Manifesting Our Collective Future with Poet and Creativist René Urbanovich

What if the stories we tell could transform our realities and evolve the world at large? Join us for a thought-provoking episode of Language of the Soul podcast as we welcome René Urbanovich, a leading voice and creativity instructor, to explore the profound impact of creative acts on both the  individual and by extension, society. René shares her deep understanding of the humanities. Together, we explore the power of self-expression in shaping culture and human potential, as well as the importance of understanding the 'why' behind our creative endeavors.

Learn more about our guest Rene Urbanovich at the links below:
reneurbanovich.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr58GL1hOQQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAH8b95lUbY 

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Transcript

The Power of Story and Creativity

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast. I'm your host, dominic Domingo.

Speaker 2 0:07

And I'm your co-host, Virginia Grenier.

Speaker 1 0:09

We'd like to invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy some inspiring conversation. Here at Language of the Soul, we know that life is story. Individually, we're the products of the stories we tell about ourselves. Culture is the amalgamation of the stories we weave about the human condition. Here's the thing. Individually and collectively, we can write our own story. Thanks for tuning in and joining in the march toward human potential.

Speaker 2 0:44

Before we dive in, I encourage you to subscribe on Buzzsprout or join our Patreon community for exclusive content. Your ratings and reviews help us grow, so please take a moment to share the podcast with friends and family. Every bit of support helps us reach more hearts and minds.

Speaker 3 1:02

Let's get started our hearts and minds. Let's get started. You can also find you know the flip side and say what we can do with this amazing technology, and we will. It's just all so new and hopefully, just all these young people will grow up and teach their children the responsibilities of having this accessibility and having a voice. We're all small parts of the whole and that our small part matters and we have to self-develop to see what our small part is and then contribute it to the whole.

Speaker 1 1:40

Renee Urbanovich is a leading voice and creativity instructor in the Los Angeles area, having coached singers from television, film and the Broadway stage. Renee's vocal technique is now on her YouTube channel, voice Teacher Reacts, where she's extended her audience to the tens of thousands. Renee is a humanities through the arts professor, a poet and an award-winning author. She's a TEDx speaker, has given workshops and spoken at venues such as SAG-AFTRA Art Center, college of Design, osborne Head and Neck at Pepperdine Creative Talent Network and many more. After a vocal injury left her voiceless, renee went on to heal and earn a degree in creativity and search for the answers that would not only solve her personal dilemma but feed into the collective search for meaning. And then I added a little something to Renee's bio.

Speaker 1 2:33

Renee identifies as a creativist, someone who uses her innate creativity to benefit the collective. She teaches singing and humanities through the arts, so she engages with these ideas historically as well as currently. She believes creative acts benefit the individual and shape culture. She's a kindred spirit. Obviously right, virginia, a kindred spirit in that we agreed. Her philosophy is myth, narrative, historical awareness. All are threaded together with the force of creativity. So we're going to talk about that. I hope the relationship you know, is storytelling a form of self-expression, creativity or what is the relationship? Because, of course, I see everything through the lens of story and I think, virginia, you're, virginia, you're getting there right. We're both kind of seeing things that way, yeah. So, yeah, we're going to hopefully dissect that a little bit, anyway, so that's Renee, and welcome Renee Urbanovich.

Speaker 3 3:35

Thank you, Hi Dominic and hi Virginia, I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1 3:40

I think you're back. Yeah, we've been dying to get you back on and we had to get you from London this time.

Speaker 3 3:48

Oh yes, I'm just globetrotting. I'm in London, yes.

Speaker 1 3:52

Hard to tie you down. Thanks for fitting it in. I guess the way I'd like to start in the spirit of the new season. As we said, we've been asking a rote question of all of our guests, just to start out, you know, set the tone and then surely we'll depart and go down plenty of rabbit holes, but in the spirit of the podcast, just to set the tone maybe. Again. We talked a little bit, I think, in the pre-interview about the relationship between story and creativity, and is it just one of many forms of self-expression? What the hell is story? Of many forms of self-expression, what the hell is story? So the first question that we're asking everybody is what do you feel the traditional role of storytelling is in culture? And then the part B would be has it evolved?

Speaker 1 4:36

over time or has it remained the same, okay.

Speaker 3 4:38

Any thoughts? Okay, well, I don't want to jump the gun and just go for the final thing, but the role of storytelling in culture. Let's just, you know, dump the word creativity for a minute. So for me, because a lot of my research, a lot of my education, you know surrounded literature, which is story and narration and writing, and you know art for the humanities, philosophy, all of those they do focus on story and I think that if I had to winnow it down, I'd say that, basically, storytelling has functioned.

Speaker 3 5:16

The role is to pass on culture, just to pass on ritual, to document, to keep record on the outside. Of course there's always on the outside and on the inside, right. But I mean, I heard stories from my friend in Virginia who was an actor and had his master's degree in acting, and you know he believed that the first theater was around the fire pit, in, you know, in the Savannah, and that's where thespians got their start. And of course, you know dancers say no, you know dancing was the first art form in storytelling. And then a singer is going to tell you and especially you know someone who believes in not the Big Bang but the string theory a singer is going to say no vibration and song were the first story. We were the first way that we told stories. So I think a lot of people would agree that it's for the storytelling. But because of my education, I umbrella it with creativity, right.

Speaker 1 6:16

Well it's hard not to, and sorry to jump in already, but I feel like that's the conversation. Right Is self-expression, I agree. Vibration is conversation. Right Is self-expression, I agree. Vibration is everything right and we probably expressed ourselves through vibration first. I can't disagree with that. But I think it depends on how you define story. Right, there was a narrative element to dance, probably pretty early on, probably a narrative element to singing, or maybe not, but I think I'm kind of offering, maybe in my book, that self-expression is telling your story in the world is any form of self-expression, that's your story. So I don't want to get hung up on narrative, if that makes sense. I'm just calling any form of self-expression telling your story using your authentic gifts and sort of contributing them back. But yeah, let's not jump the gun story using your authentic gifts and sort of contributing them back.

Speaker 3 7:06

But yeah, let's not jump the gun.

Speaker 3 7:07

Yeah, I could just jump there, but just to follow it along, to think of the historical part. You know when, if we started out with either grunts, vibrations, pantomimes or like the cave drawings, they had narration right. The cave drawings have are telling a story. And then you know, we graduated from that to epic poetry. That was like memorized and passed down from poet to poet.

Speaker 3 7:29

And I had this one friend, annie Finch, and we did a little workshop at one of the college that I taught at and I learned cause I sat in on her poetry workshop that poets were the original historians, like they were the ones that memorized the history of what was going on, and they were looked at as wise. And you know, the Kings wanted their wisdom and their intuition. And you know, now we just think of poets as these people that walk around with black berets and they're brooding, you know, and just depressed. But the poets weren't always in that arena. So anyway, so you can just track it as far as the documenting goes, and because I teach what's it called, it's not called a series. Whatever I teach, you know the whole spectrum of humanities. We don't go deep into music, we don't go deep into one thing, it's survey. It's a survey.

Speaker 1 8:22

Right, right right.

Speaker 3 8:26

And so you know, we talk about the epic of, epic of gilgamesh, and ancient greek tragedies and shakespearean plays, and then you know, like swan lake, the very advanced material for about ballerinas, and I mean, for example, there was the um, the photographer who took the picture of the naked Vietnamese girl.

Speaker 1 8:46

What was his name, I don't remember, but iconic, yeah, iconic.

Speaker 3 8:52

Well, there was Dorothea Lange. These are the things I teach to try and get the students to see how transformative and powerful story was at the time. So his name was Nick Oot and he helped to end the vietnam war because he took that picture of that naked girl.

Speaker 1 9:07

Who's so it's the prime example of social reform, or right, social evolution, resulting from image, right, if you agree that image is a story. They say we live in an image saturated society right now and I would say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I I think I've heard you talk about that section of your humanities class and the photographs you used to really drive that home, that story. You know that an image is a story and it actually shapes policy.

Speaker 3 9:36

It's amazing. It is amazing and it has shaped policy. And before photography it had to be art, obviously, and I always use Picasso's Guernica. I don't think you know photography was around, but no one you know was going out and doing a lot of war photographs, maybe per se, the record keeping, and then what happens to that role is different than what the role is. The outcome is different than the role. We can't control the outcomes.

Speaker 3 10:15

Something else I learned, too when I was trying to write my TED Talk and I was getting all off on because my book itself is about we'll talk about it later, obviously but the book that I wrote was just about trying to get people not to put out vapid content just to get likes, and I was really begging people to see that what they put out is what makes culture. We make society and that's one of the lines in the Ted talk we are society, we make society. But what I learned was cause, you know, all this is new to me. I'm I'm getting older. I mean Tik TOK and Twitter, which is now X, and Facebook and Instagram, and there's just so many places people are investing their time and energy and content into. That is creating something called the algorithm is God Right, um, and so it.

