9. The Compulsion to Create: Tackling Inhibitions and Discovering Artistic Freedom

Ever wonder what it truly means to embark on a creative journey? Do the fears and insecurities that often masquerade as a need for 'optimal conditions' sound familiar to you? This podcast episode is an open exploration into the labyrinth of creativity, where we unpack personal experiences of struggling to find the right time to launch our passion projects, and the psychological barriers that hold us back. We challenge the traditional linear ranking of artists, discuss how it stifles creativity, and share personal narratives about overcoming our fears and insecurities. 

There's a raw, unfiltered discussion about the motivations behind creating art, how pure intentions can often get muddled, and how external factors like financial security can influence the drive to create. We take personal anecdotes from our own lives, and even draw examples from the life of Kurt Cobain, to discuss the concept of compulsion in art, asking ourselves: Can financial security hinder an artist's drive to create? We share insights on how art can be therapeutic, the importance of detachment from the outcome, and the transformative potential of meaningful projects. 

We round off this episode by sharing tips and strategies to push through discomfort and take the first step of your creative journey. Hear us talk about overcoming doubts, embracing compulsion, and letting go of preconceived expectations. We share stories of inspiration, the power of productive conversations, and the importance of starting small and letting ideas flow freely. This is not just about creating art; it's a journey of self-discovery, growth, and finding your unique voice in a world that often seeks to mold us into something we're not. So come along, let's explore, let's create, and let's conquer our fears together.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Show Notes:

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin - https://sites.prh.com/thecreativeact

Henry Miller book - title coming soon

Townes Van Zandt - https://townesvanzandt.com/

Kurt Cobain Books - https://bit.ly/41i1mdD

Jean-Michel Basquiat - https://www.basquiat.com/

Stutz - https://www.netflix.com/title/81387962

Teo Crawford Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWf395XFeGA

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Links To Everything:

Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT

Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT

Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT

Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT

Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG

Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer and summer.

Speaker 2: 0:13

There's this feeling that we're at a period in time that is important to capture through the mediums that we appreciate for some reason or another. There's important things. Is that just a general thing that's always true? Is that something that, when your gut tells you that you have to follow it, when is the right time to create something and when is that just you falling into the trap of Kicking?

Speaker 1: 0:59

the can. I think a lot of this comes from just to continue to add to the context Us having conversations about some overlapping projects and then projects where maybe the medium has overlap but the project itself doesn't. We're not collaborating on the project, and the one project that comes to mind is a documentary film we both worked on and shot for three or four days. Other than prepping, having the project prepped, footage logged, interviews logged, all that stuff Not one clip has been put in the timeline to start telling a story. The common refrain for me and a lot of my passion project pursuits that are especially a much bigger undertaking is I have to wait until the conditions are optimal to really commit to that We've had conversations.

Speaker 2: 1:55

I think we're both like that in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1: 1:58

You were just talking about a photography project that's been haunting you. For what?

Speaker 2: 2:04

We've been talking about that one 18 months, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 2:10

And everything from us wanting to get out more, just doing street photography sessions in downtown Omaha to getting up in early morning and driving to some small town in Iowa or Nebraska and seeing where the day takes us through photography, we know that we really want to do that stuff as much as possible. But then the forces in our lives that we respond to and react to tend to squelch that, and I think sometimes it can be something as simple as man. It's a lot of work to get up early or whatever, or a coordinator, so sometimes it's just easier to stay in the couch or stay in bed or just hang out with your family. That's one force.

Speaker 2: 2:56

I take that last part as a shot. This is me too.

Speaker 1: 3:00

How many times has it?

Speaker 2: 3:01

been like that. We've gotten to the point where I'll say something and Matt's like that's night, alex, talking that's nighttime, alex.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Let's wait till morning, alex. It has this dose of reality. So back to the documentary project I have expressed, because my brain perceives of that project as such a huge undertaking and the way that I optimally would work is, once I started it, I would want it to be sort of my full time commitment, day in and day out, until I have something to show For me, even though I know intellectually, emotionally, that I could chip away at it. I could say, just work on it two hours a week and eventually you'd probably be kind of done by now if you had done that two plus years ago. Right, but and maybe it's a mechanism that I create, because there's something about that project I fear. Maybe it's going to show that I'm really not a good storyteller and if I fail at telling that story, it's going to confirm my fears.

Speaker 1: 4:06

You know we can get into all that, but I sit there and go. I need this much money in my bank account. I need this much work lined up through my YouTube channel. I need this much security in my life to feel like I can take two weeks off from the grind of making YouTube videos for my final cut channel and taking client work or going on a shoot with a local filmmaker to operate a camera or whatever to generate quick revenue. I need to have these conditions in order to set all that aside and just focus on cranking out an edit of this in two weeks and moving forward with it. But then I will, you know, start the second channel and work on these videos. That are much less of a time commitment to go out and do the photographs, to go out and get the video, to sit down and edit, to pick the music, all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 5:02

You're probably looking at two days from start to finish, you know, like two, let's say, 10 hour work days from shooting photo video, editing it and putting it up on my YouTube channel, which is less of a time commitment, but not. But if you add up all the time that I've spent on the 1211 videos that are on the channel, you could argue, if you had dedicated that time to this documentary project, you'd be halfway finished, or and I mean with like a good, rough edit halfway finished, or you'd have a rough editor or whatever. So you know. So when is the best time to start a project, or you know, like the question you posed at the beginning, why, at least for me, am I creating all these conditions that have to be present to actually make the art, to make the thing?

Speaker 1: 5:54

And I think this could, for me, from my point of view, get into like deep psychological stuff. Like this would probably sound like a therapy session, not that you would be the therapist, but that I would be. I would be saying things and then maybe the therapist would be pushing back going Well, what are you afraid of?

Speaker 2: 6:12

or is you know what?

Speaker 1: 6:12

I mean all that stuff and I'd be unpacking sort of that, that core psyche that's at the center of what makes me decide to do something creative or artistic. That isn't part of this commerce thing, because there's no thought with this documentary project in the short term that like, oh, we're going to sell it, we're going to get it into Sundance or I'm going to sell it to whatever, as a short documentary we're going to win an Academy Award. You know, there's no thinking of that. It could just be something that you and I make and submit to some film festivals and it goes nowhere, probably would be and probably would be, whereas stuff from my YouTube channel, I think every time I make a video I make money, it gets ad revenue, I could get a sponsorship deal and it gets me closer to that financial security that then allows me to give myself permission to be an artist part time.

