March 2, 2025 • 61 mins
GECKMAIL: “I SEXTED MY DRIVING INSTRUCTOR”
Email topics include sexting your driving instructor, corporate greed, the comedown after touring, rehab, bidets, and other things. I am a gecko. There was a bird looking at me when I recorded this.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, people of the computer or the phone, whichever one
of those two or mediums you're using to listen to this,
or maybe you're listening in your car, or maybe you're
listening inside the belly of a whale, although probably not
you're probably maybe you're walking, maybe you're on a train.
(00:24):
Maybe maybe you have this podcast playing in like another
room to no one well, and you like left it
on and you forgot, and I'm just speaking into this
void of an empty room while you're off, you know,
doing something else, not even knowing that I'm speaking. Maybe
that's where this podcast is going right now. But what's up, everybody?
(00:48):
How's it going? This is gek Mail. I'm gonna fucking
shoot the shit with myself for a little bit and
then I'm gonna read some viewer mail. So I guess
what's going on with me? Real quick? Is I am
in Japan right now. I've been here for two months.
(01:10):
It's been a beautiful, beautiful experience. I'm sad to go back,
but I think it'll be good. I think it'll be grounding,
you know, at the end of the day. At the
end of the day, right it's like you can go on.
I've had a been fortunate enough in my life to
(01:34):
go on many, many crazy, beautiful adventures, both thanks to
the therapy Gecko and also just thanks to like, you know,
something in my brain, for better or for worse, requires
me to fucking have like some some sense of novelty
(01:58):
going on. So I'm always running around and doing stuff,
and it's been good. But the old what's that song?
Been all over the world, only place left to go
is home something like that. Who does that song? Anyway? Yeah,
the song is good. So yeah, man, I'm excited to
return back and see my family and my friends and
(02:20):
it'll be good. You know. That's the meaning of life,
I think is one of the things I've learned over
the past I'm not even gonna say two months, because
I knew it kind of before I came here. But
the quality of your life is always going to be
the quality of the people around you at the end
of the day. I think for me, at least, I
(02:42):
don't know. You might you might be able to go
into the woods. Everyone's different, everyone's brain is wired differently,
So you might be able to just go into the
woods and live there forever and it's awesome for you.
So actually I take back everything I said. I don't
fucking know the life. I don't even I regret even
(03:03):
pretending for a second like I did. But I guess
it's the meaning of I guess my life and probably
the meaning of a lot of people's lives is to
just be around as folks. You know, life is like
a tremendously uh scary and lonely and frightening bizarre experience,
(03:30):
and uh, you know it's everything is cope, but it's good.
Cope is good cope is you know, Yeah, your friends
sending you a meme, it's good cope. So you know, whatever,
connect with other people, it's good. I think this was
a whole I don't know why this is. This is
a whole motivational rant. I'm never trying to tell other
(03:52):
people what to do, but I'm just this is just
me working out my own brain. This is the this
is the therapy for me, uh portion of this show,
and I'm enjoying it. It feels good. And if you
have me in your ear right now, God bless you.
Thank you, very very very very much. I am honored
(04:13):
to have your listenership, and I'm ready to take to
read some emails. Let's get into it. Although before we
get into it, I do want to say I am
hosting my very first art exhibition in Bushwick, Brooklyn on
(04:35):
Well it's gonna We're having a gallery exhibition opening on
March fourteenth from seven pm to ten pm at the
Kaleidoscope Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. And if you live in
New York City, if you want to come, you can
check the link to the episode description. I put a
(04:55):
little thing that you can enter in your phone number
into and then you'll get a little text where that says, Hey,
just a reminder that we're doing this thing. And also
I might do other things in New York City this,
I might do other stupid art exit. Oh, I didn't
even talk about what the exhibition is. I'm taking eight
It's called Lyle Forever presents Trash from around my Room
(05:20):
and I'm gonna be taking eight pieces of trash from
around my room and displaying them and you can come
to take that. It's a free event. It's a free event.
I don't know why I decided to. I had this.
I had this event written down in my notes app
like two years ago, and I was like, you know what,
(05:40):
we just have to do it. If not now, then
when let's just do it. Let's just do the fucking
trash exhibit. And so we're doing the trash exhibit. It's
free to come and to hang out. There'll be a
bar there. I'll be there. I'll be hanging out. So
come through March fourteenth, Kaleidoscope Gallery, seven pm, ten pm.
(06:02):
And the link to RSVP is in this episode description.
So come hang out and look at my stupid trash.
All right, let's look at some emails here. This is
from ash. Subject line I told my instructor I'd make
him come. Okay, high Gek. I had my first driving
(06:24):
lesson today and accidentally sexted the instructor two minutes before
he got to my house. On the driving app, it
has a section saying bits out them. What does that mean?
It has a section saying bits out them, and he
just filled them all with coming soon. So okay. I
sent who I thought was my boyfriend a screenshot of
(06:48):
his driving profile and a text saying I'm gonna make
him come. Then almost canceled my driving test when I
saw who I sent it to. Oh okay, So this
person took us screenshot of their instructor's driving profile and
then meant to send the screenshot to their boyfriend with
(07:10):
the with the phrase I'm gonna make him come, but
they accidentally sent it to the driver. Okay, he was
actually a good sport about it and we had to laugh,
so it wasn't weird anyway. Odd first driving lesson. Guess
I'm stuck till I graduate. Help your driving instructors come well,
(07:30):
I hope. I don't have anything funny to say about this,
but it is a funny situation. Let's let's see here.
This is from Austin. This is a rant. The subject
line is rant on life. Hey, gek, I graduated almost
two years ago and I've been with the same company since.
They've shown me the corruption and greed that drives capitalism.
(07:53):
I can't do this anymore. My job, which involves providing
and educating patients on medical equipment, has taken a severe
toll on my mental and emotional health, and I started
therapy because of it. I understand patient's anger due to pain,
but the treatment I received from hospital staff and colleagues
is unbearable. They don't care about patience. They only want
to milk money from them. Management even told me not
(08:13):
to pick up equipment from a patient until they called
to ask why it hadn't been done so they could
continue billing them. I've been applying for my dream career
for an entire year, but the constant rejections are overwhelming.
Life feels bleak, and I'm struggling to find meaning in anything.
This repetitive cycle is a never ending hell escape. I
am unable to escape from Austin. Well, Austin, Hey, man,
(08:40):
you know what. Here's the funny thing is, like, normally
I think I would get an email like this and
I would be like, oh crap, I don't know how
to respond. But you know, let's I don't know, man,
I'm in the mood to give it a try. I've
also been feeling like a little hell scapie here Austin.
So I'm just gonna tell you you how I you know,
(09:03):
I'm feeling in the hellscape land. I mean, look, man,
I think all of my theories and all of my
quote unquote advice or whatever, it's all just theories that
I'm testing and trying. I have no you know, hold on,
(09:26):
there's a fucking in Japan. They make it. They do
a bell every day at four thirty. I don't know
if you guys can hear this bell? Why four thirty?
It only goes off at four thirty? Does anyone know why?
There's why does a bell always go off in Tokyo
at four to thirty? Hold on, it's about it. It's
about an end. That's another good thing to get you
(09:47):
out of Hellescape is just distractions. Donkey Kong Country Returns
is they release this is not an advertisement, but Donkey
Kong Country Returns is. They released it in HD on
the Nintendo Switch, And I'm gonna use that to help
me cope with the void. But anyway, I don't know.
Austin Man, you seem like, well, well, I'm curious what
(10:09):
you said. You've been applying for your dream career, right,
so what is your dream career? I don't know what
that is, but let's say whatever your dream career is,
I'm sure it's your dream career for a reason. Right,
So instead of the one thing I've always felt is
that like there's kind of motivations and then there's vessels
(10:32):
for those motivations, I suppose, And so it's like, uh,
why is your dream career your dream career? Is it
because it puts you around people. Is it because it
lets you travel? Is it because it lets you help people?
You know? What? Is it? Right? And so instead of
chasing after this specific thing that is kind of a
(10:55):
thing that is like a rejection acceptance thing, and you're
kind of like a allowing other people to tell you
whether or not you'll be able to achieve those vessels, Like,
why don't you just take whatever the fuck it is
that you like about this career and see if you can,
you know, see see what all your options are for
(11:18):
kind of satisfying those life desires. I suppose that's what
I guess, that's what I would do. That's what I'm
trying to do. It's funny, man, talking about this ship
on the podcast is helping me kind of reinforce things
for myself. So so that's good. That's what I'm trying
(11:38):
to do. Let's keep going, Let's keep going. Uh. Okay,
this is from this one's a little too long. Hold on. Okay.
This is from someone who told me not to use
(12:01):
their name. Don't use my name please. My boyfriend of
five years has a baby. My story high from Canada.
I've been watching your show a lot lately, and I
doubt this will even get anywhere. Well, here we are
my story. So I'm twenty one and my now ex
is twenty three. We started dating in twenty twenty. We
broke up in twenty in October of twenty twenty three
(12:22):
because I found a lot of porn on his phone
and it was pretty disturbing. I found pictures of his
cousin on there. Okay, fast forward. During the time we
broke up, I started seeing someone and he did also.
He was with this emo, mentally ill girl who has
a list of disorders. Okay, whatever, blah blah blah blah blah. Okay,
(12:45):
fast forward again. We got back together in the end
of February twenty twenty four, and we were doing good.
He was decent, was working on himself, and I saw
some change. Oh she got back together. Then on April first,
the oh Okay. Then on April first, the girl that
he was seeing while we were broken up posted that
she was pregnant and tried to play it off as
(13:06):
an April Fool's joke. She didn't even say anything to
my ex, and she blocked us both on social media
when I confronted her about it. She was playing this
big game of guests for nine months and now it's
February and I finally broke up with him because she
came out and said, yeah, this is your baby. The
whole situation is fucked. She even tried to say that
(13:27):
we could all be one happy family and have a
three way relationship, which just proves how messed up she
is in her head. But yeah, living life to the
fullest right now. I guess that is a crazy dude.
That's such a crazy situation considering how fucking young old
you guys are. I mean, goddamn, I mean, well, shit,
(13:49):
you got out of that one pretty good. Uh yeah,
I mean that's that's that's that's gnarly. That's gnarley. I'm
not gonna I need something to refer to you as.
I'm just gonna call your that's gnarly, Rachel. Good luck.
That's all I got. I'm gonna start. Sometimes I have
(14:09):
things to say and sometimes I don't. And this one,
this one, I'm just a little speechless. Good luck, Rachel.
That one's pretty pretty messed up. I mean, I guess
I guess it's good that you guys didn't have a baby,
you know. All right, let's see here, Okay, this is
(14:36):
from Sam subject line just turned twenty and I'm overwhelmed.
Any advice? Hey, Gak, my name is Sam. I just
turned twenty this past December and the spring semester has
just started. Over the winter, I did some research which
has gotten the green light to content to continue throughout
the semester as a one credit independent study course kick Ass.
I'm also in another independent study course to be doing
(14:58):
four different projects. I love research, and it's what i
want to be doing, but I'm doubting my abilities to
be able to manage my time well and produce good work,
not only in those projects but also my normal classes.
I'm taking KIM and kalk Tu, and I'm struggling a bit,
and I'm afraid to burn out so early. Do you
have any advice as someone who is older? Thanks? Wishing
you the best, Sam, Sam, I'm terrible, I have. I'm
(15:21):
kind of terrible for this because I studied film in
college and I maybe did work two fucking hours a
week as a film major in cob My roommate was
a biology major. He fucking hated me because, you know,
he was doing real stuff with his life and his
(15:45):
you know, he always had a bunch of work to
do and my you know, I was like getting high
and listening to low fi beats and not doing anything.
