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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.
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I m Dan Rather, and I m joined by Mrs. Mouse.
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We didn t even talk about this on the fact check, but the strike is over.
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The strike is over.
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Congratulations to all.
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Congratulations.
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Well, they haven t, it s not done done.
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They have a deal that they re now bringing to the members to vote on.
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I mean, so presumably it will, that ll.
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But it said 1201 on Thursday, members can go back to work.
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Oh, it did?
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Yeah.
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Oh, so then maybe the members already approved the deal they brought back.
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I think so.
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But when I read the announcement, it was like, they have a deal, they ve agreed upon a deal they ll now bring back to the members to vote on.
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Oh, maybe, oh boy.
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But anyway, I think it s over.
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Okay, congratulations.
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Today s guest is a babe.
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We ve been trying to have him on for long, long, long, long, long, long time.
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Long, long time.
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It s been scheduled, it s been unscheduled, it s been scheduled.
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That s right.
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And the day has finally arrived and it really delivered.
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Trevor Noah, what a smart motherfucker.
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So smart.
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Oh my God, is he smart.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, very fun to talk to.
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Yes, he loves to dance.
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He lives to dance, I d say.
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Trevor Noah is a comedian, a best-selling author, an Emmy Award-winning host, and then he s a hugely successful touring stand-up.
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Of course, you ve come to love him for seven years on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
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And he has a new podcast out right now, a Spotify original, called What Now?
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with Trevor Noah.
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So please check that out.
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That is out now.
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And enjoy The Dance with Trevor Noah.
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He s an objection.
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Oh, you go side saddle.
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Do you do this when you re doing your podcast?
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I used to DJ.
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Oh, okay.
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So I m more comfortable with one ear.
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I just got used to hearing the room and then hearing what s happening in my ear.
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I also had a radio show when I was in South Africa way back in the day.
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And then same thing.
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So you d always have one ear up so you can talk to people in the studio and then one ear monitoring what s happening.
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Yeah, you know, I m used to one earring it could you just get a set that just doesn t have the oh you do Yeah, you have that.
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Yeah, you ve got the one and it just has a one ear Okay, either they flip up or you have one.
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That s literally a one ear like you work at AT&T
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I feel like that would be a lot of stimuli from the outside and from inside your headphones.
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But it s the same thing.
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No, I don t think so.
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You re in one environment.
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Well, she s right in that you d be hearing all this extraneous noise in the environment on one side of your brain.
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or your ear, and then the other side s very dialed in.
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So think of it this way.
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Let s say you re DJing like a party.
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The music that they re hearing is the music you re hearing, but then you re also hearing the music that you re gonna play and the music that you re currently playing.
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So it s all the same information coming in at the same time with maybe 20% difference.
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And the ADHD is an asset in that moment.
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I guess it is.
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It s gotta be, right?
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I guess it is, yeah.
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I ve never ever considered that I had it.
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I know I m dyslexic, but I never considered I had it.
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And then we had Gabor Mate on.
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And afterwards, he was like, have you ever been tested for ADHD?
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It was kind of a thin slice assessment that maybe I had it.
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So I ve been kind of mulling it over.
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And I guess I never thought I had it because I can sit down for protracted periods of time and focus.
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I m a writer, so to me that s like, well, no, I have unlimited attention when necessary.
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But I do think the quick thinking has to be, that s gotta be part of it, right?
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Yeah, I would be careful to receive a diagnosis from anyone.
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I ve learned over the years that many of the things we deal with with our brains overlap.
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Some of the side effects of ADHD are similar to side effects of OCD or similar to people who are bipolar.
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So if you re not careful, I ve met a lot of people just be like, ADHD, and you re like, hmm, you might not be.
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I may just have overlapping symptoms.
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I have a friend who has autism and then she has some of the symptoms, but she s not ADHD, but you know what I mean?
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Yeah, we love to diagnose.
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Well, it s all driven by the DSM, right?
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There has to be categories so that you can get reimbursement for, I mean, truly.
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So you re right.
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All these things could be like a multitude of personality characteristics that we re forced to categorize and break into and draw artificial boundaries between ADHD and OCD and blah, blah, blah.
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First of all, I m assuming you get the same thing I get all the time when I meet people in public, which is, oh my God, you re so much taller than I was expecting.
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Is that a common?
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Yeah, I get that.
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Yeah.
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You get that?
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All the time.
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Huh.
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I wonder what it is.
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I wonder if it s because our bodies do not present.
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Our height, it might be like a thing about our torsos and how they re proportioned.
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That could be, yeah.
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Could be like a head, torso, legs ratio that doesn t make you look tall.
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Right.
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I think it s also on screen, it s really hard to gauge people s heights.
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And that s where most people are seeing both of you.
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Yes.
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And also you re seated behind a desk.
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That s what it probably is.
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That s a huge piece.
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Yeah, that s a huge piece.
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So we re not really seeing you standing.
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I guess when the guests would come out, you would stand.
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I don t know.
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No, but I m with you.
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It s probably something in that world.
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Of all the things to be told when someone meets you, I m delighted to hear that.
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I mean, I m presuming that s positive.
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Let s put it this way, because we are in a world where being tall is considered a good thing.
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For men.
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Oh, it s an advantage.
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For men.
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Do you think it would be offensive if someone said to a woman, wow, you re taller than I thought?
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Oh, it could go either way.
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It wouldn t be 100% a compliment.
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I don t think it would be offensive either.
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You don t think that s a female ideal, do you?
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I mean, we acknowledge that models are tall.
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That s why I m asking.
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I don t think it s broadly, I bet if you polled Americans and said, list your three favorite traits in a female, if you were designing one in the lab, I don t think tall makes the top three.
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No, I agree with you.
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Oh, okay, great, great, great.
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I agree with you, yeah.
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But for a male- But I don t think it s offensive.
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That s why I was confused by- It s not offensive, it s not offensive.
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So I get the opposite all the time.
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People, if they meet me in person, oh my God, you re so short.
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Right.
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Which I am so short.
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But I actually take that as a compliment because, and I guess this does mean tall is better, because it makes me feel like, oh, I present tall.
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Yes, exactly.
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Oh, well, that s a very glass half full.
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Yeah, I try.
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Yeah, that s true.
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That s what it is.
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And I guess conversely, you and I should be thinking, God, we present so short.
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we should reduce our compliment to a burn.
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And when you think about it, presenting short is what short people generally do.
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Well, I have no option.
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It s the wrong way around.
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No, what I mean is like, you know, you think of Napoleon.
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There are countless stories of shorter people in the world who have, you know what I mean?
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Some gumption.
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Yeah.
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We call it mixed messages.
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So my wife s also very small in stature, but mighty in power, as is Monica.
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I actually love that combination.
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It s just like a little surprise.
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Yes, yes, it s like, oh my God.
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You like explosives as well?
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You like bombs?
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Love pyrotechnics.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, it s pretty much the same principle.
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A lot of dynamite, yeah.
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Tiny little package that explodes and decimates everything.
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It does, oh, we sure do.
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It s like a little woodland creature you see and then you pick up and you re petting it and then these huge fangs come out and then you leap back and you re like, oh my God, I gotta be careful.
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You must be an arousal junkie like me.
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Are you a bit of arousal junkie?
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Say more, say more, what do you mean by that?
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I will, I will.
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And I love that term too, that s like a CIA thing, say more.
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I didn t know your background at all.
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Here s what I know about you.
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You interviewed me at some point on The Daily Show during COVID.
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Monica will tell you, I came out of that and I was like, boy, that Trevor guy is wonderful.
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Like I really enjoyed chatting with him.
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I don t know what my expectation was, but I just thought, oh, I see this dude and I really like him.
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It was like, everyone knows that already.
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Everyone did know that, especially all the ladies.
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I present nice.
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You do, you really do.
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But then I learned your story today.
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And although there s so many things we don t have in common, the violence, the step parents, the single mom, this stuff to me is very identical.
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And so chaos and excitement, it,
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has made my base desire of arousal quite high.
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Interesting.
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Yes.
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Like, I feel very calm in chaos.
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If I go into 7-Eleven and shit s popping off and there s an unhoused dude fighting the guy behind the counter, I love it.
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I m in the mix.
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That excites me and I feel alive.
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And I guess I m attributing it to nurture and not nature.
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I could have just been born this way.
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But I am curious, given your background, if you are a bit of an arousal junkie yourself.
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I like that you said unhoused.
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Do you like that?
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I m not sold on that.
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I don t like unhoused, but I m doing it just to keep people off my back.
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I m not sold on it.
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No.
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I ll tell you why.
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Yeah, let s get into it.
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I ll tell you why.
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It s the same thing.
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Yes!
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I know.
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I don t know how they think it s a compliment.
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It is the same thing.
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Yeah.
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I ve also never come across an unhoused person who s like, hey, don t call me homeless.
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Here s my issue.
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I think sometimes we are engaging in conversations where on an academic level, some people are trying to split hairs that aren t necessarily getting anywhere close to the issue.
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If this was ever used as a slur, I can understand.
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Totally.
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So I go like, there are some words that have evolved over time, but they were used as slurs.
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So I m like, all right, let s try and move away from using that word.
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I can understand that.
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Sometimes I m resistant.
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I think we all are.
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But there are times when I go, I get it.
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Yeah.
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But homeless was never a slur.
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It is not a slur.
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It is the condition that a person is in.
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You are lacking of a home.
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And so now all people have done is they flip the word around to seem like they re helping or solving a problem when they re not.
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Homeless, less un.
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Unhoused, house, home.
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It s the exact same.
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I feel like you re gaslighting me in these situations.
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Yes, next year I ll be without home.
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It s just like, no, man, I ll go further.
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It s more nefarious than that.
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First of all, it s patronizing.
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What it really says is we feel like shit that this is a condition and we re going to try to dress up what we call you every few months to make, you know, we re trying.
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I disagree, funny enough.
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OK, I don t think it s about showing homeless people that you care.
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I don t either.
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Your fellow liberals.
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Yeah, it s about showing other people that, look, no, I care so much about them that I ve given them a new title.
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Yes.
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So then that s the second thing I hate about it.
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And then I ll say to a lot of these people, I ll go, hey, have you voted to change the housing in your area?
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Have you voted for or against it?
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Every time I see these councils and whatever in California, there s countless votes that come up where they go, hey, can we adjust the housing rules in this area?
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Can we figure out who can live where?
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Everyone votes against it.
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People are so progressive until it s in their backyard.
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And then all of a sudden, I remember seeing people going to Santa Monica.
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There was a homeless encampment that was being moved and they were going to protest, but none of the people were from that area.
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And I found it particularly interesting.
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And I m not saying that they re all bad people, but I do think we have to be careful to, as they say, put your money where your mouth is.
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A lot of people want to engage in progressivism on a theoretical level.
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You want to use all the right language, you want to tweet all the right things, but then in your actual life, in the way you vote and the things that you actually move towards, you find you re not as pro having kids from different areas in your school or you re like,
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Oh, I want my kids to go to a good school.
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I mean, I want everyone in the schools, but I don t I just look here s the thing.
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I love that.
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But I think yeah, it s like not in my backyard.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, like I get it.
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But anyway, you re going.
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So let s go back.
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I apologize.
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No, I love it.
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Stimuli.
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SPEAKER_00
So you say you win this.
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I got to say one more thing because we need to add one more layer to it.
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Yes.
1
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And there was a great article recently said maybe where the bad guys in New York Times.
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SPEAKER_02
I also think it s an opportunity for just righteousness.
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That s it.
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It s just a way to signal to other people that you re righteous and then put yourself in a position to judge all the other people who are not saying unhoused.
1
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But for me, it s just fucking exhausting.
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So I ll go unhoused instead of homeless.
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I guess I just participate because I don t want to hear about it.
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So here s what I struggle with in society.
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There are times when I will accept that we re moving in a direction, but then there are times when I go like, no, I m willing to stand on the fact that I think something is ridiculous.
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And I ll go from there.
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I got bigger fish to fry.
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I m more interested in whether you re an arousal junkie.
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SPEAKER_00
So I think I relate to the first part of what you re saying.
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I function very well.
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And strangely enough, my body remains very calm in a very stressful situation.
1
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So if you re ever getting carjacked, you want me driving the car.
1
SPEAKER_00
If there s ever some chaos breaking out somewhere, you want me in the situation.
1
SPEAKER_00
In an airport, I ve never panicked.
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SPEAKER_00
Flights are cancelled, people are screaming.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve run to a gate calm, but it s because I ve grown up in such a tumultuous environment that that is almost a baseline.
1
SPEAKER_00
What I ve had to learn over time is to get comfortable with silence and calm.
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SPEAKER_00
The problem is if you grew up in a world where shit was always popping off, you always had to be prepared for that.
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Hypervigilant.
1
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
1
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All silence was for me as a child was the moment in a horror movie where something s about to happen.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know about you, but the scariest parts of a horror movie for me are the parts where there s just nothing happening.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s just like a couple walking around in the kitchen.
1
SPEAKER_00
Honey, did you see where I put the mugs?
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And I m like, oh, oh, this is not good.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, and then people like opening cabinets and people walking into other rooms and then the attic.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, no, no.
1
SPEAKER_00
Once the actual violence happens and once the monster comes out, I m like, okay, all right.
1
SPEAKER_01
You almost feel relieved.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m like, whew, all right, we see it now.
1
SPEAKER_02
Waiting to be hit is much more painful than being hit.
1
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
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Once you get hit, like everything else takes over.
1
SPEAKER_00
I can relate to that part.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I have been working on enjoying the peace and settling into that, learning to regulate my responses.
1
SPEAKER_02
My therapist would say, do you search out things that activate you?
1
SPEAKER_02
That kind of bring you to life and animate you?
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t do that, no.
1
SPEAKER_00
I will search for things that I enjoy, of course.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, so I love roller coasters.
1
SPEAKER_00
I love racing fast cars.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh, hold on.
1
SPEAKER_00
I used to race motorbikes on the track.
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This is my life.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m at the track once a month.
1
SPEAKER_02
That s all I do.
1
SPEAKER_02
Really?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
I have two track bikes.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh, for real?
1
SPEAKER_02
What bikes?
1
SPEAKER_02
I have an R1.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I used to have an R1, that s amazing.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and then I have a Norton Bill ZX4, that s like a Moto2 bike.
1
SPEAKER_02
Damn, look at that.
1
SPEAKER_02
That s just epic, it s so light.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s amazing.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then cars too, yeah, it s all I got.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, my favorite was, I had a Suzuki GSX-R1000.
1
SPEAKER_00
I have one.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that was my favorite track bike.
1
SPEAKER_00
That was long ago when I still rode religiously.
1
SPEAKER_00
I did not know this about you, so you re full of fucking shit.
1
SPEAKER_02
You re an arousal junkie.
1
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no, no.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna tell you why.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m gonna tell you, I m gonna explain why we love it.
1
SPEAKER_02
You get on the bike.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
There s no time for broad hypervigilance.
1
SPEAKER_02
There is only the turn in front of you.
1
SPEAKER_02
You do not have any option but to think about the turn in front of you.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it focuses you.
1
SPEAKER_02
And for me, I have to be in that crazy of an environment to get ultra present.
1
SPEAKER_02
and to have no bracket.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it s so peaceful.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like I think people look at that activity and they think, oh my God, my adrenaline will be this one.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, no, it s very meditative to me.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s just total presence.
1
SPEAKER_02
Right, turn to turn to turn.
1
SPEAKER_00
But for me, that s why I m saying that s where I think we diverge.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it doesn t bring me peace.
1
SPEAKER_00
It brings me focus and flow and challenge and stimulation, but I m not only seeking that out.
1
SPEAKER_00
So for instance, I m also the person who is very comfortable seeking out
1
SPEAKER_00
comfortably warm swimming pool and just wading through.
1
SPEAKER_00
That for me is as much fun and joy as racing a motorbike around a track.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_00
Taking a walk in an empty city.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re in Paris, you re in New York, you are in London.
1
SPEAKER_00
Just those beautiful cities when it goes like quiet in certain areas.
1
SPEAKER_00
Walking, silence, nothing happening.
1
SPEAKER_00
I love that too.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, have you ever done a barefoot?
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes Dax walks around cities barefoot.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, I like to do that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Why would you do that?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because again, he has to add stakes.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t know, it happened as a lark one time.
1
SPEAKER_02
We walked around London, Eric and I, for about eight miles, and there was something about transferring to all the different surfaces that made me very aware of the different surfaces we were on, and I just fucking dug it.
1
SPEAKER_02
Do you have like hard feet?
1
SPEAKER_02
No, they re so fragile and sensitive.
1
SPEAKER_02
Shocker I was able to do it because yes, I can t walk across rocks or anything.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you don t have those, you don t have like crocodile feet.
1
SPEAKER_02
No, I don t have like the thick Laird Hamilton, like lifetime with no shoes.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t know how you do that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, I have to ask a hard question.
1
Sorry.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_02
Just put your mark motorcycles.
1
SPEAKER_02
Are you going to be in LA a lot?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m always here working.
1
SPEAKER_02
Why?
1
SPEAKER_02
I m inviting you.
1
SPEAKER_02
If you ever want to go to the track and re- Oh, maybe I ll join you.
1
SPEAKER_02
I haven t been in a while.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I have extra bikes and I think that would be fun.
1
SPEAKER_02
And we d be two tall men on a motorcycle.
1
SPEAKER_02
No, that would be a lot of fun actually.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay, Monica, sorry.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, no, it s okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m going to ask a hard question.
1
SPEAKER_01
It might be coming.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sorry if it is, but it s in keeping with this.
1
SPEAKER_01
In relationships, do you live at 10 and two or are you pretty good at living in six?
1
SPEAKER_00
What does that mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
Are you on a high and a low, like a deep low and a deep high all the time within the relationship?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or are you good at being sort of level normal?
1
SPEAKER_00
So I think that s evolved over time.
1
SPEAKER_00
Before I went to therapy, I think my world oscillated between highs and lows in every relationship.
1
SPEAKER_00
I found myself attracted to people who themselves had grown up in worlds where they were used to highs and lows, highs and lows.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so we would exist in that space together, you know, high together, low together, high together, low together.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s fun.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it is.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s quite a ride.
1
SPEAKER_00
But more importantly, I feel like it s a powerful connector.
1
SPEAKER_00
because there are few things that connect human beings like traumas and excitements.
1
SPEAKER_00
There are few things that ll make you remember something than the best or the worst.
1
SPEAKER_00
Nobody doesn t remember the day they had a car accident, but every day when you arrived where you were going, you forgot about those days.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think it connects you as well in a psychologically strange way.
1
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, over time what I think has started happening is I ve started ebbing and flowing.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t really live in the twos anymore.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think a lot of the time it s unnecessary and we don t realize that it s unnecessary.
1
SPEAKER_00
When you start to exist in a space where you can have conversations with yourself and you acknowledge what you re feeling and who you are,
1
SPEAKER_00
You start to realize how many of the emotions we have are just triggers from our bodies from the past.
1
SPEAKER_00
You start to realize that these are patterns that you ve learned.
1
SPEAKER_00
And in many ways, you know, to use riding motorbikes as an analogy, one of the hardest things to do on the track you know is
1
SPEAKER_00
to change your entry and exits.
1
SPEAKER_00
If you ve been doing it the same way over and over and over, it s so hard to just change and break 10 feet later because your body is so used to what you ve been doing.
1
SPEAKER_00
There might be a person on the track who s there teaching you or coach or something and they go like, hey, you re breaking too early or you re breaking too late.
1
SPEAKER_00
To change that is so hard just because it s become motor function now.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think the same can happen to you as a person and in a relationship.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can get so used to reacting a certain way because somebody makes you feel a certain way.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I think what I ve learned over time is nobody s making you feel a certain way, unless like they punch you.
1
SPEAKER_00
If somebody punches you, they made you feel pain.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s all agree on that.
1
SPEAKER_00
But there are times when you are having a completely different experience to the other person because your interpretation of their actions is completely different.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s what blew my mind once I understood that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I found myself in a space where sometimes it can frustrate people around me because they think I am being almost annoyingly understanding.
2
SPEAKER_02
I genuinely can almost always understand another person s point of view, and that frustrates some people.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, here s a perfect example.
2
SPEAKER_02
The other day, I was walking with some friends, another guy and two women, and we walked into an elevator.
2
SPEAKER_02
I walked in first.
2
SPEAKER_02
My friend, she was like, excuse me.
2
SPEAKER_02
Chivalry is dead.
2
SPEAKER_02
Why won t you let us walk? 
