Kumail Nanjiani Returns

21:41You're a brilliant improv artist. You're a hysterical comedian. If someone's watching you do comedy that aspires to do comedy and can't do it as good as you and they feel like shit, should you stop being really funny? I mean, literally, should you limit your potential in any domain because it might make someone else feel bad? No. Should you write less good if you're a fucking author? No. That's crazy. You can't diminish your own self out of fear of what the fallout might be. You might also inspire. That might be 10 % of the reaction and 90 % of people might go on a health journey that makes them live 10 years longer.

22:16I've had a lot of people say that. For me, I always say, like, just be healthy, of course, and just be the version of you that you can like. Often, it doesn't have to do anything with how you look or whatever. Obviously, be healthy. That's good. But learning to love yourself, I think, is more important than anything. And for me, sadly, I have been on this journey of being like, I like myself. And part of that has had to do with my body transformation. It's a little unavoidable. And I wish it wasn't part of it, but I know it is. Well, listen, you're exacting control and outcome on a world that is very hard to exact control and outcome.

22:54So that's very, it's very satisfying. I have a real control thing. so I sort of have an obsessive personality and I'm very lucky in that I know it just doesn't go towards stuff that would ruin my life. You're not an addict to eat. Not an addict, but I feel it when I'm gambling. I feel that demon. The tiger. So I have to be very careful gambling. Like I can't really play. Sometimes, you know, I don't really play sports but if I'm like in any kind of competitive situation I start to have that come out. You know where it gets awkward? Like, hey dude, we're just playing a fucking board game. How are you at your video games?

23:25Are you yelling at people on the headsets and stuff? No. Are you anonymous when you play? Do you play? I don't play online anymore. You don't? Okay. I only play with friends and I play with Emily. Emily and I play together. And with Emily, I've learned to sort of, because she's like. Not be an asshole. You cannot talk to me like this. Yeah. We are still married. Can you think of something you said to her at one point in the heat of a video game battle? Whenever I go, you gotta. She's like, you can't say you gotta me anymore. Like, honey, you gotta. We're just playing this game right now. And she's very good.

23:55And we can hang, you know. but sometimes we play when we're high. Yeah, sure. And she'll be like, where are you? And I'm like, if you hit up on the controller, you gotta know by now. And she's like, gotta stop saying gotta. I'm like, honey, we've been playing this game for three fucking months. You're exasperated. Yeah, I do get that. Short fuse. It's just, you know, it's an intense situation. The stakes are high. I'm trying to save the fucking planet right now. That's right. I need you to know how to look up the map. Yeah. The game isn't called get groceries. Exactly. Yeah, it's Call of Duty.

24:27Yeah, it's Call of Duty, man. We're saving the world from the Nazis right now. I can't teach you how to unfold your math every five minutes. Okay, so in my dream world of the structure of this, I'd love to explore how we feel about it, and then I want to confront how other people feel as its own little piece. I love that. But to continue with it a little bit, because this takes up a lot of my thought, and I love checking in with you. I love talking to you about this, because very few people want to get into it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sandler one time told me, and I'll never forget it. I had gotten in really good shape for this movie 20 years ago with Chris and Colt.

24:59Went in Rome. I played an underwear model and I had gotten in good shape. And he came up to me. He's like, Buff isn't funny, buddy. Just remember. I was like, yeah, right. And then we all know Carrot Top as a trope. I've heard that a lot. I disagree with that. But what is Carrot Top as a trope? He's a for real bodybuilder. Oh, I didn't know that. Jacked. And people bring him up constantly like, don't be a Carrot Topper. You just hear Carrot Top a lot. Yeah, I know. You hear Carrot Top a lot for many reasons. I've never heard about Carrot Top more. And I'm saying to the person, not anything about Carrot Top.

25:32Do you think Carrot Top got less funny when he got buff? Or did you just never think Carrot Top was funny? There you go. Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah. What do you think of that, Marat? How's that? We can almost see his penis. I was going to say his slacks are quite low. They could come up a little bit. They could come up a teeny bit. I don't need to know that the carpet matches the drape. The mom's pubis is on full display. But I understand he wanted to show off the arrows. Okay. But he got carried away. Now, here's the thing. The arrows. First of all, very nice body. It's not from me because, yes, it's too, it's the hugging the corner of the building thing again.

26:11But I think it's nice. Now, looking at this, for the first time, I can understand what they mean when they say, how can that guy be funny? It's because whoever created this body, not God, like who did this to themselves, is taking things very seriously. You have to take life very seriously to look like that. That's an interesting point. And that's the only good point I've heard about this exact thing. However, John Cena is very, very funny. He is. Super jacked. And I think you can take certain parts of yourself seriously and not other parts. I truly don't think I'm less funny because I'm buff.

26:52Because I think you have to always have a level of self-awareness. Like he has to understand that that's a little bit ridiculous. A lot. Yeah. When I put my pictures out, I understood that it was a little bit ridiculous. I understand it's a little bit ridiculous that I am Jack now. So I think you have to have that level of awareness. It's when you take yourself too seriously. I think that is the death of comedy. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other thing that is the death of comedy is people wanting to be cool. Exactly. Comedians can be cool, but someone who wants to be cool and a comedian, I don't have any time for that.

27:25I agree. One aspect that is true is generally comedy works best when you are put upon. Sure. Low status. Exactly. So if Carrot Top's staying there like that and then his boss is denigrating him and he's a foot and a half shorter and is a mess, you kind of don't give a fuck. You're like, oh, if he wanted, he'd crush him. But you know what? Did you watch Peacemaker? Not to go back to John Cena again. Yes. He is the jackass guy in there. He's like a superhero, but he is put upon the whole time. That's true. But it required people with superpowers to outstatus him in a way. And he's so dumb. His stupidity is his Achilles.

28:01Oh, yeah, that helps. So, yes, we could play big dumb idiots like DC Cab, I'd love. Would be really fun to play a big dumb idiot. I just don't think... I mean, you could, but you'd really have to suspend your disbelief. That's another... I mean, we know you're not a big, dumb idiot. Are you saying John Cena is a big, dumb idiot? No, I love John Cena. Seems like... I love John Cena. Great guest. Yes. Go check out that episode. So talented. You played a lot of dumb idiots at the beginning of your career. Yeah, you're very good at it. I mean, idiocracy, that's such a great performance. Real dumb.

28:31You're a real dumb idiot. You played a lot of them. I specialize in dummies, yeah. But I bet now... It'd be less fun? No, no. I bet it would be harder because you now have shown yourself as your real self that is smart. And you have comedy specials that are smart. People know you as smart. It might be hard to be like, he's acting dumb. I think acting dumb is a difficult thing. And a few people who are smart can do it. Adam Sandler is one of them. He's obviously very smart. Did you guys see Jay Kelly? Not yet. No. He's so good in it. Really? Yeah, and not a dumb idiot at all. And if you know him, he's not a dumb idiot at all.

29:10but he's good at playing dumb idiots. Have you guys seen this movie called Twinless? It's a small movie, came out this year. This actor, director, writer wrote it, stars in it. And Dylan O 'Brien, do you guys know who Dylan O 'Brien is? Dylan O 'Brien is a phenomenal actor. If you look him up, you'd be like, oh, that guy. He's like, you know, young guy, he's like 30. Very smart guy, always plays smart guys. He plays a dumb guy in this. And it's an incredible performance. And he's like subtly dumb. He's not comedy dumb. He's just dumb in ways, people that you know. And so I was talking to him about it.

29:40I was like, how were you able to do this? Because that is something I think about a lot. I'd love to play a dumb guy. It's a very tricky thing to be able to do. What was your trick to doing? So I think the key is you have to think you're much smarter than everyone you're talking to. Interesting. You have to be condescending as a dumb guy. Frito's like, are you stupid? He thought everyone was stupid. And then he was a genius. Right. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect. It is. Yes. Oh, that's funny. That's a good hack. The less you know, the more you think you know. It's like what they say To act drunk You have to try and act sober Which that one eludes me a little bit I've had to play drunk and I hate it I've played drunk a few times And I think one of the keys I learned was What kind of drunk is this?

30:22Is it angry drunk? Is it happy drunk? Is it stupid drunk? Sloppy And then you lean into that So if it's happy You lean into the happy Beyond like any kind of reasonable thing You know who does a really good job? Evan Peters Is he in Mayor of Easttown? Oh I love that show Is that the show he was in? There's a show where he plays drunk in one scene where he hits on his partner. And it's a really remarkable scene because he goes through every kind of drunk person, which is like the drunk person who's down on themselves, the drunk person who has too much confidence, the person who's too sad. Emotional, yes.

30:54Too sappy. Yes, in all in one scene, you see him do all those different kinds of drugs. And it's a really, really great performance. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking the pockets of your jeans before doing laundry. Classic oversight. That mystery clunking in the dryer. Yeah, that was your lip balm's final moments. And somehow there's always one random receipt in there to dissolve into confetti. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.

31:36You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North America Insurance Co. and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by Inuit TurboTax. You know that feeling when you drop your taxes off with somebody and then nothing? You're just sitting there wondering if they've even started, if there's a problem. If you're getting everything you're owed, it's like sending your car to the shop and never getting an update. That's what I appreciate about TurboTax full service. They've completely flipped that experience. You get matched with a dedicated tax expert who actually does your taxes for you.

32:12And here's the part that changes everything. You get real-time updates on your expert's progress right in the app. You can literally see when they're working on your return. No more guessing, no more waiting by the phone. And if you have questions, you get unlimited help from your expert at no extra cost, even nights and weekends during tax season. They're focused on getting you the best possible outcome and every dollar you deserve. Visit TurboTax.com to get matched with a TurboTax full-service expert today. That's TurboTax.com. Only available with TurboTax full-service experts. Real-time updates and iOS mobile app.

