Roundtable: INTRODUCTION to Language of the Soul

Returning to the Source

In Season Three, Dominick and Virginia return to "Language of the Soul: How Story Became the Means by which We Transform," the book that inspired the podcast. We set the tone for season three by engaging the book directly, clarifying our mission, and drawing a bright line between story that transforms and story that manipulates. We share how biology, ethics, and pedagogy shape the way narratives bond tribes and change lives.

Order the LOTS book at Dominick's Author Page

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome To Season Three
• 5:05 From Book Premise To Podcast Mission
• 8:30 Why Return To The Book Now
• 13:25 Story, Fascism, And Why Art Matters
• 19:40 Artists, Empathy, And Seeing Through The Matrix
• 26:25 Vicarious Learning And Narrative Power
• 33:50 Manipulation vs Transformation In Story
• 42:15 Catharsis, Chemistry, And Tribe Bonding
• 51:55 Art, Commerce, And Nuance Under Threat
• 1:02:10 Ethics Without Moralism
• 1:13:25 Teaching, Critique, And Not Breaking Students
• 1:24:15 The Artist’s Journey And Using Craft To Live
• 1:34:40 Origins: Sea Monkeys, Pooh, And Seeing More

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is a story. And welcome to season three. For those of you that are new listeners or have never tuned in, I'm Dominic Domingo, author of Young Adult Urban Fantasy Trilogy, The Nameless Prince, The Seeker, and Language of the Soul, which became this podcast. Of course, many other works, but those are directly related to our mission here at Language of the Soul. And my partner in crime is producer and co-host Virginia, and I'm going to invite her in. She's a mental health, among many other things as well, like a mother and a wife. She's a mental health counselor and an author. Virginia Grenier.

SPEAKER_02: 1:26

Yeah, thank you. Um, so I'm glad to be here. And um just just for our past listeners, so they know, because I know Nick and I were just talking about this in the grade room, um, how sometimes I'll say grinier and sometimes I'll say grinier. So I'm just gonna tell you guys this quick story really quick before I dive into what, you know, get you guys all oriented to what the season's about. But so the name is French, so it's grinier, which Dominic says it so much nicer with the with the French accent.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56

So it's more pretentiously, yeah. Grenier.

SPEAKER_02: 1:59

Thank you. And then um, but my husband says that his family came to America, he's second generation, and and so he's American and therefore it's grenier. So that's that's where that confusion comes into. The ultimate in anglicization or uh I I just gonna say American botchery of every beautiful language out there.

SPEAKER_00: 2:21

There's one city I'm trying to like a Midwestern city, not actually Des Moines, Des Moines, Des Moines would be Des Moines, but there's some city I'm not gonna think of the name, but in it's about the lake, LAC Loc. Something Du Loc. And um everybody is fine butchering it. You know what I mean? It was like I I don't think we have the right to do that, but that's another episode, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02: 2:45

It is a whole other episode. It just made me think of like I've always said the Louvre, and I know that's not actually how it's correctly pronounced now, which I have just learned that and I'm 50.

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

So you know that one's tricky though, because you drop the R, it's almost imperceptible. Louvre, Louvre, yeah, because when I first went to France, and here we are on a tangent already, but when I was working for Disney in Paris, I did study a lot. Totally different story when you get there, right? So everybody in the studio would I spoke like a five-year-old, basically, because if I said les miserables, les miserables, I would always do the bleu at the end. And they're like, no, no, no, think of it like a P, les miserables, les miserables. You really drop it. So with the Louvre, you're fine. Just say Louvre, pretend the R isn't there. Because every French word has 12 silent letters on the end anyway, and then depending on the conjugation, you you literally spend all your time memorizing these conjugations, but you don't hear them. So you're good on the loop.

SPEAKER_02: 3:43

All right. So, anyhow, and this whole conversation's been perfect because this is our season three of Language of the Soul podcast. And why and and and we're gonna get into why that matters. Um, but seasons one and two were born based out of the ideas of Dominic's book, Language of the Soul. And so we've in the last two years have dived into just various conversations, like us just talking about, you know, just the language in general. Um, but we didn't start with a podcast focusing on the book itself for that reason. We wanted to really establish what our mission was. So for the first time, we're moving beyond just the core premise, because the first two seasons were inspired by the core premise of the book, that life is a story and that the stories we tell shape who we become. But now we want to explore in this season of the podcast, get more into the depths. So in the past two seasons, go back, listen if you haven't. We've talked to some great guests, artists, writers, thinkers who really embodied the ideas in different ways. We even had wrote questions that we would ask them that got into talking about what story meant for them, and sometimes without really explicitly naming that um just outright. So, however, in season three, it's gonna be different. This season is a conscious turning toward the source. So we're slowing down, we're digging deeper, and we're gonna engage the book directly chapter by chapter. Each month we're gonna be hitting a different chapter of the book, and we're using it as a framework for the conversations to unfold between myself and Dominic, and as we bring other guests in along the way. So, with that in mind, the first question I actually have for Dominic, I really want to get into the introduction itself. So, before we get into the introduction of the book, I want to talk a little bit about why you, Dominic, and I both started the podcast before walking through the book and why now it feels the right moment to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:41

Well, in my memory, the initial premise was to bring on guests that would support the content of the book. So when it does go into specifics like the brain chemistry or the neurotransmitters that are created when we indulge in story, I just always wanted to bring in experts or guests that could either augment the conversation or add to it in some way, or just validate the premises that I lay out in the book. I just connect dots, but I'm not really an expert in anything. So I just wanted initially to have experts on that could say, yeah, when it comes to epigenetics, you're absolutely right, or you got that kind of wrong and let me set you straight. That was the initial idea with experts. But as you know, one by one, an unintended consequence. A beautiful gift was that almost all of our self-professed storytellers in the literary realm or in cinema had had a similar brush with death or come to Jesus moment, say it how you want, but they put purpose on the front burner. So, in my estimation, our conversation started really leaning toward yes, why we tell stories in the first place. And as you know, in this introduction, I talk about the impetus for writing the book, which was that online course. And uh, I just quickly learned, like, yeah, I have no interest in adding to the noise when it comes to the technique and the craft and the nuts and bolts. And it became more about I was more passionate about imparting the why part of the equation, why we tell stories in the first place. So, yeah, I'm so proud of all of our episodes. As I've said a million times, no duds. I feel very blessed. It serves me and I believe you as well. And I think we're offering some really good content. But I think the reason we decided to go back to the book directly or confirm or deny, but it seemed like with guests, when we would touch on again the mechanics of paradigm shift on the macro scale, it would become almost reductionist where it was a talking point or sort of a platitude. And it just, I want to do justice is the best way to put it to the content of the book. So they're not just um sound bites, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:48

That's where that's why I'm excited to get back into the book. And why is it the perfect moment? Um, because it's so needed. You know, here I go preaching. But with fascism on the horizon, I think we need to advocate for the arts. Create creative expression as an end in itself, and specifically storytelling, because it's always been the first target of fascist regimes. That's why personally I think it's needed more now than ever. What do you think about all that?

SPEAKER_02: 8:17

I agree with you. I mean, and I also think that if we would have started with the book first, um boring. Yeah, yeah. I boring. It would have been. I think that it was really important more to focus on the mission of what the book was trying to impart. And with that said, because as we bring in guests for season three to hit on, you know, invite them to talk about specific chapters of the book with us, um, it's allowed us to meet those like-minded individuals. So I guess you could say it was also our vetting process. Not that that's what we were setting out to do, but it did it did allow us to vet who we feel were, you know, people we could bring back to actually dig deep into those conversations. And I think you're right. I I talking points, platitudes, I think sometimes too that when we're talking with guests, because you're not trying to say they're trying to sell their wares, but it's definitely, you know, it's more of a general conversation that you're doing this delicate dance with versus really going in, well, we're not trying to impart our initiative or thoughts, beliefs, or values with every single guest, because then that makes it an unwelcoming environment. So that's why we've turned the tables like, hey, we want you to come back, but instead of focusing on you, we're gonna focus on these exact direct things that the book is focusing on, and you've hit on these before when we had you on as a guest.

SPEAKER_01: 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:39

So let's dig deep. And I think that's what makes it more meaningful and carries that conversation deeper.

