308. What is Meal?

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, make a proper mind map.

MerlinHello.

AlexHello. Good Alex to you. Good Alex to you. I would like to share a noise with you. It's not a surprising noise. Except for the fact I have resisted having, what would you even call this bell? What is the specific type of bell that has become your brand? A desk bell? Like what is it called?

MerlinI think most people would recognize what you meant if you called it a lobby bell.

AlexOh, oh, that makes sense. Get your hands off my lobby bell. like Ray Fine says in

Merlinwhat's that pink hotel movie The Local Bucharest you know that one remember he has a lobby boy

Alexyou can do yours first

Merlindo you want to hear mine for context

Alexplease isn't that one over a decade old sorry that wasn't meant to be

Merlinno no no no I'm making fun of you in a different way I'm making fun of you.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinNo, no, you're one of those young people who's obsessed about whether you can remember. See, now I am cursed with having to remember when everything happened. I don't think of it that way. Let me check the use-by date. Oh, my God. This expired in 2018.

AlexOh, my God. We know now. Turns out. Turns out. Well, actually, the expiration dates are totally fake. It does. Yeah. Did you know? turns out well actually because that is something that i learned and i'm very upset by you put up

Merlinyou're putting a pin in the belt right we're gonna come back to that oh no no keep going what are you talking about love actually i've never seen it i i know of it i know that rick from the walking dead holds a sign and it's been widely parodied i see okay did you know that's rick did you know

Alexthat's rick from the walking dead did you know that yes because they're all secret australians He masqueraded as a Brit before an Australian. Or am I wrong? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

MerlinI think he's a secret Brit.

AlexI think he's a straightforward secret Brit. But I can't say. Okay, yeah.

MerlinBut wait, what? I'm in a good mood. It's hot in here.

AlexOh. Yeah, it's hot.

MerlinI'm wearing short pants.

AlexOoh.

MerlinYeah, like that photo you sent me of your legs.

AlexI...

MerlinYou don't see my legs? I'll see you my legs.

AlexI sent you a lot of upsetting images. But an image of my... I think it was something on my legs at some point. Oh, or a broken leg. Like that's, hmm.

MerlinNo, no, no. It's way worse than that. I hope you put a pin in everything we were talking about before.

AlexOkay, okay. We got.

MerlinI need to get an intern. I need somebody just to write things down for me.

AlexNo, don't. They're mistakes. They're mistakes.

MerlinInterns are mistakes. Put a pin in that too. Yes. Jesus Christ. You were sending me a picture of something that you were holding. and it included you, your legs and short pants. Oh boy, this is a really unflattering picture of my leg. I'm not going to send that. I'm going to leave that to the listener's imagination. Actually, don't. Don't imagine it or you're banned from the show.

AlexI was going to say.

MerlinMaybe my feet should be on Patreon. Hey, talk about a stretch goal.

Okay, so you got a bell, I understand. Did you get a lobby bell?

AlexI did. I got a lobby bell.

MerlinI recommend every... I want to be clear about this. This is an idea, such as it is, the idea of hitting a bell, is an idea that I stole, borrowed, lent, leased from John Roderick. And I'm telling you, Alexandra Cox, and I want to talk about you reclaiming Cox, I bought a lobby bell, and can I tell you something about it? I never looked back. And to this day now, I should put this in the document, which now has a domain name. I'm going to say everybody should get a bell because you do not believe how great it feels. To like when you feel like, oh, I kind of nailed that.

Hey, that souffle didn't suck. You know what I mean? Celebrate. Celebrate your victory. Celebrate the moments of your life.

AlexThat's why I resisted the bell for so long. Tell me why. Tell me why.

MerlinWhy'd you resist? Did you feel like you were being a copycat?

AlexI was being a copycat, and I thought that I would start to celebrate unearned victories.

MerlinWhy would that be a problem?

AlexJoin my family.

MerlinMy family has the lowest threshold for celebration that has ever existed.

AlexNo, no, but my own victories. I will ring a bell for anybody.

MerlinAll right. I hate to hear you talk like this.

Alexit makes me no no no well hold on hold on don't interrupt i'm gonna finish i'm gonna finish my story i'm holding on to cox yeah the uh ah ha ha oh it's well here i heard the clapper i think it's called oh the clap on you don't know that don't don't know that clap on clap off i know the clapper commercial for the clapper clap on clap off the clapper yes like i i never saw the commercial on tv but i also never knew what like from what here we go oh i got everything i need to know

Merlinfrom tiktok i already know that song i already know that movie i already read ulysses because

Alexsomebody mentioned it on tiktok i was i told you last week that there was no use in you getting a tiktok account or looking at yeah that was you that was you yeah yes and and because again you have a young person who can give you the relevant information this so came up on rectus last night oh good good because i like i i seek out the chicken stock knowledge without as a coconut vendor you seek sir chisa i well i i didn't want to be a a big bell boy because i'm like every

it's getting a bit much like this is this is a roderick and merlin thing that has been appropriated by too many podcasters.

MerlinWhat? No, come on. Don't say something. That's silly. Don't say something.

AlexLet me finish. Let me finish. No, it's just that you have a whore mouth. And I want you to shove it. It's just that you have a whore mouth. I'm so shy.

MerlinA cha-cha-cha.

AlexA cha-cha-cha. But the other day,

MerlinI was... You sound like the mother

Alexin Totoro. I'm going to get better.

MerlinIs that Saskia's corn?

AlexOh, I suppose. oh i love the corn i love the corn so you weren't gonna get it because you didn't want to be a big bell boy big bell big big bell boy i didn't want to be a big bell boy and i you know as it has been a topic on the show the past few months i've been having a bit of a time with my brain and like family drama everything's fine um i'm ready right i know egg um and i was at five below which is a

chain store that i don't know if it exists across the country do you know what five below is no no

Merlini don't think i know is it like uh what you tell me is it like what like remainders or like or like

Alexa like a cheapie store it's a cheapie store and it's you know where all of the um iphone 6 phone

Merlincases that used to be a hundred dollars go to die oh i love places that that places like that alex I'm going to put it alongside Costco and Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's. As places that tickle my buying bone.

AlexOh, God. I'm not immune to that. I can't go in there often. It's a disaster.

MerlinDid you ever go to a remaindered bookstore? Do you know that term at all?

AlexNo.

MerlinBecause I realized bookstores were already kind of on the decline. But there used to be a phenomenon called, you know, there's used bookstores, there's new bookstores, and there's remaindered bookstores. Oh, sorry. Go on. Yes. Yeah, it's sort of like another term you wouldn't know. In records, you'd call that cutouts. Like they got returned, like all of these Kiss solo records got returned to RCA, and they cut them out. They put a punch in them so you can't resell it. They do this with playing cards in Las Vegas. They put a big hole in the middle, and then you can sell those cards. I learned this from Better Call Saul.

And remainder books are books that got, my understanding, books that got returned to the publisher and then are resold. And like cutouts, they've like, they cut like a piece off the cover or something like, ha ha, you'll never sell this now. And it used to be so amazing because you could go in there and like, it was like a real business.

I can't remember what the one in Sarasota was or Sarasota was called. But anyway, you go in there and like, you would see like the equivalent of an end cap, like a single, like, you know, you go to Barnes & Noble and it's like women in literature table or whatever. And this would be like 11,000 copies of David Lee Roth's Crazy from the Heat, which you could pick up. And of course, they price them based on how many they have. So you might be able to pick up some books for like less than a buck.

I only say I'm not trying to get you off your bell, but that tickles my buying bone because I'm like, I can't afford not to buy these.

AlexExactly. Exactly.

MerlinLoco del color, they say in Espanol.

Alexthey definitely have some of that stuff at a five below because there are books with like you know

Merlina sharpie well my wife and i have called dented dented groceries like when you go somewhere it's like it's kind of stuff you see the flea market it's like these these beans fall off of a truck

Speaker Athey're still they're still fine they should call the place they're still fine

Alexshould this ramen be light blue they're still fine that's where they they also sell um what god there's a there is another official term for the food that they also sell candy there that cannot be sold officially in grocery stores which is where i get a lot of

MerlinCustomer assistance and choking hazard? Customer assistance and choking hazard?

AlexNo, it's just, you know, like Smarties that came out and like the packages. Oh, that came out wrong, like Mystic Toys? Yeah, yeah.

MerlinNecco wafers where they actually made them taste like something? Whoops. Whoops, all taste.

AlexAlong with everything. I love our show.

Speaker AIt's so stupid.

AlexOh, give us your fucking money.com. But like all of the, I ruined the fun. But along with that stuff. One way you're still very much a woman.

MerlinTyping this one down forever. Wait, hang on. Forever ruining fun. And there I said it.

so you went to uh you went to five guys and you found a bell i yes i was shopping at five below

Alexto get some chris uh uh halloween very cheap halloween coloring books because again that's

Merlinthat's where everything goes to die i i i ordered some markers i didn't i absolutely didn't need for this challenge.

AlexOh, well, we will get to that later because...

MerlinBut I love that. I want to say it was these, but I know I ran across this. I think it might have been. Yeah. Let me look because it's worth mentioning. So what I got were, and they're terrible. This is, believe me, this is no, if you're going to get markers, get Pentel markers, right? There's two kinds of Pentel markers that are really good. There's a sign markers that are a little thicker. And then there's that standard pack of like whatever, 36 that folds and has the two Velcro flippies. The ones that I got.

AlexOh, and I hate when the flippies don't have Velcro. The flippies need Velcro. That's like the telltale sign.

MerlinI have, I'm OCD enough to really enjoy keeping those organized. But I also, I don't like taking them out of those things. So sometimes I'll put them in an Aiken Mills bin.

AlexOh, well, that's different. You are modifying your process.

MerlinI have a new color that I discovered through markers. I have a new color I love. It's called Napoleon Blue. Yes, he did. I hardly even knew him. But Napoleon Blue.

