July 13, 2023 • 20 mins
We are witnessing new climate disasters every day, and it can be hard to wonder the point of creativity, of making anything, when the world around us is in such peril.
But art is how we process what is happening, digest it, and find new meaning in it.
Art is also how we dream of a better future. It's how we inspire each other to keep going. How we amplify a vision of living in community and respect for each other and our planet.
It takes real imagination to see the potential of humans to solve all of these problems we've created. It's much much easier to sink into despair.
So put your creativity to good use, and help change the stories we tell about who we are, and who we could be.
Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!
#CreatingIsHealing🦋
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, my friends.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Um, as usual, I'm terrified tohit record. Um, but I've been
thinking a lot about somethingthat I wanted to share that I
don't fully have an answer for,which is usually the scariest
things to be talking about. Um,but maybe that also means you
guys are grappling with thesame things. So the world is on
(00:24):
fire and or flooding. I feellike we're living in biblical
times. I don't know what recenttragedies have affected you ,
um, because they change day today and location and location,
but , um, in upstate New York,there was incredible flooding.
Uh, and in Vermont there wasincredible flooding just
recently. And I have family inVermont and I have friends who
(00:47):
live in upstate New York. Andso it hit close to home in a
way that other things hadn't.
In the same way that the wildflat , wild fire smoke coming
down from Canada into New YorkCity. I drove through that and
out to the film festival that Iattended in New Jersey in that
smog. And it looked like theapocalypse, like it just legit
(01:08):
looked like a , like a moviethat , um, oh, I'm blanking on
the name of the director whoalways makes apocalypse movies
, uh, and makes them look soepic and amazing. I , I just,
you know, it's, I joke a lot.
These are end times. Um, Idon't actually believe that,
but it is really scary to seewhat we have known was coming
for a long time is actuallyhappening and how quickly it's
(01:29):
happening and how unprepared weare for it in so many ways. And
that things like the flooding.
I had a friend who said that,you know, a town over where it
really hit hard, it looked likea tornado had come through. And
this was just based on heavyrains. This wasn't, we were
comparing it to HurricaneSandy, which hit New York City
in 2012, but that was ahurricane and we knew it was
(01:51):
coming and it was stillincredibly devastating. But
this seems to be happeningfaster and faster. Anyway, I am
sure you're well aware of this.
Um, and I'm not here to , uh,scare everybody cuz I think
that's already in the air, butI'm, the thing I grapple with
the most is what the hell arewe doing as artists when the
world is on fire? Right? And,oh, I have so many thoughts
(02:16):
about this. Um, I, I think it'sa really interesting question
because there's a way in whichI use that fear against myself.
I use that. So we talk a lotabout how the brain's sole
purpose in life is to keep yousafe. How being vulnerable,
sharing something, sharing yourart, expressing yourself,
(02:38):
vulnerability, even if it'semotional and not physical,
feels like dying. So it feelsincredibly unsafe. So your
job's brain is to tell you donot do that. It's a terrible
idea. One of the shortcutsdoing that is your brain , um,
uh, it's very smart and itlearns the ones that shut you
down fastest and easiest forme. One of them is money. When
(02:59):
I start thinking about how Imight not ever make money or I
can't secure income, or I don'tknow where the money's gonna
come from, I just shut down. Itjust freaks me out when I think
about how the world is endingand I should be out there on
the front line , saving theplanet, that also shuts me
down. And it's a way in whichmy brain gets me spinning in
circles. And then, and thenthere's no room for art to
breathe because I'm just busypanicking and feeling hopeless
(03:21):
and powerless. I'm like, I'mnot doing enough. And so I
wanna call out that , um, notto say these things aren't
happening and don't requireserious attention, but that
they can also be hijacked bythe brain as a way to say, this
art thing is a dumb, dumb, dumbidea. We should just panic
about the world and just dothat. So, I, I, for me, I wanna
be aware that it's a bit of aboogeyman. It's one of the
(03:43):
things that , um, my brainknows is a very expedient way
to get me to not pursuesomething that matters to me.
So that's one. Two is, if I didquit being an artist, a I would
just, like, I can't quit. It'sjust not a thing that you quit
. I can't quit wanting to makemusic or wanting to draw and
(04:04):
doodle or wanting to tellstories. It's just not a thing.
Like I have tried quitting,legitimately, spent most of my
twenties quitting, actingrepeatedly, and it never stuck.
So I don't think I could quit.
But let's say , um, I, youknow, felt this deep need,
which I do to save the world,which I do co-dependent no
more. We need a book on notsaving the world. Um, and or
(04:27):
co-dependent evermore is reallywhere I'm at still, but I feel
the thing to save the world.
And so it used to be, you know,this is such a terrible phrase
now, but go to Africa and savethe starving children, right?
