0:00

I love life, I love living. I believe

0:02

in good, I believe in beauty. But I also

0:04

think that it's important not to turn a blind eye to all

0:06

the messed up things that are going on our planet. Welcome

0:17

to the one you feed Throughout time,

0:19

great thinkers have recognized the importance

0:21

of the thoughts we have. Quotes like

0:24

garbage in, garbage out, or you

0:26

are what you think ring true, and

0:29

yet for many of us, our thoughts don't

0:31

strengthen or empower us. We

0:33

tend toward negativity, self pity,

0:36

jealousy, or fear. We see

0:38

what we don't have instead of what we do.

0:40

We think things that hold us back and dampen

0:43

our spirit. But it's not just about

0:45

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:47

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

0:50

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:52

podcast is about how other people keep

0:54

themselves moving in the right direction, how

0:57

they feed their good wolf. Thanks

1:09

for joining us everyone. Our guest this

1:12

week is George Watsky, who goes by

1:14

the stage name Watsky. He's

1:16

a rapper and poet from San Francisco, and

1:18

we had a chance to talk to George as he's wrapping

1:21

up his US tour. His latest

1:23

album is called Cardboard Castles, and

1:25

you can find more details about him on our

1:27

show notes at One You Feed dot

1:29

net. Slash Watsky, thanks

1:32

for joining us today, George, my pleasure.

1:35

Thank you for having me. So our podcast

1:37

is called The One You Feed, and it's based

1:40

on an old parable that goes

1:42

something like, there's

1:44

an old Cherokee grandfather who is talking

1:46

to his grandson and he's saying to him,

1:49

uh, you know, in life, we have two wolves

1:51

inside of us that are always fighting. One is

1:53

good and kind and loving,

1:55

and the other is bad, you know,

1:57

greedy or hateful or self

1:59

pity. And the grandson thinks for a second, he says,

2:01

well, Grandpa, which one wins? And he says

2:04

the one you feed? So our podcast

2:06

is really about how people

2:09

feed their good wolves well, and that means

2:11

very different things to very different people. So

2:14

I guess the first question I have for you is sort of

2:16

what comes to mind when you when

2:18

you hear that parable, and and how do

2:21

you think it relates to what you do personally

2:23

and in your work? Yeah, I mean it's very

2:25

profound, it's awesome. I mean the first

2:27

thing that springs to mind is just I'm

2:30

not a perfect person that I know that

2:33

the capacity for evil exists inside

2:35

me. I've seen it rear its head. But I also believe

2:37

that every human being is good too. And you

2:40

know, as an artist and as a person, we get

2:42

to choose on a daily basis what

2:44

direction we want to take our lives and our art.

2:46

And I've tried to do that with honesty.

