Hey, what's going on, guys?
My name is Nate, and you're listening
to the Otaku Liberation, a show where we help you
break the chains that hold you back in your life
by connecting some biblical principles
with themes for your favorite anime.
In today's episode, it's gonna be a little bit different
because I don't have an episode to cover today,
but instead, I invited a very special,
pretty cool guest on here where, you know, he's my buddy.
We worked together for the last couple years,
and we both are true, true nerds at heart.
ivities
figures
Kurt, I'm going to introduce yourself a little bit
and talk to the people and tell them about yourself man.
All right, all right.
Thank you, Nate, for that beautiful introduction.
Hey guys, my name is Kurtis.
Like Nate said, we worked together for a good little while.
And yes, I am a nerd, a big nerd.
When it comes to any and everything about anime, I love it.
Sir, all genres, all types.
Love it.
That you even even the feel good ones.
Kurt, hey, listen, hey, listen, hey, since I've been since I've been a father,
my anime has shifted a lot.
OK, I love the feel good.
And mays man, the good ones that make you just feel warm inside.
Like I sometimes prefer just to watch those
over the killing the drama and all that other animates that
the typical show on us.
Oh, yeah, like, look, me, you know, man, a lot of our interests are very much alike.
So I get you 100 percent.
I'm not a father, but man, a good story just hits different.
It does. Like, you know, you know, I don't want to go into the tangent about this,
but it's like one of those things where you
let's just I'm a compared to like a typical TV show like people watch,
you know, people watch TV shows for the drama and the storytelling.
All the same. That's how anime is for me.
I watch it. It's like the same reality TV shows that people watch,
but it's just anime and it kind of it is stretched a little bit more,
but it's still relatable to home.
Sometimes you just get a little wild with the supernatural, but it's OK.
It's OK. As long as you know what you're getting into.
And it's funny that I was just having a conversation with my mom the other day
about, you know, why I started this podcast and stuff like that is
to help people understand that, you know, you can relate to anime a lot.
It's not all about the killing and the demons and, you know,
the fan service, depending on how deep you go.
But there's a lot of good points that you can pull out from any media, right?
Any shows, games, stuff if you want to go that deep about it.
But yeah, because most of them have a hidden agenda.
Yeah, honestly, some some good other ones are just no.
But then you get the ones like what you see is what you get.
So like, hey, listen, you just got to take for what it is.
But but so yeah, man, again, this one, thank you for
making time in your your busy schedule and being the dad and the father
and the loving husband that you are.
Take some time to talk to me about, you know, the stuff that we love.
Anytime, anytime.
So again, so I can know me.
You can talk a little bit before about kind of what this whole thing is going to be.
But so I got some some some got some questions for you that,
you know, from sure the viewers, the viewers are home to their listeners.
They're going to be, you know, they're they're going to be shocked
about how deep some of these questions are.
I think man, anime goes this deep.
Yes. Yes, it does.
Man, I read these questions before we even got started.
And look, there's like, come on now, you got to think about it.
You got me thinking like that.
Never even thought about a perspective like this with some of these questions.
But we're going to tackle them today.
We're going to have the day on this.
They look we're going to do it and do it together.
I'm I'm reading them again now, like, man,
I don't know my own answers to these questions.
Listen to me, too.
I said the same thing, but, you know, we want to make this as genuine as possible.
So, hey, no prep time.
Hey, right. We're just going in. We're just going in.
All right. So the first one is,
can you share with us how anime has influenced your life
and shaped your perspective on just various things,
you know, like relationships, your own personal growth,
career choices, things like that?
Oh, OK.
So this one is several points in this question.
But I'm going to try to attack each one on the jacks.
But we're going to go with we'll start with relationships.
So. As I was growing up,
I didn't have that whole
two parent household that, you know,
that love and, you know, grew grew up around that, that love, that relationship,
that, you know, that most family members and stuff seen together, you know,
I have I have my great grandma. Right.
OK. So I have a great grandma, my uncle.
That was the closest as like a.
And my sister, I'm not going to be scared of some of the other people
and I have a sister and some family members, but they wasn't.
I was never close.
You know, other than my other than my immediate guardians,
which was my uncle and my great grandma. OK.
Um, so the relationship aspect of like love and,
you know, having that growing up to see what, you know,
that how to, you know, how to build those relationships and how to have a,
you know, scrum bonds with people.
Only bond that I had was truly was with my my mother figure
at that time, which is my great grandma.
Up until I started meeting friends, friends and animes.
So as I.
So yeah, I'm good to the power of friendship.
Hey, look, hey, look for my viewers or my listeners who aren't really anime fans.
Just know that the power of friendship beats everything like everything.
And honestly, it shapes a lot of different aspects in life, too.
Friends can get you through a whole lot of stuff.
Oh, yeah. Like more than what family most of the time can get you.
I mean, certain family, depending on, you know, your livelihood.
But to get back to the go back to it is that.
So at that time, I think as I was growing up, the animes I had were.
The classic big old G, you know, you got to go with number one Dragon Ball.
Yeah, Dragon Ball, the big three Dragon Ball Naruto in Bleach.
OK, at the top. So.
Watching Naruto and watching Dragon Ball showed me that, you know,
no matter how down you can be, especially with Naruto, Naruto, just about an orphan.
Everybody knew his life, everybody knew his life, but he didn't know his life.
You know, everybody around him knew everything.
And could it took this man out of a dark place?
And they just didn't want to even try to get that right.
Just did. And that goes the same thing.
I mean, like I said, I didn't have to go to the hospital.
I didn't have my mom and them stuff.
I mean, I knew my mom, but, you know, oh, my father, they they was around.
Oh, everybody knew them.
But. I didn't know them.
Yeah. I got one of these family members of me can say, hey, you know, you know,
your dad is here.
You want to meet him? We can take you to meet him.
But they did, you know.
So it was like so Naruto is really relatable to me and mine.
And it was up until I met one of my closest friends.
His name is Dante. OK.
He we were.
I didn't really, you know, have a bond and know what a bond was,
but I just knew we shared one thing.
We was watching Naruto.
We shared one thing we was watching Naruto and from that, like
we just became friends, like close friends shared about everything Naruto,
all that good stuff and that relationship right there that I built
from just anime watching with him changed my life.
Like I started seeing, you know, I started being a little bit more positive.
You know, I was more of a, you know, I started getting a more happy ongoing person.
Right. Just just for that friendship.
Just just finding one guy that likes that understood me.
You know, I understood me.
Do I? Yeah.
That shaped everything.
It changed everything.
Just finally one thing.
Just, you know, one person we had similar backgrounds, you know, we
are our life was pretty much similar.
And the aspect of like, you know, growing up with a single parent,
you know, type of stuff like that.
And a lot of things that helped us through it was, you know,
a little anime, I'm not just saying Naruto anime, Dragon Ball Z.
Dragon Ball Z shows you the power of friendship.
You can overcome everything from friendship.
You know, everybody depended on that one friend.
It showed what a dependable friend was.
Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah.
You see, you know, no matter how hard it was.
He always showed he always knew he was going to show up, you know.
And that's how I felt like, yeah, I have my family here.
Yeah, I have, you know, my immediate guardians and all that stuff.
But no matter how hard times was.
You knew I had to like, I knew I could go over and talk to him.
And as time grew, you know, I started getting other friends
that was similar like that.
That's how I built my circle from that trust, you know,
finding people that's like that.
So that's how relationships pretty much, you know, sum up with anime.
And after watching Goku, watching Naruto, you know, even though
and another the circle back Naruto is that, you know, no matter how hard
or what you and your friends going through,
you can still make up Naruto inside of you.
You still make up Naruto and Sasuke.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
You see, it's a thing, man.
Listen, I can go on and on about stories like this, like one.
And one day and I was young and this was a terrible I didn't know no better.
I mean, this guy, we've been friends forever.
And one situation happened, I call this the typical anime situation.
It involved a woman.
Oh, Lord.
Oh, no. Women cause great wars out here.
OK. And same thing with me and my me and my boy Dante.
I we actually stopped talking for a while over a girl.
And it wasn't a typical, hey, I like this girl.
You like this girl situation.
It was more so.
And. My I call him my brother, my brother,
Dante, because this is a close thing that I had to a brother.
