Full transcription:
Tracy: Hi, and welcome back to episode nine of Results May Vary. In our last episode, we spoke with psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Vora about designing mental health. Her preference is not to prescribe drugs if possible, but rather to design solutions based on the root causes for each individual she cares for. Today, we talk to New York Times Bestselling Author Steve Almond about how you can design your creative practice. A former newspaper reporter and the author of Candy Freak and My Life and Heavy Metal. Steve's latest book Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto details why after 40 years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he loves. In addition to writing thoughtful and often hilarious commentary for the New York Times Magazine and the Boston Globe, Steve Almond is also the more baritone half of the popular and profound Dear Sugar Podcast with Cheryl Strayed.
Well, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. For people who may not know who you are, do you want to just give an overview of what you do, what you've been up to, and what's exciting to you right now?
Steve: Sure, yeah. Well, I'm a writer and teacher, I guess. Let's see, I started out as a journalist for a daily newspaper. And then I went to a weekly newspaper. And at a certain point in my late 20s, I guess, started reading much more for pleasure and in a way that made me realize that I was not living, I guess, is examined to life as I could, that I've wanted to try to write things that were more about the insides of people rather than just journalism, even though I really liked journalism. And the journalism I was doing was interesting. I was asking the wrong questions. It was a kind of investigative journalism that was about nailing people. And I was more interested in why people would suddenly do self-destructive things, for instance, or what was happening, the internal questions or the why questions? Why do people get themselves into these dilemmas? What in the human arrangement causes people to not get what they want, or when they get what they want, they do not want it anymore. All that stuff, I guess I just realized I needed to do something, and wound up taking a number of steps to get more serious about creative writing, including auditing a bunch of classes and eventually getting an MFA. And then I moved up to Boston, where I live outside Boston, and just have been essentially writing for the last 15 or more than 15 years, and have published a bunch of books, some fiction books, some nonfiction books, and do a fair amount of freelance journalism, and teaching and management consulting and stuff, basically, to try to support the bad habit that writing is.
Tracy: Yeah, it seems like writing doesn't pay enough on its own, almost certainly support one person, let alone a family.
Steve: Yeah, that's the catch. I mean, I talk a lot with people and move through a world in which people are going in search of themselves in many ways. And usually, for the people I know, it's through writing. And I think that in and of itself is a beautiful, unnecessary thing for people, they, they want to be precise about their lives and understand what they're up to, and commemorate that whether it's in fiction, or nonfiction or poetry, somehow use the language to try to get a grip on them their lives and their internal lives, and maybe understand the world a little better. But that's very different from trying to support yourself, and for me, support a family. And so then you really do have to start to design you know, be conscious of, okay, how am I gonna make this work time really is in a very basic way, it's money. And you can sort of indulge in the fantasy that you'll just get up at four in the morning and do your writing and then go to your job and everything. But I think for me, anyway, I can't do that. And so I've had to think very carefully about over the years, you know, sort of how do I make writing sustainable? How do I do that in a way that allows me to uncouple creative work artistic creation, from financial expectation and that takes some doing, I'll say.
Tracy: Yeah, I was wondering, well, there are two things when you first made that leap from being a journalist to recognizing that you had some other thing that you wanted to say. Was there a specific instance that happened that allowed you to see that? And then also, what were the specific steps besides auditing classes that you took to get there?
Steve: Well, I mean, it's a great question. And there's sort of the larger emotional and psychological turn, which is, John Prine says, you know, your heart gets bored with your mind, and it changes you. And that's sort of what was happening. I had gone into journalism because I think I was not from a family, I was from a family that was sufficiently ambitious, but also, you know, sort of concerned about having a good job and being able to support yourself. And you know, that kind of thing. There weren't any artists in my family. So I didn't have a concept that you could just do creative writing. In college, I didn't do creative writing, I worked for the newspaper. And I didn't even take any creative writing classes. There were certainly students at the school I went to that were identified as creative writing students, and that was their thing. I was not one of them. And so it took me really, I was sort of stumbling towards it, I think people oftentimes get into this pattern where they don't necessarily go into the thing that they really want to do, they sort of move into an ancillary field or something that sort of, you know, in the same neighborhood. So for me, what happened is me, I can remember being in El Paso, Texas, where I worked as a reporter, and I was always thinking, oh, I'm going to end up like, the goal is to end up with the New York Times that would sort of make my Jewish mother happy and that would fulfill her concerns about me making something of myself. So that was what I was thinking all throughout my college years and post-college years. How do I get to the New York Times? How do I do that? But interestingly, along the way, there were a number of turns that I took that were sort of against that model. And I can give you a very clear example. And that speaks to this idea that there is this invisible hand of art, that's sort of what your gut that says, No, you should be doing this, even if it's against the preconceived plan that you have for your life, which is usually something that's imposed by family, by cultural pressures, by your own anxieties, whatever it is. So I was working in El Paso, I got this job, and I'll pass it but I really had applied to all these better