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The Silvercore Podcast explores the mindset and skills that build capable people. Host Travis Bader speaks with hunters, adventurers, soldiers, athletes, craftsmen, and founders about competence, integrity, and the pursuit of mastery, in the wild and in daily life. Hit follow and step into conversations that sharpen your edge.
Before we jump into this episode with
Chris Hunt from CO of the West, here's
something for those who want to go deeper.
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Alright on with the podcast,
you're gonna enjoy this one.
I'm joined today by an artist,
storyteller, and man on a mission.
After years in the creative
world, including time at Black
Rifle Coffee, he stepped away to
build something deeply personal.
What started as a simple
Instagram page became a movement.
He's the creator of Code of the
West, a modern guide to living with
honor, grit, and purpose in a world
that often forgets those things.
His work strikes a chord because it's
not theory, it's lived experience, loss,
risk growth, and a refusal to quit.
Welcome to the Silver
Court Podcast, Chris Hunt.
That
kind of made me emotional, like I don't,
I don't think of, I don't think of myself.
Uh, in that way often.
I mean, I, you're, that wasn't inaccurate,
but, but it just, it's brother,
that's you.
Yeah.
It's just, uh, yeah, I mean, it, it's,
it's me, but it's, uh, you know, I'm
sure you kind of can relate where
like when you're just in your own
head, you're just chopping wood and
carrying water, so you don't necessarily
stop to think that what you're doing
has any, like, any value outside of
just the activity that you're doing.
Have you, you must have a sense of
the amount of impact that you're
having on other people's lives
with your book, with your page.
People must be writing in and,
and giving you background on, on
how their lives are better, just
because of what you're putting out.
Man.
Um, I'm probably gonna cry at
some point during this, just so
you know, like, um, but, um, I.
Yeah, I'm getting, I, I get that
sense people, people send me a lot
of dms now and um, kind of goes
back to what I was saying just
now, you know, about the intro.
Um, I feel just, I felt compelled
to do this and, and, and I
did it with the intention of
hoping that I would help people.
'cause part of Code of the West is
just, this is the way I found my
way back from things and, and then I
learned a long time ago, but it took
a long time for me to kind of gain the
courage, kinda like a puppy learning
how to bark for the first time.
Um, that, that just sharing and, and,
and letting people know that they're not
necessarily the only ones experiencing
something can have a lot of value to it.
So, um, without getting too personal with
any of the people who've sent stuff and.
I get a lot of notes about people
who didn't punch their own card
out, um, 'cause of Code of the West.
And then I, I get a lot of just notes
from people who are just, um, it's, it's
interesting 'cause it's not like people
who are saying like, I'm fixed now.
It's people saying, um, I'm, I'm kind of
staying, you know, I'm sticking around.
And, and, and it's, it's more like
the framework aspect of things,
which is something that I talk, I've
certainly started talking more about
with Code of the West, you know, this.
It's not just, um, the guru thing, which
I'm not against inherently, you know,
on, especially on social media that
like, if you do this, you'll fix that.
And it's like, that's not bad
if you're looking for something.
And, and finding a solution
that gets the ball rolling.
Great.
You know, but I think it's, um, I'm
trying to not to have a potty mouth.
I'm trying not to have a
potty mouth and not cry.
Um,
but, um,
um, it's a, it, it becomes snake
oily I think when you just say,
this will solve your problem.
And, and, and for me, there was nothing
that solved my problem other than just
this quiet evolution of myself that
had to continually occur and play out.
And so it's, well, I think the outside
of the fact that people just sending in
those notes is pretty powerful to me.
It's the fact that like, how they're
responding is, is, is not so much
like, thank you for fixing something.
It's more like, thank you for
pointing out that there's a way out
without necessarily, uh, addressing
or specifying a destination.
I think there's a danger
to the idea of fixing.
Something because that
presupposes that we're broken.
Mm-hmm.
About that.
And oftentimes we're in places there.
You, well, I mean,
oftentimes we're gonna be.
People say, I want to be happy, I want to
be successful, I want to be, you name it.
And they'll set that as their, their north
star that they're going to work towards.
And that's an unachievable goal when
they start realizing that happiness
is a byproduct of the process.
You don't, you, you can never be happy.
You can never just say, I'm
gonna be happy 'cause it.
It puts that carrot in front of you.
Mm-hmm.
And it's always gonna be
dangling in front of you.
It's not quantifiable, but it's
not quantifiable because what is
happy today is gonna be different
from what's happy tomorrow.
Just like pain.
It's, I love that quote from, uh,
the Simpsons where Lisa's like,
this is the worst day of my life.
I've, it's so bad.
And Homer says, oh, sweetie, it's
the worst day of your life so far.
Yeah.
It reminds me of a different Simpsons
quote that, that I feel like, uh,
actually sums up my life pretty well.
Like, which is, how does it taste Ralph?
It tastes like burning.
It tastes like burning.
That's right.
Oh, I love that.
Well, you know, you said CO to
the West helped bring you back.
Mm-hmm.
Where were you?
It, it, it was, um, it a place that, um.
Was way too comfortable.
Um, for, for as, as, as
uncomfortable as it was.
I mean, I, I would say the place
that I was at was almost like an
overlap of two different, different
states and places in my life.
'cause I've always been, I've very, um,
I've always been very sovereign minded.
Uh, I, I, I've always wanted
to have my independence.
I've always wanted to kind of do my
own thing since a very early age.
And that led to this willingness
to go to ambiguous places and,
and choosing ambiguous paths, like
choosing to be a compa creator.
There's still no like path to that.
You just figure it out
if you wanna do it, but.
Um, overlapping with that.
So that was a lot of drive and a lot of
myopic obsession to, to get somewhere.
Mm-hmm.
In line with that, um, I, um, I had my
own challenges and difficulties growing
up, but um, I had my first sort of real
adult, or actually I just say real life
challenge when I had a couple of friends
that died real close to each other
when I was in my mid twenties and, um.
Just the quick version of that is one,
one of them got diagnosed with terminal
cancer and he'd kind of hidden himself.
And we, I went with a friend and we
literally threatened, I threatened
to kick the door in, um, on his
apartment if he didn't open it.
And he opened it and he looked
like a Holocaust victim.
And so we got him to go to the
hospital and he just got diagnosed
with terminal cancer there.
And then a friend, a same friend group,
a different friend, I called him and
was like, Hey, Lauren's gonna die.
You should come home soon.
And this is a guy who, um, ho
trains, you know, like was a busker.
You know, I, I called, we called him
traveling kids in Idaho when I was
growing up, but like a hobo basically.
And so I was like, let me, yeah,
yeah, let me, let me buy you a bus
ticket back and, and come see Lauren.
'cause they say it's gonna be
like six months and it's not.
I just know it's not.
And which was true.
And he's like, no, no.
I'm gonna hop a train back and
I need to think about this.
He died on a train, uh, coming
back, um, outside of Portland.
So, which is kind of funny 'cause Michael
was the one that died on the train.
Um, he had a habit of like,
living bigger than everybody else.
And so when Lauren was like, dying
on a morphine drip, we're like,
Hey, Michael beat you to the punch.
He's like, uh, fucking Michael.
Like, um, which is just sort of
the nature of our friend group.
But that was a part of
also this whole thing.
And this will make sense in the end.
Um, I, when we got together and,
and found out that Lauren was dying,
I basically told everybody, he's
like, look, we can't teach him like
a pariah or treat him like a pariah.
We gotta help 'em die.
Well, you know, and treat
'em with the same dark.
Honest humor that we treat
each other all the time with.
And so we, we let him die with
dignity as a friend group, but
we didn't process anything.
And then Michael died in the middle of it.
And it just led to this cascading effect,
not just for myself, but for pretty much
this entire tight knit friend group.
We still, a lot of us are still
friends, but it's not the same thing
that it was because we all got tested
and challenged and um, some of us got
through it, some of us didn't, and
some of us it got worse for them and
then they're not here anymore either.
You know, it led to this chain
of, uh, alcoholism and suicide.
'cause these people were really well loved
and, and, and, and affected us, you know?
'cause we were all young and
didn't expect it to occur.
So this is a long way of saying that
the place that I was in prior to
sort of coming back to this framework
that I had as a kid growing up,
which is what I call the Code of
the West, is, um, I was in this.
Holding two seemingly contradictory
things at the same time, which was moving
ahead like a freight train in my life
for my career, while also just suffering
like emotionally and, and not really
understanding how to process this stuff.
And, and both of those sort of put
me into a place that I would say,
um, was oftentimes confusing activity
with achievement and, um, certainly
wasn't me living in a complete way.
You know, uh, to sum this up,
I would say that like I did not
know how to human very well.
You know, I think you're
not alone there, right?
I don't think there's a lot of
people who don't know how to Yeah.
Um, and it's, you know, you talk about,
I. I, I really like what you said there.
Let him die.
Well.
Mm-hmm.
And everybody tends to
look at, how can I live?
Well, not many people reframe
it in a way, like, how do I die?
Well, 'cause really, if you look at
it every day, we're marching towards
an inev, an inevitable outcome.
How do we die?
Well, what legacy are we leaving?
How are we impacting those around us
through our thoughts, words, and actions?
And that's where I see Code of
the West really helping people.
And that's a, it's a very
interesting, subtle reframe.
And when you, when you think about,
so you talk about suicide, suicide
sends a very strong message.
Mm-hmm.
And one of the more powerful things that
I have seen in regards to suicide, it's
an individual's ability to try and have
complete ownership over a situation.
Mm-hmm.
Because they feel overwhelmed.
They feel like they're not
wanted, they're not loved or the
world be better off without 'em.
But whatever they're feeling,
I've never seen that go away.
When they take their life, it just
gets transferred and oftentimes
amplified by those around them.
Mm-hmm.
And that reframe as well, when you think
about not how am I living, but how am
I dying and what is my impact gonna be?
That's often enough to keep
people thinking like, maybe
I should rethink this.