32:53I think I just attacked it with fear. Like, oh God, I've got to do this fucking thing. That's the thing I've learned in my relationship with Emily is that all the stuff that I hide from her, Like I'm sad, I'm scared. Often the anxiety of starting a new job, right? That was just mine. If I say it out loud, it makes it real. I say it to her and it actually takes its power away. That's the biggest thing I've learned. One, I do it as a way of apology. Like, hey, I'm in a weird place. I'm starting this job on Tuesday and I'm a little bit nervous to work. Pretty certain they fucked up by casting me.

33:23That's what I'm feeling today. All I have to do is get to rap before they find out. Every set I go to, I think of Eric Stoltz getting fired from Back to the Future. That dude shot six weeks. He shot six weeks. And then they fucking fired him. And he's collecting his boss as he's walking out. Everybody else has a job. The grip has a job. You're the only one who doesn't have a job. 200 people. You're the main guy. And you're the only one who doesn't have a job. No, that's rough. And good for him. The fact that he can come back and be in Pulp Fiction and be like fucking so stellar. Yeah. Okay. Now let's talk about the reaction.

33:58So what happened was I talked about this in the specials. But do you know Michael Rosenbaum? Do you guys know him? I know him very, very, very well. So I did his podcast and we talked about me. That's where it all came from is Rosenbaum's? Yeah, it came from Rosenbaum's podcast. And he felt so bad about it. I was like, dude, honestly, this is a fucking gift. Thank you. I know how to end my special now, you know? I didn't know. So it all started from that. He was talking about the heartbreak of Eternals and it sending him to therapy. There was a big reaction, backlash. And I understand them saying the privilege of the bad reviews send you to therapy.

34:33And I talk about for 15 minutes. Oh, my God. It was a lot. It's also, you know, men feel weird about going to therapy. There's a lot wrapped up in it. I'll give you all the gory details. I put those pictures out December of 2019 while I was shooting Eternals. I was going into Christmas. We were going to shoot till February. But I was like, I don't know. This might be the only time I look like this. I got two weeks off and pastries in London are really fucking good. So I don't know if I'm ever going to look like this. So I asked the trainer and I was like, hey, get some baby oil. I'll get a razor.

35:00Let's get these pictures going. I don't know if I'm ever going to look like this. It could be the last time of your entire life. Yeah. So I wanted these pictures. I did it. I put the pictures out. Initially, the response was really, really, really good. But then what happened was in 2020, the pandemic happened in March. My wife and I took it very, very seriously. We didn't leave the house. She's got an immune condition. So I was in a real bad place. Stills? Adult onset Stills disease. And now she's been diagnosed with another thing, which turns out is probably a combination of those two. A lot of things we're finding out, not that this is a whole ADHD.

35:33We're finding out a lot about autoimmune diseases because of research into HIV. Because when you have HIV and your immune system starts fucking up. So now there's a lot of research into this and there's a lot of therapies for this that are way better. So Emily's on a new medication that has changed our lives. lives. So we're in all the time. And on Christmas, we got this gingerbread house. We made it. It's just a picture of me sitting next to a gingerbread house that my wife took and we hadn't seen a human being in a long time. Now it's January 2021. And I think part of what happened is people were like, well, 2020 sucks.

36:082020 sucks. 2021 would be better. Now we're in 2021 and there's no vaccine in sight and we still can't leave the fucking house. So I think particularly January 2021, people were in a real fucking place and spraying it everywhere. I think I was one of the victims of this. I was watching The Crow with Brandon Lee, RIP. I'd taken an edible. I was high out of my mind watching this movie that I used to love as a kid, watching it now being like, do I still love it? And a friend of mine texted me. He's like, I'm so sorry about what's going on online. First of all, public service announcement to all friends.

36:38Never do that. No. Okay. So you post this picture. I posted this picture a few weeks before. So my friend texted me. I was like, what are you talking about? and he was like, oh, you don't know? So I go on Twitter and there are literally 10 ,000 responses and it's that picture of me and I'm just smiling with the thing. I'm high. And you could see the way I'm sitting. I just look like I have a big jawline and it's just people making fun of my appearance. Literally 10 ,000 comments. It's so hard. It fucking destroyed me because as a kid growing up, I was very insecure about my looks. I've done all this work to move away from that and this made me feel like a little kid.

37:14I'm watching this movie. high out of my mind and this is happening. And there were two full days of it sort of trending on Twitter. And it was like a big thing that people were just happy dunking on the way I looked physically. GIFs and memes were going around and all this stuff. Again, in the grand scheme of things, probably not a huge thing, but I was very aware of it. And so I would tell Emily every day, I would check in with her. I was like, I'm not going to go on Twitter. I'd be like, is it still happening? She's like, yeah, it's still happening. It's still happening. Yeah, it's still happening.

37:40And I remember it took like two full days of that because I think people were frustrated and needed to take it out. So that started with that one specific picture. And then it went on to pictures of me being buff. It set off a cottage industry. It set off a cottage industry calling me grotesque and monstrous. I talk about all this special now. So that was the big backlash, January 2021. And I think like all these things, it has more to do with what they're going through than what I'm going through. But I really felt very singled out and attacked for that. Again, people have much bigger problems than this.

38:11But for me, it was a pretty intense thing. Yes. So that was like the backlash to my transformation that ended up happening a little bit over a year after the initial pictures came out. Interesting. And you were also dealing, I'm sure, with, had Eternals come out yet? No. At least you have that positive thing in your mind. Dude. That's basically your safety net during all this, right? Dude, Eternals kept me going all through pandemic where I was like, wait for this fucking thing to come out, guys. I'll be laughing. We'll talk about this body in three months. A hundred percent the entire time I was like, wait, Phil, this comes out.

38:44And part of that, it's totally my fault. I'd put too much into this thing that I should not have put anything into. I had a great time making that movie. Meaning you put too many expectations. Too many expectations. It's going to change my career. Camille, we've had so many of the same moments. It's really wild. It's really wild thinking like you're from Pakistan, saw a guy get stabbed to death in the street when you were a kid. Shot. Shot, sorry. Seemingly, there'd be no parallels. But I similarly, had directed chips. It tested through the roof. They commissioned a sequel before it came out to write it.

39:17Dude. And it was you and Michael Pena. He's so good. And I got hired immediately by Warner Brothers to take over Scooby-Doo. I'm getting asked to come fix some scripts and maybe direct another thing. And I go, ah, the next 10 years of my life, I'm going to be writing and directing. I'm positive of that for like a year and a half. to the degree that's in my DNA that my identity is I'm a writer-director and I'm going to do this for the next decade. And even greedily, I'm like, yeah, now get this on this and this on this. I've modeled out how much money I'm going to make in the next 10 years. This is exactly how I was.

39:49And so in one Friday, I find out the 10-year game plan is gone. Did that movie not do well? No. Like, well, certainly the sequel's not getting made. All these other things and meanings, they just shrivel up. What we both did was build up this thing. Because we want safety. It is truly a devastating experience. Yeah. It's my fault. I'm taking full responsibility. No one should feel bad for me. But I did plan out my entire life based on something. And that really changed on a Friday afternoon, which I think a lot of people suffer setbacks. But they're pretty dramatic in our business. That is pretty dramatic because people's lives change overnight.

40:26You had signed on to do six Marvel movies. I signed on to do six Marvel movies, a video game and a theme park. Oh, my God. So of course you thought the next decade of your life was that. It's like it in my life, I'm going to be doing those movies. And then between, you know, one for you, one for me, I'll do like little indies. So people think when they hear that, they understandably think like, oh, boo-hoo, you won't have that thing. But they're missing the pain and hurt is my safety just vanished. It's not about being famous or whatever. It's just like I knew what I was going to do for 10 years as if I were a physician that knew I could do my job for the next 10 years.

40:55And I found out I can't. Especially for us, it's tricky. One, we're getting to live our dreams and suddenly our dreams are getting bigger. And now I'm going to get to do this. It's self-serving, but it really is. You're like, the purpose of my life is to make stuff and now I'm going to get to do it. How fucking exciting. And it happens with comedy guys, I think, specifically where, you know, you hit and then you get a window. Right. And sometimes that window closes. And when that window closes, you don't know if it's opening up again. It happens to actors, too. I mean, look at Brendan Fraser. So many years he did.

41:25And then he won a fucking Oscar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's rare. But that's why we love it so much because it is so brutal. and you generally get shown the door and it never reopens. Exactly, exactly. It is brutal. I mean, we've picked a very difficult business to be in and a very vulnerable. You're naked, you know, if you write something, you direct something, you put it out there. You're like, here, this is the inside of my body. What will you do with it? And people are like, we don't like it. We will stab your spleen. Well, it's also people forget that actors are very fragile.

41:58It's actually what makes an actor good. It's a prerequisite. We're very sensitive. So sensitive. And it's a part of what makes acting doable. But then you become famous and people don't give a fuck. No, they don't. And they think it's okay to tear you down and whatever. I understand. I think we're coming from the same place. I don't want one person to feel bad for me. No. You cannot feel bad for someone, but you also don't have to be a part of hurting them. Well, that's become part of it now is this dunk session that goes on where people get very excited. Again, boo-hoo actors. But it is interesting.

42:34You're exactly right. Most actors are very sensitive. It took me years to understand that. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I was like, I was a sensitive 14-year-old and now I'm a sensitive 40-whatever-year-old. Yeah, exactly. The only question mark I had when I heard the story is, Emily was a practicing therapist for nine years or something. No, no, no. Six years? Yeah, I would say for six years. She did in Chicago. She did in New York. That's it. Okay. North Carolina, then Chicago, then New York. Okay, great. But you were married to a therapist. Yeah, in the beginning. So the notion that it took you so long.

43:04It was after Eternals came out. And you're like, I'm never going to work again. It wasn't even really that. It wasn't external circumstance. I understood it's my reaction to the external circumstance that's fucking me up. And I'm hurting myself by thinking the same thing over and over and over and over. I remember being on this flight. This might be too much information, but we're on a flight because we're doing like a world press tour for Eternals. Being on this flight in first class, laying in the bed. Yes. I've got Wi-Fi and I'm just laying there refreshing rotten tomatoes over and over. And I remember in that moment being like, this is not good for me.

