Latest / That Old Trope with Nathaniel Kressen / One Man's Treasure is Another Man's Trash

Transcript

One Man's Treasure is Another Man's Trash · That Old Trope with Nathaniel Kressen

1:28
I picked a piece of trash off the sidewalk today.
1:35
This is not an unusual thing for me.
1:37
And by the way, welcome to another episode of that Old Trope with Nathaniel Kressen.
1:43
I am your Nathaniel.
1:48
This episode I'm having a difficulty with.
1:51
I'm having a difficulty with it because I have made a pledge to you, fair listener, to be true rather than clever.
1:57
I've made a pledge to myself to be true rather than clever.
2:02
And yet, this is an age of being.
2:08
I'm in an age of being now after having been in an age of becoming, not dealing with divorcing of self, disassociating from self.
2:20
And now I'm just here.
2:23
I'm just here.
2:25
I'm doing my thing.
2:26
I have stripped away a little bit, a very, very surface level bit of myself that needs to be the creator and the caretaker and whatever other number of roles I take on to identify myself and make sense of
2:44
the world and connect with other people and connect with myself.
2:50
I'm examining all those roles and I'm seeing what's left.
2:56
What's left is me, obviously.
2:59
And in this age of being rather than becoming, I find myself kind of like a responsibility muppet, where I am silly and flirtatious and gregarious sometimes, then I'm moody as fuck and a hermit other times.
3:23
Sometimes I don't want to deal with people.
3:26
Sometimes I want to be alone.
3:28
Sometimes I want to think, sometimes I want to dwell.
3:31
Sometimes I want to be all fussy and pick things apart until I get sick of that process and move the fuck on.
3:40
This process is not foreign to me.
3:44
This has been happening as long as I can remember.
3:48
In some ways, I don't know if this is a thing with ptsd, but I can't really remember.
3:55
I can't really remember what I was like before the fire next door.
4:02
I know that people in my orbit, people in my life right now, remember who I was before the fire, and they liked who I was, and they remind me of who I was.
4:13
And I can look at things like data sets and photos and videos and experiences and remember.
4:19
Okay, okay.
4:21
I think I have a sense of who I was, But I don't remember it.
4:31
I really only remember right now and today.
4:35
And I don't know if that's a product of doing so much work that it changes the framing of one's psyche.
4:46
But I'll tell you what.
4:47
Today is.
4:48
Today I picked a giant piece of trash off the side of the street.
4:52
This is not foreign to me.
4:53
I am one to have sourced things while Walking around and seeing the serendipity and the potential of all the things.
4:59
But this one, this one, well, a continuation of the same is different.
5:07
Flying Dog, Double Dog ipa.
5:09
It makes you burp, but it makes you sing.
5:15
This piece of giant trash was a few days coming.
5:19
And the working title that I have on this outline in front of me is At a Cadence yet to Be Determined.
5:24
At a Cadence, yet to Be Determined.
5:27
And let me tell you what that means before I get to the trash.
5:33
Let me give you the treasure before I give you the trash.
5:40
I am a dude with big appetites and big ambitions who also likes sometimes to simply be small and look at trees and look at ants climbing over the new backyard.
5:56
Loungey chairs, pool chairs sourced from a local hotel Indigo.
6:01
That was throwing them out along with the cushions, and they're a little broken, but they are by all means usable.
6:08
Those are now in my backyard.
6:09
That was another piece of trash that got sourced probably a week and a half, two weeks ago.
6:14
Feels like they've always been there.
6:19
If you need a Weber grill, I am selling mine cheap.
6:23
Not only do I need to do so because new building insurance requires charcoal grill, charcoal gas grills to not be in the vicinity, but I haven't grilled since becoming a vegetarian.
6:40
Really?
6:41
Maybe once as a group gathering.
6:42
But if you want a Weber grill, drop a.
6:46
Drop a thing in the comments or something.
6:47
I don't know, find us on Instagram.
6:50
It is going cheap and I want more room for these pool chairs in order to lounge out and look at ants.
7:00
So in this age of being, in this age of freedom and actualization, I am coming to terms with some things, like the time that it takes things to evolve, the time it takes things to happen.
7:16
I am coming to terms with what it is to be.
7:18
The responsibility.
7:19
Muppet.
