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elle nash (deliver me)
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elle nash is an electrifying writer based in glasgow, scotland
this is about her book 'deliver me' -
At a meatpacking facility in the Missouri Ozarks, Dee-Dee and her co-workers kill and butcher 40,000 chickens in a single shift.
The work is repetitive and brutal, with each stab and cut a punishment to her hands and joints, but Dee-Dee’s more concerned with what is happening inside her body. After a series of devastating miscarriages, Dee-Dee has found herself pregnant, and she is determined to carry this child to term.
Dee-Dee fled the Pentecostal church years ago, but judgment follows her in the form of regular calls from her mother, whose raspy voice urges Dee-Dee to quit living in sin and marry her boyfriend Daddy, an underemployed ex-con with an insect fetish. With a child on the way, at long last Dee-Dee can bask in her mother’s and boyfriend’s newfound parturient attention. She will matter. She will be loved. She will be complete.
When her charismatic friend Sloane reappears after a twenty-year absence, feeding her insecurities and awakening suppressed desires, Dee-Dee fears she will go back to living in the shadows. Neither the ultimate indignity of yet another miscarriage nor Sloane’s own pregnancy deters her: she must prepare for the baby’s arrival.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:25
Speaker
Nash who was, I looked up the dates El, October 2023 which is a last century, last two centuries ago um ah episode number 228 and had a great conversation with you then and just like hey like welcome back to the show and talk some smart things Yeah, thanks for having me back. It's good to be here. Yeah, it does feel like it was in the last century.
00:00:50
Speaker
January itself, everyone's been making this joke, but it feels like it's been 100 days long, and I'm like, yeah, it has. has. There's been so much going on. Empirically, period that's probably not true, but it it really really it it really is. i ah ah We're going to just chat about some some different things so in in a bit
Elle Nash's Book 'Deliver Me'
00:01:11
Speaker
about... um as we get into a reception of your book, uh, deliver me, which had the opportunity to read and listen to him nice rendition, uh, audio rendition as, as, as, as well.
00:01:24
Speaker
Um, yeah, yeah. So when we talked, your book was coming out, it was right around when it was coming out and, um, you know, ah What I wanted to ask just from you as the author and and the creator of this, and um first of all, let me say a couple things about the book.
00:01:46
Speaker
ah Phenomenal. um I heard your description of like trying to maybe harangue or er get your voice into a more, I don't know regular novel format. And just...
00:02:01
Speaker
I love that because I like um poetry and in the lyricism, but I adore novels. And when there's all that space there, um I could feel and read some of the things you you were going through. But that was your big, like, you know...
00:02:17
Speaker
but I think you call it like bad bitch novel. Like this is like, here it is. And here's how you're supposed to do it. Um, uh, visceral. Um, uh, when I talked to you before, I mentioned I've been a vegan for quite some time in this role, even so much on bodies, um, uh, tearing of bodies, um, blood everywhere. Um,
00:02:41
Speaker
And it was really great to recently see Deliver Me recognized by the publication Granta, which i was like, wrote to you quickly said, holy shit, like that's like literary chops there.
00:02:57
Speaker
All right. what about the what about What about the reception of Deliver Me? What's the experience been for you as the author, creator? Yeah, it's been really good. um Yeah, it's a bit weird because it came out October 2023 in the States. And then I did like my short tour for that.
00:03:16
Speaker
And then um it was great. I mean, a lot of that just felt a bit like being able to kind of go home and hang out with friends and also meet a lot of people that I'd known online for years and years, which was really cool.
00:03:29
Speaker
um Wild to read my work at the Franklin ah Park Reading Series, which was like a packed house and well it's just a wild experience to reflect on that in terms of where I was when I first started writing and how I felt and really like feel grateful, you know, for how far I was able to go.
Connection to Scotland and Genre Reception
00:03:51
Speaker
and then it was released in the UK just this summer 2024. And that's also been really incredible. i feel like it connects with readers almost in a different way here.
00:04:03
Speaker
It was more intently marketed as horror, like a type of thriller novel. And I think that put me into the hands of a lot of very like young and really hungry readers, which was exciting to yeah to see that.
