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Humanity Part 7 - Byron Ybarra
271 Plays3 years ago
An empath by nature, Byron and Jon discuss the struggles of feeling angry, wishing for the spice of life called variety, and, to the surprise of everyone, discussion about a video game.
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Transcript
Introduction to Byron Yubara and Podcast Return
00:00:01
Speaker
On today's episode, we talk with Bayron Yubara, a friend who works diligently to recognize and rectify the past, to empathize with others, and who looks for a flow of new experiences in each moment.
00:00:12
Speaker
I mean, there's definitely still a lot of anger I need to work through.
00:00:19
Speaker
Like, I lived my entire life angry.
00:00:23
Speaker
And I've, you know, only just scratched the surface of the very big thing.
00:00:28
Speaker
Like, I think the biggest thing is...
00:00:32
Speaker
in terms of anger and relationships right now is I don't speak to my mom.
00:00:35
Speaker
That's not something I'm interested in changing, but that is something I need to process a little more.
00:00:41
Speaker
I think.
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Humanity Skudu.
00:00:48
Speaker
Today with us is our wonderful guest, a longtime friend, Byron Ibarra.
00:00:55
Speaker
Byron, how are you?
00:00:57
Speaker
I'm doing good, man.
00:00:58
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:59
Speaker
I'm great.
00:01:00
Speaker
Also, an important question is did I pronounce your last name correctly?
00:01:04
Speaker
Yes, actually.
00:01:05
Speaker
I can't roll my R's, so I can't do it.
00:01:07
Speaker
So thank you for doing it.
00:01:08
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:01:08
Speaker
So I actually was superseding your ability to pronounce your own last name.
00:01:13
Speaker
That's very good.
00:01:14
Speaker
Okay.
Byron Ibarra's Career as a Diesel Mechanic
00:01:15
Speaker
Excellent.
00:01:16
Speaker
Well, this is exciting because I actually have not done the podcast for a while.
00:01:20
Speaker
If anybody's listening to all these at once somewhere in the future, you will not notice a lapse.
00:01:24
Speaker
But for me, it's been several months.
00:01:26
Speaker
So, uh, at your request, actually, uh, to get back into this felt like something really good, really appropriate.
00:01:34
Speaker
Um, and so with that, uh, we are here this evening to, to talk and to, uh, just get to know you and your life and what it's all been like and, um, just see how it goes.
00:01:50
Speaker
So are you having a good evening?
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:52
Speaker
I mean, I just got off work, so I'm pretty tired.
00:01:55
Speaker
Um,
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Speaker
But I'm excited.
00:01:57
Speaker
I got a flight coming up in two days.
00:01:59
Speaker
Tomorrow for me because I don't go to bed until 6 a.m.
00:02:03
Speaker
That's really early or really late, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, I work second shift.
00:02:09
Speaker
So my shift starts at 3 and I get home at like midnight.
00:02:13
Speaker
Oh, gotcha.
00:02:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:15
Speaker
I don't like going to bed after work.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
00:02:17
Speaker
You give yourself some time to sort of unwind, watch a movie, play a video game, go jogging for a couple hours.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm not sure what you do.
00:02:25
Speaker
But actually, what I would like to do is since it's actually this is going to be kind of nice.
00:02:29
Speaker
It's been a while since I've really caught up with you is can we learn a little bit about you?
00:02:34
Speaker
What are you doing right now for work?
00:02:37
Speaker
I am a diesel mechanic for Penske.
00:02:41
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Basically, what my job is, I'm a tech three, which is the lowest level technician.
00:02:46
Speaker
My job is to just go through the trucks, you preventative maintenance, inspect them, make sure they're all up to DOT spec.
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Speaker
And if they're not, we write them up.
00:02:54
Speaker
So someone who's better than me can fix it.
00:02:57
Speaker
Better than you.
00:02:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:58
Speaker
So you are basically helping diagnose as a whole?
00:03:02
Speaker
Sort of.
00:03:03
Speaker
It depends on like basically what I'm doing essentially is just making sure trucks meet DOT standards.
00:03:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:11
Speaker
And I do like basic stuff like oil change.
00:03:13
Speaker
I'll change tires, change out stuff like that.
00:03:16
Speaker
Some basic stuff you got going down.
00:03:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:18
Speaker
How long have you been doing that for?
00:03:21
Speaker
I started it when I was living in Texas in October of 22, 21.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:31
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A year and some change.
00:03:33
Speaker
A year and four.
00:03:33
Speaker
Perfect.
Philosophies on Life and Relationships
00:03:35
Speaker
Six months.
00:03:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:38
Speaker
That's pretty good.
00:03:39
Speaker
So you feel like you're at this point, you're doing a pretty good job with sort of being comfortable, not just doing sort of like basic mechanic work, but also being able to diagnose pretty accurately in the event that you need to send it up further.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:52
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Yeah, pretty much.
00:03:53
Speaker
It's I kind of fell into this career path on accident and it was extremely intimidating when I first started.
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I don't know.
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Goddamn thing.
00:04:02
Speaker
OK, so you actually you had no experience or like any sort of level with this prior to this actual job.
00:04:08
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Basically, no.
00:04:09
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I mean, my first job in mechanics was at Valvoline, which is pretty much just oil changes.
00:04:14
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Okay.
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And then I worked at a couple dealerships, just basically just oil changes again.
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And then suddenly now I'm working on big rigs.
00:04:24
Speaker
Interesting.
00:04:26
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There was a huge leap up and I didn't know much.
00:04:30
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Sure.
00:04:31
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Okay, so you're normally working for like every citizen's car and then suddenly you're now doing like 18 wheelers?
00:04:37
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Yeah, with – they got federal standards you have to meet.
00:04:41
Speaker
And the scariest thing they ever told me at work is like if you PM a truck, you go inspect and you miss something DOT and something happens, you can go to prison.
00:04:52
Speaker
You can, okay, wow.
00:04:54
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I could go to prison if I screwed up really badly.
00:04:57
Speaker
So it's not even like they just write you up or they
Family Struggles and Personal Growth
00:04:59
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fire you, but like you go to jail if a guy's like tire flies off and you didn't catch it.
00:05:03
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Yeah, if a tire flies off and kills somebody, that's, I'm going to jail.
00:05:06
Speaker
Okay, so if the tire flies off and doesn't kill anybody, like is there still a penalty?
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Speaker
Probably, I would imagine.
00:05:13
Speaker
Okay, I was going to say it.
00:05:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:15
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I'm certainly at least getting fired.
00:05:17
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Okay, yeah.
00:05:18
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I would imagine that makes sense that there's going to be a fairly deep consequence.
00:05:22
Speaker
But as long as nobody is, like, dead or injured, you might not go to prison.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:26
Speaker
Wow.
00:05:27
Speaker
What kind of sentence is that?
00:05:28
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I mean, you might not know, but, like, would it be, like, a year or five years?
00:05:32
Speaker
Like, what?
00:05:33
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I would imagine that depends on the severity of the... Secondhand manslaughter if a tire flies into somebody's head.
00:05:39
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Yeah.
00:05:40
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Huh.
00:05:41
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Okay.
00:05:42
Speaker
Does that ever – do you feel like that's something that really makes you nervous?
00:05:47
Speaker
I mean, I'd like – as far as I'm concerned, that would make me tremendously nervous if the stakes were such that, like, if I sold somebody a game and, like, they – I don't know.
00:05:59
Speaker
They ate a DS game and got sick, and then the FBI comes crashing through my walls and sends me to jail.
00:06:05
Speaker
I'd feel really nervous about, like –
00:06:07
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everything that like might feel sort of innocuous or inconsequential, but suddenly if the, like you have these high stakes that sort of heightened it, is that been intimidating for you or does it make you sort of buckle down further and you feel like you get better at the job?
00:06:21
Speaker
It was intimidating at first because that wasn't like,
00:06:24
Speaker
you know, a thing with regular vehicles.
00:06:26
Speaker
They just come in, would fix it, company would pay for it, you know, whatever.
00:06:30
Speaker
Um, I wouldn't go to prison over that, but the basics of my job, what I'm doing on a day to day, uh, minus, you know, some exceptions is fairly simple and it's fairly routine.
00:06:41
Speaker
You're walked through it on a headset.
00:06:44
Speaker
Um,
00:06:45
Speaker
But what it did do for me is I have always had a habit of kind of cutting corners, not necessarily to a point where like I'm causing problems, but making things quicker, a little more efficient.
00:06:57
Speaker
But you can't do that with these trucks.
00:07:00
Speaker
Sure.
00:07:02
Speaker
So do you feel like – did you ever think years ago that you'd ever enter a car job that would have this kind of level of consequence?
00:07:12
Speaker
Because that would never occur to me.
00:07:14
Speaker
that any sort of like mechanical job outside of like servicing, like the president's airplane or something could carry like a federal consequence.
00:07:22
Speaker
No, I mean, definitely not.
00:07:24
Speaker
I didn't even, I never even considered DOT was a thing until, you know, I started working on diesel trucks.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:35
Speaker
So as you've been doing this, um,
00:07:39
Speaker
Is it something that – okay, because you said that you've never – like this is not a job that you really like sought out maybe.
00:07:46
Speaker
I don't know if like maybe you at one point decided, hey, I want to get into this.
00:07:49
Speaker
You said that you sort of fell into this.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, so when I first moved to Texas, I was just – I was staying at my cousin's place.
00:07:57
Speaker
He was putting me up while I got on my feet.
00:08:00
Speaker
And I was just looking, seeing what was hiring, and I ended up applying to Valvoline.
00:08:05
Speaker
I had changed oil before on my own car, so it wasn't like –
00:08:09
Speaker
that part of the room and then i just i really enjoyed that work because i was working with my hands it's the same reason i stuck with when i was working with pizza for so long i like the i like the physical work and i like fast-paced environments it keeps me busy so i i enjoyed that job i enjoyed the people i worked with and i just kind of stuck with that field ever since and i yeah sure okay so the busyness because this is something that's kind of cool uh to think about is that like
00:08:37
Speaker
Jobs are something that there's always sort of like a contentious conversation with people, which is not everybody wants to work, which is fair because like not everybody wants to feel like tired.
00:08:47
Speaker
They just want to live.
00:08:48
Speaker
They want to make sure they could live a life without having the need to like, you know, bust their brains all day just to survive.
00:08:55
Speaker
But at the same time, there are people who do thrive on the activity.
00:08:59
Speaker
Maybe it's good for like mental health.
00:09:00
Speaker
Maybe it's good for like physical coordination or physical strength building.
00:09:04
Speaker
Um,
00:09:05
Speaker
But it sounds like you've sort of leaned into the idea of saying, I want to be active and not just like contributing something, but like you really like the actual physical hands on activity.
00:09:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:24
Speaker
And so you said pizza as well was part of that.
00:09:28
Speaker
And that's kind of cool.
00:09:29
Speaker
Is that so before this car job, is there like anything that you had maybe sort of like looked into as like this is sort of like the dream job.
00:09:37
Speaker
This is like the goal.
00:09:38
Speaker
This is sort of like the end game that you're striving for.
00:09:42
Speaker
Was there something hands on that you really like had sort of like had in mind?
00:09:46
Speaker
I mean, not really.
