Curiosity Is a Survival Skill (Not a Personality Trait)

In this funny episode, we dive into creative discussions, touching on everything from a 'Venus de Milo statue arm' to the narrative structures Joseph Campbell explored. It's a comedic episode with a unique blend of art funny observations and Star Wars references. We even challenge viewers to participate in a contest!

We get into why adventure-driven stories keep pulling us in. What Star Wars and Marvel get right (and where the stakes disappear). Why Indiana Jones feels like nonstop momentum. How a book built from short, intense adventures can train the same survival muscles. Reading isn't escape — it's practice. You get to see failure, recovery, and grit without paying the full price yourself.

Then it gets personal. If you grew up in chaos, you can become unusually calm under pressure and weirdly comfortable when things go sideways. We unpack how humor functions as controlled chaos, why disaster and comedy can live in the same story, and how tragedy shapes a person without ever justifying what happened to them.

Comedy = Tragedy + Time. That's the equation.

🎁 WIN THE ARM
Drop a comment with the phrase "Max Kill an Alligator" worked in naturally. Best entries are eligible to win.
📖 GET THE BOOK
Unbreakable Origins: Stair Pits by R.A. Thompson
👉 www.unbreakableorigins.com

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#StairPits #Curiosity #DarkHumor #Memoir #Resilience #UnbreakableOrigins #Podcast #StarWars

[00:00:00] Cold Open And Prize Tease
[00:04:32] Excuses And Dodging Responsibility
[00:17:18] Stories That Trigger Adventure And Growth
[00:27:43] Order Versus Chaos From Childhood
[00:36:28] Tragedy, Survival, And Alternate Paths
[00:45:29] Venus De Milo Arm Giveaway And Wrap

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Complete your Venus de Milo statue arm. Okay. First person that makes a comment and can work the word Max Kill an alligator into the comment field could possibly win this beautiful Venus de Milo arm. Look at the Star Wars thing. The first one was kind of a call to adventure. The second one was a call to adventure. So there's a little bit of that call to adventure. And then you're introduced to this universe that has a variety of amazing things that you don't know anything about. Imagine, if you will, a child brought up without parents, but with adults in the house. You've entered the stair pit zone. And uh welcome back to another exciting. Now watch this, Max. I got the name right to the Stair Pits podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

First try. Dude. You remembered on the first try. I'm a professional. We're back. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

One more thing. I see that you're worrying now that the Golden Knights have won a game. I see you've jumped on that bandwagon.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

One and O with the new coach. Outstanding. I'm back on. We are full board into the playoffs.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Here we go. That's what it is. Yes. That's you know, one in a row is a streak.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

It is. And a streak that we as Golden Knights fans should be very proud of. That's it, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

It's pretty darn exciting. So that's good there. Yes. I'm still not wearing a hat. Hey, that's okay. Yeah. That's okay. Max has actually bought me. This is the interesting thing about it. Max at two times has actually bought me um like construction worker uh beanies with Raiders written on it. Because you love the neon yellow. Yeah, I do, I do love neon yellow. Yeah. And I'm a Raider fan. Yes. And so Max bought me one that was nice, and then a couple of years later, he saw the same thing and he bought it for me again. So now I have two of them. So what I'm really looking forward to is this year I'll probably get my third.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Now when I get ten, I'm gonna start selling them.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Absolutely. Absolutely. You'll have a whole collection to be able to start selling stuff out of your house. I mean, that's can you I mean, yeah, twice in a row where I saw that hat and I said, that'd be really cool if Robert had that. Yeah, no recollection that you know recollection whatsoever I'd given you one before. Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

So basically what you did was you gave blind. Yes. Yeah. Versus giving versus giving blind, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:36

For sure. Yes. And uh, you know, you know, CTE brain as well. But you know, you know, playing playing football. Oh, absolutely. That's gonna till my dying breath, whether it affects me or not, that will be my excuse for any memory issues that I have. No question.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

If you didn't have football brain as an injury as your excuse, yeah, what other one do you think you would use? What would be your next best excuse?