newspapers, frankly, more highly respected newspapers and none of them would hire me. But there was one in Quincy, Massachusetts, that I really wanted to get a job there because I knew it was a feeder paper, what they call a feeder paper to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe papers that would lead much more directly to getting a job in New York Times and I remember interviewing and sort of hoping that I would get this job and I didn't get the job. I met an editor who seemed simpatico and a couple of weeks after I took this job in El Paso, which was a very amazing, totally weird place to move to. I'd never lived in Texas, I didn't certainly never lived in El Paso, which is on the border with Mexico. And you know, it was just a place that was extraordinarily exciting, but it was completely off my map. And I remember driving into El Paso, from California, did it all in one day. And I was already sort of loopy, driving down the highway at night. This is maybe 18 hours into this journey and there's this sign, you know, one of these green signs that say El Paso, 11 miles and underneath that it says San Antonio, 592 miles. I thought, holy crap, that's where I am. The next big city is 590 miles away. So it was just a very odd place. And I got this job. I was like the rock critic, and it was terra incognita for me. I was like a white suburban kid, who was sort of very conventional in my thinking, I didn't really have a good grasp on what real poverty is like. And it was very odd and disorienting to be in a place like El Paso where you're essentially right up against Mexico and you realize, oh, I can get up in the morning and walk onto my balcony and look across the border at Mexico and everything there as 10 times the material power that I have. I can remember when I left El Paso was not for a daily paper that what I should have done is gone to a big daily paper like the Dallas Morning News. Well, USA Today. That's where I'm the guy who I'd replaced in El Paso and he was considered a huge success like, wow, you made it to the big national paper. Sure, it looks like a TV that's just been printed on the but you know, business card. He's flying around interviewing Eric Clapton, it's very exciting stuff. And I ended up going to a weekly paper that didn't cost anything. They did pay their staff writers, but it was a very unusual choice and I remember that people, if the daily paper were like, what are you doing? This young reporter you know, you've got some chops, you're really good at writing clever rock and roll reviews, why don't you try to get a job at the Dallas Morning News or USA Today or something. But I remember why I took that job in Miami in that weekly paper. And it's because I met an editor. He is a really thoughtful guy, who I was just immediately aware was going to be important to me, we're on the same wavelength. I don't know. It's like an anxious Jewish depressed guy or something. But it was also that as they came to find out only a couple years later, he had done an MFA, he had a literary background. And the first story I ever did for him was the story about the women who are hired by Dade County, the animal control, people who pick up dead animals they drive around are these two beautiful young women who dressed in like these beautiful after they looked like they should have been aerobics instructors. But their job was to drive around and pick up all the roadkill off the roads of Dade County. And it was this amazing thing where I didn't have to write a story that had any hook. It was really a character study. And I gave the story to this friend of mine, Tom, the editor, and he really liked it. And he got that he immediately recognized, okay, this guy's trying to do something. And I guess the point I would make is that I had to make a bunch of decisions that were a little bit unconventional, that went against sort of the path of least resistance to get myself to the New York Times. And each time I did that people around me were saying that's probably a mistake. But inside me, I was saying no, I don't think so I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Tracy: Yeah, I mean, maybe today, everybody wants to be a writer and there are certain steps that you can take, and certainly the internet helps. But I feel like part of what we talked about in any pursuit that you have, whether it's creative or professional is really just exposing yourself and immersing yourself in what's out there. what's possible. And so I would imagine that there are people today who have this burning inside of them to express themselves creatively, but haven't had the exposure to the right switches to flip that on inside of them to be able to move forward and do it.
Steve: Yeah, I think that probably describes most folks. I mean, I think what's happened is that in a larger sense, people have gone from lives in which creative endeavor was a natural part of what they did to lives in which you're just really trying to make money to support the buying of products that usually put you in a very passive mode. And so what I mean is that specifically, and again, I don't mean to romanticize what it was like to live in the era of cholera, and without penicillin, and were whole huge segments of the American population were either indentured disenfranchised or literally human possessions. I'm not trying to romanticize the past. But I do think that one thing that is happening increasingly, is that capitalism has gone so crazy. And it has become so effective at enabling people to distract themselves, that there is this sort of huge yawning chasm where people need to find meaning in the world. And traditionally, that was because people played more music, and they whittled, and they tended gardens, and they built things themselves. And they repaired things themselves, and they cooked meals, and they had built religious communities and all of these kinds of basic things that we just don't do as much anymore. That, you know, they're not like writing the great American novel but making the stuff that you need in your life, all that stuff is created. And I think there was a time when people just did that more naturally because there wasn't TV or an iPhone, or whatever it is, that puts us in the mode of being in front of screens, passively consuming entertainment, I think that's mostly we're participating in conversations that can be funny and entertaining, and maybe even enriching in certain ways, but aren't the same as the kind of sustained attention that you give to a creative endeavor. So I think people are desperate for that. And it makes sense because it doesn't matter how much stuff you buy, or how many things you consume. That's not the same as creating yourself.