00:09:47
Speaker
I've never really had a big goal.
00:09:50
Speaker
The only thing that was ever like that for me would have been boxing.
00:09:54
Speaker
Oh, that's right, yeah.
00:10:14
Speaker
primarily the reason I've stuck with this company for so long, it's the only job I've worked
Influences and Emotional Expression
00:10:18
Speaker
at for more than a year.
00:10:19
Speaker
Um, it's because the people are nice, you know, when you don't talk about politics with them, uh, but you know, people are nice and really helpful.
00:10:31
Speaker
The job's good.
00:10:32
Speaker
I enjoy it.
00:10:32
Speaker
I'm fairly good at it.
00:10:33
Speaker
I would say, I mean, I'm better, I'm learning.
00:10:36
Speaker
I was really bad at it when I started, but,
00:10:39
Speaker
all that and it's guaranteed 40 hours got benefits all that stuff and now that i've moved north i'm now that i moved to ohio the shop i'm at now is union okay so that's that's nice you have like some sort of like protection and yeah you feel like you're part of a group that actually has your best interest in mind and is not trying to maybe exploit your ability or skill yeah not that i felt that penske was ever out to get me but just the the added bit of security is nice
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds really, really nice.
00:11:06
Speaker
Okay, so, I mean, one thing that you and I have discussed an awful lot, because a really common thread between us was our friend Michelle, who many people know passed a couple years ago, but she was actually a very common thread between both of us, shared a lot of philosophy, and this podcast is sort of like a spiritual follow-up to something that Michelle and I had started years ago.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:30
Speaker
So talking philosophy and like your own personal construct of like who you are is something I wanted to get into a little bit.
00:11:36
Speaker
Sure.
00:11:38
Speaker
And I think that you've actually just tapped into something already that I think is really interesting with saying that like you are very go with the flow.
00:11:46
Speaker
You are very fine, not focusing or even hyper fixating on I need to get this job.
00:11:51
Speaker
I need to do this thing.
00:11:52
Speaker
This has to happen or I won't be happy.
00:11:55
Speaker
You seem very able to just sort of say,
00:11:58
Speaker
well, here's where I am, so this is what I'm going to do.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a contentious point in a lot of relationships I've had.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, I can only imagine.
00:12:09
Speaker
In fact, actually, how does that kind of thing really work out for you?
00:12:13
Speaker
Because a lot of people are very goal-driven, and it might be really hard for them to find somebody that can focus on literally task at hand, but be completely okay with a nebulous sort of future.
00:12:27
Speaker
with just whatever happens happens how how does how does that worked out like and what kind of discussions has that brought up for you uh so the first one that comes to mind is with my most recent uh ex you know lovely person i'm i love her to death to this day and you know we're still good friends but one of the um a conversation that we had that like really like solidified in my mind that this was not going to work out in the long term um we just started talking about
00:12:57
Speaker
future plans in general, not necessarily ours, just the way, you know, people come across those things.
00:13:02
Speaker
And my sort of philosophy has always been that, well, hers is, she wants to secure herself right now, you know, young, so that she is set for the rest of her life.
00:13:15
Speaker
She can do the things she wants.
00:13:16
Speaker
And my philosophy was sort of
00:13:19
Speaker
Almost completely opposite to that in that I am more concerned with doing the things I want to do now when I'm young, when I'm able because tomorrow is never guaranteed.
00:13:34
Speaker
Sure.
00:13:34
Speaker
So you're very focused on the philosophy of you might not get a second chance to do it, so in the moment is the time to live.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:42
Speaker
And we were just, you know, going back and forth on that.
00:13:44
Speaker
And she said, you know, that's why you had your bets so that you can, you know, secure yourself.
00:13:50
Speaker
Now you had your bets in the fact that you're going to be here that long so that you can do those things.
00:13:54
Speaker
And my response was, I understand, I guess I just don't find that bet worth taking.
00:14:01
Speaker
Do you think that stems from anything like an experience in your life where something might have changed the idea of like long-term security for like an instant sort of, you know,
00:14:10
Speaker
things have happened, you know, you've, maybe you've had friends or loved ones or family members that have passed and they never got the chance to, and it maybe kickstarted you into
Love for Travel and Education
00:14:18
Speaker
the philosophy of, you know, the here and now really is the only thing.
00:14:23
Speaker
Cause of course both camps are totally valid.
00:14:25
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:14:26
Speaker
But you know, like, do you think that anything sort of in your life had sort of pushed you in that direction or is that just how you've always been?
00:14:33
Speaker
I'd say a little bit of both.
00:14:35
Speaker
I know that, um,
00:14:38
Speaker
Early on in my later childhood, my dad had a pretty successful windows and doors business.
00:14:45
Speaker
He had to shop in Cruces, El Paso, Albuquerque.
00:14:49
Speaker
We were doing fairly well, and then all of that was gone.
00:14:51
Speaker
And then we were just living pure poverty, government housing, things like that.
00:15:00
Speaker
So there was no security with that, even working as hard as he was, as successful as he was.
00:15:06
Speaker
Sure.
00:15:07
Speaker
So when you say everything was gone, like what happened to sort of like remove that security and stability from you?
00:15:13
Speaker
If I may ask.
00:15:14
Speaker
No, yeah, of course.
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh, good.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's the point of the podcast.
00:15:18
Speaker
The, it was, it was a number of things.
00:15:21
Speaker
Uh, the inciting incident, I would say for this and a lot of things in my life would be the death of my brother that affected my dad greatly.
00:15:31
Speaker
And, uh,
00:15:33
Speaker
A lot of illnesses came up pretty soon after that.
00:15:35
Speaker
Things that I'm sure would have come up regardless, but the, you know, with the stress and the grief and everything that came after my brother's death, probably kickstarted those.
00:15:46
Speaker
So then he couldn't work anymore.
00:15:48
Speaker
He was, you know, his mental state was gone.
00:15:51
Speaker
Took him a long time to start to recover from that.
00:15:55
Speaker
How did that affect you specifically?
00:15:56
Speaker
Because it sounds like your dad took a pretty big mental hit from that.
00:15:59
Speaker
But like, in terms of your response to that, what was that like?
00:16:03
Speaker
I had only – well, he – I met him once.
00:16:07
Speaker
He stayed with us for one school year.
00:16:09
Speaker
Okay, so you didn't,
Personal Growth and Communication
00:16:10
Speaker
like, grow up very closely then.
00:16:12
Speaker
No.
00:16:12
Speaker
He has a different mom.
00:16:14
Speaker
He lived with her in Chicago.
00:16:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:17
Speaker
And he was going to come live with us, but he went back the summer and just didn't come back, I guess.
00:16:23
Speaker
My dad said –
00:16:24
Speaker
He didn't like how strict my dad was.
00:16:26
Speaker
My dad was really strict back then.
00:16:27
Speaker
So I can definitely see that.
00:16:30
Speaker
Sure.
00:16:31
Speaker
But I mean, it wasn't like I wasn't affected.
00:16:33
Speaker
It was very... I was hurt, you know, because I did get along with him.
00:16:39
Speaker
But most of it was just seeing how it affected my dad, who at that point in my life, I don't think I had ever seen him cry.
00:16:47
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:16:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:47
Speaker
So that must have been like a really jarring thing for you in general on several levels.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, we were living...
00:16:54
Speaker
in either Las Cruces or Albuquerque.
00:16:58
Speaker
No, we were living in Albuquerque and we were visiting family in Las Cruces.
00:17:02
Speaker
We were staying in a Motel 6 and I was woken up by my dad sobbing.
00:17:08
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:17:09
Speaker
And I was like 10 years old and I looked at him and he sees me and he says, Rick's dead.
00:17:15
Speaker
They killed him.
00:17:17
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:17:18
Speaker
I just remember this vividly because it's the first time I've ever seen my dad like that.
00:17:22
Speaker
And I also remember, and this is,
00:17:24
Speaker
a little messed up, but I was half awake.
00:17:26
Speaker
I wasn't really processing what was happening.
00:17:28
Speaker
Right.
00:17:29
Speaker
But just the look on my dad's face, my 10 year old brain was like, that's a funny face.
00:17:32
Speaker
And then I went back to sleep.
00:17:35
Speaker
So it didn't even register with you.
00:17:36
Speaker
There's a cognizance when you're 10 years old, but also like that's a really big thing to intake fully.
00:17:42
Speaker
And so I can only imagine there was a lot of stuff that like was not being fully processed at that point, which
00:17:48
Speaker
makes a lot of sense.
00:17:49
Speaker
I, um, yeah, I mean, I definitely understood what had happened.
00:17:52
Speaker
Right.
00:17:53
Speaker
I don't really think I ever, not that I can remember any of this.
00:17:56
Speaker
I don't think I ever cried about it.
00:17:59
Speaker
I felt very removed from him and his death.
00:18:04
Speaker
Sure.
00:18:05
Speaker
But then you saw what affected, how it affected your father and then what that did to affect your family.
00:18:11
Speaker
And as such, you just realized that like all it takes is an instant for everything to change.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:19
Speaker
But before then, was it something that you felt like with dad's family business, you guys were, hey, we're good.
00:18:26
Speaker
Everything's clearly going fine right now.
00:18:28
Speaker
Therefore, the future is fairly well secure.
00:18:31
Speaker
And then was that sort of like a moment that really changed that for you?
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
I'm not sure that I ever really thought about it.
00:18:41
Speaker
I mean, I was like 10 years old.
00:18:43
Speaker
But I did know that, like, you know, we weren't hurting for money.
00:18:47
Speaker
Our pantry was full.
00:18:48
Speaker
My dad was, you know, buying me the games I wanted, everything like that.
00:18:51
Speaker
And it was just, you know, we had our own place.
00:18:54
Speaker
And then now we're living with my grandparents.
00:18:58
Speaker
You know, now we're living in a camper in my grandpa's backyard.
00:19:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:19:05
Speaker
And so how does that affect you in sort of as being young and looking at that situation and feeling helpless?
00:19:12
Speaker
Because like, you know, you can't get like a legal job and it's hard to feel like you can't contribute to something in some way because you're simply not able to as like, you know, a young citizen able to do a whole lot.
00:19:24
Speaker
I mean, you know, was that something that you felt was like a really big struggle for you in just like how did you feel like?
00:19:33
Speaker
What was that like?
00:19:35
Speaker
not knowing or maybe knowing what to do like what what i guess what was that what was it like for you for a long i didn't really come into like uh fully grasping our situation until i was in high school i would say sure late middle school but it i was very angry
00:20:00
Speaker
Just constantly, even before I had fully recognized what was happening.
00:20:05
Speaker
Who are we angry with?
00:20:11
Speaker
Everything.
00:20:11
Speaker
Just life.
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
Just hands dealt.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, anger has been a very pervasive emotion throughout my entire life.
00:20:19
Speaker
And, you know, it... Teenagers are angry in general, but I felt like it was just ever-present.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:29
Speaker
And...
00:20:32
Speaker
Like what did, what, yeah.
00:20:35
Speaker
It got worse when I became a teenager because then, you know, I could have my own bank account and everything like that.
00:20:42
Speaker
And the first hit on my credit was a loan my dad had to take out that he never paid.
00:20:48
Speaker
I see.
