Materials, Community & The Value We're Forgetting

Tim · 0:01
No, I'll do yours. Reggie, what did you think about this episode? What was your favorite part?

Reggie · 0:04
And you know, my favorite part was how everybody at some point, um, brought up that we need to put more— we need to appreciate our materials more and, and give them more purpose.

Tim · 0:19
William, what was your favorite part?

Reggie · 0:22
I really loved exploring how something as seemingly minor as materials can affect our lives in a million ways.

Mary · 0:29
And I had never really spent a lot of time thinking about that before the podcast.

Tim · 0:32
That's awesome. Mary, did you find one?

Mary · 0:35
I loved learning that I've got the most ideal tortilla hookup in Costa Rica.

Tim · 0:41
Cat, what was your favorite part?

Cat · 0:44
I really liked that moment where Tim turned it dark. Like, we were like, we're gonna take this path. We're gonna take it.

Mary · 0:52
You can count on Tim for that.

Tim · 0:54
It's funny because my favorite part was when Cat started talking about how she was helping her cousin prepare an altar for a death in the family. So it's kind of relating to the darkness, but it was so bright to me to hear this story.

Reggie · 1:06
I loved that.

Mary · 1:07
Yeah, that was great.

Reggie · 1:08
Detective.

Cat · 1:19
The name of the bad person on EastEnders, which is like a British soap opera. Her name is Kat Slater?

Reggie · 1:26
Famous.

Mary · 1:28
Titanic.

Cat · 1:30
She's like the meanie. So like, I'm gonna— like, when we— if I go to the UK, I always like, like introduce myself as Kat Slater just to see if they like—

Reggie · 1:38
Oh, that's awesome.

Cat · 1:40
Spelled wrong, but whatever.

Reggie · 1:42
I felt that. Yeah, through my body, through my soul.

Mary · 1:54
I am supposed to be hosting today and I've forgotten how to host.

Reggie · 1:58
Oh, there's no— it's— you wing it every time.

Mary · 2:02
Welcome to Age. Hi. This podcast where we pull a topic out of the trash can and discover its relevance in our lives, professional and otherwise. I'm Mary Greene. I'm joined by Tim Scroggs, Cat Slater, and Reggie Tidwell. Cat, thanks for being here. Thanks.

Cat · 2:22
Thanks for having me.

Mary · 2:23
Oh yeah. What's your impression been so far? How's it going, you think?

Cat · 2:29
We've just gotten started.

Mary · 2:30
Yeah.

Tim · 2:31
Okay.

Reggie · 2:31
So good so far?

Cat · 2:32
Good.

Mary · 2:34
Neutral. I feel like there are a million things I need to update you and our enormous crowd of listeners on. This is my first episode back from a very long vacation, but I'm gonna save it for another day. Should we? I'm just gonna go ahead and—

Reggie · 2:50
Unless the topic is Japan.

Tim · 2:51
Japan.

Reggie · 2:53
Then it's the perfect—

Mary · 2:54
You do the honors.

Cat · 2:54
Oh, there's a lot of weight on this.

Tim · 2:57
Yeah.

Mary · 2:58
Juju.

Tim · 2:58
Ooh.

Mary · 3:00
And then we usually— you unroll it and don't show anybody and then go show the camera.

Reggie · 3:03
I'm not looking.

Mary · 3:05
Oh, it's a good one?

Cat · 3:09
Okay. So I'm gonna show the camera, right?

Mary · 3:15
What was it?

Reggie · 3:16
All right, what is it?

Cat · 3:17
Okay, so the topic is materials.

Mary · 3:20
That basically is Japan.

Reggie · 3:21
That, and also we were just talking about you being a cobbler, and I literally used the word materials because I said if you made shoes for me, you'd need a lot of material.

Mary · 3:31
Just, you know.

Reggie · 3:32
Yeah, we'll just tuck it.

Mary · 3:33
Hold it close to your heart.

Reggie · 3:34
Put it close to your heart. Who put in materials? That's an interesting one.

Mary · 3:37
I love that though.

Cat · 3:38
I like that one.

Mary · 3:39
Um, what comes to mind? Cat, when you think about materials, just the word, what's your first association?

Cat · 3:46
Like good quality materials, like fabrics or paints or leather or things to make things with.

Mary · 3:57
You might've just said this, that Cat has a dream of perhaps one day becoming a cobbler.

Cat · 4:02
Yes.

Mary · 4:02
And making shoes.

Tim · 4:03
Yep.

Mary · 4:03
Materials. I went to the same place pretty much, but you were like, what if you pull Japan? And one of my big takeaways from Japan, I think you had, sort of primed me to be thinking this way because Tim also took a long journey to Japan, was around materiality. Like even just the difference between staying in a hotel in Japan and staying in a hotel in Seoul, Korea. It was like the Korean room was beautiful, but it was all like vinyl, like wallpapers and things. It was just, it looked nicer. But when you looked too closely, it was kind of a sham.

Cat · 4:39
You're like, ooh, Monet.

Tim · 4:40
Yeah.

Mary · 4:43
But in Japan, it just felt like everything was so real and so like made out of natural stuff. And there's a peace that comes with that, I feel. But that's also where I—

Cat · 4:53
There's a culture of protecting material in Japan too. Like clothing lasts longer. You're very caring and careful and fix it and store it well. And yeah, because they say like vintage shopping is really great in Japan.

Tim · 5:07
Yeah.

Cat · 5:08
For that reason.

Mary · 5:09
Nice.

Cat · 5:09
Clothing is well kept.

Tim · 5:11
I bought a pair of jeans in Japan and they told me never to wash them.

Reggie · 5:14
You're not supposed to wash. Really? Never to wash them?

Tim · 5:16
The way you wash them is this very specific bathtub soak in cold water, and you're only supposed to do it 3 times over the life of the jeans.

Reggie · 5:24
Seriously? So you have to choose your washings strategically?

Tim · 5:28
I'm stressed. That's their material. And these jeans are the most intense jean denim.

Reggie · 5:34
Have I even seen them?

Tim · 5:35
Hard, dark.

Cat · 5:36
I'm upset you're not wearing them.

Tim · 5:37
What?

Cat · 5:38
I'm upset you're not wearing them. I know, right?

Tim · 5:40
These would've been perfect.

Reggie · 5:41
I don't think I've ever seen them.

Tim · 5:42
Yeah, they're dark and I roll them up because when you buy them, you have to really think about how they may shrink because they do shrink a lot, like by 3 sizes or something.

Reggie · 5:52
Oh, wow. So you have to get like 2 sizes bigger.

Tim · 5:54
Yeah, the waist was huge. And then after the first 2 soaks, it shrunk down.

Reggie · 5:58
Wait, so you're already 2/3 of the way of the washing?

Tim · 6:01
Well, you do the washing in the beginning and then you just let them ride.

Reggie · 6:04
All right.

Tim · 6:05
And there's such an intense green.

Reggie · 6:06
So you're given 2 washes.

Tim · 6:08
Yeah.

Reggie · 6:08
You get 2 courtesy washes.

Tim · 6:10
But I'm kind of more of like the Levi's broken-in jean guy.

Reggie · 6:14
Yeah.

Tim · 6:14
And so I don't really mind if I wash, overwash them. Yeah. Yeah. Never put 'em in the washing machine, but I don't wear them, wear them to any like crazy, um—

Reggie · 6:23
How many times have you worn 'em since Japan?

Tim · 6:25
Probably like, I don't know, tons.

Reggie · 6:27
I feel offended that I haven't been privileged enough to see you in these jeans. What the heck?

Tim · 6:32
They were expensive jeans, but someone said you can never buy—

Reggie · 6:35
Yeah, I guess.

Tim · 6:35
You never buy Japan— Japanese denim is some of the best.

Reggie · 6:39
Yeah.

Cat · 6:39
You didn't even wear them. It has a cult following.

Tim · 6:42
And the maker stamped the inside of the jeans.

Reggie · 6:44
What? You didn't even wear them for your birthday. Your special birthday when you had your bling on.

Mary · 6:49
Your birthday jeans.

Tim · 6:51
I'll bring them out when I need to.

Cat · 6:52
Wait, when you had your bling on? I need to hear this.

Reggie · 6:54
Oh yeah, the birthday bling. Oh, it's tucked away somewhere.

Mary · 6:57
It's tucked away somewhere. Yeah.

Tim · 6:58
It's a big old chain.

Reggie · 6:59
Dylan, one of our designers, and Mary, I guess Dylan, this was all Dylan, went and got him this big huge chain with like, Did it say birthday?

Cat · 7:08
Something.

Reggie · 7:09
Something on it.

Mary · 7:10
We surprised him on his birthday. He thought—

Reggie · 7:13
and he maybe thought he was meeting something.

Mary · 7:15
He thought he was meeting like a prospect, like a prospective client, and it was just us.

Reggie · 7:20
It was just us at All Day Darling there to have a happy birthday breakfast.

Mary · 7:26
You handled it well.

Reggie · 7:27
I think what comes to me— comes to mind for me when I think of materials, and you guys may or may not know this about me, but when I was getting my BFA in design, in graphic design, my first 2 years were spent as an interior design student.

Mary · 7:40
You mentioned that to me.

Reggie · 7:41
And so materials in that world was a big deal. You know, it was all about like, you geeked out over materials because finishings and materials were like, yeah, that was like a big part of it. Yeah. And I still like geek out on that kind of stuff. I'm not too far away from it.

Mary · 8:01
I am some— I have ordered a few pieces. Like, we have a downstairs apartment in my home, and we have med students as kind of our pipeline to keep that downstairs apartment filled.

Reggie · 8:12
Nice.

Mary · 8:12
And they typically, they come to Asheville and they don't want to bring a lot of furniture because they're just going right back to where they are in school in Chapel Hill.

Cat · 8:19
Yeah.

Mary · 8:19
And so we've had to furnish the downstairs apartment quickly. It was a really small space. We were looking for things online, modular stuff you can take apart and put together again. But everywhere that you go look, they'll send you like 50 potential fabric swatches. So I probably have, because I was doing research, I probably have like over 100 little fabric swatches at my house and I can't get rid of them for some reason.

Cat · 8:44
You can make something with that.

Mary · 8:44
That's how I feel. My family is like that. I'm like, no, there's a use for this somewhere resourceful. But—

Reggie · 8:50
What comes to mind for you, Tim?

