327. Konami Code for Your Mind

This is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge just breathe. Hello. Hello. Good afternoon, Marlin Man. How are you? I am great. How are you? Great. Great. Great. Great. Wow. Three greats. Four greats. I mean I don't You know, it's fine. It just keeps going, you know? For now. Grates all the way down. And then it stops and it's over forever. But until then it just keeps grinding on. Y you okay? What's the velocity like? Pop your drink? I I already did. out of courtesy to to you. Oh, okay. Huh. Yeah, yeah. You didn't seem to like the the crack. Oh no, I hate it. It's it's a terrible way to start the show. It's it's um you disrupt any kind of interesting start we could have.

It w it would be like me, for example, like if I got a trademark thing like where I I like m blew a kazoo when we started. Oh like one of those little things that sounds like a siren. Who's ready to laugh? You don't know what a kazoo is. I know what a kazoo is. Oh, it's a kazoo. It's it's you blow it in and it goes brrrrr No, that's a middle-aged man. I think you're thinking about Edit. Whom? Read it? Who's read it? Reddit. Mr. Red read it. He read it. Okay. Good job. That was good. Almost there. I almost Reddit get blown in a lot? Uh um now I don't get it. Now I'm lost. I'm just sh I here is the thing. Whenever I have been forced To do improv oh God, see I'm like having flashbacks. I I just sit in the space and I'm with a builder.

I'm sorry, let's just let's take a looking back, stepping back, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the dependent class whenever funding. Mm-hmm. Whenever I've been forced to do improv, comma. Yes. And then what happens when you're forced to do improv? This I sit no, I I sit in the space metaphorically and physically and uh f For people who aren't familiar with i improv, there's uh folks or performers who are considered bomb throwers or scene builders. And uh that's news to me. That's cool. Inside, that's what people say. So if you're somebody like, I always think of Amy Polar. Who like in the ASCAT things always strikes me as such a supportive performer versus like one of the guests whose job it is to be like um who's Conan's sidekick.

Like Andy comes in and he's a bomb thrower, right? And then the other ones are helping build it. Is that it? Correct. It's kinda like the way an anthill works. It's I don't I'm not familiar. Go on. Don't they just follow one another? Is there a bond? Yeah, that's how it works. That's how ants work. They follow one another I oh I see. I see. Isn't isn't the the I don't want to presume the gender of the ants, but I thought this was a bee thing. I have the side of Thorax at birth. Um, let's see what's going on. Big week. You've been Uh, you know what, here's the problem. My my mix is my pre-PC is off again, I think. I can barely hear you. You mainly sound like I mainly hear like kind of like a tittering sound effect.

Like somebody made foley of you. And sometimes hard to hear exactly what your words are. Bloop bloop. I'm gonna you know what? I'm gonna move away from the mic. How much one of these changes of this? I can't see anything in here. I got my sat light on. Which is blinding me just a little bit, so I can't really see what's happening on my device. Oh Do you always record with a sad light? We're we're in so deep right now. I I have a question about No, I don't. I don't I don't always do that. I don't know if it makes me less sad, but it's really bright. Well, I feel like the sad light fits pretty comfortably into an area of my life I would just generally call wellness. And m the way the way wellness works in my life is I don't when I when it's wellness in those like air quotes like the way I'm using it.

It's like it's because like usually it's like I'm I feel like ah you know in this case I could probably use some help with like stabilizing my diurnal cycle or whatever it's called, you know, the uh the thing, you know, adjusting your brain to like with with light. Um I don't do it every day, like I probably should. So to me it's kind of like taking ginkgo boloba or something, where it doesn't seem to hurt. I'm not sure that it helps and I don't do it regular enough to know either way. Kinda like shoving the egg up your vagina. Okay. What kinda oh you talk you're talking about Gwyneth Outro Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was a good grift. How much do you think for her? Do you think she's done that a lot?

Oh, I think about this a lot. Let me put that differently. Let me put that differently. Like do you think like in the same way like and it's it's funny because the first of course the first example that comes to mind I think was Max that pointed out that it might have had a different label, but there's there was powder as you you get to use Max's word. There were powders you could buy on from InfoWars that were I think identical to ones you could get on Goop or very similar, right? Yes. As a super taster and uh as someone who used Dupe by Friday fonts to buy both, they were exactly the same and had the exact same ingredients. cereal. Didn't you just eat a spoonful? I uh no no, I I ate it sort of or dr really drank it kind of like a cursed ovaltine.

It's the way like a Boston Dynamics robot learns to open a door. You're you're giving me too much credit. It Um because no mic well you know what actually I don't care and I don't want to talk about it. But in the same way that I I don't for a second I imagine there's a lot of stuff Alex Jones puts in his body I bet I mean do you think he like actually takes his own powders? And in a similar in a similar way, it's not like the manager at Walmart has taken a shit in every lawn chair, you know? You gotta have a life. That's in the that's right there in the manual. It's part of the training. I uh think Alex Jones believes that his supplements and powders work, but like Gwyneth Paltrow, I I think that they both believe they don't need them because their lifestyle has so much i you know, they're on the next level.

They are powders themselves. They are just flowing with the tinctures that you much buy. That's really interesting. They are powders. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm thinking about something like um in what eventually became something like my career for a while. No, I'm not gonna be cute about that. this when I did 43 folders. The reason I was writing about that stuff because I feel like I wasn't very good at it, but like a lot of things, um, to be able to talk about something, write about something, etc. , you need to you can be in the middle of it to an extent. But I mean it's hard to teach something that you don't even know yet. So I wonder if it's the kind of thing where like I was comfortable telling people about GTD once it had had a big kind of impact on me and but in i in that case I did keep doing GTD.

I wonder if it's something where like you go through some phase where like you don't feel well or you lack energy or whatever. You take some kind of nonsense, you put something in your vagina. And then later on, then you can sell that to people, like fresh ones. Exactly. Yeah, no. I mean who knows? Maybe she had a side hustle. Inflation, am I right? How's it going? You having a good week? More like insemination. I'm having a great week. I think. I hope. Okay. Uh you're having a great, great, great, great day? Well it's a bit it's a bit, right? I mean like I'm fine, I'm here. I I wasn't sure where you were. Were you delivering French fries? Never mind, forget. If you don't want to tell me, I don't know.

I don't this this whole chapter of your life is so it would be like it would be like me the chapter of my li what it what do you imagine this chapter of my life is is like what what is this? That's a that's actually a really good question. Let me try presenting it as an analogy. Um, let's say for example that like we've been talking for a while and you know, you know there's those kind of people usually like your friends you consider kind of dramatic. The kind of people where if you say to them, hey, how you doing, they're like, oh do you you don't want to know? And you're like, yeah, actually I don't. But then they go into this whole thing and like about how how somebody was rude to them at the hardware store or something.

And you're like, that's why I never ask you how you're doing. Um I if let's just say over time I was kind of like giving you some sense that there was something I was doing that like I wasn't quite comfortable talking about. And then at a certain point you found yourself wondering, it kinda sounds like he's talking about dressing up like Napoleon and masturbating on a subway. And then eventually I say, yes, I, you know, sometimes I go full bone apart and that's a thing that I do now. And you'd be like, well, why would you do that? And you'd go, well You know, it's a thing that I do. That that's been this whole DoorDash thing where you keep kind of l giving me this hint that you've decided to deliver food for people, and then I ask you about it, and it's like I was asking you if you're Bonaparte.

