#138. Dumb and Dumber
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God, is it? Okay, this is to the listeners. Is it okay if we do not do intros for our episodes anymore? Is the intro actually useful to you guys?

to decide if you want to listen to the episode? Or do you just like listen to us talk bullshit in the beginning before we start? Yeah, or do you like fast forward through the intros to get to the episode? You know, is this just a waste of time for you guys? I don't think anybody does that. No, because they love to hear our voice. Cut to all the comments. They're like, yeah, we don't even care. They're like, I fast forward through the entire episode. Yeah, we actually get to the ending. I want to listen to you guys as little as possible.

Because we just went through this whole conversation. Well, it was mentally taxing because we did open up a little bit. Mentally taxing, especially for us, because our mental capabilities are dwindling as we share in this episode. We're talking about how we're getting dumber. Yeah. The good news is we can fix that. Yes. So without further ado, here we go. Good night, good night, Wednesday.

I think it's funny that you purchase drinks that you don't know based off of the branding and packaging design. Absolutely. And I am 100% with you. Yeah, absolutely. That's how I make my decisions. I'm unapologetic about that. Yeah. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers. How's it going? Doing all right. How are you? It's been a mediocre week. Yeah. God, man. I feel like this might be really ungrateful to say.

But I just feel like life has been a little bit mediocre lately. It just feels a little bit blah, you know? I feel like I'm going through a blah hump or a slump. I can agree to that. No? I can agree to that. Even though there's like so much to be thankful for. Like for me, maybe not you. Maybe your life really sucks compared to mine. Compared to your superstar life? No, I agree. It has been a bit of a... That's why I said it is a bit mediocre of a week.

even though, of course, there were some nice moments. So we got to hang out with a friend for a birthday where we all kind of got a little bit loose. Loosey-goosey. Some looser than the others. Actually, I want to ask you something about that. So recently we went out, you and I and a couple of other friends. Let's not name names. Let's not incriminate anyone. And it was quite an intense night of drinking.

I did not partake. I had maybe two or three drinks because I'm trying to cut down my drinking, aka quit, to some extent. Well, give the full reason. Don't just act like all high and mighty. Well, for health reasons. Unhealthy. For a very specific health reason. Gout. I have gout. Why do I have to name all the details? It's health. What I want to ask is, it's almost like

I know you don't drink much anymore. And when we're on the show, we do sip and we enjoy the alcohol. But whenever we go out, which is rare, they tend to be quite epic, right? Especially around certain friends. Yeah. Do you feel any type of difference compared to when you were younger?

Going through the paces of getting really drunk and kind of wild? I don't know. I think maybe now I get to that really, because I get drunker faster, it accelerates the entire night. So whereas maybe when I was younger, you can like be out basically all night and into the early mornings.

- And keep going. - And keep going, right? And you'll still get sloppy, you'll still get debaucherous, all those things, but it's like spread out through like a longer period of time. - What time did we go home? - I don't remember, but I think I was looking at the chats.

Did we go home like at midnight or something? No, I'm going to tell you. Oh. We got home by 11. Yeah, that's... It was like 10 something. That's unheard of. That's what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, for like when we were younger. It's ridiculous. When we were younger, we would be going out around that time. Yes. The night would start around... While we were leaving the location we were drinking at, people were heading in. Yeah, heading in to start their nights. Yeah. So I'm asking this because like,

Like I said, this is the first night I was totally sober around you guys. Probably ever, I would say. And I still had a good time, but I also was thinking about if I was not limiting myself from drinking, would I have the desire to just go nuts and let it all out and just, you know, drink and just drink, drink, drink, drink, drink?

And then I was honestly asking myself that and the conclusion I came to was I'm actually okay right now. I probably wouldn't want to push myself to drink. - Well, you don't even need to guess. Like you've been drinking with us before, you know, like many times. - I know, but what I'm trying to get at is we all know the phrase, once it touches the lips.

Yeah, especially with me. I know. Yeah. So I don't know why we're even doing this thought experiment because we have plenty of historical proof. I know. But what I'm saying is that in the past, I would always be the first as a joke, semi-joke. Oh, I'm not drinking tonight. Oh, I'm drinking less tonight. Right? And you guys, as a joke, it's almost like comedy now. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Only one drink. How are we sure? And the next scene I'll cut to, I'm out. Right? Right.

But like I said, because last night was the first time I was able to control myself and I had like two drinks, I was really clear-headed. But anyway, besides that, I mean, the week has been a bit... What's the word? Mundane? Not mundane. Flat? You're going like this.

Flat? Even? Yeah, that's a little flat, I guess. I guess flat is a good word. It's flat. There's nothing else. Monotonous? Monotonous, yeah, I guess. Just the week? Recently. Man, I just feel like I've lost a step. Why do you think that? I don't know. I really don't. Maybe it could be a combination of aging, but that's no excuse because you have people who are even older who are sharp as a tack and still very...

vibrant and full of energy, right? Could be a combination of that, the kid, changes in your life, a little bit of stress, maybe like, you know, like social media, stuff like that is like accumulating. It also, I mean, I think it could just be, let's analyze in general how we live our lives. We are in a bit of a spin cycle. Yeah.

It's not like we are... When we were single, I'll speak for myself, when I was single or without kids, I would be spontaneously out with different groups of friends, maybe some work gatherings. You know, just the life itself was a lot more fruitful, I would say. And now it's a bit monotonous and repetitive because...

I go to the office, I come home, I take care of the kids. I wake up, take care of the kids, go to the office, go home, take care of the kids. And when I take care of the kids, I don't look at my phone. I don't, you know, watch things. I'm just focused on the kids. So, and I don't go out. So there's not much that it's not a lot that I'm soaking in except for. Yeah. You're not being exposed as much. I think you hit the nail right on the head actually. Yeah.

I think our world's like our world's our world's our world's. I think our worlds have shrunk. Yes. Our, our world has become its own algorithm, social media algorithm. Yeah. Yeah. In a way. And it's also shrunk. We have less. I feel like I have less to talk about these days than I ever did before. And that's concerning given the fact that we do a podcast. Yeah.

Yeah, I think. But the good news is we can change that. If the problem is our worlds are shrinking, then that just comes down to a decision of going the other way. Yeah. I think the world, what you just said, our worlds are shrinking. I feel like a lot of people are going through that. Not just us. Yeah, I'm sure there are people that are still going out and having different experiences and

But in general, because most people live through electronic devices now, their worlds are shrinking. Because basically...

Not only are you only intaking, so you're not critically thinking in general, you're just intaking. You're watching this, you're reading that, you're watching this, you're reading that. You just intake, but you're not critically thinking in general. - Yeah, yeah. That's a problem we've talked about before, right? Like even off air is just being in a passive mind state. I mean, just this podcast is one of the few opportunities that I have during the week

that I can stop, not look at anything and just think. - Yeah, and try to be intentional. - Yeah, because when we talk, a lot of times the subject matter pops up and then I'm reacting in the moment, real time. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking about what I feel. I'm thinking about what I believe.

And only then can I feel a little bit more, I guess, alive almost. Because in general, you're going through the motions every day. Whether it's what I just said, taking care of the children, going to the office. Only when I have a real interesting shoot that I kind of get out of my shell. But in general, in between, it's just kind of routine. Yeah, you don't feel alive, right? You just kind of intake. I don't know. I feel like being alive is thinking. Yeah.

Yeah. It doesn't feel like we're like actively living. Yeah. It feels like we're passively living. And I think back in the day, it's like we would still like be on social media or, you know, watching YouTube, all these things back in the day. But I felt like we also had a life off screen that would counterbalance that somewhat. I feel like we would be out doing more things and,

engaging more, having more actual real world experiences. And I think what I said when I think our worlds have shrunk, I think that routine you're talking about has really condensed into really just two, three things we do every day.