Tim · 8:52
I just think of raw materials. Like in their close to original state before they're made into anything.

Cat · 9:00
Wait, say more.

Tim · 9:02
Pure. It's just the material. It's like the base layer.

Reggie · 9:06
Yeah.

Tim · 9:07
The thing that could be something.

Cat · 9:08
Like a giant wheel of copper.

Tim · 9:10
Yeah.

Mary · 9:10
Oh yeah.

Tim · 9:11
But I used to, I used to be a furniture repairman and so—

Reggie · 9:13
Oh yeah. Yeah, you did.

Tim · 9:14
I had a lot of material and parts and I took apart a lot of made things. And so when you start to see it in pieces, you see how the thing is made and the material, the wood and the fabric and the metal, it's just all ore and animal and plants.

Mary · 9:34
Does that make you feel really capable when you start to look at just the pieces that you took apart and you get to remake it?

Tim · 9:39
Yeah. And it's like the layers of fabrication and creation. But for me, the material is before it's something. The state.

Reggie · 9:49
2 other things come to mind, and I think you were— you're involved in both of them. Herman Miller, New York. Remember they had the swashes? Oh my God, the leather swashes were so cool. And I think the gate let us take one. Yeah, I have one in my house somewhere, but we were at Herman Miller.

Cat · 10:05
You don't just hold it constantly.

Reggie · 10:07
I know, right? Oh my God, they had so many great, like, fabric materials for us to, like, play with. And then the other one is one of our clients, Center for Craft, has this whole like materials display for like textiles and stuff. And it's really cool. We've actually helped sort of design what that space looks like to attract people to it. But the cool thing is you have all these little drawers, and you open them up and you can like pull really tactile, tangible things and play with them and feel them. And it's so cool when you have it at that level before it's made into art, before it's kind of like what you were saying, it's at its essence before you take it and make it something else.

Mary · 10:53
The idea that you can take that and rather than trying to hide it under a bunch of other things, my favorite designs I think are the ones that really celebrate that and shine a light on it. So cool. Is there anything that drives you crazy about this word?

Reggie · 11:09
cheap materials like polyester and—

Mary · 11:12
Synthetics.

Reggie · 11:13
Synthetics, yeah. Stuff that like doesn't let your skin breathe and stuff that looks cheap. Pleather, like, frick, like cars. Like what was I— there's a— we were just talking about, there's a whole movie theater I used to love going to. They had all these like really nice, seemingly nice, like theater chairs put in. And now the pleather is like peeling off of them and nobody, I don't wanna go there anymore 'cause they, it's kind of gross. Yeah.

Mary · 11:44
It just like the durability's just not there.

Reggie · 11:46
Yeah, just not there. It goes back to what Cat was saying. It's like the quality of materials.

Cat · 11:51
It, it does make me somehow I do make the jump from materials to like fast fashion. Yeah. And it does make me think of like, the beaches full of disposable material too. Like it does have like that.

Reggie · 12:06
Yeah.

Cat · 12:06
That impact on nature feel to me. 'Cause like when I was talking about like wanting to be a cobbler or wanting to, like, I do love a good material, but like you can repurpose material. Good material lasts a long time. If it was like carefully and thoughtfully made, it could have hundreds of years of life, but the fast fabric world. And I don't know if y'all have seen the, like, there's a ton of documentaries about stuff like this.

Tim · 12:37
It's a big deal.

Cat · 12:38
Yeah.

Tim · 12:39
I think Patagonia started that re-wear or the re— what's the actual name? I can't remember, but you can bring in your old Patagonia and then it can go to someone else.

Reggie · 12:49
Oh, that's cool.

Tim · 12:50
As the material being high-grade material.

Cat · 12:52
Are they the ones where you can buy the old ones on, like they have, Yeah, there's a lot of brands that are doing that.

Tim · 12:57
Right, of the used materials.

Reggie · 12:59
It was Patagonia that I first learned that certain jackets were made from like crude oil or some, there's some kind of material that's made from like crude oil. And Patagonia was like, no, we're not gonna do that 'cause that's gonna end up in our environment somewhere and it's not a good thing. But I can't remember, it was like a really popular like jacket style. Or something that—

Cat · 13:23
Like a puffer jacket. I could see the nylon.

Reggie · 13:25
Maybe it was puffer jackets, but it was something that Patagonia was known for having in their lineup that they made that was better than everybody else's because it wasn't made from crap, basically.

Tim · 13:40
Yeah. Yeah, I lived through the '90s when materials took a dive. You know, countertops were made of plastic.

Reggie · 13:46
Oh yeah. For a minute.

Tim · 13:47
Tupperware came out and—

Reggie · 13:49
Tupperware. Oh my God. You remember Tupperware?

Cat · 13:50
Yeah. But that stuff is still around.

Tim · 13:52
I know.

Reggie · 13:52
It's still around and it still has, pasta stains.

Mary · 13:56
Yeah. Well, and slowly poisoning us. Microplastics.

Cat · 13:59
I think I have to sign my life away to borrow Tupperware from my mother-in-law.

Mary · 14:03
They come in these sets.

Cat · 14:05
Don't take it home.

Tim · 14:06
You buy a set.

Cat · 14:07
No, no, no. Like, I have to leave my child collateral for the Tupperware. There has to be collateral because if that Tupperware does not come back with the lid.

Mary · 14:15
Yeah.

Reggie · 14:16
With the right lid. Very important.

Tim · 14:18
Exactly.

Cat · 14:19
I'm not trying to start something.

Tim · 14:24
I just feel like in modern aesthetic, you feature the material in its materiality. You don't try and make something look concrete if it's not concrete. You don't try to make something look like wood. I used to lay floors just out of high school right when I got married, and this new type of floor called Pergo, which was a floating floor.

Mary · 14:43
Oh, God.

Tim · 14:44
It would just bother me so much to have to install this stuff because it was basically plastic Maybe a thin layer of wood. Cardboard? Plastic, cardboard, rubber, and then it lays on this foam.

Mary · 14:54
Yeah.

Tim · 14:55
And it's like you're walking on this, what looks like a wood floor, and they say you can't destroy it. It's the most durable thing. They're preaching all this, trying to sell it. But you walk on it and it feels hollow, literally. It's like air under it. You can tap on it like a little drum.

Reggie · 15:10
That sounds awesome.

Tim · 15:12
I'm sorry.

Mary · 15:14
First get your house painted before we redo your floors, Reggie. It's so cheap.

Tim · 15:20
It just feels like you're walking on this floating surface, and it was called a floating floor. And I was so bothered by that as a 20-year-old, 19-year-old. And I think the material could be what it is. And I think when we feature material in its beauty, I think they do this in Japan, they feature mistakes in material, imprints, the the record of life. Like, if you have a top that's made of marble, the scars it takes, how it's affected by us living around it, that to me is the magic of material. But when you start to make it something that's perfect and fake, then I'm— it drives me insane.

Reggie · 16:01
You're like, I'm out of here.

Tim · 16:02
To see fake material.

Reggie · 16:09
If anybody has a burp, now's the time to do it because he's going to cut this up.

Mary · 16:26
I was thinking as you were speaking, and everything's going to be about Japan for a couple of weeks. I'm so sorry. As it should be. It really was a humbling experience to go to a nation that clearly everybody believes that things are going to get better. They're like, I'm going to try. I'm going to try. What do you think?

Reggie · 16:48
We're all collectively trying and there's progress.

Mary · 16:52
I hope so. That they really seem to be in relationship with material. And fast fashion takes me there too. I heard this woman online talking about, she's actually writing academic papers about domesticating pieces of clothing. Like you get a new piece of clothing and you bring it into your wardrobe and it's sort of foreign for a minute. You don't know how to style it.

Cat · 17:14
Oh, I totally—

Reggie · 17:15
yeah, yeah.

Mary · 17:15
You're trying to figure out how it works with all the other things and you have to sort of get it out and try it in a few places and then it becomes part of your life and it can cohabitate.

Reggie · 17:25
It becomes familiar.

Mary · 17:26
Right. And I think there's something about bringing any sort of— I'm going to say the word living, although I guess we don't think of raw wood as living or fiber in material for clothing as living, but I see it that way, derived from something that is of the earth and was alive. I think there's some religious or spiritual connection to that stuff if you choose to walk that path.

Tim · 17:53
Yeah, there was someone that said, do you believe material can hold emotion?

Reggie · 17:57
Absolutely.

Tim · 17:58
And they said no. And he says, do you keep things that your kids draw? And he's like, why do you keep that? Because they put love into it. And you're like, that's the point.

Reggie · 18:07
That's the point.

Mary · 18:07
My mom's sister, her name's Donna, became a weaver sort of late in life. You've got seamstresses and all these. This is my only claim to fame is Donna. Thank God you're here. She, after a very long corporate career in curriculum design, she did one of those I'm quitting, I'm blowing my life up. I'm going to pursue what I've always wanted to pursue. I think her undergraduate degree was in something like textile arts or water basket weaving. Something similar. Yeah.

Tim · 18:40
Classic.

Cat · 18:40
And classic.

Mary · 18:42
I think she did have like, there was a business angle that she just never pursued, but she bought a huge loom. My family moved it into her little— she lives in Micaville, North Carolina, and she just started weaving and she started taking classes and she describes her relationship with She calls it fiber. She doesn't call it thread or whatever other types of materials she could be using. She doesn't refer to it by the process name. She refers to it as fiber. And she sees it as derived from a plant. She's following mentally back to its original source state. And she's so interested in how to create better weaving material from living things, plants. And she spoke to me about the meditative state that she gets into when she's weaving. You're taking the shuttle across and it's just this repetitive motion that you're doing over and over and over again. And she said, I can tell how I was feeling when I was weaving based on the product that comes off the loom.

Reggie · 19:45
Oh, I believe that.

Mary · 19:46
And she said, I can feel, I think everyone can feel the maker. In a piece of craft like that, if it was really handmade by another human. And I wholeheartedly believe that.

Tim · 19:57
And I don't think we're— I don't think we're holding on to that as a reality because our materials are so— we take material for granted in our culture.

Reggie · 20:06
Oh, I think we absolutely do.

Tim · 20:08
I asked my little niece, she was— we were at a family thing and she was doing her knitting, crocheting. I don't know what it is.

Mary · 20:14
2 needles or 1 needle?

