Latest / The Daily Writer / Learning to Ask Better Questions (with Dan Drake)

Transcript

Learning to Ask Better Questions (with Dan Drake) · The Daily Writer

0:01
SPEAKER_01: It seems like we spend the first part of our lives learning to give all the correct answers.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: But what if the creative journey was less about giving the right answers and more about asking better questions?
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Today's guest helps us navigate this tension between questions and answers and also encourages us to explore our curiosity.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: So stick around, it's going to be a great show.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: This is the show where we explore the mindset, habits, and principles to help you make a bigger impact in your life and creative work.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Today I'm thrilled to be talking with Dan Drake.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: He is the co-host of the Better Questions Podcast, a show that aims to help people of faith find better questions that are more helpful to our faith and that also bring unity to the church.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: Dan is also a worship pastor and the media minister at Cornerstone Christian Church in Shiloh, Illinois.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: In addition, Dan is a gifted musician and a songwriter.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: He's a filmmaker, he's a blogger, and most importantly, he's a husband and a father.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: So as you can tell, Dan is a multi-talented, multi-gifted, and he's also a very busy guy.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: And in this show today, Dan's thoughts on art, faith, and life are going to challenge your thinking.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: They're going to help you to find the divine and the mundane, and they're also going to help you ask better questions that lead to a more fulfilling life.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: So I really hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to take a deeper dive after the episode's over, be sure to check out our show notes at KentSanders.net slash Dan Drake.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: I also want to mention that today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, The Artist Suitcase, 26 Essentials for the Creative Journey.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: This book is filled with practical tips to help you be more successful as an artist and as a creative person.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: It's a short book that you can read in just under a couple of hours, but the lessons last a lifetime.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: You can check it out at KentSanders.net slash suitcase.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll get into the conversation here in just a minute, but first, here's a few quick words from today's podcast partners.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Chris Morris from Chris Morris Rights.com, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: Hi, this is Heidi Bender from tons of things.com, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
2:19
SPEAKER_04: Hi, this is Faye from Dog LifeMade Better.com, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: Dan, welcome to the podcast.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
2:34
SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's great to be here.
2:35
SPEAKER_03: And I didn't want to interrupt as you were uh you know saying a little intro thing, but uh I thought your classes were great back then.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well thanks very much.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: I tried.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I tried.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: I still have fond memories of the uh the ensemble days traveling around.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: Yes, that was fun.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: That was fun.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: It was awesome.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: I was always thankful when you were in that what we're talking about, by the way, for the listeners is uh music team that I directed for a few years when I first started teaching here, and Dan was part of that group really early on, and the group traveled around, did worship songs, that kind of stuff, and I always appreciated you in that group because you were always really prepared and you knew all the songs, which made a big difference.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: So I knew in my mind I was like, okay, I know Dan will have it.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: If nothing else, Dan's got it, which was always great.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: So, Dan, talk about your creative journey as a student, a worship leader in creative arts, and now as a media minister, and I know that's a super loaded question, but I guess what I'm really asking is how did all those experiences inform your interest in questions?
3:33
SPEAKER_01: So, as the host of the Better Questions podcast, what about all those experiences made you want to do a podcast on asking better questions?
3:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a good question.
3:42
SPEAKER_03: I uh there's a lot to it too, and I guess I'll just start by saying like I feel like I've had kind of two creative journeys in my life.
3:50
SPEAKER_03: Um I have always just had this insatiable curiosity for for life, for how things work, and I've always just been really interested in a lot of things.
4:02
SPEAKER_03: And uh even from a young age, like uh science in school was always my favorite subject.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: And I think now I can look back and parse out why, and it's just because it had so many explanations for why the sky was blue, or what happens if you mix these two chemicals, or like all these different things.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: Uh, I've always been drawn to space too, like how the planets work and stars and just all of it is pretty fascinating.
4:28
SPEAKER_03: And so that also I think is what drew me to like my Christian faith.
4:34
SPEAKER_03: It also has answers for a lot of things, whereas science has answers about, you know, um like specific ways empirical data and like specific ways things work.
4:45
SPEAKER_03: Religion has answers for like what does it mean to be human and where did we come from, and like just those deeper, more spiritual truths.
4:55
SPEAKER_03: And so the two journeys I guess are are that like there's the church journey with creativity, how do I use my gifts for for advancing the kingdom of God?
5:05
SPEAKER_03: And then there was this other journey of like how do I just use my creative gifts for fun and to be curious.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: Uh and so like you talk about in the question like a student and a worship leader and a media minister, that's like the one journey of of um using that curiosity on how does music work and how do you know I I just remember spending like three hours every day coming home from school, and all I wanted to do is sit on the piano and play my guitar, and figure what I would do is like figure out the patterns of the guitar fret, and I realized, oh, these are the same notes as are on the piano, and so if this is the chord on the piano, like C and then E and then G, then that's on the guitar, here's C, here's E.
5:53
SPEAKER_03: Oh, and like I just started figuring that all out, like noticing the patterns, and it was again it's like super curious, just need to figure all that out.
6:04
SPEAKER_03: All is that to say is I think the connection to questions is that insatiable curiosity for how things work, in a way, was me asking question after question after question after question.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: It didn't feel like that in the moment, but it was like, how does the guitar work?
6:20
SPEAKER_03: How does the piano work?