SPEAKER_00: 9:45

You're absolutely right. We um didn't intentionally vet, but we came to like, oh, this would be the perfect guest to attach to, you know, the catharsis section or, you know, what whatever it is, uh the archetype section. We have a mythologist that's perfect to come on to talk about the chapter called Story and Archetype, right? And and their story and meaning. And yes, that's how we came upon these guests that are perfect to have back on. And yeah, I think, I mean, not to air too much dirty laundry, but I think we were always a podcast that was about contributing to the dialectic and the conversation. And we were not here just to for people to plug their wares or um self-promote. We're fine with that, and we're happy to highlight and showcase artists that are sacrificing for their art. I guess I've learned not to say sacrificing, but they're investing in their art. And it's beautiful to see people, you know, motivated to make a difference in the world. So to me, it's inseparable. If you have reached that milestone where your art is not just a craft or a moneymaker, but it's your contribution to humanity, it's all one and the same. So I don't know that we vetted, but I think you and I both sometimes would go, ooh, that leaned a little too heavy towards self-promotion. And they weren't really, they just had their talking points, but it didn't run very deep. And we just I think found our identity more and more, especially when we hooked up with a publicist and started, it felt a little bit like a mill and an obligation to highlight people and their product. I think we just kind of fine-tuned our intention. And uh those that couldn't engage in the conversation just as an end in itself, but were really there just to promote their wares, it was very clear, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02: 11:24

Yes, yes, absolutely. And again, you know, not not a bad thing by any means, because you know, um, I just actually had this conversation the other day with my partner about just kind of you know, humanity as a whole and how it seems like the artistic, and I'm gonna say the heart, the artistic mind. So the ones who are deeply um empathically touched by um be so it's that attunement, they're more congruent with observation, um pulling from their own personal experiences, which is to me the artist's mind, right? That it's such a small population, and that I think that the majority of the population has a hard time doing that introspective work, going into that, you know, um, and you even talk about it, you know, the the nirvana mindset, right? Um, and the altruistic or more of an altruistic, you know, just kind of perspective to kind of look at at a higher level down and then go back from the bottom up and just kind of see everything, how the system works from from all angles. And I think artists do that. You guys are constantly turning that lens and looking from different viewpoints.

SPEAKER_00: 12:39

Funny that you didn't include yourself in that.

SPEAKER_02: 12:42

I I do when I'm doing my writing.

SPEAKER_00: 12:44

Last episode you said that to you guys. You guys, come on. But it's not your natural state of being, you don't think?

SPEAKER_02: 12:51

You don't um it it is if I let myself go very philosophical, absolutely. And and I think that's what this podcast does, is we're allowing even even when guests have come on to talk about the wares, it's it's it's showing how important it is for this percentage of the population that that walks in this very different, not concrete thinking realm, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 13:16

I have a lot of reactions to that. Um, I just think we should get specific because when we speak in generalities, um, you know, I'm not about to define art or beauty or what makes an artist. Like that's that's tricky. And I also, for good or bad, I've been surrounded by people who again, I I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, but you know, my whole introduction is about I saw through the matrix from the minute I came out of the womb. And I, you know, Ayn Rand would say we hold up a mirror to society and we literally expressed our metaphysical values as humans. And that's why, and we could go into the introduction and talk about the sea monkeys or or talk about you know that moment with my grandmother on the cliff, or why did I even mention those things? Because, you know, like Horton, here's a who is another reference I make. I saw not just the clover blossom, but the entire world on the clover blossom. And I'm not saying I'm special or different, but that was my temperament and my disposition. And as I say in the introduction, only later did I realize, oh, wow, everything I've ever created is toward that end. And it sounds condescending, not just enlightening people, but literally opening their eyes to anything but the fucking surface level of things. So, right, so it could be the metaphysical reality, not just the human condition, but what is the nature of consciousness expressed in the physical realm? That's not every artist, but Ayn Rand would say it is. Ayn Rand is would say all are true artists, right? And that's where the conversation often goes back to the age-old intersection between art and commerce. I've just realized a lot of the things we're distinguishing and parsing between come back to that almost cliche intersection of art and commerce. So I would love to talk more about that, but I'd love to be specific because everything you said, I'm like, yeah, I kind of agree with that, but I'm not surrounded by people like your partner. I'm not. I've gone to art school. I'm surrounded only really, I mean, I only make friends with people that don't buy a socialization hook, line, and sinker that actually see through it. And uh that's what floats my boat. So I don't like to live in a bubble, and I will just say for good or bad, I don't encounter staunch empiricists. Very well, that's not true. I've got a lot of roommates that were staunch empiricists, but I it doesn't, I don't think about that much. That as you said, most of the world doesn't dwell in a I mean, I'll let you express it. I just what I heard was like, I'm in a minority, and eh, I don't know about that. When people say artists are sensitive or whatever, I I think, well, we all have the capacity to be. Here's one example. If you read um, and now we're not really off in the weeds, this is directly related to my book. I read The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, which is about cell biology, as I was writing this book. So I was so immersed in it. And then I read Metahuman by Deepak Chopra. I've read all his work, but these things were informing me in real time as I wrote the book. So I think it was Metahuman that talks about every human, not just an artist, every human could distinguish between, I forget what it was, but like one molecule layer on a wafer, just through touch, one molecule thick layer of I forget what it was, could be perceived. Same thing with vision. You can perceive one particle of light in a huge, vast space, and that's all humans. So when I hear characterizations of artists, I'm like, I don't know, we're all capable. Even when it comes to empathy and compassion or the platonic values that you were hinting at, they all have the capacity to be that. And I'm not here to say everybody should be an artist, but I think artists are here to hold up that mirror and remind people of the metaphysical, maybe what really matters. And that's no small thing in cultural dialectic or the progression of paradigms, thought forms that become policy, that become law. We play a huge role. That's that's all I'm saying, but I'm not about to define I don't feel different than anyone. I don't.

SPEAKER_02: 17:21

Well, and that's that's where I was gonna go with it. And I knew you would jump in there and and say it so beautifully. But yeah, that's that's what I'm saying. Is that's what I feel like artists are are here to do is to help remind the rest the rest that aren't in that are always walking in that realm.

SPEAKER_00: 17:35

Right. Well, I will say my my brother-in-law may be similar to your husband, but he's so you know, Jim, he's he's been on the podcast, and he even started saying, Well, I don't dwell in that space, I'm not very perceptive. And and I took, well, Jim, you I was in that play and literally in 1991 at Northridge or whatever it was, 87 maybe at Northridge, and it was the most profound avant-garde piece of theater I'd ever seen. It was very conceptual, and I pointed that out, and he goes, Well, but I don't live in that space. Like you said, I can go there, but it's not my default state. And so I that's what I love seeing is despite themselves, uh, I think people have the capac, I don't know what I'm saying, have the capacity to think conceptually or maybe even to be introspective or uh to live an examined life. That's what I'm pushing for, right? They say an examined life is not worth living. I'm a big subscriber to that.

SPEAKER_02: 18:32

And I absolutely agree with you. And and that's that's exactly what I was talking about. It's not that I don't think anybody can uh or can't do it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:38

Um they choose not to.

SPEAKER_02: 18:40

Yes, exactly. We they choose not to, and I think that's that's what I'm saying is the art, the artists are are the art mirrors to to remind us of of this other this uh these other lenses in which to walk through.

SPEAKER_00: 18:49

But before we go further, well, I sorry, I have one more thing. Yeah, because I realized the only reason I brought up Jim, and I'm not throwing him under the bus, I'm giving him a shout-out. Uh, he'll remember. I mean, I've known him since I was 11, and I'm 57. Every now and then he'll go, Oh my god, Nick. You and my daughter, Tessa. Now I'm giving another shout-out. Like, you guys see the dabble of light. You you notice the bird. I would never notice the bird, you know, to the north-northwest in that tree a block away. And maybe we do have heightened senses, and maybe we nurture them, you know. If you go out and play an air paint every day, you're attuning to all the stimuli around you, and you're you're making it's like uh exercising a muscle, maybe. But I just think it's fascinating that people can notice what artists notice because of their arguably heightened senses and talk about it, but maybe their DMN is stronger, you know, default mode network is stronger and it tunes out more stimuli. Maybe we have more serotonin, I don't know. But I think we all could nurture those qualities if we wanted to, and we could all build that muscle if we wanted to.

SPEAKER_02: 20:03

Oh, yeah. I I absolutely 100% agree. But I want to say before we go any further, I want to say to listen to the listeners, if you haven't listened to the previous episode, it's Dominic reading the introduction to Language of the Soul, How Story Became the Means by Which We Transform. I'd really encourage you to pause right here and to go back and to listen to that first. Because in that introduction, it's not just the preference to the book, it's the philosophical and ethical framework for this entire season and honestly for this podcast as a whole. We're going to be stretching the whole season around the idea that story isn't simply something we consume or create, it's a primary way human beings make meaning. So every Every episode we release from here on out, whether you're whether we're talking to the artists, writers, educators, musicians, thinkers, it's going to circle back to the questions that are raised in the introduction. So today we're just going to be doing more than just summarizing the introduction, we're going to be unpacking it. So that's going to take me right back to going to that introduction again and to your personal entry point into this book, Dominic. When you were sitting down and writing the introduction introduction, um, or as a statement of values about how story operates within culture, I would love for you to kind of touch on that because you open it talking about, like you mentioned just a second ago, how it starts started with the fact you were this workshop that you were working on it. So it really got you focused to think about what is this entry point into this world that I am gonna unfold before the reader.