00:20:50
Speaker
You know, but I was, you know, I had to do what I had to do to help us out because it was that or rent.
00:20:57
Speaker
Right.
00:20:57
Speaker
Or electricity or internet or.
00:21:01
Speaker
Sure.
00:21:01
Speaker
So you felt sort of maybe thrust into a responsibility that as a young person, you might not have been ready for.
00:21:07
Speaker
It was a responsibility I had no control over.
00:21:10
Speaker
Sure.
00:21:11
Speaker
Sure.
00:21:11
Speaker
That, yeah, that makes sense too.
00:21:13
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that sounds like a pretty, uh, a pretty problematic thing to like sort of be forced into.
00:21:21
Speaker
Um, and you said anger was sort of like a really present component of, uh, of who you were at that point.
00:21:28
Speaker
Um, and right now, as, as far as I'm concerned, it seems like life has, has evened out for you and smoothed out for you at the time though.
00:21:36
Speaker
Like, what were you doing?
00:21:38
Speaker
Uh, is it something that you felt you recognized or did you recognize it in hindsight?
00:21:41
Speaker
And if you did recognize it, like what, what were you trying to do to like, uh, circumvent it?
00:21:48
Speaker
How did you confront it?
00:21:49
Speaker
How did you deal with it?
00:21:50
Speaker
I made it everybody else's problem.
00:21:53
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:21:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:54
Speaker
I was, I,
00:21:59
Speaker
I was an asshole in high school.
00:22:02
Speaker
More than I think most teenage boys were.
00:22:06
Speaker
I had friends.
00:22:09
Speaker
Only a couple of them still speak to me from that time.
00:22:13
Speaker
And it was... I would get swallowed up by these friend groups just...
00:22:19
Speaker
By virtue of, you know, I have this one person I'm close to and I would just get swallowed up by these other people.
00:22:25
Speaker
And at best, most of those people, if I didn't form some sort of friendship with them, I would just find them inoffensive.
00:22:32
Speaker
You know, like that's fine.
00:22:34
Speaker
You know, we're just acquaintances.
00:22:35
Speaker
But at worst, if I didn't like them, I would make it almost a mission for them to hate being around me.
00:22:44
Speaker
Interesting so there's sort of like this vindictiveness and not targeted specifically because they did something it was you were Responding to your anger just at other people and it's
00:22:58
Speaker
It wasn't even just them, though they got it the worst.
00:23:01
Speaker
I was mean to my friends.
00:23:03
Speaker
I was just terrible to pretty much anybody I met at that time.
00:23:09
Speaker
And like I said, a lot of people just ended up dropping me.
00:23:12
Speaker
The only two people I speak to are some of my closest friends today.
00:23:16
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:18
Speaker
And knowing that they sort of stuck with you through this whole thing,
00:23:23
Speaker
Have you discussed that with them?
00:23:25
Speaker
Like, sort of what it was like at that time?
00:23:26
Speaker
Have you guys sort of like, is it under the rug?
00:23:28
Speaker
Is it elephant in the room?
00:23:29
Speaker
Like, what is that conversation like?
00:23:31
Speaker
I have asked them before, you know, why, you know, what on earth possessed you to stay my friend when I was treating everybody like that?
00:23:39
Speaker
And they, both of them understood because they were in similar places.
00:23:44
Speaker
They just expressed it a little bit differently than I did.
00:23:47
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:48
Speaker
So it was a sort of a kindred spirit thing and
00:23:51
Speaker
You know, we've all forgiven each other about how we treated each other.
00:23:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:57
Speaker
That's really a very powerful and strong thing to do, because I don't necessarily think that people who feel like they're being treated poorly need to stick around or need to even like, you know, deal with that to the point of forgiveness.
00:24:11
Speaker
But it's certainly a grace when you find people that choose to, you know, or that can tough it out.
00:24:16
Speaker
But it also sounds like, you know, they understood simply by virtue of association.
00:24:20
Speaker
They had their own, you know, scenarios they were going through.
00:24:26
Speaker
Do you feel that at any point, like, they were bad enough to you to where you extended that same kind of grace to them?
00:24:35
Speaker
No, they... Those...
00:24:39
Speaker
Two, like two specifically, we were never really awful to each other.
00:24:43
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:24:44
Speaker
Not much anyways, not as much as everyone else were.
00:24:47
Speaker
They just saw your struggle in a way nobody else could.
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:54
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:24:55
Speaker
At what point did you sort of recognize what that looked like in yourself?
00:25:00
Speaker
And then what was your plan to say, I want to be better?
00:25:05
Speaker
It wasn't until my early 20s.
00:25:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
00:25:08
Speaker
I think.
00:25:09
Speaker
Sure.
00:25:09
Speaker
I mean, I had, I had been, I would say steadily improving, but I was not good.
00:25:14
Speaker
Just, just improving as you know, you grow older and grow more mature and more aware of yourself.
00:25:19
Speaker
Right.
00:25:20
Speaker
Um, but it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't until my early twenties when, you know, I had been through a couple of abusive relationships on my end and one on theirs and just,
00:25:34
Speaker
losing a lot of friends.
00:25:36
Speaker
And I was like, there's a common denominator here.
00:25:39
Speaker
Right.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:41
Speaker
And that's a really big thing to be able to recognize.
00:25:43
Speaker
Cause I think it's very simple for, I'd say anybody at any point in their lives, you know, everybody at some point has sort of felt like,
00:25:51
Speaker
Other people are slighting me.
00:25:53
Speaker
My perspective has to be the right one.
00:25:54
Speaker
It's everybody else who's the problem.
00:25:58
Speaker
It wasn't even that I wasn't aware that I was being mean.
00:26:01
Speaker
It was just that – if you talk to 17-year-old me and you're like, hey, stop being an asshole.
00:26:07
Speaker
It's just who I am.
00:26:09
Speaker
That's just – OK, right.
00:26:10
Speaker
So you were willing to shirk the willingness to be better.
00:26:12
Speaker
It was just sort of like this is an unchangeable factor.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
This is who I am.
00:26:15
Speaker
I'm a cynical asshole, blah, blah, blah.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, but it sounds like at some point, like, you decided to examine that and then maybe opt to, we'll say, grow out of it.
00:26:25
Speaker
I mean, you know, at least address it because you recognize that it's harmful to others and ultimately to you.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah, that was the biggest thing is I was still very angry when
00:26:42
Speaker
into my twenties and even to an extent today, um, it was more of like, I can't let this take the people I care about away from me anymore because I had, you know, and there, I'd lost so many people just because of the way I acted and they were well within rights.
00:27:00
Speaker
I have no, not angry with them for doing that.
00:27:04
Speaker
I would have done the same thing.
00:27:08
Speaker
It's just I can't.
00:27:09
Speaker
This is not sustainable for me, and it's certainly not sustainable for the people around me.
00:27:14
Speaker
Do you feel it was sort of taking a toll on you emotionally?
00:27:17
Speaker
Because it's a lot of upkeep to be angry.
00:27:19
Speaker
I think in the past when I've you know, I've had, you know, anger things that I've had to sort it through.
00:27:25
Speaker
It is exhausting and it's difficult and it's really.
00:27:28
Speaker
It's so much more effort to hold on to bad feelings consistently.
00:27:34
Speaker
You know, I think sometimes it's easy to feel like, oh, it's effortless because I can just be mad at things.
00:27:38
Speaker
But like it takes a really heavy toll on emotional, physical and spiritual levels.
00:27:45
Speaker
It's yeah, it's exhausting.
00:27:47
Speaker
It's I was really scared to let a lot of anger go because it had been the fuel for most of the things I've accomplished.
00:27:57
Speaker
I've done everything.
00:27:58
Speaker
so many things out of spite you know i've pushed myself forward when you know my life had just crumbled apart because i was angry and just it was scary to let all that go because you know what would i have to push me forward if not the one thing that's pushed me forward my whole life so in a way it sounds like anger was part of your identity because that identity helped you fuel progress
00:28:27
Speaker
But it was fueled by something negative.
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:28:30
Speaker
Fueled regardless, but okay.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, and so, I mean, that's – anger is a tricky thing because I think people get really nervous talking about anger like, oh, I don't want to be an angry person.
00:28:42
Speaker
And I think all of us hopefully do not want that.
00:28:45
Speaker
But anger is a part of life.
00:28:46
Speaker
Anger is a part of things.
00:28:48
Speaker
Anger is something that we all experience and we should experience it.
00:28:52
Speaker
It's a very important emotion to, I think, recognize.
00:28:55
Speaker
I don't think anger is inherently negative.
00:28:57
Speaker
Right.
00:28:58
Speaker
It's – Yeah.
00:29:00
Speaker
Like I said, you can use it as motivation.
00:29:05
Speaker
It just can't be the sole driving force is I guess the way I would put it, like it was for me.
00:29:12
Speaker
Sure.
00:29:13
Speaker
And I mean maybe it can sort of promote you or position you to want to be better.
00:29:19
Speaker
Ideally though, the goal may not be to do it at the expense of others.
00:29:23
Speaker
Right.
00:29:24
Speaker
Right.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, anger is – it's funny because, yeah, that subject I think I've always looked at in my life until I'd say recent years as, oh, I'm not angry because anger is negative and negative is unbecoming without realizing that anger is an important part of the emotional spectrum.
00:29:42
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:29:42
Speaker
And so suppressing it and withholding it is actually just as damaging because you're disallowing something that is important to move forward or to get past things or to understand things or to understand people.
00:29:54
Speaker
Um, so would you say that at this point in your life, obviously no one likes to go of anger entirely.
00:30:00
Speaker
You have to be on some sort of crazy Zen level to be able to entirely do that.
00:30:05
Speaker
But is it something that you feel you have much more under control or at least you understand it better at this point?
00:30:12
Speaker
I definitely at least understand it better.
00:30:14
Speaker
I've been trying to let a lot of it go.
00:30:17
Speaker
A lot of this did not happen on purpose.
00:30:19
Speaker
Sure.
00:30:20
Speaker
It's, um...
00:30:21
Speaker
Like when I was writing out that big old Google Doc I showed you.
00:30:26
Speaker
Oh, yes, yes.
00:30:27
Speaker
I wrote about in detail my first serious relationship that was very mutually abusive and destructive to both of us.
00:30:37
Speaker
And when I was writing it, I was physically angry, which is – it's one of the primary ways I feel angry.
00:30:47
Speaker
It's a very physical emotion to me.
00:30:49
Speaker
Like my body will shake –
00:30:51
Speaker
I, you know, sometimes I'll cry, things like that.
00:30:53
Speaker
I was feeling that as I was writing it down.
00:30:57
Speaker
And then a couple weeks later, a memory had come up from that relationship, a positive memory, and it didn't make me angry for the first time.
00:31:09
Speaker
Oh, good.
00:31:09
Speaker
Okay, so you were able to separate the...
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, it was this date we went on.
00:31:14
Speaker
We stayed up all night.
00:31:17
Speaker
We just couldn't sleep.
00:31:18
Speaker
And we're like, fuck it.
00:31:19
Speaker
Let's go to the zoo right when it opens.
00:31:22
Speaker
And it was a good day.
00:31:24
Speaker
And that was the first time in nearly a decade that I could think of any part of that relationship and not be angry.
