The Daily Stoic - Troy Baker On How Stoicism Helps Him Be A Better Actor And Father

Episode Date: June 10, 2023

Ryan speaks with Troy Baker about how practicing Stoicism enriches the life of the artist and the parent, why gratitude is so much more beneficial than comparison, why one of the biggest goals of life is to be okay with death, how a bad breakup and a Comic Con led him to Stoicism, why he cried reading Meditations for the first time, and more.Troy Baker is a voice actor and musician. Since starting his voice acting career in 1994, he has become known for a wide variety of roles in video games, film, and television, including Joel Miller in The Last of Us, Batman and Joker in various media, and English dubs of Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist. He currently holds the record for the most acting nominations at the BAFTA Games Awards, with 5. Troy’s work can be found at dpntalent.com/talent/troy-baker and on Twitter @TroyBakerVA.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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 Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke 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. 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. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I guess I just have to learn to trust my podcast producer, Rachel. I've been super fried lately. I've just been running around and did the launch daily dad. I've been editing a bunch of stuff finishing another project just a lot going on the boys have been sick

Thankfully, I escaped but my wife got sick. There's a bunch a bunch of been going on and so I sort of showed up and she said I actually I didn't I was in New York and then I flew in the morning because she told me I had an in-person interview and I get there and prepping for the interview and I'm like, who am I talking to again? And she goes, Troy Baker, the voice actor, the actor, the video game guy, she was like, he's a fan, you're going to love this conversation. And you know, you never know what to expect, but I did love this conversation. We had an amazing talk. And we really, again, you might not think this is a guy who's in the last of us, both the series and the video game. He's been in bleach, full metal alchemists in Naruto, Dragon Ball Z. He's been in a ton of stuff. He's, he's voiced the Batman, Joker, Hawkeye, and Loki.

I don't know. Like, seriously, he's everywhere, not necessarily in stuff that I consume a lot of, but he's everywhere. So if you know who he is, you might not think, oh, this is going to be an in-depth discussion about the ins and outs of stoicism. But that's exactly what this conversation is, and you're going to love it.

You can follow him on social media. You can check out his work everywhere. And I think you're really gonna like this one. We'll post a million clips of this interview on social, you know, I really nailed some topics that I want to share, and the video will be up at this. So this is an in-person interview with me, and Troy Baker.

Thanks Troy for coming all the way out. It was awesome to meet you. And I'm sorry even that I was surprised because now I am a huge fan and hopefully we'll do this again sometime. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things are piling up, I'm struggling to deal with something. Obviously, I use my journal. Obviously, I turn to stochism, but I also turn to my therapist, which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff. And because I'm so busy and I live out in the country, I do therapy remote, so I don't

have to drive somewhere. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Toxbase makes it easy to find a therapist that you like. It's convenient. It's affordable. By doing everything online, Toxbase makes getting the help you want easy and affordable. So why wait? And talk space can help with any specific challenge you might be facing. That's why it's

the number one online therapy platform with license therapists and over 40 specialties. It's secure and private and in network with most major insurers. As a listener of this podcast, you can get 80 bucks off your first month with talk space when you go to talkspace.com.sashtoic to match with a license therapist today. Go to talkspace.com.com.com to get 80 bucks off your first month and show your support for the daily stoic. That's Talkspace.com slash stoic. It's funny. I talked to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading. They're reading more than ever. And I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you?

And it's true, and almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. That's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, and of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love or something new to discover. And as an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest best sellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting

new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the key, the daily dad, I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10 year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books. So all those are available and new members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. That's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. or text daily stoke to 500, 500. And what's funny is I was suddenly heard that, it's on the right, so that the tattoo artist, I was like, I literally just want this,

he goes, great. And I got the tattoo and I was like, man, that's awesome, and I left the coin. Oh, with the artist too, I was like, you know what, man, that's yours now. I've got the smaller than the coin or bigger. Same size. Oh wow. Yeah, it's almost one to one. I've got the smaller than the coin or bigger, same size. Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's almost one to one. Yeah, because I was thinking about doing that at one point and then they're like, I was worried that they couldn't get the detail, but that looks pretty good. This guy, I've never had a tattoo or just take a break. And he was about an hour and he was like, anything a break man, because this is just the detail,

the attention to detail, this is over about year and a half, two years old. That's cool. So it's hung out, man. Well, that's certainly not what I thought would happen when I designed that thing, but... No. There's so many things where I'm like, I never thought that people would put... The thing that people put on their bodies, yeah.

Myself included is pretty... is pretty bananas. Well, that's the way you make something, and obviously you think it's going to resonate with people, but you're weird if you're like, and then they'll of course tattoo this on your body, right? Like if you like, or you're like, I'm writing this book or I'm acting in this thing and you're like, and of course it'll change everyone's lives and it'll be, you know, like you, that would be weird, right? Like, I think as an artist when you're making this stuff, you have to almost come. It's better if you come out of from a place like, I hope somebody likes it, but they probably won't as opposed to like, this is destined to be. Nobody ever said out to write it hit song. They just

wrote a song that they had to write and it just so happened to be a hit. When we put out the trailer for the last of us part two, it had been five years since we'd put it out the first game and we showed the trailer at this event called PSX and it's like a fully PlayStation branded event and they were closing the show with this trailer and we knew that they were going to do that and all we did was it starts off if everything the trailer

it starts off on this kind of like tracking shot pulling away from this you know overgrown beautiful lush town and then there's a stop sign where there's a firefly or a firefly symbol. And people see that and they just lose their minds. And then we show the rest of this beautiful trailer. And in the trailer, the main character Ellie has this tattoo on her arm. People left that event and went to their tattoo artist and who hundreds of people that day got that tattoo and people still come up to me.

Now, years after, you know, it's been two years, three years now, the game has been out. And the amount of people, guys and girls that have that tattoo on their arm is remarkable. And I think there's something about, I have no idea if we're going or not, but this is okay. We're just going to have to. I think that, I remember my first tattoo, which is my least aesthetically favorite tattoo, but it's the one that I, it's my first,

you know, so there's always something about it. It was 18 years old I walked in and I was terrified. And there was a t-shirt that I saw, this is in Dallas, a tattoo place called Tiggers. And there's a tattoo that said, my mom is gonna kill me. And I was like, I'm gonna leave because that's absolutely gonna happen to me.

And then right next to it was a shirt that said, your body is a temple, now decorate. And I went, that's all the justification that I needed. And for me, it has become a thing where I can denote where I was, who I was, at a certain point in my life by the tattoo that I got. And I've never regretted a single tattoo that I've got. There's tattoos that I don't like anymore.

Sure. But yeah, who you were when you got it is what actually matters. There's gonna come a time when this will fade and so will this and doing everything that I can to prevent those things or prolong that from having staving off that fading. But there is something about me turning into,

you know, memento where it's like, I wanna remember who I was and it's remember Sammy Jankus. It's funny is this is the one that I wish, I got this one. This is can't wait, but I wish that I had gotten this, this tattoo after I started reading your books because I would have gotten a more fatti instead, because it's the same intention behind it,

which is today's gonna be a challenging day. Can't wait, I've got cancer, can't wait. It's just understanding that whatever comes my way, okay, let's hit it head on. Let's not shrink away from my future. You know Pete Holmes, right? That's the amazing thing. This thing is, yes please.

No, yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. Yes. This is what's happening right now. Yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah. How did you meet Pete? How did I meet Pete? I listened to his podcast and

Then or I listened to a podcast. He was on and then I started listening to his podcast and then I got invited to be on his podcast Yeah, and then you know, it's like three hours long So it's sort of a fast track and then we became friends after that But I had a weird one speaking of a more far too tattoos. Have you seen Zach Brasson movie? No. A good person? No. He's obviously amazing. I want like Garden State came out when I was in high school. So like he was sort of that I like came of a generation. And then so in a good person, Morgan Freeman has a good chunk of the movie Pivots around the fact that in the ending, especially Pivots around the fact that Morgan Freeman has an amorphatic tattoo in the movie, which it turns out Zach Breff heard about from my

stuff. And so, I mean, that's obviously not my concept, but that is fucking weird. That was very mind-blowing to be like, okay, a person whose stuff I've grown up watching is asking me to watch this movie, and then I'm watching this movie, and I'm not in the movie, but something from my work is in them,

I was like, this is fucking nuts, but it is really cool. Morgan Freeman does have this more fought detentive in the movie. And then the ending of the movie pivots around why he has it and what it is really cool. Morgan Freepin does have this more far detentive in the movie. And then the ending of the movie pivots around why he has it and what it means to him. Is it a real tattoo? I don't think he has it in real life.

I don't know if Morgan does. Yeah, I didn't know. I'm almost positive. You know that I'm just like creating this false fiction. I'm spreading it out. I think that he does.

He's got the earring, so I'm assuming. That's true. Yeah, you're right. No, there's necessarily a conflation of those two. No, but he's not. Like, he's a cool guy. He's more than just like cool, because he's like old and dignified. He's like, also got a cool vibe there.

Yeah. The movie's great. All right, I gotta see it. It's weird, because like right now is, you have kids. You have five and seven girls, are they right? I do, that's why I was a little bit late. I got a kid with a stomach bone, look upstairs. Dude, is that right?

Yeah, he's good, he's good. But yes, yes, I do have kids, I have two. It's weird. Our days, we've had the same 24 hours our entire life. Yes. And I don't know how, how old are you? I am 36. 36, okay.

I got 11 years on you, homie. Yeah. So I started way later than you Boulder your kids five, okay, so just turn five. He had a revenge of the fifth birthday party. Oh, it was epic. That's nice. All right, our son is spoiled rotten. Yeah, which is a very We should talk about well, we'll get into daily data because I've already started. I started on May 6th. Yeah, and um, which is talking about punishment. I was like, was this a great way to start?