This is yeah, he.
Disrespecting the girl I was talking to.
And. And.
Me on my hand, you know, I'm like, all right, well, you know, OK, that's my brother.
I don't care. I'm laughing about the situation.
She didn't like that.
She wanted him to leave.
And never come back.
Mm hmm.
You know, I tried to talk the situation out, but it didn't work out the way I wanted.
But I also like the girl.
So you had to be a decision to be.
But but like, listen, this how you know you have a good friend.
This how you know this is OK.
OK. He's like, you know what?
I'm going to do what you said.
Sometime when things didn't work out with the girl, came back like it was nothing.
So listen, man, like it was nothing.
I understand.
You know what I said was a little messed up.
You know, I did apologize.
She like it, but you know, it is what it is.
But you know, she go on.
We back, baby.
We back, baby, like it was like it was like it was just yesterday.
We back. It's funny to hear that.
So me, one of my old homeboys, we didn't have a fall now like that.
But we just you know how sometimes you just grow.
You outgrow some people, right?
You go on different stages of your life and me and we had
when we were best friends for like years, like he was pretty much my brother.
But then we just I moved away.
So we started going our separate ways in life.
And, you know, we kind of lost lost touch a little bit.
And then like just this past year, he reached out to me out of the blue.
Well, we just picked up like it was yesterday.
Like you said, it's just kind of it.
Nothing. It felt like nothing has stopped.
Nothing had changed.
We just started laughing and joking like we used to.
And, you know, I think, yeah, not to get too far off topic,
but again, from from our listeners out there, just to really.
Strive to be that type of friend, right?
And I just look for him.
But to really try to be that type of friend to where you know,
you understand life happens, right?
You know, you and your homework, you guys have to fall out.
But he didn't he didn't fault you for it.
He didn't fault the girl really.
He just like, hey, this is it is what it is.
I'll be here when you come back. Right.
Type thing. I'll be here if you come back and vice versa.
So I mean, I think that's something powerful that everyone should strive
is just to be that type of person, right?
Just going to turn the other cheek when you can and just, you know,
just love one each other.
So that's awesome, man. That's awesome.
And hey, listen, you are absolutely right.
It's you don't you don't see too many people like that.
And that's why to this day, I still respect my brother.
You call him every day. I talk to him.
I mean, we don't aim like we used to.
And but we both got families.
We have.
I mean, like, like, you know, grown, grown.
So, yeah, we will get you know, we both married, got families and stuff like that.
But, you know, we just a phone call away if anything needs.
If he needs anything, I need them day.
And just simply that, like I said, we pick up the phone.
Hey, man, I love you, man.
You're doing all right.
And just chop it up a little bit.
Hey, man, I talked to you when I talked to you.
I already know you busy. I'm busy.
We both trying to grind out here. We both trying to get it.
Mm hmm. Oh, boy.
Ain't that true?
But to really sum up that whole thing, like, yes, if I didn't see those relationships in an anime,
I don't think my friendships, I don't think the relationships that I have right now
or the values that I grew up on relationships just by watching them would be the same.
I probably would be
I'd probably be somewhere else, you know.
Hey, I said that you got to say no more.
I got you. Yeah, man.
It's just like one of those things like you didn't see that because that's the thing.
Like I said, I didn't see that in the people that was my guardians and stuff.
I saw that from me watching anime.
I mean, you know, if it wasn't Dragon Ball Z, it was you.
Hockey show. It was Naruto.
It was, you know, I mean, at that time in the 90s, it was.
Yeah, that was pretty much the ones that I was pretty hooked on at the time.
Besides, the other ones that I don't speak of.
I got here.
Even even Cowboy Bebop, another another clue.
Yes, I will be back. But, you know.
So you are a peace fight, but
it was such a tragedy.
Hey, I still watch that anime every year once a year.
Oh, really? OK.
Yes. Once a year, I have to go back and watch the old G's
every year. If it isn't Trigun,
it's Outlaw Star Cowboy Bebop, Fooly Cooly.
You know, class, those are classes.
I might I might I might start that tradition myself, man.
Listen, I mean, the classic, they still hit differently
when you watch them.
And if you watch the, you know, the new trend of anime is,
of course, most of them is, you know, easy guys and stuff like that.
And being right or needed and stuff.
But the classics hit so different, so different.
Worth watching.
Oh, it's always worth watching.
It still gives you that good feeling in that that
since chills down your your spine when you're watching that anime.
And they almost like to me, you know, back then is when
they had a lot of good like storytelling and development.
Like you cared about all of the characters, right?
You know, in OG anime, like you said, a lot of the modern anime,
I started with like a couple, you know, like you demon slayers,
you just kind of stuff like that.
But like you said, the Isakai is know that you really don't care
about too many of the characters outside of the main character.
And even then they're just same as everybody else.
So it's like, you know what I mean?
So it's like, what am I really watching here?
But like the OG, the classics, the ones that, you know, yeah,
very good story driven animes.
And even the ones who aren't like Dragon Ball Z like, let's be honest,
nobody watched Dragon Ball Z for the story.
Well, I said you need it for some cold fighting and some cool transformations.
I can't agree with you on that one.
Oh, OK. All right.
Listen, because I'm some of the older Dragon Ball Z
has had pretty good red ribbon and Dragon Ball.
Really good, really good driven story.
Of course, we already know you can't go past the cell saga, you know, that
cells are great.
Yes, freezes, freezes.
Actually, you know, freezes was really good, too.
It was a lot of, you know, feel a bit freezes was really good as well.
Majin Buu
saw it was OK. At best.
But, you know, what really got everybody, you got to say it is the freezes.
I'm not free to the cell.
So I got everybody in the drink, but yeah, I can argue with that.
Yeah, I think that's probably the outside of
Goku turned super tan the first time.
I think the cell saga as a whole was probably some of the most iconic stuff
from Dragon Ball Z.
Like when you think about it, I know because it brought it brought the
it brought future go on storyline.
It brought future trunk storyline, which is a little side.
It was a little side stuff.
But right through your trunk stuff was still cold.
I still to this day, when trunks first went Super Saiyan
after the death of Gohan,
was still embedded in my memory.
In the rain, crying, holding Gohan.
Come on, man. Come on.
You can't tell me that one.
Go. Are you right?
I'm on the code of Super Saiyan to go on.
Oh, boy. Man.
Gohan got active after that.
But what is saying that they did with Gohan after that?
But if we don't speak on that, we don't.
We'll speak on Jim Su. Jim Su.
I can't even turn super saying no one.
What? It's such a strain on my body.
Oh, all right.
All right. Let me.
Hey, we got all the.
We got.
Oh, but.
But again, that's again, the joys, the joys of,
you know, anime and and
just being an otaku in general, right?
Because let me kind of break that down for people who don't really understand
what that means because otaku, you know, you hear the word.
People immediately think, you know, anime and, you know,
Japanese type culture, stuff like that.
But the word is really if you have a a an obsessive hobby.
So anything you're interested in, you can be an otaku about fitness, right?
If you're really into lifting weights and different workouts, stuff like that.
You know, of course, video games, anime, the American football,
you know, you know, soccer, things like that.
So for me, it's when you when you surrender yourself
with other people who share the same interests with the same intensity,
then you get conversations like this, right?
Where you can just go off on a tangent for four hours about one little thing,
one little one moment.
And then they say, you know, six plus hours going by.
And, you know, I guess what I want this whole thing to be
just a community like that, you know, to understand, you know, you're not alone.
It's OK to be weird.
It's OK to have these type of hobbies and stuff like that.
You're not, you know, you don't get beat up in the street.
And it's just it's just good playing fun, man.
That's that's all it really is.
But let me transition into this next question, because I'm reading it now.
I'm trying to figure out an answer.
So if you had if you had never discovered anime,
how do you think your life would be different today?
OK, so this actually really is a question.
I don't think much would have changed in my life
if I would have never discovered anime, because
when it comes to anime,
well, no, I'll take that back. I'll take that back.
It probably would have changed a little bit.
But my passion or I got to go break it.
I got to go into my little career.
I mean, which you are, you know, for the listeners.
Right. I work in IT.
And as a child, I was always interested in to
destroying stuff and putting it back together.
