Josh Brolin on Embracing Life’s Messiness With Stoicism (PT. 1)

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1:22Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives.

2:07Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You know, when Matthew McConaughey was here, We sort of do like a walkthrough of the bookstore after, and I pick out different books. And he was up in my office, and he mentioned, actually, today's guest, he mentioned Josh Brolin's book. He actually hears he and I talking about it. Read Brolin's book, new book. I have it in here. Because I'm supposed to interview him next week. Let me grab it. He's awesome. Yeah. I just texted him because I was listening to some podcast and he was telling some horrible story about his dad feeding him his childhood pigs or something.

2:54He has something in that line that he talks about that's similar to what you were just saying, I think. Where are the... Where are the... Oh. Our surroundings were never there to be carried, rather woven into the fabric for you who we are. Yeah. Similar to what you were saying, Link was saying there, going back. Yeah, this book is good. And, you know, it's funny that it would come up because I don't read a lot of celebrity memoirs because most of them are not very good. But I really liked these two books. I liked Matthew's when it came out. And I really liked Josh's. I've gotten to know Josh because he commented one time on something we posted on Instagram.

3:37And then we would go back and forth and he was going to do the show in person or I was going to go see him. I don't know. I guess we'd say we'd become friends. We've gotten to know each other. And I was really excited when this book came out. The audio book of the book is really great, too. We were talking offline about how when you record an audio book, it just reduces you to a mess. He said, for a guy who's known for cadence and public speaking, I could have sworn that something broke. He said it was beyond embarrassing and he wrote it, which is totally true. I mean, I've recorded 12 audio books.

4:19I've recorded multiple audio books in the Daily Stoic studio. And every time as I leave, I'm like, do I know how to read? Am I an idiot? Did I get kicked in the head? But it's just something about the over and over and over again of it and pronouncing words that you've never, it's an excruciating process. I'm sure not unlike movie making where the final product might be enjoyable and seamless and immersive, but making it is anything but. Making it is utterly excruciating, but it's worth it. It's worth it. The audio book's great. He read it, which not all celebrities do, but definitely makes this one worth listening to.

4:59You've probably seen Josh in The Goonies. You've seen him in No Country for Old Men. You've seen him in Milk. you've seen him in the Deadpool movies, you've seen him in Dune, and now you should read his new book, From Under the Truck, which came out in November, and he talks about his tumultuous childhood, he talks about the death of his mom, he talks about addiction and love and fatherhood. Well, in this episode, he talks about how to manage stress, how stoicism and literature and reading has had an impact on his life. You can tell from the book, this guy is a reader, How you accept life's messiness and the transformative power of parenting.

5:44I was really excited to have this conversation. I hope we will have another one in person soon. And I think you are going to like it. Here is me and Josh Brolin talking about his book, From Under the Truck. You can grab copies at The Painted Porch. You can follow him on Instagram at Josh Brolin and on Twitter at The Josh Brolin. Let's just get into it. Dude, here we are. Dude, here we are. Oh, my God. You create these relationships, which I'm super bad at because I just had a little freak out this morning and then I had to read The Daily Dad in order to calm the fuck down. but you know there's no time when you have kids how old are your kids eight and five okay so eight and five so mine the my little ones are are six and three and there's just no time to do anything yeah i know you just it's tough and if you're a parent who actually enjoys being a parent and likes being a parent and lives this idea that he can be present all the time it really fucks with the rest of your life no there's not as much time to just like hang out and and do shit because you you're already spoken for you're you're literally already spoken for in these things that like you know there was the golden globe nominations and i'm getting all these texts this morning and zoe and timothy and sebastian stan my buddy and zoe saldana and all that and i'm like wow that's so great.

7:24I haven't seen shit because when the kids finally go to sleep, if we don't pass out with them, which we normally do, my wife and I say, okay, this is our time. We get to actually do something together. And we sit on the couch and we turn on a movie and we go to sleep within 10 or 15 seconds. And we wake up at 1.30 in the morning on the couch, totally discombobulated, not sure what to do. Anyway. No, no, it's very humbling. I was thinking about that the other night, I was in my son's room putting him to bed. And yeah, I got an email about, I did this book for this guy, George Raveling, who's like one of my heroes.