7:21
To be gregarious, to be ambitious, to be.
7:26
To be.
7:27
To be.
7:28
And then those moments when I wish not to be.
7:32
There's one thing that happened this past week.
7:35
This past week we went live with a new show from Jack and Paralope.
7:38
It's called I have Mono.
7:42
I have Mono is about actors.
7:45
The weird, weird life that actors lead, the weird, weird reasons why people become actors.
7:52
And it's quite sensitive and heartfelt and all this stuff.
7:54
And a lot of these interviews I've done like a while ago.
8:00
In my estimation, in my frame of thinking.
8:05
When I start a project, I want to be fully realized and fully what it needs to be as soon as humanly possible.
8:11
That's what success looks like to a certain Part of me, and I'm divorcing myself from that part.
8:17
I'm divorcing myself from that part that needs immediacy and quickness in order to gauge something successful.
8:25
I'm instead grounding into what it means to take my time, truly take my time.
8:32
Even when it means stepping away.
8:35
Even when it means stepping away from a canvas.
8:38
There's that old adage where a king commissions an artist to paint him a mural, a portrait, whatever, a giant ass thing.
8:50
He commissions this artist and you know, a month goes by and he sends, you know, a little messenger down and he says, hey, we're just checking on the thing.
9:03
He's like, it's coming along.
9:06
Another month goes by, another messenger trip, come on down.
9:11
Hey, we're just checking in.
9:13
Is it coming along?
9:14
It's like, yeah, it's going great.
9:17
It's.
9:17
It's not ready yet, but it will be.
9:20
Months go by, a year goes by.
9:25
You know what?
9:26
Not just one year.
9:28
Multiple years are going by.
9:30
Ten years go by, A decade goes by that this artist has said, yes, it's coming along, it's going great.
9:38
And finally, on the anniversary, the 10 year anniversary of this commission, the messenger comes down and he by now has lived a fucking life.
9:48
He has kids, he has a mortgage.
9:50
He's not just reporting to the king anymore.
9:52
He's got a whole lot of responsibility.
9:54
And this fucking thing, this to do list on his list to get this piece from this artist and just give it to the king.
9:59
It has been weighing on him.
10:01
He's an ambitious motherfucker too.
10:02
He has things on his plate.
10:04
And this fucking artist has not given him the painting.
10:10
So he goes down, he says, it's been 10 years.
10:14
It's been 10 years.
10:14
And he's rehearsed this with his wife, by the way.
10:16
He's had his kids listen to it.
10:18
Everybody is on board with this little soliloquy that this messenger has.
10:22
It's his moment.
10:22
He's going to get this painting.
10:25
He comes in and he tells this artist everything that he has rehearsed.
10:30
And the artist just kind of looks at him and turns around, leads him into his studio.
10:35
And they're standing is a giant blank canvas.
10:45
The artist gestures to the messenger to sit on down and the messenger does.
10:51
He gets a fruit juice.
10:53
And the artist proceeds over the next three hours to not just sketch, not just layout, not just find out the composition, the contrast, the light and dark, the color schemes.
11:05
Nothing.
11:08
Just about process.
11:09
He builds the fucking painting there.
11:13
He emerges three hours later from his artistic Induced stupor.
11:20
And there is a brilliant fucking painting.
11:25
And the messenger who you know, we love our messenger.
11:30
We love our messengers in life.
11:33
But not all of them are with it.
11:34
Not all of them can disco.
11:36
Some of them are smooth jazz.
11:38
He of course, says, are you kidding me?
11:43
I've been coming here month after month for 10 years and you just painted it in three hours?
11:51
The artist says, no, I painted it in 10 years.
11:59
So what do we learn from this story?
12:07
There will always be things that make us want success as soon as humanly possible.
12:19
But you know what?
12:27
This piece of trash, this piece of trash that I'm talking to you about now, while the giant's foot weighs overhead, this piece of trash is a 9 foot by 3 foot metal frame braced on all sides.
12:41
I imagine it's probably framing for a side of a building inside the wall and whatnot.
12:46
It has little brackets, for lack of a better term, through which holes on each side all along all the four sides.
12:55
And I'm looking at this and my mind goes to all the things I've walked by on the sidewalk that I was wondering, can I use that to stretch canvas?
