July 14, 2025 • 22 mins
Hi everyone, welcome to this installment of a Revelizations' revelization. In this episode we are going to explore what value being bored can add to our lives. Thanks for listening everyone!
Enjoying Revelizations and don't know what to do next? Let me offer a suggestion: Grab a device capable of playing a podcast along with some earbuds, turn on an episode of Revelizations, place them in the ears of your loved ones, and watch with joy as they thank you endlessly for introducing them to the Revelizations podcast. While you're at it feel free to leave a review on whatever platform you're listening and follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
This episode of Revelizations is brought to you by Beach Body Cryogenics.
Hey, ugly.
No, not your more attractive friend who keeps you close by so they're hotter by comparison.
You, the gremlin, tired of having to explain that there isn't anything medically wrong with you?
(00:34):
You're just differently unattractively abled?
Have you just about seen all there is to see in your modern time?
Are you ready to be frozen in a state of reanimation?
To be awoken in a future time of your choosing?
But you don't want to be stuck with that same unsightly head when you arrive?
With Beach Body Cryogenics, we have the solution for you.
(00:56):
With the help of our top tier GED surgeons, they will masterfully remove that unsightly head and toss it in the wastebasket.
From there, they will keep the rest of your body in a state of frozen reanimation in our roomy cryobod pods.
There, you'll be frozen in time until science figures out how to reanimate frozen headless bodies.
(01:20):
We aren't holding our breath, and you won't have to either because you won't have a head.
Beach Body Cryogenics. Don't wait. Refrigerate.
(01:45):
Hi everyone, welcome to Revelizations. I'm your host, Brian James.
On this episode, we are going to take a step back from learning from guests and take a step into seeing what we can learn from being bored.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
Not too long ago, I wasn't paying attention to a body part, and I misplaced it.
(02:08):
It wasn't a big deal, nor was it the first time I've done this.
Not to worry, I would do what I always do when this happens and retrace my steps.
I hadn't left the house that day, so I knew it was somewhere close by.
Typically when this happens, I'm under no time constraint to locate what's been lost, except the issue was I was beginning to feel some signals from my body.
(02:30):
It was these very signals that alerted me to even notice that something was missing in the first place.
The absent piece of me was my phone.
It's a strange nakedness you feel when you realize that you don't have your phone.
You don't feel exposed like you forgot your pants, but it feels like that vague sensation when you remember that you're forgetting something at the grocery store.
(02:51):
It's uncomfortable and can easily be remedied if you could only remember what you're forgetting.
If I could find my phone, then this uncomfortable feeling would go away just the same.
Thankfully, modern problems have modern solutions.
I have an Apple phone.
Apple has a native app on their product called FindMy.
You can use FindMy to find various Apple products that you have synced with your Apple account.
(03:17):
So even though I knew my phone was missing, I had the brilliant idea that I would use the FindMy app on my phone to find my phone.
Except I couldn't use my phone because I didn't know where it was.
It's like when a friend leaves their phone at your house and you text them to tell them that they've forgotten their phone.
You're missing the necessary tools to adequately solve the problem.
(03:39):
My feeling of naked forgetfulness was starting to shift to concern.
The signals I was feeling were getting stronger and more insistent.
It was getting to the undeniable moment that it was time to go to the bathroom.
I tried slowing down the involuntary muscles that control the direction of digestion, but to no avail.
It was decision time.
Do a quick treasure hunt with knees locked frantically looking around the house?
(04:03):
Or go to the bathroom without any device like in the caveman days?
The choice was easy.
Of course I'm going to risk having an accident as an adult rather than going to the bathroom without something to occupy my mind.
Except the choice was passively unavailable to me.
I really wanted to look around and find my faithful toilet companion, but my wife was sleeping.
(04:25):
If she has ever woken up by anything other than an alarm clock, she acts like there is an intruder in the house and they are about to take her away.
For someone who can sleep through her husband's snoring that can rival a choo-choo train from the industrial revolution,
it is amazing how light of a sleeper she is when it comes to just about any other sound from me, as usually patient as she is with me.
(04:48):
When she gets awoken from a snooze, she is filled with a cocktail of emotions ranging from fear that there is an intruder in the house
and it's time to put into practice all of those self-defense moves she's never learned to righteous indignation like I just cut in line in front of her at a movie theater.
She wakes up with a quick panicked gasp like she was at the bottom of the ocean and has just breached the surface and is taking the biggest breath of air.
(05:16):
That cascades to anger, which then fades back into falling asleep.
