518 | All Black Everything

Music Music Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing that you're feeding your greed Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it Yes, welcome to the Minimalist Podcast Or rediscover what it means to live a meaningful life with the less. My name is Joshua Fields, Millburn, and joining me here at Erthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California is my good friend T.K. Coleman. Hey, man, let's job our loves today. Who can talk about that? That was quite the controversy this weekend when we were at Sunday Symposium. We have several surprises for you today. Ryan Nicodemus is going to be joining us toward, well, later on, page one and also on page two. But joining us in the studio today, I stumbled into an Irishman on the street in Ohio this weekend. And I said, can we keep him? And here he is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show, our returning champion, Peter Rollins. Thank you, guys. I was wondering the lonely streets of Ohio, homeless in need, and you brought me in. So thank you. Well, you know, you were doing this event with our mutual friend Rob Bell. And you were doing like a live podcast in Ohio. And I brought my wife there. She thought we were going to go see Henry Rollins. And yet Peter Rollins was there and she said it was even better. She's so glad that she got a chance to meet Peter Rollins. And, you know, the event was interesting. And I was so compelled by it. I want to talk to you a bit about it later on our right here right now, saying, when you were at town, I said, oh, we should meet up for coffee. Let's have lunch. I said, we're doing a podcast on Tuesday. But it feels like Peter's part of the family, right? He's been a guest more than anyone else. The last time someone that was a guest as many times we forced him to become a co-host on the show. So be careful what you ask for. I feel like part of the family, although my invoice is going to be pretty high. Family members doing charge as much as I'm about to charge. So just that, you know, you clearly don't have any kids because I can assure you they charge you a lot more. That's all right. Yes, they are quite expensive. Can I propose a nickname for Peter if you ever really decide to start a second podcast? I think you should be referred to as the PR machine for philosophy. Oh, that's brilliant. You should, I should buy that off here. You want 10%? No, I don't need it because that's brilliant. Just buy me the Starbucks special edition coffee cups and we're good. Good luck. You better off just paying a percentage right now. Professor Sean and I last week or maybe a couple of weeks ago, Patreon asked us to work out a gift guide to recommend our five favorite creators on Patreon. We had the right, like a pithy one line summary for each of them. And I think off top of my head, the one that Sean and I came up with was if Shopenhauer was a show runner for a sitcom about pyro theology, it would star Peter Rollins. Oh, that's beautiful. That's my tagline. I've got the name. I've got the tagline. We're helping him out with branding today. Is it brilliant? No, who's getting the invoice? I don't know if I can afford you guys. You know, when I asked him to come on the show, he's like, what's the topic? And I'm like, well, it's minimalism, I guess. I wanted to bring you into our world. We already had an episode prepared and I thought some of these questions here. I'm really interested to see how you might answer them. What value you can bring to the table and what perspective you can bring to the table for these folks because we got to talk about why minimalists often wear black clothes all the time. He didn't get the memo. We didn't like send him a fax. But he's wearing a beautiful black outfit right now. And so maybe you are indeed a minimalist. Yeah. And in fact, I can confirm that. If you go to his house, he owns next to nothing. Yeah. And it's like beautifully curated. And I can tell you that like he cares about aesthetics in a way. So maybe we can dive into that as well. We also want to talk a bit about emotional decluttering. The concept of dopamine dressing. Some tips for reducing social media scrolling and much, much more. Also on page three, you're going to love this one, Pete. We'll discuss eight things that my favorite writer, David Foster Wall, has tried to warn us about. He tried to warn us about our dystopian future, which is now our dystopian present that we're stuck in. And we're going to talk a bit about that as well. But let's start with our callers. If you have a question or a comment for our show, we would love to hear from you. You can join the show, the phone numbers 4062197839, or email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at the minimalist.com. Let us know if you're a patron subscriber so we can prioritize your message. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisement suck. Yes, they do our first question today. It's from Pascal. Oh, wow. From back from there. One of my favorite philosophers. Hello, the minimalist disease Pascal from Switzerland, engineer. My question would be, what's the first thing that pop up in your head when you think about emotional decluttering? If you can give us an example. And I have a second question. It's more, I guess, personal. Why do you guys always dress in black? Is it because it's just easy to have everything in black? Or is it like we can call it that style for your brand? Thank you for the opportunity. And I will keep following you. What you do is great. Bye-bye. Well, first off, Pascal. Can my wife borrow your accent? Just for a while. That would be wonderful. I want to talk to you about the, why do we always wear a black? We can get to that. But this first question I thought was really interesting, especially since we have Pete here. Emotional decluttering. Now, TK wrote a book called Emotional Clutter. It's free. People can download it on our website. Just go to the minimlusts.com. Click the resources tab at the top. We have a bunch of free resources there. There's also an audio book version of that as well, which I recorded with him. It was like kind of a mix between an audio book and an audio book. We did these mini podcasts between every chapter. And he talks a lot about the emotional clutter that we pick up. It's often with our things. Minimalism starts with the stuff. There's a lot of excess things in our life because there's a lot of excess going on in here. A lot of mental clutter, emotional clutter, spiritual clutter, identity clutter. And so when Pascal asks about emotional decluttering, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Oh, yeah, because it's a free is that I use the word, and it comes to your mind. Oh, yeah, because it's a free is that I don't know that well. It conjures up an idea in my mind. So I'll say a couple of things, but you've written the book on it. So I do want to be talking about what I'm just making up on the spot when you've actually thought about this. We love what you make up on this one. Well, thank you. I'll try to make it sign-proof. And the R-Shark scent helps. But I love what you said because the first thought that comes to mind is that the clutter in our physical lives connects with our internal life. That's the thing that we often don't realize, mind and matter are so interconnected. You can tell a lot about a person's personality and what they're dealing with and what they're going through when you see their space. And so that interesting idea of like sometimes I think people, they start maybe by decluttering their material world, but it's really an attempt to try to get some sort of emotional regularity in their inner life. So I like that idea, but I would love to hear your thoughts on what that term means. Yeah, I think what's interesting, TK, is I remember when Jordan Peterson first came on the scene and people were like, we're giving him all kinds of hell because his like first advice for people was like clean your room. But there's something profound about that because our material possessions are a physical manifestation of what's going on inside us. So if I have mess around us all the time, I mean, so I have chaos around me all the time. It's probably a result of some chaos that's going on inside me. And when we talk about clutter, what we're talking about is anything that gets in the way. So emotional decluttering would mean getting rid of those things that are sort of in the way. And so TK, I want to talk a bit about the emotions that we tend to pathologize a bit. And here, and we divinize other emotions, happiness, excitement. These are the things we should have. This is the way it's supposed to be. And then, oh no, grief or sadness. Get that away from me immediately. Yeah, that's right. Well, just because we have a philosopher in the room, I got to just say a quick thing about the Jordan Peterson observation. A lot of people got mad at the clean your room idea because hey, it's so basic. Moms have been telling their children and that for generations. Why is everyone so excited about this guy's if he's saying something new? But there are two types of profundity. One is the profundity of having said what has never been said before or in a really different way. The other is stating something simple in a way that gets people to actually do it. Yes, those same moms who've been telling their kids to clean up their room are also frustrated because they know that