2
SPEAKER_02
She was joking, but she was, you know.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I turned to her and I said, and this was true, well, it s funny you say that because in African culture, not all African cultures, but many African cultures, and it s predominantly Xhosa culture in South Africa, et cetera, men walk into a room first.
2
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the reason men walk into a room first is because there may be danger.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_02
Why on earth would you send women into a space that you re unfamiliar with so that they encounter whatever may lie there?
2
SPEAKER_02
That s ridiculous.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s disrespectful.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s just like, ah, ladies first.
2
SPEAKER_02
Tell me if there s a snake.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_02
What are you doing?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And she was like, yeah, I get it, but still, no.
2
SPEAKER_02
Then I was like, okay, but what s interesting right now is you re completely invalidating the thing that I ve been taught and the way I see the world.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you re assuming that yours is the only way.
2
SPEAKER_02
I understand where you re coming from.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you know what, next time, I will gladly let you go in first, because who knows, there might be a fart in the elevator.
2
SPEAKER_01
You get to experience it before me.
2
SPEAKER_02
You can protect me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Lucky her, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
But then you wouldn t be able to hit the button for the floor first.
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe you could work out a deal where I ll let you go in first, but I still get to hit the button.
2
SPEAKER_02
That has helped me to not go between the tens and twos.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m spending most of my time existing in like comfortable sevens.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have made the same connection some years ago, and I actually get frustrated.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m watching a couples therapy show, which is incredible.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love it so much, but.
2
SPEAKER_01
I get really frustrated hearing people speak like, well, he made me feel this, and she made me feel that, and they made me feel, and I m like, is anyone at all responsible for their feelings?
2
SPEAKER_01
And are you gonna proceed through life praying that everyone around you changes, or are you gonna try to change your response to these things?
2
SPEAKER_01
It just seems so defeatist and like you re not participating.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re just kind of waiting around for people to activate you or trigger you.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s tough though.
2
SPEAKER_01
It is a balance.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s no denying that many people can make you feel something.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, when someone gaslights you, they are making you feel something.
2
SPEAKER_02
And what makes it so nefarious is the fact that
2
SPEAKER_02
you don t even realize that they re making you feel it because they re not making it apparent that they re making you feel it.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think there are many situations where people are making you feel something.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think feelings aren t something we should ever run away from.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think the difference is, to your point, finding the moments where we can take responsibility for what many would consider, if you looked at it from a divorced perspective, just take yourself out of it.
2
SPEAKER_02
and go, would a neutral party consider this both ways?
2
SPEAKER_02
And if there is that, then I go, then maybe they didn t make me feel that way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, my counter argument is the exact same behavior aimed at 10 different people will produce 10 different feelings.
2
SPEAKER_01
The notion that there s an objective feeling created by this behavior, I reject.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think, well, you had a specific reaction to that behavior, but it d be very different for the next person and the next person.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, here s where my empathy exists is people feel more comfortable that if something objectively made them upset, they don t have to be as vulnerable to say, I m vulnerable to that.
2
SPEAKER_01
The example I would give is like Facebook, I guess.
2
SPEAKER_01
They had this dropdown menu where you could say why you were objecting to a picture that someone posted that you were tagged in.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it used to say, I m embarrassed.
2
SPEAKER_01
How did it say?
2
SPEAKER_01
It used to say like, I m embarrassed.
2
SPEAKER_01
And no one would click that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then when they d write other, you could type in what it was and they d virtually write, it s embarrassing.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s like, not I m embarrassed.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is an embarrassing photo.
2
SPEAKER_01
Objectively, this is embarrassing.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not being vain or weak.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so when they change the dropdown menu to it s embarrassing, just like it s objectively.
2
SPEAKER_01
It got clicked 90% of the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s less vulnerable to make it just blanket as opposed to I feel something.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you say, like, that person makes me feel this way, it s an attempt, I think, to just say, objectively, anyone would feel this way when that person slams the door that way.
2
SPEAKER_01
That, in fact, is not true.
2
SPEAKER_01
I will react differently than you, and Monica will react differently.
2
SPEAKER_01
I agree with that.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the most important thing is to go, how do I react to certain things?
2
SPEAKER_02
And what do I have at my disposal?
2
SPEAKER_02
But I think it does ignore the fact that we are interdependent creatures.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so nothing is without the other.
2
SPEAKER_02
Let s put it this way, maybe.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s almost being able to exist in a world where you say, hey, you made me feel shit.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then I go, but I ll tell you why you made me feel shit.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because you did, you are the person who in this situation is the antagonist.
2
SPEAKER_02
Without you, there was no emotion that existed beforehand.
2
SPEAKER_02
So if a dog comes running up to me, barking like crazy, and it seems like it s gonna bite me, it made me afraid.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now someone could go, no, Trevor, you need to ask yourself.
2
SPEAKER_02
Why did you feel afraid when the dog came?
2
SPEAKER_02
It wasn t gonna bite you.
2
SPEAKER_02
Then I go like, hey, hey, hey, that dog made me feel afraid.
2
SPEAKER_02
I ll tell you why.
2
SPEAKER_02
I wasn t afraid when I walked in this gate.
2
SPEAKER_02
I wasn t afraid when I saw the dog.
2
SPEAKER_02
I became afraid when the dog charged me and barked at me loudly and seemed like it was gonna attack me.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now, I can then go from that, the dog can go, that s just how I roll, I m just a dog.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then I can say as Trevor, huh, okay, if I m wanting to now engage with this dog on a regular basis, I would then go, okay, dog,
2
SPEAKER_02
So I ve noticed that when you run at me like this, barking, baring your teeth, it makes me feel like you re going to attack me.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now you say you re not trying to do that, but I m going to try my best to process this information and not be triggered by it.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I would also hope that you would consider, because you want to be a dog that s in my life, I would hope that you would consider not approaching me like that.
2
SPEAKER_02
maybe just like walk up to me calmly and pant and then like lick my hand.
2
SPEAKER_02
Can you try that?
2
SPEAKER_02
And then let s see if we can meet each other halfway.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so that s why I m saying, I do think some people are making you feel a certain way.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is how I think of it in life.
2
SPEAKER_02
Everyone who s a stranger in your world.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s where it s like, hey man, keep it moving, do your thing, go, because I can t control it.
2
SPEAKER_02
You cut me off in the traffic, whatever.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s where I agree with you as Dax.
2
SPEAKER_02
I go, that person, you can go like, oh, they made me feel insignificant or they pissed me off.
2
SPEAKER_02
No, you got pissed off.
2
SPEAKER_02
They don t know you, they re not involved in your world.
2
SPEAKER_02
They re just trying to get to work.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s why they cut you off.
2
SPEAKER_02
They don t care about you, which may piss you off even more.
2
SPEAKER_02
They don t even know you exist.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, they didn t see you.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or even if they did, they don t care.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, they saw a car.
2
SPEAKER_01
They didn t see you.
2
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re anonymous.
2
SPEAKER_01
This statement, if I could refine it a tiny bit, it s a therapy tool and I believe in it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Instead of you made me feel this way, it s so simple.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you ran in dog barking, I felt scared.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s so simple.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now the dog s not defensive because now the dog can go, oh, I m so sorry that happened.
2
SPEAKER_01
That was my, I wanna lick you face.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m with you there.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s the tiniest change.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a communication tactic.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, but what it alleviates is now we can progress.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, nobody wants to be blamed.
2
SPEAKER_01
No one s defending.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, nobody wants to be blamed.
2
SPEAKER_01
I agree with you.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right, and by the way, I didn t make you, I did an action and then you had a response that was governed by your history with dogs.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let me ask you this as a random tangential question.
2
SPEAKER_02
Were you blamed a lot as a kid for things that you didn t do?
2
SPEAKER_02
Did you feel like you grew up in an unfair household?
2
SPEAKER_01
I can t say that I was blamed so much, but what I will say, and this is a cancerous trait of my family, is who s responsible was paramount.
2
SPEAKER_01
That had to be figured out ASAP.
2
SPEAKER_01
If something went wrong or someone was hurt, the first priority was not tending to who was hurt or fixing what was broken.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was who did this?
2
SPEAKER_01
How did this happen?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I get it.
2
SPEAKER_01
My mother, she had three kids, single mom working midnights.
2
SPEAKER_01
There wasn t time.
2
SPEAKER_01
She had to figure out the root cause of everything and fix the root cause.
2
SPEAKER_01
She couldn t be dealing with the endless cycle of this behavior.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we had to find out what caused it so we could eliminate the causality.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it is my knee jerk to things.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I see my little sister who s around all the time and I have to fight it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like if something goes wrong with the kids, I have to go.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let s worry about who s responsible in a while.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let s just tend to the emotions right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you have an aversion to being blamed?
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe Monica s better at answering that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you do.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, great.
2
SPEAKER_01
Then I accept that.
2
SPEAKER_00
But so do I. I mean, I don t think it s strange that you do.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think most people don t like being blamed.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think the two are separate.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
2
SPEAKER_02
An aversion versus don t like.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t think anybody likes being blamed, but an aversion, I m talking about like when you have like an allergic reaction up your spine when someone goes like, you know.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
I ll go along with that.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I find there are two types of people in this scenario.
2
SPEAKER_02
Someone accuses you of something in any way.
2
SPEAKER_02
So they go like, hey, you made a mess.
2
SPEAKER_02
And there s some people who go, oh, did I?
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I didn t realize.
2
SPEAKER_02
All right, whatever.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then there are other people who go, you made a mess.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it s like, you should have seen this room.
2
SPEAKER_02
Have you seen the mess you make?
2
SPEAKER_01
That s me, bingo.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m the latter.
2
SPEAKER_02
Are you the former or the latter?
2
SPEAKER_02
I m actually more like this, and I ve been working on it for a while.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wait, you re like the latter as well?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, definitely.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s why I was asking.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s such a knee-jerk.
2
SPEAKER_02
So that s why I m asking you this, because I can hear- You re so cute.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes when you re talking-
2
SPEAKER_01
Honestly, you re so cute that sometimes when you re talking, it s fucking distracting.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I bet women on dates feel this way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I bet sometimes they look up and like seven minutes went by and they re like, I don t know what the fuck he was saying with that smile.
2
SPEAKER_02
No, it s so true.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I think there are moments in that it s a challenge I ve issued to myself as well and I do it and I think we could do this in society as a whole.
2
SPEAKER_02
We can practice spending less time just hearing what people are saying and try spending more time understanding what people mean.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah that would require a lot of benefit of the doubt which seems to be scarce.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think it s necessary
3
SPEAKER_01
I think I get this from language.
3
SPEAKER_01
In South Africa, we have 11 official languages.
3
SPEAKER_01
I grew up speaking four, five languages with my friends, with my family.
3
SPEAKER_01
And one thing I ve come to enjoy and really appreciate over the years is that language is a beautiful tool.
3
SPEAKER_01
that helps you get to the granularity of meaning.
3
SPEAKER_01
But what you come to realize when you switch languages is how that meaning can shift.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you realize, oh, you were speaking another language.
3
SPEAKER_01
So when I would speak to an uncle, a grandmother, a distant relative, whatever, they would say something that is incorrect because they re speaking English and it s not their first language.
3
SPEAKER_02
They d say unhoused.
3
SPEAKER_01
I would go, that s not what they mean.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I understand, I would translate from the language they originally speak.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m learning Spanish now very slowly.
3
SPEAKER_01
But even in Spanish, you have to understand like where the negative goes in the sentence versus in English.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so when somebody who s a native Spanish speaker speaks to me in English now, I go like, ah,
3
SPEAKER_01
I see why you phrase the sentence like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I see what you re actually trying to say versus what you said.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so if somebody says to you, Dax, you made me feel shit.
3
SPEAKER_01
What I try and do as Trevor now is I go, just translate it into, I felt shit when you did that.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, by the way, this is another thing that I object to in modern culture is that intentions are irrelevant.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they re so relevant because that s what you re doing.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re trying to distill the intention of what someone was saying, despite their shortcomings and their ability to communicate.
3
SPEAKER_02
Look, I agree with you completely, but I think we re screwed.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think we re completely screwed.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I ll tell you why, like I think we live in a world where I don t think the human brain has kept up with our level of connectivity.
3
SPEAKER_01
The human brain is really good at ascertaining these things.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think the human brain is good at understanding intention and figuring out how safe the body it exists within is.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right now we meet people at a rate that never, like our brains, think of how long it took to meet new people back in the day.
3
SPEAKER_01
you would travel from one side of the country to the other.
3
SPEAKER_01
Even America, as an idea, worked in many ways because the founding fathers, for all their faults and everything, they had a really interesting idea where they went, hey, we are at limited risk of like a giant insurrection or civil war type thing if we design the country this way, because by the time they march from California, it s difficult to sustain it.
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You re gonna meet people, things are gonna change.
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By the time you get there, you re like, whatever.
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But now, think about how many people you meet.
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You don t know their intentions.
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The best thing is that there was an enormous barrier of entry to object, to raise hell.
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Now there s none.
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You see something, and then the barrier of entry is getting the thing out of your pocket.
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Really what it s done is opened up the door for the laziest people in the world to have a voice, if I can be super pessimistic about it.
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If you saw who cared about and fought for things in the 60s, you had to get some poster board, you had to get a piece of plywood, you had to make a sign, you had to go take a bus to somewhere to protest.
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If you had an opinion you wanted to voice, you had to put some fucking effort into it to be heard.
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And I think now there s nothing keeping anyone from it.
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On the one hand, I agree with that.
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There s pros and cons.
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I recognize there s pros and cons.
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I think the bigger issue is one that we forget because we are always tricked into placing the blame on ourselves as individuals.
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And we don t blame the industries that have created these environments.
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Or the system we live in.
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A simple example is recycling.
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One of the greatest tricks the plastic industry ever played on us was making it seem like it s all our job to recycle.
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You recycle your plastic or you re a bad person.
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They literally started the scam.
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Plastic is not recyclable the way they say it is.
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They came up with this whole BS.
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It s made with oil, like it s from the oil companies, but they made it your responsibility.
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Hey, do you recycle?
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Whereas the truth is, we should limit which materials you can make things with.
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which things are disposable and which things aren t.
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And then you just limit it because you have one tiny supply that goes to billions of people.
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But if you shut off that supply, we ll make things work.
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We can carry things in different vessels.
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We ve done it.
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You know, people are like, how am I going to drink my water?
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We ve done it.
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We ll be fine.
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And I think the same thing goes for social media.
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We ve been quick to blame every person.
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But really, if you just look at the little spigot at the top, just look at the faucet that is controlled.
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It s less the fact that Dax has an opinion.
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It s less the fact that Monica has an opinion.
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It s less the fact that Trevor has an opinion.
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It is more the fact.
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that Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, whatever it may be, takes that opinion and purposefully puts it in front of somebody who does not share that opinion so that they can be riled up.
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And I think that s what s created more of an issue.
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If you as Dex tweet, good morning, everybody.
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What a beautiful day.
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All the people who are having the same feeling about a beautiful day will not see that message.
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SPEAKER_01
Right.
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But if you tweet out, woke up this morning, I think all short people should die.
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They re a waste of space.
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Yeah.
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Guess who sees it?
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Despite what little space.
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Guess who sees it?
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Guess who sees it?
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And those things see it and they go, okay, Monica, did you see what he just said?
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And what s amazing to me is I even find myself doing this where I go like, even if you don t click it, if you don t tweet it, if you don t retweet, if you don t comment, they know how long you looked at it.
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And that anger, that moment where you go, I can t believe that, and then you scroll on, but they know and they ve got you and they do it again and they do it again and they do it again.
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Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
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Okay, so me making that statement really should have come on the heels of what was a question about your own career.
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Because when I was thinking about that you had done The Daily Show for seven years, and I saw you on a talk show making an analogy that
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It s like planning a wedding.
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It s a very great analogy of what your day-to-day life was like on The Daily Show, which is like, you could probably, I don t want to take the words out of your mouth.
3
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You re picking the guests, you re picking the food, you re picking the music, you re arranging what speeches will be made.
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And then you have the wedding.
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And then that night you go, okay, we got to make a wedding tomorrow.
3
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Yeah.
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So I love that analogy.
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And what I wondered, and you said to feed that inferno, you have to be reading the news in the morning.
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When you wake up, you have to be reading it at night.
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You were at parties reading the news.
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So the comment I just made five minutes ago was really my response to thinking about
3
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the fact that you were consuming news for seven years all day long.
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And I want to know what effect you think that had on you.
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And my comment about the barrier to participate was this.
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I think there s an illusion that other people who don t even have a show that they have to fill are also consuming news from morning till night.
3
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Oh, interesting.
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And because they can go to this device and comment on it, they feel like they re participating.
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So everyone s, in my humble opinion,
3
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way too politicized.
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They re only really voting once every four years.
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If they re super involved, they re voting in midterms.
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So they re voting twice every four years.
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They re not out in front of city hall.
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They re not writing emails to their Congress people.
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They re not doing anything other than tweeting about their reaction, which makes them feel like they re participating, which keeps the cycle going.
3
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I wonder if they had no outlet to respond to the news they watched, if the news itself would have the interest it has.
3
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And so I m just wondering, what was your pre-daily show appetite for news?
3
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And then post-show, what s it been like?
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And when you ve reflected, do you think it had any kind of
3
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effect on your life as it was happening?
3
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Okay, I ll answer that.
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I ll just go back to that last part of what you said, because I really liked it.
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You said people feel like they have an outlet and they have a platform.
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But again, I go to, I think it s less about the outlet and the platform and more about how they are rewarded for how they respond or react on that platform.
3
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The incentives.
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The incentives.
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One of the best examples of this is streakers at games.
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baseball games, soccer games, et cetera.
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People used to run on the pitch naked all the time.
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They d run on the field naked and the cameras would chase them and then the grounds, people would have to chase them and tackle them and you d be watching and cheering.
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And then what happened at some point?
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Some genius, brilliant move said, hey, whenever this happens, whether they re naked or not, you don t show them on camera.
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You take the camera, you point it away and that s it.
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And all of a sudden the rates of people running on a field dropped.
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Because now you didn t get the reward of being the person who has disrupted everything.
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Everyone s just really trying to be relevant.
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And to be seen.
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To be seen.
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I like that.
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To be seen.
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Known they exist.
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You want to be a part of something.
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We all just want to be a part of something.
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You ll do whatever you can to get there.
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And if it means yelling at someone on social media, then that s what it means.
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That s what s working for you.
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I agree.
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You can t really blame the people so much because they re doing what we re all doing.
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We re just doing it in a different way.
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Yeah, I m trying to get all the attention, but I m honest about it.
3
I know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so now going back to the Daily Show side of things, did I notice a difference?
3
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Beyond a difference.
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Tell me.
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Say more, as you would say.
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Touche.
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The greatest con, one of the greatest cons ever played on the American public, and it s growing around the
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world is the idea that people need to be continuously plugged into the news.
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You need to have CNN on 24 hours a day.
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You need to have your Fox News playing in the background.
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You need to have your alerts on your phone.
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God forbid you miss something from the New York Times.
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You need to know it immediately.
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What if something happens in Yemen?
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I need to do something from Cleveland, Ohio.
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I need to participate.
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I need to know.
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We don t.
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We need to be informed.
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but we don t need to like mainline news because news by its very nature, unfortunately, is oftentimes the reporting of things that have gone wrong.
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Right?
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That is what it is.
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That is what it is doing.
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But I remember growing up in South Africa, the news, and I guess this was similar to like an earlier time in America.
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We had no cable news, no nothing.
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We still don t really have that, but the news came on twice a day, one in the morning, one in the evening, and you would watch it.
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for 30 minutes or an hour.
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And as a child, I would sit there with my parents, hated this, because I was like, I want to watch Family Matters and stuff.
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And now the news.
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Check out what s happening over there.
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Are you kidding me?
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I m waiting for Steve Urkel.
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You re out here showing me stories that s happening in Sudan.
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Come on.
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Yeah.
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But I would sit there, and you know what happened?
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I was informed.
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I knew what was happening in Rwanda.
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I knew what was taking place in the UK.
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I knew what was going on in America.
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I knew what was happening in South Africa.
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I m also guessing that that newsfeed was half local stuff, which is also, when I was a kid, it was like, you were learning actually about your community.
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Once cable news realized it could generate profits, you know, and I think it was Ezra s brilliant documentary on OJ that showed that was the launch of 24 hour cable news.
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Once they realized that we were all screwed and I ve realized that it s like, I don t know any less than I did before, but I don t live in it.
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And most importantly,
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I now provide for myself a level of context that I always felt was missing and I still feel is missing in a lot of the dialogue that people have.
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People report on a mass shooting while it s happening.
