1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,720 Hi everyone, and welcome back to For the Curious and Confused, a podcast for people who want 2 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:10,160 to understand different perspectives of the world through the people who inhabit it. 3 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:14,760 I'm your host, Don McTaggart, and today I'm joined by Lindsay Deloach-Jones, a writer 4 00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:18,680 investigating how smartphones impact parenting in the modern world. 5 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:22,800 Lindsay holds an MA in English and an MFA in creative nonfiction. 6 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:27,600 She has taught creative writing at Clemson University and the South Carolina Governor's 7 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:32,160 School for the Arts and Humanities, and she has served as editor of Emmerist Journal and 8 00:00:32,160 --> 00:00:34,120 Edible Upcountry. 9 00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:37,280 Lindsay is currently writing a book about the intersection of parenting and our reliance 10 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:38,720 on smartphones. 11 00:00:38,720 --> 00:00:42,240 The book seeks to address how smartphones are changing the way we approach both our 12 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:44,840 kids and the role of being a parent. 13 00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:48,700 She acknowledges that our phones do make us faster and more efficient, but Lindsay wants 14 00:00:48,700 --> 00:00:54,920 to better understand what this constant connectivity is costing our relationships and humanity. 15 00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:58,920 She also hosts a sub-stack page called Between Two Things, where she writes about the tensions 16 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,240 of modern life beyond parenting. 17 00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:05,000 I've subscribed to her newsletter and enjoy getting a notification when she's just posted 18 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,640 another humorous but perceptive take on the state of the world. 19 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:11,760 So Lindsay, thank you for sharing your time with us today, and I'm excited to get your 20 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:13,960 views on parenting and smartphone use. 21 00:01:13,960 --> 00:01:16,320 Hey, Don, thanks so much for having me. 22 00:01:16,320 --> 00:01:18,840 It's great to be here, and I'm glad we got connected. 23 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:19,840 Me too. 24 00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:24,560 All right, so to start off with our first question, could you give us a two-minute introduction 25 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:28,600 into who Lindsay Deloach-Jones is and what motivates her? 26 00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:29,600 Sure. 27 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,880 I'm a writer, and I teach writing as well, so I spend most of my time thinking about 28 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:36,520 words and sentences. 29 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:40,680 And I feel this tension between I want to contribute something really meaningful to 30 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:45,800 the world, and yet professionally, pretty much the only thing I really have to give 31 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:47,120 is words. 32 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:49,880 So I'm always trying to figure out what that means. 33 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:56,040 I think we live in a world that is saturated with voices and opinions. 34 00:01:56,040 --> 00:02:00,080 So I think a lot about what I have to add to the conversation, and I want to do that 35 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:07,160 in a really thoughtful way and a careful way because I think we use words pretty carelessly 36 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:09,920 these days, and there's a lot of danger in that. 37 00:02:09,920 --> 00:02:14,640 And so I want to be careful with language and use it as best I can to get at the truth 38 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:16,680 instead of to obscure the truth. 39 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,840 But it's really hard, and I'm not saying I get it right, but these are the things that 40 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:24,040 keep me up at night. 41 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:28,100 That immediately leads me into a question that I had further down, but you just segued 42 00:02:28,100 --> 00:02:35,720 into it so well, particularly about if with writing being a diluted medium now with all 43 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:38,480 the opinion pieces going around, and also with AI. 44 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:45,920 So with the increased adoption of AI, how does this tool, which can generate massive 45 00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:51,280 amounts of words and writing detailed essays in seconds, how does that change how you navigate 46 00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:56,080 being a writer and contributing something meaningful in today's world? 47 00:02:56,080 --> 00:03:02,560 Yeah, I think there's a lot of panic, especially among the joke is sort of all the English 48 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:06,160 teachers panicked when AI really started becoming widespread. 49 00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:12,400 But I think what I've had to do is really just not let it affect me because I think 50 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:19,480 there are always going to be people who are embracing and abusing all sorts of things. 51 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:26,780 I can't make AI disappear, but in terms of my own writing, I've never used AI to even 52 00:03:26,780 --> 00:03:28,080 check grammar or anything else. 53 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:35,260 I think for me, it's the kind of thing that I want to be intentional about resisting while 54 00:03:35,260 --> 00:03:40,320 at the same time realizing that AI is going to do what AI is going to do. 55 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:43,640 And so I think there are still plenty of people. 56 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:49,260 I teach writing to adults here in Greenville, South Carolina, and there are still so many 57 00:03:49,260 --> 00:03:57,280 people who want to sit around and talk about language and sentences and ideas and have 58 00:03:57,280 --> 00:03:58,640 nothing to do with AI. 59 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:05,560 And so I think I just have to rely on that community and rely on the idea that some people 60 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:09,080 are always going to go that direction and some people are always going to resist. 61 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:11,520 And that's just going to be the way it is. 62 00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:12,520 Yeah. 63 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,200 Just choosing the battles, picking the battles. 64 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:16,200 Yeah. 65 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:17,200 Yeah. 66 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:18,200 That's great. 67 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:19,200 Okay. 68 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:20,200 So back onto our regular scheduled programming. 69 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:24,920 So you're talking a lot about parenting and how our smartphones are playing into that. 70 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:28,700 So firstly, a little bit of a background on more about you. 71 00:04:28,700 --> 00:04:34,840 So how has your becoming a parent impacted how you perceive life and navigate your way 72 00:04:34,840 --> 00:04:35,840 through life? 73 00:04:35,840 --> 00:04:40,800 Well, I am married and I have four kids, they're pretty close together in age. 74 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:45,000 So parenting takes up a lot of my head space. 75 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:49,160 And I think recently parenting has gotten kind of a bad rap. 76 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:55,600 There are certainly ways of parenting that I think lead to burnout and misery, unhappiness. 77 00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:59,720 But I think there are also ways of being a parent that are almost magical, especially 78 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:06,280 if you're a creative person and the difference between those two things often comes down, 79 00:05:06,280 --> 00:05:11,240 I think, to the kind of parenting you think you should be doing versus the kind of parenting 80 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:13,360 that comes more naturally to you. 81 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:20,560 And so for me, I've been a parent now for 12 years and most of that journey has been 82 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:24,960 about finding the freedom to do things in a way that might not be the same as everyone 83 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:29,440 around me and being okay with that. 84 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:33,920 And of course, that idea that you're going to do things differently than the norm has 85 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:35,200 to do with your whole life. 86 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:38,360 And so once you realize maybe I don't want to do it the way everybody around me is doing 87 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:42,880 it, it affects everything. 88 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,680 And it allows you to really, I think, start thinking about all the ways that you live, 89 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:51,900 whether you want to do those things the way that everyone around you is doing them. 90 00:05:51,900 --> 00:05:57,620 And so parenting has weirdly been freeing for me in that way. 91 00:05:57,620 --> 00:06:03,880 And I think another obvious effect of parenting is that you're forced to think more long term. 92 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:08,720 I think that the state of the world and the things that are happening, even just in our 93 00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:13,400 country right now, if I weren't thinking, if it were just me, I'd be thinking maybe, 94 00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:16,520 how will this play out over the next 15 or 20 years? 95 00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:21,480 But I think because I have kids, I've been thinking 75 years into the future and it really 96 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:29,040 does change my perspective on how I want to live in the world. 97 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:35,640 So moving forward with that 75 year kind of time span, there are going to be agents operating 98 00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:37,680 in the world in that time. 99 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:41,520 So what kind of values are you looking to raise in your children that you want them 100 00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:48,680 to have so they can not necessarily combat, but contend with all the stuff that will be 101 00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:51,960 happening in their lifetime? 102 00:06:51,960 --> 00:06:58,880 I think I'm always trying to zoom out from the day to day because I think day to day, 103 00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:03,600 what's thrown at us, I think as parents and even just kids kind of living in the modern 104 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:10,520 world doesn't have actually a lot to do with my deepest values, but I have to really practice 105 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:14,200 mentally sort of stepping back and thinking about that because it's really easy to just 106 00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:18,880 get caught up and think like, oh, well, what matters is that my kid starts baseball in 107 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:22,600 third grade so that he can be a college athlete or whatever. 