The Space Between Art & Science with Adam Van Osdel

In this episode, we sit down with Adam Van Osdel, founder of Edge of the Universe, for a conversation that's equal parts thoughtful, funny, and inspiring. From art and science to community and creativity, Adam shares how curiosity has shaped his life and why some of the biggest lessons come from asking better questions. If you've ever wondered how one person can create a space where people truly feel they belong, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So in today's episode we have Adam van Osdil.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

That's correct, Van Osdil.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Most of the time insurance like companies or whoever else calls and like is Adam Van Ooz they like stop? Yeah. They think van's my first name sometimes. So is there like is van there? I'm like, I don't think there's a van here. I own a pickup truck. So yes, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Thank you for coming. So we're gonna kick it off with the best part. Not really the best part, but what's a boring fact about you?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Uh boring fact about I really like those canned sardines.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

What?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah. The ones in the hot sauce, especially. That's like my go-to snack.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

I didn't know that was a thing.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Like hot sauce sardine? Yeah. Do you eat them like on crackers or do you just go for it?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Sometimes you just go for it. It's a four. If you're feeling wild. But crackers is preferred. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

So I do with I eat them with tortillas.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I don't eat them with I can't say it like you. I'm gonna bring you some. Does it sound bad? Tortillas.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yes, that was great. We're gonna go to our favorite question. So if you could be eaten by any animal, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Any animal, if I could be eaten by one, amoebas? Because it'd be slow enough I wouldn't realize it. Small amoebas. Not like a big gladness cube amoeba. I mean, aren't we gonna be eaten by animals and worms?

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Am I alive?

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Do you interpret the question how you want?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Okay, so we'll say we'll go with that. We'll take to it. I'm alive if I could be eaten by any animal. Hmm. I don't think I'd want it to be painful. I'd want it to probably be like nice. So maybe some sort of like sleep fantasy inducing space plant that makes you live like your fondest memories as it digests you.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

Okay. I'll go with that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah, that's the one I want to be eaten by. Forget the shark or a lion. That just sounds awful. I'm going with the space plant.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Okay. Sounds great. I like it. It's like Seymour from Little Shop of Horror. Okay, so where does your story begin?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, my mom and dad really liked each other. And uh I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. And uh I've stayed here because my family's here and because it's the town's been you know pretty good to me. So uh went to Holy Name Catholic Church growing up from preschool on. Non-practicing Catholic, but what it's like you're the Marines, once you're in, you're in established. That's a very uh accurate description. You're still Catholic. I don't know what voice that is, though. You guys still Catholic.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

It's true. So we can do knitting once they got your claws and you'd like.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Um I still go to the fish fries. Um but outside of that went to Omaha North, was my school. So that's great engineering like magnet programs. I did a lot of engineering and I did show choir, um, did theater and didn't actually do much studio art at all. I took one, I think, drawing and painting class. And then I went to I know, right? I really actually never really did art directly. It was always like round art. I never I was more like I would do the engineering classes, but then I'd be able to draw like the different, like, oh, it looks like this isometric, you know, the room or the structure. Interesting. Um Yeah, I would do the other parts. Then um and I because it's always something I did. My mom was a professional sculptor for a while. My dad always dabbled, um, but he was you know more of a carpenter than anything else, but pro programmer by day. Yeah, so I was always in the home do creating things, uh doing some version of producing with your hands. Um she had a kiln at home kiln at home that's where she'd fire her stuff. She told me. So she would uh have the kiln and she'd fire, and she told us at Little On, if we opened the the kiln while I was firing, a razor sharp blade of hot air would decapitate us. So we did not open that kiln. Because you could picture that and you did not want that to happen. But I think that's just how can I make it really obvious that it's gonna be bad for them to open this?

