February 8, 2024 • 50 mins
You can find a.m. on Instagram and TikTok at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
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Episode Transcript
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AM (01:47):
was a yoga retreat.
You'd go and have classes allday, you know.
They're were just cots.
They were either shared, youknow, two room cots or
dormitories.
No private rooms, but just, Imean, literally just a cot.
They'd give you a towel.
There was a sheet.
And the new board came in andone of the, you know, first
things after they settled inwas.
Let's have some rooms that haveTVs, just to give people a
(02:10):
little break from, and thepeople who work, they're like
all just like fucking up and on.
And the cafeteria was whollyvegetarian, locally sourced,
everything.
Let's have a little, just cornerarea, which just, just has like
humanely raised chicken.
And, you know, because somepeople really need animal.
And you know, they won thebattle.
They wound up building another.
Facility it's a huge place, butthey built another building and
(02:32):
this is how they compromisedwith the kind of legacy board
and legacy employees.
We'll keep everything in theother building.
And so the other building inessence was, you'd have a
private room, the beds were likemore hotel.
Do you have a TV?
And we'll keep everything else,you know, and it's slippery
slope.
It all just became anyway.
Anyway, I used to go there a lotand back in 2000 2001 KD was
(02:55):
there doing one of his, youknow, Kirtan sessions.
And again, it's not like hewasn't this wasn't a living It
was doesn't help, you know, hewasn't he wasn't getting rich
off of this.
It's just the way I love themwell, how he talked about it and
how he still talks about it, Ithink which is like I Chant
every single day I have since1967 when I encountered this,
every single day I chant,sometimes there are just people
(03:16):
around you.
Like, that's just, that's like,oh, cool, it's amazing, you
know?
I sat with them at lunch, likeit was just one of those, you
know, and we talked and, youknow.
And these guys are, you know Youknow, from the previous
conversation we were talkingabout, about just this kind of,
kind of committed, you know,kind of practicing.
This is just like, just everyday, this is what I'm doing for
my, you know development,liberation, contribution, like
(03:39):
it's all wrapped up together.
You know, this is it.
This is, this is what I do.
It's like, I chant.
Ben (03:44):
I like the idea of I do this every day.
Sometimes there's people around.
Sometimes there's not.
I feel like if you find thatthing, you should pursue it.
I mean, that's like thedefinition of of contentment in
a lot of ways.
AM (03:58):
Well, I think I've found that, but I don't think it's a
thing.
And I think it's the same forKD, like, chanting, but it's,
it's, it's, the thing defined isbeing you.
And then it's just like, youknow, what am I doing all day?
I'm literally all I'm doing allday is I'm amming like that's
all I'm doing.
Just sometimes it's in here.
(04:19):
Sometimes it's, you know, atUNH.
Sometimes it's, I mean likethat's my job and that I think,
I think that, I think that's thething.
Again, it's back to, you know,this fucking society where it's,
it's abstracted into a role,into a.
Occupation into a, you know, allthat and nothing wrong with
occupations, nothing wrong withroles, but that's not the thing
(04:41):
to be, you know, it sounds likeso stupid to say it out loud,
but the thing to be is yourself,you know, and then you're just
consistently that I don't, Iactually don't think it's any
more complex than that and I gethow hard that is as simple as it
is.
I get how hard that is in thissociety, you know, to actually
just be yourself consistently.
Ben (05:02):
It's hard to be yourself without describing yourself.
It's hard to describe yourselfwithout marketing yourself.
And then you end up with peoplewho've developed a personal
brand or concept of self thatbecomes Less, like, liberating
or genuine and is itself a bitof a, a trap.
(05:26):
They've worked themselves into acharacter.
Yep.
And that can be a reallydifficult thing, like, on the
path to being, Who am I?
What do I do?
What does it mean to beauthentic ly myself?
You end up with, you know, thelittle, like, gene patch that
says, Authentic Gap, you know,it's like, The authenticity
becomes the brand.
And it's it's tricky.
(05:47):
I, I've actually been privilegedin so much as I feel like a lot
of the folks that I work with orhave encountered have in various
ways figured this out.
I'm continually impressed by, bya lot of the, the people I've
met just in the last couple ofyears at, at Driver specifically
where I work, who they, theyhave a great deal of confidence.
(06:12):
That what they have to bring tothe table is valuable without
defining it and by merely by thefact of being in a place and
being in a lot of ways,receptive and reactive to the
things around them.
And, you know, I, I think I'mmore often than not come to.
(06:35):
Especially in a professionalcontext, you bring some
assumptions to the table.
This person has a role,therefore they're going to react
in the following way, thereforethey have the following
responsibilities.
And I keep being surprised byhow the people around me just
act like human beings.
And maybe I shouldn't besurprised.
But I, I think I've beenconditioned to be surprised when
someone just is completelythemselves and not the role, not
(06:59):
a persona.
And, and I really have actuallybeen privileged to, to have like
this wealth of that around me.
But I, I wonder, I wonder whenthat skepticism is going to go
away, that initial expectationof somebody's going to act the
role and not the, not theperson.
AM (07:16):
I mean, I think in part, it's, it's, it's just a product
of, of how we perceive.
It's certainly a product of thesociety.
For me, at least, it's, it'simportant, you know, when you
say authenticity or, or, youknow, when I say I'm just
myself, or you say, you know,these folks are kind of
themselves.
One of the important things inthere for me is I don't engage
that as a noun.
Like when I say I'm myself, I'mnot, that's not a noun.
(07:39):
And in fact, nouns, the, thenouning of myself is to be
fundamentally avoided, right?
It is, I, it is how I, I said,I'm AMing, it's verb.
It's all process.
And so what happens is by virtueof our, it's, it's sort of like,
like, like right now this tableis disintegrating.
(08:01):
My, you know, ability to, to, toperceive the data that's, that's
here allows me to only see thisas a solid object that's
immobile, right?
As a thing.
But of course, this is not athing in the sense of it's, you
know, completely inert, right?
It's moving.
It's slowly deteriorating.
There's, you know, atoms flyingoff, or however the hell that
(08:22):
works.
I haven't officially reached theedge of my scientific knowledge
this area.
But you take my point, right?
Some type of entropy.
Yeah, some type of entropy.
It's happening.
It's, you know, it's in motion.
But based on how I can perceivethe hardware I got, it's a
thing.
And this is so with each other,I think.
Right?
And so when I look at someone,they are You know, a noun.
(08:47):
You're here.
You're a thing.
And then when I see someonebehind the counter at Starbucks,
they are a very specific thing.
Or if I see them sitting, youknow, you know, you know, in a
6, 000 suit behind a big desk,they are a certain thing, right?
And so we're, we're kind of, youknow, I think wired
(09:08):
biologically, perceptually, butthat's certainly societally to
engage with each other as thingsas nouns.
But for me, that's not, youknow, that's authenticity isn't
a destination and it's, andit's, it's not even a thing.
Right?
It's, it's, it's process.
It's, it's just ongoing process.
Nature is authentic in that itis in process constantly and
(09:30):
it's in process in a way thathas zero sort of artifice to it.
Ben (09:34):
I mean, I, I think the, the artifice comes into play.
In order to allow us to movefaster in a lot of ways.
Like if we were to try toperceive everything that's going
on around us all at once with nofilter, we'd be fundamentally
just immobilized.
And I, and I mentionedpsychedelics conversation.
Well, there you go.
You know, I keep, keep comingback, but and I had mentioned
(09:57):
earlier in that context, the thecomposer Lamont young he was.
I don't want to say famous, butwell, well known for doing
things very slowly and verymethodically.
I think for the purpose oftaking in every detail if you
know, if you read his obituarywas in the New York times not
(10:18):
too long ago, and it mentionsused to take five hour long
showers.
And.
At first that sounds outrageous,but if I wanted to experience
everything that the shower wasproviding and really process
that, maybe that's the length ofa shower.
Maybe we allied the experienceof having a shower to say, a
(10:40):
shower is this thing and I'mcalling it a shower and I have a
context of a shower and thepurpose of it is to make myself
clean and then I'm going toleave and move on because it's
just a precursor to the rest ofyour day.
No one, really, schedules ashower as the main event of the
thing they're gonna do, exceptfor Lamont Young, who says the
(11:02):
first thing I'm going to dotoday is take a shower, and if
it takes five hours, it takesfive hours, and that's going to
be the experience of my lifetoday.
I'm guessing he didn't showerevery day, otherwise maybe there
was a limit to the number ofthings he could have gotten
accomplished, and he wasprolific, but that's sort of the
point.
AM (11:19):
Not too much, the amount of moisture, you know, the lotion
he would need afterwards withall the drying effect.
Ben (11:24):
Yeah, you'd get pretty pruney, but but that's it.
It's like, how do you know?
We have to make these, we haveto align things.
We have to provide shortcuts andimages that allow us to
contextualize and understandthings as a whole very quickly.
To kind of get to the next thingthat we want to slow down and
(11:44):
absorb fully and recognize forbeing the thing that it is.
And that's, that's like thesifting and filtering process
that I think, you know, causes alot of Stress and anxiety and
people talk about anxiety asbeing the predominant theme of
our times.
And I wonder if that's just beenevery time is like our times
(12:07):
more anxious than the time thatcame before.
Maybe we're just kind of, youknow, continuing along a well
trodden path.
But I feel like that comes fromthis idea of.
I want to call it focus, butit's, it's something different
than focus.
It's, it's knowing, knowing whento accept the image of a thing
versus the reality of a thing asyou perceive it.
AM (12:30):
Say that again, but in different words.
Ben (12:31):
So like, if I, if I am.
looking at this plate, I don'treally observe everything about
the plate.
Right?
Right.
There's a plate sitting in frontof me.
The light's reflecting off of itin a certain way.
I may or may not care aboutthat, but I can, I can replace
all of that right?
With plate, and it just, that'sit.
That's all I need to know.
It's a plate and it's thefunction of the plate.
(12:52):
Sure.
I don't need to stop and observeeverything about it.
Yeah.
I've made a conscious decisionthat that doesn't provide value,
and so that's not where I'mspending.
My day, my time, my, my energy,but the, I think the, the engine
that creates anxiety for peopleis knowing when to stop and to
do that and wondering if they'vegone past something that was
(13:15):
worthy of, of that pit stop or,you know, do I need to back up
to, was, was there just onething?
Do I keep going?
Would there be another thingthat's more worthy and it can
become.
become an engine that neverstops.
Interesting.
AM (13:31):
Yeah.
That, that, that, I mean, it,it, it's, I mean, my first
reaction to, to the, to theplate, you know reference, like,
it, it's a great way to get intoa car accident, right?
Yeah.
The, the, the, you know, replacea, a plate with stop sign and
just, you know, I, I.
Or green light.
Like I see a green light and Idon't have to process it.
Think about it.
I just go.
