Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
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Studio Sessions
40. Sonder: Embracing Empathy and Human Connection
We dive into metta-meditation—cultivating goodwill toward strangers—and explore how shifting our mindset can dissolve anger and frustration. We unpack the concept of sonder: the profound realization that every passerby lives a life as vivid and complex as our own. Through personal stories—from navigating LA traffic to estate sales—we reflect on the beauty and chaos of human connection, asking: How do we move from judgment to empathy?
We also discuss the parallels of "alternate lives", the quirky absurdity of being "hairless monkeys driving cars," and why embracing sonder can soften our daily irritations. Whether it’s gifting a vinyl record to a stranger or reimagining others’ untold stories, we explore how small acts of curiosity and kindness ripple outward in our life and work. -Ai
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Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
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Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
And it had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summons.
Speaker 2:There's this thing called meta-meditation, m-e-t-t-a, and you're essentially it's the transference of good. I mean you could say like good vibes or good feelings, or but yeah, you're like I, you know, I hope, I hope you find happiness, I hope you find health, I hope you have health. Or I hope, you know, I hope you're, um, just wishing good thoughts to somebody you know, like you think of a friend or maybe a friend that's in a bad situation. You, you like I, you know, I hope that you find happiness, or I hope that you are well, or I hope that you find health, or I hope that you know you're free of pain, that kind of thing. And I just did that to some stranger, I didn't know, and I quickly kind of was like, yeah, I don't, I'm not angry about this, like I just it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:I hope this person is like completely, you know, I hope any imbalances they have in their soul is, you know, I hope that's corrected and I hope that they can find some kind of meaning or purpose. And you know, that's that's kind of all you can do. And then you, you know, just go on with your life, yep. And then you come into contact with another thing that frustrates you and you you kind of think back to that and it's just less bothersome.
Speaker 2:you're like, oh okay, that's fine yeah and then just keep on moving and I'm gonna try to reframe, like anytime that something irritates me. I'm just gonna be like you know what I hope, like if you're doing that because x, y or z and it's not like these are like personal digs or anything, these are just general things in the world, like, oh, you know, everybody reads something and it like gets them frustrated or something, or you'll see something and be like that's so. Like you know, I can't stand it when X, y and Z happens or when somebody does this, and it's like I hope you find happiness, I hope you find peace, not in a condescending way, no, no, you know, like not in a not in like, oh, you're so like, yeah, we're all searching for that, sure, and I think just putting that out there is, I don't know, it was extremely, you know, just like releases that burden.
Speaker 1:yeah, like you shouldn't have to hang on to a burden of anger for something that is completely inconsequential, which, let's be honest, almost everything that happens in our day to day lives is like pretty inconsequential in the long run easy before I went to acting school, to either judge other people or, um, you know, uh, you, you have a, the role of the villain in the story and you know you're going to be the actor portraying that villain and you've made judgments of them, you've condemned them, you've said you know they're a bad person, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And in acting school, you know something that came up in all of our conversations about characters. You talk about psychology, motivation, intent, all that stuff just kind of distilled things down to going. We're all just trying to feel a little better than we felt the day before and we are trying to figure out what we need to do every day to just feel better and feel good. And sometimes that might be at the expense of a family member, somebody else. You know you lash out because of anxiety or you know you know whatever, whatever's going on with with somebody. But that really helped me have a similar takeaway, like what you're talking about, like you know, that person cut me off in traffic or this person's being.
Speaker 1:You know um rude to someone or you know whatever it is like.
Speaker 2:Well, they teach you when you're first like learning to write characters.
Speaker 1:It's like yeah remember everybody's the hero, like everybody's the hero of their own story, right.
Speaker 2:And you've talked about that concept before.
Speaker 1:On here, but like everybody's.
Speaker 2:You know, we're all, we're all human and I think feeling, I think feeling a separation. There's a lot of things that people feel a separation about. People feel separations about class, they feel separations about intelligence, about status, about, you know, worldview, you name it, but that's not. I mean, I think if you're like negative and positive energy, like that's not good things to be holding on to, Like that's decay, you know, I don't know, I think it's, yeah, you have to look at it as like we're all just trying to feel better and sometimes like we live in 2024, 2025, pardon, and the world is a crazy place, and sometimes that manifests itself in really extreme ways, but it's the same like just trying to get to a more human or normal emotional state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know I have all these dumb things that I say like the magic rectangle and you know I reference all these movie quotes and all that stuff. And, um, you know I reference all these movie quotes and all that stuff. Uh, one thing that I joke around when I visit my friend Nick and his wife Kristen in LA, you know they'll get worked up about uh, someone not kind of following procedure at the farmer's market or you know, traffic office there is pretty bad. There's a lot of people who are self-absorbed in Los Angeles, all this stuff, and sometimes they can get worked up about it. And I'm like you guys, none of this makes any sense.
Speaker 2:We're just a bunch of hairless monkeys driving cars. This is all fake. It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense, so why?
Speaker 1:are we getting worked up about this? Yeah, absolutely, we're just hairless monkeys. Obviously we're not hairless, but you know we're not driving around in cars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it doesn't make sense, I like how that's the distinction. You're like obviously we're not hairless, we got plenty of hair, but you know, the majority of our minds are not covered in hair like our little furry friends. Yeah, no, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:But I come up with these little dumb things because it captures an essence for me. It's not academic, it's not worldly, it's just this kind of stupid thing that is funny to me but also, again, for me just kind of says it all and I can say that shit to myself to just take a breath. Yes, just we're just driving around in cars. It makes no sense, just it's everything's fine well, I sent you at literally.
Speaker 2:Well, I sent you at literally 12 am, I guess, yesterday. I was up finishing some stuff Got down, went down a completely right turn of a rabbit hole, but I sent you this emotional concept of Sonder. Yes, this was good and it's like a newer. A newer, I guess. Obviously, like the concept is not new, but the, the Sonder as the umbrella for the concept, is like a newer expression.
