Transcript
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.
Speaker: I mean, there's definitely still a lot of anger I need to work through.
Speaker: Like, I lived my entire life angry.
Speaker: And I've, you know, only just scratched the surface of the very big thing.
Speaker: Like, I think the biggest thing is...
Speaker: in terms of anger and relationships right now is I don't speak to my mom.
Speaker: That's not something I'm interested in changing, but that is something I need to process a little more.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Humanity Skudu.
Speaker: Today with us is our wonderful guest, a longtime friend, Byron Ibarra.
Speaker: Byron, how are you?
Speaker: I'm doing good, man.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: I'm great.
Speaker: Also, an important question is did I pronounce your last name correctly?
Speaker: Yes, actually.
Speaker: I can't roll my R's, so I can't do it.
Speaker: So thank you for doing it.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So I actually was superseding your ability to pronounce your own last name.
Speaker: That's very good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: Well, this is exciting because I actually have not done the podcast for a while.
Speaker: If anybody's listening to all these at once somewhere in the future, you will not notice a lapse.
Speaker: But for me, it's been several months.
Speaker: So, uh, at your request, actually, uh, to get back into this felt like something really good, really appropriate.
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.
Speaker: So are you having a good evening?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I just got off work, so I'm pretty tired.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But I'm excited.
Speaker: I got a flight coming up in two days.
Speaker: Tomorrow for me because I don't go to bed until 6 a.m.
Speaker: That's really early or really late, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
Speaker: Yeah, I work second shift.
Speaker: So my shift starts at 3 and I get home at like midnight.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't like going to bed after work.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker: You give yourself some time to sort of unwind, watch a movie, play a video game, go jogging for a couple hours.
Speaker: I'm not sure what you do.
Speaker: But actually, what I would like to do is since it's actually this is going to be kind of nice.
Speaker: It's been a while since I've really caught up with you is can we learn a little bit about you?
Speaker: What are you doing right now for work?
Speaker: I am a diesel mechanic for Penske.
Speaker: Basically, what my job is, I'm a tech three, which is the lowest level technician.
Speaker: My job is to just go through the trucks, you preventative maintenance, inspect them, make sure they're all up to DOT spec.
Speaker: And if they're not, we write them up.
Speaker: So someone who's better than me can fix it.
Speaker: Better than you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you are basically helping diagnose as a whole?
Speaker: Sort of.
Speaker: It depends on like basically what I'm doing essentially is just making sure trucks meet DOT standards.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I do like basic stuff like oil change.
Speaker: I'll change tires, change out stuff like that.
Speaker: Some basic stuff you got going down.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: How long have you been doing that for?
Speaker: I started it when I was living in Texas in October of 22, 21.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: A year and some change.
Speaker: A year and four.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Six months.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's pretty good.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: It's I kind of fell into this career path on accident and it was extremely intimidating when I first started.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Goddamn thing.
Speaker: OK, so you actually you had no experience or like any sort of level with this prior to this actual job.
Speaker: Basically, no.
Speaker: I mean, my first job in mechanics was at Valvoline, which is pretty much just oil changes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then I worked at a couple dealerships, just basically just oil changes again.
Speaker: And then suddenly now I'm working on big rigs.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: There was a huge leap up and I didn't know much.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Okay, so you're normally working for like every citizen's car and then suddenly you're now doing like 18 wheelers?
Speaker: Yeah, with – they got federal standards you have to meet.
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.
Speaker: You can, okay, wow.
Speaker: I could go to prison if I screwed up really badly.
Speaker: So it's not even like they just write you up or they fire you, but like you go to jail if a guy's like tire flies off and you didn't catch it.
Speaker: Yeah, if a tire flies off and kills somebody, that's, I'm going to jail.
Speaker: Okay, so if the tire flies off and doesn't kill anybody, like is there still a penalty?
Speaker: Probably, I would imagine.
Speaker: Okay, I was going to say it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm certainly at least getting fired.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: I would imagine that makes sense that there's going to be a fairly deep consequence.
Speaker: But as long as nobody is, like, dead or injured, you might not go to prison.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: What kind of sentence is that?
Speaker: I mean, you might not know, but, like, would it be, like, a year or five years?
Speaker: Like, what?
Speaker: I would imagine that depends on the severity of the... Secondhand manslaughter if a tire flies into somebody's head.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Does that ever – do you feel like that's something that really makes you nervous?
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.
Speaker: They ate a DS game and got sick, and then the FBI comes crashing through my walls and sends me to jail.
Speaker: I'd feel really nervous about, like –
Speaker: 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?
Speaker: It was intimidating at first because that wasn't like,
Speaker: you know, a thing with regular vehicles.
Speaker: They just come in, would fix it, company would pay for it, you know, whatever.
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.
Speaker: You're walked through it on a headset.
Speaker: Um,
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.
Speaker: But you can't do that with these trucks.
Speaker: Sure.
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?
Speaker: Because that would never occur to me.
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.
Speaker: No, I mean, definitely not.
Speaker: I didn't even, I never even considered DOT was a thing until, you know, I started working on diesel trucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So as you've been doing this, um,
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.
Speaker: I don't know if like maybe you at one point decided, hey, I want to get into this.
Speaker: You said that you sort of fell into this.
Speaker: Yeah, so when I first moved to Texas, I was just – I was staying at my cousin's place.
Speaker: He was putting me up while I got on my feet.
Speaker: And I was just looking, seeing what was hiring, and I ended up applying to Valvoline.
Speaker: I had changed oil before on my own car, so it wasn't like –
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
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.
Speaker: They just want to live.
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.
Speaker: But at the same time, there are people who do thrive on the activity.
Speaker: Maybe it's good for like mental health.
Speaker: Maybe it's good for like physical coordination or physical strength building.
Speaker: Um,
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so you said pizza as well was part of that.
Speaker: And that's kind of cool.
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.
Speaker: This is like the goal.
Speaker: This is sort of like the end game that you're striving for.
Speaker: Was there something hands on that you really like had sort of like had in mind?
Speaker: I mean, not really.