SPEAKER_02 3:41

That is very only later.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I was just yesterday, I realized it does not decapitate you. I finally faced my weird um so anyway.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I don't know what happens though when you open it early. I know really bad.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

You just ruin stuff and it just mostly you'll probably ruin what's in there. Imagine you just open your really hot oven. Like smaller house, you're not really gonna just just be safe for anyone listening.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

I I know bad's exciting, but I didn't know what the bat was. You're not gonna die.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

It's like, no, I'm sorry. Model S130 does, but none of the others take your head off. So we're always and she taught this the art program at Holy Name, and so it was uh and it was volunteer, she volunteered to go all up, and she did like more of a traditional art program where it's like as if it was these are all college students where you're learning about actual artists because I feel like that's what happens with art programs with kids. Sometimes it's like, and now we're gonna learn about turkey hands, and it's like turkey hands are great, but there's like no what is where's the actual application? I guess you do the hand stuff. That's the tactile's good, the kinesthetic learning, but where's the real world? So she would be like, Oh, we're learning about Romeo Bearden, or we're learning about, you know, like uh Dolly, Grantwood, and actually have kindergarten up till eighth grade. They do some version of that artist, and so you were learning from it from early on. Yeah, and so that's what I've always applied to any of the art stuff I've learned. So then from that on, Omaha North did a lot of engineering, like I said, architecture and so on, then college with theater programs with some architecture. Worked at the architecture firm. Everyone told me they wish they would have done something else. And uh so I kind of did something else. I went the artsy fartsy route. And uh, done museums, film, and theater ever since, and now I have this art cafe.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

So, how did you, I guess, come to the decision of wanting to do more artsy fartsy stuff?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Oh yeah. Um, I think it just is what is there's this this book my sister had me read years ago. It's just like a fantasy. It's called uh what is it? Oh, now I can't even say it. Uh the Sabrielle, I think is what it's called. I think I'm saying that right. Anyway, she's a necromancer, but there's a cool line that the person who does the narration is uh from Rocky Horror Picture Show.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Really?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

What's his name? Lou Guy?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Oh no, I can't say it.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

I've never actually watched the best voice, he's British.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Okay, anyway, he does the narration, so it's great to listen to. But the the line was does the walker choose the path? Does the path choose the walker? And I feel like again, some things just call you back. You know, and so I feel like I always get pulled back in the arts no matter what, anyway. And so it's something that I don't even really ever consider myself an artist as weird as that is. I just feel like I make stuff or do things. Um, and then people like you're an artist. I'm like, well, yeah, but I I'm just doing stuff, is what it feels like. I think a lot of there's other artists out there that that's how they feel. I feel like they never really to them.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

They're never an actual, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

It's almost like I feel like maybe the methodology of like having a practice, you're always practicing maybe is the thought process behind it. That's why I anyway. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. That's how I view it.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

So yeah, because I I think like that's how I always thought of myself, especially when we were talking about the the Wings project, because every single time like someone would say, You're an artist, I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, we are something. I don't know how to do this. I'm trying my best. I don't know. It's weird, but I get it.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Myers Dunning, is that what it is? That's probably wrong, but it's the one where you the more you know about something or the more you understand its implications, the more you're resistant to saying you're an expert or saying you're good at it. Yeah. You might be like, Oh, I'm competent, but also so like you know, the most boastful, you know, prime example. Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter. Like, yeah, they don't, but they know nothing, in fact. So uh and we have the internet is filled with them. Every comment section is filled with experts who suddenly have a doctorate in everything.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Yeah. You're not wrong. You're true. I was like when you said that, I was thinking, I'm like, I totally have that all the time. And I'm like, I've been in my field for quite a while now, and I still feel like I'm still learning. I don't, I wouldn't call myself an expert at all. But I think like when I had a beauty of it, I was like, I'm the adult. I'm the expert according to them.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

I like that you had like kind of like this this frown serious face. I'm the adult.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

And I was just like, I was not ready. What a disappointment to say it. Yeah, I was not ready for that, but you're totally right.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I mean that's a real thing, though, knowing that you actually do know something about this. Because the the loud, boisterous voices, sometimes the bully, will make you feel like you don't know anything, you know, and then well, it's all wrong, and then it ends up wrong, and you just because you were giving them space, because you are patient and because you are wise about something, and then you end up with that situation where it's like, what have we got here? Why is this person in charge of this kind of situation?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

It's true. Yeah. I don't know. I like the fact that I still love to keep learning no matter what. Like, I think that's my favorite part about that, and like being surrounded with you guys. It's like I'm still learning, I want to keep learning. Like whatever comes next, like with art, with the podcast, with anything, I'm like, I don't want to get in it. Like, how do we do that? And I want to still keep learning. So I'm a student.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

