March 7, 2024 • 56 mins
Have you ever pondered the puzzles life throws at you, or how a simple dish like 'egg rice' could spark a philosophical debate? Well, buckle up, because our latest episode traverses the culinary landscape of leftovers, touches on the sweet allure of Starbucks treats, and dives headfirst into the paradoxes that keep our minds spinning. From my kitchen to yours, I reveal the secret spices that transform yesterday's rice into today's breakfast champion, and we explore whether this comfort food has the chops to become a restaurant's crowning glory.
With a sprinkle of humor and a dash of self-reflection, we unwrap the enigmas of everyday life that often wear the mask of common sense. As we dissect modern paradoxes, from the impact of reading on personal identity to the intricacies of skill and luck in our endeavors, the conversation is peppered with real-world anecdotes that'll have you nodding along or scratching your head in wonder. Even our podcast transitions, a source of comedic pain, get a moment in the spotlight, as we acknowledge the beauty in the struggle to find the perfect ending to our rambling beginnings.
As we reach the apex of our chat, decision-making takes center stage—will it be the egg bites or the shaken espresso? Just kidding. It's about tackling the real-life conundrum of overthinking and the strategies to overcome it. Wrapping up, we tease your appetite for intellectual debate with a hint at the paradox of originality, ensuring the conversation continues beyond today. So, join us as we laugh, ponder, and maybe even change the way you see the world with each episode. No cliffhangers here—just the promise of more enthralling talks to come.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick and I'm Brian.
Brian, what do you call it whena medical doctor and a PhD
coexist, yet also disagree?
Don't know what.
A paradox which you can Brian.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
All right, I get it.
I think I got it.
I feel like a little splitsecond there, but that's okay.
A pair of docs, I got it, whichis what I just got rid of.
I got rid of a pair of DocMartens, so I got rid of a pair
of docs.
Anyway, good riddance, I say Idid, I did.
(00:47):
I just got rid of some DocMartens.
I wore forever and they're dead.
So anyway, just.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
They weren't loafing around with your pinnies,
weren't they?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Right, exactly what am I eating?
Well, for breakfast thismorning I had egg rice.
You ever have egg rice?
Have I talked about egg?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
rice no.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I've had egg noodles.
Is that anywhere close to thesame?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, egg noodles is just like the actual noodle,
Like that's.
There's little curly short onesright the Like.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
They're not made with egg.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
They're just made for egg.
They're made with egg, I think.
Aren't they Okay With the yolks, or I don't know?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Anyway, we'll have to get that one man.
We're so ignorant.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know we're only going to be in 10 minutes and 26
seconds and we're alreadyshowing.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So tell me more about this other thing.
I don't know anything about eggrice.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, so I had egg rice, which is something that
I've had my whole life.
Like I just it was justsomething.
You know how there are certainthings that maybe in your
household growing up, yourfamily did, and you get the
sense that as you go out intothe world that nobody else did
that.
No, I don't know.
I haven't met another personthat's like oh yeah, I do egg
rice all the time.
So it's pretty much just when wehave leftover rice like either
(01:58):
from a Chinese food restaurant,like you go out and you get
extra, all you have a bunch ofwhite rice leftover or we
usually once a week we'll cookrice, just so we have rice in
the fridge that we can throwtogether with something else,
right?
And so today there was just alittle bit of leftover, and so
what you typically do is youjust take that leftover rice,
you throw it in a pan with somebutter, heat it up so it gets
(02:22):
back to not the crunchyrefrigerated rice anymore, and
then you just take a couplescrambled eggs, put it in there
with it and you scramble it upinto like a big mixture.
That's in essence, you know,and they do this a little bit
with fried rice, like if you getfried rice at a Chinese
restaurant.
They do put egg in it, but thisis more like more egg.
So it's you know, it's not justlike a little like they put.
(02:45):
They'll put like one egg inlike a big batch of fried rice,
whereas this is like a couple ofeggs in a smaller amount of
rice.
So it's almost like the egg isbinding together the rice and
usually it's just.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Why don't they just call it egg rice then, since
eggs take such a dominant partof the dish?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What egg rice?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, I do call it egg rice.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Good job, anyway.
So I usually just salt andpepper, but you can do whatever
you want.
You can add a little cheese toit if you want.
So you have like you know,cheesy egg rice.
You can also add meats if youwant.
Put some sausage and some otherstuff in there Sausage- bacon.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Now it's like a breakfast burrito power bowl.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, basically yeah, it's, and instead of using a
tortilla and wrapping it up,you're getting your sarch or
your carbs from the rice that'sin there.
But really, I think in ourfamily it just turned.
It was just one of those.
Hey, let's try to use thisthing that we have in the fridge
and not let it go to waste andso just sort of throw it in
there.
You can also put veggies inthere too, if you want, like
(03:48):
I've put, like spinach and otherthings, if you want to, or
peppers, bell peppers and makeit like a breakfast scramble,
but it's pretty hearty.
My secret ingredient, though,is the Cajun seasoning.
I put a little bit of Cajunseasoning in it, so it'll be
like Tony Keshares, or likeConrico Chash, chash, chash,
(04:08):
chasherees, chasherees,chasherees.
Yeah, all of the people thatare in Louisiana and listening
to this and are French like meare really mad at me right now.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You got corrected so they're happy.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So I put a little bit of that seasoning in there salt
and pepper and gives it, andobviously you can control the
spiciness.
If you put a lot in you'regoing to get a little bit of
spice there.
And then today I had the coupleof pieces of bacon with it,
where I just sort of ate thepieces of bacon.
Along with it I added a littlebit of cheese and I had it in a
(04:44):
bowl and it was really reallygood Bacon and eggs rice.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, bacon and eggs rice.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, bacon and eggs rice.
Bacon and eggs rice, exactly,yeah, yeah, which again is
another idea, copyrighted, so noone could take it, since I just
said it's copyrighted.
And if that's another idea formy breakfast restaurant, when I
went, and if I ever opened abreakfast restaurant, there'll
be egg rice on the menu andeveryone will come in and be
like what the heck is egg rice?
And then I'll be known as theegg rice king of the Southeast.
(05:11):
So do you see how far mydelusions go?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Well, no, I think I stopped paying attention halfway
through, so I only saw most ofhow far your delusions can go.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So I had that this morning I also had some iced
coffee.
I just had some of the coldbrew iced coffee that's just was
in my fridge and like storebought and I also am and this is
another thing, if I can'tremember if I talked about this
or not, but I'm hooked onthere's a coconut cream creamer
(05:47):
that is put out by like thebasic, like the most prominent,
you know, if you go into yourrefrigerated section at your
supermarket.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I think it's I want to say it's like it's always
Nestle Cafe, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Like it's like the most prominent one in there,
like the oldest one that youprobably have known since you
were a kid, and they have thisone that's coconut cream, and
originally I thought how thatsounds horrible, right, coconut
in coffee sounds really not like.
If you just in my head, thatdoesn't seem like it should
taste.
It's, paradoxically, it seemslike that should be a bad
(06:27):
combination, right, and it isawesome.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So it's like a paradox, it's like a paradox of
flavor.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's what the catchphrase for my breakfast
restaurant is going to be.
I don't know if you knew thator not, but that's crazy that
you guessed it.
So I'm hooked on this.
So I don't know if I'm drinkingmore coffee because I actually
like to drink more coffee orit's just because I'm trying to
(06:59):
have like a delivery mechanismfor this coconut creamer.
It doesn't really matter which Iguess, but anyway I had that
along with it, and then I alsohave my hydration is important
flask my iron flask, iron degreeflask, whatever, and then I
(07:22):
haven't had these for a longtime, but there's sort of a off
brand soda that's in the marketcalled Dr Browns, and it's been
around forever, like since I wasa kid.
I remember drinking it.
They actually I haven't beenable to find it, but I'm pretty
sure they make a chocolate soda,which is the only chocolate
(07:44):
soda that I've ever.
That I've ever.
And it's not chocolate likecreamy chocolate, like chocolate
milk, it's like it would belike cola flavored like a
carbonated beverage that tasteslike chocolate.
So, anyway, I got a craving asI was walking by and so I got
(08:05):
the diet cream soda that theyhave and this says since 1869,
it's also kosher, so, and it'salso caffeine free.
So after I had a big cup ofcoffee, I'm going less caffeine
on this, but every once in awhile I like a cream, a good
cream soda.
It just is, I don't know.
(08:28):
I think that some I don't know,I feel like some people, I feel
like cream soda is a divideramong people.
That I don't think.
I think people either love itor hate it.
So, but this one isparticularly good.
I also like that.
It's diet, which is hard tofind it's hard to find cream
soda in and of itself, but thento find, to be able to find, one
(08:50):
that's a diet cream soda that Idon't have to worry about, like
, oh, this is like another 150calories I'm taking and I
shouldn't be taking in.
Um, that's, it's good so andthat, and it has a good flavor
to it, not like no aftertaste oranything like that.
I wonder what the sweetener isin this Hold on a second.
What is the sweetener?
Hold on, let's see.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Rithritol sorbitol.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It is aspartame.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Aspartame.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Which is which used to be the one that they said
everything was bad and then theymoved on to their Rithritol.
So I guess they're all badright.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Rithritol sweeteners are probably all sort of bad in
some way, but my personal takeis yeah, but you know I don't
have any science to prove all ofit.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Sure, so that's that's what I was eating right
before I came on, and that'sBrian's beverage corner in a
nutshell Not really in anutshell, but you know.
So what are you eating?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Unless your stomach's a nutshell Right, let's see.
I went to Starbucks with mysweetheart and got the white.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Dory.
Oh okay, I just wanted forclarification.
Just wanted to make sure ifDory's listening to this.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yes, I suppose that is important, that they're.
Yeah, see it.
Just there's no other person onmind who would qualify, so it
goes without saying that I get.
Why it for?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
others does matter.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
So egg white, roasted red pepper, egg bites.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I get it because they're roasted red pepper, that
egg whites are just okay.
That's how they make it, sothat's how I get it.
You know a lot of their.
I think all of Starbucks foodis prepared outside the store
and they just reheat it.
So there's not any customizationoptions.
But it was a good snacky kindof breakfast and to drink I got
(10:56):
the iced brown sugar, milkshaken espresso, Of course decaf
roast because of my my thing, Idid have a caffeinated drink
Back Wednesday, which that's notmuch of a frame of reference
(11:18):
for our audience, but let's sayabout what half a week ago, a
week and a half ago, yeah.
And anyway, today I had this,so it was good Still sipping on
the remaining ice cubes.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, I like the oat milk.
The oat milk out of all of thefake milks I think has all has
the most or the best feel ofactual milk, like it has that
sort of thickness to it whereyou know, where the you know, it
sort of rolls over your tongue.
The same way, because, unlikelike soy milk or something else,
(11:55):
I feel like the oat milk is thebest in terms of making like
for something like that, likeputting it in coffee and stuff.
I think it gives you the samefeeling as having a sweet cream
or something else in there,because it is a little bit sweet
in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And the milk?
