#37 - I Changed My Tastebuds, But I’m Still Me (ish)

This week’s caller has lived with death in the background for most of her life—first through migraines that began when she was six, and later through a brain tumor that went undiagnosed for more than twenty years. By the time doctors caught it, she had spent a full year in a migraine that never let up. Surgery changed everything: her mood lifted, her pain eased, and even her tastebuds shifted. But the possibility of recurrence remains, shaping how she moves through the world.

What unfolds from there is part philosophy, part physics, part Wonderland. She talks about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome—the surreal way migraines can distort scale, shape, and the edges of the body—and how that lived strangeness pushed her toward math, spacetime, Flatland, and the comfort of unanswerable questions. Instead of trying to solve the mystery of death, she leans into the idea that some things can’t be known from this side of the line.

We also talk about community, belonging, and the unexpected places spirituality can live. Her weekly gathering is a pagan group that meets—of all places—in a church basement, lighting candles, crafting together, playing D&D, and caring for one another in a way that feels more meaningful than dogma ever has. When strong emotions can trigger pain, moderation becomes a survival skill, but it doesn’t stop her from pursuing what she loves or finding wonder in the smallest things.

The conversation circles around identity, too—how a person can wake up from brain surgery wondering if they’re still themselves, how preferences shift but the core stays intact, and how tiny we are in the universe without being insignificant. Her philosophy lands with a simple truth: sometimes the experience is worth the migraine. Even skydiving, if she can make it happen.

Book Recommendation: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.

Link to the Instagram Giveaway. Entry ends 11/21/2025 at 11:59PM PST.

Chapters

• 0:50 Sponsor: Nia Emberly
• 4:09 The Call Begins
• 6:10 Books, Alice, And Migraine Syndromes
• 9:45 Absurdism, Humor, And Coping
• 12:15 What Might Happen When We Die
• 15:36 Living with Brain Cancer
• 20:54 Spirituality, Religion, And Community
• 26:43 Big Picture
• 32:51 The Theory of Everybody
• 35:19 What's One Experience?
• 38:33 Voicemail

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 5:02

Hello.

SPEAKER_02: 5:03

Hey, how's it going?

SPEAKER_03: 5:05

All right. How are you?

SPEAKER_02: 5:06

Oh, not too bad. Sorry about that. I messed some stuff up on my end, so thanks for bearing with me for a couple minutes.

SPEAKER_03: 5:11

No problem.

SPEAKER_02: 5:12

Well, I'm excited to have you on this call. I know a little bit about your story and I I think it's an exciting one. But maybe before we get into the full conversation, you can maybe share why you even wanted to do a call about death.

SPEAKER_03: 5:25

Yeah, I sort of feel like I've been facing it from a pretty young age. I went over 20 years with a misdiagnosed brain tumor.

SPEAKER_02: 5:33

Wow, that's that's a long time.

SPEAKER_03: 5:35

And I guess when I found like they kept telling me it was a congenital, like something I was born with, but then so they kind of ignored it. But by the time it got diagnosed, I was had I had had a chronic migraine that had lasted for over a year and not gone away. And I was very much emotionally unstable at the time too, because of the location of the tumor. So I was actually very suicidal and such. And so I've thought about it a lot, I guess. And then post-jury, I'm I'm not a different person so much, but my mood is so much better and I don't feel that way anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 6:10

Well, that's good. I'm so glad for that. That is yeah, that that is quite the setup.

SPEAKER_03: 6:15

It is, but and then also I lose the fact that there's um a basically a 100% recurrence rate for this type of cancer.

SPEAKER_02: 6:22

Oh, fun.

SPEAKER_03: 6:23

So it will come back at some point in my life.

SPEAKER_02: 6:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 6:26

And I I don't know when. And when it does come back, generally it's a higher level grade of cancer. So I kind of um I try and live every day, you know, as much as I can because I don't know how long I have. I'm already outside of the average of rebrowth timeline.

