July 2, 2025 • 68 mins
Art and creativity serve as profound catalysts for healing the mind, body, and soul, enabling individuals to unlock their limitless human potential. In this enlightening discussion, we explore the transformative power of artistic expression and its capacity to foster healthy dialogue, thereby nurturing our innate creative abilities. Our esteemed guest, Michaell Magrutsche, a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and advocate for neurodiversity, shares his unique insights shaped by his personal experiences with dyslexia and dysgraphia. Through our conversation, we delve into the significance of embracing our creative voices and the essential role of art in reconnecting with our humanity. Join us as we embark on this profound journey of self-discovery and artistic exploration. (Originally aired January 11th, 2023)
Takeaways:
- Art and creativity serve as profound superpowers that enhance our understanding of limitless human potential.
- Engaging in creative expression fosters a deeper connection to our humanity and the world around us.
- The journey of creating art allows individuals to unveil their unique voices and share their experiences with others.
- Neurodiversity, as exemplified by Michaell Magrutsche's experiences, offers a unique perspective on embracing one's creative abilities.
- Healthy dialogue and adaptability are essential in fostering creativity and overcoming societal constraints on individual expression.
- Art can be a healing force, helping us process and make sense of our experiences, ultimately contributing to our well-being.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey, one more thing before yougo. Art, creativity, healthy dialogue
like a podcast, and ouradaptability are superpowers that
defined our limitless humanpotential. Creating art always reminds
and teaches us of life ashuman beings. It makes us aware of
humans and nature, wonder inthe nature's wonders for us as well
(00:22):
as future generations. That'sthe philosophy and the practice of
my next guest. In thisepisode, we're going to explore how
art and creativity alwaysbrings us closer to humanity and
how you have the ability todevelop your creative voice. And
we're going to help youunderstand that. My guest in this
(00:58):
episode is Michael McGurch.He's an Austrian, Californian, multidisciplinary
artist, awareness andcreativity educator. He's a speaker
and an author. He works onraising the awareness of our limitless
human potential andcomprehending wisdom. We have a lot
to talk about. Michael's anadvocate for helping understand neurodiversity.
His dyslexia and hisdysgraphia. We'll explain all that
(01:22):
as we go. Forced him todevelop an awareness of seeing the
world pure, purely from ahuman perspective. Creating an art
completed his awareness ofwhat it is to be human relevant versus
system relevant. And again,we'll discuss that more in depth.
Michael's talent isrecognizing awareness to seed new
(01:42):
consciousness that allows usto unveil the untapped superpowers
of humans. Limitless art andcreativity, healthy discourse and
adaptability to make allhumans fit within our human tapestry.
I'm Michael Hurst. Welcome toone more thing before you go.
Hi, Michael. Thank you. Thatwas an awesome. We basically can
(02:07):
turn off now. Walk off. Thatwas pretty much everything I am.
Yeah. Thank you for giving mea canvas to paint.
Oh, absolutely. I think, youknow what you bring to the world.
As you know, my background issimilar to yours in certain aspects.
I have a master's degree ininterdisciplinary studies with a
(02:28):
focus on performance, digitalmedia and art. So we have a lot in
common in this arena becausewe both appreciate the fact that
it is interdisciplinary andthat all types of creativity, whether
it's performance or whetherit's painting or drawing or dance,
all has a place in oursociety. So thank you very much for
(02:51):
coming on and sharing yourjourney in all of this. I really
appreciate it.
You're welcome. I'm reallyglad to be here. And I think that,
you know, you say you're sobrilliant because you could actually
fit into systems. So you got adegree? I have pretty much no education
(03:12):
other than art, but art isbetter. I think the best art and
humans are the best educationthat you can get. I don't think there's
any Harvard or any topuniversity in the world where you
can get the education that youcan get from human or from art creating,
not from art, looking at itfrom any creation.
(03:33):
Actually, you know, I agreewith that. I think that, you know,
we as human beings, we. Ithink we seek out pleasures in life
like music and drama and artand creativity. It allows us to experience
life from a differentperspective. It allows us to experience
life from other people'sperspectives. And we can only do
(03:55):
that through a humanexperience. So yes, I do agree with
you. It is a. And those of usthat are in the creative field, it's
deep in our soul. It comesfrom the heart, comes from the soul.
And we put it out here becausewe want to share that with others.
On the same level.
I think the. What you said, Iwould say like, I would say it like
(04:21):
this. I would say art isinherent in us. Art and creation.
It is the closest when youcreate something. And that's why
we have the shiny objectssyndrome that we think Apple is bigger
than the company Apple orMcDonald's or Nike or Louis Vuitton
(04:41):
or whatever you call it isbigger than we are. And I think we,
we creating art gives us. Itdoes two things. Number one, it gives
us that feeling that God wecreate. We can't believe we created
this, right? When you, you setup a task and you said, you know,
(05:03):
I'm creating a goal that otherpeople's did. So something that you
want to like your podcast,right? New thing, you have an inspiration
and you create it. And thenyou say I can't believe I created
this, right? I enjoy thepodcast, I do whatever. And, and,
and that's the God that youget a sense of God. I think you get
(05:25):
a sense of what we are capableor our godliness. Because you are
not going to be an account,you're not making an accounting company,
but you making your part. Andthe other thing is the fulfillment,
(05:47):
the awareness of self and theawareness of the whole. So the awareness
of self gives you art creationbecause you couldn't believe that
you unveiled yourself. Youcouldn't believe you did that, right?
It doesn't matter even if it'sart or if it's something else. You,
(06:08):
you couldn't believe you everwill end up finish that, finishing
that or getting in thedirection. And the other thing is
also seeing that art as a, asa institution, not institution as
a common good is for example,when you go to an art opening, it's
(06:34):
all inclusive. There's everygender, every race, every level of
society. There, people,wealthy people mingle with poor people,
with poor artists, forexample. And that's for me, when
(06:54):
you do all these things,that's why I call it this the first
superpower.
Yeah.
Everybody meet us. And nobodylooks at the art. It's the funniest.
When you look at the artopenings, nobody looks at the art.
It's just the energy thatbrings us together. You know, that
brings us. And it also. Lookwhat happens when a CEO works 80
(07:18):
hours a week. What does he doon the weekend? He tinkers on his
car. He thinkers in thegarden. It. It just, it just brings
you back to your human essence.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think that's why it's.That's why I coined the first thing
is as a superpower creation.The second, what we're doing here.
(07:39):
Because. But through relatingand telling stories, we grow. We.
And we put things into. Iwould say, yeah, that's. We make
it real. Because when you say,okay, you have the same experience
that I have, that's more realthan if a system says you have to
(08:03):
do this to get this.
I agree with that. Yeah, I can.
So that's why I callpodcasting the second superpower.
So not podcasts. Dialogue.Dialogue. Human dialogue. Healthy,
obviously. Not. Not. I'mright, you are wrong. So sis, I'm
not a system. Directeddialogue. Where you, where I say
(08:24):
it's all about Republicans,you say it's all about Democrats
and, and, or vice versa. Andthen the, the third one is that actually
we can survive in thesesystems and in this world is our
adaptability. Otherwisenobody, no human would have survived
the holocaust of war.
(08:45):
Right. I think the tenacity ofindividuals and what we strive to
do to keep ourselves on ahuman level is the use of creativity,
no matter what form it comesthrough, whether it be drama or the
art, drama, dance, music.There's a universal language, in
my opinion, with creativityfrom all those perspectives. Because
(09:08):
it doesn't. Like you said, youcan go in and no matter what area
you're from, no matter whatsocioeconomic level that you're at,
whether you're poor, you'rerich, or, you know, you're black,
you're white, you're Asian,doesn't matter. We can all appreciate
the same creativity and dothat on a personal level. Because
when we look at something, welook at a piece of art, as you know,
it's subjective. We all lookat that and may see something different
(09:31):
that appeals to usindividually. And I think that's
very unique because itcommunicates with us. And communication
is the key. The key to humanbeings inter interacting with each
other at a level that we allunderstand each other. So, yes, everything
that you just said,Absolutely, 100%. Let's start where
(09:53):
your journey. Can we startwhere you started on your journey?
I know. Where'd you grow up?
I grew up in Vienna, inAustria, a very cultured city. And.
But it was very systemic, muchmore than America was 40 years ago.
And I had to go, leave. I was,you know, I was a sick child, went
(10:18):
to school, couldn't goanywhere with what I. With my dyslexia.
And I wasn't even aware aboutdysgraphia. They just called me at
that time, oh, you'redyslexic, but you still have to do
your homework and you stillhave to do your tests and you still
have to fit in. And I justcouldn't fit in and because I couldn't
(10:39):
regurgitate stuff, and I had ahard time. Especially when you're
a little stressed, you know,you have to read in front of the
class or you have to do atest. You go, all right, with the,
with the dyslexia.
Okay, can I, Can I ask youplease, to help our. Our listeners.
Our viewers understanddyslexia in.
(11:00):
Yeah. This graph.
Yeah. Okay, please.
Dyslexia is where you're. You,Your brain. That's what, you know,
that's the latest thing that,where your brain or gets like, ADHD
is the first. First you'regoing anxious, then you go adhd and
then you have dyslexia.Dyslexia is the highest. And it's
(11:24):
not. Probably not from stress,but it could be a shock, it could
be a stress, or it could be.We see that also it's genetic. And
what can happen is it whacksyou out of time, space, and when
you're not in your body, whenyou're all in your mind and you try
(11:47):
to fix your. With your mind,your being, that doesn't work. It's
the same thing as when you'rea mind construct. When you do a mind
construct and you want tounderstand, you know, like, like
you can't predict the futurebecause it's a mind construct. You
(12:09):
are right now here, and in oneminute I can get a check for a million
dollars or I can die.Everything is possible. And that's
why mind constructs. Andthat's what you see so much. Because
right now in, in the world,because the systems, our systems,
(12:30):
man made systems, all you gotto have knowledge about those, all
those Monopoly games and theynurture mind constructs. So you got
to say, oh, where's this goingto go? How it's all strategy and
it pulls us out of time space.So this dyslexia is, is basically
(12:55):
the future where our world isgoing to go. And I experienced that
when I was little, you know,so. And I still do it. So you switch
letters and you cannotdetermine if you. Let's say that
the true that everybody seesthe same number is 13. I can have
(13:21):
written down 31 and read it as13. I can also read 13 as 31. So
they're both equal. So 31 isnot a one and a three, but they're,
(13:43):
they're equal and they'reinterchangeable in my mind. So my
perception switches up.
I do understand that indysgraphia, that's a hand eye coordination
on top of.
Eye coordination, meaning whenyou write something obviously legible
five years ago, I can read it,I can read it now. If I write something
(14:08):
incursive, not in caps, I haveto do it in caps to decipher it.
But also I lose context of it,meaning I write something down. And
if I. Let's say I'm makingnotes in this interview and if I
(14:29):
don't take the notes, inextreme cases it can be that I can't
even after hour hour, I cannoteven decipher our notes if I take
it usually it takes like ahalf a day or a day that I can't
recognize my cursive writingbecause I have contextual loss. And,
(14:55):
and I. And I can't decipherthe writing. So I always need context.
That's why I. My dyslexia onthe other spectrum is a superpower.
And that's why I found why 97of artists worldwide are in poverty.
Because I separated. I thoughtthat because we have to separate
(15:20):
art into art, into an artproduct and into an art in the art
creation. And once youseparate those, those two and actually
in another one in oxy artexperience, if you separate art in
that, you can make sense why90, 70% of artists are in poverty
(15:44):
worldwide. And, and I seesuperpower. I mean I, I use dyslexia.
I haven't used it before. Itwas like a burden. I was a victim.
I like everybody else. So Ihit the wall till I was 50. I just
hit the wall. I tried, I didwhatever and I pushed with my willpower
(16:06):
through. But it really. Mylife is now even. Nothing has changed
financially or I didn't Get amillion dollar check or I didn't
marry the right woman oranything, but I'm at peace now. Versus
before. I wanted to surviveevery day, I needed to survive every
(16:27):
day.
