WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:01.120 Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us. 00:00:01.190 --> 00:00:03.230 Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free. 00:00:03.410 --> 00:00:06.810 I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of 00:00:06.830 --> 00:00:08.389 The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home. 00:00:08.450 --> 00:00:13.089 Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our 00:00:13.089 --> 00:00:14.989 audience, for helping to make this happen. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:15.949 I have a request. 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:19.750 If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up, 00:00:19.799 --> 00:00:22.380 like, subscribe, tell a friend. 00:00:22.770 --> 00:00:24.910 It really, really helps us to make the pro. 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:28.930 To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries, 00:00:29.435 --> 00:00:33.325 books, and other courses, please go to rupertisaacson.com. 00:00:34.894 --> 00:00:36.125 So now let's jump in. 00:00:40.074 --> 00:00:41.574 Welcome back to Re Ride Free. 00:00:41.635 --> 00:00:47.425 I've got Jared Anderson, the author with me today, and lots of people have 00:00:47.455 --> 00:00:48.985 been asking me to get him on the show. 00:00:49.464 --> 00:00:49.945 Why? 00:00:50.155 --> 00:00:55.644 Because he writes amazing nature with the imagination. 00:00:55.644 --> 00:01:00.995 Stuff you like cryptids, you like if you dunno what crypts are, you kind of 00:01:00.995 --> 00:01:05.144 will by the end of this you like real nature, but mixed with your imagination. 00:01:05.354 --> 00:01:09.735 You maybe are stuck somewhere feeling you can't get into nature, but how 00:01:09.735 --> 00:01:11.175 does one ima one's imagination? 00:01:11.175 --> 00:01:12.045 Take one in there. 00:01:12.285 --> 00:01:14.354 How do you enter your own private Narnia? 00:01:15.195 --> 00:01:21.675 I think we've got the bloke here who's got some decent roadmaps to that. 00:01:22.164 --> 00:01:24.085 And he's been successful at it. 00:01:24.184 --> 00:01:28.445 So he's someone who has also been able to self-actualize, if you like, through 00:01:28.445 --> 00:01:32.764 his imagination, and I think there's a lot we can all learn from him in terms 00:01:32.764 --> 00:01:35.134 of our own attempts to do the same. 00:01:35.434 --> 00:01:38.285 So, Jared, thank you so much for coming on. 00:01:38.584 --> 00:01:42.604 Please tell us who you are, what you do, why you do it, and how you got there. 00:01:43.144 --> 00:01:43.565 Jarod Anderson: Thanks Ru. 00:01:43.894 --> 00:01:44.764 Good to be here. 00:01:45.395 --> 00:01:45.634 Yeah. 00:01:45.634 --> 00:01:46.625 So where to begin? 00:01:46.895 --> 00:01:49.265 So right now I'm a, I'm a full-time writer. 00:01:49.505 --> 00:01:53.165 I out of sort of a small town in Ohio in the us. 00:01:53.675 --> 00:01:57.095 And how I got here was, was a bit of a winding, a winding trek. 00:01:57.860 --> 00:02:01.310 I've always loved writing and words and imagination. 00:02:01.820 --> 00:02:06.410 I have a vivid memory of being 10 years old and I had a very 00:02:06.410 --> 00:02:08.840 influential teacher named Miss Willard. 00:02:09.500 --> 00:02:13.010 Used to take all of us 10 year olds and hurt us out behind the school 00:02:13.010 --> 00:02:14.690 and let us go into the woods. 00:02:15.260 --> 00:02:19.070 There was a huge hill beside this school that we called the Land Lab, 00:02:19.880 --> 00:02:23.690 and she would read Mary Oliver poetry to us and then give us notebooks and 00:02:23.690 --> 00:02:27.380 then say, Hey, just go find a place to sit and write about what you see. 00:02:28.180 --> 00:02:29.050 And I was hooked. 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:35.870 So I've written nature, poetry and, and dabbled in nature writing ever since ever 00:02:35.870 --> 00:02:41.150 since I understood the value of sitting still and letting my imagination meet 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:43.880 what I found out in the, out in the world. 00:02:45.410 --> 00:02:51.470 But flash forward from that experience as a 10-year-old, and I was a 00:02:51.470 --> 00:02:58.310 person who did and still do struggle with chronic major depression. 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:02.750 I grew up in an environment where we really were not 00:03:02.750 --> 00:03:04.190 encouraged to talk about it. 00:03:04.450 --> 00:03:08.799 So it was a silent and unacknowledged presence in my life. 00:03:08.799 --> 00:03:09.760 Where was that for a very long time? 00:03:10.029 --> 00:03:10.469 Was that, what's that? 00:03:10.749 --> 00:03:12.279 Rupert Isaacson: Where was that where you were growing up? 00:03:12.579 --> 00:03:13.600 Jarod Anderson: Rural Ohio. 00:03:13.779 --> 00:03:13.959 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:03:13.959 --> 00:03:15.309 Jarod Anderson: So kind of small town. 00:03:15.779 --> 00:03:16.559 Rupert Isaacson: Stoic wasps. 