13:04
Can I use that to stretch canvas?
13:05
I want to work big.
13:06
Can I use that to stretch canvas?
13:08
I passed something the other day that was basically the same exact size of this, but built flimsy.
13:13
And I was like, maybe I can use that to frame out wood.
13:16
Do I really want to take some of the wood out of the basement that's this long ass wood and saw it to size, Embrace that in any ways.
13:22
And just this would frame out the corners.
13:25
It's good.
13:25
But I mean, like, do I want another project right now?
13:29
So I didn't take that trash, I didn't take other trash.
13:34
And then this thing emerged.
13:36
And while we're on the subject of trash and treasure, quick plug for growl.
13:44
Honey, the song Tiny tin can living room.
13:47
The opening refrain goes, Jesus rash.
13:54
Jesus rash.
13:57
Got myself hung up on a Jesus rash.
14:01
One man's treasure is another man's trash.
14:08
I have had some engagements with trash and Treasure not so long ago, perhaps last summer.
14:16
Was it that recent?
14:18
Last spring, maybe there was a moment where a local bar here in Williamsburg begins with an R.
14:28
It's by the bqe.
14:30
It's pretty as an outdoor area.
14:32
They completely redid their outdoor seating with this corrugated plexi and long beams of wood to make their outdoor area.
14:42
And it was fucking glorious.
14:43
And they took that down and they put up a different one.
14:45
And this corrugated plexi was sitting on the Ground I may note while walking with my cocker spaniel.
14:53
I went home, I got rope, I got my work gloves and I went over and I tied the fuck out of that together so it was a doable package so that I could carry it.
15:02
You know, What I did, I carried, was heavy as fuck.
15:08
It was heavy as fuck.
15:10
I actually, God forbid, I took a break on the way home.
15:15
I took a break on the way home and wondered just why I have to do this to myself.
15:22
I took a break on the way home with giant ass corrugated plexi.
15:27
Probably, I have to say, probably eight foot lengths.
15:31
And each of them individually feels flimsy and light.
15:34
But you stack about 12 of those fuckers, 20 of those fuckers, I don't know how many I tied up, but you stack them up.
15:40
That shit is heavy.
15:43
And as much as I like doing my pull ups and my push ups and all that shit, it's fucking heavy.
15:50
But I carried it home and I put it in my backyard and you know what happened?
15:55
It stayed there.
15:57
I had illusions, I had images.
15:59
And now that I think about it, I think that was about a year and a half ago.
16:02
I think it was either in fall or springtime.
16:05
It was not summer.
16:08
I had grand ambitions to build a backyard trellis built out of salvage wood or whatever, maybe some pallets, some string lights, some corrugated plexi roofing.
16:23
I thought I could make a whole outdoor area, a whole lounge area that's protected from the elements, but how to brace it against the snow.
16:28
I'm thinking through all these things and meanwhile the corrugated plexi is sitting there, it's just sitting there and it's taking up a giant ass amount of space in my backyard.
16:38
Months go by, months go by before I come to a very simple conclusion.
16:49
In an age where at that point was very much becoming, was growing out of depression and moving into something brighter, into owning, truly owning my own responsibility over happiness and sadness, my own say, my own voice and how
17:07
things go and not putting it on others, not putting it on societal things or systemic things, not putting my piece, not exporting my piece, not outsourcing my piece to anyone other than myself, taking responsibility over it.
17:26
I realized this thing has taken up.
17:30
You know, I have a pretty good sized backyard.
17:32
I'd say it's taking up about 10% of the back seating area overall, about 20% of the backyard.
17:39
That's this pile of plexi that I do not know how to use yet, that I don't have the lumber to put up anywhere.
17:51
This plexi needs to go.
17:55
I need to take out the trash to make room for the treasure.
18:05
So I did.
18:07
After hauling that giant ass load on a long fucking walk, we're talking about probably a mile and a half giant ass load.
18:17
I just months later said, know what?
18:22
It's time to get rid of this to make something, make room for something better.
18:27
And my backyard is better for it.
18:29
I do have a trellis and it's open air and it's just using an old camping tarp tent, you know, one of those giant 8 foot by 8 foot things with the legs into different planters so that they're secure.