it's easy to say it's hard to motivate them to do it. And Jordan Peterson was able to find a way to motivate people to actually do it by contextualizing that parental command with a story about where they are on their hero's journey. And that's an important lesson for all of us, regardless of what you might feel about this particular philosopher or that particular advice. It's not just about the idea, it's about the way we contextualize it. When it comes to emotional clutter, I define emotional clutter simply as the emotional dimension to physical problems. Every physical problem has an emotional dimension. So if I don't have enough money and my job doesn't pay me enough, my expenses are really high, well, I don't have enough money. That's a physical condition, but if I feel like a loser because I don't have enough money or if I feel regret about the choices that I've made, that's the emotional dimension to my physical clutter problem. Or maybe my kids don't pick up their toys and I either have to tell them to pick it up and they get mad at me or I pick it up for themselves and I pick it up for them and I get mad at them. And now I feel really guilty. I feel like I'm a terrible parent. My kids don't like me. That's emotional clutter. Or maybe it's the holiday season and everybody wants all of these really expensive gifts. And I don't want to get them those gifts, but it makes me feel like I'm not a great father or I'm not a great friend. That's emotional clutter. And there are different reasons for why we might have these feelings, but the emotional clutter comes from the narratives that we tell about the physical dimension of the problem. And when it comes to the so-called positive emotions, which is just another way of saying pleasant emotions, it's not like you are a better person if you have these emotions. Sometimes you're excited for no fault of your own, you know, and sometimes you're sad for no fault of your own. But the pleasant emotions are like forms of music that we know how to dance to intuitively or even if we don't know how to dance to them, we can't get them wrong. It's like listening to the YMCA. All you got to do is move any kind of way. And there's no mistake you can make even your uncle who can dance just gets on the floor and it works anyway. And so when we get happy and we feel excited, we don't call our buddies and be like, I don't know what to do. Should I do a fist pop? Should I yell with enthusiasm? You can't get this wrong, man. You're feeling a pleasant emotion. But when we feel jealousy, when we feel angry, when we feel sad, when we feel guilty, we call up our friends and we say, I don't know what to do with this. The DJ is playing some polka. And I don't know how to move to that. I don't know how to dance to that. I don't have any moves. Help me. You know, give me some choreography so I can get back on the dance floor and live my life. And so emotional, emotional decluttering is about helping us deal with those genres of psychological music that make us really uncomfortable that we haven't really learned any moves for. And they teach us how to develop a sense of psychological choreography. And so I often say that minimalism is an eraser of distractions. And I think you can apply that to the dress. In fact, during the lightning round, we'll talk about why we always wear black all the time and why that's not necessarily a prescription for anyone listening to this. We talk about the benefits and maybe even the downsides of doing that. But to me, there's a lack of distraction by dressing simply. But I think with respect to the emotions and the emotional clutter, often those emotions that are unpleasant, they're not bad, but they can become a bit of a distraction. And we can go into a spiral of sadness or grief or maybe the most pernicious one can be anger because that sets a blaze relationships and we can burn our whole life down with anger. But during the live podcast with Rob Bell that you were doing last weekend, you had brought up the topic which you've discussed on this show before is actually embracing the lack. And I think maybe there's a conversation to be had with Pascal about also understanding, I'm not lacking something in this moment or maybe I am lacking and that's okay. Yes, yes. And I'm thinking, you know, the term anxiety in psychoanalysis, there's this idea that anxiety primarily comes from this sense of what does the other want for me? What if the big other for someone you go to a party and you don't know exactly how you should act and you've got this idea that there's a way you should be things you should have a way you should conduct yourself in the world. And the sense of this voice that's telling you that you know, you should be doing something and you don't know what's called the big other, this big other that seems to be telling you that you need to be something do something, have something. And the trick is how do we get rid of that big other that voice that's always that creates a lot of the clutter. So as you said, it's not, it's not your actual life that's causing the problems often this voice that's that seems to be telling you that you should be going out more, you should have certain things you should be doing certain things. And that's where this emotional kind of pain can arise. So sometimes when I feel that I have to go like, listen, there's nobody out there telling me that I should be going out and doing something like that's something internal to me. But this voice can be such an anxiety producing element of our lives that we need to somehow exercise from us like a like a demonic spirit. Yeah. And by the way, if someone a stranger showed up at your door and told you, Pete, I think you need to go out more. You'd like to wait for me. What's wrong with this person? Right. Yeah. And yet we have the stranger showing up in our heads every day telling us what we should and shouldn't do. But it's also often based on the expectations or the prescripts of a society or culture that you're already in a good person does this a bad person stays inside a good person calls their mom every day a bad person doesn't call them. And all of a sudden we have all of these prescriptions that we've picked up and it causes all of this angst and the anxiety that you're talking about. And I think ultimately when we're talking about emotional clutter, we're talking about this low level anxiety that tends to permeate everyone's life all the time. It's a constant white noise in the background. And then from time to time you get the spikes that give you the the I don't know more pronounced negative or unpleasant emotions the fear the the sorrow, the grief and the anger, the rage. These things all come up once I almost feels like we can't we we had we've been unable to deal with the anxiety we've been able unable to sit with it. In fact, we've refused to sit with it for so long that it then boils up into something else. And I feel like I should I be want if I didn't bring up the blizz pass call for a second as well because I think blizz pass call has something interesting to say about all of this. Maybe we've talked about him before I'm not sure in the podcast, but Pascal one of the greatest French philosophers wrote this beautiful series of notes called ponce and in the ponce. He has three orders that he talks about that we all exist in the order of the body, the order of the mind, the order of the heart, these are his three orders. The first order is the order of the body and he says that basically we experience a sense of lack in our lives, a sense that we don't have something and then we hope for something that will fill up. We feel a bit miserable and we we then fantasize something that will stop us being miserable and he says how we do that is through what he calls divertism. And this is very interesting because I think it gets to the correct way that we try to relate to things divertism is his perfect example is the hunt where people go white and hunt for say a fox. And Pascal basically gets us to imagine well imagine you're about to go out on a hunt so I decide well you know what you guys are going to go out spend all day chasing this fox so I'll just kill it and bring it to the start of the day and go there you go guys you don't have to go out dress up get on the horses there's the fox. Right Pascal's as well of course you're going to be a bit disappointed yes and then so then I go all right okay now I understand you like to go out and hunt so here go out into the forest I mean the fox is dead but go out and have a blast. I also don't want that. And Pascal says what you want is the correct distance from the fox and sports is brilliant at this because in sports it's not about your team winning because I've seen my friends here in the sports you were talking about a game just before we went on live. And I've seen my friends I've gone to games with my friends and when their team is winning too much they start to lose interest and they only start to get excited again when their team starts to lose so the enjoyment is in the the certain level of distance from the thing but what that covers over Pascal and this is the really interest is that covers over a sense of maybe misery and darkness that's in our lives so we basically distract ourselves with objects with. With these kind of back and forth and it's all to prevent ourselves from looking at the truth which is probably we're all we're all carrying darkness and