Why Creativity Demands Discipline | “Good Bones” Poet Maggie Smith (PT. 1)
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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of the most important people in the world,

to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives.

Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. We are doing some upgrades to the Painted Porch, so there's like this upstairs back office. And it's funny, when we walked into the building for the first time back in 2019, it was a disaster. It had been most recently a Mexican restaurant, it had

been vacant for many years. The roof was leaking. It was not in good shape, but it was my wife who saw the potential and she said that would make an amazing bookstore. And I'm not sure I totally saw it to be perfectly honest, but I'm glad that I believed her when she said, you know, there are good bones here. And it's funny, it's one of the first projects we did because we weren't sure when and how we do the bookstore was turning the upstairs into offices. And we're in the middle of

already renovating those offices because Daily Stoke has expanded. Our budget is bigger. We have more constraints and needs. We'd already replaced some ACs. So there's a lot of dead space taken up by old stuff. And so while we were gone on spring break, we had a contractor in sort of rip out everything. And so as I walked in today, I'm recording this on Monday, walked in today, they were 90% of the way through the demolition. But a big part of it was like coming back to what this looked like

when it started. Like, it was almost like going back in time to when we walked into this place for the first time. It kind of took me aback a little bit, quite frankly. But then I was excited because I could see where the deaths are going to go. I could see the potential of it again.

And we're really excited. So that project is not wrapping up because it's in the middle of it, but it's going to be exciting. And I know that all the employees, like Claire, who's the producer of the podcast, she'll get a new better place to sit. Chelsea does social media. Liz and Brendan, who do the Daily Stoic emails. Billy, all the people who work for Daily Stoic, I'm sure will appreciate having a slightly upgraded and upgraded

Also, let's just say structurally sound second story to sit in here. That's one of the things though, like not only do you have to see the potential in a thing, but then once you're in the middle of it and it gets worse before it gets better, can you not lose hope? Can you not despair? There's a hopefulness to that, a persistence to that, a self-belief in your own agency and ability to pull through that you need. And I think there's a metaphor here

In that. And Maggie Smith talks about that in her poem, Good Bones, which is just one of the greatest poems that I think I've read in our modern society.

My wife sent it to me, Samantha. She sent this to me, I think some point early in the pandemic. Let me just play it for you because it's really good. It went viral back in 2016. Some people call it the official poem of 2016. It blew up like that Mr. Rogers quote. It blows up when times are bleak and dreary. I'll record her reading it just so you can hear the poem. Good bones.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least 50% terrible, and that's a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short, and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger there is one who would break you. Though I keep this from my children, I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor walking you through a real shithole chirps on about good bones. This place could be beautiful, right?

You could make this place beautiful. You could make this place beautiful, right? The world is half terrible, she says, but you could make this place beautiful. It's got good bones. And I do feel like we need to believe that. And certainly believing the opposite, giving up, being like, oh, it's a dump. Oh, it's a teardown. Oh,

There's a cynicism and I think even a nihilism in that that really, really scares me. So I loved the poem when I first read it. And so I was really excited to have Maggie on the podcast. She's an award-winning poet. When "Good Bones" came out in 2016, it was a viral sensation. It's been read millions and millions and millions of times. It also spurred her memoir, "You Can Make This Place Beautiful."

And so I was really excited to hear that she has a new book out called Dear Writer, Prep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life, which has got both poems and memoir and advice in it. I think it'll go well in the writing and creativity section at the Painted Port. She was nice enough to sign copies of her books. She's a New York Times bestselling author. She's won all sorts of poetry prizes. And I was really excited to have Maggie on the podcast. We had a great conversation about writing

what I would call the myth of inspiration, the importance of constraints. We talked about parenting and how do you protect your kids from the reality of the world without misleading them, which is, I think, the fundamental tension of that poem. Yeah, she's amazing. Here is me talking with Maggie Smith, and you can follow her on Instagram at Maggie Smith Poet, and grab copies of You Can Make This Place Beautiful, Keep Moving, and Dear Writer.