Speaker 1:I'm going to spell it real quick for those listening and watching S O N D E R Yep Sonder. So um E R Sonder.
Speaker 2:So, um, it's defined as the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. So, like, first of all, like I'll continue on, but like, think about that, just, I think that's worth sitting with for a minute, and just, yeah, like, especially if, if you're a person with an interior monologue, which we definitely are I think, um, that's the really profound concept. And there's a great, there's a great film that I so I don't know why this was the connection that was made, but, um, it's a film called, uh, san.
Speaker 1:Soleil. Yeah, I've heard of that movie.
Speaker 2:And it's essentially just S? A.
Speaker 1:N S Soleil Yep, so that's without sun in French.
Speaker 2:And, um, what is what is? Yeah, um, who's the director? I don't know. I'll look it up in a second. I'm gonna finish before we get off. But um, the word has linguistic roots in multiple languages. In german, sonder means special, while in french sonder means to probe. The concept of sonder invites us to recognize that every person we encounter, whether a stranger passing on the street, a blur of traffic or a momentary glimpse through a lighted window, has an entire intricate life story happening simultaneously with our own. In this narrative we might appear only briefly, perhaps as an extra in the background. And so then you replied and you were like, just thinking about this idea yesterday, um, which is interesting because we didn't talk about the idea or anything, and it was just a bit of, I guess, synchronicity that that happened in my life, or I happened to run into that.
Speaker 1:So well, I'll, I'll tell you, this is. This is nothing profound, but there's, there's ways that this concept bubbles up in my life and you know, it certainly happens with my wife and all that.
Speaker 1:And this happens with Nick and Kristen in LA. You know, my wife and I will like, uh, drive to a small town, cause we'll take the kids to the park and explore or I'll, um, you know, stop at an antique shop or something like that, and we'll drive through these neighborhoods and we just say to ourselves what do all these people do? What? How did we're you know like?
Speaker 1:Well, sometimes it's comes from a place of a little bit of bewilderment, like how do all these people have jobs down here, where they have houses and cars and all that? Like, this is a town of 1,500, 2,000 people. What are all these people doing? And it's not I want to literally know what they are doing. It is Sonder, it is these people. All have these lives that are intricate and detailed and involved, and they have emotional complexity and irrational thoughts and trauma, and all of this stuff is going on inside these walls for sometimes multiple people at once. And you extrapolate that out to the 1500 people who live in that town and you think about all of the energy and the emotion and the power and the impact that has and the that one person can have yeah.
Speaker 1:And and I don't mean like impact, but just sort of it, it just I like, my, my, I, I, I can't comprehend it, I think, more just like the intellectual footprint, maybe not even intellectual footprint, but just like the the energy, the collective consciousness, unconscious. All of that stuff is just to me. It's so profound Part of me just can't even wrap my head around it. The other part of me is like well, what books can I read to learn more about what people think about this Cause? So much of it we don't know, and you know, but not.
Speaker 1:but in LA, you know it's more of a comical thing we're like we'll be, you know, driving there's a little bit of traffic. Or you were like, what are all these people doing? Yeah, yeah, and it's funny because it's you're saying it, because they're in opposition to your objective which is I just want to go home Like. I've got this whole life that you know. We're all doing this together. We want to have dinner, you know whatever.
Speaker 2:Like. Why are?
Speaker 1:all these people here keeping us from doing what we want to do. Well, we're keeping them from doing what we want to do.
Speaker 1:Well, we're keeping, you know, we're keeping them from doing what they want to do You're completely caught up in like yourself, like your your idea of self or your conscious lens of the world, but I immediately in those moments when we make those jokes is, we're not serious, we're just sort of like, what are you know? Like seriously, all these people have something to do today. But it comes from this idea of Sondra to me and I think in those moments sitting in the car, you know, having this laugh about this, you kind of go, yeah, what are all these people doing? Like I am, you know, usually when I go to LA, I'm sort of in like a place of we're not going to go down this rabbit hole, but LA is a whole thing for me, like I've written articles about this haunted sensation that I have when I'm there.
Speaker 1:Maybe we talk about that in another episode. But you know, I'm experiencing something profound on my own and I, you know, you look around at all these other people that are in just in your orbit, just sitting in a car at a stoplight, and and they're all experiencing similar things. Their levels of awareness of how profound or not profound their current experiences, you know, varies, of course, but you know they're each of them is the hero in their own story and they're battling and fighting and trying to feel better every day.
Speaker 2:And taking, yeah, Having the same amount of thoughts or the same the same.
Speaker 1:You know these deep memories and trauma and people they love and people they've lost, memories and trauma and people they love and people they've lost, and it's just unreal how much sort of life is just there with every person.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, it's, it's. It's crazy to think about it, and I'm really glad that you introduced that to me, because now it gives me something I can look up and try to explore even more.
Speaker 2:Sans Soleil is Chris Marker. Um, he's a French right mean, I think he passed away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he passed away in 2012. Um, I've seen a couple of his films. That one is, especially if you're like I don't know if you're listening, and that concept kind of piqued your interest. I think it's worthwhile. I don't think it's. It's not directly about that concept. Yeah, but it's what came to mind when I heard about the, when I, when I heard the you know expression of the concept there, whatever. So it's, it's, yeah, it's a. It's a really beautiful um, film or documentary.
Speaker 1:I liked the idea of Sondra in context of people I know in my life who, I think, have succumbed to their own narrative and they're so intimately involved with it, as we all are, of course, but they're so, they're so. They have their blinders on to you know their, their own objectives and their own pursuits. You know that people are seen primarily as obstacles and therefore categorized in negative ways or seen things to be overcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, things to be overcome obstacles, um, even to the point where, you know, in extreme cases they're dehumanized. And this is such a humanizing thought. Yeah, for anybody that you know sits there and goes what are? What are all? What are all these people doing?
