The Daily Stoic - Steven Rinella on Hunting, Self-Discipline, and Finding Balance

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

Ryan talks to Steven Rinella about his new book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature (which you can pick up at the Painted Porch), the temperance that is required to be a great hunter, how to find the right balance between pursuing your purpose and spending time with family, and more.Steve Rinella, from his books to his groundbreaking show MeatEater, has made hunting and nose-to-tail wild game gourmet cooking popular from New York City to Hollywood. Thanks in large part to Steve’s humor and extensive historical and anatomical knowledge, MeatEater is one of the top “reality” shows not just in outdoor media, but arguably across all media combined. As a writer, TV host, and now podcaster Steve and the MeatEater crew are as trail blazing as they come. We carry one of Steve’s books, American Buffalo, here at the Painted Porch Bookshop. His most recent book, released just this week, Outdoor Kids in an Inside World, offers practical advice for getting kids radically engaged with nature in a muddy, thrilling, hands-on way, with the ultimate goal of helping them see their own place within the natural ecosystem.The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC.Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you’ll get an additional 3 months for FREE. That’s 6 months, for the price of 3! Just go to Babbel.com and use promo code DAILYSTOIC.Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc/stoic to receive 15% off your purchase.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Steven Rinella: Homepage, Instagram, See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your

journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. May bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to a weekend episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. Today's guest is someone whose books I just adore. I am a huge fan. I reread one of them earlier this year. We sell like five different of them in the painted porch. And I met him as we talk about in today's episode at a coffee shop in New York City. We were linked by a bookage that we both both know. And I've more recently become not just a huge fan, but it's like his works become an integral part of my daily routine because my five-year-old son, who you will hear at the beginning of this episode, is obsessed with Stephen Rinella. YouTube suggested one of his videos.

It's also a show on Netflix called Meet Eater. And he's just one of the great hunters. You wouldn't think you could be like the LeBron James of Hunting, but that's what Stephen Rinella is. But he's also like America's great philosopher of hunting and outdoors and conservationism. And also an incredible entrepreneur. There's a great New York Times piece about him recently, which you can check out. Anyways, my son watches one of these videos.

He picks one every night and we watch it together. He usually almost always falls asleep before it ends, so it might take three nights to get all the way through. But he just loves Stephen Noelle's stuff. There's one where he hunts a Havillina. There's one where he hunts a Buffalo. There's one where he hunts a mountain lion. There's some where he hunts doves, turkeys, squirrels,

grizzly bears, anything you can imagine. He is hunted. I know hunting isn't for everyone. I happen to live out in the country. I hunt on a regular basis. Nothing exotic, just, you know, white tail or rabbit sometimes or hogs. But I think there's a ton of stoic lessons in Steve's work. And I think you're going to like this interview because I was just reading his new book. Sorry, the first book I mentioned that I love his book, American Buffalo in search of a lost icon, is I think one of the great books ever written about America, about

the West, about hunting, about nature. It's just an incredible story, excellently written. I reread it earlier this year. I love it. We carried the paint approach. You have to read American Buffalo. Seriously, one of my all-time favorite books. But his new book was perfect. We were just on a trip to Big Bend. We took the kids out there for four nights. Just did some hiking and swimming and observing nature. And we went to this ghost town out there called Terlingua. And just spent some time in one of America's great national parks. I think one of the most underrated of the national parks, the only national park in Texas, and it's incredibly huge, incredibly far away. Also, as it happens, the scene of one of my son's favorite Steve Rinaldo videos,

where he hunts have Alina by bow. And we talk about this a little bit in today's upset. Anyways, his new book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World, Get in Your Family, Out of the House, and Radically Engaged with Nature, is a fantastic book. It's so perfectly encapsulates what I'm thinking about as a parent. It's not that I'm anti-screens.

It's not that I need my kid to be a rough and tumble, whatever, but I want them to be an outdoor kid to like the outside more than the inside to know how to handle themselves outside to spend time outside. That's why we go on our walks every day. It's why I live out in the country It's why we take trips like the ones to Big Ben. It's why I let him watch these videos, right? Because they are cultivating his love of outdoors. We went on the trip because you watched a video about it So I love Stephen Ellesworth all of which I'm to say. And I cannot recommend American Buffalo,

outdoor kids in an indoor world. And then his two cookbooks, the complete guide to hunting, butchering, and cooking wild game, volume one is about big game, and the other one's about smaller game. Also a fantastic book, very highly recommend it. We've used a bunch of the recipes over the years.

Okay, I'm gushing now. Huge Steve Rinella fan. You have to read these two books. Read the other ones too. Watch his TV shows. The Mediter podcast are great. Outdoor kids in an inside world though. Is the new one? It's timely. I think you're going to like it. You can follow him on Twitter, at Stephen Rinella. You can follow him on Twitter, at Stephen Ronella, you can follow him on Instagram, at Stephen Ronella. Pick up the books at the Pain and Ports. Anywhere books are sold. It was so wonderful to have this conversation.

You're gonna, I brought my son in to say hello very briefly, and I'll let you listen to that as well. Thanks, Stephen, for coming on. And thanks to Mark Gerald, the book agent, for setting this up. I appreciate it, and I appreciate you connecting us all those years ago. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars.

And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. How are you? Good, what's going on? Not much. This little guy wanted to meet you because he has watched like literally every one of your videos. All right, man.

How are you doing? Body, what's your name? Clark. Tell him what your favorite video is. What's the favorite hunt that he went on that you like the most? I like to have Helena one. You like have Helena's? Man, that's cool. Where did we just go? Or do you want it to see a have a Lena? You want to like bend. Oh you want the big bend National Park?

Yeah. But you didn't run into one? No. Can you do your have a Lena cry? Can you do your havelina cry? I can do havelina calls. E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E Oh, you looked out both everybody's window. Huh? Do you have anything you want to ask them before you go back to school? Do you want, are you excited to go hunting sometime? Uh-huh. What do you want to hunt for? Dear? All right. What do you, what do you, you in home, you in home school?

Or what are you, bud? I'm in virtual school and outdoor school. Why you, not because the pandemic or something, right? He does virtual school at home a couple days a week because we travel a lot. And then one day a week he goes to like an outdoor school that's like they learn like campfire skills and hiking and all the plants and stuff. Gotcha. So you're in a school that lets you travel around a bit. Yeah, exactly.

That was pretty sick. All right, do you have anything else you want to say? No. All right, you want to go? All right, bye. Now shut the door, OK? Well, thanks for that. He is an enormous fan, no joke.