AlexIs it too short? Something, something complex being short. I do ruin the fun. Go on.

MerlinWell, I'll read you the second part of this. So this is everything after the dash in the description. uh he hethron dual tip brush pens fine tip markers for calligraphy painting drawing six count b028 napoleon blue now the part preceding that markers for adults coloring

Alexhey are you touching my adult coloring marker these are my adult that's my adult alcohol

Merlini just you know did you touch my adult german dungeon porn i think i was very specific with you about that i really miss for mature audiences language smoking

Alexso you got a belly uh five guys i'm i'm at five i the only reason i'm not playing in this five guys bit i don't have a dog you're making me want to eat five guys so badly right now and oh so you are reclaiming cocks no i give it a minute give it a minute i it didn't take me a full minute But the I'm at five below, which I adore.

And I was actually looking for markers for this challenge and was unsuccessful. Well, I was successful in finding markers for the challenge, but all the markers were dried out. But I came across just like the, you know, there's what they call the the the sale section, which means they are under it is it's not under five dollars. It's under $1.

MerlinOh, I am. Okay. So now I understand. Okay. So, so in the conceit with a dollar store and boy, we don't want to get into dollar stores, but because boy, I, you know, we, we don't have those here, but boy, are they ever everywhere else? And from listening to podcasts, I have learned, oh my God, it's the new Walmart.

AlexYeah. Oh, absolutely.

MerlinSo you're telling me your, your five guys store where you bought a bell is the five, If the titular titular five is the dollars or less that things cost there.

AlexCorrect.

MerlinUnder five.

AlexYes.

MerlinSo you couldn't get like a six pack of toddlers there. That would be like twenty. No. OK.

AlexNo, no. It is. It is what the I guess I would imagine the dollar stores of old used to be.

MerlinDollar stores really literally used to be like when I would go to a dollar store when I was first aware of them. the thing was literally everything in the store was one dollar I mean it was I understand why you wouldn't want that because in some cases you might want to say well you get three of these for a dollar or these are you know two dollars but you expect to spend eight dollars so wow what a bargain like this stinky plastic shower liner you know right but like so that's what it used to be and now I think it just means

cheaper than Walmart and like now there's no local stores but five five dollars gives you a lot of latitude alex oh absolutely which is called what's called

Alexunder five five five below and five below shit it's just a hodgepodge of things that i you you must buy but you should not bring into your home apparently it looks looks here like they're they're

Merlinthe the why do i never remember what this word is alex um not a logo not a saying not a motto their slogan tagline slogan yeah so it says in the title of their header read it well it's like so you know the usual seo thing where you at least they don't have the name of the place after the keyword stuffing but it's five below pipe let go and have fun yes yes spend all of the money

Alexdo you feel like do you feel like you did both of those i did i let go oh shoot i'm getting a

MerlinFour or three forbidden. I think I might have fireballed them. Oh. I don't know. Okay.

AlexFireballed five. You know what? I would not be surprised. I did also go to the website at the same time. Well, unfortunately. This may be the first time two people have tried to go to their website at the same time.

MerlinThese are orthodox discounters, so they adhere to their ethos in everything they do. Every desk is under $5. And yes, all of their web servers are under $5.

AlexYes, yes. Only five people can visit.

MerlinSay what you will. At least they have an ethos.

AlexFive high piece.

MerlinFive for four or three forbidden.

AlexBut I just got a bell. I had this feeling of, you know what? No one in this life is owed anything. No one really deserves anything. But I feel like at this point, a 99 cent bell. And I was kind of feeling down and I was like, a little bell. That always reminds me of Merlin. And I'm like, I'm going to get this bell.

MerlinActually, you know, and I mean, like, and not to sell past the clothes, as we say in real estate. But, you know, they also look kind of cool. I mean, for me, they're very reminiscent of another time. Like, personally, I'll tell you a funny, fun fact about me, Brady's bits. I hate hitting a bell in a place. But, like, so, like, they put a bell out there as a way to say, usually it's like, what, like, at a one-person, like, business or, you know, like, you know, actually, like, a hotel or motel more likely is a good idea.

because if you go to places like that crappy place we were in in Rhode Island before I pushed that poor woman like that person who works at the counter behind the bulletproof glass it was a hell of a motel that person is also doing laundry they're like washing towels they're answering needy people they're probably helping some of the smokers there light their cigarettes boy there's a lot of smoke

Alexthey're replacing the bags over the remotes that people put up their butts It's a job.

MerlinRight, right, right. They take the bag out of their butt and then put the – and so they have an actual sign. And, you know, not an ad hoc sign. There's an actual, like, printed out residence in or whatever sign. What was ours called? It's like Endless Stay America or something. And it actually says, hey, you know, I'm in the back, but I'm here. Ring. I feel like such a piece of shit hitting a bell. So, like, here's me. Ready?

Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Take your time, take your time. Take your time. I'm not here.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinBut it's reminiscent of old times. It looks cool. It reflects.

AlexIt does. It does.

MerlinBut really, the main performance characteristic is, and you fuckers are not going to understand this until you give yourself a goddamn bell. Hitting the bell feels good. It's like, goddamn, yes. It's like a touchdown dance for life.

AlexMm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. As soon as Maddie saw it, you know, without my consent, my spouse came and ran and dinked my bell and your spouse came without your consent and that

Merlinis this like is this related to the netflix thing like you share shows oh sure well has anybody see my ring um i uh uh you got a bell and so you you there's a to paraphrase our old pal max um you

Alexneeded it you deserved a treat you earned a treat uh so i just wanted to let you know that i you You made me very happy this week because I got myself a bell.

MerlinOh, I did that.

AlexYeah, yeah. Why would these bells be in my life for any other reason if not for you and Roderick?

MerlinBut it's like calculus. Go on. Well, we're like Leibniz and people in, not Saudi Arabia, but calculus got discovered around the same time on two different continents and if that's not true, don't tell me, I don't care the point is I discovered the bell you know what I'm saying? you adopted the bell but I was born into it I'm not going to do the voice

Speaker Ayou pick your bell

Merlinand then I will let you die

AlexI just like the inflection of oh

MerlinOh, wait, that's kind of a Frank Oz you got going there. Yours is more of a deranged Grover.

Monster at the end of the book is me I am. I'm conflating my Frank Oz characters.

AlexYeah. Hi. Yoda. The Oz.

MerlinA little bit piggy.

AlexDid he do Cookie Monster?

MerlinYes. well I mean like the way I've tried to explain this to my progeny is like if you want the skeleton key that unlocks the Frank Oz sound do think about how much Yoda sounds like Grover and Grover sounds like Miss Piggy I mean they're not all the same but in the same way that Jim Henson's

Speaker Avoices tend to sound like this you know what I mean

AlexI wonder if Jim Henson's voice is ever going to become

Speaker Aproblematic but like when he does it's Kermit or it's Ernie I would like to visit the moon but I don't think I'd want to live there you've heard that song? I don't want to live on the moon

Merlinoh I'm gonna make you cry later

Speaker AI'm gonna make you cry

Merlinyeah he talks about how he wants to go visit the moon but he wouldn't want to live there because he'd miss home

AlexI don't want to live on the moon why is it already making me sad

MerlinYou can imagine Ernie and Bert are in their little beds next to each other. And Ernie's up and Bert's asleep. And, of course, Ernie's dressed like Scrooge. He's got the hat and everything because he's sleeping. And even puppets have hats. Of course. Or especially, I guess.

Speaker AAnd he looks like, hey, Bert, look at the moon.

MerlinYeah. Who covered that? I want to say Aaron Neville.

Speaker AI would like to visit the moon.

MerlinWere you around during the Touch the Feel of Cotton commercials?

AlexI don't think so.

MerlinThe touch, the fear of cotton, the fabric of our lives.

AlexOh, fabric of our... Remember that? Oh, wait. I feel like not...

MerlinOh, you probably... Maybe I might have heard later when it wasn't, Aaron Neville, but it was in the early days of when you'd start getting beyond advertising for a product, beyond brand advertising, where Coca-Cola is just saying, hey, we're Coca-Cola, just put us on everything. Beyond that, then you would get the industries. like if you remember i think most americans are probably familiar with aaron copeland's peace rodeo because of commercials for beef oh beef it's what's for dinner right nope well this is why i need a mind map not nothing nothing in

my brain no idea but then you got you got and you know how there's all those milk commercials

Alexright there's like there's got milk you don't remember got milk okay okay yes well i would say erin burr you don't remember that like a campaign no the first famous got milk commercial was

Merlinthe guy the guy trying to call in and say that he knows the name of erin burr but he's eating cookies and he doesn't have any milk it's the the first great commercial from that he's trying to call into the radio station who was the person who shot alexander hamilton he's going erin burr and you know who that is that's um that's ryan mcpoil oh wait wait wait no he was also he was

Alexalso in that thing you do wait no oh my god oh my god yeah i'll pull it up i know of that only because of hamilton and they did a bunch of bits around it yeah aaron neville was in the neville

Merlinbrothers and uh he uh i don't know if he was the i think he was the originator when they launched with this and it was the first time i remember seeing an ad for an industry like yeah i on tv

Alexlike who paid for big like is this my big go read the footer because you know there's two milk

Merlintwo series of milk pro milk things i can't do this off the dome but there's got milk and what

Alexwas the other one milk mustache maybe um and one got milk because that i remember the revamp in my childhood was like oh we're gonna make sexy got milks sexy got milks yeah yeah yeah it was a

Merlinwhole big thing but like because like hey drink more milk that any milk any milk like go drink any milk milk island like go drink milk and and i think what and and but but like the um but if you go and read the footer it's something like the american uh like liquid dairy council or something like that and there's a different one from i think from milk mustache something like that is like the the fluid or like the fluid milk foundation or something like that i'll find out got milk but but at some point at some point in like i want to say the late 80s or

so there's these commercials and this is a kind of commercial that seems very familiar now and um i have a funny story about this it's the kind of kind of story that they're kind of commercial that's familiar now where it's just a lot of like reagan style imagery of like americans being americans and there's this one with trusting eyes the heart they have seen and it's just they're cutting to like oh people kissing and like a developmentally disabled girl standing behind a sheer curtain what and like that's that's the commercial and it's like in the end it's like the

touch the feel of cotton the fabric of our lives you're like wait a minute i just saw an ad for the

Alexof our lives. I just saw an ad for the

Merlinconcept of cotton. And I did. I absolutely did. And this became such a thing that there, I don't like to say too many personal things, but like this became a running joke in our house from the very beginning with my wife and me where a commercial would come on TV that we'd never seen and we'd both start yelling what we thought the commercial was for.

