Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
39. Who Made This? The Disappearing Artist and Their Work
We compare different ways of looking back at our past creative work - from screenplays and videos to photographs and stories. While Matt vividly remembers the emotions and intentions behind each project even years later, Alex experiences complete disconnection from his past work, seeing it almost as if someone else created it. We explore whether emotional distance helps with objective evaluation of creative projects, referencing how artists like Michael Mann and John Updike revisit and refine their work over time.
This discussion of creative reflection leads us to examine how we engage with media and art in the modern world, from our relationship with smartphones and social media to rediscovering physical formats like vinyl records and books. We debate the challenges of sharing creative work online while maintaining authenticity, and discuss practical ways to balance digital consumption with more meaningful engagement through reading and real-world experiences. -Ai
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
That's how I know if something was coming from a real place is. If it wasn't, it usually gets invalidated by time.
Speaker 2:It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer so I will look back at something after X amount of years have passed, and I will either want to bury my head in the sand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's how I know it was coming from a place that wasn't real, or I'll be like, yeah, I see what I was doing there. That's interesting.
Speaker 4:So what's making you? Okay, let me answer the question first. Here's my problem when I go back after time has passed to look at past work especially if it's not something that I did something with it, especially if it's not something that I did something with it I remember how I felt vividly when I was making it and I sort of re-conjure up those feelings and that makes it hard for me to be a bit more objective in ascertaining the quality of the work, because the feelings I mean how do you like the feelings were quality feelings, the questions were quality questions, the wondering was quality wondering. And you've fabricated, barfed up, crafted this thing, whatever. It was a combination of all of them.
Speaker 4:And because I can go right back to those feelings, I'm right back in it, and so it makes it incredibly hard to know if what actually was made is any good. Now it's easier with like and this isn't what I consider like the work, like the, the, the art, obviously like an old YouTube video where I'm talking about data or something who cares, like I can look at that and go cringe fast. You know, like you could have done this or you should have done that, this would have been better, whatever. But it becomes like an old screenplay or an old poem, an old short story, you know. Whatever it is, um, I tend to latch on to what made me sit down and write it and that can cloud my ability to ascertain whether, again, what is actually on the page is any good, interesting.
Speaker 1:It's tough, see, I lose that person. Yeah, I don't have any. I think that's part of the motivation for making anything up in the first place is I lose? That person that made the work Like it's gone. Is I lose that person that made the work Like? It's gone and eventually I get to a place where the work is foreign. I'm like, oh wow, I did that. That's interesting. How did I ever come up with that? How did I ever get to that point?
Speaker 4:Yeah, these things are like time machines for me.
Speaker 1:I can't put myself into the. I mean obviously, if I see a photo that like a family photo or something that's a different story, but a lot of the times with with any work that I make, I can't put myself into the, into the, the, the mindset that I was when I was making it. So it's foreign, it's coming from a different person and I can be a little bit more objective about it in my experience. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4:And one of the struggles I've had in the craft of storytelling is I struggle most and always did especially with screenwriting being so inside of the thing that I couldn't look at it like how an audience would. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was really difficult for me. I wonder, and I'm genuinely curious if anybody's watching, like, what is your experience? Like what is the common experience? Is it to? It pulls you back, or is it a loss?
Speaker 4:It's a disassociation, yeah, yeah, and I hope that doesn't sound negative like no I think that's I mean I.
Speaker 1:That's a pretty accurate description I think I completely just like if I look at something, a project that I I did you know years ago or something. I, I don't know that person anymore, like that's not me anymore. Yeah. Not that that, not that I've you know changed drastically or anything, but it's just not the person I am anymore. So I I find it like you're meeting somebody new.
Speaker 4:I wonder if that sort of speaks to some of the differences between us and how we not approach but how we conjure up the work.
Speaker 4:You know and this is not like like we talked about in the previous episode, not like you're one or the other, but I have always had a sense from you, especially watching the work that I have seen of yours in particular, um, some of your YouTube content there's just such a strong connection to the craft, whereas I feel like I am so much of just like the raw emotion when I make this stuff you know we joked in other episodes think it, feel it send it like craft doesn't factor in, because I'm, like so enamored with the fact that I had these feelings and wondered these things and just like came up with this thing, I wrote this thing or I shot these clips or I, you know, edited this thing together and like just let that state of rawness then make me just put it out there and that to me and I'm not saying that that is the case, but I'm wondering if there's, if there's us occupying more of one, you know, more of one side of the spectrum than the other, and if that, in your instance, makes it so you can look back on your work more objectively, whereas I just get swept up in the emotions again and in in the throes of the the storm again, yeah, and, and I'm like right back to add this and change this and move this over here.
