Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Meaningful Happiness is a podcast that unpacks the science of emotions, relationships, and personal growth through the lens of Affect Relational Theory (ART), Chronic Shame Syndrome (CSS), and Latalescence—the second act of life where experience, adaptability, and purpose shape our journey forward.
Each episode explores how shame operates beneath the surface, influencing our confidence, connections, and sense of agency. Through deep insights and practical tools, we uncover ways to rewrite our personal narratives, break free from shame-based cycles, and cultivate a life rich in authenticity, curiosity, and joy.
Join me as we dive into the psychological frameworks and real-world applications that help us navigate relationships, self-perception, and the ever-evolving landscape of human experience.
Let’s make happiness meaningful.
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Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Ep. 11- Affects and Emotions: A Grand Chat with the Legendary Robert Spano
What if the very emotion that often holds us back could actually be a catalyst for growth? Join us on the Meaningful Happiness podcast as we sit down with Robert Spano, a distinguished conductor and composer, to unravel the complexities of shame in the realms of music and beyond. Through a fascinating exploration of Tompkins' theories, Robert shares personal anecdotes that reveal how shame can influence creativity and joy within the performing arts. We promise you'll gain a fresh perspective on how these emotions can shape not only personal but also professional relationships.
As we navigate the intricate connection between shame, learning, and self-worth, Robert and I reflect on how early experiences of shame can affect our sense of agency. We discuss the empowering journey of overcoming these barriers, sharing personal stories and insights that shed light on the transformative power of recognizing one's own potential. Whether it's learning to read orchestral scores or mastering a new skill, this conversation emphasizes the importance of nurturing self-efficacy, even when faced with feelings of inadequacy.
In the final segments, we tackle the challenges of handling public criticism and the internalization of shame. With insights from Robert's extensive experience, we explore how musicians and artists can protect their self-esteem against harsh reviews. We also consider the role of supportive environments in fostering personal growth, distinguishing between constructive remorse and unproductive self-shaming. By understanding the fundamental differences between affect and emotion, you'll discover how to embrace curiosity and openness to lead a more resilient life. Listen in for a comprehensive understanding of navigating the emotional landscapes of both personal and professional spheres.
For more information about Scott and his practice, articles, videos, and more: https://linktr.ee/scottconkright
Scott Conkright, and welcome to the Meaningful Happiness podcast, where we talk about feelings, ethics, the biological basis of emotions and all those things that have to do with making life meaningful and happy. Hi, welcome to Meaningful Happiness. I am Scott Conkright, psychologist and founder of Meaningful Happiness and the Relationship Workshops, also the originator of chronic shame syndrome. Today I have my friend, robert Spano, who's known for many things. I did not come up with the list for all the things that you're famous for. Among them, I think, 20 some years at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra yes that's.
Speaker 1:I know you've got a couple Grammys. I know that you've composed music, because one of the pleasures of my life has been being around you while you were writing some of that, and you're now at the Kennedy Center. But you might want to add whatever you like to to that and also might want to say why come on my show Other than my begging you and pleading and buying you dinner?
Speaker 2:Well, I was very intrigued when you wanted to talk about issues of shame in the world of music, and I know so little about Tompkins' theories of shame, but I know much of what you've told me. I've also, of course, done a little bit of reading and a little bit of online research and I'm fascinated with the potential for understanding that's clearly available there. And so I come with without knowledge, but with a lifetime of experience in a world of performing where those issues are clearly part of the picture. I guess I'm banking on when I took a particular chair at Emory University. I was taking the place, I was succeeding Salman Rushdie, and I said what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2:I had the pleasure of meeting him and I've always admired his writing and I was thrilled to meet him. But I said what am I supposed to do when I'm meeting with business majors and medical students and philosophy students and literature students and this is all way outside of my world of expertise if it's that? And he said, oh, don't worry about it. Share from your experience and they'll figure out how to connect the dots. So I'm kind of banking on that with this conversation, because my knowledge of what you're so well-versed in and talking about is so minimal, but my experience might have a role to play in understanding some of it that I found to be true with business majors, for example. I don't know what they were getting out of it.
Speaker 1:They got something, or at least they faked it and lied to you.
Speaker 2:I would share hierarchical models of the way an orchestra works and how leadership works, and they seem to be, able to make sense of it, so I'm taking Rushdie's lead again.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, thank you. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 1:One thing I can add is that we've had many conversations in this room not lit up like this, but I'm usually sitting over there. You're sitting over here and, yes, I know more about affect theory than you do, but you know so much more about music. But it's never kept either of us from conversing in ways which we both think we're experts at that moment.
Speaker 2:I think we've both often been full of misinformed, ill-informed opinion.
Speaker 1:And why not add some more here? So I think that's what we're going to do. I hope not too misinformed, but one of the things I remember, excuse me is a few months ago I think we were on the phone and I think you were in Aspen and I was talking to you about maybe something I was writing, maybe finishing up an article, and you stopped me and at one point said you know, I wanted to thank you for bringing this stuff up, because I'm really attentive now working with the conductors that I'm working with and how shame plays out in this, and I thought, well, that makes me feel really good. It feels like there's an impact there, and a good friend of mine, matt, is a psychologist who works out with shame with musicians and running through for musicians in Colorado, and then, of course, our friend Logan they talk about it a lot as well, that that how shame plays out and sometimes messes up music in the sense of the enjoyment or the pleasure of the music. So this might be an opportunity right now for me to give a unique, the unique definition that Tompkins has, which is so out of the ordinary. Most people don't think of shame in the way that he does, and so when I got I think it took me a while and I'll take full ownership of it, but it took me a while to explain that to you and when you got it you went oh, got it. I'm glad you did, because it's really impactful.
Speaker 1:So, basically, we have two positive affects. We have two ways to connect in positive ways with other people biologically based. To connect in positive ways with other people biologically based, the first one, and they're on a continuum interest excitement, which includes desire, exploration, anything that captures your attention, things that are moving. It's a trigger. It's a trigger that then, at a certain point, we have memories and we have cognition, we start telling stories about these affects. Those become emotions. The other positive affect is excitement, is excitement, joy. So a good example is if all of a sudden you had to cancel tonight, I would have an involuntary I'd be like an involuntary swim. I would. It's like oh man, what a, what a shame, what a bummer, what a shame, right.