Speaker 3 11:10

The algorithm in the old days was the word process. Before algorithm was what it is now today on social media. Algorithm had to do with the process. Something had to go through literally had. It was literally the process. So it's so weird that now it's the product. Everybody wants that as their product. They want to get the outcome. That's their goal, that's their outcome. So the role of storytelling just to go back to the question may have the function, might be different than the role, but if it originates with telling our stories and making our mark and keeping track of where we've been as humans, then it's up to us what we do with that and that's the function of it, that's not just the role of it. So if I did have to say, I'm not allowed to say the word creativity ever again storytelling alone, with all those ways that we use storytelling, is the same thing as creativity. They're the other side of the coin.

Speaker 1 12:11

I guess that's what I was sort of offering earlier is that, again through the lens of this podcast which came from the book, the idea is I'm using the word story loosely so if you're self-expressing, you're telling your worldview, you're sharing your worldview and that's all story, right? The stories we tell ourselves culturally, that we internalize through socialization, the stories we all individually, subjectively, tell ourselves all day, every day. Right, we build stories around everything we see. Anyway, we're a little bit sort of in the woods already. So I want to follow up on a few things you just said, and I think it'll tie it back to story, and I'm just going to read what I one of the prompts I had written down, because it's directly related to what you're hinting at, and I use the word noise, you use the words vapid content, and I very much distinguish between content and self expression that actually transforms the individual and then, by extension, transforms society. So, through the lens of story, I very much parse between content and there's way too much of it in the eyes of some, including me and then transformative story. So I'm just going to read the question, because you pretty much hinted at it big time, and what you just said.

Speaker 1 13:25

So I wrote in your workshops and I know because you did one in my class at Art Center and then I've sat in on plenty of your seminars. So, without going to your TED Talk right this moment or repeating our last episode, that's one thing I wanted to say. Renee has already been on and it was wonderful. So if any of our listeners want to tune into that previous episode, we very much break down her book, which is the creativity right Conundrum, slash Connection, slash Connection, right. So anyway, without repeating all of that, this should maybe hint at it or cover it.

The Importance of Self-Regulation

Speaker 1 13:58

So I know from sitting in on your seminars that you use that pot metaphor to speak about the inner realm that must be nurtured and developed and these are my words but in order to access your authentic voice or what you have to say in the world. And then I personally, like I said, parse between content versus authentic self-expression that transforms. So in a culture, it's been said we live in an image-saturated society or a content-saturated society. If you agree with that, what is the most crucial message you'd like to impart with regard to anyone with a craft that's on the road to self-expression? What is needed in all this noise?

Speaker 3 14:47

noise. What I think about now, when I wrote my book, kind of almost shaming people for putting out shitty content just to see how many likes they could get, and then if there's enough this or that, then they would do more of that, and it had nothing to do with their heart. So the end of my realization is so you could put out songs that are just about kissing and yay, and then you get famous and you get rich and they're standing there. You've reached all your goals and you're still unhappy because you don't have an inner realm, because you are not being true to yourself. So all I can think of about all these other people who are just cranking out content that might just be noise or that might just be shallow, is that's where they're at in their process, that they're just super unevolved or immature. And so part of me wants to be a loving, wise old sage and say that's where you're at, you're allowed to be there. You will grow up, you will grow a soul.

Speaker 3 15:40

You will learn that you need to be deeply connected to your inner self. No-transcript. Before I never thought it was worth anybody's time to do stuff like that.

Speaker 1 16:37

All right, I could respond to so many things you just said, but I feel the same way. There's a lot of creativity and little TikTok videos. Right, there's a lot of creativity and little TikTok videos. Right, there's a lot of creativity. I did notice that early on in the phenomenon of social media. Wow, people are expressing themselves. This is actually creativity in action.

Speaker 1 16:55

But I think maybe the fatal combo is the fact that there are no jobs right, that a lot of young people are graduating not hitting the ground running right in their chosen career. They're a bit lost and society is a bit lost, you know. And so everybody's waiting for lightning strike. They're getting addicted to those likes. They're trying to build a brand in social media because they have limited options. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 17:20

But I would also add it into the equation that the onus is on all of us not to suck the teat of youth is how I put it To fight for the relevance of our older artists who actually have life experience that informs their work. The onus is on the public not to stop scrolling and click every time they see an ab or right tits and ass, or you name it. I mean I stop for the kitties right, we all need our mindless entertainment. We all stopped for the kitties, right? We all need our mindless entertainment. We all need our oxytocin and we all need a good laugh, but I try to. When, once the algorithm decided that all I want to see are dogs and abs, I I started trying to fool it.

Speaker 1 18:00

It's fascinating pandering at some point it's. Does that make sense? Each one of us needs to self-regulate, and that's how we'll return cultural value to wisdom and experience and poetry and art and not and I'm using these words tits and ass and maybe the almighty dollar. Maybe that's the problem too. We're very consumerist. Is any of that related?

Speaker 3 18:22

Yeah, it's actually very related and I agree with you. In the beginning it's like, oh, look at all these people being so creative, and what if it's like a goldmine? I always say that YouTube is like a goldmine.

Speaker 1 18:37

Do you know about Rule 35? Sorry, no, I think it's Rule 35, maybe 34 of the internet Virginia. Do you know that concept?

Speaker 2 18:45

I don't think I've heard that.

Speaker 1 18:46

It's basically like, if it exists, there's porn for it. And then the other thing is anything you want or need, it's on the Internet. Sure, you have to sift through a bunch of bogus like fake news and bogus information, but it is there if your fingers are strong enough to get there.

Speaker 2 19:02

yeah I kind of wonder if people don't turn internally enough and reflect too because they want things. So we've gotten to that insta gratification too. That it makes me kind of wonder that when we are perceiving the world and stuff that we forget that it's not just where we've been, it's also where we're going and we don't reflect internally enough on that landscape that.

Speaker 1 19:26

Maybe that's what I meant by we all need to self-regulate. Right, it's on us to put value on A, B, C or D and self-regulate. I just think that's in every way right, Everybody's. We're kind of jumping all over here, but even AI, right, the big catastrophic threat of AI. Everybody turns into a doom speaker when they talk about AI and it becomes very apocalyptic. But you know what, If we self-regulate, there's a way to use it as a tool and for it not to become our overlords.

Speaker 3 19:57

I think that there might be a moment where people who are undeveloped or unevolved, do you know, go overboard and then they self-correct, and so self self-governance is something that parents are going to have to teach their kids too. It's. It's really hard to like raise kids in this um era right now too, because you don't know how much is too much, not just for their heart and their mind, but for their eyeballs and the development of their brain and the blue light and the red light and the all of it. So you know about epigenetics and I think that people are realizing that um the more we pass on to our kids, you know, with this panic or with this anxiety is really a big, really big thing right now. So learning to self-regulate has um is a really big word in psychology, right Virginia, and we parents used to call it more like self-governance. So I mean it's.

Speaker 1 20:55

Well, there's impulse control, but I'm talking more on an ethical level. It's across the board. If broadcasters were more vigilant about unbiased reporting and they placed less value on their brand, right. So CNN or MSNBC are catering to the left and Fox News is catering to the right. Well, you know what, before Fox and CNN existed, there was something called news that at least kept up the guise of unbiased reporting right.

Speaker 1 21:23

So that industry needs to self-regulate. How about the record industry? Once upon a time, artists like I will use Kate Bush or Tori Amos could maintain a relationship with the record label despite never having a top 10 hit, because it was art for art's sake, not the almighty dollar. So that industry could self-regulate a little bit. It goes on and on. Right, the movie industry has turned toward. Oh no, we'll only pump money into something with a toy and a franchise and built in nostalgia, and we'll bank on those little grown up girls that used to love Beauty and the Beast as a child, but now they're grown up with a pocketbook like we all need to. Sorry, I'm preaching now. Does that make sense? Like every industry could self-regulate. It's not just the parents trying to limit the screen time because they've read about a study or two on the internet.

Speaker 3 22:12

Well, it's true. All of that is true. It makes complete sense and it's true, and I mean I think I saw-.

Speaker 1 22:18

And it's a fantasy.

Speaker 3 22:20

Well, it doesn't have to be, though, because it's kind of the same thing as when let's just use what's his name, jim Carrey, as an example how he did everything he wanted to do. He's the big. He's the big guy who said I wrote myself a million dollar check and I put it in myrey, and I am famous, and I did everything I ever wanted to do, and now I'm going to grow a long beard and become an artist and go meditate the rest of my life, because he is exactly framing that thing, the whole trajectory of development.

Speaker 3 23:00

You think you want the thing on the outside, but when you don't develop the inside, then the thing on the outside doesn't make you happy, whether that's getting married, I mean. Forget social media, forget record labels, forget anything. But when you haven't learned what character is and what wisdom is and you haven't gone within and done any processing on the inside, which is that metaphor of the pot, the inside is abstract, and the abstract drives the concrete.

