Latest / age / Ep. 07: Roots, Memory & The Stories We Carry Forward

Transcript

Ep. 07: Roots, Memory & The Stories We Carry Forward · age

• 0:00
  What was your favorite part of the podcast today?
• 0:03
  My favorite part was making hand gestures at Mary and then realizing she can't see it
• 0:08
  the way I did.
• 0:09
  That's cute.
• 0:10
  My favorite part was in Mary's year, it's only very special, but almost made her cry
• 0:14
  and I feel like touched me too.
• 0:16
  I think I can almost cry every episode for you.
• 0:18
  I love that too, but I think my favorite part was when Tim brought up this whole analogy
• 0:23
  about the tree and the roots and the branches.
• 0:27
  Oh no, you took mine.
• 0:29
  The branches so good.
• 0:31
  That was also mine.
• 0:32
  I liked listening to the time you got kind of like metaphysical.
• 0:35
  Yeah.
• 0:36
  Um, I liked realizing how old we all were when Facebook became a thing.
• 0:41
  Not when Reddy admitted to making that with his cousin?
• 0:44
  Yeah.
• 0:45
  Didn't happen.
• 0:58
  I just told the family, 830 is when we have to leave, just in case there's accidents or anything like that.
• 1:06
  I think it'd be 830.
• 1:08
  I'm going to be cranky.
• 1:10
  I mean, yes, 730.
• 1:12
  Yeah, I don't want to leave it 830.
• 1:14
  It would not be good.
• 1:15
  We need to start this over again, I don't like.
• 1:18
  Oh yeah.
• 1:19
  There's a little timer right there that just to make sure we know is okay.
• 1:23
  I think I want to make sure that the alarm's not on too.
• 1:26
  I need to add that to our checklist.
• 1:28
  Don't knock the light over there.
• 1:30
  No promises.
• 1:31
  Don't tap the glass.
• 1:32
  Don't tap the call.
• 1:33
  Guys, welcome.
• 1:34
  This is a show that we like to call age.
• 1:37
  Probably because that's its actual name.
• 1:40
  And I heard you tip well your host for today.
• 1:44
  And to my left is Dylan Garcia.
• 1:47
  To my right is Tim Scroggs.
• 1:49
  And over there last but not least, Mary Green.
• 1:53
  And if you've been watching, you know we do a little thing where we pull a topic out of a hat.
• 1:58
  It's very raw, very real, unscripted.
• 2:01
  And I'm going to go ahead and get us started.
• 2:03
  By hat, he means trash can.
• 2:05
  Yes, let me in this.
• 2:07
  There's a bunny coming out today.
• 2:10
  This could be a hat for somebody.
• 2:12
  I'm just waiting after last week's topic.
• 2:15
  I'm like sort of scared, yeah.
• 2:17
  I'm really glad you're hosting today though.
• 2:19
  I feel like your energy is exactly the kind of host's energy that matches what I needed today.
• 2:24
  Which is hilarious because I have had a stressful morning.
• 2:27
  But I'm brilliant.
• 2:28
  I've also had a stressful morning, so.
• 2:31
  Oh, okay.
• 2:32
  Is that a good one?
• 2:33
  I like how it's nice for me.
• 2:35
  Yeah, I know.
• 2:36
  You guys will know before we go.
• 2:37
  We also.
• 2:38
  All right.
• 2:40
  It's roots.
• 2:42
  I don't even know what the hell that means.
• 2:45
  It's what we're doing.
• 2:46
  Is it a band?
• 2:47
  Because I could talk about them for a while.
• 2:49
  Is that what we're saying that comes here?
• 2:51
  Yeah.
• 2:52
  That quest love ones.
• 2:53
  It was crazy.
• 2:54
  I was actually in St. Louis on watching the Navinew.
• 2:57
  I was with some friends.
• 2:59
  And they were starting to.
• 3:01
  No, it's on the floor.
• 3:02
  Okay.
• 3:03
  We thought I put it back in.
• 3:05
  Oh, God.
• 3:06
  We'll put it back in so we can do it again.
• 3:07
  Round two.
• 3:08
  We would have forgotten that we pulled it and we would just do it twice.
• 3:10
  So sorry.
• 3:11
  Yeah.
• 3:12
  No worries.
• 3:13
  I was walking down watching the Navinew with some friends.
• 3:15
  And they were all starting up.
• 3:17
  Just sputter out.
• 3:18
  They were getting tired and they were ready to go home.
• 3:21
  And I was like, guys, I want to dance.
• 3:22
  It feels so good.
• 3:23
  It's so nice out.
• 3:25
  And so they laughed and I kept walking.
• 3:27
  And I stumbled upon this little bar.
• 3:29
  And it was lit.
• 3:31
  Everybody in there was just dancing their asses off.
• 3:34
  They were spilling out onto the street.
• 3:36
  And I'm like, what is going on in there?
• 3:38
  And I walk in and Quest Love was doing a DJ set.
• 3:41
  What is going on in there?
• 3:42
  I was spinning all this old school hip hop and soul and like,
• 3:47
  I danced for like two hours.
• 3:49
  Yeah.
• 3:50
  It was awesome.
• 3:51
  One of my favorite things.
• 3:52
  So that's how long ago was that?
• 3:54
  Oh my gosh.
• 3:55
  This would have been about 25 years ago.
• 3:58
  Was that before they were on there?
• 3:59
  No.
• 4:00
  No, this would have been some 40.
• 4:02
  Yeah, this would have been about 30.
• 4:04
  So yeah, this would have been about 24 years ago.
• 4:07
  I'm aging myself.
• 4:09
  Dylan, how old are you then?
• 4:10
  I wasn't even a thought.
• 4:12
  My mom was in college.
• 4:13
  She was at Western.
• 4:15
  At that point.
• 4:17
  One person watches Roots at a little club.
• 4:19
  And the other one is not even about to be.
• 4:21
  I was an egg in a uterus.
• 4:23
  Wow.
• 4:24
  You haven't even met yet.
• 4:25
  Yeah.
• 4:26
  They have all the eggs.
• 4:27
  No, the eggs.
• 4:28
  They're there, man.
• 4:29
  I was like, they're on day.
• 4:31
  I was so glad about genetics.
• 4:32
  And I was really good at it.
• 4:34
  But obviously it's all just gone by the wayside.
• 4:36
  It's okay.
• 4:37
  So many people.
• 4:38
  All the eggs are there.
• 4:39
  All the eggs are there.
• 4:40
  The little Dylan was there.
• 4:41
  You were the brightest egg in the bunch.
• 4:43
  I think I'm just the one that survived.
• 4:45
  The one that was up for the charge.
• 4:47
  It's just right.
• 4:48
  Isn't that maybe, maybe that is what is the smartest egg is the one that survived.
• 4:54
  I was thinking of like the Roots.
• 4:56
  They were like, for like my family.
• 4:58
  I'm like slowly coming to like, we're all like talking about like our generations
• 5:03
  and everything like that in my family right now.
• 5:05
  So like, I got to see both of my great-grandmother's live.
• 5:08
  And so we were talking about that.
• 5:10
  And on my mom's side, we call it the Boller gene.
• 5:15
  And it's like this like crazy like anger or kind of like, yeah.
• 5:20
  Not like that, but like the, their last name was Boller.
• 5:24
  Their last name was Boller.
• 5:26
  And we've been talking about it because it's like we've came from a long line of like some really like.
• 5:33
  I wouldn't say society now would call them very angry women.
• 5:36
  I call them very passionate women.
• 5:38
  And so we've been talking about how like my great-grandmother carried that gene
• 5:43
  and then my grandmother carried it and then my mom carried it.
• 5:46
  Now I have it.
• 5:47
  But I was talking about, yeah, passion.
• 5:50
  Passion, passion.
• 5:51
  No, I call them passionate women.
• 5:54
  But I was talking with my mom.
• 5:57
  And my mom was like, when she birthed me, I have like all the DNA of like my great-grandmother and beyond.
• 6:04
  Because it all gets passed down through like eggs, like in your uterus.
• 6:09
  That's what I thought about when I was thinking of roots.
• 6:11
  Right. So back, back, back.
• 6:13
  There's the egg is still.
• 6:14
  Yeah. So like when my great-grandmother gave birth to my grandmother,
• 6:18
  all of like her like DNA and like generational history is like in the egg.
• 6:23
  The idea that women are born with, I'm just going to say the minute we start talking about biology,
• 6:29
  we're treading into really risky territory.
• 6:32
  I couldn't tell you who wrote the birds.
• 6:34
  So like who knows what we're about to say.
• 6:36
  But the idea that like women are born with all the eggs that we're ever going to have.
• 6:40
  And so like, yeah, all of your eggs were inside of your mom's body and all of your mom's
• 6:44
  outside of your grandma's body and so on and so forth.
• 6:47
  Wow.
• 6:48
  That's what I think about when I think of roots.
• 6:50
  So you think about like if someone experiences trauma in your lifetime,
• 6:54
  we don't think about that as a genetic thing,
• 6:57
  but it does have an impact on more than one generation of people.
• 7:01
  I was just telling Reggie that my youngest son was saying that he wishes he was a girl.
• 7:06
  And I said, why?
• 7:07
  He said, because they get to have babies in their bellies.
• 7:10
  No.
• 7:11
  And that's where we're talking about all these eggs.
• 7:13
  I love them.
• 7:14
  That's so fitting.
• 7:15
  I know this isn't the topic of the episode, but can we talk about that for a minute?
• 7:19
  Because I've heard, I'm on some...
• 7:21
  We can talk about whatever we want.
• 7:23
  It's our podcast.
• 7:24
  Sorry if you tuned in for roots.
• 7:27
  I have heard a lot.
• 7:30
  I'm on some very liberal sides of the internet where some very passionate women are talking
• 7:35
  about the state of the world right now.
• 7:37
  And I am not of the mind like, I think there's a big gender divide that works against us
• 7:43
  as often as it works for us kind of thing.
• 7:46
  Like we can all agree, patriarchy needs to shift away from where we are, but where the society needs to change.
• 7:54
  I'm just sure I think the maturity of the men in our culture needs to shift.
• 7:59
  I don't know that I agree with.
• 8:01
  I mean, that is true.
• 8:02
  And also, I don't think that the theory of patriarchy is surveying us.
• 8:06
  I think patriarchy or patriarchy can both work.
• 8:08
  I just feel like the maturity level of the leaders has to be to a place to where there is empathy and compassion.
• 8:14
  And also need to be more women in leadership.
• 8:17
  I think you're right that as systems they themselves have become really like entangled with the specific people
• 8:24
  who have gotten to use those systems.
• 8:26
  And I think that this is what I was kind of trying to bring up.
• 8:30
  And it's really testy.
• 8:31
  Maybe today is not the day when Roger and I are both kind of like bedraggled coming in.
• 8:35
  Bring it up.
• 8:36
  Let's do it out.
• 8:38
  I'm ready.
• 8:40
  You know, it's not that the men who are alive today are the problem.
• 8:43
  But I do think that, I mean, some of them certainly are.
• 8:46
  Oh, yeah.
