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Finding meaning in the things that we love.
Hello there.
You're listening to the
(Sound)
life.
I'm your host,
(Music)
games
IGN
and their massive amounts of layoffs.
We'll also be talking about
dealing with grief and hardship and
feeling like our trauma might dictate
who we are as a person and what we want
to leave for the generation coming
ahead of us.
All that and more.
But first,
let's
vibe.
The Counter Hit is a live broadcast, or a
vibe stream, if you will, that includes
live music, spoken word discussions, and
philosophic meandering surrounding
relevant topics of import
both in and out of pop culture.
Each performance is completely improvised
from beginning to end with nothing
prepared or outlined ahead of time.
What you are hearing now is an edited
version of the show.
To find out more about how you can listen
to the full, unedited performance and
gain first-look access to each recording,
along with front-row seats to each live
event every week, stay
tuned for more details.
For now, please enjoy the show.
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an
American-British
novelist and screenwriter.
In 1932,
at age 44, Chandler became a detective
fiction writer after losing his job as an
oil company executive
during the Great Depression.
In a letter
to his literary agent H.N.
Swanson on March 14, 1953,
he had this to say about science fiction
as a genre of literature.
"Did you ever hear what
they call science fiction?
It's a scream.
It's written like this.
I checked out with K-19 on Aldebaran III
and stepped out through the crumilite
hatch on my 22 model series hardtop.
I cocked the time ejector in secondary
and waded through the
bright blue mandagrass.
My breath froze into pink pretzels.
I flicked on the heat bars, and the
brills ran swiftly on five legs using
their other two to send
out Krylon vibrations.
The pressure was almost
unbearable, but I caught
the range on my wrist computer
the transparent cycites.
I pressed the trigger.
The thin violet glow was ice cold against
the rust-colored mountains.
The brills shrank to half an inch long,
and I worked fast
stepping on them with the Poltex.
But it wasn't enough.
The sudden brightness swung me around and
the fourth moon had already risen.
I had exactly four seconds to hot up the
disintegrator, and Google
told me it wasn't enough.
He was right.
Huh.
They pay brisk money for this crap?
End quote.
You know,
life doesn't have to be
that serious all the time.
Mess about,
make something dumb.
You don't have to prove anything to
anyone else, just vibe with it.
But the funny thing is,
when you vibe with it,
when you show other
people what you're vibing with,
you might attract all different kinds of
people along the way.
So, I've heard what's
happening with IGN lately.
IGN,
Internet Gaming Network,
is that what they're called?
Yep, layoffs, that's right,
ladies and gentlemen, layoffs.
Right before a big major video game
release is about to get covered by about
every single media outlet in the world,
IGN, the literal publication that many
people go to for the rage
bait, they get consumer reports,
video game reviews, content previews, all
that other good stuff.
And yeah, they laid off a lot of people.
The company is owned by Ziff Davis.
Ziff Davis, I
believe, also owned GameSpot.
And Giant Bomb, maybe,
kind of, sort of, whatever.
Brian Altano, Seth Macy, Bo
Moore, among those affected.
A lot of people lost their jobs as a
result of these layoffs.
Layoffs are really funny.
They're really funny.
(Upbeat Music)
Cause,
it's basically a way for a company to
say, hey, look, we screwed up, but we
want you to pay the price for it, please.
Please and thank you.
Yeah, we love it when
a company does that.
And of course, those people that were
affected by the layoffs, I'm sure are
gonna find employment, well, not sure,
everything on things that are guaranteed,
but they're probably gonna find some kind
of employment in some capacity.
I believe it.
Especially the notable ones.
It's pretty rough,
pretty rough out there.
Maybe they'll make
their own YouTube show.
Maybe they'll make their own newsletter,
games journalist
magazine, maybe, a zine of sorts.
Speaking of zines,
(Sound)
are, a zine is on the way, thanks to our
lovely and fantastic
counter part.
Counter founder, that's a fun name.
Daniel Pratly, who's on the
prowl, on the grind,
finishing up a zine for us all.
Should be fun for us all
to kind of partake in that.
By the way,
if this is your first time tuning in, you
might wonder what's up with this music?
What's going on here?
Well, it's quite simple.
(Upbeat Music)
A website that won't be named.
Let's call it blueboob.com.
Yeah, that website, sure.
Blueboob.com.
Likes to monetize and has a free market
system for any entity to take ownership
of someone else's artistic works, AKA
music, own it, flag it, make it a content
ID claim, and hit you back when it comes
to things like monetization.
We've had a couple of tracks lately that
are open source, open license, public
domain tracks that no one's allowed to
own, but some company didn't read the
fine print and went ahead and decided to
act on behalf of these artists and
authors and say, hey, you can't use this
music, or rather you can, but we're gonna
take a slice of the pie.
It's probably fine, probably.
We're just a very small
entity when it comes to internet things,
all things considered.
We could spend a lot of our efforts
fighting that battle or
what we could do is just make our own
shit, make our own music
with whatever tools I have.
Won't be the best music.
I don't promise I'm anything special, but
we can definitely make
something out of this.
So that's another notch for Teen Human.
Yay!
on the counter hit is
man-made by me and Daniel Pratly.
It's all here, man-made.
No pre-baked tracks
anymore, no pre-launched music.
Maybe if we partner with a really cool
artist, we'd love to showcase their work,
but right now, until this whole AI bubble
gets settled, we just got vibey music.
Vibey music, we all get to
listen to a smidge about.
A smidge about.
So
IGN is
laying off a lot of people during a time
when it would make a lot of
sense, like a lot of sense
to keep those people on, have them cover
GTA VI and then lay them
off by the end of the year.
It would make a lot more sense, but
here's what also makes sense.
Some fiscal years start in September, a
lot of fiscal years, actually.
Everyone tries to get their
financials out by August 31st.
August 31st rolls around.
They look at the
forecast for the next year.
Ah, crap, we gotta lay people off.
That's probably what happened.
And again,
A company made a
mistake, a forecast mistake, and
they don't pay the price.
They never pay the price.
We pay the price.
That's cool, that's neat.
We love it when we do that.
Brilliant,
brilliant.
Came across another article that was
saying something to the effect of how
Japanese companies, especially the fact
that Japanese companies in the video game
industry are not
experiencing massive, massive layoffs.
Interesting,
interesting.
Let's see.
This article comes from PC Gamer.
Japanese devs aren't facing the same
layoff crisis because their executives
are paid an order of magnitude less.
They didn't get swept up in the live
service trend, and
their teams are smaller.
It says industry expert Ted Litchfield.
It's hard to argue
against those takeaways.
Yeah, so people are commenting about the
fact that it's just a
different economic system over there.
I won't speak on the live service trend.
I don't know the financials behind that,
whether it's a big gamble or not.
I think it is, but I haven't done my own
due diligence on that to see
whether that makes sense.
But yeah, if an executive is paid a lot
less, then you have a lot
more bandwidth to squeeze around.