2:49

I've tried my best to do it with integrity every

2:51

step of the way. I try

2:53

to make the choices that I think I'm

2:55

going to be able to live with and that my parents are gonna

2:57

be proud of me for. And I

3:00

fail sometimes, but I'm very

3:02

proud of the little empire

3:05

in the world that we've built with our fellow

3:08

artists that were on the road with you know. So

3:11

I think that relates to everyone. You know, everyone is fighting

3:13

in constant struggle for trying

3:15

to let the good parts of themselves emerge. And

3:18

nobody's perfect. Yeah,

3:21

I And that's That's one of the things

3:23

that resonates to me about

3:25

your work is that that struggle is

3:28

evident, but there's a clear um,

3:30

there's an acknowledgement of it, as well as a

3:33

an attempt to sort of an

3:35

attempt that there's effort that has to go into

3:38

sort of the uh, the positive, and

3:40

there was I was reading some something

3:43

you had somewhere where you're talking about UM, the

3:46

the the kill, the hipster uh savior

3:49

hood, and you're you say in one of your comments

3:51

somewhere that you know the most important

3:53

part of that is to take a look in the mirror. And I thought that was

3:55

really interesting. That ship

3:58

is no good plus where

4:02

a mixture does no good

4:09

right on? Yeah, I mean that whole song, And I

4:11

think that people the problem with that is that that's

4:13

a five and a half minute song where I get to the self

4:15

awareness portion of it about four and a half minutes

4:17

into the song, and some people with

4:20

today's modern attention span don't stick around

4:22

to see the message evolve. But a huge

4:24

part of my work is um

4:27

not so much just diagnosing, but

4:30

taking those things that I see wrong

4:33

and then turning the mirror on myself. I mean, it's it's

4:35

the same as Tiny Glowing Screens Part two. The

4:37

poem that I have. It's a trope that I use in

4:39

a lot of my stuff, which is diagnose

4:41

an ill in the world and then figure

4:43

out how I'm implicated in that, because I don't think

4:45

that a message is as powerful if you remove

4:48

yourself from responsibility. You know,

4:50

like, if you're talking about global warming

4:52

being a problem with the world, how am I a

4:54

participant in that? You know that carries more

4:56

weight than saying, hey, you guys who

4:58

are screw up our planet, why

5:00

don't you get it together? You know, there's nothing more

5:02

powerful than saying I'm a part of this problem.

5:05

We're all a part of this problem. Now let's

5:08

look at it together. The

5:10

other thing I've I was looking at

5:13

of yours that I really liked was the letter

5:15

to your sixteen year old self. I think that's one

5:17

of the most powerful things that you've

5:19

done. And it's probably resonates with me a

5:21

lot because I have fifteen year old

5:23

boys, and so you know,

5:25

they're at that age where they're

5:27

starting to make their decisions about,

5:30

you know, what they're gonna do with their life, and is a parent you

5:32

sort of sit by semi

5:35

helplessly at this age. I mean, you can, you

5:37

have influence, you talk to them, but they're gonna

5:39

they're kind of at the age they're gonna do what they want to

5:41

do. And and I love the positivity

5:44

that's in that letter um

5:46

to yourself, as well as the acknowledgement

5:48

of how challenging it's going to be at certain times.

5:50

Do you want to share a little bit about that? Sure?

5:53

I mean, I just think that that era, like fifteen

5:55

sixteen, you're freshman and sophomore year of high

5:58

school. At least for me, that's when I kind of on

6:00

myself and those those

6:03

things, those parts of

6:05

my identity that came out in that time are things

6:07

that are still with me today. You know. That's really

6:09

when I feel like I became an adult in

6:11

many ways, and like the man

6:14

that I am was kind of became

6:16

concrete, and not that I'm not changing, but that's

6:19

when so much identity comes

6:21

in. And it's a message

6:23

in a lot of my pieces, which is I

6:25

don't have all the answers, that there's

6:27

a balance between hopelessness and

6:30

hope, that there's a balance between ugliness

6:32

and beauty. I mean, letter to my sixteen

6:34

year old self, Tinygoing Screens, Part two. It's kind

6:36

of all different variations on that theme of

6:39

I believe in life, I love life,

6:41

I love living, I believe in good, I believe

6:43

in beauty. But I also think that

6:45

it's important not to turn a blind eye to all the messed up

6:47

things that are going on our planet. And you

6:49

know, I don't have a

6:52

message that's as appealing

6:54

as say a religious leader who can say, here

6:56

are all the answers, this is how you should live your

6:58

life. Uh. The message

7:01

that I have is a little bit less

7:04

appealing than that. In many ways, my messages

7:06

that I don't have the answers, and that none of us have

7:08

all the answers, and that we're all kind of trying to puzzle

7:11

through this. Uh. And I've actually I had a girl

7:13

email me through my manager a couple of weeks

7:15

ago saying, how could

7:17

you do that to me with tiny going screens? Part two? Like you

7:19

built me up to believe in hope and optimism and then

7:21

at the end you said, well but it's really kind of all meaningless

7:24

at the end. And um, you know that

7:26

is my That's the core message of my

7:28

work is that is that life is worth living

7:30

even though it sucks sometimes,

7:33

and that you just have to you have to ride the roller

7:36

coaster and just enjoy it for what it is. Another

7:40

thing that my my one

7:42

of my boys said, if you're going to talk to wats. You gotta ask

7:44

him a question. He said, what what is it about

7:47

his little cousin on the record? You know you look cousins

7:49

all over the record and and I said, I

7:51

think it's because he's adorable and he loves his cousin.

