503 - Embrace Change and Reclaim Belonging with Morgan Harper Nichols

0:20How do you find that belonging that you're looking for in your creative practice? I remember this moment at a particular conference prior to 2020, we'll say mid-2010s, where it was the after party and I was just feeling in the right place at the right time, just so in sync, just in that sweet spot creatively. And it's an incredible thing. The only problem is that it's temporary, that these spaces change and what feels right today won't necessarily be where you need to be tomorrow. And so if you're in a place where the platform that used to feel like home feels stagnant or has maybe rapidly changed, or if you feel like the tools and the instruments that used to feel like an extension of your body now feel clumsy and awkward, or maybe you used to work in this medium or industry and it used to feel like a perfect fit, but now it feels like an itchy sweater.

1:35if that's you, if you're feeling that chafing and you don't feel that fit in that belonging, what do you do? How do you start to navigate transitions like that? Today on the show, we've got a longtime friend of the podcast and a friend of mine, someone who I just absolutely adore and loved catching up with. Morgan Harper Nichols is back, poet, visual artist, and just, you know, neurodivergent friend of mine. We just can go into these rabbit holes and just get lost talking about creative stuff. And that's what we did today. And it was tons of fun. Very, very inspiring. And I'm excited for you to dive in.

2:21I feel like the conversation just gets better and better and we get some really, really interesting stuff. So stick around for all of that and then stick to the end because I'm going to be back with the CTA, the call to adventure, how to put some of this stuff to practice. The CTA this week is called the five senses of belonging. And this was a little exercise that really helped me tap into a surprising insight of where I might feel like I belong today, today, like what I'm going to do today creatively. And so stick around for that. I think it's a really cool exercise that comes from something that Morgan said.

3:03But without further ado, let's get into it. Here is my chat with Morgan Harper Nichols.

3:19The cold is here. I used to hate the cold weather until I started to embrace it, dress for it, build a wardrobe of layers that were made for the season, and that is where Quince comes in. They've got down jackets, wool coats, leather and suede outerwear that holds up to daily wear and still looks good. Quince uses premium materials and trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production, but because they cut out the middlemen, they can deliver the quality of luxury brands for a fraction of the price and bring you classic styles that you'll love and will hold up year after year.

3:59Still loving my Quince button-down shirt. I feel very legitimate when I wear it. I have been eyeing their affordable cashmere collection for Sophie's birthday that's coming up. Don't tell her that. And we got Quince's European linen sheet set. And let me tell you, nearly every night when we go to bed, Sophie says, I love these sheets. It's like our new nighttime ritual. They're soft, cozy, and the material just feels real and whole and homey. Very cozy for winter nights. Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash pep talk for free shipping on your order in 365 day returns.

4:38now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash P-E-P-T-A-L-K. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash pep talk. Okay. How are you doing? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I'm like counting down the weeks until summer break with school. I'm like five weeks left. that's so funny i was like wait with your kids like what oh yeah for me your school yeah yeah for my school i am ready to be done i i you know now that like the weather is just getting a little bit nicer it's just like yeah this is ah yeah this is like be outside for a little bit not do anything weather so i'm gonna need this to wrap one up soon doing school for a long time.