00:04:17
Speaker
um and which has been really great. and And it was also long listed for Scotland's National Book Award, which I just did not really expect, but I also feel like it gives me a lot of warmth because like I've chosen to make Scotland my home. And I've said a lot that the longer I live here, the more I'm like, this really feels like the only place that's felt like a home.
00:04:40
Speaker
because I was a military brat, you know, i kind of grew up outside of like everyone's culture in a way. And here I'm like, I feel like I belong and I have great community. And I think to have my work, like not being Scottish author and the book, not even being based in Scotland be long listed, like for a national award feels pretty amazing. want to stop you. I want to stop you. There's that. No, i didn't even I didn't even know that piece of it. Congratulations. I think there's so much there about what you have to say about the recognition of it, particularly, you know, is you know outsider status or feelings of that, but also belonging.
00:05:17
Speaker
But um I can't imagine that feeling when you're somewhere else and they're like, You know, this is in the language outside of all the politics. This is, and I'm happy to happy to happy to hear that.
00:05:30
Speaker
So you were talking about over there, maybe um ah some contact unexpected with the younger readership, horror. And then as far as the U.S. in your interaction and in feeling with it, has it been a different, you know, kind of like different vibe or different things?
00:05:49
Speaker
I don't know, it's hard to say. Part of it's tough because I don't know where the you know how far the book spreads or who's reading it per se, right? yeah um But I do feel like it's been a good way to like break into that horror world and like see what else is out there. like I think it's been reaching there.
00:06:04
Speaker
I just think the publisher kind of marketed more as like a literary fiction novel, you know, rather than specifically something that is more genre. And that makes sense because it doesn't really have like specific genre conventions. Right.
00:06:18
Speaker
Um, it kind of like lives in between, but I think what I've seen or what I suspect is that it seems like the UK, like literary culture is a little bit more forgiving of things that don't fit neatly inside of particular boxes.
00:06:31
Speaker
um So that's, you know, that's been really nice. um And maybe I'm just seeing it more as well because I live here now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. um No, it's, I think, you know, I mean, in genre and categories, I'm sure every interview you grapple with that. And it's like, I don't know what it is Music, you know, like, I don't know. Yeah.
00:06:53
Speaker
But um I think horror only just in a sense, not even genre-wise, but just like um within the visceral reactions I had to it, right of seeing ah being placed in the position of seeing.
Mechanization and Literary Themes
00:07:06
Speaker
And I think there's something, you know a philosophy podcast, there's something just really incredible about the connection between that kind of organic slaughter blood and the mechanics of the timer that I've heard you talk point out, but are in the book, but just the idea of the mechanization of the death and counting time by death. ah There's just kind of this combination of time of like the mechanical and the ah horror like in front the death.
00:07:43
Speaker
at least for your main characters work. Yeah. um Yeah. And it feels, I mean, it's, it feels very pertinent and I think it still feels pertinent to me as well. Even like not even necessarily being vegan, but thinking about like the mechanization of like how things are created to produce,
00:08:01
Speaker
you know, themselves in order to become consumed and how it's like kind of on a conveyor belt of only ever increasing productivity. I thought about this recently cause I just saw this, like I saw some graph, like there's always infographs floating around about, um,
00:08:17
Speaker
there was like, you know, all these arguments on Twitter all the time about whether or not people should be paid like a living wage and how the living wage, the federal living wage hasn't increased, you know, since I don't know, like 1998 or something. It's still like 725 an hour. And yet like outputs on worker productivity have been only steadily increasing. And I kind of think about it in the same way, even like metaphorically, if you think about, you know, the way that they are not just like genetically modifying and breeding chickens to,
00:08:46
Speaker
you know, pack on more and more like meat under their bodies, you know, but even after that, they still will in the, like right after they'll like pump them full full of saline to make them look even plumper, but it's not real. Right. It's kind of like a false, like it's a false image of how much meat is really there. Cause you know, then if you ever cook it, all that weird white stuff comes out.
