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I'm a way to the shop the other day, I was kind of thinking
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about the good old days, like how we do, and it's kind of got
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sparked from anybody that's familiar with my graffiti from
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the 90s. Well, I can't say anybody, but it seems like a lot
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of people. So a lot of times when I post work from the 90s, I
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get, I get comments like, Oh, you got to bring that back. And
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I've heard that, heard that quite a bit here and there. So I
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never really wanted to bring it back. Because, well, not that I
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didn't want to, it's just, I just was worried that like, the
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energy wasn't gonna be the same. I, you know, I tend to overthink
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things. So that's, that's what was going on, I was just
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overthinking it, like I wasn't going to pull it off, it wasn't
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going to look the same, you know, all this kind of shit. So
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I haven't really done the styles that I did in the 90s, for
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probably close to 30 years, like the late 90s, the stuffs started
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evolving, and I was doing some other shit, I don't really have
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photos of that stuff. But in the early or mid 90s 9495 796, I was
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doing some I was doing a certain style, you know, and, and I
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haven't really done that for that long. So anyway, long story
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short, just recently, the last time I painted, I was like, fuck
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it, I'm just gonna pull out some of the old shit, and give that a
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go. And so I did a piece. And you know, I just went with the
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old letters, I didn't modify them at all, I kind of tried to
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do a sort of old school type of fill in was a little, little
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more. I don't know. I don't know why I'm having trouble talking
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about this. It's just not coming out. Right. Anyway, so I did
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kind of like an old school fill in. And, and, and, you know, I
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also tried to capture sort of the energy of how it used to be
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back then it was, like, I own a paint shop now. So like, I can
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literally go in and just like pick any any color I want in any
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color palette that I want. But in the 90s, it wasn't really
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like that. I mean, obviously you could go and buy whatever colors
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were available, but there was much, much less colors
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available. So I mean, even in 94 like Krylon and resto didn't
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even have like a true purple. So I mean, it was like, very
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limited color palettes, you had maybe like a couple different
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shades of blue, and maybe three, I think it was like regal blue,
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True Blue and baby blue from Krylon. And then resto had some
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similar stuff. But this was before, I think it was called
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painters touch came out and some other colors came out. But
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anyway, even then, you know, you had a much more limited color
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palette. So I was I was thinking about it. And I was like, you
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know, anytime I go to paint nowadays, I can just go into my
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shop and I can stand in front of hundreds of colors and just
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figure out whatever I want. And at the same time, I find that a
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little difficult because there's just so many colors to choose
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from, that it actually makes it a little harder. And back in the
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90s you just worked with what you had, and you had like, weird
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color combinations, because there wasn't a lot. There was
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like I said, there wasn't a lot of colors available. So I was
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trying to capture that. And I was like, I'm just gonna paint
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with whatever I have in the garage. And so I put some colors
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together that I thought might look okay, and I did have to go
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to the shop to get Kana black because I didn't have any black
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and I wanted to go true old school with the black outline,
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Black Drop Shadow, white, in liners highlights as we used to
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call them. And so anyway, I did the piece and it came out. Okay,
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I was like, moderately happy with it. And I was actually
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reluctant to post it because I was like, I don't feel like I
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really pulled it. But I posted it anyway. And like everybody,
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not everybody, but like the comments section went a little
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crazy. I think like this morning, I checked, I think
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there was like 78 comments or something. And people seemed
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excited to see that. So I mean, I'm assuming these are people
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that are familiar with my work from back then. And so anyway,
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that's why I was thinking about the quote, good old days. And
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it's I try not to think about those old days and kind of
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random reminisce in a way that makes me want to go back there
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like I do miss those days. But I don't want to be like, you know,
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was the guy's name and Napoleon Dynamite like Uncle Rico like,
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you know, all he wanted to do was go back to the old days
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later because of his current days. He wasn't happy with him
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like he was still living back in the high school days when he
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played football. And so while I was thinking about that, I I
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remember this quote from the office and I could have swore I
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was like that must have been like an old famous quote, but I
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can't find anywhere else. So I think it I'm sure somebody has
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said it before but like the popularity of the quote, and he
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was, I forget the guy's the character's name in the show,
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but he said, I wish there was a way to know your, in the good
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old days before you left them. And you know, that's, that kind
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of sparked a whole nother thought process for me and I was
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thinking, if I think about graffiti, and I might think the
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good old days for me would be like, I don't know, 93 to 98,
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something like that those were like, really the peak sort of
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years where I was like bombing doing this, all the, you know,
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the illegal stuff that I really wish I could be doing right now.