5:32So I kept, I couldn't internalize that you were talking about yourself. That's so funny. Yes. Oh my goodness. You know, one thing I was thinking about, you know, we're going through crazy times in the world have been for, you know, most of our adult life, I think. But I was thinking about how you're familiar with like simulation theory. yes yeah like we're living in a simulation yes and i thought while i have you here it's off topic but i thought you could speak to like if you were running this simulation and we were putting us through all this crap like what would your purpose be having been such an avid sims game player i feel like you've got some insights into what are we trying to accomplish in this society throwing all of these things pandemic and just madness you know absolutely crises after crises what what what do we think the simulation boss is doing here yes i think what we need to do just like in sims 4 they have they have well let me actually go back and my sims my sims players will know before sims 4 and maybe this is where things started to change and we need to go back to how it was in this regard in that you used to be able to build your own world and now in sims 4 you have to select areas of the world you used to be able to like shift the terrain and like figure out what the landscape was going to be like what the climate is going to be like and i think we need to go back to that phase we need to get everybody in a room it's like before you get your ideas and before you start just trying stuff let's start with the basics you know it's like our heads together yes like do we need to get some some legos out and work on some basic conflict resolution um just at that level before we give you more responsibility how about and we'll like in it out yeah yeah okay i actually yeah i too or whatever it was yeah i actually think there's really something to that how things like i i can't remember but there was like a a random hearing in some state where somebody was like suing because they couldn't they couldn't buy the parts to replace his like dishwasher or something and he was like why was it sold to me like all set up in a certain way like i want to be able to go in and like buy the parts to fix my own dishwasher and i think about that a lot it meant i'd have been dishwasher but it was some kind of something like that and i think about that a lot i'm like yeah like we need more more more structural you know yeah it's interesting honestly we had our dryer fixed because uh today we had a guy come in and he he said you've got pencils in your dryer so that's okay that's probably my fault that's an illustrator um so he posted about it but uh he was like hang on to this for as long as possible because the new one they don't make parts for it like if everybody's done it's exact that exact thing and so are you saying that are you what are you saying you're saying that yes i go ahead yeah i think it's like and i say this as somebody who loves technology i do think that like we kind of get sold on the idea of things being smart like smart refrigerator smartphone smart this smart that and it's like well okay i'm cool with you being smart but um can i see how you're smart you know because for us humans we have to we have to show our work you know like we have to show it and i think for me it's like i think i think there's like this era of like being very excited about like this futuristic like i don't know you've seen xenon's equal that's probably not the best example for everyone to know but it was like a very i would say it leans toward a utopian view of the future a lot of millennials if you're a millennial watching disney channel you probably remember that yeah yeah xenon the z-quel yes they lived outer space and yeah it was just like oh yeah good times the future's gonna be great we're gonna live in space it'll all be fine like everything's gonna be figured out um so i i think there was like at least for me i feel like it was like oh like these things they could be so helpful to to make everything better but it's like if it's not if things in the future aren't like where other people can like be a part of it and like see how they're being made and i think that that is going to it just kind of recreates the same problem so yeah i've become i've become like like i'm not i'm not a very like like i don't like i feel like the way i'm talking sounds like i want to go outside and like fix my car you know and i'm I'm not saying that like I'm like no I'm grateful that I don't have to do like I feel very privileged that I one have a car and two like there's people in the world that can help me figure that out I I appreciate that but I I also just sometimes like as an artist and a writer and and you know as a parent now like watching your child like watching my child just like building block by building block learn it all it's like oh there's something really to that and like learning the the the basics like one by one like my so my my son is five and he had like a school lesson on like learning about other people's cultures and it was very interesting to hear that as an adult because it's like you forget like you forget no that's something that you have to learn to like care about other people's cultures and to like be aware that people are different from you and like and they were using like the example of food and like spending a lot of time on that and i was like yeah you know it's probably a lot of grown-ups you know just go just going back to yeah it's like we need to go back to the the open world let's start with the terrain get the basics so yes yeah i you know what that's really interesting too because it kind of like uh i don't know this super intimately but i know in a vague sense that like simulation theory the matrix that kind of idea is based on simulacra and this philosophy of you're living in a simulation but i believe i think it was i'm gonna make a fool of myself jean bull uh i couldn't i didn't need to go there but uh like yeah boat or the other or the other i don't know why i should have just a french name i thought i had it right there and then i was like no it doesn't translate to words um but uh baudrillard something like that yeah something like that as far as i understand it is the under the the simulation that they were suggesting wasn't a literal simulation but this idea that the world that you were born into is a construction just kind of like what you're getting at that yeah all these systems and and rules and buildings and all these things were built that and and they you're brought in and you're told this is the way it is but it isn't the way it is it's the way that people decided it would be yeah and so it i think it's an interesting um realization to be like oh you actually have agency to to reject that build on it, whatever.

13:08But we're living increasingly in a time where our structures are so dense that we don't really see our ability. And the thing that's even weirder about that to me is as you're thinking about like AI, one of the things that they talk about is, I don't know if we're here yet. We might actually already be here, but I know that where they're trying to go is where we don't know, we won't know how the AI is getting the answers that it's getting in terms of, we won't see it showing its work and eventually we won't even know what it's doing really once it surpasses our computing, you know? And so that's like the extreme case of like literally we will not know.

