16. Attention or Art? Sharing Work as Catharsis vs Spectacle

In this episode, we delve into the unique fusion of musical styles between artists like John Mayer and the Grateful Dead. The discussion broadens to examine how technology has revolutionized our ability to learn and share captivating stories, such as the tale of Jesse James's gold, and probes into the reasons why individuals feel compelled to share their creative outputs.

The conversation shifts to the influence of personal challenges on creativity, prompting a debate over the motives behind sharing such experiences - is it a search for attention or a means of healing? Insights are offered on how these deeply personal stories can mold one's artistic endeavors and the intricate balance between what we choose to keep to ourselves and what we decide to share with the world.

Concluding the episode, we reflect on the importance of taking time to pause and the effects of the rush to disseminate creative work. The discussion touches on the role of feedback, the management of expectations, and the critical importance of staying true to our authentic selves in our creative pursuits. - ai

Show Notes:

John Mayer Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaaOoyclkE8

The Grateful Dead - https://www.dead.net/

The Power of Myth - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiYnNom7SVRMjsi2WSpIGBlo1UDhlXyvz

What The Bleep Do We Know? - https://watchdocumentaries.com/what-the-bleep-do-we-know/

The Elegant Universe - https://shop.shakeandco.com/book/9780393338102

The Stanford Prison Experiment - https://www.prisonexp.org/

The Zone of Interest - https://a24films.com/films/the-zone-of-interest

As I Lay Dying - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_Lay_Dying

Bryan Birks - https://www.youtube.com/@BryanBirks

The Social Network - https://youtu.be/k5fJmkv02is?t=92

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: 0:00

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

Speaker 3: 0:13

You used to talk about this concept of opening and opening up to it. You've talked about that and I think that's something that's really cool, where we do have this channel built to where people can share and a lot of that thrives through long form conversation but we have this channel built to where you can watch somebody's passion for something. So, for instance, I was listening to the John Mayer interview I was telling you about. He's been playing with the Grateful Dead for about a decade now and I essentially took over the Jerry Garcia. He's the lead singer for the Grateful. Dead.

Speaker 3: 1:01

But unofficially, yeah, and he's like we've been doing this for 10 years. That's plenty of bands don't. Even we have our own history. Now he's not taking this from a position he very much respects and understands that this is not his, but he talks about his. When he grew up he's like the Grateful Dead was always this thing for these hippies or the cool kids.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Right, they drove jeeps, the dead heads.

Speaker 3: 1:29

Yeah, yeah, it's like this cult thing. And he's like that wasn't for me. And then he's like and then one day something opened me up to it and I started listening, and I started listening a little closer and then you start to understand and you start to be able to put yourself in the context of the music and let it just kind of wash over you and it just changed everything. I'd gone my entire life and I'd never seen it, and then something just unlocked it for me and now he's playing these songs.

Speaker 2: 2:05

Yeah, and if you told him 20, 30 years ago You're going to be doing this, he'd say you're crazy.

Speaker 3: 2:11

Yeah, and something just unlocked it for him. And that's what I think these especially long form, but these channels are so effective at. You can unlock anything. Yeah, like you can almost. If you see something and you think it has a little bit of merit and you can't quite get into it, you can almost dig into it more. You go on YouTube and you can dig into it and unlock it more for yourself.

Speaker 3: 2:34

There's been instances where I've seen something or I'll read something or whatever, and I'm like this is great, yep, and I don't know if it's for me, but it's really great and I feel that I understand why it has what. However, it made it way back. It's way back to me. Whoever talked about it, whoever I respected that, recommended it. Whatever you can be like this is great.

Speaker 3: 2:59

Not quite sure if I know why I think it's great and maybe it's not for me, but then, yeah, you go down that rabbit hole and it unlocks it and you can seek that out. And then you're like, oh, this is great and I actually love it. It's maybe, yep, I love having the capability to do that. I think that's something that is unique. You could always do it, but there's a difference between having to go seek out. Anybody in the world can do it now they can unlock anything that if there's a digital equivalent to it, you can unlock it for yourself or listen to what somebody else has to say about it. I think that's just a. It's good for history and it's good for the future of art or whatever we want to work or whatever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely Content whatever, and similar experiences.

Speaker 2: 3:51

For me, part of what fuels me to consume new and different content, read different things, is just a real hunger for the opening up, these new worlds. I remember in college and I won't spend too much time on this but my acting teacher wanted us so we could work on our articulation and our being more cogent when speaking about the craft or interpreting text or whatever. She assigned us to watch at the University Library the PBS series with Bill Moyers called the Power of Myth, where he interviews Joseph Campbell.

Speaker 3: 4:33

Yeah, you told me about that. Yeah, I actually watched it on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 4:37

I mean it changed my life watching that. This is a 20, I think I was 20, 20 year old kid, growing up in small town Illinois and I've certainly read and studied French and American novel class English literature. It wasn't like I was just watching mindlessly, watching MTV and bullshit on television, but it just completely changed how I saw the human experience and it shifted how I saw people that do bad things, like they don't think they're doing bad things, they're the hero of their own story. I mean all this stuff and I think even from that moment on, that hunger for having other experiences like that were sort of like the order of the world gets shifted because of this thing that you saw and it introduced you to this new concept.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I remember watching a documentary called what the Bleep Do we Know about the impact emotion can have on the formation of water, all these things that it introduced. It introduced ideas about parallel existences and all this crazy stuff and it just led me into all these new areas. A book called the Elegant Universe that simplified the theory of relativity and laws of thermodynamics and I literally read that book and I was like what that's what gravity is? Are you kidding me, dave? You, that's the theory of relativity. Just blew my mind.

