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The Sober Road Goes On and On (with special guest Bryan Nothling)
164 Plays1 year ago
This week on a very special episode of Friendless, your pal and host James Avramenko welcomes back Bryan Nothling aka The Bnoth. In a candid conversation between two creative souls, they dive deep into the unpredictable waters of success and the unspoken financial challenges artists contend with. Both share personal anecdotes from their stints in alternate careers, like plumbing and blacksmithing, and discuss the physical and psychological toll these jobs took on them.
The episode shifts to more existential topics, opening up a discussion on the nuanced meaning of friendship, the pursuit of a sober life, and the complexities of grieving and forgiving oneself.
Bryan and James touch upon the critical notion of community and how artistry, recovery, and human connection interplay in their lives. They explore their responsibilities within these communities, the impact of addiction, and how sobriety has shaped their personal growth and creative output.
Listeners are also privy to their thoughts on the contemporary housing crisis, the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical and mental health, and the collective trauma society is yet to address fully.
Amidst the heavy topics, there’s also room for lighter, albeit peculiar, conversations about blacksmithing, the taboo around eating certain meats, and the questionable ethics of animal breeding.
In an inspiring turn, James thanks Bryan for his role in his sobriety journey, and they discuss celebrating life's small victories, including Bryan's tips for finding joy in the everyday. Towards the end, Bryan leaves us with actionable advice urging listeners to craft deeper connections through kindness, setting the tone for a parting message filled with hope and encouragement.
Catch this episode for an intimate exploration of sobriety, creativity, the power of human connection, and how to navigate life's complexities—one day and one kind word at a time.
Remember to follow the journey, leave a review, sign up for the newsletter, and join us next time on Friendless for more thoughtful exchanges.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Welcome
00:00:08
Speaker
Well hey there sweet peas, welcome back to Friendless. I'm your host James Avermako with a very special guest, the return of the one, the only, Brian Knothling aka The Beanoth. This was a little bit of an experimental episode, we'd more just kind of chat for an hour and just kind of see where the conversation goes.
Sobriety and Celebrating Mediocrity
00:00:26
Speaker
We talk about how Brian has helped me along my sobriety journey, how the meaning of friendship has changed for us throughout the years, how to celebrate mediocrity, and so much more. It was such a pleasure getting Brian back on the show, and I know you're gonna love this one, so settle in, get comfy, set your volume at a reasonable level, and enjoy my interview with one and only Brian Knopfling, here on Friendless. How the fuck are you today? Hello. I'm, uh... I'm great. I, uh...
Therapy, Comfort Zones, and Routine Challenges
00:01:19
Speaker
I talked about this podcast in therapy this morning.
00:01:25
Speaker
I have this day, but the podcast, I should not do it because it, but, and then I have to, and I have to tell my therapist that because then my therapist will be like, here's why you don't want to do that. It's because of this, this and this. And I'm like, Oh, I'll do it then. So it's like, we're trying to pull myself out of the habit of being like, it's safe on the couch, doing my routine because it's not serving me anymore.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm
Mindfulness and Protective Thoughts
00:01:54
Speaker
with you 100%. I get it. Man, you know, coming back into the routine of recording, you know, recording interviews and getting that back into my weekly routine has been tough because I'm with you. The way you framed it of like any deviation from what I'm comfortable with, I'm instantly
00:02:13
Speaker
Resistant to even if I want to do it, even if in my in my bones I'm like I want to do this thing It's still like mmm, but it will probably suck. So you probably should just not do it Yeah, and it's like and and what I have to do now is Like be do mindfulness that fucking shit Do mindfulness and be like what? Like why are these thoughts coming?
00:02:42
Speaker
What pattern from my family of origin is causing this thought to occur? And then from that, I will realize the thought is, for lack of a better term, not real.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lie. You know, it's like so many of our thoughts are just lies. I was just literally this morning, I was teaching a class about imposter syndrome and I was talking about how, you know, our, our thoughts are, I mean, there's the whole, you talk about mindfulness and that's one of the cores, right? Is that you aren't your thoughts, that a thought is something that appears that you interact with and you decide whether or not to kind of
00:03:21
Speaker
follow it along the path, right?
Passion vs Plan B in Creative Success
00:03:24
Speaker
And the problem is the vast majority of her thoughts are bullshit, you know? Because they're all designed to be like protective and they're designed to keep you rooted wherever you are because that's, you know, what's real and what's, or it's not even that, it's that it's like we trick ourselves into thinking that thoughts are real. When in fact, we're just, I'm just sitting here,
00:03:47
Speaker
talking to a friend, but in my brain, I'm like, I'm in danger, you know, because of this totally. And it doesn't make any sense anymore. Like I originally went to him because I, I, I felt like I wasn't doing anything with my time and, and I wanted like tools to like learn how to manage my time better or some shit. And very quickly he's like, well, that's like, that's not what you need.
00:04:15
Speaker
You know, it's not it's not tools. It's two patterns And then you're just gonna have to find out what they are and then you're gonna have to realize they're happening and then stop them Yeah, yeah I've been with my guy I've been with my guy Scott for four years now and we're at a stage where like
00:04:41
Speaker
I can just get like comfortably so mad at him for being right that I love I love that so much you know I'm at that stage of where where because he knows he knows what I'm gonna do he knows how I'm gonna react he knows what I'm what's gonna happen and
00:04:56
Speaker
he's still gonna say it he's not gonna dance around it he's not gonna put it but he also knows i'm gonna get pissed off you know and it's fun it's nice you know it's it's it's a it's a really i consider myself very privileged to be able to like have that type of relationship with my therapist you know and what you said about
00:05:17
Speaker
You know, you go to therapy thinking this is going to be the answer and this is, you know, he's going to give me this set of tools and I'm just going to apply those tools. And then instead it's like, Oh, no, no, no. What the actual problem is so much deeper and, and you're going to be working on this the rest of your life. Yeah, that, and like, perhaps there is no solution, but some sort of acceptance of certain things and you're just going to have to be fine with that.
Community's Role in Artistic Success
00:05:44
Speaker
It's, uh, it's interesting. I've been thinking like a lot about dissonance from, um, we're like relatively the same age. And I always think about how, um, when I was growing up, there was such a push on to tell your children to follow their dreams and to tell your children to like find their passion and do what they love. And they'll never work a day in your life, in their life. And then.