13:56We won't. Yeah, just like a black box. Yeah. And I, yeah, I don't know how I feel about the black box it's a struggle for me because and i i think for me i my first like realization of of like you know the extremes of what that could be was with social media like as we know like social media has algorithms which so a lot of people don't realize but like social media is like kind of like all ai like it's all machine learning like it's it's a different version of the same thing it might not be like generative ai in the same way but it's like it does kind of it has a lot of similarities and i find that very interesting because it's like you really don't get a lot of information as to how this thing is structured and you just get kind of thrown into it and they give you a few buttons and they say okay you can post this here and then you know now they have like we can get a bonus and you know if you post these many times and all these things and it's like okay that's that that's nice to have shortcuts and see that but at the same time it's like but we didn't get to decide like what the buttons would be um they were metrics based on how people click on a screen or how long you stop on a video but you didn't like the video so how are we going to show you the video a different way next time so that kind of black box aspect of it to me i i do struggle with that like and i and i think in some ways it's why i have like a, I have like a very like mixed relationship with technology.

15:26Like when anything new comes out, I actually go all deep into it. I'm like, I want to know how this thing works. And I want to know what's not being communicated, what's being shared publicly or, and I'm like that with whether it's social media or AI or, or whatever, or a fancy smart car, which I mean, I don't have, but I'm just like, yeah, how, how does this work? I'm very interested in that. And then like I did, sometimes it does lead to despair, you know, like it can lead to like, oh, this is a lot. This is a lot that I don't know. I can't know it all, but I want to know more than I know. But then the other side of it is like, wait, but that's actually my creative process.

16:11It's, it's, I don't know. like a lot of times like the metaphor I've been using a lot is like I feel like I swim in pools like so like I feel like I swim in pools of images and like pools of words and if you're in a pool sometimes you're in a part of a pool where it's like okay I'm in like the the kids section you know I can I can feel my where where my feet are I'm not really thinking too much but there's other parts of the pool that are deeper it's like okay even if you know how to swim like it's still a little bit deeper you have to pay a little bit more attention and i've been thinking about it that way in terms of like i kind of like it's not that i don't like the mystery black box kind of thing it's just i want to be able to create that in a way so what i've done what i've done is like Like I actually have, and it's like just out of my reach.

17:11Oh, and I started reorganizing it. So it doesn't look good right now. But I have like just like a cheap file cabinet box where I started cutting up words. And I started like taking my existing work and cutting up words. And like, I just put the words in the box and then I like shake it up and it's my own writing. So when I see it, I kind of know like, okay, I was talking about that. but then I kind of like make new combinations like out of my own work and it's just been really like it's been really like just revitalizing like the way I think about how things can be made it's like I'm allowed to like play with the structure including the structures I've built it's like I have some things I've written I know it so well off the top of my head I'm like I can cut that up too why not like let's cut it up let's see so I've been doing a lot of collage and just like allowing myself to like play with those like structural elements more and and and break it apart and i i find that to be like really freeing because it's like i'm still on social media like i'm still like a lot of times in the same spaces but it's just like a small way that i feel like well here's like my kind of subversion of it like there's a movie called ready player one i don't know if you've seen it but there's i don't think a little bit of the book so i can't know oh okay yeah i've never read the book but i don't think i'm yeah i don't think i'm yeah i'm intrigued by the book now so i don't think i'm spoiling this when i'm saying it because it happens pretty early in the movie but there's a scene with this yeah there's a scene where the main character they're getting ready to do a race and he's in the race but he decides to start the race by putting in the car in reverse and going the exact opposite way and he ends up so i think he wins i can't actually can't remember what happens but he's still a part of the race and i love that scene because i'm like that to me is what this moment feels a lot a lot i'm like okay i'm on earth i'm not really trying to leave earth personally i'm i'm like i'm i'm here okay i've accepted it at this moment i don't know a really cool spaceship could come down tomorrow and i'm like hey they they actually have a great pitch let's let's go let's go to this new planet they they're discussing that could happen it hasn't happened yet oh options open yeah i'm on earth i'm staying there well maybe not okay exactly yeah you don't even know these days so yeah at the moment i'm like all right i'm here and i'm here on this earth there are structures in place.