8:02Anyways, I'm sitting there putting my son to bed and I get an email that Michael Jordan agreed to write the foreword to this book. And then my son's like, I have to go to the bathroom. You know, like just the contrast of like struggling to put this eight-year-old to bed and this like huge career win. There's something about it that I think keeps you sane. I don't know if this was all I did, if work was all I did. I think you'd lose your mind. There's something good about it. It's a recalibration again and again and again into this laceration of ego. And it's good. What is it? The ninth today? Literally, I opened it up.

8:39I came in here and instead of figuring out how to do this Zoom with you, I read this and it has to do it's no it's december 9th right which is something that i talk about often about being on your deathbed parents think about a lot of things i won't read the whole thing but they think about the world they're leaving to their sons and daughters and that you question the question for you to think about today on a day hopefully quite far from that moment is what decisions are you making now and how will you think about them then so i always often say my goal in life is to be able to be on my deathbed, be somewhat conscious.

9:17And right as I'm taking my last breath, that I chuckle, that I'm able to look back on all this and to say, not only did I have fun, I had integrity, I played with the circus that is, and that I was malleable within it. And that I ended up having, like, we're all the better for it. Yes. This morning that wasn't happening. so I needed this uh redirection that you give me often by the way I know this is not but I want to make this podcast about you even though it's your podcast I'm serious man you and I we don't know each other well but we text each other you know fairly often and it's fairly familiar but there is something about for somebody who's read and let me just get through this that somebody who's read Marcus Aurelius a long time ago.

10:11And the reason why you read it, unlike you, the reason why I read it is because I want to know that I've read it as opposed to the content. Do you know what I mean? And I think that that's the young me who's like, okay, I read this, I read that, I read that, I read that, I'm in the know, I'm in the know, I'm in the know. And then there's the practical application of utilizing this stuff and that you've made so accessible and digestible that not only have I sent your frigging book to about 200 people. And I don't do that. I'm not a namaste kind of guy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, oh, I have another book for you to read to make your life better, even though it doesn't work.

10:55And then I'll end up giving you another one in two months. and then I'll give you another one in two months. And then, you know, that's why the bookstore is 75 % self-help now when it used to be is about as big as the poetry section. But I do believe that these are so helpful. They're incredibly helpful in your life because it parallels with maybe because it's an idea that I have of, you know what? this is super messy, often painful, really overwhelming at times. And that's the way it should be because that's what develops character and you fall and you get up and you try again and it's progress, not perfection.

11:39And, but you keep going no matter, no matter what your ego is telling you, you shouldn't be doing and you should be resting in comfort and you should look, You should sleep in every day and you should let the nanny take over and do all that. So I salute you for that, man. Well, that's very cool. You make my life better. You make our lives better. Oh, man, that's incredible. No, I can tell you're a reader. It's interesting, right? Most people don't read. And then there are some people that read, but then you can tell they kind of only read self-help. And I have no problem with that. But you're right.

12:12There is kind of been a creep where self-help and sort of nonfiction is taken over more and more of the bookstore. But I could tell from your book and from talking with you that you're clearly someone who loves the written word. I could see in your book that you were trying to write a real book, not either a memoir or a gossipy thing or even just your own experiences. It seemed like books have been a big part of your life for a long time. Books, not only have books been a major part of my life. And my mother and my dad is not a reader for sure. my mother was a reader but of all you know she would wake me up at 2 30 in the morning and say you know Ted Bundy just did this awful thing to this woman you have to come up here because I'm scared you know she'd read these horrible true crime books and she read really fast she remembered everything you know what she retained was a hundred percent but she wasn't reading any great literature and I think it was because of my friend Anthony Zerbe it was because I got turned on to maybe on the road when I was like 18 by a buddy and read that.