SPEAKER_00: 21:40

Well, again, I don't have the introduction open in front of me, but I I wrote it, so I remember it pretty well. But just for fun, I'll say what I said to you earlier, which is I'm doing a lot of narrating for audiobooks now, and uh or at least a lot of auditioning, even if I don't get it, I tend to be reading a lot of introductions to a lot of not self-help, what do we call it now? Um personal growth. What is it? Personal growth?

SPEAKER_02: 22:05

Personal growth, yeah. Um, life coaching.

SPEAKER_00: 22:08

All of that, yeah. Yeah. A lot of nonfiction books. But in that realm, well, there's also a whole genre called transformational books. And thinking back, that was a big impetus for writing my book. It was mid-pandemic. I had, you know, I was embroiled in my struggles with my health and literally regaining my agency. And so it was in real time, it was reflecting my growth. But I do, it came to me the other day, I won't say any names, but a friend of mine who was in HR at Disney had taken a weekend workshop about writing your book, telling your story. But it was very much like as an extension of your platform or your brand. You know, everybody needs a TED talk to grow their brand, and everyone needs an effing book. And so now that I'm doing these uh nonfiction books for Audible, every single one of them follows a formula. And I did upload a video to our YouTube if anyone wants to check it out about the hangnail crisis. And then there's another one called the Lost Soc Crisis. So literally workshops, I just figured it out over time. These workshops say you need to identify the problem that nobody has, by the way, and through the power of suggestion, make sure it's urgent to them. Right. Then you talk about next why you're the perfect expert to address this topic. Tie it back to, yeah, a personal anecdote. Story is everything, right? And then you explain why you're the perfect expert to solve their problem. You point out that this book is your handbook, it's your, you know, it's your guide, it's your lighthouse. Use it, you know, in your growth. Then you say, and if it doesn't work, it's not my fault. It might be your level of commitment to this mission. And so there's all these things that just become old tired tropes. So when I wrote my introduction, it was very inspired. I wasn't following any template like that, if that makes sense. So sorry for the long answer, but my memory is I did start by saying exactly that that the word story is being usurped by propaganda, advertising, you know, even um brand building and uh platform building. And so it just became almost tiresome. And there's a funny sequence in uh anybody's ever seen bros, the rom-com bros, where one of the characters says, Okay, instead of telling our effing stories, let's create a wing in this museum where you go to shut the fuck up. So I felt I did feel like, wow, story has transformation. Story in the way that has actually served the tribe from day one, arguably from oral history around the campfire, has all these outcomes. It has an intention, but more importantly, it has all these outcomes. Story for propaganda, for the almighty dollar, for political campaigning, for power mongering. All those outcomes, do you know what I mean, are the complete opposite of how story has traditionally served us. So I start out by kind of comically pointing that out that, you know, everyone's got a story to tell. My mom was right. Every fisherman on the Passaic River that she stopped and talked to when I was way too busy for that in my 20s and 30s. Now I'm my mom had the right idea. Everybody does have a story, but I very much parse between storytelling as transformation, and we do break it down in the book the mechanics, uh, the chemistry behind that, individually and collectively. And then, yeah, story for the almighty dollar. People that talk about, oh, you gotta have this and you gotta have the cliffhanger, and you gotta sure they understand the chemistry behind it, but I'm a little suspect of the intention, if that makes sense. So, again, a little preaching, but for me, story transforms when it's inspired. It takes a little while to really grasp what is meant by inspiration. And the book takes 300 and something pages to explain it. But inspiration arguably comes from collective consciousness, it comes from the consciousness that understands what's needed next in our dialectic, lest we perish. It's all about propagation. So you can get as wacky and woo-woo as you want with that, but energetic signaling is information. You can call a God, you know what I mean, put give him a long white beard, put him on a cloud, do what you want with it. But it's pretty inarguable that information is being passed locally and non-locally in energetic form, uh from cell to cell, you know what I mean, from organism to organism, and arguably from the universe itself through us as little antennas, because it knows what's needed next. So you can't buy that shit, AI can't do it, and it's called inspiration. Just think about it.

SPEAKER_02: 26:57

I absolutely agree with you. And it goes, it goes to um in narrative therapy, they talk about, and I know I've mentioned this a few times um throughout the time we've been on the podcast, but there's the four categories. It's the the uh the first story is the for family of origin story, which is the story that that sets up our body's belief system and in which the world in which the way we see the world. And to me, that always reminds me of like the campfire stories, right? When we sat around in the old times and the stories are passed down generation to generation to generation, um, is how I always think of the family of origin. And then we have the stories that um that happened. So like we all know COVID happened. Like that's that's a story we all can 100% go, yep, we know that narrative. Um, the stories in which we tell ourselves, which I feel is that inner, you know, um part, that piece that you're talking about um just now. And then the last one, which can go either way, which is the stories we're told, which is where I think a lot of the propaganda propaganda marketing, you know, the almighty Miller sits. Um and as you were talking about that, I started thinking about um, I don't know why it popped in my mind, but um the producers and how that was their whole their whole spin. They were like sell, right? They were selling this whole production that they were gonna do, which was a story, this narrative they were spinning. And of course they were hoping it was gonna fail so they could, you know, make money off the loss of the and I'm just they're talking about going, yeah. I mean, there you go.

SPEAKER_00: 28:25

It's been a while. It's been a while for me, but I'm I remember it being very meta, right? Like it was a microcosm, a story within a story, and but it was largely about World War II, wasn't it? And the Holocaust.

SPEAKER_02: 28:39

Um, that was going on, and that's what their play was gonna be about. And I think probably I'm in Hitler, which is yeah, exactly, which is kind of funny because that makes me think of the uh the one that's out about Stalin, uh, where they're making fun of of Stalin. I can't remember the name of it, but anyways, um yeah, but they were hoping it was gonna fail, of course. And so that was a way that they were spinning a narrative.

SPEAKER_00: 29:04

Yeah, it's it anyway. Um I did hear something in there though that I to tie it back to the book, I wanted to quit before I forget, quickly go back to something you said. I think you said the fourth outcome was vicarious. Can you can you say that again?

SPEAKER_02: 29:20

Um the fourth the fourth, the fourth narrative, which is the stories that that are told to us, so that can be uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:29

So so sorry. So in the book, it's just worth saying we go into this idea that if you we're going back to square one here, all organisms experience stimuli. You all day, every you leave your um house, or if it's a snake, you leave your hole in the ground, you go out into the world, you experience experience stimuli all day. Collectively, some stimuli can comprise what we call events. So every event you encounter throughout the day, your brain quickly files as a threat or an opportunity. So spiritually, it's nice to think, oh, everything's neutral except your experience of it, what you project onto it. But your body, your physiology knows when to go into flight or flight mode or not. So I just think of it as threats or opportunities. And either if it's accompanied by high emotion, it'll get mapped on your worldview, right? So that if your offspring experience a snake, they know to run the other way. Or if they experience the color red and their physiology kicks in, it's mapped, if that makes sense. And same with opportunities. Everything, you know, you can do studies by decade or century about ideals of beauty, and they do change. But within reason, indicators of if somebody's in their sexual prime, it signals propagation. Oh, birthing hips, love it. Long hair, long fingernails, a little color in the cheeks. Those are all signals. And so threats or opportunities is how I put it. And even on a cellular level, every chemical influence in the environment inspires a growth response or a protection response. So I went into that to say if that's the case for every organism, humans may well be the only ones, because of our extremely sophisticated limbic systems, right, that have sentience, number one, which becomes free will at some point. But we're also the only organisms that can learn vicariously. So if you have this, you know, in your DNA, you have cellular memory, you have everything epigenetics gifts you for your survival. If you encounter something no human has ever encountered before, that will get mapped too. And so we add to it, we add to the database, and we may be that may be unique to humans, maybe not, but what is unique is learning vicariously through others. So when we partake in story, and well, we can get into the chemistry or not, but the suggestibility that dopamine and epinephrine and all these euphoric chemicals secrete in us, make us more receptive, number one. And there's a little bit of trust in the tribe or the storyteller or the collective that makes you more suggestible. And that's the power of film, if that makes sense. So we're actually adding to the database and augmenting. And that is for good or bad. If you take in too much Fox News, otherwise known as propaganda, that's the scary implication of how a story can add to the database of our ideologies, uh, if it doesn't serve humanity. So I don't know if that's making any sense, but that's what I heard in number four. We learn vicariously, and we may well be the only ones that map things that we have heard through gossip or through propaganda.

