Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
27. Finding Growth in Disruption and Change
In this episode, we explore the process of navigating significant life changes, especially those that come from diving deeper into new creative passions. We discuss the internal and external chaos that often accompanies such shifts, reflecting on how these changes have disrupted our usual ways of working and living. As we consider the challenges of balancing old routines with new interests, we share thoughts on the push and pull between staying productive and embracing a more open, experimental approach to creativity.
We also touch on the broader implications of decision-making during periods of transition, pondering how much to keep from the past and what to let go. Throughout the conversation, we reflect on the tension between seeking stability and the desire to explore uncharted territory, both creatively and personally. This episode captures our thoughts as we attempt to make sense of a period filled with upheaval and uncertainty, while also finding moments of clarity and purpose. - Ai
Show Notes:
Joshua Charow - @joshuacharow
Nuking The Fridge - Nuking the Fridge
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer, and summer. I don't have the coming in hot thing with a specific topic and I think I'm so preoccupied with what I was talking about earlier, just this sort of state of experimentation, that I'm not thinking about anything else, but sort of stabilizing all of the upheaval, the good upheaval that has resulted in this huge shift in what I'm doing ever since, really, the cameras started getting becoming a thing, and not even just me buying them and selling them, but getting into photography and you introducing me to street photography and that whole world, just like ruining your life, ruining my life, and now medium format.
Speaker 1:I'm just like oh God, it keeps getting better but worse.
Speaker 2:I want to explore something that you told me the other day, but first, yeah. Yeah, congrats, man. Officially, I guess this is the season two, the start of season two, so I don't know what that means. I don't know if anything will change. I like the idea of just doing each season as its own year though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one thing right there that's nice is we have a decision on how we're going to do seasons. It's going to be a one-year deal.
Speaker 2:Banana. It's pretty smooth.
Speaker 1:Now we're drinking Jack Daniels Bonded Tennessee Whiskey, a little bougier bottle of old Jack Daniels, old Jack.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good man, I have some regular Jack, but only the good stuff for studio sessions. So yeah, if we get drunk, it's Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get a little loose with this.
Speaker 2:Well, I do want to. Maybe we start here. I wanted to explore this. You called me before you were leaving to go out of town and you basically called me, or I called you and we talked for about an hour and you were just talking about how you wanted to kind of realign everything. You needed to kind of lay everything out on the table, figure out how much bandwidth you actually have and start getting rid of stuff.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so there's several ways in my head that we could approach this. We could approach it from the value conversation of what things are producing the most value. Uh, is that internal values, that external value? We could also approach it from the time. You know what, which things are taking up the most time. Maybe that is connected or disconnected from value. Um, but yeah, I just you know, maybe you set the stage and then we can figure out a way to approach it. I mean, if you even want to talk about this, but I'm curious because I do think one. I want to see how you contended with it, because it's something that I, it felt, familiar.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you mentioned, I was like, yeah, I've definitely been there, you know, a couple of times this year. You know, I'm constantly kind of reshifting things and figuring out, okay, this doesn't fit, and I think most people do that pretty constantly. They're they're trying to constantly refine or maybe not refine kind of kind of points to there being an end point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, but just, you know, adjust, um, just you know, adjust, um, you know, kind of adjust the steering wheel. Maybe right is a better. Yeah, it's, um, I it's.
Speaker 1:It's hard to find like, uh, like a, like a really appropriate analogy for the what's been going on really since I started getting more into photography and then that world opening up big changes on what I'm doing with my YouTube channel and what I'm doing with the work that I'm making, both on the photography side, the video content I make, the articles I'm writing all the different stuff that I'm making, both on the photography side, the video content I make, the articles I'm writing all the different stuff that I'm doing Um, but it really, it really created, uh, like, you know, just a paradigm shift and upheaval, uh a metamorphosis of where I was before, which was, you know, a very streamlined way of living, a lot of productivity, tools without being like toxic hustle culture kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, coming out of everything that I learned from sort of those creative entrepreneurs that were talk on social media about design your life and set goals and all that kind of stuff, and then finding certain areas where there wasn't as much fulfillment with what I was doing or making. I'm now going on the complete opposite side of the spectrum.
Speaker 2:Then you took mushrooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I took mushrooms Throwing out a lot of that productivity stuff, because I spend too much time in software and staring at to-do lists that end up being you know a mile long with a bunch of cold tasks on them. Feeling down about myself because I'm not, you know, like having these big wins, that like get me a big chunk of what my goal was taken care of. Feeling a little like I'm spending way too much time inside and not out outdoors enough, understanding some of the other stuff we've looked at from the century of the self and it's just all this stuff just creating uh, um so much, uh upheaval in a good way. And now it it's like you know you've got all this stuff that's. You know.
Speaker 1:You know the room's destroyed, there's stuff strewn about everywhere and you got to kind of been excavating for a year, you got to kind of go through and go well, what, what am I going to keep, what am I going to take with me and what am I going to keep from the you know sort of the old, the old ways I was doing things? What am I going to bring in from what's new and how am I going to streamline this a little bit, make it all a little bit more efficient, so I have some more concentration? I felt that a lot coming back from.