108 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:25,120 But that isn't actually what I care about. 109 00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:28,360 And there's a lot of talk about raising successful kids. 110 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:32,620 But I think, like you said, looking up forward 75 years, well, it's really hard to know what 111 00:07:32,620 --> 00:07:37,260 success means when you're thinking that long term. 112 00:07:37,260 --> 00:07:44,120 So I try to think about what are universal skills and values that have always applied? 113 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:49,000 Like throughout all of human history, what are the things that human beings have needed? 114 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:56,080 And I think there's values like compassion and resilience and adaptability. 115 00:07:56,080 --> 00:08:00,400 And I think also kids who can think critically about the world because I think that's going 116 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:01,880 to be a really necessary skill. 117 00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:07,840 I think you're going to have to have a pretty sophisticated apparatus for kind of parsing 118 00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:12,600 what's true and what's not true and what's real and what's fake. 119 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:17,360 And so I try to get my kids, you know, I ask little questions all the time just to get 120 00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:22,200 my kids to be thinking about what they're seeing and what they're being told instead 121 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:27,560 of just swallowing it right away, like whether it's an advertisement or a television show 122 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:29,020 or a book or whatever. 123 00:08:29,020 --> 00:08:35,600 You know, I try not to impose my values on them, but rather just ask them and just always 124 00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:39,040 kind of be poking at them a little bit like, well, what do you think about what that book 125 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:40,200 is telling you? 126 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:42,040 You should think. 127 00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:47,580 And I think that's the kind of skill that if they develop it over a lifetime, you know, 128 00:08:47,580 --> 00:08:49,680 it doesn't ever go out of style. 129 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:54,320 It's going to be needed, I think, in the future. 130 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:58,640 What do you see happening in their heads when you ask them those little poking questions 131 00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:01,080 of what do you think of this book or this thing? 132 00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:02,640 What do you see happening in them? 133 00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:07,120 Yeah, I think I probably would do that naturally, even if it weren't something I were thinking 134 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:11,360 about just because, you know, I've taught college English and that's just, you know, 135 00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:13,560 the way I've been trained in all of my education. 136 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:19,780 But I think I do get to see the effects of that when, you know, their friends will do 137 00:09:19,780 --> 00:09:28,080 stuff or say stuff and I can hear them thinking about that in a way that's a little more interesting, 138 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:32,760 I think, than I thought about things when I was eight or ten or twelve. 139 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:37,480 My kids are, I have two eight year olds who are twins, a ten year old and a twelve year 140 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:38,480 old. 141 00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:44,340 And so I get really excited because I do hear sort of the foundations of critical thinking 142 00:09:44,340 --> 00:09:45,640 in them. 143 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:49,720 I think when I was growing up, you know, it was sort of there's one way to be, there's 144 00:09:49,720 --> 00:09:54,560 one way to think, and I just really took that on. 145 00:09:54,560 --> 00:10:00,240 And I think as I've looked back over my life, I think that it was probably hurtful to me, 146 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:05,040 but also hurtful to other people how much I thought I had all the answers. 147 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:13,320 And so I see in my own kids a lot of like questioning the idea that they have all the 148 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:17,340 answers, which I think is, you know, going back to values, I think that's just really 149 00:10:17,340 --> 00:10:18,340 important to me. 150 00:10:18,340 --> 00:10:23,940 And it's not that I want them to feel rudderless or as if, you know, they have no foundation, 151 00:10:23,940 --> 00:10:28,960 but I think just that real subtle idea that like, well, maybe I'm not getting it right, 152 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:34,120 I think is a huge part of, you know, being a mature adult. 153 00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:42,200 I, I realize that resonate with the part you said about feeling like the feeling like you 154 00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:45,200 had all the answers has hurt you and others. 155 00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:51,560 And because I think that I have for a long time, I've operated in a world where I've 156 00:10:51,560 --> 00:10:54,240 succeeded pretty well in most of the things that I've done. 157 00:10:54,240 --> 00:11:00,880 And that kind of fulfills a sense of, I have all the answers and that it can be hard to 158 00:11:00,880 --> 00:11:04,440 either accept when there are answers that you don't like or their perspectives you don't 159 00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:12,760 like or also just having a humility to accept that you don't have the answers. 160 00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:15,640 So I'm curious, what do you, how has that been for you? 161 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:19,920 What ways have you felt it's hurt you and other people? 162 00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:27,040 Yeah, I think the it's probably the, the downside of the a student kid, you know, that grows 163 00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:36,680 up and you get affirmation for, for having a really tight, compact sort of package of 164 00:11:36,680 --> 00:11:38,480 how the world works. 165 00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:40,340 And that's clean and easy. 166 00:11:40,340 --> 00:11:43,000 And so I think I had that and I got a lot of affirmation for that. 167 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,920 I always had, you know, the quote, right answers. 168 00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:50,720 And so it was drilled into my head that that was a positive thing, but I think I always 169 00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:56,120 say that that works until it doesn't, you know, and if you have generally what tends 170 00:11:56,120 --> 00:12:03,960 to happen to disrupt that is some sort of interruption, whether it's, you know, tragedy 171 00:12:03,960 --> 00:12:08,840 or just a way of where you're forced to think differently. 172 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:13,040 You know, even just another person who comes along and says, like, you know, that's not 173 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:15,680 the way I think and forces you to think about it. 174 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:17,640 Whatever it is, you have that rupture. 175 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:22,700 And I think for me, that rupture came in, well, it came in the form first of like infertility 176 00:12:22,700 --> 00:12:24,640 between my husband and me. 177 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:29,600 And I really did have this idea, like I had done everything right. 178 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,540 And I'd gotten married and I, you know, the next step was to have a baby. 179 00:12:32,540 --> 00:12:34,040 And then that didn't happen. 180 00:12:34,040 --> 00:12:38,520 And when that didn't happen, it sort of sent me spiraling down this road of like, well, 181 00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:39,520 wait a minute. 182 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:43,800 I thought things went the right way for the people who did the right things. 183 00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:47,480 And I really had to, and there's so much underlying that assumption, right? 184 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:52,840 Like good things happen to good people, that kind of idea that I had to really pick apart. 185 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:58,640 And once I started, you know, pulling the threads, a lot came unraveled. 186 00:12:58,640 --> 00:13:03,560 And so I did have to look back on a lot of my life and think about, you know, I was raised 187 00:13:03,560 --> 00:13:11,440 in southern Georgia and, you know, there's, it was a rural area. 188 00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:14,800 And so there really was kind of like one way of doing things. 189 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:20,560 And I think when I looked back and thought about people who had come into that area as 190 00:13:20,560 --> 00:13:25,480 outsiders, that I had not had a lot of patience or tolerance for that. 191 00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:30,800 And so I think I couldn't think of specific examples of really, I think hurting people 192 00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:37,160 just by my certainty and making them probably feel what I realize now, you know, was probably 193 00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:38,160 pretty bad. 194 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:45,440 So I had to reevaluate a lot and I feel like I got humbled by some life circumstances and 195 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:50,800 humbled by, you know, having four kids in four years, which I was, you know, nobody's 196 00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:51,800 very good at that. 197 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:56,100 And so all of a sudden I started not being good at things. 198 00:13:56,100 --> 00:13:59,760 And I think there's nothing better for it really than to fail. 199 00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:04,640 And when we fail and we scramble, we have to put things back together in kind of a new 200 00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:05,640 way. 201 00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:06,640 So. 202 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:08,320 Thank you for sharing that. 203 00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:12,400 Yeah, those are kind of hard things to be honest with yourself about, but I think that 204 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:14,520 is very beneficial for people to hear. 205 00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:18,600 So that's kind of getting into the zone of strengths and weaknesses a bit. 206 00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:23,560 So in terms of how you and your husband's set, independent set and also collective set 207 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:28,800 of strengths and weaknesses, how did those compliment each other in how you two go about 208 00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:30,280 raising your children? 209 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:36,600 Yeah, I think that's a really funny question for us in particular, actually, because I 210 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:42,240 my husband is like six, four and I'm five, two, and we just do not match. 