00:03:16.739 --> 00:03:17.039 Yeah. 00:03:17.099 --> 00:03:17.429 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:03:17.579 --> 00:03:17.969 You bet. 00:03:17.969 --> 00:03:18.029 Yeah. 00:03:18.119 --> 00:03:21.749 And especially, especially the men folk were not encouraged to 00:03:22.049 --> 00:03:23.819 have feelings or talk about them. 00:03:23.939 --> 00:03:24.119 Rupert Isaacson: No. 00:03:24.119 --> 00:03:26.579 You're supposed to go and quietly end your life with a shotgun behind the barn. 00:03:26.609 --> 00:03:26.849 Yeah. 00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:27.509 Jarod Anderson: Yes. 00:03:27.569 --> 00:03:27.719 Yeah. 00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:27.809 Not 00:03:27.809 --> 00:03:28.529 Rupert Isaacson: complain about it. 00:03:28.529 --> 00:03:28.859 Yeah. 00:03:28.979 --> 00:03:29.249 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:03:29.249 --> 00:03:32.219 I mean, feelings, you know, you can have like anger that would be okay. 00:03:32.224 --> 00:03:32.999 That's true as true a feeling. 00:03:33.119 --> 00:03:33.389 But 00:03:33.389 --> 00:03:34.769 Rupert Isaacson: Provided you kick someone's ass. 00:03:35.129 --> 00:03:35.429 Jarod Anderson: Yes. 00:03:35.434 --> 00:03:35.644 Or, 00:03:35.819 --> 00:03:36.629 Rupert Isaacson: or silently fme. 00:03:37.109 --> 00:03:37.559 Yeah. 00:03:37.649 --> 00:03:37.859 Yeah, 00:03:37.889 --> 00:03:38.189 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 00:03:38.339 --> 00:03:39.089 Absolutely. 00:03:39.149 --> 00:03:45.479 So it got a little awkward for me here and there as somebody who once missed football 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:50.549 practice because I won a poetry contest and got to the awards, awards ceremony. 00:03:50.549 --> 00:03:54.509 So I think I was always confusing to people 'cause I didn't fit 00:03:54.509 --> 00:03:56.309 into one camp necessarily. 00:03:56.819 --> 00:03:56.999 Mm-hmm. 00:03:57.239 --> 00:04:01.499 So, you know, because of the mental health issues, because I, I sort of 00:04:01.499 --> 00:04:05.789 never learned the skills of addressing them or acknowledging them, which 00:04:05.789 --> 00:04:08.429 would be the first step to opening the door to getting more help. 00:04:08.429 --> 00:04:13.379 I really kind of stuffed it down where it could simmer quietly. 00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:16.889 Sometimes it was more intrusive and sometimes it was less. 00:04:16.889 --> 00:04:20.079 And I kind of faked my way through building a career. 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:24.129 I did a, a bachelor's in literature and then a master's, and I taught 00:04:24.129 --> 00:04:25.270 English for a little while. 00:04:25.599 --> 00:04:26.949 Rupert Isaacson: So you always knew you wanted to write? 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:30.969 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, I mean, as soon as I really understood what it was. 00:04:31.269 --> 00:04:35.469 And, and then when I paired that understanding with me as a little kid 00:04:35.929 --> 00:04:41.729 in the eighties with like a big tape deck, and I would rent these, these 00:04:41.729 --> 00:04:46.699 puffy book on tape books from the library I remember those, you know, I'd 00:04:46.699 --> 00:04:48.319 borrow 'em and especially The Hobbit. 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:52.519 So it was, you know, under the covers after everybody was asleep. 00:04:52.609 --> 00:04:55.819 I've always had insomnia and so I would just be listening to, 00:04:56.299 --> 00:04:58.069 to these fantastical stories. 00:04:58.069 --> 00:05:04.519 And and then when I realized it was a craft, it wasn't just this, this thing 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:07.789 where I could open a portal and see into another world, it was, it was a 00:05:07.789 --> 00:05:12.079 craft that I could, I could actually bring that to other people and to myself 00:05:12.709 --> 00:05:14.959 that was intoxicating from the start. 00:05:15.649 --> 00:05:21.344 So, it, it took a little while for me to think of it as a possible profession. 00:05:21.614 --> 00:05:24.374 'cause I, I had no real role models near me. 00:05:24.774 --> 00:05:24.924 Rupert Isaacson: Sure. 00:05:24.924 --> 00:05:27.354 And breaking into writing successfully is not an easy thing. 00:05:28.404 --> 00:05:31.554 Jarod Anderson: I mean, it's, it's really, I can't even say it was ever a plan. 00:05:32.064 --> 00:05:34.764 You know, we'll get to it, but I'm, I'm excited to be there now, but 00:05:34.764 --> 00:05:36.444 I'm always a little bit surprised, 00:05:36.784 --> 00:05:37.084 Rupert Isaacson: right. 00:05:37.774 --> 00:05:38.014 Jarod Anderson: But 00:05:38.014 --> 00:05:38.074 Were 00:05:38.074 --> 00:05:40.084 Rupert Isaacson: you doing everything else along the way, working, construction, 00:05:40.084 --> 00:05:43.624 doing all that kind of thing that one does as a writer to become a writer? 