490 - An Unlock of Motivation in the Face of Chaos on Repeat

0:02On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off, sometimes you'll just need a creative pep talk.

0:20you've heard this idea that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results but i would say it's equally true that getting the same results no matter what different things you try is just as destabilizing but that's life right just the same old crap day after day after day on a loop right uh if there's one thing that i really didn't want to be when i grew up it was cynical. I remember seeing cynical, jaded people, cynical, jaded artists from when I was a teenager to my 20s and seeing them and just thinking, that will not be me. And I thought because I've always been kind of a fun-loving, silly human, that it would be impossible that that's who I would become.

1:26I honestly never thought that was even possible to be in the cards for me. Unfortunately, this is an instance where reality has eclipsed my imagination in a way that I never could have believed because it's really, really hard. Listen, kids, it's hard to not become cynical and jaded, but it's still a life mission for me. And I want to share something that has helped me tap into my optimism again as a human and as an artist. Because here's the thing, when you experience the same crap over and over again, it starts to wear you down. Watching the news, seeing the world, repeat what feels like rerun after rerun, watching you don't even have to look to the world.

2:24Watching your own life and seeing yourself struggle with the same stupid patterns over and over again on repeat is enough to break you down. An episode of burnout after another episode of burnout after another episode of burnout after another episode of burnout and procrastination and not following through and being late on something like whatever it is, letting your inbox pile up, whatever it is, we get into these cycles and these vicious patterns that become so difficult to break. And when you're stuck in that, whether it's the world's crap or your own crap, it is difficult not to feel like you're cursed, like this is your lot in life to be doomed to repeat the same things over and over again.

3:15And when you really start to internalize that mythical level of doom and curse, you can get cynical really, really easily. But like I said, I found some comfort and it came through TV. You just numb out in front of that bad baby long enough and you forget that you're even alive. No, that's not what it is. It's not disassociation as a rule, as a tool. but actually the opposite of that. But it did come through TV.

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5:36Okay, so this bit of optimism that I have regained did come through TV. It came through specifically the TV show Severance. Do you know Severance? I feel like it's, you know, a pretty popular show. So you probably heard of it, even if you haven't seen it. It's on Apple TV. And I want to talk a little bit about it, but don't worry, no spoilers. I'm not going to talk about anything that you wouldn't know from watching like the teaser trailer. Just the premise of the show. I want to just touch on. If you haven't seen it, Severance, it's a show by director, Ben Stiller's the director, the star is Adam Scott.

6:15So got a huge star studded cast that I'm not even going to go into right now. But the idea of the show is Severance is this operation that the characters on the show undergo to sever their work life from their home life. and they sever their brain just like with a little device in there. That means when they go down the elevator at work, they forget who they are in real life and they become their work version of themselves. And their work version has no idea who they are on the outside. Their outside version has no idea who they are on the inside. They don't know the work they're doing. And it's kind of this allegory for disassociation at your job in the name of work-life balance.

7:10Now, it's much more than that, but I'll leave it there. That's the idea. It's a sci-fi premise, kind of magical realism almost, where you cut yourself off from the work you and you live in each other's subconscious without any knowledge of the other one. So they just started releasing episodes of season two after three years since the end of season one. And since it has been a long time, we thought we would revisit watching the episodes. And then also in that time, our oldest kid got old enough to watch it. So we thought we'll watch season one all over again. And I'm glad we did because I forgot almost everything from it.

7:56But as we're watching through episode by episode, even the first episode, you know, when you're rewatching something, you get totally different thoughts than the first time. And as I'm watching this first episode and I'm thinking, man, with this cast, you know, the first episode is almost an hour long. Like the sets are crazy. with all of this, this one episode is like big enough that it could be a movie. And I thought that's just kind of how awesome it is. But then I thought we're lucky or rather Mark S, the main character that's played by Adam Scott, he's lucky that this isn't a movie because in episode one, like all episodes, the first episodes of shows, this character doesn't change at all.

8:49There's almost no development. Who he is at the start of episode one is who he is at the end of episode one. And so Mark S. is lucky that episode one wasn't a movie because if it was, it would be a tragedy. When a character fails to develop, fails to learn throughout the duration of a movie, it's a tragedy. And so the fact that Mark S has more episodes left in this show means that he has more chances to deal with this problem in a different way. That episode after episode after episode is not a curse of the same problem over and over again. It's a type of grace because he's getting a chance to be inventive, to try different things, to do whatever it takes to become the kind of person that can get through these problems and these obstacles that are so persistent that pop up over and over again.