And I was always interested in destroying stuff and putting it back together.
Mm hmm.
Which started my whole IT thing for me.
It's just I was like I was always interested on how things work.
Why work the way it works?
And if I can wrap my head around how it works,
I can figure out how to make it work. Yep.
And it started with a what it was.
SNES, I believe it was.
I think that's what it was.
This is back in ninety.
Eight, want to say, OK.
Um, I had a super Nintendo.
And it broke. Love that thing.
That's cause we're at the top.
Nintendo had a really great console.
Um, I think during that time,
I think it was transitioning to six for two.
But so Nintendo loved Mario all that time.
Mario also a favorite game to this day.
But it broke.
It broke. I didn't know why I broke.
I was upset at that time.
I think Super Nintendo is like two hundred dollars.
And for that, I think maybe I get the action.
Those lines, man, I think it was maybe a little cheap.
I think, like I said, I think that was during the time
when the 64 PlayStation was coming out.
And I think they were about 200 bucks during that time.
But, um, but I'm still young, young, can't afford it.
I got no job cutting grass.
I cut grass to get that soon.
It's in the first place.
But, um, that broke.
And that right there say, hmm.
And my mind is just immediately click.
I was like, if I can break this open,
kind of look at it, examine it and see.
Why is it not working?
Maybe I can fix it.
Sure enough, I broke it now.
Take a look at us.
I wonder, I think it's like a little capacitor
and it kind of bent or whatever.
Wasn't it wasn't touching the board anymore?
Forgot what I did.
I think I kind of I don't know at that time.
Maybe I use electric tape.
I want to think try to get the connection now.
And sure enough, it worked.
I said, huh?
I said, this is this is actually pretty cool.
Um, I think I'm going to pursue this.
And over time, you know, I started by, you know,
I let my guardians at that time, like, hey, look, you know,
I'm interested in this.
And I think I want to try to do this.
I'm still young, but, you know, they would give me like game boys
and like stuff like little technology, DVD players and all that stuff
to break ground, break down and play around when that was broken.
And, you know, I end up getting the name of the house, Mr. Fix it.
He was curious. He can fix it.
I'm like, you do realize my half your age.
This is given to him.
He'll fix it. You figure that he's smart.
And I'm in a house in the funny thing about I'm in a household
with a lot of people that have no more than.
Oh, now you'll say elementary, they have high school educations.
You got your got you.
Um, so, you know, they didn't know no better.
So a lot of like a lot of people in my family,
things only maybe one or two people actually went to college.
A lot of people in my family were all right.
Well, we had to work.
You have to work. We have to work. We have a good job.
We had right kids, all that stuff.
So, you know, education came second.
Working came first.
And same with my great grandmother, she she had no education.
She was there her time.
She was working in cotton field.
She always knew the work.
And then she was a janitor for J.U.
for a long time, too, and she retired at a at the J.U.
Jackson University College.
OK, as a janitor.
So all her little funds and stuff came to buy me
a little knit nets to, you know, play around with and to get into technology with
she would do everything she could to make that happen.
I'll get you this. I'll get you that.
Whatever I can get or, you know, people that work with it will give her stuff.
But to circle back to anime, we can go back to like I was saying,
like watching the big three, not to all of them.
Like it showed that, you know, putting effort in.
To something and hard work pays off.
So, you know, as I see people, you know, triumph in these different
animes that I'm watching, it gave me the courage to keep going,
you know, to keep trying to go and tackle the biggest obstacle I can
or, you know, to go bigger.
And that goes with, you know, to this day, I still watch them is that show, you know,
if you put your hard work in, you can try if anything.
Blue Lock as an example, one of the most recent
that I watched that shows that, hey, yeah, it ain't no I in teen,
but I'm going to make a.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hey, look, my listeners know Blue Lock is one of my favorite series, brother.
Yeah, trust me.
But it also show you what hard work can pay off.
You got a guy that had no confident in himself at all.
What I'm going to say, no confident.
He knew he was OK, but he just knew he wasn't that guy.
Right. Yep.
And and he thought of, you know, and he got, you know, other people in there,
like what is their body?
What is their body? He always I want I wanted to play.
And I wanted to play with somebody, you know, right.
Instead of thinking about I am that, you know, I am that guy.
You know, yeah, I don't mean nobody.
I am that guy.
It is fun to play with somebody. Right.
I don't need somebody, but I don't need somebody.
You know, right.
Oh, but like I said, Blue Lock showed me that, you know,
I mean, like that's the most recent example, I can say of the anime
that showed me that, you know, hard work pays off.
But, you know,
hard work definitely pays off.
And if you put that effort in, you're going to get that result.
The symbol is that.
And then you see that over the years of watching different animes,
you know, Naruto screaming, believe it all the time.
I'm going to be a whole cog. Sure enough, years later, it took a lot of years,
but we end up being whole cog.
They may be a set.
He said it from the start and always believed in what he wanted to be.
And look what he did. He achieved.
He achieved for that.
Say it again for the people in the background.
If you set that vision.
And you believe in that vision, you can achieve that vision.
That's a simple.
Simple as that.
And anime shows you all the time over and over again that it is possible.
Yes, it is animation.
Yes, it is not true, but that statement is true.
If you believe it and you put the effort in towards it, you will make it happen.
And that's the same thing.
I feel about me and where I'm at in life right now.
I believed in what I could do.
And even when I couldn't do, I did not give up.
I tried. I tested the waters.
I overcame the waters and I achieved what I put my mind to.
And it's just that simple.
And I'm still and not only that, I'm still working on myself.
I'm still trying to do better.
So, you know, I'm glad I'm glad you had it.
I'm glad you had the last party in saying that you that you're still working on it,
because I don't want you guys to think that, you know, once you get to your current goal,
once you achieve whatever it is you're striving for, that that's it.
Like you know, taste clothes, missions, overweight, you're done.
Like, no, as long as we're probably have breath in our lungs, we are constantly improving,
constantly trying to get better because it's not about the goal per se.
It's about, you know, as cliche as it sounds about the journey, right?
You got to enjoy the process and what you're doing and in everything that comes with it, right?
And not everything is is sweet.
Using Naruto as an example, right?
You know, he yeah, he became Hokage, but boy, the stuff he had to go through to get to get to that level is,
you know, talking about finding your best friend and finding out, you know,
your parents really did love you, but they sacrificed themselves as soon as you were born.
Like you and even you five minutes out the womb.
Yeah. And both your parents died. Right.
And constantly being attacked by terrorists, like, you know, stuff like that.
You know, becoming a terrorist.
Yeah, becoming the same.
And hey, you know, kids, you're listening.
It's not it's not the answer. Don't don't do that.
Hey, the biggest obstacle one fighting his best friend, it was fighting moderate.
Now you would feel like the whole nation.
Well, boy, anybody who can solo an entire army, brother.
And for the listeners out there, hey, listen, man, also, this is some real stuff.
There's going to always be a moderate in your life.
And it's going to always be an obstacle or some type of unthinkable
or unbeatable challenge, but you can overcome it.
Mm hmm. Absolutely.
Dude, yes. And hey, honestly, some of the some of the things I had to argue
to say most of the time that we are our own martyrs.
Right. The the self doubts we have when we first started off doing something
or, you know, I can't do this. I'm not good enough to do that.
You know, everybody else is way ahead of me in the same field. Right.
And I think we we we tend to beat ourselves before the world
even has a chance to challenge us. Right.
I mean, that's just my view on it. That's my take on it.
And, you know, so the first step is really facing yourself, right.
Facing yourself and just saying, oh, I can do this no matter what happens.
No matter how many times I fail at it, because you're going to fail. Right.
We're all we're all going to suck at it before we even can begin to be good
at something. And, you know, unless you just see a natural born genius
in these Isakai, but you get to get power boosts for no reason.
But last time I checked, it's a real life.
So, but again, you know, we're going to we're going to stumble.
We're going to fall. And like Kurt said, man, we can always have these
unbelievable challenges that seem unbelievable to us until we beat it.
And then you look back, man, that was that wasn't nothing like a little light
work. Little light work.
Man, I'm the main character now.
And just to bring it home, like this is is a example of I was I was just
talking to Nate, maybe what it was maybe a month or two ago about me
taking this new role in my current job right now.