I think that that's the best way to be to be a student of life. It's like anyone who knows that they know, and it's like, oh yeah, duh. A lot of people they it's they think at some point they master, or at some point they're that they are the pinnacle. And it's like you just I think the wisest is what she said, being wise to say, I don't know. And I won't ever truly know. I'll have things I I can lean my you know, set my hat on and everything like that. But ultimately, I'm at a loss for what the real mysteries of this thing are. Because the more you know, the more you know you don't know every single time.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So, how did your passion bring you to have an art artist bar? Um, how would you put this?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

We always call it a cafe. When we when I visited France in 2016, I never thought I'd go as a bucketless trip uh for my dad, who was passing away from uh posterior cortical atrophy, which is uh visual Alzheimer's. I always kind of poster child that because it was so hard to diagnose him, but it acts it's Alzheimer's progression, but it's visual based. Very hard to diagnose. So we went on these trips, uh, and so in France, just seeing these cafes at night where it was, again, this is Paris, so it's like Disneyland of France. So everything, of course, is supposed to be nice, but uh it just felt right because like you could go there and you could have a coffee or you could have a drink and a meal, and it was more of a sitting experience opposed to here, where it's like, go get your food, run out the door, pay, get moving on, and it's like everything is so we wanted something that was like a slower experience-based thing. And you look around at all the chains, they're just like these soulless concrete metal boxes, and we call it this brutalist like world of like, oh, that's but that's that's the design. And it's like nobody wants that. We didn't we're like evolved in forests and nature, and like I feel like we want to feel how you feel when you're in a forest. Like, that's it's it's a spiritual experience, and it's because it feeds us. We we crave that, like just like animals in a habitat in the zoo. You feel bad for the ones that are stuck in that concrete cube, the ones that are in a natural environment. Oh, yeah, this feels right. So I feel like that's what we wanted to make that environment because we're all kind of like animals stuck in a zoo in this modern society. Why not make our habitats a little more enjoyable?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, I love that. Me too. I think like that's one of my favorite parts of coming here, and then you change not just like do you you change the what is it called? The like the theme or yeah, like the theme every three or four months, but shortest will be about three months, and then we'll sometimes do eight months.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Um and we'll we'll close down for like a week, a couple days, do a hard shift, and then we'll keep adding to that. This one, changing to nautical, we're taking a little more time with it.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

So I'm so excited. It makes me want to feel like a mermaid.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Let's say that mermaids, pirates and mermaids are always such like a fun thing to like, you know, so much genres behind that. Everything from Pirates of the Caribbean to the Little Mermaid and everything in between. Yeah. But fantasy, real quick. I mean, that's the thing I feel like often as adults we want to cut that out. And the way, you know, that's why Disney and all of its corporate umbrellan-ness, it's still it's it's all about letting us experience that wonder of childhood and fantasy. And I feel like that's if we can embody a little bit of that here, that's we're doing it right. And if it's silly uh comedy, great. If if it's dance, if it's painting, all of the arts blend together in this way that we like to break them up, but so often they belong together. And they're one thing, it's the creative output of everywhere in between when you're not thinking serious about something. I feel like even when you I'm gonna be serious and make art, you have to like let yourself be free. It has to just happen. And because of that, I mean, that is to be a child, they don't think about things. And it's not to be like juvenile and enjoy fart jokes, but who doesn't want that? I mean, I'm seeing, you know, what is it, despicable me? Jokes are great. So but ultimately the thought is that you are free to not be judgmental of yourself, and that is where art I think lives in all of its forms, whether you're practicing law, whether you're drawing a picture, or again, you're doing comedy on a stage or dancing a performance. Art lives when you don't necessarily think about it because, and that's the power of humans we have over AI, is that we have the the capacity to live in kind of a serenity state and create something that has never existed. And that's the cool thing about being human and what I believe art actually is.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, and I and I'll say like that's something that I always feel every single time I walk in here, I feel like a kid, like just seeing everything that you put out. I don't know, because you had the um that nightmare before Christmas, and that's one of my favorite movies. And just bringing my son here, you know, that's I think that's my favorite part where I I don't drink. I haven't drank any alcohol in the pat in almost two years, which I'm really proud of myself for. And I come here and what he gets butter beer and I get hot chocolate. And it's exciting because he sees all of these things on Saturdays. You have movies and you change you on the theme too every day, right? Like you have trivia night, um you have karaoke.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

