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Hope It's Helpful · Armstrong & Getty One More Thing

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Speaker 1: This is gonna be pretty serious, but I hope it's
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Speaker 1: helpful to some people. It's one more thing.
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Speaker 2: I'm strong andy. One more thing.
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Speaker 1: I'm guessing you haven't. But have you ever read Infinite
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Speaker 1: Jest by David Foster Wallace? Are you familiar with it?
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Speaker 2: Not? Really, No, you've heard of it. Sounds familiar.
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Speaker 1: It's a very very big deal book that came out
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Speaker 1: in the nineties, won the Pulitzer Prize. But it is.
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Speaker 2: That's an indictment, but I have no doubt.
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Speaker 1: It was a really big deal of literature and sold many, many,
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Speaker 1: many millions of copies. And he was I don't know
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Speaker 1: how many times I saw him interviewed on Charlie Rose
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Speaker 1: and their biographies of him and the movie made about
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Speaker 1: him and everything like that, partially because he killed himself
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Speaker 1: when he was in his forties. So this book, Infinite Jest,
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Speaker 1: which is like a thousand pages long, I'd never read
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Speaker 1: it before. I'm about a third of the way through
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Speaker 1: for I don't like it. I don't think it's very good.
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Speaker 1: My favorite literary critic, critic Harold Bloom, thought it was crap,
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Speaker 1: so maybe I'm influenced by that. I feel like it's
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Speaker 1: crap myself, but I'm gonna fight my way through it.
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Speaker 1: But a lot of it is about you know you
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Speaker 1: write what you know?
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Speaker 2: Is this famous of.
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Speaker 1: Writers. It's about a guy who It's about a number
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Speaker 1: of different things. The main theme of it is supposed
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Speaker 1: to be basically how in modern world we're amusing ourselves
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Speaker 1: to death, which is a common theme on this show
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Speaker 1: and is absolutely true. That's kind of where the title
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Speaker 1: infinite jest comes from. But it's about a guy at
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Speaker 1: a tennis academy and he's a stoner and he watched
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Speaker 1: his TVL time blah blah blah, and David Foster Wallace
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Speaker 1: was a big amateur tennis star, and he was a stoner,
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Speaker 1: and he suffered from depression and anxiety and everything same
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Speaker 1: way as the character in the book. And there's a
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Speaker 1: lot about that in one character who's in a constantly
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Speaker 1: being fifty one to fifty in a mental institution and
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Speaker 1: describing their depression and anxiety. And I found it as
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Speaker 1: somebody the writer being somebody that had depression and anxiety
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Speaker 1: to the level that when he was in his forties
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Speaker 1: in Arizona, as a married man, he hung himself from
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Speaker 1: his porch, his back porch at his house, and his
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Speaker 1: wife came home and found him. But the reason I
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Speaker 1: bring this up is I got a couple of people
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Speaker 1: in my life who have depression and anxiety. They often
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Speaker 1: go together, and I've just never really been able to
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Speaker 1: understand it. But I mean, I understand that, you know,
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Speaker 1: you're really really down when you're pressed or anxiety, you
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Speaker 1: feel really anxious. That's about all I know.
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Speaker 2: And it's good definition.
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Speaker 1: It's bothered me that, you know, I can't really relate
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Speaker 1: to it, and they're trying to describe it to me
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Speaker 1: and they're struggling with it, and I just have never
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Speaker 1: quite fully gotten it until I read this book where
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Speaker 1: a guy who's a really good writer describes what it
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Speaker 1: feels like to be anxious, anxious, or depressed, and he
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Speaker 1: does it over many hundreds of pages. So my shorthand
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Speaker 1: version won't be that good, But I thought, maybe this
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Speaker 1: will be helpful to anyone here who's in a similar
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Speaker 1: situation where they don't have it but somebody they know does,
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Speaker 1: because it's been helpful to me. One person I know
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Speaker 1: who's got depression and anxiety tried to explain it to
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Speaker 1: me and gotten close. But for whatever reason the Politiczer
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Speaker 1: Prize winning author did a better job of describing the depression,
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Speaker 1: mostly being about the hopelessness of it. I'm never imagining
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Speaker 1: it ever getting any better, Like I've never had that.
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Speaker 1: I've been down before. Everybody gets down, but I've never
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Speaker 1: had the I can't I not only I can't imagine
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Speaker 1: it getting a better I'm one hundred percent certain it'll
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Speaker 1: never get any better.
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Speaker 2: Life can include a feeling of and it shouldn't.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I'm everything sucks and it will always suck.
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Speaker 1: I've never felt that, so I you know, I can
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Speaker 1: imagine why if everything, and I mean everything, you get
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Speaker 1: no joy from a relationship with your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, parents, job, music, anything,
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Speaker 1: and it will never change.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: That would be a hard thing to convince yourself to
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Speaker 1: go ahead and endure constantly trying to get your head
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Speaker 1: above that water to.
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Speaker 2: Avoid bringing people down with you.