That makes a lot of, I mean itis a journey for anybody. But starting
out as a child, having both ofthat as an obstacle or something
that you need to overcome oradapt to adaptability, as you said
and we said earlier in thebeginning of the conversation, you
know, adaptability is the keyto overcoming, you know, we have
to adapt and overcome in manyaspects of our lives. I, you know,
(16:51):
as my listeners, viewers know,I'm a retired police sergeant. I
was injured in line of duty. Iwas told to be in a wheelchair for
rest of my life. I'm not thewheelchair sitting in the garage
and I walk my oldest daughterdown the aisle and I'm going to walk
my youngest daughter down theaisle. And I had to adapt and overcome.
And it seems to me that youhave adapted and overcome many obstacles
(17:13):
in your life and you've donethat through creativity, through
art. So does art speak to youat a deeper level, do you think,
than it does the averageindividual or do you think we just
kind of society has kind ofput that aside?
I think we are unaware, Ithink to have you said the perfect
(17:33):
words, it put it on the side.I think I'm more aware because when
I was 30, I, you know, Ialways struggled, you know, like
adolescent first and then westruggled, you know, every, every
day basically to survive and,and you find yourself. And at 30
I wrote a, you know, and Icouldn't fit into any systems so
(17:57):
I had to repeat classes andall this stuff. So I wrote my resume
and I saw, oh my God, all myjobs were creative. I, you know,
sold tapes in the trunk, didwas a dj, produced fashion shows,
(18:23):
advertising, television,video. So I was always, always an
artist. And then it dawned onme. I think that was one of the major
pivot points where I definingmyself. It was when I realized I
don't need the society or asystem to deem me an artist because
(18:47):
basically, and that was myunique situation. I couldn't do anything
else than art or beingcreative. So it was me, it was, it
was a tool for me to survive.And that's later on. That's why I
said I can't believe for mewas such a tool to survive and to
(19:08):
relate to other humans and tofeel as a human being, as being included,
that that 97% of artists thatI know not only know that all the
statistics say on the Povertylevel, which is that, you know, art
is the highest form ofcreativity because it doesn't have
a purpose. You know, if Icreate a shoe, you create. You limit
(19:32):
already your creativitybecause you're focusing all on that
shoe or on that iPhone orwhatever you're going to create.
But art is basically, I hear asound, and then I hear another sound
or I hear a rhythm. I mean,I'm a musician too, so I hear rhythms
and then I lay the rhythm, andthen I just fill in the rhythm till
(19:55):
it creates its own life. Andthat's why I think that pivot point
where your song takes over oryour paintings takes over is the
godliness. And if you givethat to your ego, that's the problem.
And, and, and most, mostpeople give their creation to the
(20:17):
egos to look what I created.No, you completed something and then
it became. It got its ownthrough you. You created something
and it got its own life.
Yeah, it took out its ownlife. Yeah, I do. Yeah. It, It's.
Did you. If I can just kind ofback. Just to backtrack just a second.
(20:42):
Had you always. Like, when didyou. When did you first pick up a
paintbrush, for example? Wasit when you hit 50 years old? Or
was that prior to.
No, no, no, no. That wasaround 30. 30, 35.
30 years old.
About that when I realized Iwas an artist, because then it wasn't
important for me that I sellmy paintings. I mean, it was. I wanted,
(21:03):
at the beginning, I wanted toall be famous and blah, blah, blah,
all the system, relevance. ButI, you know, as, you know, there's
1% of artists that, when. If97% of artists are poor, the chance
that you're going to be 1, 1of the 1 and 2% on top is very minute.
It's like everybody wanted tobe Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Right.
(21:27):
The. The chance. But this ishow we live. This is what society
tells us. It's alwayspossible. If Jeff Bezos can it. You
did. Yeah, it's possible, butit's probably not that you become
that you might be in otherJeff Bezos in another category, you
know.
Well, and I mean, like thispodcast, for example, you know, I've
(21:47):
been doing this podcast for,let me see, 20, 21, 22, but three
years now, more than threeyears now. And in regard to this,
in the beginning, I, you know,wanted it to go big and, and in the
beginning, it, it took itstime like that. Like, all things
that you're creating take itstime. It evolved and it was created
(22:08):
in such a manner that I'mgrateful. I'm heard in 59 countries.
I am grateful for the audiencethat I've got. I'm grateful for every
time I look at the thing and Isee downloads in views.
Nice.
But it's not making me rich.But I love doing it. No, but it gives
me purpose. I'm loving whatI'm doing. I'm sharing with the world.
(22:29):
I hope to motivate, inspire,inspire and educate people with this
podcast. So monetary to me. Iwould love to be, obviously, make
a million dollars likeeverybody else. I'd love to do a
deal like Joe Rogan did. Youknow, obviously, we're two completely
opposite individuals, but, youknow, I would love to be able to
attach that. But it doesn'tstop me from continuing to create
(22:52):
because I haven't reached thatlevel. It's dear to me. Like I said,
like we said earlier, it's inour hearts and our soul to create
and to share that with theworld and to bring that forward.
And it helps us redefine ourown purpose. I think, you know, after
I got injured and I realized Icouldn't be in law enforcement any
longer, that's what I went tocollege for. That's what I dedicated
(23:13):
my life to. And my family,they understood that it's who I was,
and I had to reinvent mypurpose. And in reinventing my purpose,
I found that my creativity wasa better outlet for me in dealing
with my ptsd, in dealing withthe stuff that I had experienced
through a dysfunctionalchildhood as well as my law enforcement
(23:35):
career. I found thatcreativity allowed me to manage that
and to work through that anddeal with that. So I understand where
you come from, that art increativity, in music, in the. The
creative endeavors of allaspects within us. Okay. You and
(23:58):
I have reached a level withinour soul, within our bodies, within
our minds, that we understandthat that's an innate, innate part
of our being and that all wedid was open the doors for it to
come out.
It's communication, like you said.
Yes, it's our medication, andit's coming.
(24:19):
It's coming. It's medicationand communication. Yes, it's both.
It's both.
And. And the funny thing thatyou said that and I said that. You
said a word, and I, you know,because of my dyslexia. You said
a word, and I said that thecorrect word in the human aspect
is fulfillment. Because it'slike that feeling after an orgasm.
(24:43):
After the union.
Yes.
Not about the sex. Forget thesex. It's about after Orgasm, it's
the union that you have andthat fulfillment that you feel afterwards.
And, and this fulfillment isthe. You are. It's the feedback,
(25:04):
emotional feedback that youjust had a union that you were communicating.
And that's why art can do isthe only part of in that can actually
give you the emotion offeeling heaven on earth. I mean,
how often did you cry by asong or a movie? It shows our interconnection,
(25:28):
you know. And I need to tellyou about. Because you were policeman
soldiers, and you're kind of asoldier. Right. So soldiers are protectors,
and they're also human. One ofthe best human, you know, the most
connected, which I find when Italk to marines and, and, and, and,
(25:48):
and personnel. The besthumans. The best humans that know
instinctively I want toprotect the herd.
Yeah. I, I still do. I mean,it's still.
That's why, you know, I could,I, I can see that and hear that.
(26:09):
It's. It's protecting theherd. That's an innate thing of your
purpose. And they want toserve. And the bad thing is they
sacrifice themselves, theprotection. They are the best humans
because, look, I'm strong. Ican protect this beautiful thing
that we have as a tribe here.Right. And then they get screwed
(26:32):
up from the system, getdeployed, put on drugs, get put in
positions where they have tokill somebody that they don't even
know.
Yeah.
So this is. And, and that'swhy my next book is about systems
and how we use creativity to,to eradicate each other.
Yeah.
Because systems are done byother. It's just our. The buffer.
(26:53):
It's the muffler of, of onehuman against another. And we need
to untangle that understandingof what systems do. Systems should
serve us, not we servesystems. Human connection needs to
be number one. The humaninteraction needs to be number one.
(27:13):
And what's. Where it's stillpure is in art.
Right.
It's not pure anymore insoldiering, in policing, because
the system has created that environment.
Yeah.
It actually castrates yourpower. It's your purpose. You have
a purpose that you feel inevery cell of your body. To protect
the soldiers too.
Oh, absolutely. Exactly. Copsand firefighters, EMT personnel,
(27:39):
all those. We see people attheir worst. We see the best people
at their worst, which means wesee everybody at their worst. Because
when you need a cop, it'seither for one or two reasons. You,
You're a victim or you're acriminal. You're either a victim
or a criminal. And if you're avictim, you're a victim. Either of
(28:01):
A crime, whether it bedomestic violence, whether it be
a robbery, a burglary, murder,assault, whatever it happens to be,
you're a victim. Child abuse,you're a victim. So that is your
connection to law enforcementor to EMTs or to any of the. The
first responder aspect. That'syour first connection. You're a victim
(28:24):
or you're a criminal. So fromthat perspective, that's all we see
day in and day out. You dealwith that part of humanity that,
I mean, when you're drivingdown the road, we call them instant
Christians. Forgive me forthat, but we call them instant Christians.
You see a cop, you don'tthink, oh, there's a human being.
(28:46):
There's a husband, there's afather, there's a wife, there's a.
There's a daughter, there's ason, there's a. You know, you don't
think this. What you think is,there's a cop, oh, crap, he's going
to stop me, you know, and youstart doing everything like he's
the enemy. And the cops dealwith that on a daily, daily basis.
(29:06):
Soldiers deal with that.They're there to do a job, but what
do they see? They see theworst of humanity, and they see the
worst of humanity becausethey're put into that position. Yes,
we chose to do this. We choseto be a protector. We chose because
we felt that that was ourcalling. That was my calling. My
calling was to protect andserve. I mean, literally, to protect
(29:28):
and serve. I was drawn to lawenforcement for what you just specifically
said, to protect and serve. Ifelt that, well, everybody's running
that way. I want to standbetween that and you so that that
doesn't hurt you, you know, asit's coming to you, I'm going to
be the person standing inbetween you and in the danger you
(29:51):
and the assault you andwhatever it happens to be. So we,
once we are out of that, justto follow up with what you were saying,
whether you're a soldier,because again, like you said, I'm
kind of a soldier. Soldiers,cops are daily soldiers, you know,
soldiers that go overseas andfight their daily soldiers. It just
(30:14):
sometimes is a little bitdifferent. Different kind of a battle,
you know, But I took my lifein the hands every day. That's what
put me in a wheelchair forfour years because I put my life
on the line for somebody else.So when you wake up out of that,
when we step out of thatrealm, the system does not give us
(30:36):
the tools to manage what wejust experienced.
If they would, they had to payyou. And what payment? Every time
it comes to payment. And evenif they have to pay for psychological
or art therapy.
Right, exactly.
It costs money. And everysystem works on financial principles.
(30:58):
Every system, religions, everystate, every government, everything.
And when it comes to too muchmoney, it's going to be cut. And
the system tries to manipulateas long as possible. Because on the
other side of systems are alsohumans that need to pay their bills.
And as long as they can, theywant to get the most for free. That's
(31:21):
what every business you run,you want to get. Keep, keep your
people low, keep the cost lowand make the maximum profit. And
not. That's not in a mean. Idon't see it in a mean. I just see
human against human. And yourjob as a. As a soldier is not to
fight, kill people, not to,to. To your soldier. That the innate
(31:44):
human tribal soldier is theprotector against animals that came
in against whatever it makesthe, that that the human being survive,
that the kids can grow up.That is the essential thing of a
soldier. Not to kill 200,000people in Ukraine and Russia. Yeah,
(32:05):
that. Where the system saysyou do that. And people say yes,
I have that feeling ofprotecting. Okay, I'm gonna do this.
And I go so far to sacrifice.That's insanity. That is absolutely
insanity. And that we actuallywhat you said to us, that we see
each other, that we see copsfor the longest. I've never had any
(32:29):
crime or was drunk. I neverdrank because I couldn't because
one of my things and I had thesame feeling. But you described.
He's gonna give me a ticket. Inever got into a fight with a cop
I always talk to because I'mgood human wise. So I talked to the
cops. Yeah. And I changed mywhole perception system conditioning
(32:49):
that I had because that's overgeneration cops are assholes. Right?
