A Field Note On Screaming

This a short essay about how good it feels to scream off a bridge. I read it to my creative partner, Joey Taylor, to get his thoughts. See what resonates with you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, friend. If you've been listening to the reflections I've been posting here, first of all, thank you. My hope is to create usable tools for anyone on the same creative path as me. It can be a lonely journey to be a maker of things, so these reflections are meant to be grounding and energizing resets. This reflection is a bit of an experiment and different from the others. I'm calling them field notes. They're short essays on things I'm learning along the way, and what you'll hear in a moment is me reading it to my longtime collaborator, Joey Taylor, to get his feedback. He's one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I know, and I I run everything I create past him. So my hope for these field notes is that you can use them in a similar fashion to the reflections, get comfortable, close your eyes if you're not driving, and connect with what resonates. Then see if Joey's take on it expands your thinking. After that, I'll read the field note one more time, allowing you to just sink into it a little bit deeper. Thank you for experimenting with me. Alright, Joey got a new field note. You want to respond to this one? Can't wait, let's do it. It's a called a field note on screaming. We were sitting around a fire in our winter coats, hats, gloves, and boots, and Tyler said, What do you mean you didn't scream? He was part dumbfounded and part well mostly mad at me. See, I'd created a walkabout for my friends, but I didn't do it myself. It was a self-guided audio experience that took them through the woods, down by the river, and culminated with a guttural scream off an active train bridge. It was profoundly transformative for my friends, particularly the screaming part. They raved about the rush and release of letting out a wild yell, and none of them understood my lack of participation. But I understood. I was scared. Not of doing a walkabout or screaming off a rickety bridge. I was scared to find out that something I created, something I was so excited about, I felt exposed, it would just be sort of dumb or not work. I could handle honestly my friends telling me it was just okay. But I didn't want to face my own internal critic because he's brutal. So I didn't scream. Luckily, Tyler eventually made me. I did the walkabout, ended up out on the middle of the bridge, and thought long and hard about what I wanted to release. At first I wanted to scream in anger at the part of me who held me back. But that's not what I needed. I needed to announce to the river and the trees and the birds, and mostly to myself and all the fearful parts, that we didn't have to be afraid. I needed my inner critic to hear this declaration echo downriver. And he did. We did. It was kind of startling how loud it was. I walked off the bridge laughing, not because I found it funny. It was just a massive rush. I felt buzzed and giggly and kind of wanted to go do it again. It was like realizing the monster under my bed was the super soaker I lost. Suddenly, instead of being held back by imaginary forces, I had a new toy. A new tool that I could just pick up at any time, and not just on metal bridges to help me find new courage, but anywhere. Maybe I'll go scream into a pillow today. Maybe someone you will join me. Because it's a good day to get buzzed and giggly.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Oh, I'm I like knowing like the backstory behind the reflection before before you explain it. Um I like having my own sense of uncertainty and fear as doing that walkabout and screaming off that very particular bridge. It was surprising to me that fear for you turned into playfulness. Um I thought it was gonna turn into courage or like an earnest sense of I can do this shit, you know, but it was much much more lighthearted. And um I don't know, that's kind of that that was a delight to hear, I think. That that that invited that out of me as well. Um yeah, I I I think that um as I've seen you begin to kind of embrace this this phase, this stage of your life, I've seen more and more of that version of Brad come out of you. And it's been really cool to see.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Um the playful one or the which what do you mean specifically?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, the um I would almost like call it like whimsical, like um, like this sense of yeah, the stakes are real, but it's it's really okay. I can I can I can lean into the abundance of the universe. It's gonna be alright. Um and there's just like this lightheartedness and playfulness about how you you've been engaging with life over the past couple of months that I've um found intoxicating. I mean, just like I've been really drawn to it. So um, you know, I tend to be just like really earnest with how I'm engaging with life. And so like the fear that I experienced in that moment on the bridge was like, where did that come from? And how could you be so afraid? And blah, you know, I'm just like real like soul searching kind of stuff. And for you to pivot and say, Hey, no, it's a super soaker under your bed, chill out, man. You can play with it, you can play with it.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, it it was it is wild though. When and I think when I wrote this reflection or this field note, my hope was that maybe you know, of the three people who listened, like maybe someone would actually grab a pillow and scream into it, or go someplace out in a park and scream just because it feels so good. Like we were on that same bridge with my family recently, my brother's family and mine, and we all screamed together, and everyone was just like, man, feels good. You just get like almost that uh that runner's high or something, and just yeah, it was I was surprised walking off the bridge that day that uh I was just laughing, like just laughing at how I don't know how good it felt. Um, it it just made me feel all giggly, which is kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah. Carbonated holiness. Yeah, carbonated holiness. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Alright, dude. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks to Joey for his insights. Okay, so here's the field note one more time, starting with a slow deep breath in. We were sitting around a fire in our winter coats, hats, gloves, and boots, and Tyler said, What do you mean you didn't scream? He was part dumbfounded and part, well, mostly mad at me. See, I'd created a walkabout for my friends, but I didn't do it myself. It was a self-guided audio experience that took them through the woods, down by the river, and culminated with a guttural scream off an active train bridge. It was profoundly transformative for my friends, particularly the screaming part. They raved about the rush and release of letting out a wild yell, and none of them understood my lack of participation. But I understood. I was scared. Not of doing the walkabout or screaming off a rickety bridge. I was scared to find out that something I created, something I was so excited about, I felt exposed, would just be sort of dumb or not work. I could handle honestly my friends telling me it was just okay. But I didn't want to face my own internal critic because he's brutal. So I didn't scream. Luckily, Tyler eventually made me. I did the walkabout, ended up out on the middle of the bridge, and thought long and hard about what I wanted to release. At first, I wanted to scream in anger at the part of me who held me back. But that's not what I needed. I needed to announce to the river and the trees and the birds, and mostly to myself and all the fearful parts, that we didn't have to be afraid. I needed my inner critic to hear this declaration echo downriver. And he did. We did. It was kind of startling how loud it was. I walked off the bridge laughing, not because I found it funny, it was just a massive rush. I felt buzzed and giggly and kind of wanted to go do it again. It was like realizing a monster under my bed was the super soaker I lost. Suddenly, instead of being held back by imaginary forces, I had a new toy. A new tool that I could just pick up at any time, and not just on metal bridges to help me find new courage, but anywhere. Maybe I'll go scream into a pillow today. Maybe someone you will join me. Because it's a good day to get buzzed and giggly.