Speaker 3 23:28

But nobody gets taught that it's the same thing Andrea or any mythologist will tell you. You know it's the unconscious will always drive the conscious. And so in the beginning, it's this beautiful thing to democratize everything. Like people will look at my photographs on Instagram and I'll get a million likes. People want to be seen.

Speaker 1 23:50

I think it was a good and bad when you saw everybody stands a chance. Now A kid can make a film and edit it in his garage on Final Cut Pro and he actually now stands a chance of gaining distribution. That's called leveling the playing field, right, a kid, justin Bieber, right, was one of the first ones to get discovered for all those likes online and then build a career out of it. So that is the I love that word democratization. Thanks for saying that. But what is the downside? I used to say well, it's the idea now that all those young people, as I said, that didn't hit the ground running, are waiting for a lightning strike. It's like sitting at a pharmacy and waiting to be discovered in old Hollywood, right?

Speaker 1 24:32

So, I did think that was kind of sad in some ways, because it ain't going to happen for everybody. But I don't know what is the downside of the democratization, if there is one.

Speaker 3 24:42

Oh, I'm sure there's a downside. I mean, there's a book, there's a movie about it called Remix, and he explores it beautifully, especially because he's so young. This is 10 years ago now that I saw it, but I was on the older side and he was on the younger side and trying to, you know, and he changed my mind about because I thought it was just horrible, because I mean, my students would record horrible chord progressions with horrible noise and then it would get put out there on iTunes and people would buy it and I just thought this is the greatest dumbing down of real music I've ever heard. This can't be done. And then all of the repetition with the pop music now, um, with just one line being said over and over and over.

Exploring Creativity and Inspiration

Speaker 3 25:32

And when they do a scientific study with the electrocephalograph things on their head, they see that the brain waves are like practically dead and it does something to dumb us down. And all of the studies. There's, book after book. But then you can also find, you know, the flip side and say what we can do with this amazing technology, and we will. It's just all so new. It's just new. We can think of it as you know, possibility and use our imaginations to visualize the kind of world where you know Mr Rogers did connect with people. He did. He used television to do something really good and saved a lot of people's lives and they told him so. So we all have the potential to be lifesavers in this arena and if we just visualize that and hope for that, and hopefully just all these young people will grow up and teach their children the responsibilities of having this accessibility and having a voice.

Speaker 1 26:35

I love it. Yeah, it's beautiful. We could all be a Mr Rogers or at the very least a Jim Carrey, right. And that's the example of building a soul right, realizing the dead end road that is craft and then connecting with a more soulful approach, and that's contribution based. But I love the metaphor too of the music, the way you described it. Uh, because the articles I've read talk about how action it's probably due to sampling.

Speaker 1 27:03

But modern pop music anyway only vacillates between certain chords. It doesn't sort of evolve, if that makes sense. It vacillates between a set amount of chords and then the melodies don't meander either. So to me that's emblematic of like mimicry versus actually creating via inspiration. So when you develop that inner realm you're talking about, you do have a worldview and then it gets connected to craft via inspiration.

Speaker 1 27:35

You write a song because the universe is demanding it from you. You don't write it by trying to mimic. You name the artist that came before, perfect metaphor for the content we're talking about. That doesn't just lack, maybe, the inner realm, the development of the soul, but it's mimicry period. What it's lacking actually is inspiration from the universe. So maybe it's also on the art schools to teach. I mean, I paid to go to art center, one of the most expensive art schools in the country, to actually learn how to think. It wasn't about craft. I didn't go there to learn how to put a brush to a canvas. Sure, I learned light, logic and color theory and perspective, but more importantly, I learned the why part. Why are you doing this in the first place?

Speaker 3 28:21

Love it, love it. Well, and that was what my goal in life 10 years ago was was just to teach, not how to be creative, but why. And I mean I had a little assistant at one point. Her name was Emily. Yeah, she really liked me and she's like this has changed my life. And so we did a couple of seminars where I talk about the why. And then the next seminar she said now I think we should do one that has to, has to do the how to be creative. I, I go there's plenty of those go to one that's not what, how to be how to be.

Speaker 1 28:52

Do you mean my technique or craft over the why part?

Speaker 3 28:56

yeah, I just wanted to. I just want to talk about why we are creative. I don't want to talk about how to be creative. That is not my bent. I did my research on why, and that's my message, and everybody will, you know, jump on the bandwagon and realize that we're all small parts of the whole and that our small part matters, and we have to self-develop to see what our small part is and then contribute it to the whole. I don't want to sit and talk about, um, do these exercises?

Speaker 1 29:25

I think we're very like-minded on that front. You remember Language of the Soul soul. The book only evolved because tina price, whom you know, asked me mid-pandemic to do a series for a global reach because everybody was so starved and in their isolation for creative outlets. And I I thought about it and, like she asked me to do something on story and I I said yeah, there's enough books out there on technique and the Western storytelling structure and the want and the need and the character arc and the story. I was like that doesn't satisfy me to talk about technique or craft, let's talk about the white part. So I think we were on the same trajectory, renee for sure.

Speaker 3 30:08

You know that's another thing. Yay for tina bless and that's how.

Speaker 1 30:12

That is how your book yeah, but that's obviously.

Speaker 3 30:15

You and I are both wired in that way. We want to talk about the underlying thing behind the technique, not just how to execute a perfect tone. But I have gotten in my business where I teach singing, that I really feel like you cannot, we can't get to the heart yet, let's just do. But it's a little unfulfilling. And I have two teachers that teach for me now and they know I'm a technician vocally, so they go right for the guttural and I feel like, yeah, I haven't done that in a while.

Speaker 3 30:42

So they're kind of it's not a shameful thing, but they're reminding me that's what I used to be more about. But then people started coming to me for how do I get this note, how do I get this note? And I became just a tone factory.

Speaker 1 30:54

I love it.

Speaker 3 30:55

Instead of what they're doing now, they're bringing this new life. They're like 33, 34. I'm like 60. So they're bringing all this new life into the why to my studio. It just makes me cry to see it happening. So I mean even someone as self-aware. I have such a strong meta self and I'm very engaged when I teach. I love teaching. But I even got to the point where I forgot the why in my own art form.

Seeking Purpose in Artistic Expression

Speaker 1 31:21

Yes. Well, let me ask you a question on that front. You've been teaching longer than I, but we've both been teaching for decades, so I would say I've learned more by observing not just the creative processes and different relationships with it of my students over the years, but I call it the artistic journey at large. I see how they evolve right in their relationship with their craft and then I keep, you know, keep in touch with them after they graduate and I kind of see the lifelong artistic journey. So I've learned so much just by watching that with your students.

Speaker 1 31:53

Do you feel like, yes, they might have picked a craft because, I don't know, they just had a love of a given form, right, and so they just wanted to be a part of it, and so now they're learning technique and then at some point they might dig deep and connect that craft with a sense of purpose and go oh, here's why, like you did, you came into why you were doing it in the first place. But you know what? It may never happen for some artists. Is that okay? And do you see it happening, kind of clicking for people at different times? I call it finding your voice, but then connecting that voice with a sense of purpose and contributing it back to the collective is like a whole nother milestone. So do you think it happens for everybody? Are some people just content to learn really good technique and I don't know, maybe get their personal catharsis by doing it, but maybe never really find their voice. Is that possible?

Speaker 3 32:44

Well, I mean, if I were to sit down and do research and count up all my students and literally sit down and do the research, I would say that only one third of the people ever get to have a creativity lesson with me, because most of them don't get that deep into it yet. Healed from like nodules and polyps and just like chronic hoarseness and frustration and tightness, those were there because of their deep passion for singing and so they're the ones that I go deep with and we do journaling and we just talk about all of that.

Speaker 3 33:22

But overall, in the past 40, 40 years, 41 years that I've been teaching, no less than a third of the people have ever been able to connect it to their heart and soul. And I am working on an online course um, right now, and um, it is just technique, but I do say at the beginning look, this is just physical technique. The next video will be about your heart. You're here because you want to sing, like these people on that you see on youtube and that you hear on spotify, and I'll help you, but then we have to make it art. So I definitely make a distinction but what I should do. But I'm trying to brand right, you're trying to brand and sell the fucking course. So I wish that I could have done it simultaneously. You know, back and forth, but it's really hard to organize a book like that and so it's really hard to organize a course like that, right, but you know.

Speaker 1 34:22

Well, that's, I guess, what I meant. It kind of clicks at different times for different people in their journey, or it may never click at all. So I just feel like I want to just add this in, uh, in what I've taught yes, they may never really be out to change the world or really have much to say in our dialectic, but they have a really well-honed craft and there's room for it, right, whether it's on production, on a film or a film, so being a wrist, that's how I put it, or a hack, if you want to be really negative about it, but there's room for that. So I think you were kind of hinting at. It sounded like you were nudging them toward realizing an Adele or a whomever. I mean, she's not a good example for technique, but self-expression, right, she's at the top of the list. So do they click for your students that you know what? The thing you were going for really doesn't have much to do with technique. It has to do with self-expression, you know.