Tracy: Absolutely I mean, even in my past, like I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was in second grade. But as I got older, I realized I didn't want to be poor. And so instead of becoming a creative writer, I became an advertising copywriter. And then after 10 years of knowing that that wasn't really what I wanted to do, I told my boss I was leaving to become an author. And then I found this amazing job at IDEO, which was different enough in skillset to be interesting but similar enough that I could make that leap. And then I worked there for seven years. And then finally, just in February, I realized, like, I have the security that I always felt like I needed to be able to take the leap to do the thing I always really wanted to do. But the funny thing is, after leaving, I had this period of freaking out about what I do, and I have no income. And so I started to take on all of these projects that left me no time to do the creative pursuits that I'd left for. And so now I'm back in the state of rebalancing.
Steve: Yeah, it's tough because my wife and I struggle with this all the time and think about it all the time, as much as it can be exciting. And people say, oh, I'm going to write that novel, I'm going to become a chef, I'm going to do this. And it's a lot of hard work. And it's frightening because you're undertaking something that you don't know that you'll be good at, or good enough at, or good enough at two, you could be great at it and still not be lucky. And in other words, art is something that there's no guarantee that you'll be able to muster what you need to muster in the way of dedication and talent with the language and allowing yourself to disclose things or get into scary parts of your internal life that are usually what you need to do in order to produce good stuff. So there's a lot of things inside everybody that you might be saying, on the conscious level, I want to do this, but gives you a lot of eggs, to be good at something. And to know that you have a mastery of it, I spend a lot of time doing things that I already know how to do, because it makes me feel okay for a short period of time. And when I undertake writing a novel or working on a short story or a big difficult nonfiction project, I don't always know it's going to be successful. And oftentimes, it isn't successful. And that plunges me into a certain kind of desperation and depression. And that's no fun, given a choice between that and doing something that I know how to do, and somebody is going to pay me and that's a big temptation. And what you're describing is what people do all the time, partly because in the end, that's really what they want. I mean, it's an odd thing. But I think more and more people can say that they want this thing. But really, their behaviors are what are really saying what they want to do. And oftentimes, it's very difficult, as you're discovering, and as I am constantly discovering, it's very difficult to go for the thing. That's the hardest and the most nebulous because it's lonely to write. And I find it anyway, very doubt provoking, and I never quite feel like I've got a sound footing. I don't know whether I'm making the right decisions. And I don't know whether it's very easy for feelings of hopelessness to kind of creep in there. And if not hopeless, then real doubt. And then it's the first thing I want to do is do something that I know I'm good at, again, whether it's teaching, or working on freelance journalism that will make some money, it's things like that. So that struggle is it's really perpetual, inside of anybody who's kind of involved in creative work. Because the thing is that the work you were doing, undoubtedly, at IDEO, and even as an advertising copywriter, that's creative work. It's got a very clear ulterior motive, but it's still creative work and you're recognized for it, and you have a certain mastery at it. And it's very difficult for people to walk away from that into their own doubt into their own uncertainty into an endeavor where there's really no guarantee that you're going to do the right thing that you dream of writing. I mean, hopefully, will, but I haven't yet. I've been at it for a while.
Tracy: Yeah. So you'd mentioned earlier about how you've sort of been able to create that balance. Am I right in guessing that it's the teaching and the journalism that sort of sustains your ability to then have time to do the creative writing pursuits?
Steve: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That's how it goes. I mean, there are some writers, and Cheryl Strayed, our friend is a great example. Maybe Pam Houston is to some extent, you know, I know some other writers who are so good at what they do, and their stories and essays and things are so deeply compelling that they just can support their creative work with their creative work. But for most other artists of any sort, in any time in history, you require a patron, you need a patron, sometimes their patrons are ad agencies, sometimes it's a law firm, sometimes insurance companies, sometimes it's the king or monarch, or, you know, wealthy. For me, it's various newspapers and universities, primarily for writers, it's universities, and the academy. And that's actually the natural course of things that if you don't want to live a very bare-bones life, that you're probably going to have to try to find some patron who will support the creative work, at least initially. And I think that's fine. I think that's sort of the way it goes. I think people who take a little bit longer and have the wisdom to, or at least just wind up getting very good at something that's profitable, are in great shape. I always say to younger people who are thinking of going into the arts, well think about what skills and talents you have, that will allow you to support the life of making art because especially literary art, you know, we're not talking about TV and movies, literary art is existing on the fringe of the culture. And it is not a going concern, you might say. And so the question then becomes, okay, well, if I want to by myself, three or four hours every day, or 20 hours a week, or 30 hours a week or a summer to just work on the creative stuff, not worrying about whether it's going to make money, but worrying about whether it's telling the truth and telling a good story, then how do I make that work. And I also think that people need to be very honest about what their needs are like you said, I don't want to be poor, I don't want to have to struggle in that way. Well, good. Don't lie to yourself about that, know that there's something in financial security that's important to you. And it's elemental to you. Because if you don't do that, then you wind up being in such a state of anxiety and insecurity and unhappiness about that, that you can't give yourself over to the work to the state that you have to be in to produce successful work, which is not worrying about where your next meal is coming from, or having to live in some apartment with a bunch of roommates who drive you crazy, but is worrying about your characters that you're writing about. And that's where you need to be able to go. So I think people oftentimes will sort of have a vague sense, or think, well, it's the artist’s life. And so I should be suffering, and I should be drinking too much. And I shouldn't be not getting enough sleep or whatever. And I'm always like, yeah, that's not actually really how it works. The Myth of the suffering artist is pretty insidious. And you need to be the boss of your own existence, especially if you're an artist and figure out what your material needs are, what your financial responsibilities are, what your emotional psychological responsibilities are, to family, to aging parents, to your friends, to whoever it is, that's important to you. And make sure that you are organized about how you kind of budget, your time and energy, and your attention, and put the writing where it needs to go with it needs to go first and put it first then there's the rest of your life also.