00:05:44.284 --> 00:05:44.614 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:05:44.614 --> 00:05:46.684 And, and at first I didn't like school. 00:05:46.834 --> 00:05:48.724 My parents didn't go to college. 00:05:48.774 --> 00:05:52.974 I tried to go when I was 18 and basically failed out, was put on probation. 00:05:52.974 --> 00:05:56.664 And looking back on it, it's because I had no idea why I was there. 00:05:56.874 --> 00:06:00.564 It was that I had other friends that were going and it seemed like the thing 00:06:00.564 --> 00:06:05.184 to do, but I got there and, you know, I didn't want to go to class and I didn't 00:06:05.184 --> 00:06:09.384 want to get up early, and I didn't want to do anything that felt arbitrary, which 00:06:09.804 --> 00:06:12.174 doesn't play well with academia, you know? 00:06:12.804 --> 00:06:18.594 And so I, I left, I, I did take jobs in construction and real 00:06:18.594 --> 00:06:20.574 estate and all over the place. 00:06:20.814 --> 00:06:20.844 Mm. 00:06:20.844 --> 00:06:23.004 I worked at a factory making rakes once 00:06:23.514 --> 00:06:24.414 Rupert Isaacson: And always Did you get to tread on one and bang your nose? 00:06:25.014 --> 00:06:25.494 Jarod Anderson: What's that? 00:06:25.494 --> 00:06:25.614 No. 00:06:25.614 --> 00:06:25.734 Rupert Isaacson: Did 00:06:25.734 --> 00:06:26.004 Jarod Anderson: you get to 00:06:26.004 --> 00:06:27.054 Rupert Isaacson: tread and one and bang your nose? 00:06:27.594 --> 00:06:31.104 Jarod Anderson: No, these were like the plastic, the big lawn rakes. 00:06:31.104 --> 00:06:35.184 So it was getting the plastic heads out of the press and they were hot and you had 00:06:35.184 --> 00:06:38.784 to like, trim the, the excess fun stuff. 00:06:38.964 --> 00:06:43.654 But then years later sort of in my mid twenties, I went back and then 00:06:43.654 --> 00:06:49.504 was a good student because I had some understanding of myself and what I wanted. 00:06:49.504 --> 00:06:55.034 And I had started dabbling with little night classes at, at a local college 00:06:55.034 --> 00:06:59.264 and realized, oh, okay, if I can do this in a way where what I'm doing is 00:06:59.264 --> 00:07:04.754 talking about books and stories and writing and find a community centered 00:07:04.754 --> 00:07:06.494 around that, that was what I needed. 00:07:07.164 --> 00:07:09.024 And so then I really lit up with it. 00:07:09.894 --> 00:07:17.814 But I, again, I think going off movies and tv, thought to myself, okay, I 00:07:17.814 --> 00:07:19.404 need to be a literature professor. 00:07:19.614 --> 00:07:25.644 That's the respectable gig I can get where I'm allowed to just think about 00:07:25.644 --> 00:07:27.654 words and stories and books all day 00:07:27.654 --> 00:07:28.134 Rupert Isaacson: and actually pay the rent. 00:07:28.194 --> 00:07:28.614 Yeah, 00:07:28.824 --> 00:07:29.334 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 00:07:29.964 --> 00:07:34.764 But after doing the masters and teaching for a few years, I started to understand 00:07:34.764 --> 00:07:41.194 that like, the job was to teach, you know, a hundred students a semester 00:07:41.194 --> 00:07:45.784 and then you go home and you have these piles of, of a hundred essays written by 00:07:45.784 --> 00:07:47.464 people who did not want to write them. 00:07:48.154 --> 00:07:49.444 And I found it. 00:07:50.089 --> 00:07:54.529 That when I did that as my day job, I did not wanna write in the evening. 00:07:54.529 --> 00:07:54.679 Right. 00:07:54.769 --> 00:07:56.299 I was so sick of words 00:07:56.299 --> 00:07:57.199 Rupert Isaacson: that would make you allergic. 00:07:57.199 --> 00:07:57.739 I could see that. 00:07:57.739 --> 00:07:58.129 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:07:58.189 --> 00:07:58.339 Yeah. 00:07:58.339 --> 00:08:02.719 The the last thing I, I would wanna do after finishing my obligation 00:08:02.719 --> 00:08:06.109 was to sit back down at a, at a computer or, or, you know, open 00:08:06.109 --> 00:08:07.699 the journal and, and try to write. 00:08:08.509 --> 00:08:14.719 So I left academia and did the thing that people who leave academia in, 00:08:14.719 --> 00:08:18.589 in English often do, which is, I went to marketing and nonprofit work. 00:08:19.159 --> 00:08:24.169 And I actually ended up on the other side of the desk as an administrator 00:08:24.359 --> 00:08:29.699 at Ohio University, working as my, my title was Director of External Relations. 00:08:29.729 --> 00:08:33.509 So it was marketing and fundraising and pr. 00:08:34.199 --> 00:08:35.219 It was the which does 00:08:35.219 --> 00:08:36.269 Rupert Isaacson: involve telling stories. 00:08:36.269 --> 00:08:36.509 Yeah, 00:08:36.569 --> 00:08:37.319 Jarod Anderson: yeah, yeah. 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:39.804 It was sort of the business side mm-hmm. 00:08:39.889 --> 00:08:42.479 Of being a, a words guy, a storyteller. 00:08:43.049 --> 00:08:47.250 But during that time, my, my mental health issues really came 00:08:47.250 --> 00:08:49.589 to a head and really got bad. 00:08:50.069 --> 00:08:53.939 Partly because, you know, I had a director title, which was like, I 00:08:53.939 --> 00:08:59.219 had climbed the ladder to sort of the logical end point, and I thought I was 00:08:59.219 --> 00:09:04.439 sort of staring down the barrel of the next 40 years and thinking, this is it. 00:09:04.439 --> 00:09:04.680 Huh. 00:09:05.579 --> 00:09:08.999 My, my job was meetings about other meetings. 00:09:10.604 --> 00:09:14.654 Theoretically there was a storytelling component, but that wasn't the day to day. 00:09:15.254 --> 00:09:21.224 And all of this is happening under the umbrella of this major depression that 00:09:21.224 --> 00:09:23.354 I just had never done anything about. 00:09:24.014 --> 00:09:25.334 Mostly because of shame. 00:09:26.624 --> 00:09:32.654 You know, some part of me understood that there were experts in medical 00:09:32.654 --> 00:09:37.964 professionals, people who dedicated their lives to support for the sort 00:09:37.964 --> 00:09:39.675 of mental health issues I was having. 00:09:39.675 --> 00:09:42.344 But no part of me wanted to talk to those people. 00:09:43.084 --> 00:09:45.214 And so I blamed it all on the work. 00:09:46.359 --> 00:09:51.484 And then I, I found myself in this, this place of intense privilege where my 00:09:51.484 --> 00:09:57.305 wife Leslie knowing my struggles, just sort of said, Hey, quit, you know, we 00:09:57.305 --> 00:09:59.525 have health insurance through my job. 00:09:59.525 --> 00:10:00.425 Like, we'll be fine. 00:10:00.425 --> 00:10:00.844 Quit. 00:10:01.295 --> 00:10:01.790 Like, what does 00:10:01.790 --> 00:10:02.030 Rupert Isaacson: she do? 00:10:02.819 --> 00:10:04.595 Jarod Anderson: She was also a marketing director. 00:10:04.655 --> 00:10:06.125 She writes horror novels. 00:10:07.485 --> 00:10:10.474 And, and I met her she was doing a master's in poetry. 00:10:10.474 --> 00:10:11.584 I met her in grad school. 00:10:11.584 --> 00:10:18.695 So she, she gets it in terms of writing and my relationship with it. 00:10:19.255 --> 00:10:22.194 And yeah, she just, you know, it was scary. 00:10:22.194 --> 00:10:26.515 It's not as if we were well off, but she, she just sort of said, this is. 00:10:28.060 --> 00:10:34.539 She could see the, the weight on me from those, those months and years and, and 00:10:34.539 --> 00:10:37.810 just she had to talk me into it really. 00:10:37.899 --> 00:10:39.459 But I did, I quit. 00:10:39.999 --> 00:10:45.819 And that really began this process of reconnecting with things I, I knew 00:10:45.819 --> 00:10:51.609 when I was younger, like prioritizing time in nature, prioritizing 00:10:51.939 --> 00:10:53.920 creativity, taking it seriously. 00:10:54.910 --> 00:10:58.959 And then the scary new stuff, which was I started to talk to 00:10:58.959 --> 00:11:02.259 people about suicidal ideation. 00:11:02.259 --> 00:11:04.119 I started to talk about depression. 00:11:04.329 --> 00:11:05.915 I, I, I went to a doctor. 00:11:05.915 --> 00:11:08.205 I eventually started going to a counselor. 00:11:08.895 --> 00:11:12.735 And, you know, that, that has made all of the difference for me. 00:11:12.945 --> 00:11:15.555 But this, this strange thing happened 'cause I really focused 00:11:15.555 --> 00:11:17.505 on the mental health aspect first. 00:11:17.505 --> 00:11:21.525 And, you know, I, I found a medication that kind of helped take the edge off. 00:11:22.005 --> 00:11:24.585 I found a counselor who I felt like got me. 00:11:25.245 --> 00:11:29.685 He was this, this dude with a big gray beard who always disappeared to 00:11:29.685 --> 00:11:31.725 the Smoky Mountains for vacations. 00:11:31.725 --> 00:11:34.865 And, you know, I could talk to him about he, he had the same feeling as 00:11:34.865 --> 00:11:40.505 I did about being out in the woods, but he kinda got me to understand 00:11:40.505 --> 00:11:46.625 that all of the stuff I was doing for depression, was geared toward bringing 00:11:46.625 --> 00:11:50.795 me back to neutral, bringing me back to sort of a level playing field. 00:11:50.795 --> 00:11:55.685 And that's not the same as happiness or contentment as a skill. 00:11:56.375 --> 00:12:02.914 And there was this odd moment in trying to troubleshoot my own brain, my own point of 00:12:02.914 --> 00:12:07.114 connection with reality, where I thought, you know, what does make me happy? 00:12:07.294 --> 00:12:08.914 Where does contentment lie? 00:12:09.214 --> 00:12:11.555 You know, if the disease is under control, then what? 00:12:11.644 --> 00:12:12.424 Or so what? 00:12:13.714 --> 00:12:16.954 And I started to go back to the woods in an intentional way. 00:12:17.554 --> 00:12:21.394 I grew up with a mother who would take me on nature walks most days, 00:12:21.394 --> 00:12:25.084 and we were never religious, but she called the woods, her church. 00:12:25.374 --> 00:12:29.424 And we would go and see what was blooming or we would go gather mushrooms or 00:12:30.024 --> 00:12:34.404 find an interesting skull or, you know, it was just sort of a daily thing. 