Like certainly in the nineties,this was this thing of, of ,
um, western countries sendingmoney and raising money for,
there was , um, and there'sstill are, but there was a lot
of famine , um, in differentcountries in Africa . And it
(04:50):
felt like that was the place togo, that there was a lot of
suffering to go to. Um,recognizing now in hindsight,
there's a real colonialist ideaof like white savior going and
fixing. So I'm , I'm gonnaacknowledge that and move on.
But definitely it's alwaysfilled this sense with me of
like, what is the thing that Ican do to help people? One of
the reasons I have thispodcast, one of the reasons I'm
a life coach also, this is thestuff that matters to me. And
(05:14):
compared to that, again, theboogeyman, but my brain kind of
goes, what's the point ofeverything else? And so let's
say I did drop acting and went,I don't even know where the
front lines are, honestly. I amnot an engineer. I do not know
how to solve those kind . I'mvery smart at many things, but
I do not understandengineering. I also cannot keep
(05:35):
a plan alive. I'm lookingaround cause I'm actually my
sister's apartment and she leftme in charge for two weeks and
I think the plants have alreadydied. Like, I don't know what
is wrong with me. I'm gonna tryto take a class, but it's bad.
And I think a lot about howlike I don't have skills to
grow things and I don't haveskills to kill things and feed
myself. And , um, so I don'tknow what I would do. What I do
(05:55):
know I would do is make surethat I'm, I'm , uh, keeping
pressure on elected officials,you know, making sure that
we're really looking at whatpolicies might help better.
We're really looking at , um,where the conversation's going
in terms of what we can do forthe planet. And also just
honestly investing in hope.
Looking around at, I'm inToronto and I'm in downtown and
there's these incrediblehigh-rises all around me. And I
(06:18):
keep looking around andthinking we built those like,
not me, not an engineer, noidea how this went up in the
sky, but I'm like 15 flightsup, which is terrifying when I
sit in the patio cause I'mconvinced I'm gonna fall off,
but I'm not because somebodybuilt this and they built it
well. And I look around and Ithink at the magnitude of what
we've been able to create, andI think we can solve this
problem, we haven't wanted to,it hasn't felt urgent. It
(06:41):
hasn't had political pressureor economic pressure to do it.
I think those wins areshifting, which is really,
really what's giving me hope.
But we are like brilliant atsolving problems. So I, and
I've had to work on this reallyhard. I again spent my twenties
and thirties just beingconvinced, you know, everything
was gonna go up in flames , uh,and or water. Like that was
(07:03):
just my, people would ask mewhy I was afraid all the time.
I was like, I'm just sure thatlike the world is gonna end.
And then the world actuallystarted ending and it was less
terrifying, weirdly. A it feltlike when the pandemic hit,
everybody caught up to myanxiety. Like suddenly
everybody was afraid to gooutside and thought the
world was ending . And I waslike, oh, I've been here the
whole time. Welcome to theparty. Um, but also it just
felt more concrete in a waythat , um, just imagining and
(07:26):
not knowing how everything wasgonna go bad versus actually
seeing the floods happen versusactually seeing all tar ,
terrible, terrifying things.
But for some reason it feelsmore concrete and it feels more
like everybody's in this tryingto figure out, oh, this is here
now and there's stuff we needto do. So , um, I think, I
think I went from a place offeeling incredible fear and
(07:48):
panic and hopelessness. And Iwork on investing in myself and
in my brain into my thinking tolook around and see hope to
read the articles that show howmuch has already been done,
innovation wise , to figure outthe carbon issue, to figure
out, you know, how to changeour , um, fossil fuel reliance
to change , uh, our waterissues. Like there's so much
(08:10):
thought and brilliance is goinginto these things already that
we're not even hearing about.
So I practice imagining withthis great artist imagination
that there are even more thingsthat I'm not hearing about,
that people are discovering orthat people are being born now
that we'll discover. And like,and I'm not saying that in a
pie in the sky kind of way. I'msaying that we all need to know
ourselves best and know whatamount of hope and what amount
(08:33):
of fear keeps us motivated. Andfor some people dreading
something like the absolutepanic gets them moving for me,
it will shut me down and sendme to bed . So I know that's
not good for me. I know thatjust looking at the news and
all the headlines is not goodfor me. I will just think the
whole of humanity is not worthit and we're just gonna all
kill each other. Like it'sjust, there's a , in this
(08:54):
building, there's the news justkind of going all the time when
you wait for the elevators. AndI have to train myself not to
look at the news cuz literallyit is these people were hit by
a car. These people were hitby, these people were gunned
down, these people were in thehospital cuz something else had
like, every single news item ishow somebody died. And I'm
aware that a, the human braincannot handle that much
information and be like, thatis not the whole story. That is
(09:16):
the stuff that scares people,that gets them to watch the
news. And I do not to be scaredmore about the world, I do it
all myself. So the news is notgood for me. But reading long
form articles about theinnovations about people who
are thinking about thesethings, reading about people
coming together, solvingproblems, looking for the
silver lining look , not thesilver lining, but looking for
the hope, the places of hope iswhat keeps me motivated and
(09:39):
moving forward. So investing inhow I think about the future
has been really, reallyimportant to me. And the third
thing is that I think about howthere are so many different
pieces to change that being anactivist on the street, you
(10:03):
know, someone who goes to asenator's house or goes to
Congress and stands in amillion person march. I, I
can't imagine doing that. Ihope someday I'm healthy enough
that that doesn't freak me out.