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Um I'd probably blame it on wherever I went to school. I'd probably be like Utah Tech didn't benefit me enough to Snow College. Yeah, or snow college, both combined. Yeah. Right? Didn't didn't do me justice in in helping my brain fully develop as a kid in my early twenties.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

So you'd blame it on someone else, then yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Blame it on the institution, blame it on the professors. I would do whatever I could not to take responsibility.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

So it it wouldn't be your fault.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

No, no, no. I lie about six or seven rungs down the ladder when it comes to I can I can blame it on this thing, this person, this person, this thing, this thing, me. Yeah. About seven layers down. So I I try to eliminate all responsibility.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

No, that that's the answer to it, is that I think that um in the animal world, I believe that's referred to as ostriching. Okay. Right, because you just stick your head down at the end.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Yeah, stick your head in the sand and say, hey, I'm not here. Not my fault.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

That fire sure is big in the living room.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Wonder who started that.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yep. It wasn't me. Well, you know what it can do is we can kind of warm the chicken wings. Once they're sizzling, we should probably leave.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Yeah, no, that's the answer. It's not burning the TV. No, no, no. No, it's it you know, it might go the other direction. Absolutely. There's all sorts of answers on there. Yes. You know, because that's that's kind of an interesting thing where this is clever how we're gonna run this one right into it. Love it. Now watch this. You know, when you talk about excuses, excuses I think a lot of times are um the way that we justify failure or we justify something that doesn't come out the way it was supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that one of the things I'd like to kind of discuss today is uh in the book Stair Pits, which is the purpose of this and trying to buy it. Also, great news for the uh people that watched the previous clip who wondered what the straw was about. If you watched the other clip, it's pretty self-evident because it was a great prize that we had. And this week we have a better prize.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

Oh, okay. Really good.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

We'll wait a bit and go with this. We don't see that. But this is outstanding. Um So I I think what happens is this. Back in the day, there was this sense that well, let me let me ask this. What is the purpose of curiosity? What what do you think the purpose of curiosity is?

SPEAKER_04 5:35

Well, first and foremost, it's to kill the cat. Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Because you have them a lot around the house. You just want to just eliminate them. Um Will this gun shoot it.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

Yes, absolutely. Which I know, I mean, uh, you do have a cat in your home, though, so I don't want to be offensive.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 5:48

Um and even likes you. Yeah, I know. It's a black cat, though. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

He self-identifies as tuxedo.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

Okay, love that. Yes. Um, sorry, the purpose of curiosity was a question, correct? Yes, right. Um killing cats. Absolutely. Um the first answer off the top of my head is just um what the purpose of curiosity is to develop learning. Um, at least, at least from my perspective, where it's like from in my head, I don't like school, but I like to learn. Um, and the I've learned the most things when I'm curious is like, what is the answer to this? When I when you start to question things, when which generates curiosity, which then um kind of builds that fire to learn the answer to whatever the questions that you have. So I think curiosity from a basic standpoint for me is to generate learning.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Right. And I I think that learning is a subset, though. I don't think it's the primary. So what do you think if you're gonna try to look at it from a meta version, from a larger version, what do you think the purpose of curiosity is? Now, do you notice the at home? That's the way that you do things, you accept whatever is being said, and then you just say, Well, I'm looking for something bigger, and you can ask the same question, and now Max will have a chance to giggle and laugh and come up with a better answer. And then if I don't like it, I'll just ask the question a third time. For sure. So for those of you playing at home, I've asked it once, I've now asked it twice. The question is, will I get to three? So go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 7:29

I mean, usually in our in our history, though, it's kind of it's kind of a two-time. I get two shots at it. If I go for two, then you break it down for me on what it actually should be. Right. What the answer should be.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

We got a few 90 minutes to date, brother. Absolutely. Ask you five times.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

No, 100%. Um the meta answer to what is the point of curiosity? Um that's not learning.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Um honestly, I don't know. Well, let's break down your idea of learning. There's well, let's even go back a step on that. What is the value of learning?

SPEAKER_04 8:12

The value of learning, I think just gives you a better quality of life, a purpose in life, um simply makes you smarter, right? Um, and gives you also the ability to, when you learn, like you do, although you know a lot and have learned a ton, and by default are able to then teach others. So I think kind of a subset of learning and a consequence of learning is give you having the ability to teach others as well.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

I agree with all of that, but it serves still a higher function. Okay what is the purpose of learning? Um the most basic biological advantage in learning. Survival. How so? I would say that's the right zip code. Now we just have to find the street maps.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

If I don't have Apple maps in front of me, Rob, I'm 28 years old. Okay, I don't, you know, I don't know how to work anything if I don't have my my GPS right in front of me. This is the way that dogs do it. They just walk in concentric circles until they find what they're looking for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Um learning. Um the purpose of learning, survival.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Yes. But more so, how yeah. Um I don't know. So think about this. Um have you ever watched any of the shows where they take people and they stick them out in the middle of nowhere and let them freeze to death?