00:06:13
Speaker
somewhere in my childhood, I think there was a switch that happened. And it happened right when we were like, be hitting puberty almost, where I think people realized our parents realized that might have been a mistake. And like the parenting changed in a way. And they were like, no,
00:06:37
Speaker
How about something else? Like you need a plan B, you need to do all these other things because I remember just these two distinct forms of parenting and I couldn't make sense of why it changed because it's simply such good advice to like follow your dreams and do what you like. And then all of a sudden they were like, no, not actor. Don't be an artist. Please go into computers.
00:07:00
Speaker
I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that when you go into those untrodden paths, when you're going into the creative industry, there's no set number of steps from entry to success, because you're cutting your own path. And I think that what people don't realize is that no artist is successful alone. They're successful because of the network around them, and they're successful because of the community.
00:07:29
Speaker
props them up, you know? I often think about, like, stories, like, you hear, you know, I default to, like, because I know so much about him, like, Bob Dylan, right? And you think this is just, like, some guy who just came from the middle of nowhere, he showed up with his guitar, and he wrote incredible songs. And what you don't hear about is that, like, he got put up by friends of his, and they let him live for free on their couch for years.
00:07:53
Speaker
where all he had to do was just write music and smoke cigarettes while they were like going out and working and paying rent and buying groceries, you know? And so like, if he didn't have that network behind him, there would have been no Bob Dylan, you know? And I think that what our parents partially realized was that like,
Creative vs Manual Labor Experiences
00:08:12
Speaker
to encourage your child to grow up to be a poet is not to encourage them to go out and be by themselves and to be self-sustainable and to be, you know, and and so, you know, I don't think they were prepared to provide the community that would be necessary for following one's dreams. You know, yeah, that may be a bit too cynical. I don't know. I don't know if it was necessarily like as mindful as that, but it's like they wanted, you know, it's that whole adage of like when you're 18, you're on your own. Right. You know,
00:08:42
Speaker
And it's not sustainable to follow your dreams without safety nets in place, you know? Yeah. It just is unfortunate that. The like the like plan B that they talked about at the time. Was like a decent middle class career, you know, get a job making fifty, sixty thousand dollars a year and then do your art. And now that's paycheck paycheck. That's that's exactly right. You can't. That's nothing now like.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's wild to think at the time, like nobody was preparing us for that, because nobody knew this was coming. And so there was nobody being like, actually, you need to make $150,000 a year, if you want to live in a city, and like be comfortable and know, Jesus, they knew this was going to be happening, they would have liked
00:09:34
Speaker
beat me over the head with a law textbook or something. Oh, yeah. They'd be like, oh, you're you're in the trains. You're going to go be a plumber and you're done. You know, no question. Right. I tried. I tried to be a plumber. My dad's a plumber. I was so bad at plumbing. I was a plumber's helper for a while. Like I was all right, I guess. But.
00:09:52
Speaker
I could tell he was like, Oh, fuck. Why is he on the job site? This kid, I just watched him in a play. I just watched him do musical theater the other night and now he's like on the job site. I'm sure it wasn't that bad. He was a very, my father's a sweet man, but I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not long for the pipe and the wrench.
Humor in Labor and Animal Norms
00:10:19
Speaker
Oh my God, I've I've tried manual labor in the past and every time I've ended my day crying, you know, like just tears on tears on tears. But well, didn't you work a day once at the labor place I used to? Yeah, a couple of times. That was a hundred bucks cash. They just put you on a site. You just like try not to die, you know. Yeah. And then you're with people that are like doing math. Oh, yeah.
00:10:49
Speaker
Like it was, it was like, Oh, I always watched the sober people fail at the job. And the people that were like, you know, Hey, can I get 10 bucks advance on my paycheck? And that was, I was like 19. I had no idea what was going on at the time. Now I know. Yeah. Oh yeah. And they'd call me up and they'd be like, yeah, the foreman, they would call me up and be like, this is the hardest worker you've ever sent me. Please like send him back tomorrow.
00:11:18
Speaker
And I'm like, well, he's off fucking smoking crack, buddy. Like you give him a little nook to go smoke crack. He's going to be there all day. Like who am I to say they were all good. They were holding down jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. No judgment for it. It's just that it's like, it's not the mindset I wanted to show up for working, you know? No, absolutely.
00:11:42
Speaker
Oh my God. It just makes me think of, you know, I worked as a, I worked as a blacksmith that one summer in, in Barkerville and I like genuinely ran a forge and my very first day on the job, uh, my boss who was like a professional farrier in real life. Um, he had me just sledgehammering all day for eight hours. I just, in the morning, here's your sledgehammer. We're going to be doing this and all day. And, and I.
00:12:06
Speaker
I had blisters on top of my blisters on every pad, every pad of my finger, every pad of my palm, everything was just one open wound. I remember at lunch, his wife brought me a sandwich because I hadn't had time to get groceries yet. I literally got to town the day before.
00:12:25
Speaker
I couldn't hold the sandwich because I couldn't like close my hands and it fell in the dirt as I was trying to eat it. And I looked at it and I and I picked it up and I dusted it off and I just ate it while weeping because I was like, yeah, this is the life of a blacksmith. Literally, that is literally right, man. You know, they play tough, but they are they are just soft, sad boys deep down. You know, sure. I mean,
00:12:55
Speaker
I guess, like, I don't even, like, I imagine it is still somewhat of an essential job, but it's not like you're making anything cool in your day to day. I suppose you make like a sword or two in your off time, but mainly it's horseshoes and shit. It's artisanal now, right? You know, because it's like a farrier is different from a blacksmith. A farrier is somebody who's just actively working with horses. Right. And, and, Oh yeah. I watched those videos of farriers.
00:13:22
Speaker
It's incredible. Digging into horse hooves and shit. Yeah. It's unbelievable work. And when you see a guy who knows what he's doing. I still can't fathom that that's a horse's fingernail. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? It looks painful. Oh, yeah. My fingernails don't hurt when I cut them. So that's what that is.
00:13:43
Speaker
Well, but also like a horse is a deeply absurd animal. Like the whole the whole the what is it? What is it called? Like the makeup of a horse is baffling. I don't know how they evolved to be what they are, but essentially they run on four fingers.
00:14:00
Speaker
And they are not like built to survive. They're the way their insides work is absurd and they should not be able to live the way they do, which is probably why they die
Sobriety Journey and Support
00:14:12
Speaker
so easily. But, you know, that's why we should eat them. Honestly, probably, you know, I can't imagine it would be very good meat. What have you ever tried horse meat? No, I tried caribou, though it was gaming. Yeah, yeah, thick. Yeah, wasn't for me.
00:14:32
Speaker
I remember getting high and watching Planet Earth and seeing the migration of the caribou, the millions and millions of caribou and thinking like, well, we're never going to run out of food. I don't know what the fuck people are talking about. Look at all these goddamn caribou. Why don't we eat some of them? I'm trying to remember.