18:40
I now have red honeysuckle and blackberries going over the top of it, leaving certain areas open so they can see the sky more easily.
18:48
It's the best view of the sky and I don't want to block that.
18:54
So knowing in myself this love for the potential of trash that I might find, I am also bringing to that equation discernment.
19:07
I'm bringing in discernment because I don't want to fill my place with trash.
19:12
And at the same time, when I have brought discernment, I now have two pool chairs out back.
19:18
I have two tables out back.
19:20
I have four chairs out back, actually, eight chairs out back, all different kinds.
19:25
And they fit the space and they look beautiful.
19:29
I have found these things, not to mention two giant S branches, one of which was taken off, you know, the tree out back.
19:36
The tree trimmers did a great job.
19:38
They really cared about it.
19:41
And another one that I hauled from, you know, another mile and a half away, which is about a 13 foot fucker.
19:48
Not that heavy though.
19:52
All that's back there in the backyard.
19:53
You know what it feels like?
19:56
It feels airy.
19:57
It feels like home.
19:59
It feels calm, it feels joyful.
20:01
It feels like a Zen garden a little bit.
20:04
I also have a bench, but the bench is broken and I want a better bench.
20:07
So I'll take out that trash soon and get kind of like a metal thing, like a wrought iron thing that feels like a good garden bench for two people, three people, whatever.
20:20
So this past week I went live with another show here called I have Mono about actors.
20:28
I've had some of these interviews in the can for a while.
20:30
And it's actually been kind of a weird process to go back and listen to the conversations because some of them date back to when I was doing family care things while my sister was in the hospital or recently
20:41
back from the hospital.
20:45
They were still reflective of me becoming.
20:50
I guess I'm still Becoming or whatever.
20:52
But as much as something for an introspective fellow like me can feel like being and just arriving, that's where I'm at right now.
20:59
I'm embracing the trope.
21:01
I was listening to ZZ Top and that transition to Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and some band that I here, I don't want to look at my phone right now.
21:10
But there was an incredible song from the 70s, like 71 that I had never heard before that just felt incredibly like, how have I not heard this before?
21:24
I'm listening to all the songs that a middle aged white dude would and I'm loving it.
21:30
And I'm working in the backyard with my shirt off and I'm cleaning this giant ass metal frame that's 9ft by 3 foot that I'm going to stretch canvas over because this is the thing that I've been looking for.
21:40
I want to work big.
21:41
I want to work on a big scale.
21:43
I'm working on a big painting right now that literally two nights ago I stretched via just thumbtacks into my hallway wall.
21:49
And that's probably like a cubic yard.
21:53
A painting that I've already sketched out that I sketched first in my line grid notebook about six months ago, nine months ago.
22:03
But now's the moment.
22:05
Now I ended up at my favorite art supply store, Arts and Craftsman in Williamsburg.
22:10
Shout out to them.
22:17
It was the moment for me to find this trash and me the moment to make this painting over there.
22:22
And everything adds to something.
22:25
I am not pushing, I'm just acknowledging.
22:35
So Eye of Mano is going live.
22:38
Has gone live.
22:41
There are more interviews that I have not yet edited as of recording this podcast.
22:47
And I'm saying that future episodes will be released, you know, at a cadence yet to be determined.
22:54
Because I want them to be really fucking good.
22:58
And at a cadence yet to be determined is becoming an unofficial mantra for Jack Annoyed Paralope.
23:04
Because I want things to be really fucking good and I'm already taking a long ass time to make them.
23:09
I also have interviews recorded for a small business entrepreneurship podcast called Local Fire.
23:16
Have a couple in the can for there.
23:18
One for Human Head Records, a neighbor and friend named Steve Smith who owns who co owns Human Head.
23:27
And that's a great conversation.
23:29
We get along great.
23:31
And then a lovely person named Allison who owns Perennials, which is a killer plant shop halfway between here and Greenpoint.
23:40
And I want to talk about Perennials for a second because growing season, you know, is well underway.
23:46
And I had Hoped to get her interview out in time that people could proactively go and grab stuff from her as opposed to something like Home Depot or, you know, Ace Hardware or Agway or something else like that.
23:59
I was back upstate recently, coming back from another trip, and I saw all the local hardware shops and garden shops that I used to go to when I had my land.