No. But y you asked me if I uh Oh, forget it. Never mind. No, it's just it's super boring. It's like asking why you do it. It the reason I do it is d to m make rent, but then I think I mean I it's one thing like I think part of being an adult and a person in a civil society is to understand that there are people who have problems that you don't have, can't have, and won't have. And that doesn't mean that they're not that's it's relevant. What people are doing, like what they're posed with, it's just like your your response to the kind of those kinds of things. I mean, I don't know. It seems isn't there like a little more lucrative thing where you don't have to drive somebody to somebody's house?

There's not other more lucrative things than door dashing that you could do? You seem like you have a lot of skills. I do, but those skills have been put to use in ways that I am not comfortable with and it y it's easier to want something from outside of what your career is or has been. No, I don't want to be constantly the trans person or the queer person. And I made that part of my brand. I own that and Everyone's independent and freelance and doing your own thing, that's less relevant. You don't have a bit. Yeah. There's um I'm that's the thing. I am fine with it being a bit, but Because you know no b no bits are bits. You b become what you pretend you are or what people uh does it have to do with doing DoorDash instead of a different kind of job?

Why DoorDash? It seems uniquely suited to being exactly what you shouldn't be doing. That's the part the and you keep going, yeah, but money. And I'm like, you know, before DoorDash and and even after DoorDash, there are ways that people make money that's not d having to go to somebody's house. Not that it's bad. It's just it seems I mean it would be like me having a job where I'm not allowed to talk. Not I mean, I had my dream job for seven years. I'm not under the uh o like delusion that I am owed something I uh love to do every single day for eight hours a day that would be phenomenal. But I had that for for seven years. And I hope that I didn't take it for Granted, I like it it was wonderful.

I'm sorry it was no no it makes sense now. Sorry. But it it what? You don't have to you d don't have to be able to do that. You're saying that you could go and make setting aside that you do like the agency mm freedom's the wrong word. The responsibility perhaps. of like working on your own. Like you like that part of it. You you had this really good job and good bandies and you like the people that you work with and all that kind of stuff. Is is it partly that you're you don't want to commit yourself it it sounds like you sounds like you're saying you don't want to commit yourself to something where you have to inhabit like uh uh certainly a role, but also where you like have to become kind of a company person.

You don't want to have to do that because you realize how rare it is. to have had a job that you liked. And so you don't want to get stuck somewhere being somebody that you don't want to be or being this particular character in the gang. I can't work at Spotify or iHeartRadio. I I c I can't do it. Okay. Well should what's that leading exact exactly not that much else else out there. It makes it makes me n oh no, it you know did you th have you thought about working at Spotify? Oh fuck you What about iHeart Oh iHeart? Okay. Huh. Okay, cut all that out. Um I know. Why? I there's it's the year without shame. I'm not ashamed that I'm an uncanny ability where like, and you I really do feel like I'm losing my mind 'Cause I feel like I I I I try to ask you a question that is an opportunity for you to d clarify, discuss, frame, integrate.

Discuss something and then you bring up something else and I get so much more confused. I don't understand what Spotify has to do with DoorDash. Oh, because that is this sort of like you said, I have other skills. Yes. I have no, there are there are many jobs and I uh but not many of them prov but not Many of them pay as well as DoorDash. They don't have the same health care. I guess it pays more than I thought. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Like if you are r willing to hustle all day and do your side things from your car and use the Wi-Fi at McDonald's, um, it uh it it pays just as as much um as you know, companies owned by Spotify. So It feels better to sure work for a gig economy app that at least it's like, hey people, here is some food.

Hopefully I didn't fuck it up too bad. I use listening to you happy. I use Instacart almost every day. Um, I have nothing against those. It's just that I don't know, maybe I don't know you as well as I thought. It just seems like the idea of you getting in a car and having to go somewhere and then go somewhere else where you give a stranger their food. Like there's just something in my head that just feels like that must it seems like that would be very difficult and awkward for you. It's it's it is. It's uh horribly difficult. I don't in enjoy it, but it's that or not pay for l lamyctal, like uh Okay I don't know how to explain it uh better. And I I mean uh Yeah. I'm sorry. Never mind. I'm sorry.

We talk about Spotify and and I had no problem being a sweaty tryhard. It doesn't pay as much as DoorDash. No. Idiot. Uh the yeah. Well well that's the thing. I uh could charge more, but there are uh people who Do are p on their parents' health insurance. Who can pay for the case? That's a lot of hustle. That's a lot of s hustle on the side of the side of it. Uh actu well, I I did the same thing when I was still under my parents' health insurance. I mean it was very br brief, but you know, when I was in college, I would do editing for w way cheaper than I should have because I was on my appearance health insurance. I didn't care and I got a bunch of extra cash because my clas the my I did th that during my easy classes.

Yeah. And It's not that I regret that. I did not know better. I truly didn't. And it wasn't like I I don't think I was being exploited th th that m much. Um Or yeah you know, it's also a very different time. Who who who was explaining or not explaining you? Oh, um you know, when I was doing f freelance um uh podcast or video editing when uh at the end uh of uh or during or at the end of college I could afford to do it far cheaper because I wasn't paying for health insurance. I was still on my parents. So it's a good idea. I still had the uh this is a uh I don't I don't know I still had the like the attitude of that I had when I was probably 11 or 12 with regard to allowance or maybe just a little bit later like mowing lawns where it was like, hey, you know, free money.

You know, I can I can make three thirty five an hour at McDonald's. I can make two or one plus tips as a busboy. That's what I made at that job. And then when I started doing web pages and like I will I just it felt not usurious, but it felt um predatory to charge like $50 an hour. to do web design. And eventually I figured out like, oh well, you know, maybe you really probably shouldn't charge this by the hour. That's not how people would need the work sort of it's it's all it's all so complicated and you're always Yes, we're always fighting the last war and you're al always kind of oscillating between like here's the here's the worst situation. I I hope we can agree on is like when you've now gotten more work than you can finish at a rate that's lower than you should have asked for for and now it's too late to do anything about it.

That's such a terrible feeling. It sucks to be it's a certain kind of existential debt. You know what I mean? Like you owe yourself money now, baby. Basically, and it sucks. It it does. And I'm not going to be all capitalism because th this is just thank you. You're welcome for my service. Uh but uh Uh maybe one day I will not have to take the mikrol. Maybe magically Maddie and I will uh I I wasn't I I I I I I do actually literally apologize if it sounded like I was slagging you for getting a job. The part that's daffling to me is that that is the job that you chose. It's not for it's not because it's beneath you. It's not be it's just that like it just seems like I I I just shows you how little I know about having a job anymore.

Because it just seems like the kind of thing that would be like wild but like if you make good money that's awesome I didn't know that. I guess all that dick dipping I'm doing is paying off. I uh oh no it it it it is Like, uh have you got an insider now? I can ask you questions. The uh well no, I was kicked out. I've gotta that will I've gotta find a a job now, but uh have you heard the Radio Lab episode where uh the r restaurant owner who had started using DoorDash to deliver his pizzas learned how to game the system and that's the way you make money. Not not just being a re restaurateur, but you if you are a driver, uh you know how to game the system. T in a way that pays more than uh Oh interesting in freelancing jobs.

