Unpacked In Santa Cruz
"Unpacked in Santa Cruz" is a homegrown podcast hosted by Michael Howard that dives into the lives, stories, and salty moments of people who call this coastal community home—or have been shaped by it in some way. Whether it's a deep conversation with local surfers opening up about mental health, or a peek behind the curtain of someone who started a one-of-a-kind food spot right here in town, every episode brings something real.
You’ll hear from folks who found healing behind the lens, built businesses from scratch, or chased massive waves thanks to a lifetime spent around our local waters. These aren’t just interviews—they’re conversations that reflect the heart and soul of Santa Cruz. Raw, reflective, and rooted in community, Unpacked in Santa Cruz brings local voices to the surface.
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 54: Breaking the Silence: Men Talk Depression: Jack Akrop, Neal Kearney, Nick Borelli
What happens when four men from the Santa Cruz surf community strip away their tough exteriors and speak honestly about depression? This raw, powerful conversation breaks new ground as host Michael Howard and guests Jack Akrop, Neal Kearney, and Nick Borelli share their personal journeys through mental health struggles.
Michael opens with his story of battling depression since age 12, masking sadness with anger, and creating an identity as "the nice angry guy" in the lineup - a strategy that worked until his mid-40s when he could no longer outrun his demons. Jack reveals his experiences with bipolar disorder, describing the shame of not feeling grateful despite living in paradise and how helping others through coaching provides purpose. Neal shares how chronic physical pain led to depression and substance abuse, eventually finding healthier ways to manage both. Nick recounts feeling like a misfit since childhood and using alcohol to feel comfortable in his own skin.
The conversation dives deep into how traditional schooling affects boys' mental health, father-son relationships that shaped their sense of self, and the daily challenges of simply getting out of bed when depression hits. What emerges is a toolkit of strategies these men use to navigate dark days: service to others, exercise, nature immersion, and accepting "funky days" rather than fighting them.
Perhaps most striking is how these men - part of a surf culture often defined by competition and toughness - demonstrate the healing power of vulnerability. Their honesty creates a blueprint for authentic male friendship and community support that goes far beyond the water's edge. For anyone struggling with depression or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers both comfort in shared experience and practical approaches to finding light in the darkness.
Hello, welcome to the Unpacked in Santa Cruz podcast. I'm your host, michael Howard. This podcast is brought to you today by Santa Cruz Vibes magazine. It's your place to go to to find out about all the cool stuff at most really good institutions here in Santa Cruz. You can also go to their website, santacruzvibescom. It's also brought to you today by Pointside Beach Shack. It is a great spot to have a small event of 50 people or less.
Speaker 1:As the people who are sitting in front of me can attest, it's a very cool spot, hidden in plain sight for me, and something I had always hoped that I could do. But a few interviews ago I got to interview Jack Acrop and he was fairly transparent about his mental health issues and when we got done, he took me aside afterwards and said hey, we need to talk about this more. And what Jack didn't know is that for the last two and a half years I've been doing this, this is something that I really wanted to touch on, but I was really waiting for confirmation, especially after, if you've listened to my previous podcasts, I was kind of forcing my story onto people and I just didn't want to do that anymore. So today I have the pleasure and the privilege of sitting with Jack Acrop, neil Carney, nick Borelli, and we are going to broach the subject of mental health, I think, especially as it pertains to depression and the cycles that we have a tendency to go through at different ages, not so much to drive any content, but to really begin to have an open discussion, at least with the four of us here, on what it can look like for people and what tools that these guys are utilizing, what tools I'm using and begin to maybe set a framework for you just hearing other people's stories about what it feels like, what it looks like, how we approach days, things like that.
Speaker 1:So I do want to be very careful to say that there is no mental health expert sitting at any one of these microphones. We are just human beings that are waking up and oftentimes just surviving the day as best as we can. Some days we are overcoming them in really good ways. But it really isn't meant to be giving any advice and I would always suggest that anybody who is in a mental health crisis to be sure to get medical help, get the drugs that you need, all those things, because it is something to be taken very seriously. But with all of that free form. Pre-opening Jack, welcome Neil, welcome Nick, welcome to the show. Here we are again.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. Thanks for having us, good morning.
Speaker 1:Good morning. Good morning. So you know I sent you guys a set of questions, you know, of what to think about and you all discovered that this is really an open discussion here. There's not really a big framework other than I wanted to share a little bit from my vantage point about what it was like to find out. You're depressed, and you know what I told the guys is that you know I was just going to share my simple narrative of when I first realized that I felt very different, or felt like I felt very different than the people that were around me. And it was when I was 12 years old. My parents had just gotten separated and I had always felt sad my whole life. I didn't know what that was. I was a little bit angry for such a privileged kid, I guess would be the way that it was always kind of cast onto me. And you know, as my parents went through their thing, which was a very protracted six years of nonsense, I just got angrier and angrier and you know the sadness was always with me every time I woke up in the morning. I cannot recall a morning ever in my lifetime, up until the last year or so, where I've actually woken up in a good mood or felt like something good would happen that day. And so just in that first question that I sent to you guys, which was when did you figure it out? When was it that you saw that things were different for you, for me, from the time I was 12 until I was about 21,. I found something, and when I was 21, I went back to church. We can say I found God, re-found God.
Speaker 1:What I ended up finding was a way to translate all that anger that was building up inside of me and out in the water, which has been more than shared about. That anger worked really, really well. You know it worked well and you know, intimidating other people that work well in my surfing the angrier I was, the better I served. And so I had this weird little little thing that I did with surfing is I wanted to be the nicest angry guy there was, and it fit very well in the paradigm of you know, as I've expressed before, this kind of delusional hierarchy that lives out of Pleasure Point and that's kind of how I've always been known is like, yeah, you were the scary guys, but like you were the nice one out of the group and that was literally an identity that I chose, you know, and so it. You know it's. This is what. What makes the illusion delusional is that, like, how can someone be completely intimidating to everybody and then the kind guy when, once you get through the intimidation factor, like it. It doesn't match.
Speaker 1:And what I found when I went to church is that this thing called depression that's commonly called depression. You know, when I did my own studies in the Bible, I found that depression and humility were the same word. So I realized that it was a gift of some sort me feeling all of these things. You know that I could feel someone else in the room, and so I ended up making a career out of that. You know that I could feel someone else in the room, and so I ended up making a career out of that. You know that that the sad feeling was something that could help me have empathy towards others, relate to them. We could have this thing in common.
Speaker 1:And then by that time I had learned how to I was telling Nick this this morning I had how to turn up and turn down my anger. There was like a thermostat valve I could use and then for me, if I was angry about the right things. Nobody was mad about it, so I would just find the bad thing be angry about that feel. The sad thing relate to people, and everybody was happy with who I was as a person, and that worked until I was 45.
Speaker 1:So I don't know that I have ever really begun to address my depression issue as it pertains to all this stuff, because I've been a very, very angry person most of my life. But it was my intuition, you know, based on the sad feelings that I had. That began at 12, got fortified probably about 24, 25, when I had my first kid, and then it served me well till I was 45 years old, and so that's how it played out in my life. So that's an oversimplification, but if you want to listen to the rest of my story, there's 50 other podcasts to get glimmers. But but, Jack, when was it for you that that you realized that things were very different for you?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, um, you know, growing up, uh, playing sports and doing junior life cards and a lot of, I was always like a really competitive kid. So, um, I guess the earliest memories were just kind of me as a sort of perfectionist and always. You know, there was one time in particular I was, I was pitching, I was super into little league baseball and I was having a bad game and you know my my dad was taking photos. Just you know, being a proud dad, you know. But I was having a bad game and you know my dad was taking photos. Just you know, being a proud dad, you know, but I was having a bad game. I remember looking over at him and just cussing him out, like on the field, like you know, like what the fuck are you taking photos of me, you know.
Speaker 4:So there was already some sort of deep-rooted sense of having to do well to gain love from other people in some sort, in some capacity. But it wasn't really until, like you know, maybe just after high school that I started to really notice. You know, there'd be like a summer day, beautiful summer day, and I would want to sleep in until noon. You know I'd sleep like 10, 12 hours, like pretty standard, like every night, and you know I had a lot of stuff to be grateful for and you know I had a, had a lot of stuff to be grateful for, and you know I had a lot of privilege, you know, growing up here in Santa Cruz and uh, it was just like this weird thing of like I you know I should be, you know, up in the morning like stoked to go surf and stuff like that, but I would just sleep until noon or so and, um, so, you know, I, I, after some period of time, you know, I started to uh mention to my mom a little bit that I was starting, you know, I think she was kind of noticing that I was you know like what could possibly be going on. And uh, I ended up actually kind of getting a small diagnosis of bipolar, which was actually, you know, because I would have like really like for me it wasn't like really high in the morning, and then really it would be like weeks of like being super stoked and amped and then weeks of being like super down. So that was where I started to think maybe there was some sort of chemical imbalance. Um, and then it wasn't really until college and I talked about this, this story, a little bit on the podcast with you, michael that, uh, I was in a.
Speaker 4:I was in a, um, I was in a art history class and I remember not having done the homework and there was some sort of test on what we had read the night before. And I remember looking at the paper and I was like, oh man, that feeling of being a failure again, right, like not having that preparation. And, yeah, I remember leaving that class completely and that was the first time I actually had like legitimate, like suicidal thoughts of like you know, like I'm a complete worthless person. You know, like, how could I?
Speaker 4:And that was really why it was important that my teacher, dina, who was the art history teacher, you know she reached out to me on email and she was like, hey, I just wanted to let you know. You know, like you're not cut from this class, you know, because I think in our society it's, you know, if you, if you don't get an A on the paper, you're considered a failure and like you're out of the class. And that was the first time somebody had kind of like gone beyond and reached out and be like, no, you know, so, um, from there it was just, you know, starting to. Um, I guess that was kind of the first, the first time I've always kind of had it since a kid, but um kind of college time was around when I really started to, when you became cognizant of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just these like periods of like. You know like a month of like just being wow, everything's really good. And even today, you know I'm of like. You know like a month of like just being wow, everything's really good, and even today, you know, I'm not I'm not sure exactly, you know, again, I'm we're not physicians.
Speaker 4:It's really hard to and it's really hard to diagnose these things, but, um you know, for me it's definitely like periods of like elation, and then periods of like just being bummed. Waves are firing. I'm on a cool surf trip, scoring perfect waves, and I'm still sad. You know it's just like the weirdest.