00:14:56
Speaker
about how if we culturally got to the point where we were okay with eating dogs, we would solve the world hunger crisis overnight because it's good meat and it's really nutritious. It's just that it's like then you're eating Fido, you know? Right. I guess they have a lot of babies, don't they?
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And there's so many strays everywhere, you know, you think about like, all the people who adopted dogs over lockdown, and then we're like, Ooh, this is too much. And so they just like open the door and let them out, you know, like, you could probably feed the country on stray dogs alone, let alone, you know, whatever inevitable industry that came out of it, right? I mean, fingers crossed, I guess.
00:15:42
Speaker
We're going in the opposite direction though. Like there are places that did have a dog meat trade that no longer do. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be quite some time. It just breaks my heart because pigs are so smart. Like pigs are one of the most brilliant animals. Um, and we treat them the way we do and dogs are dumb as fuck and we treat them the way we do, you know? Well, pigs all look the same.
00:16:11
Speaker
That's true. I don't know. Dogs. I mean, I'm sure they look different if you really are up close. Yeah. But if you show me 20 pigs, I couldn't tell you with how they're different. But isn't that to do with breeding? Isn't that to do with like the fact that we were like, all right, fluffy, you're having sex with Fido, you know, because we're getting those those traits together. That is true. We're wrong here. Yeah. Like very wrong.
00:16:39
Speaker
I'm sure they're all the same because they just breed the same pigs over and over again. Yeah. Probably a thousand types of pigs. Right. I wonder.
00:16:48
Speaker
That makes my, sorry, that makes my brain freeze up because now I'm like, I wonder how many different types of pigs there are in this world.
Emotional Regulation in Sobriety
00:16:53
Speaker
Um, we're spinning way off. I want to circle us back because we're just, we're just bipping and bopping here. Um, I knew this would happen. I love it. I love it. I love as, as listeners are just like, what the fuck are you talking about? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There's listeners. Hello. So, you know, over the last couple, so, so something I've been really wanting to talk to you about actually is, um,
00:17:18
Speaker
So just about five months ago, I got sober with the exception of, of vaping. I'm allowing that one vice, you know, for the time being. That doesn't count. Yeah, that doesn't count worry about that. That's just it. I'm it's, it's low on my priorities list. Um, and, and right at the hop, you were, um,
00:17:38
Speaker
incredibly helpful for me. You were just an invaluable resource. You were sending me links. You sent me that app. I guess where I want to start with, first of all, is saying thank you because you were definitely a major element in keeping me on track.
00:17:56
Speaker
Um, and, and I guess I wanted to check in with like, how, not like, how's your sobriety, but it's like, where, where are you at with that? With that sort of that process and that lifestyle and like, how is it, um, how does it come into play for you these days kind of day to day? Um, it doesn't that like, it doesn't, but rarely I will say that.
00:18:25
Speaker
It's coming up on seven years. And it is not really something that I think about that much. And when I do think about it, or when I do catch myself going for a stroll and taking the route that has a liquor store on it,
00:18:53
Speaker
I'll be like, Oh, I know what we're doing here. Like, and there's things that I'm able to do now that like, there's a big list of things that I do now that before I would ever even consider having a drink. Yeah. And I rarely get past the first two, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the more distance you put between yourself and
00:19:23
Speaker
And usually like your, your brain just clears up like the, the, there are two parts of addiction and one of them is an obsession. Right. And that's sort of, there's two, there's like the, oh, when I have the thing, I can't stop. That's sort of the more, the like acute physical reaction. And then there's the obsession when you are stopped and, you know, anyone,
00:19:52
Speaker
I can tell you that I hardly ever think about it anymore. But it's also like, you know, I haven't faced a tremendous amount of hardship I have, but you know, I'm hoping that those defenses hold when, you know, the inevitable large life events occur.
00:20:13
Speaker
But that's for that day. That's not today. I think nothing's happening today. It's what I always say after this and go to bed. Yeah. Hell yeah. It's why you say that's the end. This is now. Don't worry about it. Why worry about it? You know, you're hurting your own feelings about something that hasn't happened yet. Right. And that's why, uh, you know, that's why you'll hear the one day at a time or just for today. Those are all fairly common sayings and it's all just because nobody has the solutions to be sober.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:09
Speaker
I mean, that's, and that's something that's like really encouraging for me because, you know, I know right out the gate, I was, um, you know, I was definitely ruminating and I was definitely like, it felt like there was a lot of like flushing of not only just, you know, the, the drugs from my body, which relatively speaking is fast, but it's more like the, it's just like the, the, the thoughts, you know?
00:21:34
Speaker
And, and it was the process of getting my body back online because it was, it was realizing how shut down I truly was, you know, beyond using. It was like, it was like my, my brain and my emotions and my nervous system were shut down, um, with or without alcohol, you know, and, and getting that back online was.
00:21:56
Speaker
Terrifying, you know to sort of like get get these this flood of new emotions that I didn't know what to do with and and it's only now really starting to settle into itself, you know and and What's what's your experience been like in terms of like, you know emotional regulation and and and those those types of kind of spikes Well, it was definitely
Acceptance of Past Impacts
00:22:23
Speaker
you know, for a while after I quit, I was just flatlined, for sure. And then I would also combine that with these like anxiety ruminations, like you are saying. And for the most part, that has calmed down, although I would say that when faced with something new, that I had not experienced
00:22:51
Speaker
sober, it will often be quite discombobulating in my life still. I think that I, I think I was like, uh, probably almost four years, like three and a half, four years sober before I had sex with somebody. And that experience was very hard. Like I did not realize in that moment, how difficult that would
00:23:19
Speaker
Uh, and so I was like, oh, so that was like a new thing and I had to do recovery shit to like try and figure out what was going on there. Um, yeah, I mean, it's so different for everybody. I would say that, uh, I don't think that will ever end for me. Yeah. Yeah. There are days when I literally do not feel a thing and I'll be like, Oh, you know, that's.
00:23:47
Speaker
Probably that like it's probably like, you know, I don't This might be a little bit cynical, but I don't necessarily take a lot of people that will get sober and they will talk about how pause like Ultra, but like their life is perfect now. Like everything is good things look better and like that's great for you but I acknowledge the consequences of that lifestyle and I need to accept that there are things that happen that
00:24:18
Speaker
Like you're not getting that back. That was like a hard living for a while, baby. And so that does something to you and it's probably for life. And so I need to sort of have some acceptance of that to get through it on my own.
Community's Importance in Sobriety
00:24:32
Speaker
You know, it's like, you know, you, you break your arm. It doesn't heal that perfect, you know, you, you were fucking your brain up. I was, you know, I was talking to my grandpa for like 10 years. It's not like.
00:24:44
Speaker
It's fine. I mean, it's definitely not fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, that's it right there too. Is that like, I, I remember early on posting, um, on TikTok about places where I was like, does this like, it was sort of like, is this worth it? Like, or is, you know, like, or are these questions of like, when does it become worth it? You know, because it's like,
00:25:08
Speaker
It's not like, you know, I stopped drinking and then suddenly life is fixed, you know, it's like, and I realized, you know, someone told me, you know, you recognize that alcohol isn't the problem, it's the solution, you know, and then you get
00:25:27
Speaker
the opportunity to look at what the actual problem is. And that's when you realize you're I'm with you 100% where it's like, oh, this is a forever thing. This is a, you know, like if I, you know, I'm now I'm almost 37. If I spend 37 years just working on this, I'll get to net zero, you know, like, so it's not like it's not like it's gonna just get fixed.
00:25:49
Speaker
This week, you know and and that's really daunting and I can understand why you know Either people would relapse or whatever it might be, you know, I can understand why people do what they do in those scenarios, you know Because it's really fucking scary and hard to be like, oh this is this is forever now, you know Yeah, I mean I think it's the difference between being sober and being in recovery like there are a lot of I know a lot of miserable people that have never had a drink in their life and
00:26:18
Speaker
Right. Like it has nothing to do. It doesn't need to do with that. Yeah. See, quitting gives you the quitting. Quitting just gives you the opportunity to be healthy enough to start doing. To start figuring out what the problem is. Whatever that is for you.
00:26:48
Speaker
thinking about like the inadvertent impacts of choices where since the last time you were on the show, you know, I've been out to Toronto a couple of times, but I was also, I was typhoid Jimmy.
COVID-19's Unprocessed Trauma
00:27:01
Speaker
One of the times I came out and I managed to show up and give everyone COVID. And I'm wondering, have you had any long-term effects? Thanks to your old pal? No, I don't have any lingering long-term effects. I hope.
00:27:17
Speaker
Uh, there was, there were some people, we were watching the first episode of survivor the other night and a woman was talking about how she had brain fog because she wasn't sleeping. And then I thought, I was thinking to myself, what if I have brain fog right now, but I don't know that I do because I don't know what the, what the, uh, alternative is. I hope I don't anyway. I think I'm all right. Um,
00:27:46
Speaker
That's one of the things that keeps me up. That's one of the things I think about is that it's like, how do we even know what the long-term effects are? And everyone was so, so many people have been so blase about it since. And it's like, you can't live your life in just perpetual fear, but at the same time too, it's like, fuck. They're realizing that it affects our entire nervous system. It's not respiratory. It's a nervous system thing. And so it's like, it affects everything.
00:28:15
Speaker
And and we still don't know long term effects, you know, so I don't know. That is true. I mean, this is just me. I if I were to consider all of the calamities that could befall me on a daily basis like that long term, I would never leave the bed. And like so I guess like if there's a
00:28:42
Speaker
huge wave and they're like, put the masks back on stay indoors. I'm there with you. But I just I just simply won't function if I'm worried about another second long version of it. I'd like I get it. I don't I don't that's the thing about this. This whole situation is like I have really
00:29:08
Speaker
It was really illuminated for me that, that the people that we have in charge telling us what to do also don't know what they're doing. They're just like, they're just acting like they know what they're doing. And, but when you really strip it back, you're like, well, they don't, they don't know. No one knows. Like there's no, they were just, everyone was just trying their best, I guess. But at the end of the day, we didn't do any of this right.
00:29:42
Speaker
And I don't think we have just like walking around the city, talking to people, being in groups. I don't think anybody has properly processed what just happened. I know I haven't. This was a mass casualty.
00:30:06
Speaker
event akin to a, like, like a large war. This is not, this is not something that you're just like, ah, pandemic. This has a profound effect on you. And I don't know that that's what I'm like most kind of, I find most tragic about this at the end, it's that we didn't take a moment
00:30:35
Speaker
and say, Hey, so that just happened. How is it? How, how are we? We just, we just, everyone dug their heels in and they just started up again. Like nothing had happened. And that's so bad to do. Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
Right. Well, I was, I always thought about that, about how everyone was so desperate to get back to normal, but it was like, normal's what got us here. You know, like normal was the problem, you know, and now we're back to normal and worse, you know, because every single thing that was a problem before lockdown is exponentially worse now, you know, it's worst thing, worst real estate, worst everything, you know? And, and so all it did was amplify all the problems we had and, and with no, you know, what, what are the silver linings? We got RNA vaccines, like.
00:31:18
Speaker
Okay, you know, like, yeah, yeah. And it just it's not I noticed it on like, subways and buses and stuff. When someone coughs or sneezes, there's a there's a noticeable tensing up of everyone in the space. And no one wants to acknowledge it. But if I do it, everyone just shrinks away. And, and that is like, that's, that's everyone.
00:31:50
Speaker
And, you know, like we're not getting together in support groups and talking about this. And maybe we should, maybe we should like tens of thousands of people died here and millions worldwide. And it's like, yeah, maybe, maybe we should just.
00:32:09
Speaker
Acknowledged that, but we aren't going to. What am I saying? No. Yeah. No, but I'm with, I'm with you. I'm with you a hundred percent. It's, it's, um, the idea of like the unprocessed, unprocessed trauma. Um, you know, cause you always talk about, like I talk about this in my therapy therapy all the time where it's like,
00:32:28
Speaker
The longer you ignore an emotion, the worse it gets, you know, because that emotion stays. It doesn't go away. You know, it's, it's, if you feel anger and you tell yourself, I'm not angry, the next time you're angry, you're double angry and then you're triple and you're quadruple, you know? And so it's like the longer we ignore it and the longer we try to push it away, the worse it's going to come out and the worse it's going to get, you know?
Friendship Changes Post-Sobriety
00:32:50
Speaker
And so, yeah, the same with the booze and the drugs.
00:32:53
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. It just, it just moves it down the road and prevents you from feeling it. And, uh, there are people that spend their whole life doing that. They've never felt, they've never dealt with a thing because something happened and they started drinking and it never ended. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, I don't really know what else to say about that, but I didn't catch any to go back to your question.
00:33:22
Speaker
I don't think I caught any long-term effects of the old COVID-19. And I have come into direct contact with it not too long ago. And I didn't get it. So I got four shots and you. So that's good. Yeah. You're welcome. I'm just trying to protect you, Brian. I kissed someone.