• 8:47
  But I think that men, like as a group, multi-generationally are wounded.
• 8:53
  Like, I just don't feel like we've taken very good care of anyone.
• 8:57
  But especially men, there's a lot of expectation.
• 9:00
  There's a lot of assumption about what your role is supposed to be in the world
• 9:05
  and how you were supposed to behave in the same way that I have expectations because I'm a woman.
• 9:09
  But I think they've been very harmful for a really long time.
• 9:12
  And so that's like how we got here.
• 9:14
  But the reason this all came up is because of roots is because of eggs.
• 9:19
  Oh, yeah.
• 9:20
  Is because your son was like, oh, I wish I was a girl because they get to have children.
• 9:25
  And somebody on the internet, she's not the first one to say this.
• 9:28
  Was like, oh, well, that's sort of like the original wound of men.
• 9:33
  Especially before we understood how sex worked.
• 9:37
  And before we understood how conception worked,
• 9:40
  it was probably this just miraculous thing that women got to have children.
• 9:45
  And there was no question about whose child that was.
• 9:47
  You might not as the man know for sure.
• 9:50
  You might assume or you might look at them and see a mark of yourself in hope.
• 9:54
  But like a mother knows her child.
• 9:57
  Or as a father sort of, there's that room for doubt, I guess.
• 10:01
  It's an interesting concept.
• 10:03
  Yeah, that was the theory that one of the original things
• 10:07
  that sort of set us on this journey to where we are was the root of them.
• 10:12
  The envy of men because they didn't have babies.
• 10:15
  Yeah, maybe I don't really love the word envy because it seems to imply,
• 10:20
  I don't know, I want to almost call it insecurity or the uncertainty of men.
• 10:26
  Because again, if you go back to a time when we didn't understand it,
• 10:30
  it was just miraculous and it probably seemed...
• 10:32
  It's still miraculous.
• 10:34
  Yeah, I mean, we have a little bit more of a peak behind the curtain.
• 10:37
  We know what happens, but still I think the fact that it does happen
• 10:41
  is a freaking miracle.
• 10:43
  I think it's amazing.
• 10:44
  Well, the first thing I thought about was hummus.
• 10:47
  Right.
• 10:48
  Because roots were growing hummus.
• 10:51
  It was homemade.
• 10:52
  Handmade hummus company in Asheville.
• 10:55
  Yeah, it was a great brand.
• 10:56
  Speaking of men, I think the founder went off the rails from what I hear.
• 11:01
  I don't know what the rumors are around town,
• 11:03
  but it was a growing amazing company from Asheville.
• 11:06
  Great brand, great product.
• 11:08
  Did I tell you all that I first encountered root hummus at a whole food in New York City?
• 11:13
  Yeah, just awesome.
• 11:14
  And I was just like, this stuff was really good.
• 11:15
  I liked the weird flavors, like the coconut curd.
• 11:17
  Yeah, weird flavors.
• 11:18
  It was good.
• 11:19
  And it was okay.
• 11:20
  It was totally all day long.
• 11:22
  Yeah.
• 11:24
  But imagine my pride when I'm like, this is so good.
• 11:26
  I wonder where it's from.
• 11:27
  And I'm like, I'm in branding.
• 11:28
  I'm looking to packaging all the time.
• 11:29
  And I turn it around.
• 11:30
  I'm like, I miss you.
• 11:32
  I was like, we're on the map, baby.
• 11:34
  Yes.
• 11:35
  Now it's the fun.
• 11:36
  Since then gone.
• 11:37
  They've fallen from grace, sadly.
• 11:39
  Didn't they?
• 11:40
  Wasn't their location?
• 11:41
  I don't know if it was where they were making the hummus,
• 11:43
  but it was in Reverse District, right?
• 11:45
  Yeah.
• 11:46
  Well, I mean, it's always, when I think Reverse District, I'm like,
• 11:49
  well, how would've Haleen have affected that?
• 11:51
  Right.
• 11:53
  Well, it wasn't Haleen.
• 11:54
  It was.
• 11:55
  Yeah.
• 11:56
  It was definitely not Haleen.
• 11:57
  The Reverse Arch District is like under some like,
• 12:00
  I'm not even going to say like spiritual warfare,
• 12:03
  but like the fire the other day after I haven't seen this yet.
• 12:07
  Oh, yeah.
• 12:08
  Mr. Homer Simpson had like fire hair coming out.
• 12:10
  Oh, yeah.
• 12:11
  No one I didn't see this.
• 12:12
  I forgot.
• 12:13
  I was thinking about the salvage station.
• 12:14
  That's where the new salvage station was.
• 12:16
  That was where it was going to be.
• 12:17
  I remember reading it and I was like,
• 12:18
  I thought the salvage station was going away,
• 12:20
  but they were relocating.
• 12:21
  They were relocating there.
• 12:22
  To cheese.
• 12:23
  I mean, it was a really, it was a big fight to try to find a place.
• 12:27
  I know the owners, they're good friends.
• 12:28
  Yeah.
• 12:29
  And they have that.
• 12:30
  So Colleen and the fire.
• 12:31
  Yes.
• 12:32
  Colleen and the fire.
• 12:33
  What happens when you get hit multiple times?
• 12:34
  In life.
• 12:35
  You're like trying to make it.
• 12:36
  Yeah.
• 12:37
  Flood wipes out your place.
• 12:38
  Yeah.
• 12:39
  Do you go back to your roots?
• 12:40
  Right.
• 12:41
  I feel like that's what they were trying to do, right?
• 12:43
  They were trying to relocate to a better place.
• 12:45
  Yeah.
• 12:46
  And then a fire.
• 12:48
  How many times can we take this, though?
• 12:50
  Yes, they are.
• 12:51
  They keep rising from the ashes.
• 12:53
  They are going to make this happen.
• 12:55
  Absolutely.
• 12:56
  The police.
• 12:57
  Somebody actually posted a real the other day.
• 12:59
  And it was like that.
• 13:00
  It showed like some flood footage and it showed the fire.
• 13:03
  And it was like, but we're still here.
• 13:05
  We're still coming.
• 13:07
  We're still thriving.
• 13:08
  Even before I don't know anything.
• 13:12
  Let me just go on record and say I have no idea.
• 13:14
  I have no idea.
• 13:15
  There's a lot.
• 13:16
  But I feel like I remember hearing.
• 13:18
  It's like 240 was going to expand or 26, right?
• 13:21
  There was going to expand.
• 13:22
  Oh, that's still happening.
• 13:23
  And that was partially why in the beginning they were like,
• 13:25
  well, this is not going to, this land is going to become the road.
• 13:28
  So they knew that they couldn't stay in that location anyway.
• 13:30
  Right.
• 13:31
  But they knew it was limited.
• 13:32
  Right.
• 13:33
  There's something about that.
• 13:34
  Like some, the world sort of like pushes you out.
• 13:36
  They're like, no, no, no, time to move on.
• 13:38
  Time to do the next thing.
• 13:39
  Yeah.
• 13:40
  All right.
• 13:41
  That's the roots of our city, right?
• 13:42
  And how they change.
• 13:43
  And how are they growing or are they being ripped out?
• 13:46
  You know, like when everyone is moving through life at the pace of life,
• 13:51
  you don't really notice the things that are changing around you,
• 13:54
  the evolving.
• 13:55
  And you just wake up 20 years later and you're like,
• 13:58
  this is very different than what I remember.
• 14:01
  When I hear roots, I automatically go to like the way back before
• 14:06
  my people were in North America.
• 14:08
  I'm like, okay, where did we all, how did we all get here?
• 14:12
  But that, it's so strange because I feel more connected in some ways
• 14:16
  to the idea of my Scott's Irish heritage.
• 14:20
  Then I do to like my more recent like Appalachian heritage, so to speak.
• 14:27
  It's almost like, I think especially as someone who moved away
• 14:31
  and like, you kind of have to reclaim it differently, remix it sort of.
• 14:36
  Yeah.
• 14:37
  What is this sense of like, I have feel connected in the,
• 14:41
  like, I eat a potato in my heart sings.
• 14:45
  Like, you know, like, you sure.
• 14:48
  I like to bite it.
• 14:49
  What are potatoes that you eat?
• 14:51
  I probably feel like the echoes of generational poverty and like famine
• 14:55
  or at least that's what I told myself on the obesity episode.
• 14:58
  But I think like, yeah, there is also,
• 15:02
  it's almost like which roots am I paying attention to?
• 15:05
  Like, we all have that taproot that goes all the way back,
• 15:08
  whether you want to own it or not.
• 15:10
  And then there's all the like fresher, newer ones.
• 15:13
  I feel like in some weird way New York is now part of my history.
• 15:17
  Yeah, like I've got people there and places there.
• 15:20
  I just went back with my mom and I was like, this is like a different lifetime,
• 15:24
  you know, but I feel so connected to it.
• 15:27
  So it is like the difference between stuff that was given to me
• 15:30
  and stuff that I got to build for myself.
• 15:34
  This is my roots.
• 15:35
  Where did you hide about this topic?
• 15:36
  I can't imagine.
• 15:37
  What a way.
• 15:38
  I tell you.
• 15:39
  He's on it.
• 15:40
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:41
  I could see it bubbling up.
• 15:43
  Well, I just got back from my grandma's birthday.
• 15:46
  Oh, grandma.
• 15:47
  It's good.
• 15:48
  It's an interesting topic.
• 15:49
  Probably birthday heals of this.
• 15:51
  My grandma's like 85.
• 15:53
  And she's an incredibly strong, beautiful person
• 15:56
  and all the people that were there
• 15:58
  and the legacy of a life.
• 16:02
  And so one by one they were calling up all of her children
• 16:06
  and then all of her children's children
• 16:08
  that are children's children's children.
• 16:10
  Oh, my God.
• 16:11
  And the stage was just packed with people.
• 16:12
  And I was looking at it like, this is what happens.
• 16:16
  Yeah.
• 16:17
  This is how life works.
• 16:19
  And when I was interested, you know when your grandparents are alive
• 16:22
  and you're young, you don't think they're people.
• 16:25
  You know that they're humans and they breathe,
• 16:27
  but they're like these, I don't know what it is.
• 16:29
  They're like these features that are there,
• 16:33
  but you don't realize they had a backstory and they were young
• 16:36
  and they fell in love and they had a career
• 16:38
  and they had like this thing.
• 16:40
  And so as I was getting older, I lost my grandpa
• 16:43
  and I asked, and it was before the age
• 16:46
  where I could really get to know him.
• 16:48
  And the last few years of his life had dimension.
• 16:50
  It was really bad.
• 16:51
  As he kind of forget who he was.
• 16:53
  But I asked my grandma, this grandma, to write his story.
• 16:57
  And she did.
• 16:59
  Really?
• 17:00
  It's like, it's pages long.
• 17:02
  Talks about where he was born.
• 17:04
  And how they met and where he grew up.
• 17:07
  And also I was like, we're missing it.
• 17:09
  Yeah.
• 17:10
  You know, we're missing the root.
• 17:12
  I think I grew up, and this is not to say something bad
• 17:17
  about being Christian, because I am a Christian.
