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Eleanora Lynn Åaske | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #62 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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  It's another episode of the Christian we've podcast, but
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  before we get into it, are you subscribed?
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  If not please make sure to subscribe.
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  Like and share the video and spread the word because the
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  Christian read podcast is here to stay.
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  I love doing this and I love all of you that support me.
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  So thank you. And yeah, let's get into this
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  podcast, shall we? Boom.
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  Hello. And welcome to another episode
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  of the Christian we've podcast today's Is an upcoming podcaster
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  and artists and aspiring actress all the way from Minnesota in
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  the United States. I hope I don't butcher this.
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  Her name is Eleonora Lynn aska. ASCII ASCII.
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  Oh, so close. I was so close, that's key.
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  Okay, welcome to the show. How you doing?
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  I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
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  I got my dogs with me and I got my tea and just getting cozy.
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  I like him already as soon as someone says they have animals,
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  I'm like, okay, we're friends. It's like you did it to me.
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  I know this is ridiculous, but a lot of the time if I'm just me.
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  Some of the first time and and let's say like you walk in
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  someone's house, right? And they've got a dog and and
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  the dogs like really happy like they can't be that bad.
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  You know you but this is what I mean is what I mean if they've
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  got a pair and the pets happy, it's like this this must be a
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  good person because you can't be a bad person and have a happy
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  pet. I don't know.
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  I just for me the two does things don't equate but I don't
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  it. Anyways, yeah, you've been
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  working on this podcast for the past five years.
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  This is the number, isn't it? I'm obviously intrigued by this,
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  I would imagine if that's the case then there's obviously been
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  a lot of things that have sort of come as like, maybe barriers
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  and stuff in life, which I understand, my everyone has
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  these things, but on the one side of things, I am kind of The
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  intrigued like what it will be about.
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  Obviously since just take as much time as they've been a lot
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  of planning behind it. What is this podcast going to be
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  about? Yeah.
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  Actually the I knew what it I knew right away, like what it
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  would be, like I knew what it would entail and what I wanted,
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  the general vibe to be and I think the general purpose even
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  but I wasn't quite sure. The y or the what I knew, I
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  knew, sort of the how that I didn't know the wire.
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  The what. And so, the Y has changed quite
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  a bit over time at first. I was like, I don't know, I want
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  to I love the conversations that I have with my friends.
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  I think the very important I would love to facilitate more of
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  them and share that. I was like, but why?
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  And at first, I thought it was about the relationships I had
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  with them. No.
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  At all. I thought it was something to do
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  with me and I mean that's kind of true just because by nature
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  of how I am every conversation, I have with someone ends up
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  being kind of incredibly emotionally involved.
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  I can be kind of a drain and that's not like I'm not talking
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  down on myself. Like I mean that would you mean
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  when you say that, do you mean like Like as in when you talk to
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  someone they get sort of how can I put this in the best possible
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  way? Now because I want to make sure
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  that I'm actually asking the right question.
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  So because when you set that straight away I figured.
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  Okay. So you're an empath.
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  Would that be further soon? I think it's more that I
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  overanalyze everything and people aren't used to that 24/7.
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  Okay, yeah, so like what you're saying is it's like difficult to
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  have a conversation with you because you're very, you know,
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  questioning of every sort of facet of that conversation.
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  So it's like is that kind of what you said?
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  I think so. I think so.
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  I think every every conversation with Me get at least a little
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  bit introspective and people aren't used to having to think
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  that way. I mean even a very imperfect
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  people and yet, you know, they've said to me in all
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  honesty it's like, I have to have a lot of energy left before
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  we have a long talk, do you never just like Things, I love
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  conversations like that too deep conversations.
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  Like, I would say I can count on my hands.
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  How many? Like friends I have and a lot of
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  people listening to this will be like, what?
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  So you don't consider me a friend, what I mean by that is
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  that there are many people that, you know, in life that you're
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  friendly with, but people that are very close to you, that you
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  can have like a deep conversation with about
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  literally anything. There's very few and the people
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  in my life know who they are. To bring that back to what we're
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  saying. Those types of conversations.
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  Yeah, they can be very introspective.
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  They can be, they can go in all sorts of directions.
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  But the interesting thing is that, you know, you say it's
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  draining. But I wonder with that because
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  for me, the only people that I find draining like as in
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  actually sucks my energy away, when I'm talking to them, is
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  those sorts of people, I mean, you could call an energy
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  vampires, you know there's different ways.
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  It's for them, but those people that, you know, you have that
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  conversation with them and they're not interested in.
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  Giving you something. It's just like, take take, take,
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  take take, and it's not just those people.
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  I mean, I think when you're talking to a negative people in
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  life, that can be quite draining.
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  Particularly, if you are a positive person, because you're
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  trying, I mean, you know what I mean?
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  You're trying to give them something you're trying to say,
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  hey, have you considered this and just everything gets knocked
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  down one by one, you know, and like, Been that because I used
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  to be a negative person years ago and often hearing a positive
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  person would just be like, oh, your sanctimonious old, what do
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  you know? Are like, it will never get
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  better. Rude and then, you know,
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  obviously you're proven wrong but it takes a lot to change
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  that. Am I in the right book?
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  Am I in the right kind of space here?
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  Is that kind of what you're talking about?
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  I guess. I mean, more along the lines of
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  Okay. So what?
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  I've now just decided the podcast is about is it's a, it
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  creates a space for us to process some of the things that
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  we might not have otherwise. So a lot of the time when I get
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  into a conversation with someone, I don't do this
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  consciously, but I find whatever it is that they haven't been
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  thinking about back of their mind and we end up going into
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  the into it and it ends up being You know, kind of energy
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  consuming for them. For me, it's just every day, but
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  you see is kind of the point of what I was trying to raise is
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  like, with if you're with the right people, then it's never
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  draining. Like, I've had like
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  conversations that have lasted like six hours before and felt
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  fine afterwards and then I've had other conversations where
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  I've been talking to someone for 45 minutes, half an hour and I
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  feel exhausted. So I think that tells you a lot
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  about the people that you took to its like, What would, you
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  know what I mean? Because I think a conversation
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  should always normally. It should be like, tennis, but
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  with that being said, I mean, It depends, doesn't it sometimes?
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  Yeah, I find as I've become older I listen more and talk
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  less obviously here you know where it's a bit different.
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  But like in real life, you know, I've spoken about this many
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  times. You know, I used to be that guy.
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  That would just talk talk. Talk do better but obviously as
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  you get older you read more, you listen more and then you start
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  thinking, well, I don't need to spit.
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  Like, what, what am I? I'm not learning anything by
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  speaking to, you know what I mean?
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  And Yeah, thing I find a lot of people are not listening, so you
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  know, you're just wasting your breath talking to them.
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  It's just like, well, they're not listening to me.
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  I don't, I don't have an ego. I don't care if they're
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  listening to me or not, that's their loss whatever.
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  But like, it's like, you know, he's like, but so many people
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  obsessed with that. So many people have this like
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  need to be heard and it's like It's a waste really for the, for
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  the most part. But anyway, I think we're
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  getting somewhere with, with regards to figuring out what
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  your podcast about this is interesting, but the first kind
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  of thing that makes me think is that, obviously you mentioned in
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  the beginning that you were having particular types of
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  conversations with people. So obviously, the idea popped
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  into your head. This could be a podcast, this
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  could be a thing. This kid.
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  Yeah. Right.
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  I feel like is pretty commonly how that ends up.
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  Yeah, of course, of course, of course.
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  But I think that because I've had a lot of podcasts over the
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  years that are just literally just like a couple of people
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  talking. And I, I think there's a big
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  difference between having a podcast and then people just
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  talking and putting it online and going, yeah, you need to
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  have a format with this and something to follow.
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  Is what I mean by that and I think with this you've got
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  something here. I'm intrigued though, are you
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  going to have your friends on and it's just Maybe you and your
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  friends, talking, and the focus is the topics, or is it going to
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  be kind of an open platform? Look like my podcast, where it's
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  like, people from all walks of life and you're just trying to
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  get the same thing out of them because obviously it's
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  different. It's difficult, isn't it like
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  you? It's the same risk I go into
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  with every podcast. I do I do I never know if my
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  guest is going to be really quiet and I have to talk more if
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  they're going to be leading it and I just guide it and listen,
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  you know, Yeah, yeah. I mean I would hope eventually
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  I'd be able to do more of it, more of a, an open-ended thing,
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  I guess. Right now.
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  So we've been recording some episodes for a while now and I
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  found the sweet spot is three-hour sessions and each of
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  these three hour sessions. Yeah.
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  Hey, you should these three-hour sessions?
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  It's about 55 minutes of audio. So hold on, hold on.
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  So from a three-hour conversation is about 55
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  minutes, you can actually use. Yeah.
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  Is this just a lot of like hmm? Like trying to formulate the
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  idea. I mean, okay, okay, what I find
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  interesting about that. Is that, you know, one could
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  make the argument. Well, you know, how do you know
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  what to use and what not to use? Yeah, what are you?
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  What are you looking for in that?
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  What like what what determines whether or not?
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  It makes the final cut. So a lot of what ends up
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  happening. We'll go on a lot of tangents,
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  because the person that I've been recording with most is my
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  friend or Le, and we both got ADHD, and we both kind of just
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  so many Different branches are made that the final tree does
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  not have to spend that. Why do you know what I mean?
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  And then the other thing that happens is that we because we're
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  processing things like actively in the moment, we're not just
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  talking about things or bringing things to the table and actively
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  processing them. There is like a lot of just
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  sitting there figuring out what it is, that's going on, in your
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  head and then eventually after some rambling, you'll have
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  gotten to the point and you'll be able to explain what the past
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  rambling has been about. And obviously, you know, in the
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  moment because we're close, I can tell what they're talking
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  about. They can tell I'm talking about
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  Out, but it's only that last bit.
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  That really the public could consume and be like I guess I
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  know what they're talking about. It's almost sounds like a
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  different kind of conversation. I don't know.
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  I'm kind of bewildered a bit by this to someone.
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  Do you or one of your guests that come to the table with like
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  an initial topic and then it just as you say, goes on to
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  tangents there, is there like a bit?
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  Because the thing is and I mentioned this before.
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  To have a good podcast, she needs something that the
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  listener can follow a format, right?
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  And obviously like like for instance, if I look at my
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  podcast I kind of think about okay.
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  What kind of things would the viewer likely want to know about
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  this person? What what's the sensible thing
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  to ask here and blah blah blah? So like, Today, I took us
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  through a little bit about the structure.
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  You know, obviously you've said a lot of it is, is, you know,
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  going from tangents going from idea, to idea and then condensed
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  in that down into something. But, you know, you must have
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  something that you kind of work with to, at least steer the
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  conversation. Yeah, yeah, so I knew right
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  away, if I didn't come in with it, with a goal in mind, it
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  would go absolutely nowhere because this is kind of how a
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  lot of the cup conversations with With my, with my loved
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  ones. Go also a good distinction would
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  be there, not so much guests as they are co-hosts, which usually
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  goes terribly. And there's many memories in my
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  head of people being like, Oh yes, my good friend.
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  Now we're going to talk about football for an hour and it's
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  not going to go anywhere. So I definitely wanted there to
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  be a goal that we were working towards that were you know,
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  processing and working through things.
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  In a specific Direction. So I've decided to go with
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  several series. The First the one we're
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  recording now is actually going to be the first one releases so
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  time, sensitive its 2020 year in review and so that's got a very
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  clear, very clear hopeful and which is to realize, like,
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  through all of the shit that this has been.
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  What each of us have kind of learned in that, and what the
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  overall theme has been Ben. But like with my friend or low
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  were working on a series of about routines because neither
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  of us have had a proper routine before.
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  Well she's had routines but they were all like outside inflicted.
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  You know you get a job and you're like oh yes routine and
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  then it ends up, not actually fitting with what's natural for
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  you. And like, if she doesn't have a
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  job, if she doesn't have anything going on, I think a lot
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  of us are noticing right now that our teens kind of
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  completely fall off and we don't have any.
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  And so I thought that was kind of relevant.
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  And so, you know, in starting that we were just going to talk
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  about our history with routines. And you think there's no way you
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  can spend three hours saying I've never had a routine.
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  We ended up actually talking more about men.
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  Until health and how that kind of plays into it.
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  And yeah, I think I think it generally does find a sort of
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  flow, probably more. So with my partner then with
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  Orla because we both kind of Branch off so much but it ended
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  up actually being mental health awareness day so that was pretty
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  great or World mental health day.
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  Yeah, World mental health day. So that was kind of great
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  because oh look, we can totally Put plans that and, you know,
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  we're kind of bringing that seemed into our into our lives
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  as well, apart from the podcasting, kind of documenting
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  how that's going, what were noticing, you know, sort of
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  things we might not have noticed before.
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  Like with Orla she has this tendency to when she doesn't
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  feel like she has control of her life.
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  Find something else to take control for her.
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  So like You know, previously. So she's living in Italy.
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  She's working as an au pair, which is a basically a nanny and
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  an English teacher from another country or a nanny.
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  And a, their native language teacher to the children from
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  another country. And so, with that, with her,
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  first job in a while, She was feeling like she didn't have
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  much control, shouldn't have much of a routine.
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  She would sleep in forever and then like, all of her time would
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  just be spent on the kids because she'd be kind of just
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  lounging around for the rest of it.
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  And so she started taking classes and while that was
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  great, suddenly she still didn't have time for any of those extra
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  things that really would have helped her flourish and we
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  didn't have time to record and it just was an ideal and I'm
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  noticing. I'm noticing something.
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  Similar in myself in the past. So I've kind of got the opposite
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  problem where if I start getting overwhelmed by things, if I feel
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  like I'm not in control, I start dropping things and think.
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  Okay. Now I can, you know, get into
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  the control. I can spend my time how I feel,
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  it would be best spent for my well-being and it turns out
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  that's really hard especially if you don't have something that
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  you can just stick to it, something you can rely on.
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  So Yeah, where was I going with this?
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  originally, I sort of asked you Sort of the setup of the
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  podcast, you know like obviously we aren't we we looked at that.
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  What guests you would have on if you would have guests on the
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  show and then we kind of transition to just just a
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  general kind of formatting of the show the direction, right?
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  Right. But like moving it Forward of Z.
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  You mentioned that, you know, you've got a couple of episodes
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  sort of already planned their going to be about 55 minutes.
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  What's the schedule? As far as, you know publishing
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  is concerned is going to be like one a week for example, talk to
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  us about that. Yeah, so I'm trying to get as
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  many things recorded as possible before I start releasing things
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  just because I know that I will always have trouble trouble
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  sticking to a recording schedule.
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  So if I can do it / series can release them for a while and
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  hopefully have some lined up by the time I start the next series
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  but I'm thinking probably bi-weekly once every two weeks
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  it's going to be is going to be a good spacing because obviously
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  I I've followed podcast that do once a month and it's kind of
• 20:10
  disappointing because I'll not have caught up in a long time
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  and I'll be like, oh, I've so much content to consume and then
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  it'll be two episodes. Oh shucks?
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  Yeah, makes me laugh about about mine because I used to go
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  podcast before this and we only did like seven episodes and it
• 20:32
  was once a week on an agreed. And it just stressed me the hell
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  out like so much. I don't know why as well like
• 20:41
  it's weird. And then I started my own
• 20:44
  podcast when that one ended and I do way more now like it's
• 20:48
  nuts. Like it's never about quantity.
• 20:51
  Quality is always far more important, but you know how it
• 20:55
  is. Sometimes like I've reached out
• 20:56
  to the world. I said, hey, Who would like to
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  appear on this podcast? Blah, blah, blah.
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  I know. See that's how I met yourself as
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  how I meet many of my guests. Sometimes people reach out to me
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  and I'm a bit of a workaholic, you know, I love to work and I
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  always reason that, you know, sometimes you just have loads of
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  work. Sometimes you have very little
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  work, right? And so I just keep my foot on
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  the gas pedal. Sorry for the cliches but you
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  know, it's the best way to explain it, but bringing it back
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  to the point like I don't have that kind of schedule because I
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  get stressed about it, and I kind of think look the contents
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  there when it's there, and I'll never let there be like, a too
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  big of a gap between, you know, when the last episode was in the
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  next episode was. And, you know, I have like a
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  contingency plan, sort of things like the main purpose of this
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  podcast is to have interviews with people to get to know.
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  People have discussions if possible but by block, right?
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  Obviously, I'm I'm looking to change that moving forward, have
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  a, you know, more content on here, different types of content
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  Etc. But at the same time sometimes
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  you just, you know, you can't find any guests sometimes, you
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  know, you just have to like, look at like, okay, what do I
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  have to work with? Excuse me.
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  And so sometimes I've done like, Me only episodes was just me
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  talking and that's a real challenge.
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  The better bet the best time I did personally, my own personal
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  Viewpoint people can disagree with me was when I did an
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  episode just talking about University and it was just me
• 22:36
  talking about it, but I kind of realized that, you know, it's
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  always going to be better to have people here.
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  I think it's just more interesting as a viewer and a
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  listener to hear a discussion. Ian as opposed to someone just
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  talking, I've heard very ego. So I think also it it provides a
• 22:55
  sense of involvement because if it's just a monologue, you know,
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  you're listening to a monologue. If you're listening to someone
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  else's conversation, obviously, you can't weigh in but it's
• 23:05
  still kind of feels like a conversation.
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  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I mean, for me it's very
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  challenging. Like I still approach it the
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  same way, but it's nowhere near as enjoyable.
• 23:19
  But you know sometimes you have to put them out there just to
• 23:21
  kind of keep the podcast going because I really am serious
• 23:24
  about it. I want to I want to keep it
• 23:25
  going and I'm always working on it.
• 23:29
  But anyway, I think that's sounds very promising for your
• 23:33
  podcast as far as as far as that's concerned.
• 23:36
  I think by weekly or bimonthly bi-weekly.
• 23:38
  It was yeah. Sounds like a pretty good kind
• 23:42
  of setup. I can't believe there's podcast
• 23:44
  that only release once a month. That's, that's not enough like
• 23:47
  Jesus. I mean and I think it's bad, it
• 23:49
  works against you because I mean, you should always put the
• 23:54
  same alert level of effort into it, right?
• 23:56
  But like imagine you're a really Avid fan of a podcast and they
• 24:00
  only released one episode of month and you get to that day
• 24:04
  and then it you just don't enjoy it.
• 24:06
  You know what I mean? Like this is one of the reasons.
• 24:09
  Yeah yeah that's the thing. Like a let's be real if you were
• 24:13
  listening. Yeah.
• 24:15
  If you were listening to a podcast and you didn't like this
• 24:17
  one, the next month, it's crap as well.
• 24:19
  I mean this is subjective but right you Like, that's not gonna
• 24:25
  listen anymore. Where is at least?
• 24:26
  I don't know with my podcast, like, I just use it as an
• 24:29
  example. You know, it happens quite
• 24:31
  regularly every, guest, is different.
• 24:35
  I challenge anyone to find an episode that was bad to be fair.
• 24:38
  As I mean, this is my son egotistical Butler.
• 24:41
  I'm very, very proud of the interviews.
• 24:43
  I have to say if anyone wants to say that the episodes where it
• 24:47
  was just me talking was crap. That's hey, take as many shots
• 24:50
  as you want. I'm not a big fan either, but
• 24:52
  I'm I'm very proud of the, the interviews I think there's
• 24:55
  always something there but yeah, no, I think it's good to be as
• 25:01
  kind of supposed as many as you can.
• 25:06
  I think just so your audience has something and I think, you
• 25:10
  know, every podcast is different, you know, some have
• 25:13
  less some have more and you kind of find your footing, based on
• 25:16
  what's comfortable for you for your specific podcast.
• 25:20
  Now, we know with your podcast, is it going to be?
• 25:23
  Audio Only or is going to be a video podcast as well.
• 25:27
  Let's say, idea of name, you know, I think maybe once in a
• 25:32
  blue moon, I might record video, but I think I found video to be
• 25:38
  kind of distracting just for the sort of thing that we're doing.
• 25:45
  Why is that my friend has well? Hmm, maybe it's just, maybe it's
• 25:51
  just me because the last time I reported I was the only person
• 25:55
  not on video and I wasn't looking They're video, but I
• 25:58
  think for me, I definitely notice people's facial
• 26:02
  expressions more and it kind of catches me off guard.