211 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:45,880 Like we don't even look like we match and we laugh a lot. 212 00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:50,440 We've been married almost 20 years and we laugh a lot because we took the Myers-Briggs, 213 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:55,960 which is like a personality assessment right around the time we got married. 214 00:14:55,960 --> 00:15:01,280 And you end up with four letters that describe your way of being in the world. 215 00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:06,600 And the test said that successful marriage relationships typically have at least two 216 00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:08,080 letters in common. 217 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:09,840 And our letters were the exact opposite. 218 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:11,800 So we had not one single thing in common. 219 00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:15,180 And I'm an INFJ and he's an ESTP. 220 00:15:15,180 --> 00:15:17,840 And so we, you know, right at the beginning of marriage, we're like, uh-oh, what have 221 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:19,560 we done? 222 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:25,060 But it's been really fun to see, I think, how those differences have played out in parenting. 223 00:15:25,060 --> 00:15:30,160 We joke that it sometimes makes our marriage relationship harder to see things so differently, 224 00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:34,640 so that it seems like a huge win for our kids because they can pretty much get the benefit 225 00:15:34,640 --> 00:15:40,120 of any perspective and any disposition or personality type. 226 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:43,360 And when you have four kids, you have a really big mix of personalities that you have to 227 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:44,360 address. 228 00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:48,360 And so, you know, we joke that they know which parent to go to for which thing. 229 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,640 And you know, dad helps with math homework and mom helps with English homework and they've 230 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:54,000 got all their bases covered. 231 00:15:54,000 --> 00:16:01,400 But I feel like, I mean, all jokes aside, on a personal level for me, my husband and 232 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:04,600 I are always sharpening one another's thinking. 233 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:09,600 And I make that sound really glamorous, but like it feels pretty terrible, actually, a 234 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:14,300 lot of times to feel like, you know, I'm so convinced that this is the way the world works 235 00:16:14,300 --> 00:16:17,460 and then bringing it to the person you love the most and realizing like he doesn't see 236 00:16:17,460 --> 00:16:19,360 it that way. 237 00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:24,720 And so we're always pushing back on each other, I think, in a way that is almost always healthy. 238 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:25,720 It's really good. 239 00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:30,400 But it can be, you know, frustrating sometimes to feel like, man, if I'd married somebody 240 00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:32,800 who was just like me, we could just be cruising. 241 00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:37,640 We could just be like, you know, convinced of our own rightness. 242 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:39,080 And there's a lot we disagree on. 243 00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:44,480 And I think that that is, you know, like I said, good for our kids, but also good for 244 00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:47,600 the world, you know, that we're committed to each other. 245 00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:48,720 We're sticking this out. 246 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:53,760 We don't we're not going to abandon one another just because we see some things differently. 247 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:58,560 But at the same time, we're going to try to, you know, we're we don't go very many days 248 00:16:58,560 --> 00:17:02,480 where we're not practicing that idea of like seeing something through someone else's eyes. 249 00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:06,120 So I think that's a full experience for both of us. 250 00:17:06,120 --> 00:17:11,200 Yeah, I mean, I think of you were talking earlier about the universal human values that 251 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:13,960 kind of have helped people for a very, very long time. 252 00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:18,280 I think one of the biggest ones is being able to put yourself in somebody else's perspective. 253 00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:21,880 And if you're constantly being challenged to do that with your husband, even if it doesn't 254 00:17:21,880 --> 00:17:27,160 feel great all the time, you're always practicing the skill that can be applied to other people 255 00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:28,160 as well. 256 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:30,960 So yeah, that sounds like it's like like a lot. 257 00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:31,960 Yeah. 258 00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:35,280 So then moving a bit into the smartphones. 259 00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:40,000 So you talk about the tension between being a parent and also our dependency on smartphones. 260 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:46,040 And so how do you see these devices shaping our day to day interactions with your children 261 00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:51,120 and children in America in general and what values are at stake here? 262 00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:56,560 Yeah, I think we we all can kind of agree, I think, in twenty twenty five that we use 263 00:17:56,560 --> 00:18:01,760 our phones too much and social media makes us feel bad most of the time. 264 00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:06,240 But I think there's this whole culture that's built up around what I call smartphone parenting 265 00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:09,400 that most people aren't as aware of. 266 00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:10,920 I think it's kind of subtle. 267 00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:15,200 And it's this culture that expects parents to act like, you know, digital secretaries 268 00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:16,720 for our kids lives. 269 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:21,400 And I always think about how there's no way kids could do as much as they're doing these 270 00:18:21,400 --> 00:18:27,240 days if they didn't have parents who are willing to play that role. 271 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:32,180 And so we end up spending so much time like moving things around and signing kids up for 272 00:18:32,180 --> 00:18:36,480 things and signing ourselves up for things that there's not a lot of just unstructured 273 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:43,780 time to just be with your kids and to not have any sort of like agenda or goal. 274 00:18:43,780 --> 00:18:50,520 And I think that's sort of like a more subtle effect of the speed of smartphones. 275 00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:53,800 You know, we can move quick and we can do things really conveniently. 276 00:18:53,800 --> 00:19:00,220 And so why would we ever go like take a walk to the store when we could order it on DoorDash 277 00:19:00,220 --> 00:19:01,720 or whatever the thing is. 278 00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:08,300 But like it it makes us move so fast that I think we aren't just allowing ourselves 279 00:19:08,300 --> 00:19:13,780 to be humans inside a family. 280 00:19:13,780 --> 00:19:18,520 And so I think because of my work in creative spaces, I really value, you know, creativity 281 00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:23,980 and creativity is deeply tied up with failure and messiness. 282 00:19:23,980 --> 00:19:27,780 You have to be willing to fail and you have to be willing to make a mess. 283 00:19:27,780 --> 00:19:33,640 And I also think that's what shapes interesting, resilient human beings. 284 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:41,740 And so if you have, for example, a mother who sort of acts like a machine, you're not 285 00:19:41,740 --> 00:19:46,140 interacting with someone who's really like doing that pushback that another real live 286 00:19:46,140 --> 00:19:48,540 human being would be doing. 287 00:19:48,540 --> 00:19:55,040 And so I want to raise kids who know how to engage with, you know, all the complexities 288 00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:58,040 of another person's humanity. 289 00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:01,380 And I think that's that's what it goes back to allowing people to have their opposing 290 00:20:01,380 --> 00:20:06,900 views and personalities instead of imposing one way of of being in the world. 291 00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:14,660 And I think our our humanness, you know, is inherently unpredictable and not easy and 292 00:20:14,660 --> 00:20:15,660 convenient. 293 00:20:15,660 --> 00:20:21,020 And so that pushes back just the more we sort of claim our own humanity, I think the more 294 00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:26,020 we're pushing back on that device paradigm. 295 00:20:26,020 --> 00:20:31,100 How have your own phone habits changed since you've had kids? 296 00:20:31,100 --> 00:20:35,860 My first daughter was born in 2012, which she's only 12, but that was a really different 297 00:20:35,860 --> 00:20:36,860 time. 298 00:20:36,860 --> 00:20:43,340 And I remember I know that it was different because I remember I think back to like wanting 299 00:20:43,340 --> 00:20:47,340 to post a picture of her after she was born and thinking how obnoxious that would be like 300 00:20:47,340 --> 00:20:48,340 people just didn't really. 301 00:20:48,340 --> 00:20:52,920 But it wasn't like, look at me, look at my baby that I had or whatever. 302 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:58,100 And so even within like five or six years, I think that had become, you know, very normalized 303 00:20:58,100 --> 00:21:00,460 and there's nothing wrong with it at all. 304 00:21:00,460 --> 00:21:05,780 But then, you know, people are choreographing these grand gender reveals and parenting was 305 00:21:05,780 --> 00:21:07,620 just sort of moving online in general. 306 00:21:07,620 --> 00:21:14,660 And I think the the natural progression of that was that a lot of parenting became sort 307 00:21:14,660 --> 00:21:20,740 of performative, image oriented and everything, you know, needed to keep up with everybody 308 00:21:20,740 --> 00:21:22,380 else's image of parenting. 309 00:21:22,380 --> 00:21:26,540 And it all needed to be something that people could like look at and consume and be entertained 310 00:21:26,540 --> 00:21:27,540 by. 311 00:21:27,540 --> 00:21:32,700 I've always wrestled with that, and I'm very thankful that I have that those memories from 312 00:21:32,700 --> 00:21:37,860 like the first early years when that was not the expectation, because I think I have that 313 00:21:37,860 --> 00:21:41,460 contrast sort of built in. 314 00:21:41,460 --> 00:21:44,540 But I knew from the beginning, you know, I don't want my kids to remember me with like 315 00:21:44,540 --> 00:21:46,940 this little rectangle in my hand all the time. 316 00:21:46,940 --> 00:21:49,020 So I've been pretty careful about it from the beginning. 317 00:21:49,020 --> 00:21:55,820 But my my opinions on all of this have really grown and I've I've come to understand them 318 00:21:55,820 --> 00:22:02,180 more and yet the smartphone thing has just still become harder, not easier, because, 319 00:22:02,180 --> 00:22:07,700 you know, I think once your kids are in elementary school, so much of parenting happens, you 320 00:22:07,700 --> 00:22:12,060 know, in connection with your phone, you're having to answer emails from teachers and 321 00:22:12,060 --> 00:22:13,540 sign them up for stuff and all that. 322 00:22:13,540 --> 00:22:14,940 And you have to be on call all the time. 323 00:22:14,940 --> 00:22:18,740 So it's it's hard to extricate yourself from that unless you're really, really intentional 324 00:22:18,740 --> 00:22:19,740 about it. 325 00:22:19,740 --> 00:22:25,380 Yeah, that makes me think of the the people my age who are having kids. 326 00:22:25,380 --> 00:22:26,500 I'm 26. 