I was like, damn dude, come at me hard. But the notion of, okay, when I wake up, my wife and I have this sacred time. And it's the, I used to be the guy that slept until noon. Now it's like. That's the perk of working for yourself to know what you want. Or it is what I found out for me was, I was the kind of guy that like, if the sun was going down, I was waking up.

And yeah, there's, there's some kind of an artist mythology of like sleeping in the nocturnal creature. Yeah, there's something like defiant about operating on a different schedule. I believe that. Well, I found out, I'm not sure if're hit to Andrew Heberman, but like understanding how the body desires to function and being able to set that up in a way that my day starts and I go, here's how we're going to function. And I set that rhythm. So I find that I wake up earlier and earlier and enjoy that. And the nighttime is not like I'm, I still love being out. And I love the night that. And the nighttime, it's not like I still love being out

and I love the night air, even last night, like being in Austin, where the air feels different here as summer. It's a one-bed-meter here. It is the best time of year. Before it gets to August, and you're like, miserable. I wake up early and I kind of have this routine

where I do these five basic movements and because I want to keep myself mobile and I've got a great trainer and I realize that people say I've got a bad back and it's like, you don't have a bad back. You, I, there are some things that I need to do to make sure that I'm staying mobile and that I have the mobility that I need to as I get older. And so I was kind of not bedridden, but I was definitely injured for about three weeks. I find that you can spray in your ass. You can do that.

It's the glute medial and the pitiformis and I strained that and I had a sprained ass for about six weeks. So never wanting to feel that again. And it's just a weird thing. Like I have I had pain is a great source of empathy. And once I realized that there were people that woke up every morning and that was a chronic situation like that was their life. Was it?

Yeah. You have no hope of getting better. No hope of getting better. It may be more grateful for my body. It may be more grateful for the ability to help it get better. So these five basic movements I do every morning, and then I read Marcus. Right now, I'm also reading Seneca and I'm reading Daily Dad. I'm amazed.

And I kind of bounced between those three. And then in COVID, my weird habit that I picked up was I started learning French. So I'm now a thousand fifty days or whatever like I've a streak that I've been doing it. I'm doing go. Yandu Liga. Yeah. And it's awesome. It's it finally varied how to gamify learning a language. I've got a friend of mine who lives here in Austin and she's doing Japanese but we like are like a league together. So it's like it's the nerdiest way to learn language, but it's awesome. And then I get my first cup of coffee, and then my wife kind of finishes what she's doing,

and then we come down, and we just kind of get our day together. And then- How early are we talking? This is all happening. Typically, six to six thirty. Okay. Are kids awake yet? No. No. Typically, traveler wakes up around seven thirty. Okay. If he has to go to school, 30. Okay. Are kids awake yet or no? No.

Typically, Traveler wakes up around 730. Okay. If he has to go to school, he may sleep until 8 if he doesn't, but he's at the point now where it's come down to stairs by himself. Oh, that's nice. It is also still terrifying for me. But it's really funny when I said we just kind of get this glimpse. He's got long, mogly, blind hair down to his butt. And so we

just got this like naked dude standing on the staircase holding a random stuffed animal and just looking at us going, and we're like, do get down in here. But this like sacred time that we have to just check in with each other and figure out what we have to practically do for that day. And then the rest of the day belongs to everybody else, and then we get a little sliver of time at night. Yeah. So it's those sacred times that we cover. But it's...

So all of this to say, I want to watch the sac breath. It's really good. But it's the finding of those times. I watched it on the airplane. Now it's likely like that. Plains are what I catch up on shows. The problem is it's terribly, terribly sad. So I those times. I watch it on the airplane. That was like the only time. Plains were going to catch up on shows. The problem is it's terribly, terribly sad. So I was like weeping on this flight by myself,

which was weird. But it's a beautiful movie. Couple of things I'm going to invite from this. So one, Mark's realist, they think has some sort of like stomach ailment. Like he has this like, something's wrong. We don't know exactly what it is, but we can imagine him being

sort of a chronic pain, dude. And there's some argument or some believe that he's like hooked on opium. That is not knowing what it was. They're like, here, this will make it better. And there's some speculation even that that's where some of the weird kind of beautiful mystic passages of meditations comes from is he's like on opium. So I think that's interesting. But what I think about with that morning time is like, if I carve it out, if I start things off on the right foot, if we have a little time together, I get my shit, stram, sort of intentional about the day, then I'm more or less already succeeded

and everything else is extra. You know, like if I have a great writing day, that's extra on top. If I work out, that's extra. If it's fun, you know what I mean? It's all good from there. And I think that sort of time, it's all good from there. And I think that sort of time,

it's like to leave all that stuff till later, a lot of stuff has to go right. And you know what I'm saying? You know, like to have reading time, to have exercise time, to have family time, to have spouse time, like a lot of things have to go right for you to get that at 4 p.m. 5 p.m. Which is never happens. Yeah, it never happens. And then you're also tired, annoyed, frustrated. Like you're not your best self for that, right? Well, there's two things that I picked up from you.

I remember you, I think you did a specific podcast where there's just like a one little video where it's like, here's my day. Yes. Here's what I do. And one of the things you talked about, you're like, you don't... The relationship that you had with your phone felt very healthy. Like, I don't even... I don't check my email and look at my phone. I came up with the distance you said it was to your mailbox. It's like a half a mile or something like that. Yeah, the quarter mile to mine. So it's a little bit similar.

To where I wanted to intentionally make sure that I wasn't waking up, grabbing it and just looking. It sucked in. Well, not only do I get sucked in, but then I realize I'm already, it's reinforcing this notion that I'm already behind. Yes. Yes. And I'm not.

And I'm on top of my day. There is something incredibly powerful. I will say about because, you know, I travel a lot and I was traveling a lot internationally. I spent, last year was a rough year, man. It was a great year. Professionally, like there was, we had some incredible things happen, but at the same time, those things required me to invest my time and my energy and my focus into planting in those fields

and not being back at the farmhouse harvesting. And so I spent about four months out of the year gone. I was in Europe, or I was in London, or I was traveling other different places, but I was coming back. So I was gone for like two, three weeks and then back. And so my body was like, the fuck are you doing, dude, we're all over the place.

And I found out that one of the best things to do, it's not taking me all theleton and it's not taking anything that your body is depleted of, it's retraining, was retraining my body how to produce those things naturally. And one of the things that I did is I would wake up in the morning before the sun got up. Mm-hmm.

And then wait for that sunrise and dude, it's the stupidest thing if you really want to be nerdy about it. Play that first cue from 1977, or 1977 Superman, they're 1979 Superman. And that John Williams cue, where you're first going to Krypton, and it's just like that cresting of the sun over it. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.

It's like this beautiful emotional thing you can do for yourself. But if you get low-level sunlight directly into, there's the, I'm gonna say this wrong, and this is you can quote, Huberman on this, but there's cells on the bottom of your eyes that are designed to capture that low-angle sunlight. And then that is something that triggers your body to start producing.

It says, you're about to wake up. Maybe your body temperature goes up. And so once I do that that that sets my circadian rhythm so that the rest of the day I'm functioning better and I got to sleep and I'm supposed to I'm not like lying in bed trying to go to sleep or crashing in the middle of the day So like doing stuff like that help but the thing that I didn't have a protocol in place for was How do I reconnect back to my life? How to reconnect back to my son, how to reconnect back to my wife, how do I not feel like I've turned my house into a hotel that has this ephemeral quality to it. Yeah, I mean, I woke up at the Marriott

at Newark Airport this morning, and flew in for, are you serious? Yeah, because I had a talk in New York last night, so I flew in today. And so my whole thing, like I didn't get to work out, I didn't go to walk,, I didn't gonna walk. I woke up, you know, having to get on an airport shuttle.

Like it was not my, so it'll take me a couple days to get back into the thing. The problem is, I'm leaving again on Monday, right? And so like you're, well, I think one of the things I found, you mentioned sort of things, you picked up on COVID,

one of the things I really found out during COVID was like, oh, if I didn't like travel just like I wasn't, we went places, we took road trips and stuff, but like I didn't like I didn't go like on a business trip for almost 18 months. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this is my natural state, not like a couple weeks of not traveling,

but like the vast majority of time you're not going anywhere and you really get into a rhythm. And I've been thinking about that reason. I just wrote about this. I think for Daily Stoke, I don't know what's coming out of you, but I was thinking about how like one of the, one of the things that I felt during the early days of COVID was like that I had so much time. You know, the day suddenly felt so long, right?

Cause there were fewer things you were doing, you were obviously, they're like, no one was doing anything. And so suddenly, you know, there was, your work was getting done faster, you had time to FaceTime people, you went to high school, you know, like you just had time, you were picking up on the podcast.

Yeah, you just had time. And then what's been weird, you know, like you just had time, you're pretty strong. Everybody started by cats. Yeah, you just, you just had time. Yeah. And then what's been weird, you know, three years from that strange period is that it feels like all that a lot of that time has gone away, even though fundamentally, there's the same amount of time in the day, right? But the world felt like it was operating a little bit more slowly, but it's sort of realizing that that's's that's something you control the dial on if you want, but most of the time we're just like, oh, everyone's operating on this pace that's my pace and the ability to sort of turn it down or slow it down

actually requires like a lot of discipline, but if you can get there things are wonderful. For me the my wife is the one reminding me of this, and maybe you can tell by the etymology of the quote, but comparison is the thief of joy. Yes, that's Theta Roosevelt, I think. Most people think it is. I don't know if he made it up, but. It's a, that to me is one of the most, if no one's doing anything that's easier to not do stuff. Sure, but like what you're talking about is,

like the whole pace of the world slowed down. Everybody was in it together. There was the most communal, there's a few communal moments I can think of that I've had in my lifetime where 9-11 was a communal moment. We all felt that as a country and almost global. Sure. COVID was a communal moment. It's where all in hardship often becomes the best component for bringing people together. It's nothing helps create more community than tragedy. We've seen that here in Texas as well. The problem becomes when I start feeling like either

I am underperforming or outperforming based upon the status quo, based upon the norm of what everybody else is doing. And that's something that I still struggle with, which is the, again, I'm behind. Yeah, because I picked up my phone and my phone told us. Yeah, if you wake up in the morning and you're like, here's what other people are thinking, here's what other people are doing, here's what happened while I was sleeping, then you're like, shit, I gotta catch up. But if you wake up and you're like, this is my life,

this is my day, what do I want to do, what am I put here to do? You have a little, you have a version of that kind of bubble and the longer you can stay in it, the better I find. Like, if we, I wake up, I don't touch my phone, take the kids for a walk, we get outside, or like I said, I'm traveling, I get up, I go for a run, I work out, and I'm, you know, you're 7 a.m.

