Stoicism, Art & The Peace We're Practicing

Tim · 0:00
All right, let's do favorite parts. Let me start with you, Ricardo. All right, it was 2 things that connected to one thing. When Mary explained how people sort of like you for how you present and the power dynamic that they feel they hold over you. And then when DeWayne said that his stepdad would ask, do you know who you are? Those 2 things sort of spoke the same to me.

Mary · 0:22
Mary? Ricardo took mine.

Reggie · 0:26
Uh, my next favorite part would be getting a story off my chest about a pretty bad first date I think my favorite part was DeWayne bringing the analogy of stoicism to the bird form, which brought this whole, like, train of thought for me.

DeWayne · 0:44
Yeah, I was reading the Bible today, and I didn't think we was gonna go into the Bible for the service. So when you say God will make a place for your enemies around, that really stuck to me.

Tim · 1:03
My favorite part was when Reggie made a metaphor for Stoicism that I'd never thought of, and I'm gonna let you hear it in the episode for yourself.

Reggie · 1:12
Hello and welcome to Age. I am Reggie Tidwell. This is—

Tim · 1:27
Tim Scroggs.

Mary · 1:28
Mary Greene.

DeWayne · 1:30
DeWayne Barton.

Reggie · 1:33
We like to do that so you can hear our voices so you know who's talking. We are a podcast where we actually just talk about whatever is in this basket. And we never know what's gonna—

Tim · 1:46
As destiny gives us the topic.

Reggie · 1:49
We never know what it's going to be. But we do feel like this Basket is magic because there have been many times where we pulled a topic and it was so fitting for who the guest was.

Mary · 1:58
Speaking of our guest, I'm going to rotate this banana tree a little bit. It's smacking.

Reggie · 2:02
Oh yeah, it's whacking.

Tim · 2:03
The new segment called Rotate the Banana Tree.

Mary · 2:06
Great job, Reggie.

Tim · 2:06
That was great, Reggie. One-handed it. I like this. You got this game down.

Reggie · 2:12
Yeah. We've got a special guest today, DeWayne Barton from Hood Huggers. which is a really awesome staple here in Asheville. DeWayne, we like to do this thing where we ask our guests what you're obsessed with right now.

DeWayne · 2:25
Art.

Reggie · 2:28
Art?

DeWayne · 2:29
Creating art.

Reggie · 2:30
Okay.

DeWayne · 2:30
I'm obsessed with it. I've been ignoring it and my stress levels has increased. My anger has increased because of it.

Reggie · 2:38
Because you've been ignoring it?

DeWayne · 2:40
Because I've been ignoring it. So now I'm just obsessed. In fact, when you called me yesterday, I was working on a sculpture. on my holiday off.

Tim · 2:49
Nice.

DeWayne · 2:50
And, and yeah. And then when I leave here, I'm gonna go back to it. Yeah.

Reggie · 2:55
Dude, I'm jealous.

Mary · 2:56
You're a sculptor.

Reggie · 2:57
I love that.

Mary · 2:59
We're gonna have to talk.

DeWayne · 3:00
I love that.

Reggie · 3:00
What, what medium?

DeWayne · 3:01
Found objects, trash, whatever I find, whatever speaks to me.

Reggie · 3:07
I've seen your work before.

DeWayne · 3:08
Yeah. Yeah.

Reggie · 3:09
It's over in the garden.

DeWayne · 3:09
Making a bulldozer.

Tim · 3:10
Really?

Mary · 3:12
Yeah.

Tim · 3:12
Out of found things?

DeWayne · 3:13
Yeah.

Tim · 3:13
Really?

Reggie · 3:14
That's awesome.

DeWayne · 3:15
Oh yeah.

Tim · 3:15
Life-size or like a little bulldozer?

DeWayne · 3:17
Oh, the big one that you can sit in.

Reggie · 3:19
What?

Mary · 3:20
Oh my God.

DeWayne · 3:20
Yeah.

Reggie · 3:21
No way. All right. That's, you're an inspiration cuz that's, I think, you know, as a fine art, uh, graduate, the fine art is the thing that I don't really get to explore much these days. Yeah. Everything is commercial. Everything's for a paycheck or, you know, subject to client feedback and deadlines. But I miss doing art for art's sake.

DeWayne · 3:43
Yeah, I need it. This is my therapy.

Reggie · 3:45
Yeah, it is. It really is that. It's great. I mean, I have, I have music. We just got an upright piano in our home and music is one of my creative outlets. I love producing music and I haven't really been able to do it in any kind of formal setting, but we got that upright piano. This guy helped me with a few other friends.

Tim · 4:05
It's really light.

DeWayne · 4:08
So easy to move.

Reggie · 4:08
Right. Probably killed us, almost killed us all.

Mary · 4:10
Y'all acted so casual that day. You left the office, you're like, yeah, we're gonna move a piano.

Reggie · 4:14
We just gotta go move it.

Mary · 4:15
The 3 of you?

Tim · 4:17
Apparently I have to underestimate things to, you know, just keep pace.

Reggie · 4:20
Oh, it was a wake-up.

Tim · 4:22
It'll be fine, it'll be easy.

Reggie · 4:22
It was definitely a wake-up moment 'cause that thing weighed probably 1,200 pounds.

Tim · 4:26
It was insane.

Reggie · 4:27
It was heavy. But all that to say is now when I have creative, like I wrote a song the other day in front of the family. My family was just sitting on the couch like playing games and I sat down and composed a whole, song. Just started with some chord progressions and then I built this whole thing and then I wrote it down. So now I can play it anytime and I'm like, I need to do this more. 'Cause it was that, it felt great.

Tim · 4:53
Yeah.

Reggie · 4:53
Brought my stress level down.

DeWayne · 4:55
Yeah. It feels super.

Reggie · 4:56
Yeah.

DeWayne · 4:56
Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Tim · 4:57
I've always noticed it never feels great going into the process of creating art. Like you just have to push yourself into it.

DeWayne · 5:02
Yes.

Tim · 5:02
And then once you get into it and you come out of it, it's like the elevation of Your, it's the, your entire consciousness.

DeWayne · 5:09
Yeah.

Tim · 5:09
Yeah. You, it's like you needed it and you didn't even know it. It was—

DeWayne · 5:11
You just slow down to even go through the door and you'd be running around like, I've got all these things I'm doing and I'm running around.

Reggie · 5:19
Yeah.

DeWayne · 5:20
Now I wanna make art. No, you gotta slow all the way down. Your brain, you gotta—

Reggie · 5:25
You have to be present for art.

DeWayne · 5:26
Difficult. Yeah.

Tim · 5:27
Yeah.

DeWayne · 5:27
Difficult process. So it takes me time to—

Tim · 5:30
Takes me time too, to transition.

DeWayne · 5:31
Actually get into it. But once I'm there, you know, it's—

Reggie · 5:35
Maybe that's what music does for me. It forces me to slow down. Can't play music running around.

Tim · 5:39
These are things I call these things, things that move at the speed of human. We've created a world that moves at the speed of technology and data and light and just movement and demands and everything moving kind of ahead of you. And even cars go so much faster than humans could ever go.

Reggie · 5:55
Yeah.

Tim · 5:56
But when you move at the speed of human, which is like art and music and creation and walking. Those are things that kind of pull us back into this moment, this divine, magical living moment.

Reggie · 6:06
You have to go into your—

Tim · 6:08
Hustle.

Reggie · 6:08
You have to go into your sloth state.

DeWayne · 6:10
Yeah.

Tim · 6:11
It feels like that. And we had an episode last week where we were talking about, or a couple weeks ago, talking about youth and wasting, youth wasted on the young. And we were questioning whether waste is a bad thing. It's bad to us because we grew up in capitalism where productivity and making money and documenting everything was so important. We've optimized on everything that now if we take time to do nothing or to make art or to do something that has no real op— like, uh, present trading value, then it's a waste of time. And why are you doing it?

DeWayne · 6:44
Oh, right. That's crazy. And we have been convinced of that. Yeah.

Tim · 6:49
And so like the freedom to waste time, just, I don't I don't know if I can. I'm trying to tell myself. I don't know if I've accepted it yet that it's okay.

Reggie · 6:57
Yeah.

DeWayne · 6:58
I mean, when you saying waste time, it, it shouldn't, you shouldn't even say waste.

Tim · 7:02
Yeah. Exactly.

Reggie · 7:03
Yeah.

Mary · 7:03
Who gets to decide?

Reggie · 7:04
You're using time.

DeWayne · 7:05
Yes. Yes.

Reggie · 7:07
You, you're suspending time. Chilling.

DeWayne · 7:11
Yeah. You're chilling.

Tim · 7:11
Freedom to chill.

Reggie · 7:13
Yeah. No, I love that. DeWayne, thanks for being here today. Let's get into it.

Tim · 7:17
I'm gonna, This is where we pull a topic like a lottery. Let's see how he goes.

Reggie · 7:23
Hoping I'm gonna get Ricky over there. I'm hoping I grab a good one.

Tim · 7:27
Everyone's hearts start racing a little bit.

Reggie · 7:28
Man, this one's a thick one.

DeWayne · 7:31
All right.

Tim · 7:32
You have one that you—

Mary · 7:32
Somebody wadded this one up good.

Reggie · 7:34
That or it's really long.

Tim · 7:35
Do you ever wonder, do you ever have a hope it's not one?

Mary · 7:38
That seems to imply I remember a single thing that's in that trash can and I don't.

Reggie · 7:44
This one has like a— I think this is the first time I might maybe throw one out.

Tim · 7:49
No, no, you can't do that.

Mary · 7:50
That's against the thing. What does it say?

Reggie · 7:51
It's against the thing. All right. Well, I'm going to show it, but it's got like quotes underneath it.

Mary · 7:57
Oh, this is Craig.

Reggie · 7:58
Oh, Craig did this? All right.

Mary · 8:00
I wrote down what Craig said.