00:31:34
Speaker
Interesting.
00:31:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:36
Speaker
It was like I finally expressed a lot of it.
00:31:42
Speaker
and just got it out of me.
00:31:44
Speaker
And what that ultimately culminated in was I sent her a very long apology for the first time.
00:31:54
Speaker
I don't know if she's ever read it.
00:31:55
Speaker
It doesn't really matter.
00:31:58
Speaker
Sure.
00:31:59
Speaker
It was sort of a way for you to express, to get it off of your chest, to acknowledge how you feel, to take ownership of your feelings.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah, and it was...
00:32:11
Speaker
I had always said, you know, when I would talk about their relations, I would say, you know, I was abusive to her.
00:32:16
Speaker
I wasn't that good, but it was always followed by a, but, you know, and that I took responsibility in a sense, but it was always, it was like, Oh, but she did this.
00:32:28
Speaker
So.
00:32:30
Speaker
Right.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
There's a back and forth, a justification, a, a reasoning or some sort.
00:32:35
Speaker
Have you gotten to the point where you can look at that now and just be like, I did what I did.
00:32:41
Speaker
And that's all on me.
00:32:42
Speaker
Anything she did, that was on them.
00:32:44
Speaker
And I cannot control that.
00:32:46
Speaker
My faults are my own fault kind of thing.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, and it's... There was another relationship, another person I apologize to for similar reasons.
00:32:57
Speaker
But this was... The abuse in this relationship was almost exclusively mine.
00:33:00
Speaker
It was the relationship immediately after the mutually abusive one.
00:33:04
Speaker
So it was just kind of shoveling that onto her.
00:33:08
Speaker
And while I was...
00:33:10
Speaker
You know, drafting an apology in my head, I looked through some old messages between me and her, and I felt sick by, you know, the things I was saying and doing.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:26
Speaker
At this point, I mean, like, looking back at all that right now, um...
00:33:31
Speaker
This is always such a really difficult question because you have to assume that younger you would never want to necessarily listen because you are where you are when you're that age.
00:33:40
Speaker
And advice means nothing until you have a reason to hear it.
00:33:44
Speaker
But if you could look at where you are right now and go talk to yourself at that time, what would you say?
00:33:51
Speaker
What would you at least want to try to impart?
00:33:56
Speaker
That's difficult because I don't know that I would be where I am if I wasn't the way that I was.
00:34:02
Speaker
That's fair.
00:34:03
Speaker
I think that makes sense.
00:34:04
Speaker
And it's... You know, I would say I'm in a fairly good place.
00:34:09
Speaker
It's... Yeah, it's not really something I've ever thought about.
00:34:17
Speaker
Just because I've always been a very it-is-what-it-is person.
00:34:23
Speaker
Would you say, like, to younger you, maybe along the lines of, you know, the anger will pass, or it's okay to feel this way, just, you know, temper it in such a manner?
00:34:36
Speaker
Like, is there something like thinking back that you wish you would have known, you know, assuming that it wouldn't change where you are right now, but just something that maybe makes you feel like, you know, you just didn't have the right equipment or tools to deal with it?
00:34:52
Speaker
It would probably be just some sort of reassurance.
00:34:56
Speaker
Not necessarily – I certainly wouldn't listen if you told me to change my behavior, but I – Yeah, I don't think anybody young would ever do that because that's where you are at the time.
00:35:06
Speaker
Like I said, I don't think I would be where I am if not for the way that I was.
00:35:11
Speaker
Sure.
00:35:12
Speaker
So I think the best thing I could say to myself back then is just it's not always going to be this way.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:21
Speaker
And so what do you think it is at this point?
00:35:22
Speaker
Like, because anger is still part of life.
00:35:24
Speaker
Anger is part of it.
00:35:25
Speaker
What do you think the biggest contributing factors to you dealing with anger now are?
00:35:30
Speaker
It sounds like you said writing things out, whether it's sort of like a personal autobiography of some sort or apologies to people you feel that you've wronged.
00:35:42
Speaker
Is writing sort of like your primary expression at this point of sort of laying it out in front of you and looking at it, or is there something else that you do to sort of deal with it?
00:35:52
Speaker
It's definitely always been writing.
00:35:54
Speaker
I...
00:35:55
Speaker
I also had this really old blog that I started when I was like 18 and wrote a lot of my thoughts on that.
00:36:02
Speaker
And I hate reading it now because I was still an asshole.
00:36:06
Speaker
Which is why I've separated and put the new writing somewhere else.
00:36:13
Speaker
But it's been that.
00:36:15
Speaker
That's always helped me process my emotions, which has been something that's always been profoundly difficult for me to do.
00:36:22
Speaker
It's...
00:36:25
Speaker
Do you think that was something that was sort of suppressed growing up?
00:36:28
Speaker
Like you weren't supposed to show emotions?
00:36:30
Speaker
Is that a product of society or something you were never taught?
00:36:34
Speaker
Something that was just never present in your life?
00:36:36
Speaker
No, not at all.
00:36:37
Speaker
My dad has always been very encouraging of expressing emotions, probably because, you know, he was taught the opposite.
00:36:45
Speaker
Sure.
00:36:46
Speaker
Like when I was in Little League, if I got
00:36:50
Speaker
I got nailed in the crotch by a 40-mile-an-hour fastball because I was playing catcher.
00:36:55
Speaker
First thing my dad said was, it's okay to cry.
00:36:57
Speaker
You just got to get up.
00:36:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:01
Speaker
And that's – that's the sort of idea I've always clinged to.
00:37:06
Speaker
I don't cry.
00:37:07
Speaker
I just don't – I've never shown my emotions much, so I don't cry much, but that's – I've never been –
00:37:12
Speaker
ashamed of it when I do.
00:37:14
Speaker
Sure.
00:37:15
Speaker
Is that something you felt you've gotten better at as far as expressing emotions, or do you still sort of, like, withhold them until you're in a place where you want to deal with them in your own way?
00:37:23
Speaker
It's...
00:37:27
Speaker
I don't show them freely, I suppose.
00:37:29
Speaker
It's got to be right place, right time.
00:37:32
Speaker
I try not to suppress them.
00:37:35
Speaker
I just try to control them, I suppose.
00:37:38
Speaker
Oh, I see.
00:37:38
Speaker
Do you think that's impacted relationships that you've had with people, or is it something that in a secure relationship, whether it's a friendship or a romantic one, that you can open up to that, or is that something that has still maybe been some sort of blockage for you?
00:37:52
Speaker
It used to be a problem.
00:37:54
Speaker
It used to be a huge problem because I was just very bad at talking about how I felt.
00:37:59
Speaker
And I'm still not great at finding the words, but I'm able to speak to it a little more, able to make the effort at least, and that goes a long way.
00:38:08
Speaker
I wouldn't even really try before because I'm just going to be stuttering and stammering the whole time.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
So, like I said earlier, a common thread with us was our friend Michelle, who as of this recording passed away about a year and a half ago.
00:38:27
Speaker
She was a really largely positive influence in, I think, your entire family's life.
00:38:33
Speaker
Very notably, we did a couple episodes with her and your dad that we talked about a lot of stuff.
00:38:37
Speaker
But obviously, she had a huge impact and influence on you.
00:38:41
Speaker
Do you think there are things that she might have taught you in terms of like dealing with emotions that you can look at and go, oh, you know, like what she provided with me helped me sort of like learn how to cope with things or learn how to address them or acknowledge them?
00:39:00
Speaker
Yes, but not directly.
00:39:03
Speaker
Not like she – when we – when I spoke with Michelle, she was never really trying to teach me anything.
00:39:09
Speaker
What we were talking about was mostly my dad because that's the subject of all the work she was doing.
00:39:16
Speaker
She was getting my perspective on things.
00:39:19
Speaker
But I –
00:39:22
Speaker
Michelle was ridiculously easy to talk to.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:27
Speaker
Like the fact, like I thought about it for weeks.
00:39:31
Speaker
The first time I had that, you know, one-on-one conversation with her, how easy it was for me to open up to her blew my mind.
00:39:38
Speaker
I'd never done that with anybody.
00:39:41
Speaker
Sure.
00:39:41
Speaker
And it wasn't scary.
00:39:43
Speaker
I wasn't concerned, you know, and the, while we were talking, it's shifted to me more than my dad because I was,
00:39:52
Speaker
I was the subject of a lot of the things he learned, you know, they were passed on one way or another.
00:39:56
Speaker
That's just how the top, the topic shifted to me.
00:40:00
Speaker
And I just kept talking and talking and that's not something that I do.
00:40:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:04
Speaker
There's an inner interconnectivity to it all, but I think also Michelle had a way of sort of helping people feel safe and secure in a way that very few people have that I've ever experienced.
00:40:15
Speaker
It was really remarkable.
00:40:17
Speaker
And, um,
00:40:18
Speaker
you know, this podcast episode especially isn't exactly about her, but the influence that she held over both of us, I think makes her a very pertinent sort of middle ground for you and I to sort of discuss, you know, philosophy and, you know, how that sort of shaped us and molded us.
00:40:35
Speaker
Because as I understood it, as she was helping, you know, talk to your dad and your family, inevitably there's influence with what she did, her insights, her perspectives and her feedback.
00:40:46
Speaker
It didn't just touch your dad.
00:40:49
Speaker
It touched you, whether it was conversation with her, conversation with your dad.
00:40:53
Speaker
You know, the things that I heard when she talked to you or when she talked to your father, those things influenced me.
00:40:59
Speaker
It was a really remarkable and beautiful method that she used because she was so welcoming and so open and so nonjudgmental.
00:41:10
Speaker
What kinds of things do you think you may have taken away?
00:41:13
Speaker
I know it's kind of like a big and sort of broad question.
00:41:16
Speaker
But in terms of what she provided for you for listening or coping or whatever that might have been, I mean, during the time of all of us talking about your dad's struggle and what that looked like, what was your biggest takeaway, I think, from that, if you can cite that?
00:41:36
Speaker
I think probably just that people are trustworthy.
00:41:45
Speaker
That was always, and still is to an extent, one of my biggest issues.
00:41:51
Speaker
I have really close friends that know very little about my life and what I've been through.
00:41:59
Speaker
I went to Chicago recently.
00:42:01
Speaker
My brother's buried up there, and I went and saw him.
00:42:03
Speaker
And I told one of my friends, I'm going to see my brother while I'm in Chicago.
00:42:08
Speaker
And they're like, oh, are you cool?
00:42:10
Speaker
Because I'm not...
00:42:11
Speaker
I don't talk to my other half siblings.
00:42:13
Speaker
So they asked, are you and your brother cool?
00:42:15
Speaker
I was like, I should hope so.
00:42:16
Speaker
He's six feet underground.
00:42:17
Speaker
And they were like, well, I didn't know.
00:42:20
Speaker
You sort of blindsided them with his information.
00:42:25
Speaker
I didn't realize they didn't know because it doesn't come up in my mind to talk to people about that.
00:42:32
Speaker
Sure, sure, sure.
00:42:35
Speaker
What was that like going up and sort of confronting...
00:42:39
Speaker
I mean, when you went up there, how long had it been since you'd had to really sort of have that in mind, have him in mind?