difficulty and objects on our pursuit of objects can hide that from ourselves but ultimately then. Those peons come out in aggressive bad ways we lose our temper with our loved ones we we sell sabotage and lose our job and don't understand why we did up so our the darkness that we're trying to hide from resurfaces and unhealthy ways for me minimalism can often be a way of removing and maybe this is emotional decluttering removing that cheese that Wiley Coyote kind of chasing the road runner thing long enough that we can admit to the fact that we can't do anything. We can admit to our own loneliness and our own sadness and our own difficulties and as we're able to symbolize those things actually they become lighter and freer so yeah and maybe there's something about replacing the chase with pursuit pursuit meaning I'm not tied to a specific outcome or maybe I'm just being I'm playing here like yeah the basketball game you're talking about it's most fun when there's tension and it's the last five seconds and the game is tied and your team has the ball and and now all the sun is like. There's this tension if there's five seconds left your teams up by 55 you're just headed to the parking lot already because the outcome we already are familiar with part of what makes it fun and exciting and playful is you don't know what the outcome is going to be because if it's perpetual bliss or happiness without the contrast of the so called unpleasant emotions then there is no you can have darkness without the light you can have happiness without the sadness and I can I very quickly tell you an embarrassing story that I. I was in so in LA you know you end up going to someone's house for dinner and the somebody will be there who's like a famous actor or whatever right so I was at a party and. Creasely Bill more was there I heard a bill more and I was we're chatting away and so I made a joke to Bill more the completely fell flat and I have to tell you the joke really is this because we were talking about this and I was I think I was doing some. A couple of stories or something like that and at one point I was talking about this very idea and I said to him I said this when I first came to America you know I wasn't in the sports so I thought I should get into a sport to kind of fit in and I said so I pick basketball and I said but the problem was my team kept winning all the time so the enjoyment kept going down and what was the team called and I said oh there was called the global the Harlem Gloop trovers. I think just always well but Bill more than turn to me said you knew they're not a real basketball. Bill more has serious well actually energy. He will throw a web for a medium he doesn't seem to have a sense of humor. I thought that was a yeah I thought that was a great I thought that was my fight as moment. No. I'm not. I'm like Ooty the generals that you're always beaten the generals you know the generals are almost going to win and then they get destroyed that's actually what makes it fun is the generals are almost always going to win right and if the Gloop trodders were always up by 70 points all game which they could be relative to the Washington generals because it's all scripted anyway what. Anyway pass go I'd love to give you a clutter counseling session with T. K. Coleman maybe you can help you unpack some of that emotional clutter physical clutter identity clutter everything is going on. Behind well behind the emotions you're experiencing right now maybe everything is going on behind the material possessions as well for anyone else who wants a clutter counseling session head on over to the Minimosts.com and click counseling at the top and you can book a session anywhere in the world via zoom with T. K. Coleman pass go I'd love also loves a new copy of everything that remains it's the book that Ryan and I wrote he's going to be joining us here in a moment. Everything that remains the reason I send it to you is you asked a question about black clothes and the very first line of that memoir is our identities are shaped by the costumes we wear. We're all wearing some sort of costumes sometimes it has to with our wardrobe sometimes it has to do with our career sometimes has to do with our material possessions it could be our car that's part of our costume I'm the type of guy who drives a pickup track or. I'm the type of responsible person who drives a Prius like savvy D. And these are all parts of our identity if we hold on to these labels to tightly ultimately becomes identity clutter we're going to talk about that here in a moment but it's my favorite thing that we've ever written everything that remains just turn 10 years old last year We'll send you a copy of that you want the book book or the ebook or the audio book will be happy to send that to you Pascal before you back to our callers and before we get to Nicodemus it is time for the lightning round we answered the Patreon community chats question of the week now Pete this is where we attempt to answer questions of the short shareable minimal maximum people can find this episodes maximums and the show notes over at the minimalist calm slash podcast and every minimal maximum ever at minimal maxums dot com we did something really interesting this week. And we did our pen ultimate Sunday symposium this year was an orange county just a couple days ago and it was a beautiful experience we you know when you go to a Chinese restaurant they give you fortune cookie and the fortunes always like poorly written or badly translated and and or maybe there's like lottery numbers in it and they're just bad right and I'm like fortune cookies could be so so good like the message in here you have the opportunity to spend times at a distilled down to something profound and meaningful pithy some sort of aphorism or parable and so I said I've never liked the fortune and fortune cookies so I guess I have to write my own so we wrote 500 of them and always feel so awkward when you say this because I thought fortune cookies were good are they so bad I'm like yeah you've lived your life by the end of the day he just wants to the paper out needs to cook you just what he's talking about so the cookies good but the it's just not profound so savvy D had 500 of these printed up and we did our Sunday symposium and we said people crack open these cookies and read what their maximum was for that and like it was so weird the people were open and they're like this is the one that I needed of the 500 you made like there was one about devices distracting you or you becoming useless when you're used by the device and and this person like this is exactly what I needed I saw her in the hug line after the van she's like I've got to go home and and really simplify my digital clutter and so like sometimes these message just show up and that's what we try to do with the lightning round here by the way we'll send you seven new maximums every Monday if you subscribe to our email newsletter over at the minimalist dot email whenever send you spam or junk or advertisements but we'll start a week off with a dose of simplicity every Monday all right question of the week this week Pete this is a good one I feel like we wrote this one for you and you you or you knew we wrote this one that's why you showed up like this the question is what's wrong with wearing all black what is wrong with wearing all black now I do want to hear what you have to say about that but let's listen to what some of our listeners had to say Whitney said there's nothing wrong with wearing all black but dopamine dressing is also a thing dopamine I it's first time I heard this term so I look it up she says bright colors are good for your brain or at least for my brain. So when I look this up a dopamine dressing is the practice of choosing clothing that makes you feel good confident and happy based on the idea that your outfits can boost your mood and trigger the release of dopamine a quote feel good hormone it involves wearing clothes that bring joy through factors like bright colors bold patterns or comfortable textures and the key is selecting items that resonate personally and make you feel empowered. Now Pete I'm all for feeling good but might there be some problems with chasing dopamine through constant new world wardrobe purchases and maybe there's some benefits of it too I don't know yeah I mean yeah chasing dopamine in any way with your phone or your clues or your items that maybe gets us back to that Pascal in the street it can be a distraction or I mean I have to be truly honest I distress and blocks I'm very color blind. I'm like for a human being I am a color blind as you can get which isn't too it's just too bad it's not like I see just gray just my philosophy is that but my you know if I buy too many colorful clues I know I'm going to clash really badly so black or dark just mix that not a problem yeah maybe his clothes are mimetic of his philosophy yes and I would actually argue the same thing with me but not from a darkness perspective but just from a simplicity. perspective like it's just so much simpler for me but tk maybe there's a benefit to the wearing bright clothes and it does give you that that burst of dopamine yeah absolutely I mean the difference between a practice being being healthy versus unhealthy is all about do I see this as a collaboration between me and the stimulant or am I looking at the stimulant as the cause in my happiness as the effect so there are