I mean over, over, overgenerations. And, and I had to be
aware of that. And as Isaying, you become aware of that
if you focus on humanity. Theyare the best people. And you know
what? It's funny. I justtalked to a Navy SEAL and he was
in love with the. He was inlove with artist. I said, do you
(33:13):
know, I love it because you'reso similar. You're so similar. You
are a real human. Where do youfind real human? Most people go in
the jobs to make money. Thesepeople are having a human feeling
to be part of humanity. Andboth have the artists as the thing
(33:36):
and they don't do it formoney. Otherwise artists will be
all rich and cops will be allrich, you know.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, yeah,they don't pay soldiers very much.
They don't pay cops very much.We do it because we do it. Or artists.
We do it because we have apassion in it. Like you said, it's
within our soul. That's whatwe chose to do. It's within our soul.
(33:59):
We want that human connection.I love part of my job I loved was
what, what they now callcommunity oriented policing. Yeah,
back when I was doing it, theywere just starting that. I like to
park my car and I would walkdowntown and I would talk to people
and I would ask the kids howthey're doing, ask the people how
they're doing. I would walkinto shops and ask how their day
(34:22):
was going to house business. Imade it a point to connect with those
human beings within mydistrict, within my beat, and I love
that part of it. I would siton a bench, have a cup of coffee,
and I would talk to peoplebecause that's what I wanted, to
connect with thoseindividuals. Later in life, I found
out that that allowed me tocreate this podcast, that part of
(34:47):
my law enforcement career. Andthen the ability, and like you said
earlier, I think in my notes,you've got your salvation. You found
your salvation through art. Ifound my salvation through creativity
in the same respect withcommunicating with my podcast, which
is similar to art, similar tomaking a painting. It's just doing
(35:08):
it verbally. And I was able totranslate that into what I do now.
And it has helped me and itgave me a new purpose. I don't make
any money at it. As you said,I'm a starving artist. They gave
me fulfillment, purpose.
The purpose you have, you havethat. And you were not conscious,
(35:30):
really conscious. You likedgoing and talking, drinking coffee
with people, but now you areconscious of it with your podcast.
You aware that this wassomething you always had in you.
Like I say, we unveilourselves. I hit the wall till I
was 50. You know, you unveilyourself and then you find out it's
(35:51):
all about humanity when youdon't make your compass. Humanity
and nature, we are still apart of nature, by the way. You know,
let's forget that. If we don'tmake that, we will always be distracted.
If I experience humanitythrough systems, that's why we are
(36:12):
distorted. Because systems areso limited, we created them. We are
the gods of systems, right?But we are not the gods of humans
or nature. So we in systems,when we experience our human being
through a system, then aprotector, cop, a soldier, becomes
an asshole. You Know in theperception. And he doesn't, you know,
(36:37):
people are not aware what youguys do. Just to be there. Just to
be. Just to be there and drinka cup of coffee. They have to think,
oh, look at that, lazy.They're eating donuts and drinking
coffee. It's completelyinsane. They give you a metaphorical
experience, the other that youare safe.
(37:00):
Yeah, I agree with that. Howdo you think. That's probably the
wrong phrase of a question.How do we as individuals, aside from
like my own profession, intranslating into what I'm doing now,
how can we as an individualkind of dig deep within ourselves
and understand that we allhave this potential, whether in.
(37:25):
It may not be to paint, it maynot be to draw, but it may be music
or it may be dance, or it maybe performance art or something along
that line. How do we recognizethat within ourselves and say, hey,
I think I really want toexplore this.
I always say, I saw. When youhave kids, give them, you know, don't
(37:48):
buy an instrument. Don't buy apiano, a saxophone or anything. Just
rent it as cheap as you can.Let them find themselves. Whatever
resonates. Don't let him say,oh, I want to do violin. If you are
not a. You know, if you'renot. And then you play violin and
nothing comes out, and theneverybody. The feedback will be,
(38:10):
oh, that's horrible. Becausewe always want acknowledgment and
recognition from others. Souse the instrument or the paint that
fits you yourself, not thatyou get appreciation. So I loved
guitar. I couldn't wait to getmy own. I bought my own guitar. I
(38:32):
learned classical guitar fortwo, two years and I couldn't get
anywhere with it. So just todo art to please somebody or your
perception of like is in ajob, you think this is a good job,
and then you hate the job. Soit's, it's. It's important that you,
(38:54):
you know, you use whereveryou're drawn to. And then. And it's
okay if I say I want to be apoet and then the right poetry, and
I myself don't like the poet,the poetry, put it away, take it
out in three months, and thenyou look at fresh. Don't throw it
away and say, I'm not a poet.If you can't do an instrument like
(39:17):
I. You don't have to waitthree, two years to find out. That's
really hard. And you only cando four chords change to another.
In my case, I. A friend ofmine asked me to do percussion and
I was a viator. Also, I gotinvited to play with people. I played
in bands, had my own bands, Imade my own cd, but I could four
(39:40):
chords on the guitar. So it'ssuch a metaphor in this story. You
see what a metaphor? Artcreating is to find yourself, because
basically you want tocontribute with your strengths to
humanity. And that doesn'thave to look in any way. It's your
(40:02):
strengths. The guy that sitson the streets and is a beggar contributes
to society because it remindseverybody we can end up like this
if we don't watch out. Buthe's unaware of it, obviously. And
that's the sad thing. The sadthing of a poor person is not that
he has no money. The sad thingis he's not aware that. That he has
(40:23):
human impact on the whole. Andthose are the things. That's why
I say if you just work in thegarden, that's art. If you just think
on your car and do it. So tobe fulfilled, your gauge is the fulfillment.
(40:45):
And the fulfillment needs tobe in the process. It can't be, I
need to win an Oscar or aGrammy or I need to be the best painter
in the world. That thejourney. If you don't have fulfillment
in your journey, like you liketo be a cop, then don't do it, don't
be a cop. Then if you don'tand not fulfilled in every day needs
(41:07):
to be fulfilled. Do you haveups and down? Absolutely. Every living
being on this planet haschallenges, but you don't have to
sacrifice yourself. You thenhave to suffer through something
to find the end. Because youdon't know in a minute you can be
(41:28):
dead. So you said, okay, now Ihave spent 18 years to get to this,
to this level, and I'm dying.So the fulfillment is your gauge.
The fulfillment is humanity.And try to be fulfilled. Try to find
gauge that feeling in you.Does that fulfill me? Does this make
(41:51):
sense still for me? Not sense,because sense is logic. Does it fulfill
you? You say you don't makemoney and what fulfills you, you
make for no money. You makeart because it fulfills you. That's
why 97 I thought, oh, thesystems are so bad. They, they, they
disregard artists. No, no.Artists have connected with what
(42:16):
you have connected with yourpodcast. It's fulfilling doing it.
Being a human by doing thisfulfills me. The money is secondary
and if the money comes, itcomes. Money is always a symptom,
it's never the cause. Sothat's an easy.
That's a nice analogy to putit that way. I know that that kind
(42:37):
of relates to. You have a, youhave a quote that you had mentioned
here. But the compass is yourcompass. Is our humans limitless
in nature's sense of balance?I think that we all in life seek
balance. You know, we alwaystry to do a work life balance where
(42:59):
we try to do a family, afamily balance. You know, when you.
We have two kids and you know,you're always trying to balance.
You can't give more love toone kid in favor over the other kid.
You have to give them equaltime. You have to give them equal
opportunity to grow and toexplore and to know that they're
loved equally and for who theyare and what they are. There are
(43:21):
some people that say, well,you're my favorite. You're my favorite.
You're not my favorite. Andthat creates an environment within
somebody to limit theirpossibility to move forward. Forward.
And it does that aside fromeven being a parent. I think as you
said earlier, systems withinsociety. Our society has created
limits on us. Our society hascreated boundaries on us. And it
(43:44):
doesn't allow us to understandwhat our. Sometimes, what our true
purpose is, number one. Andsometimes it limits us in believing
within ourselves that what weare capable of doing.
I'm so happy you said thatwith your daughters. It's not. This
(44:05):
is systems thinking. This ishow much I show. This is great that
we show this in this contextbecause our system has conditioned
us so much that we even speakin. And you are more system relevant.
That's why you speak moresystem than I do. So you say, I came
to him equally. No, you can't.You, you can. How can you ever be
equal to your. Both daughters?They're different human beings. Every
(44:28):
human being is one of one. Andthat's for cops and soldiers. The
same thing. You know, one,one, one guy you yell at and the
next one you don't even sayanything. And he can. But the system
wants us to create a newsystem. Political correct, political
doing this, this is to doeverybody the same. Equality doesn't
(44:51):
exist in nature. And theelephant and the ant are not in competition.
They are that everybody hasits purpose. So if your daughter
ever said you love her better,you say, no, I love her differently
than you. Because you're adifferent person.
Different person. It'sapparent when you raise kids. You
(45:13):
understand.
Yeah.
Each one of them aredifferent. One, one. I mean, it's
like night and day when youlook at your kids sometimes, you
know, we, we are grateful andvery blessed with two kids. We're
very grateful for having bothof them in our lives. But they both
have their own strengths,their own weaknesses, their own advantages,
their own troubles, their own.You know, each one of them has their
(45:35):
own one. One is a creativeindividual within the digital media
field. One is an actor fromthat perspective. So they both are
in creative fields, butthey're. They're in different modalities
from that perspective.
But it makes it good that theyaren't creative fields, makes it
(45:57):
very good between you andthem, in between everybody, because
that's. And now you becomeaware. So the system requires for
you as a cop, to be equal toeverybody. Now that are your kids
from your family, and you havetwo kids and you can't be equal to
them.
Exactly. It's not that I loveas much.
(46:18):
As you want as much as youwant, but what does the system require?
The system requires you to beequal to everyone. And that doesn't
work. You have to be human toeveryone. Not equal.
100%.
Everyone is a human.
You're going to love this. My.My philosophy when I was a law enforcement
(46:38):
officer was, I will treat youwith respect in everything about
you for as long as you treatme with the same. Once that changes,
then my respect or treatmentof you is going to be different.
I will treat you like a humanbeing until you stop acting like
one.
Exactly.
(46:59):
And I've told people that whenI was on the street, I'm going, you
know, when they startedgetting in my face, they started
getting violent. They started.I said, I'm going to treat you like
a human being until you treatme differently. If you treat me differently,
then the level is going tochange. I am grateful that I've actually
had felons. And I don't mindbragging about this. I had felons
(47:23):
that literally wrote me andsent me a card from prison that said,
I want to thank you fortreating me like a human being instead
of a felon. I committed afelony. I made a mistake. You helped
me to understand that. And nowI'm understanding that I have consequences
for my actions. But I want tosay thank you for treating me like
(47:44):
a human being, not just acriminal or a felon. And I tried
to. I grew up with my kids thesame way. Like I said, I love my
kids. I love them equally, butin different ways. I love my oldest
daughter for strengths andweaknesses that she has. I love my
(48:05):
youngest daughter for thestrengths and weaknesses she has.
So it's. There is a balancethere. There is a balance there.
And I know that we all balance automatically.
When you're human, it'sautomatically. Yeah, you just have
to recognize systemic. It'snot systemic. It's not. But if you
treat any race. Look, we weresegregated by systems. The king that,
(48:31):
that, the first king,whatever, he needed to get a, you
know, get another tribe or getanother country. And he said, what
am I doing? I need soldiers.They are their hardest thing. So
I'm gonna just separatesoldiers from, you know, in the old
traps, you know, woman and manfought and I separate them into man
(48:53):
and woman. That's the firstsegregation. Then, oh my God, we
conquered other lands. Theylook different. Racism third. And
now systems currently wantedto separate us and categorize us
in sexuality. And there theyhit the wall because everybody's
unique, one of one and we aretoo fluid to be categorized in sex.
(49:19):
That's why you have lbgt,which blah blah blah, the whole Alphabet.
You could, and it wouldn't beenough. You could put just say A
to Z plus and all signs and itwould not be enough. Because even
language is limited. But artisn't, because art goes to all senses.
(49:39):
And that's why it is such agreat godly discipline. And people
recognize when they look atsomething and, and, and, and there's
a clear communication. Ialways explain what art is. Art is
a conversation from a humanbeing to its non physical, between
(49:59):
its non physical and physical.The product of that conversation
is the piece of art, themusic, the, the, the song, the podcast.