6:21
SPEAKER_03: Why is the sky blue, like I said, or um you were one of those kids who are always asking questions, yeah.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
6:31
SPEAKER_03: I I also don't get annoyed with, well, why?
6:35
SPEAKER_03: Why?
6:36
SPEAKER_03: Like when kids do that and somebody like annoyed, I love that.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, yeah, well, why is this?
6:40
SPEAKER_03: Well, because of that.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: Why that?
6:41
SPEAKER_03: Because I I get when my daughter is old enough to do that, I'm gonna be like, I'm I'm gonna tell you.
6:47
SPEAKER_03: So just keep them coming.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: Just keep them coming.
6:50
SPEAKER_03: Uh so yeah, I guess that's in a nutshell how that creative process relates to my interest in questions.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: So you would say your your interest in all those areas is really driven by a sense of curiosity, is figuring out why things work, wanting to break things down.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: I know that you love to to analyze things, movies probably.
7:09
SPEAKER_03: 100%, yes.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: Speaking of curiosity, you did you mentioned space and stuff.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Did you s oh no, you wouldn't have seen it.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna just ask you, did you see the movie First Man?
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Not yet.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: I I was asking that because I thought it was at but I thought that because I got to go to a preview screening last week.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sweet.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: And see, which it was it was an amazing movie.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: By the time they hear this, it'll be have been in the theaters for a few weeks.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think you will really love that movie.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: I am so excited about it.
7:36
SPEAKER_03: That's one of my favorite directors.
7:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's great.
7:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, is doing that movie.
7:40
SPEAKER_03: And uh I just love I'm obsessed with the Moon Landing in 1969, Neil Armstrong, like all that stuff.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: So I know that's gonna it's probably gonna be my favorite movie for the next several years after I see it.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: So the director we're talking about is Damien Chazelle, who almost won for Best Picture last year.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: It won Best Picture for a couple of minutes at the Oscars, which was just a hilarious it wasn't hilarious to them, I'm sure, but no.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Looking back, it was just a crazy mistake.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Did you like his last movie, La La Land?
8:12
SPEAKER_03: I loved it.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: I did too.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: 100 yeah.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: It was divisive.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: I saw it with like five people, and only two of us liked it and loved it, me and my brother.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: I think some people just had the wrong expectation.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: Which happens.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Did you see his movie before that whiplash?
8:31
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
8:32
SPEAKER_03: That is still on my in my top four favorite movies of all time.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: That's such a great movie.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: And I think musicians appreciate that because they understand what it's like to be part of a jazz band or to be part of a group, and you know, drummers particularly can really relate to what he's going through as uh J.K.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Simmons, the the guy who plays the sort of almost masochistic band director, you know.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Drummers can appreciate that of especially this hard driving band director just saying, It's not it's not you're not playing at my tempo, you're not playing at my tempo.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: So Yeah, that was that brought back a lot of memories of being in in marching band.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: Our band director was a drummer, and so he's he spent particular attention on us as a drumline, make sure we're playing clean.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: And I played tenors and there was three of us, and I just remember doing those diddles and other exercises over and over and over and playing to the click.
9:28
SPEAKER_03: But it was great training looking back now for like worship music because we play to clicks now.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like uh I was able to pick that up easily because of all and that's part of the point of of the at least J.K.
9:42
SPEAKER_03: Simmons character, he takes it too far, but it's like without people pushing you, yeah, you'll never achieve greatness.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: So I've experienced that.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: Thankfully not to the extreme.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Not people throwing chairs at you.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I ever did that.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: No.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: To my knowledge.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: No.
10:00
SPEAKER_03: Uh you did not.
10:01
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, you're right though.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: Like, when I sit down and watch a movie, I don't check my brain at the door.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: Well, I can sometimes.
10:10
SPEAKER_03: Like, there's some Marvel movies or like some movies I'll check at the door.
10:14
SPEAKER_03: If I watch Dumb and Dumber, I'm I'm you can pretty much check your brain at the door.
10:18
SPEAKER_03: But most of the time I'm like, I'm just drawn to Christopher Nolan's work or Scorsese or Spielberg, and I'm just sitting there watching them dissecting what they're doing from why they're putting the camera where they're putting the camera and how they're using lighting to convey the same message that the scene is communicating with the dialogue, you can communicate without any dialogue, just the way you light the scene and where you put the camera and how you move it.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: And that's why I mean I remember uh I had never seen Citizen Kane when I was at school.
10:55
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: I remember you talking about it so much and Yeah, it's my favorite movie.
10:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've I heard so many people talk about it, and I was like, these pretentious movie people, you know, all the Citizen Kane.
11:04
SPEAKER_03: But now that I've become one of them, it's it's the best use of cinematography I've ever seen.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: And it's incredible.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: It is incredible.
11:12
SPEAKER_03: So if you watch it and you're getting bored, just know there's so much more going on below the surface that you're not even realizing.
11:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:21
SPEAKER_03: And if somebody could sit and explain each scene to you, I think you'd appreciate it.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: I think First Man is is like that in the sense of, you know, on the surface, it's kind of uh a lot of the movies about Neil Armstrong's domestic life.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not a it's not necessarily like Apollo 13 that is all about sort of the big stuff in the program.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it deals with his marriage and his relationship with his kids, but there's a lot going on under the surface, and I think that's that's how great art is, is there's lots going on under the surface you can explore.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah for sure.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:51
SPEAKER_03: Man, I'm gosh, I'm so excited for that movie.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: Because I think that's a good segue into talking about like w some of somewhat of where I am like spiritually and what I'm studying, again, being fueled by question, and it's like um I've been starting to get back to okay, Jesus was Jewish and how come as the Christian church we've like almost abandoned old Jewish practices uh that G like we don't celebrate Pass Passover, we don't like do Hanukkah.
