more of veric stuff.

0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.960
<v Speaker 1>It at the very least, is very very thought.

0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.400
<v Speaker 2>Provoking, and I I'm glad we do it every once

0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.520
<v Speaker 2>a while because I find it really interesting. Yeah. If

0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.640
<v Speaker 2>you enjoy this episode, rate review it, share friends, subscribe

0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.120
<v Speaker 2>to the podcast. Join the army at normal Folks dot us,

0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.800
<v Speaker 2>join a club, buy some merch all the things, all

0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.360
<v Speaker 2>the things that can help us grow an army of

0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.480
<v Speaker 2>normal folks. That's shop Talk number one ten. Thanks for

0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:31.679
<v Speaker 2>joining us. We'll see you next week.