7:53

But he seemed to think there might be more to it than

7:56

that. So yeah, it's funny. Actually

7:58

people assume we're related, but I

8:00

am not related to that kid. His name

8:02

is Norton, and I actually

8:05

met him through casting him in a music video

8:08

and trying to remember the first thing I did with him was a promo

8:11

from the Rest album

8:13

when I just needed a little cute kid to say, hey,

8:15

Wat's key, why are you doing a bluegrass

8:17

hip hop album that sounds really weird? And

8:20

uh, and that's all. I just shot a little promo video with him,

8:22

but then he I ended up talking to him

8:24

on set and making this connection with this

8:26

kid who in a lot of ways

8:28

reminds me of myself when I was younger.

8:31

And Norton and his mom

8:33

have become like friends of mine, and

8:36

he lived in l A. He's a very quirky

8:38

kid who he's been getting bullied

8:40

in school and stuff and so I've kind of become

8:42

a mentor to him and went to

8:45

his jiu jitsu ceremony graduation,

8:47

and like, I went to go see The Hobbit with him

8:49

and his mom, and I went to see his play in

8:51

North Hollywood. I kind of have like a little big brother

8:54

little brother relationship with him. And Uh,

8:57

when I was kind of coming up with cardboard castles

8:59

and figuring out what glue was going to hold the album

9:01

together, I thought, you

9:03

know, so much of it is about coming of age and

9:06

having realizations of things in

9:08

the past, and I thought, how cool would it be to get a kid who

9:10

I feel like articulates a lot of the things

9:12

that I was going through when I was younger and

9:14

actually have him provide the perspective

9:16

from an honest place. There's like only

9:19

womb in my class. He just thinks

9:21

he's all cool. He thinks he's smarter

9:24

than me, He saks, he thinks

9:26

a lot of things. What's

9:28

really cool about it is that their unscripted moments

9:31

of honesty from a ten year old and at

9:33

that time an eight year old kid. It was just kind of trying

9:35

to you know, he wasn't filtering

9:37

his thoughts. He was just talking about growing

9:39

up and you know, the

9:42

thing that I'm constantly in search of his honesty

9:45

moments, unscripted moments

9:47

that reflects something that we can all relate

9:49

to. And and he was kind of that glue that held the album

9:51

together. He said so many things that were like

9:53

to me. I was like, like the idea of

9:56

feeling your own, the impending doom of turning

9:58

ten years old because will never be nine anymore,

10:01

and just like you know how how much

10:03

weight you put on everything when you're that age, because

10:05

that's what you know. And so um,

10:08

that's the answer. He's not my cousin. He's just a random

10:10

kid that I've created a connection with and who I'm

10:12

trying to not have too close a

10:14

connection with because like, if things go

10:16

wrong in his life, he'll text me and

10:18

and he'll he'll ask me for advice, and I'll be like, dude,

10:21

don't text me, Like ask your parents

10:24

if I give you the wrong advice and then you go and get

10:26

punched in the face in school. I don't want that on

10:28

my hands, you know, like you

10:30

you gotta you gotta let your parents do that.

10:32

And I'm I'm trying to be a positive

10:35

figure in his life without being too to

10:38

present. Yeah, he's

10:40

he's uh, he is a he's funny.

10:42

The there's the things he says

10:44

come come unexpectedly. When

10:47

you were just talking about the

10:49

then you know he was mortified about turning

10:51

ten. Um. And at the

10:54

very end of that you say something, you say ten

10:56

is a great year or something like that, and then you go on and say the thing

10:58

that used to help you was your parents would

11:00

make funny faces and tell you stories. And

11:03

then you kind of go into the song you want to share a

11:05

little bit about that. Sure, Yeah,

11:07

I love my mom and dad. My mom and daddy. If

11:09

you happen to be watching, it's possible. My

11:11

dad follows my online activity

11:13

closer than I do, so he might be. Um.