AlexOh, we do that now!

MerlinYes! Where you go like, insurance!

AlexCars! and there's

Merlinthe most famous one the problem this probably happened in 2002 and it's still a catchphrase a one word catchphrase in our house today was we were doing that we were yelling what do we think this commercial is about and we've seen so many of those cotton and milk style commercials Madeline goes metal it seems like this at the beginning I might be watching a commercial for the concept of metal

Alexmetal

Merlini'd i'd pay for big metal that's oh big metal that's how they get you okay got milk i'm looking at oh boy oh is this a squarespace site nope nope nope i tried the escape trick um it is cali okay california okay it's also raisins okay raisins are another one that was maybe the og that was the california raisin people i thought that was just like an ad for like like for like sun kiss not sun kiss but like you know sun made maybe like whatever like you

thought it was an ad for a brand of raisins that was from the people who represent the people who make raisins just go eat some fucking raisins look at these goddamn puppets go eat a raisin Got Milk, I'm reading here, copyright, California Milk Processor Board does Got Milk.

AlexOh, yum. Let's see. Milk mustache.

MerlinIs Milk Mustache the other one? Boy, there must be some contentious calls. In the early days, I bet there was some really contentious calls between the two foundations. Milk Mustache.

AlexHow do you think something like that would go, Merlin?

MerlinSay again. I'm sorry. I was reading.

AlexSay again. How would a call like that go, you think?

MerlinOh. Dance for me.

AlexDing, ding, ding.

MerlinSay, baby, how's it going? Get your dick out my milk. Get your dick out my milk. Got milk. You did better work.

AlexI know, I know.

MerlinOh, California milk processor board. No, that's got milk. What about milk mustache? I'm going to have to search for liquid. liquid liquid milk council question mark national dairy council okay oh shit how deep does this rabbit hole go they have a section on their commitment to children at the national dairy council i don't think that's the one the dairy practices the dairy practices council

Alexwe're like getting on to milking on right now there's is that when you have a family member

Merlinwhose life has become... Oh, I was thinking like... Because it's funny. You should say there's Alcoholics Anonymous. Milk Anonymous. You hear about alcoholics and then you hear about narcotics. And then you hear about Al-Anon. And I always figured in the 80s whenever you first started... I always figured that was like some hipster shorthand for alcoholics. It's not. I think Al-Anon... Will you tell me? Who's Al-Anon for?

AlexNo. Al-Anon is different...

MerlinIt's for like family members of people who do that, right? Right.

AlexIsn't it like support

Merlinfor the people

Alexand yeah they're they're a brand extension yes i it is like one of it i went to one of these meetings uh it is interesting it is not connected to aa because aa like the official

MerlinBill W. Bill W. is a patent troll.

AlexThe. Oh, God.

MerlinHi, Bill.

AlexHey, Billy. It's got similar vibes, but it's also like very trademarked. That's so interesting.

MerlinBut is it a nonprofit or a not-for-profit, do you think?

AlexYes, I believe. Let me look. It's a. Wait, tax ID. Yeah, 501c3.

MerlinOh, shit, dog. Okay, you ready? Yes. I think I found it, and it's better than I thought. This is on a U.S. Department of Agriculture page. I'm seeing something here called the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board.

That is extremely specific. Hey, I'm curious. I'm pretty deep. I got my dick pretty deep in the milk. Do you guys do all kinds of milk? No. Oh, so you do fluid milk? No. Oh, but you do fluid milk marketing. No. Do you do fluid milk fulfillment? Do you do all kinds of dairy inclusion projects? No. Fluid milk processors.

AlexProcessors.

MerlinBig milk.

AlexProcessors. This is milk. This is Harvey Milk.

MerlinNot that one.

AlexThat's not. No.

MerlinI was like, where are you taking this? Hi, I've never owned a camera store.

AlexMy name's Harvey Milk.

MerlinHave you ever thought about fluid processing?

AlexI didn't force anyone out of the closet. What are you talking about?

MerlinWhoa, whoa, whoa, forget about it. Diane Feinstein, she can suck a bag of dicks. National Fluid Milk. No, no, well, that's a different council.

AlexThat's okay.

MerlinYou see, you got a bell. Hey, play me your bell.

AlexSee, I don't know what... Real talk, the other day, I was just kind of going, by the other day, I do mean yesterday. I was like...

MerlinYeah. What? Wait. Because it has... I can't hear it. Give me a ding.

AlexOh, I have a new mic.

MerlinYou do sound different. But give me like... Okay, so here's me. Ready? Okay, this is me on whatever I've got. This is the... I said Syracuse. What we think might be the Dickerson mic. Okay? Uh-huh. Because you and Quinn are monsters and don't like my improvements, this is piercing. Ready?

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinFull-throated. Do that.

AlexOoh.

MerlinOoh, do it again.

AlexDo it again. Oh.

MerlinDo it. Let me hear it.

AlexOkay. Okay. Oh.

MerlinAre you fucking kidding me?

AlexWhat?

MerlinOkay, I think our listeners will join me in agreeing. Here's what it sounds like you just did. So, are you using an M... Wait, let me get... Is it an MV7?

AlexNo, no, no. I'm using the one that...

Merlinthat because you've got you've got i don't know if it's a compressor you've got um it's sort of like what happens when i do studio sound apply studio sound in descript i've had to start i hate to admit this i'm wearing a goose suit i've had to start goosing the bells on roderick because

Alexstudio sound is so good at taking out the bell sound oh wait so are you saying you cannot hear the bell as much?

MerlinSo you can hear this, right? Yes. Okay, so when you do what I assume is a similar thing, here's how it sounds. Ready? That's what it sounds like when you

Alexdo it. There's no bell.

MerlinNo bell, Jerry.

AlexOkay, hold on. Let me get...

MerlinYou win the Nobel Prize.

AlexOh wait, I did it wrong. I did it wrong.

MerlinDid you do it?

AlexOh, see, see. Bells are not this difficult, Alex. No. Not for everybody.

MerlinAre you struggling with bell? Do you have the bell's palsy?

AlexOh, shit. Oh, no.

MerlinWhat?

AlexI should have. This has been a huge mistake. Oh, no. Woo. But I got the.

MerlinYou know, do you feel like. Don't you. I'm going to be honest. Like online, offline. We're friends. And I hate your fucking face. I love you so much. I hope you feel like I'm supportive of you. What the fuck is your problem with making a bell ring? What is your major damage that you can't fucking hit a... The listeners are going to be going, what is wrong with Alex? Because it sounds like you're doing this.

AlexHold on, hold on, hold on.

MerlinI'm holding on. I got nowhere to be. You're my Wednesday. There's no ringing, Alex. Please text me when you listen to this later. Please, please, please.

AlexI will. Maybe it is... Hey, Alex, hit your bell.

MerlinOh, that sounded amazing.

Speaker AOh, boy.

AlexIs this the only show that you record over Zoom?

MerlinI'm looking at milklife.com. Milklife.com. Internal links within this website are funded and maintained by Milk Pep. Milk Pep. Milk Pep. America's milk companies. I've got Built with Chocolate Milk is another site. Oh, look, it's Katie Ledecky who's wearing a swimsuit. Katie Ledecky.

AlexI don't know who that is.

MerlinI hope she's a swimmer. They're not just exploiting this woman in a hat. I'm going to close the milk thing. Oh, wait.

AlexOh, no. Shit, dog.

MerlinOkay.

AlexWe've come on to something. What's happening? What's happening?

MerlinWell, save coming on to something for your partner. Mother, partner. I'm clicking. I'm sending you markers. Hey, look at your messages.

AlexMy sister. My partner. My sister. That's a good movie. Oh, wait. I know that.

MerlinWhat is that from? What's that from? I know that.

AlexChinatown. Nice guys?

MerlinWhat is it?

AlexWhat's Chinatown?

MerlinOh.

Alexmy uh my my my sister my daughter my sister my daughter oh i you know i you know a great

Merlinline i like a lot this has been my twitter bio several times and i don't i don't expect anybody to ever get it one of my most inscrutable ones this week was just the three words i think it was got any ham which is a line from 2001 a space odyssey that i love um another another great one

Alexwait wait that's when they're looking at sandwiches on the way to the moon got any ham

Merlinwhen they're looking at sandwiches because they're hey wade floyd and the other two guys are going

Alexto the moon i'm a fake fan jeez um but and then what was the other one wait what were we talking about um lines i can't ring a bell you had discovered something about big big milk i made

Merlinyeah i'm sending you this link also in the text i sent you no no it's very funny oh oh there's a lot of lines i like they're just a perfect response like in the episode where uh will Forte wants to put a copy of Twilight into the Pawnee time capsule?

Remember that?

AlexNope.

MerlinNo Twilight. Yes, Twilight. Shut up, Kelly. Make me Bob. It's my favorite episode of Parks and Rec. Well, that and Greg Pekaitis. But there's a point when Leslie says, oh, so you're the one who keeps saying that he keeps writing to me about Twilight. And Forte goes, yep, that's me. He goes, oh, I always thought you were a little girl he says nope I'm older and a boy you gotta imagine Will Forte saying it so I'm on the page

I'm on the page 4 I don't know there better be a oh my sweet precious tap dancing okay so first of all you see there's milk right

AlexI sent Alex to a page

Merlinthis will be in show notes this is on the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion can I draw your attention to the left rail and the navigational system?