24:13
Things have a way of panning out that we are kind of along for the ride with.
24:19
It doesn't mean that we don't own our joy.
24:21
It doesn't mean that we don't own our outcomes.
24:23
It just means that there are different components to respond to at any given moment.
24:27
And the more that we can tune in honestly to what it is that's happening, what it makes us feel, what it is we want out of a situation, what it is that we care about with others, want to
24:39
show up for when we need to retreat, when we need to say no, or, you know, a version of no.
24:49
Like perhaps yes, but not just yet, or perhaps yes if it feels true in the time it's meant to feel true.
24:57
That's kind of being the responsibility.
24:59
Muppet is going along on this silly hippity hoppity bumpy ride saying, heck yes, let's see.
25:11
So I really wanted to get this focus on Perennials because we had a lovely conversation about just like life and just journey, just personal journey and owning one's own, you know, truly owning one's own well being.
25:29
As far as I know, she doesn't have a safety net.
25:31
She owns her own business.
25:32
She works.
25:33
She fucking works.
25:35
This person Allison, who owns perennials here in Brooklyn, and.
25:41
And no one is making us do this.
25:44
We could take an easy road.
25:46
We could use our skill sets and get paid to do something.
25:50
I'm sure we both have.
25:51
I'm sure we all have.
25:55
And this is the only life we got.
25:59
Whatever, you know, cliche you want to throw at this.
26:02
But I'm now in an age where I know what I want and I'm able to do it.
26:11
So doing something opposite than that kind of feels spiky and kind of feels wrong.
26:17
So it's up to me whether or not I fully embrace it or not.
26:20
It's up to me to consider what real success is.
26:24
It's not immediacy.
26:25
There's another adage I'll quote, which is things can be.
26:30
They can be fast, they can be cheap, and they can be good.
26:36
You can have two of the three, you can't have all three.
26:40
And I dare say I would choose to do it cheap and good, fast.
26:47
By anybody else's standards, looking from the outside right now, I think probably what I'm doing feels like a good track of success.
26:55
It feels like I have four shows now under my company banner, and it's really me pushing on them.
27:01
I have two more, three more, whatever it is, that would not be that hard to get off the ground, but they need to get off the ground in the time that they need to get off the ground in.
27:11
I would love money flowing in, but is that the thing?
27:16
No, it's not the thing.
27:24
So I hit capacity the other week and I forced myself to slow down.
27:28
And I've talked in little bits in different ways, hinting at this, but this idea of staying small and letting things evolve and letting things discover what they are before committing or pushing whole hog or outsourcing and paying people
27:43
to do things I can do myself if I only took more time and that being the right road.
27:48
Because I have a vision for what this is.
27:49
I have a vision for what the artistic integrity and the success on an artistic level is.
27:55
So why not take it?
27:57
Because nobody's pushing me to move faster.
27:59
I'm already doing the thing.
28:01
I'm doing the thing, and my time is my thing.
28:10
So there's this other element of here, which is the personal journey behind it, the trusting that calm is okay, but trusting that activation is not the same as fulfillment.
28:27
My therapist put something in words that meant something to me and got my mind working, which is.
28:34
I have had a life of extreme.
28:37
You can add plural to that if you want, but it's just been an extreme life.
28:42
The way I was raised, the things that have happened in my life, it's been extreme.
28:53
When she said that, it helped me trust that maybe calm is okay.
28:58
Maybe it's not a loss of something essential in my life.
29:01
If I feel calm, if I'm not constantly driving and outsourcing my value to what I get done, what I can do for other people, what I can create.
29:18
Maybe it's okay to just be.
29:21
It is okay to just be.
29:32
If I want calm, it's there and it's on me to create an infrastructure and a framework around it to protect it.
29:43
But also it's okay to just be and just deal with things that they come and know that sometimes, like I said in the last episode, I think sometimes it's a shitty day and the best joy that can be
29:55
found is just gratitude for how it was handled.
30:02
But in sketching out Calm, I'd like to share a little story.
30:10
I Have trouble scheduling days for myself that don't include workathons or sexy time or whatever.
30:18
It's hard for me to take time just to embrace calm on my own without any deliverables.
30:32
And thankfully, this past weekend, I scheduled myself a beach trip.