What experience or moments in your life have shaped who you are today?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

So I was bit by a radioactive slug at one point.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Not even a spider, you were just cut right for a slug.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah. That sucks. So, but I got better. Good. And uh, but that really wasn't a major effect in my life. Okay, good. I can't imagine what spy would be the worst, you'd just like be gooey all the time. You'd have sweaty hands, which I do have. So, yeah, a pivotal moment I think was I think back to this one. I just said this to somebody. So I was in kindergarten or first grade, and kaboom, the the traveling like science chemistry people visited, and it was um they froze a racquetball, like into liquid nitrogen, those blue racquetballs that are great bouncing, and they threw it against the wall and shattered. And it was like the coolest, weirdest thing. And so if I I've always loved science with art, and I've always felt like they're the same thing, actually, to me. Just one pursues it like it's two different flavors, or like we'll say twin, you know, brothers or sisters, but they're just part of the same bird situation, like wings. So picking up a fragment of that racquetball and just seeing that it had been once whole, it was bouncing. Now it's this flexible shard that looked like glass almost in shape. That was something that's like a core memory that I that I've retained. It's kind of like why the love of science has kind of started from that. And the other moment I can think of is uh just well, it's kind of like a few, but it's being late and I working with my mom or dad doing things, either getting the art show ready, and then this is all volunteer where my mom's repainting the floor because it was simulated terrazzo, and they didn't really use the basement area as much, but she wanted to look nice for an art show, and so she wanted to make sure all the kids had a good art show presentation. So I thought everyone just did that, stayed late, you know, at their school with their mom painting the floor like Tirazzo and anything else. And it wasn't like hard, it wasn't like bad, she wasn't like wow, we're painting the floor. Yeah, like it was just like, yeah, we do this, and so like those moments uh I think are really part of who I've been through all of this work. They've been core. And there's other things along the way, you know, pitfalls and such. Um, I'd say that'd be one of them.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

I love that. I love you're family-centered too.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, I think well, it just to me it tells me how important those people around you are. Yeah, what you said earlier. If you have people who seek doing things well in a positive way, it will really affect you. If you're surrounded by a bunch of people who are negative, if everyone's the devil's advocate, well that's not getting anywhere. And the devil doesn't need any advocates, he's got he does fine on his own.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Right. And you know, and like that's something that I grew up with my grandma always since we were little. That was one of her main things. She's like, you can tell a lot by a person by who they hang out with. So if you're hanging out with someone who you knew who's part of gangs, because I was growing up in El Salvador, just like, what do you think people are gonna think of you? They're gonna think that you're part of them, like you are doing the same things that they're doing. And if you're studying and you're doing, you know, what you're supposed to be doing, all of that. But for her, it was like, choose like it's good or bad. Now, as I'm growing up, I see like it's different things, but I'm like, I wanna be a part of people that help others. Whatever that looks like, that fills me. Like being here, I know, like in a way, you might not see it, but you're helping someone like me who I don't know why didn't have like the best childhood growing up. But coming to spaces like here with my son and feeling like a kid myself again, watching movies and doing those things with him, it's like, man, like this is awesome. Like, I don't know, like it's just it's giving me that sense of I'm in a good space where I can be myself even in those weird little moments. So I don't know, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, totally so. This is to one more core memory that was later, much later. So I'm fixing up a duplex, and I've I'll tell this story often enough, but I'm in fixing up a basement's duplex, and the people had rented it sometime before the corner of this basement, and yet she's she's you know, in her advancing years that she hadn't been to the house in a while, but had black mold in this corner, and there was like chalk drawings on the floor. This is some kids' play area, you know, this dank basement corner. And I always felt like if I could, and in doing children's exhibits only, if I could give whoever this child's equivalent was some better place to have those moments of play, like I'm probably doing something right in life. And I think that uh goes through from being a child to an adult. We're at some point we're all in that dark black mold corner, physically metaphysically. You know, it's and doing work to help people, we basically make a choice to make the world a better place. I think as long as I'm with that energy, I feel better.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah. I I don't know, it's awesome. Like I that's the reason why I don't know, like the past two years just finding my tribe and what you all do, it makes me want to do, yeah, I don't know, like do what makes me more passionate about life. You know? I don't I don't know how to explain it, but it's like seeing people like do their thing. It's like I want to keep doing my thing too, because uh it looks like you're attracting more people just like you to come into your circle and those who want to keep growing in a way.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, some people want to break down. Some like again, we look at the bullies of the world, the people that seem to feed off of the dark energies, the negative energies. Um and they become deluded themselves. So they they think sometimes even they're being social advocates when in fact they are the bully they wish to to remove. Um I think that in spreading positive energy, and that's not like toxic positive, let's just think positive about this and not look at the bad. Yay! Yeah, um, that's insanity. But saying, no, let's let's find out a way to where we can be holistic, almost like a medical approach, you know. What's the new normal for this situation? And and working with the homeless organization right now, like is it is it what's the new normal that can move this person to a better position in life, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