I'm talking about this is something I've never done in my life.
I'm over it. I'm not necessarily doubting myself.
I knew I was going to be OK at the job or get a job.
I was going to stumble. I was going to have issues or whatever.
But it was just that uncertainty about stepping out
and facing this challenge that I had.
And that's only been in a lot of times that comes with being you're being
you're being so comfortable doing one thing.
And then when the moment you step out of your comfort zone, it just
anxiety hits.
Yeah.
Anxiety. Oh, why?
Oh, boy.
Yeah. But maybe we listen to some stuff right now. Right.
Yeah. And to be honest, Nate, just just to bring it back also is that,
you know, even after having that conversation with you, you made things
a lot better.
And that's what makes you one of my close friends, too, man,
because I can have a conversation with you, you know.
I don't think I ever told you this, but we're going to tell you right now.
I mean, I can have a conversation with you.
And, you know, it gives me clarity
with certain things that I am uncertain with sometimes.
I mean, yeah, I am older than you.
Yeah, I have more wisdom with you, but you got an old man.
So you got an old man so and I respect it and I can run things by you
and be like, huh, you know, that's a different that's a different perspective.
Let me take a look at this.
Let me look at it at this route.
I only had the whole thing.
I'm honored. And they thank me.
And I appreciate that.
You know, I mean, a lot to me, man.
I really think that it really does.
Because, yeah, honestly, a lot of times, dude, I'm just speaking for my own
my own doubts and stuff, man.
I think I'm sure I told you when I first started this podcast, I was like,
I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't know how this is going to sound, how it's going to go, especially,
you know, combining the two things right, you know, get anime.
And, you know, I'm a believer in my faith, right.
Trying to combine that, my God with anime and how people don't take it.
And I don't like to sound my own voice a lot of the time.
You know, stuff like that. So I just.
I just try to just try to help me.
I'm just trying to help people out there.
You know, like me, like yourself, man, you just just realize that, OK,
these things are as bad as they seem, even though they seem terrible.
Like you said, anxiety hits when it hits, boy.
You just don't want to do nothing.
Like, no, I want to be go back to being comfortable.
Like you said, being comfortable and just doing what I normally do.
But I truly believe that for us to grow,
we have to step outside of that sometimes. Right.
I'm not saying go skydiving if you're terrified of heights.
Don't don't do that. Work up to that.
But, you know, good baby steps.
So again, I appreciate that, man.
And I really, I really do. I'm glad that you one of my close friends too, man,
because we can get on here.
We can talk about anything, anime, life, even stuff that I'm not going through personally.
Because again, I'm not married.
I don't have kids and stuff like that.
But, you know, me used to have a conversation about those type of things.
And it's just it's just it's just good, man.
So I'm glad I got transferred out there with you, brother.
Listen, man, I if I can guide the young is I try to guide them in the right way
that I can. I'm always here by helping them.
And when I saw you, you you was lost, man.
Hey, you you absolutely I know what I was doing over there.
And I don't know.
Man, I ain't going to leave you out there, man.
I got you.
And then now look at what we're trying to be doing.
We're doing some big things out here now.
But you said the ground is the ground.
It's time and we got to you got to get it.
Let me see. Go back to my little sheet here.
Oh, OK. So the next question is, so we've talked a little bit about,
I guess, like anime overall, you know, specific series and things like that.
But, you know, anime can create some deep emotional connections.
You know, we connect to the characters, some of the stories and stuff like that.
So can you describe one particular moment,
whether it's with a particular character or a scene or something like that
in in, you know, an anime series or a movie or something like that
that's really spoke to you and is really, you know, kind of
makes you think about life in a different way.
Every death scene I have ever seen in my favorite anime.
It hits me so different
if it is a future Gohan and the trunks that I mentioned earlier about
or Caesar from Jojo.
Spike, like I mentioned earlier as well.
I think all this is so many anime deaths
that touch me so well, but it comes back to.
Well, not just anime, because, you know, like I said,
I'm a little talk of not just anime.
I love DC as a whole.
DC Batman.
Batman is one of my favorite characters in DC.
I love DC.
I love the characters in DC.
Even some of the DC deaths, I can go back and like
when Nightwing got killed by Damien.
Mm hmm.
Oh, that hurt me.
It hurt me.
And not only that it hurt me, it's just that
the also, you know, I don't know how much you know about DC, but,
you know, also Damien ended up taking on the mantle of Nightwing.
OK.
And he just killed him and he he went down a real dark spiral.
I like how Batman did Jason Todd when.
Yeah.
He took Tim Drake to kind of get him out of that.
He had to adopt a new, you know, Robin and
Drake kind of brought back his humanity.
After the death of Todd, same thing.
And same thing with Damien.
He has Dylan kill Nightwing by accident.
And yeah, it took him into a dark path.
But like I said, I'm going on a tangent, but like just any anime death period,
I want to go into any really truly specific.
All right. I did name I did name a couple, but, you know,
brings back to reality like Matt at any given time.
We can be going tomorrow.
Like I think about this, my mom, my guardian, my great grandmother.
She I call up my mom.
She's 87 years old right now.
And I think about this every day.
She's 87 years old.
In any given day, she can pass.
And my great grandma has always been older as she was raising me.
And I was like, yeah, I was like that any given day she could pass.
And what's going to happen?
What's going to happen to me?
You know, and this is when I was a kid.
Right. Right.
Like, what's going to happen to me?
Like, you know, how am I going to handle that?
Am I going to be torn up like some of these characters that I see in?
Why am I? I know we tore it up.
My sweetie's.
Like some of these characters I see in the animes that I watch.
I'm like, I don't think I'm ready for that tragedy.
Like to this day, I was talking to my wife the other day about this.
And luckily, I have that support system with my wife.
And I, you know, and I have my family and my kids and stuff.
But I was like, I don't think I can handle this.
Like, if this happened, I may go and shut off.
I may be in a dark place.
I'm going to need you there to get me out of that dark place.
You know, I'm going to need all my friends and stuff.
It's like, you're right.
So, yeah, yeah, it's.
That's another thing why, like, when I was a kid, I was like,
that's another thing why, like, like I said earlier in the interview,
I was telling you that I have shifted a lot of them, certain animes.
And I like more of a happy space anime because that,
you know, a lot of dark animes and death related animes.
I'm like, you know, that's knocking on my door.
I am older.
I have to start thinking about real life situations
when it comes to stuff like this.
Trust funds for my kids.
Right. You know, making sure that my kids and stuff is OK.
You know, so if something do happen to me, it makes my family's OK.
If something happened to my mom, trying to make sure all those arrangements
and stuff is OK, you know, and then I want that being mentally prepared
for with that with my family, my you know,
they call me the big little brother.
I'm polite that I am because I'm bigger than most of my siblings,
but they're older than me.
That you know.
How can I help them?
Because I know they're going to be able to take it either.
You know, so it's a it's a lot.
Yeah, the breaking down is pretty much like that.
That. It's it's a lot.
It's just a lot.
No, I'm just saying I am saying I guarantee you the majority,
if not all of my listeners understand the same thing do it.
It losing losing anybody, right?
But especially the one who raised you, the one who fed you,
put clothes on your back, who sacrificed everything for you. Right.
And it's one of those things that we all know is going to happen one day.
It's going to happen to all of us. Right.
We're all going to, you know, pass the one.
But when the reality hits you like they're gone now, I mean, it's
it's different because, you know,
but that's who my family is, my family business out there.
You know, my my grandmother passed a couple of years ago and that's my mom's mom.
And they were tight, man.
Not too tight. They talked every day.
It was literally every day at some point she'd be on the phone with her
and they just be talking for hours.
And after my grandmother passed, you know, my mom, she was in that
that dark place. Right.
She was in that, you know, real hole.
And, you know, of course, she had, you know, she had my dad.
She had, you know, me, my sister and both my sisters and we were all there.
We were grieving and there and helping her and kind of helping to get through this, man.
But it was. Like you said, it hit and it hits that close to home, you know,
because it's different seeing on the screen, you know, whether it's a movie or a show
or, you know, anime, things like that.
But when it hits home and it's.