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And then they just give you incorrect information.
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Hey, there s a shooter.
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The shooter s here.
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They ve shot 10 people.
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Actually, we re wrong.
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There were 10 shooters and they shot one person in the building.
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Actually, we re wrong.
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There s no building.
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They re outside the building.
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They re in your house.
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You re the shooter.
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update, updated report, actually.
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And it s just like, wait, what just happened here?
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What are you doing?
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Do you know what I mean?
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Like, what are you doing?
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They re occupying all of our attention.
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But that s my problem.
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Whereas, it s not because of not caring, it s quite the opposite.
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If you paused,
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There s a shooting taking place anywhere.
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You know who that matters to?
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The people where the shooting is happening.
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No one else in that moment, because we cannot do anything about it.
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All we can do is be afraid or enraged.
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What they can do is tell you about it once they know all the facts.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, welcome to the news.
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Yesterday, there was a shooting in this place.
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It was this person.
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Turns out it wasn t you.
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They were doing this.
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Good news.
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It wasn t you, good news.
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And here s all the information that you may need to know, and then we go from there.
4
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I ll go a step further.
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There s also potentially the streaker analogy to be implied here, which is, I don t know if we should be even doing it.
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It s not slowing it down.
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It doesn t help us to know.
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They all know glory s on the other side.
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In their warped view of glory, they know their name will be all over the world.
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And I think that s the same motivation as the streaker.
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Yes.
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Do you remember, you know what I always think of when I see these mass shooters and everyone puts their faces, first of all, I don t think the news should ever put their face on TV.
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No, they don t deserve it.
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Or their name.
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I don t think their name s not relevant.
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I agree with you there.
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Why are we giving these people
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You re memorializing them.
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No face, no name, no nothing.
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Once you ve caught the, that s it.
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Because exactly what you re saying, you are creating this perverse incentive to be seen.
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And you know what it always reminds me of?
4
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You ve watched Mad Max, the reboot, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
4
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Remember what they say whenever they re spraying their stuff?
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I don t remember.
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They spray like the silver thing and then they say, witness me.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh.
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That s what they always say, right?
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Oh, I like that.
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And then they jump off the cars, and it s like, ah, witness me!
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
See me.
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SPEAKER_01
See me.
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SPEAKER_01
Hey, Mom, look.
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SPEAKER_01
See me.
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We re all kids still.
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, God, that s so sad.
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Truly!
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SPEAKER_02
I know.
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SPEAKER_01
Mom, look, I m stepping over this pencil on the ground.
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SPEAKER_01
Wow, you sure did, you made it.
4
SPEAKER_02
Look, I climbed on this branch now, Mom.
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SPEAKER_02
Okay, we see.
4
SPEAKER_02
I have a question, though, because this just came up on one of our other shows.
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We have a show with a person who s a very informed journalist.
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And we recorded the other day, and she was obviously very down.
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And I said, what s up?
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And she said, I m just really affected by what s going on in the world.
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And I said, I understand that.
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It s horrible.
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Why are you still looking at it?
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And she was like, we have to be informed, which I was like, you can be informed without just inundating yourself with all the horrific images.
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But to her, she thinks that it s
4
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too privileged for us, because we live here, to turn our heads and not have to look because they have to live it.
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And I think at some point in my life I would have agreed, and now I just, I don t see what our sadness is doing for them.
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How s it helping?
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SPEAKER_02
Right.
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What do you think?
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SPEAKER_00
Hmm.
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I can see both arguments.
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And I think they both depend on what you re trying to achieve.
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If you are struggling emotionally and you re trying to find a moment of reprieve, then I don t think you should be looking.
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I think you should be taking a break and you should be taking a moment.
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For yourself.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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But we should never deny the power and the impact of imagery to get people who may not be affected to care about something.
4
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Were it not for the images taken during everything that happened in Alabama, would the civil rights movement have been where it got to in America?
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I doubt it.
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If people didn t see those kids hit with water hoses and the dogs, I don t know that it would have gotten as far.
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And so there is, unfortunately, a necessary side of people seeing things
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that make them aware of a situation.
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However, there is also a world where some people wish to be almost in a state of constant self-flagellation because your awareness doesn t change between picture one and picture 50.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
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You don t need further proof that you re appalled by this.
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My issue with that is your example of the civil rights movement of
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SPEAKER_01
Of course, but also there s action to be taken by a citizen.
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You re going to go vote for somebody that is either pro civil rights or against civil rights.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re also going to, you can boycott the diner that s not letting black folks sit there.
4
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There s things you can do.
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Many of these things across the world.
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SPEAKER_01
You don t have a role in there s almost an arrogance to the notion that you have a role in it when actually you consume it.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re upset.
4
SPEAKER_01
You might argue with a neighbor on Twitter, but you ve not done anything.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve not flown there.
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SPEAKER_01
You ve not sent money.
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SPEAKER_01
You ve not appealed to a congressperson to increase spending.
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SPEAKER_01
Now, if you re the person who gets activated by that and then goes and creates change, keep at it.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you re someone that s consuming it and wallowing it and fighting with your neighbors over it, there s nothing productive about it.
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SPEAKER_01
Minimally, we could say you re not impacting the situation whatsoever.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t think that that s true.
4
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If you look at some of the biggest movements that have taken place over the past decade, many of them just started on social media.
4
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I mean, the Arab Spring is a great example.
4
SPEAKER_01
They were on Twitter going, let s meet in the square and protest.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was an actionable outcome.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
I m with you there.
4
SPEAKER_01
The people that were fighting in Cleveland over it.
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SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s my point.
4
SPEAKER_01
They had no impact on that.
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I hear you there.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s again where we go to, I always want to be careful to not live in a world where I m telling people how to feel or how to act.
4
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I would rather be in a world where I m saying we d need to regulate how the platforms incentivize how people act or don t act.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I don t think there s anything wrong with anyone feeling for anyone anywhere in the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
You may go, hey man, I ve seen what s happening in Sudan.
4
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And I think as Americans, we have a responsibility in some way, shape or form to assist them.
4
SPEAKER_00
You have a right to feel that as an American, you have a right to feel that as a human being.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t think that that s a bad thing at all.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I love that.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you re fighting at the person in the grocery store that has no power in the Sudan.
4
SPEAKER_00
But this is exactly what I m saying.
4
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Again, we go back to, unfortunately, it s that circular, it s back to what we ve believed the efficacy is.
4
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I think we re currently living in a world where we have way more information than we ve ever had access to.
4
SPEAKER_00
The constant paradox I exist within is understanding
4
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that the world has never been in a better place ever.
4
SPEAKER_00
There has never been a single better time that we know of where it was better to be alive as a human being.
4
SPEAKER_01
Less starvation, less disease, less death by everything.
4
SPEAKER_00
Infant mortality, poverty, all these things.
4
SPEAKER_00
However, as that curve has gradually gotten better, the curve of how much information we have has exponentially gotten higher.
4
SPEAKER_00
So now you are finding out, day on day, your house is being repaired, you re plugging leaks, you re painting over cracks, things are going well.
4
SPEAKER_00
But while this is happening, you re doing one repair a day, and every day you re getting a hundred reports on termites, on mold, on foundational issues, on retaining walls, and your brain is going, this house is worse than what, but really, really what you ve done is you ve just flipped the
5
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of information and how you get it.
5
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And so I think that s where we re in trouble as people, is we then feel powerless.
5
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And when we re powerless, one of the things we can do is just fight with the closest person to make it feel like we did something, because then it feels like we helped.
5
SPEAKER_00
I saw Dax Shepard at Trader Joe s and I told him, I said, you say homeless one more time.
5
SPEAKER_00
I swear to God, Dax.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I told him, honey.
5
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, I made a difference.
5
SPEAKER_00
He won t be saying that anytime soon.
5
SPEAKER_00
I told him and I walked out of that CVS and oh man, and then a homeless guy came up to me, I mean an unhoused guy came up to me and those people, oh they need to do something about them.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I told Dex, oh I told him.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s easier because you feel like you have more power, I think.
5
SPEAKER_01
Forgive me for repeating this, but I majored in anthropology.
5
SPEAKER_01
So for me, everything goes back into the anthropological lens, which is we were designed and evolved over 300,000 years to live with 100 other people.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in your lifespan with 100 other people, you might witness a murder or two.
5
SPEAKER_01
You might hear of some atrocity towards a child.
5
SPEAKER_01
one or two in a day, you can consume more atrocity than you were designed to consume in your lifetime.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s the issue.
5
SPEAKER_01
To your point, you keep saying our brains are not evolved to function this way, and they re not.
5
SPEAKER_01
So at some level, you just have to take responsibility for the capacity you have as a human being, and you have to maybe address, is this over the capacity for me?
5
SPEAKER_01
For your own health.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m not telling you what to do, I m just saying.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, I m with you completely.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s unfair and unfortunate that it happened so quickly, just like food, that we haven t had the chance.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, we always tell people, hey, eat healthy.
5
SPEAKER_00
What we don t say is, most of the food that s out there is gonna trick your brain into thinking that it s good for you and you re gonna crave it.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is beyond your control sometimes.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the taste will dissipate really quickly as designed by the chemist.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s why Ozempic is actually, in a weird way, this miracle drug.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s combating the other science.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s crashing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s literally crashing all of the nefarious things we ve created for so long.
5
SPEAKER_00
Going back to what you were saying about your friend, if we can just get to a space as people where we re all taught to check in on ourselves, I think we can find a way to mitigate how quickly our technology has evolved beyond us.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just taking moments, like I wish everyone was taught first thing in the morning,
5
SPEAKER_00
Take 10 minutes before you look at your phone, before you do anything, just take 10 minutes to talk to yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Set a timer, just go like, how do I feel?
5
SPEAKER_00
Did I dream about anything?
5
SPEAKER_00
What do I want to do today?
5
SPEAKER_00
What have I been feeling lately?
5
SPEAKER_00
Huh, is this the same thought I keep having every day?
5
SPEAKER_00
Why do I have that?
5
SPEAKER_00
All right, let s get rid of that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then do it again at night, just 10 minutes before you go to bed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just sit there and go.
5
SPEAKER_00
Huh, okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think of it like a computer.
5
SPEAKER_00
Whenever you turn a computer on or whenever you turn it off, it just thinks for a moment.
5
SPEAKER_01
It probably gets its shit together before it starts up.
5
SPEAKER_00
When it starts up, it just goes like, wait, wait, wait, what am I trying to do?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, yeah, I m trying to load that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, okay, I m ready, I m ready now.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then when it shuts down, it s like, hold on, hold on a second, hold on.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, what was I doing?
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, cool, cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, okay, okay, I can turn off.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re no different in that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
But what we re doing is we re turning on or turning off our computers
5
SPEAKER_00
instantly with no preparation for what may come or what has come.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, you turn it on and start trying to load up a video package, you know, like the most labor intensive thing for the computer, you know, rendering a video file as soon as it s on.
5
SPEAKER_01
Now I guess you re what, you re two years out of Daily Show?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, this is one year.
5
SPEAKER_00
Forgive my ignorance.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, please.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you good at measuring time?
5
SPEAKER_00
The worst.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m terrible.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t know when a thing happened.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how long it was or wasn t.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just remember the images.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know 93 when I graduated high school.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know 2000 when I graduated.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know when I got my first acting job and I know where my kids were born.
5
SPEAKER_01
So everything s just in between those yardsticks.
5
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
When we start the show, you know that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know it ll be six years on Valentine s Day, but I don t know what year that makes.
5
2018.
5
SPEAKER_01
2018, okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
Is that right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, now I got nervous, but yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Colbert, when you were being interviewed by him, he s like, we had dinner spring of 2017, or he said a month.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, oh my God, I can t do that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t know how people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s beyond me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so,
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to drag you through your trauma, but your life story is so interesting.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I guess I would just encourage people to read your book because it s really, really an incredibly moving and dynamic and complicated childhood.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s crazy to me to think someone alive today actually was a child in apartheid.
5
SPEAKER_01
For some reason, that seems like that should have ended by the time you were born in 84.
5
SPEAKER_01
I guess I saw, this is so embarrassing, but I m not too embarrassed, I was eight years old.
5
SPEAKER_01
My introduction to Apartheid was it was this plot line in Lethal Weapon.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, we didn t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was so happy about that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I remember watching that.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was one of my favorite Lethal Weapons ever.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I was watching that at whatever that was, eight years old, nine years old, and I m like, hold on, they still have that?
5
SPEAKER_01
So to know that it ended in 91, and you would have, I guess, been seven years old, and the notion that you were, I find this very fascinating, that in the strata system, there was black, white, and colored, and you were in this no man s land strata with ding, ding, ding, the Indians.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, look at that.
5
SPEAKER_01
That sounds like from another century.
5
SPEAKER_00
It really is.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s something that you would find in a dystopian novel, where you have a society where everybody is broken up, but on a granular level, because the mistake people make is they think it was just black-white.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_00
In South Africa.
5
SPEAKER_00
I write this in the book is apartheid was such a genius, evil system.
5
SPEAKER_00
I often think to myself, I go, man, I wish we could find a way to, like, distill the power and the ingenuity that racists have.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can we get you working on cancer?
5
SPEAKER_00
Seriously.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have a great mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not for the lazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
How did you think of this?
5
SPEAKER_00
I would just, like, ignore the people I don t like.
5
SPEAKER_00
You?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, systematic.
5
SPEAKER_00
They designed a system where they studied systems of racism around the world.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they looked at America and its segregation and they re like, okay, Jim Crow, red lining, all of this.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, could be better.
5
SPEAKER_01
Not a bad start.
5
SPEAKER_00
They went to Australia.
5
SPEAKER_00
They looked at how they dealt with the Aborigine population.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were like, all right, mean, but not effective enough.
5
SPEAKER_00
They went to the Netherlands and they re like, all right, let s study.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s where the word apartheid comes from, is from the Netherlands.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then they were like, okay, I think we have figured out what to do and how to do this.
5
SPEAKER_00
They put it all together, I think with like a dash of Hitler s policies, if I remember correctly.
5
SPEAKER_00
What year was this, 40s or 50s?
5
SPEAKER_00
You see, again, you ve asked me for years.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
50s, 60s, actually somewhere more there.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think so.
5
SPEAKER_00
Again, years.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll look it up.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, years, terrible years.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then they designed the system and they went, if you re white,
5
SPEAKER_00
You have access to everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can do everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
But this is what people don t even realize is it affected you on every level.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you re white, you could live in certain areas.
5
SPEAKER_00
So black was the bottom of the totem pole.
5
SPEAKER_00
Think of it that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
And as your skin tone gets lighter and lighter and closer to white and your features get closer to white, your life gets better.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can live closer to the city.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can go to better schools.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can get better jobs.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can have a better education.
5
SPEAKER_00
Black people at some point weren t allowed to learn math or science.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were taught agriculture.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were taught vocations.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you move up the list.
5
SPEAKER_00
In prison, people were treated differently.
5
SPEAKER_00
So white prisoners were given long pants and long shirts.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then black prisoners were given short pants and short sleeve shirts.
5
SPEAKER_00
Imagine this, even when you re prisoners, they go like, yeah, but you re not the same, the same.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re not the same piece of shit.
5
SPEAKER_00
The food you were given in the prison was even different.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you would get like a piece of white bread, a bigger piece, tea, et cetera, because you re white.
5
SPEAKER_00
It is amazing how deep and detailed they went into this.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they created a system where
5
SPEAKER_00
everyone fit into a box.
5
SPEAKER_00
The strangest one and the weirdest one, by the way, was Chinese people were labeled as same status as pseudo black in a way, maybe around Indian-ish, but like black.
5
SPEAKER_00
But then Japanese people were given honorary white status.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because the apartheid government wanted the technology and the cars and everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they were like, all right, you guys are honorary whites.
5
SPEAKER_00
Toyotas are pretty dependable.
5
SPEAKER_00
Which is why.
5
SPEAKER_01
China doesn t have any cars yet.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it shows you how arbitrary the system is, you know?
5
SPEAKER_01
And it was illegal for your mom and dad.
5
SPEAKER_01
My mom s a black woman, hostile woman, South African.
5
SPEAKER_01
So beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_01
I saw videos of her when I was watching the 60 Minutes piece.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you very much.
5
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, my father s a white man from Switzerland and they got together.
5
SPEAKER_00
This was against the law.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then my mom wanted to have a child and she wanted to have it with my dad.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I always ask her about this.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, did you consider like the fact that I would come out?
5
SPEAKER_00
She s like, I didn t know how you d look.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
She s like, come on.
5
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know how you d look.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because also it s not like it was happening so readily that you were like, I know what this turns into.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if it s illegal and then you re born, is it just like giving it up?
5
SPEAKER_00
So my gran told me, and I didn t know this growing up, thank goodness, that had they ever discovered me, I would have just been taken away from my family.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would have been put into like an orphanage type thing.
6
SPEAKER_01
Or I would have been adopted by what they call a colored family.
6
SPEAKER_01
So someone of my skin tone.
6
SPEAKER_01
Good luck finding.
6
SPEAKER_01
The pool is small where you re going to land if that s the option.
6
SPEAKER_00
Surprisingly not.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not.
6
SPEAKER_00
So this is a crazy interesting thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
In South Africa, because these systems were created on something that existed for so long.
6
SPEAKER_00
In America, the word colored is from a bygone era and it s a derogatory term.
6
SPEAKER_00
But in South Africa, colored people
6
SPEAKER_00
are a culture.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing wrong with the word in South Africa.
6
SPEAKER_00
And what it was is a group of people who were the descendants of the traders who came in and the natives of the area.
6
SPEAKER_00
And through either marriage or through rape or whatever it was, over time, there was enough of a population of just literally like mixed people.
6
SPEAKER_01
Did they have their own towns?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, colored people speak their language in a very particular way.
6
SPEAKER_00
They have their own cuisine, they have their own culture, and it s a very proud and beautiful culture.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so from this horribleness came this beautiful world.
6
SPEAKER_00
People know me in South Africa, they know my family, they know my history.
6
SPEAKER_00
But when I was growing up, many people would assume that I was colored.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m not colored, I m colored by color, but not by culture, which is complicated.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so then even they would be like, what the hell is wrong with you?
6
SPEAKER_00
And I ll be like, oh, well, long story, my dad, my mom, it s a whole thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
And you were being actively hidden by your family, basically.
6
SPEAKER_01
That kind of makes sense if it s just illegal.
6
SPEAKER_01
And his grandpa called him Master.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, which I thought was just a nickname.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I thought it was like a cute little- Giving you arbitrary status to be cute.
6
SPEAKER_01
As a joke.
6
SPEAKER_00
So he d just walk in and be like, Master, how are you today, Master?
6
SPEAKER_00
How was your morning?
6
SPEAKER_00
I d be like, oh, it was great, Grandpa.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, thanks for calling me that.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s cool.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s like fun.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like calling a little kid boss or something.
6
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Hello, Mr. Man.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Explain this to me again, I gotta kind of fast forward through your trauma and I hate to not give it the proper lead up in time, but your first stepdad was violent towards you and mom, and then they got divorced after four years.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then when your mother remarried, he came and shot your mom in the leg and in the head.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Ugh, I mean, just fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
6
SPEAKER_01
How did he only get three years?
6
SPEAKER_01
Is apartheid involved in that sentencing?
6
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is a black man shooting a black woman.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is unfortunately a symptom of a system that I think we see all over the world.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that is that women aren t protected in the way that they should be.
6
SPEAKER_00
And them being black on top of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Our judicial systems have been designed to protect the people who created them.
6
SPEAKER_00
And there s no denying that men for a long time have skirted on this whole idea of, you know, when women say something, they ll be like, but what did you do?
6
SPEAKER_00
What did you say to him?
6
SPEAKER_01
What d you wear?
6
SPEAKER_00
Did you make him angry?
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t think your husband would just hit you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Come on.
6
SPEAKER_00
How was dinner that night?
6
SPEAKER_00
Was it delicious?
6
SPEAKER_01
Why don t you go home and talk to him?
6
SPEAKER_01
Come on, lady.
6
SPEAKER_01
It just sends such a clear message.
6
SPEAKER_01
We don t give a fuck about you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it does, unfortunately.
6
SPEAKER_01
How do you deal with male authority figures?
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t understand why they would be different to female authority figures.
6
SPEAKER_01
For me, they re different because my mother was very loving and kind and my stepdads were atrocious.
6
SPEAKER_01
And they came in and enacted a new policy that made no sense to me.
6
SPEAKER_01
And they were a new boss.
6
SPEAKER_01
So when I have bosses and male figures and teachers, I go, oh, here s another fucking man with some program I got to follow that is arbitrary and makes no sense.