Speaker 2: 7:07

It's almost like the reverse Ponzi scheme of that. It's like you're fighting this. You just create another video and it does well, and then you have to write another one because you're not there yet. And it's one of the biggest things that I you know, the person that's trying to make something has to overcome is when is it a good time to? Most people can even start like we started.

Speaker 2: 7:41

Yeah the Ted Snow, but maybe it's just seeing something through, and I think the issue with that is we. We see, at least this is prevalent in American culture is we've created this stupid ranking.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Of these best artists.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Right.

Speaker 2: 8:02

And there's nobody who. It's just so rare to find somebody who's willing to talk about it in the way of this person's my favorite artist, because this is what I see, and some people have favorite artists, but usually it's more to serve that. Look how different I am. Because this person's my favorite artist. There's not a lot of genuine.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Yeah, this differentiates me from her yeah, oh, I've got a. Yeah, I'm different. And that's.

Speaker 2: 8:28

You know, you can. You could argue that they're not truly liking that artist for their work. It's more, there's something else.

Speaker 1: 8:36

There's a result that they get from artificially, like that artist and but side.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Getting back to that main point, like we've created this dumb linear ranking and I think not to get too much into it. You know the therapy thing, but you know, I think we because I see this in myself where we try, we're afraid to put anything out into the world because, well, that's going to write my image and that's going to change my brand, that's going to, that's not. I'm a genius, the world needs to know that, but this isn't going to reflect that. And then you get a lot of people who just never put anything out because they're all. Everybody in the United States is a secret genius that's just trying. You know they don't, they're never going to criticize it, they're never going to criticize the way of thinking.

Speaker 2: 9:25

Because if I wanted to be Martin Scorsese, I could be Martin Scorsese. I just don't want to. Yeah, well, you know, put you don't, don't try to be genius, don't try to be Martin Scorsese, just try to be. You know I should just be focused on being Alex. Yeah, focus on being Alex Carter, focus on putting out that his work, what, what is your vision of the world? Why is that different? Not because. Why is that different? Because I want people to see me differently. Why is that different? Because that's just those weird innate feeling and I think. I think I don't know if the solution is. I don't know how you get to a solution. Maybe you just when you start talking about art. We need to, and we're guilty of this. We need to stop looking at it as this linear thing. These people are the great.

Speaker 2: 10:15

I think there are people that have control of the craft or that have things about them or their work that's so unique that it just it is special, but everybody has something. It's that, what's that quote where you can learn something from anybody on this planet? Yes, and I kind of think we have to start looking at art that way. Art whatever, we have to start looking at things people create with that mindset.

Speaker 1: 10:44

But I think art is the right distinction.

Speaker 2: 10:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Because people are creating things. We're creating things in all kinds of different ways. We talked about content versus art and the pre-talk. Yeah, and not to go down that yet. But art, a documentary, your photo project, the things that I do, the work, the work which we talked about last time.

Speaker 2: 11:16

So what I'd be curious to know is and we'll come, we'll come, we'll circle back because, yeah, well, and what?

Speaker 1: 11:23

I'm zeroing in on is so. So when looking at the best time to do the work, or to create the art, or to do the thing, to engage in the project, to commit to it, to put it out there, you know there's going to be a range of different specific things that are holding us back, and I think the common word in what you were talking about maybe holding you back, and the common and what maybe holds me back, my interpretation, first of all, is the word fear. Yeah, and for me it's not a fear of what are people going to think of me? I'm vulnerable when I put my work out there. What if it's no good? What if I don't ascend to the top of the ranking? Yeah, it's a fear of like. It's a fear of Fucking up, like the game of life, all the bullshit you have to do to like.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Have savings accounts in retirement and make your wife know that you're not putting off the taking care of your kids and paying for their braces and all this stuff because you've got some book you want to write.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Well, I would almost say, because my first thought is like of course it's not a fear of putting, but I think at an innate level, at a very primal level, it is a fear of putting your putting it out there for the world to see.

Speaker 1: 12:50

It's there, I think there is you, or for people in general.

Speaker 2: 12:53

I think for people in general, there's some people there's not some people completely.

Speaker 1: 12:58

I think there's always that fear. I wonder if there's degrees, though.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Yeah, but I'm not necessarily saying like on the surface, like, because I mean I think on the surface like I'm gonna put out in whatever I think is good. And I mean you've seen that with some of the photography I'll be like I really think this is like great. And you know other people might not, but I've developed my own voice to a point where I trust it. So it's not like that there's a fear of putting that work into the world of oh man, people aren't gonna think I'm any good, but it is something it's almost. People aren't willing to criticize the system because they're just one stroke of whatever away.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Yeah, they're a lottery ticket away from, and, I think, joining it and then when they join that they wanna make sure that they're protected, that their interests are looked out for. So they'll divert their own self-interest in their current state to protect this desired future state.

Speaker 2: 14:02

I think we do that with art. Okay, I think that's just an intuition, but I think a lot of people do that with whether it's writing or whether it's photography or so you are a Martin Scorsese in waiting, somebody at that level, you are a successful filmmaker or writer or whatever. Everybody likes to. Yeah, they like to benchmark themselves against somebody that they think of highly or that is culturally thought of as highly, and the counter to that I would make is I don't know if art works that way.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:36

You know, I don't. I think if that's the framework, then the framework's wrong in the first place. So trying to move up in that framework is immediately, it's, a fool's game. I think the whole point of art is just to find the questions that you have going on deep down inside and try to answer those and share it as you go. You know, share your battle with those things, and that's the work, that's the art that comes out of it. And when, you know, now Martin Scorsese happened to do that, he underwent that process, he put that into the world and it was, you know, we gotta stop talking about I'm gonna get it. We're like episode 10 now I'm gonna. There's gonna be letters coming in where it's like we get it, okay, talking about Scorsese.

Speaker 1: 15:26

Well, the difference is, you know, this is our assessment of Martin Scorsese's motivations. But is the difference?

Speaker 2: 15:33

I promise we'll find a new proxy filmmaker. Yeah for them.

Speaker 1: 15:37

He's, you know, he's inspired by those artists that he looked up to, fritz Lang, and you know, you know these directors, yeah, these directors, hell, it's a kazan.

