Guide From The Perplexed
Episode 35: The Meditation Ultra Marathon: Exploring Vipassana with Special Guest Jessie Stettin
JD's younger brother Jesse is a guest on the show and shares about his experience from a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, where the focus was on building sensory awareness of physical sensations in the body. The retreat can be physically and mentally challenging, but can lead to feelings of gratitude, realization, and accomplishment. Jesse personally found that the retreat had a profound impact on them, leading to a fundamental shift in behavior.
0:03 Welcome Jesse Stettin to the show.
3:21 What is the Vipassana?
9:55 Did you get the daily schedule before you got there or was it a surprise?
16:50 What else do you do that many hours a day?
21:46 How has meditation impacted his day-to-day life?
25:47 What has changed in Jessie’s experience of life?
30:41 JD’s right turn in high school and the impact on his practice.
34:47 What was the defining moment in Jesse’s life when he made the left turn?
41:02 Sibling relationships are very different with a child.
JD's younger brother Jesse is a guest on the show and shares about his experience from a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, where the focus was on building sensory awareness of physical sensations in the body. The retreat can be physically and mentally challenging, but can lead to feelings of gratitude, realization, and accomplishment. Jesse personally found that the retreat had a profound impact on them, leading to a fundamental shift in behavior.
0:03 Welcome Jesse Stettin to the show.
3:21 What is the Vipassana?
9:55 Did you get the daily schedule before you got there or was it a surprise?
16:50 What else do you do that many hours a day?
21:46 How has meditation impacted his day-to-day life?
25:47 What has changed in Jessie’s experience of life?
30:41 JD’s right turn in high school and the impact on his practice.
34:47 What was the defining moment in Jesse’s life when he made the left turn?
41:02 Sibling relationships are very different with a child.
Take it away, J.D.
JD Stettin:Well, hello, everyone. We are back from our multi week hiatus. You got JD and Morty, your friends in perplexity. And this week we have another special guest in my blood brother, little brother, Jesse Stettin. It's fun to get to introduce him. There's obviously a lot of different things I could say and may say, as the conversation unfolds, Jesse, is an addition of my brother, a dear friend, long felt like a companion on various spiritual, philosophical paths. We've gone down together, separately, intertwining; we had a 10 year practice checking in with each other every Sunday. We do some writing and talking, and have been very involved in each other's lives, probably for more or less our whole lives, but certainly the last year now 17-18 years, in a very intentional sort of way. Jessie is definitely someone who lives intentionally, thinks intentionally, acts intentionally, and is always introducing me to great thinkers, ideas, practices, ways of being people. And so it is a pleasure to have him join our show and our conversation today. So welcome, Jesse.
Jesse Stettin:Thanks, JD, it is good to be here with the two of you in conversation, because for the last couple of months, I've been listening to your conversations. So it's fun to be a part of it.
Mordecai Rosenberg:One of our 10s of 1000s of loyal listeners.
JD Stettin:Yeah, the decimal place, it's not clear where you know, where the commas and the dots go in this one. And those of you listeners who may be seen or noticed, Morty and I have been leaning more towards having guests on the show and kind of expanding our conversation and spiritual journeys and requests and questions. And, you know, Jesse's a natural fit in so many ways. But part of the impetus for bringing him on recently is Jesse is well, at this point about a month back from his second 10 day silent the pasta retreat. And again, among a lot of other things, we could probably pick his brain and soul and on this show, that felt like a cool place for us to maybe kick things off a little bit. So, Jess, however you want to start No, this is this is your second retreat. If you want to talk about the first work backwards, give us an overview of what it even is for some of our listeners.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Maybe start with like, what is the Vipassana? You know, I have heard of it. I know that, Who is it, Jval, who's the...
JD Stettin:Yeah, Jval Noah Harari.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, exactly. So I heard about it first from an interview that he did, the book, remind me of the name of his book,
JD Stettin:Sapiens
Mordecai Rosenberg:Exactly.
JD Stettin:Yeah,
Mordecai Rosenberg:Right. But I'm really not sure. I'm not sure exactly what it is. So what is the Vipassana to start with?