Speaker 4:And what if this?
Speaker 1:and yeah and just can't I wonder if it's a learned thing too, like I I cause now that I think about it, I don't know if that's excuse me, um, I don't know if that's naturally the the case or if I, like you always, you always listen to people where they're like, yeah, I, we shot this, and then I had to go away for two, two months, and then we came back and we did the edit, or so I wonder if it's just absorbing that kind of thinking over time that led to the more disassociative yeah, um, but yeah, I mean, I, I, really I.
Speaker 1:I have a hard time looking at work immediately after, whether that's something filmed, something written, something photographed. You know, I don't I don't play music or anything, but I'm sure there's a similar dynamic at play.
Speaker 4:Yeah, now I don't want anybody to be confused like I can. You know, there's been a couple videos that I've made that are um, you know they're certainly not the work, but it's a little bit more storytelling than just like a tutorial or whatever. And I've, you know, taken two days away from an edit and then come back and go oh, this is a little redundant or this part is just I feel the energy dip like I can I have some measurement? Yeah, yeah, we're not.
Speaker 1:I don't think we're talking about like the fit like the, the manifestation of craft in terms of like technical Sure Process. Yeah. We're telling you more about just this, how we philosophically or yeah, yeah, just a broader approach to the work- yeah I think I'm just I. I disassociate and I mean yeah, if I read something that I wrote four years ago, it's like I'm reading. I might as well be reading something in a newspaper, yeah, or on like there's no. Let's warp back into this person yeah, and I think it's more so.
Speaker 1:It's exciting in a way, because I'm like, oh, wow, this isn't, that's an interesting idea. Or like, wow, that's interesting, I haven't thought about that. And it's like, oh wait, I did think about that. Obviously, that's crazy, but I have had the experience before where, like, I'll read through something and I'll be like, oh my gosh, that's, I need to write that down. And I'm like, you know, but it's just grabbing at what's there in the moment and putting it down, and then moving completely to something else, so it's just interesting to hear your experience is kind of the opposite.
Speaker 4:Yeah, completely, that's exciting. Yeah, I mean I can read. I went through and read some journal entries from high school last year and I vividly remember sitting there writing this stuff and what I felt Took you back to the moment Big emotional recall. This is just journaling, it's not crafting a story and all that. But the same thing happens with a lot of my stories, even to the point where if I read a screenplay, that felt like it was more like I'm writing what the producers want the story to be.
Speaker 4:yeah, there's there's still emotional recall of what I want to do with the story versus what I feel like I have to do to, you know, to please these authority figures, yeah. But then also the emotion of what I think this thing is about, like it all just comes right back to the surface and that's part of what makes it difficult for me to let go of some of that past work. I mean, I was just thinking the other day about rewriting a script that I wrote eight years ago and not like a page one rewrite, but it's sort of I read up, dyke, and I'm like I'm seeing, I'm seeing how I can improve my story and throw out all this junk that got added in when other people got involved.
Speaker 4:Because I'm like I still think about these ideas, I still have these questions, I still grapple with these things with myself, and because of what I saw Updike do with Harry Engstrom and me, projecting and telling a story about what his experience, his life was and how it filtered into this character and the story that he wrote, I want to go even deeper in a more meaningful way, exploring these ideas and questions way. Exploring these, these ideas and questions, um, and do it, uh, and do it with more, more command and craft, like he did with with his story.
Speaker 1:I think you see that, with a lot of great, a lot of great art, it's like the early stages are essentially just trial runs, like they're never, they're never fully getting a grasp on what they're trying to say, like I don't know, and I think of like michael mann's films, yeah, or somebody, somebody along the lines of you. You can look at their films or his films and be like man kind of feels like he's made, he's been making the same film for 40 years, yeah, and it's just like a different iteration on the, on its variations on a theme yeah but he's still like.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's the case. I think at every instance he's trying to like, he's like wait, there's still more here there's more to excavate. That's right, that's right there's more that can be.
Speaker 1:That needs to be considered here, and I think with anything you're not gonna. You'd be a bit silly to approach anything in the world with the sense that if you spend a year on it or two years on it, you're going to develop a full, 360 degree understanding of that thing. Yeah, yeah, there's always, like most of these things, there is no quote, unquote understanding. It's just new ways of looking at it or a new, new perspective.