43:38Not healthy. This is horrible. Yeah. By all accounts, you know, I'm in this awesome bed. I just ate a full three-course meal on a fucking airplane flying to London. Right. You've made yourself miserable. This is the most miserable I've ever been. Yeah, you took this chance to feel great and you made yourself miserable. What's great is even though you're not an addict, you've experienced what it's like when you're driving to the dealer's house and you're about to relapse. Which is like, this is a bad idea. I know exactly the feeling you're talking about. Before you've made the mistake, where you know you're about to make that.

44:06But you're in route to do it. Wow. What is that like? Can I ask you? What is that like? Because I think I know that feeling. Yes. The frontal lobe is going, don't do this. It's going to end in four days. The wreckage. And then there's this body surge of endorphins, I guess, emanating from your reptilian brain. And it's just like, it's giving you a little hit of what's going to come. And it's like this battle between this very visceral feeling and then this intellectual debate. And for me, just that surge of endorphins wins. You go, I'm going to be really disappointed in myself. But I also in 15 minutes, I'm not going to give a fuck about that disappointment.

44:44For a very short period of time. No, it all, you know, yeah, it never works. That's where the shame comes in after. Because you knew better. Yeah, you're like, I knew this was going to happen and I still did it and I can't stop. That is so powerlessness. When you're driving to the dealers and you're like, I know I shouldn't do this, but you're going. Were you ever able to turn around? I have accomplished that maybe three or four times. It's been more that I'm at the bar. I decide I'm already there. I'm with friends. You're at the bar. I'm at the bar and I decide, you know what? There's no way I'm going to go through every Christmas without getting buzzed again.

45:25I make these really over-the-top declarations. Like, am I really going to live the rest of my life without getting buzzed at a bar at Christmas with the Christmas lights on? You know, it's like this is some essential right of mine that's been taken. And then I've started to build the case, and I have been able to leave there. But if I've gotten in my car and I'm en route to the dealer, I'm going to get there. You're going there. It's already decided. It's getting in the car. Oh, my God. That is really interesting. So like when you open up the phone, you're already in the car on the way. But it's weird because it's a negative feeling.

45:59But it does feel like a certain kind of self-harm that I had gotten addicted to. There was an addiction to feeling that hurt, that anger at myself and everyone around me. It is like a very living feeling. You know, it's a very alive feeling. Because now this is another fun thing that comes from AA, which is self-aggrandizement and self-pity are the exact same sides of it. I would not agree more. What feels like, oh, poor me, is really indulgent and self-aggrandizing. It's like, A, you're too important in the planet. No one gives a fuck about your movie. No one knows. You've elevated all this stuff.

46:34That was helpful for me to connect like, well, I would never be self-aggrandizing. I'm too ashamed to do that. I'll hide that even if I think that. But for some reason, I'll explore self-pity and victimhood. And once I connected, like, those are the same fucking thing, bro. I was able to largely curb the self-pity cycle. After all that stuff and going through therapy, and I talk about this in the special, for me, the biggest project of the last few years has been trying to divorce my experience of making something from the result, from the reaction to it, right? Yes. Ideally, I walk off set and I never think about it again.

47:04Now it's fucking impossible because a year and a half from now, you've got to be doing interviews talking about this thing, you know? My stand-up special is not that because I really feel like I've made that, I fully control it, I live and die by it. With this, I'm living and dying by other people's mistakes as well. Yes. And so I've been doing work to cut off from that. But now this is going to sound like me showing off. A couple of years ago, I got nominated for an Emmy. And the amount of happy that it made me, I just happened to be with my parents. I had not expected it at all. I woke up in the morning at 11 in New Jersey at my parents' house in my pajamas about to eat a delicious breakfast.

47:36And I have 100 text messages on my phone. And I'm like, guys, I just got nominated for an Emmy. The amount that it made me happy, I was like, oh, I'm still stuck in this. This is still a trap. I mean, all day I was just replaying. This is so embarrassing. The moment when I saw I'm replaying like scrolling, I'm replaying saying it to my parents. And I understood I'm still stuck in that same fucking thing. That is probably the hardest part of being healthy about this experience, in my opinion, is turning down the praise. You can't take the praise and turn down the negative. You either have to turn the whole thing off.

48:10And turning it off is impossible. I think you have to turn the volume down the best you can. I don't think Jonah would mind me saying this, but I was texting Jonah about us about to have Phil Stutz on, his therapist. And we were going to have him on because I saw the doc and I was so moved by the doc. Yeah, I saw the doc. And I sent him this text going like, fuck, dude, that moment where you have the image of yourself, your shadow, this little kid. And Stutz is like, he wants you to bring him along on this fun ride. And I was like, oh, my God. So I was texting with him and I was detecting this reservation from his side about this praise I was giving.

48:47And then he just said it. And I thought it was so fucking cool. He's like, dude, I love this. Weirdly, this is as bad for me as you saying. Very good self-awareness. Yes. And I'm like, dude, I strive to turn down praise when I don't see it in the immediate future. It's so true. He's exactly right. It's the same thing. But you know what's hard in our business? praise or bad reviews. It's not just how we deal with it. It does affect our careers. It really does have a practical impact. I make a movie. It makes money. Suddenly I get to do more movies. I make a movie, gets bad reviews, doesn't make money.

49:23Windows starts closing, you know. So that's the hard thing for me to reconcile that it's not just my reaction to it. My life is practically affected by the reaction. Absolutely. You're forgetting that you're capable of making your own stuff. You're actually in a rare group that's capable of making their own stuff that can do shows. You can get back to you in control. And you should do that maybe more. 100 percent. I was talking to Mike Birbiglia and I was like, you know, you and I kind of went in a way in completely opposite paths. He had his first movie that was a big success. And he was like, I'm just going to keep doing this.

49:57And I went and started doing other people's stuff. Yeah. Right. Right. But I will say, too, I think the division in my head has to be, yes, one is a practical outcome of what will be my income and what will be my opportunity. And that's true. That needs to be observed. But the stuff that's hurting me and making me ruminate is, am I lovable if I'm a failure? Am I lovable if I'm not spectacular? Am I lovable if I'm not funny? Am I lovable if I'm in bad shape? Am I lovable? Am I worthy of your attention and being seen by you if I'm not spectacular? I just talked to my mom this morning about this.

50:33Like, that's my hurdle. I don't think I'm worth observing unless I'm spectacular. I think that's so true. I think the biggest thing we have to learn is that you inherently are worthy of love. It's so hard to believe. It's everyone's hurdle. It is. It's not just you or you or actors. Everyone is doing everything they can to get the most love. You are worthy of love. Regardless. You need to be spectacular. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not so certain. That's the whole sentence, man. I know. You are worthy of love. Period. I'm only now learning that I need to lean into the fear. You know, like I've all my life been running away from pain and running away from fear and working out taught me I got to chase the pain.

51:14And now I'm realizing I got to chase the fear. The things that scare me are the things I need to do. Okay. Now I want to theorize because I had some takeaways. Again, I can't put too fond of a point on the fact that I really loved your special. Oh, thanks, buddy. It's called Night Thoughts. And boy, did you describe three of my seven nights a week of sleep. Monica's heard it ad nauseum. I think I have no anxiety. I don't have waking anxiety in general. I go to bed, 3 a.m., time to fucking think about something I don't care about once I'm awake. Exactly. Can I give one joke of yours away? Because I think Monica will love it.

51:48He wakes up and he writes down his stupid night thoughts. And one of them is, why do white people get all colors of eyes and hair? and everybody else only gets black eyes and black hair. That's a very fair thought. Black people, Asian people, Hispanic people, we just get black eyes and black hair. I know. It is crazy when you point it out. It's crazy. What is going on? I hate it. It's not fair. Just adding to the unfairness. It's insane. Now I'm going to be thinking about that. That joke has gotten a weird reaction a couple of times. Oh, it has? Yeah, like the comedy store. Somebody got angry at me and they got kicked out.

52:24Oh, really? Dude, everybody needs to relax. Did a white person get mad? Yeah, sure. Of course. Sure. Of course. Sure it was a white person. What does Joyce say? The caucasity. Yeah. Like the audacity of Caucasians. The caucasity. Wow. What was his objection? He was saying that's racist. No. He was very drunk. He was playing in that scene. He was like, yeah, this is a racist version. I'm drunk. This is the night. That's right. This is the night when I'm drunk. I got racist. Late in the night. And he probably regretted it. I don't know if he regretted it. Later, the security guy who kicked him out was like, he was trying to connect to me, but like, that guy's fucking racist, right?

52:59Oh, my God. It was like, no, get the fuck out. The security guy was white. Wow. I'm so glad you watched it, dude. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. When you get into the reaction, you kind of synthesize the reaction into five really common threads that people were barking at you online about. And I've given this a ton of thought because I have a different version of it unrelated to muscles, which is I've been with Kristen for 20 years. And there have been hundreds of articles about why is she with this guy? What? Really? List of top 10 hot girls with ugly guys. That is so disgusting. I've been dealing with that less now since the podcast.

53:38But for the first 12, 13 years we were together, there were hundreds of these lists of ugly guys with hot girls. And I'm always on it. The worst. And my reaction was like, A, I'm so hurt and insecure when you say that. Then I'm defensive and arrogant. I'm like, go meet my other girlfriends. They've all been hot. Fuck you, right? I have this defensiveness. Yeah, sure. And then when I calm down, I really get into it. I'm like, you know what's so interesting? I think I know what's going on. And it just beat into us in elementary school and in school, which is like, there's strata. You're born into them.

54:12Someone shan't migrate north or south. It's disruptive to this whole system that we have been formatted in. And so I thought, because again, primarily girls aren't saying Kristen's with this ugly guy. Guys are saying Kristen's with this ugly guy. They're threatened. And I think, shouldn't that be encouraging? Even if that's your conclusion, like this four got this 10, isn't that life affirming and positive? Like, doesn't that say you could achieve anything? I thought it would be comforting to dudes like me that are normal. I think it's the opposite. And I think that was some of the reaction to me getting buffed.