Yeah, but really you should bepaying attention because just
(13:54):
because green light means godoesn't mean somebody it's not
running a red light going theother way.
All right.
And so the shortcuts are there,you know, by necessity to, to,
to, you know, so that we don'tjust lose ourselves and just
sitting and staring at a platefor 14 hours examining all it's,
you know yeah, they're useful.
The, the proposition thougharound, you know, do we, do we
(14:15):
have.
Too many things is interesting.
I'm, I'm sort of, I'm just, I'mprocessing that to see if, if,
if that resonates for me arounda basis for anxiety.
I mean, it certainly connectswith, with one of my
speculations, which is again anobvious speculation that there's
just too much period.
There's just too much.
There's too many serial brands.
There's too many streamingservices.
(14:37):
There's too many career options.
There's too much technology.
It's just too much.
You know what I mean?
We're not wired for all thisshit.
It's just too much.
You know?
And everybody's circuits arejust overlaid with the seven
different ways the world willend in my lifetime.
Right?
Like, kind of, you know, ideas.
(14:57):
And so it's just too much.
It's just everybody's circuitsare fried.
The things we pause on, if youtake your plate, right, you know
would it be beneficial toactually stop and examine the
plate, right?
Versus the things we pause onare, are are, are in here,
right?
They're on a screen.
I'm holding, I'm holding myphone.
(15:18):
They're on here.
And In those instances, I, Ikinda, I'm speculating on this,
I haven't thought about thisthis way before, but, but, you
know, is it the case if I, if I,if I use the, the frame, you
know, I offered earlier, that,that I don't consider myself a
noun in any way, I am all verb.
I am fundamentally all verb, Iget that I look like noun in,
you know, to other people invarious contexts, because that's
(15:39):
how we perceive, right?
But I'm clear that I'm just allverb.
But is it the case when I'm,when I'm, you know, engaged with
this thing and scrollingendlessly through Instagram or,
or, you know, do InstagramYouTube, you know watching poker
videos, I, I, I, I found overthe weekend, like I just, I
wasn't feeling great and I'mjust on YouTube.
I used to play poker and I likewatching like high stakes poker,
(16:00):
or at least I used to.
And it just fed me a pokervideo.
And I found that I just startedscrolling through watching high
stakes poker videos for, again,like 45 minutes without even
realizing.
Is it the case that I'm beingnouned?
That what's moving is it?
And it's inviting me to justkind of, you know, be a thing
that, that's, you know, nolonger in process.
(16:21):
Because that, that, that createsanxiety in me.
Being nouned for too long.
Creates a certain anxiety in me.
I think
Ben (16:28):
this is, this is the meat of the trajectory that I was
sort of started us on in a wayis the reaction to what you had
said of being a verb, being yourAMing.
But to so many people you comeacross on a daily basis.
You're a noun, because you havea fleeting transaction with
them, or it doesn't make sensefor them to acknowledge that
you're a verb.
(16:49):
You're a noun to them, andyou're probably not a noun
that's AM.
Like, that actually would be agreat noun in the big scheme of
nouns.
You're a person, you know, andthere's gonna be a set of
descriptors that go with it, andthen that's gonna define kind of
how they interact with you.
And you can't, people can't beverbs.
To each other all the time, or,you know, all the people I
(17:13):
passed on the street, I walkedfrom a coffee shop down here
today, and I had some thoughts,there was a group of high
schoolers walking, and Iremember trying to kind of
squeak by them, and they weretaking their time and having
fun, you know, instantly, itwasn't just even a discreet
person, it was, I now see agroup, you're now a noun, you're
a group, and, you know, we, and,you know, it was, I now see a
(17:36):
group, you're now a noun, you'rea group, and, you know, we, We
get these moments of frictionwhere I'm, I'm verbing and to
you, I'm a noun and you know,how do you, how do you allow
yourself to have that process ofamming at a different rates and
with different things to allowyourself to pause on something
(17:56):
for an extended period of timeto idle and then to move
forward.
Rapidly, like there's, there'snot a consistent speed to that
process and throughout thattrajectory to other people.
They're not going to necessarilyeven acknowledge that that's
what's happening.
Yeah,
AM (18:12):
it's just so in the way you're saying that last piece,
like when I say I, I, I, youknow, I experienced myself, it
was a verb.
I'm not pointing to doing, I'mnot saying like I'm constantly
doing things.
I'm in action.
That's not what I mean.
I mean that, that, that.
There is nothing fixed.
Right?
That again, like the table isconstantly just in a state of
(18:34):
molecules kind of floatingaround, or even a better
example, because I'm not aninanimate object, would be, you
know, a garden or a forest or,you know, an ocean, where
there's no such thing as fixed.
There is no river, right?
This thing of like, it lookslike a, it looks like the river
looks like a thing, because it'sbounded by these, you know.
(18:55):
But.
There's no such thing.
The thing is constantly moving.
Every, you know, the molecule ofwater you're seeing isn't there
by the time your brain processesit.
It's a mile down the, you know,down the way, right?
The thing is, is, is, althoughthat, I guess, is activity and
so that, that, that undercutsthe, the the experience I'm
trying to convey.
So let me stick with just thatthere isn't this kind of fixed
(19:16):
sense of any part of my, youknow, Self experience that the
thing is just process But it'snot process in the sense of
activity doing things.
It's not gross process.
Ben (19:27):
Yes, so I work with someone who You know if you hear him
describe what Motivates him, whyhe, why he wakes up in the
morning, it's building, justloves building things and it's,
it's both like literal andfigurative.
He loves building software.
He loves building teams,building relationships with
people and he builds literalbuildings.
(19:50):
It's actually in the process ofbuilding a building.
And he was talking a little bitabout when, well, when this is
done, the process of buildingwill be over and to the people
who live in the building.
He won't be someone who lovesbuilding, who's enamored with
that process, he'll be theirlandlord, right?
He transitions from this stateof being that he loves into
(20:12):
being a noun for however manypeople now kind of inhabit this
thing.
And that's just such a strangetransition, I think, to go from
Like the passion that, like thisreally fundamental thing that
drives you to create, toconstruct, to like put your life
(20:33):
in orbit around a process andthen to suddenly be done with it
and have a landing spot that isthis very fixed relationship
with a whole group of people.
And I, I think that's, that'ssomething that we all kind of.
Find ourselves in a little bit,like you can't be in a state of
(20:53):
being endlessly without actuallykind of creating things along
the way and creating sets ofrelationships that are fixed.
And, you know, this happens tome as an engineer quite a bit
too.
The difference betweenconceptualizing something,
building it, then completing itand providing service for it.
(21:13):
Those are really, reallydifferent.
Phases of an engagement and theyrequire you to be different
flavors of the same person,different facets of, of this
thing that begins to reflectlight differently as it, as it
progresses.
And so I, this is a very fragileconcept that I'm trying to hold
(21:36):
in my hands right now, but I,I'm really curious, kind of.
What the manifestations are ofthat state, and whether it's
ever really possible to directlycommunicate the verb part.
Or if what I'm getting at is,it's actually the nouns is
what's going out into the world,what people perceive.
(21:58):
And, you know, you have to Thelevel of, of deliberation that
goes behind what those nounsbecome as you're just doing your
things, right?
So,
AM (22:09):
so here's a rub.
Actually, before I say that, letme just say, you're describing
your activities.
So if, if, if I'm just sittingon a, you know, a piece of grass
in the middle of nowhere forthree hours, I'm still having,
I'm still verbing, right?
But, so now let me get back to,you know I, my experience is,
(22:30):
that is the case, that I cannotengage with you as noun, unless
I first engage with myself asnoun.
And that if I engage with myselfas verb, I'm very likely to
engage with you as verb.
And I think very few peopleengage with themselves as a
verb, they engage withthemselves as a noun that's
doing something.
Hmm.
Ben (22:49):
That's a good distinction.
Scott (22:51):
It reminds me of a realization that I've had
probably almost a decade ago.
I was in, you know, in theprocess of ending one
significant relationship andtrying to figure out what was
next for me in my life how tomove on with, Who I thought I
was at the time and somethingbecame evident that it was like,
you know, we always talk aboutrelationship as a relationship,
(23:14):
a thing, like a static thing.
It became like, well, how aboutjust relating?
Just continue relating.
I kind of hear it as what you'resaying is like being, you're not
in relation to somebody else astwo fixed objects kind of
spinning around in the middle ofnowhere, but you're relating to
somebody and that's constantlychanging.
And then it's, it'sexponentially changing because
(23:34):
they're changing too.
And how do you sort of findyourself?
So I identified as, you know, Acaretaker after that, you know,
started becoming a caretaker forpeople that I loved.
And it was also reframed for me.
It's like, no, no, you're acaregiver.
You're not taking anything.
You're giving what you have theability to give and you're
(23:57):
relating to who they are in thatmoment.
And it was like these twoconcepts kind of congealed in
front of me.
Like it was like a.
It was like a ball of light orsomething.
It was weird.
And I was like, oh yeah,relating.
Relating is a verb.
It's, you know, I want to relatewith this person.
AM (24:12):
Hmm.
Yeah.
So, so, just, just, in myphilosophy nouns can't be in a
state of relationship.
Fundamentally, nouns can't be ina state of relationship at all.
They can only be in a state oftransaction.
And it looks like relationshipmost relationships there, but
yeah, but they're actually,yeah, because they're, they're
two, there's a husband and awife and I'm in a relationship.
(24:33):
Nope, if that's your sense,you're transacting and it could
be very healthy transactions,really meaningful, healthy
transfer, but it's transaction.
In the way I can't really be inrelationship with table as
table.
I can only transact with it andput things on it, take things
off of it, et cetera.
Right.
But if I engage, if Iacknowledge that this is
fundamentally a verb, or let me,let me, I keep using table, you
(24:56):
know, I got a plant in front ofme, right?
As a plant, as a noun, I canonly transact with it.
I can appreciate it.
I can smell it.
I can water it.
I can do things, but if Iacknowledge it as just process.
Then part of what emerges inthat is the understanding that
(25:17):
without doing anything, the verbthat is the plant and the verb
that is me are currentlyexchanging gases.
We're exchanging physicalproperties with each other is
taking in my carbon monoxide.
It is releasing oxygen that I'mtaking in without any action.
I'm not doing anything, but weare both verbs that are
(25:39):
interlinked.
And the whole thing is a verb
Ben (25:42):
that's interlinked.
To go to your example of, ofsitting in the grass for three
hours, that, that to me is soclearly, that's, that's your
state of, of verbing, of being.
But as soon as I see you,there's, there's a noun
introduced.
Yes.
And that's, that's the thingthat I, I haven't figured out in
(26:03):
this, this equation is.
How do you present yourself assomeone who wants to be in a
verbing relationship with me,who has now observed you as a
noun?
What do you do?
So if I've observed you and I'vemade an inference.
Hey, as a person sitting in thegrass, they're relaxing, they
(26:24):
look like they're having amoment to themselves.
This is now a picture that I canhold in my hand of the noun that
I've encountered.
So, what if you get up and youdo a backflip, right?
You do something that breaks,that shatters that noun, does it
shift to another noun?
It's just, it's a more eccentricnoun.
Okay.
We've drawn, we've taken thatcircle and we drew another
(26:44):
circle around it.
You know, I, I find myself in,and I think about this in terms
of like professionalinteractions because I, I, I
found myself in conversationwith people where.
It moves very fluidly toacknowledging each other as a
verb, and you can kind of senseit when you've gone from your,
(27:08):
your positions, your relativekind of definitions, either in
that professional environment orsocietally, and suddenly you're
coming together and you'rehaving a real interaction as two
things that are in motiontogether and relative to one
another.
What's the, what's the signalFor that?
AM (27:25):
You know what it looks like, Ben?
It's flirtation.
Now we hear that wordautomatically.
The only place people use that,you know, flirtation is in a
sexual context, but actually allof nature is flirtation.
All right.
It is this just kind ofinteraction that is, is that is
simultaneously inviting.
(27:47):
And pushing it is simultaneouslyplayful and yet serious is, you
know, everything is veiled andyet revealed, right?
It's a way of engaging.
And so the, the gross things of,you know, I do a backflip.
Yeah.
It's just, you're shifting fromone category to another, one
noun to another, right?
It's not about behavior.
(28:08):
It's not about you do somethingdifferent.
You put on a different hat andnow you're, you know, you put on
a different hat and now you'redifferent now.
Right?
Yeah.
But it's, it's the interaction.
It's how you approach me in thegrass, right?
It's how I approach and it isflirtatious.
The, the, the, the Sufis aregreat to read on this.
The su, the Sufi poets is, it'sall about flirtation with the
universe.
(28:29):
It's not sexual, but if you readeven their, their, their
conversation about God, right?
It's like this, it, and theyused literally the metaphor of
of of, of courting.
You're a lover, right?
And they're talking about God.
And, and so, that's what itlooks like for me, is, is, you
know, when people are engaged inverbing, it's a flirtatnon
sexual.
It's not about that, right?
(28:51):
But it's a flirtation.
It's a lightness, and yet aseriousness.
It's a playfulness, and yet aconsequentiality, right?
It's, it's, it's not dealingwith the transactions of the
nouns.
It's spinning.
It's like when musicians arejust kind of, you know You know,
when they're playing a song andyou know, when they're noodling
and just kind of, I don't know,what are you doing?
(29:12):
It's just, you know, you're justkind of noodling.
You're not playing a song.
You're just, you know, And, andwhen you can do that, what's
that?
I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not amusician.
You two are.
So I'm saying somethingabstractly that you two have a
direct relationship to, right?
But you know, when you're with amusician who you can just kind
of, it's just, you musically areflirting.
Like, you know, that's, that'sthe kind of thing I'm pointing
(29:32):
to.
But, but, but do you, do youjust see what I'm saying?
Like, like as, as, as players orwhen you're with somebody that's
like, I'm playing a song.
There are people you can playsongs with and the songs can be
great.
Yeah.
But you're playing a song andthen there are people who you
just kind of like, you know, andthe thing is spiritually sexy
and it's engaging and thereisn't anything fixed and it goes
(29:52):
somewhere.
That's what I'm pointing to.
Scott (29:55):
I remember reading this book, kind of transformational
book.
When I was, I just kind of, youknow, on the free card at the
library and just kind of grabbedit and stuff.
It was called Powers of Mind,and it was about all these
different ways that Westerncultures use, use yogic
practices, but other things,sports and all these different
modalities And one point I thinkit was in the, in the, towards
the end of the book.
(30:16):
The author talks about going tosee Indian classical performance
and everybody sits down, lightsgo down and stuff, and then they
proceed to just noodle for 30minutes.
You know, at least 30 minutes.
And he's looking at the peoplehe's with, he's like, well,
what's going on?
You know, I don't understandwhat's happening right here.
Oh, they're tuning.
They take 30 minutes.
(30:38):
Everybody just kind of Gets intune with our instrument and
then in tune with each other.
Yeah, and then somebody justsays, okay And then they start
the raga and it goes and it'scompletely perfectly latched up
and it's like well you need that30 minutes But you know in
Western view you do that behindthe curtain before it opens not
(30:58):
when the curtains open andpeople are there watching I
guess it was important to kindof experience that That coming
together to really get thecrescendo of the first note of
the raga.
Ben (31:10):
I like have to stop you and make us dwell on the idea of
tuning being not just tuningyour instrument, but tuning to
the other musicians in the room.
Tuning to the space.
Tuning to yourself.
I mean, that's like, therecouldn't be any better than
(31:33):
that.
That is exactly what it shouldbe.
And that's, I mean, I thinkthere are musicians, you know,
to your point where you canbecome attuned to one another
very quickly and enter into thatspace, but allowing any amount
of time to say, no, this is aprerequisite for us to do this
thing we're about to do.
And if we don't get there.
(31:55):
Maybe we don't do it at all.
Maybe this 30 minutes becomes itand we get up and walk away and
say, not today, folks, you know,the instruments are in tune, but
we are not.
And like that, that's thegreatest thing I've heard all
week.
And it's so, it's like, it's sophenomenally true.
I mean, when I was I wentthrough years where I was a
(32:16):
serious orchestral musician.
And then years where I was not,I was not doing any of it.
And there's this, you know,rigidity to classical music
performance that at variouspoints kind of turned me off,
but I began really missing theexperience of playing with an
orchestra because if you can doit, and this is like one in a
(32:38):
million where you get 60 peoplecompletely attuned to one
another, making music in thesame way.
With the same mindset at thesame time, it's this, it's
phenomenal.
I mean, it feel, it could fillany space.
You could fill a stadium.
You know, I'd love to seeclassical music performances at
(32:58):
like Foxborough stadium.
Let's do it.
Because it could really, itamplifies the energy like that.
And it can happen with one otherperson and it can happen alone.
But that, that idea of beingattuned, I think this, it cuts
straight.
To the conversation that we'rehaving is it's, if the way
that's the way that two peoplein a state of verbing actually
(33:21):
relate is being attuned.
AM (33:23):
Yep.
Yeah.
And they're, and you'reconstantly right.
Sound is great.
It's waves.
There's nothing there.
It's all waves.
And you're constantly tomatching the waves up
Scott (33:33):
In that sense.
The table is vibration and wavestoo.
AM (33:36):
And that's what I'm saying is like, it's, it's, it's all
verb.
Everything is verb interacting,you know?
And, and so that, that, when Isay I'm amming, that's what I
mean.
Like I'm a piece of music andI'm just listening to other
pieces of music being played,right.
Versus most folks think ofthemselves as sheet music.
(33:56):
Yeah.
Here's my music.
Yeah.
As opposed to acknowledging thatthey're actually playing music.
Ben (34:02):
God, I want to, I want to institutionalize this in a way,
but institutionalizing it iscompletely against the spirit of
it at all.
So I'm going to, I'm going tostifle that impulse.
But I mean, just imagine ifthere were a period of, of
tuning to the other peoplearound you before you embarked
on anything serious.
So
AM (34:21):
I, you know.
So much of the design of thisplace is covert because nobody
wants to hear my shit other thanme like Kyley.
Kyley is the only one gottolerance for it and actually
loves it and he's one of the,you know, every single day.
Do you know how we start withthe students?
We do something called huddle.
It looks like a, just a, like aprocess.
We ask What do you want us toknow what are your barriers
(34:41):
today?
What are your successes?
On one level, they're justquestions.
Right.
But it's tuning.
We're just getting everybody tokind of just kind of presence.
This is the music I am today.
And when it's hit sometimes, wetalked about this in the, in the
last group thing we did just,you know yesterday, I was
saying, you know, we do thehuddle and you could just be
(35:02):
reading a script and justchecking off the questions.
If you did, you missed it,right?
You have to actually be livingthat question in that moment.
And all that's doing is invitingeverybody to tune.
And so there are practices youcan put in place, but they
require that the person, atleast one person in the space,
is verbing.
So that the tuning can happen.
(35:23):
And then you invite others in.
Scott (35:24):
I feel like my experience with the huddle, you know, since
I started attending them lastyear, you can always tell, you
know.
Like, who might be ready forsome support or engagement by
the lack of participation in thehuddle.
Like, the more participatory alot of folks are, they realize,
like, okay, they're going to beall right because they have a
system where they feelcomfortable in expressing
(35:47):
themselves.
Sometimes it's like, all right,pay a little bit more attention
over here and let's get to the,you know, get to a good place so
some other stuff can happen.
Yeah, that's kind of, kind of,you could tell.
You can tell when it's nothappening.
I had met an author a few yearsago who was writing a book on
non verbal communication.
(36:07):
And she asked me, like, as amusician, you know, what is it
like when you have that nonverbal communication with the
people that you're performingwith?
And I was like I don't reallyknow.
I only know when it's not there.
I don't know when it's there,but I know definitely when it's
not there.
And she looked at me like, what?
Like, how does that make sense?
So I was like, yeah, it's theabsence of it.
(36:28):
That really is the, the, theflair that gets shot up in front
of you.
Yeah.
AM (36:33):
It's actually really simple.
You can know nothing aboutmusic.
And you'll, you'll, you'll, Imean, unless you have like, you
know, a tin ear or something,you'll know when an instrument's
out of tune.
You won't know how it's out oftune.
But somebody strums a guitar,and you can know nothing about
music, and you'll say, Oh, thatdoesn't sound good.
That same kind of awareness canbe brought to human beings.
(36:54):
Right.
And in the huddle, what Scott'spointing to is you can just see,
Oh, she's out of tune.
Let's, let's, let's, let's spendfocus time here and a tune, not
fix anything, not get themsomewhere.
Just get the instrument tuned.
Just get them back into.
Active verb, and then they'regoing to do whatever they're
going to do
Scott (37:13):
over the, over time, they become almost microtonal
themselves, you know, they'reable to do in between pitches
between what you would thinkwould be in tune and it's
perfectly harmonious.
AM (37:23):
Yep.
Yep.
That's it.
That's it.
And when people get comfortableengaging that way, Ben, and
it's, it's been the secret of,of the work for 30 years and
MAOL and here and client sitesand you don't have to talk to
them about any of this stuff.
Because it's all headyphilosophical bullshit, you
know, when you, when you, youknow, for most people, and
rightfully so.
(37:43):
But if you can create theseenvironments to, again, to
Scott's point, they justunderstand how to tune the
instrument.
Same thing like with a guitar.
If you keep just bringingsomebody back every time the
thing's out of tune, just tokind of turn the key a little
bit for them, over time, theydon't know the theory.
They don't know any of it.
But they'll hear.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, right and they'll justlearn how to tune the instrument
that way so they'll learn to howto tune their own instrument
(38:05):
without any of the language andthen that that brings them if
the instruments in tune theverbing gets more comfortable
You know, I think that might beanother phenomenon of why people
retreat to nouns is theirinstruments so out of tune You
know that the sheet music ismore comfortable
Ben (38:21):
Yeah, it tells you what note You're playing.
Yeah.
Even if you're not playing thenote.
That's right.
Right.
It has a time.
It has a space.
It has a slot.
Yep.
Yeah.
I think it's rare.
We get to an episode wherethere's something that qualifies
as actionable advice, but thisis touching on it in a way where
you, you said is, you know, theway to be verbing as a group to
be tuning is one person comes inand does it, this is a, it's a
(38:44):
form of leadership by examplethat doesn't require having an
agenda, a philosophy.
A result is purely showing up,being present and not slipping
back to the noun based approachbecause it feels like that's
what the person, people aroundyou are comfortable with or
(39:06):
understand.
Right.
It involves showing up and beingopen to that process and
allowing that there is a periodof tuning.
And I think like, this is it forme is that you don't, you, you
don't instantly make thatconnection.
And so if you show up and yousay, Hey, here I am, I want to
engage with you as you are, andthe other person isn't ready,
(39:28):
you don't immediately fall backto the kind of quick shortcut
symbols that we use to getthrough life expediently.
You accept that there's a periodof tuning.
And I love that you've baked itinto the school and I, I feel
like you know, I'm going to gorelabel a couple of meetings,
maybe tuning Monday morningtuning.
(39:49):
But that's, that really is it.
And I, it takes a a greatconfidence in that process to
show up again and again in thatmode.
And, you know, I was thinkingwhen you were talking about
relationships being in relationversus relationship During COVID
my wife and I missed going outto dinner, right?
(40:09):
So we, we set up a period andOur day and we set up a little
restaurant in our living roomand we call it the restaurant
and you know I would cook a nicemeal and you know put out like
Candles and placemats andeverything and that that's where
we would set aside the eyeobservation.
Yeah, exactly Yeah, we can seeyou at 630.
(40:30):
We'd set aside the notion ofthat's where we related as human
beings actively Both in thatstate of being completely open
to what the other person wasbringing to that, whether it was
good, bad or otherwise, it wasjust like, let's, let's have an
honest open moment where we'renot parents of children or
employees or, you know,caretakers of the home that
(40:54):
we're in, but just opening thefloor in a way.
And that was a really likefacile way to say like.
You don't even need to tune ifyou're in the restaurant, you
know, you're, you're just kindof there.
Maybe we're going to play out oftune for a little while.
That's fine.
You know, we'll just do that.
But that was kind of a shortcut.
That's a unique time and spacethat's created to kind of create
(41:17):
those, those conditions, butmaybe we can create more of
those.
I think that's what your huddlesare in a way, you know,
AM (41:25):
Yeah, and I, I, I mean, I would, I would go further Ben
and say, I think we can createthose things as we're walking
around in casual transactions.
I think, I think you can, youcan, you can tune with the
barista, you know,
Ben (41:42):
where, where's the line between that and.
The people who think they'retuning, but they really just
kind of like say something cornyand wink and wink and it's like,
ah, I just related to you.
How about that?
Yeah.
You know, like, see that, that'swhat gets to me is that there's
a really, it's really trickybetween really, really showing
up for someone and, and doingthe noun version of it.
AM (42:05):
Yeah.
There's a fine line between.
Brilliant.
And stupid.
What's the line from, from finaltime?
It's something like that.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
You can, you can go to workshopson how to do this shit, right?
Networking and, and, andinfluence and all this and
Ben (42:22):
hard pass.
AM (42:23):
Yeah, right.
But, but that's what's going onright there.
They're, they're, they're sortof quote unquote teaching you
this stuff, but it's reallyjust, hard transactions with a
velvet glove, like the feel.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's artificial.
It's go back to the music thing.
Like, it's like, you know, youknow what I mean?
Like, don't you know, when themusic's out of tune, people just
(42:44):
know, even if they don't know,they know, we just pay attention
to your body, you know.
Scott (42:49):
Yeah.
I've had a few of those gigs,yeah.
Yeah.
AM (42:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's just like, like,you know, when you're, when
you're out of tune in your body,even if you're not listening.
And then you also know whenyou're just playing canned
music, don't you?
Well, it's like, yeah, we hitall the notes.
Everybody's quote unquote,everybody's technically in tune.
The instruments are technicallyin tune.
We hit all the notes, all thesongs got played.
(43:13):
And absolutely nothinginteresting happened.
We just transacted really,really effectively.
It's fine.
Scott (43:18):
Yeah.
Sometimes that's what thesituation.
AM (43:20):
That's what the gig is.
Yeah.
Scott (43:22):
That's what Taylor Swift does.
AM (43:23):
Yup.
That's the gig.
Hey, listen, Taylor Swift is aworld class transaction.
Like it is the hot, I'm tellingyou, I've seen her live three
times.
It is hot.
You know, you, you miss, I don'tknow what it's going to be.
You got a seven month old.
So, you know, 12 years from now,who knows what the thing is
going to be.
Ben (43:37):
I'm going to see her under like a Rolling Stones era
retirement tour.
AM (43:42):
You won't have to go see Taylor.
It'll be like whatever versionof this is, you know, in 12
years.
But yeah, it's an incrediblyrigorous transaction.
Everything is in technical tune,but there's no attunement, you
know?
It's, it's, you know, I know I'mbiased, but it's, it's one of
the things about the dead thatwas fabulous.
You know, sometimes it was outof technical tune
Ben (44:02):
most of the time.
AM (44:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and yet.
when it worked, it was like theentire fucking cosmos was there
just dancing in the thing.
Because it was all inattunement.
Scott (44:14):
Yeah, it was like a conduit.
AM (44:16):
Yeah.
That, that, that's what peopledon't get, you know?
And, but you can get this in awhole bunch of places, you know?
It's what religious experienceis about.
I think it's certainly whatShamonic experience is about.
It's, it's, it's a, it's oneportal into the attunement of
the entire thing.
And it all just kind of makessense, that makes sense like
logically, it all just, it'sharmonic.
The whole thing just becomeslike, you know, just
(44:38):
harmonically balanced.
And so we know these things, youknow, it doesn't take a
superhuman or even anenlightened level of awareness
to get.
When it's, you know, technicallyin tune, but not attuned, and
when it is attuned, you know,with the barista or with our
teammates at work or with ourspouse.
Ben (44:58):
I've been watching a lot of documentary films lately, and
there were sort of two that I'veseen recently.
That felt equally attuned totheir environments and exactly
this way with radicallydifferent approaches to it.
And that, to me, it reallyemphasizes sort of the, like,
there's no right answer to theapproach.
(45:20):
There's only a right answer tothe thing done well, and you
know, I don't, you guys are bothmovie nerds, so maybe you've
seen these, but it was thestore, which is a Frederick
Wiseman documentary.
It's a movie about Christmastimeat a high end department store
in Dallas, Texas in the early80s.
And there's no interviews,there's no spoken word
(45:44):
monologue, it's just like cinemaverite style filmed people in
the store buying goods, meetingsbehind closed doors.
The other is the documentarySherman's March, which is
supposedly A filmmaker set outto make a documentary about
Sherman's march through theSouth and ended up making a
(46:04):
movie that is deeply personalabout his relationships with
these women he met when he wentback home while his parents were
trying to set him up with, youknow, a nice Southern girl to
settle down with.
And that's him setting up thecamera late at night with a
glass of bourbon, talkingdirectly into the camera and
kind of contemplating his futureand his relationships.
(46:25):
They couldn't be.
More dramatically opposed interms of the style of
documentary filmmaking andsomehow the confessional one
doesn't come off as corny andthe one that is just showing
people shopping is Completelyengaging not boring at all
incredibly human and rich andthey both they both get it
exactly the same thingcompletely different approaches
(46:49):
and That's sort of it.
Like there's no there's no rightway to do this but both of these
filmmakers are sort ofParticipating in exactly the way
that we've described they're notworried about the artifice or
like the artifact that comesout.
It's very much engaged with theprocess.
AM (47:08):
And, you know, we can't, we can't have a conversation
without me bashing the societyat least three times.
And so you should take that lastpart of what you said.
Our whole emphasis is on theartifice.
Ben (47:19):
You'd love this store, by the way,
AM (47:21):
people shopping, I don't know, but I'll let you swing.
Ben (47:26):
Trust me.
Yeah.
You know, it's one of those loveto hate things.
Okay.
AM (47:29):
But this is the whole emphasis of society's artifact.
It's output.
It's, it's, you know, whatresulted from, right?
Even, even marriages, whatresulted from, right?
Whether it's, it's, it's, it'sthe kids or the collective
success or the like, even there,that's like just what resulted
from.
(47:50):
Transaction.
And so the emphasis on thesociety, you know, among so many
other ills is it invites us outof any awareness of attunement.
It only invites us into sheetmusic that gets to the crescendo
and move on to the next song.
Ben (48:08):
Boy, you know, I think when we started having these
conversations.
You framed it a little bit asoccasionally we're going to
drift out.
We're not going to stay on task.
We're going to, there's going tobe things that don't land, that
don't feel right, that arefragile ideas, have confidence
and have faith that they'regoing to come back around to
something.
I think this has been one of themost poignant examples of, there
(48:30):
was really an idea that you, youteed up that.
I, I couldn't quite, I couldn'tquite hold and, and I needed to
chase it for a few minutes andthen suddenly it just, boom,
like there it, there it, thereit was, right?
And the kind of clarity, youknow, there's, there's
something, there's somethingkind of meaningful in going
through that process, even ifthat's reflective of where the
(48:52):
conversation landed, which is,you know, allowing that to even
happen.
AM (48:57):
All this is, is this, this is Darkstar, right?
This is, this is like, this is aGrateful Dead jam.
It's like somebody throws out anidea, a musical idea, and if you
can actually play, it getssomewhere.
Sometimes it gets somewherereally interesting, sometimes it
doesn't, but, but this is, yeah,this is, this is the thing we,
we, we don't, it's not thatwe're not good at, we don't pay
(49:18):
attention to in the world.
You know, because there's notransactional certainty in this.
We could have just hit a deadend, which would have been okay.
Ben (49:26):
You mean I'm not getting paid?
AM (49:28):
Yeah, that's right.
But, but, but to set out with anagenda of, we're going to talk
about noun and verb and we'regoing to get to clarity about
like, we could have gottenthere.
It wouldn't have beeninteresting.
It wouldn't have been useful,not for me at least, you know.
It would have had transactionalvalue, and if there's legitimate
transactional value in it, cool.