Reggie · 8:02
All right.

Tim · 8:03
Are you able to get in focus enough to read it?

Reggie · 8:04
We should have told him don't put a bunch of quotes on it.

Mary · 8:07
I think the word is just the thing at the top.

Reggie · 8:09
Yeah, it is. It's just the thing at the top.

Mary · 8:11
I don't know what this stuff underneath is. I mean, you could read them out loud if we needed a reference.

Reggie · 8:14
All right, let's do it.

Mary · 8:15
I wrote it down and I was like, do we even know what this word means? We might need a little—

Tim · 8:19
oh, I know what this word is.

Reggie · 8:21
The topic is— I know what being stoic is, but the topic is stoicism.

Tim · 8:26
Stoicism.

Reggie · 8:27
He who suffers before it's necessary suffers more than is necessary. That's a quote. Can't see who's—

Tim · 8:37
Seneca.

Reggie · 8:37
Oh, Seneca. All right. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Marcus Aurelius.

Tim · 8:48
Great.

Reggie · 8:49
It is impossible to learn that which you already know. Epictetus.

Tim · 8:57
Epictetus.

Reggie · 8:58
Epictetus. These are all philosophers, I guess.

Mary · 9:02
I don't know how to say these.

Reggie · 9:02
These are philosophers. The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. Marcus Aurelius again. And then last but not least, it's not what happens to you, it's how you react that matters. Epictetus.

Tim · 9:19
Let's just let the audience know this is one chosen by a previous host. We like to— maybe this is a warning to you. We like to ask every—

Mary · 9:28
You don't always have to have all the quotes and stuff, but a word that we should talk about.

Tim · 9:31
We like to ask guests that have come on the show, for a word to put in the trash. And this is when the previous host, Craig McAnsh, left Stoicism. Yeah.

Reggie · 9:40
So what's the first— so what we do, we like to say, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you when you think about Stoicism?

Tim · 9:46
Mine was trendy. And this is weird because I went through a trend. I went through, I don't know if it was a YouTube trend or what it is, but I got sucked into Stoicism. Had to have been like—

Reggie · 9:57
You got sucked into Stoicism?

Tim · 9:59
Sounds crazy.

Reggie · 9:59
That is a phrase I've never heard ever.

Tim · 10:01
Because it was, you know how, you know, like, um, You got red-pilled into Stoicism. Yeah, there were these influencers talking about Stoicism. It was like a revival of Stoicism.

Reggie · 10:10
Oh, interesting.

Tim · 10:10
Marcus Aurelius was like the man. I mean, he still is. And I'm not even sure that this is a trend that's died necessarily. But I got sucked into this thing, a circle talking about Stoicism, reinvigorating what Stoicism meant, covering all these quotes, same quotes you read there. And I got so I guess I'm this way because I was raised really religious. I got so into it, like I became an evangelist for Stoicism, and I wanted to inhabit Stoicism.

Reggie · 10:39
What does Stoicism mean to you?

Tim · 10:41
Well, it's— for me, it's like the ability to pull yourself out of the first-person experience. So we always see ourselves in it. And Tony Robbins—

Reggie · 10:52
We're always in it.

Tim · 10:53
Tony Robbins says this, you are the editor of your own life.

DeWayne · 10:57
Yeah.

Tim · 10:58
Which on— what's going on in your eyes and your mind is like the camera, and you're the director. And some of us don't realize we have the power to change the camera angle, zoom out. So like with really traumatic experiences, our memory records those very close up and visceral and like edges and hard movements and loud noises. But you can actually make your mind zoom out on the situation and take in a bigger frame. frame versus— and these are film tricks. What Stoicism is, I think, is the thinker or the thing, the being we are, the consciousness behind what's going on, to look at the one that's going through it.

Reggie · 11:36
Hmm.

Tim · 11:36
Look at the one that's stuck in a thought or in a stress, and notice them, and be able to take a composure from a different, wider frame to bring a level of peace. Some people think it's disconnectedness because people will be so stoic and nothing fazes him. But it's really taking in the moment with a lot more context than just, this is what's happening. I'm so pissed off. And they betrayed me, and all this stuff. They get so locked into what the facts are that they know. And we all know that the facts we have in our head are only a limited view of what's really going on.

Reggie · 12:12
Mm-hmm.

Tim · 12:12
You may know someone did something, but you have no idea about all the thousands of moments that determined that moment. So Stoicism is pulling back and saying, this is all meant to be. The quality of my thoughts determine my experience here. So I was really into this trend, but I could never get it to where I could activate it in the moment. So I guess now I'm just feeling like I've kind of fallen off the trend, and so now it feels trendy to me, like a phase of music, like a musical style.

Mary · 12:42
You thought this was going to be a new chapter of your life, but it was actually just sort of like a book you read and you moved on. So Tim's Stoic phase.

Reggie · 12:48
was limited. It was very minimal.

Tim · 12:50
Just, I got sucked back in. Maybe it's something like you have to practice it. Maybe it's this, you know, you have to stay in the religion, keep learning about it, keep growing in it. But I also felt like there was a sense of, I don't want to be disconnected. I don't want to appear to my children as feelingless, emotionless. Some people will say Stoic people don't have emotions. I wanted to exhibit the experience on my, in my experience with my face and with my life. And so I guess I pushed against it a little bit, as you know I do. I push against even the good stuff.

Reggie · 13:23
Yeah, I think my, so my first reaction was like, I see stoicism as like a momentary thing. I don't, I don't consider stoic people. I, I think of stoicism as something that almost like a tool that you use in the moment.

Mary · 13:42
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 13:43
It's like, like, what are the ingredients of it that would allow me to be in a place of stoicism, acceptance? Like, I can't change the search scenario right now, so I need to embrace whatever this is. The ability to, like you said, pull out and see, you know, sort of— and I do this sometimes in meetings. It's kind of how I go into this sort of thinking place. I kind of block everything else out. And it may seem like I'm not listening or I'm not hearing, but I'm, I'm taking things in, in this place where it's almost like I'm back here, like, you know, watching from a third person. Yeah. Like, you know, here's what you should say, Reggie. And then like, and like directing, channeling to yourself, directing myself through, through the— and that's kind of how it feels, you know? It's like, sometimes I'll come up with things in a meeting or in the middle of a brainstorming session. that is like, shit, where did that come from? And, you know, it's like, it's the guy back there who's directing.

Mary · 14:39
My friend makes fun of me. I talk about her a lot. I'm like, she's like hovering out here somewhere and transmitting. And sometimes when I'm real calm, we can like dialogue. But most of the time you get confused. What comes to mind for you, DeWayne?

DeWayne · 14:53
I was thinking about that bird that used to carry the babies. The stork. That's what really—

Reggie · 14:59
The stork.

DeWayne · 14:59
That's what really came to me. And then I pictured somebody that was stoic, like standing up there and everything's falling apart around them. Some good things way in the back, but they still just standing still no matter what. All the drama, good or bad, they stoic and they solid and they rooted.

Reggie · 15:19
I could see that.

Mary · 15:21
I, I, I agree.

Reggie · 15:24
Like a rock.

DeWayne · 15:24
Yeah.

Mary · 15:26
It's a word that kind of sounds like a rock word. I don't know what it is about it.

Tim · 15:30
That's the brand. The brand of Stoic is like a solid, muscly—

Reggie · 15:35
Solid as a rock.

Mary · 15:36
This word, what I really have a lot to be inspired by in that image about standing rooted, anything can be happening around you, but you find whatever that is, disconnect or peace within, and you're kind of in one place. I draw a lot of inspiration from that. I am very much on the roller coaster of my emotions. And in some ways I kind of like it. I like being alive. I like having responses to things. But I think that Stoicism is a really great tool to stay in community and to stay connected to people that you care about and not be flying off the handle all the time. But I'll tell you what, the word is a little bit ruined for me because the first thing that comes into my mind when I think of Stoicism is I went on this first date with this guy in New York City.

Reggie · 16:21
Oh man.

Mary · 16:22
I've got, I've got, he, he just, You're trying to make small talk.

DeWayne · 16:25
What year was this?

Reggie · 16:27
Last week.

Mary · 16:28
The 20-teens. I don't remember that word.

Tim · 16:31
This is the trend probably. This was probably during the trend.

Mary · 16:33
Maybe so.

Tim · 16:34
Was he a white guy like me?

Mary · 16:35
Yeah.

Tim · 16:36
He's probably in this trend with me.

Mary · 16:38
He was definitely working in Sodiarchy.

Tim · 16:41
White guy stoicism movement.

Mary · 16:43
He had his little branded zipper vest on and I was like, oh God, here we go. But we were going to meet up at a sports bar or something and just talk and hang out.

DeWayne · 16:54
I don't know.

Mary · 16:56
I was like, so what are you into right now? It was something like what Reggie just asked you, like, what are you obsessed with or something? He said, I'm really getting into the Stoics.

Reggie · 17:03
Really?

Mary · 17:05
And he meant like Marcus Aurelius and all these people.

Reggie · 17:08
Yes, I was gonna say.

Mary · 17:08
I was like, cool, yeah. And what do you do with that? Like, what? So how's it going?

Reggie · 17:12
Yeah, how does that impact your life?

Mary · 17:14
And it was just a lot of like him saying how disconnected he was. And I'm like, well, that's not a really fun first date experience. And then—

Tim · 17:21
I'm watching this date from back here.

Reggie · 17:23
Yeah, right?

Mary · 17:24
I have an off-color story about that too, but I won't tell it now. today. I don't know.

Reggie · 17:29
This is all our audience wants to hear it.

Mary · 17:31
I can't wait for this clip to make it onto LinkedIn, our primary activation channel.

Tim · 17:36
This fits on LinkedIn, right?

Mary · 17:38
I just changed my bio on LinkedIn to trying to make LinkedIn a place we actually want to hang out because it's so boring.

Reggie · 17:45
It's so boring.