Speaker 1:So you're continuing to dig and you excavate more and more and more and more, and then you die and somebody else picks up the work and continues on, and that's the whole point of recording it in the first place. I think yeah.
Speaker 4:And sharing it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely no, I think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and sharing it Absolutely. No, I, I, I completely agree, and I, I, I, I like I like uptake similarly with a real whole series right For novels continuing to excavate and work and work through these things.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I cut you off. No, it was just. It was just an interesting parallel.
Speaker 4:Well, I really like that word grapple, because I think it's easy for us to think like with Michael Mann you know, this is a rehash, he's just, you know, he's just recycling the same ideas or whatever. And I think really what you know, what's there, and even with and I could see sort of the evolution, I've started Rabbit Redux, which is the second novel in the Rabbit series, rabbit Redux, which is the second novel in the Rabbit series, and I can see all the hallmarks of Updike's prose from the first novel, but new areas he's exploring with language where he hasn't sort of betrayed his voice but he's using words that he didn't use.
Speaker 4:He's pushing it further yeah he's pushing things further and you can see, you know it's 10 plus years or whatever, since the first novel came out. Things have changed, mores have changed. What's acceptable, you know people, you know you can't say that word, you can't. You know you can't get that detailed in the sexual, you know component of things, you know, et cetera, and him going, you know, like you said, pushing it even further, grappling with these things even more, not just like in a how far can I, john Updike, push the acceptable language of a Pulitzer Prize-nominated or winning piece of literature? But I think these words, I say these words to myself.
Speaker 4:I have these experiences and these other people do. We all do, we all do. And how does it come up and how you write? Uh, you know how you make your work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting to like some people are continuing to excavate on the idea and some people are continuing to excavate on the form itself.
Speaker 4:That's right. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you have, like Michael Mann is a case of somebody who's continuing to excavate on the idea um verner herzog you know he's continuing to excavate on, like an idea, right. And then you have some filmmakers who are excavating, or continuing to excavate on the form itself, right, grapple with the form itself and, like every film or every novel, seems different and unique. Yeah, and it's because maybe they're not excavating on an idea per se, but instead on the actual form.
Speaker 4:That's what I appreciated so much about rabbit run was. You know there's I'm sure there are people in the literary world, the world of publishing, you know novels and all that. You know an editor that would say, whoa, this whole page. There's not a period and there's no punctuation where, like you have, and and then you have, an independent clause that you know someone like him is like who gives a shit? Like I'm not, I'm not worried about the correct way to write a paragraph or write a sentence.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to use words and language as a tool to communicate an idea, an emotion, to create a feeling in the reader, to take what he said, which is to lift the ordinary into the eternal realm of art. And I will sacrifice these rules that you, the rules of the form that you care about, in order to do that, including in the second novel, not to turn this into a john uptake retrospective on the rabbit series. Um, but I'm going to start using language, sexual language, that, uh, some people might not be comfortable with. Yeah, um, and you know, at least at the time you know this, I think was the time you know this, I think was pub. I think rabbit Redux was published in, I think 71.
Speaker 4:Um, you know this is, you know, sort of post, uh, counterculture. You know, woodstock hippie revolution, whatever it's called. But, um, yeah, that's an interesting point about excavating the form versus excavating the questions and the ideas. And some, you know, probably again going back to the episode where we talked about this gradient, the spectrum, you know, are moving back and forth between excavating both in their work. I thought it was interesting and not to go down a rabbit hole, but the A rabbit hole, yeah.
Speaker 4:I know Well done. You were waiting for that, because I say rabbit hole all the time, Like Zemeckis.
Speaker 4:You know Zemeckis with that film that didn't do well with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright here, I think, the one where the camera is in a fixed location for the entire film and you see what happens on that piece of land over these generations, millennia. Even that's interesting and that was interesting to him. Like, well, how can you? You know he's messing with the form right. Obviously he's exploring ideas and excavating other things. I didn't see the film, but that's interesting to me, I think in the worst case scenario, someone goes that's a gimmick. In the best case scenario, someone goes you just push the boundaries of what this form can do. And this is pushing the bounds of what's possible in this form of storytelling that's existed for over a hundred years. That's interesting to me.