SPEAKER_02: 6:45

Wow. That is that is wild. And yeah, I'm so glad that you were interested in doing this conversation. And we'll I'm sure we'll get into all that stuff a little bit more in depth. And so usually what I like to ask is where you're calling from. So like city, state, doesn't have to be super specific. And then also your favorite book and why.

SPEAKER_03: 7:07

Okay, great. I already I've had a favorite book for years, and I uh perfect know what that is.

SPEAKER_02: 7:12

There's a lot of people when I ask that, they're like, shit, I was not ready for that. And now this has become the hardest question of the whole conversation. So I'm glad that you're ready.

SPEAKER_03: 7:22

Yeah, I mean, I love a lot of books, but there's one near and dear. I'm in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_02: 7:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 7:29

And um, since a child, my favorite book has been uh Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. And his sequel, What Alice and What Alice and Trude's Looking Class, and those have always been my favorite books. I like the surrealism of it, but then also at a very age I learned that the author he too suffered extreme migraine.

SPEAKER_02: 7:50

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 7:51

And it kind of gave me this feeling of like relating to the author, even though he was long gone. Yeah. And the story has always been so I don't know. I feel like it could mean a lot of things and people could take a lot from it. But when it was written, it was written just for the enjoyment of creating a story.

SPEAKER_02: 8:08

That's amazing. I love it. And I feel like I don't necessarily know much about migraines. It's something that I don't have to experience or haven't experienced, and I'm thankful for that. But I definitely have friends who do, and I have an artist friend who kind of creates what she sees. And so I'm kind of also imagining like Alice in Wonderland. Like I've never read the books, but it kind of explains some of Alice in Wonderland, and maybe a little bit too, with dealing with migraines and some of the things that are like the surrealism and all that. Maybe no connection at all, but it is interesting to think about.

SPEAKER_03: 8:41

There is actually a connection. There is a condition that you can get when you have a migraine, and sometimes people get it without it, but it's actually called Alice in Wonderland syndrome.

SPEAKER_02: 8:51

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 8:52

It has to do with how you feel like your body is in space. Like suddenly you can feel like you're way too big or you're way too small, or parts of your body are wrong. And it can be, it's actually part of having migraines for some people, and I do suffer from that.

SPEAKER_02: 9:07

Oh, that's wild. That's very interesting. I feel like you're teaching me so many things already, and we're only like five minutes into the call. I'm like, yeah, this is amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 9:16

Yeah, I always I just I read about that as a kid, and so I feel like that's one of the reasons why I liked the story so much because he was a migraine sufferer, and it felt like you could kind of feel it.

SPEAKER_02: 9:25

Yeah, and I'm sure obviously as a kid, and again, we'll get into the conversation, and I might just cut this because nobody really wants to hear about me. But you know, I got glasses when I was five years old, and I just immediately felt different and weird, and like I felt like they're just this immediate thing that everybody could look at me and be like, well, that kid's different, he has glasses. And so I don't want to speak for you, but I'm sure there is like this maybe relief or just this this nice feeling knowing, hey, I'm not the only one who's experiencing this. There's this other person who's written these books, like, and it makes you feel less alone.

SPEAKER_03: 9:58

I think that's very true because I've actually from my migraines, they have caused me to have quite a bit of isolation and loneliness. Just because when I have them, the only thing I can do is lay in a dark, quiet room.

SPEAKER_02: 10:10

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry that you've experienced that. That doesn't sound like fun. It it feels like you've been through a lot and I'm excited. And it always I always feel bad using that word to say I'm excited to talk to you about. And it's not always the case, but when I'm talking to people who have been through something traumatic or, you know, dealing with this stuff, I feel bad leading off with I'm excited to talk with you, but I am excited to talk with you because it's deep connection.

SPEAKER_03: 10:36

I don't think it's bad at all to say that you're excited. I think it's I always have thought that finding other people's perspectives very interesting. And I've always liked learning about that too. And honestly, all the health stuff, it's stressful, yes, but it's also kind of I also I laugh about it too, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 10:52

You probably kind of have to to some extent, right?