00:42:49
Speaker
I don't think about him often.
00:42:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:42:54
Speaker
But I know that his death was a catalyst for a lot of things that happened in my life.
00:42:59
Speaker
And when I made the decision to go see him, I was terrified.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:07
Speaker
And it's...
00:43:10
Speaker
What do you think scared you the most about them?
00:43:16
Speaker
Probably, what year was it?
00:43:18
Speaker
About 13 years worth of trauma that I was about to face.
00:43:24
Speaker
And it wasn't, it was, it was difficult.
00:43:30
Speaker
It was harder than I thought it would be.
00:43:32
Speaker
Just, you know, walking up to this little memorial on the ground.
00:43:38
Speaker
I didn't stay very long because it was 16 degrees and windy, but.
00:43:41
Speaker
Oh, that sounds nightmarish.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah, no, that made it that much worse.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:52
Speaker
I didn't, I didn't say much.
00:43:54
Speaker
It was more just like, I guess, processing a lot of things that I never realized that I hadn't.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, I can only imagine.
00:44:04
Speaker
That seems like something difficult to suddenly be thrust back into, especially if it was something you were never truly close to.
00:44:11
Speaker
You were sort of close by proxy through your dad about the whole thing.
00:44:14
Speaker
And then suddenly you get your own one-on-one, and what does that look like?
00:44:19
Speaker
What does that feel like?
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we never went to his funeral.
00:44:23
Speaker
We never visited his grave before.
00:44:26
Speaker
So that was very much a first for me, and it was...
00:44:32
Speaker
I still don't really know how to express what it was like.
00:44:35
Speaker
It was still fairly recent.
00:44:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:41
Speaker
I wouldn't know where to begin.
00:44:43
Speaker
I wouldn't know how to think about that.
00:44:44
Speaker
That's a really tough one.
00:44:46
Speaker
I'm impressed that you were able to even go do that at all.
00:44:50
Speaker
I think it's a really good thing that you were able to.
00:44:52
Speaker
And even if you, quote unquote, took nothing away from it, you obviously know there is something that happens regardless.
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:00
Speaker
I think maybe even the bravery to approach it at all is noteworthy.
00:45:07
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:10
Speaker
I think it's something that, you know, it's not unremarkable.
00:45:15
Speaker
It's not a small thing.
00:45:17
Speaker
Even showing up to look it in the face, I think, is a much bigger and scarier thing than maybe sometimes we're prepared for.
00:45:24
Speaker
And it sounds like that's sort of what that is.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean it was definitely the first time I cried about him in a very long time.
00:45:34
Speaker
Have you talked with your dad about it since that moment?
00:45:40
Speaker
No, I'm not even sure if he knows I did it now that I think about it.
00:45:44
Speaker
I see.
00:45:44
Speaker
I'm going to forward him a copy of this the moment it's done.
00:45:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:50
Speaker
And he might listen, of course.
00:45:51
Speaker
I have no idea.
00:45:52
Speaker
I'm not going to force your hand and be like, hey, check out all your son's secrets on my podcast.
00:45:58
Speaker
No, I have a fairly open relationship with my dad, so we talk a lot.
00:46:03
Speaker
That's really good.
00:46:04
Speaker
I mean it seems like, yeah, that one thing that I noticed about you – because I had met you obviously a while before I met your father.
00:46:10
Speaker
In fact, I didn't know a whole lot about your dad other than you guys came over and helped tile my own house.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:16
Speaker
That you had a father.
00:46:17
Speaker
I knew that you had a father and I was really impressed.
00:46:18
Speaker
I was like, wow, that's so cool.
00:46:20
Speaker
Um, but, uh, I didn't know a whole lot about him or any sort of background.
00:46:25
Speaker
And so when Michelle started sort of like taking on this, this, I don't want to say case, but this, this discussion, you know, she really opened up this discussion and made it something that was so important to her that we made a podcast, you know, a section about it.
00:46:39
Speaker
Um, but I'm really glad to hear that you and your father, uh,
00:46:45
Speaker
are close and open because I think that can be trauma can do so much to a family that either brings you unbearably close or can absolutely destroy the dynamic and you never talk to one another again.
00:46:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this last year, me and my dad had quite a bit of strain in our relationship, but we were, you know, we were able to move past that.
00:47:08
Speaker
Sure.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:09
Speaker
Conflict isn't necessarily bad.
00:47:10
Speaker
Conflict maybe helps you sort of like strengthen the things that you
00:47:14
Speaker
have to figure out how to work on yeah no it was it was very very difficult to speak to him for a little bit but the fact that we were able to move past that i think yeah great because i i wasn't interested in losing my relationship with my dad over anything if i can help it that's really important yeah that's sort of makes you reprioritize the things you feel you have to say just because
00:47:39
Speaker
You know, sometimes it can be easy to say, well, you know, you need to hear me out.
00:47:43
Speaker
Or as you cited earlier, you know, when you were younger, this is just who I am.
00:47:48
Speaker
You know, but as people, we get to choose who we are and you don't just say, oh, you know, I'm stuck with it.
00:47:54
Speaker
You can say, do I want this to shift?
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:00
Speaker
That's wonderful.
00:48:01
Speaker
At this point, it sounds like you are really doing remarkably well.
00:48:05
Speaker
But like any person, you know, like, you know, we're never completed projects.
00:48:09
Speaker
We're always works in progress.
00:48:11
Speaker
What do you think it is at this point that you want to focus on?
00:48:16
Speaker
You know, having all of this stuff that you've just talked about that you've acknowledged very directly.
00:48:21
Speaker
What are what are things you feel like in this moment you still might struggle with when it comes to maybe emotions or openness or communication or
00:48:29
Speaker
resentment or anger.
00:48:30
Speaker
I mean, there's so many possible things.
00:48:33
Speaker
I mean, there's definitely still a lot of anger I need to work through.
00:48:38
Speaker
Like, I lived my entire life angry.
00:48:42
Speaker
And I've, you know, only just scratched the surface of the very big things.
00:48:47
Speaker
Like, I think the biggest thing is...
00:48:51
Speaker
In terms of anger and relationships right now is I don't speak to my mom.
00:48:54
Speaker
That's not something I'm interested in changing, but that is something I need to process a little more, I think.
00:49:02
Speaker
It's especially difficult because my parents are still together.
00:49:06
Speaker
Oh, gotcha.
00:49:07
Speaker
So speaking to one of them but not the other can be really tough.
00:49:11
Speaker
I gotcha.
00:49:12
Speaker
So you wouldn't necessarily – if you were to visit them, what would that be like?
00:49:17
Speaker
Because clearly that would –
00:49:21
Speaker
I have visited them, and it's – I ignore my mom, and she goes into the room.
00:49:28
Speaker
I see.
00:49:30
Speaker
It's essentially that.
00:49:32
Speaker
The most awkward interaction I had with them is when I was still with my most recent ex, and we went to California to – my dad wanted me to come to California to see my grandma before she passes.
00:49:45
Speaker
This was at the beginning of January of last year.
00:49:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:50
Speaker
You know, the worst month ever.
00:49:52
Speaker
Right.
00:49:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:56
Speaker
But my girlfriend came with me and my girlfriend knew about, you know, my relationship with my mom and how non-existent it is.
00:50:03
Speaker
And I was like, I, I am going to try to keep you guys apart, but like you, you don't need to be rude.
00:50:11
Speaker
If she speaks it, you can speak to her.
00:50:13
Speaker
I know you're concerned with impressions and all that.
00:50:14
Speaker
You, you do you, but it's, I don't,
00:50:18
Speaker
I'm going to try to put a stop to that.
00:50:21
Speaker
And I did it first.
00:50:24
Speaker
When we arrived at the airport and my parents picked me up, my mom tried to introduce herself, and I got in between them.
00:50:34
Speaker
And that was the extent of that.
00:50:37
Speaker
My mom didn't speak to her much, but she did speak to her.
00:50:40
Speaker
My girlfriend replied very curtly but polite.
00:50:45
Speaker
But it was just...
00:50:47
Speaker
It's a very difficult couple of days in California.
00:50:50
Speaker
Yeah, I can only imagine.
00:50:52
Speaker
Now, is this something that – and I never want to cross boundaries, of course, when it comes to this topic of conversation.
00:50:59
Speaker
Is it something you feel you're interested in finding a way to reconcile or – because you live very much in the moment, as you've said –
00:51:11
Speaker
uh should something happen to either of you would you want to leave it sort of like this open-endedness or is there room for reconciliation uh or is that a priority i suppose i this i struggle with this feeling sometimes because it i have no interest in having her in my life sure and you have the prerogative to do that i think it's you know
00:51:36
Speaker
That's an important thing to say as well too is I'm not sitting here trying to play armchair counselor.
00:51:40
Speaker
No, I – yeah.
00:51:40
Speaker
Here's what you're going to – yeah, because yeah, you have every right to say who is or isn't in your life.
00:51:48
Speaker
And the thing that – And no one gets to tell you otherwise.
00:51:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah, the thing that makes me feel bad sometimes is sometimes I'll think when she would say stuff like, oh, you'll regret it if something happens to me, and my first thought is no, I won't.
00:52:03
Speaker
I have no regrets about burning this bridge.
00:52:08
Speaker
Do you sometimes think that's like anger responding or is it like just honest responding?
00:52:13
Speaker
A little bit of both.
00:52:15
Speaker
There would probably be a bit more compassion once I work through the anger, but I don't foresee any reconciliation.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:26
Speaker
When it comes to working through this kind of stuff, is it isolating for you?
00:52:32
Speaker
Or do you ever talk about it with anybody?
00:52:34
Speaker
Do you have like therapists or close confidants that like, you know, do you ever talk with your dad about this?
00:52:41
Speaker
I have talked to my dad a couple of times about this, not at length, just because I feel that would put him in a really weird position and I'm not interested in making him choose.
00:52:50
Speaker
That's fair.
00:52:53
Speaker
But I do have a couple of friends I speak to about.
00:52:55
Speaker
I, like I said, I write things down a lot, but it, it,
00:53:00
Speaker
Most of the time processing my emotions in general is very much an isolationist thing that I do.
00:53:09
Speaker
I am constantly thinking.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:12
Speaker
There's always something running through my mind no matter what I'm doing.
00:53:15
Speaker
And I will – I've realized a lot of things just out of nowhere about my emotional state, things like being trauma, things like that.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
You keep yourself fairly focused at this point with your job as sort of a way to, excuse me, I just put some saliva in my lung against my better judgment.
00:53:44
Speaker
That's where it goes.
00:53:46
Speaker
You know, I thought in a moment that it did, but I'm opting out of that now.
00:53:52
Speaker
So, what was my train of thought?
00:53:57
Speaker
With your sort of constant desire to keep busy, do you think that's something as a response to not necessarily wanting to think about things?
00:54:08
Speaker
Or does it give you time to also focus on thoughts in addition to being busy?
00:54:16
Speaker
It allows me to think.
00:54:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:54:19
Speaker
If I have something to occupy my hands, my mind is free.
00:54:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:54:25
Speaker
It's very much an ADHD thing, I think.
00:54:30
Speaker
But, like, I'm always fidgeting with a paracord bracelet right now.
00:54:35
Speaker
I'm always fidgeting with something so that I can focus.