It seems like every night she forgets that she is married.
I guess that's what people mean by sweet dreams.
So not wanting to elicit this response, I decided to brave the bathroom experience a la carte.
No device, no book, no magazine, no nothing.
(05:38):
However, I'll admit I was tempted to go into the shower and grab a bottle of shampoo and take it to the loo.
It isn't the most interesting read, but with some of those chemicals in shampoo and how hard they are to pronounce,
I felt like I could occupy myself for as long as I needed.
I eventually decided against that.
Not being completely unaware of how ridiculous I was being, I was a little embarrassed that I was having this much turmoil about going to the bathroom without something else to do.
(06:05):
Looking back at it as an observer, it really is interesting, almost the desperation that I felt that I would have to go to the bathroom without something else to pass the time.
It isn't even like I was venturing into an unknown frontier.
This is how my forefathers went to the bathroom.
If they did it, then I'm sure there is some remnant of an epigenetic blueprint that I could lean into so that I could get through this harrowing experience of man versus nature.
(06:31):
And although you may not admit it, I know there are other people out there that would have to reteach themselves how to go to the bathroom without their phones as well.
It's because our phones have heralded a new era where it's difficult to fully immerse ourselves into one activity at a time.
We have gone from doing the task single-mindedly to everything has our split attention.
We have to scroll the internet as we watch shows on Netflix.
(06:54):
We hang out at the pool while striking the perfect pose and quickly share it to social media so other people can see us at the pool and have their attention split from whatever they're doing.
This has become our norm.
And like any established way of life, there is always a younger generation looking to buck societal norms and do things their own unique way while giving its own unique branding, which led to a brief modern movement called raw dogging.
(07:20):
Putting aside the crass, colloquial, sexual connotation, the phrase was given a new meaning courtesy of Gen Z.
It means to immerse yourself in something fully, to experience something in its purest form with no other distraction.
What are the kids raw dogging these days?
Well, flying, of course.
People would brag about raw dogging flights, especially international flights.
(07:45):
The rules were simple.
When you went onto a plane, all you could do is stare at the back of the seat in front of you.
No literature, no making small talk with your seat neighbors, no naps, and definitely no electronics.
It's just you and the seat back in front of you.
There are some non-purists out there who would say you can use the screen in front of you, but only if you change the display to where it shows your plane and its proximity from where you started to where you're going.
(08:15):
This movement caught on and burned out quicker than other similar fads.
For example, planking.
Don't know what planking is?
That's probably because you weren't a dumb kid in 2011.
Planking was a fad where kids would lay face down in random places.
Yep, that's it.
There is nothing else to it, yet somehow it caught on for almost a year until it fizzled out to be nothing more than an obscure reference on this podcast.
(08:43):
That's not to say it didn't have its spotlight in the cultural zeitgeist.
Planking was so popular that in Season 8, Episode 1 of The Office, they actually had a bit about some of the members of The Office planking in the opening of the episode.
Unfortunately for the plane rawdoggers out there, The Office has completed its show run and the plane rawdogging enthusiasts will never have their fad immortalized like the plankers do.
(09:07):
It makes sense to me that planking would go out of style, because it's stupid.
Sorry plankers, it is.
But if stupid fads are anything like fashion, then maybe one day planking will someday come back into style and you'll have the last laugh then.
What captured my interest in rawdogging was first, the cheeky marketing of what Gen Z called sitting on an airplane using nothing to pass the time.
(09:31):
Second, was how fast the fad came and disappeared.
I think a major driver of that was rawdogging isn't something funny, or something that can really be view-harvested into any sort of notoriety.
It was really a you-versus-your-mind mental endurance exercise.
We live in an age where attention spans have diminished so significantly it is now considered a notable feat to allow yourself to be bored.
(09:56):
Fun fact side note, Gen Z has coined the shortened attention span of its generation as brain rot, catchy, and visually evocative.
So it makes complete sense that the rawdogging fad would be as quick as a lightning strike, because we, and I'm including myself in this category,
have gotten so used to being constantly engaged wherever we are and whatever we're doing.
(10:18):
We are never far off removed from having something to stave off boredom.
As I was sitting there in the bathroom lamenting not grabbing a shampoo bottle to read, I eventually noticed that I was done and I survived.
I felt accomplished. I did what no other person in history had done before me.
I went to the bathroom without a device to keep me occupied. I rawdogged going number two.
(10:42):
I think what is most remarkable about all of this, and I agree that this barely reaches the threshold to be remarked about at all,
is that once I was done in the bathroom, it felt like I did something that wasn't normal.
But what's more normal than going to the bathroom?
I guess maybe this is how cigarette smokers feel when they drive somewhere and can't light up a cigarette.
Oh, I'm sorry your baby needs a smoke-free environment. My brain needs a nicotine-saturated environment.
(11:09):
Maybe if your baby won the arm-wrestling contest, he could have all the clean oxygen his little baby lungs desire.
But since that didn't happen, I hope he saved some of his mass from COVID because we have a long road trip ahead of us and these windows are staying closed out of principle.
But enough about why my sister no longer talks to me and more about my conquest about going to the bathroom without a phone.
(11:30):
It was a breaking pattern. I did something without having something else to keep me entertained.
What I did notice while I was in my self-imposed prison is that I wasn't bored.
I had thoughts to keep me company. One of those thoughts is the very thought that I'm telling you now.
The thought that having constant stimulus may be disconnecting us from our thoughts.
I think there is a part of creativity, and by extension, individuality, that we trade off in exchange for not being bored anymore.
(11:58):
I know that I'm not the first thought archaeologist to dig up this idea and bring it to the surface.
I am just one of many who has rediscovered a once obvious conclusion. It's good to be bored.
Being bored used to be a normal and unavoidable part of life.
Now, however, if you find yourself being bored, it's due to your own negligence.
Either you forgot to charge your phone the night before and your phone has died, or you're a too cool for school high schooler whose whole persona revolves around being disinterested in everything.
(12:29):
Regardless, it's apparent that there is some aspect of humanity we are losing by not allowing ourselves to be bored.
I'm not saying this from a point of moral high ground, like this is some divine truth that I have received from on high while on the mountaintop,
etched into stone and you're so lucky that I'm sharing it with you.
Like a lot of my podcasts, I'm talking to myself.
I'm saying this as a reminder to myself that creativity thrives in wide open spaces.
(12:55):
And I don't know any wider open space than the space between my ears when there's nothing in my face.
There was a TV network called Spike TV. Spike TV was supposed to be a man's man's network.
A network by men, for men, full testosterone, all the time.
Spike TV has since been bought out by Paramount TV.
(13:16):
However, when it was Spike TV, there was a show on it called The Deadliest Warrior.
The premise was basically the kids' schoolyard game of who would win in a fight.
You have your classics like Bruce Lee versus Muhammad Ali, Superman or the Hulk,
and then the always contentious and what would usually result in an all-out brawl, my dad or your dad.
Well, Deadliest Warrior was the grown-up, more civil version of this idea.
(13:41):
It was one ancient civilizations warriors versus another ancient civilizations warriors.
It was a thought experiment thrust into a more tangible reality.
On The Deadliest Warrior, two ancient civilization warriors would be resurrected and face off in battle.
Throughout the episode, they would showcase different weapons and battle strategies from the at-odds civilizations.
(14:04):
To further illustrate their points, each civilization would have a modern-day expert on
that would discuss why their side would be the victor of this imaginary battlefield rendezvous.
For example, one episode had the Spartans versus Ninja,
so that means there was an expert on the Spartan side and another on the Ninja side,
each saying why their civilization would utterly destroy the other on the battlefield.
(14:29):
There was one part of each episode where the experts would essentially put their money where their mouths were.
The show built a giant arena and the two experts would fight to the death
using the fighting techniques of the civilizations that they were representing.
That's why the show had to be filmed in international waters off the coast of Antarctica.
Legend has it that some of the penguins are still scarred from the bloodshed.
(14:52):
That not being true, how the show really tested the lethality of the civilization's weaponry was by mannequins.
The show had these dummies made that consisted of a synthetic gelatinous material
that was supposed to be close to the same consistency and durability as human skin.
In this part of the show, the experts would take some of the weapons from the civilizations they were representing
(15:15):
and strike the dummies with it.
Spartans had spears, shields, and swords, while the Ninja had ninja stars and katanas.
Using these weapons, they got one hit on the gelatin dummy.
Then based off that one hit, the scientists on the show would measure the force and the lethality of the blow.
I always thought this part of the show was interesting.
Even though they would have experts of the culture on the show hitting the dummy,
(15:38):
it was someone from modern times.
It was someone who had all the modern day distractions who, as a hobby,
practiced using weapons to develop a higher level of expertise with the weapon than the average person.
It made me think about what would be the difference between this modern day expert and someone who lived back then.
Someone who was a soldier, who literally lived and breathed warfare.