You all know the stories of Iwata from
Nintendo, who actually, I think, halved
his salary to help pay for employees so
they could stay around while Nintendo was
in not so good times.
That happened.
That really happened.
Hmm.
I don't know if it's a
Japanese thing or not.
I don't wanna make assumptions here.
But yeah, when companies don't pay their
executives bajillions
of bajillions of dollars,
when they do that, and
they have more bandwidth to spend their
money on other things and focus on
working smarter, not harder, yeah, that
typically is how that works.
Yep.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
I've seen it for sure.
(Sighs)
So do we think we're gonna
head back into space again?
Do we think we're gonna
get back in this direction?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I think video games have kind of reached
a cap, the industry.
They are a bigger
industry than even Hollywood.
And Hollywood capped.
Everything's got a cap.
I think it's gonna be a great time if you
are a video game consumer, i.e. a video
game player like me, to really dive into
the indie development scene in even the
double A or single A industries, really
the budget titles have a little bit more
meat to their bones, the comfort games.
And I think
a lot of people are gonna spend their
dollars maybe one triple A title a year.
I mean, things are expensive right now.
My PC that I'm running all this on is on
the RTX 4090, which as of this recording
is the second most powerful GPU in the
world, right below the 5090, somehow.
The 50 series doesn't get any more
powerful until the 90, but that's
astronomically more expensive.
My 4090 has appreciated in value.
And it's gonna be two years old soon.
My 4090, that's not how things work,
supposed to be depreciating in value.
If I rip this out of my machine and put a
different GPU on there, I can make a
profit on my machine and sell my 4090.
It's insane.
Video games are meant to be a cheap, fun
thing that we all enjoy doing.
Not meant to be expensive.
It's crazy.
Wow.
What are you gonna do?
I think a lot of people who are gamers
are going to stop playing
video games after a while.
They're gonna be burnt out and bored.
I'm not gonna wanna do this anymore.
And what's this?
Bungie uncancels Destiny.
I just read something about this.
We're not done with Destiny.
It's been a studio update by Porca
Torquan and Josh DeAnn, Bungie head
studio and general manager.
I thought, yeah, so it sounds like they
canceled a big major
game they were working on.
Now they're gonna get back with it.
That's cool.
That's neat, I guess.
Not all bad news, I guess,
in the world of video games.
Have you been playing
any good games lately?
I'm slow.
I still haven't beaten Onamusha yet.
I'm having a fun time with that one and
having a fun time with
orbitals, with the misses.
video gaming is, it's gonna whittle down.
I think it's gonna niche down a bit for a
while before it blows up again.
That's my hot take here.
But here's the thing,
enough waffling.
Let's vibe.
Simple beat, let's go.
Here's a fun fact.
A factoid was originally defined to mean
a false statement presented as a fact.
In colloquial speech, it is often used to
mean a true but brief or trivial item of
news or information, which can be less
ambiguously described as a fact-let.
The term was coined in 1973 by American
writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of
information that becomes accepted as a
fact even though it is not actually true
or an invented fact believed to be true
because it appears in print.
Since the term's invention in 1973, it
has become used to describe a brief or
trivial item of news or information.
So you tell me, is that a
fun fact or a fun factoid?
Information presented by Wikipedia.org.
All right, so it's not
all doom and gloom, right?
We got some good news along the way.
Of course, this news comes to us once
again from the good news network.org.
It's reported to us by Andy Corbally.
New AI model can detect heart disease
markers in simple electrocardiogram
readings, a
breakthrough, according to them.
They write, artificial intelligence has
brought about a revolution in medical
screening practices with the technology
able to make detections across hundreds
of scans in seconds, which can be
forwarded to trained pairs of human eyes.
Okay, that's important.
We're talking about sheer volume and then
sending it off to
someone else who can vet it.
I'm not a big fan when we just trust AI
to do whatever AI can do and just,
there's no vetting process,
no regulation of any kind.
Now from the UK comes another example in
the form of heart disease diagnostics
trained on millions of patients, and a
new AI tool has been designed to detect
minute abnormalities in traditional
electrocardiogram readings.
Though the ECG, which measures the
natural electrical activity in the heart,
has been a key part of diagnosing heart
attack risk and heart arrhythmia for
decades, it isn't able
to detect heart disease.
Heart disease risk, an echocardiogram, or
ultrasound reading of the heart is
ordered, but
appointments are often months later.
Now however, an AI tool has been designed
specifically to detect early signs of two
of the most common forms of
heart disease from ECG readings.
Details of the breakthrough, which would
boast early diagnosis of heart disease,
were presented at the European Society of
Cardiology's Annual Congress in Munich,
the Guardian report.
When it comes to the heart, earlier
diagnosis and treatment
saves and improves lives.
Quote, end quote said, Dr.
Sonia Babu Narayan, Narayan, apologies, a
consultant cardiologist and clinical
director of the British Heart Foundation
BH, which funded the trial.
Quote, technology like the AI ECG in this
research, which has the potential to
identify high-risk patients early, will
not detect everyone with a heart
condition, but could be a solution to
help fast-track the patients, or most
likely to have a heart abnormality.
That's cool folks.
That's really cool.
This is what AI
should be used for, right?
Speed, fast
calculations, and then someone else
that's in the driver's seat, just to
triple check it's all correct.
(Upbeat Music)
Because we don't do that.
Well,
I think we know, we need regulation.
I don't think it's a very controversial
sentiment to say we need
regulation of some kind.
And of course, I
think it was last week, Joseph Gordon
Levitt literally gave a big talk on why
he thinks regulation is a
pretty important factor.
I recommend you all check out that talk
Why are cars safe to drive?
Why are houses safe to live in?
It's because car companies and
construction companies, they have to
operate to code, and that
just means they follow laws.
And if they don't, then the law can come
and shut those companies down.
So let's just be clear here.
Today's biggest AI companies are
operating in such a way that the law
should be shutting them down.
They're saying it.
They're literally saying it.
The employees and the leaders of these
companies are saying, "Hey, everybody,
we're building these really powerful
autonomous agents, and we
can't really control them.
And we think there's a really good chance
that a lot of people end up harmed."
They're saying that.
So to me, that's pretty obvious.
That's the time that the law should step
in and be like, "Okay, hi.
No, you're not allowed to do that.
You guys are going to have to
stop and make some changes."
And then once you can prove that your
products and services are safe and good
for people, then you
may reopen for business.
And of course, all the naysayers came out
to say that Joseph Gordon Levitt doesn't
know what the hell he's talking about.
We here at Team Human
wanna celebrate the things
that humans do really well.
And for all the flaws we
have, we have quite a few.
Use AI, but only in the space in which it
helps human beings just
continue to be human beings.
And
the benefit has to be worth all of the
energy and water consumption we're using.
It has to be.
If it's not, what's the point?
What are we talking about?
It's a waste of everyone's time.