Jesse Stettin:So the Vipassana, as I understand it, have experienced that is, it's a style of meditation, that the people who practice this style of meditation claim that this is the purest sort of Buddhist style of meditation. This was the style and the practice that the Buddha came up with while meditating under a tree that was the key to ending suffering and the key to enlightenment. And I say that they claim it's that because I've also heard other styles of meditation claim that that's the purest sort of Buddhist style of meditation. And that what makes the Vipassana meditation, I think unique, or one of the elements that makes it unique is it's very much focused on experiential understanding, particularly of the ever changing nature of reality, which leads people to the feeling of equanimity. And I'll dive into those different elements of it as well. One of the sort of key elements of Vipassana meditation that the Buddha discovered was, we can philosophically and intellectually talk about how everything in nature is changing moment to moment, and therefore we shouldn't feel attached to anything because everything that we have in love will be gone and a short period of time and every sort of pain and worry will go away and all the good things that we hoped for in life will eventually disappear. The Buddha realize that understanding something intellectually and understanding it experientially are two different things. And if we want to really understand the fact that everything in life is changing moment to moment, and therefore, sort of relinquish the attachments that we have the attachments to the good and the aversions to the bad that we actually have to experience that in our body. And so the style of Vipassana s it's a people say is like, it's an intense style of meditation, whereby you sit for one hour at a time, sort of after the first three days, and I'll talk about the meditation retreat as a whole. But the style of Vipassana is sitting at an hour at a time, and doing a bit of a body scan, meditation, so feeling subtle sensations in your body, and moving from head to toe, and part by part, and really feeling the physical sensations that come up as you focus your attention on the different elements. And you sit for an hour without moving your posture for that full hour. And so sort of naturally, what happens is you feel or I felt many sensations that are not pleasurable when you sit for an hour and can move your posture because you feel lots of pain, aching in knees, and back and neck. And the idea being you build a practice of paying attention to the subtleties in those negative sensations, those painful moments, and notice them and then move on to the next part of your body. And in that process, what you end up realizing is the painful sensations and the pleasant sensations are all changing quite quickly. And through that body experience of recognizing that ooh, this pain in my knee or this itch that's on my nose that I feel like I just need to scratch it, actually in a few seconds or maybe a few minutes. It goes away and it changes and it's sort of an experiential practice of the emotional attachments or versions that we have sort of transforming oneself from the inside out. The goal is you end up experiencing life in a much more a quantumness level headed way. And sort of relinquishing the power of the attachments or the aversions.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Wow, an hour of sitting, that's impressive.
JD Stettin:Now wait, if you think an hour of sitting is impressive, let me tell you about the structure of the 10 day retreat.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yes, please
Jesse Stettin:Right, the Vipassana style is this hour, the retreat. And this is sort of the intro retreat to the past Center is a 10 day silent meditation retreat, whereby you're spending about 10 to 11 hours a day in this style of meditation. The day is run as you wake up at 4am, Meditation
starts 4:30. You meditate from 4:30 to 6:30, a break for breakfast, you then meditate for another couple of hours, sort of in hour long increments with some breaks in between, you have lunch at 11. And then you meditate for the rest of the afternoon. There is no dinner served; if it's one's first meditation repast on a retreat, and you can eat a really light snack in the evening. But otherwise, mealtime is done at
11:30am. And then in the evening, the pleasure point of the experience is you got to listen to a lecture by S.N. Goenka, who sort of popularized the Vipassana meditation from the 70s into the early 2000s. The only time of your day where you're really taking in any content, which is another element of the meditation retreat that is so profound is 10 days of no content, no writing, no reading, certainly no technology, no formal exercise, like really nothing other than meditating, eating two meals a day, and for me, it was walking during the breaks walking in the forest.
Mordecai Rosenberg:And is it a silent meditation where you can talk to people? Is that 10 days? are you silent for the retreat?
Jesse Stettin:Yeah, it's good question. Yeah, you're silent for the full 10 days on the last day, you break silence. So for the last day, you get to talk to other people on the retreat. But otherwise, you're completely silent other than you can schedule interviews with some of the assistant teachers so you get up to five minutes a day that you can talk to one of the assistant teachers if you have a question about the practice or about the sort of philosophical framework of this style of meditation, but otherwise, you're in complete silence for for the 10 day period and are instructed to also for sure have your eyes toward anyone so no, no communication with others, because yeah, there are more ways to communicate than just verbally.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Did you get the schedule the daily schedule before you got there? Surprise When you arrived?