19:55There are systems. There are things that I'm like, okay, all right. I didn't make that. I didn't get to decide on any of this, but I think about like, well, what's my version of like going in reverse? What's my version of like cutting things up? What's my version of like subverting what is, and, and that has been, that's been keeping me going. I think. Yes. I love that there. I mean, I'm going to, there's so many things to pull out here. I'll start with, I'm not, I'm not a huge, I'm not anti Enneagram, but I'm not a huge Enneagram person. Like, you know, I spent some time like exploring it and whatever.

20:30And there's cool things about it. I like personalities. I do like personality like frameworks. I do. I'm interested in that. But I'm open with it. It's more like, it's similar to the way that you're cutting up your poems and stuff. That's kind of how I think about personality tests where it's like, what can I see in this rather than this is what it is like I don't know if that makes sense but yeah it's more just like frameworks for like thinking through personality and um the Enneagram 4 which is like a thing that a lot of artists relate to they're they're drawn to what's missing and I do think artists have a a thing of I think it's why so often the creative thing is the opposite of whatever's happening.

21:14It's whatever the mainstream is doing or whatever the dominant worldview is. The creative notion is the thing that's doing the opposite of that or subverting that, just like you're saying. And so I really relate to that. It sounds like that's a little bit of what you're kind of exploring. And I've had, I've related that, this idea of going backwards in the car? Like what is the subversive thing to do in a moment where, what's the subversive thing, the creative thing to do when what the mainstream is doing is, you know, quote unquote, being creative with loading the universe with content, right?

21:59So I've had that same feeling over the past few years, at first I was kind of like, well, the opposite of that would be doing nothing. And so that was very uninspiring because you're like, but I am creative. I don't want to do nothing. And so I think where I've landed now is I've shifted gears to doing longer projects that are much slower, that are much more in depth. And I think nothing I'm making is at the level of severance, but I think severance is a great example of, severance feels like the opposite of internet content because it's gone back to this not bingeable, releasing a week at a time, has a strategy and an outline of where it's going rather than just tripping out stuff as you're making it.

22:54Absolutely. I don't know if any of that is like, is relevant per se, but that's how it relates to, I really relate to this idea of kind of always feeling like what's the reverse move. Yeah. Right now. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I do relate to that. Cause like it, it's, it's like the first, the word that came to mind when you're saying that was format and it's like, in a way the traditional format now feels like a subversion of format. Like you're saying. you have to like sit and wait for eps like i i think i remember apple tv i remember watching the morning show and that and and i was getting used to that like waiting every week i'm like oh i forgot what this feels like like i forgot what it feels like to not have everything on demand and we've actually been like inspired in our house we've actually have decided that we're going to start like a dvd collection like nice we're like we're like hey we're going back i was like i i and and the only shift there is like it's the form like it's a lot of the movies i could get them digitally virtually the movie doesn't change in most of these cases but the form the experience of like picking up the disc and putting it in the dvd player and like that whole experience is a subversion in a way and i i just think that that is so cool because it like it takes the pressure off of like being an artist always need to have to reinvent it's like maybe you don't have to reinvent like maybe it's something that already exists but we've kind of like gotten away from it like in the name of efficiency or whatever and you can actually go back to that so yeah I I find that I find that very freeing yeah I love that I think yeah I mean I think there is a thing about uh create i mean for me kind of there is the the reverse move of doing something different to what the culture is doing um and that there's an element of that where it's like keeping it fresh doing new things but for me this is something i almost hear no artist talk about um and so it's kind of a weird thing because it's something that's so central to me but But sometimes I usually feel pretty grounded in it, but sometimes I think, why am I thinking about this so differently than other people?