Speaker 2:I think, and it's it is. It's very difficult, I think, sondra, in the age of. I mean, let's just face it, there's plenty of people that just don't have any reason to leave their house. You're talking about sitting on a subway. There's some people that maybe there's people that are listening to this show or this episode that haven't had any contact with a person in like a day or two days or three days, absolutely, and that's not even abnormal, right Like and and so I think maybe it is harder to humanize or to think, think about. It's just difficult in the age of. You know, your main interface with people is through some digital medium. Yeah, um, but then you could also argue that that makes the concept more important than ever to really Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I thought about it today at an estate sale. I was going through a bunch of records and, um, there was a gentleman there who I later met. His name was eric and he, you know, when you go to an estate sale and you're looking through records typically the kind of the to me the unwritten rule is if someone is at the stack of records you let them finish right and it's not like stretched out and expansive multiple crates, but there's sort of a you know 150 records in a small area.
Speaker 2:You kind of let them go through it, make they're just watching them go through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah abbey road original right and the person who's watching is maybe kicking themselves that they didn't get there earlier. Maybe their anxiety is getting keyed up, maybe they don care, they're just like I'm happy to look through whatever's left. But as I, I set aside a pretty big stack of records that I was going to then go through a second time to you know see which ones I actually wanted to take with me. He mentioned something like oh, you know, there was a, I think King Crimson, whatever, and I hadn't heard of them and he's like but you're probably going to keep that one, and I literally thought of sondra. I was like, what do I care about this record? That's probably worth less than ten dollars.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I certainly am keyed up about sort of wanting the best records, whether it's the most valuable ones or the ones that I'm more interested to hear or learn new, new bands and all this stuff. And I thought, if you know, the, the was just the jacket, the vinyl was missing, and I'm like, well, if we find the vinyl and I said this to myself, I'm going to. You know, I want to impact his sonder. I don't know what the you know the right way to use that is, but sort of his, whatever his experience and just give it to him like yeah, I think it impacts his experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want, I mean you wanted to do a nice thing, right, well, I, but the idea of sonder is what did it?
Speaker 1:I sat there and went this guy's got his whole life. He does this whole thing. You know there's a whole world barreling behind him or floating around him and what, what do I give a shit about you? You know, at the end of the day, an $8 record, if I can it was a King Crimson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I can give this to him, um, you know, great, yeah, and it's, uh, and if that creates a, you know, a little positive ripple through, you know, his, his world, then then do it. But but again, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have even thought in those terms. And I know people that in that situation would be looking out for their own self-interest so strongly, yeah, that they'd be clocking the person behind them, you know, like second guessing any albums they wanted to put back, because if that person grabs it, maybe they didn't know something about it or it's special for some reason, or whatever it is. There's a protection of their own self-interest that's so strong and it blocks them off to the to, to what they, what they could do to give this person, uh, you know, just a little blip of positivity in their day.
Speaker 2:It almost even like you blocks off. I even go further and it's like tunnel vision. Yeah, like you might not even care, winders right, you might not even care about what you're doing, but you're so like it's the competitive edge, just kicks in right. You're so much just like I have to win this exchange, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right that you're gonna, yeah, essentially embrace your yeah maybe some darker tendencies to just fuck this person over, just not even because you just like. You might like the person, but it's like, but it's you versus them and you have to win the exchange yeah yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's a really unfortunate instinct that I think a lot of us give into on a daily basis, even Right, I love that you use the concept of yeah, that you kind of brought that into the, because I haven't. I haven't really been out, but I haven't been out a ton since since we, um, since I sent you that I mean I guess it was yesterday so, but yeah, it's just, it's such a oh man, yeah, it really just puts the world into a better perspective.
Speaker 1:Did you read the whole thing that you sent me? I didn't clock that. You read the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I think I read the top to bottom.
Speaker 1:Yep, and where did that bubble up for you? How did that cross your path? And I'm sorry if you already said it and I didn't clock it um.
Speaker 2:Where did it cross my path?
Speaker 1:for you to have texted it to me. Was it in something that you read or I? I?
Speaker 2:think I was reading I think it was just like a random encounter on it might've been some blog post or something. I can't. I just remember it was something I was just kind of passively consuming Gotcha. And then I saw the word and like a little bit of context and it piqued the interest and then I took it and went down a rabbit hole with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I was just like he spent like 30 minutes on it and I was like, okay, great, I need to go and actually finish what I was doing and go to bed. It was midnight.
Speaker 1:It's something that I'm thinking about while yeah.
Speaker 2:If I, if and if where it popped up, we can put it in the show notes or something. Yeah, and I'll explore it a little bit more. But something I'm thinking about as we talk about this is there is a book that I think it was um pulled from or referenced uh, dictionary of obscure sorrows dictionary of obscure sorrows, that's interesting Okay.
Speaker 1:Um, what I was going to say was, you know, part of me sits there and goes. You know, maybe somebody listening is like, yeah, no shit guys. Like people have old lives around them and you know all these experiences and all that stuff, like it's one of those things where, when you think about it, it's like, well, yeah, but we so often, I think, are caught up in our own world, our own pursuits, our own intentions. Uh, you know the things that we're grappling with every day. It's really easy to take that idea for granted or to just again, just sort of uh, forget about it. Um, yeah, of forget about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's easy when you have something that you can? I'm not making an argument for sayings or quotes or things like that, because I do think a lot of that stuff is pretty, yeah, I guess just general cliches, trait phrases, but I think sometimes it is useful, especially if it's a concept that you're trying to introduce into like a daily practice of your life.
Speaker 2:Yes, Sometimes it's useful to have something to pin that on for at least a little bit, until you can start to really, yeah, kind of meld the concept into your experience well, and I think art does this too um you know, popular popular art. I don't know how to pronounce that name, but it's dictionary of obscure sorrows, john uh I would say kanig kanig kanig.
Speaker 1:John kan Koenig, john Koenig Koenig. Yeah, one of my dad's friends has that last name K-O-E-N-I-G Koenig.