And it's like, we're cycling around on those things. And, and we're missing a lot of the kind of active living and other experiences that would use to counter counteract maybe our screen time. And so the weight or the impact of our screen time is now having a bigger influence, taking up a bigger chunk of our actual lived experience. Yeah. And, and,

And that's really, really detrimental because a lot of the apps you're on when you're scrolling, the idea of like scrolling and passively intaking information is really just keeping, it's like keeping your brain in a coma. It's like you're comatose and you're just like passively intaking. You're not actively searching. You're just reacting to whatever the algorithm is feeding you

And it takes little to no effort. You're like a zombie, which is different than like actively searching for things, let's say online to watch. That's a more active approach when you're specifically searching out different topics. Maybe you want to learn, maybe you want to see like whatever it is.

But when you're passively, which I find myself in that state a lot, like being passive with the intake, I feel it trains your brain, it weakens the muscles of your brain because you're not using it. You're not really using your intellect. You're not using, you're not thinking. You're just reacting. You're not actively thinking. And it's been compounding as each year goes by. Yeah. Because the algorithm is only getting better. And it's like, I find it funny because I remember talking about this with you

maybe like two, three years ago, like when we first brought up and started noticing this. And I feel like we're feeling the cumulative effects now. Yeah. Do you ever, I don't know if you ever do this. I mean, I take the subway a lot when I go to the, when I go to work or traveling around, I just like the subway. And whenever I look around, sometimes I'll be conscious of the moment and I look around and

And I look at how many people use their phones. Everybody. Yeah, it would normally be about 90%, 85 to 90%. It was never like 100%, but 85 to 90%.

And it's always in those moments because I happen to be listening to something that is about, whether it's a self-improvement or something, where I become aware of what I'm doing and I stop. And then I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah, that's crazy. You ever do that? Do you ever just notice how automatic life is for many people? All the time. And unlike you, I've had moments where it was 100% of the people. And I can tell you one thing that I've been...

doing on and off recently is I've been trying to improve brain fog, improve talking, my speech, because I feel like I've regressed a lot recently. And I brought this up a couple of times before and not knowing why. And I found that a lot has to do with the constant intake and not thinking. The only time I think is when I have to work. And even those type of jobs, a

a lot of stuff is pretty automatic a lot of times. So stopping and actually thinking about what you're, I guess, trying to learn or just think about life, just think about different aspects of life is already a step up from just watching and reading all the time. So for example, one thing that I've been doing is not listening to podcasts regularly.

Which is funny because we want people to listen to us. But just not listening to podcasts when I'm commuting. No headphones. No music. Just me. And while I'm walking around, I'm just looking at life. And I'm just analyzing things. I'm just noticing people, what they're wearing. I'm noticing...

Different advertisements, just thinking about them. I just think about things I heard about, maybe trying to form my own opinion, practice talking about what I feel, what I'm feeling. - You talk out loud to yourself? - I talk out loud, yeah. Especially if I'm driving and I'll just be talking the whole time. And I'll ask myself a question, like for example, it's like, how do you feel about AI and its future?

instead of spitting back what I watched, what do I really feel like? What do I really think about? Like how do you articulate your thoughts out loud? But not even that, it's just solidifying what I think. Because a lot of times, and I caught myself many times

I'll be spewing headlines or I'll be spewing the hot words or the hot takes. Regurgitating. Oh, yeah. Regurgitating the hot takes that I've been listening to as if they were my own opinion, but not actually sitting down and thinking about what am I really, really saying? Obviously, I wouldn't spit it back, spit it out if I didn't have some sort of

opinion about it or if I didn't feel like that was correct, for example. But not until you sit down and really break it down and really think about your own value system.

with what you're listening to, then can you actually form a stronger, I guess, personal proposition, right? And that's what I was missing, is that foundation, that strength in my opinion and strength in my thought. That's really interesting because I was actually talking about this with someone the other day. And it's the, I was talking about the act of

not only saying things out loud, but writing things down on paper, like articulating your thoughts, whether you're saying it out loud or whether you're writing it down like physically on a piece of paper, you realize how incomplete many of your thoughts actually are in your head. - Yes. - Right? It's like that same concept of sometimes you think of a joke in your head and it's like really funny,

- Until you say it. - Yeah, and you're like, wait till I say this to somebody. It's so funny. But then when you actually say it out loud and you hear it out loud for yourself, you're like, wait a minute, that's not funny at all. I don't know, how's that funny? And you can't even articulate it. And the punchline just completely misses. It's like the same thing. When you force yourself to write something down, write your thoughts down on paper, you realize how many gaps there are in your thinking.

that are just automatically filled in in your mind that you don't even notice, right? Because as we know, your mind hates gaps. It will- - Fill in the gaps. - It will desperately fill in all the gaps for you without you even noticing that it's doing that. So when you're just purely kind of thinking something, like, yeah, the concept of it might make sense, but

You don't realize how incomplete that thought is until you actually start writing it down and you force yourself. And then you find how difficult it is to actually articulate that thought. That's actually a technique that you're talking about right now, about writing down your thoughts. That's a technique to become a little more eloquent, actually, because people don't write enough.

these days. First of all, when we are writing, it's usually text messages or that sort, and they're usually short form, right? It's like you with the letter U or like emoticon or, you know, like whatever. It's not really well thought out, and they're usually quick responses, right?

When do you ever really sit down and write down your values or really write down your position on something as if it was an essay for a school? You would never do that. Well, most people would never even think of doing that. But that does help you. And it does help you form your ideas quicker. It does help you, I guess, get to the point a little bit better because a lot of times if you're only in your head,

And like you said, your head is just filling in the gaps. So a lot of times it makes sense to you in your head. But then when you talk, all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute. That was not really good. Something's wrong with that. Or I'm missing some things in that. Because in your mind, you cannot...

verbalize some of the thoughts you have, because a lot of times you're visual, right? You have audio, you have metaphors that's just constantly building in your thought. But then when you say it, you can't say all those things at once. You have an order to it. And then that's the problem. If you're not practicing it, just like exercise,

you kind of lose it. And that's where I said that I've lost a lot of that recently because between losing a bit of confidence in the past couple of years for various reasons that I've discussed, I'm just gaining it back now and just trying to get myself back in the groove. And part of it is losing

Finding better ways to think, you know? Yeah. And not let myself go down the path of just accepting things or accepting myself to be a certain way. It's not an easy thing. It just takes time. And I feel like a lot of people won't admit this either. Well, first of all, most people don't even think about this.

They just live life and they just accept who they are and how they think and, and whatever they, whatever they, they, however they are, it is what it is. Like how many people do you really know? Sit down and analyze it. Well, maybe I can be better or maybe something is wrong. Yeah. I don't know because that would be done in like in the privacy of their own lives. Right. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't know. Um, maybe they do, but I am confident in the, in the idea of, um,

- Yeah, almost nobody I think I know would be openly willing to admit to other people that. Especially when it comes to like your mental, your cognitive ability, your intellect, how sharp you are right now.

Yeah, I think to most people, and I feel for me, it's like that is the no-go zone, right? Like you, like as middle-aged men, adults, like we...

That's the sore spot. That's the nerve. We never want to be questioned about our actual intellectual capability, right? Sure, we can always admit if we're not as strong or we're not as fit as we should be. These are much easier things to admit. But when it comes to your actual mental capacity, no adult wants to admit that. - Why do you think that? - Because I feel like it's what you probably will get judged

Well, also, what I was trying to get is a rhetorical question because with the body, if you say, you said that if you're not fit or something, you're more willing to admit that as opposed to cognitively not as fit per se.