12:29
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not saying we have to become Jewish, like Paul in the New Testament pretty famously said, we don't have to make them become Jews.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: Uh but at the same time I think the pendulum has swung.
12:40
SPEAKER_03: What I'm trying to get to is like there's a a sense in the Jewish faith of spirituality or even like you can find truths of God everywhere and find the divine in the mundane.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: And um and what great art does is it elevates that those mundane moments that are just somebody with their family, and they do it artistically to be able to highlight um the themes, what's going on in the everyday moments, because those everyday moments build upon themselves to create the bigger moments.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
13:17
SPEAKER_03: And uh so yeah.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: Well that's where life happens.
13:20
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, it really is.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, you go home and I think a lot of our our faith and spirituality, you know, the where the rubber meets the road for me is when I'm with my family because those are the times when my guard is down.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, at nine o'clock at night, whenever I'm I feel like, oh man, I've got these emails to answer, I've got this thing to do or something, but my my son wants to he wants my attention, he's struggling in school with something or needs help with homework, or the dishes need to be done.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, that in my mind, man, that's where you're it's kind of like do or die moments where you know it's really easy to be a this great Christian up in front of people, or you know, if if you have a blog or something, you can sort of put this image out there, but man, it's it's hard to in the mundane moments because that's where that's where you really let your true character shine.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: And I'm finding that the questions I'm asking are different now than I'm 30.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: When I was a kid it was, why this and why that?
14:19
SPEAKER_03: I'm just so curious with the world that I see around me.
14:22
SPEAKER_03: And I start studying the Bible and I'm trying to figure out who God is and who this Jesus is, and like there's all those fundamental questions like about the nature of reality, and I'm starting now to to to point the questions inside of me, like who am I?
14:38
SPEAKER_03: And like what does it mean to be a good father and a good husband?
14:44
SPEAKER_03: And what what does spirituality and religion and Christianity look like every day?
14:51
SPEAKER_03: Every day I come home from work tired, but my daughter's there and I've not seen her all day.
14:58
SPEAKER_03: And how do I how do I exercise um the fruit of the spirit or some of the other things that the Christian principles we have?
15:06
SPEAKER_03: How do I exercise those things?
15:07
SPEAKER_03: Like you said, not when everybody's watching, but when nobody's watching.
15:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:12
SPEAKER_03: And uh those those are now like the more profound questions.
15:18
SPEAKER_03: So anyway, so I'm gonna I'm just more and more excited about that movie because I've not seen a movie about Neil Armstrong's family.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's just the only I I would say complaint I had about the movie is a lot of it is in this sort of shaky cam, realistic style.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: I know there's I think it's a French word, uh, cinema verite.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm somebody's gonna tell me I'm totally butching that butchering that.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: It's like that very realistic style, but but where the camera's always sort of shaking, yeah.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: And it sort of like makes you queasy because the whole movie is like that almost.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: But that aside, you know, it was really good.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, I want to probe this a little bit.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: So when did you turn 30?
15:57
SPEAKER_01: How long ago has that been?
15:58
SPEAKER_01: It was in January.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: January.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm almost 31.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: So what would you say how would you say that you think differently as a 30-year-old versus let's say a 20-year-old or even a 25-year-old?
16:11
SPEAKER_01: Like what did turning 30 do to you mentally or emotionally?
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Is because you know you're talking about questions and how how the passage of time has sort of changed the questions you asked.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm just gonna toss that out there as what is it like to of course I turned 30 a long time ago, but but that's more way more fresh in your mind.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think when you're 20, you go, hey, that's cool.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm 20.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm an adult, I can do what I want, this is fun, and your focus is is is selfish, but in a bad way, I think, or at least mine was.
16:41
SPEAKER_03: It's like, what do I want to do and how do I want to live, and what can I do now that my parents aren't hovering over me and stuff?
16:48
SPEAKER_03: And I think your 20s is like figuring out where certain lines are and boundaries and like what your professional interests are and what's it like to work and go to school and write papers, but then also in the mid to later twenties, like what does it look like to work 40 hours a week, and you're just figuring all that mess out.
17:05
SPEAKER_03: I think when for me when I turned 30, it was like I have some experience now and I know more about what I don't like or what I don't enjoy, what I haven't found meaning in.
17:18
SPEAKER_03: And for me, it was like this this thinking about mortality started to hit on a greater level than it had before.
17:29
SPEAKER_03: Interesting, okay.
17:30
SPEAKER_03: Now that might be like more of a typical thing you hit at forty or fifty or sixty, but like for me, it was just kind of like I only have so much time while I'm on this planet, and I really am driven to contribute something.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: Um Dead Poet Society is one of my favorite movies of all.
17:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a great one.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: And when I like feel down or sometimes I just need a jolt of inspiration, I put that on.
17:57
SPEAKER_03: And the seize the day stuff that Robin Williams character talks about and the contributing a verse, like that um Walt Whitman poem, uh I think it's called O Me, O Life, um, the powerful play goes on and you might contribute a verse, has always just like struck me to the heart.