I don't like this pain, but clearly
I must be strong enough if I'm being
burdened with these challenges.
And if I can overcome these challenges
in a way that shows strength, resolve
grit, will I help others in the same way?
And that's
a framework though.
If you don't have that
framework, it's just pain.
Mm.
Well, it's not just pain, but you
know, it's an oversimplification.
But I think, you know what I mean?
A hundred percent.
I know.
Was that the idea when you started Code
of the West or was it a tool that you
built for yourself that kind of grew?
It?
It was a byproduct of, um, sort
of the mindfulness that I had to
employ and, and, and just tricks.
I mean, I, I, my, my, uh, lack of
ability to human well is, is sort of
endemic of just the way my brain works
and I've made it sort of a hobby to try
to understand how I might be different.
Um, I finally got my brain scanned,
um, when I was at Black Rifle.
Uh, we were, um, gonna enlist in this,
um, sort of pilot program to use magnetic
resonance to help with PTSD and traumatic
brain injuries and um, 'cause everybody
I worked with were like Navy Seals.
Green Berets, um, and combat
veterans like from G Watt.
Right.
And, um, so I was gonna be the control
one of the controls in the, in, in this
thing where I put the halo on and they're
measuring my alpha, beta and theta
waves and like he is the normal one.
Come on.
Yeah.
When I, when the, the scientist
called me, he's like, yeah.
Um, so like we, we've got
some stuff to talk about.
Um, and, and my brain just as it turned
out is, which wasn't really news to
me, but it, it was, um, a relief was
that like, it, it just doesn't work
normal doesn't mean that it's bad.
It just doesn't work normal.
And, and so there was a little bit of time
before that really kind of before I came
to Black Rifle or went to black rifle,
where I was starting to realize that.
Okay, I need to make changes.
You know, like I can't drink half a
bottle of bourbon every day, um, just
to shut my brain down, um, at night.
Mm.
And sleeping was always
a big issue for me.
Like, I mean, I, I have a hobby for the
past, like 20 years of like figuring
out the best methods to go to sleep.
And it's taken me almost, I mean, I'll
be 40 in a few months, I would say, up
until I was about 37, to be able to fall
asleep within 15 minutes of going to bed.
Usually it would take hours and
I mean hours to go to sleep.
And I mean, a lot of that was sort of
like exploring meditation and mindfulness
techniques and things that were, like
things that you could do while you
were awake or are often done when they,
they weren't, they weren't meant to be
like, here's how you can go to sleep.
It was just me testing things
continually, which is also
sort of a byproduct of my life.
And, um, and so the thing that, so
Code of the West sort of resulted.
In the intersection of how do I kind
of crawl back because I crawled for
a while, you know, like after Lauren
and Michael died, I went and did
trail maintenance for a hitch in the
Wenatchee, and then immediately went
to New York City like three weeks
later and, um, moved there for comics.
So I, I like literally came from a
situation where I was standing next
to Alpine Lakes watching ridge lines
catch on fire from Lightning, having
conversations with my friend about.
What do we do?
We're 70 miles back.
How are we gonna get out of this
to like carrying the same osprey
pack into Washington Square Park
to get on the subway to go to the,
the apartment I was gonna live in.
And, um, and so there's always
been this, um, sort of movement
forward that I've had in my life.
You know, I, I would crawl basically,
even if I couldn't stand up and
walk towards the light or movement.
I knew that like, and this is something
that got echoed by the people and the
friends that I have at Black Rifle now,
you know, that movement equals life.
Like if you just sit, I mean, I know
if you're lost in the woods, you're
supposed to kind of sit still, but like,
uh, you know, certainly in firefights
and that sort of thing, like you, if
you just sit down and give up, you're
probably not gonna do very well.
Um, and, and so it, it just, code of
the West is sort of just a confluence
of a number of different things.
Not to mention it just was a way of
honoring the people that raised me.
And how I
was raised.
So, so I'm, I'm curious.
I've been taking notes
as you go through here.
Yeah.
'cause I, I will, my A DHD kicks
in and I'm, I'm all over the board
boy, so try, try to keep things.
Thank you.
I ramble, so I'm sorry.
Uh oh.
I love it.
Um, you brought up some important
ones that I didn't want to, uh,
uh, didn't want to gloss over.
And I do want to talk with the childhood
one because I think we probably can share
some funny stories on that one based on
our preamble before we started recording.
But, um, sleep.
So I was up at around
zero 200 this morning.
I think I got back to
sleep around five o'clock.
And then, um, that's not a normal for me.
And then I was up again, probably
about seven, knowing that I
had to be bright-eyed and bushy
tailed and ready for, uh, for the
podcast that we're doing here.
Mm-hmm.
I've never had a problem falling asleep.
You lucky son of a bitch.
Get a cup.
However, staying asleep
is a different story.
It's very beneficial when I'm out
hunting because getting up early, going
out and I'm, I'm my mind's going and
I'm switched on and it's like what I
do to fall back asleep is probably.
Counter to what the
experts would tell you.
I'll do, uh, puzzles and brain games
on my phone, which is number one,
stimulation number two, it's blue light
and you're on a device or whatever it is.
But for whatever reason,
that's one thing that helps.
And then when I'm like, okay, I am at a
point where I can kind of fall asleep.
The other thing that I, and I forget
where I pick this one up, but I
find it useful, is I will hyper
concentrate on very small things.
For example, I will think about
walking out my front door.
What does the doorknob feel like?
What's the green of the wood look
like and the direction of it?
What do the, uh, pebbles
feel on my bare feet?
What is, and like always,
what do I pass next?
What do the pillars look like?
What are the, and I'll concentrate on
all of these tiny, tiny little details
and try, and I go as minute as I can.
And that for whatever
reason shuts my brain down.
So I'm not thinking about all these
other things that are coming in
and it kind of laser focuses it.
Interesting.
What do you do to fall asleep?
Not that pretty much the opposite.
Okay.
Um, that's thing interesting because,
so one of the things that I learned
with that brain scan is that, um, to
put it in the most, like basic terms, my
brain just takes in a shit ton of data.
Um, and, um, and it does
it at a pretty fast clip.
It's not an intelligence thing,
it's just, it's just straight
up a data correlation thing.
And so, um, what I, what I had
to do for a number of years.
When I was younger anyways, I would
journal before I went to sleep, um,
and, and, and try to get everything out
that, um, had lingered, you know, 'cause
that's usually what I, I'd get caught up
in these loops of thinking about things.
And then as I got older in, in my
life, I was able to engineer my life
towards the things that I wanted to do.
So, you know, I was, I was
writing and drawing comic books,
you know, for a long time.
That was a dream.
So a lot of the anxieties and
things that I'd been thinking
about that would keep me awake were
like the what ifs of the future.
So as the future became the present,
um, it became more about, um, it
became less about those specific
things that I was fixating on and
more of the, the habit of like.
How do I not dwell on things at night?
And so, um, I realized over the years
that, um, I had to sort of let go of, of,
of things as I'd went to sleep, you know,
because I would hyperfocus I would do
the thing you're describing by default.
And so I had to sort of like figure
out a way to, I, I describe it as like
going through the office and turning all
the lights off, um, and, and just sort
of like closing up shop for the night.
And, um, and so I would,
it's a distinction.
It's, it's, so rather than go look for
something, I would sort of step away
from something and, and I would engineer
the last few hours of the day to sort
of like know how to let go of things.
Know I be, I got good at knowing what,
what got hooked, hooked, hook me at night.
And so I'd be like, okay, I'm gonna.
I'm just gonna go ahead and do this thing.
I'm gonna go ahead and do the thing
that's gonna give me anxiety, you know?
Um, you know, maybe it's send
in an email or, um, whatever.
Um, but then the actual internal
thing that started happening was I
started, I had always been interested
in meditation just 'cause of the
brain stuff that I had going on,
and I wanted to be a Jedi grown up.
Um, so I wanna be like
Luke Skywalk, who doesn't?
Yeah, right.
I mean, any reasonable person.
Yeah.
Um, and uh, so I started using sort of
meditation techniques to sort of just
like zone out and try to like, 'cause
once I, I identified the fact that
my brain just didn't wanna shut down.
Um, or I wasn't, I wasn't.
Accommodating my brain shutting down.
Uh, I started finding ways to sort of like
create a, a structured, um, almost like
falling backwards, like into like, into
like a, like a dead man's float mentally.
And, um, and so I, for a long
time what I would do is I'd count
backwards from 500, which I know it
sounds like really ridiculous, but
it would just be something for me.
It would be something that I could,
like structurally get lost in.
Like, I didn't have to, it was, it
was something that kind of kept,
I. Me on a track one thing while,
while sort of just getting wrote.
And I eventually just, you know,
I, I, I can't explain this,
but I get to about four 70.
I'm like, I don't want to
go any lower than that.
I'm just gonna go back over and start over
at 500 and start counting back down again.
And I'd usually fall asleep by
like the third or fourth time.
And then now, um, this is gonna sound
kind of funny and probab and I hope not
sacrilegious, but like I pray at night
instead of doing the numbers thing.
And, and so like, I don't
always get to the Amen.
Uh, but like I'm, I'm basically
going, this is my version of the
don't, don't fixate on the anxiety.
It's more like, what am I grateful for?
What am I, um, well mostly that,
like what am I grateful for?
Like, and, and it's things that are not.
Big.
And I think that's part of the reason
why before we started talking, before
we started recording where I, I was
like, I don't really know what it's
like on the outside of this because
Mm.
I've fortunately gotten to a point
where like, I don't give a shit
about most of the things that
people would probably care about.
Um, I sleep in a bed and I'm glad
to have a bed because I've slept
in places where I didn't have that.
I mean, and you obviously hunt.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I know the value of a comfortable
rock, uh, when you've worked for 15
hour days going up and down a mountain.
Um, and, and so the things that
I think about and pray about, and
I, and I I have this, I don't like
asking for things when I pray.