And if it's clear enough, ifit's, if it's refined enough, then
people recognize it and say,oh, I want to listen to more of Michael's
(50:21):
shows or you know, podcastepisodes, the more you refine your
communication with your, whereyou go at night, you know, you sleep.
You're not in, in thephysical, you're in the physical,
but you're not. Your focus ison the physical. So the non physical
(50:42):
and the physical communicationis the art piece. And that's, and
that's when the clearer we areabout and, but that comes from humans.
That comes. That is a humanbusiness. Art as well as soldiering
is a human business. This wassystemized. That's why you have 97%
(51:04):
of artists poor and cops poorand soldiers poor. Systemic. Because
the relevance in this, in thesystem is more money versus. Versus
what, what these humansactually do for humanity.
(51:25):
So yeah, that's an interestingperspective how you've explained
all the interaction withinthat and how it's all interlaced.
How could we heal? I mean, youmake a statement that we could heal
the world and others byeveryone being the best you that
each can be for yourself tocontribute with each uniqueness seamlessly
(51:46):
to the whole of humanity. Howdo we take the first steps in understanding
how we can be the best you,the best me that I can be?
I'm all. I'm a strongproponent against steps, but I say
the first step is just listento this podcast. Because we. I'm
(52:07):
living. You are living. We'reliving what we preach, and by that,
you other people get the mostout of it. It's just re. Listen.
I sometimes listen to apodcast three or four times because
I hear things that I haven'theard. And what that happens. What
happens there is I becomeaware, and once I'm aware, you cannot
(52:30):
make yourself unaware. You canlearn a step. You can say the words,
which is also systemic. Youcan say the words. Okay, first thing,
I need to be grateful. What isthat? That's a word. If you don't
feel grateful, you can't makeyourself feel grateful. You can be
aware of what you have, andperhaps that conjures the feeling
(52:56):
of gratefulness. Now find outhow to connect to gratefulness. But
don't just say, be grateful.Be mindful. Those are all systemic
words for human stuff. I lovethis. They say actually in the military
right now, I heard they wantedto say, when you ask an Asian person
(53:18):
to help you with a mathproblem, that will trigger a micro
emotion, a microaggression,and it's. It's. It should be avoided.
Are you insane? Completely.That. First of all, microaggression
is a psychological. It's a.It's a. It's a systemic word. There's
(53:38):
no such thing inmicroaggression. There's jealousy
in humans. Humans, there'sanger in humans. There is basic,
like 12 emotions. I thinkaround that, that are basic human
emotion, that every human onthis planet feels. Those. We can
talk about those. If I'mhurting you, we can talk about it
(54:03):
because I know what hurt is.You know what hurt? This. But we
have to explain, is it an ego?Hurt is another hurt. So all this,
it is all human. Relevance isimportant, not system relevance.
Not that I know. Oh, I cannot.This is a rule, a rule in regulations
that you say, I cannot ask anAsian person for helping me with
(54:26):
math. What about. I can askevery human being about a math problem
except me.
I'm never good at it.
I'm horrible about it. But I'msaying I could ask. What about asking
any race, any gender aboutanything we want?
(54:49):
I agree with that. I thinkthat we sometimes forget we're all
equal.
We're all one.
We're all one. It's alltogether. How do you think, speaking
of all being one, why does artand creativity always bring us closer
to humanity? Speak. Because wejust had this huge conversation about
being human and humanity. AndI understand it. But let's help those
(55:12):
that are watching andlistening to understand how art and
creativity can bring us closerto humanity.
I think because creating isthe essential community. And then
creating through your project,through your podcast, through my
paintings, through my music,it's our communication of your essence.
(55:34):
We, art and creation. That'swhy it's the first superpower. It's
our essence, our contributionto humanity, our short visit that
we have here. It's the toolthat, that is the. It is the most
efficient tool to communicateand contribute your essence to this
(55:57):
humanity.
And that makes, that does allthe sense, right? It does. It actually
does. I mean, I look at art,yes, I do have a master's degree
in what I have, but it was apassion for me. I wanted to explore
that. I wanted to open thatdoor for numerous reasons. One, because
(56:19):
I felt within side me that Iwanted to be creative. I wanted to
move forward in my life. Andfrom that perspective, I took the
steps that I felt werenecessary to really help me unleash
that creativity, to be able toopen that door for me. Because I
had been, I was a cop for along time. You know, I've almost
(56:40):
had about an 18 year careerprior to me getting injured and having
to leave that career. Butbefore that I went to college to
be a cop. So from thatenvironment I'd been for a long time,
I needed some help in to takethat step, to open that creativity
for me. And then once I did, Irealized that I always had it within
(57:01):
me, within myself anyway. Ijust had to recognize it and to move
that forward. And I think alot of us, especially in this day
and age, which is unfortunate,this day and age, you get a lot of
schools and academicinstitutions that are going, we're
not going to fund the paintingand the art and the creativity side
(57:25):
of this. We're only going tofund the sports or athletic side
of this. People can't see me,I'm doing my Italian hand gestures
down here. We're not going tofund the art and creativity side
of school anymore. That thekids had the opportunity to at a
young age to explore paintingand acting and singing and dancing,
(57:49):
they start shutting that down.Do you think that is an issue that
needs to be addressed insociety as a whole?
Absolutely. And not becauseI'm for art to education, but I say
it's an unawareness, first ofall. It's an unawareness. That's
our art education. Educationis only bring. It's, It's. It's like
(58:09):
10 of what it could be.
Right?
So even if I gave him the timewhen we had the most art education,
if I give him the same time,it's only 5, 10% of what it could
be because it focuses on theproduct and the history of a product
it, it teaches you about, butalso it exposes you to art. And that's
the only five. That's wherethe 5% is. So I, you know, when you
(58:37):
do sports, you learn somethingin teamwork and achieving a goal,
skill, strategy. Like cop,like the job of a cop. Right. Which
I don't have because I'm not acop. I haven't been a soldier. I
have other skills. But there'sa skill set you learn and what you
(59:01):
learn in art, there is anawareness. So for example, if I'm
a sports guy, if I'm like afootball player, coaches or whatever,
I'm in college, but at thesame time I'm part of the theater
group, I'm learning the skillof team of humanity. Again, I'm talking
(59:24):
in the context of humanity,not I'm going to get a skill to make
a lot of money. That. So I'mlearning a skill of, of humanity,
interaction, social. That'swhy education, what is education?
The social. The social skillsthat you learn is, is all of it.
It's not what, what youregurgitate with pills and everything
(59:46):
that get you to regurgitatefor one second and you forgot it.
And when you have the balance,you need the, the masculine is the.
Is the sports. The feminine isthe balance. Right. Balance is the
absolute. Exactly. It's thesuperpower of nature. Look, dinosaurs
live the species. Nature wenton, it lives, it lives without humans
(01:00:09):
too. It just adapts. So whenyou have the thing, and I always
keep saying this in with CEOs,you know, I tell him, I said, you
need to really do, do start ina theater group or something or be
in the art community. Becauseyou have two leads even you have
two leads. Yeah, the CEO andthe cfo. Right. You have two leads
(01:00:33):
in a play. But if anything,what does the CFO and the CEO have?
No clue what the street.Street. Even in cops, what the street
cops go through, they say,okay, I went to police academy. They
never even what the streetbeat Philip Epson or so. So in a
(01:00:56):
play, the Whole two, evenafter two, you get Lujo, you get
Pavarotti and you getwhatever. And these people, when
they not interacting with thewhole team in, in that it's important
that everybody's relevant. Whyevery and one thing everybody supports
(01:01:19):
the. In sports is similar, buteverybody supports more on a logistic
level. But you have to reallyinteract. You have to know what everybody
does.
Right.
So in sports the whole teamsupports the running back or the
quarterback. Right. But in,in, in, in the theater, this, the
(01:01:40):
whole thing has to gel.
The whole ensemble has to work together.
Yeah. If, if, if, if theviolinist is off, the whole 140 people
in the orchestra, it's, it'svoid. It's void. One person is. So
everybody has to get eachother. So that's. And actually those
(01:02:02):
are the essence of, of school.There should be sports and art. I
wouldn't even do any. Andbasic math, you're learning in grade
school. I think there shouldbe sports and art and you should
be. Everybody should bemandatory to do both.
I agree.
And you're not learning tomake money. You're learning to be
(01:02:23):
a productive, contributinghuman being as part of this weave.
And this is living, liftingthe human potential versus, versus.
Just saying, hey, let's do it.Okay. My dad did that. You do the
same. You know, the nextgeneration do the same. They're the
same.
I agree with that.
Experience. Experience it likeyou experience cop. Experience that
(01:02:48):
teamwork. God. I think there'sso much in soldiering and I have
not been on a human level thatyou learn, you know, and like you
said, you like to drink coffeewith the people in the street. Wonderful.
And I've learned so much from,you know, trying to get into the
system and couldn't. But inthe, in the art system, it didn't
(01:03:11):
matter. It didn't matter if itwas this like stick in the art system,
you know, the nature is not.It doesn't matter if you have three
like a three legged gazelle,it still keeps going or, you know,
it doesn't matter. Everybodyhas a part of it.
Everybody has a part.Everybody plays a part in society.
Everybody's a part. Everybodyplays a part in human. Humankind.
(01:03:32):
You know, I could talk to youfor a whole another hour. You're
gonna have to come again,Michael. You're gonna have to come
back on this show. We're gonnahave to continue this conversation.
But right now we're kind of.We're running questions. Yeah, we're
running, running a little overtime. So let's talk about how somebody
(01:03:52):
can find you and how they canconnect with you and get your books.
Because I know you've got fivebooks. I've only put three of them
up here. And you have apodcast. Can we talk a little bit
about that and how to get a hold.
Of you so you can go. I haveone hub, that's michaelm.com which
is Michael with two L's m.commichaelm.com and the podcast is,
(01:04:16):
is. Is basically all thewisdom and aware. Because I believe
once you're aware, you canmake yourself unaware. So the podcast
is just 20 to 30 seconds long,one episode. And everybody that wants
to get into art and likes thispodcast episode and what we said
(01:04:38):
and it resonates with you. Goand just listen to one a day. Just
one quote a day. 20 seconds.And there's a question too. Answer
the question for yourself.There's no test or anything. And
then let it percolate, Let itpercolate. Next day, go the next.
It doesn't matter if somethingcomes or not. Just go. Next question,
(01:04:59):
next question. Sometimes after10 different. You will get you there
will. The lightning will come.The lightning, the awareness will
come and you will look athumanity and, and art, art and creating
in a different way. You'renot, you're not think, oh, I need
(01:05:19):
to love Michelangelo or I needto love Rembrandt more than the finger
paintings of my kids. It willput it all in perspective that you
say that. You see, oh, it'sabout the product. It's a system
thing. It's like going in aWalmart and buying art. Or it is.
It is the creation. And thatthe creation is, is the journey.
(01:05:43):
It's the rewarding thing for humans.
And your books, your books andyour podcast can all be found on
your website as well. So theyhave links to there. And I'll make
sure that all that's in theshow notes so that everybody has
an easy way to access. Justclick, click the link in the show
notes. It'll take you right toyour website so they can get more
involved. Michael, this hasbeen a fantastic conversation. I
(01:06:06):
honestly appreciate you comingon board.
Thank you so much.
I hope that we've had theopportunity to educate and motivate
and inspire, inspire somepeople to explore their own creativity.
This is one more thing beforeyou go. Do you have any words of
wisdom before we go?
Awareness is everything.Because if you want to find yourself
(01:06:33):
and find fulfillment, youcannot find it through knowledge.
Because you can do all this.You can do everything the system
tells you and you can andawareness is basically the language
of humans that actually leadsus to wisdom. So you gotta be aware
(01:06:54):
and to find awareness is feelfulfillment. Don't have an intuition,
all that stuff, that systemic,insistent spirituality. Pray to God,
whatever. Just feel, as I'mtalking purely human level. Feel
the fulfillment to chase thatfeeling, not the fulfillment. I'm
(01:07:14):
getting drunk. That is notfulfilling. Because at the end, fulfillment
has no downside. Fulfillmentis just fulfillment. It just gives
more and more and more andbecome aware of it and focus and
aware you become when youfocus on humans and nature primarily
and then secondarily thinkabout paying our rent. Systemic.