But like I have so many thingsI have to be careful of in
terms of food access and interms of like overheating, in
terms of people being close,claustrophobic, there's just
(10:24):
like so much anxiety involvedin that, that that actually
would not be good for me andtherefore not be good for
anybody else around me, for meto do that. So I feel a lot of
guilt for not being a personwho signs up to go and do those
kinds of things. I have afriend in Brooklyn who does
this stuff and it's incredibleand it's so energizing to her
and I love hearing about it.
And I'm just in awe of herability to stand up and put her
(10:44):
body on the line for thingsthat she cares about. But there
are other things that we cando. Some of them are phone
banking or phone texting. Someof them are writing letters and
some of them too are aboutstorytelling are about
changing. Minds are aboutthinking about how the need,
the the ways in which we tellstories, right? Going back to
(11:05):
hope, but also going back to dowe tell stories that bring
people together? Do we tellstories that highlight our
intelligence and our problemsolving? Do we tell stories
that highlight our need foreach other and need to solve
things together rather than,than invest in division and
hate? Um, because division andhate sell too, they sell
really, really well. They'revery good for capitalism. Um,
(11:29):
and when we're scared we buymore. And when we hate, it's
easy to blame somebody else andtherefore not have to invest in
a solution. And those are veryeasy scapegoats, but they're
politically really powerful. Soit actually takes more effort
to tell stories that are abouthope and the future and
building the future that wewant. And you have to invest in
that work. And that's whatartists do, right? They, they
(11:50):
take all the possibilities thata world could be and they take
all the possibilities that theworld is now, and they think
about what that future couldbe. And so there's this really
important function in beingsomeone who creates both in the
sense of you are processing thethings that are happening right
now, right? Creation is abouttaking all that is around you,
(12:11):
digesting it, mulling it over,and then, and then giving it
new form, new shape. Andwhether that's painting or
writing a story or acting orsomething, it is taking the
experiences you've had, takingwhat you know of the world,
rejiggering it in some way thatmakes sense to you, putting
your point of view on it and,and, and re offering it to the
world. And for a lot of peoplewho their brains don't work
(12:35):
this way, it is a gift to themto have something like, I feel
this way when I read long formarticles, especially about
either climate change orsomething I don't understand or
like legal, like supreme courtstuff. And I'm like, I don't
understand what this means andsomeone will explain it in a
way that I understand that is agift to me. That they made
sense of something. And I feellike that's what artists do.
They make , they make a gift ofsomething that's really hard.
(12:57):
And really, whether it's bigemotions or big things that are
happening or how we relate toeach other, and you, you return
that in a way that has beenmashed up and spit back out. It
sounds like a terrible,terrible thing. But I think of
that like people need helpdigesting the world around them
and digesting stories anddigesting the news. And so if
you're able to digest somethingand return it in a way that
(13:18):
makes it more edible for them,sorry, the girl's
metaphor, but the good way ofthinking about it is the mama ,
uh, what is it? The birds willlike chew up food and like feed
their babies. I don't mean tobe patronizing cause I don't
think we are in that way toaudience members, but I do
think there are a lot of peoplewho don't. Um , which is all my
brain does all day long isprocess the world and think
about it deeply. Like I couldnot stop myself if I tried. I
(13:40):
have tried, it doesn't work.
And other people arelegitimately like , oh, I never
thought about that. And I'mlike, that's all I do is think
about this, right? So I'malways surprised that other
people don't spend as much timeand that's amazing for them and
that sounds really freeing andway easier of a world. But
they're also really gratefulthat my brain, the wor way
works the way that it does. SoI wanna offer that as like your
(14:01):
processing of the world andalso your imagining of what the
world could be, thestorytelling you make about
where we're headed and where wecould be headed and the future
you envision and, and you know,a more just , um, kind world.
Not that it's, it means writingall fairy tales where
everything always works out,but, but there is a way in
which we can shape the storiesthat we tell and we can shape
(14:22):
how people navigate being ahuman, which is the hardest
thing of all, right? And thatwill never change. It'll always
be hard to human. It just will.
It is, it is what we signed upfor and we all need help
figuring out , um, how to walkthat path. And so giving people
options and possibility on howto walk that path is a gift.
And so I wanna come back tothis idea that both in your
(14:45):
processing of the world as itis the output, the creation of
that is helpful to the world.