30:42
I woke early, walked my dog, gave her some snacks, and drove on out of the city to a state park that I will not name because I'm going to tell you something and want to keep it to me.
30:59
I brought my camp chair, and I brought some goodies, and I hiked a little bit to the extreme edge of where people basically were.
31:16
It was not a hot, hot day.
31:17
It was a cloudy, cloudy day.
31:19
But in this new painting, I have underway in this new painting, I have underway in my hallway, pinned up to the wall, stretched out, that I sketched in my notebook.
31:31
However, many months ago, I'd been dreaming about clouds.
31:35
And the night before, I had woke up in the middle of the night and kind of sketched a little bit in terms of some other figures.
31:40
But thinking about what are the clouds that are approaching the background?
31:42
I started looking up El Greco, and I started looking up Salvador Dali, because there are elements of both in this.
31:48
The entire painting, to me, is kind of inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
31:53
That story where the angel falls down, little bit, it's a different scene.
31:57
There's different.
31:57
Like, there's a different story happening.
31:59
But the idea of the celestial and the human coming together in a very dramatic way, that's what I'm painting.
32:12
And I've been dreaming about clouds.
32:18
And the clouds over the water were the exact clouds I was looking for.
32:21
And I was just watching them, thinking about how would I paint them?
32:25
How would I paint them?
32:25
Where's the patterns?
32:27
What are the patterns in this?
32:29
I went on a walk.
32:31
I had my moment there looking at clouds, and I went in the water.
32:34
And I was told not to, you know, swim in the exact spot that I was swimming because it was a little bit out there.
32:39
And other people might have ideas.
32:42
This is in no way metaphorical.
32:45
And so I played nice and I waited more shallow.
32:51
Still got my water fixed, still got my cloud fix, had my freedom.
32:54
And then knowing that I wasn't gonna go any deeper, just then, I was gonna find some nuance and some calm right there.
33:00
I walked off the beaten path and went on a walk.
33:05
I walked until there were no more people.
33:09
And then as I was gathering, you know, this giant ass mussel shell and some nice rocks, I looked down at my feet and there was a plastic bag.
33:21
And I am Personally aim perfect with it.
33:29
But sometimes when I am in a situation where I picked up a mussel shell and four beautiful rocks and carried them in my hand, and the universe kind of shows me, if you love this place, take care of
33:40
it.
33:41
I try to listen.
33:42
So I pick up that plastic bag and I'm like, alright, let me find a trash bin right there up the dune from where I am with this plastic bag, where it was on the ground, there's a little exit
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road, just a sand road for off road vehicles.
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Nobody around.
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And I'm like, well, I guess this is what I'm doing.
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I look to my left, there's a giant coastline that I still have yet to explore.
34:05
But I'm like, well, sand to sand, beach is beach.
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I'm being directed to go this way.
34:10
So I climb the dune with the plastic bag in my hand and the muscles, the muscle in the rocks and there's a bird that starts flying right by my head.
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And I take out these swimmer earplugs I wear sometimes because it kind of gives me the warm and fuzzies, like just calmness to have sound filtered a little bit from this loud, loud world.
34:32
And I walk along this road and I take out the earplugs and I take off my sunglasses and I listen to the bird and the bird and I kind of like in the story I was talking about in
34:43
a previous episode, grief season is over.
34:45
The bird and I are kind of whistling together and just trotting along in a little Disney scene.
34:49
I'm grounding in and I end up on the other side of this little sandbar and there are two fishermen who kind of like, you know, we all say hello.
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And based on their energy, I kind of realize we're probably all off the grid a little bit and not supposed to be here.
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But I'm not turning you in if you don't turn me in.
35:08
Nobody is there on this little sandy beach and it smells a little bit.
35:12
Smells a little fishy, but the waters are calm.
35:14
And I walk past the majority of the kelp and kind of sit in the water and just let it lap around me and just kind of like look at boats and look at those clouds and look at whatever's.
35:28
And then I get up and I start walking and there's these rocks that are, you know, lining the perimeter of the key or whatever.
35:39
And they're covered in this bright, bright, bright, bright luminescent green algae or whatever it is growing on these rocks.
35:47
And I start looking at it, I'm like, oh my God, look at that composition.
35:51
Look at the color composition.
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Is it more yellow?