Speaker 2:K-O-E-N-I-G. Yeah, pardon, yeah, it's John Koenig and it's the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, if you'd like to.
Speaker 1:It has 3100 reviews. Five stars, yeah, I'm gonna have to look into it.
Speaker 2:I have quite the stockpile of books to go through. I wonder, uh, 2021, okay, it's the publication date, so I don't know if if he coined it yeah I don't know anything about the book.
Speaker 1:I'll be honest I'm definitely gonna gonna just explore this concept of Sondra a bit more. But, just like hauntology, what I have loved about doing this podcast with you is these types of ideas bubble up, and there may not be a whole lot of exploration to do with this idea of Sondra. It's just a word that puts a feeling that I've had, or attaches a word to a feeling, a sense I've had, and now there's like, okay, not that I'm going to move on, I know all I need to know about that, but there's.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful. It is a beautiful expression.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful word in the sense of I mean, yeah, this is, this has been a concept that I'm sure even if we sat here and we thought about this for five minutes, we could find other words that represent either a similar or the same concept. But yeah, I do think it's. It's just timely that that particular you know a version of this comes into our life at this time. I think it's just timely that that particular you know a version of this comes into our life at this time.
Speaker 1:I think it's, you know and you mentioned, uh, you know the, you know cliches and all that stuff. And I was going to say, and you know popular art, um, you know, there's certainly things that we take away from song lyrics, you know, I think of, you know, let it be by the Beatles, you know, and people using that as almost like a tool to just sort of— Like a mantra.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let it be in the lyrics of that song Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be. Artists come up with these things that bubble up from their common experiences, their common humanity, and they find a way to put it into words in a way where everyone else who consumes it, just sort of you know, they get it and it allows them again a framework or a clarity or a tool that they can use to help them in difficult times or difficult situations. And you know I'm going to be the nerd that next time we're driving around and my wife goes what do all these people do?
Speaker 1:I'm going to go, let me get the dictionary of obscure sorrows and let's go to the S section and talk about Sonder. Let's see if it's fiction or if it's an action.
Speaker 2:I think it might be a novel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it certainly might be.
Speaker 2:Potentially, let's see Publisher Simon Schuster, simon Schuster, simon.
Speaker 1:Schuster Simon. Schuster 288 pages Not sponsored.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not sponsored by this book. No, it's number one in word list, number two in quotation and reference books.
Speaker 1:Reference books okay.
Speaker 2:So it is a dictionary of obscure sorrows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Have you ever wondered about the lives of each person you pass on the street, realizing that everyone is the main character in their own story? Each living life is visited in complexes of your own. So the whole thing is about that, maybe, okay, well, yeah, definitely going to have, or maybe you've watched a thunderstorm roll in and felt the primal hunger for disaster, hoping it would shake up your life. You're looking through old photos and felt a pain of nostalgia for a time you've actually never experienced.
Speaker 1:Damn, this is right, yeah yeah, all right, we'll be ordering two copies of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, this is All right, we'll be ordering two copies of that.
Speaker 1:Well, so the other thing that I mean I would probably lose it if the book talked about this in some way, but I referenced in Los Angeles, how, when I go there.
Speaker 2:What is the origin of the word?
Speaker 1:I guess it's the French and Germanic Just yeah, when I go to Los Angeles and it's sort of dissipated a little bit over the years as I've visited more frequently but I just have always had this sort of haunted feeling when I'm there, feeling like if sort of parallel universes or a multiverse exists, that there's an like I am existing there in another life simultaneously and I'm like standing right next to it, I'm very close to it, and that that feeling is very strange to me when I'm there.
Speaker 2:What is? What is the the like? Is it like a darkness? No, it's not a darkness.
Speaker 1:I literally feel like there is a parallel existence occurring.
Speaker 2:You've talked about this with we've talked about this a little bit where it's like like you're potentially 15 feet away from a alternate version of yourself living the life that you could have, the life yeah or that, that maybe you could have never lived, but yeah, had I not version of your?
Speaker 1:that's right, like uh where when?
Speaker 1:the mysticism on this podcast is just getting a little bit out of control and you know, and uh, and that's the only way I can describe it, cause I'll, you know, walk around, I'm taking photos, I'm exploring, you know areas that I've never been to before, and there's just this ebb and flow of intensity, of feeling like another version of me is there, possibly with a you know another fan, a different family, you know wife and kids or whatever, and, uh, you know, has a career and all this stuff, and I feel like I'm right next to it. Yeah, uh, and it's very strange. It's a very strange feeling and it happens mean, it was incredibly intense for years uh, going back there once or twice a year, and it's just dissipated.
Speaker 2:A little bit, but it's but it's always there and it's very strange, that's interesting. Maybe there is like a psychological undertone to that dissipation of like you are coming in like I wonder if you know you continue to kind of progress and grow into yourself over the next you know few years and then if you go back and that feeling maybe is completely gone, maybe that represents some kind of psychological realization or like transformation or the person acceptance of, like the, your, you know truest version of self, or something or the.
Speaker 1:You know the, the version of me that was there moved, you know, in that person in my life, in this other then you start feeling it at home or universe next door and something um coined around 2012 by the author.
Speaker 2:The word obviously in German it means special or particular, in French it means to probe or to survey, but the contemporary English usage is was coined in 2012, but yeah, I'll have to take a look at that book because if there's some of these terms that are applied to these ideas or feelings, that that would really fascinate me.