Speaker 1: 15:47

These directors from his formative years and he's not. Yeah, so I'm gonna tell a little story, Part of what moved me into the performing arts. So I'm sitting in, my girlfriend in high school is involved in theater, thespy and all that stuff, and we start dating and she wants me to participate in her world. So there's, you know, the high school plays going on and it's Inherit the Wind and she's not in it. Oh no, she was. She had a very small part in it and I was in the audience watching it and, like one guy in my class, Guy Clark, was in it, a younger person in my sister's class, this guy, Kyle Feisig. He was in it playing the lead roles, and I'm watching this play and I see this attractive young high school student, Kyle, performing and all that stuff in the audience. You know he did well, especially for a high school play, Like he's pretty engaging and you know very like you know, you can see a lot of talent there Charismatic stage presence.

Speaker 2: 16:51

Yeah, like really good.

Speaker 1: 16:52

You know not what you're expecting with the high school play, which is a bunch of people nervously reciting the lines they memorized and kind of emoting, and I kind of felt like the energy toward them and all that stuff and like I went, I literally said to myself I can do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that little nugget of thought has permeated a lot of the times that I motivated not all the time, but a lot of times I motivated to do something creative or artistic, but not necessarily art is. Oh, look at the results they're getting.

Speaker 2: 17:32

I can do that. At that moment, his name was Kyle. You said Kyle, yeah, kyle, fucking Kyle. At that moment, though, right, everybody is magnet. He's magnetic. Yes, everybody is, including me, I'm like oh Right, the whole auditorium.

Speaker 1: 17:45

I wanna meet this guy, I wanna.

Speaker 2: 17:47

So you're getting this effect of this massive crowd of people and they're looking at him and they're saying, wow, that's spectacular. And you are taking all of that energy. Even if you don't realize it, you're taking that in right and you're going. I want that. Yeah, I want all of this attention on me. And I can do that. It's the same kind of thing as looking at the millionaire. You're watching the.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Yes, that's exactly You're watching the millionaire.

Speaker 2: 18:20

You're walking through town and the millionaire is out and your wife makes a comment and you're like I can be that guy.

Speaker 1: 18:27

Yeah, I am that guy? I'm just memorizing some words on a piece of paper, away from me being the recipient of that energy and that adoration or whatever.

Speaker 2: 18:38

And then just to circle that background to the point.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:44

If that's the framework that you're approaching art from or the work from, you're immediately it's not a relevant study of anything, because you're not asking actual questions that you need answers to, and then the only way to achieve that is through the medium that you're choosing to explore the question with.

Speaker 1: 19:05

You are saying how can I? You're feeding an ego, right, you're putting on a costume, yeah, or is your costume? You're building a brand? Yeah, I'm going to use these forms to achieve, to get these results. And so circling back to the documentary is again fear conditions of actually creating. But then do I sit there and I basically analyze what the potential outcomes are of devoting myself for weeks and weeks and weeks to making this and go this isn't going to get me the results I want.

Speaker 2: 19:39

So why bother? This isn't going to bring me fame and foe, and that you know. And so this goes back to Rick Rubin's book. Let me just like do you save that, because that'll ground us? Do you think, then, that could it be that Ted Snow was? You approached Ted Snow with the wrong intentions in the first place and look See I think that's no.

Speaker 1: 20:09

I think, if I look back on it, and I would need to think about this a little bit more to really deploy some self-awareness to think through my response to that. But it's certainly, I think, immediately in talking to Ted on the street and all that stuff and then thinking about it and the drive afterwards and all that, and then I called you and we had all that, I think I'm like I feel a genuine attraction to what could be here.

Speaker 2: 20:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:37

And even if I wasn't thinking about the results I would get if it came together in a successful documentary that went on the festival circuit or had this or had this and I'd get all these results or whatever that feed my ego, I think I immediately start, because this is another element of maybe why it hasn't gotten done. I start fantasizing about what he's gonna say. What are we gonna? Find out about him and you start spinning.

Speaker 2: 21:07

Well, you almost had a story in your head going into the thing of like this is the story that's gonna come from it, because I remember you and I we both did or just the vibe Like I was like this is gonna be like this musical genius who just hasn't been discovered and he's gonna have this like incredibly grounded, soulful outlook on things you were trying to explain to yourself the myth that you surround your brother's persona with through somebody else, which is normal, like I think that's that is a noble intention of art.

Speaker 2: 21:43

You have something, a story, a metaphor that you wanna explain and then, if you find a proxy for that, using that proxy effectively to demonstrate that metaphor. I think that's absolutely a noble approach to art. But I think what might have happened is you had that other stuff as the fallback, that festival, and when we learned that the narrative that we were playing in our head wasn't necessarily the narrative that we got, or wasn't the?

Speaker 2: 22:10

narrative that we got. Maybe you fall back on some of that secondary stuff. We gotta stop turning these into therapy sessions.

Speaker 1: 22:17

But this is a good but I think that's such a big part of it. When we're asking I mean, you ask a question when's a good time to make art?

Speaker 1: 22:25

I mean, first of all, art can be therapy for people, whether now, if they're using it as like I'm gonna make this art because it makes me feel better and this is part of the through line, the spine of a lot of these episodes is the true motivation behind it ego versus selflessness, all the things that bring what we're making and why we're making it to the table, and I think it's okay for us to have these realizations potentially about ourselves, why we do and don't do something. I mean, you were talking about that stuff and I literally went back to something I had not thought about in years me watching him up there going. I can do that.

Speaker 2: 23:08

I can do that yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:10

But why, though? So this quote from the book? And I took a picture of it because I'm like do I do this? Is this me? This is from Rick Rubin's book the Creative Act A Way of.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Being.

Speaker 1: 23:25

If we can tune into the idea of making things and sharing them without being attached to the outcome or the results, in my mind, the work is more likely to arrive in its truest form, and that's what we've talked about all the time is especially for me if I am using a photography YouTube channel, if I am using documentary filmmaking, if I'm using acting, if I'm using screenwriting to achieve these lottery ticket-like results wealth, fame, adoration, getting ranked in a list of whatever all that stuff. I mean you're full of shit and whatever you make, you're gonna-.

Speaker 2: 24:15

Whatever you make is gonna reflect that attitude.