Um, it's more like thinking about
like, Hey, if I can, if I can
go in this direction, you know,
if, if, if I can be of help.
Moving this way, it's more like, I'm
not trying to trick God or the universe.
It's just that like I just realize that
like there's things that I, like, the bad
things get me to the good things, and so
I don't have the big picture all the time.
So it's, I, I feel like I, it's sort of
a little rude to ask for specific things
because I'm probably silly and, and not
seeing the big picture and don't know,
well, of course I'm not seeing the big
picture, so it's like, it's more like
asking for help to just go where I need to
go and, and being grateful for what I got.
Like, you know, most of the time
it's like, thanks for knowing
one that I love dying today.
Again, thanks for the bed.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks for the fact that I get to walk
outside and see Serk Mountains in the
distance and you know, go walk across 20
acres of property, you know, from on the
property that I'm renting for my family.
Um, it's stuff like that.
And so that's, for some reason
that's really, it's a groovy spot.
I, I don't know how to describe it.
Like, it's just, I get to say
goodnight with God, basically,
you know, that is a groovy spot and
as you describe it, so I've tried
the talk backwards thing, the count
backwards, but then I'm goal oriented.
Mm-hmm.
And I'll start again, and I'll
start again 'cause I lose track,
but I gotta make it down to zero.
And, and I got this drive that like, I
can do this and it's a weird thing, but.
It sounds not dissimilar from
my process of trying to remember
my childhood home and the carpet
and the what color and the smell.
It's taking your mind and hyper
fixating on something aside from all
of this sensory input that's coming in.
'cause I love to create and I love,
I get these crazy ideas that come in
at all times, but that hyper fixation
process of something that's completely
outside of like, I'm not interested
in recreating my, my childhood home.
Right.
I tell you something interesting
though, like along the lines of this.
Um, so when I'm drawing and writing,
I'll spontaneously have really vivid
memories from all over the place.
You know, different areas
of my life, childhood.
And it's like I'm there, not like
in a flashback way, but um, just
remembering it from the first person.
And one of the things that happens a
lot of times when I go to sleep now is.
And this is gonna sound really
weird, and I hope it doesn't
sound like scary, but memories.
And also, so I'm not a musical
person, but, um, three things happen
a lot of times that I can't explain.
One is I'll just start
watching things happen.
Like I'll, I'll start watching memories
and then sometimes I will be listening
to music I've never heard before, that
somehow I'm creating, which I don't know
how to even explain this very well, but
it's like, it's not like I'm listening to
like Lady Gaga as a soundtrack in my head.
It's like, I'm.
And maybe it's just the
impression I'm listening to music
that I've never heard before.
It's, and it's not actual music,
although I have recordings of waking
up and humming it, um, just because
I thought it was interesting.
Um, but I, I, I, yeah,
I'm not a musical person.
I love music, but I, I,
I don't create music.
And then sometimes I just go and
I watch stories unfold, and it's
like, I'm aware of the fact that
like, I'm not controlling it.
I'm just watching and I'm not asleep yet.
I'm just, it's like my, it's like the
ca the best way I can put it is there
was this sort of like, I always felt
like there was a chaos in my brain, you
know, when I was trying to go to sleep.
There just shit happening everywhere.
Mm-hmm.
And, and I would try to control
it and try to tamp it down.
When I, when I basically
was like, you know what?
I'm just going to get a bucket of
popcorn and just look at the chaos.
I realized it really wasn't chaos, it was
just, I. Unstructured things happening.
And, and I would just, it was
interesting, you know, and so it's
like, rather than fight my brain, I
just sort of like laid down in the
lazy river and just saw what I saw.
I, that is really cool because there's
something, I don't know, we don't
have the answers to everything and we
talk normal, like what's a nor, right.
What's, what's a normal brain hunter?
I
don't think that we're solving anything.
Well, I mean, if you look at me up
top, I'm kinda like a duck right now.
My leg is going up and
down a mile a minute.
I don't belong in confined walls
in a, in front of a desk, in a,
um, in a situation like this, um.
I'm, I'm not, I belong in an area
where there's vast space around me.
Mm-hmm.
That's when I, my body tends
to, tends to calm down.
I got all these inputs
coming in all the time.
I was diagnosed with
severe A DHD as a kid.
I was put on the highest doses
of Ritalin that they had in the
province, apparently as an a, um, hey,
well, I mean, you might as
well set some record somewhere.
That's right.
There you go.
It was an experimental run.
I took myself off, but like, it
was from grade three to grade
seven, took myself off cold Turkey.
I'm like, that's it.
I'm done with this.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
But the, the inputs that we have coming
in is, you know, sometimes you look at it
like how much is actually unique thought.
How much is us seeing something or
reinterpreting something or, uh.
We don't have the luxury that people,
way back in the day, the ancient Greeks
would sit around and philosophize and
just think on singular subjects for
long periods of time, and it'll come
up to us now in a TikTok feed and we'll
make a tweak on that and feel like
we've, we've invented something new.
I don't know if there's much new actual,
original things out there, maybe new
ways of looking at it, but perhaps
how our brains are picking it up.
Maybe you are tapping into a
frequency out there that uh, uh,
artists and creative people like
yourself can, can use the fuel.
I think it's kind of neat.
And the other thing,
oh, go ahead.
You go ahead.
Go ahead.
I'll go back to this.
O
Okay, I'll, I'll tell a story.
Don't forget your funny thing 'cause
I want to hear your funny thing.
So, so we're talking about memories.
Um, and I've done work as a subject matter
expert for all levels of court in Canada
here on use of force firearms or weapons
related issues and keeping credentials up.
You do use of force experts, uh,
workshops and seminars, and sometimes
they talk about how memories
are formed and how oftentimes we
are our own worst, uh, witness.
And the memories can be completely
different from different perspectives.
Mm-hmm.
Sometimes people will block things out
entirely and there's lots of parts of my
childhood that I, I just don't remember.
Uh, I remember riding the bus to
a school and the Oklahoma City
bombing was in the news and I was
reading this newspaper and I had what
they call it, a flashbulb memory.
And I. I was like a child in a room
that was completely engulfed on fire.
And I came home and it just felt
really weird and very strong.
And I interesting asked
my mom and I said, yeah.
I said this really weird thing.
And I was in this room, was
completely engulfed in fire.
And she says, well, yeah, you were
at a, uh, sleepover at your friend's
house and their Christmas tree caught
on fire and you guys were all up.
The firefighters came in
the middle of the night.
And I blocked all of that out.
But in my memory, I can remember there
was a fishbowl with matches in it.
And I don't wanna think it, but
I'm wondering how that tree lit
on fire caught on fire and Right.
And why maybe that memory was blocked out.
Yeah.
But as she says, when I was dropped off,
uh, I would just, they'd plunk me down
on the ground and I'd stare at the wall.
They'd pick me up and move
me and stare at the wall.
And like, was he abused?
Like what happened?
Right.
And went back the next day
and they talked to them.
I didn't want to get out of the
car for whatever reason and.
Um, so who knows what was going on there,
but the way memories are formed and how
much of that memory is actually accurate.
If I had to blocked so much of that out.
It is interesting.
So I wanna hear your, oh, well, I was
gonna say, um, when you were saying
how, you know, what I might be tuned
in with as a creative or an artist,
um, I'd always had, I'd always had this
aversion to referring myself as an artist.
Although I will say, I think now I
would consider myself that because
I'm actually trying to say something
that's subjective and, and unique to me.
But when I talked to the scientist
after he scanned my brain and he was
like, um, you know, telling me basically
why I was a bit of an odd duck.
He's like, what do you do?
A black rifle?
And I was like, oh, well
I'm the art director.
I have like a group of.
You know, pirates underneath me
and we make coffee bags and stuff.
And why?
He's like, because your brain looks
and behaves like an engineer's brain.
Not what?
Because
they, they'd scanned a lot of
people's brains by this point,
and it wasn't, this is not like a,
um, uh, uh, an astrology reading.
And they didn't present it as like mm-hmm.
Empirical evidence.
They were just saying, Hey,
we, this is what we've done.
We've scanned all these different brains.
This is what they did.
If we look at like, you know, 99% of
people who are engineers or scientists,
people who have that kind of, uh,
predilection towards, um, building
things, their brain looks like yours.
The brains of people who are
supposedly the artists look like
something completely different.
And so, um.
That's the weird hybrid
that I've always been.
And that's part of also this whole
thing with Code of the West of
like, I just didn't fit in anywhere.
And, and I think that's part of
the reason why I sort of sought
this sovereignty for myself.
'cause the world loves to
categorize things and box you
in and tell you what you are.
Sure.
It's a DHD.
It's, uh, I had, I, I was supposed to,
when I was supposed to be learning how to
speak as a child, I had ear infections.
So I thought I could talk because
I was modeling what I'd heard.
Turns out I'd,
I was talking
gobbly goop, so I had to go to a
deaf school when I was supposed
to be learning how to read.
So that by the time that I showed up in
first grade, I guess you just aren't,
I remember thinking this as a kid.
The teacher didn't teach us how to read.
She just was like, go and
read this simple book.
You know, see Jane Run or whatever.
Mm. And I was like, I can't read.
And she's like, well, I
guess you sucks to be you.
She told my mom that, um, he's not gonna
learn how to read and he's probably
not gonna make it through school.
And kind of, sorry.
Mm-hmm.
And that was that.
Mm-hmm.
And I, I just panicked 'cause I
didn't clearly know how to read,
but I knew that it was important.
Like my grandpa had a
basement full of books.
And I just knew that I needed, I
needed that information and, and my
mom was pretty transparent with me.
She's like, this is what they're saying.
This is what we're gonna figure out.
And I was just brow beaten.
And my grand, I was crying
on my grandpa's waterbed.
I don't know know, people might not
know what a water bed is, but it's
basically a big balloon you slept on.
And I was crying so hard that I was like
rocking in a wave on the, on the waterbed.
