Embracing Imperfection, Relationships, and Content Creation

In this episode of the M3 BearCast, Malcolm Travers introduces MailMediaMind, a grassroots organization that promotes community upliftment through meaningful conversations on self-development, spirituality, and relationships. Malcolm discusses different perspectives on happiness, influenced by insights from a TikTok creator on embracing inherent personality traits and the drawbacks of forced optimism. He also explores relationship red flags and challenges common assumptions about relationship longevity. Concluding with a segment on content creation, Malcolm shares his journey, emphasizing the importance of consistency over perfectionism and the value of genuine engagement with his audience. Listeners are encouraged to engage with the M3 community through live streams, social media groups, and Patreon.

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Transcript

  📍  📍  Hello, and welcome to the M3 BearCast. My name is Malcolm Travers. MailMediaMind is a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge. And every Tuesday, I release a podcast that is a summation of the types of topics that I do on our live streams.

I have a live stream every Monday and Wednesday. You can find it at youtube. com slash MailMediaMind. And I usually have conversations around self development, spirituality, relationships, or whatever could use some explaining or different perspectives. And before I start the, the live streams, I do a lot of reading and research and I try to find ideas that could benefit from more perspectives, um, people's history and dating or their relationships, or if they have any personal stories to, you know, better, you So I have a few here that I'm going to bring up on the live stream.

The first has to do with

different perspectives, dealing with personality and how we understand ourselves in relation to other people. Um, this came about because of some topics we were discussing on, uh, relationship styles and looking for relationships. Um, Then I have one on sort of red flags that short term relationships will not survive into the long term.

Um, one of those TikTok sort of listicle videos. Um, I break down some of those topics. And then my last one is basically a personal rendition of some of the ways that I think about content creation and my, I guess my personal journey with perfectionism. All right. Uh, with that out of the way, uh, I'll get onto the topics.

So, recently, I have been reading a couple of books that have gotten me thinking about the ways in which people are quite different. And I ran across this video on TikTok from one of my favorite creators. She goes by NoNonsenseSpirituality, and she talks a lot about leaving religion and deconstruction.

But also just, also when people leave religion, the source of things that people use to find meaning in their lives, such as self help and new age spirituality, and she also, debunks a lot of bullshit in those spaces as well. And in this video, she just, she debunks some of the feel good, happier, no matter what type books.

And i'm going to play the video here and then discuss it.

I am happy being sad. One of the most freeing things that I've ever learned is that we have an innate capacity to happiness. When I realized that because I am low in extroversion and high in neuroticism, I will suffer more than the average person, it made so much sense. Because before then I got sucked into the happiness Self help pop psychology bullshit world, and I literally have not read a book in that space since learning about this.

Basically, all we can do is improve our natural capacity towards happiness about 10%. That's as much as we have control over, which is why there's so many meditation things that say 10. 10 percent happier. Like that's the limit of control you have. So I do the things that are 10 percent in my control. I do the sunshine and, and diet and I try to exercise and I'll go out and see friends and I'll take a walk with my dog.

And yeah, I do those things, but it's so much better releasing the pressure off myself to become some kind of like saccharine optimistic person. It's just not going to be me. And I'm actually so much happier just allowing myself To love winter and be emo. And I also created a job where it is a good thing that I have some levels of neuroticism.

I talk about nihilism with my clients all day long. All day long I am in nihilism with my people. I had a client yesterday who spent the entire hour with me wanting to talk about the big red button issue, and she just wanted someone to talk to about. That's something that I am most qualified to do, because I am high in neuroticism and I think about questions like that.

And just giving myself permission to just be attracted to the melancholy because it feels the most real to me has actually made me happier than trying to make myself happy. My friends know that when it's my turn to pick a movie, you're gonna cry in this movie. I pick movies that make you cry. And it just gave me a lot of peace to understand why my brain is so annoyed by like, blinding sunshine optimism, um, and it's just never gonna be me, and that there's a place in this world for people who suffer and are neurotic and are introverted.