AlexYes.

MerlinDoes any of this appeal to you? Would you be interested, for example, in the American Egg Board, the American Lamb Board, the American Become Promotion Board, Cattleman's Beef Board, Christmas Tree Promotion Board, Cotton Board, Haas Avocado Board, High Bush Blueberry Council, Mushroom Council, National Dairy Promotion and Research Board. Oh, see, that's the boffins. That's the ones who get the big bucks. National Honey Board. National Honey Board. That's my pole dancer name. National Mango Board. National Peanut Board. National Pork Board, National Potato... Oh, Darth. National Potato Promotion Board, National Watermelon Promotion Board,

Paper and Packaging Board, Popcorn Board, Softwood Lumber Board. That's my new pole dancer name. Softwood Lumber Board. United Sorghum Checkoff Program. No, not, neither the playwright nor the guy on the Enterprise. They're checking something off. Checkoff, checkoff.

AlexCheckoff.

MerlinYeah, so if you see sorghum in the first act, it has to be eaten?

AlexWhat do you do with sorghum? No. Chekhov's Law, United Soybean Board. What is, sorghum is that thing that is always on packaging that I assume means there is artificial.

MerlinI thought sorghum was like one of the, I always thought it was one of those like how we feed people in Africa things.

AlexYeah, oh, I thought it was the opposite. Like it was a vague.

MerlinI guess I can click.

AlexI thought it was like something in a Five Below candy.

MerlinYou can cut this out unless it's funny, but if you leave this in, please add some, I can find it for you, some very mournful string music here. The Sorghum R&P Program operates as the United Sorghum Checkoff Program. The program's purpose is to maintain and expand existing sorghum markets in use.

Today, the economic picture for sorghum producers is bright. And so I guess this is all stuff you're well, you're you didn't finish your thought because I interrupted you. Like these are things to promote the adoption of things like like lamb.

AlexI suppose I don't know who is visiting these websites. High Bush Blueberry Council.

MerlinOh, look at those fat blueberries. Those look yum's delicious.

AlexI mean, I need to be honest. I am just glued to this Christmas tree promotion board.

MerlinOh, my God.

AlexThere is a real Christmas tree board.

MerlinThey talk about the organizational structure. Yes. The organic assessment exemption. Oh, this is hot. Oh, it's got a form. Is it a PDF? Is it a PDF? It's not a PDF. I don't know. Organic exemption. Uh-oh. There's an organic exemption form that covers avocados, beef, blueberries, Christmas trees, cotton, dairy, egg, fluid, milk, honey, lamb, mango, mushrooms, paper. You eat paper. I'm a kid.

AlexI do. Because of you, you piece of shit. So does the, I guess, subject of our challenge this week. I was very excited to see that.

MerlinHe doesn't have any shirts with collars.

AlexHe's colorful. He really doesn't. He is. That is a...

MerlinDid I already text this to you? It's the first thing in my document for this week. Wow, this guy is really sniffing his own fumes.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinHe's very pleased with himself.

AlexHe is so happy.

MerlinWell, you know, it can change medicine, the world. You can solve crimes. Pecan, peanuts, pecan, popcorn, pork, potatoes, softwood, sorghum, soybean, watermelon. What's this? A lot of stuff. Oh, and then blank research and promotion, organic exemption request form. Oh, we could fill this in. Persons that produce. I think it should be who produce. Persons that produce. And market only products eligible to be labeled as an amendment may request exemption from assessment. Oh, we could do this. And there's a certification statement and some fine text.

Yeah, this is how big exemption gets you.

Alexyeah yeah anyways he got a bell i got a bell and i am now finally in the dock and surprised because there is uh the very first thing with main show links is sorry gen x the thumbs up emoji is actually hostile you noticed that before you noticed the link about pigs i it's well it's not a link i i clicked on it and i didn't click i didn't click on it oh no i'm moving it no i just

MerlinI just thought it might be a headline of the week. I did not steal two piglets. I saved them. A jury agreed. He's got pictures of pigs.

AlexThat's like Dr. Oz being like, I just held on to my dogs too long.

MerlinOh, no. Is that a metaphor or an urban dictionary?

AlexI don't know. He held on to his dogs. With the whole dead puppies thing.

MerlinOh, I don't know about that. I thought that was a large adult son thing. I thought that was a, who's the guy with the daughter? Mike Huckabee. I thought it was a Huckabee thing with dogs.

AlexOh, um, Mitt Romney.

MerlinHe's the father of a daughter.

AlexWell, this is- No, it wasn't Mitt Romney.

MerlinIt was Huckabee, wasn't it? Huckabee has the large adult sons who strapped a dog to the car. Oh, no, you're right.

AlexIt was Mitt. Mitt. Because that was the thing that, like, chucked him down.

MerlinThey're not booing.

AlexThey're saying Mitt.

MerlinThat was a David Letterman joke.

AlexThe, I, oh, you cut off. You actually did cut off. What did you say? Oh, that's okay. The joke will come to the recording.

MerlinOh, no, I was saying they're not booing. They're saying Mitt. and then I said sotto voce to you that's a David Letterman joke because it seems like you're having some kind of an inscrutable sex jag on David Letterman and I don't understand it but I'm curious to know.

AlexWait, because I like Letterman?

MerlinYou post inscrutable screenshots of things with no context for what it means which I love but it seems horny and I guess are you horny for Letterman as an idea? Because then you posted one that was like 12 different screenshots in one thing and I couldn't read what it said on my phone.

AlexYes.

MerlinOkay.

AlexI love David Letterman. I'm a huge fan. We can talk about him

MerlinI did not. Can I clear up one thing? This is a five minute read. I just need you to know I did not steal two piglets. I saved them. A jury agreed.

AlexIs this the man of the week?

MerlinNo, this is this was I was I was looking for headlines. I did get a pretty good masturbation story. We could do it on Maine if you like. We still got to talk about your bell.

AlexWell, that's the thing is, is Mr. Buzan is kind of like the not I don't know if he fits all of the man.

MerlinTony Buzan, the creator of mind maps, which are what we're challenged to do this week. A proper, proper, proper mind map.

AlexYeah. And I don't want to, you know, jump the challenge. But it's just like he's man of the week material.

MerlinHe takes all the fun out of it. It's such a grind. Grind, I mean, he's got a, I'm going to say something that's a little, not unkind, I'm going to say something that's not a compliment about David Allen. But it's in the context of saying David Allen has this a little bit, and Tony Buzon has this an order of magnitude more, which is like, given what appears to be an interest in making this appealing to people who make buying decisions at Goldman Sachs, you've taken a lot of the usefulness and fun out of it.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinSo I say that a little bit because I think, to quote David Allen, he gets a little bit wound around the axle with some of his terminology sometimes. And he gets a little bit, I mean, the whole GTD system is like for briefcase men. And like, you know, really, ultimately, originally. But like Tony Buzan, holy God, I tried watching some of his talks. Like his TEDx talk and his other things.

AlexOh, you didn't make them through? Oh, man. Oh, no, no, no.

MerlinI don't think he owns a single standard collar shirt.

AlexI couldn't find one.

MerlinI mean, those kinds of shirts, you have to wear a medallion with them.

AlexWe can't prove that he isn't wearing one. Because he has a suit coat, jacket coat. I don't know what you would call, is he wearing a suit?

MerlinI mean, it's nicer than a typical, like a blazer. Yeah, a suit jacket coat isn't too bad. But yeah, he's dressed up his look. And this is not unusual. There are guys who do this. There's a guy who's on MSNBC sometimes who's like, what is it? He was a retired general. But you'll see these guys who are like super committed to like the narrow jacket look. No, no, you know what I mean? Like that was a popular look that when, what was the prime minister of India? That look of like what we consider kind of a standard Western men's jacket. But rather than having traditional Western lapels, it has a little sticky-uppy collar almost like a priest would have.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd all of Tony Buzon, the great Tony Buzon, all of his collars that I've seen are like that.

AlexAnd I had not... Doesn't it still confidence is what I'm saying? No, no. Neither does this...

MerlinIt's like a guy who's going to steal your shoes or something.

AlexI'm trying to figure out... Can I get more coffee, please? Do you know what this... Look at that... Oh, no. Is he wearing a brooch? Zoom in on that lapel pin. oh i don't like this um i'm up my own ass it's a bc rich a bc rich guitar what is it no that's that's a mind map that's totally his mind map let's see the brand the like it looks like a

Merlinmore morgelon or an exploding synapse i don't like this but this top button is very upsetting

Alexto me yeah it's like when troy and it matches the jacket it's like when troy and pierce dressed up

Merlinlike ladies for show yes oh my god that's exactly what it looks like do you remember you know i'm talking about and he gives him a ride oh my god god i hate this um well i had never i would love to draw something into his hands here i'm not sure exactly it might be a big dick but if this

Alexwere on a bus like at a um this is very nathan the plan make your hands big enough that anything

Merlincould look like something you're about to suck oh my god it's just that the shirt

Alexoh look at his nails oh no he made me zoom look at his nails oh no i know and it can't even unless he's left-handed it's not for classical guitar oh no exactly exactly well they're not and the way the one is like broke he looks like a retired witch like he's yeah he's oh like if you're not I don't look at the show notes. He's definitely, he's no lesbian. Like, these are not, well.

MerlinNo, not a traditional old guy looks like lesbian look.

AlexYeah, yeah. I had never heard, or sorry, I had heard, I think, of Tony Buzan as, like, the mind map guy. In the same way that people know about, like, Merlin Mann is the guy who makes you do all of your email and never leave. In box zero.

MerlinYeah.

AlexBut I hadn't really realized he has his whole like, okay, this is how you do mind map. Okay, I guess sort of dig dug. This week's challenge was to make a mind map in the Tony Buzan way.

MerlinI'm totally, I'm a thousand percent into this, but we didn't leave anything on the plate.