So and that's reimagine, huh?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, reimagine. So that's awesome. Reimagine, they're also startups, so just like the community project, reimagine. They've been around for a couple years now, and uh, they're all experienced, just to do a quick plug of them, but just to think, you know, they they've all experienced homeless in some some way or some form of that, and now they are the advocates that are helping people get find rehousing, guiding other organizations, and they're just they're doing the work. They're not just in an office somewhere, which you know that we need that, but they they're actually doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So who or what has been your biggest influence in your path and why?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Besides being bit by that radioactive slug, uh I would say uh I mean it'd be my my parents uh are pretty solid. My little sister, she was like one of my best friends growing up, my brother was as well, but we played soccer endlessly. So really the most influential are those people probably closest to me. And I have, you know, one high school professor, Dr. Callstrom, who had the most positive approach to education, he won the Puppet Teaching Award Award because he was very effective at saying, like, well, what can we what can we do that's good? What are you what is anything you're doing right now that is good? And I'm going to encourage that. And it was an engineering class. Yeah, he did, it was it was anything. You would produce these large projects, compete in these engineering competitions, but whatever it is you were kind of wanting to do, he was like, Yes. And so I think and actually the whole tech program at North was like that, because there was even a shop teacher, he didn't care what you were making, and he worked with Carlson Rowan point, you know, and he as long as you were just making something, like he saw the the beauty of like, let's just find whatever that passion is. I feel like that's where real education is. I find what that one thing I can hook on to, and then like, oh yeah, you like shoes and socks. Well, we're gonna use that to learn how to do math somehow. Soc equation. But anyway, so these people were very influential. There's uh an old architect that I talked to for just for a brief time at a scholarship I got. His main lesson was, and I keep hearing this in my life, which is not helpful to the bank accounts, but it said, Don't worry about the money. That comes maybe later, because if you put the money first, you'll end up hollow without any skills. And then that lifelong learner, you'll end up you'll at the end of the journey, you'll have a hollow kind of plan experience. So put the other stuff first, and then the money will follow, is the thought. And that was his his lesson. I hear that time and time again, and I feel like that as much as it makes it trouble for the day-to-day or making your bills, I do think it gives you a richer life, and I think it pays off in the long run. So and you help a lot more people along the way.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

I appreciate that because you know, I think like we have grown up in a society where we believe that money should always come first. Like, no, get the best job, do the best thing so you get the more money, you know, you don't have to worry about things. But then I have seen people who have all of that money and they're not happy. That's true. So, you know, I I don't know. And then I have seen those who do have money, but but they have grown up without it. And they're like, no, no, no, like I followed my passion, and this is exactly how it grew. And they're really happy with what they're doing. I'm like, I want to be you when I grow up. Like, that's exactly what I want. I want to get I want to get stuck into doing what I'm passionate about and following that instead of following the money.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I mean, the field changes too. We know that AI is gonna remove a lot of those good paying jobs that people, you know, they went into. And so I feel like it's if you if you've taken the path of mastery of some topic, all your neuroplasticity, those neurons will have connected in a very more interesting, like web like configuration that maybe you can jump past. Because you have a little bit of the barnyard method where you walk through that barnyard and picked up the different skills. Skills on your feet, and then you can redirect opposite being the jack of all trades, master of none, is better than a master of one, is how it continues out. So better than being a master of one, and then well, you well, evolution, you will be removed in that essence. If you want to think like logically cold about it.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