6
SPEAKER_01
And fuck you, I ll die before I ll participate.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s to my detriment.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve had the hardest time with like male authority figures.
6
SPEAKER_01
Huh.
6
SPEAKER_01
No.
6
SPEAKER_01
You don t have any of that?
6
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ve actually always enjoyed authority figures.
6
SPEAKER_00
Really?
6
SPEAKER_00
That s so interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m just like, okay, this is interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ve got rules and you ve got like a plan.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s see where this thing goes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m envious of that.
6
SPEAKER_00
What I hate is unfairness.
6
SPEAKER_00
Authority figures that abuse their power, I don t care for that at all.
6
SPEAKER_00
Police, managers, you name it.
6
SPEAKER_00
That I don t care for.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it doesn t trigger any childhood stuff for you.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
6
SPEAKER_00
For me, not at all.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m aspiring to that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Were you there when he came and did that?
6
SPEAKER_00
No.
6
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I was, but no.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, my two younger brothers were there.
6
SPEAKER_01
Which were the children of... Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
So they watched their father.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I always say we re all traumatized, but I think I got the least traumatic experience.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it was my younger brother who saved my mom s life.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know how he did this.
6
SPEAKER_00
He threw her into the passenger seat of the car and raced her to the hospital.
6
SPEAKER_00
She wouldn t have survived if it wasn t for him.
6
SPEAKER_01
How old was he?
6
SPEAKER_00
I m going to guess and say he was between 14 and 16.
6
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is going to be my last run at some similarities.
6
SPEAKER_01
So far, I m 0 for 2, which is great.
6
SPEAKER_01
So this will be a strikeout.
6
SPEAKER_00
Go.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, in the 60.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love 60 Minutes, by the way.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s my church.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve been watching since I was a year old.
6
SPEAKER_01
My grandparents watched it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I remember seeing the segment that you were on before I rewatched it today is a great, great segment.
6
SPEAKER_01
Leslie Stahl is coming at you hard to talk about relationships.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re not having it.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re like, I don t want to talk
6
SPEAKER_01
about who my girlfriend is or anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I totally respect that.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to know who you re dating at all.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I did wonder, this is my projection, because I had a mom who had multiple husbands and they would go and then it d be us again.
6
SPEAKER_01
And we d be kind of the partners.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then a new guy would roll up and then we weren t the partners for a while.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then we were the partners.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think it gave me a kind of built in commitment phobia because I was already married.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was married from day one.
6
SPEAKER_01
I had this single mom and a lot of her emotional well-being depended on me.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think I felt the weight of that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And when I got out of that, I think we re similar.
6
SPEAKER_01
I talked to my mom nonstop.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m so close to her.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s loved my life.
6
SPEAKER_01
But also, I was like, I already got that.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to sign up for another lifetime commitment because I already had this one that started really early and it s a little cumbersome.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m just curious.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to know who you re dating or anything, but I wonder, does that ring at all true to your experience?
6
SPEAKER_00
So you are 0 for 3, but I will say this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
6
SPEAKER_00
You struck out.
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe we ll make it like an 0.25.
6
SPEAKER_00
So where we do overlap is this.
6
SPEAKER_00
I definitely grew up and where I exist on my scale is I definitely grew up in a world where I was always ready for something to disappear or to go away, but not because of that.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think it s because I grew up in a world and in a space where things were constantly changing around me.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so it s interesting when you say it that way, what I struggled with
6
SPEAKER_00
and it s something that I continuously try and work on because it hasn t just gone away overnight.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t have commitment issues, but I will have issues working through an incessant and persistent issue with a person.
6
SPEAKER_00
You as Dax, you have an issue, you rev your motorbike really loudly whenever you come home, let s deal with this.
6
SPEAKER_00
You say as Dax, I m trying to change this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay, Dax, cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
What are you gonna do to change it?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, what I ll do is I ll turn off the bike at the gate and then I ll roll it in.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay, Dex, cool, we re doing this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Tomorrow comes.
6
SPEAKER_00
What happened, Dex?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, man, you know, just damn, when the pipes, man, the pipes just got me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay, Dex, cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
Bam, bam, bam.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow, it seems like you, sorry, Trev, sorry, I m so sorry.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s just that sometimes when you look at me outside the window, you make me wanna rev the bike because I m like, oh, someone s looking at me, so I should rev.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, you re so tall, you re triggering, I gotta exert some dominance.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so what I really struggle with is I m a very patient person when I believe that somebody s learning and changing.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m terrible at dealing with the same problem
6
SPEAKER_00
from the same person over and over again.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I understand from all my friends who are married and from therapy and all these things, that that is probably what you re going to be doing.
6
SPEAKER_00
But man, my brain struggles with that.
6
SPEAKER_01
I can relate.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have said the words out loud to someone I loved.
6
SPEAKER_01
I will be here forever if I know you re engaged in the fight.
6
SPEAKER_01
But if you have accepted this, I m out.
6
SPEAKER_01
I can t spend the rest of my life like this.
6
SPEAKER_01
If I know you re engaged in the fight and I believe that, I m patient.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I know exactly what you re talking about.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have to believe the person s truly engaged in the fight.
6
SPEAKER_01
They have some action they re taking to confront this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, because this is how I see it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think we want to be in a space as people, especially when we re in a relationship.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m under no illusion that anyone is going to be perfect.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m not perfect.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m far from perfect.
6
SPEAKER_00
However, I would hope that I m the kind of person who increases the amount of time between my sort of infractions, between my breakouts, if you think of them like skin, it s like, all right, all right, let s try and minimize these breakouts.
6
SPEAKER_00
I see that I do this, I m gonna try not to, and then I think in a good relationship, what you re doing is you re going, okay,
6
SPEAKER_00
I see that you re putting in that work, and when it does happen, all right, you lost your cool with that, or you argued about that unnecessarily, or you were inconsiderate.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay, but I think sometimes what happens, and this is tough, I ll give you one, we will be one for four together.
6
SPEAKER_00
How about I throw this at you?
6
SPEAKER_00
If you grow up in an environment that is unhealthy, if you grow up in an environment where you don t have the role models or the imagery that gives you an idea of what you re trying to strive for, how do you then know when you have hit it?
6
SPEAKER_00
You do not.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so unfortunately, most of us go for what is familiar.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you ve grown up in a dysfunctional world, in a dysfunctional home, in a dysfunctional family, dysfunction is familiar.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the unknown is scary.
7
SPEAKER_00
Not even scary.
7
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes it s just like, bah, bah.
7
SPEAKER_00
People say, there are no sparks.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s the 10 and 2.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right?
7
SPEAKER_00
You re like, there are no sparks.
7
SPEAKER_00
Sparks don t fly.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so that s the thing where I think you and I grew up in this world where you go, oh, I know this.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, there s something about, but you don t know what it is.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the next thing you know, you re in the cycle.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so I think it s quite the opposites.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve committed many times to those cycles.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not that I m afraid of commitment.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like, no, I m quite the other way around.
7
SPEAKER_00
Over time, what I ve come to learn though, is I have to practice grace.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting.
7
SPEAKER_00
This is a conversation I had with my mom the other day.
7
SPEAKER_00
We love sharing learnings and new things, and she s always evolving.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I really love that about her as a person.
7
SPEAKER_00
She said, what have you learned recently?
7
SPEAKER_00
And I said,
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve learned the thing my mom and I share, said we need to stop falling in love with people s potential and learn to fall in love with who they are.
7
SPEAKER_00
It does not mean that we won t encourage them to be potentially as great as they could be, but it does mean that we re willing to accept the possibility that we will exist in this state with this person.
7
SPEAKER_00
for eternity, however long that may be.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s something that has really freed me up in life, is understanding, and I think we don t do this enough as people, we see a glimpse of what we like in another person.
7
SPEAKER_00
We see moments, we go, oh, Dax is great.
7
SPEAKER_00
I just feel like if he was a little shorter, he d be a better guy.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you know what?
7
SPEAKER_01
He probably would be.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think if I spend enough time with him, I think I can get him to be shorter.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think I can make him a little bit shorter.
7
SPEAKER_00
And Dax, every now and again, will bend down.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
7
SPEAKER_00
He ll crouch.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you go like, oh, there he is.
7
SPEAKER_00
I did it.
7
SPEAKER_00
There he is, my short king.
7
SPEAKER_00
My short king.
7
SPEAKER_00
And every time you ll crouch, the person goes, I knew it, there he is.
7
SPEAKER_00
But the truth is, you re tall.
7
SPEAKER_00
At some point you get tired of crouching.
7
SPEAKER_00
You stand.
7
SPEAKER_00
And when you stand, the person goes, oh, well, and then you go, look, I m a long, I crouch.
7
SPEAKER_00
And now that begins.
7
SPEAKER_00
Whereas it s a little more boring going back to where we started.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a little less 10.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Six is not as fun as 10, but it s much better than two.
7
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you go, I actually like you exactly like this.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the things that are terrible about you don t affect me.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve tried to learn this as Trevor.
7
SPEAKER_00
I like writing lists for myself to know myself, like just to try and understand.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s certain things that literally don t bother me at all.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you re late, you will never phase me.
7
SPEAKER_00
I come from Africa.
7
SPEAKER_00
Time is a concept that was invented by people from cold countries.
7
SPEAKER_00
We don t care.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s funny you bring this up, because do you know what happened yesterday?
7
SPEAKER_01
Was this brought to your attention?
7
SPEAKER_01
No.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I was recording at Spotify.
7
SPEAKER_01
I do a Formula One podcast out of there.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, nice.
7
SPEAKER_01
And there s a bunch of people there in the lobby, which is never the case.
7
SPEAKER_01
The place is dead empty.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, what the hell s going on here?
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Trevor s coming and he s recording with The Rock.
7
SPEAKER_01
So everyone was out.
7
SPEAKER_01
I was like, oh, this is fucking great.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m interviewing Trevor tomorrow.
7
SPEAKER_01
I finished my show and then someone goes, Trevor will be here in 20 minutes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Do you want to hang and say hi to him?
7
SPEAKER_01
And I go, yeah, yeah, I will actually.
7
SPEAKER_01
I ll hang, I ll help them clean up.
7
SPEAKER_01
Then 20 minutes went by and then someone came in and said, we just found out he hasn t left his house.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I went, okay, I m getting the fuck out of here.
7
SPEAKER_01
Didn t tell me you were there.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s not.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, no, you don t owe me an apology.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I wasn t apologizing.
7
SPEAKER_00
I just didn t know you were there.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, no, you weren t meeting me.
7
SPEAKER_01
But it s funny you would say time is- Well, I want to add something, not about time.
7
SPEAKER_01
Hold on, did that defend you in that story I just told?
7
SPEAKER_01
No, it was interesting though.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, tell me.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because I just saw the micro adjustment to your face.
7
SPEAKER_01
I just want to know if I offended you or something.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s funny how hypervigilant you are.
7
SPEAKER_00
No.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I like driving myself in LA.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love driving myself anyway.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it s funny, they said, can we get a driver to bring you to the podcast?
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, that building is really weird.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s nowhere.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that s right.
7
SPEAKER_00
The GPS doesn t take you to where it is.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s weird.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the address is in the street.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s in the street where the construction is.
7
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, they go like, we ll, driver.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m like, I don t want it.
7
SPEAKER_00
They re like, driver, driver.
7
SPEAKER_00
They send the driver.
7
SPEAKER_00
The driver doesn t find me, doesn t have the right address for some reason.
7
SPEAKER_00
So the whole morning is just like, you know,
7
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, I knew I should have fucking driven.
7
SPEAKER_00
Why did he say yes to this?
7
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t even angry.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was just like, hey man, your driver s lost.
7
SPEAKER_00
Finally, we re in the car.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re driving the driver can t find Spotify.
7
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a hard place to talk.
7
SPEAKER_00
So when you said that, I remembered the moment where I jumped out of the car.
7
SPEAKER_00
What area is that by the way?
7
SPEAKER_01
Once you can get there, it s pretty radical, but I had to drive there seven times before I could just drive there.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s very confusing.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s not intuitive.
7
SPEAKER_01
But then you hit that one street that s not their address, but where the parking garage entrance is, and you go, boom, I m here.
7
SPEAKER_01
and it feels fantastic.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of old and bricky.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so that was, you just reminded me, I was like.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, good, because then I would have taken that person like, oh God, I offended him and he thinks I sinned.
7
SPEAKER_01
Now I m implying he s delayed and I went through a whole cycle, so I m glad we cleared that up.
7
SPEAKER_01
He also needs people s approval, so if he feels like he s losing at you, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s probably part of it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think hypervigilance is interlinked.
7
SPEAKER_00
You cannot separate it from.
7
SPEAKER_01
Approval.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is not just the hypervigilance
7
SPEAKER_00
Because approval is a form of safety and hypervigilance is only looking for safety.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s really true.
7
SPEAKER_00
So Dax was now looking for me to throw something at him.
7
SPEAKER_00
I appreciate you asking.
7
SPEAKER_00
I would have hated to leave you feeling like that.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, I ve learned to ask by the way.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because as smart as I think I am, I m so fucking wrong when I fill in the blanks.
7
SPEAKER_01
When I create a story to explain what weird thing happened, 90% of the time I m wrong.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so that right there, how am I going to guess that you had a driver that you drove here?
7
SPEAKER_01
So I m not assuming you didn t drive there yesterday.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know any of this.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I ll tell you the narrative.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, hmm, wasn t my place to jump in on the Africa time thing.
7
SPEAKER_01
That was me being entitled.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then he thinks I m saying black people are late and I really shit the bed on this.
7
SPEAKER_01
And now he fucking hates me and thinks I m a racist.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you would have laughed, I would have bought into that narrative at least 50%.
7
SPEAKER_00
Let me get rid of all your fears right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
I already thought you were racist.
7
SPEAKER_00
So nothing changed, Dex.
7
SPEAKER_00
Nothing changed, Dex.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wonderful.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting, let me ask you this, because I ve had to work on a lot of that.
7
SPEAKER_00
For some of that work, it s interesting that you say you ve learned to ask, but have you learned to tell yourself something else?
7
SPEAKER_01
There s been some improvement, but it s still a big liability.
7
SPEAKER_01
I know it s a big blind spot of mine.
7
SPEAKER_01
You know, I know that I m very creative and imaginative and I have insecurities.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I will run all the options through that broken fucking circuitry.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I ll likely come out with a bad story.
7
SPEAKER_01
Have you struggled with boundaries?
7
SPEAKER_01
No, because back to the thing I asked you about the step dance.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I think a problem with me with women in the past is I so disagreed with what was happening around me that when I turned 18, I was like, that is the end of all that.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is the Dax Shepard show for the rest of my life, whether it s good or bad, I just will never be the victim of someone else s plan.
7
SPEAKER_01
I will be making the choices, whether I fail or I get hurt from them, they ll be my choices.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so I think that s a dangerous way to go through.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s how I explain that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t even think I answered your question, but that s what it made me think of.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m trying to understand it from what you re saying, because that s something I had to work on.
7
SPEAKER_00
Anyone I know who s grown up in a violent home or in a violent society, that hypervigilance, one of the things I ve learned is you can t always rely on asking everyone, hey, did I, or did I not?
7
SPEAKER_00
Because there are many times when you won t be able to ask the question,
7
SPEAKER_00
And so you have to find a way.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I was just wondering that on your side.
7
SPEAKER_00
I still have moments where I ll have exactly what you had, where I ll go like, oh, damn.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then like three days later, I m like, ah, and then it s like, I m almost like George Costanza where I m like, I should have said that to them.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I was wondering if you- I m not as plagued by it as I ve gotten older and a little more confident and like myself a little more.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t assume the person s gonna assume the worst about me, because I m not assuming the worst about me.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I think as that s elevated, it s lessened.
7
SPEAKER_01
Some of the stories, I believe, when I was younger, especially if they were work-related or anything I cared a lot about, they were insane.
7
SPEAKER_01
Some of the conspiracies that I thought were afoot.
7
SPEAKER_01
But some of them were right, weren t they?
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, probably 10% were right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
That low?
7
SPEAKER_00
My hit rate was way higher.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was.
7
SPEAKER_00
My hypervigilance hit rate was way higher.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like for instance, every time somebody cheated on me in a relationship,
7
SPEAKER_00
I was right.
7
SPEAKER_00
My hypervigilance was so high.
7
SPEAKER_00
But it s dangerous.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, I know.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I would say my accuracy is quite high in that situation.
7
SPEAKER_01
Or when shit s about to happen, I m almost clairvoyant.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
I had a moment.
7
SPEAKER_01
I was doing a movie 18 years ago in New Mexico.
7
SPEAKER_01
There is nothing in Albuquerque that is open past midnight other than strip clubs.
7
SPEAKER_01
And we were shooting nights.
7
SPEAKER_01
I would tell you if I love strip clubs.
7
SPEAKER_01
I actually don t.
7
SPEAKER_01
But we were shooting nights all week.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so on the weekends, we had to maintain that schedule.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, there s nothing
7
SPEAKER_00
So I found myself- Similar for comedians, by the way, but carry on.
7
SPEAKER_00
One of the only places that has food that late, by the way, but carry on.
7
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, carry on.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yes.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I m in one, and I m with one of my best friends who s producing the movie I m in, and then a third person, the publicist from the movie.
7
SPEAKER_01
And out of nowhere, I just stand up.
7
SPEAKER_01
I stand up.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh!
7
SPEAKER_01
And they go, what s going on?
7
SPEAKER_01
And I go, I thought there was a fight.
7
SPEAKER_01
I sit back down, 30 seconds later,
7
SPEAKER_01
Fuck me, fuck you, motherfucker.
7
SPEAKER_01
Two dudes stand up and start swinging.
7
SPEAKER_01
Like I was somehow 30 seconds ahead of that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what pheromonally was happening.
7
SPEAKER_01
You probably saw something.
7
SPEAKER_01
Something told me there was a fight.
7
SPEAKER_01
I was 30 seconds ahead of it.
7
SPEAKER_01
And they were like, what the fuck just happened?
7
SPEAKER_01
Are you like living 30 seconds ahead?
7
SPEAKER_01
So there are many times where it s like, it s spooky how good they are.
7
SPEAKER_01
But if I m filling in a story about someone else, why they did something, I m generally not great at, okay, I knew they cheated.
8
SPEAKER_00
but why did they cheat?
8
SPEAKER_01
And now I m liable to spin a web that s based solely in my insecurities.
8
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it s good that you ask.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it s a really positive thing because I was just talking about this, about you.
8
SPEAKER_00
I was giving you a compliment behind your back.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, please tell me.
8
SPEAKER_00
That I think you re a person, because of your tall stature and your white skin and your alpha energy, you could go through life without giving a fuck
8
SPEAKER_00
about what other people think and not trying to get their approval and just being loud and you.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s a really wonderful thing that you care.
8
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
8
SPEAKER_00
You re welcome.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was beautiful.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wonderful.
8
SPEAKER_02
I really appreciate that.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was really nice.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Wait, I want to add one more thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Sorry.
8
SPEAKER_01
Done with compliments about you, but back to tell them about some of my character defects.
8
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
8
SPEAKER_00
I just wanted to add something that might be helpful when you were talking about trying to pick people, not for their potential, because.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think the short, tall analogy you gave is so dead on.
8
SPEAKER_00
Because I do this too, all the time, and my therapist, she s been hammering in the idea of limitations.
8
SPEAKER_00
She s like, that isn t something they re choosing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Whatever it is that s driving me crazy, or they say they ll fix this, they say they ll fix this, it s not getting fixed, it s not getting fixed.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s actually for me to then understand, okay, they
8
SPEAKER_00
can t fix it.
8
SPEAKER_00
They can t be shorter.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s asking something that they just can t do.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s a limitation that is not getting fixed.
8
SPEAKER_00
So then it s up to me, is that person worth the limitation?
8
SPEAKER_02
Right.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s not hoping that they ll do anything different.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re who they are.
8
SPEAKER_00
And is it okay for me to be with that version of them?
8
SPEAKER_02
And they may become somebody else, but the change may be so gradual that you might not be able to stick around for that.
8
SPEAKER_00
They may surprise you, but you can t hope for that.
8
SPEAKER_02
No, no, I agree with you.
8
SPEAKER_02
Everyone has the ability to change.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s just the change may not be...
8
SPEAKER_01
You almost have to ask yourself, if this is as good as it ever gets, am I still interested?
8
SPEAKER_02
Real simple question.
8
SPEAKER_02
For instance, if I go on a date, I tell people now from the beginning, hey, here are some of my worst traits.