Because physically you can change it, right? Everybody knows you throw a little exercise, you eat a little bit better, boom. Everybody knows this, the formula to improve your fitness, to improve your body, right? Cognitively, there is no 100% change.

that everybody has agreed upon. - Like surefire way? - There is none, right? - I'm sure there's ways. - Everybody. What I just said about fitness, eat better, work out, everybody knows. Every single person in the world knows. But if I say to you, you need to become cognitively more fit,

Does everybody know what to do? No. No. But that's what I'm trying to get at. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying that it's probably a lot harder for people to admit. And even me, I would never admit it. You would call me out. You said to me one time, Howie, you've definitely regressed a bit. Because I off camera said this to you. You're like, yeah, I kind of see it. I would never admit that to anybody. Only maybe to you, honestly. And now to our listeners. And now I'm just saying it out loud because I know that it's not me.

And actually, I can give another example. So a couple of months ago, I was having a bit of a dry spell with work. And so whenever a pitch came in, I would put 100% of my effort into it. And it would be a little bit different. I'm not saying that I never put effort in my other projects per se, but...

I would put extra effort. And what that means is I would be writing everything myself and I would be rewriting and rewriting until it gets better and better and until I'm happy with what I'm doing as opposed to before it would just be one write, you know, one draft and then there'd be other people helping me. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, so while I'm writing, all of a sudden I'm reading it and I'm like,

I'm a pretty good writer. I'm not bad. So it was not until I was able to rewrite my creative ideas multiple times, and then I read it, and I'm like, damn, that's pretty good. And I never, and I haven't said that in a long time. Usually, I'm just like, it's good enough. It's fine. Or yeah, I get it. I wrote something, and I'm like, yeah, I think the client will understand, that kind of thing. But this time I'm reading it, I'm like, hey,

This is good. I'm proud of this. I would want people to read this. So only after that, that I started thinking about, yeah, I just have to put in effort. I've become lazy. I've become mentally lazy. And I know it's not just me. This is an epidemic around the world. I just happen to be in the crossfire of what people say are the young millennials that have this problem. I'm not. I'm Gen X. I have that problem too.

- Wait, are people saying young millennials have this problem? - Yeah, they're saying that the people that grew up around social media have gone into, they have this different type of mental state or like a mental makeup, brain makeup compared to different generations because of the way they're using their brain. It's very different than the way we had to use our brain at the exact same age. - Yeah, that's funny because I feel like the young people I meet are like, they seem so smart.

Like a lot smarter than I ever was at their age, you know? Maybe. A lot of them do. And going back to kind of what you're saying, like when you wrote something and you realized it was actually good, I think a lot of it in terms of the willingness to address this issue with yourself or actually speak about it out loud,

and share it a lot, I think has to go with how secure you are in yourself. So I think everyone has different levels of security in terms of how they view themselves. Some people are extremely insecure. Some are relatively more secure. I think the more insecure you are about yourself, the less willing you are to talk about it. - Yeah, for sure. - Right? And the more secure you are, obviously the more willing you are to share, because like you said,

almost like the exercise thing, you know it's something you can change. You know it's within you. You know you have the ability to. You're just being lazy right now. Yeah. Right? Versus, oh, you're actually just a stupid person. Yeah. Like that's completely two different things. It was eye-opening actually for me because I bought into the idea of like, I'm cognitively regressing. I must be becoming stupid. You know what I'm saying?

I almost bought into that, almost, until I realized that I started putting in a couple of practices to get me out of that hamster wheel loop that I'm on. And all of a sudden, I'm feeling like, yeah, I'm getting a little bit closer to my old self.

And that's good. Well, because you stop internalizing and identifying with that state, right? Like even when we had Gabo on the show, it's like when he's not, like he was saying, sharing a story, like when he's not mentally at his best for whatever reason, he knows that that's a temporary movement and moment. And you don't like identify with,

yourself with that weakness, right? Like you're just having a weak moment and it'll pass and just let people know, look, I'm not at my best right now. When I, you know, so just, you know, watch out and proofread my work, whatever, you know, in his example.

So you're not identifying with it. Yeah. And you know what else? That's really important. You know what else really helps? Well, at least help me and hopefully it helps listeners. You've always said that I've had thin skin, that I care too much about what people think. Or I am insecure in myself and hence not sharing as much, maybe some negative stuff about myself in fear of what or how people will judge me. And I used to always...

say it's because of work. Now, yes, it's because of me as well, my thin skin. But I'm also putting into practice of not caring. And there's no real technique in that. It's just being cognizant of the moments where I worry about what people are going to think and then literally saying to yourself or myself, stop, just whatever, who cares? That is a game changer.

A huge game changer. Because just like right now, what I'm saying, what I just shared to everybody, it could be construed as a negative. And I'm pretty sure people may even leave a comment and be like, oh, Howie, you're a shell of yourself. You're nothing right now. I don't know, whatever. And it wouldn't matter to me because I don't know the person and I know who I am. I know what I can do. I know I'm capable. It still stings though. No, no, it's definitely not as much.

Because I've literally thought about this, you know, putting myself in these positions. It's part of the practice that I'm doing. I was telling you before we started recording, I'm trying to build a couple of new habits, whether it's talking out loud more, just speaking more, critically thinking more, thinking about what I'm actually ingesting and not just only ingesting, leaving time to not ingest and just think. And third is to start breaking down that barrier of worrying more

about what people think and worrying about everybody's judgment towards me. - Yeah. - Just letting it be, who cares? I don't care. That kind of stuff. These are new habits that I'm trying to build. And these are different habits that I'm trying that I never really tried before. So I don't know, we'll see how it goes. - Yeah, it's tough because we're primed to want to have respect, right? We're primed to want to be respected.

and kind of going back to the idea of why is it tougher to admit intellectual weakness, even if it's temporary, versus like physical weakness? And you said it's because, you know, everyone knows how to fix the physical weakness part, right? You know, be healthier, work out, you know, pretty commonplace, pretty mainstream, everyone, common knowledge.

I think that's part to do with it, but I also think it's about respect. If a person is not physically in good shape,

let's say, but he's really smart. This person will still be respected. Obviously we see examples of this all over the place. But if you're not, I feel like no matter how, like you can be like really strong, fast, healthy, but if you're not like intellectually there, like people also won't respect you.

You know, it's like the cliche of like the dumb jock who's good at sports, but isn't really, he's kind of an airhead, quote unquote. Yeah, but the airheads don't care about that. Other airheads don't care about that. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they do. That's a lot of airheads out there. They might be more aware of that than we might give them credit for.

So I think it's like that feeling of respect because that respect mostly only comes one way and it's being like smart. If you're smart, what other conditions you have, like you still have that respect, but not necessarily the other way. And maybe we can, we'll probably find exceptions for that. But I think in general,

That's how it goes. So I think for us, because we naturally want to be respected, the intellectual shortcomings and weaknesses are much harder to talk about and share. Yeah, maybe. But I think also we just need to talk more about different things that you can do, that one can do to help. Yeah, no, absolutely. This is a common thing. Like, first of all, look,

It's a common thing. A lot of people are going through this. The idea of brain fog, for example, this is something I brought up a few years ago that I felt myself having brain fog, having worse memory. It takes me a lot longer to come up with words, to string together coherent sentences. I'm not saying I couldn't talk, but it was just a lot more difficult than before. That's all I'm saying.

And it's a common thing. Yeah, no, absolutely.

tend to have higher percentage chance of brain fog, along with COVID and all the other things that we've been going through. So is the conventional explanation for, let's say, brain fog really on social media use? Social media use, COVID, and stress. Those three are the top three factors that in combination... Like actually catching COVID or just the effects of how the world was during COVID? No, it's the effects of COVID. Like

Like the actual illness. The actual illness of COVID had a lot of people having brain fog. Now for me, I don't think I had that. I don't think it affected me, but it was a thing. And stress. And it's a very stressful time that people are living, that everyone's living through these days. So the combination of all this is going to mentally impair you emotionally.