And you're like, I already like did some stuff. The lunchtime. Yeah, yeah, and it wasn't out out of there was no urgency to it. There was no insecurity to it. There was no distraction to it. There was just presence and experience and fun and gratitude. That's wonderful. That's what you want to do. Gratitude to me is the key because what I can have the tendency to do is start feeling obligation. Yes.

And I think that there, someone pointed this out to me where every new protocol, every new behavior feels false because it is. It's not, there is some feeling of, I'm not dancing, is I don't know how to dance. And I've taken dance classes before and it always feels weird. I picked up drums again because travelers showing some interest in drums. And so, surely for him, I got a drum kit. I've played on it every day. He's looked at it. He thinks it's awesome. But there's, this is an instrument that I've been playing since I was, you know, 12 years old, but of course, I've not devoted my life to it, I've devoted to other things. So it now feels false,

it feels weird, feels uncomfortable. But the more that I do it, the more, devoted my life to it, I've devoted to other things, so it now feels false, it feels weird, feels uncomfortable, but the more that I do it, the more, oh, that's right, I remember this, and this is, there is a physical sense memory, but it's, somebody pointed out to me this way, where it's choice leads to pattern, pattern leads to behavior, behavior leads to character. And over time, there's things like getting up early in the morning, man, that was not my

gig at all. Now it's who I am. No matter where I am, I do this weird thing where if even I'm in a hotel room, I don't use the blackout curtains. It feels weird. I will keep it just slightly open so that when sunshine's in, then I'm awake. And I'm allowing that to kind of trigger me. It's really weird if like you're in Vegas

because it's just always light. Yeah, yeah. But I just don't like to feel like I'm isolated and cut off even in a, it's a way, my own little, yeah, my own little night light, I guess. Well, it's funny when you have kids, right? You take them to the doctor

and the first thing they're doing is like giving you these statistics about where your kid compares to other kids, right? They're like, they're in the 90% high profile and 30% we pro. And you think about obviously there's some medical reason for this information, but it is inherently playing into this thing. We go like, wow, I gotta have a taller kid. Like, you know, like, uh, their arms aren't long enough. Like, they're giving you information about where your kid stacks up against other kids in a thing that is largely out of either of your controls, right? Completely.

And that is, I think, sort of a metaphor for parenting as a whole, right? Like, if you just had a kid and nobody else had kids, you wouldn't be like, six is when they better be reading at a certain level, right? Like, if you just had a kid and nobody else had kids, you wouldn't be like, six is when they better be reading at a certain level, right? You would just be like, obviously at some point, they'll get it. Do you ever get hit the bluey? The, that's okay. If you're a parent and you're not watching bluey. It's pretty incredible. It's very poignant in the same way that like, bugs, bunny cartoons were for kids,

but they're also for the adults. This is completely different humor and style, but the notion of, there's the walking one, it's like when are they supposed to walk? How quickly are they supposed to walk? I'm just made up shit. It's all made up. It's all made up.

A lot. I had a, what would be classified as a panic attack. We're literally sitting down for dinner, and I think Pam was pregnant at this point maybe. But I was, we're sitting having dinner and also I just kind of felt like, man, heart was starting to race a little bit. How did an Apple watch? This is my look and I was sitting down and I watched my heart rate go from 84 to 98 101 110 and I got out the dormant is at 120 and I thought I'm having a heart attack

I drove myself to the hospital and I learned that if you go to the hospital and you say I think I'm having a heart attack You don't get to just go home. Yeah, never mind. I'm fine. They're like we're immediately hooking you up to EKG come in and The doctor there is, they're always like the most, you could be walking and holding your own head. And they're like, well, it seems to be the problem here. Super calm and he's like, hey, he goes, Troy Baker.

Like, yeah, he goes, you a video game guy? I'm like, I am, he goes, man, I'm just playing last part two right now. I was like, this is not the time to have that moment. We'll get there. And he goes, because I see you're wearing an Apple watch. I was like, yeah, he goes, you told me what your heart rate was when you came in, and is that how you knew? Because the guy goes, did you watch it go up? Because the guy goes, let me walk you to the timeline.

So the second that you become aware of your own heart rate, it jumps up at least 10 to 15 ppm. Yeah, sure. Because now you're heightened by that. So it's increasing, giving more. Now you said, you ran out the door, you got out of the car. So now you're heightened by that. So it's increasing giving more. Now you said you ran out the door, you got into the car. So now you're in a panic state, which is increasing, it goes just the mention of going to the hospital is going to increase it. It goes, so what happened is, what was the last time you had a cup of coffee? It was like, um, and I traced it back and it's like, oh, I did. I had this. Literally, it was happening. Well, it was several hours before he's like, give your body time to process this, but it's going again to that notion of the comparison thing

where just by the sheer notion of something telling me, this is where I am at, and me thinking that's bad. Literally had a physical effect on me. So what do I do with my son if I have this notion where I think that he should be doing X better? It's really hard because my son is incredibly remarkably and if I have this notion where I think that he should be doing X better. Yeah. It's really hard because my son is incredibly remarkably astute and intelligent.

I think that's not a great kid. But it is, I see myself, man, I keep me jumping to so many different spider web tanges of this conversation. But bottom line, it took me, I'd love to talk about how I got into Stowe's, isn't it, but apropos to this specific thread of the conversation. It took me a long time to come to be able to say this statement with honesty, my parents were doing the best they could. There was nothing that needs apologies for a

Norfergiveness. They were doing the best they could. They were giving them a system. And those systems, some serve them, some didn't. They tried all of them, probably tried to come up with some new ones, those worked, those didn't work. But they were doing the best that they could. It is now incumbent upon me as a parent, to not only do the best that I can, but make sure that the best that I am giving traveler is the best for him, not the best for me. And what systems that I was given will work and what systems I have the ability to, I

was someone friend last night, if I look back six generations into my family and saw that every male in my family line had cancer. But I had the ability, it would stop with me. I would get cancer, but it would stop with me and travel or wouldn't get cancer. I would do anything in the world to do this. That is anger, and that has been the through line for my family. His anger, and I think it's remarkable

that Marcus continually talked about more than anything. Getting control of his anger. Yeah. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. There y'all! I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo. I'm just the name of you.

Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me, Kiki Keepiba Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask

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And you know he had a problem with it because of how much he talked about it, right? Yeah. He's not talking about like you got to remember Marcus jokes or funny, right? You know, come on man, letting up a little bit. Right, anger. Yeah, he's. Let him up a little bit. Right.

Anger. Yeah. He clearly had a huge problem with it. I think it's probably the thing that he talks to one of the things he returns to most. And you got to imagine, first off, he's looking so Hadrian, the emperor who sets in motion, Marcus eventually becoming a member. There's a story where Hadrian gets mad at a secretary, he messes something up, and he picks up a member. There's a story where, uh, Hadron gets mad at a secretary, he messes something up, and he picks up a pen and he stabs it in the guy's eye. Just like, that's

the level of power and indulgence that the Roman can get away with. The story is that the, he obviously feels bad about it after, and he goes like, um, I'll, I'll give you anything, like I'm so sorry, I'll give you anything to make it better. And I just, can I have my eye back? Yeah, I'm like that. And which is I think a point in it. Reminder that like the things that we do out of anger

cannot be undone. But you think about what Marcus could get away with and what would be tolerated. The fact that he's like sort of considered of this at all, I think deserve some credit. But then maybe you think about, if it's getting back to him that he has an anger problem,

how bad is his anger problem, right? So yeah, I think it's sort of, it's important that we don't see the still ex is not writing in meditations from this sort of sage like Zen perspective of having triumphed over his emotions. It's the opposite. He's saying that because he got pissed at people today. I literally picture him, you know,

when he's like, you know, from the river, you know, he's like, sitting there going, you gotta get your shit together, right? Yeah. When there's a passage towards the end, he's like, you're an old fucking man and you're still doing this, you can't get shit together, man. When there's a passage towards the end, he's like, you're an old fucking man, and you're still doing this. And you realize, this is not teenage Marcus

putting down rules for how he wants to be. This is 30, 40, 50 years of philosophy, Marcus who's still having trouble with this shit. With great teachers alone the way. It's like he didn't have a model for it. He had literally the best education and he's still struggling. So there is sometimes where I think that

the employing of comparison can be helpful. I do love this story. He's like, all right, here's literally the king of the world and most powerful person in the world, the most wealthiest person in the world and he's still going, I got to get my shit together. That brings me some comfort. It also inspires me. I think it's Ralph Walmer and Anderson that said, all of history exists for the sake of a single man.