8
SPEAKER_02
Here are some of the things that people have told me in relationships are trash about me.
8
SPEAKER_02
Here are some of the things that you ll think are terrible.
8
SPEAKER_02
Maybe they affect you, maybe they don t.
8
SPEAKER_02
People like will giggle.
8
SPEAKER_02
And it s amazing to me how much people don t listen to people.
8
SPEAKER_02
I remember someone said this to me a long time ago in life.
8
SPEAKER_02
They said, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, this is a powerful.
8
SPEAKER_02
And it s so amazing to me how many times I ll tell people, I ll go like, hey, here are the things about me that may piss you off at some point.
8
SPEAKER_02
I juggle knives every night.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is how I roll.
8
SPEAKER_02
And these are things, some of them I m trying to change by the way, because I don t think that they are benefiting the life that I wish to live.
8
SPEAKER_02
However, there are some things where I m like, I m sorry, I don t like getting angry to show that I care about something.
8
SPEAKER_02
You may think I m being apathetic, I m not.
8
SPEAKER_02
But I don t like being the person who s like, God damn it.
8
SPEAKER_02
No, if you get angry, I don t need to get angry.
8
SPEAKER_02
But it doesn t mean that I don t care.
8
SPEAKER_02
Some people may perceive it as me not caring.
8
SPEAKER_02
Well, because in their household, that s how you care.
8
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
8
SPEAKER_02
So all these things, I genuinely try and do it.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think it was one of my favorite philosophers, Alain de Botton, who talked about that.
8
SPEAKER_02
And he said, when we date, we present the best image of ourselves when we meet people.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s like a job interview.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then it just becomes a discovery of all the worst.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so what I ve tried to do now in life is I go start with the worst, start with the most honest.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then overachieve.
8
SPEAKER_02
Or even just be.
8
SPEAKER_02
I used to dress up to go on a date and now I go the way I was dressed that day.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, good.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, hey man, this is... because some days I m going to look like this.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, for sure.
8
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes I don t even know if I put my colors together right.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m experimenting with this jacket.
8
SPEAKER_02
And yeah, sometimes my hair is looking shabby and sometimes it s not.
8
SPEAKER_02
And you re going to find me on the day the way you find me because I wish to be accepted for the days that I am like that.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I wish to learn to accept you that way as well.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re right.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s an urge for both participants to change.
8
SPEAKER_01
So one is like how you re accepting and what you re expecting.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then on your side of the street, it s like, tell people who you are.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Just start with who you are.
8
SPEAKER_02
Then you re not hiding from anything.
8
SPEAKER_02
You don t have to cover anything up.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we re constantly discovering that we re not for each other because we all tricked each other.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we got the commercial version.
8
SPEAKER_01
Then we got the toy home from the fucking store.
8
SPEAKER_01
It needs batteries.
8
SPEAKER_01
In the commercial they didn t put batteries in.
8
SPEAKER_02
You didn t tell me we might need a SIM, might require a SIM.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh man, I m choking.
8
SPEAKER_02
There s small parts.
8
SPEAKER_02
You didn t tell me about your small parts and I m choking on them.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, Trevor, we could have spent this last hour and a half talking about your new show, What Now?
8
SPEAKER_01
But my hunch is this is your new show.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s a version of it.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t mean that your show is- No, no, no, no, no, no.
8
SPEAKER_02
I really take that as a compliment and I thank you because I understood what you were saying.
8
SPEAKER_02
My intention, good.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I did, I did.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think what you were saying was my podcast is going to be me applying my mind to the world and to the situations that we re in.
8
SPEAKER_02
Everyone, as you said, because you majored in anthropology, your lens is filtered in a certain way and you have fascinations.
8
SPEAKER_02
I ve always been somebody who likes connecting dots.
8
SPEAKER_02
I ve always been somebody who likes explaining and understanding the world around me.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so I think my show is going to exist more in a space of looking at
8
SPEAKER_02
either what has happened or what is happening and how to think about it as if it were in hindsight, even though we re currently experiencing it.
8
SPEAKER_02
Some of it may be political, some of it may be news related, some of it might not be, but I enjoy existing in that space.
8
SPEAKER_02
where we oftentimes don t take a moment to process because it is happening.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so we react.
8
SPEAKER_02
And when we react, we regret.
8
SPEAKER_02
I just want to make a show where you can sit and go like, all right, what do we actually think about this?
8
SPEAKER_02
What are we trying to do about this?
8
SPEAKER_02
How do we feel about this?
8
SPEAKER_01
I m going to give myself a fifth pitch, even though they don t exist in baseball, because I m 0 for 4.
8
SPEAKER_02
Well, one was a ball.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s go with a ball.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay, one was a ball.
8
SPEAKER_01
I wonder if like me, reactions were the enemy.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s what caused violence, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
Reactions, hotheadedness, emotional responses.
8
SPEAKER_01
I have the same predilection.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m constantly like, guys, yes, 9-11 was horrific.
8
SPEAKER_01
This was the worst day of my life in this country.
8
SPEAKER_01
We re hurt.
8
SPEAKER_01
We re scared.
8
SPEAKER_01
But can we take five before we enact a bunch of responses?
8
SPEAKER_01
Just for me, reactions are implicitly dangerous.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
There we go.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_01
One out of five.
8
SPEAKER_01
We did it.
8
SPEAKER_01
We could just edit the show and make it one for one.
8
SPEAKER_02
Look at us, you and I. Two for two.
8
SPEAKER_02
We both have that and we re both racist.
8
SPEAKER_02
Look at that.
8
SPEAKER_02
And we both say homeless.
8
SPEAKER_01
We re on a roll.
8
SPEAKER_00
God, everyone gets canceled.
8
SPEAKER_02
But yes, I agree with you there.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think beyond that for me, and maybe it is tied to it, I am deeply attracted
8
SPEAKER_02
to the idea of understanding.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think we can just spend a little more time trying to understand.
8
SPEAKER_02
You don t have to agree with people, man.
8
SPEAKER_02
You don t have to like them.
8
SPEAKER_02
You don t have to know them in that way, but just understand.
8
SPEAKER_02
Your doctor doesn t have to like your cancer.
8
SPEAKER_02
They don t have to go out for drinks with your cancer, but they need to understand cancer in order for them to move forward in some way, shape or form.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think in society, we need to do the same.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think we have to find a way to just understand
8
SPEAKER_02
where the other person is coming from, how they see the world, or how they re approaching a situation, and sometimes even understand how we ve gotten to the point that we ve gotten to.
8
SPEAKER_02
And in that, I think we have a chance of making a clearer decision and having a clearer understanding of who we are in those situations.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so that s my goal, is to just find that space, take the time, as we ve done here.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s not a seven minute, you know what it s like, TV.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, that was gonna be one of my questions.
8
SPEAKER_01
Seven minutes.
8
SPEAKER_02
Dax, welcome to the show.
8
SPEAKER_02
So your stepdad s violence, crazy man.
8
SPEAKER_02
Great movie, by the way.
8
SPEAKER_02
Great movie.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s talk about the movie, but before we do, Doritos.
8
SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much, Dax.
8
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, I was curious.
8
SPEAKER_01
What appealed to me about doing a podcast was simply that I had been on a hundred late night talk shows and I had seven minutes to be brilliant.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then I could be as a guest on some of these podcasts.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was like, well, this is lovely.
8
SPEAKER_01
I can breathe.
8
SPEAKER_01
I can take a minute, I can formulate my thoughts.
8
SPEAKER_01
I also might be appealing in other ways than just being funny.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s refreshing.
8
SPEAKER_01
Is the time for you just like, after seven years of boom, boom, boom, boom, boom?
8
SPEAKER_02
Definitely.
8
SPEAKER_02
We ve compressed so many things in our lives.
8
SPEAKER_02
We ve turned everything into a snippet.
8
SPEAKER_02
You know, we consume news in the Middle East in snippets.
8
SPEAKER_02
We consume news in America in snippets.
8
SPEAKER_02
We consume news from our friends and people in snippets.
8
SPEAKER_02
Life doesn t happen in snippets.
8
SPEAKER_02
It is long.
8
SPEAKER_02
It is complicated.
8
SPEAKER_02
It is dynamic.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think when you take a breath and you appreciate that, you find yourself moving less between the tens and the twos and existing a little more realistically in a comfortable six.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
We could even go seven.
8
SPEAKER_01
As a sober person, I allow myself to hit seven.
8
SPEAKER_01
I like seven.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
You will have A-list movie stars?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
The Rock first guest.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, are you bros with The Rock?
8
SPEAKER_01
We ve been trying to get him for five and a half years.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m a little curious how you just first step at that.
8
SPEAKER_01
I actually don t know and I m eternally grateful.
8
SPEAKER_01
He just must admire you or something.
8
SPEAKER_02
I don t know, maybe I was lucky.
8
SPEAKER_02
But yeah, so The Rock, first guest, that s pretty amazing.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then it s tons of, as you said, A-listers.
8
SPEAKER_02
Kerry Washington, you name them.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then it s people who just do things in the world, the likes of Bill Gates.
9
SPEAKER_01
etc.
9
SPEAKER_01
But then I also want to speak to people who you may not know, but I think can have or do have an effect on your life.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s where I think the conversations sometimes become more interesting.
9
SPEAKER_01
Someone asked me this the other day, they said, are you only going to have A-list celebrities on your show?
9
SPEAKER_01
And I said, no, I m only having A-list conversations.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, good.
9
SPEAKER_00
That means that just open the door to you and I. Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
As long as if you can go down to B-list or something, we feel invited now.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we re coming on.
9
SPEAKER_00
This also, I imagine, works with your life.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think what people wouldn t know is like you were probably losing a tremendous amount of money to host that show.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t ever think of it like that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think in life.
9
SPEAKER_00
I only say you have an incredible career as a stand up.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes, The Daily Show is, without a doubt, one of the greatest blessings that ever helped my standup.
9
SPEAKER_01
There are people who learned me because of, so I think it actually becomes a wash.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think everything I lost because of The Daily Show, The Daily Show gave me, so I never think of it like that, honestly.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I guess if I were you, what I would be thinking is, I love The Daily Show.
9
SPEAKER_00
I miss many parts of it, probably working with that team, I m sure you probably miss quite often.
9
SPEAKER_00
But, oh good, I get to return to this first love of mine, which is stand-up, and I get to have a lot more availability to do that thing.
9
SPEAKER_00
And that, for me, a podcast works seamlessly into that, into returning into that.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s funny, I thought that towards the end of the run, but then the pandemic changed something in me and I realized,
9
SPEAKER_01
My first love is not standup.
9
SPEAKER_01
My first love is community.
9
SPEAKER_01
My first love is building connections with human beings who mean something to me.
9
SPEAKER_01
And that s actually what I want to do.
9
SPEAKER_01
The biggest thing that I didn t like about doing The Daily Show was I don t get to see the sun most days.
9
SPEAKER_01
You come in in the morning, you work all the way until night.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then when you leave, it s dark.
9
SPEAKER_01
You came in, it was dark.
9
SPEAKER_01
You leave, it was dark.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, huh, I actually like walking around during the day, having the sun hit my face.
9
SPEAKER_01
I like living life.
9
SPEAKER_01
And after the pandemic, I realized I became someone who is unashamedly wishing to be a life-liver.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think we ve been shamed about this.
9
SPEAKER_01
We see people online, they re like, oh, nobody wants to work these days.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yo, nobody wants to work.
9
SPEAKER_01
Am I close enough to the mic?
9
SPEAKER_01
Listen here, all you haters out there, all those people are like, nobody wants to, nobody wants to work.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know how you know nobody wants to work?
9
SPEAKER_01
It s because everyone s trying to not work.
9
SPEAKER_01
The reason people save money is because they don t want to work at some point.
9
SPEAKER_01
The reason people have a retirement is because they don t want to work.
9
SPEAKER_01
If working was the best thing ever, you would aim to get there at the end of your life.
9
SPEAKER_01
You d be like, I can t wait to be 90 and working.
9
SPEAKER_01
Why aren t you doing that?
9
SPEAKER_01
Because nobody likes working.
9
SPEAKER_01
Now I do think everybody likes having purpose, everybody likes doing something.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think many of the jobs that people have to do to make a living are the jobs that they do because they sustain them and unfortunately there are many jobs that people could be doing that would be great for them and society but they aren t supported in any way.
9
SPEAKER_01
You look at how France at some point paid people to be artists
9
SPEAKER_01
And you look at how that benefited France and the world and the artists.
9
SPEAKER_01
Now, today you go like, pay people to be honest, be like, I m not gonna pay some idiot just to paint.
9
SPEAKER_01
All right, fine, but you look at the painting too.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I m a proud liver of life.
9
SPEAKER_01
I really am, Dax.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I go, what am I trying to do?
9
SPEAKER_01
We have, what is it?
9
SPEAKER_01
4,000 weeks in our lives.
9
SPEAKER_01
Is that what it is?
9
SPEAKER_01
4,000 weeks, if you re lucky.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t want that.
9
SPEAKER_01
4,000 weeks.
9
SPEAKER_01
How are you spending them?
9
SPEAKER_01
What are you doing with them?
9
SPEAKER_01
People will be like, oh, it s a work-life balance.
9
SPEAKER_01
No, it s just a life balance.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s just life.
9
SPEAKER_01
Work doesn t pause, it s not severance.
9
SPEAKER_01
You don t pause your life to go to work.
9
SPEAKER_01
You are living at work.
9
SPEAKER_01
The people you re talking to, the things you re doing every day, that is your life.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so if you are blessed enough to have the opportunity to choose how you live that life, then I think you also have a responsibility to live it accordingly.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so that s genuinely what I m trying to do now.
9
SPEAKER_01
So funny enough, this year I did way too much standup, more than 230, 240 dates.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, you did?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, everywhere from India to Dubai to South Africa and Minneapolis and London and all of this.
9
SPEAKER_00
Do you need an accountant?
9
SPEAKER_00
I just want to get in there and sniff around a little bit.
9
SPEAKER_00
Are you well managed financially?
9
SPEAKER_00
I d love to volunteer.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wow, that s a lot of fucking dates.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve never been to a wedding.
9
SPEAKER_00
In your life?
9
SPEAKER_01
In my life.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve never been to a wedding.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve never been to a wedding.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve never been to a funeral.
9
SPEAKER_01
Working, working, working, working, working.
9
SPEAKER_01
I know my calendar.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re in advance.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, your buddies from South Africa who came to work at The Daily Show, who are part of the 60 Minutes segment.
9
SPEAKER_00
Of course, Leslie still hitting the relationships thing.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, tell us about him as a boyfriend.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s like, everyone just shut up.
9
SPEAKER_00
Can I tell you why?
9
SPEAKER_00
I ll tell you why.
9
SPEAKER_00
By the way, it was hysterical.
9
SPEAKER_01
No, but let me tell you why.
9
SPEAKER_01
First of all, I m private.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you are going to live your relationship in public, then you must live your relationship in public.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m not trying to foist my relationship on anybody because I do not wish you to foist your opinions about my relationship on me.
9
SPEAKER_01
I will have my relationship in private because that s where I believe it should be.
9
SPEAKER_01
Everyone can do what they want to do.
9
SPEAKER_01
But secondly, I find it strange that the entertainment industry is the one industry where your relationship is somehow considered part of your job.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m sorry, what?
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah, you re like what it s just like you get to an interview and then anyone can just be like so Dex Who s the person you have sex with?
9
SPEAKER_01
You literally could not do that with anyone else you could not have the Dalai Lama on your show and be like So who you banging Dali?
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, maybe, but you get what I m saying?
9
SPEAKER_01
I just think it s a weird, and I don t accept it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Your example is Mitch McConnell.
9
SPEAKER_00
His example is like, is anyone asking who Mitch McConnell s fucking?
9
SPEAKER_00
But that wasn t the point.
9
SPEAKER_00
His buddies, so they re great.
9
SPEAKER_00
They re good buddies.
9
SPEAKER_00
And his one friend just goes, yes, I ll tell you about his relationship.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, look, he s a good boyfriend.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then he just sits and then they laugh.
9
SPEAKER_00
But what they do hang you out to dry on is she goes, is he a workaholic?
9
SPEAKER_00
And they both go, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
They re like, no, no, we care about you.
9
SPEAKER_00
So we re going to give you the tough love right now, which is yes, this motherfucker is definitely a workaholic.
9
SPEAKER_00
They didn t pull any punches.
9
SPEAKER_01
So what I ve done is this.
9
SPEAKER_01
I spent a long time trying to not be a workaholic and I ve realized to what you were saying, limitations.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I go, actually, I can t stop myself from being a workaholic.
9
SPEAKER_01
So what I now do is I m going to work at resting.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so I m applying the same tool to another side of my life.
9
SPEAKER_00
I like that, my friend.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I go, instead of going, I m just gonna do nothing and try and figure, and it s like, no, no, no, no, no.
9
SPEAKER_01
Use the same tool that was creating a very successful but unhealthy environment for you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Use that same tool to work at being a fuller human being.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Schedule it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Think about what you re going to do.
9
SPEAKER_00
For the first time in my life.
9
SPEAKER_00
Have a goal of relaxation.
9
SPEAKER_01
I even apologized to my assistant because I was like, my calendar looks like chaos now because I literally have everything.
9
SPEAKER_01
Phone call with friend.
9
SPEAKER_00
You have to.
9
SPEAKER_00
Walk with friend.
9
SPEAKER_01
Literally walk with friend.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
15 minutes of this, 20 minutes that.
9
SPEAKER_01
Watch TV show.
9
SPEAKER_01
I put things in my calendar.
9
SPEAKER_01
Watch.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you know why?
9
SPEAKER_01
Because if I didn t put that space aside, work would take it.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know what that s like.
9
SPEAKER_01
It cannibalizes it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so now I put it aside.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then when I get there, if I don t want to watch the TV show, I don t.
9
SPEAKER_01
But now I go, this is my time.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, I like it.
9
SPEAKER_00
I have to do the same thing.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve got like standing dinners with a friend I can never see.
9
SPEAKER_00
Every first Wednesday of every month, we go to dinner.
9
SPEAKER_00
If we don t declare that, it ll never fucking happen.
9
SPEAKER_00
Trevor, you re radical.
9
SPEAKER_00
I really, really like you.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re not just cute.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you re also, you re a hell of a thinker.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can t see, but I m smiling, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
He makes me smile in a very particular way every time he says that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I can only imagine what Monica s doing.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m like straight and I m all fucked up over it.
9
SPEAKER_00
So great to have you on.
9
SPEAKER_00
I hope everyone checks out WhatNow.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re so skilled at this and I ll be very excited to listen.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, man.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for having me.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve listened to the podcast many times.
9
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate what you ve both done.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think it s a cool space that you ve created that has definitely in some way inspired me to be in the podcast world.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, good.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s flattering.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because I just think we can all take a little more time to have a little more full conversations, to get to know each other a little more.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve really loved what you ve done.
9
SPEAKER_01
The fun, the humor, the ups, the downs, the brain, the jokes, the drugs, the life.
9
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It s all been good.
9
SPEAKER_01
So thank you so much for having me and thank you to anyone who is listening.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, Trevor.
9
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And yes, we ll be on yours.
9
SPEAKER_00
We ll see you, I guess we ll see you next there.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re really foisting us on you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Can I tell you something?
9
SPEAKER_01
You say that, mark my words.
9
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Something is gonna happen in your life.
9
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I don t wish this upon you, but it ll happen.
9
SPEAKER_01
I will invite you at that time.
9
SPEAKER_01
Do not turn me down.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I will never, I will never.
9
SPEAKER_01
For instance, like The Rock, he had the thing with the Maui fires.
9
SPEAKER_01
You familiar with that?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, I know he s Hawaiian and there were Maui fires.
9
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Samoan and family from Hawaii, the islands are him.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
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The fires happened, one of the most devastating fires in American history.
9
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The Rock and Oprah were like, hey, we re going to start this fund.
9
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We re going to put money in.
9
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I think they put 10 million of their own money each or whatever it was.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, let s get this thing going.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they said, hey, anyone who wants to donate, you donate.
9
SPEAKER_01
Let s get this thing going.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they got backlash.
9
SPEAKER_01
You didn t see this?
9
SPEAKER_01
No.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s huge.
9
SPEAKER_01
It was huge.
9
SPEAKER_01
They had to apologize.
9
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They got trashed from the high heavens.
9
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From the high heavens.
9
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People were like, you entitled pieces of trash.
9
SPEAKER_01
They were like, why don t you give all your money?