Tim · 20:16
2 needles.

Mary · 20:16
Knitting.

Tim · 20:17
Yarn. She was knitting. She was making this circle of some cool design, and I was asking her what it was. She didn't know yet. And I said, if you charge someone $10 an hour to make this, because she's made herself a sweater, how much would it cost them?

Mary · 20:32
So expensive.

Tim · 20:33
And she's like, $1,000. And I was like, imagine how much we miss on the value of material, on what it takes to make a pair of jeans or a sweater. or a shirt or a blanket or a backpack, but we just have these things like fast fashion. They're so readily available and cheapened to the point of like 50% off clearance sale. Like, that's easy.

Cat · 20:57
I love a good deal.

Tim · 20:57
I do too, but like imagine having that deal so often in your— it's kind of like food as well. Like you go to the grocery store and you get something that's made in another season, in another place, flown in and ripened, and it's there at your disposal. But you don't realize that that food comes out of a system or a rhythm or a pain, like a suffering someone has done to bring that to you or to make something for you. And so the materials, it's— if we truly owned material or thought about where material comes from, even to take down a tree, if anyone's chopped down a tree—

Mary · 21:33
Oh my gosh.

Tim · 21:34
Just chopping it down and getting it off your land is enough work to ruin anyone's back.

Reggie · 21:39
Oh yeah.

Tim · 21:39
But now imagine planing it and running it through the mill and getting it to a point where it can make you a table. You know, like if someone— and you make a table and it's like, your dad made this table.

Cat · 21:50
Oh yeah.

Tim · 21:50
It's way different.

Mary · 21:51
We're using Uncle Carl's tray over there.

Reggie · 21:54
It's like, oh yeah, it's a—

Tim · 21:55
there's heritage.

Cat · 21:56
Somebody has attachment to that.

Tim · 21:59
Totally.

Cat · 22:00
What if it doesn't speak to you the same way as it did to your parents?

Mary · 22:04
Right.

Cat · 22:04
If it's stylistically off, because generationally we're right there, right? Like the boomer generation was a generation of of gathering, of collecting, of— and some of this stuff is really well made. And it was like, yeah, symbols of what they had accomplished. I don't want it all.

Reggie · 22:23
Yes, like some oak.

Cat · 22:25
I'm going to openly say that I don't want it all.

Tim · 22:28
This '80s oak table that's got the spindle chairs.

Cat · 22:30
Which could be beautifully made with wonderful material and it needs no part of my home.

Tim · 22:35
Right.

Cat · 22:36
I don't need china.

Reggie · 22:38
Right.

Mary · 22:38
And it's so hard to have that conversation about, hey, I want to honor this, I'm not at all trying to downplay what this is. And also, you can't force-feed me this.

Cat · 22:51
The Swedish Art of Death Cleaning. Have you read it?

Mary · 22:53
No.

Cat · 22:55
Maybe I need to give it to you. I do love a good organizing system and method, and it's kind of a thing I follow a lot of them. I don't believe that any one of them is better than the other, but Marie Kondo came to mind when you were talking about the quality of something. Feng shui comes to mind. where you're talking about the relationship of you and material or people and material and the space they're in. I do believe your space affects your life.

Reggie · 23:20
Absolutely.

Cat · 23:21
Which also means I don't want your curio cabinet of, of china that I like. It's just not functional for me anymore. As a true— like, I like function, I like form, I like it as a combo.

Tim · 23:35
Yeah.

Mary · 23:36
Yeah.

Tim · 23:37
But are you sure you'll never like it?

Cat · 23:39
Am I sure I'll never like it? No, I have no idea who I'm going to be in 5 minutes.

Reggie · 23:43
You have to keep it in the garage or somewhere until you're ready for it.

Cat · 23:46
I don't. I rent a basement.

Mary · 23:47
Or until my house is big enough for all this huge antique furniture from a time gone by.

Cat · 23:51
The stress and the cost of keeping things.

Reggie · 23:54
Oh my gosh.

Cat · 23:55
Until, until you may or may not be ready.

Reggie · 23:57
We just spring cleaned our garage maybe a couple months ago now. But we had— we've been in this house since 2019, and the garage was just filled with stuff that I hoped we'd get around to using or whatever. And there is nothing more freeing than making an on-the-spot decision of the value of something and then letting it go.

Tim · 24:25
If you love it.

Reggie · 24:25
Putting it into a big dumpster or putting it in the car to take to Goodwill, like, And now my wife can park in our garage for the first time in 6 years that we've been living there. So it felt really good to let go of stuff.

Mary · 24:40
Got something you're still holding on to? Anything that comes to mind? You're like, this is the thing that I can't let go of yet?

Reggie · 24:46
I don't think so. After that process.

Cat · 24:48
I'm a notorious letter goer. Like, to a fault.

Mary · 24:54
I get criticized for this in my family.

Tim · 24:56
For throwing things away and getting rid of stuff?

Mary · 24:58
Yes.

Tim · 24:58
Did it come out of reading this book you mentioned?

Cat · 25:00
No, but it was justification. I mean, I'm 100% sure our relationship— I shouldn't have tapped that, but I'm 100% sure our relationship with stuff is intergenerational. It's multigenerational. It's often trauma of some sort or impact of some sort from whatever my parents lived and whatever their parents lived and all this stuff. So I do know Like, my dad has a thing with stuff. Like, he, he— like, more is more. So growing up with more is more means I'm a— I don't want that. Like, I don't need 10 watches.

Tim · 25:38
Clutter.

Cat · 25:38
Yeah, I need one really nice one that I like, that I wear all the time, and that's all I want. Yeah. And so I, I want less. So then it did get me into that idea of like, what does this mean? Like, what is this? So I started reading like different organizations, like different books and the theory behind it. And, you know, like, and our stuff impacts us. And when we have too much of it, we don't know what to do. It gets in our way. And I, like, I actually made our whole household go through the— I can't believe I'm divulging this.

Reggie · 26:10
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tim · 26:11
This is—

Cat · 26:11
yeah, I made our whole house go through the Marie Kondo method because I was so curious. Like, does it spark joy? And I absolutely had like a 5 or 6-year-old at the that I made her go through her wardrobe. Like, that was one of the steps we took. I did, like, I spent a whole weekend with her. But after she decided what she wanted to keep, we never fought in the mornings.

Reggie · 26:35
Oh, that's awesome.

Cat · 26:36
Because every article of clothing— she was an epic dresser. Like, I had to let go of my idea of what she should look like.

Mary · 26:45
Yeah.

Cat · 26:45
Much earlier than most do.

Reggie · 26:47
Independent. I love it.

Cat · 26:50
And so, but we no longer had to fight. And the only rule was it has to be weather appropriate and then everything else you get to decide. And like, yeah, that's a good rule. Epic as some of these outfits were, I now miss them. Yeah, but we didn't have to fight. We didn't have to fight. I didn't have to make her wear the thing that she hated.

Reggie · 27:09
Right.

Tim · 27:10
Because she chose it.

Cat · 27:11
She chose everything in her closet and it all sparked joy.

Tim · 27:15
Why were you embarrassed to say Marie Kondo?

Cat · 27:17
Because it was a thing. That was a time. It was a moment in time.

Reggie · 27:23
Has it passed?

Tim · 27:24
Oh yeah. People give you heat for mentioning her name.

Mary · 27:27
And yet I didn't even— I watched the whole Netflix series when she was doing it.

Tim · 27:31
Of course. Oh, that's early on. But now she had kids and she's come out apologizing to people for putting so much pressure on them to be perfect.

Reggie · 27:38
Oh, I've heard this. I heard that she—

Tim · 27:39
But people were giving her a lot of heat They're like, why would you fold a shirt that way?

Reggie · 27:42
Right.

Cat · 27:43
Well, why wouldn't you?

Mary · 27:44
But in Japan—

Tim · 27:44
Why wouldn't you? It's perfect. Do you do it?

Reggie · 27:46
Yeah.

Cat · 27:47
I still fold that way. I still do.

Tim · 27:49
It works in the drawer. It's functional.

Cat · 27:50
And then I pull out my drawer and I just—

Reggie · 27:52
Like folding towels in thirds instead of in half, which doesn't seem to work in the least.

Mary · 27:58
Well, it does take a little longer when you're doing laundry, which in a lot of households is like a contentious thing to do.

Reggie · 28:03
This is why I fold all of mine and my wife's clothes, because I'm the one that And really finds value in having it be organized and uniform as opposed to just throwing them in the drawers.

Cat · 28:16
You are inevitably coupled up with someone who is the opposite.

Reggie · 28:20
I know, right?

Cat · 28:21
That's exactly right.

Reggie · 28:22
Which is why we know our lane and we are the ones that are doing the folding.

Cat · 28:26
Leave the laundry alone, I will take care of it. He cannot fold 2 towels that are exactly the same in the same way in a row. Like, that's just, that's just not going to happen.

Tim · 28:34
I can't either, but it's not my fault. My mom was left-handed, I'm right-handed. So I fold both ways now accidentally.

Reggie · 28:39
Oh, how funny.

Tim · 28:40
Seriously, it bothers me because I'm a perfectionist. And I fold the towel, I'm like, damn it, why did I do that? And then I fold it again. I'm like, damn it, it's the other way. I don't even know what way it's supposed to go. Shirts, the same thing. Underwear, all of it. It's like one side, one side, the other.

Reggie · 28:53
But before we get too far away from it, I wanted to bring up that I think clutter— I mean, it's easy to look at someone's space and see clutter. And you're just like, oh my God, how do you live like that? But I think about my mother-in-law who has all of this stuff around her. And every single part has some kind of sentimental value.

Cat · 29:14
It does bring her joy.

Reggie · 29:15
Yeah. And it's— and while I see it, I'm like, oh, I could never live that way. I understand that it's the only way she can live because being surrounded by these things that bring memories back into her life of her husband that passed away and all these things. or what sustains her. And so it's helped me have an appreciation for people's stuff that I don't understand. Yeah.

Cat · 29:43
They're hints, right? Like they tell you very quickly what that person values.

Reggie · 29:47
Yeah.

Cat · 29:47
Like if I come into, you know, I worked in a very large organization where everybody had their little office or cubicle and I could walk up to somebody and go to accounting 'cause I needed to ask a question. And if their little cubicle had all these pictures and tchotchkes and knickknacks, I immediately knew, like, I should be asking you about your family.