11:16

My parents were really great

11:19

parents to me. They my dad is a psychotherapist

11:22

and was also a poet. Um, he's

11:24

a writer and he has you

11:26

know, million degrees. Is one of the smartest

11:28

guys I know. And my mom is an elementary school librarian

11:31

now and they both read to me a lot.

11:33

Growing up very active. My

11:36

dad showed up at all my baseball games even if I

11:38

struck out three times and sat on the bench. Um

11:41

and yeah, I think them reading

11:43

to me was one of my favorite things about

11:45

growing up. That we did bedtime every night

11:47

and reading time and um,

11:50

he would read me novels and think

11:52

that definitely like spiked my intellectual curiosity

11:54

and never you know, being smart in

11:56

our household was not something that you

11:58

should be ashamed of or embarst of. Um.

12:01

You know, it's just there's a lot of curiosity and

12:04

um, a love for language and a love for art.

12:07

Did you go through any adolescent

12:09

rebellion period towards your parents? You

12:13

know, I went through periods

12:15

of like angst

12:17

and being a teenager and like not wanting

12:20

to hang out with my parents all the time, and being embarrassed

12:22

of them and the kids, the stuff that all kids do.

12:24

But I was never like I hate you guys, like

12:26

I'm moving out of the house and running away. It

12:29

was never that much, you know. I always

12:31

knew that they loved me and wanted the best for me.

12:33

Um. But I every kid, most

12:36

kids of that age, I feel like, have a period where

12:38

they don't want to be best friends with their parents anymore.

12:41

So I had that. But now I'm twenty

12:43

seven, and I have a great relationship with my folks. And I call

12:45

them all the time and I

12:47

love seeing them. Yeah, I think for teenagers

12:50

there's a it's part of their their duty

12:52

to distance themselves from their parents. It's part just

12:54

part of what they have to do. Yeah,

12:57

and so to some degree, and some

12:59

of its you know better worse, it's one of the

13:01

things I you know, there's a lot of things I like

13:03

about what you're doing, but I love it when my sons

13:05

and I can find something that we both genuinely

13:08

enjoy and can share. And your music

13:10

is one of those things. So that's really great because it does

13:13

get hard to connect sometimes and it's nice

13:15

to find those things that are genuine and real right

13:17

on. Yeah, well, I appreciate that. That's awesome,

13:20

and I think it's it's been really cool seeing

13:22

the kind of people who show up to our

13:24

shows and seeing that sometimes it's fifteen

13:26

or sixteen year old kids, and you know, we and then

13:28

we get clusters of people who are like in their mid

13:30

thirties and mid forties who relate to the poetry

13:33

and love it too. So we bring out

13:35

a motley crew definitely to our events.

13:37

And I think that's great because it means it's reaching a

13:39

broad variety of people. UM.

13:43

Another question for you around you

13:45

know, there's a theme that runs through a lot

13:48

of what you do is, um,

13:50

the concept of work. Can

13:53

you talk about kind of what

13:55

what work means to you and

13:57

and and the value that that has. Yeah,

14:01

well, I'm self employed. I

14:04

am an independent artist, which means that if

14:07

I'm gonna go on tour and I'm gonna make an

14:09

album, it has to come from me. I'm not I have

14:11

known breathing down my neck to say,

14:13

George, you gotta get up at nine and do this, and

14:16

you know you've got to be on the clock or else it's

14:18

you know, time is money. It comes

14:21

from me because uh,

14:23

we're doing this as a labor of love. And I

14:25

feel like, especially for someone in my position

14:27

who gets to being a professional artist

14:29

and gets to perform and gets to follow his passion.

14:32

You know, it's not that people who are in these

14:34

luxury jobs should be able to

14:36

be lazier than everyone else. I feel like, if you're

14:39

going to have one of the jobs that's coveted by

14:42

nine percent of the population, you have a duty

14:44

to actually treat it like a real job and

14:47

work really hard because it's a hell

14:49

of a lot more fun doing what I do than being a fry

14:51

cook or shoveling in a mind somewhere,

14:53

which is what most human beings have

14:56

to dedicate their lives to, or something of that variety.