Yeah, it's really sweet.
Like it helped kind of inbetween that and then the brown
sugar.
Yeah.
It was pretty, pretty sweet, Ido.
I do like coconut milk and Ithink, there is sort of a you
know as it comes option of theshake and espresso with coconut
milk.
The only reason I chose oatmilk is because that's how it
(12:33):
comes Like.
I was pretty lazy.
Yeah.
I was not sure what I wanted,so I ordered by picture.
I just said I want that, exceptdecaf.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Sir, what do you mean by that?
Well, I read it off right.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Like you know, because I can't remember what
the coconut milk was or didn'tthink about it, but I have
noticed that I like coconutquite a bit.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, I would say that's number two for me, after
if I'm going to get a fake milk.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Doesn't just that make it this shit?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll have to put a languageadvisory on this episode, sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
No, it was a reference.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
That was a reference to an actual thing, so yeah,
yeah, a phrase that's common inthe colloquial parlance of this
day and age.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well, that's good, that, like I said, that's to me,
that's a I think I want to say.
I've tried that one before, thebrown sugar oatmeal one, I
think I did it one.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, I think I've done it one before Shaking that
stirred.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And every once in a while I do like ice, because I
know the nitrocobrus.
They don't come with ice, butevery once in a while I like it.
I like a drink with ice, likean iced coffee with ice in it.
It just keeps it cold and it's.
Every sip is going to be likethat and it does get watered
down a little bit, but I don't.
I drink it quick enough thatit's not going to, you know, not
going to be that big of a deal.
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And then, as a kind of a snack before lunch, I had
an ice cream sandwich.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Nice, yeah, I just.
I just small the, so just justthe original basic, like one
with two chocolate and vanillaice cream.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Nice, yep, I am basic AF.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I, just I enjoy those .
They take me back to childhood.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yes, and I wanted.
I wanted a little bit of icecream, but I didn't want the
pint, because the pint usuallylasts like one serving.
Yes In practice, you know.
Yeah.
So it's like I want.
I want individually wrappedserving sizes to help with my
portion control.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, yeah, cause then you know what you're
getting.
I can't say I'm not doing thesame thing, so it's a double
negative.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
So you are implying that?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I am saying that I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, I have to count the negatives.
So, this is the transition intoour subject.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
We're transitioning now.
Look at this segue.
It's working really well, youwould think.
You would think, nick, youwould think it's so smooth.
You would think that, after usdoing almost what three and a
half years of podcasting, thatwe would know how to transition
(15:39):
from one subject to another.
You would think that, right,like logically, you would think
it would have made us better atthat.
But it hasn't.
That's the paradox.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
No, because I think.
I think the two hardest thingswith anything you do in the
first and second place can varybetween the task, but it's going
to be finishing and starting.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Right, yeah, we also have a problem.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
We have a big problem with how we end it.
I was going to say if anyonelistens to the end of these
podcasts.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
They know absolutely that we still have no idea how
to end the podcast.
It's sort of ridiculous.
All this is being said to getus into our subject, which is
paradoxes.
Paradoxes of modern life, ofmodern life Right, and so, as is
(16:29):
our usual custom, first of all,what the heck is a paradox?
We can usually go about saying,defining that for the audience,
so that we're all sort of atleast hopefully, on the same
page.
So I pulled up the definitionsays a seemingly absurd or
self-contradictory statement orproposition that, when
(16:51):
investigated or explained, mayprove to be well-founded or true
.
So then.
And it also says a statement orproposition that, despite sound
or apparent sound reasoningfrom acceptable premises, leads
to a conclusion that seemssenseless, logical, logically
unacceptable orself-contradictory.
And if you guys have beenlistening for a while, we did do
(17:13):
another episode on this a whileback back in I think it's
August of 2022.
It's titled Doing the Illogicalis Logical, and it was about
counterintuitive truths, whichis basically what we're talking
about here with paradoxes isthese things are.
They don't make sense.
They, it may like, when youstart to think about it, you're
(17:36):
like that doesn't make any senseat all.
It's like it should be theopposite of that.
But from studies and people,you know the actual, you know
reality of the matter is thatthey do make sense, and that's
exactly what a paradox is islike, which is also, I think, a
little tie-in we didn't eventalk about this before we
(17:56):
started recording but I think alittle also tie-in to our
cognitive biases, because Ithink cognitive biases really
play into the fact that youbelieve that the paradox
shouldn't be the way that it is,because your brain is trying to
tell you that doesn't make anysense.
It can't be that way, you know.
And if you stop right there andjust say it doesn't make any
sense, then you're saying yeah,you reject it, and then you're
(18:20):
actually rejecting the truth,which is counterintuitive what
you think, so okay, I think italso reminds me of co-ans.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I forget we've talked about those.
Maybe it was in that episode.
Doing the illogical is logical,but where they're like zen
mental puzzles, the classic, theone that probably everyone's
heard of, is what is the soundof one hand clapping?
Yeah.
(18:50):
Right, it's like they sort ofbreak your brain a little bit
yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Well, and then the other one that's similar to that
is tree falls in the forest andno one's there to hear it.
Does it make a sound?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Right, we can probably think I think we can
think the Simpsons for both ofthose.
Yeah.
They had episodes that coveredthat and the peak of their
attention capture.
But yeah, so one thing, and youfound this, brian, on Reddit
like an infographic theparadoxes of modern life.
(19:24):
And.
I thought this is fascinating.
We could definitely get a lotof mileage and banter back and
forth on it.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, and it was really interesting to me when I
was reading it, because each oneof them and there's nine of
them on this infographic andwe'll post it in the notes, but
each one of them is it really islike you read it and you're
like, yeah, it really doesn'tmake sense.
And I can say that some of themin my head, I've experienced
(19:54):
them in my own life, where I'llsay, oh, yeah, that makes sense
to me, because I actually havesort of gone through the process
of trying to do something andthen I go, oh, it sort of
doesn't make sense how I got towhere I got to.
But now it does, because thisis almost confirmation bias a
little bit, because I'm like, ah, okay, now the missing piece of
the puzzle sort of clicked inthere where I'm like it didn't
(20:16):
make sense, why what happened tome happened to me.
And now it does.
So, yeah, that's the basics ofit.
So do you want to just diveinto the first one?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah.
So, the paradox of reading yeah, Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah.
So it says, in essence, thebooks you read, or yeah, the
books you read will profoundlychange you, even though you'll
forget the vast majority of whatyou read, which to me is makes
sense, because I can barelyremember what I read yesterday,
like I mean, I guess that sortof I mean what's interesting to
(20:58):
me.
I'll say, let me start out here.
The whole educational system isbased upon you reading material
and then remembering what thatmaterial is and regurgitating it
back to some extent, at leastlower levels of education.
When you get higher, obviouslyyou're trying to get into
original thought and otherthings like that, which again
we'll get into that in anotherparadox.
(21:19):
But I can say that I've read alot of books in my life just
through education.
Not necessarily I'm not sayingI'm like some smart reader or
something.
I'm just saying that througheducation you end up reading
quite a bit of source materialand you know primary and
secondary sources and a lot ofthose.
I don't remember the exact partof it.
(21:42):
I could review it and it wouldrefresh my memory, but I can say
that it has All of those thingshave a, you know, a role in who
I am today and also sort of whywe started this podcast even
because you and I are self-helpjunkies.
Well, self-help, you know?
Like, how many self-help bookshave you read?
(22:02):
I mean, like if you had toguess, like Whatever to cover or
just like yeah.
That is a good qualification,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
There's definitely ones that have, you know, bailed
on, either because of attentionspan or it just works like it
did.
Yeah, but yeah, it'd definitelybe in the triple digits, I mean
certainly over 100, probablyless than 999.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So you probably could give like a brief summary of
like sort of the premise of thatbook, like sort of the crux of
okay, what is this book gettingat in terms of self-help, or
like what is it trying to getyou to do in your life, to do
something right?
But you might not be able totell us in detail, like well,
(22:51):
chapter one was this and chaptertwo, but those books all
obviously have, you know, piecedyou together to who you are
right now.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
right, Well, I think, yeah, I think some of that has
to do with a social andneurological component, Like
what we read and why has a lotto do with how we'll store it in
our memory.
Yeah.
If I'm reading somethingbecause I want to use it like
the way I like, justbiologically speaking, like I
(23:20):
store that differently in myhead.
Yeah.
Then if I read something becauseI know I'm going to report on
it, if I'm going to tell someoneelse about it.
I might reread it multipletimes.
I might, you know, write down asummary or key points and
reread those and you know,reread the book and like,
(23:41):
reading to report is verydifferent than you know, reading
to embody, and I think that'swhere, like was it, plagiarism
and copyright law get kind of on.
Yeah.
Because there's been severalexamples of people who absorb
content subconsciously and theyreproduce it almost perfectly
(24:05):
unconsciously, not realizingwhere it came from, where they
got it.
Yeah, that they're evenstealing like, and yeah.
So there's lots of times whereI'm just regurgitating the
culmination and synthesis oftons of self-help stuff that
I've read and unconsciouslycombining it into something
that's cohesive for me.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Well, and that even makes sense with it.
We aren't going to talk aboutit this episode, but there's
another paradox that talks aboutexactly what you're talking
about, and so I don't want tospoil it, because you know.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
I want to be a spoiler alert, but well, you're
not spoiling, but you'redefinitely teasing Geez.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I know I'm trying to Come listen to the next episode.
Can we get there now?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Like wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
This is not fair.
Yeah, no, I was just going tosay what you were talking about
is that there's the old sayingof, like, if you really want to
learn material, then you teachit Right, or what's that.
There's like if you I forgetwhat the exact saying is or if
there's an actual quote thatgoes with that or not, but you
(25:11):
know, basically they're sayingthat, hey, the way to really
learn materials to teach inexactly what you just said.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Did you just read the ?
Did you read the quote?
And you're having troubleretrieving it.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, I did not read the quote.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's changed the quote.
The quote has changed you, butit.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, exactly, but I can't remember it, I can't
recall it exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You'll forget the vast majority of the quote.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm just trying to demonstrate the paradox for the
audience right now in real time.
So so, anyway, so yeah, butwhat you're saying is, hey, if I
have to report on this, thenI'm going to take notes, I'm
going to make bullet points, I'mgoing to, I'm going to digest
that material in a different way, as other than you know, or you
know, instead of just saying,hey, I'm just going to read this
(25:50):
to try to get some informationout of it, and but then also
again, once you give that report, I think that that still has
changed you but you're not goingto remember, three years from
now, the report you gave, unlessyou go and look at that report
and look at your PowerPoint orwhatever you did.
You're not going to rememberexactly what you said or how you
did it Right.
You just are going to say like.
(26:11):
Hey, I remember we discussedthis and it was something about
this, so anyway, veryinteresting.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I think we see it a lot too.
There's a difference betweenyeah, under understanding
something and rememberingsomething.
Right.
And we see it a lot withspeeches and trying to memorize
speeches, and that's just aparallel to so many other
activities.