Speaker 3 35:22

Yeah, you're so right, and that's a desire, such a deep desire I'll get a six-year-old coming in. They have a desire to self-express and be listened to and to be heard and to be seen, and they love music and they're gifted and their parents bring them up my driveway. So there's something about self-expression that it's so obvious with singers and then with X Factor and you know American Idol and London's Got Talent, america's Got Talent, everybody's really into singing right now, lucky me, right, I think maybe in the seventies, everybody was really into guitar playing, but right now everyone is just worshiping singers.

Speaker 3 35:58

They just think it's so amazing to hit a high note. It's not, it's easily done, but when somebody does it with heart and it, it just it hits you on a certain level. It is transformative, it is creative.

Speaker 1 36:10

Yes, it is a good story as far as that's what I'm wondering, though Like you hope that transcends, right, the the reason they're doing it in the first place, you hope that transcends, and I do believe that's. Let's not use Adele as an example but, like, lion King struck a chord with people because it was inspired, because it was a really universal story that spoke of the human condition. It wasn't about the almighty dollar or making bank at the box office, and so I do one hopes it transcends. But I I'm just wondering, because you are marketing it in a certain way. But it sounds like early on you're saying actually, what you're going for is the spark, the flair, the drive. That's what you're appreciating and all those artists you want to mimic Like, do you?

Speaker 1 36:56

see it clicking for people.

Speaker 3 36:57

Right. Well, you know what's just been so good for me? Because you know I have been doing something the same for so long. I didn't plan on talking about this, but I just might as well share my heart with you guys, because, um, I have just been doing it for so long that it I get. I'm just so good at it and I know how to fix a tone, and here let me help you do that. And so it hasn't lost its spark, because it's something I'm passionate about. Please don't wreck your voice.

Speaker 1 37:24

Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 37:25

Yeah, no one was there for me and I wrecked my voice. But, boy, I found this thing called Voice Teacher Reacts. And I know I'm not businesslike and I know I'm not professional. Sometimes I don't work in an office and you know I do the humanities teaching, sometimes in the classroom, not often, but I'm still allowed to cry. So when they stand up and they play the video that they're picking, which Childish Gambino did a song once, I bawled my eyes out through the whole thing in my cause. I've never seen it, I don't even know what song it was, but I couldn't stop crying. But I'm allowed to cry because I'm. I'm teaching humanities and they played a very emotional piece. And then last night I saw a musical theater piece and the person singing it was trans and they started sharing such heartfelt stuff and singing beautifully. If they were singing shitily I would not have cried.

Speaker 1 38:19

I would not have cried. I was about to say that earlier. Don't you think technique is there to support the execution of inspiration? That's right. You hit a wall like mom used to hit a wall when she didn't have the technique to do what she was envisioning.

Speaker 3 38:34

Absolutely, and that's why I feel it's very important that I give them the technique to really express themselves, like this guy last night on the West end in this play called this musical theater play called why am I so single. And you walk in and you have no idea it's going to be about your personal narratives that have to change and so I'm allowed to cry all the time. So if I lived in a, if I worked in an office, I would know how to not cry, but I don't. So I cry in my office, my studio, I cry all the time. So I started doing voice teacher reacts and you can watch them all. I don't know how many I have, I don't know, maybe 30. I don't know. And you can tell the ones that are deeply connected to the collective unconscious, that have something to say. I bawl my eyes out through the whole thing. But then the ones that are kind of like I sit there and go well, let's talk about her technique, right?

Speaker 1 39:28

right that are kind of like eh, I sit there and go well, let's talk about her technique.

Speaker 3 39:36

I can't talk about technique when I'm. When I was doing what's his name, James Blunt was doing a song called Monster. I go, I can't talk about his technique. All I could do was feel the song, so you forget, you just lose the technique. It's fascinating. And what's the other guy's name?

Speaker 1 40:00

Post Malone. He did a song and I bawled my eyes out through it and I was like I guess I forgot to talk about technique be talked about. So then, maybe I and I don't think it's because they have the technique under their belt to pull off what they're inspired to pull off. They might just be, you know, that kind of art like garage bands that just have something to say and they don't bother learning technique. That is valid, isn't it?

Speaker 3 40:24

I've always loved that about you, nick, because you're such a talented artist artist and I know sometimes I get a little bug up my rear and I wish so bad I could paint and you're always so nice about whatever I attempt to do.

Speaker 2 40:36

You see the value in it, whether it's terrible I was gonna say I think you hit a really good point when you were talking about how you don't work, you know, in like a corporate type office setting to where you're able to express emotion and I, and as you're saying that and as you guys have just been kind of talking about, you know the whole connection to the human experience and the collective versus. You know the technique and the skill and, and just focusing on the technical aspects of it, I'm wondering if, culturally, we've kind of somewhat of desensitized ourselves to the fact that it's okay to to show personal, you know, emotion and reflection and the things we do kind of as a society have toned that down to where we see it as like an unprofessional Cause.

Speaker 1 41:24

I mean is that why they're so starved for self-expression, in other words?

Speaker 2 41:28

Yeah, well, and I'm like that is why we're sorry and why there, there sometimes seems to be that shallowness to where, you know, like you know it is that whole, you know capitalistic, you know almighty dollar kind of persona that that you see out there, because we, we have disconnected ourselves from that, allowing us to show that emotional, personal side of ourselves.

Cultural Differences and Unity Through Story

Speaker 3 41:53

That could be true in, you know, corporate world and all of that, and I think it was true up until maybe two years ago or a year ago. Online, when you're branding yourself, you have to have arrived, like if you're a life coach, you then show your life, show that big mansion, you know, you're showing off how great you are and then you'll be someone's life coach. But then just recently, this hunger it reminds me of the nineties with music, how the garage bands became very. People became hungry for that raw, authentic sound in the garage band after Depeche Mode and all of the electronic music. And so, after all, these people are showing off their jets and their. These people that just go on just saying, look, I do this and I do that and I, I I'm very. They're just more vulnerable online. Now they're selling you their product with pure honesty now yes.

Speaker 3 42:45

Very recent, so I do agree, sorry, yeah, you hit.

Speaker 1 42:48

I mean I think the pendulum swings, right. So we get really consumerist and really sort of corporate and then we swing back like with the garage bands, like you were saying, renee, and even the art world, reflect was less sort of graphic and slick and more earthy and tactile and sensual, and so I do think the pendulum swings. But what I heard in there a little bit and tell me if this is what you're hinting at Virginia is like there are cultures that are way that really shame vulnerability, right, and it's patriarchy, right. So Latin cultures really shame any form of you know its weakness.

Speaker 1 43:25

To show emotion is weakness and we're ahead of the game in America, right, because we're everybody stands a chance. We're the melting weakness and we're ahead of the game in America, right, because we're everybody stands a chance. We're the melting pot, we're the land of opportunity, we don't judge people on socioeconomic agenda and it's not as tough a culture as like some Latin cultures. But I guess what I was saying is maybe I see that we've moved out of that toward maybe oversharing, out of that toward maybe oversharing. So we're rewarded for being broken and for identifying by our disease, whether it's alcoholism or whatever that is. So. That is a pendulum swing, but I guess, renee, my question is do you encounter students that need a nudge? They're just inhibited or stilted and they need a nudge, or is everybody just vomiting their shit all over the place?

Speaker 3 44:11

you're so right, you just, you just hit it. It depends on what subculture you're in. You're right. The diagnosis thing like oh my kids on this, this and this, oh my kids on this, like, wait my kids don't have the new pony at the christmas, at the birthday party.

Speaker 1 44:25

Right, it's the new interesting, it's so interesting.

Speaker 3 44:28

But, um, I feel like you know, my students, I, you know I could, I could write a book and do research on this. You know, like all the christian girls in the beginning that I used to have, like 20 years ago, they belted the hardest, because I talk about patriarchy, right, they didn't, they weren't allowed to have a voice unless they were singing for the lord. Then they would scream and wow, where did this come from?

Speaker 1 44:52

sorry I, I taught it a biola, that christian, and they were so horny.

Speaker 3 44:57

I am telling you the men and the women yeah, they're repressed, yep yeah, so well, anyway, I will say this speaking of um, looking within virginia and looking within Virginia and looking within Nick, I want to say this that I mean the last thing I want to talk about is what's on the news, because I think I told you like a month ago or when I signed up, the one thing I can't talk about is current events, because I will not be able to not be emotional, so as far as the stories we tell ourselves and people holding on to their side of the story and not nudging, and we have a lot of cultural differences in this world, and so I'll give a micro example right now and then I'll give a macro example of what I tied in with story, because, remember, last time I was on, I told you everything had to do with story, all of a sudden in my personal life and I was confronted with the stories I was telling myself about my own narrative.