Speaker 3: 6:23

Just puts a container on all of this stuff.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Yeah, it just changed everything I remember I would tell people I'm here on Earth and you go to the event horizon of a black hole right before it can pull you in. You're there for five seconds. 10,000 years has gone by on Earth, because that's what mass and gravity and all that stuff does to shift your experience of time Telling people if you're on a train that's going 200 miles an hour, you're actually experiencing time differently than the person sitting on the platform. I was like wait, what All that?

Speaker 3: 7:00

kind of stuff. Well, I think it's interesting. It's almost a way to, it's just a way to better understand the world around you. It's a way to better. We're walking around naive about most things Sometimes. That's a good thing. But, yeah, any piece of work, whether it's a scientific work or whether it's a piece of more artistic, yeah, yeah, it's just helping to give you a little bit of extra context.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Something that's interesting to me, and I'm deliberately trying to segue into what I want to talk about with regards to the end of the pieces, which is all connected. So what's interesting is?

Speaker 3: 7:54

we're talking specifically in this instance about King of the Segway from the last episode. That's right. I just can't.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Watching a movie, reading something new, power of myth, reading the elegant universe, these things that literally reprogram your mind. They make you understand the world around you, how people work, or at least give you.

Speaker 3: 8:16

Maybe I hesitate to say understand, but more so just provide an effective framework. It's not to say that my framework that might be different from somebody else's framework, it's not to give anyone more. I think religion is an incredibly effective framework to view the world. There's political systems that are incredibly effective frameworks to view the world. I might not agree with certain aspects of anybody else's framework, but just to give a little bit of context, I think that I don't know if there's any one way that the world is. I think we just we're just these things floating around, but it helps to have something to yeah, it's just a greater level of clarity to understand how to move through it or how to affect it.

Speaker 2: 9:19

So we consume these things that rewire us or open up our mind or change how we see things or lead us into new directions. It's yeah, yeah, Sometimes it happens to us. You know, like I don't know, Audrey's watching something and you're you need. It's you sort you didn't like to seek it out, but it sort of happened to you and you get sucked in. That changes something for you, Right? In addition to? Matt recommended this book. He said it was really eye-opening. I'm gonna read it.

Speaker 2: 9:51

I had a similar experience and now I see things differently or have a different clarity, whatever. And and how, then, is that new clarity or new way of seeing things going to impact your work, whether it inspires you to shift your work, to make new types of work, to enhance your work, whatever, right? So the parallel is how do experiences not necessarily of our choosing, yeah Lead us into new ways of seeing the world, different levels of clarity, inspiration for work? What does it open up, yeah, in front of us to pursue, to seek out, to explore and to make? And so what I'm referencing is what we talked about in the last episode, and, for those of you who haven't listened to or watched the previous episode, I told a story about an encounter with a guy on the street when I was doing street photography, yeah, where he tried to Kill you With a two-pound hunk of metal, throw it on the table again for people who are watching this.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Just, he was not happy. I took his photograph while he tried to chase down his dog and he Came after me with this Two-pound piece of metal to try to bludgeon me with it, and he was unsuccessful. I got away and and sort of what's that ripple effect that this is gonna have? Yeah, now, it doesn't always have to be something that is Traumatic or dramatic. It could be, you know, I don't know a Series of things that lead you to an epiphany. I Kind of want to focus on stuff that is.

Speaker 2: 11:45

Yeah if you had your way, maybe you wouldn't want to experience that thing, yeah, or have had experience that.

Speaker 3: 11:52

I think it goes into like so the first experience that pops into my head is I Guess there's there's a couple of things that come into my. To my mind, one Providing the canvas to be open to things like this whether it's a traumatic or traumatic or anything, but like also something there was.

Speaker 3: 12:12

I was taking my car to get something checked on a couple of weeks ago and I sit down and I'm like nothing else to do. So I start reading through one of the magazines and like I read this story about this guy and he was like trying to find Jesse James's gold. Oh yeah, and it's like, yeah, these wild things, and he's like connecting it to these secret societies and you're just like what is like? Wow.

Speaker 3: 12:38

And I mean, you know, completely going down like conspiracy rabbit hole and like there's symbols on trees, but then he like found some of the symbols on the trees and then like they apparently like found some of the gold and like, wow, yeah, it's like completely. And you know so I had this whole epiphany about just like like we, you know, there's just this whole idea of like conspiracy and Kind of linking that to being the same thing is like. So what's different from this guy is like linking all these weird theories together, from like the tech CEO, who's like I'm gonna like who has the you know, whatever it is to be, like I'm gonna create a multi-billion-dollar company and the universe and I'm gonna speak positivity and and it's all gonna. And then you, you know some, some person does like a Steve Jobs or something.

Speaker 3: 13:29

Yeah yeah, and he's like all these Voodoo theories and what, and then he does it and it's like, so what's different about that guy? And then like this Conspiracy guy, right, who's like searching for gold, and I'm like that, it seems like it's the same thing. Okay, I would have never. But the point being, this is a magazine on it, yeah, on a table at the mechanics office, right, I would have never. And I've thought about this, like I've written about this. I've thought about this for like the whole time since then.