Tracy: Can you give an example of how you sort of organized your own life? Like, do you have set a few months that you do or how do you actually tactically go through it yourself?
Steve: Well, I think I would be a much more productive writer if I had a better plan. That's the idea. Anyway, I mean, certainly, the idea before I got married and had three kids. What I did was I just did as much writing as I could, and I always wrote in the mornings. So that's, I think the first thing people should do is do that big self-inventory. And at the beginning of it should be when do I work best? Like what literally, what time of day? Do I work the best and under what circumstances? You know, a busy coffee shop or on my own? Do I need a room of my own? You know, should there be music playing? Should I be drinking coffee? Should I be having a glass of wine? What brings in me the best work out? And then to try to say okay, if I know that I'm really a night owl and that I'm the sharpest and most creative between the hours of 11 pm and 3 am, then how do I design the rest of my life so that five or six or seven days a week I have that time to write? That's not always possible. But that's the ideal, I think, is to say, when do I do the best creative work? How do I structure everything else around that? And it means sacrificing certain things, potentially, you know, a professor of mine in grad school had to get up every morning at four to write because that was the time that he had to write. And I remember, you know, him telling us this, and it was this real revelation of like, Oh, my gracious, it's like that. And, oh, I'm gonna have to get up at four in the morning. Well, that was just his life at that particular either in a moment. But it's also a pretty good example of the way in which you have to put the creative endeavor first, and then try to structure everything else around it for me, I've tried to clear my schedule, to the extent that I can, you know, between eight and 12 when I feel like the most alert and awake and I talked about that with my wife, we're all the time engaged in the conversation about who's going to get what time and when and to what extent we need to go away and go on retreats and get time just on our own where that's all we're doing. And it's really a struggle and for people who have kids and you know, family, it becomes a huge struggle because my kids don't care what I'm working on. They care that I'm present and you know, available to them and emotionally awake when they're around and paying attention. So in a sense, all of this has a big asterisk. I think when you realize you're not just a writer, you all the other things that you are and all the people who depend on you, whether that's an employee or a parent, or a daughter, or good friend, or a lover, all that stuff, those are real responsibilities. And the best you can do is to try to communicate effectively with the people who depend on you and whom you depend, and say, Look, I need this for my soul, I need to be doing this work. And so I need to let you know that I'm kind of restructuring things so that they're not just caught unawares, by that, and also so that they can support you and understand what you're up to.
Tracy: Absolutely. So I want to sort of shift the conversation. Now, if you don't mind. I'd mentioned when I emailed you, in the workshop that you'd hosted in Palo Alto, you brought up Candy Freak, and sort of the process of you getting to write that book was being in a state of depression. And that's something that I'd mentioned, you know, my family has been through, my brother committed suicide when he was 23. My mom is in this really deep depression right now. I've suffered from depression. And I'm struggling, because my mom lives in Ohio, my parents live in Ohio, and I live in California, I'm the only child left to deal with things and I have no idea how to help my mom, even if it wasn't from a distance, and even knowing what depression feels like. And so what was really powerful about the story that you shared about candy freak was sort of you talked about asking yourself in the depths of depression, what it was that made you happy? And then you sort of followed that that seemed like this thin, little light that was creaking through a crack in the door. And you were able to follow that to find some healing. And I wonder if we could talk a little bit about that?