• 17:20
  But I grew up really Christian,
• 17:22
  where your roots didn't matter.
• 17:24
  All that mattered was your father in heaven
• 17:26
  and Jesus your brother.
• 17:28
  And I didn't know my roots.
• 17:30
  As a person, I didn't know where I was from.
• 17:32
  I didn't know my grandparents' line,
• 17:34
  the things they loved and were good at.
• 17:36
  I didn't know anything about my family.
• 17:39
  This is fascinating for me to hear,
• 17:41
  because in my family, I feel like those two concepts
• 17:45
  are so tangled up together in good ways and bad ways.
• 17:49
  But Christianity and the relationship with God and Jesus
• 17:53
  and all those stories and all those songs
• 17:56
  is at least some people believe what held us together.
• 18:01
  And I think churches, I wonder,
• 18:04
  because you were almost missionary,
• 18:06
  going around and almost evangelizing.
• 18:09
  But churches were the fiber of the community.
• 18:13
  There are pictures of my grandpa on the walls of the church,
• 18:15
  because he helped build it kind of thing.
• 18:17
  So was it a route for people without roots?
• 18:20
  Because America's made up of people
• 18:22
  that came from random places.
• 18:24
  There's no one that came from here.
• 18:26
  Well, it's not just genetically, but community.
• 18:29
  How do you scratch out a life for yourself?
• 18:31
  And who do you cling to?
• 18:33
  It's almost like you hear about aspen trees
• 18:36
  are actually one big organism connected under the ground.
• 18:39
  They look like separate individuals,
• 18:42
  but they're actually this huge network
• 18:44
  or my celium, that kind of thing.
• 18:46
  I think I was pretty much aware of my roots
• 18:48
  because when I was very young,
• 18:51
  I had great grandparents still,
• 18:53
  which was awesome.
• 18:55
  And I got to stay with them sometimes,
• 18:57
  which was really cool,
• 18:59
  because my great grandmother
• 19:03
  would cook the best pancakes.
• 19:05
  She would do this thing,
• 19:06
  where she would make them.
• 19:08
  And then I think she would pan fry them in butter
• 19:10
  so they got crispy around it.
• 19:12
  So good.
• 19:13
  And I remember those.
• 19:15
  But I think the main reason
• 19:17
  I was well aware of my roots was
• 19:19
  because we had photos all everywhere.
• 19:21
  We had photo albums.
• 19:23
  So there were pictures of them when they were young.
• 19:25
  There were pictures of them independently.
• 19:28
  And when they were together, pictures of my uncle
• 19:31
  when he was like young and in the military.
• 19:34
  So there was always some connection back
• 19:39
  to what came before me through pictures.
• 19:42
  Which interestingly enough,
• 19:44
  I would obviously grow up and become a commercial photographer.
• 19:48
  And I love capturing moments.
• 19:50
  I'm constantly photographing my kids and our lives.
• 19:53
  And just so they, for posterity,
• 19:56
  so they exist, they're there.
• 19:58
  But how much of your history
• 20:00
  did you learn through oral tradition?
• 20:03
  Not a whole lot.
• 20:06
  I mean, I would say though,
• 20:08
  a lot of times at the dinner table,
• 20:10
  you'd hear these stories about something that happened.
• 20:14
  Oh, like I would hear about my grandmother
• 20:17
  who raised me and my uncle,
• 20:19
  who was her brother,
• 20:20
  things that they would get into.
• 20:22
  So there was definitely some oral transfer.
• 20:26
  More recent.
• 20:27
  I think we've heard that photos replace your memory.
• 20:30
  No.
• 20:31
  Really?
• 20:32
  Oh yeah.
• 20:33
  I don't believe that.
• 20:34
  I think it came early on when they were first invented.
• 20:37
  They thought they stole your soul.
• 20:38
  But then there's been some new research coming out
• 20:40
  about when this is why we won't let our kids
• 20:43
  see pictures of something we went to right away.
• 20:46
  Oh, that makes sense.
• 20:47
  Because it'll hijack your memory.
• 20:49
  You'll think of it from a third person.
• 20:52
  So this is something we're getting actually
• 20:54
  with social media is that we don't see our lives
• 20:57
  from inside ourselves.
• 20:59
  We see our lives looking at us.
• 21:01
  And pictures cause you to do this too.
• 21:03
  You're not looking at the world and experiencing the world.
• 21:06
  Like a kid doesn't know that they're in their body
• 21:08
  in experiencing the world.
• 21:09
  Because they haven't defined inside and outside
• 21:12
  and independent self versus the whole.
• 21:14
  And so when you look at pictures,
• 21:16
  you start to see the world as like this looking in on things
• 21:20
  versus looking out into it
• 21:23
  and having the experience, letting the experience
• 21:25
  be the thing that enriches you versus
• 21:27
  I remember the way that looks.
• 21:29
  I typically don't show my kids a lot of pictures.
• 21:33
  Occasionally they're like, oh, let me see that one shot of me
• 21:36
  that you took.
• 21:37
  It's not like we don't go on a trip
• 21:39
  and then we look at all the photos.
• 21:41
  We talk about the experience.
• 21:43
  We talk about like we went on that trip recently.
• 21:45
  And we talk about what it was like to go to the Crazy Nacens
• 21:48
  and have the super delicious ice cream shake and a mason jar.
• 21:54
  We talked about the AI image I made
• 21:58
  of myself on the allocate.
• 22:00
  We talk about the experiences.
• 22:02
  I feel good that I'm not having that experience
• 22:05
  when I show what they really need to look at the pictures.
• 22:08
  I do not.
• 22:09
  Especially when you're filming the little ones
• 22:11
  they're like, let me see, let me see.
• 22:13
  I think it's because I'm always documenting.
• 22:15
  It's become they are desensitized by me having the phone
• 22:19
  and taking pictures.
• 22:20
  Your camera is a part of your body.
• 22:21
  Yeah, so they're not like they would just be coming over
• 22:24
  and constantly checking.
• 22:25
  So it's good.
• 22:27
  You've really made me think.
• 22:29
  And I want to hear from Dylan on this too.
• 22:31
  But as someone who's...
• 22:33
  I'll tell my story and then we'll get back to it.
• 22:36
  I, in 2025,
• 22:38
  I decided I wanted to completely get off of Facebook.
• 22:42
  It was not a place that I got on that often.
• 22:45
  So it's not like a place that people could talk to me.
• 22:47
  Sometimes people would try to message me on Facebook
• 22:50
  and I wouldn't be there to respond
• 22:52
  and then I would feel guilty when I finally got to the message.
• 22:55
  Do I explain?
• 22:57
  Do I apologize?
• 22:58
  It's not really my fault that they're trying to reach out to me
• 23:01
  on a channel that I don't really use.
• 23:03
  So there's a lot of obligation.
• 23:05
  And it was a bunch of...
• 23:07
  Thank you, Reggie.
• 23:08
  Yeah.
• 23:09
  I have to tell myself that a lot.
• 23:11
  But it was also a lot of people from...
• 23:14
  The people I was connected with on there were a lot of people
• 23:16
  from my hometown.
• 23:17
  And I have a lot of baggage about where I come from
• 23:20
  and how I grew up.
• 23:22
  So it was good that I couldn't get in touch with them.
• 23:24
  Actually, I was like ignoring this on purpose.
• 23:27
  And being there is like this lurking memory.
• 23:30
  And sadly, like a lot of extended family
• 23:34
  who like don't really know me, but they know of me.
• 23:37
  I'm also not to be weird about it,
• 23:40
  but like I'm one of very few redheads in my family.
• 23:43
  So it's like very...
• 23:44
  I think I'm somebody that people remember
• 23:46
  just because I'm the redhead.
• 23:47
  But I don't have the same experience with them.
• 23:50
  It was very just emotionally complicated for me.
• 23:53
  And so in 2025, I was like, I'm going to actually
• 23:56
  all the way get off of Facebook.
• 23:58
  I was like, what am I actually losing if I get off of Facebook?
• 24:01
  And by get off of Facebook, I meant delete my account.
• 24:03
  Like, cease to be fine.
• 24:05
  They'll let you for a certain period of time.
• 24:08
  I can't remember how long.
• 24:09
  Absolutely disappear.
• 24:10
  Yeah.
• 24:11
  The new rule they had to delete it, I remember that was in Europe.
• 24:13
  Are you sure?
• 24:14
  I think they did say how you can come back within so many days
• 24:16
  when I deleted my account.
• 24:17
  And I'm not sure if I can.
• 24:19
  I deleted it.
• 24:20
  But I was like, I'm ready to do this.
• 24:23
  This doesn't feel like it's serving me.
• 24:25
  It feels like baggage.
• 24:26
  And I was like, well, what am I missing
• 24:28
  if I get off of Facebook?
• 24:29
  Facebook Marketplace.
• 24:30
  Which number one?
• 24:31
  In like our community, a lot of stuff happens on Facebook
• 24:35
  because it's the first social media site that kind of like made it
• 24:38
  to Western North Carolina.
• 24:39
  I'm missing like, there's a rolodex of people, right?
• 24:43
  That I don't have their phone numbers.
• 24:44
  I don't know how to get in contact with them.
• 24:46
  And they don't know how to reach me.
• 24:47
  So I was worried about that.
• 24:48
  And then the big thing for me was photos and memories
• 24:51
  because that was like where we stored Facebook existed.
• 24:55
  Probably from the time I was 10, maybe younger.
• 24:58
  And I wanted a Facebook before my parents wanted me to have one.
• 25:02
  I like snuck onto my space and was acting.
• 25:04
  I lied about my birthday to get on.
• 25:06
  So I had all these photos, not only that I had taken
• 25:09
  and saved used Facebook as the holder of things
• 25:12
  on weird little flip phones.
• 25:15
  Like the quality is so bad.
• 25:18
  But also pictures that people had taken of me
• 25:21
  and tagged me in.
• 25:23
  And I was going through and I was just like,
• 25:25
  I'm going to pull all these photos down.
• 25:26
  I'll just sort them based on the albums they were in.
• 25:28
  Maybe like chronologically or something.
• 25:30
  And it took a while.
• 25:32
  I was at Alex's parents house.
• 25:33
  We were also going through a big culling on their side
• 25:36
  cleaning out a bunch of just things that they'd highlighting around.
• 25:39
  And I was sort of doing it in the background.
• 25:41
  And I won't call it a panic attack
• 25:43
  because I don't really know what that would feel like.
• 25:45
  But I was like in the process of clearing these photos.
• 25:49
  And I freaked out.
• 25:50
  I called my mom's sister Heather.
• 25:52
  Like she and I are.
• 25:53
  I call us like the softies in my family.
• 25:56
  I like we can have feelings.
• 25:57
  We don't get weird about it.
• 25:58
  But I was like,
• 26:00
  even now thinking about it, I could cry again.
• 26:02
  I had to lay down on the bed and like, do deep breathing.
• 26:05
  I was like, oh my god, looking at these photos.
• 26:07
  One, it took me back to places that I'd forgotten I'd been.
• 26:10
  Yeah.
• 26:12
  And two, I think there was something about seeing myself
• 26:15
  through someone else's lens.