SPEAKER_02: 32:44

Yes, absolutely. And it actually goes to um where I was going to take us next, which is when I went back and was re-listening to the book's introduction, what stood out to me was how um early story shows up, um, not as just art or but as orientation, like you're just talking about. So before story is something we tell, it's something that we use to locate ourselves in existence. Um, so which, you know, for you, you talked about like the sea monkeys, and you mentioned that just a second ago, the desert cliff, the question of connectedness, um, and how those aren't just anecdotes. They're moments of consciousness awaking. Um and so what I hear in that thread of thought, both in the reduction, even what you're just talking about, is that there's a re a resistance to the reduction of it, that story reduction uh being reduced to branding, um being um sued by slogans right, that the creativity part um is reduced to an output. Um, and so going back to that, what I was talking about when I was talking about the four parts of narrative therapy that they look at in that philosophical lens, I feel like what you're describing is a distinction um you're making is which is also clear in the book, is that story that transforms versus story that is used to manipulate um for the Almighty dollar to persuade and to basically take our our own personal power away from us. Um and I think that's sad when when story is used that way, because it does bypass the soul, as you said.

SPEAKER_00: 34:20

Um well, if I could jump in, I I do feel that um I'm an elitist for sure, and I am not trying to preach elitism, but I'm sharing schools of thought that you know I didn't invent, by the way. So I to really qualify everything, the stories I personally respond to are the ones that transform me. And if it's meant to titillate for the Almighty Dollar or for box office proceeds or for bestseller status, I simply, for good or bad, don't respond to commercial ventures because the intent transcends. And so I will just leave it at that. There's no good, bad, right, or wrong. And I have my guilty pleasures. I love pop music, I love, do you know what I mean, vacuous content that just entertains me and makes me laugh. I have a lot of guilty pleasures, but I don't for a minute call it art. So I just want to say that if somebody identifies as somebody with a love of cinema that just wants to be part of that tradition, that is a beautiful thing. It's better than you know, building nuclear bombs to put food on the table and roofs overheads. So my elitism is a little tongue-in-cheek. I am offering in the book, here is the traditional definition of artistic integrity and literary value. That in itself is elitist, right? Who is anyone to declare what constitutes beauty or art or even what makes an artist? I proffer in the book, I talk about a lot of romantic ideals that are very elitist and frankly, I don't resonate with. You know, I I don't want to go on and on, but you know, letters to a young poet I reference and some of the romantic ideas in there about what it is to be an artist. And every everybody has to decide for themselves what makes sense. But I do still subscribe to some traditional definitions of art and redemptive outcomes in literature, for example, that transform the individual and thereby, through the ripple effect, evolve society. And there's this term called the noosphere that I love. That's the invisible sphere, conceptual sphere of our norms, mores, ethics, morals, principles, codes that we live by that become laws. And my premise in the book is that the evolution of that noosphere is as important as that of our biology. We would have been extinct a long time ago if our ideas didn't evolve. And that includes the platonic values that you were hinting at. There's it's no kind of all over the place, but it's no mistake that Muhammad in Jesus and Buddha kind of arose in human history in a very short window of time. It's because we evolved to a the point where competing over resources and killing ourselves was not serving the propagation of the species, maybe the tribe, but certainly not the species. So it was rather new. This message of love and interconnectivity and regard, right, for what it is to be human was rather new. So, anyway, I you could argue that all storytelling stemmed not just from the myths that explained why a volcano just decimated that village. You know, the a lot of myths did explain nature, but then they evolved to become, if you kind of follow the dialectic of um liturgy, the keepers of uh morals and ethics and uh the ways in which we impart those values to younger generations. I'm kind of all over the place here. But uh, those are the stories to really explain the elitist mindset that you were hinting at. Uh I don't think there's any good, bad, right or wrong kind of story to tell, but you can consider these schools of thought and then just uh take a little responsibility for the kind of stories you're putting out into the universe. So now we're kind of hinting at the devil's cocktail and the angel's cocktail that I go into in the book. And that's not my own idea, that's uh something something I'm sharing from another resource. But you know, I'm not a moralist. In fact, moralism is frowned upon and it actually erodes artistic integrity traditionally. If you have an agenda, it pushes your content into the realm of propaganda. So art traditionally explores all sides of the thematic coin. Without being preachy or didactic, it explores all sides of the coin, whatever your theme is. And it does speak to the human condition and hopefully invites pondering and even provokes, right? But the minute you start issuing prescriptive didactic morals or lessons, it's propaganda by definition. So anyway, I'm not an elitist really, but I do still adhere to some of those tenets because right now, I'll just give you one quick example. Sorry for this long tirade, but I did just see a video or read an article, I can't remember, saying, I mean, we've all known with streaming, you know, and then you have hybrid releases where maybe there's a quick cinematic run, but pretty much the majority of people are watching content while holding their laundry or doing their nails or scrolling on their cell phone. So we've always known the content is kind of being dumbed down for this short attention span, cultural ADD, I call it. But this latest article was saying all, like let's say, creator-driven content for Netflix. The directive now is don't just make it easily palatable or digestible for distracted people. You need to literally use the characters as mouthpieces now, and every few minutes remind them of the whole premise, right? And explain the uh exposition through dialogue, which is a no-no in screenwriting. So we've had guests on that have talked about we're not really just dumbing the populace down, but we're robbing them of the ability to process nuance, right? And do you remember that episode where we talked about well, what do you mean by nuance? Um, irony, humor. I mean, I see a lot of reels on Instagram where the ticker or the C the closed captions are being used to explain the humor because they have no category for it. So younger generations will go, ooh, she's clapping back, ooh, she's throwing shade. And it's like, no, that's called a conversation with wit and humor. So anyway, I I adhere to some of these traditional definitions because I don't like. what I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_02: 40:46

No, and that makes sense. So let's let's throw this out there because I this is what I think I'm hearing in this. And when I say what um say this, it's because I'm not saying that, you know, one form or another is better when it comes to um the way story is told. But when story just, you know, the narrative, a narrative that is being told right within the story is allowed to function as it always has, which is to hopefully inspire to get us, like you said, to look, you know, to to contemplate, to reflect, to go and ask those to the why question. So I'm gonna say where where it causes our brain to become curious, to want, to understand or or or figure out what what is this telling me? Would you say then that that is the premise behind story where it moves us because it creates that meaning bonding and catharsis.

SPEAKER_00: 41:48

Well I think in our next episode well probably two from now when we discuss chapter one, we're going to go into literally bullet point by bullet point why we tell stories. And there's a number of different outcomes, right? But I think sociologists and anthropologists and mythologists and the Joseph Campbells of the world have chimed in as well. And there is a list of outcomes. So we'll save that for you know chapter one. But um what exactly was the question I didn't quite follow it.

SPEAKER_02: 42:17

Um when story is allowed to function as it always has and so it touches people so it gets them to literally it it brings up that curiosity for them to go into introspective to really just go wait a minute huh and ponder would you say that that that's that's where you're going with what when you're as we dive into this book where it's creating that meaning that bonding and that catharsis?