Mary · 30:06
Yeah.

Cat · 30:07
And your pets and your grandkids because all of these things are telling me that about you.

Reggie · 30:12
That these things are important.

Cat · 30:13
Right.

Reggie · 30:13
Yeah.

Cat · 30:14
So that you're leading with this information and what I value in my home is not and should not be the same as what everyone else values in their home.

Tim · 30:23
I just feel like shows like Trading Spaces.

Reggie · 30:25
Oh man, I used to love that show.

Tim · 30:27
I know everyone.

Cat · 30:28
Trading Spaces.

Tim · 30:29
Well, everyone loved it at the beginning. HGTV.

Cat · 30:30
And then we saw behind the, curtain and it's so bad.

Reggie · 30:33
One of my friends in Asheville was on that show.

Tim · 30:36
Right.

Reggie · 30:36
And it didn't go well for them. Bad material.

Tim · 30:40
Oh yeah, bad materials. But then you also Magnolia— Magnolia—

Reggie · 30:44
Oh yeah, what's her name? And the husband and wife.

Tim · 30:46
Chip and Joanna.

Reggie · 30:46
Yeah, yeah.

Cat · 30:48
Shiplap.

Tim · 30:48
Yes. Yeah, Shiplap, the Shiplap Show.

Mary · 30:51
Oh, but her warehouse. Have you ever seen where she goes to style the home?

Reggie · 30:54
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Mary · 30:55
She's surrounded by—

Cat · 30:56
She's also a genius.

Reggie · 30:58
Yeah, I think she is a genius.

Tim · 31:00
What I think— what I feel about that is it's put on. It's all put on. Like, you walk into anyone's styled, designed home and it looks like a set.

Reggie · 31:09
Yeah.

Tim · 31:09
I don't get any personal story in it. I just see somebody putting on— Maybe they don't have personal— private. Yeah, maybe they're private.

Cat · 31:16
Maybe that person cares about aesthetics.

Tim · 31:17
But my mom wasn't— she's not— well, she puts a lot of pictures up, but I just get— and the more money you have, there's the more— the greater the ability to design it the way you want it. order a couch from wherever you want.

Reggie · 31:28
And the more money you have, the less stuff you have. Isn't that interesting? Like, it's— well, to some degree, it seems like a lot of people, as they get more money, they do have more of a minimalist approach. Things are—

Cat · 31:38
I hear more money, more problems.

Tim · 31:40
But less stuff.

Mary · 31:42
I hear more money, more opportunity to outsource. Like, I don't know that the people who have— you've seen like the Architectural Digest interviews.

Reggie · 31:50
Oh yeah.

Mary · 31:51
Remember the one? It kind of, in my circles, was really funny. Dakota Johnson was giving a tour and somebody had come in and prepped her home for this interview.

Reggie · 31:59
Oh yeah, of course.

Mary · 32:00
And there was just a bowl of limes and I think it caught her off guard how many limes were in her kitchen. She was like, and this is my bowl of limes. And you're in the moment, you're being interviewed and you're like, what does this bowl of limes say about me?

Reggie · 32:14
That's not mine.

Mary · 32:16
So it feels like that to me. People are giving up that part of their lives because they don't see it as valuable, or maybe they think somebody else's taste is more important in that moment than their own. But I don't know.

Reggie · 32:29
No, I could see that. There's this level of artificiality that is in that world.

Tim · 32:39
Yeah. There was an interview with the founder of Telegram who's worth $15 billion. And he just admitted on the interview that he doesn't own anything. He has no land. He has no real estate. He has no jets. He has no cars. He says, my number one goal is to be happy and free.

Mary · 32:59
He's all liquid.

Tim · 33:00
And everything that you own is one layer of heaviness that you can't get away from.

Reggie · 33:05
Yeah. It's anchoring you down into place.

Cat · 33:08
Right.

Tim · 33:08
And I was like, oh my goodness, these assets that we hold, these But are they roots?

Mary · 33:14
And I was going to say—

Tim · 33:15
I mean, I don't know. This guy's from— he's not from America. He's— where is it? Romania, I think. I can't remember. Yeah.

Mary · 33:22
But my family—

Tim · 33:23
It's a totally different culture up there.

Mary · 33:25
I completely connect with the thing you said about intergenerational relationship with material and things and trauma. And I'm from this area, from Appalachia. There is a lot of discussion within my family about who holds what land. Because we feel this need to stake a claim and be present so that it doesn't get taken from us.

Reggie · 33:48
Ownership.

Tim · 33:49
It's even the fallacy that we think we can own land. Yeah.

Mary · 33:53
I don't even think—

Tim · 33:54
Land is ownable.

Mary · 33:54
I don't think it's that we want to own land. I mean, probably some of us. It's more just that we want access to the land. And if you don't own the land, you are not guaranteed that access.

Reggie · 34:05
Yeah, that's a good point.

Tim · 34:06
Do we want to share it though? You can have access, many people can have access to the same land, like public parks and national forests.

Mary · 34:12
But there are rules of engagement, right? Like, I'm happy to share the land provided that everybody's treating it with respect and cleaning up after themselves and contributing to its upkeep and that kind of thing.

Tim · 34:22
I grew up in the South too, and more times than not for me it was, get off my fucking land.

Mary · 34:27
All the time.

Tim · 34:28
And it had a gun involved. So it wasn't like access, it was more like—

Mary · 34:32
He's rolling up to fix your couch.

Tim · 34:34
I have dogs protecting it.

Cat · 34:37
As a Costa Rican, I have a hard time understanding that. That's still one of the things that I'm getting used to. And I grew up in the US too, but y'all, we have no army. We are not—

Tim · 34:51
Not a militant nation.

Cat · 34:53
We are not that. I would go knock on the ladies. I mean, I wouldn't even knock. If I'm in my mom's town, I'd be like, oh, Look, that tree has really good mangoes. Like, if it's in the front of the house, I might like knock and be like, hey, can I, you know, steal one? But if I, as a child running around with my cousins, we're not knocking on the door, we're just climbing the tree and enjoying the mango.

Reggie · 35:12
Right, right. You know why?

Tim · 35:14
Well, my opinion of why is I think that there's a scarcity in America and people feel like they don't have enough. They don't have enough food or land or space or— and I think in Costa Rica, From what I know, a friend of mine owns like 100 acres or something over there. It's an abundant land. The trees, the mango tree will produce so many mangoes. Everyone in the community could take mangoes and it would still have mangoes on it.

Reggie · 35:40
That's awesome.

Tim · 35:40
We don't understand how infinite—

Cat · 35:43
I don't know. I don't know.

Tim · 35:45
His land is, but he's up in the mountains, so he's not down in the city. I'm not sure what the scope is.

Mary · 35:50
He owns a bunch of land. He's protecting it.

Tim · 35:52
Well, I mean, he is protecting it, but it's a jungle. So he's got chocolate trees and banana—

Reggie · 35:58
Cacao trees.

Tim · 35:59
Cacao, chocolate trees.

Reggie · 36:00
I like chocolate trees.

Cat · 36:01
What comes to mind for me is that as we're talking about the many generations, there is some amount of colonialism and ownership and we wanted the company.

Mary · 36:13
We always come back to this eventually.

Reggie · 36:14
I know.

Cat · 36:15
It's made its way into our— who we are, right?

Tim · 36:19
Yeah.

Cat · 36:21
So is that what that is? Is it maybe just like, I'm protecting the thing I came in to put a stake of claim on, and then people who are naturally from this land don't see it as ownership. They see it as the tree offered mangoes and we climb it and get it, right? That part of my family absolutely has indigenous roots. So like, I know they don't see land in the same way and my generation does.

Mary · 36:49
Yeah.

Cat · 36:50
Like, we have the thing about the grandparents' house and there's— I come from a giant family. It's like my mom's one of 12. So there's like 12 sisters trying to decide what they're doing with one piece of land. It has changed 10 times in the last 20 years. Yeah, ours too. And every time I'm asked about it, I'm like, just leave me out of it. Like, I don't want to have this discussion or argument or relationship with my family. But I do think that what we're experiencing is from that colonialism, is from that stake of claim in land that is really not ours or theirs or anybody's.

Tim · 37:26
It's nobody's.

Cat · 37:27
And that, like, there is that shift in Costa Rica too of people coming in and buying up land.

Tim · 37:32
Oh yeah.

Cat · 37:33
And then like, I need to protect this. And people from this area can't— I had to leave the town I was in. My mom is from an area called Guanacaste. I had to leave the town I was in to find tortillas last time I went.

Reggie · 37:45
Oh, wow. You're like, what the heck?

Mary · 37:48
Where am I?

Cat · 37:49
Excuse me. I had to go past a French bakery and a creperie and something else to leave the town to just find a flippin' tortilla.

Reggie · 38:02
That's crazy.

Tim · 38:04
Maybe that's where it comes from then, the stealing of land.

Mary · 38:08
You talk about national forests and access and everybody having space there, but didn't Pisgah get established because the Vanderbilts moved down here and acquired a ton of land and then gave it to the government?

Reggie · 38:21
I didn't know that.

Mary · 38:22
So if somebody didn't come down and stake a claim— I'm not saying that this is right or the way that it ought to be, but I'm saying in America, that has been the tradition.

Reggie · 38:31
And—

Cat · 38:31
That is what conservation was.

Reggie · 38:34
Yeah.

Cat · 38:34
Yeah.

Mary · 38:34
I don't know how we get out of this cycle now, but—

Reggie · 38:37
I have a different perspective about the land thing. So like me, I grew up really poor on my grandmother's retired teacher's pension. And we had a house that was maybe, I mean, God, that house was, as I think about it now, and I've driven back by and looked at it, it maybe was like 800 square feet. Like tiny, tiny house. And I now own a house that's like almost 4,000 square feet on an acre of land. And so there is— With a pool. With a pool and a basketball court. And there is, there is a, there's something in it for me. Like there is this sense of like, I came from here. And now I'm here, and it's something that I revel in to some degree. And I also share it. It's not mine. It's mine, so there's this sense of ownership and pride, but it's also because I am so generous. It's not worth anything if I can't share it with anyone.

Tim · 39:45
But isn't that the American dream, to own a house and land?