18:16
SPEAKER_03: And so at 30 I went, I have so many dreams, I have so many things I've wanted to do that I haven't done, and then it became like I need I need to do it, I need to start doing it.
18:28
SPEAKER_03: But then the other thing is with that, that was again still some of the like selfish feelings.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: It's like I have a wife, I have a kid now, and I'm I guess selfish in a better way, if that makes sense.
18:44
SPEAKER_03: Like I need to figure myself out and deal with some of my brokenness so that I can be a better husband and father, and so that when I contribute a verse, it's really my voice.
18:59
SPEAKER_03: It's not copying John Mayer or copying Dave Matthews or copying Damian Chazelle.
19:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm not, you know, being just a hack of copying Stephen King if I write fiction or copying like Francis Chan or even like early Rob Bell.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: I'm being Dan Drake.
19:19
unknown: Yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
19:20
SPEAKER_03: And I need to be selfish in a good way to figure out who that is, so that then I can contribute.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that answers your question, but that's kind of where I'm at.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, it doesn't really matter if it answers the question because this is all this is just kind of free ranging and roaming and I love it.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's all good.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: So let's hold on to your podcast a little bit, because I'm really intrigued by the show that you're doing, and I think it has a good title, so you get an A plus.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: I you know, you never totally get out of professor mode, I guess.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: But I love the the title, Better Questions Podcast.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: I love the artwork because you know, and those of us who do podcasting, we pay attention to those little thumbnail graphics.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you create an image that pops when you're looking at hundred thumbnails on iTunes and that kind of stuff?
20:05
SPEAKER_01: So I love that that shade of green that you're using in the logo.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: I know that's that's super queer, but you know, that's important to artistic people.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: That kind of stuff.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: Here's what's funny about that.
20:14
SPEAKER_03: So I dabble in graphic design.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: I mean, working at a church as a worship pastor.
20:19
SPEAKER_03: You have to you know everything about everything according to some other people on like on staff or like in the church.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: It's like you're the young one.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: You know how to do this.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: You know how to do a video and graph.
20:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so uh I dabble in that and I enjoy it.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: What's really funny is green is my least favorite color.
20:35
SPEAKER_03: I I can't stand green.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: I don't really personally love that shade either of the the graphic, but I picked it because it was like I think the year before it was like the most popular color of the year or something, according to some design thing.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: So I was like, I want to be I want to feel current and on trend of design, what's going on.
20:58
SPEAKER_03: The font we picked, it was like one of the most common best fonts too, and it's like you just start with those pieces.
21:05
SPEAKER_03: I kind of want it to be to to feel current and fresh.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna pick a popular font and a popular color, and then get creative on, but how do I do them because you can use fresh ingredients in a way that's not fresh, it just feels derivative.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: So then it just became what else do we need?
21:25
SPEAKER_03: And Chris Nelson, who's on the podcast, is the one that does like helped design that uh that little thought bubble.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: Andrew was like, We need a thought bubble, and so I put one on there and then Chris like polished it.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: And then we it was like to me, the little like cherry on top was the little border.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: It looks good, it looks really good.
21:45
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, thank you.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: Uh so uh I I really like it because it feels like a in the same way that the whole show does, it was like a collaboration between all three of us.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh I think any time that we write something, we create something, whether it's uh You know, a book, blog posts, podcast, any form of communication is designed to fill a gap that we perceive is there.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: So with your show, are you trying to fill a need that you see where the church is not asking good questions today and you're you're trying to help lead us in that direction?
22:16
SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely, yes.
22:18
SPEAKER_03: Because um, you know, growing up in church, I've been in church my whole life, and I have witnessed church splits, I've witnessed arguments, I've been in arguments, uh, debates, um, I gosh, I even Okay, here's case in point.
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Do you remember the Bill Nye Ken Ham debate?
22:39
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I do.
22:40
SPEAKER_03: It was all about creation versus evolution.
22:45
SPEAKER_03: And I remember, ah gosh, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember like watching part of that going, they are debating the wrong question.
22:54
SPEAKER_03: Because everything Bill Nye is throwing out is valid scientific stuff that like the the smartest scientific people uh in that community are realizing is like this is true.
23:07
SPEAKER_03: It's observable.
23:08
SPEAKER_03: And Ken Ham is going, but the Bible needs to be our ultimate authority.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: Uh Bill Nye is never gonna acknowledge that, no matter how great he does.
23:19
SPEAKER_03: He's never gonna put the Bible as the authority.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: It's like you're you're just starting from the wrong premise.
23:25
SPEAKER_03: And I don't even know what a better one would be.
23:27
SPEAKER_03: That's part of what I like about the show, is we talk it through.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
23:31
SPEAKER_03: But part of me, at least, was like, what if you could just debate just the basic existence of God?
23:36
SPEAKER_03: Or even if you like got Bill Naidu, he might be able to say, I could I could swallow deism based on arguments.
23:44
SPEAKER_03: He's not gonna swallow that the Bible's gonna be exactly authority.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: Right.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: And so, um because the the fact is you can be a Christian and still believe in evolution.
23:54
SPEAKER_03: I've met them.
23:55
SPEAKER_03: In fact, I am a theistic evolutionist to some extent.
23:58
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know.