Speaker 2:I like the metaphor too here the yeah like, yeah, you're, everything's messed up you're, and like I'm and I'm enjoying that you pulled all the stuff out of all the closets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything's out there, bought crap at the stores, pick stuff up, experimented with this. Do I like this? Tried this on. I kind of like that. It didn't work.
Speaker 1:This isn't the thing you know. Watching videos. There's this one channel and I'll link it in the show notes, but there's a channel where this guy photographs artists in their studios and some of them are most of them are in New York and a lot of them are older artists, you know, one was like 90-something years old, the other one 70. These people that had, like you know, a warehouse or a loft in Brooklyn before it was cool to live there and just these beautiful studio spaces that you know, for some people might look like a mess, but I just I'm like you're surrounded by all the stuff that not only sets the foundation for the energy and the vibe that you need to do your work, but then the actual practical tools that you need to to make make your work so like. A lot of that is very affirming.
Speaker 1:In going to my I call it the back studio where I used to store a lot of equipment and film my you know do my live streams, um, but all that stuff is just completely tore apart. I've got metal drawer chests that I'm to set up for organizing tools and stuff that I'm selling on eBay. Uh, that's a whole thing in itself. Possibly, uh, you know, scaling that back and, now that I kind of know the direction of my work a little bit more clearly, pulling back from from using that as a tool to earn some extra money and and get back to focusing on, you know, making work both with my YouTube channel and hopefully continuing with um photography and my photography channel.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about this stuff it, you know, I think it can sometimes feel like it's a bit of a therapy session for Matt, and I really want to try to find the connections that this might have to people who are listening, who might be, I don't know, afraid to kind of nuke the fridge a little bit and pull everything out of the closets and grab stuff on impulse from, you know, a thrift store and a state sale or Well, you started, you started to go there, but, yeah, it was almost going to be like what prompted this?
Speaker 2:like what behaviors prompted this shift in, shift in? I don't want to oversimplify it and just say mindset, but this shift in behavior, this shift in worldview. You know this shift in so many things. What behaviors prompted that? Like how could somebody else you know? Would you, would you do it again if you could? Yeah, I think the answer is usually yes on things like that, but maybe not. I'm curious as to what you, your thoughts are there.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I'd absolutely, you know, do all this, all this again, um, because I do think you know when we're making our work, you know we're going to have these seasons or these shifts in our approach.
Speaker 1:I've watched a lot of documentary or a biopic or something that just kind of tells the story of an artist's life and the work that they had, and maybe they created work that there was a certain look to it or a style to it, that sort of they became known for, they became famous for, and then it was expected that they would just keep cranking out pieces that were related to that.
Speaker 1:I hear this a lot, listening to music podcasts and bands that are playing songs they wrote 30, 40 years ago and they're like, you know, we're not those people anymore, but we have to play this music because these, this audience, paid to listen to our hits, right when they might be, like we would love to play, you know, 30 new songs for you that are more connected to who we are now as artists and and all that. And I feel like the music industry really suffers because, whatever they are famous for, you know there's this, just especially if they have a prolific catalog. Uh, you know not that the Beatles are touring. But the Beatles, the Beach Boys, pearl Jam, you know these big, iconic bands that have all these songs, that audiences come and they're like, okay, like my life yeah, my life will have meaning when I hear that song from high school.
Speaker 1:You know that, you know, made me feel all my feelings.
Speaker 1:So, you know, when I started my YouTube channel, final Cut Pro Tutorials as much as I enjoy doing them and still want to do them, I'm obviously interested in exploring other things. I want to experiment and try other stuff. I started the photography channel because that really, you know, caught fire with me and um, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. And then, you know, and then, of course, making work that I don't share on that photography YouTube channel with the hopes of making a zine or a book or, you know, putting a showing together or something I don't know. So I just really like embracing that evolution versus what got you sort of known and then doubling down on that repeatedly, niching down, doing what all the entrepreneurs say you should do for more sustained growth. And you know, you know, like be the be one of the final cut guys and the more you make those videos, the greater your subscriber base will grow, the greater your revenue will grow, all of that kind of stuff, and that's just not you know, not really the thing that is the most interesting to me.
Speaker 1:I I want to do that stuff, but I don't want it to to just do it exclusively.
Speaker 1:And unfortunately, sometimes I think that and for those listening you know, maybe you can you can understand this a little bit Sometimes, when you make have those shifts in this uh seasonality with what you're into, what you're interested in, expressing the top, you know, the things that you want to experiment with and the things that you want to make, uh, sometimes it can have a real impact on the commerce side of what you're doing, and it certainly has for me.
Speaker 1:Um, I think I'll come out of this with, uh, you know, some decisions and some focus, concentration on some things, and it'll pick back up to the point where I'm like you know I'm it's going to be better than what it was. But anytime you have that upheaval, that metamorphosis of what you're doing, I don't second guess myself, but I do ride that razor's edge of comfort, not that I want to be comfortable, but that I just want to sort of know that financially it's, it's gonna have been worth the big step backward that it's been to do this and to experiment with all this stuff do you think there's like fear there or there seems there's almost like a like a almost just like a tiredness that I you know that I'm kind of getting like just oh, I'm kind of like tired.