(01:07:38):
Brilliant words of wisdom. Iapplaud you for those as they have
brilliant words of wisdom.Thank you very much again. I appreciate
you coming on board to theshow and I look forward to having
another conversation with you.I think we can really kind of expand
people's opportunity a littlebit more. So thank you very much
(01:07:58):
for being here. I hope thatyou have a wonderful day and I look
forward to having another conversation.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of.
One More Thing before youe Go.
Check out ourwebsite@beforeyougopodcast.com youm
can find.
Us as well as subscribe to the.
Program and rate us on yourfavorite podcast listening platform.
Hey, one more thing before yougo. Art, creativity, healthy dialogue
like a podcast, and ouradaptability are superpowers that
defined our limitless humanpotential. Creating art always reminds
and teaches us of life ashuman beings. It makes us aware of
humans and nature, wonder inthe nature's wonders for us as well
(00:22):
as future generations. That'sthe philosophy and the practice of
my next guest. In thisepisode, we're going to explore how
art and creativity alwaysbrings us closer to humanity and
how you have the ability todevelop your creative voice. And
we're going to help youunderstand that. My guest in this
(00:58):
episode is Michael McGurch.He's an Austrian, Californian, multidisciplinary
artist, awareness andcreativity educator. He's a speaker
and an author. He works onraising the awareness of our limitless
human potential andcomprehending wisdom. We have a lot
to talk about. Michael's anadvocate for helping understand neurodiversity.
His dyslexia and hisdysgraphia. We'll explain all that
(01:22):
as we go. Forced him todevelop an awareness of seeing the
world pure, purely from ahuman perspective. Creating an art
completed his awareness ofwhat it is to be human relevant versus
system relevant. And again,we'll discuss that more in depth.
Michael's talent isrecognizing awareness to seed new
(01:42):
consciousness that allows usto unveil the untapped superpowers
of humans. Limitless art andcreativity, healthy discourse and
adaptability to make allhumans fit within our human tapestry.
I'm Michael Hurst. Welcome toone more thing before you go.
Hi, Michael. Thank you. Thatwas an awesome. We basically can
(02:07):
turn off now. Walk off. Thatwas pretty much everything I am.
Yeah. Thank you for giving mea canvas to paint.
Oh, absolutely. I think, youknow what you bring to the world.
As you know, my background issimilar to yours in certain aspects.
I have a master's degree ininterdisciplinary studies with a
(02:28):
focus on performance, digitalmedia and art. So we have a lot in
common in this arena becausewe both appreciate the fact that
it is interdisciplinary andthat all types of creativity, whether
it's performance or whetherit's painting or drawing or dance,
all has a place in oursociety. So thank you very much for
(02:51):
coming on and sharing yourjourney in all of this. I really
appreciate it.
You're welcome. I'm reallyglad to be here. And I think that,
you know, you say you're sobrilliant because you could actually
fit into systems. So you got adegree? I have pretty much no education
(03:12):
other than art, but art isbetter. I think the best art and
humans are the best educationthat you can get. I don't think there's
any Harvard or any topuniversity in the world where you
can get the education that youcan get from human or from art creating,
not from art, looking at itfrom any creation.
(03:33):
Actually, you know, I agreewith that. I think that, you know,
we as human beings, we. Ithink we seek out pleasures in life
like music and drama and artand creativity. It allows us to experience
life from a differentperspective. It allows us to experience
life from other people'sperspectives. And we can only do
(03:55):
that through a humanexperience. So yes, I do agree with
you. It is a. And those of usthat are in the creative field, it's
deep in our soul. It comesfrom the heart, comes from the soul.
And we put it out here becausewe want to share that with others.
On the same level.
I think the. What you said, Iwould say like, I would say it like
(04:21):
this. I would say art isinherent in us. Art and creation.
It is the closest when youcreate something. And that's why
we have the shiny objectssyndrome that we think Apple is bigger
than the company Apple orMcDonald's or Nike or Louis Vuitton
(04:41):
or whatever you call it isbigger than we are. And I think we,
we creating art gives us. Itdoes two things. Number one, it gives
us that feeling that God wecreate. We can't believe we created
this, right? When you, you setup a task and you said, you know,
(05:03):
I'm creating a goal that otherpeople's did. So something that you
want to like your podcast,right? New thing, you have an inspiration
and you create it. And thenyou say I can't believe I created
this, right? I enjoy thepodcast, I do whatever. And, and,
and that's the God that youget a sense of God. I think you get
(05:25):
a sense of what we are capableor our godliness. Because you are
not going to be an account,you're not making an accounting company,
but you making your part. Andthe other thing is the fulfillment,
(05:47):
the awareness of self and theawareness of the whole. So the awareness
of self gives you art creationbecause you couldn't believe that
you unveiled yourself. Youcouldn't believe you did that, right?
It doesn't matter even if it'sart or if it's something else. You,
(06:08):
you couldn't believe you everwill end up finish that, finishing
that or getting in thedirection. And the other thing is
also seeing that art as a, asa institution, not institution as
a common good is for example,when you go to an art opening, it's
(06:34):
all inclusive. There's everygender, every race, every level of
society. There, people,wealthy people mingle with poor people,
with poor artists, forexample. And that's for me, when
(06:54):
you do all these things,that's why I call it this the first
superpower.
Yeah.
Everybody meet us. And nobodylooks at the art. It's the funniest.
When you look at the artopenings, nobody looks at the art.
It's just the energy thatbrings us together. You know, that
brings us. And it also. Lookwhat happens when a CEO works 80
(07:18):
hours a week. What does he doon the weekend? He tinkers on his
car. He thinkers in thegarden. It. It just, it just brings
you back to your human essence.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think that's why it's.That's why I coined the first thing
is as a superpower creation.The second, what we're doing here.
(07:39):
Because. But through relatingand telling stories, we grow. We.
And we put things into. Iwould say, yeah, that's. We make
it real. Because when you say,okay, you have the same experience
that I have, that's more realthan if a system says you have to
(08:03):
do this to get this.
I agree with that. Yeah, I can.
So that's why I callpodcasting the second superpower.
So not podcasts. Dialogue.Dialogue. Human dialogue. Healthy,
obviously. Not. Not. I'mright, you are wrong. So sis, I'm
not a system. Directeddialogue. Where you, where I say
(08:24):
it's all about Republicans,you say it's all about Democrats
and, and, or vice versa. Andthen the, the third one is that actually
we can survive in thesesystems and in this world is our
adaptability. Otherwisenobody, no human would have survived
the holocaust of war.
(08:45):
Right. I think the tenacity ofindividuals and what we strive to
do to keep ourselves on ahuman level is the use of creativity,
no matter what form it comesthrough, whether it be drama or the
art, drama, dance, music.There's a universal language, in
my opinion, with creativityfrom all those perspectives. Because
(09:08):
it doesn't. Like you said, youcan go in and no matter what area
you're from, no matter whatsocioeconomic level that you're at,
whether you're poor, you'rerich, or, you know, you're black,
you're white, you're Asian,doesn't matter. We can all appreciate
the same creativity and dothat on a personal level. Because
when we look at something, welook at a piece of art, as you know,
it's subjective. We all lookat that and may see something different
(09:31):
that appeals to usindividually. And I think that's
very unique because itcommunicates with us. And communication
is the key. The key to humanbeings inter interacting with each
other at a level that we allunderstand each other. So, yes, everything
that you just said,Absolutely, 100%. Let's start where
(09:53):
your journey. Can we startwhere you started on your journey?
I know. Where'd you grow up?
I grew up in Vienna, inAustria, a very cultured city. And.
But it was very systemic, muchmore than America was 40 years ago.
And I had to go, leave. I was,you know, I was a sick child, went
(10:18):
to school, couldn't goanywhere with what I. With my dyslexia.
And I wasn't even aware aboutdysgraphia. They just called me at
that time, oh, you'redyslexic, but you still have to do
your homework and you stillhave to do your tests and you still
have to fit in. And I justcouldn't fit in and because I couldn't
(10:39):
regurgitate stuff, and I had ahard time. Especially when you're
a little stressed, you know,you have to read in front of the
class or you have to do atest. You go, all right, with the,
with the dyslexia.
Okay, can I, Can I ask youplease, to help our. Our listeners.
Our viewers understanddyslexia in.
(11:00):
Yeah. This graph.
Yeah. Okay, please.
Dyslexia is where you're. You,Your brain. That's what, you know,
that's the latest thing that,where your brain or gets like, ADHD
is the first. First you'regoing anxious, then you go adhd and
then you have dyslexia.Dyslexia is the highest. And it's
(11:24):
not. Probably not from stress,but it could be a shock, it could
be a stress, or it could be.We see that also it's genetic. And
what can happen is it whacksyou out of time, space, and when
you're not in your body, whenyou're all in your mind and you try
(11:47):
to fix your. With your mind,your being, that doesn't work. It's
the same thing as when you'rea mind construct. When you do a mind
construct and you want tounderstand, you know, like, like
you can't predict the futurebecause it's a mind construct. You
(12:09):
are right now here, and in oneminute I can get a check for a million
dollars or I can die.Everything is possible. And that's
why mind constructs. Andthat's what you see so much. Because
right now in, in the world,because the systems, our systems,
(12:30):
man made systems, all you gotto have knowledge about those, all
those Monopoly games and theynurture mind constructs. So you got
to say, oh, where's this goingto go? How it's all strategy and
it pulls us out of time space.So this dyslexia is, is basically
(12:55):
the future where our world isgoing to go. And I experienced that
when I was little, you know,so. And I still do it. So you switch
letters and you cannotdetermine if you. Let's say that
the true that everybody seesthe same number is 13. I can have
(13:21):
written down 31 and read it as13. I can also read 13 as 31. So
they're both equal. So 31 isnot a one and a three, but they're,
(13:43):
they're equal and they'reinterchangeable in my mind. So my
perception switches up.
I do understand that indysgraphia, that's a hand eye coordination
on top of.
Eye coordination, meaning whenyou write something obviously legible
five years ago, I can read it,I can read it now. If I write something
(14:08):
incursive, not in caps, I haveto do it in caps to decipher it.
But also I lose context of it,meaning I write something down. And
if I. Let's say I'm makingnotes in this interview and if I
(14:29):
don't take the notes, inextreme cases it can be that I can't
even after hour hour, I cannoteven decipher our notes if I take
it usually it takes like ahalf a day or a day that I can't
recognize my cursive writingbecause I have contextual loss. And,
(14:55):
and I. And I can't decipherthe writing. So I always need context.
That's why I. My dyslexia onthe other spectrum is a superpower.
And that's why I found why 97of artists worldwide are in poverty.
Because I separated. I thoughtthat because we have to separate
(15:20):
art into art, into an artproduct and into an art in the art
creation. And once youseparate those, those two and actually
in another one in oxy artexperience, if you separate art in
that, you can make sense why90, 70% of artists are in poverty
(15:44):
worldwide. And, and I seesuperpower. I mean I, I use dyslexia.
I haven't used it before. Itwas like a burden. I was a victim.
I like everybody else. So Ihit the wall till I was 50. I just
hit the wall. I tried, I didwhatever and I pushed with my willpower
(16:06):
through. But it really. Mylife is now even. Nothing has changed
financially or I didn't Get amillion dollar check or I didn't
marry the right woman oranything, but I'm at peace now. Versus
before. I wanted to surviveevery day, I needed to survive every
(16:27):
day.
That makes a lot of, I mean itis a journey for anybody. But starting
out as a child, having both ofthat as an obstacle or something
that you need to overcome oradapt to adaptability, as you said
and we said earlier in thebeginning of the conversation, you
know, adaptability is the keyto overcoming, you know, we have
to adapt and overcome in manyaspects of our lives. I, you know,
(16:51):
as my listeners, viewers know,I'm a retired police sergeant. I
was injured in line of duty. Iwas told to be in a wheelchair for
rest of my life. I'm not thewheelchair sitting in the garage
and I walk my oldest daughterdown the aisle and I'm going to walk
my youngest daughter down theaisle. And I had to adapt and overcome.
