Getting Discomfortable with The A.J. Tax

In episode 17, I talk about being a “digital nomad”, traveling with Remote Year, my minimalist definition of “home”, why I don’t want to live with less than 7 people, why I try not to wear headphones in public anymore, the surprising truth about talking to strangers, the “tax” I pay for being myself, my addiction to melancholy music, why I don’t consider myself an introvert or an extrovert, my obsession with Julia Child, and one of my favourite cinematic guilty pleasures: Julia minus Julie.

The study I mention about talking to strangers can be found here:

“The pleasure of connection seems contagious: In a laboratory waiting room, participants who were talked to had equally positive experiences as those instructed to talk (Experiment 5). Human beings are social animals. Those who misunderstand the consequences of social interactions may not, in at least some contexts, be social enough for their own well-being.”

And it turns out I’m not the only one who thought up Julia minus Julie (that’s what I call “Deja Nous”), you can actually watch a complete recut on Vimeo here. But for the proper effect, I highly recommend that you watch the full version of the film and manually fast-forward through the Julie bits yourself so that you not only catch those hilariously off-putting glimpses of Julie’s mundane life (I encourage jeering or doing shots), but you can also seek out Julia Child’s delightful cameos on Julie’s TV, as well as the SNL sketch I mentioned.

This episode makes more sense if you’ve already listened to my Shame series.