lots of things that can affect our moods for the better the kind of music that we play the kind of lighting that's in the room the amount of movement that my body needs and it's good to be aware of these things so that we can collaborate with the elements of nature in such a way so as to optimize our lives but then if we start to use the absence of those things as excuses it's a rainy day I wasn't able to get sun so I'm not going to do my work and I'm going to be a jerk to everyone or I don't have control in this moment over the music that's being played and I would rather be listening to this but someone so listening to that so now I'm going to be cranky about it well in a sense like that I outsourced my power to the thing and I'm no longer no longer collaborating with it but it's a co-dependent relationship where I'm becoming you know sort of like a you know reliant on it in order to be the healthiest version of me and what we hear what we see here with the dopamine you know selection of the clothes and clothing it doesn't sound like it's chasing it sounds like this person has a healthy use of it going on yeah yeah and also like I enjoy wearing the these types of clothes yeah that's the right answer right as long as it's not hurting anyone else right or as long as it's not totally inappropriate for the situation in which you're in and it's going to make you feel awkward you know if you show up naked to a wedding it's going to be an issue right you're wearing a thong like oh but it's my choice no I mean it is but also like you're going to call yourself quite a bit of of problems we show up you you've got the purple polka dot address and that's the thing we're like oh yeah and it and wearing all black can be a soon thing like if you if you're making a movie about a serial killer nine times out of 10 that person's wardrobe is going to be all black and all the same basically it's going to be a Joshua wardrobe yeah yeah yeah not saying anything but I I had a friend who who have another friend who was in a it was a show called mind hunter is a school mine and there was a serial killer a guy who's a serial killer in that and supposedly he was very good he's like I met him he came to my apartment one time lovely guy in the first thing he said I was very proud of this says this is a serial killer's house and I was like just one on a ward in a serial killer and you've seen my my apartment and all the books that are just at the right height and all that is like this is a serial killer I so you know sometimes that can be a tomb problem yeah I think what you're saying is like maybe serial killers have are disproportionately obsessed of compulsive all of them was to yes but like there is a an OCD component all yeah sure right and I mean it's a mental disorder right I mean even though it's convenient for me I sometimes you know consciously just put on a shirt with some color on it when going to church because so many times I'll walk into a church Catholic people be like father my God because priests always wear black or some people be like what are you trying to look like a priest I'm like priest don't even want to look like priest why would you choose me of that but like you said even though this is easiest for me there are some context where it becomes even more noticeable more stands out in an unwanted way it's like the Dave should tell joke but you you go in wearing the full priest out that you got the white color on you like how dare you think I'm a priest just because I dress this way Melissa said I wear black most of the time it's the color that is dressy or casual or whatever you want it to be it also makes me feel somewhat invisible which I really like I think that's at your good point people sometimes like it makes sense it's nice to not stand out all the time oh yeah yeah definitely well I feel like that again not can be a good or bad thing sometimes the something that you mentioned tk actually on this is that weirdly you can you can be a weirdo for non pathological reasons and you can be really normal looking for pathological reasons so for example Lecane use the example of imagine you're really jealous that your partners being on faithful your pathologically jealous and then you find out that your partner has been on faithful you're still pathologically jealous you just happen to be right right so in a weird way like you can then not see that you've got pathological jealousy because empirically something happened that allows you to go oh yeah in the same way you can be a hyperchondriac who thinks you've got cancer and then you find you have got cancer you're still a hyperchondriac you just are a hyperchondriac who happens to have the thing that you think and so it's really interesting to always ask you know yeah what is the saying about me hi I wear my clues what what like is this am I doing in a healthier unhealthy way it's almost like you can't tell from what you're doing it's it's it's your relationship with it that's the interesting thing that's where the yeah the meat is last year I was in Franklin Tennessee and there was the hotel we were staying we were there for some day for Amsy thing and standing this hotel downtown and I went walking to a coffee shop but then there was like this giant like fair thing going on downtown swap meat farmers market all of the things altogether there's some big thing going on downtown Franklin and I'm walking a few people say hi to me hey minimalist guy and this one guy walks up to me and he goes hey I I saw you and I just had to say hi okay great hi and he goes I don't know what it is about you man but you're just so freaking simple in that moment I realized like he is someone else not be a total insult yeah yeah but I stood out because of the simplicity in that moment I realized he has no idea who I am he doesn't know that the minimalist or any of this other stuff he had stood out because I was just dressed so simply and everyone else was and so like in a weird way I was accidentally standing out by trying not to stand out yes would you felt different if he says I don't know what it is about you man but just so damn basic I mean he can only he can only affect my feelings if I give him the keys to my heart TK just says the only thing wrong with wearing all black is when the shades of black don't match oh TK I say every shade of black is beautiful every shade every shade of black is beautiful and says what looks what looks good for one person may not look good for another it depends on what you're going for the world would be a boring place if we all just wore black which brings me to my pithy answer for today if you dress in all black people can still find the color in your personality I remember when we first launched the minimalist dot com 15 years ago today when this episode comes out well people started asking because it is so simple why why is the website so simple there's like there's no sidebar there are no banner ads there's no product placement and it was only 500 pixels wide and tinshises all this white space on the side and all the photos were in black and white and the logo was black and the website was white so the whole thing was monochrome they said where's the color and I would always say the same thing every time the colors and the words and I think the same can be true you can dress in all black and still have your own personality now what that is it can be serial killer yes the serial killer personality it can be flamboyantly you very happy it could be anything the clothes don't have to dictate what your personality is if anything they can amplify what your personality is but for me wearing all black is sort of like just this this clean slate that allows me to have to be me without trying to be someone else Brittany one last one says actually before we do that tk let's talk about this because the the end of of and what she said like it'd be so boring if we all just wore black and I would say what's wrong with boredom why do we pathologize boredom so much I would say it's a natural tendency to try to alleviate or avoid any form of pain that you don't see as leading to something greater even when we do see it is leading to something greater sometimes it feels so intolerable we try to alleviate it but boy boredom is one of those things especially in the modern world where we have such an easy ability to escape it and relieve it it's one of those things that we kind of look at as sort of like a nagging hangover from history and we don't really understand the role that boredom plays at incentivizing us to get in touch with ourselves to think deeply to learn new things and the role that novelty plays and in the process of of developing ourselves and exploring the world what do you have to say about this yeah obviously loves boredom becomes this podcast so much that's why I'm here. Well yeah I mean there's a there's a thinker called be young chow ham who wrote a beautiful book called Burnite Society and there's some nods of acknowledgement in the rhythm so shots a big fan of the tk so very good I don't like Germans. Ah yeah exactly just kidding they're my favorite the most of our listeners are German I think 97% of our listeners are German I love you all very much is he German or see a Korean German Korean I'm Korean I'll write books okay there you go yeah but he you know like what's so beautiful about some of the stuff he writes about is how we're in this world where it's about being an entrepreneur