• 26:05
  Like if I'm if I'm talking about something very vulnerable even
• 26:09
  though these are my closest friends in the whole wide world,
• 26:12
  if I'm talking about something kind of vulnerable and I see a
• 26:15
  facial expression. I want a question that when like
• 26:18
  it's not really going to do the podcast and you service for me
• 26:21
  to be like, wait, what what why are you laughing?
• 26:24
  This is a serious story. Oh, nothing.
• 26:28
  I just saw this tweet. Oh, you and your food.
• 26:32
  How dare you, how rude that? But you know, think.
• 26:38
  Okay, let's play devil's advocate for a second because
• 26:40
  this is one of the reasons I sort of the video as well.
• 26:43
  I had people that I was like 20 episodes in something like that.
• 26:47
  And people were like, why don't you do video?
• 26:48
  And I was like well I wasn't really sure I could do it at
• 26:52
  that point. Found a way.
• 26:53
  Blah blah blah. All right.
• 26:54
  But one thing I remember someone said to me which I have to agree
• 26:57
  with is that when you can see the person, you can have a much
• 27:01
  better conversation as far as, you know, being able to.
• 27:06
  Yeah. See how they react to staff
• 27:08
  seeing and seeing that I think helps to conversation.
• 27:11
  Sometimes when it's just Audio Only.
• 27:15
  Here's a here's a good example, right?
• 27:17
  So when you're talking I can kind of tell before you're
• 27:21
  finished then it's coming to the end of that point and I can move
• 27:24
  on to the next thing right. You can't tell that it's Audio
• 27:28
  Only. It would just be abrupt and then
• 27:30
  there's more gaps and stops. Now obviously I know that you
• 27:32
  said that it's distracting for you based on your style.
• 27:36
  But do you not think that maybe you're losing some stuff as well
• 27:41
  by only being video? Only I'm sorry audio in this.
• 27:47
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 27:49
  Boundary and interesting part. Yeah.
• 27:53
  Just just no talking and just I guess it would make sense if it
• 27:57
  was in sign language that I don't know if your mind another
• 28:01
  cost that would get I bet you, I bet you someone has done that.
• 28:13
  This is such a stupid about. There's I mean, there's there's
• 28:15
  people who stream on Twitch who get 3,000 viewers every day.
• 28:21
  And here I am busting my ass since March and I can struggle
• 28:24
  to get one viewer. There's people literally
• 28:26
  sleeping in their bed doing nothing.
• 28:29
  And they stream that and they get 3,000 viewers a day.
• 28:34
  I mean guarantee there's a podcast out there where there's
• 28:38
  no talking and it's just people you know you say that and I have
• 28:42
  to laugh because I remember so that her whole what was her
• 28:48
  name? I don't even remember what her
• 28:51
  name was but the streamer who was Butler.
• 28:56
  Caught some bullying a person with cancer and then Maybe you
• 29:03
  didn't hear about this. Oh yeah.
• 29:04
  So she bullied a person with cancer, I think on the stream
• 29:09
  and she was basically saying like, no, like, no bitch.
• 29:13
  Like know, my fans will never like week.
• 29:16
  They're still never tell anyone. It's like, wow, are headed you
• 29:21
  have to be. But anyway, she ended up falling
• 29:24
  asleep on stream and while she was asleep, her dad was yelling
• 29:30
  at her sister and he Revealed some personal information.
• 29:35
  So her fans went and found the company sent them the video of
• 29:41
  her bullying, the kit, the person with cancer and he got
• 29:45
  fired and so he kicked her out. And of course, she streamed
• 29:48
  being kicked out, she called the police and lied, saying her dad
• 29:52
  was threatening her life, this big thing well, anyway, but I
• 29:55
  was watching that I was thinking, how do you fall asleep
• 29:57
  on stream? And then I haven't talked about
• 30:00
  this yet. But when I stream, It's mostly
• 30:03
  like sort of play it in the background and kind of just do
• 30:08
  things with me. Because I noticed that when
• 30:10
  people are doing things on stream, it like kind of
• 30:12
  motivates me to get up and do stuff.
• 30:15
  What kind of this path? I do something called Sunrise t
• 30:19
  on Mondays. And it's literally just I make
• 30:21
  tea, I sit down, I placed some records and I plan for the week
• 30:27
  and that's it. That's the whole thing.
• 30:28
  And it usually takes like 5 hours and this past one, I had
• 30:32
  moved My bed because it's too hard at the window.
• 30:37
  And all I remember is laying down with the dogs, the dog
• 30:42
  leaving and then the next thing I knew I was turning off the
• 30:46
  stream because I'm sleeping and that wasn't like I didn't even
• 30:49
  say goodbye I think I just was sleeping.
• 30:52
  So hello people coming in. Get like a big audience for
• 30:57
  this. No not yet.
• 31:00
  No. I mean I've just started doing
• 31:03
  it but the people who do watch come in pretty frequently and
• 31:10
  it's kind of weird because I don't know what sort of
• 31:12
  boundaries to have for myself since it's such a small reach
• 31:19
  that these people are becoming my friends, you know is
• 31:22
  regulars. And is that a problem?
• 31:24
  Should I not make internet friends with my audience?
• 31:27
  Well then they're not really an audience.
• 31:28
  Are they do? I want new people to be like oh
• 31:31
  like why are your friends and I don't know, maybe I'm
• 31:34
  overthinking it. Well, let's start with the
• 31:38
  interactions. I mean, So they come here.
• 31:43
  Do you talk Deuce? Yeah, D talk to them like Allah
• 31:46
  or but what's the deal? Because you because I'm a bit
• 31:49
  confused. As you said that it's like a
• 31:50
  thing where you're drinking tea is setting up for your day,
• 31:53
  right? So it's kind of like a hey let's
• 31:56
  wake up together kind of deal, right?
• 31:58
  Yeah. But your yeah you must be having
• 32:01
  interaction with them. So it's kind of like hey how's
• 32:03
  your day going? Here's how mine's going baba.
• 32:06
  Baba. Okay, see you later kind of
• 32:07
  deal. Yeah.
• 32:10
  Okay. Okay.
• 32:12
  Yeah, regarding what your point you're gone, please.
• 32:17
  Well, I was going to say when I'm on Reddit, that's what
• 32:21
  happens. And then becomes a conversation,
• 32:23
  but I'm on Twitch, there's usually nobody there, right?
• 32:27
  Who's talking? So story of my life, there's not
• 32:30
  really any interaction happening, but I'm doing it
• 32:34
  anyway, because if you stick out something for long enough,
• 32:38
  something's got to happen, right?
• 32:41
  Good night. Success with, with YouTube with
• 32:47
  twitch. Ads once in a blue moon and it
• 32:54
  most of the time, it's just me there that on my own, make a cut
• 32:58
  in the video up for YouTube and that's it.
• 33:06
  Well, they have customers use our service, its user help
• 33:11
  service. I don't know, what do you call
• 33:13
  that? No, I'm just surprised which has
• 33:15
  customer service. I mean, they don't do anything
• 33:17
  for creators anyway. So I'm surprised that they have
• 33:20
  people on Stephen have it, but even with the thing is Twitch,
• 33:25
  twitch is owned by Amazon, right?
• 33:27
  And we all know that Amazon or the Jeff Bezos.
• 33:30
  He don't give two shits about charity or helping people or
• 33:34
  anything. It's just money.
• 33:35
  Money money. Money money money, but this
• 33:37
  during this covet time, I hate to be on a rant here.
• 33:40
  But just real quickly he's made dollar during this time like
• 33:44
  he's made Bank more Bank than any person can even imagine he
• 33:51
  got divorced recently and that still didn't put a dent in his
• 33:55
  wealth like he don't care and I'm pretty sure we've twitch.
• 33:59
  It's like okay we own this because he acquired it within
• 34:02
  the last 5 years or something. And, you know, we've seen like
• 34:07
  recent changes with which will with things like, you know, the
• 34:10
  DMM dmca stuff, you know, trying to protect music and copyright
• 34:15
  and stuff. I'm sure there's some sort of
• 34:16
  deal there the prophets then, or benefits them in some shape or
• 34:20
  form. I know, it's surprising, but
• 34:23
  yeah, it took us two cups for your experience with them ahead
• 34:26
  of that. And oh my God hasn't yet.
• 34:29
  That's the problem though. Is I'm good.
• 34:32
  Yeah, so the first, so the first thing that happened was I had a,
• 34:40
  I had a stream that was expiring in two days.
• 34:43
  So I made a highlight, the Highlight was processing
• 34:46
  highlight was processing and I spent multiple hours creating
• 34:50
  this highlight because with the nature of these streams, I'm not
• 34:54
  going to have you know, five hours saved forever.
• 34:58
  Like and so I'm clipping up just the interesting bits and their
• 35:01
  takes multiple Flowers to do this in browser and try not to
• 35:05
  lose it and so I'm not going to touch it.
• 35:08
  I'm going to let it process in quotes process and so, yeah, two
• 35:14
  days went by it expired. It was still processing.
• 35:17
  And I kind of knew, okay, it's lost.
• 35:20
  But I know that, you know, archives exist and maybe there's
• 35:25
  like 24 hours before something's truly overwritten, you know what
• 35:28
  I mean? But um, so I Attacked them and I
• 35:33
  was like hey this problem and you know the title was
• 35:36
  highlights quote-unquote processing and the reply I got I
• 35:43
  never said anything about Clips so this had to have been a
• 35:47
  person not a computer. It, there's what seemed to be a
• 35:52
  pre-written automated response saying, yes, unfortunately,
• 35:56
  twitch broadcasts do expire. Once a clip is deleted, it
• 36:00
  cannot be recovered because of space issues.
• 36:04
  So unfortunately, and I'm like, I didn't delete anything and so
• 36:09
  I cut I replied to that and obviously I was like, well, you
• 36:13
  know nobody nobody's gonna get this.
• 36:15
  So I submitted another ticket and Okay, good to know.
• 36:30
  I've gotten loud. Oh, the the highlights.
• 36:37
  So, Oh, yeah, so I submitted another ticket and they, I got
• 36:49
  nothing. So I submitted another ticket
• 36:52
  and there's days are going by. I'm not, I'm not just doing it
• 36:55
  within hours, you know? And I got really salty in the
• 37:01
  tickets, but I know nobody's reading them.
• 37:03
  So what does it matter? No replies.
• 37:07
  No replies a week later after I submitted my last ticket.
• 37:11
  I get a tell us how we did email like Why would you put that on a
• 37:18
  timer? Why would say, unless there's
• 37:23
  legitimately closing cases without even opening them?
• 37:31
  So obviously, I love terrible feedback.
• 37:33
  I swore nobody's gonna read it anyway.
• 37:36
  So there we go. That's what happened.
• 37:40
  And I've said, I've done a couple more highlights that have
• 37:43
  that are still quote, unquote processing.
• 37:45
  I'm not able to keep any of my streams, a couple of things
• 37:50
  here, one. Yeah, don't take it personally.
• 37:53
  All the companies like this YouTube is the same.
• 37:55
  I've I just recently got another Community strike, I got one
• 38:00
  about Five months ago for a podcast clip, they never got
• 38:04
  back to me. I tweeted to them like several
• 38:06
  times nothing. I've appealed this latest one
• 38:09
  and we'll see if they get back to me, but probably not.
• 38:15
  And yeah, just just just going on on the experience of yours.
• 38:19
  I think that They just probably wish don't feel like they have
• 38:23
  to or need to you know, it's like they've got nothing.
• 38:27
  It's not there. Yeah, they've got their
• 38:30
  Partners, that's all that matters.
• 38:35
  But you know, Twitches is only one platform.
• 38:38
  There are many others, many emerging ones.
• 38:42
  And also the funny thing is you really they really take a
• 38:45
  massive car. There was a guy that did a video
• 38:48
  on this really Devin Nash. I believe his name is and he
• 38:51
  kind of broke down like all of the different platforms and
• 38:54
  like, what you learned from it and what they earn, and twitch
• 38:58
  tastes like 90 percent of the overall ad Revenue.
• 39:02
  Which is nuts. The think about 90%. 90 is like
• 39:09
  Facebook and that take like 30 or 20.
• 39:12
  You know, it's like Twitter is just one option, it's just
• 39:16
  because it's owned by Amazon. It's like they've got to take
• 39:19
  their massive, you know? Car, I guess.
• 39:23
  But the thing is because it's such a well established
• 39:26
  platform. And when people think of
• 39:28
  streaming, they mostly think of twitch.
• 39:31
  Yeah. You know, other options will you
• 39:34
  know, become available. You know, I've been streaming
• 39:37
  along. Do you live YouTube?
• 39:40
  It's possible but I guess it's difficult to go up against
• 39:46
  Amazon. Hey yeah.
• 39:50
  Well, because I started out just Doing stuff on our pan on Reddit
• 39:55
  and I love that shit. I still do.
• 39:58
  But I wanted to do longer ones and I wanted, you know, hurt to
• 40:01
  mostly be returning people because it's so hard to parse
• 40:07
  through the chat. When it's so full of, do you
• 40:11
  support Trump? Why?
• 40:12
  Like, just random sort of insulting questions and comments
• 40:18
  and it's like, Why are you here? So this is, this is interesting.
• 40:24
  It's like, if all the other people here are interested, why
• 40:27
  are you over here being like, are you going to do something
• 40:29
  interesting? So this is streaming on on red
• 40:32
  are right? Yeah, I've seen people streaming
• 40:36
  on read it before, but To talk talk us through this because
• 40:40
  this is kind of quite new to me. Like I usually I'll see you on a
• 40:42
  Reddit timeline. Like, oh, this person has 5,000
• 40:45
  people watching and I'm like, really on Reddit, like, I mean
• 40:49
  read it's great for conversations and memes and
• 40:51
  shit. But like, for the live
• 40:53
  streaming, like what's the process there?
• 40:55
  How does it work? It's it's so unique and I love
• 40:59
  the culture that it has created. I just got done complaining
• 41:03
  about outcroppings of the culture, but overall I do You
• 41:07
  love the culture. It's the way that they
• 41:10
  originally advertised it when they did their beta testing back
• 41:15
  in 2019, was that? It was, you know, for the
• 41:25
  weirdos and the unique things out there that need to be
• 41:31
  broadcasted. And so like, yeah.
• 41:33
  When it, when it started out, obviously, it was just a bunch
• 41:36
  of people like Streaming their TV and chatting with people and
• 41:40
  watching TV at the same time or like the first Dream I ever did.
• 41:44
  I felt like making food on and I was like, I feel like streaming
• 41:49
  this. Let's make udon with strangers
• 41:51
  on the internet and it was so fun and now we're kind of seeing
• 41:55
  this whole busking culture. So if you've got anything that
• 41:59
  you can use to busk online, doing it on Reddit is great
• 42:02
  because you are. It's it's just like basking in
• 42:06
  real life. People are going about Their day
• 42:07
  scrolling through Reddit, they see you, they're interested,
• 42:10
  they click on it, they listen, they leave a tip and they leave.
• 42:13
  It's, it's actually pretty unique.
• 42:16
  And I'd be interested instead of looking into this further and
• 42:19
  like, where it could possibly go, but some people are getting
• 42:22
  annoyed because there's so many musicians and like, everybody's
• 42:26
  asking for tips and it's like nobody's asking for tips,
• 42:29
  they've got their venmo up there but nobody's asking for tips.
• 42:33
  So I think it's pretty unique and cool and And you've also got
• 42:38
  people like just doing streams where they dance like they just
• 42:43
  this one kid. Does I dance harder with every I
• 42:48
  think it was chat or maybe it was a ward.
• 42:50
  Even I wasn't even sure but he like he starts out just like
• 42:55
  moving his finger. I love with someone comes on her
• 42:58
  like go like and it's just so entertaining to see like how it
• 43:03
  evolves and I don't know if you've seen this but one of The
• 43:07
  most popular ones lately has been noodle man.
• 43:10
  And so it's this person has got this little like living room set
• 43:15
  up with like neon things in it. And it's got like a little
• 43:19
  Marquee that says noodle man. And then they've got like
• 43:22
  noodles on street and strings. And they're like, you know,
• 43:27
  those those toys that they've got lights on the inside and
• 43:31
  then the outside, they've got these rubber sort of A dog left
• 43:37
  it for those. It was this thing at home, that
• 43:39
  won't have seen that basically, Eleanor is dog, just decided to
• 43:44
  move. And obviously, as you know, when
• 43:46
  that happens, that's chaotic if you've got a streaming server so
• 43:49
  basically just jumped up and everything went.
• 43:52
  It's quite funny. Yeah, I'm liking my laptop,
• 43:56
  didn't hit the floor, to pick me up.
• 44:00
  I love dogs so much. They're wonderful and okay, that
• 44:06
  sounds pretty crazy that they do that on Reddit though.
• 44:09
  Yeah, that's different. But yeah, so the noodle man I
• 44:14
  gotta I gotta finish telling you about this because it's just
• 44:16
  it's too crazy and it's too perfectly, read it.
• 44:19
  So that this thing fashioned out of like these little noodles and
• 44:22
  they're like neon, he's got like a black light in there and then
• 44:28
  he's having the noodles. Ants.
• 44:29
  And it's usually like to some sort of club music and he's got
• 44:34
  a little cold at hello around sometimes and the noodles will
• 44:37
  dance on the pole and it looks like nobody moves that way, but
• 44:42
  it looks so real and it's just it's heartwarming.
• 44:46
  I don't know why modern puppeteering everyone, modern
• 44:50
  Puppeteer busking is neon noodles, pole dancing. so, It's
• 45:02
  interesting. Yeah, I mean I think the
• 45:09
  interesting thing that I found with of us going into lockdown
• 45:13
  online, is that everyone's kind of trying their hand at content
• 45:18
  creation, but a lot more Woulda given given a go.
• 45:23
  But I think a lot of people are realizing how difficult it is,
• 45:26
  because just because you can create content doesn't mean it's
• 45:29
  any good. And it's subjective, don't get
• 45:33
  me wrong. But like, I do feel like it's,
• 45:37
  you've got to, you got to put an effort in June and I mean with
• 45:39
  dancers, musicians, I mean they're already putting a lot of
• 45:43
  effort in any way for their craft, right?
• 45:45
  But like for instance when I look at like the streams that I
• 45:48
  do and the YouTube podcast and stuff like For those who've
• 45:54
  never done it, they might look at this and go.
• 45:56
  I see easy. You just show up and start
• 45:58
  talking ask questions. That's that's not difficult,
• 46:01
  trust me. It is there's a lot of stuff
• 46:04
  that goes on behind the scenes, like research.
• 46:06
  Every time I get a new guest, I have to go and look that person
• 46:09
  up and figure out. What the hell am I going to ask
• 46:11
  this person? You know.
• 46:12
  Right there isn't a lot of time. I don't I use my questions as
• 46:18
  like a guide but I kind of rely on Ad lib questions and also
• 46:25
  hopefully that the conversation will go well and that they'll be
• 46:27
  some chemistry and stuff, you know, there's a lot of things
• 46:29
  that you hope for, but, you know, when I look at like the
• 46:34
  live streams that I do, I find it interesting that people are
• 46:39
  interested in it just hearing me talk.
• 46:42
  I think that's intriguing because Maybe it's a confidence
• 46:48
  issue. I don't think it's very
• 46:49
  interesting to listen to me speak, but there's people that
• 46:53
  come in regulars here and there. And they seem to really enjoy
• 46:57
  it. They really like that, and I
• 46:59
  think that's why they keep coming back.
• 47:00
  And that makes me think that, like, if you've really got
• 47:04
  something to say, and you know, how to conduct yourself and have
• 47:08
  a structure or even if it's something simple, like, you
• 47:10
  know, with your cell porn on Twitch, where it's you waking up
• 47:15
  sort of starting the day. I think that's a very simple.
• 47:19
  You know structure but like a lot of people can relate to that
• 47:22
  and like that. So nice way to, you know, begin
• 47:25
  your day. If you know that this person is
• 47:26
  always going to have this set up and it's something you can go to
• 47:29
  it's certainly something worth going to listen to checking out.
• 47:36
  I mean it is all I was watching Joe Rogan the other day and you
• 47:40
  know there's there's many people that like and dislike as stuff.
• 47:43
  But one thing I say about him is he's very consistent.
• 47:46
  Every time you watch that podcast.
• 47:48
  You Know what to expect. And I think that's key with this
• 47:52
  type of streaming. So every time you check out a
• 47:55
  particular stream or YouTube or whatever you want, kind of the
• 47:59
  same thing each time, you know, like, I would hope that those
• 48:04
  listening to my podcast would Kind of enjoy the fact that
• 48:08
  there's always the same format, obviously.
• 48:10
  It's always going to be different.
• 48:11
  The guest is always different conversations are different, but
• 48:14
  the structure is always the same.
• 48:16
  You can follow that and maybe that's what's interesting.
• 48:21
  Yeah, you know, another, I think about it.
• 48:24
  That is kind of the podcast that I returned to the ones that I
• 48:27
  like, I know what to expect. Whenever there's there's ones
• 48:31
  that like they're always different.
• 48:33
  I noticed that I don't stick with those.
• 48:35
  Like, I don't know if you know Jake hurwitz and Amir
• 48:40
  Blumenfeld. From the internet.
• 48:45
  They were, they did a series called Jake and Amir and they
• 48:47
  basically got a following now that it says stuck with them
• 48:51
  cool but sorry I can't see her facial expression, very well,
• 48:55
  it's kind of sort of freezing up.
• 49:01
  Yes, that's that would be my wonderous internet, I imagine.
• 49:07
  Yeah. Yeah, I do apologize.
• 49:10
  No, I'm not familiar with that podcast.
• 49:12
  I don't know. Yeah, but basically they there
• 49:17
  an advice show even though they're not experts in anything
• 49:21
  and you know, at first, I thought it was a stupid concept,
• 49:24
  but the only reason I come back is because I know there will be
• 49:27
  B throughout. I know it'll start with improv
• 49:30
  and updates on their lives. And I know that eventually
• 49:33
  they'll end up answering some sort of question about sex.
• 49:35
  So they I that's actually a good point that the people do come
• 49:41
  back to things for the predictability.
• 49:44
  Yeah I mean it's some I think it's one of the reasons I watch
• 49:48
  professional wrestling actually because you one of the things
• 49:51
  you touched on right there is this kind of Different things
• 49:55
  for different members of your audience.
• 49:57
  You know, when they watch that show like you said there's
• 49:59
  certain things that you come back for but there's other
• 50:01
  things that you're not. So you don't enjoy so much and
• 50:03
  it's the same for me when I watch wrestling.
• 50:05
  You know, there's a lot of stuff that I might.
• 50:07
  Uh, okay. This match has done but then the
• 50:09
  thing that I really want to see is coming up and but I remember
• 50:14
  one person did this analogy of wrestling and they said it's
• 50:17
  like a circus. You know, there's something for
• 50:20
  everything and I think a lot of things in life content-related
• 50:24
  are That because you're thinking, you know, your
• 50:26
  audience is diverse generally speaking and they won't all
• 50:29
  necessarily like the same thing as a lot.
• 50:32
  People that tell me, I'm an your podcast, the too long and
• 50:35
  there's other people are like, are, you know?
• 50:41
  That's perfect. I like a longer podcast, blah,
• 50:43
  blah, blah. I think it really depends.
• 50:45
  I mean, I don't plan on the podcasts being long or short
• 50:50
  there as long as they are, it really depends.
• 50:54
  But when I Died doing the clips. That was my way of saying okay
• 50:58
  for people that can't that's guess it can't handle.
• 51:01
  They can't handle the long words.
• 51:03
  Know the people that don't want to listen for like two hours,
• 51:05
  three hours, whatever that's for that those clips are for them
• 51:09
  and I think it's important to do that to cater to different parts
• 51:14
  of your audience. It's one of the reasons why I'm
• 51:17
  a variety content creator because you know, there's a lot
• 51:21
  of things that I enjoy to do and I would do anyway but What, I've
• 51:26
  started splitting up, my different YouTube channels.
• 51:29
  I thought of this, it's like, okay, this channel for this
• 51:32
  stuff. This channel for this stuff,
• 51:33
  this channel for this stuff. You got you got to think of your
• 51:35
  audience, to some extent, but yeah.
• 51:43
  Yeah, so actually, I got one more question.
• 51:46
  A couple more questions about your podcast.
• 51:50
  Yeah. Who your sources of inspiration
• 51:54
  for podcasting? Because obviously, you know,
• 51:57
  I've mentioned a few there that I listened to the.
• 52:00
  I like, I think I do model mine a lot after Joe Rogan's.
• 52:05
  Obviously, his much more, relaxed.
• 52:07
  It's a bit different on much more.
• 52:11
  I'd say a bit more rigid. I don't know.
• 52:13
  I like to have a bit more of a I don't mind free flow but I think
• 52:17
  it's important too. Have a very strict kind of thing
• 52:22
  that you follow at least, so you don't get lost too much in the
• 52:25
  tangents. But Yeah, who do you look up for
• 52:32
  it to for inspiration? We've got two main ones.
• 52:37
  I, one of them is the Bible project podcast because I even
• 52:48
  if I, even if I don't feel like consuming Bible, related
• 52:53
  content, I know that when I when I get in there to Mac, he's
• 52:59
  going to have some sort of insight and opinion that I've
• 53:05
  never heard before. He takes a lot of the typical.
• 53:15
  Say stigma, around the Old Testament in particular, he
• 53:20
  calls himself a Hebrew Bible scholar.
• 53:22
  That this is his main focus of study and he sort of turns them
• 53:29
  on their head by using the original cultural context.
• 53:34
  And I really like that, I really like his sort of calm and even
• 53:39
  tone I like the way that they insert music and sound effects.
• 53:45
  And sort of it's very freeform. Sometimes they'll get into a bit
• 53:49
  of poetry and sometimes they'll just you know chat about real
• 53:57
  life applications of something. And the whole podcast purpose is
• 54:02
  literally just recording the conversations that they use to
• 54:05
  make their YouTube videos. So it's just recording their
• 54:10
  basically their research and their planning but But I also
• 54:16
  really like that. John, the co-host always has a
• 54:22
  good audience perspective, question.
• 54:25
  He's always asking like all of the questions that the audience
• 54:30
  might be, might be asking and I really like that.
• 54:33
  And then the other one is the. So there's this, this guy, this
• 54:41
  this music Creator called sleeping at lasts and he's got
• 54:45
  podcast just about the creation of its different songs but for a
• 54:49
  while there he did a single Series where he was making songs
• 54:55
  about different types on the Enneagram and his Enneagram
• 54:59
  series was just so interested active and you know empathetic
• 55:07
  toward the types of people he was talking about because
• 55:10
  obviously there if if anybody's not familiar the Enneagram Is
• 55:15
  it's like a personality test, but it's more like a personality
• 55:18
  theory and it's quite ancient. Actually, it's kind of a
• 55:24
  tradition, but he had an expert on and the format it the format
• 55:32
  of it was such that you really got to know these these
• 55:36
  different types as he was talking about them and he always
• 55:40
  involved people of those types in the, in the Music Creation,
• 55:46
  And I thought that was pretty cool and just overall the calm
• 55:51
  tone and the involvement of music is kind of the connecting
• 55:57
  thread between these two. I really enjoy podcasts that,
• 56:02
  that bring me to a mindful place.
• 56:06
  And for your own podcast, we all what are your goals and
• 56:11
  aspirations for it? I just want to get it out there
• 56:19
  to be honest. I mean I would hope people would
• 56:22
  listen to it that would be nice but yeah, I just, I just want
• 56:28
  it. I want to be able to make it
• 56:31
  regularly. I really enjoy making it and You
• 56:36
  know, hopefully eventually I get to actually share it with
• 56:39
  people. Do you think that's going to be
• 56:42
  anytime soon? I mean, you mentioned you got
• 56:44
  some episodes kind of recorded. So that's obviously part half
• 56:50
  the way there really. I mean, yeah.
• 56:55
  Yeah, yeah, the year in review should be out soon.
• 56:59
  Actually, we're still, we're still in the process of
• 57:02
  recording. It is it ended up being more of
• 57:05
  a three-part thing. But yeah, once I finish that up,
• 57:10
  I should be releasing it along with like a little.
• 57:15
  What do you call it? Like an intro.
• 57:16
  Teaser. What is pop Spotify?
• 57:19
  Call it trailer? Yeah, yeah.
• 57:23
  Okay. And And what's the name of the
• 57:26
  podcast? It's called I'm here now.
• 57:31
  It's so funny. Weird 59 when it's in, it's
• 57:34
  called I'm here now. Yeah, and I guess the purpose is
• 57:41
  to pick apart the things that are preventing us from truly
• 57:46
  being here and truly being present in our lives.
• 57:50
  And well, it's not out. I do have an email.
• 57:55
  List for people who are interested in pre-production
• 57:59
  updates, I send out like once every couple of months, to be
• 58:03
  honest, and hopefully, I'll be able to let people know when
• 58:10
  it's actually lie. Excellent.
• 58:14
  Where will it be? Sort of available to listen to
• 58:19
  Spotify. Mainly, I hope to have a web
• 58:23
  page up and hopefully Apple music haven't really sorted all
• 58:28
  of that out yet but the hope is anywhere where you find
• 58:31
  podcasts. Excellent.
• 58:33
  Well, best of luck with that. Thanks for sharing.
• 58:36
  And yeah, let's let's move it forward.
• 58:39
  So let's talk about acting. Tell us about your acting
• 58:43
  experiences so far. Yeah, so hmm.
• 58:50
  It's interesting. I feel like with a lot of the
• 58:53
  things that I do it feels like I have a lot more experience than
• 58:56
  I do because I care so much and I work so hard with the small
• 59:03
  things that I do do. Um but With acting, I knew at 10
• 59:14
  years old that I wanted to act that.
• 59:16
  That's, that's what I wanted to do.
• 59:17
  And that was like, my main thing, and I remember being ten
• 59:21
  years old, and thinking. Well, if I'm going to be an
• 59:24
  actor, I need to go to an acting school.
• 59:26
  And if I'm going to go to an acting school, I need
• 59:29
  experience. And so I was like, I'm going to
• 59:33
  audition for any, but the small town that I grew up in was Hang
• 59:40
  on a knee like that. Same year that I decided, I
• 59:43
  wanted to be an actor. So it was kind of kind of
• 59:45
  perfect timing. But and then I from that point
• 59:49
  on decided, that I hated theater, I hated musical
• 59:52
  theater. I was not interested in theater
• 59:54
  acting and so I didn't do anything else.
• 59:57
  I did. I did like, a couple of things
• 1:00:00
  in high school but I was like, no over it.
• 1:00:02
  Not interested. I don't know what I'm going to
• 1:00:03
  do. I have this plan that I was
• 1:00:06
  going to turn 18? I'm a very ambitious.
• 1:00:09
  I'm going to Make it to 18, that's my plan.
• 1:00:16
  Yeah, seriously. I was like, well, I can't do, I
• 1:00:18
  can't possibly do anything until 18, so, but I was like, okay,
• 1:00:23
  I'm going to turn 18. I'm gonna move out to LA and I
• 1:00:27
  live in my car. I'm gonna do commercials, right?
• 1:00:31
  I'm gonna be an extra in commercials, and then I'm going
• 1:00:34
  to, I'm going to try to have speaking Parts as an extra in
• 1:00:39
  commercials, and I'll just work my Way up from there.
• 1:00:43
  And I'm so glad I didn't actually do that.
• 1:00:46
  That would have been a living. Hell, I was like, I'm going to
• 1:00:48
  sleep on the side of the road and the countryside and I can go
• 1:00:52
  to truck stops. Like I had it all Jesus Christ
• 1:00:56
  woman, I had it all logistically planned out.
• 1:01:02
  You can tell that these are the thoughts of a young kind of
• 1:01:06
  clue. Look, no offense clueless
• 1:01:08
  teenager because it's like, yeah.
• 1:01:10
  Yeah, so many bad things could happen with that, and it's like,
• 1:01:14
  don't get me wrong. We've all had those stupid
• 1:01:16
  thoughts where you're like. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:17
  I could just do this. There'd be no problems easy.
• 1:01:20
  And it's like, that's not how far, you know, we know the
• 1:01:24
  limitations and we can easily imagine them what but there's
• 1:01:28
  the chance that I'm actually invincible.
• 1:01:31
  So, let's just let's just roll this at home.
• 1:01:34
  I could actually be God without realizing it man.
• 1:01:39
  It's possible. Oh my god.
• 1:01:44
  Wow. Um.
• 1:01:47
  Do you know before I quiz you more enacting?
• 1:01:50
  I will say I do agree with your thing about theater acting.
• 1:01:55
  I don't know what it is for me, because I'm an aspiring actor as
• 1:01:58
  well. I started doing stuff in the
• 1:02:00
  beginning of 2019 and discovered that I loved it.
• 1:02:04
  I was like, okay, so this is a thing.
• 1:02:05
  Then I'm going to pursue this as well, and a lot of people have
• 1:02:09
  asked me like, oh, would you do theater, do you like theater?
• 1:02:12
  I might know. I'd fuck that.
• 1:02:14
  I've seen musicals. I've seen a bit of theater here.
• 1:02:18
  I don't understand the fascination.
• 1:02:20
  I mean I kind of understand people that want to do
• 1:02:22
  Shakespeare. I get it.
• 1:02:26
  But you know, I mean yeah, I was born and raised in the UK and I
• 1:02:31
  thought that Shakespeare was dull when I was at school.
• 1:02:36
  I like the stories but I always thought it was just a bit too
• 1:02:39
  melodramatic and people going to curse spy, don't care.
• 1:02:42
  It's my opinion to dramatic. I know it's drama.
• 1:02:46
  It's supposed to be but There's a line.
• 1:02:48
  And I feel like when I was okay, when I watch like something, I
• 1:02:52
  really enjoyed it. Good movie, good TV.
• 1:02:56
  The one thing that I always look out for is convincing acting.
• 1:03:00
  It's the same thing that I look for in professional wrestling,
• 1:03:02
  as well as it's like, does this person make me believe that they
• 1:03:06
  are this person, you know, like, for example, I remember this.
• 1:03:10
  This is a funny example, but people, I think people can agree
• 1:03:14
  with me on this Ashton Kutcher who did all the like silly
• 1:03:17
  Domino's Pizza commercials in the 90s and obviously was
• 1:03:23
  famously on that show That 70s Show and then he was on Two and
• 1:03:30
  a Half Men, blah blah blah, he's always played like the fool
• 1:03:32
  right that young kind of foolish kind of guy and then he just
• 1:03:37
  around the time that he was still doing That 70s Show.
• 1:03:42
  He did this serious movie. The Butterfly Effect everyone
• 1:03:45
  remembers this movie and I was just blown away by his
• 1:03:49
  performance. I thought he was exceptional and
• 1:03:52
  I, and this is the thing. I totally forgot that it was
• 1:03:54
  actually in culture in that role.
• 1:03:56
  I was so enthralled in his character and his conviction and
• 1:04:01
  I was sold on it and then I was like that in my opinion is what
• 1:04:05
  makes a good actor. It's not about how dramatic you
• 1:04:09
  can be or or the intensity of the role and the story.
• 1:04:13
  It's like no bullshit. Can you convince me that you are
• 1:04:16
  this person? I think it's possible with in
• 1:04:18
  theater, but I feel like there's this kind of barrier almost
• 1:04:23
  because your purposefully playing to the audience.
• 1:04:26
  I mean, even down to the very kind of fact that they like face
• 1:04:30
  the the audience when they're doing their dialogues because
• 1:04:33
  obviously you're not going to like turn away.
• 1:04:35
  But like it almost kind of feels like, hey, give me Applause.
• 1:04:40
  Give me adoration like give me everything like this is in time,
• 1:04:45
  you know I just don't Get it. I'd so I totally agree with you
• 1:04:49
  on that. I have zero interest.
• 1:04:53
  I love this. I love that.
• 1:04:54
  You had that entire introjection about how theater theater sucks
• 1:04:58
  because I grew out of that and that's actually my thing now.
• 1:05:03
  But you know what? Okay go is interesting.
• 1:05:09
  So yeah, I would say I think that my style of acting is
• 1:05:13
  definitely more suited for film but and and Netflix is doing
• 1:05:20
  some great things of producing. A lot of Indie stuff and I
• 1:05:24
  really appreciate that. And I'm really looking forward
• 1:05:26
  to where film goes in the future mainstream film.
• 1:05:29
  At least, obviously, everybody's been making people been making
• 1:05:32
  good films for a long time. It's just now they're getting a
• 1:05:35
  lot more visibility or the Homegrown stuff.
• 1:05:38
  But I so, after, I actually did graduate height.
• 1:05:45
  Well before I graduated high school, I remember we did this
• 1:05:49
  thing. Now, this is a small town.
• 1:05:52
  All about sports. And the academics aren't that
• 1:05:55
  great? The No offense.
• 1:06:01
  Anybody from my hotel, they might be listening.
• 1:06:04
  But if if we had had valedictorian right straight, A
• 1:06:08
  students we would have had seven of them in my class of 100.
• 1:06:13
  That's too many. Usually there's only one but
• 1:06:19
  someone, you know, it's pretty easy to do well, but we did it.
• 1:06:25
  We did a little test thing to see, what sort of classes we
• 1:06:28
  should take. And I was like, well obviously I
• 1:06:31
  want to do performance but you don't have those here so and
• 1:06:36
  sure enough it was like take choir and I'm like how would
• 1:06:38
  that help me act? Take choir, but so I was like,
• 1:06:47
  cool. There's this thing in the in the
• 1:06:49
  midwest where and I'm not sure if it's it exists elsewhere, but
• 1:06:53
  I know it's in the midwest where it's called pseo, post-secondary
• 1:06:57
  enrollment options. And while you're in high school,
• 1:07:01
  you can enroll at a local college or university and take
• 1:07:05
  classes there to fill your high school remaining high school
• 1:07:08
  credits or free. And accumulate college credits
• 1:07:13
  for when you graduate. And so, I did that solely so
• 1:07:18
  that I could take theater classes.
• 1:07:19
  That was literally it. I spent all of my study halls
• 1:07:23
  just looking at the different course options.
• 1:07:26
  And so I wasn't working toward a degree or anything.
• 1:07:31
  I took public speaking, I took, I didn't take theater
• 1:07:36
  appreciation. Oddly enough.
• 1:07:37
  Well, not oddly enough because I still hated theater.
• 1:07:41
  And I walked in there, there's this is, I haven't mentioned
• 1:07:46
  this yet, but I'm autistic. And this is a classic sort of
• 1:07:51
  autistic person thing, but I walked into that theater.
• 1:07:59
  Every single day with just the straightest, most serious face
• 1:08:02
  possible like everybody else in my class was like, yeah, acting
• 1:08:06
  this should be fun, it was beginning acting.
• 1:08:08
  This should be fun and like half of them were football players
• 1:08:12
  looking for an easy and or they just enjoyed the theater
• 1:08:16
  directors personality. And I'm over here, like acting
• 1:08:20
  taking this, seriously, like complete straight-faced, walk to
• 1:08:23
  my corner. Do my thing.
• 1:08:27
  And intimidate my partners. Just how serious I was taking
• 1:08:33
  it. Um and I I enjoyed that I
• 1:08:39
  enjoyed Some of the monologues I did.
• 1:08:43
  I enjoyed the way, you know, he was able to direct us, I enjoyed
• 1:08:48
  that. And then he had an old friend of
• 1:08:53
  his who he had mentored, who ended up going to, he ended up
• 1:09:01
  going to Stella Adler in LA and then moved on to go to the Oh,
• 1:09:09
  shoot. What is it called?
• 1:09:11
  It's in Berlin now. But So-called Lissa the London
• 1:09:14
  International School of Performing Arts.
• 1:09:16
  He ended up going there and that you know that was a big deal was
• 1:09:20
  like whoa this guy's a big deal and now he's back in the Twin
• 1:09:23
  Cities area and he's and he came back to Rochester to see us and
• 1:09:28
  so he did a workshop and that kind of that kind of was a bit
• 1:09:35
  of a turning point for me. Because at the time, I wasn't
• 1:09:38
  quite sure that I still wanted to do acting.
• 1:09:42
  And he came and he basically had us do songs as monologues.