SPEAKER_03: 10:55

Yeah, exactly. Like I can mop about it all the time and constantly be worrying about when the next one will come, but yeah, that's more likely to bring one on than just kind of trying to live my life.

SPEAKER_02: 11:06

Yeah, yeah. And then you're living in this state of being miserable all the time, and then it happens, and then you're even more miserable. So yeah, might as well find some some peace and and some comfort where you can and when you can.

SPEAKER_03: 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 11:19

Exactly. Uh it's I I really like the philosophy of absurdism.

SPEAKER_02: 11:24

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_03: 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:26

Well, I'm excited. I mean, we've kind of already dabbled into the conversation a little bit, but I am super excited to just kick things off and see where it goes with just the big question of what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_03: 11:40

Well, I think firstly, I I don't think that anybody can truly know.

SPEAKER_00: 11:46

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 11:47

I think that it is to give you a reference of how I think about it, there was a mathematician named Google, and he created a mathematical theorem that proves beyond any doubt that there are mathematical theorems that we can never prove true or false. And because it's so stone written in math, proving that we physically can't know everything, I think that it's one of those things that we physically can't know until it we've experienced it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:17

Yeah. I love that you're using math right out of the gate. I was I'm a math person, so you're you're you're striking the right chords.

SPEAKER_03: 12:23

Oh, it's funny. Lewis Carroll was a math person too. He was actually a math teacher.

SPEAKER_02: 12:27

Oh, amazing.

unknown: 12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 12:30

All the connections.

SPEAKER_03: 12:32

Um exactly. But I'm sorry I lost where I was.

SPEAKER_02: 12:36

No, you're good.

SPEAKER_03: 12:37

That is uh sometimes I lose where I am in speech.

SPEAKER_02: 12:40

Oh sorry, it's a no, nothing to apologize for. I think it's gonna make the conversation maybe more fun. And yeah, I mean, I think we're we're just gonna see where this goes. And so there doesn't need to be this distinct flow of things. Sometimes we get off track and we talk about some random thing for five minutes and it's like, wait, we're not talking about death anymore. Maybe we should come back or maybe we should keep going. So no need to apologize.

SPEAKER_03: 13:03

I I mean, I don't know what happens after death, but I can tell you what I hope happens.

SPEAKER_02: 13:07

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 13:08

All right, cool. So my wish is um, you know how we are fourth dimensional or we we're fourth dimensional beings because we move through time and space.

SPEAKER_00: 13:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 13:20

And yeah, everybody has their own reality that they live in. And I'd like to hope that my consciousness joins up into like a larger consciousness that's like a dimensionality above what we understand. It's almost like the book Flat World, which I know was meant to be written about how you can't perceive God, but when I read it, I didn't get the religious part of it because I was brought up in an atheist house.

SPEAKER_00: 13:48

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 13:49

Or I agnostic, I guess. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00: 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 13:53

But I read it and it was like all of these flat beings are suddenly they're just these, you know, they're two-dimensional beings, and suddenly a sphere comes in, and they can't rationalize what a sphere is because they only have two dimensions.

SPEAKER_02: 14:07

Yeah. Yeah. It's like what is that?

SPEAKER_03: 14:10

Yeah. And so I kind of want to I like to hope that my consciousness becomes part of a larger consciousness that is then able to experience the existence of space-time all simultaneously.

SPEAKER_01: 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 14:24

Because I think that that's kind of what like the next, if you were a fifth-dimensional being, you could see uh all of time at the same time.

SPEAKER_02: 14:32

I I don't know if that's no, no, it does. I just love that you're you obviously are a very intelligent person and definitely like have it seems like a a breadth of knowledge in math and science.

SPEAKER_03: 14:43

I have a unending urge to learn new things.

SPEAKER_02: 14:48

I love that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 14:50

Um sadly, I was not really able to continue my education in a collegiate way.

SPEAKER_01: 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 14:56

But I am constantly seeking out new knowledge about things. And I really love watching like a lot of the PBS shows on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 15:05

One of them is like there's a space-time one that has a lot to do with like quantum mechanics and stuff. And although some of it, a lot of it goes over my head, some of the ideas I like.