But that's, you know, that's notthe juice.
Ben (49:50):
The action is the juice.
was a yoga retreat.
You'd go and have classes allday, you know.
They're were just cots.
They were either shared, youknow, two room cots or
dormitories.
No private rooms, but just, Imean, literally just a cot.
They'd give you a towel.
There was a sheet.
And the new board came in andone of the, you know, first
things after they settled inwas.
Let's have some rooms that haveTVs, just to give people a
(02:10):
little break from, and thepeople who work, they're like
all just like fucking up and on.
And the cafeteria was whollyvegetarian, locally sourced,
everything.
Let's have a little, just cornerarea, which just, just has like
humanely raised chicken.
And, you know, because somepeople really need animal.
And you know, they won thebattle.
They wound up building another.
Facility it's a huge place, butthey built another building and
(02:32):
this is how they compromisedwith the kind of legacy board
and legacy employees.
We'll keep everything in theother building.
And so the other building inessence was, you'd have a
private room, the beds were likemore hotel.
Do you have a TV?
And we'll keep everything else,you know, and it's slippery
slope.
It all just became anyway.
Anyway, I used to go there a lotand back in 2000 2001 KD was
(02:55):
there doing one of his, youknow, Kirtan sessions.
And again, it's not like hewasn't this wasn't a living It
was doesn't help, you know, hewasn't he wasn't getting rich
off of this.
It's just the way I love themwell, how he talked about it and
how he still talks about it, Ithink which is like I Chant
every single day I have since1967 when I encountered this,
every single day I chant,sometimes there are just people
(03:16):
around you.
Like, that's just, that's like,oh, cool, it's amazing, you
know?
I sat with them at lunch, likeit was just one of those, you
know, and we talked and, youknow.
And these guys are, you know Youknow, from the previous
conversation we were talkingabout, about just this kind of,
kind of committed, you know,kind of practicing.
This is just like, just everyday, this is what I'm doing for
my, you know development,liberation, contribution, like
(03:39):
it's all wrapped up together.
You know, this is it.
This is, this is what I do.
It's like, I chant.
Ben (03:44):
I like the idea of I do this every day.
Sometimes there's people around.
Sometimes there's not.
I feel like if you find thatthing, you should pursue it.
I mean, that's like thedefinition of of contentment in
a lot of ways.
AM (03:58):
Well, I think I've found that, but I don't think it's a
thing.
And I think it's the same forKD, like, chanting, but it's,
it's, it's, the thing defined isbeing you.
And then it's just like, youknow, what am I doing all day?
I'm literally all I'm doing allday is I'm amming like that's
all I'm doing.
Just sometimes it's in here.
(04:19):
Sometimes it's, you know, atUNH.
Sometimes it's, I mean likethat's my job and that I think,
I think that, I think that's thething.
Again, it's back to, you know,this fucking society where it's,
it's abstracted into a role,into a.
Occupation into a, you know, allthat and nothing wrong with
occupations, nothing wrong withroles, but that's not the thing
(04:41):
to be, you know, it sounds likeso stupid to say it out loud,
but the thing to be is yourself,you know, and then you're just
consistently that I don't, Iactually don't think it's any
more complex than that and I gethow hard that is as simple as it
is.
I get how hard that is in thissociety, you know, to actually
just be yourself consistently.
Ben (05:02):
It's hard to be yourself without describing yourself.
It's hard to describe yourselfwithout marketing yourself.
And then you end up with peoplewho've developed a personal
brand or concept of self thatbecomes Less, like, liberating
or genuine and is itself a bitof a, a trap.
(05:26):
They've worked themselves into acharacter.
Yep.
And that can be a reallydifficult thing, like, on the
path to being, Who am I?
What do I do?
What does it mean to beauthentic ly myself?
You end up with, you know, thelittle, like, gene patch that
says, Authentic Gap, you know,it's like, The authenticity
becomes the brand.
And it's it's tricky.
(05:47):
I, I've actually been privilegedin so much as I feel like a lot
of the folks that I work with orhave encountered have in various
ways figured this out.
I'm continually impressed by, bya lot of the, the people I've
met just in the last couple ofyears at, at Driver specifically
where I work, who they, theyhave a great deal of confidence.
(06:12):
That what they have to bring tothe table is valuable without
defining it and by merely by thefact of being in a place and
being in a lot of ways,receptive and reactive to the
things around them.
And, you know, I, I think I'mmore often than not come to.
(06:35):
Especially in a professionalcontext, you bring some
assumptions to the table.
This person has a role,therefore they're going to react
in the following way, thereforethey have the following
responsibilities.
And I keep being surprised byhow the people around me just
act like human beings.
And maybe I shouldn't besurprised.
But I, I think I've beenconditioned to be surprised when
someone just is completelythemselves and not the role, not
(06:59):
a persona.
And, and I really have actuallybeen privileged to, to have like
this wealth of that around me.
But I, I wonder, I wonder whenthat skepticism is going to go
away, that initial expectationof somebody's going to act the
role and not the, not theperson.
AM (07:16):
I mean, I think in part, it's, it's, it's just a product
of, of how we perceive.
It's certainly a product of thesociety.
For me, at least, it's, it'simportant, you know, when you
say authenticity or, or, youknow, when I say I'm just
myself, or you say, you know,these folks are kind of
themselves.
One of the important things inthere for me is I don't engage
that as a noun.
Like when I say I'm myself, I'mnot, that's not a noun.
(07:39):
And in fact, nouns, the, thenouning of myself is to be
fundamentally avoided, right?
It is, I, it is how I, I said,I'm AMing, it's verb.
It's all process.
And so what happens is by virtueof our, it's, it's sort of like,
like, like right now this tableis disintegrating.
(08:01):
My, you know, ability to, to, toperceive the data that's, that's
here allows me to only see thisas a solid object that's
immobile, right?
As a thing.
But of course, this is not athing in the sense of it's, you
know, completely inert, right?
It's moving.
It's slowly deteriorating.
There's, you know, atoms flyingoff, or however the hell that
(08:22):
works.
I haven't officially reached theedge of my scientific knowledge
this area.
But you take my point, right?
Some type of entropy.
Yeah, some type of entropy.
It's happening.
It's, you know, it's in motion.
But based on how I can perceivethe hardware I got, it's a
thing.
And this is so with each other,I think.
Right?
And so when I look at someone,they are You know, a noun.
(08:47):
You're here.
You're a thing.
And then when I see someonebehind the counter at Starbucks,
they are a very specific thing.
Or if I see them sitting, youknow, you know, you know, in a
6, 000 suit behind a big desk,they are a certain thing, right?
And so we're, we're kind of, youknow, I think wired
(09:08):
biologically, perceptually, butthat's certainly societally to
engage with each other as thingsas nouns.
But for me, that's not, youknow, that's authenticity isn't
a destination and it's, andit's, it's not even a thing.
Right?
It's, it's, it's process.
It's, it's just ongoing process.
Nature is authentic in that itis in process constantly and
(09:30):
it's in process in a way thathas zero sort of artifice to it.
Ben (09:34):
I mean, I, I think the, the artifice comes into play.
In order to allow us to movefaster in a lot of ways.
Like if we were to try toperceive everything that's going
on around us all at once with nofilter, we'd be fundamentally
just immobilized.
And I, and I mentionedpsychedelics conversation.
Well, there you go.
You know, I keep, keep comingback, but and I had mentioned
(09:57):
earlier in that context, the thecomposer Lamont young he was.
I don't want to say famous, butwell, well known for doing
things very slowly and verymethodically.
I think for the purpose oftaking in every detail if you
know, if you read his obituarywas in the New York times not
(10:18):
too long ago, and it mentionsused to take five hour long
showers.
And.
At first that sounds outrageous,but if I wanted to experience
everything that the shower wasproviding and really process
that, maybe that's the length ofa shower.
Maybe we allied the experienceof having a shower to say, a
(10:40):
shower is this thing and I'mcalling it a shower and I have a
context of a shower and thepurpose of it is to make myself
clean and then I'm going toleave and move on because it's
just a precursor to the rest ofyour day.
No one, really, schedules ashower as the main event of the
thing they're gonna do, exceptfor Lamont Young, who says the
(11:02):
first thing I'm going to dotoday is take a shower, and if
it takes five hours, it takesfive hours, and that's going to
be the experience of my lifetoday.
I'm guessing he didn't showerevery day, otherwise maybe there
was a limit to the number ofthings he could have gotten
accomplished, and he wasprolific, but that's sort of the
point.
AM (11:19):
Not too much, the amount of moisture, you know, the lotion
he would need afterwards withall the drying effect.
Ben (11:24):
Yeah, you'd get pretty pruney, but but that's it.
It's like, how do you know?
We have to make these, we haveto align things.
We have to provide shortcuts andimages that allow us to
contextualize and understandthings as a whole very quickly.
To kind of get to the next thingthat we want to slow down and
(11:44):
absorb fully and recognize forbeing the thing that it is.
And that's, that's like thesifting and filtering process
that I think, you know, causes alot of Stress and anxiety and
people talk about anxiety asbeing the predominant theme of
our times.
And I wonder if that's just beenevery time is like our times
(12:07):
more anxious than the time thatcame before.
Maybe we're just kind of, youknow, continuing along a well
trodden path.
But I feel like that comes fromthis idea of.
I want to call it focus, butit's, it's something different
than focus.
It's, it's knowing, knowing whento accept the image of a thing
versus the reality of a thing asyou perceive it.
AM (12:30):
Say that again, but in different words.
Ben (12:31):
So like, if I, if I am.
looking at this plate, I don'treally observe everything about
the plate.
Right?
Right.
There's a plate sitting in frontof me.
The light's reflecting off of itin a certain way.
I may or may not care aboutthat, but I can, I can replace
all of that right?
With plate, and it just, that'sit.
That's all I need to know.
It's a plate and it's thefunction of the plate.
(12:52):
Sure.
I don't need to stop and observeeverything about it.
Yeah.
I've made a conscious decisionthat that doesn't provide value,
and so that's not where I'mspending.
My day, my time, my, my energy,but the, I think the, the engine
that creates anxiety for peopleis knowing when to stop and to
do that and wondering if they'vegone past something that was
(13:15):
worthy of, of that pit stop or,you know, do I need to back up
to, was, was there just onething?
Do I keep going?
Would there be another thingthat's more worthy and it can
become.
become an engine that neverstops.
Interesting.
AM (13:31):
Yeah.
That, that, that, I mean, it,it, it's, I mean, my first
reaction to, to the, to theplate, you know reference, like,
it, it's a great way to get intoa car accident, right?
Yeah.
The, the, the, you know, replacea, a plate with stop sign and
just, you know, I, I.
Or green light.
Like I see a green light and Idon't have to process it.
Think about it.
I just go.
Yeah, but really you should bepaying attention because just
(13:54):
because green light means godoesn't mean somebody it's not
running a red light going theother way.