54:47Thank you. Because I mapped on that. I get the muscles thing less than you do. I certainly see in the comments, dudes going so fucking roided out. Always if I'm with Kristen in a photo, then the guys come out hard. This roided out motherfucker. For the record, I'm not on steroids. Unless you count testosterone as a steroid, which I guess maybe technically it is. I am on testosterone. Yeah, yeah. But I'm not on the other great ones I'd love to be on. If I was going to die in a month, I would be on all of them. I didn't get it the same way you did. And I think it's a little bit because I'm 6 '2".

55:18And then maybe White. Like you guys were talking about that. I do think that's part of it for me is obviously in Bollywood, guys, a super jacked and it's fine. But here it's like you're a nerd or you're like a nerd. Yeah. What was that fucking incredible movie that took over Netflix I loved? Triple R. Those guys are fucking beefcakes. When I went to my trainer, I was like, I want to look like this guy. From Triple R? No. This was a guy who's a big star still. His name is Hrithik Roshan. He's super jacked. He's a great actor. He's got an extra thumb. That's like a thing a lot of Indian people have.

55:46Really? Yeah, I don't mean like 40%, but it's like... Septodactylia? Is that what it's called? I think so. It's a little like extra useless thumb. Yeah, six digits. Oh, wow. Three thumbs up. When he likes the movie, he can really communicate it. Okay, so really quick. Now, we must acknowledge that we're guilty of the thing that hurts us, which is you and I know this guy's a huge star. He's jacked. Yeah, he's got an extra thumb. I don't mind saying that. This guy's an idol. He's gorgeous too, yeah. But that guy, should he ever come across this podcast, which he won't, he'll be hurt that we're talking about his third thumb.

56:21Or is it something he's super proud of? I don't know. Because he could give a shocker. He could give whatever a new shocker is. Oh, my God. Two in the big... He's getting a four in this thing. No, he meant... No, I know. I knew this was... He didn't mean the shocker. I did. Oh, you did? I just mispronounced it, yeah. Yeah, the shocker. What's the other... The Shaka? Yeah, that's what I thought you were also. No, I mean, yeah, two in the pink, one in the stink, and then four thumbs on the clitoris. Yeah, he probably wouldn't like this. Yeah, my guess is he wouldn't like this. Or maybe he would.

56:53So anyways, often when I'm feeling really sad and self-pitying and hurt, I have to recognize I too do it. Do what? I talk about people in a way that I don't think would hurt their feelings because they're so high status. I don't think they would care. I know. We're wrong. Genuinely have been trying to be better about it. Like if someone makes fun of, you know, oh, look at how much work this person got. I'm like, first of all, it's their fucking decision. And what upsets me about what you said about you and Kristen together is these parasocial things where people think they know someone's relationship or how someone actually feels about someone.

57:27I think it's so unhealthy. You don't know me. You don't know my life. People will be like couple goals or whatever. I'm like, you don't know what our life is. You don't know what my relationship with my wife is. You have no fucking idea. So people sort of build us up sometimes to be like, oh, this is, you know. You're a dreamy couple. I totally get couples goals. People will say, like, if they have a breakup, I'll stop believing in love. I'm like, don't fucking do that. That's too much pressure for one. I am not anything. We are truly nothing to you. This should not be any kind of standard or anything.

57:54I mean, what they don't see is how much work we're doing behind the scenes. You know, I am absolutely in love with Emily. With Emily, my favorite. You don't even know her name. I said enemy. I love enemy. My frenemy. What they don't know is It's not always easy It's very fulfilling and satisfying But we gotta keep working on it Two people coming together in any capacity How is it happening? I got friends who are in throuples now I'm like, what are you doing? Do you guys know people who are in like We watch couples therapy And every time I watch it and there's a throuple or something I'm like, guys, it's just too hard for two people Three, you're making it exponentially more complicated It is exponential Yeah, it's like going from one kid to two Because it's each pairing and then all three of you together.

58:37We only got one way. This is like one way, two way, three ways, four ways. We'll add also Kristen and I share an identity if we are out at a dinner party. We're literally this one identity that plays off each other and has stories. It's like, what is this shared identity of this truffle when they come to your dinner party? How could you not know? Like if you're in a truffle, be like, you know what? I think this person loves that person a bit more than they love me. And that's got to be true, right? I mean, how is it possible that everyone loves everyone equally? Well, I believe that's possible.

59:09You think so? Because I have two kids. That's different. It is different. I don't know. You made them. Yeah, you made them. Now, if you're in trouble with your kids, I'm going to move on. No, let's talk about trouble with my children. I didn't mean you. I meant like... When my children end up in a trouble? One of them is going to feel very left out. Even that, you said the other day something like, I took my best girl to a concert, one of the kids. And I said, you can't say that. And he said, I have two best girls. And I said, nope, no one wants to hear that. So yes, I do think in the ripples, the love changes.

59:47It's like, we're close right now. Now we're close right now. But then the pain on the other person who's on the outside in that moment and trying to fight their way, that's too much. I can speak to a three-way. I've been in some three-ways in my youth. That feels easier to navigate in a relationship. And how are those? Well, what I can own up to. Could not wait to bring it up. I know. What I can own up to, and that is inevitably, I felt like, no, I wish it was just me and this person. Oh, really? Even in that, you got a best girl? Oh, there are best girls everywhere. It's like, it's great. It's fun.

1:00:20It's exciting initially. And then just like, oh, I like how that person kisses more. Could you take a break? I have two options in front of me. I enjoy kissing this one more. Yeah. Yeah. Also, they all have their own feelings about that as well. Yeah, sure. So they're like, I like this person. Both the girls are probably like, I hope this dude leaves. Yeah. Right. There's so much going on. It just seems very complex. It's all complex. Being a person is so complicated. Yeah, being a person is hard. You know, when in True Detective and first season with Matthew McConaughey says consciousness was a mistake.

1:00:51I genuinely, truly believe that. I think it was a big fucking mistake. A bug. It is a bug. I really think. You think anybody intended all of this? This was not the end game. This is a big mistake. The similarities is they just want to end in this thing. Because also, Monica's heard me say it. I fucking hate an encore. It drives me. Kamala drives me insane. Oh my God, I love that. Who did you go see with your best girl? Sabrina Carpenter? Yeah. Did you go? Yeah, I went. What day? I went on, I think the first day on a Sunday. We went Monday. You went Monday. Did you enjoy it? Did you get arrested for being too hot?

1:01:25I don't know. Me neither. What an incredible show. She's so cool. She's so great because she's really funny and she like understands all that. Like so many take themselves too seriously and she doesn't. Well, we saw, this is kind of a sad story, I guess, but we saw Prince at the forum. He did like a whole month and tickets were 20 bucks no matter what. Parking was 40 bucks. He did eight fucking encore. Wow. Eight? And we were like, I gotta get home. You left. And then he died. Ah, yeah. Good. Good for you. That's abusive. Do you think maybe like you killed him? By leaving early? Cosmically, kind of.

1:02:03Yeah, he was like, I gotta try more fentanyl. Or whatever it was, purple fall. Let's not say that. He did this fucking thing. Speaking of confidence in performing, he did not sing for the first 45 minutes. He strutted around on stage as the band played. He'd go up to the mic, start to sing, and then walk away. I am not exaggerating. 45 minutes and he started singing and then like an hour and he started playing Purple Rain and he was like no y 'all not ready and he stopped playing Purple Rain he sang a bunch of other songs it's like you going to set next week with no preparation yeah he was trying something you know with the cameras on me I'm like y 'all not ready no well Kamal I really loved it I hope everyone checks it out the material's great you perform it well but what is so satisfying for me is a hard compliment to take you're such a genuinely beautiful person.

1:02:55It's like very on display. No, come out. The whole time I'm watching, I just have the warmest, just loving feelings towards you. You're such a sweet dude. I know, that's why I'm like, who could be mean to you? Yeah, that was the last thing I wanted to say on that. Some of these people aren't even real. You have to remember that. I know, it's troll farms in Russia who decided, let's pick up this guy. No one who knows you or has been around you could ever be mean. But you know what's funny is, we both have this thing, we want muscles, we want this and that. And I'm blown away with it and I'm horny for the muscles as I'm watching it.

1:03:26But it is the essence that's just Kumail that I'm so attracted to. It is so beautiful and thoughtful and smart and conscious. With or without muscles. Yeah. The quintessential ingredient is still you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's very sweet. That's like the nicest. Sincerely though. Yeah. I'm very proud of it because I didn't do standup for so long. And when I started up again, I was like, all right, I'm going to give myself a year and a half to write an hour, perform it, record it. And then I'm going to take a break and see when I come back to it. You know, so I really feel like at this point in my life at this age, this is the thing I want to say that's completely my own.

1:04:04And I feel like I did it to the best of my ability in this moment. Who knows what happens next? But I'm proud of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, Kamal, I love you. It's been too long since you were here. I hope you'll come back. Night Thoughts, December 19th on Hulu. It's fantastic. Thanks for coming. Thanks, buddy. Love you guys. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:04:33I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. as Monica comes in and tells us what was wrong. Kumail. Kumail Nanjiani. We just like him so much. We do. He's a sweet boy. He's so, he's a good boy. He is. Who was reminding me of him recently? Me. Oh, this is interesting. I guess it borders on racist, but he has a similar sweet core that I think Karan Soni has. and I don't know if somehow it's related, but it's a very specific sweetness. Yeah, Karin is very sweet. Yes. Yeah, I don't think it's racist because you don't think I have it. No. Yeah, I don't either.

1:05:23You have other great qualities. No, I don't even, I mean, I think it's a great quality. I love seeing it, but I don't like wish I had it. Yeah, I mean, there's so much. Maybe that's gendered. There's a lot of overlap between Karin, obviously, and Kamal in that they're both growing up, one in Pakistan, one in India, but both little guys that are really quite afraid of their environment. Yes. Karin hiding, you know, his sexuality and being terrified. And then Kamal seeing a guy get shot, you know. Yeah. And then leaving there. I don't know. I know. There's some connective tissue. Yeah, absolutely.

1:06:00Speaking of that, speaking of. Connective tissue? Drama. Oh, Tuama. Tuama. I don't mean to correct you, but Tuama. I can't believe I said that so wrong. I know. When I was home in Georgia. Yeah. I had a great time. And it was very, it was, but it was funny. Because I, sometimes I wonder, because I've been here a while. Yeah. Been here in LA. Yes. That like, I've made some stuff up in my head. Oh, sure. Yes. You know? I relate. Yeah. And I'm like, am I being like... hyperbolic about some of this stuff or the way I remember it or yeah was there racism or like maybe not actually I don't know you know I start like questioning it questioning it and I think it's good to question it like we have these ideas that are built and like maybe that's wrong and of course it's always going to be a little wrong because your memories shift and stuff and morph over time there's revisionist history great podcast yeah incredible but I was kind of This is so bad to say.

1:07:05I was kind of relieved. There was a couple moments where I was sort of affirmed that those things... Weren't imagined? Were not imagined, yes. And I was talking to someone specifically who I'm very close to, who was talking about... I have to be careful here. Who was talking about their father-in-law. And I grew up with this person. This person knows me very well. Yeah, yeah. And she, my friend, was telling me just like how bad, how racist it's gotten in that house with this person, father-in-law. And I was like, and I said, I said, that's so weird because like he knows me. Right. And she's like, yeah, well, you're an exception because you're rich and famous.

1:08:02And I was like, oh, my God. And then and then there's another person in that person's life who's also Indian. I said, well, what about this person? And she was like, he's kind of an exception to just because he's been around. But there's still some weirdness. And I was like, wow. And when she said it, it was a light bulb for me. Because I was like, yes, that, me being an exception is like what's driven my entire life. Sure, sure, sure. I think it's part of what has driven me to be, to work so hard. It's like across the board. It's just like, I have to be an exception. Yes, yes. Across the board.

1:08:45And I think that's then just bled into all areas of my life, work and anything, relationships. I think that's an incredibly sound theory. But I would also suggest it's like it's some percentage of the pie because your parents are gangsters. Your genetics are awesome. You are going to be a go getter wherever you grew up as well. And then, you know, I think if I were you, I would certainly feel this way because you can't afford to make room for the nuance. But I'd imagine you think like racist is one thing, right? It's just like this hatred of all people or whatever. But when we're watching that wonderful documentary and those bozo white nationalists are sitting with this Indian woman and they're like, well, not you.

1:09:32And I think there's mass confusion within their own mind. I think they have like they have a cartoonish archetype in their mind that they hate. Yeah. Right. Whatever the characteristics they've assigned to this group that they hate. And then yet, weirdly, I think they're open to when they meet someone of that group that's not displaying these archetypical archetype things they think they hate. Then they go like, oh, well, I don't hate this one. Mm hmm. So I think like it is even racism is as complicated and nuanced and probably individual as every other opinion, like full of contradictions. Yeah, I think that's right.

1:10:13I just think that's the problem. Like if they the hope would be that if they met or knew someone of that race, that that would then shatter the racism. The whole, right. The paradigm. But I think they go, oh, this is an exception. This is an exception. But they're open to meeting three more exceptions that day. I know, but who cares if the overall, you know, I know what you mean. I mean, like, it's a spectrum probably, and Hitler's on one side, which is like, Jews are genetically inferior. They all suck no matter what I'm witnessing them do spectacular, right? Like, you can't penetrate his level on that.

1:10:53And then I just think it's a crazy spectrum. And of course, how is anyone the other group to know where this person's at? Like, how irrational are they in this opinion? Well, it is definitely a huge spectrum and people make exceptions all the time. But I guess what I'm what has happened to me over my life is I used to be very, you know, I needed to be that exception for survival. But I was like, really, I didn't care. I didn't care about the other Indian people as long as I got through I was fine and now I don't feel that I'm like fuck that you take all of us or you can't just I'm not an exception I'm like everybody else yeah so it's changed I think for me over as I have grown it's interesting There's so many like little minute layers to all of it.

1:11:59You know, it's like I may learn that Israelis on the personality tests are the highest disagreeability of all the ethnicities. Right. Like this is a confirmed thing we've had experts on talking about. And then I might meet an Israeli that doesn't seem that disagreeable. Yeah. And I and then I have to make room for like, oh, right. Sure. In general, they over index in this. But again, there's so much variety within this thing. I also have to go like, I can't just assume they're all disagreeable because. Right. Yeah. Because there's. Yeah, because. It's like I'm doing it. I'm sure in ways that aren't like overtly racist or hostile or with any sense of superiority, just like what I think I know about different groups.

1:12:39Yeah. And then you have to constantly be making room for the individual. Well, racism is not about making. I mean, I guess making generalizations is a part of it. But it's the making generalizations that lead to a feeling of superiority or a feeling of hatred. So if you don't have those other pieces, it's, you know, less of it's not as much of an issue unless you're making all these assumptions about people that aren't true. But for the most part, that's the that's the issue. Right. It's like, oh, they're all like this. And so that's gross or bad or. Yeah, I can give a personal example on my own.

1:13:17There are, I grew up around a couple different cultures. Some of these cultures definitely, there was an increased machismo and what I thought was total disrespect for females. And I went, that's wrong. Not I'm better. So even within like superiority, it's such a broad word. It's like, I definitely felt like what I was doing was right. And what they were doing was wrong per my morals and ethics. Yeah. But I at no point was like, I'm better than or I'm superior. Or if this person hadn't grown up in my household, they wouldn't be the same. It's just like, oh, I know this group of people. They're pretty fucking hyper masculine and aggressive.

1:13:59And I'm not for that. Yeah. And yeah, it's really complicated. But I love what you were exploring at the beginning because my brother and I had like a really, really profound. Well, first of all, we had this beautiful trip together right before Christmas. we went to New York together and I have had the great luxury of going to New York a ton of times and getting to live in different areas of the city when I'm working. And there's a whole part of New York. I love that. I don't think the tourist really knows. And I very much wanted my brother to see that side of it. Yeah. Cause he even said like, why do you love New York so much for him?

1:14:29It was, it's Times Square in Central Park. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's, that's a great, those are great, but probably not worth going to multiple times. Yes. So we went and we were on this lawn. We walked everywhere. We walked like 17 miles a day. And I think we were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and we were chatting and I said, my brother's a great, great believer, as am I, in that, like, he's a vision board person. And he imagines what he wants and he puts out into the world these positive outcomes he wants. And it's very effective for him. Manifesting. I love it. And he manifests it, right?

1:15:02Yeah. And he thinks positive thoughts and he knows positivity begets positivity. And we're talking about confirmation bias. Like, yeah, if you think everything's upward trending, you see the proof of the upward trending and you ignore the downward trend and then you don't get bogged down in that. Yeah. And I said to him, I said, you know what feels really unfair for me as I write this memoir is any one of us have had every experience in childhood. I can really, I have the data or the plot points to create any story I wanted. Sure, sure. Because all I got to do is string together the 15 times this thing happened.

1:15:38And I decide that was my childhood. And I said to Dave, I said, you know, I really been, I want to get this out of my system, the memoir. And the goal is when the memoir is done, I'm going to start looking back on my history a lot differently than I have been, which is I have to acknowledge, yeah, these things happened to you and I, but if we really added it up, that's probably was 0.03 % of our experience on life. They're so hyper memorable. because they were so dramatic and stuff. But in reality, we're looking at 99 % of the time, we had a damn good sitch. And I said, and I want to start constructing a different story about my back.

1:16:17I said, I think the same thing is true about looking forward. I think I need to apply it looking backwards. Now that I said it out loud, I like feel a commitment to like. That's good. I mean, really, you could. You could, you know, you could look at the 12 situations where someone discarded you and you could look at the 12 that they showed compassion to you because you were other. I bet you also received a lot of, I would hope, some teachers that recognize this girl's other and I want to make her feel inclusive. You know, like I bet there was acts of generosity that, you know, those don't hurt in sticking your memory, but I bet they were there.

1:16:54For whatever reason, I am very aware of the cheerleaders and angels in my story. Those are the main characters for sure i i am i have no questions about that they're ever like it's startling i feel like so lucky in that yeah um me too yeah it's it's i mean no one gets to have a life like this without it you just don't you have to have a lot of people who believe in you. You have to have a lot of support and luck and not just from your family, from just like random people. Um, so yeah, it's yeah. When we, um, when I was home, I saw my old cheerleading coach, which was so fun. And, um, she, she, we were talking and I was like, God, how did, how did you do it?

1:17:51Like, how did you make all of us 15 year olds care so much about this thing? It became it was life or death. It was like, if we didn't win, we were gonna die. Yeah. Like you were at the Olympics. Yes, we were. We were all working together so hard. A huge team of people. Yeah. And everyone was on the same page. And like she said, she said, I don't know. She's like, I I don't, I think about that all the time too. You guys were so like the dedicated, she too was sort of blown away by that. And she's been still, she's still, she runs a gym. She's so successful in what she does, but she looks back on that too.

1:18:33And so there is just some like, kind of some weird luck you get. Like I landed in that environment where you had to show up. There was no other option, but to be your best. And yeah, there's just so many lucky parts. You're going to love Angela Duckworth's new book. I'm reading like a pre-copy of it. Oh, fun. It's all about the power of situation. She hinted at it the last time she was here. She was like, grit was all about individual willpower, determination, dedication, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And I think you might remember she had a graduate student of hers that was kind of like, this is a little bit of bullshit.