9:56As long as this show is still going, he has another chance to develop his character. And this is the thing that we love about TV. We all say it, whether it's Game of Thrones or The Sopranos or Breaking Bad or Severance. What we love about TV is that they have the time to really thoroughly develop characters. They get a bunch of chances to deal with this problem.

10:45now if you've ever been in one of these really bad shit shows of a vicious cycle where you're like oh my gosh i'm procrastinating again i've overcommitted again i've burned out again And you're like, how do I not learn? How did I get into this scenario again? If you've ever been there and someone says to you, hey, come on, this kind of stuff develops character. Like, I don't know about you, but I roll my eyes harder than an Audi on a one-way elevator trip out of fresh Lumens hell. Now, that only makes sense if you've seen Severance, But come on, like develops character? What does that even mean?

11:34Honestly, I still don't fully know. I tried to define it. I don't know. What does it mean to develop character? But as I looked through the lens of a TV character, it started to sound at least more appealing to me as a reward for going through stuff like this. we love really well developed characters on tv definitely but think about it we also feel that way about people in real life so in 2020 my grandma passed and she was one of my favorite humans on the planet and most people that i know that knew her would say the same thing like she was hilarious. She was equal parts like ornery and sweet.

12:28And she just had so many layers and she had a quick wit and, um, she was super resilient, had gone through just tons and tons of things. And, uh, she was just a brilliant human. And, um, it makes me so sad when I think about, uh, her being gone. But if there's one thing that's true about her is that she went through some episodes. She had a bunch of kids with a whole bunch of interesting plot lines and really ridiculous in-laws and just went through episode after episode after episode of stuff. We'll say that. And anyone that knows her would say the same thing about her. I've heard it said 15, 20, 30 times.

13:16When the subject comes up about grandma, what they say is she was such a character. And that's the kind of character that I hope to be. I hope to be when I'm gone, the kind of person that people say, woo-wee, boy, Andy was a character. Like that is an aspiration of mine. Now, through this lens, my perspective of having to figure out how to learn what I need to learn to move through episode after episode after episode of my own crap has started to evolve. Now, I'm still early in this season of life, so I don't think I've fully got it. I don't know if I could call it a grace or a blessing to go through these repeat patterns, but it is starting to feel like a little bit less of a curse.

14:22And if there's one thing that Mark S. has inspired me to do, it's to not cut myself off from the work, to not disassociate from it, but to embrace these repeat problems as a reminder that this is the journey that I'm on, that this is the thing that I'm trying to grow past, that if life is giving me this problem episode after episode after episode, this must be the story. This must be the character arc that I'm on and that I'm glad that this shit show has been renewed enough seasons for me to get another shot at it. So if you're in a person, human experience, experiencing the same crap over and over again, or a community or even a country that feels like it's stuck on a bad rerun, I hope that you can get past the test on your sanity and start to see that, yes, it's frustrating that we have to deal with the same crap over and over again, but that it's also a gift that we get another shot of dealing with it in such a way where we get past it.

15:50that if this thing's still going, it's not a tragedy yet.

16:11All right, it's time for the creative call to adventure. If you don't know, we like to end each episode with a call to adventure where you take these ideas and you do something with them instead of just feel like I'm hopefully you feel jazzed or encouraged or something in your creativity. But that's not enough for this guy. I want to encourage you to do something with it. And so today's CTA, the call to adventure is Gatorade Run. And I'm going to explain what that means. Okay. So Adam Scott, the star of Severance, is doing the press run to promote the show. And I've seen him tell a story a couple times about how at the start of season two of Severance, you're going to see this character, Mark S, running.

17:07And I'm not going to say more than that, but it's in contrast to what his character does in episode one of the first season, which is walking, walking through the building versus running through the building. And that's meant to show you a bit of the character arc of how this character has changed within one season. And he tells a story and says that in real life, this scene where he runs actually took like weeks to create because it's pretty complicated of a scene to film. And that when he would see an assistant show up with a Gatorade, he knew he was about to be sprinting on camera and it was going to be taken a lot out of him.

