Transcript
Speaker: Hey, hey, you're listening to the Let's Heal Already podcast for the sometimes impatient, sometimes cranky person doing some healing.
Speaker: And I'm your host, JR. I'm an author, actor and speaker from Far Rockaway, New York.
Speaker: And on this podcast, you'll hear me cover ground on a variety of topics from mental wellness and emotional literacy to blackness, to masculinity and femininity, to ending misogyny and patriarchy, to last but not least, bisexuality and ending sexual shame.
Speaker: you
Speaker: Here's a quick announcement.
Speaker: My new book is available for pre-order now.
Speaker: Dear Bi-Men, A Black Man's Perspective on Power, Consent, Breaking Down Binaries, and Combating Erasure is being published by North Atlantic Books and distributed by Penguin Random House.
Speaker: This book is a powerful resource for Black bi men to reclaim their identity, counter biphobia, and get empowered, and an offering to all readers looking to thwart the erasure and dehumanization wrought by patriarchy.
Speaker: The anticipated publishing date is April 16th, 2024.
Speaker: but you can pre-order it now.
Speaker: Also, Sometimes Impatient merch for people who are working on it is now available too.
Speaker: We got tote bags, t-shirts, hoodies, and pillows.
Speaker: Lastly, we have Patreon.
Speaker: If you like the podcast as is, there's way more in-depth podcast episodes and other goodies over on my Patreon.
Speaker: Tap in.
Speaker: Hey, hey, what's up?
Speaker: I'm back at it again for another episode of the Let's Heal Already podcast.
Speaker: And we are in the future.
Speaker: We are in 2024.
Speaker: Happy New Year, everyone.
Speaker: Welcome.
Speaker: You made it.
Speaker: It is good to
Speaker: be here with all of you.
Speaker: It's actually funny.
Speaker: I'm recording this like two days before the new year.
Speaker: So I'm in the past, but I'm also in the future because
Speaker: When y'all will hear this, it will be the future.
Speaker: It will be the new year.
Speaker: But I hope everybody had a happy and safe New Year's Eve with loved ones.
Speaker: And I hope you have fun.
Speaker: And I hope that...
Speaker: This year is better than last one.
Speaker: And I, I'm not always a person who does New Year's resolutions.
Speaker: And I don't know that I really have any for real for real.
Speaker: I mean, I guess I have one.
Speaker: Just, you know, getting myself out of the service industry this year.
Speaker: And for good, you know, so I
Speaker: Yeah, I guess I do have one.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: There it goes.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: So, yeah, I have been learning how to DJ for a little over a year and started DJing back in December.
Speaker: And I did two gigs in December.
Speaker: And that was a lot of fun.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: I hope that I have more gigs lined up and I hope that that becomes how I make my money full time.
Speaker: But we'll see.
Speaker: Maybe that or maybe like a work from home job, you know, who knows?
Speaker: So we'll see.
Speaker: We'll see what the year has in store.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I wanted to get into the topic of this episode.
Speaker: and it is about decluttering.
Speaker: Now, I was actually doing this at the end of last year.
Speaker: I was doing this throughout the month of December, and that's where a lot of my attention and focus went into.
Speaker: And I just wanted to kind of declutter because I started to realize that I had so many clothes that
Speaker: That yes, I looked good in them, period, right?
Speaker: But did I feel like they were conveying an aspect of myself, right?
Speaker: All throughout the season, as I've said, I want to talk about identity this season and the ways in which I recognize that I felt resistant to sort of participating in identity or
Speaker: Yeah, like identifying with anything, like wanting to detach, wanting not to have sort of an identity in a way or not to be, I guess, beholden, really not to be beholden to an identity.
Speaker: So, you know, yeah, I guess I talked a lot about how I saw the ways in which me playing a character in my real life was about getting certain needs met.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I just wanted to go directly to those needs instead of focusing on playing the character and get really good at asking for those needs rather than.
Speaker: playing the character of the wise one or the soft-spoken one.
Speaker: I just want to be human.
Speaker: I want to be able to be present.
Speaker: So if the present moment calls for me to turn up and raise my voice because somebody is being threatening, then I can do that.
Speaker: And I don't feel beholden to playing this character.
Speaker: No, I'm the soft one.
Speaker: I can't do that.
Speaker: The moment is calling for me to defend myself.
Speaker: And so I give myself permission to do that.
Speaker: And so, I don't know, I guess I was thinking about lots of different things around.
Speaker: the time where I was crafting this season and I still am thinking about a lot of those things and I actually plan to have like an episode on aspects of Buddhism that talk about this right that talk about not wanting to identify or disidentifying really um there's this term called anatta and I will definitely have a whole episode on that I don't want to get lost so let me get back to decluttering decluttering that's what we were talking about
Speaker: And yeah, and how, you know, even though I was really resistant to identity and still am in certain ways, I recognize that clothes and fashion is an aspect of identity, is an aspect of conversation, really, you know, and, you know,
Speaker: I'm still here.
Speaker: I'm still alive.
Speaker: So it's like, you know, you're going to wear clothes, you know, I mean, even though I'm kind of like, I don't want to participate.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Clothes are a part of life.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: Even if you choose to wear the same thing every day, like Steve Jobs did, right?
Speaker: That's a part of life.
Speaker: Or I think that the way I was kind of able to begin to work through some of this was just...
Speaker: Instead of thinking about like, oh, what is this saying about my identity?
Speaker: What kind of character am I playing by wearing these clothes?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: No, that was not helpful for me to think about, but it might be helpful for you to think about.
Speaker: It was, which clothes are exciting or interesting to me?
Speaker: Which clothes do I find interesting?
Speaker: That was like, oh, okay.
Speaker: And so I realized that, you know, a lot of the clothes that I have,
Speaker: are clothes that other people think I look good in.
Speaker: Yes, I said that already.
Speaker: And also I bought to be sort of like more commercial in terms of like acting wise.
Speaker: I've mentioned on here before how, you know, for certain roles, auditions, you know, your agent, your manager, and also other people in the industry will, they'll recommend that, they'll recommend that you dress the part of the audition.
Speaker: And even if you return the clothes right away, right, even if you buy the clothes from H&M, buy the clothes, wear it for the audition and then return it.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's just to help people who are on the other side of the table, who are producers or decision makers.
Speaker: really be able to see you as this character unequivocally, right?
Speaker: A lot of those people, I won't go too much into this, but a lot of like, a lot of times like producers, certain producers, and other people in those decisions, decision making positions, have a really hard time with imagination.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: you don't want them to imagine you as anything else besides this character they need to see it like even though you know if you've gone to school if you've taken acting lessons and had some training for a certain amount of time or with really talented people or you have some sort of like raw talent or whatever you
Speaker: Even though you have the ability to do that, they need to see it.
Speaker: And they have a really hard time being able to imagine how a person who has a job and lives their own particular life can transform into someone else.
Speaker: They have a really hard time with that.
Speaker: So they literally need to see it.
Speaker: They literally need to see you dressed up, looking like how that character is supposed to act or feel or be.
Speaker: And so, you know, a lot of the recommendation around auditioning is, oh, yeah, you definitely want to wear clothes that are similar to how this character is or being perceived or what have you.
Speaker: And so a lot of actors have a couple of like audition outfits that they have or go out and buy stuff real quick for an audition or two.
Speaker: And so what I realized is that
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Once in a while, I would like go grab a shirt real quick for an audition or whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If I didn't already have it.
Speaker: But what I realized is I started to buy clothes that like, oh, a lot of people think like, oh, this looks nice on me, but not necessarily that I feel that it like conveys or expresses something that I want to convey or express or that I just like or find interesting.
Speaker: And that is where like the disconnect was happening.
Speaker: And so I was like, you know what I want to do?
Speaker: I want to
Speaker: declutter i want to go through my closet every every single item that's in my closet and create three different piles one pile is for clothes that excite me so much like i can't wait to wear this or every single time i wear this like i just feel so good i feel free i feel good i feel cute i want to take pictures or i just want to be outside you know i want people to see my outfit
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And like for me, not because like, oh, when I wear it, everybody says things like positive things about what I'm wearing.
Speaker: And not that there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker: And as I have said, there are certain items in my closet that other people liked on me.
Speaker: But I guess I'm getting like really specific and really sort of nuanced here.
Speaker: Clothes that I personally find interesting, that something about it draws me to it.
Speaker: or something about the way it feels when I wear it, I like that feeling.
Speaker: And so I created one pile of clothes that excite me.
Speaker: I created another pile of things that I like or maybe that other people like on me, but either I don't wear it enough or I haven't found the right way to style it or...
Speaker: Maybe I need to like, like turn this shirt into a crop top to make it more interesting or cut the sleeves off or distress the jeans so that it has like a edge or something, do something to this.
Speaker: So it's like an in-between pile, right?
Speaker: That's the second pile.
Speaker: And then the third pile, things that when I wear them, personally, I wear them.
Speaker: I just don't feel like my best self, even if they look good on me, even if I get compliments in them.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I just something about it.
Speaker: I just don't.
Speaker: It just doesn't quite do it for me.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And what I found between all three of these piles is that there's not even necessarily like a a cost like like there are things in that last pile that I'm going to get rid of the stuff that are pretty expensive.
Speaker: or that are medium priced or that are cheap.
Speaker: And it, there's not like a real trend there in terms of like, oh, how much does this cost?
Speaker: I would say the trend more so is it's a certain Jenny Saquon, like it's a certain something that just for me makes me feel like, yeah, this is, this is it, you know?
Speaker: And I,
Speaker: I think this topic of introspection around fashion and the clothes is so fascinating.
Speaker: And I hope that in this year, the new year, I really like buckle down and like do more looking into this because I find it so interesting.
Speaker: There's this creator.
Speaker: on TikTok.
Speaker: Her name is Ryan, but her name on TikTok is that adult.
Speaker: And she also has like a blog and everything.
Speaker: And she's a fashion girly from New York.
Speaker: And I just think that she's so incredibly intelligent.
Speaker: And I love the ways that she ties identity together with fashion.