00:09:09
Speaker
Like that's all. Yeah. Yeah, it's like um like the filling like the female bodies too in that too. like just yeah kind of um i I'm sorry, i didn't mean to interrupt and interrupt your flow there but um and just so there's this kind of artificiality and um ah to one One of the pieces when you're talking about this mechanization, I remember there's a philosopher last name Spencer who they had studied, did all these famous time studies at the early 20th century.
00:09:49
Speaker
And these were things like workers processing and doing all these things downed and lighting and use all this stuff to scientifically study productivity and output. And what was fascinating to me is Lenin, Vladimir Lenin became fascinated this in not in a way that I think kind of twisted the way history went. It was kind of like almost like that type of productivity for the state.
00:10:12
Speaker
Like he was as fascinated by it so if you're still looking at workers, I don't know. I don't know how I got to that point. But I was just saying as far as how you look at time and like what that's meant for and like politically like what the aims are of that. So, yeah. ah Well, it's very much like, I mean, it's, it's very much as like, it's looking at the human, like as a resource for either the corporation or the state.
00:10:41
Speaker
And it makes me think, I mean, that's like, when I think about human resources, it's like, not that maybe every human person in human resources, like believes that that's the case, but like the human resource department is there because it's facilitating humans as a resource, you know?
00:10:57
Speaker
I know. I know. yeah All right. ah So much, so much to talk
Influence of David Lynch
00:11:03
Speaker
about. Let's, let's, let's keep David Lynch, David Lynch passed away. And um i haven't really dealt with that. Like, and we're recording here in February, 2025 and um like super just I don't know, words can't describe for me. But like I do have a simple question for you. I guess I'm going to ask you, Ed.
00:11:26
Speaker
As far as um David Lynch, art, painting, photography, film, um complicated depictions of women, ah heroines.
00:11:38
Speaker
What does David Lynch mean to you, Elle Nash, is like as a creator and artist? Yeah. See, I came to David Lynch quite late in my life because, um like, for example, everyone I knew that knew about Twin Peaks is like they watched it as a kid or like their parents watched it or something.
00:11:54
Speaker
And my parents never did. I like never knew that this was a thing. Like if you would have told me it was a national sensation at the time when it came out, I was like, I just don't. i've I've always been shielded from that. And I kind of wonder if Like, I kind of want to ask, like, my parents and be like, did you watch this? And, like, I didn't know because um'm like, how did we miss this huge, like, cultural moment?
00:12:15
Speaker
i But for me, i mean, he does mean a lot to me in part because... He is such a huge proponent of the desire to create and also the fundamental belief that you don't have to suffer to create and or to make, you know, to art that depicts suffering. And that's like a Ben...
00:12:39
Speaker
a thing I think that I've struggled with like on a spiritual sense for many, many years that like, even i think like last year I did like a sense of therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy for a while. And one of the questions, like for the goals I came up with with therapists was I'm going to try to finally unwrap this idea that I have to be suffering to like make good art.
00:13:00
Speaker
And then when we got through a lot of other stuff, she was like, do you still want to work on this? And I was like, you know what? I don't think I do. like yeah You know, it was like, I think I'm going to work it out in the art rather than like the therapy. But I still think about it a lot. But I think continuously coming back to Lynch and his him being a proponent of um meditation and specifically like, you know, transcendental meditation. But any meditation for me is important.
00:13:27
Speaker
um It just gives me. a kind of faith and hope that I can continue to make positive progress on myself, like do my inner work and that it's not going to damage my desire or ability to create, but hopefully like deepen it.
00:13:46
Speaker
But it's a fear, you know, like that's a real fear. And I think that's what he means to me. um Like even, so i remember the first time I watched Mulholland drive, i was like,
00:13:59
Speaker
I think I was just so amaze ah how ah maybe it's just like me being my i naive, but I was like so amazed at like how progressive it was in terms of like the complicated women and also it being like super gay and all that. Like, I was like, I had no idea. And I just feel like there's, you know, for me, like growing up, I was like, oh man, I would have died to see these kinds of films when I was like a teenager or like in my very early twenties, you know? um So like that also is inspiring. And,
00:14:33
Speaker
I don't know. I also just kind of love... I love that he forces you to like question like the abstract nature of his films with refusing to explain it in a way. But he does it in a way that's like...
