The Brilliance of Boredom with creative polymath Elle Cordova

27:34And I say, okay, I know I have ideas. I know I'm an idea guy. So if I'm having no ideas, am I broken? Or is the way I'm attempting to have ideas broken? And so I have experimented with, every time I lock up on ideas, I break down on ideas, I change the way I'm coming up with ideas. But this idea of space, like I, when I realized I needed time. And so here's the thing. So I learned this a bunch of years ago, which is our rational brains, our thinking brains, the part that weighs the pros and cons and access our expertise, that has access to the equivalent of about two feet of information around us.

28:15Right? our subconscious brains our limbic brains have access to the equivalent of something like three acres of information around us every conversation we've had every movie we've seen every book we've read gets stored somewhere you just don't have access to it and so the value of the brainstorming session is not to solve the problem it's to ask the questions because your brain won't ruminate on things that aren't presented it won't just solve problems that don't exist in your life you're not going to just you know come up with some random idea like a problem must exist or a question must be asked.

28:44And then you can, quote unquote, think about it. But if you think about it, we have our best ideas when we're falling asleep, or when we go for a run, or we're standing in the shower, or, you know, sitting in traffic, like it's when we're not, quote unquote, thinking, but the brain is still ruminating in the subconscious, and it gives you the idea. And it seems like divine intervention, but it's not, it's just your limbic brain. It's been working on the problem. And it's been working on the problem the whole time. And so the problem is, is you need those gaps for the, for your mind to give you the ideas.

29:14And in our modern world, we have filled in all those gaps. So we don't sit on the subway on our commute and just stare off into space anymore. We're on our phones. We don't just sit in the car in traffic and just sort of let our minds wander. We make a phone call. I mean, you go out for dinner with a friend and they go to the bathroom. We don't just sit and like look around the room. Or talk to somebody. Or talk to somebody. We pull out our phones because it's too uncomfortable to just sit. and so I have worked very hard to force myself like if I if I go out for dinner I give my phone to someone else be like here's my phone put it in your bag so when they go to the bathroom they take my phone with them that's smart and so I'm forced because I have no willpower I'm addicted like everybody else but if you take away the crack can't do crack yep I do the same thing with daily walks so I don't allow myself to bring a phone or it's but it's you're creating space and gaps.

30:09And those moments, and by the way, space and gaps can also be created going to a museum or, you know, it's just engaging in other passive stimulation, not playing a game, not doing work, not surfing the internet, passive stimulation has been absolutely invaluable to my idea generation. Almost all my ideas happen in crazy random places. This episode is brought to by True Classic. And this ad won't sound like regular ads, because it's not. Instead, I sat down with Ryan and had an hour-long conversation with him, and we pulled out some of the best clips so that their ad is real content. I hope you enjoy.

30:47When people troll us online, I will find out who they are, and I will find something in their timeline that signals something that they're into and I will always come around and figure out, even if I have to spend like, if I spend 45 minutes on this. Here's a good example. Some guy was trolling us a couple years ago, said like stop sending me ads. And I just replied with, I hope your dad gets better soon. And what I figured out was he had a GoFundMe account and his dad had cancer. And I made a big donation, a couple thousand bucks. And I just completely won him over and the next week he made a video about it and he posted it and he was wearing all True Classic with a True Classic hat and he told the story and he just was like, this is how you're supposed to respond to this kind of stuff.

31:32Not just like, let me block the guy, get out of my ecosystem, I don't want to talk to you. Just like, let me show this guy what true empathy and kindness looks like and let me just go overboard and I didn't know if I'd ever hear from him again. It didn't matter. But now he's lifelong True Classic. Now we follow each other, we've become friends. So like you build these unbelievable connections with people. And when I was growing our customer service team, it was the same thing. It was, guys, you've got to have a big antenna that just goes deeper than like this is the issue, you know, that I'm solving, tracking, whatever.

32:05Like you've got to find out where are they, what are they into, and just probe a little bit for some questions that you can show up for them because that'll last a lifetime. But I think another important piece of it is something you said earlier where you said a question must be asked. A question must be asked. We can't expect our brains, the brain that's ruminating and doing all this work behind the scenes, to be working on a problem that we haven't presented to it. Correct. It won't. It won't just spit out random ideas, like you said. So I think our brains are computers. There needs to be an input.