Speaker 2:I've described that feeling of just darkness, I think the best, I guess the best. The thing I would point to that best describes this feeling is like the photography of, like William Eggleston, where it's just this, like innate darkness or this just brooding some aura of dark, not not quite, not evil in the sense of like horror Right, like I'm not. I'm not talking about like suspense and or even like like liminal suspense and like the sense of like the shining or something but it's just this, like just.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've ever walked into a place and you just feel like all of your. You've just been drained, Like all the blood has left your body, Not in like a, like a fright sense or like, but it's just like there's nothing, there's no life there, Like this is where life decays, or I I'm, you know, struggling to describe it right now, but I wonder if there's a word yeah For that I've never really searched for that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I obviously at my reference point. It's just like I can pull up some Eggleston photos and I'm just like this is how I how that manifest to me, but I felt that in certain places before and I've talked about that in a couple of different contexts, but yeah, and he certainly, you know, I don't know, you know you can infer, but you know who knows what, whatever motivates him to take the photograph.
Speaker 1:You know if there's some sense of something like that in the moment. I mean, he has one photo of like just a clearing with trees and stuff and I'm like the photo just creeps me out Like I, I, there's nothing creepy about it, you would look. You know, yeah, the average person would look at it and be like, yeah, it's a forest dude like what's the big deal?
Speaker 2:but it was bizarre, he could photograph it like he photographed energy yeah, yeah, like captured energy, like that's what's so brilliant. I I haven't really found that yeah not in the, not in the capacity that he did it Like there. Obviously there's people that have photographed things that transmit.
Speaker 1:Well, when I you mentioned Sonder, and I think of Alex Sosa sleeping by the Mississippi and those portraits he took of all those people up and up and down the way, and I think of Sonder, I will now think of Sonder when I look at those photos, I think as a concept, you know, new world, whatever I think it's an important thing to spend time with, especially if you're a documentary photographer or a portrait photographer.
Speaker 2:It's just something that should be explored, because everybody you take a picture of yeah, you're, yeah you know you're capturing a moment in this immense life well, doesn't alec have a question?
Speaker 1:he asked people while he's setting up his camera, doesn't he have? I think I feel like he's mentioned that. He asked like like what did you dream of being? Or something like that, some question like that, and to me that comes out of that. That's like a question I would love to, to ask somebody you know just well because that's what the project's about, right or not.
Speaker 2:I mean not about the project's about more than. But that was like his. That that's what inspired the project is, and I think that's why it's called sleeping by the mississippi, right, because sleep is the gateway to dreams. Sure, like dreams. But then he's kind of playing with that. Dreams in the concept, yeah, in the sense of ambitions, or and I could be wrong, but I feel like he asked.
Speaker 1:He asked that for people he takes portraits of now, often like carried it forward. Yeah, maybe I could be totally wrong, but yeah we'll have alec on the podcast, yeah hey, alec, um we'll uh shoot you an email um he he bubbled up his channel again. It kind of. I saw that some new videos trickled out and they were. They were. They were good. You've watched. You've watched.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was one that I still haven't watched I'm trying to prime myself out of youtube a little bit more these days, so yeah, as as am.
Speaker 1:I been watching a lot more just shows and movies and documentary and stuff, uh, but still still, uh, getting my little dopamine hits from, yeah, vinyl hunters and treasure treasure seekers I wish something that you could do with youtube premium was almost change the way the feed works. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I would love to get in there and I don't know.
Speaker 1:I would just like to make it a like based feed, like if like, like this is. I haven't put much thought on this, but I'd like to just if I like a video. Yeah, it's smarter about showing me videos that are directly from that channel or stuff that's really close to it.
Speaker 2:I would just love an option to like. Give me an option to explore if I feel like it yeah you know, maybe once a month, I'll you know, throw up the algorithm feed and go crazy or something I wish there was almost like an but there's. There's just certain channels that I watch. Most of their videos.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I wish I could just be like I just want. I mean, I know you can set up an RSS feed and you can take the RSS code from each channel, but and maybe that is the solution Like maybe I'm just complaining and it's already possible, you just have to do some work. Yeah, and I've done that before. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe that is the solution. You just want more to self-curate, if that makes sense, or to just not have it. Have so much dumb shit, Stuff that is just like where'd this come from?
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like we got off. I was going to ask you when we sat down, about what we've got here.
Speaker 1:Should we refill? Want some more.
Speaker 2:Four Roses. What do you think? I'll take a splash.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah you want that or a little scotch.
Speaker 1:Nah, I'll stick with the Four Roses. Alright, I've had Chivas. I don't dislike it, but I'm liking the Four Roses. There we go. Yeah, well, I just whiskey killed Matt. I'm going to be done. Four roses.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Shiva's not I. These are, these are different animals. These are different. Very tasty, all right. Matt brought some books with him oh yeah, well, um, this is kind of an anywhere episode. This is a friday episode.
Speaker 1:We're at the end of the week I feel like we got into some, some, some good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's just no like we didn't sit down with, like we're gonna talk about this, yeah, and I think those are kind of my favorite sometimes. Sure, I don't know it, just the moment calls for what the moment calls for.
Speaker 1:So yep, and I had. You know, I always come in with ideas like, well, maybe I want to talk about this or that or whatever. You know, if we want to come in a little hot, I mean, uh, to me coming in, I was like to get some ideas, or let's just see what happens. But you know, it is what it is, uh, so, um, just two books here. And this is me trying to signal to everyone that I'm academic and intellectual.
Speaker 2:Uh oh, we were going to talk about like signaling a little bit. We got into that after we went off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah uh, so I. So I'm just reading John Updike's Rabbit Redux, which is the second book in the Rabbit series, and then I need to take a little break from Updike after this one, because there's two more books in the Rabbit series, and then he of course has other novels.
Speaker 2:I think I have one of them that I picked up in a thrift store.
Speaker 1:Rabbit Rabbit is retired, I'm just kidding. Rabbit is rich and I think like Rabbit Reborn or Rabbit Rebirth. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I was at the thrift store and going through like a grocery cart full of some pretty decent books and one of them I kept is this Neil Postman book Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. And Neil Postman if this was a year ago I would have been like, oh, that's interesting. But I wouldn't have recognized the author. And I recognize the author's name, of course, because you shared with me his book called Technopoly, which we read and talked about in previous episodes.