But saving lives, that's probably a
worthy endeavor for sure.
But again, I'm a dummy.
I don't know anything about anything.
I was recently just teaching a class to
able-minded and willful wanting employees
who are struggling with getting their
employees to do things
like read and write emails.
And someone raised their hand and said,
why don't you go ahead and
teach them how to use AI?
Just get them to use CoPilot.
That way they can write the emails
themselves, easy peasy.
By the way, this person
wasn't just any person.
He was the president of the company.
And we all go on the
bandwagon and say, yeah,
what a great idea, what a great idea.
Okay, here, I gotta be the one to ask
that silly question.
If I'm using AI to write emails, and I'm
using AI to decipher the emails as
they're being sent to me, which is
actually a thing that people are doing,
then we're not actually reading or
writing to each other anymore, are we?
We're literally reading
and writing to a robot.
And we're being even more insular.
Human beings are best when we're a
collective, when we're
together as a community.
We talk to each other, like brothers and
sisters and everything else in between.
Learn to write.
Learn to write.
Writing is one of the most critical
skills any person can have.
It doesn't matter what language we're
talking, it doesn't matter what you wanna
write, nonfiction,
journaling, whatever, write every day.
Get better at writing every single day.
Get better at the act of clarifying
thought via words every single day, and
that will have demonstrative effects on
your relationship with people, your
relationship with yourself, your ability
to work out problems.
Learn to write, learn to read.
Don't use chat GPT or
anything like that to
have you read for you.
That's nonsense.
(Upbeat Music)
All right, enough waffling.
That's fine.
We had someone on the Patreon
the other day ask a question.
A good question.
How do you deal with gas?
Woo-wee, gas.
Except not that kind of gas.
No, we're talking about
gear acquisition syndrome.
Gas, often associated with musicians.
Techies.
People like nice gadgets.
People like video games.
People are just living with life.
This
person asked the question because they're
seeing a lot of things advertised to them
thanks to the good old AI algorithm.
And at the stands,
they'd like to be away from it.
Makes total sense.
I'm with you, 100%.
Let's go.
Except you got a lot of
things stacked against you.
When you are being advertised by a system
that you have very little control over,
it knows all about your
preferences and wants.
It's giving you literally
the things you want to see.
So you have to do some kind
of magical kind of willpower
to stave off.
And here's the thing about willpower is
that willpower always fails.
It always, always, always fails because
willpower is always up against
nature and nature always wins.
I'm sure someone's already done their
research about this.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
About psychological trauma, that
giving our cookie data, which is our
breadcrumbs throughout the internet to
literal advertisers to sell to us better
with no very, very little guardrails.
I'm sure there's a study on that.
Anyone would listen.
So here you are trying to fight off gas.
Good for you, excellent.
That angle, that
perspective is a losing battle.
Shucks.
Okay, what do you do next?
Great question.
First off,
whenever gas gets hold of
you, give yourself grace.
Don't feel bad, don't blame yourself,
don't shame yourself because remember,
that's how the self-help industry wins.
That's how schmucks like me, not me
exactly, but people
like me, sell you a book
or a course and tell you you're not
enough and you keep buying into it.
No, no, no, you're
fine, you're totally fine.
Gas starts with the idea that if I
consume more, I'll be happier.
And if you're asking me the question
about gas, Patreon member, I have an
assumption, a belief in my bones that
you know that and you
don't wanna do that.
So this is where an
alternative action plan comes in mind.
Alternative action plan is basically
saying, that I'm inclined to
do, what am I gonna do instead?
Because the human brain can't think of a
negative, we can't do it.
Right now, think, I want you to right
now, if you're listening or watching,
don't think about an elephant.
You failed because in order for you to
have done that, you had to
first think about an elephant.
Okay, got it.
So we can't do the negative, but what we
can do is recognize there's a thing we
don't wanna do and do the opposite of it.
So the opposite action
is, don't buy things.
No, how about this?
What's the opposite of buying something?
What's the opposite
of consuming something?
Doing something or creating something?
So what you wanna do is spend any time
that you have, you're on your phone or on
your electronic device, getting
advertised to realize that is, that's a
ticking time bomb waiting to happen.
Eventually you will get
one over no matter what.
(Soft Music)
And get off that device
as much as you can and make sure you're
only on that device for
deliberate parts of your life.
And when you're not on that device and
there's that void you feel like you don't
have that thing,
start creating something.
Start making stuff.
Whatever that is, art, music, writing,
vibes, whatever it is.
(Soft Music)
That's just the first step.
Then the second step, when you're
creating things and making
things and doing the things,
establish not only your why you're doing
it beyond just you liking it, but like
what you want the end
result to be at some point.
And the end result should be having fun
doing the thing, not the end result
should be this beautiful thing that
people marvel and give me a
wonderful ego stroke from it.
So the end result should be having a
thing that you create that you enjoy
doing for no other reason
than you just enjoy doing it.
That's number two.
And then number three, this thing that's
being sent to you in terms of gas,
think to yourself, what problem does this
device solve for you when it comes to
creating, making, much less consuming?
Because there's always a shinier version
of the thing that you want.
Always,
there's a better microphone, a better
setup, a better keyboard,
always.
Fun fact, outside my hall are
three other piano keyboards.
One I've opened and I'm returning it
because it didn't do what I wanted it to.
And another one I haven't even opened and
I'm still gonna return it.
You wanna know why?
Because the one I have in front of me is
probably fine enough.
Gas got me that day.
But I'm gonna return it.
I'm gonna take it back, get my money back
and focus on what's
good enough in front of me.
If you're watching this, you'll notice
that a lot of the music's being made via
the BOSS 505 Mark II Loop Station.
I'm an amateur looper at best.
I'm just messing around and having fun.
I did buy this for this purpose.
I bought it because I
needed a way to solve a problem.
The problem was we needed
music for our podcast last show.
And we needed to make sure we were
protected against any
kind of content ID nonsense.
Which, you know, the AI algorithm is
trying to chase after.
And the one thing we were doing up until
this point was just
doing public domain tracks.
And it turns out even that is getting
owned
by certain third party
entities, which is insane to me.
And it's a battle worth fighting.
And there are people fighting
it, legal eagles fighting it.
But we're a small, small subspace.
I don't want to spend
my time fighting it.
So what else could I do?
Well, I made music when
I was a younger person.
I was a composer.
If I'm being honest, it's kind of a, it's
stretching if I were
to say I'm a composer.
Yes, I composed.
Small little things.
Things for a little
advert, the film here and there.
I even made a concept album
I released a long time ago.
Sold at a record store.
I've composed before, but my workflow was
very stop, start,
stop, start, stop, start.
Let me plan what I want
to do, then let me do it.
I needed a tool that would allow me to do
it in real time live without it
getting in the way of things.
Hence why I thought
about looking into the 505.
I grabbed it,
played around with it.
I'm still learning the kinks of it.
So far I like what it can do.