I think when people think of writers or they think of artists, they think about stream of consciousness, inspiration. It's like it just came out of me, right? And that's why I was so fascinated with what you're talking about with restraint. Because I think...

That's the opposite of what people think when they think of art. And almost not just the opposite, restraint feels like a bad thing. Like restraint feels like you're holding a piece of yourself back. You're censoring yourself. But actually, I'm so glad that you said that because it is all about restraint.

It has to be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, first of all, nothing comes out fully formed. I mean, this idea that poets and artists sit down and the muse or whatever the thing is that comes to you like a lightning bolt from the sky and then sort of moves through your hands, and then there's a fully formed piece of work in front of you is...

If only. Sure. I would be writing twice as many books if I could just sit down and sort of mainline that inspiration from the sky. But that's not what happens. What happens is a lot of mess. Yes. And the restraint or constraint is what I think we use to have discernment when we're going through those things and looking at a legal pad full of writing and thinking, okay,

where are the gems in this mine? Because not all of it is good. Not all of it is, or not good, not all of it is worthy further exploration. Like where are the hotspots? Sure. Yeah, and there's restraint and then constraint. And I guess they're two sides of the same coin, but there's this Stoic named Cleanthes very early on in Stoicism. And he's saying actually the whole point of poetry, what makes poetry beautiful, he says, are the fetters. He's saying in the same way that the trumpet is,

you know, it channels the air and that's how you get the sound. And obviously we've experimented a bit more with poetry since, but the whole point is that poetry isn't whatever you want, that there's some external structure, the haiku being probably the greatest example of this, but it's in the constraints, not being able to do whatever you want. The rules are what create the meaning and the puzzle of it and the beauty. Again, you think of

the artist as being this unfettered free spirit, but you actually love the rules because they are what make it a creative math problem. Yes, it's what makes it hard. Yes. Right? I mean, if it really was first thought, best thought. Yeah. And you didn't have to shape it at all, then you could just be sort of writing all the time and just sending things out into the world that were half-baked. And everyone could do it. And everyone could do it. And everyone can do it. Yeah.

Right. But no, I think the poet Terrence Hayes once, I think he was speaking to a room full of high school students and someone asked him, why do you write in form? Because he writes these American sonnets. Like why, if you can do anything you want, why would you compress into 14 lines? Why would you worry about syllable count? Why would you give yourself, why would you fence yourself in if you don't have to, if you could have the whole meadow? And he said something like,

You know, it's pretty cool if you can breakdance, but it's even cooler if you can breakdance in a straitjacket. Ooh, sure. Right? So the constraint actually forces you to be more creative. If you can't use the first adjective that comes to mind because it doesn't fit the meter or it doesn't fit the syllable count or whatever it is, it forces you to do some creative problem solving while you're working. And that's the sort of math thing.

Part of poetry that I find incredibly appealing in a way I never found math itself appealing. But the logic of it is what's fun. The puzzle of it is what's fun. Well, and this is the metaphor for life, too. It would be wonderful, you think, to get everything you want or to have no impediments or obstacles or difficulties.

But that's the whole thing. It would also be wonderful, I guess, if it went on forever, but it's that there is a beginning and an end that creates meaning and urgency. And so the whole point is that there are rules and constraints. Now, they're more negotiable than maybe sometimes people think they are. And sometimes really transgressive, brilliant artists do great work questioning those boundaries. But in a way, they're just creating new forms and new rules and new models and

And so it comes back to the same idea as you, you can't do whatever you want. And it's actually good that you can't do whatever you want. And even if you can do whatever you want, there's still this constraint called the audience or attention or good or not. Yeah. There's all the, that's the puzzle of it. And that's where the meaning comes from. So true. Cause it was funny. Cause you, you talk about constraints or restraints and then your next chapter is, is on revision. And I was like looking at it and I was like,

Almost all your revision rules are cutting, you know, like constraints is what the medium puts on you. And then restraint is what you put on yourself. And you're, I think every writer knows this. You go through your, the publisher's like, it's good. No, I'm there's more. I'm going to cut. Like you're, you're going through and you're, it's the process of tightening and removing everything.