00:12:34.554 --> 00:12:39.024 And, and yet when I was career focused and when I was dealing with all these mental 00:12:39.024 --> 00:12:45.624 health issues, I started to think of that stuff as juvenile or that it was like 00:12:45.624 --> 00:12:49.224 locked in a glass case labeled childhood. 00:12:49.854 --> 00:12:54.295 And there was this awkward period of reconnection where I would go to the 00:12:54.295 --> 00:12:56.665 woods and think, I, I'm doing this wrong. 00:12:57.324 --> 00:12:59.064 I don't know the names of what I'm looking at. 00:13:00.024 --> 00:13:02.724 I'm gonna fail the quiz when I get back to the parking lot. 00:13:02.724 --> 00:13:04.974 And somebody asked me what species I saw. 00:13:04.974 --> 00:13:07.374 You know, I don't know what it was. 00:13:07.854 --> 00:13:10.375 But it was this fear of doing it wrong. 00:13:10.495 --> 00:13:17.605 It was the kind of capitalist pressure to always be productive that would tell me 00:13:17.605 --> 00:13:24.055 that there was no, no way to justify just going to the woods to connect with nature. 00:13:25.105 --> 00:13:25.555 But I did. 00:13:26.065 --> 00:13:26.575 I did. 00:13:26.665 --> 00:13:31.615 And I started to do this little podcast called the the Crypto 00:13:31.615 --> 00:13:35.845 Naturalist, which was me thinking, all right, I wanna reconnect with 00:13:35.845 --> 00:13:37.975 my creativity in a serious way. 00:13:39.055 --> 00:13:42.475 What, what would I do if I was just playful and did exactly what I wanted? 00:13:42.985 --> 00:13:44.005 And I thought, all right. 00:13:44.665 --> 00:13:45.505 I love nature. 00:13:46.025 --> 00:13:49.475 I love these single voice nature shows. 00:13:49.475 --> 00:13:55.095 I grew up with there's Marty Stauffers, wild America and David Attenborough. 00:13:55.215 --> 00:14:01.395 You know, there were so many certainly Steve Irwin and I was like, I'm 00:14:01.395 --> 00:14:04.875 gonna do that, but I'm gonna leave facts out of the room entirely. 00:14:05.595 --> 00:14:09.645 I'm gonna do a love letter to nature and these nature shows, 00:14:09.645 --> 00:14:11.085 but I'm gonna invent everything. 00:14:11.535 --> 00:14:13.695 I'm gonna bring in that fantasy aspect. 00:14:13.695 --> 00:14:16.905 I love from listening to The Hobbit under the covers. 00:14:17.625 --> 00:14:23.235 So the crypto naturalist was this guy who loved nature, but it was cryptids. 00:14:23.595 --> 00:14:25.905 So things like Bigfoot, the Loch Next Monster. 00:14:25.905 --> 00:14:28.905 But I never did any established cryptids. 00:14:28.905 --> 00:14:33.435 I wanted each episode to introduce people to something entirely new 00:14:33.435 --> 00:14:36.050 so that they could always have that, that moment of surprise. 00:14:36.050 --> 00:14:36.315 Something that you had 00:14:36.315 --> 00:14:39.585 Rupert Isaacson: invented or a, a really obscure crypted from another culture 00:14:39.585 --> 00:14:40.635 that they might not have heard of 00:14:41.265 --> 00:14:41.445 Jarod Anderson: it. 00:14:41.445 --> 00:14:44.655 It was almost always something I invented entirely. 00:14:44.835 --> 00:14:48.285 Like I didn't want to be beholden to any source material. 00:14:48.375 --> 00:14:50.085 Rupert Isaacson: Give us some examples, please. 00:14:50.925 --> 00:14:51.435 Jarod Anderson: Oh, geez. 00:14:51.435 --> 00:14:54.675 There was one that was the orbital King Fisher. 00:14:55.335 --> 00:14:55.845 Is this or 00:14:55.845 --> 00:14:56.115 Rupert Isaacson: the kingfisher? 00:14:56.115 --> 00:14:56.325 Tell 00:14:56.325 --> 00:14:56.625 Jarod Anderson: us about that. 00:14:56.625 --> 00:15:00.855 Yeah, so like, if you can picture a, a kingfisher sort of a, a diving bird 00:15:01.345 --> 00:15:05.485 that, that hovers above ponds and lakes and then dives in to grab a fish. 00:15:05.935 --> 00:15:06.355 Okay. 00:15:06.355 --> 00:15:08.995 This was that, but it was in lower orbit. 00:15:09.415 --> 00:15:13.635 It was this huge bird that was kind of shimmering and, and looked like it made 00:15:13.635 --> 00:15:16.185 of, of fractal pieces like a prism. 00:15:16.305 --> 00:15:20.235 And it hovered above the earth and it would dive down into these mountain lakes. 00:15:20.685 --> 00:15:25.325 And then what it would come up with was sort of an Eldridge horror, you 00:15:25.325 --> 00:15:28.985 know, it would come up with these things that were mostly mouth and the 00:15:28.985 --> 00:15:32.525 person seeing it didn't understand how that could work in physical space. 00:15:33.005 --> 00:15:39.815 So I like these creatures who mirror something in real nature. 00:15:40.370 --> 00:15:41.810 Are also totally outside it. 00:15:42.110 --> 00:15:43.910 Rupert Isaacson: Just tell me again, what, what, what did 00:15:43.910 --> 00:15:44.990 it come outta the lake with? 00:15:46.150 --> 00:15:49.000 Jarod Anderson: Something that was like, looked like mostly shadow and it 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:52.175 was covered with mouths and so it, and 00:15:52.175 --> 00:15:52.810 Rupert Isaacson: that was its prey? 00:15:52.900 --> 00:15:53.200 Jarod Anderson: Yes. 00:15:53.200 --> 00:15:55.150 So it And what was the name of other strange 00:15:55.150 --> 00:15:55.840 Rupert Isaacson: that it was after? 