Speaker: I've never really had a big goal.
Speaker: The only thing that was ever like that for me would have been boxing.
Speaker: Oh, that's right, yeah.
Speaker: primarily the reason I've stuck with this company for so long, it's the only job I've worked at for more than a year.
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.
Speaker: The job's good.
Speaker: I enjoy it.
Speaker: I'm fairly good at it.
Speaker: I would say, I mean, I'm better, I'm learning.
Speaker: I was really bad at it when I started, but,
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
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds really, really nice.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Sure.
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.
Speaker: You are very fine, not focusing or even hyper fixating on I need to get this job.
Speaker: I need to do this thing.
Speaker: This has to happen or I won't be happy.
Speaker: You seem very able to just sort of say,
Speaker: well, here's where I am, so this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been a contentious point in a lot of relationships I've had.
Speaker: Yeah, I can only imagine.
Speaker: In fact, actually, how does that kind of thing really work out for you?
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.
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
Speaker: future plans in general, not necessarily ours, just the way, you know, people come across those things.
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.
Speaker: She can do the things she wants.
Speaker: And my philosophy was sort of
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.
Speaker: Sure.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we were just, you know, going back and forth on that.
Speaker: And she said, you know, that's why you had your bets so that you can, you know, secure yourself.
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.
Speaker: And my response was, I understand, I guess I just don't find that bet worth taking.
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,
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 the philosophy of, you know, the here and now really is the only thing.
Speaker: Cause of course both camps are totally valid.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
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?
Speaker: I'd say a little bit of both.
Speaker: I know that, um,
Speaker: Early on in my later childhood, my dad had a pretty successful windows and doors business.
Speaker: He had to shop in Cruces, El Paso, Albuquerque.
Speaker: We were doing fairly well, and then all of that was gone.
Speaker: And then we were just living pure poverty, government housing, things like that.
Speaker: So there was no security with that, even working as hard as he was, as successful as he was.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So when you say everything was gone, like what happened to sort of like remove that security and stability from you?
Speaker: If I may ask.
Speaker: No, yeah, of course.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: That's the point of the podcast.
Speaker: The, it was, it was a number of things.
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.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: A lot of illnesses came up pretty soon after that.
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.
Speaker: So then he couldn't work anymore.
Speaker: He was, you know, his mental state was gone.
Speaker: Took him a long time to start to recover from that.
Speaker: How did that affect you specifically?
Speaker: Because it sounds like your dad took a pretty big mental hit from that.
Speaker: But like, in terms of your response to that, what was that like?
Speaker: I had only – well, he – I met him once.
Speaker: He stayed with us for one school year.
Speaker: Okay, so you didn't, like, grow up very closely then.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: He has a different mom.
Speaker: He lived with her in Chicago.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he was going to come live with us, but he went back the summer and just didn't come back, I guess.
Speaker: My dad said –
Speaker: He didn't like how strict my dad was.
Speaker: My dad was really strict back then.
Speaker: So I can definitely see that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But I mean, it wasn't like I wasn't affected.
Speaker: It was very... I was hurt, you know, because I did get along with him.
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.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that must have been like a really jarring thing for you in general on several levels.
Speaker: Yeah, we were living...
Speaker: in either Las Cruces or Albuquerque.
Speaker: No, we were living in Albuquerque and we were visiting family in Las Cruces.
Speaker: We were staying in a Motel 6 and I was woken up by my dad sobbing.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: And I was like 10 years old and I looked at him and he sees me and he says, Rick's dead.
Speaker: They killed him.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: I just remember this vividly because it's the first time I've ever seen my dad like that.
Speaker: And I also remember, and this is,
Speaker: a little messed up, but I was half awake.
Speaker: I wasn't really processing what was happening.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But just the look on my dad's face, my 10 year old brain was like, that's a funny face.
Speaker: And then I went back to sleep.
Speaker: So it didn't even register with you.
Speaker: There's a cognizance when you're 10 years old, but also like that's a really big thing to intake fully.
Speaker: And so I can only imagine there was a lot of stuff that like was not being fully processed at that point, which
Speaker: makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: I, um, yeah, I mean, I definitely understood what had happened.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I don't really think I ever, not that I can remember any of this.
Speaker: I don't think I ever cried about it.
Speaker: I felt very removed from him and his death.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But then you saw what affected, how it affected your father and then what that did to affect your family.
Speaker: And as such, you just realized that like all it takes is an instant for everything to change.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But before then, was it something that you felt like with dad's family business, you guys were, hey, we're good.
Speaker: Everything's clearly going fine right now.
Speaker: Therefore, the future is fairly well secure.
Speaker: And then was that sort of like a moment that really changed that for you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not sure that I ever really thought about it.
Speaker: I mean, I was like 10 years old.
Speaker: But I did know that, like, you know, we weren't hurting for money.
Speaker: Our pantry was full.
Speaker: My dad was, you know, buying me the games I wanted, everything like that.
Speaker: And it was just, you know, we had our own place.
Speaker: And then now we're living with my grandparents.
Speaker: You know, now we're living in a camper in my grandpa's backyard.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And so how does that affect you in sort of as being young and looking at that situation and feeling helpless?
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.
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?
Speaker: What was that like?
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
Speaker: Just constantly, even before I had fully recognized what was happening.
Speaker: Who are we angry with?
Speaker: Everything.
Speaker: Just life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just hands dealt.
Speaker: Yeah, anger has been a very pervasive emotion throughout my entire life.
Speaker: And, you know, it... Teenagers are angry in general, but I felt like it was just ever-present.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Like what did, what, yeah.
Speaker: It got worse when I became a teenager because then, you know, I could have my own bank account and everything like that.
Speaker: And the first hit on my credit was a loan my dad had to take out that he never paid.
Speaker: I see.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or electricity or internet or.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So you felt sort of maybe thrust into a responsibility that as a young person, you might not have been ready for.
Speaker: It was a responsibility I had no control over.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: That, yeah, that makes sense too.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, that sounds like a pretty, uh, a pretty problematic thing to like sort of be forced into.