All right.
And so the shortcuts are there,you know, by necessity to, to,
to, you know, so that we don'tjust lose ourselves and just
sitting and staring at a platefor 14 hours examining all it's,
you know yeah, they're useful.
The, the proposition thougharound, you know, do we, do we
(14:15):
have.
Too many things is interesting.
I'm, I'm sort of, I'm just, I'mprocessing that to see if, if,
if that resonates for me arounda basis for anxiety.
I mean, it certainly connectswith, with one of my
speculations, which is again anobvious speculation that there's
just too much period.
There's just too much.
There's too many serial brands.
There's too many streamingservices.
(14:37):
There's too many career options.
There's too much technology.
It's just too much.
You know what I mean?
We're not wired for all thisshit.
It's just too much.
You know?
And everybody's circuits arejust overlaid with the seven
different ways the world willend in my lifetime.
Right?
Like, kind of, you know, ideas.
(14:57):
And so it's just too much.
It's just everybody's circuitsare fried.
The things we pause on, if youtake your plate, right, you know
would it be beneficial toactually stop and examine the
plate, right?
Versus the things we pause onare, are are, are in here,
right?
They're on a screen.
I'm holding, I'm holding myphone.
(15:18):
They're on here.
And In those instances, I, Ikinda, I'm speculating on this,
I haven't thought about thisthis way before, but, but, you
know, is it the case if I, if I,if I use the, the frame, you
know, I offered earlier, that,that I don't consider myself a
noun in any way, I am all verb.
I am fundamentally all verb, Iget that I look like noun in,
you know, to other people invarious contexts, because that's
(15:39):
how we perceive, right?
But I'm clear that I'm just allverb.
But is it the case when I'm,when I'm, you know, engaged with
this thing and scrollingendlessly through Instagram or,
or, you know, do InstagramYouTube, you know watching poker
videos, I, I, I, I found overthe weekend, like I just, I
wasn't feeling great and I'mjust on YouTube.
I used to play poker and I likewatching like high stakes poker,
(16:00):
or at least I used to.
And it just fed me a pokervideo.
And I found that I just startedscrolling through watching high
stakes poker videos for, again,like 45 minutes without even
realizing.
Is it the case that I'm beingnouned?
That what's moving is it?
And it's inviting me to justkind of, you know, be a thing
that, that's, you know, nolonger in process.
(16:21):
Because that, that, that createsanxiety in me.
Being nouned for too long.
Creates a certain anxiety in me.
I think
Ben (16:28):
this is, this is the meat of the trajectory that I was
sort of started us on in a wayis the reaction to what you had
said of being a verb, being yourAMing.
But to so many people you comeacross on a daily basis.
You're a noun, because you havea fleeting transaction with
them, or it doesn't make sensefor them to acknowledge that
you're a verb.
(16:49):
You're a noun to them, andyou're probably not a noun
that's AM.
Like, that actually would be agreat noun in the big scheme of
nouns.
You're a person, you know, andthere's gonna be a set of
descriptors that go with it, andthen that's gonna define kind of
how they interact with you.
And you can't, people can't beverbs.
To each other all the time, or,you know, all the people I
(17:13):
passed on the street, I walkedfrom a coffee shop down here
today, and I had some thoughts,there was a group of high
schoolers walking, and Iremember trying to kind of
squeak by them, and they weretaking their time and having
fun, you know, instantly, itwasn't just even a discreet
person, it was, I now see agroup, you're now a noun, you're
a group, and, you know, we, and,you know, it was, I now see a
(17:36):
group, you're now a noun, you'rea group, and, you know, we, We
get these moments of frictionwhere I'm, I'm verbing and to
you, I'm a noun and you know,how do you, how do you allow
yourself to have that process ofamming at a different rates and
with different things to allowyourself to pause on something
(17:56):
for an extended period of timeto idle and then to move
forward.
Rapidly, like there's, there'snot a consistent speed to that
process and throughout thattrajectory to other people.
They're not going to necessarilyeven acknowledge that that's
what's happening.
Yeah,
AM (18:12):
it's just so in the way you're saying that last piece,
like when I say I, I, I, youknow, I experienced myself, it
was a verb.
I'm not pointing to doing, I'mnot saying like I'm constantly
doing things.
I'm in action.
That's not what I mean.
I mean that, that, that.
There is nothing fixed.
Right?
That again, like the table isconstantly just in a state of
(18:34):
molecules kind of floatingaround, or even a better
example, because I'm not aninanimate object, would be, you
know, a garden or a forest or,you know, an ocean, where
there's no such thing as fixed.
There is no river, right?
This thing of like, it lookslike a, it looks like the river
looks like a thing, because it'sbounded by these, you know.
(18:55):
But.
There's no such thing.
The thing is constantly moving.
Every, you know, the molecule ofwater you're seeing isn't there
by the time your brain processesit.
It's a mile down the, you know,down the way, right?
The thing is, is, is, althoughthat, I guess, is activity and
so that, that, that undercutsthe, the the experience I'm
trying to convey.
So let me stick with just thatthere isn't this kind of fixed
(19:16):
sense of any part of my, youknow, Self experience that the
thing is just process But it'snot process in the sense of
activity doing things.
It's not gross process.
Ben (19:27):
Yes, so I work with someone who You know if you hear him
describe what Motivates him, whyhe, why he wakes up in the
morning, it's building, justloves building things and it's,
it's both like literal andfigurative.
He loves building software.
He loves building teams,building relationships with
people and he builds literalbuildings.
(19:50):
It's actually in the process ofbuilding a building.
And he was talking a little bitabout when, well, when this is
done, the process of buildingwill be over and to the people
who live in the building.
He won't be someone who lovesbuilding, who's enamored with
that process, he'll be theirlandlord, right?
He transitions from this stateof being that he loves into
(20:12):
being a noun for however manypeople now kind of inhabit this
thing.
And that's just such a strangetransition, I think, to go from
Like the passion that, like thisreally fundamental thing that
drives you to create, toconstruct, to like put your life
(20:33):
in orbit around a process andthen to suddenly be done with it
and have a landing spot that isthis very fixed relationship
with a whole group of people.
And I, I think that's, that'ssomething that we all kind of.
Find ourselves in a little bit,like you can't be in a state of
(20:53):
being endlessly without actuallykind of creating things along
the way and creating sets ofrelationships that are fixed.
And, you know, this happens tome as an engineer quite a bit
too.
The difference betweenconceptualizing something,
building it, then completing itand providing service for it.
(21:13):
Those are really, reallydifferent.
Phases of an engagement and theyrequire you to be different
flavors of the same person,different facets of, of this
thing that begins to reflectlight differently as it, as it
progresses.
And so I, this is a very fragileconcept that I'm trying to hold
(21:36):
in my hands right now, but I,I'm really curious, kind of.
What the manifestations are ofthat state, and whether it's
ever really possible to directlycommunicate the verb part.
Or if what I'm getting at is,it's actually the nouns is
what's going out into the world,what people perceive.
(21:58):
And, you know, you have to Thelevel of, of deliberation that
goes behind what those nounsbecome as you're just doing your
things, right?
So,
AM (22:09):
so here's a rub.
Actually, before I say that, letme just say, you're describing
your activities.
So if, if, if I'm just sittingon a, you know, a piece of grass
in the middle of nowhere forthree hours, I'm still having,
I'm still verbing, right?
But, so now let me get back to,you know I, my experience is,
(22:30):
that is the case, that I cannotengage with you as noun, unless
I first engage with myself asnoun.
And that if I engage with myselfas verb, I'm very likely to
engage with you as verb.
And I think very few peopleengage with themselves as a
verb, they engage withthemselves as a noun that's
doing something.
Hmm.
Ben (22:49):
That's a good distinction.
Scott (22:51):
It reminds me of a realization that I've had
probably almost a decade ago.
I was in, you know, in theprocess of ending one
significant relationship andtrying to figure out what was
next for me in my life how tomove on with, Who I thought I
was at the time and somethingbecame evident that it was like,
you know, we always talk aboutrelationship as a relationship,
(23:14):
a thing, like a static thing.
It became like, well, how aboutjust relating?
Just continue relating.
I kind of hear it as what you'resaying is like being, you're not
in relation to somebody else astwo fixed objects kind of
spinning around in the middle ofnowhere, but you're relating to
somebody and that's constantlychanging.
And then it's, it'sexponentially changing because
(23:34):
they're changing too.
And how do you sort of findyourself?
So I identified as, you know, Acaretaker after that, you know,
started becoming a caretaker forpeople that I loved.
And it was also reframed for me.
It's like, no, no, you're acaregiver.
You're not taking anything.
You're giving what you have theability to give and you're
(23:57):
relating to who they are in thatmoment.
And it was like these twoconcepts kind of congealed in
front of me.
Like it was like a.
It was like a ball of light orsomething.
It was weird.
And I was like, oh yeah,relating.
Relating is a verb.
It's, you know, I want to relatewith this person.
AM (24:12):
Hmm.
Yeah.
So, so, just, just, in myphilosophy nouns can't be in a
state of relationship.
Fundamentally, nouns can't be ina state of relationship at all.
They can only be in a state oftransaction.
And it looks like relationshipmost relationships there, but
yeah, but they're actually,yeah, because they're, they're
two, there's a husband and awife and I'm in a relationship.
(24:33):
Nope, if that's your sense,you're transacting and it could
be very healthy transactions,really meaningful, healthy
transfer, but it's transaction.
In the way I can't really be inrelationship with table as
table.
I can only transact with it andput things on it, take things
off of it, et cetera.
Right.
But if I engage, if Iacknowledge that this is
fundamentally a verb, or let me,let me, I keep using table, you
(24:56):
know, I got a plant in front ofme, right?
As a plant, as a noun, I canonly transact with it.
I can appreciate it.
I can smell it.
I can water it.
I can do things, but if Iacknowledge it as just process.
Then part of what emerges inthat is the understanding that
(25:17):
without doing anything, the verbthat is the plant and the verb
that is me are currentlyexchanging gases.
We're exchanging physicalproperties with each other is
taking in my carbon monoxide.
It is releasing oxygen that I'mtaking in without any action.
I'm not doing anything, but weare both verbs that are
(25:39):
interlinked.
And the whole thing is a verb
Ben (25:42):
that's interlinked.
To go to your example of, ofsitting in the grass for three
hours, that, that to me is soclearly, that's, that's your
state of, of verbing, of being.
But as soon as I see you,there's, there's a noun
introduced.
Yes.
And that's, that's the thingthat I, I haven't figured out in
(26:03):
this, this equation is.
How do you present yourself assomeone who wants to be in a
verbing relationship with me,who has now observed you as a
noun?
What do you do?
So if I've observed you and I'vemade an inference.
