Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #129: Ephraim Herschmann / Adventure is Out There! / Getting Old / Billy Strings & Honest Lyrics

Transcript

#129: Ephraim Herschmann / Adventure is Out There! / Getting Old / Billy Strings & Honest Lyrics · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of come together.
0:14
We are live with another episode.
0:17
I excuse me I'm putting my socks on post jog according this on
0:22
the way out the door to go teach.
0:28
I'm in my neighborhood has a local group of dads that play
0:33
softball and they are trying to get me to come and play and I
0:36
have no interest in playing and they keep on adding me to a
0:39
group chat and all I want to do is leave let me go.
0:46
So anyway, we're back with another episode.
0:52
Did my first guest episode today where I actually I've done a
0:56
guest episode on podcast that no longer runs, but technically
1:01
second one. I suppose I have a lot of my
1:03
mind. I actually recorded like an hour
1:06
yesterday to 120 minute episode and 140 minute episode.
1:10
And I kept on trying to convey ideas that I don't think I was
1:14
ready to speak out, but because I was tired because I didn't
1:18
really have it worked out. But we're back and I'm going to
1:22
give this another shot and we're going to see if we can make some
1:25
sense of my head and see what's going on.
1:30
So the general gist of what's been happening, the, the theme
1:35
that I've been thinking a lot about recently is a theme of
1:39
youth and adventure. And I think that youth and
1:45
adventure also inherently kind of is linked to open mindedness
1:52
because when you're young, you're naive.
1:54
When you're naive, you don't know whether things are real or
1:57
not real, true or not true. And you kind of have to break
2:01
things in order to understand them.
2:06
One of my friends, a couple of friends, three brothers that are
2:10
all brilliant, Mendelai Mendelos.
2:13
And, you know, from the time that they were young, they're
2:17
always, you know, they're, I mean, I've spent time with each
2:19
of them, one a little bit less with, but in general, very, very
2:24
fond of the family. And they're all extremely
2:26
creative, extremely talented and extremely handy.
2:29
And they're the kind of people that when they were younger,
2:31
they just spent most of their time putting, taking things
2:33
apart and putting them back together, including vacuum
2:36
cleaners and stuff like that. And so I think that I just
2:41
turned 30 a couple of days ago. And it's, it's weird because I
2:48
almost like on one hand, I don't want to be OK with turning 30
2:51
because I want to say I'm upset that I'm getting older.
2:54
And the truth is it is weird. The time is going by so fast
2:58
because when I was younger, when I say younger, I mean 20, you
3:02
know, or when I say I mean 18 or 15, Like if you ever asked me
3:08
what you think you would be like a 30, I would be like, dude, I
3:13
don't know. You know, like 30 is so far off
3:16
and 30 is such a 30 such. It just sounds, it sounds
3:21
mature. It sounds old.
3:23
It sounds like you're, you know, supposed to have it all worked
3:26
out. And now that I'm here, I'm like,
3:31
you know, it's not too bad. You know, I've been kind of
3:35
preparing myself for it since I turned 29.
3:38
I said it's not too bad, but I think I kind of wanted to give
3:42
myself a harder time about it than I really felt because at
3:44
the end of the day, I don't really know what more I would be
3:48
a want out of life. I have a family, I have kids, I
3:51
have a home. Thank God I'm extremely,
3:54
extremely fortunate. I got a great community and
3:56
great group of friends and and, you know, so it's almost weird
4:04
to not be feeling lost or scared.
4:07
Now it's more of a matter of I'm in a decade of my life or a part
4:12
of my life. I mean, who knows how long it'll
4:13
last for that. I'm more focused on building
4:16
things rather than figuring myself out.
4:22
Like, and, and it's funny because I was actually trying
4:25
because I, you know, I, I've always, I've always written
4:28
poetry as a form of kind of self therapy and to help me figure
4:34
out my thoughts. And I really do, I really do
4:37
advise that everyone try it. Check in with yourself, Write
4:42
yourself a letter says dear me, I am feeling.
4:46
And the other thing is we're not used to expressing our thoughts
4:54
and how we really feel honestly. We're used to filtering it to
5:00
people to make sure it sounds socially acceptable, to make
5:03
sure that it's relatable. You know, you don't want to
5:05
sound too far off. And there's something I think
5:08
really, really healthy about being blunt, about being honest.