00:15:55.930 --> 00:15:56.500 What was the name of? 00:15:57.010 --> 00:15:57.850 Jarod Anderson: Didn't have a name. 00:15:58.150 --> 00:15:58.540 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:00.460 Jarod Anderson: You know, it hunted other things. 00:16:00.880 --> 00:16:01.360 Yeah. 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:01.900 Yeah. 00:16:02.470 --> 00:16:03.550 It, it hunted other like 00:16:03.695 --> 00:16:04.335 Rupert Isaacson: instable things. 00:16:04.335 --> 00:16:07.960 What think non shadow represents is that like, do you think in your 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:15.010 subconscious, you were thinking about, for example, a almost like a sort 00:16:15.010 --> 00:16:24.520 of divinity that can take the shit side of human experience out of earth 00:16:25.210 --> 00:16:25.510 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:16:25.510 --> 00:16:27.310 Rupert Isaacson: Happens to be buried in that these lakes. 00:16:27.310 --> 00:16:29.560 And is that sort of the metaphor for what's going on? 00:16:29.560 --> 00:16:32.530 And wouldn't it be nice if these divinities came and took these 00:16:32.950 --> 00:16:35.620 shit sides of our shadow pollution? 00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:36.400 Yeah, we might, 00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:36.460 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:37.480 I'll tell, I'll tell you them. 00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:39.190 Rupert Isaacson: Something like that is, is that what's going on with, 00:16:39.640 --> 00:16:42.880 Jarod Anderson: so in this case there is sort of like a meta narrative where 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:47.400 I have these species that are kind of, guardians of Earth in different 00:16:47.400 --> 00:16:50.070 ecosystems, these singular creatures. 00:16:50.350 --> 00:16:54.660 And so they will hunt things that are, are kind of, an invasive 00:16:54.660 --> 00:16:57.420 species from outside our reality. 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:01.860 And so the whole thing to me is sort of a metaphor for the way 00:17:01.910 --> 00:17:06.350 nature seeks balance and adapts and sort of, takes care of itself. 00:17:06.380 --> 00:17:08.120 Rupert Isaacson: Nature, including the human psyche, right? 00:17:08.150 --> 00:17:08.900 Jarod Anderson: Oh, absolutely. 00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:09.200 The balance. 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:09.560 Yeah. 00:17:09.565 --> 00:17:09.815 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, 00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:10.490 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 00:17:10.800 --> 00:17:15.695 And so, you know, in the, the cosmology, the, the world of, of 00:17:15.695 --> 00:17:20.255 that, that podcast, there are these guardian creatures that own sort 00:17:20.255 --> 00:17:22.955 of specific regions and ecosystems. 00:17:22.955 --> 00:17:24.815 Like there's one for the Appalachian Mountains. 00:17:24.935 --> 00:17:25.115 Tell me 00:17:25.115 --> 00:17:26.135 Rupert Isaacson: about the Appalachian one. 00:17:26.915 --> 00:17:29.515 Jarod Anderson: Ah, well that one is is the horned wolf, 00:17:29.635 --> 00:17:31.075 is what I, what I call him. 00:17:31.555 --> 00:17:36.335 And I can't tell you too much about him because he's he's a 00:17:36.335 --> 00:17:40.385 major subject of the, the novel I have coming out in, in February. 00:17:40.485 --> 00:17:40.515 Okay. 00:17:40.515 --> 00:17:41.980 Which is just, which is just false. 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:42.140 What 00:17:42.140 --> 00:17:43.665 Rupert Isaacson: is, what is the name of this novel that's coming out? 00:17:44.115 --> 00:17:45.495 Jarod Anderson: Strange Animals. 00:17:45.495 --> 00:17:46.365 Rupert Isaacson: Strange Animals. 00:17:46.905 --> 00:17:49.055 Jarod Anderson: And that's coming from Valentine books 00:17:49.535 --> 00:17:51.425 Rupert Isaacson: As two reading lists immediately. 00:17:51.425 --> 00:17:51.965 Yes. 00:17:52.805 --> 00:17:54.545 Says man, who spends lots of time on planes. 00:17:54.545 --> 00:17:55.040 Yeah, yeah. 00:17:55.145 --> 00:17:58.385 Jarod Anderson: Well, it's, it's, that story is about, it's kind of the 00:17:58.385 --> 00:18:00.800 backstory of the main character, the 00:18:00.800 --> 00:18:00.840 Rupert Isaacson: podcast. 00:18:00.840 --> 00:18:00.850 Okay. 00:18:00.850 --> 00:18:02.375 But why did you come up with the horned wolf? 00:18:02.375 --> 00:18:06.035 What, what basically does the horned wolf do without, you know, we'll 00:18:06.035 --> 00:18:07.235 still buy your book, but come on. 00:18:07.415 --> 00:18:07.565 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:18:08.795 --> 00:18:11.885 He does the same thing that the orbital Kingfisher does, but he 00:18:11.885 --> 00:18:13.235 does it beneath the mountains. 00:18:13.265 --> 00:18:14.225 The Catskill Mountains. 00:18:14.225 --> 00:18:15.155 The Appalachian mountains. 00:18:15.155 --> 00:18:15.425 He goes 00:18:15.425 --> 00:18:16.415 Rupert Isaacson: under the earth. 00:18:17.675 --> 00:18:17.975 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:18:18.035 --> 00:18:24.265 He's he essentially looks like the skeleton, like a, a, a grizzly bear sized 00:18:24.265 --> 00:18:31.695 skeleton of a timber wolf, except that he has flesh that is like, coalesced shadow, 00:18:31.845 --> 00:18:33.225 but there's never quite enough of it. 00:18:33.615 --> 00:18:37.875 So sometimes he will have the face of a wolf with the ears of a wolf. 00:18:38.235 --> 00:18:42.435 Sometimes that flesh will roll back and it will be a bear wolf skull. 00:18:43.025 --> 00:18:45.395 Rupert Isaacson: Why does he never quite have enough shadow flesh? 00:18:47.225 --> 00:18:48.425 Where's the scarcity there? 00:18:48.425 --> 00:18:49.025 Why, why? 00:18:49.025 --> 00:18:49.445 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:18:49.805 --> 00:18:50.075 Yeah. 00:18:50.075 --> 00:18:54.555 I think, I think what I'm playing with there is if you look at. 00:18:55.230 --> 00:18:59.400 What the mountains are, the Appalachian mountains that are older than the moon. 00:18:59.400 --> 00:18:59.490 Mm-hmm. 00:18:59.760 --> 00:19:04.835 You know, they're, the Appalachian range is in Scotland and it's in the US You 00:19:04.835 --> 00:19:05.955 Rupert Isaacson: said they're older than the moon? 00:19:06.215 --> 00:19:06.635 Jarod Anderson: Mm-hmm. 00:19:07.505 --> 00:19:07.795 Yeah. 00:19:08.105 --> 00:19:08.395 Yeah. 00:19:08.925 --> 00:19:09.635 There we 00:19:09.635 --> 00:19:10.595 Rupert Isaacson: have to return to that in a minute. 00:19:10.825 --> 00:19:11.115 Okay. 00:19:11.345 --> 00:19:11.755 Jarod Anderson: Keep going. 00:19:12.030 --> 00:19:16.350 The Appalachians were around on Pangaea, you know, when there was one continent 00:19:16.800 --> 00:19:22.560 and so you can trace where those mountains are in Scotland and in the US because, 00:19:22.560 --> 00:19:24.840 Rupert Isaacson: but people assume, I think that the moon has always been here 00:19:24.870 --> 00:19:26.730 as a planet, as an offshoot of our planet. 00:19:26.730 --> 00:19:30.570 So you're gonna have to come back to why the moon is not as hard. 00:19:30.870 --> 00:19:31.080 Alright. 00:19:31.080 --> 00:19:31.290 Yeah. 00:19:31.350 --> 00:19:33.240 But not, but I'm just gonna hold you to that. 00:19:33.360 --> 00:19:35.490 I've also got questions about Mary Oliver that we want to go 00:19:35.490 --> 00:19:36.690 back to, but, alright, good. 00:19:36.690 --> 00:19:40.320 So the Appalachian mountains older than the moon. 00:19:40.320 --> 00:19:40.650 All right. 00:19:41.460 --> 00:19:45.090 But why has this creature not quite got enough flesh? 00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:49.560 Jarod Anderson: If I think of what the mountains are, I think 00:19:49.560 --> 00:19:52.440 of all of the sort of inert rock. 00:19:53.610 --> 00:19:53.700 Mm-hmm. 00:19:54.180 --> 00:20:01.800 And yet my nature loving brain sees a kind of life in stone that 00:20:01.800 --> 00:20:03.930 isn't the same as biological life. 00:20:04.380 --> 00:20:10.650 But there's still some sort of essential wholeness to the universe that feels 00:20:10.650 --> 00:20:14.970 like life and, and sort of spirituality to me, in the rocks in the same way 00:20:14.970 --> 00:20:16.680 that I might sense in a pine tree. 00:20:17.925 --> 00:20:22.815 I guess I was pointing out with the horned wolf that, that, that rigidity, like I 00:20:22.815 --> 00:20:28.845 wanted to always see the skeleton, like the scaffolding beneath, because if I'm 00:20:28.845 --> 00:20:33.105 thinking of a creature that is of the mountains I like that there's always 00:20:33.105 --> 00:20:38.350 like the rigid curve of a, of a pelvis or a spine or a skull showing, right? 00:20:38.350 --> 00:20:40.575 Rupert Isaacson: Like the shoulder of the rock showing under the moss or the 00:20:40.905 --> 00:20:41.445 Jarod Anderson: Yes. 00:20:42.045 --> 00:20:42.375 Yeah. 00:20:42.375 --> 00:20:46.335 So that, that shadow, like it is a creature flesh. 00:20:46.335 --> 00:20:50.955 It does, it does represent and protect the living things, but 00:20:50.955 --> 00:20:53.775 it's also of the mountains in a way, way that, and what does it 00:20:53.775 --> 00:20:53.985 Rupert Isaacson: hunt? 00:20:53.985 --> 00:20:54.495 What does it need? 00:20:55.245 --> 00:20:56.355 Jarod Anderson: Oh, so many things. 00:20:56.895 --> 00:21:01.605 The premise is that much like in the real world, we struggle with 00:21:01.875 --> 00:21:07.235 invasive species sending ecosystems out of balance in a metaphysical way. 00:21:07.235 --> 00:21:10.565 I wanted there to be invasive species that were always kind of 00:21:10.895 --> 00:21:13.085 knocking on the door of reality. 