Action with Purpose: Part 1

Nithin Cherian and Malcolm Moore utilize the Mind Vehicle to help guests attain personal growth. In this premiere episode, Nithin and Malcolm set the stage for exploring action with purpose.

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www.playthespaces.com

*Theme music composition and performance by Malcolm Moore.
**Photo manipulation by Caleb Moore.

Please visit-
www.playthespaces.com

*Theme music composition and performance by Malcolm Moore.
**Photo manipulation by Caleb Moore.

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Malcolm's Other Podcast: Creativity is the Cure!

Malcolm & Nithin

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Transcript

Malcolm Moore: 0:25

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Play the Spaces, a podcast where we allow ourselves to be vulnerable in hopes of achieving mental and emotional breakthroughs via deep dives into delicious diatribe. My name is Malcolm Moore, and I'm here today with my good friend, Nathan Cherian. Nithin, would you please explain the concept of play the spaces? Oh my God, dude.

Nithin Cherian: 0:52

Delicious diatribe. Yeah. So the whole play the spaces thing and what seems tangible for most people, and I use it more in a business context like this, is creating success. It's like writing a hit song. The magic comes in the spaces between the notes. In reality, it's just really about living with intent and being present. And sometimes being present means doing nothing but paying attention and listening. And other times it means acting, but with purpose, right? Action with purpose, right? And that back and forth of understanding when you should and not do those things and how you react to space is where sort of magic unfolds. It creates the opportunity for a great conversation, creates the opportunity for creative space. It can also be a thing that destroys both of those things and ruin the mood versus help the mood. And so learning this art of how you affect space and when it's good for you to be on or off, but on or off with a sense of how everything is reacting is sort of how I internalize it for myself.

Malcolm Moore: 2:10

And would you say this is the goal of Play the Space is a continual mindset for all of us just to try to stay there just to be able to level out and balance things in our lives?

Nithin Cherian: 2:25

Yeah, I mean, I think how I would put it is it's a lot easier to make things better if you don't overcomplicate things.

Unknown: 2:33

Right.

Nithin Cherian: 2:34

And if you constantly remind yourself that simple is better and strategic is Input is better. Like, you don't have to win every conversation. Like, why do you? Some people, they just have to win a conversation. But the conversation wasn't meant to be a battle in the first place. It wasn't a debate. So why are you trying to win? Knowing when to let someone have a moment or when they create the space for you to have a moment.

Malcolm Moore: 3:00

Right. I mean, that kind of goes along with when people are having conversations. A lot of times you're not listening to the other person. You're waiting for them to finish. So you can say your point and it needs to be more collaborative, right?

Nithin Cherian: 3:13

Yeah, I mean, I think the way things have been going because of how media is consumed, people are used to basically feeding their impulses instead of having a relationship with information where you're affecting it and it's appropriately responding, not it just trying to respond in a way that sucks you in, right? So in the manifestation of conversation, what that's turned into is most people now talk at people. They don't converse. And part of that is they don't have the trust in themselves to stay confident and centered while they're having a conversation so that they don't lose their, you know, some sort of sense of self by someone disagreeing with them, things like that, right? There's an anxiety that people have developed. So people now just talk to people and wait. And then when you disagree, they walk away.

Malcolm Moore: 4:04

It's kind of like a bad theater performance because I remember, what was it, 12 years ago, you challenged me to take Groundlings. And I actually learned a lot more about just how to be in the world and how to present myself and how to be aware. Because when you learn to perform on a stage, it's not only your performance and what you're doing. It's what you're doing while the other people are performing. And hopefully you're not even performing. You're just in the moment performing. and being aware of everything that goes on, and I think that's what makes it more real, right?

Nithin Cherian: 4:38

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I would put it to, it's funny, you mentioned the Pee Wee Herman documentary to me a couple days ago, so I watched it, and it was interesting, a thing of how talented Paul Rubens was, and when Groundlings was founded, and he said something really interesting, which was, Or should I say the people around him said something really interesting was he was just one of those people that could instantly change the tone of what's going on, but in a way that it brought everything with him. So it had a very organic effect. And he had this ability to control what was happening. And that's what he loved about doing it was his ability to not only affect space, but affect space in this organic way that seemed to work for everyone. and especially for himself being good at what he was doing. But in a nutshell, what he did was really get a quick understanding of space and how he affects it,

Malcolm Moore: 5:43

right? Right, and I liked when he was explaining that, how he said it didn't have to be over the top. He knew how to grab a room being subtle.