It is fucked up But people who don't play video games do not make as much money working gig economy. I totally believe that. I don't play video games and I'd be terrible at it. It's uh stands up. I I would be bad at that. I would be very bad at that. I mean I don't I don't I I I I oh boy I just don't like dealing with people for stuff. Um Hey, do you wanna start over? That was all you know. No, it's not. It's not a good thing. I wasn't trying to like I'm not trying to like impugn you or shame you. You just keep like lightly mentioning that you do DoorDash and like it seems like at this point Cut this out, but it kind of seems like at this point, like I I I feel like I'm in the position of saying, Well, Alex, you shouldn't be allowed to have lamictal because you don't do enough door dash deliveries.

And there's like there's like eleven things about that that are so confusing to me. And I you make I I I make myself maybe not you make me feel I feel crazy because like it just seems like there are that's like the only thing you can do and it's like I just don't understand that. Um my brain breaks. No the pay you also get paid faster. So like, you know, if you need to pay uh every week instead of I see uh uh yeah. So it's um it it it's just uh easier and more consistent to know like okay I I will go well if there's if there's things you want to do here That's the no, that is why I ri Real talk, that is why I get uncomfortable. Not because I feel like I'm below it, not because I I do not want to feel I do not want to make people feel bad that like, oh God, I'm not supporting a podcast.

Because that to me feels weird. I because I hear that every single day from so many podcasts from people who are working at like I'm not this is not me slagging s like slate people or whatever, like people who have jobs and who have to shill things that I know they don't care about. And it's a different kind of there's a different kind of mentality. There's this um there's this word that's so wonderful. But it has been, I feel like it's been hijacked and almost redefined by a sort of person whom I don't want to be. And that word is abundance. So like, and sometimes you'll and like unfortunately that's become like one of those like mommy blogger opera words. It's pretty close. It's it's maybe not on the same shelf.

As um the secret, but it's at least in the same section as the secret. So, like, are you gonna have an abundance lifestyle or like a a poverty and privation? lifestyle and it's like uh but you know like there's something but there and yet there is something very powerful to me about i even if you're not fully inhabiting whatever the fucking abundance uh mindset is, I feel like letting go of the poverty and um uh privation mindset is a good idea. But here's the difference. It's it's sort of like it's it's you know When you're a poor kid or a poor-ish kid or whatever, you're from like a background, like if the lights are still on, you're you feel fortunate in some ways, right? The the thing is that like you meet people who are like I don't just I mean the word hustle.

It's so stupid, but like if you have a career and I'm thinking about something that Jerry said to Roman on the latest episode of Succession We Watch from season three. And it's something like, you know, Romans running around taking off his footwear in her office and all this. And at one point, Jerry says, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop being so inappropriate. You need to start asking yourself constantly, how does this advance my position? I'm not saying I agree with that, but I am saying that it Romulus needs to hear that from somebody. You need to think about like, instead of just saying whatever shit in a meeting, like c comes to mind, or instead of just being this this weirdo who doesn't know how to sit in a chair, like ask yourself how what you're doing advances your position.

And that sounds perhaps Almost Machiavellian, but I think it's not. I think if you have a career, especially if you're building businesses, you're doing all these things, it isn't like you al See the problem is if you're me, you go, huh, I have one sort of kind of business and I hope it doesn't go away. That'll be all right. Where there's other people who are just constantly like, I'm trying this thing, I'm trying that thing, I'm trying that thing. You think about somebody like me versus like underscore David Smith. Think about the way David handles his whole career as this ongoing experiment where he's always got so many different things going on, where he's learning from things, he's trying things.

He's testing things. He's figuring out oh there's data that I might be able to get on this that makes this better for me and for my you know what I mean? Like he is the most talented d but this sounds shitty but he he possibly is the most talented and interesting developer I've ever seen work. Yes, he's very, very but also he is also just a very interesting business person. Yeah. He's what did he say? He recently said a couple episodes ago. He said something like it can't be possible. I thought he said something like 200 apps, but he's had a lot of apps. He's done a lot of things. Anyway, so he is also the first to admit that not all of them were good. But they were sustainable and important for people like me to pick up on though is Just because I'm not in the toilet right now is not a plan.

Not being in the toilet right now is not a plan. That's a feeling Right, or uh it could be a relief or a whatever. Rather than going like, well, no, I just I treat all of this stuff in my area of my work. I treat all of it very seriously, very affirmatively, and I want to maximize how my own effort goes into advancing my position, whatever that is. Whether that's you know saving from college, retiring, or just like having quality of life or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Whatever it is, you don't just rest on your laurels and go, well, I guess I'll just take it easy for two weeks. And again, let's just set aside this whole fucking hustle. You know you know what I'm saying though. Like that's that's a difference is that I mean that's also a terrible n mindset that that I have is I would rather uh the like the the sitting for two weeks.

Oh The it will be it'll be this is not gonna be a theme for this year. Probably will not be a theme for next year, and I'll probably be dead by the time of the next year, but um But like that's that's the next shame I would love to conquer or the next shame I would like to address is how much quality of life means to me. And and so like the shame that I feel even using that three-word phrase that feels really entitled. I don't know if it's privileged exactly, it's definitely a little fancy. It's all must be nice to have quality of life. And it's like I just Like it comes down to just there's so there's there's so much big picture stuff that's related to that. There's so much medium-sized picture the stuff and then there's just innumerable bits of little tiny shit.

Like here's one I like to plan my my life, my day, my week, my whatever, so that I don't have unnecessary amounts of running around because I forgot something, running around because I had not. manage my time or attention or tasks well. You know what I mean? Like that is a quality of life issue to me. I'm rarely very late for things. And that's maybe I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna go into it. I'm not I'm not gonna chicken out. And that's because I've designed a life that works that way. Or maybe I've been fortunate enough to fall ass backwards into a life. There's a lot of shit I don't do because like the quality of life part is more important. 'Cause it's like there's so many ample examples of people who have hustled the shit out of their shit and don't know how to stop now and they don't really have any identity outside of being the person who's always a little frantic.

And as much as Frantic might be part of my brand as a host on a podcast, I don't want it to be who I am as a human being 24-Sav. And I don't want it to affect my sleep. And I don't want it to affect my heart. And I don't want it to inf affect the ability that I have to cause good change in my family and community. You know? And it's like, but if you I you can hear me struggling with it right now. It should be the easiest thing in the world for me to just gulp that down and go. Well of course. That's everything you've done up till now is to sort of say like it's like yeah, I guess I'm Tim Ferriss, but nice. I don't know. I think it's I think I think you oughtn't have to work really hard at something stupid for I don't I think you oughtn't have to work really hard at something stupid for no money.

I hope I've never implied that I think people should have to do that. But everything costs. Everything well everything costs and everything's a tradeoff. Life is an engineering problem. And the sooner that we all accept that, the better off it'll be. If you want the plane to fly really far, you're either gonna have to get a very light plane or a whole new way of fueling it because Plain fuel is heavy, fills them wings all the way up. It's like, you know, you just you don't get to just arbitrarily take sides off the triangle and decide by fiat that that's how it's gonna work now. You gotta give away this thing to get some of that thing. Or you gotta give away a lot of this thing for no reward in the end and you didn't know it.