32:35You know, we need to ask it something. We need to ask it to solve a problem. And the problem might be, what is my next idea? What is the thing I want to write about next or whatever? But we need to actively feed our brains those questions and give them something to work on. I think more specific than that, too, at least for me, you know, that's where the conversations happen. Because the backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, you know, yes, there's answers in those conversations, but it raises more questions. And so it's not like, what's my next idea? But rather, like, why are we friends?

33:02And then you start saying, why are we friends? Like, I understand the biology. I understand the anthropology. I can look that stuff up. That's pretty written about. What is a friend? now it gets complicated yeah so it's it's not just asking a question what is my next idea specific questions about specific and they can be big problems like like help me understand um the world order as we know it post cold war that's something i've actually thought about right like what is the new world order and it's such a big question that it's not going to be one and that's why all the conversations and all of the articles i'm reading and all of the people I'm interacting who have different points of view, I'll either ask directly, so what do you think about the world right now?

33:43And it's all feeding that until at some point you go, aha, I have an idea. You need, I guess, two things. You need to ask three things. You need the question to be posed, big or small. You need to feed it with data through conversations, reading, whatever your chosen preferred way of intake is. And then, and only then, do you need space and gaps. And we do the first, we do the second, we don't do the third. And I think this is the thing. And there's been stuff written about this. There's a basic global decline in ideas, like the number of patents that are filed these days is vastly fewer than in the past.

34:21And the quality of the patents is lower. And so we know that there's fewer ideas that are happening. And I think this idea of space and gaps. And if we're going to be a hyper-scheduled, hyper-connected world, not rebelling against it, just it is what it is, then schedule gaps. See, now I know you are an optimist. This is sort of central to you. It has been, I've been accused of such. I will say the pessimistic take on this is, and I'm not calling myself a pessimist, although I have tendencies, is that now that we have the technology we have, we won't in any meaningful way be able to make those spaces the way that you're saying.

35:04And instead, I think what will happen is we'll channel our decision-making, our idea generation into our technology. Soon we're going to have, you know, you talk about the decline in patents. We're going to have AI coming up with a lot of solutions for us that we simply haven't devoted the brain resources to think about because we don't have to anymore. We have a much bigger, smarter brain to sort of solve those problems for us. I don't think it's either or. I think it's both. I think, you know, just as the calculator or the abacus could help us do calculations faster, the calculator upped that ante.

35:40Certain things in mathematics or going to the supermarket got quicker. And so I think where math got quicker, ideas will get quicker, but that doesn't mean that the machine has to lock on all the ideas. Right. And I still think that a human-generated idea will always be the kind of idea that it's the asymmetrical idea. It's the idea that nobody could see happening because, and maybe I just either underestimate the power of the machine or overestimate the power of the brain, the human brain. I have a more pessimistic view in general of like, you know, I think that machines will take a lot of our purpose, you know.

36:20But I do think there will be ways for us to work with them and alongside them to also generate ideas, continue generating ideas. There'll always be a premium on human-made creations, human-generated ideas. But I do think that a lot of the really heavy lifting, problem-solving, the things that you'll need patents for, that's all going to – I think we're going to see a major shift. And then the question is, can you put a patent on the thing that a machine came up with? The company who made the machine will probably get this patent. That's where IP law is going to get completely destroyed. Have you found this in your work yet?

36:55I know in the art world, artists are being asked to sign affidavits to affirm that this was designed and produced by them and not by AI. Have you found that in your work yet, that people are asking you to say, did you actually come with this or did the machine come up with this for you? Not yet. I'm sure it's coming. And I'm sure I've signed some agreement already that's signed away all my creative rights. It's not just the creative rights. They want the affirmation that the person came up with it. That it wasn't AI generated? So like, hey, this little cute little skit you wrote, this little poem that you write.

37:24That is in many contracts, yeah. So they want to know that you wrote it and you did not write it with AI. Yep. So that's what I mean, which is we're not buying the product. We're buying the story. Yeah. Well, you're buying a piece of the creator. You're buying a piece, but you're buying the fact that, hey, she did this. Right, exactly. And there's a premium on the human, on the man-made, the human-made. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not saying that all like AI assisted art is worthless and should be thrown in the trash. No, no. Agreed, agreed, agreed. But I do think there will always be a premium on human, fully human made things.