SPEAKER_00: 42:44

Well there's a lot in there but that's conflated but in chapter one again I think we go into the chemical basis of storytelling and that's what I've hinted is being usurped or hijacked or appropriated by commerce. But traditionally one view is that yeah it has all these outcomes for the tribe and if you just go with tribal bonding we could write a whole chapter on that right the brain waves synchronizing during a drum circle or heartbeat synchronizing and how that kind of bonding serves the tribe because you're exposing our shared humanity and um how could that not aid in our propagation our proliferation our survival so it bonds the tribe but that's I think it's oxytocin that creates the trust and the tribal bonding. So that happens around the campfire everybody there is more suggestible and therefore more receptive to the thematic content because there's you know the walls come down. So that's a little bit separate from catharsis which you know Plato fought long and hard for this idea of catharsis in the face of fascism. So if all of us are in let's say the artist I use this example of Bonnie Reid she writes a song about heartbreak. And man you can write you can do a whole laundry list of ways in which it serves her as confessional as venting as unloading it's got to be some kind of emotional release to literally write the song in the first place. But then right somebody in the Midwest turns on their car radio and they experience the very same catharsis. They feel less alone oh my God somebody on the planet has felt the same way I have after a heartbreak. And now I'm literally almost quoting the book but that's kind of the completion of the circuit now imagine people everywhere are hearing Bonnie Wright's song because it's number one on you know on the charts. So through the ripple effect it can affect society at large. And I mean some would say if we didn't have our regular catharsis by taking in cinema opera ballet by reading a good book maybe the pent up aggression would be counterproductive for the tribe. So I don't subscribe to that so much because the extreme of that would be this idea that oh you get out your aggressions by going to a soccer match you know and uh I I think that's that never serves the tribe. When you elicit aggression through cortisol and adrenaline and um all these other chemicals which again are called the devil's cocktail you might be personally feeding an addiction to again adrenaline and cortisol um but then there's the cultural addiction to violence. So I don't want to be moralistic as I've said a million times I think to tell a great story you have to show the light and the shadow the good and the bad the yin and the yong right otherwise there's no conflict but what is gratuitous and what directly serves the resolution of that conflict the story arc is in the eye of the beholder but I think we know it when we see it right which one is just feeding a cultural addiction to violence and in some cases normalizing it and which one is like oh it's germane and integral to the plot uh I go into some examples. Dave Megasy wrote an entire book in the 70s after leaving the NFL about his premise was the institutionalized violence and aggression in sports has habituated us to the violence in Vietnam and again I can't I haven't read it but he probably takes many pages to make that case and I just can't disagree you know soccer riots happen for a reason Hitler rallies happen for a reason orange asshole rallies happen for a reason. So again without being moralistic I think these are worth you know if you identify as a storyteller all these outcomes are worth thinking about because then you just get to decide what kind of stories do I want to put out of the universe are they redemptive? Do they offer something to the collective or do they maybe feed something that's counterproductive? Yeah that's that's the most uh moralistic I get you know ethics that's a big word but I I don't like to be moralistic about it but just think about it what am I in unintentionally doing or intentionally doing with my storytelling right and I was saying and in the introduction you actually get into that when you're talking that you touch on the ethics and the responsibility of even being a teacher when you share the story of um being of of seeing people be made to feel broken.

SPEAKER_02: 47:35

And when that happens when people are supported and recognizing what is already alive in them the difference and and I think there's humility here that I I don't want us to gloss over because I I feel like you're touching on that and you and you do get into that in the introduction. You're not just positioning yourself as a gatekeeper of truth. You're explicit explicitly um have a perspective about the limits of certainty and refusing to use a role right that somebody can be in um or even us here on the podcast to to make someone feel broken or less than you're more about even you talk about this too about with your students like you wanted to and you say this all the time you want to inspire so you've you've taught for many years you've watched your students you've related different differently to them when it comes to the creative process to shape that ethical stance that you show even in what you just said now and throughout the book I I would love for you to just kind of talk about um what that was like as a teacher seeing some kids getting broken down you know these students getting broken down to then basically be built up because I know that's that's a concept that happens in the military you know book that's what boot camp's about right to break to break this the the the grunt down so they can build them up to become our soldiers and I love the fact that you see that that is not the way to help humanity wow well there's a lot in there again and I'm not sure which aspect to respond to but again part of the disclaimers in the introduction I'm just putting out caveat caveats and disclaimers and distinguishing my intention I think from all those like silly tropes that I mentioned before about you know say why your approach is superior to all the others out there in this niche or this space they say now.

SPEAKER_00: 49:45

So I think it was just I had to feel good about writing the book and really qualify everything I'm suggesting because I mean I get preachy on here but I try not to and in the book I think I'm making gentle suggestions and connecting dots and offering it up and I think that we're all here to do that. Our unique perspectives you know my way of connecting dots is going to be different than yours. But I think we are all being called upon to share our unique worldviews so that again mixing metaphors as threads in the tapestry we're all contributing and maybe that's where the balance comes in right even I hate to say it but the divisiveness and the pendulum back swings and all these really uncomfortable growing pains in the end create some kind of balance that best serves humanity. It's really hard to go there and it takes a lot of faith but sometimes the pendulum swings are for the better even when it comes to our two party system takes a long time to get there. But I guess my disclaimers were really largely about how I've just had a lifelong resistance to the definitive right if you say the sky is blue and then you apply the Socratic method you can disprove that. Well it's not blue at sunset and it's not blue during sunrise from a given angle with the light raking through the atmosphere and refracting off blah blah blah like you any definitive statement can be disproven because of flux and time and circumstance does that make sense and language is limitations language is very limited. So I was putting that out there that I'm not going to be the first one to define art or beauty because we all know it's in the eye of the beholder or um really I I mention artistic integrity and literary value as traditions that I subscribe to while acknowledging they're romantic and they're limited. So I guess the word is judicious. I felt the need to lay out there here's how I approach teaching as you know like oh I'm just here to um be a conduit for conversation and um kind of mediate if that makes sense. And as much as I would tell my students take everything I say with a grain of salt you need to be judicious about your education and reconcile everything you're exposed to in art school you know with opposing thought forms. That's on you. And that's the nature of education. Everything is what you make it and so I do talk about being judicious in your thinking but also convergent thinking as opposed to divergent. So I think I put it in there just so that people would understand the intention of the book. And I guess I was letting myself off the hook a little bit. But I think what you're also hinting at is the anecdote I talked about you know I got a scholarship for vocal instruction from a pretty reputable vocal instructor here in LA. He taught Steve Perry from Journey and you know a lot of artists that we all know. It's very lucky and had such a great experience then later on my own dime in my 20s I I you know it was singing in the shower. I kind of wasn't using my voice but I went back for vocal instruction and I don't remember the guy's name but he had me literally for 45 minutes doing gymnastics with my voice like abusing it frankly and uh I didn't know any better. I didn't know how to do the exercises without taxing my voice. And then after all that he had me sing the song I came prepared to sing. And I'd done it a million times and it's like what voice is coming out of me it sounds like a bullfrog that you know ingested a pipe whistle it just wasn't my vocal cords were flipping out and on the drive home even in at the tender age of 20 something I thought oh that's all by design and he wants you to feel broken and in need of his services so I was just kind of saying to the reader never ever am I trying to through suggestion implant something that makes you feel broken or less than if you don't identify with it you know that idea of uh they call it uh medical school syndrome yes yeah it's a form of hypochondria where everything you study about you get a mild version of so I just was putting that out there like if anything in here doesn't resonate just keep going and there was plenty of things in art school like letters to a young poet oh all true inspiration comes from not just solitude but I had an instructor say periods of depression do you think I wanted to hear that in 19 like I'm doomed to a lifetime of depression now I understand it. It's like oh germination is what he meant. So I was just putting it out there like in the reading of this book if I suggest something that you don't relate to just keep going like I'm not here to make anyone feel broken and in need of my content. I'm just contributing to the conversation.

SPEAKER_02: 54:40

Yeah well and I love that part of the book because here's here's something that I see happen on the mental health side um going to people feeling broken. I mean because obviously you know that's what people think like oh you're coming to therapy because you feel broken. And that I'm not gonna say that that isn't the case. But I also have people who walk through my door who have because they've been talking to a friend because they got on Chat GPT, they Googled um they were talking to somebody who's a friend who's in mental health but they can't really diagnose their friend but they're like gosh you know you have tendencies that sound like oh yeah you might have some OCD tendencies you know and then all of a sudden it's like they walk through my door and they're like I have OCD and I'm like well who told you that you know so that's going to the stories that were told right because they're hearing a narrative and then they hear that part of that narrative and they latch to it which Well we've we've also sorry we talked about pop psychology too right everyone's throwing around narcissist and empath yeah like yeah like you can just buy that title and um yeah so I love that you that you that you address that right away at the introduction of the book because um I think it's very easy for us to as you said be susceptible to these narratives that are just floating around around us right and latch onto them and go, oh my gosh, you know or um I mean even like going through my master's program to become a to become a counselor I mean I'm not gonna say that they intentionally try and tear us down but I mean I definitely I know I mentioned many times on the podcast and just to you in in personal conversation like I mean there's nothing left like they have stripped me bare like all I have left is my heart in my chest like do I need to rip it out and throw it on the ground for them to devour next you know um so I love that you bring that up because it's so easy for us to um let those outside influences or what someone says um tear.