Anywhere you have two words that one will do, that is the ultimate restraint and constraint that the artist puts on themselves. I think so. And I think maybe that's, for me, coming from poetry, that kind of compression and that kind of like, what is essential here? Yeah. And what could I remove? If I revise, something almost always shrinks rather than grows. And I know not every writer is like that. Some writers will go back to revise a draft and

whatever the genre is, whether it's a novel or a poem, and the thing will double in size. I have never been able to do that. When I revise, things get smaller because I'm always looking for something

What is essential? What is not? What can I get rid of? How can I trust the reader more and respect the reader more and know that they're at least as savvy and as intelligent as I am and probably more so? So what can I remove and let them sort of fill in some of those empty spaces with their own imagination and experience and not spoon feed them?

I think it's both. Oftentimes I'm finding myself cutting and then that's giving me the opportunity to add or articulate. So, so it's like books and poetry are obviously very different, but it's like, let's say you have a 50,000 word manuscript when you turn it in and then you do a round of editing, it might go down to 45 and then

back up to 55, but that's not the same as just adding 5,000 words because you've compressed it down. It's like you're letting it settle. And then, and then once that compression is there, you can add on top of it. Yeah. Or you find a new idea when you're cutting things out that you then want to sort of open up another avenue and travel down that road a little way. Yeah. A little ways. Yes.

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There's something satisfying too, I think about cutting. Even though you sweated for every fucking word. That's so true. And had somebody else suggested you cut that earlier, you'd been like, how dare you? And now you're just like, I can't believe I cut this much today. Like I both pride myself on it and take satisfaction while I'm doing it. Just like how much shorter it got. I love that too, honestly. But I also, and I don't think it's because I have a short attention span. I like shorter books.

Yes. Like, I really like things that when I go in there, I'm like, there's no fat. Like, there's no connective tissue that is not required. Like, it's just muscle and bone. Yeah. And I know everything is there for a reason. And no one was sort of like...

fiddling around to get to a page count or it just doesn't feel like there's anything extra. But there's no throat clearing in poems. And that's probably what you carry over to your prose. Yeah, a throat clearing. I think that I, when I'm talking to students, I'm like, okay, the first two stanzas are preamble.

Yeah. Like the poem feels like it really finds its legs and gets moving at like stanza three. Yeah. Which is halfway through the poem. So what would happen if you cut or repurposed stanzas one and two? What would happen if we just hit the ground running? Right.

right away. Like, how does that feel? That's the advice I find myself giving more often than not. It was Fitzgerald or Hemingway. I forget which one was talking to one, but they were like, just cut these first two. Like one of them had an introductory chapter where they were explaining who all the characters were effectively. And he was like, just start with the characters and, and yeah, how much of what you do is un,

I call it throat clearing or the, it's like, you're spinning your wheels. Yeah. And just like, I get that you needed to do that until you could get traction. But me as the reader, like start me with the traction. Yes. Yeah. I don't need to watch you rev your engine for 40 pages. Like once you find the road that you want to travel, then those 40 pages can either go or if there are scenes or bits of dialogue in there that you think are

are solid, find a way to pull them and thread them in later. Yeah. Like I often write long intros when I'm starting. Like I know some people don't do an intro. Like they come back and do the intro. I know a lot of writers that do that, but I kind of need to explain to myself what I'm going to say.

but almost always I come back and that introduction gets down by half because I don't need to tell you what I'm going to tell you. You know, like I've addressed this in the book or I've not addressed it in the book. Like I thought I needed to set this thing up. Yeah. And then it turns out that's not that important or it's implied or whatever. And wherever you can, yeah, just sort of get rid of that wheel spinning. I think you're just much better.

better. And then I think social media teaches you this too. I mean, obviously it's, it's wicked and not great for humanity, but like when, when you are dealing with a medium where like on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, where it's like the first one second is what people are. And you go, okay, how am I translating that in my right? Like, how am I grabbing you from the throat at the beginning? And if I'm not, that's kind of self-indulgent. And now I know I can like, because I have to do it for these other platforms.