Nithin Cherian: 5:52

Yeah, and he was one of the only that did it, and he did it a lot of times with just a facial expression and body

Malcolm Moore: 5:58

language. Right. And he had that connection with the audience and with the performers. And I think that's almost like we should be in our regular life, right?

Nithin Cherian: 6:08

And to me, a lot of what we need to do is exactly that, is understanding how you affect space and how little you have to do. to actually affect space in a way that's in sync with your intentions internally in your subconscious.

Malcolm Moore: 6:26

So maybe an offshoot of play the spaces is also less is more, right? And that goes with real life and when you're being creative.

Nithin Cherian: 6:34

I would actually say it's just knowing sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is better. It's just knowing what time is it to be that.

Malcolm Moore: 6:42

Well, I think I've found this as I get older. The people that impress me are the people who, that can grab your attention with less. And a funny anecdote is I remember growing up in the 80s when MTV was on, I noticed like all the American drummers had as many drums as possible, like these gigantic sets. I remember like what Alex Van Halen had like five bass drums. But then when I would see the English bands like The Fix or Madness, they'd often just have like a bass drum, a snare drum, and a hi-hat. And I was Totally impressed how they could inspire me with very little, and they didn't need the gigantic kits. I mean, the big kits are cool and they're fun, but there's something to be said about that. Like when I've gone to Catalina's to see Steve Gadd, and a lot of times, the way that he grabs the whole room is playing the most simple thing. It's like he sucks everybody into a vortex, and I'm like, what is he doing that's so impressive? But he's bringing everybody together. You know what I mean?

Nithin Cherian: 7:42

Yeah, I would... I would relate it to candy. So if you think about it like this, or maybe it's easier if I use a reference like chicken wings, because a lot of people watch that podcast Hot Ones. Yeah, right, right. Now, there's a time and place for something really intense, like the hottest wing that's there. But even if you like hot, there's only so much you can take of it. It has a beauty and a burst. But if that's elongated, it'll destroy you, right? Versus if you had a mild wing, you could eat hundreds of them and enjoy a wing constantly. And I think what people mistake in sugar, what takes sugar from being something healthy, which you need your body to function, it turned into a poison. Well, intensity has the same effect in anything.

Malcolm Moore: 8:28

Like where does it cross the line, right? The tipping

Nithin Cherian: 8:30

point. Correct. And everybody has a different sort of barometer for what that is based on their environment, based on their genetics. You know, and based on how they responded to those things. Right. But in general, there are these averages of certain things that you can take in quantity. Like you can take a lot of water. Right. As soon as you turn water into something like alcohol, some people can handle a little. Some people can handle an obscene amount. But even from the little to the obscene amounts, it's going to hurt you at some point. Right. Right. But that varying degree of the intense version of water, which we could say is like a high proof whiskey. Right. Some people just smelling it is too much. Some people can handle a sip. Some people can handle an out. Some people can handle half a bottle.

Malcolm Moore: 9:24

Some people turn into a different person.

Nithin Cherian: 9:26

Exactly. But as soon as you get into an intense thing, you have to be really mindful of your audience. Right. And really mindful of who it's affecting. Because if you're not careful, you can hurt someone with what you think is a little, but it's not a little for them. So to me, playing the spaces is learning how to just read the room better so that you can understand when what you do is intense for some people, but mild for other people.

Malcolm Moore: 9:56

And you're bringing a great point out. I think that a lot of people, a huge percentage in all of us on our worst days, We're not aware of other people. We have our agendas and we have to be careful to maintain that balance that you speak of.

Nithin Cherian: 10:12

Well, I think because of the way we consume things now, community isn't as big as it used to. So it's not as big of a factor in an everyday life because people create their own bubble, their digital ecosystem. And the reality is, is this art of understanding community is the art of being aware of your surroundings, right? And it used to be you were forced to being aware because how you had a social life is being part of the community and not getting ostracized. Or finding a place where you could be you but still fit in the community. And if you couldn't find your community, which a lot of people in small towns would ever hate it, they moved to bigger markets that had diverse groups of people so they could find community. Now you can find that sort of community but in a virtual space. but you're neglecting the physical needs of your mind-body connection. And that's a big problem with now. And that's where a lot of the anxiety comes from for people just in general. That magic of interaction that more people had than not for years, it's almost a lost art because of the lack of just sort of habitual practice that was forced onto you by environment before.