SPEAKER_00: 56:42

Yeah well again in in the spirit of our book the narratives we internalize right and we did a whole episode on dependency all these ideas that aging equals falling apart and that you need to be on an entire cocktail of drugs to stay above ground. So that's you know the power of yeah suggestibility and the narratives we absorb like crabs in the boiling water. But again I think the art school equivalent of some of this I I fight back a little bit because um yeah all those empaths running around that maybe uh don't have a thick skin they create a whole narrative about art school and I will say in my teaching I mean I heard rumors oh so and so will line up the work from good to bad and you know it's very vulnerable to put your work on a crit rail after you just self-expressed right and then be open to criticism whether from the instructor or the group it's very vulnerable. And then Art Center developed a reputation for oh kicking the shit out of you week one and you kind of move past that. And I am the one guy who's going to say no no all it is is you mature and you realize we're all here to help one another become the best artist you know we can all respectively become and we're all on the same team. It's called growing up so I kind of fight some of those myths a little bit. What I will say is yes that's the nature of education in general but art school might have its own version of it where you become stifled by the do's the don'ts the rights the wrongs simply put the technique and the craft and you will forget why you fucking draw or paint in the first place of course right so you could say an art uh an author might forget why he's telling stories in the first place when they get exposed to too much academia. But then I just gently suggest have faith the dust will settle all the puzzle pieces lock into place you'll remember why you do what you do and then all artists understand this the technique becomes second nature and you just pull it in as needed but you're really following inspiration and that can be a concept or a narrative but inspiration that is the arc that all artists again romantic notions but if you take the journey seriously the uh chemin artistique to bring the French back the lifelong artistic journey at large and I don't even subscribe to that you can do whatever you want with your art but elitist circles will say oh no you become a mentor you know like under the wing of Michelangelo and you go through your plain air paint you know whether it's a la prima or old master's techniques it's a long haul I don't buy any of that you can take whatever journey you want but if people do it for a sustained period of time right whether it's little scales on your violin or plain air painting and um still life painting and figure painting you are yeah I the way I put it in the book is using craft to get good at life I'm not a gymnast but I'm in awe right of Olympian gymnasts for the discipline. So I just think it's such an opportunity to get good at life it's it's very metaphorical.

SPEAKER_02: 59:58

Am I all over the place here or does some of that make no no that totally made sense and I I want to I'm gonna spin it on its head for a second. So you're like oh no don't do that to me. No but so here's here's here's a a flip to that school of thought you know not not saying that we need to break people down I wonder sometimes though if there's this sense and I and I think you touched on it which is why I was going here um is that we feel like we're being torn down because there's things that we have to admit that we didn't know right and sometimes our own personal arrogance and yeah ego. Exactly Exactly, it gets gets in our way to where sometimes when we feel like we're being torn down or broken, it's actually making a stop.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:52

That that was my whole point, actually, because again, 20 years of teaching, you and you know, I taught at many institutions with different cultures, but Art Center was the consistent thread, and I know that culture better than any of the others because I went there for Saturday high as a kid, and then three years during my own degree program, and then 20 years of teaching there. I've had a relationship with that school with yeah, granted its own reputation and its own practices for 30 something years. And you would often hear, I recognize it a mile away. Your resistance, your ego, your pride builds a narrative, and then gossip feeds into that, right, and supports that narrative. For example, when I went to that school, the tale wasn't wagging the dog. You felt lucky to be accepted. It was one of the top arts, you know, art schools in the country. And you just took what they gave you, you didn't question it. You were terrified to walk across in a good and bad way, terrified to walk and talk to Margaret Broccotto across the bridge to ask for a schedule change. Because it was well thought out and well designed by a panel, the whole curriculum. And now they think they're buying a degree, right? And I won't say which country all the money's coming from, but they think they're buying a degree. So the tail's wagging the dog, and the parents come to campus. My parents never once visited campus, and the student just gets what they want. My point is, even if I heard gossip, oh my god, that instructor, like I said, that instructor takes work and throws it on the floor and stomps on it, and he strangled an owl. Like I've heard it all. And it never turned out to be true. There's old school instructors like Hogarth and Carmian, and you've you hear horror stories. I never want to saw anybody strangle an owl. So, you know, it's because I don't have that kind of personality that, like you're saying, refuses to take responsibility for my shortcomings and therefore demonize the thing that is an opportunity to open my mind, actually. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I would regularly hear students try to pit one structure against another. And they all day, every day, well, so-and-so said, and you slow down and say, and you provide some context. Well, actually, most of us instructors agree because design is designed. So maybe you heard something that wasn't said, and inevitably that was always the case. So that's why I don't love gossip. And uh it never occurred to me to tweak my schedule based on the gossip of students, because students actually operate on the pleasure principle. It sometimes takes tough love to say you may not like this class, it may be a tough instructor, but you're gonna thank them in the end.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:35

Yeah, because there's growth, there's growth in that discomfort and familiar.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:39

So I'm agreeing with you. I saw it in so many forms, like you know, uh myths about instructors because we operate on the pleasure principle or creating repeating narratives, and it's called gossip. It's very destructive. There's a reason the Bible identifies gossip as a sin.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:57

Yeah, a lot. I want to say what I hear what I keep hearing echoing for me is that the I'm not gonna just say the artist journey, I'm gonna say just the journey when it comes to us um going through life and interacting with these these stories, these narratives that are floating around us. Um, that that journey journey is really us practicing how to be human.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:19

Well, I think I think you're saying literature, art hold on, story teaches us how to live in the world.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:31

One of the functions.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:33

One of one of the functions. And and so so it's not that, you know, and then of course putting it into a more artistic realm is that craft isn't about output, it's about the attunement. So it's paying attention, learning how to stay awake without becoming hardened or cynical. So I would love for you, because I know you you do walk very much where you nope, I'm not gonna subscribe to that. Oh, yeah, that that rose that's resonating with me. I'm feeling attuned to that. Um, so when you look back across your animation, teaching, writing, even your filmmaking days, where do you feel that story wasn't just something you were making, but it became something that was actively starting to shape you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:17

I love the wording of that question. Um well, I think just like everybody else, because again, I've I actually polled students for a documentary I was going to make, and I've done research over the years, and so a lot of my conclusions come from that, just being immersed in the milieu and yeah, actively doing I gave questionnaires to my students. And one time I literally went down to the brewery and different artist complexes and lofts and just interviewed everything from professional fine artists to gallery painters to again my own students, and um I was just like everybody else in that I was unexamined for me. I did get that typewriter at nine and my first oil painting class at seven, and I just enjoyed it. And I never identified as a storyteller, I just liked doing it, and uh yeah, kind of like everybody else. And then maybe even with filmmaking, I just wanted to be part, you know, grew up on Steven Spielberg, and who wouldn't want to do that? Like, I just wanted to be part of the tradition that I responded to. All those Lord of the Rings books that you know, I would escape into that world regularly in junior high after taking a bong hit. I um just wanted to do that, right? I think that's a lot of people, and it's unexamined. If you believe the polls that I took with my students, at some point, craft aside, you do realize there's a drive and there's a reason you want to tell stories. And then that even later might get attached because of your brush with death or your come to Jesus moment with a really strong sense of purpose or a fire. So I I do identify these milestones if you are in it for the long haul in the artistic journey. But for me, I think I was just like everybody else. It was unexamined, and I think at some point I understood the power of story. I didn't think, oh, I'm wielding this sword, but I just was in love with cinema in the early 90s, you know, throughout college and maybe even after starting at Disney. I just took in a lot of um independent films, experimental films, foreign films, and not the mainstream stuff. I would go to the Lemleys regularly, and yeah, it did occur to me like, holy crap, the power of storytelling. I would take, you know, Il Postino, like Water for Chocolate, um, Life is Beautiful, all these really beautiful independent films with something to say, and I would be in awe of them. Then I would compare them to like, oh, that Bruce Willis film, The Last Boy Scout. That didn't move me in the same way quite, you know. And it did occur to me at one point, like, God, the you can watch him mow down 30 people in an airport and you're still rooting for him for good or bad, because he's the protagonist and you're invested in the want and the need and the goal. So I just think I started learning more and seeing being exposed to more, and I realized the power of the medium, and that was cinema. You know, if you can root for somebody to kill more people, that's a scary implication in terms of the power of propaganda. So sorry for the long answer, but I think it was a lifelong journey of like, oh, now I understand the power, and I want to do that. So even though I was proud of the films I was putting out at Disney, I was driven to become a live-action filmmaker and literally tell my stories and hopefully move people or touch them in the same ways these films affected me. Those are some milestone, I'm sure there's many more.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:46

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I was gonna say, as you're you're saying that, I was like, gosh, you go back to like when you were a kid, like laying there, you know, and you talked about um, and forgive me, I'm not gonna remember his name, but you're it was the gentleman who was sculpting dragons, I believe.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:01

Claude, yes, Claude.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:03

And I just I was thinking of that image, and just even like where you're when the where you talk of when you're with your grandmother and you're looking you know out into this precipice, and you're just like, what does this mean? Like it seems like you've always had a very curious mind.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:20

Yeah, I mean, again, I think later I I'm a storyteller, so I connect dots, and as you said, the meaning making isn't that what makes us human? We can connect dots and then make meaning out of it. So I think in writing the book, I connected those dots. Like, okay, there's a reason I identified with Winnie the Pooh, right? When people would ask me as a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? I would say Winnie the Pooh, like no guile at all, until they started asking questions. Like, how do you plan to accomplish that?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:51

I I'm curious, I'm curious why Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:54