1:19:08Right. Remember, he kind of like called her out and God bless her. She was like open enough to hear him out and start exploring. And so, yeah, like the last decade of our life post-Grid has been really opening itself up to the enormous impact of environment. Everything around you. And she points out like everything around you is objective. And then everything inside you is completely subjective. Totally. Yeah. And yeah, that thing you experienced on the team, you were a product of an environment. Yeah. Where each of you challenged each other in rows. And she said, you know, yes, you can get born into terrible situations.

1:19:46Yes, you can have terrible parents. But you always have some situational agency. And I think if you recognize the power of the situation, you can put yourself in different situations. You'll respond accordingly. Yeah. I love it. I'm loving it so much. I'm so excited. We should have her on to talk about it. We must. Yeah. Okay. Exciting. Okay. I'm pivoting because I have a really important question. I can't wait to answer it. So what would you do if your bar of soap that you wash your hands with, okay, it's hand soap, but it's a bar. Yeah. I have one. Okay, yeah. Yeah. And you like it. You like that soap a lot.

1:20:27Volcanic ash? No, that's from my body. Oh, okay. You're washing your hands and it flies out slippery. Yeah. Slippery when wet. And lands directly into the toilet. No problem. Really? Not a problem. Wait, is there feces in the toilet? No, but. Yawn? A little bit of yawn? No, but it was just flushed. Yeah. Like seconds before. Yeah, no one is going to like this, but this is a fact. Okay. Your kitchen sink is a thousand times more dangerous than your toilet bowl. There is way more harmful, potential harmful bacteria in your sink. So if you dropped your hand soap in the sink, you wouldn't think anything of it.

1:21:10You'd rinse it off and wash it a little bit. Yeah. It is interesting. I wash my soap sometimes, which feels insane. You're like, to what extent is it self-cleaning and to what extent is it not? Where does the self-cleaning line get drawn? Yeah, it's the demarcation. Yeah. But that would be fine for me. You'd be fine. Absolutely. Wow. It's just water in there. And there's a little bit of your yarn. Residue. Which is mostly antiseptic. Poo poo residue. Duty. No, stool balls. Stool balls. We heard this is Easter egg for Armchair Anonymous coming up. That's right. So this happened to me, obviously.

1:21:51Yeah. What did you do? I already know what you did. What do you think I did? You used it. I didn't. I don't even know you. I know. Like I was staring at this. So, you know, I have round. I have this soap. It's round. It's very cool. It looks like a stool ball, but it's white. begging to be slipped out of your hand for crying i know but i've used it enough that it's like now it's just like a dome like the bottom is flat okay it's like it's half cut in half and um semi-hemisphere you know it's like slow motion i saw it twirling in the air and then plop right in the middle of the toilet and i i looked at it for a while because i was like for a second and you know this is kind of like when i thought the rat got in the kettle like sometimes my brain goes a little haywire.

1:22:38Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, should I just flush it? Fuck up your hole. And then, yeah, I was like, no, I'm not, I can't. I can't flush it. That's bad for the toilet. It'll clog. But I was like, but I don't want to put my hand in there. For some reason, I, like, really did not want to put my hand in. It feels off-brand for you. You'll get down. I know. Remember that one time? Yeah, what'd you do?

1:23:04Have I even, have I talked about it on here? I'm sure, I'm sure I did. When I first started my seizure medication. Yeah. And I had my morning BM. Yeah, yeah. It was like the first day and I looked and it was in there. The medicine was. The capsule. The whole thing. The entire thing. Yeah, I do remember that. Well, that's what I needed to see. I had to see. That's right. That's right. I do remember. Yeah. You had to for your health. I had to. That's right. But this, for some reason, and it was, it was flushed, but it was recently flushed. Uh-huh. I was like, I don't want to put my hand in there.

1:23:45Uh-huh. And then I did. I feel like I'd just be able to, I'd get rid of the top layer of the soap and be done to fresh. I mean, that's, that's what my thought was. It's like, should I just rinse it off? It's soap. It's self-cleaning. I just get this top layer off. But I was like, I don't believe in self-cleaning anymore all of a sudden. And I threw it in the garbage. I was going to say, my curiosity is killing me. How did you retrieve it? Tongs from? No, I put my hand in. But you did. Yeah, I did. I hated it. Oh, I thought you were saying you didn't want it. I didn't. I didn't want to, but I was like, I guess I have to.

1:24:16And I put my hand in and I grabbed it and I just threw it straight in the garbage. And then I had to get another soap to clean my arm and my hand. There's a whole thing. it's kind of a jonathan height like moral dilemma moral dumbfounding dilemma because like yeah it it's it's like technically and morally fine yeah but it felt really wrong yeah yeah so i had to throw it away that makes me think of i took delta to breakfast on sunday i'm trying to think what topic brought up morals and ethics. It was really fun to start exploring that with her. What is she? I mean, she's so ethical, I think. I do too.

1:25:09Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of innately. Yes. Quite ethical. She is. Yeah. I don't know where she got it. Oh my God. I'm trying to think what topic came up and I was just like, yeah you know you you get to pick what you think is moral and immoral and I think she was asking like a right or wrong question you know and we got to explore it anyways I just it's so fun to be having deeper and deeper conversations with the kids as they get older I love that yeah she was reading she has a graphic novel she got uh-huh for Christmas uh-huh you might have seen this This was at my birthday dinner Wait, that's the Oh, I thought that was Kristen's No, I don't even know who got it for Carly Oh, my sister Yes, that makes so much more sense Tell me, you were flummoxed?

1:26:01Yes, because Kristen pulls out this book And maybe I jumped in the conversation late Because she said, Carly got this It's about this And I thought it was for Kristen and I was like she got you a graphic novel like I did think that was weird off-brand for sure kind of like me putting my hand in the toilet yes um but now that I know it's how that makes so much more sense yeah so we just had the sweetest conversation because there's some adult themes I guess in it and she wanted to know if it was okay that she was reading these adult themes and she felt like maybe conflicted and I said um your gut will tell you yeah your gut will tell you when you're ready for things and when you're not ready for things.

1:26:45You just listen to your gut. There's no right or wrong or it's too early or too late, but your gut will tell you. So don't worry. You don't have to worry about what's right or wrong. You just have to feel what's right or wrong for you or when you're uncomfortable. And maybe even sometimes you're uncomfortable, but it's tolerable on comfort. Yeah. Yeah. She's so cute. We had a horrible situation where I, you know, she loves these male eggs, which I think is also taken in the world by storm. They're so cute. These little mice characters. They're like little 3D printed toys? No, they're cloth. Oh, they're cloth.

1:27:21Yeah, they're really cute. Okay. And you collect them, and then you collect their little, you know, house, you know, little like appliances. And yeah, those. Oh, yeah, they're all over the house. It's so cute. I kind of feel like I wish I could have some. Yeah. But it feels like maybe. Well, you could definitely have some. You think a guy might be weirded out? Yeah. This is kind of like the dipe conversation from 2020. Oh, if you were wearing your diaper in bed? If you were when you were 20, if you like met a girl at a bar and you hooked up and then she said, I gotta throw my diaper on before I go to bed.

1:27:58Yeah. Yeah. I don't. I think if you're cute, you pull it off. So I think you can pull that off for sure. I just don't think there's an amount of cuteness that gets. To the dipe? Yeah, the dipe. Well, you know, we asked all the men in the pod. And all the women were like, absolutely not. And the men were like, yeah, how cute is she? Yeah. I don't remember. You could kind of go like, oh, this is adorable, this girl. I mean, she can't be a child. You don't want to be, you got to be really clear about what's happening. You're with an adult. Yeah. Then you find out this adult, where's night dipes? Is efficient because it's not, okay, this was also part of it.

1:28:36It's not that she can't control her pee. No, because all day long she doesn't wear a diaper. It's just that she doesn't want to wake up in the night to go to the bathroom. To remind people, this stems from my game plan of starting to wear nighttime diapers. Exactly. So I didn't have to wake up and pee anymore. Yes. Yeah. And then people were like, what about when you're traveling? I'll get a fucking diaper when I go to that city. Like, that's the question. Anyway, male legs. So they're really, really cute. and she wanted, one of the things on her list for her birthday and Christmas was a dollhouse for her Maileks.

1:29:10And Kristen told me about this and Kristen was like, she doesn't need like an official one. You can just get her some random one. And I was like, no. Triwad box. Yeah, yeah. Like get her a shoe box. And I was like, absolutely not. If she wants the official one, she's getting it. Yeah. And so I go on the website, the USA website, Mayleg, and it's I order what's there. Uh-huh. Okay. And I'm excited and I tell her it's coming. And then we go to Nashville and someone had got her one for Nashville, too. That's going to stay in Nashville. Okay, great. The one for her that I ordered arrived while I was gone.

1:29:53So I saw that it It arrived, but I didn't see it. Right. So then we're in Nashville and she's like, oh, you know, look at this. And she was showing me the box. I was like, oh, my God, it's so cute. Exciting. Well, you'll have one for both houses. Yeah. And then I get home. I was like, this box looks tiny. Oh, OK. Now I'm up to speak. So I saw you guys unwrapping this. I got yesterday or the day before. A couple of days ago. Yeah. I was like, oh, no. But but then I came. I was like, well, maybe you have to set it up. Maybe it expands. Yeah. The box looked too small, right? That was the issue. Way too small.

1:30:27Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I got nervous because she deserves the best. Well. Yes, she does. It is huge. And I was like, oh, my God. And then I get, so I come into the house and I don't see her, but she's there, but I don't see her. And you're standing there and you're like, what is that? And I was like, it's Delta's dollhouse, but I think there's something wrong. I don't understand. It's so small. And I don't know. This is bad. And then she like pops her little head out. And it's like, it's going to be perfect. It's perfect. And I was like, I don't know, Delta. It looks really small. And she was like, it doesn't matter if it's small.