• 1:09:49
  So like I favorite song because you already know the script our
• 1:09:52
  favorite song do that but I was monologue and he would just stop
• 1:09:56
  people right away and tell them exactly what was not selling it
• 1:10:02
  for him and he would keep doing that until they were selling it
• 1:10:05
  for him and then they would go through and he'd be like a job.
• 1:10:09
  And I just thought that was fascinating because I was so
• 1:10:12
  used to, you know, the theater, the theater World being like, Oh
• 1:10:17
  Bravo, good job. Um, I've never seen someone do
• 1:10:20
  that before. Where they were like no, take it
• 1:10:22
  seriously, I can tell you're not taking it seriously, take it
• 1:10:25
  seriously. And so then after I graduated,
• 1:10:29
  when I found out that he was actually going to come back that
• 1:10:32
  the theater director, there was going to go on sabbatical and he
• 1:10:35
  was going to come back and fill in and teach those classes.
• 1:10:38
  Asses for him. I was like I got to take those.
• 1:10:43
  So I ended up. I had some savings, I paid for
• 1:10:48
  the classes. I took them, he directed to
• 1:10:51
  shows and the first one was Macbeth and it absolutely blew
• 1:11:01
  me away the way that first of all, the passion that he had for
• 1:11:08
  the peace. he was working with that, he even in areas where he
• 1:11:18
  may not have been seeing the same things that other people
• 1:11:21
  were seeing like he was very open to what the actors saw.
• 1:11:27
  And so whenever something wasn't, you know, whenever he
• 1:11:29
  wasn't sold on something, maybe like try this.
• 1:11:33
  What do you think you should try?
• 1:11:34
  What do you like? He would ask a lot of those
• 1:11:37
  questions and he was very movement focused.
• 1:11:40
  I mean he studied in physical theater.
• 1:11:45
  Gachi. I'll say that.
• 1:11:46
  I don't need to go down the road of what that is.
• 1:11:50
  What the specific one is but he was all about minimalism and
• 1:11:56
  telling the story with our bodies.
• 1:11:59
  And so the entire there wasn't a set, our costumes were just
• 1:12:05
  wearing the black clothes we had in our houses and there's no
• 1:12:10
  makeup and we didn't put on oh my gosh we didn't put on the
• 1:12:14
  queen. Is English accents to do
• 1:12:16
  Shakespeare, which is too common over here.
• 1:12:23
  It's too common. That's how you doing authentic
• 1:12:28
  is must be authentic, must be Shakespearean.
• 1:12:33
  Yeah, okay. Hopefully I can hear you better
• 1:12:41
  now. Yeah.
• 1:12:44
  So we didn't put Accents. And we didn't put on a
• 1:12:47
  performative like loud and like, big and hammy, sort of act, he
• 1:12:53
  was very much about don't think about the audience and in like,
• 1:13:01
  you know, letting them hear you but don't think about them.
• 1:13:04
  In terms of them, getting the picture, they'll get the picture
• 1:13:07
  and it kind of showed me that a lot of what I hated so much
• 1:13:10
  about theater acting, is that it's so often oversharing when
• 1:13:16
  you over share with someone you share what you're going through
• 1:13:20
  in a way that tries to force them to experience it too, and
• 1:13:23
  that's exactly what a lot of theater actors.
• 1:13:25
  Do they play out to the audience and try it too?
• 1:13:29
  Grab them and they go, they go for shock value.
• 1:13:33
  They go for the highest height of emotion and it ends up just
• 1:13:39
  being canned. So to have this person who is
• 1:13:43
  dedicated to theater not to film, not to television,
• 1:13:47
  dedicated to theater, who is about playing it real.
• 1:13:50
  I was introduced to a side of theater.
• 1:13:52
  I had never seen before and the next row he did was Called Peer
• 1:13:59
  Gynt. It's a nipson but it's not like
• 1:14:02
  most of his other things. It's written as a dramatic poem,
• 1:14:08
  but it's more like proposed and it's super long, the original
• 1:14:12
  production that was staged was 14 hours, so it was two hours
• 1:14:18
  each night for a week. You had to keep coming back, but
• 1:14:25
  it's so it was supposed to in most you like in the life of
• 1:14:28
  pair Gant, And all of his depravity, so that at the end,
• 1:14:32
  you would be able to, you know, truly empathize, with this awful
• 1:14:36
  person modern ones do like four hours.
• 1:14:42
  This particular director did his own cut.
• 1:14:44
  That was 75 minutes. So, great, perfect.
• 1:14:51
  We're off to a good start and he split hair into five different
• 1:14:58
  people. At the different stages of his
• 1:15:00
  life and I got to play the second one as a Playboy and that
• 1:15:05
  was so fun and it's really heartbreaking to realize that
• 1:15:09
  college is the only time you'll ever get to do those sorts of
• 1:15:12
  things because nobody's going to cast you in like daring roles,
• 1:15:16
  unless you're a celebrity and they just feel like having a
• 1:15:19
  celebrity name. So it's kind of sad.
• 1:15:21
  Like I'll never get to play anything like that again but
• 1:15:26
  Yeah. And that was entirely about
• 1:15:29
  Ensemble and everybody like moving with the same breath and
• 1:15:36
  There was music, there was lots of Music, Live music played, at
• 1:15:39
  the same time, we were playing on the stage and like you could
• 1:15:45
  see us changing costume in the background, he was all about
• 1:15:48
  stop caring about the audience, I'll care about the audience,
• 1:15:51
  you stop caring about the audience.
• 1:15:53
  And so even when we did even when we did Macbeth, we were all
• 1:15:58
  sat whenever we were quote unquote, offstage we were all
• 1:16:01
  sad at the edge of the stage so you could see us at all times
• 1:16:05
  and Yeah, with with pair again, there was no set at all and a
• 1:16:13
  again tis, an epic. So he goes to a lot of places
• 1:16:15
  and does a lot of things. So it was our bodies that had to
• 1:16:19
  convey those environments. And we couldn't do it in a way
• 1:16:21
  that made you cringe and that's the challenge, right?
• 1:16:24
  Because when you do stuff like that, if you're trying to play
• 1:16:28
  to the audience and not to the text in the truth and like the
• 1:16:32
  thing you're doing it's super hammy and gross like can can you
• 1:16:36
  tell I'm the ocean yet? And so like know, a lot of the
• 1:16:44
  time, the audience didn't know that that was the ocean but the
• 1:16:47
  story was still, told you still knew that they were on a boat.
• 1:16:50
  You didn't know that that guy over there was part of the ocean
• 1:16:52
  but you could tell they were on a boat and so that that was a
• 1:16:56
  lot of it. I got to do a lot of sort of
• 1:16:59
  sound effects on the violin that was very fun and everybody was
• 1:17:04
  constantly on stage doing things obviously. because they had to
• 1:17:08
  make the environments and everything and yeah I think that
• 1:17:13
  kind of that show kind of changed my life to be honest
• 1:17:18
  because that was kind of the first time that I was ever
• 1:17:21
  mentally healthy and I went in there every single day, being
• 1:17:27
  like, I love this show, I love this cast, I love this clay and
• 1:17:32
  I had never experienced that before it and It kind of makes
• 1:17:37
  me sad because it kind of feels like I peaked in college and
• 1:17:39
  that's literally a Trope, but it it taught me a lot.
• 1:17:47
  And so imagine my joy. When I then discovered, that
• 1:17:52
  Minneapolis has the biggest french theater scene in the US.
• 1:17:57
  Like So yeah sure. And that's why I like there are
• 1:18:02
  a lot of people who even live here and don't know it because
• 1:18:05
  the theater scene itself kind of feeds itself and so do people
• 1:18:11
  know about the Guthrie. So the main main theater in the
• 1:18:14
  Twin Cities but they don't know about the the French stuff is
• 1:18:19
  match even though there's a, there's a theater on every
• 1:18:21
  block. So it's kind of a weird culture.
• 1:18:26
  Awesome. So yeah, you've told us about
• 1:18:30
  your Beginnings. Enact a what are you doing in
• 1:18:33
  acting now? Or what did you do?
• 1:18:35
  Most recently tell us a bit more about that.
• 1:18:39
  Yes, so it's tough. Obviously covid has kind of put
• 1:18:43
  a lot of stuff on hold and you've noticed now, there's no
• 1:18:49
  way that I could do a zoom performance which is a thing
• 1:18:52
  that's totally a thing right now is zoom performances and I don't
• 1:18:56
  know who's watching them but for them.
• 1:19:03
  Wow, like good for them that they're able to be engaged in
• 1:19:09
  that, but so obviously I would not have been able to do is zoom
• 1:19:16
  performance. With all of the introduct
• 1:19:17
  interruptions, having my family at home at all times.
• 1:19:21
  Just would not have worked. So I haven't done anything since
• 1:19:25
  October of 2019. Okay.
• 1:19:29
  And that was a show. Called the Penelope did.
• 1:19:34
  So it's, it's about the character Penelope and it's the
• 1:19:39
  Odyssey through her perspective. So, yeah, and it was done by a
• 1:19:47
  woman's theater company, which I had previously thought that
• 1:19:51
  things like that were kind of extra that they were
• 1:19:54
  overcompensating but they were moving in the wrong direction to
• 1:19:58
  be like we only tell women stories but now that I Now that
• 1:20:02
  I've done it, I can see how having anybody in there who was
• 1:20:07
  not socialized, female would have completely changed the
• 1:20:12
  presentation of it. So the play itself is about the
• 1:20:19
  it focuses mostly on Penelope and the maids.
• 1:20:23
  Because in the story 12, Maids died for pretty much no reason.
• 1:20:29
  I'm actually blanking on it a little bit.
• 1:20:31
  Memories, not great but I was passionate, I promise.
• 1:20:37
  But yeah. And so that was another one of
• 1:20:41
  those more experimental things. I felt it felt a little bit more
• 1:20:45
  mainstream than I was used to, to be honest because we had like
• 1:20:50
  props and set pieces. And Costumes that were, I guess
• 1:21:00
  I guess the maids costumes were minimalist and they weren't like
• 1:21:04
  period based or anything but yeah that that felt very
• 1:21:13
  powerful. I think even my dad was affected
• 1:21:18
  a bit by it, which you can probably imagine.
• 1:21:21
  He said that he's a pretty, you know, stonyface person's
• 1:21:25
  feelings are kept very Very far back there and maybe it's just
• 1:21:33
  because he was watching his daughter die again on stage, I
• 1:21:37
  don't know. But yeah, that's the last thing
• 1:21:44
  I did and I'm going for that was another Greek play.
• 1:21:50
  Another modern Twist on a great play which was eurydice and for
• 1:21:55
  that. I I did mostly music.
• 1:21:57
  So most of the stuff that I've done, lately has been Ensemble
• 1:22:03
  based, so I was just an ensemble member and then whenever I
• 1:22:07
  wasn't in The Ensemble, I was making music and I really enjoy
• 1:22:12
  doing that. I love being able to create
• 1:22:15
  sounds to lay under the actors and being able to play with them
• 1:22:20
  because it's so different from having composed pieces.
• 1:22:25
  Because The actors aren't playing to you.
• 1:22:28
  You are playing to them and see what she'll like a live
• 1:22:32
  performer in like a mini, kind of Orchestra.
• 1:22:37
  That's sort of present there. Is that right?
• 1:22:41
  It's more like this is hard to explain.
• 1:22:45
  So in these shows, in these Ensemble based shows, every
• 1:22:50
  actor plays you know multiple characters as as they're needed
• 1:22:54
  multiple background people. And then it kind of like a
• 1:22:58
  musical, but I would hope a little bit less cheesy in my
• 1:23:04
  opinion, my opinion and then each of those people will,
• 1:23:10
  sometimes I guess, I've never seen this aside from the stuff
• 1:23:13
  that I've done, but I've done it four times now.
• 1:23:17
  So in all of these shows, I've done some of those Ensemble
• 1:23:22
  people will play as different characters and then they'll also
• 1:23:25
  be musician. And so whenever there's a bit of
• 1:23:28
  music that they play in, they go off to wherever the musicians
• 1:23:32
  typically stand in that particular production and they
• 1:23:36
  play sometimes they'll play like as actors sometimes they'll and
• 1:23:41
  so the music just kind of comes in at different parts.
• 1:23:44
  Write a grant. We had there was a kick drum
• 1:23:49
  heartbeat every time pair transitioned into a different
• 1:23:53
  pair. And so whoever was nearest to To
• 1:23:56
  the drum kit was going to do the kick drum heartbeat and whenever
• 1:24:02
  there was like the ocean I was back there doing violin sort of
• 1:24:06
  like moving tremolo for the wind and stuff, but yeah, that kind
• 1:24:12
  of thing. So sound effects underscore that
• 1:24:15
  sort of thing. And so it sounds like, yeah, you
• 1:24:19
  mainly doing theater acting for the most part, you'll see you
• 1:24:22
  mentioned years ago. You know, you wanted to kind of
• 1:24:26
  Get involved with film stuff. Your commercials, that's what
• 1:24:31
  stuff have you been doing that as well on the side or is your
• 1:24:34
  focus mainly just on theater and pursuing that particular Avenue?
• 1:24:39
  Yeah, you know I I tell you what, I really would love to.
• 1:24:45
  I would love to do film and and it's still definitely a dream
• 1:24:51
  but I'm kind of noticing that in order to make money doing film
• 1:24:56
  The really there's no there's no fringe filmscene like unless
• 1:25:02
  it's going to be an award-winning short film,
• 1:25:05
  there's not really the same amount of that out there that
• 1:25:10
  you can do and be paid. That's more what we're
• 1:25:14
  interested in is the independent films as opposed to the major
• 1:25:17
  ones. Yeah.
• 1:25:19
  Yeah. Well in the even if I was
• 1:25:21
  interested in major films that just makes it that much harder
• 1:25:24
  to be employed, you know? I mean pool of it depends though
• 1:25:31
  doesn't it? Because like lots of different
• 1:25:34
  people make it, you know, obviously it's one of the
• 1:25:36
  hardest professions to make it in but you know, different
• 1:25:39
  things can count towards you, you know, like obviously we're
• 1:25:42
  about, you know, if you're really good looking than that
• 1:25:44
  helps. And, you know, if you've got a
• 1:25:46
  particularly distinctive Voice or look, whatever that helps
• 1:25:50
  too, But, you know, like I think if nothing else over the past
• 1:25:56
  couple of decades, we've kind of been seeing lots and lots of
• 1:25:59
  more people, you know, doing really well that, you know,
• 1:26:03
  maybe don't suit that kind of like or fit that kind of typical
• 1:26:06
  like, Hollywood image so to speak.
• 1:26:08
  Also there it does seem to see be more of a, an emergency in
• 1:26:12
  popularity, of independent films and European Cinema.
• 1:26:16
  And so on, it's becoming more and more suppose accessible than
• 1:26:22
  When compared to yeah, decades. Absolutely.
• 1:26:26
  I have a lot more hope now than I did before.
• 1:26:31
  Because I, yeah, I'm noticing that a lot of the people who,
• 1:26:36
  who really get to do. The most interesting stuff are
• 1:26:38
  the people with those unique traits.
• 1:26:41
  I think of jameela, Jamil jameela Jamil, I got it all
• 1:26:44
  mixed up or like Rami Malek and just and just talking about
• 1:26:51
  being a Egyptian Heritage and and being able to play lead
• 1:26:57
  roles is kind of kind of a first unfortunately, but it's a good
• 1:27:04
  step in. So there's a lot of that
• 1:27:05
  happening. People are rally.
• 1:27:06
  I don't know if you know about the CM music drama her film.
• 1:27:13
  It's it's about taking an autistic girl.
• 1:27:18
  Mmm. And I'm assuming music is there
• 1:27:21
  a special interest? I'm a Assuming that's it, that
• 1:27:23
  music makes you tick but I don't really know the plot.
• 1:27:27
  I just know that they were like, we're going to be Progressive.
• 1:27:30
  We're going to be forward-thinking.
• 1:27:31
  We're going to hire an actress who is autistic is on the
• 1:27:35
  Spectrum and they did find someone.
• 1:27:41
  But they're filming schedule. Do not accommodate her autism.
• 1:27:47
  It was too much. And instead of going through the
• 1:27:50
  work and allocating the resources to accommodate her,
• 1:27:54
  even just to be on set as a consultant, they went with
• 1:27:58
  Maddie Ziegler, the dancer not autistic.
• 1:28:03
  There's no. And so a lot of a lot of people
• 1:28:05
  are upset about that and I'm just excited.
• 1:28:10
  That it's mainstream enough, that people are upset that
• 1:28:13
  aren't in the community, like that.
• 1:28:18
  That gives me hope as well because I'm realizing lately, I
• 1:28:22
  kind of can't do things professionally without
• 1:28:25
  disclosing. There are just too many things
• 1:28:28
  that, you know, turn people off that I can't.
• 1:28:39
  I can't hide anymore. I tried for a really long time
• 1:28:42
  and before I really knew what was going on.
• 1:28:45
  I I just kind of struggled, and I didn't really know why.
• 1:28:51
  And now, I kind of recognize that like in the audition room,
• 1:28:56
  I can tend to make people uncomfortable because I'm
• 1:28:58
  something they haven't seen before.
• 1:29:00
  Obviously, here I'm able to put on, you know, I can mask here
• 1:29:03
  but when when you're making art you really kind of do have to
• 1:29:10
  have, it's a very vulnerable thing and If You're vulnerable
• 1:29:15
  as Invisibly disabled person, it can become quite visible.
• 1:29:23
  And so I think Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what the
• 1:29:28
  future holds give us some examples.
• 1:29:31
  Obviously, if you're willing to talk about it.
• 1:29:32
  Like, you know, I've had for, I've had many friends over the
• 1:29:35
  years, who've had different degrees of autism, so I have
• 1:29:39
  like a rough idea, but, you know, I'm not like an expert,
• 1:29:42
  either. You say that you mask it.
• 1:29:45
  You saying that you you've or in the past, you've tried to hide
• 1:29:48
  it. So obviously, I gather from what
• 1:29:51
  you've said and what you explained there that, you know,
• 1:29:53
  obviously when you're going through the intense Shins and
• 1:29:56
  trying to draw that out and trying to act basically that's
• 1:30:00
  when it comes out, that's when it's sort of exposed.
• 1:30:02
  So what exactly is exposed what behavior that people are
• 1:30:08
  uncomfortable with is coming out?
• 1:30:11
  You know, I wish, I knew, I wish I knew I have some guesses, but
• 1:30:17
  is it stuff that you are consciously aware of?
• 1:30:20
  Or is it something that other people were telling you like,
• 1:30:22
  hey, that was weird. Why did you do that?
• 1:30:24
  Like A bit of both. Although nobody is like, hey,
• 1:30:30
  that was weird. Why did you do that?
• 1:30:31
  It's more. Like, just the way, you know,
• 1:30:35
  that they bring up what I did. It's kind of like yeah.
• 1:30:39
  And what, what, what was that more or less?
• 1:30:46
  But in these instances did they know that you were autistic?
• 1:30:50
  No. Because I didn't know.
• 1:30:53
  Oh, so this is something you found out recently then they
• 1:30:56
  ain't ya. Okay.
• 1:30:57
  How long ago did you find out then?
• 1:31:00
  July. Holy shit.
• 1:31:02
  Okay, so it's looking very recent that I was thinking.
• 1:31:05
  This is a couple of years, okay, okay, right, interesting, yeah,
• 1:31:10
  okay. I mean I've known I've known a
• 1:31:12
  kind of known for a couple of years, but I didn't get a formal
• 1:31:15
  diagnosis until July so it I didn't really let myself sort of
• 1:31:21
  make sense of anything yet. I kind of just just like, oh,
• 1:31:24
  that, that looks like that that also looks like that.
• 1:31:28
  Although the signs my what things made you think, hang on,
• 1:31:33
  something's not quite right. I've always known something was
• 1:31:39
  not quite right. Like since I was little and my
• 1:31:43
  parents have to and I think when I was diagnosed with ADHD they
• 1:31:49
  kind of lumped everything into that little box and went.
• 1:31:54
  Okay well you're on medication that's the way we're treating
• 1:31:56
  it. So take your meds and maybe this
• 1:32:00
  stuff will go away obviously it didn't but I found that people
• 1:32:08
  in the Spectrum can have, can either be extremely good at
• 1:32:12
  masking and at being numb, just in general, like their brains.
