Brett, Christina, and Jeff are joined by beloved guest Merlin Mann for a rollercoaster of emotions and tech tips. From Merlin’s humorous takes on invulnerability and the quirks of managing medications to deep dives into browser tab control and the joys of music discovery, there’s never a dull moment. Brett struggles with an Oracle reorg, Christina reminisces about heart-wrenching childhood books, and Jeff finds solace in the comforting arms of Primus auditions. With discussions on the necessity of vulnerability amidst chaos and practical tech gratitudes, this episode balances heartfelt advice with side-splitting banter. Get ready to laugh, ponder, and maybe shed a tear as you navigate the complexities of life, tech, and emotions with the gang (and Merlin).

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Show Links

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Welcoming Merlin
06:44 Mental Health Corner
09:38 Sleep and Medication Challenges
29:21 Sponsor: Incogni
31:35 Work and Personal Struggles
42:09 Navigating Corporate Challenges
42:56 Exploring New Opportunities
44:04 The Impact of Frequent Management Changes
46:18 Mental and Emotional Health
47:40 Finding Joy in Small Things
51:35 Nick Cave’s Blog and Grief
01:08:16 The Power of Vulnerability
01:14:28 Sponsor: Rogue Amoeba
01:17:10 Bridge to Christina
01:27:05 The Emotional Struggle of Engagement
01:27:36 Questioning the Value of Awareness
01:28:18 The Futility of Constant Sadness
01:28:42 Philosophical Reflections on Life and Action
01:29:34 The Dangers of Over-Engagement
01:30:35 The Importance of a Balanced Approach
01:31:47 Transition to GrAPPtitude
01:34:01 Tech Tips and Recommendations
01:47:35 The Value of Control Center Customization
01:59:31 Final Thoughts and Gratitude

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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.

Transcript

You’re Not Invulnerable

[00:00:00]

Introduction and Welcoming Merlin

[00:00:00]

[00:00:06] Brett: Oh my God, this is Overtired. Welcome, everybody. Welcome. Um, I am here. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here with Jeff Severns Guntzel and Christina Warren and

[00:00:17] Christina: And

[00:00:17] Brett: guest Merlin Mann. One of our favorites. Merlin. How’s it going?

[00:00:21] Merlin: It is going great and you’re one of my favorites. I love doing this show. He

[00:00:25] Jeff: Oh

[00:00:25] Christina: Yay.

[00:00:26] Merlin: Christina. Rarely Danes to show up when I’m here, which feels important to me.

[00:00:30] Brett: Um,

[00:00:31] Merlin: We used to be friends. I remember that.

[00:00:33] Brett: two weeks ago we told everybody that we were gonna have an author that I was very excited about on, uh, last week. And then within about an hour before the show started, Jeff said he had food poisoning and couldn’t do it.

[00:00:50] Merlin: Oh

[00:00:51] Brett: And then right before the show started, Christina said, I have like a, a stomach virus.

[00:00:58] Brett: And [00:01:00] so I show up, I show up and

[00:01:01] Merlin: sit down? Christina? My friend, my friend, my friend, uh, from college, from Alabama would always say, I gotta go sit down.

[00:01:10] Christina: Yeah. I had to sit down for a while. It was, it was, it was. It was. It was. It was real. Not fun. It was

[00:01:14] Merlin: What a great phrase.

[00:01:15] Brett: So I show up and Corey shows up and I’m like, we can do this recording. Just you and me? No, it’s, his name is Corey O’Brien.

[00:01:25] Merlin: Corey O’Brien.

[00:01:26] Brett: He is, he’s an author. He’s a, he’s a, he’s now a cyberpunk author. He is a sci-fi author. But, um, he opted, he said he wanted to do Overtired in its true form with all three of us. So we rescheduled.

[00:01:42] Brett: That’s still up and coming, but this week we have Merlin, which is as good, if not better.

[00:01:51] Merlin: Uhhuh. You, you, are you, you’re John Ming. Me a little bit.

[00:01:55] Jeff: you Motting? Me? You know Cory Drow? Whenever I hear that name, I feel like 25 years [00:02:00] younger.

[00:02:00] Merlin: I know, I do. I do too. Oh, he was, God Bo was such a, had such a big influence on me, and they basically, Corey, Corey and Andy Bayo are the people I personally feel the most gratitude for, for like promoting my website when it came out. If it wasn’t for Corey, I don’t know. He’s an interesting character. That guy.

[00:02:20] Merlin: He’s got, he’s got strong opinions.

[00:02:22] Jeff: He does have strong opinions.

[00:02:24] Christina: He’s still quite in new terms. I mean, I hear every, and, and it’s weird though because, uh, I wonder if he’s annoyed if he’s as annoyed by am I am by how many people use in ification the wrong way. Like it’s just become shorthand for people don’t like something.

[00:02:36] Merlin: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:37] Jeff: he coin? Did he coin? Everything’s computer. Sorry. I really love that.

[00:02:43] Merlin: still say Wfi a lot.

[00:02:45] Jeff: Wafi.

[00:02:45] Christina: good.

[00:02:46] Merlin: Yeah. I still say that a lot. I think that was from his Magic Kingdom book.

[00:02:50] Jeff: Oh yeah. Loved some Disneyland.

[00:02:52] Merlin: Was it? Down, down in Mountain, the Magic Kingdom.

[00:02:54] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:02:54] Christina: That was good.

[00:02:55] Merlin: Well, I’m not an author. I’m the furthest thing from an author, but, um, I’m happy to be here [00:03:00] to, to fill time and I just wanna hear how y’all are doing Well. Did I try, I

[00:03:07] Brett: I, I enjoyed, I enjoyed reading you writing about not writing,

[00:03:11] Christina: Yes,

[00:03:12] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:03:13] Merlin: work.

[00:03:14] Jeff: It’s still writing.

[00:03:16] Merlin: Yeah. I, someday I wanna do a full, a full series of something, either written thing or probably a podcast thing about the things in life. We don’t get to choose top of the list. You don’t get to choose your trauma. If we could all pick our traumas, we’d have cooler traumas, sexual fetishes.

[00:03:30] Merlin: If we get to pick our own sexual

[00:03:31] Jeff: traumas.

[00:03:32] Merlin: we don’t have much cooler traumas and much cooler sexual fetishes. These are not things we get to choose. We, we find ourselves having them in dealing with

[00:03:39] Jeff: trying to think of what a, like, I’m trying to think of a cool trauma. I would want. What, what would you choose?

[00:03:43] Merlin: Oh, geez. I mean, I don’t, I I, would we be stealing valor to even talk about that?

[00:03:48] Christina: Mm. No, I mean, well, um, I think it depends on the trauma

[00:03:53] Merlin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

[00:03:55] Jeff: Yeah. I did just open a giant trap door and ask everybody to

[00:03:58] Christina: I know, I, I, I know what valor [00:04:00] I would

[00:04:00] Merlin: should check

[00:04:00] Jeff: without first dropping a dime down to hear how deep it was.

[00:04:04] Merlin: Oh, that I see. The water’s cold and deep.

[00:04:06] Christina: Yeah. I think I know what I would steal.

[00:04:09] Merlin: Um, hey, Christina, if you could pick your trauma and it would be cooler than whatever you’re working with now, what trauma do you suppose you would consider picking?

[00:04:17] Christina: Yeah. So I would like want some sort of like, like a parentage, things like, I don’t know who my real parents are. Like I have some sort of weird adoption kind of backstory or something like that. Like that would be

[00:04:28] Jeff: Because why? What, what, what would it, so what makes you say

[00:04:31] Merlin: If you’re actually raised by, raised by cap barez or something,

[00:04:34] Christina: Yeah. I just think it would be more interesting.

[00:04:35] Christina: Like, I just like, I just think it would be more interesting And you would

[00:04:38] Merlin: parents suck.

[00:04:39] Christina: right, well, yeah, well, and my mine kind of don’t, so like that would kind of be like a like, like, like, right. Exactly. So like, it’s nice, but it’s also kinda like, eh, so would, there would be like a part of it, be like, oh, I can like bitch about how bad my mom is because I never really knew my real mom because I was abandoned, because I have all these issues of not being good enough and like,

[00:04:56] Jeff: and you know what?

[00:04:57] Christina: do?

[00:04:57] Christina: I do. I live up to this like ideal that I was adopted into [00:05:00] and all that. That would be

[00:05:01] Jeff: and if that life was a song, you would go, son. She said, have I got a little story for you who you thought was your daddy?

[00:05:12] Merlin: wait. Is that, am I getting that right?

[00:05:15] Jeff: It’s

[00:05:15] Merlin: I’m either throat singing or doing Eddie Veder

[00:05:23] Jeff: We got that out of our system.

[00:05:24] Merlin: with a surprise.

[00:05:29] Jeff: Oh my God. I

[00:05:29] Brett: So.

[00:05:31] Jeff: I gotta, I wanna keep going. I wanna keep going.

[00:05:34] Brett: With, oh, don’t make me edit. Um,

[00:05:40] Merlin: wanna make work for you. I’ve recently started editing a podcast and like I, I, I, I treasure how little work I put into it. People edit too much. Just edit.

[00:05:50] Brett: well, I agree with that. I, uh, we, we don’t, we used to, I used to edit more, um, and be more, um, [00:06:00] anal about ums and ahs and misspeaks and, and I just, that’s natural. It’s like

[00:06:08] Merlin: you cut all of that

[00:06:09] Brett: don’t tune into us for a tight,

[00:06:11] Merlin: maybe it’s not a podcast that you want. If you don’t like that, maybe that’s not, you know, maybe what you want is NPR.

[00:06:17] Brett: Right.

[00:06:18] Jeff: Oh, you know, when I worked for, um, American Public Media, I worked with an amazing reporter and producer, and I sat in a booth with her while she grabbed the tea sound from another part of an interview and inserted it into the word that a person had spoken. And that

[00:06:33] Brett: I don’t want to do

[00:06:34] Jeff: that is all the way down the road.

[00:06:35] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:06:36] Merlin: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:37] Brett: So we’ve kind of already touched on a place that we know, we all know we’re going.

Mental Health Corner

[00:06:44] Brett: Um, but that’s the, uh, the mental health corner. We can make this, we can make

[00:06:49] Merlin: Have a song for it or

[00:06:50] Brett: last time I was here, we have talked about, we have talked about, I. I’ve always wanted like martini hour music for this, um, like a real [00:07:00] 1950s shrink office kind of thing.

[00:07:02] Merlin: like a maybe, like, you know, uh, yeah, like I’m, I’m thinking like a, like a, like a, you know, Jo kinda like,

[00:07:09] Brett: So historically when we do this with Merlin, it ends up being two hours out of a two hour and 15 minute podcast. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna do our best to like, have other topics, but we don’t have to because that’s part of the reason we bring Melin

[00:07:25] Merlin: people, some people would say that you’re passive aggressive. I wouldn’t say that.

[00:07:29] Christina: Some people would say.

[00:07:30] Merlin: Wouldn’t say, if it pleases you to be like that, I, of course, I’ll just do, do whatever you want, man. Wow. Wow. We learned so much guessing on a podcast in a web browser.

[00:07:41] Brett: so Merlin, how’s your mental health?

[00:07:43] Merlin: Good. How about you guys?

[00:07:46] Jeff: Pass the talking stick.

[00:07:48] Merlin: Um, good, good, good, good. I, uh, I’m always, um, uh, not always I’m, I, I’m trying to make a distinction that might seem, [00:08:00] uh, sort of, it’s early here. It might seem like, like sort of an unnecessary distinction, but, uh, I, I, I, I do like to distinguish between what I call mental health and what I would call emotional health.

[00:08:09] Merlin: I’m saying that like I’m some kind of like a revolutionary therapist that just invented that distinction. It’s just that in the day to day of people talking about this, the phrase I hear a lot is mental health. And I don’t know why I. I, I like, I, I think I do know why I like the distinction. I think emotional health and mental health are worth thinking about and looking at separately.

[00:08:34] Merlin: And like, just in terms of my own confession about that, it’s like, I have to admit when I hear mental health, I think of things like further on down the spectrum of like the sort of chemical issues that some of us have to some extent or another, all the way down to the chemical issues that some of my dear friends have that make their life nearly unlivable.

[00:08:51] Merlin: I think of those kinds of things, emotional health, boy, that that’s, that’s the key for me. How am I managing stuff in [00:09:00] life and how am I managing, or how am I experiencing to, to use a word, word, I don’t like to use that way, but how am I experiencing my emotions and how, what effect is that having, because as tight as your mental health might be, if you’re not managing your emotional health well, and, and I’m, I’m not even saying that’s kinda like pushing a rope.

[00:09:18] Merlin: Like it’s hard, like how do you, you know, decide to feel a certain way, but, uh, it’s, it’s all pretty okay. Considering as always, I’m working on sleep as always. I’m, I’m trying to work on like, you know, just a, a lot of stuff. I don’t want it to be two hours long if you don’t go into any aspect, I could do an hour on any aspect of it, but let’s just say I’m fine.

Sleep and Medication Challenges

[00:09:38] Brett: Well, since this is Overtired, tell me how sleep’s going.

[00:09:41] Merlin: Good. Um, we were talking before about, um,

[00:09:45] Brett: I.

[00:09:46] Merlin: um, me medicine things and, uh, pharmaceutical things, and in summary, probably something I’ve said each time I’ve been on is I, I always find it so challenging to balance all these different things. My mom as ever, is going through kind of a health [00:10:00] thing right now, and she’s always kind of my poster child for this, where like, once you’re on Coumadin, once you’re on blood thinners, everything gets complicated and there’s no more easy fixes for anything because everything ends up being slightly connected, related

[00:10:14] Brett: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:14] Merlin: uh, consequential to other parts of your physical health.

[00:10:19] Merlin: So, so for me, uh, that’s always been a balance. I was telling Brett that, uh, I have high blood pressure and so they took me off. So I used to be on real A DHD drugs and then eventually my rinku, my love put me on a Vyvanse, which is fine. Then after the blood pressure stuff, guess what? Abundance of caution.

[00:10:43] Merlin: We need to make sure I can’t, I can’t responsibly hand you anything that has anything with good salts in it if it could cause you to have a stroke or a heart attack. So then I’ve just been on pilot medicine, which is useless, uh, Modafinil, like the stuff they give people with work shift disorder

[00:10:59] Brett: [00:11:00] Narcolepsy. Yeah.

[00:11:00] Jeff: Trucker speed.

[00:11:01] Merlin: It’s not, I wish it was trucker speed. It’s, no, it’s really just what they give it all. What it does is it helps you not fall asleep without giving you precisely any like, super amount of energy. Plus, it makes me, I want to point out a distinction within a distinction, uh, as drunk and white have told us, feeling nauseous and feeling nauseated are different things.

[00:11:27] Christina: Correct.

[00:11:28] Merlin: Okay? I just want you to remember that. ’cause I’m like that. And this is what I live for, these distinctions. ’cause life matters, but also being nauseated is not the same thing as throwing up, being nauseated is feeling like you have to throw up. These things make me throw up almost every day that I take them.

[00:11:43] Merlin: And I’ve gotten used to it and it’s not a big deal, but they, they really don’t agree with me. Uh, anyway, um, last week I got back on Vyvanse and the nice thing about that is, and Vyvanse is a, as these things go up pretty benign, A-D-H-D-I could look it up. It’s like there’s basically two [00:12:00] kinds of

[00:12:01] Brett: Yeah, it’s,

[00:12:02] Merlin: speed.

[00:12:02] Merlin: There’s,

[00:12:03] Brett: the one, it’s,

[00:12:05] Christina: but it, but it, it has, uh, it, the way that

[00:12:07] Merlin: is it, I don’t think it.

[00:12:08] Christina: is

[00:12:09] Brett: Vyvanse is in the same class as Adderall, but it’s, uh, it’s got like one molecule removed

[00:12:14] Christina: Yeah. It has. Yeah. It, yeah, it has one, one different removal. It, but it, but it’s the same core thing. It’s the same as, as, uh, d arine or, or dexo, whatever, you know, which is like the oldest type type, type of amphetamine, but they have one less molecule, and the way that it, it absorbs in your body is this different, and it has to have like water.