00:14:53
Speaker
there's other filmmakers that do this, like Ari Oster is another one, but I just feel like Ari Oster is just like not as good at it. And almost he like kind of ruins his own film sometimes, but not that his films are bad. Like they are you know, like Beau's afraid was like a pretty brilliant, um except for like one thing that I hated, but, and but I feel like Lynch, like,
00:15:13
Speaker
just did a great job of being like, no, like the cinema is where it is and that's where it lives. And there's no, you know, I'm not going further than that. This is where I'm expressing this, which um is admirable and also frustrating probably for like every single art student out there who's forced to write about all the reasons why they do things in their work.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me, particularly with some of the training. I mean, there's an absurdity to some of the questions. Like you answered the last time we talked, you know, what is art? Why is there something rather than nothing? And I always seen within like Lynch that there's this kind of like joking spirit, right? Like, yeah um you know, can you explain, you know, why you why you did that? No.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I mean, like, it the evidence is is in front of you. And that's that's that's so inviting. But I think one of the things that's come up, um definitely as a theme throughout the entire show, is exactly what you mentioned. It's like, it's not an either or, but it has something to do with, like, how you create from, like, and David Lynch would be like...
00:16:21
Speaker
place of peace and that you're observing things going past you where like in suffering, it's almost like you're wrestling with demons, you're creating your demons or like addiction and terror and like grabbing at it. And you know I think people feel intuitively the approach or the way it should be is is David Lynch and maybe that's the way it all is, but it's like mixed up for folks right like of how they're inspired to create. but um I think it's really important that what David Lynch pointed out for artists because the kind of culture of death and suffering for the creators is can be like a really tough burden. right If that's the only like way.
00:17:07
Speaker
you know um I always think of Russian literature when I'm thinking the the opposite side of it and Dostoevsky of like intense suffering, intense, intense, intense Christian suffering and yeah anguish is anguish and anguish and then stormy.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like was Dostoevsky okay? Yeah, I mean, you know. um Hey, ah large question.
Language and Meaning in Modern Communication
00:17:35
Speaker
ah Are words losing meaning?
00:17:40
Speaker
Like nowadays, like, I don't know, last few years, politically, I go around and you hear, you hear, and it's not just hearing the same weird things, but ah trying to, words seem to be
00:17:57
Speaker
Looser. Have they lost meaning? Have they lost meaning recently? Do you mean like in the sense of how or we've come to have like an internetization of our language? Or do you mean like the intent behind them?
00:18:14
Speaker
Well, I mean... um I would say clumsy in as many syllables as like pull it together, internetization like like like that. that um Maybe think about in the terms of like ah intellectually that,
00:18:31
Speaker
Like, where are the forums to communicate things and what meanings words are accepted to have in, like, discourse in, like, 2025? Does that make any sense? Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, it does. I've actually... i think i think I understand what you're saying. I've actually had a lot of thoughts about this, and I feel like... It's like, one day i want to write about this somehow, where... Um, there, because of those, because those forums reward, ah virality, you know, um what happens is like, you know, when you get like a phrase that becomes a meme and like that phrase is something like, I wish I could think of someone like right off the top of my head.
00:19:11
Speaker
yeah. Used to come out of like Saturday Night Live and stuff like that. Some sort of funny, like catchy thing. Yeah. And then now it will be like me and who, you know, or whatever, like those kinds of things.
00:19:22
Speaker
And a lot of these phrases, what happens is I think this, I've thought about this a lot. um And maybe it's like, you could call it like the TikTok-ification of language where... a phrase becomes a meme, like it goes viral.
00:19:35
Speaker
And then what happens is like it kind of gets in your head. And then when it gets in your head, one thing that I think is really interesting is that I feel like there's the reason why I think it's not like dangerous, like we should all like run away from it or ban it, but more like, I think there's like almost an internal danger to it in terms of like how language helps us think and like helps us be free.