Speaker: Um, and you said anger was sort of like a really present component of, uh, of who you were at that point.
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.
Speaker: Like, what were you doing?
Speaker: Uh, is it something that you felt you recognized or did you recognize it in hindsight?
Speaker: And if you did recognize it, like what, what were you trying to do to like, uh, circumvent it?
Speaker: How did you confront it?
Speaker: How did you deal with it?
Speaker: I made it everybody else's problem.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was, I,
Speaker: I was an asshole in high school.
Speaker: More than I think most teenage boys were.
Speaker: I had friends.
Speaker: Only a couple of them still speak to me from that time.
Speaker: And it was... I would get swallowed up by these friend groups just...
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.
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.
Speaker: You know, like that's fine.
Speaker: You know, we're just acquaintances.
Speaker: But at worst, if I didn't like them, I would make it almost a mission for them to hate being around me.
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
Speaker: It wasn't even just them, though they got it the worst.
Speaker: I was mean to my friends.
Speaker: I was just terrible to pretty much anybody I met at that time.
Speaker: And like I said, a lot of people just ended up dropping me.
Speaker: The only two people I speak to are some of my closest friends today.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And knowing that they sort of stuck with you through this whole thing,
Speaker: Have you discussed that with them?
Speaker: Like, sort of what it was like at that time?
Speaker: Have you guys sort of like, is it under the rug?
Speaker: Is it elephant in the room?
Speaker: Like, what is that conversation like?
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?
Speaker: And they, both of them understood because they were in similar places.
Speaker: They just expressed it a little bit differently than I did.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So it was a sort of a kindred spirit thing and
Speaker: You know, we've all forgiven each other about how we treated each other.
Speaker: Sure.
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.
Speaker: But it's certainly a grace when you find people that choose to, you know, or that can tough it out.
Speaker: But it also sounds like, you know, they understood simply by virtue of association.
Speaker: They had their own, you know, scenarios they were going through.
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?
Speaker: No, they... Those...
Speaker: Two, like two specifically, we were never really awful to each other.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Not much anyways, not as much as everyone else were.
Speaker: They just saw your struggle in a way nobody else could.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: At what point did you sort of recognize what that looked like in yourself?
Speaker: And then what was your plan to say, I want to be better?
Speaker: It wasn't until my early 20s.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I mean, I had, I had been, I would say steadily improving, but I was not good.
Speaker: Just, just improving as you know, you grow older and grow more mature and more aware of yourself.
Speaker: Right.
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,
Speaker: losing a lot of friends.
Speaker: And I was like, there's a common denominator here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's a really big thing to be able to recognize.
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,
Speaker: Other people are slighting me.
Speaker: My perspective has to be the right one.
Speaker: It's everybody else who's the problem.
Speaker: It wasn't even that I wasn't aware that I was being mean.
Speaker: It was just that – if you talk to 17-year-old me and you're like, hey, stop being an asshole.
Speaker: It's just who I am.
Speaker: That's just – OK, right.
Speaker: So you were willing to shirk the willingness to be better.
Speaker: It was just sort of like this is an unchangeable factor.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: This is who I am.
Speaker: I'm a cynical asshole, blah, blah, blah.
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.
Speaker: I mean, you know, at least address it because you recognize that it's harmful to others and ultimately to you.
Speaker: Yeah, that was the biggest thing is I was still very angry when
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.
Speaker: I have no, not angry with them for doing that.
Speaker: I would have done the same thing.
Speaker: It's just I can't.
Speaker: This is not sustainable for me, and it's certainly not sustainable for the people around me.
Speaker: Do you feel it was sort of taking a toll on you emotionally?
Speaker: Because it's a lot of upkeep to be angry.
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.
Speaker: It is exhausting and it's difficult and it's really.
Speaker: It's so much more effort to hold on to bad feelings consistently.
Speaker: You know, I think sometimes it's easy to feel like, oh, it's effortless because I can just be mad at things.
Speaker: But like it takes a really heavy toll on emotional, physical and spiritual levels.
Speaker: It's yeah, it's exhausting.
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.
Speaker: I've done everything.
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
Speaker: But it was fueled by something negative.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Fueled regardless, but okay.
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.
Speaker: And I think all of us hopefully do not want that.
Speaker: But anger is a part of life.
Speaker: Anger is a part of things.
Speaker: Anger is something that we all experience and we should experience it.
Speaker: It's a very important emotion to, I think, recognize.
Speaker: I don't think anger is inherently negative.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's – Yeah.
Speaker: Like I said, you can use it as motivation.
Speaker: It just can't be the sole driving force is I guess the way I would put it, like it was for me.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I mean maybe it can sort of promote you or position you to want to be better.
Speaker: Ideally though, the goal may not be to do it at the expense of others.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: Absolutely.
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.
Speaker: Um, so would you say that at this point in your life, obviously no one likes to go of anger entirely.
Speaker: You have to be on some sort of crazy Zen level to be able to entirely do that.
Speaker: But is it something that you feel you have much more under control or at least you understand it better at this point?
Speaker: I definitely at least understand it better.
Speaker: I've been trying to let a lot of it go.
Speaker: A lot of this did not happen on purpose.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's, um...
Speaker: Like when I was writing out that big old Google Doc I showed you.
Speaker: Oh, yes, yes.
Speaker: I wrote about in detail my first serious relationship that was very mutually abusive and destructive to both of us.
Speaker: And when I was writing it, I was physically angry, which is – it's one of the primary ways I feel angry.
Speaker: It's a very physical emotion to me.
Speaker: Like my body will shake –
Speaker: I, you know, sometimes I'll cry, things like that.
Speaker: I was feeling that as I was writing it down.
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.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: Okay, so you were able to separate the...
Speaker: Yeah, it was this date we went on.
Speaker: We stayed up all night.
Speaker: We just couldn't sleep.
Speaker: And we're like, fuck it.
Speaker: Let's go to the zoo right when it opens.
Speaker: And it was a good day.
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.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It was like I finally expressed a lot of it.
Speaker: and just got it out of me.