And it seems to me that youhave adapted and overcome many obstacles
(17:13):
in your life and you've donethat through creativity, through
art. So does art speak to youat a deeper level, do you think,
than it does the averageindividual or do you think we just
kind of society has kind ofput that aside?
I think we are unaware, Ithink to have you said the perfect
(17:33):
words, it put it on the side.I think I'm more aware because when
I was 30, I, you know, Ialways struggled, you know, like
adolescent first and then westruggled, you know, every, every
day basically to survive and,and you find yourself. And at 30
I wrote a, you know, and Icouldn't fit into any systems so
(17:57):
I had to repeat classes andall this stuff. So I wrote my resume
and I saw, oh my God, all myjobs were creative. I, you know,
sold tapes in the trunk, didwas a dj, produced fashion shows,
(18:23):
advertising, television,video. So I was always, always an
artist. And then it dawned onme. I think that was one of the major
pivot points where I definingmyself. It was when I realized I
don't need the society or asystem to deem me an artist because
(18:47):
basically, and that was myunique situation. I couldn't do anything
else than art or beingcreative. So it was me, it was, it
was a tool for me to survive.And that's later on. That's why I
said I can't believe for mewas such a tool to survive and to
(19:08):
relate to other humans and tofeel as a human being, as being included,
that that 97% of artists thatI know not only know that all the
statistics say on the Povertylevel, which is that, you know, art
is the highest form ofcreativity because it doesn't have
a purpose. You know, if Icreate a shoe, you create. You limit
(19:32):
already your creativitybecause you're focusing all on that
shoe or on that iPhone orwhatever you're going to create.
But art is basically, I hear asound, and then I hear another sound
or I hear a rhythm. I mean,I'm a musician too, so I hear rhythms
and then I lay the rhythm, andthen I just fill in the rhythm till
(19:55):
it creates its own life. Andthat's why I think that pivot point
where your song takes over oryour paintings takes over is the
godliness. And if you givethat to your ego, that's the problem.
And, and, and most, mostpeople give their creation to the
(20:17):
egos to look what I created.No, you completed something and then
it became. It got its ownthrough you. You created something
and it got its own life.
Yeah, it took out its ownlife. Yeah, I do. Yeah. It, It's.
Did you. If I can just kind ofback. Just to backtrack just a second.
(20:42):
Had you always. Like, when didyou. When did you first pick up a
paintbrush, for example? Wasit when you hit 50 years old? Or
was that prior to.
No, no, no, no. That wasaround 30. 30, 35.
30 years old.
About that when I realized Iwas an artist, because then it wasn't
important for me that I sellmy paintings. I mean, it was. I wanted,
(21:03):
at the beginning, I wanted toall be famous and blah, blah, blah,
all the system, relevance. ButI, you know, as, you know, there's
1% of artists that, when. If97% of artists are poor, the chance
that you're going to be 1, 1of the 1 and 2% on top is very minute.
It's like everybody wanted tobe Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Right.
(21:27):
The. The chance. But this ishow we live. This is what society
tells us. It's alwayspossible. If Jeff Bezos can it. You
did. Yeah, it's possible, butit's probably not that you become
that you might be in otherJeff Bezos in another category, you
know.
Well, and I mean, like thispodcast, for example, you know, I've
(21:47):
been doing this podcast for,let me see, 20, 21, 22, but three
years now, more than threeyears now. And in regard to this,
in the beginning, I, you know,wanted it to go big and, and in the
beginning, it, it took itstime like that. Like, all things
that you're creating take itstime. It evolved and it was created
(22:08):
in such a manner that I'mgrateful. I'm heard in 59 countries.
I am grateful for the audiencethat I've got. I'm grateful for every
time I look at the thing and Isee downloads in views.
Nice.
But it's not making me rich.But I love doing it. No, but it gives
me purpose. I'm loving whatI'm doing. I'm sharing with the world.
(22:29):
I hope to motivate, inspire,inspire and educate people with this
podcast. So monetary to me. Iwould love to be, obviously, make
a million dollars likeeverybody else. I'd love to do a
deal like Joe Rogan did. Youknow, obviously, we're two completely
opposite individuals, but, youknow, I would love to be able to
attach that. But it doesn'tstop me from continuing to create
(22:52):
because I haven't reached thatlevel. It's dear to me. Like I said,
like we said earlier, it's inour hearts and our soul to create
and to share that with theworld and to bring that forward.
And it helps us redefine ourown purpose. I think, you know, after
I got injured and I realized Icouldn't be in law enforcement any
longer, that's what I went tocollege for. That's what I dedicated
(23:13):
my life to. And my family,they understood that it's who I was,
and I had to reinvent mypurpose. And in reinventing my purpose,
I found that my creativity wasa better outlet for me in dealing
with my ptsd, in dealing withthe stuff that I had experienced
through a dysfunctionalchildhood as well as my law enforcement
(23:35):
career. I found thatcreativity allowed me to manage that
and to work through that anddeal with that. So I understand where
you come from, that art increativity, in music, in the. The
creative endeavors of allaspects within us. Okay. You and
(23:58):
I have reached a level withinour soul, within our bodies, within
our minds, that we understandthat that's an innate, innate part
of our being and that all wedid was open the doors for it to
come out.
It's communication, like you said.
Yes, it's our medication, andit's coming.
(24:19):
It's coming. It's medicationand communication. Yes, it's both.
It's both.
And. And the funny thing thatyou said that and I said that. You
said a word, and I, you know,because of my dyslexia. You said
a word, and I said that thecorrect word in the human aspect
is fulfillment. Because it'slike that feeling after an orgasm.
(24:43):
After the union.
Yes.
Not about the sex. Forget thesex. It's about after Orgasm, it's
the union that you have andthat fulfillment that you feel afterwards.
And, and this fulfillment isthe. You are. It's the feedback,
(25:04):
emotional feedback that youjust had a union that you were communicating.
And that's why art can do isthe only part of in that can actually
give you the emotion offeeling heaven on earth. I mean,
how often did you cry by asong or a movie? It shows our interconnection,
(25:28):
you know. And I need to tellyou about. Because you were policeman
soldiers, and you're kind of asoldier. Right. So soldiers are protectors,
and they're also human. One ofthe best human, you know, the most
connected, which I find when Italk to marines and, and, and, and,
(25:48):
and personnel. The besthumans. The best humans that know
instinctively I want toprotect the herd.
Yeah. I, I still do. I mean,it's still.
That's why, you know, I could,I, I can see that and hear that.
(26:09):
It's. It's protecting theherd. That's an innate thing of your
purpose. And they want toserve. And the bad thing is they
sacrifice themselves, theprotection. They are the best humans
because, look, I'm strong. Ican protect this beautiful thing
that we have as a tribe here.Right. And then they get screwed
(26:32):
up from the system, getdeployed, put on drugs, get put in
positions where they have tokill somebody that they don't even
know.
Yeah.
So this is. And, and that'swhy my next book is about systems
and how we use creativity to,to eradicate each other.
Yeah.
Because systems are done byother. It's just our. The buffer.
(26:53):
It's the muffler of, of onehuman against another. And we need
to untangle that understandingof what systems do. Systems should
serve us, not we servesystems. Human connection needs to
be number one. The humaninteraction needs to be number one.
(27:13):
And what's. Where it's stillpure is in art.
Right.
It's not pure anymore insoldiering, in policing, because
the system has created that environment.
Yeah.
It actually castrates yourpower. It's your purpose. You have
a purpose that you feel inevery cell of your body. To protect
the soldiers too.
Oh, absolutely. Exactly. Copsand firefighters, EMT personnel,
(27:39):
all those. We see people attheir worst. We see the best people
at their worst, which means wesee everybody at their worst. Because
when you need a cop, it'seither for one or two reasons. You,
You're a victim or you're acriminal. You're either a victim
or a criminal. And if you're avictim, you're a victim. Either of
(28:01):
A crime, whether it bedomestic violence, whether it be
a robbery, a burglary, murder,assault, whatever it happens to be,
you're a victim. Child abuse,you're a victim. So that is your
connection to law enforcementor to EMTs or to any of the. The
first responder aspect. That'syour first connection. You're a victim
(28:24):
or you're a criminal. So fromthat perspective, that's all we see
day in and day out. You dealwith that part of humanity that,
I mean, when you're drivingdown the road, we call them instant
Christians. Forgive me forthat, but we call them instant Christians.
You see a cop, you don'tthink, oh, there's a human being.
(28:46):
There's a husband, there's afather, there's a wife, there's a.
There's a daughter, there's ason, there's a. You know, you don't
think this. What you think is,there's a cop, oh, crap, he's going
to stop me, you know, and youstart doing everything like he's
the enemy. And the cops dealwith that on a daily, daily basis.
(29:06):
Soldiers deal with that.They're there to do a job, but what
do they see? They see theworst of humanity, and they see the
worst of humanity becausethey're put into that position. Yes,
we chose to do this. We choseto be a protector. We chose because
we felt that that was ourcalling. That was my calling. My
calling was to protect andserve. I mean, literally, to protect
(29:28):
and serve. I was drawn to lawenforcement for what you just specifically
said, to protect and serve. Ifelt that, well, everybody's running
that way. I want to standbetween that and you so that that
doesn't hurt you, you know, asit's coming to you, I'm going to
be the person standing inbetween you and in the danger you
(29:51):
and the assault you andwhatever it happens to be. So we,
once we are out of that, justto follow up with what you were saying,
whether you're a soldier,because again, like you said, I'm
kind of a soldier. Soldiers,cops are daily soldiers, you know,
soldiers that go overseas andfight their daily soldiers. It just
(30:14):
sometimes is a little bitdifferent. Different kind of a battle,
you know, But I took my lifein the hands every day. That's what
put me in a wheelchair forfour years because I put my life
on the line for somebody else.So when you wake up out of that,
when we step out of thatrealm, the system does not give us
(30:36):
the tools to manage what wejust experienced.
If they would, they had to payyou. And what payment? Every time
it comes to payment. And evenif they have to pay for psychological
or art therapy.
Right, exactly.
It costs money. And everysystem works on financial principles.
(30:58):
Every system, religions, everystate, every government, everything.
And when it comes to too muchmoney, it's going to be cut. And
the system tries to manipulateas long as possible. Because on the
other side of systems are alsohumans that need to pay their bills.
And as long as they can, theywant to get the most for free. That's
(31:21):
what every business you run,you want to get. Keep, keep your
people low, keep the cost lowand make the maximum profit. And
not. That's not in a mean. Idon't see it in a mean. I just see
human against human. And yourjob as a. As a soldier is not to
fight, kill people, not to,to. To your soldier. That the innate
(31:44):
human tribal soldier is theprotector against animals that came
in against whatever it makesthe, that that the human being survive,
that the kids can grow up.That is the essential thing of a
soldier. Not to kill 200,000people in Ukraine and Russia. Yeah,
(32:05):
that. Where the system saysyou do that. And people say yes,
I have that feeling ofprotecting. Okay, I'm gonna do this.
And I go so far to sacrifice.That's insanity. That is absolutely
insanity. And that we actuallywhat you said to us, that we see
each other, that we see copsfor the longest. I've never had any
(32:29):
crime or was drunk. I neverdrank because I couldn't because
one of my things and I had thesame feeling. But you described.
He's gonna give me a ticket. Inever got into a fight with a cop
I always talk to because I'mgood human wise. So I talked to the
cops. Yeah. And I changed mywhole perception system conditioning
(32:49):
that I had because that's overgeneration cops are assholes. Right?
I mean over, over, overgenerations. And, and I had to be
aware of that. And as Isaying, you become aware of that
if you focus on humanity. Theyare the best people. And you know
what? It's funny. I justtalked to a Navy SEAL and he was
in love with the. He was inlove with artist. I said, do you
(33:13):
know, I love it because you'reso similar. You're so similar. You
are a real human. Where do youfind real human? Most people go in
the jobs to make money. Thesepeople are having a human feeling
to be part of humanity. Andboth have the artists as the thing
(33:36):
and they don't do it formoney. Otherwise artists will be
all rich and cops will be allrich, you know.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, yeah,they don't pay soldiers very much.
They don't pay cops very much.We do it because we do it. Or artists.
We do it because we have apassion in it. Like you said, it's
within our soul. That's whatwe chose to do. It's within our soul.