[00:12:30] Christina: Like you can’t just like the way it’s supposed to be designed, you can’t just snort it. You can’t snort it. Yeah. And that’s, that’s part of why it was designed. And the other reason was frankly for, um, uh, patent extension. Um, and, and the patent, the patent expired like two

[00:12:43] Merlin: The delivery mechanism, you know, for your nex VM or whatever. Anyhow, uh, and that, that has been, I think, a boon, uh, in a quarter of a dozen ways where, uh, for one, uh, it doesn’t really do that much for me, but the [00:13:00] prospect of saying like, okay, I’m gonna get up. And I, and again, the balance, right? I, I can’t take it.

[00:13:04] Merlin: I shorten to take it at 11:00 AM because for whatever reason it has effects on me. I’m grinding, I’m kind of grinding my teeth at like nine o’clock or

[00:13:12] Brett: Yeah. As a, as a 16 hour half life.

[00:13:16] Christina: Yep.

[00:13:16] Merlin: So I, what I do is if I get up to urinate, I take it early, but this is gonna sound weird, but like, I used to really look forward to taking Adderall, um, because it had a huge impact on my ability to feel like I’m running my life.

[00:13:30] Merlin: It had side effects too, but that helps. So it ends up being this omnibus project with saying, well, if I want to feel the way I’d like to feel tomorrow, follow me. ’cause this is really, really dopey third grade kind of stuff. If I wanna feel the way I, I. De minimus level of functioning Tomorrow, I’ll, I’ll take a Vyvanse.

[00:13:51] Merlin: So when are you gonna take a Vyvanse? I need to take a Vyvanse pretty goddamn early. Like what, like 10 or 11? Nah, earlier, like I could take it as early as four and like [00:14:00] I can still sleep. But I’m looking forward to that because then I’m thinking when I wake up, I’m already, I’ve got one in the chamber and I’m like, okay, let’s do this.

[00:14:09] Merlin: I don’t know, it’s, you know, we sometimes, especially with children, I feel like we try to create, and this is way too big for this topic, but we try to create all these, uh, systems of, of fear and guilt and, and shame and all the things that make a kid do the right thing because they don’t wanna feel shame.

[00:14:27] Merlin: Um, and like as you get older, you can realize, well, I also have ways to motivate myself. It requires a certain amount of bifurcated self in some ways. The same way that the, the, the one in the morning me is different from the 5:00 AM me and that kind of stuff. But long story short, it, I think I now I have more incentive to try something I wanted to do anyway, which is getting to bed a, a little earlier and BA little more around the same regular time. And that helps me,

[00:14:55] Brett: Yeah, I, so I take Vyvanse for very much the same [00:15:00] reasons you are currently on Vyvanse. Um, what was the one we used to take? Both of us were on it.

[00:15:08] Merlin: speedy one or we were, we’ve both been on, am I allowed to talk about

[00:15:12] Brett: No, there was another A DHD Med.

[00:15:16] Merlin: oh, um, see, there was Adderall and wasn’t Concerta. It was, um, I was, I was on Ritalin for a time in the early days.

[00:15:24] Brett: it’s another one.

[00:15:25] Merlin: Is it a prescription one?

[00:15:26] Brett: Yeah, it’s in the same category as Ritalin. I forget now. But anyway, like they, they said that was too bad for my blood pressure. And um, so they put me on Vyvanse and then they lowered my Vyvanse dose when I started having insomnia again. Um, and that didn’t actually help my insomnia, but because like I was functioning on the lower dose, they kept me on the lower dose.

[00:15:51] Christina: on the lower one. Yeah.

[00:15:52] Merlin: Yeah.

[00:15:53] Brett: I have a whole, I have a half a bottle left of the higher dose, and every once in a while, if I know [00:16:00] it’s gonna be a rough day,

[00:16:01] Merlin: Oh, I was the same way. I had, I

[00:16:02] Brett: I’ll take the

[00:16:03] Merlin: I had three that I found in a bag for travel. Um, and I’ve been off it for, just so we’re clear here, we’re talking about two years, two years of, if I sometimes don’t seem as sharp, it’s because I’m 58. And also because like, I’m just, just, you know, I’m just drinking coffee and trying to say something smart.

[00:16:22] Merlin: And it’s not, it’s, it’s not always, uh, nobody cares, but it’s not always, you know, so easy. Um, but uh. It’s such, it’s all such a balance. And ultimately, again, we’re the project manager for those things. And, you know, you don’t want to, uh, you don’t wanna burn too bright and too fast. And it’s, I don’t know, it’s, I I’m not, I don’t have anything smart to say about it.

[00:16:45] Merlin: Uh, I I, I keep thinking of a book that I read that I’m not recommending this book, not at least, because it’s very, it’s outta print, difficult to find and full of, um, falsehoods, but it is a good read. And that is Albert Goldman’s biography of Elvis Presley.

[00:16:59] Jeff: Oh

[00:16:59] Christina: Okay.[00:17:00]

[00:17:00] Merlin: Okay. And Albert Goldman was this, I mean, one doesn’t say fabulous, but, but he was not above enhancing details of accounts that happened.

[00:17:11] Christina: Which, which means his books must be really fun.

[00:17:14] Merlin: Yeah. Yeah. And the Elvis one is great. It starts out brilliantly. I finally found, I’ve been telling my kid about it before he could talk, and finally I found a used copy and bought it and it was like, I gotta read the first chapter of this. ’cause the first chapter is so great. It’s Elvis circa 76, 77, getting ready to go on stage at one of his wackadoo shows where he does, you know, I wish I was, that’s trilogy at the end and all that.

[00:17:38] Merlin: Uh, and it’s, you know, it’s not nice to say, but for the young people, it’s fat Elvis. This is like in the time before he died, and the Descript of the drug regimen that he had before he would go on stage really just to get his day going. And you’ve probably all heard this, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s a controlling metaphor for me in some ways.

[00:17:56] Merlin: Elvis gets strapped into his corset. He has received [00:18:00] barbiturates, he has res, he received uppers, he has received downers, he’s received vitamin shots of many different kind. He gets double air quotes there. He gets vitamin shots of all different kinds. He gets, I think, laxatives and um, and stop pooping pills.

[00:18:15] Merlin: He got like seventies and odium title,

[00:18:17] Jeff: cover your bases.

[00:18:19] Merlin: cover all your bases, including home, if you know what I mean. But I think about that sometimes where like, and, and forgive my saying, Brett, I wonder if this is something. Folks who’ve been through what you’ve been through over the years, go through where you’re like, oh, I gotta have this to do that.

[00:18:35] Merlin: And then I have gotta have this to this to fit. It’s like, uh, chemical Tetris where you’re like, and then I’ve gotta get this to there, but if I have too much of that, but I gotta bring that down and if I have this kind of alcohol instead of that kind of alcohol, maybe I’ll feel better. And like you do all these weird combinations of things.

[00:18:48] Merlin: All this basically like personal witch doctoring, um, to, to try and get yourself to something that feels like homeostasis plus, you know? And, uh, that’s how I feel [00:19:00] sometimes, even when I’m just like, oh God, I gotta get up and take the goddamn thing that makes me throw up. And then I can’t really drink coffee.

[00:19:06] Merlin: ’cause then I’ll just throw up the coffee and I’m sorry this is gross, but I just wanna give you the picture of what you all probably go through in your own way, which is like trying to find the balance, the combination, the um, the, the internal sort of integrity of a system that helps you be close enough to who you wanna be sometimes are better than ours.

[00:19:27] Jeff: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:29] Brett: yeah. Well, and for me, I like, I don’t use illicit drugs anymore. Um, but as far as like the combination I’m on. No fewer than seven prescription medications. Um, and I do drink alcohol and I do mushrooms. And, um, one slight change in any part of that system can lead to, uh, [00:20:00] things collapsing. And it is, um, it, yeah, it’s a juggling

[00:20:05] Merlin: sometimes, if I could say at least for myself, I speak for myself, you don’t know how long that collapse is gonna be for. Like sometimes you’re just like, you had an up cwc and it’s gonna be one of those days. Um, I mean I do, I do stuff like, this is, I’m so weird. I, when I make, I make a monthly set of pill packs.

[00:20:20] Merlin: When I get my, uh, my drugs every month, I use these little wasteful plastic bags and I do all my pills for like a month so that I can have this. And this is, this is so, I don’t know something. But I finally have gotten to where, when I take the drug bump, I record that I took them and date ’em. And then I do a strange thing, which is kind of related to a thing I do with leftovers, which is I write the day of the week on the bag so that when I throw it away, if I have this panicky feeling later, did I, did I take these twice?

[00:20:51] Merlin: Did I take the, I like, I’m probably the only person in the world that has this, but I get panicky. I’m like, I can’t have this much Gabapentin, I can’t have double the amount of [00:21:00] gabapentin. That’s not wholesome.

[00:21:01] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:01] Merlin: You know, I we’re not double the propanolol. That’s fine. I could

[00:21:05] Brett: Have you ever accidentally doubled your Vyvanse? That is a horrible

[00:21:10] Merlin: I don’t, I mean, I, I certainly have doubled something in the past accidentally. Um,

[00:21:17] Brett: I did it once, once in recent me

[00:21:20] Merlin: dosed, like you got dosed. Like, you’re like, well, I’m just gonna have to ride this thing out. Like, go where it takes me.

[00:21:26] Brett: yeah. My partner has taken to, uh, fill, you know, there’s like pill containers with the day of the

[00:21:33] Christina: days. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

[00:21:34] Brett: and, and l fills those in for me every week because I tend to fall behind. And then I just get into, I, I know what I need to take, I’ll just take it.

[00:21:44] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:45] Brett: I generally do a good job of recording it in my apps, but I do have that same panic thing where like, I’m not sure I took it and maybe I, maybe I did take it and

[00:21:55] Merlin: Well then start thinking, did I take three? Like if you’re like me, and let’s get to the, from the [00:22:00] emotional to the mental. I don’t know which one this is, but sometimes it’ll just be like, did I just space this and, and do something? And I feel like, um, like the way Maria Bamford so wonderfully talks about having OCD and that, that feeling of like, I’m gonna push somebody onto the subway tracks.

[00:22:13] Merlin: I’m probably a sex criminal. Those ideas that go around your head, I sometimes think I, then I panic and I’m like, well, how many have I had? And like, it sounds so weird, but like it’s, you know, anyways, bags

[00:22:25] Jeff: So, wait, I have a system question at what, how much overlap is there between the end of the bags and the, and the filling of the next month? Or do you do it right as they run out? You just have a system, you start it.

[00:22:38] Merlin: Well, these are, these are things I take at night that are mostly sleep related. Um, so there’s not that usual running right up against it of, with say, Adderall, where it’s like you, you’re there at like 9:01 AM because like, that’s when you’re allowed to have it and you, you feel like you’re, you know, you’re on probation or something.

[00:22:58] Merlin: Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. [00:23:00] No, th those, those work out okay.

[00:23:01] Christina: like the individual’s date on each bag?

[00:23:04] Merlin: no, no, no. They’re all identical and I just, uh, I just drop ’em in. Take a big drink. All good.

[00:23:10] Christina: the, the reason I ask is because I, ’cause I’ve done this thing where like I’ll just space where I’m like. Um, did I just take my pills and, and I, I won’t, I’m like, did I, did I, did I just do that or not? And then I’ll have to go back and like count and then I’ll have to

[00:23:24] Merlin: Oh, no, no, no. That’s madness.

[00:23:26] Jeff: in the bottle.

[00:23:27] Christina: agree. I agree with you. I agree with you. What I’m saying though is that my fear would be that if I put them in the backs, I could still have that moment where I’d be like, did I just take that? Did, did I just

[00:23:36] Merlin: that’s why I write the day of the week on it.

[00:23:38] Christina: Okay. Well, well, that’s why I was asking. So you, you put

[00:23:40] Merlin: I mean, I mean after, no, after I’ve taken it there. So mine are all identical. Okay. This is how dumb I am and how dumb I encourage everyone to be. I’m gonna say two things and then I’m

[00:23:48] Jeff: How dumb are you?

[00:23:49] Merlin: I’m so dumb. Are you ready for this? Dumb Donald? I need one of those, one of those Gene Rayburn stick microphones.

[00:23:57] Merlin: Um, dumb. Donald was [00:24:00] so dumb. Um, I make these whatever, 28 or whatever these, and I stick ’em in a little Aiken Mills, you know, Equa Mills bin, whatever that

[00:24:08] Jeff: Oh, yeah. It’s a wonderful

[00:24:10] Merlin: are great companies. Yeah, great containers. And, um, but no, so I’ve started because, and you know, I won’t need to, hopefully I won’t need it is hoped I won’t need to do this for the rest of my life.

[00:24:19] Merlin: But after I take these, uh, I should write SAT on this and that sounds dumb. But then I’ll know, like as a double backup and until I get, if, once I get better at that, I won’t do that as much anymore. When I put leftovers in the refrigerator in a little bag, I write the day of the week that I put the leftover.

[00:24:36] Merlin: See, you’re all nodding. The listener will not know this. These people are nodding. Nobody in my house is

[00:24:41] Brett: Pyrex lids that have a dial where you set it to the day of the week, you put it in the fridge.

[00:24:47] Christina: oh, look at you, Mr. Fancy.

[00:24:49] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:24:50] Merlin: Yeah. Unfortunately, our refrigerator is, uh, is a museum, um, where food is fri where garbage is cooled

[00:24:58] Christina: Yes. I was gonna say my, my, [00:25:00] my, my, my, my mine is a thing where like I, my, my, my refrigerator is like great aspirations, both of things that I will cook for myself

[00:25:06] Merlin: Sing it, sister. Who’s gonna eat that? Who’s gonna, it’s got carib in it. What, what aspirational food. You’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s like, it’s like buying, it’s like buying like a okas and keeping them in the attic or something. Like, whatcha doing? No, I, no, I love my family, but, uh, I do, I do like to have some, some sense of ease and certainty.

[00:25:26] Merlin: You know, a lot of a DHD as, you know, I, as I get older and I spend more time with this, my realizations about it become more and more obvious, which I think is a gift. And, um, you know, one of those things is that when you’re an anxious person, you’re always seeking new information or different information, or saliently updated information.

[00:25:45] Merlin: I feel like I’m just speaking generically here. I can’t get anywhere near being in the moment if I’m, if there’s a loose end out there that’s on my mind, and so I keep seeking information. One, keep [00:26:00] seeking information about that loose end, and at least you can feel like the classic Ed Sullivan plate spinning, you could go.

[00:26:06] Merlin: Well, I just, I did everything I could to get the, keep these six plates in motion. The plate that was wobbling, I spun that. Now maybe I get five minutes to watch YouTube and not feel like a crazy person. And that is, that is a tough, that’s an anti-pattern in this, I think, if I could say in the sense that it feels like it’s helping, uh, but it’s not necessarily helping.

[00:26:28] Merlin: And sometimes I try to learn to incline myself more toward. Certain, like I said, like I’ve said, I, I’ve got this series of things I’d like to say to myself pretty often, like, I’ve got this list I maintain of like, good things to say to yourself to catch yourself and like not go spinning down one sort of hole or an or another.

[00:26:49] Merlin: But I think that’s been a tough, I don’t know if, I don’t know if y’all agree, I’d be curious to hear what you think, but do you ever find yourself like becoming aware that the seeking of new and [00:27:00] updated and complete information can become a very unwholesome distraction from just sitting in, in the moment

[00:27:05] Christina: Oh yeah. it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s a constant struggle that I have, right. Which is like, what am I missing out on? By wanting to be up to date on everything and to like, know as much as possible. Like, am I actually, am I actually understanding a lot of things or am I just like, is

[00:27:21] Merlin: like the class, you can’t get outta your inbox

[00:27:23] Christina: Right. Well that’s

[00:27:23] Merlin: there’s always something in there

[00:27:25] Christina: something else there that’s gonna distract you and take you something else. And it’s like, how, how, how, how do I do it? And I, and I, and for what, what, what’s hard for me is that when I was younger, it really did feel easier to be on top of it all. And, and I don’t know if it’s

[00:27:38] Merlin: Because you could, you could change gears quicker.