It's so far fulfilling what
problem I'm trying to solve.
I've also picked up an Apple computer,
which has a main stage on it because main
stage is a very nice software with a lot
of different instruments on it.
You can't get main stage on anything.
It's on an Apple machine.
The Apple machine I'm
not so in love with.
It's okay.
It can do some things.
It's all right.
You're hearing all the instruments you've
heard so far is for Ben from main stage.
(Upbeat Music)
But I sometimes like it when I just have
my microphone and I'm just making sounds
with my voice, beatboxing, if you will.
I don't know.
I'm on the fence.
I'm still trying to see if
that solves my actual problem.
But you see the difference?
I'm trying to solve a problem.
And if I can get it solved, we're good.
And if my problems
are solved, we're good.
What GAS does is it implies that there's
always a problem to be solved and that
problem has nothing to do with your own
internal goals or your own internal
creative aspirations.
So the person that sent this question was
focusing mostly on video game devices and
portable gaming handhelds.
This person already
has a handheld they like.
It works really well.
Awesome, great.
You don't even like
playing on a handheld.
The screen is so small.
Yeah, I'm with you.
The YouTube gegurus like
to sell you on that stuff.
I've bought a few.
I have an analog pocket or two.
I don't like playing on it
very much, but I'm being honest.
I like playing on
bigger screens just like you.
So I got gassed.
I got hoodwinked.
It's still a fun little device,
but I know better now.
So recap.
Focus on creating less consumption.
Focus on the problems you're trying to
solve with that creation.
And nine times out of 10,
the solutions, those problems are all
something you can overcome.
But if there's something cool tech wise
or just a cool little gadget
that might help you solve
that problem, give it a try.
Always know you can
always return it back.
And then lastly, there's one more thing.
What gives you joy?
What gives you joy?
My wife just bought an Apple MacBook.
She's been using it to write.
Now we have several laptops.
They're not
Apple computers.
But for some reason,
those do not inspire joy.
And I can tell you she has written nine
or 10 chapters already of this book in
the time that she's gotten this laptop,
whereas before we had a
Windows machine didn't inspire joy.
(Upbeat Music)
Once again, she had like
a 14 day return window.
If she didn't like it,
she could have returned it.
So that's another thing
to consider is the cost.
Although to be fair,
there's a cost in clutter too.
You can acquire so many little itty bitty
bids and bobs or whatever and that hurts
you in the long run.
So
what do you do?
(Upbeat Music)
The biggest turn to gas is making sure
that you have an objective
that marketing can't penetrate.
I have a goal
and there's nothing you can sell me on
that's gonna penetrate my goal.
And when it does, I'll consider it only
to see if it'll solve my problem.
In the world of gaming, let's be honest,
it's video games, man.
Video games don't, what problems are we
really dealing with?
I mean, really?
Get a controller,
your console gaming device of choice,
your game of choice, have a good time.
You should be having
fun right there and then.
But again, that's good old marketing,
always inventing a new problem.
So that's how you fight it, Robert.
You make sure your goals are yours.
You focus on creation over consumption,
only when you think it would provide some
spark of joy with minimal risk or consume
when you think it'll solve a meaningful
problem in accord with your values and
wants and what you're trying to achieve.
That's how I think we fight gas.
Also,
bloody phones, man, bloody phones.
If you're on your device a
lot, like I am, unfortunately,
they get you.
So minimize as much time as you're on
these devices you can,
I'm not anti-technology.
I have a lot of technology.
I'm just saying, minimize it.
Because the less screen and FaceTime you
have with these things, the better.
All right, that feels good.
Enough of that though.
Let's vibe.
(Upbeat Music)
And when you are down Where you going Nowhere else
But up
You got it going on All
you gotta do is believe
Now believe.
(Humming) (Upbeat Music)
So at this point you're probably
wondering to yourself,
"Man, this music's pretty cool."
"Man, this counter hit
show is pretty alright."
"Man, I wonder if there was some way I
could get more counter hit content."
"And also, man, I'm pretty hungry."
Well, we can't really help with that last
one, but for everything else there is a
solution to all your problems.
By going to patreon.com slash zero dot
media you can become a member of the
community, also known as club zero dot.
What do you get for
being a club zero dot member?
Well, you get early access to our vibe
streams, full access to our unedited vibe
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Early first look access at future
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right now as we speak, but has not yet
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Access to the creators of zero dot,
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And much more.
And how much is all of this?
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Oh, and if you lock in your price now,
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Come join club zero dot today by going to
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Cheers.
So the theme of this week's episode is
get it done.
You are enough
and give yourself
permission to be a goddamn idiot
in front of potentially thousands of
people, millions of
people if you want to.
Be yourself, be the version of you
that you wanna be proud of.
Show the world the worst
version of you as well.
Do that.
Be embarrassed, do something silly.
The real ones, the ones you care about in
your life, they got your back.
They love you all the same.
You might make some new
friends along the way as well.
Just be your goddamn self.
(Upbeat Music)
That's how you fight back.
You get punched, clean of the jaw.
You turn around and smile with open arms.
When they hit you to the ground, you get
back up and keep on marching on.
You dance to your own tune of music.
No one else's.
No one else's.
All right.
Good with that, you're fine.
You feel all right?
You feel okay with this?
I'm holding you to this promise.
Holding you to it.
Don't not do it.
Next time I see you, I
want you to be sillier.
At least 10% sillier.
Have a silly walk, silly walk,
silly dance, silly smile, silly anything.
Silly music, silly art.
Who gives a fuck?
Just get in front of your
stuff, whatever that is.
Make something.
At
the end of the day, we're just gonna be
sad of all the lost time.
And all the lost memories that we could
have spent with each other.
That's what I say.
Da da da da da da da da da da
Hello, this is me from the future.
How you doing?
You're looking good.
Hey, so hope you've
enjoyed the episode so far.
It's a little bit more
of an experimental thing.
Got some music coming on.
Hope you vibe with it.
If not, let us know.
Thanks for tuning in.
Whether you listen with your ear holes or
watch with your eye holes.
Eye holes?
Is that a thing?
That feels weird to say eye holes.
I feel like it's really
weird to say eye holes.
And yet,
it's correct.
Anyway,
I thought I'd take a
little bit of time right now to
talk about a couple of things that came
up this week that it's a little
upsetting, that you might not be paying
attention to otherwise.
And of course, what I'm thinking of is
good old Microsoft is at it again.
And by Microsoft, I mean any company
that's just trying to maximize on
shareholder return,
maximize on consumer profits.
And of course, I'm talking about
this latest report is coming to us from
Tom's Hardware Today by Yowie Morales, or
Yowie Morales, have we pronounced it?
Microsoft patent system to freeze games
and inject ads during down times,
watching commercials, earns
ad free play time credits.
Okay, so first of all, let's not get
ourselves in a panty waste.
The idea of video game developers
profiting off of you, the consumer and
putting ads wherever they can, even in
the game, that's not a new idea.