Speaker: And what that ultimately culminated in was I sent her a very long apology for the first time.
Speaker: I don't know if she's ever read it.
Speaker: It doesn't really matter.
Speaker: Sure.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, and it was...
Speaker: I had always said, you know, when I would talk about their relations, I would say, you know, I was abusive to her.
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.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a back and forth, a justification, a, a reasoning or some sort.
Speaker: Have you gotten to the point where you can look at that now and just be like, I did what I did.
Speaker: And that's all on me.
Speaker: Anything she did, that was on them.
Speaker: And I cannot control that.
Speaker: My faults are my own fault kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's... There was another relationship, another person I apologize to for similar reasons.
Speaker: But this was... The abuse in this relationship was almost exclusively mine.
Speaker: It was the relationship immediately after the mutually abusive one.
Speaker: So it was just kind of shoveling that onto her.
Speaker: And while I was...
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At this point, I mean, like, looking back at all that right now, um...
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.
Speaker: And advice means nothing until you have a reason to hear it.
Speaker: But if you could look at where you are right now and go talk to yourself at that time, what would you say?
Speaker: What would you at least want to try to impart?
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.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: I think that makes sense.
Speaker: And it's... You know, I would say I'm in a fairly good place.
Speaker: It's... Yeah, it's not really something I've ever thought about.
Speaker: Just because I've always been a very it-is-what-it-is person.
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?
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?
Speaker: It would probably be just some sort of reassurance.
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.
Speaker: Like I said, I don't think I would be where I am if not for the way that I was.
Speaker: Sure.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so what do you think it is at this point?
Speaker: Like, because anger is still part of life.
Speaker: Anger is part of it.
Speaker: What do you think the biggest contributing factors to you dealing with anger now are?
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.
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?
Speaker: It's definitely always been writing.
Speaker: I...
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.
Speaker: And I hate reading it now because I was still an asshole.
Speaker: Which is why I've separated and put the new writing somewhere else.
Speaker: But it's been that.
Speaker: That's always helped me process my emotions, which has been something that's always been profoundly difficult for me to do.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: Do you think that was something that was sort of suppressed growing up?
Speaker: Like you weren't supposed to show emotions?
Speaker: Is that a product of society or something you were never taught?
Speaker: Something that was just never present in your life?
Speaker: No, not at all.
Speaker: My dad has always been very encouraging of expressing emotions, probably because, you know, he was taught the opposite.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Like when I was in Little League, if I got
Speaker: I got nailed in the crotch by a 40-mile-an-hour fastball because I was playing catcher.
Speaker: First thing my dad said was, it's okay to cry.
Speaker: You just got to get up.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's – that's the sort of idea I've always clinged to.
Speaker: I don't cry.
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 –
Speaker: ashamed of it when I do.
Speaker: Sure.
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?
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: I don't show them freely, I suppose.
Speaker: It's got to be right place, right time.
Speaker: I try not to suppress them.
Speaker: I just try to control them, I suppose.
Speaker: Oh, I see.
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?
Speaker: It used to be a problem.
Speaker: It used to be a huge problem because I was just very bad at talking about how I felt.
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.
Speaker: I wouldn't even really try before because I'm just going to be stuttering and stammering the whole time.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: She was a really largely positive influence in, I think, your entire family's life.
Speaker: Very notably, we did a couple episodes with her and your dad that we talked about a lot of stuff.
Speaker: But obviously, she had a huge impact and influence on you.
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?
Speaker: Yes, but not directly.
Speaker: Not like she – when we – when I spoke with Michelle, she was never really trying to teach me anything.
Speaker: What we were talking about was mostly my dad because that's the subject of all the work she was doing.
Speaker: She was getting my perspective on things.
Speaker: But I –
Speaker: Michelle was ridiculously easy to talk to.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like the fact, like I thought about it for weeks.
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.
Speaker: I'd never done that with anybody.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it wasn't scary.
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,
Speaker: I was the subject of a lot of the things he learned, you know, they were passed on one way or another.
Speaker: That's just how the top, the topic shifted to me.
Speaker: And I just kept talking and talking and that's not something that I do.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: It was really remarkable.
Speaker: And, um,
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.
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.
Speaker: It didn't just touch your dad.
Speaker: It touched you, whether it was conversation with her, conversation with your dad.
Speaker: You know, the things that I heard when she talked to you or when she talked to your father, those things influenced me.
Speaker: It was a really remarkable and beautiful method that she used because she was so welcoming and so open and so nonjudgmental.
Speaker: What kinds of things do you think you may have taken away?
Speaker: I know it's kind of like a big and sort of broad question.
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?
Speaker: I think probably just that people are trustworthy.
Speaker: That was always, and still is to an extent, one of my biggest issues.
Speaker: I have really close friends that know very little about my life and what I've been through.
Speaker: I went to Chicago recently.
Speaker: My brother's buried up there, and I went and saw him.
Speaker: And I told one of my friends, I'm going to see my brother while I'm in Chicago.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, are you cool?
Speaker: Because I'm not...
Speaker: I don't talk to my other half siblings.
Speaker: So they asked, are you and your brother cool?
Speaker: I was like, I should hope so.
Speaker: He's six feet underground.
Speaker: And they were like, well, I didn't know.
Speaker: You sort of blindsided them with his information.
Speaker: I didn't realize they didn't know because it doesn't come up in my mind to talk to people about that.
Speaker: Sure, sure, sure.
Speaker: What was that like going up and sort of confronting...
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?
Speaker: I don't think about him often.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I know that his death was a catalyst for a lot of things that happened in my life.
Speaker: And when I made the decision to go see him, I was terrified.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's...
Speaker: What do you think scared you the most about them?
Speaker: Probably, what year was it?
Speaker: About 13 years worth of trauma that I was about to face.
Speaker: And it wasn't, it was, it was difficult.
Speaker: It was harder than I thought it would be.
Speaker: Just, you know, walking up to this little memorial on the ground.
Speaker: I didn't stay very long because it was 16 degrees and windy, but.
Speaker: Oh, that sounds nightmarish.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that made it that much worse.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't, I didn't say much.
Speaker: It was more just like, I guess, processing a lot of things that I never realized that I hadn't.
Speaker: Yeah, I can only imagine.
Speaker: That seems like something difficult to suddenly be thrust back into, especially if it was something you were never truly close to.
Speaker: You were sort of close by proxy through your dad about the whole thing.
Speaker: And then suddenly you get your own one-on-one, and what does that look like?
Speaker: What does that feel like?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, we never went to his funeral.
Speaker: We never visited his grave before.
Speaker: So that was very much a first for me, and it was...
Speaker: I still don't really know how to express what it was like.
Speaker: It was still fairly recent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wouldn't know where to begin.
Speaker: I wouldn't know how to think about that.
Speaker: That's a really tough one.
Speaker: I'm impressed that you were able to even go do that at all.
Speaker: I think it's a really good thing that you were able to.
Speaker: And even if you, quote unquote, took nothing away from it, you obviously know there is something that happens regardless.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think maybe even the bravery to approach it at all is noteworthy.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I think it's something that, you know, it's not unremarkable.
Speaker: It's not a small thing.
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.
Speaker: And it sounds like that's sort of what that is.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean it was definitely the first time I cried about him in a very long time.
Speaker: Have you talked with your dad about it since that moment?
Speaker: No, I'm not even sure if he knows I did it now that I think about it.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: I'm going to forward him a copy of this the moment it's done.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he might listen, of course.
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: I'm not going to force your hand and be like, hey, check out all your son's secrets on my podcast.
Speaker: No, I have a fairly open relationship with my dad, so we talk a lot.
Speaker: That's really good.
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.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That you had a father.
Speaker: I knew that you had a father and I was really impressed.
Speaker: I was like, wow, that's so cool.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, I didn't know a whole lot about him or any sort of background.
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.
Speaker: Um, but I'm really glad to hear that you and your father, uh,
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.
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.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Conflict isn't necessarily bad.
Speaker: Conflict maybe helps you sort of like strengthen the things that you
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
Speaker: You know, sometimes it can be easy to say, well, you know, you need to hear me out.
Speaker: Or as you cited earlier, you know, when you were younger, this is just who I am.
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.
Speaker: You can say, do I want this to shift?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's wonderful.
Speaker: At this point, it sounds like you are really doing remarkably well.
Speaker: But like any person, you know, like, you know, we're never completed projects.
Speaker: We're always works in progress.
Speaker: What do you think it is at this point that you want to focus on?
Speaker: You know, having all of this stuff that you've just talked about that you've acknowledged very directly.
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
Speaker: resentment or anger.
Speaker: I mean, there's so many possible things.
Speaker: I mean, there's definitely still a lot of anger I need to work through.
Speaker: Like, I lived my entire life angry.
Speaker: And I've, you know, only just scratched the surface of the very big things.
Speaker: Like, I think the biggest thing is...
Speaker: In terms of anger and relationships right now is I don't speak to my mom.
Speaker: That's not something I'm interested in changing, but that is something I need to process a little more, I think.
Speaker: It's especially difficult because my parents are still together.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha.
Speaker: So speaking to one of them but not the other can be really tough.
Speaker: I gotcha.
Speaker: So you wouldn't necessarily – if you were to visit them, what would that be like?
Speaker: Because clearly that would –
Speaker: I have visited them, and it's – I ignore my mom, and she goes into the room.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: It's essentially that.
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.
Speaker: This was at the beginning of January of last year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, the worst month ever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
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.
Speaker: If she speaks it, you can speak to her.
Speaker: I know you're concerned with impressions and all that.
Speaker: You, you do you, but it's, I don't,
Speaker: I'm going to try to put a stop to that.
Speaker: And I did it first.
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.
Speaker: And that was the extent of that.
Speaker: My mom didn't speak to her much, but she did speak to her.
Speaker: My girlfriend replied very curtly but polite.
Speaker: But it was just...
Speaker: It's a very difficult couple of days in California.
Speaker: Yeah, I can only imagine.
Speaker: Now, is this something that – and I never want to cross boundaries, of course, when it comes to this topic of conversation.
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 –
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
Speaker: That's an important thing to say as well too is I'm not sitting here trying to play armchair counselor.
Speaker: No, I – yeah.
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.
Speaker: And the thing that – And no one gets to tell you otherwise.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: I have no regrets about burning this bridge.
Speaker: Do you sometimes think that's like anger responding or is it like just honest responding?
Speaker: A little bit of both.
Speaker: There would probably be a bit more compassion once I work through the anger, but I don't foresee any reconciliation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When it comes to working through this kind of stuff, is it isolating for you?
Speaker: Or do you ever talk about it with anybody?
Speaker: Do you have like therapists or close confidants that like, you know, do you ever talk with your dad about this?
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.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: But I do have a couple of friends I speak to about.
Speaker: I, like I said, I write things down a lot, but it, it,
Speaker: Most of the time processing my emotions in general is very much an isolationist thing that I do.
Speaker: I am constantly thinking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's always something running through my mind no matter what I'm doing.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
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.
Speaker: That's where it goes.
Speaker: You know, I thought in a moment that it did, but I'm opting out of that now.
Speaker: So, what was my train of thought?
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?
Speaker: Or does it give you time to also focus on thoughts in addition to being busy?
Speaker: It allows me to think.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If I have something to occupy my hands, my mind is free.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: It's very much an ADHD thing, I think.
Speaker: But, like, I'm always fidgeting with a paracord bracelet right now.
Speaker: I'm always fidgeting with something so that I can focus.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So you're a multitasker?
Speaker: Yeah, I have to be, or I'm a mess.
Speaker: Certainly.
Speaker: One simple goal, and it was just to focus on that.
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.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, if, if I had a plan, I wouldn't live in three States in as many years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, a lot less impulsive.
Speaker: Do you think – would you consider yourself impulsive or would you say you're somewhat calculated?
Speaker: I am horrifically impulsive.
Speaker: Okay, you just do literally whatever spur of the moment.