1:31:07It's exactly right. And then I'm like, it better be a mansion dollhouse for her. It has to be so perfect. And then we opened it. And it is wrong. I mean it's it's right it's what is available on the site I looked it up but like so I don't know how you guys got that other one for Nashville because it's not on that USA site I don't know either I'm really conflicted about all this no I love it so so then it's now what I got her is a suit casa so it's just this like small suitcase and you know and I and I you know she took it out And I was like, oh, you know, I responded very negatively. I was like, oh, you really yucked the the potential.

1:31:56Yeah, I was like, oh, Sue Casa, what is this? And she was like, it's great. And she's like, this is perfect. I need different kinds and everyone has different size houses. So it's good. And I was like, oh, my God, this person is so sweet. Like it's it's unbelievable. ball. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:32:29You now just jogged my memory of how we got on ethics. Okay. She randomly said to me at Cafe 101, because I do, and I'm on the fence about this, but I do it. I let her order more. I let her order whatever she wants. I can't even relate to it. Right. Like just the way we grew up versus like, you know, if she wants pancakes and she wants eggs, I'm like, yeah, go for it. Yeah. And she just out of nowhere, she said, dad, do you want to tell me I can't order as much? I go, you know, here's my thing about you ordering too much. I don't care if you order too much. I can afford to buy it. I said, and I recognize that you have a lot of decision anxiety.

1:33:08And for me, it's very easy to solve that problem with another$6 order of pancakes. Yeah. But I do worry a lot that I'm setting you up for failure because you're going to grow up. You can't afford to fucking order whatever you want. And I feel like I get scared. I'm not preparing you for the world, the world. And she said, okay, but is it wrong? That's how we got on it. Is it wrong? And I said, well, you know, there's a lot of rungs to this ladder. There's like legally what's right and wrong. I said, there are morals we would all agree on. Don't kill, don't rape, don't steal, don't hurt other people.

1:33:45I said, and then there's this whole area where you have to decide what your own ethical code is. And one of mine is I try not to waste. Yeah. And I try to leave the world as I found it. And on a great day, I leave it a little better. I said, you notice you've never seen me ever leave something in the sink. It's a stupid moral of mine. I just won't leave it worse than I found it. And she said, OK. And I said, so you have to decide if you feel guilty about wasting. Right. And it's personal. And it's up to you. I'm not going to assign you your morals. But that's what's kind of on the table. And she said, OK.

1:34:25OK, I want you to tell me I think you're ordering too much. You're going to waste some in the future. And I said, OK. And then she got a to-go box for her French fries. We're never going to eat these French fries. I was like, while she's doing it, I want to be like, well, hon, this isn't the time. These fucking things are never getting eaten. They're going to sit in the fridge for fucking eight days and then I'm going to throw them out. But I just had to kind of honor them all. So then we walked out with a half-eaten order of french fries. But anyways, this little girl, this fucking little girl.

1:34:54She's too much. She really is too much. It's like a lot. It's a lot. It's overwhelming. But I have zero. Come for me in the comments. I won't read them. I have zero guilt about wasting food. I don't. It is kind of weird. It's like, why don't I? Well, you can make a lot of compelling arguments in all directions. So one of the arguments I make for myself when we are wasteful. is like, we're wasting our money, but I'm putting it into the world. I don't think I should be sitting here and squirreling everything I have. So I just always remind myself when I have kind of wasted money, well, I wasted it by giving some small business that money or some manufacturer, whatever.

1:35:49So in that way, I'm like, well, that's not bad at all. In fact, the more we get out of my pocket and everyone else's, that's the best probably. And then no one's going to like this. they'll come for me in the comments. Food, it is not a finite resource. It is. So there's growers making money. There's this grocery store that sold it. There's all these people in this chain that were employed. And yes, if you want to zoom out as an unethical because someone's starving over there. Yes. But that's a totally false argument because I can't get that food with that person over there. And if I don't waste it, it's not going to them.

1:36:22So it's just like, it's a hypothetical that's not reality. Yeah. So I don't get bogged down in that. But the thing that gets me more uh i spun out and i can't tell it's just my own child and what's going on is like so this thing you're talking about this these toys may legs may legs and then there's fugglers yeah we talked about fugglers and in my opinion there's too many fugglers but you shouldn't have this many fugglers and then i walk outside and i'm like and i have seven cars i've collected over the years so like i'm not in a position to be critical but i but i bought those cars yeah but she didn't this is why the good place was made exactly being ethical at all times is nearly impossible in our modern world there's not to one person it's this and to another person it's that like it's also why we're so divided we all have such different ethics and what we think I mean to me yes there are some things that are they're objectively wrong and sometimes when I hear other people talk and I'm like you don't think that it's like so startling but then but I agree with you there's this middle portion that it really is very very very individual because weirdly weirdly for me wasting is almost like it's like a personal respect like when I am at a restaurant and I order something I I eat what I want to eat of it.

1:37:57Yeah. And if I was like. You have to over consume. Exactly. Yes. Agreed. That's another one of my arguments is like to make yourself take on excess calories your body told you you don't want. Yeah. It's insane to make who happy. And just like, I don't want anymore. I should be okay with not wanting anymore. I don't. There's a gluttonous element on the other side of it. Yes. That's like, I don't like the way that is in people. So I don't, I don't know. It's weird. Chris and I talk about this a lot because we get in a little debates about what, what is wasting and what's not. And my opinion is you have to also be very pinpointed about when is it waste?

1:38:37Once you've ordered it, it's done. Yeah, exactly. It's completely done. If you bought something from the store and you brought it back to your house and now you're keeping it in your house because you don't want to waste. That's a, that's a fantasy that the buying it. Some people eat it. Well, I'm just saying people will, us. Yeah. We have just shit piling up because we would feel terribly guilty to throw it away. Stuff you can't donate. We do a lot of donate. But yeah. But my point is always like it's too late. If you want to cut back on waste, it's the buying of it. Totally. Once you bought it, forget it.

1:39:08You might as well do whatever you want, whether you eat it or you throw it in the trash or you stick it in your ass or you light it on fire. It's irrelevant. It's that you bought it and now it'll be replaced with more manufacturing. Right. So that's done. It happened the second. There's no wasting or not wasting it. It's over. Yeah. I'm also reading the Ezra Klein book, Abundance. And yeah, he gets into the climate in a really comprehensive all facets way, which I love, which is like you have different movements within the environmental movement. And one of them is really just a judgment on consumerism.

1:39:41A lot of the environmental movement, people in it, what they really want is they think we made this in this pact with the devil years ago when we became a consumeristic capitalist society. Right. So what they really want is for us to not be that way. Now, what are the odds the world's going to do that? That's not going to happen. But people are not going to go back to a prematerialistic world. Right. He said, now you have another bigger group, which is like, there's clearly a lot of waste in the system and there's a lot of resources being spent on stuff that shouldn't be spent on. Yeah. The problem is people don't agree on what those things are.

1:40:18And then I think you get down to what I hope should be everyone's core value is like, my ethics aren't above yours. Right. They're mine. Yes. You got yours. That's a superiority in the all-knowingness of thinking yours are the ones everyone should agree on. What about like the one like what about like if someone's like, well, I'm allowed to like hurt this person. It's like that there should be some. Right. Again, that's why there's ones that we actually all agree on. Everyone agrees that you shouldn't be allowed to assault people, kill people, rape people, steal from people. I guess those are laws.

1:40:49I guess they're laws. They're the Ten Commandments. They're like, you know, they've been agreed upon for quite a long time. And then this other batch, like as much as you're convicted about it, it's the other batch. It is funny, though, because I was I am very materialistic. It's no secret. I like buying stuff. I like looking nice. I like whatever. But I was at a store at home, a store I like, but I was looking around and all of a sudden I was just like, there's so much stuff. Crap. There's just stuff. It's all just like random stuff everywhere. what are we doing like I did have this like what are we doing as a as a people yeah well he brings that one up he's like of all these buckets you've got fast fashion cement cement is an enormous emitter of carbon when it's made and it's we need it for construction and it's like you certainly have one person saying we don't need a fucking another football arena yeah the other one works yeah legit I'm going looking at fast fashion and going that shit's that you don't need that yeah But I want, you know, like totally.

1:41:59Well, it's hard, though, because it's like there are sizes so many parts of this because fast fashion for me. I'm like, OK, I'm against fast fashion. Right. Because I can afford. Yes, exactly. It's a total privilege to have that. So to me, I'm like, yes, poor girl. You want an outfit. Of course you want an outfit. And you should be able to have it. That is also what I feel. So I'm like, ah, I'm so conflicted about this because I do think there should be that available for people who don't have the privilege I have. Yet, then what I do is like, I think there should be some of those options, but I should not participate in it.

1:42:42Yeah. Since I don't have to. Exactly. Like you do the things that you can do or that you're willing to do. Yeah, but the judgment is the problem. It is. That's the board judgment. It's like not looking at any nuance. We must all get a little looser on our grip of all in, all this, all, you know, definitive. It's left. It's right. All these different binaries are like, guys, life in its best outcome is like we tried to service five or six principles and we did. We optimized all of them as much as we could, but they all took a hit along the way. I also, I just think maybe a good resolution is to be more focused on you, how you walk through life.

1:43:30Don't worry about what you're doing. Yeah, and if this thing that you're doing, yeah, just try to be the version of you that you think is ethical, moral, whatever. And stop looking outward. Don't tell a fucking single person about it. Live your life and you'll be appealing to people who want to model what you do. Be an example. Don't be a fucking preacher. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Kumail. Yeah. Kumail. Where's he land on fast fashion? Did we get that out of him? I forgot to ask. He does not wear fast fashion. He's very well dressed. Yeah, he doesn't. But he's privileged. Yeah. He doesn't have to. Unstoppable is a movie with Denzel.

1:44:13Sure is. And Chris Pine. And Ethan Suplee. Exactly. That's probably how we got on the subject. Okay, I looked up how much the Kuhn's vacuum cleaner in the box is worth. A Jeff Kuhn's vacuum cleaner artwork's worth varies significantly, with some new Hoover convertibles selling for millions. Example, over$4 million at Sotheby's, over$5 million at Christie's. While smaller inspired or vintage models might fetch a few hundred to a few thousand dollars at places like eBay. showing the vast difference between collectible fine art and regular items. Okay, so his are in the millions. I want to say that the one.