Speaker 1:You know like you should be happy, but you're not so yeah, one of those weird things yeah, well, neil, why don't we, uh, why don't we? We come over to you and sure, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I mean, as far as being real depressed, um, that wasn't something that really started for me until I was, I think, had my share of troubles with getting picked on and a very sensitive kid and having that wasn't ideal, but I wouldn't say that that's ever been anything that's made me actively depressed. That's made me actively depressed For myself. The depression started, I think I, on the last podcast, I kind of described to everybody that I started having real significant chronic pain at the age of like 17. That's when I started college, I was 17. And you know, within a couple of years it got so bad that I had to start taking medication for it.
Speaker 3:Tramadol is a pain medication and you know I still had getting travel budget and some money thrown my way to go on killer trips and compete and you know, just kind of living a pretty rad life, you know, still partying with my friends in high school I mean my college friends. But yeah, I think there became a point where, you know, the pain just started to kind of over, overwhelm me and it took over my life. You know just being unprepared to to deal with such adversity in such a all encompassing way. I definitely had great support from my parents. You know as much as I could from my friends at that young age.
Speaker 3:You know people you know, we're here for you, all that stuff, but I think it really got bad. You know and I don't know if this is just coincidence, but I imagine that it's not it was when the heavier medications started being prescribed to me, like the Oxycontin and Xanax and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:And I would say that that heightened it more a way to check out and not to deal with the pain physical pain, mental pain, you know, losing the ability to do what I love and um, you know, and and all those different types of things that come along with it. So, yeah, it gave me a an opportunity to transmute my pain into another kind of I don't know. I guess basically I could just take pills and get fucked up and you know, feel good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know after feeling so bad for very intensely. So, but you know, in in doing that, I kind of opened myself up to, like Jack was saying, you know, sleeping in all day, you know, wake up in the morning and at this point, oxycontin, you just take your fingernail and you could skin, skin the top layer off of it, crush it up, snort it, go back to bed, and so, yeah, I think that all of those feelings of sadness and, you know, despair just got magnified through this chemical which, as you know, many people know even if you're not having physical pain.
Speaker 3:Having a medication or a drug of some sort to alter your headspace is very appealing and um it's also, you know, very toxic to a healthy lifestyle so yeah that just that was kind of what really got it started.
Speaker 3:And, um, you know, to be fair, even when I got off of the medication the, the Oxycontin, xanax and stuff like that I dealt with depression for a long time. I still deal with it. But yeah, just in those years I've found a lot of different ways to do it in a more healthier way, which is great. But you know, there's still like that feeling of you know, oh, I wish I could just change my head really quick and not have to deal with this. But I just hit my head against the wall so many times with, you know, taking too many drugs like drug overdose, stuff like that, where I just I can't, it's playing with fire. So, um, I just I I've fallen back on, you know, more natural approaches and that's kind of where I'm at now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, nick, how about you? How you know what? How old old were you when it registered? And again, I want to, in all fairness, we're talking for five minutes about something that's your whole life. It's every morning for 365 days every year. So for the audience this is a gross oversimplification of things, but but it really, you know, like these timeframes I think, irrelevant, you know to to the conversation that that as we, as we dive into my next few questions, you know we can, we can get to the deeper layers.
Speaker 2:But for nick, for you, I have this memory of when I was. Is that too loud?
Speaker 2:no, you're good okay I have this memory of when I was probably a year and a half two years old sokel, um, cartoons were on or some something was on the TV and we had to go somewhere. Um, and I remember being pulled out of the house with this like holding onto the screen door, thinking I don't want to go, I can't go, I can't deal with this, I can't deal with whatever. I don't know where we were going, but that's a huge memory in my brain. I don't know if it's ever not been there since. Like I think I live with that all the time. Like I can't do this today, I can't get up.
Speaker 2:Today I remember in I went from SoCal elementary to Baymont, from rough kids doing whatever we wanted to do to pretty structured way of being in school, and I was out, like I was totally misfit, and so I found the people within that group that were also misfits who happened to be my friends today, which is really interesting, um, but I was definitely like would get on the bus in in, uh, capitola and we would ride up there and I would think like, why, why do we have to do this? Like, why do I have to go up to that school where I don't fit and I don't belong and in fact I'm probably the biggest mid fit misfit because I don't fit and I don't belong and in fact I'm probably the biggest misfit because I don't understand the whole. These guys have all been friends in a tight community for so long and I was like kind of forced into this community that I knew a couple of people but I was just lost and uh, I felt pretty like uncomfortable in my skin then and then I finally got out of that and got to be 40 because I didn't want to be in the christian school and uh, again I was in a new place because all my friends that I had were not they had. They had grown through fifth and sixth grade and become new, like a whole new clique of people. So again, I was lost. I was lost at b40, going, okay, I don't know where to fit here, you know, and I would always find people that were kind of like-minded, I guess, um, a little misfitted. I always find, um, people who were a little I call them crazy because like that felt comfortable to me, like to be around, people who were acting out and showing off being, you know, in their thing, but still I don't know a little off, and that felt comfortable to me to be around those people.
Speaker 2:And then high school was puberty on top of all that other crap, and I just felt lost. I mean, I was just lost and drinking and drugging were were showing up and I was able to get stoned on the trail going up to SoCal, high you know, or beat up she didn't know which one was going to happen that day, but I had moved from my mom's to my dad's and I thought if I moved to my dad's I would be more close with my dad. And then what I learned was that I was more of a burden than a child in his life and so I lived with that and that was pretty heavy for me to live and believe that. And drinking and drugging was by far the best thing in my life. It was the most comfortable state I could be in. It was my brain would turn off, I would feel elated, I'd feel tall, I'd feel comfortable in my skin, um, I'd feel like I'd fit in with the friends that I'd found and that was all good.
Speaker 2:Um and uh, I just chased that. I chased that and I was like like I don't think I put together, like, oh my God, is this depression or is this, uh, I don't, I don't know the word for it. You know, it was more like I just don't feel comfortable in my skin and I don't know any way out, jumping off the cliff over there in Capitola, above New Brighton maybe that's an idea, but I just didn't want to be in my environment. And drinking and drugging was great, surfing was great, even though it was a nightmare, but it was another out for me to, um, get away from my brain, you know, and I, anyway, that's that's my. Uh, yeah, no, that's great.
Speaker 1:That's great. So we have this framework right. Um, you know each story just a little bit different. You know each story just a little bit different. You know what I'm thinking next, and I'm glad for you guys to give feedback here.
Speaker 1:There's a shame cycle that starts right when you wake up every morning and and, uh, you know, I found, you know, in my depression, the level of guilt and shame I like how you put a jack of just not feeling grateful that you're awake. Uh, you know, I, I still, you know, again, again, I haven't had a minor depressive episode in February, so I'm a year and a half clean from this stuff. But it's such a part of my body and such a part of my life that my body still goes through it, just my mind isn't. And so it's really strange for me, because I very much relate to this thing called depression except I'm not experiencing it emotionally anymore to this thing called depression, except, like, I'm not experiencing it emotionally anymore. But one of the things I'm not experiencing every day, which I experienced every day of my life, was feeling guilty for how I felt. You know that. You know you're living this, this life that most people will never encounter. You get to do it every day. You know you can work, you can surf twice a day, like you can do the thing you supposedly love, but nothing's hitting it. It's just not hitting the spot. Do you guys experience that now? Still, you know that that cause I can feel guilt and shame, come at me now and I'm like, well, you know there's. It's easy for me to like push that out now, cause that's just part of depression. That's kind of been othered for me a little bit, but it was such a part of my day every day of like God, can something just feel good?
Speaker 1:And you know I've shared at length in the last course of the last two years about my only real reason for surfing was being competitive. Like I just wanted to be better than everybody else. Like I didn't, I never felt good, I just wanted to be better. It's strange, like and it's not that I haven't experienced euphoria surfing, but I just don't generally experience euphoria. Like the way that I experienced euphoria, as I was explaining to Nick this morning, is that I'm most related to people in their sorrow. So if I could help people in their sorrow, that's when I felt the most intact, and so depression created, it made such a space for me that I mostly only felt good when I was depressed with others, and so that's how I clung to it, because that's what kept me from blowing my brains out, which is a strange way to approach life.
Speaker 1:So when I'm surfing, I'm not having fun. I'm being this altered human of just being a competitive dick, but it's just a coping mechanism. I just get to be a rage-filled asshole out there who acts nice and whatever. It was a nothing burger, and I didn't realize it once my competitive drive ended. It was a nothing burger and I didn't realize it once my competitive drive ended, it was done For you. Jack, did you want to express more about that shame and all that? Or do you still encounter that shame when you wake up in the morning?
Speaker 4:I mean, I've gotten a different outlook on it now, you know, trying not to be as shameful of it, but, yeah, definitely, definitely still feel that Cause, like you said, you know you're living this life in Santa Cruz where, uh, I mean, we live in one of the nicest places on the planet, you know, and it seems like it would be. Uh, uh, you should just wake up every day and be super, super duper stoked to do things, and sometimes you're not, you know, it doesn't really, um, uh, I think I can relate a lot to the um, you know, kind of what's what's helped me is is, you know, uh, like the coaching aspect, like helping other people and like doing stuff for other people. That's kind of what's what's allowed me to kind of feel less, less shameful and more more grateful, um, understanding that other people are going through it as well. But yeah, I mean, I still feel it every day pretty much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for being honest about that. How about you, neil?
Speaker 3:Well, I think, I think depression probably is a little bit different for everybody. You know there's different reasons and that they stem from. There could be a chemical imbalance and you know, or in in my case, the main depression came mostly from something that was entirely out of my control.
Speaker 3:You know like. So I mean I don't feel guilty or shameful about. Well, I just don't really deal with active depression as much anymore. I had like a brief little kind of episode, just like a month or two ago, when I was dealing with some really bad pain symptoms that came back up.
Speaker 3:Like I, most of the guilt and shame that is kind of arisen out of my situation kind of revolves around feeling like I wasn't a functioning member of society, whatever that means.
Speaker 3:You know, we have all these ideas in our minds about you know what is a responsible and productive human look like in our world and we only can see others from the outside looking in. So, um, but what we see usually if either it's in media or just you know, or that guy's killing it, he got the the nine to five job, he's got the you know, he's got the hot chick and he's got you know the killer truck or whatever. Ill-equipped to wake up, put on my work boots or my you know my business suit and go and make you know a decent wage where I can support myself. Um, my parents have been supporting me my entire life, not like I don't work or it's like I have some kind of like richie, rich house even though my parents built an ADU for me to live in, which has been amazing, and I think, yeah, it's just kind of like frustration.
