Could we artificially make our life harder to conquer laziness?
In Episode #455 of 'Meanderings' Juan & I discuss: Petar's t-shirt, what I changed my mind about, Juan the popular guy, using activities to make friends, some questions from Kobo Abe's book, why being aimless can be good & bad and how nihilistic yapping can be solved in one simple sentence.
Huge thanks to Dave Jones, Cole McCormick & Petar the Slav for the support. We really appreciate you!
Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:00:59) Unicorn fighting Bigfoot
(00:01:34) Setting the stage
(00:05:16) Friends are made by circumstance
(00:09:58) Juan has too many friends!
(00:16:44) I need artificial things to make friends
(00:20:54) Where will I meet 'the one'?
(00:25:25) Boostagram Lounge
(00:31:44) The Woman In The Dunes
(00:34:52) An unextraordinary life
(00:39:41) An aimless life
(00:45:10) Aimless Kyrin in Montreal
(00:49:45) Simple solution to our yapping
(00:53:17) V4V: Time/Talent/Treasure
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Welcome back Mere Mortalites to another edition of the Mere Mortals Meanderings today. You've got me, Juan here over in Australia. And you've got Kyrin
[00:00:15] Kyrin Down:
here on Brazil late in the afternoon Brazilian time. And just with a note that hopefully we will be, continuing around this time when I get back to Australia. So it'll it'll change to like a Sunday morning Australian Eastern Standard Time at some point.
[00:00:32] Juan Granados:
Yeah. Too big. It'll shift by a couple of hours, but it'll it'll remain around this time, which will be nice. You know, this is a little bit more consistency there. Yeah. Look, meanderings, for everyone out there who hasn't tuned in to us before, it's just a chance for us to have a open conversation around it, any particular topics we're finding of interest or interesting things that have been going on in our lives. Once again, Karen's been traveling a little while now outside of Australia. He went over to Canada, to the US. I'm I'm wearing Peter's t shirt
[00:01:02] Kyrin Down:
at this very moment, one that was given to me. Very nice. And it is got a unicorn
[00:01:08] Juan Granados:
fighting Bigfoot on it. Mhmm. Unicorn riding Bigfoot. That's sort of Fighting. Fighting. Respect. Yeah. Fighting. Good grief. Even even worse. So there you go. That that sort of set the scene for me. Look, today, man, I and you asked me what what sort of topics or what are the things we wanted to talk about. And I guess I wanted to, yeah, more articulate about the friends, realistically, about making time with friends, the energy that we get to spend with friends and stuff like that, where we prioritize or who we prioritize, I don't know if there's something that has come up for you, I guess, exclusively right now in your holidaying, or touring around some of these places, exclusively right now in your holidaying, or touring around some of these places given that you're as as you've said before here in the podcast too, you know, part a big part of your travel is to connect with people. Kinda secondary is to see things and be at the locations that you were trying to get to, etcetera.
But I don't know, man. For me, I guess I'll start it off. One one big part that I saw in August that just went by was and I'll just explain this obviously to friends and and relationships in in general, but I I guess I'm exclusively talking here some some parts of friendship is that as time goes on, there's just commitments that come up in life. Right? Whether you go to pursue like, I I kinda feel like you have a pursuit on the path of having kids, man. And obviously, that's got to be commitments, or you pursue a path of work or business and finances, and that also has certain commitments or things that can pull you away.
And then you might have, you know, a third different, path, I guess, or, obviously, Weibo paths. But well, maybe you don't do either of those, but then you're committed to something else. Right? Yourself or self improvement or, you know, whatever. Something else, like, that commits you. In any case, as as time goes on, and and I saw this really, August is the amount of commitments that at least I was placing on myself meant that I needed to really prioritize who I then was giving energy to or trying to connect with from from various, individuals and people.
I've just sort of headed off with my current work as well. And one of the things that generally happens when I leave a workplace is, you know, you go around and you say all the niceties and stuff, but in reality, and Everybody likes it. They're probably only gonna stay connected to 1 or 2 people, Really, you know, the rest is gonna say like, oh, hope is well. You know, next time I'm around the area, we have to catch up. And and that's, you know, there's some truth to that because if you do have some time, you know, I do I do it for sure. But, you know, I kinda went, you know, there's really just 1 or 2 individuals, which I really, like, reach out to and connect and go out of my way in that just because there's other priorities in life. Not not because of them, but it's just you gotta prioritize. Right? And if you're a fast if I was trying to connect with everyone who I've had some sort of good friendship with or not or, like, get along with, then I wouldn't be doing anything else. You know, I'd just be chatting and connecting with people.
Again, I found that yesterday or here in Brisbane, there's a an event called river fire where I guess it's a celebration of the river with fire, fireworks, and planes, stuff like that. And it was, like, it was fun. It it was fun again to be there with, you know, close close friends and close conversations. And part of me found myself, just because there was lots of time, messaging, like, a whole host of people, right, that I hadn't talked to for a long time. And some I connected with, and I was like, oh, damn. That was that was cool little quick conversation. It'd be nice to go follow-up. And others, it was the telltale sign of, oh, nice to connect. But, you know, it's not like I'm going to go take particularly a lot of hours out of my day to go and connect because I could list you 1,000 different things that are just high priority that I've got to do now. Right? So I guess that's that's some of the thoughts that have been tumbling around in my mind. But I mean, for you, man, have you found any of that mentality or any of those thoughts at all, obviously, in your travels because you have so much energy right now to dedicate to friends, how much do you spend in terms of energy or time to keep some of the connections going from other countries that you've been been to before or anything like that?