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But I'm 50 I don't know, no excuses. But, you know, it is
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oh, no business and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, that's
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where my heart's at is that stuff, like on the streets and
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in the train yards and shit like that. And so, you know, I've
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always thinking about graffiti, I would, I would probably think
00:06:02
that those were the good old days, you know, those that sort
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of era that those few years, obviously, like I painted more,
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you know, outside of those times, but those were, those
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were the times when, you know, I was young and like everything,
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like 93, I got an MSK. And like it was really active. And, you
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know, we were building this thing up. And I guess that kind
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of leads me into this concept that I've talked about before,
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it's like the, the true happiness is in the journey. And
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so if you look at MSK, now, you might think, like, Oh, it's this
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big crew, it's worldwide, like, very well known, and all this
00:06:40
kind of shit. But if you were around in 93, it wasn't like
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that at the time. So we were in the process of building, so not
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only was it like, sort of the hay day of graffiti, for me, and
00:06:52
the type of graffiti that I wanted to do, but I was also
00:06:54
contributing to building this thing, that, although it had
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been around, it was, it was really coming back up 90 to 93.
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And most people didn't know about it. So it was mainly like
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a new crew on the scene. So as, as our reputation started to
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grow throughout the 90s. You know, that was exciting. And it
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was, you know, a really good example of, of the happiness is
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in the process, you know. And so, so as I'm thinking about
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this stuff, I'm thinking about, you know, different ideas and
00:07:31
different concepts, like, you know, my best days are over,
00:07:34
always ahead of me and stuff like that. And then I was
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thinking about my life, and I was just like, you know, I'm
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probably in the good old days again, right now, you know,
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because, like, I'm with Jessie, and she's like, the best partner
00:07:48
I could ever ask for. And, you know, although my business is,
00:07:54
is causing probably the most well, not probably, it's
00:07:58
absolutely causing the most amount of stress that I've ever
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experienced. This is the, this is the shit that I was talking
00:08:06
about in the last episode, it's like, these are the hurdles,
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that obviously not my relationship and talking about
00:08:13
just my business, these are the hardships that you have to
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overcome and the stress that you have to overcome to achieve what
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you want to achieve. And that is, I believe, that's where true
00:08:24
happiness comes from, is by overcoming these things. And so
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as I'm thinking about all this, I'm thinking about, like my
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team, and, you know, getting established in Vegas and all
00:08:34
this stuff, and I was thinking, you know, maybe maybe I'm in the
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good old days right now. And, you know, someday down the line,
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I'm gonna look back on these days. And think about them in a
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similar way, as I was thinking about my graffiti in the 90s.