[00:27:39] Christina: right.

[00:27:40] Christina: Well, and it’s not even, I think it was less that I felt like I just had like more of an ability to just like, maybe, maybe change gears. Maybe that is accurate. But, but I felt like it was more of a, like I, I, I could, um, get more accomplished. Uh, and now I don’t know if it’s an age thing, if, if it’s slower or if it’s just that,

[00:27:57] Brett: Or if the world’s sped up.

[00:27:59] Christina: or if [00:28:00] I’m trying to just, if, if I’ve, I’ve keep enhancing like the number of things, like I keep adding other things.

[00:28:07] Christina: Like it used to be like, this would be one area that I would like try to keep up on, like

[00:28:10] Merlin: Well, to, to my analogy, you’ve, you’ve unintentionally added another plate

[00:28:14] Christina: right?

[00:28:15] Merlin: to spin,

[00:28:16] Christina: Yeah.

[00:28:17] Jeff: my version of that is, um, it’s kind of like, uh, doing a clean install on your computer, which I used to do, sort of, um, very, um, just out of nowhere I suddenly needed to do a clean install of my computer. And I have this tendency when I’ve gathered a lot of information or have a sense that something’s not quite right, um, to wipe the slate clean and have to build it up from the start.

[00:28:39] Jeff: I have a, a much better system for that. Now, putting the computer thing aside, ’cause I, I did realize that that was a, a red flag if I’m doing that, if just some general state, but now what I’ll do is if I have like a drafts file and I’ve just like been, it’s kind an omnibus file and I’ve been keeping all this information as I build the information and I, and I realize I no longer have a hold of it, I just open up a [00:29:00] second window and I start building it, um, from scratch with the messier version next to it.

[00:29:05] Jeff: Um, and then

[00:29:07] Merlin: takes so many years to get to where you can be comfortable doing that. It really, it really does.

[00:29:12] Jeff: yeah, yeah,

[00:29:14] Brett: I am, uh, I’m gonna throw in, I’m gonna throw in a sponsor read right here, if that’s all right with everybody.

[00:29:20] Christina: Do it.

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Work and Personal Struggles

[00:31:35] Christina: Um, all right, Brett, do you, do you wanna, do you wanna talk next, like about some, like your, uh, mental health corner stuff?

[00:31:42] Brett: Yeah. Well, my, my mental health is heavily, um, centers around a recent reorg at Oracle. Um, and because I wanna, I, I don’t want to talk too much about that. I will make that my mental health corner. Um, [00:32:00] I, uh, a little over a week ago, my manager said, Hey, you got a sec. And I, we zoomed and he informed me that I was no longer on his team.

[00:32:13] Brett: I was on the team of someone I had never met with a bunch of people I had never met, doing things that I was not hired to do. And, um, looking around, it happened to. At our entire division, like everyone under our VP and like three SVPs, were all just shuffled, kind of randomly, um, into areas that we weren’t trained for and weren’t familiar with.

[00:32:43] Brett: And everyone, and then you, like, you’re trying to get trained on something, so you ask who to talk to and nobody knows anymore because the person who did that job isn’t doing that job anymore and I can’t get access to the things I need to because I’m not [00:33:00] on the right, I’m not in the right department anymore, and it is a cluster fuck.

[00:33:06] Brett: And I, I have some personal, uh, personality issues with my team, um, that I am working through, but every time I like talk myself down and say like, you gotta not read into that. You gotta give ’em the benefit of the doubt. Then I talk to them again and it just gets reignited. And so much like passive aggressive behavior and power struggles and it has not been fun.

[00:33:33] Brett: It has really warmed me down and I’ve been in like a state of kind of panic about what do I do without this job because it just doesn’t seem tenable. Um. Last, the last couple days. And because I took an increased dose of Vyvanse, one of those days, I found myself way more able to, uh, navigate this new and terrifying world.

[00:33:58] Brett: Um, and I’m [00:34:00] going to talk to my doctor about, maybe let’s go back up, because that was really helpful. Um, but I, I’ve been losing sleep. I’ve been, uh, in a state of panic and l has been out of town, so they can’t help me like regulate all. I’m, I’m a very emotional person and stuff like this makes me very, um, I just cycled through like anger and despair and panic and, um, with even occasional euphoria when something seems like it’s gonna work out.

[00:34:33] Brett: And then, and it’s been exhausting

[00:34:37] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:34:37] Brett: also. Stupid. Why,

[00:34:39] Jeff: chaotic.

[00:34:40] Brett: why would you, this all happened because one person left to go to Amazon

[00:34:48] Jeff: That’s a hell of a, that’s a hell

[00:34:49] Christina: so, so, so they just

[00:34:50] Merlin: it, makes it sound like a, not a very durable, not a very durable team,

[00:34:54] Jeff: not a very durable system.

[00:34:55] Brett: well let’s, uh, instead of replacing this one guy at the top, let’s [00:35:00] just shuffle everybody underneath them across the organization.

[00:35:05] Christina: Was it a power struggle was were like people wanting to get like control of some other things. Like, so the headcount would be like, oh, I want this. I mean,

[00:35:12] Brett: I’m not privy to the T around all of that partly ’cause I just don’t, I don’t care. Um, I, I care about my job and where I land, but it’s at some point, one of my managers made me an M four, which at Oracle comes with a whole host of responsibilities. They gave it to me because they wanted me to have, uh, room to, to expand my salary.

[00:35:39] Brett: Um, and I was at like the, the cap for an M three. Um, but they, they never made a big deal out of that because I never got the raise A and, and b it was kind of a symbolic thing. Uh, but now my new manager’s like, oh, you’re an M four and I haven’t seen, I don’t see in your work record that [00:36:00] you’ve been meeting everything on this, uh, what do they call it?

[00:36:05] Brett: That she sent me this, like PDF that had a chart of like expectations for the different levels. And, and she doesn’t see that I have fulfilled my requirements to be an M four, so she’s gonna expect more out of me. And I’m like, you know, I haven’t seen a raise in three years. So if we, if we can talk about a raise, I’ll talk about being an M four, but

[00:36:31] Christina: right. So, so, so, so, so they gave you the promo because you were at the, the, the top of the cap on the other thing. And presumably you would get better bonuses, um, and, and, and other stuff there and, and better stock compensation there. That’s usually how it works. But they didn’t give you, uh, a salary bump.

[00:36:46] Christina: They just gave you the new title.

[00:36:48] Brett: Yeah.

[00:36:48] Christina: That’s fucked man.

[00:36:50] Brett: Yeah. Um, and I, so like the thing that keeps me sane is thinking about going India again and just being [00:37:00] my own boss and working on things I love and doing things I care about. And, um, I kind of failed at that last time around. I did, I ended up with a lot of debt and, um, things got rough and it was, I was really grateful to get the corporate gig, uh, at that point.

[00:37:21] Brett: And like I have this rose tinted view of what it’s like to be an indie dev, but also I know I’m not good at like, the business side of things and I don’t I what I want. So, okay. I’m sorry. This is getting longer than I planned for it to. But, um, in going through the training for some of my new job roles, I had to shadow the people who previously had those roles and watching them work and the sheer level of incompetence and inefficiency was killing me, [00:38:00] um, in the first

[00:38:01] Merlin: and that was presented, that was presented as something you should model. They could, they could, they could be the pros from Dover and come in and say, Hey, you know, I used to be like you. I had this job. I learned all kinds of things. But when they would like, demonstrate those skills, they were not impressive.

[00:38:16] Brett: They were terrible. Like I couldn’t believe one of these people had been doing it for like four years and within two hours of being given access to their tools, I had cut the hours down to about 10% of what they were spending on it. Um, and like, but what I

[00:38:34] Merlin: like, it’s like the guy, it’s like the guy in Idiocracy who’s gotta take the specs to the engineers. I know that that’s a cliche, but isn’t there an element of that sometimes where you’re like, wait a minute, how, how much of your job was this one thing that I could do?

[00:38:47] Brett: Yeah. So what I realized though is that’s the job I want, is to go in and tell people how to do their jobs better and then leave. Yeah, I wanna leave them [00:39:00] to do the work, but me, I’ll just make their work suck less. And I just want to be an efficiency expert consultant that goes, especially in publishing, um, workflows that goes in, uh, gives you, you know, 20% savings or on hours or company expenses and then moves on to the next company and gets paid bank to do it.

[00:39:24] Brett: Um, like that’s, if I could carve out a dream job right now, I think that’s what I would do. And thinking about that keeps me sane.

[00:39:34] Jeff: I, the M three and the M four are both guns. Um, and

[00:39:39] Brett: Also Max,

[00:39:40] Christina: I was gonna say, I know them as Max because I’m not a

[00:39:42] Jeff: Right, right, right. And, and

[00:39:44] Christina: my mind goes.

[00:39:45] Jeff: Just to,

[00:39:46] Christina: Or BMWs.

[00:39:46] Jeff: I don’t know.

[00:39:47] Merlin: Uh, I’m packing an M four Ultra, if you know what I mean.

[00:39:49] Jeff: Yes and to introduce Levi Di that may, may be disapproved of, ’cause it’s a comedian that I’m not supposed to quote, but this bit’s so good.

[00:39:58] Merlin: Lucy K. Lucy.

[00:39:59] Christina: Yeah.

[00:39:59] Jeff: [00:40:00] Allen. Woody Allen even, you know, even worse. Well, and actually I think this bit, okay, so the bit was, he was, he was classified four p by the draft board, which means in the case of war, he is most likely to be taken hostage.

[00:40:13] Christina: Yep.

[00:40:13] Jeff: And so all these things are going through my head, even though I, even as I break my heart breaks for you, Brett, because I know, I know your core and I, I remember working with you when you came onto the project I was working on and, and how beautiful it was to just like articulate a, a problem to you and then you go away and you come back with such a, like, somehow sensitive solution, which is how a lot of your, how a lot of your tools are, they’re just very sensitive and, and, and humane.

[00:40:39] Jeff: Um, and, and it, it’s always killed me. Since you went to Oracle though, I very much understand why you’re there. Um, that, that part of you can’t possibly be recognized, um, or valued if it was recognized or understood somehow. Right.

[00:40:53] Brett: so a team. A team, an article that I don’t work on and didn’t at the time, um, [00:41:00] they heard through. The grapevine that I was good at, like markdown and scripting

[00:41:07] Jeff: this. Yeah. This is a good example of something different.

[00:41:10] Brett: and they came to me and they asked me to automate the process of converting Confluence documentation to, uh, GitHub flavored markdown.

[00:41:20] Brett: And I loved that project. I,

[00:41:23] Jeff: hired you.

[00:41:23] Brett: I spent, I spent maybe 20 hours on that project. They said I saved them over a thousand hours of, of time they would’ve spent on this. Um, and then they shared that solution with other docs teams. So that number went up exponentially. But when my review came around, I didn’t get to list that because it was technically unauthorized time at my job that I, that I spent doing something that was very beneficial to the company, but that I was, it wasn’t part of my job Descript, um, which kinda killed me, [00:42:00] but

[00:42:01] Christina: Is there, and that, and that’s such a, that’s such bullshit. I remember when you told me it is just such a terrible like.

Navigating Corporate Challenges

[00:42:09] Christina: Way the system works, um, in, in these corporate, you know, things about what you’re rewarded for and what you’re not. Um, are there any other teams like I think that the consulting I, I think, I think is great and I’m glad that’s kind of keeping you sane.

[00:42:21] Christina: ’cause I think that’s a thing to think about because I think maybe if you found like a right partner or somebody to work with on that, like that could be like a real opportunity, um, for you to frankly even like work at, or, you know, Oracle as a potential, as a potential client. You know, there are like a lot of avenues, places you could, but before you get to that point, I mean, they keep reorging you and, and making changes to you.

[00:42:42] Christina: And that’s so shitty, especially when you’re being told, oh, you’re not meeting these expectations. Expectations, but you might not even have been told what they are. And two, when you’re not being compensated, um, uh, in a way that that makes you want to, you know, follow whatever they’re, they’re setting out.

Exploring New Opportunities

[00:42:56] Christina: I’ve, I’ve definitely been there, but I do wonder, like, [00:43:00] you know, you’ve, you’ve met these other teams and you know, some people who’ve done stuff, like, are there any other places that you might be able to go that, that

[00:43:07] Brett: Maybe I, I should ask around the, my first year when I actually had managers that I liked and that seemed to care about my success, um, they would keep an eye on other teams and let me know, like, so and so, like, does this and has heard of you and would love to work with you. So if you ever want to switch teams, contact this team.

[00:43:31] Brett: Um, so I went through all of those contacts that I had been given my first year. Every one of them was no longer at Oracle. Um, the, the turnover rate is there’s, there’s a quick the churn rate on Oracle and Oracle positions. So I would be starting from scratch looking. So it’s possible. And honestly, it’s gonna be my first avenue.

[00:43:55] Brett: I’m not just gonna quit my job and try to be a freelancer again, but,[00:44:00]

[00:44:00] Jeff: Woo.

[00:44:02] Merlin: I ask, lemme ask a question if I may.

The Impact of Frequent Management Changes

[00:44:04] Merlin: Um, uh, I’m listening, I’m processing this somewhat phonetically, it’s a little bit outta my depth, but you described how you had a person you work with or for who gave you more responsibility, made you this M four. Is that right? And then so they, they, they, they’ve worked with Brett, they know Brett and in some ways that M four promotion, it would be nice if it had money associated with it, but it was, it was kind of a way of that person saying like, uh, like I trust you and I think you’re great at stuff.

[00:44:34] Merlin: And like, we’re, this is the only way you’re gonna move up is like, give you kind of like, I give you

[00:44:38] Brett: Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:39] Merlin: went and you were an M four for somebody else. And it sounds like they didn’t know you as well probably, and had a specific idea about what an M four does that might be detached from who Brad is.

[00:44:51] Christina: Yep.

[00:44:52] Merlin: That’s a, that’s worth strikes me as being something worth noting, right? Is that, you know, I mean [00:45:00] there’s so much, uh, economy of scale that people try to derive out of doing things the same way and, you know, company stuff and like, I, I, that all makes sense. I understand that there’s a reason we mow our lawn and rows instead of just spinning the lawnmower around.

[00:45:13] Merlin: But, but is that part of the frustration? I wonder, I’m projecting here, but that you go and you’re the same Brett, same title, but different expectations based on what that person needs out of an M four.

[00:45:25] Brett: This is my ninth manager in four years.

[00:45:29] Jeff: Wow. Wow.

[00:45:30] Brett: Yeah. Um, and every time it’s what you describe every time.

[00:45:35] Merlin: Somebody, somebody, two levels above that should think that’s weird.

[00:45:38] Brett: Yeah. Well, but that’s true for everyone. Everyone I know.

[00:45:42] Merlin: should go. How many of these have we

[00:45:44] Christina: I mean, I mean, I, I mean I, I, I had 12 managers in five years at Microsoft, so

[00:45:47] Merlin: Oh, well,

[00:45:48] Jeff: managers

[00:45:49] Brett: that two levels above, they’re also switching around. It’s, it’s, it’s a mess. But

[00:45:56] Jeff: Wow.

[00:45:56] Merlin: oh.

[00:45:56] Brett: anyway.

[00:45:57] Jeff: Sorry, Brett.

[00:45:58] Brett: That’s okay. Jeff,[00:46:00]

[00:46:00] Jeff: Nah, don’t say that. That’s the Midwestern thing. That’s okay. It’s very much not. Okay. But, but I love you. Um. That’s, oh God. Um, how am I, uh, I gotta follow that opening act. Um, I’m good. I’m good.

Mental and Emotional Health

[00:46:18] Jeff: Uh, I really liked the distinction between mental health and, and emotional health. Health. I feel like, um, I feel like mental health is, uh, depending on the context, has a little shame attached to it, but also can just be kind of a wall that I hit when I’m thinking about it.

[00:46:32] Jeff: But emotional health feels more fluid and inviting a little bit, um, and, and more dynamic, uh, and, and feels like it has fewer sort of rules. Um, when you enter into conversation. I know that like mental health conversations can kind of turn into war stories pretty quickly, um, and, and not, not get at the stuff that’s here, right?