Reggie · 39:49
Totally. I think that's part of it. And growing up in an environment where I thought I would never— I didn't know if I would even have I have that because of—

Tim · 39:57
So try to imagine not having that as an expectation of a successful life.

Reggie · 40:01
Yeah.

Tim · 40:02
That's just what we're trained to want.

Reggie · 40:05
It is what we're trained to want.

Tim · 40:07
So now if you don't have a home, you're like, what are you doing with your life?

Cat · 40:10
Everyone wants a home base.

Tim · 40:11
I'm not sure. There's nomadic people that have always been around.

Reggie · 40:16
I will say this too. Now having been a homeowner and knowing how much it costs to maintain a home, Me, me and one of my best friends back in St. Louis have this saying, NBAH, and it's never buy a house.

Cat · 40:30
Yeah.

Reggie · 40:31
Because it's like, you know, $30,000 French drain, you know, all the things that you can continue to put money into. And then it makes me think of all the beautiful places I've rented from the time I left home to the time I bought a home, and how all I had to do was call somebody and say, yeah, dishwasher broke. And then 2 days later, a new dishwasher gets installed.

Mary · 40:57
This to me brings up this huge issue, in my view, around stewardship. And you don't have to have individual people owning it until something breaks, and someone has to take accountability to repair that or to care for the materials. And I have this sense, maybe we're just jaded because we don't own things, but as a renter, I see people just kind of like, it's not great, I don't care, that's the landlord's problem. And I understand that mentality, and in fact, I kind of support it in this climate, especially if we're getting— if the rent is so high, it sort of seems like there should be some service and support provided in that. Oh, yeah.

Reggie · 41:40
Absolutely.

Mary · 41:40
But how do you get out of this mindset of we have to own and control everything, and yet also still maintain these wonderful public works or services that we want to have?

Tim · 41:50
Yeah. I don't know the answer to that.

Reggie · 41:53
Cut.

Tim · 41:57
I do feel like once we turned homes into assets of investment, we took away the essential need for someone to have a home.

Reggie · 42:05
Yeah.

Tim · 42:06
A shelter.

Reggie · 42:06
Exactly.

Tim · 42:07
We made it—

Reggie · 42:08
This is where buying it all up is an investment.

Tim · 42:09
Why are homes valuable? Why are diamonds valuable?

Reggie · 42:12
Why is a Ferrari valuable? And why are there people that can't buy a house, yet there's people that have 5 or 6 houses?

Tim · 42:17
Right, exactly, because we make them scarce.

Reggie · 42:19
Yeah.

Tim · 42:20
So when you take an asset that is essential to life, part of your needs as a human, and you make it something that now you have to work your entire day and night for, to own and take care of. I think we've removed the intrinsic value of what a house, what a home is, and turned it into this asset. I think that that's ruining our sense of home. You could be at home in an apartment or in a tent or in some kind of RV or in an Airbnb. There are lots of places to feel at home.

Mary · 42:54
Yeah.

Tim · 42:55
But when we turn everything into an item of of value, it becomes the wealthy's.

Reggie · 43:01
It becomes something different.

Cat · 43:03
Yeah, like you pick your materials based on maybe resale value versus your preference.

Tim · 43:08
Exactly.

Reggie · 43:08
And a home is literally just a collection of materials. That's exactly right.

Tim · 43:12
Right. And then people take these homes and they, you know, paint the walls gray and put the same cabinets in and put a really durable countertop. Yeah.

Mary · 43:20
And it kills me when it's like you're planning your house for the next person.

Tim · 43:25
That's why it's hard for me to rent.

Mary · 43:29
But like the idea that you're not going to make any choices about your home that you are occupying for whatever extended period of time, you're not going to put forth or assert your own expression into the home because you're preparing already to let it go. You're preparing for whatever comes next.

Reggie · 43:45
Yeah, that's right.

Mary · 43:46
It just feels like being in a relationship and being like, well, this isn't going anywhere.

Reggie · 43:50
So it's like a rebound.

Mary · 43:51
Yeah.

Reggie · 43:52
Yet you're not putting—

Cat · 43:54
when you're making those decisions, I— a term that drives me crazy is I bought my forever home. Girl, how do you know?

Reggie · 44:01
Yeah.

Cat · 44:02
How do you know what happens tomorrow? It's not your forever home until you have been there forever.

Reggie · 44:07
Yeah, right.

Cat · 44:08
But the forever home is then designed in a very particular way. Yeah.

Mary · 44:13
I think everybody should have license to change their living space in any way that they want to. However, this concept of, yeah, I'm gonna be here until I die, I just can't. My parents lost their house in Helene and they just finished sort of renovating and rebuilding with a ton of assistance from a lot of different nonprofits. And the whole time they were doing it, I was questioning it. I was like, is this—

Reggie · 44:38
Is this the right move?

Mary · 44:39
Is this how you wanna spend this chapter of your life? Is this the mode that you wanna be in? And I was really asking questions about, Do you want to just live in an RV and travel?

Reggie · 44:49
And they were like, shut the hell up. We're your parents.

Mary · 44:52
I think—

Reggie · 44:53
oh yeah.

Mary · 44:54
Oh yeah. But I think there was this sense of like, no, no, no, this is our place. This is where we belong. And so either we're going to build it—

Cat · 45:02
How can you not rebuild?

Mary · 45:03
Yeah, is how it felt.

Tim · 45:05
I think we're— I feel like we're going to experience a major shift because I don't know that the next generation values materiality. I think their life is in the digital frame. I talked to my son and I was asking him what he wants in his house or in his life. And he says, I think if I just had a room with a bed and I had my computer, I think I'd be fine. I'm like, oh my goodness. This is what turns it— they spend so much time. And listen to this, Google names their design system Materials.

Cat · 45:36
What?

Reggie · 45:37
Oh, really?

Tim · 45:38
Material system. Yeah. And it's the digital space, the material in the digital Interesting. He buys skins for his gun in his game, which is a material added to his design, added to his gun. It's like Trading Spaces, they paint the walls or put wallpaper on. He puts wallpaper on his gun. When the time is spent in that abstract space, the material in that world becomes more valuable than material in your physical world.

Reggie · 46:04
What age? That generation, for sure.

Cat · 46:07
This goes as young as 6.

Tim · 46:10
Animal Crossing.

Reggie · 46:11
And my kids with Roblox and also Minecraft.

Tim · 46:15
Minecraft materials.

Reggie · 46:17
Get all your materials.

Cat · 46:18
I wasn't ready for that.

Reggie · 46:19
Yeah, no, that's a, that's a reality.

Tim · 46:20
But I think we as adults in our generation, we don't value digital materials the same way. I think, I think in our industry we do, because when someone looks at a website, they're looking at the materials of the website, looking at like—

Mary · 46:32
Well, and we're attuned to that.

Reggie · 46:33
Yeah, but we're not paying for And then we're not paying a premium price for this type of fabric or pattern versus another when we're doing a website. But in that world, you are.

Tim · 46:45
But if an artist makes the background of a design—

Mary · 46:47
If I know that a person made it, maybe.

Tim · 46:50
But what if AI made it?

Cat · 46:51
Oh, you can tell.

Tim · 46:53
What if AI can make the fabrics, your jeans?

Mary · 46:57
And I think it will.

Cat · 46:59
Yeah, I'm not ready for that.

Reggie · 47:00
Yeah.

Tim · 47:01
What if— does it devalue it? Because right now you have machines, some type of maybe more clunky of a machine making clothes.

Reggie · 47:08
Yeah. Fabricated, mass produced.

Mary · 47:11
But a human touched these. I can tell you for a fact that a human touched these.

Tim · 47:14
There's not enough technology yet.

Cat · 47:16
Yeah.

Mary · 47:16
We're just not there.

Reggie · 47:17
Yeah.

Tim · 47:18
I don't mean to harvest the materials at least.

Mary · 47:20
Yeah. Or to transition it from one machine to the other machine. It's got dark.

Reggie · 47:25
Yeah.

Cat · 47:26
I mean, it's got dark.

Mary · 47:27
Your son is young.

Reggie · 47:29
I was going to say, do they grow out of it? Do you think he'll still have the same frame of mind when he's He's in his late 20s.

Mary · 47:34
And add to this, as you answer, consider that I think when I moved to New York, I had a similar point of view. I was like, I don't need much. I'll be at work most of the time anyway. That's why I moved here. Your space does change your psyche. I think what you surround yourself with does have an impact on your emotional state.

Reggie · 47:50
It absolutely does.

Cat · 47:51
Sorry.

Mary · 47:52
Well, I just bonked my microphone. So I wonder if he will find out through the attempt to live out that life path that he actually doesn't.

Cat · 48:01
You also haven't lived long enough with a thing, right?

Mary · 48:05
Like, yeah, like it hasn't held memories for you.

Cat · 48:08
It hasn't quite held memories for you yet.

Reggie · 48:11
And I can tell you, when he meets someone that he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and they're like, take me back to your place. Like, yeah, check out my room with my computer and my bed. And they're gonna be like, that's when the change happens.

Tim · 48:23
Revolution.

Mary · 48:24
And he's grown up with parents who, I think you and Megan put a lot of stock in that. You care about the environment in which you live. And so he's probably accidentally—

Cat · 48:34
it's probably a little rebellion.

Reggie · 48:35
It's too much.

Cat · 48:36
Oh, I'm into this now.

Tim · 48:37
He's like, forget all your stuff and all your control and your expectations of design.

Reggie · 48:45
What if we had to like, what if we hit a big reset button and we said, All right, anybody could have a home. But you— here's your plot of land. You have to harvest the dead trees on the land or the trees that aren't going to survive. And you have to build your home from these trees. And you have to make your textiles from the stuff that's growing.

Mary · 49:09
You're a homesteader now.

Reggie · 49:10
Yeah, yeah.

Tim · 49:10
Dad is a homesteader.

Reggie · 49:11
Yeah, yeah. Like, you have to build it based on what you have available.

Tim · 49:14
There's an author that went out and built a house by a lake.

Reggie · 49:18
That's—

Tim · 49:19
is it—

Reggie · 49:19
I don't know that one.

Tim · 49:20
Or is it—

Cat · 49:21
is that why being a cobbler is my endgame?

Tim · 49:23
It's an old book. It's famous.