Speaker 1: 24:19

And there's nothing less truthful than you hijacking art for your own ego-motivated bullshit.

Speaker 2: 24:31

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 24:33

And so if this podcast and our conversations for both of us, with whatever your thing is and my things or things for you or a thing whatever it is, you are gonna have these conversations where you challenge yourself to really ask yourself what is behind it, why are you not doing it? Or why are you doing it? Yeah, what is it serving? And then that also opens up is it possible for an artist to be an artist with pure intention, with no hope for an outcome, especially a self-serving outcome? Is that even possible? Are there great artists that have had their work in the most revered museums in the world and they've sold paintings for 25 million dollars, where part of them, at some point, when they set out to make it, went? You know that last painting sold for 200,000, this one's going to sell for a million and they got their ass. They got the paintbrush in their hand and started going at it because part of them thought about that.

Speaker 2: 25:43

There's no way that there's not at. So again, this stretches into. My first thought is there's a Henry Miller book, and this is the second time that that book has come up in the last week in thinking so I probably need to re-read it. The book is what is it? I'm having a hard time like recalling that. The title will put it in the show notes, but essentially it was the book I read on my first. I started reading it on my first plan to Omaha to visit.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Audrey and throughout that three month period of going back and forth packing up my things moving out here, I read that book and that put an impression on me. But at the beginning of the book Henry Miller lists his true artists, people who call it intention, whatever you want to call it, people who were doing it for the right reasons, and it makes me think of that. Now there's definitely art has been dominated capital. A art has been dominated by commerce for long enough that there are absolutely people who were driven by that last painting sold for this month.

Speaker 1: 27:15

Or it was in it. Correct me if I'm wrong and we can double check this, but like in Roman times, I think when I researched Patreon the website Patreon they talked about how these artists back then had patrons that paid them. They gave them money so that they could do their art.

Speaker 2: 27:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:33

And like what you know what I mean, like essentially, creating an interpersonal welfare program for somebody.

Speaker 2: 27:41

Come live in my basement, make this art.

Speaker 1: 27:45

And what impact does that transaction, that commerce element have on the person creating it? You know, is the desired outcome for some of them, who maybe created mind boggling work impossible, like how did you sculpt that, how did you paint that? Because they're like I need more money from these patrons to keep doing it, or I want to upgrade my shit, I want better, I don't know whatever. Whatever from Roman times, you know.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Well, I think this is interesting and this thought just occurred to me. The question we started with is when is it a good time to begin creating something? And you have this mindset of once I get things figured out, I'll start making something. Essentially once my fears and anxieties are gone then I can actually make the thing, and the thing that's interesting to me is then, the fears and anxieties can't influence the art, exactly. So there's, I go to music.

Speaker 1: 28:53

I think of bands that. I think, of absolutely incredible work early on, and what things got secure.

Speaker 2: 29:00

Well, and some and my. The thing that comes to mind for me is it's Towns Van Zandt. Yeah, he's writing these songs. He's got no money, it's just like his only outlet and he makes this beautiful music and money never really. He had plenty of money at a certain point but he lived in a trailer, a crappy house all the way to the end of his life. Never really bought into the myth and the music stayed true. You have plenty of artists who started creating from that point of you know that point of purity is a good word. They start creating and then the money comes, the machinery behind it.

Speaker 2: 29:45

And then they look it trails off. They never get back to that original state.

Speaker 1: 29:51

I think, or if they do continue making music, maybe it just doesn't feel like it has the same magic.

Speaker 2: 29:58

I wonder if that feeling that you're having is. It's almost a betrayal and an internal betrayal in a way, because you're preventing yourself from jumping in and making something. Yep. And if you allow yourself to get to a point where you're more comfortable, how does that affect? And if you're making a million dollars a year?

Speaker 1: 30:24

doing, would you even go back, and would you even go back?

Speaker 2: 30:27

Because is that the goal anyways, if you get to that point, you're making a hundred thousand dollars a year off of YouTube.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Yeah, I don't need to go out and take pictures.

Speaker 2: 30:35

Would you eat yeah?

Speaker 1: 30:37

Mom, you know there's pressures off the hot, yeah and then right.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:45

And when you? You know when you. And I'm generalizing these questions- I'm not trying to ask you the question.

Speaker 2: 30:51

I just think it's a useful.

Speaker 1: 30:53

Well, even the question to her looks great today, by the way. It's really, it's really. Thank you On point. It looked good in the first episode.

Speaker 2: 31:01

It's killer Looking good Every time we record them like maybe I should. Yeah, it's a product too much, too much. You can't do a product in there.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Use the product you should use is just not showering for three days.

Speaker 2: 31:13

Not washing your hair for three days.

Speaker 1: 31:15

Oh no, shower please, shower, no so here's another question with a question we posed When's a good time to begin art, I wonder. If art Doesn't give you a choice, you can't choose to do it. You and this goes back to another word that has been a through line in me talking about this the artists that I think of this word compulsion like you, can't help it, you can't stop it.

Speaker 2: 31:50

You can't control it.

Speaker 1: 31:53

It's. I mean, I think back on some of the research I did into Kurt Cobain for a screenplay that I wrote. It wasn't like a biopic about Kurt, it was just taking his sort of my perception of his psychology and Did you guys know the Gus Finn's handphone?

Speaker 2: 32:08

I actually wrote it.

Speaker 1: 32:10

And I like just poured over everything, his journals. I read it all, I watched the documentaries, everything, and like it just felt to me that it was pouring out of him constantly. He would write music, he would make these dioramas that you know, he would draw, he would write. I mean just constantly coming out of him like he couldn't control it. And that reminds me of my brother yeah, a lot. I know I've mentioned my brother several times, but funny enough though I feel like my brother has Actually, no, I think he's been just as prolific with what his output has been, and he won't want me to talk about this. But he I won't go to the specifics, but from my understanding, and I don't know the details of it, he came into a win the lottery type situation where, from what we understand, he did something with his financial choices that gave him what we understand as a rather large pile of money or some form of currency. Yeah, where?

Speaker 2: 33:29

Nothing illegal.

Speaker 1: 33:31

He may have done something to him to take the edge off of his fears and anxieties, working on this one project for years and he showed me 20 minutes of it and you can see how much work went into it and all that stuff and I just sit there and I go. I mean he literally works on this anytime he's not at his day job and his day job is just like you know, I don't know it's something he does. He's got to have like a little bit of spending cash and all that. Whatever he doesn't want to tap into his security thing.