[00:46:52] Jeff: Um, I don’t mean in this podcast, I just mean in general. I think it’s a, a little bit more of an invitation. Um, okay. So I’m good. I, [00:47:00] I am. My, my life, um, is, is in sort of two parts. I am constantly reading and I’m not gonna talk about news, but I’m constantly reading and taking in news. I never wanna talk about it.

[00:47:10] Jeff: Um, in part because we are in this moment where language has been both weaponized and neutralized, right? Like, when I try to put words in conversation or if I feel like I’m wanna write. You know, 10 words about the thing. I got nothing. Nothing. And that’s never been the case for me. That’s how I like writing even a few words, is how I bridge to whatever is like burning in me.

[00:47:31] Jeff: Um, and that kind of is, ends up being a little bit of a release, uh, or a sort of a meaningful thing. Um, and so. That’s been hard.

Finding Joy in Small Things

[00:47:40] Jeff: Um, but the, the other part of me is just totally immersed in the things that either give me joy or give people I care about joy, that are fun to talk about, that are discoveries.

[00:47:49] Jeff: I’m always a little like that, but I’ve found that I, it’s not even like I’m hiding in that. It’s like it’s become, it’s become something that is even brighter to me. Um, [00:48:00] and uh, and that’s been really. Um, and, and it’s a really, like, trite example of that is something that I would not expect to come outta my mouth, which is the band named Primus, um, which is not a band. Exactly, exactly. Not a band I like. Um, I, I liked one album in its time, uh, for a minute, but I’ve never had an emotional response to that band. I appreciate anybody who is sort of that narrow and yet experimenting inside of such a narrow box. I, I really appreciate that. I don’t relate. Um, but I super appreciate it.

[00:48:35] Jeff: But they recently lost their drummer and not death, but left and they decided they needed a new drummer. And, and so they put out a call on the internet. 6,100 people posted videos, uh, of themselves in order, including the drummer of my son’s band who, uh, posted a video that I think was just him banging the snare drum.

[00:48:53] Jeff: Um, which is really awesome. But they, they narrowed it down to like 10 people and they made these little like, [00:49:00] um, 30 minute mini docs of each audition. And it starts with Fred Armisen doing, uh, playing as a fake drumming YouTuber, um, always. And then they go into bringing these drummers in. It is really earnest and really sweet and the people who come in have a love for Primus that I can’t relate to.

[00:49:18] Jeff: But I super appreciate ’cause it is a passion and I really love people’s passions, especially now. Um, curiosity and passion, maybe the two greatest things, like a lack of it. Two of the saddest things. And, and it’s amazing ’cause they do the same thing every time. So every Friday one of these drop, every Friday I watch severance and I watch the new episode of the Primus intergalactic drum derby is what they call it.

[00:49:41] Jeff: And, and it’s everything from like these seasoned grizzled drummers to this. Like the last one was this 27-year-old kid. And then these two guys, the guitar player and the bass player and, and they’re just figuring it out together. They do a little free jam, then they ask the guy what song they wanna play.

[00:49:56] Jeff: The guy plays the songs, drum parts. That never spoke to me. But it’s [00:50:00] amazing to watch people who have been working on ’em from, you know, weeks come in and do it. There’s just chitchat. There’s like behind the scenes interviews and most of all, like if you’ve been in a band like. It is amazing to me, the older I get, I don’t care who the band is.

[00:50:14] Jeff: If I see that you’ve somehow managed to find a long arc, a way to a long arc, and you still seem like you’ve got your head together and you’re happy, which I can’t truly judge. But these two guys, Les Claypool, and I can’t remember the guitar players, they’ve just been through it together. And here they are in this like, it’s such a small group, it’s a trio, right?

[00:50:32] Jeff: So it’s like the two of them and then a new ingredient every week. And, and seeing how they talk about it, and especially this last, last episode, which I really recommend. This was this 27-year-old who was so sweet full of energy by far their favorite drummer so far. And, and it was amazing to watch the two, uh, grizzled guys, not only playing out, but then talking about how they couldn’t look at him without smiling.

[00:50:57] Jeff: Like they just, they found him so delightful in such an [00:51:00] infusion of sort of light. And so watching that happen every week, and it’s always basically the same songs in the same format, but it’s just as a musician I guess, and as a drummer especially, really lovely. And then I go really dark and watch Severance.

[00:51:12] Jeff: Um, but that has been really nice, um, and has just like been one of those examples of like just kind of helping me connect with like and brightness, um, even as I, and it helps me to take in all the darkness.

[00:51:28] Jeff: Um, and then the last thing, which i, I, I won’t, I just recommend people go to, is I just binged a blog for the first time in like 20 years.

Nick Cave’s Blog and Grief

[00:51:35] Jeff: It was Nick Cave’s blog. Um, Nick Cave, who I’ve loved forever, um, has a blog where he answers reader’s letters and questions. Um, and he does so with such an incredible depth and, and, and grace and humor. And one of them is a, is, I’ll put a link in the show notes, is a letter from some children in a school in like Corsica, uh, who asked him, uh, about his grief and the, the death of his [00:52:00] two boys.

[00:52:00] Jeff: And then ask him, you know, you’re weird, you’re dark. We we like that, but are you ever happy? And then he responds and it’s just, it’s been beautiful and it’s been so long since I opened. It was a food poisoning actually. I opened that blog laying in bed and ended up reading like, you know, a whole, like, I don’t, maybe 15 posts.

[00:52:18] Brett: Did you watch the documentary that came out maybe two years ago?

[00:52:22] Jeff: I haven’t yet ’cause I, I can’t, um, this is the one that’s in the immediate wake of him losing, uh, his second son or his, I can’t do it. Um, and I,

[00:52:31] Brett: it’s intense. It’s really good though.

[00:52:33] Jeff: so this is a great way he touches on it. The kids ask him about the grief and hearing him process in a few paragraphs like that is really something that’s been amazing to take in.

[00:52:42] Jeff: So I’m also, uh, uh, as apparently he did like a 30 minute interview with Stephen Colbert that I’ve not watched.

[00:52:47] Merlin: Oh yeah, I saw that come up. It looked, you

[00:52:49] Jeff: Sounds like it’s a pretty incredible thing,

[00:52:51] Brett: I haven’t seen that.

[00:52:52] Jeff: yet anyway, so just kind of like letting that stuff in or finding that stuff has been just a huge support.

[00:52:59] Merlin: [00:53:00] absolutely.

[00:53:02] Jeff: Fucking Nick Cave too.

[00:53:03] Jeff: Really. I mean, my God.

[00:53:04] Brett: Yeah.

[00:53:05] Merlin: I just, saw him I, I don’t wanna derail it, but I just would like to say I totally agree and, um, I, I’m trying to do something along similar lines, I think both for myself and hopefully for other people. But, and I mean, I would go into that if you ever wanted to, but I, I agree with you. There’s, there’s, um, so QED we were talking earlier about, at least to this, A DHD adult brain that sometimes seeking out some kind of a certainty, like, why do we check our inbox when we check our inbox?

[00:53:38] Merlin: ’cause it could be a bomb in there. And I can’t go back to what I’m trying to do in as long as I think there’s something out there that could get me somewhere. I mean, that’s what it, what are you anxious about? Nothing and everything. That’s what anxiety is. If I was worried about something specific, it would be fear and it would be manageable.

[00:53:55] Merlin: But, um, I think. There’s, [00:54:00] I don’t know. See, I, I’m really, I’m not, I don’t mean to be critical. It’s a really, really, really hard time for almost everybody. Some people more than others. And I would, but I sometimes, I don’t know, I, I always wanna kind of check my privilege on this. I’ll never, I don’t, I, I don’t ever want to seem like I’m making light of something that’s very, very serious.

[00:54:20] Merlin: But there’s also a fact that I’ve gotta keep in mind, which is, um, you’ll always find something worse and you’ll always find something more terrible, and you’ll always find something to remind you that you aren’t up to date on the stuff that you should be worried about. There are certain publications, including one I to which I subscribe based in, uh, New York City.

[00:54:41] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:42] Merlin: They’re located in Times Square, if that helps at all. Um, that, that I feel like has really gone into the business of keeping you off balance, making you feel like a lack of balance is what’s the only thing out there. The only way to keep your head above water is to constantly be reminded of a thing that you [00:55:00] should be more worried about, and then on top of it all to subtly give you the impression that they’re the only people who can pull you out of the infra information morass that has you so sad and confused and whatever.

[00:55:10] Merlin: It’s a living. And so, just to be clear, I I’m not trying, I, I really, I, there’s a lot of things I just won’t, don’t say in public because you can’t control how people are going to, how it’s gonna land with people. And you never want to be horrible with people, but you know. There’s not as much durability or longevity or substance to a bad time as it feels like, not at least because it’s constantly turning into another bad time in one way or another.

[00:55:41] Merlin: You, you can’t beat that. Like you can’t just because things are extra super bad right now. The lesson to draw from that is, I mean, just to get it outta the way is not that you should, you know, distract yourself and bear your head in the sand and all that stuff. Lemme come back to that later if we have time.

[00:55:58] Merlin: But, [00:56:00] but there is this sense that like, you’re not a serious adult if you’re not always just a very sad tomato. And if you’re not always finding some way, and like part of my beef with this is that people are not succeeding at finding a way to get their own head above what’s happening because it’s all horrible.

[00:56:17] Merlin: But then we also kind of encourage each other and we egg each other on to be sad sacks. And like every, every social media network I, I join, that seems like a world of possibility for a few weeks, eventually reversed to the mean. And it just all comes back to like obvious jokes about the orange man, which I can’t do anything about.

[00:56:34] Merlin: I can’t do anything about the orange man. I can’t do anything about the jokes. I can’t do anything about the deliberately horrible way. And I mean, that’s just one aspect of a, of a terrible world. But, you know, the, the word durability, there’s these words that come up and I probably sound like Tom Peters or something.

[00:56:50] Merlin: Durability, longevity, integrity. These term, these, these terms that are very meaningful for me because I. I mean, I feel like I’m, it’s not so much that I’m [00:57:00] trying to purely distract myself by listening to music from the 18th century or by watching a four part TV show about how terrible the, the world is.

[00:57:10] Merlin: What’s that?

[00:57:10] Jeff: Vivaldi’s, heavy metal.

[00:57:13] Merlin: Actually, I’m in an app right now called Vivaldi. Uh, so I don’t know. I, I don’t have, this is not anything I process to the point where I can say anything intelligent about, but I, but I will say this is the, like, you don’t make it better when you keep cutting yourself or whatever, when you keep just pushing everything to, to make yourself feel constantly on the edge of completely like coming apart at the seams, because it feels like the only rational thing to do.

[00:57:44] Merlin: And maybe it is. I take a different point of view, which is like, what are the things that are durable, not just in terms of being like the thoughts of Great man and stuff like that. Adolescence. This TV show on Netflix is an unbeliev. Unbelievably

[00:57:59] Jeff: Is what I hear.[00:58:00]

[00:58:00] Merlin: It’s an unbelievably durable thing. And like, and the thing I said to someone I co-host a podcast with where we’ll be talking about this, is to use an old phrase that I first heard associated with Greek trauma.

[00:58:14] Merlin: You know, in ancient times it’s cathartic, which is it enables you to sort of identify and feel. These feelings that are often just kind of in ate and bothering you and just a little bit of a mosquito bite sort of feeling. But part of it could be maybe you’re doing opera, you’re doing grand, you’re doing all these different kinds of theater and, and media that by the, or maybe watching slasher movies for that matter, or like, or Jesus watching the Pit, or like, poor Noah Wi Is, which I, I don’t care for, but like Noah Wiley, like wandering around in plastic, being traumatized and you are like, oh, I can finally feel something. But like, it’s, it’s just that I don’t, I don’t know. Um, I, I don’t know. See, I feel really bad even saying anything. I should come back to this topic when I have something more confident to say about it. It makes me very, very sad that [00:59:00] people, so many people in their own understandable, private, understandable ways have developed. Fun. Fact. Does anybody know what the original title of Annie Hall was?

[00:59:13] Jeff: No, God damnit. I did know though.

[00:59:16] Merlin: The original title of Annie Hall is anhedonia, which is a term for the inability to experience joy.

[00:59:22] Brett: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:22] Jeff: Wow.

[00:59:23] Merlin: And I feel like there is a kind of chronic anhedonia that’s happening now that doesn’t even feel treatable. It feels counter-revolutionary. It feels, um, it’s difficult to describe, but I, uh, I, as somebody who accidentally got a background in the liberal arts, I cannot stop myself from noticing the durable ways that our world is still connected, the durable, long live ways that our world is still.

[00:59:48] Merlin: Connected that it’s related, that it’s, that it’s grable and that there are instances of art all around us that give us the opportunity to feel real feelings instead of the one that just happened to [01:00:00] arrive in the post this morning. And it’s not, I’m not trying to fix anything, but like, and it’s sometimes it’s just like, fucking, you guys gotta watch this King gizzard in the Lizard Wizard

[01:00:09] Jeff: King is

[01:00:10] Merlin: I know I talk about it a lot, but

[01:00:12] Jeff: just watched their Minneapolis performance. It was unbelievable.

[01:00:15] Merlin: they, they put stuff up pretty few, but they do this, this one, uh, song on KX exp. They do this song song and there’s iron lung. And I happen to think it’s one of the, probably my favorite live rock performance of all time. If you, again, let’s just privilege, if you’ve played in a band, watch this and realize how much harder this is than it looks, and yet they make it look so easy.

[01:00:35] Merlin: Like, well, okay, but like, don’t I need to get back to seeing what the New York Times says? I need to be slightly differently worried about this afternoon. And I’m not, I’m not trying to be glib and I’m not trying to say, you know, feelings are real, pain is real. The all these things are real, real, real, real.

[01:00:50] Merlin: But like you still guys, you still have agency. You are allowed to look beyond. The terror that’s in front of your eyes and barely in focus for a minute [01:01:00] before it gets replaced by something else. You’re allowed to notice other things in the world. You’re, you’re, you’re allowed to derive and then share a feeling of humanity in art that has outlived the worst things in people of all time.

[01:01:14] Merlin: And we can’t just throw that baby out with the bath because of how it’s going right now.

[01:01:19] Jeff: you can’t throw babies out. You shouldn’t do that.

[01:01:21] Merlin: Well.

[01:01:23] Brett: I would like to offer a suggestion that nobody will take and we don’t have to talk about, but I have switched. I have switched from reading the Times and the Post and all of those to reading anarchist publications because anarchists don’t take that partisan view, uh, where everything the Republicans have done is bad and the, and the Democrats are weak and they’re not keeping up.

[01:01:48] Brett: Like they take more of an overhead, like all politics are

[01:01:53] Christina: Right. I was gonna say, but isn’t there, isn’t there a thing? Just all of this should be burned to the ground,

[01:01:58] Brett: not necessarily, [01:02:00] uh, that there, the, the idea is that a better world is possible and yes, maybe, maybe things have to burn to a certain extent before that better world is possible. But that’s not a requirement. Like they focus on humanity and, and beauty and art and, um, and see the inherent violence of government as the problem and not, not that one party is in power It feels like a governance problem because we’re so used to seeing the, the, that, that pretty a spray painted on things. It’s not really, it’s secondarily or tertiary, a governance problem, but it’s ultimately a power problem, which really does connect for me.

[01:02:44] Brett: Yeah, and I’ve, I find, I find a lot of comfort in reading from that perspective, um, and not getting my news like this up to the minute, oh my God, this executive order just came through and now these people are all fucked. And like, uh, yes, that’s happening. And yes, it sucks [01:03:00] and I don’t need to be riveted by that progression.

[01:03:04] Brett: But anyway,

[01:03:05] Jeff: Can I be a, can I be a bridge to Christina? Uh, out of this, there’s just a couple things. My very great bridge, a bridge to Christina.

[01:03:14] Merlin: Christina Tara, I think her

[01:03:15] Christina: oh, okay. That, I mean, I’m sorry. That book fucked me up so much as a child. All of

[01:03:20] Jeff: What,

[01:03:20] Merlin: I didn’t it my kid, but I

[01:03:22] Jeff: what book?