Speaker 2: 13:55

This was like a month and a half ago, yeah so this is like this is a little dramatic, but consumed.

Speaker 3: 14:01

You are sort of taken up some real you know, maybe not taking up a good job, maybe not consumed but it's definitely, you know, I'm like, well, there's like store, there's something here, there's character, there's story, there's something here. And I'm just it's interesting and maybe nothing comes out of it, yeah. But all of that because I just sat down and, you know, happen to be in there on that day, yeah, where that magazine was there on top and I grabbed it and opened to that page and read through the story. I mean, it's like a 20 page story. I was like whoa, this is just, and you know, like I, had I been on my phone, yeah, what, no see, wouldn't have come into contact with that, might have come into contact with something else, who knows, had I Brought I got there, I was like man, I should have brought a book.

Speaker 3: 14:41

Yeah, had I brought a book, wouldn't have come into contact. And I just think that's interesting. You know it's not necessarily as dramatic or right, you know, potentially life changing, as somebody trying to throw a heavy object at your skull.

Speaker 2: 14:54

But but I think that the you know, and these things are at opposite ends of the spec.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Yeah we're not opposite, but they're at different, different points on the spectrum, right of what inspires us or takes up mental, emotional real estate to then inform our work. And you know, stuff like that has happened to me so many times right Reading an article we just talked about it, joseph Campbell. These things that just like it ignites something in you, to inspire you to, to bring it into your work or whatever. And what I'm really curious about and I don't necessarily need you to give me any specifics or a specific story I'm curious with you the role that Dramatic or traumatic or you know, a loss in the family, a breakup, a car accident, just mystic having a car. You know, like, how have those experiences Changed you?

Speaker 2: 15:57

Because I'm in this weird place right now, just to get some context. I'm in this weird place where it's sort of like this is inspiring me to make some work, yeah. But then I'm also like, or to communicate what happened. So, for example, coming out of this immediately, like this morning and I talked about this in the last episode I kind of wrote something a Poem, a piece, whatever it was right that came out of me as a result of this. I would have never sat down and and written something like this had this not happened. I also am feeling like I want to talk about it on the internet. Yeah, I'm like I kind of want to make a video about this Now. Obviously, this podcast is doing that amazing way to conduct you like.

Speaker 3: 16:46

I want to talk about it on the internet.

Speaker 2: 16:49

There's something in me and so. So one question I have and we don't do it on this, round the hole too much is what's motivating it? Is it that phenomenon where something dramatic happens in someone's life and when they go to work they want to hijack?

Speaker 2: 17:02

Yeah the lunch hour or the water cooler and be like well, guess what happened to me? Yeah, one, because some ego thing is getting you the attention. Yeah, matt almost got killed by a two-pound and while I'm not aware of the fact that he's telling the story, because he likes the attention it generates, his motivation is attention. So I'm like sitting here grappling like is the.

Speaker 3: 17:25

What is the?

Speaker 2: 17:25

truth of my motivation for wanting to share this story.

Speaker 2: 17:28

It's interesting is like some fantasy that I'm gonna make a video about it and have a clickbaity thumbnail. It says that time I almost got killed doing street photography with a picture of a hunk of metal on the ground. Am I motivated to do that because of some bullshit ego thing, or Is there something that I'm working through, that that there is an authentic desire to share my experience, whether it's warning people to just be careful that this stuff can happen while you're out there doing street photography, that these are sort of the things that you might run into while you die for your art and I put that in air quotes. You know that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3: 18:12

It is interesting because, like you know, you separated them on separate ends of the spectrum and I do think they might be more similar than they appear at face value, but I do think so. I still do this. I complain whenever somebody is like like goes out of their way to be like my so and so died, or like my grandfather died or my dog died, and like you have to be I'm. There's definitely an element to that where I'm being a little insensitive to that person's. I mean, obviously they're going through something and it helps to talk about it, but at the same time I just I have very little patience for that and that sounds really bad.

Speaker 3: 19:01

But I do like, through my eyes or my subjective experience, that whenever somebody does that, it is like they are serving a need for attention and like, if you're like this terrible thing happened to me today, or this da da, da da, you're trying to get my sympathy and attention and you're doing it, you're doing it in a cheap way, yeah, on top of doing it, yeah, so like that double frustrates me, right? I'm like you're going for a cheap laugh, right? You're going for the dick joke, comparing, like death and the family to dick jokes.

Speaker 3: 19:39

But, so part yeah, you know part of it. Like I don't see there's the exploring, the idea of like man. This happenstance scenario came into my life and I'm exploring what that means to me, whether it's through art or whatever. I think that is important and I think that that, but necessarily I do think there isn't a when, when the the want is I want to go public, and this is just one person's opinion. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:16

I want to go public with this Because of this light, like talking about, you know, time is time is luck, like we did in the last episode, or talking about, like you know, the like. There's certain takeaways, I think, from that story that are that are just good takeaways, general takeaways. And then there's there is an element to it, though, I'm sure, where it's like like my dog just died right, and I want to tell you about that so I can get your sympathy. Yeah, I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but I'm just saying I think, from human experience, like there's a level of and I don't know, maybe I'm just a little more closed off to that Because, at the end of the day, is it better for that person to hold that in and not share that? Maybe not.