Speaker 2:There's maybe like like an underlying like melancholy to it all. And I say that that this might be me projecting, because, but when I, when I was looking for like a new direction to go, the last time that I felt like a real shift in my work, I was looking for like a clear direction to take things and I couldn't find it for a while, yeah, and I almost, you almost, feel like you're just wandering the side of a highway or something and cars are blowing past and you're just like I have no idea where I'm going and it's hot. I'm sad, that was my experience. That might not be everybody's experience, but I'm getting a similar and eventually you just come out of it. Naturally it's just something and you've been through it before. It's like you just, and you've been through it before. It's like you know. You just have to continue moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then eventually something just catches your interest. That's totally all consuming. And then it's clear as day to go and you have things that have caught your interest. So it's a little bit different, but it's not like you're searching for something to catch your interest. It's like you're searching through all of the things that have caught your interest of like what what stays in what? Yeah, like almost. What am I actually interested in here?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like, okay, I've only got time for you know two things. To not time, that's. I hate that, um, but you know I've only got the attention for a couple of these things.
Speaker 1:What, what goes well, see, and probably at the surface it does come across like a little bit sort of you know, adrift along the highway, maybe some melancholy to it and all that. But I think what I've tried to do is is really understand and accept that you're if you found the quote unquote success that you're hoping to achieve. Hoping to achieve which, essentially, is just like a taste of real financial security, not ridiculous wealth or anything like that, but just what's it like to make stuff when you aren't worried about- Just $25 million in an offshore bank account.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:Because to me, honestly, one of my greatest fears, at the same time of wanting financial security, one of my greatest fears is financial security, because it'll take the edge off. It'll take the immediacy and the real need to make the next thing and figure out the next thing, to get a little bit of money in the bank account to get to the next level of whether it's my work or the content I create. So there's part of me that goes. It's likely that if that kind of outcome happened, that you would look back on this time as the most inspiring, invigorating, alive time that you had, requiring invigorating a live time that you had. Um, I think a lot of people might look at what I'm going through if they could actually see my space, you know, like the back studio, and you know my where I'm creating things and sort of that. I'm buying this or acquiring these typewriters or you know just doing like getting into music and collecting this and getting these things and then selling them, and you know whatever, what, whatever all this is and the videos I'm making like dudes in, like some kind of midlife crisis, and I think the big thing is it just coincides with that time of my life. I think this would have, would have happened if I was 28 or 68. Yeah, but to me it's.
Speaker 1:It's just the result of using new tools to express myself in the ways that I wasn't for the first part of my adult life. And this goes back to the conversations that we've had in the past, where everything I was doing was utilizing an art form, whether it was screenwriting, filmmaking, this or that, using that for a commercial result. And I think this, the craziness that's going on right now, is because I've broken free of that approach to the work culture to be a, you know, a good-looking white dude who is living in the suburbs and has a three-car garage and two nice cars and kids college funds are being invested in all that kind of junk. It's breaking away from hijacking art for a commercial outcome and actually just trying to art for a commercial outcome and actually just trying to connect with making work, to make work and not having any thoughts about the, the money side when it comes to like the work.
Speaker 1:Now the content, you know, is still commerce and and art, I think, occupying a similar space, but now I'm the the the balance has shifted instead of what it was before. Like well, if I make this final cut pro video about these things. Commerce is going to happen. It's shifted to where that's the lesser of the priorities and the main priority is what do I have to say about this? Or what am I interested in in in showing, or or whatever.
Speaker 2:Now we do have your like the like part of this transition kind of captured on camera and on audio which is awesome, yes, it's.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like and we can move into like a non you topic I don't want to. I don't want to like act? You don't feel like I'm putting you on the spot, but do you feel like it is more? It's interesting? Cause you?
Speaker 2:You said midlife crisis and I've never really put it through that lens, but is it? Maybe there's something to that where you're like having a realization that, like you know, you've, you've gone through the first half of your life and you're making work for other people and there's no real benefit to that. So it's like you want to use the rest of your life to like it's not like you want to change what you're doing, but you've spent half of it making work for people and it has, like you know, you've you've worked on cool projects. Like you've gone on tour with so-and-so and such and such and done edits for such and such feature film and such and such documentary, and it's like, okay, yeah, cool. Do you feel like you're almost kind of at that point where you're just like you know what the second half is for me?
Speaker 1:Like did you reach a point where you're just like fuck this, like I'm done doing it for other people Like this has been for me anyways, and yeah, I think I think a lot of that started, just like with the power of the empowerment that you feel when a channel that you make and something that you make yourself uh, you know to help people, you know teaching final cut pro to try to help people get better at it um resonates and there's nobody else in the mix to help, you know to, to influence what video you make.
Speaker 1:Now there's, of course, like the system, right, well, I want to keep getting views and adding subscribers, and you let the analytics and all that stuff sometimes hijack your perspective on what you're going to make because you're chasing numbers and that's a very, I think, natural trap to fall into for anybody, even if you're not making work on the you know the commerce side, like for a YouTube platform. But if you're, like I was saying earlier, an artist, that kind of gets known for this thing and you just keep doubling down on that because it's moving things forward in that aspect of your life, whether it's financially or more gallery showings or you know whatever it is that that you think is important to you and maybe is not done to undermine. If that stuff is important to somebody, that it's, it's, you know, not valid, but um, but yeah, I think, uh, I don't know, I think that um kind of burning down the house when you have that realization yeah.