5:10
That's I mean, that's what people say the value of therapy
5:13
is, is that how many relationships do we have in our
5:16
lives on a regular basis? And we could just sit down and
5:19
say, like, I can't stand XY and Z about this aspect of my life.
5:26
It doesn't happen very often. And, but, and what people say is
5:30
like almost regardless of what the therapist responds to them,
5:32
just the fact, just the ability to get their thoughts out and to
5:37
be just straight up and honest and not hold back at all is the
5:42
value. And you can do that anytime and
5:44
you really, really can. And it does take practice.
5:46
It's funny because what actually got me into writing to begin
5:50
with, and I've mentioned this many times, is when my former
5:53
poetry teacher, Joe Isle and Joe used to he was such he's such a
6:00
blunt and amazing poet and he's so honest.
6:03
There's AI showed one of my high school classes one of his poems.
6:07
It's called Ode to Elizabeth Elizabeth, NJ and it's an it's
6:12
one of my favorite poems of all time.
6:15
And I mean, I don't have that many favorite of all time poems,
6:19
but it's one of my favorite poems of all time and one of my
6:21
favorite pieces of self-expression because he's so
6:25
honest. One of the great lines that he
6:27
says is, you know, I don't like to travel much because I find
6:30
that everywhere I go, I have to bring myself along and that and
6:34
that's the only thing I care to leave behind, you know?
6:36
And like this is someone that is struggling with, you know, who
6:40
he is. And this is someone that's
6:41
honest with himself. Like, hey, right now, like I
6:44
don't feel very good about myself.
6:45
And like, we got to work on that.
6:47
You got to figure that out. And if you can't, and if you
6:51
can't even say that, then there's no work that could be
6:53
done. So I think I needed a dose of
6:57
that. You know, I needed to I needed a
6:59
reminder about what it's like to write honestly and to express
7:03
yourself honestly. I really actually found that I
7:07
went through a little bit. I'm going to end up going down
7:10
the rabbit hole with this guy and know it with Billy Strings
7:12
man has been what? And I was I was talking to
7:15
friends about him. Shout out to guy Ben Hanan, but
7:21
friend of the pod, multiple time guest.
7:25
Maybe one day his own podcast host.
7:27
I'll see. Probably not though.
7:30
And you know, I was talking to he's like, what do you find so
7:33
engaging about him? I was like #1 musically, he's
7:35
incredibly talented, duh, number one.
7:39
Number two, he has a great, a tremendous love and appreciation
7:46
for other music. And one of the things I love
7:49
about artists that cover other other music is you can get an
7:55
idea as to like what their roots are and where they're coming
7:59
from. And so when Billy Strings takes
8:02
the time to play old country covers or old Western songs
8:09
covers or old Appalachian bluegrass tunes, and he's
8:12
bringing this tradition back to life and he's, you know, keeping
8:16
it breathing and keeping it going with this whole following
8:19
that's there for him. But a lot is, is getting an
8:23
education along the way. I thought that was so great
8:25
because it's also so unique. It's so personal and it's so I,
8:29
I, I appreciate one of the things I love about people is
8:34
individuality. And I'm interested in who you
8:38
are, why you are what you are, What do you love?
8:41
What makes you, you know, how like what if you were to kind of
8:46
have a bunch of different influences throughout your life,
8:48
what would you say you're influenced by and who?
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These are really important questions.
8:53
I really do think so. And I think that you get an
8:56
idea, especially musically, like what someone's like.
8:58
And then you relate and then you hear them say lyrics and you
9:00
hear them sing a song. And you could see whether, and
9:02
you can tell, I could tell with myself, but you can definitely
9:06
tell us as audience member, when you're listening to someone and
9:11
they are and they're singing lyrics that they took and made
9:19
themselves, that, you know, this, this was someone else's
9:23
song. And I discovered myself within
9:26
that song. And now I'm playing it as
9:28
myself. And there's certain songs that
9:31
you know that, that I think that you know, depending who you are,
9:35
lend you, you lend yourself to more or less.
9:39
So that's so that was another thing that I found great about
9:41
him. Then I saw and then I said the
9:43
lyrics are judged so raw and so honest and so, so refreshing.
9:50
He feels like he could have been writing in the 70s.
9:53
And the truth is that I'm sure that there's a lot of great
9:58
writing writers, songwriters out there.
10:01
I don't know how to, I, I haven't found, you know, I
10:04
haven't found too many of the recent ones or modern ones.
10:06
And I know that there are and I know that there's tons of talent
10:08
out there. And it's funny because as a fan
10:12
of sixties 70s music, without really having spent any kind of
10:16
time today looking around at who's actually playing now or
10:19
what kind of music is actually available now, I was, I was, oh,
10:23
yeah, music kind of stinks now. Totally discrediting.
10:26
There's like tons of incredible bands that are writing original
10:29
songs that are, that are prolific, that are great
10:32
musicians and great lyricists and tight bands and, and there
10:37
is a ton of amazing talent out there.
10:40
Actually, my new studio, I got a Billy Strings poster behind me.
10:43
Allman Brothers and Jerry Garcia, been in Woodstock.
10:46
If you can't see, if you're listening, not watching.
10:50
And. Yeah.
10:54
And So what? And, and, and, and again, the
10:57
thing I like about his lyrics to connect it to what I was talking
10:59
about is that they're raw, is that they're honest, is that
11:03
they're about ups and downs and honest heartbreak and honest
11:07
loss and honest tragedy. And hey, man, I'm not even going
11:12
to. I'm not even going to I'm not
11:13
going to bullshit you, man. Like this sucks.
11:15
I'm having a hard time. I feel like I'm just gone or I
11:19
don't even want anyone around to listen.
11:21
I just want to talk it all out. You know, Secrets was was the
11:26
name of that song that he talks a lot about this stuff or in the
11:28
clear. I mean, just such, such great,
11:31
such great music and so raw. And so last night I was able to
11:34
really sit down and after I had two failed solo episode
11:39
attempts, I sat down and I was able to write honestly for the
11:45
first time in a very long time. And it just, it felt so it felt
11:50
so great to return to that. And one of the things that I was
11:54
writing about was, is this spirit of adventure in youth?
11:59
Because turning 30, you know, and people say there's all these
12:03
Creek cliches about, yeah, you can, you could grow old but not
12:07
grow up. Just bit my tongue.
12:09
You can grow old but not grow up.
12:12
I'm growing older, but I'm not growing up or whatever it is.
12:14
But at the end of the day, we are growing up and like as time
12:18
goes on, you do find that your opinion things you know, it's
12:23
harder to change your mind. It's harder to access new
12:25
information. It's harder to get excited about
12:27
new things. Or if you've built, you know,
12:31
you're either. That's what's cool is I was very
12:34
transient to my 20s. I was always traveling, I was
12:36
always moving around. I was going from place to place
12:38
and I was free with the wind. And then as you become a source
12:44
of life, in order to be a source, if you're the center of
12:47
a family, if you're a parent in a in a, in a family, in order to
12:51
be the source of life, you got to be stable.
12:54
In order to be stable, you sacrifice that youth and
12:57
adventure with stability. You got to find the youth and
13:00
adventure within that stability that within the permanence of
13:05
being a solid family structure for your a solid family for
13:09
yeah, to be a structured family. Excuse me for trying to figure
13:13
out my words, but I think you understand what I'm saying in
13:17
the sense that now I'm grappling with the fact that can I be
13:23
adventurous? Am I able to be adventurous sort
13:26
of facts question. I'm grappling with the question
13:28
can I be adventurous still? Am I losing it?
13:33
And the answer is absolutely not.
13:36
The answer is it just requires more effort.
13:39
And if anything, I actually have more resource resources now
13:42
available to me to be adventurous and creative than
13:48
I've ever had before. But I'm also limited in certain
13:51
capacities. I was showing my high school
13:55
students. I show them every year, but I, I
13:58
showed them last year rather. And I think the year before I
14:03
show them Steve Jobs's commencement speech.
14:07
And one thing that he was talking about in his speech, he
14:12
was speaking at Stanford, I think 2005 or 2006.
14:16
And he told three stories about his life.
14:19
And the second story that he told was about getting kicked
14:23
out of Apple and what that was like.
14:28
And he said, you know, I'm here, I am, I'm 30 on top of the
14:31
world. I got a huge company, enormous
14:33
successful company. I'm, I've got tons of workers
14:36
under me. I'm the boss.
14:38
And then I get thrown out. I get thrown out, you know, and
14:41
he goes, but the weight of my success, I forgot how.
14:46
I forgot what the weight, how heavy success was, what the
14:49
weight of my success was. And I found that I was freed
14:52
from that by getting kicked out and having to start over.