Think of all the art and the poetry we would miss if people like me didn't exist. And the good news is that it keeps me away from serial killers because I have never lit up a room in my entire life. And I never will. And I'm happy never lighting up a room. I will darken up a room. That, that's what I'll do.

And I'm okay with that.

So one of the reasons why I really like this perspective is because I fall into that same category. I've known that for a while. But oftentimes i've been trying to change Myself to fit into this sort of narrative that one must be optimistic and happy at all times. And I'm not that person. And I think that the world exists in such a way that there are many different types of people and we bring many different perspectives to the way we live our lives.

And so I've heard it said of this metaphor that some people. Uh, bring the sunshine when it's cloudy and some people bring clouds when the sunshine is oppressive. And I am definitely the cloudy type person. I'm definitely the introverted person. You know, of the big five personality indicators, I definitely rank high on introversion and neuroticism and I am going to naturally tend towards those things.

That doesn't mean that I have to be unfulfilled and find no meaning in my life simply because I'm not naturally optimistic or Outgoing. Um, one of the things that I can bring to a situation is the ability to look the darkness in the eye and say what it is for what it is without being hyperbolic or catastrophizing, um, understanding that when dark times come, they are also as temporary as the good times and recognizing that I'm not always going to be the thing that people need.

In fact, maybe most of the time, I'm not the thing that people need. And that's okay because I'm not ready to be the life of the party anyway. But I do serve a purpose for people who feel oppressed by the need to be happy all the time or to interact all the time. It's okay to go into your corner for a time, even though we know connections are important in our lives, um, protecting your peace is also important.

And I thought about this with some of the topics that I've done recently on the M3 Live broadcast, dealing with relationships. Um, Swag had a show last week where one of these very popular content creators made the statement that he could base any, Decent relationship on a strong sexual connection. And a lot of people brought up the idea of what if that sexual connection goes away on, you know, is there still a relationship there?

And obviously the answer is no. If you're basing your relationship just on sex and not really on a personal connection, once the sex is gone, the relationship is gone. Um, it is possible that you just get comfortable with this person and. You know, in gay land, a lot of people just open up their relationships so that they can have sexual connections with others while maintaining the sort of camaraderie or companionship that they have with this person who they initially met on a sexual connection.

But it occurred to me as we were discussing it that I believe that some people are simply not looking for deep levels of connection in relationships. And that might just be simply because their personality is, is different than mine or a lot of the people I talked to because we tend to gravitate toward one another on talking about deep conversations about life and, you know, philosophy and, you know, the meaning of things where some people just, that is the most boring bullshit in the world.

And they really are just sunshine all the time. And they're not looking for these deeper levels of connection with people. a purely physical connection, I've concluded is enough for some people. Now, is that going to be enough for them for all time? I don't think so. I think life naturally deepens our need for meaning over time, but I think for others, they start with such a high level of just happiness and extroversion and you know, they live in a sort of superficial world in my eyes, from my perspective, I consider it superficial.

But I assume that from their perspective, you know, these are the things that are most important to them. And all of these sort of analytical sort of, um,

abstract thinking and, you know, philosophizing and intellectualizing everything is just, you know, mucking up a life that could be more joyful. And so for them, I'm, I'm the Debbie Downer trying to make things deeper than they really need to be. And that is part of life. I think part of recognizing that, um, your place in the world is that not everyone is like you.

And that, um, we can coexist with those people who exist on another level without denigrating that level, right? Because from my perspective, they're on a lower level of existence. You know, without a deeper intellectual foundation, I think that's, you know, Is that a life worth living? And then from their perspective, I might be over intellectualizing a world in which experience itself is the most important thing.

And living in my head all the time is actually taking me out of the flow of existing in the moment. Who knows? I seriously, I intellectualize everything. So I don't know what it's like to not intellectualize everything. And so I think that's just the point is to make space for your own unique way of seeing the world.

And, you know, find other people who may try to understand those things with you. And I think I've done that in the content that I produced simply because I can't really make the kind of content that. Appeals to the light, fluffy, you know, sunshine people. It's just not in me. I tried, I've tried, trust me, I've tried.