00:33:51
Speaker
my girlfriend, I kissed my girlfriend and she had a thick second line, but she went home like an hour later and tested. And I'm like, well, I'm done. And I didn't get, I was like, oh, so yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
I want to come back to one of the core questions of the show. Um, you know, I asked you this the last time you were on, but I'm really curious about if things have changed or I'll be honest. I don't remember what you said in the last episode. So you, you know, you can be neither. Right. Yeah. Um,
00:34:26
Speaker
But, you know, the heart of this show is about connection and it's about friendship and it's about asking, you know, what that means. And I'm curious, you know, from the last time we spoke to now, what does it today mean to you to be a friend? Oh, my goodness. What a question. I think. I guess I could just kind of use
00:34:55
Speaker
my experience with you recently as an example, I think that a friend is somebody that you're going to hear from when times get a little bit tough like that. And that's okay. They're okay giving their time to you. That's what it means to be a friend to me actually is like, I give my time
00:35:23
Speaker
to people freely and without any expectation of something in return. Sometimes I help people, like handyman work on their houses and things like that. They always want to give me, like what can we do for you? And I always tell them, I'm like, especially if I knew them back when I was drinking, I'll be like, listen,
00:35:52
Speaker
Just the fact that I can help you is the thing. I need you to know that. And I know that that is hard to like process. I get that. I wouldn't have been able to do that 10 years ago myself, like accept that, but the reward is helping you. I don't need a second thing. Please understand that the joy that I feel from being like coherent enough to be able to help my friends is somewhere I never thought I would be. So that alone is.
00:36:22
Speaker
is all there is. And there's people I don't talk to anymore, and I would still consider them my friends. If they called and they wanted to talk, I would talk with them. That's something that you will discover if you continue your journey in sobriety, you're going to just want to talk to people. And you're going to become someone that people talk to.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah. And in that sharing, that is what will one day that will keep you so one day somebody will call you on the phone, that is a week sober and be like, Hey, I'm not doing well. And that will coincide with the day that you feel like having a drink. And, and, and there will be some sort of serendipity that occurs and both of you do not drink that day. That's happened to me before, right? Yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
So, um, I'm rambling, but that's fine. No, it's, uh, I'm, I'm really appreciating listening to you. It's actually making me feel pretty emotional. Um, it's just like, um, the thoughts of like, um, it's just really like, it's always just really nice to hear you talk about being happy. It always makes me feel really good. Um, um, sorry. Um, it's like, it's, it's the, it's the, it's the thought of like.
00:37:46
Speaker
Cause when I got sober, I lost a lot. Um, I lost a whole segment of my life. You know, um, I lost a big chunk of people who I thought were going to be in my life a lot longer than they ended up being.
Community and Spirituality in Sobriety
00:38:00
Speaker
And so a big chunk of this last couple of months has been processing that grief, you know, and processing that, that loneliness that comes out of it. And, um, and, and trying to find that.
00:38:15
Speaker
that self love and that self forgiveness, you know, of like the part that I played within it and, and, you know, release the.
00:38:26
Speaker
release the judgment on myself and release the judgment on them, right? Because it's like you're, you know, I'm on my own journey. This is where I am. It's not where they are. That's okay. You know, um, there's just a lot of sadness behind it. And I think that, you know, hearing about new forms of connection that you're talking about and hearing about the new, you know, the new experiences that you have and the new connections you'll have is really, um,
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, it just gives me a lie. It's another, you know, it's another tool, I guess. So I can't think of the right word, but it's another, you know, it's another element to be hopeful for, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I've had a more profound human connection with a stranger.
00:39:14
Speaker
smoking outside of like a meeting, not to get too detailed about what kind of social groups I attended churches. But you know, talking for five, talking for five minutes with someone who is like, Oh, I'm not doing too well. And I say, Oh, why? And they just talk to me for a few minutes. Like that, that is more that and not I mean, I'm not a very spiritual person, but I would say that is more of a spiritual experience than any sort of like
00:39:44
Speaker
like fucking rave or some like shit you would go to do actually like dance around with like, it's different. It's different. It's not as fun. You don't feel as good. But it's like, you know, what are we doing here, I guess, if not to just like try and help out each other briefly? Yeah, I can't give you money or anything, but I can like be an ear. And yeah, that is very important. And it's something that you will
00:40:15
Speaker
undoubtedly you will inspire that in others. Like there's always somebody who's a little bit less sober than you, who like doesn't understand how to get to where you are. But I remember starting out and I would get introduced to people that had like 40 years of sobriety and I'd be like, you're an alien. I don't understand like what like what this person has nothing.
00:40:42
Speaker
But somebody that had 30 days of sobriety, that's something I was like, how did you, how did you spend your last 30 days? Cause I'd like to do that. Yeah. Uh, you tell me exactly what you did and then I'll get to 30, you know? Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, part of, I mean, this is, uh, this is sort of what I tell people when they are new. I'm still new. I'm always going to be new.
00:41:11
Speaker
But like a tip that I gave to give to people is like, there are two things that I realized early on that I was craving. One of them was a group of people, you know, a group. It doesn't really matter where you find it, but I was going to the bar and I was going to the nightclub and I was going to parties because I wanted to be around a group of people. Yeah. I wanted to like be so it's that and.
00:41:40
Speaker
On a lighter note, it's literally sugar. Like it's, it's like, like eat a piece of cake and like go to a group setting. And I promise you that deals with so much of what you're actually craving. Yeah. Like human connection and a piece of cake. It saved my life.
00:42:07
Speaker
You gave me that cake advice very early on. And I thank you
Sobriety's Impact on Creativity
00:42:13
Speaker
for it. Because what I started doing was, there's nowhere nearby that does cake, but there's two places nearby that does milkshakes. And so I'm on a big, big milkshake kick over the last couple of months. And I'm loving it. I'm living for it. I've started knowing the different types. And it's become a thing for me.
00:42:34
Speaker
And it's funny because you told me that and for anyone listening, I fully cosign and endorse it because I think that it played a major part in my process.
00:42:51
Speaker
Um, where did my brain go? Um, milkshakes. Oh fuck. I lost my train of thought. I completely lost my train of thought. It just, it, it completely saved me and I'm really appreciative for it. And I, um, yeah, it doesn't have to be cake. I guess is, is, you know, it can just be something that's a treat, something that's, uh, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a drag this thing. Like it doesn't, you're doing a good thing. I have to be constantly reminded that I've
00:43:18
Speaker
This is a big deal. Even now it's only be like, Hey, that's you would not giving yourself credit about the fact that I like you describe your old life and it sounds hard and dangerous. And now you don't do that anymore. Perhaps you should be a little gentler with you. You, you're the way you speak to yourself. Yeah.