• 1:32:16
  Have this a bit of a superpower in that regard or they can be
• 1:32:21
  abnormally bad at masking and being numb.
• 1:32:24
  And I noticed that a lot of society looks at people who are
• 1:32:26
  bad at it and go. Wow, they're under socialized,
• 1:32:30
  but it's just genuinely, they lack that ability to mask
• 1:32:33
  because we're always masking whenever we meet, Someone we
• 1:32:36
  figure out what they kind of expect and we try to, you know,
• 1:32:40
  give that back to them. But yeah, I see I just hold on
• 1:32:47
  hold on one second. So yeah.
• 1:32:49
  Are you saying like autistic people in general purposefully
• 1:32:53
  do this in order to adapt to the person that's speaking with Oh,
• 1:33:00
  yeah. Like you do it automatically,
• 1:33:03
  there's no way you would probably be conscious of it.
• 1:33:05
  People mirror each other, but oh yeah.
• 1:33:09
  I know that happens. But obviously, like the way that
• 1:33:12
  you're putting, it kind of makes it sound like, you're trying to
• 1:33:16
  Kate myself for that other person or okay.
• 1:33:21
  I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's almost like implying,
• 1:33:23
  that like being autistic is wrong.
• 1:33:25
  Therefore, you've got to, like, kind of Put on a show for the
• 1:33:30
  other person so that they feel comfortable.
• 1:33:33
  And that's, you know, that can be how it comes off at first, I
• 1:33:38
  am learning as time goes on that, that's not necessarily the
• 1:33:41
  case that it's not wrong and that nobody's thinking that it's
• 1:33:45
  wrong, but you still have to kind of do it in order to get
• 1:33:49
  your ideas across in an order to connect.
• 1:33:53
  Because how do I put this? I think, yeah, we do it
• 1:34:01
  automatically. I think, for a lot of autistic
• 1:34:03
  people, it's not a more involved process.
• 1:34:05
  That's why a lot of therapies are about teaching, you how to
• 1:34:10
  mirror Expressions teaching, you how to smile when you're happy,
• 1:34:15
  all those sorts of things teaching you, you know, to shake
• 1:34:22
  somebody's hand and two because it's just not going to come out
• 1:34:25
  in that Ali and I think In different cultural environments.
• 1:34:30
  We as humans we adapt and I think, because autistic people
• 1:34:34
  struggle to do that naturally, there is a lot of effort put
• 1:34:37
  into it very often which is I think why I'm all about acting
• 1:34:45
  because I'm doing it 24/7. Hmm, I remember in high school,
• 1:34:51
  one of my friends said, oh, but you're such a good actress and
• 1:34:54
  I'm like, I've literally never acted though.
• 1:34:58
  Like you've never See me act? I've never seen me act.
• 1:35:00
  She's like, yeah, but you're kind of always doing it and I
• 1:35:03
  was like, I don't know why, but that seems very true.
• 1:35:10
  And I think that can be why if, you know, there's a stereotype
• 1:35:17
  that autistic people are absent. But then, you know, the more,
• 1:35:21
  the more different people, you get to know, you can kind of
• 1:35:23
  see, like, I don't know if this person seems hyper present, and
• 1:35:27
  that can also be the case. And I think, Part of that is
• 1:35:31
  being. Unintentionally uncontrollably.
• 1:35:36
  Self-absorbed. There is kind of this wall.
• 1:35:40
  It's not a big scary wall. Like how Autism Speaks wants you
• 1:35:43
  to see it, but there is kind of a wall and I think, oh gosh, I
• 1:35:52
  forgot what I was. What I was getting at.
• 1:36:00
  Masking o hyper hyper present. Yeah, I think in learning how to
• 1:36:09
  present themselves in a way, people understand more, hyper
• 1:36:13
  present people can can tend to exaggerate some things because I
• 1:36:18
  can't tell when you get it. I can't tell when you get it.
• 1:36:22
  And so I've got kind of a unique sort of accent.
• 1:36:26
  I think people have told me And, you know, all of my mannerisms
• 1:36:33
  are kind of precise. There's just a lot of
• 1:36:36
  overcompensating happening. But yeah, in the in the audition
• 1:36:43
  room it doesn't really come out when I'm acting it, doesn't it?
• 1:36:49
  That's I don't think so. I think maybe some of the
• 1:36:51
  choices I make might be a little off sometimes if I don't have
• 1:36:54
  guidance but I think It's just in between, when I'm like, you
• 1:37:02
  know, I'm all vulnerable. Now, like, I just got done being
• 1:37:05
  somebody else. And now I'm myself, and that's
• 1:37:09
  very bear. And it's hard to switch from
• 1:37:11
  being one character is honestly as possible to being a version
• 1:37:17
  of yourself as honestly as possible without revealing too
• 1:37:20
  much. And I found that in myself
• 1:37:24
  whenever I express, its it's extremely raw.
• 1:37:27
  I'm I'm either all in or I'm not in at all.
• 1:37:32
  And so when I do things artistically, They just don't
• 1:37:40
  get perceived the way I intend them to be.
• 1:37:43
  I don't really know what happens to be honest.
• 1:37:49
  Yeah. How do you because you mentioned
• 1:37:54
  the, you know, the friends have identified that you know you're
• 1:37:57
  always kind of like acting. And you mentioned, you mentioned
• 1:38:00
  that you have to really make a conscious effort to recognize,
• 1:38:05
  okay? This needs to, I need to sort of
• 1:38:08
  display this Behavior because it is appropriate for this feeling
• 1:38:11
  or this emotion, or blah, blah blah, so, How do you transition
• 1:38:19
  from playing a part two? In a way, kind of playing
• 1:38:23
  Another Part, by being a sec? Because it to me, it kind of
• 1:38:26
  sounds like almost the acting, never stops, which is kind of a
• 1:38:29
  scary thing to think about and obviously, right?
• 1:38:34
  And like I often think there's like a sense of when you
• 1:38:41
  yourself, it's a safe place when you know, like we all know that
• 1:38:44
  when were with people that were comfortable with, we can just be
• 1:38:47
  ourselves with, there's no doubt to put anything else on.
• 1:38:50
  You don't have to worry about their judgment blah, blah blah.
• 1:38:52
  You can just be yourself. But to me from listening to you,
• 1:38:56
  I get the, the sort of sense that like there isn't there?
• 1:39:00
  Isn't that comfort zone? Safe, maybe for like, obviously
• 1:39:03
  your home with your close relatives and stuff, but when
• 1:39:05
  you're out and about, It almost sounds like.
• 1:39:10
  You can't so like sometimes a little bit about that.
• 1:39:14
  Like I'm struggling with that a little bit.
• 1:39:16
  Yeah, no. Yeah, you really you really
• 1:39:19
  can't. Um, sometimes I'll try I'll try
• 1:39:23
  to relax but I don't know. It just seems kind of
• 1:39:30
  impossible. That's why it's very important
• 1:39:33
  for me. And a lot of people in Spectrum
• 1:39:35
  to be have genuine alone time because that that's the only way
• 1:39:40
  to reach Fajr is to be genuinely alone.
• 1:39:45
  Because of like, when I'm in my natural place, I don't make a
• 1:39:48
  lot of facial expressions. My inflection is like, kind of
• 1:39:51
  not exist in even, I mean, even my parents if I'm, you know,
• 1:39:56
  kind of focusing on something and I walk downstairs and they
• 1:39:59
  ask me a question, I'm going to answer it and it's going to come
• 1:40:02
  off really irritable and like it's going to have a lot of
• 1:40:09
  undertones that I obviously didn't put there just because
• 1:40:12
  it's very flat and you know, I'm somebody I'm somebody who's not
• 1:40:20
  masking comes very naturally to me and yet Yet, I still even
• 1:40:27
  struggle with having a flat tone and having a straight face.
• 1:40:33
  A lot of the time. When I'm around people, I'm
• 1:40:36
  comfortable with But yeah, no it doesn't, it doesn't stop.
• 1:40:41
  Even even with my best friend in the whole wide world doesn't
• 1:40:44
  stop my partner. We've been together for six
• 1:40:52
  years, going on seven. So with him it's a bit it's a
• 1:40:58
  bit different but we've been long distance for five years.
• 1:41:02
  So you know whenever I'm around him it's kind of weird because I
• 1:41:07
  haven't been in a really long time.
• 1:41:08
  Hi. But yeah, around him.
• 1:41:12
  I can be myself that I've read in a lot of autistic, subreddits
• 1:41:18
  people, whose Partners don't understand.
• 1:41:22
  And that's that sounds Horrifying to me because being
• 1:41:30
  with your partner's supposed to be just as relaxing as being
• 1:41:32
  alone and if you just never get that especially like right now
• 1:41:37
  in quarantine, if you're in a small apartment I can't I can't
• 1:41:41
  imagine it. I kind of can't imagine.
• 1:41:46
  Okay. If you notice the person you're
• 1:41:49
  with someone, I would presume quite early on.
• 1:41:53
  There's going to be that conversation like, hey, here's
• 1:41:56
  something you should know this is an and the air because it's
• 1:42:00
  important because if you know you need to the other person
• 1:42:02
  needs to know. How to read you?
• 1:42:07
  You know what I mean? Cause like it's such an
• 1:42:09
  important element of a relationship.
• 1:42:11
  Being able to read if someone sad angry happy, whatever.
• 1:42:15
  Because obviously as you've outlined through in this
• 1:42:18
  discussion that you've sort of said like it's a bit off.
• 1:42:22
  There's you know you're not always able to convey that
• 1:42:25
  necessarily it's difficult and so to to hear that there are
• 1:42:29
  relationships where the other person Is not supportive in that
• 1:42:36
  sense. It's kind of.
• 1:42:38
  Yeah, it's terrifying and it's Pretty messed up.
• 1:42:41
  Like I don't understand why you would be in a relationship.
• 1:42:43
  If you've kind of got that attitude and that mindset, I
• 1:42:47
  mean, I know how this must sound, but I'm just being
• 1:42:52
  honest, the friends that I've had over the, like, I had a best
• 1:42:55
  friend when I was a kid who had autism.
• 1:43:00
  And I, to be honest with you for a long time, I didn't know that
• 1:43:02
  my mom explained it to me and I didn't really get it until one
• 1:43:06
  day something happened. Basically, he actually
• 1:43:15
  introduced me to professional wrestling.
• 1:43:17
  So I do that to him. It's good guy.
• 1:43:20
  But yeah, we were sitting watching this film he because,
• 1:43:24
  you know, we would play games together.
• 1:43:25
  Play football watched off to give a bubbler and he brought
• 1:43:29
  over this video and it was like one of his favorites or
• 1:43:31
  something and he had to go. I think or Saul, I don't know,
• 1:43:37
  something like that and we couldn't get the Video.
• 1:43:41
  This is how long ago this was. So it's a VHS player and has a
• 1:43:46
  VHS cassette. Okay.
• 1:43:47
  So, yes, I'm old and we couldn't get it out.
• 1:43:51
  It was jammed and He started losing it, like really.
• 1:44:01
  I'm gonna put this. It wasn't like necessarily like
• 1:44:05
  anger. It was more like extreme
• 1:44:07
  frustration and like I really didn't know what to do because
• 1:44:13
  we were kids we were like ninth engine and I mean and you don't
• 1:44:16
  know really know how to like Process that as a friend.
• 1:44:22
  Yeah. And I remember saying like, hey,
• 1:44:25
  it's going to be okay that will get it out like it don't worry
• 1:44:28
  kind of thing but that doesn't doesn't work.
• 1:44:33
  Then I remember my mom came in and she basically completely
• 1:44:40
  destroyed my video cassette player and like a hammer like I
• 1:44:45
  don't know, whatever broke it apart just to get this video
• 1:44:48
  tape out and he got it back. I've always said that watching
• 1:44:51
  this, like this is interesting. That wasn't upset.
• 1:44:55
  So it's just like, okay, and she like calmly said to me, like,
• 1:44:58
  I'm so sorry, like will get this replaced and in the end I think
• 1:45:01
  I've got like a DVD player month later or something, but she had
• 1:45:07
  to explain what had happened and why she needed to do that.
• 1:45:11
  Like it was important for him and then I remember another time
• 1:45:15
  I was around his house and a similar thing happened.
• 1:45:18
  I he we were just playing The game and again he lost it and I
• 1:45:24
  didn't really understand why. And then I was sort of told
• 1:45:30
  throughout the course of our friendship about, you know,
• 1:45:32
  other experiences he had when I wasn't around where he would
• 1:45:35
  just kind of get like sickness sometimes where it would just
• 1:45:43
  kind of come out of nowhere. And I guess it was kind of like,
• 1:45:46
  sensory overload, something like that.
• 1:45:50
  That was my first experience of a friend that had that.
• 1:45:52
  And then years later, I work with the guy who had, I think he
• 1:45:57
  had Asperger's or he was like mid-level autism.
• 1:46:02
  I don't know how to put it, you know, because I think I think
• 1:46:04
  I'm glad that there exists this time Spectrum.
• 1:46:06
  I think that's a very accurate way of putting it.
• 1:46:08
  Yeah, some people, you know, it's very severe.
• 1:46:11
  Some people, it's kind of a cute.
• 1:46:12
  I think it really depends on the person and this, this friend
• 1:46:17
  that I had. Is interesting people's
• 1:46:22
  reactions because I know there were people that introduced me
• 1:46:25
  to him who are assholes and will I go.
• 1:46:27
  Yeah. You know this guy is, I can't
• 1:46:30
  say the words but you know use your imagination and I met him
• 1:46:37
  and Came across as a pretty intelligent guy to me.
• 1:46:45
  Very easy to work with nice guy. When he would have like a
• 1:46:49
  situation only happened a few times, you know, Hey, was it
• 1:46:55
  like he's a member his best friend worked there and he was
• 1:46:58
  like the only person who actually knew how to handle the
• 1:47:02
  situation. And the funny thing was it
• 1:47:05
  wouldn't even take that much. All you need to do is be
• 1:47:07
  compassionate and calm. That's the thing.
• 1:47:11
  Like they were managed like, okay, we weren't on a
• 1:47:13
  supermarket, right? And It's a, you know, crazy
• 1:47:19
  loud, everything going on, stressful situation, and in that
• 1:47:24
  scenario, when something goes wrong.
• 1:47:28
  Is fine. But obviously for a guy
• 1:47:30
  suffering from autism. It's like, no, it's not fine.
• 1:47:34
  I think he had the thing where it's like he had to have
• 1:47:37
  organization all the control of the situation.
• 1:47:40
  So when he didn't feel like he had that, that's what triggered
• 1:47:43
  it for him and his best friend knew how to deal with it.
• 1:47:48
  And you know, be be anything from just calmly, taking him to
• 1:47:52
  one side, talking to him for like 10-15 minutes, then it's
• 1:47:55
  okay. Or just Completely remove
• 1:47:58
  walking away from the situation coming back to it.
• 1:48:02
  But to bring my the point, I'm trying to make here is that that
• 1:48:05
  level of compassion, you need and the calmness, and all of
• 1:48:09
  that. That's what I think a lot of
• 1:48:10
  people are missing, especially when they approach people with
• 1:48:13
  Autism because there's a lot of assholes out there that just
• 1:48:18
  don't care, or don't know. And they're just like, what's
• 1:48:21
  wrong with you? Why are you acting like
• 1:48:24
  yourself, mate? I mean, the thing that Is like
• 1:48:28
  it's it's not even about autism, it's just in general, like
• 1:48:34
  anyone you deal with in life, who's dealing with something,
• 1:48:38
  right? Be it, they're sad, they've got
• 1:48:41
  depression or Autism, they any any kind of situation where you
• 1:48:45
  need to show empathy? Lots of people don't know how to
• 1:48:49
  show empathy the very the very, keep to yourself.
• 1:48:53
  And if somebody else is making them uncomfortable, it's like to
• 1:48:57
  them in. Instead of instead of it being
• 1:48:59
  their responsibility by proximity to show empathy, they
• 1:49:05
  take it like wow, you're kind of messing up your whole Duty and
• 1:49:09
  keeping your shit to yourself like Dad that you're so right on
• 1:49:15
  this like it really. That's one thing I learned as I
• 1:49:19
  started to become an adult, that's really fucked up about
• 1:49:21
  life. Is that There's this weird
• 1:49:25
  expectation from a lot of people as you say to keep your shit
• 1:49:29
  together. It's almost like I remember
• 1:49:30
  seeing it at school. For the first time in were
• 1:49:34
  certain teachers, would be like this.
• 1:49:36
  And I saw it in workplaces and it's like, it's really fucked up
• 1:49:43
  and it extends to everything, you know, someone has having a
• 1:49:47
  bad day, we all have bad days, right?
• 1:49:49
  You know, you girlfriend dumps, you, you get fired someone dies.
• 1:49:54
  You know, all sorts of shit happens.
• 1:49:56
  And it's really interesting. The people around you, and their
• 1:50:00
  reactions, you can really kind of weed out.
• 1:50:03
  Okay? Who's a normal human being from?
• 1:50:05
  Okay. Whose shit and I hate to put it
• 1:50:07
  in those terms but that is really the only way you can put
• 1:50:10
  it because so many people like empathy and for many it's like
• 1:50:17
  not my problem. Keep me away from it.
• 1:50:20
  Other people. They don't know how to deal the
• 1:50:22
  situation and it really doesn't take much more than just
• 1:50:27
  patients empathy and just being kind.
• 1:50:33
  I'm relaxed, you know like like I had to I mean I'm not proud of
• 1:50:38
  this years ago, I wouldn't really get it's not that was an
• 1:50:41
  asshole but like I didn't know how to properly show empathy, I
• 1:50:45
  used to get empathy and sympathy confused.
• 1:50:49
  Okay, so I used to think that in that scenario you're supposed to
• 1:50:51
  give people advice and be like you need to do this.
• 1:50:54
  You should. Yeah, I know that's the wrong
• 1:50:56
  thing to do. Like I understand when you still
• 1:50:59
  there. Yeah, I know you the best thing
• 1:51:01
  you can do when someone is upset or go. and through some shit is
• 1:51:04
  shut up, sit down and just be there, just be there, a little
• 1:51:12
  custom guide you they'll tell you they'll probably start
• 1:51:15
  talking if they don't ask him a couple of questions gate you
• 1:51:19
  know, Gage see that they want to talk to they're not want to talk
• 1:51:23
  and listen and even yeah and even I've got and there's so
• 1:51:27
  many people who have good intentions that like He'll be
• 1:51:33
  like, is there anything I can do for you?
• 1:51:36
  Is there anything you need from me?
• 1:51:38
  And when you're in the throes of something hard, mmm, The last
• 1:51:44
  thing you're going to be able to do is tell someone else what
• 1:51:46
  they can do to make it better. And so instead of like sitting
• 1:51:50
  down and waiting until you can tell them they're like okay well
• 1:51:53
  we'll let me know if there's anything I can do and they
• 1:51:55
  leave. I like, oh I didn't know what I
• 1:51:58
  could do since there was nothing.
• 1:52:00
  I could do. It's like you can just be
• 1:52:03
  putting you to brain and it's like, yeah, I remember one time
• 1:52:08
  working in a hotel, right? And there was this girl, I can
• 1:52:12
  we were all universe. Students, I think she was in the
• 1:52:15
  same year as me. I can't remember what the
• 1:52:17
  scenario was, but we were sitting in the cafeteria and she
• 1:52:21
  was upset about something and I could tell because, you know,
• 1:52:25
  not an idiot and I was like what's wrong, and she did that
• 1:52:30
  thing where someone does where they're trying to really
• 1:52:34
  desperately, hold it in, and she started crying a little bit.
• 1:52:41
  And people were being jerks being ourselves in the canteen,
• 1:52:44
  like, who was 14? And I just, I didn't say
• 1:52:48
  anything. I just got up.
• 1:52:51
  And I said, come with me and we just walked out, we walked
• 1:52:56
  through the back. Entrance of the place will quite
• 1:52:59
  far away somewhere around somewhere else around the hotel
• 1:53:04
  and we just started talking. I said, talk to me.
• 1:53:09
  You know, that means anything else?
• 1:53:10
  I just like talk to me and she started telling me what was
• 1:53:13
  wrong. You know.