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And maybe even, you know, who knows, like, what's going to
00:08:56
happen, but maybe even like, some sort of graffiti type stuff
00:08:59
that happens in the current years, is something that I'm
00:09:03
going to look back on in the same way, you know, like, I can
00:09:06
look at other aspects of my life. And there's definitely
00:09:09
areas where I look back, and I was like, Nah, that's not wasn't
00:09:13
really in a good place. And I don't, I don't really see those
00:09:16
as the good old days, you know, but there is some stuff that I
00:09:20
look back on those days and reminisce, like, in a sense,
00:09:23
like, you know, there's some stuff that was exciting, like, I
00:09:26
started machine in 2002, as a motion graphics company, and I
00:09:33
wasn't in a good place for, I don't know, a good decade or
00:09:37
more, I don't know, wasn't a very good place. So I don't
00:09:41
really look back on those times very fondly. But anyway, the
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point is, is
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you know, the more I think about that, and the more I kind of
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wonder about what kind of control we have over whether or
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not these days are the good old days. So I believe that you
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know, there's lots of examples. You know, I talk about stoic
00:10:03
philosophy a lot. And Epictetus is a is a great example of that,
00:10:09
of this idea that maybe. So this was 1000s of years ago,
00:10:16
Epictetus spent the first good part of his life as a slave. But
00:10:21
he still was able to cultivate this kind of stoic philosophy
00:10:25
and these sort of ideas that, you know, even though he's not
00:10:30
physically free, nobody can control his mind, and nobody can
00:10:35
really take the freedom away from his mind. And so he was
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able to find some, well, I'm assuming this obvious, there's
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not a whole lot of like, I don't, I don't know if I have
00:10:47
this right. But I don't think he actually wrote anything. I think
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he, he, well, I know, he didn't write the entire radian, which
00:10:54
is one of the most famous things from his discourses. It was his
00:10:58
student Aryan that Aryan. I don't know how to say it. But
00:11:02
he's the one that wrote all the shit down that he learned from
00:11:04
the lesson. So it was his words. But anyway, that's not really
00:11:07
the point. But he was able to cultivate this kind of inner
00:11:12
peace, even though he was a slave. And that's, that's
00:11:15
obviously way worse than anything that I've experienced,
00:11:18
or any level of stress that I can experience. So thinking
00:11:22
about stuff like that, and it's like, How much control do I
00:11:26
actually have over how I'm going to look back on this time. And
00:11:30
so if I'm sitting here stressed out all the time, maybe when I
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do look back on this time, I won't look back on it as fondly
00:11:38
as maybe when, when I look back on the mid 90s, you know, it's
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like, so I don't know, I'm actually thinking of more stuff
00:11:46
as I'm talking. So it's kind of tripping me up a little bit. But
00:11:50
I guess, the overall idea is like, you know, we have the
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control to make the days the good old days. And so if we're
00:11:57
not doing the things that we're supposed to do, and in my
00:12:00
situation, you know, I think I can create a more memorable
00:12:06
experience by doing all of the things that I know I need to be
00:12:09
doing, I need to be in the physical shape that I, I know I
00:12:13
should be in, by should be setting the example that I know
00:12:17
I should be setting, I should be doing this certain things in my
00:12:20
business that I know are going to move the business forward and
00:12:24
achieve our goals. And I'm obviously well not obviously,
00:12:28
but I'm doing all of those things. I'm not there. But I am
00:12:32
taking the steps to make those things happen. And then, on a
00:12:37
little side thing, I heard something on another podcast, I
00:12:40
can't remember which one, but it was, it was really interesting.
00:12:44
And that guy was talking about how, you know, if you do the
00:12:49
same things over and over again, then all of those sort of blend
00:12:54
together. So like, for example, if you take the same route to
00:12:58
work every day, your mind kind of creates just sort of one
00:13:02
memory of you driving that maybe not one, but just sort of mixes
00:13:06
all these memories together. If nothing happens during that
00:13:10
route, so let's say you drive to work 100 times, and it's the
00:13:13
same shit every single time. If you ever think back on it,
00:13:17
you're most likely going to be thinking back on a mix of all of
00:13:20
these different times that you drove that route. But if you
00:13:24
take a different street, or if you do a turn that you never
00:13:26
did, or you know something detours, you or you see an
00:13:30
accident or something like that, that actually creates a memory
00:13:35
in your mind. And then, you know, so it's like, I started
00:13:40
doing this, and I started mixing things up in my life where I'm
00:13:43
taking different routes to work or like I'm doing things just
00:13:46
slightly different. So that those memories don't all kind of
00:13:51
mix together. And I thought about like, it kind of bummed me
00:13:54
out a little bit because like Jesse and I have like these
00:13:56
routines that I don't know what to call them routines, but like,
00:13:59
I guess that's what it is, you know, like on Sundays, like we
00:14:03
go to the same coffee shop, you know. And so I wonder if, like,
00:14:08
if I think back on those times, that how many of those are all
00:14:14
just mashed together, as you know, there was like 10
00:14:18
different days that I'm just sort of remembering, because
00:14:20
it's just repeating over and over again, even though we kind
00:14:23
of talked about the same stuff, but it's like it's the same
00:14:27
thing all the time. So I'm trying to look out for ways to
00:14:33
you know, just try to mix things up a little bit. And, and it
00:14:36
could be all these different things, and I'm finding it it's
00:14:39
pretty effective. Because when I think back on you know, we
00:14:43
normally do this and I did this. I remember I remember that time
00:14:49
versus you know, when you do things the same way every every
00:14:54
time. I don't, I don't know, kind of losing track of myself.