So I'm not good at school. I've never been a
big school person. But I guess we could. I guess
if we were to go a little bit deeper and
get into like the emotions of it, right is like,
(16:11):
you know, I don't know. It's hard to say because
part of me is like, well, if you're only twenty
and this is what you really want to do, like,
you know, give it. God, dude, I guess give it
your best shot. I know that that's not I know
that that's not great advice, but give it your best shot.
And if you end up falling short of whatever your
(16:33):
best shot is, just take solace in the fact that
you tried, you know, so, so that's I think that's
what I got for you, sam is is just just
take solace in the fact that you tried. That's all
I think you're gonna ever really care about, is that
you know, when you go to bed at night, you
try your fucking best to do the things that you
(16:55):
wanted to do with yourself or whatever the hell that
is worth learning. Okay, this is from Andrew subject line
learning to be alone. He says, I think you've got
to be alone slash single and with no friends for
(17:16):
a part of your life, even if it's just a
couple of months. It's necessary character development arc. And I
recommend it to everyone. If you read this, you're awesome.
Keep going. You know, it's interesting. I definitely I think
I'll be up. I'll be a little open on this
this year episode. I'm in the mood for it. You know.
(17:38):
I think over the years that I've I think over
the years i've all I've been a very like kind
of you know, wanting to be alone and do things
on my own kind of vibe. And I and if
you're gonna do that, right, if you're gonna learn to
be alone, I actually agree with this email. I agree
with this email that you should try to learn how
(18:00):
to be alone, especially if you're young, like dude, if
you're in your fucking if you're in your like early
twenties or something like that, you gotta it's it's okay
to learn how to be alone and go on a
little solo trip. And it is, I agree, a necessary
character development arc. And I think through all the times
(18:21):
that I've gone on a solo trip or been alone
or struggled with loneliness. I agree, it's been like a
big character arc for me. But also, you know, over
I think over the years, if you do it too much,
you kind of wake up and you're like, oh, this
(18:42):
is not I mean again, it's it's It's what I
was saying earlier. Everyone's brain is fucking wired differently, and so, uh,
you know, I personally think that having quality social connections
in your life is probably the most important fucking thing
on the possibly fucking do for yourself. Right, some people
(19:04):
aren't as lucky to have those things come. Some people
are really fucking lucky and those things just come naturally
to their lives, and other people aren't and they have
to kind of work a little bit harder for them.
But uh, you know, I agree with this the spirit
of this email, and like it's okay to learn, you
gotta you gotta kind of learn how to be alone,
(19:26):
but you know, don't drag it on too long or
else you will go insane. Trust me. This is from
Jane subject line touring musician struggling with daily life after
Hey Lyle, I'm a musician parentheses DJ who just went
on tour last year in Asia and now I'm doing
(19:48):
Latin America. I do longish tours where I stay in
the city I perform for a few weeks to really
get a feeling for what it's like and to connect
with the people here. I'm also commissioning a three D
artist that helps me pay the bills on the go.
It's hard for me when I head back home to
cope with daily life. I just kind of stare at
my wall, like why why do I have a space
(20:10):
when I could just be on the move all the time.
I can't slow down, even though I feel like I should.
Sometimes As someone who also tours a bunch, how do
you handle the come down afterwards? Thank you, Jane. Finally
a fucking email where I feel like I can speak
on it, dude. So yeah, I mean, I've been touring.
I've been lucky enough to tour as the therapy get
(20:30):
go for like basically on and off for two and
a half years. And yeah, you know, Jane, I'm in
the same boat here because I'm taking this year off
of touring, which I think was a necessary thing to
do because I had to, you know, kind of take
the time to evaluate a lot of life things and
(20:52):
kind of kind of deal with them, but I'm with
you too. Like when I'm on the road, life feels
really like there's a weird linear thing to it, where like,
when I'm on the road, all I have to worry
about is the show I am doing tonight in Saint Louis, Missouri.
(21:16):
It's a very present thing when you have a show
and you're performing and going all around, because you're focused
on the present moment and where you are, and it
kind of gets you like there is linear aspect to
it where it's like, Okay, I have this many shows
(21:36):
to do, and let me walk in this straight line.
And life is a little scary in the fact that
it doesn't often have straight lines, especially if you're a
musician or a gecko or something non traditional. You know,
life doesn't have a lot of straight lines to it,
(21:57):
and so touring gives you a bit of a straight line.
And when you get off a tour, yet you don't
have a straight line anymore. And that's fucking spooky. So
how do I handle the come down afterwards? The truth is, Jane,
I haven't been doing a great job of handling to
come down afterwards. But I think it's it's probably, And
(22:18):
actually I'm happy to be reading this email because it's
making me have to find an answer to this question.
And so I think, in this very moment, I'm just
kind of like, you probably have to establish some kind
of routine, because when I was on the road, I
felt calm and I felt like I had a routine.
It was like, you know, go to the airport, do
fucking this shit, set up the show, do meet with people,
(22:43):
smoke weed at two o'clock in the morning, and go
to bed and wake up and do it again. And
so I think, I think again, Yeah, from person who
tours to person to tours, it's like touring established a
routine for me, and then when the routine went way,
I just started to kind of falter. And so, uh,
(23:05):
I think the answer is going to be like coming
up with another routine for yourself, for myself, and so hope,
hopefully you can find a routine that makes you feel
some level of excitement, right, Uh, some level of excitement
for what you had when you were on tour. And yeah,
(23:28):
it's hard, you know, man, if if you're the kind
of person where you want you want a lot out
of life, you want a lot out of uh, you know,
you live in crazy rock star Land, You're in Asia,
you're in Latin America, you're you're talking to this person,
you're doing this. I mean, it's it's, uh, it's beautiful.
(23:49):
It's it's the kind of you know, it's it's it's
a beautiful existence. But I don't know if it's sustainable
to live it forever, or at least you can live
it forever, but I don't know if it's sustainable to
live it constantly. And so yeah, you need to kind
(24:11):
of build some kind of routine. I guess do push
ups or something. All Right, that was a rant. That
was a whole rant, But I guess this whole podcast
is a whole fucking rant. So let's keep going. Caitlin says,
save me, mister gecko, Hi, gek, I'm having a life crisis,
and your knowledgeable on these things is a gecko. I
don't know about that. What are your thoughts on life
in twenty twenty five and the groundhog from Groundhog Day?
(24:33):
I don't know much about the groundhog from Groundhog Day,
but one of my thoughts on life in twenty twenty five,
I mean, Ski, it's spooky for sure, you know, I'll
talk about this. This is something that comes up in
my brain is I don't think it's healthy to know
(24:54):
so much about other people's lives. And the reason I
bring that up specifically is that I like, I'm on Instagram,
as many of us are, and you know, sometimes when
I'm not doing anything, I'll just find myself scrolling through
Instagram stories. I mean, you scroll through Instagram stories, You're
getting all these fucking people's windows into their lives, and
(25:16):
you start comparing yourself to other people's lives, and you
start just having all of life thrown at you in
in fucking twenty seconds. And it's probably not good. It's
not that's too much information to have. That's my that's
(25:36):
my scary thing about twenty twenty five is that I
feel like we have, you know, in many ways, twenty
twenty five. And the information that we have in this
in this day and age is good and helpful. It
allows people to find each other that couldn't before and
allows you to get answers to shit that you just
had to fucking sucked, shove down and deal with beforehand.
(26:02):
But it's also a little too much information, Like I
don't need to know what some guy I fucking met
at something four years ago is doing today. I don't
need to know that, you know, and so, but it's
also it's also all in our control, like all these
fucking you know where our brains are trained to be
(26:26):
on this shit as much as possible, And but it is,
it is in our control. And so I guess, I
guess that's a fucking antidote, is too If I don't.
If I think it's too much information, I'm just gonna
fucking stop looking at Instagram stories so much, which is
probably a good idea. So thoughts on living in twenty
(26:47):
twenty five Enjoy the information era and all of its gifts,
but don't fly too close to the sun, I suppose
is my thoughts on twenty twenty five. All Right, I'm
feeling pretty good. I'm big chillin'. Let us continue to
(27:10):
take uh more things. This is from Albert, subject line
in all caps, help, a bunch of exclamation points, and
then this email is in all caps. Gek, I'm drunk
af the bar overserved me. Man, I hit my wax vape,
and I'm currently paying for the consequences of my decisions.
(27:30):
Please help. PS. I love you man, You're so cool. Albert, Well,
let's see. Albert sent me this email on February tenth,
and it is currently March first, so he's probably dead
by now. But in case if he's not, man, just
(27:52):
fucking drink some water, Albert, drink some water. Go to sleep.
Sometimes you just got to drink some water and go
to sleep, all right, okay? Subject line Okay, this is
(28:12):
from Thai subject line. I illustrated a children's book for
adults about death and included a cameo of you in it.
Whoa Peace Gek. My name is Titan and I'm an
artist from the Bronx. I recently wrote and illustrated a
children's book about death and included a little cameo of
you in it. I've had thoughts surrounding death since I
was eight years old, but never to the point of
(28:34):
action toward taking my own life. I'm twenty eight now,
and I feel this rumination on death has given me
an interesting perspective on life. I am fortunate to have
met people along my path who have had similar thoughts, struggles, philosophies,
and even solutions on how to lead a more fulfilling
and beautiful life. So I wrote and drew a little
something that I thought could help others as they've helped
(28:56):
me over time. Anyway, I think this might be getting
kind of long, and I really want you to read
my I'm gonna end it here, but I'd love to
hear your thoughts on the book whenever you get the chance. Also,
I love your show man, Thank you for you, peace
and love Titan. Let me hold on. Then this is
the page with you in it. Oh, this is cool.
This is cool. This is really cool. I know this
(29:18):
is an audio only show, so I can't really describe,
but basically, I'm I've got a lizard guy writing my
back the children's book. Maybe I can. Here's a link
to the physical purchase of book. Okay, here in case
if anyone wants to check out this book. It's called
One Day You Will Die, Written and illustrated by Titan,
(29:44):
and it's pronounced it's spelled t A I I T
A N. One Day you Will Die, Written and Illustrated
by Titan. And uh, yeah, it's on it's on Amazon.
Let's see here. That's pretty cool. Okay, I'm gonna check
this ship out. I'm gonna check this ship out. Oh,
(30:06):
they sent me a link to a free version of
the book. You know, it's okay, So this person sent
me this email, so a little bit more about what's
going on with me and in life is this person
sent me this email also February tenth, also like two
and a half weeks ago. In the past three days,
I have actually been having like tons of like insane
(30:28):
existential dread surrounding death. Uh. It's been actually pretty debilitating,
pretty bad. But you know, I'm about to go to
a psych and figure the shit out. So we're, uh,
you know, we're gonna we're gonna pull through. We're gonna
be we're gonna come back greater than ever. But it's
cool because this person's around my age, and it seems
(30:48):
as though they're they're doing pretty good job at uh,
you know, dealing with these these these difficult thoughts and feelings.
So good on, good on you, Titan. I'm gonna check
out this book. Thanks, thanks for sharing. Okay, all right,
(31:14):
this is from Benjamin, subject line go kart Rehab. Hey gek,
I'm not sure if you remember, but about a year
and a half ago, I called in from a Canadian
go kart rehab. I do absolutely remember you calling in
from a Canadian go kart Rehab. I figured i'd send
you an update, partly because it feels right and partly
(31:36):
because it's just cool to reflect on how far things
have come since leaving Rehab. I somehow managed to land
a full time office job with great benefits, flexible benefits,
travel management responsibility, the whole nine yards. On top of that,
I started a small family vending machine business. Very cool.
And I'm also working on my MBA in business analytics
because apparently I'm addicted to adding more to my plate.