00:43:51
Speaker
You know that you have your job that you have now, right? How are you? How are you finding? your your art has either Gotten better or if you are you producing more or how do you find it different? Now that you have decided to to quit
00:44:17
Speaker
with the sauce and the snow and the sneeze. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it, I'm still unsure. I'm, I'm technically putting out more than I have in years. Um, you know, I, I'm doing a, I'm doing that daily year long book right now on Instagram. Um, I'm, I'm putting out the podcast more consistently and putting up a newsletter consistently week to week. I'm expanding the newsletter. Um,
00:44:47
Speaker
And I think by removing the financial incentive of any of that and making myself have to be profitable off of it, I can instead just enjoy making it and enjoy putting it out. Because I have all my bills covered. I have my rent. I have my minimum payments on my credit card covered. And so by having that security in a job that's really fulfilling and that I adore and that I just want to do for the rest of my life,
00:45:15
Speaker
that has helped me be able to switch, you know, I don't always have the energy for it every day, but on the days where I do have the energy for it, I have more energy, you know? And that's the other side of it too, is this idea of like, you know, I think that there is a myth of like the tortured alcoholic poet and there's this romanticized image of like the destructive artist and all these things. And for me,
00:45:43
Speaker
You know, having those lived experiences informs some of my writing, but a lot of what I write about, I would have experienced whether I was drunk or not, you know, I, I, I, and in fact, at times I wish I had been more sober to be able to remember it more vividly, you know? Um, right. So it's, yeah, I think, I think the,
00:46:09
Speaker
I think it's only helped me in if I were to if I were to qualify it. I think I think whatever potential downsides there might be in terms of like impulsivity or the sort of like urge to, you know, just sort of.
00:46:24
Speaker
make something on a whim, it's been replaced by a much easier consistency, which for me and my creative output, I like more.
Freedom in Mediocrity
00:46:36
Speaker
I don't want everything to always be a home run every single time. I just want consistency and I want to just be making stuff. Yeah. Failing would cause me to go on
00:46:52
Speaker
outrageous benders, like bombing and shit. Yeah. In the past. And so like, I need to, I almost need to like, create bad shit. Yes, exactly. And be public for me to just get accustomed to that feeling. And it to not be death, like it felt so bad. Yeah. Right. And so I'm just like,
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah. If I do something online and it's very, very bad, I'm always like, yes. Yes. Yes. People hated that. I'm so glad I bombed that. Like I'm not in danger. Yeah. On to the next thing.
00:47:34
Speaker
I love, I've been really celebrating mediocrity. I'm really, really celebrating just middle of the road, just, just doing good enough. You know, like I don't want to be the fucking voice of a generation. I, you know, I don't, I just want to be somebody who makes stuff that every once in a while somebody likes, you know, uh, because at the end of the day, I, I do like everything I put out. I'm happy. You know, if I'm genuinely unhappy with something, I don't put it out. That's that's, you know, but like, I always have the satisfaction of
00:48:02
Speaker
I like everything I do and so It sort of stops mattering if other people like it or not at that point, you know I've been on a kick, you know, I I followed you know, I followed your your your Trail on tick-tock and I started doing a thing last November where I started just putting out a little video every day just a little thought it was super random and was super Unplanned and impulsive and then a couple caught on and You know now I've got a
00:48:32
Speaker
a lot more followers than I did before, you know, it's still, I guess, according to TikTok lore, it's still very small, but I'm really happy with it, you know? Um, and, and it's, I don't even understand how the followers thing work anymore. That's just, that's just it. I don't even, I don't even give a shit. Like I, I just don't care, you know? And I, and I remember right when, you know, I had this one video go crazy. Like it had like, it's at like 8 million views and, and.
00:48:58
Speaker
Then I started feeling this like, oh, now I have to always be hitting, you know, and, and I put out a bunch of videos afterwards and they were all just bombs. They were all like a hundred views. And.
00:49:08
Speaker
That felt so good. It felt so good to not have to maintain this level of stress. Like to instead be like, oh yeah, I'm still just some guy. I'm not the fucking chosen one. I'm not the fucking Messiah who's coming and everything he says people are grasping on. It's like, no, I'm just some fucking guy who every once in a while puts up a dumb thought on the internet. I'm not someone to be worshiped.
Defining Community
00:49:31
Speaker
I'm just someone to be like treated with kindness. That's about it, you know?
00:49:37
Speaker
It happens a lot, especially on TikTok where people will feel as though they are forced to repeat themselves and they get one thing that's really good and the strategy would then be do that and only that and never deviate. It specifically works if you're incredibly attractive.
00:50:02
Speaker
That that those ones always do well. But like, in my mind, I'm like, I know you don't want to do that. Yeah. Like, I know you you don't want to do the same thing every day. You just feel as though you are forced to because of these numbers. Yeah. So I try to do something. I try to do it different. But yeah. Yeah. You know, the little songs aren't exactly popping off like they used to, but I don't care.
00:50:29
Speaker
Yeah. So that actually, that kind of tails me into the other big question that I've added recently to the show. You know, it's this question of community, right? You know, I've been thinking a lot about friendship and friendship being seen as the sort of one-on-one connection and then community building out. And I think social media really plays a part in how we interpret these concepts of like what a community is. You know, you hear about the online community, you hear about all these different things.
00:50:55
Speaker
And I'm curious in, you know, where you're at in life right now, um, what do you, how do you define community and what does, what does that mean to you? What does a term like community mean to you? Oh man. I mean, I would say that I, it's like, I'm going to just talk this whole thing out here. Fucking a part of many different communities.
00:51:23
Speaker
Uh, I feel like to me, a community is a place where that you can go or a group that you can slot yourself into. You all share something in common, but you don't necessarily, you don't necessarily need to like announce yourself that you're there. You, but you just go and stand with the group and you are accepted in that way. And I have that a lot.
00:51:52
Speaker
I have that online a little bit. And I also believe that a community is full of people that have each other's best interests at heart and they want each other, they want the people in the community to do well, to be uplifted. So if you have somebody in your community that is trying to bring people down, they are not in, like that's not part of the community.
00:52:18
Speaker
So online, specifically, I'm very diligent with like removing negativity. I just cannot have it in my life. That's not what I'm all about. I don't want it here, blocked, delete, get out of here. I'm unsuccessful in it, but hey, you try your best. So I don't know. Did that make any sense? I feel it's somewhere where you, it's not a group of friends, but you feel like you belong in it.