00:54:39
Speaker
Sure.
00:54:43
Speaker
So you're a multitasker?
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, I have to be, or I'm a mess.
00:54:48
Speaker
Certainly.
00:54:49
Speaker
One simple goal, and it was just to focus on that.
00:54:53
Speaker
So, yeah, this is a, this sounds like you've got, like anybody, you've got a road ahead, but it also seems like you have a decent, I don't even want to say plan because you don't have a plan as I understand it.
00:55:08
Speaker
You have the now, you have the present and the present is a good enough plan for you to sort of just enjoy moment to moment.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:16
Speaker
I mean, if, if I had a plan, I wouldn't live in three States in as many years.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah, a lot less impulsive.
00:55:22
Speaker
Do you think – would you consider yourself impulsive or would you say you're somewhat calculated?
00:55:27
Speaker
I am horrifically impulsive.
00:55:29
Speaker
Okay, you just do literally whatever spur of the moment.
00:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's something I've really had to get in control of because my spending habits were bad.
00:55:36
Speaker
Oh, gotcha.
00:55:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:37
Speaker
They still kind of are, but I'm making it work.
00:55:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:55:40
Speaker
Like I –
00:55:42
Speaker
I just dropped $400 on a plane ticket to Arizona before I even got the days off.
00:55:47
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah, you knew what you wanted.
00:55:50
Speaker
You'll find a way to make it work.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:55
Speaker
Would you say that you wish you had like a better balance or is this something you're just like, hey, this is who I am and I enjoy it?
00:56:01
Speaker
Or do you want to change it?
00:56:02
Speaker
Or have you changed it to this because this is what you want?
00:56:06
Speaker
I wish I had more disposable income.
00:56:08
Speaker
That's totally fair.
00:56:09
Speaker
It's, you know, I don't.
00:56:13
Speaker
I don't necessarily regret the impulsive decisions that I've made most of the times.
00:56:20
Speaker
It's just a matter of sometimes I make them when I can't afford to.
00:56:23
Speaker
Right.
00:56:24
Speaker
And I just have to deal with the fallout of that.
00:56:26
Speaker
You just sort of deal with the consequences.
00:56:27
Speaker
But ultimately it's future Byron's problem.
00:56:30
Speaker
At this point, okay, that's fair.
00:56:31
Speaker
Well, you know what?
00:56:31
Speaker
I heard something as well.
00:56:33
Speaker
I might have cited this on a different episode.
00:56:35
Speaker
But when I was listening to another podcast regarding Kevin Smith talking about his desire to make the movie Clerks,
00:56:43
Speaker
Something that he had said, it was like, well, I'm really worried about whether or not it's going to be successful, whether I'm going to recoup the money that I've spent to do this kind of thing.
00:56:54
Speaker
And he put himself in this sort of constant state of worry.
00:56:56
Speaker
And his sister at some point sort of addressed it and said, look, the goal is to do the thing.
00:57:02
Speaker
So do whatever it takes to do the thing.
00:57:04
Speaker
Whatever you have within you, the goal is to get that out.
00:57:07
Speaker
And as long as you get it out, you're good.
00:57:08
Speaker
He sort of like, you know recoiled and said well sure because even if like it's a financial mess which luckily it wasn't He said it's just money and money you can regain you can figure that out, you know like money Obviously helps us sort of secure even moment to moment But in the end money is still just a thing that can be figured out Yeah And it was most important that he did what he felt he needed to do for himself now He had a plan but also allowed himself to maybe also impulsively
00:57:39
Speaker
you know, do what it took to make the plan happen regardless of consequence.
00:57:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:43
Speaker
Potential consequence.
00:57:47
Speaker
Is... Is that something that you feel that maybe you can also relate to in a way?
00:57:50
Speaker
Like, or do you have anything that you want to do other than just you're fine doing the mechanic thing, you want to take a trip to Arizona, maybe you want to go see a concert, and it's literally like a week ahead at a time, if that.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's...
00:58:07
Speaker
I have very vague goals.
00:58:09
Speaker
Like my long-term goal right now is to travel as much as possible.
00:58:14
Speaker
That's a great goal.
00:58:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:16
Speaker
I mean, I mean, one of the earliest things that my dad told me was that there's no better teacher than travel.
00:58:22
Speaker
And that's something I took to heart the moment I heard it.
00:58:25
Speaker
Sure.
00:58:26
Speaker
And that's why I got.
00:58:29
Speaker
No, I was going to say what's – I want to ask about the places you've traveled, but continue with your thought, and then I'll follow up.
00:58:34
Speaker
I was going to the same place.
00:58:35
Speaker
I love road trips.
00:58:37
Speaker
When I lived in Austin, I would drive 12 hours to Albuquerque in one sitting.
00:58:44
Speaker
No problem back and forth.
00:58:45
Speaker
I'd go to Lubbock.
00:58:46
Speaker
We'd go to Dallas, Waco.
00:58:50
Speaker
When I moved to Columbus, I spent a day in Nashville.
00:58:53
Speaker
I didn't need to do that.
00:58:54
Speaker
That was cool.
00:58:55
Speaker
Nashville kicks ass.
00:58:56
Speaker
You just got to see it.
00:58:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:59
Speaker
It's just – I went up to Cleveland impulsively for a concert.
00:59:03
Speaker
It's only a two-hour drive, so it wasn't bad.
00:59:06
Speaker
It's not bad.
00:59:07
Speaker
I went to Chicago on a whim, never been to Chicago, going to Arizona.
00:59:12
Speaker
It's just – the things you learn just traveling is incredible, and it's not like educational learning or even street smarts.
00:59:21
Speaker
It's just the world is different a state away.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:28
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:59:30
Speaker
Experiential learning is something I think that is very valuable is simply don't be afraid of a consequence.
00:59:35
Speaker
Just do the thing.
00:59:36
Speaker
That's my biggest thing.
00:59:37
Speaker
Like it's people, people who are afraid of failure are kind of frustrating to me.
00:59:44
Speaker
Cause like, I mean, like I understand, I get it and it's totally understandable, but like the only thing you're going to get out of failure is the learning experience.
00:59:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:58
Speaker
I mean, so from what I understand, I've heard tell that if you want to become a master of something, you do it for 10,000 hours, right?
01:00:10
Speaker
And the secret of that is that 9,500 of those hours...
01:00:16
Speaker
if not more, are spent failing.
01:00:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:19
Speaker
And then it's like, so it's like the 3% of what's left is where you actually like have succeeded enough to be comfortable doing whatever you're doing.
01:00:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:28
Speaker
At one point, somebody asked me, you know, because I was talking about Mega Man 9, one of my favorite games of all time, and it's notoriously difficult.
01:00:34
Speaker
But I got to the point where I could, you know, cruise through this thing and somebody was like, holy crap, how did you get good at it?
01:00:38
Speaker
And I just said, I died way more than I succeeded.
01:00:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:42
Speaker
You know, my failure to win ratio is absolutely skewed in the most terrible numbers, but that's how you do it.
01:00:49
Speaker
Just play Dark Souls.
01:00:51
Speaker
Just play Dark Souls.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:00:52
Speaker
Die a thousand hours, never win the game and feel like you've succeeded somehow.
01:00:56
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that I think it's really a great idea is to say, just do it.
01:01:05
Speaker
Obviously, not everybody can do this.
01:01:07
Speaker
There's a degree of privilege to saying, you know, just go out and see the world.
01:01:12
Speaker
But if not the world, maybe a different state, maybe a different city in your state, tech, maybe a building you've never been to in your city, you know, take a different drive home.
01:01:25
Speaker
A different drive home.
01:01:26
Speaker
That's a great even that starting small.
01:01:30
Speaker
I think, you know, changing a routine if you're able to.
01:01:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:34
Speaker
Even even in the smallest degree can maybe propel you to like feel more encouraged or able to try new things.
01:01:43
Speaker
Like if that's one of the things I've always done, even like when I lived in Albuquerque, when I lived in Austin, when I lived here in Columbus, it's if I can't afford a trip, I'll just walk into a restaurant I've never been to.
01:01:55
Speaker
I'll just have a meal.
01:01:57
Speaker
Sure.
01:01:57
Speaker
I've done that everywhere I've lived.
01:01:59
Speaker
I've only been disappointed a couple times.
01:02:03
Speaker
And the worst comes the worst.
01:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, like if it's just food.
01:02:05
Speaker
I mean, and you can even start with a familiar restaurant and order something you've never ordered before.
01:02:09
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:10
Speaker
It's just, you know, you should just try new things.
01:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, habit is exciting.
01:02:15
Speaker
Habit is comforting.
01:02:16
Speaker
Yes.
01:02:17
Speaker
But I've actually tried to make it a goal this year to oftentimes do new things, even if it's small, just to try something that I haven't done before.
01:02:25
Speaker
You know, new menu item on a restaurant.
01:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's fantastic.
01:02:30
Speaker
That's great advice in general, I think, because there's so many degrees to which we can just mix up our day, even if it's one small thing.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's easier than a lot of people think.
01:02:44
Speaker
Insofar as bigger changes, but it's never easy.
01:02:49
Speaker
Things are going to be difficult, but that's why you should do it.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:55
Speaker
Where do you want to travel?
01:02:57
Speaker
What's a place that you've been thinking about that you're just like, that's on the list.
01:03:00
Speaker
That's a milestone.
01:03:02
Speaker
I have not stopped thinking about Chicago.
01:03:05
Speaker
Chicago, okay.
01:03:05
Speaker
Chicago was so cool.
01:03:07
Speaker
Great.
01:03:09
Speaker
I have always loved big cities.
01:03:10
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:03:15
Speaker
Chicago is very much an East Coast style big city.
01:03:18
Speaker
They built up.
01:03:20
Speaker
The big cities I'd been to were like Denver, LA, big sprawling cities.
01:03:27
Speaker
That's just what we have in the West.
01:03:28
Speaker
Everything is big.
01:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, very spread out.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:32
Speaker
And in Chicago, I spent like a few hours just walking down downtown Chicago and it felt like what I imagined New York to be.
01:03:42
Speaker
So you haven't been to New York.
01:03:43
Speaker
Is that kind of a goal for you as well?
01:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to go to New York.
01:03:45
Speaker
It's only eight hours away.
01:03:48
Speaker
That's not bad, actually.
01:03:49
Speaker
Everything is so close over here.
01:03:51
Speaker
Dude, it's crazy.
01:03:53
Speaker
When I left, I drove eight hours.
01:03:54
Speaker
I was still in Texas.
01:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
01:03:57
Speaker
Texas is as long as a drive from any place on the East Coast.
01:04:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:02
Speaker
It's a six-hour drive to Chicago, which blew my mind.
01:04:05
Speaker
There's a state in between me.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:09
Speaker
okay so so uh bigger cities what about something say like uh like tokyo or beijing you know like what about like these uh is international cities sort of on your docket at some point japan is a dream trip that's always has been i would love to go to canada which is extremely doable now i just need a passport sure um uh europe like the uk ireland just there's a lot of places i want to go i definitely want to visit outside the country
01:04:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:38
Speaker
You've never had the opportunity to go outside the country, correct?
01:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, never.
01:04:42
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:44
Speaker
But you've got maybe – so that could be sort of like a general goal.