14:58

If it's a desk job, even you have to do

15:00

something that you don't want to be able, that you don't want

15:02

to have to do from nine to five in order to you

15:05

know, pay rent and pay the bills.

15:07

And for me, I'm in this extremely

15:10

lucky position to get to do exactly what

15:12

I want to do, and for me to be lazy

15:15

and flip into about that opportunity would be

15:17

a criminal travesty. Like I

15:20

believe so strongly that I

15:22

am in a privileged position and that since I love

15:24

what I do, I have a duty to try

15:26

and do it the best I can and work really hard at it.

15:29

And you know, that's pretty much as far as it goes. And

15:32

it seems that you you have, you

15:34

know, clearly had this had this work

15:36

ethic for for a long time.

15:38

And I'm always interested in people who are successful

15:42

because there's tends to be two things that sort

15:44

of at least that I notice that are driving.

15:46

One is just the love of what you're

15:48

doing the satisfaction

15:50

of doing work that's good. And then the second

15:52

is the desire to be successful at it.

15:55

And and I sort of have heard both coming

15:57

through in in your music. How

15:59

do you how do those two relate to each other? Well,

16:03

I think that this is like the fundamental

16:06

paradox of my life and of a lot of

16:08

artists lives, is knowing

16:11

that we don't matter, but

16:13

wanting to matter a lot at the end of the day,

16:16

you know. And and I think that the

16:18

idea of trying to be successful is

16:21

is my drug. You know, everyone has a poison. Some

16:23

people it's alcohol, some people. You

16:25

know, every everyone has a bomb that sues them.

16:27

And at the end of the day, the positive reinforcement

16:30

that what I'm doing is good is

16:32

what my poison is. It's what my drug

16:34

is. And I've, you know, from

16:37

a very young age, I've had this feeling.

16:39

You know, I'm gonna put my cards on the table. I'm not a religious

16:42

person. I don't believe in the afterlife, at

16:44

least from from what I've gathered

16:47

and the lens that I have to view

16:49

the world. That is not something that is

16:51

part of my life. And that that

16:54

fear of not existing and knowing that I love this

16:56

life so much means that I've from

16:58

a very young age felt like I have a very brief time

17:00

on this planet to make my mark and to exist

17:03

and to do something meaningful. And

17:06

you know, it's that it's that constant struggle

17:08

against wanting to matter.

17:10

And you know, since I was fifteen or sixteen, I kind

17:12

of felt like the clock was ticking and I only

17:14

have so long to kind of make an impression. And

17:17

and it can be a bad thing too, because

17:20

sometimes constant seeking out of

17:22

validation is not healthy, and you

17:24

have to be able to

17:26

to exist and be happy without being validated

17:29

all the time. So there's not really

17:31

a simple answer to that question. You know, I struggling

17:34

constantly against trying not to care too

17:36

much about what people think about my stuff versus

17:39

also taking a pride in it and being able

17:41

to have self satisfaction that what I'm putting out into

17:43

the world is good. So it's kind of a constant

17:46

pushing a pull between those two things. It's

17:48

fairly timely in that today was

17:51

the I think it started today, maybe yesterday,

17:53

the whole thing with Joe Rogan

17:55

and this podcast and sort of you

17:57

know, bizarre, uh you know, sort

18:00

of attack of slam poetry and

18:02

of yours in general. And I thought your

18:04

response was really really well

18:06

done. How much does that sort

18:08

of stuff, you know, it is a somebody

18:11

not validating you, not doing that. How

18:13

much do the do the haters get to you?

18:17

Um people? The things

18:19

that get to me most are the well thought

18:21

out criticisms, And Joe Rogan's didn't

18:23

actually bother me that much because it was very clear

18:26

from listening to the podcast that he just kind

18:28

of had a producer pull out an example of

18:30

a white person doing slam poetry and that's

18:32

what he wanted to go after. So

18:35

I actually thought that it was an opportunity for me to

18:37

use that random coincidence as a way to

18:39

actually have a meaningful conversation

18:41

about the merits and spoken word poetry.