37:58I mean, we don't watch, we don't sit around for fun watching computers talk to each other, play chess against each other. We watch humans play chess. It's more interesting to us. They're better at it, but we watch humans. Because we like watching the mistake, the potential for the mistake. Right. It's true. Isn't that beautiful, though? That the reason we find a human game more interesting, even though they're not as good, is the drama of the pressure and the mistake is the part that we find entertaining. Exactly. It's not actually the gameplay. Right. It's the human drama. Mm-hmm. Oh, I love that.

38:32I think one of the really good sides of the AI, and by the way, I can't have a freaking conversation without AI coming up. Oh, I'm sure this is just all over the podcast. every conference every other talk is AI but is I think it'll help us appreciate because we have this at least in America we have this sort of vomit reaction to the concept of boredom like that it's some sort of you cannot be bored you know and I think boredom is the ultimate space where you sit there staring off at the clouds not knowing what to do and you're kind of like how are you i don't know a little bored got nothing to do and i think there's joy in the appreciation of boredom because as i was saying before for a curious mind it goes right back to the beginning for a curious mind there's always questions and problems being asked and yet there's not enough solutions to all the questions yeah and i think boredom and joy of boredom is the thing that not only keeps us human but helps us see things find things invent things write things paint things sing things that the machine never can never will and i think i think in this hyper creative not hyper creative hyper productive world that we live in where the machines are just making us even more productive that our creativity comes from being bored not from being active.

40:03Yeah, I think I agree because boredom is the very space you were talking about. We need to create spaces where we can allow ourselves to, and I don't know if boredom is exactly the right word, but allow our brains to be freed of distraction. By boredom, I mean I have nothing to do. Yeah. I have nothing to do, at most walking. Yeah, and that's why I take my, I guess you could call them boredom walks. I take my like enforced boredom walks so that I'm forcing my brain to think to just whether it's problem solving or just thinking about the world around me or whatever it is i think it's really important that i don't have my device and i'm just forced for the next 45 minutes however long the walk is to my destination to just ruminate and the important thing here is that it's okay if nothing happens oh yeah absolutely by applying pressure to the boredom is is the paradox is the exact problem we're trying to solve for or giving permission for boredom giving i can just be bored i don't have to solve problems on my life and that's one of the things that people don't realize which is i actually i won't schedule anything in my calendar for fridays and i work on fridays but i will not pre-schedule anything on a friday it has to be blank so that if i choose to have three hours or four hours of whatever i want which includes staring off at a wall that is my prerogative and i this is expanded because i used to do our like i would literally put an hour break in my calendar to do nothing i would schedule nothing not that i'm scheduling nothing i'm scheduling to do nothing yeah the act of nothing yeah and um and i think in any job it's i don't care what your job is i don't care if you're a homemaker i don't care if you're a caretaker a parent i don't care if you're in a creative job a non-creative job i think all problems are solved and maybe boredom just has bad branding Yeah, it does.

41:52What should we call it? Because we can't call it creative space because that creates pressure that the space has to be creative, and it doesn't. Maybe a period of stasis or openness. Good nothing? Yeah, good nothing. I'm going to do good nothing for an hour. Yeah. Hmm. I like good nothing. What are you doing right now? Good nothing. You want to do something? No. It's my good nothing time. I'm doing my good nothing time. Yeah. I like that. I like that. Yeah. It's better than boredom. It's better than boredom because I'm not bored. I mean, sometimes I am. Right. I mean, I went out for dinner with a friend last night and, you know, she went to the bathroom and I sat there and just stared around in the restaurant.

42:33And yeah, I was bored and started wondering, like, is she okay? Like, she's been gone a long time. I wish she'd come back. I'm kind of bored. Do you have the same paranoia that I do when you go out for dinner with a friend, especially if it's a new friend and there's a line at the bathroom that you're in a restaurant and so or somebody's in there for far too long and you're just waiting for them to come out and so you find yourself waiting for a very long time and then immediately you have the paranoia that the other person thinks that you have like stomach problems or something because you've been gone a long time but and i always come to be like oh my god the line was really long somebody was in there it's not me it's not my stomach problems i was i was really quick in there i have that intense paranoia that somebody thinks that i'm sick because i was gone well sometimes i do have stomach problems and I'll say it even then.