Speaker 4:I also watched Horizon, the part one, the Kevin Costner Western, and you know, certainly has what feels like a combination of what we've all been consuming and television and streaming these long, eight, ten episode series with the form of a movie. You know, a three-act movie, and this is part one of two parts. Yeah, you could argue that the whole thing put together feels like eight episodes of something on netflix, but he's messing with the form to create a little bit of both Lonesome dove, part two, don't mess with the lonesome dove, can't mess with the lonesome dove. So, yeah, I think those are just interesting things to be aware of and that helps me when I do look to read, watch whatever, listen to something, to just be aware of, um of that. Another thing popped into my head with regard to form. Uh, you know, when queen went into the, the, the record label, to talk about bohemian rhapsody and wanting it to be like a seven minute song for the radio, it's just like you're out of your mind.
Speaker 4:There's no way, no way, and the thing is like one of the biggest hits of all time. Yeah.
Speaker 4:They call them, uh, I don't know if you've heard it. I forget the exact wording, so feel free to put it something in the comment to correct me but they call, like, certain songs that are like way up there as far as hits go, something like a mega hit or a super hit, like these songs that are sure there's a hit song. But then there's the songs that are like, yeah, even farther beyond that. Going back to what updike said, transcending into the artistic realm, and what I love about bohemian rhapsody is it said fuck you to three and a half minute form of a song. Yeah.
Speaker 4:We're going to go crazy with this thing and you watch some of Dylan's stuff too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just like yeah. All right, this thing is 20 minutes, right, right, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, and you know, the movie about him is all you know, centers around him going electric at the Newport Folk Festival, which was another sort of FU to what came before it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you know, he's again talk about evolution and the ideas you're contending with and the form. Yeah, I mean he was. Yeah, he was like I felt like folk music wasn't exciting anymore. There wasn't anything that I could do there. So he goes electric and brings that into it and then he kind of does another switch at some point and kind of goes more in blues and jazz influence.
Speaker 4:Well, and that, just that feeling that you know and obviously this is based on on the movie, which is based on the book about the Newport Folk Festival but just this feeling like once the folk music powers that be had their person that was gonna break folk music out of this sort of, you know, uh, the small corners of niche market it's going to bring it to the next level.
Speaker 4:They want to lock him in as the representative of that, of that movement and that growth, and he's smart enough to realize like oh, this is not. I will not be contained.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean yeah, it goes on to do rock and then goes on to move into more country and then comes back to folk and then goes into blues and jazz influence. I mean just redefines what popular music can be.
Speaker 4:And exploring the form and also exploring the questions and the curiosities that he has through the music. Very interesting stuff indeed. Sorry about all the uptake, I just obsess over this stuff when it lights a fire.
Speaker 1:It's, it's definitely got. Yeah, I think you know you struck on something and I think it's interesting too. You're talking about your reading habits earlier.
Speaker 4:I had a few, you know, last year, a few rips on, uh, a few books. You know we got into um, you know, technopoly and uh, hauntology and a few things like that. Um, uh, there was an, uh, that advertising book that I read, the guy that, um, that sort of, was inspired the Don Draper character for mad men, and it wasn't, you know, certainly wasn't a voluminous text, but I was able to, you know, power through it like in two days. But yeah, just the sort of continuing to dissect or analyze how I spend my time and having a incredibly rewarding experience reading, rabbit, run and going. I know that not every novel is going to give me this experience, but I would rather try to consume more of them in the time that's easy to do so early in the morning, uh, after dinner, and do something. Consume things that are much, have much more value value to me and are much more inspiring to me than to sort of switch off my brain and just consume something or not consume something in order to not be working. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, I think it's we've and we've talked about this before, but yeah, it's so easy to just kind of go for the easy yeah. You know low hanging dopamine and jump into.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm just going to watch this or I'm just going to do this and it's harder to pick up a book and it's exciting, but it's difficult and you've really got to commit to it. You can't. You can kind of get through a YouTube video or a podcast or something in roughly 10 minutes, 5 to 10 minutes to an hour. Right, you don't have to pay complete attention if you miss something.
Speaker 1:It's like whatever, yeah, we, we almost see it as disposable, but in books we don't see as disposable, we kind of see it as like well it requires a little bit more of our patience and our attention, yeah, but then it's often a lot more rewarding and you're expanding the way that you can kind of think about and see the world, and especially if you have a diversity of authors that you're reading from.
Speaker 4:Well, to just be able to you know experience.
Speaker 1:I apologize for the coughing too. I think we should give the uh preface yeah, recovering from some uh pneumonia, some pneumonia.