of the self life hack be the best you can be just do it like everywhere there is this message of productivity of seizing the day of being the best you can be in life hack in all of this and you'll be on shaham talks about how the symptoms that come from this being saturated by this message of like maximizing every minute of the day for productivity actually generates burnite fatigue you know exhaustion even kind of ADHD symptoms and things can be exacerbated by this kind of experience and of course he writes beautifully about the virtue of boredom virtue of like of being non productive having a non productive dimension to your life and to your day to try to almost to kind of try to get leave you at some of these very modern symptoms I mean the they're very modern like ADHD and fatigue and burnite these are the symptoms of the present day it seemed to be connected with this every time you look on Instagram it's it's it's sounds wonderful because it's saying you can do everything you can be everything you can be productive be an entrepreneur of the self and it can kind of sound exciting and create but actually it's boredom and non productivity are real virtues that increasingly we have to find a way to carve out you know in the past it was natural because you didn't have all the distractions so you know whether you wanted to be bored or not it would happen now it feels like if you want to be bored you actually have to practice up you have to find rituals whether it's leaving your phone at home and going out for a long walk for ours you know now we actually have to kind of carve out what our parents on our parents parents probably have naturally naturally so yeah yeah in the book when we do the the audio version we have a section there where we discuss a little bit noble boredom I believe it's or Tiga or Tiga Ega set I'm not sure if I'm saying it correctly who said something to the effect that that when we are bored it's because the thing we are observing or experiencing fails to find within us a surface upon which it can land so you're looking at art and a gallery and your board because that art has no surface in your soul upon which it can land you're sitting there at a symphony and you're just bored that music has no surface within your soul upon which it can land and as consumers we make greater demands of the artist and the creators and say find the surfaces that already exists within me and land on that and I will deem your music your movie your art good but we can also be participatory we can be creators and we can say I will cultivate and create new surfaces within myself so that I start to see boredom as a mirror reflecting back to me and opportunity to expand so that I can appreciate what is inherent in the experience yes and this is exactly what Pascal talked about with Divertism which is so contemporary even we was writing hundreds of years ago that he said that this divertism is an attempt to escape the boredom to escape just what I think you actually said you know so how many problems would be solved in the world if we just have the ability to sit in a chair and be you know like but this distraction so I even think because you do you go to a Catholic church is that right yeah I'll in my youth I've always thought of Catholic churches as profoundly boring you go in and then or now you go into a church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to go to church and you're not going to make a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a spends a Sometimes you say it can touch you in a very profound way, but also nothing's happening and the gift of being in one space where I mean there's lots of beautiful things to look at. But ultimately it's almost like a desert in the oasis of life. It's a place outside of the noise and the markets and all of that. There's little desert that we can go into for a bit. Veal the silence. And then we go back into the oasis, but that desert in the oasis of space I think we need and we need to cultivate. There's something virtue to boredom. I'm very good at that. I have to say I have cultivated laziness in my life all my life. And that's why I suppose I do philosophy because I go like I just need ours of unproductive time just to think you know that's it. So yeah, that's the one part of my life that I'm happy with actually there's other areas of my life that I'm not so happy with, but that's that freedom from the voice of productivity. Well, on page two, I think we'll have a six hour debate about the Holy Trinity. I think there's something fascinating about like embracing your boredom and maybe yeah, maybe the black clothes are boring and maybe there's nothing wrong with that boredom. Maybe we need a little bit more boredom because we're so over stimulators. There's nothing wrong with dopamine, but chasing dopamine has made many of us miserable. That burnout makes us miserable. Raabelle was talking about this weekend when he was at the peak of his success. He was so burnt out. He just flew to Northern Ireland to meet with Peter Rollins because he was like everything was going so well, but he was so burnt out. He had all the dopamine, but he was miserable. I love the fact that you've you've told that story. He said he had so much going on, so much success. He just needed to be bored. So we visited Peter Rollins. How about you, Lister? What's wrong with wearing all black? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or in the Patreon community chat. A lot of people communicate over there talking about what's wrong with wearing all black. I love a Brittany said here. Nothing's wrong as long as you're not clinging to the choice of wearing black. I couldn't have said it better myself clinging. Yeah, I think that's the thing. I'm open to wearing other things. People go crazy when I do. In fact, I wore this shirt here. A friend, Jamar sent this to me. His son is like the number one lacrosse player in the country right now. He plays for Ohio State, but this is a shirt he sent me. I was going to wear it, but I was like, people freak out on our YouTube videos. So I'm not clinging to wearing black, but remember episode 400, I wore a purple shirt. And like it's a celebrate. And everyone was like, wait, what's going on? I don't like you like this. And it made me want to lean into it more and start wearing polka dots and stuff. But being a guy in general is a bit like that. So being a woman, you know, you maybe be a bit more creative. A guy just starts wearing a cap. All his mates will be at the poker table. Oh, look at the faulty bar. No, he's a cop man. Oh, I'm just wearing a cop guy. And I'm just saying, guys kind of get more locked in. Oh, look at the guy he's brooding. Yeah, yeah. Just because you're dressed in all black. Well, give me some of the pithy, TK. What's wrong with wearing all black? What's your pithy answer for us? The right outfit is the one that tells the truth about your values. You said earlier that we're all wearing costumes, maybe not Halloween costumes. But the purpose of a costume is to create a perception, experience or a feeling, right? So when it's Halloween and you dress up as a witch or you dress up as Spider-Man, you want to create the feeling of being festive or the perception that you are different than who you are in your normal day life or some kind of sensation or experience that's just important to you. Our clothes are a means to an end. We have values that we want to represent. We have games that we want to play. We have goals that we want to pursue. And we pick our outfits based on the best combination of that. So if you're going for a walk and you want to be comfortable, you might not wear your dress shoes. You might not wear heels because comforts the goal. You're going to the beach. You probably won't wear the same outfit you would wear to a wedding unless the wedding is at the beach, right? And so we all, if I'm going to a job interview, there's a particular game I'm playing. There's a particular kind of effect I want to create on them. And so I'm going to dress differently than how I would when I lay down to go to sleep. And so why is it wrong to wear all black? For the same reason that it's wrong to wear yellow, green or any other color. It's not wrong at all. But when it stops serving you, when the outfit you're wearing no longer reflect the games you want to play, the goals you want to pursue, the values and convictions you want to represent. And you say, I don't like this. I feel like I'm living somebody else's life than the clothes don't fit. And my alternative maxim would be truth fits better than trends. It's not about keeping up with what other people think you should wear. It's about wearing what is true to the games you want to play, the goals you want to pursue in the values you want to represent. That fits perfectly. Yeah, because trendy basically means this is soon to go out of style. That's just a marketing term. Oh, it's on trend, right? It's invoked. It's like, that means it's going to be out of style really soon, right? If you want to flip it around. I also think you made me think about Nicodemus. The other way is to opt out. When he goes to a wedding or a funeral, he just wears what I'm wearing right now, a black t-shirt and some black jeans and some black boots. And he wears really colorful socks. And that's it. And whether it's a wedding or a restaurant or he's just going to go watch a football game, he's wearing the same thing. He's saying, I opt out of your need for me to put on your costume in order to please you. I think that that takes some courage, some courage to be disliked, some courage to disappoint or upset other people, not intentionally. He's not going out to trying to be disliked or trying to upset other people, but also recognizing I can't please everyone with my outfit. I can't please everyone with anything, but certainly not with the clothes that I wear. Speaking of Nicodemus, let's get him on the line. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. Welcome back, yo. That's almost the end of page one. We're still here with Peter Rollins. But join us on the phone right now from Azula Montana, my best friend Ryan Nicodemus is here. Come on, yo. What's up, yo? I'm so happy to be calling in. What a great episode to call in on. I love it. So Ryan, it's funny. The first question, the woman was asking Pascal was her name. She said, did you dress in all black? Is it like style for your brand? And I was thinking like, I never really thought about it that way. It's a style for, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, maybe not consciously, right? It's slimming. That's why I wear it. But why do you look so slim? You know, I told that to someone they were like, I'm a maximalist. I like to put, you know, flare, I like to wear a lot of flare. I'm like, I wear black because it's slimming and he burnt me with, uh, I just like to stay slim. Oh, damn. Oh, damn. Well, Ryan, I wanted to get you on the phone. I would love to have you in the studio for this. But hopefully we'll have you at the end of this month for our final Sunday symposium of the year. We'll talk about that in a moment. But today, the day this episode comes out on Patreon is December 14th, which means 15 years ago today, we launched a little website, a little blog called the Minimists.com. And we, we were both still in the corporate world, Dayton, Ohio. And we had spent some time that year all throughout 2010, sort of simplifying our lives. And mom died, my marriage ended the, the previous year. And I started simplifying. And then later that year in September, you did your packing party. It's where he boxed up everything, pretend he was moving. We featured this. We recreated it in our last Netflix film. And then he unpacked only the things he needed for 21 days. And at the end of that, Ryan, you were just, uh, you had like a, I don't know, this profound moment where you're like, I think other people would, would enjoy this too. And we never thought any of the stuff when we started that blog, we never even had heard of a podcast at the time. Um, did, I don't know if Netflix was even around then. I, we never thought I'd make you movies or writing books together or going out on 11 different tours. Um, but there we were trying to share something that might add value to, to people's lives. And I was wondering, do you have any, uh, fond memories early on from, from that first few months of the minimalist before it was even, uh, it hadn't even like solidified yet? Oh, man. Um, see, yeah, the packing party, I mean, that was definitely like, yeah, a fond memory. You mentioned that, um, but yeah, just looking at that novel experience and thinking, man, this is like not only profound, but it is, it's a very weird experiment and very entertaining. And I thought, man, people are going to get a kick out of this. And so yeah, I'm glad we decided to put that up on the blog. I think one of the first memories that come to mind is that meetup we did in Chicago. Oh, yeah, it was the end of 2010. Like I think it was maybe even December 31st. We drove out to Chicago to be part of a, a meetup. Uh, we met Jay, uh, Jeff and Dave, uh, out there who still are web developer and designer to this day. And Colin Wright was out there and several other people. Yeah, it was awesome. And like, just a very fond memory of that first meetup. I remember feeling very like not worthy to be around the people we were around. But it was very welcoming. And, um, I just remember the one, uh, gentleman who came up to me and he was like, so what are you guys over the minimalist? Oh, okay, cool. Um, and what are you guys doing? And we're doing a blog. Oh, okay, cool. How are you guys going to make money? I remember asking that question. I'm like, I'm like, dude, that's not really where my mind's at right now, man. Like, um, I was like, I know that, you know, there's like, I have a, you know, my friend and I have a book idea. We've got a blog. I'm like, but I'm still working in the corporate world, man. Like I, uh, you know, getting it to kind of late off till the year after that. I'm like, so I'm just kind of doing this as a passion. And I remember I'm being very concerned about it. I forget exactly he was the husband of someone who had a blog. It was me. And he was, yeah, it was a ticket husband. But no, I mean, what it came down to was like, you and I did this out of pure, uh, like just something that we wanted, something that we did, something we wanted to put out in the world. It wasn't a, we have an idea. And now let's put money in the driver's seat and see how we're going to make money. But this gentleman, um, his wife was doing a blog and he was very much putting money in the driver's seat. And, uh, they're not around anymore. And it's not that they couldn't have made it, but it just was kind of like a symptom. His questions was a symptom of, you know, maybe he didn't really believe in what he was doing. If he couldn't make money at it. And, you know, like you said, all the things that we've done since we started this with the podcast and documentaries and books and tours and all that stuff, man, I mean, I love how we have always just put our interests, uh, forward or what we're really, again, just like passionate about. And all that stuff that we've done in the last 15 years has come together. And God, if I would have, if I would have went to him and answered his question with like, well, we're going to do podcasts. We're going to do documentaries and we're going to do tours. We're going to do books like I probably would about out sooner. Like, yeah, yeah. I mean, like I would, as soon as he did is what I'm trying to say. So it's like, yeah, man, I, um, very much remember that meetup and kind of, uh, really feeling good about like, oh, wow. Like it's, this is something we really want to do. We don't have an idea on how to make money with it. But, um, we're really having a good time. And, uh, that's what I looked forward to, which is having a really awesome time, like putting this stuff out there. There was no grandiose plan. There wasn't a five year plan or a 15 year plan. It would have never been able to plan for all of this. And by the way, if you do, and let's say that we had planned literally every single thing that has happened so far, and we achieved every single one of them, well, now you just meet your expectation and now what you, you give yourself permission to be satisfied for a moment. That becomes a different kind of chase. But I would say we were sort of following our joy, following our interests is what Ryan said. And, and these things were interesting to us. There was a curiosity there of, oh, yeah. And yeah, you're right early on. There was like this unworthiness going into that meetup two weeks in Ryan. We see this all the time now when people come up to us after an event. They're like, now I'm not a minimalist. Are we going to their house now just to warn you before you come in? I'm, I'm not a minimalist. I'm trying, but I'm not there yet. And as if we're going to come in and condemn them for their possessions, right? I think Peter Rollins is the, the exception that she goes to his house and he's like, now I am a minimalist. He lives a rubbid in how he's more of a minimalist than I do. I always say that to you when you come to my place, I'm very proud of that. I hide stuff as well so as I can make sure that it's true. He like, this is what I used to do with Ryan is I would force my things onto him. I get in rid of all my neck ties. I'm like, well, how do I have 70 neck ties? Do you know who needs 65 neck ties? Ryan, Nick, do you know what I'm going to do with neck ties? I'll take 60 of them. I mean, it's very hard to sell something, but it's really hard to sell nothing. I mean, you don't go into selling nothing for it to make a living. Yes. But in a way, you're making money from selling nothing. And yeah, which is fast. No, it's true. Well, no, it's funny because there's a New York magazine quote from my mom, where the dude right in the article asked my mom, like, why do you think people, you know, come on, to see your son and to see Josh and she was like, Oh, I know is that my son can sell anything. Even nothing, even nothing, whenever you can even sell nothing. He could sell emptiness to a monk. Exactly. But you know, it's funny though, because she said that in a first, I'm like, God, mom, why do you have to say it like that? But then, you know, I looked at it. And I'm like, she is right. And you're right, Peter. We're selling nothing. And what it helped me see is like, we're all selling something. The question is, what are you selling? And do you really believe in what you're selling? You know, yeah, there's one thing to share with you briefly. Because as I listen to you guys, there's a lecan talks about this idea of like, don't compromise your desire. And what he means by that is not you should basically, there's