AlexWe got the bell. We got big milk and all the boards. Christmas trees. Ready?

MerlinAre you ready? Good challenge.

AlexThis week's challenge was... Where did I... The challenge this week was... Make a proper mind map.

MerlinProper mind map. Do a proper mind map.

AlexThree, two, one.

MerlinThree, two. The challenge this week was mine, and the challenge was to make a proper mind map. And the proper, which I italicized in the Google Doc, the reason for that is... We'll get into it. Is that I think a case could be made... No spoilers. A case could be made that the current generation of people who are aware of mind maps will mostly be aware of mind maps as what I would call a visual outline. And the reason, I feel like that's not probably super well known. And when I brought it up to you last week, it was in the context of saying, because you know, the guy who, I guess, invented mind maps or the guy who popularized mind maps, whatever.

Like he has a very, you don't want to say rules. Like even on the mind mapping wiki. Oh, God. Dead inside. But even on the mind mapping wiki rules is in quotes. But I was telling you how like you've got to start with an image in the middle. You've got to use at least three different colors. You've got like when the branches go out, they have to taper. There's all that stuff. And what I'd said to you, and this is what makes this so particularly interesting to me, was I was pitching you on the idea of like, hey, you young person who, like me, mainly uses the notion of mind mapping as a visual outline.

have you ever tried doing a real honest to God according to Hoyle mind map the way that Tony Buzon recommends slash demands because in my experience doing it in the past it's a very very different kind of thing and I in our last episode probably the after show I compared it a little bit to like bullet journal where it's like to me bullet journals well I think the whole thing's dumb but I get it it's not my thing right but like I get it bullet journaling is not a way that I would try to keep track of what I need to do today

Alexit's an art project and that's fine okay i will defend bullet journaling because i that's fine hate it but i see what well didn't i just say that alex that i if you like it's fine and i get it you said it was an art project i know people like it i am a person of the people what am i saying

Merlini'm sorry for interrupting go ahead you're fine don't worry you ruin everything to cool fun out Fucking fun drainer. Fun drainer. I'm Alex. I'm the fun drainer. Hold on.

AlexCox notoriously drain. It's part of it. Oh, shit. We never talked about that. Save it for the show.

MerlinPut a pin in it.

AlexNope.

MerlinBut I was referring to a time many years ago when I went, huh, I didn't know that. And I went to his website, which used to be a lot easier to understand. And, I mean, whatever. I was telling him being a dick about this. I don't mean to be. But, like, when I went to that website a long time ago, the first and foremost right there at the beginning is like, hey, I'm Tony Buzan. And here's how to do a mind map. And it was like, here it is. And I don't want to have to go in and watch a bunch of videos with fucking ukulele music. Like, I want, and I don't want to watch a man in a brooch holding his hands around a make-believe cock. I don't want to do any of that.

Like, tell me what the thing is. And fortunately, that mind mapping site does that. So anyway, I'm, because this is this, I have to set up my funny twist. I have to begin by saying that I did find it a very different experience where it was admittedly kind of an art project. more than it was a way of organizing existing thoughts. And I don't want to spoil any more. But that's why I brought it up. And that was the challenge this week, Alex. We were supposed to make a proper mind map.

AlexI did not peanut butter, but I did perhaps fail, according to Tony Bazan's challenge.

MerlinYou know what? I got a new term for this. I almond buttered.

AlexOh, I like that.

MerlinWhich is the butter was produced, but it was not with the nut that was requested.

Alexit was but but i like you know most challenges i did really enjoy like going up my own ass and just thinking about buying gear works and no no no i'm sorry i'm kidding i i totally agree and

Merlinthat's why i said it felt like i had a little miniature breakthrough this week i'm very excited no it's not that interesting but i want to hear all about this because how much in the let's do year past this prologue um i i stipulated that in my opinion most people today including me when you say mind map like a mind map to me is and i don't know what i'm saying is making a ton of sense but if you live in the world of markdown and you're interested in mind maps i'm well you're about to hear something you already know which is that a neat feature because markdown is so simple it really plays well with turning into a visual outline or any kind of outline because

it's just bullets and indents, right? And so for the longest time, gosh, probably for a decade, a lot of the, quote, mind mapping apps that you can get, Mac iOS or whatever, web stuff, like, what was the one, Meister's, Meister was a good online one, will allow you to, like, you can import a .md file and it turns it into a, quote, unquote, mind map. Why did you keep saying that, Merlin? Because Tony Buzan says a mind map, this is not NOM, right? This is mind maps.

There are rules. Like there's ways you're supposed to do this that I think we should talk about in a minute. But is it fair to say, I mean, are you with me on this? That like it is in some ways, I mean, if you're thinking about like, should I look at this visually? Should I look at this? I mean, in VS Code, there's a plugin where you can preview your current markdown document as a quote unquote mind map. You can import that.

AlexI bought an obsidian that does that.

MerlinYeah, exactly the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So MindNode, like I say, MapMeister, like pretty much all of them do that. And some round trip where like you can, by the same token, make a quote unquote, make a mind map, which is not, well, it's still kind of a quote unquote mind map. And then you can export it as a .md. So like, I mean, this becomes, here's my word, instrumental in understanding what we're doing here and why this is different from ways it's happened before. Because with Tony Bazanz, you start necessarily,

You start with a big idea, and then because you theoretically don't know what its constituent parts are, you use a mind map visually with colored markers specifically to figure out, semi-spoiler, but I guess we're talking about it now. You're basically figuring out how to take a big idea about something and then how to analyze, not synthesize. Analyze, which is when we take something and break it into parts. Synthesize is when we take parts and make it into a bigger thing.

Alexhuh oh i genuinely no not i mean right as in i didn't think about it like that there might be a

Merlinbetter strictly speaking there might be a better antonym for analyze than synthesize that might be the hegelian third option but title but uh no no but but analyzed you know that is the meaning of analyze it's latin it's uh eyes as in make and anal as in but and so you It's not funny It's really not funny A lot of people died

AlexDo you know how many people

MerlinDo you know how many people live in butt today? They can't get out Chicago's a hellhole Literally It's a rectum It's a rectum of hell

AlexButt rack Butt rack Sorry, I hear you're synthesizing You were on to good stuff. And then I laughed at, but you, I was like, oh, Merlin, that is a interesting insight.

MerlinThat's my priors. Is that your priors? How often do you find it? How often have you found yourself in the past deciding, well, let me ask you this, because you've done my mouth of some kind before. Yes.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd what, if I, if you can say, what is an example, you can make it up, but like, what's an example of something where you go, oh, I know the way to work this out. I'll make a mind map. What's an example of that?

AlexLiterally. Okay. not literally never uh in terms of solving a problem but now that i said it out loud i guess the uh i the idea of oh i'm going to start making this presentation and try to do it via a mind map like that to be my problem to solve or or what i want to do and it never i mean we'll get into this i guess but it just never really clicked with me and just be clear we're talking about

so you're in an app not tony boussac yeah but are you using probably mind node or um oh i've done what's the one mind view what's the one everybody uses and my node is the good one for

Merlinios and mac os oh also the other one i want to mention that i love is i thought x is really good

Alextoo yes oh that's the one that plays nice with um omni focus i think right i forget but uh

MerlinWith OmniFocus or OmniGraffle?

AlexI think...

MerlinOh, it doesn't matter.

AlexOkay, cool. OmniGraffle.

MerlinYou don't see that you're aware of this, but it's never been, hasn't so far been a go-to strategy for like this is just the tool for the job.

AlexNo, I have accidentally ended up making mind maps via like Pepe Silva. Just to be clear, visually though, right? Visually.

MerlinYou're not in Markdown. Okay.

AlexYeah, not in Markdown. Sometimes, like, well, actually, I have tried to, like, do, okay, this is a, here's sort of a specific example that I tried doing. Like, okay, I need to make a documentary about Chicago. All right, what are these interesting branches of Chicago that are cool?

MerlinSo the top-level things become, like, aspects that are top of mind for you, right? Like schools, advantages, nightlife or whatever.

AlexAnd it's like blah, blah, blah. And I'm like this. And I always end up being this is dumb. I can just do it in and out. Like it never provides a benefit to me. But I will say the visual component of it, like I am a big, big, big, or at least used to be in college, a big, big post-it person. And just really like a big Pepe Sylvia energy. as Matt calls it. And I just really...

MerlinIt's actually just spelling Pennsylvania and he doesn't know it. I love that episode so much. Because he's illiterate.

AlexAllegedly. I didn't catch that

Merlinfor many, many, many, many, many, many, many viewings that it's two jokes. It's at least two jokes and I didn't get either of them. I just thought he was nuts for some reason and it never occurred to me that it's because Charlie is illiterate he doesn't know what the word Pennsylvania is. It's so good. Wait, what was the thing you just said I wanted to write down before Charlie Day?

I have my pen out. I was going to write something. Big Pepe Sylvianer Jay. I don't know.

AlexPost-its.

MerlinThank you. That's it. That features heavily into my thinking and my process too.

AlexI am going to finish this because I want to You know, we're just going to take the cops out. No, no, no, no, please take all the time you want. I'm sorry.

MerlinI'm just in a good mood.

AlexNo, I want to hear yours. I want to, no.

MerlinWe had a really good rectus last night. Hour and a half after show.

AlexOh, well, well, well. Oh, my God. Relay.fm slash membership slash rectus. Give Syracuse your money. You made a soup of that. My.com. You made a soup of that. Wait, how do I?

MerlinFirst of all, I don't care. Don't do that. Second of all, relay.fm slash rt slash join. Thank you. But let's get back to your big maps.

Alexuh my i just used to often do uh like but you're starting you're starting with particulars right

Merlinlike you're doing a brain dump in some ways right when you're using post-it notes like yeah this is i'm gonna just get just get to it here and just toss this out like my brain does not suffer from having a big idea and needing to break it down into parts in order with full commitment to the first decision i make every time no no no no oh my sweet summer child My brain suffers from, I've got, I know, I can hear it rattling around in the box, I've got a thousand little things of indeterminate size that represent the constituent parts.