24:01
SPEAKER_03: It was like, why are you arguing about this when there's so many better things we could we could be talking about, we could be asking.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: And so that was kind of like probably an early kernel of this idea of the fact that we're asking questions with an agenda to prove what we believe, instead of legitimately asking questions that are gonna lead us to act on good godly impulses like serving the poor or um like cultivating the kingdom of God here on earth, like Jesus talked about, bringing the kingdom here.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: We just want to be right.
24:39
SPEAKER_03: We just want to argue about what this little verse s means when like there's certain so many verses that fifteen Bible scholars, not one of them would agree.
24:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
24:52
SPEAKER_03: It's like I do know what you mean.
24:54
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: So that's yeah, that's what it is.
24:57
SPEAKER_03: It's it's we need to we need to be asking better questions for and this is the other important one, not just a call into action, but to bring unity.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: There's so many denominations, there's so many church splits.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: Again, because we want to be right.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: We want to feel like we've put God in this test tube and we figured them out because we've read the Bible and we've decoded it the perfect way, and we have it and the Baptists don't.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: They're missing it.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
25:25
SPEAKER_03: Or the Calvinists, they're their tulip things crazy, blah, blah, blah.
25:28
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
25:29
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's it's just dumb.
25:31
SPEAKER_03: It's like Jesus prayed that we'd be one in the same way that he and the Father are one.
25:38
SPEAKER_03: And if you really think about how mind-blowing it is that Jesus is a hundred percent man and a hundred percent God, and he said, I want them to be one in the same way that we are one, you're like, We are not even close.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:52
SPEAKER_03: And I'll say one more thing.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: I've been talking a lot in a row, but Well, it's an interview of you, so well thanks.
25:59
SPEAKER_03: I'm interviewing you.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:01
SPEAKER_03: The I think what's implicit in questions in asking questions is you're saying I don't know something.
26:11
SPEAKER_03: And that's hard to admit.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't know something.
26:15
SPEAKER_03: And so I'm going to ask the question.
26:18
SPEAKER_03: And just starting there, even if you're asking bad questions, is one step in the right direction to admit there's something I don't know.
26:28
SPEAKER_03: But then if you can refine into what the best questions are, it'll create better conversations between people of opposing views to maybe even discover that they're more alike than they think.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: Their views overlap more than they thought they did, and at the end of the day, they can be brothers and sisters in Christ and share communion around the same table because there's a sp a seat for everyone at the table.
26:57
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
26:58
SPEAKER_03: And that's the gospel.
27:00
SPEAKER_03: And if we can ask the right questions, we can get on the same page, we can sit next to each other at that at the table.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: So you're a pastor.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: I've been a pastor, I'm not vocationally a pastor now, but I I still, as a Christian college professor, still I'm in that pastoral role to a degree in some ways.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: How do you deal with that tension as a spiritual leader when people so often look to us for answers and for definitive answers about things?
27:26
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we don't have all the answers.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you deal with that tension of people expect you to have answers to things, but sometimes they're just not there, or you don't even know yourself what the answer to that is.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Have you wrestled with that tension before in this role?
27:41
SPEAKER_03: I have.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: I've wrestled with it a lot personally.
27:44
SPEAKER_03: Um the ministry I'm in right now, I don't actually field a lot of those questions.
27:49
SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, you say I'm a pastor, that's true, but I'm not like up there preaching every week.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
27:55
SPEAKER_03: And so I I a lot of what I've been doing is on a production side.
27:59
SPEAKER_03: So I'm in the booth or I'm in a control room and so and I'm running around making sure things are working.
28:04
SPEAKER_03: And so a lot of times I'm not approached right now by people asking that stuff.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: But in the past I have been, and uh it is hard because especially when I was young, I felt like I need to have something to give to them that's gonna make them feel better or that's gonna answer their question.
28:23
SPEAKER_03: And you know, going to Bible college and and I've act I've read a lot of books even since, and I've continued to study, it's like there's times where I can feel like I do have some answers.
28:32
SPEAKER_03: Like I have put God in the test tube a little bit.
28:35
SPEAKER_03: I put the Bible on trial and I I have some nuggets of of wisdom, you know, and so I I like to teach and I like to be able to give people something.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: But now, again, like I hit 30 and I started read rethinking things.
28:50
SPEAKER_03: I embrace I don't know a lot more than I used to.
28:55
SPEAKER_03: And uh gosh, it's it's weird to say, but I feel like that's one way that like the church is broken is we we uh play too much into the expectation of our congregants of needing those answers.
29:13
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes as a pastor to be pastoral, all people really need you to do is say, I love you, I'm here with you in this struggle, and I don't know either, but what I do know is I love you, God loves you, and I'm with you.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:29
SPEAKER_03: And you know, that certainly helps in the hard times where it's like, well, why did God take my husband?
29:36
SPEAKER_03: Why did why did he die?
29:38
SPEAKER_03: Like uh You don't you don't have an answer for that.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's no answer for that.
29:44
SPEAKER_03: Uh but even in the the like stuff like, well, how old is the earth?
29:49
SPEAKER_03: Well, here's a couple views, but ultimately like we don't know.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: We don't know really.
29:56
SPEAKER_03: There was no camera rolling back then.
29:58
SPEAKER_03: You know, here's what the Bible says, here's what science says, and it's up to you to put your faith in one of those or to mix them.
30:05
SPEAKER_03: It's like ultimately, what does that matter even?
30:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm we're we're together and let's let's go build the kingdom here, you know?
30:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: There's so much emphasis in the church on you've got to believe or you have to assent to all the right things when I don't know, it just seems like when I look at the Bible, maybe this is very simplistic coming from, you know, a supposedly learned college professor or whatever.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: It just seems like the emphasis is more on well, maybe not more on, but it's equally on the things that we do, you know, our actions.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: It's not just saying that we believe certain things.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Because unless we put it into action, do we really believe them in the first place?
30:45
SPEAKER_03: I'll go back to what I said earlier.
30:47
SPEAKER_03: We've lost some of the like Jewish roots of belief in Yahweh.
30:53
SPEAKER_03: And I think we're influenced by the Enlightenment and empirical science more than we really think we do as people of faith.
31:04
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: Where the chief goal is CNN, truth, empirical, like, uh give me a camera on it, if I can see it and it's evidenced, then I'll believe it.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: And then you come to faith and you try to bring that scientific way of thinking to even parts of the Bible that might be mystical or miraculous, uh, and it doesn't really equate.
31:32
SPEAKER_03: Whereas like the ancient the ancient Jewish ways and even now Jewish ways, it's like the question's more important than the answer.
31:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:39
SPEAKER_03: The Eastern way of thinking of like the journey is more important than the destination, and even like there can be things that are true that aren't like that didn't actually happen in history.
31:52
SPEAKER_03: Like I can tell us a narrative, a parable.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: Which Jesus used a lot.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: Which Jesus used a lot.
31:59
SPEAKER_03: And it conveys a deep truth about the very nature of our reality and what it means to be human, but the actual events that you're detailing didn't really happen.
32:12
SPEAKER_03: Like, and if we get too caught up in arguing about whether the rich man and Lazarus were real people, and that's exactly what heaven and hell look like, I think we're missing the point.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: With the artist depiction in Sunday school and all that.
32:28
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
32:29
SPEAKER_03: Um I just think we can we can focus so much on those details and about getting it perfectly right and up and holding so tightly with closed fists to this idea that like every single story in the Bible is historically true that we miss actually what the deeper truth is on like a human cellular emotional level of what the story is trying to say that is going supposed to call us an action and how we live day to day.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
33:05
SPEAKER_03: And not just fill our heads with this knowledge of, well, this is history and now I know it.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: I see that as a huge problem in the Christian educational world, but in the church in general, where it's very easy to fill students' heads with knowledge, but really knowledge well, it's like what Paul says, knowledge puffs up.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: If you have this knowledge but you don't do anything with it, then really the more knowledge you have, you almost sort of become like intellectually constipated to give like a gross image out there.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: And you don't have any way to to release that knowledge or to do something with it.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: And the more that you know, but the less that you do with it, the more that you think that you're being the right type of person when really you just know a bunch of stuff that really is of no consequence unless somehow it produces action within your life.
33:51
SPEAKER_03: To get to some Greek a little bit, the Greek word pistis, which is translated faith, can also be translated as trust, but it can also be translated as faithfulness.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: And that's great.
34:03
SPEAKER_03: Faithfulness is communicates this idea of being faithful, which means I'm putting what I believe into action.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: And so there's sometimes when I'm reading the Bible and I see the word faith, I just change it in my head to faithfulness, and what does that do with it?
34:17
SPEAKER_03: And I think it makes what James says a whole lot more make a whole lot more sense.
34:20
SPEAKER_03: It's like faithfulness without works is dead.
34:23
SPEAKER_03: Faithfulness.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: Well that yeah, exactly.
34:25
SPEAKER_03: If I don't if I'm not faithful with what I say I'm gonna do, then it's dead.
34:31
SPEAKER_03: And it changes it from this faith being this like intellectual thing, it's like, yes, I affirm, I check the box next to agree that Jesus did what he said he did.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: Great.
34:41
SPEAKER_03: I got my ticket to heaven.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: Whereas, again, going back to the Jewish way of thinking, faith like was so tied to your behavior that you didn't actually really believe unless you acted on it.
34:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:53
SPEAKER_03: They wouldn't have even said the word, I believe, unless there was action.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: You show your faith by what you do.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: Like again, it makes what James said make a whole lot more sense.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm glad James is in the Bible.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a good I'm not gonna say a good corrective because I don't I don't mean that he's correcting something that's bad in Paul's teaching or elsewhere, but it's it just keeps things kind of in balance.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: So let's bring this down to a practical level as we kind of start to wind this down a little bit.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: What are some practical ways that people can start to ask better questions in their lives, whether it's relationships, work situations, church, um, you know, parenting, anything, how can people start to become more curious and and start to ask better questions?
35:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I think you I think we all just have to take a step back for a second and be willing to analyze the questions we find ourselves asking and to try and develop a personal set of criteria as to like all the questions we find ourselves asking, we hold up to this this set of criteria to see if it's a helpful question or not.
35:59
SPEAKER_03: And so it's not bad to have bad questions, but it's bad to not realize that the questions you're asking are bad, if that makes sense.
36:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:09
SPEAKER_03: Self-awareness.
36:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, self-awareness.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: And so, like what we've done on the show, we've laid out a bet what a better question looks like to us and for the show.
36:17
SPEAKER_03: And that criteria is that it calls us to action and it brings unity to different sides.
36:23
SPEAKER_03: Now that's not the only criteria.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: Like you can have criteria personally that I want to ask questions that are actually answerable.