Speaker 1:So his definition is basically anytime there's a hindrance, a barrier to the two positive affects, there is going to be shame, the bylaw, there's going to be the triggering of shame. Now, depending on your history of shame and you don't have to be an expert in this, because we're all experts in shame. We all have a lifetime expertise in shame. Once the trigger is set off, depending on our history of shame, we're going to go different places with it. We're going to beat ourselves up with it, we're going to maybe learn to ignore it, maybe learn to not go down the rabbit hole after it gets triggered.
Speaker 1:My understanding from if I heard it correctly, from you and others, is that there's so many demands, especially in classical music and, I'm sure, in many professions where the enjoyment and the interest gets interfered with because you feel like you can never get to the place you want to with it, and that sometimes the instruction around it can be shaming as well. And so you have this enormous investment, sometimes of a lifetime, in learning an instrument which you have, if nothing else, a very mixed relationship with. That is causing you anxiety, it's causing you shame, but it's your life, it's what you love. Am I anywhere close to have understood some of the VAR conversations?
Speaker 2:around that. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about and I remember not so long ago when we were discussing this. There's the issue of and I don't mean to pretend to speak clinically, but from a layman's perspective there's an issue of identity, that there's an investment of self in the activity. For most professional musicians, that it has a great deal to do with a sense of self and a sense of one's worth, is one's engagement with music, and that I think tends to happen with most musicians who.
Speaker 2:It's very rare for someone to become a professional musician without having studied as a small child, and most musicians begin early on in life, and so it's wrapped up in the burgeoning identity of development almost inextricably. It's very hard to unwind. Who am I if I'm not a pianist, for example? Because all your formative years were with the piano or violin? This relationship to the musical instrument, to the music making, and sense of accomplishment and worth are really wrapped up in it. And so I think that's germane to what you're talking about and I think it's very real. And there's also the other response I had to what you were just throwing out there that we talked about on other occasions is the kind of training which I don't think is necessarily unique to music, but the arena on which I've observed it can be quite abusive, demanding and purposefully shaming. I know lawyers who feel that certain kinds of instruction in law school can feel very shaming, and I think there's a history of that in the classical music world as well.
Speaker 1:The kind of authoritarian, hard-ass teacher who's going to demand things of you that you can't necessarily deliver immediately and some shaming around not being able to wait because you can't you can't really attain, you can't reach the positive affects that you want to, and, of course, what I'm trying to to really emphasize is that there's an involuntary biological response to that that then becomes a psychological one.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the precise point we talked when I was in Aspen, but certainly something that's related. If it wasn't the incident that I had in mind. I had a particular student that over the first few weeks it became very clear to me that there was a lot of trauma in their life and I do, in my own limited way, try not to shame my students.
Speaker 1:As a educational tool, sure, but I'm glad to hear that but to avoid it.
Speaker 2:You know sure I try to it never shame them, even when it's clear that certain you're gonna be pointing out things that aren't working or are deficiencies or needs to be fulfilled, and trying to do that without shaming them. With this particular student, I became acutely aware of how carefully I needed to tread in what I said. I remember a day and a lot of our work is public, because conductor's work is public, you always have an audience, yes, and if if nothing else, the audience of the orchestra good point. So a lot of our work in aspen is with the conductors, in front of the orchestra, and I'm publicly interacting with everybody in the room in their facilitating their process. So I remember a day where I asked him a question, facilitating their process.
Speaker 2:So I remember a day where I asked him a question and he said that's a trick question and that's a trick question. I had to assure him I'm not trying to trick you, I'm not trying to embarrass you, it's not a trick question, it's an answer that you need to find for yourself and I believe you can find it right now. I'm not trying to trick you. And it confirmed for me that my suspicion about his particular reactions to input had to do with a certain kind of posturing and defensiveness that he felt he needed for protection, and the nice thing that day was he got it. He realized, oh, it's not a trick question, you know, no one's trying to hurt me here.
Speaker 1:So your intentions were not bad. He finally figured that out.
Speaker 2:He finally realized no, that's not what's happening here and I can answer this question and move on, which he then did, which was great. But for me that was emblematic of the kind of practical application of even a very limited understanding that I've gleaned from you and a little bit of reading about how these things can activate and flare up. And to me that's what I found so interesting. There was a I don't remember which university, but the philosophy department had T-shirts made. Well, that's all very well in practice, but does it work in theory? So I'm always looking for how these theoretical understandings can be put into practice. It's important in my field as well. I thought that that particular example for me was very meaningful, that I was able to even take this limited understanding of this affect theory and apply it in a real life situation where I was actively trying to avoid that shaming that so easily happens, I think even not necessarily intentionally.
Speaker 1:This allows me to make an important distinction here around shame, and I think your story is great for this, because you still had to. I'm not sure what he might have seen as a trick was, but you were trying to give him some feedback about how to do things better, Because he wasn't doing it the way you thought he should be doing it, and your job is to make that correction. That's true with parenting and education, always. And shame is that message for us, that built-in evolutionary message that says you're not getting what you want. Take a look at this. It doesn't feel good. If you want that connection, you're going to have to do something different.
Speaker 1:Now, if every time you do something wrong growing up let's say it's extreme shame where it's moralistic shame and you end up feeling like you're a bad person as opposed to not using good conducting technique. You're a shitty human being, and that starts at a young age. Anytime there's a potential for a trigger, like in this case, he is going to get bristly Until he learns from you. Otherwise, you're going to use the minimum amount of shame to get the job done, which it sounds like is what you did, and maybe even use some humor or some way to connect with him to say use a little honey with the medicine and it went down a lot easier.
Speaker 1:What happens is, I think you jokingly, when teaching me the piano, said I'm going to get a ruler out and smack your fingers, Because that happened in the old days. That happened not too long ago in schooling as well. I still have patients that tell me stories in various schooling situations where there was corporal punishment or putting the dunce in the corner, those sort of things where you're made to feel like an awful human being in an extreme and that goes to the core of your being. There's no what. What I'm trying to say often is if, if that is how you're raised and that is your history of shame, it's such a powerful negative feeling that there's no way to not see the world except through that lens. Like every person you meet has the potential of putting you down, and so anything that happens can be viewed as a potential to shame you.