[00:05:30] Kyrin Down:
So I'm I'm kind of of the of the, you know, my views have probably changed a bit since maybe 5 years ago where I would have said, Internet friends, what a dumb kind of concept. You never, you know, what's the point? You're never gonna meet these people. You know, what's what what would be the reason for going to Canada for myself, for example? I've never never particularly been drawn there or or LA. And I think one of the things that's come up in my mind is the and relates to this topic, which was the training with friends. And I used to I used to kind of think, I'm friends with these people, because we have more, you know, our our ethics are the same, our beliefs are the same, or we we get on in these these certain ways. And and this is what creates a friendship and keeps friends together.
I'm much more of the opinion now that circumstance is what dictates it. So circumstance, whether it's your job, which is probably a little bit of a lousy circumstance, because you're you're kind of forced there in a way and most people probably don't want to be at their work circumstance in the sense of it, your your training with them. So whether this be a soccer team or training in the sense of like physical training, handstands, for example, Or it could be around a, you know, a certain project or something that you're both very passionate about, or a game that you're very passionate about. It can be whatever a hobby, a niche.
And I used to think like, okay, yeah, that, you know, those things that they don't really matter because you you you're more interested in the hobby rather than the people in the hobby itself. And I kind of disagree with my my past self now because I, for an example, when I first met Brendan, at the calisthenics park, and we're both doing handstands. What we bonded over was talking about Zen, funny memes, laughing at like some conspiracy theories, whilst also indulging in some. It was it was like the the person to person contact. I'm like, this is my, you know, spirit animal guy. He's he's, he gets me.
What has ended up happening was, and so we would train together and we'd meet at the calisthenic park. I think I've only seen him maybe 7 times outside of that a couple of times for like a birthday. A couple of times for I think like, we've gone to over to his house for, it's probably a little bit more like 12 times 15 times. In any case, for the amount of times I've I've talked about him, on this podcast, and for what I would have said was the deep friendship that we created. I haven't actually seen him that much outside of the thing that we do, which is train together. And for just reasons, unbeknownst to particularly me or him, it's just one of those things. We kind of stopped training together for, I don't know, like a 6, 9 month period. And I barely saw him at all. And so it's kind of gone to me like, okay, you know what?
The the activity is very important in this thing. So whilst I might have used to laugh at the idea of kind of work friends, because it's like, who are these just random people who have just been kludged together? And there's no real way you're going to make good friends with them. I disagree with that now. Because and it shows because, you know, I've, I've gone across the world to meet Peter and Cole, for example, and Dave Jones. Only one of those who I was really sure like, I'm I have like the exact same ethics as which is probably closer to Dave. You know, Pete is probably closer to Dave and Cole was like, is a completely different guy. You know, he's, he's in the conspiracy theories, for example, which I think are mostly bullshit.
Yet, I still went across all the way across the world. Pretty much just just for them. So yeah, that's that's kind of a thing that I've changed my mind on on a lot. Have you just to bring this back to a question and try and do my monthly goals of not talking about myself too much? Have you? Would you say now that you're still open for friendships or you're you're pretty locked in with with what you've got and the chances of making like a real deep friendship in the future is less likely?
[00:10:14] Juan Granados:
Oh, no. It's a good question. No. I think think definitely, open. Like, definitely, definitely open, because you in the last couple of months, in the workplace that I was in, there was 1 or 2 new individuals that I mean, I'm, like, I'm not even connected with now for a couple of years, but I guess more solidified, and I could see myself still staying in contact and connected. So there's definitely not a shut off from any new like, that's it. It's, you can't add anymore. But I think what generally happens is with more they come in or the new people that you meet, there's this unconscious, like decision that you make, which is, you know, one more gets added into the pile.
And 2, 2 things happen, I think for most people, and the first one doesn't happen to me, where that happens, and then you just kind of cut someone else out entirely. That generally doesn't happen to me, although I think I've seen people do this, where what more so happens is that, at least now I'm more selective of the new ones that get added. But what it tends to do then is just on average, across the board, it just reduces by, you know, a certain percentage how much I interact with other people. Right? So that that's more so what what I see. And, look, the the rate, if I could say that, of new friends and new people that I allowed to come into my space, and I'm at least providing, like, giving some sort of energy and by energy. You know, it's not just I think the thing most people I don't know if you're like, you're like this man. But when most people think it, oh, you know, it's the conversation, like, you know, messaging them when they message you and replying and checking in or maybe organizing a catch up and doing that. There's certainly energy and time that that takes. But that's, I guess it's it's part of it. So all of it that I tend to think of what what it's taken away. The big one, I think, is the having to have in your mind, the like the state of affairs of another person.
That is what I guess I would even bigger part is what I don't want to have too much of that because I have a tendency to add most people probably just remember and know what's been happening in people's lives. The more you add, just the more you have to juggle in your mind. And there's no way in hell. I mean, we're pretty detailed in the way we do, you know, note down things and stuff like engineers, but I don't have a list of, you know, all of my friends and what they're up to and taking down notes in the journals or what they're doing and stuff like that. Right? I'm not nuts. And it would almost have to become that way if I was trying to have too many people, you know, to to connect with. I've got a actually is a supremely clear example. Karen, you love this. This is typical, typical one story.