Speaker 4:So poor bastard we forgive you, yeah, but just try it. If you could cough silently, that'd be great, yeah, well, anyways.
Speaker 1:No, I I love the idea. I think a lot of people are probably in a similar place where it's I gotta like I gotta start, man the time I spend scrolling Twitter or Instagram or TikTok. If I put that towards reading or something, then you know, I think that that's on a lot of people's minds.
Speaker 4:So and I hope a lot of um, a lot of people. Obviously this isn't like some new experience for people to sort of rediscover physical media or dive into some novels or um, or try to connect with experiences in, you know, the real world should we start a studio sessions book club? I mean maybe biannual book club yeah, uh, that could be, yeah could be the move. I mean, we've read, we've read together, but then, also separately some interesting stuff bringing the audience into it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that'd be fun yeah, uh, it could be a nice little appendix to what we're doing here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um get some suggestions too. I look there's nothing I love more than when people in the comments on I guess more so on YouTube, but we've had a couple of people reach out through like emails and just hey, have you heard this or seen this or read this? I mean, some of the better recommendations I've gotten have been right from just comments.
Speaker 4:So and that's part of the excitement about sharing this with an audience is getting that feedback. It is well if you liked Updike, or if you liked Hauntology and Technopoly, and not that Hauntology is the name of a book, but the subject of Hauntology and the book Technopoly. You know, check out some of this stuff as well. Um, you know, check out some of this stuff as well. Obviously, you know, you've been a source of inspiration in my quest to remove myself as much as I can from the magic rectangle and its grip on me and the effects of all that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, uh, and forgive me for overusing that term I'm in love with my own little magic rectangle term and I'm just going to fucking beat it to death because it to me.
Speaker 4:again, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier the emotion. Every time I say that phrase, somebody listening might roll their eyes, you might even roll your eyes, but it immediately brings me to an emotional state of what it was to be I don't want to say held captive, to sort of be, to be entranranced by it and what it can give me and still gives me in certain instances, certain situations, and not that I want to break it down and destroy its role in my life. I just want to have a better awareness of it and figure out how I can bring other things back into my life, like listening to music on vinyl records, cassettes, having a movie on in the background that's on VHS. You know, all this uptight stuff I've been consuming was through the Magic Rectangle, like there is good shit on there that I can watch that has a similar experience to reading a book. It's the stuff that isn't um enriching me that I don't want to spend a lot of time on.
Speaker 1:I think you're hitting on an idea right now too, why a lot of people, a lot of people, feel so romantic about the nineties or the late nineties? Because it was almost a time where is the last time the technology existed, Right, but it wasn't ubiquitous. You, you and you. You had a very clear like okay, this is life, this is a tool. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then that's we started to blur that line and get away from it. Yeah, and so I think, yeah, with physical media and things like, there's a lot of physical media where I mean I understand it to an extent, but I'm also like, like buying cassette tapes other than just for like the fun of it is a ridiculous thing. Yeah, like it is a form of media that degrades over time and maybe that's part of the appeal, the degradation, but it's like it is a sub optimal form of you know, you could get a blu-ray and that thing is going to last for indefinitely, Right?
Speaker 1:I mean, you know you can still run into issues, but and it's a perfect copy, whereas you can buy like a cassette and that thing is gonna it has a shelf life. Maybe that's, yeah, maybe that is part of the attraction I'm certain it is, but I think a lot of people are just like man. This was the technology that was around at the time, when we hadn't gone off the cliff yet into a complete um like all consuming right, where the technology drove our lives, not our lives drove the direction of the technology.
Speaker 4:Well, it was. It was what we've talked about previously, where I said you know, there was a point where I had the majority of my life that was spent in the real world Physical space. In physical space.
Speaker 4:And then there was a point where it transitioned, where the bulk of my time was spent in digital space, cyberspace, cyberspace and you know you can look at my channel Like there are a lot of symptoms there of me struggling with that but not knowing that, at least for me, that that was the bigger issue and part of why I've probably gone so hard on going on Facebook Marketplace and grabbing physical media from people selling it, or driving around Omaha Metro hitting up thrift stores or whatever is.
Speaker 4:There's a real enjoyment of being out in the world and meeting people and enjoying third places and connecting with friends and having dinner and, you know, going over coffee, going to the museum, like seeing something real hanging on the wall.