No, what's interesting here is that
Microsoft has filed a patent to allow
them to integrate said system natively
into the game as to not disrupt active
gameplay time and only promote their
content quote unquote downtime while a
person has the video game running in the
background, I suppose.
This might seem like it would run in
something like an MMO or a free to play
game or something of
that nature, but who knows?
It's a patent that Microsoft, it's the
application is there.
They haven't quite,
it's not secured in any kind of way, but
it seems like Microsoft wants to own the
ability to advertise to you in a very
specific way that only Microsoft can do.
Okay, folks, that's wild.
Having a patent on a way in which you are
to be advertised to,
that's kind of insane.
Can we agree on that?
Can we just kind of like
come together and realize that?
That's a little insane
to own a patent on that.
I watched a documentary a long, long time
ago where they were asking
a marketing engineer, hey,
what's the one place you're guaranteed
never to have something try
to be sold to or marketed to?
And the person said without hesitation,
your dreams and your
sleep, although not for long.
Isn't that wild?
It's crazy to think
that we live in a world now where they're
literally scraping the barrel in whatever
way they can to advertise to you.
And as we talk in this episode about GAS
Gear Acquisition Syndrome, we talk about
consumerism versus creating things.
I think it's important that
we put this in the context.
And let me just make it super clear.
We talk a lot about video games on this
show and I'll continue
to talk about video games.
I'm a staunch believer,
staunch believer that video
games are a waste of time.
Let me say that one more time.
Video games are a waste of time.
Now, if you're in the comments below
typing up your angry
response to me, hold on.
We need video games
to be a waste of time.
There should be no purpose to video games
other than to enjoy
the video game itself.
To enjoy a video game should not be a
productive activity.
It should be something you do
to get away from everything.
It should be something that smacks you in
the face because it has something
compelling and wonderful
and artful to say to you.
And just because something is designed to
be a waste of time does not mean that was
ever a time that was wasted.
That's the important theme here.
When video games become a product, a
service, it feels like
it's a job to play the game.
When you log on, you're just getting
barraged over and over and
over and over and over again
with advertisements for things
you're not sure you even want.
And you know what?
What gets on my gears is when I own a
complete video game and I own the season
pass and I own everything there is to buy
for the game, the complete edition, and
the game still has
advertisements in the little menu.
And there's nothing
to advertise to me for.
You tend me to the store, there's nothing
for me to buy because
I have the whole thing.
When we make games like this, we're
losing sight of what video games are.
So I said it before
and I'll say it again.
I think video games are
gonna die for a little bit.
I think we're kind of getting to a place
where video games just kind of,
we're no longer in a growth industry,
we're in a "mature industry" as some
people like to say, but more importantly
than that, I think it's
just, it's gonna go down.
It's gonna go down a smidge.
You're gonna choose
not to play video games.
Things are not gonna mean to enjoy them
except for in very rare circumstances.
And I hope that happens.
And when it happens, we teach the
industry, hey, we're not gonna put up
with this nonsense because that's the
only reason Microsoft's doing what
they're doing, why Sony's doing what
they're doing, why
Nintendo does what they do.
We let them get away with it.
If we don't,
if we say not today, Mr.
Miyamoto-san,
not today, Mr.
Gates, not today, whoever
owns Sony, I forget who that is.
We'd send a message.
We'd change the whole schism for
everything, for everyone.
I think it's wild.
So it's always your choice, what you want
to be advertised to
is always your choice.
What you
decide to imbibe on,
use that choice wisely.
And don't ever believe for a second you
don't have that choice because what all
these systems are developed to do is to
play a trick on your brain
psychologically that you
actually don't have that choice.
But I'm here to tell you, you do, you do.
All right,
enough of that.
All right, folks, as is tradition here on
the counter hit, let's
read some Reddit posts.
This time we're gonna focus a bit on life
today and see if we can offer any kind of
insight for folks
that are looking for it.
Of course, that's only if they are paying
attention to our lovely channel.
This post came from an
hour ago as of this recording.
Does anyone else have friends who talk
for two hours straight about themselves
and then ask, "So how are you doing today?"
And then ask, "So how are you?"
Right as they're leaving.
Man, they talk to you for two straight
hours and then they ask that question.
That's pretty impressive.
I have a few friends who,
they never asked the question after
talking for two hours straight.
So that might be a win for some people.
The OP says, "It's so exhausting.
"You sit there, listen,
support them, let them vent.
"But the moment it's your turn to speak,
"it's suddenly time for them to go.
"That token, so how are you at the very
end, "feels more like a
polite formality than actual care.
"How do you even handle this kind of
one-sided friendship
"without starting a massive fight?"
Ooh,
yeah.
You're gonna have people
in your life that do this.
You're gonna have people that their love
language is to share, share, share,
share, express their stories, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera.
Nothing wrong with that.
Except in this case, you
feel unfulfilled from that.
Totally get that.
Valid, 100%.
100% for feeling that way.
Here's the thing though.
Chances are if this friend is
only doing the how are you bit at the end
because they've kind of lost track of
time and they feel like they have a moral
obligation to do it.
Actually, no, let's go back.
I think it's important to uncover how
often are you
connecting with this person?
Is it every day, every
week, every couple of weeks?
Because it could be that they're just
dumping on you all this stuff because
they haven't seen you in forever.
And maybe there's an opportunity to just
have more frequent check-ins.
And if there's more frequent check-ins,
they have less to talk about and they be
less talk about, then you'll have a
chance to talk about your stuff.
That's a possibility,
only if you feel like it.
But if that's not the case,
it's important to consider the fact.
That if they do this every single time
and it's a formality,
you have a choice of walking away.
You have a choice of saying, I'm not
gonna engage with you today because I
know how it's gonna go.
You also have a choice of being upfront
and saying, hey man, I'd love to hear you
vent and I'd love to support you.
You're one of my best friends.
I gotta say though, I feel like you don't
care that much about
what's going on in my life.
You can say that.
It's a perfectly valid thing to say.
Because one thing that human beings love
is we pick up on intentionality and if we
feel like there's no real intentionality,
then
we disengage.
You can even say, look, I wanna be
interested in your conversation.
I want to engage with you.
I'm finding it difficult though, knowing
that I'm doing this, knowing that we're
never really gonna engage with you.
We're never really gonna have time to
talk about my stuff.
And I want this to be a two-way street.
I think it's a totally
valid way of talking about this.
They might respond well.
They might not.
They don't respond well.
Guess what?
You can go on your merry way.
No big deal.
If they
do respond well, you might even bond and
grow stronger with that relationship.
It's all possible.
But let's see what Reddit says.
Mm-hmm, let's see.
First comment, stick your finger in their
mouth mid-sentence,
guaranteed to stop them talking.
Ooh, my, I'm surprised no one's made a
dirty comment about that.
Okay, all right, all right.
And the OP says, "The main thing is not
to end up losing a finger later.