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Like survivor, lost, naked and afraid, those ones.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Those types of things, yeah, right. But you're familiar with that. Episodes here and there. Yeah. So some of the people do better than the others, right? Yeah. Why?

SPEAKER_04 10:01

I think a lot of it is because they they they go in with more knowledge of how to survive in a situation like that.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

But specifically, what is the what what benefit to what benefit is their knowledge driven? What is it, what is it, how is it manifested?

SPEAKER_04 10:18

Through their actions, the things that they do.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Okay, through their actions. I think we're on we're closer to it now. Okay. Um what is the when you're looking at actions, let's say if we had an alligator in here today, okay, and we were hungry. How long do you think it would take me to kill the alligator?

SPEAKER_04 10:48

How big is this alligator? Eight feet. Do you have any weapons of any sort? Or just what we have in here?

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Right now.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Um 45 minutes, give or take.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

I could probably I could probably accomplish it in maybe three and a half seconds. Okay. Do you know how? No. Max killed the alligator. Okay. Fair.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Good point. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Good point. Yes. So the version that you had of me of the 45-minute alligator, you know, fight, and in that 40-minute fight, how many limbs and how much blood do you think I lose?

SPEAKER_04 11:36

I think maybe you lose maybe a quart of blood, but that but I mean you patch yourself up, you know, first aid. Again, you're very knowledgeable, knowledgeable in a lot of areas. You would patch yourself up, you you'd you'd claw it, you'd stop it from bleeding. I don't think you lose any limbs. I think you're agile enough to at least jump out of the way of an alligator. You are knowledgeable enough to know how it turns its head, when it's gonna bite down, the things not to do, target the back of the head. I think you find a weapon or two here and then gouge it enough times, make it happen. So I don't think you die or lose any limbs.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Right. So, okay, if I don't die, so that's good. Congratulations. In my version of Max Kill the Alligator, how much blood do I lose? Zero. Okay. In the version of I Kill the Alligator, the 45-minute struggle, right? How many calories do I use? Quite a bit. In the Max Kill the Alligator version, even though I've said it about four times. Yeah. Um, how many calories did I use there?

SPEAKER_04 12:37

I mean, you know, just through breathing and sitting and watching. I I mean, I think it it'd be an intense event. So I mean Oh, so you're saying my heart would get up. Yeah, your heart rate would your heart rate would go just from the excitement, not from worry of me getting hurt or dying. I would waste more energy getting out my phone.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Exactly. Okay, just to film it. Right. Yes. But but would you say that the the calories to max kill the alligator is like this? Significantly less. Yeah, and then if I got my phone, it might be like this. Yes. Right. So what is the value of education?

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Being able to throw others at a problem rather than yourself.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Being able to minimize. Well, that's true. That's that's the value of being lazy and coming up with a better answer.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

I mean, wasn't that the Russian strategy in World War II?

SPEAKER_03 13:23

No, no, just throw people at it. Yes. They're gonna die. You know? And or the you know, the Chinese version in Korea is that you know we have more people than they have bullets. Yes. So I would look at it this much. The advantage of learning is that you can then do things more efficiently. Yes. So the number of calories necessary to do something is then dramatically reduced. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay, perfect. So if the value of learning, if we're gonna go back to curiosity, if the value of learning is to have enough experience in something that you can discover the different ways to accomplish a task and then to do it with the fewest amount of calories, right? What is the simplest way of doing it? Because you you have to look at it until recently the concept of stable food supplies was something that didn't happen. Right? And now we have stable food supplies there, so we don't think about what is the caloric cost of doing something. Yes. Okay. So if the value of learning is to do things more efficiently, what is the value of curiosity?