In reality, you're just like, man, this is like you say, you got you
think I started thinking about things outside of yourself, right?
OK, I'm going to help my family get through this, right?
I'm going to help my sit. My siblings, my uncle's and so who's that was their mom too.
How are we going to get through this thing together?
And. It's just.
It's just one of the things I like.
I like a lot about, you know, an anime and stuff like that is.
We used to be for the ones that I watch, but it's not the ones I've watched.
So they they tend to show the aftermath of some things like that,
because, you know, a lot of these shown in, right?
A character gets killed and it's like, you know, it's par for the course, right?
But when they do take the time to show
the steps of grief, it it it speaks to me.
I'll give you an example from from Naruto, right?
When Jiraiya died, man, we all I know me as a viewer,
I was upset because I didn't see it coming, right?
I mean, we just he was just joking around like he always is.
And then he gets jumped by pain and that's it.
But you see the.
The pain in our souls face, right?
You see the dark place that he's going to come into.
Jiraiya was, you know, even though he didn't know, Jiraiya
technically is his godfather, right?
I mean, that's his godfather.
And even though he wasn't aware of that relationship at that time,
he still felt a real connection with him because Jiraiya
in a sense was Naruto's first real caretaker, right?
Because I mean, sure, he had, you know, Kakashi and stuff like that.
But Jiraiya was Naruto's first real mentor in how to
how to use his power, teaching them different things.
I mean, he taught Naruto one out of the two Jutsu that he uses the whole time, right?
And it's just that type of bond.
And when that person is taken from you so suddenly, right, just out of the blue,
you don't even know what happened or what you can even do.
You feel powerless, right?
You just feel you just just feel down.
But for them to show us how Naruto went from that to,
you know, the support he had with, you know,
Kakashi and the rest of the leaf village to support him,
and especially after he beat pain, right,
the the morale boost that came with that from everybody, right?
How they lifted him up.
They're like, OK, you know, Naruto's that guy.
And just to walk us through that whole thing, I think that was really
special and touching moment, you know, that you don't really get to see too
too often, right, especially in the battle of Shonen and things like that.
But I I felt I felt that.
So that was a moment I thought about when I read this question, man, it's just,
you know, seeing that firsthand and experiencing it
kind of to the first hand, because again, it was my it was my grandmother.
I still love her and still miss her. But, you know,
if it was one of my parents, right?
That but now I might be my my village, my village origin story, brother.
Maybe came a village.
The world's going to know pain after that, really.
Now, and you're right.
Like, you know, and it's sad that that actually it slipped my mind
to think about dry death, dry death was one of the hardest deaths
to to cope with in order to deal with in Naruto for me as well.
Because just the fact that is.
The fact that you want you, of course, you got defeated and killed by your own.
I've got to mention that. Yeah.
You got defeated by someone that you raised as well or trained.
I don't say necessarily raise, but you trained. Mm hmm. And
the just the disbelief and shock and dry eyes
when he found out who he had to go against.
Mm hmm. Like that whole death was just it was just it was just wrong.
For him to start to finish, it was just wrong.
Like you I'm I'm looking at the person that I raised.
I taught Jusus to I train and I know I don't want to fight. Mm hmm.
So I am in a situation where I know I am pretty much useless against
because to be honest, I believe, you know, the only reason why is true.
Death was was the fact that he
he didn't want to really didn't want to fight either.
I didn't want to fight him.
And you know, it was one of those things.
I have to let this happen. And you know, I mean, yeah,
he did have a busted running gun and all that stuff. Right.
But it it was one of those things like I could have got away.
But you know, I got to let this happen for the development of the show.
Of the show. Right. Yeah.
Hey, look, it is just another point that is kind of getting my mind to, though,
was Rango Cuman from Demon Slayer.
That was another one.
I mean, I mean, we didn't even spend much time with him like we did with Jiraiya.
But it was the time again.
Again, listeners, this is what happens when we start going off on stuff.
But just the time, the little bit of time we had with Rango Cuman,
it was so impactful. Right.
Like, I mean, whether you watch the movie train movie
or you watch the the season that when he broke it up. Right.
We only knew him for like, well, maybe an hour and a half total
out of the whole series.
That's nothing. But the impact he made not only on, you know,
Tanjiro and the guys, but as us as viewers, like this is
Rango who was what a Hashira stood for. Right.
This is the pinnacle. This is the he he was likable.
He was about his business and he got after it.
But he was he didn't belittle the guys.
He actually gave them some pseudo training while he was talking to him.
Right. He inspired them. And.
And then to tie back to how they felt, right.
When when the causes showed up at the end, they just got through fighting
one of the toughest battles of the of time during those careers.
And they are they're tired, they're spent.
And then this dude just shows up out of nowhere
who is significantly stronger than the last team they just fought. And.
For them to have to sit there and watch as Rango
who fights for his life and dies.
I mean, just think about that for a second, brother, you.
They ain't useless.
They are. They know they don't have those. They're the chain.
They'll be in his way if they even attempt to help.
So they got to watch this.
Let me play it stuff like is moments like that, but it really humanized
a lot of these characters for me, because I mean, we've all.
Been there in some in some point of our lives.
And if you haven't yet, unfortunately, you will.
I mean, that's just how life is.
But when you and you see your loved one, you see somebody
who you truly care and respect, you know, they're going through a battle
that you just you can't do anything about how
the week that makes you feel like you just
you can easily easily start to, you know,
to self hate, to self doubt, all this type of stuff like that.
And it's a slippery slope.
But on the other side of it, right, there's the same dark moments, right?
You know, the death of Rengoku, death of Jiraiya, those things
helped motivate our main characters to go even harder than they have for him.
Right. I mean, Naruto masters age juice right after that.
You know, he he he grew more confident in himself and his abilities
after Jiraiya's death.
And same thing with time, Jiro and the boys, you know, they train that much
harder after Rengoku's death because they realize they even said
they don't want this to happen again. Right.
They don't want someone that they love to die with them being able
to do nothing about it.
And for me, that that was a real key takeaway is just like, hey,
you know, when bad things happen in life, when they happen to our loved ones
or who are us personally, you know, it's all all in how we
decide to take it right.
You know, we can take it, be upset, you know, take time to process
what's happening.
But then then we have a decision to make.
Right. Either we're going to stay in that place and feel sorry for ourselves
and you know, why did this happen to me?
Why did this happen to them?
Or we take it and we try to live our lives better like the person
would want us to write to kind of move on and don't forget them.
Right. And I say forget them, but to under their memory,
honor their legacy that they left that they left behind by improving yourself
and really just, you know, doing the best you can, because again,
they wouldn't want you to sit there and throw a piggy party. Right.
I don't think I don't think it's like, man, I've been training you
to sit there and cry about it the whole time.
So, you know, let's get after it.
So anyway, I have to say, that's what I thought about.
Get over and go to man. I was so upset.
Yeah. And there is some more honorable mentions.
I can't think of them right now, but, you know, all the listeners out there,
you know, put some comments down there about any honorable deaths out there.
So you boy, Nick.
Oh, yeah, absolutely, man.
Because that is too many.
We can go on and on and on and on.
We still got a couple of questions.
All right. Let me get back to it.
So this next question that you have for me,
I mean, we kind of really touched on this a lot, too.
But, you know, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Throughout the whole conversation.
Honestly, it's also again from listeners out there,
you guys put in some of your answers to these questions, too.
You know, I would love to read a couple and just I might put them in another episode
just to, you know, really tie it back home.
But so the next question is, again, a lot of these stories,
they have characters facing challenges and trying to overcome obstacles
and things like that.
So, Kurt, can you share another again?
We've already covered it, but another experience is, you know,
you've overcame something difficult or better yet, you know,
how does it influence your like your mindset and your approach to it?
I think that's probably a better a better one we can get.
Overcoming an obstacle.
I'm going to go a little bit more in details about my current obstacle
I'm going through right now.
OK, so my current obstacle,
like I mentioned a little early, is that I am in the position of transition
into a new job.
And so and one of the obstacles are one,
the experience in the new job role and two,
the lack of knowledge on certain things.
Over those can be, you know, with time fix.
And that's what I'm currently working on, you know, trying to get the experience
practicing, trying to learn the knowledge.
But to circle back to anime with it is the.