• 1:53:14
  Hogs Baba, whatever's necessary. And that's what most people want
• 1:53:19
  is just to feel comfortable. I mean, and if they don't want
• 1:53:23
  to talk again, use your brain. If you're already in doors,
• 1:53:27
  let's say like you live together, for example, right?
• 1:53:31
  Make some tea. Make some food.
• 1:53:35
  Do something do something to make the atmosphere nicer?
• 1:53:39
  Like, there's so many things you could do, and I think most
• 1:53:44
  people overthink it, but yeah, you're right.
• 1:53:46
  They do that thing where it is. I think it's kind of jerky.
• 1:53:49
  It's that whole thing of. Oh, well, you know, if there's
• 1:53:53
  anything you can do, I can do. Let me know.
• 1:53:55
  I'm just going to pop off and it's like, Okay.
• 1:53:59
  In there. I guess in their mind.
• 1:54:00
  They've kind of like, okay, that's a tick.
• 1:54:02
  Mark, check the box. I did my moral duty and I'm
• 1:54:06
  absolved and it's like, no, it doesn't work that way.
• 1:54:08
  If you really want to be, sometimes it does come from
• 1:54:11
  anxiety and just genuinely not knowing what to do and feeling
• 1:54:18
  like, you need to because some people feel so much empathy just
• 1:54:23
  automatically that they themselves are now having a hard
• 1:54:27
  enough time that they need. The situation that's different
• 1:54:30
  though. Dust if I suppose.
• 1:54:32
  Yeah yeah. Yeah I mean if you go in for
• 1:54:34
  your own shit and you're in because the thing is being an
• 1:54:37
  empath, that sucks a lot of energy out of you.
• 1:54:41
  I don't know that I'm an empath. I think I might be, I've
• 1:54:45
  definitely recognized it. If I'm empathetic towards
• 1:54:48
  someone, it's essentially I'm giving over my energy. so, I
• 1:54:58
  know how this is going to sound, but I'm just being honest.
• 1:55:03
  You have to look at the situation and go.
• 1:55:06
  I'm I prepared to give over my energy to this person and, and
• 1:55:09
  be there because this could be an hour, this could be five
• 1:55:12
  hours, this could be, it could last a long time and you've got
• 1:55:17
  to look at that. You don't.
• 1:55:19
  The thing is you don't have to always be like the quote unquote
• 1:55:22
  hero. You don't have to be a lot of
• 1:55:24
  people make that mistake and think they have to be there for
• 1:55:26
  everyone. You don't it's not always your
• 1:55:28
  not always the right person to be there.
• 1:55:33
  BAH, if you are going to be there for someone, Then you've
• 1:55:38
  got to be there. For as long as that takes and
• 1:55:43
  you can't be half-assed about it.
• 1:55:45
  You can't you know, just do it for a little bit.
• 1:55:48
  Then leave. You've got to either And that's
• 1:55:52
  why I get it like I've heard over the years like so many
• 1:55:56
  people talk about what they want in a relationship and one of the
• 1:56:00
  things they say is empathy and that's what they're looking for.
• 1:56:04
  They're looking for that person that will be there when they
• 1:56:07
  feel that way and we'll just Leave aside as that sounds but
• 1:56:14
  yeah, create a safe place. Yeah, I think you're right,
• 1:56:21
  though. Like about the anxiety, that I
• 1:56:22
  think it takes time. I remember, you know, as much as
• 1:56:26
  I'm hard on people for not being empathetic enough, I can
• 1:56:29
  recognize that I wasn't always, you know, I remember years ago,
• 1:56:33
  girls, telling me like, you're not empathetic, you know, this,
• 1:56:35
  you know, that and it took time to realize what that means.
• 1:56:39
  It took Education life experience.
• 1:56:41
  So I guess there is It doesn't come naturally to everyone, not
• 1:56:46
  everyone gets it straight away, but I think to a certain degree
• 1:56:50
  it comes down to not being selfish.
• 1:56:53
  I think there was a time in my life when I was quite selfish
• 1:56:57
  and I think that's a key proponent of it.
• 1:57:00
  You've to be truly empathetic person.
• 1:57:03
  You need to kind of be able to Look, past yourself and your
• 1:57:09
  needs, and what you want. And really be there for that
• 1:57:12
  person, it really it pretty much means you need to put yourself
• 1:57:16
  aside for an indeterminate and power mirror period of time
• 1:57:21
  you've already. Yeah, true.
• 1:57:24
  Humility. That reminds me of like the
• 1:57:29
  pride, shame sort of dichotomy that some people it is because
• 1:57:35
  of anxiety. Their Seeing a lot of Shame.
• 1:57:38
  Some people it is a school re they're experiencing a lot of
• 1:57:41
  Pride and the only cure to either of those is true.
• 1:57:45
  Humility. And being able to recognize that
• 1:57:50
  none of it matters, none of it matters right now.
• 1:57:53
  All that matters is just being there.
• 1:57:59
  Absolutely, let's move it forward.
• 1:58:02
  We went went on so many tangents there.
• 1:58:06
  But ya know that thank you. I try say but thank you very
• 1:58:08
  much for sharing that by the way.
• 1:58:10
  I know that might not be an easy thing to talk about, but I'm
• 1:58:14
  sure our listeners will really appreciate that.
• 1:58:17
  Particularly if there are any listeners, who struggle with
• 1:58:20
  autism or who have friends, who struggle with it.
• 1:58:24
  So thank you very much for that. Moving it Forward.
• 1:58:29
  Yeah. I mentioned in the beginning of
• 1:58:31
  all of this that you are an artist.
• 1:58:33
  I just wanted to understand fully though.
• 1:58:35
  Are you an artist? Do you just like a fan of our?
• 1:58:38
  What's your connection to us? Yeah, you know.
• 1:58:46
  I, I can't be a fan of our because I know that if I'm not
• 1:58:54
  participating in and it's boring.
• 1:58:57
  But yeah. Well I just discovered that
• 1:59:02
  really recently. Anytime I'm enjoying like a bit
• 1:59:06
  of music or something, it's be either because I want to learn
• 1:59:11
  it or I'm able to dance to it or I'm like working to it or it's
• 1:59:18
  like fitting the soundtrack of my life at that time.
• 1:59:20
  I'm Or like I want to use it in something but it's never just
• 1:59:27
  like, I can appreciate what they did here.
• 1:59:30
  So I noticed that my partner is a huge fan of Art and he is a
• 1:59:35
  huge supporter of a lot of artists and and he loves to look
• 1:59:40
  at what people have done and that's great.
• 1:59:44
  And I'm just now, realizing, I can't do that.
• 1:59:47
  I have to, I have to participate in some way.
• 1:59:51
  So listening to the violin and is Going to help me be motivated
• 1:59:56
  to practice, violin practicing, violin will motivate me to
• 2:00:00
  practice violin. So but I have a hard time also
• 2:00:05
  calling myself an artist because I don't, I don't do very much
• 2:00:09
  publicly. In fact, I don't do very much
• 2:00:11
  privately either but All of what I do is Art.
• 2:00:16
  It's just I don't feel as though I do very much like even even
• 2:00:21
  with twitch. I can't stand to do a stream
• 2:00:27
  without having some sort of like particular Vibe without, you
• 2:00:35
  know, creating sort of a visual landscape that brings people
• 2:00:43
  into my space. Because I think I think my space
• 2:00:46
  is kind of unique. I've sort of if you if you
• 2:00:53
  believe in sensing energies and stuff, I've put a lot, I put a
• 2:00:57
  lot of work into having a very peaceful and positive energy in
• 2:01:01
  here. And so any time I enter my room
• 2:01:02
  and like and so I want I want to be able to share that with other
• 2:01:07
  people and like when I do streams and stuff I'm always
• 2:01:12
  some I don't know how to look at it honestly, but the way that I
• 2:01:21
  that I live and see the world is Kind of through ART, like people
• 2:01:30
  say, art imitates life. But for me, it's the other way
• 2:01:33
  around. And I think part of that is, I
• 2:01:38
  the only way I'm able to understand the world, just
• 2:01:40
  through our, to be honest. And I think that's kind of an
• 2:01:43
  Autism thing because I This is gonna, this is going to be
• 2:01:49
  difficult to grasp but I love should immediately have a lot of
• 2:01:53
  difficulty understanding bodies and faces.
• 2:01:56
  Like right now, that's the thing.
• 2:01:57
  I'm struggling with is bodies and faces, and that humans exist
• 2:02:06
  people are. It's the simple as look at a
• 2:02:08
  face and go. Oh, that's a good face.
• 2:02:11
  But for me it's like, why is it the way that it is why our
• 2:02:17
  bodies display? and so, when I'm able to look at
• 2:02:20
  a very honest, Dang. That doesn't romanticize
• 2:02:26
  anything but is very beautiful. I'm able to contextualize the
• 2:02:32
  beauty of our bodies and them being the way that they are.
• 2:02:37
  When I'm struggling with society and the fact that we live in
• 2:02:44
  cities and that electricity is a thing.
• 2:02:50
  I listen to, I can listen to Some 30s Jazz and see the lights
• 2:02:57
  in the, in the streets, and in my head and sort of the city and
• 2:03:05
  all of the life that the city holds and recognize that, that
• 2:03:10
  humans are unique in that way that the world we have created
• 2:03:14
  is very different from the world that was here before us.
• 2:03:20
  But it's not, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
• 2:03:26
  I know there's a lot of bad objectively bad consequences of
• 2:03:30
  it, but it's not necessarily all bad.
• 2:03:36
  It's interesting stuff. Then I had to follow that.
• 2:03:39
  Exactly, it's I kind of know what you mean to some extent.
• 2:03:47
  It's difficult. Like, when I'm truly present,
• 2:03:53
  it's like I'm in a movie. Mmm.
• 2:03:56
  I know. I know that feeling.
• 2:03:58
  Yeah. Do you know that feeling I I
• 2:04:02
  often remember trying to explain this to someone once about the
• 2:04:06
  way I see the world and I just got couldn't it was very
• 2:04:10
  difficult to explain this particular point because they
• 2:04:12
  kept saying, is it, this is it, this and I was like, no, no no,
• 2:04:18
  no, and the closest thing I can, I can compare it to is the
• 2:04:22
  feeling that you get When you listen to certain music or it's
• 2:04:28
  always a feeling, I can say that much.
• 2:04:33
  Aw, like when you watch a particular movie in the way, it
• 2:04:36
  makes you feel. And like, sometimes I look at
• 2:04:40
  life and this is something that's happened in recent years.
• 2:04:42
  Where if feels like a movie, like you watch a maybe on a
• 2:04:48
  summer's day and you see a particular scene and if that
• 2:04:51
  feels like a movie or you're with someone you love and that
• 2:04:56
  moment feels moments. There's something that's
• 2:05:00
  changed. I didn't used to be as present
• 2:05:02
  about moments before. now, it's like every moment is like, You
• 2:05:08
  know, moments like a big deal. It's like something to live in
• 2:05:13
  something to be cherished. And I'm more country.
• 2:05:21
  Done. So familiar Perks of Being a
• 2:05:24
  Wallflower, the feeling of being infinite.
• 2:05:27
  I feel describes it pretty well. What do you mean exactly?
• 2:05:32
  By goodness, mmm, the protagonist has this, you know,
• 2:05:37
  climax of being alive where he's he's riding in a car and he's
• 2:05:42
  got his torso out of the sunroof and they're riding through
• 2:05:47
  tunnel. And he feels the wind in his
• 2:05:49
  hair and it's like in that moment he feels infinite and so
• 2:05:52
  he kind of creates this term for whenever here is friend, group
• 2:05:57
  are feeling particularly alive, they're like I Feel infinite or
• 2:06:04
  I am infinite. I kind of held on to that
• 2:06:06
  because, yeah, I remember one time I was swimming in the sea,
• 2:06:13
  in the ocean in Santa Monica beach and I felt that way that
• 2:06:17
  was like, That feeling of infant, I think it's like
• 2:06:21
  Freedom, isn't it? It's like when you don't when
• 2:06:25
  you're not thinking about anything else other than that
• 2:06:28
  particular moment and the experience and how it makes you
• 2:06:31
  feel and you're just you know like for instance a lot of
• 2:06:34
  people don't understand the concept of mindfulness and and
• 2:06:38
  stuff and I think a lot of it comes down to like Focusing on
• 2:06:43
  things. Like with meditation, it's like
• 2:06:45
  focusing on things. You don't normally see normally
• 2:06:47
  focus on how does this feel? What images come to mind?
• 2:06:51
  Like a lot of people I find don't.
• 2:06:54
  Well one, they don't spend enough time on their own, which
• 2:06:56
  is very important. Number two is kind of this thing
• 2:07:00
  of like, being able to be alone in silence and thinking about
• 2:07:07
  what comes to your mind in those moments, you know, like There's
• 2:07:12
  different ways to access this, you know, for me I find it when
• 2:07:18
  I go and be out in nature and have walks and stuff.
• 2:07:22
  Sometimes I just I don't think about anything.
• 2:07:23
  I just walk and focus on what comes to my mind and that for me
• 2:07:29
  works, but everyone else has a different way of approaching it,
• 2:07:32
  but I feel like a lot of us aren't doing that.
• 2:07:37
  It's like Twilight distractions are called distractions.
• 2:07:41
  That's like, distraction from what's really important.
• 2:07:44
  And I feel like a lot of the things that we spend most of our
• 2:07:47
  time on in life are actually distraction.
• 2:07:50
  So like, work is a distraction from what's really important now
• 2:07:55
  that obviously depends because your work could serve serve you
• 2:08:01
  your what I'm doing right now. Like, I'm not hiding money from
• 2:08:03
  it, but I do hope to one day, own money from it because I feel
• 2:08:06
  like it, brings me closer to excuse me, like that.
• 2:08:11
  Understanding that I'm trying to reach in life.
• 2:08:13
  I don't know if you want to call it like Enlightenment, but like
• 2:08:16
  something like that. Where is the jobs that I had in
• 2:08:19
  the past working in a supermarket working, for some
• 2:08:22
  corporate company. Whatever, that doesn't feel like
• 2:08:26
  it serves any purpose. It's just, this gives me money,
• 2:08:29
  but this is pointless. This is a waste of time energy,
• 2:08:35
  everything we will have to do it, but We do at least have that
• 2:08:39
  choice of where we direct our energy and what we directed
• 2:08:43
  towards, you know, it's always a choice.
• 2:08:45
  Do I choose to read? Do I choose not to read?
• 2:08:47
  Do I choose to just get drunk and do drugs and waste my energy
• 2:08:53
  that way or do? And I'm not Doug everyone, I'm
• 2:08:56
  not judging anyone here. I'm just saying that, it's like,
• 2:08:59
  it's always a choice. He always comes down to, like,
• 2:09:01
  how we choose to spend our time and, and our will our individual
• 2:09:06
  understanding. Has of escapism.
• 2:09:08
  Everyone has a different idea. For me are is an escape as a
• 2:09:12
  form of escapism, but it's also a form of like understanding.
• 2:09:16
  It's like tapping into the things that you know, we don't
• 2:09:23
  normally tap into but maybe it's healthy to tap into Yeah, that's
• 2:09:28
  interesting. I think it would do me well to
• 2:09:32
  use art as an escape as well because I often avoid it since
• 2:09:37
  it's my like it's how I sober myself and it's how I like
• 2:09:42
  actually bring myself back to Earth.
• 2:09:43
  So if I'm if I'm being avoidant, that's the last thing I want to
• 2:09:48
  consume. How is covid-19 affected your
• 2:09:54
  life? Like, I've asked quite a few of
• 2:09:56
  my guests, this question and I suppose a lot of the time, I'm
• 2:10:01
  just trying to gauge, you know, how they've changed certain
• 2:10:05
  things adapted to It Bubba but I'm particularly intrigued with
• 2:10:08
  regards to yourself because I wonder like, does that.
• 2:10:13
  Is that a big deal for someone who suffers from autism?
• 2:10:17
  Is it is, does it make a big change or does it not make any
• 2:10:21
  difference, like how has it been for you?
• 2:10:24
  I think it's important. I'm going to let the dog out
• 2:10:28
  very quick. No, don't let the dog go.
• 2:10:32
  We like the dog, the dog grass just trying to eat stuff off the
• 2:10:39
  floor. Dogs.
• 2:10:40
  Go go. Let's go.
• 2:10:41
  Look at it. That's a shame.
• 2:10:46
  I like the every time I was trying to focus, the dog would
• 2:10:50
  pop its head up and just see what was going on.
• 2:10:52
  And I just my heart melts. When I see that, I'm happy to
• 2:10:57
  hear. Yes.
• 2:11:01
  So hmm. I guess it's important.
• 2:11:05
  It's important to note because I didn't I didn't say this
• 2:11:09
  earlier, and I kind of feel like I feel a bit of a responsibility
• 2:11:12
  to educate and so I need an aside.
• 2:11:15
  Um, yes, as we kind of said brush done earlier everybody is
• 2:11:21
  different and and when you think of spectrum you kind of at least
• 2:11:27
  I can tend to think of like a straight line and it's more like
• 2:11:33
  you know those Personality graphs where they were.
• 2:11:36
  They plot you somewhere in four quadrants and then like maybe
• 2:11:42
  they might split it again or like split it in half again.
• 2:11:46
  Mmm, it's like that. Where the very center dot is the
• 2:11:52
  normal range of human experience in difficulty in each category.
• 2:11:57
  And if you're anywhere beyond that, then you qualify for a
• 2:12:01
  diagnosis of like, the individual.
• 2:12:04
  Condition in that category. But if you're, if you're sort of
• 2:12:09
  little graph has dots in every single category you qualify for
• 2:12:16
  a diagnosis of autism and not every single category of
• 2:12:21
  difficulty ever. These are very specific, like
• 2:12:23
  traits. But if you If you have dots in
• 2:12:30
  every single category, they don't necessarily grow linearly
• 2:12:34
  since everybody's experience, is different someone like me.
• 2:12:39
  Here's all of the visible things that other people might be able
• 2:12:43
  to see and all the things that people can't see.
• 2:12:46
  Mine would be like just a little bit into the visible and then a
• 2:12:50
  big bit into the invisible and you can you can say the same
• 2:12:56
  thing, the other way around there.
• 2:12:57
  A lot of people like Somebody can be completely nonverbal and
• 2:13:03
  in very sharp in other ways. Although I think a good portion
• 2:13:09
  of nonverbal people, I think that statistic is contributed
• 2:13:13
  to, by the accompanying intellectual disability, that
• 2:13:17
  often comes with autism and The whole different tangent but
• 2:13:24
  yeah. So anyway, how am I going to
• 2:13:27
  affect it? I think a lot of my friends have
• 2:13:31
  been affected differently than me.
• 2:13:34
  Some, some individuals you would consider to be higher
• 2:13:37
  functioning really enjoy isolation.
• 2:13:47
  I'm personally an extrovert. So I I've really kind of
• 2:13:52
  struggled as far as Seeing the right people goes, and then
• 2:13:57
  having family at home all the time is difficult.
• 2:14:00
  Hmm, I was actually for the year prior to covid.
• 2:14:06
  I was already kind of isolated, I was going through a year of
• 2:14:10
  transition so to kind of just start getting out again and then
• 2:14:17
  have it hit has been really difficult and then on top of
• 2:14:20
  that my I live with my family and my My mom is extra
• 2:14:26
  vulnerable and we just decided we are not getting covid.
• 2:14:30
  My parents, I might have gotten a bit of my numbing abilities
• 2:14:34
  from them because anything that you think should not be human
• 2:14:38
  humanly. Sustainable is like totally an
• 2:14:41
  option. I'm like, we have not left our
• 2:14:48
  house. Well, we went camping for a week
• 2:14:52
  in August. Um, but other than that, my mom
• 2:14:57
  has not left either the house or the car since March, and I am
• 2:15:04
  kind of similar. I've seen friends, probably
• 2:15:08
  twice. I went I went to sit outside
• 2:15:11
  with them and then I went up to see my partner and And then
• 2:15:18
  after the summer ended, just been indoors the whole time.
• 2:15:23
  So even know the u.s. is kind of in lack of a lockdown situation.
• 2:15:29
  We very much been on lockdown in this house and so that's been
• 2:15:34
  kind of weird because I really can't escape.