Reggie · 49:23
Yeah. 'Cause you can actually, it makes me think about when, when I was the creative director for Warren Wilson College, at one point I was photographing the, they, they had a, I guess it was fabrics or textiles. They, they had a class where they had looms. and stuff. So it was— they were making fiber art. There it is. So they were making fiber. It was fiber, just a fiber class.

Tim · 49:50
Yeah.

Reggie · 49:51
And so they were actually using things that they had— they were growing in on the farm at Warren Wilson College to dye those, those—

Mary · 50:00
Yarrow and indigo.

Reggie · 50:01
Yeah, it was absolutely amazing to like really come down to that level, and it gave me this like immense appreciation for what the outcome was, because I saw how much had gone into it, much to like what you were saying before. It's like, if you know how much time is spent, and how much pain people go through to like make this thing happen, and then you're holding it in your hand, and that was my whole process. Like I saw from start to finish, like where the dyes were coming from, where the materials were coming from, how they spun them and did all these amazing things. And then I'm holding a piece in my hand. And I'm like, this has so much more meaning and weight than when I— if I just walked in off the street and just picked it up.

Cat · 50:46
You know, everyone cares about process.

Reggie · 50:48
Oh, man, I love process. I mean, that's such a—

Tim · 50:51
because you don't have to care.

Reggie · 50:52
Yeah, it's exactly right.

Tim · 50:53
You can go buy anything for a cheap price and know anywhere, anytime.

Reggie · 50:57
Yeah, exactly.

Tim · 50:58
I do think that that leads to a life that is lacking gratitude. Yeah. Because you have depth. You have so much. We don't even comprehend what we have anymore, the level of access we have to everything all the time. Right. These things would have been the property of a really wealthy king at one point in history, and now we have it and we want more. Or we want different. It's not always about more. Sometimes my father-in-law says, happy is the man who wants what he has.

Reggie · 51:30
Yeah.

Tim · 51:32
I like that. Just because someone doesn't have a lot of stuff doesn't mean they're happy with minimal amount of stuff.

Reggie · 51:37
Did he say that when you were a kid? Anytime you asked for something? Can you buy me one of these? Happy is the man who knows what he has.

Tim · 51:44
No, unfortunately I met him when I was older and I had to learn the lesson later in life. But I do think that there is like a gratitude in something that you know was hard to make.

Reggie · 51:55
Yeah.

Tim · 51:56
You know, like a potter throwing a pot.

Reggie · 51:58
Oh yeah.

Tim · 51:59
You see one at Target for $10. And a potter throwing a pot is such— like when my wife bought a Melissa Weiss mug, she's a local potter. She pulls her own clay out of the ground. Yeah, they're like a couple hundred dollars for a mug. And everyone's like, what? You paid what for that mug?

Reggie · 52:12
Yeah.

Mary · 52:13
And they're just precious.

Cat · 52:14
Okay, but I want, I want to throw a wrench into this.

Mary · 52:17
Oh, yeah.

Cat · 52:18
Okay. Making something does give it more value. Sometimes you don't need to be the maker of something.

Tim · 52:25
True.

Cat · 52:26
And I say that like, okay, in a world of design and marketing, right? Like I've worked with large organizations, inevitably you're going to have that person who taught themselves how to make a flyer. And now, and we're talking flyer, we're not even talking big, but they spent 5 days trying to figure out how to make this. So there's a lot of value to them in this flyer.

Mary · 52:50
Yeah.

Cat · 52:51
And they really want to stand behind the value of this flyer. This flyer is not branded. This flyer does not match our design standards. This flyer does not inform the user of what they need. And now—

Reggie · 53:03
You're having to tell them that it's not good.

Cat · 53:06
I'm in a world where I'm like, how do I tell you that is not the value you think it is without breaking your psyche? Because I do care about that. I very early on caught onto this and I was like, oh man, I have to break a little bit of what you just put your work And love and care into. And I try to interrupt that early now. I try to be like, let me offer you help. I'm happy to help you with that. Don't you worry, you're not interrupting me.

Tim · 53:33
Is it a junior designer or is it a client?

Reggie · 53:35
No, it's a—

Cat · 53:35
Or a sales rep?

Mary · 53:36
It's a form and function thing though, right? Like, there's nothing objectively wrong with the flyer until you start—

Tim · 53:42
Oh yeah, there is.

Cat · 53:43
Oh yeah, there is.

Mary · 53:43
Until you start—

Tim · 53:45
There is. There's a bad way to make a flyer.

Reggie · 53:47
There's definitely a bad way. to make a flyer, says the non-designer.

Mary · 53:50
I think that art and function should and can exist simultaneously, but they don't always. It's squares and rectangles, right? And we live in a world where design is paired with function. But if that flyer didn't need to achieve anything, it's not inherently wrong, but you need to—

Reggie · 54:06
Why would you make a flyer if it didn't need to achieve anything?

Tim · 54:09
It's a great piece of art.

Mary · 54:10
Great point.

Tim · 54:10
An art flyer.

Cat · 54:11
A flyer is not art.

Tim · 54:13
I think that makes it a possibility of art.

Cat · 54:17
This flyer is not art.

Mary · 54:18
I feel like this is the debate we had about social media where you're like, well, why do you have to make a post? I'm like, maybe some people make a post for the joy and the love of, you know, we're in it for the love of the game kind of thing. And I know that that doesn't necessarily apply to this, but I'm just saying you are the champion of function in that moment. The reason that you're like, this won't work, aside from like maybe it offends your sensibility and your sense of aesthetic, which is fair, but not— but you are not the be-all end-all judge of what is good in the world. I'm sorry, Cat. And someone—

Tim · 54:50
Oh, Mary, lay it down a little bit.

Mary · 54:52
Oh, Mary.

Cat · 54:52
Whoa, Mary.

Mary · 54:53
But I'm saying, like, with a brand, you're advocating for a need that the brand has. They're like building it to spec. They're crafting it instead of just like making it.

Cat · 55:01
You're worried about the bigger story, the bigger presence that we're talking about. Sure. I mean— And I will say, I've gotten softer over time. I've softened over time.

Tim · 55:13
Life's wearing you down.

Mary · 55:14
I'm open to all possibilities.

Cat · 55:14
And there has been like things that I'm like, you know what? That is not actually offending the brand. Go for it. It has limited viewership.

Mary · 55:22
The scope of what you can destroy right now is insane.

Cat · 55:26
How many people are actually going to see this? What? How much?

Reggie · 55:31
Man, if you have to judge a design, if you— the first thing you think in your mind is, oh, how many people have to see this? That's not a good sign.

Cat · 55:40
I'm putting my judgy out there, right?

Tim · 55:42
I do think if you find someone that makes a flyer for no reason, we'll have a conversation. Every flyer I've seen has a purpose.

Reggie · 55:48
It has a purpose. It has to give a certain amount of information.

Tim · 55:51
If you've ever seen an artist make a sofa and it looks cool, then maybe it's made to look cool and that's cool. But you don't want to sit on it.

Reggie · 56:00
It may not be comfortable or it may not be meant to be comfortable.

Tim · 56:03
So if the purpose is to be comfortable in a chair, or to be comfortable at the dinner table, or to actually set plates on a table that doesn't wobble or fall over, then there is a good and bad objectively perspective.

Reggie · 56:16
Yeah.

Tim · 56:17
Absolutely. A flyer is— I know it's more nuanced and it's more elusive as to exactly how you get something to work a certain way, the purpose of it. We've talked about this in brand. How do you quantify what works and what doesn't, and everyone thinks data can show you, but then someone will break the system and something that's never worked works all of a sudden. I had a friend who was—

Cat · 56:39
People's baddie. Yep.

Tim · 56:40
I had a friend who was doing Facebook ads and he said, I don't see anyone— everyone's being very minimal and like these really short phrases and a picture. I'm just gonna do a long maximum word count post. And so he did this and he got the most clicks he's ever gotten on any of his posts. What?

Mary · 56:56
It's about being different.

Tim · 56:58
Yeah. It stood out because all these little minimal ads and then his was like this wall of text.

Cat · 57:02
I'm stressed just hearing about it.

Tim · 57:05
I know.

Cat · 57:06
I can't wait.

Tim · 57:07
He has such a high success rate and then everyone started copying that move. And so I do think there's a place to break the mold. But, and there was a person that made a LinkedIn post about, listen designers, you can do something different than what the typical UX standard is. And I think that's true, but you also have to suffer the consequence of it not working and not making sense.

Mary · 57:30
And that's where Cat comes in. Cat's like, hey, we're gonna suffer if we put this out. We will suffer. And there's also a brand IP, like we're trying to stake out kind of this is what we're about.

Cat · 57:40
Also, maybe it was ugly.

Tim · 57:41
Yeah, maybe it was ugly.

Cat · 57:42
Maybe it was ugly.

Reggie · 57:43
Or maybe the essential information wasn't on it and people don't know where to show up. Like they don't know what the date is.

Mary · 57:49
Those are my favorite flyers.

Tim · 57:50
Ugly is subjective though. That's what's hard in this industry is that you can think something's ugly and someone else thinks it's fantastic. How do you convey that?

Cat · 58:01
It goes back to that. They put their time and love and effort into making this material that they felt was appropriate for them. There is such a thing about developing craft. There is such a thing as developing a better way of making materials. We talked about the quality of materials and the beauty of it. I went to school a lot like Reggie in fine arts and then ended up as a graphic designer in that fine art. But you still like, the quality of the materials you use does impact the outcome, right? Like if you keep buying that dollar store paint, like it'll run after a while. And so how long did you want that painting to last? Or maybe it's not thick enough and now you have to put additives into it for the paint to move the way you want it to.

Tim · 58:44
But don't you think it's wrong that we're judged because of the materials that we have in our lives.

Reggie · 58:49
Can afford.

Tim · 58:50
Can or can't afford or taste good or bad, ugly, nice, high-end, cheap. We're judged as people and everyone else in the world is judged by their material, the material they can surround their life with. Even though they're made with the same magic of living consciousness that we are, we've developed this frame of design around us that lets other people decide who we are, that lets other people feel free to decide who we are. They're pushing a buggy, they're a worse person, they failed at life. Oh, they're driving a Ferrari, they succeeded, they're someone we should be.

Reggie · 59:24
I just thought about this the other day, and this will kind of go back to one of the things we mentioned on another podcast with like designer clothing. So my wife took my son shopping the other day at Walmart, and God, he got all these clothes that he was so he loved. He had this one polo-style shirt, and instead of like the Ralph Lauren polo, it had this like little guy on a horse that was like a different kind of style. And he loved it. He could— because he hasn't been ruined in that way. And I just made me—

Mary · 59:57
Brainwashed.