Blue lock. Blue lock
has been my go to anime as it just ended great
first season, but this has gave me my new inspiration on life
from out the watch and blue lock.
Blue lock has showed me that, yes, you may come into a situation
with certain experience.
Mm hmm. You may even think you're pretty good with that certain experience.
You may think you are the best player out there.
There's always someone better.
Now, what you're going to do with that someone that's better out the experience
and that they are better.
You can do one or two things.
You can take that fall that you just saw or that experience
that you saw that someone is better than you and use that as motivation.
Mm hmm. Or you can take that.
Realization that someone's better than you and do nothing with it.
Mm hmm.
There's a core of mine who's training me,
and I realize that we are in this particular situation of this job role.
Are in two different leagues.
I mean, he's a senior for a reason.
You got to. Yeah.
He's a senior for a reason.
You know, even with my me coming in and you know, I'm you know,
I feel like I'm that guy right now.
I can do this. I can do that.
I'm showing that I am better than some of the people on the team
and proving that I'm better.
Not just showing, you know, I'm proving that I'm better.
I'm doing and going over and beyond, you know,
making some of the other people look bad, unfortunately.
But it is what it is.
Pretty much it is what it is.
You know, they are they just bad.
Now, you know, but yeah.
But after seeing after going through a full training session with him
and he's showing unlocking his shotgun.
And showing me I'm like, huh, all right.
Well, maybe I ain't as good as I thought I was.
I got humbled.
Very hopefully, maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was.
But then I realized I was like, you know what, I can't take that
and be like, well, you know, he's just, you know, he has more experience.
So it's just it's just one of those things that I want to do better.
I get me to do better.
I'm not going to do better.
I get me to that level.
Show me how to get to that level.
And like I said, he he has shown me a lot.
And not only that, I have shown him a lot.
Mm hmm.
Not just that.
Sorry if I got a little bit of not, you know, have been humbled and stuff.
I've also been showing him, hey, you know,
even though he lacks the experience that I have or lack the amount of experience
that I have, he can show me a thing or two.
And that's just like the main character in Blue Lock, you know,
it's the king.
I would borrow that thing going up is the king.
But he also surprises King.
He win.
He win the first time.
Right.
See where I'm going there.
He win the first time.
First time.
But he showed his potential.
Mm hmm.
And that's how I feel with my my current situation.
I ain't win.
But I definitely showed him a thing or two.
Yeah.
He was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I made it.
And the first thing after I showed him, I showed him something.
I don't want to go into too much work details about it, you know,
you know, come to the process.
I showed him a script and stuff that I created.
And he was like, oh, yeah.
Man, I never thought about doing it this way.
Oh, you did?
Let me show you a little something else.
Let me show you what I can do.
You know, right.
At first I felt useless.
I felt like, hey, man, I don't know if I can keep up with these people.
But when I started realizing that, yeah, the person that I'm actually going
against, I technically he's training me.
It's on a whole nother league and is expected.
It's like, OK, well, yeah.
All right. Well, I want to be like him.
You know, right.
Oh, I was not necessarily.
I want to be like him.
I want to be on his level.
Right. I want the respect.
Hey, you know, let's bounce ideas from each other.
Mm hmm.
And see, let me take let me take your mind said, let's see how see.
Maybe I ain't thinking it that way.
Let me think. Let me see how you think.
And Curtis, I do.
You know how.
But it doesn't that alone, too, is he has someone like that who is also willing
to take it, you know, take the advice or something like that from somebody who
doesn't have as much experience in their own field to that.
That is a rare thing in of in of itself.
Right. The case of point, like you say, about the king, right.
When when he saw he beat Barrow, the say he beat him the second time after they
own the same team. Right.
You know, he was like, what?
I'm the king. How is this happening to me?
And then you get people like that out there in real life, right.
Who they think they they're the best things since sliced bread and nobody could
tell them anything.
And then when they get showed up, you know, they're they're mad about it.
Right. And they're just like, uh, who is the new guy?
But when you have two people, you know, one who has more experience, the other
one who's the up the up and comer.
Right. And you guys can have a conversation.
You can share and exchange knowledge and notes with each other.
And like you say, you can teach each other different things.
Do you know how much better off, you know, just, you know, in a corporate
situation, the company would be.
But in life in general, how everybody would be just be better off like that.
If we just took the time to really learn from each other and to do that.
They are talking about this in one one of the more recent episodes I just
recorded is that, you know, I want to view your experiences, Kurt.
But when you get older people, you know, you know, who are like, you know,
10, 20 years older than you, they think they know everything because because
they're older.
They just know the reason they just just because they're older than you.
Right. And they have more life experience, things like that.
You know, which is true.
They've experienced more things in their life than you have at that point in
time.
But that's not that doesn't mean you just know more than I do.
You know what I'm saying?
You have more wisdom about certain things than I do that I haven't
experienced them.
But I also know some things that you don't know, because the world has
changed since you were my age.
Right.
And I think if both both sides, the older generation and the younger
generation, just take the time to try to understand each other about that
type of type of stuff.
And we see a lot more advancements, a lot less competition, you know,
competition amongst ourselves within our own community and things like that.
We just come together and like, hey, let's let's let's lift each other up
because we we all just trying to get better.
We're all trying to do the same thing.
So let's lift each other up.
Right.
And I'm really glad that you said that you and your current mentor can share
notes and stuff like that.
I mean, I think that's awesome that you don't see that too, too often.
Oh, you are absolutely right, because, you know, everybody's is a competition.
Like you said, everybody wants to be where you at or to be better than you.
And it's never a.
I want to share knowledge.
It's always I want to withhold knowledge.
And withholding knowledge never really gets you anywhere.
Oh, because for me, it really never gets you anywhere, because it's one of those
things that, yeah, you can be good at one thing and you can hold it from someone,
but someone can always figure out how to do it.
And, you know, it's not that is something that no one can do.
They just have to figure it out.
They may not have the, you know, you're helping figure it out.
But with a little bit of effort and time, they can figure it out.
So withholding information going to get you anywhere.
Now you can share that information and have bounced off ideas with each other.
And you may learn some more information.
You may you may think you may take a look at an outcome and be like, huh, if I try
this way, this might be even better.
You may start learning more from other people.
So age for me doesn't matter.
They should be absolutely don't matter.
Like I said, you're a lot younger than me.
And I still think you are very wise when it comes to certain things.
And like you say, we lived in two different time.
But what you go through in your life right now versus what I go through in my life
right now, two different things, you know, I was your age.
I was doing all types of different stuff.
I mean, the age thing is not a thing.
It's just when you willing to open up your mindset to, you know, hey, what does
this person got to offer?
What does this person, you know, how can he contribute?
And maybe he might have a valid point.
That's when you start getting somewhere and it ain't too many people.
Like you said, I experienced that just like you do.
My current job is full of military people that are a lot older.
And you know it, you know, you work with some of these guys.
They know they know everything when they don't know everything.
They don't know it.
They know it.
They won't say they know it, but they don't know it.
It is one of those things that if they just be quiet, listen, they could learn
something or even find a way to do something better.
But they don't.
And unfortunately, that's how corporate America is.
Yeah.
And seniority and all that other stuff that comes with it.
Terrible.
So yeah, that if you young is listening out there, just just wait.
Yes, wait.
Hopefully you don't experience this type of thing, you know, too harshly
because, you know, I mean, we work at right now again without going, you
know, too, too deep into that.
It's not as bad as some other places, but it's not as good as some other
places, too, when it comes to stuff like that.
Right.
You know, they typically value seniority over actually knowing the job
and processes and stuff like that.
But, you know, there are other places that, again, are worse off than that
and then other places that are better.
So, you know, don't it's not no doom and gloom or anything.
The point is just to have an open mind and be willing to be teachable, you
know, be humble and be willing to teach others to write because, you know,
I mean, how young or how old you are, you have something of value that you
can get to somebody else, right, whether they ask for it directly or not.
But if you see somebody struggling with something, it takes another for you
to go tap them on the shoulders and say, hey, I see you struggling with
this.
Have you tried doing it this way, you know, or maybe thinking about it
like this, you know, just just lend a helping hand because you remember
what it was like to struggle through that type of stuff.