And it's like, but like all along the way, you gotta keep checking in with yourself and go like, well Maybe, maybe my advice to Roman, not advice, but my analog of what Jerry said to Roman, yes, what does this do to advance my position? Like what it what does this do to improve the quality of life for people that I care about? And I think if we were a smart cookie, you you one could see that that could be extended in a million ways, right? Because there's a lot of people that you would like to have quality of life that aren't you. And it's not even just your partner or your family. It's a lot of strangers who would like to have a quality of life too. And you have an impact on that, even in small ways, by how you conduct yourself, what you do, what you don't do.

I don't know. I just but I still feel a little bit of shame about that, or shame or reluctance to admit it. You know what I mean? I m I think having grown up Uh yeah y yeah as a latch key kid, it qu quality of life probably wasn't a term that you heard A lot. And that's also a term that hasn't uh been around that long relative to how we describe the it gets used. I feel like that's a phrase that I almost associate with the now discredited Broken Windows syndrome or whatever it's called. Exactly. It's quality well when you say quality of life, I associate that with Was it Giuliani? Giuliani's the one who did all the stuff with Times Square and everything, right? That was in his era. Whoever it was that did all the policing, you know, turnstile jumping and all that kind of stuff, broken windows kind of stuff.

I remember I feel like I remember that phrase coming up a lot. Like it's a quality of life issue in New York, to have dog shit on not on the streets. To like, you know, not have graffiti, street crime, all that kind of stuff. Quality of life, we're more comfortable talking about quality of life. as a as a group or a city or a community, then we are comfortable talking about it f for our family, let alone ourselves, I think. At least I am. Well that's because you recognize it as somewhat of a dog whistle Because it's i i if if i because what folks l on the left would say, instead of quality of life, would say material conditions, which I think applies to both all the same thing, but That's I well I know no no no I know it's not but also quality of life means different.

But there's certain kinds of currency, there's fiat currencies in your mind too. The it it does not uh make sense. Uh no, I I know it it it doesn't make sense, but when uh Uh you know, the m potential future mayor of Chicago says he wants to uh uh have uh give Chicagoans a better quality of life. He doesn't mean that uh he wants Chicagoans to have a better job. He means that the m magnificent mile should be prettier and sh it's It's a dog with the thing. It smells so bad this week. It smells so bad this week. I think you're right. I think you're right and it does have that association so it feels kind of icky to do. It feels you use that phrase or that word dog whistle. Um where it's I think one thing with a dog whistle is it's also a phrase that it dog whistle is also a phrase that over is overused and doesn't really have a meaning anymore.

Um it's a it's the equivalent of an in-group code word where people know what you mean without you having to say what you mean. The herb center. I have n I haven't heard that in a w in a I don't like to say slum, because saying slum sounds so gabby. I mean gapping. Loop River Huh. I don't know that the i the ironic sorry, I was about to do a really dumb community style joke. The ironic part is that the Loop River is actually named after Robert River. Well what's what's his name? Uh uh uh Robert Children's uh from Children's Hospital of Children's Hospital Are you just not teaching how to use it anymore? Is that a thing we just don't learn anymore? I'm curious. I I know that's a joke. That's a that's a deliberate joke.

It's it's by our friends David and and Uncle Rob. That's a funny bit. Uncle Rob I keep running into a lot of really weird writing lately. Oh. Oh, the it's and its thing. It doesn't seem that hard to get it right in the headline, guys. It's just I mean, it's like I don't know, it's like it's like you say like, oh, do you like your wedding cake? Yeah, except it you took a shit on it. You're like, yeah, but isn't it a nice cake? And you're like, the the nicest of the cake does not offset the existence of the of the Duke. You can feel it all over from the winter songs for Duke. I mean, there's many reasons I can see the appeal of something like Substack or uh whatever. Um I mean not just if you're Glenn Greenwald.

The uh what a guy, what a guy, just asking the question. Just throwing it just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there. Yeah. He he thinks he's that guy though. He thinks that he is that guy. Medical CS. But um He's he he if he had to think about what he has done to people, like I think that he would unalive himself. Like he cannot live with what he has become. I don't know about that, but um but that's a big one. Um to unalive himself. But the um but it's there is a certain kind of I've been looking at Twitter a lot the last few days just because I've been laying on my ass and just reading funny things and hanging out and reading Twitter more than I have for a while. Not posting a lot on Twitter, but like reading it more.

And there really is a kind of uh it's easy to forget there is kind of a fairly contagious Twitter Twitter brain thing. And he he just sounds to me like what I oh God. He just it's just it just sounds to me like he's just used to like I would I wouldn't I would be it would be weird to m meet him for drinks, like at a bar. I bet he's really nice and I bet he I bet he's smart, I bet he's pleasant and all of those things. It's just that there are people out there who all of their interactions lead you to believe that this person is just insufferable. Just, I don't know. It's just weird. Like you're teaching a class that nobody's attending. Like what are you what are you doing? Like what are you doing with the way that you I I s I had a tweet the other day about uh something that uh Molly at the New York Times said.

What did I say? I thought this was a very funny tweet. She always looks so unhappy and she always just sounds so unhappy. And her articles are fine. Meg Haberman, right? But then like her t you can just tell she just fucking hates life. I bet her life is very difficult. I'll bet she gets death threats. I bet she gets a ton of misogynistic bullshit. She lost a book deal because of fucking Glenn Thrush. Like she's had some knocks. She's worked really hard. I don't want to say anything to like disparage her accomplishments as somebody who used to write for the New York Post, but she just has a puss on existentially all the time. And she she everything I she sounds so like so so mad and like so like offended and umbrage is taken all the time and these like meh kind of just passive aggressive tweets about the way people are And I said I said the other day I quote tweeted uh a screenshot because you know I don't want to get Molly mad at me.

But it was a screenshot of something she was like And that I'm not saying that because she's a woman, I'm just saying it 'cause she c seems like she kind of sucks. Um all right. Um misogynus Molly. Go. I wouldn't call her that. Um and so sh uh anyhow. And she goes, and I said something like is it like is it just me or does like this sound like Nate Silver walking up to Chuck E. Cheese and asking him if he knows who the fuck he's talking to? Which for some reason is an image that is so clear. I could see little Knight Silver in his weird hair walking up to an animatronic mouse and saying, Do you have any idea? He's a little drunk. It's his nephew's birthday. He doesn't see his kids anymore. He's there with because of his nephew and he heard there be you know, um, pictures.

Um Ask me about the South by Southwest story sometime. And he um and he so imagine him just going up to a fucking robot mouse and being like, Do you do you know let me give you three letters. Five three eight. Have you ever heard of that? Do you know who the fuck I am? Do you know how many things I've gotten wrong over and over and didn't admit? Do you do you have any idea who the fuck you're talking to, Mr. Entertainment Cheese? Do you have any idea? Do you know who I am? He's he's one of uh the uh this is not mine, but There's a type of person on Twitter and now I think a type of person who has made their career off being the it says moops guy. Like Clearly, y you know it's the Moors. Is that different from a well actually guy?