I quickly get disenchanted with that type of content and I don't do it well either. So I have stuck to what I do. Well, what is meaningful to me and the fewer people who. You know, appreciate what I do come to me and I appreciate them as much as I could because I get to be my genuine self with them. I get to make content that I think is important.

And so, uh, yeah. Thank you. If you were listening to this, it means a lot to me. All right. Until next week. 

 So one of the things that I enjoy listening to on social media sometimes are these list videos. And this one is a list of things that you should do. This is a list of things that are signs that your relationship is going to end in a dead end, that it is not suited for a long term relationship. And I think a lot of these are fairly conventional.

Um, things that you should be looking for in a long term relationship, but also want to maybe challenge some of them. Um, let me go ahead and play the video here and then we'll discuss.

There's three ways to know that they're wasting your time in the current relationship you're in and it's time to abandon ship. You know, the person is wasting your time. Number one, if they're unable to talk about serious issues and challenges, if you can't talk to them about serious issues and challenges that come up, there's no way that you're going to be able to have a future with them because that's what relationships are.

Conversations about serious issues and challenges. Number two. They don't ask you any tough questions. Think about it. If the person never takes the time to ask you tough questions, then they don't really have the ability bandwidth capacity to start a long term relationship with you. Number three, you don't have any of the same long term goals.

If you're not on the same page with your long term goals, then you're not going to have a long term relationship. Because you both need to be going the same direction. There's going to be friction and this is going to fall apart inevitably. Number four. They don't want to define the relationship. If you find yourself saying, What are we?

I just want to know what we are. And they won't just call you their girlfriend or say, Yeah, we're in a relationship. And they want to keep leaning on the, Well, this isn't really a relationship. You are wasting your time. You got to abandon ship. Number five, 300 hours have already been spent in the relationship and they won't introduce you to their parents or their Children or whoever's close to them.

300 hours is equivalent to around six months on average. So if you spent that amount of time in a relationship with someone and they're still not ready to introduce you to anyone close to them, there is no future. Go ahead and abandon ship. Number six, they struggle with negative thinking, especially about you.

If you're with someone who struggles with negative thinking about their future, about themselves, but especially if they say negative things about you, then they don't possess the capability of maintaining a positive frame about you. Which is a necessary skill for a relationship. So if you're with someone that doesn't know how to maintain a positive frame, you're going to have to go ahead and abandon ship.

It's not going to work. You're wasting your time.



So a couple of the things that he mentions came up in my last topic about whether or not people are really deep thinkers or, um, you know, looking for a deeper level of connection in their relationships. And. I suppose if you're watching a video like this, you're probably someone like me who is looking for a deeper sort of connection.

So the idea that you can't have a criticism in your relationship or bring problems to your partner. Um, I think those are pretty good. Cause I'm assuming that you're also the type of person who is looking for a meaningful connection. Um, but I think in general, this may not be true for everyone. There may be people who really don't know or listen to this kind of content.

Um, that they're not really looking for a partner who has deeper connections. I don't know, possibly. Um, another one that he mentioned is the defining the relationship type question. I go back and forth on this. I do feel that if you're secure in what you want as a person, you're not going to allow a label to get in the way of the type of relationship that you want.

I think that sometimes putting a label on something takes some of the control from that person and puts it into society and the semantics of that definition. Um, and people don't like that. Right. So like some people, if you say you're someone's girlfriend, there's certain assumptions that you make about that versus their fiance versus their wife versus their, A partner versus whatever label you, she tend to choose.

Um, for others, you know, they acknowledge that that label provides a certain outside, um, definition to what your relationship is. But between the two of you, you can modify it as much or as little as you want. And I think if you've realized that you still have control, even if. initially people are going to make certain assumptions about you based on those labels, then I think it is acceptable to, you know, have those labels.

And so I think if you're afraid of those sorts of labels, it does, to me, indicate a certain lack of sophistication with your ability to, um, deal with the complexities of labeling and of identity and of. Um, you know, social interactions and things like that, because I'm never allowed a label to really confine me in that sort of way.