• 26:17
  I think when you say looking at photos,
• 26:19
  it's one thing to say, oh, that replaces my memory.
• 26:21
  And I think it does.
• 26:22
  Like I'll look at pictures of myself as a child.
• 26:24
  And it reminds me of some feelings that I had that I'd forgotten.
• 26:27
  Usually the good ones.
• 26:28
  But it also sort of steal it.
• 26:30
  It extracts out the other things that were happening.
• 26:33
  Like I can look at a photo somebody took of me
• 26:35
  and be like, I was actually miserable when this photo was taken.
• 26:38
  Or whatever.
• 26:39
  I'm a tortured soul.
• 26:40
  But for no good reason.
• 26:42
  I read here.
• 26:43
  Yeah, I guess the day one.
• 26:45
  But all I'm trying to say, this long way of saying,
• 26:48
  I think looking at myself soothed through someone else's eyes,
• 26:51
  it's hard to differentiate sometimes.
• 26:53
  Yeah.
• 26:54
  You see a photo of somebody else took of you
• 26:56
  and you might like the photo.
• 26:57
  You might not like the photo.
• 26:58
  You're trying to remember it differently.
• 27:00
  But I think it took a minute for me to put together.
• 27:04
  Like one of the experiences I was having is,
• 27:06
  oh, this person that I've lost touch with
• 27:08
  and maybe we had like a falling out or we don't,
• 27:10
  for whatever reason, we don't talk anymore.
• 27:12
  It seems like they were really invested in me
• 27:14
  and they really wanted to be my friend.
• 27:16
  I had like 400 photos that this person took of me and tagged me.
• 27:20
  I don't know how many other people were getting tagged
• 27:22
  and photos by that person.
• 27:23
  But like, wow, such a big part of my history
• 27:26
  that's been documented was documented by this person.
• 27:29
  And this is how they saw me during that time.
• 27:31
  I mean, I was aware when they were there.
• 27:34
  Okay.
• 27:35
  I don't know.
• 27:36
  He wasn't even there.
• 27:38
  I don't know what other photos they had.
• 27:40
  What was publicly accessible.
• 27:42
  It brings up a soft spot and a lot of people
• 27:45
  and that's what I've noticed that whenever you get sucked
• 27:47
  into the photo real, you start looking at the back,
• 27:49
  the images, usually it's sadness that comes.
• 27:53
  I think there's a grieving because you can never be your past self.
• 27:57
  And a world wants to be their younger version of themselves
• 28:00
  and I think that's what's causing a lot of the distortion
• 28:04
  in who we are now.
• 28:06
  Like, you see actors and actresses in social...
• 28:08
  Oh, like self altering to try to recapture.
• 28:12
  And there was this whole movement after the Zoom,
• 28:14
  COVID era, when people were trying to get surgery
• 28:17
  based on their edited version of their Zoom personality.
• 28:21
  Oh, that's good.
• 28:22
  That was a big flux of plastic surgery.
• 28:24
  Oh, that's awful.
• 28:25
  People trying to, I want to look like this.
• 28:26
  They take screenshots.
• 28:27
  Also, I can go off camera for three weeks
• 28:29
  and nobody will ask questions.
• 28:31
  Because they had to come back into the world and I think
• 28:33
  when you look at yourself and you look at everyone else,
• 28:35
  I think that you remember too much.
• 28:38
  I think our minds are meant to forget.
• 28:40
  That's definitely true.
• 28:41
  And your memory shifts, by the way, it's not a whole...
• 28:43
  An ancient traditions were passed down through oral traditions
• 28:46
  so that the myth could take place of the reality.
• 28:50
  Because the reality is so hard that people have trouble
• 28:54
  living in it all the time.
• 28:56
  And so the myth of a history, the myth of the good and the bad
• 29:00
  and people supporting you was what memory was about
• 29:03
  versus the literal interpretation of memory.
• 29:06
  But don't you also think we're talking about oral tradition
• 29:09
  and storytelling and song.
• 29:11
  It's also about as a group we collectively are pulling out
• 29:14
  the pieces of this that we want to remember.
• 29:16
  Yeah, highlighting.
• 29:17
  Yeah.
• 29:18
  Because there's only so much you can remember.
• 29:19
  That's the thing with, I think, this happening with AI
• 29:21
  is we're trying to remember everything now.
• 29:23
  Every meaning has to be recorded, transcribed.
• 29:25
  Every photo has to be taken.
• 29:27
  Like, I was having...
• 29:29
  I was having dinner with someone I really, really respect.
• 29:33
  And I was like, I got to get a picture of this.
• 29:35
  Because I had this feeling, like, no one would believe me.
• 29:37
  And you know that old saying about if a tree falls on the forest
• 29:40
  and you're like, here's it.
• 29:41
  You can always take a selfie with me, Tim.
• 29:42
  Don't worry about it.
• 29:43
  But these were like really high-end designers
• 29:45
  that I had looked up to my whole life.
• 29:47
  And I'd never got a picture.
• 29:49
  Yeah, well, because you're like, I don't want to make it weird.
• 29:52
  But we were like, he said, we ran into a different generation.
• 29:55
  It didn't replace my memory.
• 29:56
  But it was like, in this world, are we...
• 29:59
  Did something happen?
• 30:00
  If you don't have a picture of it.
• 30:01
  Or a transcription.
• 30:02
  Oh, picture didn't happen.
• 30:03
  We didn't have a picture of it.
• 30:04
  We didn't have a picture of it.
• 30:05
  We didn't have a picture of it.
• 30:07
  Well, I wanted to say something because you brought up something
• 30:10
  that I was feeling and I was going to share.
• 30:13
  And you hit it, right?
• 30:14
  You hit the nail right on the head.
• 30:16
  When Mary was talking about looking at pictures
• 30:19
  and getting emotional about things,
• 30:22
  I was reminded of a time when I'm guessing I was probably about seven or eight.
• 30:29
  And we had this little like picture music wheel thing.
• 30:35
  It was like maybe hexagonal and it spun and it played music.
• 30:42
  And it played this...
• 30:44
  I feel like I'm there.
• 30:49
  That song.
• 30:50
  I need to find the name of that song.
• 30:52
  But the song...
• 30:53
  I mean, it's just embedded.
• 30:55
  Because I would just turn that thing and it had all these pictures of me on it.
• 31:00
  And it's a baby.
• 31:01
  And I remember...
• 31:02
  And I'm sure the song played its part because it's a really beautiful, you know, emotive sort of nostalgic song.
• 31:09
  But I start crying because I started thinking...
• 31:13
  As a seven-year-old kid, I started thinking about...
• 31:16
  I'm not that little baby anymore.
• 31:18
  I won't ever be...
• 31:19
  It was my first...
• 31:20
  My first time realizing the thing you just talked about, that I will never, ever be that person.
• 31:26
  That little baby again and you grew up.
• 31:28
  I agree.
• 31:29
  As a seven-year-old.
• 31:30
  I laid there on the floor and just kept playing it and looking at the pictures of me and grieving.
• 31:36
  It was wild.
• 31:37
  And I remember that moment.
• 31:39
  You've always been ten-year-old.
• 31:41
  Well, when my grandpa was going down with dementia, music is the last thing you forget.
• 31:47
  Oh, really?
• 31:48
  That's good.
• 31:49
  It registers deep in your memory.
• 31:51
  That's why we want traditions passed down through songs.
• 31:54
  Because you can remember a song more than you can remember details and facts about things.
• 31:58
  Which is why I can remember that melody.
• 32:00
  Like all these years later, it's locked in.
• 32:02
  Well, I'm curious because I have a different...
• 32:05
  Jake, you may have heard of him.
• 32:07
  He's got...
• 32:08
  His family discovered this stuff.
• 32:10
  I mentioned Jake on the...
• 32:12
  Oh, that's Jake.
• 32:13
  There's like a famous Jake that I'm out of the loop on again.
• 32:15
  I have mentioned Jake like 12 times on this podcast.
• 32:18
  He's a big part of my life.
• 32:20
  But his family has discovered almost like the Golden Tablets buried in the ground.
• 32:26
  They've discovered this.
• 32:27
  Sorry, I just saw the book of Mormon this weekend.
• 32:31
  He just found this text of like telling the genealogical history of his family going back to like way, way back before they emigrated.
• 32:40
  They were at land and I think it was England.
• 32:43
  So I wonder, you're saying like oral tradition, things are passed down in a different way.
• 32:48
  I wonder how much of that is nature versus nurture or like...
• 32:51
  Since we've learned how to sing, that was the original way to tell stories.
• 32:55
  And now we've learned how to write and how to print.
• 32:57
  That's a new way to tell stories.
• 32:59
  And we hold on to information differently.
• 33:01
  Now we've got photos.
• 33:03
  And I was wondering like I think the role of photography will you in particular.
• 33:08
  The role of photography in each of our lives has probably been different because access to cameras.
• 33:12
  It has been different.
• 33:14
  I was when I was thinking about the Facebook thing.
• 33:16
  What has it been like to always have a camera on you?
• 33:18
  It is so funny you mention that because last night...
• 33:21
  Okay.
• 33:22
  So I blocked my partner's family on Facebook as soon as we got together.
• 33:27
  Because I didn't want anyone to go down on my digital archive that I have myself as a child.
• 33:32
  It wasn't because you didn't like this.
• 33:34
  You still want them to be in your childhood.
• 33:36
  Yes.
• 33:37
  And I remember...
• 33:39
  And I was going back last night, like, finally I'm blocked.
• 33:41
  I'm like, are you on Facebook?
• 33:43
  And I was like, funny you mention that. I'm not.
• 33:45
  But like, I was like going last night.
• 33:47
  You're like, I just got one.
• 33:49
  It's populated with your photos from the last time.
• 33:51
  It went last night.
• 33:53
  You got the camera into this.
• 33:55
  When did you...
• 33:57
  Before this air.
• 33:59
  When did you get a Facebook account though?
• 34:01
  I got a Facebook account.
• 34:03
  Like, I remember my earliest photo last night from there was like, 2010, 2011.
• 34:09
  So that would have been...
• 34:11
  I would have been nine?
• 34:13
  Seven?
• 34:14
  Think about that.
• 34:15
  Nine years old with a Facebook account.
• 34:17
  But wasn't an intimate thing.
• 34:19
  It was pretty cool.
• 34:21
  When you have, okay, so you have only pictures and blocking them.
• 34:23
  Is it a bad thing?
• 34:25
  Because it's like a private thing.
• 34:27
  I was also like a really embarrassing kid.
• 34:29
  Really ages of graphic design with like, pics arts.
• 34:31
  And I found all that.
• 34:33
  And like, Chevron was back in the moustaches.
• 34:35
  I got a...
• 34:37
  Do you have us block on there?
• 34:39
  Can we...
• 34:41
  I'm not on Facebook.
• 34:43
  I'm really on Facebook.
• 34:45
  I'm doing your two older faces.
• 34:47
  I was in digital like, delete an archive last night.
• 34:51
  And I was like, holy shit.
• 34:53
  Like, what was I doing as a child?