Speaker 3: 21:09

I think it's just we you know a lot of advertising and a lot of the things that we despise in this are going for the cheap, cheap thrill and like almost dying is something that, while incredibly moving to when it happens to a person, it's something that there's not a lot of nuance or a lot of there's not a lot to figure out there. You know, like you have life, you almost lost it, like we've been going through that for everybody. Literally everybody's going to go through that at some point and they're either going to not lose it or they're going to lose it. Everybody that's ever existed has a history of the world. Yep, to this point, yep, and you know so. It's like trying to find the deeper nuance. I think that there's a usefulness to that.

Speaker 3: 21:58

But what, like personally? Yeah, whenever something tragic or potentially tragic or just dramatic happens, I tried to. I was. I told Audrey about this last week where I was writing something. I was like I really want to read this to you or like get you to read this and like hear what you. But I was like but every time I do that, I detach myself from it. Yeah, I don't want to work on it anymore.

Speaker 3: 22:22

Oh interesting, or I start to like.

Speaker 2: 22:24

I like the fact that you gave it to her. Causes the detachment or it's when she gives you what she feels about it.

Speaker 3: 22:31

No, it's the fact. It's like I don't like sharing ideas with people a lot. Yeah, not because I don't like I think feedback is valuable, but I don't like sharing ideas, because I'll share an idea and then it just like kills the motivation for me to continue to flush the idea out. Yeah, and that's.

Speaker 2: 22:47

You know, it's a bad, I don't know this, yeah, I mean, I don't know you should put a judgment on it, so it's like it's just what happens.

Speaker 3: 22:54

Yeah, it's in like. So my reaction, if something life changing happen, would be yeah, I'd want to talk about it pretty instantly, yeah, but then I've almost had to train my. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do. I'm doing this is just what I've had to do is like I've had to train myself to be like there's layers beyond what you're looking at right now.

Speaker 3: 23:15

And you want to react to this. This is the thing that you just wrote that you think is great and you want to show everybody. Right, this is the photo that you just took that you want to share with the world. You're going to feel differently about this and if you let it out, then yeah, it is like you know, when you finish a piece of work and you release it, it becomes not yours anymore, it's everybody else's. So that's maybe that's why the motivation dies. So, yeah, I mean, like in specific scenarios, I can't say like I mean, you know, I've had some things happen in the last, in the last year, that I've had to sit with yeah, and be like, okay, I need to. You know, how does this work into what I'm working on? And I don't know.

Speaker 2: 23:59

I mean I feel, you know, I don't, I don't have a, a well, I think, in what I want to talk about is they just sort of like. I do think there's an element of ego to something like that 100% because, because one of my first thoughts after it happened was and this is in this too I always look for these experiences to externalize character. What are some of the hardwired, reflexive, instinctive reactions that you have to things that are very out of the ordinary? Yeah, how do you handle?

Speaker 3: 24:33

it. Well, and what was so fascinating to me? When last week you were talking about that story, you started trying to break down his logic. What's the story? The story about the guy throwing the thing. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:52

Oh sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:53

Yeah, you started trying to like, like dissect his logic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I was like that's because, not, you know right, some people are going to react more on the emotional side and you're like reacting on, that's right. It's the writer the thing to do right.

Speaker 2: 25:09

What are the motivations? Like that comes from the power of myth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. This guy, like it's easy to stamp him as a villain, but I'm curious about the whole context of his life that led up to him deciding to grab a two pound hunter metal and come try to get it.

Speaker 3: 25:26

And it's, it's exact, it's, you know the, especially if he's not insane. You just, you kind of nailed it because this the problem that we have, that I, this is why I get. So this is part of the reason I get so flustered when people, yeah, oh, my dog just died, or oh, that is, you're stamping it, yep, right. Then, and there you're stamping it bad, yep, sad, Yep, you're using these very, you're labeling it lazy emotions to label these things, and then you're not exploring your money further because, okay, well, talked about that. Yeah, sad, and I feel you know I want attention. Yeah, there's no new stamp that send it on. There's no nuance, there's nothing, no gray or anything from it, yep.

Speaker 3: 26:08

And I think, especially as people that are trying to create work or, you know, trying to create something that's that teaches you more about how the world is. You know, call it art or work or whatever you want to call it yeah, I like to use the word work. But, yeah, I think it should be our job to Fight against that urge to just stamp it bad, scary death, move on. And Because I think like, yeah, when you sit and like you, trying to find how that externalizes character, are you trying to look at it like okay, my first thing was like, oh man, that was a bad guy. Yeah, you have a lot of people that are not gonna be able to go past that. They're not gonna be able to get past that layer of that guy.

Speaker 3: 26:59

Was he like we were watching? We were watching the zone of interest movie and the people behind us were like, like you the bad, like bad, like this is just you know, this is karma or like bad, and it's like that might have been what Glazer was thinking, but he at least had the. The he did. That didn't Project into the film.

Speaker 3: 27:22

I don't think that wasn't no it wasn't like he just put that out there. He's like bad and you know he restrained himself from doing that and because of it you get so much more out of it than just like good or, and you know the people that think in those terms of just good or bad, good or evil, happy, sad, yeah, they need things that challenge them, because the only way that to get past that, like you said, they need Something to unlock it for him. Yeah, the only thing that's gonna lock it is the process of somebody exploring deeper, and it's that's the most uncomfortable thing. Right, that's sitting down with the blank page and being like Okay, here's the obvious emotion. Now, what else is here?