Or is more to it than just being a well actually guy? It's it's more than a well actually guy because I uh think about it. That's literally what the card says. It's lit it's literally what it says. I'm I'm just saying it because it's there. Not even the asking a question, but a well it says it. So Alex don't care about your feelings, Alex. Yeah. And now it's everywhere. Is he the guy with the low quality po sounding podcast? Was that him? Who's the guy with the show about getting blocked that I that I couldn't listen to? That is Jesse single and uh he he he sounds like he's on um on speed and has like a breathing problem. Yes. And a four dollar mic. Okay, that's the show. I listened to a few of those.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's Chapo adjacent, right? No, no, no, no. They hate each other. He is the guy who was in twenty no no no no uh w you may have seen him that Michael Hobbs fights with him a lot. Uh well a lot of people fight with him a lot. Oh so he has sort of a glaciacy where it seemed like he was kind of a moderate liberal and now he's kind of oh no shit. So he's like he's the trans guy. So neoliberals probably Yeah I saw I saw I I had to ask Madeline who is this. Um, so it's but it's one of those like uh moderate left fail sign kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. He uh has uh I I I I he's he's a moops guy. And he what did he do with HIPAA? He hipped somebody some kids' records or something? Um it seemed it seemed uh okay, so there's this This uh story go uh there was a supposed whistleblower from uh uh I I know you probably know this, but there was a supposed whistleblower from the St.

Louis Children's Hospital, and They have a gender clinic that gives kids uh g g that that's the thing. They say gives that uh, you know, prescribes hormones for trans kids. For queer kids. Right. Including gender affirming Yes. Not including gender affirming surgery, uh, for for minors. That's n not a thing. Um, but i she was like, I am blowing the whistle on this. kids were being fast tracked into taking testosterone and estrogen and uh they weren't seeing therapists And a a lot of parents came forward and said n no, n no, and no one could find any parents or any kids. Very touchy issue. people are feel it's a touchy issue. Because there is there is some weird shit that goes down, but I don't think it's I don't think it's like some grooming machine for turning people into gay.

You know, like the the the problem is that that gets then that gets turned into well, you know, it's sort of a hammer and nail problem. Where like if this is what you do for a job, I mean My doctor never really wants to talk to me about my six skateboard moves. Like he wants to know like when I'm gonna schedule a surgery. That's what he does. That's or she or I don't fucking care. That's what that person does. When I make jokes with my optometrist Dr. Yang, she she she she doesn't laugh very much. Right? It's It's like, who do you talk to? The endocrinologist or the therapist? It's an it is a healthcare problem that gets The yes, or a ex exactly. Well and and this uh this woman who uh again, I of all like every Transparent uh transparent transparent parent of trans kid I talked to it is holy crap that's funny.

Wait a minute, is that TV show upon? Oh my fucking god Alex It goes on the list. Normally this is something I would do. No, Alex, no, no, no, no, no. This is my blind spot. I never understand. I never get puns. And now eleven fifty-seven A. M. on Wednesday, March fifteenth is when I understand that it's because it's a parent who stands. Yes. No touching. Always money in this. No touching. No touching. Always money in dis banana stand. Because I was pointing at my penis. Oh no, yeah. I think it was a banana. Mr. Banana Grabber Oh God. Yeah, but where's the liner come from? This is cool. This is sad. This is sad. Well no no. The reason people were screaming about HIPAA is just that this woman Jamie Reed was not concerned about like kids in uh g good faith.

Some people think that have like wild conspiracies that like she was a plant or whatever. That doesn't that sounds weird and no. But she did give a bunch of uh uh uh phone numbers and personal information including Including the procedures and medications they were on, not just France, but like a reporter? And he published Mignow? He he uh he has a he has had a substack since um for sin yeah yeah yeah. And he's done very well for himself. Good grip. Signal to noise ratioed. Landing landing uh I hooked a lot of them. Okay, okay. So I want to really be down with this. Transparent. Uh released the things and now yeah, and so like and he deleted his Twitter or something? We're mad at him, yeah. Uh uh, I don't I'm I d uh am abstaining from From Twitter for Lens.

I didn't know who he was yesterday, Alex, and that's all anybody's talking about. That's not the other thing that they're mad about right now. Everyone's mad about Jesse Single. Yeah. I mean that Okay. I am surprised because I guess that I assumed everyone who would be mad about Jesse Singles, like beat, would have already known. I just the thing is it's so much more efficient to just be mad at how fucking stupid everybody is. And then you can like, you know, l like they used to say on the Metallica shirts, kill 'em all, let God sort them out. I don't want anybody to die. I literally just want people to be happy. But like if I have this blanket policy of a s of assuming everybody i is a ding a ling who has no self-awareness but me.

That gives me a way to guide myself through life. You know? You see how I did single and ready to mingle? Did you hear that one? Yep. Yeah, I d I did. What about single-to-noise ratio? This that's the problem. I think it that's this. Thirty-seven six. But that was their blog, right? Yeah, I think so. Wait, they're company, right? Wait, wait. Which one am I? No, I'm lost. I don't know. I'm the map, I'm the map! I'm the map! Oh god! Boxin', box, boxin, ox. That's the plural of a me, a coxswain. It's well known. Uh could charge then uh Huh, hurum, huh, well, yes, let's do the challenge. Challenge this week, uh, is to breathe. And uh this came out of um I mean I don't know. It's it's uh something at least I think it kind of was mine, because I'd seen this article about uh breathing stuff in Doesn't Matter.

And I just I had been, it was one of my tricky backdoor ones. uh where I had already kind of been doing this, so it was easy enough to bring up. And I I it was, you know, you and I will sometimes send each other things and go, okay, this seems like it's in your wheelhouse. I'd sent you that. a week or two ago. I guess a couple weeks at this point. And so it was to look into um what however you want to take it, things that help you breathe in a way that's good for you. And including for me is things like relaxation and sleep. That was that well what did you take the challenge to mean? I uh was going to try to do some deep uh breathing. and uh uh what's what's called uh like hi hypnotic uh breathing, but I almost c gave myself a panic attack a c a couple of times.

Like a physical like Do you have Yeah, uh uh sort of. Like I don't really hyperventilate in the like way that y if you r breathed into a bag i it would help. It's more of like the the throat closing up, heart beating fast, wanting to to vomit. It's not happening at a lungs and breathing level. It's a consequence of something else happening. Probably. Yeah, because it it's that you are doing the breathing, uh the the fast breathing, so then the rest of your body is like, well something m bad must be happening. Uh so And many, uh like a lot of including what you sent me, uh uh uh anyone who's an expert in this does warn you, hey, you probably shouldn't do this. If you're an accent, you can't do that.

I did m just Mm. One or the other. I uh w d focused more on box breathing, which is something I already did. Um oh, uh it's, you know, when you take a deep breath in through it, or at least how I have learned it and read about. Deep breath in through your nose for five seconds. You hold for five seconds, and then you breathe out from uh uh from your mouth. uh and try to breathe out four or five seconds. Yeah. And then as you do that, you are supposed to imagine your breath. Count of four each, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Four four four or five. And uh with the idea uh that you w will be able to do more hold hold it for longer um as you get better at it or w for whatever your goal is. Like uh m mindfulness you might want to try to behold for a l a lot longer.

Um Or if you're trying to do a quick calm down, it's like a three or four second thing. Like if you're already breathing pr pretty fast. Well, and unless you're out, you can try any of these. It's well, it it is like um uh I'm I'm trying to think of a good um oh, l like if you've an injury and uh you don't tell a masseuse That you're uh like you you uh pulled something, um they're going to massage your muscle in a way that it's healthy. when i i i it's not. You've torn some things. It's not just going to hurt. It's gonna probably make things worse. But I uh the reason that box breathing has always worked for me is not the counting at all is just the literal vis visualization of making a little square.