And there's no disrespect to this particular guy that I'm about to tell you the story of. Yesterday, yesterday, I went through a fire. And we got there it was about midday. We're walking through the area. It's an area called felons beautiful overlooks the Brisbane River and the Brisbane sort of skyline with the Surrey Bridge at the top. We're walking along and there was me and my partner, and we're looking for for a table to sit down with a couple more people who were coming later. Right? And I spot this guy who was just sitting off to the side. He looks at me and I look at him. Now I recognize his face, Karen. I recognize his face. But do you think I knew who exactly this person was or his name or where I knew him from or any other details about him? No. No. I did not have a a single fucking clue at that point. Right?
And he comes over, man, and he's like, what? Oh my god. I can't believe I'm seeing you again. He is my mate. Like, let me introduce you to my mate. I'm trying to, like, keep it ear out at, like, when he's introducing himself to my partner, like, what was his name? Where do I know this guy from? And he's just telling me all these things and things that he's like seeing me do and training and videos and blah blah blah. I'm like, oh, yeah, man. Good to see you. Like, it was good. But I kept on walking and said to my partner, I'm like, damn, no. I have no idea who that was.
After I wracked my brain for, you know, a couple of couple of minutes, I was like, that's where it's from. Right? But it's it's one of those. Right? I I I can't there's no way I can keep a mental track of lots of people, but also exactly where I'm seeing them or what they're up to or what they've been training. I'm also kinda like you. Slightly pulling back on a lot of social media and a few other things. I also don't, you know, sometimes people will say like, oh, you know, I've been doing this. I've been posting some of these things. I was even saying to my partner, like, you know, there's some people that just because I haven't gone on for a long time on on social media, and by long time, I'm doing like just hours per day. I only get a select, you know, sampling of people that I follow because I follow a lot. And so I just will end up not seeing some of the people that I've got on my social media profiles ever because they're just all the way at the bottom of the pile, and I never get to see any of their detail because the algo is dying. Don't feed them to me. So there's some aspects of that. I just don't even know what's going on in in in those aspects, but that's that's where the energy for me, man I thought that's where I go.
That's that's a concern when if I had to have too many multiple, thoughts in my mind about what people are going, then that becomes problematic for me. I I don't know if you if you think about a lot of that at all. Oh, man. No. Because I I don't have the,
[00:15:37] Kyrin Down:
what would I call it? The extra version that that you do and and perhaps Lucas does as well. I noticed this with him. He he he talks with almost everyone. It's just you you can't even when it's, like, almost a detriment to him, We'll be out training in the park and he'll see someone and and this person will chat to him or he'll chat to them and and it's just like, he meets so many people. I I just don't do that. So there's I I can't I can't remember a time that I've gone out and recognize and someone's known me and I haven't really known them. Because because of, you know, too much bandwidth or something.
I would feel pretty comfortable saying that you over the course of the last 10 years have met or honestly, it could be for every one person that I've had a chat with and and kind of learn bothered to learn their name. You have probably chatted with at least 10, probably 20 or 30. Like, I think that's the ratio. So no, that that is not a problem that I that I have personally had had to have. I was the kind of the the same question for me of, am am I like open to to new friendships and things like that? I think I'm slightly less now than I was, let's say, 5, 10 years ago, especially when I was traveling. So that was 6 years ago.
The but the thing that that has, kind of got me just thinking about the the way that I interact with friends and those kind of activities, training, hobbies, whatever. It has made me go, okay. I almost need a fun kind of artificial thing to to make friends now. Because I'm probably not on force of character alone. Am I am I going to make enough of an impression upon someone? So when Lucas told me that he was like, he wouldn't be able to go to Rio de Janeiro, I almost instantly just dropped the idea of going there out of my head. I just went like, what's the point now? It that would be a fantastic place to make a new friend.
Go to a hostel party environment. Everyone's looking to talk with everyone drink, have fun, whatever beach. And none of that particularly appeals to me. The unappealing part is actually the activities, not the making friends with new people part. And, another similar thing, I guess, with restaurants, even even the the Uber today. So I was gonna talk about how I was I was gonna be cheap on the monthly goals and forgot to include this in. So today, I'm feeling a little bit sick. And normally to get to the the place that I train, it's probably a half an hour walk. I know, I know it's a half an hour walk. It's a bit more 35 minutes, 40 minutes. I have measured this. And usually, I know it's better to do that. And take an Uber to get there because even just the walk there itself.
Kind of like, I wouldn't say it tires me out. But it just it kind of distracts me, I guess, from the the impact of of like, immediately getting to a new place getting into workout mode, starting to stretch and then and then go. And yet, today, when Lucas wasn't here, he's he's he's away, in Sierra Norte. I got out of bed, you know, I'm like, alright, I'm gonna go train. I get out the door. And in my head, I'm like, I'm gonna call an Uber. And then there's 2 things that stopped me. 1, I didn't want to pay the $2.50 Uber ride to get there.
The other part was also like, I just don't want to talk to this person because it's it's just a random Uber person. Like, I don't I don't really get joy talking from random people in in cars. But if it was a random person at the park who was also training or stretching or doing something, those the interactions I do enjoy. And so it's almost like I need the fun artificial thing that I'm already interested in. So, you know, language learning, yoga, stretching, fitness, a little bit of dancing every now and then. Those are the things that that I really enjoy. And this is also why I didn't go to Rio de Janeiro because I was just like, there's not that much of those things there to really get me motivated to meet those new people. So yeah, I, I do think it is the the once again, honing back on this artificial sort of activity that allows me to make friends. And then and then it's like, you know, character and, and beliefs and compatibility with personalities and things like that. That's that's all the stuff that that then comes afterwards.