• 2:15:39
  Now, I've got a pair of ice skates, so I'm excited because
• 2:15:42
  I'm going to drive myself and I'm going to be alone.
• 2:15:46
  But Yeah, I personally have not been affected nearly as much and
• 2:15:50
  in fact, more than anything. I've been forced to reconcile my
• 2:15:55
  relationships with my family members, which is really good
• 2:15:58
  because we've lived together for quite some time.
• 2:16:01
  And yet there's a lot of conflict that that can be swept
• 2:16:04
  under the rug. Well, I'm glad to hear that but
• 2:16:08
  that's, that's, that's really good to hear.
• 2:16:11
  Because I mean, there's a lot of people saying like, oh no, it's
• 2:16:13
  causing problems with families, being stuck with them, but it's
• 2:16:16
  Super Fresh. Ashamed to hear someone going.
• 2:16:18
  Hey, no, no, we saw it up on them.
• 2:16:20
  It's good. Yeah, yeah, at least I hope so.
• 2:16:23
  Unless unless my dad's just like getting extra good at bottling
• 2:16:27
  with more practice. I think we did.
• 2:16:30
  You couldn't in that scenario that Dusty doesn't mean every
• 2:16:34
  single day. You'd have to you have to.
• 2:16:37
  Absolutely yeah, yeah. But once I won't ask you about,
• 2:16:41
  if you're comfortable of see talking about it is This
• 2:16:46
  long-term sorry, this long-distance relationship
• 2:16:49
  you're in now. There's a lot of people who
• 2:16:55
  think this and myself included, long-distance relationships,
• 2:16:59
  can't work. I'm not saying no one has ever.
• 2:17:02
  Not made it work. I know of people that have, but
• 2:17:07
  it's undeniable that not being physically around the person
• 2:17:10
  that you love is a strange. Yeah, it's a strain in the
• 2:17:15
  relationship and you're very much in a relationship with the
• 2:17:20
  idea of them. The moment, they leave your
• 2:17:22
  presence. No longer in a relationship with
• 2:17:24
  the real them. It is now the idea of them and
• 2:17:27
  if that idea of them is not just as flawed as they are in the
• 2:17:32
  same areas you're going to run into major problems.
• 2:17:36
  See that's a really interesting way you put it that I don't
• 2:17:39
  think I've ever heard before. That's a really good way to put
• 2:17:42
  it the idea of someone and it's true.
• 2:17:44
  I mean there's a lot of people that do long-distance
• 2:17:47
  relationships. Obviously we were talking about
• 2:17:49
  professional or I was talking about professional wrestling.
• 2:17:52
  There's a Lot of couples that make it work.
• 2:17:55
  And obviously wrestlers have to spend a lot of time in the roads
• 2:17:57
  so they don't see their partners.
• 2:18:01
  But how do you make it work? Like are there any secrets are
• 2:18:04
  there things that you guys do differently?
• 2:18:06
  I mean, you mentioned you could sort of physically together for
• 2:18:09
  like two years and then five years.
• 2:18:11
  Distantly like how does that work?
• 2:18:14
  Like, how do you make that possible?
• 2:18:16
  You know what I mean? And how have you not?
• 2:18:18
  Like if you forgive me, forgive me for saying this, but how have
• 2:18:21
  you not like straight away but both of you like not straight
• 2:18:27
  away. I mean I obviously it depends
• 2:18:28
  how much you see each other every year.
• 2:18:31
  Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it took us through that.
• 2:18:32
  How are you making this work? So I should also clarify, we're
• 2:18:38
  not technically all that long distance, but we are very much,
• 2:18:42
  a long distance in practice because we we haven't been going
• 2:18:48
  out of our way to visit each other and last there's just been
• 2:18:51
  a really long period of time like during covid, is the first
• 2:18:55
  time where it's like we have no reason to visit but you're going
• 2:18:59
  to come down here for Christmas. You're going to quarantine for
• 2:19:04
  two weeks beforehand. Test yourself and you're going
• 2:19:07
  to come down here for Christmas and stay a couple days.
• 2:19:11
  But yeah. Are there any secrets?
• 2:19:17
  Um, you know, it's just kind of worked out, I'd he.
• 2:19:26
  So when we met I was not interested in a romantic
• 2:19:30
  relationship. Any kind truthfully, I didn't
• 2:19:35
  know that romance was a thing. I thought that it just meant sex
• 2:19:38
  and like sexuality and I'm asexual.
• 2:19:42
  So I was like why would I do that?
• 2:19:47
  But then I met Caleb and it was like my immediate thought was
• 2:19:51
  yeah this one this is it that those were my thoughts and
• 2:20:07
  his thoughts were non-existent, but his feelings were.
• 2:20:10
  Like I want to spend more time with this person.
• 2:20:13
  Like it was the exact same thing, but for him, it was not
• 2:20:16
  Out of conscious like he wasn't making prom plans in his brain
• 2:20:20
  because we were in high school at the time.
• 2:20:26
  But yeah. Even even when we were in school
• 2:20:30
  and we weren't long distance, we, we weren't together all of
• 2:20:35
  the time. We had a couple of regular like
• 2:20:39
  weekly, so things that we would go to together, but we We kind
• 2:20:47
  of said, it's it settled, quite a few boundaries early on
• 2:20:52
  because of, you know, the relationships, our peers have
• 2:20:55
  been and we did not want to go through the same pain that a lot
• 2:21:00
  of people go through when they're still in school and then
• 2:21:03
  relationships, you just your brains not quite there yet.
• 2:21:08
  So we were like, we're not going to visit each other unless
• 2:21:12
  there's a reason for it. And now, the reason is literally
• 2:21:16
  maintaining our relationship Shit.
• 2:21:17
  Like like I need to see you. I miss you too much.
• 2:21:21
  This is not possible. You gotta come here, but why do
• 2:21:25
  you cheat like to forget about covid for a minute.
• 2:21:28
  So you consciously chose to not see each other all the time?
• 2:21:33
  Why like what is the reason for that?
• 2:21:39
  I mean does he dislike when you say you don't live that far from
• 2:21:42
  each other like how far are we talking like?
• 2:21:44
  Same stay or every day. Okay, so the okay.
• 2:21:50
  So that apologies for saying this, but that's a bit weird in
• 2:21:54
  the sense that like most long-term relation long-term
• 2:21:59
  relationships, so long, long distance relationships.
• 2:22:01
  It's a matter of like, you don't want to break up, but you have
• 2:22:05
  to be a part because of work studying, Yeah.
• 2:22:09
  Right boys. You guys have actively chose
• 2:22:11
  that and that's interesting. So, like yeah, and I mean, I
• 2:22:15
  obviously could have I could have also like lived with him
• 2:22:19
  this whole time. Okay.
• 2:22:21
  Um, but because we were so young, we were making the
• 2:22:26
  conscious decision we were still developing ourselves and who we
• 2:22:29
  were we were going to I was not going to go to school with him.
• 2:22:34
  I was going to stay here at home and at First.
• 2:22:39
  It was just because I didn't have a license and he was
• 2:22:41
  constantly busy with school stuff, especially once he
• 2:22:46
  decided he was going for a software engineering degree is
• 2:22:49
  like free time, gone. Um, sorry, Ace is because of
• 2:22:55
  circumstances then because I mean, the way you did a fool, is
• 2:22:58
  it that like extent because of circumstance?
• 2:23:01
  Okay, so this this is sounding a bit more reasonable now because
• 2:23:04
  when you said like, oh, it's great, what, but you'd want to
• 2:23:08
  see each other? When you love each other you
• 2:23:09
  want to. But ya know when he was done
• 2:23:14
  with school I was expecting to be at his apartment like half of
• 2:23:18
  the time and then covid happened.
• 2:23:20
  So yes, it's not entirely by choice.
• 2:23:24
  Okay okay now we're getting somewhere.
• 2:23:31
  Yeah. I mean, if one more question, if
• 2:23:34
  you permit me on this, like, why not live with this person?
• 2:23:38
  If his paws, if that's an option.
• 2:23:41
  Why not all? Like because the thing is what I
• 2:23:44
  will say. And because I've been single
• 2:23:46
  for, like, I don't know, like, two, three years, something like
• 2:23:49
  that. And one of the things I'm
• 2:23:50
  looking for in another person is an independent person because
• 2:23:54
  I'm an independent person. I have a lot of things I want to
• 2:23:57
  achieve in life. I can't be dealing with someone
• 2:24:00
  who's like, Who doesn't get that they need to be independent as
• 2:24:04
  well and that we meet in the middle that's just what I'm
• 2:24:06
  looking for. You guys kind of sound similar.
• 2:24:11
  I am obviously assuming here, but it does seem like you've
• 2:24:14
  both got very different lives doing very different things.
• 2:24:18
  So is that the case or You know, because I can understand before
• 2:24:25
  where you were like, hey let's wait till we're bit more.
• 2:24:28
  You know, we've grown up a bit more being a bit more sense.
• 2:24:30
  Right. Right.
• 2:24:31
  But like then it was just get like he needed to get done with
• 2:24:34
  school. And yeah, the option is there
• 2:24:39
  right now? Why not take it, like what's
• 2:24:41
  stopping you there? Or is it more like you want to
• 2:24:43
  still focus on your work and stuff?
• 2:24:47
  I definitely, I definitely wanted to that.
• 2:24:50
  That is definitely I am in that camp.
• 2:24:54
  Um The actual reason why? is Christian culture, um, I'm
• 2:25:04
  not ready to be married and in a lot of Midwestern Christian
• 2:25:09
  culture, you're not supposed to live together, if you're not
• 2:25:13
  legally married, um, And obviously, where are you
• 2:25:21
  imposing this upon yourself. Okay, so I'm guessing your
• 2:25:25
  religion is very is very important to you in that sense.
• 2:25:27
  Then like you don't want to, okay?
• 2:25:30
  And what religion are you the Christianity?
• 2:25:33
  Or yeah, we're both Protestant Christians nondenominational.
• 2:25:42
  And actually that that's that's very A tional to a relationship
• 2:25:48
  to like very much. It's a big part of it but I
• 2:25:56
  think well, I've been at home. You know, being disenfranchised
• 2:26:02
  from the church, really struggling to relate with other
• 2:26:07
  Christians. He's been at school actively
• 2:26:11
  working and on campus ministry, like actively serving at
• 2:26:15
  churches and volunteering every weekend.
• 2:26:17
  And so we're at this weird place where he's really concerned
• 2:26:21
  about his ability to be in leadership because a lot of
• 2:26:25
  churches will not let you be in a leadership position that
• 2:26:28
  there's a lot of cult-like things.
• 2:26:30
  I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest, there are some things that could
• 2:26:35
  be done away with, I understand why they're there, but I think
• 2:26:39
  it's a little too controlling of people's exposure like children
• 2:26:45
  should be able to see all sorts of living arrangements for
• 2:26:50
  couples. and still be told like, but also you're too young for
• 2:26:57
  that and Yeah, anyway, because I don't understand enough of it.
• 2:27:04
  I'm not going to go I'm not going to go on a rant about
• 2:27:06
  that. Um okay.
• 2:27:08
  But like You hear off, you're gonna hear about people these
• 2:27:12
  days where you can be fiercely religious but you know take take
• 2:27:20
  your own meanings, take things you know like okay I'm gonna
• 2:27:22
  follow this but maybe I'm not gonna follow this.
• 2:27:24
  Like do you think you're ever going to be like that where you
• 2:27:28
  kind of go? Okay.
• 2:27:29
  Well, But we'll make our own understanding together.
• 2:27:33
  Or is it a case of? No, we gotta follow this
• 2:27:35
  strictly. No.
• 2:27:37
  Deviating rules are the rules kind of deal.
• 2:27:42
  We're definitely not rules of the rules.
• 2:27:45
  We've kind of gradually changed a lot of our belief.
• 2:27:49
  So over the years actually, when we met, we were anti-gay, I
• 2:27:56
  mean, obviously, we weren't anti-gay people, but we, I mean,
• 2:27:59
  we were You're like, oh, like my sexuality isn't ideal.
• 2:28:03
  Might even be wrong. We were anti likes.
• 2:28:06
  No sex before marriage. You are, this is adultery
• 2:28:08
  against your future spouse, you know, like masturbation is
• 2:28:16
  wrong. That's also adultery against
• 2:28:18
  your future spouse like and that's a lot of that has changed
• 2:28:22
  over the years, and we've kind of just thrown together in that.
• 2:28:26
  So this is totally not off. The table is something to
• 2:28:29
  question. And we're How much in the
• 2:28:30
  process of questioning it right now?
• 2:28:35
  But yeah, it does seem that the natural Next Step would be to
• 2:28:40
  move in together and we were actually talking on the phone
• 2:28:43
  with a peer of his last night who was in the opposite Camp was
• 2:28:50
  like, you should not, you know, called it's called cohabitation,
• 2:28:56
  you should not cohabitate because you know, it's it's not
• 2:29:01
  healthy for the relationship long-term and We're like, well,
• 2:29:05
  what if sex is already like not on the table?
• 2:29:08
  What if that? Because I've only ever heard
• 2:29:11
  from Christian. He's like relics, no not relics
• 2:29:16
  or rhetoric that it's because you're going to have sex before
• 2:29:20
  marriage and that's bad if you're living together and I'm
• 2:29:23
  like, okay, so it's like it's like the judges got aside, like
• 2:29:27
  you can't be trusted together and the whole, do not married
• 2:29:32
  anything. Good happen.
• 2:29:36
  Yeah. And so like but I actually heard
• 2:29:41
  the perspective. Last night, he said that
• 2:29:45
  statistically speaking. The history has been that people
• 2:29:51
  who live together after their first month or their first year
• 2:29:56
  of dating, before being married are more likely to be divorced.
• 2:30:03
  And the reason for that was Was supposed to be that you're
• 2:30:10
  you're not, you're not committing that you should get
• 2:30:13
  married and then move in together, you should move in
• 2:30:15
  together without getting married, because then anything
• 2:30:18
  is on the table. And, and you're not actually
• 2:30:21
  committing, which makes sense in theory, but as we were, you
• 2:30:28
  know, continuing to talk, Caleb was looking up, and he's like,
• 2:30:30
  oh, interestingly enough, this statistic disappear.
• 2:30:34
  Aired all over Europe once living together before marriage
• 2:30:39
  became more common. Because a lot of Europe is in a
• 2:30:42
  is in a post-christian society and a lot of America's holding
• 2:30:47
  on to a lot of those ideals and so that was that was definitely
• 2:30:54
  interesting. And so it kind of tells me that
• 2:30:58
  these people were only getting married in the first place
• 2:31:02
  because they felt like they had to and that they were divorcing
• 2:31:06
  because they were not ready to be married.
• 2:31:08
  And so kind of the end of the conversation, Caleb was like,
• 2:31:11
  so, does that mean the answer is lived together?
• 2:31:17
  And then when people ask if we're getting married, we still
• 2:31:19
  say we don't know. And I'm like, yeah, pretty.
• 2:31:28
  Just say just sounds like really stressful like, as a concept,
• 2:31:32
  but, you know, hey, if it makes you happy, makes you happy.
• 2:31:35
  I think that's to me. The culture doesn't get made me
• 2:31:39
  happy, but yes, Christianity itself makes me happy.
• 2:31:43
  The culture can be kind of overbearing.
• 2:31:49
  What are the best and worst things about living in
• 2:31:52
  Minnesota? Like I said, I love The Fringe
• 2:31:58
  theater scene. I love the winter.
• 2:32:01
  Apparently, this is not common, but for me, the winter is when I
• 2:32:07
  feel the most alive emotionally, and I just, I just think it's
• 2:32:14
  beautiful. I'd never look outside in the
• 2:32:16
  winter and think, oh, but in the summer, I guess it's just
• 2:32:22
  overwhelming like this. Is too much happening.
• 2:32:25
  And so when I look at Pi, there's a bunch of people and
• 2:32:28
  noise and things and light and I hate it and there's just too
• 2:32:34
  much going on and I don't have time to process.
• 2:32:37
  So. So I love the winters here.
• 2:32:41
  And there's an idea floating around that we might move to
• 2:32:45
  Ireland at some point in the next few years.
• 2:32:47
  Wow. And that scares me because I
• 2:32:50
  would not have nearly as much snow Why would you want to move
• 2:32:55
  there? Partly because there is a team
• 2:33:02
  from from Caleb's company there. Although odds that he would be
• 2:33:07
  able to get on that team are quite slim.
• 2:33:11
  Another part is that my friend or Le is Irish and has family
• 2:33:18
  there? So it would be nice.
• 2:33:20
  If all three of us could go and you know, we could be reunited
• 2:33:25
  right now. Now again she's in Italy and
• 2:33:28
  we're in the US, and it's sad and she'd like to go there next.
• 2:33:33
  And then another part is, I still don't know if her family
• 2:33:40
  lives in Ireland or Northern Ireland because her answer was a
• 2:33:45
  non-answer. It was like, well, they consider
• 2:33:47
  it to be both. I'm like, yes, like burning
• 2:33:51
  bodies. Yeah.
• 2:33:55
  Which place would you like to go to?
• 2:33:57
  Because it makes a difference. Did she say which place?
• 2:34:00
  I could probably tell you if I know.
• 2:34:07
  Yeah, if she said dairy or Dublin I would have had I would
• 2:34:11
  have had an image but no she didn't.
• 2:34:16
  But yeah, so that that's something I love about here.
• 2:34:23
  I like mmm to an extent. I like the people because
• 2:34:28
  they're not very intimidating, like you places, like New York
• 2:34:31
  and London where people are like the stay in your lane.
• 2:34:37
  Um by the way, from London to London.
• 2:34:45
  But the people here, you know, everybody smiles and straights.
• 2:34:50
  And like if you if you need help getting someplace everybody's
• 2:34:54
  happy to help and there's just loads of extroverts.
• 2:34:59
  But it comes with a cost because the culture is also that there's
• 2:35:06
  a lot of passive aggressiveness and a lot of fake niceness and
• 2:35:11
  so if you have a problem with someone you don't just straight
• 2:35:13
  up, tell them what the problem is.
• 2:35:15
  You pretend that there's no problems and even if they ask
• 2:35:18
  you, if there's a problem, you say, no, I love you even though
• 2:35:21
  you don't know that is something that the English are very well
• 2:35:25
  known for as well. I hate it because I'm very
• 2:35:28
  blunt. I'll just, I'll just tell
• 2:35:30
  someone I love you. I hate you.
• 2:35:32
  I don't care. Right.
• 2:35:33
  But so many people do this without like, oh yeah, love you
• 2:35:36
  them behind your back, then, I call that a biggest ass.
• 2:35:38
  However, fuck them brother. Yeah, was wrong with you people.
• 2:35:46
  It took me the longest time to figure out that not everyone who
• 2:35:49
  was nice was being fake-nice. I literally just thought in
• 2:35:52
  school that everybody hated me and I would retaliate to people
• 2:35:57
  asking like genuine questions or saying genuine things with
• 2:36:01
  really insulting and mean things.
• 2:36:04
  And no wonder I didn't have friends because like for example
• 2:36:10
  I wasn't particularly like hated or look down on her bullied in
• 2:36:15
  any way. Way.
• 2:36:16
  And yet, if somebody asked me out I would just laugh.
• 2:36:20
  Like I'd be like put you up to this?
• 2:36:24
  Bye. Oh, I thought you meant not
• 2:36:26
  laughs. Like
• 2:36:41
  that's what I assume now in adult life.
• 2:36:43
  If someone seems interested in me I'm like It's a joke.
• 2:36:46
  What kind of sick people are you making it?
• 2:36:48
  Because it doesn't happen ever. So if someone does right, it's
• 2:36:52
  like what's your game? Whoever your camera over there,
• 2:36:56
  I was going on Jesus anyway. What are your goals for 2021?
• 2:37:10
  Well I recently realized that I don't dream that when I dream my
• 2:37:18
  dreams are shaped like my dreams will be things like oh maybe I
• 2:37:23
  can have an apartment with plants in it but wouldn't that
• 2:37:27
  be nice? There's a good tools that is the
• 2:37:30
  dream. We better dream.
• 2:37:40
  Yeah. But like you can still have
• 2:37:41
  small dreams and then my big because I have to same like I
• 2:37:46
  want my own apartment. That's a dream of mine, but then
• 2:37:49
  being a successful podcast. Content creator.