I want the first sentence to be good, not to be like, yeah, setting the table. Yes, totally. But I think the idea of, obviously you have word counts or you have these external constraints, but ultimately you have to be the most ruthless on yourself. Like you have to be the, because they're going to let you get away with things and you have to decide, hey, no, no, no, this is,

This is longer than it needs to be or more meandering than it needs to be. Like when I'm editing my own stuff and I find myself getting a little bored, like I'm skimming, I'm like, you know, that means I have to do something. You could voice that on the audience if you wanted, but you have to decide that you don't, you're not going to tolerate that.

Yeah, I think, honestly, it's probably the case that praise is more dangerous than criticism. Sure. And I think it's easy. You said people will let you get away with things. It's totally true. Yeah. And the more books you write, the more they will let you get away with. Yes. And so you really do have to be harsh on yourself. Yeah. Or at least maybe not harsh, but you have to hold yourself accountable. Yeah. Just in case someone else doesn't.

and be really, really discerning in the way that you build things. Yeah, I feel that. Well, I think there's a metaphor in that too, not just for people who do creative work, which is like,

early on you chafe under the direction or the control of an editor and you think, hey, if I just get successful enough, if I just prove myself enough, no one can tell me what to do, which is exactly what happens. And then what do you do? You crave editorial guidance and direction. And I have actually been going back and forth with my publisher about this is like, you guys are just rubber stamping what I'm turning in. And I know that's not good.

And so how I'm putting edits on your edits, which is insufficient. You didn't do. Actually, we had a big argument about it because they sent me back a round of notes. And I was like, you're just asking me to do all the work. Like we're partners in this thing that you acquired this book, which means you have a certain amount of responsibilities, obligations to do it. And by you just saying like thumbs up,

you're telling me that I have to go find all the things that you were supposed to find. Or I have to find someone else to do it, you know? Or just be happy with it. Or you're just supposed to be like, okay, I guess we're done here. Which again, you think you want. But you don't. But what you actually want is great work. And great work comes from the conflict and the tension and the resistance. And

So yeah, you think you... How many people think they want to be entrepreneurs or they think they want to work from home or they want their boss to be less attentive? And you do in some sense, but there's a reason that the best athletes in the world voluntarily have coaches. Right. And they tend...

Those coaches are not notoriously lax. They're usually hard asses. Like you want, you need the constraints and not that you do everything that they say, but you need that thing to push against. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think it keeps you honest and it keeps you working hard. I mean, I like it when people are like,

Oh, you know, I like this poem, but it feels like it's kind of following a formula that I've seen in these two other poems that you've written. Yeah. Yes, thank you. Right. Like, sometimes we are too close to the work. You know, oftentimes I feel like when I'm writing, I'm painting a canvas. Right.

with my nose an inch from it. And I don't always know exactly what I'm doing until I can stand back and look at it. And even then it's mine. So how am I supposed to see it in an objective way? But if I can share it with a writer friend or give it to an editor who will kindly and gently be like, I like this, but what about X, Y, and Z? That gives me something to sort of chew on that I love.

Yeah. Often the question I ask is like, what didn't you like? What takes too long? What's superfluous? You know, like my questions are not like, tell me how this is great. Like, I think it's great or I wouldn't be showing it, you know, or like I wouldn't have done it.

Not that everything I do is great, but this is me doing what I think is good or I would have not shown it to anyone. Yeah. This is what I'm capable of. Yes. At this moment. Right. But I want to be capable of more and I want it to be more than it is. And that's why I am soliciting criticism primarily, not it's perfect. Yeah. Every once in a while, you know, maybe you get it largely right on the first try, but

Yeah, I think Hemingway said the first draft of everything is shit. It's just true. Yes. Yeah, and that's okay. I mean, I think it's actually really affirming for people to hear that it doesn't matter how many books or poems or screenplays...

you've written that it's always messy in the beginning and we don't really know what we're doing. And yes, we rev our engines and clear our throats and sometimes have to scrap it and start over or pull the one juicy bit out and then build that into something new. I think that's really affirming. Lest people think...

