Yeah, we have that book in the bookstore. Have you read The Road to Character by David Brooks? He says there's two basically courses in life. You can be building a resume or you can be building a eulogy. And I think what happens is if you're not thinking about the end, you're just stacking up resume values, right? You're like, I did this, I accomplished this, I made this, I beat this, you know, I made this amount of money. It's all accomplishments. But that's not what people talk about at a funeral. They're like, they're talking about your character. They're talking about the impact you had on people. They're talking about whether you were happy or not, whether you had a good life or not. And so if you're not reverse engineering from the eulogy you want, you're defaulting to the building of resumes. And that's like when it comes down to, hey, should I do this project or this project? Should I move here or there? Should I get married? Should I stay married? You're thinking about these choices. It's going to come down to whether you're reverse engineering from something more significant and meaningful, that is a eulogy, or are you just going, what makes the most money? What's easiest?

What's easiest to explain, et cetera. It's why I'm a fan of the value of religion. It's about obedience to death. Yeah.'s having that in the in the mind in the mind and in the heart yeah that's what's going to happen that's the end goal and if there's a belief in something happens after what's religions have okay does what i do here now how i live oh it matters yeah which things matter right those those things we're talking about the mortal resumes yeah or that eulogy and that's what that that's what i love my favorite thing about religion that you get the out of the values that come with a lot of religious texts is based around an obedience to death yeah accepting the reality and the inalterability

of death. No amount of money or power or fame allows you to escape this thing. This is a

mortal game. Yeah. And there's an immortal game. Yeah. But this is a mortal.

But you said the way to escape the mortal game is through family. I think, you know what I mean?

Like people think about multi. I think it's the best one going. Yeah.

No, no. I it in a good way. It's like people want to have multi-generational impacts of like, I got to build this huge company. Right. Meanwhile, like they've got this little person living in their house that they could have, like, there are things on a day to day basis that affect me because of decisions my grandfather made or didn't make, right? And so that's three generations right there. And he was obviously affected by his grandparents. And so it gets real big, real quick. You realize, oh, the things I do or don't do has an enormous impact on these people. Meanwhile, yeah, another movie, another book, another project, it could affect people but if we're really being honest it's pretty it's a pretty ephemeral impact yeah and

you're you can't ever really measure yeah because you don't know till after the fact yeah success or failure sure did it matter that i did three months of press for that or did i done the same if i wouldn't have done anything you know what i mean right with children to use not the term of them being you know collaterally exports but that's our greatest export yes that that's our immortality that we have 18 years to work on this little epic called our children yeah and we don't own them and make to make them be like this we you've got children how quickly my biggest lesson i got when i first had kids was oh i thought it was more i thought it was uh more uh culture environment than dna and i was like oh no yeah the dna i they're they are who they are yes it's more dna than i thought yeah it was the first lesson i learned i got slapped in the face by that because i thought it was like the parent is full sculpting i was like no you're nudging and you're you're you're carving here and you're trying to put more what's healthy and going to turn them on and feed them in front of them. And you want them to get a few bruises. You don't want to take away all the thicket in the broken glass, but you also don't want them to break their leg every time they go out the door. So you want to give them a little bit.

Your job is to help your kids become who they are, not become what you want them to be. And I'm not teenagers now. That's a whole fun game.

Yeah. Of which I am happy to say I'm, I'm really enjoying. I feel like I'm hitting my honey hole of being a father in a ways the most challenging, but I didn't know that there was a stop between always like, I always thought it was your father early. And then later on, you can become a friend, but don't become a friend too early because they need a, they need a father. What I've realized now is that in between father and friend, there's a bridge called brother. Oh, sure. And I'm able to, especially with my teenagers now, them be in a tough situation or a great situation. And I'm patting them on the back rather than, hey, come here. Here's how you got it. And I'm not just going like, yeah, man. It's like I have a different arm around them. I'm with them going through things. I also don't have to edit my good stories as much anymore. I can keep in the juicy stuff. Because they can be like, they get it now. And they're like, Oh really? You're like, yeah. It's funny. You meet families and you're like, Oh, you guys

like, like spending time together. Like that's, and if that wasn't exactly your childhood experience, you're like, Oh, like people go, like you just said, you got 18 years together. And then, and then you see people and they're like oh no that they're spending like i i hear from people that come like one of my favorite things of all time is when somebody comes in to the bookstore to get one of my books because their kid told them about it and i'm like oh you guys are you guys have a mutual relationship that is not primarily predicated on the fact that they live in your house. Right. You know, and like when someone's like, oh, let me text my son about that. I love, oh, it's not that they're friends, but they have this exchange that, that surpasses, you know, the, the, the, the legal part of the relationship. And so actually you have their whole life, you know, if you do it right, you have, you have your whole life because ideally their life goes on longer than yours. They have your whole life to be taught and instructed and modeled. And that's how it can go.