Like literally every night before bed, we read a story and then he chooses one of your videos to watch. So, it's funny, because I just reread American Buffalo, which I told you is one of my favorites. But even though I hadn't read it in probably 10 years, I think about a line in the book,

like probably once a week. It's the scene you find this buffalo school and you pick it up and you start sort of asking yourself these questions about like who shot it first, like who found it first. Like I think you have it, you're like, what did this person think about this? What time did they wake up in the morning? What did they think about God? I think about that question all the time. Whenever I come across something really old, like, this is a, this building I'm talking to you and it's like a hundred and something years old, I think about like the person that sat in this room before me and like, what went through their head, what their understanding of the world was like. And that line in the book has always struck me

as a very beautiful encapsulation of that idea. Yeah, I think it's particularly vexing around when you get back into deep enough into history, like I spent a lot of time in that Buffalo book talking about the Ice Age hundreds. Yeah. And what the problem there is, is we'll never, ever, ever know. I mean, barring some like incredibly,

just some bar, barring some incredible scientific breakthrough that I can't even understand. It would like border into metaphysics. I don't think we're ever gonna know 10,000 years ago, 11,000 years ago, 12, whatever. What those people thought about anything. Yes. Like what they thought about anything, man. And even the stuff that they left behind, carvings and things. Yes, you just never know. I was reading recently about a, there's a mammoth

hunting culture in Siberia. They found these two children that were buried with 500 beads made of mammoth tusk ivory. Why? Right? Sure. There's no one there. But don't you think when you do an activity that is somewhat timeless, it's the closest you get to that, for instance, in the Havillina video, which I have probably watched 30 times now, because it's the favorite one for some reason. Even though where we live, there's boars like wild boars. So you'd think you'd be into those hunts, but he likes the Havillina one. We've never seen a Havalean out in central Texas. But you're like looking for shelter in that video and you just stumble across cave paintings in this like little cave by someone who almost certainly was doing the exact same thing that you were doing. So

you don't really know what they think, but it couldn't have been that different than what you're doing, which is like walking around looking for an animal to kill. Yeah, I think so, man. I think that you're bound, like one thing that binds hunters over time, at least the really dedicated ones, is with notable exceptions, is what binds them is like a real reverence for

animals, a deep desire to understand animals, but man, you know like growing up you know coming from a like a theist culture, right? And having that upbringing, it's so hard to understand animism, you know, like, the way people used to, people used to imagine that all these animate and inanimate objects had some sort of desires and individuality. Do you know what I mean? It's like, You feel like you feel a connection to it because the discipline is so similar.

The animals are unchanged. They haven't gone through a cognitive revolution. The animals are unchanged that they their sensory perceptions are unchanged their habits are largely unchanged so you're you're engaging you're engaging with something that that that half of the equation is unchanged right in a big part of like a big part of the big portion of the human equations unchanged to like the things you need to do Right the the physicality of it like that's unchanged, but the the spiritual component whatever that was man I marvel about it, you know

You know you for some reason it feels good to think that maybe You maybe you can approach that level of understanding that people might have had for their environment but then it's good this might be strained a little too far away what you're asking but I spent time with Amer Indians in South America hunting with people who hunting with people who, uh, hunting with people who hunt 200, hunt fish 250 days a year within a 50 mile radius of not only their home, but their father's home, grandfather's home, great grandfather's home. Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And the level of understanding they have for their environment far exceeds anything you will achieve living in the United States of America. You will not get there. It's sort of like looking at the stars. You feel both like really small and really big at the same time, right? I think when you think about like the past you get these moments of connection to this unbroken chain of human beings, and at the same time feel totally removed from whatever their conception of the world and the tradition that they came from at the same time. Yeah, one of the beauties of hunting is that it's a continuum. However you define the beginning of history, it's been going on uninterrupted for that long.

Yes. Right? With only a handful of other things. Yeah, and if you're in a handful of activities. Yeah, if you're into like stand up paddle boarding, you cannot say the same thing about stand up paddleing. It's like, you're like, it's a new thing that someone recently thought up, but hunting is like, it's, you know, it's pardon me, but it's just more legitimate. You know, I was thinking about that recently,

I was telling someone, you know who Dusty Baker is, like the baseball player and the manager manages the Astros right now? No, dude, I was playing on sports. I got some friends that played special sports and I know about them. Well, so he's like he's like 80. He's the manager of the Astros right now. He was a great baseball player for the Ace. Oh, and he's still a man. He's still a manager at 80.

That's good. Yeah, yeah, but this is this will blow your mind. He got the first high five. I didn't know the high five had a beginning. Yeah, in the 70s, like in the in the late so like, yeah, some of these things we think are so old are really super new, but you're just like that guy, his, his, his team, it was coming in from a home run. He had his hand up in the air. And so Dusty Baker, like put his hand up in the air and then boom. And then this thing

that we think is that you bake with as part of like human culture and connection like this one guy was there when it happened. So yeah, like we think that we we we will never get that kind of of connection deeper further back than it's weird how it's weird how ancient and then also recent like culture is. Let me do this so far of story. Like you taking interest in that makes me want to tell you a thing. I heard a linguist talking about this linguist was explaining their work to someone and they were saying how they were giving a for instance of the kind of thing they're interested in. And they were talking about a waitress or waiter saying, are you still working on that? Yeah, there was a time when no one had said that. And then somehow, right?

Yeah, in the 70s, people were not saying, are you still working on that? But somehow, it like, not saying, are you still working on that? But somehow it like, right? He's like, this lingua is saying, where did that begin? And how did it do what it did? But isn't that actually not that far off, afraid? Because like, that's what memes are, right? Like right now we think of memes as like funny graphics that spread on the internet. But memes in the Richard Dawkins sense are like ideas that spread, right? Right now we think of memes as funny graphics that spread on the internet, but memes in the Richard Dawkins sense are like ideas that spread, right? Someone comes up with an idea and then people copy it. You think about all these techniques in hunting that at one point did not exist or tools that

did not exist. And then someone was like, hey, if you do it this way, you know, it's much better. And then because it actually is better, it beats out the old way of doing things, and that could have, that could have happened over five years. It could have happened over 5,000 years. Right. And we can only guess at it from the archaeological history, but like all these things were invented by ingenious humans, at some point. And now monkeys are picking up on some of them

Which is also terrifying in my lifetime? I have seen things that are now like dominant sort of the dominant hunting practices I Have seen them emerge Strategies that have become like adopted by by a large margin of people who are really into a certain discipline. And I always wonder like, but did they really? Do you mean like it has to be that you're coming back around and rethinking of something?