Speaker 2: 28:02

Well, with those people saying bad, it's like, but do you realize you're a few ingredients away from doing the same thing 100%. Go watch the Stanford experiment a hundred percent. It's all within us.

Speaker 3: 28:14

Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, I just think the immediate reaction is usually Avoidive. Nuance yeah, and the nuance is the most important thing yet for creating something that's able to Maybe stand the test of time, or at least inform. Yeah, I, the goal should be to inform yourself before anybody else. Like the work is informing you, it's probably gonna inform somebody else and I Think it. The first step is to fight the urge to just stamp it and move on or you know this is, you know a little bit more.

Speaker 2: 28:52

my question too is that state of immediate, of immediate turmoil, yeah, and I'm like unsure, like what happened, what's? How do I feel about it? Is there trauma? No, I think I'm okay.

Speaker 2: 29:08

Yeah, this, that that state of Upheaval or Unnot knowing your emotion not knowing what, what your long-term reaction is, whatever it is Creating from that place, but then also reacting from that place. So I was leading toward this, you know. So I want to let go like what was the the these you don't have time to like think about your responses, right, and in moments of trauma, like I'm sitting here honestly patting myself on the back because by some miracle I instinctively ducked, and again, if this guy's intention was to truly hit me in the head with this thing, versus just scare the crap out of me, if he was really trying to hit me in the head and do damage to me, kill me, whatever, I'm like patting myself on the back for having, like this Miracle, instantaneous reaction to duck out of the way and then clear away from them and then run off into the one you said like you had to sit and just like

Speaker 2: 30:12

yes and so like and at the same time. So I'm like, hey, you really Handled that well, because I think about this a lot in certain Situations. What would I do if I got in a car accident with the kids in the car? What would I do if Goldie was choking on something like? I don't like obsess over these things, but I try to like think through Bad situations, to have some Level of instinctive reaction to handling them in a good way. So I was very happy with myself for that. But then at the same time, sitting in the truck After retrieving the object, my first thoughts are I should post this to Instagram and say something like that time I almost got killed doing street photography. Yeah my first interesting yeah so then I'm sitting there.

Speaker 2: 31:00

You know, I'm sort of consciously going Don't, don't act on any of these feelings, but just observe them.

Speaker 3: 31:11

Yeah, observe what your instincts are to do, or what you're a desire to do or a compulsion to do, see, and I think not acting in observing gives you, because now you have more of a Holistic understanding of, like the character traits that build up to right and the character traits that come out, but in you, moments of you high drama, touched on something of the high drama and there's something that you kind of reached into my head, because as soon as I finished, like kind of talking about what I was talking about, I had this thought.

Speaker 3: 31:41

I was like, like I love like punk music, yeah, or like you know, like you have aggressive, you know, punk music, or like Just something that's reactionary, yeah, that's so just raw, raw and of a just of a react, like of a exact, yeah, raw emotion, yeah, unfiltered, yeah, and there's, you know, there's so much, there's something to that that has its own artistic merit, right. And again, this just gets into like there's no one way to do things, but you know the the you immediately get now I think the like wanting to post Instagram. I think that is a different.

Speaker 3: 32:28

I think that's a different urge acting, but, yeah, if you immediately just jotted down like what you were feeling, yep, and like a poem came out of it or something like that's punk music. Yeah, that is just in the moment like, yeah, and it might literally just be like fuck this guy, this guy tried to. That's a human response. Somebody like, yeah, you feel like you were attacked and you are, that is your adversary and you were trying to yep, and so you know. That's interesting. I do think, though, there's yeah, there's a confusion that's happened, like where there is this new. We had a paradigm shift with social media, where, right now, it is just it's, it's people going out and trying to take photos of cool things.

Speaker 3: 33:10

Yep or you know people trying. You know people trying to Create.

Speaker 3: 33:17

What is the craziest thing I could do. I bought a Walmart, right, and I everything in a Walmart, like I stayed up for six days and Counted dominoes or like toothpicks or you know, like some of the stupid shit that you see, yeah, where it is just like pay attention to me, yeah, and I think you've got to find the line, because I, you know, and there's definitely punk music, that's a pay attention to me, or you know, hip hop or Any, any kind of music or it's what film or whatever and we talked about this in previous episodes.

Speaker 2: 33:50

I think there was a short clip that we did and I'll link it in the show notes, but it was something like. The title was like hijacking art for fame and fortune. Yeah and I think in that moment I had a reaction which was how do I hijack this trauma yeah, that I came away from physically unscathed. How do I hijack this high drama moment to?

Speaker 2: 34:16

Turn it into some kind of to put myself in some kind of spotlight or to get attention. Yeah, and If that moment Brought you to that reaction and then, as you processed it more you, you know, part of me was like I'm gonna break on my YouTube channel that you know, I've never been on camera, I've nobody's ever heard my voice. Yeah, like this is the thing that draws me out. Yeah, I'm gonna. So I was, yeah, crafting and all, and I'm thinking like I Don't know if part of me is like trying to rationalize the ego motivation for that Like, oh well, you're gonna share some valuable information about how to be careful out there, or whatever like, and maybe somebody will Watch this video and they'll be more alert while they're doing street photography and my video will have kept them from, you know, getting, getting getting in trouble or whatever it is.