If you do it right. I like that spin a term. You have your whole life and they have your whole life, but you don't have their whole life. Right. Yeah. Access. My buddy, Bart Nags, three daughters, you know, Bart. Yeah. And I'm, you know, talking about teenage years coming on until he's a good, good man, good father. And I was like, give me, give me, give me a hint, man. He goes, maintain access. Yeah. Keep access. And I've had to watch again, going into the brother, father to brother and be different times where they'll share something and condemn themselves. And I would have not known. And they're wise enough to know that if I don't tell, I'm probably not going to find out. Yeah. And first reaction, I go to judge and jury and then have to go, no, dude, they're sharing that with you. Yeah. It has to be some, we got to give some credit and a little bit of amnesty for the fact that they shared something that they knew they could have got away with. Yeah. Right. That's what you

want.

Yeah. And so main and learning the things that other parents already know, like it's, you don't get it right here in the one-on sit downs, you get it driving to school for the hour with the music on while they're looking out the window and it's not the, no, look me in the eye, unconditional, you know, attention right now. That's hard for them. But when you get it in passing, throwing the ball, and you're getting this great stuff, you know? So I'm working on that is maintaining access. You

know the story about George Washington and the cherry tree? Chops on the cherry tree and he tells you that. I was reading once that we missed the lesson of the story because it's not real. It didn't actually happen. The lesson was that he told his dad what he did that he trusted his wouldn't get his ass beat for it you know what i mean right right like that which was which would have been unique in the 18th century yeah that he told his dad the truth and his dad took the truth as the important thing not the i have to inflict punishment upon you for having you know screwed up in some way. That's what

you want. When I tell the story about me and my dad in there, when, when he got physical with me for stealing that pizza, he was not hurt because I stole the pizza. Yeah. He was hurt because I lied to him about it. Yeah. He'd stolen many freaking pizzas, man. He just want me to go. Yeah. I was told the pizza got busted. He'd go, Oh damn it. Well, if you're going to do that, you got to get away with it better. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or what? Yeah yeah what'd you do with your lounge but he was never and i didn't know that till after right and the and i will never forget the pain in his eyes the fatigue of his jaw dropping was not how am i failing that my son stole the pizza it was how am i failing that my son wouldn't just tell me the truth about that? How am I failing that I raised a son that lied to me three times about stealing my goddamn pizza? Come on, man. The way I would

think about it now is what did he do that made you not feel comfortable telling him? Why did you lie? Because there's something we do, we want them to say, you can come to me. That's what we say but then every day with our actions we're like yeah if you come to me it's bad for you right but we're not actually making it you know there's there's what you say and then there's

the case that you make every day dude the night i wrote a little quick blurb on at the beginning about losing my virginity by blackmail when i was 15 Maybe I was 14. You know what the threat was? No, you come to this hotel and you're going to me, or I'm going to go to your house and tell your parents that you've been drinking beer at your, your log cabin you built in the woods. Yikes. I didn't even tell my mom and dad that, man, I'm getting in trouble. I know now my parents would have been like, told that girl to get your ass off our porch how dare you try to manipulate your son come here come in here and it'd be out of it we'd hugged it out i didn't i didn't right i didn't see it and i would have not been blackmailed right

that

night right you know what i mean i i so i've got a couple if you knew you had same harbor i misread couple of times. I'm sure there's more than that. Right. You know? So I was, we were miscommunicating or I was misperceiving along the way in some way or not seeing clearly, you know, what was it, what I'd seen with my older brothers and how they were disciplined by rules and stuff like that. Maybe I didn't see it clearly. There's a guy, Dave Carey,

who lives in Georgetown. Or maybe I was just chicken shit. I was, I was talking to someone the other i was like i wish i was like i wish that my track coach just said you know this to me i would have gotten through and my friend was like they said that to you several times what the fuck are you talking so there's something about we can't hear what we're not ready to hear so they probably told you a thousand times come to me no matter what it is you won't get in trouble and then you just refuse to hear but anyways there this guy named Dave Carey who lives in Georgetown. He went to the Naval Academy. He was in the Hanoi Hilton with Stockdale and McCain, prisoner of war for like six or seven years. I asked him once- I was just in Vietnam last year. Oh, wow. He's this amazing guy. And he was saying that one of the things he learned as a parent, he's like, you always got to remember the goal of every conversation is to get to have the next conversation. I think about that a lot. Because you think your job is like, I got to discipline them. I got to get this point across. I got to make them understand this. And it's like, you don't know that this is the conversation where that is supposed to happen. Actually, it might be 15 years from now, they're going to be calling you with some problem or not calling you with some problem because of how you acted

in this moment. Amen. Yeah, that's a good one. It's a good one to remember.

It's good for life too, generally. Also take

some pressure off.