And we look at that and go, oh, humans build pyramids. No matter what you see on Tech Talk, humans build pyramids. Therefore, I'm a human. I'm capable of great things. And so to me that there is this inspirational thing. I, so I have two one here, and I'm my wife Roman numerals. Yeah. Okay. Which is I know odd because people were like, well, he'd be Greek. It's like, yeah, but whatever. I can't cover it with my watch. It is always in sight. I was in the middle of a project and I've never had a fight with a co-star and I found myself on the streets of the city

in the middle of a fight with this co-star. I had a little fight. Not like a fist fight, but yelling. And I, the, here's a problem. I was right. Yeah, sure. I was right. I could, I could walk you through chapter and verse how I was justified in my anger,

justified in my argument, but I could point out chapter verse, the fallacy of their argument. And we ended up walking in separate directions, back towards the same hotel, like you can take a cab on walking. Just those adolescent moments, one of the most adolescent moments of my life. And that was on a Friday and I spent the entire weekend just going, man, how did this fail me? Years of doing this, this study, this practice waking up every morning and reading Marcus and meditating on this,

reading your books, listening to the podcast. This whole thing, and again, what I comparison, all of a sudden I found this parallel between, okay, so I was raised in the church, and there was a system that was given to me where here are the tenements that you live by, here is the belief system, here are the 10 commandments. And at one point, those I said failed me.

So I played 52 card pickup with my entire religious and philosophical belief since is what else is out there. And that's led me to this journey. What I realized is that those systems didn't fail me. Nor did I really even fail them. It is, that's the gig. Great. Start all over.

So what I did was I brought out and I went all the way back to the very beginning of meditations. So is that two one in meditations? Yeah, man, I wake up every day and I read it. The people today you will meet are jealous and certainly in stupid and annoying and blah, blah, blah. All of these things happen to them because they're ignorant so what is good and evil but you

were I who have seen that the nature of good is beautiful and that the bad is ugly. Yeah. And that my kinsmen the same nature exists in all of us and to me it's not just this is what I learned from that passage entry whatever is he woke up that morning and that was a real thing for him. It was, again, it wasn't the sage like Zen like pontificating. It was, it was like, yo, man, you need to begin every day by telling yourself, you're going to meet the person's going to piss you off, frustrate you. And I understand, I, I understood then that anger comes in many different flavors. And there's the anger that was demonstrated to me by my dad, which was yelling, and that's how you asserted power was by whoever

was loud as one, or throwing things, or there's a physical demonstration of anger, or there's the very passive, what I did, which was, I grew up and I was this gangly, awkward teenager, I was never gonna win a fist fight, but I will eviscerate you with my words. I will cut you down. So there's the verbal anger.

There's frustration where I've seen it in my son where if I get frustrated, I see myself in him. I see this mirror of myself. He goes, oh, come on. I'm like, you got that from me, 100%. It's like a Christmas story. Where'd you learn to curse like that? Yeah, I couldn't tell him it was from them.

Yeah, fudge, but only I didn't say fudge. I just real thing. Yeah. All of those systems, I realized I'm like, oh, this is how I'm now imparting them onto him. And there's some things where you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I can't put the genie back in the bottle. This has been my, you'll hear me do this a lot. Um, in therapy, my therapist, I said, you know, like when you find yourself, they're like, who me? It went, what? Just because you said you, are you talking about me,

or are you talking about yourself? I was like, oh, no, I'm just talking about people in general, because why are we bringing people in general? I mean, they're not in this room, it's just you. What do you do? Right. And, you know how everyone's exactly like me. Yeah, and we can just all kind of bring everybody

down to my little real quick for a minute, makes people way better about myself. Again, the comparison thing. I, with all the conversation, uh, circling pronouns right now, which I believe that we should be having those conversations at a very easy conversation. Doesn't matter. Yeah. There's nothing needs to be debated. Whatever somebody needs to be called, feels they want to be called, choose the call

themselves. That's what they, if you said, Hey, my name, Gates big fadden, and on Star Trek, love the show. That's not her name. She walked onto set one day and said, call me Gates, sting one day, I said, don't call me Gordon, call me sting. That's balls, man. Yeah, who gives a shit?

Who gives a shit? Doesn't matter, the only reason why people fight that is because they're afraid. That's a whole other conversation. The pronoun war that I fight every day is not saying you, when I mean to say I or me. And so I've been changing my pronouns to, I feel this way, I do this.

The problem with me is, and that's a daily battle that I get to wage with myself is don't let myself become susceptible to the thief that compares, but that I choose to go, oh no, I have no idea if anybody else is dealing with this, but today I am. I was joking with someone the other day that my wife and I fight about pronouns all the time because I never know who the fuck she's talking about. She's always like he or she or they.

And I'm like, you didn't, can you name a person first? You have to say Steve was doing X and then you can, you can pick up your name. Am I the key in this one? Who are we talking about? But my favorite part of that Marcus quote is towards the end, right? Cause it begins, actually when I was on the daily show,

he asked me if I had like an inspirational quote that I would replace live life love or live life love with. And I said that quote. I said to one for medicine. Did you get it really? Yeah, because I think it's funny, right? Because it begins so darkly, right?

The world sucks. People suck. Your day is going to suck, right? It lists all the shitty attributes of the people and the worst people you're going to will meet today. And then it kind of about midway through, it takes this surprising turn, which is he goes, but you can't hate them. And he says, you can't agree with,

you can't agree with him. And he says, and you can't let them implicate you in ugliness. And he says, we're made to work together like two hands or two rows of teeth. The upper and lower rows of the teeth. We're made for cooperation. And so I think that it's like,

what that quote gets at is, I think, actually, is itself kind of a microcosm of Marx, realist and meditations, which is at first glance, it's dark and depressing and resigned. And if that, if you only skim the first part and you don't let the second half sink in, you get the wrong impression. But if you read it all the way through and you sit with it, and most importantly, you try to apply it, it's actually beautiful, it's actually inspiring, and it's actually profoundly hopeful, right? Like a depressed, resigned, positive person doesn't go, look at how shitty people are, but I'm

here for them, and we're going to do good stuff together. And I don't control the things they may or may not do, but I do control whether I let the bad stuff in this world drag me down. If I control whether I am jealous and certainly an anxious and awful in all of these things. And to me, that is the whole of meditations could just be that passage. That to me, it's almost the perfect definition of stoicism as a whole. There's also this notion of, you chose this. I chose this. If these people are in front of me, because at any moment, I can abdicate my throat if I want to.

But if I showed up, this is the gig. So I have forfeited the right to complain. You knew I knew going in, these are the people that I'm going to meet. So remember, we're just staying in bed today. Right? Just staying in bed? Yeah, exactly.

Just don't do anything. Yeah. So that is why I love it. That's the reason that literally, that's the second I got back, I was like, I got to get this because I need to look down and go. And it's on my right-handed dominant,

travelers left-handed. We think who knows? All of them decide. But this is on my weekend and to me that is Reminding myself. That's why can't wait is on my hand that I agree with is like a can't wait So these two things go hand in hand or wrist and wrist rather well There's something that our market talks about that and meditations. Maybe you missed it but he talks about how he's practicing using the reins,

holding the reins to his horse in his non-dominant hand. So you can get better with practice. And so the idea of like you put on the face, you try the thing that's outside your comfort zone, you strain to do the thing that you're not naturally suited to do, that you do it the way that's not easiest. That's how you get better. This is interesting. I'm looking at you. You have paper on the right hand, which tells me that you're right handed, but you're

holding the pencil. No, I'm left handed. I'm very left handed. Interesting. I just put this here because I'm not really writing on it, but also I do. Do you ever try to write with your right hand? I am very, very, very left handed. Like, as far as any kind of writing thing, I do, I think I bet.

My dad was left handed, but he was also cheap, and so he didn't want to have to buy more expensive sport equipment. So like, so many people. So like, I think I like, I think I bet whatever the reason And so he didn't want to have to buy more expensive sport equipment. So like so many people. So like I think I like I think I bat. Whatever the normal way people is I golf the way normal people like. I remember I if you're a play guitar you play right.

Well I so like I got a guitar and I got a left-handed guitar. So it's very left-handed and then I wanted to get a new guitar and he's like can't you just switch? I remember him like I was like no I can't switch I remember. We-handed, and then I wanted to get a new guitar, and he was like, can't you just switch? I remember him like, I was like, no, I can't switch, I remember. Rewire your brain real quick, kid. He went to my guitar teacher, he's like, are you sure?

He didn't, he was like, this would save me like $200. This was the same like $200. We can't, I just haven't rewire his entire brain, relearn the entire instrument, but yeah, no, I'm very left-handed. Interesting. Yeah, but that is it. Like I remember early on, there was some,

like my son was using his right hand, and it looked maybe like he was left-handed at first, and I remember going like, are you sure? And then my wife was like, why do you have an opinion about this? And I was like, you're right, why do I have an opinion about this? It is what it is, and are there some benefits?

They think creatively to being left handed maybe but like Pretending to be left handed doesn't give you the benefits right lights literally It's like you're either wired to be you know, I mean like geniuses choose green You didn't choose it. Yeah, it's like in fight club sticking feathers everybody does not make you a chicken right like pretending to be left Handed doesn't give you the benefits of being left handed and And also when I think about it, be left handed is also sucked like scissors suck and getting you know the ink smeared on the side of my hand. Why? Like why am I forcing it one way or another?

Like this is another thing. It's another thing that not have an opinion about. And when I think about this is a parenting thing I've been, I think it's in the daily doubt a little bit, but like the source of conflict between parents and children so much of the time is about parents having opinions about things that they don't have to have opinions about. And if they didn't have an opinion about it, things would just be. And how much of the conflict I had even with my own parents that in retrospect seem silly

because like I don't care about it anymore, but why do they care about it at all? And it's, it's, which is a very stoic idea in meditations and marks to do this. It's something like, um, remember things are not asking to be judged by you. Or he says, you always have the power to have no opinion. And I think parenting is done wrong. The opinion is about a bunch of shit that's not your fault, like what their sexuality is, what sports they like. I do, you know, why do you care? Like why do you care?

Why do you actually have a strong opinion about whether your kid can dye their hair or not? Is it because there's some legitimate health reason not to do it? It's certainly not gonna affect their employment, their seven, you know what I mean, or whatever, or 10. Like, you don't want your kid to die their hair green

because you think other parents will think you're a bad parent for that. I think there's that, in my experience, what I've learned through this so far. I'll never forget, when Traveler was born, I counted his fingers and toes, and I'd get almost involuntarily. Yeah, yeah, I think they tell you to do that.