Speaker: Yeah, it's something I've really had to get in control of because my spending habits were bad.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They still kind of are, but I'm making it work.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Like I –
Speaker: I just dropped $400 on a plane ticket to Arizona before I even got the days off.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: Yeah, you knew what you wanted.
Speaker: You'll find a way to make it work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: Or do you want to change it?
Speaker: Or have you changed it to this because this is what you want?
Speaker: I wish I had more disposable income.
Speaker: That's totally fair.
Speaker: It's, you know, I don't.
Speaker: I don't necessarily regret the impulsive decisions that I've made most of the times.
Speaker: It's just a matter of sometimes I make them when I can't afford to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I just have to deal with the fallout of that.
Speaker: You just sort of deal with the consequences.
Speaker: But ultimately it's future Byron's problem.
Speaker: At this point, okay, that's fair.
Speaker: Well, you know what?
Speaker: I heard something as well.
Speaker: I might have cited this on a different episode.
Speaker: But when I was listening to another podcast regarding Kevin Smith talking about his desire to make the movie Clerks,
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.
Speaker: And he put himself in this sort of constant state of worry.
Speaker: And his sister at some point sort of addressed it and said, look, the goal is to do the thing.
Speaker: So do whatever it takes to do the thing.
Speaker: Whatever you have within you, the goal is to get that out.
Speaker: And as long as you get it out, you're good.
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
Speaker: you know, do what it took to make the plan happen regardless of consequence.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Potential consequence.
Speaker: Is... Is that something that you feel that maybe you can also relate to in a way?
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.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's...
Speaker: I have very vague goals.
Speaker: Like my long-term goal right now is to travel as much as possible.
Speaker: That's a great goal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I mean, one of the earliest things that my dad told me was that there's no better teacher than travel.
Speaker: And that's something I took to heart the moment I heard it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And that's why I got.
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.
Speaker: I was going to the same place.
Speaker: I love road trips.
Speaker: When I lived in Austin, I would drive 12 hours to Albuquerque in one sitting.
Speaker: No problem back and forth.
Speaker: I'd go to Lubbock.
Speaker: We'd go to Dallas, Waco.
Speaker: When I moved to Columbus, I spent a day in Nashville.
Speaker: I didn't need to do that.
Speaker: That was cool.
Speaker: Nashville kicks ass.
Speaker: You just got to see it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just – I went up to Cleveland impulsively for a concert.
Speaker: It's only a two-hour drive, so it wasn't bad.
Speaker: It's not bad.
Speaker: I went to Chicago on a whim, never been to Chicago, going to Arizona.
Speaker: It's just – the things you learn just traveling is incredible, and it's not like educational learning or even street smarts.
Speaker: It's just the world is different a state away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Experiential learning is something I think that is very valuable is simply don't be afraid of a consequence.
Speaker: Just do the thing.
Speaker: That's my biggest thing.
Speaker: Like it's people, people who are afraid of failure are kind of frustrating to me.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: And the secret of that is that 9,500 of those hours...
Speaker: if not more, are spent failing.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
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?
Speaker: And I just said, I died way more than I succeeded.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, my failure to win ratio is absolutely skewed in the most terrible numbers, but that's how you do it.
Speaker: Just play Dark Souls.
Speaker: Just play Dark Souls.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Die a thousand hours, never win the game and feel like you've succeeded somehow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I think that I think it's really a great idea is to say, just do it.
Speaker: Obviously, not everybody can do this.
Speaker: There's a degree of privilege to saying, you know, just go out and see the world.
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.
Speaker: A different drive home.
Speaker: That's a great even that starting small.
Speaker: I think, you know, changing a routine if you're able to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Even even in the smallest degree can maybe propel you to like feel more encouraged or able to try new things.
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.
Speaker: I'll just have a meal.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I've done that everywhere I've lived.
Speaker: I've only been disappointed a couple times.
Speaker: And the worst comes the worst.
Speaker: Yeah, like if it's just food.
Speaker: I mean, and you can even start with a familiar restaurant and order something you've never ordered before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, you know, you should just try new things.
Speaker: Yeah, habit is exciting.
Speaker: Habit is comforting.
Speaker: Yes.
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.
Speaker: You know, new menu item on a restaurant.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fantastic.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, it's easier than a lot of people think.
Speaker: Insofar as bigger changes, but it's never easy.
Speaker: Things are going to be difficult, but that's why you should do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where do you want to travel?
Speaker: What's a place that you've been thinking about that you're just like, that's on the list.
Speaker: That's a milestone.
Speaker: I have not stopped thinking about Chicago.
Speaker: Chicago, okay.
Speaker: Chicago was so cool.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I have always loved big cities.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Chicago is very much an East Coast style big city.
Speaker: They built up.
Speaker: The big cities I'd been to were like Denver, LA, big sprawling cities.
Speaker: That's just what we have in the West.
Speaker: Everything is big.
Speaker: Yeah, very spread out.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: So you haven't been to New York.
Speaker: Is that kind of a goal for you as well?
Speaker: Yeah, I'd love to go to New York.
Speaker: It's only eight hours away.
Speaker: That's not bad, actually.
Speaker: Everything is so close over here.
Speaker: Dude, it's crazy.
Speaker: When I left, I drove eight hours.
Speaker: I was still in Texas.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Texas is as long as a drive from any place on the East Coast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a six-hour drive to Chicago, which blew my mind.
Speaker: There's a state in between me.
Speaker: Yeah.
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
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've never had the opportunity to go outside the country, correct?
Speaker: Yeah, never.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But you've got maybe – so that could be sort of like a general goal.
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.
Speaker: I could drive four hours, be in Canada.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, so this is – yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I lost it.
Speaker: It's done.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: There it goes for the moment.
Speaker: You were living in the moment so much.
Speaker: When you take it from me, it's gone.
Speaker: Well, that was my job was to say, I'm going to disrupt your comfort.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's what I did.
Speaker: I said, you know, I'm going to wait until Byron speaks.
Speaker: I'm immediately going to talk over him and finish his sentence.