So with all that being said, it kind of makes me think, you know, if I come to, so I'll ask you this question. If I was to meet, you know, the love of my life in the next year, and let's just say it's in Australia. Where where do you think I would meet her 1? One? And what and what percentage probability would you put on various locations?
[00:21:15] Juan Granados:
I would say I put down I put down a 40 No higher, say hi, because I'm thinking of where you spend most of your time as well, I'd probably say a 50% chance out in a park somewhere, and the park outdoors, where you're doing handstand work, especially if you're out in a relatively busy environment, I probably say that's going to be the case. You're currently I don't know what the temperatures in Brazil are at the moment, Ben, but it's beautiful. Going through a very heavy heat wave at the moment. Actually, it was 35 degrees yesterday. Dude, that's beautiful. It wasn't winter. Just beautiful. Still winter for weather last sort of week. No. No, I can imagine I could imagine you being out, you know, doing some hand sand work by the river or something and someone stumbling by and having a chat with you. That would probably be the overwhelming like 50% plus type of probability where you meet them.
I'm gonna give 30% to at a gym, like the total fusion or something like that. And then 20% through a friend. And so that's gonna like, someone you're going to some of your existing friends and then connecting you because they they know you or you just meet them through that path that's independent of location. That I'm I'm gonna say those are those are you an, I I believe you blew your numbers because maybe the traditional, way that people might hear like, oh, you know, you're good at the club and you feel, man, Karen's gonna find a girl. That's not happening. That that wasn't happening in when he was 25 and it's not happening in his 30s.
[00:22:57] Kyrin Down:
Peter Peter said in the chat don't say brothel don't say brothel don't say brothel. Pew. Pretty pretty close. I would actually reverse some of the ratios around. I think in a gym, the total fusion, it's probably much higher. Out in the park also also very, very much in the double digits. If I had to chuck stuff to it, I'd say like 60% total fusion, 30% of park and the no to 25% of the park 10% in a kind of random location I've been dragged to with perhaps other friends, or it's like a sort of a side hobby. And think along the lines of like, a language meetup group, or a meetup group in general, or something dancing related. And then maybe 5% in a in like a shopping mall or a supermarket or something like that. Because I still I still do have the ability to cold approach when I need to.
Not when I need to. I still have the ability to do that if I want to. So all of that made me go like, alright. Yeah. Once again, that's that's just related to, like, the activities, and it's it's almost worth leaning more and being really heavy into them. And, you know, just the the trick, I guess, for me would have to be, and this is, you know, getting a little bit beyond friendship because we're talking about a romantic relationship, but, allowing allowing the activity to not dominate or I guess stopping the activity from dominating.
So there have been periods in my life where it's like, I'm gonna do handstands. Don't talk to me. Don't fucking get away from me. I don't want to hear your bullshit. I don't want you to look at me. I don't want anyone near me. I'm here to train. And there is still part of me in that. Where it's like that dedication and that seriousness is still there. But I'm, I'm recognizing like, you can you can have in little intensities of that you that doesn't need to be the entire time that you're at the gym. So if you're at the gym for 4 hours, you don't need to be like that for 4 hours. You can you can you can relax that a little bit. So yeah, that's that's that's kind of what I was thinking.
I saw a boost to ground from Peter come in just then and this is actually related to the last topic or points that I wanted to make to this. I was inspecting my new scar that he's he's given me a little it's like a tiny little pink mark on my skin. Will it actually scar? I'm not too sure. And I, you know, I was taking my shirt off looking at my glorious handsome body. And I'm like, oh, you know what, I should do a scar count again. And, and and be like, how many do I have? And where did these all come from? And I was starting to go like, I've got this one on the top of my head. I've got one like by the side here. I've got one under my chin. Got one here, got one on my hip. And I'm like, holy crap. All of these are coming from things that I did with other people. It's like activities and friendships.
Peter shot me. These ones were from like climbing in the backyard with friends, playing soccer with my friend on my ankle, playing rugby and, or it was like touch rugby on a basketball court. Great idea. Kids in in high school, there was this one. And there's only like 1 or 2, which were like slight cosmetic things that I wanted to get through like a mole on the back of my head or something like that. Everything else was through activities with with friends. So not only do I say these beliefs, but they're ingrained in my body, because all of my scars are pretty much from that.
[00:26:48] Juan Granados:
Well, stories, man stories as well. You met you mentioned you call us obviously the booster camp, should we jump into the booster? Yeah, please do. And then please take out. Yep. Let's let's let's just take a pause here. Boost to gram lounge. So just a chance for us to, yeah, just give shout outs to people who've been sending through some boost to grams, usually with some messages attached. It's the really the best way that we'd like to see the support coming through. Karen's talked about it on the podcast, but he's connected with a few of these individuals, obviously, in person. Some we've talked to online, but obviously, we've seen them in person. It's all different things. So, again, if you are sending them through, it is very much appreciated. There's also streaming stats that come through as well. We don't necessarily call them out. But we do we call those out on the monthly goals every now and then.