13:18And what I think is interesting, and I'll finish that thought, but what I think is interesting about reading on the road is you're so taken by that movement, the movement of that book and the verbiage of that book and all that. But you get into this Kerouac idea of first thought, best thought, no edit and all this kind of stuff. And then, like most things later when you become an adult, you find out... Complete bullshit. Total fucking bullshit. Absolute horseshit that he spent seven years editing that book after doing his first book, which didn't sell at all, which was a kind of a typical formal 400 page book.

13:57And that his editor just kept pushing him to refine, to refine, to refine, to refine. And I think the process of writing this book and caring about writing, I think the biggest lesson was when I started to edit and, and really clarify. And what do I, what am I trying to say here and what am I trying to convey here? And, and that was, it was one of the great lessons for me. And one of the talk about ego laceration. I mean, just like, okay, I know, and I have to be honest with myself that I'm colorizing just to colorize because I think it, it may, you know, it may stand in for just a bad sentence.

14:39So I'm going to distract people out of this bad sentence with more colorful bullshit.

14:52Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Basko County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin, and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

15:37We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory.

16:19Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

17:00My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr.

17:37Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

18:16creativity is generative to wake up and be like, no, no, today is about deletion. It sucks. I'm so mad about it. And 40 ,000 words is a lot. This book, this is the UK version, but this book is, it was, I think I sent, there was only two people I sent it to. It was Zev Boro while I was writing it, Zev Boro and Ethan Cohen. And I knew that they were both people that were going to be honest with me. They weren't going to stroke me. And it was probably, I sent the book and it was probably around 95 ,000 words. So it was 400 and something pages at that point. And Ethan goes, fuck, you want me to read this?

18:58Which I thought was great. And then he had some amazing notes. I mean, he really raked me over the coals and it was part of the reason why I had a lot more poetry in there. And he said, they're going to kill you for the poetry. Not that the poetry is bad. The poetry is actually very good, but they're going to kill you for the poetry. And it's little things like that where I go, okay. And once you start deleting, there's something really satisfying about it, where you realize that you want the book to be this thick because you think, or at least the adolescent part of you thinks that it validates you as a writer more.

19:34Yeah, there's more discipline in a sparse book than in a long book. And one of the tricky things that happens is as you become successful in any domain is that both the audience and the gatekeepers who are allowing you to do the thing, they become more indulgent of you. So you get away with more and you have to have this kind of inner discipline to go like, I'm sure they would have published an 80 or 90 ,000 word book from you. They would have published whatever you wanted, but you have to you had to say, I'm not going to let myself get away with that, which is a different struggle. And also, you know, you're writing, sorry, at least I knew I was writing something that was, I mean, for lack of a better word, unconventional in that I wasn't spoon feeding kind of celebrity fodder.

20:20Yes, I totally know what you mean. Because I just had, Matthew was just out at the bookstore, Matthew McConaughey. And I feel like your two books are interesting. They're sort of two unique books of a similar, where you have a creative sort of artist who's sitting down. They could write a celebrity tell-all memoir. They could also just write a very indulgent sort of personal introspective book. Both are somewhat different takes on the genre, which I found to be refreshing. Good. Refreshing in what way? I'm curious. Well, just not what you would expect. And, you know, what I was thinking about when I was thinking about both of your books is that you both had very unconventional, strange childhoods, but he seemed to have emerged relatively untraumatized by his and yours really fucked you up.

21:12Matthew didn't have any wild animals at home. That's true. Matthew had wild humans. He had wild humans. Yeah, his parents were wild. His parents were wild. I think that's what really, you know, I sent the book when you're looking for a blurb or whatever, and I don't know Matthew well, but I know him well enough and I really respect him and I loved his book. And, you know, the thing is, is I judged Matthew's book long before I read it, which I'm sure people do with this. I do that all the time. And then I started to read it and I went, holy shit, the honesty. And I was really taken with the honesty.