To some extent. Now, to what extent, that depends on each unique individual, but that is a thing. And that's one thing that made me feel better because I always thought that I must have some sort of medical condition along with my older age that is causing this, but I realize it's not. It's something that I can control and I'm just trying to take control of my life again. That's all it is. Yeah.

So what have you learned? So one way you're saying is articulating your thoughts out loud when you can, let's say when you're alone in the car, whenever writing things down is another way. Yeah, so one thing I was telling you that I, one of my biggest issues with myself as being a podcaster is,

Is listening to when I speak, because I found myself saying like, you know, right, constantly. Well, we all have that problem. Yes, we do. I have that problem too. Yes. But I'm not judging you. I'm only judging myself. And I realized that I did not like listening to myself talk like that.

So I made it a point to change. And that's, I guess, the first step, the catalyst into this change, into this new way of thinking.

And only after that, listening to different and researching different techniques, I started going to different type of connections in terms of how one uses your brain, which led me down brain fog, which led me down to different type of mental techniques to keep yourself focused,

Things of that nature, because I used to always say I had the ADD and things like that. So I think it's just a combination of brain workout. I'll just call it brain workout, mental fitness that I've been going down recently. And I'm still building out the techniques. I have a whole like notes that I'm trying to keep up to date with things that I need to do.

And so far it's been effective. I feel like I've cut down on my likes. I've cut down on my right. I've cut down on my, you know, a lot already. It's not there yet, but I'm getting better. And that's a, it's a, it's a, it's an actual effort I'm making, you know, to change. Yeah.

the mental fitness part kind of like forgot about it in the recent years and there's so many apps out there that you can download that kind of like little brain workouts you do every day right little puzzles little exercises well you don't you don't think those i don't believe in that at all you're like the main person like you love downloading apps you're all about apps i

I love telling apps. Admit it. You're all about apps. You're almost like, I got this new app that does this. You're like the number one app fanboy. I feel like brain, like those puzzle apps and those things that... You think they're just gimmicks? They don't really work? I don't think so. Personally, I don't think so. I mean, for example, there's another thing that I've realized that I kind of, I'm able to pinpoint the reason why I am cognitively better in the morning.

creatively, and just in general cognitively better in the morning than at night. I can pinpoint the reason now because it's actually scientifically a fact that human beings, when you first wake up in the morning, that first, I guess, I think it was like an hour or so, 45 minutes to an hour, maybe a little bit longer for some people, you're your most brilliant. Because it's like

you're just waking up and your brain, like the barriers of your brain are not as strong to keep you from questioning yourself, to keep your sort of creative juice a little bit more open, that part of your brain a little bit more open. So I always wondered why, whenever I'm stuck on something creative and it's like 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, and I know I have to deliver tomorrow morning, the next morning,

I make a decision. Do I push through and get my document done or get my ideas down, get that big idea out? And no matter what time it is, maybe it's four o'clock in the morning.

I got to get it done. Or do I say, fuck it, I'm going to sleep right now, but I'm going to wake up at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. and I'll try to tackle this again. Yes, I have to deliver it by 11, but I'm trusting my brain. And you know what? 10 times out of 10, I deliver. And it's always when I wake up early in the morning, something magical happens. All of a sudden, all the problems I couldn't solve in that moment, the night before, it's

banging my head against a wall, trying to come up with some sort of answer, magically comes out. And all of a sudden, I'm like, love it. Brilliant idea. Fuck. Oh, yeah. I'm just like talking to myself. Oh, it's so good. You look like you have an orgasm. Yeah, pretty much. It's a fucking creative orgasm. Okay. And...

Yeah, it's always worked for me. So I guess the question is, how do you extend that state longer throughout the day? Short breaks in between. So basically, I used to always buy into just pushing, like Hulk smashing through, right? You always use Hulk smash. Brute force. Brute force, exactly. So whenever I need to do something, if I can't think of the answer, I got to keep doing it. I just got to just keep researching or find that inspiration. Find that inspiration, right? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I don't do that anymore. Now it's more like, okay, I must have ran out of juice a little bit. You know, if I put in a little chunk of time, I stop, I do a little walk. I walk away, I empty the mind a little bit. Yeah, because you're mentally fatigued, right? You got to reset. Yeah, and then you kind of reset it again. But, you know, then you have to get yourself back into that groove. Another thing that helps is I listen to this audio wave, like this spectrum thing.

It's like a binaural sound wave that helps me concentrate. And let me guess, you got that from an app. YouTube. So I'll play back. I'll find like one of those that has like an hour loop and I'll just play it. Same thing. Game changer. Really? Game changer. What is the sound like? And how long do you listen to it?

Whenever I'm doing anything that does not require me to listen to video or whatever. Oh, so even as you're working, you're just listening to that? Yeah. That frequency? For example, I'm writing a script. I'm writing descriptions or something, right? I throw that on.

It'll take me about five minutes, but once that five minutes passes of listening to that, I'm in the zone. Really? It gets me to the zone. But what do you mean by in the zone? Like just in the mood to work or does it actually... So does it actually elevate your mental capacity, your creativity? It automatically elevates the mental creativity and capacity because you can become focused. So as someone I just mentioned before, I have a bit of ADD. So if...

If I'm working, generally, I can't listen to music. I can't have people walking around me because all of a sudden I start losing my focus. I start looking at them. I start listening to the song. All of a sudden, oh, I want to learn more about that song. And, you know, I just start jumping around. But if I'm listening to them...

Like whatever that tone is. For like five minutes? No, for like the whole hour or two hours or whatever. Oh, I thought you just listened for a little bit of time. No, no, no. No, no, no, no. It takes me five minutes of listening to that to get me in. But you keep going. But once I'm in, I'm in. Oh, so you have it on the whole time. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Okay. It's not for everybody. But if you are somebody that finds yourself losing focus easily, highly recommend it. What are these tones called? Is there a name for them? Let's do it in the show notes. Maybe I'll share some links or something like that. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, they're basically like these sound waves that... I don't know the exact term. Is it like scientific? Like these frequencies are scientifically proven? Scientifically as...

They say? I mean, I'm not... I did not go down... That's that random YouTuber said. No, it's not a random... So, okay, you're going to laugh at me. It was from an app called Brain Tuner that I had. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm glad we finally got to the truth. It started from that, right? I know you didn't want to admit that. I know. And so I forgot where I got that from. But it has like different sound wave frequencies for different things you're trying to do. If you're trying to sleep, you're trying to concentrate, be creative, whatever. I used to use it for sleep and it helped me like fall asleep because I would listen to that. It's like white noise for sleep. Exactly. I love white noise. It helps me. I need it.

But then I started using it for creative and only then it opened up my mind to realize that that actually helps me focus. Just focusing, period.

Yeah, it works. And then I never really dug in, like did my research, like why scientifically it works because I didn't care. Yeah, if it helps, it helps. It doesn't matter at that point. It's not like it's harming me. It's just the sound. Maybe it is. Maybe it's brainwashing you with like these subliminal messages you're not even aware of. Yeah, maybe. But yeah, it helps. Are you curious because you want to try it or? I don't have a tough time focusing. Like if I decide to work on something,

I can usually stay focused without too much of a problem. That's never been an issue for me. That's why I never felt like I had ADHD. That's never. I know so many friends around me are like, oh, I have ADHD. I have ADHD. Everyone thinks they have ADHD. I never felt that way. Yeah. Well, that's actually becoming even more of a problem because of social media and

the habits that everybody has using their cell phone. - Yeah. You know, going back to kind of what you said in terms of like this whole brain fog thing is like, it's a real thing, right? A lot of people are dealing with this like worldwide. - Young people are dealing with it. I mean, it's not an age thing. It's yeah. - I'll take your word for it. I'm wondering like given the recent years, if like the average IQ

of like the world has like dipped down a little bit. Even if it's just a temporary dip, I wonder if it's there because again, you know, when, when I'm on social media, sometimes like I can't help, but feel that way. And I'm sure a lot of people can probably relate with all the, all the crazy shit they see going around and everyone kind of saying crazy things and,

acting crazy, like, I don't know. But I really wonder if there is a material difference between just people's ability to think critically, given the rise of social media and how inundated we are with that. How, like, different from our time, where we got a lot of information through, like, various different sources, and most of them were just offline. Now, it's kind of really just consolidated online.

onto like digital channels, right? Like people are getting their information completely through their cell phones. Their entire worldview on like, doesn't matter any subject is all coming from their phones basically now. Even the older generation. I'm wondering what kind of impact that has on people's ability to actually think critically. And I'm wondering how much that has affected me.