Speaker 2:And then I'm currently reading. There's one called, I think, ladder to the 17th Century.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's interesting Because he has this little note down here the author of the Disappearance of Childhood, which I'm not aware of. So I'm going to read this as a little palate cleanser. It should be pretty quick, maybe get through it in less than a week. I've probably got just a couple more days left with Rabbit here in Updike's second book. But these are the two things that I'm chewing on. But I've also, while I've been going through, books at estate sales and thrift stores have picked up and I think I mentioned this, the other podcast but a few classics. I've got a uh, a couple of books by um, uh, drawing a blank, um on the road by Kerouac, right, um, is that right? Yeah, uh, they're all blending together. Now, as I look at the stack of them in my mind's eye, hunter Thompson, a few Hunter Thompson books. I think there's some Faulkner in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So a couple Hemingway. I think the one I have is Old man and the Sea.
Speaker 2:Just like American literature as of right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm just going to blast through all that stuff in my daily reading routine, but then also try to mix in things like this I want to read you know, uh, stuff like this and some of the books that you showed me this one on on young um really, really interests me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um so, so keep those coming, keep those recommendations.
Speaker 2:Old man and the Sea is really impressive in how economic it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like a. Bresson film almost. I guess it's very intentional. It's impressive what he's able to do with such a limited palette or limited amount of words. He always talks about writing a story that could appeal to the to, to everybody everyone Right yeah. But can still still deal with these. I guess that was his mark of like high, high art, which I don't completely disagree with. I actually don't disagree with this at all, Like if you have to be able to communicate to access and make it accessible yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, and that doesn't mean dumb it down, but it means find such a clarity, and you know use of your tools and your language that you're able to communicate these, these ideas, and so I think, I think that's probably underappreciated for kind of, for for a reason that we, a lot of the authors that you mentioned, I know, kerouac has a lot of people that hate, love to hate. You know hemingway, a lot of people love to hate. Hunter thompson is a, you know, mixed bag as well. Um, and I have a vonnegut book, I forget which one it is though, vonnegut yeah it was like breakfast of champions or
Speaker 1:I don't know why I'm blanking on it, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, faulkner, I don't think there's a lot of. I just don't think a lot of people read Faulkner. I mean plenty of people read Faulkner, but it's like as I lay dying, or whatever I don't.
Speaker 1:I think that's about the I also want to try to grab um the Truman Capote book in cold blood. Yeah, in cold blood. I've never read that, yeah, so I just keep my philip seymour hoffman as truman capote is, yeah, truly something to behold yeah, and I want to watch that after I I don't know if the movie's great.
Speaker 2:I don't have any. Yeah, I don't have a lot of memories about it, but philip seymour hoffman and that role was just like, yeah, impressive. And then, uh, breakfast at tiffany's. We actually, audrey, picked up a copy of that. It's like one of our, one of our favorite movies is the breakfast at Tiffany's.
Speaker 1:I picked up the soundtrack, both kind of like that. I picked up the soundtrack, great soundtrack. I should have kept it for you. Oh man, yeah, Moon river, the Audrey.
Speaker 2:Hepburn version is like one of our favorite things to listen to. Yeah, um, capote wrote breakfast, uh, or breakfast at tiffany's. Yeah, and I haven't read the book yet, but apparently it's a lot more. It's a lot less romantic than the film, sure it's?
Speaker 2:more of yeah, a little grimier and yeah, but yeah um, what I was saying, though, about like a lot of the, the reputations kind of preceded the work, right with the American, especially the American, I think that's a kind of a thing that happened in a lot of American literature in the 20th century is the the author's reputation, kind of preceded the work sure got it got out in front of them especially with Hunter Thompson and Hemingway right, big characters.
Speaker 2:Kerouac to probably mm-hmm. Kerouac was also like a big drinker. I think he actually died because of yeah alcoholism, um Faulkner less so. But you know, yeah, anyways, I'm excited. Yeah, I mean yeah, yeah me too.
Speaker 1:I think there's a few couple plays in there as well that are sprinkled in. So I've got a nice little stack and I'm going to continue to add stuff to it, but just try to discipline myself. Not that it's hard work or anything, but I've just allocated a good chunk of time every morning to sitting down and reading. It's something that I definitely got away from. I think a lot of what's happened over the last year is, you know, getting back to basics, so music, television and movies and certainly literature and nonfiction.
Speaker 1:You know just, and then you know letting the inspiration that those create allow for the discipline to sit down and write my own work, Um, uh, as well as, um, you know, telling stories or whatever it is that that, that that comes out, especially in the photography, Um, and and that's something that's very exciting is is is connecting all of these things that I'm consuming with the, the, the stuff that I'm making. I just have to watch out, to wrap up that, the acquisition of these things that I'm consuming with the, the, the stuff that I'm making. I just have to watch out to wrap up that, the acquisition of these things doesn't take over and become the the, the, the addiction.
Speaker 2:I've been. I I reorganized our library a little bit. Like every six months I'll get all the books out and like dust them off, and yeah, it's a Herculean task at this point. Yeah, Um, so I always put it off longer than it needs to be done. But I reorganized to where I'm kind of like on the on the mantle, so like what's easily accessible. I changed it to just like poetry uh, one act plays and then essays and letters.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I'm trying to read a lot more, like I can sit down and kind of consume one of those in 30 minutes or an hour Just like I would love to. Maybe you know you and I try to do one a month, yeah, where we read it, study a little bit. There's no expectation for it to turn into anything, but maybe we discuss it, open it up to people and let listeners listen along.
Speaker 1:Book club.
Speaker 2:Book club, but not quite as stressful as, like, you need to finish an entire.
Speaker 1:You're not done yet yeah, exactly. Why are you texting me right now, and maybe it turns into that you should be reading.
Speaker 2:Maybe we manage that for a year, but it's kind of like the podcast.
Speaker 1:Let's start like friction, low friction, build some steam and then we'll see what it turns into and just build it as a habit, build it as a part of you, and then January next year we'll do Ulysses. There's a copy of that. At the estate sale I went to today A copy of Ulysses and I was like oh boy.