a thing called a pleasure principle, where you desire comfort, you desire, you know, things that'll make your life easier. Nothing wrong with that. We want a good relationship. We want to make a bit of money. But what he means by desire is that weird quirk of that thing that you need to do, whether you make money or not, whether it works or not, whether anybody listens to you or not, whether you've got 10 people listening to your podcast or 10,000 people listening to your podcast. That thing that really actually disrupts your pleasure. It's the thing that gets in the way of you just leading a simple life. And for people like yourselves, I can see that as like, at one stage, you kind of had the pleasurable life. You were making money, corporate world. You were having those things. But then there's something, and it's not something that anybody could have said to you 15 years ago, oh, you'll make a living from this. Oh, you'll be able to do so. You'll be helping thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people around the world. No, nobody would have thought to think that you decluttering your lives would be something a gift to other people. That's this disruptive dimension. And amazingly, if you're able to, you know, make a living from doing that even better, but this disruptive thing that happened 15 years ago, of course, how could you ever have thought, oh, this is the way, this is the way to be successful. No, this is your quirk. This is your that disruptive desire that you had to follow, that you were livid or die to pursue. And I know for you and for me, for us, what we're doing, if, because there's, there's highs and lows in this, that go like, you know, if in five years time, nobody's listening to this podcast, I know you'll still be doing the same stuff, you know, doesn't matter if there's a Netflix documentary or you're doing it with a few people in Ohio. It's like, this is, this is what you live and die for. Yeah, it was a lot of beautiful accidents along the way. You know, 10 years ago, this month, Ryan, is when we started this podcast. And it was in this little broom closet in at the University of Montana. We rented for $120 a month and they literally took the buckets out of there and put them in a different closet nearby. And we crammed a couple of desks in there. And I think for our first podcast, we had one microphone we were sharing. It was me and Ryan and podcast Sean just crammed into this, this tiny little room. And we just started recording and there we didn't think about monetizing it. It's so weird because we don't like, oh, hey, Ryan, you want to go have coffee? Sure. How are we going to monetize it? Yeah. But it's a uniquely American mindset where it's like, I enjoy this thing. So thus, Ryan, can we monetize those? Yes. And in business, that's the B young chill hand thing. Like, almost like, even if you have lunch, there has to be a reason for it. Like, oh, this will be a productive lunch. And I remember moving to LA and people who do drugs here do drugs to be more efficient. Like back in Ireland, we get drunk to like get wasted and like forget about things in here and we're like, people are getting hired to be more creative, to write that script, to meet baby Jesus or whatever it is. There's like even even drug taking becomes part of the productive process. It has to be woven into being an entrepreneur of the self. You know, whereas just just being having that passion and my advice to anybody is, what's that passion that anyone has? So you've got what you have to do for pleasure, for work to pay your bills, to pay your rent. But what's that we thing that you go, oh, I can't, there's no reason to do that. I just, I care about it. I want to make that music. I want to paint. I want to be a great cook. I want to, whatever it is, and go and yet, and not little voice in your head saying, oh, yeah, but that will never result in being productive and making my life better. Go like, make space in your life for that. Might only be a small space, but make space in your life for that. And sometimes, if you're lucky, that thing can take more and more space, you know, and that's where the real meat is. Not pleasure so much as enjoyment is something richer than just pleasure, you know, it's, it's meaning, meaning purpose. Yeah, yeah, in us finding the meaning, it's not embedded in it. It's not interwoven into the fabric of the podcast. It's us finding the meaning in it. Yes. Yeah. Orion, one thing I wanted to just say about your story that really captured me was when that guy came up to you and was like, how are you going to make money? And he was concerned about you. The thing I heard was that he was concerned about himself and might have been looking to you for answers. Right. How am I going to, how am I going to make money out of this? That's my wife going to make money off of this? Yeah. Yeah, this is exactly right. And sometimes the thing that stops us from doing what you're talking about, the stuff that makes life meaningful is not only the voice within that says, but what if you don't make it? It's also the voice of other people who didn't figure out how to make it work for themselves. And they may come to you and challenge you as a part of the process of dealing with their own resistance. And when we're unable to answer their questions in a way that satisfies them, it can make us internalize that doubt and take it up on ourselves. And it's important to remember that. Look, not everyone's going to make it, but like you said, you got to have a reason for doing things beyond making it. I just saw it an old reel with my future boss, Oprah. And someone she was getting ready to start her show. And someone says, well, what if you don't make it? What if your show doesn't turn out to be big? And she says, that's fine. I'll still be happy. I'll still believe in what I do. I'll still enjoy the conversations that I'm going to have. It'll be nice to have a popular show that lots of people listen to, but I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm going to be fine. And I think that's the kind of mindset that you guys have had about it where you found a way to sell nothing, so to speak. But even in the absence of that, y'all would still be doing it. The question is, you know, would the mics be turned on? But it's not like you wouldn't be getting together talking, you know, every week about these things. Absolutely. You may end up, like I'm genuinely back in the Brim cupboard in 10 years time. Like I think about my own work. I feel like the cat in a cartoon, you know, that's run off the side of the cliff and its legs are still going, but it's not falling, right? But when it looks down, then it falls. And I'm like, that cat's like, how am I making a living doing this? I do want to ask the question because I think if I look, it'll just all collapse, you know? But if I end up back in where I lived in the Keel Street, it's called the Village in Belfast, it's a little, if I end up back there doing what I'm doing, brilliant. Like it's wonderful that I can travel to LA, that I can be in this room with you guys. We can all be doing it. It's incredible. But I know if in 20 years time, 30 years time, we're sitting in a new old people's home and no one's listening to us anymore and we're just still doing our thing will just be as happy, you know? Because it's because it's the passion. And if that shifts, I know in my life, if it shifts and it suddenly becomes, oh, I just do this professionally, that's the time to walk away. You know, that's the time to walk away. But this stuff is like, this stuff is in you. It's part of who you are. It's the essence of who you are, you know? So, I also make it money. There's nothing wrong with that, right? There's nothing wrong with that. If you're lucky, you can get that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to be in the vehicle. It's just like, like we always say, it's like when we put it in the driver's seat, that's when that's when the love for money really corrupts. And it just makes one do what they don't want to do or they're not necessarily joyful to do. Like if Josh and I really wanted to make an NTK, like we wanted to make a bunch of money, we would go to minimalist home tours and turn on, you know, all the ads and promote all the minimalist home products. I mean, that's where the money's at for minimalism right now. But like that wouldn't be enjoyable. That's not what we're passionate about. Yeah, we're always stopped doing this all together and like go work on Wall Street or something, right? And so, like I grew with your point there, like money is a passenger in the vehicle, but it's a drunk driver when you put it in the driver's seat. And this is, there's a philosopher, two philosophers called Deliz and Guatari and they used to write together. And one of the things that they were very good at writing about is I often what we create on our passions get woven into becoming a commodity. And then we start selling the commodity as you know, the thing that will work. But when, so you don't start off making a commodity, you start off doing something because you believe in it, but we live in a system where if you're successful, there's a real, there's almost, and kind of like a tractor payment, it's almost like the darks, the death star grabs your ship and stars to pull you in, it becomes a commodity. And then the money becomes the driver's seat. And it's almost impossible to avoid that. I think what you guys do is an attempt, is a continual pulling away from that tractor beam. You find a way to kind of do stuff and make a living, but you don't do your adverts, you haven't given in to that. You do these free events, you give away so much free content. And it's that temptation that I always have to remind, remember in my head that if I become more successful, for example, there'll always be this, it's not even, it's not a conspiracy. There's no individual doing it, but what I'm doing might become a commodity. And then I start to just care more about the money than the passion. And if that happens, it's not even selfish. It's because your life will become rubbish. The selfish bit is holding on to the passion because that's the real fun. The making money is a, a creative, it happens, but it's, it's the work that that's where all the fun is, you know. Spot on. Well, happy birthday to us, Nicodemus. 