And he's like, we're gonna figure it out.
My mom said the same thing.
And I got into a remedial reading
class and within weeks I was reading.
And, and and outta spite for this woman
who I won't name, but I remember her name,
well, who was my first grade teacher.
I just, I don't know if you had
book it in, in Canada, but Pizza
Hut had this program back in
the day where if you, yes, okay.
I slayed book it.
I absolutely destroyed book it.
I was
getting personal pan pizza.
'cause you
get the pizza.
Yeah, just um, getting personal pan
pizzas like left and right and it
was just like out of spite, just
pure, pure elementary school rage.
And, and so I consumed so many
books that by the time I was
about second to third grade.
I was reading Kenneth Roberts, I don't
know if you're familiar with him.
Um, he, uh, wrote the Northwest Passage
Andra in Arms, um, was mostly like a,
uh, 18th century historical fiction guy.
I would basically is put to put it
to you, is simply, I was reading
way above my reading level, but
my, the reason why I bring this
up is not to brag about, you know,
reading adult books when I was a kid.
It is to say that like the adults
or an adult in my life said, Nope,
this is the category you're in.
Um, you are not smart.
You didn't show up smart,
therefore you remain not smart.
And, and so that was probably
the first moment in my life where
I'm like, don't trust the adults.
Do what you have to do.
And I was obsessed with Teddy
Roosevelt from a really early age
because of the Young Jones Chronicles.
Again, I don't know if
anybody remembers that.
Mm-hmm.
But there was an episode where
Uhhuh
Indie goes to Africa and meets
Teddy and I just became enamored.
And he had asthma.
Like I had asthma.
And I was just like, I'm gonna
just do the Teddy Roosevelt thing
and just, um, I'm gonna, again,
I'm not gonna talk like a sailor.
So I'm trying to think
of a way of say this.
I'm gonna physically exert my, my will
upon the world around me and, and attempt
to, um, go to uncomfortable places in an
effort to be the thing that I want to be.
And, you know, I might fail, you
know, like, um, probably, but, um.
I mean, we're talking foundationally,
I was just like, Hmm, no, no, bro.
Like I'm not feeling
this whole asthma thing.
I'm not feeling the not reading thing.
I'm gonna go and do,
I'm gonna at least try.
And I, it's terrifying in a weird
way to look back at this and go like,
for one, what, why am I this way?
Like, what compelled me to defiantly
say No, I'm going to figure this out.
And alternatively, what would've happened
if I didn't, if I hadn't had that?
And so that's part of the impetus of
Code of the West is just like, uh,
you might be 40, you might be 70,
you might be 17, you might be six.
Hopefully not, but, you know,
reading Code of the West.
But, um, it's like I'm hoping, even
though I can't name that sort of mojo
woowoo thing that I'm talking about,
I'm not gonna worry about the fact that
I don't know what it is and I can't.
Perfectly put it in a cam and, and try
to sell it or present it to people.
It's more like, hopefully I can
just sort of in whatever way, shape,
or form, like pass on the, uh,
honorable, yet defiant, um, sovereign
sense of myself to other people,
you know?
Okay.
I'm taking notes as we go through here.
You're bringing up a lot
of really cool parts.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Uh, no, this is awesome.
I'm sit around and think, I mean, there's
clearly, and there's so much value in
what you're, when you're putting out
and you're able to distill that through
your Instagram feed and provide people
that same value on a daily basis.
'cause not everybody has the ability
to sit around and think a lot.
I think everyone, they
are very lucky for that.
Uh, most people,
well, most people have the
capacity, not everyone.
Sure.
But most people have the
capacity, not, not everybody.
And maybe that's not
the right way to say it.
Not everyone has ability,
because I know your audience
will know too.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it's predilection, you know?
It's like I, I think mm-hmm.
Not to get off your thing.
I just, I'll say real quick about drawing
or writing or anything, or hunting, people
will say like, oh, I wish I could do that.
I wish I had your talent.
It's like, yeah, you could, if
you, if your interest aligned
with what I'm doing, you would
obsessively learn how to do it too.
Mm-hmm.
And again, happiness would
be a byproduct of that.
Mm-hmm.
Of the work that you're putting in.
I was asked to speak at a university
in California, and um, I was talking
with the doctor, professor ahead of
time, and I. And, uh, you know, about
the idea what one man can do, another
person can do, and he brought up
some very valid points about people
like with severe schizophrenia, maybe
they're not gonna have the same tools.
I'm like, okay.
Or bipolar or something like that.
Fair enough.
Right.
I, I wasn't, I wasn't maybe looking
at it in the same way, what one
person can do, most people can do.
Mm-hmm.
Or at the very least, I think everybody
can look at their current position and
say, how can I take that one small step
towards something that's desirable in
my life, which I'm not doing right now?
Mm-hmm.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that
everyone's gonna be a star athlete, where
everyone's gonna be a great thinker, but
wherever they are right now, tomorrow
they can be one small step closer.
And if they don't do that step
the next day, but they do it again
the day after that, not to beat
themselves up because the macro of
those tiny little steps is crazy.
Yeah.
The best time to plant a tree
was 20 years ago.
The next best time to do it is today.
It is
right today.
Well, you talk about labels
and how harmful labels can be.
Uh, so I was diagnosed severe A DHD.
Mind you, even to this day, despite
having a lot of, um, indicators
that would suggest that I have,
that I still question, although
some of my family and friends would
say, no, no, you, you got it right.
But I still question.
I am 40 se 46, turning 47.
Okay.
So you're a few years older than me,
but we're, I think, pretty much dealing
with the same level of as assessment.
You know, at the time a DH
ADHD is kind of, that probably
we're in that era of like,
Hmm,
give him some Ritalin.
That's right.
That's a hundred percent what it was.
So I remember one person saying to
me, uh, is there ever, has there
ever been a time in your life when
you didn't feel like you had a DHD?
Because almost every single day
you talk about music in the head,
there is a constant washing machine
of sound and music that's playing
as you're talking right now.
Um, Bjork did a song called Pluto, I
think it is, and it's not a great song,
but when I listened to it, it's like,
that's kind of the feeling that I hear
in my head constantly in the background.
Has there ever been a time when I
don't feel that well, well, yeah,
actually, and I list off a few different
times when I haven't felt that.
And they say, well, if that's the
case, then do you really have a DHD?
Like if you have these times, when you're
able to have everything calm and in tune.
And those times are generally
always when I'm out in nature.
Maybe it's just a natural response
of your body being physically in a
place where your mind isn't, where
your mind isn't at ease or at rest.
That's an, that's an
interesting way to look at it.
That But the the, I'm sorry.
Go
ahead.
Go ahead.
I was gonna say, the worrisome
thing about labels is that
so many people buy into them.
I mean, people are like, well,
I'm gonna go get my kid diagnosed.
I'm pretty sure they got the tsm.
Well, maybe they do, right?
But maybe diagnosing them just gives them
an out where they never want to try again.
For some reason, you and I had that
drive within us to say, screw you.
I'm pushing forward.
I don't care what you say.
And for me, I think it was
deeply rooted in sort of an
oppositional defiance sort of, um.
Uh, perspective, uh, where I would
comply without capitulating because
I want to do things my own way.
Come hell or high water.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and that built into something that
isn't the easy path, but it creates a path
that I can be, at least I can call my own.
Mm-hmm.
And I can be proud of
you.
You bring something up there that at
the end that I think is, as, as we're
talking about this, I'm thinking about it.
I had a very strong sense of my
identity as, as Chris Hunt, you
know, at an, as an early age.
And, and what I mean by that is that like
I, I never really viewed myself sort of in
a meta awareness way as a part of a unit.
I just always viewed myself as Chris,
like a brain and jar basically.
Not that I'd had that
language at that time.
So like.
It never really occurred to
me that there's like a one
size fits all for anything.
And, but people not only want the ease
of the explanation, but they oftentimes
want the identity that goes along with it.
'cause it also makes that
part of it easier too.
Mm-hmm.
Even with the m it's, it's almost
become, even just saying that as
much as I enjoy saying that m um.
Right, right.
And it, it, and, and, and I've
taken this, I've probably taken
a half dozen self-assessments and
it's 50 50, you know, every time.
Sure.
And, um, it, which, okay, if it was one
way or the other, it doesn't matter to me.
It's just more like, okay,
this is a data point.
But I think that you and I, it
sounds like we, we didn't, like, I
never really wanted to belong in a
group, but I was curious to be in a
group, like I wanted to have friends.
Mm-hmm.
I wanted to be, feel belonging
to something, but I didn't wanna
lose my identity alongside of it.
And, and it seems like every,
not everybody, but from an
early age, it seemed like.
A lot of the people around me wanted to
identify in, not only in simple terms,
but in ways that allowed them to just
sort of, um, group by osmosis in a way.
Like, you know, where it's like,
Hey, hey, I don't have to really
fight to be, to have my people like,
I mean, we're humans, we're tribal.
We want, we want the support.
We don't wanna get kicked away
from the fire, how we want
to be invited by the fire.
Mm-hmm.
I'm, I feel like I'm the person
who would've been like a strider,
you know, and Lord of the Rings or
something, you know, I'd have, I
would've been that person where it's
like everybody else is sitting around
the fire shivering and, and there's
just like, why is there like a fire
like 30 feet away in the, in the dark?
And it'd just be like me just there
under like skins and just like staring
into the fire by myself and like
with maybe some sort of like giant
dire wolf, like next, I don't know.
I mean, like, I'm not, I'm
just saying like, it, it, it.
It, I, I, if, if it means losing myself
versus, uh, appeasing a larger system from
an early age, I was like, fuck the system.
And I don't mean that like in a punk
rock sort of way, you know, it, it,
I mean it from like a truly, almost a
epistemological way where it's like,
um, it just didn't jive with me.
And, and I, I, I, I wonder 'cause you
know, sometimes, um, evolutionary, uh.