You know? That's probably true. Yeah. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight.

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walking around. And then there's a hot springs that you can sit in. There's a cool one in Big Ben too, that we were just at. But you're sitting in this hot springs, and the cold, the hot and the cold, and you're like, oh man, this is also something human beings have been doing for thousands of years. Like from the same geothermal, like freakish occurrence, hot water's coming up and people are like,

life is dusty and disgusting and it feels good to go from hot to cold and that like whatever the feeling experience I'm having right now, the most powerful person in the world had in this spot 2,000 years ago, that's fucking weird. That's good, that's good. You know, Marcus Aurelis was a talks in Meditations a handful of time about hunting boars and they think he was a hunter that he hunted with the Emperor Hadrian who was himself

a pretty big hunter. I think about what I've read is that like as a young man, they hunted together and that this was partly where Hadrian gets the sense that Marcus Aurelius might have what it takes to be emperor. Because Marcus Aurelius is not Hadrian's son. He's adopted, so five emperors in a row adopt a male heir to become emperor. And so what does he see in this young boy? I've always wondered if it was something

while they were hunting, because hunting, the Romans hunted them on horses with spears What is he see in this young boy? I've always wondered if it was something, wow, they were hunting. Because hunting, the Romans hunted them on horses with spears, and then they had slaves carrying nets also. And I just think about how terrifying and stressful, like hunting boars with a rifle is not the least scary thing in the world. I can only imagine chasing them on a horse with a spear, and what you would learn about someone watching how they do that. Yeah, you'd learn a lot about the horse too.

That's right. Well, so one of the people might think it's weird that I have my five-year-old watch videos of somebody hunting. And it came because he likes watching these videos, a friend of mine lives in this ghost town in California, and he makes videos about like going into the mines and doing stuff, and YouTube was like, now you might like this other video. And I was like, Clark, I know this person, we should watch this one, and that's how we got into them. But weirdly, why I think the Netflix show

and the YouTube episodes are so good, is that ostensibly you're hunting an animal, but really each episode is you going on a journey. You're trying to figure something out, you're trying to do something hard, and then you put in all the work, and then you may or may not get rewarded by the end of the episode, right?

And to me, though, the main lesson that I talked to him about over and over again is actually the episodes where you don't get the animal. Either because you did something wrong, which occasionally happens. But to me, I'm most interested because I'm just working now on this book about temperance or self-discipline. I'm always amazed at the episodes where you have a shot, but it's not quite the shot you want, and then you choose

not to take it. Or like, you have two minutes of daylight, like legal daylight left. And then you go, no one would actually see if I waited five minutes longer, but I'm not going to, like, I'm interested in that element of your sort of hunting persona because it seems, it seems like a very cultivated part of who you are and you talk about it in the outdoor book and you talk about it in the American Buffalo book that like the sort of rules that a hunter enforces on themselves are kind of the most important thing.

There's a, you know, one of the people we regard is sort of one of the fathers of modern wildlife conservation. And also, inmanac, right? Which was basically a collection of things that he'd written during the sort of dark ages of American wildlife, which was around the 1920s. He had once said that ethics is doing the right thing when no one's watching. For me, it was that trying to, like as hard as you can adhere to the law and adhere to ethics was not,

that was learned behavior. We took a lot of liberties when we were young man. You just mentioned like legal shooting light, you know We're in high school We would go in and hunt wood ducks and apply us where the wood ducks didn't start coming into this pond until I after legal light, you know We don't anyway and not really even give it any thought and it was funny because that had I had been Broad up that way like I had been brought up where people I grew up around My dad was a World War two veteran. He had me very old when he was old He hung out with World War two veterans. So these are patriotic people who made tremendous sacrifices for their country, right?

but patriotic people who made tremendous sacrifices for their country, right? but They had a very strange relationship a very selective Understanding of like what laws were foreign what they were meant to do they were interested in sort of the spirit of The law like they were more interested in capturing like kind of what the law was getting at. Rather than all these like intricate components of it. And you also kind of, you can't tell me what to do kind of thing.

Sure, and it was like, if you tell me I'm allowed a dear, I accept that. I'm allowed a dear. Okay, I accept that. I'm allowed a dear. Don't tell me like how to get it and when to get it. Right? So that's like really, like, or I'm allowed to catch X number of fish. I'm not allowed to sell them, but how is that your business?

Like I accept that I'm allowed 50 per today. Fine, but don't tell me I can't sell It's like I looking back on it's like so hard to understand the mentality, you know, but over the years Over the years I became for a variety of reasons man. I understood why I understand why the game laws are there I have faith in and accept how they're arrived at. Like I understand the system and I understand what it's going for. Even things that strike me is like not a good idea

or came about in ways that the laws that are now largely feel obsolete to me. I do it because it's doing so is you stepping forward and saying, I accept this program. I accept this mission that we're on and I'll give blind allegiance to it because I agree with like the principle of the whole thing. Right? And until that's if something were to happen in the future where I would lose that sense, I could see this being a thing that happened depending on like social political

things, that I could see all of a sudden feeling like I was thrust into, you know, like forced into like being an outlaw, right? Yeah. If hunting all of a sudden became because of, because of cultural, social stuff like hunting became categorically illegal, but I still felt that the wildlife, that the wildlife management aspect, that the wildlife populations were sustainable and all that, we'd be having a very different conversation right now. Why probably we're talking to anybody?

I'd probably be very, very quiet. But right now in America, we have a, we have this good sound. Yeah, I guess I'm an American. I am an American exceptionalist. We have the best system in the world for managing wildlife. I support it. When you're filming things and distributing media, I think you have on top of that even a

higher obligation to demonstrate a certain behavior. Why do you imagine the camera is paying attention to you, right? Like people are paying attention to you. Why do you imagine the cameras keep you honest in the sense that you, you're at your, if you're going around breaking the laws, you're also filming yourself doing it. But like even the, the, the, the legality of it aside, I've always been struck by, you're like, you know what, I know I just tracked this bear or whatever for three days, but I can't quite tell if it's a male or a female,

or it's just not the one that I want. Like human beings are really bad at being almost close to what we want. And then say, this is what the marshmallow test is, right? Do you want one now or two later, but you got to wait for the other two human beings are incredibly bad at delayed gratification. And so I have been struck by the virtue of temperance in hunting. It's like, okay, you're there and an okay deer shows up. You don't know if a better one is coming later. Can you say like, I'm comfortable getting nothing

as opposed to rushing this one that I know isn't really what I want? Yeah, I've had so many, you know, I've been lucky in that my professional life and my personal passions overlap so perfectly. I've had so many experiences now that if you told me that I could did all I could do at this point was just like go relive them all I'd be like man that sounds great right yeah I'd be totally happy with that I think that getting to that place like just being able to scratch

the itch so thoroughly get you to a spot where like you become a little bit less impatuous you know like the the kind of a lost for not lost success, but just like the impulsiveness starts to die out in you. You know? When I was younger man, like if opportunity presented itself, even if it was a perfect, even if it wasn't what you wanted, it just felt like you kind of like, who might have like turned away an opportunity? Yeah. at success Same way if I think about being a writer, you know when I was coming out of graduate school I took every assignment thing I every because I was like who am I like who do I really think I am to not do this