Speaker 3 45:57

So that's not this. This is exactly what you're talking about. There's some cultures that might shame vulnerability and, yes, we're over-correcting. Now Everybody's got a diagnosis on their sleeve. Who knows where we'll land?

Speaker 3 46:10

So I'm writing a book on my grandparents' story and it's really, really hard because it just means too much to me. So I've written it over and over. I wrote 80,000 words and then I trashed it and then I started again. I've got 30,000 words, I've trashed it. So I just want to. I just want to write something beautiful.

Speaker 3 46:30

It's so simple and I don't think I'm standing in my own way, but anyway, I have a writing coach to help me, because nobody wants to read my 5,000 words over and over in 10 different ways without getting paid. So so this is so embarrassing. Okay, I'm, you know, I'm post-menopausal, which means I don't have as many filters as I used to have, um, and so I was trying to get online with my writing coach and, um, I couldn't get online. And I couldn't get online and I ran into my daughter, rosie, to help me with the tech and she said well, why did she do it this way?

Speaker 3 47:05

I go oh she's stupid, but tech I don't know. Okay, and guess what I get get online. And she says I heard everything you guys said and so, and so they're, they're not American, she's not an American, she's from somewhere in the countryside in the UK. And so I vacillated like do I say I'm sorry or not, not? So I wrote a letter and I couldn't decide whether I should say I'm so sorry that you heard me say that. How me? I mean, I didn't say she's bad with tech, I said she's stupid with that. But in my defense, I had just woken up and I was jet lagged and I was. I I'm bad with tech, I'm fumbling projector projector.

Speaker 3 47:49

I just said that and I felt so bad and I couldn't take it back and so I wrote the letter and then I kept talking to Rosie and like, but she's, she's English.

Speaker 1 48:00

She's not going to talk about it.

Speaker 3 48:02

I refuse to let my ego stop me from being humble that for my own sake I had to apologize and pretend instead of pretending it didn't happen, whether she wanted to talk about it or not. I couldn't let my ego and my pride stop me from apologizing. And so cultural differences. I might should have not said a word and just pretended it didn't happen, but I went ahead and apologized and then, overall, just the differences in. You know, she would have her side of the story, I would have my side of the story. Why did she even apologize? She should have made it, not made it worse by apologizing. In her culture you don't do that and in our culture, you know. I want to. I don't want to be prideful, so I stick to my side. I was not wrong. I gave in. I said I was sorry. She sticks to her side. This is just a mini little story. She sticks to her side. No, she never should have said a word. She shouldn't have. That's wrong. She should have kept it to herself. That shouldn't happen.

Speaker 3 48:58

And so, from a global perspective, everyone has their side of the story, of what's happening in America or over in the Middle East or whatever. Everyone has their side of the story and everyone wants to stick to their side of the story. But what we have to remember is what is our outcome? What is the outcome we're after? And if you believe in, you know creativity and storytelling and all of that. We want unity. We want world peace.

Speaker 3 49:23

So if every person doesn't have the same value system and they don't want unity, where do you go from there? It has to do with exactly what we were talking about the inner realm. If too many people are not visiting the inner realm, they're so empty. So they look to the world leaders, they look to the dictators, they look to the fascist leaders. And this is what we do when we're empty on the inside. We look to the outside to solve our inner problem. But the problem is on the inside of each individual. And if enough people spent enough time working on their true selves and connecting with their inner realm, then we would not look to dictatorship and fascism and the world leaders to fulfill us, not look to dictatorship and fascism and the world leaders to fulfill us, and we would be able to join hands across the globe with this wonderful thing called the World Wide Web and find unity by ourselves, and we wouldn't need these wars. We would win.

Speaker 1 50:29

Yeah, I think we always look to leadership to solve our problems for us, right, and that's a trend that's been getting worse the last few decades. We're looking for daddy, we're looking for our government not just to litigate everything for us, right, Because we're overly litigious, but we're tuning in too much, if that makes sense, right? I think if we, without being sociopathic, just tune the noise out, yes, and nurture our inner realm, then it wouldn't matter so much that we have fascists trying to posture for power, right? We would all just I don't know take accountability. That's kind of what I was saying about self-regulating. You can't expect the government to solve all of our problems for us.

Speaker 3 51:12

We are the ones that make up society, and then we turn to external sources such as leaders, and so I don't want to say we're doomed. I don't want to be a dooms person. I want to use my imagination and my hope and my humanity.

Speaker 1 51:42

Yeah, to self-create your world, because the real world is an amalgamation of all of our subjective experiences, right?

Speaker 2 51:51

I think it's about trusting ourselves. You know too, I think it's, you know, being able to, to trust what, what you're feeling, what you feel inspired, what your purpose is, and and sometimes I think it's like you look outward at least I've come across this with, with people that, um, that I've spoken to, where it's like they feel like they need that outwardly um kind of vindication to what they internally are sensing, and when they don't get that, they think it's wrong and it's like, but that doesn't always mean it's wrong. You have to have some trust too, and you know what, what you're deeply feeling, if you're reflective enough anyways.

Speaker 3 52:32

Right, know what, what you're deeply feeling, if you're reflective enough. Anyways, right, reflection is such a under used. We need to be more reflective.

Speaker 1 52:38

We really do, I agree yeah, well, you know, renee, I took stock at one point of what, why I do what I do, right, when first, really in my 20s or early 30s I think, I thought why did I study medicine, illustration, you know? Why do I paint? What are, what are they all my creative efforts have in common? And why did I spend $15,000 a term to go to art center at the time, and now it would be 45,000 a term. But you know, I realized, oh, okay, well, everything I've ever written or painted or self-expressed has to do with kind of waking people up, like saying, hey, look beyond the end of your nose. So that is what you called reflection. All I've ever wanted to do is encourage people to be introspective, reflective, literally look beyond the end of their nose, right, Whether it's taken the subtext of a moment or right, all the different stories that inform a moment.

Speaker 1 53:44

And anyway, I don't know that we're going to create world peace or solve the world's problems here, but I do think it's ironic. I have to say that none of us want to be political and Virginia and I often say but it's a human issue, it's not a political issue. You can politicize anything by building a story around it. There are human issues that transcend all of that. So it is ironic, renee, that we didn't want to go there, but yet we're literally on the brink of World War III, the day we scheduled it. It couldn't be more, the stakes couldn't be higher. So I just think it's hard not to talk about it and it has nothing to do with politics in my world, but I think actually that's what we're being called upon to do is not just question institutions, not just question authority, because I think we're actually in kind of an adolescent phase of being too paranoid, of adopting every conspiracy theory that comes along.

Speaker 1 54:35

I think it's good to be skeptical, but I think what we need to do is look at the source. There's a million, and I got in trouble by saying it's nuanced this whole, and we're not going to talk about it, but the whole Middle East situation. Of course it's nuanced. There's thousands of years of history there, but a lot of people want to virtue signal and say, oh no, it's a humanitarian issue. It's very clear, right or wrong, and it's just not. It's very nuanced. So I think we need to continue examining the stories that the East is telling. Which stories are the West telling, right? And the news outlets that you're taking in 24-7 like a fish in the boiling water. We need to question the source and somehow arrive, like you're saying, renee, at the interconnectivity aspect of everything.

Speaker 1 55:22

What benefits the collective? I'm talking in real general terms. I could get specific, but I don't think you want to. You know, I think it's. We all need to find the meeting ground, and when I say analyze the source, what I mean is and this is what my book is largely about is look at the role of semantics. Number one Language is imperfect to begin with. Look at the role of perspective. Right Through which lens are you telling this story? Anyway, that's what we need to train ourselves to do, and it's maybe part of the self-regulation I was talking about. Instead of just buying, hook, line and sinker the entire platform of your party and whatever talking head is on your television set at the time, develop your own, not critical thinking skills or even persuasion skills or debating skills, but learn to be judicious. That's the word of the day, and that means taking all the stories that you're exposed to and synthesizing them into something, but hopefully something that serves collective humanity and not your own ego.

Speaker 3 56:24

Well, and that's the outcome. That's what that's what we have. Like. If you just take the boss of all, you know, like I'm a mom and I have four kids, and if everyone was at war with each other, we'd have to sit down and we'd say, well, what is it we want in the end? Do we want to still be a family? Do you? Do you want to take all the stuff from the will and fight over it?

Speaker 3 56:45

Like you just said, the final outcome that humanity wants and maybe not the powers that be, but that real humans want is we want peace, we want to be a collective and, scientifically speaking, we are one. We are all made of the same matter. Matter is entangled From a quantum physics perspective to just not just theorize. But we are only able to live as individuals because of the collective and we're only small parts of as individuals because of the collective and we're only small parts of a whole because the whole is here. So if we can't adopt that all together, we're gunfighting.

Speaker 3 57:28

So if the outcome was to just have the collective, what do you always say in your podcast, the march for human potential? You just stop what you're doing, whoever the F you are, and say is this contributing to the march for human potential? You just stop what you're doing, whoever the F you are, and say is this contributing to the march for human potential or am I being a dick and holding onto my side of the story? I wrote a story called um Jehovah tried and I will send it to you. I wanted to read it but I timed it today and it's 20 minutes, it's way too long.

Speaker 3 57:59

Yeah so, but it's all about taking God to court for the earthlings that are fighting so bad that he's being tried for neglect because he's not helping them.

Speaker 1 58:11

Wow.

Speaker 3 58:12

Yeah, it's pretty thought provoking, but anyway I won't tell you how it ends.

Speaker 1 58:19

I like the idea, though. I like that concept because it does speak to what we were saying a minute ago, which is we're looking for daddy to provide the answers, that's right. Instead of again doing the work to like, try to step into the other party's shoes or see the humanity that transcends ego, your position or my position. Anyway, do you have a shorter one that you would like to read? Maybe that's related to some of the things that have come up today.

Speaker 1 58:47

I can read a couple of poems that I think would relate I don't know how much more time you've got, but we could start just as a talking point and bring that into the conversation, because I'm really tempted to talk about, uh, the war, and I I'm just biting my tongue cause I know you don't want to, but it is, I think, like I like how you laid out the micro and the macro. And if you can't get along with your own family, how the hell are you going to have world peace, right?

Speaker 3 59:16

But I'm tempted to.

Speaker 1 59:17

I'm tempted to be specific and I I will just say yeah, it's 9-11. We have the right to root out terror and defend ourselves. You can hold those thoughts and this is what I mean by nuance and think Netanyahu's an asshole and he's shooting himself in the foot. So, if the desired outcome is actually peace at some point, oh my God, how many decades are you undoing right by creating more intergenerational trauma? And I've spent time over there.

Speaker 1 1:00:05

I used to think palestinians were, you know, raised with hatred and they stuck a gun in their hand at six years old. Not true? Everybody wants peace, as you hinted at, renee, everybody wants the same thing. It's the governments that fuck it up. So I think, just to go back to some things you said, it's about the desired outcome and we're on the wrong path, you know. Forget about us providing arms, or us like talking out the other side of our mouth, like saying, oh no, we, we're pushing for a ceasefire and a solution, but we're going to also give you arms. What a mixed message is that? So, anyway, all these stories do coexist, but the bottom line, in light of what you just said, renee, is what is the desired outcome? How does it serve the desired outcome of peace to create more generational trauma. You can't kill them all. There's going to be one kid in a crack right on a fissure somewhere in Petra that's going gonna come out and say let's rebuild this movement.

Speaker 2 1:01:07

You can't. It's like whack-a-mole, isn't it? I was gonna say, doc, when you're, when you're talking about that too. The other thing is, I mean, I feel, I feel all of life is gray and nuanced and I think sometimes we forget that because our own personal values and belief systems come into play. And we think that, therefore, because that is my values and belief systems come into play, and we think that, therefore, because that is my value and belief system, it is therefore the right way. But is there really one way to get from point A to point B? I mean, there's like probably about 100 million different ways to get from point A to point B.

Speaker 1 1:01:33

A lot of the time. Do you believe in any? Let's see universal principles. Do you know what I mean? Like there are literally lots. So I do just my personal opinion. I do think ethics are pretty airtight and pretty indisputable and they tend to inform most philosophic traditions and even religions, as problematic as they can be. So I do think justice, like there are some principles that are more consistent than sort of the empirical view or the particulars or the details. So I think that's what we need to strive for. Maybe right In the Middle East, is like and I did fail to say a moment ago, in all those thoughts that we can hold, I think people that are really into persuasion and into debating think that it's a form of weakness to hold contradictory thoughts.

Speaker 1 1:02:22

I think that is the way to go, because then you synthesize them and therein lies the solution. So I failed to say terrorism is never okay, but you know what Civilian casualties and innocent lives lost are never okay either. There's a very real humanitarian issue at stake. These things all coexist. So I don't know. I'm just arguing with you. Virginia, a little bit is there are a million perspectives. We do need to take them all into account, but maybe the umbrella overall of it is what's ethical, what serves humanity no, I agree with you.

Speaker 2 1:02:55

And that what? And I don't feel like you're arguing with me. I probably wasn't clear enough what I mean by values of belief system, because exactly what you say those founding principles are the same. It's just how we view or interpret them or express them sounds different, so we think there's. So we see our version even though we're saying which is what we just did, you and I just semantics.

Speaker 2 1:03:13

Right, yeah, we're both saying the same thing. It just sounds different, and so I think that's where the that's what I'm saying. There's like a million ways to get from point a to point b. It's just people forget that part, because that's something that the duo wants and the semantics that go with it yeah, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Speaker 1 1:03:31

it's just ironic. So it is hard not to talk about it, but it is because it's all story and virginia and I have talked about we're going to do these themed episodes where we have talking heads. Come on and I hope you're one of them, renee, and we won't invite you to the politics one, but I just think it's all story. So whether you look at this election cycle or this campaign season and talk about the stories we spin, the stories we perpetuate, the stories we use to drag the other party through the mud, it is all story. And then when you look at sort of even just anti-Muslim sentiment versus anti-Semitism, it's all story.

Speaker 3 1:04:09

So if we were writing the story, let's just say, according to Freud and his capitulation theory, that the human race is a character in a play. And so we are doing this rise to action, and there's a lot at stake right now, and there's going to be a big climax and then we're going to have a denouement. Maybe we are entering this climactic stage and we're going to have a denouement where the end result is the march towards human potential of unity and a collective that sees that we need a universal outcome of togetherness.

Speaker 1 1:04:46

Absolutely. It's like cognitive dissonance in your own little skull being played out on the macro scale on the stage. It's fascinating to me.

Speaker 3 1:04:55

Well, and to say one more thing to see the story. It's not just being told to us, we can see the story on the little thing that we have in our purse, in our pocket, that plays the story and it's live. And it's not a fucking green screen, it's real. And that's weird Talk about meta. We see it happening, we're part of it because we're seeing it anyway, and we do have to develop our internal voice so that we can come to terms with what it is, we think and what our.

Speaker 1 1:05:29

I never wanted to be uninformed and I never wanted to be an ostrich sticking his head in the sand, but because of my health issues I had to very much choose what to give airtime to right and literally what to tune out what to give airtime to, and so I think there is a balance. Everybody needs to strike for right him or herself in terms of how much do we let that affect our daily life, our worldview, because we're no help to the collective right If our vibration is dragged down into the gutter.

Speaker 3 1:06:07

I get that and I like how you. I mean, I don't necessarily want to be on a panel, but there's three of us. This seems like a panel to me. But, as far as you know, you could. One day they will make a great play out of all of this. It is so story, it is so revolving around characters Shakespearean yes, Holding tight, tight, tight to what they want, they want, they want, and you know, just like that book, everything I Ever Learned I learned in kindergarten, absolutely, anyway, I learned in kindergarten, absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:06:40

Anyway, I didn't mean to get off track there, but let's have you read the poem and I think actually some of this is going to circle back around.

Speaker 3 1:06:47

So this poem doesn't officially speak to what we were all talking about, but unofficially it does, and so we can talk about it afterwards. This poem is called Salvation. There's a divine hand that touches all, moves the corpuscles, separates neutrons from protons, spins the globe and tethers the moon. I often ponder about this deity who shall remain nameless. I could see myself surrender to a God who sifts through fields of grain with kisses soft as breath, who thunders the skies with tremendous cutting light and whose saliva might indeed be made of the human race. I'd feel honored to be a part of the spit inside the mouth of whoever spoke the galaxies into being pooled as one with each other and cleansed.

Speaker 1 1:08:05

Is that the end?

Speaker 3 1:08:06

That's the end Beautiful.

Speaker 2 1:08:10

I was wanting more.

Speaker 1 1:08:12

Because I loved it. I knew it was the end, I just didn't want to jump in Beautiful. Well, anyway, I've read the collection. You know that, renee, yes, I do. I think that poem did encapsulate everything. We've read the collection.

Speaker 3 1:08:20

You know that, Renee. Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 1:08:21

I think that poem did encapsulate everything we've been talking about, didn't it Virginia?

Speaker 2 1:08:26

Yeah, I mean, I think you know community, a sense of belonging, that's definitely, you know, I think, the most ingrained sense of us as a humanity.

Speaker 1 1:09:01

I love how you put it. I love the juxtaposition, not to get into form or technique, but I love the juxtaposition of kind, of the profound and numinous and then the mundane words just the more.

Speaker 3 1:09:05

What is it you tell?

Speaker 1 1:09:05

me as the author renee. Was that intentional or did it subconsciously happen?

Speaker 3 1:09:08

oh, I worked on this poem probably 20 years. Um, it's, um, it's just a bodily function of ours. That is not pretty. And yet, if, if the human race isn't so pretty either right now, right, so maybe that's what we're doing, but we can, you know we can. This saliva has a and, by the way, the word salvation and saliva are a lot alike.