9
SPEAKER_01
Why are you asking us for money?
9
SPEAKER_01
You losers, you assholes, Oprah and The Rock, bunch of dicks.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like Oprah went on TV, she went on CBS and apologized.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so I was like, hey, can we talk about this?
9
SPEAKER_01
And we did.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wonderful.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so I think what I like about it is he wasn t like no comment.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
We spoke about it.
9
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Wonderful.
9
SPEAKER_00
I can t wait to hear that.
9
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I had no fucking idea.
10
SPEAKER_02
But it s also telling that when you re in these things, you think everyone knows, and also no one knows.
10
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Like the shit I ve been in, I ve assumed everyone I see on the sidewalk knows, but no, they don t.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like I don t even fucking know, and that s over on the walk.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s crazy.
10
SPEAKER_02
All right, well, this has been wonderful.
10
SPEAKER_02
This has been amazing.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, thanks for coming.
10
SPEAKER_01
Good luck.
10
SPEAKER_02
Everyone listen to what now?
10
SPEAKER_02
A Spotify brother in arms.
10
SPEAKER_00
Even if you aren t listening on Spotify, you can listen.
10
SPEAKER_00
So we re not walled off in any way, shape or form.
10
SPEAKER_00
It is free to the people.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s also something I like, by the way.
10
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That it s free.
10
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It s great.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think it s interesting that we live in a world where more and more of the good things
10
SPEAKER_00
are walled off from people, and all the bad things are free.
10
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You can watch trash anything for free, and you can read all these websites that aren t even real, writing fake stories about the news.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s all free.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then you wanna read an interesting article that informs you.
10
SPEAKER_00
On the LA Times.
10
SPEAKER_00
On the LA Times, New York Times, and it s like, you gotta pay.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, so wait, you gotta pay to be informed, but then being uninformed is free?
10
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That s a scary world to live in.
10
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It is also free, which I think is wonderful.
10
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Check it out.
10
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What now?
10
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Good luck.
10
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Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.
10
SPEAKER_01
We have so much to talk about.
10
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We have so much.
10
SPEAKER_02
So many loose ends, so much housekeeping.
10
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But let s start with your Coca-Cola sweatshirt.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
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I am proud of myself for bringing this to your attention because that s a 10 out of 10 sweatshirt.
10
SPEAKER_01
You love it?
10
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I love it.
10
SPEAKER_01
Good.
10
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Do you like it, Wab?
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
10
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It s really cool.
10
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Did you notice it?
10
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When you said it inside?
10
SPEAKER_02
When you were talking about it for a while, I paid attention for some of it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I didn t bring it up, you brought it up.
10
SPEAKER_01
Dex brought it up.
10
SPEAKER_01
I would never brag.
10
SPEAKER_02
Was that your first time in it?
10
SPEAKER_01
No, no.
10
SPEAKER_02
Heavens no.
10
SPEAKER_02
Have you gotten it tailored in any way?
10
SPEAKER_01
No.
10
SPEAKER_02
You haven t?
10
SPEAKER_01
Mm-mm.
10
SPEAKER_02
Well, you got lucky.
10
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Yeah.
10
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Would you?
10
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If you got a great retro item, you should, right?
10
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Because so often what s weird about fads is cuts are fads.
10
SPEAKER_01
For sure.
10
SPEAKER_02
If I put on a shirt from the 80s or 90s, it s a box.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s so square.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s true.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I m a pencil.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you don t like boxes.
10
SPEAKER_02
I need a thin rectangle.
10
SPEAKER_01
It depends on what it is.
10
SPEAKER_01
If it s like a dress or something.
10
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Well, then we got to.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we got to.
10
SPEAKER_01
But a sweatshirt, I m not ruling it out.
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
But probably not.
10
SPEAKER_02
Think about it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I ll think about it.
10
SPEAKER_01
What do you think I should do to this one?
10
SPEAKER_02
Go half shirt for sure.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you want me to crop it up?
10
SPEAKER_02
Midriff.
10
SPEAKER_02
Let s make it a midriff.
10
SPEAKER_02
And then probably cut the sleeves off.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and go kind of gym style.
10
SPEAKER_01
No.
10
SPEAKER_01
I love a gray vintage sweatshirt.
10
SPEAKER_01
Me too.
10
SPEAKER_02
Gray hits a darkness over time that it just can t really have.
10
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, upon new threads.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s a patina.
10
It s a patina.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s right.
10
SPEAKER_01
And often the vintage ones have this very specific arm collar.
10
SPEAKER_01
What s that called?
10
SPEAKER_01
What s this part called?
10
SPEAKER_02
The cuff.
10
SPEAKER_01
Cuff.
10
SPEAKER_01
Cuff.
10
SPEAKER_02
You weren t sure I was right.
10
SPEAKER_02
You thought about that for a second.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because I think I wanted to say cuff and it didn t sound right.
10
SPEAKER_02
So I moved it to arm collar.
10
SPEAKER_02
You moved on.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then you brought me back.
10
SPEAKER_02
All right.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so arm collar slash cuff and neck collar.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, collar.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, I have to differentiate if I m calling this an arm collar.
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay, oh, right, right, right.
10
SPEAKER_02
You ve created a little bit of a problem for yourself.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I have.
10
SPEAKER_01
Both in the vintage sweatshirt arena gray can be very cute.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s in the detail.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s very specific.
10
SPEAKER_02
Devil s in the details.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s what Taylor says.
10
SPEAKER_01
Now.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
I have some stuff to clean up.
10
SPEAKER_02
What order do you want to go in?
10
SPEAKER_01
We can do cleanups.
10
SPEAKER_01
Something happened on my walk here I want to talk about.
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay, well let me do cleanup first, because I bet we ll go off on a journey once that starts.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
So some arm cherries were nice enough to correct us about...
10
SPEAKER_02
High School Musical 3.
10
SPEAKER_02
I called that High School Musical 3.
10
SPEAKER_01
I was worried about this.
10
SPEAKER_02
That s not what it is.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I was so respected by them that I definitely have to be respectful in return.
10
SPEAKER_02
So the quote is actually from High School Musical, the musical, the series.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
On Netflix.
10
SPEAKER_02
And maybe it s in season three.
10
SPEAKER_02
Actually, let s see, because someone else, I screen grabbed a few corrections.
10
SPEAKER_02
Let s see.
10
SPEAKER_02
No, that ended in 2008.
10
SPEAKER_02
This is very detailed.
10
SPEAKER_02
But the musical, the series is, yeah, season three, and they ve abbreviated it to H.S.M.T.M.T.S.3.
10
SPEAKER_01
That makes sense because I was confused when you were like, it s Lincoln s favorite show.
10
SPEAKER_02
Right, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I thought you were just mistaken, you know, in your old age.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I was mistaken, but not about it being a show.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right, I thought maybe you didn t know about shows and movies anymore.
10
SPEAKER_02
Right, which is just around the corner.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m kidding.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, I wasn t kidding.
10
SPEAKER_01
I thought you just said show on accident.
10
SPEAKER_02
Right.
10
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, that makes more sense.
10
SPEAKER_01
Any other ties?
10
SPEAKER_02
I did the best I could and I did come up with four.
10
SPEAKER_01
Great.
10
SPEAKER_02
Of my favorite podcast episodes.
10
SPEAKER_02
And really only three, but I know by the time I roll out the three, I ll have a fourth.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow, okay.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I know that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Is this how you approached like test taking?
10
SPEAKER_02
Uh-huh, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_02
Nearly everything in life.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow, we re so different.
10
SPEAKER_02
Or guess.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s- For sure, I m like, oh, I know, then I ll figure out.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right, but that s, you know, that feels different to me, because that s conversation and you can wing.
10
SPEAKER_01
But when it s like, there s a right or wrong answer here, and there is.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m kidding.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes, if I were to say one that wasn t actually in my top five, that would be wrong.
10
SPEAKER_02
Like if in retrospect, I was like, oh, you know what?
10
SPEAKER_01
Said one that wasn t a podcast.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh, in fact, I like I have four just since we ve been talking now.
10
SPEAKER_01
It came to you.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I believe in it firmly.
10
SPEAKER_01
Do you think our dreams come true?
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, ours have.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
But we re so different in some ways.
10
SPEAKER_02
You and I. Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes, big time, in like enormous ways.
10
SPEAKER_01
We re also so much the same in so many ways.
10
SPEAKER_02
We are.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m so confused by this daily, we are really alike in a lot of ways.
10
SPEAKER_02
Absolutely.
10
SPEAKER_01
In ways that I didn t necessarily always know.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wanted to admit.
10
SPEAKER_02
No, no.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think I m learning more that we re,
10
SPEAKER_02
you re noticing more similarities as we go.
10
SPEAKER_02
I think what it demonstrates, which is neat, is yeah, so we re so fucking different in a ton of ways.
10
SPEAKER_02
And then we re also very, very similar in a ton of ways.
10
SPEAKER_02
And what that demonstrates to me is like how enormously multifaceted humans are.
10
SPEAKER_02
And we are so tempted to sum them up all the time.
10
SPEAKER_02
You always hear people say, oh, I don t like Becky.
10
SPEAKER_02
She s blank.
10
SPEAKER_02
And it s like, okay, well, that s probably one of 85 to 150 things she is.
10
SPEAKER_02
So I don t know, I find that encouraging that we could be so similar and so diametrically opposed.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
I want to hear your, your podcast before we jump into what I, what happened on my walk.
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_02
Number one is blame radio lab, which I ve been saying repeatedly.
10
SPEAKER_02
Number two is going to be, and this one s really important.
10
SPEAKER_02
Jonathan Haidt and Sam Harris.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
It was a life changer.
10
SPEAKER_02
It was.
10
SPEAKER_02
Truly.
10
SPEAKER_02
It really is as much of a reason that we have a podcast as any other reason.
10
SPEAKER_01
I agree.
10
SPEAKER_02
And maybe even in the lead.
10
SPEAKER_02
That was such a paradigm shift for me prior to hearing that episode.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I want to give Jedediah Jenkins credit.
10
SPEAKER_02
He s the one who sent me a link and was like, you got to listen to this.
10
SPEAKER_02
I didn t know who Sam Harris was.
10
SPEAKER_02
I didn t know who Jonathan Haidt was.
10
SPEAKER_01
Jed is the one.
10
SPEAKER_02
He is.
10
SPEAKER_02
And he has turned me on to so many things over the years.
10
SPEAKER_02
He s like on it, but prior to listening to that.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s a Easter egg.
10
SPEAKER_02
Easter egg.
10
SPEAKER_02
Jed is coming.
10
SPEAKER_02
He s gonna be on the show, so it s not an Easter egg.
10
SPEAKER_02
That s an Easter egg.
10
SPEAKER_02
There s hatched.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s a duckling.
10
SPEAKER_02
Prior to hearing that episode, I would have thought,
10
SPEAKER_02
The only way you could experience a conversation like that would be to be in college listening to one of the professors and or reading the books, but then you wouldn t even get the back and forth, the debate, which was so fucking, it made me horny as hell, that debate.
10
SPEAKER_02
I was like, whoa.
10
SPEAKER_01
It was so good.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, they re both so smart.
10
SPEAKER_02
And they disagreed, which is fun, but they disagreed in the best case scenario.
10
SPEAKER_02
Academics disagree, which is like it s a healthy Socratic debate.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s not like it didn t ever get personal or like so many debates I ve heard throughout my life.
10
SPEAKER_02
So just the notion that I could consume
10
SPEAKER_02
brilliant people without having to go to college or read their book was an entirely new experience for me.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
I suppose I could have watched TED Talks, but I don t think TED Talks are even, for me, they re not 100th as stimulating as that was.
10
SPEAKER_01
Because it s not, again, there s no debate or conversation.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s at you.
10
SPEAKER_02
Uh-huh.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s a performance.
10
SPEAKER_02
And because of that, you know, we
10
SPEAKER_02
made a decision immediately.
10
SPEAKER_02
Well, we want those people.
10
SPEAKER_02
We have access to celebrities, but our real goal is to have those people.
10
SPEAKER_02
And those people have been so incredible over the last six years.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I got to give full credit to that episode.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
We talked about that episode a ton when we were listening to it.
10
SPEAKER_01
We listened to a lot of the Sam Harris ones way back
11
SPEAKER_01
back when at the same time.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it would be so fun.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like did you listen to them when rehash it?
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_00
The Ezra Klein one was also an incredible.
11
SPEAKER_01
Those are Paul Bloom.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
A lot of really amazing episodes.
11
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
11
SPEAKER_00
So I thank Sam Harris for turning me on to so many people I had no idea about.
11
SPEAKER_00
So that s number two.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s a great one.
11
SPEAKER_00
Number three would be Revisionist History.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
The episode about, what s the TV show?
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wait, oh, Will and Grace.
11
SPEAKER_00
Will and Grace.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
11
SPEAKER_00
What episode were you gonna suggest?
11
SPEAKER_00
Because maybe I like that one more.
11
SPEAKER_01
Brian Williams.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that was a great one.
11
SPEAKER_01
So good.
11
SPEAKER_00
But I guess we all get to pick what we are worried about.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
And that one addressed one of my main worries, and that is the complete divide between everyone in the camps and the fighting.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s my number one thing I can t stand, above all other issues I care about.
11
SPEAKER_00
And so that one was like, not that it suggested a solution, but it did give us a potential cause which was so,
11
SPEAKER_01
With the Will and Grace thing.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_00
And mostly that network television really unified us.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then if you were sitting on a bus next to somebody in the era of Cheers, a third of the country had seen that episode every night.
11
SPEAKER_00
And when you were on a bus, you had a 33% chance that the person next to you had had that same experience as you last night.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, monoculture.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
We don t have it anymore.
11
SPEAKER_00
We don t.
11
SPEAKER_00
And we were rewarded in many ways.
11
SPEAKER_00
And we also, we pay a huge price anyways.
11
SPEAKER_01
Agreed.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then I had already said, but episode one of Dr. Death.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and then- That s the fourth one you just- That s the four.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
11
SPEAKER_00
No, no, the fourth I thought of while we were talking was Revisionist History.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh!
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so that s four total, including Dr. Death.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and I need a fifth.
11
SPEAKER_01
So by the end of this episode, I think you re gonna have a fifth.
11
SPEAKER_00
I probably will.
11
SPEAKER_01
Those are great.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, great, what are yours?
11
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t assigned the same homework.
11
SPEAKER_00
You didn t do the homework you assigned me?
11
SPEAKER_01
Well, because I was a teacher.
11
SPEAKER_01
The teacher doesn t do the homework.
11
SPEAKER_01
But I will, if you d like.
11
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
11
SPEAKER_00
I wanna hear your five favorite.
11
SPEAKER_00
For next week.
11
SPEAKER_01
One of them I know.
11
SPEAKER_01
Right away.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m doing what you re doing.
11
SPEAKER_01
The instinct is so quick to say.
11
SPEAKER_01
One of them I know.
11
SPEAKER_00
We agree on a couple, I imagine.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like Blaine s gotta be in your top five.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
I know three off the top of my head.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay, Blame.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Number two is How to Become Batman.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was on Invisibilia.
11
SPEAKER_01
This is about a boy who is blind and learns how to, through clicking, move around the world.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s really profound.
11
SPEAKER_00
You have it in front of you?
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Can you forward it to me?
11
SPEAKER_01
Sure, it s so good.
11
SPEAKER_01
Just like the human spirit.
11
SPEAKER_01
Those ones get me a lot.
11
SPEAKER_00
When humans are indomitable.
11
SPEAKER_01
Just proving that we re not so limited.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s lovely.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so I m sending that to you now.
11
SPEAKER_01
So that s number two.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
11
SPEAKER_01
Number three, see, I already forgot.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is why- You need to write them down.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, oh, Tard and Feathered, This American Life, about the kid who is a pedophile.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that was incredible.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s a very good one.
11
SPEAKER_01
That one changed my opinion on life.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
I would say you ve evolved in that exact, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s why I don t like actually making a list of five, to be honest, because even you say, like, This American Life, and I m like, well, certainly, I ve enjoyed This American Life so much over the years, and certainly one deserves to be on there.
11
SPEAKER_00
Also, Stuff You Should Know, I used to be addicted to that, and there were so many fun things I learned on there that I would have never known, and I repeat all the time.
11
SPEAKER_00
The history of wheat production, and how gluten arose, and how that gave rise to celiac, like, what an episode.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s the whole point.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s gotta be hard.
11
SPEAKER_00
There s gotta be victims in this pursuit.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, your walk here.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how to feel about it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
So I want your help telling me how to feel.
11
SPEAKER_01
So I was walking here.
11
SPEAKER_01
I walk here all the time.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m a grown lady.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
But I look little.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, you don t look little.
11
SPEAKER_00
You re little.
11
SPEAKER_01
I look young.
11
SPEAKER_00
You also look young.
11
SPEAKER_01
I meant young when I said little.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
So I m walking and I m at the light to cross, almost Fields Boulevard to cross over Vermont.
11
SPEAKER_00
Sure, that s a dicey intersection right there.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s a lot going on.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s almost like a 7-Eleven, an outdoor 7-Eleven.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s where I had that man touch me.
11
SPEAKER_00
Touch you, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right now, I remember.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s also where you bumped into the guy with the gorgeous body.
11
SPEAKER_01
That was, no, not, the cute guy I went on a date with, that was on the Hillhurst.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it was, okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s more of a love connection, intersection.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s a much better intersection.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s on 7-Eleven, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so I m standing and I m waiting.
11
SPEAKER_01
This crosswalk is slow because there s all these- There s a left turn lane.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s a left turn.
11
SPEAKER_01
Light.
11
SPEAKER_01
Takes forever.
11
SPEAKER_01
And this is always the case, but that s fine.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m waiting.
11
SPEAKER_01
and the light turns green, the left turn is red, so it s time for the man to appear to tell me to walk, right?
11
SPEAKER_01
The little signal of the man to tell me to walk.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the hieroglyphic.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and it doesn t come up, it s the hand still.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, huh?
11
SPEAKER_01
So I didn t go.
11
SPEAKER_00
Had you pushed the button?
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_00
You had, okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I pushed it repeatedly.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I know you have to push it and then push it again if you ve missed it at a certain time.
11
SPEAKER_01
So I, yeah, I know what I m doing.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I m waiting.
11
SPEAKER_01
So it happens again, one more time.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I have headphones in, so I think this is, I m gonna give some benefit of the doubt that maybe this is why this happened.
11
SPEAKER_01
I think I said, what the fuck?
11
SPEAKER_00
Out loud?
11
SPEAKER_01
I think.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
I thought it- Someone thought a child used the F word?
11
SPEAKER_01
So this guy comes up, he s in like a biking outfit.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, like spandex?
11
SPEAKER_00
Bike shorts, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
11
SPEAKER_00
Not on a bike though.
11
SPEAKER_01
Not on a bike, so also a slash running outfit.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
He was older, seemed harmless.
11
SPEAKER_01
And he was like, yeah, the light, you can go.
11
SPEAKER_01
Mm-hmm.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, yeah, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
And he was like, it takes forever, but it s safe.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, yeah, I walk here a lot.
11
SPEAKER_01
I know.
11
SPEAKER_01
And he like reiterated that it was safe for me to go.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
So we would agree up to this point, he s trying to be helpful.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes, he is trying to be helpful, but also I am triggered.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
You have the same thing Kristen has.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s a little person thing.
11
SPEAKER_00
She can t stand people trying to help her all the time.
11
SPEAKER_00
And in her defense and in yours, people do try to help you guys more than you need, and it probably feels a little condescending.
11
SPEAKER_01
I guess on the rest of my walk is when I came up with the fact that, oh, maybe he thought I was a kid.
11
SPEAKER_01
So he felt, maybe he felt like he was helping out a teenager.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, who had grown up next to like a nuclear site and had some genetic anomalies.
11
SPEAKER_01
I had these when I was a teenager.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay, even a middle schooler.
11
SPEAKER_01
So, no, I m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt by thinking maybe he thought he was helping out this teenager who doesn t really know when to walk or not walk.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes, okay, but just real quick, at the risk of,
11
SPEAKER_00
Offending you.
11
SPEAKER_01
No, can I can I say something else really quick?
11
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m also gonna take responsibility Okay, I know part of the reason I was triggered is cuz I was embarrassed That s great.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah that someone would see me just like standing for a couple cycles
11
SPEAKER_00
And like you were too dumb to finally just recognize it s never going to turn.
11
SPEAKER_00
If you don t go, you re going to sit here for the rest of your life.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
But that s the part that annoys me is because I m not too dumb to realize that I m waiting to see is something broken or is it not time for me to like, I want to wait.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m someone who does wait for the fucking thing.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is where we differ.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s two types of people in this world.