[01:03:22] Christina: the Bri British Teia,

[01:03:24] Jeff: Oh, got it. Okay. Got it. Is there a

[01:03:26] Christina: most No, no. God no. No, it, it, it’s the, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s actually an incredible chil I’ll talk about it my next thing, but go, go on.

[01:03:35] Jeff: Well, okay, two, two things. One, my favorite, an anarchist I ever knew. Uh, we were, we were in the laundromat together in Chicago, and we were waiting for my laundry, I think, to dry, and there was a laundry folding table with a sign that said, do not sit. And, and I, and we’re talking casually, and I got up and I sat on the table and he goes, dude, get off the table.

[01:03:52] Jeff: I was like, why? He’s like, if we could follow each other’s rules, we wouldn’t need police.

[01:03:58] Brett: exactly.

[01:03:58] Merlin: I, I, I, I’m gonna [01:04:00] quote, I’m gonna quote myself. Something I said pulled totally out of my ass on our Monday recording with Roderick and I, and I said it, and I’m, that’s not pretty smart, but I keep thinking about it. It’s not laws that keep its, uh, safe. It’s people observing laws that keeps

[01:04:14] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:04:15] Brett: Yeah.

[01:04:16] Merlin: And I was like, whoa, that’s

[01:04:17] Brett: then you, then you have the whole idea of anarchist calisthenics, which is the idea of, of if there are no cars in the street, it’s still technically illegal to walk across the middle of the street. But by doing so, you prepare yourself for a time in the future when there may be an unjust law that you do need to break.

[01:04:38] Brett: So you like, you practice these anarchist calisthenics, but you pick and choose what, what laws actually benefit people, what laws actually keep people safe, and those are the laws worth following. And then laws that are ridiculous or unjust. You, you build up the [01:05:00] willpower to

[01:05:00] Jeff: Red.

[01:05:01] Brett: break.

[01:05:02] Jeff: Holy shit. So you just created entirely new meaning for something that I’ve always kind of laughed about, which is I was in Germany and, and it was late at night and, and I was standing with some people at a crosswalk, but the, but the light was red

[01:05:15] Brett: This is

[01:05:15] Jeff: there were no cars. And I crossed the street and the Germans at that stoplight were like, Hey, what the fuck?

[01:05:21] Brett: Yeah.

[01:05:25] Jeff: Germans, of all people,

[01:05:26] Brett: Well, so the term, the term anarchist calisthenics came from an article about exactly that, where people were queued up at a stoplight when there was, there were no cars coming, and there was this like mob mentality of like, it is against rules to break this particular law. And, and this one guy started like just testing the waters and got a lot of flack from the people around him.

[01:05:50] Brett: I don’t remember what country it was in, but that’s exactly where the term came from.

[01:05:55] Jeff: The very last thing is just, uh, tying up Merlin’s thing, I think. And then Christina, I [01:06:00] promised I’m done. Um, in terms of range of emotion, I think this both speaks to what you were talking about just now, but also the emotional health thing. I was doing a profile many years ago of a forensic anthropologist.

[01:06:10] Jeff: He actually kinda like pioneered the techniques for, for digging up mass graves. Um, and, and I spent three days in his house and, and talking to him about his craft. Um, and, and, and he, um, he had a picture on his wall and it was, um, it was in Guatemala and they were, they were ex zooming, uh, uh, uh, a mass grave.

[01:06:30] Jeff: You couldn’t see that. You could see the pit, um, taken from his perspective, but kind of left the pit out. And then, you know, people who had relatives may be in there. Uh, all the generations were sitting around on lawn chairs and, and some were staring, you know, just blankly some, someone was eating ice cream.

[01:06:45] Jeff: A little girl was laughing. Um, and I asked him, I said, what, tell me about this. What is this? ’cause I just, I guess what I expect when I’m looking at this is just, just strictly horror and trauma or, or the waiting for it, right? And he said the thing that is most remarkable [01:07:00] about being in these situations is that when you are somewhere where something so horrible is, is literally being exhumed.

[01:07:07] Jeff: E every single human emotion is accept, is accessible, every single human emotion. And, and I, I just like, it’s, it’s haunted me ever since. Kind of a beautiful haunting. But Merlin, when you were talking, it just kind of came to mind. It’s, we can let that in. I, I want Christina to talk, but I

[01:07:24] Merlin: I have a lot Oh yeah, go

[01:07:25] Christina: no go. No, go on, go on, go

[01:07:26] Merlin: No, no, no, no. It’s not necessary. No, no, no. Go on.

[01:07:30] Merlin: gosh, we’re not letting the smart Christina. fine.

[01:07:34] Merlin: I just met a girl named Christina. That’s not really true. I met her long ago on a show.

[01:07:42] Jeff: On a shoe. In a

[01:07:44] Merlin: a shoe say it’s soft and it’s almost like praying. Um, but ah, fuck. I don’t know. Here’s the thing. I get this, I, I, I get this. I understand. I’m trying to say I understand that I get things less ’cause [01:08:00] it sounds condescending, but I understand why people are how they are. I understand. I think to an extent how I am, I’m just gonna say this and I’m gonna run away.

[01:08:07] Merlin: I’m just gonna light it and run away. ’cause I do not have any evidence for this. I don’t have a persuasive theory. I could not debate this with John Craig Syracuse to any effective level.

The Power of Vulnerability

[01:08:16] Merlin: But I’ve, in my, in my adult life, I’ve never felt the necessity of vulnerability as much as I do right now. Every, every fiber of most of us, of our bodies, our, our, our mind, our emotions, our mental state is, is telling us to toughen up and is telling us to never lose an argument and is telling us to, like I. Okay, so at that point, lemme just trail off there and say, isn’t it wild how terrible everyone can be to each other no matter what. We know how much people on our, at least on my side of the aisle, love to go after each other. And that’s just, that’s just the way that we do it. That’s why we couldn’t get things done for 30 years.

[01:08:57] Merlin: And then we finally got together on some things, and then [01:09:00] we decided that that was a bad strategy, and now we reject it all. Everybody, people are trying so hard to become invulnerable, emotionally, physically, psychically, religious, like however you look at it, uh, vulnerable. And it’s making people real stupid and, and real shortsighted.

[01:09:24] Merlin: And I, this is why I’m lighting it and running away. Just call it privilege. Call it what you want. I’ve never felt the need for vulnerability more in my life because I have found at much personal cost, the vulnerability is where growth is. Vulnerability is where you are. Invulnerability is trying to create a world of things around you that aren’t you.

[01:09:45] Merlin: You’re like the Soviet Union invading the, you know, the Latvian, Baltic countries to create these satellite countries. And like, we’ll never lose another drop of blood on, on, you know, Soviet soil. And that’s you. That’s all of us. When we try to create [01:10:00] these rings of info and listen, man, I don’t even know where to begin.

[01:10:04] Merlin: Like if you’re, if you’re in a terrible relationship with somebody that’s abusing you, like I, I’m not trying to steal valor from any of the, like the real stuff, but you know what, there’s always been real stuff. There will always be real stuff. There will always be terrible, terrible, terrible people and things that you can do nothing about.

[01:10:18] Merlin: So where are you in all of that at length? How long are you prepared to be the equivalent of like an NPC in your own little game where like you have just become yet another person who’s running through cross lights when people say it’s okay to cross that, that is, we we’re really, really just feeling things when we’re told to feel it.

[01:10:37] Merlin: And then the only, because part of it is the only kind of comedy, the only ways that we get a lot of community, especially online, which is life. What’s the quickest way to bond with somebody? Dentist office, jury, dude. What’s the quickest way to bond? Find something you both hate.

[01:10:53] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:54] Merlin: the room you’re in.

[01:10:55] Merlin: Maybe it’s that, that, that, that nasty receptionist. But like you’d be amazed how many people from any side [01:11:00] of the aisle, people in pink and blue or red and blue or green and red or whatever, can bond over something that they both hate. Because that the clarity of something that we hate is a strong word.

[01:11:10] Merlin: The clar, how the clarity that we feel about something that we consider an intolerable situation. That’s an opportunity that where people too, people on a bus can, can talk about the same. That’s sometimes it feels like that’s all we’ve got now. Is the thing that we can both hate for a little while. And I’m just saying, I’m finding a lot of, if not power, I’m finding more of myself and vulnerability than I’m finding myself in this world of people that are basically like, like parking lot Ballards, just trying to keep anything from, from getting through their perimeter.

[01:11:41] Merlin: And they’re, they’re, they’re so unhappy and the trajectory for their future emotions is not promising right now. And they’re uninterested, not disinterested, they’re uninterested in it because keeping up the Ballards that make that vulnerability feel real are so important. But you’re [01:12:00] not in vulnerable.

[01:12:01] Merlin: You’re not even that strong. You’re just, you’re just puffing yourself up and, and trying to feel like nothing affects you. And man, I don’t see, again, I’m lighting it and running away, but there’s a lot of stuff if you chose to, there’s a lot of stuff that you can find near the end of your nose that we’re remind you that every single one of us is a human being that’s only here for a little while.

[01:12:23] Merlin: That we only have so much to offer, but we have so much to gain. We have so much to learn. We have so much to share. We have so much to pass on to each other in our humanity. I wouldn’t normally bust a gut like this, except I think there’s probably somebody who needs to hear

[01:12:34] Merlin: that. And if you have the courage, uh, of.

[01:12:38] Merlin: Being your own self or the courage of your convictions or however you look at it. You don’t have to tell a single person in the world, but learn to get a little bit more vulnerable. Maybe that means don’t be afraid to cry while you’re watching Doctor Who like, I don’t know, maybe that means, but you know, what that could mean is like there’s some kind of a tent pole piece of bullshit in your life that you think is keeping the roof up, that’s actually making [01:13:00] your room very crowded with all the different columns, with certainty and and sureness, and you’ve got it all figured out and you’re so fucking mad and everything has to be about everything, and that’s not gonna work for 20 years.

[01:13:14] Merlin: When are you gonna start becoming a human being again? What will it take for you to feel like you have permission to be a human being again, and to feel vulnerability? Because that’s what you are. If you’re a human being, you are step zero for now. You’re alive. You’re gonna be dead a lot longer than you’re ever, we’ve ever been alive.

[01:13:32] Merlin: I don’t know, man. I just, I, and I’m trying to avoid getting into examples that would make people roll their eyes, but there’s a lot of stuff at hand. You have everything you need to become a human being today, and it can save you a whole lot of overhead and it will not protect you from anything. But I defy a lot of people to tell me what they are successfully protecting themselves from.

[01:13:55] Merlin: Right now, I don’t think it’s working.

[01:13:57] Jeff: Mm. [01:14:00] Runs away.

[01:14:01] Christina: Yeah.

[01:14:02] Jeff: great. That’s.

[01:14:05] Merlin: Watch.

[01:14:06] Brett: on that

[01:14:07] Jeff: there’s another opening act you gotta follow. I just, I just had to follow, uh,

[01:14:11] Jeff: job. I’ll, I’ll bridge this for you. If it’s cool, I’ll do the other add read, and then you can start with kind of a clean slate. Um,

[01:14:20] Merlin: we could just keep this bit up where Christina never gets to Honestly, honestly, we’re fine. I’m

[01:14:25] Merlin: Lemme stop you there,

Sponsor: Rogue Amoeba

[01:14:28] Brett: so this episode is also sponsored by one of our favorite developers, RO MEbA, makers of

[01:14:34] Merlin: boo.

[01:14:35] Brett: audio software for the Mac.

[01:14:39] Merlin: What a dumb company.

[01:14:41] Brett: Oh. They specifically said in the aery that we’re not allowed to raspberry them. Um, no, but seriously, we love rogue Ameba, rogue amoeba.

[01:14:51] Merlin: down.

[01:14:53] Brett: They’ve been developing audio focus apps for the Mac for over 20 years, going all the way back to iOS [01:15:00] 10.2, which is Jaguar. If you’ve forgotten,

[01:15:02] Jeff: Jaguar.

[01:15:03] Brett: their latest versions make it a snap to get started with.

[01:15:06] Brett: No need to even restart your Mac. I personally love Sound Source and Loop Back, and I use them all the time. Sound Source puts per app audio controls, including the ability to apply effects right into your menu bar and Loop Back is an amazing app for routing audio signals and working with multiple audio devices.

[01:15:25] Brett: And I would be remiss of course to not praise Audio Hijack, uh, which everyone in the podcasting community is familiar with the all purpose tool for recording and routing audio on your Mac. It can do just about anything with application, audio or microphone input, and it has a ton of automation possibilities.

[01:15:43] Brett: Learn more about all of rogue Amoeba software@macaudio.com slash Overtired. That’s mac audio.com/ Overtired. Uh, listeners of Overtired can save 20% off any purchase through the end of May with the coupon code [01:16:00] Overtired. Just go to mac audio.com/ Overtired and use the coupon Overtired. And now Christina, over to you.

[01:16:08] Merlin: Can I, can I, hang on, hang on. Can I talk about why I was being silly there?

[01:16:12] Christina: of course.

[01:16:13] Brett: Yes, of course.

[01:16:16] Merlin: It’s one of my favorite companies, and it’s one of my favorite companies, not simply because they make so many applications that I use every day, much like stuff you make Brett stuff that I use for my work, but like, they super care about their users in a way that is, that really shows.

[01:16:32] Merlin: Um, like I, you know, again, QED, I don’t like to make things negative, but Apple over time in the interest of purportedly of security, has made it a lot more frustrating to do very powerful things with your Mac and RBA has been every

[01:16:45] Christina: neutered it. Let’s just say it, let’s just call it what

[01:16:47] Merlin: sure try. They’ve sure at least, I don’t dunno if they cut ’em off, but they’ve definitely hidden them beneath some sort of, uh, general burka.

[01:16:53] Merlin: But Rova is there every step of the way trying to make things as easy as possible and dependable as possible for their users. [01:17:00] And they get my officio official Okie Doe except for Paul. I don’t like Paul personally. Go Birds.

Bridge to Christina

[01:17:10] Christina: Oh They’re great people. They’re great people. Um, okay. I don’t have that much to really, I guess kind of like add to, to the discourse. Certainly not anything like important, but when we’re talking about vulnerability, when we’re talking about other things and, and I guess, uh, ways of like getting in with your emotions.

[01:17:28] Christina: I’m so sorry. This is such a weird segue to go back to, I’m gonna go back to, to Merlin’s, like Bridget Teia joke. That book fucked me up so much as a kid, but it is like an incredible book. Um, the movie will fuck you up too, but uh, none of you have ever read it.

[01:17:44] Jeff: No, I’ve never heard of it.

[01:17:45] Christina: Okay.

[01:17:46] Merlin: I heard the movie’s not as good.

[01:17:47] Christina: I mean, the movie is actually good, but, but like, it’s, it, it’s hard.

[01:17:50] Christina: So it, it’s a children’s book ish. I guess it’s what we used to be able to call, I, I call like, like young adult, but like now, like has a different connotation, but like middle readers, right? Like, I [01:18:00] think I read it in elementary school, but you could definitely. It’s well written it like one, like whatever the, whatever the, the equivalent of the Pulitzer is for like children’s literature, like Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:18:11] Christina: Like it, it won that. And, uh, it, it, the, the author, she was like in her forties and it was, I guess kind of like, she’d been like a missionary. And then she wrote, uh, started writing like later in life, uh, publishing and, and like every single book she released was like incredibly well received, um, uh, critically and, and commercially.

[01:18:29] Christina: And her books have also been subject to book bands, which is ridiculous. But, um, the, the, the story, uh, I is about like the, these two, you know, kids who like 11 years old, like a boy and a girl and like takes place in like the seventies in, uh, like West Virginia or something, or, or, or, um, near the DC area. Um, so, so maybe regular Virginia and, uh, and kind of growing up together and what, and they kind of, kind of create this, this world together they call Teia, where, you know, they’re just kind of playing and, but it’s this [01:19:00] coming of age story and I won’t like. I’ll get emotionally even saying, let’s just put it this way. There is like the, the ending, like it is one of the most tragic things like you will ever read. And the fact that like say children’s book, holy Shit, it fucks you up, but like, in a really good way. And then that, the backstory is, is that, that she wrote it basically, um, it was in some ways based on like a real thing that happened to her actual son.