(31:58):
I'm also gunning for a promotion to sales manager soon,
because why not. It hasn't been a smooth ride. There
were plenty of relapses. Actually, we lost a baby before
they were born. I'm sorry to hear that, which hit
harder than we could have imagined. But we also had
another kid, and just to make sure we're done with surprises,
I got the old Snip Snip about a month ago.
(32:18):
Congrats on the sect to me brother. Now we're living
in a beautiful, brand new house with more space than
we know what to do with. We share rent with
my mother in law and brother in law, which sounds
like the setup for a bad sitcom, but it actually works.
It lets my wife stay home with the kids while
they're young, and somehow it feels like we've carved out
a little slice of stability in the chaos. That's fucking sick, brother.
(32:41):
I'm very happy to hear that a little spice of
stability in the chaos sounds like a wonderful thing. But
it has been work, so much work. I had to
take the discipline I picked up in rehab and apply
it in real life, failing, getting back up, failing again.
Even when I had relapsed and was dependent on substances again,
there were probably times should have gone back to rehab,
but I didn't. I just kept clawing my way forward,
(33:03):
one messy step at a time. I'm still an addict,
but now it's to work, school and chasing promotions to
provide for my family. But I've got to handle on
the substances. More importantly, I've got hobbies and interests that
actually make me happy instead of just numbing me out.
That's new. I still get the thoughts, though they don't disappear,
they just get quieter. Weed is still a part of
(33:23):
my life, but I'm trying to get away from it.
The key for me, Kaisen, what the fuck is Kaisen?
I'm googling this Kaisen. Kaizen is a concept referring to
business activities that continually improve all functions and evolve all employees.
It translates to change for the better, change for the better.
(33:44):
The key for me kaisen continuous improvement, tiny steps forward,
even when they feel pointless, especially when they feel pointless,
is what he wrote. That's cool anyway, thanks for listening.
Back then it mattered, and if you read this now,
it still does. I'd love to chat again one take care, crazy,
get go, man. This is a really beautiful email. Man,
I I appreciate it. That's really nice. Yeah. Again, as
(34:08):
someone who is also kind of trying to fucking I record,
I don't. I recorded a podcast before this one that
I was gonna release today, but I decided to shelvetz
because it was I was I went on like kind
of an insane rant and it felt a little too.
(34:28):
I was crying. It was a whole thing, and I
was like, I was like, this is going to be
art for my podcast, and you know, maybe one day
I'll share that, but I'm recording this instead. But I'll
talk a little bit about you know. I'm again like
at a weird point where like life feels pointless and
fucking I'm trying to move forward and find meaning and
(34:50):
do all these things, and so I really enjoy reading
your email, Benjamin. Yeah, it's cool to hear that tiny
step forward are helping you even when they feel pointless.
And also again hearing that you found a little bit
of this licensability and the chaos. It's a beautiful thing, brother.
(35:10):
So congratulations Benjamin. Hopefully I'll talk to you again soon.
All right, all right, this is from Lewis anonymous. Hello
from Ireland. Yo gek, give me a fake name, Okay,
Lewis first time emailer, slash caller, but two time show
(35:33):
goer when you came to Dublin, Ireland, kick ass. I
wanted to share my current situation as I'm struggling to
process at all. Recently, my wife and I separated. She
has always faced mental health challenges, and she decided to
end our relationship to focus on working on herself. While
I understand and respect her decision, I can't help feeling
that we could have tried to navigate this together. She
explained that throughout our ten year relationship, I was always
(35:55):
there to support her through her struggles, but she now
feels she needs to figure things out out on her own.
Even though we're on good terms, the separation has left
me feeling lost and questioning the point of everything. We
were best friends and I truly believed we'd spend our
lives together. Now, despite having a decent job and being
relatively young, I'm struggling with feelings of emptiness in the
(36:15):
urge to just give up. Thanks fake name, I forget
what fake name I originally gave you. Lewis Lewis. Um
hmmmm hmmm, ah, Lewis Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis Lewis Man,
(36:40):
all these man sometimes all these phone calls and these
emails man, and then kind of comparing them to shit
going on in my life. It's like I just always
have more answer answers, more questions than answers. But let
(37:02):
me think it, let me just try. I mean, I'm
not I don't have any fucking answers at all, because
I I would probably feel the exact fucking same way
if I was in your position as well. Hmm, I
don't know. Maybe maybe the whole point is to just
not give up. Maybe that's the whole point is to
(37:25):
just fucking through the end, through all eighty years whatever,
if you're lucky enough to get eighty fucking years. Uh,
just keep fucking going and keep fucking trying. I mean
that not I keep bringing it back to me, but
that's that's the only frame of reference that I have.
Is like, Uh, when I'm struggling with feelings of emptiness
in the urge to give up, I'm just like, you know,
(37:47):
I'm a big like, let me do something about my
fucking problems guy. Uh. And so I'm coming up with plans,
I'm trying things, I'm executing stuff. Maybe because it might
take a little while, right, you might be like, all right,
I just gotta hit the fucking gym and start over
and do this and do that. And maybe you try
a whole bunch of shit and it doesn't fucking work.
(38:09):
Maybe you spend a whole year trying a bunch of
different shit and it doesn't fucking work, And then you
just keep trying, and you just keep trying, and just
keep trying, and you just keep trying, and you just
keep trying, and you just keep trying. You just fucking
don't fucking let yourself fall into the trap of emptiness
(38:32):
and the void, and you don't let yourself fucking drown,
and you just fucking God. And it's hard, it's the
fucking hardest goddamn thing, but you just keep fucking God
dag fucking Okay, I'll do it again. Okay, I'll do
it again. Okay, Okay, okay, okay, Jesus Christ. And then
(38:56):
either you'll die and nothing and it will, you know whatever, uh,
or maybe some maybe fucking you'll you'll you'll through trying
different things, different remedies, going out, leaving your house, eating
an apple, whatever, maybe you find something that goddamn works.
The brain is very uh neuroplastic. Is that the word
(39:19):
you said? You're young too. I think it's more neuroplastic
when you're young. But bro, I mean that's where I'm at,
right is I'm like, uh, okay, I you know, if
you feel like you're at a bizarre dead end and
you're just staring at a fucking wall, you just gotta
knock around and you gotta leave your safe space, I guess,
(39:43):
and just knock and kick and fucking see what the
fuck is. Maybe there's a trap door. Maybe there's because
that's what it takes, right is it takes some new
action that gets you out of your head to remind
yourself you're alive. I'll tell a quick story. I told
this on the podcast that I didn't release, that I
(40:05):
was ranting and going insane on But I have been
in Japan, and like I've been talking about a little bit,
I've had this kind of like insane existential crisis lately
where I've just been like preoccupied with fucking death and
(40:25):
despair and like crazy shit. And yeah, it got really
bad of it the last three days and so I
was like, Okay, I need to just leave. I need
to just keep trying shit and leave the house and whatever.
And so I went to this cafe. It was called
the English Only Cafe, and they were having like a
(40:47):
little like meetup event. I like a shout out meetup
dot com great for finding shit to do. And honestly, dude, honestly, dude,
if anyone listening to this, if you're feeling empty and
you're feeling insane, you're feeling lone, what I This is
what I do when I'm feeling that way is I
go on meetup and I'm just like, let me find
a thing to go to and let me try to
talk to people at this thing. And sometimes it doesn't work,
(41:11):
it's a little hit or mess. But when it does work,
and when I am able to do that, I feel
fucking great because I tried to get out of the
goddamn house and I tried to form some new thing
in my brain to make it feel like, you know,
life's not over right. And so anyway, I went to
this English meet up and I there was this table,
(41:34):
and I went and I sat down at the table
and I just started like chatting with these folks and
I chatted, you know, but I chatted with people and
I was talking. I was talking to this guy and
he was telling me about like his life, and he
was telling about like trying to find a girlfriend, and
he was kind of like he was talking about his
life and it kind of felt like I was doing
(41:55):
an episode of the Therapy Get Goo podcast, except I
was just like doing it for fun and joy, not
be not to make a fucking podcast. And that felt great,
and I was like, oh shit, I forgot that deep
in my like deep in my soul, is somebody who
(42:16):
I really just believe this that I really fucking do
in my gut like life and like people and things
just happen, dude, that that uh take me away from
that that fill my gut with like emptiness, and I
(42:37):
just use fog. And then sometimes if you get out
of bed and you go do something new that you
didn't usually do, and you put yourself out there and
you try to introduce yourself to new stimuli, it comes.
It fucking comes back to you. So I'm at this
event and I'm talking to this guy and I'm just like,
you know, ah, chatting with him, and I'm chatting with
(42:59):
other people at the fucking meet up thing, and I'm like, oh,
I forgot that. I forgot that I have all this
stuff that's that is me. And I felt a little
bit more connected to myself in that moment. And it's
always really triumphant to go from feeling hopeless to having
(43:19):
a little moment where you're like, Okay, all is not gone.
My brain continues to have the capacity to feel good,
you know. So yeah, that's just again, that's just you know,
I forget what I fake name I gave you. And
I also know that I'm not even really talking about
(43:41):
your email anymore. I'm just trying to relate to it.
But how do you beat the urge to give up?
I don't know. Go on, go on meetup and fucking
try to talk to some folks or do something new.
I don't know. Yeah, I guess that's it. Just try
and trying new shit. Just knocking at the fucking door.
(44:03):
That's what I'm trying, dude. I don't know. I don't
know if any of the shit I'm saying makes any sense,
but it's just it's just what I'm trying. All right.
This is from Evan. Subject line I got fired from
my dream job on my thirtieth birthday and life has
never been better. Ooh, all right, this is an email
(44:25):
I need today. This is from Evan, subject line hey gek.
Oh wait, no, this is not. I already read the
subject line, hey gek. I'm a wheelder fabricate welder, fabricator
and built heavy equipment for nearly a decade leading up
to my thirtieth birthday. I had always done some custom
fabrication and artwork out of my home shop and really
(44:47):
wanted to pursue my dreams. I found a small shop
that was a two man team and decided to quit
my safe job to go work for them in the
hopes of finding mentorship. After two weeks, it was clear
they had a poor attitude towards someone who was still learning,
and I was confirmed when on my birthday the following
week they fired me because I was not what they
were looking for. Honestly, it was the best thing that
ever happened to me. So many people are afraid to
(45:08):
finally start their dream, waiting for a mentor to help
them get their start. Mmm. I decided to say fuck
it and just start building cool stuff out of my
home shop and even started learning how to film and
edit video to put them on my YouTube channel to
help drum up more work. This past year, I built
custom furniture, took a massive road trip in fifty year
old cars with my friends and girlfriend, built a thirty
(45:31):
foot long animatronic Beetle Juice sand Worm. Holy shit, he
has a picture of the Beatles Juice Samworm. That's insane.
Did a ton of racecar fab for fantastic customers, and
now I'm just finishing off a custom race car that
I started for an amazing client, as well as rescued
a sick dog who needed several surgeries, all of which
I couldn't do if I wasn't working for myself. My
(45:55):
advice for everyone would be that the life. My advice
for everyone would be that your life is just going
to be hard, regardless if you choose the safe options
or if you try something crazy and fail. Don't give up.
Do what you love. And if someone tells you you
don't deserve to be in the room with all your heroes,
feel free to nail the door shut. Much love, Evan,
(46:18):
Thanks Evan, This is a cool email, man. I really
like this. It's again, you know, at a time in
which I'm you know, I turned twenty seven recently and
I think it's weighing on me in weird ways, and
so you know, I'm I'm honored to get to read
your fucking email and here that you've gotten to, you know,
(46:40):
really live a beautiful, fucking awesome life starting at thirty.
And you know that's really cool. Man. Congratulations. Congratulations is awesome.
Oh please check out his YouTube channel, Enemy metal Works.