It seems arrogant. Yeah, so someone assigned me a book review of an author that I was intensely jealous of, right? And they wanted a positive review. I'd be like, okay, this is a bitter pill, but I'll do it, cause who am I not to take this opportunity, right? You know, and then later you get where you're like, you know what, man, I just got all their stuff. I'm able to do that. I'm more excited about that.

I've read his hang tight work on the stuff that I've been really strong about. And that comes in the outdoors. It's funny because my older boy is really, he's at an age now, he'll be 12 a couple days here. He's at an age now where he is really like old enough to understand he's very passionate, very, very passionate about hunting and fishing. I never thought I would say this almost annoyingly, so he does not want to pass up opportunity. He does not want to pass up opportunity, right? It's like like Marshmallow now He'd take a mini Marshmallow now over a bag of Jumbo's in five minutes jump sand It's just like where he's at mentally man. It's so funny to watch, right? And then you kind of hope he sort of quickly gets over Quickly gets over that And then you kind of hope you sort of quickly get over there.

Do you think part of it is something I think about a lot is obviously the Stokes talk about it is like Detaching from outcomes, right? So if like you really love the opportunity to go hunting If you really love the tracking the being outside the doing the stuff or if it's writing or working or whatever you do the being outside, the doing the stuff, or if it's writing or working or whatever you do. Then, like, you've already succeeded before you've even really started, right? But then, if it's really like, no, I'm in this for the hardware, I'm in this for the cash, I'm in this for the fame, I'm in this for the money, or whatever the thing is, the Stoax would say, you put yourself in a pretty precarious position. One, because you might not get what you want.

And then two, you have trouble delaying gratification because the only reason you're doing this is to get the outcome and it feels like profoundly painful to pass up a certain outcome now for a better outcome later. Yeah. It's a great point. And one of the things I struggle with as I like sort of like train my kids up in this stuff too is that in terms of delayed gratification, in terms of like, let me give you for instance.

So we were one time calling, we were working a turkey, okay, we're working a while turkey. And there's a turkey, he's gobbling a lot, we can't call him in, but he's still gobbling a lot. And we're kind of moving around, trying to like call him into us. And we come across a snap in turd.

Okay. And we're down in his creek bottom, where we're out of view of where the turkey is and I say like I point to my boy I'm like, look, there's a snap turn. I was gonna show him how to sneak up behind it and grab one I grabbed up. There's two of them. They're coupled mating in the spring He wants desperately to keep one of these snap intervals to eat it, you know, but yeah, I was like, how do you do it? I had no way to kill it. You know, you got the basic shoot of a shotgun or something. Um, and what about the turkey, right? And in that moment, man, he's totally like, he's ready to be like, well, screw the, the whole thing we've been talking about for weeks, you know? And the whole point we're here,

You know, and the whole point we're here in all like licenses and shit. And in that minute, he's like leaning toward what I'd rather just have this. Not even, this isn't even a thing he had even thought about before. Yeah, yeah. But you're just like a totally impulsive, right? Opportunistic. We didn't mess with the turtle. We put the turtle back and he went up and get in the turkey. And I don't even know that he really, I don't even know that he's, I don't think that he's, he's even put it in his head yet where he's like,

passed up the turtle, got the turkey. There's a life lesson for you. I don't think he's, I don't think he's at it. But here's a deal, man, about all this like just good being out there mentality. it is it's like it's a it's a trope in the outdoors. I was just good being out there. Just good being on the water. Any day fish good bad day fishing better than a good day work and all these right things. Yeah, but but there's a lot to be said about going out and being successful at something and being willing to like sacrifice about it So as much as we as much as people in the kind of things I like to do them. Sure there's other cases as well I can't think of oh yeah, like you know you lose a baseball game I guess and then you're like wow, you know come Rotterey and you know Listen man be honest with yourself you were out there to win that goddamn game you know, and so, in this kind of thing,

like I, yeah, there's an end, in, like there's a thing like, in and of itself, there's a thing. Like the pursuit is a thing, the skill set is a thing, but like, I don't like to bullshit myself so much to think that those aren't like intentional thing one learn intentional things one learns in order to drive an outcome. And driving the outcome is is like success. Yes. Right. And it's like you sometimes feels a little dickish to be that, no, it's like better to get what you're after.

Sure, well, the Stokes would say there's preferred indifference, right? Like, indifferent TS, right? So you're like, look, I'm just out here, I'm out here to enjoy myself, but I'm gonna have more fun if I get the outcome than if I don't, right? Because ultimately you don't control, right?

You don't control what the animal does, you don't control what the weather does. You can adapt to those things, but it's like, look, when you write a book, you want it to be successful, you want it to sell a lot of copies, you want it to hit the New York Times best service, you want it to reach people. But at the end

of the day, you better also be happy with what you wrote and be proud that this was the best possible thing you could have done in the part of it that was up to you. Because ultimately, there could be a hurricane the day it comes out. You could die before it comes out. It could be rejected because it's too far ahead of its time. All these other things could get between you and that outcome. So you do have to find contentment in the process while still trying to follow the process in such a way that you set up your outcome as likely or probable.

What I would worry about is that if you got to a mental place where you were able to more graciously accept defeat? Yeah Would there be Would there be an impact on your performance? Yeah, Peter Tio has a good line show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser Yeah, if you get to where it just is like this, this preferred and different, like, yeah, I worry about, there's a, there's a, there's a phrase, there's a term I didn't come up with it. Someone said he was describing, a friend of mine was describing someone and he said he has a lot of gir, like, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr fucking tenacity man. Sure. And I have seen that is driven by someone who that having a lot of girl is someone who is is outcome focused.

But I would say girl is a double edged sword in writing and golf, probably in hunting, because I've seen you where like when you want it really bad or you're rushed or you feel like you don't have like the clock is ticking like you're gonna lose your, when you force it, you're never as good as when you're coming from a place of wholeness and patience and self mastery, right? So that gir can also be, you know,

and golf when you try to hit it really hard, that's when you that's when you Fuck it up. Yeah, it's okay. It's a bracketed gir. The gir is a bad. There's like inviable, there's like parameters to this thing and they're in Bible. Within that and just in the case where were talking about with hunting, in large measure, in this country, in large measure, if you want to know what the right thing to do is, you can 90% of the time find the answer by consulting your state's rule book. Like, I'm speaking generally, okay, generally speaking. Ethics as we understand them at this point in time in America are largely like a product or there's a very tight

relationship between our current ethical understanding around hunting and what we have codified into law. So if one says within that bracket of legality, I'm gonna apply maximum gear, and I'm not gonna feel like I'm not gonna feel like I'm too base to say that I really would like to find success here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you can't be the Zen Buddhist who just doesn't give a shit. You're not going to get the, you're not going to get the outcome you want. It's a, it's a tension.

Yeah. Uh, yeah. And, uh, I think about that many, I think about that as a parent. I think about that as a person who works. I think about that as a parent, I think about that as a person who works, I think about that as a person who fishes and hunts. Sure. So, transitioning to the new book which I love, one thought I had about what we're talking about and then transitioning to that, like you, I also am incredibly blessed in that like my passion and my career are completely overlap. Like I get to do the thing that I would be doing for free. If I didn't get paid for, I get to read books for a living,

write about what I care about, and then I get paid even more money to go talk to people about those things or do this or make video. Like, I get to do what I love. I imagine that left to your own devices, you'd spend a lot of days alone in the woods, right? And I mean, obviously, you must travel a lot for the show and for the business that you built.

How do you balance that? I'm one of the best in the world at what I do. I feel very fortunate that I get to do what I love to do. I'm also paid well for what I do. And the, I should be around at home with my family. Man, yeah. That's a primary tension in my life that it would be there.

Forget the professional stuff. It's a primary attention in my life of being like honoring the, honoring my commitment to my family. And honoring, like what it family and honoring, like, if, like, what it is that I instinctually feel like, like, I have to be doing. Um, the only way I've found to really, uh, like, total piece for me is to go do my calling, or, like, what I, I don't know why I call it calling, that's not right.

To go do my discipline, you know, as an outdoorsman, but to do it with my kids. Yeah. He's, and I don't have the thing, I don't feel like I'm missing out on something, I do feel like if I don't get out in the woods I feel guilty about that like I feel like I'm not Paying attention to something needs to be paid attention to so I get a sense of guilt for that I get a sense of guilt for not be with my kids

so the greatest thing It's what I'll be doing this coming weekend is like to be out in the woods With my kids and then I'm at total peace because there's no part of me being like that I'm not doing either of the things that I'm supposed to do But in terms of professionally like traveling when I was a writer and reason, you know I'm one of the same way. It was when I was only on a that's not only writer I can write it was my sole source of income,

like just actually writing books as my sole source income, I was going a lot, dude, research, like a lot. Yeah. My, the entire time I've been married to my wife for 14 years, there's never been a time in our relationship when I wasn't going a lot. So this isn't surprise anyway. Right?

But that absence, I'd be lying, if I came and told you that that absence, that frequent absence wasn't the primary tension in my life. Yeah. That is the primary tension in my life. Yeah, like that is the primary tension in my life. What makes it particularly complicated is that much of what we have in Life is born of that absence, right? So it's like a real thing and it became when my when I had my first boy,

and I would be leaving for a work trip, a couple days when behinding trip. Yeah, or like, yeah. On a trip whenever I had to go away from work for him. If I was leaving to go, yeah, typically if I was like going, when he was a little young, I remember sitting a lot, I'll tell you to take this. I remember sitting in the bathtub with my little boy sobbing because I had to leave. This is where he's very young. The first time I had to leave for a couple weeks.

And my wife's saying, you need to pull it together because you're going gonna like give them like a, you're gonna traumatize them. Yeah. Carry not like this, you know? And another point we got at about this was my wife also saying to me one day, she's like, when you can come back and you come home and you expect a certain reception, you know? Yeah.

And she said, if it's gonna be that it's not a big deal and you leave, it's not gonna be a big deal and you come home, you expect a certain reception, you know? Yeah. And she said, if it's gonna be that it's not a big deal and you leave, it's not gonna be a big deal and you come home. And it's like, when you come home, get with the fucking program. Yeah. No, because the life continued without you. You're the one that left the train kept going.

You got off the train. Now you're trying to jump back on the train. It can't stop for you. No. It's like, like, kids got to get on the morning. They got to get breakfast, they got to go to school. It's like, it's not like a welcome home party. Yeah, yeah. No, it's really hard.

I went through this with the pandemic because I travel a lot for speaking out. My trips are probably a little shorter than yours, but I was just gone all the time. Whenever an opportunity would come up, I would take it because this is my job and how long are the opportunities gonna be there, right? It feels arrogant to say no to them.

Then the pandemic happened and I spent like 550 days like in a row not gone, right? Like we went places. Like we drove, wait, like we yeah like we we drove play we took like the camera. Yeah, just let's say we we went to like I put my kids to bed 500 plus times in a row. Yeah, and you're just like wow okay this is something now it's made it so much harder to be gone now like I just was in New York and Florida and Chicago.

And like, whereas before I'd be like, oh, it's been an extra day in New York, I'll meet some people. Now I'm like, now I'm like, what is the fastest I can be in and out because the opportunity cost of being gone became so much more vivid and real to me. It's hard to shake it, but you do. Like, you, that's also not sustainable, right?

And it's, so it's a, it's a tension I'm thinking about a lot myself lately. Yeah, we, well, when the pandemic hit, we were coming back from a family trip in Baja. So I'd already been with my kids for a week, came home, had to do two week international travel quarantine, then everything kind of was chaotic and I didn't have to travel. And at six weeks, we were like, there is like, absolutely.

I have never spent six consecutive weeks with any of my kids. And dude, I loved it, man. No, I got sick of it. No, I got sick of it. I was waking up and making coffee. I started to think this got to be like another way. Because I felt like every morning walking to that coffee pot for that many weeks in a row felt weird. What's weird too though is like you're like, I gotta be home.