43:17It was such a long line. Sneaky, sneaky. Okay. I have a, I have a couple more questions. Okay. What's the thing you've dealt with? What's the challenge you've? For me, it's, it's anxiety. It's an intense, you know, panic disorder. I get panic attacks. Um, and they used to be incredibly bad when I was a teenager and then into like early twenties college, um, almost crippling. I had intense agoraphobia, could barely leave my apartment and and was like untreated you know during those times and and i kept thinking phobia is afraid of outside yeah like not afraid of people not being able to leave your place because of fears of anxiety panic attacks which are happening anyway so yeah so yeah i think just really thinking back to those memories it was just like a like again like a warning sign like if I don't get my stuff together and I don't get treated, this is the, the ultimate reality and it's going to tear family apart.

44:15And, you know, how old were you when you started to be like, I think I need someone to look after me. Well, that's a good thing about having, you know, grandparents that have gone through stuff like that is you realize early on that, you know, this is a, this is a thing that needs to be treated. It's a condition, you know? So I was probably 16 when I finally started to ask for help because I was having such intense panic attacks at school I was having to leave classes which is you know like we said earlier I'm afraid of authority I like to be a good student when I can and having to like run out of class and look like I'm skipping or something was not which only added to the anxiety yeah yeah knowing that you have to be in class is it under control now I would say it's like as under control as it probably ever will be to the point where I can live a normal life, but I just, I always have to deal with panic attacks.

45:04How often do they happen now? It depends if I'm traveling, if there's like a lot of going on, especially if I'm traveling, I'll have them regularly on in my travels. So maybe every few days or sometimes multiple times a day, but if I'm home in my routines and I'm taking care of myself and everything, then maybe once, once in a month. Is there a reason you choose to talk about it? I mean, I just think we could all just talk more about our mental health. I think that there, I feel two ways about it because I also think there's like an over, maybe an over-diagnosing. We over-diagnose things, yeah.

45:41Yeah. Like everybody who's a little bit, you know, everybody's OCD, right? Yeah, like we have - They don't realize what real OCD is, which is deep, deep, deep superstition like your grandmother had. Yeah, yeah. There are so many forms of it, but yeah, that's how her is manifested. But yeah, I think, you know, on one hand, we have people, I think, over diagnosing themselves and others and their friends and talking about it. And then I think there's another side of it where, you know, people who have really struggle with severe debilitating mental illness still don't really want to talk about it.

46:12And I think it's, it's just better for everybody if we get the word out there that, that these things happen, because, you know, you, if you don't, it just gets worse, it festers, and then we have negative outcomes, you know, so. Have you ever written a poem about it? No. It's weird how I find that the things that are the most personal and then go down the deepest are things I can't seem to get myself to write about. Maybe that'll change. I don't know. Maybe one day. But I like to just find solace in humor and distract away from that stuff. I do find it ironic that you are such a rule follower and you sort of respect authority figures and running out of class created more anxiety.

46:54it's not that i respect authority figures fine but you like rules i i am afraid to break the rules yet you count cards and are banned from casinos but that's not a good feeling when they when i do i see the suits swarming because they get the pit bosses together they start swarming i hear the telephones ringing i know they're coming i hate that i get all sweaty and and then i do you try and anticipate it and leave before they throw you out no i just let it happen because yeah it's just better to know because sometimes you're wrong sometimes they're actually just just hanging out talking about something else, you know, and then they all disperse.

47:26So, no, they'll come over. And they're generally pretty nice, I will say. They haven't broken the law. Well, right. They'll say something really sweet like, ma 'am, I'm sorry, but your play is just a little too advanced for us. We won't be able to take your action here. But you're welcome to, you know, enjoy yourself at the bar or any other game in the casino. They invite you to play craps. You're welcome to lose your money at our other places where you don't have the advantage. so other other ones ban you though from the whole premises so it just depends on them if you get a mall cop type pitbull pit boss so yeah by the way we should i have to like insert a warning like if you're listening to this podcast the conversation is going about to get incredibly nerdy and we're going to talk about star wars and archetypes and in-depth characters and if you don't know what we're talking about and you don't like star wars perhaps go listen to a podcast another podcast right now.