• 34:55
  But it was like also like that weird like awkward kind of child thing.
• 34:59
  But when you were saying that,
• 35:01
  I've always took pictures.
• 35:03
  I've always realized like, I'm the person in the room taking pictures.
• 35:07
  So when people took pictures of me,
• 35:09
  I was like, oh, I'm understood.
• 35:11
  Like, people are like wanting to like spend that time on me.
• 35:13
  And I like, with back, like, are saying.
• 35:15
  And I was like, you know, like, I was like, now that I'm like,
• 35:19
  this like cool.
• 35:21
  That was a little arrogant.
• 35:23
  Oh no, she's not being arrogant.
• 35:25
  We all agree.
• 35:27
  But like, now it's like...
• 35:29
  You came into your own.
• 35:31
  I'm trying to build my own brand of like,
• 35:33
  what does that look like for me?
• 35:35
  It's like, I am going to take pictures because it's like in my childhood.
• 35:39
  Like, I remember when I was looking down these pictures last night,
• 35:41
  I was like, oh, this was like the early ages of aesthetics for this child.
• 35:45
  Like, I was like, this is what Tumblr was.
• 35:47
  And now it's like Cosmos and Pinterest.
• 35:49
  But like Tumblr at the time was that for that kid.
• 35:51
  Yeah.
• 35:53
  But yeah, no, there's a lot of like emotions or whatever.
• 35:55
  But I deleted like over 200 pictures last night.
• 35:57
  I don't want to.
• 35:59
  Do you really delete?
• 36:01
  Do you download them?
• 36:03
  Go on.
• 36:05
  I regret that for you.
• 36:07
  Everybody goes to places.
• 36:09
  I was in New York this weekend.
• 36:11
  I'll bring it up six more times before the end of this podcast.
• 36:13
  I went to the Met.
• 36:15
  They've got...
• 36:17
  Thank you so much.
• 36:19
  It's like a bunch of Rafael on exhibit.
• 36:21
  Really?
• 36:23
  And like, obviously you know him for the paintings.
• 36:25
  And the... I'll call them murals.
• 36:27
  They're probably called frescoes or something very fancy.
• 36:29
  But you know what else is on display?
• 36:31
  Is really early like charcoal drawings.
• 36:35
  And like studies watching his craft develop over time.
• 36:39
  And so I...
• 36:41
  It hurts my heart that you went through and deleted that stuff
• 36:43
  because I think that's how you make an artist.
• 36:45
  Well, you've got a point of view.
• 36:47
  Developed over time.
• 36:49
  Here's a counter argument.
• 36:51
  Here's assets of the most valuable.
• 36:53
  So when we have so many photos of so many things,
• 36:55
  they actually become worthless.
• 36:57
  Or maybe I lie.
• 36:59
  When the printing press was invented.
• 37:03
  Illuminated manuscripts skyrocketed in value.
• 37:07
  And printed books became cheap.
• 37:09
  When photography was first started and you were like,
• 37:13
  and you got to stand there for like an hour.
• 37:15
  Yeah, totally.
• 37:17
  Photography was very valuable.
• 37:19
  Now digital cameras...
• 37:21
  We have thousands of pictures.
• 37:23
  We see we take ten of each shot.
• 37:25
  Just case someone blinking.
• 37:27
  Maybe someone's in the wrong face.
• 37:29
  Maybe they're got...
• 37:31
  I went on a world trip around the world.
• 37:33
  That's a good way to say that.
• 37:35
  And I took tons of pictures
• 37:37
  and no one's seen them because I took so many.
• 37:39
  If I had taken one or two or let's say ten.
• 37:43
  Shots that I loved.
• 37:45
  Imagine who would have seen those ten shots.
• 37:47
  Everyone.
• 37:49
  But I have so many, I've been called through them.
• 37:51
  I've gone through and picked the ones that are the best.
• 37:53
  And I think that we're missing out on the scarcity of things.
• 37:57
  So like if you had one picture of you as a child,
• 37:59
  imagine how valuable that photo is.
• 38:01
  Versus the albums that we have of us as children.
• 38:03
  I think I need to put you through an exercise.
• 38:05
  Of curating an Instagram monthly photo dump.
• 38:09
  I think I need to put you through that.
• 38:11
  You should. Take me through it.
• 38:13
  I think I need to put you through it.
• 38:15
  I need capturing different parts of her experiences.
• 38:19
  And so you can't distill that down to one photo.
• 38:21
  But it just, it gets me emotionally.
• 38:23
  It's hard for me to go through all these pictures
• 38:25
  because it's like, I have to grieve that person.
• 38:27
  I don't look at photos a lot.
• 38:29
  Because I live present.
• 38:31
  Maybe I'm not more than enough yet.
• 38:33
  I do wonder if it's like nostalgia compounds over time.
• 38:37
  I mean, you were doing it at seven.
• 38:39
  So maybe that's not true.
• 38:41
  Because here's the thing.
• 38:43
  Because I would still love to see.
• 38:45
  See, I don't have the thing where photos replace my memory.
• 38:49
  I can see a photo from a particular period of my youth.
• 38:53
  And remember all the things that happen that I hold in my heart.
• 38:57
  And the good things about like there's a picture of me and my cousin
• 39:01
  from when we went to Hollywood.
• 39:03
  We were on this like, it was when I was with my church,
• 39:07
  when I was in the church when I was young.
• 39:11
  We did this trip out west.
• 39:13
  We went to Peacacanzis and Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 39:17
  And Las Vegas, Nevada.
• 39:19
  Are you secretly a Mormon?
• 39:21
  Is this where you're trying to tell me?
• 39:23
  No, no, no. We made it all the way to California.
• 39:25
  And we went down California.
• 39:27
  But we stopped in LA.
• 39:29
  We were actually in Hollywood.
• 39:31
  And my cousin and got, and I got into this big fight.
• 39:35
  And there's this picture of him that I still have.
• 39:39
  It's backwards when I look at it.
• 39:41
  There's a picture of him walking towards the charter bus.
• 39:47
  And when I see that photo, I remember all the good things
• 39:51
  and all the bad things that happen on a trip.
• 39:53
  I remember the big fight.
• 39:55
  I remember making out with my cousin
• 39:57
  making up with my cousin.
• 39:59
  Oh, it was about to go down.
• 40:01
  The roots happened all the way.
• 40:05
  Different family lineage.
• 40:07
  Not mine.
• 40:09
  No, making up with my cousin and being good again
• 40:13
  and having so much fun.
• 40:15
  I bet you were good after that.
• 40:17
  So all of us making that.
• 40:19
  So all of the missing memories are still there.
• 40:21
  Like that one photo doesn't replace.
• 40:23
  It didn't lock in like, this is all that happened.
• 40:25
  So I have a different connection with photography.
• 40:27
  Photography is like a slice of a movie.
• 40:31
  That's how I look at it.
• 40:33
  It's like one still from the movie.
• 40:35
  And when I see the still, I remember the whole movie.
• 40:37
  So what's the difference between looking at a photo of a life
• 40:41
  that you've lived and you were present for that moment
• 40:43
  versus getting back to roots,
• 40:45
  looking at photos of your ancestors.
• 40:47
  Or the moments that you weren't there for.
• 40:49
  Does that connect you, you think?
• 40:51
  I think it could.
• 40:53
  I think it could.
• 40:55
  I think it has for me.
• 40:57
  But we don't have pictures of the roots that I want to look into.
• 40:59
  That's the thing. I want those lines maybe.
• 41:01
  It's mysterious.
• 41:03
  My family was not that creative or talented.
• 41:05
  No, I want...
• 41:07
  I am fully fixated.
• 41:09
  I miss the...
• 41:11
  My favorite photos are candid photos.
• 41:13
  And I just went...
• 41:15
  All the photos I have of my relatives from my back
• 41:17
  because cameras were more scarce.
• 41:19
  Yeah, it's like, let's all stand beside this.
• 41:21
  Your grandfather just built this stairwell.
• 41:23
  Let's stand next to it.
• 41:25
  Kind of thing.
• 41:27
  You know, like they find something they were proud of
• 41:29
  and mark the moment that way.
• 41:31
  But I want to see my grandmother in motion.
• 41:33
  There's a photo.
• 41:35
  Oh my god.
• 41:37
  There's a photo of my grandmother
• 41:39
  that I'd never seen.
• 41:41
  I call her my granny.
• 41:43
  It's my dad's mom.
• 41:45
  Every county in North Carolina.
• 41:47
  And she...
• 41:49
  I love this.
• 41:51
  But I didn't find out till she died.
• 41:53
  And she was like this outdoors woman.
• 41:55
  And she loved to hike and fish and hunt.
• 41:57
  And there's this photo of her, like...
• 41:59
  Like on a fishing expedition or something.
• 42:03
  And she's like wearing...
• 42:05
  I don't know if she looks like she don't so far.
• 42:07
  To me, like relative to...
• 42:09
  I love that.
• 42:11
  I was like...
• 42:13
  I connect with this woman.
• 42:15
  I see myself...
• 42:17
  And she seemed so prim and proper.
• 42:19
  And maybe even sometimes prissy when I knew her.
• 42:21
  I spent a lot of time with her as a child.
• 42:23
  And people tell me that I'm like her.
• 42:25
  But I never like saw the full scope of that compliment.
• 42:29
  Until I like started to see these snapshots.
• 42:31
  Slices of her life.
• 42:33
  I'm like...
• 42:35
  How did those make you feel seeing those?
• 42:37
  Thanks for asking, Reggie.
• 42:39
  I have a hard time tapping into that on this podcast.
• 42:43
  Right.
• 42:45
  It made me feel like...
• 42:49
  Almost disconnected in a way.
• 42:51
  I definitely grieved it.
• 42:53
  I mean, it was at a funeral.
• 42:55
  So I was sad to begin with.
• 42:57
  But she was ready to go on.
• 42:59
  She kept telling us she wanted to go be with Julian in heaven.
• 43:01
  But just this feeling of...
• 43:03
  Oh, here's a person I've literally known my whole life.
• 43:05
  This is a person who...
• 43:07
  I believe knew...
• 43:09
  Maybe not didn't know me as an adult, so super well.
• 43:13
  But like, understood my origins in a way that nobody else did.
• 43:17
  Yeah.
• 43:19
  She was definitely...
• 43:21
  She gave us a book that like gives the story of her lineage.
• 43:23
  Like, her people.
• 43:25
  She's very invested. She's doing research.
• 43:27
  My brother got that from her.
• 43:29
  He's big into that kind of thing.
• 43:31
  But it made me a little sad that...
• 43:33
  Here's this person that I thought I...
• 43:35
  You know, not that I knew all her intimate details of her life.
• 43:37
  Like, I felt like I knew her.
• 43:39
  And then discovering that there was all this distance between us that I never closed.
• 43:43
  And it was less about...
• 43:45
  I think my family harps so much on the story of how we got here, you know.
• 43:51
  We've been on this land for however many years.
• 43:53
  And we're proud of that.
• 43:55
  And we've...
• 43:57
  Whatever. But like, the personal stories of who we as individuals are.
• 44:01
  I feel like it kind of lost in that.