14:57
And I could and I was able to reestablish next, which Apple
15:01
ended up buying and bringing him back to Pixar, to Apple rather.
15:04
And he ended up starting Pixar. He's like, I would never be
15:08
inclined or incentivized or I wouldn't even be conscious
15:12
enough to realize that, hey, you're successful.
15:16
Being successful. Being established means you're
15:20
going to be a little bit less adventurous.
15:21
You're going to be looking less for what's out there and
15:23
focusing more on what's within and that balance.
15:28
I, I think that, I think that, you know, a full life probably
15:31
includes both of them. And I think a lot of people live
15:37
their lives like that. You know, you have a point in
15:38
your life where you're young and you're adventurous, Then you get
15:40
older and you got your kids and your responsibilities.
15:42
We are a little bit more set and settled for a particular amount
15:47
of time. And then your kids are out of
15:48
the house and you potentially have the opportunity to be
15:50
adventurous again, but with a different type of perspective
15:53
now, right? You're looking at life not with
15:56
what's it all going to be like. But I've seen a lot of this and
15:59
now I want to go see it in different different variations
16:02
of it. I want to see different
16:03
communities, different cultures, different different worlds,
16:06
different people and see how it compares to what I spent my
16:09
entire life with. And you know, so I think that
16:15
part of my concern about getting older was that, but I think that
16:22
there's different forms of adventure and different forms of
16:26
creativity and explosion. You know what I mean?
16:30
Right now is an opportunity for me to it's an adventure raising
16:33
kids. It's an adventure staring at,
16:36
you know, recording a podcast for 40 minutes by myself or or
16:39
get. I did, like I mentioned earlier,
16:41
I did my first guest show in a while.
16:44
It's 40 minutes and someone else's show or you know, every
16:47
new guest that I get or every class that I teach or my first
16:50
adventure of being an educator all the way through some of the
16:54
classes high school experience. My, the freshman that I started
16:58
teaching four years ago are seniors now and they're about to
17:02
graduate. And so I'm experiencing what the
17:06
adventure of being a teacher is and the thrills of that.
17:09
And I'm expect and I'm experiencing the joy of
17:12
watching. You know, one of the things I
17:14
was actually thinking about last night as I was going to bed was
17:17
how, how, because my daughter, who's seven months old, just
17:21
kind of started to be able to hold her own bottle while she's
17:25
eating. And I was thinking about how I
17:28
remember it happened so fast that my son Shua was, you know,
17:35
he needed, we need, he needed us to hold the bottle for him.
17:37
And then he kind of started to put a hand on it.
17:40
And then he started holding it with two hands.
17:42
And then his hands got big enough that like he has huge
17:44
hands for a tiny kid. And his hands finally got big
17:47
enough. He just like hold it with this
17:48
huge bottle with one hand. He's just hanging out and, and
17:51
eating. And I was thinking about that
17:55
whole evolution of his independence all happened like
17:59
in front of my eyes within six months.
18:02
And that's something incredible to get to be a part of.
18:05
And that's something incredible to be able to watch or to see
18:07
him for the first time. Figure out a scooter, you know,
18:10
and he scooters down the block by himself.
18:12
And he's, and he's not, he's not afraid that I'm not right behind
18:14
him. And he has the sense of freedom
18:16
and individuality. And I'm watching his hair in the
18:18
wind and, and he keeps, he's keeping his little foot up as
18:21
he's, you could see he's enjoying the breeze while he's
18:24
gliding. And you're living, you're living
18:27
someone's loving life and experiencing all the beauty and
18:30
joys of life. You're living it as someone
18:33
that's observing and watching. Like, that's so beautiful and
18:36
incredible. OK, We had to pop outside for a
18:39
minute because my daughter woke up in the room next door and was
18:43
crying. So which is why Florida houses
18:46
need to be a little bigger for my Florida house, perhaps.
18:51
Anyway, all this is actually, you know, a pre.
18:56
I think that I have a lot of like things in my head that I
18:59
think in terms of themes. So if I think it's spirit of
19:01
adventure, for example, I think about different ways that it
19:04
manifests in my life, personal level, family perspectives.
19:09
And the one thing I was thinking about was how is a little sad?
19:13
I feel like it's a little sad and maybe I'm wrong, but it
19:16
feels like America kind of was founded and really, really
19:20
exploded into being because of this spirit of adventure and the
19:24
spirit of hey, man, let's see what's out there, you know?