21:49There's another memoir out there, and I'll go back to Matthew, but Yursa Daly Ward wrote a memoir called The Terrible. And I met her. I read the book, and then I met her, and then we cast her. She's an actress also, and I cast her in Outer Range and directed her in one of these Outer Range episodes. It's so nakedly honest. And I think that's, when I read that, I was like, okay, I wonder if I could do that. I think that was really what sparked. I wonder if I could write a super honest memoir of sorts, but really like our memories work in vignettes and paintings and anecdotes and all that kind of stuff.

22:30So therefore, you don't have the kind of linear timeline. But so I was thinking about blurbs. And once I wrote this and I was feeling really naked, I hadn't sent it to anybody. I did send it to Bob Dylan knowing that there was no way in hell that Bob would you know ever give anything but I did it anyway fuck it and then I sent it to Matthew and Matthew wrote back I think you and I talked about this he wrote he literally went through slowly word for word yes and he had incredible notes not that I asked for the notes but I thought well how fucking arrogant that he's writing notes. And at the same time I'm reading them and it wasn't just, you should fix this.

23:12You should do this. I'm a writer now. I'm a bestselling author. It was, it was, it was from the care. It was like, I get you as a human being. I felt this entire book and I want this to be as, as good as it can possibly be. And if I can help you just with that, if you use anything now. and he also wrote a lot of like I loved this and I loved this and I love this and I thought it was one of the best blurbs I've ever read in my life it was a well-written blurb and it felt like a visceral blurb why I'll send you a video but I have a video of him reading it out loud oh really the office no way I got it so I'll say I'll send it to you but um no he did the same thing you held up the daily data earlier I blurbed green lights and I said hey can I call in this favor I have this parenting book coming out can I send it to you it's like one page of parenting advice every day.

24:04And he's like, yeah, send it to me. I'll see if I can read it. I wasn't expecting anything. I thought he would say no. And then he's like, hey, I just get a call from him one day. And he's like, hey, are you ready? I've got notes. And I was like, oh, great. We spent like two hours on the phone, an hour on the phone. He gave me like page by page notes on this thing, which I, again, wasn't expecting, was incredibly grateful to get. You know, you're expecting like a line. You're like, I want you to just say like, please read this book. And instead he gave me this blurb and all these notes. But I think that that is the wonderful thing about books when you, um, it's a small community of people that read books and it's a small community of people that really love books.

24:41And when you tap into that, there's something I think very special about it. Yeah, I do too. I do too. And, and when somebody actually cares and somebody's into it, they almost feel emotionally invested in it, which I love. You know, I had just gotten a, or I'll read this to you if you just bear with me for a second. You know, what's been great about this book and where I think it, I'll tell you, is, oh, there it is. Let's see. They make us fill out actual paper. Once AI takes over, all the inefficiency will be gone. So I want to celebrate the mess while I still have it. The last vestiges of humanity will be a customs officer with a rubber stamp and a humid port somewhere in the world.

25:24Your book too is a celebration of that fantastic, thrilling, painful soup. Some of us seem to swim in on that note, I'm going to hoist anchor and head South, but I'll be thinking about your book for a long time to come. And I like that. He says it does. Who is that? This is the guy named Joshua Davis, and he's a writer. And I felt like a lot of the responses to the book have been really emotional, really personal and unlike most books you know you have your first week where it does really well and then the second week drops and the third week drops we're getting like the first week was good the second week went down a little bit and now we're getting word of mouth and it's starting to grow again and people are you know because I think the people that expected you know a typical like I did Graham Norton with Cher and we talked about the book and there's this thing about ghost writing and people who actually write their books and all this kind of stuff.

26:24And with Cher, you want to know, you know, what happened in those nine days with, you know, Greg Allman? I want to know. And I get it. I do get it. You know, and there's a certain bit of information within, you know, this legendary icon that you want. With this book, it was a little bit different. It was seeing through, to me, it's, you know, a story about parents and children. And it is about trauma and it's about surviving trauma and it's about finally growing up and having, you know, having to grow up and look at yourself in the face and say, what choices do I want to make? And how can I not, how can I get out of blame?