SPEAKER_02: 15:15

Well, and and then maybe in in two years it they it won't be going over your head because you're constantly learning and exploring that. Well, I find that fascinating.

SPEAKER_03: 15:23

There's mathematical theorems and things that I'm definitely not equipped for.

SPEAKER_02: 15:27

Yeah, that it can get very complex for sure. So I'm curious. Yeah, I have a lot of questions off of that. And I have a question that I'd normally ask kind of everybody after that, so I'm not gonna ask that question. Um I'm curious about the book that you mentioned, Flat World. And you said that it had this religious aspect to it. Was there a part of you that started searching out religion or spirituality because of what was happening? Because of this, this I don't know when a tumor becomes cancerous or cancer. I I don't know the I don't know the technicality.

SPEAKER_03: 16:02

Yeah, it was it was brain cancer, which is crazy to say.

SPEAKER_02: 16:06

Yeah, that I mean it's wild. It gets back to the thing that it's surreal. It's like something that you feel like you just hear about in movies and not that actually happens. And obviously that's an insane thing to say because it obviously does, but it feels super, super surreal to to be talking to someone and and hear about your experiences with it.

SPEAKER_03: 16:25

Yeah, it's kind of surreal to live it too, because like just because I woke up after surgery and I was like, I think I'm still me. I don't think I've changed.

SPEAKER_00: 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 16:36

But I have changed. Particularly for some reason, my sense of taste, a bunch of things that I didn't used to like, I love now.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

I mean, I think in an ideal world for me in that situation, like it's gonna sound weird, but I'd love to wake up and be like, you know what my favorite thing is is vegetables. I don't really like sweets anymore, you know. I crave broccoli and I don't crave cookies. Like that would probably make me a lot healthier.

SPEAKER_03: 17:01

Oh yeah. I love veggies, but oof do I love sweets too.

SPEAKER_02: 17:05

I know it it would be nice to get rid of my sweet tooth because it's it's bad. It's bad.

SPEAKER_03: 17:10

Oh yeah, I understand. But you were asking me about spirituality.

SPEAKER_02: 17:14

Yeah, and so I'm curious if there was maybe a journey that you went on, and maybe it's not about this book, maybe it's about other things, to kind of find out what you believed with what was going on and trying to make sense of things.

SPEAKER_03: 17:26

I think that from a very young age, I was always interested in fairy tales and mythology.

SPEAKER_01: 17:33

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 17:33

And whether it's because of the way I was raised without going to any sort of church, and knowledge I had about religions was this is kind of what they believe, this is what they practice. And my parents talked about it, and it's not like religion was taboo, it was just not something that we practiced. But I've always had interest in the I don't want to like upset anybody by calling their religion like stories mythologies. I've always been interested in the stories of religion and from Hinduism to Christianity to well, I don't really think of Buddhism as a religion, but for some people it is. They they rationalize it that way. And um now I am actually uh part of a pagan group.

SPEAKER_02: 18:17

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03: 18:18

But I don't I can't say that I necessarily am a pagan, but what I can say about spirituality is that I think that I have a lot of spirituality, but I don't have any no religion that I really mesh with because I think that the very mathematical fact that we exist is so improbable that everything is epic. The way that we are just a bunch of vibrating particles, but we have such experiences that we have, it's magic. It's all magic to me.

SPEAKER_02: 18:51

Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_03: 18:52

Even just the ability that humans have to communicate with each other, I think that that's magical.