Jesse Stettin:I've gotten the schedule before I got there. But I guess just like the meditation intellectualizing the schedule and experiencing the schedule are two different things. So I knew what was planned. And yet how it was going to feel was certainly a surprise. The first time and the second time around, even three years later, I think with so many practices, it's as much about the practice as it is where one is philosophically mentally, spiritually at the time. So that 2, 10 day retreats three years apart, felt very different, even though everything down to the menu was exactly the same.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So what's the longest sitting that you're doing on the reteat?
Jesse Stettin:So the longest sitting you're doing is an hour at a time with like, five and a break, and then you rejoin for another hour or five minute break, rejoin for another hour. So it's about the longest stretch, is three hours in hour long increments, with five minutes breaks in between?
JD Stettin:How many hour long? sittings a day are there?
Jesse Stettin:Yes, it's about 10 hour long sitting today. 10 to 11, depending on the day.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I've never gone on a meditation retreat, and in theory be like, Oh, well, it'd be so awesome to go away for like 10 days and meditation. But then I'm thinking about like, 10 hours sitting a day. Like that's crazy. Doesn't sound like any fun.
Jesse Stettin:It's funny coming back to work after the retreat, similar people like, Oh, you were on retreat for 10 days, you must feel so refreshed. I wouldn't categorize the experiences feeling refreshed. And you coming back? It's like 1000s of hours of therapy pushed into a 10 day period, because yeah, there's no escaping one's mind when there.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, so let's talk. Let's talk first about I want to hear about the comparison. But let's talk about the first retreat to start it. So you go away for the 10 days, what is your experience of that, even though it's 10 days, it's one hour at a time, and then you get to the end? First of all, I mean, you probably feel accomplished that you've done it. But what were some of the feelings, realizations or states coming out of that?
Jesse Stettin:I'll say for the first time was a much easier time than second time, for me. And I do think a lot of that had to do with just the years preceding the first time felt like they were less heavy years in my life than than the last few. And I mean, in the world and and then in my life as well, the last few years have been felt much more intense. So the first time around, the sitting was really tough, physically tough and sort of mentally tough to work through the pain of sitting for hours on end. But the times off of the mat, the other hours of the day felt really lovely and beautiful. I felt a lot of gratitude coming out of that experience, too. I had no idea what it was gonna be like to experience so much time just in my own head. And especially as someone who I think, from an identity standpoint, and from a how I spend my time, is very tied to relationships and to other people and to sort of social elements of my life. I fill my time with others quite often, and I had no idea that it was going to be pleasant or unpleasant to be spending all this time alone. And the first time around, it was very pleasant. I guess we'll get to the second time around a bit later. But it was less pleasant the second time. And I think what I found is really interesting and valuable of having so much dedicated time away from all distractions, it's time focused on the distractions that are in one's mind. So there's no distractions from the distractions, if that makes sense. And I think the second time around there, there were just a lot of things that were swirling in my mind related to life, career, relationships that I have, and there were times when I was on my walks, or oftentimes when I was meditating and trying to focus on another small space in between my eyes as the like center point, and then move on to my nose and my mouth and so on, where my mind was wandering, and without any distractions of music, or books or movies or conversations, found that my mind could be sort of spiraling on this one topic for an hour on it, which is, I found to be sometimes like, quite exhausting. And yet I think so far in the experiences that we've had the first and the second time of exhaustion it to me it's felt like it's kind of a good thing. Some of the questions that were swirling in my mind are like, Oh, should I do this? Or should I do that? Like I spent 30 minutes convincing myself that this is the thing the right thing to do going forward, and then spent 30 minutes convincing myself that it was this other thing and then realizing at the end that neither are necessarily the right way forward. And they're probably both the right way forward. And actually exhausting those options or those ideas without interruptions allowed me to play them out to the full extreme, and then realize that I had no idea whether this was gonna be good or bad, whatever the decision was, and even my evaluation of good or bad was constructed without that and a real value behind it, I was only able to see that after letting the mind run its course without interruptions.
Mordecai Rosenberg:And then oh, shoot, I supposed to be paying attention to my breath.
Jesse Stettin:Exactly. Which is, which is a humbling experience, we're being reminded time and time again, how hard that can actually be.