I do not need a mind map that starts big and then small. I need a process that starts small and somewhere else, which I'm constantly iterating, improving, and changing. It's like, as it turns out, this is now like exactly the opposite of what I want and need, although it's still a fun art project. but it's not a way that would help my brain at all.

AlexRight.

MerlinThat's why I say it's like Bujo. It seems like this shit now. I look at it now and it kind of, God, this is kind of like made for Instagram or like a joke, not joke, a joke, not joke I made the other night to show me the lie. At least 40% of all mind maps are about mind mapping. How many, in the last week, Alex, have you, you've seen some mind maps you hadn't seen before. Of the mind maps you came across this week, probably at least in part because, you know, you're thinking about mind mapping. But like how many of the mind maps did you see this week youtube tony bazan talks whatever like like more than 20 percent were about mind mapping right

Alexuh you know less so than the i i actually expected more of that but in the same way that there's like youtube productivity how to make a youtube video uh about productivity in this productive way it was more of like a mind map that hurts no no no no because that's because

MerlinI used to think about that all the time. Like today I was thinking about, like I almost made a joke about this on the internet of like, and so, and explain to me again, why you search Google News for the word masturbating every week, usually on Wednesday morning. Answer, it's for my work.

AlexYes.

MerlinI mean, I know how to do it on my own. What I need is breaking news about who's cranking their hog in front of a preschool in a pickup truck. Exactly. i am making america great again right in front of this preschool looking at my phone

Alexoh hello officer in any case i've already got called groomer once this week i don't want another one um the the the whole thing with the mind maps i saw i you know what i guess in a sense they are they were about my maps because they would start off with like work and then branch out to business and then like business ideas or family.

MerlinBut it's always like a demonstration of the blindingly obvious shit that nobody needs to work out graphically.

AlexRight.

MerlinYou know what I mean? Like where you would go like, United States government. Oh, let me guess. United federal government. Can I guess? Does this start with three main topics? Yes, it actually does. Oh, interesting. It's one of the executive branch. Oh my gosh. Yes, I have a main topic called executive. Oh, okay. Under executive branch, Does that include stuff like the president and the FBI and DOJ? Yes, yes, it does. Oh, so DOJ isn't under judicial? No, no, no. DOJ is under executive. Oh, wow, sounds like a great mind map. It also sounds kind of like just an org chart where it took absolutely no effort to figure out how you start with that big thing and what parts to break it into.

The really fascinating stuff is, and the reason this becomes useless in the sense of how much commitment you have to have from the beginning to going in a certain direction, is the serendipity, the kismet of running across a thing and going, oh, well, that makes me rethink all the stuff at this one-up level. And actually, it really makes me rethink everything below the first level. Right. There could be one little post-it note in your life that makes you go, oh, that's that's a linchpin for understanding this and capturing this and processing this and all those kinds of things that represent a living document rather than a fucking Instagram performance.

Alexand that's that is the the thing is i there were some mind maps i have like seen or come across and and more often the ones i come across that i find really interesting are not done in the you know buzan way it's a present presentation not a uh uh an exercise yeah but it feels like this is

Merlinso important though like is is this a mind map at least as i understand it it's not for anybody else like in my conception of a mind map is for me because i need to figure out what i think no don't think don't know about something it's a way of like interrogating myself about something but like aren't there more elegant and or probative ways to share an idea than handing somebody a piece of paper with squiggles on it like it's cute but like i hate shit like that i

would hate to be in a meeting where somebody puts up their fucking mind map to explain something to me no give it to me pigs and bunnies do like a real thing like that's great that like do you want to show me your wipes also like no i don't need to see that i just you know and this kernel of corn is from saturday oh that's awesome you drew it that's nice i like that well i okay the

Alexand again i do not i guess this could help some people oh yeah just because i'm not i'm not i don't want to yuck on anybody's yum but like like i'm yucking on booze on boys well like i'm i'm

Merlinvery comfortable saying this about bullet journal which is like i really hope that's not your first and only attempt right to to to to put together a system for understanding your mental model for life, whether that's your to-do list or your priorities or whatever it is. Like, I hope that's not where you leave it. Because the whole idea of the first thing you do is buy a notebook and write a number on every page. You know, there's probably a way you could get a lot more done in the same amount of time, unless you're really in for the long haul of committing to this as a thing.

And that's how I feel from the moment I have to decide what the only the only mind map I made this week was made because the only Tony Buzan mind map I made, I didn't finish, was because I wanted to draw, because I'm more interested in drawing. And so I tried to draw broccoli.

I was like, okay, huh. If I make, because I'm really into shading, I'm trying to learn my kids, trying to teach me shading. Like if I draw this little stalk and I have this kind of elliptical thing to represent where it got cut off of the branch. And I wonder if I could do the thing where you make a bunch of circles the way you draw Mickey Mouse. Could I make like 11 overlapping circles and then turn that into broccoli? and then I said, oh, I think I'm starting a mind map. So I wrote broccoli under it.

It's not done.

AlexYou did it.

MerlinHey, everybody, come on in. Come on in. We're in the whale room. Everybody get a bagel? Everybody comfortable? Let me share a little more process with you. Let me explain what I've been up to lately. This is broccoli. Okay, thank you so much for flying in today, Jim.

AlexOh, boy. Well, okay, what was your...

MerlinNo, no, you're not done. What did you learn about yourself?

AlexNo, all I was going to say is essentially that mind mapping for me is dumb because I like my little post post it mania of it was like once I had a bunch of post it notes, I had to stand back and be like, okay, what, what, why, when, where, like, what the fuck? And when I say it like my post-it note projects, usually it would be for either a film or a podcast or just something, I guess, something creative.

MerlinI mean, in a way, though, you're doing you're doing high level project, not project management, project planning in some ways. What are the parts of this and what order do they have to go in? Partly. Right. What are all the things I have to do? And then what are the natural groupings chronologically and thematically of those things?

Alexright yeah and and this has honestly been something i have been doing since gosh like for since i guess i discovered post-it notes which is why gtd was so appealing to me because just being able to see everything all at once was just comforting in some way and as an adult when i started just slapping walls with like everything every idea i would be like oh oh shit okay this

could be uh this is really hard to like explain i guess but like uh say i would write names of people that i would want to interview maybe possibly and then suddenly i'd be like oh you know that that person be interesting to talk to about this topic and then suddenly all the post-it notes have moved somewhere and when my post-it note wall had some that would start to uh fall without me having to reattach them that's when I realized oh okay this clearly isn't an idea

that I care about as much so I can just trash this um and that's it I just like reverse mapping I guess or just I don't like starting off with a big circle in my case that called memory.

MerlinI get it, but that's not that's rarely my problem.

AlexYeah. So that was just, yeah, I almond buttered.

MerlinSo did you feel you learned anything? Maybe this is this is potentially a good question for almost every challenge. You know, there's like this this this flight, this array of questions that I think are almost always interesting to ask. Like, you know, what did you learn? What did you learn that you didn't expect? Like, what did you like about your is there anything about yourself that you is there anything you realize? Was there anything that went differently than you expected? You know, those kinds of things. So it sounds like you came to a very similar or identical conclusion as me, which is like Hakuna Matata, go enjoy your art project.

But like, that's not going to be a way I try to personally figure things out.

AlexRight. It kind of just reaffirmed what I have previously not even thought, but just been successful with of like either just, you know, just spitting things out or outlining things. Like in general, if I have a vague idea of something, outlining is what I like.

MerlinIf this were a Venn diagram, there's a lot of overlap in so many ways between outlining and mind mapping. However you do it, there's definitely an overview because you're doing this seemingly inscrutable thing. Because, again, same kind of thing as why don't you just or stop procrastinating. You can just yell at somebody and say, well, why don't you just go write your book? And it's like, write my book about what?

This is a joke. But can I jump in real quick?

Alexoh yeah no i'm i'm all the my last thing keep going as long as you want realize no no i just didn't realize that i do actually want to try my uh the the stupid is that a house type thing because more and more i have been creating markdown notes um i i kind of always have but more and more my markdown notes are becoming post-its oh and that that affords

MerlinIt's the ability to snap things together.

AlexIn Obsidian.

MerlinSo all of your little, you're not going to leave anything on the plate. All your little scraps and all those little text files, all those text files that each probably I know I have and I imagine you have of like one line or one word or whatever. Like it cost me nothing to just make sure I wrote this thing down and I can find it someday. And you could start hooking that stuff together. You could, I'm guessing with Obsidian or similar, you can do a lot. Well, because, you know, like Envy Ultra already does this in a way I, because I don't understand it. And actually, I'm back on Envy Alt.

But Envy Ultra, have you seen the thing Envy Ultra does where it'll find, quote, related notes? And it's got some secret sauce for figuring out and then you can map it and stuff like that. It's a very, I want to say, like almost Toilet Tharp-ish idea of like, this is one part of my process, which is about collecting stuff without evaluation. And then, well, there's other parts too. But like I could go and find anything in all of my boxes that might be relevant to this. It's just that in this instance, you might even get a little bit of help in figuring out how that stuff connects together. You could find patterns about what you've captured, but you could also find patterns about who you are.

AlexDing!

this just reaffirmed my um my my also my enjoyment of thinking things through from

Merlinthe bottom up because right yes yes yes but well you know with that with that said i mean anybody who does go oh shoot i did that you know what i got over my skis i should have probably said this

Alexearly on um can i can i jump in i am i am done i have i have finished no no no i'm sorry i'm just i'm excited no i am exactly well what i'm here because i'm happy i i said to you i'm like i you know i don't want to jinx it but i even if this is not a good show i know that i will have enjoyed it i know i got like four minutes don't worry it's gonna be it's gonna be like go go i all right Three, two, one.