SPEAKER_02: 18:58

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03: 18:59

And I just I like celebrating the sort of impossibility of it all. And it's still happening anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 19:07

Yeah, I feel like, and I've been saying this a lot lately to callers because they kind of are saying a lot of similar things, to my experience at least. I would say from what you've said, we grew up in very similar environments where not religious. It wasn't like my parents were saying there's no God, God doesn't exist. And I I kind of feel similar where I think I'm now just kind of discovering spirituality. I think the hard thing with the word religion is it's so loaded to what it means. What it means to one person means something completely different. But I what I really loved, I read a book recently, and at least what I took from it, and maybe this was completely wrong, but it was Rain Wilson's book, Soul Boom. And at least from what he was saying, or at least what I took from it, was that spirituality is kind of the inner journey, finding out about yourself and you know how you relate to the world. And this is not verbatim, this is not a quote from the book or anything. But then religion is how we kind of do kind of similar things, but into the world, to community and stuff like that. And I think again, it's semantics, but maybe there is a difference between you know religion and being religious or like having a religious experience. I think religious experience might be more just maybe with your group, your community that you're building community in and stuff like that. But that all is semantic stuff that, you know, at the end of the day, I don't know if it really matters what we call it. It's what we're experiencing.

SPEAKER_03: 20:41

Yeah, I like that description. I like that. I'm also a big fan of how they kind of describe it in dogma, the movie. It's basically a comedy, and I'm sure that some people are very offended by it because it is comedic about religion. But it's uh they there's these two uh angels that got kicked out of heaven, and they kind of have similar and you I don't know, you just you hear people in the movie talk about how like spirituality is good, but when people try and organize and regiment it, it can become more like uh almost an obligation as a set of being spiritual anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 21:16

Yeah, I think that's very true, is it can become something completely different than the ideals that you set it out to be? And I think that's not just religion, right? I think that's just humans congregating in groups. And when you start making groups of humans, it can get really complicated really fast because of so many different things. So does your spirituality tie into your views on death? Like how did you kind of come into you said pagan, right?

SPEAKER_03: 21:45

That's correct.

SPEAKER_02: 21:46

I'm curious how that plays into this whole story.

SPEAKER_03: 21:49

Well, it was like you said, I do a lot of it to be with the community because there's a lot of people that are who interestingly it they have a very high amount of people who have various disabilities. And so it's kind of I don't know, it's it's nice to get together with a group of people who kind of all try and it's like they send positive thoughts at you. I don't really know if I believe in it even. Yeah, but it's fun to make candles and to spend time with people, and it's interesting. It's actually a uh not-for-profit group that's based on it's actually made to engender a community. They're also a game group, and I played D with them.

SPEAKER_02: 22:28

Nice, nice, yeah. I think that's at the end of the day, we all need some sort of community, and whether whether it's religion or not, just having that group of people, and especially with the story that you've already told of having to spend a lot of time in isolation. Of course, you'd want community. And I don't know, I'd want a community that's kind and caring and accepting versus one that judges me and stuff like that. So I I think it's amazing that you found this group.

SPEAKER_03: 22:55

It is great. And the funniest thing is is that they meet in the basement of a church. And since I joined this group, it is the most time I have ever spent in churches.

SPEAKER_02: 23:06

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 23:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:09

That's very cool.

unknown: 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:11

So I guess the other thing, and I I don't want to like force this conversation, but I mean, you do bring something very interesting to the table. And so I'm curious if you're willing to talk about you, and you did mention it slightly at the beginning of how you know that there's going to be this recurrence and how you have to live life. I don't know if preciously is the right word, but you just look at day-to-day a lot differently than probably 99% of the population. And so I'm curious about that experience. If you're willing to share, I don't want to push into territory that feels uncomfortable or anything.

SPEAKER_03: 23:46

I have no problem talking about it at all. In fact, I I think that it's something that should get talked about more, you know. I I don't think that people should have to be embarrassed for things that have happened to them that they have no control of.

SPEAKER_02: 23:59

Absolutely. But um I'm sorry, the question was just I don't even know if I really had a a really good question there. I think I just rambled.

SPEAKER_03: 24:09

I can say that I had very different views um pre-surgery to post-surgery on things. Pre-surgery, I thought that life was just suffering because that's all I had. I started getting migraines when I was six, they became chronic when I hit puberty. And to this day, I still get them two or three times a week. But after my surgery, I have days now where I really feel mostly okay. And I just try to, with the time that I have, do things that are meaningful to me. And a lot of times that's you know, being with my friends, but I also have an insatiable urge to craft and create things.

SPEAKER_02: 24:48

Yeah, and learn.

