Jerry Seinfeld: Having Kids Changed My Life | Trending Now

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0:46You said everything you do is about how to get out of today's depression. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't happen every day. What's the feeling that you try and get out of?

0:55Jerry Seinfeld:I wouldn't, I, depression is probably too strong a word. It's just we all have these mood dips, you know, where you just, you're feeling good, and something not great happens, or you're late, or you see a scratch on your car, and you just get depressed about it. You can get depressed when things are going great. That's the most depressing. When does it happen most for you? Irrespective of circumstance. I just don't feel good sometimes. I just don't feel good. And the best way to get out of it for me is work. Work is the best antidote. That's why I work so much. Because for some reason, you feel like you're not wasting time.

1:41A tendency to be depressed is part of the kit that comes with the creative aspect of the brain. That's right. How did reading that impact you?

1:51Jerry Seinfeld:I realized this tendency to get depressed. I would never want to not have that if I would lose the creative gift that came with it. It's part of it. It's probably an overactive brain. Right after your sitcom wrapped. Yeah. For a few months, you didn't do much. I think you're playing pool every afternoon. I played pool for like a year. In like a billiards hall on the Upper West Side. Yes, yes. You said, I was kind of lost after the show. I really didn't want to get married. I didn't want to be single anymore. I didn't know what I wanted to do. What was that period like for you? That was a pretty interesting period, you know?

2:34Jerry Seinfeld:You kind of feel like you got to the end of the rainbow there. And so now what? You know, what do I do in life now? Depressed then? No. No, that's always the same. And I don't know if... I think most human lives are like this. You know, good days, part of the day is good, part of the day you don't feel good. Sometimes you don't feel good a whole day. Some days you feel great all day. I know I'm certainly like that, but then there are people that, you know, struggle with it more than others. Yeah, I wouldn't call it real depression. I don't know what the word for it is. I just call it the mood darkens.

3:20I get a darkening mood, and I want to get out of it. How did having children impact your life?

3:29Jerry Seinfeld:You don't have kids. I don't. Only someone that doesn't have kids would ask that question. Okay, well, here was the connective. How did it impact your life? Here was the connective. How did having a human body impact your life? So here was the connective quote had you said. What did it feel like to be just a spirit sparking through the galaxy, and then you took the form of humanity. How did that change you? Wait, so had you, the connective quote was, you had once said, if it wasn't for my kids, I'm pretty much done with living. I could kill myself. Now there's something else to live for. Yeah, yeah.

4:06Jerry Seinfeld:Well, the kids are the greatest show on earth. So you just want to watch them live. and the entertainment value of watching them try to live is, you know, I don't watch all the shows that everybody watches. I don't find them interesting. What do you watch? I watch baseball, and I like to see what the kids are doing. The kids are very entertaining because they're, you know, they're primitive humans, and it's fun to watch. You know, you can't not watch the turtles try to get to the waves. You know the little blue turtles when they run down the beach? Yeah. And some of them make it and some of them don't.

4:48Jerry Seinfeld:Whenever that, you have to watch it. And so that's what kids are. You're just watching these turtles run for their life. How do you think your upbringing impacted you as a dad? Well, unfortunately, you think the way you were brought up was the greatest. and so you attempt to replicate it, or even worse, you attempt to improve on it. That's where you go really wrong as a parent. You think, my childhood was good, I'm gonna make my kids' childhood perfect. That's when you really screw them up. Because perfect is not a good place to be for optimizing, you know, the human instrument. Imperfect is where you want your kids to be.

5:29Jerry Seinfeld:I always talk about this bracket of struggle. You want to stay in the bracket. Not too much, not too little, and try and move the bracket up as high as you can. So the worst thing with kids is when you try and give them pleasure or problem-solve or praise. Those are my three poison peas of being a parent. Solving their problems, giving them pleasure. Don't give them that cracker. He likes this cracker. This is his favorite cracker. Give him that cracker. This is horrible. It seems like you're increasingly interested in sharing, like, how the sausage is made. Well, all parents do that. Let me show you how life works.

6:16But, I mean, it's not limited to just use a parent. I mean, even in just hearing you talk about things professionally. I want to take the watch apart.

6:25Jerry Seinfeld:My whole life is I want to take the watch apart. I like knowing the time, but how does this watch work? Yeah. That's why I can't chit-chat. Chit-chat is the time. Right. Let's talk about these gears. How the hell does this thing keep track of the time with a spring? One quick thing before you leave. Please consider giving the podcast a rating and review. Those go a really long way in helping us reach new listeners.

7:01Thank you.