[01:19:24] Christina: And so it was like her way of like dealing with her grief to, to, to write about it. But it’s just, it’s, it’s a, it’s an incredible book. And it’s like one of those things like, um, I think about it sometimes, like when we think about like, I don’t know, it’s, it’s just, um, about feeling things like vulnerability.

[01:19:39] Christina: Like that is actually like weirdly for reading like a children’s book. But she wrote like, I guess higher level step

[01:19:45] Merlin: But it’s okay. You’ve got permission,

[01:19:47] Christina: Oh no, totally. But, but I’m saying no, but,

[01:19:48] Merlin: No, no, no, no. But I’m saying it’s different from like what you’re allowed to have a surprisingly strong feeling about in adulthood. Normally. That’s why I say Doctor Who, if I watch Day of the Doctor, my favorite episode of Doctor Who I’m, I’m gonna cry, [01:20:00] cry three different times.

[01:20:00] Merlin: It’s, this is known, but Right. Isn’t that part of it though, is it’ll catch you kind of off guard sometimes. Like a real feeling will hit you from a place you didn’t expect.

[01:20:09] Christina: right. No, but I was just kind of thinking that. Right. But like, and, but, um, she’s a, she’s still alive. She’s 92. Catherine Peterson. Um, good for her. Um, yeah, and no, she, she won, um. I guess like the new barrier or whatever, like for, for Brite Rabia and for for Jacob Pap I loved, and then she won the National Book award twice as well.

[01:20:28] Christina: And then she got like, I mean, she basically got like every book you could like, like every award. Like you, you could kind of get like in her like through throughout the seventies. And she didn’t write that mini books, but like the ones she did write were all like, fucking bangers that will break your heart emotionally and just be like, fuck you up.

[01:20:45] Christina: But, but, but Bridgette, the, which was published in 77, so like, it is, it became a movie and the movie is pretty good. But the movie is, the funny thing about the movie is that, uh, Walden or whoever, like distributed it, they wanted [01:21:00] to kind of sell up the fantasy aspect of, of the whole thing. And there’s not really one.

[01:21:04] Christina: And so imagine a bunch of parents taking their kids to see a book that they think is kind of gonna be like Narnia and having a very different kind of ending,

[01:21:16] Merlin: Right.

[01:21:16] Christina: like a sort of ending that like, you

[01:21:18] Merlin: You think it’s Lord to the Rings, but it’s actually Old Yeller.

[01:21:20] Christina: uh, it’s, it is actually my girl. Uh, it is, is, yeah. That, that, that, that’s the spoiler I’ll give. So like, but yeah, it’s, it’s actually like, like my girl.

[01:21:29] Christina: So, but like, like holy shit. So, um, yeah. So yeah. Yeah. You’re like, oh, this is gonna be this great family fun film. And then you’re like, um, I, I’ve just had my, my like heart ripped outta my stomach. Anyway, that’s, that, that, that, that’s neither here nor there. But, uh. Yeah,

[01:21:49] Jeff: that seems like it’s in both places.

[01:21:52] Christina: Anyway, that was just a weird

[01:21:53] Merlin: but

[01:21:53] Merlin: you, we were talking about

[01:21:55] Christina: yeah, exactly.

[01:21:55] Christina: And, and I was gonna say that, and it made me think that it was kind of the, one of those funny things. ’cause I was like, [01:22:00] God, like that. That’s the sort of like shit that like, holy wow, you know? Anyway,

[01:22:06] Merlin: My lizard died, um, uh, a little bit ago. And um, this is just wildly apropos nothing except of everything. Um, but, um, he died. I buried him, blah, blah, blah. Ah, thanks. But the point is that, you know, I’ve got those, uh, I got, I got a smart home. You know, and like one of the things that’s, that we have done to take care of him is we have an eve power strip that’s got like, it’s really nice.

[01:22:34] Merlin: It’s got 1, 2, 3, you can, like, they’re programmable and, and like, and they give you data on like how much wattage was used. And Eve makes great stuff and I, I love that power strip. I buried the lizard, which is not a euphemism. Um, and I thought, oh, you know, that’s, that’s a nice, that’s a really nice, uh, power strip.

[01:22:53] Merlin: I grabbed one day for his vivarium, I should get that back. And I went and I unplugged his power strip.

[01:22:59] Jeff: Hmm

[01:22:59] Merlin: [01:23:00] the power strip it does his UV light, does his heat lamp and does the rock that he liked to lay on. And for some reason unplugging that power strip made me cry really? Somewhat, um, somewhat uncontrollably, which I didn’t mind.

[01:23:15] Merlin: Like I, I like when emotions come out because I’m okay with being vulnerable, like, all cos but it that, that’s the reason I mention that here is like you don’t know where it’s gonna come from. Yeah, okay. Whatever I got, I’ve got a lizard. People think that’s weird. He’s spiky. Syracuse doesn’t like him. He died.

[01:23:32] Merlin: That was sad. There was a whole lot of sad. There was just a, a big bummer. The way that we found him was, you know, bad and, um, but it was unplugging in addition to those not. Like, you know,

[01:23:43] Brett: Not, not

[01:23:44] Merlin: but in addition, in addition to those taking, unplugging a power strip from the wall, hit some part of my brain. And I have to tell you, it’s a part of my brain.

[01:23:54] Merlin: This is why I, I have no tolerance for most people as human beings. The part of my, I have no problem at all understanding that there’s [01:24:00] a part of my brain, let’s just call it, I don’t know, the, uh, the creative crucible or the, the, the, the humanity engine. But there’s some part of my brain that where humor and and sadness are very close to each other.

[01:24:12] Merlin: What’s, what’s humor humor’s about? Surprise. So it’s kind of a similar feeling to a good joke you didn’t expect or catching yourself doing something that’s funny, by the way, because of how you are and you laugh to yourself and go, God, I’m so funny. I’m such a dingling. It’s just that, that one, I wasn’t laughing with myself.

[01:24:30] Merlin: I was crying with myself. It’s so ironic that me unplugging this smart thing that I’m gonna go and reset and reuse for different things. That that’s what had me feeling this strong emotion. And, uh, can I just say, I’ll just, uh, cover myself with glory here? I don’t think that’s the kind of feeling we encourage ourselves to feel when we’re trying to approach invulnerability.

[01:24:53] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[01:24:53] Merlin: fact, I think most of us would say that’s the kind of bullshit that we need to get out of our life so we can be strong, like Bolt, [01:25:00] just tossing it out there. But, but that, that’s a Buddhist gif. When you get a little moment that makes you a little sad. ’cause you thought about a book, Christina, I, I would argue there’s a good chance you’re still alive.

[01:25:10] Christina: it’s true, it’s true.

[01:25:11] Jeff: Hmm.

[01:25:12] Christina: That’s a good point. And I, and I think you make a good point too. Like there are those things where like you, you know, yeah. Like we, we put on the, the strong face, we put on the, you know, the, the, the gr and bear it thing. And then you are, um, and, and you, and you maybe even, you think you, you’ve dealt with like a, a thing and then you’re faced with a decision, which seems completely innocuous.

[01:25:30] Christina: You know, you’re unplugging a power cable and then you’re realizing, why am I doing it?

[01:25:34] Merlin: Decide like you’re driving by a dead person’s favorite restaurant for the first time, like whatever. You know, there’s those kinds of things where you’re like, ah, I thought I’d taken care of everything, but I still have feelings.

[01:25:45] Christina: Yep. Which is good because to your point, we, we, we need that otherwise, like we lose our humanity. And I think that’s so important when there’s so many genuinely terrible things happening to like, remind ourselves. Because for me, it’s important for me to do it because. I am, I’m glad that, [01:26:00] like Brett finds comfort in reading anarchist, like stuff that would not provide me any comfort at all.

[01:26:06] Christina: So I wouldn’t bother with it. It would just make me angry. And, and, but, but, but if it provides you comfort or makes you, gives you good things, like I, I, I want people to do like what’s best for them. For me though, like, I am having a really hard time ’cause I’m still in this phase with anything news related where I’m just kind of in a, I don’t wanna look at it.

[01:26:24] Christina: I don’t wanna engage with it. I can’t deal with it. Like I don’t have

[01:26:27] Merlin: so stupid. Everything is, I called it dumb 19, 19 35. It’s like dumb 1935 all over America

[01:26:34] Christina: Yeah, no,

[01:26:35] Merlin: as, it’s as concerning as 1935, just even dumber.

[01:26:38] Christina: agreed. Agreed. And, and, but, but where I, I’m at, and I, and I’m, and in some cases it’s a good thing because I am like protecting myself and I’m like, you know, getting myself to a certain thing, but I’m trying to be careful ’cause like, I don’t wanna become so like nihilistic that I just don’t, you know, that I’m just at a point where I’m like, fuck it, burn it all.

[01:26:56] Christina: I don’t give a shit. We’re gonna be dead anyway. What does it matter? [01:27:00] Like, I don’t wanna become that far removed, but at the same time, I can’t actually find myself to care.

The Emotional Struggle of Engagement

[01:27:05] Christina: Like, I can’t engage because I care too much. It’s one of those things like, you know, I, I think it’s important for us to be able to remind ourselves that there are things we can feel emotion about that like, feel not controllable, but, but feel like, I don’t know, tangible in a way.

[01:27:20] Christina: Whereas everything else, it’s like I have all these feelings, but there’s literally nothing I can do about any of them. And I don’t wanna. Like, it doesn’t do me any good to, to, to, you know, keep up with what’s happening or, or no, not keep up, engage doesn’t

Questioning the Value of Awareness

[01:27:36] Merlin: Well, and like how much did you benefit from learning? There’s three more terrible things today, or a way I put it that’s is a little blunt by design. Um, when you find out about the next horrible thing or the next five horrible things, what will you do differently this morning?

[01:27:49] Christina: Right, right. And, and,

[01:27:51] Merlin: I think is a question we don’t ask ourselves often enough.

[01:27:53] Merlin: We don’t need to be asking that question all the time. There’s nothing we need to be doing all the time except breathing and shitting. But like, [01:28:00] don’t we need to occasionally say, I mean, like for me, ’cause it’s this whole stack for me of like, I think about, you know, cog like, uh, sort of, uh, awareness, like attention leads to, uh, leads to cognition.

[01:28:12] Merlin: You know, you get thinking, thinking leads to decisions, decisions lead to action, and that the music goes around and around.

The Futility of Constant Sadness

[01:28:18] Merlin: I just don’t understand how like, shoveling more of that horror into my face a deliberately very aggressive, uh, let’s just say there’s, there’s a lot to be gained for anybody who like, wants to feel sad right now that the, if you’re in that business of keeping people a little bit sad, this is a good, this is a, a boom economy in c certain ways.

[01:28:39] Merlin: Um, but. Uh, I don’t know.

Philosophical Reflections on Life and Action

[01:28:42] Merlin: I, uh, I, I think we, uh, you know, Kiir Kegar talks about this feeling of wanting to be consumed, you know, by, by, by our, by our angst or by our, our grief for boy or whatever it is, but like, probably grossly misquoting at this point. But like, the idea that like, you’re gonna keep living till you die.[01:29:00]

[01:29:00] Merlin: That’s basically the stakes. And it’s like, you’re not, you’re not gonna live any better by convincing yourself that there’s new things you can do. Nothing about that. And if you can that, that, that, that’s good. May maybe, and if it’s fun, that’s good. I’m not trying to say any given thing. What I am trying to say is, drinking salt water will kill you.

[01:29:19] Merlin: So if you think you’re quenching your thirst with salt water, I think the guy in the black freighter says, you know, in a watchman says, you know, you can drink salt water for like a short period of time and survive, but you don’t wanna be doing that forever. Look how it turned out with him. No spoilers.

The Dangers of Over-Engagement

[01:29:34] Merlin: But, but what I, what I am saying is, uh, sometimes, you know, as smart and as invulnerable as we want to be, we do sometimes very much work at cross purposes with ourselves, with the things we claim that are important or the things that we claim we’re focusing on, or all those different kinds of, like tent pole things that I feel very strongly about.

[01:29:53] Merlin: And I don’t know, I feel, uh, a spirit spiritual kinship with you here, uh, Christina. ’cause I, I, [01:30:00] I, I, I think I feel a similar way. I feel the, the sort of, the, the guilt of like, why haven’t I done more? But hey, you know, this is what y’all wanted.

[01:30:09] Christina: Yep. No, there’s a certain point where

[01:30:10] Merlin: This is what y’all claim you wanted. You beat us. You beat us. So,

[01:30:14] Christina: you, you, you beat us, you beat you, you beat, you beat us real good. Uh, on, on every level. And now this is what it is. And I, I, I, I, you know, I’m not, I’m not, not at that point, like, and I, but, but like, where I worry, and I, and I don’t think it’s, I think it’s okay for to have lasted as long as it lasted and for it to last longer, but like, I don’t want it to get to the point where I’m just like, so completely like, tapped out that like, you know what I mean?

The Importance of a Balanced Approach

[01:30:35] Christina: Like right now, I can’t, I, I can’t engage and I can’t, I can’t pretend to like, uh, you know, be, get upset and get like, overly invested in any of it because I just, I

[01:30:45] Merlin: And then what happened? What happens? The cautionary tale, and then I, we should probably talk about something else, but the cautionary tale then becomes like, okay, so you’ve gotten really good, you’ve gotten a hair trigger about always being able to like, detect and, and uh, and internalize and potentially [01:31:00] integrate the shittiness of the world you’ve gotten.

[01:31:01] Merlin: So one has gotten so efficient at doing that. And when does that stop? When and, and, and put differently, put more saliently. When do you realize that’s just one of your strategies? And as I like to say, and my things I say to myself, one of those things is remember your toolbox. Remember you’ve got a toolbox.

[01:31:20] Merlin: Like that can be one of the things in your toolbox, but you don’t want that to be your whole white panel van for life is just. Just constantly on the edge of, of just diarrhea, diarrheaing yourself with this inability to do anything, and then just getting so efficient at sucking it all in. And it’s like, where, where are you in all of that?

[01:31:42] Merlin: If one could ask, you know,

[01:31:44] Merlin: I don’t know. I’m talking about some having,

Transition to GrAPPtitude

[01:31:47] Brett: Do you guys wanna, do you wanna move on to a GrAPPtitude

[01:31:50] Christina: Yeah,

[01:31:51] Jeff: Yeah. But I, I recommend everybody go listen to, uh, Sammy Davis Jr’s. I’m Gonna Live Until I Die, which is off of the Sammy Davis Jr. Album. The Wham of [01:32:00] Sam.

[01:32:02] Brett: will, will you add that to the show note as

[01:32:04] Jeff: just ki.

[01:32:05] Brett: recommendation?

[01:32:07] Christina: Um, also, also, also, before, before we do that, I,

[01:32:09] Merlin: I kind like my Sammy Davis. I’m sorry. I’m gonna have do the screenshot of this, because this is a pretty good Sammy kind like, hi man, what’s happening? Ka

[01:32:18] Christina: um, uh, Merlin, um, what Elvis book, uh, did, did you get, did you get his Elvis book or his last 24 hours of Elvis? From, from uh, uh,

[01:32:27] Merlin: Oh, uh, it’s, it’s Albert Goldman, circa 80 ish. I think it’s called

[01:32:33] Christina: wrote two. Okay. Yeah. ’cause he wrote two. One was

[01:32:35] Merlin: just the one called Elvis,

[01:32:36] Christina: Okay, got it. Great. ’cause I’m, I’m gonna like buy

[01:32:38] Merlin: I think, I mean, I’m not sure it’s, it’s somewhere in the house. I’m not

[01:32:41] Christina: well, no, no, no, no, no. One was the last 24 hours of Elvis or whatever, and then he wrote like, I

[01:32:45] Merlin: I, you know,

[01:32:46] Christina: and then, then this was one just called Elvis.

[01:32:48] Merlin: I’m a zen master. I’m a zen master buddy. I say get ’em both if you can Find them, get ’em. Get ’em both.

[01:32:55] Christina: For like $7, I’m gonna do it.