36:32
SPEAKER_03: Or I want to avoid unhelpful whys, like whys that are comparison-y, or whys about what's unfair, or like why me, poor me.
36:42
SPEAKER_03: Uh I'm gonna avoid pointless questions.
36:44
SPEAKER_03: Like somebody the other day asked me, like, do you think Jesus could read?
36:48
SPEAKER_03: Was he literate?
36:49
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Who cares?
36:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like That's insane.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Of course he was literate.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: He was I mean, he was God, yeah.
37:00
SPEAKER_03: But he was also human, so I don't know.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: And trained in the synagogue, and you know, of course he could read.
37:05
SPEAKER_03: Uh or questions that like um avoid selfish focus.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: Or like um questions that are just all about yourself with no redeemable like outward service expression um that are just so wrapped up in what am I gonna do and or who am I or all that stuff, like the more you're thinking about yourself, just like I said, the bad the bad selfishness.
37:29
SPEAKER_03: So anyway, you can create a set of criteria for yourself, and when you find yourself asking a question, genuinely, you're not bad for asking it, but if it doesn't meet the criteria, I think you just let it go.
37:40
SPEAKER_03: Or you don't vocalize it, or you don't start researching it.
37:44
SPEAKER_03: You wait till you have a question that meets your criteria and is a better question, and then at least what I've done is just pour everything into figuring it out, you know until I satisfy that curiosity.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: So, what are some things that you're doing right now to uh to try and be more curious?
38:05
SPEAKER_01: I know you have a wide-ranging group of interests.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Are there some specific things that you're doing in terms of you know, any books that you're reading or any specific habits that you have that you feel like have really helped you in this regard of becoming more curious?
38:18
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: So um the first thing I did was I just identified, and I didn't do this like consciously, it's just like over time, but I realized like I love stories, I love watching TV, and I love watching movies.
38:31
SPEAKER_03: So instead of like feeling guilty about how lazy I am and sitting on the couch and just popping on Netflix and checking out, I decided like when I'm gonna watch something, it's gonna be redeemed in the sense of like I'm gonna start studying film because I've always been interested in it, so I'm gonna learn as much as I can about it.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: And what happened is I started watching YouTube videos about cinematography and about all these things, and I started just learning about film so that now when I watch TV, which is something I've always liked to do, I can analyze it.
39:01
SPEAKER_03: I can then have conversations with people about the deeper truths that the art was communicating and all that stuff, and it's just helped me uh take something I already liked and learn more about it so that I could redeem the time that I was doing doing it, if that makes sense.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: Another thing I do is I read a lot, and the way I do that is um often through audiobooks.
39:24
SPEAKER_03: And so through audiobooks or podcasts.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: Like I do a podcast mostly because I love listening to them, and my commute to to church is about between five and eight minutes, depending on uh the traffic the one traffic no, the two traffic lights in my way.
39:43
SPEAKER_03: Uh and I will listen to like an hour-long podcast at like five-minute chunks.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
39:52
SPEAKER_03: Like I s I kind of I've always been a musical person, but I stopped listening to music in the car, and I always do just podcasts.
39:59
SPEAKER_03: Uh and if it's a two-minute ride, a five-minute ride, if it's an hour ride, like it took me like 45 minutes to get here, I was listening to a podcast.
40:08
SPEAKER_03: And it's just always in there.
40:10
SPEAKER_03: And I guess I don't know, I'm able to do that.
40:13
SPEAKER_03: Some people aren't.
40:14
SPEAKER_03: They're like, I couldn't listen to two minutes, put it down, and come back and actually know what was going on.
40:18
SPEAKER_03: Somehow I can.
40:19
SPEAKER_03: So that's been it's just been really helpful because I've not had to take any extra time out of what I'm already doing.
40:25
SPEAKER_03: I just find time what I'm already doing to redeem that time.
40:31
SPEAKER_03: I guess the whole nutshell of how I've gone about it.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing how how much you can actually get listened to.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: That's not the proper English terminology, but you can listen to a lot of stuff in just those little five or ten minute chunks.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, if an audiobook is, let's say, even ten hours long, you know, you can get through that fairly quickly because think about how often we're in the car and we're going to the store, we're going to pick up somebody, or whatever it is.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: Or if you're on a long road trip, I always look forward to those because many can listen to a lot of stuff.
41:03
unknown: Cool.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, Dan, thanks so much for being on the show today.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: You you have covered a wide range of topics, and I really want to have you back again to explore some of these things or whatever you're working on next, which I know is you're always working on stuff.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: So where can people connect with you and your creative work?
41:19
SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, I just recently put together dandrake333.com.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: Uh, that's my website.
41:25
SPEAKER_03: You can interact with my work there.
41:27
SPEAKER_03: I've got a blog there, and uh I've I've that's where I'm gonna post any new um work that I generate.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: It's also where you can find everything I've already done.
41:37
SPEAKER_03: And Dandrake333 is my handle for all social media, so that's Facebook and Instagram and Twitter.
41:43
SPEAKER_03: Um I'm not really on Twitter very often, but you can certainly catch me there.
41:48
SPEAKER_03: Um and then I have uh an album on Spotify if you want to check it out, and of course the Better Questions Podcast uh on wherever you listen to podcasts.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll put links to all those things in the show notes so they'll be able to access that easily.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, Dan, thanks so much.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: It's been a pleasure to have you as a student in the past and now as a fellow podcaster in the podcasting world.