Reggie · 59:58
Brainwashed, exactly. He made me think about when I was his age and all the kids were wearing polos and eyes odd. And if you had anything other— there was like Garanimals, you got laughed at if you had a hippo on your shirt or something. And I was just like, I love this. I love that he doesn't have to worry about that. And I'm hoping that culture has changed in the sense that maybe the kids are not as cruel as they used to be. And he comes in with his shirt on and they're not going to ruin it for him. He came back at the end of the day and he was still in a good mood. So I was like, yes. I was like, I did have this little bit of an oh shit moment. Like, Oh no, there's gonna be some fucking mean kids in there. They're gonna be like, ah, that's not a real Polo. But he apparently didn't have experience.

Cat · 1:00:43
Everyone interacts with brands differently, right?

Reggie · 1:00:47
That's true.

Cat · 1:00:47
Because I also have—

Tim · 1:00:48
But everyone in public school gets made fun of for the brands. Those are Walmart shoes. I was that poor kid without Nikes.

Reggie · 1:00:55
But is the new generation like that? That's what I'm wondering.

Tim · 1:00:58
Has it changed?

Cat · 1:00:59
I speak that language. And I also have the kid that's like, you make me wear a Lululemon and I will lose my stuff.

Reggie · 1:01:07
I am not that person.

Cat · 1:01:10
And she has said, I am not that person.

Reggie · 1:01:12
I'm not basic.

Cat · 1:01:13
Literally like, ew, basic. I am not that girl.

Tim · 1:01:17
That's that whole frame though, that expectation, judgment. I try to think about life and the essential parts of life in a certain time period, and I think about humans native to America and America, the ones that owned the land originally or lived on the land. They didn't own it and they didn't think they could. But you imagine thinking in huts, living in huts with each other, families, communities together around a fire. And I'm thinking like, what was missing in that environment?

Cat · 1:01:46
Nothing. Nothing.

Reggie · 1:01:48
Absolutely nothing.

Tim · 1:01:48
We didn't have brands. They didn't have brands. They didn't have— I mean, maybe someone did. They're like, that's my fur.

Reggie · 1:01:54
That's my fur.

Tim · 1:01:55
That's Jimmy's fur over there.

Cat · 1:01:57
They had trends.

Mary · 1:01:58
Well, I bet they had trends.

Tim · 1:01:59
And I bet they had moccasins.

Reggie · 1:02:00
That's an original Jimmy right there.

Cat · 1:02:02
Jimmy does make the best ones.

Reggie · 1:02:05
That's what I'm trying to say. That's an original Whispering in the Wind. That's original.

Mary · 1:02:09
Y'all don't even know that you just described the first branding.

Reggie · 1:02:12
Oh, wow.

Mary · 1:02:13
That was them saying, oh, well, I like the way Jimmy makes his pelts. Yeah, his cow.

Cat · 1:02:19
I could buy one and do my own branding.

Mary · 1:02:19
I make my own pelts, but I like the way Jimmy makes pelts.

Cat · 1:02:22
So when I take the trip to that other village, I'm gonna go ahead and get— yeah, the shoes.

Tim · 1:02:28
They have the best because that person has their own process.

Reggie · 1:02:31
A certain different amount of care.

Tim · 1:02:33
Have you ever been hunting in these shoes Jimmy makes?

Mary · 1:02:36
They are so— You gotta hold this bow.

Tim · 1:02:40
I never miss.

Cat · 1:02:42
We, we laugh that like going to my mom's town, my— I mean I talk about this town a lot. It's like you've read about the Blue Zone areas.

Tim · 1:02:50
I love it.

Cat · 1:02:51
It's one of those towns. And the book is completely wrong. They didn't get it. They didn't understand it. We can have a whole other one about that. But the joke between my cousins and I and going to this town. So the last time I remember going to this town, I went with my mom, my aunt, my cousin, and myself. There were 4 of us. We had to stop 10 times.

Mary · 1:03:11
Yeah.

Cat · 1:03:12
Between the ferry and the house where we're going.

Tim · 1:03:15
Why?

Cat · 1:03:16
Because—

Tim · 1:03:16
Materials.

Cat · 1:03:17
Because we were picking up materials. Because so-and-so made the best tortillas. Still obsessed with those tortillas. Because so-and-so made the best cheese. Because so-and-so has the best mangoes. Because so-and-so has the best fill in the blank. And so by the time we got there, we literally started with a basket, an empty basket, And we kept gathering all the things and we stopped by and said hi to people and got the things and like, oh, I didn't know you made this. I want to try that too. And we get there and we had a basket full of the best of what—

Reggie · 1:03:51
Everything.

Tim · 1:03:51
The best of everything.

Cat · 1:03:52
I don't know about the best.

Mary · 1:03:53
I think it's in quotation marks. She had the best.

Cat · 1:03:55
She had the best meal when we got there. The best meal. But you do start. That's why it's a blue zone. Well, probably.

Mary · 1:04:03
Probably so.

Cat · 1:04:04
Yes, actually, I do believe it's because of community.

Tim · 1:04:09
Yes, the awareness of gifts in the community.

Cat · 1:04:11
Because of the way we share and gather. The last time I was back was for a funeral. The same cousin's dad passed away. And it was like no one let us— we had no idea we were allowed to become the adults in this. And all of a sudden it was her job to follow the traditions. And one of those traditions was actually it's material-based, right? Like we were supposed to create, or she was supposed to create this altar or place for the viewing at his house. And we're like, how do we even do this?

Tim · 1:04:47
What do I do?

Cat · 1:04:47
Her sister and I are looking on Pinterest, which was pretty ridiculous, but Veronica and I are like, this one. Isn't that one?

Reggie · 1:04:55
That one's a good one.

Cat · 1:04:56
community is where it happens. So then one of my aunts goes, I brought this fabric in case you needed it. I had it. It's often you start with fabric. And I was like, cool. And then they were like, your cousin has this really nice big rosary that would go well with it. And it's wooden. So we stopped by her house and she's like, your aunt has.

Reggie · 1:05:19
Wow.

Cat · 1:05:20
And then that's how we spent the day starting with how are we going to build this? And everybody, like everywhere we stopped, we kept being told to stop at the next place. And we gathered all these materials and it was the same thing we've always done our entire lives in that town.

Tim · 1:05:36
That's beautiful.

Cat · 1:05:37
And we realized it in the minute we had gathered all our stuff and all our materials and okay, we've moved furniture, we're looking at the space, we're like, okay, we have a hammer, we have some tacks, we have the stuff, we're ready to do this. We have a sketched out design because one of the two of them is a textile designer. So we've sketched out this design and how we're going to fold it and bend it. And then other people show up with, y'all haven't eaten. And they brought us a meal and they're like, you're going to need help lifting this. We know how this works. And that is why it's a blue zone.

Tim · 1:06:09
That is. And I have one question for you. Why are you living in America?

Cat · 1:06:12
Well, that isn't America.

Tim · 1:06:13
That is.

Cat · 1:06:14
It's in Central America.

Mary · 1:06:16
North.

Tim · 1:06:17
Why are you in America? US.

Reggie · 1:06:18
Yeah. Why USA?

Cat · 1:06:20
I'm a stickler for that.

Mary · 1:06:21
Why are you under this government?

Tim · 1:06:22
I mean, I just feel nothing of that in our culture. I mean, maybe in certain diasporas, but not where I live.

Reggie · 1:06:30
Yeah.

Cat · 1:06:30
I mean, it's not out of the conversation, and I visit it and I participate in it.

Reggie · 1:06:36
We've talked about it. What would it be like to move to Costa Rica?

Cat · 1:06:39
Yeah, this might be one of the many places I It's like a working example of just real community.

Mary · 1:06:47
There's 2 ways to think about that.

Reggie · 1:06:49
It was like that when I was in Costa Rica.

Mary · 1:06:50
There's one way is, well, let me go where there is community and tap into that. And you have, you have a connection to that. And I in no way want you to feel like you have to distance yourself from that. But the other way is, I'm gonna build this. And I think one of the things that we haven't cracked yet, I hear a lot of people my age who feel this way. They're like, well, If we want it, we need to build it. The only way to get this is to start investing in your neighbors and investing in your family and being that person who says, hey, I heard you hadn't eaten yet. I got to bring you food. But I think we're feeling it's kind of shallow and hollow because it's not backed by any sort of spiritual practice. And that's not me saying we all need to convert to the same religion, but I think there is these big moments like a death in the family.

Cat · 1:07:38
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 1:07:38
It puts a lot of things in perspective and it makes you remember what we share and it makes you want to look back and remember all the people who came before. And without that shared context, really, really difficult to do, but not outside of our capability.

Cat · 1:07:52
We can always build community.

Mary · 1:07:54
Yeah.

Cat · 1:07:54
You can always build community. I feel like I live in a world where if I were sick, somebody would bring me food, but you have to actively be participant in that.

Reggie · 1:08:06
Yeah.

Cat · 1:08:06
Meaning that—

Mary · 1:08:07
Not waiting till the person dies.

Cat · 1:08:09
Right. Like, I— like, you mentioned that A, B, or C, here's C, right? Like, you just mentioned it. You have to be actively involved in that. Means you have to be in connection with that.

Tim · 1:08:22
Yeah.

Mary · 1:08:23
And you have to see yourself as having a role and a responsibility in that, which I think can feel heavy sometimes.

Reggie · 1:08:28
I also think you have to value people more than things. And I think one of the things that I— Yeah, when I was in Costa Rica, I stayed in an open-air casuac, which was modestly built. Like, it was structurally sound, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like a fancy place. And the house where the host lived wasn't like a fancy place. It was like their home. And one of the other things that I noticed was the value. Like, their home was their home. Very modest. But man, when it was like time to like feed people, Mm-hmm. They, there were like generations of people cooking together, a mom, a grandma, and like they were all together feeding their people. Like, and it was like, oh, you need to eat, come on over. Oh, so-and-so from down the road's gonna come up and join us. And it was, they had like one little modest TV in there watching football on it. Soccer.

Cat · 1:09:25
But, uh, hi, World Cup.