And also the stories that youtell, the content that you
create, the ways in which youthink about anything helps
people figure out how to lay afoundation for where they're
headed. So it's reallyimportant stuff. And I think
for me, you know, I have this,again, I think it's very much a
(15:08):
boogeyman where like there's mybrain just wants to go into
lizard brain. It wants to go tovery simple black or white.
You're an actor, you're notsaving the world, therefore
this is pointless, right?
Versus I'm an actor and I'malso an activist and I'm also a
writer and I'm also doing x, y, z to figure out how we can
change how the world is. And myacting is also a narrative
(15:28):
shift. It's talking aboutdifferent ways of being in
humanity and community, whetherthat's a cop show or, you know
, um, a story about the future.
It doesn't have to be justlike, here's the utopia that
I'm writing about. Every storywe tell has all of these
threads and it can be the mostentertaining story. And in it,
I mean Ted Lasso is a perfectexample of this. Ted Lasso blew
(15:52):
up in the first year of theplague I think. And uh, it's
about soccer, football aseveryone but the US calls it.
And it's a very male basedshow. And yet it is incredibly
feminist in all of these littlebrilliant ways. And it ends up
being about trauma, aboutrelationships with men, about
relationships with fathers. Itends up being about therapy. So
(16:15):
many people saw that show andstarted considering going to
mental health professionalsthat never had before. That was
a huge culture shift. That wasa huge gift at just the right
time. People really wereexperiencing mental health,
maybe had never before andneeded it, right? So I'm not
saying it has to be, this was ashow about football and it had
all these incredible themesand, and moments in it that
were just threaded throughout.
(16:38):
Um, that then helped so manypeople find peace and, and
resources and ways to human togo forward. And those people
are gonna be more resourced inorder to help face bigger
problems and in order to helpsolve bigger problems. So
everything , um, everythingripples out there ripple
effects to all of this work.
(16:59):
And the last thing I'll say,because , um, I've also thought
about this, that There's,there's a book that I've read
that I absolutely think isbrilliant called Station 11 ,
um, by this Canadian author.
And uh , it was made into an HB O series in year two of the
plague. I did not watch theseries cuz it came out during
the plague. And the wholepremise of the book is that a
(17:20):
plague wipes out 95% of thepopulation. It's the start of
the book, but the book ends upbeing about 15 years after the
plague wipes out so many peopleand how it follows a traveling
troop of Shakespearean actorswho are going from settlement
to settlement of who isleftover in the population and
the population are rebuildingand performing Shakespeare's
(17:40):
place . And to me it reads somuch about how theater will
always endure in the most direof places theater. The need to
tell stories and need to actthem out will always happen.
And there's this otherbrilliant example. I'd seen
this play in New York Cityprobably 10 years ago. Um, ugh
, one of the great joys of NewYork City theater. It was not,
(18:00):
it was an off-Broadway theaterhouse. So not a big splashy
like Broadway kind of Disneypiece, but this really
incredible , um, I have to lookup the name of it. But anyway,
the premise of it was, itstarts off and they're this
group of people around acampfire campfire and they are
retelling the story of a , um,oh my goodness, I'm gonna
(18:22):
forget of a Simpsons cartoonepisode that they saw 10 years
ago before the world ended. Andthat is what they do sitting
around the campfire night. Andthe whole thing then goes into,
you know, how they survive intheir community. But it keeps
coming back to this is theirmain activity. They sit around
the campfire and they retellthe story of a Simpsons
(18:43):
episode. And that's where alsoI just think this, the human
spirit will always need. Youknow, we will always draw on
caves. We will always dance forthe gods. We will always adorn
ourselves in order to havecommunity. It is, it is in our
fabric. It is how we processbeing alive. It is how we
connect to our divinity. It ishow we connect to each other
(19:04):
and create community. And so itwill never be, it will never be
divided from the experience ofgoing through a world even as
it's burning, even as asflooding, even as all of these
hardships come at us and willcontinue to come at us. It is a
place of resourcing to create.
It is a place of resourcing toreceive creations. I've really
(19:25):
been enjoying curling up with agood book lately. Like I've
forgotten how good company abook is, right? Like these are
the things that help, theyresource me. I feel grounded, I
feel quiet. I feel calm when Iread. And that is a gift to me.
So I again, don't feel like Ihave an answer because I know
that I'm still fighting with myown boogeyman of the world is
(19:46):
on fire. What is the point ofanything else? But that's a lot
of also my anxiety braintalking and my depression brain
talking and my overwhelmedbrain. And so I wanted to come
here in full transparency ofthe work I'm doing for myself,
which is to really train myselfto , um, see the reasons why
the work that I do matters. AndI hope that message reaches you
(20:10):
today because whether it's justcreating for yourself, sitting
with a guitar or writing poetrythat no one will ever read ,
um, or it's creating somethingthat you wanna show your family
or people in a gallery, youknow, artwork or something like
that. It, it all matters cuz itresources you, it resources the
people that you share it withand it, those have ripple
(20:32):
effects. Being more resourcedperson in the world has ripple
effects. Having a family that'smore resourced has ripple
effects. Having a communitythat's more resourced has
ripple effects. And so all ofthat is a gift to this world.