We, I mean, a weird birth man. No, they tell you to do that, and then that's even like, I'm like, people, like, our son was born today, he had 10 fingers and 10, it's like, it's like, what you're supposed to report. He's normal. Yeah, she is normal. Everything's intact.

Yes. And we didn't mess up. But for me, at least what was revealed to me in that is that the desire and the fear was that, again, going back to the cancer, it's please let everything that's bad within me stop with me and let him be perfect and pure. And for some reason to me, the 10 fingers and 10 toes was a totem of that, was somehow a demonstration of everything that's bad within me. He was starting

over from scratch and it wasn't just passed on. But I think the reason why I get afraid of What will he be left handed right handed? I'm not I think it's actually kind of cool Who will he like who will he not is Momentum worry it is at the end of the day it comes down to I don't have control over it And that makes me feel uncomfortable if I'm not in control of that Ultimately it all points to I'm afraid of dying Yeah, and that's why to me I'm afraid of dying. Yeah. And that's why, to me, the memento, Mori of all the aphorisms is the one that means the most to me, because if I can get cool with death, and Don Roberts' book, he talks about

this where I'm going to butcher this quote. But in speaking to death, he says, I've imagined you. I've imagined you many times. Now pass through the gates of my imagination and let us visit his friends. That to me that quote and also there was a soul you may know the story a soldier Approaches as general and says sir your son is dead and the general responds. I knew he was mortal Yeah, it's an epic to this I think or somebody's maybe 10 because it says yeah I knew I knew it was mortal when I had him that to me is everything because if I can bring myself to that and that sounds cold and callous on the surface, but it is also to me the most loving thing was like,

I knew that my son wanted to be in the army. I knew that he was going to take a risk. And if I had been a weaker father, I would have prevented him from doing the thing that he wanted to do more than anything. I would have prevented him from being the person because he could have potentially gotten hurt. But I allowed him myself to assuage my fear enough to not stay in the way of him becoming the person that he wanted to be.

And I knew that and I accept that. Even if it means it is the most crushing, horrific reality that can possibly imagine for myself. I knew he was mortal. Do you do the stoic thing that Marcus talks about in meditations where he says like as you tuck your child in at night you say to yourself like they may not make it to the morning like that this is a mortal being that you are tucking in and you don't control what happens. Can you do that? Because it's the hardest. So I have this thing that I say to Traveler every night. I've done it since he was a baby.

And he's at the point, Craig Mason has this thing where kids will hit this different point in their life where they reach the age where it's fuck you, no, tuck me in. And it's this, I don't want to be around you. I don't want to hug because I don't want anything that but still tuck me in. It's, I still need you to be daddy. I still need you to be mom, but I'm still my own person. And there's elements of of fuck you tuck me in that traveler already has,

and it's whenever I say these words to him, and that to me is I have this like weird superstition, like I'm not gonna do it three times. So make sure because if I don't do that, he's gonna stop breathing. And so there is a version of that that I do where it's like I understand that today was a gift. And I'm not promised the same gift tomorrow, but if I get it again, I will ravish and ravenously enjoy it. And I think about it's like, so why am I trying to wrap this up? You know what I mean? Like to me, the idea of meditating on this thing, which I think you do privately, I don't think you need to let your kid know. But you know you're like, yeah, that's the same to each other. I don't think that's the right way to do it. But I do think there is something in, okay, if I know that there is some night that you're going to do that and it's going to be the last

time, either for you or for him, for you or for that. So why is it that you're saying you won't read one more book? Like why is it that you're saying stop fucking squirming around? Like why are you saying you got to count? Like why, why are you not just letting this unfold as it unfolds? Like if you truly understood that you only get to do this a certain amount of times, why would you try to rush through it? Because what are you rushing towards? You're rushing towards the last time you can do it.

It's because I'm afraid I'm gonna be a bad dad. It's a, I'm afraid I don't, I need to exercise and learn new systems that allows me to be a better parent than, and I don't, I don't mean this is a disparagement against my dad, but the system that was given to him was, because I'm your father, because I said so, I have this assumed inherent authority over you.

And that bedtime is this time, and if you are not in bed by this time, then you're doing something wrong and I'm allowing you to do so. Like there's just so a soul. This barbature, have a bad kid. Yeah. And the thing that Pam and I were very quick to dispel from over capillary is you're not

a bad kid. You're not a good kid. Yeah, you're just a kid. You're just a kid man. And he has zero responsibilities right now. Our pediatrician is amazing. And he's setting the give you one piece of it on solicited advice. He goes, you have one rule, not many, one rule. He tell your kids, you can do whatever you want.

But the second you hear me say your name, you stop doing that thing and you come to me. Instatuting rules for a two-year-old is just the most specific. Everything's incumbent upon me. It's my job to provide for him. It's my job to, and we tell him, what's our number one job he was to keep me safe. It's like, that's all I gotta do. So if I tell you to stop doing something,

why am I telling you to do it? Because I'm not keeping you safe. So his job is to be five, and that's it. It's not to learn all these tenements and responsibilities. Be five, go, the fact's it. Yeah, yeah. It's not to learn all these tenements and responsibilities. Be five go I the fact that when he falls we we every bruise that he gets like dude way to go man Way to go you did good the day is like oh man. Just so gnarly I don't like my knee. So how did you come to Stoicism? Oh man. I

Have you ever broken up with a friend? I suppose yeah, I have broken up, I've had relationships go south and I was a serial monogamous as a friend of mine told me. So I would jump from one relationship to the other. With friends or no, like romantic relationships. But I'd never broken up with a friend and this is 2016. You don't just ghost, you actually have a breakup?

There was a breakup. And which I'm weird, man. I went into, this is a separate thing, but I was the guy who called my agent. I was like, hey, can we have a meeting? They're like, yeah, so I went to the new office and then I was like, hey, so I'm out. And we need to find an exit strategy that is

to change the video, and they're like, wait a minute. Nobody, you email us. I'm like, you hired me too many old stuff for you. I'm gonna do it to your face. But this was a relationship that, there was so much anger there. And I realized, oh, here's what's happening. I am preventing you from being the person that you are

trying to be and you are preventing, I'm allowing you to prevent me from being the person that I want to be. So instead of us getting frustrated at each other, this relationship is no longer, it's for us, of course, and I'm out. When I did that, I didn't realize that I had made this person the lynchpin in my entire social network. So once I removed that lynchpin, I'm now untethered to that social network. Right, they got all the friends in the friend of ours. Yes. And so all of a sudden, I find myself lost. And I had rock bottom, man. It was the darkest that I've ever been in my life.

And there are pools of thought that one that I began swimming in that I was like, I might need to reach out for some help. So I found myself in Glasgow, Scotland, I do a lot of Comic-Con conventions and it's really cool. It's a great interaction. I get to hear things that I've been a part of, what it means to people and I get to share in that community.

But then also you get the hotel bar conversations to where it's like people that you never would have thought you would have been a cross or just kind of ran to people come into your life, come into my life and I get to come in with them for a little bit and then we're on to our own thing. And I ended up opening up to this guy named Igor. In the hotel bar?

He's with a friend of mine, but he's like the plus one. He's just the guy that tags along. And I hope he listens to this. He, we're talking about different stuff and he goes, have you ever read meditations? I was like, yeah, I've meditated before. He goes, no, no, no. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

And I shit you not. I was like, are you talking about the guy from Gladiator? He's like, you know that was a real emperor. I'm like, I'm gonna allow myself to be the stupidest person in this conversation openly. So please teach me, he's like, here's a book, he showed us how to feel on Amazon. And he goes, it's 4.99, it's the blue Dover Thrift edition.

He was like, this is the George S. Long translations, the one that'll retain kind of the King James Nis of it, which you will vibe with, but you need to get this. So it's like 99 pages, I'm like, okay, I get this by get home, the book's waiting for me because we live in a magical world with things that can get to us in 24 hours. See, when I bought meditations,

I had to buy two other books to get free shipping. That's cool. It was sweet. I was on prime to not exist yet. Otherwise you had to pay, and I'm gonna like to get it. So I get this book, just yet. Hmm. Otherwise, you had to pay, and I'm going to like to get it. Yes. So I get this book, and I made this, I don't know why, but I always had struggled with

telling people, if they said, have you ever read this? Yeah, absolutely. Have you ever seen this? Absolutely. And a few years before then, I had been, we're in my apartment and some friends of ours. We had just all auditioned for this aliens game. And it was three of my closest friends and we're like, man, I really feel like I want to rewatch aliens. I'm like, yeah, let's rewatch that classic movie. And so we walked, and from my apartment, you could walk outside, go across the street, and on the

other side of the street was a blockbuster. And so we get aliens, we come back home, and we sit down, and we pop it in, and title screen comes up, and I press pause, like, I just want you guys to know I've never seen this movie before. And it came out, like I blurred it out. And what I realized in that moment was that the joy that people get to be there

for the first time is one of the great, it's like, oh, I can't, I don't want to watch this. I want to watch you watch this. And so I found this new joy in humbling myself, getting a pretending instead of pretending and saying, I want to watch this. So I decided to make this commitment that I wasn't going to just burn through this book. And I was like, I'm going to take time. There's this old far side cartoon where Gary Larson drew this kid with this really, really small head. And he has his hand up and goes, teacher, can I be excused?

My brain is full. And I said, I will either stop when this book stops me, or I will only read an entry a day. And so it took me 18 months to get through. Meditations. And there's only two books that I've read, sorry, three, including a graphic novel. Why the last man, believe it or not, didn't cry in the road. The book or the movie?