Um, I recognize that it comes preloaded with certain assumptions. Um, I'm thinking of a lot of different labels that I would use to identify myself that I don't fully agree with. But if I'm in a relationship with someone that shouldn't, I'm hoping that this person and I can have deeper conversations about what those labels mean so that it's not as important, um, for either of us, right?

Like if that person wants a label and I don't want that label, you know, we can have a conversation about. adopting it or letting go of our need to adopt it so that we can be on the same page. And yeah, if you can't do that, if you can't get on the same page, that's a problem. I can see that being a problem.

All right. Um, another one, just being highly negative about you and the relationship in general. Um, I think that is a real big problem. I think we sometimes, how do I put it? Life. is a mixed bag always. There's nothing that's all good or all bad. Um, but if you like choosing the negative interpretation of every outcome of every event, then you are making those observations out of a choice, either consciously or unconsciously.

And if you are just constantly choosing to look at things negatively, um, that's going to be your experience going forward. Like it's just going to be worse and worse. And this is coming from someone who chooses negative choices all the time, I have to you know, push myself to be 10 percent better at making more optimistic choices.

And that's part of the skill set of being in a relationship is trying to be optimistic, letting things go, um, you know, giving people the benefit of the doubt, you know, those are skills that can be learned. And, um, yeah, if you're not good at those, that is a, uh, you know, a sign of, of ultimate, um, doom for a relationship, but I was like, this is true of just any sort of interaction.

Like, uh, negativity can, can have that sort of backfire effect.

I think another one that he nailed is a good idea that if you are in a relationship, that person needs to be on your side with any long term goals that you have in your life. You need to be on board with helping each other attain. each other's goals. And I think that to me is one of the key functions of a relationship.

Anyway, you know, when I think about some of the times when, um, you know, people, it's sort of a conventional thing when people are given acceptance speeches, that one of the first people that they, um, thank is their, their spouse. Um, that is because I think part of being someone's spouse is, you know, Signing up to help them achieve their goals.

And if you're up here accepting an award, you're recognizing the fact that, you know, their partner helped them, you know, emotionally, financially, you know, spiritually, um, just like experientially, you know, getting it from the day to day experience of life. suitable for obtaining your goals in life. And if a person isn't on board to help you achieve your goals, that is kind of like, yeah, death or a relationship, obviously, I think.

And I think another one that he mentioned is, um, I think sailing out for a lot of gay relationships and that is. Introducing your partner to your friends and family. Um, he says something around 300 hours or roughly six months into the relationship. Um, that sounds like a pretty good guideline I think is different for different people in different situations.

But I think there is a breaking point at which you say, okay. Yeah, this isn't going to work. And the reason I think it's salient in gay relationships is because, um, you know, I think gay people have different, uh, relationships to their family and friends based on their sexuality, especially older people who grew up in a time when, um, they weren't open about their relationships.

And so it feels very awkward for them. To bring their partners around, say, uh, holidays or, uh, friend gatherings or whatever it may be like a graduation or something. Um, a lot of times they may not want to rock the boat, you know, even though they want to bring them, they don't want the negative backlash is going to inevitably come toward them and their partner.

And so that's understandable. And I think that's a little further, you know, those things has to be calculated, the difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. That being said, um, if you're not going to be introduced to their family and friends at any point, if you recognize that the resistance is too much for them socially.

I think that is a problem because we are more than just individuals. We are our circle of influence. Um, if people are talking to you and influencing you in the past and in the present, um, they are a part of who you are. And if you don't have access to them, you know, to their entire circle, I think that's a problem.

Um, if you're never going to have access to the people who are influencing their decisions and who influence their goals and who they are now, um, I don't feel like you're really in a relationship with them. You're in a relationship with a, a portion of them that they allow you access to. Now, mind you, I think even as I'm saying this, you, you, you know, being in a relationship is not the same as, you know, an interrogation or an inquisition.