that you get to a certain level in your creative practice or your career and everything just flows. Right. I think that's a dangerous misconception to have. Well, it's true. You can even have that misconception yourself or about yourself, which is like, I'm a big believer in like, as soon as you finish, you start the next thing. Yeah. Because I think the longer you let it sit, the more easy it is to get complacent or to just not

If you get out of shape, then you have to get back into shape, right? It's easier to stay. But the problem is that transition is tough because you don't finish. You spend all that time editing and refining and whatever. So you're spending, it's like one week, you're on something that's 95% of the way there. And then the next...

day or week you're on something that's 0% of the way or negative because like you don't even have the idea yet or you have a conception of the idea and then it immediately becomes clear that that's not the idea. And so that sort of, you can kind of get the bends there where you're going from one environment to another and you have to go, oh wait, this thing was at that phase at some point, not that long ago. And depending on how long you've been on the project, you might

have totally lost track. You know, like maybe it might be nice on a poem is you don't work on a poem for 20 years, but I can imagine if you're, you know, if you're like one of those

If you do those people who do those doorstop biographies, you've been working on this book for 10 years and then you're starting with the germ of an idea for the next one. That would be so disorienting, I would think. I think so, too. I mean, although I have probably written poems over 10 years, not that I've worked on them every day for 10 years, but oftentimes I do write something and I'm like, it's not baked. Yeah.

And I put it away and I trust future me to know what to do with it. And future me might know what to do with it in a month or it might be nine years later. That suddenly, I mean, I think I just finished a poem for, and that was in my last book, Goldenrod, from when my daughter was a baby. And she's, you know, learning how to drive right now. And it just took me forever.

A certain amount of thinking and experience and like shifts in perception to be able to look at that problem child of a draft in a new way and have something just sort of click of what needed to happen with it. Yeah. I wish that happened within three weeks. Yeah.

every single time, but that's just not the case. I can just imagine you're like a business owner, a serial entrepreneur. Like you're exiting a company or it's now self-sustaining and it can be so easy to have forgotten what the early days of a company are like because now your company has an HR department and you've got revenues and you've got all these sort of established ongoing problems.

and the problems of an upstart are, you know, have receded into view. And I think that's an experience you get as a writer. It's like, you were just working on a project where it had all come together. It's not perfect, but all the threads, it made sense. Like the journey, the concept, it came together. But it's in the early days of any project, whether it's something as short as a poem or an article or a book, where you're like,

is this gonna work? Is this gonna be a thing? And you don't know until you've gotten most of the way there that, oh, hey, the end is in sight. I see how this all comes together. I still have to do it, but it came together. But sitting in the...

I've just got this piles of notes everywhere. I mean, I think that uncertainty is uncomfortable. And when we make things, whether it's a piece of writing or a piece of art or company, we are starting from scratch over and over and over again. Yes. And sitting in that uncertainty and not even knowing the sort of like worth or even the durability of your idea. Yeah. Like, is this thing actually going to get off the ground?

Because I've done this before, but I haven't done this before. Yes. Because it's new every single time. Like just because you've published a book or founded a company or done X, Y, or Z or raised a child doesn't mean it's going to be a piece of cake the next time you try it because- Right.

It's different every single time. That's the fun though, too. I wonder, it's like, it is interesting. Most people, like you have your kids like somewhat close together. And then you talk to someone who they're like, I've got an 18 year old and a two year old, or they've got a 25 year old and a six year old. And you're like, oh, okay. So like part of having been all the way through it though, is you do know, hey,

hey, a lot of this stuff works itself out or you figure it out. And so it is, you know, people go, you got to trust the process. What's easier to trust a process you've been through. And so you do try to remind yourself, like on a book project, hey, every, there was this, this phase where everything was disconnected and crazy. And I didn't know if it came together, but it did. And so now I know this is part of it.

I know there's the part halfway through where you doubt it. There's the part where you get towards the end where you get sick of it. There's all that. And then something like having kids or whatever, you just start the clock like three times within like three years of each other or whatever. And then so you're just in the shit for 20 years as opposed to like-

getting through it once, then starting again, and then starting again. And you're like, oh, now you're ready to napalm your life again after finally sleeping through the night and they're off on their own. Well, that's why we don't do it that way. Yeah, exactly.