JD Stettin:Well, I had some moments, the over the last few weeks where I've been going to peace house to meditate with the the monks there and sitting and feeling really good. And like I'm able to drop in a little faster. And as with many things, practice allows for certain things to happen with ease. Many of the times like a settle in notice, okay, and I'm focusing on my breath a little bit, obviously, my mind's going where it's going. I had this thought a couple of times since Jesse came back, where I would catch myself feeling like oh, you know, this is actually really comfortable and pleasant and fun. And like, Yes, I'm not focusing on my breath and having this thought about how nice this is, but I'm actually like, really enjoying sitting and slowing down and okay, my mind isn't focused on my breath. But it's, it's focused a bit more, it's one or two thoughts at a time, not 17. And then this switch of, I've probably been sitting here for about 30 minutes. Jesse was doing this for an hour at a time for 10 hours a day, for 10 days. Like that. Just the kind of Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of what else I mean, meditation aside, what else do you do or have any of us done that many hours a day that many days in a row? And I suppose I mean, one of the answers that came to my mind when I was having this thought was oh, work, but work isn't for most of us. I think work it ebbs and flows a change even if you work 12 or 16 hours a day. To me, it doesn't feel like quite the exact same thing. You're talking to different people you're interacting email, phone, you know, a cup of coffee, there's there's a certain hustle bustle, but to really do the same practice. I don't know maybe like virtuosic instrument players or artists can be said really do that. But in my life anyway, my I couldn't think of anything quite like, it.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, I guess like Tom would study in the Shiva like,
JD Stettin:that's the same thing all day.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It was like the same thing all day. In conversation with others, right? Totally. Yeah, maybe just as painful as meditation. Exactly.
Jesse Stettin:And I will say that, so the breakout of, just to give a little bit more context on the 10 days to that. So it's sort of divided into two sections, there's the first three days and the next seven days. And the first three days, just you may think of this JT, as you were talking about really doing like one thing sort of on end, the first three days is the most extreme version of that, the goal of the first three days is to build our sensory awareness of the sensations in our body. And the way to do that is not actually to scan the whole body and to try and feel different parts. It's really to try and feel sort of the like that your breath coming out and going in on the one inch space underneath your nostrils and above your upper lip. So for the first three days, the first 30 hours, the whole focus is actually just on trying to get that one sensation, experience time and time again, the next seven days when you're first starting and your head and then you feel your ear and then your forehead and then your nose and your mouth that feels even, like exciting relative to the first three days when really, all of your focus is supposed to be on this very small part of your body and the sensation, the physical sensations on that part. So yeah, so the first three days to me feel even more concentrated on like a solitary singular experience. The rest of the seven yes becomes like exciting to focus on your left elbow, again.
Mordecai Rosenberg:If it's something where you do that, in theory, you go one time you learn to practice and that's it or like, transcendental, you go three days or four days in a row, they give you your mantra, and then you're like off to the races? Or is it something that In theory you're supposed to go back to and some regularity, just occasionally to recharge.
Jesse Stettin:Yeah, the intention is that once one does a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat that they'll then spend two hours a day, every day practicing, that's one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening. And then those who are more serious students or want to incorporate even more into their life will continue to either do 10 Day or after two years, of doing it every day for two hours a day, you could then sort of level up and do a 20 day, and then a month and then a two month long and then I think there's even a three month long. I know you've all know Harari talks about how he'll do 45 and 60 day paths and retreats. So he'll do two months on end. And I think good talks about the fact that the only reason why he was able to write a book like Sapiens, and that he can think in such broad ways about the experience that humanity has gone through, is because he spent these two months in silence and that he can actually has built the capacity to follow his own, like bodily experience of living and therefore we can think about this in a more broad way. That's the intention. I'll say, for me, I did it three years ago, I kept up with it for a few weeks after that point. hadn't done it again until a month ago. And then actually, within a week of coming back from the most recent Vipassana meditation, I sort of made the conscious decision to not keep practicing it on a day to day basis, but plan to go and do these 10 Day retreats on every year, every year and a half regularity.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So how would you say it's impacted your day to day life in terms of reactivity? I've been practicing meditation for several years, the longest stretch of had me I probably have gone 18 months meditating most days, but then it'll you know, it'll drop it'll be occasional, but certainly a few times a week, when I started meditating, whenever it was 70 years ago, right? There's this promise of, okay, when you start meditating like, then you'll, you'll be happier and you won't be reactive, and you'll be able to just watch the anger come and you'll not be pulled into it. I remember I started with headspace. The very first intro video it gave us example of you know, watching traffic pass, sit, imagine like being able to be on the sidelines, just watching the traffic go like you're in watching your thoughts pass like that, as opposed to being in the middle of the traffic. Now, I can also say that eight years later, I think the reactivity is lower, but it's still very much there. I still, you know, do get upset. There are things that will trigger me that I wish wouldn't. Just so what's your experience, but as far as the impact of the meditation, right? And and also just say that, I recognize that I feel like well always definitely see how far we are from the ideal. It's harder to appreciate how far we've come from our starting point; we're always going to be a little negatively biased, potentially about our own progress.