Speaker 3:I have no control over this condition that I'm going through in my body. I'm in pain. The pain has been the ever-present part of my life. It dwarfs any depressive episodes that I've ever suffered from, even though if those resulted from my pain, because I haven't woken up, my waking up, what I get to wake up to is a lot of discomfort like squirming out of my skin discomfort, laying in bed like not because I'm depressed but because I'm fucking hurting, yeah, super bad, and so, um, yeah, that I think more.
Speaker 3:For me it's kind of been this feeling of just loss of a life that I could have lived and seeing everybody else around me, kind of, you know, living a normal life or what I looked to be normal and that's been. Yeah, I've never felt guilty about what's happening to me. It's outside of my control. Maybe at some of the times, at how I, you know, responded to that pain, you know, either by being angry, by, you know, just being less of a person than I know I am in my heart, or allowing that, you know, discomfort to flavor the way I live my life and honor the person, or the person who I am on the inside, which is somebody who's really caring and sensitive and a great friend and I feel like a really good person. So, yeah, I think one, one instance that I can just remember, that I can feel like, yeah, I felt major shame or guilt from, was trying to sleep at night and I just gotten a dog and he was this really sweet dog and he came from his own trauma. You know he was a SPCA adoption and he came from severe trauma and he's part Chihuahua. He's just cute little dude, but I was having trouble sleeping at night because he was waking me up to go to the bathroom and, you know, a few times a night and sleep is hard to come by for me because it's hard to sleep when you're hurting really bad.
Speaker 3:And I just remember one time walking my dog and being so pissed in the at night. And just like walking him and like you know, he's this little sweet dog and I'm marching around the block pissed and he stops after he just peed and like I tugged on his chain like not horribly, but enough to where, like I was thinking I'm like dude, dude, this little dog is such a sweet little guy he doesn't know why he has to get up and pee. Maybe he has a bladder problem, I don't know. But I'm just letting myself, in the state that I've been worked up into, to do something that really violates my understanding and my deep knowing of the person who I am. So that brought about a lot of guilt and shame and you know it's just one example of how you know, being kind of beaten up and taken along this course that I never asked for has made me feel a little bit of shame and guilt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nick, I want to get to you, but I kind of want to stop here, because there's a there's a bridge here between these two things and and I really like how gabber mate, dr mate, talks about this that that you know, because of of science, you know the way that it gets talked about we have a tendency to delineate between emotional pain and physical pain, and I'd love to hear what you I don't necessarily need to hear from you, but but there's just a certain reality that that an emotional wound is the same as a physical wound, but we don't treat it the same, you know, but a wound is a wound, and but a wound is a wound. And I think for Nick, jack and I, we don't have these hard lines of when the physical wound happened, but it feels like a pussy wound that we wake up to every day. And you know, it's nice that we're coming into an era where we can talk about this stuff. You know, I think it's a fairly new space to truly be open about it and feel comfortable in your own skin. You know, here we are talking in front of microphones and we're going to pull up to a pleasure point, you know, two weeks from now, after this thing's posted. So Nick and I can attest to things have changed dramatically. You know that. That you know it's not just the shit you would receive but the reality that the wound is still there and wounds are wounds and if they're unhealed wounds, they are what they are.
Speaker 1:You know and and I and I really love Neil how you are, you know expressing that. You know you wouldn't know either way. You know what the depression is coming from, because the physical pain is so real. You know, what I was hearing from your voice is a really good expression of the physical pain that I woke up to every day, even though there was no pain, you know, it just was what it was. My leg is still broken. Every day I fucking wake up. That's. That's how my depression felt. You know, whereas, just kind of in a matter, matter of factoids here, you know for you, jack, technically your bipolar one. You know where you have those times of euphoria, then then the deep lows after that. You know, whereas I think Nick and I sit in the bipolar two status where there's just no such thing as a good day and you living with physical pain. Neil, my wife lives in a similar state, so I've watched that. She's one of the most cheerful people I know. You would have no idea the level of pain that she is in on a daily basis, whether it's migraine, joint pain just wanting to crawl out of your skin.
Speaker 1:I know these stories and I cannot express to the audience enough how hard it is for someone who has the kind of physical pain you do. So for us to sit here and talk about depression is like I don't even know what you're talking about. But yeah, it's sad. You know I wake up sad, you know, cause I'm I'm hurt more than I'm sad and and I can say, you know, for those of us who are depressed, but it's not the same, you know it it's. You know there there is some sort of difference. But but I think that you sharing this, how you shared it, is really important. You know that there there are other influences other than the fact that you wake up and you're sad. So if there's anything you guys want to add to that, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say that um like you were talking about your wife being like cheerful and you wouldn't notice from from the outside. I feel like for a majority of my life that's kind of been more true than false. But you know, there have been times where and for years too where there was like a there was the physical aspect of it, and then there was like a there was the physical aspect of it, and then there was like a depressed state where I'm sad all the time, you know, and feeling true, prolonged sadness that I just couldn't lift myself up out of, and so it was like a double whammy. You know, I'm feeling the physical sensation, but then I'm also dealing with the fact that you know I'm I'm in all this, entrenched in sorrow all the time, and either that or, you know, severe anger, um. So I think that, um, it's just been something that I've had to work out and over the years I've found a bunch of different ways where I can honor if I'm feeling sad, but also just work proactively to.
Speaker 3:I think for me it had to do with control. It's like I'm out of control of all of these physical things, but I do have a choice. When I wake up, even if I'm feeling sad or angry. I can do things that I know will at least bring me up and make me feel a little bit better, and that's been really valuable for me. And, um, what are some of those?
Speaker 2:things you're doing.
Speaker 3:Um.
Speaker 3:So I think um yeah the one of the first things that my mom suggested to do when I was really deeply depressed and, you know, taking antidepressant medications and stuff like that. I'm not sure too much about personally how much that actually helped me. I found the real help was when I stopped allowing myself to wallow in sorrow or marinate in my sorrow. She said go do something for someone else. You know, like, stop feeling sorry for yourself. We know this sucks, but you're destroying your life by not addressing this root cause and I think, for me, a lot of that was that lack of control, or losing control.
Speaker 3:So I started, um, volunteering at the spca. I started, uh, going to mindfulness-based stress reduction classes, which wasn't necessarily something for someone else, but it was just me taking active measures to do something, you know, instead of just letting it go. And then so that was really helpful for me. And then I started caregiving, I think back in 2013. And so, yeah, like, really, you know, working with people who are confined to a chair for the rest of their life, um, or unable to speak, or being, you know, just really fucked up.
Speaker 3:People Like and that was like it was heavy being coming to work and like seeing that every day, like changing a 20 year old's diaper and fucking feeding them through a G tube or something you know, and that's just a tube in your stomach where people anyways and so that was like it was really like whoa and um so I think stuff like that that was helpful for me.
Speaker 3:And then, um, yeah, the mindfulness-based stress reduction and and yoga entered my life and I think, just yeah, living in service to others and then being proactive, and there's a lot of tools and resources out there. And sometimes, yeah, it's weird, it's almost like I feel like and I've said this before, maybe I'm not sure if it was on your podcast, but I said, I think pain, whether it's emotional or physical, um is an inescapable part of life for all humans, conscious animals. But, um, I think that at a certain point, suffering becomes a choice, and um doesn't mean that, like, by going out and you know, rescuing a squirrel that got hit by a car is going to get rid of your depression, but at least you're making a choice to you know, do something about it.
Speaker 3:And just leave your own shit alone for a second and see if you can lend someone else a hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jack, you made a reference to this that for you, like you know, doing what you do, giving to kids, you know what you know. Why don't you extrapolate a little bit more about that, since we're in this thread, a little bit about what service means to you, you know, and your journey that way?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I mean I feel like, yeah, like Neil was saying, you know, I mean, at a certain point, you know, sorrow is sort of a choice. You know nothing really like belongs to you, even your feelings, these are things that are just passing through consciousness and you can take the choice to grab onto that. You know, like if your girlfriend breaks up with you, you know you can decide to hold onto that and, just, you know, sit in your bed and just be sad for the rest of your life, sit in your bed and just be sad for the rest of your life. Or you can kind of like, you know, I don't want to say that, I mean, I guess kind of the old saying, you know, grab, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, does have some, does have some strong meaning in the way. It's like you know, understanding that you can, you know, go out there, do some physical exercise. That'll start to make you feel better.
Speaker 4:Go, like Neil said, go help other people. You know, understand that, um, uh, you know other people are, are going through something similar, if not worse, than what you're going through, and that's not to, then, you know, make you feel guilty about your shame, but just understanding that we're all kind of on this ride together and, uh, whether people talk about it or not, everyone's kind of dealing with depression or some sort of you know ups and downs in life. Um, and so for me, you know like, uh, you know doing stuff, even if it's you know coaching, and uh, or you know volunteer work, whatever it may be, I think just putting yourself in in a position where you're you're giving instead of just uh taking you, you gain a tremendous amount from that, you know. And kind of back to what you're talking about. I mean, I can relate to that with, with surfing.
Speaker 4:Sometimes I think surfing is so much taking, it's such an individual thing that there is no, there is no end result. It's just you're always going to want more, more, more. Even once you get that perfect wave, it's not going to be good enough, you want more. But when you give to other people, you kind of, um, it's just a more wholesome feeling, I guess.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, totally yeah, yeah, no, no, it's uh, nick, nick. Why don't we, why don't we go to you? Um, you know, to that same thing. You know the shame.
Speaker 2:you know when, when you wake up and the feelings aren't there yeah, the the mornings when I, when I feel like that, um, it's not the same as it used to be, so it's been a lot of work to get through a lot of that do I feel guilty, you know? Did I miss out on a bunch of opportunities? Did I, you know, screw my life up by buying a house and not being able to go photograph the rest of the world Cause I had to pay a bill? I mean, I think about a lot of things. Um, so I think about my own, um shit that I put in my way, my own, my own thoughts that I created to create something negative because of however I was raised or taught to believe, or have my own beliefs or have my own will towards whatever. Sometimes I look back and go man, I missed a lot of stuff, I missed a lot of stuff, I missed a lot of things. And then, other times, I know 100% that everything that we worked through and have experienced and kind of died through has made me who I am, and I like who I am today and I like being stoked for other people and I like to. I am today and I like I like being stoked for other people and I like to help other people and I like to um move through that.