Speaker: But I mean, so it sounds like, you know, people, people are a work in progress.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've got some things on your plate that you recognize that you wish to address.
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.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, the fact that I can transfer, it helps me a lot.
Speaker: Oh, that's nice, actually.
Speaker: Yeah, I transferred from Austin to Columbus.
Speaker: And even if for some reason I couldn't transfer through Penske, I have experience in a trade.
Speaker: I can get a job anywhere.
Speaker: Oh, that's pretty great.
Speaker: That's pretty great.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: That's super cool.
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.
Speaker: I've been through a couple episodes.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you kind of know that like I'm about to barrage you with a handful of questions.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't know if you've prepared at all or if like we're just truly winging it.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: Very good.
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.
Speaker: Let's go ahead and start with a book, a book recommendation.
Speaker: I got two, two of my favorite books.
Speaker: Two of your favorite books, all right.
Speaker: One of them is called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
Speaker: It is the – it's memoirs from a Vietnam vet, and it is – he's an unreliable narrator.
Speaker: I got you.
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.
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.
Speaker: And then later on in the book, he's like, no, that was me.
Speaker: I let that man die.
Speaker: And it's just interesting.
Speaker: It's just this really interesting gripping tale.
Speaker: And I've always been interested in like historical wars, Vietnam being one of the ones I've always found most interesting.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So that one's always connected with me.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, that's hearing about wars is generally through like the lens of like media coverage.
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
Speaker: be forthcoming at moments where it's almost like, you know, it's very difficult and very human.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: So they're killing a Buffalo.
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.
Speaker: Cause he's, he's got drafted.
Speaker: And there's one where he tells a story of someone in his unit, just driving around his old town.
Speaker: looking for someone to share his stories with.
Speaker: And it's just, it's a really beautiful book.
Speaker: I've read it numerous times.
Speaker: If you're into audiobooks, Bryan Cranston narrates it.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Oh, that'd be great as well too.
Speaker: Audiobooks can help a lot of people, myself included, who h ave a hard time focusing reading sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And what's this one called once more?
Speaker: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
Speaker: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
Speaker: Okay, amazing.
Speaker: And you said you had another book as well.
Speaker: Yeah, it's Jeanette McCurdy's book, I'm Glad My Mom Died.
Speaker: That book fucked me up.
Speaker: So you know what?
Speaker: I've actually heard several people recommend this, and I went to look for an audiobook version.
Speaker: I don't have any of the programs.
Speaker: So I went onto YouTube, and I typed it in, and someone was like, oh, yeah, I've got this version right here.
Speaker: And then it was like some crappy computer narrative voice, and I was like, I can't do this.
Speaker: So I think I'm going to take the point to go to Audible or something.
Speaker: Yeah, if you have Audible, Jeanette McCurdy reads it.
Speaker: That's even better.
Speaker: I think I want that.
Speaker: I heard an interview where she was like arguing with her editors because the way she writes it in some parts is not –
Speaker: you know, the proper way, but she's like, no, I need, it needs to read this way.
Speaker: So that's how she intended it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is much better.
Speaker: And that's how I listened to the book.
Speaker: I just bought a physical copy like a week ago.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But you heard audible first.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: I was just interested.
Speaker: Cause it's like, Oh, that's the girl from my Carly.
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
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So a good couple of books.
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.
Speaker: Very good.
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.
Speaker: I guess your top 200,000.
Speaker: But if you... Yeah.
Speaker: We'll make it easy for you.
Speaker: But if you got to recommend a movie or TV show, one or the other, or both... Right.
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.
Speaker: What's a movie or a book?
Speaker: Excuse me, a movie or a TV show.
Speaker: My current favorite movie, which...
Speaker: knocked over a lot of others that were close.
Speaker: Everything, everywhere, all at once.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: And that just won a bunch of Oscars for very good reason.
Speaker: If you think the Oscars is rigged, watch that movie.
Speaker: The Oscars are still probably rigged, but that movie deserves all of those Oscars.
Speaker: Yeah, that's actually – it's true.
Speaker: Very, very impressive piece of work by a lot of incredible Asian actors and writers and directors.
Speaker: It was just a terrific film.
Speaker: Okay, but I don't want to glow about it.
Speaker: I want you to tell me all about it.
Speaker: It's that – I wasn't expecting – like I knew Daniels.
Speaker: I saw Swiss Army Man.
Speaker: I was like, this is going to be a fun movie.
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.
Speaker: I would not change, which is like.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, it goes into a lot of discussion about like relationship with one's parents.
Speaker: Which I think is a really fascinating one for you to have chosen considering our conversation.
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.
Speaker: And they both lined up with our personal philosophies, which are also sort of opposite.
Speaker: Hers was – if I'm remembering this correctly, it was like if you –
Speaker: You have an obligation to do good by the people in your life, which I don't disagree with.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And my major takeaway was that nothing matters, so you get to pick what matters.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And to think of those two things coexisting.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: These are not mutually exclusive statements.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But we just pulled different themes from this movie.
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.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Is that, you know, like the takeaways for everybody.
Speaker: I went and saw it with a friend who had lost his dad not long before.
Speaker: And so that movie resonated highly on a completely different level.
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.
Speaker: And I always understand where they're getting it from.
Speaker: It's not like I haven't seen a misinterpretation yet.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it is truly some of the best art that is out there.
Speaker: So everything, everywhere, all at once.
Speaker: Great choice.
Speaker: If you haven't seen it by now, do yourself a favor and absolutely hunt it down and check it out.
Speaker: It is worthy of the Oscars that you got.
Speaker: That's my current favorite movie now.
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.
Speaker: Oh, sort of like...
Speaker: what's the one with Matt Damon?
Speaker: Good Will Hunting?
Speaker: That's just a beautiful movie.
Speaker: I love that movie.
Speaker: Gus Van Sant is one of my favorite directors.
Speaker: But just that movie to this day hits me emotionally.
Speaker: Another one is Donnie Darko, which is different, but the same sort of character archetype between Donnie and Will relates there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those two are the major ones.
Speaker: I was also really big on the Outsiders.