And like you said, man, eventually they're probably going to figure it
out.
And they put enough time and effort into it because a case of point, man,
there's so many things.
How many times have I come to you asking you for some help with some of
like our whole lab projects that I'm working on, right?
Like, hey, listen, all the time, all the time.
And I like it.
Like you said, I have no problem helping you.
If I have already done it and I have the experience and I'll be like, you
know, here, try this or do this or whatever, you know, I have no problem.
Like if you can call me any any time of the day, night, whatever, if I'm up
and you're asking a question about something, I answer the phone every
time.
You know, here, you know, try this, do this.
And this is what I mean.
I'm going to say again, guys, that's what we're talking about, right?
Isn't it?
I mean, it is something I can figure out for myself.
Yeah, I mean, I can look it up.
I can do my research, so like that.
But I know I got Kurt, you know, Kurt got my back and then vice versa.
I mean, he called me up for a couple of things like he said earlier in the
in the conversation, you know, if he's going through something or if he not
sure he just wants a different opinion, he'll call me the same thing, man.
Anytime I'm up, as soon as I see his name on my phone, I'm stopping what I'm
doing to at least, you know, pick up the phone so we can, you know, just chop
it up.
So it is find somebody like that and you be someone like that is pretty much
the whole moral, right?
Yeah, pretty much.
We need more people like that.
We definitely need more people like that.
Well, who are you telling me?
Absolutely.
And this place would be so much better.
All right, let's see.
And then the last last question I got over here is, OK, here we go.
So it says anime here, but again, it's going to be any type of media, anime,
movies, video games.
All these things offer a sense of, you know, escapism, exploration of, you
know, different cultures, settings, worlds, things like that.
And through like like some self discovery to, you know, learn about who you are
and who you want to be, things like that.
And so my question for you, Kurt, is has I'm I'm I'm running from just
anime, right?
Because again, we're otaku is of more than just that.
But has any of your hobbies or media, something like that, have any of that
played a role in helping you understand yourself better or, you know, even
discover something new about yourself that you didn't know you like before or,
you know, something along those lines?
So the breakdown.
Yes.
There's so I call this my escape in my escape room.
So I'm in my office.
I surround myself with various different things.
Anime posters, DC posters, DC figurines, anime figurines, everything that I
like, video games, all that stuff.
So when I lock in is what I like to call it when I lock into a, you know, if
it's an anime, it's a video game.
If it's some, you know, I'm reading a DC comic or anything, you know, it's my
escape.
It's my escape.
It gives me clarity to figure out certain things in life that's going on.
So because life is we all know life is pain.
It's sometimes you just need to get away.
And as I'm enjoying these different things, if it's me locking in and call it
duty, if it's me working the manga, watching anime, I sit there and yeah, I'm
playing, I'm self reflecting about, you know, how can I be better in life?
It's kind of like a meditating thing.
I should say.
As I'm doing these activities, I am thinking about life, what I can do better in
life.
A lot of times thinking about how to make a million dollars.
And to be honest, I get ideas from that stuff.
I get a lot of ideas from that stuff.
My recent idea during my self reflection was I was, you know, I got so I'm a huge
fan of Batman and stuff.
I was watching, I want to say it was the Justice League animated movie.
The Injustice one.
Yeah.
As I'm watching this movie, I'm just sitting there thinking about different
business ideas.
And this is how I came up with the display shelves that I send you a picture of.
Yeah.
How I made the display shelves or whatever.
So I was like, huh, you know, I like DC.
I like, you know, I got a bunch of DC statues.
I need to figure out something I'm doing as I'm watching movie.
And I just it is strange.
I know you're going to be like, how did this come up?
I was like, you know, I said, let me try to find a product.
It's just me watching movie.
I'm just I'm zoned out.
I find a product that I can possibly build that will give me everything that I need,
which is like, you know, I had all these boxes of statues.
And then do some really cool stuff with it.
And as I'm watching this stuff, I'm like, you know, I'm watching Batman and stuff.
I'm like, all right, well, you know, Batman, I start coming up with some ideas.
And I was like, yeah, I'm going to build me a display shelf and I'll build a display show.
I want to put all my Batman stuff, statues in there.
And then the whole idea just started coming out of that.
I just started coming out with different things.
And then I started bouncing ideas with you.
Yeah, I end up coming up with that.
I think you know, I mean, I don't know.
We get off of them.
But then, you know, I came up with the idea with the whole voice activated display stuff.
Mm hmm. I remember.
He did what?
But like I say, yeah, man, it's anime is a safe space for me.
Just to sum it all up, anime is a safe space for me.
It allows me to get my some of my most creative thinking, not just anime in general,
and just if it's a hobby, a video game, anime, manga, whatever it is,
it allows me to do my best creative thinking.
Mm hmm.
While while enjoying myself, I should say that.
Oh, yes. Yeah, that's the key part. Yeah.
You never know.
Like you can be watching some type of anime or something and just some random thought come in your mind.
I mean, this at least for me, like some random idea will always come up.
And it may be something I saw in the anime as a huh.
That's a cool thing. Oh, yeah.
And then I start I start going off.
I start thinking of other stuff like in the midst of the anime or I saw something in the anime
that gave me an idea to do something here, especially when it comes to the Japanese culture and anime.
They're so futuristic in a lot of things.
And that you'll see something in the anime.
Huh? I don't think we have this in real life. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get you know, how can I try to get something like this?
Mm hmm.
I don't know. I don't know if that ever hits you like that.
Yeah. But for me, all the time and they can end it crazy thing about it.
It can be like an amazing back in like 2016, 2008, like stuff with technology.
Ain't really was. Well, was it really booming like that?
But in anime, you see like this whole futuristic type stuff like one of the ideas I got actually recently,
which I'm working on now, was from anime was this.
I was watching. Let me I don't want to pass the bus name.
Is one of those super long ones that two sentences or something?
Yeah, it's one of those really low is a guy.
And I would have to go find the actual name of the title, but I'll tell you later about it.
But I started thinking about no, no, no, no, no, no.
I think it was my was it my easy kind of life?
I don't know. I can't think about a title of it right now, but however, I was watching the anime and.
You know, we all in the world of, you know, AI right now, AI is taking over everything.
Like I generated and AI in IOT devices.
OK, cool. I already like what this is going, but go ahead.
So in most easy guys, you have great sage, you know, like remember, you know, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. So you have these AIs in their minds that are reading and feeding back information to these things.
And I'm like, we're currently close to a time in life where we can have some of this stuff doing this for us.
Right. So, you know, you know, I already dappled a lot in the AI and doing voice active stuff and automation and stuff.
Right. My home labs. So as I'm watching, I think it was my easy guy life.
I think that's the one with the slimes and stuff where. Yeah, I've seen that one. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, he had all the old peace lines and he made great.
They agree. He would cast spells through the slimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So I'm sitting there like I'm sitting there like I'm like, hey, that's a whole lot of automation going on right there.
Pretty much. You know, pretty much. Then I'm like, hey, so I'm starting to get like, man, wouldn't it be cool
if I put a sense on my dough when I walk in over my door?
My chair turns around, my computer do wake online. Google greets me.
Yeah, I saw it. So I'm I started thinking like this is all possible right now. Yeah. This is all possible.
I have the automation skills for it already.
We all know I have some of this stuff I've already automated to do.
And all it takes is the other time and effort to do it. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I could really be like some of these stuff that I see in it.
It's just it blows my mind. Just think about it.
Yeah, I get a lot. Like I said, let's just sum it all up.
Not to go too much on a tangent, like watching anime.
I think of some of the craziest things. Anime, video games. When I'm zoned out, I think of some crazy ideas.
It gives me some of my best ideas. And I have done a lot of them and I have shown a lot of them.
So it influences me a lot. It influenced a lot of my day to day stuff that I do in my office or do at my house.
Like I just told my washing dryer earlier to go start the load in the.
So, yeah, it's it's it's sort of like like a lot.
Like I said, there's something all of a lot of that stuff I see in these different things like Batman and his bat gadgets doing all this stuff.
You know, an amazing, you know, great sage and Rimmel, ruin them doing all this stuff.
You know, it's one of those days like, yeah, yeah, we're almost in that time where I feel like I'm in a real life.