Evolutionary biologists will have
this debate about like, what are, what
are the most beneficial traits for
like, say like a chimpanzee to have?
Is it the ability to create tools
or is it the ability to copy the
chimps that create tools and,
Hmm.
'
cause 'cause the logic being that
cool, if you have one good invention
and you, you make a, you make a,
a flint flake, uh, or a, a flint
knife you can scrape hides with.
Cool.
You contributed something to the better.
You know, go to the, the group of chimps.
If you're the kind of like clever
chimp that's walking around going
like, yeah, okay, a scraper, an ax.
What are you doing with
that at lateral thing?
Um, suddenly you're the super chimp if you
can copy all the different things and the,
I'm not saying that's who I am, I'm just
saying that like, as far as traits go.
Uh, maybe you and I just have
something different and that's okay.
And I think for a long time I saw
the things that I was struggling
with as weaknesses because
I was struggling with them.
And as I got older and, and certainly
as I started doing Code of the West,
like Code of the West, actually,
beyond just being a framework for
myself is the first time where I'm
like, oh, that's how this could work.
You know, meaning me, like, you know, like
mm-hmm.
The only thing that makes sense to me that
I could do with my life is go to the West
because it is the intersection of writing
and drawing and video and, and talking
to people and, and growth and philosophy.
All the things that I've always had to
sort of like compartmentalize in my life.
And, and so it's not so much that like
only I could make code to the West.
It's more like anybody, a lot of
people could do what I'm doing.
It's just that for me, I
finally found the thing.
The structure that the only
kind of structure that would
work for me, basically.
You, you talk about, uh, sure.
I'd want to have friends growing up.
Did you have friends?
Yeah.
Not really.
Uh, I mean, kind of, yes.
But, um, what did you.
No, no, not, I, I had, yeah, I mean,
I had, I had, I was around adults.
I was on a truck, you know, so
if I wasn't sick in the hospital
mm-hmm.
I was on a, I was on a truck
with my dad in the summertime.
Uh, he was a high value product.
Uh, truck driver did a bit of
household too, but I was going back
and forth across the United States,
coast to coast, multiple times a
summer, um, in, in, in a truck.
And so I'd come back, you know, in
first grade, go, go leave, go for the
summer, come back in second grade,
and I'd see some of the same faces
and they'd be like, teacher would
be like, what'd you do this summer?
And, you know, these kids would
be like, we went to Disneyland,
or we went to the Wisconsin Dells.
Mm-hmm.
And they'd get to me and be
like, I saw a man die next to the
buffet at the Petro Iron Skillet.
Um, you know, in Indianapolis.
Like, yeah.
You know, or I saw a Mount St.
Helen's, you know, uh, like I
almost got kidnapped in New Jersey.
You know, it, it was like.
I didn't know how to talk to kids
as a kid, you know, because Uhhuh
i'd, I'd already, it's like the
world had been trying to kill
me through asthma and allergies.
Um, you know, my, like, I, I'm
fighting to learn how to talk.
I'm fighting to learn how to read.
Like, I just kind of ca I was
like an outside dog that showed
up, like in elementary school.
And then they were just like, you
need to kind of just be cool, man.
And I'm just like, I,
I got that dog in me.
Like, you know, it's like, I didn't know.
I didn't, I didn't want, I didn't
care about the Power Rangers or, I
mean, I like Batman and Star Wars.
Um, but sure, I just, I was ready to go.
I mean, you could ask my mom, you know,
and she would, would be, she would tell
you that like at eight, nine years old,
I was like, man, why can't I have a car?
I just wanna go sit at the
coffee shop and read and write.
Um, I want to go where
I want to go right now.
I wanted agency from a very early age
and, and other kids just wanted to like.
I don't know, like eat pizza and,
and watch movies, which is was fun
when I got to experience it finally.
But I didn't really get a friend
until I was a more like junior high.
You know, I had, I had people who
I had, I'd have sleepovers with or
something every once in a while.
But, um, I just, they weren't
that interesting to me.
Like I was, I was wanting
to prepare for life.
I was wanting to get out
and start doing shit.
Mm-hmm.
I, I think, uh, my story is probably
pretty similar and what that does
when you have a different life
experience and a different perspective,
it puts you on the outside.
And when you're on the outside and
have a personality type that doesn't
necessarily want to be on the inside,
it can put you at odds with those social
structures that everyone naturally will,
will kind of want to group towards.
And if they can't put a label on
you and understand you oftentimes.
People will fear what
they don't understand.
Mm-hmm.
And what they fear, they'll,
it'll be, they'll reject.
They'll exclude and so they'll exclude.
And so it's no, uh, no slight
on the people around me.
I put myself in that situation
based on my own stubbornness and,
uh, not wanting to conform to like
a, I'd look at these things and
I'd consider them them childish.
And like when I was in grade
four, I set up, I was reading
college level chemistry books.
'cause I was really interested in making
things like disappearing ink with phenyl
pha solution, making your own gunpowder,
um, nitrocellulose compounds, if it
blew up, had an endothermic, exothermic
reaction or it could kind of disappear.
I was that, that was cool.
That was science to me, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's chemistry.
I. And, uh, I had set up a,
my grade four teacher is like,
I, I can't control this kid.
So we put, we put puzzles and
games at the back and he can have
his chemistry lab and during lunch
breaks he can teach chemistry.
And so that's what I would do.
That's amazing.
And yeah, that was a good teacher, that
was a teacher who could realize that,
okay, he's not super great in these areas.
Rather than trying to make him better,
we're gonna double down on the things
that he's showing a lot of aptitude for.
Mm-hmm.
And that's something that
I try to do with my kids.
Um, but I also, you know, I don't ever
wanna lose sight of the fact that,
like I was told I couldn't do math.
I was told that reading
will be a challenge for me.
And like you, I persevered and overcame.
And even in recent years,
I look at things like.
The Adobe Suite, how do you use After
Effects and Premier Pro and Photoshop?
Like this is a completely new language
and one day it's just like, you know what?
I'll do it.
And there's a light bulb switch and I'm
proficient enough to put out content now.
So we found the reason to do it,
found the reason there's a proper
external or internal stimulus that,
uh, that that move me forward.
And it's the understanding and people
like to talk about neuroplasticity.
It's the understanding that you
can always learn something new and
your brain is always expanding.
Damn, that thing.
Uh, yes, a hundred percent.
Yeah.
No, I get the old, the old MV seven mute.
Um, because I think about the
neuroplasticity thing a a lot,
and I've thought about it since
I was a pretty young person.
And, and I think that I. Like I, I'd
almost, man, like 40 minutes ago, you
asked like, how, you know, where that
place was that I was in and I didn't
get out of it for like 15 years.
And it, it got to the point where right
before I was gonna black rifle and
I told you that I'd, I'd realized it
probably shouldn't drink all the time
and, you know, do these other things.
Mm. I, I, I, I realized that I, I was
living in an unintegrated way, meaning
that I was, I needed both parts of
myself in a room, but I had divided
myself into a, like a workaholic.
This thing that we're talking about,
this kid growing up, you know, that
is just like, I'm gonna do my thing.
I'll see y'all down the line.
Piece.
Um, that's great.
It works really well to do
exceptional things, but it doesn't
do well to be a normal human.
And, um, and, and that's,
and you, you see, that's what
we, I missed out on anyways.
I, it was the modeling that
occurred, um, of like, this is just
how you normal do normal and, um,
mm-hmm.
And so I, I wouldn't, I didn't know
how to be that obsessive driven person
and also keep my house clean and, you
know, uh, exercise, cook for myself.
And, and I got the inclination
around 2019 ish that was like, oof.
Like, I don't know how to do.
Basic human things.
And it's embarrassing, you
know, to not know how to cook.
It's embarrassing to, I mean, I
knew how I could do my laundry.
I mean, I knew how to, I
knew how to clean dishes.
But it's like, part of my thing too is
with the cooking is I get overwhelmed,
kinda like with the Adobe suite, where
it's like, I don't, I'd go and try to
look something up on the internet and
it's like, I need the foundational
explanation of the logic of a stove top.
Like, I don't know what the hell
one through four actually is.
Especially when the recipe's
like, put it on low.
Mm-hmm.
I'm like, what's low?
No one's, that's subjective to me.
Like low could be one low, could be four.
'cause it's below the halfway points.
Mm-hmm.
What does low mean?
And, and so I would get frustrated,
just try to do simple things like that.
And, and, and, and I realized
that I was, I'm gonna have to go
and do what I used to do and I'm
just gonna have to go ask people.
I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to be.
Vulnerable enough to be like, Hey, I'm
kind of, um, sort of retarded in these
ways, you know, or re retarded in these
ways from, from not having, um, been
exposed to them and not for lack of trying
and not for, like, I didn't, my mom got
really upset actually 'cause she thought
that she let me down or something and I
was like, mom, you, you were a single mom.
I was a latchkey kid.
You could only do so
much to, to prepare me.
You know, it's like, if, if I didn't
learn how to cook a pork chop, I,
I did all these other things as a
byproduct of what you did teach me.
I can, I can learn how to
cook the pork chop now.
But, um, it, it took, it
took the integration and
realizing that I'm actually, I.
I'm not two different people, you
know, it's, I'm not, I'm not a
worker be, and I'm not like this
stunted, you know, um, basic human
that doesn't know how to do things.
It's like, I'm just, Chris.
I'm, I'm a person that knows
how to be driven and doesn't
know how to cook for themselves.
That's the same person.
It's
it for whatever
reason.
And I, for years in my head,
saw myself in this, this binary,
dualistic way, and it's like.
Oh, well, I just need to figure out, I
need to look at it from the perspective of
like, how do I make a better me, you know?
And, and the me that can, can take
care of my space, the me that can
cook for myself, it maybe you'll
have a good effect on my career.
And it did.
But it, it kind of brought me back to
this place where I was like, it brought
me back to that six, 7-year-old version
of me where I'm just like, you know what?