You're like, I just want to do one or two or three or five insane things close enough together that I don't second guess this insane choice. And I can see the horizon. Yes. But no one else would be like, I'm going to start five books at the same time or within five years. Not ideal. And then I'll finish them all over 20 years from now. And then sleep through the night. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Oh man, it's brutal though. You're coming to a close on one book and...

And then it's going to be shitty for a couple months or longer than while you're like just figuring it out. But if you don't quit, it's never not come together.

Yeah. Yeah. That's absolutely true. And I think, I mean, the other thing that you're sort of toggling back and forth in in that moment is the going from getting something done off the ground and sort of shepherding it into the world and then starting to make something new. Yeah. And making something is a very different process and sort of a different energy and emotional headspace than sharing something that you've made. Sure. Right? Yeah.

That is very disconcerting. Yeah, because often if you're the person who finishes something and starts something, because of also there's the delay until it comes out. So it's like you're doing promo for something that's out, but you're 30% of the way through the next thing. Correct. And you have to go like...

I have to talk to you about this. That was my life two years ago. And that was all I'm thinking about. And now sometimes like, even when I sit down and read an audio book, I'm like, I don't remember some of this. Like this was a different life, a different me. Obviously I felt very strongly about it, but like I have to kind of get myself back in that headspace. And then people ask you very specific questions about things and you're just like,

That was like a dream. Yeah. And you just read a passage to me that I don't remember. I know I did. And to me, that's one of the also kind of evidences of the, I'm not like a super into it, but like the muses, I'm like,

I really am a conduit because I don't remember that at all. Yeah. And it doesn't even sound like me. So where did that come from? I have found poems on my laptop before that I know are mine. Like they're in Garamond, Font 12. They maybe even reference something I remember happening to me or something with my kids. And I have no recollection.

of writing that poem. And I know no one plopped that into my MacBook. But yeah, I mean, as much as it's not a lightning bolt and things don't come out fully formed, it does oftentimes feel like walking around with an antenna raised and not quite knowing what's going to get picked up. And then if you are like me and you lose a writing notebook or you misplace a legal pad or

have a desktop that looks at all like mine, which is a disaster, you might lose something that you've drafted and then find it later. And it feels strange to you. No, you're right. Cause it's not lightning, but it is, there is something fleeting and ephemeral about it. And you either grab it and build on it or you don't like all the thoughts that you have as you're drifting off to sleep. And there's the famous Mitch Hedberg joke about how you have to convince yourself that

That either you have to get out of bed and write it down or you have to convince yourself that it's not good. Yeah. But like the ones that you don't do, you go, oh, this is good enough. I'll remember it in the morning. And then it's gone forever. Poof. There's something haunting about what all that could have been. And-

You either grab it and do the work or you don't. Right. And if you don't, it's nothing. And if you do, it could still be nothing. Right. Or it could be something. Yeah. But you have at least a shot at something. Yeah. If you capture it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying it's super important to me, but it is important. I like my hair. I want to keep it.

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All right, I'm sure you're sick of talking about it, but I do want to talk about Good Bones a little bit. No, I'm not sick of talking about it. No, no, it's just... What I found so beautiful about the poem was this tension that I think is... It was relevant, that it's probably always been relevant. But the idea that, like, the world is shitty and awful, and we have to protect our kids from it because it's not fair to dump our cynicism on them. And at the same time...

it still is shitty and awful and there's a lot of work that has to be done. And that's the sort of fundamental tension of being a good person and a good parent, I feel like. - Yeah, I mean, to me, it's a poem that has hope in it, but not in that kind of Pollyanna way that suggests that actually, oh, like everything's fine and everything will be okay. Like I realize, I don't think it's a very reassuring poem ultimately.

But I think it's real. Yeah. And that is to say, you know, is the world half terrible? I don't know. Some days it feels like 80% terrible. Yeah, or more. I won't lie. Yeah. Like there are days now where I get up and read the news and half terrible, which I have gotten a lot of criticism for being that negative. I'm nostalgic for when it was half terrible. Thank you. Yeah. Like I look at the news now and I'm like, half terrible seems generous on a lot of days right now. Yeah.