27:02I don't want to live a life of blame. They did this to me. This is how I was raised. This is the nurture of it all. So therefore I don't have any control of it. And this is just who I am because of what they did to me. And I, you know, I see it in a way that's very, that's non-victimized and positive. But I remember when I was reading Matthew's book, there was a moment where I was like, this was long before I was thinking about having read Matthew's book when I was writing. And I go, I had finished maybe 40 ,000 words of chapter one. And I, and at the beginning of chapter two, without telling anybody, I said, you know I have to write something more inspiring you know I have to give people a place to go I have to I have to leave them with a daily dad or a green lights or you know something instead of just you know police lights and I wrote 50 ,000 words with and and I didn't I just it was just a hint of something and my Kimberly Witherspoon in New York with Inkwell Management my lit agent she read it she read that draft and she said uh chapter one is really good really well written i don't think there's a lot you have to change there it flows well and then she goes what the fuck happened with chapter two and i i tell you right now like emotionally i felt so seen and a lot of times when you feel that exposed and seen you just want to run and a part of me did want to run but i go what do you mean and she goes i don't know it just doesn't sound like you.

28:37What happened? And then I told her, so she, she actually like, as a great editor, even though she's not an editor, she called me out and she goes, I, I have a sense of who you are as a writer. Do your writing. Yeah. Don't write for an audience. Trying to say what you thought people wanted you to say, as opposed to what you felt compelled. I'm guilty of that. I'm guilty of that. And it's just another great lesson of like, look, All you can do is do what you do and put it out there and it's going to be received however it's going to be received. Totally. I feel like whenever I am performing for the audience, I'm doing shitty work.

29:17And whenever I am following what I find to be interesting or important or urgent, that's my best stuff. I'm actually writing about Elon Musk now a bunch in this book that I'm doing as I find him fascinating and terrifying. And I found this line from his first wife. And she was saying, you know, inside the man, there's a small wounded boy standing in front of his father. And I was like, well, I mean, that explains a lot, right? Because his dad was a monster, is a monster. But that also explains a lot of us, right? And I felt that sort of coming through in your story, that you were this kind of scared kid trying to figure it out.

30:03And that scared kid lived a long time. Like that scared kid made it maybe up through middle age. And I remember when my dad said to me, and he meant it professionally, he said, I remember when you went to war. and if you contrast my brother and I and my brother and I talk all the time and we're you know we're close and and but the truth of the matter is my brother lives the most simple life you can live he couldn't simplify it more he knows when he's going to go to work he walks there then he goes to the coffee shop then he goes to the sandwich shop after that and he comes home and then he watches whatever he watches and then I think what my dad meant by that of like you fought you were not going to be subservient to the trauma.

30:51You weren't going to allow yourself to fold. And I think it's interesting that you bring up my dad because I know that there's a lack of stories with my dad and it's not meant to hurt. It's honestly laid out in a way of like, okay, so where were you? Were you there? It's a statement in a book by omission. Exactly. And it's not about like, did you, you, we had this crazy mother that was so full of high octane gasoline for whatever reason, who had wild animals around who, you know, created this narrative that was, that was, that most people, I think all people couldn't sustain. So even great friends of my mom would just say, pull the fucking car over.

31:43I'm out. There's a story that's true. Joyce who got out of the car 50 miles from anything and was willing to walk then you know sit for another minute with my mother in that car which I understand which anybody who knew her understood the other side of it she was so much fun she was so adventurous she just had this energy that just that you know she wanted to be in the nucleus of the circus all the time but when you have somebody who's living in fear of that person who's supposed to be the paternal force of that family, you can't help but become the surrogate father. You are suddenly, you know, the husband.

32:26And my dad, you know, he talks about it. He doesn't, you know, I'm not saying anything that he wouldn't say, but he, he says, I remember your mom being in the driver's seat, you being in the passenger seat, you guys arguing, and he was in the back with his hands over his ears. So you go, it's not a great thing to say, but the truth of the matter is, is that you took the child role and I took the husband role because I was, there was something innate in me and I see it in my youngest daughter that was just willing to go outside when it's freezing cold with bare feet on. And just, she has that thing.