[01:32:56] Merlin: Stocking stuffer. Can I just say

[01:32:58] Christina: I, I mean, [01:33:00] look, I

[01:33:00] Merlin: whichever one you like least give to a loved one and now that’s theirs.

[01:33:04] Christina: And you’re like,

[01:33:04] Merlin: They’ll take care of it.

[01:33:05] Christina: please read my trash Pul fiction from, from 40 years ago. Um, uh, even though it’s not fiction from what you say it might be. Um,

[01:33:15] Merlin: Uh, you know, it should be true. Oh, there’s a lot in there. I know. It’s not just the one chapter. It’s also how he had hole in the wall so he could watch the ladies wrestle in their underpants. He had a, he had a heavily mistreated chimp that would throw poop at people. It was very poorly socialized. Also, whatcha even doing with a chimp?

[01:33:29] Merlin: Like step zero, you know?

[01:33:31] Jeff: I mean, I’d

[01:33:32] Merlin: it’s kind of crazy way I masturbate on that.

[01:33:33] Jeff: it’s Spider Monkey. If I had to make a choice,

[01:33:36] Merlin: yeah. Spider Monkey. I remember Richard Pryor bit about that. Anyway, Elvis was a, was a model citizen.

[01:33:42] Christina: no, he was, he was, and, and, uh, and, and, and

[01:33:44] Jeff: said.

[01:33:45] Merlin: quoting Lilo and Stitch. Elvis Presley was a model citizen. I love that movie

[01:33:52] Christina: I do too. That movie’s, God, that movie’s really good. Uh, but yeah, we should do gratitudes.

[01:33:58] Brett: Okay. Who wants to go first? [01:34:00] I’ll start.

[01:34:01] Merlin: Yeah.

Tech Tips and Recommendations

[01:34:01] Brett: I’ll start since I had mine, mine premeditated and the rest of, you’re probably figuring it out on the

[01:34:05] Christina: No, I’ve got mine figured

[01:34:06] Jeff: got mine.

[01:34:07] Christina: go.

[01:34:08] Brett: Um, um, I think Jeff has actually mentioned this one before, but I wanted to talk about super key.

[01:34:14] Jeff: Oh.

[01:34:15] Brett: Um, a cool little utility. Um, it has the ability to make a hyper key, which is when your, your caps lock becomes control shift, alternate and command.

[01:34:27] Brett: But I still use carabiner for that. I find it more seamless to use something closer to hardware level. But what super key does for me is I can press on my keyboard, it’s hyper key and semicolon, so it’s my two pinkies. I hit that combination and a little search bar pops up and I can type and it can find any button, any text, anything on the screen that has letters.

[01:34:55] Brett: And I just type the first few letters of the button I wanna click, and then I hit [01:35:00] return and it clicks that button.

[01:35:02] Merlin: Is it? Is it, is it, you’re flipping on access, not accessibility, but you’re flipping on screen recording

[01:35:06] Brett: both

[01:35:06] Merlin: that enables it.

[01:35:08] Brett: and screen recording and it can find, there’s another one called Whoosh that only does menu items, um, and,

[01:35:17] Merlin: there’s a lot of those that are like command shift, question mark on steroids kind

[01:35:22] Brett: Well, I, I also love Paltro, which it gives you like command shift p

[01:35:28] Merlin: I think that’s on set. I,

[01:35:29] Brett: yeah, it is. Um, and, and Paltro is great for quickly accessing menu items for which I haven’t bothered to memorize keyboard shortcuts.

[01:35:40] Brett: Uh, but super key means that I can access buttons that don’t even have keyboard shortcuts as if, almost as if they had keyboard shortcuts. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. That’s my pick.

[01:35:52] Christina: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Um, so I’ll go next. Um, uh, this is, this is a weird one, uh, because I’ve [01:36:00] never had, like, I’ve never, I don’t think I’ve ever picked a Chrome extension as my, my, uh, gude, but I’m going to, uh, so with the new job, I am using, uh, you know, the Chrome web browser, uh, for the majority of what I do, um, I, I still use, you know, some native apps sometimes, but like, I, I, uh, because of of, of software policy stuff, I can’t use an app like Mindstream for mail.

[01:36:22] Christina: I have to use Gmail and pwa. I have to use, you know, other things. Um, and uh, uh, obviously we are completely, uh, all in on, you know, Google Docs and, and all of that stuff. Um, and so as a result I have, and, and I’ve, you know, always had a kind of a struggle with like, you know, how are you managing all of your different windows, um, uh, you know, Chrome tabs.

[01:36:42] Christina: Um, but now it’s like that. But like times 1000, because I probably have a hundred, you know, or not a hundred, but I probably have 10 different windows with, you know, 40 or 50 different tabs at, at any given time. And the frustrating thing can be, uh, is that if you have too many tabs in like a window, then when to the [01:37:00] point, like you can’t see all the tabs and you can’t, like, you know, scroll through the next thing.

[01:37:03] Christina: And obviously you can use keyboard shortcuts to see what’s there, but it can, sometimes you’re just like, I just wanna pull this freaking. Um, you know, tab out of this window and put it in its own thing and kind of start over from, from this point, or just have this one be front most because maybe I’m having a video call here or something else, or, or it’s a document or something else.

[01:37:21] Christina: And, you know, usually you could just kind of, um, you know, grab the, the bar and drag it and whatnot, but I’m like, I needed it keyboard shortcut for this. And so I found this, uh, extension, which is in the Chrome, um, uh, you know, uh, store. Uh, but it’s also on GitHub called tab to Window. And basically you can set up a hot key.

[01:37:40] Christina: Um, in my case I’m using option, but, uh, you, you, you could, you, you know, set it to be whatever you want, where I basically press option X on the tab that I’m in and it will immediately open it into, um, a, a new window, uh, basically. And you can also set it to go to a different display if that’s what you want with a different shortcut.

[01:37:57] Christina: You can also make it, uh, open as a popup so that

[01:37:59] Merlin: [01:38:00] It’s window management, but for a browser,

[01:38:02] Christina: It is, that’s exactly what it is. Is, and, and you can even

[01:38:04] Merlin: Like Moom or something

[01:38:05] Christina: precisely, and you can even set it up like if what you want to, not to resize or to resize, to basically, you know, be exactly like a, like a, you know, a keyboard based Windows manager, but for your browser windows.

[01:38:17] Christina: And for me, this has just been incredibly useful because I have so many of them all the time that I’m very frequently needing to pop one out or move it to some oth other thing. Uh, and, uh, I don’t wanna have to, you know, fuck with my mouse, um, or my track pad. And so just being able to use, you know, keyword shortcuts is, is great.

[01:38:36] Brett: Nice. That’s super cool.

[01:38:38] Merlin: Yeah. I like

[01:38:39] Jeff: awesome.

[01:38:40] Merlin: I always feel like I should spend more time with things like, um. Keyboard maestro and oh my God, I can’t believe I’m saying these words. This is such an indictment. ’cause for years, the whole reason I wouldn’t learn keyboard, my, I wouldn’t open keyboard maestro is I got the big blinking, attractive nuisance light.

[01:38:58] Merlin: Like, don’t make this into your next [01:39:00] quicksilver, where all you do is think about it all day long. Like, you know, I gotta be careful with those kinds of things. With that said, there are times where like, I mean like you, like y’all know how to do stuff in the terminal. Like I just open prompt and like hit it like a chimp.

[01:39:12] Merlin: I don’t know what I’m doing, but like, but you know, but then there are certain kinds of things where I’m like, oh, like in drafts or like, you know, I’ll, I’ll just, like, there’s a little dumb thing I want to fix or I want to keyboard command that works the same between like, it’s just so fast and easy with keyboard, maestro and better touch tool.

[01:39:27] Merlin: Thank you. Thank you, Brett. You’re the one who turned me onto that one. Um, I mean, you can make chords and you can like, you can basically like basically play color my world by Chicago to make something happen on your iPad.

[01:39:37] Christina: Yes.

[01:39:39] Brett: You actually

[01:39:40] Merlin: That’s major

[01:39:40] Brett: do that. ’cause they have key, they have MIDI triggers

[01:39:44] Merlin: Ah,

[01:39:45] Brett: they have MIDI triggers in

[01:39:46] Merlin: Like Willy won, like Willy Wonka. I could finally use that Arturia I’ve never used.

[01:39:52] Merlin: I thought I fixed something and I don’t know what happened. At a point, drafts very intelligently stopped working with text expander and there was a [01:40:00] fix, I feel like I learned about from Dr. Durang. And then one day it went away on iOS and I don’t know, ’cause S-D-A-T-E-I, you know, short date, I’m just constantly typing that for an ISO date.

[01:40:11] Merlin: But like it’s, I, there are times where I’m like, and because I, I’ve been working on trying to figure out what I broke and I’m so embarrassed to ask anybody what it is. ’cause I had done it. I brought all my text expander into I thought keyboard maestro, but maybe I didn’t. And how did that work on iOS and am I drunk?

[01:40:26] Merlin: Like, you know. But, uh, the, what was the point of that? I’m sorry. I we’re still working on my sleep.

[01:40:34] Christina: you were saying you think that you should get more into like some of these tools.

[01:40:38] Merlin: sometimes like I want to go, I need to go in and find out what I did before and I start poking around and then it’s like I start going, Ooh, I didn’t realize there, Ooh, you can have a window. Go do a thing based on when this kind of thing happens. And it’s kind of like me trying to get into stuff with HomeKit and some combination of chat CPT and shortcuts and home where I try to get stuff like turn off the turn off once I plug in my [01:41:00] scooter, turn it off after this long and that kind of stuff.

[01:41:02] Merlin: And like, you just, I, it’s an attractive nuisance. It’s not bad, but like, this is the, the canonical 43 folders, Merlin, you’ve got to watch your ass or this is what you do now.

[01:41:13] Christina: Right?

[01:41:14] Merlin: know what I mean? Like, those apps are so exciting, but like each time I look at ’em to fix something, I notice something else and I go, Hmm.

[01:41:20] Christina: And I, and then, then I’m like, and then, then my A DH ADHD kicks in and I’m like hyper focusing on it. And then I look up and I’m like, it’s been six

[01:41:26] Merlin: I know. Oh, I know, I know. I’ve been tagging every three. Hey, hey, can I give you a hot tip while we’re at it? Uh, really, really dumb. No-brainer. Hot tip. Uh, this is a phrase I’ve used for years. And, uh, well, there’s actually kind of two tips. One tip, as I talked about on my new web blog or blog is that you should, uh, put things where you look for it, not where you think it should go.

[01:41:44] Merlin: And the same goes for

[01:41:46] Jeff: Yes.

[01:41:46] Merlin: Bar. It goes for launch bar, it goes for, it goes for keyboard metric, it goes for all these, all these different, um, kinds of things. So one of the hot tips was to start noticing stuff, uh, that, that, that, that could be in a better location.

[01:41:59] Merlin: And the other [01:42:00] one, I created a list in the reminders app called Mosquito.

[01:42:06] Jeff: hmm

[01:42:06] Merlin: And that the reason is I is a term I used to use and I wrote about this on my stupid goddamn web blog, my old web blog, um, I call Mosquito task, which is like stuff that’s not, this is a very GTD adjacent idea of like, you’ve got projects and you’ve got tasks, and then you know you, ’cause you’ve got context.

[01:42:22] Merlin: Why don’t we work that? So maybe one of those contexts is stuff that I do when I’ve got the house to myself. On a Thursday, like where does that go? Long story short. Anyways, think about that. That’s what’s one and a half tips so far. Think about, uh, the mosquito task in your life. Just like, um, uh, uh, pick a place to put on my pencils.

[01:42:41] Merlin: Like whatever. Just dumb stuff. A lot of it’s little fixes. I created a reminders list called Mosquito

[01:42:47] Merlin: the point is, if you create a list in reminders with whatever the hell you call your stack of stuff, for me it’s mosquito list. I’ve heard Cusa refer to his, whatever it is he does, he won’t talk about it [01:43:00] as his cue. It’s so nice to be able to be wandering around the house, see a nail that needs to be pounded in or removed and say, Hey, dingus.

[01:43:09] Merlin: Um, so of course I still have to think about this. Hey, Dingus, uh, add, fix the nail to my mosquito list.

[01:43:15] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[01:43:16] Merlin: And because of the regressions in, in Siri, I dunno if you all have heard the latest a TP all the way through, but oh my god, it’s, it really is kind of mindboggling that these assistants aren’t as good as they were in 2015.

[01:43:32] Christina: I’m,

[01:43:33] Jeff: incredible.

[01:43:34] Merlin: Just heard it. You just heard me like,

[01:43:36] Christina: Like it’s, it’s awful.

[01:43:38] Merlin: Hey Siri, remind me to call Christina when I arrive at the house in two hours.

[01:43:46] Brett: Clunk, crickets.

[01:43:50] Merlin: are you here? You’re here, aren’t you? Oh, no, lemme guess you’re gonna create a custom playlist for me. ’cause I wanted to see if you were turned on. Oh, I have to. Oh, oh, hang on, hang on. [01:44:00] Oh, I thought our system didn’t work anymore, but then I had to empty the bucket on the D made a fire, so I touched the AirPod and now, now it’s playing Turn on again by Genesis everywhere.

[01:44:10] Merlin: And I

[01:44:10] Jeff: I, I asked it. I asked it to tell me the news, and it read a Wikipedia article about the Jews.

[01:44:16] Merlin: Hey Siri, what month is it?

[01:44:18] Christina: Exactly that. That’s the best one. You it well, can’t tell you.

[01:44:21] Merlin: 22nd, 2025. March

[01:44:24] Jeff: oh,

[01:44:24] Christina: Oh, they

[01:44:25] Merlin: That’s not the Whoa,

[01:44:26] Christina: They, they, they saw, they, they saw the grouper article about what month

[01:44:29] Merlin: Gruber, this is to inform you that actually it’s great at knowing what month it is. If you have a parser that can run on the sound in the air, it could automatically parse that using a script of your own design and that would be able to send that, push that as a push notification.

[01:44:43] Merlin: It would be able to push that right to your device.

[01:44:46] Jeff: duh.

[01:44:47] Merlin: duh. I thought you liked Pearl. Ooh, I’m not angry.

[01:44:53] Brett: speaking of all these apps that we all in our, in our little world, they’re all like easy [01:45:00] mentions. Um, part of the thing I found most frustrating about shadowing one person at work

[01:45:07] Merlin: I can’t imagine

[01:45:08] Jeff: Was that you were shadowing one person

[01:45:10] Merlin: yes, but like somebody who doesn’t know how to do shit, you know how to do it. Must drive

[01:45:13] Brett: yeah, well, so one of the things, part of their job was to reply with these kind of canned replies to different situations. And

[01:45:24] Jeff: Okay.

[01:45:24] Brett: had, they have multiple confluence pages, and I don’t know if you guys have used Confluence, but it is very slow and loading different pages takes forever. And to reply to an email, they would open their browser, go to Confluence, navigate to the page, find that section of the page, copy it, go back to their email program and paste it.

[01:45:53] Brett: And basically it amounted to maybe seven snippets that, that could be [01:46:00] like with like text expander

[01:46:01] Merlin: It would be, it’ll be like having a new key cut every time you needed to get in your house.

[01:46:05] Christina: right.

[01:46:06] Brett: It was so painful. It was so painful. She’s like, now I’ll show you a trick. So this, this,

[01:46:15] Christina: I, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll show you a trick. I got bookmarks. I got a bookmark for all these things to make it

[01:46:21] Merlin: And then I’m clicking, I’m clicking, I’m copying, I’m clicking, I’m pasting. Watch what’s I’m gonna show you a quick way to do this. I’m finding my menu, I’m clicking.

[01:46:31] Brett: it was, it was infuriating. I, I didn’t even, I, I had, at that point, we were an hour in and I had shut up.

[01:46:39] Christina: no,

[01:46:39] Brett: wasn’t gonna te teach her about text expander.

[01:46:42] Christina: No, you’re not. No, no, no. You’re not.