25:18Which is so much of what I feel like I'm doing is almost less of pushing forward and more like tapping into something we forgot. So, which is not necessarily going backwards, but it's like, it's most of what I'm building stuff on is usually something that feels like a, I struggle to say fundamental truth because there's baggage with that idea, but it is stuff about like, yeah, things that we forgot. And so there's a, there is like a going back thing and not needing to reinvent, but, but, you know, on this notion of DVDs and whatnot, another thing that I do a lot is I listen to internet radio. and again it's like what my favorite is probably nts um but the lot radio is really good too and they're just web pages that you go to and listen to radio and there's something about again it was great when you had access to all the world's music and all the control was in your hands but then at some point that becomes stale and you're like well somebody else decide what to put on yeah it's just this weird like yeah yeah yeah i i totally agree with that yeah it to me it feels it feels like more than because i've really been struggling with the word nostalgia a lot lately because i feel like sometimes when i say like a lot like that's kind of the oh yeah nostalgia i'm so i'm like i i think it's more than that i think it's more than like just going back and like longing for the past like it's not quite that but for me it just feels more of like you're you're on a journey and you collect things along the way on the journey and some of those things you leave behind and some of them you carry with you like for me i mean it's very cliche but i like to get postcards when i go places because i'm like it's really cheap you can get a postcard for a dollar or less and it's something you can always have and i still like to do that even though i could find any of the photos online um and it so it's it's not it's just like this is like a a record of like the journey that i've been on like it's it's a not just like my artistic journey but just like as a human so why not figure out how to bring those things into the fold like when i was a kid like i i remember being in school like i loved when we got to do cool things with paper and back then it was like origami i was really bad at it and then like those little you know like little fortune teller things i don't know if you've been making those i was so bad at it i was making tons of those oh i love that i was i was so bad at it but i was so excited about it so it's not like today i'm not like oh yeah i'm not good at it but i'm loving it yeah exactly and that's kind of and but what you just said though that's kind of been my approach now like with this whole collage thing I'm doing I'm like I actually don't know if I'm good at this kind of art and it's not like oh I love collage as a kid I don't even think I would have known that word like it was it's not the exact same thing but there's just like traces and it could just be like a flicker of like an emotion or like a curiosity and I'm really intrigued by that and I don't think those things are like stuck with time I think the same me that was interested in like origami as a kid is the same me that was like interested in like oh what's this Instagram app let me download that so it's like it can change like just just try to like just don't limit yourself maybe like to this moment exactly there's a poet I really like David White yes I need to I need to go actually read the whole thing I didn't I entered a short form content I just looked at it really quick I was like yes great thoughts um but he was actually talking about that and like I think he was kind of described he's like the limitations of like always thinking about the present he was like we're we're made of like the past too it's like he's like the past is like right here and that's something we need to think about so yeah I I think that to me I think that extends a little bit further than just like nostalgia like I think that's how it always gets threatened not always but it often gets framed that way and I'm like oh it's I think it's something more than that yes I I so relate to that and I uh there's a couple things going on there that I think are really interesting one is like again this idea of the artist kind of gravitating towards what's missing it's interesting that the culture for the past decade or two has been so obsessed with being in the moment present moment being in the now tap you know that kind of thing for artists like you to feel like well okay yeah great good we're doing that but also the past there's some you know the past is a part of us and there's value in the past and and i and i love what you said about the nostalgia thing because i totally i get what you're saying where it's almost like a way it's it's kind of the way that we put a word on something in order to distance ourselves from it you know like again philosophers talk about like the word tree makes you not have to engage with what the tree actually is you're just engaging with the idea of a tree you're controlling it and the same goes for like you're describing something some kind of weird encounter or important encounter with the past that you're having or not even the past, but something true, maybe something timeless, whatever.

31:04But because it has to do with the past, people just think, oh yeah, nostalgia. I love nostalgia or hate nostalgia or whatever. I totally get that. But then there's this other thing of, yeah, I don't know. It's almost like this feels more vague to me or like unclear, but I also think it's kind of like, it's interesting where there's like a conservation of, because we live in this techno futurism thing, we're assuming that the best, the ideal form is in the future. Whereas like, what if like vinyl was the ideal form for music?