But I also realized that there's so much good and so much beauty, and I don't have to look far at all to find it. And so how do we, it's the sort of, you know, idea of negative capability. Like, how do we hold those two things together?

At the same time, like this is a beautiful, wonderful place. It's all we have, frankly. So even if it weren't that great, this is what you get. So how do we deal with that reality? And then at the same time, but it's also scary and dangerous. Yeah.

And I don't want to lie to you about the things that are going on. When I wrote the poem, my kids were, I had a toddler and like a kindergartner. Yeah. And so the idea of keeping things from my children as a parenting strategy was completely doable. Yeah.

And now I have a middle schooler and a high schooler, and they're getting Apple News alerts before I get them. So there is no keeping any of this in.

Right. From my children. Now we just have to have like age appropriate conversations about what's actually happening in the world and what we can do about it. But you have to keep some of your feelings about it from them. Right. Because you in the same like I'm not sure I actually do that, though. But I think to me, what you're saying in the poem is like if your kid is coming to you with how terrible the world is.

And you're like, yes, it's even worse than you know, right? The job of the parent is to focus on the good bones, I guess, right? Like in the way that the real estate agent is to sell the house. Like you have to sell the future to your kids because if you don't, you're stealing something from them, right? If you're like, it is hopeless. It was good for me, but it's going to be terrible for you. Like there's a quote I like from General Madness. He says, um,

cynicism is cowardice. Oh, cynicism is the worst. Yeah. And so like, I think as a parent, you are, as a person too, you're obligated to have the courage to conceive of a future that is survivable at worst and, you know, improvable at best. And that's, you can't

You can't steal the possibilities from your kid just because you think things are bad now. Oh my gosh. I mean, I don't think you can parent without hope. Yes. I don't think you can create things without hope. I really don't think it's possible.

Can you say, okay, this is really bad and here's what's happening? Yes. But you can't say, and it's never going to get any better and we're doomed. Yeah. I mean, that's what cynicism says. Cynicism says we can't do anything about it. Right. I think looking at where we are in a clear-eyed way is a good thing. What's not good is saying...

And we just have to live with it. Yeah. So I guess the ship is sinking. Yeah. No. Yeah. We're not doing that. And look, like we each got a childhood, right? And so your kids deserve a child. You know, like you can't deprive them of that.

window where they don't know about these things also, just because you want someone to commiserate with about you. True. I mean, although I think growing up, I'm Gen X, growing up, the news I got was from having the TV on in my house at six o'clock. Sure. And it's very different now. Like what...

What our kids have access to is not even a sort of kid-friendly version of... It's not the kids' bop version of news, right? And so it's differently challenging now. Yeah, your home shouldn't be a bubble, but it should be some...

sort of respite from the storm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what family is, right? Yeah. Like we're in this together. Yes. It's not like necessarily always hospitable out there. Yeah. But like here you have a soft place to land and we'll figure it out. Yeah. Or it's like, you know, maybe you take your shoes off before you go inside. Or if you've been, when I come home from the airport, I throw my clothes in the laundry. I put on clean clothes. This is God knows what people breathe on me. You know, I'm like, I don't want to bring the germs in here. Yeah.

Right. And I think there's something about the shittiness of the world that we have to go out into that you have an obligation not to track onto the carpet or, you know. Yeah. Inflict and infect. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Again, not that you pretend it doesn't exist, but you go like, hey, this stops at the front door. Yeah. Because also it's not just like the events of the world, but it's like when you have a shitty day.

it's easy to bring that home too. It's true. And when they have bad days, they bring them home. Right. And then we say, well, maybe we should all just karaoke for half an hour and get everyone's moods up. Yeah, let's do something. Let's do something.