And I don't know why that is. It seems like most people don't uh really know why that is, like there's theories, but i i it's different for everyone. I guess like quote vi visual learner. Maybe I'm a visual relaxer. Um like the orange fluid in the body thing still. But uh I've been doing that uh the three times uh a day, along with a couple times where I've just been in anxious situations. And um I I don't know. It has felt a lot more helpful than most mindfulness practices that I've tried out before. So now I I'm a Marine is basically what I'm saying. I'm a Marine. That's what the Marines do. They get up and do 15 push-up. Oh oh sorry. Yeah, always always a seal. Always a seal. What do what do you do?

Well, um I'm not a clinician and I certainly don't want to give Alex a health condition through breathing. But I uh here here's an observation. An observation out of experience that I found surprising or fascinating. That was the quickest path to just saying this. Um I think in that in that paper that uh was in last week's notes and I'll if I remember I'll put it in this week's, but I can't promise. But it was about like the b basically the um the study uh behind taking three three testing three different kinds. So beginning with this idea that like, hey, we're here's the ch the thing we're trying to achieve, which is what what was the actual purpose? The like was it wasn't they didn't just call it relaxation.

It was something quantifiable. But as a way of saying like, do we get more, do you get more out of mindfulness meditation, which certainly has many, many, many benefits? If we take mindfulness meditation And this really sounds subtle. And then over here, these you have these three different ways of breathing deliberately. struct structurally to think about your breathing. And you'd say, well, gosh, that sounds a lot like meditation. And it is. But like I my understanding it as a lay person is that When you're doing breathing stuff with with regard to meditation, you're trying to calm your mind, you're trying to calm your body, but you're also not trying to knock down a door. And this becomes that's such an important phrase for me.

Yeah, the way I always think of it is like, well, did you even see if the door is unlocked? Like why are you spending so much time worried about worrying about whether you can knock down the door? Can't you just walk through the door? Or is there a chance that there's a thing that's already available in the room that you're in? These are all like thought technologies that have become really Useful for me. But, you know, mindfulness meditation, it was my understanding that with most, at least of the beginning level mindfulness meditation stuff that I'm familiar with, yeah, you're absolutely watching your breathing. But you're not Directing your breathing, you're not forcing yourself to change your breathing.

You're just the mindfulness part is the watching, the noticing, and most arguably, I think, most importantly. Knowing that the whole reason I'm doing this is because my mind will drift, which is my job number one. Job number two is to in an impossibly gently way, gentle way, bring my attention back. to paying attention to my breath in this case. But like I think this distinction becomes really important. Whatever kind of breathing you're talking about, whatever kind of meditation thing you're talking about, because like I things like self-hypnosis, meditation, all those things have in the past become a source of stress for me because the only time I ever do them is shittily and when I'm stressed out.

So I very heavily associate them with being stressed out, doing them poorly, having them not help, and only ever doing them because it's the equivalent of like calling a bail bondsman from lockup. Like ah I gotta relax. God fucking damn it I've gotta relax. But I don't know if that makes total sense, but like here's here's the now on top of all of that, which already made no fucking sense. sense because I if anyone who's tried like headspace or calm or w w whatever, I think what you're talking about is when they specifically say, uh, focus on your breath, but don't change it, just let it be. And then it's like, well, how the fuck do I normally breathe? Like and then I breathe? Yes, but like th this leads you to stuff that it sounds so comically stupid, and yet it's incredibly insightful.

I've said before that one of the I have several ways that meditation has been explained to me that helped it make a lot more sense. Before I understood, I'm gonna spoil this for you. The part of meditation is being bad at meditation. I think a lot of you could argue really that being bad at meditation is precisely the point of meditation. You don't do it because you're great at it. You do it because you know you're bad at it. You're not becoming a yogi. You're just getting better at noticing how bad you are at it. Did that surprise you? Did I blow your mind? That's the point. The point is to keep watching it even if you're not good at it. It's the sticking with it that's the meditation, not the feeling bad, right?

I mean the feeling bad, yeah, sure, that that that could be hard of it too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but but like This is so subtle. I hate how subtle this is, but I'm gonna really try and sell this. And I especially to somebody who might hear what Alex just said and think, well, I don't wanna have a panic attack because I breathed. It's different. It's different. There will be links in the show notes. Very, very different. I'm sorry. So mindfulness meditation, yes, your whole job is to sit there and watch. What we're doing though, just because now we're saying over here. So over here there's mindfulness meditation. Over here in this entirely separate but related area, we've got something called relaxation.

That's a definitely in the same wheelhouse as some of this stuff, but let's just leave that over here for now. So we've got I in some ways really relaxation is closer to breathing stuff because we're not trying to get quote unquote zen. We're trying to calm the fuck down, and that's okay. It does you don't need a gong and a class. You need to calm down. Well, how do you do that? I don't know. That's your problem. I don't have a way to tell you how to calm the fuck down. And you don't know? Well, how are you gonna find out? Well, I'm really bad at meditation, I'm bad at breathing, I'm bad at all these things. Well, I guess give up. No, here's what you do, and this is so much harder than it sounds.

You're gonna notice your breath without without changing the way you breathe too over much. So like in mindfulness meditation, you're trying really sort of not to change your breath. You're trying to just watch your breath, at least in my understanding of it. Over here on this other side, you got this hyperventilation thing you're talking about. Like I guess the whole idea of that. is to do something weird with carbon dioxide and make yourself, you know, have to go to the, you know, ED. But what I'm still talking about is how what if you found some path in between where you said with for box breathing? I'm not gonna change how deeply I breathe. I'm not gonna change how long each one of those is.

Here's the thing. Think of a square. I think CGP Gray actually in his uh hexagons of the Bestagons video talks about this. But like, you know, squares are just little squares. And then other squares are just big squares. Like a square is just a square. Those are in order for it to be a square, I think definitionally, I wasn't really great at geometry. I think definitely definitionally the thing that makes a square differ from A rectangle. Well a square is a kind of rectangle, right? You have four sides of equal length, and then four angles of ninety degrees. That's a square, right? Well is how long how long is each of those sides? Four. F for what? For it doesn't matter. Here's the thing. If you're doing box breathing What if you weren't trying super hard to concentrate on changing and you were just counting on you were just counting evenly without changing the breath Which is, don't you think, so much harder at first than then it sounds?

Because as soon as you start thinking about your breathing and focusing on your breathing, you kind of can't help but get a little bit like caught up in it and go like, am I breathing right? Well shit, dude, you've been breathing right for thirty years. You're pr you'll probably be okay. But what if instead, so what does four mean? For the the length of a side? Well it doesn't matter. Four s three seconds, four seconds, five seconds. I don't care if it's thirty five minutes times four. The important part is that those be equal. And think how that changes. It changes it from a race to a rally. You're changing what you're doing from being like, how can I meditate best here? to like all I'm gonna do is just watch my breath in these four even intervals.

Now as it happens, the one that I like is four, four, eight. It's helped me so much. Breathe in through your nose to the count of four. Hold to the count of four, release importantly through your mouth, long count of eight. But think about all the ways you could do that. Right. You could go or you could go like that. Those are both ways to breathe in. You could go when you breathe out. You could do you could make take it, you could do so many things to make this more complicated than it needs to be. What if instead you said I got these pipes that go through my nose and I got pipes that go out through my mouth? I'm just gonna I'm not gonna focus on the pipes. I'm gonna think about the air that passes through them.