SPEAKER_04 14:50

I mean, for you know, like I said, curiosity generates learning. Right. So the value of curi if learning creates efficiency, curiosity creates learning. Stop. Say it again. Learning creates efficiency, curiosity creates learning. Just say the second half. Curiosity creates learning. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Right. But the thing is that without curiosity, you never have any desire to see what else can be done. Yes. Right. I mean, curiosity is the fuel for all is the correct fuel for all learning. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so what happens is if you don't if you don't have curiosity, if you don't have something that you're working on, then you'll just sit around and do nothing. Right? There is nothing. Yes. And as a result, curiosity drives you onto the next piece. And curiosity is the story of Abraham. Right? The story of Abraham is go out and discover things. God will be with you, go out and discover things, go out and do things. And if you look at mankind throughout mankind's history, when we are going out and discovering things, we're actually pretty good. Yes. And if you the one theory is, well, oh, colonialism, it's horrible, it's terrible, it's whatever. Colonialism saved more lives than it damaged. Okay. So the idea that when you're going out and you're discovering new things, then you discover new ways to do new things. Yes. Right. And because learning in a vacuum, no one's going to say, well, how do I come up with a better exhaust manifold for a sports car? Well, I don't know. Why do we need it? I want to see if I can go faster. Okay, well, I want to go faster. How do I go faster? I need a faster car. Okay, well, now automatically I'm curious about how to make a faster car. And now I'm willing to learn all of these other pieces. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's kind of it turns into like a cart horse thing. Yeah. Okay. And this is how it ties into the book. Clever. Here we go. This is good. Would you say, having read the book, and Caleb, feel free to uh chart in too if you would like to. In having read the book, would you say the book is a compendium of uh a whole bunch of odd little adventures that happen? Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm yeah, and I think that that's something that's missing, you know, where if you look at um if you look at the most um successful franchises that have been in media in the last fifty years, the most successful franchises have been Star Wars and Marvel. Right, in terms of gross dollars that have been collected. For sure. Right. And if you look at Star Wars, they basically the first two movies are all about Luke, you know, flying something down a little area and then dropping something into a ventilation shaft and blowing it up. I mean, kind of a stupid way to end every movie. I mean, it's like, you know, back in the old black and white Superman, where's Clark? Oh, there he is. Geez, it's funny that Superman and Clark are never here together. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because Superman doesn't wear glasses and Clark does, so couldn't possibly be the same guy. Yes. Right. But if you look at, I guess Batman would be the third. So it'd be Marvel, Batman, and Star Wars, right? Have been responsible for a minimum of the third of the dollars that are spent on entertainment slash whatever you'd call it, souvenirs. Yeah. Okay. So look at the Star Wars thing. The first one was kind of a call to adventure. The second one was a call to adventure. So there's a little bit of that call to adventure. And then you're introduced to this universe that has a variety of amazing things that you don't know anything about. Okay. And because it's in space, it's hard to be able to go forward and say, oh, well, I'm going to do that same thing. Well, I mean, finally, I guess we're going to start going back to the moon, so maybe there's a little bit of juice of trying to make it. But other than making toys, t-shirts, and increasingly bad sequels, um, what has Star Wars done? You know, if you look at the Marvel universe, in the Marvel universe, in order for something to in order for a story to have any type of um interest, there has to be the possibility of mortality. Right? It either has to be the idea of will society continue as in reproductive, right? Some sense of sex or some sense of marriage or formation of a family. Or you're discovering you're doing something new. Right? And in the str in the Marvel universe, what are the chances of any of the characters dying?

SPEAKER_04 20:49

Low usually.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Nil. Yeah. Right. And then what are the chances of any of the characters actually hooking up with anybody?

SPEAKER_04 20:57

Fairly high.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Really? You think so? Who hooked up with who?

SPEAKER_04 21:01

I mean, when it comes, I mean, I think every every one of them had a love interest throughout throughout the cinematic universe. They did.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

So yeah. But who was um who was Spider Man's who was like Spider-Man did have Mary Jane, so she was there on it. Hawkeye, I guess, had this like loved his wife, but was fawning over Starlit Johansson, but that was only because she wore leather.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Who didn't fawn over her back in those days? Well, that's what back in the days when she was there.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