Speaker 2:Now am I wrong to suggest there's a, there's an intimate link between shame and worth? Oh, absolutely Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not misguided.
Speaker 2:And that worth issue then becomes existential even more than performative. It's not that just I'm doing this badly. I'm doing this badly because I am worthless is a corollary right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna take the risk here of sharing something that I worked on last night that I've not run by anybody else yet, so it's raw. But when I was doing some writing last night and thinking about this very issue about, like what is shame really, what I came down with is it's basically any time that we have that we have agency and we're effective in agency. Learning the violin, learning the piano, we have competency pleasure. At a young age age look Daddy, look Mommy, I can do. This is competency pleasure.
Speaker 1:When a parent says, well, that's good, but we need to do the dishes go actually like this oh OK, oh OK, I didn't know that you do the minimal amount. They do it right the next time their agency around wanting to do the dishes correctly and please, mom and dad, or dad and dad or whoever is met, if an agency is interrupted, agency is about getting positive affect right, as that's my theory. We can debate about this, so it's actually more fundamental to one's existential self than I think Tompkins got at. So anytime there's an interruption around your sense of agency, it's gonna cause shame, which is usually defended against with anger With anger or withdrawal.
Speaker 2:You're reminding me of my nephew at a young age desperately saying, on any number of occasions I can't work it, I can't work it, I can't work it. Yeah, that sounds, which then means I don't have the agency. My agency is not getting this done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I think there may be other writings around this. I have not had a chance to look at any research it, but it seemed to make sense to me. I mean, it seemed to make sense around how shame worked, because what we want more than anything else is I can do this.
Speaker 2:You know this, for all the talk that's there in the world about the draconian history of pedagogy and classical music, there's a beautiful quality that happens in something, if one is applying oneself to a musical discipline, that actually bolsters one's sense of agency. And it's that beauty of I can't do it now. Two weeks later I can. And there's something very powerful about that internal mechanism in this. I'm sure that's true in any number of other enterprises. I know it through music.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was aspiring to be a conductor. An important aspect of that training is the ability to hear a score. An important aspect of that training is the ability to hear a score when you read it, an orchestral score. And to hear an orchestral score when you read it is no mean feat, because it's a very complex set of hieroglyphics and involves a tremendous amount of information. Not only do you need to take that information in, but then you need to translate it from sight into sound, so there's also a synesthetic requirement internally. So it's quite a feat.
Speaker 2:And there are time tested Gratis ad Parnassum, you could say steps towards parnasses that one can take to develop the skill. And I remember engaging those exercises essentially which have to do with learning clefs and learning solfege and playing at the piano, while singing and increasing the number of lines one is trying to ingest at the same time. And I remember vividly after maybe a month, feeling really despondent, that what am I? I have no agency for this. I'm a failure. I have no worth. I'm terrible at this. I'm still no good. It's been a month.
Speaker 1:And this is when you were 14, or something like that.
Speaker 2:No, I was older by then, I was 19 or 20. And this is when you were 14 or something like that. No, I was older by then, I was 19 or 20.
Speaker 1:Okay well, you were so old, Not so old, not really.
Speaker 2:Very old. So at that point I went back to the exercises I had started with a month before and they were easy. And when I had started down this path they were very challenging and difficult. And I suddenly had this realization wait a minute, I'm cumulatively increasing my agency Yep. But I didn't feel it because it's happening so incrementally. But now that I compare what was a month ago to now, which gave me tremendous energy to pursue the course, to stay with the course of study, which is rigorous and deflating because it's so hard along the way, you have to have some reward or you're not going to put in the effort.
Speaker 2:Right, you give up, yeah, you're not gonna put in the effort, right, you give up. And so that moment for me was revelatory for something that I guess I hadn't seen so squarely. That was always true when you start practicing something, you can't play it, and a month later you can. You know that in your own experience with the piano. Things evolve and change, but at a snail's pace sometimes, or feeling like a snail's pace.
Speaker 2:And it's so easy then to turn that into I can't work it, I can't do it, I don't have that agency Because what I'm?
Speaker 1:interestingly, I had a couple. I had a couple. I had two discoveries last night around the agency thing, which I think came after my working on Je N'ai Peu D'I and knowing much better with it. Then frustrated Because I'll tell you, I know what it's supposed to sound like.
Speaker 2:I think it's. I have to say, I think for someone in your shoes who, as an adult trying to do what you're doing, it's another hurdle, because at least when you're a kid, you don't know how bad you are.
Speaker 1:You don't know the piece by heart. I've only listened to 20 different versions of that.
Speaker 2:It's a tea piece you know, it's in your system I go like.
Speaker 1:of all the 50 I've heard or 20 I've heard, what I'm doing is not like any of them, so you smell every aberration and for a six-year-old, they don't. They don't.
Speaker 2:They don't have that comparison, so they're not shamed in that way, so it makes it all the harder for you, I think.
Speaker 1:So it's been a shaming process and I got frustrated and I was looking for something else and I pulled out I think is it Tompkins Thompson, John Thompson, John Thompson, the first book that you made me get. You know what I'm going to play that? Oh, this happened to you Last night. It went. Damn, I can do that, that's easy shit.
Speaker 2:Oh, how nice. So it's the same phenomenon, I got the same feeling.
Speaker 1:I'm like I can do this. I can't do the settee yet in the way I want, but I am making slow and steady progress, and that's the shame propels you to keep going as long as it's not punishing.
Speaker 2:Which is why I've always, in my own experience, my best teachers, who I emulate and wish to carry on what I learned from their example were the ones who kind of hold your hand through that difficult passage of I don't feel like I'm getting any better, and the great teachers I've had were the ones who stayed with you to support in that endeavor that you just got to hang in there. I remember I was going to Aspen and realizing okay, here I go, that's my big opportunity to teach.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is the first time that you went A few years in.
Speaker 2:And I texted my violin teacher from college, who I revere, and I said I'm starting a past when I'm thinking of you because I'm just hoping to teach with all the grace and dignity and empowerment that you were always able to give your students, and I don't know. I waxed poetic for a little bit. She texted back within an hour are you drunk?
Speaker 1:Lovely, that's a great response.
Speaker 2:But to me she embodied that quality of teaching which is supporting that difficult passage of lack of agency to agency. Yeah, because along the way the shaming element is you don't even need anyone to help you. You feel it internally. I can't work it, I can't do it.