I feel guilty when I'm gone. So like I finished a book in January, and now I'm just going through the page proofs of it now. And so I'm not writing writing, right? Like I'm not in the creative writing space. Like I'm doing the administrative bullshit that goes into like finishing a book, which is not creatively fulfilling, right? And I can actually feel like when you do, when you have like a calling or a gift at what

you do, there's also a cost to not doing it, right? So if you were like, you know what, my kids need me. I'm going to stop hunting. I'm going to stay at home for the next year and see what happens. I imagine you'd be a lot less fun to be around and a lot less you Because you don't have the outlet you don't have the thing that's fulfilling you and giving you purpose outside Of the home like I I know I need to start a project soon or my wife's gonna be like you gotta get the fuck out of here Yeah, yeah, like we can feel that and we can feel the pent upness inside you because I think part of the reason people become really good at a thing is to solve some sort of, you know, on we or pain or, you know, you get good at a thing and it becomes kind of therapeutic and then if you don't

do the thing, then whatever that untreated part of you, it comes bubbling back up, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's the thing I like to tell myself to make me feel better about everything as I tell myself to. Well, one day, I shouldn't have gotten in trouble for this, but I did. Is me and my buddy, Tony, took his kids and my kids, so we're me and my buddy Tony took his kids and my kids so we're me and my buddy Tony and all of our kids Go claim dig it One thing to ease your darkness of school light one thing to ease the matter where out like way late, right?

So you're up thickin though that like how could like if you take one thing as you know if you're a parent with kids The one way you can always win is take the kids to do something like, there's no way anyone's gonna get mad at you. Yeah, it's like, it's the greatest gift you can give anybody to take everybody and leave. Like, no one's gonna get that, or so you think. But we wind up, I get, I'm on the phone with my wife, she's not happy with me.

About the time, my buddy Tony says, I told my wife this guy's laugh, but my buddy Tony says, if we were the way they wanted us to be, they wouldn't like us. And my wife's like, that's so fucking untrue. I guess it's dumb as they have ever heard. But it's true. It's definitely true. It's definitely true. I used to run it right at butt. We used to laugh about it.

I was going to call it whipped, but I think not I'd call it home body. Because I wanted to stay home for a whole year like not going anywhere for a whole year then right. And it'd be like a book that only I would enjoy. But I would think about what it's like to sleep in the same bed 365 nights a row. We were standing at your sink, you're like, am I really standing here brushing my teeth again?

Well, you were saying about not being home for six weeks. Like, I don't think I'd not gone a couple months without traveling since I myself was a kid, right? Because we would go on trip like, never in my life had I been like not on an airplane for at least a couple times a month. And then to not do that, you're like, well, so we live on this small ranch outside of Austin.

And it was like, for me, what I do spring is like one of the busiest times. And so I've lived there seven, eight years. And it was like, oh me, what I do spring is like one of the busiest times. And so I've lived there seven, eight years. And it was like, oh, shit, we've been missing most of Blackberry season like every year. And we just like, we're not aware of it, you know? And because we were just physically not there. And you don't fully realize what you're missing when you've internalized a sort of a nomadic, busy life. That's fulfilling and challenging,

but also there is something that we said about being still for a minute. I saw a new friend of mine very recently that he was weird to have the same conversation about the impacts of the pandemic and how it changed things. And he's, he's talked about all the, they all said he's working from home and doing all his phone calls from home. Yeah. He's like, the things I learned about my yard, like I never really looked at my yard. Yeah. Totally.

It's been so many hours every day, like walking around looking at my plants, and looking at my garden, and like contemplating one of my trees. He's like, man, I just immersed in it. You know, and it was great, right? My favorite part of the outdoor kids' book is the story you're telling.

This actually kind of pertains to exactly that. Your kids are playing on some mountain and they're like, oh, like I almost got bit by a scorpion and you were like, there's no scorpion. There's absolutely no scorpion and of course, this made them upset and so you said, well fine, find me the scorpion, which they promptly did, which is one of my rules, which is like whenever my kids, they're like, I just saw a monkey riding a bicycle by the side of the road. I never go like, no, you didn't, because they're right like a hundred percent of the time. Even if that thing is like literally or physically impossible, somehow, that's what they never lie. They always, but they're just so much more present than I am.

They notice the most absurd things, which is to me a remind, I thought that was great. Your kids, your kids see something, don't instinctively tell them that it's not there. Get them to prove to you that it's there, because you'll be surprised by what they managed to find. Being like your kids are never like, oh, I had no idea what my yard looks like. They know exactly what your yard looks like.

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, okay, I don't even know this, but Scorpion's luminesce. Yes, it's terrifying. Like, it's like, it looks like a man-made creation, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like a roller-dark thing. They're all on all these trails out in the desert with this black light. I mean, these freaking scorpions, man, it like, right? Looks like a blown-dark toy laying there. Uh, I didn't know that, most scorpions. So they were real keyed up on scorpions. It looks like a blown-dark toy laying there.

I didn't know that about scorpions. So they were real keyed up on scorpions. I had never, ever, ever seen a scorpion in Montana and thought they were very far from South. But yeah, it wasn't being the northern scorpion. So I learned a lot, and I'll talk about the book on the same trip. I Had never found like a big block of ochre which Indigenous people used for dyes and all kinds of things and it's a pain painting

It's too right. I'm an artifact. Yeah, they mix it with animal grease or mix with animal fat to make paints and skin dyes They found a big block of ochre and skin dies. They found a big block of ochre and independently arrived at the idea that it makes a good skin pigment. You know? So yeah, you do need to give them a lot of credit. There's a story we always laugh about my older boy where one day we walked out of the fridge, we were staying out of friends place and we walked out and he's like, there's a coyote and I look up, I don't see a coyote. I'm like, Jimmy, what are you talking about? And I'll say it's like, there's a weasel.

And I'm like, James knock it off. I'm looking like, there's a weasel. Yeah. Oh, at this point, you're right. At this point, he says he saw something. I'm like, okay, where? Well, and it's like, are you a person who encourages the curiosity or you shut the curiosity down

with your jaded cynical, I've seen it all beforeness, right? So like, I think it's better to go like, oh, tell me about it, what is it? I do the same thing when they tell me random facts that they heard on a video or something, I'm like, really is that true? And then we Google it and probably 80% of the time. It's like, like, you know, we read some book and it was like, you know, owls don't poop or something. And he's like, that's not true. And I was like,

if it says it in the book, it's probably true. You know, and then he was like, well, I think we need to Google it and we Google it. And it turns out the book is wrong and he's right. And it's like, this is exactly what you want. You want them to challenge things. And you want to go get the information as opposed to shutting it down and being like, I know more. It really, I'm bad. I'm good about natural observations. I'm bad when they're relaying videos to me.