327 00:22:26,500 --> 00:22:32,020 And so you mentioned 12 years ago was the first was the first time you had a kid. 328 00:22:32,020 --> 00:22:38,980 And so, yeah, like people in my generation, I see pictures of their babies all over Instagram, 329 00:22:38,980 --> 00:22:41,500 all over like every social media channel. 330 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:46,780 And it's like that instinct is already so ingrained in them posting about themselves 331 00:22:46,780 --> 00:22:50,900 that it's like just it's the natural next step is to post the same amount of stuff about 332 00:22:50,900 --> 00:22:52,340 their kids and everything. 333 00:22:52,340 --> 00:22:58,660 And yeah, so it's going to obviously be changing for each generation in terms of how that posting 334 00:22:58,660 --> 00:22:59,660 wish ship works. 335 00:22:59,660 --> 00:23:04,100 But it's I think not getting less complicated right now. 336 00:23:04,100 --> 00:23:08,420 It's not getting less complicated for sure. 337 00:23:08,420 --> 00:23:11,060 So the next question is about the difference in phone use. 338 00:23:11,060 --> 00:23:15,300 So you've talked a lot about your phone use and signing kids up for things and everything 339 00:23:15,300 --> 00:23:16,740 like that. 340 00:23:16,740 --> 00:23:22,540 How does the use how does parent phone use compared to child phone use, how that impacts 341 00:23:22,540 --> 00:23:24,540 the parent and child dynamic? 342 00:23:24,540 --> 00:23:30,260 Are they impacted in similar ways or in different ways or kind of a middle ground? 343 00:23:30,260 --> 00:23:38,700 Yeah, I think, you know, in some ways, we want to think as adults that we're not being 344 00:23:38,700 --> 00:23:42,420 manipulated by the same forces that our kids are with their little growing brains. 345 00:23:42,420 --> 00:23:46,940 But I think in a lot of ways, we're as victimized by it as they are. 346 00:23:46,940 --> 00:23:48,820 So I think in a lot of ways, it's the same. 347 00:23:48,820 --> 00:23:53,100 But, you know, obviously, the difference is that kids who are raised this way don't have 348 00:23:53,100 --> 00:23:54,260 that that contrast. 349 00:23:54,260 --> 00:23:56,540 I didn't have a cell phone when I was a kid. 350 00:23:56,540 --> 00:23:58,420 You know, I'm a I'm 40 right now. 351 00:23:58,420 --> 00:24:03,660 So I'm sort of of that generation that we remember what it was like to not have phones 352 00:24:03,660 --> 00:24:04,660 growing up. 353 00:24:04,660 --> 00:24:10,660 And I think for for kids now, I think there's so much conversation about screen time, like 354 00:24:10,660 --> 00:24:11,820 it's going to rot your brain. 355 00:24:11,820 --> 00:24:17,180 And I think there's not enough conversation around sort of what's one level below that, 356 00:24:17,180 --> 00:24:21,500 because it's not compelling just to say to a kid like or to a parent, limit your kid's 357 00:24:21,500 --> 00:24:25,500 screen time just because you want them to be smart or something. 358 00:24:25,500 --> 00:24:30,660 But what's actually happening is that, you know, these algorithms and echo chambers are 359 00:24:30,660 --> 00:24:37,540 creating kids who spend a lot of time on a phone that works perfectly for them. 360 00:24:37,540 --> 00:24:42,220 And they live inside a world that exists only for them. 361 00:24:42,220 --> 00:24:46,980 And I think we are sort of underestimating the impact of that long term, that these are 362 00:24:46,980 --> 00:24:51,940 going to grow into adults who are used to living in a world designed for them. 363 00:24:51,940 --> 00:24:56,300 And that doesn't really force kids to develop grit or critical thinking, like I said, that 364 00:24:56,300 --> 00:24:58,580 I really think they're going to need. 365 00:24:58,580 --> 00:25:01,220 And it's not so different for us as adults. 366 00:25:01,220 --> 00:25:06,740 We like our phones because we like that little world that gives us everything we think is 367 00:25:06,740 --> 00:25:10,900 funny and everything we want to hear and everything we want to read. 368 00:25:10,900 --> 00:25:11,900 I like it. 369 00:25:11,900 --> 00:25:16,660 You know, I love that my podcasts are queued up to know exactly what I want to listen to 370 00:25:16,660 --> 00:25:17,660 next. 371 00:25:17,660 --> 00:25:18,660 It's great. 372 00:25:18,660 --> 00:25:19,660 It's a great feeling. 373 00:25:19,660 --> 00:25:24,620 But at the same time, you know, I at least have the contrast of knowing that's not the 374 00:25:24,620 --> 00:25:26,880 way the world has always been. 375 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:32,300 And so I think for kids, you know, I try so much less to think about like, screen time 376 00:25:32,300 --> 00:25:37,980 is just bad because screen time is bad, but rather like what is an alternative here where 377 00:25:37,980 --> 00:25:42,240 you could go out and, you know, be in the world in a way that it's going to push back 378 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:49,380 on you and form you a little bit better than, you know, a device is going to do. 379 00:25:49,380 --> 00:25:51,260 How do you approach that with your own kids? 380 00:25:51,260 --> 00:25:56,020 I would imagine you have some sort of screen time limit for your kids. 381 00:25:56,020 --> 00:25:58,740 So how do you actually navigate that in your family? 382 00:25:58,740 --> 00:26:00,420 Yeah, it's funny. 383 00:26:00,420 --> 00:26:03,180 When my youngest was little, she didn't watch TV. 384 00:26:03,180 --> 00:26:05,980 I mean, I think she was like four before she watched TV. 385 00:26:05,980 --> 00:26:09,140 I was such a freak about watching TV. 386 00:26:09,140 --> 00:26:11,380 And now I'm like TV, TV is fine. 387 00:26:11,380 --> 00:26:12,700 TV is not the algorithm. 388 00:26:12,700 --> 00:26:19,020 So it's funny now that seems quaint, but we don't have we don't have iPads or phones. 389 00:26:19,020 --> 00:26:24,580 And you know, my kids, I think are good about going outside. 390 00:26:24,580 --> 00:26:26,580 They're very avid readers. 391 00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:29,060 They all all four of them read at one. 392 00:26:29,060 --> 00:26:34,100 And I think in order to make that possible, I have to be willing to read a ton. 393 00:26:34,100 --> 00:26:35,820 So I like to read. 394 00:26:35,820 --> 00:26:38,940 And that's that's easier for me than I think it would be for other people. 395 00:26:38,940 --> 00:26:41,140 So I don't think that's necessarily like the answer for people. 396 00:26:41,140 --> 00:26:43,660 But in our house, somebody always has a book. 397 00:26:43,660 --> 00:26:45,460 So then everybody else just picks up a book. 398 00:26:45,460 --> 00:26:46,980 And that's like an easy thing to do. 399 00:26:46,980 --> 00:26:50,300 But so we don't have the device. 400 00:26:50,300 --> 00:26:56,540 They have no experience whatsoever yet with the devices that do what they want them to 401 00:26:56,540 --> 00:26:57,540 do. 402 00:26:57,540 --> 00:27:01,580 And then like this is going to sound really maybe strict and silly. 403 00:27:01,580 --> 00:27:05,740 But I even when they're watching TV, try to say like, y'all need to pick a show that you 404 00:27:05,740 --> 00:27:10,820 can watch together, because I think even that friction of like you don't get to just go 405 00:27:10,820 --> 00:27:15,100 down the Netflix algorithm, you know, toward exactly what you love. 406 00:27:15,100 --> 00:27:18,580 But like, hey, you got to talk to your brother and see what your brother also wants to watch 407 00:27:18,580 --> 00:27:20,580 and make this little concession. 408 00:27:20,580 --> 00:27:24,980 And I think those little mini concessions all the time actually do add up to the world 409 00:27:24,980 --> 00:27:26,900 is not built for me. 410 00:27:26,900 --> 00:27:31,540 You know, I am not the only person who why would you not grow up thinking you were kind 411 00:27:31,540 --> 00:27:37,940 of the most important person in the world if Netflix told you you were all your references 412 00:27:37,940 --> 00:27:40,460 were that important? 413 00:27:40,460 --> 00:27:43,380 So I don't know, maybe that sounds silly, but I think I try to push back in just these 414 00:27:43,380 --> 00:27:45,380 little ways. 415 00:27:45,380 --> 00:27:52,940 You know, but I also try really hard not to make screens like the Forbidden Fruit, because 416 00:27:52,940 --> 00:27:54,660 I think you do that. 417 00:27:54,660 --> 00:28:00,980 You know, they they go to high school or whatever, and just go crazy and present that or whatever. 418 00:28:00,980 --> 00:28:03,900 So it's a it's a fine line. 419 00:28:03,900 --> 00:28:10,060 But I think the way that I try to do that without, you know, bossing them around about 420 00:28:10,060 --> 00:28:14,100 screens all the time is just with myself, like you see that I'm not on the screen, you 421 00:28:14,100 --> 00:28:17,700 see that I'm outside or I'm reading a book or planning a garden or painting a picture 422 00:28:17,700 --> 00:28:21,000 or whatever, then my hope is that you're going to want to come do that with me. 423 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,100 So that's that's my best shot at it. 424 00:28:24,100 --> 00:28:25,100 It's not easy. 425 00:28:25,100 --> 00:28:29,780 I like that idea of the making them choose a show together because they're still getting 426 00:28:29,780 --> 00:28:30,780 to have the thing they want. 427 00:28:30,780 --> 00:28:34,860 They still get to watch TV, but then they also have to do a little bit of critical thinking 428 00:28:34,860 --> 00:28:37,180 a little bit to determine how to how to compromise a bit. 429 00:28:37,180 --> 00:28:39,100 So I don't think I like that idea. 430 00:28:39,100 --> 00:28:40,100 Yeah. 431 00:28:40,100 --> 00:28:42,460 So do any of your kids have smartphones currently? 432 00:28:42,460 --> 00:28:44,620 No, no one has a phone yet. 433 00:28:44,620 --> 00:28:51,980 My world has a watch, Apple Watch, which started to feel and you know, I know this is this 434 00:28:51,980 --> 00:28:58,340 is not true, but it had started to feel almost necessary because the teachers and school 435 00:28:58,340 --> 00:29:02,100 administrators assume that they have devices by the time they get to seventh grade. 436 00:29:02,100 --> 00:29:08,260 And so change, you know, the time the practice ends or, you know, some way need to get in 437 00:29:08,260 --> 00:29:10,380 touch with a kid and they need to get in touch with you. 438 00:29:10,380 --> 00:29:14,760 So anyway, we got a smartphone, a smart watch, and that has been great. 439 00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:19,580 It feels like everything that we need to do without all the stuff we don't want to do. 440 00:29:19,580 --> 00:29:22,460 And I don't know, we haven't made a decision about when somebody will get a phone. 441 00:29:22,460 --> 00:29:26,220 So it's a constant topic of conversation with my 12 year old. 442 00:29:26,220 --> 00:29:30,920 Yeah, that was my next question because it's it's you can have this nice little model for 443 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:35,900 your own family, but then other kids are having phones and the peer pressure just really becomes 444 00:29:35,900 --> 00:29:38,340 a massive aspect of it. 445 00:29:38,340 --> 00:29:39,740 And yeah, so that was gonna be the question. 446 00:29:39,740 --> 00:29:44,780 If you had any model for when they would get a smartphone, because at some point they do 447 00:29:44,780 --> 00:29:47,580 need one, either when it's 18 or whatever it is. 448 00:29:47,580 --> 00:29:50,740 So how do you like where is there a line for you? 449 00:29:50,740 --> 00:29:53,740 Yeah, I told them eighth grade a long time ago. 450 00:29:53,740 --> 00:29:58,540 And boy, did they remember that I thought eighth grade would never come. 451 00:29:58,540 --> 00:29:59,960 But you know, here we are. 452 00:29:59,960 --> 00:30:05,340 And I think that's reasonable because again, I think you're trying to walk that line between 453 00:30:05,340 --> 00:30:09,580 if you never have this under our roof, we also never get to have a conversation with 454 00:30:09,580 --> 00:30:13,100 you about how to be responsible with it. 455 00:30:13,100 --> 00:30:16,460 And so it doesn't make sense to me to give it to them on their way out the door, you 456 00:30:16,460 --> 00:30:18,460 know, when they're 18. 457 00:30:18,460 --> 00:30:22,740 But I do think, you know, I remember when my daughter turned 12 thinking like she had 458 00:30:22,740 --> 00:30:28,900 12 years without phones without technology without internet and like that felt really 459 00:30:28,900 --> 00:30:29,900 good to me. 460 00:30:29,900 --> 00:30:32,620 It felt like, okay, whatever happens from this point on is going to be she's gonna be 461 00:30:32,620 --> 00:30:37,600 okay because she has that 12 years to remember that I think a lot of kids don't have. 462 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:39,460 And that's really grateful for. 463 00:30:39,460 --> 00:30:40,820 So I kind of wanted to give her that. 464 00:30:40,820 --> 00:30:46,540 And we talked about eighth grade, but we also you know, the one advantage of your kid not 465 00:30:46,540 --> 00:30:51,840 having a smartphone when everyone around them does is that they do get to watch how it changes 466 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:53,180 their friends. 467 00:30:53,180 --> 00:30:56,340 And so like even a couple nights ago, she had a couple of friends that were watching 468 00:30:56,340 --> 00:30:59,260 a movie and they were on their phones the whole time. 469 00:30:59,260 --> 00:31:02,700 And afterward, the next day, she said like, I hated that. 470 00:31:02,700 --> 00:31:04,440 I did not like that. 471 00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,820 You know, I hope I'm not like that when I get a phone. 472 00:31:06,820 --> 00:31:11,260 And you know, of course, I was thinking like, yes, this little lesson was learned. 473 00:31:11,260 --> 00:31:13,660 But that felt like a freebie. 474 00:31:13,660 --> 00:31:18,460 But I think sometimes there is, you know, there is that critical thinking about like, 475 00:31:18,460 --> 00:31:20,500 oh, I don't want to be addicted the way they're addicted. 476 00:31:20,500 --> 00:31:22,340 They get to see that a little bit. 477 00:31:22,340 --> 00:31:26,420 And so I think she'll be fairly thoughtful about it when she gets a smartphone. 478 00:31:26,420 --> 00:31:27,420 I hope. 479 00:31:27,420 --> 00:31:31,460 Yeah, I can imagine how good of a win that must have felt like. 480 00:31:31,460 --> 00:31:36,060 Like all your little poking and probably you've said like over the years to have her notice 481 00:31:36,060 --> 00:31:38,260 that herself, I'm sure it felt very, very good. 482 00:31:38,260 --> 00:31:43,180 Yeah, that reminds me of a slightly broader topic of AI in general. 483 00:31:43,180 --> 00:31:46,580 So I'm going to go on a slight tangent here. 484 00:31:46,580 --> 00:31:53,180 So in my program, we use for scientific experimentation and stuff, we can use AI to help us out. 485 00:31:53,180 --> 00:31:59,540 But if we use it too much, then we're going to lose our intuitive sense of the field. 486 00:31:59,540 --> 00:32:04,540 And so I think the point of drawing back to what your kid's going through is the unit 487 00:32:04,540 --> 00:32:09,460 is training period of being able to have developed skills without that tool. 488 00:32:09,460 --> 00:32:14,900 And then once you get that tool, you are able to better differentiate between what situations 489 00:32:14,900 --> 00:32:17,660 are appropriate to use that tool and what situations are not. 490 00:32:17,660 --> 00:32:22,820 And if there's no training period in the beginning, then it just wraps them up entirely. 491 00:32:22,820 --> 00:32:23,820 So right. 492 00:32:23,820 --> 00:32:25,380 I think that's pretty well said. 493 00:32:25,380 --> 00:32:26,380 Yeah. 494 00:32:26,380 --> 00:32:30,700 And you don't want to ever make the technology just seem like the bad guy because they are 495 00:32:30,700 --> 00:32:34,060 going to probably have to use it in their jobs and in their lives. 496 00:32:34,060 --> 00:32:38,300 And I think if you've vilified it their whole lives, they're going to be scared of it. 497 00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:39,980 So I don't want to do that either. 498 00:32:39,980 --> 00:32:45,740 And again, this is all about holding tension between two things. 499 00:32:45,740 --> 00:32:46,740 I think that's hard to do. 500 00:32:46,740 --> 00:32:51,100 But I think saying, and always just having open conversations about it and saying, listen, 501 00:32:51,100 --> 00:32:52,820 AI is not inherently bad. 502 00:32:52,820 --> 00:32:55,580 It's just how are you going to use it? 503 00:32:55,580 --> 00:32:56,580 How are you going to use a smartphone? 504 00:32:56,580 --> 00:32:58,540 None of these things are like evil. 505 00:32:58,540 --> 00:33:00,540 We just have to be careful. 506 00:33:00,540 --> 00:33:01,860 Definitely. 507 00:33:01,860 --> 00:33:07,660 So what role does boredom play in the lives of parents and children in general and then 508 00:33:07,660 --> 00:33:10,220 also in your family? 509 00:33:10,220 --> 00:33:14,460 And should we be trying to increase the amount of boredom we have or decrease it or somewhere 510 00:33:14,460 --> 00:33:16,460 in the middle? 511 00:33:16,460 --> 00:33:17,460 Yeah. 512 00:33:17,460 --> 00:33:21,620 I went down a rabbit hole a little bit with all of this and went back and read. 513 00:33:21,620 --> 00:33:27,140 There's a media theorist named Neil Postman who wrote a book in the 80s called Amusing 514 00:33:27,140 --> 00:33:32,820 Ourselves to Death, and it's amazing how it's held up. 515 00:33:32,820 --> 00:33:35,180 He's actually writing about television. 516 00:33:35,180 --> 00:33:38,180 He has no idea of the internet to come, and he's just writing about television. 517 00:33:38,180 --> 00:33:43,340 But he's making the argument that the whole society has sort of become addicted to being 518 00:33:43,340 --> 00:33:46,700 entertained, to that feeling of being entertained. 519 00:33:46,700 --> 00:33:54,100 And the danger in that comes when we start to want our politicians and leaders to entertain 520 00:33:54,100 --> 00:34:01,620 us instead of doing what they should be doing, which is being boring and making decisions 521 00:34:01,620 --> 00:34:03,300 for us. 522 00:34:03,300 --> 00:34:08,440 And so we tend to think, oh, it's the, say, the political atmosphere or whatever. 523 00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,900 It's working because we're entertained by it, and that's what we're so used to. 524 00:34:12,900 --> 00:34:17,680 And so I think boredom for me, again, it's one of those things that sounds so simple, 525 00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:23,280 but I think if you trace out the implications of it, if you can deal with boredom, you understand 526 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,540 that you don't need to be entertained all the time and that what you should be looking 527 00:34:26,540 --> 00:34:32,420 for all the time is not just a quick fix of entertainment. 528 00:34:32,420 --> 00:34:38,280 And I think of it almost for me, so I gave up my smartphone for 100 days about a year 529 00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:42,340 and a half ago for a little longer than a summer. 530 00:34:42,340 --> 00:34:46,420 And it really helped me refine my thinking around all of this, I think. 531 00:34:46,420 --> 00:34:51,500 But one of the things was for me that being bored in the car was miserable. 532 00:34:51,500 --> 00:34:52,500 I hated it. 533 00:34:52,500 --> 00:34:57,140 I was quiet and I was itchy and fidgety and I hated it. 534 00:34:57,140 --> 00:35:02,900 And I think if you switch your thinking a little bit to think of it as almost like a 535 00:35:02,900 --> 00:35:07,820 spiritual discipline, this is a thing I'm going to endure, like maybe meditation or 536 00:35:07,820 --> 00:35:11,740 something like that, because I actually believe there's value in it. 537 00:35:11,740 --> 00:35:15,620 It changes it from being a thing you just want to escape all the time. 538 00:35:15,620 --> 00:35:21,900 But it goes back to that idea that the whole world wasn't made just for my enjoyment and 539 00:35:21,900 --> 00:35:25,860 my consumption and being bored is a reminder of that. 540 00:35:25,860 --> 00:35:29,460 And I think we all need that reminder. 541 00:35:29,460 --> 00:35:34,340 The 100 days without a phone, I feel like that's something that in an idea appeals to 542 00:35:34,340 --> 00:35:39,300 a lot of people, but in terms of actually logistically carrying that out seems very 543 00:35:39,300 --> 00:35:40,300 challenging. 544 00:35:40,300 --> 00:35:45,180 Could you outline maybe how you actually did that in terms of not being able to get texts 545 00:35:45,180 --> 00:35:48,380 and stuff or emails or how did you navigate that? 546 00:35:48,380 --> 00:35:53,300 Yeah, I think I had to be pretty strategic about when I chose to do it. 547 00:35:53,300 --> 00:35:56,500 I don't think I could have done it during a school year. 548 00:35:56,500 --> 00:36:01,380 And I also, you know, people are a little more lenient over the summer about how quickly 549 00:36:01,380 --> 00:36:03,020 you get back to them and stuff like that. 550 00:36:03,020 --> 00:36:04,540 So that was my first strategy. 551 00:36:04,540 --> 00:36:09,180 But also, I think I had to do a lot of work in advance. 552 00:36:09,180 --> 00:36:13,080 Like I had to tell a lot of people, hey, I'm doing you're going to have to get in touch 553 00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:14,900 with me another way. 554 00:36:14,900 --> 00:36:16,620 And I had a laptop. 555 00:36:16,620 --> 00:36:19,300 I checked email on laptop on my laptop. 556 00:36:19,300 --> 00:36:25,140 But I think that was a radically different experience because I even had, you know, like 557 00:36:25,140 --> 00:36:30,420 three email accounts coming to my phone together all in one place. 558 00:36:30,420 --> 00:36:32,340 And so there was just always emails coming through. 559 00:36:32,340 --> 00:36:35,540 And when I went to my laptop, I would check each email account separately and I would 560 00:36:35,540 --> 00:36:37,980 be sitting down at my laptop to check email. 561 00:36:37,980 --> 00:36:42,580 So there was this very different feeling between like I'm at the grocery store checking email 562 00:36:42,580 --> 00:36:46,260 or I'm at my kids soccer game checking email versus like I'm sitting at my laptop checking 563 00:36:46,260 --> 00:36:47,260 email. 564 00:36:47,260 --> 00:36:54,740 So I learned a lot about how I wanted to structure my day where the things I was doing online, 565 00:36:54,740 --> 00:36:56,460 that was all I was doing at that time. 566 00:36:56,460 --> 00:36:59,300 It's a lot better to me to do it that way. 567 00:36:59,300 --> 00:37:03,180 But I mean, it took it took a toll on my relationships. 568 00:37:03,180 --> 00:37:05,340 It took a toll professionally for me. 569 00:37:05,340 --> 00:37:06,740 You know, I'm a writer. 570 00:37:06,740 --> 00:37:10,540 And so there's a lot of pressure now for writers to have platforms. 571 00:37:10,540 --> 00:37:16,860 And you know, ideally, I should be like pitching something every day and, you know, putting 572 00:37:16,860 --> 00:37:21,140 my face out there all the time and branding myself and to make a choice to step away from 573 00:37:21,140 --> 00:37:22,140 all of that. 574 00:37:22,140 --> 00:37:25,740 It's not without risk or consequence. 575 00:37:25,740 --> 00:37:29,960 But I think you have to get to a point where you feel like it's worth it. 576 00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:34,700 And for me, I was feeling so frazzled and so burned out that it felt worth it to me. 577 00:37:34,700 --> 00:37:40,140 So I had hit a point where I thought the reward would be worth whatever I had to give up. 578 00:37:40,140 --> 00:37:44,020 What were the main benefits from it? 579 00:37:44,020 --> 00:37:48,020 I'm hearing one of the benefits was the particularly the part about when you're sitting down at 580 00:37:48,020 --> 00:37:50,580 your laptop, that's what you're doing in that moment. 581 00:37:50,580 --> 00:37:52,260 You're not distracted by anything else. 582 00:37:52,260 --> 00:37:57,500 And so you're not your intentions not fragmented at the grocery store or wherever other spot 583 00:37:57,500 --> 00:37:58,500 you're at. 584 00:37:58,500 --> 00:38:01,140 So I can imagine that being one of the benefits. 585 00:38:01,140 --> 00:38:03,820 What other things did you gain from that? 586 00:38:03,820 --> 00:38:05,500 Yeah, that was huge. 587 00:38:05,500 --> 00:38:09,260 I also it gave me the courage. 588 00:38:09,260 --> 00:38:12,340 I like to do what people want me to do. 589 00:38:12,340 --> 00:38:14,140 I like to meet people's expectations. 590 00:38:14,140 --> 00:38:20,780 And so it took me doing that to get to a place where I could tell people I'm actually not 591 00:38:20,780 --> 00:38:25,600 available or I'm actually not able to do that. 592 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,860 And it gave me so much practice at that that after 100 days of doing it, when I came back 593 00:38:29,860 --> 00:38:36,380 to my phone, it felt easier to say, you know, I sat down and I emailed like my kids teachers 594 00:38:36,380 --> 00:38:43,180 and I said, I'm not going to track their piano practice minutes on that app anymore, or I'm 595 00:38:43,180 --> 00:38:48,740 not going to, you know, fill out their reading logs three times a week, or I'm not going 596 00:38:48,740 --> 00:38:53,260 to whatever all these things that felt like they were just tedious and sort of taking 597 00:38:53,260 --> 00:38:54,920 up all of our lives. 