Steve: Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly what it was, like, in the sense that that book is, I think some people find it to be, you know, I mean, it's funny, or they think it's funny anyway, and it's intended, I mean, I use the comic impulse to try to contend with how upset I am about whatever it is in life. But I think the thing that was clear was, I was just quite disappointed in myself, very down on myself, you know, just that place you get to where you really, it's just dark, and you don't see a lot of ways out. And I knew that I needed to, I think what I did was not just realized that like, I love candy, but also, I gotta get out of my house, I got to go get out into the world. And I, fortunately, this is where I really relied on having been a journalist, and realizing like, okay, sometimes when you're really depressed, it has this centrifugal force to it, and you can get sucked inside your own sorrow. And you cannot see the world outside. And I think part of what I was doing, was realizing like, wait a second, I want to get out into the world. And once I visited, I basically gave myself where I got this assignment to go visit the Necco Wafer Factory and go see candy production up close. And I was immediately for the first time and, you know, really months, totally captivated and totally taken away from my own unhappiness and self-hatred. And the moment I left the factory, I was still kind of buzzing, but then it kind of came back. And I would be in my apartment sort of simmering away. And I realized, look, this is the only thing I'm excited about. Let me figure out how to go visit more candy factories, and it wasn't so I could write a great book, it will be a seller and people will read it was just like, let me figure out the thing that I can do right now that will take me away from this pain, and this solipsistic, self-destructive spiral that I was in. And interestingly, I mean, when people talk with me about, like, I was just talking with my wife about this, you know, she was remembering how depressed I was in your shoes, like, yep, I remember that. When you're writing Candy Freak you were just so down in the dumps. It wasn't like I was skipping through, you know, with Willy Wonka just sort of skipping through these factories. I was really deeply unhappy. Whenever I wasn't in a chocolate factory. I mean, I like talking and being in that world. And I kind of had basically sort of used that. I don't want to say it was a crutch, but the fact that I was able to talk to other people who were really into this thing that I was into candy production was something that was sustaining, but the actual process of writing the book, I mean, I was so down on it, that I didn't even show it to anybody. I just put it in a drawer. I mean, it was a nutty thing I did. It was beneath my dignity, I was supposed to be writing a great novel and writing more short stories or whatever being a literary person when I took to be a literary person. And I guess the point I'm making is that sometimes you can be doing good, interesting, important work because you're pursuing what matters to you the most deeply the best you can. But you can't see that from within, from within, you're just saying, well, Jesus, that was a failure. And sometimes that's where you need good friends who are there to essentially say, Well, wait a second, you know, hold on a second, try steaming, what you're doing, the situation you're in is extraordinarily difficult one, because you love your parents, you have suffered the burden of knowing precisely what your mother's going through, and how painful it is, and how difficult to extricate herself. And also knowing that you can be supportive, but depression is a seal, it really seals the world from you. And yet, on the other side of that, it's harder to do, but you have to say, well, I've managed my depression, I managed to get this work that I wanted to get, and get very good at it in a way that allowed me to get some financial security. And I then managed to make an even more destabilizing decision to say I'm moving away from that place where I'm so esteemed and so rewarded materially, narcissistically, and otherwise, and try to do creative work. And now I'm trying as well as I can to attend to my parents and be loving and supportive to them, even though that's a difficult thing to do. That's pretty amazing work. But it doesn't feel like that I'm sure for you internally. And so you need people outside of yourself to say, whether it's a therapist or good friends or you know, loving family, who can kind of give you a reality check and say, Look, do the best you can you're doing the best you can, here's what you've done already. And if you haven't done the rest of it yet, try to be a little patient with yourself.
Tracy: You give the best advice.
Steve: I wasn't Cheryl Strayed but I do.
Tracy: Well, I was gonna say I mean, it's kind of no surprise to me, I actually didn't realize that you were connected to Dear Sugar because I had only read the book that Cheryl had put out. So when you guys started doing the podcast, yeah, it was surprising that there was a second sugar. And then when we went to SLN and had the writing workshop together, and I got a chance to sit in on your classes. I mean, you were actually the only teacher who gave feedback at the moment to people on their writing. And it was very specific and tactical, and not just on the literary aspects of the writing, but also sort of, from a therapy point of view. So I wonder, could you talk a little bit about how you got to this place where you're giving such great advice and feedback to people and kind of how the whole dear sugar thing came to happen for you.
Steve: I mean, look, I think, Dear Sugar the column, that's really Cheryl's literary achievement. And it's quite remarkable. And I couldn't do it, I don't think I certainly, my strategy was much more horsing around and so forth. But the seed for me of it was that people are in a lot of pain, and life is short, and you got, I don't know how many years 18 years, I guess if you're lucky, or 90, if you're lucky, in the last 10 are going to be probably going to be worrying a lot about your health and not feeling great. So you've got this limited window on Earth, to transmit love and compassion and to connect with people in a deeper way. And I'm ravenous to do that. And so when I get in a room with a bunch of people who are giving me the great gift of writing about what's really going on inside of them, and the things that they're most, that's really who they are, you better listen up and really, really, really be listening and thinking really, like locked on to what they're saying, like the Vulcan mind melt, because that's what they fucking showed up for, they didn't show up to get a pat on the head, or lecture about craft, they showed up because some part of them really needed somebody to listen. And to know that the language can be a path to being heard and perceived and understood. So that's my job. That's the job of a good teacher, and whatever you're teaching, but specifically with creative writing, or the way that I want to teach it, I know that people are going in search of themselves. I mean, it's heroic to me that people can come in, and when 20 minutes or 30 minutes probably write things that they haven't told people who they're very close to in their lives, you know, family and friends, that they can summon that kind of courage to really talk about what's going on inside of them and memories that there are still haunting them, whatever it is. And so my job is to really be listening carefully and thinking about some things that have to do with the language and how they're setting it down with the language, but mostly to be saying, that was true, and that was true, and that was true. And that was beautiful. How do you express that truth? And here's maybe a little moment where it was a little less true because I could feel you as a writer worrying about whether you were getting across. That's all I'm basically trying to do. But the hard work is what people are doing, which is being really kind of heart-wrenchingly honest about the stuff that they're struggling with.
Tracy: Yeah, I was really surprised when I went to the workshop, and Cheryl started off by saying, you know, at the end of this week, you guys are gonna have shared all of this truth and honesty and feel so connected to the group. And, you know, there's the part of me that's like, whatever it says that and there's this forced intimacy when you get together with groups. And I was just coming there to work on my novel. But what ended up happening was that all of the exercises were really about looking internally and sharing those truths. And, yeah, I wrote some stuff and read some stuff aloud that I never would have thought I would have put down on paper, let alone shared with other people.