Speaker 1:When you have that realization that you know I've done a lot of cool things and I certainly am proud of the stuff that I've done, but ultimately I feel like it serves what someone else is trying to achieve. I feel like it serves what someone else is trying to achieve and I'm sort of a cog in that wheel and sometimes I'm a really respected collaborator in that process. But there's something about and granted, you could argue well, you're a cog in the YouTube wheel or you're a cog in the art world wheel. You're always going to be a cog in the wheel. If you made some great um gallery showing with your photographs, like somebody who's quote unquote above, you is going to try to co-opt that thing, or yeah, I don't think it's like a purity argument and you're gonna get.
Speaker 1:If you get sucked into that, you're already playing the losing game but but ultimately, at the end of the day, I go, I have an idea for a video and I want to share it with everybody and I'm going to make it the way I want to do it. Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it's not my best effort, maybe it is um, and you know, if I can step back and be proud of what I made and then see the results, that that that matter to me, especially when you're experimenting and kind of creating a little bit of chaos and blowing things up a little bit to start something not start something new, but take it in a new direction and reconceptualize it, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I'm just I'm. I don't know.
Speaker 1:You had something on the other paper that was like like indecision or decision fatigue or something like that Right Right. Yeah, and we I won't. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, but to me it's like oh no, right here actually.
Speaker 2:So decision paralysis Like and so so the episode that we want to kind of get into, that we've outlined here a little bit, is essentially like chaos and non-chaos so you know what are rules that you put into place to avoid chaos? It's comes from this idea of, like the tyranny of freedom. Yeah, so like complete freedom, right, just leave. And while I don't necessarily agree with that idea on a macro scale yeah, I mean, don't necessarily, I don't agree with that idea on a macro scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean don't necessarily. I don't agree with that idea on a macro scale. I do think it can be effective on like an individual scale. Um you know, when you're looking at your life as an individual, um, sometimes having some, you know, choices that are just made can be incredibly useful, and um, yeah, decision paralysis. I mean what, what? What kind of ideas does that breed for you?
Speaker 1:It. You know for me, you know my. For the first thing I think of when I see decision paralysis is I never experienced it.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:I feel like I have no trouble being decisive with things, and if anything, it would be that that decisiveness can um occupy a little too much space with impulsivity, and impulsiveness is impulsivity word, impulsiveness, um, where? Uh, what are we? What was the phrase I used before, like think it or feel it, think it, make it, send it or whatever?
Speaker 1:I would say like like you, just like plow through that process without necessarily taking a step back, maybe um a little bit more of an omniscient point of view, an objective point of view, to go. You know, what are we doing here, like what's this, what's, what's the potential outcome of this? Is this the right move? You know, I don't do any of that because to me it gets me into decision.
Speaker 2:Paralysis.
Speaker 1:The move fast and break things fast and break things, and I think you know, and, and you know someone could could point out. Well, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that stuff is just there because it's around you. You drive through a nice neighborhood like Dundee and you know that there are people who are better off than you, that are, I don't know, grinding harder, or they picked professions where you just get a job and you make a lot of money and you pay off your student loans in a couple years and you're good to go. But I don't experience decision paralysis. I just get an idea, I see a vision for something and I just go.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes my strategy to achieve that vision is a little haphazard, it's a little messy. It's maybe a little haphazard, it's a little messy, it's a little, um, maybe a little irrational at times, maybe it's a little irresponsible, even in extreme situations. Um, and I don't know if that's sort of sort of like the curse of someone who really sees clearly what the outcome is of this path that I'm on and what I think it's going to do for me. The ROI I'm going to get, and not necessarily financial ROI, but spiritual ROI, fulfillment ROI, artistic ROI, whatever. I just, you know, tend to go at breakneck speed and just figure it out as I go. And you know you could argue that there's certainly been some moments in my life where you know financial things, have really you know shit.
Speaker 2:Shit has hit the fan and and has dictated your decision making.
Speaker 1:Well, or it's or the the the finances didn't dictate the decision making, but then something significant financially occurs. Like you know, I I sort of one of the things I blame the failure of my screenwriting pursuit was not having like a very disciplined strategy with finances. Moving to Los Angeles, how much money do you need to make? What are your expenses? Um, how do you break stuff and move fast, but understand what your baseline needs to be Like.
Speaker 1:You can't screw around with the amount of money you have to have in your checking account and if that means that you suffer because you have to get this job or drive an Uber or whatever, you have to have an understanding of what you need to sacrifice in order to achieve that vision. Have an understanding of what you need to sacrifice in order to achieve that vision. It can't just be make a big mess, tear the whole place apart, have a blast doing it and then hope for the best on the other side. Uh, and that would probably be the only thing in this process of complete upheaval over the last maybe two years, year and a half, whenever, um, I really started moving into photography and changing a lot of my approach to the work I'm making and the content I'm making you know it echoes that approach in LA, which was, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:Is this like more mature Matt, kind of contending with that, a little bit Like you think that's part of the like, I don't know. I just I do feel like you're approaching this from a more strategic perspective than I've come to expect.