19:28
And then at certain point, at a certain point, I think that we
19:31
got so good and so comfortable. And so just ahead of the game
19:37
that we started, we, you know, we became successful.
19:42
And like Steve Jobs, you know, you know, sometimes he had to
19:46
lose kind of what he had in order to be able to rediscover
19:48
it. And I think, you know, and it
19:52
kind of it's a little sad that it feels like we've been
19:53
falling, falling behind. And I think that one of the
19:56
reasons why we've been falling behind is because we, I think
19:59
that we feel or we felt, and COVID was potentially, I think a
20:05
breaking point for this because it led to a systematic collapse
20:11
of trust in institutions. We became adventurous again.
20:16
We started. Asking questions and then when
20:20
someone and then when an authority says, oh, that's just
20:23
because the way it's the way it is.
20:25
We started saying, yeah, but like, why, you know, or how or
20:31
but what about this? And instead of saying, Oh, well,
20:34
really, it's not applicable because XY and Z, it's generally
20:37
please be quiet or you're dangerous or you're an idiot or
20:40
you're wrong and this happened left or right, you know,
20:44
especially politically. But I think it's just a general
20:47
like attitude. It's an attitude towards
20:49
medicine. It's an attitude towards
20:50
history. It's an attitude towards
20:52
journalism. It's an attitude towards
20:54
politics. And it's an attitude that on one
21:00
hand, obviously the yeah, it's not great.
21:04
It's great that people ask questions and it's great that we
21:06
should be asking questions and we should be trying to get
21:09
answers. I just realized my sleeve was
21:10
rolled up awkward with his entire time.
21:17
I in this same theme, I had eagerly bought The Age of
21:25
Disclosure, the new UFOUAP documentary on Amazon and it's a
21:30
really really interesting thought provoking documentary
21:34
that I personally have not made my mind up about what I think of
21:37
it. I think it was really well done.
21:40
I think it's only good that it's out there.
21:45
Well, almost only good. Pretty much only good because I
21:47
think that even if the documentary turns out to be a
21:52
massive psyop or a massive, you know, attempt by a bunch of
21:58
government officials and many of whom I don't I don't trust
22:02
Schumer, Rubio, you know, Obama's head of national
22:07
security and the CIA, Brennan Clapper.
22:11
Is that his name? I forgot a bunch of people that
22:13
are on there. And then there are the people
22:14
that like you could and I that got Lou, I don't know, man, but
22:19
maybe, but I don't know. And on the other hand, they seem
22:22
to be people that are really genuinely authentic about it and
22:25
really genuinely fascinated by it.
22:27
But I think that the value of the documentary does is that it
22:31
opens a conversation and you can't make progress and you
22:37
can't be adventurous if you don't even have the
22:40
conversation, if you don't even talk about things, you know, And
22:44
so you know, what's fun is you know, So I still I watched it.
22:48
I loved it. Sure to also guy shout out
22:50
again, he watched about. We watched like an hour of it
22:54
together and he was like, he was getting later Saturday night and
22:59
he was like, dude, I'm not ready for this.
23:01
I'm like, why? Is it because it's convincing
23:03
me? And I'm not ready for that, you
23:04
know, but. And whether or not it's, you
23:07
know, meant to convince you a whole other conversation that
23:10
I'll probably get into with someone else that I can bounce
23:13
ideas off of rather than just, you know, riffing about it,
23:16
riffing on it. But yeah, so and then so I watch
23:20
it with Guy and I watch it by myself.
23:22
And then I showed it to my students.
23:23
I showed it to 9th grade, 10th grade and 12th grade.
23:25
And what was really interesting is that you can actually see the
23:27
evolution and the progression of open mindedness to close close
23:31
mindedness as far as the students ability or willingness
23:35
to acknowledge something bizarre, something that we were
23:44
told that we thought was crazy, that we're told was crazy, that
23:48
has no ounce of seriousness. Even though I don't know, like I
23:55
think it's I think the question of how is the universe so
23:59
enormous and us being the only conscious form of life possible?
24:04
That to me feels like it's a silly argument that we're the
24:10
only that there were only, you know, conscious beings.
24:14
If I think a much more compelling argument would be if
24:19
there were was conscious life had developed billions of
24:22
galaxies or billions of light years away or whatever it is,
24:25
how in the world would have come to us And sure, you know, want
24:29
to have a conversation. Great.