It's just like, it's a real, that's one of my weaknesses as a parent is taking in information picked up from videos. But I've got them trained up good. I'm like, do not ever come to me and say there's a video where it needs to be where was the video and how did you become aware of the video? Then tell me the story. So now that I come up and be like, there's a YouTube video, uh, my friend Teddy sent it to me and then they'll tell me the story. I'm like, okay, now I'm track and but I just got it. No, is it school? Is it like a friend? Like what are we talking about? Well, you know, I think what I liked about the book is

the, okay, for some of the idea of outdoor kids in the indoor world, great title. Even if people don't read the book, like buy the book and be like, I got 90% of what I need from the title itself. Like to me, that's a great mantra as a parent, right? Like great book, a great idea, outdoor kids into our world. But I think the two feet off of each other,

like part of the reason we went on this big band trip, even though we'd just been a year ago, is that he'd watched a video where you were in big band, right? And so I think one of the things we've tried to do is like, you can instinctively be opposed to screen time, which would be ironic for people like you and me that made things like go on screens. But like, provided that the screens are stimulating interest in the outside world, that's great, right?

So we try to think about stuff that way. Like, let's watch videos about places that we're gonna go, or let's watch videos about things we're gonna do. So we took a trip to LA and it's like, we watched all these travel vlogs about going to LA and then he wanted to do a bunch of things like go on this street car and go to this and this and this, that like, frankly, if I just said we're going to LA, he'd have been like, what is that?

Yeah, I think one, one, you know, in naming the book, outdoor kids in an inside world, I was like, I was, it's like an acknowledgement. It's not like, I don't imagine it so much as, it's not meant to be like a condemnation of the inside world. It's more like to say that like there is an intense gravity, an intense gravity that pulls kids inside now. And as I bring up again and again in the book, that gravity is made much greater with the prevalence of screens. It's just they are powerful, right? Like, like, media has a powerful pull

and this has come from a person that's, like I make it for a living. There is like, I've got a process of foods versus natural foods. Why is more addictive than the other? It is a daily conversation in my house. There's a daily conversation, often a daily argument about use of screens, right?

It could be this, it could be like, that doesn't look like your homework to me. Right? Yeah. And then you gotta be like, well, no, because I'm actually was, while Googling, you know, the Han Dynasty, but now I'm watching people have air softwares. Like, you know, I'm like, well, you know, it really relates, you know, the Han Dynasty, but now I'm watching people have airsoft wars.

Like, you know, I mean, like, but you know, it really relates. You know, whatever, like, it's just like it never ends. It never ends. Yeah. But I, like, the approach I take rather than, than this naive idea that I'm going to raise kids unaware of it, not that I even have any desire to, because one of my kids thinks he wants to be a writer. And I'm like, that's a great idea, right? So what that means in the present day is like, you know, you're involved in media. I'm

not going to act like it doesn't think. But I do, like you're saying, encourage a deliberate deliberate consumption of it You know, I don't like them to just get on like I don't like them to go To YouTube and just start consuming what served yeah, right? It's like is there an objective like what is the objective right now like, what path are you going down and take some control, like, remember the path, take some control about the path you're on. We do it very much with, we do it very much with books when my kids were young.

I, man, our books were about natural, like, we had a lot of kind of books. The ones that we went out and deliberately got, I got books about natural history, annals, dinosaurs, evolution, right, hunting. Yeah, what's the bird book you mentioned? Uh, bird song Bible, bird song Bible. That's the most important book we own. It's a large format bird book that has an audio player in it. I'm sure at this point it's probably gone to an app. Maybe I don't know, but you just type, man, audio player in it. I'm sure at this point it's probably gone doing app maybe I don't know but you just type man my kids love it you type in the number and it gives you the bird's vocalization. I'm on my second one. It's a phenomenal book. The other

most important children's book my brother in Alaska sent it to me many years ago, it was called Possum. It was funny that I had the book. It's hardcover, Robert McClum. You cannot find this book. I've looked because I wanted to gift it to people. It tells the story. I tell, I give a synopsis of this book in outdoor kids in an inside world. I give a snobson to book a while. I like it. It tells the story of a possum mother who's pregnant and she sets off with their young and there is terrible attrition of the offspring, a snapping turtle, an owl, a car, a snake. Meanwhile they're eating baby mice. They're stealing bird eggs from birds.

They're the bait of my existence in the end. There's one female left She meets a male they Spend one night together She then has 13 Babies She only has 11 nipples Two of the babies starved to death

And in the book ends 7 nipples, two over the baby starved to death, and then the book ends. And... Great for kids. Dude, it is, man. It's the cycle of life in there. Because my kids are like, I'm not gonna, yeah, I'm not gonna come tell you by my kids are perfect.

They're a far cry for perfect. My kids, I think that's important to me, is my kids are perfect. They're a far cry perfect. My kids, I think that's important to me is my kids are pretty tuned into the fact that there's life and there's death. Yeah, and it does they do not live in fear of it. And they do not think that they can somehow avoid that reality. And when you put something in their hands, they never say you Ever Ever Right, they'll eat anything They'll weigh it by what it tastes like they do not weigh it by what it is There's no like you could tell them anything I could be like It's a house cat. Maybe earlier

See all days. We've been doing that because like from the pandemic and then living out in the country, like our kids are like fairly animals. We've been having to work on some civilization. Like, look, hey, at this pool, you have to wear a swimsuit and you can't just pee wherever you want. It's not like other people have rules. Like, sorry, you know, you have to wear a swimsuit. And you can't just pee wherever you want. It's not like other people have rules. Like, sorry, you can't do that here.

You know what we just did is Faudi, man, is my wife went and found like, it's like the 13 most important table manners. Yeah. And she printed it off and it lives on the dining room table. And that's a good idea Well here's the Instead of every night trying to arbitrarily half-ass like enforce certain manners

She's now like 50% of the nights like last night was not was not a manor's night Tonight is a manor's night lay that print out on the table and you go by by these 13 rules. The goal being, the goal being, what we're going into a thing, we're going into a restaurant, is manor's night. Yeah. Can you turn it on and off as opposed to blindly, blindly follow it? Because we realize that we cannot get out of them blind

universal adherence because it doesn't work because of this reason. You're all of a sudden out of picnic and everybody's right you're like running around playing frisbee with a hamburger in your hand and their minds don't work that way. So then you go like well don't eat like don't get up without being excused. But last night, I was running around playing frisbee with a hamburger in my hand. You know? So it hasn't been that it's on or off.