We don't talk about the movie. We'll talk about the book. Okay. But one of the best opening lines in a book, if the child was not the word of God, the God never spoke, because one of the best lines that Kormel Carpese has ever written. Great idea. If you've never read City of Thieves, David Benioff, it's a wonderful story about his grandfather. Half fiction, half not, you don't know which is which. But I got to the end of that

and I cried. And I got to the end of meditations and I cried. Partially because the aspiry you talk about the beauty of it. He dies. He talks about that though. And talk about departing this life satisfied. And I was like, that's the goal. Depart this life satisfied. And to not, and he talks about being an actor, which I thought was pretty cool too, which says, don't react.

Yeah. And don't get upset because your time is done. You did your thing. Get off stage. It's done. It's okay. I was just talking to someone about this the other day, like the more you read meditation

and the more experiences you have, the different, you pick up different things. So like what I took me till the pandemic to pick up on this fact that as he's wrapping up meditations, he gets probably the plague, like he knows that he's dying. And he has to send his son away because they can't be near each other because he can't let his son get the plague. And so you just think like the period on the sentence

of all of the things that Marcus goes through. However flawed comedic is and comedic seems to be about as bad as fucking Phoenix's character presents him as. This is the only son that was still alive, right? He so he buries all these children and then in his last moments because of the job and then because of as it was in COVID it was during the Antonin plague. You die alone. Yeah, you die alone. And and still he manages to

pull out this kind of beautiful hopeful passage that's full of gratitude and appreciation and almost like a fearlessness for whatever's happening. That's practicing what you preach, I guess. Are you familiar like what's attributed to be his last words? Yeah, go to the rising sun for I am setting. What I've heard was, and now if you will grant me, I will take my leave and pass on ahead of you, which is the other one was, don't weep for me, or why are you,

oh my gosh, it was like, yeah. Why are you weeping for me? This is not my first death, this is my last. As I understand, he said something like, why are you crying for me? Think of your own death. And think of the death of all of the people that have what I have.

What I have. But yeah, and you know what? Antenitis is last words were. So Marx's stepfather. So basically, they think that you have these last words and then there's sort of this last word. Either it's made up or it's some sort of part of the transition from power.

The Emperor kind of says, so this is what you say when you die. Yeah, yeah. They think Marcus's was go to the rising sun for I am setting, meaning like I'm not the Emperor anymore. Go the rising sun. Yes. But, but, um, and tonight's his last words was equanimitas, or equanimity, or stillness, or poise, or peace, and say that there's some kind of, like, with your last breath, kind of a, how do you sum it all up, nists, to it? There is that notion with me that I hope.

By the way, I have to say it's incredibly intimidating, and I, the conversation about comparison, it is incredibly intimidating to try to quote or even remember in front of you. So I'm acknowledging that. Yeah, yeah. We'll play video games. I'll school you. Yeah. The, there is that romantic notion within me and maybe that's something that I need to

surrender where it's, when I, when I come to that point, um, by the way, the, the first copy that I have of meditations is. That's the other one. Yeah, it's in my safe. I love first editions. Yeah. I'm a book collector.

It's my, it's been my souvenir wherever I go in the world I go and buy a book. And I've got some really cool ones that I'm proud of. One is a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's play The Vegetable. And in the card, it says that it was received so poorly, but not only the audience and the critics, but including the director himself who left before the end of the first production. And I'm like, I have to buy that because to know that you can go ride the Great American novel and then ride a piece of shit. There's both of those, the capacity

isn't within both of us for goodness and just utter shit. But that first copy is the cover is worn, the pages are, it's been used and it's all marked up. And there's something that I hope that when traveler, whenever, whether he's 40 or 14 or whatever decides, that's not his copy. And it sits on our safe and I've done the dedication to him, um, which is a message just between he and I, but it's also like, I want you to know just like I have these tattoos. This was my first underlying.

Yeah, sure. So if I were to go back through and read it now, there's all sorts of stuff that would stand out to me, but this is the thing that hit you. And I did it in one color, it was like, I want yours to be a different color. That's beautiful. What is it, what's gonna hit you when you read this? Well, I have a leather edition that I'll give you that might stand up a little bit better. Yeah, I do.

Cause yeah, mine, I have the paperback of the Gregory Hayes translation, which is the one that I love. And- Just the more modern translation is that right? Yeah, it's for the modern library, but I think he, it's not King's James, but it's very sort of poetic. And there's some people they dispute,

you know, certain things they don't like it, but I think it's whatever, it's like, you got into whatever music you got into. So I love that one. But mine was really starting to be worse for the wear. And so I decided I would start fresh. And so this leather one is great. I'll give you that. But you can think about this. Where's Marcus' copy of Epic Teedis, right? Does he have the exact same discussion with comedists and then comedists probably doesn't listen at all, but maybe he gets to one of the other sounds that don't make it. But yeah, the idea of like this thing changed to me and every time I come back to it,

I'm different because I was changed by reading it the first time, and then I'm also different because of the things I went through and you kind of never come back to the same... You never come back to the same book, you know what I mean? I agree. Because you're not the same, the book is not the same, the world is not the same, and there's this kind of really cool process of returning to the same ideas over and over and over again, because they're not really the same.

I think there's this misnomer, I've had this conversation with my brother and I was, he's a blue collar scholar, he's an incredibly intelligent person and where he's decided to devote his study practice, whatever is with him or the fundamental beliefs of the Bible. And I'm ravit asleep, devouring content from all sides of it,

because I do love discourse. I love debate. But I think there's this misnomer that anything that ends in an ism is somehow a religion. And the thing that I found for me that was revealed to me through this is that this is as much of a religion as a diet and as a practice, it's a protocol. It's a way of thinking, it's a way of operating, but it is not a religion that is venerating. I have a tendency to venerate these people like I beteges in

Ensenica and like my rock stars like be going all the way back to Xenon. It's like how cool is that. There's these stories that I've helped propagate and learn and I've loved discovering about. And maybe I do fall into the same pattern I did when I was reading about the disciples and everybody else who was in the Bible. The difference though is that it doesn't replace anything of that. It builds upon or it goes alongside.

I was going, my first reading, I started reading meditations and then I would go over to Alan Watts. And so I was like doing this East and West thing and seeing the crossover between there. It was similar vibe. There it is. It's a completely different approach to the same thing. And I can see how the thing

that a little bit of Alawat did was that he would talk about is like, first you need to understand the history of this. And so the very first part of the way I've done is just kind of the same way of like the book one of meditations is like, I'm going to go through and acknowledge all these people. But if you want to understand why the importance of this is critical to the and foundational to understand the arrest of these chapters, know who these people were in my life, why he thinks his stepfather, why he thinks all of the people, some of the people that even tried to hurt him, what he learned from that. That's an incredible forward.

I have a tendency to want to skip past that, but I, but sometimes I wonder, because we don't actually know that he wrote it that way. So it was compiled that way. Yes. Maybe he wrote it that way, maybe, or maybe that one was the way it was, and then everything else is compiled differently. But it's also, it's interesting.

What if that was just, he just woke up one day, and he's like, oh, what did I learn from sex to? So what did I learn from Antonidas? Do you know what I mean? Or maybe it was, I don't know. It's also, it's fascinating to think we don't really know when he wrote it, how he wrote it, why he wrote it, how he ordered it, what it looked like.

That wasn't until it did. 19th century, so it does that right? It's like good. Yeah, I mean, we have copies that go way back, but it's like we don't have the copy, right? And he certainly didn't publish it He'd probably be mortified. Wasn't it it's to himself right it was supposed to be it was never supposed to be This is where it gets there's something that I've been

I don't want to say dreading because that sounds way too dramatic even for an actor, but I Have been avoiding journaling. I'm interested. And the reason why is because, and I understand the power of journaling now, even writing down my thoughts, there is ownership in them. And so there is this incontrovertible reflection of my thoughts that if I keep them just up in my head, not even myself has to recognize them. And there is this, again, this weird comparison

with Marcus never wanted people to read this. Well, what if you wrote 500 more entries? And these are the only saw the ones that we saw? Yeah, maybe we got rid of all the back. But even still, that's not the point. And it's something that obviously you talk about exhaustively about the practice of doing this. And I was like, yeah, I should do that journaling. And there's a lot of people that's like, I'm going to do my daily devotional. And even even daily data is very much of like, yeah, I should do that journaling. And there's a lot of people that's like, I'm gonna do my daily devotional. And even daily data is very much of like, here's a bite-sized thing.

Read this, take it in. But the, I love vinyl because there's a relationship that the listener has with the material that it's finite. You know, after 22 minutes, you're gonna have to get up and if you want to continue the experience You have to flip that record over put the needle down and begin side B There's a whole I never listened to side B of Joshua tree for like Years because I just loved where the streets have no name with or without you all of that

That's all that I wanted to listen to so before we flip over You just I would rewind or I would just you know drop with or without you, all of that, that's all that I wanted to listen to. So before it would flip over, you just start. I would rewind or I would just drop, drive the needle over to the very outside edge. And then I was driving and I had a tape and like an old tape player's for you young kids who don't know, you didn't have to turn the tape over

into this auto flip. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, I didn't press stop rewind or whatever fast enough and I start hearing only there's other good songs. Red Hill Mining Town. And that became one of my favorite U2 songs and when they came back through LA they did this World Tour. I'd seen them on every tour by Joshua Tree. And so they did this 40th anniversary of Joshua Tree. And they came back And so they did this 40th anniversary of Joshua Tree. And I came back and they played this one song on Sunday and started hearing those guitar tones

of those delayed tones of the edge playing Red Hill Mining Town. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I get to hear this song. They get done and I shit you not. Bono goes, he looks at the edge and he's kind of nods, he goes, we've never played that song live before. That was the first time. And Buddy and I was at the show the night before and I was like, did they play Red Hill Mine Town?