But like you can, you couldwrite your speech and and then
(26:43):
try to give your speech withoutany rehearsal and you can't
remember your speech.
Yeah.
Right Cause cause like writingit down, storing it isn't the
same as retrieving it.
Yeah.
And we're just understanding,isn't the same as between kids
studying for school.
Dole of time to they'll readthe material.
It's like oh, okay, I get it.
(27:05):
You know these, these chemicalsinteract this way and and these
, yeah, since I see theconsistency and they stop
reading and when they get to thetest, it's not there.
Right.
You know, because comprehensionis not the same as retention.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Right.
Well, that's interesting thatyou are talking about that,
Because the next paradox is theparadox of writing, which is
great.
Writing looks effortless, butbecause the ideas are so clear,
casual readers don't appreciatehow much time it took to refine
them.
So Dory's going through thisright now and has gone through
(27:41):
this, you know, having booksthat she's written our our
friend Ed, who's been on thepodcast before he's gone through
this, and a couple other peoplewe know that have have read or,
excuse me, have written booksor other things.
Anybody who's a writer really,you know you're reading speeches
, yeah exactly, and that's whatexactly what you're just saying
(28:02):
is, and I think both of those.
You can expand it a little bit.
Obviously, writing the speechis one thing, but then
delivering it is another thing,and then you know each one of
those things.
I think I feel like this playsinto just almost the 10,000 hour
kind of thing like the, the,not necessarily that you spend
(28:24):
10,000 hours writing a book, butyou, you know, a lot of work
goes into from the, thebeginning product, to what the
end user, if it's, unless it'sthis podcast, then if it's this
podcast, very little work goesin and then the audience
understands that we're.
We're here conversing,conversating about it, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
And one of the things that shows up there, too, is
writing, especially fictionwriting is hyper real.
They don't have the characters,don't struggle to find their
words.
Right.
Always a lot more self awarethan anybody in real life.
Yeah.
They don't.
They don't open up dialoguewith hi, how are you?
Oh, I'm good.
(29:09):
How are you?
Oh, that's not like, there'snone of that.
That's just straight into themeat and the heart of their
souls.
Are seeking you know like andthere's no problem.
Or points to the story that aredisconnected from the main
story.
Right.
Unless it's a mystery whichcase.
(29:30):
That's part of the point is.
There's some red herringsthrown in facts that are missing
information yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Things that are not revealed.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Access unnecessary information right.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Throw the reader off.
But but by and large it's.
It's been honed down.
You know, the author has killedtheir darlings, as the phrase
goes.
It's been edited and trimmedand that's partly why I think
some people are drawn to readingsuch things.
Is it's hyper real?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
a lot of the yeah distraction and unnecessary bits
of life aren't present mm-hmm,but it also can be to some
people, depending on personalitytype, can be distracting, and
the reason why is becausethey're like they.
It's that suspension of disc,the suspension of reality, a
suspension of disbelief, wherethey're like.
(30:20):
This is not how people talk,like I don't, I can't read this,
because this is not how aregular person or any regular
people would act, and so I knowwe're sort of off the topic of
the paradox, but but the idea isexactly what you said is there.
There, they have taken a,they've taken a bunch of
material, they've written itdown and then they've removed
(30:41):
anything that is superfluous andand Doesn't move the story
ahead and does not, you know,doesn't get to the point that
they need to get to and so Thenit comes to the mean polished.
Yeah, exactly Thing that isalmost sometimes sterile if you
aren't too careful, right?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So yeah, yeah, and that's that polish that gives
people that illusion of almosthave been so smooth and easy for
the writer To use this yeahthing was like no, no, the
writer had to do a lot of workto make this thing so smooth.
Right and start with a smooththing.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, well, and I think I Think, just like
anything else, it.
I don't think this is one ofthe paradoxes, but I Don't
looking at them in general, Idon't think there is, but this
almost plays into the overall.
So, like, if you're a writerand you've been writing, like
Stephen King, as an example,I've read that Stephen King has
(31:36):
Three times the amount of Idon't say three times, he has
much more the amount ofunpublished material than he has
published.
And if you know how muchPublished material Stephen King
has, which is a lot over thelast 30 to 40 years, if he has
that much more unpublishedmaterial, then you know.
The thing is he is, he'sconstantly writing, he's he
(32:00):
probably is at a differentstarting point than somebody
who's starting their first book,right, like when he sits down
to write he's like, oh, I knowhow to trigger my brain to do
whatever and get into thatcreative mindset right and Go
down the path of.
And he knows all, obviouslyknows all the the ways to build
a good story and all the things.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think.
I think this might what yourtimeout plays into the next two
Paradoxes a little bit.
So yeah, there's, you know, theparadox of skill.
Yes that's the more.
The more evenly matchedopponents are in skill, the more
of a role luck plays in the twofinal outcome.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, this one makes me mad.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, well, it reminds me of, I think we all,
not we all.
There's a phrase that makes methink that Someone knew this
somewhat intuitively.
You know it's, you know, madethe best team win.
Yes, like it is sort of goinginto it.
You know that, like the wholepoint of a tournament is to find
the best team, but by the timeyou get to the, the Super Bowl
(33:06):
or the final round or whateverit is.
Yep, they're gonna be the twobest, so they're gonna be
ostensibly very evenly matchedand At that point it's like all
things being equal, right, yeah,skill and and jersey material
and the brand of cleats they use, and the average height of the
(33:29):
players and the average weightof the players.
Yeah average stats of theplayers like bright.
All things being equal, itcomes down to maybe home team
advantage, right, or it comesdown to well, players, knees
done the other five minutesbefore, you know, five weeks
before, and and there's thisthing that's culminated and it's
just bad luck well, and I wasbring.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
I was bringing this up to my daughter because I was
talking.
She was asking what we wererecording about this morning and
and, and one of the ones that Iwas talking about was this and
it's it could be that the, the,the person that's officiating
that game, the referee and orumpire or whatever they're
called in that particular sportJust doesn't happen to be
(34:09):
looking at the place where apenalty is occurring, so that
penalty doesn't get called.
So, literally, it's just amatter of, yeah, that person's
eyes were not at the place theyneeded to be at, or they were at
the place and that person gotcalled for a penalty when they
could have easily just eat, justas easily not have been called
for that penalty.
So it's, the luck of the drawis is that?
(34:31):
Is that a fishy, you know?
Is that a person officiatingthe game, looking in the right
place, you know?
Um?
And so.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I'm sort of human element, but I Will say that
like okay, no, I have somethingto say before we move on to the
next one.
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh no, I'm not moving on to the next one.
I was just gonna say the reasonthat this one almost makes me
feel like All hope is lost,because you're like, you spend
so much time building a skillright and whether that's
something else, whether that's,uh, you know, in sport or in
business or anything else, youspend all this time like
(35:06):
building and like trying to bethe best that you can and then
to find out that if you'reAround other people that are a
relatively equal skill and that,whatever that is, that it's
just a luck of the draw likethat.
That is so frustrating, youknow.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Well, it's it's only true evenly matched.
Right now this comes to my nextpoint and how it plays into
Stephen King.
Yeah, he's.
He's I think he's even saidthat he doesn't see himself as a
great writer in terms of skilland like quality, right, but he
is prolific right if, if, ifthere's a scarce market for
(35:47):
eyeballs on book pages and Evenif he's evenly matched with
everyone in the market, he's outworking them, that he's
applying his skill to moreiterations with more effort more
often.
Yeah.
To then come out ahead.
So he's he's turning luck inhis favor.
You know, if you go to thecasino or play poker or whatever
(36:09):
like, yeah.
In aggregate, you have the sameodds as anybody else in terms
of getting a good hand orwhatever else, and the people
who think themselves more luckylike if you take a survey of
people and set aside those whothink they're lucky versus yeah,
they're unlucky those who thinkthey're lucky Roll the dice
(36:30):
more often, figurativelyspeaking right, yeah and
therefore have more, morechances to win.
And they have this bias thatthey think they're lucky, so
they're willing to roll the dicemore often.
Yeah, they put more attentionto when they win and less
attention when they lose, partlybecause of the confirmation
bias.
Yeah, so they have no betterskill at rolling dice than
anybody else, but because theydo it more often, they win more
(36:53):
often right Right right, the,the numerator.
The ratio doesn't change, butbecause their denominator is so
much larger, their numerator isso much larger than most other
people.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's an interesting point,
and I guess that's that's aninteresting you know way to look
at Anything you're doing inlife is like, hey, you know,
because I'm looking at it in thepessimistic way of you know,
like why should I even try?
If it's just luck, right.
But Again, what you said istrue, which is okay, and I mean
(37:28):
I think most self-help thingswill Align with this, which is
just keep going, you just keeptrying, you got to do.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
80% of life is just showing up like you got to just
keep going and and the the thecloser to your best that you do,
the better your best gets right, like with each iteration, your
skill improves and thereforenow you're out skilling people.
Right said because of moreeffort and more attention.
Yeah, yeah more learning andmore improvement.
(37:56):
Yeah, sorry.
Let's go on to the next one.
You ready for the next one?
Yeah.
The paradox of creativity.
Right.
This is the other one I thoughtapplied to Stephen King.
So your work is done when itlooks so simple that the
consumer thinks they could havedone it, which means they won't
(38:16):
appreciate how hard you work.
Yeah.
This is sort of the abstractionof the writing, one that they
gave.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's almost like a broader concept of
the better that you get, themore you know, the more easy you
make it look.
It's the I mean you can.
We always do the sportsreferences because they're just
the easiest, most compacted wayto look at something.
But you know the poetry andmotion and sports kind of thing
(38:44):
where you're like man, that guyrunning down the field looks
like it's so easy for him, itlooks like he's just not even
trying and everybody else on thefield is like how is he doing
that?
Right, and you know that'ssomebody that's reaching a high
level of being an expert.
You know they're again goingback to the Malcolm Gladwell
(39:04):
10,000 hours.
That's somebody who has put thetime in.
And then also I can say that weare I'll say that we're a
society of I think we're rapidlyapproaching a society of people
who think that they can doanything.
People are like I can do that.
Yeah, I can do that, I can dothat job, I can do that.
And you know, and it's based onyou know it's based on them
(39:28):
thinking this.
It's just like you're seeingpeople that are.
You know they're like what's sohard about that?
I could, just I could step inand do that.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Well, and that's?
I'm seeing that too, and Ithink the wake up call comes
when they hopefully realize,sooner than later, that the
world does not reward someonefor what they can do.
The world rewards them for whatthey actually do.
Right.
Right, it's like you know I canlearn to do that or I could.
(39:56):
I could do that.
It's like, yeah, but whenyou're going to do it, why
haven't you done it yet?
Yeah, so you too.
So focus on your potential thatyou're not turning anything
into the actual.
Yeah.
And and I guess the way I seethis applying to Stephen King is
, like you mentioned, his he'sgot more writings that's
(40:18):
unpublished, that wereunacceptable.
That didn't make the editorscut.
Right.
But then he does that it's beenpublished and again the ratio is
the same.