Speaker 3 1:09:33

So it was just a play on, as you said, a bodily function and cleansing, and that we could all be in the same place together and cleanse each other, because when we're unified, then you know that's god well, yeah, and strangely this is I don't know if this is related, but saliva, um, actually dissolves, right, so it could dissolve divisiveness.

Speaker 1 1:09:59

Saliva can also be venom in certain organisms, right?

Speaker 3 1:10:03

right, right, but with us. Let's think of god as not having venomous ones. Let's think, but if we're all, part of it.

Speaker 1 1:10:10

Yeah, if we're all part, humanity is all part of this saliva or spit. It has all those functions or colors, right anyway. Anyway, that's just what I got from it. It's a strong metaphor. It's a strong word.

Speaker 2 1:10:23

I was going to say, and, being the daughter of a dentist, the other thing too about saliva is if we didn't have saliva in our mouths, obviously bacteria would fester and grow.

Speaker 1 1:10:31

So if we come, together, as saliva does.

Speaker 2 1:10:34

We can fight off those things.

Speaker 1 1:10:37

Let's all come together as spit everyone A call to action. It's a call to arms. There, you go Be the spit you wish to see in the world.

Speaker 2 1:10:48

But it was a beautiful poem. It was very impactful.

Speaker 3 1:10:51

Yes, but it was good that I learned two things about saliva right now I think of saliva as having I don't know know.

Speaker 1 1:10:59

I don't think of it often.

Speaker 3 1:11:00

Actually, I don't think of saliva very often well, that's what makes a really good poem, right it took me.

Speaker 1 1:11:06

Yeah, it took me places. Yeah, here's what I was going to say earlier. By the way, you talked about several times. My words are digging in of heels, right, if you can't shift your perspective enough to be judicious and see the other party's point of view, you're probably gonna dig your heels in and Sally put it, and you're going to rely on your confirmation bias and you're going to rely on identity politics, and that's what everybody is doing right now, and there's even some rationalization. I won't say which party, but if you feel like, oops, I picked an idiot, now you're going to rationalize your former decision by saying I was. It's a sociological principle You're going to it's called the red dress syndrome. Right, blaming the victim. You're going to convince yourself more and more through rationalization that you weren't an idiot the first time around, meaning 2016. And so that's exactly what's happening, and so I just you've kind of hinted that at a few times that we need to not be so stubborn about it, and the way I put it in in the book is yeah, you got to recognize when you're engaging in identity politics and again, sort of applying confirmation bias. That's why persuasion here's my point, that's why persuasion only goes so far.

Speaker 1 1:12:26

It's actually impossible to change somebody else's mind other than through narrative. So you engage. When you engage, all that chemical stuff right and you get the trust of the dopamine and the oxytocin and the meaning, the suggestibility. It's not as simple as saying I'm going to change minds by touching hearts. It's very chemical and so you're relying on all that. The way we're wired for metaphor, the way the mind can't distinguish between an actual experience and one that's being related to you, your physiological response is the. So I couldn't be more passionate about changing minds through the stories we expose people to and therein lies the responsibility and the stories we promulgate and put out there as artists. And sorry, I had to get on my soapbox, but it's come up so many times today. Does that make sense in terms of the stubbornness you were hinting at earlier? Renee, it is narrative that transforms us. Persuasion is kind of a dead end road. I might be alone on that.

Speaker 3 1:13:26

Well, I liked the one guy in your podcast that said never tell a story without a point, never make a point without a story, and so that serves that comment right there, serves what you're saying. But what the higher point is is is that we do have a responsibility with the stories that we tell, not only ourselves, but whatever we put out in content, in our content, if we put it out into the world. There's a huge responsibility here, um, because people will be moved by, perhaps, the story that does not hold the humanity's best interest at heart.

Speaker 1 1:14:02

Yep, exactly Well, and I think when we talked about vacuous content, these words sound a little judgmental, but I think we know it. When we see it right, when it's for the almighty dollar and nothing more, when it titillates just to sell those box office tickets or get those clicks and likes, what it is actually doing is feeding a cultural addiction to cortisol and adrenaline and really nothing more. So, like we said, we all like our mindless entertainment, we all like our guilty pleasures, we like to laugh. That is one of the functions of story is bonding the tribe through a good laugh, right Through the euphoric brain chemicals that result. That bonds the tribe. It has its place right.

Speaker 1 1:14:42

Not everything needs to be high art, but I, I anyway, I just I think, though. I mean there's, like you said earlier, there's a million books on it. Dave megacy wrote a book really at a pivotal moment when I think we were peace, love, love, flowers. It was the late 60s and everybody was on everybody's radar. Love, not war, because of the Vietnam War was right in full swing, and so he wrote a book, and it was the first time anyone had indicted the NFL for feeding this cultural addiction to violence. He made the case that we're actually normalizing the Vietnam War by normalizing the institutionalized violence in professional sports. So that's the responsibility we take on is what are we feeding? Are we feeding, like you said, the march toward human potential by showing possibilities and being aspirational, or are we actually just feeding some kind of addiction? Or are we actually just feeding some kind of addiction?

Speaker 3 1:15:39

Well said, agreed, and we do each have responsibilities for it. And, as we talked about at the very beginning, just to think of the next generation and where they're going to take this, I mean, I'm a grandma, so it's quite severe, it's quite serious. We didn't even talk about AI yet.

Speaker 1 1:16:00

Yeah, yeah, well, I will follow up on that, it's quite serious that we didn't even talk about AI.

Story, Hope, and Human Potential

Speaker 1 1:16:02

Well, that's, I will follow up on that. I mean, I I regularly I kind of joke and say, well, I don't have kids, I don't care about handing off a better planet to my kids, I just don't have that. But on a good day, I do think humanity is worth saving Right, and I think this is a pretty good rock we chose right. We probably shouldn't destroy our habitat and have to move to a new rock. Let's keep this up a little while longer, but that's as far as it goes for me. I don't care about leaving a better planet to my children. I don't. So how big is that for you, renee? Like thinking of? You got to be more invested in the future than I am.

Speaker 3 1:16:46

Well, I'm invested in where we're going to take this because I've seen it. I've seen my heart change towards social media and my ideas change over the past 10 years, ever since I wrote, you know, even my book in 2017, 2018. And then you know, with technology and AI. And then you know, with technology and AI, yeah, I'm very, very curious about it, but on the other hand, I feel a little bit like my 82-year-old dad Glad I'm leaving.

Speaker 1 1:17:11

Right.

Speaker 2 1:17:17

It's a lot to ponder and it is a ginormous responsibility. When you think of story, it's really the lens on which life gains meaning and also it allows us to have the curiosity and the consciousness to create a world we want to live in for ourselves and for humanity, but also thinking of future generations, which you know, renee, you said it perfectly. You know, like where your mind was, you know a decade ago, and your thoughts, you know they have changed. And so to allow ourselves that grace that you know, ourselves in the future or the generations in the future, which is probably where sometimes people dig those hills in is it's okay to change? You know the storyline and rewrite it.

Speaker 2 1:18:00

That you know it's. There's nothing wrong with that if we need to have that shift. Beautifully said.

Speaker 1 1:18:07

Okay, well, thank you for sharing that poem, renee, and I think we're going to bring this to a close. So any final words of wisdom for our listeners about I don't know any and all things. Story the responsibility we hinted at in our content that we're putting out, or I don't know anything. Why do zebras have stripes?

Speaker 3 1:18:30

Well, it's been tickled on. Without an internal realm and without our connection, our deep connection to our own personal story, we don't have a lot to contribute to the whole and everybody, everybody knows that the whole is just all the small parts. So we make up society and we have to be hopeful, as we talked about envision. Envision a world where, as we are all part of the march for human potential and yeah, hope, hope.

Speaker 1 1:19:04

You know that word is kind of what I was hinting at when I said, on a good day, I care about the future and our children and the planet. It takes a lot of self-talk to give a shit, and so I do think story, even engaging in the creative process by writing right, right, and I didn't write. I focused on this podcast for many months. As you know, I just completed three stories where I allowed myself to finally write, get pen to paper and it does renew you. We've talked about kind of resolving the. You know the word catharsis gets thrown around a lot, but I think we are synthesizing our own conflicting, synthesizing our own conflicting thoughts or our own cognitive dissonance, by writing these stories and then arriving in new territory, and for me it's nothing less than creating policy to move on to the next chapter in my life. But for me it's it's creating the renewed hope.

Speaker 3 1:19:56

Hope.

Speaker 1 1:19:57

Do you want to talk about hope? What is the definition of hope? For me, it's believing in humanity, like not giving up on them. Not giving up, not throwing in the towel.

Speaker 3 1:20:07

Yeah, you have to have hope. Well and everybody puts that on their memes and everything you have to be positive man. You can't be negative, and that's you. Just got to keep nurturing hope in whatever way you can, whether it's through writing, writing exercises, writing poetry, heck, running the streets, getting exercise, getting in the sunshine Got to make yourself feel better, because there's too many things to make you feel shitty.