Speaker 2:If people are having a hard time, I like to lend an ear or have something to share my experience with them so they might know that we're not all alone, because being alone is probably the worst feeling in all of that crap. You know, while you guys were talking, all I could think of was we're enough. You know we're enough and I see all your lives and you don't know that I see your lives, but I see all your lives and when I watch I go we're not for doing it, yeah, we're. We're living this, this dream, and through the nightmare of daily life, which sometimes feels like a full nightmare, we get to get up and try again tomorrow, you know, and I got to go ski this year and hike to be a rebel. I had heart surgery this year, so I actually have blood flow through my body right now. I got to go hike 10,000-foot cliffs and drop in and ski corn. That's huge. Those are dreams that I thought I could never do because my heart wasn't working and I couldn't hike and I couldn't breathe very well, couldn't even go upstairs at the end. Um, so there's, there's guilt and shame for like having a rough day and and dreading getting up. But there's also a lot of gratitude and um. At night before bed I look at my wife and I go. We get to have coffee in the morning and that's huge for me and that might be enough for the next day. Just have coffee and um, keeping it really simple, like that, has been very helpful A lot of times.
Speaker 2:Jack was talking about pull your bootstraps up. A lot of times it was show up and shut up, yeah, and just freaking. Just do it, you know. Fake it till you make it Act like everything's fine, even though it's not. And it's not about hiding or turning all those emotions off. I don't feel like you all need to know all that stuff all the time.
Speaker 2:Every once in a while, hey, I'm going through a funky day today. I'm having a shitty day today. Why, I have no idea. I'm just funky and it could be seeded into something and we're all supposed to go dig, right. Well, I don't want to dig all the time. Sometimes I just want to be funky. Let's just be funky today.
Speaker 2:Fuck it right, because what else are we gonna do?
Speaker 2:Like I can't get out of it. No, one's gonna say something that's gonna, like, make me not funky right now. They might make me feel like I'm not alone, and they might make me feel like I'm not alone and they might make me feel like it's okay to be funky. But let's be funky, fuck it. And then, when they feel good, let's feel good and let's feel whatever's feeling that day, instead of trying to mask it or hide from it or run from it, cause that's my MO, I'm out, I don't feel good, I feel weird, I feel uncomfortable, I'm shaking in my skin, I'm out of here, I'm gone, and now I'm trying to just embrace like, nah, you feel funky today, that's fine, and then, you know, tomorrow I feel really good, or today I'm super afraid. I have no idea. I'm afraid something's going to happen, shoes going to fall off, life's going to end and going to happen. Shoes going to fall off, life's going to end. And how ironic is that that I'm worried about my life ending when I'm thinking about jumping off a cliff?
Speaker 1:How's that work? So that's kind of like today's yeah, you know it's. I mean this. This is an enlightening conversation because it's such a reminder of different time frames and Nick and I are sitting in a weird space because we're deep in the middle age right now and there's something that just comes with middle age that allows you just to be yourself a little bit more. You're no longer having to strive with the people. You know where you sit. Nick knows he's never going to be a millionaire. Nick knows he's never going to be a millionaire. I know I'm never going to be a millionaire. There's no next thing to go do, and I don't know if it's apathy or what, but it's like nah, this is my life, this is what it is. Make the best of it. So there's a time that this resonates, and so there's a little bit of unfairness. You know, sitting at the table, cause, cause, you know we're, we're, we're a couple of decades ahead of you. You know, in this spot, uh, you know, as it relates to to the two of you, uh, uh, uh.
Speaker 1:The thing that I wanted to share, that when I went through my process going to AA and reconciling my past and how I ended up working. My fourth step was, in essence, very different. I got to be a victim. I really allowed myself for the first time to go. Okay, what really happened to me? You know who was it, what happened, where did it leave me? And then then get to what is the fourth post of my responsibility chart. Then who did I decide to be? Because of those things and and you know whether it was because of my upbringing or my belief system, whatever it was I had never really allowed myself the space to just look at my life, like, like, these are the things that actually happen. I don't need to make nice about it, I don't need to forgive anybody, I just need to see it. You know, when I was done with that process and I realized the toolboxes that I had, you know I already came preset with a lot of really really good tools, you know. So, um, you know I just had to organize my toolboxes when I walked into AA and that that helped so much.
Speaker 1:But what I discovered when I was at AA, my real addiction was trying to take care of others. You know it was this like I want to be there for people, because I feel like people are not there for me and that was the addictive process that I am undoing as we speak. You know it's like what does it mean for Michael to be here for people, you know? You know, am I going to make that third or fourth phone call to the person that I know that's suicidal, which which is what I would do. You know there's, there are a lot of people that you guys are aware of that I'm on the other end of the line when, when they're in their darkest spot, I don't hear from them until they're in that bad spot. But you know, I had a pretty good sense of who was in a, just in a way, and you know I would help help them through their month long process of deciding whether they're going to kill themselves.
Speaker 1:So you know that that that addictive aspect of trying to provide meaning to my life sat in a pretty sweet spot, right, you know, someone so-and-so is not dead because I was calling them. I mean that that's a pretty cool thing, but my relationship with it was off. You know that that was, that was my problem. And, and you know, getting meeting from outside to Nick's point, it's like this real belief that I am enough, you know, and living life the way that, not that I want to in a selfish way, but that I want to in a truly giving way, not giving from a deficit, you know cause. I was pulling from an account that didn't exist anymore. If I'm having a nervous breakdown and I'm hiding, hiding it, but I'm sitting here giving to people who are in the same spot I am. There's some good that can happen, but but it was not a great spot there towards the end and and that's. I had no thermostat for that. You know I had no, no real. I was just stuck in a cycle of shooting heroin there. You know it wasn't. You know I wasn't using drugs. I was using the endorphin of life and sustaining life as a means to keep myself sustained. And, you know, once I could identify that when I look back on the nature of why I did things, which I continue to do, and this is what I'm unlearning right now to relearn.
Speaker 1:You know I've more than expressed in the podcast how jujitsu changed my framework about competition. You know that it was the first place I stepped into and wasn't competing with anybody. I just went and got beat up. I still just go get beat up. I've been there for seven years. People get really frustrated with me because I kind of don't fight back, I just lightly defend and you can't finish, that's it. But I'm not expressing any of my overwhelming offense that might be available. I haven't even developed it. That's how nonsensical I am that I have taken such a defensive posture. And so that you know that in and of itself, that descriptor describes who I've been my whole life. It's always been a defensive posture, I've always been defensive, and you know, even in my offense it's a defensive thing. And so it's such a piece of mechanics that's so intuitive to me still, that that's what I'm working on, I'm doing right now. And so you know again, another layer of you know, there's the physical thing that I'd like you guys to talk about. You know what are the physical things that you need to do every day to work through. You know how you approach a day. I know for me. You know to your point, neil. You know, of your parents expressing.
Speaker 1:You know, again, I like this thought it's not that you will suffer, it's how you will suffer. You know how are you choosing to suffer. You know suffering was a path for me. It's always been a part of my vernacular. I'm learning not to put myself into more suffering. That's my.
Speaker 1:My thing, you know, is that I'm just used to suffering, so that's what I do. You know, back when I liked big waves, what's the first thing you do? You should send yourself over the falls. The first thing right, you get. You get the fear factor all the way to its peak. You pick the worst possible scenario that you can place yourself in and go well, let's see where I'm at today. You know, like embracing suffering really is. Well, let's see where I'm at today. Embracing suffering really is. That is surfing to me Because that way everything's up from there. But it's that kind of hardcore approach when you apply it everywhere. That's not healthy.
Speaker 1:And so what are the ways in which that you guys are kind of managing through that?
Speaker 1:You know, like what does a physical day look like for you?
Speaker 1:You know, are you guys working out? Are you doing stuff? You know, to just have structure in your life. And I'm speaking right now when I've destructured my life. I've, literally in December, I just decided I'm not doing anything, which is I've destructured my life.
Speaker 1:I've, literally in December, I just decided I'm not doing anything, which is the first time in my life I'm I'm just not doing it. If I feel like I have to do it, I don't do it. So I'm, I'm a hot mess right now Cause I haven't done much. You know, and it's really weird to me and I'm just I how you're saying, I'm just dealing with the funk. You know, I'd like you know, if minute I feel like working out, I'm not working out, and that's generally twice a day. So that means, for sure, I'm not like it's, it's, it's a weird form of repentance that I'm in the middle of and I want to have it over with you know, I, I, I think I'm going to try to start working out this week, but we'll see. Uh, you know, so what? What are the things that, for you guys, are just a part of your structured day? To make yourself, you in middle of all the feelings? We can start with you, jack, since we'll keep going around, robin here.
Speaker 4:So for me, I pretty much wake up every morning and don't wake up. I'm like the king of snooze button. I know it's super bad for you, so that's something right away. That I'm working on is just like, from the moment you wake up, like just getting up, because otherwise it's really easy to just sit there, and I'll wait until 10 minutes before my first lesson and I'll just jump out of bed, pound a cup of coffee and run down to the lesson and that kind of works. But it's not really the best way to prime your day, ok.
Speaker 1:So can I stop you there for a minute? Yeah, so if you've got any tips on how, to get out of bed.
Speaker 4:Well, no, no, no, no, I'm serious, because that's a big one. I was like, fuck this, I'll stay here, you feel safest operating in an urgency. Yeah, so maybe that's some sort of defense mechanism. Yeah, yeah, like preparation feels uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Yeah preparation feels uncomfortable. I think you mentioned before you're dyslexic. I know it's a lot to ask right now of like, okay, you're in the middle of it. You know, as a practice, you know, I think for Nick and I I'm presuming here a little bit you know, I had to wake up every morning because I had a way, you know, on both ends, and I feel horrible that I got the privilege of doing things and it felt so urgent to me that I didn't get to enjoy a morning breakfast with my kids, right, it was just everything's bam, bam, bam. And then, once I was in that cycle, I just stayed there you know, four hours of sleep a day and I'm just up, stayed there, you know four hours of sleep a day and I'm just up. That that's what I did. Again, addictive behavior. So, but the urgency, which is what I'm working on right now, yeah, how does urgency help you? You know, like, like this is. This is the weird part, right?
Speaker 4:urgency for me. I think helps me because it keeps me in the present moment anytime. There's like a buffer zone, like that hour that I could wake up at seven for an eight o'clock work start. That part scares me because that's like a buffer zone, like that hour that I could wake up at seven for an eight o'clock work start. That part scares me because that's like dead time where I'm just like sitting there and I can just start thinking about shit.
Speaker 4:You know okay, can you talk more about that when you buffer when you limit that, it's just like okay, straight into the lesson, straight into this, you know, pack day clouds on the shoulder and you're just forgetting about that thing, okay. So so this is interesting, because it's actually. This is like this week was kind of the start. Like the last two days was kind of the start of the depressive phase for me, so like before that super stoked kind of that's right again. I don't know if that's, if that's a more bipolar type thing, but there I mean there's weeks of just like stoke. I mean still in the morning I'll have that kind of funk.
Speaker 4:Yeah the malaise, but right now it's just like cloud on the shoulder.
Speaker 1:so it's kind of like yeah, I mean again, I think this is a conversation worth having because I set my pace on my calendar so tight that I didn't have a choice, like I I was an excellent time manager and it's just like but boom to the boom and always on time, just always, yeah. And so I created a level of urgency in my house. That is not you know, this is what my kids are undoing as adults of like fuck you know, like everything was just like boom, next thing, next thing, next thing, but again, thing, next thing, but again I was running from my demons, right, I could not be alone with my thoughts because I was scared of them. So this is what's going to make this question hard Like what are you afraid of to sit with in that hour? Because I think fear is the big thing. We're not talking about. We talked a little bit about anger and shame, but the fear that sits behind whatever the next feeling is, and you don't necessarily have to answer now, but to kind of sit in that space.
Speaker 4:I think it's just unpacking whatever it is that I'm holding onto. It's probably some old traumas or just that weird depression that like is just even though I understand now, having worked with therapists and stuff that like the best way through that is to just actually feel it and like let yourself feel it and then you know not let it engulf you, but actually like feel whatever it is that's trying to be expressed, and then you can move through it. But for me it's like no, we're just going to close that door. So to be honest, I don't know what that thing is. I haven't gone deep enough to really like know what that thing is.
Speaker 4:It's just like this weird kind of anxious, empty feeling. So I wish I had a better understanding of what it is. But, like I said, it's probably something you know, just dealing with. You know either things that I've done to harm other people in the past or, you know even just like dealing with my own anxieties of how I present myself in the world. Like dealing with, like, oh, that conversation I had with that person. I said that weird stupid thing. Now they think I'm a total idiot and I'm gonna have to see them again.
Speaker 4:You know, like there's there's all kinds of stuff that comes up.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 4:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think, am I an idiot? Is is the most profound.
Speaker 4:The big one that's been coming, the big theme that's been coming up with my therapist is like I'm bad in some sort of and it's come back to the little league jack of like pitching a shitty game, having someone filming and feeling like felt like my own dad was filming it I'm sorry, my own dad was filming it to then like poke fun at me later, which he totally wasn't. I had nothing to do with it, but that's my own internal dialogue. I'm like look at this person filming me, be an idiot and now I'm gonna have to like, relive this through the.
Speaker 4:So there's some sort of feeling of like I'm bad, I'm not enough, I'm, you know so yeah, how about you, neil?
Speaker 3:anxiety, fear thing for you yeah, well, um, so yeah, I would say that I think structure is a big part of what is, I think, a healthy you know, like, obviously you can do that differently in an unhealthy way, like you said being completely so structured that it's helping you evade some type of wanting to be with what's happening in your mind and a sense of diversion or aversion. I would say that, for myself, the big fear, the fear affects me because I've always got something physically that can stop me from engaging in the world in a way that I think is healthy and productive. I think everyone should have passions and things that they pursue that makes them feel good and that makes you know it's just a healthy part of being an individual is following your passion. I think right now, what comes up for me and I'm I'm working on this and I'm making like really great strides with this process is, um, yeah, being proactive.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think this probably goes back to childhood, you know, putting things off, kicking the can down the road, that fear of not necessarily failure, the discomfort that might come along with doing something to take care of either yourself or your living space. Maybe this is, you know, I, my dad, always used to have to come down on me before I was in any pain about getting shit done. You know, like falling through on my responsibilities my responsibility is being a contributing member and just yeah, like not putting things off and. But now this is warped through years of confronting real discomfort in my body and putting things off because I don't feel like it right now I feel like shit. Putting things off because I don't feel like it right now I feel like shit. And you know that can be serviceable or you could use that defense mechanism in your life. But when you start to abuse it and you're going to really stunt your development a real form of arrested development, real form of arrested development and in in my case, that comes into a feeling of real loss and sorrow at not pursuing the things that I actually really like doing.
Speaker 3:Once I get started doing something, I feel fucking great and I'm like, wow, I'm good at this. This is amazing. That's a healthy thing to have in your life. But that just, oh well, you know, and in the past it might have been to snort that oxycontin, but now it might be. Oh just, you know, instead of writing, I'll read a book, which is like a great thing for your mind, but also, you know you could read too much, or you could, oh. And now we have all these really sinister ways in the media to absorb our attention and kind of mine, our dopamine, and so now it's like, oh, youtube, or fucking social media, or you know just, and then in some cases for me it's, you know, like overdoing it on the self-care.
Speaker 3:Doing yoga for like three or four hours in a row can be good, but then, yeah, what am I? I'm pushing away some things that I, I should be doing, and I'm a writer and for my career, that's something that is I. I should be doing a lot more than.
Speaker 3:I am doing and yeah, it can be uncomfortable sitting in front of a computer and my back hurts or shit I need to lay down, but it's like I could lay down and type in my bed. So it's that mental engagement, it's that fear of applying myself and feeling discomfort from it. Most of the discomfort comes of the thinking about the doing the thing and and so that it's this vicious cycle where it's like I keep putting something off and I'm I'm like voluntarily putting myself in a position where I'm feeling uncomfortable, because in my mind I'm saying I'm doing this because I don't want to be in a place where I'm uncomfortable. So it's this weird like snake eating its tail type of thing, and that's what I'm kind of working on right now is, you know, like and I have, you know, some attention deficit issues which you know, I acknowledge and I but that that can create a lot of shame where you're like why can't I sit down and learn this guitar song on the guitar? Like I go back and I'm playing my guitar and I just start noodling you know playing shit I learned 15 years ago and then putting the guitar away Like it's like poison or like red hot or something.
Speaker 3:Be like, ah, I have to get away from that and and my I know that I I'm capable of way more than I'm able to, than I am putting out. So that's something that I'm working on. And then also, you know, sometimes, acknowledging that part, it's like, yeah, you do feel shitty right now and there's nothing wrong with not applying yourself in this moment, but it doesn't mean you cannot apply yourself like all day long, which doesn't really happen anymore. I'm getting up and going to work and, like you were saying, like exercise, I feel like you know, just to go into that a little bit, like going to the gym and exercising, like there's some really great shit that happens in your mind and in your, the chemical makeup of your body when you, when you do some hard work, and if you're doing it in service of strengthening a part of your body, that might even help you be in less pain. Theoretically, that's, that's great. So, yeah, um, sorry to ping pong back and forth.
Speaker 1:great, no, it was great, nick, for you.
Speaker 2:Fear, fuck everything and run. That's kind of been an old MO, right. I'm afraid I'm out not doing it or whatever. The other one was fear shows up when you lose sight of your dreams and, um, that can happen pretty fast. You know, I could self doubt pretty fast, like, oh, this is the best thing I've ever done. No, it sucks.
Speaker 1:And it's give me one of those passing, passing the cracker. Oh the zins, let's get some more anxiety going, I'll eat the whole can. You can't touch the shit, let's just induce the anxiety.
Speaker 4:There's always a funny one, right.
Speaker 2:It's like you're trying to get rid of this thing, but then you use the coffee and the simpleness of the things. Today, like, I do have to read a lot. I have to listen to books, cause I'm painting houses, I'll be, I'll listen to an audible, you know. And there's like little things, like atomic habits. I don't know if you guys have heard that book. And then there's one, two, three, four, five, which is when the alarm goes off one, two, three, four, five, get up, no fucking around, um and like compound effect, another book, and and those books have all like helped me like look at the little things.
Speaker 2:Atomic doesn't mean huge, it means small, and so it's the small habits that we do. So if we um, if we actually get up, make the coffee, don't turn the tv on, don't look at your phone, I mean I do it all. I'm not saying yeah, I'm not saying that that's the, that's that I'm like perfect at any of that stuff, but it's in my brain to like try to like listen to the birds in the morning instead of um, see what, see what golf channels doing, cause I'd like to watch golf cause it turns my brain off.
Speaker 2:You know, golf is probably the quietest sport, yes, so you can either fall asleep or relax or whatever. Um, and then I'm trying to commune with commune, uh, get out into nature. There's a bunch of theories that you know. If you spend 30 minutes in nature you can change your mindset, and I think we as a collective do that pretty well on our own, just on a normal daily basis. But I find the ocean can be anxiety provoking for me to even go to the end of Rock view and see people that I don't really want to see, nor do I think that they're my, they're my peers, even though they're in my circle. Yeah, that can be upsetting in my, in my body. So nicene. Or up at ucsc moss, landing just to walk, not to be in the water but to walk the south part that place is the most wild place, like National Geographic wild place, and those kinds of things helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:I remember you were talking about writing, neil, and I remember when I had I've got a degree in English, but I would have rather clean underneath the refrigerator than write a paper. It was way more important to get down there and do that than to do my work, you know. So procrastination is huge in my life. I love to. I love to do everything last minute. It just works, it just seems to work. I'm trying to think of the dead space and what happens in that dead space. I see people that like study from the minute that they start studying all the way through, and I'm like squirrel. You know what I mean. Squirrel is way more important right now and, um, I I have a really hard time focusing on one thing, except for what I'm doing photography.
Speaker 2:And when I'm in that, then I feel at home and I feel I feel the most quiet. Um, even though it's chaotic, could be chaotic around me and all kinds of shit. I feel like I'm mostly in the zone when I'm skiing. I'm in the zone when I want to chairlift. I could be on the chairlift the whole time, like not ski, just be on the chairlift, and I'm stoked. Um, but it's the simple things brushing your teeth, making your bed, all those little things that sound like that is so fricking stupid. By the end of the day you come home, your bed's made and your dishes are done and you feel like no clutter around you. That's an amazing environment for being productive in whatever you're doing while you're at home for the evening or whatever, but that's not what I do. My bed's not made every day, my teeth aren't brushed every day. Coffee, and then I go for a wave check and that's probably my quietest thing in the morning, and sometimes I have to change where I go look at the waves just for my own peace.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Neil go ahead, yeah um it, just when we were talking about the procrastination, it, just it reminded me of that movie with, uh, bill Murray. What about Bob?
Speaker 3:yeah yeah, baby steps to the shower baby step and yeah, it's like and I I didn't I failed to mention this when I was talking about what I'm going through mentally, with that kind of feeling of maybe shame or loss, when, when I'm reflecting in my journal about you know what it is that I'm not applying myself to, and I think baby steps is such a huge thing like if there are a couple things in my life that I'm feeling bummed or like not great about not pursuing or doing, if I can do a little bit every day, that starts to stretch.
Speaker 3:You can stretch the boundaries and remind yourself that I don't. It's not that bad Once I start doing that. I like this.