00:52:49
Speaker
You know, it's different from friendship. Yeah. No, I, I, I just love that framing so much. I, I, I love the idea that you're not necessarily. You don't necessarily have to be friends with the community, but you're still protective of them and you're safe within with them, you know? And I think that's one of the, sorry, it's like the recovery community.
00:53:15
Speaker
as I mentioned earlier, you might never see that person again. But in that moment, if they're like, Hey, I need some help. Can I like, talk to you for a second? You'd say yes. Because there's a responsibility you have for if you're there, you have a responsibility to do that.
00:53:36
Speaker
It's almost the continuation of this idea of like, you know, you know, I've, I've thought often about how we used to be considered citizens and now we're considered consumers, you know, like we're not we're, and because that removes sort of a responsibility that we
00:53:51
Speaker
hold for others around us. If we're citizens, then we're responsible for something. But if we're consumers, then we're only responsible for ourselves. And I think that you're tapping into something much deeper, the idea of
00:54:07
Speaker
It's not about what do we owe, but it's like, what is our responsibility to others, you know? And this also ties into like a lot of the stuff that I've been trying to process through in like losing these connections that I had where it's like, I thought I was in a community. And then I realized that I was actually like really deeply unsafe there, you know, because I was being told one thing and then other things were happening. And, and that's the, like the opposite of a community, you know? Um, yeah.
00:54:37
Speaker
It's tough to have that when people are doing drugs, although there are very good people that use drugs that are part of communities and they love each other and they're a family, but there's also, depending on what circles you roll in, there's a little bit of chaos that goes along with it. It isn't really very healthy. It's very different.
00:55:07
Speaker
It's erratic, and you're playing with fire. You're inherently playing with a fire that will always win no matter what. And so if that is being factored into interactions, it's always present no matter what. Yeah, and it's
Housing Crisis and Future Concerns
00:55:29
Speaker
scary. It's really scary to see what people are like on drugs versus off drugs and how that continues to affect them and all those things.
00:55:37
Speaker
Yeah, for me it was um, I don't know how long who cares for me it was like part the most troubling behavior for me was when I was actually like in between In between when I was sober in those moments it was like oh I realized that my sober self was doing activities that were always in service of like the next time we're gonna
00:56:06
Speaker
drank or used drugs. And so it's like, when that version of myself was the one that was being controlled, that was like, Oh, it was a huge problem now because I'm completely sober. But all I can think about is like, should I buy groceries or should I save this money and like, just wait? Like, yeah. That's weird. That's weird community. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe maybe it's because we're renters, but I really wish the
00:56:35
Speaker
fucking homeowners would have a little more sense of community for us. My goodness. I live in this area in Toronto right now. It's just these massive houses everywhere. There's just this, yeah, the housing crisis. And it's like, man, if we don't all come together, like homeowners and renters and landlords and every, this is not like we're toast. And I just, it makes me, so I think about it all every day, how it like sort of sad. It makes me that I feel like that's not going to happen.
00:57:03
Speaker
Oh, almost certainly not. But speak on it. Yeah, I'm not I'm not cognizant of the time. I mean, we'll we'll wrap up shortly. But like, I want you to just speak on it, please. Oh, sure. I mean, I just feel. You know, I definitely I think that the housing crisis is what we say. We're crisis. It's so fucking silly that we use that word because no one's acting like there is a crisis.
00:57:28
Speaker
Uh, it is, you know, it is terrible for people right now that can't find places to live and, and, and, and, and whatnot. But it, for me, this is like, it's a, it's, it's a retirement crisis for our, for people our age. And regardless of how, you know, if you're in your home right now and you're like, I've got mine, so there's no crisis and I'm going to, you're going to have to pay for this shit.
00:57:58
Speaker
one way or another. Like in 30 years when you are in your fancy house and you're retired, I don't believe that Canadians are going to be comfortable with like 10 cities full of seniors that had no homes, no pensions, and didn't save a dime for retirement. And that's definitely going to happen. And that's what I think we should be worried about. Not rent now.
00:58:26
Speaker
It's who's going to pay for the lifestyles of people that can't work, but are going to live for 25 years. Who's going to pay for that? It's going to be, it's going to be all of us. So we should try and sort it out now. Uh, if we can, uh, I, and because there's no, there's just no
00:58:51
Speaker
There are certain people who are going to get out of this situation and they're going to get lucky or they're going to work really hard to pull themselves up by the bootstrap. But you can't think about it like, Hey, I did it so you can do it. You know, you can't take the good fortune of a handful of people and point to them and say, see, it's possible. You have to look at everybody and it's everybody can't do that. Unfortunately. And so, yeah, I think we're in a.
00:59:23
Speaker
Tremendous amount of trouble as a, as a country, not just us, but other countries too. And, uh, yeah, I don't know. I'm not looking forward to the, what seems like almost certain unrest that is on the horizon. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's good. It's going to, it's getting to the point where it's like.
00:59:49
Speaker
Where, where do you live? Like I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm not going to live in this apartment for the rest of my life. Yeah. Yeah. I just pray that they don't raise rent too much, you know, year on year. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I got centipedes. They can't raise my rent. Maybe I should get that moth infestation back and be like, no, I can't, you can't do it. You know, can't raise it. Exactly. Um, it just, it just baffles me that no one is taking this.
01:00:19
Speaker
more seriously. You know, I'm not somebody who thinks that there's like some grand, you know, smoky backroom plan type thing, but like, I think that the people in charge know what's happening. And I think that it there, I think there is some form of design of bringing back feudalism, you know, like, cause like, we're, we're headed back towards fascism. That feels borderline inevitable at this point with the leaders that we have who were getting the most popularity.
01:00:47
Speaker
The fact that Trump is still winning primaries and will almost certainly be the Republican candidate, the fact that Pierre Polivar is still the leader of the Conservative Party, which will be in power after the next election.
01:01:05
Speaker
You know, that's a problem for me because it's like shithead fascism, you know? They're just fucking dum-dums. I don't even know that. There are a bunch of dorks who like to shitpost who are then going to be in power and they're going to know even less than the people who are in power now. And so we're headed towards that borderline inevitably.
01:01:27
Speaker
And then on top of that, every other crisis that's coming our way, you know, and yeah, it's it's it's it's dark. It's not it's not. Yeah, it's not going to be the type of fascism where. You know, these like just thugs are going to people's second homes and like forcing them at gunpoint to give them up. It's it's not going to be that. It's so silly. It's going to be like.