33:06I saw my daughter, my youngest daughter chapel do that yesterday. And I was like, damn, you just, that's innate in you. You can't create that. Whereas my six-year-old is like, it's cold. And I don't want to go outside. And I'm like, where are my high heels? And, you know, I think that there's something about that father thing. And my dad's not a monster. He's one of the nicest guys. I just think that he was, he was controlled by a fear that he was unwilling to confront. It struck me that the work of the book and the journey of your story was to kind of reparent that inner child to sort of calm things down, to develop a sort of a more stable and calm and nurturing environment, one that you didn't have growing up.

33:56But that is a difficult work and it's expensive work. It's painful work. And what I was struck by as I've been studying Musk is like, he just hasn't done that work at all. He's just like more stuff, more craziness, more attention, more money. And then you can watch the sort of cyclical effects of that trauma. But what I read your book was you had this sort of disorienting, overwhelming, confusing, traumatic childhood. And then that rippled out into your life. And you have slowly, steadily been trying to make sense of it. And I even felt like the structure of the book was illustrative of that and that you're jumping around.

34:36You're like 1972, 2006. The dates are all jumbled. But as you go through the book, as you get older, as your life starts to coalesce, it kind of jumps around less. And the threads start to come together and you've kind of made sense of it. Yeah. And Elon, you know, there's also another element of Elon Musk is motivated, maybe motivated by that trauma, whatever that trauma is. So you start to rely on that trauma being your fuel. You know what I mean? Trump, doesn't he have the same thing? And that whole, you know, a dad who just didn't accept him the way he was. It doesn't, didn't W have the same thing where the dad, it was supposed to be Jeb.

35:18And he was the golden child. And W was the misfit and was the one that just wouldn't live up to a standard that they expected of him. And all that, which I don't have. that that's a that's a very different thing so maybe that's why i'm more contemplative about it yes you know but my dad wasn't somebody who but he did do that you know i there was a i tell a story i try i try again i don't want to throw my dad under the bus because i love my pop but whether it's a generational thing or not i remember i went to my dad once and i said hey man i'd love to get a recorder because my mom died early and i wish i had done this with my mom I wasn't suggesting that my dad was going to die anytime soon, which I didn't want to, you know, convey.

36:02But I said, I would love to get together with you and just like with a recorder and just talk to you and ask you stuff about you growing up in Newport and moving to, you know, Westwood. And what was it like? What was your dad like? What was your mom like? Did you spend any time with your grandparents? Whatever it was. And he got really defensive. He was like, for what? I was like, and I wasn't writing the book. at the time. And I said, I just, cause I want the information. Cause I love to know like how you think and you know, what made you do certain things? What was the car club like that you were involved?

36:37You know, shot, why did you become an actor being such a shy person? What was that confrontation like? And, and all that. And he was really, really reticent. Whereas if I asked my mom, my mom would have, it would have been forever, you know, just forever. Again, it's a different mentality. And it's like, so did that motivate me to want to be more, and I'm sure it did, want to be more intimate with my kids, to listen to my kids in a different way. So I can never look back on that and say, oh, I got fucked because it created something. And not that I don't, and I said that to Howard Stern, not that I don't indict it.

37:20There's things that I do indict. There's things that I think are so narcissistically not okay, you know, and it's like, is this about you? Or is this about celebrating a child? You couldn't help it, but make it about you. But I think that, you know, a lot of what motivates me now having four kids is how do you celebrate those children, knowing that it's all going to be messy. it's all super messy and it's okay that it's messy and a lot of these self-help books that i read you know say hey look there's a problem find the solution live in the solution and i go what the fuck you get what about all the stuff that happens in between what about all the messiness and i think bringing it back around to you which is why i love all the stuff that you've written truly all the stuff that you've written, it reminds you again and again how messy all of this is.