01:04:47
Speaker
No specific place, no specific order, but the goal is to have the means to just say F it, pop on a plane, and just go someplace else.
01:04:56
Speaker
I could drive four hours, be in Canada.
01:04:59
Speaker
That's true.
01:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:05:02
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:05:03
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:05
Speaker
Well, so this is – yeah, I'm sorry.
01:05:08
Speaker
I lost it.
01:05:09
Speaker
It's done.
01:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:05:11
Speaker
There it goes for the moment.
01:05:13
Speaker
You were living in the moment so much.
01:05:16
Speaker
When you take it from me, it's gone.
01:05:21
Speaker
Well, that was my job was to say, I'm going to disrupt your comfort.
01:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's what I did.
01:05:26
Speaker
I said, you know, I'm going to wait until Byron speaks.
01:05:28
Speaker
I'm immediately going to talk over him and finish his sentence.
01:05:35
Speaker
But I mean, so it sounds like, you know, people, people are a work in progress.
01:05:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:41
Speaker
You've got some things on your plate that you recognize that you wish to address.
01:05:46
Speaker
And on top of like interpersonal things you're working on, you also have a nice sort of, and we'll say security, you know, like, but security in so much as like, it's not, you know, this is where you're going to get your retirement from necessarily.
01:05:59
Speaker
But in this moment, you've got a job that you like that supports what you want to do enough to get you to the next whatever it is.
01:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that I can transfer, it helps me a lot.
01:06:10
Speaker
Oh, that's nice, actually.
01:06:12
Speaker
Yeah, I transferred from Austin to Columbus.
01:06:14
Speaker
And even if for some reason I couldn't transfer through Penske, I have experience in a trade.
01:06:19
Speaker
I can get a job anywhere.
01:06:21
Speaker
Oh, that's pretty great.
01:06:23
Speaker
That's pretty great.
01:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think even opening up yourself to like having the possibility of if this company itself was not, you know, coming up, you still have enough to be like, look, I'm quite qualified at a variety of other places.
01:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool.
01:06:38
Speaker
That's super cool.
01:06:40
Speaker
Okay, well, as I don't know if you've listened to any of the other podcasts, if you have not, that's totally fine.
01:06:47
Speaker
I've been through a couple episodes.
01:06:49
Speaker
Oh, good.
01:06:49
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:49
Speaker
So you kind of know that like I'm about to barrage you with a handful of questions.
01:06:53
Speaker
Yes.
01:06:54
Speaker
Oh, good.
01:06:55
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:55
Speaker
I don't know if you've prepared at all or if like we're just truly winging it.
01:06:58
Speaker
All right.
01:06:59
Speaker
Very good.
01:07:00
Speaker
Very good.
01:07:02
Speaker
So what I did want to ask you to sort of wrap this up in the next, you know, however long it takes is I'm going to ask you five recommendations and let's go ahead and start with what you, if you had to recommend these to anybody.
01:07:19
Speaker
Let's go ahead and start with a book, a book recommendation.
01:07:23
Speaker
I got two, two of my favorite books.
01:07:25
Speaker
Two of your favorite books, all right.
01:07:27
Speaker
One of them is called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
01:07:30
Speaker
It is the – it's memoirs from a Vietnam vet, and it is – he's an unreliable narrator.
01:07:39
Speaker
I got you.
01:07:41
Speaker
And it just goes in depth in, you know, the things he experienced and he acknowledges in it's a collection of short stories more than a cohesive narrative.
01:07:49
Speaker
And he acknowledges in multiple that, you know, he's lying, you know, for example, like he watched this one soldier not save this other one.
01:08:00
Speaker
And then later on in the book, he's like, no, that was me.
01:08:03
Speaker
I let that man die.
01:08:05
Speaker
And it's just interesting.
01:08:07
Speaker
It's just this really interesting gripping tale.
01:08:09
Speaker
And I've always been interested in like historical wars, Vietnam being one of the ones I've always found most interesting.
01:08:18
Speaker
Sure.
01:08:18
Speaker
So that one's always connected with me.
01:08:19
Speaker
And it's a really good insight into the Vietnam War, veterans, PTSD, and also the nature of constructing a narrative in and of itself, the nature of writing.
01:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's hearing about wars is generally through like the lens of like media coverage.
01:08:36
Speaker
And you get personal accounts occasionally, but it sounds like for somebody to really like go in depth about what their experience was like, but also struggle to like
01:08:45
Speaker
be forthcoming at moments where it's almost like, you know, it's very difficult and very human.
01:08:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:51
Speaker
And he, he has stories where, you know, in the middle of war, in the middle of a battle, he has stories of, you know, his unit just lost this guy.
01:08:58
Speaker
So they're killing a Buffalo.
01:08:59
Speaker
He has a story where he's just sitting on a boat with this old man and he's just looking at the border of Canada.
01:09:07
Speaker
Cause he's, he's got drafted.
01:09:09
Speaker
And there's one where he tells a story of someone in his unit, just driving around his old town.
01:09:15
Speaker
looking for someone to share his stories with.
01:09:18
Speaker
And it's just, it's a really beautiful book.
01:09:22
Speaker
I've read it numerous times.
01:09:23
Speaker
If you're into audiobooks, Bryan Cranston narrates it.
01:09:26
Speaker
It's fantastic.
01:09:27
Speaker
Oh, that'd be great as well too.
01:09:28
Speaker
Audiobooks can help a lot of people, myself included, who have a hard time focusing reading sometimes.
01:09:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:33
Speaker
And what's this one called once more?
01:09:35
Speaker
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
01:09:37
Speaker
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
01:09:39
Speaker
Okay, amazing.
01:09:40
Speaker
And you said you had another book as well.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's Jeanette McCurdy's book, I'm Glad My Mom Died.
01:09:44
Speaker
That book fucked me up.
01:09:47
Speaker
So you know what?
01:09:48
Speaker
I've actually heard several people recommend this, and I went to look for an audiobook version.
01:09:53
Speaker
I don't have any of the programs.
01:09:55
Speaker
So I went onto YouTube, and I typed it in, and someone was like, oh, yeah, I've got this version right here.
01:09:59
Speaker
And then it was like some crappy computer narrative voice, and I was like, I can't do this.
01:10:03
Speaker
So I think I'm going to take the point to go to Audible or something.
01:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, if you have Audible, Jeanette McCurdy reads it.
01:10:08
Speaker
That's even better.
01:10:09
Speaker
I think I want that.
01:10:11
Speaker
I heard an interview where she was like arguing with her editors because the way she writes it in some parts is not –
01:10:18
Speaker
you know, the proper way, but she's like, no, I need, it needs to read this way.
01:10:22
Speaker
So that's how she intended it.
01:10:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:24
Speaker
Is much better.
01:10:25
Speaker
And that's how I listened to the book.
01:10:26
Speaker
I just bought a physical copy like a week ago.
01:10:28
Speaker
Okay.
01:10:29
Speaker
But you heard audible first.
01:10:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:31
Speaker
I listened to the audio book and it was beautiful and devastating and it was just so honest and raw and it really, it got to me in a way I wasn't expecting.
01:10:42
Speaker
I was just interested.
01:10:42
Speaker
Cause it's like, Oh, that's the girl from my Carly.
01:10:45
Speaker
you know like sure yeah i was not expecting it to hit me as hard as it did yeah that sounds like a great book and i think it's one that i want to get into and i've had a couple recommendations and now with yours that's cemented uh my decision to actually just pop on audible and start getting more regular circulation of audiobooks but that one's gonna sort of escalate to the top of the list i think yeah it's absolutely fantastic read okay perfect
01:11:11
Speaker
Great.
01:11:11
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:12
Speaker
So a good couple of books.
01:11:13
Speaker
It sounds like they're sort of on different ends of a spectrum for what kind of story they're telling, story as it were.
01:11:21
Speaker
Very good.
01:11:21
Speaker
Now, this is one that I know we could talk about for a million hours, but I'm going to have to have you sort of like tone it down to like, you know.
01:11:29
Speaker
I guess your top 200,000.
01:11:30
Speaker
But if you... Yeah.
01:11:33
Speaker
We'll make it easy for you.
01:11:35
Speaker
But if you got to recommend a movie or TV show, one or the other, or both... Right.
01:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, this is not going to be an easy one, but something that maybe even in this moment, it could be something you saw a day ago that really resonates right now, or 10 years ago that you still think about.
01:11:52
Speaker
What's a movie or a book?
01:11:54
Speaker
Excuse me, a movie or a TV show.
01:11:56
Speaker
My current favorite movie, which...
01:12:00
Speaker
knocked over a lot of others that were close.
01:12:02
Speaker
Everything, everywhere, all at once.
01:12:05
Speaker
You know what?
01:12:05
Speaker
And that just won a bunch of Oscars for very good reason.
01:12:09
Speaker
If you think the Oscars is rigged, watch that movie.
01:12:12
Speaker
The Oscars are still probably rigged, but that movie deserves all of those Oscars.
01:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually – it's true.
01:12:18
Speaker
Very, very impressive piece of work by a lot of incredible Asian actors and writers and directors.
01:12:25
Speaker
It was just a terrific film.
01:12:27
Speaker
Okay, but I don't want to glow about it.
01:12:29
Speaker
I want you to tell me all about it.
01:12:31
Speaker
It's that – I wasn't expecting – like I knew Daniels.
01:12:34
Speaker
I saw Swiss Army Man.
01:12:35
Speaker
I was like, this is going to be a fun movie.
01:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, that movie is beautiful in every sense of the world, the way it's shot, the writing, the acting, everything about that movie.
01:12:45
Speaker
I would not change, which is like.
01:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:12:51
Speaker
I mean, it goes into a lot of discussion about like relationship with one's parents.
01:12:56
Speaker
Which I think is a really fascinating one for you to have chosen considering our conversation.
01:13:01
Speaker
Well, the thing that interested me about it when I – because I saw it with my ex-girlfriend and we had two completely different takeaways from the movie.
01:13:10
Speaker
And they both lined up with our personal philosophies, which are also sort of opposite.
01:13:15
Speaker
Hers was – if I'm remembering this correctly, it was like if you –
01:13:21
Speaker
You have an obligation to do good by the people in your life, which I don't disagree with.
01:13:28
Speaker
Sure.
01:13:28
Speaker
And my major takeaway was that nothing matters, so you get to pick what matters.
01:13:36
Speaker
Sure.
01:13:38
Speaker
And to think of those two things coexisting.
01:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:13:41
Speaker
These are not mutually exclusive statements.
01:13:43
Speaker
Sure.
01:13:44
Speaker
But we just pulled different themes from this movie.
01:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, and that's, I think, some of the best kind of art and why this movie might be worthy of everything that it very rightfully earned.
01:13:54
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
01:13:55
Speaker
Is that, you know, like the takeaways for everybody.
01:13:58
Speaker
I went and saw it with a friend who had lost his dad not long before.
01:14:02
Speaker
And so that movie resonated highly on a completely different level.
01:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, and it's, you know, I keep anytime I see someone talk about this movie, they're always talking about a different thing.
01:14:11
Speaker
And I always understand where they're getting it from.
01:14:13
Speaker
It's not like I haven't seen a misinterpretation yet.
01:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it is truly some of the best art that is out there.
01:14:20
Speaker
So everything, everywhere, all at once.
01:14:24
Speaker
Great choice.
01:14:24
Speaker
If you haven't seen it by now, do yourself a favor and absolutely hunt it down and check it out.
01:14:29
Speaker
It is worthy of the Oscars that you got.
01:14:32
Speaker
That's my current favorite movie now.
01:14:34
Speaker
The ones I was always big into, I had a sort of archetype of favorite movies growing up, and it was the ones with gifted assholes.
01:14:44
Speaker
Oh, sort of like...
01:14:46
Speaker
what's the one with Matt Damon?
01:14:47
Speaker
Good Will Hunting?
01:14:50
Speaker
That's just a beautiful movie.
01:14:53
Speaker
I love that movie.
01:14:54
Speaker
Gus Van Sant is one of my favorite directors.
01:14:58
Speaker
But just that movie to this day hits me emotionally.
01:15:03
Speaker
Another one is Donnie Darko, which is different, but the same sort of character archetype between Donnie and Will relates there.
01:15:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:15
Speaker
Those two are the major ones.
01:15:16
Speaker
I was also really big on the Outsiders.
01:15:19
Speaker
Okay, gotcha.
01:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:15:20
Speaker
And then Rocky, obviously.
01:15:26
Speaker
Rocky, yeah, which is also sort of like this evergreen kind of like film that you could always watch it and always be like, wow.
01:15:32
Speaker
I think Rocky 1 is a perfect movie also.
01:15:34
Speaker
I agree.
01:15:35
Speaker
I don't disagree in any way.
01:15:37
Speaker
I think Rocky Balboa is better, but Rocky 1 is perfect.
01:15:40
Speaker
I also agree with that.
01:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, Rocky 1 is the best Rocky.
01:15:44
Speaker
Rocky Balboa is my favorite Rocky.
01:15:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:46
Speaker
That's sort of what it comes down to.
01:15:50
Speaker
Great.
01:15:51
Speaker
Okay, so you've got a healthy selection of movies that you...
01:15:56
Speaker
You sort of have like this type and the style.
01:15:59
Speaker
And that's really, that's very cool.
01:16:00
Speaker
My primary hobby is media consumption.
01:16:02
Speaker
Media consumption.
01:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, no, I get it.
01:16:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:05
Speaker
Well, it's great because speaking of consumption, I want to know if you could recommend a food.
01:16:13
Speaker
This could be a local restaurant.
01:16:15
Speaker
It could be a restaurant wherever you are.
01:16:17
Speaker
Local to Albuquerque, local to Ohio, local to, I don't know, Timbuktu.
01:16:24
Speaker
heaven forbid i don't think you've been there um it'd be kind of cool that would be kind of cool or you could just be like i really like this specific hungry man meal in the frozen section at walmart you know like what what's a food that either you just you just it's like a comfort food or you crave it or it's just one of those you know the double steak grilled cheese burrito from taco bell
01:16:50
Speaker
Double steak grilled cheese burrito from Taco Bell?
01:16:54
Speaker
Yes.
01:16:55
Speaker
I eat that way too much.
01:16:58
Speaker
How often is it too much?
Taco Bell Talk and Food Adventures
01:17:00
Speaker
Multiple times a week.
01:17:02
Speaker
Okay.
01:17:02
Speaker
I was going to say multiple times a day would be really impressive.
01:17:05
Speaker
Times a week would actually – okay, that's reasonable.
01:17:07
Speaker
They took it off the menu for like a couple weeks and I was really upset, but it's back.
01:17:11
Speaker
It's back already.
01:17:13
Speaker
Well, the Taco Bell CEO listened to this podcast.
01:17:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:16
Speaker
And he was like, we've got to figure this out.
01:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, that burrito is so good.
01:17:21
Speaker
I haven't tried that one before.
01:17:23
Speaker
Actually, that's really delicious.
01:17:25
Speaker
For a real dish, Bedia Tacos, wherever you get them.
01:17:28
Speaker
Whoa, a real dish?
01:17:30
Speaker
You're calling out Taco Bell?
01:17:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:33
Speaker
You know what they did for that burrito?
01:17:35
Speaker
They took their same five ingredients and put them in a different order.
01:17:39
Speaker
Oh, it's like a remix.
01:17:41
Speaker
That's all Taco Bell menu is.
01:17:43
Speaker
I suppose that's true.
01:17:44
Speaker
Five things with 80 variations.
01:17:46
Speaker
With the exception of the Mexican pizza, the Mexican pizza is the only Taco Bell item with a unique ingredient.
01:17:51
Speaker
Did you know that?
01:17:51
Speaker
And actually, I did not.
01:17:52
Speaker
It's the Mexican pizza sauce.
01:17:55
Speaker
Oh, is it a unique sauce exclusive to it?
01:17:57
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:58
Speaker
Okay.
01:17:58
Speaker
Okay.
01:17:59
Speaker
I didn't know that.
01:18:00
Speaker
You know, I've never gotten a Mexican pizza from there.
01:18:02
Speaker
I tried it once and I didn't like it.
01:18:04
Speaker
It's the only thing my dad gets.
01:18:06
Speaker
Oh, really?
01:18:06
Speaker
Okay.
01:18:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:08
Speaker
So that's why you guys had a falling out for a bit.
01:18:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, he did.
01:18:11
Speaker
He loves it and you're like, no, no way.
01:18:13
Speaker
He lied to you.
01:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, this is delicious, son.
01:18:16
Speaker
You'll love it.
01:18:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:18
Speaker
Okay.
01:18:19
Speaker
So, but also Bidia Tacos, which, you know, they're obviously all over the place here in Albuquerque, but are you able to find those out in Ohio anywhere?
01:18:27
Speaker
It took me a long time.
01:18:29
Speaker
You did find something.
01:18:30
Speaker
It's so hard to find Mexican food up here.
01:18:34
Speaker
Would that make sense?
01:18:37
Speaker
When I first moved here, my friends were like, we're going to take you to this taco place.
01:18:40
Speaker
And I was like, oh boy.
01:18:41
Speaker
They took me to this place.
01:18:44
Speaker
I'm going to name and shame them.
01:18:45
Speaker
This place called Condado Tacos.
01:18:47
Speaker
Food was fine.
01:18:48
Speaker
It tasted good.
01:18:49
Speaker
It's not a taco.
01:18:50
Speaker
It was like – Oh, gotcha.
01:18:51
Speaker
It was fancy Taco Bell.
01:18:54
Speaker
I see.
01:18:55
Speaker
When you say we're going out for tacos and Margs, I want, you know, my corn tortillas.
01:19:00
Speaker
I want all that.
01:19:01
Speaker
This is fancy Taco Bell for much too much.
01:19:04
Speaker
Okay, but still good.
01:19:05
Speaker
Oh, it tastes good.
01:19:06
Speaker
Just not authentic.
01:19:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:08
Speaker
Okay.
01:19:09
Speaker
Like, we're getting tacos.
01:19:10
Speaker
Like, you know where I'm from, right?
01:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, and I sometimes feel like a snob when I'm out someplace outside of New Mexico, and it's just like, oh, yeah, you think you know.
01:19:18
Speaker
And I've been humbled a couple times, too.
01:19:20
Speaker
Oh, you can find it.
01:19:21
Speaker
You just have to look.
01:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:19:23
Speaker
Okay, so you found some video tacos out there at the very least.
01:19:26
Speaker
There's a food truck that I go to also way too much.
01:19:30
Speaker
So with a food truck, are they always in the same spot, or do you have to, like, hunt them down in the city?
01:19:34
Speaker
This one's always in the same spot.
01:19:36
Speaker
There are a couple that move around.
01:19:37
Speaker
Do you think it needs to be a food truck if it's always in the same spot?
01:19:41
Speaker
Or could you just be like, look, just open up a restaurant already?
01:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, open up a restaurant in this shell parking lot.
01:19:47
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
01:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, just construct a shed from Lowe's or whatever.
01:19:51
Speaker
Just use that.
01:19:52
Speaker
Okay.
01:19:54
Speaker
Perfect.
01:19:55
Speaker
Okay, so Bidia Tacos and the Double Steak Cheesy Burrito.
01:20:01
Speaker
Grilled Cheese Burrito.
01:20:02
Speaker
Got it.
01:20:02
Speaker
Got it.
01:20:02
Speaker
I'm going to try one of those probably tomorrow then.
01:20:05
Speaker
They're so good.
01:20:06
Speaker
Okay.
01:20:07
Speaker
And now one of my favorite questions of all time, one that we could also discuss for a billion hours, which we won't.
01:20:13
Speaker
But yeah, that's true.
01:20:15
Speaker
I suppose we could later, unless we want this episode to be just sort of like the benchmark that everybody has to get at some point.
The Yakuza Game Series Discussion
01:20:23
Speaker
Exactly.
01:20:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:24
Speaker
16 hour podcast.
01:20:27
Speaker
What about a favorite video game?
01:20:31
Speaker
Could be a current favorite.
01:20:32
Speaker
Could be an old time favorite, a nostalgic favorite, whatever it is, you know?
01:20:37
Speaker
Well, my favorite series of all time is the Yakuza series, now Like a Dragon.
01:20:41
Speaker
Yakuza, Like a Dragon, right.
01:20:42
Speaker
Well, like, they go by Like a Dragon in the West now.
01:20:47
Speaker
Yes, yeah, they've been, yeah, the official title.
01:20:49
Speaker
Most people will likely know it as Yakuza.
01:20:52
Speaker
That series is so emotional.
01:20:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:58
Speaker
Which, you know, most people aren't going to realize when they see clips because it's just you doing goofy shit.
01:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, punching tigers in a casino or whatever.
01:21:05
Speaker
Punching tigers, doing karaoke, going to a hostess club.
01:21:10
Speaker
Racing RC cars.
01:21:13
Speaker
You see a man come out of a sewer in drag and try to fight you.
01:21:16
Speaker
It's cool about Yakuza is it's basically side quest the game.
01:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, and when you – the character arc of a lot of these characters is so good.
01:21:28
Speaker
Like, the writing is fantastic.
01:21:30
Speaker
I have cried numerous times playing this series.
01:21:33
Speaker
Sure.
01:21:34
Speaker
I've played Yakuza 6.
01:21:35
Speaker
It's not even my favorite Yakuza game.
01:21:37
Speaker
I've played it the most because the ending will make me cry like a baby every time.
01:21:41
Speaker
Amazing.
01:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, and there's multiple games.
01:21:43
Speaker
There's a lot of games in this series.
01:21:45
Speaker
Prequels and side stories.
01:21:48
Speaker
Eight mainline games now, and there's Dead Souls on PS3.
01:21:52
Speaker
They just remastered Isshin, which is one of the samurai spinoffs, and there's another samurai spinoff.
01:21:58
Speaker
Yep, and then we have Judgment, which is like parallel in the universe.
01:22:00
Speaker
Judgment, Lost Judgment.
01:22:02
Speaker
Lost Judgment, right.
01:22:06
Speaker
These games tackle really, really heavy topics a lot of the time, and they do it extremely well and respectful most of the time.
01:22:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:22:15
Speaker
Like the earlier...