31:54but we don't yeah some obviously some people do but a lot as a culture we kind of think everything that we're that's worth having doing pursuing is in the future or yeah yeah it's yeah it's yeah i've been thinking about that a lot because it's it's um and i could rant for hours about the whole music thing oh because so something i've thought about a lot was like so i used to like be a professional musician like that was like i was like i want to be a professional i want to win awards and make albums and do all of that and i really wrestled with that for a while because i think i became very like jaded by the music industry and i think that that kind of made me not want to make music anymore and those things aren't the same music industry and music aren't the same things they become the same things in our world but there's music exists outside of industry and I think that I I stopped even thinking about like picking up a guitar like or playing piano because I was I had hooked it on to industry I make music mean industry and then I just started thinking about like just just like historically speaking like just within my own like family like within like the black community and how how important uh like singing was like communally and oral storytelling and it's like all of those things mattered and still matter today even whether or not the recording industry ever existed i was like whether or not microphones ever got made whether or not anybody recorded the song like i can sing songs right now that my mother taught me that her mother taught her that her mother taught her and generations all the way back to like the point of like where my ancestors were enslaved and here I am today and I can still carry those songs forward and all of that is possible without it ever having been recorded so I think that I think about that kind of thing a lot because I think it's it can be very easy to like you said like we think about the future and like okay we've made the best version and it's like maybe that's just one version like maybe there maybe there's something to uh people just singing a song in a room and the song just happened one time in that room um and and like if you ever listen like a live recording of an album like it it's like a totally different sound than like a studio recording of an album like the musicians being in the room together has a different sound than the musicians recording in parts and i say that as someone who's done both studio sessions and live sessions as a guitar player it's different it's a different experience like i personally feel like i play better when i'm in the live room with everybody and that's not to say that there's anything wrong with the studio um and i'm just one person but i think it's just i think it could be valuable like to just stay open to the fact that like yeah, you might not, we might not always be at like the peak of the thing, you know?

35:25you know i'm thinking about this through the lens of anybody that was listening to this as a podcast And I'm thinking about how as an outsider of this conversation, if I put myself in those shoes, I start thinking about how this relates to their creative practice. And I think that what I find as a creator inspiring that you're saying is I keep feeling like I will encounter so many artists that are frustrated with how noisy it is on the internet and how and longing for a previous version of Instagram or time when, you know, Flickr was around and you could like really break in. and whatever. Chronological feeds.

36:14Yeah, like I can feel that. And there's a feeling of like, well, it's just too late now because you can't get started now. You can't, whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. And it's, I think there's a through line here of this reverse move. Like what's the reverse move? It also, I know we're both like storytelling people. And so I think you might relate to this. It also reminds me of like the Joseph Campbell, um the return home so there's like a that's also a reversal and it you talking about like there's and this is what i was going to say is that the great thing about creative practice and creative journey is there's always a place to go because there's always a um a reversal there's always like oh well yes okay it creativity similar to what you're talking about with music being synonymous with industry.

37:09Creativity right now, if you're trying to do creative things, there is a way in which it feels like to me, it's synonymous with being online, maybe even chronically online where creativity equal, there is no creativity outside of online. Again, this kind of gets this thing of like people thinking that, you know, like online versus IRL, except most of us live like if it didn't happen online, it wasn't real life. Like that was where it actually, where it becomes relevant. Maybe that's because it's like on the world stage. Like, I don't know why, but there's a bunch of reasons, but that's what I hear.

37:49And what you're saying is like, okay, yes, the way that we've been going, moving forward, moving in technology, moving in online has become incredibly congested and, you know, but there's always a move and that move might not look like Spotify. It might look like being in a room with people. Like, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And yeah. And I, I, you know, as, as an introvert, that's been hard for me to wrestle with sometimes because it's like Instagram in particular has been an ideal form for my introverted neurodivergent self because I can think and publish and share in small parts and I've it's been helpful for me in that way and at the same time like as a plot like and I wonder if like people have different thresholds of like where they're just like no I think this is becoming harder for me for me like the threshold was when Instagram started like mimicking the the feed where it's like they're showing or posting more people who don't follow you that was like a big like threshold moment for me because I was like so much of what I do is like about like the community that I'm talking like it's hard for me to have to start from scratch like every single post um and just throw it out into the wild so that was very challenging for me and it might sound strange to say but like I've kind of grieved some of that loss of like oh I kind of miss that but at the same time what's been really and it took I would say I've been I've been like wrestling with this for like a year and a half.

39:29But right now I'm working on a new book and that's been very exciting. And like, I have been going back through things that I've shared on Instagram as engagement has gone down, as like the followers have it, you know, all that stuff. And I've been letting the comment section, no matter how few comments there were, like letting that remind me of like hey what happened here still mattered and bringing that into a book form and like seeing like when someone mentioned like oh I like that analogy you used about the tree or whatever I'm like oh that is like evidence of like work that I've done that's valuable it's not if Instagram went away tomorrow if I deleted the app tomorrow that it doesn't lose its value even because it's changing form.