Malcolm Moore: 11:25

Yeah, I recently, for my other podcast, I interviewed this great puppeteer. Her name is Nicolette Santino, and she's on tour with Coldplay. And at one point, we get into this discussion that, you know, right now, the state of the world is a lot of people against each other fighting, whether it's religion or culture. And I asked her, I was like, what is it like traveling around the world? How are you perceived? And she said, I'm always worried because I'm an American what people think of me. But she said, no matter where I go, people are kind. loving and supportive so I think because she's doing that because she's going in a lot of times what happens is they'll get to a city and she has to find puppeteers from that country or that city and she has to train them for the show and she's finding out all these people accept her right away invite her over for dinner and it's because they're having that eye-to-eye one-on-one contact and it also makes me think of one of my favorite movies is called Super 8 and directed by, I think it's J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. And it's set in the time where I grew up, like 70s and 80s, where there wasn't internet. And kids would just get together and make stuff up. And in this case, they're making Super 8 movies. But I really hope we can get back to that time somehow, even with all the technology we have, that people, you have to be face-to-face with someone. You have to be kind and considerate. You have to be aware of how people perceive you, and they need to be, back to you, reciprocal.

Nithin Cherian: 12:59

I think there's a beauty of that part, but it's not necessarily a necessity, right? I think it's important, but plenty of people are functioning without it. If you think about all the group collaboration, or how many people have friends they've never met, right, that do stuff virtually, like make their own video games, movies, songs. That's a great point. Whatever. But a lot of times, what they don't get, I would say it's intangible now. was very tangible before is what they don't really understand is why it affects you on an emotional level and why things affect you at an emotional level because they're operating separate from the body in all these interactions and including how they read their friends or collaborators. Whereas the people that have become successful are people that are just optimizing their work to fit an algorithm that's literally designed for one reason, which is just basically turn you into a zombie that only pays attention to the platform you're looking at, and it plays tricks on just what people know about psychology to get you there, then it is really thoughtful consumption that fulfills a need, right? Right. And it's sort of like what life has come to for a lot of people is optimizing people for that same reason a two- or three-year-old or a baby... once they first taste candy or like a lollipop, all they want to eat is candy and a lollipop, right? Or ice cream and a lollipop, right? And if you just feed them ice cream all the time, they're going to get sick and freaking die, right? They don't get anything else. And the reality is, is I think a lot of mental dysfunction, I think a lot of what's considered psychological problems are truly just manifestations of basically this ice cream slash candy effect on people's minds. When in reality, because you're neglecting the mind-body connection, it's sort of like neglecting to eat your vegetables. And you need these things to be proper and balanced. I think there's so many people that wouldn't need medication, that wouldn't have anxiety and all these other things if they just learned to function connected.

Malcolm Moore: 15:11

I'm laughing because you're reminding me of a story when I first started, a couple things happened when I first started teaching here in California about 12 years ago. I'll never forget, you know, my background is being a behaviorist, so I'm always aware of kids with their struggles and what's going on. There was this brother and sister that were coming in every day and just wreaking havoc, just not following the rules, bothering people, being defiant with teachers, I mean, completely out of control. So they assigned me to figure out what the problem was. Long story short, I found out that the parents made their lunch every day and sent them to to school you know some kids had the they had to buy lunch at school but these guys brought their lunch so i asked to see their lunch and they were each given one giant bag of candy every day that's all they were doing eating tons of candy and in your in your defense of what you just said they were never and it's not only vegetables they were not eating anything else so i had to very so

Nithin Cherian: 16:10

jealous i had to turn that into a business i want to turn that into such a business I'd have been like the banker of candy in grade school, selling, you know, trading candy for, you know, money, food, God knows what else to those kids.