Steve: Yeah, we tricked you. But you know, that's the trick that people need to have played on them if you know what I mean. Because otherwise, it's very tough to access that stuff. And it's painful to get into all that. But when that's and this is true of the letters that we get, you know, dear sugar, it's like people are really struggling. And when somebody tells you, here's what's really at the bottom of what I'm struggling with right now, like, what kind of person isn't going to really be there and be present in that moment, and give the best that they can give in terms of really thinking about it and reflecting on it. And mostly, they don't want advice. I mean, sometimes they want advice, but what they really want is permission to feel what they're feeling. And to know that they're not crazy, or nuts, or, you know, out of control or, and that's mostly what we do on the podcast is, in a world that sort of swirls with kind of human advertising. You know, Facebook, everybody's always sort of airbrushing their existence, and cracking wise and being witty, and so forth. And that's all like, you know, okay, that's part of what human beings do too. But at the bottom of it, they're really people who are really struggling with stuff and unable to work through it. And, and that's a real, and I think Cheryl feels the same way, we're both kind of junkies in a way, we really want that kind of truth and intimacy with people. And even if we never get to meet them to hear their stories, it's like, as profound as if we could probably, you know, live with them for 10 years. And we wouldn't necessarily get as deep and searing and sink a picture of what's going on as we do and in some of those letters. So for me, it's like a real honor to be able to set my mind to somebody writing, whether it's in the form of a letter, or you know, if I'm consulted, doing a manuscript consultation, or just listening to what people generate in 25 minutes when they're not worrying about being a writer and just talking about things that are still with them. So that's the part of my job other than the writing, that I think I get the most pleasure out of.
Tracy: Are there some things that you see as patterns kind of coming up in the form of the advice that you're giving, are there some principles in life that you would issue for us to people?
Steve: God, you know, the only thing tarde, I mean, I think that the central thing is that if you are struggling with something, the best you can do is to try to find compassionate counsel and not bottle it up, or, you know, press it down. And then I think it's also very difficult to sometimes and you know, this, if you've suffered from depression, it's very difficult sometimes to realize that things change, and you change, and it's not permanent, the way that sometimes I've been recently waking up with a lot of dread and anxiety and whatever. And when you're in one of those moments, it just feels like it's going to go on forever. And you have to kind of remind yourself, okay, this is tough at this moment, but it's not going to be like this forever. I think the other thing is that it doesn't help to say to people, but there's so much joy to take in life because really, that's in its own way kind of a guilt trip. You know, it's like, wait, why aren't you happier? It's what, you know, the central thing that people need to hear and that I need to hear when I'm in these states is okay, this is a part of life too. And you're in this pain, this sounds difficult. It sounds like a really tough thing to be in. And I probably can't do much other than to say that I hear that you're in it and I'm sorry. If it's appropriate, I love you or somebody you're really close to, but even if it's somebody that you don't know intimately to just be there and say, I get it, I hear it. And that sounds rough. I don't think there is any great kind of set of principles that we carry around other than your human being and it's tough to be a human being And when you're struggling, you need to try to, to the extent that you can, you need to try to be as forgiving as you possibly can on yourself. And when you can't do that, you have to talk to other people who will force you to recognize that you're being extraordinarily hard on yourself. And that's tough because I feel like there are lots of people who are sort of, I don't want to say skating through in life. It's like everybody is burdened with a complicated, tortured internal life, that's just a part of the basic arrangement of being a human being. But I think that there are people who are kind of dulling themselves out by just kind of losing themselves in material goods, or watching lots of TV or playing video games with, but even those folks and their own way, in how they engage with that stuff like it's deep. There's nobody who's superficial. There's nobody who you can, Paris Hilton has a deep, complicated internal life, she really does. And she might not want to engage with it and face it, but she still does. The struggle is for people who come to art and writing. Probably people come to this podcast, and certainly, the people come to do sugars. They're people who are really facing head-on. They're devils, they're ghosts, the things that haunt them. And that's not a lot of fun to do, it's really tough because I think almost everybody gets knocked around in their family lives and in their adolescence. And then in addition to that people have real biochemical things that really make it hard for them to feel the joy, to feel to esteem who they are and what they do. And that's not going anywhere. That's something you manage, you don't cure it, you don't get rid of it. You don't suddenly have a magic pill, but you manage it as best you can. And that's, I think, probably what most people wind up doing, if they're, you know what I mean? If they're smart, they just realize I'm not going to like, make this go away, and need to take the pressure off that I'm going to do that. I'll just try to manage it day to day moment to moment.
Tracy: Yeah, it definitely. I mean, for me that has been what has worked is when you start to see those signs, there are some triggers that all notice about myself and realize like, I'm starting to slip back down. And now I need to pivot and figure out some other strategies so that I don't keep going down further.