I don't care about a lot of this stuff.
Like, I, I care about like mm-hmm.
His being I on your happiness thing.
I had a friend who was in that friend
group that lost the two guys and, um, I
was helping her move to Portland and from
Boise and I was driving a U-Haul for,
and um, this is about a year after it had
happened, and, um, I was like learning
how to fight and mixed martial arts stuff.
It was a weird time.
It was enjoyable, but
also painful at times.
Mm-hmm.
And, um, she's like, Chris,
what makes you happy?
Like, that's the question she asked me.
And not, are you happy,
but what makes you happy?
And I'm sitting there driving
that U-Haul and I'm like,
son of a bitch.
I can't answer that question
with a single thing.
And so for, for years after that,
which I would say this is another path
towards Code of the West, is that like
I started trying to figure out what
the, that the answers were to that.
And as I started accumulating things
on that list, they weren't big.
It was things like sitting in a room
and reading a book or sitting in a room
when it's raining outside, uh, or, uh.
You know, sitting in the grass on a
spring day, you know, it was just, it
was like things that were achievable, I
just didn't make time for, and that was
also kind of like a blow to me when I
started making that list and realizing
that I'm just not doing these things.
And I'd always been this advocate of
agency where it's like, if you want
to, if you have a dream and you want to
go and build a, you wanna build your,
your publishing business, or you wanna
build a, a concrete business and you're
not doing it, and you've got two legs
and two arms and no excuses, you know,
you could, you could go and do it.
I'm real.
I realized like, man, it's not,
I don't even have the ability to
say that I was making excuses.
I didn't even stop to think
about just structuring something
good for me into my life.
You know, everyone wants to be motivated.
They're like, you know, I'm super
motivated to do something, or I'm
looking for some external motivator.
I'm gonna read this book, I'm
gonna do whatever it might be.
And I think your Code of the West
kind of hits on a process, which can
lead to motivation through discipline
if we just take those little steps.
Because motivation is fleeting.
Mm-hmm.
Discipline is something that
you act, it's tangible, it's
something that you can control.
And it's some, yeah, it's great.
It's something you could work towards.
And if there's a roadmap in place
and you can say, I'm gonna try
this roadmap a little bit, and
you're not making any promises of
what's at the end of the roadmap.
Well I call the, you're saying is
compass.
It's a compass to me.
'cause a map is predetermined and uh,
you know, that's the thing that the
gurus and the Instagram pages, I think.
Cell is the map.
And that's like, I, I just, it's,
I don't, I don't believe that
everybody's map is the same.
And so I think it's more like, can
I, can I, a compass is not biased.
A compass just tells you where North is.
And so it just helps
everybody navigate that.
If you know how to read a map, if
you know where you're trying to go,
the compass helps you get there,
but it doesn't tell you where to go.
And that's where I think that a lot
of this sort of modern, uh, hustle
grind culture, it's about like, you,
you where you want to go, where you
need to go, that's the top of that
mountain where you got, you got million
dollars and you got a hundred thousand
Instagram followers and blah, blah, blah.
And it's like.
I climbed my mountain in my twenties
going into comics, and I, I got
there and I was like, shit, uh, it's
not what I thought it was gonna be.
And, and I wasn't happy.
And then I had to step back and
be like, so if I've spent the
past 17 years building my identity
around my dream, and I got there,
I got to my dream and I got it.
I got my comic, my graphic novel, printed,
published one reward, and I'm not happy.
I can either double down on not being
happy, or I can step back and realize,
or I can step back and find a way.
To be happy.
And, um, it's like the sunk cost bias.
You know, when you've, like, when you're
playing poker and you're like all in,
or almost all in on a shitty hand, and
like that river comes and you're like,
I'm not gonna lose this and I can't
bluff this, or I'm not gonna win this
and I can't bluff my way through this.
So do you go all in or do you just
save what little bit you have?
And I was like, it was hard, but
I was like, I'm gonna have to
walk away from comics because
this is not making me happy.
It's hard choices like that.
The map would tell you, double
down, keep going, be miserable.
'cause you're just being weak.
You're being, you know, who's gonna
carry the boats, uh, you know,
or who's gonna draw the comics.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and, and it's just like maybe
you, maybe you step back and you
decide you do wanna keep going.
That's fine too.
Mm-hmm.
But it's like, I just don't, I don't
ad adhere to this, this, uh, notion
that there's one way to do things.
There's, I, I would say that for me,
code of the West is just an encouragement
and saying that, like, the one thing
that I know for sure is don't stop
looking for the thing that works.
So there's something that I look
at and I try to apply to my life
faster than I have in the past, but
it's to stop, regroup, and choose
a more desirable course of action.
Now, that more desirable course
of action might just be on that
same path that you're on before.
Fail fast, fail fast,
fail hard, fail often.
Do you really?
Yeah.
I believe in that a hundred percent.
I love it.
Yeah.
So many people are afraid of failure.
Why?
And the more you fail, the more you
realize, man, I'm not made outta glass.
Mm-hmm.
I can actually get back up again.
And that's where the strength comes from.
People will look at their failures
and say, well, what are, what
will other people think of me?
What will my family and
my friends give a shit?
Or people online.
Yeah, people you've never, never even
met before, but they're gonna have an
opinion about whatever it might be.
Fail fast, fail far hard, fail off.
And the people who are truly successful
that I know are the ones who've
tried all these different options
and failed hard, but gotten back up
well on the thing
about
the who cares what people
think about you too.
Anyways, I will say, I mean, so, so I'm
in spitting distance of 300,000 people
on Instagram now, and that's cool.
It's an interesting data point.
I can count on two hands how
many times I've had someone
like get real mean or nasty.
Ever unco to the west in
the comments and, huh?
For real.
Like, and I mean, I've had, I've had,
I've blocked some people, like people,
if people want to show up and try to
stir like the pot, I'm just like, nah,
like juice ain't worth the squeeze.
I'm not gonna feed the troll.
But that's kind of the point, is I don't
give any fertile ground in there to, um,
to let that stuff sort of foster and grow.
And I think that that's a reflection
of my brain, you know, like, 'cause
what you're talking about with like,
you know, failing, what's it look like?
People's perception of it.
It's like, well, I, I'm gonna be
my own worst critic no matter what.
I know that about myself.
So there's not much that anybody
else can make me feel worse about.
Now.
I, I, I will, I don't
like disappointing people.
I will say that.
And if, if, if, if a troll
shows up, that's just like, I.
I thought this thing and
then it didn't work out.
And I think, I feel like you lied to me.
There's a mo or not that that happens
that often, but it's like that
framework will kind of bum me out
and be like, did I really do that?
Did that sucks?
And if I did do something
wrong, then I'll admit to it.
But, um, it's, it's more like
realizing that, um, it's, you
can't control other people's
perceptions of, of you or your path.
And so social media has this
way of, of sort of hyper
spinning that judgment cycle up.
But it also like, that's like a big,
uh, what do they call those things
that used to go, we like you spin 'em
around and like they make, and like
they, or they, you could like blow.
Yeah, yeah.
Little clackers.
Yeah.
Like,
okay.
Yeah,
it's movement, it's sound, it's
distracting, but at the end of the
day it's like, what is that thing?
We can't even remember what it's
called, but like, I mean, it's a perfect
analogy in a way 'cause it's like.
What, what is this like?
I mean, okay, cool.
Like you're making a lot of noise,
but like, does this have a value?
Does this have a purpose to it?
Like, 'cause I don't see it.
And so, um, you know, it, it basically,
once you remove, when, when you untether
yourself, I found this, I don't know how
you feel about it, but if you untether
yourself from these, from the scaffoldings
that do show up in the frameworks,
um, that, that are kind of just like
there, you know, the, the like, well
this is how we've done it for a while.
So, you know, if you have a, if you have
an Instagram account and someone does
show up and they're an asshole to you,
you should be an asshole back or not.
Maybe, maybe you're just like, ignore it
or maybe you go, well, hey, are you okay?
Like, uh, what's going on?
Mm-hmm.
You know, like, or you send 'em a
dm, you know, be like, Hey, are you,
I know I don't know you, but, um,
doesn't seem like you're doing okay.
You know, whatever.
Like, umhmm, we, we have a prescriptive.
Sort of like process or flow to
these things that, especially with
the internet, it's like you and
I grew up in, in a different way
before the internet showed up.
Like, no elbows in the table,
don't wear hats inside.
We're both violating that rule right now.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and there we are.
And well, I got reflection off the
top of my head from the lights.
I just, I'm, I'm look like a crazy
person without a hat on right now.
Like, um, yeah.
Like, but there's this slow gradual,
like we adapted, oops, sorry.
We adapted to this world.
We weren't born into it.
Uhhuh.
And so it's our responsibility, I feel,
and this is part of Code of the West
is, is like people wanna lament and talk
about Gen Z all the time and be like,
oh, they're just always on their phones.
They're always doing this.
It's like, so, so what
are we doing to help?
Them, you know, if, if, if this world
that they've inherited from us is
performative, it's it's judgmental, or
they think that it's performative and
judgmental because the system that they've
been born into is this big ass structure
that is just this thing we're spinning
around that doesn't really do anything.
You know?
And so, and, and you know, like
I, if, if, if all we're doing is
just saying, oh, you shouldn't put
that much stock in these things.
Well, they're, they're putting all the
stock in it because they're not like us.
They literally don't have
mm-hmm.
A frame of reference for what the
world existed like before all of this
existed that we're talking on right now.
The reason why Code of the West
exists, the reason why you have your
platform, you need to, are you good?
No, no.
I just saw a shadow move
by and, uh, but I squirrel.
Um, but, but we're good.
I remembered I got a text
earlier that someone's gonna
be dropping by the studio here.
Um, I, uh, I, I guess what I'm saying
is, is that like, that's part of this
whole thing is that, um, there's just
a, there is no, like, somehow we got
this point where all the manners,
all the things that we used to grow
up and learn, um, we just decided
not to pass 'em on for some reason.