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

If you think this is the moment you're probably gonna say yeah i definitely i definitely have that that pride and arrogance to feel like no i gotta make it clear right now it's black and it's white do you understand that it's that clear say it back to me great period done are we done now okay everyone got it okay now let's have ice cream yeah it's like what they actually i'm like no it's just it's you don't have to put a period on the end of it keep it open and we can still have the s screen while we're finishing up the conversation right

which is that it's hey we only got 18 years it says who right you know you're not gonna can't have any good conversations when they're 22 i hope you could so it's like kind of yeah i think whenever i'm extrapolating i'm usually getting myself in trouble it's like i'm worried if you did this and then you don't understand this, then this, this, this, this, and you'll end up living under a bridge somewhere. Or, you know, if I let them talk to me this way, in this situation, no one will ever respect me ever again. It's that extrapolation based on, you know, an absurd series of assumptions. But

it's also, I think it's fair to say you and I really like logic. Yeah. Not everything's so logical. Most of these discussions are not about logic. Yeah. They're very passionate and animal want. Yeah. Need reactionary discussions. I mean, I don't, you know, I was like two plus two is four. There's the math. What don't we get about that? That's, that's you. A lot of times that's not the point that they're understanding or want to understand to go. Oh, I get it. Yeah. I didn't know that was the math. That's not easy what they're asking. Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be married you know i told you that uh mark waters uh goes to girlfriend's past you know i got do my homework on i prepare a lot for roles and i go into scenes and i mean i'm i know my man yeah and i've got clear decisions on what i would do and what if i hear something what i wouldn't do and he's coming up in this one scene and he's saying like yeah well i do it and he's okay that's good you try this i was like no no never do that uh no uh no that's false it's false wouldn't do it no no he's like after a couple retorts back he goes you know matthew you are never wrong and i was like thank you. But there's, there's more than one way to be right. And I went, oh shit. Touche Mark. And I'll never forget that moment. Yeah. And I, he just like, and I went, oh, and it was one of those, you hear certain things along the way, maybe once in a couple of years, some moment you'll hear and it'll, it'll, it'll be branded on you. Yeah. That's it. That's one that stuck with me on that, on that subject. There'd be more than one way to be right. I'm like, I love being right. Of course. You know, I honestly wish more people love being right. Being right is almost gone out of vogue in a lot of ways. Um, I don't think it's nostalgic to say competence is a real measure. Yeah, sure. Doing something well, right, as compared to doing something not well and wrong. Yeah. But it's not on the top of the list. I mean, I've talked about, I wish people need to bring embarrassment back. No, shame can be helpful also. It can be bad for art, but like

if you're not, if the only thing that is holding you back is whether something is strictly legal or not, we're in a lot of trouble. Yeah. You know? Why'd you do it? Because I could.

Yeah. Right. That's, I hear you Augustus McRae. Yeah. You know, I hear you as a kid, but do you want to? Yeah. Ask yourself if you want to before you can. Yeah. When you

can. Yeah. Ask yourself if you want to, if you maybe should. Can we go that far? I mean, I think we're realizing, oh, wait, the whole American system was based on these norms that we never wrote down. And we just assumed people wouldn't do certain things. And then certain people come along and they go, I'm going to do whatever I want. And we're like, we don't have any checks for that. Like, checkmate, you win. You know? No. That's 100%.

It's a big problem. That constitution of normal expectations and decency that were unwritten and understood are oblique now.

There's supposed to be some things that you commit Harry Carey afterwards, because you know what I mean? You're like, I'm out, I lost. It's like, no, sorry, yeah. Shake hands on it, got me. Yeah, exactly. You got me there yeah you know yeah but if we don't have that we're like a little bit oh shit we just have to wait for this person to die

i guess so from yeah

we just have to wait for this person to get tired or give up or i don't know it's crazy that's the final check in our system is like would a human being be shameless enough to do x, Y, or Z? Yeah. You know, it's crazy to put a full circle in and then I want to, I want to take you into the bookstore to show you something. But we were talking about like the prologue. I have two pages of notes of things I want to talk about. I didn't even look at them, but I think I got everything I wanted to set. You know, like you do the, Eisenhower had this thing about how plans are worthless, but planning is everything. You do all the prep, you do all the thinking about it. And then you probably don't use one fucking bit of it saying

earlier that i show up when i'm doing my best work i show up with copious amounts like a note and i get there and i'm like well duh duh well duh well duh not bringing that script to set anymore that was then do i trust that it has informed me enough yeah and. And do I go back and go, oh, you could have done? Yeah. But there, but because I wasn't adhering to that or going back, hang on a second, let me look at my notes. I found another magic trick along the way. Totally. Because it was in the moment. I wasn't going, hang on a second, let me check my notes to make sure. But I love to prepare and have those, have those signposts there. If you hit these, you will succeed. I don't know if you make magic. If you ask those questions, it will be a good interview. But if you have the basis of those questions and we go where we've been, maybe it's a great interview. To be able to relax, though, into that. Because I love the word. You love the word. And then today, I know if I'm going to give a speech or something there's some speech i'm like dude don't change a word of that yeah don't go off script yeah yeah but you're going to be reading instead of going engaging yeah and i have times where i'm like i don't care that's going to be printed and then when it's printed i want it to be exactly what is said here so maybe i won't be the best performing orator, but what will be, what will live on after will be exactly what I meant to say.