SPEAKER_03: 24:50

And learn, yes, that too.

SPEAKER_02: 24:52

I can just hear it when you say that word, you you get excited. I can I can feel the energy of of how that which I love that so much. And it's part of this project that so many people just live on autopilot. And I'm not saying I'm perfect and don't live on autopilot either, but it's so easy in our world to get into that mode. And then you wake up someday and it's like, oh, I kind of wasted a lot of time. And so it's absolutely terrible, but it sounds like it woke you up a little bit in the end. And especially I I'm sure it sounds like the migraines still occur, obviously, but they're less than before.

SPEAKER_03: 25:31

Yes, I have days with no pain now, which is because I lived for years. Yeah. But like you were saying, of making the most of uh not living on autopilot.

SPEAKER_01: 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 25:42

I feel like for some things it's better to be on autopilot, though. On occasion, it's not bad.

SPEAKER_02: 25:49

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to be present all the time.

SPEAKER_03: 25:51

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely try and it's not just that I try to do things that I think are meaningful, but I try and find meaning in everything that I do. And I know that that's again kind of semantics, but it's they're meaningful because I'm doing them. And just if I think about the probabilities of everything existing in the universe, then it's amazing. Yes, that I can sew a stuffed toy that reminds someone creature on this earth or something. Like it's I don't know. It's it's like I said, it's kind of magic, but I've I've had to because my migraines can be triggered so easily, I do have to live a life of a lot of moderation.

SPEAKER_00: 26:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 26:29

Even expressing strong emotions can cause a migraine for me.

SPEAKER_00: 26:32

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03: 26:33

So crying or laughing for any length of time can give me one. So I I do try and live in moderation with them, but I try not to feel it in my emotions. And I try and feel like everything that I do is meaningful, even if it doesn't feel it.

SPEAKER_02: 26:49

Yeah, and that's gotta be hard too. I mean, gosh, you have been through so much.

SPEAKER_03: 26:53

I don't know why, but whenever anybody says that to me, my response is to laugh. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02: 26:59

Well, I don't want to make you laugh too much. Now I'm nervous. Oh, it's no.

SPEAKER_03: 27:03

Oh, I mean, like if I were to go to a comedy show and laughing for an hour or two, I can I can have emotions. It's just that when they become all consuming, it causes a migraine. So I have to really try and stay kind of centered and mindful.

SPEAKER_02: 27:17

Which is not the worst thing. I mean, it it's unfortunate because sometimes it's really nice to to laugh for hours and hours and hours. But I don't know. I it's one of those things that's so hard to say, right? It's like this is your experience, and you don't have another experience.

SPEAKER_03: 27:30

Exactly. So it's like you can't really I I love thinking of how other people view the world or even other creatures how because like you know, there's so many creatures with sentience. Yeah, it's amazing because my my point of view is so narrow in compared to just how much there is, because it's like we can't even see all the colors that exist.

SPEAKER_02: 27:53

Totally.

SPEAKER_03: 27:54

There's sounds, but we can't hear. It's like our slice of the universe is so very small, and I feel like sometimes it's easy to forget that.

SPEAKER_00: 28:03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 28:03

And it seems like because we're experiencing it or because it's happening to us, it's the most important thing in in the world. But I think that having this experience has really taught me to kind of I don't know, feel less important, but not in a bad way.

SPEAKER_02: 28:18

Oh, I love that because I know exactly what you're talking about. I don't know if like if something you go, yeah. You go, you try to explain it.

SPEAKER_03: 28:26

It's like if something bad happens, it happens, but like I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 28:31

It's the way that I think about it, and I don't know, like you just said, you know, this is my slice of life, this is my tiny piece of the pie. But, you know, I grew up very athletic. I went to college on an athletic scholarship, and and so much of my life was about being competitive and being the best. And I was like, I'm gonna go to the Olympics. And then that didn't happen. And so then I started my photography business and I started doing that, and it was I'm gonna be the best. And it was kind of a couple years ago when I had my like midlife crisis and kind of started this project where I realized I don't want to be the best. I don't want to be special in relation to everybody else. Like all these things that I've been trying to accomplish, it's me viewing myself against the world. Whereas I am not unique at all. I I am just one person in eight billion people that are existing now.