Let me I'm actually gonna check. Let me check this
out real quick, Enemy metal Works. Look at this fucking
(47:05):
guy workshop, No bake pumpkin spiced cheesecake at three am
with power tools? What a homie dude. This is a
cool guy. Yeah, go check out his YouTube channel, Enemy
Metal Works. Oh yeah, oh we had a video pop
off four point three cave UWS kick ass rock and roll.
(47:26):
All right, um yeah, thank you for sharing. Evan. Uh.
Let's see here all right. This is from Faith subject
line Alaska and alcohol. What's up, gek? The start of
this year has been a crazy one. January first, I
(47:48):
arrived in Anchorage, Alaska from Nashville from Asheville, North Carolina.
I traveled up here. Okay, I arrived in Anchorage, Alaska
from Asheville, North Carolina bank. I traveled up here with
my boyfriend of two years because he has a great
job opportunity and he invited me along. I brought my dog,
She's a Pitbull Docson mix, and she did better on
the planes than I thought. Anyway, a few days after
(48:11):
we got to Alaska, I had too much to drink
and ended up in jail. That's interesting. I only stayed
a night, but it was the worst experience of my life.
I still have a pending case, so I won't even
know the what is it? I still have a pending case,
so I won't be detailing the Oh Oh sorry, I'm
reading the email RNG. Okay, wor's the experience of my life.
(48:32):
I still have a pending case, so I won't be
detailing the events, though I do have stipulations stating that
I cannot drink. Understandably, I am twenty one years old
and I've had an alcohol problem for a few years now.
It's hard to stay away from it, even though I
know I cause trouble when I drink. My boyfriend has
been supportive, but he's losing patience with me. I feel
like I'm a magnet for chaos. Any thoughts for me? Uh,
(48:57):
just start listening to your podcasts, keep doing what you do.
Thank you, Faith, Any thoughts for you? I'm gonna guess
stop drinking. I've had an alcohol problem for a few
years now. Well, I don't want to say stop drink.
I don't want to just I take that back, just stop. Well,
I mean I don't take back stop drinking, but I
(49:18):
take back I don't. I don't mean to trivialize the issue,
right hm, honest, honest to God, Faith, my faith. My
honest answer is just like if I were you, and
(49:38):
if I was in this situation and I was having
problem with accohoab. I mean, just gotta get help, right,
You gotta go to AA or or go see a
fucking therapist or uh, you know, try to go to
a rehab or something. I know it's I know it's
hard to find the like resources to do that ship,
but you just gotta get help, dude. You gotta get
like real fucking help from uh uh professional people who
(50:02):
help people get off of substances. That's what you gotta do.
Just I guess, just fucking I guess faith to just
decide that you're gonna fucking figure it out right, and again,
kind of similar to the little spiel I went on
about the brick wall, is like, just decide you want
(50:23):
to fucking be better. You want I mean, you want
to you wanna fucking uh get better, You want to
beat your problem. You know, just decide you want to
beat this fucking thing, and uh spend every waking second
that you can working on how to do it, whether
that's getting professional help or researching online how to detox
(50:47):
yourself or whatever. I think it's just a matter of
like deciding for yourself that you're going to prioritize getting
rid of the problem so that you can you know,
go on to live a better life. Uh, that's just
what I would do. That's just that's again I keep
bringing everything back to me. But that's because I can
only speak from my own life. I don't really feel
(51:10):
inclined to be able to judge other people's lives or
tell other people what they should do. But you know,
when I have problems, I mean, that's kind of how
I try to approach them. Let's see. Okay, okay. This
is from Dan subject Line Welsh synth Wizard, Oh dear
(51:37):
Lyle parentheses Therapy, Gecko shoe May. I hail from Wales
in my early thirties. I have a stable job, I
can drive, I live with my parents, have a dog,
and help take care of my sick grandmother who also
lives here and needs twenty four to seven care. This aside,
(51:58):
I have a lot of independence, a great relationship with
my family and friends. I pay rent and I have
no issues supporting them right now. I had a girlfriend.
She was fun, high energy, but chaotic and unpredictable, and
after nearly a year, she broke up with me on
my birthday and said she was moving in with another guy.
Even gaslighted me that we weren't even a relationship, and
then after all that gave me presents that was rough.
(52:21):
Ultimately I had to cut contact with her, but despite everything,
I don't regret meeting her. Maybe trust issues to deal
with for now. On dating apps again, but no success
so far. I get matches, but often they fizzle out
by the time I arrange a meetup. It feels like
applying for jobs. It is absolutely like applying for jobs.
That all said, I have no rush to get a girlfriend.
Single life is good and I'm happy. That's fucking wonderful.
(52:42):
I write a lot, play D and D with a
bunch of people. I also joined a walking club near me,
and I make music in my spare time, like Dungeon Synth,
which is doing okay on YouTube nearly three k views.
Look up at Angels Sore Welsh Dungeon Synth on YouTube
if you want a lot of self promotion on this episode,
(53:03):
but I don't mind. I like it. If anyone gets
any sort of runoff folks from this podcast into whatever
fucking thing they're doing, I'm happy about it. Angels Sore
A n G E L Y S t O R
Welsh Dungeon Synth. Anyway, I could easily dwell on misery
(53:26):
how I'm not where I should be. But your podcast
is great. It teaches about gratitude and what I have
good right now. I'm so it's so fucking funny because
the life I feel, like the life of this podcast
and the life of like what goes on in my
own like actual brain is difference, you know, because I
always forget, because it's I always forget to be grateful
(53:48):
and I always forget to do all this shit. So
it's actually kind of it's actually kind of cool and
interesting to you know, talk a whole bunch of shit
on my podcast and then people reflect it back at me,
and then I'm like, ah, fuck, all right, I gotta
do these things. Is that I'm It's weird. It almost
feels like I'm looking in a mirror in a weird
way of like I'm putting all this ship out into
the world and then and then it comes back at me. Anyway, Uh,
(54:12):
there is an all pervading happiness under everything. It's a
matter of perspective. I agree, you're the best lyle. No,
You're the fucking best Welsh synth wizard. Thanks man, This
is cool. This is a cool email. This All these
emails are like hitting me. All these emails are hitting
the fucking spot today. Yeah. Like I said, I I
(54:35):
recorded kind of a crazy rant episode where I shared
a lot of fucked up stuff going on with with
my brain right now. I decided I didn't want to
share it, but so I'm recording this now. It's because
I got to put out an episode. Uh. And it's
funny how all the emails are are kind of like
(54:59):
on on theme in a sense to you know, just
like trying to like enjoy life. I suppose this is cool.
I really fuck with this email the shout at Dan
the Welsh synth wizard. All right, let's see, all right,
(55:20):
this is from Kimberly, subject line how do I start
a majen club? Plus a recommendation for you. Hey, Gek,
I love listening to your stuff. Come to Milwaukee again,
and I'll buy tickets despite the wild Ticketmaster fees. Ah fuck.
All right. Well, I'm trying to take two of your
Gecko teachings to heart. One is redirecting my energy towards
(55:40):
things that are more important. Aka the grass is greener
where you water it. This has helped me from making
some very This has helped me from making some very big,
stupid decisions in my life. So thank you. Did I
say that this is crazy, I'm telling you, folks, I'm
telling you it's crazy. I say a whole bunch of
shit to people on my podcast, and then I go
into my real life and my real brain and it's
(56:03):
it's it's it's all on fire, and it is a
kind of psychedelic situation to come back and see, uh,
you know what's going on? You know, just have have
all my shit reflected back in me. The grass is
grainer where you water it. I mean, it is true.
It is true to foster a community. That's you know.
That's another thing. I play majong online, but I want
(56:25):
to play it with real people. The only majng clubs
in my area are fifty people fifty five plus and
they only meet during the workday. I want to start
a Majong club, but I don't know how. Networking shouldn't
be too much of an issue, but I'm stuck on
the logistics where to host it. Mostly, I'm not inviting
strangers into a house that isn't even mine. Any help
would be awesome. One last thing for you. Watch The
(56:48):
Tale of Princess Kagua, You'll never feel so good about
feeling like shit. I get the sense of euphoria from
just existing. Now. I remember what a privilege it is
to be alive and to be able to feel things.
Even the miser. Take its message to heart. It'll change you.
Thanks million. Okay, all right, maybe I actually we'll watch
this shit, the Tale of Princess Kagua. What is this?
(57:10):
I'm going to google this, let's see. All right, cool,
I'm gonna check this out anyway. How do I start
a moja club? I mean meetup is great for that shit? Uh,
definitely in for meetup. Where do you host it? Uh? Well,
(57:33):
I don't know. Man, Milwaukee has a ton of great bars.
And why don't you try to find a bar that's
like slow on a what it says it's only weekdays?
I mean, why don't you try like a bar or
a coffee shop or a cafe. Right, That's what I
would do, is I would find like a I'm sure
Milwaukee has a hipster coffee shop cafe shit that you
(57:55):
could like, uh ask if you know, maybe on a
Monday morning or something like that, you could do a
little majong club and then you can just promote it
on meetup and Facebook and Instagram and all that shit.
That's my recommendation for you. Good on you for doing
a club. I like that. That's that's again fostering a
community through through doing shit like this. It's it's, it's
(58:17):
I think it's the key to life. All right. I
think I'm gonna do one more e mail subject line
thinking about getting a a day. Okay, hey man, it's brody.
(58:40):
All right, Sorry, hey man, it's brody. I'm currently in
college and spend most of my day on campus. I
hate using the bathrooms because I used to do terrible
things in the bathroom in my youth. Uh, shit on
the seat and leave it, etc. Okay, anyway, so I
hate using the school bathrooms. But yesterday I had a
bad case of bubble guts and had to hit the bathroom,
(59:01):
as most men do. I have hair all down there,
and today I happen to have a semi solid shit storm.
This is the email that I'm ending on. I'm not
reading any more emails. After this. I went to wipe
and it got everywhere. I wiped it all on my
ass hair on accident, and it got in my damn
hand I'm getting real sick of this happening and I'm stuck.
Do I shave my ass hair is like a weirdo?
(59:21):
Or get a bidet? Please help? Uh? Interesting, you know
it's funny. Anytime I have shaved my ass hairs in
the past, it just causes itching like fucking crazy. Brother,
it causes itching like fucking crazy. I would recommend getting
a bi day. I don't have one in New York,
(59:45):
but I've been in Tokyo for the past two months
and bidets are sick. I don't know how we live
without them. You gotta, I think I was. When I
first started using a bidet, I was a little hesitant
towards it's letting the water really shove itself up my ass.
But now, uh, you know, my asshole embraces uh having
(01:00:09):
having a water gun UH squirted directly into it, and
I suggest you embrace it too. Uh. Folks, that's been
gek mail. Thank you all very much for listening to
this show. Uh. If you wanna submit an email, please
send an email to therapy geckomail at gmail dot com.
That's therapy geckomail at gmail dot com. I think it's
(01:00:33):
therapy gecko mail. At gmail dot com. I'm probably gonna
be doing a lot more of these gek mail episodes.
I'm enjoying them. They're fun. There there's sometimes when I
sometimes I need a break from talking to people on
the phone and I just need to rant into a
microphone for an hour. So I'll be doing a lot
more gek mail. Send an email to therapy geckomail at
(01:00:55):
gmail dot com. Thank you all for listening, and uh please,
dear God, come to my little art gallery. It's it
is on March fourteenth, seven pm to ten pm. Trash
from around my room. It's on display actually March fourteenth
to the twenty second, so if you if you miss it,
(01:01:18):
you can go see it. And yeah you can RSVP.
There's a little link in the episode description. And thank
you guys all for listening to my podcast. Good luck,
Thank you so much for listening, and take care bye.
Everyone goes on the line taking your phone calls every
nine never goes to him. Just teaching you cloud on
(01:01:41):
the memory of Linny Expert
Hello, people of the computer or the phone, whichever one
of those two or mediums you're using to listen to this,
or maybe you're listening in your car, or maybe you're
listening inside the belly of a whale, although probably not
you're probably maybe you're walking, maybe you're on a train.
(00:24):
Maybe maybe you have this podcast playing in like another
room to no one well, and you like left it
on and you forgot, and I'm just speaking into this
void of an empty room while you're off, you know,
doing something else, not even knowing that I'm speaking. Maybe
that's where this podcast is going right now. But what's up, everybody?
(00:48):
How's it going? This is gek Mail. I'm gonna fucking
shoot the shit with myself for a little bit and
then I'm gonna read some viewer mail. So I guess
what's going on with me? Real quick? Is I am
in Japan right now. I've been here for two months.
(01:10):
It's been a beautiful, beautiful experience. I'm sad to go back,
but I think it'll be good. I think it'll be grounding,
you know, at the end of the day. At the
end of the day, right it's like you can go on.
I've had a been fortunate enough in my life to
(01:34):
go on many, many crazy, beautiful adventures, both thanks to
the therapy Gecko and also just thanks to like, you know,
something in my brain, for better or for worse, requires
me to fucking have like some some sense of novelty
(01:58):
going on. So I'm always running around and doing stuff,
and it's been good. But the old what's that song?
Been all over the world, only place left to go
is home something like that. Who does that song? Anyway? Yeah,
the song is good. So yeah, man, I'm excited to
return back and see my family and my friends and
(02:20):
it'll be good. You know. That's the meaning of life,
I think is one of the things I've learned over
the past I'm not even gonna say two months, because
I knew it kind of before I came here. But
the quality of your life is always going to be
the quality of the people around you at the end
of the day. I think for me, at least, I
(02:42):
don't know. You might you might be able to go
into the woods. Everyone's different, everyone's brain is wired differently,
So you might be able to just go into the
woods and live there forever and it's awesome for you.
So actually I take back everything I said. I don't
fucking know the life. I don't even I regret even
(03:03):
pretending for a second like I did. But I guess
it's the meaning of I guess my life and probably
the meaning of a lot of people's lives is to
just be around as folks. You know, life is like
a tremendously uh scary and lonely and frightening bizarre experience,
(03:30):
and uh, you know it's everything is cope, but it's good.
Cope is good cope is you know, Yeah, your friends
sending you a meme, it's good cope. So you know, whatever,
connect with other people, it's good. I think this was
a whole I don't know why this is. This is
a whole motivational rant. I'm never trying to tell other
(03:52):
people what to do, but I'm just this is just
me working out my own brain. This is the this
is the therapy for me, uh portion of this show,
and I'm enjoying it. It feels good. And if you
have me in your ear right now, God bless you.
Thank you, very very very very much. I am honored
(04:13):
to have your listenership, and I'm ready to take to
read some emails. Let's get into it. Although before we
get into it, I do want to say I am
hosting my very first art exhibition in Bushwick, Brooklyn on
(04:35):
Well it's gonna We're having a gallery exhibition opening on
March fourteenth from seven pm to ten pm at the
Kaleidoscope Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. And if you live in
New York City, if you want to come, you can
check the link to the episode description. I put a
(04:55):
little thing that you can enter in your phone number
into and then you'll get a little text where that says, Hey,
just a reminder that we're doing this thing. And also
I might do other things in New York City this,
I might do other stupid art exit. Oh, I didn't
even talk about what the exhibition is. I'm taking eight
It's called Lyle Forever presents Trash from around my Room
(05:20):
and I'm gonna be taking eight pieces of trash from
around my room and displaying them and you can come
to take that. It's a free event. It's a free event.
I don't know why I decided to. I had this.
I had this event written down in my notes app
like two years ago, and I was like, you know what,
(05:40):
we just have to do it. If not now, then
when let's just do it. Let's just do the fucking
trash exhibit. And so we're doing the trash exhibit. It's
free to come and to hang out. There'll be a
bar there. I'll be there. I'll be hanging out. So
come through March fourteenth, Kaleidoscope Gallery, seven pm, ten pm.
(06:02):
And the link to RSVP is in this episode description.
So come hang out and look at my stupid trash.
All right, let's look at some emails here. This is
from ash. Subject line I told my instructor I'd make
him come. Okay, high Gek. I had my first driving
(06:24):
lesson today and accidentally sexted the instructor two minutes before
he got to my house. On the driving app, it
has a section saying bits out them. What does that mean?
It has a section saying bits out them, and he
just filled them all with coming soon. So okay. I
sent who I thought was my boyfriend a screenshot of
(06:48):
his driving profile and a text saying I'm gonna make
him come. Then almost canceled my driving test when I
saw who I sent it to. Oh okay, So this
person took us screenshot of their instructor's driving profile and
then meant to send the screenshot to their boyfriend with
(07:10):
the with the phrase I'm gonna make him come, but
they accidentally sent it to the driver. Okay, he was
actually a good sport about it and we had to laugh,
so it wasn't weird anyway. Odd first driving lesson. Guess
I'm stuck till I graduate. Help your driving instructors come well,
(07:30):
I hope. I don't have anything funny to say about this,
but it is a funny situation. Let's let's see here.
This is from Austin. This is a rant. The subject
line is rant on life. Hey, gek, I graduated almost
two years ago and I've been with the same company since.
They've shown me the corruption and greed that drives capitalism.
(07:53):
I can't do this anymore. My job, which involves providing
and educating patients on medical equipment, has taken a severe
toll on my mental and emotional health, and I started
therapy because of it. I understand patient's anger due to pain,
but the treatment I received from hospital staff and colleagues
is unbearable. They don't care about patience. They only want
to milk money from them. Management even told me not
(08:13):
to pick up equipment from a patient until they called
to ask why it hadn't been done so they could
continue billing them. I've been applying for my dream career
for an entire year, but the constant rejections are overwhelming.
Life feels bleak, and I'm struggling to find meaning in anything.
This repetitive cycle is a never ending hell escape. I
am unable to escape from Austin. Well, Austin, Hey, man,
(08:40):
you know what. Here's the funny thing is, like, normally
I think I would get an email like this and
I would be like, oh crap, I don't know how
to respond. But you know, let's I don't know, man,
I'm in the mood to give it a try. I've
also been feeling like a little hell scapie here Austin.
So I'm just gonna tell you you how I you know,
(09:03):
I'm feeling in the hellscape land. I mean, look, man,
I think all of my theories and all of my
quote unquote advice or whatever, it's all just theories that
I'm testing and trying. I have no you know, hold on,
(09:26):
there's a fucking in Japan. They make it. They do
a bell every day at four thirty. I don't know
if you guys can hear this bell? Why four thirty?
It only goes off at four thirty? Does anyone know why?
There's why does a bell always go off in Tokyo
at four to thirty? Hold on, it's about it. It's
about an end. That's another good thing to get you
(09:47):
out of Hellescape is just distractions. Donkey Kong Country Returns
is they release this is not an advertisement, but Donkey
Kong Country Returns is. They released it in HD on
the Nintendo Switch, And I'm gonna use that to help
me cope with the void. But anyway, I don't know.
Austin Man, you seem like, well, well, I'm curious what
(10:09):
you said. You've been applying for your dream career, right,
so what is your dream career? I don't know what
that is, but let's say whatever your dream career is,
I'm sure it's your dream career for a reason. Right,
So instead of the one thing I've always felt is
that like there's kind of motivations and then there's vessels
(10:32):
for those motivations, I suppose, And so it's like, uh,
why is your dream career your dream career? Is it
because it puts you around people. Is it because it
lets you travel? Is it because it lets you help people?
You know? What? Is it? Right? And so instead of
chasing after this specific thing that is kind of a
(10:55):
thing that is like a rejection acceptance thing, and you're
kind of like a allowing other people to tell you
whether or not you'll be able to achieve those vessels, Like,
why don't you just take whatever the fuck it is
that you like about this career and see if you can,
you know, see see what all your options are for
(11:18):
kind of satisfying those life desires. I suppose that's what
I guess, that's what I would do. That's what I'm
trying to do. It's funny, man, talking about this ship
on the podcast is helping me kind of reinforce things
for myself. So so that's good. That's what I'm trying
(11:38):
to do. Let's keep going, Let's keep going. Uh. Okay,
this is from this one's a little too long. Hold on. Okay.
This is from someone who told me not to use
(12:01):
their name. Don't use my name please. My boyfriend of
five years has a baby. My story high from Canada.
I've been watching your show a lot lately, and I
doubt this will even get anywhere. Well, here we are
my story. So I'm twenty one and my now ex
is twenty three. We started dating in twenty twenty. We
broke up in twenty in October of twenty twenty three
(12:22):
because I found a lot of porn on his phone
and it was pretty disturbing. I found pictures of his
cousin on there. Okay, fast forward. During the time we
broke up, I started seeing someone and he did also.
He was with this emo, mentally ill girl who has
a list of disorders. Okay, whatever, blah blah blah blah blah. Okay,
(12:45):
fast forward again. We got back together in the end
of February twenty twenty four, and we were doing good.
He was decent, was working on himself, and I saw
some change. Oh she got back together. Then on April first,
the oh Okay. Then on April first, the girl that
he was seeing while we were broken up posted that
she was pregnant and tried to play it off as
(13:06):
an April Fool's joke. She didn't even say anything to
my ex, and she blocked us both on social media
when I confronted her about it. She was playing this
big game of guests for nine months and now it's
February and I finally broke up with him because she
came out and said, yeah, this is your baby. The
whole situation is fucked. She even tried to say that
(13:27):
we could all be one happy family and have a
three way relationship, which just proves how messed up she
is in her head. But yeah, living life to the
fullest right now. I guess that is a crazy dude.
That's such a crazy situation considering how fucking young old
you guys are. I mean, goddamn, I mean, well, shit,
(13:49):
you got out of that one pretty good. Uh yeah,
I mean that's that's that's that's gnarly. That's gnarley. I'm
not gonna I need something to refer to you as.
I'm just gonna call your that's gnarly, Rachel. Good luck.
That's all I got. I'm gonna start. Sometimes I have
(14:09):
things to say and sometimes I don't. And this one,
this one, I'm just a little speechless. Good luck, Rachel.
That one's pretty pretty messed up. I mean, I guess
I guess it's good that you guys didn't have a baby,
you know. All right, let's see here, Okay, this is
(14:36):
from Sam subject line just turned twenty and I'm overwhelmed.
Any advice? Hey, Gak, my name is Sam. I just
turned twenty this past December and the spring semester has
just started. Over the winter, I did some research which
has gotten the green light to content to continue throughout
the semester as a one credit independent study course kick Ass.
I'm also in another independent study course to be doing
(14:58):
four different projects. I love research, and it's what i
want to be doing, but I'm doubting my abilities to
be able to manage my time well and produce good work,
not only in those projects but also my normal classes.
I'm taking KIM and kalk Tu, and I'm struggling a bit,
and I'm afraid to burn out so early. Do you
have any advice as someone who is older? Thanks? Wishing
you the best, Sam, Sam, I'm terrible, I have. I'm
(15:21):
kind of terrible for this because I studied film in
college and I maybe did work two fucking hours a
week as a film major in cob My roommate was
a biology major. He fucking hated me because, you know,
he was doing real stuff with his life and his
(15:45):
you know, he always had a bunch of work to
do and my you know, I was like getting high
and listening to low fi beats and not doing anything.
So I'm not good at school. I've never been a
big school person. But I guess we could. I guess
if we were to go a little bit deeper and
get into like the emotions of it, right is like,
(16:11):
you know, I don't know. It's hard to say because
part of me is like, well, if you're only twenty
and this is what you really want to do, like,
you know, give it. God, dude, I guess give it
your best shot. I know that that's not I know
that that's not great advice, but give it your best shot.
And if you end up falling short of whatever your
(16:33):
best shot is, just take solace in the fact that
you tried, you know, so, so that's I think that's
what I got for you, sam is is just just
take solace in the fact that you tried. That's all
I think you're gonna ever really care about, is that
you know, when you go to bed at night, you
try your fucking best to do the things that you
(16:55):
wanted to do with yourself or whatever the hell that
is worth learning. Okay, this is from Andrew subject line
learning to be alone. He says, I think you've got
to be alone slash single and with no friends for
(17:16):
a part of your life, even if it's just a
couple of months. It's necessary character development arc. And I
recommend it to everyone. If you read this, you're awesome.
Keep going. You know, it's interesting. I definitely I think
I'll be up. I'll be a little open on this
this year episode. I'm in the mood for it. You know.
(17:38):
I think over the years that I've I think over
the years i've all I've been a very like kind
of you know, wanting to be alone and do things
on my own kind of vibe. And I and if
you're gonna do that, right, if you're gonna learn to
be alone, I actually agree with this email. I agree
with this email that you should try to learn how
(18:00):
to be alone, especially if you're young, like dude, if
you're in your fucking if you're in your like early
twenties or something like that, you gotta it's it's okay
to learn how to be alone and go on a
little solo trip. And it is, I agree, a necessary
character development arc. And I think through all the times
(18:21):
that I've gone on a solo trip or been alone
or struggled with loneliness. I agree, it's been like a
big character arc for me. But also, you know, over
I think over the years, if you do it too much,
you kind of wake up and you're like, oh, this
(18:42):
is not I mean again, it's it's It's what I
was saying earlier. Everyone's brain is fucking wired differently, and so, uh,
you know, I personally think that having quality social connections
in your life is probably the most important fucking thing
on the possibly fucking do for yourself. Right, some people
(19:04):
aren't as lucky to have those things come. Some people
are really fucking lucky and those things just come naturally
to their lives, and other people aren't and they have
to kind of work a little bit harder for them.
But uh, you know, I agree with this the spirit
of this email, and like it's okay to learn, you
gotta you gotta kind of learn how to be alone,
(19:26):
but you know, don't drag it on too long or
else you will go insane. Trust me. This is from
Jane subject line touring musician struggling with daily life after
Hey Lyle, I'm a musician parentheses DJ who just went
on tour last year in Asia and now I'm doing
(19:48):
Latin America. I do longish tours where I stay in
the city I perform for a few weeks to really
get a feeling for what it's like and to connect
with the people here. I'm also commissioning a three D
artist that helps me pay the bills on the go.
It's hard for me when I head back home to
cope with daily life. I just kind of stare at
my wall, like why why do I have a space
(20:10):
when I could just be on the move all the time.
I can't slow down, even though I feel like I should.
Sometimes As someone who also tours a bunch, how do
you handle the come down afterwards? Thank you, Jane. Finally
a fucking email where I feel like I can speak
on it, dude. So yeah, I mean, I've been touring.
I've been lucky enough to tour as the therapy get
(20:30):
go for like basically on and off for two and
a half years. And yeah, you know, Jane, I'm in
the same boat here because I'm taking this year off
of touring, which I think was a necessary thing to
do because I had to, you know, kind of take
the time to evaluate a lot of life things and
(20:52):
kind of kind of deal with them, but I'm with
you too. Like when I'm on the road, life feels
really like there's a weird linear thing to it, where like,
when I'm on the road, all I have to worry
about is the show I am doing tonight in Saint Louis, Missouri.
(21:16):
It's a very present thing when you have a show
and you're performing and going all around, because you're focused
on the present moment and where you are, and it
kind of gets you like there is linear aspect to
it where it's like, Okay, I have this many shows
(21:36):
to do, and let me walk in this straight line.
And life is a little scary in the fact that
it doesn't often have straight lines, especially if you're a
musician or a gecko or something non traditional. You know,
life doesn't have a lot of straight lines to it,
(21:57):
and so touring gives you a bit of a straight line.
And when you get off a tour, yet you don't
have a straight line anymore. And that's fucking spooky. So
how do I handle the come down afterwards? The truth is, Jane,
I haven't been doing a great job of handling to
come down afterwards. But I think it's it's probably, And
(22:18):
actually I'm happy to be reading this email because it's
making me have to find an answer to this question.
And so I think, in this very moment, I'm just
kind of like, you probably have to establish some kind
of routine, because when I was on the road, I
felt calm and I felt like I had a routine.
It was like, you know, go to the airport, do
fucking this shit, set up the show, do meet with people,
(22:43):
smoke weed at two o'clock in the morning, and go
to bed and wake up and do it again. And
so I think, I think again, Yeah, from person who
tours to person to tours, it's like touring established a
routine for me, and then when the routine went way,
I just started to kind of falter. And so, uh,
(23:05):
I think the answer is going to be like coming
up with another routine for yourself, for myself, and so hope,
hopefully you can find a routine that makes you feel
some level of excitement, right, Uh, some level of excitement
for what you had when you were on tour. And yeah,
(23:28):
it's hard, you know, man, if if you're the kind
of person where you want you want a lot out
of life, you want a lot out of uh, you know,
you live in crazy rock star Land, You're in Asia,
you're in Latin America, you're you're talking to this person,
you're doing this. I mean, it's it's, uh, it's beautiful.
(23:49):
It's it's the kind of you know, it's it's it's
a beautiful existence. But I don't know if it's sustainable
to live it forever, or at least you can live
it forever, but I don't know if it's sustainable to
live it constantly. And so yeah, you need to kind
(24:11):
of build some kind of routine. I guess do push
ups or something. All Right, that was a rant. That
was a whole rant, But I guess this whole podcast
is a whole fucking rant. So let's keep going. Caitlin says,
save me, mister gecko, Hi, gek, I'm having a life crisis,
and your knowledgeable on these things is a gecko. I
don't know about that. What are your thoughts on life
in twenty twenty five and the groundhog from Groundhog Day?
(24:33):
I don't know much about the groundhog from Groundhog Day,
but one of my thoughts on life in twenty twenty five,
I mean, Ski, it's spooky for sure, you know, I'll
talk about this. This is something that comes up in
my brain is I don't think it's healthy to know
(24:54):
so much about other people's lives. And the reason I
bring that up specifically is that I like, I'm on Instagram,
as many of us are, and you know, sometimes when
I'm not doing anything, I'll just find myself scrolling through
Instagram stories. I mean, you scroll through Instagram stories, You're
getting all these fucking people's windows into their lives, and
(25:16):
you start comparing yourself to other people's lives, and you
start just having all of life thrown at you in
in fucking twenty seconds. And it's probably not good. It's
not that's too much information to have. That's my that's
(25:36):
my scary thing about twenty twenty five is that I
feel like we have, you know, in many ways, twenty
twenty five. And the information that we have in this
in this day and age is good and helpful. It
allows people to find each other that couldn't before and
allows you to get answers to shit that you just
had to fucking sucked, shove down and deal with beforehand.
(26:02):
But it's also a little too much information, Like I
don't need to know what some guy I fucking met
at something four years ago is doing today. I don't
need to know that, you know, and so, but it's
also it's also all in our control, like all these
fucking you know where our brains are trained to be
(26:26):
on this shit as much as possible, And but it is,
it is in our control. And so I guess, I
guess that's a fucking antidote, is too If I don't.
If I think it's too much information, I'm just gonna
fucking stop looking at Instagram stories so much, which is
probably a good idea. So thoughts on living in twenty
(26:47):
twenty five Enjoy the information era and all of its gifts,
but don't fly too close to the sun, I suppose
is my thoughts on twenty twenty five. All Right, I'm
feeling pretty good. I'm big chillin'. Let us continue to
(27:10):
take uh more things. This is from Albert, subject line
in all caps, help, a bunch of exclamation points, and
then this email is in all caps. Gek, I'm drunk
af the bar overserved me. Man, I hit my wax vape,
and I'm currently paying for the consequences of my decisions.
(27:30):
Please help. PS. I love you man, You're so cool. Albert, Well,
let's see. Albert sent me this email on February tenth,
and it is currently March first, so he's probably dead
by now. But in case if he's not, man, just
(27:52):
fucking drink some water, Albert, drink some water. Go to sleep.
Sometimes you just got to drink some water and go
to sleep, all right, okay? Subject line Okay, this is
(28:12):
from Thai subject line. I illustrated a children's book for
adults about death and included a cameo of you in it.
Whoa Peace Gek. My name is Titan and I'm an
artist from the Bronx. I recently wrote and illustrated a
children's book about death and included a little cameo of
you in it. I've had thoughts surrounding death since I
was eight years old, but never to the point of
(28:34):
action toward taking my own life. I'm twenty eight now,
and I feel this rumination on death has given me
an interesting perspective on life. I am fortunate to have
met people along my path who have had similar thoughts, struggles, philosophies,
and even solutions on how to lead a more fulfilling
and beautiful life. So I wrote and drew a little
something that I thought could help others as they've helped
(28:56):
me over time. Anyway, I think this might be getting
kind of long, and I really want you to read
my I'm gonna end it here, but I'd love to
hear your thoughts on the book whenever you get the chance. Also,
I love your show man, Thank you for you, peace
and love Titan. Let me hold on. Then this is
the page with you in it. Oh, this is cool.
This is cool. This is really cool. I know this
(29:18):
is an audio only show, so I can't really describe,
but basically, I'm I've got a lizard guy writing my
back the children's book. Maybe I can. Here's a link
to the physical purchase of book. Okay, here in case
if anyone wants to check out this book. It's called
One Day You Will Die, Written and illustrated by Titan,
(29:44):
and it's pronounced it's spelled t A I I T
A N. One Day you Will Die, Written and Illustrated
by Titan. And uh, yeah, it's on it's on Amazon.
Let's see here. That's pretty cool. Okay, I'm gonna check
this ship out. I'm gonna check this ship out. Oh,
(30:06):
they sent me a link to a free version of
the book. You know, it's okay, So this person sent
me this email, so a little bit more about what's
going on with me and in life is this person
sent me this email also February tenth, also like two
and a half weeks ago. In the past three days,
I have actually been having like tons of like insane
(30:28):
existential dread surrounding death. Uh. It's been actually pretty debilitating,
pretty bad. But you know, I'm about to go to
a psych and figure the shit out. So we're, uh,
you know, we're gonna we're gonna pull through. We're gonna
be we're gonna come back greater than ever. But it's
cool because this person's around my age, and it seems
(30:48):
as though they're they're doing pretty good job at uh,
you know, dealing with these these these difficult thoughts and feelings.
So good on, good on you, Titan. I'm gonna check
out this book. Thanks, thanks for sharing. Okay, all right,
(31:14):
this is from Benjamin, subject line go kart Rehab. Hey gek,
I'm not sure if you remember, but about a year
and a half ago, I called in from a Canadian
go kart rehab. I do absolutely remember you calling in
from a Canadian go kart Rehab. I figured i'd send
you an update, partly because it feels right and partly
(31:36):
because it's just cool to reflect on how far things
have come since leaving Rehab. I somehow managed to land
a full time office job with great benefits, flexible benefits,
travel management responsibility, the whole nine yards. On top of that,
I started a small family vending machine business. Very cool.
And I'm also working on my MBA in business analytics
because apparently I'm addicted to adding more to my plate.
(31:58):
I'm also gunning for a promotion to sales manager soon,
because why not. It hasn't been a smooth ride. There
were plenty of relapses. Actually, we lost a baby before
they were born. I'm sorry to hear that, which hit
harder than we could have imagined. But we also had
another kid, and just to make sure we're done with surprises,
I got the old Snip Snip about a month ago.