That makes me feel a lot better because I am a master of none. I'm a jack of all trades, but I'm master of none.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Well, I do think that that in all of we talk about the US being behind in you know different areas. I think the US does excel in that, that we celebrate diversity, even with all the stuff going on geopolitically and internally, everything else with ice right now, all the stuff that's giving us sadness. But we we do believe in having a broad spectrum of understanding of things. So a lot of course a lot of invention comes out of the US, I think, because we do that well. And I think that that's something that really should be celebrated more. And Sir Ken Robinson talks about that. He's only died a couple of years ago, but he was an advocate of a diversified creative education opposed to test studying to test and then test and move on and then test and move on and become just a basically your body becomes a vessel to move your head from meeting to meeting, and we've all felt that.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

What's a misconception people often have about your work or your story?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Um again, I feel like taking everything at surface value has been something that I've always tried to work against in my work. Whenever I enter an organization, it always feels like I've like you encounter, and this is everywhere, and everyone, myself included, these these bias you have. So when I started working with the Arts Center, all these other nonprofits that came together, they kind of hated each other and they like kind of just were really they weren't communicating. And I think everything because I'm look- I'm viewed as a creative, and they think that I'll come in with all these like you know creative ideas sometimes if they if they you know view me that way. When in fact, so often my work is trying to get people to just actually speak to each other plainly and finding out that they might be working towards the same thing. And I feel like sometimes the the biggest thing that stops creativity is assumption and like anger and the inward lens. I like that. And we're taught like what the uh the artist will say, self-loathing, like you know, you just never good enough. And I think that that's the darker side to it, opposed to harmony, peace, and serenity. And I think that's the misconception. You will you want that. And the history teaches us that the singular person is always like there's some brilliance, and that it distorts our ability to work together to create something that has harmony, like an orchestra will say or something like that. That also then has a soloist, but then so on. So I think with that the misconception is that that's what I try to do anywhere I go, is I try to find a way to make things harmonious if I can, and then everything else works better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

I like that. Because maybe in a sense, we don't all have to like each other, but we're we have one goal, right? That we can work towards. We need to get along. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

We all have to share the planet. We need to get along.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

So deal more kindly with each other, I think is the biggest thing. The pale blue dot by Carl Sagan really embodies that. I feel like this talk he gives on that.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

So is that the pale blue dot?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

So he was he's what encouraged them to spin the satellite to take a picture of Earth. Is it Voyager? Uh anyone listening that knows this might correct me. I'm blanking now right now. But anyway, deep space satellite that they were gonna try and use on the committee to determine what it's one of its next actions said, Well, can we turn it around to take a picture of Earth? And this is out past, you know, Saturn now, I believe, ultimately to where this the Earth is just a dot. I mean, it's a it is a pixel, basically, a pale blue dot. And he thought that was very relevant. Carl Sagan, and all of his again, he was very wise in all of his backing of astrophysics. So he said that, like, you know, ultimately the talk he gives is that this tiny, tiny blue dot, all the people that have ever existed, every Satan, sinner, king, or impoverished person has lived out the entirety of their life on this single speck in a cosmos of dark. And he said it it encourages and underlines the fact for us to deal more kindly with each other because ultimately we are just all just a speck of light that wakes out. And you can either, I guess, you know, rally against the the darkness, you know, and like have that passion and wish to commit whatever atrocity to get that momentary amount of power, or you can find a way to ensure that this dot exists forever. Um, and so I guess that's kind of the message he gives. Do you want to maintain this very fragile thing that's alone, isolated in space, or do you want to have your moment in the light and cost so many other people their life and so on? Send them to die and everything else. So yeah, Carl Sagan, pale blue dot. It's very good.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

I really like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Uh you can look it up, and it's often picture of the planet, that image, and then it's him giving his narration. He has again great narrative voice too, Carl Sagan, hard to beat it.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

I'm gonna have to look that up. All right. How do you hope your story helps or inspires others?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

I think that ultimately I've always I always say my if I have a mission in life and when it all comes down to it, again, you can't always get there, but if you can give people hope, in whatever capacity that is, that I feel like I've accomplished my my goal. So in all this work to try to give a complete narrative of there's pitfalls and mistakes and setbacks and nothing just happens perfectly, and you always have to work the problem, is that and to try to be try to be transparent enough to say that it's it's imperfect, but you're working towards something better. Just like going to the gym. Yeah, I'm working towards something better for me right now. So if I can do that to show that in the work, you're ultimately trying to help better your society, and that is long and that it is difficult, and it's every day kind of trying to choose that path. That's what I would hope. Yeah, you know, in all this all this making of sculptures and painting things and other random bits of stuff and bobbits and widgets and things and coffees and cocktails and yada yada blah blah blah. Is that uh just the hope is that you you see that the journey to help people is very long sometimes and that you have to kind of just keep showing up and that that's what matters.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Yeah. I like it, dude.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

It's beautiful. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

It is nice. What's a moment of growth or realization that changed the direction of your life?