Speaker 1 1:20:34

Especially at this moment. It seems that way, doesn't it, I guess? It always seems like the end of the world, but yeah, stakes seem pretty high right now.

Speaker 3 1:20:42

As I said, if we were writing a story, this would be the beginning of the climax. Let's just hope for a really good resolve resolution.

Speaker 1 1:20:50

I do see people coming together. I see I don't know some people digging their heels in more, but I also see a lot of people coming together and saying enough of a, b, c and d, one of them being patriarchy oh yeah, there's hope in that there's.

Speaker 1 1:21:07

There's hope in you. Just gotta take a step back just my opinion and see the big picture. I mean very few people will say, oh, there's less institutionalized violence than ever before. They'll say, oh no, it just takes a different form. It's the slave trade or the skin trade, or, you know, marginalization and exploit. Well, actually, most sociologists will tell you there's less bloodshed than ever before. You just can't see the big picture.

Speaker 3 1:21:34

Big picture. Yeah, you know someone like dad's age he's 82 and we'll have the news on and he'll say stuff like that Nick, he'll say I was around when this happened and I was around when that happened. He will and he'll kind of contextualize some of the high drama and the panic that we're feeling right now, because he's been through.

Speaker 1 1:21:55

He's strangely positive, isn't he? Yes, I think he is. I think he's very innocent and he has his days where he's cynical. But that's wisdom, right, but that is wisdom, but he's not wrong. That's why story is important. There are so many parallels. One of the memes Virginia I might have mentioned this in another episode, but there's a meme that says ever wonder what you would have done during the rise of fascism pre-World War II. You're doing it now, right. And so the Democratic National Convention.

Speaker 1 1:22:33

People are up in arms, or some people are up in arms that there really wasn't due process in nominating Kamala. Well, there actually was, but it didn't look the same right. We didn't let the Democratic National Convention play out the way it normally does, with months and months of campaigning Never mind that plenty of other countries have a two-week campaign cycle. But there was some, you know, some questioning of the process, as if she was just deemed the new candidate and the torch was, or I guess the scepter was handed off right, or I guess the scepter was handed off right. But it's the exact same scenario as 1968, the year of my birth. That is what resulted on all those demonstrations, and then that low point in police brutality was the exact same scenario where people felt like there was a conspiracy to hand off the nomination without due process. All of this has happened before, so it might always seem like the end of the world so we have to take comfort in the fact that humans are repeating history well, and we lived through it yeah, we did good point.

Speaker 1 1:23:29

But maybe vigilance, right, you got to tell the stories of the past lest they repeat themselves.

Speaker 2 1:23:34

Virginia, I feel like you have something to say I was thinking too that you know, when you people always like, oh, it's the end of the world, like how, it's just like an end of a chapter to the story that we're writing and now we're starting a new chapter.

Speaker 2 1:23:47

Like you know how many times people again throughout history have said it's the end of the world, it's the signs of the times, like, probably over more than you know, half a dozen times plus. So, yeah, I mean that's, that's the thing. Like every it's it's a new season. I mean, I think if you turn to nature and you think about it, the sun goes down and it rises, it's there's, there's a change in the seasons.

Speaker 2 1:24:14

You know, everything dies off, everything comes back in and blooms again, and I think life is like that consistently. It's always in that motion, and I think we forget about that.

Speaker 1 1:24:25

Yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 2 1:24:27

And so that's how I view what's happening right now Like we're just changing seasons. Again, we're writing a new chapter.

Speaker 1 1:24:33

Yeah, yeah, and the hope we mentioned earlier. I'm going to call it faith. My faith lies in seeing those pendulum swings, understanding they have value, truly in terms of keeping the balance and the seasonal aspect you talked about. You've read the Kabbalion, virginia, right? I feel like we've talked about it. Yeah, that's a large part of is like riding out the pendulum swings, knowing right when it's swinging and when the momentum is in your favor. You're going to grow that much more, but you kind of I actually lay low when I walk out the door and I feel like, ooh, mercury's in retrograde, all the molecules are colliding, is that car going to hit me? And it's very clear to me, and you just kind of lay low and ride it out and, oh, the universe doesn't want me to be too ambitious today, culturally. Maybe we need to stop catastrophizing. How about that?

Speaker 2 1:25:21

right. So in psychology there's this term called urge surfing, which is basically that it's like you feel everything just coming at you and like you're sitting against the tide right you have to realize you just need to relax and trust in yourself to write it out, because it will eventually smooth out again, and so it's very much what you just said, nick is that well in relationships?

Speaker 1 1:25:44

they say, well, I want to trust my partner. What you really need to do is trust yourself to survive. Whatever come what may. Right, it's always the trust in yourself what was that called virginia?

Speaker 1 1:25:57

urge surfing, urge surfing well, and tell me if you know about this psychological principle. Just to tie back to something we were talking about earlier in terms of how much news do you take in? What do you tune into? Right, if you tune everything out and you decide the world is an object, that's called solipsism. Right, that's no way to live, right, because you're completely disconnected from the collective, and some of some would that sociopathy. That's not healthy for the collective. But anyway, the concept I'm wondering if you know about is locus of control. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah, well, that's huge. How much are you going to internalize the news versus how much are you going to self create your worldview with the faith that will impact the macro? I just think it's huge. Do you take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings and what they manifest, or do you blame your circumstances and conditions on, right, your race, your upbringing, your, your socioeconomic status? The news?

Speaker 2 1:26:59

Yeah, yeah that's, that's an important thing and and I think you know it kind of goes back to you know, um, but well, renee brought it up, but I know you guys have talked about it, you know, and I know like the whole pop psychology thing runs right into it, where everybody's running around playing like well, this is what my diagnosis is, and I'm a victim of this and it's like, yeah, we can, we can make a huge list of that but what's the opposite of that? What are you doing? To control that circumstance?

Speaker 1 1:27:30

Yeah, I think. Well, that's why I brought up locus of control, because it seemed related to what you said just previous to that, but it's strangely all falling under the category of self-regulation. Right, That'll be the title of this episode.

Speaker 3 1:27:45

And in that it's reflection Without reflection how can you self-regulate? And if it's yeah, as a society, and hopefully first as an individual and then as a society.

Speaker 1 1:27:59

Beautiful, all right. Well, thank you so much, renee, for devoting so much time, from London no less, and I'm wondering if, by way of closing, you have one more poem you would love to share with our listeners.

Speaker 3 1:28:11

I will. I'm going to share a poem. I just got my collection together and I don't usually share them, so it's very exciting, thank you. And this kind of relates to what we were talking about a few minutes back, um, about the sun rising and the sun setting, um, and the seasons. Okay, cause there's there's a lot of things we talked about regarding the world and our place, our place in it. Okay, this is called Ode to the Universe.

Speaker 3 1:28:44

Hovering over you nightly, the celestial beings wink and turn their heads to watch you slumber. The moon makes her rounds and never misses not even an inch Scans from across the spheres that umbrella your existence. The winds in wisdom carry seeds of hope in sweeping motions as they dust the horizon and offer fragrance to those who inhale nothing but their own small scent. The tide beckons you into mystery. Blue and green titanic pulls you from your narrow dimension into the wild inner depths, churning and the sun swaddles you warm like cotton covers newborn babes to remind you of the original womb. So when you kick into the vastness and flail against the empty space in scared and screaming fearful fits, the lighted boundaries fold you safe, receiving you into the grasp of the cosmos who whispers with every orbit, every rise, routinely, every day. It will be okay.

Speaker 1 1:30:21

Beautiful, thank you, wow, it will be okay. Beautiful, thank you, wow, beautiful. And I said I wasn't going to beat a dead horse here, but you know I've read it rather recently, right, right, and commented on it. Have you gone back into it? Remember we talked about the infant versus the mom idea?

Speaker 3 1:30:41

I feel like it was both now maybe it hasn't changed, I don't know we talked about it being about the infant, and then you pointed out that that my mom, the people in bed when they're elderly, do the same thing.

Speaker 1 1:30:54

Right, the flailing and the kicking.

Speaker 3 1:30:56

Yes so it's representative of both.

Speaker 1 1:30:58

Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful, it really is. It's just the vastness of the cosmos. And I, just for logical reasons, because you were the primary caretaker and because I didn't know you had written it some time back, I projected mom all over it. Uh, but it is both, isn't it? It's just our place in the ground in the big picture.

Speaker 3 1:31:24

Whether I'm changing one of my baby's diapers or my mother's.

Speaker 1 1:31:27

I meant that as a joke, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 1:31:28

Thank you for listening you guys, Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:31:30

Really beautiful. Yeah, thank you for sharing that and we're going to bring this to a close. Thank you so much again for taking the time, especially so many thousand miles away, and for our listeners. Remember, life is story and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can write our own story. See you next time, you, you.