Mary · 17:46
I have been promoted. I achieved this campaign. I'm like, okay, great.

Tim · 17:51
It is the worst.

DeWayne · 17:52
Want to beautiful a little?

Reggie · 17:52
Yeah.

Mary · 17:53
Here's one for LinkedIn. I was just speaking to this dude who had just said, oh, I'm getting really into the Stoics, and was presenting himself as very composed, very grounded, not very emotionally volatile. I could tell he was making an effort to be kind of— I was like, wrong guy for that, Mary. But I said something like, oh, really? I hadn't pegged you for a Stoic, or something like that. And he said, pegged me? Pegged me? Does anybody know what that means? There's a sec— Ricky knows what it means.

Tim · 18:22
I just know the normal cliché.

Mary · 18:25
It's when a man has someone peck his butt.

Tim · 18:30
No way.

Reggie · 18:31
That's where it comes from?

Mary · 18:32
Oftentimes a woman— it's not where it comes from. It's like a place that it's been co-opted on the internet. Yeah, it's a pornography thing.

Reggie · 18:39
But that's the definition he went with.

Tim · 18:41
That's where he went.

Mary · 18:41
He went for it and the facade fell and he was like, pecked me?

Tim · 18:46
I'm like, uh.

Reggie · 18:47
I'm offended.

Mary · 18:48
No, I don't think he was offended.

Reggie · 18:50
He was intrigued.

Mary · 18:51
He was surprised.

DeWayne · 18:53
Oh.

Mary · 18:53
I think he thought I was like throwing a kink at him in the middle of this date. And he was like, is she what? Is something— no, not me.

Tim · 19:01
There went the stoicism.

Mary · 19:03
Like so stoic.

Reggie · 19:04
Yeah. He was no longer stoic. He was completely taken by it.

Mary · 19:07
But now I can't say that. That's like a phrase that my family has always said. Oh, I hadn't pegged you for one of these posts.

Reggie · 19:12
Yeah, I've heard that. I use that phrase all the time.

Mary · 19:14
And now I can't say that to him.

Reggie · 19:16
I pegged him as a— Dude, he was an I had to peg him as this kind of thing or whatever.

Tim · 19:20
Yeah, I use that. Checking that off my vocabulary.

Reggie · 19:21
Not saying that anymore.

Mary · 19:23
No, stoic asshole.

Tim · 19:23
My youngest says, I'm X-ing that out.

Mary · 19:25
Oh, I don't— I can't X it out. It's always in there. And now, yeah. So I was scarred by this dude whose name I don't even remember. But yeah, the stoics.

Tim · 19:33
You pegged a stoic.

Reggie · 19:35
That's hilarious. I think of what—

Tim · 19:38
Good to know for all our viewers. Don't say that anymore.

Reggie · 19:40
I think of what DeWayne said about the stork. And, you know, I've spent a lot of time with Great blue herons.

Tim · 19:46
Oh, they're— oh.

Reggie · 19:48
And they're so stoic.

Tim · 19:49
But in a beautiful, elegant way versus the rock-hard disconnected way.

Reggie · 19:54
No, but the way that they sit poised, focused, just observing their surroundings in a way almost like they're omnipresent. They're just there.

Tim · 20:05
And then when they take flight.

Reggie · 20:07
Oh my God. It's the most beautiful thing.

DeWayne · 20:09
Yeah.

Mary · 20:09
They're something elegant, graceful. graceful and kind of like soft about it.

Tim · 20:14
Soft, but in a strong way. It's a weird kind of strength. It's soft. Yeah.

Mary · 20:18
And I think that makes it feel more refined.

Reggie · 20:21
But when you think about the way their like claws are just rooted in the muck in the bottom of this—

Tim · 20:27
And they stand so high outside of it.

Reggie · 20:29
Yeah, they stand and they have— they're so like— they remind me of like— it makes me— they think—

Tim · 20:35
On these little pegs.

Reggie · 20:35
It makes me think about Rodin's The Thinker. They're just like— You know, they're just like, focus, just in deep concentration. And at the same time, hyper-aware of everything. Because as soon as I like click the shutter, they're just like, they look up.

Mary · 20:51
They're winking at the camera. Yeah.

Reggie · 20:53
You got that one.

Mary · 20:54
I got that one.

Reggie · 20:55
I had this whole series of great blue herons in fog that I've— photo series.

Tim · 21:00
That might be the best metaphor I've ever heard for stoic. Yeah, because like stand out above the muck.

Reggie · 21:08
Yeah, yeah, above the muck.

Tim · 21:09
In an elegance, in a softness. So I think stoicism is more branded toward rock, like untouched, you can't faze me, I'm above you, or like protected from you. But I think it's more of this like lifted, higher view.

Reggie · 21:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're elevated.

Tim · 21:29
Right, you know the song on the new, um, James Blake that we love, the very last one.

Reggie · 21:36
Oh yeah.

Tim · 21:37
Lift Your Vision Higher.

Reggie · 21:38
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Such a powerful song.

Mary · 21:41
They play it. There's a couple albums that Tim and Reggie play on repeat on our studio speakers.

Reggie · 21:45
Oh, we didn't make you notice.

Mary · 21:46
Sometimes when I'm working from home, I'll go home and play that same album and it'll be like, still be connected with us.

DeWayne · 21:51
I love that.

Mary · 21:52
Blake is one of those that they do.

Tim · 21:54
Trying Times. It's good. It's funny you bring up another white guy going through this thing.

Mary · 22:02
So funny how I do that.

Tim · 22:03
But it kind of confirms what I was saying, and I think that there is this cheapening of something like Stoicism. You know, like when we all— it's weird how movements or thoughts travel now, how it's viral in a way. But then it's— the shelf life is so short. When I was in the music industry, there was this understanding that the harder you come at it, like the more intense you come at it, the shorter your shelf life.

DeWayne · 22:36
Hmm.

Tim · 22:37
And I think business does this too. Like, if you push really hard and get a lot of capital and push it hard, a lot of times the shelf life is limited because of how intense it's coming on. But if you have a grassroots thing that grows and develops, steadiness and survival under pressure, it lasts longer. So in the music industry, you didn't want to push your album too hard to too many places at once, because usually that's what develops a one-hit wonder.

Reggie · 23:04
Oh, that makes sense.

Tim · 23:06
And so there's this, this interesting, to me, this reflection about how Stoicism is— there's more depth to it. I mean, these ancients didn't just It didn't just trend on YouTube in ancient Greece or Rome or wherever it was bubbling up. There was something about the experience that drove them.

Mary · 23:25
Ancient Greece.

Tim · 23:27
There was something about their experience that was so intense and so much pressure that it drove them to this new way of seeing reality. And I think, what's his name, in World War II, Churchill.

Reggie · 23:43
Oh, Winston Churchill.

Tim · 23:44
He used to go home every day during the war, bombs falling, threats of death everywhere. Every day he would go home and he would take a bath and a nap in the afternoon without fail. No matter what his day was bringing him, there was always enough time and there was the discipline in him to remove himself from it, go and bathe. I think that's kind of odd. I'm not gonna say that's like a normal thing, but he would like wash himself of the the day, take a nap, and then reenter.

Mary · 24:13
When, you know, the flood happened here in North Carolina and many other places, but my brother and my sister-in-law lost their home. They had just lost a 3-month-old child, so they were really at a low during this point. Their mental health was really suffering. They were living out of my sister-in-law's office at the church. They were sleeping there. And just, like, immediately got engaged in the community, like so many people did. They were like, oh, resources started showing up, so we started organizing and getting it out in the community and stuff. And it was just a couple days, it took me, like, a week to get to my family, or maybe 4 days, and I was freaking out. You don't know if they're safe, you don't know how they're doing. I get there, and I don't know, I think I had this expectation that I would see swoop in and make things better, like I was going to save people. And clearly that's not the way that works. But I remember I got really anxious and sad, and it just felt like, well, I got to wake up at 6:00 AM tomorrow and get going. And then we would work until 10, 11 o'clock at night, and then we would talk till 1 in the morning trying to figure out what we were trying to do the next day. We were going and going and going. It felt a little bit like a war. There was an onslaught every day and just like new shit that had to get done. And Julian, having been in the military for about 6 years, he was like, no, you're— we all need to be taking a shower, and we all need to be taking naps regularly. And it's about more than just rest. It's about dignity. And—

DeWayne · 25:48
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 25:48
Yeah, maintaining a sense of self in and amidst all the craziness that happens. And I think there's a stoicism to that about, you're allowed to go inward and be with this and care for this in, in the tumult. So anyway, big fan of Churchill in that regard. Also a big fan of baths. They can fix a lot of things.

DeWayne · 26:09
Baths.

Reggie · 26:10
I would imagine art invites you to be stoic in a way.

DeWayne · 26:14
Or not.

Mary · 26:17
What do you think?

Reggie · 26:17
Or not.

Tim · 26:18
I think art becomes stoic after it's done.

DeWayne · 26:21
I think, I mean, Well, what I'm saying is when I was saying art is like I haven't been, you want to say, taking a bath with art, but I've been catching all the wars, all the hammers and all the, you know, my work is dealing with people in communities. My work is dealing with communities and people. who's been in the war for a long time.

Reggie · 26:52
Yep.

DeWayne · 26:53
And, and it's like, and when you constantly in that, when not only are you identifying plots and plans of wars from the past and the future, which where we are right now, um, and then you're trying to create creative solutions that that supports communities and places. And then you got to somehow in there find your own safe space in order to keep going. It's challenging. And that's what I was saying about the stoic thing of just standing there seeing all this. I mean, you see the opportunities and the threats and you're just standing there looking like, Man, I see a possibility here, but man, it's crazy. It's Beetlejuice time right now. I like that.

Reggie · 27:50
Beetlejuice time.

DeWayne · 27:52
And yes, look at all these opportunities of people believing and trying to make the world right. And somehow we gotta figure out what the hustle is and figure this out in a way that you know, people be revived and places be revived. And this is a very destructive time.