Speaker 1:But you brought up another good point, which is a relationship with somebody who's there and available gives you the two positive effects that help minimize and transform the shame, because they're helping you sustain the interest. They're also showing interest in your development, which is very, very important that they're giving you love essentially yes, and if it's not Pollyanna-ish but still a realistic reflection, Just showing up to help you.
Speaker 2:It feels so empowering, it's very empowering. Okay, yeah, that's not good yet, but you're so much better. You just got to keep at it.
Speaker 1:I know you can do it. Come on, try it again.
Speaker 2:One more time. You just got to keep at it.
Speaker 1:The other positive one is that as difficult as it is and as painful as shame can be, even if it's self-created with somebody else there, it's still more enjoyable If they kind of they may not know the theories around shame, but they might get it at a relationship level and say I know it's tough, I know it's tough, but when we're done with this let's go out for a glass of wine, let's go do this or that. They put in some reinforcements and in the relationship, making it worthwhile to do. We know in teaching that those who get more tutoring and oversight around the training, around whatever first grade versus college, do much better.
Speaker 2:Well, I have to say that's. Another beautiful thing in the field of classical music is this rich history of one-to-one transmission. It's incredibly powerful if you have an empowering teacher as opposed to an abusive one, and it's I don't know many professions that have this cultural history of that one-on-one transmission. I think in the arts it happens right, I think.
Speaker 1:Isn't that what guild training was back in the day? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:The guild situation, in my limited understanding, was a little different of in that you're, you have a group that's working together, yeah. But this, this intimate kind of teacher student one-on-one training is, I think, a little different from the way the guilds were working. Certainly the the medieval guilds, to my understanding, were had a little bit of a different quality about them, but maybe equally powerful and beautiful. You know, if I've got a studio with six apprentices and everybody's working together, that creates a certain dynamic. And in fact in my training as a musician there was this powerful one-on-one transmission. But there was also what were called master classes, when the whole group of students of any given teacher convene for a session as a group.
Speaker 1:So there was this inclusion of that kind of guild, what I would conceive of as a guild approach at the same time, so even if you have peers that are part of the same school think of the Da Vinci school, that sort of thing that may not get a lot of one-on-one but you still have others, sub-tutors, who give encouragement, some who you might like better than others, but you're not as likely to withdraw in shame or be able to easily.
Speaker 1:One of the problems right now, especially in the culture of the United States as I'm seeing it, is that we live so far away. All I'm trying to get at is that it is easy to isolate into your own room, into your own place where other cultures, that's harder to do so. For that reason, when there's a lot of shame, you see increase in alcoholism, drug abuse and other sorts of things like that compulsive behaviors as a way, because, as a way of feeling better, because those things temporarily make you feel better. Shame is so toxic you'll pretty much do anything to feel better for a while. So in our, in our culture now we have another form of shame, which is social media Without any shame. Yes, but I'm not. I'm trying to think if it comes to you, let me know.
Speaker 2:Well, let's take your term because it.
Speaker 1:Chronic shame syndrome On its face.
Speaker 2:It sounds like what I was trying to tap into, which is when you're debilitated and the shame has taken over your ability to function. Is that accurate?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's almost pretty well, except that what I think of how I'm defining chronic shame syndrome is that it's so pervasive, at a low level, that it affects your assumptions, your expectations of your relationships.
Speaker 2:So you're only functioning and no more so than that, right, okay.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of like chronic lower back pain. I'm dealing with that Right Okay. And it's kind of like chronic lower back pain. I'm dealing with that right now. It's like on a scale of 1 to 10, it's like a 2 or 3. It might get higher at times, it might get low, but it stays with you.
Speaker 1:But it's part of my life right now until it goes away, and it keeps getting exacerbated right now with social media. I think it's been certainly brought up to the. I think there's more chronic. I think it's more chronic. There is more chronic shame syndrome issues now because of social media, but it also gets reinforced all the time and it's a little bit like alcoholism and drugs, which is it feels good to be distracted because you get interest, excitement, enjoyment, joy, depending on what you're looking at, but you don't get agency.
Speaker 2:Can I make a little left turn here which I don't think is out of nowhere. I think it's somewhat related Go for it. What's the? Is there a role or is there a way to distinguish that role where shame has a positive mechanism in one's evolution, or evolving, or?
Speaker 2:Certainly, and that's a great question. What would that be and how do we distinguish that kind of shame which is, I mean, in my head? I would call it a valuable remorse of conscience, which is to me different from guilt or shame, but it might have something to do with shame and how to parse that positive thing that we all need from the debilitating thing that we all want to disengage from.
Speaker 1:It's a great question, because where you see shame the most is in relationships. The more intimate a relationship gets, the more possibility there is for shame. The more intimate it gets means the more expectation there is that you're going to get more and more interest, mutual interest and mutual enjoyment. And you're also going gonna make the assumption that, hey, you like me because I'm the source of your enjoyment and interest and I'm, it's the same for me. I want to be the source of interest, you want me to be the source of interest, as long as that's mutual, which in friendships and when people fall in love. That's what all that pixie dust is about. You're the most amazing thing ever. That's what parents are for the first 11 years or so. Parents are everything. They are the main source. By the way, social media is blocking access to parents. We can come back to that. But in friendships, for instance, there's always going to be disruptions.
Speaker 1:In intimate relationships, I've said things that have offended you or hurt you. Vice versa, what was a great term? Remorse, self-conscious, remorse, god, sometimes I can be a jerk geez. I should have thought of that more. I need to call up Robert and apologize. So it's for repair. So in a relation, intimate relationship, there's gonna be lots of shame what is Joyce?
Speaker 2:call it the anger bite of in wit you can have to explain that what you. I don't know that. I think it's related to some old English stuff, but the again bite of, in wit, the remorse of conscience. The remorse of conscience, the antiquated version of remorse of conscience.
Speaker 1:Say for our listeners slowly, the again bite of in wit.
Speaker 2:The begin, bite A-G-I-N-B-Y-T-E, the again bite of in wit, of in wit, okay, the remorse of which most people tend to think of as being remorseful, remorseful. Well remorseful is shame, because, again, well, that thinks, because that goes back to parsing out what part of that has value, what part of it then becomes unhealthy for us.