40:23It's like I can carry that with me even on this very like ephemeral like temporary form. It's like back then when I posted it yeah I was probably thinking about the algorithm and I was probably mad that it didn't perform as well because I spent a long time on my work. I spent a lot of hours like every single word choice every color choice like I spent a lot of time on my work so yeah it can be a bummer when it's like the engagement's not there you see the engagement go down like I actually feel like the more time I spend on work sometimes like the less engagement against and I'm like what is this about but at the same time like even if there were just a few comments or I like sometimes I've been like going through old emails that I've gotten.

41:13And that's for my mailing list. I love having a mailing list because it's searchable when like people have emailed me. So I've been like just searching for different things of like, like I do it with Monarch Butterfly. So I'll like type in Monarch Butterfly and I can see from like five years, if someone mentioned a Monarch Butterfly in an email to me, they were responding about something. And I take that with me into a new project, which is a book, like an old fashioned book that you can print out. So it's, it's all connected. And I think that's really cool. Cause it's like, even as I think relationship with, with a form, a platform, whatever form changes, you can kind of shift it into, into new spaces too.

41:56So. I love that. I love, I love what you commented on with this change in the form. Everyone, And you're not alone. There's a lot of grief on the way that the platforms have changed, the internet's changed, where it's going, all that kind of stuff. And conceptualizing those changes, verbalizing those changes, because I think that's one of the things that's so hard about all of this is the thing you were talking about at the start, which is this black box element. at one of the things that is creating some level of like micro it's a it's like a it's it's almost i wouldn't call it traumatic that's too far but there's this thing of where there's a psycho there's a psychological war that's happening when you're using these apps and it's a black box element where you're not a, that's one of the things that's so disconcerting about engaging is that you, you, it's not transparent what's happening, right?

43:08Like in, in, in other lot, like it's one of the, we're aware of when you go to, uh, uh, to go buy a car, we are aware that this is a psychological warfare. That's why most people don't want to do it. If you're good at it and you like my older brother, he loves it. He's also this kind of person where he's the kind of person that would sell you a car. He has sold cars. Okay. He likes it. It's a game, right? But we're aware of those spaces in real life where, oh, there's something, there's more going on. And I think that one thing that I thought was really powerful in terms of decision making in what is the reversal?

43:55What is moving forward? What is my reaction going to be? One of the things you got to do is like, think about what is happening and conceptualize it. So this idea of there was a time where what you were making was for a community, was for a group of people. And then that shifted to now 80 % of the people that see this don't have any context. And it conceptualized it for me in a way where for a long time, you're making a TV show where there's a through line every episode and you can't start on episode 87. You have to do an understanding. Whereas then it was overnight, the network said, actually, this is a thing where everyone that sees it's gonna be expecting this to be self-contained.

44:39And the thing is, there's no one's giving you those notes. No one's giving you that heads up. And so that's why I like us talking about it too because there's not a space to think about, know about, talk about. And, and so we just end up becoming, I ended up becoming incredibly suspicious of all of these moves. You know, one of the things that I'm really suspicious about is these platforms giving creators tools and tips and tutorials and trends and investing all of this stuff into helping you. And I'm like, okay, why? Why are you doing that? Oh, I know why I'm doing that because you're a TV network that doesn't pay for your shows.

45:25That's why you want us to make it. And I was thinking about the other day, like, remember when my creative strategy was I'm going to post a still image on Instagram once a week. yeah and that was my you know what I mean like and so it's just yeah I don't I don't know what I'm getting at then I'm just like saying what you're saying in a different way yeah and I think your name you're kind of like naming the terms and I think that's what you're what you're like and I think you have to kind of name it and start to name it because if you don't it just kind of just becomes like this endless endless endless thing and like one thing that's been helpful for me and like when and that's when i mentioned like the showing it beyond my community of like of like it's okay to start with like what you don't like like it's okay to say like no it's that feature that's pushing me to want to delete the whole thing like it's that specific thing like there's some things that don't bother me as like a lot of people like what instagram particular a lot of people for them it may have been reels like when instagram reels was launched like i just can't deal with that i doesn't bother me as much because i follow a lot of animators and motion graph and i'm like this is actually great like i like the feature um but so i think knowing what those things are because then that helps you that helps you like make connections with what you might want to change because it's like you might not you don't have to go make your own instagram like you don't have to go recreate the whole thing and i'm like oh no the part that stresses me out is the fact that like people that the stuff I'm sharing is just going to have to go out all over the place.