598 00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:59,840 I ended up having a lot more courage to draw lines and put up boundaries. 599 00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:03,460 So for me, it was like the ultimate boundary for 100 days. 600 00:39:03,460 --> 00:39:05,980 And then I came back to real life. 601 00:39:05,980 --> 00:39:11,540 I, you know, became totally normal again, but I did have a stronger sense of boundaries 602 00:39:11,540 --> 00:39:17,260 and what I made to use a phone for and what I didn't want to use a phone for. 603 00:39:17,260 --> 00:39:18,260 That's awesome. 604 00:39:18,260 --> 00:39:20,820 Yeah, it's like there are these all these small things that we're sacrificing that we 605 00:39:20,820 --> 00:39:26,500 don't know we're sacrificing until we have the opportunity to lean back into them to 606 00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:27,500 an extent. 607 00:39:27,500 --> 00:39:32,540 So yeah, one of the other ways that we just are losing aspects of ourselves that we don't 608 00:39:32,540 --> 00:39:35,000 understand at this point. 609 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:39,520 So back to the parenting aspect of this. 610 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:45,100 So this idea of low tech parenting, to an extent requires time and resources that maybe 611 00:39:45,100 --> 00:39:47,080 some parents don't have. 612 00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:52,340 So how do you reconcile being able to advocate for this low tech parenting while also acknowledging 613 00:39:52,340 --> 00:39:55,540 that there are barriers for many families? 614 00:39:55,540 --> 00:40:00,940 Yeah, I can't reconcile it completely, but I will say this. 615 00:40:00,940 --> 00:40:05,700 Jenny O'Dell wrote a book called How to Do Nothing, and she writes something in there 616 00:40:05,700 --> 00:40:11,660 that really changed my perspective, which was that if you dismiss a way of being in 617 00:40:11,660 --> 00:40:17,880 the world because it requires privilege, then you're not pushing back and you're not using 618 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,240 your resources to resist. 619 00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:23,980 And I think what she says is the people who have the resources are sort of doubly responsible 620 00:40:23,980 --> 00:40:25,820 for pushing back. 621 00:40:25,820 --> 00:40:27,020 And that really resonated with me. 622 00:40:27,020 --> 00:40:32,420 So I think in order to believe that you have to really hold two things, one being that 623 00:40:32,420 --> 00:40:37,220 not everyone can afford to think about or enact these ideas, and two, that the ones 624 00:40:37,220 --> 00:40:42,620 who do have a tremendous burden to try to change the way the system is set up. 625 00:40:42,620 --> 00:40:47,660 And so even, I mean, I know it sounds probably laughable, but like me emailing a teacher, 626 00:40:47,660 --> 00:40:53,180 a second grade teacher and saying, I'm not going to track my kids' reading time on an 627 00:40:53,180 --> 00:40:57,780 app because they actually like to read and this is sort of ruining it, that feels to 628 00:40:57,780 --> 00:40:58,780 me like resistance. 629 00:40:58,780 --> 00:41:03,020 Like it's teeny tiny resistance, but I think in the position I'm in where I can send that 630 00:41:03,020 --> 00:41:10,740 email, maybe it makes it just the teeniest bit easier for the next person who doesn't 631 00:41:10,740 --> 00:41:11,740 have time. 632 00:41:11,740 --> 00:41:17,300 I mean, people without time and resources are the last people who need to be trying 633 00:41:17,300 --> 00:41:20,620 to track reading minutes on an app. 634 00:41:20,620 --> 00:41:26,340 So I feel like by my resistance, I do feel like it makes that maybe a little bit easier 635 00:41:26,340 --> 00:41:29,420 for somebody else, but it's definitely not a perfect solution. 636 00:41:29,420 --> 00:41:31,060 And I acknowledge that. 637 00:41:31,060 --> 00:41:37,540 I just don't want to, I don't want to throw my hands up and play by the rules of the system 638 00:41:37,540 --> 00:41:42,100 that I disagree with just because not everyone can afford to push back. 639 00:41:42,100 --> 00:41:48,780 And I say afford, meaning like time or energy more than I mean, you know, money. 640 00:41:48,780 --> 00:41:55,340 I do, I feel really silly a lot of time that I give so much of my thought energy to this. 641 00:41:55,340 --> 00:41:59,660 And I just have to come back to that idea that like we all have different things. 642 00:41:59,660 --> 00:42:06,060 I think that we're supposed to contribute and I want to, whatever the way my particular 643 00:42:06,060 --> 00:42:12,500 skills and interests align, I want to lean into that and not just feel guilty about it 644 00:42:12,500 --> 00:42:18,020 and think like, well, that's not as good as what so-and-so is doing or contributing. 645 00:42:18,020 --> 00:42:20,420 I want to just try to do it the best I can. 646 00:42:20,420 --> 00:42:21,420 Yeah. 647 00:42:21,420 --> 00:42:25,500 I think that question doesn't really have an answer that anybody could answer well. 648 00:42:25,500 --> 00:42:29,220 And so yeah, I think that that's a great answer to a difficult question. 649 00:42:29,220 --> 00:42:30,220 Yeah. 650 00:42:30,220 --> 00:42:35,960 It kind of reminds me a little bit of how very, very expensive things need to have really 651 00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,160 rich people to buy them before the price can go down on things. 652 00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,780 So you kind of need to have like electric cars, for example, like you need these really 653 00:42:42,780 --> 00:42:46,620 rich people to buy these expensive electric cars so that the investments in the technology 654 00:42:46,620 --> 00:42:48,060 can happen and then they can go down. 655 00:42:48,060 --> 00:42:53,060 So I see some similarities there. 656 00:42:53,060 --> 00:42:57,580 So if smartphones were to vanish tomorrow, what core parenting skill do you think we 657 00:42:57,580 --> 00:43:01,940 as a society would struggle to relearn? 658 00:43:01,940 --> 00:43:07,220 I think I kind of brought this up already, but that idea of multitasking versus multitasking. 659 00:43:07,220 --> 00:43:13,940 Again, I go down these research rabbit holes, but scientists have actually proven that we 660 00:43:13,940 --> 00:43:15,640 can't multitask. 661 00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,940 Scientists can only switch very, very rapidly between tasks. 662 00:43:19,940 --> 00:43:25,180 So we can feel like we're multitasking, but every time we switch between tasks, there's 663 00:43:25,180 --> 00:43:28,940 a little cognitive toll that we're paying to make that switch. 664 00:43:28,940 --> 00:43:35,860 And I think because it is such a small toll that it takes, it goes unnamed and unnoticed. 665 00:43:35,860 --> 00:43:42,020 And so we feel often, I think, fatigue or burnout or frustration, and we don't really 666 00:43:42,020 --> 00:43:43,300 know the source of it. 667 00:43:43,300 --> 00:43:48,700 And so I think whether this is in the workplace or parenting or whatever, I think we would 668 00:43:48,700 --> 00:43:53,980 all have a really hard time settling into that feeling of you can only do one thing 669 00:43:53,980 --> 00:44:01,500 at a time and you have to sort of bring all your conscious presence to bear on that one 670 00:44:01,500 --> 00:44:02,500 task. 671 00:44:02,500 --> 00:44:07,420 I mean, I can say from my little experiment that I did, it is deeply uncomfortable on 672 00:44:07,420 --> 00:44:15,340 an existential level to just on going for a walk or cooking dinner or whatever without 673 00:44:15,340 --> 00:44:20,420 a podcast in my ears or music or whatever else. 674 00:44:20,420 --> 00:44:23,980 I think we would be really rattled by that. 675 00:44:23,980 --> 00:44:32,400 But I also think, I always say that silence allows us to get sort of strange and weird 676 00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:33,780 about the questions we're asking. 677 00:44:33,780 --> 00:44:39,220 And so if we could slow down a little bit, do one thing at a time and allow for a little 678 00:44:39,220 --> 00:44:44,500 bit of silence, I think we would actually be able to address some of the bigger questions 679 00:44:44,500 --> 00:44:49,700 that we're having about the world right now that we don't look at because we're so distracted 680 00:44:49,700 --> 00:44:53,400 and frazzled all the time. 681 00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:57,700 So I think we would feel a lot of ansiness right away for quite a while. 682 00:44:57,700 --> 00:45:05,340 Yeah, I like what you said about the silence being kind of like a fertile ground for being 683 00:45:05,340 --> 00:45:07,900 able to solve bigger problems further on. 684 00:45:07,900 --> 00:45:13,500 Earlier you mentioned creativity is a function of messiness and willingness to accept failure. 685 00:45:13,500 --> 00:45:18,500 And I feel like boredom or silence is another potentially aspect of that as well, where 686 00:45:18,500 --> 00:45:22,220 you can have the space for those ideas to develop a little further. 687 00:45:22,220 --> 00:45:24,020 Yeah, I love that. 688 00:45:24,020 --> 00:45:28,860 So moving on a little bit from the actual parenting stuff, your profile says that you're 689 00:45:28,860 --> 00:45:33,700 interested in intersections in digital, so between two things and retention and all that. 690 00:45:33,700 --> 00:45:38,780 So what other intersections do you think about beyond parenting and smartphone use? 691 00:45:38,780 --> 00:45:44,900 And how can we best approach these intersections as individuals and as a society? 692 00:45:44,900 --> 00:45:48,420 I think all the juicy, interesting stuff happens at intersections. 693 00:45:48,420 --> 00:45:53,060 So it's one thing to be anything. 694 00:45:53,060 --> 00:45:57,020 Take your thing, a scientist, an artist, whatever. 695 00:45:57,020 --> 00:46:02,820 But where it really gets interesting is when you're a scientist and a mother or an artist 696 00:46:02,820 --> 00:46:05,500 and a person of faith or whatever. 697 00:46:05,500 --> 00:46:10,960 The way these things alchemize, I think creates something greater than the sum of its parts. 698 00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:16,620 And it really forces people to work out, you know, what are the inherent tensions and contradictions 699 00:46:16,620 --> 00:46:18,420 of being more than one thing at a time? 700 00:46:18,420 --> 00:46:22,860 So I think if you are, you know, and I'm not knocking this at all, but I'm just saying 701 00:46:22,860 --> 00:46:29,520 if you're a Southerner, rural, Republican, Christian, you probably can live inside those 702 00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:31,460 labels without a ton of tension. 703 00:46:31,460 --> 00:46:39,620 But if you're a Southerner, liberal, agnostic professor, you're going to have to work that 704 00:46:39,620 --> 00:46:40,620 out, right? 705 00:46:40,620 --> 00:46:45,140 You're going to have to not just rely on what everyone around you says you are. 706 00:46:45,140 --> 00:46:47,400 You're going to have to really think about it. 707 00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:58,260 And so when you get these weird combinations of, I guess, labels or groups or, you know, 708 00:46:58,260 --> 00:47:03,700 psychologists call them in groups or whatever, when those things sort of clash with one another, 709 00:47:03,700 --> 00:47:07,420 I think you have to just say, you're sort of forced to say, listen, I'm inherently a 710 00:47:07,420 --> 00:47:10,580 contradictory person. 711 00:47:10,580 --> 00:47:16,260 And I think that messiness is what makes people so interesting. 712 00:47:16,260 --> 00:47:21,460 I was going to say your Substack post titled How to be a Messy Human, you talk about how 713 00:47:21,460 --> 00:47:25,380 we become self labeling humans or self labeling wizards. 714 00:47:25,380 --> 00:47:31,160 So what role does that self labeling serve both in a positive way and also in a way that 715 00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:32,860 fails to serve us? 716 00:47:32,860 --> 00:47:39,480 Yeah, I think labels tend to be like a signal to your in-group. 717 00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:40,980 You know, I belong with you. 718 00:47:40,980 --> 00:47:47,940 And so we are, you know, evolutionarily, we are wired to think in terms of like tribes 719 00:47:47,940 --> 00:47:49,660 and that's how we take care of each other. 720 00:47:49,660 --> 00:47:50,880 That's how we protect one another. 