Speaker 2:Not that you're not a strategic person, but just like, yeah, usually you're like figuring it out on the on the go, and I do think that's a strength cause you've, you've learned how to, you know, use that as a strength. But do you feel like this current kind of like? I mean, yeah, you, I think on our phone call, like you even talked about kind of writing everything out and like going through and it does, it does feel a little more strategic. So is that like you know what? Where does that come from? I think it honestly feel.
Speaker 1:It feels like a mess.
Speaker 2:I feel like, I feel like it's.
Speaker 1:it's really been a messy process and not that that's a bad thing, but I feel like it's really been a messy process and not that that's a bad thing. But I mean, I just look at the physical space and all of the irons I have in the fire, all the different things I'm doing, and to me I'm glad it's happening and I'm feeling good about it.
Speaker 2:but it is incredibly messy.
Speaker 1:There's just a lot going on.
Speaker 1:There are multiple YouTube channels, there are multiple sort of um categories of physical things that I am acquiring to connect with different artistic You're the liaison on like a bunch of like physical objects, Like typewriters cameras, stereo equipment, um, all that you know, media, physical media, from movies to tapes to vinyl, all that stuff like just a giant, just a giant mess of of all of this different stuff to see, sort of, where it's going to end up. And the big thing right now is I feel like I'm starting to come out of the climax of it all and I'm starting to feel the friction of too much going on. But then I'm also going, but I know this is something you know, this is an element I want to keep, like I'm never not going to have typewriters to yeah show in videos to type up notes to people, to write letters.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know the letter I wrote my grandma. She never got it before she passed away.
Speaker 2:Which is an incredible, like holy shit, yeah, so yeah, yeah, I told Audrey that story and she's just like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what is? Yeah, yeah, I told. I told audrey that story and she's just like yeah, yeah, well, so I busted out my knife at the funeral and ripped it open and read it to her right there in the room. Yeah, you know, I didn't really remember what I wrote is, you know, two pages, this kind of a shortened thing and like struggle to get through it and um and I said there's something so perfectly dramatic about that oh and I mean dramatic in like the sense of yeah, yeah, like transfer of emotions and like yeah well I had.
Speaker 1:I had that feeling too, because when I I realized, after I found out that my grandma passed away, I had talked to my mom on the phone, but then I forgot to ask because she was at her house if she had gotten the letter that I sent her earlier that week. So I called her back and I you know, I could barely speak and I'm like did grandma get my letter?
Speaker 1:And she said no, uncle Steve just brought it in from the mailbox and I was I wasn't devastated Like I wasn't, it wasn't like this, it was just very emotional because you know, you have these hopes that she's going to read it before she passes. And then I just immediately and this goes back to decisiveness I'm like, well, I'm going to read it to her at the funeral, like I just immediately know what I'm going to do and but that all wouldn't have happened I wouldn't have even written my grandma letters had I not gotten typewriters. So I look at all that chaos and all the craziness and I'm sort of depriving the commerce side of my business by not focusing on making a data management course and creating some digital products, like stuff I actually really want to do, but it's not as fun as going out and buying a bunch of shit.
Speaker 2:Part of me is like do you really want to do that? I do.
Speaker 1:I do want to make a data management course, because I have a very the incredibly sexy topic of data management. Oh yeah, I know, but I have a very clear philosophy on it. Not that there's a lot of gray area to how to manage your data, but so many people just don't see how to manage data. They just don't see it. It's like they're blind to it.
Speaker 2:And I see it clearly. I think it's just a. I mean, yeah, it's just how is your mind structured around?
Speaker 1:it, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with people Some people grew up using computers and they can just yeah. When I was in acting school, we had a musical theater class. I can't hear. If you played Ring of Fire right now, I would have no clue when I'm supposed to start singing, unless I can hear Johnny Cash in the background.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'll come in a tenth of a second behind him because I'm waiting to hear his voice, because I can't listen to music and just know when you start selling it off and yeah main.
Speaker 1:Yeah, none of that stuff complete blindness, so I understand when people have blindness on something like this. So I sit there and go well, I wish there was a way that someone could teach me certain things where I'm like oh, now I see it and I feel like there's things I can teach, like data management. Where people are like, okay, I'm not going to memorize the steps, I'm going to like, get the concept and now I can even tailor my approach based on the equipment I have or sort of my, the way you know what's important to me, you know whatever.
Speaker 1:So I do get excited about something as boring as that, because because I think it goes back to decisiveness I really see how I how. I do it and how it works for me.
Speaker 2:And I want to share that. I mean, that's the argument I always have for, like, just talk to anybody, and everybody has something that they know that you don't Right, and you know, that's why I love stuff like this. There's the you know um, just, there's always something that you can gain from an interaction.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I think, I think that's a great. You know, you don't always see the world the same way as everybody else and sometimes, most of the time, it's useful to have more than one kind of lens to view things through.
Speaker 1:Well, and even just this conversation sort of centering around upheaval upheaval in an artist or a creative's life, when things are changing, whether it's instigated by a lack of fulfillment, something traumatic happens, a big artistic failure, or you're not seeing the results you want. Whatever it is that brings that up, I'm not going to sit here in an episode like this and go all right. Here are the five essential steps to navigating upheaval in your artistic life.