Tim · 28:16
I agree.

DeWayne · 28:17
It's a very destructive time.

Reggie · 28:18
You're living in it right now.

DeWayne · 28:20
That's what you're like. It was like, what, what are we gonna do, you know, about it that's gonna create peace? You talk about the storm. What are we gonna do? I mean, I mean, and it can't be like a magic trip. magic trick response.

Mary · 28:36
Yeah.

DeWayne · 28:37
It has to be a response that's like, okay, we're going to— this is a cultural response. We're going to build these safeguards in our culture that allows us to prepare for the next storm, allows us to maintain communities and people no matter if a storm happened or not.

Reggie · 28:53
Yeah.

DeWayne · 28:54
So it's like, art is that, but sometimes when you like a superhero, I wear capes for real. You know what I mean? When I'm on a tour, when I'm out and it's so, and sometimes I take on a mentality like, oh, you can save the world. But then I don't come back and do art that's to help save me. So I gotta, I'm trying to get that practice, lock that practice in because art is what got me into this work. Like if I didn't do the art, I probably would've killed several people. You know what I mean?

Mary · 29:27
I wanna hear that story.

DeWayne · 29:28
A lot of people I would've, A lot of people would have been destroyed, not only people but places.

Mary · 29:33
Yeah.

DeWayne · 29:33
Art is the one, the thing that allowed me to transfer all that anger and all that self and external destruction.

Reggie · 29:44
Channeling into something productive.

DeWayne · 29:46
Yeah. It was like, but I got to keep doing it. I forgot, you get out there and you think you can— oh no.

Reggie · 29:55
Oh no, it's an ongoing practice.

DeWayne · 29:57
Yeah, it's ongoing. I got to stay tapped in like the person you said that said, in the back of you.

Reggie · 30:02
Yep.

DeWayne · 30:03
I gotta stay tapped in with that.

Reggie · 30:05
Yeah.

DeWayne · 30:05
Well, I won't be, I won't be as productive and efficient, effective as I could be. And then I have experiences like in the mall. I was in the mall taking my moms for a walk. And because, you know, my moms, you know, now I'm a caregiver. I'm sorry. I know, I know. I keep— what is this bug on me? You're kidding.

Reggie · 30:25
Fuck is this?

DeWayne · 30:26
It's a microphone. My fault, man.

Reggie · 30:29
Okay.

DeWayne · 30:34
Okay.

Reggie · 30:34
My fault.

Mary · 30:36
Okay.

DeWayne · 30:36
He's like, take my mom to the mall so she can walk. And I'm sitting there chilling, doing business talk on the phone. Security guard come up to me taking pictures of me and shit.

Mary · 30:48
Weird.

DeWayne · 30:48
And I kept telling him, man, why you keep taking pictures of me? And then I said, I'm gonna take a picture of you. And then Another guy came behind me and then I went from 0 to 1,000. I was all combat mode. No peace. No, I had my Peace Garden shirt on and everything. I was choking people out.

Reggie · 31:07
Fuck you.

DeWayne · 31:08
Choke out both of them. So I was like, yo, man, you need— you know what I mean? You can't be a quick trigger.

Mary · 31:15
No.

DeWayne · 31:16
I mean, and I was willing to throw all of my life Not my life in that moment.

Reggie · 31:22
All my work, progress, everything.

DeWayne · 31:24
I was willing to throw it all away just to choke out these 2 security guards.

Reggie · 31:29
Did they ever say why they were profiling? They were profiling.

DeWayne · 31:34
Typical.

Reggie · 31:34
Yeah, typical profiling.

DeWayne · 31:36
I can't think on that. On them. That's the Beatles.

Reggie · 31:39
That's the Beatles.

DeWayne · 31:41
I don't know. I don't understand Beetlejuice, but I know what it is, but I don't understand the Philosophy behind that. Yeah, but I'm just saying I went from 0 to 1,000 combat shields, swords.

Reggie · 31:55
Yeah.

DeWayne · 31:57
And that's not good for me. You know, that's not good for the—

Reggie · 32:00
I think it's like medicine. I think when you take a medicine, like say, say you have high blood pressure, take a medicine for it, and then you get your blood pressure down, you're like, oh, I'm good, I'm gonna stop taking medicine. Your blood pressure goes right back up as soon as you do. It's the, you've gotta like, you gotta keep taking the medicine.

DeWayne · 32:20
Yeah. That's where I'm at.

Reggie · 32:21
And that's what art is. Art is your medicine.

DeWayne · 32:23
Most definitely.

Reggie · 32:24
Mm-hmm. I feel that.

Tim · 32:26
I appreciate you bringing in the reality of the war that is still happening. I think I come at everything naturally from like a privileged perspective.

DeWayne · 32:33
Yeah.

Tim · 32:34
And to know that there is that intensity happening always right now.

DeWayne · 32:40
Yeah. Yeah.

Tim · 32:40
And whether it's covered on the news or not, it's literally happening. And there are whole groups, whole profiled colorful group that's been, that's just been under it for years.

Reggie · 32:53
Black and brown people, man.

Tim · 32:54
Right. And it's just like nonstop. And I don't even remember it.

Reggie · 32:57
I kind of funny. I don't know if I brought this up. I think I'm, I don't know if I brought this up on the podcast before, but I remember being with one of my white friends when I had the Range Rover, it was Ty.

DeWayne · 33:07
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 33:08
And we were driving on the highway. Scott pulled us over. He comes up to the car. You've heard this story before. He comes up to the car. He's a young guy, crew cut, you know, all like testosterone-y. And that's testosterone-y.

Mary · 33:24
Testosterone-y energy.

Reggie · 33:28
My, my, um, my tags had like just expired, but I had all the paperwork in the car and we were literally driving To go and like get the get my new tags, and he came up and he had seen our tags. My tags were expired, and he came up and before he as soon as he got to the car and like saw me, he was already hot, already agitated, already like I'm reaching for my paperwork. What you reaching for? Blah blah blah. He was like super, and you know, and I'm like yeah no I was just no you're lying to me stop lying to me blah blah blah. It was just really super aggro and ready. And I was like, dude, he made us get up, leave my Range Rover on the side of the highway, and get out and walk on the highway. Wouldn't offer us a ride, wouldn't let us drive to get off the highway. He literally made us get off and walk, which is incredibly dangerous. And my friend was like, holy shit.

Tim · 34:27
He had front row seats to that. Like he's shocked.

Reggie · 34:33
He was like, I've never been treated like that before.

DeWayne · 34:35
I know you don't.

Reggie · 34:35
And I was— he was like, he was racist. And I was like, you think? His mind was blown. It pissed him off, probably more than it pissed me off because I'm used to it. But he was like, this is what you have to deal with? He was hot mad. He was— let alone did he have to walk on the highway with me. But he was like, I can't believe you have to deal with that shit.

DeWayne · 34:59
Yeah.

Reggie · 35:00
And so people of color have to be stoic to some degree, because they have to remove themselves from sometimes their reality, just to figure out how to get through it to the next phase. So sometimes being stoic is a lifeline. Sometimes it's a, it's a safety precaution. Sometimes it's, it's a saving grace.

Mary · 35:20
I think that I talked about the roller coaster of my emotions. It runs really fast. It can be a thrill, but if you're on it for too long, you wanna vomit. But I think that—

Tim · 35:30
That's gonna be a good quote.

DeWayne · 35:31
That's true too.

Mary · 35:33
But I, but I think that that too is a privilege, you know, getting to actually like go through all of those motions and feel like you can express in all those places. There are very few people I think who actually get to experience and express that fully and having somewhere like an art space or a meditation space where you can process that feels essential.

DeWayne · 35:54
Oh, yeah, most definitely.

Mary · 35:55
Yeah.

DeWayne · 35:55
It is essential.

Mary · 35:56
And, and I think that when I think of Stoicism, it is very in my mind connected to men, masculinity. I'm putting it in quotes because I think a lot of people associate masculinity with that detachment, that removal of emotion, like not living into it. And Stoicism sort of gives people a fancy word to feel like, oh, I can just, yeah, cut myself off at the neck and live head up and not be in my body and all these things. But I think that that's the fad version of it you were talking about. People don't really study and practice. They're just sort of throwing quotes around.

Tim · 36:32
And that's a poison, that, that version of Stoicism. I would say that going through that experience your whole life, you're probably more Stoic than any privileged white guy studying Marcus Aurelius.

DeWayne · 36:46
Because—

Mary · 36:46
The ability to master this.

Tim · 36:49
Yeah, to be able to control yourself when someone is literally in your face egging you on.

DeWayne · 36:53
Oh man.

Tim · 36:54
Yeah. And you can pull yourself back and hold it together long enough to let that person go.

DeWayne · 37:00
No, no, no, not all the time, but practice.

Tim · 37:02
Practice that.

DeWayne · 37:03
We practice.

Tim · 37:04
I mean, yeah. I mean, there was—

DeWayne · 37:05
Sometimes you, you, you, like, I, I deal with a lot of young boys Who already know are high heads, who already know ready, quick, fast. But if they would have been around me at that day, I would have failed the test.

Reggie · 37:19
Yeah, look at you. You talk about me. You lost it. Yeah, you on that shit too.

Tim · 37:26
Right.

DeWayne · 37:26
But I'm like saying, so yeah, it's practice. That's all I want to say is practice. Practice.

Reggie · 37:32
Man, I got practice yesterday. I was trying to work on Slide deck, and my kids are melting down in the morning. My wife's like, managing like kids left over from a sleepover. And then, so I've just employed this new rule. I'm doing one week on, one week off with the tablets for the kids. Because they just zone out and they become little zombies. And when you take them away, they get really angry. And I'm like, I don't like this. And so they're gonna have a week where they get Monday through Friday, get an hour and a half. Saturdays get 3 hours. And then Sundays we do a family activity. And if they can do that without complaining and they can actually enjoy it, they earn another hour and a half on Sunday. And then that Monday they're off until the next week.