Speaker 3:I like reading and I like writing, I like, I like to sit on and learn a song on the guitar or whatever, and but it's that procrastination that seeps in, that it starts to blind me to the fact that how much I actually enjoy doing these things. And I think a lot of the thing is too that you know, like we want to be good at what we do and it's really intimidating. There's so many talented fucking people in this world, whether it's a big wave. Surfer or photographer or a writer like if I read, like stephen king's, my favorite author.
Speaker 3:That guy's been pumping out great, it depends. I think he's a great author and um, but he's written so many damn books and when I'm reading a bunch of stephen king, I'm going this guy is brilliant, this is such an engaging story. Then I just go back to myself Well, I'm a writer and I'm writing this book and God damn, like I'll never be that great, even if I don't believe that those are the types of like self-doubt that just creeps in and that I think self-doubt that's the biggest, um, you know thing that causes me to procrastinate. And but then I think, yeah, baby steps, if I can do this a little bit every day, you know, and that takes a lot of discipline and with all these distractions in our lives that can pull us out of that, knowing that this is something that I actually enjoy doing and I'm actually pretty good at it you know so yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So there's a thread sitting here at this table and, uh, you know it's been enjoyable but sad to see what has happened with school for boys. And I don't want to ignore this in this moment because I think it's super relevant to our conversation Number one. Number two, that the whole culture is about to suffer from this greatly because men are not okay. And and if you know I I am saying nothing, you know I I'm not wanting to say that men are more important. I'm not saying that women's issues are not important, because they are.
Speaker 1:But how do you think school has influenced your life in a negative way? The statistics are coming out now. You know, you know only 35% of boys who are applying for colleges are getting in. Uh, you know, whatever title nine was, it is not that anymore. Uh, you know, I raised children through. No child left behind being enacted. Uh, jack, I think you experienced that through high school. You know, whereas, like, if you didn't get the answer right, or, in other words, if you didn't do it the way a girl would do it, then you're not, you're just not going to college. One bad grade.
Speaker 1:But the reason I think this is important is not not because I don't think boys shouldn't go to school, it's. It's not that I think the intent of school was to make boys into this model. You know, I don't think there was any deviant thing. That was intended, you know, to help stick a system in here, where, where, there, where people could get in play in the economy. Intended, you know, to help stick a system in here, where they're, where people could get in play in the economy. You know, in some way, with that being said, the stats are out. You know, men are, you know, four to one, going to kill themselves before women are it used to be two to one women 20 years ago? Uh, depression up, depression up.
Speaker 1:This thing you know of, of really failure to launch, you know, is is, it's a really really becoming a very big problem and the stats all support it. But you know, I, I can say from my own thing, my own experience in life, there is nowhere where I felt like more of a failure than at school. And from like right, when my parents were having trouble, from fifth grade on, and even when I realized school could be easy for me, that didn't stop the feelings of failure. You know it didn't. You know I remember going to Hawaii my first time. I was a sophomore, you know, and here I didn't go to school for three weeks. Hawaii my first time I was a sophomore, you know, and here I didn't go to school for three weeks, came back, did half my homework and got straight a's.
Speaker 1:I'm like shit, you know, like that's. All it takes is like applying yourself a little bit and like for me, you know, it's not not that it was easy, but it's easier for me. But that being said, like do I even want to be accepted by these people? Was kind of like. My arrogant position on is like fuck you guys, if this is this easy, then fuck. The whole thing was my thing, and you know there's a lot of teenage angst, there's a lot built into that thing. But comparison and judgment is what's sitting in there, right? You just alluded to it, neil, with talking about boy, I'm not going to be Stephen King, you know, like where did we learn that At school? You know there's the reality and the point is you could never be that. So why try? Anybody want to start there?
Speaker 4:This is a great question. Do you mind if I start?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4:I absolutely hated school from the get-go. The only things I liked in school were dodgeball recess, reset recess. I liked recess, but recess kickball butts up anything outside.
Speaker 4:It was like as soon as it was Anything outside. You know, it was like as soon as it was. And then, you know, I went through doing all that and then had the freshman year and sophomore year of high school. I began commuting to school, over to Bellarmine and all boys school in San Jose, which ended up, looking back, was a really good experience, but at the time was just complete torture. You know, it was just, and you know, especially at daylight savings time it was like go over in the morning, not surf, get home it's too dark to surf. So I was a weekend warrior from the age of 14 to 15. And then I came back to SoCal high and my rebuttal to that was well, I'm just going to bomb school. So I ended up getting like five F's my first semester Couldn't, couldn't play baseball, and uh. So yeah, I definitely never had a really positive relationship with school, um, until you know, I mean, and there was, there was a few moments through high school. You know I took a writing class.
Speaker 4:I've always, always loved writing and I was, um, you know, moments through high school. You know I took a writing class. I've always loved writing and I was, you know, kind of hoping that I could just focus on like writing or like. As far as academia goes, that was my favorite subject, but it was like no, you've got to do this, this and this, and I think it's all of that is important, you know. I mean, you do need to understand how to spell, you need to know how to do basic math and those things, but I just felt like it was just a complete waste of time. Until I took that college course.
Speaker 4:I was telling you about contemporary art and you know, at first I was like, oh great, another art class. We're just going to sit here and now we're going to learn the history of art even better. I'm just going to read even more. And the teacher showed us a snowboarding movie and she was like you know, this is, this is art, this is contemporary art. This is people going out risking their life from the streets and getting video of it and then creating art out of it. And I was like, holy shit, like you know what I mean, like school can be cool and um, but uh, yeah, it's definitely. Uh, definitely wasn't. Wasn't my favorite thing.
Speaker 1:How do you feel that played into how you felt as a human.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just exactly the same way. You know, for me, being a procrastinator, that never helped. So it would be the all-nighter the night before a thing, and in my mind I'm like, man, I put all this work into into this thing. I put eight hours into this thing straight and I didn't sleep, you know, and then you'd get a c on it and you're like, oh shit, I suck.
Speaker 4:You know, and it's actually interesting now not to go off topic, but I see myself, you know, kind of uh, evolving over time with my coaching style with the kids, because at first I think it was you know that background evolving over time with my coaching style with the kids, because at first I think it was you know that background of like having a yes or no.
Speaker 4:So it was like you're standing on the board, wrong when understanding that like, maybe that's how that kid stands on the board. And so over time I've, you know, kind of evolved into like letting people kind of, you know, like, like do do their own thing, like it doesn't have to be this one cookie cutter way like everyone's. You know that's art, right, that's like stand on the board however you want, you know, do whatever. It is the way that you do it, you know, and not telling kids to um, you know, in the beginning it was very like junior guard, regimented, like you need to sit here and stretch and oh, you're not stretching, you're the bad kid, go swim, you know. And like when really you just did that kid a favor, he's like fuck, yeah, I'm gonna go swim dude, get out of this fucking stretching bullshit you know what I mean so um yeah, that was kind of how it played on on.
Speaker 4:My life is just having this very cookie cutter like you're good, you're bad, you know um, so yeah neil yeah, um, well, for me it's with school.
Speaker 3:Um, I always I never really had an issue with following. Let me take that back. I had problems with procrastination in school, but my, my problem was that I, either genetically or for whatever reason, I could skate by procrastinating and still get straight.
Speaker 3:A's in all my classes, in the higher, the intensive classes, the advanced prep classes and, um, in the higher, the intensive classes, the advanced prep classes, and so that wasn't a huge thing for me. I didn't really experience too much negative impacts from school. It was a place that I excelled in, that I did well in. It was a place that I excelled in and I did well in. But even with that there was pressure from my parents. So that was a source of contention between you know, especially me and my old man you know about. But if my grades slipped at all then I had to go. My dad would drop me off to school early and I would spend a half hour before school started with the math teacher in the advanced prep to not avoid getting a B and so that was in itself a cause for some, for some suffering, for for me but, I, I, just I can't really relate yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:And and you're from a family of educators, too correct yeah yeah, you know, and again it's, it's me, you know, looking at how much just family culture and culture influences how a child experiences things. You know, because yours is not uncommon from any other teacher's child, that I know that maybe what the other end of it is is that you knew the system so well because it's intuitive to you that there isn't really any development for who you want to be as a person. You know, sitting within that, you know, like you're not receiving the same thing from school that another person does. Because you know, in essence maybe you needed something more intriguing to get you engaged, more intriguing to get you engaged. But it's good to hear from you that you didn't feel isolated at school.
Speaker 1:You know, because I think most boys don't, you know and not saying that girls don't, I mean girls clearly are fairly mean to each other. But you know boys are mean in a different way, but that generally feeling isolated just by showing up is a common trait. Because you know boys are going through this mundane task when really what they need is you, just the physicality of it. With whatever testosterone concoction we got going through, our body needs that physical behavior first and that's not necessarily what's being translated to us, you know it's like, oh no, you need to. You know, stimulate your mind. It's like, no, actually I need to work out for two hours before I do anything, because that's what gets my mind clear, to be focused, you know. So it's antithetical, I think, for the most part to to a boy's nature, nick, for you school nightmare.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had one teacher, miss cats and she saw my ADD or whatever wandering around poking at fun and throwing spitballs or whatever the hell I was getting myself in trouble for, and she put me in front row and she's like that's where you're sitting, that's your spot best teacher I ever had. Because she didn't take any of my shit. I feel like the rest of the time I was pretty lost. Remember a geometry class? Everybody would get the cheat sheet for the test and it would pass around all the classes. We'd all have it. Fill that sucker in. I have no idea how to do geometry. There's like this thing called given and I'm always like what's that mean?
Speaker 1:I was at geometry for a year. What is given I?
Speaker 4:got all A's though. Something that's given to you, yeah, they give it Like the answer sheet. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:But I was told from the house, from where I was living, that I was not going to go to college if I didn't have certain grades or whatever. And I was like, well, I don't know how to do any better, so let's get stoned. And that was my MO like screw it, I'm not going to college. When I went to Cabrillo, cabrillo was kind of the same subset of being at school at high school Same people, same crap. You're just kind of checking off the boxes and I didn't really get it. And so when I was later 24, that's when I got accepted into UMass, um, that's when I was actually able to apply myself to it and and chase it and um, it was like A's through the whole the whole time had like I was never handheld on like this is what you're going to do.
Speaker 2:This is what we do as a culture. We go to college and we do like there was never an idea of applying to a college. That wasn't even in my brain. Like why are these people applying to college? How did you know what college to apply to? I had no idea. I mean, I was like on my own with that stuff and maybe that was my own fault for just not knowing. I have no idea, but like it wasn't in our family, my mom didn't go to college, my dad didn't go to college, so did it do a disservice? I don't know. I thought I screwed around a lot and just got by. C's were fine.