(33:59):
We want that human connection.I love part of my job I loved was
what, what they now callcommunity oriented policing. Yeah,
back when I was doing it, theywere just starting that. I like to
park my car and I would walkdowntown and I would talk to people
and I would ask the kids howthey're doing, ask the people how
they're doing. I would walkinto shops and ask how their day
(34:22):
was going to house business. Imade it a point to connect with those
human beings within mydistrict, within my beat, and I love
that part of it. I would siton a bench, have a cup of coffee,
and I would talk to peoplebecause that's what I wanted, to
connect with thoseindividuals. Later in life, I found
out that that allowed me tocreate this podcast, that part of
(34:47):
my law enforcement career. Andthen the ability, and like you said
earlier, I think in my notes,you've got your salvation. You found
your salvation through art. Ifound my salvation through creativity
in the same respect withcommunicating with my podcast, which
is similar to art, similar tomaking a painting. It's just doing
(35:08):
it verbally. And I was able totranslate that into what I do now.
And it has helped me and itgave me a new purpose. I don't make
any money at it. As you said,I'm a starving artist. They gave
me fulfillment, purpose.
The purpose you have, you havethat. And you were not conscious,
(35:30):
really conscious. You likedgoing and talking, drinking coffee
with people, but now you areconscious of it with your podcast.
You aware that this wassomething you always had in you.
Like I say, we unveilourselves. I hit the wall till I
was 50. You know, you unveilyourself and then you find out it's
(35:51):
all about humanity when youdon't make your compass. Humanity
and nature, we are still apart of nature, by the way. You know,
let's forget that. If we don'tmake that, we will always be distracted.
If I experience humanitythrough systems, that's why we are
(36:12):
distorted. Because systems areso limited, we created them. We are
the gods of systems, right?But we are not the gods of humans
or nature. So we in systems,when we experience our human being
through a system, then aprotector, cop, a soldier, becomes
an asshole. You Know in theperception. And he doesn't, you know,
(36:37):
people are not aware what youguys do. Just to be there. Just to
be. Just to be there and drinka cup of coffee. They have to think,
oh, look at that, lazy.They're eating donuts and drinking
coffee. It's completelyinsane. They give you a metaphorical
experience, the other that youare safe.
(37:00):
Yeah, I agree with that. Howdo you think. That's probably the
wrong phrase of a question.How do we as individuals, aside from
like my own profession, intranslating into what I'm doing now,
how can we as an individualkind of dig deep within ourselves
and understand that we allhave this potential, whether in.
(37:25):
It may not be to paint, it maynot be to draw, but it may be music
or it may be dance, or it maybe performance art or something along
that line. How do we recognizethat within ourselves and say, hey,
I think I really want toexplore this.
I always say, I saw. When youhave kids, give them, you know, don't
(37:48):
buy an instrument. Don't buy apiano, a saxophone or anything. Just
rent it as cheap as you can.Let them find themselves. Whatever
resonates. Don't let him say,oh, I want to do violin. If you are
not a. You know, if you'renot. And then you play violin and
nothing comes out, and theneverybody. The feedback will be,
(38:10):
oh, that's horrible. Becausewe always want acknowledgment and
recognition from others. Souse the instrument or the paint that
fits you yourself, not thatyou get appreciation. So I loved
guitar. I couldn't wait to getmy own. I bought my own guitar. I
(38:32):
learned classical guitar fortwo, two years and I couldn't get
anywhere with it. So just todo art to please somebody or your
perception of like is in ajob, you think this is a good job,
and then you hate the job. Soit's, it's. It's important that you,
(38:54):
you know, you use whereveryou're drawn to. And then. And it's
okay if I say I want to be apoet and then the right poetry, and
I myself don't like the poet,the poetry, put it away, take it
out in three months, and thenyou look at fresh. Don't throw it
away and say, I'm not a poet.If you can't do an instrument like
(39:17):
I. You don't have to waitthree, two years to find out. That's
really hard. And you only cando four chords change to another.
In my case, I. A friend ofmine asked me to do percussion and
I was a viator. Also, I gotinvited to play with people. I played
in bands, had my own bands, Imade my own cd, but I could four
(39:40):
chords on the guitar. So it'ssuch a metaphor in this story. You
see what a metaphor? Artcreating is to find yourself, because
basically you want tocontribute with your strengths to
humanity. And that doesn'thave to look in any way. It's your
(40:02):
strengths. The guy that sitson the streets and is a beggar contributes
to society because it remindseverybody we can end up like this
if we don't watch out. Buthe's unaware of it, obviously. And
that's the sad thing. The sadthing of a poor person is not that
he has no money. The sad thingis he's not aware that. That he has
(40:23):
human impact on the whole. Andthose are the things. That's why
I say if you just work in thegarden, that's art. If you just think
on your car and do it. So tobe fulfilled, your gauge is the fulfillment.
(40:45):
And the fulfillment needs tobe in the process. It can't be, I
need to win an Oscar or aGrammy or I need to be the best painter
in the world. That thejourney. If you don't have fulfillment
in your journey, like you liketo be a cop, then don't do it, don't
be a cop. Then if you don'tand not fulfilled in every day needs
(41:07):
to be fulfilled. Do you haveups and down? Absolutely. Every living
being on this planet haschallenges, but you don't have to
sacrifice yourself. You thenhave to suffer through something
to find the end. Because youdon't know in a minute you can be
(41:28):
dead. So you said, okay, now Ihave spent 18 years to get to this,
to this level, and I'm dying.So the fulfillment is your gauge.
The fulfillment is humanity.And try to be fulfilled. Try to find
gauge that feeling in you.Does that fulfill me? Does this make
(41:51):
sense still for me? Not sense,because sense is logic. Does it fulfill
you? You say you don't makemoney and what fulfills you, you
make for no money. You makeart because it fulfills you. That's
why 97 I thought, oh, thesystems are so bad. They, they, they
disregard artists. No, no.Artists have connected with what
(42:16):
you have connected with yourpodcast. It's fulfilling doing it.
Being a human by doing thisfulfills me. The money is secondary
and if the money comes, itcomes. Money is always a symptom,
it's never the cause. Sothat's an easy.
That's a nice analogy to putit that way. I know that that kind
(42:37):
of relates to. You have a, youhave a quote that you had mentioned
here. But the compass is yourcompass. Is our humans limitless
in nature's sense of balance?I think that we all in life seek
balance. You know, we alwaystry to do a work life balance where
(42:59):
we try to do a family, afamily balance. You know, when you.
We have two kids and you know,you're always trying to balance.
You can't give more love toone kid in favor over the other kid.
You have to give them equaltime. You have to give them equal
opportunity to grow and toexplore and to know that they're
loved equally and for who theyare and what they are. There are
(43:21):
some people that say, well,you're my favorite. You're my favorite.
You're not my favorite. Andthat creates an environment within
somebody to limit theirpossibility to move forward. Forward.
And it does that aside fromeven being a parent. I think as you
said earlier, systems withinsociety. Our society has created
limits on us. Our society hascreated boundaries on us. And it
(43:44):
doesn't allow us to understandwhat our. Sometimes, what our true
purpose is, number one. Andsometimes it limits us in believing
within ourselves that what weare capable of doing.
I'm so happy you said thatwith your daughters. It's not. This
(44:05):
is systems thinking. This ishow much I show. This is great that
we show this in this contextbecause our system has conditioned
us so much that we even speakin. And you are more system relevant.
That's why you speak moresystem than I do. So you say, I came
to him equally. No, you can't.You, you can. How can you ever be
equal to your. Both daughters?They're different human beings. Every
(44:28):
human being is one of one. Andthat's for cops and soldiers. The
same thing. You know, one,one, one guy you yell at and the
next one you don't even sayanything. And he can. But the system
wants us to create a newsystem. Political correct, political
doing this, this is to doeverybody the same. Equality doesn't
(44:51):
exist in nature. And theelephant and the ant are not in competition.
They are that everybody hasits purpose. So if your daughter
ever said you love her better,you say, no, I love her differently
than you. Because you're adifferent person.
Different person. It'sapparent when you raise kids. You
(45:13):
understand.
Yeah.
Each one of them aredifferent. One, one. I mean, it's
like night and day when youlook at your kids sometimes, you
know, we, we are grateful andvery blessed with two kids. We're
very grateful for having bothof them in our lives. But they both
have their own strengths,their own weaknesses, their own advantages,
their own troubles, their own.You know, each one of them has their
(45:35):
own one. One is a creativeindividual within the digital media
field. One is an actor fromthat perspective. So they both are
in creative fields, butthey're. They're in different modalities
from that perspective.
But it makes it good that theyaren't creative fields, makes it
(45:57):
very good between you andthem, in between everybody, because
that's. And now you becomeaware. So the system requires for
you as a cop, to be equal toeverybody. Now that are your kids
from your family, and you havetwo kids and you can't be equal to
them.
Exactly. It's not that I loveas much.
(46:18):
As you want as much as youwant, but what does the system require?
The system requires you to beequal to everyone. And that doesn't
work. You have to be human toeveryone. Not equal.
100%.
Everyone is a human.
You're going to love this. My.My philosophy when I was a law enforcement
(46:38):
officer was, I will treat youwith respect in everything about
you for as long as you treatme with the same. Once that changes,
then my respect or treatmentof you is going to be different.
I will treat you like a humanbeing until you stop acting like
one.
Exactly.
(46:59):
And I've told people that whenI was on the street, I'm going, you
know, when they startedgetting in my face, they started
getting violent. They started.I said, I'm going to treat you like
a human being until you treatme differently. If you treat me differently,
then the level is going tochange. I am grateful that I've actually
had felons. And I don't mindbragging about this. I had felons
(47:23):
that literally wrote me andsent me a card from prison that said,
I want to thank you fortreating me like a human being instead
of a felon. I committed afelony. I made a mistake. You helped
me to understand that. And nowI'm understanding that I have consequences
for my actions. But I want tosay thank you for treating me like
(47:44):
a human being, not just acriminal or a felon. And I tried
to. I grew up with my kids thesame way. Like I said, I love my
kids. I love them equally, butin different ways. I love my oldest
daughter for strengths andweaknesses that she has. I love my
(48:05):
youngest daughter for thestrengths and weaknesses she has.
So it's. There is a balancethere. There is a balance there.
And I know that we all balance automatically.
When you're human, it'sautomatically. Yeah, you just have
to recognize systemic. It'snot systemic. It's not. But if you
treat any race. Look, we weresegregated by systems. The king that,
(48:31):
that, the first king,whatever, he needed to get a, you
know, get another tribe or getanother country. And he said, what
am I doing? I need soldiers.They are their hardest thing. So
I'm gonna just separatesoldiers from, you know, in the old
traps, you know, woman and manfought and I separate them into man
(48:53):
and woman. That's the firstsegregation. Then, oh my God, we
conquered other lands. Theylook different. Racism third. And
now systems currently wantedto separate us and categorize us
in sexuality. And there theyhit the wall because everybody's
unique, one of one and we aretoo fluid to be categorized in sex.
(49:19):
That's why you have lbgt,which blah blah blah, the whole Alphabet.
You could, and it wouldn't beenough. You could put just say A
to Z plus and all signs and itwould not be enough. Because even
language is limited. But artisn't, because art goes to all senses.
(49:39):
And that's why it is such agreat godly discipline. And people
recognize when they look atsomething and, and, and, and there's
a clear communication. Ialways explain what art is. Art is
a conversation from a humanbeing to its non physical, between
(49:59):
its non physical and physical.The product of that conversation
is the piece of art, themusic, the, the, the song, the podcast.
And if it's clear enough, ifit's, if it's refined enough, then
people recognize it and say,oh, I want to listen to more of Michael's
(50:21):
shows or you know, podcastepisodes, the more you refine your
communication with your, whereyou go at night, you know, you sleep.
You're not in, in thephysical, you're in the physical,
but you're not. Your focus ison the physical. So the non physical
(50:42):
and the physical communicationis the art piece. And that's, and
that's when the clearer we areabout and, but that comes from humans.
That comes. That is a humanbusiness. Art as well as soldiering
is a human business. This wassystemized. That's why you have 97%
(51:04):
of artists poor and cops poorand soldiers poor. Systemic. Because
the relevance in this, in thesystem is more money versus. Versus
what, what these humansactually do for humanity.