You see, guy. And well, boy, what a time we live in when I have for real.
You see chat, GVT, but you see what you see.
You see so much, man. You don't even know it.
Yeah, it's man. Life is wild.
We are like in the golden age. Well, technically, they would say back in the day was the golden age.
But you know, yeah, I go with it. We are not golden age.
I think a lot of the things that I again, my listeners, sorry, go off on a tangent.
But again, this is what being a taco is.
You find something and you just go you go deep in on it.
And the egg early said, do you just I.T. aid the AI, IOT, this the.
All of this stuff, right, because again, I know it's speaking gibberish to a lot of my side about listeners right now.
You're like, I don't know what these acronyms mean, any of this stuff.
But for those who know, they know. And it's basically it's almost like it's like adult Legos, right?
You got all these different building blocks, these different things that you feel like you say you get an idea as a hunt.
Is this this is pretty cool. Can I can I do this?
Do I have the knowledge? Yep. Do I have the skill set? Yep.
Do I have the materials or the components that I need? Yep.
Or if not, Amazon's a wonderful thing.
So, you know, you got all these things and you can just you can just go in and just get real creative with these type of things.
Right. And for and for me, you can one curtain.
You're not the only one who gets crazy idea while watching anime and stuff like that.
You know, I just I'm just lazy. I don't act on them all the time.
If I'm being honest, but they do when they when they hit me and you really have you ever had it where it hits you so hard that you got to pause what you're watching to really think about it.
I definitely understand. I definitely understand.
And for me, case of one, though, is really this podcast as a whole, man, because it was it was on my part to do something like this.
You know, whether it was podcast or something like that, we're just sharing my my love for, you know, this this culture.
Right. You know, anime, manga, things like that, because again, we had conversations all the time.
You know, we my dad had these conversations, you know, while animated, we both watch and stuff like that.
And it's just you when you share in that love for something with somebody else is always a wonderful thing.
But then I got to thinking it really hit me when I started watching Blue Lock, man.
It was, you know, the main character, he does this whole jigsaw puzzle puzzle piece type thing.
He'd be thinking and he was like, what's this last piece that I need to get to that next level to beat this opponent, to score this goal, whatever he is he's trying to do.
And for me, I realized that I've been doing that my whole life, man.
Just, you know, when I'm watching these shows, why these animes, I'm already internalizing these characters and their struggles and what they're and what they do to overcome them.
You know, the naruto's you believe in attitude, right?
Goku's incredible work ethic.
I mean, this man working out while he's dead, but I don't know who does that.
Literally got the halo on. He's still over there training, training his behind all.
And, you know, like each ago from bleach, his whole mindset is I remember I remember this line like the like the just like yesterday, man.
He was fighting one of the one of the villains in bleach and each ago was getting drug, man.
He was getting just beat to sleep. And the dude was like, why do you still hold on to your sword?
You can't possibly think that you're going to win.
It goes like, it doesn't matter if I think I can win. I have to win type thing.
Like, there's no losing is not often for me type thing.
Keep in mind, he was just he's getting drugged out the whole fight.
There's no there's no chance there's no chance anywhere that he's going to win. But that type of mentality, right?
Where I have to do this, I have to achieve this, I have to overcome this because there is no other option for me.
And that spoke volumes to me because kind of tied back to what we said earlier about being comfortable.
Right. When you when you grow to be comfortable in your situation, your surrounding, that's when you start to get lazy.
That's when you the drive starts to die down a little bit.
And that's why we're I'm not afraid to.
But, you know, we're less likely to try new things to develop the things we already have.
Right. Because we're comfortable. We just don't want to we don't want to mess up our routine and our flow.
And but that's where creativity thrives in you stepping outside of your comfort zone.
You actually doing and acting out the things that you're thinking about. Right.
Like you for the automation and things that you're working on in your home lab and the stuff you're learning now in your new position.
And like for me, you know, taking some already do with anime and putting together on a podcast for other people to listen to and try to, you know,
pull what they can from it and maybe create some more anime watches out there. Right.
And if the watch on these other different anime besides the mainstream one. Right.
And just really take these things and apply it to our own life and just say, hey, don't be afraid to try new things and don't be afraid to fail at new things, too.
I think that's the biggest thing is if you're afraid to fail, you're never going to succeed at it.
I mean, that's plain and simple. Right.
And again, me and Kurt understand this because, you know, we work in IT, we do the whole lab and stuff all the time.
I don't know how many times I've broken something in my own house. I'm like, I got to go back and fix that.
I mean, you just had a conversation yesterday about you trying something new and you took out your internet for three days.
I think it's stuff like that. And but you fixed it and now you know more than what you did before.
And then you are more confident doing that type of thing again.
And you would have never known you were capable of doing something like that if you would have never tried. You would never even attempted it.
So, again, for my listeners out there is for this whole hour plus long call we just had, we just talked about, you know, the things we love and anime and how it's affected us.
The point is to one, don't be, don't be ashamed of who you are and what you like.
You know, people can call you nerds or whatever, you know, who cares, right?
Let them live their life. You live yours and really open up your mind to the possibilities that are at that you have a ring with you.
Right. The people you know, the things that you are, you know, into and the different opportunities that may that are coming down the pipeline in different situations like that.
And even from the very shows and games that you play and watch. Right.
It's knowledge is out there. You just have to be willing to do something about it.
And when you fall down, because you will, we're all going to fail at something.
Don't say that. Right. Learn from it. Learn what you like. OK, what didn't work this time?
What can I do to do better next time? And get up and do it again.
Because I mean, because you touched on it before, man, you the stuff like we're watching these anime or, you know, the DC movies and the video game and stuff like that.
When we're doing the self reflection, we're enjoying it. That's the key. That's really the key part.
We're enjoying the process because we're enjoying what we're doing. And for me, I want us all to live life and not just survive it.
Right. I want my goal at the end of the day, man, is to every day that I get up that I wake up, I'm enjoying my life, doing whatever it is that I'm doing.
And that way, you know, it just goes by smoother. I think, you know, we're doing something that we love together with our friends and family.
And you're doing something that you're truly passionate about and you truly believe in.
Then, hey, yeah, that sounds like a good life to me, man. I'll be honest with you. That sounds like a good life.
Yeah, I definitely agree, man. Definitely agree.
Oh, man. All right, McCurdy, I know you are a busy, busy man, so I'm going to let you cut out of here. But before you go, man, one, I just want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to hop on here with me, hop on here with my listeners.
I'm sure they enjoy hearing somebody else besides me for once and sharing your life and things like that, man.
Do you have any socials or anything that you want to plug in for everybody listening?
Well, first, before I do that, yeah, I want to say, you're welcome at any time. If you need me for another episode, I'm always here. I make time for you.
I enjoyed this hour, hour and a half, almost two hour conversation. You know, we do this, we chop it up like this all the time.
You know, I love talking about anime, love talking about just life, things in general, whatever we can do, whatever I can do.
For the socials, I do do a lot of streaming on Twitch. You can follow me on Twitch at Quick Underscore Draw X on Twitch.
You can also follow, I do stream also on Facebook. Facebook, sorry, Facebook gaming, same thing. It's a Quick Underscore Draw on Facebook.
And that's pretty much it. I do a lot of different video games. I play Call of Duty, really heavy into Warzone 2 right now with the launch of Street Fighter 6.
I'm doing a lot of streaming over on my Twitch for Street Fighter 6. I'm a big GIF player, GIF and Kami.
Thank you for those who know. That's who I'm going to be maining in this Street Fighter 6. If you want to see some good high level GIF play, some Kami play, come on over to Twitch and come see your boy.
You know, support us over at Quick Draw. And yeah, I think that's pretty much it for my socials.
Awesome, awesome, man. All right. So again, I'll have those linked down in the description somewhere.
So, Kari, you want to send me those right after this? I'll make sure it's in there.
And again, man, it's always a pleasure. Like you said, we have these conversations all the time. I just decided, hey, let's record it. Let's record at least one of them for my people.
So again, guys, again, like always, just hope you guys learn something new today. Learn something new about yourself and really take these questions to heart.
And again, just always remember, you know, you are the main character of your story and that story doesn't end until he says so.
All right. Be blessed.