Speaker 1:But I don't know. Yeah, you know, it's again on the comparison chart stuff I've had the privilege of since really I was 24, 25, of being in a learning culture so it became intuitive to me once. I didn't read a book until my junior year I had never read a book and whatever form of dyslexia I had, it mostly affected math, like algebra, is just torture to me. Never got past algebra one, you know. But but I understand accounting very well, you know whatever was was part of my learning disabilities has ended up ended up functioning very well in business atmosphere. You know cause. I read an accounting sheet a lot differently than a lot of people do. So I see things that they don't and that's an emotional intuition. But all that being said, you know, looking back on schooling, you know, and its effect on me, it was, it was pretty deep.
Speaker 1:But I think the you know, where I want to kind of end this at is our relationship with our fathers and the real deep effect that has on us as men. And I really, you know, because there's a lot of introspection and retrospection that I've had to go through in the last couple, three years. I've had to get really, really honest about the relationship with my dad, who my dad is as a human, because I've had a real contrasting experience with him. My dad's a really really good man, very kind. When he was present, he was present, he was emotive. You know, if he had the time to be a good dad and not just be working, I had the best dad ever, you know. But my experience with him because aloof is not the word for it it was just distant, you know, not as present. You know because he was doing the thing. He was putting food on the table and that that's what made him who he is.
Speaker 1:And there's a resentment between my dad and I. It's my resentment, not his, about having missed those times. You know, because you know have having a mom running the show is is, it's just a mom. You know it becomes a nagging voice and that that's not really all that helpful and you know I've done so much work there. It's kind of weird to to collect that and have it be a cogent statement. But the reality that we need good men in our lives, you know how was each of your relationships with your dad. But the reality that we need good men in our lives, you know how was each of your relationships with your dad. You don't necessarily have to say anything bad or anything like that, but what have you done to surround yourself with good men, to become the good men you want to be?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I guess, to start, yeah, I had a really positive relationship with my dad. You know, he went to all my sporting events, didn't never missed a single event. Um, that said, he, uh, you know, no, no fault to his own, I mean, even his dad was even more of a sort of drill sergeant of, like you know, this is, this is how you have to act in the world and this is what you need to do, and you know you need to go to school, you need to do this thing, and so, in that sense, my dad was, uh, I don't, I don't want to say he had a uh, uh, negative fatherly experience, but his dad was very much more like a, like a coach, than a, than a dad. You know, he didn't, he didn't, I don't, I don't, I don't know if they ever really shared like emotional conversations or, like you know, even physical touch, like hugging and stuff like that. It was kind of like you're my son, you need to do this sort of thing, and I could be totally wrong, but that's kind of my read on my grandfather and so, in that sense, my, you know, my dad was a pretty intense dude in a lot of ways, was, um, uh, you know would, would get mad at us, for, you know, like not not doing well in school and you know telling us, well, you gotta, you gotta do this, this one thing, and, um, you know it's.
Speaker 4:I think I kind of ended up going, uh, the opposite way of that, in the sense that, you know he had aspirations as a, as a kid, of being a professional swimmer.
Speaker 4:He was a really, really talented swimmer, but he kind of gave up on that dream and ended up just taking the nine to five job and uh, you know, I kinda, I kinda saw that when he later on, um, you know, retired and two years later had cancer and then passed away.
Speaker 4:And uh, it was kind of like, well, you know, if you can, if you can, do all of that, you know, sacrifice for your family, this, that and the other, um, if you can do all of that, you know, sacrifice for your family, this, that and the other, and yet still, you know, get an illness from almost, in a sense, working too hard. I think part of it had to do with his just, you know, unhealthy habits. You know he was towards the end and so I've kind of, you know, gone the other route of like okay, you know, I want to try to do things that make me happy, and even if it means not making a lot of money, I'd rather live a life of um you know, enjoying my path and um, extrapolating meaning out of you know, different experiences.
Speaker 4:So in that, in that way, um, I can't say enough nice things about my dad, you know. I mean, like I said he was, he was definitely there, but I've had to, you know, unlearn some things, as all of us have from our parents over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, let me insert in here too because because your dad and I probably have a lot in common, you know that that while I was a very affectionate father, I was a drill sergeant. As you know, all my children are either wanting to go kill bad guys or rescue people. You can tell what the temperature might've been, uh, in my house. But if there's any one regret, I, you know, I I don't know how, how to do it a different way, because that that was what felt normative at that time. It is that, this thing, that this burden of you know, watching your dad sacrifice himself, which is what my kids watched, and that's not healthy, you know, and so it it's. It's good to hear you, hear from someone other than my children, who maybe are a little bit more afraid to say it that clearly. Neil, how about for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think, with all of this stuff, it's generational. We become our parents and for a son, we become our parents and for a son, you know, we become our fathers. You know, as much as we wouldn't like it, um, it's just. I think that's just a genetic thing.
Speaker 3:I think that it's also that it's nature and nurture you know, um, sometimes those maybe toxic relationship patterns can be altered or you can nip it in the bud. But yeah, so just my dad. He grew up in Southside Chicago 10 brothers and sisters, irish Catholic family with the. My grandfather was a um, uh, obgyn and he was very successful, delivered most of the babies on the south side of chicago and like this 50s and 60s and um, but I think that with for my dad there was, you know like, with all all the lack of seeing his father, him and his siblings were kind of had to fend for themselves and the emotional support I don't think it was really there. And you know, when dinner came around, I don't know, this is kind of funny. You'll find parents where the kid doesn't eat their dinner and they're kind of like, well, you know like I would really like it if you finished your dinner and but for my dad's family is like, if you didn't eat your dinner, someone is going to eat it before you.
Speaker 4:Like that was it.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like survival of the fittest Pretty crazy, but me and my sister just it's like survival of the fittest. It's pretty crazy, but me and my sister, just it's just me and her and um. But I think that, um, for my relationship with my father, whatever had happened in his upbringing, you know, there was definitely a, a pattern that involved, evolved in my own relationship with him where he could be a super intense dude, like really intense, uh, controlling to uh, I don't know to a fault, um, and I think that was really tough for me and that procrastination that I would fall back on pre even having chronic pain, would just upset my dad to no end and that caused a lot of, like, grief between us growing up. So that's something that you know we're still probably working on to this day and, um, there's, there's parts of my dad that I I really wish that he had, you know, shed some of those behaviors that cause friction between us.
Speaker 3:You know, I sometimes feel like you know if, if you're seeing how much you're hurting me and you still can't, um, you know, admit fault on in a conversation or in a relationship, aspect of a relationship we had it. So that was created a lot of grief for me growing up. It still does. But I think that you know he's he's definitely worked on it a lot and so I think that, knowing that he has seen how that relationship has affected me negatively, he's taken a lot of steps to kind of curb that behavior. And but you know, are those ingrained in him Like, I don't know, when you're, you're young, they say that these, uh, coping mechanisms stay with you from a young age and that you can't get rid of them.
Speaker 3:I think you can always work on it. But that's just something that I'm seeing in myself that you know. As as long as I keep going on living, I want to be able to. I don't want to get into a position where I'm still dealing with the things that upset me about myself 20 or 30 years from now and I feel like, as much as I try, a lot of these things are still following me. But as long as I can be honest with myself and admit my flaws and just say you know, keep working on it and you can change that, that nurture and nature I think can be you can change. That nurture and nature I think can be modulated by yourself through hard work and humility and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really well put Nick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a hot topic.
Speaker 1:It is a hot topic. But it needs to be shared you know.
Speaker 2:so I would say, to be fair, I've had to find other male role models that I could shape my life after, versus maybe what I grew up with, not to say anything negative other than what I got wasn't what I wanted. Mm-hmm, is that fair? I don't know, you get what you get, but I knew that if I found other males, older, that were living a life that I thought was what I thought I wanted, that was what I was attracted to and I thought I will friend them and use them as a mentor, whether they knew it or not. I didn't have the best role models in the beginning, because my role models were people who liked to do drugs and fuck around at school.
Speaker 2:And shave boards, and skating and doing all the things that we do here. And I had to find for me it was leaving town, actually leaving this whole environment, which I know I could have found role models in this town, because there's great people here, and even those people that were my role models at one point, I think are still great people. They're just not living the way I'd live now. So when I was back east, I was lucky enough to find the rooms of AA and inside there was a lot of people who had what I wanted and they had a house and they had a secure job and they were comfortable in their skin and they were able to work through that shit and they had a kind ear and they had a gentle work through that shit and they had a kind ear and they had a push a gentle push to help guide. And I thought those were the kinds of people that I want to be around. And so I had to find new role models, new parental models, whatever you want to call them that I was able to chase that lifestyle versus what I grew up with and change who my heroes are. And so that was actually very painful, because those heroes were very important to me at one point. And then you had to realize, like that doesn't work, at least for me. For them it's perfect. You know that's not my call. But I had to realize, like that doesn't work, at least for me. For them it's perfect. That's not my call. But I had to realize, like that's not going to get me anywhere if I'm going down that same path, no matter where I live. It doesn't matter where you live, if you're doing the same shit, you're doing the same shit. So I had to, like change my whole outlook on what I wanted, and then that's changed, and then that's changed again and it changes again. Um, and now I, um, I don't, I don't know what I'm after now. Like, as far as, like, there's older people.
Speaker 2:I remember I talked to this guy and he had been sober for like, and let me just say that being sober is one thing, but working on your shit is another. Like, just being sober is like great, but there's a bunch of ick, right, you take away alcohol from an alcoholic and it's ick, right, so it's just a bunch of shit. So now I'm not, I'm not medicating, so I have to deal with whatever the hell my brain's talking about and what I'm feeling and all that kind of crap. And I remember talking to this guy. He was like 65 years, sober old dude and I go hey, a lot of the things they say is that life gets better, it gets better, keep coming, it gets better, keep coming better, it gets better, keep coming, it gets better, keep coming, it gets better, it'll get better, despite what you think.
Speaker 2:Just keep coming around. And I'm not talking about just a, I'm just saying life just gets better. And as long as we continue to do little things and stuff towards our life that we want, it gets better. And so I said does it get better for you? Still, he goes kid, if I can take a good shit, that's a good day, and I think you know what.
Speaker 1:The things we take for granted. Simple.
Speaker 3:That's a good one Going back to sleep.
Speaker 2:It could be that simple. So, anyway, I have had to, uh, unfortunately, look outside of my own environment to find something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and really to, to piggyback on what you're saying, nick, and that was common for us. You know, the divorce rate went from 30% to 50% with our families and that means most of our families got divorced. So you know, you know, whatever the cultural revolution at the time, divorce became an imperative for the most of us. You know that is very rare to see an intact family from our from from the first set of children that came from the boomers. Let's just put it, put it bluntly Well, you know, I, I, I wanted to add, like, just for me, like the thing that I've been working on, you know, this last year, you know I mentioned going to aa and and working. That fourth step was was the big moment of being able to see myself.