Speaker 1: 34:01

So yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:04

That's interesting. You've almost mythicized that as the only way to do it. In a sense, it's interesting. You have the want to, just so. I don't want to spend too much time just digging into personal psychology, but it is interesting that you almost want to. You want to do this. I wonder if. Is it a competitive thing, or is it just like a blueprint? No, like that's the blueprint. It isn't competitive Because I think your underlying instinct is time on projects. You just want to be able to just take a month and do nothing.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Yeah, I just want to devote myself to it entirely, I want to be all in and I think, unfortunately, especially on something big.

Speaker 2: 34:52

The unfortunate thing is is yeah, that's just not entirely realistic for 99.9%.

Speaker 1: 35:01

And I think part of what you're talking about is this conflict in me of I can be that guy. Maybe you can't. And I don't mean the artistic capabilities or talent, it's the results you get from being someone who is revered as special, as talented as a powerful voice and the results you get typically are money, fame, to a certain extent, acceptance from your peers, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 35:43

I grapple with this all the time because the millionaire in waiting in me and I don't mean necessarily the money side, because it's Money is a tool for me that I think I fantasize about, giving me freedom, freedom to work on this stuff, go all in. But then also I want to be one of the popular kids. I want to be accepted amongst my peers. I want those YouTubers or those photographers or those filmmakers.

Speaker 2: 36:11

It gets into that multi-level marketing line of thinking a little bit, when you're trying to build wealth or security to focus on the work that you want to focus on and you sell the idea of work or the process of how you're creating the work as the work. And this is me just thinking of the moment.

Speaker 1: 36:45

This is a verbal thought.

Speaker 2: 36:47

The idea, though, of you want to make a film, a meaningful film, and then your profession is an editor, and you're a skilled editor. You've done it for a long time and then, in a dream world, you have all the time to sit and edit your own projects. But to build that dream, you're selling this idea of editing.

Speaker 1: 37:19

He's referencing my YouTube channel that's centers around Final Cut Pro and post-production.

Speaker 2: 37:25

And I think again, this is not. Sometimes I'm not sure what the context is going to be from a viewer, but just look at Matt's camera angle and set your mind at ease. This is just how we talk about things, but it is interesting. It's almost like what it be. Is that betraying the intention at all? And I'm not sure what the answer is, Because I think about when I make videos, talking about photography, I'm like you could just fucking do the. You're making a video, this specialized bullshit about doing photos or something. You should just go work on your projects and just finish that and then, if you have something that you're proud of, you talk about that. Don't create these artificial scenarios. I mean, I've still done it multiple times.

Speaker 1: 38:28

Let's look at your stuff. We don't have definitive answers for me. We've touched on some stuff. We have the through line through the podcast. Are my choices ego-driven? Are they results-driven? Because, I'm a millionaire Just waiting to become a millionaire. Win that lottery, have that paint or have that photograph, or have that YouTube video go viral. You're that winning lottery ticket, away from realizing what the truth of your existence should be.

Speaker 2: 38:57

And, I think, boiling it down, the question that we get to is do you avoid approaching art with pre-existing expectations?

Speaker 1: 39:04

Especially ones that are more about your ego.

Speaker 2: 39:10

Commerce or ego-driven, and the benefits that you get, the results that you get, versus what your art does for other people. Right, and I think one other thing just to highlight that you talked about, that is important is focusing on that compulsive side of it, when you just can't do anything. I'm thinking of Jean-Michel Basquiat in the basement with TV and three radios on and he's just working on six paintings simultaneously.

Speaker 2: 39:43

And I think the compulsive element is important and I want to come back to that because I'm not sure. Can you ignore that? Can you push that down? Is that possible? I feel like.

Speaker 1: 39:58

I have sometimes and I want to transition into talking about this for your experience. So it's not just focused on me, but I feel like there are times where and again going back to Rick Rubin's book and I apologize for always referencing it, but it is like top of mind, it's the one thing I'm reading right now I feel like in the first few weeks of this podcast.

Speaker 2: 40:20

But this is exactly what we wanted. We wanted it to be almost a document of where we are right now, Because in a year we're not going to be having the same conversations and we might be having the same questions, but we're going to have a year's worth of brand new context.

Speaker 1: 40:37

So I keep coming back to that because it's allowing me to better examine what my motivations are, what the good things are, those moments of compulsion, those moments of inspiration where you feel like you're connected to the source which is a reference to Rick Rubin's book like the magical supernatural, whatever center of the universe where great art comes from and seeing through the surface of our world and understand the truth.

Speaker 2: 41:04

Maybe not even great art, just honest truth. Yeah, truth of purity. Got truth, whatever Purity.

Speaker 1: 41:14

So looking at that book and examining those moments, it's made me more aware when a compulsive moment happens. But then it'll be 10 o'clock at night and I'll start to break it down going. If you start this now, you can be up till three in the morning. The kids wake up, blah, blah, blah. Is this really your best use of time? Because if you want to sit down, I had a compulsion to start writing these pretty personal stream of consciousness things that maybe I could turn into an article, or it could be something whatever.

Speaker 1: 41:49

With a very specific thesis. It wasn't just like I'm just going to let my brain dump on my computer and share it with the world, because whatever I brain dump is special. It was kind of like this podcast I'm grappling with something or I have a thought. This is my thesis and I want to share it.

Speaker 1: 42:09

And I just talked myself out of it. And again it was like all this societal construct shit. You're going to be up too late, you're not going to get enough sleep, you're not going to be sharp for your kids. You have other things that you have to focus on that are more likely to generate revenue, so that you can get yourself to that place of security, so you can do this stuff and answer the compulsion when it happens all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 42:37

And I don't want to spend too much time going down for the, but we've gotten a good sample of sort of the forces at play that affect me and whether or not I make something or engage in an artistic pursuit or what have you. I'm curious about your point of view. So when we talked about the photography project down in Nashville or other things, that you have out there what's happening with you that's similar or different than me.

Speaker 2: 43:08

No, I mean, I think you just hit on it. I had the compulsion to do this a year ago, a year and a half ago.

Speaker 1: 43:15

And we're talking about the Nashville Photo Project.

