11:47
Good morning, John. It's Friday. Thank you so much for having me along for the second to last stop on the Hollywood ending tour. As we did it, I just kept thinking of all of the times in the past when we have had the chance, have the opportunity to do live events like that. And I was thinking weird it is, how lucky we are, how fun that kind of stuff is. Like the Turtles Tour 2017 in the back of the bus working on my line edits for my book. And it was also Pizza Miss at the same time when we stopped at an
almond orchard and we're like, "Yeah, we have time to edit a whole music video in an orchard." me think about the very first live events we ever did at libraries and all these people came out and what an honor it is to be put in charge of a couple of hours of people's time. And for the responsibility of that, like all this pressure to create joy for other people, but also do something that is going to be joyful for yourself. Taking joy seriously, like it's not serious just because Dr. Lawrence Turteltaub is there. And that fits nicely with something I've been thinking about a lot since I uploaded my video last week, which was all about how to stop thinking about how to make yourself do things and instead make the
things that you have to do into the kinds of things that you would do. If that doesn't make a ton of sense to you, I understand. But, you can go watch that video and then it will. Point is, if something matters to me, I have a pretty good hit rate for figuring out how to make it into the kind of thing I do, even if to start it isn't really a thing I do. When chatting with some people about this on Blue Sky, I offhandedly joked, "Now to figure out how to make my own joy matter to me." This was in response to being confronted with a quote that I wrote, "You will always struggle with not feeling productive until you accept that your own joy can be something you produce." And I think
this is like a pretty big deal. I think that I'm not sure that I want to be happy. And of course that sounds awful, right? But I think that we're all aware that there are things other than happiness that are important to people. Like a better world, a safe and happy family, fulfilling all of your obligations, doing interesting things. Most of all, feeling like we matter. And like those things can be in conflict with the things that just sort of make you happy, that just deliver joy. But I think there's something like deeper to this that is not good. And it's not just that I'm not experiencing a ton of joy.
Uh and we'll get to it in a second. But in response to my joke, which was meant as a joke, but also clearly is not entirely a joke, a Nerdfighter named Lee responded. It can matter to you because it matters to say Catherine or Oren or John or whomever else. It can matter to you because other things that matter are easier to engage with amidst joy than amidst misery. It can matter to you because nothing awaits you in the divine for resisting your own joy. And I cried a little bit uh cuz there's a thing. It does matter so much to people in my life that I am happy and they matter to me. I want what they want and that is actually a really powerful frame that I had not tapped into before. But also like
there's very little misery in my life. There is some, but there's not a lot. Uh mostly what there is. And now we're getting into the part that's a little hard. There's a kind of frenetic attention going toward building and making and creating and maintaining. And I don't find that necessarily joyful, but I find it something positive. I find it enjoyable kind in a way. I do sometimes feel like when I'm making on the internet, it is maybe what it might be like when a pianist plays like a really difficult piece or when a surfer is hanging 10 on a complex wave. I should choose more metaphors that I have cultural knowledge around, but I didn't. Those are the ones that you get. But there is a satisfaction in that.
There is a feeling of like flow, of knowing I am needed and that I am doing a thing in a place where I am effective and talented. And knowing that you're needed is nice. It feels a little bit like that elusive highest best purpose. It's not, I don't think, connected that deeply to joy or happiness. But, you know, like this morning, Oren brought me to the couch to rate silly faces he had drawn on a scale of 1 to 10. And last week, I got to sing "We're Here Because We're Here" with a thousand other people. And in between, I got some bad news about a friend of mine. And I think after this like week straight of thinking about what I produce and what I make matter to me, the thing that I feel
like I've been missing is not joy. It's like existing in my heart. It's like being outside of flow. It's my actual emotions, whether they be joy or sadness. Not just being where I'm needed or doing what I'm good at, but creating the space in my life that I need to feel. Not just feel joy, but to feel. And I'll be honest, I'm not sure how to do that. That's a different challenge that I feel like is tricky. Everybody, thank you for letting me be vulnerable in this space. John, thank you for an amazing show. I'll see you on Tuesday.