11
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm, jaywalkers and not jaywalkers.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
And people who, if it s dark out, you re in a rural area, you re out of light, and there s no one around, and it s red, do you go or do you not go?
11
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s two types of people.
11
SPEAKER_01
You obviously go.
11
SPEAKER_01
I don t.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
I don t.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
I follow the rules.
11
SPEAKER_00
But you know, I think we ve already had this debate, but let s, I just want to remind you of why I would go.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Because I m always factoring in the intention of everything.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_00
So they ve put a light here for safety.
11
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
11
SPEAKER_00
And if there s nobody present, that s no longer necessary.
11
SPEAKER_00
The premise has eroded.
11
SPEAKER_01
I get it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Listen, I actually really do get it.
11
SPEAKER_01
I don t have any problem with other people going.
11
SPEAKER_01
Maybe at some point in my life, I probably did have some judgment of that.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, the easy argument to make against it would be like, well, what if someone doesn t have their headlights on?
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, exactly.
12
SPEAKER_01
Or what if you, like, it s not up to you to decide if it s, like, this is what Kristen would tell me as I do it.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
You re not in charge of determining when it s safe or not safe.
12
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like, we have rules for a fucking reason.
12
SPEAKER_01
And we have to assume the worst and that your eyesight s bad and blah, blah, blah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
12
SPEAKER_02
but I also get it.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s fine.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m not judging anyone for walking when the hand is up.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m just like, okay, that s what they do.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s how they get down.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s how they get, that s how they party.
12
SPEAKER_02
And that s also a risk.
12
SPEAKER_02
They are taking a risk and I don t, I don t like risk.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s right, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m risk averse, and it scares me, and it s not worth it.
12
SPEAKER_01
Right, because you feel bad inside.
12
SPEAKER_02
I feel bad, I feel unregulated.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, unregulated, dysregulated.
12
SPEAKER_02
Dysregulated, and to me, standing there for another 20 to 30 seconds is worth it.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that makes sense.
12
SPEAKER_02
So it annoyed me about the man.
12
SPEAKER_01
That he had suggested you just walk.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I haven t done my own inventory of the situation and realized, okay, maybe there s something wrong with the light.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m gonna give it one more time.
12
SPEAKER_01
But let s just go back, because as I recall, you said, oh, fuck out loud.
12
SPEAKER_02
Well, I don t know if I did.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but if you had.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m trying to give, again, give him some that maybe I did that, and then I would understand, because then maybe he s like.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, this poor girl s frustrated.
12
SPEAKER_01
She doesn t know this thing s broke.
12
SPEAKER_01
You re gonna have to go, probably.
12
SPEAKER_02
I get that.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I don t want you to have to wait all day.
12
SPEAKER_02
I know, but also,
12
SPEAKER_01
Mind your own business.
12
SPEAKER_02
Kind of.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m sure.
12
SPEAKER_02
I also think there s another two groups of people in this world.
12
SPEAKER_01
those who mind their own business and those- Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Givers of unsolicited advice.
12
SPEAKER_02
No, I m gonna give pros and cons to both.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m gonna be kind about this because I fully mind my own business.
12
SPEAKER_02
I do not, if it s a stranger, obviously.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m not talking about people who know each other.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s a much different scenario in life.
12
SPEAKER_02
Strangers, I don t give a fuck.
12
SPEAKER_02
I don t care what anyone is doing.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, if he had stepped out on red and got flattened immediately and then four seconds later turned white, would you just walk through the intersection and just be like, yeah, this is a stranger?
12
SPEAKER_00
Just step over his body.
12
SPEAKER_02
The movie version, yes, but no, of course not.
12
SPEAKER_02
But that is sort of what I was about to say.
12
SPEAKER_02
Now, this is the bad side of that coin.
12
SPEAKER_02
I don t give a fuck.
12
SPEAKER_02
You do whatever you want.
12
SPEAKER_02
It does not affect me.
12
SPEAKER_02
If it doesn t affect me, I don t care.
12
SPEAKER_02
The flip side of that, if it doesn t affect me, I don t care very much.
12
SPEAKER_02
Even on things that like I should maybe care.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, can you give me an example?
12
SPEAKER_02
I wouldn t say I m the most like neighborly person or friendly person.
12
SPEAKER_01
I got you, yes, yes, yes, uh-huh.
12
SPEAKER_02
To strangers.
12
SPEAKER_02
Right.
12
SPEAKER_02
I think I m pleasant enough.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
But I am not going out of my way.
12
SPEAKER_01
Right.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m not.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like I pull over on the side of the road when people are broken down pretty often, and if I think they can t change a spare, I ll do that.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
This is so embarrassing to admit.
12
SPEAKER_02
I can t believe I m gonna do it, but here we are.
12
SPEAKER_02
I was at a coffee shop.
12
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
Sort of recently, new coffee shop, love it.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I was doing work.
12
SPEAKER_02
I saw there was a couple close by, like diagonal to me, and they re talking, chit-chatting, whatever.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m doing my work, doing my work.
12
SPEAKER_02
I see them get up to go, and they re leaving.
12
SPEAKER_02
And she had left her purse.
12
SPEAKER_00
Ah, I m so proud of you for telling, this goes where I think it s going, I m very impressed.
12
SPEAKER_02
No, the only reason I m saying is because, you ll see, it ends up okay.
12
SPEAKER_02
But I saw it immediately, I saw it as soon as she got up, right?
12
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, she ll probably notice it in like 14 steps.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m just waiting, I m just waiting.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, but now hold on, now I m gonna defend you.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
We move through the world treating strangers as we would hopefully want to be treated.
12
SPEAKER_01
And you know you d be embarrassed if you left your purse behind and a stranger stopped you.
12
SPEAKER_02
This is a nice way of looking at it.
12
SPEAKER_01
And so I do think you are considering.
12
SPEAKER_01
They d probably prefer to just realize in 14 steps than have a fucking stranger point out that they just left their purse behind.
12
SPEAKER_02
Maybe subconsciously I m projecting that.
12
SPEAKER_01
All this stuff is happening.
12
SPEAKER_01
It can t even be measured how quickly it all happens.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_02
Okay, I actually like that because I have been sitting with that.
12
SPEAKER_02
What am I doing?
12
SPEAKER_02
Why did I do that?
12
SPEAKER_02
But okay, so I m waiting and it s not happening.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, she s gone.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, I wonder if like someone working here will like go run after, go handle this.
12
SPEAKER_02
And so it is not happening.
12
SPEAKER_02
So I do, I run, I grab it and I run out.
12
SPEAKER_02
Cause then I m like, oh my God, she s probably gone now.
12
SPEAKER_02
I miss the window.
12
SPEAKER_02
This is so bad.
12
SPEAKER_02
But luckily they weren t too far.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I said, excuse me, is this your purse?
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re forgetful.
12
SPEAKER_02
No, is this your purse?
12
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, yes, thank you.
12
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
12
SPEAKER_01
Did she give you a cash reward?
12
SPEAKER_02
No.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_02
Not yet.
12
SPEAKER_01
Should I give you the purse?
12
SPEAKER_01
Just keep it.
12
SPEAKER_01
I left it for you.
12
SPEAKER_02
Got it to her and I was really glad that she had it and that I did that.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I felt kind of, I felt two things.
12
SPEAKER_02
I felt a bad sense of like, wow, I m really a good person.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, like you really applauded what you had just done.
12
SPEAKER_02
Like an irrational sense of like, wow, good job, Monica.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, great, yeah, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
Okay, then followed by like, what am I saying?
12
SPEAKER_02
Anyone would do that, that s so crazy.
12
SPEAKER_02
Why d you take so long to even do it in the first place?
12
SPEAKER_00
You did the minimal amount.
12
SPEAKER_00
What is going on?
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
What is going on?
12
SPEAKER_02
Why don t I, I don t like interacting with strangers.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
I really don t.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s fair.
12
SPEAKER_02
But, but why?
12
SPEAKER_01
You re tiny and brown.
12
SPEAKER_01
You re tiny and brown and you have a good deal of fear about... I guess.
12
SPEAKER_02
I just like being in my own world.
12
SPEAKER_02
I think there s something about feeling like, I wish people didn t see me.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, you don t want people in your business.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then so you re not in other people s business.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m obviously not a shy person anymore at all, but I used to be a really shy person.
12
SPEAKER_02
I feel like people have a hard time understanding that or believing it.
12
SPEAKER_01
I would certainly like to see film of it.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s hard for me to imagine.
12
SPEAKER_02
You d have to talk to my mom.
12
SPEAKER_02
She says it all the time.
12
SPEAKER_02
She was like, you re so shy.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I think there s a piece that s still there of that, which is like, I don t want to be seen or noticed if like even, I mean, I love when armchairs come up, please keep coming up.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s not what I m saying.
12
SPEAKER_02
But sometimes when it happens, I am like, oh yeah, people can see me.
12
SPEAKER_02
Like I forget.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m just really in my own head and in a bubble all the time.
12
SPEAKER_01
I ve witnessed that.
12
SPEAKER_01
I ve like walked into places you were at and I m like waiting for you to notice.
12
SPEAKER_01
And it s really, you re not, what s nice and a gift you have, you re not hypervigilant.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like you would never be in a restaurant for more than seven seconds without me knowing it, because I m scanning the restaurant every seven seconds.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m never in my own little bubble.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s true.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m not very observant.
12
SPEAKER_01
But I think that s a good luxury.
12
SPEAKER_01
It might be a sign of being kind of healthy.
12
SPEAKER_02
because I am very hypervigilant with people though in my life.
12
SPEAKER_01
We also have to add context.
12
SPEAKER_01
So if you are in a farming town in upstate Michigan, this all sounds preposterous to you.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Because you have the bandwidth to interact with everyone you see, and it charts and graphs perfectly between the farm town of Michigan
12
SPEAKER_01
and then LA in the middle, and then New York City.
12
SPEAKER_01
When you re in New York City, you notice it as an outsider.
12
SPEAKER_01
People could be on fire walking down the street and other people would not get involved.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s kind of why I like it.
12
SPEAKER_01
I know that s what you love about New York City.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I can really be in a bubble.
12
SPEAKER_01
But there, it s a bit out of necessity.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s not like there s any genetic difference between the people who are living in New York City and the ones that are living in Midland, Michigan, but the circumstance requires you to ignore the stimuli
12
SPEAKER_01
and the amount of people around.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like you have to to protect yourself.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s too many.
12
SPEAKER_01
We re supposed to be around 100 people.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
And you might walk by 6,000 people on your way somewhere.
12
SPEAKER_01
All that needs to be in the stew as well.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
When you re in a diner, when I was in a diner in fucking Bel Air, Michigan, there might be nine other people there.
12
SPEAKER_02
Right.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s quite manageable.
12
SPEAKER_02
Maybe that s it.
12
SPEAKER_02
I just, I felt bad.
12
SPEAKER_02
And then this guy, you know, this bad guy, this baddie,
12
SPEAKER_01
I like the part that you were embarrassed, that admission.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was embarrassed.
12
SPEAKER_01
Because it reminds me, and I know you already know the story, but maybe some people don t.
12
SPEAKER_01
In the old house, I was in the bathroom, and you had to walk through our bathroom to get to Kristen s closet.
12
SPEAKER_02
Right.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I was in there doing God knows what.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s not like I was undressed or anything.
12
SPEAKER_01
But I had farted.
12
SPEAKER_01
I was by myself.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I had farted and it didn t smell great, but what do I care?
12
SPEAKER_01
I m sitting there by myself.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then all of a sudden Jackie Tone just rips through the bedroom into the bathroom, crosses into Chris s room.
13
SPEAKER_00
and is going to grab something, which is totally standard for her.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I m sure Kristen, they re both welcome to just go into each other s closets.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I, by the way, I m not, when it happens and I react, I actually am not thinking about the fact that I farted.
13
SPEAKER_00
I just, I m there, she strolls by, and I go in my mind, I don t say anything to her, but in my mind, I m like, I fucking hate how many people come into our house.
13
SPEAKER_00
I fucking hate that people think they can just come into my bedroom and just walk through my front.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I have this, I mount this whole thing.
13
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, it s mildly defendable.
13
SPEAKER_00
Like the case I m making, I feel solid with.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s not to like calm down, like two hours later.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I admit to myself, I actually don t mind if Jackie comes in.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s happened a million times before and it doesn t bother me.
13
SPEAKER_00
I like Jackie and it doesn t bother me.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then I was like, oh, it s because I had farted.
13
SPEAKER_00
And now this fucking stranger s in my fart.
13
SPEAKER_00
And she s not a stranger.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, worse than that, a friend is.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s true, someone that knows me.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then also not my immediate family where I don t care if I fart or fart.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I had to admit to myself what really happened was I had a shock of embarrassment that I had farted in the bathroom.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, but also, God, this is hard because I think that s great to know.
13
SPEAKER_01
But also, you should be allowed to be in your bathroom when you want.
13
SPEAKER_00
You should, which was why my argument made sense in my head for three hours.
13
SPEAKER_00
But if I just got honest about, does that actually bother me?
13
SPEAKER_00
That had happened a million times before and it didn t bother me.
13
SPEAKER_00
A second one, and this one was strong here, but, or maybe I have.
13
SPEAKER_00
The point is, Lincoln was a baby.
13
SPEAKER_00
I used to walk her nonstop across the street, do the hike with the baby carriage.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m coming back up to this point, a paparazzi had not ever photographed her, which I had put a lot of effort into.
13
SPEAKER_00
They had followed us many places and all this stuff.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m in the last like 100 feet before our pedestrian gate to turn into the yard and a paparazzi sees us, pulls into my own driveway and starts going for his camera to start taking pictures.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I pick up the pace
13
SPEAKER_00
and I like turn the corner to the pedestrian gate and I open it and when I do that,
13
SPEAKER_00
The carriage turns on its side.
13
SPEAKER_00
She did not fall out, but it was not great.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it was scary.
13
SPEAKER_00
But again, I don t, that s not what I focus on in that moment.
13
SPEAKER_00
What happens is I get in the gate, I immediately push the carriage into the house, and I yell, Carly, grab Lincoln.
13
SPEAKER_00
Carly comes out, and then I go back outside.
13
SPEAKER_00
And now I m going to kill this person.
13
SPEAKER_00
And the guy s in his car with his camera and I go over to his window and I m in like a rage blackout at this point.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I go to lean into the window and he tries to roll up the passenger window and I slam the window down.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_00
I broke the window.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I m saying, get the fuck out of my house.
13
SPEAKER_00
Don t fucking, you know, I m like really kind of unhinged.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Which makes him unhinged.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I say my shit, don t fucking come back here.
13
SPEAKER_00
You can t do this to my family.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m really bent out of shape.
13
SPEAKER_01
Is he taking pictures of you doing this?
13
SPEAKER_00
No, because I grabbed his fucking camera and threw it on the ground of the car.
13
SPEAKER_00
Turn around, I start walking back to the gate, and he now is out of his car, opens the backseat, and he s going, I ll fucking kill you!
13
SPEAKER_00
I will fucking kill you!
13
SPEAKER_00
And now he s going through his backseat, and right as I m turning into the gate, he is out of his car with a gun in my driveway.
13
SPEAKER_01
What?
13
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I shut the gate.
13
SPEAKER_00
I locked the gate.
13
SPEAKER_00
I immediately call my friend on the LAPD.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, you know, there s a paparazzi in my front yard with a gun saying he s going to kill me.
13
SPEAKER_00
Like, what s my move?
13
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, he s like, look, just fucking go inside.
13
SPEAKER_00
He s like, but listen.
13
SPEAKER_00
And when you hear him start his car back up and go out and get his license plate.
13
SPEAKER_01
OK.
13
SPEAKER_00
So, whatever, all that stuff happens.
13
SPEAKER_00
Again, hours later, I m like, I can t act that way, obviously.
13
SPEAKER_00
I can t act that way.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then I put this dude in a position where now he is equally as triggered as I am, and now he s got a gun out, and I can t be in situations where someone has a fucking gun pulled on me in my driveway.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m like, I m acknowledging that I really fucked that whole thing up.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I put myself in a position that, I should ve just walked in the house and they didn t get a picture and that should ve been that.
13
SPEAKER_01
I know, but you,
13
SPEAKER_00
But in this process, I realized what really happened was that when I almost dumped Lincoln out of the carriage, her safety at my hands, I got so mad that I almost hurt her.
13
SPEAKER_00
that I immediately put it on that guy, and then I was gonna kill him, because it wasn t theoretical.
13
SPEAKER_00
He had almost hurt my daughter.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
13
SPEAKER_01
It makes sense.
13
SPEAKER_01
It does make sense.
13
SPEAKER_00
In retrospect, yeah, for Sapolsky, you can track every moment, but that took me hours to recognize that all that was really being mad at myself.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
But also being mad at yourself, but also being mad at the fact that you re put in a position where you feel- Extremely powerless.
13
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and I ve been tasked with protecting this little girl.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I have decided that that s part of protecting her.
13
SPEAKER_00
You could argue, who cares her picture?
13
SPEAKER_00
Again, if I hadn t tipped her halfway over, I would ve walked inside.
13
SPEAKER_00
I would ve been annoyed by it.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I just had to recognize that that s really what had sent me into outer space, ready to fight the guy in the front yard.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, paparazzi do get people in really dangerous situations because they re extremely, they re panicked, and like, oh God.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the way they drive and shit.
13
SPEAKER_00
Even when you re watching the Beckham doc, and you re seeing how they all drive around, and just how insanely dangerous the whole pursuit is.
13
SPEAKER_00
And just to get away from them.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then Beckham s gotta be driving faster, and he s making a crazy turn, and then they re cutting people off.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s too much chaos.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of nuts it s legal.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it is.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, boy.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m sorry.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s you didn t know that story.
13
SPEAKER_01
I ve never heard that.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
13
SPEAKER_01
No.
13
SPEAKER_00
He was in a a Toyota Corolla.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I was a little late to him pulling out.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then I ran out and I m kind of running down those wheels.
13
SPEAKER_00
We re trying to read the plate.
13
SPEAKER_00
But I am on planet fucking Xenon.
13
SPEAKER_00
Right.
13
SPEAKER_00
Because I have my adrenaline between the gun and the being in his car and then.
13
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t, I was looking at the license plate, like I couldn t, I got like three numbers from the license plate and it was a Toyota Corolla, probably the most numerous vehicles in 2013.
13
SPEAKER_00
Good luck, like three numbers of a Toyota Corolla s license plate, you ll never find that person.
13
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but I have some other stuff to say.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, let s get it, let s do it, let s do it.
13
SPEAKER_01
But we don t have that much time.
13
SPEAKER_01
I wanna bring up, because this was a part of a story, but also there s a reason.
13
SPEAKER_01
So I feel that perhaps I have lost all my childhood yearbooks.
13
SPEAKER_01
And it is not sitting well.
13
SPEAKER_00
That seems almost impossible for me to believe because you have almost everything from your childhood.
13
SPEAKER_00
Your Instagram is proof of that this week.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_00
How could you possibly have your cutouts of Leonardo DiCaprio and not your yearbooks?
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay, no, well, I ll tell you, but also this is a great time to clarify and had to do an update on that post because I got anxious that some people didn t realize I was 10.
13
SPEAKER_01
Some people I think think I was like 19, including Jess.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, he was like, well, I just didn t do the math.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s not terribly different from the stuff you re doing with Matt and Ben at 16 and 17.
13
SPEAKER_01
19 making a scrapbook for myself is not the same.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I don t, I actually don t like that equivalency.
13
SPEAKER_00
The giveaway to me was way more the Bill Maher page.
13
SPEAKER_01
The Biltmore painting, exactly.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that to me says you re not 19.
13
SPEAKER_00
You re not that pumped at 19 to go to the Biltmore.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s the way I was spelling and drawing and stuff.
13
SPEAKER_01
Something would be a bit wrong.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s something we have in common though because that s when I went to the Biltmore house at 10 and I was blown away.
13
SPEAKER_00
So cool.
13
SPEAKER_00
I loved it.
13
SPEAKER_01
Really cool.
13
SPEAKER_00
Set off a lot of alarms.
13
SPEAKER_00
Remember my mom said that when we interviewed her?
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, no, so I didn t lose them willy-nilly.
13
SPEAKER_01
I have been slowly trying to bring yearbooks from my parents  house over here.
13
SPEAKER_01
I ve brought all of the K through eight yearbooks.
13
SPEAKER_01
The only ones left are the big chonkers.
13
SPEAKER_01
The big boys.