Speaker 4:While I love crafting things using Final Cut Pro, sitting at my computer, the thought for me of sitting there day after day just staring at this screen is depressing to me. So, you know, trying to break from that, going way too far in one direction and figuring out okay, well, I'm going to do that this many days a week, or you know, whatever I'm just going to. You know I'm going to get my work done and maintain my adult responsibility and obligations and I'm going to win the war of art. But part of that is going to be figuring out how to incorporate being out in the real world a little bit more. Figuring out how to incorporate being out in the real world a little bit more, and I don't really count taking the portable magic rectangle with me to a place in the real world and staring at it there versus at home, I'm in a coffee shop, I'm in the museum staring at the thing Taking a virtual tour.
Speaker 4:And I'm certainly not deluded enough to think that you know swearing off, look, using a computer ever again and, and you know, starting a vintage shop or something and just sitting in the shop all day is the answer, either because that's going to get traditional that's going to get yeah, that's going to be difficult as well like uh, cash only.
Speaker 4:So I, you know, instead of like moving back and forth between all these extreme points, you know how do you? How do you? Just borrow a little bit from all these different areas, find something in the vacillation, find something in the gradient, find something in that, in that sort of nebulous space where you're getting a little bit of everything but still making progress on what you have to do and what you want to do.
Speaker 1:You've got to implement yourself, like with you deciding you wanted to read more. It's just something that has to be done in today's environment. Yeah. I constantly make the argument. I've made the argument on this show before. We're living in the best time. Yeah. I think we have you know. Yeah, you can get on a digital marketplace and buy a physical good from 1943. Yeah. It'll be at your house and you know two to four days. It's incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You can, you know, have a old TV and stream through the internet, right, you know, have an old tv and stream through the internet, right? Anything you want. Like there it's. We live in a really cool hybrid time right now, yeah, where the old is still available and the new is still coming at a very quick rate. But you've got to be able to, like you can choose to just completely, you know, be consumed with an app or some kind of network or whatever, and let that eat your entire life. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or you know you can choose to work. I don't know. I don't want to get into you choosing this or you choose, but yeah, there's a lot of choices that do affect what your day to day looks like and you kind of contended with that a lot of the last couple of years of just being like I don't want to do this. I want to figure out a different way.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I want to. I just want to find um more opportunities to touch on the experiences of my life that have that have been the most meaningful, whether it's a trip to a national park, it's reading.
Speaker 1:What did you say in the last? It's Renaissance, not revolution. Yeah, Renaissance, not revolution. Don't blow up your computer.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, don't. Yeah. We're not talking about burn the whole thing down and build something entirely new and different.
Speaker 1:Maybe blow up some of the programs that are consuming all of your time. Yeah, I mean, there's certain things that I just don't think are that useful, and people spend a lot of money to try to make you feel that they are necessary, and I don't think that they are, and I don't think that they are.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of stuff we consume, whether it's content, or whether it's published content or social content, self-published content. It's just not like you don't need it. You can choose to jump in, but you got to be careful. Some of it's like I'm just going to do a little bit of this drug, like I'm just going to do, and then it's not meant to be. It's just not good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and something that I have to be careful about, um and I don't necessarily want this to start another tangent, but uh, this popped into my mind as you talked about this is, you know, the part of me that has insecurity and ego and maybe craves attention or popularity. You know, we've talked about that before.
Speaker 4:I have to be careful that when I get fired up about you know, and now I'm going to exercise every day and I'm going to read these books and all that that I'm not like. Oh, these are great opportunities to virtue signal to the world through social media how much of a Renaissance man I am.
Speaker 4:You know I've had a couple thoughts that have popped up where I'm like you know I'm going to photograph the book that I'm reading and share it with everybody and part of me, I have to kind of check myself and go. Are you doing this because you want people to perceive of you a certain way? Or are you doing this because you feel like it is a genuine desire to share your experience with others? Because, like you, with me, you know, like you didn't sit there and go well, I'm going to show Matt my typewriter because I want him to think I'm cool. You showed me your typewriter or your film camera or whatever, because you love it and you don't have an agenda with me like I'm gonna make Matt love this stuff too. Yeah, but you just you share it because you feel it.
Speaker 1:It's just one like when I share that stuff with you too, it's like at that point in time you were like the last person.
Speaker 4:I thought would be like would grab, yeah, yeah, grab onto it.
Speaker 1:Yeah and not. You know, I think that's just how you've changed your, how you look at those things. Like I would have thought there are several people who I'm like. This person might get into this because they're like jumping into something different. But then it's funny.