But but the thing is, there's no there's no courtship involved, right? It's just they're there. Maybe in the initial bit with um Tony Stark, you know, and his secretary, maybe there was a little bit of there, but it wasn't um it was more like she was fawning over him, and at the end he kind of maybe figured out that she was a person. But it's not a true romance kind of a story, right? There's no the the guy didn't have to pursue the girl, the girl's Pursuing the guy in almost every one of them. Yes. So that's pretty much untrue for most people that aren't in the hyper celebrity class. For sure. So I think that that piece of it's kind of drawn out of it. So I think that when you look and in the Batman universe, I mean, is there well, I guess in the last version of it, there was a a little bit of a romance piece in the last version of the um of the Nolan Batmans. Yeah. There was a little bit of it there. And there was maybe you could make a case in there that something was a little bit carrying torches, but it didn't necessarily turn out the right way, or there wasn't a traditional way of being able to go with it. So I think that in my book, one of the things that I tried to do was to show snippets of adventures, kind of borrowing heavily from Indiana Jones, where everything is like if you look at the theory of Indiana Jones, the first one in particular, it's nothing more than the last 15 minutes of every movie you've ever seen. Right? I mean, it's the precursor to looking at your phone for adrenaline or for a dopamine hit. It's like, oh my God, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, it's done. And then the second one was, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, eating bugs, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, it's done.

SPEAKER_05 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

And the third one was just stupid. Right. And then subsequent ones have become increasingly stupid. And it's not even, it's done. It's like, oh, we're done. Right. So I think that what I've tried to do is to keep it in to the point where you can see a little bit of the adventure. And it shows how from a low status position, like this little boy in it, you don't have any status, you don't have any control, you don't have any real power. But how do you deal with an unending array of things coming towards you where you don't have, you don't have the tools to confront them, you don't have the experience to understand them, and you still have to overcome them. I mean, you have to absorb what's happening and then determine some way to come out on the backside. And I think in a lot of ways, that's the story of humanity, right? You go someplace and there's a new dynamic, there's a new way that places are put together or things are put together, and you have to learn the new status symbol of who the people are that are of value and what are the new people in this clique or in this organization. And then how do you interact with those people, or how can you integrate yourself into that? And I think that as a child, the child's role is traditionally, oh, I'm here to learn, or you know, whatever it is. In my era, it was I'm here to shut up, sit quietly, and be told it's time to go to bed.

SPEAKER_05 25:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

So it gives an idea of how can you interact with those things and then how can you go forward. And I believe that if society had a greater interest in being curious about something, how do we do something, it would work. And I think that most gentlemen's curiosity today is based upon how do I level up. I mean, that's that's the entire basis of leveling up. Yes. And if you can't level up, then you know you're pathetic and weak. If you can level up, then you're like some type of a genius. Yes. But the idea of discovering how to level up has replaced doing something in the real world where you actually have uh understandable status.

unknown 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

Right. If you went and told somebody, oh well, you know, I I did something on X video game and I've reached, you know, level blank. Oh, well, you're at level blank, oh well, you've had some real fun adventures ahead of you. Uh-huh. Well, and what was the fun adventure as opposed to going like this, you went like that.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah. Pretty thrilling.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Absolutely. Right. But it doesn't mean you know, and but on the other hand, if that's all that you have, then you've accomplished something. I mean, you've identified that your brain can identify a situation that's chaotic and you can bring order to it. That's what that's what we're designed to do. For sure. So I think in reading, one of the advantages of reading, that the role that reading has had forever, has been it gives people examples of how to do something. And then you can see how that person might have fallen. And then if that person fell, then you could learn maybe not to fall that way. But more importantly, you can figure out how did that person pick themselves up. And the most important story is how to pick that, you know, person up. And it's like the uh Japanese proverb of, you know, knock down seven times, stand up eight. Yeah. And that's a big piece.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

When it comes to the book and your childhood and how you were raised and how you grew up, I want to ask you this question. You you refer to order and chaos, right? And that we we are built to you know either establish order to a chaotic situation or create chaos in a situation of order. With how you grew up in the way that that you're in such a chaotic environment, what do you feel like you took most from that from a chaos order standpoint? Was it how to best apply order to a chaotic situation, or was it learning how to apply chaos to your advantage? What do you think is the is the biggest thing you took away from your childhood, which was very chaotic and very, you know, all over the place, drugs, alcohol, you know, all those sorts of issues?

SPEAKER_03 28:42

That's a really good question. And that might be the best question of the podcast. Thank you. But before we come to it, last week we had a great opportunity for people that could have made a comment and gotten a straw. Right. Sadly, no one made a comment. So I figured the prize wasn't that good.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Now I have something, a much better prize. Okay. So I might be wrong, but I believe that there's a lot of people at home that have statues of the Venus de Milo. Right? So they got this picture of this beautiful woman and it's sitting in the house. Okay. Some of them have clocks in their stomachs or microwaves. Okay. But they do. So what we have is this. Oh my gosh. Your Venus de Milo statue arm. Okay. First person that makes a comment and can work the word max kill an alligator into the comment field could possibly win this beautiful Venus de Milo arm. And think about it. So now what could you do? You could put a pen in here, you could put, you know, you know, if you had a purse or a bag, you could hang it on the side of this. If you didn't even, if let's say you didn't have the statue yet and you wanted to scratch your ear, you could use it. And it currently comes in two colors, white and more white. So it's a great thing. Make a comment and we'll possibly send it to you. So that's awesome. See, when you said you'd come up with a prize, yeah, your prize. Is it as cool as this?