Speaker 2:Alex, step one, let's go.
Speaker 1:It's such a gray area and it's so different for everybody.
Speaker 1:But then yet there are common experiences in that process where just talking out loud about my experience and that's where episodes like this, or if I make a YouTube episode where I'm talking to camera about my experience it can sometimes at the surface, seem very sort of self-serving, maybe a little bit ego driven.
Speaker 1:I just want to talk about what I'm going through the, the, the, the real emotional uh point of it, the. The thing that gets me interested in talking about it is, hopefully, people making connections to their experience of it, seeing what those connections are, but then also hearing my experience of it and going well, mine was a little bit different. Or I'm going to approach it a little bit differently, or I'm going to not approach it and just sort of listen to what it wants to be and what it wants to do and ride the wave a little bit. To what it wants to be and what it wants to do and ride the wave a little bit. And that's part of what gets me excited about talking about this stuff as we harvest the experiences we're going through in our creative lives to share that experience with other people who might need to hear what somebody else is experiencing, to feel better about their experience of it.
Speaker 2:Well, you can listen to 10 people's experience of a specific situation and you might not identify with one of those with, or you might only identify with one of those nine of them. You just completely okay, like I get it. I don't see the world that way, but then if you find one that you do, it almost reshapes your one. I mean, obviously you feel less alone, you feel an immediate connection to another human, which is always a valuable experience, I think. But yeah, it just kind of gives you a new way of looking at the world. We talked about the Harold Bloom quote a couple of episodes ago, where it's like I read to find a mind more original than my own, and I think that yeah, and same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of the books that you've shared with me and, um, uh, the books that I've read, that that have also contributed to this, you know, um, everything from technopoly to rick rubin's book, to in short, I've ruined matt's life. No it's, it's, it's always funny to. This podcast has ruined Matt's life. Well, the podcast is again another thing that's the result of the upheaval.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you know you are going through your life and you meet certain people, you read certain books, you connect with different tools for self-expression and they take you to new places. Self-expression and they take you to new places, you know, I met with you years ago and you know, for however long it is, it's an exchange of ideas and experiences. You're just talking about what you're doing or you want to make something together or whatever, but there's not a. I see what you're going through. Take a look at this. Or it's interesting that you said that here's a book or here's a thing or here's a whatever that will take you farther into that thing.
Speaker 1:And to me, the relationships that I have that are the most meaningful are the ones where I have an opportunity to help someone you know explore new frontiers or make deeper realizations about themselves or life around them, their work, whatever, and then vice versa. Typically in my life I think I've been, in my life I think I've been more the person that helps someone along, and I'm not often the recipient of that. And that's not to say that people that I'm close to haven't challenged my way of thinking in a productive way or a non-confrontational way, or introduced me to books or whatever that, or introduce me to books or whatever that. But this stretch that you play a big part in the stuff that I've just consumed on my own. That hasn't necessarily come directly from you. Just watching older content on YouTube, hearing about new people, hauntology just popped up for both of us and then we shared it with each other because it's pushing our understanding a little farther.
Speaker 1:It's opening up something new for us and I think whenever you have that amount of concentration of new ideas and new ways of thinking and breakthroughs and how you're approaching life, the mess that is my studio with all this stuff is just that externalized.
Speaker 2:It's the result of that, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's that internal upheaval again a good thing, a good upheaval manifesting physically in the real world and, yeah, just a completely new framework for how to approach things. But here's the funny thing, and I'll wrap up my point I always go back to this footage I have when I was leaving for college and I was using a VHS camcorder to film my room for college and I was using a VHS camcorder to fill my room and I'm like your room was just full of things that both spoke to you, whether it was nostalgia or a memento or something that just set like, created energy. You had a typewriter, you had an old computer, you had a tv, you had VHS, you had all these things that allowed you to journal and and basically do what I'm doing right now as what I thought was kind of a hobby or just I don't know, like, like, just this compulsion to the purest manifestation of the idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just write down, you know, and I wasn't like philosophizing about life. I mean, I would journal about what I did that day, or how I felt, about what a girlfriend did or didn't do, or what my hopes were, what my dreams were. You know stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But a lot of people do in college.
Speaker 1:But it was always like I want to consume other work. I want to have a movie on in the background, I want to read these books and, granted, they might be a little bit more pop culture stuff it might be listening to Nirvana, watching a Bruce Lee movie, reading Jurassic Park for the third time, and not to make little of those as more popular cultural things. But this consumption and then um, uh, and then creation, consume, create, consume, create and grow, grow, you know, and iterate and change and all of that. But back then there was no, there was nothing, nothing I could do with it. I wasn't making art, I was journaling. I was, um, not really telling stories. Uh, you know, I wasn't creating characters and worlds and writing a novel and all that stuff, although I think that that journaling would have led to that and it did with screenwriting.