Steve: Yeah. And there are certain things that if they sound dopey, but they're people have to exercise, right? No, we'll have to try to eat. Well, people have to try to get sleep, it sounds really elemental. But it's like, well, you got to do basic, or it really does help to do certain basic things your body does need, you know, for me, exercise is really important. Making sure that I try to get out and get some sun in this, you know, when that is possible, and, and also remaining really connected or as connected as you can to the people in your life, even though it's very tough to encounter them because you feel very diminished. You know, it's hard for me to admit when I'm really struggling with my wife, because I want her to believe in me, and I have a certain idea of who I am in her eyes. But it's a great relief when I can tell her that I'm struggling and know that Okay, then it's been that's our struggle.
Tracy: This has been amazing. And I'm really glad to have gotten a chance to meet you. And just thanks for the work that you do. And I look forward to even more success for you. And thank you.
So what did you think about that?
Chris: Steve just dropped these bombs of brilliance around kind of life. Wisdom, yes. And you just never know where they're gonna show up. And he kept dropping them, like sprinkling them throughout the interview. So I felt like on one hand, hearing all this brilliant, and I felt like he was just giving great advice all the way through. And you couldn't help but be like, here's my problem. How can you help me with this one? Yeah, exactly. Which was really cool. Because it was just really interesting to hear him even listen to what you were going through and give you really, really cool, like nuggets of wise thinking.
Tracy: Yeah, so I took a writing workshop with him at Esalen. It was Cheryl Strayed and him and three other writers. And then he did another writing workshop in Palo Alto, where he's originally from, like a month later. And both times I just washed away from that experience with just the idea that he is so wise, and he's also so generous with his time and with his attention. And I think that's really what people are looking for, that’s why they go to those sorts of workshops.
Chris: Yeah and for those that were listening, that aren't writers or aren't aspiring writers, I felt like this interview was a really good example of writing as a proxy for anything that people are trying to do in their own lives. And, surprisingly, you know, he's pretty strong. Right, we talked about the way he organized his day around optimizing in the mornings because that's when he does his best work. And then this idea that the myth of the artist's life, I loved when he was describing that, that you should just be partying too much and barely making it and in a rough state most days, and that's where you're going to get your most creative. Yeah, that he really put it down in a pretty practical way is like, what are your material needs? What are your emotional needs? What are your financial needs, etc? And how are you going to budget your energy to do that, but that this whole, like starving artists, abused artists thing is just a big myth. And that's not how it really works. The other thing that he was saying that was really, you know, it's not that it hasn't been said before. But what he was saying in this context is really unique, where he was talking about modern life and this consumption and buying a product, putting you in a passive state. We hear a lot about this argument in terms of mostly in the category of sustainability, that capitalism and consumerism, it's just not necessarily the most sustainable thing to be doing for the environment. But he put it in this context of stripping you of your creative, meaning it enabled people to distract themselves and just consume in a passive state which takes you out of your innate creative capabilities. You know, are you saying historically, people would be playing music and wiggling and tending gardens, and I thought that was a really interesting point of view that I personally can align with that, perhaps all this consumption is just kind of passively putting us in a state called not creative.
Tracy: Yeah, that totally resonated with me and it made me think of the project that you helped me with, with the outdoor industry association, one of the insights that we found was around the return of pickling and chopping wood and getting back to those things again, and I do think it's one of the reasons the why behind that is because there was this era where we wanted to automate everything, to free ourselves to do the things that we really wanted to do. But then we ended up just not doing those other things because everything became so easy. And then there's like this last generation that didn't learn these fundamentals, survival skills, and the broadest context of that word. And now we're going back to that we're yearning for. And we're looking for ways to reconnect with the world again, and to be creators and not just consumers.
Chris: Right and we have this show, this crazy show I caught a couple of episodes in my passive consuming state called Naked and Afraid, and they just tune in to the world and like, go for it. So it just cracks me up. Because we're okay, I'm consuming the most extreme part of that storyline, you will not have any food and you will have no closing. We'll see if you survive, but just kind of back to the basics is more like it. And even if it's a really modern form of this, right, like I look at a really modern form of this would be like coding an app. Right? It's really creative. This doesn't have to mean go back in time. I think people have lost sight of is that he puts it in terms of you said this in a slightly different context. But I think it still applies as the boss of your own existence. It's really like that is that you do have a lot more say in this than you think you do. And I think what we've seen on the show is that that doesn't mean that because you have the means to do that we've seen this boss of your own existence thing apply across all boundaries of socio-economic boundaries, and different constraint sets of the last couple of people we've talked to you have both had career-defining hobbies turned to full time while maintaining families of two or more, yeah, and not having a big paycheck. To me, I get really inspired by being the boss of your own existence and carving the discipline and the sacrifice that it does take. And I think that's something that we don't like to talk about that much is that this stuff can be hard, but it doesn't mean it's not rewarding and fulfilling. But it is hard.
Tracy: I just recently went to another writing workshop with Elizabeth Gilbert, the question was asked, What's something that you're willing to give up that you actually do want, like to make a serious sacrifice in your life, to say, well, then maybe I'm not going to spend as much time with family or friends right now. Because I am committed to this creative pursuit. And it feels like a sacrifice, but that is the work of a creator.