It's just he's out done.
Most people who you know haveto contend with the ratio of,
you know, works written versusworks published.
(40:39):
Right, and maybe, maybe it's 10to one.
You have to write 10, 10 out of10 of the things you write only
want to get published.
Well, he just wrote a thousandthings, so he has a hundred
things published.
Yeah.
You know like yeah, I mean, ofcourse everybody's results vary.
There's the skill, there isluck.
Even if you've got a lot ofskill, there's always luck and
(41:00):
such.
But sure by and large, it's ahundred to one.
Well, and I think the last two.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So this one, the paradox of skill and the paradox
of creativity, those two, likecombined to me, are make me
think of TikTok right now.
So we have I know it soundsweird.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
No, you've captured my attention like a TikTok video
.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
So I'm going to give you seven seconds of wisdom
right now.
But you've got this activitythat pretty much anyone can.
I can go start a TikTok accountright now and have a TikTok
channel.
The level of skill that youneed in order to do that, or to
do anything right to create thecontent meaning creativity,
(41:50):
right, paradox of creativity isvery little, and there's a lot
of luck involved as to whetheror not your channel is going to
go viral, even though we see theones that are.
Have you know this?
This TikTok had 15 million views, but the overwhelming majority
of TikToks out there or podcastsout there or anything else, the
(42:11):
overwhelming majority are notgetting 15 million views.
Right, you're seeing the onethat has 15 million views
because of algorithms and allthese other things.
But the interesting thing isthat, as somebody does and I can
say this with YouTube channelsthat I watch and other things
like that the more that you doit, the better that it gets, and
(42:31):
so that goes into that paradoxof creativity is that somebody
will see that and say, oh, I can, I can make a video like that.
It's like, yeah, but you didn'tsee the 10 years before that of
them making really bad videos,yeah, only I think that it's
compressed with TikTok, though,because you could make your
first.
Your first video on TikTokcould go viral.
I mean, it's very unlikely, butit could right, which plays
(42:54):
into the luck, right?
You know, theoretically,anybody.
Since it's such a low level ofskill that is required to
produce a TikTok video, you'repretty much evenly matched with
the same Technical skill.
Well, technical skill yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, that's what I'm
saying is, you're at that,everybody sort of starts at that
(43:17):
.
And then, granted, the peoplethat sort of rise to the top are
potentially, potentially, theyhave some kind of talent that
they're sharing with the world,whether that's like singing or
dancing or being funny orsomething else.
Right, but even that it stillis a matter of luck.
And then, as they, you know theperson that does get the viral
(43:38):
video if you go and look attheir channel, their videos get
better and better and better,because, ostensibly I guess
probably because now that it'stheir full time job and they're
getting paid and they're beingable to, they're, they're the
technical, you know, technicalmerit that is required is there
because they've been doing itfor a long time.
So, like, now I know how to dothis, like use this tool or
whatever.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
So interesting, Well, I'm reminded of Aristotle
saying you know, we are what werepeatedly do.
Yeah.
Excellence, therefore, is not anact but a habit, and these,
these people in TikTok, theymade a habit of making videos
and responding to feedback, andso that was a, was it a?
(44:22):
I can't, I'm trying to avoidpositive feedback.
Another feedback loop,another's a virtuous cycle.
That's what I was thinking.
Yeah, it's, it's a same thing,but virtuous cycle, such that
they're going to get better andbetter.
Maybe one day they only getlike 0.01% better, but then
three days later they get 4%better.
(44:44):
You know, they, they learnsomething, they have an epiphany
, and so it's, yeah, I think thelesson there is, you know, abc
always be creating or always becrafting or whatever.
The C is the operative verb ofwhatever craft you want to
perfect and hone and get paidfor or be famous for, or
(45:05):
whatever.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
And it's.
I think that it's a.
I think it's the usual thing onthis podcast, like I bring up
TikTok and you bring upAristotle.
You know it's.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Oh, that's what ABC is.
Is Aristotle be correct?
That's right.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Aristotle be correct.
Oh man yeah.
So so yeah, I know I next oneis this might be the last one
that we do in this episode, butparadox of decision making and
this is for all the overthinkers out there, I think says
(45:42):
it's better to choose commit,who has two thumbs and is an
over thinker, this guy anyway.
It's better to choose commitand get started instead of
waiting for the best possibleoption.
So the correct decisions areactually suboptimal because who?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
yeah, I feel seen.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
You were like oh no, oh no, I've been exposed.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
I feel like let this one linger and lead right into
the next episode.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, honestly, that one is, that one is.
I won't say it's frustrating,but like I struggle with it
because I do want to wait forthe optimal, like I do want to
wait, I want to evaluateeverything, which is again just
overthinking really yeah.
(46:38):
I call it evaluating, but it'sactually just overthinking,
Isn't it?
isn't it crazy the amount ofjustification that we do to
ourselves.
So, you know, think about likeyeah, but is that the best?
Should I go that direction?
Should I go this?
How should I say that, howshould I do this?
And, honestly, like I will saythat actually very recently I've
(47:02):
been trying to work on thingsthat are you know the dude, do
you know the?
Do one thing that scares youevery day, or start your day
with the thing that scares youthe most, or that type of a
mentality.
I've been really yeah, I've beenforcing myself to do that and
I've been less stressed becauseI've actually, in the first
(47:22):
thing in the morning, when mymind is fresh, I'm like you know
what?
This is the thing that I thefirst thing I thought of when I
woke up in the morning, and it'sstressing me out and I'm going
to take it, I'm going to dosomething, I'm going to have
some action associated with thatthat I just go and do.
And I've been less stressedbecause of it, because I'm sort
of like taking the thing, I'mdisarming it and and so that
(47:46):
sort of plays into this a littlebit, but it's it's also just
talking about overthinking ingeneral.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Yeah Well, I think one thing that can help with
this and helps me when I havethis, you know, sober
perspective is being afraid offailure is really stupid when
the cost of failure isnegligible.
Right, or overthinking andtrying to evaluate what the best
(48:13):
choice is is really dumb whenthe difference between the or
among the three options isnegligible.
Right.
Like when I go to a restaurant,I try to stop as soon as I see
something I like, I try to stoplooking at the menu.
Yeah.
Because once I have three orfour choices, now that all sound
really good.
How am I supposed to pick?
(48:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Or I'll get frustrated becauseother people will be making that
same mistake.
Who I'm dining with, and it'slike the waiter's been by three
times and we haven't ordered yet.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah, can you just give me another minute?
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Between pancakes or blueberry pancakes.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Or strawberry french toast is like you're going to
enjoy all three.
Just promise yourself that ifyou can't pick between two, next
time you come you get the otherone Right.
If you remember, you'llremember and you can do it the
second time.
But then, like if you're goingto buy a car, like okay, so some
research and due diligence isin order.
(49:16):
If you're going to buy a company, okay yeah, spend a few months
doing what you can to make sureyou're not making a life
changing careers portal, ruiningthe stake, right, because
you've got employees who arecounting on you, so it's like.
And then I guess the otherthing that come into mind with
what I was hearing you saythere's a this guy sometimes I
(49:37):
watch on YouTube, tom BillioBill you.
His channel is called ImpactTheory and he talked about how
some people just need to bechased by a lion.
Yeah.
To get perspective, to realizethat like to re-center, re-align
their stress center.
(49:57):
Right Because of the modernsociety where the worst thing we
ever have to face is you know,am I late on my taxes, right,
something like that, and thestresses are sort of weak.
You know, we end up havingpanic attacks over first world
problems.
Yeah.
When we're thinking it's a lifeor death situation, when we're
(50:21):
at the fifth or sixth level ofthe Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
And we need to kind of be reminded that there's all
these other needs that arefilled, that are much more
important, that we need to haveperspective on.
And have a bit of gratitude andagain, perspective.
You know, it's interesting yousay that you can be homeless and
be okay.
You know, yeah, and that's what.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I was just going to say is it's funny that you said
that right before I was because,like, I volunteered recently
for a local organization thatworks with local churches to
give homeless people at leastone night and some meals, some
place dry and warm to sleep,especially in the winter when
it's cold, here in MiddleTennessee, and you know so I
(51:04):
spent the night at the churchwith like half a dozen homeless
men and with a friend of mine,and so that was my part of my
volunteering, my time, and soyou get to talk with them and
you get to, you know, see whatthey are, you know their
circumstances and all of themhave a story, everyone's got a
story, and so very interesting,great, very rewarding on my side
(51:27):
, I mean, but it doesn't reallyeven matter.
What I realized, based on whatyou were just saying, is, you
know, five o'clock in themorning, when we were getting
them up and we were cleaning thechurch up and they got taken
out to breakfast and me and myfriend were just cleaning up the
beds, stripping the, strippingthe cots and everything, getting
all that cleaned up for thechurch, I had this realization
(51:47):
like I'm going to go home.
I had, like I had sort of a badnight's sleep because I slept
on a cot and it was in themiddle of a church room and I
was like man, I was sort of inmy head almost complaining like
man, I'm just so tired and allthis stuff.
And I had this realization,like they had one night where
they got to sleep on, they gotto sleep on a cot, and the next
night they had to figure outwhere they were sleeping again.
(52:11):
So, immediately I was like, okay, stop complaining, I'm going to
go home to a nice warm house.
My kids are there, my wife isthere, I've got food in the
refrigerator, I've got.
You know, like you said, firstworld problems here, of like I
had a sort of a bad night'ssleep.
You know what I mean One nightout of my life, you know it's
like anyway.
(52:31):
So, yeah, I mean, I feel like Ifeel like there's a lot of
self-help that talks about thatdecision-making thing, and just
don't overthink that.
I mean the just do it thing.
And when you were talking aboutthe, what were you talking
about?
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You were talking about something that all
failures created equal, like notall failures are the same, no,
it's it reminded me of the burnall the boats, because you were,
oh, chased by a line.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
You were saying.
Somebody said, hey, some peoplejust need to be chased by a
line, and that reminded me ofthe burn all the boats principle
of when you commit Raisingnecessity.
Yeah, basically, you commit tosomething.
You say, no, I'm committed tothis.
In fact, I'm going to eliminateall possible ways for me to
escape this, like I'm going.
The only way out is through,and so you know, I think that
(53:23):
that sometimes, that you know isvaluable, just like you were
saying is not having a I get.
It triggers every single fearfactor in my head.
When I when I say that, though,when I say like, yeah, I'm
going to commit to this and I'mnot going back, all of a sudden
everything in my being is likeah, you know just what are you
(53:46):
doing.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
That is literally.
That's the anxiety you havewhen you're facing a decision.
That's the same anxiety.
Yeah, if you look at theetymology of, decision means
like to cut off.
Right, you're cutting off allother options.
You're saying no to every.
All your opportunity, all youropportunity.
Costs are now being incurredbecause you're choosing this
(54:08):
over everything else Everythingelse you could be doing with
your time.
Right.
Um, yeah, that's, I guess, thepoint.
It's the same as incision.
Right, you're cutting indecisions, cutting off.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Oh, that is that is.