Thank you for joining me thisweek. I really appreciate you.
Hi, my friends.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Um, as usual, I'm terrified tohit record. Um, but I've been
thinking a lot about somethingthat I wanted to share that I
don't fully have an answer for,which is usually the scariest
things to be talking about. Um,but maybe that also means you
guys are grappling with thesame things. So the world is on
(00:24):
fire and or flooding. I feellike we're living in biblical
times. I don't know what recenttragedies have affected you ,
um, because they change day today and location and location,
but , um, in upstate New York,there was incredible flooding.
Uh, and in Vermont there wasincredible flooding just
recently. And I have family inVermont and I have friends who
(00:47):
live in upstate New York. Andso it hit close to home in a
way that other things hadn't.
In the same way that the wildflat , wild fire smoke coming
down from Canada into New YorkCity. I drove through that and
out to the film festival that Iattended in New Jersey in that
smog. And it looked like theapocalypse, like it just legit
(01:08):
looked like a , like a moviethat , um, oh, I'm blanking on
the name of the director whoalways makes apocalypse movies
, uh, and makes them look soepic and amazing. I , I just,
you know, it's, I joke a lot.
These are end times. Um, Idon't actually believe that,
but it is really scary to seewhat we have known was coming
for a long time is actuallyhappening and how quickly it's
(01:29):
happening and how unprepared weare for it in so many ways. And
that things like the flooding.
I had a friend who said that,you know, a town over where it
really hit hard, it looked likea tornado had come through. And
this was just based on heavyrains. This wasn't, we were
comparing it to HurricaneSandy, which hit New York City
in 2012, but that was ahurricane and we knew it was
(01:51):
coming and it was stillincredibly devastating. But
this seems to be happeningfaster and faster. Anyway, I am
sure you're well aware of this.
Um, and I'm not here to , uh,scare everybody cuz I think
that's already in the air, butI'm, the thing I grapple with
the most is what the hell arewe doing as artists when the
world is on fire? Right? And,oh, I have so many thoughts
(02:16):
about this. Um, I, I think it'sa really interesting question
because there's a way in whichI use that fear against myself.
I use that. So we talk a lotabout how the brain's sole
purpose in life is to keep yousafe. How being vulnerable,
sharing something, sharing yourart, expressing yourself,
(02:38):
vulnerability, even if it'semotional and not physical,
feels like dying. So it feelsincredibly unsafe. So your
job's brain is to tell you donot do that. It's a terrible
idea. One of the shortcutsdoing that is your brain , um,
uh, it's very smart and itlearns the ones that shut you
down fastest and easiest forme. One of them is money. When
(02:59):
I start thinking about how Imight not ever make money or I
can't secure income, or I don'tknow where the money's gonna
come from, I just shut down. Itjust freaks me out when I think
about how the world is endingand I should be out there on
the front line , saving theplanet, that also shuts me
down. And it's a way in whichmy brain gets me spinning in
circles. And then, and thenthere's no room for art to
breathe because I'm just busypanicking and feeling hopeless
(03:21):
and powerless. I'm like, I'mnot doing enough. And so I
wanna call out that , um, notto say these things aren't
happening and don't requireserious attention, but that
they can also be hijacked bythe brain as a way to say, this
art thing is a dumb, dumb, dumbidea. We should just panic
about the world and just dothat. So, I, I, for me, I wanna
be aware that it's a bit of aboogeyman. It's one of the
(03:43):
things that , um, my brainknows is a very expedient way
to get me to not pursuesomething that matters to me.
So that's one. Two is, if I didquit being an artist, a I would
just, like, I can't quit. It'sjust not a thing that you quit
. I can't quit wanting to makemusic or wanting to draw and
(04:04):
doodle or wanting to tellstories. It's just not a thing.
Like I have tried quitting,legitimately, spent most of my
twenties quitting, actingrepeatedly, and it never stuck.
So I don't think I could quit.
But let's say , um, I, youknow, felt this deep need,
which I do to save the world,which I do co-dependent no
more. We need a book on notsaving the world. Um, and or
(04:27):
co-dependent evermore is reallywhere I'm at still, but I feel
the thing to save the world.
And so it used to be, you know,this is such a terrible phrase
now, but go to Africa and savethe starving children, right?
Like certainly in the nineties,this was this thing of, of ,
um, western countries sendingmoney and raising money for,
there was , um, and there'sstill are, but there was a lot
of famine , um, in differentcountries in Africa . And it
(04:50):
felt like that was the place togo, that there was a lot of
suffering to go to. Um,recognizing now in hindsight,
there's a real colonialist ideaof like white savior going and
fixing. So I'm , I'm gonnaacknowledge that and move on.