And my ability to think critically as well, right? Because it ties into what we're talking about in terms of this passive state of being when you're just passively intaking information and scrolling. And if enough people are also doing that routinely, then our brain muscles are

it's like we're going through atrophy. Like we're weakening those muscles 'cause we're not using those muscles. We're not using those neural pathways. So they're not firing as much as when we're actively thinking about something. And so through the years, especially the recent ones, I wonder how much weaker

we are now as a whole, right? Like as a species. - I'm sure. I'm sure in general it has gone down. Actually, I was just thinking, do you ever think about how does one disconnect? Like how do you, right now, you,

If you were to make a decision to disconnect from your phone, do you think you can do it? When we say disconnect, are we saying everything except for like, let's say WeChat, which we would depend on for communication? Is that like the example? Do I think... I think I could if the incentives were high enough, were strong enough. Your brain? Your mental health? I know, I know, right? That's so silly. Like...

Like we're literally talking about like our own mental capacities, but still, yeah. It's like, I don't know if it's denial or like, oh wait, I can get myself out of this. I don't need to quit my phone completely. It would be really, really tough. I think I could though. Really? You never tried though? I tried. I did try very briefly.

during COVID, during the lockdown. 'Cause during that time, as you know, there was just so much shit going on, different group chats. So many conspiracy theories, rumors, blah, blah, blah. You know, everyone whining and bitching. Like I didn't want, that was just bringing me down. And so I didn't want that kind of mental diet.

So during that time, I kind of went off my phone. So personally, I tried once, one day, and I shared this with you. I don't know if you remember, but I tried one day where I was off the phone. That includes music. I can't listen to music.

no entertainment whatsoever. Now, obviously, even including WeChat. But I allowed myself to check WeChat once an hour. So at every hour, my phone would, like, my watch would, like, beep, beep. And I can check messages, I can reply, and then I put it down again. That was my way of remedying. So no videos, no moments, nothing. No games, nothing.

And I remember mentioning to you that it felt great. - Yeah. - Like it was amazing. I was thinking a lot. I was just like being philosophical with myself and just thinking about life and the universe and the meaning and just weird stuff that I didn't think about in a long time.

But I realized it's really, really difficult because I did that also right after the lockdown. It was like one of the first days that we were out and I just wanted to try it. And I knew that not many people would be looking for me at that time. So I knew I would be okay. But I thought about doing it now and I don't think I could do it because I just don't know my self-control. I feel like my self-control just keeps getting worse and worse, right? I saw this one person talk about a phone.

That is almost like a... You ever see those Kindles where there's black and white inkless paper? It's like inkless. A Kindle, you mean? Yeah. Or like a Kindle. It's a Kindle. It's basically, it's like the digital ink thing.

It's black and white. I know what it is. It's a screen. Yes. And it's black and white digital ink, right? Okay. And it basically... I just feel like you're phrasing it in a really strange way. I'm trying to think of... It's a screen. It's a Kindle screen. It's okay. You're like, you know, that inkless piece of paper. It's like... Let me try again. Hold on. Let me try it again. So, you know Kindle, right? Yes. Yes.

It uses e-ink, right? And so basically it's black and white ink, and the screen has a really slow refresh rate, so it's really hard to watch videos. But you can see things very clearly in the daytime, and it's e-ink, right? And there is this phone, I think it's a mock-up. I don't think it's out yet. But it's a phone that uses a Kindle screen, pretty much, that e-ink. But it's a smartphone, so you can still have apps, you can still have...

All the things you need on it. But who's going to want to watch YouTube? Who's going to want to watch moments? Who's going to want to watch...

content or read yeah you know on that it won't make it enjoying yeah but you can still check your messages and you can still get your messages who's making this phone i don't i have i don't know i didn't i don't think they said it yet i think it's like a startup or something like that but i but it made me want to look into a little bit more yeah but this phone has all the the bells and whistles wi-fi all that stuff make phone calls text messages all that

So it's your phone, except it's shitty quality. Like so shitty. It's just bad for video. That's the main thing. It's like, it's like, that's the really the main thing it's removing. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. But also social media, because you're not going to want to look at the photos. It's so low res. Yeah. So basically it's, it just makes it so shitty that,

that you're not going to want to use it. When I saw that phone, I'm like, I would get that. Honestly, I swear to you, I would get it. Because to me, it would solve a lot of problems. And then you would stop using it after two days. I don't know about that. I don't know. But maybe I would find the, I guess, a balance. I would keep my regular phone during work hours. And then when I'm home, I go into the e-ink phone. Yeah. Something like that. Or...

or any type of personal time, or any time that I know that it's easy for me to fall into that trap, I have to use that phone. It was something like that. - Well, let's think about the way we're talking about this. It's a real addiction, right? Going back to when we're saying sometimes we have a brief moment where we're on our phones and we look around the subway train and we see everyone else head down, buried in their screen.

it's a real addiction for us to like know that, like we're so aware right now of the negative impact it's having on us and how important that is for us to kind of reverse that. Yet it's so hard to let go of, like that's a real addiction. It's like any drug. - Yeah. - It's scary. I mean, this is almost like silly and it's like, it's a joke now to say, but because everyone kind of knows it on the surface,

But none of us, like how many people are really like actively, like not like kind of like pushing away. I know there are people out there that like have switched to flip back to flip phones. Like they're using flip phones now, but that's like a very small percentage of the people.

who are actively doing that. - You mean the old school flip phones? - Yeah, the old school flip phones. They're going back to them now. - It's a thing. - Yeah. - People going back to the old school Nokia's and... - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not like that many. - But even for the young generation, they're the ones that are starting this. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's kind of cool to use the old... - Good for them. - Yeah. - Good for them. But it's like even my example of what I said briefly during the lockdown,

I kind of gave up my phone, right? And I remember telling you this too. I immediately felt happier. Like noticeably happier. I was much more positive. I just was genuinely just happier about myself, life, just even though we were in a shitty lockdown, like I was in a better mental space. - You sent me this post on Instagram

where there's two people sitting on a bus. One person's sitting looking out the window, which is looking out the news, looking at news. And it's all like shit out the window. It's like looking at like a really close wall of mountainous rock rubble that it's crap. And then the other person is not looking at the news, looking out the window and you see a horizon, like sunny sky. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It's what you choose. But when I sent that to you, because I thought, you know, the meme, the picture was funny, and it's kind of like, that's how I feel. And immediately once I sent that to you, I, in my head, was thinking, oh, Howie is going to reply, or at least think...

ignorance is bliss because that is pretty much- To a certain extent, yes. That is like a picture visualizing like ignorance is bliss, right? So how do we reconcile that? Because I think my argument for that is that it's not really ignorance when the information well has been poisoned. And I've used that phrase before, right? Like

So it's not really ignorance when the waters of information have been muddied so much. So you don't really know what you're getting anymore. You don't know what to believe anymore. So does ignorance as bliss still apply in that example? I don't really think it's fair to apply that phrase in that situation. You know what I'm saying? I get it, but I still think it applies because you still have...