Jesse Stettin:Well, one of the things I think that's interesting about our my experience at the Vipassana, is, in the first time of doing it, the first retreat, there was this quite fundamental shift, and I think JD knows about this. So for 20 years of my life, I cannot stop biting my nails. And it's a thing that I think many people experience and oftentimes, it's rooted to, I don't know, childhood anxiety or nervousness or, and I couldn't figure out what it was what it was from. I tried everything. I'm gonna try it like clear nail polish that tasted bad. I'm sort of the I think the method that people use, like when they don't want their dogs to chew things you like spray hot, hot sauce are hot, you know, hot pepper on something. I tried putting band aids on my fingers. I tried to intellectualize like it's, I think, I mean, I never felt good about it. And like not a very hygienic habit, three days into the first Vipassana retreat. I didn't go in with this intention. But I just noticed, I was like, huh, I haven't been biting my nails for the last couple of days. And now it's four years, three and a half years later. And the idea of biting my nails seems so foreign to me, and I haven't done it since. And I can't pinpoint like a moment where something changed or that I had this one memory and it was the memory when I first started biting my nails but something happened in the first Vipassana retreat. And in my experience in both of Vipassanas is memories that I don't consciously think about often came sort of flooding back at different times during the Vipassana retreat and memories of all of all sorts. So my thought is that perhaps whatever moment was the first moment that I started biting my nails that memory came up in the Vipassana retreat and I didn't, in that moment feel whatever anxiety or stress that I had when I was five years old that caused me to start biting my nails, and sort of work through it sort of in the way I think, you know, it's talked about with people who experience one of the treatments for PTSD is like, actually sudo experienced what you experienced, but without the danger of it and that's I think some of the research and why psychedelics with PTSD can be very helpful or psychedelics and therapy in general can be helpful is because you can go to that memory, but without the pain of it associated, that was like this fundamental shift. And again, it seems perhaps like a minor one, I don't know that biting my nails greatly impacted my life to this point. But it was a very tangible change. And a change that I wasn't necessarily trying to work on. Some of the more maybe like qualitative experiences of life that I think have shifted is I have felt that the first time I did Vipassana three and a half years ago, and then to this moment, that attachment to things has definitely diminished; attachment to their attachment to trying to hold on to things, anything in life, as well as a version, which is sort of an attachment in reverse of being attached to this thing about happening has softened. I find it just tough and I don't know if it's the same for you two, but in listening to your podcast that sounds like it might be and certainly no one JD very well is the three of us are probably we're trying a lot of different things at the same time. So it's not a perfect scientific experiment. So yes, I did this Vipassana, and I've also tried other things and different styles of medication and different readings, and so on. So it feels tough to really be able to pinpoint it to the Vipassana, but it does seem like the Vipassana meditation practice and just going through that retreat, and even being a terrible student and not keeping up with it over time, that attachment to things both sort of emotional and philosophical and even from a physical sensation pain standpoint, I feel like I can sit with pain much more. And actually, you know, one of the things I talked about in the Vipassana retreat is if you really focus on the sensation of pain, whatever physical pain you're having, you can recognize that it is changing moment to moment. So a headache isn't the same second to second. First, it's you know, above your right temple, then it moves over and inch, then it comes back, then it's throbbing, then it's sharp pain, then you feel like heat sensation, and all these things are happening and yet the learned human response is I have this broad categorization of a headache, or a knee pain or back pain, and I just want it to be gone. But through the Vipassana style, it's actually I'm just gonna pay attention to what I'm physically feeling and not create this big story of this is a headache and I take an Advil, I need it to go away. And the more that we actually pay attention to it, the more we can recognize this sort of granularity and the experience. And then it's not to say it doesn't feel painful, but the suffering of the pain isn't quite there. And then it's somewhat interesting. It's like interesting to explore the pain. It doesn't become pleasant in my experience, but it doesn't have that same quality of suffering. And I think that that has sort of continued over the last three years, even though I haven't I haven't practiced it very much.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Congratulations, good accomplishment.