Does that change the way you think about it? Does for me. I'm not thinking about pipes. I'm thinking about air. Air's coming in, count of four, hold, right? Try and do that in a way where you're not knocking down a door. Do that in a way where you're gentle with yourself and you find that balance between like you're not making yourself do fucking anything. You're finding yourself breathing evenly. And you're focusing on the pipes that that have air moving through them. Which is really different from like think really hard about how you're gonna relax with this. And like you just no, no, no, the whole idea, it's okay, cheat any way you have to. Cheat any way you have to to achieve this state. I've done this and it's actually helped me so much and I can see it in numbers.

It's fucking crazy. Ooh, sleep sleep stuff did did uh same, same, same. Which one the the box The uh the box uh I've said this so much now at this point, but it's this is still such a new revelation to me that I'm willing to Risk, insure, pissing off everybody by saying this over and over and over. But here's the thing. Greatest thing about that blood oximeter is that it counts your breaths per minute. If you want the Konami Code. for your mind. If you want the the up up down down left right jack jack whatever uh scoot scoot if you want that code here's what you what you said did you send me something uh Um you Oh that's my cheat code. Okay. Um thank you. You just sent me pictures of Styrofoam.

Um that's a cheat code. make a larger square and that's the sound dampening stuff. And so you sort of imagine visually tracing along the edges of that as you breathe. Yeah, I just go around uh yeah, there's I just go r around in in my room and it's Sounds bonkers. Well, which is the blank thing the so the thing I'm struggling to get through, because I suck at explaining this, something that is kind of mostly happening inside one's head, I suspect. But like you don't have to breathe hard. You don't have to breathe slow. You don't have to breathe long. You don't have to breathe through a you don't there's no no rules just right. This is the Outback Steakhouse rules of breathing, right? And what I'm trying to say though is like once you've done this for a little while and you've gotten frustrated with yourself, maybe maybe it'll help, maybe it hasn't, like you're gonna you might discover something kind of amazing.

that like you're never more than about 90 seconds away from feeling a little bit better and in the moment because you started breathing often enough. The same way that maybe you would take a walk at lunch at a job or, you know, I mean little kinds of things that we do. in life. But so but here's the cheat code. The cheat code is and and this leads me to a bunch of questions we don't have time for today that I'd like to ask you about because it's related to things like how you track time and stuff like that. and self-quantify, but the um there's no other thing that drives um you know you know the the the phrase everybody knows symptoms you got symptoms and you got signs. Symptoms are the things that the that you come in and complain about.

You got a cough due to cold, you got nausea, you got uh, I don't know, menarchy. I think that's a side effect. But you you you come in and you got symptoms and the signs are the thing your doctor says, well, I just took your pulse. And it's 78. I just did your respiration. You got 22 breaths, right? Signs are things that your body is doing. And yeah, you got some control over them, like to an extent. But it's different from like what's happening to you versus how your body is responding perhaps outside. And that could certainly be things like anxiety. It could be headache, nausea, all those different kinds of things. Right, right, right. There's no greater cheat code for me to go from wherever I am to slightly better off than to focus on lowering the number of breaths that I do per minute.

And let's remember, what's what's rule what's rule zero? I'm not trying to knock down a door. All I'm gonna do, I'm gonna breathe exactly the same as I was breathing before, just a little bit deeper and just a little bit slower. But I don't need to go it's just I'm gonna lay there and go. Breathe in, hold it. Breathe out. That's it. That's it. That's the whole thing. And here's the funny part. My goal has been it's not a contest, it's not a race, there's no door to knock down. But uh as I go to bed each night and I I slip on the little uh blood oximeter and I fall asleep if I'm gonna fall asleep. And if not I'll sit there and I'll kind of unfortunately the app for the sucks. The Mossimo app sucks.

It's so bright and gross. But Can I get my breaths from 18 to 22 down to six? And I do it. I can do it every night now. I get down to six breaths per minute. Does it stay there? No. It will go up to between 16 and 22 usually when I'm sleeping. But here's but here's the code. I don't know if this is making sense, but maybe is there a chance that each of you has one of those that you didn't realize yet? I could say stuff like try to unwind at the end of the day. I could say stuff like uh get a bike ride three times a week. I could say stuff like get in the sad light or get out in the sunshine. There's all those kinds of things. Those are all great and they all certainly contribute. Each one of those is a little teaspoon of help.

But like there's no more reliable way than for me to slow down and reduce the number of breaths that I have for a minute. And I can see it in the numbers. It's crazy. My pulse goes down generally five to eight points on nights where I do that versus don't. Do you have you gotten anything like that? Yeah, and I I don't know if we have uh time for this, but have you kept it on during uh j uh just like watching uh t T V doing well I know it's kinda hard when I've definitely done that. Yeah yeah and that's what I am Not m more in interested in uh more more interested in in that it's uh less common and that quality of life thing that that you do not want to talk about, but I think you should and I like to think about is I want to know my HRV throughout the day.

Mine could really be better. Mine could be so I still don't exact I kind of understand HRV. But like and I know that mine could be a lot better, especially my waking HRV, I'd love to see that go up. There's no there's no I mean, obviously things like exercise help a lot with that, especially at gasterobic exercise. I don't think there's a silver bullet or a uh what was the phrase I used? Uh you know, there's no like incantation. Cheat code. A cheat code, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas I mean I'm and I who knows? I'm not saying uh like I'm gonna be long-lived and sagacious, but I can tell you like I I've seen the numbers. I'm not that's like drill. Hell, I'm looking at the number I've seen the data.

Hell, I'm looking at the data right now. I am not a big thing. Don't let the post testing goal. I have a brain. It's called a job. Um I like Jill so much. Um but uh that is pretty close to like boy, I wish I had more stuff like that. You know? I wish I had more stuff where like I could I have a A somewhat new-ish, admittedly new-ish, but like a tested um thing that I can cause to happen that'll improve life for me for a little while. that isn't, you know, whatever like drugs and gambling or whatever. You know what I mean? It's it's it's kinda nice to have that in your pocket. The thing that I really want now though is like and I course I track all that. Massimo uh hooks up with Apple Health. Um the Y things healthmate hooks up, you know, so whatever scales, blood pressure cuff, all that stuff all syncs up.

That's all in there. But like I only have like two more things to say, is that all right? Go, yes, yes, yes, yes. Um, one of the things is a lot of this goes back to something I've been talking about for I feel like probably 10 years at this point, which is how much I crave a home biofeedback. Box. Like I want the thing that's a cross between basically I want it like a cross between a blood oximeter. What is it? It checks your skin galvanization. It checks your I guess your blood pressure. But it does all the things that uh a lie detector test. I want a yes, I want a lie detector test so. Well yeah, but I mean like I want a quote unquote lie detector. But what I really want is the biofeedback machine that Mike Alexander hooked me up to in 1988.

He said, put this on your finger. See that light that's red? Make the light turn. I've told you the story. But this is this is how I my interest in most of this stuff. I've been interested in self-hypnosis and the orange fluid from high school. But going to see the counselor when I was kind of at a low point in college, he goes, Well sit down. This is biofeedback. Have you heard of it? Like, yeah, it's like a dingling thing like horoscopes, right? He goes, Yeah, kind of. He goes, Well sit down, put this thing on your finger. See this box? See that but that there's a light. What color is that light? I think it's a red light. Okay. Make that light turn green. And now because I'm a self-starter and a liberal arts student, I say, well, um, how do I make the light turn green?