Yeah. Correct. Correct. So let me just go through a couple of them. I've got from the 25th August. So the last time we called them out, we heard from Dave. He sent through Karen. Melissa and I are eating at, Rougarou. Tsumia, that's how it's pronounced. Yeah. Right now. I'll have some gumbo in your honor. Nice. 22,000. That's, 222 set set using cast o matic. That's that's What the hell's
[00:27:57] Kyrin Down:
Rougarou? Rougarou is the restaurant that he took me to for the the one night that I was there. Right. It was it was great. Yeah. I tried gumbo there. I tried, I basically asked him, like, what's what's the what's like Alabaman food that I can go to and experiment? He's like, yeah, this place is pretty good. So I had gumbo. I had, it was like a sausage type thing. I can't remember the name of it. And there was another thing as well. So it was a great restaurant. I really enjoyed it. So yes, thank you. Thank you, Dave. I'm glad. Enjoy that gumbo.
[00:28:33] Juan Granados:
Now we got one from McCormick. Sent through that, today, earlier today for us. It says, your food experience in the US is funny. You were looking for sweets, but American junk food is everything else besides the sweets. If you ate 3 meals and multiple snacks with a soda and a sugary Starbucks every day, then you would understand American food culture. And that's 5,492
[00:28:56] Kyrin Down:
sets that using fountain. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Cole. That's his favorite number as well. I want to my shame. I did not go to a Starbucks whilst I was there. The the trip was wasted. Yeah.
[00:29:10] Juan Granados:
Well, no, I'll pull you back. I'll pull you back. I think the Starbucks in a lot of places across the world are pretty much the same. It's not that like it's not that special.
[00:29:20] Kyrin Down:
Yeah. Yeah. I've had I've had Starbucks in the US here in Australia over in Hong Kong. I've had in like different countries, man. It's about the same everywhere. Yeah. Well, they're they're all I mean, it's coffee. I'm just not gonna drink it. Even if it's, you know, even if it's the the pumpkin spice latte is to die for. It's I'm just not gonna enjoy. I had a, it was a little protein drink the other day. And it was the the one that I've really like, hasn't been there. So I was like, alright, I'll try this other one that's the exact same flavor. It's just got cappuccino written at the top, but there's nothing else in it that describes that it should be coffee like.
So I got it and like, alright, I'll just give this a try. And there was only a very hint, slight taste of coffee in it, and I still was just not impressed. Not not gonna do it again. So, yeah, unless unless Starbucks has really good cookies or muffins, which I've never heard about. I I've I've done okay. But yeah, that's, it's, it's a good point. The the meals that I ate were there there wasn't that many kind of doughnutty shops, even the Dunkin' Donuts. I had to look really hard to try and find the prices for the doughnuts. Because they were more prominently displaying the burgers and the wraps and all the other things they had. So, and the dunk and the doughnut seemed almost like an afterthought. So that's an afterthought. Yeah. That's a that's a good explanation there. Thank you, Cole.
[00:30:56] Juan Granados:
Beauty. And then last one here we go from Peter. This one came in live. This was a in the moment live one. He says, like, he hasn't shown Karen. So that's what popped us to get into the boost to ground. But, yeah, feel free. Take a take a shot at Karen. Yeah. Why not? See him next time. It seems like he he enjoys getting a couple a little bit of extra lead coming at him. He also says girls like scar love scars. You're welcome. So thank you, Peter. Exactly. That is another another bonus that Karen's gone from negative 3 to negative 2. Well done. So it's 2,222 sets and using fountain. Appreciate that, Peter, Cole and Dave. So, yeah, very much appreciate the support. The 3 people who
[00:31:35] Kyrin Down:
I traveled to the, the Americas to meet. So there you go. They all popped up.
[00:31:43] Juan Granados:
What is this about an an extraordinary
[00:31:46] Kyrin Down:
life? Yep. So getting on to the next topic. So I if you checked out the latest book reviews, I did one of the woman in the Dunes by kubal abhi. And if you haven't heard that before, and I'll give a quick recap, was basically like an extraordinary Japanese man who's living a rather sad and pitiful life, goes into these sand dunes to collect some beetles. He ends up getting captured by this village and basically forced into a hole into one of the dunes. And when I say a hole imagine like, the you know, this is Sparta type hole, a big, big, big hole even bigger than that, with enough room for a house down there. It's probably like 20 30 meters high. And basically he's forced to shovel sand in the in this in this in this June to stop the sand from encroaching onto the village. And which which is like above the these holes, and they capture people and put them in these holes.
And I found it really funny that this guy had this unextraordinary life, yet he desired freedom. It's not like he came out of this experience being like, my life is going to change. I realized I've done I was doing everything wrong. I was wasting my life. I'm I've got all these new goals that I want to achieve. There's so many, you know, bucket list, all that sort of stuff. No, he just wanted to escape. That was that was the only reason and I'm kind of like, well, what if you look at his material kind of position in life now, like, he's got a girl he's like, there's a hot ass girl who lives in this house in the in the hole and she she kind of like falls in love with him in some sort of sense. He becomes super creative.
And, and like handy with his hands. He's getting exercise. So he's probably losing weight becoming healthier. And there's nothing for him. There's nothing for him back in his old life. And it kind of got to this point where I had 2 questions for for myself from this was, one is an an extraordinary life, a life not lived well. So this guy had a an an extraordinary life. He himself admits it. Does this therefore make his life a life not lived well? And then 2, if if you realize this, is it worth forcing yourself into a position where you must adapt and create an extraordinary life for yourself? So, think along the lines of setting an arbitrary goal of I'm going to swim around Great Britain like Ross Edgley did, for for example, where he didn't need to do that. There was nothing really that was going to come from that in terms of, you know, wealth or fame or success, or at least it wasn't guaranteed. You know, it seemed like he set this goal for himself to, to just do it to do something extraordinary.