Speaker 1:As a parent, I often had to say no, you can't do that. You want to see the sump of shame anytime. I think it's even in ET, where they they're watching TV and mom turns off the TV, Everybody goes oh, mom, we have to go to bed.
Speaker 2:Which is the Tompkins thing of the interruption of enjoyment. That's the interruption.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a hindrance to what you want, mm-hmm. No, hey, come on, guys, we'll finish it off tomorrow. If we get to bed on time, we'll be able to do this. A parent, parent, a good parent, will throw in some positives in there. It's a guys, you know it's eight o'clock, get ready. You know, you know the routine.
Speaker 1:You use the minimal amount and when there's disruption, when the child doesn't follow the rules, doesn't go through with what's expected, you use that as an education opportunity and you give them the chance to feel the remorse not deeply, but enough to know that something needs to be corrected here. You need to learn how to think this through. Why did I ask you to not play with knives? Well, let's sit down and talk about what happens when you play with a sharp knife when you're a six-year-old. These are the consequences. This is why I told you not to do it and this is why you're not going to be able to have dessert tonight.
Speaker 1:There's a consequence for it, and that six-year-old is now thinking about the repercussions of that. They're now putting cognitive overlay to those feelings and saying well, I don't want to disappoint mom or dad or whoever ever. Again, I want to be a good boy. It's a positive part of being a good boy or girl, is it? It motivates wanted to have more honest relationship with somebody and to do repair work. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was repair work, it just says you know what I screwed up.
Speaker 2:When does that kind of remorse if I can just call it that for the moment when does that kind of remorse flip into, or in what ways does it flip into, a kind of shaming of oneself that is no longer productive? In that way, I think a good example- I would say the again bite of Inuit is productive when applied to repairing something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's exactly it. So repairing sometimes means practicing a few measures for longer, because then Johnny comes and says look what I did. After an hour of this I got these two measures. I can do perfectly, whatever that means, now sufficiently well, and you get that competency pleasure, but also a sense of pride. The opposite of shame is pride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, having been raised by musicians, that example is vivid in my memory. Your parents are hopefully saying whoa, you finally got it.
Speaker 1:After all this time. What took you so long? Yeah, all of that. Good example is in schooling. Let's say first grader learning basic math In a school where there's a classroom of 30 kids and an overworked teacher, in an underfunded school district.
Speaker 1:And this kid is not good at math and he goes to a disruptive household where he can't barely get the house, the homework done. And he brings the homework home, brings the homework back and is done poorly on it because he has not had anybody to oversee it and help him deal with the difficulties. So what happens? He gets a bad grade. Everybody else around him sees that he has a bad grade. The teacher says you got a bad grade. Why aren't you doing your homework? I don't know, or whatever.
Speaker 1:So what happens? He keeps failing. Then he goes home with a report card full of Ds. Then he gets held back a year. Then he's forced to go to second grade, but his math is still poor. So he keeps getting poor grades in second grade. So pretty soon now he's thinking I'm stupid. Well, the school district now has identified him as stupid. They're not calling him that, but he's feeling that and they're saying that he needs to be in a special ed class. So are they giving him tutors? Are they working with the parents? No, they're not doing any of that because we're not funding schools enough for those sort of things in some districts. So that kid now believes that it's not just he's doing bad things, but he's a bad person, he's flawed.
Speaker 2:That's a great example of how an external mechanism can create that internal state, be a large part of creating that internal state. What about those of us who are supposedly now adult? How would we recognize having transgressed over a certain line of shame no longer serving us but rather debilitating us? What kind of recognition would happen internally? Because at some point I'm doing it to myself too, right, I'm not only the product of. Now that I've internalized all that upbringing, I now have ways of enacting that in my own psyche.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you and you don't have to answer this question, but it's very rare for me to get shamed. People don't go out of their way to shame me. People don't call me stupid, People generally don't say bad things and all that. I'm the primary source of my shame.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's where I was headed.
Speaker 1:Thanks, and it doesn't take much for me to get going on that I'm pretty well versed in how to how to feed my shame. Shame and anger are two affects that love to be fed. It seems to activate every semantic node within the network that you'll say there, there I go again. I did it once again. God, I've been doing this. I'm so stupid. I've been doing this since sixth grade. Like, yeah, I'm not lovable, I'm not this, I'm not that, I'm not good enough. I think I grew up in a very shame-based culture, culture at large. My parents were fairly shaming, not intentionally, they didn't know any better. This is how you do it, tompkins. By the way, at some point I'll send it to you, maybe put it on the web as well. On the website has this description of 1950s of his family sitting around and Johnny sitting there after coming home from school and everything he does at the table. Johnny, sit up. Why aren't you eating your food? Why are you smacking your mouth? Like, why are you? You know pretty soon Johnny's just like Can I be excused?
Speaker 2:Can I be?
Speaker 1:excused. Well, go to your room. You're not getting dessert, you know? He's just like.
Speaker 2:Can I do anything? Anything.
Speaker 1:But I read that and go like God. I don't think my parents were that bad, but they certainly had those memories of school elsewhere. Where was I going with this?
Speaker 2:I think you were headed to how those internal mechanisms live on in us.
Speaker 1:So recently I did a couple workshops one online, one in person and I missed the mark. I didn't get my usual praise the way I wanted. I usually do a great job and everybody says, oh, this is fantastic. I got a couple phone calls saying like that was boring, it was too intellectual, I did not read my audience very well. Zoom meetings are the worst.
Speaker 1:I didn't also realize that on the Zoom meeting the majority of them were still, you know, wet water behind the ears. They're still wet behind the ears, you know, like they were right out of grad school. So I was talking like this and the two, of course, the two or three people that were engaging who I started to talk to, were the senior therapists. So I'm thinking I'm doing a great job. So I'm basically talking to them. When I got the feedback, that hit as if momentarily, that hit as if I was told I failed my licensing exam, I got like a 7 or 8 out of 10, I think. Even if it were 6 out of 10, I did not fail. Nobody sent in hate mail, nobody canceled me out or anything like that, but I did not meet my expectations. My immediate response to that, I think because I learned that the best way to get over shame is to be better than anybody else.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a dangerous road.
Speaker 1:Is that any familiar oh?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, whatever what you mean.