Hey, as a person sitting in thegrass, they're relaxing, they
(26:24):
look like they're having amoment to themselves.
This is now a picture that I canhold in my hand of the noun that
I've encountered.
So, what if you get up and youdo a backflip, right?
You do something that breaks,that shatters that noun, does it
shift to another noun?
It's just, it's a more eccentricnoun.
Okay.
We've drawn, we've taken thatcircle and we drew another
(26:44):
circle around it.
You know, I, I find myself in,and I think about this in terms
of like professionalinteractions because I, I, I
found myself in conversationwith people where.
It moves very fluidly toacknowledging each other as a
verb, and you can kind of senseit when you've gone from your,
(27:08):
your positions, your relativekind of definitions, either in
that professional environment orsocietally, and suddenly you're
coming together and you'rehaving a real interaction as two
things that are in motiontogether and relative to one
another.
What's the, what's the signalFor that?
AM (27:25):
You know what it looks like, Ben?
It's flirtation.
Now we hear that wordautomatically.
The only place people use that,you know, flirtation is in a
sexual context, but actually allof nature is flirtation.
All right.
It is this just kind ofinteraction that is, is that is
simultaneously inviting.
(27:47):
And pushing it is simultaneouslyplayful and yet serious is, you
know, everything is veiled andyet revealed, right?
It's a way of engaging.
And so the, the gross things of,you know, I do a backflip.
Yeah.
It's just, you're shifting fromone category to another, one
noun to another, right?
It's not about behavior.
(28:08):
It's not about you do somethingdifferent.
You put on a different hat andnow you're, you know, you put on
a different hat and now you'redifferent now.
Right?
Yeah.
But it's, it's the interaction.
It's how you approach me in thegrass, right?
It's how I approach and it isflirtatious.
The, the, the, the Sufis aregreat to read on this.
The su, the Sufi poets is, it'sall about flirtation with the
universe.
(28:29):
It's not sexual, but if you readeven their, their, their
conversation about God, right?
It's like this, it, and theyused literally the metaphor of
of of, of courting.
You're a lover, right?
And they're talking about God.
And, and so, that's what itlooks like for me, is, is, you
know, when people are engaged inverbing, it's a flirtatnon
sexual.
It's not about that, right?
(28:51):
But it's a flirtation.
It's a lightness, and yet aseriousness.
It's a playfulness, and yet aconsequentiality, right?
It's, it's, it's not dealingwith the transactions of the
nouns.
It's spinning.
It's like when musicians arejust kind of, you know You know,
when they're playing a song andyou know, when they're noodling
and just kind of, I don't know,what are you doing?
(29:12):
It's just, you know, you're justkind of noodling.
You're not playing a song.
You're just, you know, And, andwhen you can do that, what's
that?
I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not amusician.
You two are.
So I'm saying somethingabstractly that you two have a
direct relationship to, right?
But you know, when you're with amusician who you can just kind
of, it's just, you musically areflirting.
Like, you know, that's, that'sthe kind of thing I'm pointing
(29:32):
to.
But, but, but do you, do youjust see what I'm saying?
Like, like as, as, as players orwhen you're with somebody that's
like, I'm playing a song.
There are people you can playsongs with and the songs can be
great.
Yeah.
But you're playing a song andthen there are people who you
just kind of like, you know, andthe thing is spiritually sexy
and it's engaging and thereisn't anything fixed and it goes
(29:52):
somewhere.
That's what I'm pointing to.
Scott (29:55):
I remember reading this book, kind of transformational
book.
When I was, I just kind of, youknow, on the free card at the
library and just kind of grabbedit and stuff.
It was called Powers of Mind,and it was about all these
different ways that Westerncultures use, use yogic
practices, but other things,sports and all these different
modalities And one point I thinkit was in the, in the, towards
the end of the book.
(30:16):
The author talks about going tosee Indian classical performance
and everybody sits down, lightsgo down and stuff, and then they
proceed to just noodle for 30minutes.
You know, at least 30 minutes.
And he's looking at the peoplehe's with, he's like, well,
what's going on?
You know, I don't understandwhat's happening right here.
Oh, they're tuning.
They take 30 minutes.
(30:38):
Everybody just kind of Gets intune with our instrument and
then in tune with each other.
Yeah, and then somebody justsays, okay And then they start
the raga and it goes and it'scompletely perfectly latched up
and it's like well you need that30 minutes But you know in
Western view you do that behindthe curtain before it opens not
(30:58):
when the curtains open andpeople are there watching I
guess it was important to kindof experience that That coming
together to really get thecrescendo of the first note of
the raga.
Ben (31:10):
I like have to stop you and make us dwell on the idea of
tuning being not just tuningyour instrument, but tuning to
the other musicians in the room.
Tuning to the space.
Tuning to yourself.
I mean, that's like, therecouldn't be any better than
(31:33):
that.
That is exactly what it shouldbe.
And that's, I mean, I thinkthere are musicians, you know,
to your point where you canbecome attuned to one another
very quickly and enter into thatspace, but allowing any amount
of time to say, no, this is aprerequisite for us to do this
thing we're about to do.
And if we don't get there.
(31:55):
Maybe we don't do it at all.
Maybe this 30 minutes becomes itand we get up and walk away and
say, not today, folks, you know,the instruments are in tune, but
we are not.
And like that, that's thegreatest thing I've heard all
week.
And it's so, it's like, it's sophenomenally true.
I mean, when I was I wentthrough years where I was a
(32:16):
serious orchestral musician.
And then years where I was not,I was not doing any of it.
And there's this, you know,rigidity to classical music
performance that at variouspoints kind of turned me off,
but I began really missing theexperience of playing with an
orchestra because if you can doit, and this is like one in a
(32:38):
million where you get 60 peoplecompletely attuned to one
another, making music in thesame way.
With the same mindset at thesame time, it's this, it's
phenomenal.
I mean, it feel, it could fillany space.
You could fill a stadium.
You know, I'd love to seeclassical music performances at
(32:58):
like Foxborough stadium.
Let's do it.
Because it could really, itamplifies the energy like that.
And it can happen with one otherperson and it can happen alone.
But that, that idea of beingattuned, I think this, it cuts
straight.
To the conversation that we'rehaving is it's, if the way
that's the way that two peoplein a state of verbing actually
(33:21):
relate is being attuned.
AM (33:23):
Yep.
Yeah.
And they're, and you'reconstantly right.
Sound is great.
It's waves.
There's nothing there.
It's all waves.
And you're constantly tomatching the waves up
Scott (33:33):
In that sense.
The table is vibration and wavestoo.
AM (33:36):
And that's what I'm saying is like, it's, it's, it's all
verb.
Everything is verb interacting,you know?
And, and so that, that, when Isay I'm amming, that's what I
mean.
Like I'm a piece of music andI'm just listening to other
pieces of music being played,right.
Versus most folks think ofthemselves as sheet music.
(33:56):
Yeah.
Here's my music.
Yeah.
As opposed to acknowledging thatthey're actually playing music.
Ben (34:02):
God, I want to, I want to institutionalize this in a way,
but institutionalizing it iscompletely against the spirit of
it at all.
So I'm going to, I'm going tostifle that impulse.
But I mean, just imagine ifthere were a period of, of
tuning to the other peoplearound you before you embarked
on anything serious.
So
AM (34:21):
I, you know.
So much of the design of thisplace is covert because nobody
wants to hear my shit other thanme like Kyley.
Kyley is the only one gottolerance for it and actually
loves it and he's one of the,you know, every single day.
Do you know how we start withthe students?
We do something called huddle.
It looks like a, just a, like aprocess.
We ask What do you want us toknow what are your barriers
(34:41):
today?
What are your successes?
On one level, they're justquestions.
Right.
But it's tuning.
We're just getting everybody tokind of just kind of presence.
This is the music I am today.
And when it's hit sometimes, wetalked about this in the, in the
last group thing we did just,you know yesterday, I was
saying, you know, we do thehuddle and you could just be
(35:02):
reading a script and justchecking off the questions.
If you did, you missed it,right?
You have to actually be livingthat question in that moment.
And all that's doing is invitingeverybody to tune.
And so there are practices youcan put in place, but they
require that the person, atleast one person in the space,
is verbing.
So that the tuning can happen.
(35:23):
And then you invite others in.
Scott (35:24):
I feel like my experience with the huddle, you know, since
I started attending them lastyear, you can always tell, you
know.
Like, who might be ready forsome support or engagement by
the lack of participation in thehuddle.
Like, the more participatory alot of folks are, they realize,
like, okay, they're going to beall right because they have a
system where they feelcomfortable in expressing
(35:47):
themselves.
Sometimes it's like, all right,pay a little bit more attention
over here and let's get to the,you know, get to a good place so
some other stuff can happen.
Yeah, that's kind of, kind of,you could tell.
You can tell when it's nothappening.
I had met an author a few yearsago who was writing a book on
non verbal communication.
(36:07):
And she asked me, like, as amusician, you know, what is it
like when you have that nonverbal communication with the
people that you're performingwith?
And I was like I don't reallyknow.
I only know when it's not there.
I don't know when it's there,but I know definitely when it's
not there.
And she looked at me like, what?
Like, how does that make sense?
So I was like, yeah, it's theabsence of it.
(36:28):
That really is the, the, theflair that gets shot up in front
of you.
Yeah.
AM (36:33):
It's actually really simple.
You can know nothing aboutmusic.
And you'll, you'll, you'll, Imean, unless you have like, you
know, a tin ear or something,you'll know when an instrument's
out of tune.
You won't know how it's out oftune.
But somebody strums a guitar,and you can know nothing about
music, and you'll say, Oh, thatdoesn't sound good.
That same kind of awareness canbe brought to human beings.
(36:54):
Right.
And in the huddle, what Scott'spointing to is you can just see,
Oh, she's out of tune.
Let's, let's, let's, let's spendfocus time here and a tune, not
fix anything, not get themsomewhere.
Just get the instrument tuned.
Just get them back into.
Active verb, and then they'regoing to do whatever they're
going to do
Scott (37:13):
over the, over time, they become almost microtonal
themselves, you know, they'reable to do in between pitches
between what you would thinkwould be in tune and it's
perfectly harmonious.
AM (37:23):
Yep.
Yep.
That's it.
That's it.
And when people get comfortableengaging that way, Ben, and
it's, it's been the secret of,of the work for 30 years and
MAOL and here and client sitesand you don't have to talk to
them about any of this stuff.
Because it's all headyphilosophical bullshit, you
know, when you, when you, youknow, for most people, and
rightfully so.
(37:43):
But if you can create theseenvironments to, again, to
Scott's point, they justunderstand how to tune the
instrument.
Same thing like with a guitar.
If you keep just bringingsomebody back every time the
thing's out of tune, just tokind of turn the key a little
bit for them, over time, theydon't know the theory.
They don't know any of it.