So I want to chuck those onto you one and have a crack at them. And we'll see if there's some interesting discussion from there.
[00:34:45] Juan Granados:
Unknown Speaker 2: To come in? Well, I don't know. You know, my take, what would you say my take is about an extraordinary life?
[00:34:55] Kyrin Down:
If I didn't have if you know me, what do you think I would say in response? I mean, yeah, my this is one of those ones where I wanted to bring up because I feel we're probably on the opposite sides of the spectrum, which is you'd be like, the overall medic metaethics, I guess, was you'd be like people can do whatever the hell they want. But if you're living in an extraordinary life and you have a realization of that, much like this guy in the book did, you should fucking do something about it. There's there's what I'm thinking you're saying like, you should do something about it. Set yourself some goals, do something interesting.
Get out of the slump, like you're being you're being lazy. And there's nothing. If you realize it's an extraordinary, why don't you try and do something to make an extraordinary that that's kind of what I imagined you would you would say?
[00:35:44] Juan Granados:
Yeah, it's close. It is close. I think younger me would have probably even more aligned with that. Maybe the my take my take now and actually the someone is just interestingly someone someone else leaving work, they made a comment kind of similar to this around. Yeah, they they wanted to achieve something. Basically, that was that was a kind of cool app because they were living a relatively ordinary life. My response, and I guess maybe my more my answer here is kind of just depends what you want the end up like what your outcome is, what you're optimizing for what you actually care about, because the like that statement of what what makes you extraordinary as opposed to being ordinary. And there is again, and I agree with this, you know, if you do have ordinary processes and actions, and you are going to get the ordinary results for the most part. Sometimes you can get extraordinary results out of it from just consistency in order, but maybe it takes a long time. And that's obviously an applicable thing to finances and a whole host of other different things.
But no, one thing I was saying to him was, you know, just because it is ordinary doesn't mean that it's bad. Doesn't mean that it's wrong. It can just mean that that's what you optimizing you feel content with. And that's totally fine. Like, there is no need to be extraordinary in the sense of, you know, be the Steve Jobs, to the, you know, be the best hand saner in the world or do all these particular lifts there is joy in being and existing and being content with that. And I think for most, for most everyone, maybe they just be like, Oh, it's fairly ordinary, maybe a little bit above ordinary, but the process that you take is ordinary. I think I'm seeing a little bit towards the that's okay. That's okay. But if you feel it definitely if you feel like there is just this mundane, there's ordinary feeling, then my default is well, shit, then go do something that's different than what you've been doing. Because, you know, that's going to kick your ass and go do something different. Okay.
[00:37:48] Kyrin Down:
I'll clarify this because I just said to her, as you were speaking, I realized that I probably didn't frame it the best way. Maybe the better way of saying it would be if you have an aimless life, so someone who has an aimless life, they realize they have an aimless life. Should and once again, I don't like the the should word, but would would you be recommending to them if they were having an aimless life, like, look, your life is aimless. You realize that it's aimless. You're kind of unhappy, but you're not desperately unhappy. Like, you're not suicidal, unhappy. And you're you're maybe not content either at the same point.
Would would you recommend to them? Okay. What you should do is create a create an arbitrary goal for yourself or something silly or, you know, whatever it is, and then just try and achieve it. Is it okay to go through life completely aimless?
[00:38:54] Juan Granados:
No.
[00:38:55] Kyrin Down:
I don't think I think there's the one there's the one I thought you'd
[00:39:00] Juan Granados:
you'd guess. Yeah. No, definitely. No. I don't I don't think I don't think that that's a that doesn't that's an agreeable sentence with me of living life in an aimless way. Because I guess it's it's even because what does that mean? What does what does aimless mean? I guess aimless to me when you say like that it more attracts my thoughts to aimless aimless means that you are defaulting to whatever your desires bodily wants are, as opposed to having a higher order thinking view of what you're doing with the world. So maybe someone in that regard, who's aimless, who is just existing and doing things for the pure basic necessities of being fed or adonically, you know, this, this thing gives me a good hit of dopamine. Maybe it's just the typical scrolling on on Instagram or TikTok for 2 hours when you've got to spare 2 hours type of deal.
Just because you can and it's aimless. It's not no purpose. Part of me goes, Yeah, no, I don't I don't I don't think that's a life. I always say life worth living but a life well lived.
[00:40:18] Kyrin Down:
Yeah. See, when I when I imagine aimless I I kind of conjure up just many examples. You can have the Buddhist monk who is just trying to live in the present moment and therefore is unable to create aims because he's basically trying to just not even think of the future. You could have the the old man, you know, contented on the on on his porch. He doesn't really have aims in life other than just to to live. And I guess you could just say enjoy the moment. Enjoy his grandkid. Kids is is enjoying things really having an aim. Not not particularly, you could certainly throw it into the negative sphere and have, you know, the the drug addicts who can't even think of the future because they're just so desperately well, I guess they've got an aim as to get more drugs, but, and not as not in a particularly good sense, or the person who just goes to work because that's what everyone else does, who pays their mortgage, has kids, dies just because that is what everyone else does.
And I kind of go, yeah. All right. That's that there's a there's a spectrum there, I guess, of of saying of of lives that are well lived and lives that are not well lived would would putting an artificial thing or a goal onto all of them increase, increase their their, their well-being in life. I'm not particularly sure. Yeah. I'm, I'm kind of on the fence about this, especially after reading the book where it was just I found it really, really funny that this guy was just like he desperately wanted freedom. Everyone wants freedom. You know, it's a, you know, land of the free America. Freedom is the most important thing.