15 years today, 10 years on the podcast, if folks would like to celebrate with us, you can just leave us. We don't cop on every podcast. They please give us a five star review. But occasionally we have a big anniversary or something of birthday. That was a good time to celebrate with us. Hop on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify. Even if you listen on a different podcast app, it helps us reach more people. If you leave us a review on either platform that'd be super helpful. Be a maximalist in your reviews. Yeah. Maximum stars. Minimalism in your life. Maximalism in your reviews. Indeed. And Ryan, there's a good chance to be joining us at the end of this month. Yes. On December 28th, it's our last Sunday symposium of the year. And then we're going to take a break for a while. In fact, I'm going to have lunch with Peter after this. We're going to try to sort of reconceptualize what do events look like going forward? And so we're going to take a quick break. So last chance to see the minimalist me and TK and Ryan will be in Los Angeles on the very final Sunday of the year. It is December 28th. You can grab your free tickets while they're still available over at SundaySimposium.com. Ryan, can you stick around for another question in a moment? Absolutely. And I want to throw in there that the only thing Ryan, I have to nail down right now is a cat sitter. So if there's anyone in Missoula listening to this and wants to house sit a cat or if they just want a cat, if they want to just just give them one cat. Absolutely. I know you know how I come to LA at the moment. I dox out for a friend, my friend Elliott who I had a podcast with. They were away for six weeks. So I'll look after your dog. And then another friend said, oh, do you want to look after our dog? So I'm currently in LA because I'm looking after another dog for another friend. And then another friend said, could you look at? So I am now a philosopher, dog sitter. And you know, and yeah, whatever. I'm not so sure about the philosopher, but I'm definitely a dog sitter. And I so I might become a cat sitter. So maybe maybe I should come to Missoula. But I'm the all the same. What's that? Those things the same dog sitter philosopher. Oh, yeah. Hey, man. I mean, or if you like the snow and you like cold, then you get your butt out here. Oh, God. I'm so good. All right. We got much more coming up. Nick Ademis is going to be with us for page two. But first here is a minimalist tip from one of our listeners, one of our beautiful German listeners. Hi, this is Grita from Germany. I have a little trick for everyone who wants to cut down on the time they spend scrolling social media. There's a really cool feature on the homepage of the minimalists. You go to the minimalists.com slash random. And it spits out random articles from their large archives. Whenever I feel the itch to go to Instagram, I now instead open this page and read the random essay that pops up, that does not take a lot of time. Gives me something valuable to think about and has no risk of falling into a scrolling frenzy. Hope this idea helps someone. Brita, thank you so much for that thought for comment. You know, we just published our recent TEDx talk called scrolling is the new smoking. It was funny because this weekend I'm with Peter Rollins and he's there with Rob Bell and they're doing this podcast together. And immediately he starts crapping on TED talks. I'm like, damn, I just came out. That's right. I forgot Yes. Anyway, whoa, I'm all choked up Ryan. 15 years from now. He dies. That would be the ultimate like ends point to the minimalist. Oh, that's how it'd be great. Anyway, it's called scrolling is the new smoking. Wow. And yeah, anyway, TK, do you have a favorite moment from that talk? Because I'm all choked up right now. We got a new. Someone stole my water. We got a new Jordan meme here. Like crying. Crying. I got this sports reference. I get it. I'm sorry. Unless it by the hard and gloop trotters. I know. So sorry. Okay, favorite tip with the new twist is the casino technique where I talk about the importance of thinking ahead of time before you go into the casino, how much you're going to spend, how long you're going to be there so that no matter how lucky you feel, you, when you get to your number, you walk out to do that same thing with your phone. But here's a positive twist. And I just call it plan for quality. Instead of just thinking about it negatively, like, hey, I'm only going to pick up my phone for 30 minutes. Just be honest with yourself about the desire to play on your phone. Sometimes you want to scroll to see what's out there. You don't have a clear agenda or constructive purpose. You just want to find something funny or find something fascinating. Give yourself permission to do that and plan on it and say for the next 20 minutes or for this 30 minute time slot, I'm just going to pick up my phone, fool around and give myself permission to do it. But I'm going to stop at the end of that. And that way, by you stop demonizing your interest in that way, and you just sort of give into it, but in a way that has some structure around it. So you can say, hey, I want to keep my word and end it at this time. But also the knowledge that I can come back and get to do this again keeps me going. Yeah, you know, it's probably worth saying that I agree with all of Peter's take about Ted Talks generally. It's like and it'd be rather I have a lot of hubris say, but ours is different, right? No, I don't necessarily think ours is different, but I do think it illustrates a problem and people are looking for something sort of pithy. But to me, it's been a great on ramp to the broader more philosophical things we do. You know, to talk about something we spent probably 300 hours on that talk scrolling as the new smoking and me and Nicodemus and TK, we had a lot of fun. There's a lot of jokes in it. And like part of it was like just pursuing an interest. We were meeting every single day going through this talk together. SaviD was meeting with us and we were just trying to figure out how how can we add value to better illustrate this problem. So you can check that out. I think it's just the Minimists.com slash smoking. If you want to check out the Ted X Talk for anyone else has a list or tip or inside about this episode or any other episode, you can send us a voice memo, just like Brett has did podcast at the Minimists.com. You don't have to be from Germany, although we do prioritize those messages. Nicodemus, I love you. Santa for his mentoring messages. Ryan Nicodemus.com. It's good to hear your voice, brother. As always. Yeah, I love you guys. We love you, man. We love you guys and thanks for having me. We love you, brother. Always. Anytime. See you. All right, so up next page two, the rest of page two and page three, but first let's take a quick pendiculation break. We'll be right back. All right, child, that is the first 34% of episode 518. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two hour. Actually, it's almost three hour maximal addition because, of course, Peter Rollins is here. We're going to answer a bunch more of your questions. How can I make letting go feel more effortless? We also talk about turning your weaknesses into a superpower there. That was a really helpful conversation. Should I cut off my friend if her behavior gets in the way of my peace? Also, how often does a minimalist change their underwear? Nicodemus had a good answer for that one. Plus, we got a million more questions and simple living segments over on the minimalist private podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, 10 years of archives over there on Patreon. Shout out to our special guest today. Peter Rollins is here. Yes. Check out his Patreon.com slash Peter Rollins. You can also go to PeterRollins.com. Check out his YouTube channel as well. A lot of free seminars up there. Peter always has such a pleasure to have you in the studio, man. It's a pleasure to be here. I always know you're free to have me. Our audience absolutely loves you. That is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Erthing Studios for the recording space on behalf of Ryan Nicodemus T.K. Coleman, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff and Dave, Jordan No more, Tom Kat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team. I'm Joshua Fields-Mulburn. If you live here with just one message, let it be this. Love people and use things because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.