Well, that's what I'm saying. I think later I realized when I discovered the Tao of Pooh that he embodied a lot of the Zen philosophy that I aspired to. And, you know, the reason I mentioned Claude and the dragons and Puff the Magic Dragon on the radio and all the hippies at the creative art center is because that was a milieu that lent itself to, you know, and I credit my mom for that, to um, I don't know, maybe rejecting socialization and um understanding that there's more. So um it was Winnie the Pooh because he was Zen. And there was a oh, the reason I mentioned my mom is she had a book lying around the house called The Zen of Seeing. And so all these things just came together. And the sea monkeys, that's just a fun parable because I think I learned later I was invested in yeah, getting people woke long before it was the popular thing to do, and just look beyond the end of your nose. And um, the sea monkeys were the symbol of that. Like actually, they could go from a crystalline state to being uh charged and uh you know, that spark of life that makes them sentient. And uh, so I just kind of juxtaposed all those little milestones, if that makes sense, to say without even knowing it, I from day one was invested in seeing through the matrix and then sharing that with people. And I think we're all called upon to do that. Like I said earlier, what are the dots that you subjectively connect that nobody else in this tapestry would? It's still worth contributing back. So um, the final anecdote that you didn't talk about was oh, the moment with my grandmother on the cliff. And that one says it all. I was a weird kid. I did it, I remember to this day. I would picture balloons just floating in the blue sky, and it was very haunting, actually. And then I I think we all have this. Maybe I had liver problems as a kid, I don't know, but I would see floaters, they call them. Do you ever see floaters? Do you know what those are?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:51

I do, I have floaters, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:53

Yeah, it's but when you're a kid and you're lying in the grass looking at a blank sky, they're trippy. So I thought I was seeing molecules like drifting down and then settling into the grass. I I literally thought I was, I don't know what I thought, but um I was a weird kid, is the point. And um, I have to this day a very vivid image. I was picture, you know, the blue sky and the balloons, and I think I was also I'd heard that we live forever, you know, in the Bible. It they tell us that. And I was like, that sounds boring. I just didn't know what I was going to do at the time, and it was very haunted by that too. So I don't know, I got up the guts and I just was standing on the edge of a cliff in the Owens River Valley with my grandmother. I we were literally looking out at the horizon, it's all symbolism. And I said, For some reason, grandma, what would there be if we weren't here? And as I say in the book, I have no idea what that even means, but I must have grasped that, you know, we're all experiencing the sensual world as pure consciousness, but it may or may not actually exist. It's just kind of a consensus. I don't know what I thought, but that to me later said, You weren't just a weird kid, you were tapping into the metaphysical and asking really philosophical questions at the age of six. And my grandmother's answer was, and she squeezed my hand and she said, Honey, just try not to think about it. So I tell that story because it is the story of my life, and that's later why I resonated with Horton Here's a Who. Do you know that story well?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:25

I do. I love Horton Here's a Who.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:27

That is the artist's life. I mean, if we are going to define what it is to be an artist or define it in that way that we see things others others don't, yeah. I so related to that. And so in the writing of the book, I started connecting all these dots, like, my essence has evolved in some ways, but it's my core essence or my soul is the same soul. Do you have like okay, I love minor chords, I don't love major chords. That's never changed. I might be exposed to a certain type of music, but I still like discord over harmony, if that makes sense. And so I think your aesthetic taste is to say something about your soul and your preferences, and that sometimes remains consistent.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:10

Do you have things you loved as a kid that you still love or songs or yeah, and it's interesting that you mentioned that because I started thinking about them quite so I know um so I like harmony because my mom sang and she actually won trophies for voice, and she was and she harmonized really well. So I find that comforting because it reminds me of her.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:33

But um I meant major chords, I should have said major chords.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:38

But just just because I I don't speak music theory very well, um, which is funny because I played the flute and the piano. You'd think I'd be better with music, but yeah, I was yeah, anyways. But um, but it's interesting because just thinking about music and just you know using that, like what resonates with you. So uh the the group air supply, I really like them. And it's interesting because I never realized this as a kid, um, because my mom listened to them, which is how of course I listened to them. But when I got into my 20s, I remember I was going, it was when karaoke was just starting to become this thing, right? And I played an air supply song, and I remember the karaoke disc jockey turning me. He's like, Really, you know, one, because I'm a girl and I'm gonna sing air supply, but he's like, well, he's like, I don't get this request very often because they don't sing in harmony, they're the opposite. The music, yeah, the music is the melody, but they sing the opposite, which I can't remember what it's not called right off the top of my head. So, anyways, which I thought was really interesting, um, because I really have always liked their music and how it sounds and resonates for me. And I've always remembered that from curious, and I'd have to go look to remember exactly what that means. But yeah, so they don't they don't sing the melody part, they're they're on the opposite side of the melody, the music's the melody, and then they sing the opposite, whatever that is. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I don't know. You can go look it up and correct me if I was wrong. I'm just telling you what you told me, and it stuck in my head.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:09

Well, I think anyway, yeah. Yeah, anyway, but it says something about I don't I just think our aesthetics, our sense of aesthetics is inborn and it it just says something about your whole worldview, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:20

Yeah, it it does. And you know, and and and I love you know how you talk about Horton Heroes Le Who and how it you know relates to um, you know, being an artist and stuff, because I think that's very true, even like in my clinical work, um, where I have to walk into a room and look at things not through my lens. I have to look through it through my client's lens, right? And of course, our perception is our reality. And at the same time as I'm tracking what that perception reality is for the person sitting across from me, I have my own and I have to sit there and I I always use a kaleidoscope analogy that, you know, we can all be handed the kaleidoscope and we all have the same primary color pieces in that kaleidoscope. But how we turn the lens and how those pieces fall is how we're gonna perceive the world around us. And so to me, I feel like we always have to be shifting that kaleidoscope to make sure we're getting as much of the full picture as we can get at all times. And to me, that's the curiosity. That's always wanting to understand and know why and not just always be happy with the first answer we're given. And I feel like this is what this book inspires, just from listening to the intro of Language of the Soul is what what aren't you thinking about? What other curious questions should should you be asking? And and when do you stop asking the questions? And to me, the answer is never.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:50

Right. Right. Well, let me quickly say I've known you for a while now, going on 12 years, maybe.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:57

Over 12 years. Anyway, and we've been doing the podcast for three. So I think you're very good at that. I call it being judicious, right? Being able to step in, see all perspectives. That's what makes you a great therapist. And um, but that's not everybody, right? I think that um I use the words divergent and convergent, and um, I don't know, it's pride and ego, but I think a lot of people are tempted to just equate their subjective reality with the elusive objective truth, right? The absolute truth, which may or may not exist. I think a lot of people move through life. I'm trying to put this in a positive way, move through life without, and well, here I'll put it on somebody else. Um Eckhart Toll would say, we identify with the narrator in our head. Some people are so identified with mind and ego that they don't even realize that narrator, do you know what I mean, might be a little off base or like have internalized all these narratives we're talking about externally, vicariously. And so he just calls it identification with mind. And when you meditate and you stop, right, all those voices, you stop the um what's it called, the reverie, and you settle into you know alpha wave mode or gamma wave mode, and you stop the mental chatter, you stop identifying with all these silly things you've internalized. I don't know if that's making sense, but maybe artists have a little intellectual curiosity that saves them from that identification, maybe, or maybe it's something like I said earlier, you just nurture. Not everybody can afford to do something as impractical as art, right? There's a whole long tradition of, you know, and I think it's silly, but uh being practical and it's a luxury, and that's why, you know, our country arguably doesn't support the arts or fund the arts. That's not the case in you know, many a developed country. But maybe we need to acknowledge it all has value to the collective. I'm kind of all over the place here, but I do think I do think you're good at shifting, you know, turning the kaleidoscope and looking at all angles of something, and maybe that's what makes for empathy and compassion, and maybe that's what we need more of right now, with everybody digging in there, like divisive, everything's divisive, right? Not just our country, it's global. And in a good way, a lot of things are coming to a head, and we're ushering out a lot of paradigms that I mean, if we survive, we're ushering out a lot of paradigms. But I do see everybody digging their heels in and like dinosaurs trying to try to protect, okay. I'll just say it patriarchy, for example, right? And so what we need to do is uh learn to use convergent thinking. And see the value of all the mindsets and cooperate instead of digging our heels in. Does that make a little bit of sense? Like that's what's needed right now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:56

It does. And it goes back to when I was first talking about, you know, um, when I was having that conversation, you know, with my with my partner. Um, we'll just say Justin. He just loves when I used his name. Um, but when Justin and I were talking, you know, and and talking about the arts and um and people who are in the arts and why they're important, even though it feels like there's I'm not saying it that they're like the minority of the population, but it just feels that way because, like you just said, we don't focus and put money and time really behind it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:29