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Speaker 1: And again, I'm doing a very shorthand version of this
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Speaker 1: that might be pointless compared to the hundreds of pages
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Speaker 1: of describing it. But the person in the fictional character
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Speaker 1: in the who'd been fifty one fifty with anxiety talking
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Speaker 1: to the doctor about it's like when somebody jumps out
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Speaker 1: and scares you aah, and you get that adrenaline rush,
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Speaker 1: only it's constant and you have no belief that it's
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Speaker 1: ever gonna stop, which sounds horrifying. That sounds like a
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Speaker 1: really terrible feeling a.
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Speaker 2: Lot of anxiety among young people in the modern world.
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Speaker 2: And you know, to what extent are they just expressing
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Speaker 2: the nervousness and foreboding that we all feel through life,
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Speaker 2: or to what extent is is there really that much
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Speaker 2: more of it in the air. Nobody's really sure. I
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Speaker 2: would tend, partly through my own life's experience, to say,
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Speaker 2: let's not underestimate it. Let's try to get a handle
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Speaker 2: on it. Because their environment, both physical and mental, I
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Speaker 2: guess solf physical in a way, but it has changed
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Speaker 2: a great deal. The lives kids live right now are
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Speaker 2: very different than the lives we lived.
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Speaker 1: Is there any chance that the two things came together
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Speaker 1: at the same time in an unfortunate perfect storm, that
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Speaker 1: there's something in plastics or cell phone towers.
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Speaker 2: Or ultra processed foods, ultra processed foods or pesticides. It
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Speaker 2: could be anything. Anything contrails all of them. The government hank.
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Speaker 1: All of them working together, that all that happened, and
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Speaker 1: you know, cause people's brains to be more susceptible to
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Speaker 1: depression and anxiety. And at the same time, generation generation
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Speaker 1: or two of helicopter parents convinced you that the world
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Speaker 1: is very dangerous, always very dangerous. No, no, no, no, no,
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Speaker 1: you're not going to the park, No way. You and
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Speaker 1: your friend are going to the park and riding your
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Speaker 1: bike over there and spending the afternoon without me knowing
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Speaker 1: what you're doing.
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Speaker 2: And learning to take on risk and learning it's okay
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Speaker 2: to get lost and find your way back again. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: that's entirely possible. It's a combination, but.
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Speaker 1: That it just accidentally happened at exactly the same time. Boy,
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Speaker 1: that's unfortunate.
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Speaker 2: Oh, or roughly at the same time. Yeah, close enough. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: It may be one thing, it maybe two, it may
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Speaker 2: be three. I don't know. Nobody knows. It's it ought
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Speaker 2: to be studied.
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Speaker 1: You know, constantly, every woman should be terrified of walking
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Speaker 1: down the street because every man you.
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Speaker 2: Pass is most likely a rapist.
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Speaker 1: Right at the same time that their brains might be
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Speaker 1: wired to be more anxious and depressed.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I think it's the other side of
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Speaker 2: the coin. That's more significant, the lack of free ranginess
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Speaker 2: and exploring and making mistakes. And because you can hit
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Speaker 2: me with all the harem scam stuff you want about,
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Speaker 2: say a city I know, and I'll say no, I've
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Speaker 2: been there, I've tried that, I know what to do,
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Speaker 2: I know what to avoid. It'll be fine.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's all the one thing. Then that would be
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Speaker 1: good news that it's not any the plastics or cell
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Speaker 1: phone towers or anything like that, that it's just all
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Speaker 1: of us. Would be this way if I had grown
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Speaker 1: up being told by my parents that the world is very,
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Speaker 1: very scary. Do not leave the house. You're not allowed
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Speaker 1: to ride your bike to the park. Who knows my
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Speaker 1: brain to be?
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Speaker 2: Like?
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Speaker 1: You know, like they've discovered in Europe that kids need
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Speaker 1: a certain amount of figuring things out on their own
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Speaker 1: to get their brain psychology risk.
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Speaker 2: They need risk. Yeah, yeah, I don't know the answer
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Speaker 2: to that.
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Speaker 1: Well, nobody does, but we ought to make it a
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Speaker 1: high priority to figure it out.
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Speaker 2: So when I picture tennis lessons, I picture the tennis
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Speaker 2: pro having sex with divorces that end or cheating housewives.
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Speaker 2: How is that part of the novel really? That fact? Yes, yeah,
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Speaker 2: there's a lot of that. There is a lot of
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Speaker 2: that in that world. Yeah, I mean, cause you've got
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Speaker 2: a super fit youngish man and aging gals in short
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Speaker 2: skirts trying to hold onto their beauty and all that.
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Speaker 1: I'm actually sticking with the book, which I find terrible
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Speaker 1: so far.
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Speaker 2: Really, what's terrible about it just you don't like to
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Speaker 2: write age. I just think it's so hack.
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Speaker 1: It just like a lot of the jokes or observations
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Speaker 1: are yeah, geez, really, I wish I could think of
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Speaker 1: one off the top of my head. I mean, some
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Speaker 1: of the things he throws in is like, is this
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Speaker 1: supposed to be a clever new thing I've come across
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Speaker 1: or I've heard eight million times in my life.