Speaker 3: 35:14

It's interesting how you almost position yourself as, like you know, I made the sacrifice, not not you, and but just how people, yeah, in general position themselves as I had this experience and I can help people.

Speaker 2: 35:26

Yeah, ultimately, I think, really root, if I really tunnel down to the, the thing that's really motivating the making of this thing.

Speaker 3: 35:36

I think it's some of the worst, some of the worst films I've seen in the last couple of years. I guarantee you that was the motivation. Yeah was like they're selling it to themselves this is, this is what's right, and I'm gonna help humanity With whatever this is. And then, but in the back of their mind, it was just like I'm angry and and I can make money.

Speaker 3: 35:56

Yeah and I can get attention or I can, I'm made it point it, point fingers at these people who are bad in my eyes, and it's that's not helping this off my chest. Yeah, and like that, that stuff doesn't. In my experience, that stuff doesn't age very well. Yeah, like you know, maybe record your thoughts immediately and then sit on it for two months and if it is like, if it is good punk music, right, you'll be able to tell in two months, because then all the emotions out of the moment, yeah, but if it's, or record the video, but just don't release it just don't release exactly and just see what it is.

Speaker 3: 36:28

If it's actually useful, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter if you almost got killed two months ago or two years ago or two seconds ago. Yeah, if it's actually something that's worth saying. But does it hold up once you remove all of that? Because when you're in the emotion and everything's emotional, everything's great, you're. This is the best thing I've ever written. This is the best thing photo I've ever taken. Yeah Well, you're living in it. You're living in an emotion.

Speaker 3: 36:50

It is the best song I've ever made mm-hmm and when you remove yourself from that, because a lot of people I think just yeah, put it out, and then you start coming back to those things, and If I've learned anything from photography, I think it's like, a lot of times the thing that gives me the strongest reaction in the moment Isn't the thing that gives me the strongest reaction Six months, twelve months, you know, 18 months down the road. So that's, that's a. It's interesting, though.

Speaker 2: 37:21

Yeah, that this is something you know we can Hang on to for future conversations, because I'm just I'm fascinated about, you know, the different when we make things and the thing that we make, its proximity to the thing that caused it, the, the proximity to the rawness or how profound or or big or unprecedented or Uncommon that event was in our lives, and what it does to externalize the different things that motivate us to make, make something. Yeah, and I I purposely did not say make work, because, obviously, because, because my assessment is, if I would have just like turn the camera on and like told the story, with some parts of my brain going how many views would this get? What would the phone He'll be? How do you make it? You know like, oh well, but I'm not sure this get. What would the? Yeah, they'll be? How do you make it?

Speaker 2: 38:26

You know like, oh well, purposely, don't make it the obvious clickbaity thumbnail, yeah, but still make sure that you're communicating the drama, like those parts of your brain that's making you want to make something, but connected again to At least my interpretation of it ego, vanity, fantasy of a video going viral and bringing in new subscribers and then showing your real work to more people like all this crap Versus, and again not saying you have to wait to make something, yeah, but just you know, again for me, the thing I wrote I I'm like more Positively connected to that. Then I am the video I think I would have made if I sat down. Let's go live not live, live, but like let's turn lights on and start talking.

Speaker 3: 39:23

Who knows, like what you wrote this morning, like what, if you come back to that and like a week, right, and then that Melds with some other thing that happened to you this next week, yeah, and then you're like okay, creates completely Like other idea that you never would have been able to conceptualize in the moment. Follow that like maybe there's a project here that you don't see right now, maybe there's a story here.

Speaker 3: 39:51

Yeah maybe there's, you know, maybe it's nothing, but like hold on to that emotion, to like you know what was that emotion? Like the fear, you know, the oh wow, like I just happened to duck Good job, like the pride you felt at the moment. That's interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of really interesting stuff and I think that stuff is more useful than, and more interesting to explore than I don't. Every time I found myself being super reactionary. I just it's usually that leads the cringe later on and you always think I mean you, at least in my experience whenever I make something that feels really good in the moment, usually that's almost the best metric I found to see if it's not gonna age well yeah there's some things that, but you know, usually the things that age the best of the things that have simmered yeah, a little bit, and yeah, I don't know it's.

Speaker 3: 40:57

It is such an interesting phenomenon though of like I need to share, yes, I need, like, I need people to hear this right, this is important. Yep, this is my plight, this is.

Speaker 2: 41:10

I know it's such a natural thing and so many people yep, and I don't know if like it's, if it's like exacerbated by the fact that I, you know my other channel, you know 30,000 subscribers, and like something that that does to make you think that these people like, just like, want to know what's going on with you just like sitting down to coffee with you or just checking in with my wife at any day, like how was your day?

Speaker 2: 41:41

yeah you know, like, like, does it implant something in you that blurs these lines between, like a self-importance yeah just well, yeah, and just like you know, blurs these lines between telling my wife how my day was with, like, writing a poem or taking the photograph, like they're two completely different things. So if you have a place where you're making work or kind of what we talked about with my photography, you know sort of half work, half process or half YouTube, you know, because it's like check out this DigiCam and what it can do, versus I don't know a one word title and like some kind of something that feels like work, yeah, or the work yeah. Like those lines get blurred as you, as you build a community, an audience, connections with people, and like that feeling of I can't this this big. You'll never guess what happened to me no this, you know, clunk.