Reggie · 1:09:27
Yeah. And it was, and it was actually during, it was actually during the World Cup. This was in 20, maybe 2014, 2013.

Cat · 1:09:35
But it has made it into the World Cup several times.

Reggie · 1:09:37
I was just blown away by how much of the intention was on the people and not on the things.

Cat · 1:09:43
Mm-hmm.

Tim · 1:09:44
You know, and that was just, well, what we were talking about earlier, being judged by your materials. I think that people have a fear of other people. I think they're afraid of what someone else will say about them, or say about what they bring, or say about what they contribute, or say about what they said, or did they look stupid? I think that we've developed these barriers of entry. Try going and knocking on someone's door now. It feels like you're invading someone's privacy. We even took our neighbors some Christmas gifts one time, and knocking on the door, dog starts barking, someone's looking out the window. This really random event is happening.

Reggie · 1:10:20
All the more times. It felt weird. Yeah.

Tim · 1:10:21
It's like I was—

Reggie · 1:10:21
Did we make a mistake?

Tim · 1:10:23
I was in an intimate place.

Mary · 1:10:25
At the floor.

Tim · 1:10:25
Yeah.

Cat · 1:10:26
I'm not here.

Tim · 1:10:26
I think that once you get people together, they start to lean into it and they're like, oh, okay. But any amount of friction and you get that drawn back. And I was reading this book and the guy says, you can't love anything you fear. And so it's hard to— like, you want— and to build community, you have to have 2 sides willing to let their guard down.

Reggie · 1:10:47
Yeah.

Tim · 1:10:47
To love each other, which is awkward because someone could hurt you, and the fear has to go. But there's very little room to deal with fear in our world. We watch something or we ignore it as much as we can, but to actually face the fear and to walk into someone's house or to let them into your house, we don't know who they are. What if they sexually abuse my kids? That's literally my worry. about everyone I meet. Like, can I go to a sleepover? I'm like, no, you can't go to a sleepover.

Cat · 1:11:16
That's a fair concern.

Reggie · 1:11:18
That's a really fair concern.

Tim · 1:11:19
Do you think it's more likely now than it ever was? Or do you think that—

Cat · 1:11:24
No.

Tim · 1:11:24
Because I went everywhere as a kid. Like, I was never limited in where I went. They're like, yeah, go find who— I don't know who they are.

Mary · 1:11:30
That's a super valid concern, but I don't let people in my house because I'm nervous. I'm like, oh, I don't have enough space. Or like, my interiors are gross.

Tim · 1:11:39
I don't want them to see me being nervous is a light form of fear.

Mary · 1:11:42
Yeah.

Tim · 1:11:43
And that fear keeps us from loving and receiving love.

Mary · 1:11:47
Yeah.

Tim · 1:11:47
I was having this like moment when I was traveling because I was away from my family, and that was the point of it, is that I was like, we've never lived— I live near both of my family, both sides of my family, my wife's and mine. And I was like, we've never been away from that protective coating.

Reggie · 1:12:02
For a long period of time.

Tim · 1:12:03
In life.

Cat · 1:12:03
Yeah.

Mary · 1:12:04
Ever.

Tim · 1:12:05
I was like, what are we? What is my little family unit without this surrounding?

Mary · 1:12:09
Yeah.

Tim · 1:12:10
We took them around the world to see how it was, and I had this visceral experience where— and I grew up learning about Bible stories, but I never really looked into one particular one where this group, this community wanted what they called the Promised Land. And my dad had always told me this story.

Reggie · 1:12:31
Right.

Tim · 1:12:32
It was always this triumphant victory, and they defeated this city called Jericho, and they did it with just shouting. It was this really cool story. I loved it as a kid. But I was— while I was away, I thought about it differently, and I thought about a city with no walls in an ancient time. And I was wondering in my mind, in my grown-up mind, I'm like, wait a minute, that's the worst gift possible. Because that is the most violent place to live. A city has walls in that time for security, for safety, to keep your family there and keep your food safe. All of that. You're exposed with no walls. And what the Bible story teaches is that the Promised Land is the city without walls.

Reggie · 1:13:13
Because you trust and love everybody. You don't have to worry about who's gonna steal anything. There's a verse earlier that says the city was consuming its people.

Tim · 1:13:22
And how many of our cities consume us? You know, like they drain us. And the story has them walking around. They never take violent action. They don't have weapons.

Reggie · 1:13:31
You said they won by shouting.

Tim · 1:13:33
They have trumpets. They shouted.

Reggie · 1:13:34
That's awesome.

Tim · 1:13:35
They walked around in silence for 7 days. This is how the story goes. This is insane. So everyone just hear it.

Mary · 1:13:41
I didn't write it.

Tim · 1:13:42
There's a lesson in it. They walk around silently.

Cat · 1:13:45
I didn't write it.

Tim · 1:13:46
How intimidating is that though? Someone walking around your city for 7 days, and the last day they shout and sing, and then the walls fall down. But what to me, it was like freedom. You know, like, could we— and so I imagine the story happening within me, like my Jericho is the center of me, that the place that I've guarded— You are your home. I am my own promised land inside of me. It's just I keep it walled and no one can get into it. But there's a part of me that's been circling around the city, and when it shouts and the walls come down, that is the gift of what we're meant to live. That should be the dream.

Reggie · 1:14:21
You feel free. Yeah.

Tim · 1:14:22
Right, you're free. You're free to let people in and let people out.

Reggie · 1:14:24
I love that.

Tim · 1:14:25
And that's where the fear has to fall away.

Reggie · 1:14:27
That's a beautiful sentiment.

Mary · 1:14:28
I find this fascinating, and it is my job to wrap us up. I've drawn that straw today. But I find it fascinating that we started with a word like materials, and it so quickly got connected to community and how we treat each other and how we value— how at the end of the day, they're just sort of materials. You were like, oh, everybody's focused on these people. So there's something there. I don't know what our—

Tim · 1:14:51
Maybe community is the material. Maybe materials are maybe shaming society.

Mary · 1:14:55
We are all just fiber woven into a beautiful fabric.

Reggie · 1:14:58
Yes, the fabric of humankind.

Tim · 1:15:00
The fabric.

Mary · 1:15:01
I love that. I do feel like there's some sort of resolve. I can't put my finger on it right now, but there's part of me that's like, I'm never buying another piece of clothing unless it's handmade from beautiful organic raw material. I just don't think that's going to be realistic for me, especially in You haven't heard this, but I'm in a fashion crisis and everyone close to me knows it.

Tim · 1:15:21
She's making an app for this fashion crisis.

Mary · 1:15:24
Claude and I are really working on it on the backend.

Tim · 1:15:26
She'll be the new Marie Kondo before it's over.

Cat · 1:15:31
Hey, even Marie Kondo was wrong.

Mary · 1:15:33
Mine's dumb data-driven. It's going to prove out how taste is ineffable.

Tim · 1:15:39
DDD, dumb data-driven.

Reggie · 1:15:40
Dumb data-driven. There we go.

Cat · 1:15:42
This is the Clueless app, right?

Tim · 1:15:44
Yes. Clueless the movie, right?

Reggie · 1:15:48
Oh.

Tim · 1:15:48
Oh yeah.

Cat · 1:15:49
I forgot about that. The closet.

Tim · 1:15:51
Yeah, she does that.

Reggie · 1:15:52
Yes, it is. It is.

Tim · 1:15:54
I forgot about that. That was way before its time.

Mary · 1:15:56
I should have just prompted Claude like that instead of having to—

Tim · 1:15:59
Show it the movie clip.

Cat · 1:16:00
Okay, I know you're trying to wrap it up, but is more more?

Mary · 1:16:02
I think when you're creative, the variety of materials seems like its own sort of abundant— Work can be more. You can create more things. Work can be more. You can create more options. But I think it's the ownership thing, right? Like, it can exist without us having to hoard it. Maybe we all just need to rent the runway is what I'm trying to say.

Tim · 1:16:24
And maybe you can wear something and then own it. So ownership goes both ways. Maybe like you're wearing something that feels like someone else and you just feel awkward in it, but then you're like, no, I'm going to own this. This thing looks weird. Or this—

Mary · 1:16:34
I'm going to identify.

Cat · 1:16:35
I ask that a lot.

Tim · 1:16:36
Is this me?

Cat · 1:16:37
Is this me? Well, I don't know if I can be that girl.

Tim · 1:16:39
Or can I make this me?

Reggie · 1:16:40
I was going to ask that too. Is this me?

Tim · 1:16:41
Is this me?

Reggie · 1:16:42
But I can resolve that on my own.

Cat · 1:16:45
Oh yeah.

Reggie · 1:16:46
I don't have to like— I can look in the mirror and be like, nope, that's not me. Not me.

Cat · 1:16:51
You're still not going to wear the floral jumpsuit? Nope.

Reggie · 1:16:54
Nope.

Mary · 1:16:54
See, I do have a floral jumpsuit.

Reggie · 1:16:55
That day hasn't come yet. She does. She actually does.

Cat · 1:16:59
And you should wear it.

Mary · 1:17:00
We have to call it. We've got a little timer that tells us when an hour has run out. And an hour has definitely run out.

Reggie · 1:17:08
It ran out a while ago, actually, but it's been a good conversation.

Mary · 1:17:11
I could talk to specifically Cat forever.

Reggie · 1:17:14
I know. That's such a good conversation.

Mary · 1:17:15
I had such a good time with you. I didn't know Cat at all before today.

Cat · 1:17:18
Oh yeah, we go way back.

Mary · 1:17:20
Now I'm like in love and I'm like, please, let's get coffee and talk to me about Costa Rica. Thank you for being here. Happy to be here. And thank you all for getting me back on this horse. that is the podcast.

Reggie · 1:17:32
Yes, we missed you. We're glad you're back.

Mary · 1:17:35
So he says. Thank you all for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Bye.

Reggie · 1:17:43
That was great.

Tim · 1:17:44
That was really fun.

Mary · 1:17:45
It was great. You're incredible. This was a great topic for you.

Reggie · 1:17:49
It was perfect. Thanks for listening.

Mary · 1:17:52
This podcast was created and developed by our hosts, Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, and Mary Greene.

Reggie · 1:17:58
Very special thanks to our guest host for today, Cat Slater. Produced by Mary Greene. Live production and editing by me, Will Canady. Graphic design by Dylan Garcia and set design by Megan Scroggs. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value.