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Oh man, there's lots. What is it? It's like uh uh history whispers or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

I've never heard that.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

But basically it's something I think it's I'm misquoting, I'm probably misquoting, but it's basically that like you know, change always sometimes it shouts, but often it like whispers, and so like you feel the the need to change. Um I know when I was at Durham Museum, I was kind of anyone who is a producer at their organization, they get more and more put on them. And so I realized I was like a single point of failure because if I broke down, this wouldn't happen. So I realized at that moment I can't do everything myself, you know, because you we want to, you know, you know, I can just get it done because it's faster. And I so I mean I realized, you know, if I I keep it up at this rate, I'm gonna just I'll be burned up, used up, and just broken, and then not I will not have accomplished any of the goals I hoped to. So I think that realizing that we were doing this balloon net is a balloon drop they do there, and I had to like climb up to the attic like probably some hundred times. It wasn't that much, but it was a lot. It was probably like up oh eighty foot stairs, probably ten times that day up and down.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

It was a lot and then I had to MC it that day, and I had to also run the lift and fix it like moments before they walk in the room, and so this is all me, because nobody else is wants to put themselves out there to do it because then well then they're stuck with the check. And so in doing that, I'm like, I am I can't do this forever. Um so in realizing that I I have to have more people around me to work through this, I guess. And I that's when I started, you know, trying to get more volunteers and work in that direction of having more people just know everything. Then I always I say, you know, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I want this to continue. Um and that way you you you can you want to stay active in it, but you want to r make it possible for the other people to not be stuck in that position you were in. And that's I guess what it was. I don't want anybody else to be stuck in that position that I was in where it's like they are the single point of failure. I want it to be able it can live on and we can sh we can share the goal and share the pain of working through this. I had a few good people with me too that were there with me, and that you know, without them I wouldn't be able to do it. But um that's what I would respond to that with is that um you're always gonna be making a mistake and knowing that humanity is what you'll hopefully do better because you'll you'll listen to the people around you more and you'll be able to change direction more.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah. I like that. That's good. I'm learning so much about life.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Me too. The the point is I think it's reversing the problem.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

And I think that's a what we deal with right now is we've reversed a lot of these problems with anything from gender identity to pursuing money. What in the end, what do we want to be true? You know, I mean, we want a society that you don't have to like fight for economic independence all the time. We want a society where everybody has accepted who they are. But we're forcing it through this lens that is already distorted.

SPEAKER_04 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

We already have gender identities that don't make sense. So why are we trying to conform to those gender identities? We already know that money ultimately corrupts, yet we're using it as a means to pursue everything. What? And so the problem is even in front of the solution. It's it's like I'm not saying cut the head off of like the snake situation.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

But it's it's I look at it this way. Really sorry, long story short, you can stop me at any point. So there is a this engineering story, and they're making this bullet train, and this is part fact, part fiction, but they're shooting these birds at the windshield to try to solve a glass situation because bird shot on planes and bullet trains will break, and you know, they don't want that flying and hitting the pilot. Very bad. Um, it's a chicken event. I can only picture a chicken in the situation, which is very unlikely, especially a plane plane down by chickens.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

But it's a hardy bird, it'd be a hefty bird.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