Speaker: And
Speaker: subcultures and all of these things like all of these like cool nerdy sociological things she like she just she ties all of them up and it's so good and she actually put together like a reading list for anybody who's interested in this subject and
Speaker: of all the ways that all of these different things kind of like overlap and combine like capitalism and identity and race and class and also identity outside of the things that I mentioned and so I just wanted to name like a couple of books that she put together on her reading list so the first one is called Stitched Up by Tansy E. Hoskins and
Speaker: And apparently that one is like a foundational book.
Speaker: And I'm definitely like that's already on my to read list for this year.
Speaker: It's a foundational book tying together all of the things I just mentioned about identity, race, class and capitalism.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very foundational and like why people get dressed the way they do.
Speaker: Or wait, that's actually the next book.
Speaker: The next book is called Fashioning Identity by Marie McKinney Valentin.
Speaker: And so that book is definitely like understanding why people get dressed the way that they do.
Speaker: Remember earlier, I talked about Steve Jobs or Steve Jobs, Jobs.
Speaker: And how he would wear the same thing every single day.
Speaker: And so apparently in this book, there's also like, it helps you understand even why, you know, some people completely detach from like, oh, I'm not into fashion.
Speaker: That's not me.
Speaker: And like it kind of explains some of the reasons we see that sort of like social phenomena, which I find like incredibly fascinating.
Speaker: And then the third and final book that I'm going to mention here is Menswear Revolution by Jay Macaulay Valstead.
Speaker: And so that one especially talks about menswear and masculinity and why or what's being signaled and why when men get dressed in different kinds of men and why like.
Speaker: if you are beholden to a particular sort of like schema or way of thinking or identity really why and how it informs the way you put together clothes and dress and what you wear and you know something as innocuous as like putting on a t-shirt and how that
Speaker: sort of comes to be even for people who are like oh no I don't care about fashion I just put on clothes it's a t-shirt it's a clean t-shirt okay cool it's like yeah you it's like that moment you know what it's like it's like that moment from Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep's character is telling Anne Hathaway's character like oh yeah you yeah you you don't think that you care about fashion but your top is cerulean blue and
Speaker: which was actually the leading color for, you know, this, this designer from years ago.
Speaker: And eventually it trickled down into a thrift store or a 99 cent store years later.
Speaker: And you just saw it and just picked it up like, Oh yeah, I don't care about this fashion thing.
Speaker: And I just put it on and it's like,
Speaker: You might not think that you are into fashion or you don't, you might not spend a lot of time thinking about fashion, but
Speaker: literally just being a part of the world that we are in, it, it, it like comes out in the way you dressed, whether you think so or not.
Speaker: And whether you are like, okay, well, F all of this, I'm just going to be a nudist.
Speaker: And it's like, yeah, that's also like a decision too.
Speaker: Like that's, that comes from like a sort of identity sort of thing.
Speaker: And yeah, I think this is fascinating and also frustrating for a person like me who is trying to be like,
Speaker: I don't want to identify.
Speaker: I don't want an identity.
Speaker: You can't make me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm in that sort of place or that's a lot of what the season is about.
Speaker: And I just think that these things are really fascinating and really enlightening about not just other people, but about myself as well.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So there's also this show called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and it is on Netflix.
Speaker: And yeah, she's this wonderful Japanese woman who helps people tidy, helps them.
Speaker: Also, like it's not just tidying.
Speaker: It's not just, you know, making things more organized in your home, but it's also like a lot of what she's doing is
Speaker: like other work too sometimes she works with clients who are working through grief and you know maybe they they're struggling to tidy because they don't want to get rid of the belongings of family members people they love who have passed away and so now these clothes have a very sort of like special significant meaning to them and this is part of why they can't tidy up or or other things
Speaker: I think it's so fascinating the way what's going on inside of our minds and things can and do impact so many other things, so many other areas.
Speaker: Don't you?
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: I want to hear what y'all think because that's pretty much the end of the episode.
Speaker: Those two things, like the reading list and also the TV show Tidying Up,
Speaker: I feel like that's like a cool little nice thing to watch and learn from.
Speaker: And if you already did your tidying last year, it's also just like a nice opportunity to, yeah, kind of think about like, huh, are there trends or similarities between the types of things that I like to buy or wear or bring it to my home?
Speaker: And why?
Speaker: I wonder why.
Speaker: It's a great way to know and learn more about yourself.
Speaker: So yeah, that's all I have to say.
Speaker: Thank you all so much for listening.
Speaker: I hope you have a wonderful new year and I will talk to you all soon.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to the Let's Heal Already podcast.
Speaker: To be clear, I'm not advocating for an emotionally intelligent patriarch or for more men to begin and end their work at feeling comfortable painting their nails, wearing dresses, or expanding what falls under the fold of masculinity.
Speaker: Similarly, I do not want to be a highly efficient, well-adjusted worker under capitalism, which is often the aim of Western therapy models.
Speaker: I am calling for the system to be abolished.
Speaker: That system is imperialist, cis-heterosexist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy.
Speaker: Please leave a rating or review on the platform you use to listen to this podcast and feel free to share this with your friends.
Speaker: Donation to show support can be made at J-R-Y-U-S-S-U-F on Venmo.