That'll traumatize them even better."
Well, that's actually the nose hold,
first stated in Stephen King's novella.
I don't remember what it was called.
It was about the airplane that went
through a rip of the universe and kind of
went back in time somewhat.
Then went back in the future.
I don't remember the name.
You remember the book slash movie?
Got it, the Langoliers.
We now have a total spiral about
something else completely unrelated.
Hmm, we have someone saying here, "I know
this type of person
because my mom is this person."
Yeah, we've all got a person like this.
She is now in her 80s and will
occasionally ask me why she
doesn't know anything about me.
I just laugh.
I end up being befriended by this type of
narcissist last summer.
I give her so little now.
I went without a truck as I researched
and saved and she's still asking if I
need to ride after, a ride after work.
I've been back on the road in my own new
truck for two months.
I offer zero information.
My responses to her
pages of text are minimal.
The whole point is you must protect
yourself against someone like this at all
costs, lest ye be used up and
discarded like an old tissue.
I do agree.
You gotta protect yourself.
If that person is taking a lot of stock
in you from an emotional
bandwidth standpoint, then yeah.
Deject, give minimal
information, see what happens.
Someone says, "You don't say how old you
are, but if you have a friend like this
at 30, you don't wanna know what it'll be
like when she's 50."
Yeah, good point, good point.
I'll be more responding, kind of giving
them the same thing.
The same logic, same logic, same logic.
Yep, so we've all had very similar
experiences like this.
And the main takeaway
for anyone paying
attention, protect yourself,
make your feelings known.
If they responded well, you're good.
If not, get out of that situation.
All right, cool.
Neat stuff all around.
Ooh, this is interesting.
Perspective on life has
changed after losing my mother.
This might be close to
home, but it's a positive note.
So let's see what it's all about.
PS, I'm doing fine.
I don't need sympathy or wanted.
I'm in love with life.
The air in my lungs, the
grass under my feet, the pain.
Ooh,
yeah, I know what that means.
I want to experience it all
no matter what, so I'm okay.
It's just me thinking out loud, okay?
I'm 25, oh, so young.
25, that's 15 years younger than me.
And lost my mom to cancer.
She was 46, so I thought I had time like
many of us, and I've been finding myself
asking what it's all really worth.
I worked since the moment I
left school, like everyone else.
Trading time with my
loved ones for paper.
I never got to live life with my mom
because it was taken from me.
You could give me 100 million tomorrows,
and I'd trade it all
for an hour with my mom.
So what's it all really worth?
Why do we participate in this game?
Fathers and mothers unable to raise their
children for the sake of an idea.
Someone just decided this is how we
should live and we all went along with
it, thinking tomorrow will always be
there, but we are all a single call away
from realizing it won't be.
You can give me everything man has ever
created, and I never trade it for love.
It isn't enough.
The world was freely given to us to share
and create together
and some pedophile, whoa.
Trigger warning, did not know.
This is where things are going.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
This world isn't enough.
Man could never give
me more than it's taken.
Watches, cars, house, it's all useless.
This world was freely given to us to
share and create together and some, their
words pedophile, decided it wasn't and
put an imaginary dollar in between it.
I deserve to know my mom.
Parents deserve to raise
their kids and grow with them.
It genuinely brings me to tears and
breaks my heart, breaks my heart for all
of us that we all have to live like this.
We don't deserve it.
The only thing in this life is love.
Nothing is more important than that.
Hmm.
You say it's positive.
I don't know.
Couple of things here.
First off, your grief
is, your grief is yours.
And I'm sorry for your loss.
I know what it's like to look at
everything around you and think none of
this means a damn thing compared to the
relationships I wanna cultivate with my
family, my friends, my colleagues, my
significant others and otherwise.
I know that feeling really well.
I know the feeling
when you lose your mom and suddenly a lot
of things lock into perspective.
All the things you used to worry about,
having enough money for this,
doing enough here, doing enough there and
suddenly realizing all the moments I'm
spending not living life.
Yeah, I validate that for sure.
There's a little bit of a turn towards
the end where we're trying
to blame it all in one person.
I wouldn't blame one person for anything.
It's a systemic thing.
The thing that we value profitability and
productivity over everything else.
I would tell you that there's actually
some good in our overall focus on that.
But for right now, it's not worth this
part of the conversation.
Instead, I'll just simply say, I hear you
and I see you and it's hard.
I'm curious what
other people have to say.
Top comment, I needed to read this today.
I'm a mom wasting my life away because of
anxiety and depression.
Thank you for reminding me that my kids
need me and my love.
I'm sorry you lost your mom.
Wow, that hits really hard.
Ooh, I feel the tear ducts coming folks.
Yeah, you know what?
That is a positive message because it can
motivate someone like this person, this
mother to be in a position of screw it.
I need to be there for my family, for my
kidney to be in the moment
with them and give them love.
Yes, and also to Opie's point, I do agree
that love is the most
powerful force in the universe.
Absolutely, it's the one thing we do that
doesn't propagate our own survival.
And yet we intrinsically do it all the
time because we want
it, because we need it.
A lot of people in the solidarity.
One comment, who has a
very giant long novel here.
And
some down votes.
Let's see what this says.
It is a very deep question.
What was the question, Opie said?
So what's it all really
worth is the question.
Why do we participate in this game?
I'm assuming that's the question this
person is responding with.
If you look at anything in life, there
are things like democracy and capitalism
that are far from perfect, far from
efficient, yet they are
mostly better than the ultra.
Okay, okay.
You're literally doing the
thing that I said I'm not doing.
Don't mansplain this, just don't do it.
It's a mistake, okay.
Yes, there's reasons why
some of this stuff is good.
Not time and place,
not the time and place.
This person continues.
And that change, it comes over years from
where women obtained voting rights in the
late 1800s through to 2020, where some
young men feeling isolated
from focus on women's rights.
And then someone like JD Vance has
selected to swing the
pendulum back a little.
Okay, all right.
Opie, I love you.
I get your frustration, I validate it.
This is what happens when we oversimplify
our angst and frustration towards one
thing, people interpret it a certain way,
and then they start doing this.
I'm gonna skip the rest of this post.
They say, I'm a systems thinker.
Okay, buddy, okay.
Forget it, like
this isn't an opportunity for you to show
how smart or how much you
understand the ecosystem.
It's about feeling here.
Mm, okay.
All right, well, that took a weird turn.
Wild.
Absolutely wild.
Again,
we can comment on the systems all day and
they're worth commentary.
They are, not right now.
Not for something like this.
You just lost your mom?
Yeah, let's
sit on that beat for a minute, shall we?
Just a beat.
Okay, let's go with
this last one right here.
Need advice, cool.
Perspective needed on what doesn't kill
you makes you stronger.
Mm, I have a lot to say about that
phrase, Paul, by itself.
Let's see what they say.
Quote, what doesn't
kill you make you stronger.