24:31
Also, another great point that a lot of people make is that a
24:34
UFOs doesn't necessarily mean it has to be aliens.
24:37
It could be another country, it could be China, it could be
24:40
Russia, it could be that, it could be that after the Cold
24:43
War, that, or you know, I mean, we, we know that in the last 80
24:46
years, the last 20 years, how much has changed, how much has
24:49
advanced? And everyone loves talking about
24:51
it. When I was a kid, we didn't even
24:53
have ways. When I was a kid, we didn't, you
24:55
know, we had a phone book, we didn't have contacts and now you
24:58
have blah, blah, blah. And it's true.
25:00
We kind of take it for granted because we have extremely short
25:04
attention spans and memories. We tend to just take these
25:07
things for granted. And we don't think about the
25:09
fact that 200 years ago the most advanced form of travel was
25:13
like, I don't know, like a horse and donkey in a boat, you know,
25:17
or a railroad in a boat, whatever it is.
25:19
But point being, 200 years ago, they wouldn't, they didn't dream
25:26
of airplanes, you know, and I mean, in 200 years from now,
25:29
they'll be like, yeah, they didn't think about they, they
25:30
didn't realize that you could travel space.
25:32
Like, you know, like my grandparents came from my
25:35
grandparents. My grandfather came on a boat
25:38
from Eastern Europe to to America in the, you know, post
25:42
World War 2, after the Holocaust.
25:44
And it took him like a month, two months to get here.
25:50
And like what dude, should I hop on a plate?
25:53
Like, you know, I mean, in a couple of years you make what
25:54
like it only takes like 5 hours to get there.
25:56
So imagine what you know, and they thought the whole ocean was
25:59
so huge and how are you ever going to cross it?
26:01
All of space is so big. How are you ever going to
26:02
navigate it? How are we going to get to Mars?
26:04
How are we going to get to the moon or back to it?
26:12
I make myself laugh how you know?
26:16
And how, how did they not think of that?
26:19
How did they not realize it? So I mean, it's just so short.
26:22
I think that not only is it short sighted of us, but it's
26:25
also potentially dangerous because imagination is where the
26:30
advancement continues. You know, the, you know, this is
26:33
where progress happens. Is imagination all the greats,
26:39
Walt Disney, my own put a movie and sound together, you know, an
26:43
animation and sound together until he said how how come we
26:47
can't do that or make the park or Steve Jobs, who's famous, you
26:50
know, and and by the way, if you haven't read the biography about
26:52
Walter Isaacson, 10 out of 10, one of my favorite books ever.
26:56
But Steve Jobs would fire people if they said no, He's like, make
27:02
a computer, but make it like 3 inches thinner than what it used
27:05
to be. And he's like, no, he can't.
27:07
So you're fired. What do you mean?
27:08
No, fired is the answer isn't. I can't.
27:10
The answer is let me try and figure it out, you know, and
27:13
like, if you can't end up doing it and it turns out to be
27:15
impossible, I understand. You didn't even try, dude.
27:19
You even try. So no, I don't want you working
27:21
with me if you're not going to even bother trying.
27:22
I think a lot of people cut the conversation.
27:24
I think in America, the conversation is cut short very
27:27
often. And that has to do with stigma,
27:32
you know, but like, therapy was a stigma too, you know, and, and
27:36
of course everything can, you know, everything is a pendulum
27:40
and everything has, you know, the good side and the bad side
27:43
of things. And therapy has good sides and
27:46
bad sides to it. And travel has good sides and
27:48
danger sides to it. And, you know, I mean, there's
27:50
always consequences and there's always inadvertent unexpected
27:54
consequences to our advances that we never would think about,
28:00
just like in our own lives. And we develop in our own lives.
28:02
And you graduate high school, college, and you go off to live
28:05
by yourself in the city. And you're so excited to live in
28:07
your own house, your own apartment, and you realize, oh,
28:12
man, but I have to do my own laundry.
28:14
And if I don't meal prep, then I don't have time to, like, make a
28:17
solid meal during the day and during the week.
28:21
And then you realize, like, yeah, you know what?
28:23
Being adults is a ton of fun. I have my own responsibility.
28:26
I have my own freedom. But, you know, it also means
28:28
that I have to start doing more things Or if I'm a dad, I love
28:31
being a dad. I love watching these moments
28:33
that I mentioned, you know, earlier with, with my kids, and,
28:38
but it also means I got to wake up in the other night a couple
28:40
of times a week. You know, it also means that
28:42
sometimes my 2 1/2 year old is crying at 3:00 in the morning
28:46
and telling me that he wants to watch Seinfeld.