MerlinSo I found this on the Mind Mapping Wiki. Three. This is on the Mind Mapping Wiki. The title of this, it's in the notes. Tony Buzon. The title of this wiki, it's not Wikipedia. It's the Mind Mapping Wiki. Tony Buzon has defined these quote unquote rules for mind mapping. And I think if you're going to do this this way, it's good to know this. Start in the center with an image of the topic using at least three colors. Well, that's pretty different from what you do when you're making an outline. Okay, interesting. Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map. Select keywords and print using upper or lowercase letters so you can decide what is important.

Each word and image must be alone and sitting on its own line. The lines must be connected, starting from the central image. Central lines are thicker, organic, and flowing, becoming thinner as they radiate out. Because this is what we call radiant thinking in his really interesting, completely wackadoo book. Use colors, your own code, throughout the mind map. Develop your own personal style. use emphasis okay we're already drifting here um but the things if you what i can say to anybody who's interested in trying this and seeing if it works it works for you is like it is a fundamentally

different feeling if you do this and work this system like it's slow and that's the idea like try and like for me that means trying to make my lines my memory when i reflect my radiant thinking which is definitely a thing. Oh, here's a picture of a synapse. See? Oh, okay. Not 100% sure about your police work there, Lou.

AlexThere's a lot of stuff about the brain.

MerlinSee how this looks like this? Look at this smoke I photographed. Is anybody else? I'm really into your hair right now. You ever really look at your hand? Good, dude. Get a collar. Fucking hippie.

When you do this, though, and I'll just say for myself, like using my fancy markers, like trying to make my lines pretty and thinking about, oh, if I make this line here, there's this much space left. If I make four more lines, there's this much space left. How do I feel about the fact that I'm running out of room for same-sized lines? Sounds dumb, right? But wait a minute. That's actually super interesting. Like, oh, are there – I started – when you write the John Mulaney bit about writing happy birthday on a sign, you start with the giant H and the giant A,

and by the end, it was just every card I ever wrote to my family my entire life. Happy birthday! Right? Like, oh, you see what I'm saying, Alex? Like, I've made four or five of these lines because I assumed that would be enough. And, like, now there's really not enough room if I wanted to do, say, ten more of these. But, like, how do I feel about that? And why does it matter? What matters because maybe I know more than I think I do. And maybe it takes a process, a slow process like this to get me to where I can understand what I already know.

So I'm going to pivot in a second. But final thing on this, you know, I kid a lot about lots of things, but saying like, oh, hey, what does everybody want for dinner tonight? Because I hate thinking about food when I come home. What does everybody want tonight? Do you know, are we going to cook what we got? Are we going to have leftovers, whatever? And this is, to both my examples are food related. And you say to somebody, what do you want for dinner? And like, can I just say to everybody out there who's not my family and because maybe you can learn, when somebody asks you that, they're asking for your help. They're not asking you what your preference is. they're asking for you to share the load of figuring out what we're doing here. Oh, that

seems really dumb. Why would you say that? Well, because that's fucking life, man. When people ask you for that, understand when somebody's, this is, should you capture this? This should be in the document. So someone's actually kind of asking you for help. Like, I don't want to be the person who has to make this decision. And I don't want to be the person who's going to get dragged because I made the wrong decision and you're not allowed to yell at me about the policies of DoorDash or any of that stuff. I need you all to be less of a chicken and more of a pig in this. And, and so, but, but, but here's, here's the funny part of that is like, I have an example that involves post-it notes. I might come back to that, but I probably won't. Well, okay. So we do a thing in our family. I lost the thread. I'm like a fucking manatee. We do a thing called meal planning. And when I periodically, and I've got text files about this, but you know, what's really, really great.

and Syracuse would put this under the category of things Madeline loves that I do. I'll go into the kitchen with a big pad of post-it notes, right? Because I'm going to do some meal planning. Now, how would you do meal planning? Well, you obviously start by drawing a visual image of the word meal in three colors. Really? What is meal? What is meal? Well, meal is this. It can be, you know. Or it's like, so you would know this if you'd watched Our Flag Means Death. But, you know.

AlexThere's no due date for the homework. I'll get to it.

MerlinIt's like Steed, you know, says to Ed, dining isn't just eating. Dining is pageantry. He says, Ed, what is dining? He says, pageantry. Right? So that's why you need a mind map. No, don't think so. Pad and identipen.

What are all the foods we like? I'm not saying, I'm not starting with meal planning as a concept. I'm starting with, let's start with, let's do the opposite of this. Let's start with specifics. You know what everybody likes? You know the first one that might go up? Noodles.

You with me so far? Am I planning a meal at this point? Kind of, kind of. What's everybody like? Everybody likes noodles. Anything else everybody likes? You know, everybody, weirdly, everybody likes broccoli. Oh, that reminds me, almost everybody likes peas. Like peas are generally acceptable.

Anything else? Yeah, there's lots of stuff. I mean, like, you know, I love making, A rib roast, Madeline makes an amazing roast chicken. Oh, my God, that reminds me of Sausage Night. Oh, is there Sausage Night? Well, Sausage Night's not a food. It's a meal. Okay, fucking pump the brakes, dude. Post-it, post-it, post-it, post-it. And you know when I'm done forcing myself through that process, finding myself doing that process? You know what? When I'm done, you know what I got? I got three big columns full of post-it notes. Proteins, starches, and vegetables.

And at that point now, I've written down all the foods that nobody objects to and maybe even the foods that people love. And I can grab one, two, three of those because, of course, I'm from the Midwest and I think of every meal as having those three parts. Do you follow so far? So, like, I started with what do people love. I didn't start with the concept of meal. I started with what do people love. Nobody hates noodles title, right?

AlexThe concept of meal is just a thing.

MerlinGet it. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down. What is meal? How does meal? how does how does meal what i have no idea no no no you said how does meal how does meal how does meal what i don't know third base but then what i can do i could go oh sausage night that's kielbasa uh you know at its most basic form protein is kielbasa uh vegetable at the minimum is cabbage and starch is jasmine rice, right?

And now I'm planning meals. And now that I've done all that, I can actually think about, do I go straight to the grocery list? No, no, I wouldn't do that yet. Let's think about what your next week looks like. Oh, what's my next week look like? Post-it note, post-it note, post-it note. Because why would you buy all those groceries if you don't know what your week looks like, right? Do you follow? Like, do you buy two gallons of milk? Do you have Instacart? Bring two gallons of 60-degree milk the morning before you leave for a vacation. That's poor planning. But you see where I'm going with this, right?

I didn't start with what is meal. I started with what do people like. And that is as pretty close as I can get to an example of, and this is not to drag my mouse, but like why whatever deficits or abilities that have made me the person in whom I am, I find a bunch of movable atomic or molecular post-it notes in that instance so much more useful than starting with what is meal what was yes exactly how uh i'm sorry about outside i don't know what they're doing i think they might

Alexbe i think they might be selling a witch this was another brief moment of oh no i'm i'm not that anxious am i going am i doing a derealization thing what is that with that background i'm like

Merlinat what point oh this oh sorry sorry sorry well it's definitely not your bell What is that?

AlexWhen you talked about feeling bad about the mind map and running out of space, I thought about that too the first time. I'm like, oh, look it. It's like, what is your true priority? Because you have too much on this side. But it's such an artificial, like, if you're doing it on a physical piece of paper, I find that, yes, there is some value to that. like the the process the physical process of coloring in these stupid really creepy looking

synapse things i just wonder how much of that becomes the like do i feel bad about not making dinner because i am focusing too much on like what i want to eat it just feels very but are you talking about little little voices what no oh no i mean like the little voice that tells you hey

Merlinbuddy you have a lot more than five branches or that hey buddy you should feel bad because you're

Alexnot doing this other thing what are you talking about i i i think so no i am uh just curious to you you've got your you're planning your your meal and with all of your post-it notes and i what nobody hates noodles yeah i i worry that there's someone out there well i guess i don't

Merlinbecause i'll never meet them and if i do meet them i'll never speak to them again you know just slap

Alexum what do you like other than that physical process did you get anything else from the like what are the benefits to your current thinking versus this weird hippie no collared shirt

Merlinthat's a terrific that is actually a really terrific question and it's further evidence and i i don't want to seem defensive or needy or whatever it's like just to be clear i i'm not saying this is bad i'm saying that like what i want to share with you my friend and listener

Alexwhich hopefully all of you are is that hear that pair of pals he did it he did it he talked to you but i wasn't talking maybe i was talking to your derealized self

Merlindo you derealize you don't understand that joe you were on to uh do you realize you have the

Alexmost beautiful but i i i have the most beautiful but that is so inappropriate do you realize

Merlinuh so so with that out of the way um yeah absolutely and i mean absolutely i realize things. Like the thing I was just saying, I mean, I re-realized that, oh, and this is kind of, I mean, I'm cheating a little bit here, but like, I'm trying to make a practice of turning off the TV and drawing before I go to bed. And when I say drawing, I mean, I'm just fucking around. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doodling. But there's something extremely, gosh, I don't want to quite walk up to the line of therapeutic, but something beneficial about giving yourself permission

to make marks on paper. It's, I put that in that weird way for a reason because this is another one of those I know you know, but do you know you know you know? Like, do you really super know? Like, if I got this Napoleon Blue marker I like and that color blue makes me really happy and I start by just writing Napoleon Blue. I mean, maybe this counts as a mind map. And then I make a little drawing to show, like, here's what it looks like when you're using the narrow point. here's and then you get a chunky you know chunky not the character from i think you should leave

but you got a chunky marker like a dry erase you know where there's an edge that you can utilize for a medium so i've got like three different widths and i oh what if i color this in will this look more like a watercolor or more like a sharpie and right i'm doing that and then i'm just kind of doodling around and then there's a thing that i i do where i like draw a circle i draw circles i draw lots of circles i think wonder if that's a pattern and then i do this thing where I try to draw the smallest circle that I can draw that still has is still open in

the middle and I'm often pleased and surprised that I can make a smaller circle than I thought and I I could I well I will very quickly um you know analyze myself there and say well yeah I mean you're focusing on something dude you have ADD like you need things like this you need you know like I said, control a small area. That's kind of what I'm doing. But I want to put it in this really, I want to be really vulnerable and put this in a way that y'all can put in your pocket and take home with you. Remember, you always have permission

to make a mark on a page. You can look at that any way you want, but keep that in mind. You always have permission to make a mark on a page, which is incredibly empowering. And that mark on a page could be noodles because nobody hates noodles. It could be about a project that you've been putting off. However you choose to think about it, There's something really, I want to say almost empowering about that versus watching another episode of Dahmer, which I know is going to make my heart go up and it's going to make me sad and like all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely learned things like that.