JD Stettin:When Jesse was describing some of the pathway of the meditation of kind of settling in and noticing sensation in different parts of your body reminds me of a practice that we did a couple of weeks ago on a different kind of retreat that Jesse and I went on. A lot more fun that crosses almost any metric, but it's sort of a wilderness mindfulness, survival ish retreat. And one of the practices there, which they weave into a lot of their programming, is sitting outdoors in stillness and kind of the practice that Jessie was describing inward, turning that a little bit outward and really settling in and noticing without moving your head: so sit and sit or stand in some comfortable way up against the tree is often how this is recommended. And just kind of let what's going on in the world outside of you wash over you and it much in the same way as I think doing internal body scans of okay checking with my head do I notice is there a pain? Is there a tightness in my holding tension? Your eyes roam your field of vision, and you notice, okay, is there anything out there in those trees? Oh, actually see a little bit of movement. Oh, that's a couple of birds. No, those aren't birds. Those are squirrels. That's a squirrel nest, you know, and all these things just come alive and much like the body. And you know, Jessie talking about the pain that it moves, you notice it here and there, the natural, I mean, the world around us everything is also constantly moving. And much in the same way that I think internally as we slow down and quiet and notice these things or give space for them to arise, we notice more and more and more, we found that to I think my experience is being out there and doing these sorts of sit spot meditations, can really start to hear the trees moving, and you can smell when the winds blowing in a different direction. And maybe now you're getting a little bit of a, I don't know, like a mustier tang from a pile of decaying leaves that have been blown over but whatever it is, and kind of like Jesse was saying, sometimes it's not necessarily pleasant, but it's more interesting. At the very least, it's a really interesting way of relating to the rest of the world to and a kind of, you know, as within so without or, you know, vice versa. There's something really cool about that as, as a practice, as well. And especially in the winter, when you know, sitting and not moving in the mountains, the cold one notices the cold a lot as well. And some of the loss of sensation or tingling. And of course, that's you know, not a joke, you have to be careful when you're out in the winter but but there is also something to just sitting somewhere where you know, you're safe, you're comfortable, you're in your yard, whatever it is, you're not going to freeze to death and just experiencing the cold and those sensations.
Mordecai Rosenberg:All very interesting. If it's okay, I want to switch gears just because I have the benefit of having two Stettin brothers on the line. Yeah, we've got you know, it'd be we have 10 plus minutes left of discussion. So I'm curious JD had a kind of an interesting, right turn or left turn right in high school, right? Even though you guys were grew up in a, you know, Orthodox upbringing, your orthodox practice, right at some point, or he realized it didn't jive with his, you know, with where he wanted to go. JD's the oldest of Stettin children, adults now, but I'm wondering about like the impact, you know, because I know like, for me, there are certain times I'm also the oldest in my family, I have seven younger siblings, it's natural for younger siblings to look up to older siblings. And there were certain things that I can remember, you know, where, you know, I changed force, and it was upsetting or disappointing or confusing to like, younger siblings. So I'm curious about what your experience was with that, if you if you remember,
Jesse Stettin:I can definitely remember and like have actually some some quite vivid memories of conversations that JD and I had at the time, I think that at the time that JD maybe made that sharp left turn, I think it was quite upsetting to me. So I was five years, or I am five years younger, or as JD, the older sibling would say, five and a half years younger. I remember I was about 10 years old, 11 years old. And it was both upsetting and frightening. I would say as like a 10-11 year old to see to see someone go so against the grain of everything that I had been taught was sort of the truth and the right way. And I remember it was it was very worrisome. So like, I remember this one car ride that JD and I took together when sort of he where he shared, why he was acting differently and not practicing the things that he was practicing in the past. And I mean, one of the things that I've always just so appreciated about JD and about our relationship is that he shared so much with me that it wasn't, it didn't seem like it was he was just trying to hide things or protect me from it. He was going to tell me, you know, what was going on and what he was thinking and feeling and experiencing. And it was at the time it was quite Yeah, it was quite worrisome. Like I remember thinking, Oh, my God, JD is like ruining this life for himself and the afterlife for himself and the decisions that he's making. And being really worried about that as, as a as a 10 year old.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I still worry about that for JD.
Jesse Stettin:I worry about maybe the current life but not the after life anymore. But I think I mean to this day, and I you know, I've expressed it to JD in the past and probably can never stress it enough but just an immense feeling of gratitude that I have. You know, he was the trailblazer in exploring a new path in our family at the time, which I think though upsetting in the moment opened up a world of possible abilities that I didn't know existed are roles of ways of walking through life that just I would never have experienced, I think, if not for JD, sort of being bold and brave and making that change. And then you know, as I mentioned before being so open with me as a younger brother about his thoughts, his feelings and introducing me to so much at such a what I felt like formative time in my life. You know, JD had introduced me to like Eckhart Tolle when I was 14 years old. So I was reading that stuff, or Marcus Aurelius meditations, and was sort of constructing a worldview at an age when I think for other people I've talked to as an age of like solidifying sort of what they've learned in life and in their families. JD was actually helping me do the opposite. He was broadening this perspective of different ways different, you know, maybe equally beautiful ways to live life that were so different from one another that I got to experience at such a young age, and just feel, yeah, just feel like incredibly lucky to have had that as part of, like, teenage years.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Beautiful. What year did you make that left turn?
Jesse Stettin:Man, I guess I like I remember the first cheeseburger I if that's like the defining moments of the left turn, or the first.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I'm not sure if that is the defining moment. Sometimes, you know, like, that's what you know, you could be in ninth grade and have a smoke cigarettes behind the bowling alley in Muncie and have a cheeseburger but doesn't necessarily define you. So I've heard you know, that can just be like a momentary rebellion, or it can be a left turn.
Jesse Stettin:Do you think for me, they did coincide. So there wasn't a lot of rebellion without ideological backing behind the rebellion for me. Yeah. So somewhere between 14 and 15, I would say so freshman year, Yeshiva University High School was the time that ideologically and philosophically made the left turn, and then spent the next three and a half years in high school making that left turn, but it being a tough place to make that left turn.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, JD, how did that feel when you saw Jesse going down that path, like, sometimes, again, like as an older sibling, will to say Do as I say, not, as I do, is not exactly accurate. But it's like, alright, like, I'll be the rebel, but I don't want to impact my sibling force. How did that feel for you? Were you excited? Were you nervous? Anything come up for you?
JD Stettin:What I remember is being excited to share the things that I was excited about with my family. And when I was excited about, you know, a life of halacha Rabbinic Judaism, I was I was excited to share that and stories and ideas and laws and fiduciary, and all kinds of things. And I think when I felt like I had liberated my, my mind and heart, I was excited to share that as well. I think in a lot of ways to our parents credit, in their own special in different ways. I do think they very much raised us, or at least I feel, felt like I was raised with this ability and strength and courage to do what I felt was the right thing, even if it was unpopular, or difficult. So yeah, I think that helped carry me through this. And I don't think I was so worried and that is to say, do the right thing, or do what follow the path of heart, and not maybe be overly worried with the consequences. And I think, to me, that helped me feel or enabled me to feel really good about just sharing what was alive, what was the path of heart for me at any at any given moment. So I don't think it was on a mission to necessarily like jailbreak either of my siblings from from orthodoxy. But at the same time, I was sort of like, kind of, like, try these ideas and thinkers and things on for size. I think they're exciting and interesting, and they'll either work or not for you. And I think that was true even before that, whether again, religious texts or otherwise, but sophomore year of high school. One of the books we read in English class was Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London , which to this day, I maintain is one of the best pieces of writing in the English language and I've read it probably about 15 times and recommend it to everyone but I got you know, Jessie that that book, when he was probably only nine and I was still I was still religious and that that book is it's many things, but it has it's definitely not pro religion in any way, shape or form. But I shared that even from the depth of my form type because I thought the ideas were interesting and important. And again, full of full of heart. So yeah, I think that was just sort of always my way with my siblings and my my dear ones, and the fact that I was doing something that was more radical or questionable in our community didn't change that for me. Although I think as it progressed, as I got further and further from those traditions, I think at that point, I did start to take more of a delight in kind of leaving my my siblings astray. As it were, I mean, God, I brought Jesse to like college parties and concerts and bars when he was like, 13 or 14. May I, you know, I was, I was definitely guilty of all that and more.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Sibling relationships, you know, you kind of recognize that each person, your sibling has their own life, ultimately, they're responsible for their own decisions. I think with a with a child, it is very different. Yeah, me, I think you kind of feel responsible for everything, you know, and I feel like it's not I feel like that doesn't even stop when they're grown and adults, you know, it's like you still, if they're going through a tough time, it's like you've you feel it in your guts, you're like, and you feel like, Oh, well, is there anything I couldn't have done or can do? It's really, I think it's really beautiful a friendship that you guys have. And I also think it's not common to be close with a sibling. I mean, I'm very close with my siblings. I don't know that I could live with them. Your journey is not only spiritual, philosophical, you also had geographic journeys together.
JD Stettin:So sure, that's for sure. But you do you have worked with your siblings as well, so we've got the that. We all have that.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. In fact, we've all worked together. Back on the 53rd floor of Carnegie Hall tower, the glory days, it was fun. That was fun.
JD Stettin:Those were rich times, in a lot of ways, very busy, very full, different pace of life, I think, than any of us maybe lead currently. My understanding of your lives and my own anyway, but yeah, that was those those were, those are the days as they, as they say.
Mordecai Rosenberg:You guys should have should appreciate what you what you have to you know, it's probably it's easy for you to know it, you guys have talked about it. But it's easy also to take it for granted, when you're seeing each other all the time. So it's a guess it's been really, really fun. And it's a beautiful thing to see your friendship and love and appreciation for each other.
JD Stettin:Thank you. And maybe as an end note, loosely quoting something Jesse said, when he got back from the second Vipassana, a month ago, one of the things and you know, Jesse obviously jump in and clarify. But one of the things I remember you saying was, and I don't know exactly all the reflections, and obviously, you know, 100 plus hours of sitting there with your own thoughts, but that in this most recent iteration of kind of living together being the same city, etc. You felt like focused on making sure that I was okay and doing my thing, and you were okay, but hadn't really appreciated or take the time to celebrate like Morty just like, oh, it's pretty cool. We're like, grown brothers are like choosing, among many other options and ways, and you know, it's not something we need to do. Neither of us needs roommates at this point in our lives, but choosing to live together and kind of really taking time and space to be like, Whoa, that's, that's pretty cool. And I remember that coming out of this, the second the Vipassana . And the last thing I'll say on that subject is, we did have something not quite the same, but have a model from this from our grandparents. Both sides, actually, our father's father was quite close with his brother. They lived in different cities, but for a long time to actually live in the same house. For many years that was in Montreal, I mean, different life, you know, after the war and everything but our grandmother, our mother's mother, as well. She spoke to one of her sisters every single night of her life that a nightly phone call.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Genetic.
JD Stettin:That's right. That's right. A little bit of genes and yeah, that just the model of it. And I think even though maybe ironically, or not ironically, our parents have more troubled relationships with their respective siblings or lack of whatever it is, and that that's a whole other topic. But you know, the joke of it skips a generation but, there was there was the is always in the air for us. I think, bro, that that the sibling relationship is a very important one. And I think we all chose to embrace that. Right. There are a lot of messages from childhood, some of which we shouldn't clearly have ignored. But that felt felt like when we all rallied around and sort of feels alive.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, you know, you'd appreciate this that NMHC conferences next week. Sure. The Multifamily Housing Conference, I have a bunch of brothers that are going to be there. Donnie and Jonathan and Judah. We are going to split a couple of rooms. Yeah, just yeah, just take the Yeah, just brothers. Yeah. So just for a couple of days.
JD Stettin:That is that is so that is so cool. What a, man. That's, that's gonna be a good conference.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, yeah. It's in Vegas. So that would have been, that would have been fine, like 15 years ago.
JD Stettin:Now, it's now it's just inconvenient and loud.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's like, hey, look, it's better at 10 o'clock. All right. Well, Stettins. This was really, it's a really fun, A iprivilege. So thank you, Jesse, for joining and for sharing your wisdom.
Jesse Stettin:Thank you. Thank you both for the conversation was most, most lovely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Very good. Until next time, JD
JD Stettin:Till next time, stay perplexed everyone.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Won't be hard for me. Bye, guys.
JD Stettin:Bye