42:11
unknown: Woo.
42:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks for having me.
42:12
SPEAKER_03: It has been awesome.
42:13
SPEAKER_03: Always great to catch up.
42:15
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: All right, thanks.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Dan.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed talking with him, and I don't know if I mentioned this at the beginning, but Dan is a former student of mine here at the college where I teach in my day job.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's really fulfilling to be able to chat with him on this level all these years later after I had him as a student.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: That was a lot of fun.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: At the end of every interview on the show, I always want to share three specific things that I learned, and these are key action steps that you can put into practice right away to start making a bigger impact in your life and your creative work.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: So here we go.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number one is this curiosity is an indispensable part of your creative life.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: Now, Dan talked about his need to follow his curiosity in our interview and how it's led him to explore a lot of different creative pursuits, including film, storytelling, music, podcasting, and several other areas.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: And if we want to create new things, we have to constantly explore our curiosity.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: So my question for you is, what have you been reading, watching, listening to, or exploring lately?
43:20
SPEAKER_01: If we want to produce new things, we have to put new things within our mind and within our heart.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: So make sure to explore your curiosity.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number two, movies are the language of modern culture.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: Now that may sound kind of like an extreme statement, but I really believe that's true.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: You can go almost anywhere in the world, and people are going to be familiar with things like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Avengers, and tons of other movie franchises and movie worlds and stories.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, why is that?
43:51
SPEAKER_01: It's because stories draw us in, and movies take lots of different art forms and they combine them into one really compelling format.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: And to me, this expensive.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Why have movies have been so popular and such a key part of Western culture for so many decades, I mean basically for a hundred years almost, movies have been a really key part of American culture.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: So I would really strongly encourage everybody listening to this to take a deeper dive and to learn more about various aspects of storytelling, screenwriting, cinematography, film scoring, and any other areas of interest that are related to movies.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: And the cool thing about that is that you'll not only be equipped to know how to interpret movies and stories better and to understand them, but I think it helps you to enjoy them a lot more.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: Whenever I watch a movie and I understand more how it's put together and how storytelling works, and you know how the the writer is trying to give us an inciting incident that changes the ordinary world of the hero, and they're kind of throwing things into chaos.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: And you know, when you just understand story structure better, you can really enjoy movies a lot more.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: At least that's been my experience.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: So I I hope that you will really take advantage of all the resources out there to help us learn more about film.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: And we'll be diving into this topic a lot more on future podcast episodes.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: Before I move on to takeaway number three, I want to mention one more thing about movies.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: My favorite film of all time is Citizen Kane.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's probably a toss-up between It's a Wonderful Life and Citizen Kane.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: I like both of them for very different reasons.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: And both of them are personally meaningful to me for different reasons.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: However, I would definitely say that if you want to dive into this whole area of exploring film and storytelling and particularly the history of film, then do a deep dive into Citizen Kane.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: It is a phenomenal movie on a whole bunch of levels, and it's consistently rated as either the number one or the number two movie of all time.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: So I would definitely encourage you to check it out.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: It is worth your time to dive into Citizen Kane.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: It truly is.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: If you've never seen it before, it's kind of a boring movie the first time that you watch it, but Citizen Kane is one of those movies that the more that you dive into it, the more rewarding that it is because you learn all these things and it's just rewarding on a whole bunch of levels.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I could go on and on about Citizen Kane, but our time is limited here, so I will move on to takeaway number three, which is this.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: Dan referenced a quote from Dead Poet Society, which is the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again so it kind of sinks in.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: That's a line that Robin Williams' character says in Dead Poet Society.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: And that's a fantastic film that has inspired artists of all different kinds.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: And for good reason, it's just a great movie.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: But what does that mean?
46:38
SPEAKER_01: What does that line mean?
46:39
SPEAKER_01: The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, what it means is that we're not meant we're not created to compromise or to settle in our lives.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: We're meant, I believe, to do everything that we can to be our authentic self and to give the world only the gift that we can give.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: You are uniquely wired to bring something into the world.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: Now that could be music, it could be storytelling, it could be uh running a business, it could be doing woodworking, it could be auto mechanics, uh, it could be being a homemaker and being a stay-at-home parent.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: It could be any of those things or thousands of other things.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: Whatever that is, you are created, you are wired to bring something that only you can uniquely bring into the world.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: And I hope and pray that all of us listening to this, including myself, of course, that we would not let our time on earth end without contributing a verse to that eternal epic of human history.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm gonna be thinking about that line, the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna think I'm gonna be thinking about that for probably the next several days quite a bit, because it's very powerful.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, friends, thanks for listening to my ramblings and uh much more important to the great interview with Dan Drake, who shared tons and tons of good stuff.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: This was one of my favorite interviews so far.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: So this wraps up this episode of the Born to Create podcast, and you can find the show notes at KentSanders.net slash DanDrake.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: This episode was produced by me, Kent Sanders, and our associate producer, Ben Sanders.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: And I also want to give a shout out to today's podcast partners, Faye Rook, Heidi Bender, and Chris Morris.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: You can find their links in the show notes.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: It only takes a couple seconds and it helps other people to discover the show.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: You can subscribe as well as leave a rating and a review by visiting KentSanders.net slash iTunes.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: And finally, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or a family member who you think would enjoy it as well.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: You can find lots more resources to help unlock your creative potential at KentSanders.net.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designs to make a difference.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: Now go create something awesome.