We're gonna try that now. That's what we're trying right now. No, that's great. I love that. I go always kind of on. I got one last question for you. One of the things that one of my favorite passages when I was rereading it,

because I read American Buffalo before I had kids that I read, it hits you differently. As they say, you can't step in the same river twice. You talked about your dad quite a bit in American Buffalo, but you talked about this thing that goes through your head every time you're hunting this test, which to me is an interesting stoke thing. You're like, am I being pragmatic or am I being a candy-ass?

And how do you think about that in life and then also with kids? Because it is, it's like I try to be expedient, I try to be smart, I try not to do things that are stupid. At the same time, I don't want to be a woose, you know? And so how do you think about that balance and what's that voice that's at the same time, I don't want to be a woose. And so how do you think about that balance and what's that voice that's running through your head even now from what you got from your dad? I still, I have a version of it still. I can think of just a few days ago making a decision like that where there was a thing you know outweir I was outhunting in a wilderness area and

there was two options and they were like at face value it was like six and one and a half dozen and the other, right? Potential outcome. One was four miles more away. Yeah. I, like, in the end, I was like, I have to do the four mile away one. Because why is it in my head that I'm leaning toward the other one? Like, am I allowing that? Like, is there some reluctance to walk over there?

And so then I'm like, I'm just going to dispatch the, and I'm going to do that one because I'm going to make myself do the one that's that way. Do the one that's that way. Yeah, I don't want to be the kind of person that subconsciously is like ruling out labor with my kids. What I, the primary thing I find is I want them to learn things, but it's harder to have them help. Yeah. Cleaning fish, cleaning fish, I can do it faster and better. Right?

It'll take three times as long and all the flays will be messed up if they do it. If you're like a person, that's like kind of like a perfectionist and shit, that's shit's hard. But like I force myself to be like I'm gonna do the longer, less perfect version because they don't learn this now they'll never learn it. Do you think about that voice in your head? There's a great Bruce Springsteen thing where he says like are you an ancestor or a ghost to your kids right? Like are you voice what voice in your head are they? And I think about unfortunately a lot of the things I have from my dad are not like positive like life building

up things or unfortunately they how do you think about because ultimately we are the voice in our kids' heads right? How do you think about the voice that you put in their head? Man, my dad did a lot of great things. My dad did a lot, as a dad, he did a lot of great things. He did a lot of horrible things. I'd like to say that I, I'd like to think that I am bringing to my kids, those good things that I learned from him and I like to think that I am intentionally filtering out the bad things

Though I understand every impulse that must have been driving him. Yes Right have been driving him. Yes. Right. I'm like, man, I know why you did what you did. I can see it now. I don't like it. You shouldn't have. But I understand this shit is frustrating. It's hard to raise kids. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where that self discipline comes in, right? The like, I could do this. I could probably get away with this. It's not illegal to do this, but it's not right to do this. Yeah. I do it all the time. I mean, I'll lay in bed at night and I'll be like, you know what?

Parenting shit. I'll be like, that's got to end. You cannot do that anymore. You can't freak out on everybody like that. Yeah. You're gonna walk. There's not a single time I've ever lost my temper around my family that afterwards I was like

proud of myself. You know, it never aged as well. Oh, no, I'm like, oh my God, that was the right thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm always like, oh my God. When any time I'm frustrated or rushed afterwards, I'm like saying, oh my God. Well, anytime I'm frustrated or rushed afterwards,

I'm like, I cared about that. Like what, you know what I mean? Like you're like, you walk into our garage. It's all covered, they were drawing all over the garage. And I remember I was upset the first time I saw it. Now every time I walk by, I see the crayons on the garage, it makes me happy, right? And so why couldn't I have been there? You know what I mean? I have no plans to sell this house. And even

if I do, how hard is it going to be to cover up some crans? But I took it, you know, at the time, I inheriting from my parents, like, you know, you can't drink that in the car. You're going to spill it all over the place. Who gives a shit? You know, in retrospect, who gives a shit? Yeah, it's it's it's vaccine and I'll tell you that I think about this book The minute We found out my wife was pregnant 12 years and nine months ago whatever my agent

Who I bet was a long time, he knows Mark, right? Yeah, yeah. Mark Gerald, he's like, man, you gotta write a book about how you're gonna sort of like handle your kids and your relationship with nature, like how will you impart that on them? How will you give them what you got?

You know? And that's why I think it's a little premature right now, right? Like it gradually became my own idea. I became the only idea. But it took rather than, you know, it took me this many years to land in a spot where now I have a seven year old, a, a nine-year-old, a 12-year-old, I've landed in a spot where I'm not going to come and say to someone I would never present myself as a parenting expert or something, but what it comes to like kids and nature, I have racked up a level of subject matter expertise about like the hands-on practical aspects of it, right? And a lot of lessons learned.

And I definitely present the book. I present the ways and where I feel like I've messed up, where I've fallen short. What I've learned that I think would be good for parents to know who parents who do want their kids to feel at home, at eye level with nature, right? Like I feel that there's a lot in there, but man, I am not perfect. As a dad, my perfect as a husband,

I've never acted like I am. I would be very suspicious of anyone that claims otherwise. They're probably the worst. Like, you know what I mean? Oh, you know what's funny about that? Because whenever someone tells me how bad their kids are, I always say, I'm always like, I bet your kids are pretty great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The parents is like, oh, dude, my kids are nuts. I'm like, I bet they're all right. No, I think about that whenever my wife's like, am I doing enough and my screwing up, are we depriving them of something? I go, you know who's not thinking about that? The people that are actually not doing enough

and depriving their kids. Like that you're even thinking about the question. You're like, my parents weren't thinking about that question, right? And like, my parents didn't think about if I was getting enough water or not. You know, like I was just asking my mother and I was like, ever once did you think about whether Samantha was hydrated and she's like, I've never considered that in my life?

And I'm like, and yet you probably got upset when she threw a temper tantrum where she was acting weird. It's like, there's just the things that they weren't even aware to care about. You know, you're doing fine. Like you're doing great. Yeah, that's fine.

The dehydration thing. Yeah, that's hilarious. I think 90% of the time they're hungry, they're tired, or they're dehydrated. That's why they're acting like a crazy person. Not because they're shitty. It's not because you raise an asshole. Yeah. You've forgotten that, man.

It's on you. Well, dude, Yeah. You've forgotten that, man. It's on you. Well, dude, this is amazing. I love the new book. This one, I think, is an all-time classic. And the two hunting books are great. And I've used them both. And cooked many things from them.

Great. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk about it, man. I really, it's kind of you to do it. All right. Well, talk to you soon. Yep. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it.

And I'll see you next episode. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.