(16:02):
Someone who didn't just think, how cool do I look, while twirling their sword around their body.
Occasionally slashing randomly into the air.
People who didn't have any other distractions like answering emails or making sure their dress attire was office appropriate.
Their sole job was to kill the other guy before they got killed.
They practiced not just because they looked super cool holding a shield and throwing a spear.
(16:27):
They practiced because if they didn't, then it was likely they would die in battle.
Granted, the ancient Spartan war culture was to seek out a glorious death on the battlefield.
However, it was to die in battle by someone more skilled than them.
It wasn't to die on the battlefield because they were under practice
since Netflix just released a ton of binge worthy shows back to back the months leading up to the battle.
(16:50):
I'm not knocking the modern day experts on that show.
They definitely knew their way around ancient weapons way better than me and probably most other people.
I guess that's why they're the experts.
It just made me think how much deadlier were the actual warriors of that civilization
than these experts who were pretending to be them.
The show was definitely fun for what it was.
(17:12):
Still, in the end, regardless of who won in these fantasy encounters,
I would be thinking about what was the real skill level of some of these ancient warriors
before people were constantly consumed by technology.
Now let's throw it back to your favorite podcast host sitting,
living out his nightmare doomsday worst case scenario of being on the toilet,
feet on a squatty potty with no phone in his hand to stave off his mind from boredom,
(17:37):
not being able to turn my mind off or distract it with endless scrolling on social media.
Again, turns out it wasn't so bad.
Instead of social media dictating my thoughts, my mind had got to play.
It got to think thoughts that were self-propagated,
original thoughts that weren't recycled from other people,
thoughts that were bigger and lasted longer than the brief moment of outrage
(18:00):
I would feel watching someone do something inconsiderate on social media
or a chuckle from someone doing something silly.
It makes me think about TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms.
There are some impressively creative people on social media.
They come up with original content and disseminate it.
If they're lucky, it strikes a commonality chord and a lot of people see it.
(18:23):
Then what happens? Other people start copying it.
It becomes a trend, like raw dogging airplane flights,
until it's eventually played out and people move on to whatever the next thing is.
The people who are copying others are essentially letting the social media algorithm think for them.
They scroll to see what's garnishing attention and reproduce it.
(18:44):
Perhaps they could be creative and unique,
but they are chronically online and never give enough space to think for themselves.
Since they don't, it makes them stale, even boring.
What would happen if people weren't so compelled to be perpetually entertained, perpetually distracted?
How much more creative could we be?
What could our minds come up with if we give ourselves time to be bored,
(19:07):
if we gave ourselves enough space from distraction to think things through without anything pulling our focus?
I don't know about you, but I doubt I will ever find out.
As I'm recording this, I have my mic in one hand, scrolling Facebook with the other,
Twitter with one foot, and Instagram with whatever's left.
I'm not exactly sure when, but there was some point in time when I decided that my phone is like the perfect glass of wine.
(19:33):
It pairs flawlessly with everything.
If I'm hanging out with friends, I'll have my phone out.
If I'm watching a new TV show or movie, I'll have my phone out.
I don't like it, but I do it.
Now that I'm a little bit more aware of it, maybe I'll take a lesson from a stupid fad.
Maybe I'll be more intentional to create space to raw dog life.
(19:54):
Not all the time, but occasionally I can be intentional and take the keys from my devices
and give them to my brain and see where it takes me.
Do you remember when you bought your phone?
There is always some sort of user agreement that you have to accept before you can continue setting up your phone.
Do you ever read the agreement? Me either.
I just scroll to the bottom and hit accept.
(20:17):
All I'm trying to do is finish this setup process so I can download an app where I can make cartoon versions of myself.
I don't want to read a hundred page small print contract written in undecipherable legalese.
So I just blindly hit I accept and move on.
Well, it turns out in those agreements that one of the things that we're agreeing to is trading our creativity for our need to not be bored.
(20:39):
I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Don't be boring. Be bored.
(21:02):
I've always been interested in what tomorrow is going to look like, but I always lacked the patience to find out.
I thought if only there was a quicker way to experience what's next rather than having to wait second to second,
a quicker way that would appeal to my modern day sensibilities of instant gratification.
(21:26):
That's when my neighbor gave me a pamphlet for Beach Body Cryogenics.
I've never really had any problems with my looks, but I have had a problem with how expensive other cryogenic companies are.
Since Beach Body Cryogenics just freezes to body, that leaves all that headspace for savings.
And they're not stingy. They'll pass those savings on to you.
(21:48):
That's the kind of shrewd business practices I can support.
Talk about my lucky day, too, because until recently they had no availability.
But with that recent thunderstorm and subsequent power outage, there has been a sudden influx of available cryobod pods.
Yippee!
Beach Body Cryogenics. Don't wait. Refrigerate.
This episode of Revelizations is brought to you by Beach Body Cryogenics.
Hey, ugly.
No, not your more attractive friend who keeps you close by so they're hotter by comparison.
You, the gremlin, tired of having to explain that there isn't anything medically wrong with you?
(00:34):
You're just differently unattractively abled?
Have you just about seen all there is to see in your modern time?
Are you ready to be frozen in a state of reanimation?
To be awoken in a future time of your choosing?
But you don't want to be stuck with that same unsightly head when you arrive?
With Beach Body Cryogenics, we have the solution for you.
(00:56):
With the help of our top tier GED surgeons, they will masterfully remove that unsightly head and toss it in the wastebasket.
From there, they will keep the rest of your body in a state of frozen reanimation in our roomy cryobod pods.
There, you'll be frozen in time until science figures out how to reanimate frozen headless bodies.
(01:20):
We aren't holding our breath, and you won't have to either because you won't have a head.
Beach Body Cryogenics. Don't wait. Refrigerate.
(01:45):
Hi everyone, welcome to Revelizations. I'm your host, Brian James.
On this episode, we are going to take a step back from learning from guests and take a step into seeing what we can learn from being bored.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
Not too long ago, I wasn't paying attention to a body part, and I misplaced it.
(02:08):
It wasn't a big deal, nor was it the first time I've done this.
Not to worry, I would do what I always do when this happens and retrace my steps.
I hadn't left the house that day, so I knew it was somewhere close by.
Typically when this happens, I'm under no time constraint to locate what's been lost, except the issue was I was beginning to feel some signals from my body.
(02:30):
It was these very signals that alerted me to even notice that something was missing in the first place.
The absent piece of me was my phone.
It's a strange nakedness you feel when you realize that you don't have your phone.
You don't feel exposed like you forgot your pants, but it feels like that vague sensation when you remember that you're forgetting something at the grocery store.
(02:51):
It's uncomfortable and can easily be remedied if you could only remember what you're forgetting.
If I could find my phone, then this uncomfortable feeling would go away just the same.
Thankfully, modern problems have modern solutions.
I have an Apple phone.
Apple has a native app on their product called FindMy.
You can use FindMy to find various Apple products that you have synced with your Apple account.
(03:17):
So even though I knew my phone was missing, I had the brilliant idea that I would use the FindMy app on my phone to find my phone.
Except I couldn't use my phone because I didn't know where it was.
It's like when a friend leaves their phone at your house and you text them to tell them that they've forgotten their phone.
You're missing the necessary tools to adequately solve the problem.
(03:39):
My feeling of naked forgetfulness was starting to shift to concern.
The signals I was feeling were getting stronger and more insistent.
It was getting to the undeniable moment that it was time to go to the bathroom.
I tried slowing down the involuntary muscles that control the direction of digestion, but to no avail.
It was decision time.
Do a quick treasure hunt with knees locked frantically looking around the house?
(04:03):
Or go to the bathroom without any device like in the caveman days?
The choice was easy.
Of course I'm going to risk having an accident as an adult rather than going to the bathroom without something to occupy my mind.
Except the choice was passively unavailable to me.
I really wanted to look around and find my faithful toilet companion, but my wife was sleeping.
(04:25):
If she has ever woken up by anything other than an alarm clock, she acts like there is an intruder in the house and they are about to take her away.
For someone who can sleep through her husband's snoring that can rival a choo-choo train from the industrial revolution,
it is amazing how light of a sleeper she is when it comes to just about any other sound from me, as usually patient as she is with me.
(04:48):
When she gets awoken from a snooze, she is filled with a cocktail of emotions ranging from fear that there is an intruder in the house
and it's time to put into practice all of those self-defense moves she's never learned to righteous indignation like I just cut in line in front of her at a movie theater.
She wakes up with a quick panicked gasp like she was at the bottom of the ocean and has just breached the surface and is taking the biggest breath of air.
(05:16):
That cascades to anger, which then fades back into falling asleep.
It seems like every night she forgets that she is married.
I guess that's what people mean by sweet dreams.
So not wanting to elicit this response, I decided to brave the bathroom experience a la carte.
No device, no book, no magazine, no nothing.
(05:38):
However, I'll admit I was tempted to go into the shower and grab a bottle of shampoo and take it to the loo.
It isn't the most interesting read, but with some of those chemicals in shampoo and how hard they are to pronounce,
I felt like I could occupy myself for as long as I needed.
I eventually decided against that.
Not being completely unaware of how ridiculous I was being, I was a little embarrassed that I was having this much turmoil about going to the bathroom without something else to do.
(06:05):
Looking back at it as an observer, it really is interesting, almost the desperation that I felt that I would have to go to the bathroom without something else to pass the time.
It isn't even like I was venturing into an unknown frontier.
This is how my forefathers went to the bathroom.
If they did it, then I'm sure there is some remnant of an epigenetic blueprint that I could lean into so that I could get through this harrowing experience of man versus nature.
(06:31):
And although you may not admit it, I know there are other people out there that would have to reteach themselves how to go to the bathroom without their phones as well.
It's because our phones have heralded a new era where it's difficult to fully immerse ourselves into one activity at a time.
We have gone from doing the task single-mindedly to everything has our split attention.
We have to scroll the internet as we watch shows on Netflix.
(06:54):
We hang out at the pool while striking the perfect pose and quickly share it to social media so other people can see us at the pool and have their attention split from whatever they're doing.
This has become our norm.
And like any established way of life, there is always a younger generation looking to buck societal norms and do things their own unique way while giving its own unique branding, which led to a brief modern movement called raw dogging.
(07:20):
Putting aside the crass, colloquial, sexual connotation, the phrase was given a new meaning courtesy of Gen Z.
It means to immerse yourself in something fully, to experience something in its purest form with no other distraction.
What are the kids raw dogging these days?
Well, flying, of course.
People would brag about raw dogging flights, especially international flights.
(07:45):
The rules were simple.
When you went onto a plane, all you could do is stare at the back of the seat in front of you.
No literature, no making small talk with your seat neighbors, no naps, and definitely no electronics.
It's just you and the seat back in front of you.
There are some non-purists out there who would say you can use the screen in front of you, but only if you change the display to where it shows your plane and its proximity from where you started to where you're going.
(08:15):
This movement caught on and burned out quicker than other similar fads.
For example, planking.
Don't know what planking is?
That's probably because you weren't a dumb kid in 2011.
Planking was a fad where kids would lay face down in random places.
Yep, that's it.
There is nothing else to it, yet somehow it caught on for almost a year until it fizzled out to be nothing more than an obscure reference on this podcast.
(08:43):
That's not to say it didn't have its spotlight in the cultural zeitgeist.
Planking was so popular that in Season 8, Episode 1 of The Office, they actually had a bit about some of the members of The Office planking in the opening of the episode.
Unfortunately for the plane rawdoggers out there, The Office has completed its show run and the plane rawdogging enthusiasts will never have their fad immortalized like the plankers do.
(09:07):
It makes sense to me that planking would go out of style, because it's stupid.
Sorry plankers, it is.
But if stupid fads are anything like fashion, then maybe one day planking will someday come back into style and you'll have the last laugh then.
What captured my interest in rawdogging was first, the cheeky marketing of what Gen Z called sitting on an airplane using nothing to pass the time.
(09:31):
Second, was how fast the fad came and disappeared.
I think a major driver of that was rawdogging isn't something funny, or something that can really be view-harvested into any sort of notoriety.
It was really a you-versus-your-mind mental endurance exercise.
We live in an age where attention spans have diminished so significantly it is now considered a notable feat to allow yourself to be bored.
(09:56):
Fun fact side note, Gen Z has coined the shortened attention span of its generation as brain rot, catchy, and visually evocative.
So it makes complete sense that the rawdogging fad would be as quick as a lightning strike, because we, and I'm including myself in this category,
have gotten so used to being constantly engaged wherever we are and whatever we're doing.
(10:18):
We are never far off removed from having something to stave off boredom.
As I was sitting there in the bathroom lamenting not grabbing a shampoo bottle to read, I eventually noticed that I was done and I survived.
I felt accomplished. I did what no other person in history had done before me.
I went to the bathroom without a device to keep me occupied. I rawdogged going number two.
(10:42):
I think what is most remarkable about all of this, and I agree that this barely reaches the threshold to be remarked about at all,
is that once I was done in the bathroom, it felt like I did something that wasn't normal.
But what's more normal than going to the bathroom?
I guess maybe this is how cigarette smokers feel when they drive somewhere and can't light up a cigarette.
Oh, I'm sorry your baby needs a smoke-free environment. My brain needs a nicotine-saturated environment.
(11:09):
Maybe if your baby won the arm-wrestling contest, he could have all the clean oxygen his little baby lungs desire.
But since that didn't happen, I hope he saved some of his mass from COVID because we have a long road trip ahead of us and these windows are staying closed out of principle.
But enough about why my sister no longer talks to me and more about my conquest about going to the bathroom without a phone.
(11:30):
It was a breaking pattern. I did something without having something else to keep me entertained.
What I did notice while I was in my self-imposed prison is that I wasn't bored.
I had thoughts to keep me company. One of those thoughts is the very thought that I'm telling you now.
The thought that having constant stimulus may be disconnecting us from our thoughts.
I think there is a part of creativity, and by extension, individuality, that we trade off in exchange for not being bored anymore.
(11:58):
I know that I'm not the first thought archaeologist to dig up this idea and bring it to the surface.
I am just one of many who has rediscovered a once obvious conclusion. It's good to be bored.
Being bored used to be a normal and unavoidable part of life.
Now, however, if you find yourself being bored, it's due to your own negligence.
Either you forgot to charge your phone the night before and your phone has died, or you're a too cool for school high schooler whose whole persona revolves around being disinterested in everything.
(12:29):
Regardless, it's apparent that there is some aspect of humanity we are losing by not allowing ourselves to be bored.
I'm not saying this from a point of moral high ground, like this is some divine truth that I have received from on high while on the mountaintop,
etched into stone and you're so lucky that I'm sharing it with you.
Like a lot of my podcasts, I'm talking to myself.
I'm saying this as a reminder to myself that creativity thrives in wide open spaces.
(12:55):
And I don't know any wider open space than the space between my ears when there's nothing in my face.
There was a TV network called Spike TV. Spike TV was supposed to be a man's man's network.
A network by men, for men, full testosterone, all the time.
Spike TV has since been bought out by Paramount TV.
(13:16):
However, when it was Spike TV, there was a show on it called The Deadliest Warrior.
The premise was basically the kids' schoolyard game of who would win in a fight.
You have your classics like Bruce Lee versus Muhammad Ali, Superman or the Hulk,
and then the always contentious and what would usually result in an all-out brawl, my dad or your dad.
Well, Deadliest Warrior was the grown-up, more civil version of this idea.
(13:41):
It was one ancient civilizations warriors versus another ancient civilizations warriors.
It was a thought experiment thrust into a more tangible reality.
On The Deadliest Warrior, two ancient civilization warriors would be resurrected and face off in battle.
Throughout the episode, they would showcase different weapons and battle strategies from the at-odds civilizations.
(14:04):
To further illustrate their points, each civilization would have a modern-day expert on
that would discuss why their side would be the victor of this imaginary battlefield rendezvous.
For example, one episode had the Spartans versus Ninja,
so that means there was an expert on the Spartan side and another on the Ninja side,
each saying why their civilization would utterly destroy the other on the battlefield.
(14:29):
There was one part of each episode where the experts would essentially put their money where their mouths were.
The show built a giant arena and the two experts would fight to the death
using the fighting techniques of the civilizations that they were representing.
That's why the show had to be filmed in international waters off the coast of Antarctica.
Legend has it that some of the penguins are still scarred from the bloodshed.
(14:52):
That not being true, how the show really tested the lethality of the civilization's weaponry was by mannequins.
The show had these dummies made that consisted of a synthetic gelatinous material
that was supposed to be close to the same consistency and durability as human skin.
In this part of the show, the experts would take some of the weapons from the civilizations they were representing
(15:15):
and strike the dummies with it.
Spartans had spears, shields, and swords, while the Ninja had ninja stars and katanas.
Using these weapons, they got one hit on the gelatin dummy.
Then based off that one hit, the scientists on the show would measure the force and the lethality of the blow.
I always thought this part of the show was interesting.
Even though they would have experts of the culture on the show hitting the dummy,
(15:38):
it was someone from modern times.
It was someone who had all the modern day distractions who, as a hobby,
practiced using weapons to develop a higher level of expertise with the weapon than the average person.
It made me think about what would be the difference between this modern day expert and someone who lived back then.
Someone who was a soldier, who literally lived and breathed warfare.
(16:02):
Someone who didn't just think, how cool do I look, while twirling their sword around their body.
Occasionally slashing randomly into the air.
People who didn't have any other distractions like answering emails or making sure their dress attire was office appropriate.
Their sole job was to kill the other guy before they got killed.
They practiced not just because they looked super cool holding a shield and throwing a spear.