Chris: That's a really good point. And I think that may, in fact, be one of the greatest struggles not that people aren't willing to pursue their thing is that there's a great book title once it's like, I could do anything. If only I knew what it was kind of like, I just got to decide what it is and I think is one of the best things I've ever heard on that campus. If you don't know the pursuit is that The project, right? So you may not know that you want to be a writer or start a company or paint or play a song, but the fact that you just start pursuing it could be a really interesting life design project if you're in the pursuit of what it might be. And that pursuit may never end, I think I'd be one thing that was a relief for me is just to keep that maybe that's all that it is, is that you are acknowledging that you're in the pursuit?
Tracy: Well, in the tracks back to the design thinking process, which the step of getting inspired to being curious being open before you jump to a conclusion is to allow yourself to get into activities and experiences and points of view that you don't normally come across? And then being able to take from that what's valuable to you, and move on to the next step or not, like you said, have your life be one of constant curiosity and exploration? So one thing that I can't get out of my head since I did the interview with him originally is him talking about how even Paris Hilton has a rich internal life, it just really stuck with me, because it's not something I'd considered before.
Chris: Yeah, I think that point around that there is sort of a universal struggle, is it very liberating, right? Because it's so easy to kind of hold people up. Like, uh, if only I had that condition set or that talent, you know, idea with music allows, like, I think the secret is like, yeah, I'd like to be a great musician. And you can easily write it off like, I just never had a voice, right. So you can look at people and be like, ah, if only I would have had a good voice. Yeah, really great. And the truth is, is that the people with the best voice are probably looking around going, ah, for me, I had cooler hair.
Tracy: Well, and one thing that it made me think of too, is just, I mean, empathy for others. And I think as humans, we're conditioned, to only be able to think empathetically for small groups of people, you know, once you start turning it into data, you start to lose your connection, and especially with what's kind of going on in the world today with Syria and all of the conversations that people have been having about refugees, and that it's keeping in mind that every single human being has this rich inner life that really thinks about and desires the same fundamental human truths and needs love, and, you know, all the Maslow's hierarchy, the basics, covered off on and then up through self-actualization. Yeah, it just may gain empathy for Paris Hilton and think like, gosh, I really do wonder what goes on in her mind when she's not portraying a persona.
Chris: Yeah. As you're talking, you're reminding me that I think a lot of this behavior is sort of contagious, right? So when you see it around you, you know, I think you're more likely to try it out like our friends left the Bay Area and moved to Cape Cod, and they opened a food truck, and now they open the restaurant. It's like, oh, that's neat. You can see it and if it's around you, and this doesn't have to, I think a lot of times, they come in the form of business examples, because we've spent a lot of time there. But it certainly doesn't have to be where you're just watching somebody try something new, this idea that it's like they're gonna go to an open mic night, or it's something as little as we're trying something new. And we're going to trivia night on Wednesdays. This is like a tiny new behavior. Yeah, that speaks to that curiosity that feels like two things happen. One is you start to gain momentum. Like, if I did that, that was pretty fun. What if I did it again? Yeah. And the second is kind of this social contagion. If it's around you, I think it helps support you. We probably use too many Silicon Valley examples. But the fact that the kind of place is known first starting things and trying things and being in tech, then it's more technical things, you know. So I think that creates a kind of self-fulfilling landscape of people that are almost kind of weird to not try one.
Tracy: True. You do feel a lot of pressure. Yeah. I mean, it's not like it's spread around equally. It's not like there are small populations all around the country, equally doing these things. Its people are drawn to certain places, and yeah, it's in the air.
Chris: They feel like you and I've discussed this, like, why is that always so narrow to the business application, right? There are so many forms of this, whether it's like the way that you want to parent your kids or the way that you want to be a better provider for an aging parent, or, you know, they're all design opportunities.
Tracy: And I think that's a good question. Career kind of offers the easiest way in for you to find your people or your tribe, obviously, since the internet's come about it. Makes it a little bit easier to find your niche online. But yeah, when you said that I was thinking about people who are aging and wanting to find a community of like-minded people to age in place with or, like you said to a parent, how do you find people in your community who have the same educational philosophy as you so that you can create a school together? Those are all opportunities. I think it just is a little bit more difficult to find your people than like a company that already stands for something with a clear purpose that you're joining.
Chris: Right.
Tracy: Cool.
Chris: Super fun, Tracy.
Tracy: Yeah. This is good fun. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening. We love bringing you these episodes and can't wait to share more.
All right, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for listening. Our dream is to build a community of people who can create and take advantage of any opportunity that interests them. To do this really well, we'd love for you to participate. Try out and share back your own life design experiments. Or if you've already got a great story of how you've designed your life, we'd love to hear from you on our Facebook page, or resultsmayvarypodcast.com. Our website is also where you'll find show notes and links to all the things we mentioned in the episode. And if you wouldn't be so kind, subscribe to the show, and share your favorite episodes with friends. that'll add even more people to start designing their own lives. A big thanks to the folks who help us make the show possible. composer and filmmaker HP Mendoza for the results may vary theme music graphic designer and Annessa Braymer for our logo. David Glazier for sound mixing, and team podcast for editing. And of course, thank you so much for listening to Results May Vary.