Speaker 2:Um, I think you almost need to focus more on capturing, like it's just the photography, or video is just the means of translation. At this point, I think you need to almost turn the lens on your. I mean, what is art? It's the externalization of the internal right, and you literally just kind of made the connection of your studio. Is this externalization of this change period? Yes, completely turn your camera, you know, like all the way down to maybe individual, you know VHS splines and then all the way out, like that's. I feel like there's something worth attempting to document there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it might not be clear right now. But again, just kind of get into it, send it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it'll make itself more clear over the next. You know, 12, 24 months, but at least you have it, because I do feel like you are going through a period where you're starting to like, okay, let's get this down to the more essential. So you might as well capture it while it's at its peak.
Speaker 1:And I think it's evolving the channel from being a final cut pro tutorial channel to like, from being a Final Cut Pro tutorial channel to like, kind of like an artistic project channel. You know, like it's not. I'm going to sit and edit my first roll of medium format stuff and then, like, go through the process of what, how I'm going to take that from just these, these stills and then turn it into a piece of work right.
Speaker 1:Whether it's a zine or a video or whatever I make, but you know a video about. I don't want to use this piece of software. I want to use this old software that's not around anymore. So I'm going to make a video about me figuring out the tool I need to make the work.
Speaker 1:And then there may be some other outlet for the work, whether again it's a zine or a gallery showing, or it's my photography channel, which is again kind of half the work, half the process, but all of it is sort of storytelling, uh, and sharing what I'm going through to create the foundation for, for the first time in my life, making work that is not hijacking art to like get money, yeah, using it to feel better to get secure to meet the expectations that I think culture places on me right, as a white midwestern male that should be here, but isn't?
Speaker 1:This upheaval is a result of breaking that hold that that has had on me since I graduated high school and really college, with debt and all of a sudden adult responsibility that I was not prepared to, to deal with because my whole childhood was go outside and play and just think it, feel it, send it. Yeah, go repeat, repeat repeat, repeat.
Speaker 2:You're like Kevin Spacey.
Speaker 1:American beauty yeah, I just picked that up on VHS too. I should pop that in. But, and I think you know, people talk about midlife crisis. They talk about people reaching a point in their life and sometimes a breaking point, um, in a movie like falling down, which kind of goes toward the uh, a negative, um negative tactics to manage that upheaval, but but then you know something like the expectations or the the false reality kind of starts to shatter yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's not that it starts to shatter at Ben life, but it starts to the shot. Eventually it becomes so shattered that there's no repairing it and there's. You have to find what exists on the other side of that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, and that's a lot of what's at the core of it, which is a completely new understanding of how this all works. It's like I mean, I know I put it all back to pop culture, but it's like Neo in the Matrix, like, okay, well, you think this is all real. It's not. This is what reality is, and obviously it's a sci-fi movie with action and fighting and all that, but just that core idea of what you think is real, or the truth, or sort of how things work. You may need to destroy all that and or that may all be destroyed, and you have to re-examine your relationship to those ideas and to those.
Speaker 1:And what's most important and I think that goes back to everything we've talked about on this podcast about, you know, submit, surrender, listen, Um. You know I talk a lot about with my wife, about, um, doing things to make a reality that doesn't exist exist, whether you lost that reality because, you know, maybe you lost your keys in the car and you want to bring back the reality that existed before you did that stupid thing. And you're doing dumb things or mean things or shitty things or whatever it is, to try to bring that reality back to the forefront, instead of just embracing your new reality, which is you've got your keys locked in the car. You've got to figure this out.
Speaker 2:What are you going to do?
Speaker 1:Because that reality is over. You have a new thing, and that's what I think of this. It's like the old ways of thinking and the old habits you had and all of that stuff like that is all that's all done. Now rebuild what's left into a new way of doing things, and there's gonna be some great moments that come out of it, and there might also be conflict. It may be difficult for the ones that are close to you to understand what you're going through, or that you think that this thing that you did care about before is bullshit now and you're not going to waste time trying to make that thing happen, or that expectation on you become a reality yeah, that's power, that's powerful yeah so yeah, decision paralysis I know that's only a tiny, a tiny little part of the topic that you, that you laid out.
Speaker 1:But one of the things I'm most proud of with me as a person is I never have decision paralysis man, yeah, never.
Speaker 2:I'm partially envious because I, you know, part of me thinks I have decision paralysis, but then I don't really know if decision paralysis is the issue, but maybe just what's worth pursuing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm very, I'm almost the opposite of you in the sense that I am very like, I try to think things through to their conclusion, or logical conclusion, although I do recognize, you know, there's a bit of a paradox, because I do recognize that most things can't be seen through to their logical conclusion.
Speaker 2:So there is a, you know, a factor of risk that works itself in, or a fact, maybe not even risk, just a factor of um you talked to, kind of about not having an expectation for the moment, just being in the moment. Um, that's something I subscribe to. But, yeah, um, you know, I don't don't know if I'd call it decision paralysis, but there's also like, maybe, decision delay, yeah, Well, I wonder too if it's this.
Speaker 1:you know there's, I think people can approach uh sort of the answer, uh, or achieving peace with an idea, or maybe I am interested in that, or maybe that is a good route for me. Maybe you're someone that is really capable of using deploying logic and objectivity and rational thought on something, but it's a lengthy process. You really have to envision it, imagine it, sort of experience it without doing it to arrive at a conclusion. And for me, I can't do that. I have to do it, I have to go.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know if um picking up stereo equipment at a state sales is going to. You know, give me a little extra coin in my pocket that keeps this train moving along. I don't know, it could be a total waste of time. Well, I'm going to try it.