Is that really the?
Is that really?
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Look it up after we stop recording.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
If it's not, that's pretty cool.
Well, uh, well, so yeah.
So there's a few more,obviously, that we have to go
over, but I think we're going tosave those till the next
episode.
And, uh, they're good ones.
I already teased one of themthat you guys are going to have
to listen to the next episode.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
At least give us the title.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Like paradox of originality.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Which is something that you talked about and if you
go, if you roll the tape back,you'll see why I said that is
one that we talked about,because you sort of mentioned
exactly what the paradox oforiginality is, and um so so
yeah yeah, I'll see you then.
Yeah, as we don't finish thispodcast, normally we say goodbye
(55:24):
, bye, bye.
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick and I'm Brian.
Brian, what do you call it whena medical doctor and a PhD
coexist, yet also disagree?
Don't know what.
A paradox which you can Brian.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
All right, I get it.
I think I got it.
I feel like a little splitsecond there, but that's okay.
A pair of docs, I got it, whichis what I just got rid of.
I got rid of a pair of DocMartens, so I got rid of a pair
of docs.
Anyway, good riddance, I say Idid, I did.
(00:47):
I just got rid of some DocMartens.
I wore forever and they're dead.
So anyway, just.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
They weren't loafing around with your pinnies,
weren't they?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Right, exactly what am I eating?
Well, for breakfast thismorning I had egg rice.
You ever have egg rice?
Have I talked about egg?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
rice no.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I've had egg noodles.
Is that anywhere close to thesame?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, egg noodles is just like the actual noodle,
Like that's.
There's little curly short onesright the Like.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
They're not made with egg.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
They're just made for egg.
They're made with egg, I think.
Aren't they Okay With the yolks, or I don't know?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Anyway, we'll have to get that one man.
We're so ignorant.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know we're only going to be in 10 minutes and 26
seconds and we're alreadyshowing.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So tell me more about this other thing.
I don't know anything about eggrice.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, so I had egg rice, which is something that
I've had my whole life.
Like I just it was justsomething.
You know how there are certainthings that maybe in your
household growing up, yourfamily did, and you get the
sense that as you go out intothe world that nobody else did
that.
No, I don't know.
I haven't met another personthat's like oh yeah, I do egg
rice all the time.
So it's pretty much just when wehave leftover rice like either
(01:58):
from a Chinese food restaurant,like you go out and you get
extra, all you have a bunch ofwhite rice leftover or we
usually once a week we'll cookrice, just so we have rice in
the fridge that we can throwtogether with something else,
right?
And so today there was just alittle bit of leftover, and so
what you typically do is youjust take that leftover rice,
you throw it in a pan with somebutter, heat it up so it gets
(02:22):
back to not the crunchyrefrigerated rice anymore, and
then you just take a couplescrambled eggs, put it in there
with it and you scramble it upinto like a big mixture.
That's in essence, you know,and they do this a little bit
with fried rice, like if you getfried rice at a Chinese
restaurant.
They do put egg in it, but thisis more like more egg.
So it's you know, it's not justlike a little like they put.
(02:45):
They'll put like one egg inlike a big batch of fried rice,
whereas this is like a couple ofeggs in a smaller amount of
rice.
So it's almost like the egg isbinding together the rice and
usually it's just.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Why don't they just call it egg rice then, since
eggs take such a dominant partof the dish?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What egg rice?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, I do call it egg rice.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Good job, anyway.
So I usually just salt andpepper, but you can do whatever
you want.
You can add a little cheese toit if you want.
So you have like you know,cheesy egg rice.
You can also add meats if youwant.
Put some sausage and some otherstuff in there Sausage- bacon.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Now it's like a breakfast burrito power bowl.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, basically yeah, it's, and instead of using a
tortilla and wrapping it up,you're getting your sarch or
your carbs from the rice that'sin there.
But really, I think in ourfamily it just turned.
It was just one of those.
Hey, let's try to use thisthing that we have in the fridge
and not let it go to waste andso just sort of throw it in
there.
You can also put veggies inthere too, if you want, like
(03:48):
I've put, like spinach and otherthings, if you want to, or
peppers, bell peppers and makeit like a breakfast scramble,
but it's pretty hearty.
My secret ingredient, though,is the Cajun seasoning.
I put a little bit of Cajunseasoning in it, so it'll be
like Tony Keshares, or likeConrico Chash, chash, chash,
(04:08):
chasherees, chasherees,chasherees.
Yeah, all of the people thatare in Louisiana and listening
to this and are French like meare really mad at me right now.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You got corrected so they're happy.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So I put a little bit of that seasoning in there salt
and pepper and gives it, andobviously you can control the
spiciness.
If you put a lot in you'regoing to get a little bit of
spice there.
And then today I had the coupleof pieces of bacon with it,
where I just sort of ate thepieces of bacon.
Along with it I added a littlebit of cheese and I had it in a
(04:44):
bowl and it was really reallygood Bacon and eggs rice.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, bacon and eggs rice.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, bacon and eggs rice.
Bacon and eggs rice, exactly,yeah, yeah, which again is
another idea, copyrighted, so noone could take it, since I just
said it's copyrighted.
And if that's another idea formy breakfast restaurant, when I
went, and if I ever opened abreakfast restaurant, there'll
be egg rice on the menu andeveryone will come in and be
like what the heck is egg rice?
And then I'll be known as theegg rice king of the Southeast.
(05:11):
So do you see how far mydelusions go?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Well, no, I think I stopped paying attention halfway
through, so I only saw most ofhow far your delusions can go.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So I had that this morning I also had some iced
coffee.
I just had some of the coldbrew iced coffee that's just was
in my fridge and like storebought and I also am and this is
another thing, if I can'tremember if I talked about this
or not, but I'm hooked onthere's a coconut cream creamer
(05:47):
that is put out by like thebasic, like the most prominent,
you know, if you go into yourrefrigerated section at your
supermarket.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I think it's I want to say it's like it's always
Nestle Cafe, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Like it's like the most prominent one in there,
like the oldest one that youprobably have known since you
were a kid, and they have thisone that's coconut cream, and
originally I thought how thatsounds horrible, right, coconut
in coffee sounds really not like.
If you just in my head, thatdoesn't seem like it should
taste.
It's, paradoxically, it seemslike that should be a bad
(06:27):
combination, right, and it isawesome.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
So it's like a paradox, it's like a paradox of
flavor.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's what the catchphrase for my breakfast
restaurant is going to be.
I don't know if you knew thator not, but that's crazy that
you guessed it.
So I'm hooked on this.
So I don't know if I'm drinkingmore coffee because I actually
like to drink more coffee orit's just because I'm trying to
(06:59):
have like a delivery mechanismfor this coconut creamer.
It doesn't really matter which Iguess, but anyway I had that
along with it, and then I alsohave my hydration is important
flask my iron flask, iron degreeflask, whatever, and then I
(07:22):
haven't had these for a longtime, but there's sort of a off
brand soda that's in the marketcalled Dr Browns, and it's been
around forever, like since I wasa kid.
I remember drinking it.
They actually I haven't beenable to find it, but I'm pretty
sure they make a chocolate soda,which is the only chocolate
(07:44):
soda that I've ever.
That I've ever.
And it's not chocolate likecreamy chocolate, like chocolate
milk, it's like it would belike cola flavored like a
carbonated beverage that tasteslike chocolate.
So, anyway, I got a craving asI was walking by and so I got
(08:05):
the diet cream soda that theyhave and this says since 1869,
it's also kosher, so, and it'salso caffeine free.
So after I had a big cup ofcoffee, I'm going less caffeine
on this, but every once in awhile I like a cream, a good
cream soda.
It just is, I don't know.
(08:28):
I think that some I don't know,I feel like some people, I feel
like cream soda is a divideramong people.
That I don't think.
I think people either love itor hate it.
So, but this one isparticularly good.
I also like that.
It's diet, which is hard tofind it's hard to find cream
soda in and of itself, but thento find, to be able to find, one
(08:50):
that's a diet cream soda that Idon't have to worry about, like
, oh, this is like another 150calories I'm taking and I
shouldn't be taking in.
Um, that's, it's good so andthat, and it has a good flavor
to it, not like no aftertaste oranything like that.
I wonder what the sweetener isin this Hold on a second.
What is the sweetener?
Hold on, let's see.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Rithritol sorbitol.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It is aspartame.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Aspartame.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Which is which used to be the one that they said
everything was bad and then theymoved on to their Rithritol.
So I guess they're all badright.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Rithritol sweeteners are probably all sort of bad in
some way, but my personal takeis yeah, but you know I don't
have any science to prove all ofit.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Sure, so that's that's what I was eating right
before I came on, and that'sBrian's beverage corner in a
nutshell Not really in anutshell, but you know.
So what are you eating?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Unless your stomach's a nutshell Right, let's see.
I went to Starbucks with mysweetheart and got the white.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Dory.
Oh okay, I just wanted forclarification.
Just wanted to make sure ifDory's listening to this.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yes, I suppose that is important, that they're.
Yeah, see it.
Just there's no other person onmind who would qualify, so it
goes without saying that I get.
Why it for?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
others does matter.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
So egg white, roasted red pepper, egg bites.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I get it because they're roasted red pepper, that
egg whites are just okay.
That's how they make it, sothat's how I get it.
You know a lot of their.
I think all of Starbucks foodis prepared outside the store
and they just reheat it.
So there's not any customizationoptions.
But it was a good snacky kindof breakfast and to drink I got
(10:56):
the iced brown sugar, milkshaken espresso, Of course decaf
roast because of my my thing, Idid have a caffeinated drink
Back Wednesday, which that's notmuch of a frame of reference
(11:18):
for our audience, but let's sayabout what half a week ago, a
week and a half ago, yeah.
And anyway, today I had this,so it was good Still sipping on
the remaining ice cubes.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, I like the oat milk.
The oat milk out of all of thefake milks I think has all has
the most or the best feel ofactual milk, like it has that
sort of thickness to it whereyou know, where the you know, it
sort of rolls over your tongue.
The same way, because, unlikelike soy milk or something else,
(11:55):
I feel like the oat milk is thebest in terms of making like
for something like that, likeputting it in coffee and stuff.
I think it gives you the samefeeling as having a sweet cream
or something else in there,because it is a little bit sweet
in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And the milk?
Yeah, it's really sweet.
Like it helped kind of inbetween that and then the brown
sugar.
Yeah.
It was pretty, pretty sweet, Ido.
I do like coconut milk and Ithink, there is sort of a you
know as it comes option of theshake and espresso with coconut
milk.
The only reason I chose oatmilk is because that's how it
(12:33):
comes Like.
I was pretty lazy.
Yeah.
I was not sure what I wanted,so I ordered by picture.
I just said I want that, exceptdecaf.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Sir, what do you mean by that?