01:01:56
Speaker
it feels like it's going to be just more and more control. Exactly. Like trying to control the masses more than than we already are. Because what what blows my mind about like, I think that the number one issue is the housing like it just is so it's cost of living. But the most expensive thing is is housing. And the fact that a single leader of any of these political parties is not all you have to do is like do an hour long YouTube video.
01:02:23
Speaker
detailing their comprehensive plan for how they are going to fix this problem. Like if, if they had a plan and they could tell people exactly like, here's what we're going to do lower rent. Here's what we're going to do to get everybody in this country in a house. Here's how much the houses are going to cost. This is how we're going to do it. They'd win an election. They would win a landslide. And the fact that no, they know that they're smart.
01:02:54
Speaker
but they haven't done it because they don't have the plan. They don't know how.
01:02:58
Speaker
Well, and I don't think they want to is the other side, not to like spin into like, but it's like, I don't think they want to, you know, I think that's what I mean, spinning back to the idea of like, I think they're building new feudalism because they want the separation of the ultra rich and the ultra poor. You know, they don't, they don't want a middle class. I don't mean to sound some kind of fucking, you know, 10 for the hack guy, but it's like, I don't, I think that we've witnessed in our lifetime, you know, you talked way earlier about this idea of like, you know, follow your dreams and stuff. Um,
01:03:25
Speaker
I think it started around there where it was like, I think in our lifetime, we witnessed the complete dismantling of the middle class. And we saw, we've only seen year on year, the further wedge between the super rich and the super poor, and it's only going to get worse from here. And so like, that's the design, that's the point of feudalism is to consolidate all the wealth in as few people as possible and have everyone else
01:03:51
Speaker
just need to survive and do anything they can and have to to survive, you know, and that's where we are. We'll probably be roommates. Oh, almost certainly with nine other people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Conclusion and Positive Outreach
01:04:07
Speaker
Yeah. It'll be like it'll be fucking me. We made their house. Exactly. Literally. Go back in one of those.
01:04:14
Speaker
Yep, exactly. Yeah. Fuck. Um, I think we have thoroughly depressed our listeners enough for today. I think maybe we should wrap this up, but, um, Oh, it's fine. They're fine.
01:04:28
Speaker
You know, I, I do want to say though, like, thank you. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for coming on. This is a substantially different conversation than last time. And that's what I love about you. I love how you like, I really value your perspective on things. I value how tuned in you are, how smart you are about things, how informed you are. Like it really, um, I, I always find myself just so impressed by not just what you know, but how you know it, you know, and how, how.
01:04:55
Speaker
curious you remain. It's really inspirational and you feel like the way it comes up in my mind is you
01:05:09
Speaker
look to be living the example of the kind of life that I aspire to. And so I just, you know, I really, I just, I think you're fucking amazing and I'm really grateful to know you. So thank you. Well, thank you. That's the nicest thing that's been said to me in a long time, man. I appreciate you too. And you're doing so, you're doing so good. Yeah. You know, it's good stuff.
01:05:37
Speaker
I'm staring at your lovely apartment, the sun's beaming in, my god. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing, we're doing better than we think. That's for sure. That's the other side of it, right? Is that, you know, the thing about like, you know, the stuff's going to be hard and then other parts are going to be easy, you know, and, and that's just what being alive is, you know, so.
01:05:54
Speaker
perspective, man, it's not, it's not so bad. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, very last thing before we wrap up, I always love to leave listeners on an actionable thing that they could try out. What is, uh, what is one thing that listeners could try doing this week to be a better friend either to themselves or to their community? Oh, I think, cause this is something that I am, am, am, am, am, am trying to do a little bit more.
01:06:25
Speaker
I think that you could reach out to people in your life more and tell them something nice about themselves with unprovoked and just really see where that takes you. Um, I think that that is, uh, you know, getting back to, um, how we try to like process things. I really.
01:06:55
Speaker
I really think that that is like a key that can open up a conversation with somebody, but it's about getting vulnerable, like right away and just blast it open and then start talking. Yeah. So yeah, don't yeah. Do that. Yeah. Um, and see where it takes you because, uh, I, I do think that.
01:07:21
Speaker
as hard as it will be and as long as it will take, the way out of all of this, if there is a way out, seems to be one-on-one. I'll talk to you. You talk to me. We come to an understanding when we go talk to other people. It's not going to happen in big groups with fancy speeches and shit. We got to go back to just one-on-one.
01:07:47
Speaker
I love it. I love it. I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm doing my part, you know, I'm doing my part. Yeah. Um, thank you one more time. Is there, is there anywhere, anything you'd like to plug any, anywhere you'd like listeners to find you? Um, what, what would you like to, you can follow me on, you can follow me on Tik TOK and Instagram at the bean off. The views are down, but we're working it. We're, we're views are down.
01:08:16
Speaker
It's a struggle right now, but we're working through, we're in the dip, have you ever read the war of art? I have, yeah. I'm in the fucking, I mean, I'm deep in the dip right now. Okay, okay. Deep in the dip, looking to quit, but I won't. Hell yeah, hell yeah, keep on going, baby. All right, my guy, I love you so much. Thank you for this. I love you too. I really appreciate it.
01:08:45
Speaker
you
01:08:53
Speaker
And that's it for another week. Thanks one more time to Brian for coming back on the show. It's always just such a fucking pleasure to chat with him and laugh and just hear his stories. I am just filled with so much love for that man. Next week is going to be the monthly Lil Guy Wrap Up episode, so please stay tuned for that. It's a ton of fun. If you have any questions for me, please send them my way. You can email me at friendlesspod at gmail.com or you can message me on Instagram or TikTok at friendlesspod.
01:09:23
Speaker
I will be putting up some stories to get some questions, but if something pops up for you, please send it my way and I will try and answer it next week on the show. Other than that, just the usual wrap up news, please leave a five star review anywhere you listen to this episode. It helps me out so much and it is completely free for you. Don't forget to sign up for the sub-stack newsletter. Every week you're getting five recommendations of things to check out, anything from
01:09:50
Speaker
YouTube videos to books to movies to just weird stuff I've found on the internet. You're gonna get a brand new poem that I read this week that I really liked as well as a curated monthly playlist. The sign up for that is in the show notes as well as links to all the other projects that I'm working on. Hey sorry I missed you. All the other fun stuff that I've got cooking. But that's gonna be it for me this week so I'm gonna wrap this up here. Thank you so much for listening and I hope to catch you back here next week but hey!
01:10:18
Speaker
let's not worry about that because that is then and this is now so for now all i want to say is i love you and i wish you well fun and safety sweeties
01:10:46
Speaker
you.