38:30There's this concept in stoicism that I don't think is super popular, and I struggle with it, which is this idea of acceptance. Because people go, well, I didn't get where I am by accepting things. But when I think about my own childhood and my struggles with it and why I still have anger about some things today and where it causes me problems is all the areas where I'm still stuck in a place where I'm like, it shouldn't have been that way. It's unfair that it's that way. Why did it go this way? Like if I can get to a place where I'm like, it is what it is. It shouldn't have been this way, but it was.

39:06And now I have to deal with the reality of what it was, then I'm moving forward. But the problem is when I'm still stuck in the unfairness or in the wishing it was otherwise-ness of the situation. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And by the way, that's an AA thing. It's an AA thing of acceptance and accepting it, but not shutting the door on it. Look, it existed. It might not have been great, but it's already happened. What are you going to do about it and if all the energy goes into why couldn't it have been different i always talked to a guy last night he was like i'm not going to tell you who it is but he was like i have this burning when i pee and i was like okay what are we going to do about it and he's like but he was stuck in the why me yeah and i was like i'm going to go down a litany of things just to tell you the stuff that I've dealt with in the last two years.

40:05And you can't live in Wyoming. You're like, this exists. You know what I mean? There was another guy who wrote me last night. It was with his best friend who has stage four cancer. He's going, he's not going to make it. And he went down this list because I do a gratitude list with a bunch of different guys. And I've always loved the idea of having to be responsible to somebody else for a list as opposed to just keeping it in house. And he went and he said, just like, it's all they were talking about on his deathbed, crying, laughing, doing all that is all the shit that doesn't matter. And how obvious it is when you're on your deathbed, truly on your deathbed, knowing that you're leaving a three-year-old behind, which this guy was doing.

40:52I mean, it doesn't get clearer than that. It doesn't get more real than that. and it sounds so morbid, but the truth of the matter is, is that's when you go, yeah, I accept my life, but what, if I look around now, what do I have that there is to celebrate? Not in a denial, not in a delusion, but what do I have? Oh, you and I are doing a podcast right now. I can't get the thing and it's not, Chrome is not letting me do the thing. Well, let's just not fucking do this. And I go, listen, man, I'm so excited about talking to you about things that actually matter to me. And you're talking about kids and you're talking about how to live your life and you're talking about how to embrace your life with what you have, how to celebrate what you have.

41:39It's all good shit. Yeah, I imagine as you tell the story in the book about getting stabbed, as you were bleeding out in Costa Rica, you weren't like, here are the things I'm mad at my dad about. That's not popping into your head. That's not. No, all that's, and to me, the greatest part of that story is when I call the mother of my older kids, Debbie, And I said, listen, this is what's happened. I was in the ambulance, you know, and I said, this is what's happened. Can you do this? She goes, I know what to do. You're going to be fine. And there was something super calm about it. And she had gone through enough chaos with me to say, this isn't the worst of it, brother.

42:17Like, it's all good. You know, I totally I totally relate to that, too, because there is this kind of, you know, women are more emotional. There's all these stereotypes. But my wife is way more stoic than I am. I have to actively practice this stuff. She's the one that is intuitively and naturally stoic. She jokes one of us is a stoic and the other writes about stoicism. But like the reason I'm writing about it and working on it is because I'm fucking terrible at it. Right. And sometimes you need that person who's just like, it's going to be fine. Just it's all right. Yeah. It's what it is. It's like, why are you writing this?

42:51Somebody has somebody read. Somebody said, I don't know. I read it somewhere. I've read, I've read a thousand books and this is the worst book I've ever read in my life. It's like, that's so, I see it as a positive. I go, it's being, it's being reacted to in such an extreme way. And that's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. But would you have rather me not written this book? Fuck you. No, it's like, it's like dumb and dumber. You're like, so you're telling me you read it. You did read it. Right. You know, and I am, I'm working through, which I think I've worked through, not worked through, accepted.