• 44:03
  And that's sad.
• 44:05
  And I think we're sharing that.
• 44:07
  I love that you were able to go there.
• 44:09
  I'm feeling way different than I did when I walked into this podcast.
• 44:13
  And that's...
• 44:15
  I am other people than watching this thing.
• 44:17
  I am.
• 44:19
  In terms of photos time...
• 44:21
  I think photos are interesting.
• 44:23
  They can tie you back to roots that you know nothing about.
• 44:25
  Not your own roots, but other people's roots.
• 44:27
  One of the things that comes to mind is my...
• 44:31
  On my wife's side,
• 44:33
  I'm the reunion out in New Jersey every year.
• 44:35
  And when I go...
• 44:37
  They have the...
• 44:39
  The uncles will...
• 44:41
  Uncs will put the projector on and show all these photos from through the decades, through the family.
• 44:49
  And I'll see all these young photos of my wife playing with her cousins when she was young.
• 44:54
  And seeing all these people who I have now come to know in their current state.
• 45:00
  But seeing them when they're young.
• 45:02
  And there's something really remarkable about that.
• 45:06
  Because one, I think it's nice that I'm also hearing stories as people are seeing these photos.
• 45:12
  Oh, yeah, I remember that.
• 45:14
  I was like, so and so did the such and such.
• 45:16
  And somebody split their page like you're hearing all these stories that are bringing these photos to life.
• 45:20
  I don't know if I could ever lose that.
• 45:22
  I'm just hoping on you about...
• 45:24
  But you're thinking about the branches.
• 45:26
  I'm talking about the roots.
• 45:28
  The branches are adjacent to our lives.
• 45:30
  I'm talking about the things that nurture us.
• 45:32
  The things that brought nutrition to our...
• 45:36
  But thinking about the people in those photos that aren't there no longer, that I never got to meet.
• 45:41
  And being able to hear stories about them.
• 45:44
  I am not tracking with branches and roots.
• 45:46
  Are you saying more?
• 45:48
  Usually when someone says they're family tree, it's usually the tree in the branches.
• 45:54
  This goes up this way, this goes up this way.
• 45:56
  The roots is a different story.
• 45:58
  The roots is in the ground.
• 46:00
  It's in the darkness. It's the part that's in the depths.
• 46:02
  The people that are dead, they're in the ground.
• 46:04
  I mean, dead for a long time.
• 46:06
  Like ancient dead.
• 46:08
  So you have to go back generation.
• 46:10
  I'm talking generation.
• 46:12
  I'm talking like people that lived on a tree.
• 46:14
  You're talking about ancestral.
• 46:16
  You're talking about a tree.
• 46:18
  On a branch.
• 46:20
  Well, that's all relative to the relative family tree.
• 46:26
  I mean, it's like you're basing that off of and for good reason.
• 46:30
  I am at this point in time.
• 46:32
  I'm on the tree.
• 46:34
  You're like putting yourself relative.
• 46:36
  It's a web at the end of the day.
• 46:38
  Everybody's connected differently.
• 46:40
  I'm saying when you draw a family tree, where do you start?
• 46:44
  I don't think a question.
• 46:46
  What is branches and what is roots?
• 46:48
  It's kind of...
• 46:50
  I feel roots.
• 46:52
  The way I drew this and I did a meditation on this one time and it came to me.
• 46:56
  He has the answer.
• 46:58
  A tree is a good metaphor.
• 47:00
  I wanted to be a tree.
• 47:02
  I went through this movement where the tree is this thing of stability that is there
• 47:06
  in the rain and in the sun and in the spring and in the winter.
• 47:10
  No matter what it is, it stays.
• 47:12
  It's dead fast.
• 47:14
  It always lives.
• 47:16
  The roots get soggy and then it falls over in the wind.
• 47:18
  That's rare though.
• 47:20
  It's unless there's a big hurricane.
• 47:22
  But even then, there's a time for all of us to die.
• 47:24
  It will soon die.
• 47:26
  And they feed the ecosystem.
• 47:28
  They feed the ecosystem.
• 47:30
  They're constantly creating oxygen.
• 47:32
  So I was really enamored with trees.
• 47:34
  So I was doing this meditation and I just saw everyone's trees.
• 47:38
  And the part on the ground where the root...
• 47:42
  The tree's trunk.
• 47:44
  The trunk goes in.
• 47:46
  That's where we live.
• 47:48
  What goes under the ground is like the quantum field or something that we can't see.
• 47:54
  And it's something that brings us...
• 47:58
  I was not ready.
• 48:00
  That was the far left turn.
• 48:02
  And then it's a realm of possibilities.
• 48:06
  Sometimes when we get into pictures, we see...
• 48:10
  Oh, obviously that's what roots meant.
• 48:12
  Like we should have been talking about the quantum field.
• 48:14
  The quantum field.
• 48:16
  Sorry.
• 48:18
  Photos harness our imagination in the way that makes it hard to imagine.
• 48:22
  Because it's really captured literally.
• 48:26
  It's not a memory.
• 48:28
  It's not a mythical memory.
• 48:30
  Ready Potter.
• 48:32
  Read the books.
• 48:34
  Whole different than watching the movies.
• 48:36
  And now I can't remember what was in my head when I read the books.
• 48:38
  And not so much because pictures lock you into something the way they look,
• 48:42
  the way they dress, the way the error they're in.
• 48:44
  It doesn't have myth.
• 48:46
  Myth is timeless.
• 48:48
  Myth is what makes...
• 48:50
  Myth is what makes us adult in our...
• 48:52
  I did see Deanna Rycliffe this weekend and never really a thing.
• 48:54
  Go on.
• 48:56
  Did you really?
• 48:58
  Oh, really?
• 49:00
  She went to New York.
• 49:02
  How did you bring that in?
• 49:04
  Because I am reeling from how we went to here and I want to keep going.
• 49:10
  Here's the thing.
• 49:12
  So the branches to me are us, our lives, going into the the the air.
• 49:18
  The air is like this, the spiritual world.
• 49:20
  So like the spirit that binds us in our families, in our in our love,
• 49:26
  those are like the branches.
• 49:28
  But the deep endlessness,
• 49:30
  the thing that allows us to connect with the other trees,
• 49:34
  is the mythological imaginative that you and I could be connected at our roots,
• 49:39
  even though you didn't look at pictures of me at this thing.
• 49:42
  Because you're locked into the branches versus the trees that are connected at the root level.
• 49:46
  So our roots could be intertwined.
• 49:48
  Our roots could be definitely intertwined.
• 49:50
  Oh, I love that.
• 49:52
  So there's a nice metaphor.
• 49:54
  I think that you're all connected.
• 49:56
  That's what we are as humans.
• 49:58
  When the astronauts look back at the earth, they're like,
• 50:00
  this is one being.
• 50:02
  Everyone is coming from the same thing.
• 50:04
  The same source.
• 50:06
  So the roots are the thing that make us alive.
• 50:08
  They're not the thing that birthed you.
• 50:10
  They're the thing that makes you alive.
• 50:12
  And it gives you the capacity to connect to something you've never connected with before.
• 50:16
  So it's not like some people grab onto roots and they're like,
• 50:20
  you don't know where I came from.
• 50:22
  Something that's deep south, right?
• 50:24
  Right, right.
• 50:26
  You don't belong here.
• 50:28
  You don't know what it's like to be here.
• 50:30
  All these things, and we form a barrier boundary
• 50:32
  where no one can cross unless they understand you.
• 50:34
  Right.
• 50:36
  And so that's what these photos lock us into these stories
• 50:38
  that we tell ourselves about where we're from.
• 50:40
  But we are actually from something greater than the mother.
• 50:44
  A mother, we're from the mother.
• 50:48
  We're like, inlessness.
• 50:50
  So that's what I guess that's what I'm saying is
• 50:52
  that we are all rooted together.
• 50:54
  And there's something about the thought of a root
• 50:58
  that is different than the thought of a branch.
• 51:00
  A root isn't as affected by wind and storms as a root.
• 51:04
  A branch is really affected, can break, can strip by lightning.
• 51:08
  Totally.
• 51:10
  But you can actually cut a tree down.
• 51:12
  The branches are exposed.
• 51:14
  You can cut a tree down and a new tree will sprout up from its roots.
• 51:16
  They're both life-giving in a different way.
• 51:18
  Oh yeah, but it's like the root has to come from it.
• 51:20
  Right, you get the sun and the air and then the rain
• 51:22
  soaked up from the soil.
• 51:24
  But the soil is completely dark.
• 51:26
  One of the ground is just dead dark.
• 51:28
  One of the ground is just dead dark.
• 51:30
  Photos is this photo of the tree system
• 51:34
  and it shows the roots going deep down in the ground.
• 51:36
  Yeah.
• 51:38
  And the branch is going up into the air
• 51:40
  and it's like a...
• 51:42
  It's a mirror each other.
• 51:44
  And I think that's really cool.
• 51:46
  The roots are, I think,
• 51:48
  locking you into your history and your ancestry in your past
• 51:52
  and your branches are taking you out
• 51:54
  into your exploration of what's possible.
• 51:56
  Well, and I like...
• 51:58
  I can get down with a metaphysical metaphor.
• 52:00
  I like the idea of the roots not only being, you know,
• 52:04
  expeget-y, beget-z, like the beginning of the Bible,
• 52:08
  but also like where we all as life
• 52:12
  kind of source from.
• 52:14
  And like, I don't know how much capacity
• 52:16
  I have to really imagine the full extent of that.
• 52:18
  That's huge.
• 52:20
  Let's take you up to the Bible since you brought it up.
• 52:22
  Jesus' line doesn't go through just men
• 52:24
  as it did in tradition.
• 52:26
  He has, like, two or three women
• 52:28
  in his line of his bloodline.
• 52:30
  I would say he has more than two or three.
• 52:32
  In his bloodline.
• 52:34
  You know, like, trace.
• 52:36
  It's by history.
• 52:38
  I see. Yeah.
• 52:40
  It's like your history.
• 52:42
  The relationship and royal lines.
• 52:44
  Everything is through the male.
• 52:46
  Unless you go to the cultures where it's matriarch.
• 52:48
  But what I'm saying is that the shift there
• 52:52
  is that it isn't just a certain way.
• 52:54
  It changes based on possibilities.
• 52:56
  What's possible?
• 52:58
  Sure. And I think it comes back to me.
• 53:00
  It's so focused also on the voice of the person writing
• 53:06
  or the perspective of the person taking that photo.
• 53:08
  It's like, I don't...
• 53:10
  I think that's the difference between
• 53:12
  the oral tradition that you were talking about earlier,
• 53:14
  like, the songs we all inhabit that.
• 53:16
  I guess somebody wrote the song at the end of the day.
• 53:18
  It's like, I do...
• 53:20
  You were talking about scarcity of media
• 53:22
  making it valuable.
• 53:24
  And I was like, I think that's...
• 53:26
  I think I agree with that for, like, right now.
• 53:28
  But I want the Dylan Garcia archive
• 53:32
  to get dug up one day.
• 53:34
  For somebody to just be like,
• 53:36
  Miracle.