Malcolm Moore: 16:23

Yeah, have a trench coat, yeah. Once we talked to the parents, they were actually very receptive and gave them balanced lunches. And then the behavior leveled out. And then when you were talking about having this symbiotic relationship with people where you're paying attention but also share your feelings, One of my first memories of working with kids, I was thrown into the school I'd never been in. There was a fifth grader. At this point, I wasn't a music teacher yet. I was a behaviorist. There was a fifth grader. She was just having a total meltdown and asked to talk to me. So she comes over and she's just like, Mr. Malcolm, blah, blah, blah. You know, she's saying all these terrible things. She's crying and it goes on for like 15 minutes. And in my mind, I go, I have no idea what to tell this girl. But at the end, she looks at me. gives me a big hug and says, thank you, Mr. Malcolm, you totally helped me today. And she walked away and I was like, what did I do? But looking back, I was just a good listener. You know, I think from what you're saying, that's where we have to begin. We really have to give people our attention, especially in this age of technology, whether it is in person or like you say, online streaming platforms.

Nithin Cherian: 17:36

Well, and attention is an interesting thing. you know, it's not something you can just go and give it the way you think you need to give it to give attention. Attention is a communication type, right? It's a vehicle of communication. Just like talking is a communication vehicle, how you pay attention is, right? So there's a timing to this, right? So for some people, too much attention, like too much eye contact and you not saying anything and looking at them will freak them out and it will make them power so this is where it comes really important to read the person and see what is too intense or not you know maybe start one way that makes sense to you and if you're getting the right response stay there and if you're not dial it back right um because it's it is creating space in this case for both of you to be present and safe right right That's where that is. But these kinds of things, it's definitely a lost art form, and I think that's where the breakdown is of why people can't have a political conversation. I get why they can't have a religious conversation, but before, politics wasn't like religion. You could still have a conversation and be friends with someone to a degree, unless you're in the South. Like, if you're a Republican, you couldn't be friends with a Democrat, right?

Unknown: 19:03

Right.

Malcolm Moore: 19:04

No, that's a really good point because we're both old enough to remember. Someone was asking me about Pope John Paul II the other day because that was quite a few popes ago. And I was telling them how different the world was because no matter what your beliefs are, what I remember about this guy is he was very ecumenical. I remember seeing on TV when I was very young, here he is getting together with people from all different backgrounds and all different beliefs and getting together and talking about stuff and working it out. and trying your best not to judge each other. We wouldn't really see much of that today, at least with such a wider scope. Do you know what I mean? It seems like things have changed for at least the time being.

Nithin Cherian: 19:45

Yeah, people have like an absolute where they don't like, it seems like they don't like open conversation because they just don't want their perspective to be wrong.

Malcolm Moore: 19:54

Yeah.

Nithin Cherian: 19:55

That seems to be a development now, and I think that's a lot of a manifestation of the way we're, using dopamine triggers to basically consume information, i.e. social media. So when you go to places where you have conversation where there's disagreement, you're getting a different, you know, chemical response in your body, which isn't that happy dopamine, right? Right. You know, it's the equivalent of your friend not liking your post, you know, even though you know they saw it. Right. And people just can't seem to handle that anymore, which is bizarre to me. Like, The fact that you can be offended that one of your friends didn't like your post, it's like, well, maybe your friend was actually busy today. Like, how do you know what was happening? Yeah, maybe they didn't like your post, but maybe they just didn't see it. Or maybe they scrolled by it and wasn't paying attention because someone distracted their attention. Maybe they whatever, or maybe there wasn't enough that happened that they cared to actually engage with it because... Maybe your content sucked.

Malcolm Moore: 20:54

Well, it's like,

Nithin Cherian: 20:55

it's like many people like everything you do, you know,

Malcolm Moore: 20:58

somebody said to me once, I wish there was a not like button, which is pretty hilarious.

Nithin Cherian: 21:03

Well, that's very intentional because then people will not want to be on a platform because you just get cyber bullies because everybody virtually is more of a bully than they are a nice person.

Malcolm Moore: 21:12

Yeah. You

Nithin Cherian: 21:13

know,

Malcolm Moore: 21:13

well, listen, what we're going to do every week, I'm going to agree to be very vulnerable and bring up a topic I'm struggling with. And, um, It's something that I also think that a lot of other people do, so hopefully it's beneficial. And then I'm going to throw it your way, Nathan, and then we're going to get into a deep conversation about what are some possible solutions. And I just need to say, by no means are we professional doctors or therapists. I like to think that, you know, like Jango Fett said once in Star Wars, I'm a simple man trying to make my way through the galaxy. Are you ready, Mr. Nathan?

Nithin Cherian: 21:50

Of course you had to put Star Wars into this.

Unknown: 21:54

You're so ridiculous.