43:26It's not working through. I don't think you work through stuff. I've done a ton of therapy in my life. I was telling somebody that I was working at a place, a story that's in the book, a place in Lower State Street in Santa Barbara called Rocky Galenny's, which was like a mediocre restaurant. It was a lot of fun. One of the greatest bars in the whole town, but that I was working in there and I was using that money and I was seeing a therapist and, and not all the money, but I went and saw a therapist a couple of times because I had the softball in my gut and I didn't know what it was. And I didn't tell anybody I was doing it.

44:03I found a therapist and then I was, you know, another story I probably should have written in the book halfway through the therapy session. I looked over and the guy was like this. He was asleep. I go, dude. And he goes, what? And he defended himself. And I think I was 14 at the time or something. And he said, look, I'm still listening to you, but I work all day and I have kids at night and I'm closing my eyes. I'm basically resting my eyes. Anyway, again all these things that you could take as ruinous to your life i now for several reasons accept is just part of this wacky absurd circus that is pretty fun most of the time i i've never put a therapist to sleep but i remember one time i was talking to a therapist and and i was sort of going on you know about my childhood my parents and she finally goes I don't know what to tell you.

45:07You just, this is what you got this go around. She's like, you didn't get what you were supposed to get. I don't know what to tell you, you know? And it was so, it was so helpful because yeah, it's like what I'm coming in here and talking about is how I wish that it had gone differently. Like I'm trying to argue it into of happening differently and that can't happen. And so what acceptance allows you to do, acceptance doesn't say that it's okay. Acceptance allows you to move on. Like it happened. They dropped the bomb. Should they have made a different decision? Yes or no. We could talk about it all day, but they did do it.

45:45So what happens next? It's all about what happens next. What are you going to do about it? How do you rebuild? How do you rebuild? If you find it catastrophic, how do you rebuild? And yeah, yeah, I agree. I watched your thing on Graham Norton with Cher. I thought it was hilarious. And it made me think there's this story that I love in Seneca. With Seneca, he grows up in this province of the Roman Empire. He grows up on this estate. He ends up in Rome. He comes back later in life. And this sort of childhood home that he grows up with is in a state of disrepair. These trees are dying. There's this old man and he walks up to the old man and he's sort of upset with him for not taking care of the place.

46:30And he's sort of berating this person. And then And then he realizes that the old man is a kid he grew up with. And I'm referring here to the story of Cher confusing you for your father. He realizes that the old man is someone he grew up with, that he was a kid when he was a kid. And then he realizes that all the trees that are dying were planted when he was a kid. And that's when he realizes like, oh, I'm an old man. I am looking in the mirror. And there's this kind of memento mori of like, we think that time is moving for everyone else. And then it's staying still for us. But that's where emotionally where we're at.

47:12So he goes back to that childhood home and he's emotionally the age that he was when he left it. And you go, and how much did you evolve out of that age? And that's one of those great, I mean, it's a great fable where you question yourself of how much have I accepted an entire life trajectory. When she looked at me, and I know there's that other thing too, that you're talking about when she looked at me and the kind of like, it's so great to see again, look, and I was like, I don't know you though. And I just kind of went with it, which I normally don't. I'm normally, if I don't recognize somebody or if I don't know somebody and they go, hey, how are you?

47:55And I go, I don't remember where did we meet? Or I try to be honest. about it. But you know, it's, it's chair. So you're like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to run with this. But more than that, we had, we had such a ball. We had such a great banter. And she's talking about me being her boyfriend. And I said, look, it's not over yet. You never know what can happen. And whatever it is, this 78 year old woman who was so, what I got from her is this mischievous and playfulness with it all that I really adored. Again, just another great example of somebody who has taken a life that's been all over the place, you know, and had major trauma in it and major moments of having to accept something that's out of her control that she could have pretended that she could control and didn't.

48:51And what came out of it was this woman, this 78-year-old woman who was so attractive to me in every way. I mean, literally. I mean, she looks great, but it was this vivaciousness that, you know, it was, you know, Kira was great there and Michael was great there, but it was all about me and Cher.

49:16Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, That would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

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