He was like, no, they played this song as like they just played Red Hill Mine Town. And they never did that. So I got that moment. And so I think about all the other things where, because I won't allow myself to have a relationship with that, what am I missing out on? What's the Red Hill Mine Town moment

with journaling that I have? That maybe I do want to preserve that to be able to look at my tattoos and go, man, I don't like necessarily this, but now I can appreciate it because that has grown into this. I don't like the colors of this. I would never do that again, but how grateful I am that I have that written down as a marker to remind myself of the person that I was, if for no other reason than to measure the growth of where I'm currently at. I have a funny Bono Stoicism story over here. So there was this guy's like a studio head and he read some of the books and he wanted some like marketing advice or media advice or something.

So I flew out to LA and I was meeting with him and he was like, my, I wanted to meet my wife. So he took me to dinner. What's the hotel everyone has dinner at? One of the fancy hotels, like Beverly Hills, something or other. The Beverly Hills, yeah, maybe. I don't know, some fancy hotel.

Yeah, so we're sitting there and like, Bono is sitting at a table like down the row or something. So do you want to meet Bono? And I was like, sure. And so he's like, okay, they're apparently friends. And so he like walks me over and he's like, Ryan, this is Bono, Bono, this is Ryan. He's like, Ryan wrote this book, The Daily Stoke, He writes about stoicism. Have you heard of him? He was like, no. Cool. Why did you do it? You know, why did you do it like that? Like, you don't know. So that, that, my, my Bono story is him being

him Not acknowledging Anyway, as of course he should not but the Schrodinger moment that you lived in for that moment We were like this could be the time Bono goes I love your book No, I knew it wasn't gonna. I was it was it should have just been this is a regular person off of the street meeting you Bono Not a presumed mutual. I heard of him, no, getting things so either. Go back to the table, be back in the middle of the kid. People go like, what do you do?

And you say like, I'm an author, and then go like, what books have you written? And then you know, you're just having to tell them in this moment, something they've never heard of. Yeah, but it's way worse, because no matter what it does it that way, they ask you in the strangest way, is like, anything that you have that I would have Yeah, I have no idea what you're taste. What do you like? What would I you're an actor? What what do I know you from? Yeah, I have no idea

I've never lived your experience you tell me a lot of times So it was that but with bono but with bono that would make me shrink away so bad. There was this moment where There was a person who came out and I was like, hey, can I tell you about something? And I don't remember what it was, but it's something I didn't want to hear about. And they were like, we really have to share this with you. I swear it was like Mooney's or something.

It was really weird and anachronistic. And I was like, oh no, thank you. I was like, okay, well, hey, you're famous. I'm like, to some people. And he was like, what have you been as like a lot of things? He's like, okay, well, can I take a picture with you? And I'm like, you don't know who I am. You just know it's something.

But now you're somebody, it was like, yeah. And so he puts his arm around me and it was some religious group, I don't remember what it was, but his friends framing of the perfect picture and everything. And he was like, I don't know what it's from, but I'm gonna figure it out.

I've seen you in something. And right as a person, every once in a while, the universe gives you these moments. Right as they're taking the pictures, like I do a lot of hardcore gay porn. And the person just looks at me and you just get this picture of the face and it's like just have fun explaining that moment

to all of your friends. I had a humbling version of this that the actually the airport yesterday. I'm like sitting there waiting for my flight. I had a humbling version of this at the airport yesterday. I'm sitting there waiting for my flight. I'm leaning against the counter. This guy walks by and makes eye contact with me, then three minutes later he walks. Now he's walking directly towards me. He's looking at me in the face.

I'm like, okay, I've been recognized and this person is going to say something to me or whatever. It's like a part of what you do and it's always weird and uncomfortable. But so I kind of go to start shaking his hand and then- Can you tell me where the restroom is? Yeah, he was like, he's like, are you in line?

Like I'm cleaning against the counter for the game. No. You know, it was like, it was totally just like, I was in this person's way. It's the worst version of when you think someone's waving at you. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Just get to do the hand behind the back thing. And I was like was listening to music so I was kind of zoned out.

And like because you know you get you just get used to people like in regular life people don't pierce your bubble. And then in accept usually if either you actually know them or they think they know you from this thing. And so the ego goes, like, you're ego, it was just this sort of subconscious moment. What I took from it besides just the awkwardness and funny, it was like, there's some part of the ego there that's existing in the world, going, people know who I am, right? Except for Bono. There's, yes, well. But I'm saying it was,

that was an assumption I wanna make sure isn't part of the operating system on a passive, just regular basis because that's not a good way to live, right? And it's not a humble way to live. But it was just like that some part unconsciously, reflexively, the bubble gets pierced. And I'm not thinking I'm in this person's way.

I'm thinking this person knows who I am. And I would much rather be the person that is thinking, oh, I'm in this person's way. And then be pleasantly surprised if, oh, no, no, actually, they wanted a picture or something. Absolutely. And so it's one of the reasons why I do conventions is because you put me in front of 5,000 people, I'm great. The one on one is a real struggle for me. And especially when people are saying, and typically no one's going to wait in line to

say something. It's comfortable. The terms are agreed upon. Yes. Who is to what is what? Why are we all here? But there's still an awkward commerce because it's like, I have a finite amount of time to tell you as much about myself and for me to tell them as much about myself. So it's just this weird commerce because there's a lot of people that are trying to do the same thing.

But also, no one, for the most part, stands in line to not say something kind. Sure. I fucking hate something kind. Sure. I fucking hate your work. Yeah. People have done that for us. I didn't like this. I'm like, thank you for taking time to do that. Appreciate you sharing your opinion.

But I got really uncomfortable. And when I was in a band, people would come up and go, hey, great show tonight. And I would feel like the need to be humble and go, oh, I don't know. The sound's off my voice was a little weak or whatever, didn't play that song right. And a friend of mine pointed out to me, he said, and modesty is the epitome of arrogance. You gotta take the compliment.

Kit, just say thank you. I'm just agreeing with someone's opinion, and they're not wrong. So doing their opinion and presuming my opinion is more important than theirs. I know better than you. So one of the reasons why I do the conventions is when someone goes, hey, thank you so much.

This has been incredible. I think it's just to go, thank you. It's to develop that practice of just going, thank you. That really means a lot. And also realizing that I didn't make the last of us. I was in it. Yeah, sure. But there were three, five, six hundred people that made that game that all worked really,

really hard. At that moment in time, I'm just the recipient of all of that appreciation. Yeah, sure. So that's all that I have to be. I don't have to stand it up on its own. I don't have to, I can just be, hey, thank you so much. I'm gonna pass that along to everyone of the team.

I'll make sure that Neil hears that. Ashley would love to know that. That's what I do. I had an exchange on the like, hey, great show where I was, I was doing the talk there's a bunch of speakers. And like before I talk, I'm like a wreck. I'm like, paste nervously and sort of get in a zone. So not paying attention to anything. And so the person, one of the people before me goes, you know, the audience claps, they walk up stage and go, you were great. like great job, that was awesome.

Which of course I did not watch one second of their thing, I was just being nice, you know, just whatever, I know it's uncomfortable, so I was just being nice. And then, you know, like later I went and did my talk and someone was like, okay, that was great, you did awesome, like another speaker. And I was like, oh, like, I was like that.

I know that, my first take was like, yes, this must be true. They just said this to me. I was feeling sort of filled up. And then I was like, they probably did not watch one second of what happened. And the person was born. Yes. No, what matters is what do I think of it?

Right, like, did I do what I set out to do? Do I feel filled up by it? Did I leave anything on the table? You know, what I learned from it. You have a different gig because like, there are people that pay you a lot of money to go around the world and you talk to football teams, you talk to the military, you do all this.

How, when I say prepared, there's a difference between your, the years that you've put into this have prepared you. But do you walk out knowing what you're going to say? Do you make sure that you stick within, like you have your PowerPoint, your keynotes, or do you go, I have no idea what I'm about to say until you walk out there and you do it? No, I almost always know what I'm going to say.

I have a talk that I'm doing that I'm moving pieces. I have a talk that I'm doing, that I'm moving pieces around, depending on the audience that I'm in. Like a couple of days ago, I talked to all the coaches in the athletic department at the University of Tennessee. And last night, it was like, it's Wall Street CEOs. One was a talk, the other was like a fireside chat. So the fireside chat was more like,

I wasn't in control. So I have a less good sense of how it went because like there wasn't something I was intending to do. So I was asking, I was actually just asking my agent for feedback. The weird part of what I do is that, like basically, you know, like most people know the difference between like corporate gigs and all other kinds of gigs. Like all my gigs are corporate gigs, basically. Right? Like very rarely am I speaking in front of an audience where each one of those people made the individual choice

to attend. So it's a weird vibe. Right? Like, like when it's cool to talk to an NFL team, but I remember I speak to who's done this many times with these like, this is actually one of the worst audiences. None of them want to be there. They're all fucking tired. They're all really good at what they do. And they're all grown-ass men

or whatever for the most part, like whatever there are, obviously there's women's sports, but they're all grown-ass adults in what they do. And their boss is making them sit there and listen to this person. And so it's a rough crowd. You have to think about why is the crowd there, what do they want, what's going through it, and you have to adjust accordingly. But most of the time,

like even when I'm speaking at a conference, right, like the conference put together the bill, and people are attending the conference for work or for whatever. They're not like there to see me necessarily. So it's an unusual audience or style of doing stuff because you're not performing for your people. You're usually performing for like total strangers and it's 7.30 a.m. in Las Vegas or whatever. You know, it's like in a in a windowless ballroom. It's like, it's like you got to get used to it.

How's everybody do? Yeah, you got to. You guys are like, here's what I'm trying to do. That's what you can't. You can't be like, was the crowd, you know, like, you just got to like, what are you setting out to do? And then most of the time you realize, like, it's actually the boss who you're performing for.

And then he's like, he or she is like, you guys getting this? Are you guys getting this? You haven't been talking about me for the last six weeks. Exactly. Exactly. So like you have different audience. Greg, you especially listen, listen to him. Huh?