721 00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,700 That's how we know we're safe. 722 00:47:53,700 --> 00:47:57,540 But I think, you know, as the world really does get more and more complicated and we 723 00:47:57,540 --> 00:48:02,400 know more and more, we have so much more information than we used to. 724 00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:06,460 Our labels have become, I think, just insufficient containers. 725 00:48:06,460 --> 00:48:11,880 You know, if you think about like Democrat and Republican, not only did they mean completely 726 00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:18,340 different things 100 years ago, but there's also, I think, 100 different ways to be either 727 00:48:18,340 --> 00:48:21,660 one of those things, 100 different reasons you could have for being either one of those 728 00:48:21,660 --> 00:48:22,660 things. 729 00:48:22,660 --> 00:48:28,660 So when you have to swallow the party position whole, for example, you have to really oversimplify 730 00:48:28,660 --> 00:48:33,660 your opinions and kind of dumb them down a little bit. 731 00:48:33,660 --> 00:48:36,540 And labels, I think, tend to shut down critical thinking. 732 00:48:36,540 --> 00:48:41,460 So instead of thinking, how do I feel on each one of these issues that is facing me? 733 00:48:41,460 --> 00:48:45,300 We just pick a bucket, you know, and we say, I just belong to this bucket. 734 00:48:45,300 --> 00:48:50,900 And I think then we behave with one another as if everyone in that bucket is the same, 735 00:48:50,900 --> 00:48:53,220 which is, I think, really damaging and dangerous. 736 00:48:53,220 --> 00:49:00,220 And so I think when we go along in that way, the labels can be really dangerous. 737 00:49:00,220 --> 00:49:09,140 And I think, you know, not to get too dark here, but I think when a whole society is 738 00:49:09,140 --> 00:49:17,320 trained to just be a simple label, it makes them easy to control. 739 00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,100 And I think there's just a lot of danger in that, like moving forward. 740 00:49:20,100 --> 00:49:25,660 I think we all need to own our thoughts and own the complications that are inherent in 741 00:49:25,660 --> 00:49:26,660 those thoughts. 742 00:49:26,660 --> 00:49:34,180 Yeah, it seemed like the label is a way to make a very complicated thing very simple 743 00:49:34,180 --> 00:49:36,460 and easy to digest. 744 00:49:36,460 --> 00:49:40,380 And as a small segue to the next question, kind of about clarity. 745 00:49:40,380 --> 00:49:45,340 So in the same post about how to be a messy human, you talk about a quote where a man 746 00:49:45,340 --> 00:49:50,620 has traveled to Seekak Vice for Mother Teresa, and she asks him what he should, she asks 747 00:49:50,620 --> 00:49:52,140 him what she should pray for. 748 00:49:52,140 --> 00:49:55,040 And he says, clarity, pray that I have clarity. 749 00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:59,980 And then Mother Teresa shakes her head and says, no, I will not pray that you find clarity. 750 00:49:59,980 --> 00:50:03,340 Clarity is the last thing you're clinging to and must let go of. 751 00:50:03,340 --> 00:50:07,940 So my question is, how has your personal relationship with the need or desire for clarity evolved? 752 00:50:07,940 --> 00:50:11,020 And what is that relationship like now? 753 00:50:11,020 --> 00:50:17,300 Yeah, I mean, that question really opens up a can of worms, but I'm happy to dig in a 754 00:50:17,300 --> 00:50:18,300 little bit. 755 00:50:18,300 --> 00:50:22,420 You know, I think that, like I said earlier, I liked to feel like I was kind of in charge 756 00:50:22,420 --> 00:50:26,940 of the world and had all the answers, and that was especially true when it came to like 757 00:50:26,940 --> 00:50:31,380 religion and God and that kind of like worldview or ideology. 758 00:50:31,380 --> 00:50:38,140 And I think in little ways, I've been proven wrong a lot and in big ways. 759 00:50:38,140 --> 00:50:46,300 And I think that operating with intellectual humility allows me to engage so many such 760 00:50:46,300 --> 00:50:53,340 a wider range of ideas and a wider range of people. 761 00:50:53,340 --> 00:50:58,400 And I think my thinking has really changed from, you know, people like me are interesting 762 00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,780 to everyone is so interesting. 763 00:51:00,780 --> 00:51:07,700 Like it's like it kind of exploded my world to feel like I don't need to have you pegged 764 00:51:07,700 --> 00:51:11,300 to interact with you or become friends with you. 765 00:51:11,300 --> 00:51:16,240 And in fact, if I do have you pegged, I kind of like lose interest a little bit now because 766 00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:23,340 I'm just I'm so interested in people who are figuring things out, whatever that means. 767 00:51:23,340 --> 00:51:25,260 And I think we're all in a process of figuring things out. 768 00:51:25,260 --> 00:51:30,460 And if we're not, we're probably not telling ourselves the truth because nobody knows everything, 769 00:51:30,460 --> 00:51:31,460 obviously. 770 00:51:31,460 --> 00:51:35,980 So people who are honest about that, people who are honest about, you know, their own 771 00:51:35,980 --> 00:51:40,660 confusion and their own, you know, uncertainty about how to label themselves or where they 772 00:51:40,660 --> 00:51:41,900 belong. 773 00:51:41,900 --> 00:51:46,180 I think that again, that's fertile territory for just a lot of really interesting intellectual 774 00:51:46,180 --> 00:51:51,260 conversations, conversations about, you know, religion, conversations about values, all 775 00:51:51,260 --> 00:51:53,540 of that. 776 00:51:53,540 --> 00:51:58,460 So I have tried to make, you know, I think we all inherently need clarity and I think 777 00:51:58,460 --> 00:52:00,800 we need a degree of it to function. 778 00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:03,660 So I don't think you can throw it out completely. 779 00:52:03,660 --> 00:52:10,020 But I have tried to make it not the thing that's like driving the car anymore. 780 00:52:10,020 --> 00:52:13,060 That was driving the car is curiosity. 781 00:52:13,060 --> 00:52:16,820 And you know, clarity sometimes comes on certain issues. 782 00:52:16,820 --> 00:52:23,820 But even when it does come, I want to hold it a little looser than I used to. 783 00:52:23,820 --> 00:52:25,980 This is a theme that I've heard in Alaska. 784 00:52:25,980 --> 00:52:30,260 So curiosity is a very big one for a lot of people that I've talked to. 785 00:52:30,260 --> 00:52:34,660 And I tend to agree that a curiosity is a very great one. 786 00:52:34,660 --> 00:52:36,540 This is a little outside of what we're talking about. 787 00:52:36,540 --> 00:52:40,460 How does skepticism then also play into your role of that? 788 00:52:40,460 --> 00:52:45,000 Because it's sort of like the quote of, don't become so open minded that your brain falls 789 00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:46,700 out your ear or something like that. 790 00:52:46,700 --> 00:52:50,140 So how does skepticism play into being curious about the world? 791 00:52:50,140 --> 00:52:55,620 Yeah, I wrote something one time called, I think it was called Be Curious But Generous. 792 00:52:55,620 --> 00:52:57,260 No, Critical But Generous. 793 00:52:57,260 --> 00:53:01,620 And I think, you know, you mentioned my sub stack is called Between Two Things. 794 00:53:01,620 --> 00:53:05,940 And I think so often wisdom comes in that tension. 795 00:53:05,940 --> 00:53:09,460 So if I can sort of locate the tension, I can understand the thing better. 796 00:53:09,460 --> 00:53:17,180 And so if you've got like confusion on one end, like you said, your brain might fall 797 00:53:17,180 --> 00:53:18,180 out. 798 00:53:18,180 --> 00:53:19,180 You just don't. 799 00:53:19,180 --> 00:53:21,900 And you're also going to feel just sort of like existentially tortured all the time. 800 00:53:21,900 --> 00:53:27,260 So you have to hold that confusion and that curiosity, I think, in tension with, you know, 801 00:53:27,260 --> 00:53:30,060 what are the things that I do believe to be true. 802 00:53:30,060 --> 00:53:35,840 And I just always try to think of it as I have this image in my mind of like I had this 803 00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:42,140 giant brick tower of beliefs, and I think it kind of got knocked over. 804 00:53:42,140 --> 00:53:45,220 And for a while I had nothing and that felt terrible. 805 00:53:45,220 --> 00:53:50,540 And then I started rebuilding, but I'm sort of only willing to go like three bricks high 806 00:53:50,540 --> 00:53:52,280 or something. 807 00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:54,020 And so it's not that I have nothing there. 808 00:53:54,020 --> 00:53:56,500 I think having nothing there feels terrible. 809 00:53:56,500 --> 00:54:01,820 And it's not useful because why would you what would be your motivation for anything? 810 00:54:01,820 --> 00:54:06,220 But when you get when your tower gets too high, you get just really fixed. 811 00:54:06,220 --> 00:54:08,100 You become really like fixed in an art. 812 00:54:08,100 --> 00:54:15,220 So for me, I guess it's a matter of having fewer things that I'm really, really certain 813 00:54:15,220 --> 00:54:16,220 about. 814 00:54:16,220 --> 00:54:22,260 But then within that certainty, you know, operating pretty strongly out of that. 815 00:54:22,260 --> 00:54:29,860 And I think there's a difference too between having values that are clear and having like 816 00:54:29,860 --> 00:54:31,580 beliefs that are clear. 817 00:54:31,580 --> 00:54:34,660 And I think those two things, I think that distinction is huge. 818 00:54:34,660 --> 00:54:44,460 Like my value is maybe inclusivity, but my beliefs can change around that value as I 819 00:54:44,460 --> 00:54:47,220 learn more and understand more. 820 00:54:47,220 --> 00:54:51,620 But the value itself, I think is going to I'm going to try to keep that pretty stable. 821 00:54:51,620 --> 00:54:54,140 Very cool. 822 00:54:54,140 --> 00:55:01,500 And another one of your posts, where you were just called Beyond Bodies, you talk about 823 00:55:01,500 --> 00:55:05,860 how we're experiencing a cultural shift into transhumanism, which is the idea that we can 824 00:55:05,860 --> 00:55:10,260 use technology to evolve past our physical and mental limitations. 825 00:55:10,260 --> 00:55:14,500 You say that people who aren't embarrassed by their humanity, their slowness, their 826 00:55:14,500 --> 00:55:18,500 fallibility, or their limited limited memory will be left behind. 827 00:55:18,500 --> 00:55:22,560 People who refuse to extend their powers much beyond what our human bodies have to offer 828 00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,780 will be considered quaint and old fashioned. 829 00:55:25,780 --> 00:55:30,580 So what worries you most about this future, which appears to be evolving well beyond just 830 00:55:30,580 --> 00:55:35,740 smartphone usage? 831 00:55:35,740 --> 00:55:36,980 I'm so worried about it. 832 00:55:36,980 --> 00:55:40,260 I have to really just kind of, you know, I think about these things and then I have to 833 00:55:40,260 --> 00:55:44,660 just kind of put them aside for a little while because I do I think this is I think we're 834 00:55:44,660 --> 00:55:45,660 kind of missing it. 835 00:55:45,660 --> 00:55:47,220 Like I think this is where we're headed. 836 00:55:47,220 --> 00:55:48,380 And not everybody's missing it. 837 00:55:48,380 --> 00:55:53,860 A lot of people are talking about it, of course, but you know, in day to day life, I feel pretty 838 00:55:53,860 --> 00:55:55,500 crazy for bringing this stuff up. 839 00:55:55,500 --> 00:56:00,380 But I think that it's happening in such subtle ways, like I said before, that you could really 840 00:56:00,380 --> 00:56:01,900 miss it. 841 00:56:01,900 --> 00:56:05,740 These ways that we're starting to behave like devices and that our expectations of one another, 842 00:56:05,740 --> 00:56:08,340 like even just why didn't you answer my text right away? 843 00:56:08,340 --> 00:56:13,420 That's an expectation you would put on a machine, not a human being. 844 00:56:13,420 --> 00:56:16,100 So I think we're headed that way. 845 00:56:16,100 --> 00:56:20,740 But I think in the same way, you know, you asked about AI, I think a huge part of coming 846 00:56:20,740 --> 00:56:26,060 to terms with all of this is realizing that if you do opt out, you are going to be left 847 00:56:26,060 --> 00:56:27,060 behind. 848 00:56:27,060 --> 00:56:31,140 Like I don't I don't think my opting out is ever going to become, you know, if that's 849 00:56:31,140 --> 00:56:34,940 what I choose to do is ever going to become the common thing. 850 00:56:34,940 --> 00:56:35,940 Right. 851 00:56:35,940 --> 00:56:38,160 Because we love progress. 852 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,360 We love newness. 