Yeah, sure.
Again,
Darwin's theory of evolution.
Those that died aren't part of the
evolutionary chain and those that barely
survived with a scrape on their teeth,
got to survive and make babies and
fulfill the next prophecy
for the next day, right?
That's just how that works.
Okay,
I've been wrestling with this quote for a
long time, Opie says.
People who espouse this idea, I believe
want to promote a sense of resilience.
You're not wrong.
And I believe that's a good thing.
I don't wanna fall into
the trap of victim mentality.
Best explained when I heard a comedian
say, what doesn't kill you gives a whole
slew of unhealthy coping
mechanisms and trust issues.
Okay, fair enough.
So you believe in the message, you
believe in the core of the message.
You also wanna fall victim
for the trap of the message.
All right, I'm interested.
What else you gotta say?
And yet some of the things I've
experienced in life
haven't made me stronger
and I wish they had never happened.
Oof, there we go.
There's a pain,
trauma, right?
Yeah.
I was born into domestic violence.
And no matter how hard I
tried to protect my siblings,
I couldn't, oh shit, I'm sorry.
Yeah,
I've not been in that specific position.
I have friends who have been in that
position and they've told me stories and
that is hard and I can imagine.
This experience left me with some severe
trichotillomania hair pulling.
Oh, right, trichotillomania, hair
pulling, just intense hair pulling.
And a sense of learned
helplessness took years to overcome.
I still have trichotillomania to this
day, 30 years later, no matter how much
therapy I've done to help me stop.
Okay, yeah.
I am, however, somewhat gifted with
intelligence, so I have a good career,
married an excellent human, love that for
you, and can analyze things quite well.
And I see people my age who are much
further ahead because they can cope with
stress much better than I can.
Okay, here's our other layer here.
You wish the things hadn't happened.
You recognize you have a gift and a
strength, not because of those things,
but you've had to be a
resilient force because of that.
And now you're comparing yourself to
other people who have
not had that same struggle.
Okay, I see where this is going.
I want to be a resilient person.
I want to believe this quote fully and
teach this mentality to my kids.
Yet a piece of me
inside feels it to be untrue.
Maybe it's that I believe that the
hardships you take on
voluntarily make you stronger.
Okay,
can someone help me untangle this thread
that I can't put words around?
There's a lot here.
Maybe it's that I believe that the
hardships you take on
voluntarily make you stronger.
Okay,
that's true.
Voluntary hardship, taking on that
avarice in that particular way,
yeah.
That definitely can
make you feel stronger.
You know what doesn't make you strong?
Something that almost
breaks you and kills you.
What ends up happening is you rebuild
yourself and then if you don't rebuild
yourself with the
right foundation, you can't
grow from there.
You're just rebuilt
with some scar tissue.
Put another way, you go to the gym,
you work out a muscle, you do some tears
into that muscle, right, you're tearing
little bits of old tissue your body then
does this magical thing of rebuilding
that torn muscle and
then it thinks, okay,
as we're rebuilding it, we're gonna go
ahead and make it stronger.
So the next time you do it,
it'll be more resilient to that.
This system does not work if you
literally destroy your muscle and then
never afford yourself time for recovery.
Now you might think for 30 years, that's
enough time for recovery.
I'm not a psychologist to tell you what I
know about this, but I know that healing
is different for everyone and every
circumstance and it can take 30 years, it
can take 50 years, it
can take five minutes.
Every trauma is different,
every person's different.
So give yourself grace.
You're allowed to
take as long as you need
and consider the fact that
trauma, we all have traumas in our life.
We all have responses to trauma.
Traumas are kind of like scars.
They
are put into our brain in a way in which
we go, we never want
that to happen ever again.
And so we walk around them and we develop
coping mechanisms for them
as you joked about before.
And that's something that you have.
You don't have to have it forever.
It's a choice,
but you have it now and that's just is
what it is and that's okay.
This one comment, this one little piece
though, you made about
you're comparing
yourself to other people.
I see people my age who are much further
along ahead because they can cope with
stress much better than I can.
So here's the deal.
I don't know you very well.
If I did, I'd really probe into that and
really ask the question, do they?
Or do you just not see them stress?
Do you not see them deal
with coping with all that stuff?
Because I think that's
a very real possibility.
And then let's pretend for a moment that
your friends who are further ahead,
whatever that arbitrary marker is,
you haven't said what that marker is.
I'm assuming it's financial, professional
prowess, making more money, having more
families, having a bigger house.
I'm assuming, I don't know
what you're talking about here.
There's no such thing as a yardstick in
terms of how far you're traveling and
whether you're successful or not.
The only thing you have
to do in life is exist.
That's all you have to do and survive the
system enough to live another day.
However you make that
work, you're winning.
Any other comparison is
a false fail comparison.
They cope with stress
much better than I can.
Let's assume that's true,
even though I have my doubts.
Coping with stress is a skill.
Like anything else, it's a skill.
It's not something you have innately.
It's something you
develop a skill base to do.
So just like you learn how to do a craft
or you learn how to do a skill at your
job or you learn how to write, you learn
how to read, you learn how to do art, you
learn how to be an engineer, you learn
mathematics, you learn
biology,
it's all skills.
It's all the same thing.
It's just one big skill pool, right?
And this is one of them.
It's a skill you can
learn if you really want to.
It's not something you
have innately or not.
It seems true that if you have a certain
trauma about something that's gonna make
certain things harder, just like anything
else though, coping with any kinds of
amount of stress is a skill.
And just like anything else, even though
there's a skill to it,
there's certain stresses that are
even the most skilled people at coping
with stress are going
to be stressed about it.
I'd like to believe I'm
a pretty chill person.
I think I am actually.
I'm gonna tell you a secret.
My wife calls me almost every day on her
way back home from work.
Sometimes I miss the call.
More times than not, I miss the call.
I like hearing her voice for sure.
But when it starts getting late and I
haven't heard from her in a while and I
don't have that phone
call from her, me, Mr.
Chill Guy, I get a little,
I hope she's okay.
I hope she's all right.
And then after a while, I will usually
call her just to make sure she's okay or
text her or anything.
And it was like a month ago.
She was out really late, really late that
I got really worried and really like.
And then she walked in the door and
everything was fine and it was all good.
So
even chill people that are pretty good
with stress, me, have things that are
really hard to manage.
I've worked in call center, in
healthcare, as well as travel.
I've literally, I've talked to a child
who just lost both of their
parents on a Caribbean trip.
And I had to triage with this person
who's in a third world country, working
with someone else who speaks mostly
Spanish and they were English and trying
to get caskets ordered so that way they
could carry the bodies of their parents
along board the plane.
That was stressful, right?
I was chill.
I coped with that.
Yep, concern about my loved one, my
significant other, my partner getting
home safe, that stresses me out more.
Everyone's got different things that
stress them out differently, more in
different sectors, okay?
You say you want to
be a resilient person.