SPEAKER_04 30:27

It will never top adding an arm to the Venus de Milo.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

Is that the one where like the lady's barely covered and she's it and she's missing two arms? Yeah. Oh, she's missing both of them. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Yeah. This is the left. And then eventually, see, my thought is we'll give them the left and we'll sell them the right.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

It's actually a money-making thing. I love it. So you can get your very own Venus de Milo at the arm thing. So we're giving away incredibly good prizes. The straw ignorant maybe was a stretch, maybe it was weak. But this one is like at least a minute and a half worth of um fun.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Yeah. Probably 15 times better than the straw.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

Just do a little Venus de Mile high five here. There we go. So you can even do it if you don't want to touch your friends and you still want to have it. Yeah. Thousand and one uses. So keep that in mind. Make comments. Work the phrase max kill an alligator into it, and you could be eligible to win a beautiful object de art. All right. So back to your question. See, I learned that from years of watching television that when something good happens, you throw in a commercial, they have to watch the whole commercial. And then we come back to the interesting part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why in the hell is the guy trying to do that? It's going to go viral. If anything goes viral on this, it's going to be the Venus Demilo. 100%. Pretty much. People have low thresholds for interest on it. It bothers me that you didn't know what the Venus de Milo was. Yeah, no, no. I would have gotten a bigger laugh out of it had you known.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

For sure, yeah. Not off the top of my head, but when you started waving the wide arm around, I kind of started to picture picture the sculpted lady with no arms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

In post-production, we'll have to put the Venus Demilo. For sure. Yeah. Yes. So it could work. So I think the the answer to your question was what did I learn in growing up in a chaotic environment? What I think I learned was very, well, perhaps atypical. I learned how to survive in chaos. And the time that you've known me, have you ever seen me raise my voice? No. And I don't. Yeah. I have no reason to argue because nothing has ever gotten to the point that I feel that I have to raise my voice. So I don't raise my voice. I'm pretty monotone through most of it, but I feel very, very comfortable that I can survive in chaos. And in fact, when I don't get my way, I like to introduce as much chaos as possible. I try to fight in my environment. And my environment is managing chaos. And that once you get it, it's the the thing is this it's people look at control versus chaos. So if you looked at the planet Earth, okay, so you have Earth and you have the moon that's going around it. Okay, I can accept that the moon is going around it, but I don't have any real need to control it. Somebody that lives in constant, you know, moon crashing into the earth fear is going to want to know exactly where the moon is so that they won't be where the moon hits it. And I guess they won't be next to dinosaurs because it's there. You know, because that could be a problem. One of the other problems on a potential moon hitting the earth is let's say you lost an arm. Just saying. Thousand and one uses. Absolutely. Okay. So um I think that there's people that, you know, can become total control freaks on things. And I kind of view myself as a total control freak on many things, but that's because it's within my universe, I like to know where things are, but at the same point, I'm very good with things being chaotic. And I think that if you grow up in that swamp, you know what things are edible and what things aren't edible. And um, well, it's kind of like my whole theory of what I wear. I think I've mentioned this to you, that you know, if if we go golfing in the winter and I show up in a coat and long pants, everybody else is gonna freak out because if I'm doing that, it's cold. Yes. And they're gonna question why I'm all the way out here doing it. Whereas if I show up in what I have on today, everybody figures, well, it's not that bad. Yep. So generally I don't the chaos is just something that I can accept because it in my mind it either works or it doesn't. And I can I generally feel I can make it work.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