And he goes, that's up to you. And he says, I'll be back in 15 minutes. And he leaves he leaves the room and the lights red and I'm sitting there and I'm like what in the what the fuck is this? I don't remember exactly what I tried, in what or order, but like of course, like I'm more competitive, probably than I'd like to admit. And I'd feel better if Mike Alexander comes back. He looked a lot like Larry David. Um When Mike Alexander comes, he was really he was such a nice guy. When Mike comes back in the room, I would love to be able to go, hey, check it out. Dr. Alexander, I made the light green. And then he could say to me, how did you do that? And then the something, something, question mark, question mark, profit.

I'm not sure how. But I don't know all the things I did wrong or that didn't work, but I know what eventually did work was throwing spaghetti at the wall in my own mind and saying, okay, try to calm down, work on your breathing. Like you're not gonna whatever is gonna make this light turn green, it's not gonna probably not gonna be you hyperventilating and being anxious. And eventually it worked. I don't know how it worked. I don't know how I figured it out. I do know that later on he came in and he gave me the spoiler. He gave me the secret, which is like, yeah, this is kind of like You know, it's basically looking at your pulse, it's looking at blah blah. And like you found a way to bring down the physical stuff in your body that we tend to associate with things like anxiety.

Well, let's sit with that for a minute. Like we talk about every third week on here. Is my heart beating fast because I'm anxious, or am I anxious because my heart's beating fast, or both or neither, or something else? Well, all other things being equal, wouldn't it be nice if you're gonna have this little kind of like leather man of self-soothing in your life? Why not have it be something where you could find yourself practicing this sort of on the reg in ways that sort of like you could do kegels on the bus? Nobody needs to know. You don't look like a pervert unless you're groaning. But there's you could work on your pelvic floor. Like before you pull on the rope. You know what I'm saying? What do you think about what you while we're recording?

You gotta keep the egg in. It's difficult. Oh god, Alex. We watched I remember you and Simon and Marcy last night. Oh both cried. Oh we got we got someone with Bima with the egg. You know, who's the mother? Oh, who's the father? Anyways, um I thought that was crazy interesting Now if I go back and I scroll way, way, way, way, way, way back, and like, you know, as ever, just to re-we haven't talked about this in probably a year, this this aspect of it. Like, but back back when you and I were both super gay bones for all this self-tracking stuff, which I think you still are, but I was more engaged in stuff. So gay. Well I mean I I capture as much as I can. I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about it or analyzing about it.

Like I left behind subscriptions to several different apps that I thought were super interesting. But not that useful, right? So whether that's bearable, gyroscope, uh what's the one that's one word? Edge? Felch Donnie. Oh what's it called? Overlord? Yeah. Ubermaker? What's it called? Ex Exists. Exist, that's the one. io, yeah, yeah. Exist. io. Like they're all cute. They're cute. You remember and you'll remember exist. io from observations such as uh you uh you tend to gain gain weight when you're visiting pandas or whatever. Like when I was in DC, like it was raining more. And it's like, okay, yeah, thanks. You know? That's like that old that old graph that's like M murder rate went up with the adoption of Internet Explorer.

Like those kinds of like wild graphs that you can make of two unrelated things that just happen to be significantly. But um but what's so fascinating me about is I can go and look and I can see like yeah yeah yeah like in the past I've had a lot of nights of like hanging pretty I mean like my my pulse is pretty high to begin with. And like I've had a lot of nights from when I would just in general, if I had to like give a characteristic to my sleeping at that time, I would say I wasn't sleeping very well. I wasn't sleeping very deeply. I wasn't staying asleep. I wasn't feeling all the, you know, the seven dwarfs of bad sleep, right? And like all those things were there. But you know what's funny, it's like in those times, and maybe this maybe this is murder and explorer all over again.

I don't know, but I can tell you that like, yeah, high 70s, 80s, like all night. Like in like my body's trying to sleep when my pulse is in the 70s and 80s. And you understand my my my wife like she's her she uh goes the other way. Her my pulse and blood pressure are are too high. Her bul pulse and blood pressure, she needs to watch the other direction. Right? Like I mean she's the kind of person that like she might like if she gets something like she's more likely to pass out than I am, not because she's a girl, but because her blood pressure is really a lot lower than mine. You couldn't pass me out if you tried. It's like trying to it's like it's like trying to anesthetize the Hulk. You know?

Just keep tearing out of my purple pants. I want to sleep. I gotta try harder to sleep. Oh god, it's getting worse, my pants are so tight. The egg popped out. Oh oh okay so in that so what I really wish though, Alex I don't know what this would be. Is this gonna be an E Ink display? Is this gonna I wanna weigh or like do you remember alarm clocks in the You won't remember this. But in the seventies and eighties, the kind of alarm clock you'd get for the thing of the kind of like well back before you actually I'm I'm old, but no, I don't like did you just flip and make a clack sound or was it all LEDs? No Yeah. This is back when they were like like train station clocks, you know. But there's also the LED ones.

It was such a big innovation in like the mid-90s when you could get the fancy ones that would shoot it up onto the ceiling so you could see the time on the ceiling. Right. What? What? Yeah, Billy had a lot of things. Oh my oh my god, that's cool. Especially those moments who try to do like sleep hygiene like sleep training for kids and saying like, well, you know You can have nursing nurses until the sun comes up. I probably shouldn't have said that. But like that was a good motivator. I'm so sorry. So baby, uh little baby, little baby, pretty cute baby, right? Uh understatement of the century. And the baby the baby really likes to get nurse and And and so mom eventually mom was like, listen, it's we're getting to that point.

We gotta start, you know, kind of winding this down. We're not gonna co-sleep and nursey nurse all night. Maybe mom sleeps with you in your bed sometimes, maybe eventually mom puts you to bed, and then eventually get to where like kids sleep in uh mostly on their own. I don't remember the exact but I what what I do remember very clearly wasn't we don't have can't have nursing nurses until the sun comes up. And so I'm now uh this is really getting really boring, so I'm just gonna end with two very cute examples of how little kids are. Just the right sink, just the right belt. Yep, it's like interviewing a child. And so what's funny though is sometimes words become other words because of the association.

And so nursy nursies. had a noise associated with it that the child would make to, you know, ask ask for like r you know, refill my glass, please. Yes, yes. But it also became the noise for what a rising sun meant. So the baby would look out the window and point at the sun and go because the sun was up and now it's time for nursing. Do you want to hear it? Can I tell you one more? This is so gay. Can I tell you another one? Please, please. The color red became associated with the color of a puppet we used to watch on TV named Elmo. And so when Billy wanted to say red, he'd go ha ha ha ha ha ha and Red and Elmo. Jacket jacket jacket. I don't know if you ever noticed this, but all the songs are jingle bells.

Did you know that? All the almost songs are all jacket jacket jacket jacket jacket. You're too old for Mr. Newton. Mr. Noodle. Uh no, I would have to mm tell an adult about that. What about Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle? Or what about Mr. Noodle's sister, uh, uh Mrs. Noodle, Ms. Noodle? No, no. I haven't been around noodles. What? No, no. Oh. I'm not a bomb thrower. I don't get the bit. I don't know what the noodles are. Nursy, nursy. Holy shit. I'm so sorry. raw transcript