[01:46:43] Brett: this is just my job now. Anyway. It doesn’t

[01:46:46] Christina: Well, right. And, and you’re also like, I’m not gonna get into how like, uh, tech Expander works or even using the built in expansion, you know, on like, uh, you know, on a Mac or, or, or, or on Windows or whatever. I’m not, not gonna bother with it because you are not gonna use it.

[01:46:58] Christina: So, or, or even the [01:47:00] features that like, might be built into like Gmail or whatever app you’re using, like, or Outlook or whatever. I’m assuming you can set up things like that.

[01:47:06] Merlin: People who still don’t know capital A and like Capital and capital O, people who are still just walking around like typing, you know, it’s crazy making.

[01:47:17] Christina: Yeah. No. At a certain point you’re like, okay, I got it. I’m, if this is where our candid things go, I will script this myself, but I’m not gonna bother telling you anything ’cause you’re not gonna use it anyway,

[01:47:26] Brett: Right. Exactly. All right. Who’s left?

[01:47:30] Christina: Jeff.

[01:47:31] Jeff: Christina.

[01:47:32] Christina: No, I did. I

[01:47:32] Jeff: No. You went with the tabs. With the tabs. Merlin

The Value of Control Center Customization

[01:47:35] Merlin: Control center on

[01:47:38] Merlin: iOS, control center on IOS. Um, because now there’s stuff that you can do. Um, you’ve always been able to, I don’t know, you know, I don’t care how long it’s been, how it is, I’m just gonna say words. It’s so neat that you can drag stuff

[01:47:57] Merlin: around, put things where you want,

[01:47:59] Merlin: any [01:48:00]

[01:48:00] Christina: are multiple sections now.

[01:48:01] Brett: Yep,

[01:48:02] Merlin: Well let’s, let’s start with just, this is kind of cool, right? First of all, anything with a camera icon always goes in the upper right, as we know from Nevin Meen, that’s the only place, anything where a camera goes, but you put it wherever you want. But, you know, I started thinking more and more like, uh, well, and I’m just gonna walk ’cause I’m a dumb guy from the Midwest.

[01:48:19] Merlin: I’m just gonna walk you through some dumb guy stuff. One is, hey, you know, I don’t need a lot of the stuff that’s here, which doesn’t matter except in so far as I’m not treating this like a, sorry to use one of my phrases. An active working area like this, to me, this is an area where things are happening.

[01:48:34] Merlin: We don’t put garbage in an active working area. So on some level now, I started thinking about, oh gosh, there’s probably stuff I don’t need in here. Maybe stuff again, stuff that I keep. Anybody ever done this? Keep stuff in your doc. Keep stuff in your menu. You ever have stuff around? ’cause it’s just always been there.

[01:48:50] Merlin: You maybe even don’t know what it is. Not you guys, but some people have done that and that becomes a little bit, you get a little dumb when you stop noticing things like that. So it started out as simple as, [01:49:00] huh, move these around, remove some of these. And then I started adding a few, I changed the size of certain

[01:49:06] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[01:49:08] Merlin: but then just ’cause this works for me, you know, I use things for my stuff.

[01:49:14] Merlin: Um, I added a new item to add something in things easy add, add adds a new, um, in inbox entry, I got another one that’s just a shortcut. That does nothing but take whatever audio is playing and runs it through my AirPods Max. It does one thing. That’s it. Uh, stuff like, you know, low battery, all that kind of stuff.

[01:49:35] Merlin: Here’s a huge one, and this is kind of when it all changed, is that this is a button

[01:49:40] Jeff: Merlin is holding his phone to

[01:49:42] Merlin: for creating a new item in the app, Daum, D-A-Y-T-U-M. And as it happens, date him by the guy. Who’s the guy?

[01:49:50] Jeff: Danny

[01:49:50] Brett: I don’t, I don’t remember.

[01:49:52] Merlin: Dailey.

[01:49:53] Jeff: Duck Datu.

[01:49:53] Merlin: Donald Duck.[01:50:00]

[01:50:00] Brett: I’ll look it up. You continue talking.

[01:50:03] Merlin: Don’t boss me. What was I talking about? Anyways, datum. And so the datum, uh, it’s, it’s a thing for tracking things and there’s items, items have, cat can have categories. They can have attributes. You know, it’s really, really cool. And I use it for when I take medicine, when I take an edible, like whatever. It just goes into their, why does that matter?

[01:50:24] Merlin: I don’t know. It is not worth explaining to you if you don’t already get it. But let’s just say I can export that as a CSV or A-J-S-O-N and integrate it with all of my Apple Health data and do things in chat GPT that you find really annoying. It’s the best. So add something to date ’em. It’s right there.

[01:50:41] Merlin: So, so, so what does that mean? That means my phone is in, its, nothing’s happening position. Nothing. I pull down from the top and now one click, two click. Done.

[01:50:53] Jeff: yeah.

[01:50:53] Merlin: I didn’t unlock the phone overtly. I only got four spots in the dock. That right there. Stop [01:51:00] right there. That is magic. Go in and look at stuff. You, you, this could be, you know how it’s already kind of neat, that spotlight on iOS is a little like, you know, launch Borrower spotlight on a Mac, but like, this would take it even further.

[01:51:11] Merlin: Now, to whomever said that before, I think Christina, the sections, you know, you can now add a button at least on the beta. Sorry, this will probably be in the, in the public soon. But you can add like an ambient music button. That’ll just play a playlist of ambient music. You know what those Hollywood fat cats don’t tell you, you can make that link to any playlist you have.

[01:51:30] Jeff: Oh, nice.

[01:51:32] Merlin: a single button that you associate with, in my case, my getting pumped. I have three getting pumped up playlists, my favorite of which is the studio version of Born Slippy Knucks and a live version from Belgium of Born Slippy. I can put that right here and click it. That’s right there and I’m, I’m almost done.

[01:51:50] Merlin: But the other page stuff, fantastic. So I’ve got a section now lemme just point out though, I don’t know how, how many folks know this When you do that poll, I can’t see this because I’m doing it [01:52:00] backwards. You can go do a long ass poll that will take you to your lower sections. I’m now, you saw what I did?

[01:52:07] Merlin: One poll. I’m in the fourth. I’m in the fourth

[01:52:09] Brett: Oh, wow.

[01:52:10] Christina: and it has like

[01:52:11] Jeff: ah.

[01:52:11] Brett: this.

[01:52:12] Merlin: So if I put, look at my home stuff, right? This is stuff at my house. This is stuff at my O Office.

[01:52:21] Jeff: has done a long

[01:52:22] Merlin: Long pull down that. Right? So take everything about the, the main thing I wanted to tell you is, hey guys, check out control center. It’s really cool. And notice stuff you can put on that first page, but now you can make your own pages.

[01:52:34] Merlin: I know you know that. I know you read nine to five Mac, but what did you do last week to actually operationalize that? Did you take a half a goddamn minute to think about a way you can make that better? Yeah, I know you know it. That in seven bucks will get you a cup of coffee. What the fuck are you doing to make your phone work better?

[01:52:52] Merlin: Put stuff in control center. Use it in long drag.

[01:52:55] Jeff: sure is two. Two. Nickels will make a dime.

[01:52:58] Merlin: Ah, frog add wings. Wouldn’t bump [01:53:00] possess a hopping.

[01:53:00] Jeff: hey,

[01:53:01] Merlin: You got chairs, you gotta dinette set. You got no chairs, you got dick. I asked my wife, she got more sense. I dunno. It’s got yodas

[01:53:06] Jeff: we add eggs, we can have bacon and eggs if we add bacon.

[01:53:10] Merlin: And when there was no, when, when there was no pork, we ate foul. When there was, when there was no foul.

[01:53:16] Brett: Case and Nicholas Felton.

[01:53:18] Merlin: When Nick, that’s the one when there was no foul.

[01:53:21] Merlin: We ate sand, we ate sand, we ate sand. You know it’s a very quotable movie. Is Ra

[01:53:27] Jeff: is that from Raven, Arizona? You know that I just played my

[01:53:29] Merlin: It was a rocky place from a seed could

[01:53:31] Jeff: my seed could not find purchase

[01:53:34] Merlin: I’m, I’m, she got you on a pretty short leash, don’t she? If you don’t breastfeed for Relax, turn to the Rock.

[01:53:45] Jeff: Barren place full of rocks or my seed could not find purchase.

[01:53:49] Brett: right.

[01:53:49] Merlin: Yate Sand. And, and here’s the thing though. You know what else in terms of these little beauties nobody cares about? I love my comfort food on the YouTube. Shut up. I like, I like my comfort. I find between seasons of Task [01:54:00] Master. ’cause that’s my main thing. Y’all should watch out.

[01:54:02] Jeff: you

[01:54:02] Jeff: for

[01:54:02] Merlin: Taskmaster New Zealand.

[01:54:04] Merlin: Oh, did we, we talk, did we, did you watch New Zealand at all? You watch straight one. Oh my God. Um, sometimes you’ll just find the best fucking stuff somebody. I don’t, I never wanna say these things. Somebody created an account

[01:54:19] Jeff: Woo.

[01:54:19] Merlin: and it’s uploaded a fuck ton of old VHS recorded copies of inside the actor studio from the late nineties and early

[01:54:27] Christina: Holy shit. That was my favorite show. I

[01:54:30] Merlin: I know, I know.

[01:54:31] Christina: I loved Bravo

[01:54:32] Merlin: you’d be, you’d be surprised. Yeah, you’d be, so it used to be a and e it was on like, and, and it was, but it’s so funny. And then of course, will Ferrell did a funny character, but only because we all loved the way that guy was. His little like surprises, you know? Would you, were you aware that when you were three years old, you had a scab that was saved by your aunt?

[01:54:48] Merlin: Here’s that scab.

[01:54:49] Christina: he. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I just, I, I just had a realization, and someone else has probably come up with this before, but, but this is the first time this has occurred to me, and I don’t think I’ve heard this hot ones, is [01:55:00] the modern day, um, inside the actor studio.

[01:55:02] Brett: Oh

[01:55:02] Jeff: Ooh.

[01:55:03] Brett: Yeah,

[01:55:03] Merlin: Ah, I like that. That is good. I, the one I wanted to commend you guys to and it

[01:55:08] Brett: that’s actually a really good way to explain hot ones

[01:55:11] Christina: Oh my God. Yes. It’s inside the actor studio with hot wings

[01:55:17] Merlin: Yeah. Instead of, instead of the Proust questionnaire, you got the Apollo sauce. You know what I mean?

[01:55:21] Christina: right. But it’s the same type of thing. Like he does, he does the

[01:55:24] Merlin: I love, I love women, but I deny them my essence. know, I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination and the international communist conspiracy to sap and in purify all of our precious bodily fluids.

[01:55:39] Jeff: Hmm. Dark

[01:55:40] Brett: Are we, did we just go Dr. Strange Love.

[01:55:45] Merlin: I can look.

[01:55:50] Brett: All right. Jeff, what’s your pick? I,

[01:55:51] Jeff: one. Is that my, oh, sorry. My mic. My control center matches the arc of my thumb,

[01:55:57] Merlin: Yeah.

[01:55:58] Jeff: Um,

[01:55:59] Merlin: I do [01:56:00] that all the time. I’ve started making pages that I just, again, put things not where you think they go, look, I’ve

[01:56:05] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah,

[01:56:06] Merlin: doing stuff ’cause that’s where my thumb wants to fall. I’m.

[01:56:09] Jeff: my son thinks I’m fucking crazy, so what the fuck is this? I was like, just go to college. Mine is, it’s funny you brought up datum ’cause mine is the second time I’ve done this, but it’s chronicling, which I started now a year and a half ago. And, and I had tried datum, which I also really like.

[01:56:27] Jeff: Um, and, and for some reason chronicling stuck. That stuff doesn’t stick

[01:56:31] Merlin: that. I like the woman who makes that is so

[01:56:33] Jeff: Yeah, Rebecca Owen, and she’s, she’s, it’s just a single developer. She does a very nice job. She does, uh, it’s a very sort of slow, steady pace of small, meaningful updates. Um, and, and is really just sort of like, just, just, it’s a wonderful, it’s just a very like, you know, humane loving app.

[01:56:50] Jeff: And um, and it allows you, similar to data and you create categories. You create, you know, specific things. You can go in and log when it was, you can, you log the time and then you can make a little note. And the way I’ve [01:57:00] ended up using it most, um, mostly is actually not how I started using it. So I have a, a category that has like live music in IT series or movies, finished some reading.

[01:57:10] Jeff: I didn’t do like a read a book, it’s just I did some reading and then I write what it was. And I have this list that again, I can export as a CSV and the live music, I can go back and just see the shows that somehow I go to live shows again for the first time in forever, even though it hurts my body very badly.

[01:57:24] Jeff: Um, and then I have, you know, I have like these really meaningful journals for me, which is like when I call my dad, which isn’t often as I should call your mother, I make a little note of like just three things we talked about and then I can kind of see that

[01:57:38] Merlin: I cannot endorse this highly enough.

[01:57:40] Jeff: and then when I

[01:57:40] Merlin: is what I call a journal calendar, like anywhere that you can capture something that happened. This is the beauty of the calendar. A calendar tells you you’ve committed to doing something in the future and you’ve already done something in the past.

[01:57:51] Merlin: That’s two benefits of a calendar. Anything that helps you capture that for whatever works for your brain, just start doing it now. It’s not an old [01:58:00] person thing, but it sure doesn’t hurt as you get older.

[01:58:02] Jeff: It’s great and I’ve always been terrible about doing that in my calendar. And this is the first time that I’ve steadily, so I have one that’s for travel and I just say a word about day one, a word about day two and I can go back and remember that. And then, you know, of course I can export it and, and with the TV and series stuff it’s, or the series and movie stuff, it’s super fun ’cause I put that in the chat GBT and just look for like patterns.

[01:58:21] Jeff: I can just say like, you know, how many cinematographers show up more than once in this list or whatever. So I love that app. Really, really love it. I’ve ended up using it, not how I thought I would and this is not the kind of thing that I usually hang onto for this long.

[01:58:33] Jeff: So Rebecca Owen, thank you for your really cool work.

[01:58:37] Brett: Yeah. Rebecca’s done a couple of giveaways now on my blog, and she is a delight to work with. Um, makes great apps.

[01:58:45] Jeff: That’s

[01:58:45] Merlin: you, Rebecca. Thank you, rugamba. Thank you. Anybody who’s out there making things for people in a humane

[01:58:50] Brett: Mm-hmm.

[01:58:51] Jeff: yes. Beautiful.

[01:58:53] Brett: Um, I, I, I’ll save it for another week, but, um, I started using MacWhisper [01:59:00] to

[01:59:00] Jeff: finally added. Yeah, sorry.

[01:59:03] Brett: it can, it can record Zoom meetings

[01:59:05] Merlin: been doing this week.

[01:59:07] Brett: and then it has AI built in. So I can record the Zoom meeting, and then at the end of the Zoom meeting I can have it remind me what the key points were

[01:59:16] Jeff: And it just added speaker recognition if you’re doing

[01:59:18] Merlin: It kind of works. It’s getting

[01:59:20] Jeff: and it kind of works.

[01:59:21] Brett: it, it, it works.

[01:59:22] Brett: Okay.

[01:59:22] Merlin: The dream, the dream of transcribing all of the episodes and sticking in the dingus,

[01:59:27] Christina: We’re almost there.

[01:59:29] Brett: yeah.

[01:59:29] Jeff: So close.

[01:59:30] Brett: All right.

Final Thoughts and Gratitude

[01:59:31] Brett: Well thanks everybody. We did

[01:59:33] Jeff: Yeah, this was a

[01:59:34] Brett: two hours. Two hours. That’s a, that’s a pretty standard Merlin episode for

[01:59:38] Jeff: never moved.

[01:59:38] Christina: the people and thank you Berlin so much for, for spending all your time with us ’cause we love

[01:59:42] Merlin: Oh my gosh. Thank, thank you guys for having me. You’re, you’re so sweet to, to put up with me. It’s really nice to be here.

[01:59:47] Jeff: Great to have you here.

[01:59:49] Brett: All right, well everyone get some sleep.

[01:59:51] Christina: some sleep

[02:00:00]

Episode 18: Ellen MacArthur, James Hansen, Paul Hawken at GreenBiz 16