You don't have complete access to anyone, even in a relationship, but there should be a sort of free access. that you would apply to a family member, right? Um, I think in a long term relationship, you're asking to basically become family with that person. And if you're not getting that sort of access, then you are being held at arm's length, and that is not conducive to an intimate long term relationship.

And another one I think, um, is real that he mentioned is being able to ask tough questions of someone. And I think this is something that may come in later in the dating process, in the relationship process, where, you know, instead of interrogating someone early on about things, just noting things to question them later about.

You know, their relationship to things that they don't want to talk about, you know, are you able to bring up those questions? Do you feel safe enough to bring up questions that, you know, might make them upset or uncomfortable? Um, have you established a certain, um, rapport? Where you can bring up uncomfortable conversations.

Um, you know, do you have the conversation skills to not sound accusatory when you bring up certain things, you know, um, when you bring up a topic, does it immediately make them shut down where you can't even find a pathway to some sort of understanding, you know, that is definitely a red flag in a relationship.

So all in all, you know, like I said, some of these questions. These list videos are less than optimal. I think this one I actually like a lot and I am going to bring it up. I'm putting again my notes right now to bring it up on the live stream. Um, I mean, I have ones on Monday and Wednesday. Um, yeah, this'll be a pretty good one and I hope you join us.

That's on youtube. com slash mail me your mind. Uh, all right. Onto the next.

 One of the last topics that I wanted to do for the podcast had to do with creating content. And this came up simply because last week I actually took a step to promote my podcast a little bit more. And I'm pretty good at creating content. My issue sometimes is promoting myself. I feel a little awkward.

I feel self promoting as something that, um, Something that I would not like to receive, right? Like I sometimes get emails or messages from people who are promoting their own work. And, um, I don't know if I were to reverse the situation, um, that I would feel exactly the same way that I feel when I receive it from someone else.

Um, but I was wrong, thankfully, um, I put myself out there and sent it to a hundred of my, uh, closest friends on Facebook and I got a lot of positive feedback. And one of the things that I got back was, you know, how do you go about creating content on a consistent basis? And one of the things I said is to fight perfectionism.

I can't train myself to not Think that my work is crap because I do Like that's part of the reason why I have such difficulty Promoting it to people is you know, when I listen to it, it makes like nails on a chalkboard I see all of the mistakes and I discount all of the good things about what i'm doing because I Want to try to make it better and I can't um, but I basically had to focus my attention away from the quality of my individual pieces to You The number of pieces that I produce and I take this as something of trying to change my mind because I've heard the idea that you can't actually change your mind.

You can only change your awareness of what is there and then your mind changes itself rather than you changing your mind. Right. So instead of focusing on the quality of an individual episode, I focus on getting episodes out on a consistent basis. And I like stacking them up one by one. And I take solace in each episode being complete in and of itself.

And so now I'm approaching episode 70 and I just feel really good about that. I was not, you know, a solid number. I think about where I've come from, from the beginning. So for me, it starts with what do I read, right? I try to read some high quality work and I try to be intentional about reading. So I actually pay attention to what I'm reading.

I take notes. I put it into a system of notes. So like I have a daily journal and whenever I read something that I like, I write something down. From what I'm reading. Um, if I really liked something I read, I actually quote large passages of it. This is something that, um, in the past people have called a commonplace book.

Mine is digital. So it's not like an actual book that people would carry around, but back in the day, uh, when people would read something very good, they'd actually have a book on them that they would copy passages from literary works that were maybe at a library that they couldn't check out, or, you You know, like it wasn't possible to own books the way it wasn't, it is now.

Um, so you copy passages of a book that you would then encounter again and again. And so I create these little commonplace books in my digital space, right? Uh, you can do it on Apple notes. I think that's the easiest one. And you can use. Like hashtags. They're actually like bullet points where it's different subject matters.

And so if I want to do something on personal development, I have bullet points of different topics that I like from different books, sometimes a tick tock creators, and I listened to them, you know, I think about them. And what happens is when my mind is sort of. mulling over certain passages, uh, it comes up again and again in the things that I read.