1:44:51That one, yeah. My friend found the piece of, I don't know if I told that whole story in this episode. The reason I even know about these vacuums is a friend of mine worked for the insurance company that had insured them. And I know that the collection, I want to say there were three in this collection. I think at that time were$8 million and this was 15 years ago. Yeah. And there was a piece missing. Yeah. At some point, the art piece had been serviced or cleaned and a piece got lost. And then there was a claim laid on it. And so if we don't find this piece, the insurance company has to pay out$8 million.

1:45:26And my boy found the piece. Oh, wow. He's like a sleuth. Wow. He just has to go to New York and befriend all these art critics and find it, get himself into this warehouse. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. That is a cool looking vacuum, I have to say. It's very cool. Yeah. But what's hilarious is all it is is the vacuum from the store in a loose site box with a light under it. That's where I have problems. That's where my ethics are drawn. Like, I would not feel ethical putting an existing thing in a loose site box and calling it my art. I would not feel ethical doing that. But Jeff is his own guy. And it's beautiful.

1:46:06Something about it, I think it's ridiculous. And I look at it and I like looking at it. Sure. Yeah. Okay, so he said he had just gotten some massage on his jaw and then he was crying about his dead grandma. Oh, yeah. And then I looked it up. I want that experience. Do you? Um, nah. Nah. So my emotions are already a veil. That's true. But I looked up our jaw muscles attached to emotion because also Elizabeth, lame, Elizabeth and Andy, that's dead. Nobody's listening, right? she talks about how she can't have sex unless her jaw is like relaxed. Whoa. Like it's like connected to like her horniness.

1:46:46Oh my God. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. So is his job to massage those and keep them pliable? Well, I'm sure he does if he wants it. Like my only route to sex was relaxed mastoids. I feel like I'd become an expert. on loosening mastoids. Massage therapist, excuse me. That was disrespectful. What did you say? I said masseuse. Oh, yeah. I want a massage therapist to reclaim that title the way women have reclaimed bitch and black people have reclaimed. Yeah, we know where I'm going with everything. So I looked it up. Yes, jaw muscles are directly linked to emotions, stress, anxiety, anger, and even happiness because jaw tension or relaxation through the body's fight or flight response and nervous system leading to clenching or a slack jaw.

1:47:34And this physical tension can also worsen emotional states, creating a feedback loop. So that's cool. Yeah. Okay. You said 67 % of people have teeth nightmares. Looks like 39 to 40 % of people have dreams about their teeth falling out or rotting at least once, making it a very common nightmare theme. Though rates of recurring dreams are lower, around 8 to 16 percent. These dreams are often linked to stress, anxiety, or feelings of powerlessness. But sometimes physical dental irritation, like teeth grinding during sleep, can trigger them. Yeah, nearly four in ten adults have experienced teeth dreams.

1:48:17I'm so rare. Yeah. I mean, I guess technically I'm in the majority if these are right, but like still. You just don't have that nightmare. I don't. You must not carry a lot of tension in your jaw. I had always thought it was my orthodontia history. Right, but it's actually your powerlessness history. Certainly, I hate powerlessness. Yeah. I had a dream last night that I was late. I was like, I was in Boca Raton. Okay. And I had to get, no, was I in Boca Raton? I think so. And I looked at the clock. Is it Boca Raton or Boca Raton? I don't know. I think it might be Raton, but I'm not to be trusted.

1:48:53In the South, we say Boca Raton. Maybe it is. Maybe we were saying it wrong in Detroit. We say most things wrong in Detroit. Well, and I was there and I looked at the clock and the fact check was starting in 11 minutes. Oh, wait. Oh, you were in Boca Raton or Tan. And I had to get here in 11 minutes. I had to get to the airport. You can't do it in 11 minutes. And I was trying. I was like trying to get my bags and I couldn't get to the right bag claim. And it was a lot. More than my teeth now. What has taken over my teeth is my goddamn phone. I'm always, it's always a flight. I always need to check if I can delay, like find another flight later.

1:49:31Cause I'm not going to make it to the airport and I cannot get my phone. Like every time I open my phone, I'm on a weird screen and I have a bug. It's like the old days on your computer when it gets taken over on AOL. Yeah. Then you just fucking pop up screens everywhere. And you could not throw your computer in the trash. It would just take over. It would get a virus and it was just done. Viruses. Yeah. Yeah. So in my dream, my phone always has this virus and I can't get to the Internet to change my flight. And that now is I'm having that one at least three times a month. Weird. Yeah. I think that might just be like.

1:50:07Having a pretty busy schedule. Sure. I think. Yeah. Like feeling like what do I have today? So many things in my calendar. And yeah. Yeah. I get that. OK. Was it Evan Peters and mayor of Easttown? Yeah. This was so, remember when he told us a lot of Indians have an extra thumb? Yeah. It's true. Pre-axial polydactyly. Oh, so this is specifically just the thumb. Yeah. My Twama. When he said that, I was like, oh my God. Like, I like really kind of hated that. The thought of an extra thumb. On Indians specifically. It was like. Even more other. Yeah. yeah yeah it's like why oh that's the guy he was talking about he is very handsome oh my god so for the listener it's not what you think it's not two individual thumbs it's one thick thumb that then branches into two right tips tips whoa wow i've never seen that and that's common in india and And what I love is he's proud of that.

1:51:20Yeah, he's a big. He's not hiding it at all. He's a big movie star. I know a very big movie star. It's got a hand thing and he hides it really, really well. Yeah. No, he's owning it, which I love. Oh, yeah. But it does stress me out. It does. And the thumb itself from the angle where you're looking at the palm, it definitely looks like a cute, like not a frog head, not a turtle head. It does look like, like imagine the gap between the two thumbs is a mouth. And then I see an eyeball on the top. Yeah, it kind of looks like Marcel the Shell with seashores. Yeah, it's a little character. Yeah. He must, does he, do you think he has dexterity in it and he can?

1:51:55I hope. Well, he would have to, right? But I wonder if he can make that move like a Pac-Man mouth. I think he can. Oh, wow. Now, while exact numbers for India are scarce, polydactylily is notably more. Oh my God, that way your middle name's Lily. Oh my God. Oh my God. What if I had it and they got it removed? because hold, notably more common in Indian populations, especially pre-axial polydactylally, extra thumb, toe side, with some studies suggesting rates as high as one in 3 ,000 births in India, much higher than general global rates. Okay, a strong genetic component, it says, obviously. Die.

1:52:43Yeah. It also says, though, that a lot of people get it. Studies, they get it removed at like birth. Sure. OK, that means 400 ,000 people in India have it. If it's one in 3 ,000. If that's right. If it's one in 3 ,000, 400 ,000. You could make a damn good living as the doctor who does this. It's the second most common congenital hand disorder. What? What if I had that and they got it removed? You didn't. How do you know? Because you'd have a massive scar on your thumb. And to my knowledge, I haven't inspected your thumb in great detail, but I think you would see. What if I just. You screamed out loud.

1:53:21Oh. Oh, I'm so lucky. That's okay. We all have our things. I know. Every group has a thing. Well, no, it's like, it's fine. Yeah. It just, I just was imagining growing up here with that. Oh. It was hard enough. You'd have to wear gloves or something. well would you rather be known as the girl that wears the glove or the girl with three thumbs as a kid i know i'd rather be the guy who wore gloves and you could just go oh my hands are really dry and i that the doctor makes me wear these gloves as you get older you're gonna have to like pull your gloves off at some point when you find your true love oh my god this is why i i would i would really i would not you'd be shut down because you're you're very attractive and you you're a real catch and you're already mildly shut down so if we would throw in a third thumb i think well you know me like i have a weird again i like a self-hatred i guess but of like if a if a freckle or i'm like a mole mainly even a freckle like pops up on my body yeah i i like really can't handle it i like have to dig it out and it's again because probably causing cancer It's also a contradiction, which is you love Delta's mole on her face, right?

1:54:40Oh my God, the most. Yeah, and freckles on other people. You love it. I know it has nothing to do with other people. Yeah, I know. Nothing. No, I'm going further. You actually like it in other people. Yeah, I think it's so cute. But you hate it on yourself. Yeah, and like I have this freckle on this finger right here. Yeah, you're always working on that. Yeah, it like it appeared in the last few years and I hate it. That is so, I mean, I don't want to call you crazy. No, it is crazy. But it's bonkers. It's crazy. I know it's crazy. I'm like, how could I be so fixated? Yeah, I like it. You can see it.

1:55:15You just held it up so I could see it, Monica. I thought maybe it was invisible to everyone except me. Now I hate it even more. No, I like it. And everyone likes it. And sometimes I'm typing and I'm just like, ew. You have to think of it as a part of your constellation. I don't want that. Okay. So. So maybe you start wearing gloves. And then you'll be like, what happened? You get a new thumb. When I have that thumb finally come in. That Indian thumb. Oh, my God. All right. That's it for Kamel. OK. I love you. And everyone likes your freckles. So don't look at them. Don't zoom in, guys. Do not zoom in.

1:55:51I want you to revisit hypnotism. He passed away. I know. Really sad. He was such a sweet, sweet guy. He was a really nice man. That story he told about the woman that loved him. and he thought he needed erectile dysfunction medicine. And she said, you don't need that. Let me take care of you. Do you remember that he told that story? I don't remember this at all. Oh, my God. It was the sweetest story. He told it was such tenderness. Aw. I know. I really, really liked him. Go back in the archives. I get hypnotized. Yeah. It's pretty. And it kind of worked. We'll say it worked because he's passed.

1:56:27I'm going to get you hypnotized. and the only goal of the hypnotism is to convince you that it worked the first time. When you wake up, you're going to think the first hypnosis worked. Exactly. All right, love you. Love you.

1:56:58You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.