(16:27):
They practiced because if they didn't, then it was likely they would die in battle.
Granted, the ancient Spartan war culture was to seek out a glorious death on the battlefield.
However, it was to die in battle by someone more skilled than them.
It wasn't to die on the battlefield because they were under practice
since Netflix just released a ton of binge worthy shows back to back the months leading up to the battle.
(16:50):
I'm not knocking the modern day experts on that show.
They definitely knew their way around ancient weapons way better than me and probably most other people.
I guess that's why they're the experts.
It just made me think how much deadlier were the actual warriors of that civilization
than these experts who were pretending to be them.
The show was definitely fun for what it was.
(17:12):
Still, in the end, regardless of who won in these fantasy encounters,
I would be thinking about what was the real skill level of some of these ancient warriors
before people were constantly consumed by technology.
Now let's throw it back to your favorite podcast host sitting,
living out his nightmare doomsday worst case scenario of being on the toilet,
feet on a squatty potty with no phone in his hand to stave off his mind from boredom,
(17:37):
not being able to turn my mind off or distract it with endless scrolling on social media.
Again, turns out it wasn't so bad.
Instead of social media dictating my thoughts, my mind had got to play.
It got to think thoughts that were self-propagated,
original thoughts that weren't recycled from other people,
thoughts that were bigger and lasted longer than the brief moment of outrage
(18:00):
I would feel watching someone do something inconsiderate on social media
or a chuckle from someone doing something silly.
It makes me think about TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms.
There are some impressively creative people on social media.
They come up with original content and disseminate it.
If they're lucky, it strikes a commonality chord and a lot of people see it.
(18:23):
Then what happens? Other people start copying it.
It becomes a trend, like raw dogging airplane flights,
until it's eventually played out and people move on to whatever the next thing is.
The people who are copying others are essentially letting the social media algorithm think for them.
They scroll to see what's garnishing attention and reproduce it.
(18:44):
Perhaps they could be creative and unique,
but they are chronically online and never give enough space to think for themselves.
Since they don't, it makes them stale, even boring.
What would happen if people weren't so compelled to be perpetually entertained, perpetually distracted?
How much more creative could we be?
What could our minds come up with if we give ourselves time to be bored,
(19:07):
if we gave ourselves enough space from distraction to think things through without anything pulling our focus?
I don't know about you, but I doubt I will ever find out.
As I'm recording this, I have my mic in one hand, scrolling Facebook with the other,
Twitter with one foot, and Instagram with whatever's left.
I'm not exactly sure when, but there was some point in time when I decided that my phone is like the perfect glass of wine.
(19:33):
It pairs flawlessly with everything.
If I'm hanging out with friends, I'll have my phone out.
If I'm watching a new TV show or movie, I'll have my phone out.
I don't like it, but I do it.
Now that I'm a little bit more aware of it, maybe I'll take a lesson from a stupid fad.
Maybe I'll be more intentional to create space to raw dog life.
(19:54):
Not all the time, but occasionally I can be intentional and take the keys from my devices
and give them to my brain and see where it takes me.
Do you remember when you bought your phone?
There is always some sort of user agreement that you have to accept before you can continue setting up your phone.
Do you ever read the agreement? Me either.
I just scroll to the bottom and hit accept.
(20:17):
All I'm trying to do is finish this setup process so I can download an app where I can make cartoon versions of myself.
I don't want to read a hundred page small print contract written in undecipherable legalese.
So I just blindly hit I accept and move on.
Well, it turns out in those agreements that one of the things that we're agreeing to is trading our creativity for our need to not be bored.
(20:39):
I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Don't be boring. Be bored.
(21:02):
I've always been interested in what tomorrow is going to look like, but I always lacked the patience to find out.
I thought if only there was a quicker way to experience what's next rather than having to wait second to second,
a quicker way that would appeal to my modern day sensibilities of instant gratification.
(21:26):
That's when my neighbor gave me a pamphlet for Beach Body Cryogenics.
I've never really had any problems with my looks, but I have had a problem with how expensive other cryogenic companies are.
Since Beach Body Cryogenics just freezes to body, that leaves all that headspace for savings.
And they're not stingy. They'll pass those savings on to you.
(21:48):
That's the kind of shrewd business practices I can support.
Talk about my lucky day, too, because until recently they had no availability.
But with that recent thunderstorm and subsequent power outage, there has been a sudden influx of available cryobod pods.
Yippee!
Beach Body Cryogenics. Don't wait. Refrigerate.
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