And so, um, if it is coming up again and again, I want to talk about it again. And that's how they come up in my podcast and on my live streams. Um, and I will say that one of the things that comes up, uh, frequently is the idea of perfectionism. And I noticed that, uh, sometimes people attribute that to, uh, the zodiac sign of Virgo.

I don't believe in zodiac signs, but whatever. I am a Virgo. And people will say, you know, like you're a perfectionist, whatever. Um, and I picked up a book called meditations for mortals and it has like 28 different days, like four weeks of meditations that you listen to on a regular basis for those four weeks on how to be an imperfectionist.

In fact, I think the author, um, had a blog called the imperfectionist and it's all about embracing the things that you can't control and not pretending like you can't control That you can change your mind in certain ways. Like you're always going to be the type of person who's unsatisfied with their work.

But if you focus on what you can control, like the amount that you put out each week or the amount that you consume on a regular basis. You can focus less on the things that you want to improve and they improve automatically anyway. Right? So if you care about the quality of your work, you're going to make the improvements that you need to make naturally.

If you're actually working on it on a regular basis, um, you figure out a better, smoother way to get the quality that you're looking for. So for instance, on my podcast, one of the things I'm always trying to find, figure out is how to get better audio quality. I don't understand all of the terminology of how to make the audio processing work.

Sometimes the audio dips in and out. I notice it. And I'm like, I don't know how to fix that right now, but I'm just going to keep moving forward. And one of these days, I'm going to figure out what it is that is causing that it's something to do with compression, something to do with the audio processing.

All I know is that, um, I can't really do much about it other than use a good microphone. You know, sit from a quality, you know, the distance that I am supposed to sit and try to remain, remain as consistent as possible. Right. And that served me well, because there's so much that I could get overwhelmed with if I delved deeper into it.

And what really matters to me is getting the content. And so another thing is that he pointed out in the book was that sometimes you have to let things go. Um, he thought about our content creation as a river of things that flow through, right? And you trying to control the path of the river is, you know, bound to be frustrating.

Um, you can find something in the river. And pick it out and, uh, write about it or make podcasts about it or whatever it is. But if it goes downstream, going to chase it down, the stream is a waste of effort. Really? There's so much more than that's coming down that stream. If you keep it open, if you are open to new ideas, you don't have to be afraid of missing something that was so brilliant, right?

There's going to be something else that comes along. And, um, I think it takes a little bit of faith. I would dare say that there will always be new ideas. There will always be something else that fascinates me. Um, it may not be as good as the thing that went, went, uh, downstream, but if I was meant to grab it, I just choose to believe that I would have grabbed it.

Right. And I'll be ready for the next one that comes along that very well. It could be better. Who knows? Um, but what I try to do is, uh, be in the place where I have enough energy. To implement the ideas that come my way. And I try not to hold onto them too dearly because there's always more that are coming in and I don't want to be flooded with ideas.

It's overwhelming. And so I just let it flow and do the best I can make as many quality podcasts as I can, uh, write about as many ideas. That come to mind, truly do an inventory check about what matters to me. So that, um, even when it's difficult, I feel genuinely privileged to be able to do it. And I think that's important to me because this can be difficult sometimes, but I definitely feel privileged to be able to produce a podcast every week, to talk about the things that really matter to me.

And, you know, after, you Promoting myself last week. I realized that I do have a lot of people who enjoy what I do. I mean, I knew that, but I was just afraid to, of the negative feedback so much that I forgot to focus on the positive feedback. So thank you to everybody who encouraged me to continue going forward.

I appreciate that. And, uh, I think that'll do it. 

 

 📍 So if you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to leave a rating on your favorite podcatcher. Share it with a friend. Uh, or very well become a patron. Um, we have a Patreon at patreon. com slash mail media mind. If you become a patron, you'll get access to our after shows on all of our live streams, as well as early access to this podcast as a video.

Uh, we also have, uh, social groups on Telegram and discord, and we're always looking for new ways to show our appreciation for our patrons. Thank you again for listening to this podcast and I will catch you in the next episode. Peace.