18:43

What does get under my skin is when

18:45

I feel like somebody says something very insightful

18:48

and well thought out. That is that you know, that unearthed

18:51

insecurities that I have, which

18:53

happens occasionally, although I'd say

18:55

nine percent of the time on the Internet, someone just writes

18:57

like gay lamb and you know

19:00

that's that's a lot easier to deflect because

19:02

it's it's not well thought out.

19:04

But yeah, I think I'm pretty good

19:06

at having a thick skin. And at this point,

19:09

you know, comments pouring and pouring and so

19:11

many, the overwhelming majority of them are

19:13

so positive that you know,

19:15

I'm I'm doing fine, comfortably,

19:18

But I can't say that I'm perfectly immune criticism.

19:21

I think that the best thing is to wait a while, Like

19:24

if somebody says something negative and you're heated

19:26

about it, just take a day, take

19:29

five hours, take ten hours, whatever

19:31

you need until you're not so emotional about

19:33

it, and then try and actually figure

19:35

out if there was some merit to it, because

19:38

sometimes you need to listen to criticism or

19:40

else you're just gonna go bloatally on a path

19:42

of thinking that you're all what you're doing is always

19:44

golden, And sometimes you need to be able to say,

19:46

you know, what that criticism isn't

19:50

is merit lists and I don't need to listen to it.

19:52

And there's a balancing act between

19:54

taking in criticism and actually being

19:56

able to internalize it when it's appropriate and being

19:58

able to brush it off and what

20:00

you're doing is right, and it's

20:03

coming from somebody who doesn't know what they're talking

20:05

about. So back to you,

20:07

back to your letter to yourself as a sixteen

20:10

year old you. There's another part

20:12

in here that I love where you talk about you know, you

20:14

don't remember people's names, you're at the center

20:16

of attention for all the reasons, and spend roughly

20:19

six hours a night on your side watching Boy Meets

20:21

World reruns. That

20:23

was that a phase in your life? I watched

20:26

a lot of TV. Watched a lot of TV,

20:28

and the reason that I like to pick on specific

20:30

examples that I think illuminate trends,

20:33

and to me that speaks

20:35

to an era and nostalgia

20:37

for people who were in that era

20:40

of growing up, but also just the idea of

20:43

TV being medication, the way

20:45

that technology is medication. Now, when I didn't

20:47

want to think about stuff, I would just turn the tube

20:49

on and I wouldn't have to think about it. So

20:52

that was a way for me to distance myself

20:54

from the things that I was afraid of and didn't want to think about.

20:56

Was just constantly distracting

20:58

myself with stimuli. Yeah,

21:01

and that the great part that follows that is

21:03

when you say you're capable about growing

21:05

that bullshit all right on?

21:07

Yeah, yeah, and everyone is. Everyone

21:09

is. Do you still did you

21:11

find for yourself that you hit a certain

21:14

point where you started to uh

21:17

work and make some progress and

21:19

and it you got momentum

21:21

that made it easier to keep doing that stuff

21:24

or is it just sort of a constant battle for you

21:26

to stay productive and do

21:28

the things that matter. I had

21:30

a real crisis, a

21:33

real existential crisis around the time when I was seventeen,

21:36

where I

21:39

I felt like I had these fears

21:41

of growing up and of mortality that we're bubbling

21:43

underneath the surface and I can't I was pushing them

21:45

down with distractions, and

21:47

they bubbled up to the surface in a way that I couldn't ignore

21:50

anymore. When I was a junior in high school, and

21:52

I became depressed, not

21:55

because I was sad about anything specific, but just because

21:58

all these things that I was afraid of they really hit me like

22:00

a ton of bricks, and I was like, and

22:03

they they were very present for

22:06

me, And so I went to therapy

22:08

and I started talking to therapists and they were like, well,

22:11

these are just things that all humans have to deal with, and you're

22:13

kind of making me depressed right now, So can we talk about

22:15

girls or something, and you know,

22:17

I wasn't getting the answers from anywhere. My parents were just like,

22:19

oh, don't think about that. That's not for a long time.

22:22

And none of those answers were satisfying to me.