SPEAKER_01: 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 29:28

I think in in in the human history, it's like I think it's over a hundred billion. So I'm one of a hundred billion. I am not special, I'm not unique, but I am because I'm me. And I I know that's like such a weird flip, but it's like I don't need to be better than everybody else. I just need to be me because nobody else can be me. I don't know if that really quite quite relates to what you're saying, but I feel like that's exactly what I've been feeling lately, where I just need to be myself and I get to have my experience, and I don't need to be better than anybody else. I just need to enjoy what it is. To be a Zach. Yeah. That was a weird way of phrasing that at the end of it. But I know exactly what you're talking about we're not special. And there is something beautiful about that.

SPEAKER_03: 30:11

Yeah, but like how not special we are is kind of in its own way like um like you have to pr be practicing like your dialectical thought, yeah. Thought process where you can feel something but also knows the opposite, or you can yeah. But we are all just these tiny little insignificant flecks, but it's all we got. So you've gotta appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02: 30:37

Yeah. Yeah, this is the chance that you get for all we know. So another thing that you mentioned that I'm kind of curious about, and again, I think we made light of it a little bit, you know. Oh, there are these things that I liked before surgery and then I didn't like after. And I think one huge thing in that is that's something that a lot of people don't experience. And I'm sure the surgery and the recovery took time or whatever, but like from one day to the next for things to shift so quickly. I don't know, what didn't I like as a kid? Probably like Brussels sprouts. I didn't like Brussels sprouts as a kid, but now if they're cooked right, I love them. And that's such a different experience. And so, I mean, you kind of phrase it a little bit of, you know, you woke up and am I still me? Like that has got to be a wild experience.

SPEAKER_03: 31:25

Yeah, it it is. It is. It's scary going into brain surgery because you you don't know if you're gonna wake up with the same thoughts and ideas. But I heard this theory one time that every day that you wake up is actually you're a different person in a different life. It's just that you happen to have all those memories that day. So you live as that life, but then the next day you're technically just some other life, and you would have no way to prove whether that's true or not.

SPEAKER_02: 31:52

That's a wild, wild thought. I'm gonna be thinking about that the rest of the day for sure. That is wild.

SPEAKER_03: 31:58

And so it's it's kind of like that. It's like, well, I could go to sleep and wake up someone else, and I would I might not know.

SPEAKER_02: 32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:05

I don't think change that much. I'm definitely not as angry at the world and at life circumstance as I used to be.

SPEAKER_02: 32:12

And some of that, like you said, is just a pure byproduct of not being in so much pain all the time, like that being alleviated. And this gets into a whole nother question that I could probably start. Well, someone else has probably already started a podcast about it, but just the big question of who are you? Because to some extent, what I like to eat isn't really who I am. It's just kind of a thing that, you know, it's a preference. And to some extent, what you're saying there is like I'm less angry. And it's like, well, were you really an angry person, or is it the circumstances? You know, and it sounds like, you know, and circumstances. Yeah, and and speaking to you, I would say that absolutely that's what it sounds like to me. I mean, obviously I didn't know you before surgery. And so was there anything that you felt like maybe at the essence of you that changed? Or do you feel like, nope, that's still the same. It's just, you know, I have these preferences that changed. Big question. I know, sorry.

SPEAKER_03: 33:11

It is, it's interesting. I think that the essence of every person is always changing and evolving. As soon as they have something happen to them, who you are has been changed because of like quantum entanglement and particle physics and all that.

SPEAKER_02: 33:27

Oh, here we go again.

SPEAKER_03: 33:30

Sorry, I'm a big fan of I think No, you're great.