48:18So you and I, the first time we met, we very quickly bonded about our love of science fiction. You skew Star Trek. I skew Star Wars. I mean, I love them almost equally. That is not true. If you put a gun to my head and you told me I had to only keep one, I would say Star Trek. I know that because no one, it's like, there's no such thing as I love Star Trek and Star Wars equally. It is impossible and it doesn't exist for anyone. I come very close. Well, you're the one. But you still skew. You still skew. And only because there's more of Star Trek. I've spent more hours. I've logged more hours. There's more to consume.

48:53Whatever. Whatever the reason. I just want to belong to both fandoms. No one is 50-50 on Star Trek and Star Wars. Everybody skews one way. I like Star Trek. I love Star Wars. Yeah. I like Star Trek, and I like different Star Treks. You know, like I'm a Trekker, not a Trekkie. Okay. which means I like Next Generation which apparently they call themselves Trekkers. I didn't know that. Maybe I'm not a real member of the community. Maybe I'm wrong or it's outdated because there have been so many Star Treks since then so I don't know what the new bifurcations are. There wouldn't be bifurcations because that's only two things but I don't know what the new delineations are but it was my understanding when Next Generation came out that you were a Trekkur if you were like into Next Generation.

49:34You were Trekkie if you were into the old Captain Kirk stuff. Okay. I learned something new. That's amazing. I don't think I didn't notice. My bedazzled. Yeah, this is amazing. And I don't know how the camera angle is, but I love that I'm associated here with the dark side. You are associated with the lone rebel hero. I like that because in my mind, I think I've said this elsewhere, Star Wars is not the story of the Skywalkers. It's not even the story of a beautiful rebellion against an oppressive regime. It's the story of a brilliant political strategist named Sheev Palpatine, whose Machiavellian plans were foiled by dumb luck and familial relations.

50:19And if I get canceled for anything off of this podcast, it's going to be for being a Palpatine apologist. I just love Palpatine as a character. I know you do. Yeah. I mean, yeah. You just have to admire the man. I mean, he'll stop at nothing. He stops at nothing, like most villains, but he goes so much further because he lays the most intricate plan. And it's just airtight. I mean, he creates the Clone Wars. He's orchestrating things on both sides. No, he's an evil genius. Just an intense genius. And also one of the most gifted force users of all time. Happens to be both. Happens to be an evil mastermind and a gifted force user.

51:00It takes both, you know, Anakin and Luke. It takes a cheap shot betrayal to kill him in the end. And even that doesn't kill him. And a great actor. Oh. Pretends to be good when he's really bad and like got everybody fooled. His genial senator. Yeah. Like personality. What a sweet old man, you know? So charming. And then his like dark, horrible voice. Right. Such an incredible, like it's the perfect amount of camp in that voice. It doesn't go too far somehow. but it's just perfect and one of the things i think that the reason star wars is important in the world is because the the archetypes of all the characters are so true so consistent that everybody you can learn about anybody by saying which one are you and like are you a han solo are you luke skywalker you c3po are you r2d2 are you darth vader like everybody knows who they are and you can know everything like i have a friend who's like oh i am so c3po like that's i also have a best friend who is 100 c3po you know everything and okay so let's compare i'll just tell you what my friend was like and you tell me if your friend was the same okay like service oriented like loves to like take care of people and like do get things done for them finds joy in like getting through the checklist extremely organized yes right yes this is what i'm saying they're archetype so you can learn everything about a person simply by them telling you which star wars character they are they're they find most like them or most drawn to so who would star trek character or star wars character are you so um i am an equal lover of boba of boba fett and han solo okay i'm full i'm you know if you force me like gun to your head pick one

52:56I mean I had two computers at a laptop and a desktop and one was named Han Solo and the other one was named Boba Fett but if I don't know how to choose can you guess why I like those? no I'm trying to imagine you and I have hung out a little bit we're not besties but you know me enough I think I can tell you I've thought about it plenty well why Boba Fett? tell me that one Okay, well, I can't talk about Boba Fett without talking about Han Solo. They're both incredibly independent, right? Like Boba Fett is just, he's a bounty hunter, but he works for himself, right? And Han Solo, super independent.