But definitely it's alwaysfilled this sense with me of
like, what is the thing that Ican do to help people? One of
the reasons I have thispodcast, one of the reasons I'm
a life coach also, this is thestuff that matters to me. And
(05:14):
compared to that, again, theboogeyman, but my brain kind of
goes, what's the point ofeverything else? And so let's
say I did drop acting and went,I don't even know where the
front lines are, honestly. I amnot an engineer. I do not know
how to solve those kind . I'mvery smart at many things, but
I do not understandengineering. I also cannot keep
(05:35):
a plan alive. I'm lookingaround cause I'm actually my
sister's apartment and she leftme in charge for two weeks and
I think the plants have alreadydied. Like, I don't know what
is wrong with me. I'm gonna tryto take a class, but it's bad.
And I think a lot about howlike I don't have skills to
grow things and I don't haveskills to kill things and feed
myself. And , um, so I don'tknow what I would do. What I do
(05:55):
know I would do is make surethat I'm, I'm , uh, keeping
pressure on elected officials,you know, making sure that
we're really looking at whatpolicies might help better.
We're really looking at , um,where the conversation's going
in terms of what we can do forthe planet. And also just
honestly investing in hope.
Looking around at, I'm inToronto and I'm in downtown and
there's these incrediblehigh-rises all around me. And I
(06:18):
keep looking around andthinking we built those like,
not me, not an engineer, noidea how this went up in the
sky, but I'm like 15 flightsup, which is terrifying when I
sit in the patio cause I'mconvinced I'm gonna fall off,
but I'm not because somebodybuilt this and they built it
well. And I look around and Ithink at the magnitude of what
we've been able to create, andI think we can solve this
problem, we haven't wanted to,it hasn't felt urgent. It
(06:41):
hasn't had political pressureor economic pressure to do it.
I think those wins areshifting, which is really,
really what's giving me hope.
But we are like brilliant atsolving problems. So I, and
I've had to work on this reallyhard. I again spent my twenties
and thirties just beingconvinced, you know, everything
was gonna go up in flames , uh,and or water. Like that was
(07:03):
just my, people would ask mewhy I was afraid all the time.
I was like, I'm just sure thatlike the world is gonna end.
And then the world actuallystarted ending and it was less
terrifying, weirdly. A it feltlike when the pandemic hit,
everybody caught up to myanxiety. Like suddenly
everybody was afraid to gooutside
world was ending . And I waslike, oh, I've been here the
whole time. Welcome to theparty. Um, but also it just
felt more concrete in a waythat , um, just imagining and
(07:26):
not knowing how everything wasgonna go bad versus actually
seeing the floods happen versusactually seeing all tar ,
terrible, terrifying things.
But for some reason it feelsmore concrete and it feels more
like everybody's in this tryingto figure out, oh, this is here
now and there's stuff we needto do. So , um, I think, I
think I went from a place offeeling incredible fear and
(07:48):
panic and hopelessness. And Iwork on investing in myself and
in my brain into my thinking tolook around and see hope to
read the articles that show howmuch has already been done,
innovation wise , to figure outthe carbon issue, to figure
out, you know, how to changeour , um, fossil fuel reliance
to change , uh, our waterissues. Like there's so much
(08:10):
thought and brilliance is goinginto these things already that
we're not even hearing about.
So I practice imagining withthis great artist imagination
that there are even more thingsthat I'm not hearing about,
that people are discovering orthat people are being born now
that we'll discover. And like,and I'm not saying that in a
pie in the sky kind of way. I'msaying that we all need to know
ourselves best and know whatamount of hope and what amount
(08:33):
of fear keeps us motivated. Andfor some people dreading
something like the absolutepanic gets them moving for me,
it will shut me down and sendme to bed . So I know that's
not good for me. I know thatjust looking at the news and
all the headlines is not goodfor me. I will just think the
whole of humanity is not worthit and we're just gonna all
kill each other. Like it'sjust, there's a , in this
(08:54):
building, there's the news justkind of going all the time when
you wait for the elevators. AndI have to train myself not to
look at the news cuz literallyit is these people were hit by
a car. These people were hitby, these people were gunned
down, these people were in thehospital cuz something else had
like, every single news item ishow somebody died. And I'm
aware that a, the human braincannot handle that much
information and be like, thatis not the whole story. That is
(09:16):
the stuff that scares people,that gets them to watch the
news. And I do not to be scaredmore about the world, I do it
all myself. So the news is notgood for me. But reading long
form articles about theinnovations about people who
are thinking about thesethings, reading about people
coming together, solvingproblems, looking for the
silver lining look , not thesilver lining, but looking for
the hope, the places of hope iswhat keeps me motivated and
(09:39):
moving forward. So investing inhow I think about the future
has been really, reallyimportant to me. And the third
thing is that I think about howthere are so many different
pieces to change that being anactivist on the street, you
(10:03):
know, someone who goes to asenator's house or goes to
Congress and stands in amillion person march. I, I
can't imagine doing that. Ihope someday I'm healthy enough
that that doesn't freak me out.