Speaker 1:The second best thing that happened for me is, uh, you know, I begin to uh, uh, tap into dr conti's work. Uh, he's a fairly well-renowned psychologist and he has this idea of what a mentally healthy person looks like. And it begins with agency. It's that ability to assess things for what they truly are and make a choice. You really have no control for circumstances for the most part, but you do have control over your choices in those circumstances, but you have to decide to see what you're refusing to see. You know, with agency comes gratefulness and gratitude. With gratitude comes empowerment, and and from empowerment comes humility, and. But realizing that agency is, is, is the imperative. You know, that ability to fully assess things for what they are and then make the choice that you can make with the content that you have, is the tool that gives you those other three what, in essence, are symptoms of agency. And so you know, I'm only a year and a half into using this as an adaptive process to interpret life and for me, the level of clarity.
Speaker 1:It's hard, like it's really fucking hard, to look at relationships, look at people you've been with for a long time and see it very differently. That this thing that I thought things were maybe it's not what I thought, dreamed or hoped or had put my energy towards that my expectations of them were not only not right, they weren't fair. You know that I was imposing my will on the way I want to see the world work and just cherry-picking from the group of people that I was around. And so for me this has been a very repentant year and a half of like getting honest with myself about what it is I'm actually seeing and where am I trying to have someone else uh, fill an emotional void for me? You know, fill in that God space that that I think we all have. And you know that that work is hard, you know it.
Speaker 1:It it's, uh, it it's hard to see things for what they are. All the friendships you think you have, but maybe you don't to the depth that you want them to, all those things you know and realizing more and more you're a little bit more alone than you thought you were, but you're also a little bit more empowered to make some way better choices than you might have, than I might have five years ago, without needing other people. And it's not that I don't need people, I mean, clearly I do, because I keep talking to people with microphones and that's filling my ego some way. But this reality that we're all just attempting to do our best and some people's best is better than others and not holding other people to a standard that I hold myself to, has been very freeing for me. That my standard is my standard. That is for me the boundary is mine. It's not against anybody, it's my boundary that I need to your point that it is very hard to really undo that early programming and at 55, it's starting to happen, that early programming of how you think family works and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Whatever we're calling genetics, whether it's emotional genetics, psychological genetics or physical genetics, it's been very resourceful for me to take this approach, but I also don't know how to be myself, because I feel very different than I did two years ago, like very different, and that's scary. Like it's scary to know what to do next in the morning, cause you know, like this particular talk was the first time in years where I was worried in the morning, just worried, like okay, can I host this, you know, and all all that old ego just showed up and, like you know, I saw Nick at the, at the coffee shop, and I'm, like, you know, like this, this is a weird one. I like I haven't been back in the space in a long time where where I knew what we were going to talk about is important. And how do I not fuck it up, you know, cause I didn't want to. And so, anyways, if anybody has any last points, I think we've covered some pretty big bases.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to say thanks and I'm glad to connect with everybody. It's nice to, yeah, get to know you guys a little bit better and, like Neil, I've always looked up to you as a surfer and just all around Awesome dude. I love listening to your articles and um reading your articles and um, nick, I've always looked up to you as well through your photography and you know as a boogie, me and Quinn growing up in town and uh, so it's just a delight to hang with you guys and Mike, you're kind of an asshole but I know.
Speaker 4:Okay, we have to give no, but let me just say that I appreciate you putting this all together and I've looked up to you as well. You know, ever since I started doing jujitsu and you're always just like super helpful to me and you know, one of those people that were just going to like beat my ass. You're always just giving me pointers, so I'm just stoked on all you guys. So, yeah, thanks for letting me be a part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, let me address something because I I it's kind of funny, kind of not. But after our interview, this is you know, I'm learning how to love jack, not that I haven't loved jack, but it's like. This is one of the weird things about being older and your perception of who you are like your brutal honesty. When we walked outside you were like dude. I always thought you were like a stupid asshole and I didn't know that you were actually intelligent in any way and it was so clean, like I loved it. I don't think I said were actually intelligent in any way and it was so clean, like I loved it.
Speaker 4:I don't think I said it quite that way.
Speaker 1:No, I think you just called me stupid.
Speaker 4:I was impressed with your intellect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But this is really a testimony to what I'm trying to bring to light is that I have a huge misperception of who I am. You know that the only way you've known me is that way. You know, like I've never as someone who feels like that I'm open, well, as open as I might be, that never happened for you. You know, and you know when I'm laughing, I, when I'm laughing, I'm like, yeah, I guess the only way you would have known me is this grumpy sewer peak guy at first. You know, and and like that's all I've been. You know, and I'm Mr Intimidator back then, or getting out of it and like man, what a, what a dick. You know that it was confirming for me, in both positive and negative, that there's stuff I really need to work on. You know that there are people out there that when I show up it's like, ah, shit, there's that guy. You know, and I love that you felt comfortable enough to just go.
Speaker 4:So thank you, thank you for telling me I was kind of just joking. I've always had a positive outlook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and, and, and I have always loved you. You know, it's like I. I, for the most part, love, love, most of the kids out there, even though they annoy the hell out of me. You were never one of the ones that annoyed me. How's that? I was easily annoyed.
Speaker 3:Uh, you, you oh, um, yeah, I think, uh, just, it's awesome that you're kind of putting this platform out there for people, especially males, to be able to talk about these types of things. You know, frankly and honestly, I think that's something that can only improve society moving forward. And, yeah, to get just for you like I.
Speaker 3:I I wouldn't say that you would feel like you're. I think you you're in your head so much more that you're thinking that you're just this big asshole like I. Everybody, every guy out in the water, had a bit, a little bit to them in that regard.
Speaker 3:So I think that it just all it takes is a one conversation you know, and I think that the more that you can have these conversations and we can look at each other eye to eye and see him as a as a human, then that's that's all that we need, and maybe that just wasn't available at that time, because we're 15 years apart and we only saw each other surfing and so.
Speaker 3:I think that we're all born in this world naked and afraid, and we're all highly emotional creatures, and it reminds me of how important community is and conversation, and so this is a great thing to be a part of, so I'm stoked to be here.
Speaker 1:That's great, thank you.
Speaker 3:I think, as far as the surf community goes, it's pretty hard to go out to the water and be like hey, bro, having a funky day, please let me have this wave.
Speaker 2:Can you hold it this way? I'm trying to go in. I don't know. I I uh, I feel like. I feel like the it's closed. I feel like it's closed. I feel like we're on a, on a normal daily level. Um, our community is open as we all think? Maybe it is. We're all friends. I always say hi to everybody. Nobody, nobody, knows what's going on in the inside of each other. You know, I feel like, um, I feel like the level of sharing is not at this level. This level is more real, more open, more honest about what's happening inside. We're in the tree of trust. You know what I mean. But the tree of, I mean the honesty that we can share with people.
Speaker 2:Obviously, we have to do it at certain times. You just don't do it in an open crowd, blah, blah, blah. It's just not always there and I don't know if it always has not always there, and um, I don't know if it always has to be there, but I feel like, as a community, I don't feel like we are all connected as much as um, as it seems like like my wife will be in the car with me and she's like Jesus you know everybody and I go. I don't know that guy's name. He's not in a wetsuit. I have no idea who that is, cause I only know what they look like in a wetsuit. I don't, I don't know most of anybody, other than waving at them and you know, saying saying hi, is that my fault? Maybe you know? Maybe, um, there are people who, like I would.
Speaker 2:There's in our community, there's people that you want to talk to and there's people that you don't want to talk to, and there's various reasons why. Sometimes it's to be included and sometimes it's to be exclusionary. Um, but I feel like it would be great if everyone was a little bit more open not fully, because that's a lot, but a little bit more open is good. I mean, neil, you always have a little story of what's going on with you every time I see you and I always appreciate it. And Mike used to start telling me I love you, bro, and I'd be like what the fuck? What is happening? And then I was like okay, I need to accept that, you know. Like, okay, cool, like this is awesome, this, this is something new that I don't hear often, and I got to learn how to take this and and I I respect that, I appreciate it. Thanks, yeah.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to just add in really briefly is that a lot of our current, the current story that we still tell ourselves in our minds, especially, you know, growing up in a time when men surfing together there was a lot more, you know, like butting heads and a lot of more talks, toxic aspects to that interaction. But I feel like for me, what I have to do is constantly reframe in my head where I'm not informing the present so much about how things used to be, because I honestly think that you know like, especially now, it's like I don't, I'm not exposed to really any super duper toxic stuff in the water?
Speaker 3:Not at all right super duper toxic stuff in the water. Not at all right, but I I do find sometimes I don't know if it's nostalgia or whatever it is, or just holding on to some kind of like contempt or maybe some feelings that I had about how I was treated surfing is that. It's like almost a demystifying or unromanticizing how I frame what's currently going on with how it was in the past. I think that just us being able to sit down and share these stories is a huge indication of just how far things have come.
Speaker 4:I agree, I think there's positive changes.
Speaker 3:But yeah, when you feel slighted or hurt from something in the past, you almost you don't want to in some kind of weird emotional, you know like abuse type of way, like sometimes it's hard to let go of that so. I think that we're all doing good work here and that you know things are, things are good, yeah yeah, well, thank you all.
Speaker 1:I I really appreciate you guys taking the time to be vulnerable this way, it it? You know I, you know I, had this fear that as we move forward in these kinds of conversations that that vulnerability will have like a negative effect. You know, I think when my interview with Nick happened the way it did, it's pretty overwhelming some of the response that we got and you know my wife has had a long time fear of, like I don't want you to be known more than how you're already known Like it's a lot you know and and, uh, you know I have no comment section you know, like there's, there's a lot of things that I am preparing my heart for as this thing gets a little bit more traction of like boy, am I really ready to be in the fire and under the microscope again, cause I lived my whole life that way, you know, being a pastor and all that. So, whatever trepidation I have about that, I really want you guys to all know that I very much feel comfortable with all of you.
Speaker 1:You know that it really is a privilege to sit here. It doesn't. I don't look at it like I deserve it. It just it looks like privilege to me, for me, and so I appreciate you guys in that way that you're each being vulnerable in your own way, willing to be transparent, the way you have been and and again. You know my motive has always been I'm sharing my story so others might be able to do it better than I did. You know it's. It's not a. You know it's. It's not a, it's not out of selfishness. In that way it's like I want people's lives to be better. So I appreciate that you guys brought that here, you know, with you also. So thanks so much for everything and bless y'all. You all have a good rest of your day. Ciao for now.