I want to believe this quote fully and
teach this mentality to my kids, you can.
In fact, I think you
are a resilient person.
I don't think you, it's
something to aspire to.
You already are.
This last piece, the hardships you take
on voluntarily make you stronger.
The hardships that aren't
voluntary also make you stronger.
It's also true that some
aspects of your memory,
your legacy are gonna
hit you so goddamn hard.
It brings you to tears every time you
even think about them.
And it sounds like I'm hearing shame out
of this conversation.
I'm hearing
you wish you weren't this way.
I can't wish any of that
for you or against you.
I can't tell you who you
should be or should not be.
I can tell you this.
There are certain shames I have,
fears that I have.
There are traumas that I
have that I'm real careful with.
When the trauma gets triggered,
doesn't always happen, but I try my best
to embrace the feeling, exist in it, and
say to myself, I pay this toll gladly.
Let me repeat that one more time.
I pay this toll gladly.
Because I know I'm paying that toll, and
as a result, I've become resilient.
I am able to do incredible things that
prior versions of Sam that never had that
happen to them could never do.
And so I say, I pay this toll gladly.
And of course, sounds like you're going
to therapy, which is fantastic.
Continue to talk about it.
Continue to have those conversations.
Continue to be aware of the things that
might trigger you and not trigger you.
I'm not here to tell you otherwise.
I'm not here to tell you what to do.
I simply say for me, I
say, I pay this toll gladly.
I used to be ashamed of
my triggers and my traumas.
And if I'm being honest,
on a bad day, I still am.
On days like today, when I'm in a better
mood and I'm doing the best that I can,
I pay the toll gladly.
Last piece I want to hit on before we
talk about any kind of comments here.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
It's a nice, romantic phrase.
But let's get to the root of what you're
actually saying, which
is it's a garbage phrase.
It's a garbage phrase.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Not always.
It makes you smarter.
It makes you more careful.
Strength and gusto, it doesn't give you
those things necessarily.
Sometimes you can get broken so bad that
all you do is learn to avoid that
situation altogether.
One of the most common traumas people
face, a lot of people have it.
And our, again, to that prior OP
situation about losing their mother, it's
another notch for them in terms of
corporate capitalism sucking.
We love it.
We love perfectionists in the workplace.
We love them.
Because they will literally break
themselves to make
something quote unquote perfect.
We love that stuff.
But the thing is perfectionism
is just a response to trauma.
Yeah.
Perfectionism was just an individual
deciding never again.
And so to avoid that, they're just gonna
try to be perfect so
they can eliminate that.
And to me, that's not necessarily
stronger even though
we celebrate that stuff.
So what was some OP saying here?
What are some other comments?
Let's see.
Top comment here makes a reference
to, I think suffering and resilience
aren't the same thing.
So while what doesn't kill you makes you
stronger, sounds comforting because it
seems to give suffering a return.
Like even though something terrible
happened, at least you
receive strength in exchange.
Unfortunately, I don't think that's how
it is to make us less
capable for a while.
Sometimes for years, trauma can leave
people more anxious, less trusting, more
sensitive to stress or with coping
mechanisms they never would have needed
otherwise, et cetera.
Acknowledging that isn't
adopting a victim mentality.
That's just life.
And I wouldn't tell the child you
were that domestic violence
was secretly making them strong.
Like I'm having a hard time
reading Reddit stuff.
I apologize if this
makes sense to other people.
And I wouldn't tell the child you were,
ah, that domestic violence was secretly
making them stronger.
Question mark, question mark.
Like you deserve safety.
And the fact that you developed
trichotillomania while trying to survive
that environment isn't evidence that you
failed to be resilient.
Okay, yeah.
Where I think the quote gets something
right is that people can sometimes build
strength in response to suffering, but
the strength isn't necessarily contained
inside the suffering itself.
Yes, you have to rebuild yourself first
and then you can grow
and become stronger.
And if the rebuilding hasn't happened
yet, there's no point in trying to grow.
It can come from what happens afterwards,
processing it, getting help, developing
insight, rebuilding trust, learning
boundaries, choosing differently,
discovering that you can survive
something you once thought you couldn't,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And I think your distinction about
voluntary hardship is important too.
Exercise, difficult study, taking
calculated risks, practicing
uncomfortable skills can strengthen us
partly because a challenge is controlled
enough for a deduction to occur, right?
If you're voluntarily taking on
challenge, you're probably not gonna do
something that's stupidly difficult that
you just can't adapt to it.
Makes sense.
We need to stop romanticizing
overwhelming trauma as
strength training for the psyche.
Yes, I agree.
I think if I were teaching children
resilience, I wouldn't teach them
whatever hurts you
will make you stronger.
Yeah, great distinction there.
Instead, I would probably teach them that
life is hard and hard things may change
or wound you, but wounds do not remove
your capacity to grow.
Yeah.
You don't always have to be grateful for
what happened to you in order to be proud
of what you've built afterwards.
Some situations are truly dreadful and I
don't think thankfulness comes as a
result or naturally either.
It requires a mindset shift, a mindset
shift and sometimes imposing thankfulness
on a situation you generally can't come
to terms with creates worse cognitive
dissonance and trauma.
I feel what is most important, more
important is not the focus on hardship,
but the focus on the person who continues
building a life for themselves and does
better despite going
through such tough times.
Oh, the OP really loves this.
OP did a quote, "Hard things may change
or wound you, but wounds do not remove
your capacity to grow."
They write, "Thank you for writing this.
This, this, this is
what I was looking for.
This is what I want my children to know.
They have been spared the malevolence of
my child and I pray they are so much more
capable than me because of it.
Part of my soul rested when I read this.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
I know that you helped immensely.
So a struggling stranger today."
Hmm,
beautiful.
Further comments as well, but I think OP
is very satisfied with that.
I don't think we need
to comment any further.
Yeah, trauma is not the same as
hardship and just
like gritting through it.
You've been here since day
one for the Zero Dot podcast.
Now the counter hit,
that's been our thing.
So no such thing as
gritting through something.
There's just simply
making choices, being kind to yourself,
playing into your strengths, recognizing
developmental opportunities.
And when we get punched in
the chin, we get back up.
And some days are harder
than others and that's okay.
So thank you, Reddit slash life.
That was fun.
da da da
da da And the music ends.
What do we think?
One more vibe?
One more vibe.
We got one more vibe in us.
One more vibe.
Hmm.
Let's get a rhythm going here.
That's me.
Be an idiot.
Idiot has a nice idiot.
(Playful Chairman Singing)
Numbers saved by
meringue
folks, I hope you've enjoyed this special
episode of the counter hit, changing up
the formula quite a bit.
Let us know what you
liked, what you don't like.
We'll see if we do anything about it.
You know where to find
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That's right, www.thecounterhit.com where
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You can drop us a line or a question
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Until then, I'm your host, Sam Kirk.
It's been a pleasure.
When they hit, we counter back.
Cheers.