But like I have so many thingsI have to be careful of in
terms of food access and interms of like overheating, in
terms of people being close,claustrophobic, there's just
(10:24):
like so much anxiety involvedin that, that that actually
would not be good for me andtherefore not be good for
anybody else around me, for meto do that. So I feel a lot of
guilt for not being a personwho signs up to go and do those
kinds of things. I have afriend in Brooklyn who does
this stuff and it's incredibleand it's so energizing to her
and I love hearing about it.
And I'm just in awe of herability to stand up and put her
(10:44):
body on the line for thingsthat she cares about. But there
are other things that we cando. Some of them are phone
banking or phone texting. Someof them are writing letters and
some of them too are aboutstorytelling are about
changing. Minds are aboutthinking about how the need,
the the ways in which we tellstories, right? Going back to
(11:05):
hope, but also going back to dowe tell stories that bring
people together? Do we tellstories that highlight our
intelligence and our problemsolving? Do we tell stories
that highlight our need foreach other and need to solve
things together rather than,than invest in division and
hate? Um, because division andhate sell too, they sell
really, really well. They'revery good for capitalism. Um,
(11:29):
and when we're scared we buymore. And when we hate, it's
easy to blame somebody else andtherefore not have to invest in
a solution. And those are veryeasy scapegoats, but they're
politically really powerful. Soit actually takes more effort
to tell stories that are abouthope and the future and
building the future that wewant. And you have to invest in
that work. And that's whatartists do, right? They, they
(11:50):
take all the possibilities thata world could be and they take
all the possibilities that theworld is now, and they think
about what that future couldbe. And so there's this really
important function in beingsomeone who creates both in the
sense of you are processing thethings that are happening right
now, right? Creation is abouttaking all that is around you,
(12:11):
digesting it, mulling it over,and then, and then giving it
new form, new shape. Andwhether that's painting or
writing a story or acting orsomething, it is taking the
experiences you've had, takingwhat you know of the world,
rejiggering it in some way thatmakes sense to you, putting
your point of view on it and,and, and re offering it to the
world. And for a lot of peoplewho their brains don't work
(12:35):
this way, it is a gift to themto have something like, I feel
this way when I read long formarticles, especially about
either climate change orsomething I don't understand or
like legal, like supreme courtstuff. And I'm like, I don't
understand what this means andsomeone will explain it in a
way that I understand that is agift to me. That they made
sense of something. And I feellike that's what artists do.
They make , they make a gift ofsomething that's really hard.
(12:57):
And really, whether it's bigemotions or big things that are
happening or how we relate toeach other, and you, you return
that in a way that has beenmashed up and spit back out. It
sounds like a terrible,terrible thing. But I think of
that like people need helpdigesting the world around them
and digesting stories anddigesting the news. And so if
you're able to digest somethingand return it in a way that
(13:18):
makes it more edible for them,sorry,
metaphor, but the good way ofthinking about it is the mama ,
uh, what is it? The birds willlike chew up food and like feed
their babies. I don't mean tobe patronizing cause I don't
think we are in that way toaudience members, but I do
think there are a lot of peoplewho don't. Um , which is all my
brain does all day long isprocess the world and think
about it deeply. Like I couldnot stop myself if I tried. I
(13:40):
have tried, it doesn't work.
And other people arelegitimately like , oh, I never
thought about that. And I'mlike, that's all I do is think
about this, right? So I'malways surprised that other
people don't spend as much timeand that's amazing for them and
that sounds really freeing andway easier of a world. But
they're also really gratefulthat my brain, the wor way
works the way that it does. SoI wanna offer that as like your
(14:01):
processing of the world andalso your imagining of what the
world could be, thestorytelling you make about
where we're headed and where wecould be headed and the future
you envision and, and you know,a more just , um, kind world.
Not that it's, it means writingall fairy tales where
everything always works out,but, but there is a way in
which we can shape the storiesthat we tell and we can shape
(14:22):
how people navigate being ahuman, which is the hardest
thing of all, right? And thatwill never change. It'll always
be hard to human. It just will.
It is, it is what we signed upfor and we all need help
figuring out , um, how to walkthat path. And so giving people
options and possibility on howto walk that path is a gift.
And so I wanna come back tothis idea that both in your
(14:45):
processing of the world as itis the output, the creation of
that is helpful to the world.
And also the stories that youtell, the content that you
create, the ways in which youthink about anything helps
people figure out how to lay afoundation for where they're
headed. So it's reallyimportant stuff. And I think
for me, you know, I have this,again, I think it's very much a
(15:08):
boogeyman where like there's mybrain just wants to go into
lizard brain. It wants to go tovery simple black or white.
You're an actor, you're notsaving the world, therefore
this is pointless, right?