Speaker 2:Send it yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a stereo there. I'll send a picture to this guy. See what he thinks. He says he'd pay this much for it. That's more money than I'm paying for it Great it, that's more money than I'm paying for it great, let's try it. Yeah, let's see how much work goes into this. I have to clean it, whatever, what's. What kind of fulfillment do I get? Is it just fun to do it and like that's profit to me is, is learning, or the experience? Or now I know how a record player works. Oh, that's how you change a belt. Oh, I didn't know that before. And like do it for a couple of weeks and then just see how you feel, because I will, will go. I will, at the end of it, go fuck it. Man, that was a waste of time. I'm not doing this anymore. I got bigger fish to fry, or I might go, I don't know. This is really kind of cool.
Speaker 1:I'm able to pick this stuff up for $20, sell it to this guy for $100.
Speaker 2:I feel like I definitely do that from time to time, but I think I've gotten burned by it enough, where I've done something, yeah, and then I've been like, well, that totally wasn't worth the time, yeah, and then I just feel like this sense of just oh, complete, yeah, waste of yeah and I've been, I've been.
Speaker 1:I am such a glass half full person that I'll go. Yeah, that sucked, but sucked. But I met this guy and like we're not BFF or anything, but you know we, you know now I can go into that store and have a conversation, or and I'm I'm pretty good at finding the positive but there is just like a equation that runs in my head every time of like it could be doing this or I could be doing
Speaker 2:this. And yeah, at this point there's just although I do pick up new hobbies, you know that's definitely something that happens, but you know I am more just like okay, I have a lot of things in my life that I enjoy and once you reach a certain point it's like all right. You know, if I start adding new things to that, I'm going to have to pull one of these other things out and just the math equation of do you is it, is this new thing worth losing that?
Speaker 1:thing, and I'm never good at math. Yeah, neither am I. Let me ask you this I know how close are we on time Right?
Speaker 2:Uh, kind of about a minute.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we don't have to go into this too much, but I'm, you know, have been in this upheaval really since photography started, buying cameras, and going through all of this stuff with you, with the stuff that I've read, the stuff, I've discovered, all of that upheaval, right, I feel like I'm just starting to come out of the climax of it yeah, and where are? You right now yeah, what's your state?
Speaker 2:I don't know I'm, I'm just kind of like in it right now, like everything I do. I'm like okay, like you know, I can take, take my time with this, I can. I just I don't have any like I don't know, I'm just I don't have anything that I'm trying to get done, like immediately you know everything's just kind of like okay, I've got time, a little chill, yeah, yeah, um chill, like not to say I'm completely content no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:But just like things aren't like like super high stakes Fall's coming up, I'm going to enjoy it Like there's nothing.
Speaker 2:That's like super pressing, yeah, um, you know I'm a little stressed because you know I'm like oh, I want to get to like a few episodes in the reserve for like stupid things like that for this. Yeah, um, I'm just kind of in it right now. I'm just kind of letting the waves carry me. I'm buying like 40 books a week. That's a bit much. I'm not buying that many.
Speaker 1:Like 20.
Speaker 2:You could argue that you're in a real strong consumption cycle right now of absorbing new ideas Well and usually, usually what happens in the way I've seen it and I'll I'll wrap this up here in just a second cause. We're literally at time, but I'm consuming everything right now and you know I can still go outside, I can still experience things.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I want to get out and like continue to do stuff, continue to read stuff, continue to do stuff, continue to read stuff, continue to like, experience this, talk to this person, meet this, go to this place, do that. Um, when December gets here, like we're going to be inside. You know, other than this podcast, this happens every year. You know we're going to be. I'm going to be sitting at that desk and it's going to be getting dark at five and I'm not going to be wanting to go for runs and things like that. So you're, I'm going to probably move to. It's going to be. You know the days are going to be short.
Speaker 2:The mornings are going to be cold, so usually that's when the output starts to kick back up, sure yeah. I would love more consistent output. I don't know what that looks like, though.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we'll figure it out. Well, with the being a year, it's interesting, especially the year of this, and I don't know if people look back, if they've listened to or watched every episode, because a lot of these conversations have been you asking me questions and me talking about my experience, and I think some of that is because there's a little bit more drama and the upheaval that I'm going through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're using you for views and you have a little bit more consistency and um and and what you're doing and your approach and all of that stuff a little bit more even keel right now, or I'm a little bit more tumultuous, but is year two going to flip flop it I know.
Speaker 1:I'll be curious what what season two holds, especially if my my assessment that I'm kind of coming out of the climax of this upheaval, um, what year two will look like as I come to a conclusion, uh, of this season in my life and then and making things, back in the day there was like there was a reddit bot that you could ask to remind you on this date yeah, we need that like remind me on this date well, I plug this in as an anniversary in my calendar, so every year it tells us when we hit our anniversary, and then youtube studio put a little cake with candles that told us it was our one year, our one year anniversary.
Speaker 1:So thanks youtube. And it'd been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