17:56And so this Gatorade ended up being the sign of what he was about to do. And so I wanted to encourage you to create a sign, a signal, something that will remind you to break character, to change how you approach these different scenarios? What is your Gatorade bottle that says, I'm not going to walk, I'm going to run? To do this, the first thing you got to do is not disassociate, but reassociate, re-cognize what this pattern is. What are these circumstances that you don't want to repeat? It's easy once you're through them to try to just disassociate or repress them and not think about it again because it was not a good experience.

18:40But if you are in episode after episode of over committing or burnout or procrastinating, or you keep getting yourself into a place that you don't want to be, instead of just pushing it out of mind, out of sight, out of mind, how are we going to get it in your sight like this Gatorade bottle? It's going to start with looking at what this pattern is and seeing what your part is playing in this. I've recently heard this quote from Jerry Kalana. Tim Ferriss was talking about this in his conversation with Liz Gilbert. And this question that this business coach, Jerry Kalana, says is, how are we complicit in creating the conditions we say we don't want?

19:20Dang it. That's a harsh one. That'll cut you. And sometimes it's stuff that we can't avoid. There are things in our every day that we're never going to escape. but the way that it affects us, we do have a hand in. And if we end up in the same place, in the same circumstance, in the same mindset, there's a way in which we can figure out what is it about our character that's putting us in that place. For me personally, this has come up with making kids' books. I'm in the middle of making another kids' book and I've gotten better and better about managing my schedule so that I can make that a fun experience because that's what I want.

20:07I wanted to be a kid's book maker because it was fun. That's why I wanted to do it. So if I'm not doing that, then I'm failing at this whole thing, even if I am living the dream of that particular aspiration. And so this time around, what it looks like to find my Gatorade bottle that tells me I I want to deal with this process differently than I did last time, looked like blocking out in my calendar over the next two months an event that says the name of this kid's book. And it doesn't mean I can't schedule anything over the next two months. I'd love that, but it's just not realistic. But what it does mean is that that Gatorade bottle is on my calendar every time I show up to schedule something.

20:57And I remember, do I want to play the same character or do I want to break character? Do I want to be the character this time round that enjoys the process, that walks through this instead of having to sprint? And so my encouragement to you is to reassociate with the patterns. take a look at what are the things that I'm, what are the episodes that are reoccurring for me? And then take a look at the operating principle, how you've tended to deal with that and how that has led to these things reoccurring and give yourself some kind of visual reminder so that when this comes up again, you can handle it in a different way.

22:04Even if you don't want to pause at the moment and revisit the crappy patterns, maybe that sounds like a bit much. I get it. But what you could do is go to andyjpizza.substack.com. If you subscribe there, the post that is associated with this episode, in that post, I'm going to put a little line drawing, black and white drawing of a dude drinking some Gatorade. And you can print that out small and just tape it up next to your desk. And that way nobody knows what the heck is going on. But between you and me, that little Gatorade dude is going to be a reminder to you that when you feel like, oh my gosh, I can't, not this again.

22:52I can't believe it. That that little Gatorade guy can just be a reminder that actually, that means if you're seeing this with your own human eyes, this Gatorade, if you're looking at that, you know that it's not the end of the story. You know that this show got renewed for another season, that you get another chance of getting over the cynicism, getting over the same character arcs and same decisions, and that you get to have the grace and the ability to try something different as many times as it takes, as long as these seasons are getting renewed. and that actually you can choose to do something different this time around.

23:43So if you need that extra visual reminder, go check it out, AndyJPizza.Substack.com. The post that's associated with this episode will have that as a little download. Massive thanks to Sophie Miller for editing and co-producing this episode. Huge thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio and video edits and sound design. Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for the theme music and the soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for listening. Until we speak again, stay pepped up.

24:38Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end. I have one more thing for you. If you're in a place where you're feeling a lack of clarity and you want to figure out your industry market and niche and find the perfect strategic side project to do next, go sign up to our newsletter at andyjpizza.substack.com and you will get a confirmation email that will give you the download of our creative career path hand booklet and the whole process is in there and you might also get a few bonuses in there depending on when you sign up but again thanks for listening glad you enjoyed the episode and stay pepped up y 'all Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast.

25:32For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them, like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts.