REMIX: The Ego Loves to Seek

8:46Kate Berlant:Okay, let's hear it.

8:48Jacqueline Novak:To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to always be in no man's land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. Wait, cut. I'm self-conscious. Wait. I'm going back. Okay, okay. Why? Okay, here we go. Here we go. This is the good part. This is the real part. to live to live is to be willing to die over and over again death is wanting to hold on to what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together so even if you say okay this is getting into phrases that you the point is we talk about fear of death it's actually fear of life okay wait wait you're panicking panicking

9:28Kate Berlant:you can feel it right and you don't need to it's all there okay just just breathe for a second okay I know the panic because I do this a lot I know you're still searching you're searching you're searching for the one quote that's gonna fucking stick him it's like when I was sending you Carolyn Mace and I kept being like wait I haven't found the perfect one okay but it's like no it's white knuckling it's death is the you know it's the white knuckle grip you're still searching you're still shopping I know shopping I'm still shopping were you just are you dissatisfied with the quote because it felt too abstract to you like almost too simplistic no I think

10:01Jacqueline Novak:I got Oh, isn't this sad? The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves out of the present moment. I, yeah, I suddenly, I couldn't do it. I can't.

10:14Kate Berlant:You heard yourself reading a quote from a book.

10:16Jacqueline Novak:I heard myself reading Pima Chodron on my podcast and suddenly I felt completely alienated. No, no, I know.

10:28Jacqueline Novak:I'm just thinking about one more thing I want to say. it's really hard for me to part with things that i got for free like john early had been gifted in some gift box like a huge um pendleton blanket which i was like i don't like this enough to put it on my bed or a couch or anything but to me this is a dream picnic blanket yes because it's huge and thick i opened i had it in a drawer jacqueline and i opened the drawer and a moth was on it

11:02Jacqueline Novak:So what are we going to do after we hang up? Maybe it's time to move. I'm going to go grab it. I know, I know. I'm going to go grab it, and I'm going to throw it over the banister on my deck and let the moths fly into the sun.

11:16Kate Berlant:I mean, have you gotten any information about, I mean, I'm sure it's Google-able, but again, don't listen to the people who have some subtle ideas, like our subtle methods, but just like what needs to be done to linens to absolutely. kill anything. Yeah, that's what I'm going to go do because I, of course... You know, it might just be hot water.

11:35Jacqueline Novak:I know. And this again highlights why this is a gift, right? We have to, as Pima would say in how things fall apart, you know, turn a sword as a flower, turning the sword into the flower. Something comes at you, injures you. It's actually an opportunity, right?

11:49Kate Berlant:And so the sword of the moths... The blood blooms. The blood blooms out of the wound. Blooms. You've talked about, you love when blood blooms. You talked about like wounds blooming with blood.

12:03Jacqueline Novak:I feel like you've talked about that.

12:04Kate Berlant:No, I feel it by that. Cause my friend, um, like, well, well, whatever, it doesn't matter. My, my, I pulled it from my friend's writing, which she does it a lot and I love it.

12:13Jacqueline Novak:Well, I'm going to bloom. The moth is going to bloom with a gift, which is that it's allowing me to not only shed things, but to face my fear of information because I live in fear of information because you know there's a thing you know who said it you know a little a little information nothing there's nothing more dangerous than a little bit of information I forgot who said that and I refused to google it but there's something it's passed into it's deeply real for me it's like you know I just and also just my it's like I have this emotional belief that like the moths cannot be killed by hot water and they just might fully be killed by hot water.

12:59Kate Berlant:What's so heinous is that when you try to do that, the white knuckle grip of some new way of looking at things, and then you see it decay, right? It decays in the brain and it's even more devastating because you tried to cling to something that you thought wouldn't decay and does. And it's its nature.

13:15Jacqueline Novak:It's so parental, like relationships with language, you know i'm like i'm like pick me up save me it's like the words i'm like mama and then it's like yes well guess what all our parents die language is in a constant state of decay yes like good luck holding on and even i'm trying to hold on just now me being like how about this mantra may i meet this moment fully may i meet it as a friend like oh because twice that sort of helped me in the shower but like when you're actually no you have to

13:43Kate Berlant:totally and it's also like what it's the same sort of metaphor as like a false idol you know like like you know i remember this thing in this problem of god course in college and reading this guy aliada and his whole thing about these sacred um sacred spaces and sacred moments in time and it was this thing about the way i remember it is some church or some some community and this the tiger this tiger broke into the church one day or something like that okay and then like and it was this like major experience and they all like felt, and then they were like trying to like repeat the tiger breaking into the church.

14:15Kate Berlant:Like, Oh my God, you know what I mean? And then they have a tiger statue and it's like, it's that, that spirit of, of, of the clinging. Oh my God. And it wasn't, it was never that it was never the statue. It was never the, you know, and, and, and what I've made peace with is that it's okay to engage with. So, so the tiger breaks into the church. Everyone has a spiritual experience. Okay. Yes. You walk home, You need this little souvenir tiger. Okay. And for a while that might work. That reminds you. That reminds you. Right. To souvenir. Okay. But like, but like, you know, but, but it will decay.

14:52Kate Berlant:Yeah.

14:53Jacqueline Novak:Yeah. Yeah. I was saying like the verb souvenir. I mean, that's amazing. The souvenir tiger is so profound because we have, I mean, oh my God. Over and over again we clean. A life of endless souvenir tigers. I mean, that's not true. I give my life more credit than that. But the tiger. But that experience of chasing, chasing the experience, chasing the ecstatic high. I mean, that's, again, what I'm kind of like thinking about more, like reading these books. It's just kind of the grasping. Well, that's sort of also the grasping.

15:24Kate Berlant:I'm like, my hands are out. Like, I'm such a goddamn grasper. Well, I am too mentally. And I believe we both are. And I think this is part of our thing. I've actually come to find it useful to think of a metaphor of hands in the brain or my brain having hands. Yeah. And my brain goddamn trying to clench on things. Yeah. And literally like, like sometimes it's through furrowing of the brow. Like it becomes a physicalized metaphor of trying to hold something with the thoughts. But I think like, you know, the inherent dissatisfaction, the inherent limitation or the inherent decay of the of the souvenir tiger or whatever, you know, points beyond itself.

16:08Kate Berlant:Right. So technically the decaying tiger or the flimsy false idol souvenir, the mantra suddenly meaning nothing, points to something beyond, right? Like by virtue of it being unsatisfying, it points that there is something greater. So it's like there is an interplay that I think can be like useful in the way that we with skincare, like we like I think not to not to, you know, well, yes, to sort of defend the to spiritualize the consumerism. But like you and me are not searching for the perfect cream. No, we're not. Of course not. We are enjoying the process of, you know, chasing an ideal and trading out our souvenirs.

16:56Kate Berlant:It's like, I guess like you hope that the souvenir gets bigger and bigger and closer

17:00Jacqueline Novak:to something profound. And souvenir hoarding is a culture or it's like, it's a deeply human endeavor to collect the souvenirs and to try to buy them. Right. And to try to distance, what am I going to do? What do I want to do? Wake up truly empty. And I say empty in like the Buddhist sense, like truly unattached. Totally. And like, finally, like, no. And like, I will be. No, we've never actually won a monk life.

17:28Kate Berlant:It's always been the joke. I read the, like, I read the book by the monk, but I would, but I don't want the monk's life. Now there are moments, of course. Okay. But even when I'm fantasizing of the monk's life, I'm not fantasizing of emptiness and floating around.

17:39Jacqueline Novak:I'm picturing a little room, you know, a heavenly, gorgeous little. I'm thinking about the porridge. Yeah. What's the porridge?

17:46Kate Berlant:I'm fetishizing the porridge.

17:50Jacqueline Novak:You've never done a Vipassana retreat, right? Like a silent retreat?

17:55Kate Berlant:No, and you know. Imagine us.

17:58Jacqueline Novak:First of all, a silent poog, okay? Imagine we recorded an hour. An hour of us just gazing into each other's eyes.

18:06Kate Berlant:Yes, and that would of course require video. Or would it? Imagine if listeners listened to an hour of silence. Oh my God. What if we got nominated for a Grammy for an hour of silence? I know, Peabody Award. The first silent podcast? That's a Peabody baby.

18:23Jacqueline Novak:Peabody now. Yeah, thinking about myself, because I was talking to a friend who went on one, and they were talking about it, and I was like, that is so heroic to me. And so I would be the 10-day silent retreat. On day four, I'm probably packing up and leaving. Or have I achieved this state that's so great that I'm – or neither. It's utterly banal. I mean, who knows? It's just, it's genuinely an exotic idea to me. Like the idea of not speak because you can't write, you can't read, you can't speak. Right.

18:51Kate Berlant:The fact that you can't write to me that like, cause I'm immediately imagining hoarding journals in the room. You know what I mean? Like that's, I'm actually, is what? Like it's heavy that I'm like, what? Like, I'm like, I could do it if I could still tack down language like privately in the book. I'm almost freed.

19:11Jacqueline Novak:I love that you can't read or write because I would then be crushed under the well I'll finally get through some of those novels

19:17Kate Berlant:I'd be like finally I can read Middlemarch in peace I feel like I would immediately pivot toward productivity

19:24Jacqueline Novak:and how to use that time so there's something liberty to do

19:29Kate Berlant:we're not getting off of this I think it's a funny idea I can quote the first three lines of Middlemarch you know why because it's my favorite book no because i've started at 19 i've never made it past page 15 you know so i'm like whatever like she had the kind of beauty that's flown

19:49Jacqueline Novak:thrown into relief by plain dress or something it's not that that's in there somewhere but like

19:55Kate Berlant:that's but wait the silent retreat i think for you and me you know you and our hands are language okay those are the hands with which we clutch things yeah i think you and me and other things do but so so and that's why talk therapy for us is just more spiraling in the realm we already live in sometimes and trying to solve language problems with language problems and pleasing the therapist which i'm realizing more and more is a huge error that is that is my good little

20:26Jacqueline Novak:student oh it's it's such fucking bullshit again well it also can hinder diagnoses yeah uh with

20:34Kate Berlant:depression in particular charming the therapist they think you're a poet i mean i mean they think they think you're just anyway i don't i could i'm screaming and i'm taking over when when my energy is but i'm dying to say something about the silence of course you and me for us passing

20:52Jacqueline Novak:each other quietly in a hallway on another pause on a retreat us like scurrying past each other

20:58Kate Berlant:and yet and yet oh my god can you imagine like the panic i see i feel like i'd start writing like doing mnemonics in my head to remember all the things later I wanted to discuss with you

21:08Jacqueline Novak:which is obviously not the point I would have to talk to myself I would have to whisper my name to

21:13Kate Berlant:myself well you know it calls to me I mean and I did this at certain periods but like you know four hours of chanting four hours of chanting you know like like that really calls to me I love chanting yeah that can really lift you high oh shit and it doesn't matter what it is even I mean it's better I guess to go with one of the seed sounds but chanting can really because you're vibrating your body god god I don't want to do it I want to do it so bad but but you know what's genius you're gonna die okay it's a genius thing in you pray love I said it all right have you read the book I was waiting for it to come up yeah you've never seen the movie no I've only read the book Jacqueline will you promise me when you get back to LA you're coming over

21:59Jacqueline Novak:I mean am I really gonna like center Eat Pray Love this much in like my fantasy Of us having a night together It could be so many things But I just think I think we should watch it It's like You love it? No but it's It's an important text In the Catalog of contemporary femininity Oh my god It's like very It's a stunning artifact of Both heaven and hell

22:28Kate Berlant:the book like anytime anytime and you know non-fiction is turned into a movie we're gonna have problems it's as simple as that yeah okay like like the form of the memoir means one thing when you try to translate that there's there's just so there's so many there's so many issues there yeah but the book itself is you know elizabeth gilbert talking about her personal experience. And one thing I think is really astute and funny and great is, you know, so it's eat, pray, live. It's like, whatever the set pray is, is her. She goes to an ashram and, and it's going to be a silent, you know, it's going to be four weeks of silence and, and six hours of meditation in the morning and this whole thing.

23:11Kate Berlant:And she goes, and she's so looking forward to the silence, to the, to not finally not talk. She's a writer, you know, finally not talking, all the kind of stuff were were romanticizing and the monks um you know or whoever's running it you know they assign the different people their different tasks kind of chop wood carry water you know like here's what you're doing to help out and they recognize her as like a social like you know kind of person yeah and so they assign her like like meet and greet where she does have to talk like they basically assign her like like welcoming the people explaining how everything work like they assigned her the very thing she went there she was going believing that her work was to escape so so and it was like what a relief so she thinks like she's getting wrong she she thinks like they're wronging her kind of at first right i'm gonna say so they sent her to go like

24:00Jacqueline Novak:play with the monkeys or something i was expecting oh like like the fix it no like she actually had

24:08Kate Berlant:to surrender like it was actually a higher teaching that's really cool like it'd be like That wasn't in the movie, I'll tell you that much.

24:16Jacqueline Novak:That's way more profound than most things in that flick.

24:19Kate Berlant:Yeah, slim it out.

24:22Jacqueline Novak:Okay, well, we have to watch that because it's just important for us to watch together.

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26:38Jacqueline Novak:you know we love cozy earth here on the pod and the bamboo stretch knit set oh it's unbelievable i've been sleeping in the cozy earth bamboo stretch knit pajamas for a while i'm dying for it to get chilly outside so i can finally put them on again but the thing about these pajamas is they're so lightweight and they breathe but they're great if you have company or you want to look a little pulled together because it's such a cute little set you can go from bed to entering the front door with no shame. There is no real risk in trying Cozy Earth, so give it a try. You can return it. Head to CozyEarth.com and use our code POOG for 20 % off home and sleepwear.

27:17Jacqueline Novak:That's code POOG for up to 20 % off home and sleepwear. And if you see a post-purchase survey, please let them know that you heard about Cozy Earth right here on the podcast.

27:34Kate Berlant:Oh, let me pull it up. What is it? A saying? It's like good thing, bad thing. Reach for a saying. Good thing, bad thing, who knows? You know that old tale? Oh, wait.

27:45Jacqueline Novak:I feel like you've told me that.

27:47Kate Berlant:What is that?

27:48Jacqueline Novak:Yeah. I'm going to get it because I always... Oh, okay. I have a parable that changed my life. Is it a parable? I'm not sure.

27:55Kate Berlant:It's a Sufi tale. Oof. Okay, you ready? Let's go.

28:01Jacqueline Novak:Do you want to hear it? Give it to me.

28:02Kate Berlant:Give it to me hard.

28:03Jacqueline Novak:Wait, let me find it I need tales, this is why

28:08Kate Berlant:We have to be reading Well, I was just Trying to And I'm not fucking around Women who run with the wolves Either we go and do Totally different new podcasts Just about that You need to work through it You need to work through women who run with the wolves

28:28Jacqueline Novak:I own it, it's at my parents' house

28:29Kate Berlant:Crack the spine okay there once was a farmer who owned a horse and had a son i'm gonna say right now this was

28:37Jacqueline Novak:told to me i already know what this is it's fucking changed my life it was one i was gonna say but the one that i have is like a chinese interpretation interpolation of it could go

28:46Kate Berlant:interpolation interpolation i've lost it i fucking lost it i used to understand language i used to

28:50Jacqueline Novak:have ideas i used to be able to articulate myself and then i got instagram and i donated my life to it and it ends again i'm not doing it again i'm getting to get smart again yeah okay go Well, I was fed an article on Instagram that then I did run off to read New Yorker about, you know, teen suicides and social media and the whole thing. The poor kids.

29:13Kate Berlant:And I think it was written by Andrew Solomon who wrote Noondate Demon. Oh, hey. I'm pretty sure. Okay, I'm sorry. But anyway, not to brag about having read an article on the New Yorker. So, you know, well, okay. No, I'll say it now because it never is a thing. but we don't crassly work on bits on the show, as you were just saying, but since we did it once, I'll just acknowledge it's just, I have this thing about parables. You said parable? Which is how I hate the parables' obvious idiot. It's such a drag in the story. So they're like, there were three brothers. The first took the father's money and shoved it up his ass.

29:54Okay.

29:56Kate Berlant:And you're like, okay, okay. It's not him. Yeah, yeah. Do we need him? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

30:04Jacqueline Novak:And when they really milk it, when they sit there, it's hell.

30:08Kate Berlant:Okay. There once was a farmer who owned a horse and had a son. One day his horse ran away.

30:12Jacqueline Novak:Slower.

30:12Kate Berlant:Sorry. Because this changed my life. All right. There once was a farmer who owned a horse and had a son. One day his horse ran away. The neighbors came to express their concern. Oh, that's too bad. How are you going to work the fields now? The farmer replied, good thing, bad thing, who knows? In a few days, his horse came back and brought another horse with her. Now the neighbors were glad. Oh, how lucky. Now you can do twice as much work as before. The farmer replied, good thing, bad thing, who knows? The next day, the farmer's son fell off the new horse and broke his leg.

30:53Jacqueline Novak:And wait for a fox, because here it comes.

30:55Kate Berlant:Keep going. Neighbors were concerned again. Now that he is incapacitated, he can't help you around. That's too bad. The farmer replied, good thing, bad thing, who knows? Soon the news came that a war broke out, and all the young men were required to join the army. The villagers were sad because they knew that many of the young men will not come back. The father's son could not be drafted because of his broken leg. His neighbors were envious. How lucky you get to keep your only son. And the farmer replied, good thing, bad thing, who knows? Interesting. It ended there. That's weird. I could have it go on forever.

31:36Kate Berlant:I mean. Because I sort of remember it like, and he died. Good thing, bad thing, who knows? Like, they really went there.

31:44Jacqueline Novak:I don't. The one that I heard. Wait. Is this not the tale?

31:47Kate Berlant:Because something's amiss. No, no. It is.

31:49Jacqueline Novak:No, no, no. I just had like.

31:52Kate Berlant:Are you thinking of count no man lucky until he's dead?

31:54Jacqueline Novak:the other thing i always bring up no no i don't count no man lucky until he's dead i don't know what that is but i just was saying what i heard was a similar story but it didn't involve the good thing bad thing who knows repeating phrase at all it just was like cows similar things son's leg being broken interesting and then the army doesn't take him and it ended there but um who

32:13Kate Berlant:among us it's the same story no refrain yeah

32:25Jacqueline Novak:is this does this exist listen or the body will speak is that a book or

32:33Kate Berlant:well i think it no and it's a good title and i think what it's saying is although it is kind of saying that the body will alert you so don't i guess well here's what you know carolyn may is like first you know it's an idea at first it's in the energy field okay you don't handle it there yes it will eventually make itself manifest in the flesh oh okay carolyn mace also sorry i'm dropping it because people were reaching out saying what is the book what is the book and it's entering the castle and it's carolyn mace m-y-s-s okay but you know this this so one time i did a whole it's the body whole whole time thing right and we use that language in order to communicate that of course a swing entirely in one direction you know has the fantasy of it was mushrooms all the time okay the point is it's fun to go flying into that direction okay So a couple of things.

33:17Kate Berlant:One, first of all, I just want to say one thing that reminded me of earlier is like, you know, she's like, you know, not saying to people, I can't go to dinner because I don't feel well. Yeah. Right. Because that's illness as power. Right. Right. So what does she say? Okay. And if you cling to illness as power and then you, she's like, you have so little backbone that you cannot just say that you don't want to go. You have to say there's an outside force of an illness inside your body. And then you wonder why you wake up with a headache. Like when it's your only fucking power. I'm about to throw up.

33:45Kate Berlant:Oh, that's cool.

33:46Jacqueline Novak:Yeah.

33:46Kate Berlant:Yes. You see, you know, I don't want to go because I don't want to go. This was actually huge, huge for me. Okay. To own it.

33:53Jacqueline Novak:But your husband could be there. Did we talk about this? Because this is so.

33:59Kate Berlant:No, you're saying that. Okay. Yeah. No, because my. Yeah. That's like a disease in the family that was passed down and you can meet. But you can meet your husband there. Like from my grandmother to my mother to me.

34:11Jacqueline Novak:It kills me. versus like at home,

34:16Kate Berlant:you could stumble across in an idea, in a book, an idea that'll ignite your intellect.

34:22Jacqueline Novak:The most important moments of your life are when you're alone. Who said that? Freaking. You. Joan Didion or some shit. It's maybe Susan Sontag. Yeah. One of these whores. One of these. Said like the most important things that happen, happen to you when you're alone.

34:37Kate Berlant:And it's the truth.

34:40Jacqueline Novak:And it's the truth.

34:41Kate Berlant:being alone with the body the whole time. But wait, so one, that was the one thing. Get a backbone. Say you just don't want to go to dinner. Own up. She's like, stop lying to yourself and others. Like she was like, if you just are someone who I don't want to do what I don't want to do when I don't want to do it or I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. She's like, that's fine. Like own up to it. It doesn't mean that you have to embrace that as a moral stance. Okay. That was huge for me because I was like, like I'm like, that sounds like an ugly character trait to be that person. Yeah.

35:13Kate Berlant:And then it's like, no, there are people who do that and they're fucking fine and they still contribute to the world. Whatever. That was huge. And then the other one was just, oh yeah, she's like, these people come to her workshops, whatever. And they're like, what is my greatest purpose? My highest potential? What can you see in me? Whatever. Because of her intuition and stuff. They kind of go that angle. Or they're like, I'm trying to find my purpose. Okay. And she's like,

35:39Jacqueline Novak:You have a job? Love it. Love it.

35:42Kate Berlant:She's like, she's like, she's like, all these people come to me and they want to talk about their highest purpose. Okay. When they can't even function

35:52Jacqueline Novak:at their lowest level, they can't. Chop wood. They can't get. And then we'll talk.

35:57Kate Berlant:Okay. They can't get out of bed. They can't motivate themselves to go for a walk when their body says, go for a walk.

36:04Jacqueline Novak:Okay.

36:04Kate Berlant:Or when they're my or whatever, when their intuition says, I should really move. and you think you're gonna, you think, well, the classic, you think you're gonna heal, okay, your leg inflammation, okay, with your mind? Okay, you think you're gonna dissolve a bursitis, okay, with your mind when you can't even rally your consciousness enough to forgive your father-in-law? Yeah. Yeah.

36:31Jacqueline Novak:Okay, are you kidding? Have the conversation. She's like, have.

36:35Kate Berlant:So they're like, I'm not getting any intuitive hits. Are you ready? This is huge. She's like, I want to develop my intuition. I want to develop my intuition. How do I get better at... She's like, your problem is you don't listen to the ones you're getting. You're flooded with, quote, intuition all day. Okay. You don't like it because it's not big, huge. Okay. It's not, you know, the mystic being said, go to this tree, dig here, and you'll find the holy healing water down here. Okay. She goes, the mystics got the big messages

37:07Jacqueline Novak:because they listened to the small messages, okay?

37:10Kate Berlant:The gods, okay, God, whatever, knew, they listened. So you think you're going to get a hit about what your purpose is in life, direct, okay? When you get a hit that you need to move your body around and you cannot motivate yourself to go walk around the neighborhood? Yeah. Are you fucking kidding? Okay, so she goes, they got the big hits because they listened to the small ones. Begin a relationship with your soul. Well, say it again. Is that not amazing? I was crying. No, bringing a relationship with your soul.

37:38Jacqueline Novak:And again, it's like all of our, you know, all of man's suffering comes from not being able to sit in a room alone, right? Or whatever. It's like, it's like listening to the self. And here's another headline. Have the conversation. Have the conversation. And if you're listening to me, you know what I'm talking about. If I say out in the airways, hey, have that conversation. Everyone listening going, well, I know what she's talking about. Have the conversation. Wait, I can't tell though.

38:02Kate Berlant:I'm sorry. to be dense. I'm being imbued with some sick force. Do you mean with people or do you mean with yourself or do you mean whatever it is?

38:10Jacqueline Novak:Sure. Both. But I also mean, well, Jacqueline, I was texting you. We were both crying. You met with people. You know that I had, I had, and there's nothing huge, but I had like a huge breakthrough with my mother, right? Had the conversation.

38:23Kate Berlant:Yes.

38:23Jacqueline Novak:Wasn't, didn't wake up going, I'm going to do it today. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah.

38:26Kate Berlant:Yeah.

38:26Jacqueline Novak:Massive intergenerational healing, literally crying

38:28Kate Berlant:of gratitude with the healing. Yeah.

38:31Jacqueline Novak:Literally healed the lineage. My great, great grandmother just now went, oh, I'm released.

38:35Kate Berlant:Healed the lineage backwards.

38:36Jacqueline Novak:Right? We got to go backwards. Me, me, me. It's all me, me, me. What about your fucking dead ancestors?

38:43Kate Berlant:Heal the lineage. Maybe send it back. Yeah. Send it back up the line.

38:46Jacqueline Novak:You're made of them.

38:48Kate Berlant:That is, I think, you're made of them. You're going, what's this?

38:51Jacqueline Novak:You're going, I have to think the amorphous quality of being alive, the emotions. Oh my God, what is that? Yeah. Well, maybe it's not you. Maybe it's your great, great, great, great, great grandmother. And maybe she needs you to just do a little something for her sometimes.

39:03Kate Berlant:Maybe just do a little something for her. A little something.

39:07Jacqueline Novak:And then you'll go, oh. Yeah.

39:09Kate Berlant:Well, also then again, you ignore them and then you expect guidance. You expect them to come into the Walmart, okay? And pick a fruit jam for you when, you know what I mean? When the photo isn't even up on the desk. I mean, that's another thing.

39:28Jacqueline Novak:I'm actually not proud of this. I actually slapped my own cheat. I did like a, I slapped myself in the face yesterday.

39:33Kate Berlant:You don't have to be, you don't have to be fine.

39:35Jacqueline Novak:But then, by the way, and even as I did it right after, I was like, I was a little over the top, but I was doing a couple of these little things. I was like, cause I was raging. Right. And I was like, I don't want to do the dishes. And there weren't that many. I was like, just do them,

39:48Kate Berlant:bitch.

39:49Jacqueline Novak:And so then I did them. And then it was like, kind of exciting. Like I had in a semi rage, taken a picture off the wall, like, or off like a framed thing. Cause it was like annoying me and I was like no and I took it off yeah I'm not living with that anymore yeah and I was like I have to put it back I have to put it back and I was like I don't want to get the chair and stand on the chair and I was like yeah you're doing it and then I did it and then I was like whoa and then I became a little bit euphoric and I started to calm down and I was like and I was

40:13Kate Berlant:like I don't want to meditate because I hadn't meditated oh that's what I did so I was like I

40:17Jacqueline Novak:can't bring myself to meditate so you know what I did I went outside I sat in the chair I just did like deep breathing for like 10 seconds the comedy because I just like I can't explain it

40:26Kate Berlant:the comedy of you suffering alone is very funny in this way like like if i just had a video because you're like so not alone you're very like bring people in call a friend whatever whatever so you just like stewing and sort of marching out to your deck and sitting there good for the steely face with a steely face like i don't know why i could picture you there's a comedy to use but wait i'm dying to go back wait hold on about the rage and the destroying something oh but they're like well i don't want to okay you're like you're like i should do this but i don't want to do the dishes right do it it's truly like we have no middle way okay and and this is and i'm not going to go deep into my my young book okay but they're but this idea of the medusa and the athena or whatever okay these extremes that live in us and that's not the realm of people okay but the point is where's the human okay we don't live in the realm of the gods okay and we shouldn't right but we all do like we do it in this way that keeps us we animate them from like monster who's like you fucking bitch why can't you clean up you piece of shit you know what i mean like or whatever okay and then like i don't want to i'm a woman of pleasure okay like these these like these extreme sort of characters that we like let war within us and swing back and forth because the central the the third way the middle way whatever sounds like a bore a healthy ego deciding like like gently being like you know saying no to either god essentially to either extreme

41:49Jacqueline Novak:yeah oh well that's also joyless no sounds joyless and doesn't young say like i think neurosis is a scorned god and also this idea of like you have to live brilliant i love the way he talks about the little people meaning like inside you are all these there are these dramas constantly unraveling within yourself and like yes they have lives of their own and they have relationships of their own like separate from you oh my god and it's like really beautiful to be like

42:15Kate Berlant:Like there's a thief in you who's running away from, you know, it's like there's all these like constant thief in you. He calls them little people. It's so sweet to think of these like little sweet, small archetypes constantly. See, the small archetype. This is huge. No, because the small archetype. I'm like, OK, does that give you a feeling of like, you know, gentle, loving curiosity towards them? You know what I'm saying? Because you're imagining them as like as small versus I tend to picture the archetype as like outside of me, huge and like rolling. rolling through me because I think of it as like a, yeah, like a giant God.

42:48Kate Berlant:And because it's collective, I make it larger, even though of course the collective can, you know, can be

42:53Jacqueline Novak:like a little puppet show, you know, those like things where it's like a little puppet in the chest. It's in my chest. Yeah.

42:59Kate Berlant:And like, you know, did you ever have as a kid? Oh, here comes a childhood memory. It's coming to the surface. It's coming.

43:04Jacqueline Novak:Did you ever have that little thing where it's a magnet and you hold the magnet underneath? And then there's a, there's a little pawn. Oh, I'm sorry. Like a little figure with a magnet on the bottom. And then it sets down on

43:13Kate Berlant:the stage and you move it from below.

43:16Jacqueline Novak:I'm like, was I raised in the 16th century? The fact that I had that toy

43:21Kate Berlant:and that now, you know... Sorry, I'm just... Breaking news. I never had one as a child. I never had one as a child.

43:36Jacqueline Novak:My primal wound is like the eyes leaving me for a moment. Like not being and then direct like just for a moment someone's eyes but don't you also here's the question

43:50Kate Berlant:another object is that enacted drama actually what you need right so like i don't mean actually what you need for health i mean like is it that that's the wound and you suffer from it or do you love the dance okay of fearing the eye leaving keeping the eye on you then the eye leaving suffering bringing it back you know what i'm saying like do you enjoy that dance which again

44:12Jacqueline Novak:it's like the idea is like what you know what harms us are not our wounds it's our defenses

44:17Kate Berlant:against them right is the idea much like freud the neuroses the repression is the neuroses wait

44:24Jacqueline Novak:wait wait all right sorry so it's like if the eyes leave me instead of going oh the eyes have left me and here i am and no one's looking and going still alive still alive i'm still here so i can maybe have my own observation i can maybe have some pleasure here instead of kind of sitting in that discomfort or that whatever you want to call it it's like well i better start tap dancing at a very high frequency now to get the eyes back and so that is sort of my defense in childhood grab them back still yeah it's like we'll get it back by any means necessary right and then you're banging on the door of the funny bone yeah and i think now it's like embarrassing almost to admit but i feel like now i'm trying to experience more of like okay you know what even if no one's watching i'm watching like i'm watching me guess what my own gaze has value yeah and also being like oh how interesting like it kind of hit me yesterday i was doing a quick bath as i tend to do four times a day and i was like it was after i've been raging i've been raging tearing through the house and then i hung up the picture and i washed the dish and i did some deep breathing and i was like look at you like i actually felt i was able to be like you felt good job yeah i was able to to be it's like it's reparenting I was able to be like oh wow like look at you you were really upset you did these things you took care of yourself and now look there's time for a bath and I was able to read for a few minutes okay it was huge but I was in the bath and I was talking to myself and I was like or I had this moment this feeling which was robbed of me or maybe something I haven't felt since I was a kid and being an only child and really feeling like oh no one's around or something like I had this feeling of like oh I get to have a little private show for myself of

46:05Kate Berlant:myself.

46:06Jacqueline Novak:Like I was like, I can't quite describe it, but there was this actual feeling of, of like, Oh, even if no one else sees it, I'm seeing what I'm doing. And like, and almost like I get to have secrets, not that the secrets or anything, but I actually felt like it was kind of a huge revelation for me to feel that and to not feel lonely or not feel something of grasping for the presence of the other. I actually had it last night, Jacqueline, I went to text you flailing in the night i went to text you and i stopped myself and i literally like spoke to god

46:39Kate Berlant:and it helped brilliant yeah no no no i um okay you and me live in our heads blah blah blah we think of ourselves as oh we're the ultimate of like you know these interior living kind of people right we live in our heads we think we can think our way through everything etc etc but i i but i don't always realize that you can have an interior chamber. Okay. That is a place where like you and yourself can be literally cozy. Okay. Now, now the way that I define that, like, so my discovery of that as a child, and I feel like because we're talking about micro it's, this is all like my book and I'm embarrassed when I'm recounting my own book, but whatever, who cares?

47:20Kate Berlant:Okay. But anyway, like as a child, I'd experienced this thing, a couple of things. One was like, we had desks that, you know you could stick your hands right in that classic school desk that you could stick your books in yeah and like if you put your hands and no one can see them and i used to feel this like cozy feeling okay inside the desk about like almost like i'm gonna move my little eraser around in there like i'm putting on a little play of puppets okay but like where my pencil is my friend my eraser is my friend like even the side of this book is my friend okay and these are little like no one can see but i could put on a whole play in here and then i realized the next level because I don't even need objects that I'm trying to obscure from view.

47:55Kate Berlant:I was like, no one can see inside my mouth. OK. And so I was like, I can put on a little play with my tongue inside my mouth with my mouth closed. So my mouth is closed and I'm moving my tongue around and they're dancing a little to the right. Try it. Close your mouth. Close your mouth.

48:09Jacqueline Novak:This is so profound and sweet. Dance your tongue around in there. OK. OK. So I was like, OK, this man was like, oh, my God, no one can see it. I'm like loving it.

48:16Kate Berlant:And then, of course, you know, I guess the next level, you know, as an adult would be to realize that, oh, you could create a place of peace, joy, play, whatever the fuck, you know, joy, I've never, the word has always bothered me, but something, right? Something intriguing, can occur in the interior. And I've been thinking a lot recently, I've been lying there after a gummy, frankly, after a gummy. And by a gummy, I mean, for gummies. Okay. Let the THC guys do what they do. Yeah. Okay. My body always requires high dose of anything to have an effect. So I'm lying there on my, I guess, cantha, canna.

48:50Kate Berlant:I'm waiting for free bags. Thank you. We'll reach out. We'll reach out. You're what? Okay, keep going. Free marijuana gummies. Oh, God, I got it. Okay, I want. All right. So I'm lying there and I'm like, oh, my God, can you be safe inside of your own interiority from anything? Okay. Now, I know that it feels a little bit like I'm trying to avoid pain, which, you know, what else?

49:10Jacqueline Novak:No, I don't. I don't see that there.

49:12Kate Berlant:Can I go no matter what? So I fear things like I get really upset if I think someone doesn't like me or I quote misunderstands me right you know my intention is this you interpret it as this i want to die

49:22Jacqueline Novak:until i've corrected their imagined perception you know which might not even be their perception right it haunts me the disease of perception baby yeah okay of course so and that's something that

49:32Kate Berlant:you know i try to work through whatever and get over but it's like it's almost like okay what if someone said i hate you okay like i know can i is there a shield like can i at any moment or or i mean it's a little bit or like great pains like someone i love dies okay like is there a place where you can almost go like but i'm safe like yes i think that we can cultivate that and i don't think it's wrong i think it's a healthy this is i think it might be the healthy version of

50:02Jacqueline Novak:dissociation that's the life's work i don't see that as like spiritual bypassing or some kind of like thing of like avoiding pain the pain is inevitable suffering is inevitable we're not gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, it will come have pain. And so it's like, how can you accept pain, feel pain, embrace pain, walk toward the pain, and yet still have some kind of a inner fortress or inner experience or inner world where you're able to safely have pain? Like that's almost,

50:31Kate Berlant:well, it's like being identifying with the witness. I mean, this is classic meditation stuff, but it's like, it's like, there's your thoughts, there's your emotions, there's your body, whatever, who's experiencing all those, like, who's, who's the thinker behind the thoughts, who's who's seeing it all right and this is a full circle this is a full circle because to meditation yes the 20 minute room okay that unfortunately i pictured as a blank room but perhaps i could put a little sofa in mine's dark blue yes it can be it can be i mean one thing relatedly that i always that i thought was huge and one depression cover from your hands in the

51:00Jacqueline Novak:hands and the desk and that it's so profound and there's so much i will say the word joy there's so much yes there's so much there and it's like again going back to like our life's work is to become ourselves right or to like or like to actually like what would it be to like actually become myself or extend myself to the furthest reaches of like my desires or my own neurosis or whatever my own nature right the soul all of this like and by having a little puppet show in your desk that is a way to you know to honor that or to just right no it's existence it's like right

51:35Kate Berlant:Well, it is kind of like between you and God in this way, right? It's you and you, or you could say it's you and the universe. Like I do exist when alone. You know, I do exist when, but, and for some reason, I guess for me, it was almost like that, yeah, that felt like school and other people always felt like just this brutal cold wind, right? Like the second you're in school, it's like the wind of just everything and everyone. And like, it was just a way of creating a little space. You know what it was? this is kind of interesting. It's almost like a secret or doing anything that you're not talking about or you're not sharing with other people literally create space that they are not aware of and thus created more space for yourself to exist in because you've created a bigger world that they can't enter.

52:21Kate Berlant:Like that's wild. And this is like a huge thing for me. I actually think and I've been doing a lot of this like pathworking stuff right now and a lot of stuff about, you know, creating mental palaces, not for memory. I gave that up years ago. OK, not for trying to, you know, mnemonics and whatever okay masonic palaces and the head this more is a different thing but i've become so aware of how we like narrow our interiority to the space of our head like we keep it so small when of course the brain is infinite and i think part of the reason it feels so small is because the brain we experience this little television screen in our head and we're like you can only watch one thing at a time almost right so it's just coming in and you're in the present.

52:57Kate Berlant:And it's like, no, what if I built out piece by piece, my own little mental world, living alone? And some of this gets into my spiritual, psychological materialism, where I start to fantasize about, well, then this does become where it's about avoiding pain in some ways, or preparing for pain, where it's like, well, I need to have a room where I work on my pain. And that room in my head is going to look like this. And it's going to have these quotes hanging on the wall in my head. Okay.

53:25Jacqueline Novak:I'm permanently preparing myself for like the death of my mother. Cause I've always been like, when my mom dies, I'm going to kill myself. Right. Like, like, and that's actually something that I'm only now starting to be like, guess what? I won't, you know?

53:36Kate Berlant:No, I, I used to feel like it's, we should commit suicide when they, when I go.

53:40Jacqueline Novak:And by the way, there's nothing wrong with preparing yourself for the pain to come or to acknowledge we have suffered. We are suffering. We will suffer. Like that is like, that is the guarantee that is the truth. And I think via meditation, like we do have to cultivate these rooms in ourselves because we have to be able to live in here. And also there are, you know, rooms inside yourself that you've never been that can be so helpful or offer some kind of comfort and imagine the power. I mean, that's all anybody wants. Like you just want to feel like you're okay. And so it's like, imagine if being like, Oh, like I actually will be okay.

54:16Jacqueline Novak:Or wow. I'm

54:17Kate Berlant:No, no, I'm with you. Like I just my knees and off. No, no, I'm going to work on the interior palace and I'm going to get very like over the top with it because I have this whole plan, which I'm going to go outside my home. I was thinking about this yesterday. You know who I am? I'm fucking Toolman Tim. Like I get an idea and I'm like, OK, we're going to drive it to its like to its extreme. But I was thinking like I go out on my sidewalk and I'd like learn my sidewalk. OK, like to a point of like I know it's so well, you know, every lamp. And then I was going to hang things. OK, along my journey.

54:43Kate Berlant:So I could always go on that walk alone in my head in addition to outside, whatever. Hanging the lamps is beautiful. It doesn't sound great hanging like a little and then you could take the walk and see the things that you love.

54:53Jacqueline Novak:Hey, and by the way, sometimes you can only if you can hang a lamp, it can be a slow process. But imagine then the path that in your life you can maintain or cultivate.

55:02Kate Berlant:No, it's like no one builds a palace in their mind when you could. We build palaces like ramshackle palaces of hell. OK, like cobbled together from one trauma to the next. and it's like what if we used our creative visualization abilities to create something more pleasing for ourselves and then we could also do it and we could meet on the astral plane and visit each other's palaces which would be helpful hell yeah alright we gotta get out of here I really needed this today I love you and by things to do I mean take walks inside my brain

55:29Jacqueline Novak:I wanna meditate right now alright enjoy yourself that was Poob if you enjoyed Poob please subscribe rate and review if not we will press charges Thank you.