Speaker 1:So I'm like thinking like I've got some work to do now, but for momentarily I was like you know, I should just give everything up. You know, maybe I should just move to Mexico open a hot dog stand. I don't know, I'm not good at what I do, but went down that shame spiral, went to bed early, woke up, said it's a new day. My response sitting over there I said I need to talk about babies, kittens and puppies around affect. I learned something from it. I'm now talking about babies, kittens and affect. That's always interesting and I think it makes more sense to people.
Speaker 2:You're triggering another little turn I might make. Go for it. You're taking a left or a right this time. Either way, either way.
Speaker 1:Around the cul-de-sac.
Speaker 2:But you're referring to the feedback. Yeah, and I'm reminded of something that any working musician deals with, which is the public shaming of reviews and criticism in whatever press is doing it, and that is often very acerbic, biting, personal, because they can be nasty.
Speaker 1:Oh, very. They can be very, very personal, and I remember in my own career.
Speaker 2:the first time I went to LA to the Philharmonic. I was having a wonderful time, I thought, and then I got a review that said I shouldn't be allowed to work ever anywhere. I had no right to be on the podium, not a musician, just the most damning response you could possibly get. And at that time that week, the soloist I had was the legendary Alicia de la Rocha, the wonderful Spanish pianist who very special, and she was already quite elderly at that point when I worked with her. I worked with her again later and she knew my agent, who was also an elderly woman, and my agent had told Alethea that I was upset by this critical response. And I went into work and Alethea said get in here, I want to talk to you. She said why are you reading that shit? She said do you believe it when it's good? I said no, right, interesting way to start right.
Speaker 1:Do you believe it when it's?
Speaker 2:good? No, well then don't read it. What good is it doing you? How is it going to affect your work? What's going to change? It serves nothing. And for 10 years after that I wouldn't read a review, which is another strange place to be. I could only do that for about 10 years, because you do want to. You can't help. There's a curiosity what kind of response you're getting. And then I started to read judiciously, which I continued to do until now, sort of depending on people to tell me if I should bother reading something, either because it's so good or so bad or noteworthy in some way. But that's another layer for a musician of shaming that everybody has to find some way to grapple with Because there's no real response available. Once I wrote to a critic via the editor and that was LA again, strangely enough, the LA Times had printed an enormous article on American music and I would say a good third of it. It was three, four pages. I mean, it was a lot of space in a newspaper.
Speaker 2:You know those days when they still had print For music, exactly, and his at least a third of it was devoted to what we had been calling the Atlanta School of Composers and trashing them. Basically, his premise was they were no good because people liked them. So I oh, they weren't any good because people liked them Pretty much. That was his contention, when you read it carefully. So I actually wrote to the editor it's the only time I ever did it to defend my composers. How'd that go? How'd that work? They printed it. It was unbelievable. Bravo, they printed it. What I heard was that somebody was taking vacation who didn't stop the flunky, who actually printed it.
Speaker 2:But it made it, but that normally is not the way that you can respond to this kind of material. And, of course, now and you were mentioning online behavior recently there's this enormous amount of feedback, if you want to call it that, with people unburdening themselves online in ways they would never do in person, which can be so harmful and so abusive.
Speaker 1:Burdening themselves online in ways they would never do in person, which can be so harmful and so abusive when they personalize it, then also saying things about your body, your weight, your color, your this or that, which has nothing to do with anything, but it's a form of shaming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so people get off on that Criticism is a form of shaming and I think it's related to this online form of shaming. Yeah, and so people get off on that Criticism is a form of shaming and I think it's related to this online behavior of shaming. And how does one gird one's loins to traverse that landscape?
Speaker 1:Well, you have to be the best.
Speaker 2:You just have to be above everybody else.
Speaker 1:I've already done that, but you have to keep doing it over and over and over again it never ends. You can't hold that position very long. You have to keep earning it.
Speaker 2:All right, but, kidding aside, what is the armor that one needs faced with that kind of aggressive shaming?
Speaker 1:That's a tough one. I was reluctant to get into the social media world for that very reason. The idea of being that public and possibly getting that sort of stuff, and then the idea of having to spend time engaging with people and responding. I know that those who make it in that world often have assistance to do all that, but it's still an extension of me that I feel like I have no control over Zero agency. The only agency I have is not to produce, not to post how I've done it, how I'm in my mind, around feedback.
Speaker 1:The first question to me is to maintain curiosity. What do I have to learn from this? Just like why did I get seven out of 10? Well, let's take a look at that. How do I? That's the positive part and that's the good part of shame. How do I deal with my internalized shame? That tends to always get that? I unconsciously, always feed it somewhat. Okay, no matter what, I'm good, I'm gonna find some way to feed it. You know, even after all these years, it's just so ingrained. Which is get myself up faster, just catch myself faster. In that it's like nope, you can't feed that. Call Robert, call somebody, get the phone, go with people that you like get positive stuff. Go out of the way to do positive.
Speaker 2:I mean not in a fake, pollyannish way, as you said, but but if I heard you correctly, it was also a certain internal distancing, yes, an observing part of your awareness that is not caught in the Is not get hooked in the enmeshment of all of that mechanism.
Speaker 1:To me and this may not work for everyone to me, I think I have two options. I can either continue forward with whatever I'm doing whether it's practicing the piano, doing the social media presence, working on my theories and stuff like that and no matter what the feedback is, and especially if there's negative feedback.
Speaker 2:I can either continue it or I can stop. And also what I'm hearing is that you're trying to exercise a faculty of parsing out. I can use this feedback to my benefit. This feedback is doing nothing but fueling negative emotional loops that I can take care of quite well on my own. Thank you, I can torture myself without that input.
Speaker 1:You know the clothes you wear are really stupid.
Speaker 2:It's not helping Okay maybe I'll upgrade my outfit.
Speaker 1:If I get a lot of that, I'll look at it. 90% of it I can dismiss. Sometimes there's some valuable. If I'm not getting, this stuff is stupid. Why don't you be more clear about X, Y and Z? You might think you could say that a lot nicer.
Speaker 2:Is there a way I could be?