853 00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:42,100 And so we're going to lean into all of this. 854 00:56:42,100 --> 00:56:47,380 We're probably going to, you know, build the plane faster than we can fly at what's the 855 00:56:47,380 --> 00:56:48,700 saying. 856 00:56:48,700 --> 00:56:51,820 And it's probably going to outpace us a little bit. 857 00:56:51,820 --> 00:56:58,020 And I think that, you know, you have to again, you have to have that resolve to decide, well, 858 00:56:58,020 --> 00:57:01,020 I'm either going to follow that trend or I'm not. 859 00:57:01,020 --> 00:57:02,900 And if I'm not, it's going to cost me. 860 00:57:02,900 --> 00:57:05,300 And am I willing to pay that cost? 861 00:57:05,300 --> 00:57:08,940 So as a parent, you know, you can be hyper scheduled. 862 00:57:08,940 --> 00:57:13,620 You can allow your kids activities to be gamified and you can track everything. 863 00:57:13,620 --> 00:57:17,500 You can track your calories in calories out and steps and all these things. 864 00:57:17,500 --> 00:57:22,860 Or if you choose to opt out, I think you're going to feel slow and stupid and lonely in 865 00:57:22,860 --> 00:57:25,460 a lot of ways. 866 00:57:25,460 --> 00:57:29,500 And you know, you're supposed to be quick now and you're supposed to be convenient and 867 00:57:29,500 --> 00:57:32,460 you're not supposed to like create friction anywhere. 868 00:57:32,460 --> 00:57:37,340 But I think to be fully human is to create friction. 869 00:57:37,340 --> 00:57:43,060 And so it takes a lot of like inner work, I think, as a human being to get OK with that. 870 00:57:43,060 --> 00:57:50,900 I don't think you can just be scared of what's coming and then make choices based on that. 871 00:57:50,900 --> 00:57:56,180 I think you have to have like a deeper value in its place, if that makes sense. 872 00:57:56,180 --> 00:58:01,460 So whether it's personally, professionally, you know, within my family, within parenting, 873 00:58:01,460 --> 00:58:06,140 whatever, I feel like this is what my intuition tells me is happening. 874 00:58:06,140 --> 00:58:08,780 And we watch WALL-E, that's like one of my kids favorite movies. 875 00:58:08,780 --> 00:58:09,780 Have you seen that? 876 00:58:09,780 --> 00:58:11,780 Yeah, that's a great one. 877 00:58:11,780 --> 00:58:19,060 And I've reread 1984 and Brave New World and they got a lot, I think, right. 878 00:58:19,060 --> 00:58:23,380 But in WALL-E, the humans are sitting in front of the screens and the robots are like delivering 879 00:58:23,380 --> 00:58:26,700 their little nutrient milkshakes and nobody's moving. 880 00:58:26,700 --> 00:58:30,040 It's that idea of life is entertainment. 881 00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:35,260 And I think more and more we're starting to feel like what's happening online is real. 882 00:58:35,260 --> 00:58:39,140 And then what's happening in our physical lives is the interruption to what's happening 883 00:58:39,140 --> 00:58:48,180 online and to switch that ratio and really embrace our embodied physical lives means 884 00:58:48,180 --> 00:58:53,060 like the example I always give is we have chickens and right now eggs cost a lot. 885 00:58:53,060 --> 00:58:55,460 So people are like, oh, I should have had chickens or whatever. 886 00:58:55,460 --> 00:58:59,900 But actually it's the most inefficient of all time. 887 00:58:59,900 --> 00:59:04,300 Like we pay way more to feed these chickens than we get in eggs. 888 00:59:04,300 --> 00:59:06,820 And they're dirty and nasty and gross. 889 00:59:06,820 --> 00:59:10,060 And I go out there and I'm like, you know, scooping stuff out of the chicken coop. 890 00:59:10,060 --> 00:59:12,340 And I'm thinking, what am I doing? 891 00:59:12,340 --> 00:59:18,020 But you know, it's an active choice to say like efficiency is not the only thing here. 892 00:59:18,020 --> 00:59:19,020 Right. 893 00:59:19,020 --> 00:59:23,380 But I understand that by like scooping out my chicken coop, I'm being, I think, left 894 00:59:23,380 --> 00:59:30,140 behind in a way that I have to find meaningful in order to not just get swept up and kind 895 00:59:30,140 --> 00:59:31,340 of go the other direction. 896 00:59:31,340 --> 00:59:35,700 But I think it teaches patience and presence and those are things that I value. 897 00:59:35,700 --> 00:59:36,700 Yeah. 898 00:59:36,700 --> 00:59:39,700 I was talking to somebody about Wall-E the other day also. 899 00:59:39,700 --> 00:59:40,700 Yeah. 900 00:59:40,700 --> 00:59:42,580 I think we're seeing a lot of parallels there. 901 00:59:42,580 --> 00:59:43,580 Yeah. 902 00:59:43,580 --> 00:59:48,820 And also the part you said about feeling slow, stupid and alone. 903 00:59:48,820 --> 00:59:52,380 That's a hard set to have altogether. 904 00:59:52,380 --> 00:59:59,100 And especially when the remedy to that is to just get online or whatever that next form 905 00:59:59,100 --> 01:00:00,100 is going to look like. 906 01:00:00,100 --> 01:00:04,540 I don't know if you've read or seen Ready Player One or Ready Player Two, whichever 907 01:00:04,540 --> 01:00:09,660 one it is, but that also reminds me of the real life being an interruption to the online 908 01:00:09,660 --> 01:00:10,660 life. 909 01:00:10,660 --> 01:00:15,460 And yeah, we have the multiverse and like virtual reality just starting to take off 910 01:00:15,460 --> 01:00:17,060 a little bit right now for us. 911 01:00:17,060 --> 01:00:22,340 And so, yeah, I think it's gonna be really interesting to see what that, how it actually 912 01:00:22,340 --> 01:00:24,700 plays out when we get to that point. 913 01:00:24,700 --> 01:00:29,180 Well, and it's funny because you said that about being like feeling stupid and lonely. 914 01:00:29,180 --> 01:00:33,020 What ends up happening, I think a lot of times, is then people go the other direction and 915 01:00:33,020 --> 01:00:42,780 they find so much pride in that stance that then they push away those feelings of feeling 916 01:00:42,780 --> 01:00:45,460 sort of slow and stupid and lonely. 917 01:00:45,460 --> 01:00:48,660 Because there's all these communities now that you can become a part of. 918 01:00:48,660 --> 01:00:51,340 Like, I don't know, have you heard of tradwives? 919 01:00:51,340 --> 01:00:58,100 So it's this whole traditional parenting movement where you're wearing like the little house 920 01:00:58,100 --> 01:01:02,540 on the prairie dress and you've got your chickens and you're baking your bread and whatever. 921 01:01:02,540 --> 01:01:04,220 And like you can go find those people. 922 01:01:04,220 --> 01:01:08,660 But then what tends to happen, not always, but what tends to happen is then that becomes 923 01:01:08,660 --> 01:01:11,020 the only right way to live. 924 01:01:11,020 --> 01:01:15,180 And people then sort of say, if you're not living this way, you're doing it badly. 925 01:01:15,180 --> 01:01:18,260 And I think, again, it just goes back to that tension. 926 01:01:18,260 --> 01:01:23,340 Like there is no perfect way to balance these things. 927 01:01:23,340 --> 01:01:24,340 You just have to wrestle with it. 928 01:01:24,340 --> 01:01:30,860 And you have to sort of say, I'm not going to go like all the way toward not having a 929 01:01:30,860 --> 01:01:36,340 computer, but I'm also, I want to be conscious about how I participate in it. 930 01:01:36,340 --> 01:01:37,340 Yeah. 931 01:01:37,340 --> 01:01:41,620 And we can't really, we can only speculate about all these things. 932 01:01:41,620 --> 01:01:44,260 It's hard to be able to tell what's going to actually happen. 933 01:01:44,260 --> 01:01:45,260 Yeah. 934 01:01:45,260 --> 01:01:46,260 Okay. 935 01:01:46,260 --> 01:01:49,700 So getting close to the end here, what's a question that you wish somebody would ask 936 01:01:49,700 --> 01:01:51,980 you? 937 01:01:51,980 --> 01:01:56,860 I wish someone would say, would you like to go to a cabin in the woods for a week all 938 01:01:56,860 --> 01:02:04,300 alone and have me lovingly care for your children while you're there? 939 01:02:04,300 --> 01:02:05,300 That sounds pretty great. 940 01:02:05,300 --> 01:02:09,300 What would that week look like for you if you were to do that? 941 01:02:09,300 --> 01:02:15,580 Somehow my meals would magically appear and I would just sit in a cabin alone in silence 942 01:02:15,580 --> 01:02:20,460 and probably get a lot of, I'm working on a book imagine and I would just write a lot 943 01:02:20,460 --> 01:02:21,740 with uninterrupted thinking. 944 01:02:21,740 --> 01:02:27,180 I think one of the hardest things for parenting, especially for an introvert is interruptions 945 01:02:27,180 --> 01:02:28,940 and noise levels. 946 01:02:28,940 --> 01:02:34,620 So when I have these little fantasies, it's about being in the cabin in the woods. 947 01:02:34,620 --> 01:02:35,620 Wow. 948 01:02:35,620 --> 01:02:36,620 That's pretty, yeah. 949 01:02:36,620 --> 01:02:39,620 I feel like a lot of people could benefit from that. 950 01:02:39,620 --> 01:02:40,620 That's how I feel. 951 01:02:40,620 --> 01:02:42,140 I was going to say, does that sound like your worst nightmare? 952 01:02:42,140 --> 01:02:43,820 Oh no, I would love that. 953 01:02:43,820 --> 01:02:45,460 So a quick story. 954 01:02:45,460 --> 01:02:50,020 So my parents, so we have some family down in the Bahamas and we used to go every summer 955 01:02:50,020 --> 01:02:54,860 when I was a kid and my mom and I are very similar in kind of the, could definitely get 956 01:02:54,860 --> 01:02:56,220 holed up in a cabin for a week. 957 01:02:56,220 --> 01:03:00,020 And like we also, the two of us love reading and so we would always be like just staying 958 01:03:00,020 --> 01:03:02,620 in the cabin, just like looking at the water and everything. 959 01:03:02,620 --> 01:03:06,620 And then my dad and sister were like, they got cabin fever like immediately and they 960 01:03:06,620 --> 01:03:10,180 like are always just going and getting on the boat and like go and doing stuff. 961 01:03:10,180 --> 01:03:15,660 And so we had like a joke about how it would always be me and my mom staying there and 962 01:03:15,660 --> 01:03:17,400 then Ellie and my dad going off. 963 01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:18,400 And so yeah. 964 01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:22,700 Didn't you benefit from having parents who were different from one another? 965 01:03:22,700 --> 01:03:24,700 Yeah, yeah, definitely learned. 966 01:03:24,700 --> 01:03:26,740 Yeah, definitely. 967 01:03:26,740 --> 01:03:35,100 I was thinking when you're mentioning the, what was it, the labels of being a Republican, 968 01:03:35,100 --> 01:03:39,660 religious and a conservative, there's one other label for it anyway, but that was kind 969 01:03:39,660 --> 01:03:45,780 of being able to fly in a quasi-frictionless state almost. 970 01:03:45,780 --> 01:03:49,900 And that made me think of what you said about you and your husband, where if you were very 971 01:03:49,900 --> 01:03:55,660 similar, you could fly in this kind of uninterrupted medium, but that probably would not do your 972 01:03:55,660 --> 01:03:56,660 kids the best. 973 01:03:56,660 --> 01:03:57,660 Right, right. 974 01:03:57,660 --> 01:03:58,660 Yeah. 975 01:03:58,660 --> 01:04:02,060 But I could be frictionless in my cabin by myself for just one week. 976 01:04:02,060 --> 01:04:03,940 Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. 977 01:04:03,940 --> 01:04:04,940 All right. 978 01:04:04,940 --> 01:04:05,940 So one last question for you, Lindsay. 979 01:04:05,940 --> 01:04:06,940 This has been great. 980 01:04:06,940 --> 01:04:12,300 What's the piece of advice that's important to you that you could leave us with? 981 01:04:12,300 --> 01:04:14,060 I think just really simple. 982 01:04:14,060 --> 01:04:17,980 It sounds very, very simple, but just you don't have to do things the same way that 983 01:04:17,980 --> 01:04:20,220 everyone around you is doing them. 984 01:04:20,220 --> 01:04:26,340 And I think especially when you enter certain realms of adulthood, whether it's like parenting 985 01:04:26,340 --> 01:04:31,780 or a certain professional track or whatever, it's just really easy to just do what you 986 01:04:31,780 --> 01:04:32,980 see. 987 01:04:32,980 --> 01:04:36,380 And I think that little awareness that you carry with you all the time, like, wait, I 988 01:04:36,380 --> 01:04:41,740 don't have to do it that way if it's not what makes sense to me or what aligns with my values 989 01:04:41,740 --> 01:04:43,220 is really freeing. 990 01:04:43,220 --> 01:04:49,540 Yeah, it's always hard to capture a massive amount of a conversation one little bit, but 991 01:04:49,540 --> 01:04:53,140 I think that does a pretty good job of summarizing what we said. 992 01:04:53,140 --> 01:04:54,140 So yeah, great. 993 01:04:54,140 --> 01:04:55,500 Well, Lindsay, this has been fantastic. 994 01:04:55,500 --> 01:04:57,300 I really appreciate your time today. 995 01:04:57,300 --> 01:04:59,620 Thank you so much for having me, Don. 996 01:04:59,620 --> 01:05:00,620 All right. 997 01:05:00,620 --> 01:05:14,140 See you later.