Speaker: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And then Rocky, obviously.
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.
Speaker: I think Rocky 1 is a perfect movie also.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I don't disagree in any way.
Speaker: I think Rocky Balboa is better, but Rocky 1 is perfect.
Speaker: I also agree with that.
Speaker: Yeah, Rocky 1 is the best Rocky.
Speaker: Rocky Balboa is my favorite Rocky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's sort of what it comes down to.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Okay, so you've got a healthy selection of movies that you...
Speaker: You sort of have like this type and the style.
Speaker: And that's really, that's very cool.
Speaker: My primary hobby is media consumption.
Speaker: Media consumption.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I get it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it's great because speaking of consumption, I want to know if you could recommend a food.
Speaker: This could be a local restaurant.
Speaker: It could be a restaurant wherever you are.
Speaker: Local to Albuquerque, local to Ohio, local to, I don't know, Timbuktu.
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
Speaker: Double steak grilled cheese burrito from Taco Bell?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I eat that way too much.
Speaker: How often is it too much?
Speaker: Multiple times a week.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I was going to say multiple times a day would be really impressive.
Speaker: Times a week would actually – okay, that's reasonable.
Speaker: They took it off the menu for like a couple weeks and I was really upset, but it's back.
Speaker: It's back already.
Speaker: Well, the Taco Bell CEO listened to this podcast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he was like, we've got to figure this out.
Speaker: Yeah, that burrito is so good.
Speaker: I haven't tried that one before.
Speaker: Actually, that's really delicious.
Speaker: For a real dish, Bedia Tacos, wherever you get them.
Speaker: Whoa, a real dish?
Speaker: You're calling out Taco Bell?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what they did for that burrito?
Speaker: They took their same five ingredients and put them in a different order.
Speaker: Oh, it's like a remix.
Speaker: That's all Taco Bell menu is.
Speaker: I suppose that's true.
Speaker: Five things with 80 variations.
Speaker: With the exception of the Mexican pizza, the Mexican pizza is the only Taco Bell item with a unique ingredient.
Speaker: Did you know that?
Speaker: And actually, I did not.
Speaker: It's the Mexican pizza sauce.
Speaker: Oh, is it a unique sauce exclusive to it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I didn't know that.
Speaker: You know, I've never gotten a Mexican pizza from there.
Speaker: I tried it once and I didn't like it.
Speaker: It's the only thing my dad gets.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's why you guys had a falling out for a bit.
Speaker: Yeah, no, he did.
Speaker: He loves it and you're like, no, no way.
Speaker: He lied to you.
Speaker: Yeah, this is delicious, son.
Speaker: You'll love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
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?
Speaker: It took me a long time.
Speaker: You did find something.
Speaker: It's so hard to find Mexican food up here.
Speaker: Would that make sense?
Speaker: When I first moved here, my friends were like, we're going to take you to this taco place.
Speaker: And I was like, oh boy.
Speaker: They took me to this place.
Speaker: I'm going to name and shame them.
Speaker: This place called Condado Tacos.
Speaker: Food was fine.
Speaker: It tasted good.
Speaker: It's not a taco.
Speaker: It was like – Oh, gotcha.
Speaker: It was fancy Taco Bell.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: When you say we're going out for tacos and Margs, I want, you know, my corn tortillas.
Speaker: I want all that.
Speaker: This is fancy Taco Bell for much too much.
Speaker: Okay, but still good.
Speaker: Oh, it tastes good.
Speaker: Just not authentic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like, we're getting tacos.
Speaker: Like, you know where I'm from, right?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
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.
Speaker: And I've been humbled a couple times, too.
Speaker: Oh, you can find it.
Speaker: You just have to look.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so you found some video tacos out there at the very least.
Speaker: There's a food truck that I go to also way too much.
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?
Speaker: This one's always in the same spot.
Speaker: There are a couple that move around.
Speaker: Do you think it needs to be a food truck if it's always in the same spot?
Speaker: Or could you just be like, look, just open up a restaurant already?
Speaker: Yeah, open up a restaurant in this shell parking lot.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, just construct a shed from Lowe's or whatever.
Speaker: Just use that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Okay, so Bidia Tacos and the Double Steak Cheesy Burrito.
Speaker: Grilled Cheese Burrito.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: I'm going to try one of those probably tomorrow then.
Speaker: They're so good.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
Speaker: But yeah, that's true.
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.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 16 hour podcast.
Speaker: What about a favorite video game?
Speaker: Could be a current favorite.
Speaker: Could be an old time favorite, a nostalgic favorite, whatever it is, you know?
Speaker: Well, my favorite series of all time is the Yakuza series, now Like a Dragon.
Speaker: Yakuza, Like a Dragon, right.
Speaker: Well, like, they go by Like a Dragon in the West now.
Speaker: Yes, yeah, they've been, yeah, the official title.
Speaker: Most people will likely know it as Yakuza.
Speaker: That series is so emotional.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which, you know, most people aren't going to realize when they see clips because it's just you doing goofy shit.
Speaker: Yeah, punching tigers in a casino or whatever.
Speaker: Punching tigers, doing karaoke, going to a hostess club.
Speaker: Racing RC cars.
Speaker: You see a man come out of a sewer in drag and try to fight you.
Speaker: It's cool about Yakuza is it's basically side quest the game.
Speaker: Yeah, and when you – the character arc of a lot of these characters is so good.
Speaker: Like, the writing is fantastic.
Speaker: I have cried numerous times playing this series.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I've played Yakuza 6.
Speaker: It's not even my favorite Yakuza game.
Speaker: I've played it the most because the ending will make me cry like a baby every time.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, and there's multiple games.
Speaker: There's a lot of games in this series.
Speaker: Prequels and side stories.
Speaker: Eight mainline games now, and there's Dead Souls on PS3.
Speaker: They just remastered Isshin, which is one of the samurai spinoffs, and there's another samurai spinoff.
Speaker: Yep, and then we have Judgment, which is like parallel in the universe.
Speaker: Judgment, Lost Judgment.
Speaker: Lost Judgment, right.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the earlier...
