Episode 58: Losing My Edge

JUICING!!?? GRIEF & PRAISE!!! ONE DIRTY STRIP TEASE!!!THE MUNDANE!!! WILD REVELATIONS!!! JUDGEMENT!!! LET YOUR FREEK FLAG FLY!!! Conversations with friends!!! VIRTUAL SEXY TIME!!! Variety is the spice of life!!! FULL FRONTAL NUDITY!!! Diligent study!!! NON-VIOLENT COMMUNICATION & vulnerability is power?

Excerpt:

“Well shucks, this is probably the first time I’ve actually sat down to record a show and not had anything to say. You know last week maybe I was right, it took 57 shows but I finally did it. We have had enough hot takes from Olivia. There’s no more. Ohh but there’s always more. More to uncover, more to feel, more to experience. But really, this week has been pretty low-key. Pretty relaxed; a family barbecue, hanging out with my little brother and talking about Fortnite and Minecraft Dungeons, hiking with friends, cooking dinner with friends, and virtual sexy date night with my partner. And the beginning-of-summer-loneliness has started to fade a little bit. Maybe it’s because I started juicing again, that’s gotta be it… You know fresh veggies will actually do you a world of good if you let them. But I’ve also gotten out in my garden a little more, and weirdly started wearing just more comfy clothes, and resting a little more into the moment I’m in. And that may all sound kind of mundane, and it is actually. Like, really, none of that is a wild revelation. But for me it kind of is. Someone who was a workaholic most of their life, who pressed through my own needs, in order to get the job done — spent half my life running on fumes — it’s a radical shift. And maybe it’s that I’m just getting older, more settled into this version of myself. I take myself wherever I go.

Something that came up over a good dinner conversation with one of my soul family this week was the topic of self-ness. Both me and my dear friend are Waldorf kids. A rare and interesting breed of person, with a vastly different education than most, that centered around art and nature. But both of us ended up there because we were different, sensitive, unique, neurodivergent atypical. And we got into this great conversation about image, self-image, and judgment. And one of the interesting things we touched on was this: there is a fundamental drive, in human nature, to be seen, to be understood, and appreciated. But a converse of this is caring too much about what people might think of you. Of crippling self-doubt, and neuroses. But even that, fundamentally, comes from a very deep human desire to belong, to have a place in community. Now as someone finely tuned to aesthetics, and a person who walks deliberately through the world, everything I do is intentional. I get dressed before I leave the house every day, carefully choosing the jewelry I wear, the fabric on my skin, and the shoes on my feet. Even my car has care and thought put into it. My truck has a custom paint job, it’s leveled and lifted. It’s got sheepskin seat covers and a convertible soft topper cover over the back. For me, everything is a blend of aesthetic and function. Precise. But for a lot of my life, one thing that this did was keep me from sharing or putting out into the world a lot of the art and words I created. I compared myself detrimentally to everyone else, and I never measured up. I actually stopped doing a lot of things I was pretty good at and would have gotten better at over time because I thought I was never going to measure up. I have always been, my own worst critic. So why would the judgment of other people matter if I was my harshest judge? Because — and this is the important part — I never fit anywhere. But I don’t think I was ever supposed to. I remember in high school, my best friend once said to me, “I have never met anyone more unique and different than you are.” And it stuck with me. But I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be invited to the party, I wanted to be where the people were. I wanted a community, a place I felt seen. And as I have gotten older, that has all but fallen away, I have found those people, as unique and different as I am. And I have given them refuge, in my heart, my home, my space. I have learned that we are the brave, the fearless, the entrepreneurs, the big picture thinkers, and the sensitive souls connected to the ebb and flow of the universe. But one thing that it has also taught me, is that you can always sit with me. You always have a place at my table. Because I know exactly what it feels like to eat alone in the hallway stairwell. It gave me great compassion, and a desire to create a community where there is an absence of shame, where people can be radically openly weirdly beautifully themselves without judgment or fear.

But in this conversation, we were talking about balance. How do we balance these parts of ourselves? And the key we came to, is that we need each other. Someone who is going to be just as excited about the fabric your new coat is made out of, long drives in your Tesla to art openings and fine dinners, we need each other to remember that we aren’t the only ones that notice the quality of the linen, the delicacy of the combination of flavor in the food. We need each other to remind us that time in nature quiets the noise. And when we forget, for some period of time, that we need each other, we start to feel like we are little islands, unreachable, unusual, unmoored. But we looked at each other across the dinner table and laughed, “how do we find more people like us? How would we have met if we both hadn’t become reiki practitioners?” And that was a funny one. We wouldn’t have met at a bar, maybe a nice restaurant, or some piece of theatre, or a regenerative agriculture talk. So we put our heads together and we tried to figure out where we meet the other designers, CEOs, architects, and artists. Maybe some weird event in that church in Hudson? But anyway, the point here is, that we never would have become friends if we didn’t let our own weird uniqueness shine through, our own particular styles, our cars, our hearts. And the only way you will ever find the right people to surround yourself with is by being that, rare, unusual you that only you can be. And maybe for some of your life, it will make you an outcast, but maybe it will also be what makes you tons of money, what drives you to change the world, and what makes you fight for a regenerative future. And if you just keep being that, and let go of the worry that there are some people out there that won’t like you (because lord knows there will be) you will eventually find something indescribable: a kinship that cannot be put into words. Friends who feel like home. And you can park your little islands next to each other, and remind each other that the things that make you different also make you beautiful.

Alright well, more on conversations with friends later, not the Tv show, but also the tv show, oh my gosh it’s so perfect.

After this brief musical interlude…”