Like, it's not a cultural value, right? Like the arts used to be part of a well-rounded education. My grandmother didn't identify as a painter, but her oil paintings of the Joshua trees in the Mojave are literally better than anything I've ever seen. And she didn't even identify as a painter, it was just part of a well-rounded education.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:48

Well, and I think what it goes to, and so it came up to my so I know you know this word, but just so if our listeners don't, I'll quickly define it for you. So differentiate differentiation of self. And that means the capacity to stay emotionally connected to others without losing your own thinking. And I feel like we don't have well-differentiated people that are noticing those strong feelings without being hijacked by the narratives that are not self-serving or that that or are self-serving, I mean, you know, that aren't that aren't contributing, but they're they're self-serving instead. And I think it's that emotional intelligence and those conversations that we're losing because of that. And and that's where you get like where there's poor differentiation where people are digging in their heels and they're like, no, this is my emotional protection.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:38

Well, how do we get back to that? I'm gonna let you answer and say, how do we get back to that? But I did hear something the other day that especially about the far right and MAGA and you know, some of the more shadier conspiracy theories. Um, QAnon, I guess. And um that they so identify with the narrative that, yeah, they don't differentiate themselves from it, and therefore, anything that's a threat to the administration or the doctrine is a threat to them personally. It's crazy. You know what I mean? That's why you buy the platform hook, line, and sinker instead of realizing okay, there's some nuance here, there's platform issues, you don't have to buy the entire platform hook, line, and sinker.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:25

No, and that's true. And and and you so you asked, like, you know, how do we get back to that? And to me, I think it's going to that, you know, holding ourselves responsible for our own inner world while remaining meaningful and connected to others. So understand we don't all have to agree, because I think that sometimes I mean I'm not saying that that's everything, but there is that there is that one caveat, right? To the uh decipher decisiveness of like, well, we all need a groupthink. Well, no, not everybody wants to groupthink, right? And that's great. If if you find like-minded individuals, I mean, we want to find like-minded individuals because that's a good thing, but it's also good to have people who think different from us because it puts us in that uncomfortable, the unfamiliar, which is where it stops us and goes, okay, where do I need to change, or does something else need to change for growth to happen? And if we don't, if we're all in the same bubble, we stagnate.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:27

Yeah. Here's here's what where my mind goes. Um, we're always evolving, right? A lot of tribal instincts that may have served us may no longer be serving us. And so, groupthink or conformity, call it what you want, was obviously valuable to us for a long, long time. We may be evolving out of that, where it's no longer, you know, like they say humans are the only ones that actively destroy their own habitat. That that doesn't help to anything. That doesn't contribute to the uh proliferation of the species. And so I just think if you look at it in a very evolutionary theory level, yes, our thought forms matter, and there are growing pains when they evolve, and you have people again that dig their heels in and maybe keep things from progressing too fast. The trick is saying amen to all of it, right? And so, on a maybe subjective personal level, I hear, well, we're just talking about ego versus, you know, quieting that ego and stepping into our core essence, which is always love, you know. But then on the macro scale, I think a lot of it is tribal and it may have served us in the past, but it's obsolete, and that would include groupthink because we're more global now than ever, and we got to learn to get along with the other kids on the playground.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:47

Yeah, exactly. And we and if you think about it, each one of us individually contribute to the system in our families, into our neighborhoods, into um the cities and counties we live in, the states, because we're here in the United States, you know, provinces, countries, um, and then eventually we get to the global scale. And so each piece is a cog in the will, right? We all have a purpose. Um, and that can be to maybe, like you said, slow the system down a little bit so it can recalibrate. Maybe sometimes we're hindering it, and so we need to get on board, and that's that's where that introspection comes in.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:30

So, anyways, no, I agree. I gotta, I gotta respond. I'm sorry, because um I do think you have people that work with the system, God love them. I'm one of them, by the way. I'm a good boy, I am not militant, even the LGBTQ issues. I've never been militant, and some people see me as complacent, but I see more value in embracing my gifts, not trying to be something that I'm not, which is political. Um, but I say amen to all of it. Thank God for people with a chip on their shoulder, right? Thank God for people that protest, and it comes to the you know, MLK versus uh Malcolm X kind of mentality. But I do say amen to all of it, and everything works toward not the greater good, that's a little too Pollyanna, but uh works toward, you know, again, I think it was MLK that said the arc toward justice is long, but it always bends, sorry, the arc of history is long, but it always bends towards justice. So somewhere in the book, maybe later, I say exactly that how the ripple effect is alive and well. And during the pandemic, I fantasized that the timeout was meant for people to slow the F down and introspect, if that can be a verb, you know, look inside and take stock. And I feel like sadly, some people took the opportunity and some did not. But when I say be the change you wish to see in the world, I think I'm quoting Gandhi, and how can you argue with that? I've been told that's very Pollyanna, and my response to that is and it's also the only way, the only way, right? You wouldn't have sorry, a Trump if I mean he represents the worst in all of us, and we let it get to this point. That's just my opinion. You don't have to agree, but I think it's like a a boil that just comes, right? It's a cancer, it's a rogue. And so I meant to say a moment ago, I think we do need our free thinkers, we need our rogues, we need our subversive individuals that absolutely um you know are the uh what do you call it, the backlash against certain trends that no longer serve us. Thank God, amen to all of it. Yeah, and it's also really uncomfortable during the the moments like now where you know crisis that's a big premise of the book too. Crisis signals opportunity. I'm sorry, crisis signals change and um adversity is the only way we grow, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:58

So yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna end with this thought, not in the show, because I do have a wrapping thing, but I'm gonna end with this thought, then I'll let you share your thought, and then I will stir us to our close. Um so this is from Victor Frankel. I know you guys have all heard me mention Victor Frankel before. Uh, it's a very famous quote, but what he said in his um Man Search and Meaning book was when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:31

That's how it works. I love it. Yep, and it's globally too, right? Yeah, this is an opportunity, right? It's uh it's really uncomfortable, but it's an opportunity. Yep. From the ashes, we can rebuild.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:47

Yes. Okay, so what what are some final thoughts on the getting the season going and this the intro to your book and the fact that we're focusing on it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:57

Well, I think you have some beautiful closing words, if I remember correctly. So I don't really need to chime in. I don't know if we got to the guts of the introduction as much as you would have liked. Uh, do you feel like we've exploited uh every micro segment of the introduction?

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:14

I don't think we got into every little crevice, but I think we we did a good job of which is what the intro is about, right? It's really the I hate call it the overview of all the chapters we're gonna get into, but you know, initially getting into what where we're building from and why we're building from what we're building from.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:37

Yeah, I mean, I like everything we've uh talked about here, and I I hope it has value to listeners. But yeah, maybe I would just say go listen to the introduction in its entirety, and then you'll be better prepared to listen to chapter one if you choose to, or to listen to our roundtable discussions of chapter one. But yeah, I don't really have much to say other than it it's a sense the uh introduction is just here's where I'm coming from. You know, here's where my perspective, I'm not gonna say authority or expertise at all, but I just tell you who I am and hopefully a remotely entertaining way, and then say, and that's what's informing my perspective. I then, as a kind of sampler platter, lay out some premises and support them to a degree with the promise that future chapters will uh, you know, make the case. And I think by the end, collectively, I just make the case that, you know, story is a powerful force and it is how we transform. It's probably the most powerful way by which society evolves. So let's just be conscious of it and have an awareness of its power and maybe take some responsibility. By the end of the book, I make that case. Um, the intro is just like, here's who I am, here are some things we're gonna talk about, and hopefully they land a little bit or resonate a little bit, and they we absolutely go into detail later. And I think that's important to talk about the specific brain chemicals that come up and why story is so powerful. Not so we can use it in advertising, right, or political campaigning, but maybe we want to contribute back to our evolution and transform individuals so that through the ripple effect, society can evolve. Just that. Uh yeah, that that's that that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:16

That sounds good. Okay, so far, listeners, just so you know, as we move through the conversations within the book, um, and really um through the whole season, I want you as listeners to keep this idea in mind. Every guest we talk to embodies a different relationship with story, some consciously, some unconsciously, some through art, some through lived experiences. This introduction gives all of us a lens to start from. The rest of the season um and the shows that we have before us, many in um the many ways that the lens refracts through the real human lives. So just keep turning that kaleidoscope. And that's what season three is all about slowing down, paying attention, and remembering why story has always mattered in the first place.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:01

Beautiful. Love it, beautiful. Thank you so much. Yeah, this was fun for me. I hope you had fun. I did, it was great, and yeah, time tune in uh to our next one, which I think is going to be the reading of chapter one, right? And then after that will be the round table discussion. So, yeah, to our listeners, remember life is a story, and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can tell a new story. See you next time.