Speaker 1:more clear. Is there a way I could be more clear? Probably I tend towards obfuscation way too easily. I know what I know and sometimes to be able to put things into words so that other people can know what I know is hard, so like I need that feedback, so I want that feedback. I crave that feedback actually. So I don't mind when people say I don't get you so well, as long as you give me another chance, let me try again, and that's helpful.
Speaker 2:Let me see if I can get. Why you don't get me? Yeah, exactly Because.
Speaker 1:I want you to get me. That makes me happy when that happens. And I learned something. It is still hard for any of us. It's like how do you get over having bashed your fist into a wall? Or I play racquetball and squash At least once a week. That's how I got my back problem. I will smash into a wall or bang my elbow or do something. Knowledge it doesn't make the elbow or knee pain or that my forehead hurt less. It's gonna hurt for X amount of time.
Speaker 2:But isn't that different? Internally, at least in myself? I know that sometimes acknowledging something does make it hurt less, or I'm at least less imprisoned by whatever that is, whatever that mechanism is of trauma and memory.
Speaker 1:Exactly Knowing about it, actually knowing the duration. In some ways, one shame is a biological response to not getting what you want. I wanted to get the ball and get the point. I didn't want to go into the wall. The consequence of going to the wall was physical pain. If I'd lost the game. There may have been some shame to that too. Let's say it was an important match and it was like a baseball game or something and I let everybody down. We lost the game. That's going to take a while. That's just inevitable.
Speaker 1:To know that, to know that you're having a want both a biological response and an emotional, biographic response it allows you to do two things. One is it's gonna hurt for a little while because it was a big letdown. My team, my team is not gonna kick me out. Everybody on this team has done the same thing. Everybody's disappointed and the team is going to come together and lift me up. I know that Because that's what we do as a team.
Speaker 1:The personal part of it is I can look at that and do what I need to to nurture myself, Because I'm saying I know that I need the nurturing I know that I am prone to this is a great way, I'm prone to beating myself up. I can take this whack myself all night long for the next week and say, like Scott, this is always. You've done this over and over. Look at when you did it, then Look what you did there. Blah, blah, blah. I'm more prone to saying this is inevitable, saying this is inevitable, this sucks. I hate this. It doesn't feel good. This is not me, this is not the me I want to feel. Right, it's not. I don't want to feel this way, I don't like it, but it's gonna pass. And the more experiences I've had of talking to myself in that way and and then living through it, more experiences now that I can say, remember this time, this time, this time and this time that within a day and a half it was gone.
Speaker 2:That's the beauty of being old, my good, poor, tyrannous friend.
Speaker 1:Old. I don't see why. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But I do feel that in myself too, We've had enough experiences to know something from that experience about how it unfolds, how it evolves, how it changes with time.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons I'm eager to teach about affect and the difference between affect and emotion is that it changes. It changes the complexity of how you think about relationships with ourselves and with others, and it changes. I love coming up with metaphors. One thing that I thought of the other day is that it changes the soundscape. It's sort of like it's like going from.
Speaker 1:I had a Zenith turntable that my grandfather gave me when I was 11, okay, and it was about this big, and he put an album on it and there was a little tiny speaker on the side. I listened to it for years. To me it was the best thing I've ever had. It got better. You know, I improved over time.
Speaker 1:Now, if I put that, compared to the system that I have now, night and day, they're both music, they're both sound, affect and understanding. That brings it from a zenith turntable from then to a wonderful soundscape, right, and that also there's more movement allowed in there, there's more understanding, there's more voice allowed in there. There's more understanding, there's more ways, and it's not just intellectual. You don't have to say like I'm feeling this in my body. I now need to take care of my body in this way. Where am I holding my shame. Also, if you're prone defensively to use anger to defend against the shame more quickly, are okay with recognizing the anger, dealing with the anger as opposed to feeding the anger. I mean recognizing the shame and not feed the anger or the shame.
Speaker 2:So recently we were talking about the solar plexus and since you were just mentioning, Can you?
Speaker 1:explain what that is for the listeners Right, just in case.
Speaker 2:This might not be the right question, but is it the case that the affects have an affinity with the solar plexus in a way that is different from the emotions? Oh, certainly.
Speaker 1:Okay, certainly, affects are always biologically based. They're always in the body and thanks to you.
Speaker 2:I was researching the vagus nerve, what's it called? Yeah, vagus nerve, yes, and its connection to the solar plexus and how it runs down the spine Right, and it just seemed to me as I pursued some of that after we talked about it. What you just said about affect is a critical thing in terms of our ability to parse out what is affect and what is emotion, because we're going to have a sensing quality to affect, which is physical in a way that certainly happens with the emotions, but perhaps in a more acute way with the affects. Is that accurate?
Speaker 1:You're on to something right here. Okay, so affect. You can never lie about affect. You certainly can't lie about your own internal experience. You either felt something you didn't. Now you can lie to yourself about it, but if you're talking to yourself, at least you know that you're lying to yourself and we've all done that. But you go like, yeah, I still was disgusted or I still was down, I was still ashamed, I was still excited. Because if there were a camera there, especially a slow motion camera that could catch micro expressions, they would have seen it on the face. Just as when we do slow motion pictures with babies, we see this slight drop, this slight slump when they can't reach something. But babies are interested in everything, so it generally takes a second for them to get excited.
Speaker 2:And if I'm hearing you correctly, that moment of slump in the infant is the disturbance of the enjoyment. That is shame in Tompkins' definition. Exactly Okay.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's a motivator then to say, like that's not working, bummer, I don't have agency, I don't have agency, but I got this one, I'm proud. Okay, with all the reactions, all nine affects. You can't lie about them. They're on the face and they're in the body. That's why you can watch a movie from any culture that you can't speak the language you know.
Speaker 1:When somebody's angry, somebody's interested, somebody's enjoying something, when somebody looks like they're about to vomit, that's, that's a look emotions are built like, almost like from bricks or words, a bunch of different metaphors. You can use that, you combine them with your own personal history to tell a narrative, to tell a story about what that? Basically, we have stories around all affects, stories around shame In a relationship, stories about interest and excitement, enjoyment, joy. In a relationship. A story is about interest and excitement, enjoyment, joy. If there's a lot of shame, that's been experienced around enjoyment, joy, interest, excitement. You can have ambivalent feelings and so you may, for instance, in a new relationship, meet somebody and get really excited and really enjoy it and that's a pure experience. You know, like that was true excitement, true enjoyment.