And yet the there's no for this guy, at least there was no after there was no okay, but what's beyond the freedom, there was just like, I just I just need to, I need to get back to my old aimless life, rather than this kind of current aimless life, which, which was actually a little bit better. So I just found
[00:42:36] Juan Granados:
a well, yeah, but I think that's just the simple simple view, I guess I take it is that if you're aimless and you wanna be aimless and forced into a direction by, like, societal needs or
[00:42:52] Kyrin Down:
aimless freedom Or like at least at least you you you get to choose, you know, it's really hard to have an aimless life because even in those examples I gave, there was there was the, you know, the drug addict trying to get drugs. That's the name. The person who is doing all getting the mortgage, having the kids just because societal expectations, there are some aims. So it's maybe like at least you can choose the aim, have a little bit of pre thought behind it and choose one which is perhaps more suited to your personality will lead to some better outcomes for health wise or financial wise or relationship wise.
So maybe in that case, it is well, it is better to to choose something artificial and at least at least you're choosing it, you know?
[00:43:38] Juan Granados:
Yeah, I guess that's how that's how I was trying to separate it away. In that definition of aimless, it's, if you if you're if you're aimless is just the pure in necessities or demands that you want because of whatever addiction or hedonic things that you want to be doing to increase your what feels good in the moment. But to be truly maybe maybe it's better word, though, like purposeful, like purposeful in a higher order thinking in a way that you plan out that you want to go and do things and you're putting in actions in place to achieve something else into the into the further field. But I guess, I don't necessarily also think that the 2 are connected in that.
Like, as you said, you know, is an aimless life good? No. But I also don't think that if you have a purposeful life or a driven life or a strategic life or whatever, you know, planning, setting it up, that doesn't also mean that you'll have an extraordinary life. Yeah. For anyone else's context, you know, someone and be like, well, that just seemed like a normal life or a boring life or how how sad and whatnot. But I think as long as the the purposefulness that one derives then leads to more contentment, more contentment within oneself. I think that's I think that's the aim of what I was saying. Yeah, not to be not to be aimless, but I wouldn't connect that so directly into the being extraordinary or just ordinary.
[00:45:10] Kyrin Down:
Bringing bringing this back to I guess, myself in a concrete example. When I was in Montreal, I had this just thought of like, okay, I'm literally wandering around the city aimlessly. There's no there's no point to this. Did I mention that I stumbled into like the open day of a of the university last time? Mhmm. Miguel, the university there. I think it's the biggest one in Montreal. I saw all these people just walking up to what I thought was the Mont Montreal, the hill, and and I stumbled into their open day. So it's just surrounded by all these, you know, teens. I'm like, oh, okay. Damn. They're that that was actually kind of shocking in the sense of like, woah, all of these people are in a completely different stage of the their life than I am. You know, these, these are like kids who are just that everything is going to be new for them. This is going to be, you know, the next 3 years is going to be a 4 years is going to be a like a ton of bricks has hit them. Whereas for me, it's like, oh, you know, here I am just wandering another city aimlessly Just just because because I don't really have anything else that I'm want or need to do with my time right right at this moment.
And it that experience did kind of make me go like, you know what? Maybe I should have a bit more direction at this moment. Because you know, what the hell am I doing here? What what am I doing in Montreal? What I was doing there was trying to kill some time because Canadian Air Canada or not Air Canada was actually United Lost my bags. But, yeah. But, that that was no reason that I I I can't I couldn't have done more productive things with my time or, or whatnot. But I also was enjoying it. I was also in it like another part of me was also like, oh, this is cool. You know, get to see Montreal, I'll be able to say that I've seen like 2 Canadian cities now. And I there are there are parts of me that enjoy arbitrary things like looking up what's the exotic food from this country and trying it out. Like, it's for me, it's fun. It's fun to say that I I ate a beaver tail in Canada. That's a fun thing for me to say.
There's no deeper meaning behind it other than is like, yeah, I did that thing. So if I meet someone from Montreal or from Canada again, I'll be like, I ate a fucking beaver tail while I was there. Have you ever had one? So, yeah, I don't know. Just just just random thoughts pop into my head about this stuff. Do I feel my life is aimless per se? Not really. But it did it did also make me reflect like okay, there are a couple of things I've I really want to do. And hints to the to the next year's yearly goals. The one arm handstand is this is an artificial one that I've absolutely created for myself, but it's like, I want to do that thing. And then the other one is the the having kids a partner that more family life.
Because I can certainly see, you know, how when you there's some people where they don't have kids, they're in their like forties or, yeah, usually forties, they've got a partner and both of them don't want kids and they can be really successful. The one who's jumping to my mind now is Raoul Pal. Who is like a macro guy, and I've been watching a bit of his stuff recently and with him, I go like, I if I was in my forties, and I didn't have kids, and, or even fifties, I'm not sure how old he is. I think I would start this struggling to find a bit of purpose in life.
And what I see with people with children is like, it gives you a whole lot of purpose, at least for like 20 years. And then then you have this kind of phenomenon of, of people who, you know, the kids leave the the nest, and then it's and then they're just like, well, shit, what do I what do we do now? Oh, well, let's get divorced because because they have no they they like, they've lost all the meaning in their life. So yeah, that's that's a whole ramble there. Do what you will with that.