But they'll hear.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, right and they'll justlearn how to tune the instrument
that way so they'll learn to howto tune their own instrument
(38:05):
without any of the language andthen that that brings them if
the instruments in tune theverbing gets more comfortable
You know, I think that might beanother phenomenon of why people
retreat to nouns is theirinstruments so out of tune You
know that the sheet music ismore comfortable
Ben (38:21):
Yeah, it tells you what note You're playing.
Yeah.
Even if you're not playing thenote.
That's right.
Right.
It has a time.
It has a space.
It has a slot.
Yep.
Yeah.
I think it's rare.
We get to an episode wherethere's something that qualifies
as actionable advice, but thisis touching on it in a way where
you, you said is, you know, theway to be verbing as a group to
be tuning is one person comes inand does it, this is a, it's a
(38:44):
form of leadership by examplethat doesn't require having an
agenda, a philosophy.
A result is purely showing up,being present and not slipping
back to the noun based approachbecause it feels like that's
what the person, people aroundyou are comfortable with or
(39:06):
understand.
Right.
It involves showing up and beingopen to that process and
allowing that there is a periodof tuning.
And I think like, this is it forme is that you don't, you, you
don't instantly make thatconnection.
And so if you show up and yousay, Hey, here I am, I want to
engage with you as you are, andthe other person isn't ready,
(39:28):
you don't immediately fall backto the kind of quick shortcut
symbols that we use to getthrough life expediently.
You accept that there's a periodof tuning.
And I love that you've baked itinto the school and I, I feel
like you know, I'm going to gorelabel a couple of meetings,
maybe tuning Monday morningtuning.
(39:49):
But that's, that really is it.
And I, it takes a a greatconfidence in that process to
show up again and again in thatmode.
And, you know, I was thinkingwhen you were talking about
relationships being in relationversus relationship During COVID
my wife and I missed going outto dinner, right?
(40:09):
So we, we set up a period andOur day and we set up a little
restaurant in our living roomand we call it the restaurant
and you know I would cook a nicemeal and you know put out like
Candles and placemats andeverything and that that's where
we would set aside the eyeobservation.
Yeah, exactly Yeah, we can seeyou at 630.
(40:30):
We'd set aside the notion ofthat's where we related as human
beings actively Both in thatstate of being completely open
to what the other person wasbringing to that, whether it was
good, bad or otherwise, it wasjust like, let's, let's have an
honest open moment where we'renot parents of children or
employees or, you know,caretakers of the home that
(40:54):
we're in, but just opening thefloor in a way.
And that was a really likefacile way to say like.
You don't even need to tune ifyou're in the restaurant, you
know, you're, you're just kindof there.
Maybe we're going to play out oftune for a little while.
That's fine.
You know, we'll just do that.
But that was kind of a shortcut.
That's a unique time and spacethat's created to kind of create
(41:17):
those, those conditions, butmaybe we can create more of
those.
I think that's what your huddlesare in a way, you know,
AM (41:25):
Yeah, and I, I, I mean, I would, I would go further Ben
and say, I think we can createthose things as we're walking
around in casual transactions.
I think, I think you can, youcan, you can tune with the
barista, you know,
Ben (41:42):
where, where's the line between that and.
The people who think they'retuning, but they really just
kind of like say something cornyand wink and wink and it's like,
ah, I just related to you.
How about that?
Yeah.
You know, like, see that, that'swhat gets to me is that there's
a really, it's really trickybetween really, really showing
up for someone and, and doingthe noun version of it.
AM (42:05):
Yeah.
There's a fine line between.
Brilliant.
And stupid.
What's the line from, from finaltime?
It's something like that.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
You can, you can go to workshopson how to do this shit, right?
Networking and, and, andinfluence and all this and
Ben (42:22):
hard pass.
AM (42:23):
Yeah, right.
But, but that's what's going onright there.
They're, they're, they're sortof quote unquote teaching you
this stuff, but it's reallyjust, hard transactions with a
velvet glove, like the feel.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's artificial.
It's go back to the music thing.
Like, it's like, you know, youknow what I mean?
Like, don't you know, when themusic's out of tune, people just
(42:44):
know, even if they don't know,they know, we just pay attention
to your body, you know.
Scott (42:49):
Yeah.
I've had a few of those gigs,yeah.
Yeah.
AM (42:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's just like, like,you know, when you're, when
you're out of tune in your body,even if you're not listening.
And then you also know whenyou're just playing canned
music, don't you?
Well, it's like, yeah, we hitall the notes.
Everybody's quote unquote,everybody's technically in tune.
The instruments are technicallyin tune.
We hit all the notes, all thesongs got played.
(43:13):
And absolutely nothinginteresting happened.
We just transacted really,really effectively.
It's fine.
Scott (43:18):
Yeah.
Sometimes that's what thesituation.
AM (43:20):
That's what the gig is.
Yeah.
Scott (43:22):
That's what Taylor Swift does.
AM (43:23):
Yup.
That's the gig.
Hey, listen, Taylor Swift is aworld class transaction.
Like it is the hot, I'm tellingyou, I've seen her live three
times.
It is hot.
You know, you, you miss, I don'tknow what it's going to be.
You got a seven month old.
So, you know, 12 years from now,who knows what the thing is
going to be.
Ben (43:37):
I'm going to see her under like a Rolling Stones era
retirement tour.
AM (43:42):
You won't have to go see Taylor.
It'll be like whatever versionof this is, you know, in 12
years.
But yeah, it's an incrediblyrigorous transaction.
Everything is in technical tune,but there's no attunement, you
know?
It's, it's, you know, I know I'mbiased, but it's, it's one of
the things about the dead thatwas fabulous.
You know, sometimes it was outof technical tune
Ben (44:02):
most of the time.
AM (44:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and yet.
when it worked, it was like theentire fucking cosmos was there
just dancing in the thing.
Because it was all inattunement.
Scott (44:14):
Yeah, it was like a conduit.
AM (44:16):
Yeah.
That, that, that's what peopledon't get, you know?
And, but you can get this in awhole bunch of places, you know?
It's what religious experienceis about.
I think it's certainly whatShamonic experience is about.
It's, it's, it's a, it's oneportal into the attunement of
the entire thing.
And it all just kind of makessense, that makes sense like
logically, it all just, it'sharmonic.
The whole thing just becomeslike, you know, just
(44:38):
harmonically balanced.
And so we know these things, youknow, it doesn't take a
superhuman or even anenlightened level of awareness
to get.
When it's, you know, technicallyin tune, but not attuned, and
when it is attuned, you know,with the barista or with our
teammates at work or with ourspouse.
Ben (44:58):
I've been watching a lot of documentary films lately, and
there were sort of two that I'veseen recently.
That felt equally attuned totheir environments and exactly
this way with radicallydifferent approaches to it.
And that, to me, it reallyemphasizes sort of the, like,
there's no right answer to theapproach.
(45:20):
There's only a right answer tothe thing done well, and you
know, I don't, you guys are bothmovie nerds, so maybe you've
seen these, but it was thestore, which is a Frederick
Wiseman documentary.
It's a movie about Christmastimeat a high end department store
in Dallas, Texas in the early80s.
And there's no interviews,there's no spoken word
(45:44):
monologue, it's just like cinemaverite style filmed people in
the store buying goods, meetingsbehind closed doors.
The other is the documentarySherman's March, which is
supposedly A filmmaker set outto make a documentary about
Sherman's march through theSouth and ended up making a
(46:04):
movie that is deeply personalabout his relationships with
these women he met when he wentback home while his parents were
trying to set him up with, youknow, a nice Southern girl to
settle down with.
And that's him setting up thecamera late at night with a
glass of bourbon, talkingdirectly into the camera and
kind of contemplating his futureand his relationships.
(46:25):
They couldn't be.
More dramatically opposed interms of the style of
documentary filmmaking andsomehow the confessional one
doesn't come off as corny andthe one that is just showing
people shopping is Completelyengaging not boring at all
incredibly human and rich andthey both they both get it
exactly the same thingcompletely different approaches
(46:49):
and That's sort of it.
Like there's no there's no rightway to do this but both of these
filmmakers are sort ofParticipating in exactly the way
that we've described they're notworried about the artifice or
like the artifact that comesout.
It's very much engaged with theprocess.
AM (47:08):
And, you know, we can't, we can't have a conversation
without me bashing the societyat least three times.
And so you should take that lastpart of what you said.
Our whole emphasis is on theartifice.
Ben (47:19):
You'd love this store, by the way,
AM (47:21):
people shopping, I don't know, but I'll let you swing.
Ben (47:26):
Trust me.
Yeah.
You know, it's one of those loveto hate things.
Okay.
AM (47:29):
But this is the whole emphasis of society's artifact.
It's output.
It's, it's, you know, whatresulted from, right?
Even, even marriages, whatresulted from, right?
Whether it's, it's, it's, it'sthe kids or the collective
success or the like, even there,that's like just what resulted
from.
(47:50):
Transaction.
And so the emphasis on thesociety, you know, among so many
other ills is it invites us outof any awareness of attunement.
It only invites us into sheetmusic that gets to the crescendo
and move on to the next song.
Ben (48:08):
Boy, you know, I think when we started having these
conversations.
You framed it a little bit asoccasionally we're going to
drift out.
We're not going to stay on task.
We're going to, there's going tobe things that don't land, that
don't feel right, that arefragile ideas, have confidence
and have faith that they'regoing to come back around to
something.
I think this has been one of themost poignant examples of, there
(48:30):
was really an idea that you, youteed up that.
I, I couldn't quite, I couldn'tquite hold and, and I needed to
chase it for a few minutes andthen suddenly it just, boom,
like there it, there it, thereit was, right?
And the kind of clarity, youknow, there's, there's
something, there's somethingkind of meaningful in going
through that process, even ifthat's reflective of where the
(48:52):
conversation landed, which is,you know, allowing that to even
happen.
AM (48:57):
All this is, is this, this is Darkstar, right?
This is, this is like, this is aGrateful Dead jam.
It's like somebody throws out anidea, a musical idea, and if you
can actually play, it getssomewhere.
Sometimes it gets somewherereally interesting, sometimes it
doesn't, but, but this is, yeah,this is, this is the thing we,
we, we don't, it's not thatwe're not good at, we don't pay
(49:18):
attention to in the world.
You know, because there's notransactional certainty in this.
We could have just hit a deadend, which would have been okay.
Ben (49:26):
You mean I'm not getting paid?
AM (49:28):
Yeah, that's right.
But, but, but to set out with anagenda of, we're going to talk
about noun and verb and we'regoing to get to clarity about
like, we could have gottenthere.
It wouldn't have beeninteresting.
It wouldn't have been useful,not for me at least, you know.
It would have had transactionalvalue, and if there's legitimate
transactional value in it, cool.
But that's, you know, that's notthe juice.
Ben (49:50):
The action is the juice.
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