The majority of people reading the news, believing what they read, believing whatever they see. And once you have that comparison, it's still a choice. It doesn't matter if it's a poison well or not. It's like choosing to drink alcohol. Is alcohol good for you? No, it's not. But you're choosing to drink it because you like what it gives you, what it does to you. What? Just because it's a poison beverage that it's not ignorance anymore if...

You know, you choose not to look at it. You know what I'm saying? To me, it's the same thing. - Yeah, it's like even if the information is tainted,

It's still up to you how you digest that information upon seeing it, right? Yeah, there's a lot of people out there that understand that a lot of content these days are, it's getting harder and harder to decipher if the content you're watching, whether they are mainstream media news outlets or independent content creators, it's getting harder and harder to decipher whether or not it's real or whether or not it's biased at the

At the very least. Forget about real or not. Is it biased? It's even getting harder and harder to fact check. Yes. I think that's... Where do you go for your facts? I think you can ask anybody that now, even though you'll have some people that will still name certain outlets to be stable and truthful. But I think in general, generally speaking, it's definitely debatable to...

to decide whether or not what you're ingesting is truthful or not, or biased or not. I don't want to go down in this rabbit hole, because I feel like we always go down in this rabbit hole. So let's talk about something else. - No, because I was just thinking about the whole ignorance is bliss thing as pertained to that picture I sent you. - Okay, so along with this subject, this is something that popped in my mind. I don't know if you ever thought about this. I want to dance around parenting. I don't want to go into the parenting either, but it stems from that. So I have a question.

These days, through content that we ingest, you have a lot of subject matter that has become a little bit more universal or universally talked about. One of them we are victims of as well. I wouldn't call it victim, that's a bad word. But we are purveyors of. Mindfulness, habit building. These are like hot words for the past couple of years that I feel like you see a lot of content about.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you can talk to many people and they'll be like, yeah, mindfulness. Mindfulness. We talk about it. We mention that word all the time. All the time. All the time. All the time. It's a thing. It's a thing. It's a trend. Well, like I did, I just did an episode with Eric before where we talked about it. So let's just put that to one side. Because I'm going to link a couple of things together. That's one. Two, modern parenting. You hear all these modern parenting techniques to raise your child as a complete human being as opposed to

you know, our parents, the way they raised us. You know, there's a lot of techniques to follow, schedules to follow, ways of speaking to your child. And that's a hot thing too. It was like the whole brain child, that book. Yeah. So that's a thing too with modern parents. It's always discussed. So if you take these kind of like modern hot topics or universal topics

So let's talk diets even as well. People going through these certain type of diets, paleo or whatever. These are all, this is all content that is shared that has become viral for one reason or another and then gets shared and shared and shared and shared and spoken and spoken and spoken, etc.,

That it becomes almost like a norm if you're talking about a certain subject matter. For example, mental health. Oh, mindfulness is all about mindfulness. It's all about habit building. That's something that you didn't talk about 20 years ago. Nobody talked about that. Parenting. Oh, it's all about treating your child in a certain way because they are not emotionally available to talk logically with you yet. And all this science stuff.

But back in the day, nobody thought that way. You just raise a child in a certain way, right? Dieting, you just work out. You cut down your calories and it's very simple. Now you have to eat a certain way because it's better for your gut and this and that and this and that. And it's constantly changing, right? So my question now is, is this all bullshit?

Or... Just think about this for a second. Is this all bullshit of the times? Or is it real? Like, is this something that one should buy into because it's... Obviously, I'm speaking generally right now, but is it...

Is it something that because of current trends with social media and the way content is shared so frequently and so watered down, is it bullshit or is it a thing? - Yeah, I mean, it's a valid question, right? Because the idea that every era has its own bullshit that goes like mainstream

is very real. Like look at back in the 80s with like aerobics. You remember how huge? Yeah, aerobics. You remember aerobics exercises? Like how huge aerobics was? Yeah. But if you ask like any like fitness expert now, like aerobics is kind of bullshit. Like no one, that's why no one's doing aerobics anymore.

It doesn't like, it's not just, it's not really that effective. So that immediately came to my mind when you're saying like bullshit of the times I was thinking like eighties aerobics like that. And everyone was bought into aerobics, like everybody. Right. And so sure. Could those things be bullshit of our times? They could be like, not that they're bad in any way. Like, I think these are all things like if you can practice mindfulness, like

All these things, sure, like have at it. Like I think it can only help. But from, if we were to zoom out and let's say a few decades go by and we were to look back at this era and compare it to previous eras before this time and other eras that came after this time, is there a really, would there have been a real difference in terms of

how these kids or how people were brought up and the adults they eventually became. Like, is there a difference in quality between this era and that era? Like maybe not. Like maybe at the end of the day, like we're all like, we are, we're all basically still like come out the same way. Like all the kids of every era grow up to be adults and the differences in quality of those adult, of those human beings,

don't really vary in any significant way, then it would be all kind of bullshit, right? It's just like whatever fad you're into at the time because there's no like real quality difference. Maybe the information will show that there is a quality difference. Maybe the information will show that

People are getting better and better through each generation. Like maybe they are getting smarter. Maybe they are becoming more mentally healthy or compassionate or whatever marker or metric you want to use, right? Maybe they are improving.

Maybe they're not. Maybe they're getting worse and worse. You know, I don't know. But it would have to take some sort of study like that to really know. And so I'm totally open to the possibility, you know, long answer short, of, you know, things being bullshit at a right time, for sure. I just...

- Can't help it, but I heard Eric's voice come in. - Yeah. - The minute I said that. - He is fuming. - Fuming. - He is fuming right now. He's listening to this right now. - So angry. - He's fuming. - Oh my God. - Because his entire identity revolves around mindfulness and compassion. - No, he would eat me out. He would yell at me right now. - He would be punching me. - If he was sitting next to me right now. - If he heard this, he'd be storming into the studio. - Yeah. He's like, "How? "You know how fucked up what you just said is right now?"

His entire life, his entire being revolves around mindfulness. Oh my God, it's love though. That's love. Okay, I only include mindfulness because it's such a hot term for the past five, 10 years that you hear every coach, every...

Every leader uses terms like that, that, like I said, 20 years ago, you don't really hear as much. I don't know what the 20 years later, what that term is going to be in that age where you're trying to be a better person or...

I don't know what that's gonna be, but at least right now in modern days, mindfulness is what it is. And current parenting, you know, I thought about when I get overly worried or stressed about the way I'm raising my kids. And then I think about, and I asked my parents, you know, when I was, when you were raising me, did you think about, did you think about those things that I said? Or of course not. They're like, no.

Of course not. You ate, you slept, you were safe, but that's it. Yeah. You know, or even like, you know, like metrics of, oh, at one years old, you're supposed to be able to do this. You're supposed to be able to do that. You're supposed to learn this or practice that, you know? He's like, no. Yeah, at one years old, you're just playing. Like, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, of course they weren't back then. It could also be, have to do with cultural differences between East and West as well.

Right? Because a lot of those things you're saying in terms about kind of the new age methods of raising children, these hot keywords like mindfulness, blah, blah. I mean, that's Western stuff. Like, do you really hear that out here? Like you do, but it's not mainstream. Like it is, like, let's say back in the US. That is true. That is true. That is true. Yeah. So. Because I feel like here, it's more traditions. It's not about what's

Does that make sense? Because historically speaking, the culture here is much more rich. The traditions are much more deep. And so things like drinking hot water, drinking,

Yeah, yeah. They carry on. When you get sick, you're supposed to do certain things. They're still more conventional. These traditions, conventional ways of, well, their conventions. Yeah. It's a little bit harder maybe for like these new fads to really take root in terms of specifically, I think, parenting style, things like that.

because there is maybe more an emphasis on tradition. But young parents are, if you flip through Xiaohongsu and you look at what young parents, local young parents are talking about, a lot of

The sharing is very similar to. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. So very trend. It's very. So yeah, we could be totally wrong about that then. But I'm just thinking just in general, just the idea that because you have so much more access to content and you have certain ideas that catch fire and become like, for example, I remember when we first started doing podcasting,

One word, or a little bit before that, one word that I kept hearing over and over again in every meeting scenario or even peers that are talking, when they're talking about their businesses and stuff like that, the word pivot was used often.