• 53:38
  I've found the original works,
• 53:40
  the unknown artifacts of...
• 53:42
  I think in history, you kind of have to prove
• 53:44
  you were here in some ways.
• 53:46
  So when you talk about
• 53:48
  Expo Gawa, I'd be good to see.
• 53:50
  And I tend to talk circles around me
• 53:52
  when it comes to the Bible.
• 53:54
  But I think it's interesting why the person
• 53:56
  who wrote that down chose to highlight
• 53:58
  certain pieces.
• 54:00
  And I do think we talk about patriarchy
• 54:02
  is just, like, a lens through
• 54:04
  which you might see the world.
• 54:06
  So it makes sense that you would focus
• 54:08
  on the mid and that story
• 54:10
  based on where they're coming from.
• 54:12
  What made the woman noteworthy
• 54:14
  to them to the writer in that moment?
• 54:16
  I don't know.
• 54:18
  I do have an epiphany though.
• 54:20
  I think the reason why those photos
• 54:22
  affect me differently
• 54:24
  I think is generational.
• 54:26
  I think because I'm 54,
• 54:28
  so I've been here long enough
• 54:30
  to where I didn't have Facebook
• 54:32
  and it's the digital collection of photos.
• 54:34
  And so because of that,
• 54:36
  I developed probably a muscle
• 54:38
  that locked me more to my experiences
• 54:40
  than to these physical snapshots of things.
• 54:44
  And I think that maybe that's
• 54:46
  like a practiced thing.
• 54:48
  I got a decade on you,
• 54:50
  two on you, three on you.
• 54:52
  Where I didn't have to lie.
• 54:54
  Yeah, you were telling my story
• 54:56
  where she was using embroidery and stuff.
• 54:58
  Yeah, exactly.
• 55:00
  I've never been all that good.
• 55:02
  Even I definitely don't have a good memory now.
• 55:06
  But I find photos to be helpful
• 55:08
  because there will be parts of my life
• 55:10
  that I completely forgot existed.
• 55:12
  And I'll see a photo and be like,
• 55:14
  oh yeah, I was there.
• 55:16
  That's a piece of what made me.
• 55:18
  And that's kind of a scary thought.
• 55:20
  I was there and I don't even remember it
• 55:22
  until somebody shows me.
• 55:24
  We call this short term Mary.
• 55:26
  God.
• 55:28
  Short, I think the memory is one of the strongest
• 55:30
  and weakest parts of our
• 55:32
  the way we were.
• 55:34
  Double edge order.
• 55:36
  Because there are things that you
• 55:38
  shouldn't remember.
• 55:40
  Things that you need to forget.
• 55:42
  Yeah, well definitely.
• 55:44
  You can always recall every memory.
• 55:46
  It would be a portrait.
• 55:48
  Well, you hear about people who have so much of that.
• 55:50
  And actually, sometimes can become
• 55:52
  such a burden that drives people crazy.
• 55:54
  But I thought, well,
• 55:56
  the less I prioritize memory,
• 55:58
  especially with all these devices that we now have
• 56:00
  that help me with that.
• 56:02
  It's like an accessibility feature
• 56:04
  in my life.
• 56:06
  I don't have to know what day of the months it is.
• 56:08
  I've done that so many times.
• 56:10
  Like May 12th.
• 56:12
  Mary, did you mean April 12th?
• 56:14
  That would be insane.
• 56:16
  That happens to me all the time.
• 56:18
  But what is the value of memory?
• 56:20
  And I think the important memories are the ones
• 56:24
  that I hold in my body and
• 56:26
  memory of emotion and connection to people.
• 56:28
  I don't forget.
• 56:30
  But the dates and the figures and the names
• 56:32
  and the exact storyline,
• 56:34
  the plot of what happened.
• 56:36
  I'm getting a looser and looser grip on it.
• 56:40
  And I think, I don't know,
• 56:42
  Alex and I both have grandparents
• 56:44
  who lost their memory pretty significantly
• 56:46
  as they got older.
• 56:48
  And we have a pact.
• 56:50
  We're like, okay, when we get there,
• 56:52
  we get to our old age where
• 56:54
  when we start to forget things, we get angry.
• 56:56
  And two, let's just have a good time.
• 56:58
  Like, what if you let go of meeting to remember
• 57:00
  and you're just like, we're in the moment
• 57:02
  from and you're like, oh, who's this man?
• 57:04
  He's being so nice to me.
• 57:06
  Let's have a good time.
• 57:08
  Instead of feeling regret
• 57:10
  or letting yourself be so afraid,
• 57:12
  I know you don't have control over all of that.
• 57:14
  But I'm trying to lean into this part of me
• 57:18
  that is naturally there.
• 57:20
  I probably stand to do some more brain teasers.
• 57:22
  Stage sharp.
• 57:24
  But yeah, just like, don't feel bad about it.
• 57:28
  Just be in the moment and carry what you need to carry
• 57:32
  and put down whatever is hard.
• 57:34
  So we've been exploring what roots mean
• 57:36
  to us as people.
• 57:38
  Can a business have roots?
• 57:40
  Can an industry have roots?
• 57:42
  I definitely feel like we're rooted in Asheville.
• 57:44
  Whatever that means.
• 57:46
  Whatever the future holds for us.
• 57:48
  It's such an important part of our story.
• 57:50
  Yeah.
• 57:52
  I think rooted in a place used to be more noticeable.
• 57:56
  You know, like...
• 57:58
  This is that blending thing.
• 58:00
  Yeah, I think that it's now not as...
• 58:04
  I think it will become more powerful
• 58:06
  because it will be scarce to be rooted in a place
• 58:08
  that's that only that place.
• 58:10
  I think when a place is everything,
• 58:12
  people are like, I've been there before.
• 58:14
  I've already been there.
• 58:16
  When you're in a place that's very unique,
• 58:18
  that'll be a valuable thing.
• 58:20
  But I don't think right now,
• 58:22
  businesses have roots.
• 58:24
  But usually they're not interesting.
• 58:26
  So people like us have to make their roots interesting.
• 58:28
  Yeah, you started your business 15 years ago.
• 58:30
  So we like...
• 58:32
  I think we make it grandiose.
• 58:34
  And not that it's false.
• 58:36
  It's just that we tell the story
• 58:38
  in a way that makes it memorable.
• 58:40
  I totally agree we're romanticizing it.
• 58:42
  Especially on hindsight.
• 58:44
  But to go...
• 58:46
  Like, think of the tree.
• 58:48
  That's the definition of the tree.
• 58:50
  You can see in the rings,
• 58:52
  the tree will grow differently in times of drought.
• 58:54
  The tree will grow differently based on what nutrients are in the soil.
• 58:56
  That's a good point.
• 58:58
  And I think that that has an impact
• 59:00
  like the context in which you arrive
• 59:02
  matters.
• 59:04
  And I feel like there are things
• 59:06
  that we maybe feel permission
• 59:08
  to dive into
• 59:10
  that maybe if we were in a different
• 59:12
  competitive environment,
• 59:14
  or if we didn't already have
• 59:16
  lives and connections here in Asheville,
• 59:18
  we wouldn't...
• 59:20
  I just feel like the market informs
• 59:22
  the story more than the business
• 59:24
  and the roots and the story informs the story.
• 59:26
  But don't you think it's because business historically
• 59:28
  has leaned so heavily into the market?
• 59:30
  Like, we're making every choice
• 59:32
  based on what the market tells us we're supposed to do.
• 59:34
  And we're kind of stupid.
• 59:36
  We're not doing as much of that
• 59:40
  and maybe people might think we ought to do.
• 59:42
  Right, you're not telling the story.
• 59:44
  You think people want to hear
• 59:46
  and whether or not you're right,
• 59:48
  I guess, can be determined
• 59:50
  in the data and if it works.
• 59:52
  What if we were to tell stories
• 59:54
  that were really interesting and true?
• 59:56
  We're going to do our best.
• 59:58
  I think that that's the scary thing, right?
• 1:00:00
  It's like owning
• 1:00:02
  what do you put into song
• 1:00:04
  versus what do you let fade away?
• 1:00:06
  Right.
• 1:00:08
  You want to flip it,
• 1:00:10
  flip it, flip it.
• 1:00:12
  And if you're not going to say
• 1:00:14
  that we're going to get
• 1:00:16
  under owned conditions and
• 1:00:18
  which is a part of what we do, like, we know,
• 1:00:20
  we're not difficult economic time right now,
• 1:00:22
  design is often seen as a luxury,
• 1:00:24
  rather than a necessity,
• 1:00:26
  we can have a whole episode on that.
• 1:00:28
  We think in a way that is pretty unconventional
• 1:00:31
  and challenges some norms
• 1:00:33
  and that is not a good thing to be
• 1:00:35
  when people are feeling conservative
• 1:00:37
  But I think that's part. I need a knock on some wood. I think that's part of the
• 1:00:43
  Do you knock? No. Oh good. Okay. That's a more than a more than a knock the better
• 1:00:48
  Yeah, no, no, we got it three times because it can't sell out
• 1:00:52
  Yeah, and all I'm trying to say is I think that we have gotten really boring stories about businesses because the businesses have
• 1:01:00
  Been attending to really boring
• 1:01:02
  You know, and I will say I will say that when I think about businesses having roots
• 1:01:08
  I think about businesses that are rooted in their history like for instance one one business that comes to mind is like
• 1:01:15
  Hickory not got that is generations of farmers
• 1:01:19
  Producing ethically producing but yeah, but they buy they buy meat from other farms now because they scale too big
• 1:01:26
  Yes, oh don't say that I'm just telling you that it's like that it's that quote again
• 1:01:31
  But I'm pretty sure big enough and you start to do that. I would imagine though that there's still or
• 1:01:37
  They saw the values. Yeah, I was gonna say but it's not as they are as a company
• 1:01:40
  They are very values right to in the way they treat their livestock
• 1:01:45
  Has everything to do with the quality and taste of their meat so I can imagine their line in themselves with companies that have similar values
• 1:01:51
  I don't but that said I I think they have done a successful job of tapping into the roots of their
• 1:02:00
  Business and using that as their
• 1:02:02
  Feel good story. I'll try to be quick
• 1:02:05
  But I worked at this company called George P Johnson. They're huge experiential marketing company
• 1:02:10
  Oh, yeah, they laid me off right around COVID because events looked really different in 2020 or 2021 and
• 1:02:18
  I remember part of their onboarding
• 1:02:20
  This is something that I would love to see every company do a lot part of their onboarding was I had to sit down and watch
• 1:02:25
  Well, nobody was looking over my shoulder, but I thought it was fun to watch a little five-minute video about how the company came to be
• 1:02:31
  And the very beginning of this huge experiential marketing company global
• 1:02:37
  Probably at least tens of thousands of employees. They probably staff up for events and it's in the hundreds of thousands
• 1:02:43
  Headquarters in multiple continents. They do huge trade shows like IBM think they do the I forget the name of the Google one
• 1:02:53
  They're like constantly in the mix. They're turning over easily a billion dollars of business here
• 1:02:59
  They started in I want to say Detroit and they
• 1:03:03
  Started as a bunting company. Doesn't anybody even know what bunting is anymore?