I also want to share the thing I forgot I was going to say that was going to precede menu planning. Remember when I lost the thread about what do you want for dinner?

AlexYeah.

MerlinYeah, you remember that, right? Now I do, too. When you ask somebody what they want for dinner, you're asking for help, like I said. Um, this is, I first learned about this in probably rules of thumb. This is so true. Let's say there's two and only two decision end points. Do you want to do this or do you want to not do this? Like take, take any, anything. Like, do I want to go to Goodwill today? Like, do I want to ride my bike? Do I want to do all of those things? There's a very, very simple test for this.

I know everybody knows this, but I want to remind you that, you know, this is a very simple test for this, which is, so when my kid says, I don't care what we have for dinner and I say something ludicrous like, you know, can we have humiliated lamb shank for dinner or whatever? He goes, no, I don't want that. That kid will suddenly develop a little more clarity about what they do want. If you ever have to make a decision, flip a coin. And if you have any hesitation about the result, you wanted the other one all along.

Not always, maybe, but yeah, always. Like you just didn't know. You just didn't know. You didn't know you had that much of a preference until it came down to a zero or a one and you didn't like the one. You preferred the zero. You wanted tails all along.

AlexThis is nearly a daily occurrence in my.

MerlinIt is a life hack in that sense of you are you're sort of gaming against your own consciousness. You're kind of forcing a new kind of guardrail that impels you to make a decision you didn't know you were capable of making. So when you say, like, what happens when you're running out of space for five more of those? Well, that's another one of those, referring to, like, you know, branches from a top-level topic. Well, that's, this is a notion I never would have even thought about, let alone implemented 40 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

But, like, I've learned to listen to the little voice. Because the little voice is so goddamn smart, but it has to compete with all these other voices. Some of them yours, some of them others, some of them nonexistent. And so sometimes the little voice is saying, you know what you want to do. Did you ever hear that phrase, kind of a funny one-bit thing but still really useful? The guy at Stanford who came up with what was called structured procrastination. Have you ever heard of that?

AlexNo.

MerlinThis guy at Stanford, and this was kind of au courant back in the 43 Folders days. And he's, I mean, this is a classic, like this could fit on a pamphlet thing. But he's a professor at Stanford. He's got a lot of stuff to do, and he's got a lot of stuff he doesn't feel like doing, doesn't want to do. He's putting off for a million reasons. Probably nobody else has that problem. As it turns out, I do. I procrastinate. So he does a thing called structure procrastination, which is that he makes a real or notional list. And at the very, very, very, very top of the page is this huge or important or overdue thing that must be done.

Not only must it be done, it must have been done a month ago. You're fucked, man. You did not, you have still not done the top thing. Now, in passing, let me spoil this for you a little bit. Have you ever noticed, if you are a procrastinator, which I hope you're not, have you ever noticed when you're a procrastinator that, like, you find these attractive nuisances and things that somehow get more of your attention than the thing you know you're supposed to do?

AlexNom, nom, nom, nom, nom.

MerlinWhy not make that into a system? So you've got the thing at the top of your list that's the most important an overdue thing in the world that your career turns on, and then you just don't do it, and you only do two, three, four, five, or maybe you just do nine, 10, 11 on that list. Oh my God, what? Yeah, that's why it's structured, dude. Make a list of all the shit you quote unquote have to do that you're probably never going to do, but whatever. Like, I'm going to respond to this email, and it's freaking me out. Like, I really don't want to, like, talk to my ex about a deposit or something.

You know what I mean? One of those kinds of things where you're like, or like mentioned to HR that this kind of weird thing happened that I have a nebulous feeling about. Whatever it is, you put that at the very top. In his case, maybe that's get the final grades in on time. Now, what in the world, what in the world has changed as a result of that? You're still just as behind procrastinating and fucked as you were before, but now you're getting things accomplished. It's just you're not accomplishing the thing at the top of that list that you know you should do. Now, when I say that to any normal person, you're going to go, that is the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life.

And it is, unless you're like me. And if I say to myself, I'm going to bracket, not forever.

AlexNo, if someone were to say, oh, that's crazy. That person is not someone I think I could get along with.

MerlinIt's not somebody who procrastinates, for sure. But like, and I'm not, so I'm not providing this as any kind of like a, or it's neither a prophylactic nor a panacea. panacea. Like, I'm not selling this as a thing everybody needs to go implement. What I am saying is it's demonstrative of a certain kind of mind. A certain kind of mind has a lot of fucking post-it notes to keep track of. And once you actually write it on a post-it note, it's weirdly freeing. And in that instance, you know, can I just say, skip this part, spoilers,

you might feel a little bit lighter about your situation if you realize the joke's on you. Like, you go, oh, that's kind of funny. It's funny that I'm doing this. But you know what? For the rest of this weekend, There's big fucking brackets around the thing I've been putting off, and I can do anything else on there. I tried to write a book for, I think, two years. It was really, really, really hard. And not only did I not finish the book, not only did I often not write the book to my own satisfaction, let alone anyone else's, but I also didn't do hardly anything else. I didn't do anything else good.

I didn't do anything else fun. Everything was a drag. Everything was a drudgery. because anything that could have been illuminated by the joy of life was living in the shade of the thing that I hadn't finished. And it really hurt me. It harmed me. And I think they're too polite to say it, but I think it hurt my family. Like, I was in that darkness for so long.

AlexI will make a... Watching from the distant at that time, I remember it's not that you were putting out work that was bad, but you're.

MerlinI wasn't putting out much. I wasn't doing talks. I wasn't doing this before I started doing podcasts. That becomes important. But no, I mean, there's not a lot that I was proud of because why, Alex? How am I allowed? How the fuck am I allowed to do anything that's not the thing I'm meant to feel terrible about, but somehow can't finish? So what I've done, I basically I've locked myself in the shittiest bathroom in the world. And I'm not saying that fixes the problem. And I understand there's going to be a lot of go-getters and TEDx talk people out there who are going to talk about it.

Confront your fears and do the thing. I'm like, yeah, do what works for you, man. I'm just telling you, if you're fucked up like me and I pray you're not, one way to think about this is rather than seeing the way I am as some kind of a terrible liability, maybe I do have a secret X-Men power and I just haven't realized it. If I'm compartmentalizing in such a way that something that I claim is my priority and it's not done, who's the fucking liar there? There's one priority. And what is the thing that I like to remind people? There's one way in this entire universe to tell whether something is a priority,

and that's whether it's successfully completed. Until then, it's just a good idea. And it may not even be a good idea, but it could be an idea that you could persuade yourself needs to become totemic in your feelings about yourself. You are such a piece of shit. You're not allowed to ever feel good again until you're going to live in that darkness forever. And I'm not sure how I got onto this, except to say writing noodles on a Post-it note

is a way of, I think I told you this, it's, you know, I was saying that meditation in some ways is office hours with yourself. I think that's a form of office hours with yourself. That's a way of you getting to be your own academic and existential advisor and saying, is there a chance that you are taking all of this so seriously that you have become slightly anhedonic about what can happen in your future and ought it be something where you give yourself a little bit of expansiveness and levity

to where like you can't tell anybody this let alone young people but but there's that thing people say about oh at least it'll make a funny story someday but the thing is yeah it really will make a funny story. And once you, you will never internalize that until it's too late. But like once you have internalized, this will make a funny story someday. You're going to get a lot faster at laughing. And when you do that with yourself, when you say to yourself, I am, I am, however I am and however, whatever broken piece of crockery I am today, that does not mean

I'm done. And it doesn't mean that like I have, that all of my thoughts have turned to some kind of rapidly drying glue. And if you can find a way in to write the word noodles on a yellow piece of paper, you might be better off than you were earlier in the day. I can't say. For me, that's true. And so like the challenge of being expected to use markers to make something that's pretty enough to share my pretend life on Instagram is not as useful to me as writing down noodles. Because that's where I say to myself, there is a way in, right? Annie Lamott in Bird by Bird,

famously. One of the many, many, many wonderful things in that book talks about the shitty first draft. Shitty first draft is this idea that I am just going to go fucking jizz on a page and I don't know what's going to happen. There might be other drafts. There might not be other drafts, but there's nothing until there's a first draft. And there probably won't be a first draft until there's a shitty first draft. And like, stop worrying about it. Like just put a mark on paper that's always in your power. And that is a message that somebody like me needs to hear. It's okay. Like, however they taught you.

Remember the way they teach you in school? Like, oh, if you're going to write this five-paragraph essay, you need these index cards. You need, have you turned in your index cards? Have you turned in your outline? And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. This breaks my brain. How could I even create an outline for something I haven't written yet? It was honestly like how I would think about it. And then I get mad at myself. And of course, I procrastinate. And of course, I have ADHD. And of course, I turn in everything late. And of course, that became part of my makeup. Is that like, I'm that guy who can never do it right. And ironically enough now,

Speaker AI'm going to look right over here. Can you hear this?

MerlinThey're always right here. And I can take this pen, and I can make a mark on here. I'm going to write the word noodles. And now I'm further along than I was 30 seconds ago. That was a terrible bell.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

308. What is Meal?

Show notes

Transcript

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