All the time. For some reason, I kept hearing that word. Wait, wait, where is this you kept hearing? I know the word pivot, but like... Which is in general, the use of pivot. Okay. Like, oh, let's pivot the conversation. Or for some reason, that became like a hot word. And all of a sudden, everybody wanted to use that word.

Okay. Yeah, it's just something that popped up. I don't know, it was on my radar of hot terms. Let's pivot the conversation. Let's pivot the conversation. Yeah, I mean, pivot, like what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with it. I'm just saying that it was something that... Like what, everyone was using that word? Like here? It became a word. And I actually made a comment about that on Twitter, I believe.

where I almost never tweet, but I reply to somebody, they're using Pivot. And I'm like, Pivot, Pivot, Pivot, Pivot. And all of a sudden people were responding and be like, yeah, ha, ha, ha, ha. It's so overly used. It became a thing, I think. For some reason. Like a joke. Yeah, but all I'm saying is that I guess the...

The main idea I'm trying to express is because of the access to content and people are... What am I trying to say? Looks like none of the exercises you've been doing have been helping. No, it's because I got caught...

- On this one word. And sometimes when I overthink on a certain word, it all of a sudden just takes me out of my thoughts. - Yeah, it stops the entire train. - Yeah, that train just left for a second. Also, I'm like, the word was democratization, right? So I wanted to use democratization in terms of everybody having access to sharing their thoughts and ideas. It's almost like pennies, throwing them out there, all these ideas. And sometimes the pennies can grow into,

you know, lots of money. And also I got caught up in that analogy and being like, that's not a good analogy. So that kind of got stuck. Yeah. But how often do you hop on Twitter? Never, never, never. Like do you never hop on just to like look around? Yeah, me neither. I downloaded the app once. I believe I made like a couple posts like for The Honest Drink. I don't have a personal Twitter account. And then never again did I ever click into Twitter.

Not that I saw anything. I'm just like, it just, everything I've heard and, you know, especially when you go on social media, you hear all these like fights between celebrities and these like thinkers, you know, popular thinkers out there. They're like feuding over Twitter and having Twitter wars. Like, it just seems so stupid. Yeah.

and silly to me. Like, I'm like, why would I want to be a part of that? Like world, right? Yeah. I mean, I can also say the same for our Xiao Hong Su account. Sometimes when we post certain videos, the comment section gets kind of ridiculous. You know, there, there's a, I mean, recently, I don't know if you want, if you looked at any of them, but recently, which ones, uh, recently there's been a couple of Jason Smith videos.

Oh, I haven't looked at the new ones. Yeah, yeah. So upload a couple of short clips on those. And there are a couple of comments I was looking through. Yeah, they're quite negative. About what? Like, what was the topic? One of them was about the use of laowai. And it's just a, I think it was a pretty innocent clip.

It was just discussing... Yeah, I remember that episode. Yeah, it's just talking about law. Was it offensive to you, Jason, the host of the Bridge podcast? He said, no, it's not offensive. Just talked about how it was not offensive, but some people have taken offense to that word, but he doesn't, and then...

And basically it was very simple. It was nothing negative. The most negative maybe was from you saying that, which kicked off the conversation, which said that you heard your father use the word and it almost sounded kind of negative. So that's why you asked that question. Very just curious and just a nice normal conversation. And then in the end, it was like capped off with asking a thing in Cantonese. Is there something about Guilo? And like, yeah, ghost dude. And then it was like a joke, right? It's like, oh, white ghost dude, white dude.

And that was it. But then if you look at the comment section, you have people being like, you know, 玻璃心, you know, like. Oh, like thin skin, like fragile. Yeah, like fragile heart, you know. Yeah, yeah. Or just being basically like, yeah. Like you're a snowflake. Yeah, snowflake, exactly. Or like, you know, that's not a negative term, you know. Yeah. Like we never said it was like a negative term. We're just talking about it.

And then there's like heated discussions about it. And then there's another clip where we're talking about like Asian hate crime. So were there people pushing back against those negative comments? There were, but not more of the negative than pushing back. And then there's another clip about whether or not Asian hate crime was going up or down. Once again, just conversation. And the whole thing turned into Asians should not be going to other Western countries. You know, once again, policing, you know, like shit like that. So it's like all this weird, it's just a lot of weird comments that I didn't respond to.

to any of them, but I just looked at them. One of them I did, but it was just a very simple question mark. But in general, I was just looking at them and I was like, I don't understand where you get it. Like, are you watching the same thing? But it just goes to show that... Well, there's two things. It goes to show how much of...

the actual video are they really digesting and thinking about, right? Are they just kind of skimming through it, reading the, uh, maybe the title and then, you know, their assumptions are still like too loud for them to actually listen to what, like, let's say we're actually saying in the video. Exactly. And you, you see that happen a lot. You see that on YouTube too, right? Like, so maybe that's one part of it. Another part of it is like these people who are just like really, uh,

like kind of toxic in the comment section, I guess maybe. How much of the population are they really representing, right? Because we know there is that specific cohort online that is really going to attack these kind of issues that we're talking about here, right? So how much of it is just like people from that cohort, like really just stumbling upon the video versus an actual fair representation of... It's also that the people that spit vitriolic...

tend to have the most, I guess, urge to want to share their thoughts. They want to comment. They want to say these things. Meanwhile, you have people who are either neutral or maybe a little more positive. They don't really care much to leave a comment. So they just watch it and then that's it. So I think that's the... That's just in general. It reminds me of like what Steve Shee said like when he was on the podcast.

It's like people in pain are the ones that are really going to be like voicing out. Yeah, 100%. The people that have been, for example, I'm just going to guess, but maybe it could be one person who's saying, oh, 玻璃心, or something like that. Maybe it's because they had some negative encounters with foreigners or whatever. So their immediate response is to put down any type of talk.

I have to deal with that. Or they're just buying into all the news that they're reading and watching, thinking that Western people are bad if that's what they're ingesting. And so they get so angry about it and they lash out. Yeah, it's hard to judge because we don't know what their previous experiences have been. We don't know what they've been through for them to feel certain ways.

So it's really kind of hard to really judge anything about that. - But why even put that much importance to that person, right? Is this? - No, yeah, of course not. I mean, I'm just trying, we're just thinking out loud right now. But what is fascinating is the idea of your assumptions being too loud for you to actually hear the conversation. - It doesn't break through your, that inner dialogue. - Because I see that happening everywhere.

like around the world, right? Like it's fascinating 'cause even in some conversations I've had in the past, it's like you realize as you're talking to this person,

you can see in their eyes, they're actually not really absorbing what you're saying at all. And you just know they're just locked in on their own assumptions. Like they're not, like, I don't know, in their head, maybe they're just hearing like, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, you know what I mean? And they're just locked in. Yeah, just like what you're doing now, right? And it's just like this idea of your assumptions are so strong and loud in your own head that

It just doesn't cut through. It just doesn't cut through. And so you never really have a conversation with that person, which is really unfortunate. And it's a combination of that with when you're having a conversation with somebody and they're jumping ahead and cutting you off as if they know what you're going to say. Yeah. That's another issue that I have. Well, I do that too sometimes. But I feel like I really know what you're going to say.