28:47
And it's and I'm like, you're being absolutely unreasonable.
28:52
And he doesn't care. And, and like it.
28:54
That's not you know, that's that's that's an inadvertent or
28:56
unexpected consequence to all the you know, despite having all
29:00
the good things about having family.
29:01
So and I think that anyone telling you that anything it's
29:05
all good is just selling you something.
29:07
You know, that's a famous life is pain.
29:09
Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
29:11
Was the great line from The Princess Bride.
29:14
Haven't thought about that line in a long time, but it's a good
29:15
one. So I think, you know, so 9th
29:22
grade was totally willing to like talk about this and say
29:25
like, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
29:27
Some of the students really were not into it.
29:29
And some of the students really thought like this is it?
29:31
And some of the students were like, this is definitely a
29:33
conspiracy. And it was like any but but it
29:36
was a conversation and you're able to say, well, what about
29:38
this? And they'd say, oh, interesting.
29:41
Yeah, that and what about that? You know, and, and and by the
29:43
way, it's it's fun because a lot of times I don't even think
29:46
through a lot of the questions that they have.
29:48
Like one challenge. I think that I hope I, I, I, I,
29:54
I admit completely and I'm very, very comfortable admitting is
29:58
that I'm not really good at taking one issue and examining
30:02
it from different perspectives all around it.
30:05
Other people are excellent at that.
30:06
I'm really not. I'm good at comprehension and
30:08
I'm good at articulation, but the my detail orientation and my
30:14
analysis in that kind of sense kind of leaves something to be
30:20
desired, I suppose. But you know, I learned a lot
30:24
from just having these conversations.
30:25
And even again, even if it doesn't go anywhere, you're
30:28
breaking barriers in your head. You're thinking of new things.
30:31
And then you could think, well, how does it happen?
30:33
And you know what, at some point and you hear this stories about
30:36
this with Silicon Valley, you hear stories about this music.
30:39
You hear stories with anything that anyone is passionate about
30:42
or interested about. And like you kind of like, you
30:45
know, it's, it's completely contagious, but you're like, I'm
30:50
going to get older. I'm going to dive into, you
30:52
know, there's a whole generation of, you know, let's call them
30:56
aliens or UFO nuts or, you know, whatever.
31:00
And it was considered totally not formal that have these super
31:03
eloquent and articulate and well produced and, and thoughtful
31:07
and, and well researched shows that go for hours at a time
31:11
that, you know, really examine every odd end of all these
31:14
stories. And some of the stuff is
31:17
nonsense and some of the stuff is great and some of the stuff
31:19
is in between. But you're getting somewhere
31:24
new. You're you're you're you're
31:25
engaging in something new and you're breaking and you're and
31:28
you're breaking and rebuilding and saying, OK, well, it looks
31:32
like this is kind of built a little dumb.
31:35
Let me see, like what happens if you like, take that away or like
31:37
you, you put that there. Let me see what this means.
31:40
You know, under different context, like, oh, now it makes
31:42
a lot more sense. But if you're going to say,
31:45
yeah, this conversation is even happening, then how are you
31:48
going to do that ever? So, you know, I think adventure
31:53
is and it's, I mean, you have to be careful because technology
32:03
typically equals comfort and comfort generally does not breed
32:09
growth or success. Almost never.
32:11
I think that comfort is AI think in the right portions and in the
32:18
right serving sizes is necessary, especially for
32:23
recharging our batteries. I'm someone that pushes myself
32:27
far too much all the time. And I've come to realize
32:31
probably in the last year, I would say that comfort is and,
32:39
and, and recharging your batteries is actually what
32:42
couldn't allow you to continue being adventurous.
32:46
You know, at the end of the day, you still need a bed to go back
32:48
to it at the end of the day, you still need to sleep.
32:50
At the end of the day, you still need to take care of yourself.
32:52
You need to eat, you need you need to do the things to
32:54
recharge your batteries. And sometimes the comfort is
32:56
watching is watching Netflix for a day, you know, once a month
32:59
and you just can't get off the couch.
33:00
And usually, you know what, like I just need this right now.
33:05
But when it becomes a constant search for it.
33:11
And we also, I think, confuse comfort and efficiency.