Well, I read it off right.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Like you know, because I can't remember what
the coconut milk was or didn'tthink about it, but I have
noticed that I like coconutquite a bit.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, I would say that's number two for me, after
if I'm going to get a fake milk.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Doesn't just that make it this shit?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll have to put a languageadvisory on this episode, sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
No, it was a reference.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
That was a reference to an actual thing, so yeah,
yeah, a phrase that's common inthe colloquial parlance of this
day and age.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well, that's good, that, like I said, that's to me,
that's a I think I want to say.
I've tried that one before, thebrown sugar oatmeal one, I
think I did it one.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, I think I've done it one before Shaking that
stirred.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And every once in a while I do like ice, because I
know the nitrocobrus.
They don't come with ice, butevery once in a while I like it.
I like a drink with ice, likean iced coffee with ice in it.
It just keeps it cold and it's.
Every sip is going to be likethat and it does get watered
down a little bit, but I don't.
I drink it quick enough thatit's not going to, you know, not
going to be that big of a deal.
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And then, as a kind of a snack before lunch, I had
an ice cream sandwich.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Nice, yeah, I just.
I just small the, so just justthe original basic, like one
with two chocolate and vanillaice cream.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Nice, yep, I am basic AF.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I, just I enjoy those .
They take me back to childhood.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yes, and I wanted.
I wanted a little bit of icecream, but I didn't want the
pint, because the pint usuallylasts like one serving.
Yes In practice, you know.
Yeah.
So it's like I want.
I want individually wrappedserving sizes to help with my
portion control.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, yeah, cause then you know what you're
getting.
I can't say I'm not doing thesame thing, so it's a double
negative.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
So you are implying that?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I am saying that I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, I have to count the negatives.
So, this is the transition intoour subject.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
We're transitioning now.
Look at this segue.
It's working really well, youwould think.
You would think, nick, youwould think it's so smooth.
You would think that, after usdoing almost what three and a
half years of podcasting, thatwe would know how to transition
(15:39):
from one subject to another.
You would think that, right,like logically, you would think
it would have made us better atthat.
But it hasn't.
That's the paradox.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
No, because I think.
I think the two hardest thingswith anything you do in the
first and second place can varybetween the task, but it's going
to be finishing and starting.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Right, yeah, we also have a problem.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
We have a big problem with how we end it.
I was going to say if anyonelistens to the end of these
podcasts.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
They know absolutely that we still have no idea how
to end the podcast.
It's sort of ridiculous.
All this is being said to getus into our subject, which is
paradoxes.
Paradoxes of modern life, ofmodern life Right, and so, as is
(16:29):
our usual custom, first of all,what the heck is a paradox?
We can usually go about saying,defining that for the audience,
so that we're all sort of atleast hopefully, on the same
page.
So I pulled up the definitionsays a seemingly absurd or
self-contradictory statement orproposition that, when
(16:51):
investigated or explained, mayprove to be well-founded or true
.
So then.
And it also says a statement orproposition that, despite sound
or apparent sound reasoningfrom acceptable premises, leads
to a conclusion that seemssenseless, logical, logically
unacceptable orself-contradictory.
And if you guys have beenlistening for a while, we did do
(17:13):
another episode on this a whileback back in I think it's
August of 2022.
It's titled Doing the Illogicalis Logical, and it was about
counterintuitive truths, whichis basically what we're talking
about here with paradoxes isthese things are.
They don't make sense.
They, it may like, when youstart to think about it, you're
(17:36):
like that doesn't make any senseat all.
It's like it should be theopposite of that.
But from studies and people,you know the actual, you know
reality of the matter is thatthey do make sense, and that's
exactly what a paradox is islike, which is also, I think, a
little tie-in we didn't eventalk about this before we
(17:56):
started recording but I think alittle also tie-in to our
cognitive biases, because Ithink cognitive biases really
play into the fact that youbelieve that the paradox
shouldn't be the way that it is,because your brain is trying to
tell you that doesn't make anysense.
It can't be that way, you know.
And if you stop right there andjust say it doesn't make any
sense, then you're saying yeah,you reject it, and then you're
(18:20):
actually rejecting the truth,which is counterintuitive what
you think, so okay, I think italso reminds me of co-ans.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I forget we've talked about those.
Maybe it was in that episode.
Doing the illogical is logical,but where they're like zen
mental puzzles, the classic, theone that probably everyone's
heard of, is what is the soundof one hand clapping?
Yeah.
(18:50):
Right, it's like they sort ofbreak your brain a little bit
yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Well, and then the other one that's similar to that
is tree falls in the forest andno one's there to hear it.
Does it make a sound?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Right, we can probably think I think we can
think the Simpsons for both ofthose.
Yeah.
They had episodes that coveredthat and the peak of their
attention capture.
But yeah, so one thing, and youfound this, brian, on Reddit
like an infographic theparadoxes of modern life.
(19:24):
And.
I thought this is fascinating.
We could definitely get a lotof mileage and banter back and
forth on it.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, and it was really interesting to me when I
was reading it, because each oneof them and there's nine of
them on this infographic andwe'll post it in the notes, but
each one of them is it really islike you read it and you're
like, yeah, it really doesn'tmake sense.
And I can say that some of themin my head, I've experienced
(19:54):
them in my own life, where I'llsay, oh, yeah, that makes sense
to me, because I actually havesort of gone through the process
of trying to do something andthen I go, oh, it sort of
doesn't make sense how I got towhere I got to.
But now it does, because thisis almost confirmation bias a
little bit, because I'm like, ah, okay, now the missing piece of
the puzzle sort of clicked inthere where I'm like it didn't
(20:16):
make sense, why what happened tome happened to me.
And now it does.
So, yeah, that's the basics ofit.
So do you want to just diveinto the first one?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah.
So, the paradox of reading yeah, Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah.
So it says, in essence, thebooks you read, or yeah, the
books you read will profoundlychange you, even though you'll
forget the vast majority of whatyou read, which to me is makes
sense, because I can barelyremember what I read yesterday,
like I mean, I guess that sortof I mean what's interesting to
(20:58):
me.
I'll say, let me start out here.
The whole educational system isbased upon you reading material
and then remembering what thatmaterial is and regurgitating it
back to some extent, at leastlower levels of education.
When you get higher, obviouslyyou're trying to get into
original thought and otherthings like that, which again
we'll get into that in anotherparadox.
(21:19):
But I can say that I've read alot of books in my life just
through education.
Not necessarily I'm not sayingI'm like some smart reader or
something.
I'm just saying that througheducation you end up reading
quite a bit of source materialand you know primary and
secondary sources and a lot ofthose.
I don't remember the exact partof it.
(21:42):
I could review it and it wouldrefresh my memory, but I can say
that it has All of those thingshave a, you know, a role in who
I am today and also sort of whywe started this podcast even
because you and I are self-helpjunkies.
Well, self-help, you know?
Like, how many self-help bookshave you read?
(22:02):
I mean, like if you had toguess, like Whatever to cover or
just like yeah.
That is a good qualification,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
There's definitely ones that have, you know, bailed
on, either because of attentionspan or it just works like it
did.
Yeah, but yeah, it'd definitelybe in the triple digits, I mean
certainly over 100, probablyless than 999.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So you probably could give like a brief summary of
like sort of the premise of thatbook, like sort of the crux of
okay, what is this book gettingat in terms of self-help, or
like what is it trying to getyou to do in your life, to do
something right?
But you might not be able totell us in detail, like well,
(22:51):
chapter one was this and chaptertwo, but those books all
obviously have, you know, piecedyou together to who you are
right now.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
right, Well, I think, yeah, I think some of that has
to do with a social andneurological component, Like
what we read and why has a lotto do with how we'll store it in
our memory.
Yeah.
If I'm reading somethingbecause I want to use it like
the way I like, justbiologically speaking, like I
(23:20):
store that differently in myhead.
Yeah.
Then if I read something becauseI know I'm going to report on
it, if I'm going to tell someoneelse about it.
I might reread it multipletimes.
I might, you know, write down asummary or key points and
reread those and you know,reread the book and like,
(23:41):
reading to report is verydifferent than you know, reading
to embody, and I think that'swhere, like was it, plagiarism
and copyright law get kind of on.
Yeah.
Because there's been severalexamples of people who absorb
content subconsciously and theyreproduce it almost perfectly
(24:05):
unconsciously, not realizingwhere it came from, where they
got it.
Yeah, that they're evenstealing like, and yeah.
So there's lots of times whereI'm just regurgitating the
culmination and synthesis oftons of self-help stuff that
I've read and unconsciouslycombining it into something
that's cohesive for me.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Well, and that even makes sense with it.
We aren't going to talk aboutit this episode, but there's
another paradox that talks aboutexactly what you're talking
about, and so I don't want tospoil it, because you know.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
I want to be a spoiler alert, but well, you're
not spoiling, but you'redefinitely teasing Geez.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I know I'm trying to Come listen to the next episode.
Can we get there now?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Like wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
This is not fair.
Yeah, no, I was just going tosay what you were talking about
is that there's the old sayingof, like, if you really want to
learn material, then you teachit Right, or what's that.
There's like if you I forgetwhat the exact saying is or if
there's an actual quote thatgoes with that or not, but you
(25:11):
know, basically they're sayingthat, hey, the way to really
learn materials to teach inexactly what you just said.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Did you just read the ?
Did you read the quote?
And you're having troubleretrieving it.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, I did not read the quote.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's changed the quote.
The quote has changed you, butit.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, exactly, but I can't remember it, I can't
recall it exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You'll forget the vast majority of the quote.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm just trying to demonstrate the paradox for the
audience right now in real time.
So so, anyway, so yeah, butwhat you're saying is, hey, if I
have to report on this, thenI'm going to take notes, I'm
going to make bullet points, I'mgoing to, I'm going to digest
that material in a different way, as other than you know, or you
know, instead of just saying,hey, I'm just going to read this
(25:50):
to try to get some informationout of it, and but then also
again, once you give that report, I think that that still has
changed you but you're not goingto remember, three years from
now, the report you gave, unlessyou go and look at that report
and look at your PowerPoint orwhatever you did.
You're not going to rememberexactly what you said or how you
did it Right.
You just are going to say like.
(26:11):
Hey, I remember we discussedthis and it was something about
this, so anyway, veryinteresting.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I think we see it a lot too.
There's a difference betweenyeah, under understanding
something and rememberingsomething.
Right.
And we see it a lot withspeeches and trying to memorize
speeches, and that's just aparallel to so many other
activities.
But like you can, you couldwrite your speech and and then
(26:43):
try to give your speech withoutany rehearsal and you can't
remember your speech.
Yeah.
Right Cause cause like writingit down, storing it isn't the
same as retrieving it.
Yeah.
And we're just understanding,isn't the same as between kids
studying for school.
Dole of time to they'll readthe material.
It's like oh, okay, I get it.
(27:05):
You know these, these chemicalsinteract this way and and these
, yeah, since I see theconsistency and they stop
reading and when they get to thetest, it's not there.
Right.
You know, because comprehensionis not the same as retention.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Right.
Well, that's interesting thatyou are talking about that,
Because the next paradox is theparadox of writing, which is
great.