Mary · 38:26
Is this an on week or an off week right now?

Reggie · 38:29
This is the first on week, and they were going through withdrawals yesterday. So I'm having to hear them melt down while I'm trying to stay focused. And they're like, oh man, it was a lot. But I stayed in the zone, and I was able to, you know, at least do some high-level thinking. But sometimes, you know, it's like you said, it's a practice and you have to keep going. There are times where I had to walk upstairs and like, you know, try to stay in the dad mode, keep my composure. What's going on? Like, I'm the fixer in the house. I'm the problem solver. I'm the one that comes in, tries to listen.

Tim · 39:07
You thrive in that position though.

Reggie · 39:08
Sometimes.

Tim · 39:09
Like when you—

Reggie · 39:09
sometimes I don't always— usually always— I'm not always graceful.

Tim · 39:13
You always— like every time I see you and you're having to troubleshoot something, or I literally— I can't take it. Like I just I meltdown. But you're like, I can fix this. It's like you enjoy the process of fixing it.

Reggie · 39:25
I do enjoy the— what I enjoy is being able to come up with a solution. And then I love when I'm on the other side of it and it worked out and it's made somebody's life easier, better, whether it's my life or somebody else's life. That I feel like is the gift that I get from it.

Tim · 39:44
You know, like this is Yeah, there was this character, this black man on the show we're watching, who was— he was losing it. Remember The Boys?

Reggie · 39:56
Oh, on The Boys. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim · 39:58
Remember he was losing it and he says, you white guys always can do everything you want and you can just fly off the handle and everyone just looks the other way. But I can't do what I'm feeling.

Reggie · 40:05
That's right.

Tim · 40:06
And I have to control myself because if I do one thing, I'm pushed into this extreme. And that's what I think that that level of—

Reggie · 40:13
I forgot about that.

Tim · 40:13
Oppression is like, you have to act this certain way or else you're gonna get punished or you're gonna get something. Like, even this hotheaded teenagers or kids, like, who wasn't hotheaded at that age? And why did they get criticized for it as if like they can't control themselves?

Mary · 40:28
Yeah.

Tim · 40:29
Or they're violent or whatever it is, when it's a general rule that I have— I have teenagers, they're getting— I feel like maybe they're getting a little less hotheaded, or maybe they're just getting zoned out by screens or digital, whatever it is.

Reggie · 40:40
Yeah, we're getting numb.

Tim · 40:41
But there are these realities amongst us humans that are the same, that are the same in that we're human.

Reggie · 40:49
Well, we go through the same—

Tim · 40:50
But then the expectations put on you guys—

Reggie · 40:52
It's the societal expectations that are different.

Tim · 40:54
Yeah, the whole community is outrageous, and that—

Reggie · 40:57
You know what, I always think about being in a room where it's me and a couple other white people, And white people are raising their voices like, oh, and then as soon as you raise your voice, why are you yelling? Why are you so angry? Like, what do you mean? Well, I'm just matching you guys. What are you talking about?

Mary · 41:18
That totally happens.

Reggie · 41:19
I don't know why that is a thing, but it, it, for some reason, when a Black person raises their voice, it's perceived as like aggression and angry, even if you're in the exact same state of mind as everybody else around you. It's so weird. It's definitely something we carry for sure.

DeWayne · 41:37
For sure.

Mary · 41:38
Well, and such choppy waters, such a scary place I think to talk about because like we don't know.

Reggie · 41:47
Well, the reality is, is we should talk about anything. It's not scary. It should be talked about. I think the more we talk about it, the more understanding we have and the more opportunities we have to shine light on things that I think the world needs to be discussing, you know? Yeah.

Tim · 42:02
Right.

Mary · 42:02
The Black people that I've known who run in like predominantly white circles do tend to be, in my experience, the grounded people. The people who everybody else might be freaking out and they're not freaking out, whether that's because of just the essence of who they are or because they have developed that practice of like, I can't, I can't be the one that's gonna elevate or escalate this right now. But I do think when—

Reggie · 42:27
It could be a number of things.

Mary · 42:29
Yeah. Sure.

Reggie · 42:29
I have to keep my cool 'cause they're gonna say I'm, you know, what's going on.

DeWayne · 42:32
Yeah.

Mary · 42:32
I'm gonna take the fall no matter what happens.

Reggie · 42:34
Or I've been through so much shit that this is nothing.

DeWayne · 42:37
Yeah.

Tim · 42:38
That one.

DeWayne · 42:39
That one.

Reggie · 42:39
This is nothing.

DeWayne · 42:41
Yeah.

Mary · 42:42
But, but yeah, I think when that person that, you know, you, you expect a certain way of being from people if you've been around 'em long enough and you're like, oh, if that person's starting to, break, it's almost like a signal that everything's no longer okay. But it's— I don't know, why should everybody else get to be chickens with their heads cut off running around freaking out? I don't know. It puts a lot of responsibility on one person. And you see that, I think, in a lot of different group dynamics where there's the one— I think there's also this archetype of the father being the one who holds it all together for the family.

DeWayne · 43:15
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 43:15
And I don't know.

Reggie · 43:17
I don't know if that's It's funny, I think sometimes my wife is that person because she actually is really grounded. Like, she—

Mary · 43:24
Oh, yeah. She, she can read a little stoic to me.

Reggie · 43:27
Oh, yeah. She's— she is like, you know, my kids, man, I'm kind of a baby when it comes to my kids getting hurt. Like, if my, my son or one of my daughters goes and like skins their knee, I'm like, oh, are you okay? Like, I'm all worked up. I'm like, oh, Baby, you know, my wife is like, stop overreacting. You're going to make them, you know, like, shake. Because as soon as you— and you know this with kids.

Tim · 43:53
It's not a big deal till you make it a big deal.

Reggie · 43:54
As soon as you react, they do something and they're like totally fine. And then you overreact and they're like, you're disgusting.

Mary · 44:02
Yeah.

Reggie · 44:03
And so my wife is the one who's just like, they're fine. They're fine. And I have to like, calm down and like remember that they're fine. So it's interesting how that works.

Mary · 44:16
We talked—

DeWayne · 44:19
oh, go ahead.

Tim · 44:19
Well, no, you can go ahead. Either of you want to say something?

Mary · 44:24
No, I was gonna—

Reggie · 44:26
we have to thank Craig for this topic.

Mary · 44:27
Yeah.

Tim · 44:28
Well, one thing I would say that it—

DeWayne · 44:31
in—

Tim · 44:32
I always somehow end up bringing up something out of the Bible. I guess this is some kind of subconscious vendetta to regenerate.

Mary · 44:39
I mean, there's good stories in there, right?

Tim · 44:42
I've deprogrammed myself from what I grew up thinking about a lot of it to resetting it for myself.

Reggie · 44:49
He's a preacher in designer's clothing.

Tim · 44:51
I'm a preacher's kid, so that's kind of the thing that follows me around.

DeWayne · 44:55
I was reading the Bible this morning. Good.

Tim · 44:56
So I feel like in Psalms 24 when he says, you prepare a table the presence— for me in the presence of my enemies.

DeWayne · 45:04
Right.

Tim · 45:04
I've always read that. He's going through the valley of the shadow of death, and you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. And that to me is the most visceral Stoic experience. First of all, how do you eat? How do you have an appetite in your— in the presence of your enemies? You know, like, you get the feeling like you are, like, guarded and You can't just open up and be vulnerable at a table and dine.

Reggie · 45:32
I wonder if that's where the adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, came from.

Tim · 45:37
It's possible because maybe there's this— what is it? This settling in yourself or this acceptance maybe of what you can't change around you. If your enemies are never leaving, how do you become? How do you evolve? How do you be yourself? And so I've always looked to the Spirit to bring that settlement, that settling, or that— I would call it elevation instead of escalation. Go into elevation where you see a story of change happening. You don't lose hope.

Mary · 46:15
Right.

Tim · 46:15
You don't think this moment defines me and defines everything. This moment is just a second. And to sit and eat and enjoy the moment in the presence of your enemies, almost as if they don't have power over me.

Mary · 46:28
Right.

Tim · 46:29
And this is coming high and lofty from a white guy, but the Jewish guy who wrote it was under persecution most of his existence. That was one of the most persecuted people in the ancient times, maybe even still, but there's this sense of— I think when Megan— when we had our second child, It was really traumatic and Megan was injured in the process. And so we were trying to feed her from bottle while Megan was pumping. We were only like—

Reggie · 46:58
I thought you were talking about feeding Megan.

Tim · 46:59
I was like, how injured was she?

Reggie · 47:03
Did you make that too?

DeWayne · 47:06
I was like, damn.

Tim · 47:10
That would be bad.

Reggie · 47:11
Did she get burnt out of her mouth?

Mary · 47:13
You got this far in your relationship with Tim without knowing the backstory. If Megan had been fed from bottles—

Reggie · 47:20
I was like, this is new to me. That's why I was completely taken aback.

Tim · 47:25
I was like, that is bad. I was feeding—

Reggie · 47:29
I was like, what kind of entry was that?

Tim · 47:31
I was having to feed her with my finger and a little tiny syringe because she was so young. She was supposed to be on a bottle, like an infant bottle or breastfeeding. And it couldn't happen. And we only had, like, one bottle more. We were kind of really close.

DeWayne · 47:46
Yeah.

Tim · 47:46
And it was such a dark moment. So dark. I only know that because I told myself to remember how dark this moment is. But if I try to remember this moment, I don't actually connect. I don't remember why it was so dark. I don't remember the depth of that darkness, of that feeling. I just remember clocking it in my brain as a bookmark. Like, this is a really dark moment. This is a—

Reggie · 48:08
yeah.