Speaker 2: 42:49

Guess what? Alex, I got a story for you, buddy. You know, it's almost like you're an opportunist or a profiteer.

Speaker 3: 42:57

Yeah, but I didn't feel like it's interesting though, because I didn't feel like like the medium almost changes. Yeah, because, like when you brought that in here, like that was just a story that you wanted to tell me, right, and like I didn't feel like there was any. There wasn't some ego driving that exactly, and that's the thing I brought in here and I'm like, but for some reason we can talk about changes when it's like I don't know something about it, like being exploited right, exactly, there's a difference.

Speaker 3: 43:30

There's a difference between yeah, it's the exploitation factor right adds this like fills exactly, exactly because there's something. There's something to walking in to a group of friends and be like I've got a story to tell, right, and you're not. You know you're not begging for sympathies at that point. Yeah, like you know, some some things happen and like won't. Like yeah, like I'll call you and talk about. Okay, like just I just wanted somebody to talk to you know, like talk through that's different from like I'm gonna go and explain. Yeah, you know, and I think, beyond even just like the you talk about, like you having these subscribe, I think just the existence of the ability for you to put something out there, yeah and the image that we have in our mind of like, look at all these crazy things that have made these people these successes.

Speaker 3: 44:19

Because they talked about it, it's created this like expectation of like this bad thing happened. Oh, this is my ticket I'm gonna get, I'm gonna cash in for all that. This is this. I could and this will get attention.

Speaker 3: 44:31

I could have died, or like I'm going through like my dog was alive for this many years and this is so sad, like I'm gonna like, instead of just being willing to accept it as what it is, it's like I'm gonna milk this for everything I can and then at least it's not all bad, yep, but it's like just I know this in my head. It's just kind of a disgusting urge. But yeah, and I don't mean that in like yeah, but it is just like yeah, and I'm but I think I've done it.

Speaker 2: 45:03

I'm sure I. That is what I mean there's. This is not a holier than now this is what I mean, though, kind of going back to the audience of interest.

Speaker 2: 45:10

If you put the right ingredients together, we can do things that are really, really bad and so, even though me making a video about my experience is not on the same level of genocide, yeah, yeah, the right ingredients. Someone trying to kill me? Yeah, I come out unscathed. I have a YouTube channel. I'm trying to make work all these ingredients. If you combine them together, it could add up to, you know, me making a cringe video where I, where my ego makes me, hijack, profiteer, play and play through even further, like you put you put it out yeah, what if it does like?

Speaker 3: 45:58

what if it is the thing? Yeah, takes off right? Oh my god, matt, I'm so sorry, like you could have died.

Speaker 2: 46:04

You are so you know video are so powerful. Yeah, thank you for sharing.

Speaker 3: 46:09

I'm so sick. You were the victim of circumstance and da, da, da, da and like, and then you're, you're taking all that and this feels good yep, this has a sense, for I'm getting 400,000 views like the channel is a hundred, like yep, I'm making a living now and then it's well, I need to do something else. It's like this yeah you know, yeah, and then that, then you get into my wife has cancer literally yep, yep, and it's that, or, like you know, you make a video like how this death affected me exactly you know, you start feeding down on what worked, and so it's almost like yeah, you played through the thought scenario and it's like what's the best case scenario?

Speaker 3: 46:53

yeah, terrible result maybe.

Speaker 2: 46:56

Yeah, so I wonder too interesting yeah, and I like I'm, I like I don't want to sit. I don't want it to sound like, if you make stuff in response to it, like a traumatic thing or a dramatic moment in your life, if you make something out of that, yeah, like you're wrong, you should wait yeah, and I don't think that's what we're saying.

Speaker 2: 47:13

I think if I because if there's, if there's, if there's and I'm not saying this is the thing you should do, but for me, knowing that there's an ego element and a fantasy element and attention seeking element to my psyche, or whatever you want to call it for me it's important to do some of it. So, like I did take a photo of the hunk and I'm like just relax, just take a minute. Okay, have your impulses partially make. Whatever you're gonna make, whether it's a post for Instagram or you can tweet, or you're gonna send to somebody a picture in a text message you'll ever guess what happened to me or even the video press record, record it. Just take a second to just process, process and just hold, you know, hold yourself accountable to like what's the? Even if you're speaking your truth by making that video, is it coming from a good place?

Speaker 2: 48:18

I don't know the right place yeah, I don't know what the word is yeah but like a place of rightness or pure, yeah, yeah no, I see what you're saying, though.

Speaker 3: 48:33

Like is it? Is it is the intention? Yeah, is it justified? Is it not even? Is it justified? Is it truth? Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know it. Is it a true?

Speaker 2: 48:48

it's the truth of if you want to exploit it's the truth it's this result, the truth of the moment.

Speaker 3: 48:53

You're not the truth of the.

Speaker 2: 48:55

If you want to make work and somehow in the big scheme of your life, this is gonna inform it whether it's this thing you make right away or this thing you make later. If, a year from now, you put that thing that you wrote on your website and you know somebody likes it and they want to publish it, you put that thing out there from a pure level-headed, rational place and it got a positive result because your intention wasn't to try to get these short-term yeah fantasy egocentric things.