00:19:56
Speaker
Because I think that it collapses our mode of expression into something that's really simple. It's like a simple packet of information. and then we like, and then we, and then when we express it,
00:20:07
Speaker
we're like reconfirming for ourselves that we're expressing it through this very limited packet of information rather than like our own, our own natural like voice or thought patterns. And I almost think like, like if you do, like I want, like I try to stay on Twitter now a bit because of this, I think like if you do it too much, you almost like limit your ability to um think more outside of this realm. Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
Which is kind of fascinating to me because I think it's more than just like using slang or anything like that. It's not just, it's not like slang for something, but it's more like how we take this huge thing that could be expressible in like these various ways, but then it becomes like collapse this way, you know? yeah um And I do think like, yeah, I do think that that is happening a lot. And I do sometimes find that when I go online and I'm like reading the threads or meeting forums, but specifically when it's like on a place where a lot of arguments are happening, like Twitter, I'll find myself like struggling a bit to be like, what are they like actually saying? Like,
00:21:16
Speaker
i like Am I dumb? like Am I not getting this? And it's not in a way of not understanding the slang or their intent. It's more like the like the act my actual comprehension of it is like...
00:21:28
Speaker
I think this is what they're saying, but like, I can't be sure. and there's a lot of things going on there. Part of it is like not understanding intent. It's also not having like the massive other amount um amount, amount of information you get from communicating with someone like person or face face.
00:21:42
Speaker
Um, but it's also just like that. I think it is that collapsing of the ways that things are expressed that make it like harder in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's something about like exchange in there, I think too, like about like almost like market exchange and what's used to like enter, like there's this narrowing of like how you can frame complicated thought that might be your, in your head through the interface that people would consider it via like image or text or. Yeah. Yeah. it is like yeah yeah
00:22:14
Speaker
It is a narrowing. You're right. I was just thinking that because of the way that like those packets have to exist. Um, you can't possibly try to make it all encompassing. And then if you don't make it all encompassing, you still get like attacked from all these like little different angles on it.
00:22:30
Speaker
So it becomes hard to even just have a deeply nuanced conversation, which I think in some ways, because the way that our brains work with building neural pathways and like how, you know, once a thought goes, it's like building that little bridge, you do that enough And then that I think it has an effect inside the mind, right? Like it's not just how we're interacting with it. It's changing us as we're interacting with it day on day on day.
00:22:55
Speaker
um It's very interesting. I don't know if it's like if language is dying per se, but it but it is I don't know how to, I don't know how i feel about it. It makes me want protect my brain.
00:23:07
Speaker
ah no like I don't have, like i even on the answer to that, but I think part of the, this i just think of disruption. I think it's, it's like up to like, maybe like poetry to queer it up or like, you know, like, cause for me, I don't know if the word is reduction, but there's always like a beautiful reduction of of poetry to,
00:23:28
Speaker
pull the extremely complicated, like the feeling that are within there and grab it all and and with like economy and pizazz. I don't know. That's that's a real... and but but but But there's something there about the form communication that can kind of disrupt just this Easy exchange or maybe more vacuous.
00:23:54
Speaker
ah Wow. Well, you're working on that one. So when you get the answer to that one finished in your. How's the golf book club going on your Patreon? How's that going?
00:24:05
Speaker
So um I paused it last semester because I'm teaching now um at a university just as like a graduate teaching assistant. And so I just paused it because I was like, I need like, I just need like a break, but I have, but I have just restarted it. And all it's now on Substack, which I just feel is a little bit easier. easier to communicate with people. Yeah. And like get it out.
00:24:32
Speaker
um And the next, One, the next meeting we're having is on the 23rd of February, which is a Sunday, and we're talking about Eileen Wuornos.
00:24:43
Speaker
um There's collected letters put out by Soft School Press, I believe. There is? Yeah. of letters that she Yeah, of letters that she wrote to her childhood best friend, Dawn, while she was in prison awaiting um her execution.
00:25:04
Speaker
and I just started the book and um it's so it's really good so far. Like, I really enjoy it. love reading letters. Yeah. I... yeah I, uh, wow.
00:25:16
Speaker
Well, yes, I'm going to look for that one too. Yeah. ah Talk about a cool ah book club. Come on folks. Uh, no, check it. always see that. I always love the name and love, uh, seeing that.