• 2:37:52
  Yeah. Those are the big, big big
• 2:37:53
  dreams but you know, This looking.
• 2:37:56
  Yeah, I just thought those were the Big Dreams because they
• 2:38:01
  seemed so unattainable. I didn't realize you're
• 2:38:04
  literally, when they say dream big, you're supposed to come up
• 2:38:07
  with the thing that you would like that you think would never
• 2:38:09
  happen. So like a couple months ago I
• 2:38:15
  was trying to make actually back in Spring.
• 2:38:17
  I was trying to make a vision board and it was literally just
• 2:38:21
  like studio apartments that had like divided spaces.
• 2:38:26
  And plants. What kind of dishes.
• 2:38:32
  Something that's viable. I think that's fair because, you
• 2:38:35
  know, all of our dreams in life are based on our moment in time
• 2:38:40
  right now and obviously, anything can change any moment
• 2:38:44
  sometimes overnight sometimes through much time.
• 2:38:47
  You know, I mean, I can't I can remember When I was living
• 2:38:54
  abroad in Europe, you know, there were times when I was
• 2:38:57
  really depressed and I wanted to come back to the UK, but I just
• 2:38:59
  felt like I couldn't, like it wasn't viable.
• 2:39:02
  Like I had no future here. It sounds so stupid because you
• 2:39:07
  just come back, just try, right? But like, I'd had such a bad
• 2:39:11
  experience in London that I just couldn't imagine it being good
• 2:39:15
  anywhere else. And then when I did finally come
• 2:39:18
  back because I currently live in Manchester in the north of
• 2:39:22
  England and It's been really positive so far even though
• 2:39:27
  covid is just fucked it. Like, I still feel really
• 2:39:29
  positive, like the people, I like the culture, I like pretty
• 2:39:33
  much everything about it and I often think about like how my
• 2:39:38
  life was, you know, two years ago, three years ago versus now,
• 2:39:41
  and I'm very grateful for everything, you know, even
• 2:39:44
  though I don't have much, you know, might not be a lot, but
• 2:39:47
  it's like, I find myself being grateful and thankful and stuff.
• 2:39:52
  And that's kind of a new thing for me because for so long, I
• 2:39:56
  would chastise life. I'll be angry about why don't I
• 2:39:58
  have this? Why don't I have this real?
• 2:40:00
  And it's like, you got be in the right frame of mind.
• 2:40:04
  You've got to be grateful for what you have and keep working
• 2:40:06
  towards what you want. I think as humans we always want
• 2:40:09
  for more but you have to like recognize what you have as well.
• 2:40:14
  You know, it's like, Let's push the biggest thing in my life
• 2:40:17
  that I want is a successful career in to be in love to be
• 2:40:21
  with someone, right. Those two things and there's
• 2:40:24
  many other goals and stuff, but like those are the biggest two
• 2:40:27
  things and you want them more intensely when you don't have
• 2:40:31
  them. Yes, just ignore will hear
• 2:40:33
  something. But not enough, people practiced
• 2:40:36
  like being grateful when you do have it, you know?
• 2:40:39
  And I think that's, that's the key.
• 2:40:41
  That's the key lesson. Yeah.
• 2:40:45
  Yeah. Thumb and and seeing what you
• 2:40:48
  have. And and using it to help you get
• 2:40:52
  what you want. Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 2:40:55
  Back in back in June or so I remember being like I want to
• 2:41:01
  work, I want to work. I want to go and I want to, I
• 2:41:04
  want to photograph a wedding. Like I can't leave my house,
• 2:41:08
  it's just awful. And I was saying that to a
• 2:41:11
  friend and he was like, it was this simple.
• 2:41:13
  He was like, can't you work from home?
• 2:41:15
  And I was Like ah my website needs to be redone, all these
• 2:41:20
  other things and and I've also streaming on Reddit a lot of
• 2:41:27
  people come in, I don't know what it is but my experience on
• 2:41:32
  Reddit has been that. There are a lot of a lot of
• 2:41:36
  lower middle class to poor people on Reddit.
• 2:41:39
  And I don't, I don't quite know why like Reddit is is the place.
• 2:41:46
  A lot of people are like you seem so blessed and like, wow, I
• 2:41:51
  like, I love your your things and your space and you you were
• 2:41:54
  enabled and I'm like you're right, I have a professional
• 2:41:58
  recording setup. I have um, you know, Wonderful
• 2:42:03
  supportive people in my life. I have a violin of, you know,
• 2:42:09
  good enough quality and that I love and and a nice case.
• 2:42:15
  As for it and a, a double bed and you know, just it's that's
• 2:42:24
  been kind of a cool sort of wake me up.
• 2:42:32
  Awesome. I mean, it's you know, I
• 2:42:36
  remember, I remember when I was dating my ex, she had a real
• 2:42:43
  pre, she a shin for like the Finer Things in life and She
• 2:42:48
  constantly surrounds herself with nice things, right.
• 2:42:52
  And it sounds like a very basic thing, right?
• 2:42:53
  But like, I remember there was a disconnect between us on that
• 2:42:59
  because I grew up with like nothing, you know, poor and but
• 2:43:06
  at the same time like I wasn't, I never went without, you know
• 2:43:10
  what I mean? Like, when I compare, like what
• 2:43:12
  I dealt with versus like other people, I'm like holy shit.
• 2:43:15
  I had it easy. Like, I was lucky, you know, I
• 2:43:18
  got some very kind of thankful in that sense, but one thing she
• 2:43:22
  kind of made me realize that has changed.
• 2:43:25
  Now, with my mindset, is this idea that like, A lot of people
• 2:43:29
  when they see the finest things in life, like a really nice
• 2:43:31
  place, you know, they think like, oh, wow, this is amazing.
• 2:43:35
  And like, they almost Don't afford that for themselves.
• 2:43:40
  They don't pit that their mind in.
• 2:43:43
  Yeah, they don't think like, this could be something that I
• 2:43:45
  could have. They just think, wow.
• 2:43:47
  Wouldn't this be amazing? Or?
• 2:43:49
  And that's probably why those people say that to you, like
• 2:43:51
  wow, you have this while you have that because they don't
• 2:43:53
  imagine it. So and I think you have, I have,
• 2:43:57
  yeah, I have noticed that too when they can't see any, any of
• 2:44:01
  my actual like nice things like my microphone or like, you know,
• 2:44:06
  my record player, they're literally just looking At a desk
• 2:44:09
  with plants. They're like, wow, you have such
• 2:44:12
  a nice face like I wish I had my shit together enough to have a
• 2:44:15
  space like that and it's like all these plants are under five
• 2:44:18
  dollars. They're exotic because they were
• 2:44:22
  on Etsy like this desk. I got from a garage sale several
• 2:44:29
  years ago like it's just you know with time you're able to
• 2:44:35
  accumulate but at the same time, I'm it's like I'm, I am still
• 2:44:40
  very lucky so but And I don't remember why I said that I get
• 2:44:47
  it. It's just I think that the point
• 2:44:49
  I was trying to make is that people should afford this for
• 2:44:53
  themself. They should imagine the best
• 2:44:55
  possible scenario like with me like, I don't know, I no longer
• 2:44:59
  think like or wouldn't it be nice to have this, wouldn't it
• 2:45:02
  be nice to have that? I'm like I will have that that's
• 2:45:05
  going yappin and I kind of believe in that law of
• 2:45:08
  attraction thing. Are you, you need to be in that
• 2:45:10
  mindset because not only is it important Orton in terms of
• 2:45:14
  being positive and and stuff like that.
• 2:45:16
  But you will attract that towards yourself and things
• 2:45:21
  will, calm opportunities will come.
• 2:45:22
  And also, you'll be in the right frame of mind to actually take
• 2:45:25
  advantage of that because a lot of those people that see that
• 2:45:29
  and go, wow. Wouldn't that be amazing?
• 2:45:31
  They're just not in the right mindset, so they don't get those
• 2:45:35
  opportunities. They don't, they're not in the
• 2:45:37
  right frame of mind to take advantage of those
• 2:45:40
  opportunities. Really good example.
• 2:45:43
  Years ago. I used to be like obviously as I
• 2:45:46
  told you before that - minded blah blah.
• 2:45:48
  All right. So when I would see like an
• 2:45:50
  opportunity, the first thing, I would think the first thing I
• 2:45:53
  would think would be our yeah. But that probably wouldn't work.
• 2:45:58
  And oh yeah. But what about this?
• 2:46:00
  And blah, blah blah. Like whereas now I'm like, you
• 2:46:03
  know what, what if it works, what if this happens, what about
• 2:46:08
  this? Oh, and this and all and then my
• 2:46:11
  mind just, you know, goes Bob, Positivity.
• 2:46:15
  I'm telling you positivity and the law of attraction these
• 2:46:18
  things. This is what I saw.
• 2:46:20
  This is what people's minds need to be.
• 2:46:23
  My mom thinks I'm I'm, I'm kind of out there because I get
• 2:46:29
  excited about like the simplest things and I treat.
• 2:46:32
  I treat very small opportunities, as huge
• 2:46:36
  opportunities. I mean, any, any work in theater
• 2:46:40
  is extremely exciting to me, you know, like any any opportunities
• 2:46:45
  in photography is extremely exciting to me, just having
• 2:46:48
  having a website ordering business cards.
• 2:46:51
  It's like, whoa. Rest is being made.
• 2:46:54
  Yeah, and you know I'll treat things like this, like this, you
• 2:47:00
  said earlier like this, this is work.
• 2:47:03
  This is unpaid work right now, but it's still work towards your
• 2:47:07
  future and I think about it the same way and you know I didn't
• 2:47:13
  have time for something earlier and so she she was like you know
• 2:47:20
  kind of getting on me about it and I was like, I know No, when
• 2:47:23
  you're way too late for work, we pick up your slack and she's
• 2:47:25
  like you're not working. I was like, that's not the
• 2:47:28
  attitude. I can have that won't get me
• 2:47:32
  anywhere. If I'm not thinking about work
• 2:47:36
  in terms of where it will get me versus what it will give me then
• 2:47:42
  I'm not going to get anywhere. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
• 2:47:45
  I mean, I work my ass off with this stuff and yeah, it's not
• 2:47:50
  minding me any money at the moon, but it will, And my
• 2:47:53
  attitude and my Approach is kind of like that.
• 2:47:56
  You know, that old saying of dress for the job that you want,
• 2:47:59
  not the job that you have. I approached the way that I do
• 2:48:04
  this the same way so I imagine that this is like a really
• 2:48:07
  successful podcast that is doing really well and its really
• 2:48:10
  professional. I'm not under No Illusion that
• 2:48:12
  there's barely any viewers and blah blah blah but I look at the
• 2:48:16
  little mini progress. Like look at the guests have
• 2:48:18
  been able to get so far. Look at the fact that you've got
• 2:48:21
  to like 60 episodes. That's amazing.
• 2:48:24
  Look at the fact that this is happening and that's happening.
• 2:48:27
  That's what I'm looking at. And, you know, life moves,
• 2:48:30
  quickly moves fast before, you know, it like a lot of things
• 2:48:33
  have happened and you'll be like, wow, that happened so
• 2:48:37
  quickly. Like I remember when it was like
• 2:48:40
  this, and that's the reality of the situation, but yeah, I
• 2:48:43
  totally agree with you. You need to approach everything
• 2:48:46
  that you consider important in life as like, yeah, this what I
• 2:48:49
  mean, whining, one day because it will, it will happen.
• 2:48:52
  It's just Every everyone expects, its this, the instant
• 2:48:56
  gratification culture, everyone expects things to happen like
• 2:48:58
  that, and that's just not how life works.
• 2:49:01
  You know, life is slow and things come to when they're
• 2:49:06
  supposed to come to you. Not when you want them to come
• 2:49:08
  to you it's when you're ready for them and at the right
• 2:49:11
  moment, to be honest, I like it better that way because like
• 2:49:17
  with my podcast, if I had just started recording things right
• 2:49:22
  away, And I came up with the concept.
• 2:49:25
  I wouldn't have the podcast I have now.
• 2:49:27
  I know a lot of people are like just start and I understand
• 2:49:30
  there have there's a lot of Merit to just starting, but I
• 2:49:34
  think when the time is right, you need to just start, but
• 2:49:38
  sometimes things just aren't working out the way you need
• 2:49:42
  them to, or were you just not prepared?
• 2:49:46
  And I'm, I'm really glad that I waited and that I kept reforming
• 2:49:51
  and stuff because I This has been really helpful for me and I
• 2:49:57
  think otherwise it would have turned into a vanity project and
• 2:50:00
  I don't need that. Yeah I again I totally agree
• 2:50:05
  because sometimes I think about I call you know I should have
• 2:50:08
  done YouTube years ago I should have done the podcast years ago.
• 2:50:12
  Do you know what? No I shouldn't because that
• 2:50:15
  would have been the wrong time and my head wouldn't have been
• 2:50:17
  in the right place and things happen the way they're supposed
• 2:50:22
  to happen. I think that I had to go and
• 2:50:25
  live abroad and come back and go through the various hurdles that
• 2:50:29
  I went through to be in the mindset to think.
• 2:50:32
  Hey, yeah, I should start a podcast finally because ice not
• 2:50:35
  like I haven't wanted to do it for years.
• 2:50:36
  Same with YouTube, I wanted to do YouTube seven or eight years
• 2:50:41
  ago when I first set up my account and I didn't have the
• 2:50:44
  confidence or self-esteem to properly do it until a couple of
• 2:50:49
  years 2019 and now that we're it's finally happened.
• 2:50:53
  Like it took some time. I think it took, at least, I'd
• 2:50:56
  say about a year before I started making content that was
• 2:50:59
  like, okay, this is like a YouTuber now and not like a guy
• 2:51:03
  trying to be a YouTuber and it's the same with the podcast.
• 2:51:07
  If you listen to the early episodes, I still stand by them.
• 2:51:10
  I still think they're good, they're good.
• 2:51:12
  And they have worth and value but I'm more proud of the
• 2:51:16
  interviews that I've done and I see that as over time, I felt
• 2:51:21
  more comfortable and I feel like it's gotten better and things to
• 2:51:24
  it takes time you get better. As you practice and you try
• 2:51:28
  things in life and I think also to a degree you have to live a
• 2:51:32
  life as well. Like I feel like, you know,
• 2:51:34
  those people that get like really successful like 19, 20
• 2:51:37
  21, they've not lived. You know, and that's when it
• 2:51:41
  goes to their heads and they can't handle it and they go nuts
• 2:51:43
  and they gone. Yeah.
• 2:51:44
  And shapes because they can't handle it.
• 2:51:47
  And let's be honest, most people wouldn't be able to, you know,
• 2:51:49
  you need to live a life. See some shit do like regular
• 2:51:53
  everyday jobs and live life, and be there and then you have
• 2:51:58
  something to talk about and be like, hey, this happened and
• 2:52:01
  this, and it's like being relatable as well.
• 2:52:04
  You know, that that's that's a thing, I think many celebrities
• 2:52:08
  and Rich and successful, People struggle with is because they
• 2:52:12
  may be one a regular person or maybe if not very long, like
• 2:52:15
  they were always in the Limelight.
• 2:52:17
  So they just don't know how to relate to the common person so
• 2:52:21
  to speak. Yeah, you know, I my parents did
• 2:52:28
  consider trying to get me into, you know, modeling and acting as
• 2:52:34
  the very young child just because I, you know, I was very
• 2:52:38
  photogenic. Like I was cute.
• 2:52:42
  This isn't the person I am. I'm not complimenting myself but
• 2:52:46
  um I was very cute kid and you know I was I was a natural at
• 2:52:51
  that sort of thing and so they were like you know they they
• 2:52:57
  wanted to try to do that but they're like Nana Nana.
• 2:53:01
  We don't we don't want to get her involved in that sort of
• 2:53:04
  thing before she has a choice. Hmm.
• 2:53:07
  And I used to be mad because I grew up being like yeah, I wish
• 2:53:11
  I was doing that. And so when I found out that
• 2:53:13
  they almost gave me a head start as like a little kid, I was
• 2:53:19
  upset. But now I'm like how how would I
• 2:53:23
  have found myself? Yeah.
• 2:53:25
  Like I would have already been doing the thing.
• 2:53:30
  Why should I find a better purpose for it if I'm already
• 2:53:34
  doing it? I think it's good as well to not
• 2:53:38
  have the things that you want in.
• 2:53:39
  Life for a certain amount of time, because it makes you
• 2:53:42
  appreciate it more. Like, in the time that I've not
• 2:53:46
  like, for instance, that I've been single, it's really
• 2:53:49
  reinforced like what I want, but it's also given me time to think
• 2:53:52
  about exactly what it is. I want, you know, because for a
• 2:53:55
  long time I was like I thought this is what I wanted but now
• 2:53:59
  I'm like I know what I want now and you need that time of not
• 2:54:04
  having the thing so that when you finally get it, you know how
• 2:54:07
  to appreciate it. And I mean not much more as
• 2:54:11
  well. Whereas if you just given stuff
• 2:54:13
  in life, I don't think you can really appreciate it.
• 2:54:17
  Yeah, so goals are 2021 release podcasts.
• 2:54:29
  Talk to more friends. Learn City's gymnopedie, he's
• 2:54:34
  with my heart. Best friend and and clean and
• 2:54:41
  maintain a clean room. Those are, those are the things
• 2:54:44
  solely goes. And as we draw things to a close
• 2:54:48
  for today, do you have any final thoughts?
• 2:54:51
  Or maybe some upcoming projects that you'd like to share with
• 2:54:53
  our listeners? I think I think just getting the
• 2:55:00
  email out there. Anybody's truly interested in
• 2:55:03
  that mailing list. It's, I'm here.
• 2:55:06
  Now podcast at gmail.com but yeah, other than that, no, well,
• 2:55:14
  actually, three hours. What did I tell you?
• 2:55:19
  Yeah, you know, wrong. It's good, though.
• 2:55:24
  Sometimes it happens. That's one thing I like about my
• 2:55:27
  podcast is that it because I was going through some of the older
• 2:55:30
  episodes earlier. And I realize that some of them
• 2:55:33
  are as short, as like 20 minutes. 45 minutes, I think one
• 2:55:36
  of them is even like 16 or 17 minutes long like in the very
• 2:55:39
  beginning and then the average is about an hour and a half or
• 2:55:43
  two hours and there's like a couple that are three hours I
• 2:55:47
  think. So this would be up there.
• 2:55:49
  Let's be one of the more longer ones.
• 2:55:58
  I just want to say like a big thank you for appearing on the
• 2:56:00
  show. It's been a real pleasure
• 2:56:01
  talking to you and getting to know you and also just yeah
• 2:56:05
  tapping into your mind and stuff and seeing what you're about and
• 2:56:09
  what not. So think big thank you for
• 2:56:11
  agreeing to be on the show. Yeah, thank you so much for
• 2:56:14
  having me. It's good to talk to a real
• 2:56:17
  human. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 2:56:21
  I do. You feel?
• 2:56:24
  Yeah, I just I just want to say to all my listeners of the
• 2:56:28
  Christian way podcast. Make sure to go and support
• 2:56:31
  Eleonora with with her podcast, and everything that she's doing.
• 2:56:34
  And also for the Christian wreath podcast, make sure as
• 2:56:38
  always your liking and sharing and subscribing to the YouTube
• 2:56:42
  channel, That you're checking out all of the new platforms
• 2:56:46
  that were available. One we've become available one
• 2:56:49
  verbal, I believe and listen notes, I believe it's about 10
• 2:56:53
  different audio streaming platforms.
• 2:56:55
  So wherever you do listen to the podcast, make sure to drop a
• 2:56:58
  review. Give it, give us a rating, you
• 2:57:02
  know, all that helps towards my goal of getting some
• 2:57:04
  sponsorships for this podcast and getting the wheels in motion
• 2:57:08
  for that. So yeah, your support is
• 2:57:11
  invaluable there. For those who are unaware.
• 2:57:15
  I recently set up a patreon so make sure you go check out that
• 2:57:19
  it's patreon.com slash Christian Reeve and yeah, are we done with
• 2:57:24
  the plugs? I think we're done with the
• 2:57:25
  plugs. Thank you very much for
• 2:57:27
  listening to the Christian Roots podcast and until next time
• 2:57:31
  peace out will never see you in the next one.