Writing looks effortless, butbecause the ideas are so clear,
casual readers don't appreciatehow much time it took to refine
them.
So Dory's going through thisright now and has gone through
(27:41):
this, you know, having booksthat she's written our our
friend Ed, who's been on thepodcast before he's gone through
this, and a couple other peoplewe know that have have read or,
excuse me, have written booksor other things.
Anybody who's a writer really,you know you're reading speeches
, yeah exactly, and that's whatexactly what you're just saying
(28:02):
is, and I think both of those.
You can expand it a little bit.
Obviously, writing the speechis one thing, but then
delivering it is another thing,and then you know each one of
those things.
I think I feel like this playsinto just almost the 10,000 hour
kind of thing like the, the,not necessarily that you spend
(28:24):
10,000 hours writing a book, butyou, you know, a lot of work
goes into from the, thebeginning product, to what the
end user, if it's, unless it'sthis podcast, then if it's this
podcast, very little work goesin and then the audience
understands that we're.
We're here conversing,conversating about it, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
And one of the things that shows up there, too, is
writing, especially fictionwriting is hyper real.
They don't have the characters,don't struggle to find their
words.
Right.
Always a lot more self awarethan anybody in real life.
Yeah.
They don't.
They don't open up dialoguewith hi, how are you?
Oh, I'm good.
(29:09):
How are you?
Oh, that's not like, there'snone of that.
That's just straight into themeat and the heart of their
souls.
Are seeking you know like andthere's no problem.
Or points to the story that aredisconnected from the main
story.
Right.
Unless it's a mystery whichcase.
(29:30):
That's part of the point is.
There's some red herringsthrown in facts that are missing
information yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Things that are not revealed.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Access unnecessary information right.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Throw the reader off.
But but by and large it's.
It's been honed down.
You know, the author has killedtheir darlings, as the phrase
goes.
It's been edited and trimmedand that's partly why I think
some people are drawn to readingsuch things.
Is it's hyper real?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
a lot of the yeah distraction and unnecessary bits
of life aren't present mm-hmm,but it also can be to some
people, depending on personalitytype, can be distracting, and
the reason why is becausethey're like they.
It's that suspension of disc,the suspension of reality, a
suspension of disbelief, wherethey're like.
(30:20):
This is not how people talk,like I don't, I can't read this,
because this is not how aregular person or any regular
people would act, and so I knowwe're sort of off the topic of
the paradox, but but the idea isexactly what you said is there.
There, they have taken a,they've taken a bunch of
material, they've written itdown and then they've removed
(30:41):
anything that is superfluous andand Doesn't move the story
ahead and does not, you know,doesn't get to the point that
they need to get to and so Thenit comes to the mean polished.
Yeah, exactly Thing that isalmost sometimes sterile if you
aren't too careful, right?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So yeah, yeah, and that's that polish that gives
people that illusion of almosthave been so smooth and easy for
the writer To use this yeahthing was like no, no, the
writer had to do a lot of workto make this thing so smooth.
Right and start with a smooththing.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, well, and I think I Think, just like
anything else, it.
I don't think this is one ofthe paradoxes, but I Don't
looking at them in general, Idon't think there is, but this
almost plays into the overall.
So, like, if you're a writerand you've been writing, like
Stephen King, as an example,I've read that Stephen King has
(31:36):
Three times the amount of Idon't say three times, he has
much more the amount ofunpublished material than he has
published.
And if you know how muchPublished material Stephen King
has, which is a lot over thelast 30 to 40 years, if he has
that much more unpublishedmaterial, then you know.
The thing is he is, he'sconstantly writing, he's he
(32:00):
probably is at a differentstarting point than somebody
who's starting their first book,right, like when he sits down
to write he's like, oh, I knowhow to trigger my brain to do
whatever and get into thatcreative mindset right and Go
down the path of.
And he knows all, obviouslyknows all the the ways to build
a good story and all the things.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think.
I think this might what yourtimeout plays into the next two
Paradoxes a little bit.
So yeah, there's, you know, theparadox of skill.
Yes that's the more.
The more evenly matchedopponents are in skill, the more
of a role luck plays in the twofinal outcome.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, this one makes me mad.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, well, it reminds me of, I think we all,
not we all.
There's a phrase that makes methink that Someone knew this
somewhat intuitively.
You know it's, you know, madethe best team win.
Yes, like it is sort of goinginto it.
You know that, like the wholepoint of a tournament is to find
the best team, but by the timeyou get to the, the Super Bowl
(33:06):
or the final round or whateverit is.
Yep, they're gonna be the twobest, so they're gonna be
ostensibly very evenly matchedand At that point it's like all
things being equal, right, yeah,skill and and jersey material
and the brand of cleats they use, and the average height of the
(33:29):
players and the average weightof the players.
Yeah average stats of theplayers like bright.
All things being equal, itcomes down to maybe home team
advantage, right, or it comesdown to well, players, knees
done the other five minutesbefore, you know, five weeks
before, and and there's thisthing that's culminated and it's
just bad luck well, and I wasbring.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
I was bringing this up to my daughter because I was
talking.
She was asking what we wererecording about this morning and
and, and one of the ones that Iwas talking about was this and
it's it could be that the, the,the person that's officiating
that game, the referee and orumpire or whatever they're
called in that particular sportJust doesn't happen to be
(34:09):
looking at the place where apenalty is occurring, so that
penalty doesn't get called.
So, literally, it's just amatter of, yeah, that person's
eyes were not at the place theyneeded to be at, or they were at
the place and that person gotcalled for a penalty when they
could have easily just eat, justas easily not have been called
for that penalty.
So it's, the luck of the drawis is that?
(34:31):
Is that a fishy, you know?
Is that a person officiatingthe game, looking in the right
place, you know?
Um?
And so.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I'm sort of human element, but I Will say that
like okay, no, I have somethingto say before we move on to the
next one.
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh no, I'm not moving on to the next one.
I was just gonna say the reasonthat this one almost makes me
feel like All hope is lost,because you're like, you spend
so much time building a skillright and whether that's
something else, whether that's,uh, you know, in sport or in
business or anything else, youspend all this time like
(35:06):
building and like trying to bethe best that you can and then
to find out that if you'reAround other people that are a
relatively equal skill and that,whatever that is, that it's
just a luck of the draw likethat.
That is so frustrating, youknow.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Well, it's it's only true evenly matched.
Right now this comes to my nextpoint and how it plays into
Stephen King.
Yeah, he's.
He's I think he's even saidthat he doesn't see himself as a
great writer in terms of skilland like quality, right, but he
is prolific right if, if, ifthere's a scarce market for
(35:47):
eyeballs on book pages and Evenif he's evenly matched with
everyone in the market, he's outworking them, that he's
applying his skill to moreiterations with more effort more
often.
Yeah.
To then come out ahead.
So he's he's turning luck inhis favor.
You know, if you go to thecasino or play poker or whatever
(36:09):
like, yeah.
In aggregate, you have the sameodds as anybody else in terms
of getting a good hand orwhatever else, and the people
who think themselves more luckylike if you take a survey of
people and set aside those whothink they're lucky versus yeah,
they're unlucky those who thinkthey're lucky Roll the dice
(36:30):
more often, figurativelyspeaking right, yeah and
therefore have more, morechances to win.
And they have this bias thatthey think they're lucky, so
they're willing to roll the dicemore often.
Yeah, they put more attentionto when they win and less
attention when they lose, partlybecause of the confirmation
bias.
Yeah, so they have no betterskill at rolling dice than
anybody else, but because theydo it more often, they win more
(36:53):
often right Right right, the,the numerator.
The ratio doesn't change, butbecause their denominator is so
much larger, their numerator isso much larger than most other
people.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's an interesting point,
and I guess that's that's aninteresting you know way to look
at Anything you're doing inlife is like, hey, you know,
because I'm looking at it in thepessimistic way of you know,
like why should I even try?
If it's just luck, right.
But Again, what you said istrue, which is okay, and I mean
(37:28):
I think most self-help thingswill Align with this, which is
just keep going, you just keeptrying, you got to do.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
80% of life is just showing up like you got to just
keep going and and the the thecloser to your best that you do,
the better your best gets right, like with each iteration, your
skill improves and thereforenow you're out skilling people.
Right said because of moreeffort and more attention.
Yeah, yeah more learning andmore improvement.
(37:56):
Yeah, sorry.
Let's go on to the next one.
You ready for the next one?
Yeah.
The paradox of creativity.
Right.
This is the other one I thoughtapplied to Stephen King.
So your work is done when itlooks so simple that the
consumer thinks they could havedone it, which means they won't
(38:16):
appreciate how hard you work.
Yeah.
This is sort of the abstractionof the writing, one that they
gave.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's almost like a broader concept of
the better that you get, themore you know, the more easy you
make it look.
It's the I mean you can.
We always do the sportsreferences because they're just
the easiest, most compacted wayto look at something.
But you know the poetry andmotion and sports kind of thing
(38:44):
where you're like man, that guyrunning down the field looks
like it's so easy for him, itlooks like he's just not even
trying and everybody else on thefield is like how is he doing
that?
Right, and you know that'ssomebody that's reaching a high
level of being an expert.
You know they're again goingback to the Malcolm Gladwell
(39:04):
10,000 hours.
That's somebody who has put thetime in.
And then also I can say that weare I'll say that we're a
society of I think we're rapidlyapproaching a society of people
who think that they can doanything.
People are like I can do that.
Yeah, I can do that, I can dothat job, I can do that.
And you know, and it's based onyou know it's based on them
(39:28):
thinking this.
It's just like you're seeingpeople that are.
You know they're like what's sohard about that?
I could, just I could step inand do that.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Well, and that's?
I'm seeing that too, and Ithink the wake up call comes
when they hopefully realize,sooner than later, that the
world does not reward someonefor what they can do.
The world rewards them for whatthey actually do.
Right.
Right, it's like you know I canlearn to do that or I could.
(39:56):
I could do that.
It's like, yeah, but whenyou're going to do it, why
haven't you done it yet?
Yeah, so you too.
So focus on your potential thatyou're not turning anything
into the actual.
Yeah.
And and I guess the way I seethis applying to Stephen King is
, like you mentioned, his he'sgot more writings that's
(40:18):
unpublished, that wereunacceptable.
That didn't make the editorscut.
Right.
But then he does that it's beenpublished and again the ratio is
the same.
It's just he's out done.
Most people who you know haveto contend with the ratio of,
you know, works written versusworks published.
(40:39):
Right, and maybe, maybe it's 10to one.
You have to write 10, 10 out of10 of the things you write only
want to get published.
Well, he just wrote a thousandthings, so he has a hundred
things published.
Yeah.
You know like yeah, I mean, ofcourse everybody's results vary.
There's the skill, there isluck.
Even if you've got a lot ofskill, there's always luck and
(41:00):
such.
But sure by and large, it's ahundred to one.
Well, and I think the last two.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So this one, the paradox of skill and the paradox
of creativity, those two, likecombined to me, are make me
think of TikTok right now.