Speaker 3: 49:37

I think you're hitting the nail in the head right now as to why a lot of things that we see and consume yeah, over the last 15 years or so feel so useless. All the tools are there like there's there's definitely amazing work being created, but for some reason, if you ask people, it's like yeah, there's just a bunch of shit. Yeah, these days, and part of that is just there's just so much stuff. That percentage of it is always gonna be shit and it's easier to go from just as much shit in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Speaker 2: 50:07

We just well we have not as much of it, as made it through the filter well, we had barriers to kind of slow us down to think about it, whereas now it's something happens, we can literally go live on our phone and instantly it's like.

Speaker 3: 50:20

I think that's probably, you know, that's probably, in the whole of things, a positive, but now we have to figure out how to govern ourselves. There's no barrier, and I think that's a lesson that a lot of people need to learn with, with the work they're making, is how to. I think a lot of stuff that's been released is just very much immediate reaction. You know people, people sitting down like I'm gonna, I'm gonna write a screenplay in a weekend, yeah, it's like. Or you could maybe take six months, eight months, see it through, and it's not to say that great work hasn't been written, wasn't like, as I lay dying was written in like two weeks over, like during the night, it's not. But you know there's.

Speaker 3: 51:04

If there's a difference between you know, maybe that flash in the pan happens, it's the exception that proves the rule. It's not the, it's not the norm. And I think if we learn to kind of sit with our emotions a little bit and process them, process these events that we that occur in our lives, instead of immediately going public with them, right, I think as a whole, the level of the baseline of quality would be wise and I think that's a problem is just, we have the tools with the buffets in front of us, right, I'm not not gonna get another plate. Yeah, why would I stop?

Speaker 2: 51:38

myself and there's some creators that I've, you know, watched their content and I really appreciate when they do kind of just sit down and and have an honest conversation about what they're struggling with. Yeah, there's a YouTube channel, brian Burks, and he will make videos that talk about his struggles with asking people if he can take their portrait and the social anxiety he has about that. But it feels like he's talking about it with an accumulation of instances versus guys. Guess what happened to me 20 minutes ago, you know like yeah you know where it's coming from that.

Speaker 2: 52:12

So when we were talking about that, it made me think of a scene from the social network, and it's like Facebook is taking off right, or the Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg and the car and they're like, well, what we did this and did this, and and.

Speaker 2: 52:32

And Parker Sean Parker, played by Justin Timberlake, who has gone through one of those moments where something took off he, with that wisdom, kind of says, hey, let's just hold on. Yeah, because we don't know what this is yet. And I think to me, if I had to summarize how to process all the things that are going on after a highly dramatic or traumatic moment, certainly make something, yeah, certainly Write in your diet, note it down man.

Speaker 2: 53:03

Yeah, don't tape. Record something hundred percent. Record a video, but don't do anything with yeah until you know what not what the word yeah but what, what it is like, what, like, how's this play out?

Speaker 2: 53:17

I think, for me personally, just Giving it time Is is probably the better thing, because I do have a predisposition toward Ego-based pursuits. I do have a predisposition for attention seeking and and these types of really out of it, really extraordinary moments can bring that out, and it's not to say like, kill that part of you, stifle that part you never want, just be aware of it. Yeah, and know what you're susceptible to, because I have definitely a history of oversharing, a history of, I think, of reacting in the moment and not processing things, whether it was losing my temper or Gushing to a girl that wasn't understanding. You know what I, you know what I meant or whatever it is.

Speaker 3: 54:21

That's a lesson I need to internalize too, because you know I, I'm an emotional person. Sometimes I'll be in something this you don't know, no, like you don't see it, like Exploding right, and you I think that's a great way to put it is hold on, we don't know what this is yet. Yeah, hold on, and you know. In every situation where there is an immense emotion, feel free to explore the emotion and talk about emotion Don't stifle it don't but hold on we don't know what this is yet, and that's one of the big.

Speaker 3: 54:53

I mean I told you about even a project with work that this week when somebody had shared something ahead of time yeah, then we learned that that was actually not a good call, yeah, and then they'd already shared it, so they shoehorned in to fit these expectations, yeah. So, yeah, when you shit, yeah, if you're writing something, you share it and then you get feedback on something. Maybe that's not what's actually right for that piece and the holistic view of the entire thing, but you shared it and you know what you had was only a fraction and you shared it with multiple people. Like I Find somebody you trust. Share it with them. Sure, yeah, they don't mind that it's gonna change. Yeah, but you should. Yeah, you share it with enough people. You get positive feedback.

Speaker 3: 55:31

That camera just went out. You get positive feedback, though, after you share it and suddenly it's you know, it's this Expectation on yourself to. I have to do this. Yeah, and once you've got that expectation built in, like you're done for, because You're gonna keep that in there, because, oh, somebody said good things about it, and If that turns out to not be a piece, that's just gonna hurt the quality. Not a relevant piece. It's gonna hurt the quality of the work in the long run.

Speaker 2: 56:03

So and don't let, if you do have an audience whether it's an Instagram following, youtube, a newsletter, whatever Don't let you know, because we all have a following right, we have our family, we have our close friends, because that was the first thing I was thinking of. You know, like I want to talk about this with this person or that person, or let him know what happened, and then it starts going out to the tertiary followers or community, whatever you want to call it. Don't let that hijack that part of you even more to be like. These people will be interested that this happened to me and I'm gonna share it with them to get attention, to build my following, to get more views.

Speaker 2: 56:43

You know, whatever, whatever, whatever, and it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. You, you, you, you.