Speaker 2:That's January 2026. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Yes, read the books, Well sweet. Where are we at? We got an hour. We're about an hour or so let's get the hell, let's wrap this son of a bitch up.
Speaker 2:just a bunch of monkeys driving around cars hey, cheers to Sonder and just yeah learning new words to describe big feelings, I think, something that we both have kind of tuned in on as we look at an image of a tv without heads without heads.
Speaker 2:I think something we both kind of tuned in on over the last few months is just spending more time with people, meeting new people. Oh, yeah, you know, being open to conversations with people. It's almost like we're retraining ourselves how to be human beings, yeah, and yeah, I mean I'm, I'm just I'm searching for anything that kind of makes that kind of places that at the top of the pyramid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, and it's a combination for me of I've, just I, I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm sick of feeling like, like I'm sick of getting agitated by something that I should be trying to be open to people, to ideas, to experiences and just you know, you tend to close yourself off a little bit to the world. After you know, I think, just in 2025, it's really easy to do.
Speaker 1:How does that manifest? Like so, for example, there's an opportunity to do something socially and you just like whether you're conscious of that, what you just said, or not, you tend to just.
Speaker 2:Well, like you know, I'm definitely more on the introverted side, at least like my outward personality is more of an introverted like and I'll get physically. I will physically get exhausted. I'm like okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right, we talked about that.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't necessarily happen with certain people. So you and I, we can hang out and I'm probably going to leave more, um, like charged or yeah like emotionally I think that's kind of why we started this podcast is almost this is like you.
Speaker 2:You leave a good conversation, like we would have these conversations, and personally, I think we identified like oh man, like you leave that feeling a bit that's right enthusiastic about everything, elevated focus, and so this is like a digital proxy to like humanity, in a sense, and that's we put it out there and it's like we can access it whenever we want. Hopefully, other people find that the same way. But yeah, I don't know how it manifests directly. I think sometimes, though, I will shy away from social situations. I don't know. I love people. I really like people. I like learning about people. I like learning about people's views and life experiences. It's part of what draws me to film and photography and literature. It's just, yeah, foundational, but I think it's easy to, kind of you, just get caught up in a way of being well, and I, you know, I'm I'm very similar.
Speaker 1:There are social situations for me, certain ones, where I mean I just am terrified to go into them, sometimes because I have no one to go with or I don't know anybody at this. This situation, uh, when I was in Los Angeles, I went to um an instant photography exhibit. Um, a small little thing at uh, at this um guy, he custom makes frames for Polaroid photographs, and so there was an exhibition there with the photographer showing their Polaroid photos. Um, and I'm like, well, I'm going to go check this out.
Speaker 2:Frames is in the frame of the actual yeah.
Speaker 1:To actually frame the Polaroid Like he makes different.
Speaker 1:He made frames that are, you know, that are specifically to frame the dimensions of a Polaroid in instant photo because it's an odd dimension and instant photography, you know, is certainly very popular right now and a lot of people are doing it. So he saw, you know, a cool way to connect to an economic opportunity, all of that stuff. So I went to the exhibit and I'm just like, I mean, I, I'm completely locked up. I am in a city that I'm not used to. There's, you know, people that are, you know, I know from social media, but I never interacted with them.
Speaker 1:Maybe a bit self-conscious, or self-conscious, I don't know Like I just I just was was broken in that. In that place, like my introversion kicked in. I didn't know how to like, I just didn't know how to connect with anybody and I think part of it was I didn't want to.
Speaker 1:I don't know it was. It was a very strange situation. This doesn't happen to me very often, but I mean I, you know, I'm looking at the photos. I think there was some ego thing going on where I'm like, well, why aren't these people talking to me? You know, come talk to me Like what you know, all kinds of messed up stuff. So just got out of there, I'm like I just gotta go. This isn't, this isn't. And I'm like I don't think me leaving is sort of like a coward, a cowardly move or a sort of a cop out. Yeah, I'm like something, and maybe I just convinced myself of this. I'm like something isn't right about me being here and I I just need to go.
Speaker 1:But then, you know, like I went to a CD release party at Josh's shop Modern Mayhem and there's a bunch of people there, I don't know. And while it was awkward, I felt like people, like we gravitated toward each other, whereas at the LA thing, like that wasn't happening at all. But here I was like struck up a conversation, you know, met a lot of people, and then somebody that I knew from the coffee shop was there and brought a friend, and that was Alex, and now Alex is in the fold and all that stuff. Um, so there's been some of those that I was terrified of and they worked out really well. Um, you know, at estate sales it's like I don't even think about it, you just like start chatting people up is it just comfort, level of environment, you think, or I think it's just like expectation.
Speaker 1:When you, when I went to the the gallery, you know like the photographers are all there. They're sort of expecting to meet strangers, they some of them had larger social media following, so they probably know that people know who they are, but they don't know who they are. It's just like the setup is complicated socially.
Speaker 2:La has an odd energy to it too. Where you do have like, there's almost a layer that disconnects. Yeah, there's almost a piece of glass between most people. Again, this is one person's perspective, Sure yeah. But every time I've been or spent time in LA, it's like I feel everybody's got their version of themselves that they want the world to see Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's really hard to have a. It's like going to a, it's like going to a work function.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where nobody's there to hang out or exchange any kind of ideas or, you know, thoughtfulness. They're just there to hopefully make a connection that will lead to more money. And again, that's. You know that's more of a blanket statement than I'd like it to be, but you just have this like inauthentic.
Speaker 1:Well, it just, you know, the probably just the, just the general feeling, and I and I don't disagree, at least in this instance that there's sort of an ultimate allegiance to self-interest. And when I go to these estate sales here in Omaha there's like an undulating curiosity that exists between certain people. And there are some people there where there's there's a glass wall there You're like you like they're just there to get their stuff, their whatever, and you don't feel them interested in what are you after, what are you like, whatever. But then there's some people where you can just kind of sense it that they're curious.