So we have I know it soundsweird.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
No, you've captured my attention like a TikTok video
.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
So I'm going to give you seven seconds of wisdom
right now.
But you've got this activitythat pretty much anyone can.
I can go start a TikTok accountright now and have a TikTok
channel.
The level of skill that youneed in order to do that, or to
do anything right to create thecontent meaning creativity,
(41:50):
right, paradox of creativity isvery little, and there's a lot
of luck involved as to whetheror not your channel is going to
go viral, even though we see theones that are.
Have you know this?
This TikTok had 15 million views, but the overwhelming majority
of TikToks out there or podcastsout there or anything else, the
(42:11):
overwhelming majority are notgetting 15 million views.
Right, you're seeing the onethat has 15 million views
because of algorithms and allthese other things.
But the interesting thing isthat, as somebody does and I can
say this with YouTube channelsthat I watch and other things
like that the more that you doit, the better that it gets, and
(42:31):
so that goes into that paradoxof creativity is that somebody
will see that and say, oh, I can, I can make a video like that.
It's like, yeah, but you didn'tsee the 10 years before that of
them making really bad videos,yeah, only I think that it's
compressed with TikTok, though,because you could make your
first.
Your first video on TikTokcould go viral.
I mean, it's very unlikely, butit could right, which plays
(42:54):
into the luck, right?
You know, theoretically,anybody.
Since it's such a low level ofskill that is required to
produce a TikTok video, you'repretty much evenly matched with
the same Technical skill.
Well, technical skill yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, that's what I'm
saying is, you're at that,everybody sort of starts at that
(43:17):
.
And then, granted, the peoplethat sort of rise to the top are
potentially, potentially, theyhave some kind of talent that
they're sharing with the world,whether that's like singing or
dancing or being funny orsomething else.
Right, but even that it stillis a matter of luck.
And then, as they, you know theperson that does get the viral
(43:38):
video if you go and look attheir channel, their videos get
better and better and better,because, ostensibly I guess
probably because now that it'stheir full time job and they're
getting paid and they're beingable to, they're, they're the
technical, you know, technicalmerit that is required is there
because they've been doing itfor a long time.
So, like, now I know how to dothis, like use this tool or
whatever.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
So interesting, Well, I'm reminded of Aristotle
saying you know, we are what werepeatedly do.
Yeah.
Excellence, therefore, is not anact but a habit, and these,
these people in TikTok, theymade a habit of making videos
and responding to feedback, andso that was a, was it a?
(44:22):
I can't, I'm trying to avoidpositive feedback.
Another feedback loop,another's a virtuous cycle.
That's what I was thinking.
Yeah, it's, it's a same thing,but virtuous cycle, such that
they're going to get better andbetter.
Maybe one day they only getlike 0.01% better, but then
three days later they get 4%better.
(44:44):
You know, they, they learnsomething, they have an epiphany
, and so it's, yeah, I think thelesson there is, you know, abc
always be creating or always becrafting or whatever.
The C is the operative verb ofwhatever craft you want to
perfect and hone and get paidfor or be famous for, or
(45:05):
whatever.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
And it's.
I think that it's a.
I think it's the usual thing onthis podcast, like I bring up
TikTok and you bring upAristotle.
You know it's.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Oh, that's what ABC is.
Is Aristotle be correct?
That's right.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Aristotle be correct.
Oh man yeah.
So so yeah, I know I next oneis this might be the last one
that we do in this episode, butparadox of decision making and
this is for all the overthinkers out there, I think says
(45:42):
it's better to choose commit,who has two thumbs and is an
over thinker, this guy anyway.
It's better to choose commitand get started instead of
waiting for the best possibleoption.
So the correct decisions areactually suboptimal because who?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
yeah, I feel seen.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
You were like oh no, oh no, I've been exposed.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
I feel like let this one linger and lead right into
the next episode.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, honestly, that one is, that one is.
I won't say it's frustrating,but like I struggle with it
because I do want to wait forthe optimal, like I do want to
wait, I want to evaluateeverything, which is again just
overthinking really yeah.
(46:38):
I call it evaluating, but it'sactually just overthinking,
Isn't it?
isn't it crazy the amount ofjustification that we do to
ourselves.
So, you know, think about likeyeah, but is that the best?
Should I go that direction?
Should I go this?
How should I say that, howshould I do this?
And, honestly, like I will saythat actually very recently I've
(47:02):
been trying to work on thingsthat are you know the dude, do
you know the?
Do one thing that scares youevery day, or start your day
with the thing that scares youthe most, or that type of a
mentality.
I've been really yeah, I've beenforcing myself to do that and
I've been less stressed becauseI've actually, in the first
(47:22):
thing in the morning, when mymind is fresh, I'm like you know
what?
This is the thing that I thefirst thing I thought of when I
woke up in the morning, and it'sstressing me out and I'm going
to take it, I'm going to dosomething, I'm going to have
some action associated with thatthat I just go and do.
And I've been less stressedbecause of it, because I'm sort
of like taking the thing, I'mdisarming it and and so that
(47:46):
sort of plays into this a littlebit, but it's it's also just
talking about overthinking ingeneral.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Yeah Well, I think one thing that can help with
this and helps me when I havethis, you know, sober
perspective is being afraid offailure is really stupid when
the cost of failure isnegligible.
Right, or overthinking andtrying to evaluate what the best
(48:13):
choice is is really dumb whenthe difference between the or
among the three options isnegligible.
Right.
Like when I go to a restaurant,I try to stop as soon as I see
something I like, I try to stoplooking at the menu.
Yeah.
Because once I have three orfour choices, now that all sound
really good.
How am I supposed to pick?
(48:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Or I'll get frustrated becauseother people will be making that
same mistake.
Who I'm dining with, and it'slike the waiter's been by three
times and we haven't ordered yet.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah, can you just give me another minute?
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Between pancakes or blueberry pancakes.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Or strawberry french toast is like you're going to
enjoy all three.
Just promise yourself that ifyou can't pick between two, next
time you come you get the otherone Right.
If you remember, you'llremember and you can do it the
second time.
But then, like if you're goingto buy a car, like okay, so some
research and due diligence isin order.
(49:16):
If you're going to buy a company, okay yeah, spend a few months
doing what you can to make sureyou're not making a life
changing careers portal, ruiningthe stake, right, because
you've got employees who arecounting on you, so it's like.
And then I guess the otherthing that come into mind with
what I was hearing you saythere's a this guy sometimes I
(49:37):
watch on YouTube, tom BillioBill you.
His channel is called ImpactTheory and he talked about how
some people just need to bechased by a lion.
Yeah.
To get perspective, to realizethat like to re-center, re-align
their stress center.
(49:57):
Right Because of the modernsociety where the worst thing we
ever have to face is you know,am I late on my taxes, right,
something like that, and thestresses are sort of weak.
You know, we end up havingpanic attacks over first world
problems.
Yeah.
When we're thinking it's a lifeor death situation, when we're
(50:21):
at the fifth or sixth level ofthe Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
And we need to kind of be reminded that there's all
these other needs that arefilled, that are much more
important, that we need to haveperspective on.
And have a bit of gratitude andagain, perspective.
You know, it's interesting yousay that you can be homeless and
be okay.
You know, yeah, and that's what.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I was just going to say is it's funny that you said
that right before I was because,like, I volunteered recently
for a local organization thatworks with local churches to
give homeless people at leastone night and some meals, some
place dry and warm to sleep,especially in the winter when
it's cold, here in MiddleTennessee, and you know so I
(51:04):
spent the night at the churchwith like half a dozen homeless
men and with a friend of mine,and so that was my part of my
volunteering, my time, and soyou get to talk with them and
you get to, you know, see whatthey are, you know their
circumstances and all of themhave a story, everyone's got a
story, and so very interesting,great, very rewarding on my side
(51:27):
, I mean, but it doesn't reallyeven matter.
What I realized, based on whatyou were just saying, is, you
know, five o'clock in themorning, when we were getting
them up and we were cleaning thechurch up and they got taken
out to breakfast and me and myfriend were just cleaning up the
beds, stripping the, strippingthe cots and everything, getting
all that cleaned up for thechurch, I had this realization
(51:47):
like I'm going to go home.
I had, like I had sort of a badnight's sleep because I slept
on a cot and it was in themiddle of a church room and I
was like man, I was sort of inmy head almost complaining like
man, I'm just so tired and allthis stuff.
And I had this realization,like they had one night where
they got to sleep on, they gotto sleep on a cot, and the next
night they had to figure outwhere they were sleeping again.
(52:11):
So, immediately I was like, okay, stop complaining, I'm going to
go home to a nice warm house.
My kids are there, my wife isthere, I've got food in the
refrigerator, I've got.
You know, like you said, firstworld problems here, of like I
had a sort of a bad night'ssleep.
You know what I mean One nightout of my life, you know it's
like anyway.
(52:31):
So, yeah, I mean, I feel like Ifeel like there's a lot of
self-help that talks about thatdecision-making thing, and just
don't overthink that.
I mean the just do it thing.
And when you were talking aboutthe, what were you talking
about?
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You were talking about something that all
failures created equal, like notall failures are the same, no,
it's it reminded me of the burnall the boats, because you were,
oh, chased by a line.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
You were saying.
Somebody said, hey, some peoplejust need to be chased by a
line, and that reminded me ofthe burn all the boats principle
of when you commit Raisingnecessity.
Yeah, basically, you commit tosomething.
You say, no, I'm committed tothis.
In fact, I'm going to eliminateall possible ways for me to
escape this, like I'm going.
The only way out is through,and so you know, I think that
(53:23):
that sometimes, that you know isvaluable, just like you were
saying is not having a I get.
It triggers every single fearfactor in my head.
When I when I say that, though,when I say like, yeah, I'm
going to commit to this and I'mnot going back, all of a sudden
everything in my being is likeah, you know just what are you
(53:46):
doing.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
That is literally.
That's the anxiety you havewhen you're facing a decision.
That's the same anxiety.
Yeah, if you look at theetymology of, decision means
like to cut off.
Right, you're cutting off allother options.
You're saying no to every.
All your opportunity, all youropportunity.
Costs are now being incurredbecause you're choosing this
(54:08):
over everything else Everythingelse you could be doing with
your time.
Right.
Um, yeah, that's, I guess, thepoint.
It's the same as incision.
Right, you're cutting indecisions, cutting off.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Oh, that is that is.
Is that really the?
Is that really?
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Look it up after we stop recording.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
If it's not, that's pretty cool.
Well, uh, well, so yeah.
So there's a few more,obviously, that we have to go
over, but I think we're going tosave those till the next
episode.
And, uh, they're good ones.
I already teased one of themthat you guys are going to have
to listen to the next episode.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
At least give us the title.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Like paradox of originality.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Which is something that you talked about and if you
go, if you roll the tape back,you'll see why I said that is
one that we talked about,because you sort of mentioned
exactly what the paradox oforiginality is, and um so so
yeah yeah, I'll see you then.
Yeah, as we don't finish thispodcast, normally we say goodbye
(55:24):
, bye, bye.
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