13
SPEAKER_01
The big boys.
13
SPEAKER_01
Big daddy-longers.
13
SPEAKER_00
Big daddy-longers, yes.
13
SPEAKER_01
They re in this area with a lot of these other books.
13
SPEAKER_01
And when I was doing some rearranging in my apartment,
13
SPEAKER_01
I took all those books out, I put them in a box, and I put them in the garage of my house.
13
SPEAKER_01
knowing like when I move in the house, whatever, great.
13
SPEAKER_01
That was in the garage of my house.
13
SPEAKER_01
That was before we started construction.
13
SPEAKER_01
When we started construction, I had a lot of stuff in that basement.
13
SPEAKER_01
You know, Bill, beautiful Bill, one of my fathers, one of my founding fathers has told me like at some point, like get that stuff out of here so they could do it.
14
SPEAKER_01
work on it.
14
SPEAKER_01
So I did.
14
SPEAKER_01
I moved on to my Prius, my storage unit.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And, uh, Easter egg this Friday, we the armchair expert umbrella are releasing a new show.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s an eight episode show.
14
SPEAKER_00
Called Yearbook.
14
SPEAKER_01
Called Yearbook.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s really awesome.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it is.
14
SPEAKER_01
And we are producing it with Chad Sanders.
14
SPEAKER_01
You might remember him.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yep, he wrote Black Magic.
14
SPEAKER_01
He wrote Black Magic.
14
SPEAKER_01
We had him on during COVID, a Thursday episode, an expert, and he s awesome.
14
SPEAKER_01
He s at the center of it.
14
SPEAKER_01
We re hopefully gonna do multiple seasons with multiple people at the center.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
14
SPEAKER_01
Perhaps Dax and Aaron.
14
SPEAKER_01
Perhaps Monica.
14
SPEAKER_01
Maybe me.
14
SPEAKER_01
Anywho, it s a great show.
14
SPEAKER_01
We re really, really excited for all of you guys to hear it.
14
SPEAKER_01
In anticipation of this show, we re working on the cover art, and I said, we need yearbook pictures of ourselves.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then Rob said, does anyone have an actual physical yearbook so I can help, like I can make it?
14
SPEAKER_01
Turn the apartment upside down, don t see them.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay, yes, I remember.
14
SPEAKER_01
They must be in my Prius, because they re in with those books.
14
SPEAKER_01
I go, I look yesterday.
14
SPEAKER_01
No box of books.
14
SPEAKER_00
Scary.
14
SPEAKER_01
Then what happens?
14
SPEAKER_01
They re stolen.
14
SPEAKER_00
Was there a note, a ransom note or anything?
14
SPEAKER_01
I haven t looked hard, but I expect that is a possibility.
14
SPEAKER_01
No, and I did.
14
SPEAKER_00
That must be very scary for you to think you have lost those.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so I texted Bill, hey.
14
SPEAKER_01
Have you seen my yearbooks?
14
SPEAKER_01
I don t see, I know there were books, not seeing that.
14
SPEAKER_00
Okay, here s a hypothetical.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
We love Bill, he s like our favorite guy.
14
SPEAKER_00
He s our favorite.
14
SPEAKER_00
What impact does it have
14
SPEAKER_00
If you ve come to find out.
14
SPEAKER_01
Stop.
14
SPEAKER_00
Bill saw them and liked them and took them to his house and has been looking at them a lot.
14
SPEAKER_01
Dax.
14
SPEAKER_00
Sincerely, how do we file that?
14
SPEAKER_01
This is not fair to him at all.
14
SPEAKER_00
You re asking me.
14
SPEAKER_00
And it s not sexual.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, it s not.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s not?
14
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no, no.
14
SPEAKER_00
It s like nostalgia.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he just- For somebody else s life.
14
SPEAKER_00
He just loves them.
14
SPEAKER_00
He doesn t know why, but he loves looking at them.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay, and it s not sexual.
14
SPEAKER_00
Well, isn t everything sexual at some point?
14
SPEAKER_00
Exactly!
14
SPEAKER_01
That s why, okay, so you re, okay, okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
You re asking me, hypothetically, if I found out Bill was a pedophile, which is sort of what you re asking.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, that is not what I m asking.
14
SPEAKER_01
Poor Bill that we re even doing this.
14
SPEAKER_01
He doesn t deserve this.
14
SPEAKER_00
Look, that s why I m asking, because you could make a lot of assumptions about that.
14
SPEAKER_00
You could feel a lot of ways about that.
14
SPEAKER_00
You could feel like, well, this is very sad.
14
SPEAKER_00
Bill s very lonely, or he misses, or he didn t go to high school, or he s homeschooled, or whatever.
14
SPEAKER_00
He s fascinated by these.
14
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of explanations.
14
SPEAKER_00
You went right to the worst, which is reasonable.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay, first of all.
14
SPEAKER_00
And what if he looked at them every night?
14
SPEAKER_00
Like I imagine he makes himself his dinner.
14
SPEAKER_00
He s sitting by himself at a- No, he s sitting with his wife and family.
14
SPEAKER_01
A magnifying glass.
14
SPEAKER_00
Huge magnifying glass.
14
SPEAKER_00
Guys, stop, this isn t nice, okay?
14
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s not, it s so hypothetical.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, what if someone, well, I don t want Bill, he s such a good professional.
14
SPEAKER_00
He is, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
But anyway.
14
SPEAKER_00
What if he, okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh, God.
14
SPEAKER_00
Next question, because you don t like it being about Bill.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
14
SPEAKER_00
What if you found out that I ve been looking at the yearbooks?
14
SPEAKER_01
I d be like, makes sense.
14
SPEAKER_01
Very odd brand.
14
SPEAKER_01
I d say, well, what s going on?
14
SPEAKER_01
What do you like about it?
14
SPEAKER_00
Because I actually could see myself looking at your yearbook for a very long time because I majored in anthropology.
14
SPEAKER_00
I m not kidding now.
14
SPEAKER_00
I am super interested in other cultures and I would want to look at this and go like, how was this Georgia high school experience different from mine?
14
SPEAKER_00
Or how does it look similar?
14
SPEAKER_00
I could definitely spend an hour or two looking at one of your yearbooks.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, I get that.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I could also with yours.
14
SPEAKER_01
So that s why I feel I,
14
SPEAKER_00
So why aren t we assuming that s what Bill s doing?
14
SPEAKER_01
Every night before bed.
14
SPEAKER_00
I did add that.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, I said at dinner, but yeah, that is.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, whatever.
14
SPEAKER_01
Earlier than I think you said before, but you just kept throwing a bunch of spaghetti.
14
SPEAKER_01
But I also, Bill and I, as, as I adore him so much, we don t have the same kind of relationship you and I have.
14
SPEAKER_00
I know we re best friends.
14
SPEAKER_00
You and Bill are best friends.
14
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
14
SPEAKER_00
Your mother, daughter, I mean, father, daughter.
14
SPEAKER_01
I ll be, even if my dad, if my dad looked at my yearbooks every night, I would obviously not be, I wouldn t be creeped out by that.
14
SPEAKER_01
But I would say, dad, this, something feels like a little unhealthy.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, I mean, I think you really miss the past or me or something.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I understand, but we have to move on.
14
SPEAKER_00
I m still alive, dad.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
Just call me.
14
SPEAKER_00
I can t promise I won t be looking at the girl s yearbooks.
14
SPEAKER_01
Although I say that, but I do look at, like, I look at pictures of Delta all the time.
14
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, it s so, so wonderful.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
I ll definitely look at my kids  yearbooks, I think.
14
SPEAKER_01
I would look at, if the people are in your life, I just spit, people are in your life and have a relationship with, there s something very sweet about wanting to revisit their life.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and I think it s good that we talked about this, because it narrows the focus of who could be a suspect.
14
SPEAKER_01
I know the answer to the books.
14
SPEAKER_01
When I moved all the stuff into the Prius, Anna was with me.
14
SPEAKER_01
She filmed all this, because we were going to start cataloging the formation of my home.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
14
SPEAKER_00
You were potentially gonna do a rehabilitation show.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we were just gonna post some videos on Instagram for people to follow if they want it.
14
SPEAKER_01
But don t get your hopes up about that because we haven t done anything since that day.
14
SPEAKER_01
But she has all this footage.
14
SPEAKER_01
So I was with her yesterday and I was telling her about this and she s like, well, we can look.
14
SPEAKER_01
We looked, the box with the books was in the garage.
14
SPEAKER_01
I did not move it to the Prius because it was too heavy.
14
SPEAKER_01
And so I still don t know where they are.
14
SPEAKER_00
But probably somewhere in your house basement.
14
SPEAKER_01
Either in my house basement or they got thrown away.
14
SPEAKER_01
If I said anything left in there can go.
14
SPEAKER_01
And that s my worry.
14
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I m really afraid to ask Bill because I m afraid that the answer is, yes, we threw everything away.
14
SPEAKER_00
I m so sorry.
14
SPEAKER_01
Because you told us to.
14
SPEAKER_00
But what if he said I was, honey, I.
14
SPEAKER_00
I did throw it away, and as I threw it away, I was like, oh, these are good yearbooks.
14
SPEAKER_00
I wonder if these are Monica s.
14
SPEAKER_01
I would be so grateful.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it d be worth whatever he s doing with the yearbooks just to get them back.
14
SPEAKER_00
He s not doing anything bad.
14
SPEAKER_00
You d be relieved.
14
SPEAKER_00
This is the scenario.
14
SPEAKER_01
He s not doing anything.
14
SPEAKER_01
Don t do that.
14
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, I feel scared.
14
SPEAKER_01
I ve lost my past.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I understand.
14
SPEAKER_00
And you made it gross.
14
SPEAKER_00
What if you took them and refused to give them back?
14
SPEAKER_00
And it was like, finders keepers.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay, can we move on?
14
SPEAKER_01
Finders keepers.
14
SPEAKER_00
We have a lot of finders keepers.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
14
SPEAKER_01
This is such a stupid phrase.
14
SPEAKER_00
I know, I know.
14
SPEAKER_00
It s like a tribal law or something.
14
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t even, it s not even grammatically correct.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, no, keepers.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s great, though.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, well, I wanted to talk about couples therapy.
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SPEAKER_01
We haven t done that.
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SPEAKER_00
Who s this for?
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SPEAKER_01
I wanted to talk about ADHD.
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SPEAKER_01
Trevor.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, Trevor Noah.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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SPEAKER_01
Some facts.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, so he mentioned, he used the phrase, my short king, as like a joke.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And you laughed really hard, and it was funny.
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SPEAKER_01
But do you know that s a phrase?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know about short king, there s no king.
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SPEAKER_01
Short king is like a thing now.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, it is.
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SPEAKER_00
And what does it mean, exactly what I think?
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SPEAKER_01
According to Urban Dictionary, a man who realizes that his lack of height has nothing to do with his perception of his own self-worth.
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SPEAKER_00
That s great.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I ve heard it.
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SPEAKER_00
So that s what I assumed it meant, luckily.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, right, no, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
It s a thing that s been popping up around lately.
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SPEAKER_00
Zeitgeist.
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SPEAKER_01
It s in the zeitgeist, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, I just, cause we talked about apartheid a lot.
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SPEAKER_01
For people who are my gen, they ll know- That didn t watch Lethal Weapon?
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SPEAKER_01
That didn t watch Lethal Weapon, you probably watched The Color of Friendship, which was a Disney Channel movie that they played all the time.
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SPEAKER_01
And I m not sure it holds up.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t remember much about it.
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SPEAKER_01
I just remember like they played it in school and then it was on TV all the time.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
Listen, funny you d say that.
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SPEAKER_00
Ding, ding, ding.
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SPEAKER_00
Watched last night for the first time with Lincoln, Mean Girls.
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SPEAKER_00
She picked it out.
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SPEAKER_01
So good.
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SPEAKER_00
It s a phenomenal movie.
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SPEAKER_01
It s so good.
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SPEAKER_00
You can t make any of the jokes that are in it today.
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SPEAKER_01
No, I know.
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SPEAKER_00
And I was, my conclusion was like, yeah, life s just gonna be less fun.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, really.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like so good spirited and there s nothing mean about it, but you couldn t say any of the stuff, but it s so funny.
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SPEAKER_01
Depends on how you identify fun.
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SPEAKER_01
Maybe for you.
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SPEAKER_00
You loved it.
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SPEAKER_01
I did.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, everyone that saw it loved it.
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SPEAKER_00
It was a huge hit.
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SPEAKER_00
I love Negroes.
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SPEAKER_01
I think it s one of the best movies.
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SPEAKER_01
I love it.
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SPEAKER_01
But I also, I think fun can evolve, things can evolve.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t think- There s only one kind of fun.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
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SPEAKER_00
They have a new one coming out in January.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
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SPEAKER_00
I think that s maybe why she was hip to seeing the original.
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SPEAKER_00
I think that must be penetrating and it s on her radar.
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SPEAKER_00
So good.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay.
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SPEAKER_01
What year was it?
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SPEAKER_01
Cause he said it was bad at dates 1948 to early nineties.
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SPEAKER_01
Um, and I really want to talk about couples therapy, so I guess we ll do it next time.
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SPEAKER_00
That s great.
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SPEAKER_00
We ll still be passionate about it.
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SPEAKER_00
I have two more.
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SPEAKER_00
How far are you in now?
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SPEAKER_01
I watched all, I told you, I watched all of the first season one night.
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SPEAKER_01
Then I didn t watch any yesterday.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
We were at a party last night and it was with four people I had never met.
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SPEAKER_00
And some, I don t know why I said, has anyone watched Couples Therapy?
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SPEAKER_00
And everyone present had watched it and is obsessed with it.
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SPEAKER_01
Apparently it s a big thing.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I didn t know that.
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SPEAKER_00
Me either.
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SPEAKER_00
We were so out of the loop.
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SPEAKER_01
We are, we are out of the loop.
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SPEAKER_00
It s fun to see that everyone has the same feeling about it.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like,
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SPEAKER_01
It s fascinating.
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SPEAKER_00
It is.
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SPEAKER_01
It is really stressful, but not like very mundane, but stressful.
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SPEAKER_01
And life is so hard and people are so complicated.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know how anyone is doing this.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know how anyone s doing anything.
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SPEAKER_00
There s also like, there s something to be said.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, we got a guest coming in a minute.
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SPEAKER_00
What is seems to be so ubiquitous is that we,
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SPEAKER_00
tend to get attracted to people who snap right into our childhood patterns.
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SPEAKER_00
in what is familiar to us.
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SPEAKER_00
And this is what I would say is one of the downsides of not having arranged marriages.
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SPEAKER_00
Because when you have arranged marriages, that s not what s happening.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not responding to the stimuli and then ending up.
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SPEAKER_00
So I bet in just that way alone, I think arranged marriages might have like, you gotta have like a 50% better chance just because almost everyone that s in this therapy setting, it s very obvious why they got together.
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SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
Their things click in perfectly.
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SPEAKER_00
Like they both played these opposite roles in their own family and it just clicks, but then it clicks into the same cycle.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And you get stuck in this cycle.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s just funny because we, we feel liberated by pursuing relationships based on love and attraction.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
But the liberation also comes with this crazy high predictable,
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SPEAKER_01
I know, it s really hard to, it s so annoying because my therapist says a lot that like that feeling, the feeling of attraction.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the lightning bolt.
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SPEAKER_01
Is bad.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, ultimately.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and that.
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SPEAKER_00
Can make for great sex though.
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SPEAKER_00
So people should do it for a while.
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SPEAKER_01
It s when your body recognizes familiarity and if your goal, and it often is, is to like break a pattern or have something different than what was familiar, it s bad.
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SPEAKER_00
It s almost a red flag.
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SPEAKER_01
It is, it s almost a red flag.
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SPEAKER_01
But also, how the fuck can, it s like the most impossible thing to resist.
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SPEAKER_01
So why are we designed like, it s so annoying.
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SPEAKER_00
It is, but again, why are we designed that way?
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SPEAKER_00
Well, because for most of time, we didn t have marriages of love.
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SPEAKER_00
We had marriages of family arrangement.
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SPEAKER_01
But I mean, why do our bodies, they should like make, they should make us feel disgusted when it s familiar.
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SPEAKER_01
Familiar.
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SPEAKER_01
But instead it s- Jesus, horny.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t even know if it s just familiar.
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SPEAKER_01
Well, familiar to either your childhood or to- When you re parents.
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SPEAKER_01
When you re parents or your past relationships or whatever, like it s- That s why people end up dating the same person over and over and over again.
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SPEAKER_01
Over and over, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, in AA, we have take contrary action.
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SPEAKER_00
So like as a rule of thumb, when you first get sober, like try for a year to do virtually the opposite of what you always want to do, just to see what the results are.
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SPEAKER_00
Because doing what you felt right landed you here, let s admit.
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SPEAKER_00
So let s try doing the contrary, the opposite.
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SPEAKER_00
My therapists and I were just talking about that this morning.
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SPEAKER_01
What do you say?
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SPEAKER_00
I was saying that perhaps I could write a book about off-road racing as a metaphor for life.
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SPEAKER_00
Two things.
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SPEAKER_00
One is this concept of target fixation.
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SPEAKER_00
So if you re off-road racing and you come around the corner, right?
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SPEAKER_00
There s so many obstacles in off-road racing.
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SPEAKER_00
It s not a racetrack.
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SPEAKER_00
You re in the desert.
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SPEAKER_00
So you come around a corner and you re flying and you realize like, ooh, I m in route to hitting that tree that s in front of me.
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SPEAKER_00
So your brain makes you stare at that tree because you re terrified of hitting it.
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SPEAKER_00
But the car goes where your eye is.
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SPEAKER_00
That s a rule of racing.
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SPEAKER_00
Where you look is where the car goes.
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SPEAKER_00
So you look to the apex of the turn before you there, and it makes the car go there.
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SPEAKER_00
And then you re looking at the exit before you re at the apex, and then a car goes there.
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SPEAKER_00
this target fixation will make you drive directly into the tree.
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SPEAKER_00
So you have to, as a rule of thumb, learn to, you see, oh fuck, I m going to hit that rock.
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SPEAKER_00
I m going to look at this other thing, which is terrifying because you re afraid it s approaching.
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SPEAKER_00
But in doing that, you often will be able to get the car out of that.
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SPEAKER_00
And then another thing is if impact is imminent, you re heading towards a boulder.
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SPEAKER_00
Your instinct is to slam on the brakes.
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SPEAKER_00
But when you slam on the brakes on an off-road car, there s so much suspension that the front end goes down a ton.
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SPEAKER_00
So now you re hitting this object even lower, which you don t want to do, and all the weights on the front end, and the car s tilted at an angle.
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SPEAKER_00
So now when you hit this wreck, you might flip the fucking car over on a cartwheel.
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SPEAKER_00
When you know impact is imminent in off-road, or you re about to go off a cliff, or you re about to do it, which all this stuff happens, roads get washed out,
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SPEAKER_00
you floor it.
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SPEAKER_00
The second you think you re fucked, you have to floor it, which is the opposite of what your body wants to do.
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SPEAKER_00
Your body wants to hit the brake to stop.
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SPEAKER_00
But if you floor it, it actually makes the rear suspension compress.
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SPEAKER_00
It picks up the front suspension so that there s more clearance and it s really light.
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SPEAKER_00
So when you now hit that object, you re liable to deflect and just jump it as opposed to submarine and stop on impact.
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SPEAKER_00
So those are two instances.
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SPEAKER_01
But how would that relate to life?
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SPEAKER_01
Like if you re approaching something bad, you re supposed to just keep, you re supposed to double down?
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SPEAKER_00
That s where it comes into contrary action.
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SPEAKER_00
That s the metaphor.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like doing the opposite of what your body thinks it should do is often the right course of action.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve only got two so far, so it s gonna be a very short book.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
Three, four pages.
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SPEAKER_01
That s good for our attention spans these days.
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SPEAKER_00
So maybe it s more a series of tweets.
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SPEAKER_01
Sounds good.
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SPEAKER_01
All right, well I guess that s it.
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SPEAKER_00
All right, I love you.
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SPEAKER_00
Love you.
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SPEAKER_00
That was fun.
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SPEAKER_00
It s always so fun.
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SPEAKER_00
I loved Trevor Noah.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes, me too.
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SPEAKER_00
When we walked out, you said, boy, you guys are a lot alike, huh?
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SPEAKER_01
I think you re a lot alike.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I would tend to agree.
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SPEAKER_00
All right.
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SPEAKER_00
I got some yearbooks to look at.
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SPEAKER_00
Bye.
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you