Tim · 48:09
And so to look back on it from here and see that moment and be like, that wasn't— that was a moment. It did pass. It was the darkest moment I have ever experienced, and it passed. And now I can't relate to how dark it was. I wonder if that's that eating in the presence of your enemies, that this moment is not too dark.

Reggie · 48:30
I wonder if you've had darker moments since then and you don't even relate them to that moment because that one's already passed.

Tim · 48:35
I don't remember it.

Reggie · 48:36
You're like, this is now the darkest moment.

Tim · 48:37
Yeah.

Reggie · 48:37
But you don't even know.

Tim · 48:38
Right. And so to notice that and to remember that in the moment when I'm in another dark moment is this— it is a level of elevating yourself out of that moment to say, no, I'm not defined by this moment. This is not where I have to stay forever.

Reggie · 48:56
I think one of the gifts I've gained through the years is, you know, they say the old adage, don't cry over spilled milk. I have embraced that in a way that it truly helped me in life because the reality is, if something happens, some misfortune, misfortune comes about, you're in some kind of, you know, situation that you can't control. I used to— so I grew up, you know, of course, growing up with corporal punishment, you do have anger issues. You know, I get backhanded and the belt and the extension cord one time, you know, like, not, you know—

DeWayne · 49:45
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 49:45
And I know we've talked about this on the show before, but, you know, my grandma used to get that— my great-grandmother It's like every family member was in line to whip your ass, you know.

Mary · 49:54
Yeah, with a switch.

Tim · 49:56
Generation after generation.

Mary · 49:58
Did you ever have to go out and pick your own switch?

Reggie · 49:59
Oh yeah, that was it. I had to go out. You go out and you get me a switch, and then we're gonna soak it in the bathtub. And yeah, and you'd be under the bed trying to get away. But that kind of environment definitely fosters anger. And so I grew up with a lot of anger. And so when things would happen, I would have a meltdown. I, you know, I would break things, I would throw things, I would, you know, because— and it was because I couldn't control the situation that made me lose my shit. But then as I got older and I realized that my anger was impacting people around me, you know, relationships, my first daughter, I started to understand that.

DeWayne · 50:45
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 50:47
the best thing I can do in the moment of, of misfortune or strife, if something happens that I cannot control, is own it. All right, this happened. I, you know, I broke the thing. I like— remember when I broke the lens in my— I was repairing a projector and I broke the lens inside the projector, and it was a really expensive mistake. But I didn't lose my shit. I took a picture of it. I was like, oh well, you know.

Tim · 51:16
I couldn't believe you sent it to me with any—

Reggie · 51:18
Within moments.

Tim · 51:19
Relaxing mood.

Reggie · 51:21
Yeah, I was like, I can't go back. I can't. I am not Hiro from the show Heroes that could control space and time and just go back and undo it. Like, I couldn't do that. And so what it's allowed me to do is to quickly move on to the solution. Like accept it, like acknowledge it. Shit, I fucked up. Accept it. Can't change it. This is a thing that's happened. And then okay, how can I fix it? And what I learned all of that is to get me to happiness. I want to be happy. Like I don't want to be angry. I want to be happy. And if a moment is taking me out of the happiness, how can I get back to happiness as quickly as possible? And the best way to do that is to go through that process is. Quickly as possible. And so that's what I've learned. The longer I linger, the longer I'm like, oh man, I can't believe this happened, whatever. It prolongs me in this state of anguish and unhappiness. And so the best way to get to happiness is to get through that process, accept it, own it. How can I solve it? And then next thing you know, I found a projector on eBay that I— that was— I offered the guy like you know, minimum amount for. And within like the same day, I had a whole replacement model coming with all the spare parts that I needed. And it turned out the thing that he thought was wrong with it, why he was selling it so cheap, wasn't even a thing. So it was basically like a brand new projector that was just a little beat up on the outside.

DeWayne · 52:55
So to your point about that is like, that's a great process because there's some new bullshit coming. You gotta keep practicing. But I wanna go back to your point about the whole eating before your enemies. I took that, it's like you out here grinding all the time and you successful, it seem like it create more resistance.

Tim · 53:23
Mm-hmm.

DeWayne · 53:24
You would think it would be all the doors are open, everybody, the red carpet. No. Not in my total experience. It's like you create and then some of them you don't know who they are. So that's what I mean when I hear you say that. It's like the vision is clear and you locked into the vision no matter what enemies or whatever coming around you that's trying to prevent you or distract you. distract you from it. The vision is clear and you locked in. You eating amongst your enemies and friends, you know, everything is good.

Tim · 53:59
You don't have to worry about who's who because you have to worry about it, right?

DeWayne · 54:03
Because you locked in.

Reggie · 54:05
Yeah.

DeWayne · 54:06
So that's what the part when I hear you say that is, that part is the epitome of stoicism.

Tim · 54:11
I love that. I would— yeah, I put it in more like you're with your enemies and you know it. But what you're saying, you don't know who's around.

Reggie · 54:20
There are enemies among us, and you don't know who they are. Yeah, that's really the reality right there. Like, that's, that's it.

Tim · 54:27
And what you're saying is true. The success, you feel like it's going to make life easier, like it's the solution.

Reggie · 54:34
I think your success can actually make enemies out of friends, right? Because people, the human condition sometimes is to be envious. And when they see someone succeeding, they have this disdain that doesn't necessarily— it's not outward, but it may work its way in in different ways. They may say something to someone, or they may, you know, sabotage you in a way that you never even realized, just because they have this, like, jealousy.

Tim · 55:02
Jealousy.

Mary · 55:03
I think you find— I'm gonna say something that might not resonate with everybody. But I think you find out who the people are who really loved and celebrated who you are for who you are. Versus the people who really liked having you around because there was something that made them feel a little superior. There was something that made them feel a little bit good about themselves and they could be gracious and generous to you. Yep.

Reggie · 55:27
Yep.

Mary · 55:27
And then the minute that you are no longer in that sort of weaker position from them, or they know—

Reggie · 55:33
It flips.

Mary · 55:33
Then they're like, well, this is not a dynamic that I'm okay with. Us on equal footing makes me uncomfortable. Or you may be like in a position that I covet. does not make me comfortable. And yeah, I think you see some true color.

Reggie · 55:45
That's sad. That's a sad truth, but I think you're spot on.

Tim · 55:49
I don't know.

DeWayne · 55:51
I—

Mary · 55:52
it's interesting to me, we're talking about stoicism and it sort of kind of runs up against— we talk a lot on this show about authenticity, what it means to be authentic. And particularly like we live in a branding space all the time and sort of All these brands wanna be authentic, but actually they just wanna sell to you. So they'll be whatever you want them to be.

Tim · 56:12
As long as it's positioned correctly.

Mary · 56:14
Yeah.

Tim · 56:14
They will be authentic.

Mary · 56:15
Yeah.

DeWayne · 56:15
Right. Right.

Reggie · 56:17
Right.

Mary · 56:17
And I think there are places you can put yourself where the way you naturally are makes more sense versus places you can put yourself where the way you naturally are is gonna ruffle feathers. And maybe both of those are valid and important places to be. But it's interesting to me when I think about stoicism, particularly in like a work context or a business context, I do feel like there are rules, rules of engagement that need to like throttle your authenticity. I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting around a table of people and been like, there's a truth here that nobody's feeling like they can say.

Tim · 56:50
Hmm.

Mary · 56:51
Nobody's wanting to say the truth, but we all feel like this is a dynamic that's happening. We had a call the other day where like, there was like a core team of 3 people and they'd invited a couple people in just to hear the conversation. And we were supposed to have another meeting with just this core core team of people to try to get stuff done. You know, you can't get something done with 12 people around the table. It's gonna be more difficult.

Reggie · 57:12
Yeah.

Mary · 57:13
And there was this person who was like, so when's the next meeting? And what are we doing with this? And I could just tell nobody wanted to just say what was happening and resolve it. So I don't know. I feel like there's moments where stoicism is sort of forced upon us if we're gonna keep with the rules of engagement or if we're going to Yeah. Keep the peace, I guess, in a work setting in the same way that you're talking about in the community.

Reggie · 57:41
About speaking of branding, like, are there any brands that you think embody stoicism?

Tim · 57:46
Heck no. See, so for me, I don't think, I don't think holding it together and repressing authenticity is necessarily the same as stoicism. I, so I think there could be a place where—

Mary · 57:58
Authenticity versus emotion is part of it.

Tim · 58:00
Right. But I think there's a place where you could say that thing because you're in a place of Stoicism.

Mary · 58:08
Because the repercussions aren't going to be—

Tim · 58:10
Right. Because you're not—

Reggie · 58:11
You're not invested in the repercussions.

Tim · 58:13
You're not repressing yourself and feeling threatened or like you're going to mess something up. You're at a different place. You're at a different state. So you come at the experience not with, like, what are they going to think? Or is anyone afraid of saying this?

Mary · 58:26
Am I gonna hurt somebody by saying this?

Tim · 58:28
Right, there's a leadership in who you are. And I think the leaders, the ones who talked about it, who made this a thing, were leaders. And rightly so, 'cause I don't think that people that weren't leaders had the money or the wherewithal to put documents like this together that would be remembered through history. But I think it comes at times of intense, Something on the outside is pushing on us.

Mary · 58:55
I was wondering when we were reading those quotes where this is on the downfall of that civilization. Where are we on that timeline?

DeWayne · 59:02
Yeah.

Tim · 59:03
It's a good question. But I would say that to be— I believe there's an authentic version of yourself inside that's like an eternal spark. And that authenticity is different than the hurt version of you, the role-played version of you. I was a kid treated this way, and I grew up in this, and now I'm reacting because I got this little movie happening and it's affecting me. That, I think, is confused authenticity.

Mary · 59:30
With like the— what was Reggie talking about? The guy that's behind me, the like— yeah.

Tim · 59:34
But then there's a different part of you that was born at the inception that is who you are, the trueness, the real authentic you, real far down inside of you. And to be stoic, I guess what I'm trying to feel out is how do you open yourself up to where authenticity is at another level? Not just, I can be mean because it's authentically I feel angry.