00:14:57
But the other thing that that got me thinking about is also
00:15:03
they say like, as you get older, the time goes by faster. And I
00:15:08
feel like I've experienced that, like I have this memory from
00:15:11
when I was a kid. And I think it was like summer break between
00:15:15
like, first and second grade or something like that. And I just
00:15:21
have this memory of riding my bike up to this school that we
00:15:25
used to kind of ride our bikes around in the parking lot. And I
00:15:29
remember thinking, like, we've been on summer break forever,
00:15:32
and like, it's, we have so much longer to go. And I think summer
00:15:39
breaks What, like three months or something like now three
00:15:41
months goes by so fucking fast, like it just turned 2024. And
00:15:47
we're already in the second quarter of the year. So I think
00:15:52
that that's related, I think like, as you get older, you
00:15:56
settle into more and more routines. And so the more
00:15:59
routines that you settle into, the more all of these memories
00:16:02
kind of mashed together. And so I think that actually causes
00:16:07
time to sort of condense in your mind, you know, it feels like,
00:16:11
it feels like it went by really fast. So like the example of you
00:16:15
went to work the same route 100 times? What if in your mind,
00:16:19
like how it feels like that's only one time like, it condenses
00:16:23
all into one, I don't know if I'm kind of getting out of
00:16:25
control here. But I don't know, it just got me thinking. And
00:16:28
it's gotten me being more intentional about wanting to
00:16:32
create more memories. And so it all sort of relates together, if
00:16:35
you think about, you know, how do you create the good old days
00:16:40
in the time that you're in now, even if you're not exactly where
00:16:45
you want to be, or things are hard or you know, whatever,
00:16:48
whatever is going on. In my mind, there's a few ways like
00:16:54
obviously, what I just talked about is sort of mixing things
00:16:56
up and trying to create new experiences, even if they're
00:16:59
not, like these crazy big things, like just simply going a
00:17:03
different route, or just taking a turn down a street you've
00:17:07
never been on and just sort of see where that goes. I've been
00:17:10
doing that a little bit here in Vegas, just to kind of learn my
00:17:13
way around. I'm like, what if I turn here, will I be able to
00:17:15
find my way home? You know, I did that just yesterday,
00:17:18
actually. And. And so I wonder if that kind of contributes to
00:17:24
obviously making making the day more memorable. Even if it's not
00:17:29
really that big of a deal. Like maybe it'll extend sort of how
00:17:33
you perceive that time. But then also being intentional about
00:17:38
being happy about where you're at. And sort of with the things
00:17:43
that I was talking about in the last episode, like even if
00:17:45
you're going through a tough time in your life, just know
00:17:49
that once you overcome that that's that's like another, you
00:17:53
know, bit of armor that you've built up for yourself. So if
00:17:56
there's a way to find some sort of happiness and some sort of
00:18:01
like satisfaction and the fact that, you know, you're in
00:18:06
something that you're going to overcome, and, and that's going
00:18:10
to, that's going to create some sort of happiness for you down
00:18:14
the line. So at the end of the day, I think I think the overall
00:18:17
message is just, you know, I think it's cool to reminisce
00:18:20
about the good old days. But I also I also think it's, at least
00:18:25
for me, like I would be sort of bummed out if I was looking back
00:18:28
at the good old days and wishing that I was back there. Because
00:18:31
that to me would tell me that I'm not happy with what I'm
00:18:35
currently doing. And right now is where we're at. This is where
00:18:39
we're this is the life we're living right now. So it's cool
00:18:41
to have those things but like what are you doing to make right
00:18:45
now? The good old days
00:18:54
all right. I appreciate each and every one of you guys who are
00:18:58
supporting the cause and continue to spread the love and
00:19:03
yeah, stay up