Speaker 1:What you came here for, what are you drawn to, what are the things that you're collecting, and you can, you can sense a sort of moment of permission to to just say something or break the ice or whatever. But then there's not any expectation that you're going to invest this large amount of time into a big in-depth conversation or it's going to lead to a well, what's your number and how do I go, how do I kind of whatever? Um, and I can't tell you how many people the gentleman this morning, eric, who was interested in records standing in line waiting to get into estate sales, where you just kind of can feel people are curious, you're curious and you just start talking and chat, and sometimes it doesn't amount to much and other times it's well, what's your number Like?
Speaker 1:let's you know like, let's like, like if you come across this stuff, text me or whatever. And it's not, let's go get coffee or or whatever. But I've made the joke and we can wrap this up. But I've made the joke like for friends of mine that are single.
Speaker 1:I'm like man, go to estate sales and like actually be interested in the stuff that's there, like I was telling my wife Erin, I'm like I think honestly I probably could have landed three or four dates with people, um, uh, uh, you know, if I was single, just because these conversations naturally happen. You're curious about the same things, you're interested, you're both there, so obviously you have something in common. Yeah and I don't mean to say this like I'm picking up girls while I'm at the state.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah it. Yeah, it's creating an.
Speaker 1:Because I've made guy friends as well. You know, it's in both ways.
Speaker 2:It's like the perfect environment, though, to not be. There's just certain environments.
Speaker 1:Low stakes yeah.
Speaker 2:There's certain environments where the expectation is unrealistic.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Or that you know you're almost incentivized to be a version of yourself. That's not.
Speaker 1:Right Wearing the metaphorical mask. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And yeah, you've got to identify environments, that kind of take that away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I really like that about the estate sales. I've even had people chat me up at thrift stores.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You can just feel people are like kind of yearning for a connection.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's a common ground there. That sort of puts you on the same. Do you ever feel?
Speaker 2:we're going to get into something that we're already 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:This will be. This will be the epilogue Um do you ever feel like you?
Speaker 2:this is just killing our second episode.
Speaker 2:It won't happen Um do you ever feel like that having some kind of so something that you know I really enjoy talking about or could maybe don't enjoy talking about, but something I'm, you know, able to talk about, call it you know film or you know whatever do you ever feel that you almost don't want to go into a conversation about that because suddenly you're putting an expectation on this thing, like you have to have some opinion, where to me, like one of the one of my favorite things about one of my favorite things about, you know, watching a film or reading a book or listening to music um, is just being with it, and not having to form an opinion on it, yeah, but then conversations seem to directionally move towards having I feel this way because of this and this and this.
Speaker 2:Do you ever feel that, that pressure, that tension, or is that just just me Like? Is there ever?
Speaker 1:I haven't, um, I haven't. Uh, to me there's just a, there's just often an air of curiosity. People are curious what you're into and you're curious what they're into. Sometimes you want to check if there's overlap. Are you going to go after the stuff that I want to go after and I have got to protect my own self-interest because you want albums and I want albums or is it you can tell that you're not interested in?
Speaker 1:the same things and you're just like, you know what, what brings you here? What are you after? Are you a reseller? Are you a collector? You know, like, what gets you fired up? What are you hoping to see? Um, a lot of times the conversation just starts around, sort of like there's a person who's new to the estate sales system and they don't know, kind of how it works. They don't know that there's numbers that you get an hour ahead of time to know your place in the queue or what the procedure is, or why there's a line 30 minutes after it started. Why don't they let more people in? You know, and you just you're talking about those things and it leads to something else we got to get a documentary on estate sale culture.
Speaker 2:What are we doing?
Speaker 1:And I want to do that, and I also want to do a photography project where I photograph some of these spaces at these estate sales.
Speaker 2:Some of them.
Speaker 1:You know, don't don't like today. There was, there was in the basement and there were these two twin beds in an alcove in the basement and it's like cinder block walls, is kind of a partially finished basement and it looked like something out of the shining. It was just these, these two beds with the same orange 1960s blankets on them, a little stick table in between them with a lamp on it and I'm like they're like this is just a whole vibe and I just wanted like a nice medium format shot of it. And then I haven't showed you the photo and I'll have to remember to do that, but a photo of like a bed with his big depression on it and like the mystery of cause. It doesn't look like a person, it looks like there was stuff stacked on that side of the bed but the other side of the bed's flat.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And like there is a whole series of photos I could do on estate sales and I think part of me on a deep, much deeper subconscious level wants to earn the trust of all the people that run these estate sales for you like, so that start going in and so I could talk to them about the possibility of taking photographs of the space before the estate sale starts and getting permission of the family. Of course, you know it's a very you know not that they're all that way. There's a lot of downsizing, or moving.
Speaker 2:You've got to be almost willing to be like I won't buy anything from this until, like until the last day.
Speaker 1:But I am. I am so drawn to these spaces. And going back to that idea of Sonder, you're walking around in Sonder.
Speaker 2:And we've talked about, I guess through that lens we've talked about things before on different episodes of just objects carrying this Sure.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just this idea of walking around in someone's home, especially someone who passed, and you are seeing like their, their entire life, of possessions displayed like it's a store, people in their lives, um, you know, it's uh, it's like that scene in Goodwill hunting, uh, where, uh, matt Damon diagnoses Robin Williams entire sort of character, life and experience and trauma based on the one painting on the wall. Like, I am fascinated at looking at all the objects in these people's homes because I'm like how does this illuminate all of the details under that umbrella of Sonder, to where the books that they read and the art that they hung?
Speaker 1:on their walls and all of that stuff illuminates their character and and shows and shows who they were in the life that they led. I mean it is like the whole, the energy of it all, the vibe of it all is. I mean I could just walk around the house and not even buy anything and just be fascinated with, with being there and it'd been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