DeWayne · 59:57
Yeah.

Tim · 59:57
Or I can be disrespectful because authentically I don't like this person. But to be authentic like, I am not defined by this, and this is how I would react from my more eternal self. It's not the person in the darkness. It's the person that has already been through the darkness.

Reggie · 60:14
It's the internal spark.

Tim · 60:15
Yeah. There's always this message of an always— something that has always been. So you hear these near-death experiences where people will say, it was almost as if when they were— when they go to this place that they go right before they die, they said, it's almost like I chose this life to learn what I'm learning.

Mary · 60:35
I feel that right now. Like, shit will be getting crazy and I'll be freaked out. And I'm like, this is a— you could frame this as this is a really bad time to be living in. I think a lot of people parrot that narrative to me, but I'm like, I can't shake the feeling that I picked this one.

Tim · 60:51
Right. And so there's this— in this story, there's this indirect assertion that that person has chosen multiple different lives to learn from. Or the assumption that they have an eternal aspect of them that lives beyond this life and before this life. And so when, I think in a situation at work, and this is a hard place to be for women and for black people, when you're oppressed and repressed, because if you act out, it will disturb the peace.

Mary · 61:22
Mm-hmm.

Tim · 61:22
And keeping the peace is not always what Stoicism is about. You know, it's not just to keep peace. It's to keep peace in yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean the peace has to be kept on the outside.

DeWayne · 61:34
Mm-hmm.

Tim · 61:36
Sometimes there are times to start— like Martin Luther King started a war at peace within himself. He started an external thing that had a reaction. He just didn't say what they expected him to say to try and keep the peace and whatever was expecting. So I think that authenticity needs to go deeper to where we truly are, because at your core, you are pure love. You know, you're not a hurt thing, rotten thing at your core. That is just something that the culture and our upbringing and our nurture has kind of created in us, and we wear all these clothes to cover it up.

Mary · 62:15
When you say clothes, it's— that's the image that I got. And I'm just realizing, even that guy on that first state. That's the image that I got, that it's— Stoicism wasn't for him a way of being, a practice that he comes back to and learns from. For him, it seemed like Stoicism was a mask or armor, something that I put between me and the world. And I don't know, I think that's been my experience of it so far, which might mean that I'm not truly engaged in the practice.

Reggie · 62:46
I like that quote on there, that says it's not what happens to you, it's how you react that matters. And I think that to me speaks to what I was talking about earlier, like in having something happen and then not, no, I think all of that is about keeping that inner peace. And maybe it's that inner authentic spark that's the one that like takes over in that moment.

DeWayne · 63:10
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 63:11
That holds you and anchors you through that moment. 'Cause I think the human condition really is reactive. Like something happens and you instantly become the victim.

Tim · 63:21
Right.

Reggie · 63:21
And so to be able to like stay grounded and like react in a way that benefits you requires, I guess, some internal rewiring or some kind of access to that. Just playing off the metaphor of like that, your internal spark of origin, I think would be another way of saying that. It's like, that's who you are. All these other personalities have been sort of built on through the years, the hurt you, the angry you, the victim you, the whatever. But it's that original essence of you. None of those things had happened to you. And so if you, to keep with what you're saying, Yeah. if you're keeping that protected, So we can always move into action.

DeWayne · 64:10
The levels of understanding yourself is deep and it's a process. I always knew when I was young I was an artist. I always knew something, I always was creating, but I kind of didn't always chase that. But like my stepfather used to always say to me, do you know who you are?

Tim · 64:39
I'd be like, nah, tell me, please.

DeWayne · 64:41
Like, whatever. What do you mean by that? And that question still haunts me today. It's like, do you know who you are? And it's like—

Reggie · 64:50
That's a good question to ask yourself.

Mary · 64:53
And the question to ask a young person.

DeWayne · 64:55
Multi-layers of figuring that out. But the part that I'm realizing now is like our society was created in a Beetlejuice way. And if you don't understand those societal things that help influence you, who you think you are and why you do the things that you do, you have to under— you have to understand that. And then I think that helps you. It's not ever— it's a piece of it. It helps you.

Reggie · 65:25
Navigate.

DeWayne · 65:25
Navigate and then understand, hey, this was, this was by intention, you know what I mean? They put that TV there and put them with the dude eating the watermelon. Oh, that was— they— and they made the back seat back door. Oh, that was by design. They built this a certain kind. It was a Beetlejuice city that was created to make some people feel less than, and that influences Do you know who you are? But then it's another piece.

Reggie · 65:53
Oh yeah.

DeWayne · 65:53
Another piece you gotta self-cultivate. You gotta cultivate that on your own, on your own time through experiences. I think it's a multilayer process that has to happen over time through experiences. And right now, I mean, with the work I'm doing and work we have been doing, I realize like, Save the hood and I ain't know how to save me.

Reggie · 66:22
You can't save the hood if you can't save yourself.

DeWayne · 66:27
Save me. So now I'm doing this whole thing, I'm winding it all back like, okay, value me, value you, and together value the Earth. Because I'm like an environmental dude. So it's like, so I'm now designing my life around Okay, I done did all the save the world stuff.

Mary · 66:46
Yeah.

DeWayne · 66:47
I still do that. I ain't gonna stop doing that. But how do I look back at my space? When I grew up, my family, my God, it was God, family, and me.

Tim · 66:59
Yeah.

DeWayne · 67:00
How do I understand that piece and then transition back into the work that I love and I got a vision and a passion for?

Mary · 67:10
There's a book you might, if you haven't already read it, you sound like you, you embody this book, whether you've read it or not. It's called What It Takes to Heal by an author named Prentice Hemphill.

DeWayne · 67:21
Okay.

Mary · 67:21
And they talk about that exact thing and they frame it through the, the like introduction is about around 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement and all that happened around George, George Floyd's death. But that's in essence like the thesis of the book. is like, it's gotta start in here. And if you're not doing the work in here, eventually it will catch up with you. And then how do we continue doing good in the world if we can't take care of this here at home? How do we take care of other people if we haven't figured out how to take care of this here at home? But that's, that really resonates with me.

Reggie · 67:54
That's another layer is the you that is influenced by your surroundings and society that covers up and Kind of puts another layer over that original origin.

Tim · 68:06
Right.

Mary · 68:06
Do you think that art is the, the best practice for getting in touch?

DeWayne · 68:11
Oh, most definitely. It's freedom. Yeah, it is. And then for me, I love how he says that with confidence. Yeah. Yeah, most definitely. And because when knowing that, and then when I really started getting into it, I guess I was in Norfolk for Virginia and jumping in trash cans. People used to look at me, oh, something wrong with that dude. I was finding me, you know what I mean?

Mary · 68:38
Myself in this dumpster.

DeWayne · 68:41
And people wasn't feeling it. People was saying all crazy stories or whatever. But not until I shut that out and I just locked in.

Reggie · 68:51
Locked in.

DeWayne · 68:52
I locked in. It was a societal thing saying, oh, you don't make stuff out of crack pipes and 40-ounce bottles, you know what I mean? It was just, maybe it was a story I was telling myself because art is the first thing I found freedom in. It was like, I'm free.

Tim · 69:11
Yeah.

DeWayne · 69:12
I can do whatever I want to do.

Reggie · 69:14
No one else can define it for you.

DeWayne · 69:15
I don't care if you get it or not. I know what the defining, what it is for me and why I'm doing it. But if you don't get it, that's okay.

Reggie · 69:23
Yeah.

DeWayne · 69:23
It's okay if you don't get it. Maybe you get it next year, next whatever. So yes, I think it is. And I think if it wasn't for art, like I said before, be able to create, write music, all the things, food, whatever. I think it do help you find yourself.

Mary · 69:42
There's a trend online where people will do something kind of wacky that maybe you wouldn't have expected somebody to do. They're doing something a way that's not normal or whatever. They'll say, just remembered I have free will. And take a video of the thing that they're doing that makes them happy.

DeWayne · 69:59
I love that.

Tim · 69:59
Free will. Geez, that's a whole nother topic. Do you think that art doesn't need to be created? That's why it's so freeing to create it?

Mary · 70:09
Some artists would disagree with you. I think there's no—

Tim · 70:12
like, like, there's nothing in the world that says, like, we have all these tasks that we have to do. Like, you have to You have to eat or you die. You have to drink water or you die.

Reggie · 70:20
Art doesn't necessarily have to be created. However—

Tim · 70:22
We do it of our own drive. We do it of our own, like—

Reggie · 70:25
The person needs to create it because they have to get it out.

DeWayne · 70:28
Yeah.

Reggie · 70:29
But it's not something that if, you know, and some might even disagree with this, if it went away, like if music went away, I feel like music is art. And if music went away, I would probably perish.

Tim · 70:41
That's how I feel. I'm like, I don't know who I am.

Reggie · 70:46
I do think it needs to be there. It feeds the soul. It does feed the soul and it feeds man.

Tim · 70:51
And I think it's proof that our physical experience is not all there is. Sometimes if you get into a logical frame of mind where you need to do this, this, and this, you're trying to make all these things make sense. Making money being one of the primary ones. You get like this hyperfocus, gotta succeed. You forget this person that needs to be fed by art. by the creation, the creative process. Not even creating it ourselves, but also consuming it or taking it in, like enjoying music, wasting time reading an album cover while you're listening to the album, making art out of trash. Like, how many times do you probably get profiled in a dumpster digging out trash?

Reggie · 71:31
I've done that.

Tim · 71:32
You know, like you totally flip the script on somebody. You're not doing it to take it to some place to get change, you're actually making creative art, a piece of work.

Reggie · 71:44
It's an expression.

Tim · 71:45
It's an expression, and it's like a revolution— a revelation, but also a revolution of the expected result. You know, like trash goes here in the—

Mary · 71:55
I hear the word trash, and I— sorry, my brain goes to white trash. I'm like, I actually think— I mean, I grew up McDowell County and—

DeWayne · 72:06
Oh, yeah.