Um, you know, like, uh, and I don't
know why, because now we have this giant
megaphone where we can talk to each other
and communicate and instead of being like,
Hey, you know what, it used to be kind of,
we, we'll go like old gray mirror sheet.
What?
She used to be like, I wish,
I wish Canada was like this.
I wish America was like this.
It used to be like this.
Instead, why not?
Why not go like, Hey, this
is what I think it should be.
What are you doing?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, like, or hey, if
you're struggling with this.
This is, this is something that we used
to do, or this is something that I do do.
Um, I'm not saying everybody goes
and makes Co of the West or Co of
the East or coast of the CO to the
Southwest or whatever, but it's
like, I, I do do that version of
it, like, you know, or your version.
It's just like how.
Like when you're optimizing for
attention, you're not really
optimizing for evolution in any way.
You know?
And so you'll see people copying and
parroting a lot of these influencers
about here's how you get millions
of dollars and freedom or whatever.
And it's like, okay, I get, I get
what Gen Z's doing shit like this,
because that's all they're seeing.
They're not, they don't if they don't
have grandpa, I had, you know, I had
grandpas that were self-made and, you
know, in business and I had a grandpa that
was just old school, putting your head
down, go to work, get your retirement.
You know, I had examples of, uh, of
people around me that had different ways
of going through life and succeeding.
And, um, if we're not trying to,
like, this is something I haven't
articulated very well, so I, I'll,
I'll kinda leave it at this because
it's an incomplete thought, but like
we, we just sort of let the old world.
Dissipate and then this
superstructure supplanted it
with that, that is the internet.
And then, and then every, all of
us were sitting around going like,
well, why, why is everything broken?
Like, why isn't anything
working the way that it used to?
It's like, 'cause we sledge hammered
the shit outta everything and just,
and just brushed and we just broomed
the dust of everything that used
to be off the, the foundation.
And we just had this Rube Goldberg
overly complex device that we
used to do really simple things,
which is just talk to each other.
And you just hit the nail
on the head right there.
And the.
The number of people in the younger
generation that are so hyper connected
through social media, through all the
different little apps and Snapchats,
WeChat, whatever the, the different
things that they're using, but so
isolated from each other at the same time.
And their process that they know
for interaction is gonna be based
on what's been modeled before
them and what their friends do.
And
I, when you talk about dealing with a
hater, somebody comes in with a lot of
negativity and the natural knee jerk
response is to come in and try and cut
them down or tell them why they're wrong.
It's not yourself.
It's not to stop, regroup, and
choose or explain yourself.
No, no, no, no.
This is what I meant.
And then you're sucked
into this trap of it.
To be able to shift that completely.
And one of the easiest ways, you've
just mentioned it there, you'll
just on the side DM a person.
What I do, so I've, I run a
company, silver Core Outdoors,
we're very, very well reviewed.
But every once in a while you're
gonna run it as somebody who's got an
issue with something you can't please
all of the people all of the time.
And we might so mess
up sometimes too.
Well, and that's it.
And we're not perfect.
And there are times that we've made
mistakes and we've mistepped and we
need to hear about it and be able to.
Uh, to move forward in a positive way.
But what I do whenever possible is I find
that person's phone number and I give them
a phone call and I'll say, listen, I'm
genuinely curious about your perspective.
If they, if a negative review is left
or an angry email or whatever it might
be, and the staff that work with me,
they say, I don't know how you do it.
I, you know, they were so angry
before and now they were singing
our praises and they love us.
And I say, well, it's simple.
I call 'em up and I then I listen and
I listen to what they have to say, and
then I say, okay, so let me understand.
Here's what I'm hearing.
Is that correct?
And they'll say, yes,
and I'd like to add this.
Okay.
And I write it all down and I
say, well, let's see what we
can do to make this better.
Right?
Or sometimes, sometimes
there's gonna be situations.
I remember one girl
and I said, look at it.
I've, I've looked, you've got a
pattern of even negative reviews
for people, and I, I, I sp spent
probably more time than I should have.
Looking at all of this stuff that you have
here, um, how is that working out for you?
It looks like you got fired from this job.
It looks like you had for, based on
these, uh, different personality things
like how's that working out for you?
I'm not asking you to
take the review down.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm genuinely curious.
Okay.
And she came right?
And she came back.
I said, look, we can't help
you in, in what you're looking
for help on, unfortunately.
Um, but.
Doesn't mean that we can't treat you
like a human and see what's going on.
And she came back with the most glowing
review afterwards and said, oh, Travis
gave me a reality check and I really
appreciate That wasn't my intention.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
It wasn't my intention.
Even though she was, she was quite upset
at first, like, holy crow, how do you know
all these things about where I worked?
And, and, um, so while you didn't leave
a number and you left this whole thing
anonymously and I had to figure out who
you were, so I may have a DC that a little
further down the road, but had a human
connection and a very positive outcome.
And I find the younger generation is
fearful of just picking up the phone
and saying, Hey, like, like, what's up?
This is something I've been,
I've been thinking about more.
'cause I, I think that you're inevitably
gonna always have that sort of
generational, um, conflict, you know,
as, as you're older, and I shouldn't say
conflict, you're just, we think that we
man, every time, um, we think that, um.
Every since I was a kid, every
older generation has said something
negative about the generation that
comes up behind them or the, the, the
subsequent generations below them.
And it's like, okay, the only habit,
the only thing that seems to be
consistent here is that everybody
thinks that everybody that's
younger than them is an idiot.
And to me, the only thing that's
actually consistent is that the
world's just continually changing.
And the frameworks that we have, you know,
for ourselves, what made sense in 1999
does not make sense in 2025 in some ways.
But, but the base frameworks, things
that I'm talking about with Code
of the West all the time, it's like
in theory they could have, they
could operate in 2139, you know,
because it's, it's just, it's
just about, like, it's not about.
The, the specificity and
the nuance of the culture.
It's, it's, it's about what's it
like to be a part of a community?
And, and there's Mm, and that's why,
I mean, it's a, to me, I view it as
a compass and not a map, you know?
'cause it's, it's something
that's gonna evolve, you know,
society interaction, how we do it.
We might just be on, you know, talking
through radio signals and just staring
at each other on a podcast in 30 years
because we're just in our, each other.
Everybody's in their brains
about it or something.
I don't know.
Um, but I think Neurolink Yeah, exactly.
But with Gen ZI think that, um,
you know, much like we're the first
generation to have lived in both worlds.
They're the first generation
that's only lived in that one, this
current one, rather, I should say.
Mm. And, and the other world existed
even though it changed and shifted.
It existed pretty much for all
of humanity prior to this moment.
You know, it's like, okay, we got
the telephone, we got airplanes,
we've got, you know, the 20,
the 20th century is pretty dope.
But there was, there were, it was
more like refined, refined versions
of communication methods that
we'd, you know, been as, you know,
aspiring towards for a long time.
Um, nobody, I mean, Jesus Christ.
I mean, like, we have ai,
like we have actual AI that
can think it's self emergent.
Like it's not just some novelty
of like, find me a recipe.
It's like you can have a debate with
an AI about its sovereignty mm-hmm.
And its own existence.
If you told me that when I was nine years
old for one, I'd been like, hell yeah.
Where's the hoverboard
and the flying DeLoreans.
But, um, yeah, but what I'm getting at
is, is that, like you, you mentioned
legacy earlier and, and you have kids,
I think you said, and I don't mm-hmm.
To my knowledge.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but um, this idea of legacy, I think
goes beyond just, um, I think oftentimes
we see legacy as wanting some sort of
reassurance that to ourselves that when
we die we feel like we've had some sort
of impact or we're leaving some impression
of our time here behind after we're gone.
And for me, I think it's more it,
like the sun could exp I could
save, I could go full Armageddon.
Bruce Willis go up with my oil
rigging friends, blow up the asteroid
that's gonna destroy the earth.
They could put statues of us in every
city, in every country of the world.
And at some point the sun's gonna explode.
You know, like regardless of how
long those statues stay, like
at some point it's just gone.
And so it, you, you could argue that
there's more value in time, you know,
for how long people remember you.
If you're Gil, you're Gilgamesh or
Beowulf, I'd argue that it doesn't matter.
It, it matters like when, when you are
like, I think about like, the greatest
mystery and exploration that I'll
ever have in my life is like death.
And as macab as this sounds
like, I think about death a
lot, but not in like a dark way.
Mm-hmm.
I'm just like, okay.
Um, it's, you said early on in
the podcast, it's inevitable.
You know, it's the one thing
that we all can't avoid.
So for me, I just wanna
know when it happens.
Like, I let, I didn't
leave anything on the mat.
And the legacy that I wanna leave
behind is more of what it means
to just live well and live as an
individual and, and die with not,
no one's gonna die without regrets.
But, um, I think it's,
I think it's important to, to die.
Well die.
Well, like I said about Lauren, you
know, and helping him like, um, I,
Michael died alone with a lot of drugs
and alcohol sys in his system in a,
in a switchy yard outside of Portland.
Lauren died surrounded by family,
slowly, albeit, but with a chance
to talk and, and say goodbye
and, and come to terms with it.
You know, it's like we don't always
get to control the way that we die,
but we can control to a large degree
how we live up until that point.
And, and I think that's the
legacy that I wanna leave behind.
I think you're doing a damn good
job of, of putting the work in
to be able to leave that legacy.
Trying.
Where, where do you see the
future of CO to the West?
Um,
there's stuff that's, um, like, I haven't
signed in any NDAs about anything, but
I, I have a habit of not wanting to
count my chickens before they hatch.
So smart.
As far, as far as what I can control,
you know, I'm trying to carve out time
to write another book that's not just
a, like a sequel to the, I mean, the,
the manual is basically an epistemology.
It's just a way of explaining things.
Mm-hmm.
That, you know, all the people in
my life that we've talked about
that they sort of intuited, um.