Speaker 1:Like all of the people that I were that, I was like, oh, this person will probably jump into it, just as like an experiential thing, you know, maybe it's still semi part of their life, but you've really adopted it as something like an antidote to something, rather than just, uh, you know, foray into a new experience, for a temporary.
Speaker 4:Well, and you know me dopamine hit or something me so. So, going back to me talking about what's motivating you to share something on social media, sort of in public, um, my good friend, chris, from growing up still, you know, very close friend of mine, and I'm not trying to attribute this to myself, but you know he did send me a text. He was said you know, you know did send me a text he said, you know, to paraphrase, thanks for sort of sharing what you're doing with listening to music again and vinyl records. Because he started to again and so I, you know, gave him one of my record players that I wasn't using anymore and his wife got him a few records for his birthday back in September and he has reconnected with music in a way that has enriched his life and enough to the point where he sent me a text saying thanks for your role in that If I was to ever share something on social media. That is where the excitement is. Yeah.
Speaker 4:But not with the agenda that I'm going to. I'm going to get these people into the fold on vinyl or film, film, photography or whatever.
Speaker 4:I'm just going to put out there that this is what I like and and it's not. It's not to show to communicate people who I am as a, as a maker of things, or again to virtue signal, or to try to gain, um, uh, you know, people's admiration or whatever. Uh, it's really just I love this stuff, I'm going to share it and maybe you'll love it too, or maybe you'll try it out, not me going, I hope you do, but if it does happen and you do attribute it back to me, that's exciting to me In a, I think, an innocent way, not a look at what I did and look who I am and I'm Mr Cool Guy.
Speaker 1:I'm influential.
Speaker 4:You don't sit there and see. You know I I have to imagine you seeing me with typewriters or film photography and the things that you have inspired me to check out. You know you're not sitting there looking at my studio going. Look what I did.
Speaker 1:No, I mean cause it's like I did, like I, the same way that you were influenced by a vast array of of sources. I was too Right, so it's like it didn't start with me. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I just borrowed it from something else and you were like, oh, there's some aspects of that that are interesting, and then you went and developed your own taste. Yeah, it's like. It's like you know, know, when you don't, when you, when you make something like odds are you're even if it's subconscious, you're pulling from something else. Yeah, you're not the first one to come up with that, right, and so it's kind of silly to. I mean, I see how, I see how you could derive pride from something like that, sure, and also, I mean, there's a lot of social pressures, that kind of point to taking pride from something like that.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of external motivations that make that more likely than not. I guess that make that more likely than not, I guess. But yeah, it's. You know, I think the better approach is to be like yeah, I was influenced. Cool if other people are influenced by what I. I do struggle, though, with like putting anything out just because I'm like I don't want to be. You know, I don't want to seem like I'm pandering in any like in my the math in my head. It's better just to not do it at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1:In a lot of ways. Sometimes I'll share something.
Speaker 4:And when you're saying share, in this instance, you mostly mean sharing something you're experiencing on social media, social media or just publicly with like strangers.
Speaker 1:I guess Right People that are like with you. It's like yeah, we're close friends, I'm like. Oh yeah, this is what I'm like, really, yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 1:Show me your stack of books you know, yeah, yeah, um, but I, I, I, I tend to be more reserved in sharing it just with people. I don't know Right, I don't know why. I just yeah, I, I, I. You know, like, if somebody was like, hey, what are you into and why, I would be happy to sit down and have that conversation. But I don't know, I don't, I don't think it's. But I agree, like I completely agree with what your take on it of I share these things because hopefully somebody else can discover.
Speaker 4:Now I will say, though, to be completely honest, it is like we talked about in the past previous episode. It is a spectrum, it is a gradient there, without question. Question, if I, if I had those books on my desk and was had a moment of desire, inspiration, compulsion, whatever you want to call it, they're all different. They all have, uh, you know, a different motive, motive, foundation of motivation, but if I took a photo of that and put it on Instagram stories, the overarching motivation would be, maybe, again, not consciously thinking of this, but I'm into this, I'm going to share it with other people. Maybe they read this book or whatever.