Mary · 72:07
But there's plenty of, I think my family, a lot of us identify. And I think that there's this fear of waste, even in that very literal sense, and associating myself with things that are not brand spanking new and haven't— I didn't buy the luxury version and I'm getting the secondhand or I'm getting it out of a dumpster, whether that's to make art or for whatever other reason. But I think there's no— like, we've attached all this between, like, purity culture and all these other things. It's like, it's all just experience. And I think art takes us back to that place where it's like, these are all just a different facet of the human experience. And the less judgment we ascribe to those things, the freer we will become in engaging with them.

DeWayne · 72:55
I love that.

Mary · 72:57
I'm a big— I get on my grandstand about art.

Reggie · 72:59
It's so funny. The world yesterday, I, um, I had stumbled upon this account, this guy who does that. He dumpster dives and he actually finds stuff in dumpsters because he lives in LA. And so of course dumpsters in LA, you're gonna find like Gucci bags and all kinds of stuff. And he basically has this whole like thrifting practice where he'll dumpster dive and find these things that other people threw away. But it's like, you know, he'll put it on these different thrifting sites. Yeah. And he'll get like $1,000 for something that he found in the garbage.

Mary · 73:37
There are people who go dumpster diving. I know that's got a lot of connotation to it. I'm not trying to make all this about pulling things out of a dumpster in Norfolk, Virginia. No, no. But I think that there's like food, like perfectly edible, beautiful food.

DeWayne · 73:51
Yeah. That's true.

Mary · 73:51
in dumpsters because of this capitalist bullshit about trying to separate people from things until they've paid for it. So I'm just like, a dumpster is a sign of a revolution to me. That's like, break the chains. They don't get to tell you what's trash.

Reggie · 74:05
Or it's a sign of a societal confine. Like we've said, oh, dumpster bad. If you put it in the dumpster, it's no longer acceptable.

Mary · 74:15
Somebody has deemed that unworthy.

Reggie · 74:17
But then other people are like, True that.

Mary · 74:20
Good shit, man.

Reggie · 74:20
We just saw you put it in there, we're gonna take it right back out.

DeWayne · 74:24
Yeah. Well, the only re— the other reason when I use trash is because I was in the military and I remember us throwing all this stuff in the ocean and I didn't like it.

Mary · 74:35
What kind of stuff were you throwing in the ocean?

DeWayne · 74:37
Gosh, it was throwing a lot of stuff in the ocean and then the waste So I really use trash too and driftwood as a way to remind us like, we gotta figure out something different about how we get rid of waste and do that. And how do we repurpose? How, you know, why are we throwing? Why are we making so much to then throw it away in a landfill that we then bury in the ground? It's not making sense.

Tim · 75:06
It's not making any sense.

DeWayne · 75:08
It was like, so what, it's our time, what are we gonna do about it? Especially after we know. So that was the other reason I said, if I'm gonna make any art, it has to be recycled, repurposed. In most cases that is. Sometimes I do gotta do by attachments and stuff.

Tim · 75:24
Yeah.

DeWayne · 75:25
To attach everything. But, and to remind us like, yo, we throwing away too much shit.

Tim · 75:31
Mm-hmm.

DeWayne · 75:33
Yep, we are. Like, we throwing away too much stuff and we don't know what to do with it. Why are we still doing this?

Reggie · 75:38
Mm-hmm.

DeWayne · 75:40
And that includes garbage. And why we haven't figured out this thing with our toilets, dudes? Why are we using fresh water to flush away?

Tim · 75:47
Mm-hmm.

DeWayne · 75:50
So how do we rethink that?

Mary · 75:53
Okay, we're friends here. All right, part of the scheme, right, is they put them somewhere out there. They are asking us to pay for the, the new thing. And half the time people are taking, like brands and stuff are taking the waste product, so they're not even have to pay for the, the new stuff anyway. And they're selling it to us, remixing it, whatever. But we're being asked to pay for new things when there are so many preexisting good things.

Tim · 76:23
Yeah.

Mary · 76:23
It's just because someone is trying to be a tastemaker and convince you that that thing is not good. And so they go put it in the trash. to convince you that that's a bad thing and that you're bad if you think that that's good. People get weird about shopping at Goodwill, which, by the way, you still have to pay for. Goodwill prices are insane to me. But like, they're literally selling—

Reggie · 76:46
Especially considering you're giving them this stuff for free.

Mary · 76:50
People are getting like—

DeWayne · 76:51
I was just at Goodwill yesterday.

Tim · 76:53
I wouldn't say I was just buying trash.

DeWayne · 76:56
Now I'm playing with you.

Mary · 76:57
You want me to pay $10 for this?

Tim · 76:59
Somebody gave it to me. Exactly.

Mary · 77:02
But I'm like, this is, this could be the thing. If we can just get over this like morality, this like personality, am I supposed to be this? Am I supposed to be that? And just use the stuff that we have.

DeWayne · 77:13
Yeah.

Mary · 77:14
And not, and not get weird about it.

DeWayne · 77:16
I don't know.

Mary · 77:17
And use our creativity to make it beautiful. Because I think that's what made it beautiful to begin with.

Tim · 77:23
Yeah. Have you been on Depop? Have you been on Depop? Is Depop the little app where you buy stuff?

Mary · 77:27
Yeah, you're still having to pay for it, my dude. And then you're paying shipping.

Tim · 77:29
No, it's cheap. It's like $5. My daughter's buying such cool stuff.

Mary · 77:33
It's better than, I guess, Goodwill.

Tim · 77:35
It's like person to person, $5 including shipping for a pair of pants.

Reggie · 77:39
Yeah, it's cheaper than Goodwill.

Tim · 77:40
It's cheaper than Goodwill.

Mary · 77:41
It's evolving.

Tim · 77:41
And it's a community, which is kind of cool. Like, they're like, my daughter gets this little tiny note from another girl her age. Thanks for buying my pants. And you can look for other stores who've got good style.

Reggie · 77:50
Yeah.

Mary · 77:50
Like, I like their vibe.

Tim · 77:52
Yeah, and especially with kids. kids clothing, fast fashion in kids, because they grow out of it and it's barely used.

Reggie · 77:56
They rub off so fast and they cost so much. Yeah.

Tim · 77:59
And so when someone was willing to share or to sell at a very low cost, something that they wore for a couple months or a year at the most, it just makes sense. I don't understand this branding thing where you have to sell new stuff all the time, continuous growth, having to expand. It's creating It's what's creating the mindset that we do need something new, or we're not valuable, like you're reusing stuff, or there's a sense that I need that to feel valuable.

Mary · 78:28
Well, we're gonna crave— I'll speak for myself. We're gonna crave novelty. But the only reason we know it's good is because somebody convinced us. Somebody took something that you might not have acknowledged had inherent worth and value because of whatever story you were told growing up or whatever environment you've been in in the last several years, and somebody shows it to you in a new form and says, but actually, did you ever see it this way?

Tim · 78:51
Or did you ever see this person drink this?

Mary · 78:53
Or did you see what this symbolizes? Do you see the history this thing carries with it? And can you, like, I don't know, acknowledge and celebrate the life that it has had and what it has meant to people? Like, I think there's something deep about that. I don't know. I was about to say stoic, but I'm questioning if I really know what stoicism means on its deepest But there's an elegance to that. There's a groundedness in that. There's a little bit of like, I see this beauty and I am not distracted by all that other stuff.

Tim · 79:26
All the newfangled, like, whatever it is.

DeWayne · 79:29
Yeah.

Tim · 79:29
Yeah.

Mary · 79:29
I don't know. Shoehorned it in. Ricky gave me the—

DeWayne · 79:33
Yeah.

Tim · 79:34
Is that the—

Mary · 79:34
Winkety wink.

DeWayne · 79:35
I'm—

Reggie · 79:35
Well, I think we covered Stoicism more than I ever thought I would in my lifetime.

Mary · 79:41
Craig is gonna be so disappointed. I don't know what his vision was for how we were gonna talk about it.

Reggie · 79:46
No, I think this probably went a really good way. I think we talked about hope. We talked about— I think we talked about— we covered all the things.

Mary · 79:54
Covered the things we needed to cover.

DeWayne · 79:55
Yeah.

Reggie · 79:56
Guys, thanks for being here with us. We know you could be spending this time anywhere else, and the fact that you chose to spend it with us makes us all very happy. Feel free to engage in the comments if you have some thoughts on Stoicism and how it pertains to your life. We'd love to hear it. And we want to thank DeWayne again for being here today. And we love all the things he's doing in the community, and we definitely hope he keeps it up. And we can't wait to see some of his new art. I definitely want to see that bulldozer.

Mary · 80:28
Yeah. Are you going to give us a link or something? Can people see it online?

DeWayne · 80:32
Yeah, I'm gonna take it down to this art show this weekend.

Reggie · 80:37
Oh, nice.

DeWayne · 80:39
Bring it back and I'll take photos.

Reggie · 80:41
Where's the art show?

DeWayne · 80:45
Where they make the furniture. This place they make the furniture.

Mary · 80:48
Oh, is it here in North Carolina?

DeWayne · 80:50
Yeah, in North Carolina.

Reggie · 80:51
Hickory?

Tim · 80:52
Hickory.

DeWayne · 80:52
Down around Hickory.

Reggie · 80:54
Okay, nice.

DeWayne · 80:55
Yeah, yeah.

Reggie · 80:55
That's all right.

DeWayne · 80:56
That's good.

Reggie · 80:58
We like Hickory. All right. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time.

DeWayne · 81:03
Bye.

Mary · 81:04
Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts, Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, and Mary Greene. Special thanks to our guest host, DeWayne Barton. Produced by Tim Scroggs. Live production by Ricardo Tejeda. Editing by me, Emily Parks. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value.