22:25

And the one thing that did

22:27

actually kind of give me some relief

22:30

was reading books by this guy named Tiq not Han

22:32

who's a Buddhist philosopher,

22:35

and very simple, basic Buddhist

22:38

message messages of living in the present

22:40

moment and of realizing that if

22:42

you're afraid of something, the only

22:44

thing that you can do is face that fear head on

22:47

and actually allow yourself to be afraid. And

22:49

actually it's something that Louis c Ka talked about in

22:51

his recent clip that went viral and conan

22:53

about just like allowing yourself to feel

22:55

shitty things sometimes, and if you feel

22:58

fear and your fearings feel anxiety. Terror

23:01

is a natural human thing and if you allow

23:03

yourself to feel it, then what's

23:05

going to happen is your

23:07

body is going to accept it, and then you're going

23:10

to have this wave of actually

23:12

positive emotions that come after that. And so

23:14

um, when I was around seventeen,

23:17

I had that kind of realization and I

23:19

think trended Buddhist a

23:21

little bit, and I think that helped me a lot. And

23:24

since then, I you know, I've been a very hard worker my

23:26

whole life. Since then. I think the last ten years, I've

23:28

just, if anything, worked

23:30

too hard. I think that the bat the battle

23:33

for me is really trying to prioritize my personal

23:35

life and love and family. Uh,

23:38

and working on my career comes

23:40

naturally to me, and it's making sure that I'm feeding

23:42

the other things. That is something that I

23:45

need to do and remember to do all the time. You

23:47

were talking about in in tiny glowing

23:50

screens to uh sort of

23:52

meaninglessness, and you know, the

23:55

the universe is so huge, how could

23:57

we possibly matter? There's

24:06

seven billion, forty six million people on the planet

24:08

and most of us have the audacity to think we matter. Hey,

24:11

you hear the one about the comedian who croaked. Someone

24:14

stabbed him in the heart, just a little poke,

24:16

but he keeled over because he went into battle wearing chain

24:18

mailmated chokes. And then you went on

24:20

to say that you've found a way to find meanings

24:22

sort of within that. Can you share a little bit

24:25

about that. I think

24:27

that that you know, humans

24:29

have been thinking about this forever. It's like almost every Shakespeare

24:32

poem is about it's how are you going to exist

24:34

beyond your short existence? And

24:36

for me, the answer isn't trying to build

24:38

up a legacy that's so huge

24:41

and unavoidably awesome

24:44

that people are gonna be talking about you for centuries.

24:47

It's finding meaning for yourself. It's

24:50

it's finding joy. You know. One of the things that

24:52

gets talked about a lot in these Buddhist

24:54

texts is you can't just

24:57

find joy and pleasure in the fireworks

24:59

that life as you which are you know, weddings

25:01

and babies being born and you

25:04

know, hooking up with the person that you always wanted to

25:06

be with and seeing you

25:09

know, the sunset. Those are

25:12

explosive moments that life gives you. But also being

25:14

able to be excited about the

25:16

feeling of washing your hands and of

25:18

sipping on a cup of tea and

25:21

just the breeze blowing on

25:23

you. You know that that you have to be able to

25:25

marvel at the life that we have

25:27

just for the sheer reason

25:30

that it's amazing that we even get to be alive

25:32

and to be able to be in awe of life on a

25:34

daily basis, is really important. And

25:36

I profoundly believe that that, like this

25:39

life is amazing and it's for you know, we

25:41

we don't. We get used to things. We

25:43

get used to technologies that are given to us,

25:45

and we stop being amazed by them. But

25:48

technology is amazing, and our

25:51

bodies are amazing, and the birds

25:53

flying through the air is amazing, and we

25:55

don't take enough time to actually realize

25:58

those things. And so that

26:00

that's what I work on the most, is trying to actually

26:02

let myself be in awe of little things.