Speaker 1:You may go home and you're, let's say, you're a teenager, and your mom says, oh that, jimmy. He's a jerk, didn't I use him this Like? And you learn all these things about him. He's this, he's that. Now, I guess I don't like him. Anyhow, your emotional life changes, changes, so you can lie to yourself with your emotions. So that's a nothing else. That's a good reason to know the difference between affected emotion. You can rewrite the narrative about how you felt, as long as you take it out of the body. That make sense. Yes, to me that's a critical distinction. You can't lie to yourself about what you're feeling unless you remove it from your body. And so if you want to heal, what's that?
Speaker 2:book the Body Keeps the Score.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Yeah, that's. I feel ashamed. I can't remember the name. What a great example. Yeah, exactly what do I do now? Well, I don't know who makes you feel any better.
Speaker 2:I knew. That's why I can see it right over there it's on the shelf Vandercook. But this very idea that the intelligence of the body is something that we can access, if we have, is part of that proprioception.
Speaker 1:Proprioception is. This is where it gets really fun and complicated and this is where I hope I can get people to understand affect theory, polyvagal theory, which deals with the vagus nerve and proprioception. Stephen Porges, I believe, coined proprioception, which is how we sense what's happening in our bodies at a physical level. I'm feeling queasy, I'm feeling excited and all that. I'm feeling queasy, I'm feeling excited and all that. It is not an awareness of affect. So, for instance, polyvagal theory basically deals with fight, flight or freeze. So it basically only deals with two or three affects. It doesn't deal with the other ones. It deals with fear and it it deals with distress. But is it fair to?
Speaker 2:say that all the affects have a physical counterpart.
Speaker 1:Yes, I thought yeah that's exactly right and you see it in the face. Look track, listen eyes wide open. If you're interested, tell me. Tell me more about what you.
Speaker 2:So there may be a link to proprioception in an expanded sense, that if I am aware of my face at a sensate level, I might have an inroad to what affect I'm experiencing. Or is that nonsense?
Speaker 1:that's absolutely brilliant if one reason I'm going to be talking about babies a lot is, I'm going to go through a bunch of series of first three months, six months, all that sort of stuff. In the first year it's wonderful to watch baby videos. They're all doing something with their mouths and face and they're fun. We all laugh at them. They're trying to mimic the faces of other people and connect them to the affect. They're learning that language. They're learning that language. That's exactly what they're doing. They don't know yet. So to them very crudely when they smile. That's one reason babies are pure affect. When a baby smiles at you, there is no irony or sarcasm or anything else in that smile. You trust that smile 100%. You know they're not lying. When they're angry, you know it's not a fake anger. It doesn't take long for that to get colored and that takes emotion, that takes cognition. Yeah, I'm kind of happy.
Speaker 2:But and when does that cognition kick in developmentally.
Speaker 1:It's a very slow process the first two and a half years, and then once language starts getting laid down, which is about the same time, is that somewhere between two and three years? That's around two and a half. Yeah, between two and three years. Exactly. That's around the same time too that episodic memory is taking place, so you can now remember events. So when an infant toddler is taken to the doctor and gets the shots, it may feel pain, if there is pain, but it's not going to remember the event. Maybe around two it will. So when you take it at age three, it's going.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to do that and it felt bad and the parent may have shamed that child for crying the last time. So now the shame and distress associated with going to the doctor. So if they act up again and they have parents that are shaming in that way, pretty soon going to the doctor is going to be scary to do. That worked for me.
Speaker 2:That worked for you so that's why you never go to the doctor.
Speaker 1:Okay, I can kill you in the long run, you know. But that's that you never go to the doctor, I can't go to the doctor. Okay, I can kill you in the long run, you know, but that's what keeps people from going to the doctor sometimes.
Speaker 2:Well, not sometimes.
Speaker 1:I hope we can work on that. I don't want you to die too soon, but yeah, so those faces, all those memories, everything about affect starts getting I don't want to say polluted, it gets not polluted, it gets actually, it gets the opposite of polluted. I mean it gets now narrated, it becomes Baroque. It becomes Baroque, it becomes colorful.
Speaker 2:Florid.
Speaker 1:It's now mixed in, like. It's like when you like a good, like Courbier the painter, when he does faces, there's hardly anything that looks like a color in there. That is a facial color. When you look close up it's reds and greens and purples and this and that from a distance You're like that's really well done. You go forward, you go like you just look at a square. You don't even look at your face. Most of our emotions are, not are a jumble of memories and other affects. Okay, because the experiences that we have will have so many affects attached to them. Historically, rollercoaster ride, excitement, interest, terror, shame and fear. If we nurture interest and enjoyment.
Speaker 2:But we need to train our kids and ourselves what's healthy and safe, interest and enjoyment well, I think we're at a little bit of a thread we can bind, okay, in that you used the word curiosity as a key and my teacher of conducting, max Rudolph, who was the great pedagogue of conducting of the 20th century, who wrote the book the Grammar of Conducting.
Speaker 1:Is that up at the cabin? Oh, yes, and.
Speaker 2:I've had the pleasure of having worked with him late in his life. He would ask what is the personal attribute most critical for a successful conductor? And his answer was curiosity. Excellent. To be interested, yep, and maybe that is exactly where our ability to navigate the waters of our affect and emotions and traumas and complexes and lack of enjoyment lies, as lack of enjoyment lies is our ability to remain interested in ourselves as well as everything else.
Speaker 1:Tompkins has what he called I don't know if he labeled this as such, but it's called the Tompkins Blueprint which is basically maximize positive affect interest, excitement and enjoyment, joy minimize negative affect and do everything you can to make the first two happen. It doesn't mean that you don't have all the other negative affects there. That's just part of life, but there's no way to avoid them. The goal is to be thoughtful about minimizing them Around shame shame is the most disruptive of the affects for interest, curiosity and enjoyment. So you want to minimize the shame. You want to recognize shame for what it is. It is a tool, it needs to be there, but it's one of those you have to dose so carefully. You want to use the least amount to get the job done.
Speaker 2:Well forward with openness and curiosity, I hope so, as always, Follow the Tompkins blueprint this has been wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having shown up. Always great to talk with you. Thank you, it was nice having you on film. Thank you, robert.