That they're not gonna have, like,
just because Stoicism lines up a lot
with Code of the West doesn't mean
that the people that taught me the
code knew who Marcus Aurelius was.
You know?
So it's like mm-hmm.
I kind of wanted to sort of structure
it, but now I want to have, uh,
sort of like an actual document that
could help young people, especially.
Like, I keep thinking
like the big book of shit.
You should know.
Um, you know, that's, that's stuff mm-hmm.
That I, I, I, I had a hard time with
things like how to cook and how to,
you know, change tires and, you know,
manners and different things like that.
So I really want, I want to, I want
to continue to write and publish books
that have value that can be referenced.
And then, um, I want to, um, I want
to, I want to document other people's
stories more, you know, uh, like, um,
this is where I'm being careful about
one of those eggs that could hatch.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
I would like to, I'd like to go and
talk to people and, and, and meet them
where they are and work alongside them
and, and have the chance to show people
that things that I talk about are not
gone, you know, show, not tell more
that, that there are people mm-hmm.
Who still, even though I think that
Code of the West aspires to, or I aspire
with Code of the West to basically
make a modern myth, you know, and that
a myth is not a, an accurate factual
play by play storytelling, uh, method.
It's, it's, it's romanticized.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a lesson.
Mm-hmm.
You know, more than anything.
And, and so I think that the,
it's very important to, um, uh.
Tie it together and, and show that like,
yes, it might be a myth, but there's
still a component of it that is real.
And I really want to, I, I wanna
physically get people together.
Something I can tell you that I don't
feel, I don't have any qualms about saying
is that I, um, I live in northern Idaho
outside of a, a town called Sandpoint.
And I, and I'm officially on the, um,
board of directors now for the PRCA rodeo
that happens every year in Sandpoint here.
And as a part of this
Cool, it's, it's cool.
I'm excited.
And so as a part of the arrangement
that I have is, um, it's not,
we're not rebranding the rodeo.
It's still the Sandpoint rodeo,
but I get to say that this is
the code of the West Rodeo.
If you want to come and, and see
Code of the West in person or
experience it in some way, I. August
of 2025 is gonna be the first time.
I don't know.
Everybody wants to show
up in Sandpoint, Idaho.
It's kind of out of,
out of, out of the way.
But I, I just, I want to start doing
things that are more in person, ideally,
you know, find a way to, to allow
people to have their own agency to
start, you know, go to the West, you
know, book, I don't know, book clubs
or, I mean, I haven't, I haven't had
a chance to really build it the way
I wanted it to yet, but it's like,
it just, it just needs to be real.
It, it can't be theoretical,
you know, alone.
And so there's, that's part of
where it's going, figuring that
stuff out, uh, getting my podcast
going again, and, um, and just,
that's more of just a habit thing.
I, I got all that stuff worked out.
Hmm.
And, um, and then, um,
there's, it could get pretty
interesting by the end of the summer
here if everything goes the way that
it, it's, it's looking, you know?
And, and so this.
Uh, I, I don't think there's any harm
in saying like, I'm, um, I'm doing
a collection drop with Huckberry.
Um, so like, I'm, I'm basically putting
something together with them that's gonna
be a combination of Code of the West, you
know, shirts, hats, um, but also tools.
Cool.
And, and, and things that are what brands?
I, I'll be a little, I will wait to
say the brands just because we haven't
assigned anything or anything, but
like, things like knives, you know,
like, uh, jack, like jack shirt, I,
I gotta be careful, but like, but
like, things that are useful Sure.
To people if you're from the
northwest, if you're from the
bush, you know, like, um, and um.
Yeah, like that, that it's not just an
affectation, it's like it's, it's it's
shit kicker gear that you could just
throw in the back of a Subaru if you're
somebody who's a white collar person
who grew up in Alberta or grew up in
Montana but is doing something new now.
Or it could also just be the jacket that
you wear, or the gloves that you use, or
the tool that you use if you are still,
you know, in the shit, so to speak.
And then, um, I'm doing some
stuff with Boot Barn as well.
Um, that's incremental.
There's a couple things
that we're doing there.
Um, and, and that it's, I'm,
it's more of like, I didn't look
for that, but that happened.
And, and so to me it's, it's a way
of hopefully just, um, extending the
opportunity to help people ultimately.
I like, I like that a lot.
And also depending when the dates
are in August, I'll go to the,
uh, I'll be there at the rodeo.
That'd be cool.
It's, it's like August
1st, I think that, yeah.
Okay.
My daughter's going off to university,
so we'd be juggling a few things there.
I don't know what's, uh, when the
official head in time is, I should
probably look at the calendar.
How far north are you?
Like where, how far are
you from the border?
I'm.
Pretty close.
I mean, we're, I'm in Ladner, I mean,
the border's 15 minutes away from me.
And I drove down, I visited a
buddy in Boise, uh, Brad Brooks.
He owns a company called Ar Gall.
And, um, Zach Hansen, he's written
a book called Turning Ferrell.
Actually, Zach, he lent me
this, uh, Kerra Rod, and I'd
never used one of them before.
And coming from a fly fishing
background, everyone kind of
turns their nose up at 'em.
But, uh, I, I had the, probably
one of the best fishing days
of my life with this thing.
A little compact little.
That's amazing.
I felt like, uh, yeah, I felt like
Hemingway fishing in the Saw two and let
us stay in his, um, his cabin in, uh,
Atlanta, which is, uh, Atlanta, Idaho.
That's
cool.
So do you go through Bonners Ferry
then, or how do you come down South?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I don't know.
I, um, I sat in the passenger seat and
my wife drove, 'cause I hate driving.
And, uh, you ask your wife and, and I,
I put the thing on the old map Quest
on, uh, put it on the Google Maps
and, uh, uh, and we just camped along
the way and fished and, um, um, yeah.
Very cool.
What about, um, Zane, Zane Gray?
Uh, you're familiar with him?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he's got a writers of the
Purple Sage and then obviously
the book, the Code of the West.
And he had one quote.
So very different, highly
influential in his own right.
Mm-hmm.
In romanticizing and creating, uh,
the, the western culture that so
many movies have been based off of.
Uh, you've gone and codified a lot of
these things that, uh, that he never
did that, um, kind of make up those
points, which is, which is really cool.
But he had a quote says, say.
You can't tell what a man's made of
by looking at him, you gotta go away.
What he does, and that, I think,
encapsulates what you're doing.
I appreciate that.
There's a lot of stuff, a lot
of quotes, and I, I used to do
a lot of pull, a lot of quotes
outta Louis Lamore and Zane Gray.
And it's not that I, it's not that I
don't find any value in it, it's just
that I, um, or not that I don't find
any value in it anymore, it's just
I've realized that I've got more to
say than can be just reflected off
those quotes in, in, in many cases.
Mm-hmm.
But, um,
I would agree with Zane Gray.
Uh, I, I mean it's
in storytelling, they say show don't tell
and which just seems counterintuitive,
especially if you're working within
words, uh, a lot of times because
you have to tell to, so to speak.
But there's, that's sort of the little.
Tricks of the trade is learning how
to paint a picture with, um, with
words as opposed to, um, trying
to render a photograph with words.
And, and so, and that's, you know, after
having spent a lot of time learning how
to draw, you know, and illustrate more
than, more than actually writing prose.
Um, even though I wrote a lot
since I was little, it just wasn't
the number one thing that I did.
But I think that, it's funny that you
brought that quote up 'cause that's really
part of that, the reason why I want to
do the thing that I'm being a little
dodgy about, uh, as far as going and
working alongside people, um, and, and,
and showing them that this still exists.
I also, as a part of.
Wanting to do that would be putting
myself in situations where, by working
alongside them, I'm learning things
that I haven't done before and I'm doing
things that are not just new to me, but
they're, they'd be uncomfortable even
to somebody who knew how to do them.
And, and so I'm hoping that because
there's talk is cheap, it doesn't
matter how good I've gotten at, at
articulating things in Code of the
West, you know that people believe them.
And I'm grateful that most people
believe what I'm saying, that I
know, that I know to be the truth.
But there's just a certain level,
especially as we're talking about like Gen
Z and the other generations, like, I'm not
saying that I wanna be that guy, it's just
that I know, that I know about myself.
That if, if you put a camera on me
and you asked me to do something that
was really hard, I wouldn't pretend.
That it, well, I wouldn't pretend
at all, I guess is what I'm saying.
And mm-hmm.
And I, I have no problem with
failing like we talked about earlier.
And if no one else will be willing
to fail in front of literally
everybody, then I'll do it.
And that's kind of, in a strange way, what
I'm hoping to be able to do, just because
I, I believe in that quote so much that
you referenced with Z from Zane Gray.
Well, I think, uh, I think
there's a, I'll show you, I,
I do a little bit of research.
I got a six pages printed off here
of things that I didn't even get
to, uh, talk to you about, just
because we can do again, you want
point,
I, I think we're gonna have to, and maybe,
maybe I bring my kid down if, and do
something at the, uh, the rodeo there.
That could be kind of
fun too, if, uh, yeah.
That would be, but yeah.
Um, is there anything that
we haven't talked about that
we should be talking about?
You know, like you, you asked me sort of
a similar question before we started, uh,
and I think the, I, I just like talking to
people and, and not having, uh, an agenda.
So there's always things we could
talk about, but I don't think that
there's anything that we need to
talk about, if that makes sense.
Totally makes sense.
What, what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna have links in the description.
I'll have, uh, links over to your
social media to what you're doing,
where people can find you, and, um,
maybe we'll call it a wrap there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Chris?
Yeah.
For, for the time being.
For for the time being.
Yes.
And thank you so much for being
on the Silver Corp podcast.
Thanks for having me.
I feel.
I feel lighter.
I feel I, I like, I love, I love the
feeling of being able to sit down and you
ride that high afterwards just saying,
I just had an amazing conversation.
Thank you.
Yeah, likewise.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.