47:03And then I have to manage that. Like, and I even narrowed it down because when I started talking about this, a lot of people were saying like, oh, don't worry about the haters. And I was like, okay, yeah. And I realized I was like, actually, I've been on the internet a long time. Like it takes me, it takes a lot. I don't, I'm like, I'm not worried about that. I'm like, it's the management of it. It's the fact that people can come in and derail the whole conversation. I'm like, it's being totally transparent. It's more just annoying. I'm not like, I'm not offended. I'm like, I'm just annoyed because we're trying to have a conversation.

47:37This is not. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. So I'm like, oh, that annoys me. Um, you know, it's, it's not to say that I don't want to connect with other people out there, but it's like, it's like, I, I get to decide what the terms are and in the way that I do that. So I've been really, I just started an old fashioned blog again, and I've just started scheduling posts on that. And it's one of those things where I'm like, I don't know, like, everyone's not going to come over to the blog. But I'm really excited about the people that do because those are the ones I'm going to I'm going to look forward to talking to the people who are coming over to the blog.

48:14And I think it's okay to just shift and change. I'm like, we might we might talk 10 years from now or five years from now, it might be totally different. And I think I've just, as I reflect on like how long I have been like a, an internet infused artist, I'm like, it's changed a lot. And let me just focus on like being authentic and all of those changes. It's like, it's like, that's the best I can do. And it's like, if something is not working the way it used to, you're allowed to name that and say, yeah, I'm going to change this part or I'm going to change all of it so yeah so one thing that i i've mentioned a bunch of times on the show um but it's something i i think about probably once a week so and and it's always useful to remember so i'll say it again but uh there's a there's a part in one of austin cleon's books where he talks about this punk band that can't decide on influences because they just can't agree and so instead they decide on what they hate and they're not going to be and i love that and then i want to and then i take it in a the way i use that idea in what i like about it is that it hacks our negativity bias it's so we our brains are naturally negative so it's actually easier to start with what do i hate than it is what do i love and then reverse it and actually think even in politics, this is, I wish people more did more of this where, yeah, tell me what you're against or know what you're against, but don't stop there.

49:48Hack your brain and say, okay, what's the, what's the reverse? What would this look? It's one of the things they talk about with like climate change. What, what was so hard about getting people on board with it is that so much of it was like, don't do this. And it didn't present a vision of the future that was compelling because it didn't, it took the negative bias, but it didn't reverse it. And so I love this thing you're saying where in order to figure out what your creative values are and live into them and know what the reversal move is, you have to know which way is it, which way is the current going that you don't like?

50:26What is it? Don't just feel it, but identify it. And I love that you pinpointed, this is where it went wrong for me because again, it wasn't what everybody assumed it would be. And so that's a great like call to adventure thing of, okay, so you don't like where things are going, but that's too general to actually use as a prompt in order to know what the reversal would be. You need to know what is it that's going in direction. Yeah. I love that. Yes. And, and with stories, how many good stories start with conflict? Yes. They present you with a conflict. Very clear. Yeah. It's the prompt. It's that tension point.

51:05so it's like you're allowed to name that and i i think that can be hard for like artists because i feel like like you were mentioning like all the tools and stuff the platform i it's there's like this undertone of like be grateful that you get to share your work in this space so i think you just kind of get used to like i i i feel like i had that posture for a while like i'm so grateful that i got to use instagram to share my art and i am grateful i am i truly am and at the same time yes or whatever you know yes they can be true at the same time you can be have complaints and gratitude at the same time absolutely absolutely and there's a conflict there you go there's the beginning of a story so yes i i have been like welcoming that and i'm like yeah i can give you a long list of like those things, but I'm naming it.

52:02I'm naming what they are. Cause that helps me figure out where to go next. So, yeah. I love that. And I, I've had a similar thing with, with doing sub stack, which feels like it's a reversal into some different things.