Speaker 2: 43:18

And so a year and a half ago, you know what it should have done. It's not like this is a novel idea. I should have packed my fucking 4x5 and bought a $200 plane ticket and gone to Nashville for a weekend, or packed the car and you know a one day drive camp in the middle and take photos. And so we talked a little bit about the personal thing that kind of developed recently about, you know, the end of the project, how I was going to kind of get a hold on it. And then that opportunity moved on, and a year and a half ago that was a perfect opportunity. But I was like, oh, this will be there for a while and the whole point of the project was to highlight something that's disappearing. And you know it kind of coincides the thinking has coincided into a writing project that I do feel like has progressed a little bit. But even that you know it was the line of inspiration was supposed to. It was two things and not just one writing project that I did here in Omaha and I just put it off. You know it was that.

Speaker 2: 44:41

Well, all of this other stuff and what I should do, if I'm taking my the words that are coming out of my mouth seriously is we should get off of this. When we finish this podcast, I should go order a plane ticket. But you know, there's so much stuff like, oh well, what, like, am I going to leave Audrey? Like I want her to go too, and then I'm just there on vacation, all right, then it's just we're hanging out. It's like, oh, I want to go do some photos, but I'm not there working, I'm there doing vacation things or whatever. It's like well, I want to stay with my mom, I want to see her. Well, again, then you're there on vacation. Well, she wants to do this and this and this, or whatever. I want to see friends. I want to.

Speaker 1: 45:26

So those, those, those things will seduce you away from the hard work, and it's Steven.

Speaker 2: 45:31

It's the Steven Pressfield thing, where it's the resistance right Of just you know you got to overcome it and I think the question when is a good time to begin? I, my gut, tells me, unfortunately it's immediately. I think that might be, you know, in in as much as there is an answer. I think the answer is probably as soon as it hits and then see it through, and you shouldn't approach it, you know. Getting to the second question, should you approach it with an preexisting expectation? No, you shouldn't. You should start on it as soon as it hits. Once you're in it, you should. You're gonna have other things that pop up. You need to see what you started through and then, once it betrays your expectations, once Ted Snow betrays your expectations or I go down there I wanna shoot this very specific thing and that betrays my expectations. The whole point of art is then taking that in and adapting to what's what happened. Why were my expectations betrayed? Why were those my expectations?

Speaker 1: 46:42

It's the story of when I got the Canon camera. Yeah, it's, I had this agenda getting out of the park. That changed and the only thing that made the outcome the good outcome. That happened and I use or you said adapt. The word I always use is surrender, and surrender is sort of a word that is giving up control.

Speaker 2: 47:05

You're floating in the middle of the ocean. At that point, once you start on that project, you're on a raft and you just have to go with it and you can try to fight against it Yep. But what's probably gonna happen if you try to fight against it Like if you're out in the ocean and you try to deny that it has total control over you you're probably just gonna drown, yep.

Speaker 1: 47:25

And I think that's an apt metaphor for I got lost in the woods when I was a kid, 15 years old, and the moment I surrendered to knowing we're just gonna spend the night out here and then we're gonna start figuring out how to get ourselves out in the morning. Once I surrendered to that reality, all of my panic and fear and all that went away, because the panic and fear and all that I was feeling was I'm trying to still get the original outcome, which was we walk out of the woods at the trailhead and go sleep in our tent with my aunt and uncle and all that stuff and we're good to go.

Speaker 2: 47:58

I think you just answered some of the questions that you and I were talking about before we even started recording. At least for me, that just kind of connected two things in my brain where it's just, I think, surrendering to the current is, and part of surrendering is, once that thing strikes up, go with it, and when you're working on something and an idea pops up, write it down. You don't have to write that thing down, come back to it later and if it is a worthy thing, then that will have the same spark for you as it did initially. It'll come back and it'll reman. It'll manifest itself in the same form that it initially did.

Speaker 1: 48:47

Well, and if we look at surrendering in these small examples, in the big picture, is surrendering to being afraid, not being secure, but still making what you're trying to make going to get you where you want to go sooner than waiting for those conditions to be perfect, and then you can start doing.

Speaker 2: 49:17

We had a meeting the other week and it was this was last week you and I were in a meeting together and essentially, one of the things that got brought up was this idea of you never know what you're being prepared for. No, you don't. This is a weird way of you can look at this as everything's predetermined, or there's philosophical routes that you can take with this but pull all of that aside.

Speaker 2: 49:55

I think you have two ways. There's a gray area, but there's usually two ways that you can view any situation that comes up, and it's in a positive light or in a negative light. Class optimism, pessimism, half empty, half full. And if you just look at, I think there's an answer to where, if you just look at everything in a positive light, things seem to work out more than they don't 100%.

Speaker 1: 50:21

And now the fear can be you using that to justify not.

Speaker 2: 50:26

Oh well, I haven't started on Ted Snow yet because I'm going to start later and it's going to be this phenomenal thing but I think maybe the answer with the Ted Snow project or with the Nashville project in my case, I think the answer might just be we went into those with the wrong intentions and then, when they didn't play out or whether it's Just maybe it's like for the Nashville thing that's just kind of up to me to take that responsibility of I didn't follow it through or haven't yet it's not gone. I can follow it through as soon as we get done with this podcast. It's up to me to do that, and the thing is, every day that goes by is another day that I choose not to do that or to do that, and the same goes for Ted Snow. But we went into it with this expectation and then it's selfish of us to get upset when that expectation is not necessarily it doesn't remain when we're 12, 18 months down the road.

Speaker 1: 51:39

I've even got to the point where I have these fantasies that we're going to sit down and re-watch all the interviews and the footage and all that and it's going to dawn on us this is the story. We've got it.

Speaker 2: 51:49

We've got it.

Speaker 1: 51:50

And that's what it was meant to be.

Speaker 2: 51:52

So do we do For all of the people sitting on projects just like this? Because I would imagine that there's some people listening that and then there's also some people listening that are like you guys are idiots, you guys shouldn't even be having this conversation. Just do the thing. Stop podcasting and talking about it, stop talking about it and just do it. That's what happens when you're no podcasters Sponsored by Nike.

Speaker 1: 52:18

This podcast is brought to you by but that is the source of the root of those ads. Right, it's shut the fuck up, stop being a.

Speaker 2: 52:29

I hate that we're corporatizing this. No, but what do you do? So if we get to the acceptance point of Ted Snow was started with the wrong intentions, is it worth then trying to dive back in?

Speaker 1: 52:49

I think so.

Speaker 2: 52:49

You think so?

Speaker 1: 52:50

I do, I think it would be.

Speaker 2: 52:52

I kind of think so too.

Speaker 1: 52:54

I think it would be like a great regret of ours.

Speaker 2: 52:56

To leave that sitting.

Speaker 1: 52:58

Yeah, I mean, I honestly I've had thoughts like gosh, what if I found out that Ted passed away and we never made the film? Even just that motivates me.

Speaker 2: 53:05

And he's going to eventually. I mean, that's literally the regret I have with the Nashville project is. I'm like sitting here looking back at the reality that existed a year ago, that I didn't go and capture, that is impossible for me to capture now, and just that, because circumstances have changed.

Speaker 1: 53:24

And that internal flash point that was there, the fire that was there and you remember, like doing the project in memory of While you remember that, versus when you're actually feeling it. What's the difference? Remember?

Speaker 2: 53:38

what we talked about right before we hit record. Where it was. What if those great films in the 70s, what if the film makers were just like? I'll get to this when I'm a little more secure. Yeah, or the great writers they were just. I think I'll touch on this a little bit later.

Speaker 1: 53:53

I'm just going to. Martin Luther King was like I'm just going to. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. I just want to make sure that I'm going to go preach the sermon this afternoon and be fine. I've got this all buttoned up over here before I go. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:06

I mean, look, I'm going to get my congregation to a certain yeah and then I'll go in Yep, I think we just answered that Like no, you got to do it while the energy is there.

Speaker 1: 54:15

Right.

Speaker 2: 54:16

And see that through and fight to see that through. And I think, if you do, recognize the external forces that are trying to pull you away from that.

Speaker 1: 54:25

Well and it might take additional communication. So if you tell Audrey like I'm gonna start approaching my work a little differently, so there might be some point where a compulsion makes me buy a plane ticket and bone out, can you please just trust me and understand that it's for a good reason.

Speaker 2: 54:45

Not that she would be upset with you. You know what the dumbest thing is. Yeah, she's on board. She's like you don't have to. Literally it wouldn't even be a conversation. She's like, yeah, great.

Speaker 1: 54:54

It'd be like, yeah, Okay, or even telling your mom like hey, mom, I'm gonna be down in Nashville, I'm working. If I get through what I need to get through and there's time left over, we'll hang out.

Speaker 2: 55:03

Otherwise, I just gotta do this thing. Yeah, it's just. I've built it up as this thing, same thing as you sitting down and editing. It's like, oh, I'm gonna go, I've gotta go there, I've already got all this stupid stuff. I've gotta edit the podcast. I got work. I got.

Speaker 1: 55:19

You will rationalize the whole thing into nothing. Matt, you know Maggie's been, she's been, hasn't been eating her food, so I gotta make sure she's all right. Like a little stress fall, she'll be home alone while we'll come up with all kinds of shit to talk ourselves out of it from. And then again, what is it? Is it a little bit of discomfort? Is it pain? Is it risk? Is it what if it isn't any good? What if I go down there and I've got this, these grandiose idea of what it could be, and then I look at the prints and I'm like, yeah, it's dog shit. Why don't I just avoid that feeling altogether? But you know, Got it?

Speaker 2: 56:01

Yeah, it also could be something. Well then, you're not, you know you're not. You're betraying the entire form, right? So that's well now I just feel like we, one couple of bums, we gotta get out. What are we at?

Speaker 1: 56:14

We're right at 58, so Okay, that's pretty good.

Speaker 2: 56:16

It's probably about time to wrap, anyways, but so what do we do with this information?

Speaker 1: 56:21

Alex, yeah, no, that's what.

Speaker 2: 56:22

I'm, that's what do we do? That's where I'm getting at is let's you know, let's tie our nice little bow. What do you do, listener?

Speaker 1: 56:29

What do you do? Learning through us, so what do we do? About this.

Speaker 2: 56:34

I think we came up with some good questions.

Speaker 1: 56:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:37

And you know how do we implement that into the work? And you know, is it again thinking on the spot?

Speaker 1: 56:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:52

What is? What are the next steps? What is the art? You know, the next steps? I think the next step for the Nashville project is it's not a real project because you haven't taken the steps and it's either you take the steps or don't, and that's kind of where it boils down. So you know, I think I mean it's been. I did the format test a year ago. Like I've got to go and figure out that again. So the step is probably you better start looking at playing tickets, you better start reaching out to some people and you better start, you know, get the equipment, break the equipment out Tomorrow, like there's nothing stopping me from going and finding we could go find a small town in the morning and photograph it and I could proof of concept. So that's, you know. For me, I think that's the next step. I don't think like that's just it's in this case it is binary.

Speaker 2: 58:00

It's like you either start or you don't, and then yeah, I don't want to throw this back to the Ted Snow and make you feel accountable for something.

Speaker 1: 58:10

Something that makes me feel a little bit like, puts me a little bit more.

Speaker 2: 58:17

And let me just say either that's the next step or I need to forget it and move on. Well you know, put a stick of fork in it, push it, and then what's the project?

Speaker 1: 58:30

Yes, so the next.

Speaker 2: 58:31

What I have to commit to that next thing, because or else you're just like, oh well, then I'm gonna spend a year and a half thinking about that one. And I you know in my heart. I think your heart answers that question. This is the project I need. This is the project I need to focus on. It coincides with the writing I'm doing. It's gonna inform the writing I'm doing and that it needs that information.

Speaker 1: 58:51

So and I look at it as I watched the movie on Netflix called Stuts, where Jonah Hill makes a documentary kind of thing with his therapist right and he provides tools for people that are in therapy. We're in therapy, doing this podcast. And one thing he calls a tool for making progress, moving forward, because the fear, the worry, the all that bullshit's never gonna go away. It's never gonna go away. He called it a string of pearls and the kind of the bro-y term that I've used in my household is stacking wins and for me, if there's like a path forward that isn't tomorrow I sit down and edit Ted Snow.