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Yes, more yellow than blue and blah, blah, blah.
35:55
And then it moves a little bit into blue, but it largely stays largely yellow over here.
35:59
And I'm looking at it, I'm looking, I'm wondering how I'm going to paint it.
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Then I'm like, stop, just stop.
36:05
And instead I just notice.
36:09
I just look at it without trying to make something out of it.
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And I see there's a whole thing going on.
36:17
There's a whole thing going on.
36:20
There's life here.
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The way that it grows from the bottom and the top.
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The way that it just kind of like lives and exists while the water laps at it.
36:29
And don't think about politics and don't think about anything.
36:32
If anything, it's like hour to hour to day.
36:34
To day.
36:35
It might be like, you know, this water is starting to really suck.
36:37
Do you guys think this water is starting to increasingly suck?
36:39
Yeah, this water sucks, doesn't it?
36:42
But they aren't getting drawn into this constant unmooring, this constant feeling of being untethered and at the whims and fancy of people that we do not agree with.
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A world that moves increasingly fast, blah, blah, blah.
37:00
So I look at these rocks and I kind of admire them.
37:04
I don't think about painting them anymore.
37:06
I'm just like, well, life is.
37:08
Life is life.
37:09
I keep on walking with this plastic bag and it starts to drizzle a little bit.
37:13
Starts to drizzle a tiny bit.
37:17
And there's still some sand road ahead of me as walking through the dunes and everything.
37:21
And there's a vibe.
37:24
It's like a beautiful kind of vibe.
37:26
And I've been thinking about taking up running because I want to be fit and say, why not?
37:33
So I started running in bare feet on the beach.
37:35
You know, I'd seen somebody running earlier.
37:37
It's already on my mind.
37:39
I run this light, light summer rain, and I kind of just feel the sand under my feet.
37:46
And I end up right back at the parking lot where I parked.
37:50
And sure enough, the next little entry to the beach, there's my camp chair right there with the waters crashing.
37:56
And I stay there for a little while more, and I just look at clouds and have my legs in the water.
38:00
And I get rained on and it feels beautiful.
38:23
There have been countless days where I could have driven out to this beach where I could have just had no agenda.
38:37
Half day where I handle my responsibilities, kick things off and stuff like that, and make time for enjoyment and calm and noticing things and not making things and just looking at clouds.
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I could have done that countless days.
38:55
And I wonder in my past seasons.
39:00
It's not that I'm condemning myself or admonishing myself for not being present in the same way and not necessarily enjoying in the same way because I tried, but it was laden a little bit with sorrow.
39:15
I used to mourn things before they were over.
39:19
I used to get to the end of a little trip and before we're even close to the end of the trip, I am wondering, will I be able to retain the feeling I'll never be here again?
39:32
It's vanishing.
39:33
How do I grip onto it stronger?
39:35
This idea of the vanishing of joy, the scarcity mindset where even while we're living something, I'm mourning its death.
39:46
I dare say with these past few episodes focusing so much on death omens, I did not realize until listening back and editing the consistency with which these death omens were showing up for me, I think I can let
39:59
go of grief a little bit and just embrace life and embrace simplicity and just be and talk to you about whatever's going on and not plan too hardily.
40:08
Just talk to the truest thing and the most well honed artistic vision for that moment that I can come up with that feels like it's been percolating and building.
40:17
Today I picked up a giant ass piece of trash and I cleaned it in my backyard and I'm going to start stretching canvases and make big ass paintings with it.
40:24
That's a pretty good success.
40:27
I wish you the same.
40:30
I wish whatever your piece of trash is, that secretly is treasure.
40:37
I hope you embrace it.
40:39
I hope you make time for it, that you slow down, that you breathe.
40:56
I hope that you can.
40:59
I'll try to.
41:06
The theme song for that old trope is called Old Man's Custard.
41:11
It's by Growl Honey, which is my musical moniker off an album I have recorded called Yonder Lies.
41:21
Another song off that album, Comeuppance is the theme song for I have mono.
41:26
Check those out for some beautiful conversations with some beautiful people who take upon themselves to channel all of humanity and still make a business out of it.
41:40
Until next time, paralopians, lovelies, go touch grass and enjoy the sunshine.
41:49
Anybody tries to stop you, just smile and walk on past them.