Versus I'm an actor and I'malso an activist and I'm also a
writer and I'm also doing x, y, z to figure out how we can
change how the world is. And myacting is also a narrative
(15:28):
shift. It's talking aboutdifferent ways of being in
humanity and community, whetherthat's a cop show or, you know
, um, a story about the future.
It doesn't have to be justlike, here's the utopia that
I'm writing about. Every storywe tell has all of these
threads and it can be the mostentertaining story. And in it,
I mean Ted Lasso is a perfectexample of this. Ted Lasso blew
(15:52):
up in the first year of theplague I think. And uh, it's
about soccer, football aseveryone but the US calls it.
And it's a very male basedshow. And yet it is incredibly
feminist in all of these littlebrilliant ways. And it ends up
being about trauma, aboutrelationships with men, about
relationships with fathers. Itends up being about therapy. So
(16:15):
many people saw that show andstarted considering going to
mental health professionalsthat never had before. That was
a huge culture shift. That wasa huge gift at just the right
time. People really wereexperiencing mental health,
maybe had never before andneeded it, right? So I'm not
saying it has to be, this was ashow about football and it had
all these incredible themesand, and moments in it that
were just threaded throughout.
(16:38):
Um, that then helped so manypeople find peace and, and
resources and ways to human togo forward. And those people
are gonna be more resourced inorder to help face bigger
problems and in order to helpsolve bigger problems. So
everything , um, everythingripples out there ripple
effects to all of this work.
(16:59):
And the last thing I'll say,because , um, I've also thought
about this, that There's,there's a book that I've read
that I absolutely think isbrilliant called Station 11 ,
um, by this Canadian author.
And uh , it was made into an HB O series in year two of the
plague. I did not watch theseries cuz it came out during
the plague. And the wholepremise of the book is that a
(17:20):
plague wipes out 95% of thepopulation. It's the start of
the book, but the book ends upbeing about 15 years after the
plague wipes out so many peopleand how it follows a traveling
troop of Shakespearean actorswho are going from settlement
to settlement of who isleftover in the population and
the population are rebuildingand performing Shakespeare's
(17:40):
place . And to me it reads somuch about how theater will
always endure in the most direof places theater. The need to
tell stories and need to actthem out will always happen.
And there's this otherbrilliant example. I'd seen
this play in New York Cityprobably 10 years ago. Um, ugh
, one of the great joys of NewYork City theater. It was not,
(18:00):
it was an off-Broadway theaterhouse. So not a big splashy
like Broadway kind of Disneypiece, but this really
incredible , um, I have to lookup the name of it. But anyway,
the premise of it was, itstarts off and they're this
group of people around acampfire campfire and they are
retelling the story of a , um,oh my goodness, I'm gonna
(18:22):
forget of a Simpsons cartoonepisode that they saw 10 years
ago before the world ended. Andthat is what they do sitting
around the campfire night. Andthe whole thing then goes into,
you know, how they survive intheir community. But it keeps
coming back to this is theirmain activity. They sit around
the campfire and they retellthe story of a Simpsons
(18:43):
episode. And that's where alsoI just think this, the human
spirit will always need. Youknow, we will always draw on
caves. We will always dance forthe gods. We will always adorn
ourselves in order to havecommunity. It is, it is in our
fabric. It is how we processbeing alive. It is how we
connect to our divinity. It ishow we connect to each other
(19:04):
and create community. And so itwill never be, it will never be
divided from the experience ofgoing through a world even as
it's burning, even as asflooding, even as all of these
hardships come at us and willcontinue to come at us. It is a
place of resourcing to create.
It is a place of resourcing toreceive creations. I've really
(19:25):
been enjoying curling up with agood book lately. Like I've
forgotten how good company abook is, right? Like these are
the things that help, theyresource me. I feel grounded, I
feel quiet. I feel calm when Iread. And that is a gift to me.
So I again, don't feel like Ihave an answer because I know
that I'm still fighting with myown boogeyman of the world is
(19:46):
on fire. What is the point ofanything else? But that's a lot
of also my anxiety braintalking and my depression brain
talking and my overwhelmedbrain. And so I wanted to come
here in full transparency ofthe work I'm doing for myself,
which is to really train myselfto , um, see the reasons why
the work that I do matters. AndI hope that message reaches you
(20:10):
today because whether it's justcreating for yourself, sitting
with a guitar or writing poetrythat no one will ever read ,
um, or it's creating somethingthat you wanna show your family
or people in a gallery, youknow, artwork or something like
that. It, it all matters cuz itresources you, it resources the
people that you share it withand it, those have ripple
(20:32):
effects. Being more resourcedperson in the world has ripple
effects. Having a family that'smore resourced has ripple
effects. Having a communitythat's more resourced has
ripple effects. And so all ofthat is a gift to this world.
Thank you for joining me thisweek. I really appreciate you.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com