[00:49:45] Juan Granados:
I get we I get we get what you mean. I get what you're coming from the the reality, like, let's be practical, right? It's all effective philosophy, like real philosophy, actual philosophy, is that at the end, like when you get all as old as you want, or when you're really reflective, when maybe you don't have as many options, right? Because the amount of percentage of of life and possible paths that we have right now is still so much right. But as you start dwindling them down the possibilities, and that's when you started looking back and finding regret or something else. I think it's, it's easy to validate, I guess, the life that you had, if you've had purpose versus being aimless.
So you know, if you get to the end of life, and you were fairly aimless, you just use live life and you did the things that either end by aimless years. Yeah, you didn't create them. So either it was just pure, like, animalistic drive or it was societal construct driven. And by that, I mean, yeah, the usual, I've been, I've been told to go to university and get a good job and work 9 to 5 or try to go up the corporate ladder and then go do this and travel and, yep, all that sort of stuff. And, you know, you'll get to the the years go by, and you reflect back, and you kinda go, shit. A lot of this was aimless in that it wasn't constructed by you. You, like, you didn't yourself craft, I guess, a life that you really realistically wanted to live.
Not to say that also there's only one particular path that I think one person can lead for it to be joyful. Because just as much as you now enjoy handstands and calisthenics, then maybe years ago, you might have also picked up, say, swimming, and then you actually found you really enjoy swimming, and that should have been like another path. But totally fine to have multiple or, you know, whichever one got chosen. I think it's more so that at least for me, I go, you know, many years on, I think looking back and being happy that I had some in internal driven purpose beyond just whatever society kinda dictated or how to do and other things, that's what will maybe go, yep. Cool. I'm happy that, like, I'm I'm content. I'm, satisfied with those decisions and those choices as opposed to, oh, damn. I didn't I didn't pursue this. So I didn't actually even think about the things that I really enjoyed. And I think that's the that's the other, challenge that people can find. You know, they do the traditional thing. They retire at whatever the age is now, 60 whatever years old. They go, cool. Well, what do you do in retirement?
Play golf, relax by the water, you know, do that. And, you know, some people get there and go, oh, shit. I I hate golf. I don't wanna get a boat, and I don't know what to do. And I was like, fuck. I actually really enjoyed you know, would have really enjoyed, I don't know, helping people do hiking, and maybe I'm too old now, and I can't do that. Like, there's certain restrictions in life. And so there's all that. If you don't you don't you know, seek purpose, or at least seek what the hell you want to do in this life. I think there's some there's some pain coming,
[00:52:46] Kyrin Down:
down the road. Yeah. Good way pointing it. Peter in the chat says the Nicholas view is that the universe has no meaning, which might be true, but the alternative is eternal nothingness, even a meaningless existence, but however short it lasts is better than that. I think that's pretty true. Oh, I agree. I very much agree. Alrighty. I think I think Peter Peter solved it.
[00:53:10] Juan Granados:
I was gonna say Peter solved it. We're just talking about it for like 20 minutes. Yep. Yapping around. But there you go. He summarized it very nicely. I think I think I think we'll tidy it up there unless you got any other things we wanna add. That's great. I've got some bugs. I mean, it's a good place to put it. So look, there's only like one light here. And
[00:53:26] Kyrin Down:
at the moment, you asked about the temperature. So I think it's been like 30 in the day. And it's getting warmer here as well. And that's in winter still, actually in Australia, which is pretty crazy. But yeah, the I've got one light on here in the apartment. And the it's just like swarming with bugs. So the sooner I get out of this room and turn on another light and shepherd them out of my bedroom is better.
[00:53:49] Juan Granados:
The better delicious. Look, thank you very much everyone for tuning in. Once again, we do these meanderings on a and drinks on a weekly basis. We do, of course, like to get your support through the usage of the Valley for Valley model, which is you have the ability to triple t time, talent, treasure, time. Obviously, you can be listening in to to our show. You can be sending through this to other people to listen in, to obviously help us out and spread the word, the mere mortals, talent. You know? We talked about a couple of things, and sometimes it's just simple talent of, you know, Peter, dropping in a note, a little message of helping us summarize, you know, the 20 minutes of yapping, there could be other things that we're calling out that we might need support and your talent does help out and treasure. So it's streaming through some satoshis or sending through a booster gram. Again, we've read out a couple of them from Carl, from Peter, from Dave. And it's just the way that we like to uptake the support as well. You can also send through some some dirty fiat money as well. We have the the link there for the PayPal if you wanna do that. I haven't even checked whether there's anything in there or not. There was once upon a time, so nice to see some some usage, but of course, it's that as well.
[00:54:55] Kyrin Down:
Yeah. Look, we we appreciate all the support that's come through. We are probably gonna get back more into the swing of things. We talked about this. There's just been some In October. Things to to Next next weekend, I'm probably gonna be in Mandati, and there's a very decent chance I'm I'm not gonna bother to bring all my equipment and stuff. So, I'll I'll let you know for next weekend whether whether we do it or not.
[00:55:17] Juan Granados:
No worries. And even for next weekend, I'll have the, my August summary that I'm gonna do. So Okay. Cool. I'll commit myself to getting that out if if needed anyway. So that's that's not a worry. Brilliant. Beautiful. We'll leave it there. Me and mortal lines, Peter, everyone else who's been tuning in live. Thank you very much for tuning in wherever you are in the world. Be well. Me and mortal lines 1 out. Karen out. Bye.