Speaker 1: 59:35

It's listen to those compulsions and when those moments of inspiration and compulsion hit, set things up in your world to make it okay to respond in the moment. If it is 10 o'clock at night and you feel compelled to write something, just you know, just do it. Talk to your partner, the other forces at play, the people involved. You know I've coordinated with my wife, erin, just to make this more possible, because typically I would leave to pick up my daughter and I asked her. I said, look, we're working on this thing and it's important to me and all that. How do you feel about picking up our daughter from daycare, even though it's kind of my responsibility.

Speaker 1: 1:00:19

On Fridays yeah, and she was like yes, if this is something that you know, you feel compelled to do and you're inspired to do it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

It's funny that this podcast has been our compulsion, I feel like. Well, and this is a string of pearls too.

Speaker 1: 1:00:31

Like we sense like, even if we miss a week, even though we know we're gonna pick it up, we're not gonna let it trickle off, you know, and I think there's so much good energy and vibes behind it, because we are people who are prone to talking ourselves out of it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:47

Now you know, I'll do that project next time whatever, I thought this when we were putting the first episode out even yeah, is that? Yeah, we just start now.

Speaker 1: 1:00:54

Yeah, and you build this body of work and I think we have to let that parlay into bite-sized projects here, like it's so stupid. But I've noticed a through line in some of my photos these neighborhoods and the stuff I've done for my channel. I really gravitate towards photographs with garden hoses in them, like a wound up garden hose, a messy garden hose. There's something that draws me to that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:18

Something nostalgic about it, yeah, and so what if I made a small project?

Speaker 1: 1:01:22

and it was a zine that was 20 pages and it was all the photos I've taken of garden hoses, and it's not always the garden hose is the core subject, but it's in the tableau and that's a little project, and you know. Then that leads to the fireworks thing actually following through on that. For those who haven't listened to the other episodes I mentioned a couple.

Speaker 2: 1:01:45

Just leave it for them.

Speaker 1: 1:01:46

It's like a little Easter egg there's a project that I thought of and had a compulsion to do, and I talked myself out of it. So how do we?

Speaker 2: 1:01:55

and maybe that's and now all these things are on record.

Speaker 1: 1:01:58

So that's the beautifully dangerous part, and maybe those things are building towards Ted Snow or they're building to the next Nashville type of project. That kind of scope and not necessarily scoping. You're gonna take a thousand photographs with scope in. I gotta fly somewhere, I gotta stay somewhere. I have to do some big things to make it happen. Versus, let's do something. I'm into photograph garden hoses in my neighborhood and that's a little project. And Tael Crawford, who's a photography YouTuber, found himself photographing ceramic tiles on the surfaces of Japanese buildings, and so he created a project out of it and maybe that leads to this and this and this and this and something bigger.

Speaker 2: 1:02:33

So I think that string of pearls mentality is something that can help us when things are low stakes like that too, you're removing. I'm just gonna do a project on garden hoses. There's that grandiose world changing vision behind that. It's allowed to be a project on garden hoses but it's just as relevant of an artistic question or an artistic exploration as anything else. And the process is the same. It's all about repetition, getting familiar with that process and staying true to that process.

Speaker 1: 1:03:06

Something draws me to it, cause I photograph the ones that are all neat and I photograph the ones that are all mess. I'm just crazy, ours is out there. Yeah, you get my camera. I have to break it out.

Speaker 2: 1:03:16

But yeah, I think that's a good place to wrap it up. To wrap it, but we raised more questions than we answered. I don't know, but I feel like I'm in a better. The way I judge our conversations and this is what I love about I think this is why we've continued to have these conversations for five years now Is because I'll get into conversations on a semi daily basis with people and the conversation doesn't go anywhere productive. It's a rehashing of here's my memorized point of view, here's your memorized point of view, whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:03:59

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:04:01

And it sounds like a conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:04:05

It has all the ingredients.

Speaker 2: 1:04:06

It has all the ingredients but it doesn't have the outcome. Nothing, and not saying every conversation needs to have an outcome, but hopefully it has movement. We get it exact. It's like a dance.

Speaker 1: 1:04:17

Transformation yeah, I do feel.

Speaker 2: 1:04:20

Conversation is a lot like a project, like an art project Right, and that's not A different understanding, a different. You're coming in with an idea and then you're just letting anything go, any idea that pops in, you're letting that express itself, you're taking that into different routes and then, over time, you're surrendering.

Speaker 1: 1:04:38

Yeah, you're surrendering.

Speaker 2: 1:04:39

And I think that's why we have enjoyed this so much, this exercise, and especially now that we're recording it. Right. We hate everything that's not just sitting down having this conversation. I mean, we spent what like four hours going and trying to piece this thing together to actually release it. We're like, thank God, that part's over now.

Speaker 1: 1:05:00

We can just talk. We have a little bit of a template.

Speaker 2: 1:05:03

I'm like man, let's just let's get rid of the video version of this, but I think it's. We enjoy this so much because it reflects that process. Yeah, and I think in just the short amount of time we've been doing it, it has. I think it's at least for me it's informed how I approach the artistic process.

Speaker 1: 1:05:22

A little bit yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:05:25

And I love leaving a conversation with new ideas. New ideas right, it's got to. You've got your thesis, your antithesis, and then you come out with synthesis and that's. It's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1: 1:05:39

Well, anytime, this happens again so much in our conversations, and that's why we kept saying this should be a podcast, because I think we understood that there's inherent value in us challenging each other, opposing a question, working through it and arriving at a newer, better, cleaner understanding of what factors are at play in whatever question or thing we're grappling with. So it is parts therapy, but it's an investigation, it's an exploration of what, for us, is at the center of this thing, and those are the conversations that most excitement, have always been so valuable to me, between you and I, and hopefully, with an audience listening.

Speaker 2: 1:06:21

There's just a. Also, we remove ourselves from this. There's no trying to impress each other with our level of, with our. I think it's the way to approach anything is just from that point of all. Right, I'm missing something here. Definitely, I don't have all the information. Let's just talk about it and see where it goes.

Speaker 1: 1:06:46

Or I'm in a little bit of pain, I'm in, I'm uncomfortable, I'm I feel there's this obstacle in front of me and it centers around this thing. So how does a conversation with someone and being honest and vulnerable and talking through it, how does that get us through that obstacle, or better understand the obstacle, so that we can continue to try to work past it? Just even contextual you've got to contextualize the obstacle before you can.

Speaker 2: 1:07:13

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:07:16

And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.