There you go. There you go. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. It's the difference of listening and hearing. Yeah. Right? It's like, I hear you, but are you really listening? Yeah. Some people just either don't want to listen, don't have the patience to listen. Yeah, they don't, they're not really interested in an actual genuine conversation. And there's, I think there's too many people probably that aren't interested in actually really having conversations.

an honest conversation about things. And you know, it's like, I know from personal example, it's not easy. It's hard. I don't always succeed at that either. Before we're talking about Twitter, Elon Musk, did you see Elon Musk on the Lex Freeman podcast? Yes. Did you watch the whole episode? I just watched the clips. Most of it. Yeah. I remember when I saw the clip where Lex was asking Elon about China. Elon Musk was,

was said that there, in his opinion, there are smarter and more hardworking people in China than there are in the US. I was like, oh, damn, did he just say that? Yeah.

Yeah. That's pretty crazy. He said pound for pound. Yeah. There's just a lot more smarter and hard worker people. Yeah. It's really interesting for someone like him to say that. And if you've watched the video, you can see the way he looks at Lex. It was almost like a badass look as if he knows something that you don't know kind of thing. Really? Yeah. He was like, as if he was like,

They're smarter and harder working than all of America. No, he said there's more...

hardworking and smarter people in China than... In America. They are in America. But the way he said it, it was like this kind of like... Like what? Like US is bullshit kind of thing. Oh, really? Yeah. I just felt he said it knowing that that was going to be a very controversial take for him, given Lex's audience is probably mostly... Check that video. Check that mark. I noticed it, the way he looked at it.

It was kind of like, it's almost like what he's saying is so absurd that he's like, you see, you see, you see, like this is fucked up. Okay. If I'm thinking about it, I don't feel like he says fucked up. I think he's like, he's like saying it like, you know, watch out. Don't underestimate. Maybe that's a tone. Maybe that's a tone. People in China. Cause I feel like there's,

they're more hardworking and smarter in general. I feel like that's what he was saying. It was more like a warning. Maybe. Like get your game, get your shit together, America kind of deal. I don't know. Yeah. But it's, it was kind of bold for him to say something like that. I'm sorry to just jump around, but something just popped in my mind that I want to ask you. Yeah. I want to see what you think. Yeah. Do you feel like your passion and love for films is,

have been getting, becoming lower at all? - My passion and love for films? - Like, do you find enjoyment in watching films? - Yes. - Less than before? - No. - Is this, it's still? - I love a good movie. - It hasn't changed? - No, no. In fact, maybe I even appreciate it even more. I don't know. Like I, and part of it maybe has to do with, I like the distraction of good entertainment.

It's like an escape for me, which might not be the healthiest signal,

But yeah, man, I love a good movie. I love a good film. I just finished watching the second season of Loki and that was freaking amazing. Oh, I want to watch that. Loki was really good. Loki was probably one of the best. Probably the best Marvel. Because I love season one. Oh, season two is even better. Yeah, it's good. I really want to watch that. Yeah, it's good. See, that's the thing with me. The reason why I'm asking you this is because one day I just realized that

When I was talking to my wife, because she's constantly watching stuff at home. And I said to her, I was like, yeah, I haven't watched a movie in a long time. I mean, we went to the cinema to watch a couple of films, but...

I have so many movies on my hard drive ready to go that I just haven't watched. Yeah, I know. Because every time I'm like, oh, did you see this new thing that I watched? You're like, no. Yeah. And there's a lot of, like I have. And like you're the film guy. Supposedly. I have Loki season two downloaded, ready to go. But there's a lot of films, TV shows I just don't watch. And then I. I watched Gen V. Yeah, I want to watch that too. The sequel, the boys basically. It's like a different. It's a spin off. Yeah. Really, really good. Yeah, I really want to watch it. Really good.

So I don't have an answer why, but I feel like there are films that I want to watch. And like I said, I have like 50 ready to go. But I don't know. I just can't get myself. Why? I don't know. I don't know. It's really weird. Is it because if you were to watch like a really well-made movie, really good movie that you really like, it would be kind of a reminder of your own dreams that you did not fulfill yet? I didn't think of that.

How would you not think of that? That would be like the most obvious. Honestly, I didn't think of that. I didn't think of that. But I'm going to put two and two together right now because you just triggered something in me.

Do you remember me telling you when I broke up with my band, when I quit music, that I stopped playing music? Like I stopped playing guitar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I equate it to almost like a bad divorce. Yes. Where I didn't trust love anymore, almost kind of thing. Yeah. And I went from writing music every day to never playing guitar. Yeah, and it carries on to this day. Like I remember even in Shanghai when I was like, hey, let's start a band together. You're like, no, I can't, I can't.

that. Like you just like, you just, you couldn't do it. Yeah. Like we did a couple of rehearsals, but like, which are fun. But, and every time I go see a live show, it's like heartbreaking, even though if the brand, the band is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, oh, yeah. Right. I wonder if that's because I made a decision recently that I'm not going to make a movie anymore. So just to give any listeners so many contexts, we don't know how we, you know, studied as a filmmaker. He went into that industry, you know, you've always had,

this passion and this, I guess, dream before of,

really making it as a filmmaker, right? Creating your own movies, stuff like that. Yeah. But like you just, I've become very cynical towards it. You become really cynical and you kind of got, you're kind of like, it got stuck in the advertising world, making, filming commercials instead. Yeah. And then now I have a family and it's like, it's getting farther and further away from something that I want to put my effort. Yeah. So it would make total sense that if you were to watch like a movie, like especially a good movie that you're like, it would just remind you of that distance. Yeah.

from your dream, right? So it's like, I can totally see. - It's like I'm repeating that again with. - Oh yeah, totally. - It's interesting. I never thought about that. - That would make total sense. That would make total sense because yeah, exactly. You've shown that pattern of behavior before with other things that you love. So probably, yeah. - Interesting. Look at you, Mr. Therapist, Mr. Psychologist Justin. - Yeah, yeah. - Let's try not to end it on a negative note like that.

You remember last time? We always... Oh, man. I feel like our shows have been ending on negative notes. You're repeating yourself. What do you mean? That's what we said last time. I know, but that's what I'm saying. I feel like we're doing that again. All right, well, what's positive? Let it be. This is let it be. Anyway, I feel...

Okay, definitely my takeaway from this is definitely get off my ass and start like working on my mental fitness more. I mean, I think in general, even though we shared some negative aspects of ourselves, I think in general, it's positive.

It's a positive episode. We're talking about how to better ourselves, at least from my perspective. Yeah. Right? It's about not giving into your own negative thoughts about your maybe limitations. Yeah, I think it's kind of the awareness and the sharing of kind of how we feel very one-dimensional these days. We feel very flat. We feel not as...

mentally there and sharp anymore. And it's the realization like, well, this is like, it's like, it's like a physical workout. Like we can do things to improve this and build up that fitness again. Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me, and I hope that this is the takeaway that the listeners have is just being aware of the

This routine that you go through every day. Now, not everybody has this routine, but I would say a majority of people have a certain routine that they go through where it's almost zombie-like, right? Be aware that you are in this routine and be aware that some of your negative thoughts that you may have or depressive states that you may be in, you possibly could get yourself out of it by being aware and changing. You definitely can for most of us.

Yeah, you definitely can. Don't identify with a weak moment. Don't identify with just a temporary weakness, right? Do something about it. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole point of being vulnerable for us. I mean, one is we're able to share with one another because we're close and we know each other very well. So maybe we can...

coming with different angles and break down what we're thinking and feeling. But also, almost even more importantly, is maybe there are people out there that can relate. And if they can relate and they can take something positive out of this, then what I have shared, this personal heart-opening story of my cognitive decline. You're opening your flower. Yeah, well, I'm hoping that it actually...

To help somebody. Honestly. Because I wish I could have heard this, you know, when I was in my moments. Okay, Mr. Helpful. Just helping millions around the world. I'm just so good-hearted. By yourself. I'm so kind-hearted. Anyway. Alright, I'm Justin. And I'm Howie. Be good. Be well. Peace.