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Speaker 2: I don't know what it is.
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Speaker 1: But I actually did a deep dive on this where
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Speaker 1: somebody said that's the overall point of the book, that
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Speaker 1: we're all swimming in hack regurgitated pop culture, and I thought, well,
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Speaker 1: if that's the point, then it's just do I need
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Speaker 1: a thousand pages?
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Speaker 2: How much? Yeah? Just give me like five hundred words
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Speaker 2: on that. And I'm a person.
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Speaker 1: Who's willing to read really long books. But I'm to
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Speaker 1: the point now that i'm reading it just to try
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Speaker 1: to figure out because I'd like to try my hand
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Speaker 1: at writing someday. Is just like, this is like one
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Speaker 1: of the most revered novels of all time. I got
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Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on here? Why that happened?
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Speaker 3: Oh?
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Speaker 2: What was the book? I wish I read more fiction?
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Speaker 2: I don't.
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Speaker 1: I started again a couple of years ago, So glad
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Speaker 1: I did, and I wanted to stop. Need I need
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Speaker 1: a break from nonfiction is making me crazy and unhappy?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can relate. Dang it, I can't
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Speaker 2: remember what I read. Oh, it'll come back to my mind,
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Speaker 2: just just too late. But was I thought? Yeah it was.
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Speaker 2: It was strength. It was September nineteen eighty eight copy
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Speaker 2: of Swank, like.
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Speaker 1: The magazine Sware an Idiot, which you had to a
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Speaker 1: high schooler in a certain era to be aware of
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Speaker 1: that pornographic magazine.
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Speaker 2: Oh my god, what was I No, it's not a
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Speaker 2: top tier, not at all, second tier porn that it
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Speaker 2: was like ninety percent of the book and then in
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Speaker 2: the last ten percent. Oh, now it's coming back to me.
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Speaker 2: At the very end, the author says, essentially, oh, it
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Speaker 2: was the Cane mutiny. The Cane mutiny which is a
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Speaker 2: brilliant work of fiction. Spoiler alert. As I discussed at
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Speaker 2: the time, you get ninety percent of the way through
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Speaker 2: the book and you think, yeah, yeah, I get it,
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Speaker 2: and you're right, author as bullshit. Yeah. Then the author says,
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Speaker 2: it's not bullshit at all. I've led you astray. Here's
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Speaker 2: why it's bullshit. Here's why it's not bullshit. And you think,
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Speaker 2: oh christ, yep, yep, yep, yep, I made all the
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Speaker 2: wrong assumptions. Just like the main characters in the book.
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Speaker 2: It's a bit. It's brilliant. So maybe there's a moment
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Speaker 2: coming like that, I hope. So the guy instructs the
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Speaker 2: gals to go with the two hand backhand, and it
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Speaker 2: really changes it.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't get better out of bottom in the rope.
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Speaker 1: I mean, God put me through a thousand ways too much.
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Speaker 1: This tastes too far soon. Back to sirious briefly before
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Speaker 1: we end this. It is it is troubling, as if
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Speaker 1: I've said someone who knows several people very close that
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Speaker 1: I want to do okay, who've suffer from these things.
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Speaker 1: Here's a guy, this writer, David foss Wallace, who is brilliant,
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Speaker 1: completely aware of a situation completely aware of every bit
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Speaker 1: of psychological or medical help available, tried most of it,
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Speaker 1: wealthy connected, and he couldn't find a way out. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: kind of like the Chandler from Friends thing. I mean,
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Speaker 1: if you if throwing nine million dollars or whatever he
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Speaker 1: threw at here's a dick didn't do the trick, then
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Speaker 1: what hope does the regular person have?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's rough Man rough.
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Speaker 1: Tomorrow's One More Thing podcast will not be so heavy.
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Speaker 3: I have a little clip that I could end with.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to play this during the show. And this
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Speaker 3: is a guy Walmart. There's a fire.
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Speaker 2: Apparently a teenager set fire to a bunch of.
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Speaker 1: Bras and so this set fire to at a Walmart
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Speaker 1: ros Sears. And so this is about the cup size.
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Speaker 1: You got the you got to see you got the
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Speaker 1: d that's the biggest about the cup size.
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Speaker 3: So this clip is a guy losing his man card.
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Speaker 3: He has a very deep voice in the beginning, and
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Speaker 3: it turns very high.
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Speaker 2: You can't make this up. Look at this, I mean
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Speaker 2: Walmart and written it's on fire.
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Speaker 3: What's going on?
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Speaker 2: What you bring him? In? His voice got too Yeah, wow,
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Speaker 2: he did kind of go Mickey Mouse.
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Speaker 3: Let's say that one more time.
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Speaker 2: He can't make this up. Look at this, I mean,
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Speaker 2: Walmart is written, It's on fire. What's going Upstia Morrison
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Speaker 2: and nz up Beege's what happened?
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Speaker 3: Well, I guess that's it.
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Speaker 2: That was a good ending, Michael