33:18
You know that apps can make us efficient, but are they doing
33:21
the thinking instead of us? Is it replacing us or you know,
33:25
or are we using it to make our lives easier so we can
33:32
accomplish more? I think that these are, I think
33:35
that a lot of these types of questions are really worth
33:38
pondering. And then to think to ourselves,
33:42
and I think about this all the time, OK, where?
33:45
At what point do I need to just relax?
33:46
At what point do I need to go all in?
33:50
At what point do I need to take my foot off the brakes a little
33:52
bit but still keep on going? And life is just about
33:55
constantly. Life has been, at least for me,
33:58
constantly. Just been about trying to take
34:00
moment by moment and discern is this good?
34:04
You know, what is this right for me right now or not?
34:07
And what do I need right now? Do I need to go full steam
34:09
ahead? Do I need some comfort right
34:10
now? Do I need to be adventurous or
34:12
do I have to work on it again, adventurous.
34:15
Being adventurous is to break out of barriers.
34:18
But it's very hard then to stay still and work on the
34:20
foundations while you're breaking out.
34:22
So at what point are you going to work on your roots and, and,
34:25
and the core and the foundations and the basic principles that
34:28
you live your life by? And then you also got to be
34:32
adventurous. And I think that we need all of
34:35
them. And I think that a bit.
34:36
And I, and I actually think that the different phases of life
34:39
that we go through help naturally reinforce that
34:44
emotionally, biologically, as far as, you know, our
34:48
responsibilities and what the world around us requires from us
34:51
at different points in our lives, you know, so I guess
34:54
socially, and I think it's time for some more, for some more
35:01
adventure. And I think and, and, and this
35:03
could even be in a social setting too.
35:05
You know, one thing that I've been talking a lot about on
35:07
different podcasts, I mentioned this, you know, before I, before
35:10
I ended my, the, the more recent, the, the, the show that
35:14
was just on, he said, you know, what are some, what's some
35:18
advice you would give people that were listening?
35:20
And I said, have more bodied, embodied experience.
35:23
Do experiences do more things with people, do more things
35:28
together and to have family, you know, and I think that those two
35:34
things lead to more adventure and more and more stable and
35:42
strong roots and foundations. We need this.
35:50
We we really need this. People are not interested in
35:56
having families as much. People are not interested in
35:58
communities as much. People aren't interested in
36:00
meaning in their lives as much. And they're finding themselves
36:04
going, living lives just satisfied and just fine.
36:08
And, you know, I actually did, I tried to do a solo episode a
36:10
little bit about this and I don't think I ever published it.
36:13
But, you know, the difference between the weed smoking
36:16
community and and the alcohol community and the drinking
36:19
community is that the weed smoke community typically does not
36:22
lend itself to being social. And we're seeing an enormous
36:25
uptick in in cannabis use. Weed makes you want to send, you
36:30
know, sit around and listen to music.
36:31
And yeah, sometimes you hang out with your friends, but a lot
36:33
more often, especially very frequent, you know, cannabis
36:36
users. And if especially if you don't
36:38
have a very social base to begin with, it just basically numbs
36:44
that part of you that says, hey, I want to be social.
36:46
Alcohol makes you less inhibited, makes you more
36:50
inclined to be social, makes you want to hang out with people
36:52
more. I think obviously till you over
36:55
drink. But but yeah, even though even
37:00
though even our vices seem to be indicating that we're less
37:04
interested in being adventurous. So we're more interested in just
37:07
kind of being where we are and being comfortable.
37:09
And I just want to encourage open mindedness.
37:14
I want to encourage doing new things.
37:16
I want to encourage even if something isn't true, even if
37:18
it's completely fiction, be curious about it because that's
37:21
how it becomes reality. That's how it becomes true.
37:24
The next Gen., you know, the, the generations of scientists
37:26
that grew up on and I and I started saying this.
37:28
I don't remember if I lost my train of thought in the middle,
37:31
but this generation, the only reason why, you know, a lot of
37:35
them were influenced by Star Wars and by sci-fi.
37:39
And then they said, how do we make fiction reality?
37:43
And if the answer is you can't shut up, then we're never going
37:46
to get anywhere. So we'll call it there because I
37:50
got to run, get ready and get ready for school.
37:52
But just some food for thought. Adventure is out there, as they
37:57
say in the movie up. And so I quoted The Princess
38:00
Bride up and another movie. Bye everyone.