So you pride yourself more on being able to use chaos to your advantage in whatever situation that you're in.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Yeah, because I'm just happy to live in it. And it also it's a great barrier to just not have people bother you because you can come up with something that's totally distracting or uncomfortable for people to deal with, and that's okay. And I think that even if I have a skill, occasionally I might be funny. Um humor is nothing more than chaos. It's humor is pointing out a truth, but it's also pointing out what's inconsistent. So I think that that's part of it. I think that if you look at the book, the book is one-third disaster, one-third things, and then one-third humor. And I think that's how the whole thing pulls together, and that's the way that life should be. Life should be disasters or the chance to overcome something, curiosity, how do we fix this? How do we make it work? And then the rest of it is just, my God, it worked. It's funny.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Yeah, and I I like how you divided your your book up into those, into those, those three different pieces. The one word that came to mind for me was tragedy. And I think you could tie that into disaster. Yeah, absolutely. Right? When it where you're this is a book of a lot of a series of tragedies that happened to a child that no one should ever have to live through at that young of an age, well, at all, period, but especially at that young of an age. And it's kind of that the you know, that old quote that comes to my head where, you know, show me a hero and I will show you a tragedy. Right? I mean, you know, you turned out a great man, a hero of sorts, a hero to many, a mentor to many, but that was because of a lot of tragedies that took place in your younger life, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

No.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

And I'm guessing you feel like you have well, let me ask, I guess. Let me let me let me not guess or assume. Do you feel like you've benefited more than do you feel like you there's been more good than bad through what you've experienced, or more bad than good, right? I mean, because you've taken a lot of those bad things and applied them into amazing, great, successful things in your life, but that doesn't mean that you don't take a you don't look at your childhood and and overall say that was a more bad experience than it was good, right? Because again, a lot of what highlights in this book, and people are gonna read this book that don't know you and are going to say that was awful. What a horrific childhood that was, right? And the people that know you are going to find the humor and and and find the different other aspects, but generally this will be viewed as a story, as a story of tragedy, disaster, chaos, right? Um, and do you think overall that that has made you into the man that you are today, or you became the man you are today in spite of that?

SPEAKER_03 38:15

I I think first of all, it it's a shame that YouTube will de uh will de-platform us, will demonetize us if we were to use it. But when I think of tragedy, all I ever think about is the Bee Gees song Tragedy, which has like a whiny Tragedy. Just it's just horrible. So the whole time you were doing that, yeah, I kept trying to think if I could put together, you know, a black boys band covering Bee Gees. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to think that like you could perhaps be like the big Gibb because you have the Max actually can sing in the real world. Max actually has a great voice and can sing. Well, I appreciate that. But I was just thinking we needed somebody with the falsetto, and I think we're pretty much there. For sure. We could deal with it. Yes. Be great. Um, but no, I I think the what it is, it would be different. I think the answer is whether it's good or bad, is kind of really immaterial. I think that it worked well. I don't think a lot of other people taking the same path are going to do as well. I think that God saved me from myself and saved me from a bunch of other people. So I'm very grateful for that. But I would say if it would have gone a different way, the outcome would have been different. And it might have been better, it might have been worse, but it would have been significantly different than this. And I think I told I have a friend who was um kind of amazing. Her dad uh taught the royal family in Afghanistan before everything just went to hell there. Do I ever tell you the story of this girl?