• 1:03:07
  It's like the drapery that you put on the front of a stage. Yes around you'll see it around like the fourth of July
• 1:03:16
  Yeah, and before that they made flags
• 1:03:19
  They were flag making and bunting come like they made flags and they they saw an opportunity to make
• 1:03:25
  Yeah, right so they were like oh, we can take this fabric thing that we're doing and make bunting and get people excited
• 1:03:30
  And then they were in the event space and they're like oh, there's more people want other things and they happen to be
• 1:03:35
  At there were the automotive industry was getting propped up. It's over a hundred years old
• 1:03:39
  This company so it was so cool to see the origin story of this thing that I'm now involved in and see how one
• 1:03:46
  There's this culture of like innovation. We
• 1:03:49
  Talk about the market like we flow through the market. They weren't like oh, there's an insight here about the automotive industry
• 1:03:55
  They're like there's an opportunity
• 1:03:56
  Should we be bold and just try it and they did have the data?
• 1:04:00
  We have yeah, and they did it again and then they formed relationships and as those companies grew they grew so it's
• 1:04:06
  When you start to look at it that way it starts to feel like oh and my route reached out and found another route and we connected
• 1:04:12
  And that's that's those dark roots of possibilities
• 1:04:16
  But I want to know if you think brand routes matter like when you look for brands that you like well, I was thinking
• 1:04:24
  Man, I remember like Nike was like my first like die hard like brand. I like yeah
• 1:04:31
  Athlete like everybody's an athlete. I remember that do you know when you go to Dix and they're like talking about customers
• 1:04:36
  They call us all athletes. Yeah, okay. Sorry. I'm sorry that I'm no stolen valor
• 1:04:41
  When I walk into dick sporting
• 1:04:44
  Everyone's an athlete. Sorry. Go ahead guys. It's happy
• 1:04:48
  No, I just remember like
• 1:04:51
  My parents are like die hard on brands and like when the brands that like we use like put out like a hype real
• 1:04:58
  Or like propaganda and like oh, I'm a part of this like I feel very seen which maybe is a little delusional
• 1:05:05
  No, I think it's awesome when the Helene when the Helene car heart like video came out
• 1:05:11
  My dad was in that video
• 1:05:13
  Yeah, and so I was like
• 1:05:16
  It's us like yeah, so like I feel like some deep roots was just like some personal brands
• 1:05:22
  Granted they're probably doing some like very sick shit, but like like bad
• 1:05:26
  I mean like probably treating employees bad, but
• 1:05:28
  There is like
• 1:05:30
  But they've invested in you they've invested in me somehow like whether it's like was it their marketing then
• 1:05:36
  Invested in you that everyone's that that help you become an athlete. No, okay, it was just like
• 1:05:41
  When you put a piece of clothing on it's like the kind of swagger. Yeah, I think I really heavily with brand with like clothing right now
• 1:05:47
  Just because like I'm not
• 1:05:50
  That's what I'm a really die hard about his brands. It makes me a little snobby, but like brands of clothing like
• 1:05:55
  I remember like certain feelings by these kind of certain clothes
• 1:06:00
  And we've got some roots like my mom primarily shopped it like Eddie Bauer
• 1:06:05
  So I remember like the vibe of that and like I think those are my early recollections of like die hard rooted
• 1:06:11
  Like brands. I like that. You're making the roots your roots with the brand versus the brands roots. Yeah
• 1:06:18
  Yeah, that's it's such a cool perspective. I like that. I was I was immediately going to like the
• 1:06:22
  How do we give this brand root so people can
• 1:06:26
  The origin story, but it was a it was a personal rooting in those brands. Yeah
• 1:06:30
  And I also have like just very early memories of like I'd either go to tractors apply with my dad
• 1:06:36
  And like that would be like our fun little shopping experience and then like my grandmothers they were
• 1:06:42
  Very shopping oriented very clothing oriented
• 1:06:45
  So I remember being like a very young kid and just like seeing them try stuff on and like how they felt when they came out of like the fitting room
• 1:06:54
  And I was like, oh I was like, oh this is like what something here
• 1:06:57
  This is like what the brand does to the personality or like how it like morphs together
• 1:07:02
  So when you guys were talking I was like my earliest memory of like jeans was like American Eagle jeans at least
• 1:07:08
  You do yeah, like yeah
• 1:07:11
  My parents took me for Christmas one time
• 1:07:14
  We didn't get clothes on normal times like normal kids because we weren't that rich
• 1:07:18
  So we got clothes for Christmas
• 1:07:20
  That's where we got new clothes. Yeah, and they took us to American Eagle and bought us all these clothes
• 1:07:23
  They're way too big
• 1:07:27
  Like jeans had American Eagle. They did make me feel so I'm still buying American Eagle jeans
• 1:07:33
  Yeah, I like 22 and my earliest memory was like when I was like 10 or 12 by the American Eagle
• 1:07:38
  Genes of my mom. There's something about that like we are now deep enough into the commercialized
• 1:07:45
  Whatever in America where like you can love a brand that your mom loved you can love a brand that you're
• 1:07:50
  Like die at home, right?
• 1:07:52
  No, don't even say die code from the show. I love die code, but you like it. I love
• 1:07:58
  See I'm a full sugar girl. I get a regular
• 1:08:03
  When die code was cool, and then you could you but you had to drink that code because you're trying to lose weight all the time
• 1:08:08
  Yeah, so when you're like, oh die codes out we can drink real code
• 1:08:12
  Yeah, this is good. You know how yesterday? I had a real phanta in the bottle. Oh
• 1:08:19
  Your original. Yeah, so good when I was in Rwanda. I drank those every day. So good
• 1:08:26
  I was thinking about a company. I just wanted to give a shout out to another company
• 1:08:30
  I had a really interesting segue like you were the company that you would work for
• 1:08:36
  Astro shoes you know, they're known for they
• 1:08:39
  Wide wide-to-shoes
• 1:08:43
  Astro like I guess they are kind of a wider toe box, but what's so nice? They're like really they have the like zero draw
• 1:08:50
  Right super early on that you can climb over wet rocks and stuff with them
• 1:08:54
  Which I love outdoorsy, but what's great about them is they started off as a life jacket company like life jacket
• 1:09:01
  That's cool. Yeah, yeah, so they're a pivot. They did a whole pivot like that. What would you even say?
• 1:09:07
  I was just interesting how she brought up clothes to as as
• 1:09:10
  Where she's finding her love of brands her connection to brand because I will
• 1:09:16
  commonly tell clients that the brand what people think about brand now is
• 1:09:22
  Basically just the clothing on a person. So imagine the entity is really the brand the clothing is like the last part of the brand that
• 1:09:30
  Gives it the style
• 1:09:32
  You know, it gives it the thing that helps it walk into a room and feel a certain way or blend in with a certain proud
• 1:09:37
  And so I think it's interesting to that we've come all the way to the surface
• 1:09:43
  From like these deep rooted
• 1:09:45
  Memories and we talked about photos a lot. It's interesting to me because roots doesn't relate to photos except that it helps us remember
• 1:09:52
  But roots is such a deeper
• 1:09:56
  It's very values like when you say
• 1:09:58
  Yeah, values it's like something it's a reason you live
• 1:10:03
  It's just a memory of a black and white photo of your grandparents when they were young
• 1:10:07
  Mm-hmm
• 1:10:07
  But when I went to this party with my grandma, I was like I saw
• 1:10:11
  large part of my family that I have to
• 1:10:15
  Make myself feel close to and I do that so that I can feel close to them because I don't live with them
• 1:10:20
  You know, you know, we live out of touch with our with our roots and so but I know them
• 1:10:26
  And I know they know me and I know we come from a similar place. So I'm like just open myself even though this feels strange
• 1:10:31
  Yeah, like it does it reunions. Yeah, you know that feeling
• 1:10:35
  But there's this like we've come from this deep
• 1:10:39
  Values rooted why do we live to the surface like what is what are the leaves on our tree, you know?
• 1:10:45
  Like what is the clothing? What if our what if we
• 1:10:49
  Allow our roots to play a bigger role with who we are today and what we seek out
• 1:10:55
  You can change your hair and you can change your clothes, but you'll always find your way back home
• 1:10:59
  And you having a really fashionable grandma like I love that you have this connection to your roots through fashion
• 1:11:07
  Her grandma that worked for a moment, which is really bad. Met Monday met Monday
• 1:11:12
  And it's okay to not remember your roots and not to be able to see them. You're still taking nutrients up
• 1:11:18
  Through the roots. Yeah, it's if there's like an openness to take that nutrients up
• 1:11:22
  It's almost like I have been trained to receive certain things
• 1:11:26
  Because of how my ancestors received certain things and I can work with that or against that
• 1:11:31
  But there's stuff that I wouldn't think feeds me in the way that it does and I think coming
• 1:11:39
  Geographically coming home to Western North Carolina
• 1:11:43
  Opens those things up again things that you were like, oh, I wasn't getting fed this way
• 1:11:48
  When I lived in other places, but being here. I joke like I go somewhere else and you can see a lot of beauty in a lot of different places
• 1:11:55
  But I come home and I'm like this is what the land is supposed to look like these mountains are
• 1:12:00
  Perfection to me and it matters where we are
• 1:12:04
  It doesn't matter where you live you can work online. I'll say bullshit
• 1:12:08
  Matters where you are places feel different
• 1:12:10
  Everybody wants to be rooted in a local
• 1:12:13
  Absolutely. Yeah, even if you have to pretend it for a little while
• 1:12:16
  Yeah, yeah connection like to find that like you belong somewhere roots equal connection
• 1:12:23
  I love that
• 1:12:24
  Guys, I know these people need to get to work. Somebody's probably just lingering in their car going guys just wrap it up
• 1:12:30
  I thought you were talking about us. Yeah, I was like
• 1:12:34
  I'm talking about our audience
• 1:12:36
  I was like you know the calling to wrap up this episode on photographs. I mean
• 1:12:45
  Did you put photographs in there maybe this is why you're a photographer
• 1:12:49
  We can see in a minute or whatever we want nobody's like guarding the trash can
• 1:12:55
  We'll come in tomorrow and Tim will have watered up like 30 topics
• 1:13:01
  Want him feel
• 1:13:03
  Guys, thanks for we know you could spend your time doing any number of things. Thanks for spending it with us. We'll see you next time
• 1:13:09
  Love you
• 1:13:10
  All how sweet you love people I do
• 1:13:13
  I do I work with Claude to like write shit and I'm like more tender with more love
• 1:13:23
  Thanks for listening this podcast was created and developed by our hosts
• 1:13:28
  Reggie Tedwell, Tim Sprogs, Mary Green and Dylan Garcia
• 1:13:33
  Produced by me Mary Green
• 1:13:35
  Live production and editing by Will Candy
• 1:13:38
  Graphic designed by Dylan Garcia and set designed by Megan Sprogs
• 1:13:43
  Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 hearts
• 1:13:48
  creators of enduring value
• 1:13:58
  You
• 1:14:28
  You
• 1:14:58
  You