(51:25):
So yeah, that's an interestingperspective how you've explained
all the interaction withinthat and how it's all interlaced.
How could we heal? I mean, youmake a statement that we could heal
the world and others byeveryone being the best you that
each can be for yourself tocontribute with each uniqueness seamlessly
(51:46):
to the whole of humanity. Howdo we take the first steps in understanding
how we can be the best you,the best me that I can be?
I'm all. I'm a strongproponent against steps, but I say
the first step is just listento this podcast. Because we. I'm
(52:07):
living. You are living. We'reliving what we preach, and by that,
you other people get the mostout of it. It's just re. Listen.
I sometimes listen to apodcast three or four times because
I hear things that I haven'theard. And what that happens. What
happens there is I becomeaware, and once I'm aware, you cannot
(52:30):
make yourself unaware. You canlearn a step. You can say the words,
which is also systemic. Youcan say the words. Okay, first thing,
I need to be grateful. What isthat? That's a word. If you don't
feel grateful, you can't makeyourself feel grateful. You can be
aware of what you have, andperhaps that conjures the feeling
(52:56):
of gratefulness. Now find outhow to connect to gratefulness. But
don't just say, be grateful.Be mindful. Those are all systemic
words for human stuff. I lovethis. They say actually in the military
right now, I heard they wantedto say, when you ask an Asian person
(53:18):
to help you with a mathproblem, that will trigger a micro
emotion, a microaggression,and it's. It's. It should be avoided.
Are you insane? Completely.That. First of all, microaggression
is a psychological. It's a.It's a. It's a systemic word. There's
(53:38):
no such thing inmicroaggression. There's jealousy
in humans. Humans, there'sanger in humans. There is basic,
like 12 emotions. I thinkaround that, that are basic human
emotion, that every human onthis planet feels. Those. We can
talk about those. If I'mhurting you, we can talk about it
(54:03):
because I know what hurt is.You know what hurt? This. But we
have to explain, is it an ego?Hurt is another hurt. So all this,
it is all human. Relevance isimportant, not system relevance.
Not that I know. Oh, I cannot.This is a rule, a rule in regulations
that you say, I cannot ask anAsian person for helping me with
(54:26):
math. What about. I can askevery human being about a math problem
except me.
I'm never good at it.
I'm horrible about it. But I'msaying I could ask. What about asking
any race, any gender aboutanything we want?
(54:49):
I agree with that. I thinkthat we sometimes forget we're all
equal.
We're all one.
We're all one. It's alltogether. How do you think, speaking
of all being one, why does artand creativity always bring us closer
to humanity? Speak. Because wejust had this huge conversation about
being human and humanity. AndI understand it. But let's help those
(55:12):
that are watching andlistening to understand how art and
creativity can bring us closerto humanity.
I think because creating isthe essential community. And then
creating through your project,through your podcast, through my
paintings, through my music,it's our communication of your essence.
(55:34):
We, art and creation. That'swhy it's the first superpower. It's
our essence, our contributionto humanity, our short visit that
we have here. It's the toolthat, that is the. It is the most
efficient tool to communicateand contribute your essence to this
(55:57):
humanity.
And that makes, that does allthe sense, right? It does. It actually
does. I mean, I look at art,yes, I do have a master's degree
in what I have, but it was apassion for me. I wanted to explore
that. I wanted to open thatdoor for numerous reasons. One, because
(56:19):
I felt within side me that Iwanted to be creative. I wanted to
move forward in my life. Andfrom that perspective, I took the
steps that I felt werenecessary to really help me unleash
that creativity, to be able toopen that door for me. Because I
had been, I was a cop for along time. You know, I've almost
(56:40):
had about an 18 year careerprior to me getting injured and having
to leave that career. Butbefore that I went to college to
be a cop. So from thatenvironment I'd been for a long time,
I needed some help in to takethat step, to open that creativity
for me. And then once I did, Irealized that I always had it within
(57:01):
me, within myself anyway. Ijust had to recognize it and to move
that forward. And I think alot of us, especially in this day
and age, which is unfortunate,this day and age, you get a lot of
schools and academicinstitutions that are going, we're
not going to fund the paintingand the art and the creativity side
(57:25):
of this. We're only going tofund the sports or athletic side
of this. People can't see me,I'm doing my Italian hand gestures
down here. We're not going tofund the art and creativity side
of school anymore. That thekids had the opportunity to at a
young age to explore paintingand acting and singing and dancing,
(57:49):
they start shutting that down.Do you think that is an issue that
needs to be addressed insociety as a whole?
Absolutely. And not becauseI'm for art to education, but I say
it's an unawareness, first ofall. It's an unawareness. That's
our art education. Educationis only bring. It's, It's. It's like
(58:09):
10 of what it could be.
Right?
So even if I gave him the timewhen we had the most art education,
if I give him the same time,it's only 5, 10% of what it could
be because it focuses on theproduct and the history of a product
it, it teaches you about, butalso it exposes you to art. And that's
the only five. That's wherethe 5% is. So I, you know, when you
(58:37):
do sports, you learn somethingin teamwork and achieving a goal,
skill, strategy. Like cop,like the job of a cop. Right. Which
I don't have because I'm not acop. I haven't been a soldier. I
have other skills. But there'sa skill set you learn and what you
(59:01):
learn in art, there is anawareness. So for example, if I'm
a sports guy, if I'm like afootball player, coaches or whatever,
I'm in college, but at thesame time I'm part of the theater
group, I'm learning the skillof team of humanity. Again, I'm talking
(59:24):
in the context of humanity,not I'm going to get a skill to make
a lot of money. That. So I'mlearning a skill of, of humanity,
interaction, social. That'swhy education, what is education?
The social. The social skillsthat you learn is, is all of it.
It's not what, what youregurgitate with pills and everything
(59:46):
that get you to regurgitatefor one second and you forgot it.
And when you have the balance,you need the, the masculine is the.
Is the sports. The feminine isthe balance. Right. Balance is the
absolute. Exactly. It's thesuperpower of nature. Look, dinosaurs
live the species. Nature wenton, it lives, it lives without humans
(01:00:09):
too. It just adapts. So whenyou have the thing, and I always
keep saying this in with CEOs,you know, I tell him, I said, you
need to really do, do start ina theater group or something or be
in the art community. Becauseyou have two leads even you have
two leads. Yeah, the CEO andthe cfo. Right. You have two leads
(01:00:33):
in a play. But if anything,what does the CFO and the CEO have?
No clue what the street.Street. Even in cops, what the street
cops go through, they say,okay, I went to police academy. They
never even what the streetbeat Philip Epson or so. So in a
(01:00:56):
play, the Whole two, evenafter two, you get Lujo, you get
Pavarotti and you getwhatever. And these people, when
they not interacting with thewhole team in, in that it's important
that everybody's relevant. Whyevery and one thing everybody supports
(01:01:19):
the. In sports is similar, buteverybody supports more on a logistic
level. But you have to reallyinteract. You have to know what everybody
does.
Right.
So in sports the whole teamsupports the running back or the
quarterback. Right. But in,in, in, in the theater, this, the
(01:01:40):
whole thing has to gel.
The whole ensemble has to work together.
Yeah. If, if, if, if theviolinist is off, the whole 140 people
in the orchestra, it's, it'svoid. It's void. One person is. So
everybody has to get eachother. So that's. And actually those
(01:02:02):
are the essence of, of school.There should be sports and art. I
wouldn't even do any. Andbasic math, you're learning in grade
school. I think there shouldbe sports and art and you should
be. Everybody should bemandatory to do both.
I agree.
And you're not learning tomake money. You're learning to be
(01:02:23):
a productive, contributinghuman being as part of this weave.
And this is living, liftingthe human potential versus, versus.
Just saying, hey, let's do it.Okay. My dad did that. You do the
same. You know, the nextgeneration do the same. They're the
same.
I agree with that.
Experience. Experience it likeyou experience cop. Experience that
(01:02:48):
teamwork. God. I think there'sso much in soldiering and I have
not been on a human level thatyou learn, you know, and like you
said, you like to drink coffeewith the people in the street. Wonderful.
And I've learned so much from,you know, trying to get into the
system and couldn't. But inthe, in the art system, it didn't
(01:03:11):
matter. It didn't matter if itwas this like stick in the art system,
you know, the nature is not.It doesn't matter if you have three
like a three legged gazelle,it still keeps going or, you know,
it doesn't matter. Everybodyhas a part of it.
Everybody has a part.Everybody plays a part in society.
Everybody's a part. Everybodyplays a part in human. Humankind.
(01:03:32):
You know, I could talk to youfor a whole another hour. You're
gonna have to come again,Michael. You're gonna have to come
back on this show. We're gonnahave to continue this conversation.
But right now we're kind of.We're running questions. Yeah, we're
running, running a little overtime. So let's talk about how somebody
(01:03:52):
can find you and how they canconnect with you and get your books.
Because I know you've got fivebooks. I've only put three of them
up here. And you have apodcast. Can we talk a little bit
about that and how to get a hold.
Of you so you can go. I haveone hub, that's michaelm.com which
is Michael with two L's m.commichaelm.com and the podcast is,
(01:04:16):
is. Is basically all thewisdom and aware. Because I believe
once you're aware, you canmake yourself unaware. So the podcast
is just 20 to 30 seconds long,one episode. And everybody that wants
to get into art and likes thispodcast episode and what we said
(01:04:38):
and it resonates with you. Goand just listen to one a day. Just
one quote a day. 20 seconds.And there's a question too. Answer
the question for yourself.There's no test or anything. And
then let it percolate, Let itpercolate. Next day, go the next.
It doesn't matter if somethingcomes or not. Just go. Next question,
(01:04:59):
next question. Sometimes after10 different. You will get you there
will. The lightning will come.The lightning, the awareness will
come and you will look athumanity and, and art, art and creating
in a different way. You'renot, you're not think, oh, I need
(01:05:19):
to love Michelangelo or I needto love Rembrandt more than the finger
paintings of my kids. It willput it all in perspective that you
say that. You see, oh, it'sabout the product. It's a system
thing. It's like going in aWalmart and buying art. Or it is.
It is the creation. And thatthe creation is, is the journey.
(01:05:43):
It's the rewarding thing for humans.
And your books, your books andyour podcast can all be found on
your website as well. So theyhave links to there. And I'll make
sure that all that's in theshow notes so that everybody has
an easy way to access. Justclick, click the link in the show
notes. It'll take you right toyour website so they can get more
involved. Michael, this hasbeen a fantastic conversation. I
(01:06:06):
honestly appreciate you comingon board.
Thank you so much.
I hope that we've had theopportunity to educate and motivate
and inspire, inspire somepeople to explore their own creativity.
This is one more thing beforeyou go. Do you have any words of
wisdom before we go?
Awareness is everything.Because if you want to find yourself
(01:06:33):
and find fulfillment, youcannot find it through knowledge.
Because you can do all this.You can do everything the system
tells you and you can andawareness is basically the language
of humans that actually leadsus to wisdom. So you gotta be aware
(01:06:54):
and to find awareness is feelfulfillment. Don't have an intuition,
all that stuff, that systemic,insistent spirituality. Pray to God,
whatever. Just feel, as I'mtalking purely human level. Feel
the fulfillment to chase thatfeeling, not the fulfillment. I'm
(01:07:14):
getting drunk. That is notfulfilling. Because at the end, fulfillment
has no downside. Fulfillmentis just fulfillment. It just gives
more and more and more andbecome aware of it and focus and
aware you become when youfocus on humans and nature primarily
and then secondarily thinkabout paying our rent. Systemic.
(01:07:38):
Brilliant words of wisdom. Iapplaud you for those as they have
brilliant words of wisdom.Thank you very much again. I appreciate
you coming on board to theshow and I look forward to having
another conversation with you.I think we can really kind of expand
people's opportunity a littlebit more. So thank you very much
(01:07:58):
for being here. I hope thatyou have a wonderful day and I look
forward to having another conversation.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of.
One More Thing before youe Go.
Check out ourwebsite@beforeyougopodcast.com youm
can find.
Us as well as subscribe to the.
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