SPEAKER_04 39:55

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Yeah. So she uh is kind of amazing. She grows up in Afghanistan in the royal family. She's there with her sister and her brother and her parents, and they have everything that they want. I mean, she has servants, she has a bunch of servants. She has horses, clothes are made for her, toys are made for her, the servants will play with her, whatever the hell they want, she just has. And she's growing up there and has everything. She had like a suite of rooms where her little place that she lived. And then her dad decided that Afghanistan just wasn't the right place. And after letting her kid grow up there for about six or seven years, they decide to move to Olympia, Washington. And then when they move to Olympia, Washington, uh, her brother had gone to college. So she moves into a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house with her mother, father, and sister. And they're no servants. And she has to do chores. And man, her act out on that was pretty damn brilliant. Yeah. And when I try to think of myself in that same life, like how do you handle that total change in cultures? You know, you you act out. That's kind of what happens. Um her act out was really self-destructive. A lot of my acting out in the second book and the third book is very, very self-destructive. But mine was at least funny. And I kind of think that that's the way that I look at it. I mean, whereas you talked about how you have like seven or eight stages between you and responsibility. I have one. And my only excuse is, well, it was funny. Yes. And and I I kind of feel like I'm gonna die by my own hand. And if I die and it's funny, then I think it's really good. If I die and it's not funny, then I did it wrong. So, you know, I try to make sure that I have a lot of you know, nitrous oxide with me wherever I go, so that when I die, I can just make people laugh. They'll think it's funny.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Seems like it's stupid. That that that's gonna be your uh your funeral just that just gets released and it's a little bit more. Oh no, just with me.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Every place I go, I normally keep a tube of this stuff when the second, last yeah, just turn it off. Yes. Yes. Okay, fair. So that seems like it's a reasonable thing. Yeah. So yeah, I think so. I think that to answer your question on it is um if it would have handled a different way, it might have been incredibly different. If I would have grown up, um, I look at when my biological father, if I'd have grown up around my biological father, these are the possibilities. I would have started drinking at about eight. I would have been an alcoholic at 12 and I'd have been dead at 14. Because I would just, I mean, he liked to drive, he liked to drive fast. I'd have been told not to drive, I would have driven, and then I would have crashed and burned a car and would have killed myself and others. If by some chance that didn't happen, and there would be like a 50% chance every year going forward that it would, but let's say, you know, I could successfully guess tails, tails, heads, heads, tails, tails, heads, heads, heads, tails going through it and made it to adulthood, my father and I would have probably become two of the greatest litigators in the history of this planet because I would have gone to law school, he would have followed, and we would have been miserable in our capacity to sue people, and we'd have sued everyone into existence. Yeah. But ultimately from that, we'd probably develop such a huge cocaine problem that we'd rot out and die. So, like almost all the other answers, without having a self limiting process or without having a credible feedback process on what I'm doing, you don't the excesses can just jump too much. And I think that's probably one of the things that allowed me to survive was despite the fact that I did all. Sorts of ridiculous things. I did almost all the ridiculous things in total stealth. Yes. That people didn't understand that I did it or what I did. It was just it was there. And I didn't have to laugh when the joke came through. I could laugh on the inside. Yeah. So I think that I think that's the piece of it. And reading the book, buying the book, number one, then reading the book. Try to do it the right way. I think the pages go this way. Yeah, they would. Right. That you know, you're going to get a sense of what does a kid do when he doesn't know what to do, and when there's no structure and there is nothing but just a constant amount of avoidance and freedom. What do you do? How do you fill your time? And I think it works. And going back to what we discussed earlier on it, that you look at all the little crap that I've learned, um, you look at the efficiency of that. I feel pretty confident that almost everything that comes into it, I can give you a historical precedent of why that how this problem could come into it. At least I give you a couple of examples of what may or may not have worked, and I might be able to skew it in a way that it nobody had heard it before, or at least they hadn't remembered it. Yes. So that would be the answer there. I love that answer. That's possibly it. So that could even be the end of the show. What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 45:22

I think, yeah. I think that I think you hit it right on the head.

SPEAKER_03 45:25

That's pretty good right there. So as a re-idea. Imagine it's your anniversary and your wife is constantly saying, Why don't you give me a hand? Right. So check this out. Wow. Give her a hand. D tax. So arm, hand works together really pretty well. It's much harder to put back. Don't let the fact that I can't put this thing back together discourage you from owning it. Seeing I did do it, I just had to figure it out. You can figure it out in no time at all. So again, comment, get a Venus D mylo arm. Good for maybe not a thousand, but let's say six or seven things. Yeah. You know, maybe others on that. Um yeah, it's cool. Look at this. Varicose veins could work with an older person. So it's great. Looks like track marks here could be a junkie. Yes. You could add your own tattoos to it. So a thousand and one uses. Actually, I said it's not a thousand. Probably about five or six. If you tat it up, maybe you get a couple more uses. But anyway, think about it. Buy the book. Um, tune in next week. Max will be wearing another hat.

SPEAKER_04 46:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

As he continues to bandwagon.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

If the Golden Knights continue to win, I have another hat in the closet haven't even pulled out yet. Right.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

If let's say Iran wipes out the United States, you have an Iranian flag hat that you can run with, or you just I'm sure I could find one. You could probably so you'd go with, or just would you wear a turban?

SPEAKER_04 46:55

You know, we're not even gonna get into that.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

I was just wondering. Just wondering who you would go. So anyway, think about it.

SPEAKER_04 47:02

I think we we want to we want to make it past this episode. So we'll just episode. We'll we'll save that for for the other podcasts we're we're we're brewing on.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

So I'll akbar everybody. Have a great day. Oh my gosh. That's probably the long time. Have a nice day. Um thank you very much. Tune in later.