Yeah. Well, you know, what's interesting too, I was thinking about like, when you think about cynicism, right. It's like, there is something profoundly hopeful in the statement of like, it's good bones. Right. And then there's a group of people like that. I mean, you think about how much work it was as a society to say like, Hey, I'm going to do this.

this house is in a state of disrepair, but something historically significant happened here. And we're not going to let you turn it into a gas station. Right. Right. Like the, the, the just tear it down. Yeah, exactly. Right there. There's a group of people who don't believe in such a thing and they would, you know,

They would say that they're, say this is progress, but it's not progress. Tearing everything down is not always progress. Sometimes you get nimbyism, which is anti-progress and not good. But the idea of like, hey, no, no, there's something worth preserving here. There is goodness in this thing. We can't just burn everything down or bulldoze everything. That there's something profoundly important about that too. Yeah. We don't actually get to start from scratch. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not possible. Yes. It is when you write something. Yes. It's not in the world. Yeah. When you think about, yeah, whenever somebody invents a totally new way of doing things, like this is where I'm reimagining this institution or this world, like revolutions tend to be bad because they think they can reimagine everything. Right. And it's like, if you'd accepted there was some, you know, whether it's

to go to your metaphor, the crooked timbers of humanity are not perfect, but they're there. And you ignore them at your peril or you attempt to bulldoze them at your peril. And we have to go, hey, look, you know, there's a lot of shittiness. And when we're allowed to do this or that, we do bad things. But I do believe in people or I do believe in society or I believe in this country. And I think we can

I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm not saying it's not a shithole, but, you know, there's, it could be better. There are things worth fighting for. Yes. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, even from a parenting perspective is a really powerful thing to share with your kids. Totally. Like things aren't always easy. Things aren't always great, but here are the things that are worth fighting for. What do you think is worth fighting for? What matters to you? What are you going to do about it?

Well, yeah, if cynicism is cowardice, then there's something quite courageous about earnestness and sincerity. Yeah. Caring. Yes. Is courageous. Yes. And vulnerable. And like maybe uncool. Totally. In those ways. Like cynicism is cool. Yes. Being earnest and sincere. It's cringe. And caring about things. Oh, I'm so cringe. Yes. Like whenever I'm like taking pictures of clouds and my kids are like, you're such a poet. I'm like.

Or using my Merlin Bird app because I want to know what that bird is, you know. It's, yeah, like being enthusiastic really about anything and being invested is deeply uncool. And I'm so on board for all of that.

Yeah, no, it's like, hey, this matters. And your cynicism or your scorn for it, it's not just disrespectful, but it's dangerous. And lazy. Yeah, because what you're proposing is a kind of nihilism where it's like everyone does whatever they want or nothing matters or like, why are you taking this so seriously? Like there is this weird dynamic now where like,

Yeah, acting like things matter or that people have dignity or that there are some things that you don't do or say makes you this like, I don't know, like conservative in the other sense, like or just unfun or like...

Yeah, uncool. It's one of my favorite articles of all time is just the headlines. It's like, I don't know how to explain to you that you have to care about other people. And it's like that. But there's something cringe about that, apparently, to some people. Like empathy is a problem now. Yeah. I mean, it's I don't get it. Yeah. Just I deeply do not get it. And or just the like, hey, I'm not saying that's illegal, but it's wrong.

Or that we shouldn't do things that way. It's just, that's just not what a good person would do. And then they're like on both sides, you have, I don't mean this politically, but there's like, there's the people who are like, well, how can you prove that it's wrong? You know what, you know, like where you kind of philosophically slice and dice it to a kind of nihilism. Yeah. And then there's just the, the avarice and nihilism of just like, well, this is good for me, so I don't care.

And they both get us to the same place where, lol, nothing matters. The result is the same. Yeah. Yeah. The result is the same. And I am determined to keep caring, despite it being deeply uncool and very cringe. Yeah, because...

We know what happens when that... We stop. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I think there is, yeah, the artist who goes, no, but this poem matters. And it's like, you have to believe that. Yeah. And if you don't believe it, you get to a bad... Like, yeah, you think about who thought these things didn't matter and where the dark places that those societies ended up very quickly. Yes. Yeah.

History teaches us these things. Yeah. Yeah, which is why we shouldn't bulldoze it. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

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