You have different audiences that you're performing for at Simultaneously and then, but it's weird. It's a weird thing. And it's also so different. I mean, like what I do is write books and then people are like, is that what you say, like would you consider yourself first and foremost an author? Would you consider yourself a writer, but yes, I that's the medium that I am most comfortable in, but you do podcast so well. Do you feel you do well? I mean,

it doesn't. I'm I've been doing it less long. So I have, you know, I would measure them differently. You know what I mean? I mean different artistic journeys on each one. But it feels like you produce more content for, you produce more content as a speaker, podcast, or whatever than you do writing, is that? I mean, a book is like, you know, the book is the culmination of years of work. Sure.

One thing that gets consumed by lots of people over a long period of time. And then the reason I would say a writer is that I also do like like the Daily Stoke and the Daily Dad, that's basically a book a year that I publish for free in the form of the Daily email. So I'm seeing it writing first and then the other stuff, then doing a podcast episode of that email. Like that's from, that's descendent from, or derivative of the writing and interviews. I mean, I feel like I definitely feel like I've gotten better at it.

And I've definitely gotten better at speaking. You just do it a lot of times and you get better at it. But then video, start to camera stuff. That's obviously been its own journey. But that's more like, I identify as a writer and I identify as a reader, but I understand and I'm interested in reaching people who have different identities.

If that makes sense. It's perfect sense. Like, I don't, I don't. At this point, it is a luxury of the books having done well, but at this point, I don't really care how the idea is consumed. It is interesting because you do, you're such a strongly advocate for reading. Yes. And I think you've been talking about this and because the first one that I read, obstacle was the way it was the first one that I read, but I say red, it was done as an audiobook.

Yeah, yeah. But I remember, it was on the 405, and it hit me where you should be reading. I'm like, dude, you're doing an audiobook, right? I was like, am I, am I cheating? I think that there are, there's different ways. Like I've read, but I ended up listening to how to think like a Roman Emperor.

Because it's a great book. And Dawn's such a great dude. He's a very sweet dude. Delightful voice. I know this is the best part about him listening to this Scottish brook. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the way that, what's funny is,

so I started reading, meditations, and then a buddy of mine who's a big YouTuber named Jack Sceptic Eye, turned me on to how to think like Roman Emperor, and then that led me into the obstacle is the way. And so it's like there's been this weird concentric circles of, and then that led me into reading Seneca. And then that, so it's like there's been this constant

pinging off of different things to, because when you start talking about someone's like, I know, who's Zeno? I have no idea who you're talking about. Did you read Liza the Stokes? Not yet. because when you start talking about someone's like, I don't know, who's Zeno? I have no idea who you're talking about. Did you read Liza the Stokes? Not yet. That was...

You just referenced it the other day, I think in the podcast, I was like, okay, I gotta get in that. But this is something that for me, there's a private practice that somebody can have. There's something I can do in my private life. If I go to the gym, that's going to impact, I can do in my private life. Like if I go to the gym, that's going to impact,

I can't impact my work. Doing performance capture in video games, the luxury of it is, you don't necessarily have to be camera ready, you don't have to look great because they're gonna make you look awesome. Yeah, sure. They're gonna put that character model on whatever body you have.

That's why you wear the stupid suit. That's like bones. I'm just bones, literally just a skeleton. Yeah. But I treated this same way that anybody else would with the film because there was this one role that I did, this game that's coming out this summer called Fort Salis where I play this character

who's a medical officer, but there's a big confrontation with the other lead, play of our Roger Clark, and we have a couple of fight scenes. And I was like, the thing that I want to be about this guy is he looks docile and very passive, but if that dude were to take his shirt off, you're like, I had no idea that was underneath it. Sure, sure, sure.

And so I started training that way. And again, I've got a great trainer that walked me through and I was like, I told Dan, my trainer's like, this is what I want to do. And so we developed a program that would allow me to have that. But the reason why I bring this up is, whatever I do, if I get into the gym or if I have a diet, that's really kind of for my own personal edification, for my own thing. But the thing that's inherent to all actors is how do you submit yourself to a pro, as

an actor, how do I submit myself to a process where the gig is to take criticism? The gig is to be told what you're doing is wrong and I'm going to tell you how to do it better, even though a majority of the time, I'm wrong. And what you did, so many times there is a take or a line or something where we go back to the first one, it's like, that's what it is. We did 50 other versions of this.

Why don't you just listen to my taste? Or there's also a lot of times where I think my way is the only way. And I don't listen to the writer, the director, or whoever else is involved in the process to be able to go, there's a different way of looking at this and I'm robbing myself, Neil Druckmann, who's the director of the last of us. I would come in and go, I think this line needs to change. Yeah. And he goes, he tolerated that for a while. And then finally goes, what on instead,

you let your first reaction to be come to me and go, what about this scene, this character or this story, Do I not understand? Oh, sure. And then if we go, okay, I understand all those things, but I don't understand how this line speaks to that, it goes, then we can change the line. I've said that to my editor before.

I was like, how could you possibly be giving me these notes if I haven't explained to you what I want the book to be? Like, I have more of your job. Your job is not to make my book what you want it to be. Your job is to make my book what I want it to be and to tell me when I'm not doing that. Now sometimes maybe I don't know, we can have a discussion about what that is.

But ultimately we had some disagreements about what the role of an editor is and we made some switches. But with one of my editors, that was the issue. It's like, there's ego in that. There's the assumption that you know and you get to tell people how it should be. I think that's a really good note from the director. That's like, just assume you don't have enough information.

And then let me give you the information and then we can talk about whether, once we're on the same page and we can decide whether this works or not. Or oh shit, you know what, you're absolutely right. It doesn't speak to that. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, there's plenty of room for improvement, but you got to know what the thing is. There's this one job that we just wrapped up on and there was a specific line of dialogue that I really, really pushed back on because when they first pitched the whole story to me, to me, there's always a line either in the character description, in the story or something that I go, that's everything hinges on that.

And I pushed back on this line as like it doesn't belong here, it belongs at this one place. And there's times where I think as an actor, there is a humbling of myself that I have to do to go, maybe I don't have all the information. There's other times where I'm like, they can be wrong. They can be wrong, and I need you to understand. But whereas before, I think I would have thrown a fit

or I would have let my anger be the way that I communicate that, these precepts and waking up in the morning and holding that time's sacred has really been able to help me as a dad and also as an actor, as a director, be able to go, what's the best way? The other one of the tattoos that I have there is the Hageleon dialectic, which is not actually attributed to Hago, but it's not actually him, where this circle represents the thesis, my point of view. This one is the antithesis, your point of view, him, where this circle represents the thesis, my point

of view, this one is the antithesis, your point of view, and so where the middle is the synthesis, the better perspective of it. And I drew two points in a straight line to represent, get to the solution as quickly as possible, get to that as quickly as possible. So my whole goal, I'm not an actor, I'm not a director, I'm not anything other than I'm a storyteller. That's my whole thing is I'm here to not only tell my story, but I'm here to help you tell your story. So my focus is how can I help you tell your story? So what is the story? Let's just figure that out.

And then we can go. Yeah, I was just reading like, they were going to have Jim's character in the office cheat on Pam. Mm. And he was like, no. The betrayal of a character. Exactly. And so you have to, obviously, though, the actor that thinks they know more than the writers is gonna not last long on a show, but also, like, fuck up the greatness of the show.

But then there are moments where the actor who lives inside this person knows more than the rotating cast of, you know, people in the writers room that are just like, well, what's interesting? This will be the interesting episode. Yeah. There's a great story, Stanley Tobiaski, who's an amazing actor. If you've ever seen me play Sammy J. Kiss and Memento, he also played Needle-Nose Ned Ryerson

on Groundhog Day. I was having a conversation with him one time, we're on the same gig, and I said, how it had to be so much fun working on Groundhog Day, it was miserable. I'm like, why? Because I was on this movie where famously Bill Murray and Harold Ramis fell out. And he goes, there was this moment where they're shooting the last scene of the movie. And PA comes to Harold Ramimus and he goes, Bill won't come out of his trailer.

And he goes, why he goes, he says he won't come out of his trailer until he finds out what Andy is wearing. Andy McDowell played the female lead in that movie. And Bill Murray felt that he needed to know what Andy McDowell was wearing before he would come out of the trailer. And Harold Reimus just lost it on him. He was like, he doesn't need to know that. He goes, bang's on his trailer.

Bill Murray opens the door and he goes, get out of your trailer now. We've got to shoot the scene. It's like, what is anywhere? He goes, you don't need to know what Andy is wearing. You need to get your on your mark and do the scene. He goes, is she wearing my clothes, her clothes, no clothes, what is she wearing?

And if you're familiar with the movie, it's the morning after when the whole day actually resets. And he's saying, I need to know what happened that night. Yeah, right. Did we have sex? Did we not have sex? What is she wearing? And Heldraimus was like, fuck, he's right.

He's like, he didn't, he knew that I didn't have the end of my movie. I was trying to shoot a scene. He was trying to tell a story. Right. And so Heldraimus gathered all the cast and crew together and said, okay, everybody, we're gonna vote. Yeah.

What is Andy wearing? And it came down to, she's wearing her clothes. So there are times when the actor is right, but what I've had to learn is how am I, I can introduce a problem so far down strain that it becomes destructive. Yeah. So just because I may be right,

how am I implementing that information? Am I being a teen player? Am I helping other people tell their story? So far down strain that it becomes destructive. Yeah. So just because I may be right, how am I implementing that information? Am I being a teen player? Am I helping other people tell their story? Or am I just going and shitting in the pool? And now everybody has to get out because nobody can swim. It's the weirdest thing you'll ever see on this wave. You've had diarrhea last winter.

My horse doesn't swim in this pool. Do this was awesome. Man, I agree. Thank you so much for having me there. Of course. It this was awesome. Man, I agree. Thank you so much for having me. Of course, it's my pleasure. 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. 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.