SPEAKER_02: 33:33

I love I love this stuff. I just am nowhere near as well versed as you are, but I love it. I think it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_03: 33:40

I think that who I I mean, I have an idea of what who I am, but kind of who everybody is. Yeah. It's just a three I have, but we live in space-time, but like space-time is almost like a fluid in some ways because of like gravitational waves and things like that. But I think that each consciousness is a collapse of the probability waveform turning into reality. And so each perspective is almost its own universe. It's just that there's so much that overlaps and shares, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02: 34:16

It does a little bit. I'm such a visual learner that I'm like, I'm gonna have to go back to the transcript of what you just said and look about at it and think about it.

SPEAKER_03: 34:25

But the first thing that comes to mind is I was gonna say is you can kind of think of it as like ripples on a pond. And like the the peaks and troughs, I think like the peaks that you see could be like the line of consciousness that we follow, but it can collide into other things, it can slowly go down, it can increase. And I think that space-time is a fluid like that, and we're all just like a collapse of a waveform that we're all experiencing some of the same stuff, but then each of us has our own unique experience too.

SPEAKER_02: 34:54

Ooh, that's interesting. I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_03: 34:57

Yeah, I think that what we call reality is the overlap of the waveforms that anything with sentience shares.

SPEAKER_02: 35:05

Hmm. Now I'm gonna maybe I might mess this up, but I'm trying to like now, it's almost like what we call reality is like the least common denominator that we all share. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03: 35:16

Yeah, kind of like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:18

I don't yeah, it's not quite there, but like kind of like there's this thread that we all share, but then we also have our own. That's very interesting. I'm definitely gonna be thinking about that a lot. I'm gonna be thinking about a lot of things from this call. I don't think I light up. I don't know if anybody, and again, we're just talking through the phone, so I just definitely don't necessarily know, but I just hear when we talk about learning, it sounds like you light up. So I don't think I'm anywhere close to loving learning as much as you do, but I do very much enjoy learning. And it's a conversation like this that really makes me look at things differently and yeah, explore different ideas. And I'm so glad that we did this call. I'm so glad that you were willing to jump on the phone. I do have, I kind of have the couple questions that I ask at the top of the episode. And I was like, you know, it might be nice to end the episode with a similar question to everybody. And it is, what's one thing that you still want to experience in this life?

SPEAKER_03: 36:13

Hmm. Something I want to experience. I want to go skydiving.

SPEAKER_02: 36:17

Nice.

SPEAKER_03: 36:18

Yes, that is a big dream of mine to go skydiving.

SPEAKER_02: 36:22

Is there any limitations of you doing that?

SPEAKER_03: 36:25

Uh, cost. I'm just I'm full-time disabled living with parents as a full adult, and it's expensive.

SPEAKER_02: 36:33

Yeah, totally. I just wasn't sure if like I want to do it, but there's like medical concerns, I want to do it.

SPEAKER_03: 36:39

Yeah, I'd love to do it. I think that like I'd probably get a migraine after doing it, but sometimes when I want something so bad, I kind of have to weigh the the do I want it more than the migraine I'm going to get? And I do kind of have to run that equation in my head a lot every day, but sometimes the experience is worth the migraine. I'll say that.

SPEAKER_02: 37:01

I don't know what it is, but somewhere in that is a beautiful philosophy about life.

SPEAKER_03: 37:06

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we have to experience the bad for the good to feel even better.

SPEAKER_02: 37:11

You nailed it. That's exactly bravo. I'm clapping for you because that was that was exactly it. And I just just want to thank you so much for being willing to jump on the phone with a complete stranger and share about your experiences and and open up. And yeah, I'm so glad that you found the project and were willing to do this. And thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03: 37:32

Thank you. I honestly I I think that this is a really cool work that you're doing, and I love hearing people's point of view. And now that I've done my interview, I'm gonna go back and listen because I didn't really listen to Eddie before I did this.

SPEAKER_02: 37:43

Oh, well, I appreciate that. Thank you again. And yeah, let's stay in touch. And I don't know. Somehow you're gonna go skydiving and I want to hear all about it.

SPEAKER_03: 37:54

All right, awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 37:55

All right, well, take care.

SPEAKER_03: 37:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 37:58

All right, bye.

SPEAKER_03: 38:00

Bye.