(32:18):
Congrats on the sect to me brother. Now we're living
in a beautiful, brand new house with more space than
we know what to do with. We share rent with
my mother in law and brother in law, which sounds
like the setup for a bad sitcom, but it actually works.
It lets my wife stay home with the kids while
they're young, and somehow it feels like we've carved out
a little slice of stability in the chaos. That's fucking sick, brother.
(32:41):
I'm very happy to hear that a little spice of
stability in the chaos sounds like a wonderful thing. But
it has been work, so much work. I had to
take the discipline I picked up in rehab and apply
it in real life, failing, getting back up, failing again.
Even when I had relapsed and was dependent on substances again,
there were probably times should have gone back to rehab,
but I didn't. I just kept clawing my way forward,
(33:03):
one messy step at a time. I'm still an addict,
but now it's to work, school and chasing promotions to
provide for my family. But I've got to handle on
the substances. More importantly, I've got hobbies and interests that
actually make me happy instead of just numbing me out.
That's new. I still get the thoughts, though they don't disappear,
they just get quieter. Weed is still a part of
(33:23):
my life, but I'm trying to get away from it.
The key for me, Kaisen, what the fuck is Kaisen?
I'm googling this Kaisen. Kaizen is a concept referring to
business activities that continually improve all functions and evolve all employees.
It translates to change for the better, change for the better.
(33:44):
The key for me kaisen continuous improvement, tiny steps forward,
even when they feel pointless, especially when they feel pointless,
is what he wrote. That's cool anyway, thanks for listening.
Back then it mattered, and if you read this now,
it still does. I'd love to chat again one take care, crazy,
get go, man. This is a really beautiful email. Man,
I I appreciate it. That's really nice. Yeah. Again, as
(34:08):
someone who is also kind of trying to fucking I record,
I don't. I recorded a podcast before this one that
I was gonna release today, but I decided to shelvetz
because it was I was I went on like kind
of an insane rant and it felt a little too.
(34:28):
I was crying. It was a whole thing, and I
was like, I was like, this is going to be
art for my podcast, and you know, maybe one day
I'll share that, but I'm recording this instead. But I'll
talk a little bit about you know. I'm again like
at a weird point where like life feels pointless and
fucking I'm trying to move forward and find meaning and
(34:50):
do all these things, and so I really enjoy reading
your email, Benjamin. Yeah, it's cool to hear that tiny
step forward are helping you even when they feel pointless.
And also again hearing that you found a little bit
of this licensability and the chaos. It's a beautiful thing, brother.
(35:10):
So congratulations Benjamin. Hopefully I'll talk to you again soon.
All right, all right, this is from Lewis anonymous. Hello
from Ireland. Yo gek, give me a fake name, Okay,
Lewis first time emailer, slash caller, but two time show
(35:33):
goer when you came to Dublin, Ireland, kick ass. I
wanted to share my current situation as I'm struggling to
process at all. Recently, my wife and I separated. She
has always faced mental health challenges, and she decided to
end our relationship to focus on working on herself. While
I understand and respect her decision, I can't help feeling
that we could have tried to navigate this together. She
explained that throughout our ten year relationship, I was always
(35:55):
there to support her through her struggles, but she now
feels she needs to figure things out out on her own.
Even though we're on good terms, the separation has left
me feeling lost and questioning the point of everything. We
were best friends and I truly believed we'd spend our
lives together. Now, despite having a decent job and being
relatively young, I'm struggling with feelings of emptiness in the
(36:15):
urge to just give up. Thanks fake name, I forget
what fake name I originally gave you. Lewis Lewis. Um
hmmmm hmmm, ah, Lewis Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis Lewis Man,
(36:40):
all these man sometimes all these phone calls and these
emails man, and then kind of comparing them to shit
going on in my life. It's like I just always
have more answer answers, more questions than answers. But let
(37:02):
me think it, let me just try. I mean, I'm
not I don't have any fucking answers at all, because
I I would probably feel the exact fucking same way
if I was in your position as well. Hmm, I
don't know. Maybe maybe the whole point is to just
not give up. Maybe that's the whole point is to
(37:25):
just fucking through the end, through all eighty years whatever,
if you're lucky enough to get eighty fucking years. Uh,
just keep fucking going and keep fucking trying. I mean
that not I keep bringing it back to me, but
that's that's the only frame of reference that I have.
Is like, Uh, when I'm struggling with feelings of emptiness
in the urge to give up, I'm just like, you know,
(37:47):
I'm a big like, let me do something about my
fucking problems guy. Uh. And so I'm coming up with plans,
I'm trying things, I'm executing stuff. Maybe because it might
take a little while, right, you might be like, all right,
I just gotta hit the fucking gym and start over
and do this and do that. And maybe you try
a whole bunch of shit and it doesn't fucking work.
(38:09):
Maybe you spend a whole year trying a bunch of
different shit and it doesn't fucking work, And then you
just keep trying, and you just keep trying, and just
keep trying, and you just keep trying, and you just
keep trying, and you just keep trying. You just fucking
don't fucking let yourself fall into the trap of emptiness
(38:32):
and the void, and you don't let yourself fucking drown,
and you just fucking God. And it's hard, it's the
fucking hardest goddamn thing, but you just keep fucking God
dag fucking Okay, I'll do it again. Okay, I'll do
it again. Okay, Okay, okay, okay, Jesus Christ. And then
(38:56):
either you'll die and nothing and it will, you know whatever, uh,
or maybe some maybe fucking you'll you'll you'll through trying
different things, different remedies, going out, leaving your house, eating
an apple, whatever, maybe you find something that goddamn works.
The brain is very uh neuroplastic. Is that the word
(39:19):
you said? You're young too. I think it's more neuroplastic
when you're young. But bro, I mean that's where I'm at,
right is I'm like, uh, okay, I you know, if
you feel like you're at a bizarre dead end and
you're just staring at a fucking wall, you just gotta
knock around and you gotta leave your safe space, I guess,
(39:43):
and just knock and kick and fucking see what the
fuck is. Maybe there's a trap door. Maybe there's because
that's what it takes, right is it takes some new
action that gets you out of your head to remind
yourself you're alive. I'll tell a quick story. I told
this on the podcast that I didn't release, that I
(40:05):
was ranting and going insane on But I have been
in Japan, and like I've been talking about a little bit,
I've had this kind of like insane existential crisis lately
where I've just been like preoccupied with fucking death and
(40:25):
despair and like crazy shit. And yeah, it got really
bad of it the last three days and so I
was like, Okay, I need to just leave. I need
to just keep trying shit and leave the house and whatever.
And so I went to this cafe. It was called
the English Only Cafe, and they were having like a
(40:47):
little like meetup event. I like a shout out meetup
dot com great for finding shit to do. And honestly, dude, honestly, dude,
if anyone listening to this, if you're feeling empty and
you're feeling insane, you're feeling lone, what I This is
what I do when I'm feeling that way is I
go on meetup and I'm just like, let me find
a thing to go to and let me try to
talk to people at this thing. And sometimes it doesn't work,
(41:11):
it's a little hit or mess. But when it does work,
and when I am able to do that, I feel
fucking great because I tried to get out of the
goddamn house and I tried to form some new thing
in my brain to make it feel like, you know,
life's not over right. And so anyway, I went to
this English meet up and I there was this table,
(41:34):
and I went and I sat down at the table
and I just started like chatting with these folks and
I chatted, you know, but I chatted with people and
I was talking. I was talking to this guy and
he was telling me about like his life, and he
was telling about like trying to find a girlfriend, and
he was kind of like he was talking about his
life and it kind of felt like I was doing
(41:55):
an episode of the Therapy Get Goo podcast, except I
was just like doing it for fun and joy, not
be not to make a fucking podcast. And that felt great,
and I was like, oh shit, I forgot that deep
in my like deep in my soul, is somebody who
(42:16):
I really just believe this that I really fucking do
in my gut like life and like people and things
just happen, dude, that that uh take me away from
that that fill my gut with like emptiness, and I
(42:37):
just use fog. And then sometimes if you get out
of bed and you go do something new that you
didn't usually do, and you put yourself out there and
you try to introduce yourself to new stimuli, it comes.
It fucking comes back to you. So I'm at this
event and I'm talking to this guy and I'm just like,
you know, ah, chatting with him, and I'm chatting with
(42:59):
other people at the fucking meet up thing, and I'm like, oh,
I forgot that. I forgot that I have all this
stuff that's that is me. And I felt a little
bit more connected to myself in that moment. And it's
always really triumphant to go from feeling hopeless to having
(43:19):
a little moment where you're like, Okay, all is not gone.
My brain continues to have the capacity to feel good,
you know. So yeah, that's just again, that's just you know,
I forget what I fake name I gave you. And
I also know that I'm not even really talking about
(43:41):
your email anymore. I'm just trying to relate to it.
But how do you beat the urge to give up?
I don't know. Go on, go on meetup and fucking
try to talk to some folks or do something new.
I don't know. Yeah, I guess that's it. Just try
and trying new shit. Just knocking at the fucking door.
(44:03):
That's what I'm trying, dude. I don't know. I don't
know if any of the shit I'm saying makes any sense,
but it's just it's just what I'm trying. All right.
This is from Evan. Subject line I got fired from
my dream job on my thirtieth birthday and life has
never been better. Ooh, all right, this is an email
(44:25):
I need today. This is from Evan, subject line hey gek.
Oh wait, no, this is not. I already read the
subject line, hey gek. I'm a wheelder fabricate welder, fabricator
and built heavy equipment for nearly a decade leading up
to my thirtieth birthday. I had always done some custom
fabrication and artwork out of my home shop and really
(44:47):
wanted to pursue my dreams. I found a small shop
that was a two man team and decided to quit
my safe job to go work for them in the
hopes of finding mentorship. After two weeks, it was clear
they had a poor attitude towards someone who was still learning,
and I was confirmed when on my birthday the following
week they fired me because I was not what they
were looking for. Honestly, it was the best thing that
ever happened to me. So many people are afraid to
(45:08):
finally start their dream, waiting for a mentor to help
them get their start. Mmm. I decided to say fuck
it and just start building cool stuff out of my
home shop and even started learning how to film and
edit video to put them on my YouTube channel to
help drum up more work. This past year, I built
custom furniture, took a massive road trip in fifty year
old cars with my friends and girlfriend, built a thirty
(45:31):
foot long animatronic Beetle Juice sand Worm. Holy shit, he
has a picture of the Beatles Juice Samworm. That's insane.
Did a ton of racecar fab for fantastic customers, and
now I'm just finishing off a custom race car that
I started for an amazing client, as well as rescued
a sick dog who needed several surgeries, all of which
I couldn't do if I wasn't working for myself. My
(45:55):
advice for everyone would be that the life. My advice
for everyone would be that your life is just going
to be hard, regardless if you choose the safe options
or if you try something crazy and fail. Don't give up.
Do what you love. And if someone tells you you
don't deserve to be in the room with all your heroes,
feel free to nail the door shut. Much love, Evan,
(46:18):
Thanks Evan, This is a cool email, man. I really
like this. It's again, you know, at a time in
which I'm you know, I turned twenty seven recently and
I think it's weighing on me in weird ways, and
so you know, I'm I'm honored to get to read
your fucking email and here that you've gotten to, you know,
(46:40):
really live a beautiful, fucking awesome life starting at thirty.
And you know that's really cool. Man. Congratulations. Congratulations is awesome.
Oh please check out his YouTube channel, Enemy metal Works.