00:25:28
Speaker
Um, thank you yeah, yeah. That's, that, that's a lot of fun. So, so l when i was when i when I was listening to talk about ah your writing and your creation of characters, and there's something, too, about the David Lynch question I had in my head around this type of time.
Character Formation and Meditation
00:25:48
Speaker
And a couple concepts I had about like thinking about characters or people, if we start like with... ah like the Lynch, the the idea that goes way back in the Tibetan culture, of the Tulpa, which is like this kind of like formless mass, clay.
00:26:07
Speaker
i think of the Gollum Jewish tradition, but of this clay. And the idea of, you know, within this body or mass is that there's this intense meditation that can...
00:26:18
Speaker
uh, vivify or give some form of life to either in the form of it breaking into a horror or that given consciousness of that, uh, of a duplicate or a model or a friend.
00:26:34
Speaker
Um, so that's like one distinct concept. And the other concept I was thinking about when it comes to like characters and people and how they're formed in real and in fiction is like, um,
00:26:47
Speaker
the concept Tibetan Buddhism, the Skandas, bundle, most like ah the idea of like bundles of sticks. You can even think about the rope around the sticks. so We had like this concentration that is El, that is Ken, collected in this way, but it's really like a myriad of perceptions, ideas,
00:27:11
Speaker
outbursts, creativity, you know. So um i was just thinking about it in that type of backdrop and maybe with the Lynch stuff of um maybe thinking about your characters and the the formation of them and of whether those two approaches kind of like, kind of the interface for you to talk about them.
00:27:35
Speaker
Hmm, that's a really good question. i have actually, i mean, so i meditat i do meditate a lot and i do i do a lot of like kind of ritual practice stuff that you could classify as like magic, but always talking about magic sometimes feels like cheesy, which is funny because people are like, oh, it's magic.
00:27:56
Speaker
But um for me, I've never thought about like character creation as like a thought form that you are like bundling off as part of your psyche in a way. This is really interesting. um Like tulpas are...
00:28:18
Speaker
curious to me because they kind of have they're similar to like in chaos magic what you would call like a servitor or like an egregore where it's like this thing that you are constantly thinking about and feeding in a way and it's like this this portion of your mind that you are like bundling off you know and then kind of snipping and it's still sometimes somewhat a part of you but then it's also separate in its own thing right um And like, I've always thought about that stuff in terms of like magic when like I have a particular goal in mind or I'm wanting to get something done and I'm using rituals like help me get there.
00:28:58
Speaker
But I've never thought about specifically doing that, like in my fiction in terms of like how I'm interacting with them and like thinking about it in that structure. It's almost like, I guess when I'm writing and I'm creating characters, they do like live in their world, but
00:29:15
Speaker
they're all but they're all I don't know. this is a really good question. I'm like, are they part of me or you're not? I think one thing I've always said... i'm not supposed to complicate any of your processes. but these questions No, it's interesting. It's interesting. I really like it. Well, the thing is, it's like...
00:29:30
Speaker
I've always said so as someone who's like written, I guess what you could call auto fiction, there's always been like that, you know, argument of like, well, is this you or is this not what's true and what's not true. And I've always, always, always said and believed, like, once I put that person on the page, it doesn't matter if it's me or even if something I've written about has happened in my real life, that page, that person on that page is completely separate. for me like that's a different kind of thing and that's not just what i that's not just for me to like get some free pass or whatever it's more just like what i am creating is completely i've always seen it as something that's completely separate from like myself like what you would call i guess that skanda like that bundle of like ego personal identity or whatever but
00:30:16
Speaker
but But my belief brought my beliefs and my processes are always changing. And recently I've been thinking a lot more about like how...
00:30:31
Speaker
when we interact with things, we're really not separate from them at all. You know, like it's, it's, we create like a word boundaries because psychologically it's important and safe for us to stay grounded.
00:30:43
Speaker
But when you go deeper, like when you're meditating and you're thinking about consciousness and non-duality and you go deeper into it, that boundary actually kind of doesn't really exist.