53:33I guess maybe I'm more like Han Solo than Boba Fett. Boba Fett's just so damn cool. He's just so damn cool. He is. So I guess more like Han Solo, which is fiercely independent,

53:45begrudgingly like really wants to be a part of the group but really wants to be himself and is in constant battle it's like i want to be my own person but i want to be a part of the team but i want to be my own person but i want to be a part of that team and um as independent as he is always goes everywhere with a friend like chewy just yeah so that's where i'm different than boba fett boba fett's a total loner and and really loyal to those friends that he's super loyal to those friends and plays up the independent like i don't really care about you guys but he really does a lot and so it's the hyper independence but the the constant struggle of i want to be my own self but i also want to be a part of the group at all times that paradox but also as independent he is he goes everywhere with a friend and that i'm just and that rebel spirit of let's just give it a try to me is i am i'm so i so identify with han solo yeah i think for me it's it's well i love palpatine And I'd love to say I identify.

54:38I mean, obviously, in the real world, authoritarian regimes, tyrants, ew, gross, don't want anything to do with it. In the world of Star Wars, he is such, I won't call him a dynamic character because he never changes. Like, you know, a dynamic character is one who, like, discovers something about themselves and has changed. And in the process, we as viewers change, too, because we learn something about ourselves. That's not Palpatine. He literally never changes. He's static throughout. But that character is so well drawn. and so what about you is palpatine well he's a planner and i like to be i like to be a planner you know his plans tragically did not work out um through real no fault of his own uh but but yeah i'm inspired by his his scheming i won't say that i see myself in him entirely i think if i really had to pick a character i would say r2d2 okay because r2d2 is also by the way the original it's the original episode 4, 5, 6 that are the perfect archetypes.

55:35It's those, those are the characters, the original characters. Although you really see Palpatine shine in 1, 2, and 3. Exactly. But you and I have had this fight, which is you can keep your 1, 2, 3 and I'll start Star Wars. As a Palpatine fan, you got to watch the prequels. Oh, no, no, I watched them. No, I know, I know. I won't watch them again. But they're worth it for Palpatine. Okay, so what is it about R2-D2? R2-D2 is, is R2 is incredibly underestimated. And I like that. He always seems to know exactly what's going on. He's like privy to more information than we are even aware. Like everybody's writing him off as this little droid.

56:10It's like, oh, get out of the way, you trash can, you know? But he's always saving the day. He's prepared. He knows where the map of where, you know, Luke Skywalker is at. He's just behind the scenes, just so instrumental to everything, the entire mission. Are you underestimated? and I want to say like what I like about him is that he's not out there being flashy about it he's just he gets the job done he's really capable much smarter than people think and humble about it and he's funny I don't know I relate to R2 in that way unexpectedly funny good planner always lurking in the background not a big bragger that describes you yeah i mean we i mean to be fair we don't know what he's saying only c-3po can understand but we assume that c-3po is accurately translating because that c-3po is nature he's a translator and i love the relationship between them because r2 is always like checking c-3po who is kind of braggadocious and right but anyway i just i i really like r2d2 he's probably the most secure character in all of them yeah he's he's all of them have their baggage and he doesn't he's he's kind of like, he just gets the job, he just gets his shit going and gets the job done.

57:25And there's a reason why Anakin, you know, bends over backwards to protect him and through the Clone Wars, you know, the animated series. And take him with. Yes. He's the chosen. There's an episode where he almost gets left behind and it's like, oh, it's a lost cause. It's just a droid. Just let him get destroyed with the ship or whatever. And Anakin's like, nope, I'm actually going to go risk my life to get, because he's my friend. Right. Yeah. so I think that that's a perfect way to to end this and to move into Roswell which is uh I think you are a friend that everyone would be lucky to have you by their side you are R2D2 thank you Simon I won't call you C3PO because you're not that but you're you're Han Solo so yeah I am uh can I ask a favor yeah this is totally selfish totally selfish um I've I've discovered you because of this magical song called Roswell.