How did it find up there?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah, large birds. Well, it's not bad. So they have this chick, they have this bird cannon that shoots these birds at the bullet train windshield, and it keeps breaking, they can't figure it out they bring in like other people, they can't figure it out. So ultimately, they realize through who knows that some random other engineering team or somebody walks in and says, Hey, uh, the cannon for the bird shot was being loaded the night before, and it's froze. And so you have these frozen bird carcasses that's a rock, they're shooting at the windshield of this bullet train. And so rather than shooting a gushy warm bird, they're shooting a boulder at glass. And I think when are you going to encounter a flying frozen bird? It's so unlikely. Anything's possible, very unlikely. And so the thought is, what problem are you trying to solve? And are you actually solving it wrong? Because the problem itself is not the problem you're trying to solve. It's the frozen bird in the cannon. So I can't even solve for it. So I feel like again, when you deal with problems that we're currently experiencing, is it because the bird's frozen in the cannon and loaded the night before, so we can't even solve the glass problem? Yeah. So anyway, so that's like I feel like that's where we are with a lot of these issues because we're smart enough, we have enough development to know we want a stronger windshield, but we can't solve the fact that there's the problems already happened the night before.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Or maybe you just have the wrong people at the table instead of adding more, maybe, or you know, other ideas. Because obviously, like you mentioned, it could have been someone on the other team that came in and was like, why were they having the birds the day before and not just grabbing it the day of because you're trying to be efficient, get it the night before, you know?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, after that like load the bird the night before, like the early bird gets the worm.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Like, where were they? I would be worried about the bird starting to rot and smell if I'm like cold enough. So, but then you should think if it's okay to sit out overnight, then it's going to be frozen the next day when we're shooting it at this windshield. They should have thought that through.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

They should have.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

You can leave this bird overnight for food safety purposes.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

So let's apply that to we'll say the nuclear family. If we know society has never existed in this model of nuclear family, and yet we're still trying to apply this to be the one whole model where again women have children and then they live isolated at home for months. I think that they loaded the bird the night before.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Exactly. What legacy do you hope to leave behind?

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Uh my knee jerk is just really love. It sounds so stupid when I say it. I end up like long flowing hair like the white Jesus. He's always writ. Have you noticed that? He hit the gym.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah, because people want to look at pretty people, they're not gonna want to look at like a pre-Captain America Jesus on their wall.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Anyway, my legacy is that uh I hope to have improved the world that I have existed in. I think that's good. So that you know, in some way or other, people have uh seen more, uh considered the complexity, because I feel like a lot of hate and bigotry and anger lives in not understanding complexity. Yeah. That's you assume a lot. So if I can challenge those assumptions in any form, then I think I've jumped done it right. And do it in a holistic, loving way, not like you know, smack someone in the face with something and be like, yeah, change. And like I think that that's that's effective in a moment.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

What if what if they need it?

SPEAKER_00 34:49

I guess yeah, you're right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Hey.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Sea bass will be my weapon. I will wheel.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Make sure that it's cooked.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I will yeah, I will cook it or like uh or maybe just like use a fresh one every day. Frozen sea bass. That'd strike better. No, he'll be my sidekick, and he can live like in this backpack that has this oxygenated.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

No, we need one of those singing fish.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

No, and that's like again, that's the problem with all the narratives we tell. Star Wars is beautiful, but it's always a conflict story. And these real problems take real time and real communication and understanding, and there's not this big moment where we blow up the Death Star, it's better. Actually, it'd more look like we probably go work at the Death Star and we say, Hey, people in here, do you want to keep blowing up planets? They're like, No, I just need a pension. And they're like, Well, maybe we don't have to blow up planets. And it's actually like a 30-year story of like getting people to keep delaying shooting the Death Star, and we've changed the whole thing, and then Darth Vader's like, do it! And they're like, we don't want to. We don't like blowing up planets. Like, that's the actual Star Wars story opposed to blow it up and then it's fine. But you can't tell the story in a movie. Oh, it's not a good thing. It'd be so boring, it'd be like committee meetings, it's talking, it'd be less fighting.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Uh, it wouldn't sell.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Yeah, it wouldn't sell. So that's and that's we're taught wrong how to handle conflict. So it's not as clitzy.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

So what's next in your life?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

I think it's just to continue with this. The hope is I think I is doing this model of edge of the universe, but like in a larger format if I can. So something that's more experience-based. I that that's the hope. But we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

In Omaha, are you gonna be able to do that?

SPEAKER_00 36:17

I think Omaha would be great. Uh so I would love to do that. So that'd be the next step besides having a baby. So Michelle's having a baby. I'm just gonna be there with support looking awkward with my hands out. What do I do? I don't know. Well, thanks guys for having me.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Yeah, thanks for coming. We appreciate you. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Remember, don't load that cannon the night before. No, that's the send off.