00:30:55
Speaker
However, it's considered like a conventional truth in Buddhism to say that this boundary does exist in the real world so we can maintain our lives at the same time while we are doing this kind of practice.
00:31:08
Speaker
And so I'm like, I don't know, maybe it's not that separate or maybe I should be like thinking more about my characters in this kind of state. I wonder what would like happen with the work if I did that.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's very, it's very interesting thought. yeah I love that. No, I love the conversation. i wanted to tell you being my, my, my background and training is, is, is literature. It's just books. I think maybe just call it books, um, you know, outside of the other stuff, um, that I do. But for me, there was a piece of this and this question that, um, at least at this moment, like it really, really brings me to a particular book in particular author. And, um,
00:31:54
Speaker
The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner. And the reason I think that is maybe I was just reminded of it because I think it's in ah public access. What do you call that now? The copyright is expired or, you know, so yeah it's like in the public, it's in the public domain, but...
00:32:11
Speaker
There's something about that structure I thought about um ah in time of like at that time you had um like the change but of Einstein and quantum physics and you had all these disruptive questions of space and time.
00:32:22
Speaker
But I also think like right at that time, ah had something to do with the, it had something to do with the, um um bundles or impressions in the short ah chapters.
00:32:39
Speaker
Like, ah there would be impressionistic chapters. So, like, i always thought of that book going back as this kind of, like, maybe yeah ah non-unified ego, revolutionary type of ah structural thing. Anyways, that's my homage to ah Faulkner and what I thought, you know, about this. But, um...
00:33:02
Speaker
Yeah, it wass just interesting. um the That word's is a little mundane, but just like to encounter this type of thought and how I was thinking of it in terms of like your writing and your comments about your writing. so yeah Yeah, love it.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, I've never read um've never read Faulkner, so maybe I should, just to see. um But yeah, that's really interesting. I'm kind of obsessed with quantum physics theory and stuff too, in terms of Thinking about consciousness and how we can affect consciousness and like the the very concrete reasons why meditation or ritual, for example, is so interesting and affecting like on the mind. Yeah.
00:33:50
Speaker
In part because, i mean, I don't know, there's just, there's a lot there and I'm not like a scientist, so I can't really say for sure. But even just the idea of like how, when we observe a particle, it changes that process of observation changes it from like a, like a sound to, or like a wave to like a particle or whatever that process is. yeah But think if you think about just that process of observation, when you are sitting and meditating, like that's part of what you're doing. You're just observing.
00:34:18
Speaker
And then through observing, like the relationship changes like something's changing there and i'm just very fascinated by by that and questions of whether or not we actually have free will you know um and or you know what i mean or if we do how much how much control do we have like that kind of thing yeah i um i like that in the terms of like being able to observe with within meditation is like the um the thoughts, the ideas that which was so important becomes like less important to you.
Meditation, Consciousness, and Quantum Physics
00:34:53
Speaker
and One of the biggest, best visuals for me has always been when I was trained to snip the strings of the balloons that are like all in here.
00:35:03
Speaker
and snipping those strings and kind of like they float off and you can kind of just like see them in a different way and i've always liked how like yeah you know a buddhism like i could we can both like uh you know do the 2000 page like book of like deep dedication or like we can see something goofy or get hit by an apple and be like oh shit like I get it now. So, um, no, it's really, it's really nice to talk to you, ah talk to you about, ah about that stuff. And I think for me, like and not to overplay, and I know some folks have done it like critically, but for me, I think there's something in my head about that.
00:35:46
Speaker
Uh, there's this intersection of like really acquiring up of Newtonian physics with like quantum mechanics and like, and, um, I think that novel right around plays with that. And so it becomes a philosopher's dream.
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:36:02
Speaker
philosophers dream so ah ah El, El, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for chatting again. And ah thanks for everything you create. And I'm sure we'll chat again soon and like, ah and then we'll you know, kick it around again. So thank you so much for popping on again. I really appreciate it. It's a good conversation.
00:36:26
Speaker
Take care, El. Thanks.
00:36:37
Speaker
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00:36:47
Speaker
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Speaker
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