58:17Oh, yeah. My favorite thing about the song is it's accurate. Yeah. It's intensely accurate. Every line. And I knew the story of Roswell. Yeah. And how it became a thing that it wasn't. It's not aliens, but it's funny. And I love that every line of that song is an education. Like if somebody sings along, they're smarter. Here's one thing, though, that I kind of got slightly wrong. and I'm going to take this opportunity to correct myself. So I mentioned the CIA. And technically, the CIA was created like a month after. It was the OSS. Yeah, I don't know. Was it? I don't know the exact. I mean, it was CIA-ish.

58:55Right. It was the precursor. But the CIA was formed kind of in the wake of this event. Yeah. So maybe because of this event. We don't know. But I did mention that they called the CIA, which technically they couldn't have done that. They couldn't have done that, but they called the OSS. But it's a fun line. It's a great line. It's a fun line to put in there. So let's just be clear what happened at Roswell. I mean, well, actually, we don't have to. My ask is, can you please sing the song? Yeah. I can tell you exactly what happened in Roswell by singing the song. But first, tell us the origin story of the song.

59:23How did that song come to be? So Tony and I were, Tony's a lead guitarist in my band, and we were coming back from Minneapolis having played a show, and we decided, since we were coming close, we were going through New Mexico to get back to L.A., I was like, we have to visit Roswell. Like, that's, as a space nerd, you know. It's Mecca. I'm less into conspiracy theories, but whatever. I just wanted to see it. So we stopped through Roswell. We were there for two days. And then on our way out, we were actually about to leave. The van broke down. And it broke down hard. They had to get some obscure piece that they needed to send in.

59:58And we ended up being there for 10 full days while the van was being fixed. 10 days? 10 days. I mean, that's like, OK. That's a long time to be. It was a long time. And they kept saying, oh. And Roswell's in the middle of nowhere, right? Yeah, there's not much to do other than learn about the incident and go to the museum and all the like kitschy alien things. It's great. I mean, even the McDonald's there has like alien. It's like a spaceship. And it's really it's really a cute town. I liked it a lot. And everybody was super nice. So I would I was asking locals about it. I was going to the museum.

1:00:29I was reading books about it. Like, what else are you going to do for 10 days in Roswell? And then I was like, we have to write a song over here. So before we left, we wrote the song and then we filmed it in front of the Roswell water tower. I hate to point this out. Okay. But Roswell was your lockdown. It was your blank space. It was your good nothing. Yeah, it was. And good nothing. You had nothing to do. You were bored because you've exhausted everything there is to do in Roswell. The only thing left to do was to be creative. Exactly. That's exactly right. Maybe we shouldn't call it good nothing.

1:01:00Maybe we should call it Roswell time. I like that. I need some Roswell time. Yep. I like that. I need to be stuck in Roswell to create something. I like it. It's great. Roswell time it is. Okay. So amazing. We have El Cordova and Tony Lindgren, and they're going to perform Roswell for us. Yay. Yes, we have to do it. All right. One, two, three.

1:01:35First wake up to lie, there was lightning in the desert and explosions in the sky. An unknown flying object came to crash into the earth, and a cattleman who brazzled found the wreckage in the ground. He gathered up some scraps and then he brought them in town, and the people gazed and wondered at the marble he had found. They found the county sheriff and they called the Air Force Base. They called the DOD and then they called the CIA. There's big news today out in Roswell. That sleepy New Mexico town. And Major Marcel, what can you tell us about? Roswell.

1:02:32Well, the Roswell Army Airfield sent their finest personnel. A rank-and-file officer was a young Major Horacell. The Major told his story and it echoed round the globe. Flying saucer captured at an old New Mexico. But the orders came from Washington. and materials were changed. The town was hushed in silence and Black Razzle was detained. They scooped up all the evidence and flew into Fort Worth. Staged a couple of photos and the headlines were reversed. There's nothing to see here in Roswell. The door not full of weather blue. And the age of myself was mistaken as well About Roswell Get it, Tony.

1:03:53The years pass on in Roswell, but the story still persists. Rumors turn to theories and theories turn to myth. But to his dying day, the major swore I'm all ahead. There's no way in hell the NFL was made by human hands. Mystery lives on out in Roswell. That creepy little Mexico town Major Marcel, what could she tell us about Roswell?

1:04:42The story of Roswell. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. A Bit of Optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simonsynic.com. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.