Let me I'm actually gonna check. Let me check this
out real quick, Enemy metal Works. Look at this fucking
(47:05):
guy workshop, No bake pumpkin spiced cheesecake at three am
with power tools? What a homie dude. This is a
cool guy. Yeah, go check out his YouTube channel, Enemy
Metal Works. Oh yeah, oh we had a video pop
off four point three cave UWS kick ass rock and roll.
(47:26):
All right, um yeah, thank you for sharing. Evan. Uh.
Let's see here all right. This is from Faith subject
line Alaska and alcohol. What's up, gek? The start of
this year has been a crazy one. January first, I
(47:48):
arrived in Anchorage, Alaska from Nashville from Asheville, North Carolina.
I traveled up here. Okay, I arrived in Anchorage, Alaska
from Asheville, North Carolina bank. I traveled up here with
my boyfriend of two years because he has a great
job opportunity and he invited me along. I brought my dog,
She's a Pitbull Docson mix, and she did better on
the planes than I thought. Anyway, a few days after
(48:11):
we got to Alaska, I had too much to drink
and ended up in jail. That's interesting. I only stayed
a night, but it was the worst experience of my life.
I still have a pending case, so I won't even
know the what is it? I still have a pending case,
so I won't be detailing the Oh Oh sorry, I'm
reading the email RNG. Okay, wor's the experience of my life.
(48:32):
I still have a pending case, so I won't be
detailing the events, though I do have stipulations stating that
I cannot drink. Understandably, I am twenty one years old
and I've had an alcohol problem for a few years now.
It's hard to stay away from it, even though I
know I cause trouble when I drink. My boyfriend has
been supportive, but he's losing patience with me. I feel
like I'm a magnet for chaos. Any thoughts for me? Uh,
(48:57):
just start listening to your podcasts, keep doing what you do.
Thank you, Faith, Any thoughts for you? I'm gonna guess
stop drinking. I've had an alcohol problem for a few
years now. Well, I don't want to say stop drink.
I don't want to just I take that back, just stop. Well,
I mean I don't take back stop drinking, but I
(49:18):
take back I don't. I don't mean to trivialize the issue,
right hm, honest, honest to God, Faith, my faith. My
honest answer is just like if I were you, and
(49:38):
if I was in this situation and I was having
problem with accohoab. I mean, just gotta get help, right,
You gotta go to AA or or go see a
fucking therapist or uh, you know, try to go to
a rehab or something. I know it's I know it's
hard to find the like resources to do that ship,
but you just gotta get help, dude. You gotta get
like real fucking help from uh uh professional people who
(50:02):
help people get off of substances. That's what you gotta do.
Just I guess, just fucking I guess faith to just
decide that you're gonna fucking figure it out right, and again,
kind of similar to the little spiel I went on
about the brick wall, is like, just decide you want
(50:23):
to fucking be better. You want I mean, you want
to you wanna fucking uh get better, You want to
beat your problem. You know, just decide you want to
beat this fucking thing, and uh spend every waking second
that you can working on how to do it, whether
that's getting professional help or researching online how to detox
(50:47):
yourself or whatever. I think it's just a matter of
like deciding for yourself that you're going to prioritize getting
rid of the problem so that you can you know,
go on to live a better life. Uh, that's just
what I would do. That's just that's again I keep
bringing everything back to me. But that's because I can
only speak from my own life. I don't really feel
(51:10):
inclined to be able to judge other people's lives or
tell other people what they should do. But you know,
when I have problems, I mean, that's kind of how
I try to approach them. Let's see. Okay, okay. This
is from Dan subject Line Welsh synth Wizard, Oh dear
(51:37):
Lyle parentheses Therapy, Gecko shoe May. I hail from Wales
in my early thirties. I have a stable job, I
can drive, I live with my parents, have a dog,
and help take care of my sick grandmother who also
lives here and needs twenty four to seven care. This aside,
(51:58):
I have a lot of independence, a great relationship with
my family and friends. I pay rent and I have
no issues supporting them right now. I had a girlfriend.
She was fun, high energy, but chaotic and unpredictable, and
after nearly a year, she broke up with me on
my birthday and said she was moving in with another guy.
Even gaslighted me that we weren't even a relationship, and
then after all that gave me presents that was rough.
(52:21):
Ultimately I had to cut contact with her, but despite everything,
I don't regret meeting her. Maybe trust issues to deal
with for now. On dating apps again, but no success
so far. I get matches, but often they fizzle out
by the time I arrange a meetup. It feels like
applying for jobs. It is absolutely like applying for jobs.
That all said, I have no rush to get a girlfriend.
Single life is good and I'm happy. That's fucking wonderful.
(52:42):
I write a lot, play D and D with a
bunch of people. I also joined a walking club near me,
and I make music in my spare time, like Dungeon Synth,
which is doing okay on YouTube nearly three k views.
Look up at Angels Sore Welsh Dungeon Synth on YouTube
if you want a lot of self promotion on this episode,
(53:03):
but I don't mind. I like it. If anyone gets
any sort of runoff folks from this podcast into whatever
fucking thing they're doing, I'm happy about it. Angels Sore
A n G E L Y S t O R
Welsh Dungeon Synth. Anyway, I could easily dwell on misery
(53:26):
how I'm not where I should be. But your podcast
is great. It teaches about gratitude and what I have
good right now. I'm so it's so fucking funny because
the life I feel, like the life of this podcast
and the life of like what goes on in my
own like actual brain is difference, you know, because I
always forget, because it's I always forget to be grateful
(53:48):
and I always forget to do all this shit. So
it's actually kind of it's actually kind of cool and
interesting to you know, talk a whole bunch of shit
on my podcast and then people reflect it back at me,
and then I'm like, ah, fuck, all right, I gotta
do these things. Is that I'm It's weird. It almost
feels like I'm looking in a mirror in a weird
way of like I'm putting all this ship out into
the world and then and then it comes back at me. Anyway, Uh,
(54:12):
there is an all pervading happiness under everything. It's a
matter of perspective. I agree, you're the best lyle. No,
You're the fucking best Welsh synth wizard. Thanks man, This
is cool. This is a cool email. This All these
emails are like hitting me. All these emails are hitting
the fucking spot today. Yeah. Like I said, I I
(54:35):
recorded kind of a crazy rant episode where I shared
a lot of fucked up stuff going on with with
my brain right now. I decided I didn't want to
share it, but so I'm recording this now. It's because
I got to put out an episode. Uh. And it's
funny how all the emails are are kind of like
(54:59):
on on theme in a sense to you know, just
like trying to like enjoy life. I suppose this is cool.
I really fuck with this email the shout at Dan
the Welsh synth wizard. All right, let's see, all right,
(55:20):
this is from Kimberly, subject line how do I start
a majen club? Plus a recommendation for you. Hey, Gek,
I love listening to your stuff. Come to Milwaukee again,
and I'll buy tickets despite the wild Ticketmaster fees. Ah fuck.
All right. Well, I'm trying to take two of your
Gecko teachings to heart. One is redirecting my energy towards
(55:40):
things that are more important. Aka the grass is greener
where you water it. This has helped me from making
some very This has helped me from making some very big,
stupid decisions in my life. So thank you. Did I
say that this is crazy, I'm telling you, folks, I'm
telling you it's crazy. I say a whole bunch of
shit to people on my podcast, and then I go
into my real life and my real brain and it's
(56:03):
it's it's it's all on fire, and it is a
kind of psychedelic situation to come back and see, uh,
you know what's going on? You know, just have have
all my shit reflected back in me. The grass is
grainer where you water it. I mean, it is true.
It is true to foster a community. That's you know.
That's another thing. I play majong online, but I want
(56:25):
to play it with real people. The only majng clubs
in my area are fifty people fifty five plus and
they only meet during the workday. I want to start
a Majong club, but I don't know how. Networking shouldn't
be too much of an issue, but I'm stuck on
the logistics where to host it. Mostly, I'm not inviting
strangers into a house that isn't even mine. Any help
would be awesome. One last thing for you. Watch The
(56:48):
Tale of Princess Kagua, You'll never feel so good about
feeling like shit. I get the sense of euphoria from
just existing. Now. I remember what a privilege it is
to be alive and to be able to feel things.
Even the miser. Take its message to heart. It'll change you.
Thanks million. Okay, all right, maybe I actually we'll watch
this shit, the Tale of Princess Kagua. What is this?
(57:10):
I'm going to google this, let's see. All right, cool,
I'm gonna check this out anyway. How do I start
a moja club? I mean meetup is great for that shit? Uh,
definitely in for meetup. Where do you host it? Uh? Well,
(57:33):
I don't know. Man, Milwaukee has a ton of great bars.
And why don't you try to find a bar that's
like slow on a what it says it's only weekdays?
I mean, why don't you try like a bar or
a coffee shop or a cafe. Right, That's what I
would do, is I would find like a I'm sure
Milwaukee has a hipster coffee shop cafe shit that you
(57:55):
could like, uh ask if you know, maybe on a
Monday morning or something like that, you could do a
little majong club and then you can just promote it
on meetup and Facebook and Instagram and all that shit.
That's my recommendation for you. Good on you for doing
a club. I like that. That's that's again fostering a
community through through doing shit like this. It's it's, it's
(58:17):
I think it's the key to life. All right. I
think I'm gonna do one more e mail subject line
thinking about getting a a day. Okay, hey man, it's brody.
(58:40):
All right, Sorry, hey man, it's brody. I'm currently in
college and spend most of my day on campus. I
hate using the bathrooms because I used to do terrible
things in the bathroom in my youth. Uh, shit on
the seat and leave it, etc. Okay, anyway, so I
hate using the school bathrooms. But yesterday I had a
bad case of bubble guts and had to hit the bathroom,
(59:01):
as most men do. I have hair all down there,
and today I happen to have a semi solid shit storm.
This is the email that I'm ending on. I'm not
reading any more emails. After this. I went to wipe
and it got everywhere. I wiped it all on my
ass hair on accident, and it got in my damn
hand I'm getting real sick of this happening and I'm stuck.
Do I shave my ass hair is like a weirdo?
(59:21):
Or get a bidet? Please help? Uh? Interesting, you know
it's funny. Anytime I have shaved my ass hairs in
the past, it just causes itching like fucking crazy. Brother,
it causes itching like fucking crazy. I would recommend getting
a bi day. I don't have one in New York,
(59:45):
but I've been in Tokyo for the past two months
and bidets are sick. I don't know how we live
without them. You gotta, I think I was. When I
first started using a bidet, I was a little hesitant
towards it's letting the water really shove itself up my ass.
But now, uh, you know, my asshole embraces uh having
(01:00:09):
having a water gun UH squirted directly into it, and
I suggest you embrace it too. Uh. Folks, that's been
gek mail. Thank you all very much for listening to
this show. Uh. If you wanna submit an email, please
send an email to therapy geckomail at gmail dot com.
That's therapy geckomail at gmail dot com. I think it's
(01:00:33):
therapy gecko mail. At gmail dot com. I'm probably gonna
be doing a lot more of these gek mail episodes.
I'm enjoying them. They're fun. There there's sometimes when I
sometimes I need a break from talking to people on
the phone and I just need to rant into a
microphone for an hour. So I'll be doing a lot
more gek mail. Send an email to therapy geckomail at
(01:00:55):
gmail dot com. Thank you all for listening, and uh please,
dear God, come to my little art gallery. It's it
is on March fourteenth, seven pm to ten pm. Trash
from around my room. It's on display actually March fourteenth
to the twenty second, so if you if you miss it,
(01:01:18):
you can go see it. And yeah you can RSVP.
There's a little link in the episode description. And thank
you guys all for listening to my podcast. Good luck,
Thank you so much for listening, and take care bye.
Everyone goes on the line taking your phone calls every
nine never goes to him. Just teaching you cloud on
(01:01:41):
the memory of Linny Expert
Host
Lyle Drescher
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.