Speaker 4:Um, because of it, where, without question, is some desire from a place of insecurity or wanting to signal something to people. Look at me because I'm reading these cool, lofty books. Yeah, and that's something that I grapple with and that's something that I want to include in my work. So, when I write a screenplay or I write a poem, or I write a short story or I make a youtube video, what is that about? That's the question. Yeah, what is this and that's part of this podcast as well, which ends up making it feel at times like a mat therapy session personality in this forum because maybe you do too, and maybe you have experiences or insights that you can share. Or my experience, um, helps you. And again, alex, I'm going to talk about this stuff because I want to help people it's you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:like I'm going to grapple with this for sometimes selfish reasons, um, hoping that it but it, but it's fueled by from a place of curiosity. Yeah, why do I feel this way? Why?
Speaker 1:do I think these things. It's super interesting too, because I don't like again. I'm happy to have a one-on-one conversation, right, but I don't want the expectation of like. This is what I'm reading. Mm-hmm. Like I, I want to be free to roam, yeah, and I think if you know, you put those out there into the world, like this is what I'm reading. Then it's like oh, so you're exploring this and this and this and this is it's like, no, like I just want to be free. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't want any constraints on what I can, what I can. I don't want any expectation or like, any kind of like oh, these are the kind of books that you're enjoying, or these are the kind of films, like, I just want to be free in putting it out there, sharing what you're doing.
Speaker 4:I don't know if that's the best way to say it, but you sort of create work for yourself, or you sort of box yourself in you, you, you, all of the, all of those things. Yeah constrain, box yourself in, yeah because create work two months from now. Well, what'd you think of? Uh, that voltaire book?
Speaker 1:I didn't actually read it, you just doxed. My thanks a lot, buddy. Uh, you know, yeah, yeah, I know, I just don't want you to read it.
Speaker 4:Well, we, we want to know what you think, yeah, okay, well, I'll read it. I have to, yeah. And now it's a whole different experience.
Speaker 1:It's work. It. I'm doing it for somebody else, I'm not doing it for me.
Speaker 4:Right, which is takes. What's the point at that at that point? Yeah, so, yeah, that brings up we are getting on, but that brings up to, like you know, and what would I, what I've listened to about uptake? You know that what is for you and what's for the audience and obviously you reading books is is, um, you know, this is the problem with social media, or the opportunity of social media. Depending on how you look at it, you turn so much of what you do into a potential to connect with an audience or to be connected to your audience, whether it's 150 followers on Instagram or 200,000 on YouTube. Yeah, there is these platforms put in some people's minds I need to maintain an audience, or I need to build an audience, or I want to maintain an audience, or I want to build an audience and lost that one. And what is on and off the table for that endeavor?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think this is I just want to get this out really quick before I lose it Like you're talking about wanting to maintain an audience more, but I think you're also, in a greater sense, like what I'm worried about is you're taking really cool what I'm worried about is you're taking really cool ideas or things that you could play around with and you're reducing them and you're chipping away at them.
Speaker 1:every time you post about a little thing, it reduces its potency, whereas you could instead directly apply it to something greater than a piece of micro content or whatever, and you're probably going to get more. You're going to get more longevity out of it and you're probably going to get more benefit to yourself of having contended with the like. There's a there's a overarching sense in contemporary social media.
Speaker 4:Once something's out there, you're done with it done with it right, and then move on to the next thing, a lot of the books over there.
Speaker 1:It's like that's not supposed to be micro content. That's like there's some stuff over there that you know. There's ideas on that table that I will be contending with for the next.
Speaker 4:You know 70 years of my life, hopefully right and with that cough I don't know if you've 70 years of my life hopefully Right and that cough. I don't know if you've got 70 years.
Speaker 1:I think your days are numbered so you know, like there's no reason, like I could get the the hit of reducing that to some selfish thing really for a week or a couple of days and I could put it out there and I could get the like oh I'm I feel this way, but then I'm completely watering down the potential benefit that I could get over the next. Oh, I feel this way, but then I'm completely watering down the potential benefit that I could get over the next several decades and for what?
Speaker 1:Yeah for something that's not even going to be around in 10 years potentially.
Speaker 4:And at the same time to wrap up. It's hard because I don't like thinking like, yeah, but if I post stuff about this, maybe it'll inspire others to go on the same journey with me, and what am I losing?
Speaker 1:It's not like I don't put like I've. I send you pictures of stuff I'm reading all the time it's great and I'm. It's not because I'm trying to be like Matt.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and it's so I wonder is it Is the minute that it's not one-to-one and it's one-to-150 or it's one-to-200,000,. What is the thing? What are the ingredients that turn it from something nice, great, beautiful, true, pure, into something else?
Speaker 2:It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