26:05

And when you step back, a lot of cool

26:07

stuff going on. It's

26:09

uh, it's great to hear you talking about Buddhism

26:12

and tick nott Han as you are framed in

26:14

a zen background. Where are

26:16

you? I I'm

26:19

actually in Indianapolis right now, in the

26:21

basement of a Shriner's club

26:24

where, um, we're having a show

26:26

tonight. We're playing a place called the Old

26:29

National in Indianapolis. Were on

26:31

tour um. But yeah, I mean,

26:33

these these things that I'm talking

26:35

about are are things that are addressed

26:37

in every major religion. Also, you know,

26:39

I don't mean to exclude it

26:41

to Buddhism. It's it's things

26:43

that you can find in Christianity. It's things that

26:45

you can find in Judaism

26:48

and Islam, and it's also things that you

26:50

can find in in atheist

26:52

thinkers too. You know, these these are not things

26:55

that are exclusive to one faith

26:57

or another. They are just things that I think,

27:01

you know a lot of smart people have jointly

27:03

realized over the years. Yeah, we've

27:05

had we've actually interviewed to Buddhist

27:08

teachers, uh so far for

27:10

this UM and we're interviewing

27:12

a guy coming up who's really fascinating.

27:15

He's I don't know if you know who Victor Frankel is. He

27:18

wrote a book called Man Search for Meaning. It's

27:20

very applical to what we're talking about because Victor Frankel

27:23

was in concentration camps. They

27:25

killed his family, they killed his parents,

27:28

and in there he came to the realization

27:31

that the last human freedom he had was

27:33

his ability to sort of choose

27:35

his attitude and to choose what

27:37

it meant. And he he formed a

27:40

form of psychotherapy called logo therapy, which

27:42

is all about making your own meaning.

27:44

That there is no meaning in life that is

27:47

um universal,

27:49

It is your you know, you kind of have to make your own meetings.

27:52

So this is interesting with this sort

27:54

of tie ties

27:56

into that. And I was actually thinking earlier

27:59

because I think a lot about that too,

28:01

that sort of all the religions, they're all

28:03

sort of saying the same thing, um,

28:05

which is to to give a hater a hug,

28:08

right, yeah, turn the other cheek. The

28:10

window dressing is different, but the core

28:12

is the same, so

28:30

that that covers. Is there anything you wanna you

28:33

think it's important to what we're discussing that we

28:35

haven't covered that you want to say, No,

28:38

not really, I don't think we covered some really interesting

28:40

territory. I mean, I think my main thing

28:43

that I would like to say is to that I don't

28:45

think I have any of the answers, you

28:47

know, I don't want to seem like I'm coming off like I

28:49

know exactly how

28:52

anyone should live their life. And I'm sure there's a lot of people

28:54

listening to this podcast who are from all walks

28:56

of life, different faith backgrounds and stuff.

28:58

And I used to perform at colleges and

29:01

universities all over the country,

29:03

which meant that when I was in college, I would

29:05

be going to a lot of Red states and perform And I'm from

29:07

San Francisco, so like that's from the other

29:09

end of the spectrum.

29:12

And I was actually very challenged to uh

29:14

communicate with people who grew up across

29:16

the political aisle from me, who grew up in

29:18

very religious households. And the main

29:20

thing that I came away with was feeling

29:23

like we're divided so much

29:25

as a culture, and there's so much opinion

29:27

based media that's going on right now, and it's being driven

29:30

by putting wedges between people and

29:32

creating these false um

29:34

flashpoints between different groups of people because

29:37

that's what sells and that's what

29:39

what drives clicks up. But everyone

29:42

is trying to do good. You know, this world is not red

29:44

or blue or black and white. And if

29:46

you're Christian or if you're agnostic or

29:48

atheist, you know we're all on the same team.

29:51

That is. That's the last thing that I want to say. You

29:53

know, perfect, that's

29:55

a great way to end it. Well, thank

29:58

you so much for taking the time. I know you got

30:00

a show to do in a little while, so um,

30:02

and thanks thanks Nils for me. Also

30:04

please for for helping get this set

30:07

up all

30:11

right. Take care, Thanks

30:25

for listening to the one you feed. You can

30:28

find out more about Watsky and his work

30:30

in our show notes at one you feed

30:32

dot Net slash Watsky