00:21:13.534 --> 00:21:17.104 And because the Appalachians are so old, I thought like that there's 00:21:17.104 --> 00:21:20.854 a rich pantheon of, of things from the outside trying to get in. 00:21:21.485 --> 00:21:26.124 And I'll often talk about it in you know, sort of an essential otherness 00:21:26.245 --> 00:21:30.475 to the creatures that are from outside reality and nature that, that this 00:21:30.475 --> 00:21:32.814 wolf is, is always hunting and eating. 00:21:35.199 --> 00:21:37.889 Rupert Isaacson: So again, he's trying to, he's trying to or 00:21:37.889 --> 00:21:40.540 she is trying to secure harmony. 00:21:41.560 --> 00:21:41.649 Jarod Anderson: Mm-hmm. 00:21:41.889 --> 00:21:44.620 Rupert Isaacson: Because harmony is always being so restoring balance. 00:21:44.620 --> 00:21:46.870 'cause balance is always being lost and it's, it's that, 00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:51.050 Jarod Anderson: It's balance is always being lost, regained, reimagined. 00:21:51.500 --> 00:21:51.530 Rupert Isaacson: Mm. 00:21:51.710 --> 00:21:57.260 Jarod Anderson: But, you know, balance is struck by, you know, opposing forces. 00:21:57.320 --> 00:22:02.000 And so if I'm gonna create a fictional world in which there are really serious 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:07.520 threats from the outside, then you know, I need a, a very serious predator 00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:10.130 guardian pushing back against that force. 00:22:10.220 --> 00:22:10.550 Rupert Isaacson: Got it. 00:22:10.655 --> 00:22:14.070 Jarod Anderson: And, and all of that, you know, it all arose from that 00:22:14.070 --> 00:22:19.169 first decision to, to do exactly what I wanted, which I often find is the 00:22:19.169 --> 00:22:24.310 most successful creative path of, of trying to get out of the way of my own 00:22:24.459 --> 00:22:27.999 enthusiasm and, and not interrogate it. 00:22:28.419 --> 00:22:30.759 You know, too much of like, why am I doing this? 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:31.629 What's the point? 00:22:31.719 --> 00:22:33.790 But just thinking, all right. 00:22:34.570 --> 00:22:37.870 I feel enthusiastic about these nature shows. 00:22:37.870 --> 00:22:44.409 I feel enthusiastic about mingling the fantastic with the sense 00:22:44.409 --> 00:22:46.179 of fantastic in the nature. 00:22:46.179 --> 00:22:49.749 I, I know and love and observe every day. 00:22:50.530 --> 00:22:50.949 I was 00:22:50.999 --> 00:22:54.614 Rupert Isaacson: There, there is, as you know, a, a a a a sort of philosophy 00:22:54.614 --> 00:22:57.314 within the philosophy of manifestation to say that, you know, you must always 00:22:57.314 --> 00:23:00.014 follow when they say follow your passion. 00:23:00.164 --> 00:23:01.455 It's really follow your excitement. 00:23:01.754 --> 00:23:04.334 What makes you feel excited, what makes you feel joyful. 00:23:04.915 --> 00:23:10.465 If you follow that, you'll probably get there because you will keep going. 00:23:10.925 --> 00:23:13.655 And if you don't, you probably won't 'cause you'll get pissed off and stop. 00:23:14.135 --> 00:23:16.415 Jarod Anderson: Oh yeah, that's, that's so true. 00:23:16.465 --> 00:23:22.195 You know, I, I've definitely started novels I didn't finish and usually 00:23:22.195 --> 00:23:27.655 it's because the kernel of the idea wasn't as exciting as I thought it was. 00:23:28.435 --> 00:23:30.115 Rupert Isaacson: Luckily, they sometimes get recycled into 00:23:30.115 --> 00:23:31.765 the later novel that comes. 00:23:31.765 --> 00:23:33.085 But no, I agree with you. 00:23:33.385 --> 00:23:35.545 And just for those of you, by the way, who are busy giving up on 00:23:35.545 --> 00:23:38.065 your novels, don't worry lads. 00:23:38.995 --> 00:23:39.895 We understand. 00:23:40.135 --> 00:23:40.285 Yes. 00:23:40.445 --> 00:23:43.205 But don't assume that's wasted writing at all. 00:23:43.205 --> 00:23:46.025 It will, it will bear fruit in your next thing. 00:23:46.235 --> 00:23:49.745 I just want to talk about this moon being older than the Appalachian things 00:23:49.745 --> 00:23:52.355 I, 'cause I had to quickly get on Google while you're talking, and of 00:23:52.355 --> 00:23:54.080 course it says the moon here is 4.5 00:23:54.080 --> 00:23:57.485 billion years old and it says the Appalachians are approximately 00:23:57.485 --> 00:23:59.525 480 million years old now. 00:23:59.525 --> 00:24:02.045 Course this is just what I just pulled up on Google, so it doesn't mean 00:24:02.045 --> 00:24:06.725 it's true, but when you say the moon is older than the, the app or the 00:24:06.725 --> 00:24:08.165 Appalachians are older than the moon. 00:24:09.215 --> 00:24:10.085 What do you mean? 00:24:10.085 --> 00:24:13.175 Or is that almost more an an imaginary construct? 00:24:13.275 --> 00:24:15.375 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, maybe I'm, maybe I'm misremembering. 00:24:15.540 --> 00:24:18.495 I, I know that at one point I wrote a little, little essay about 00:24:18.495 --> 00:24:22.515 the Appalachians and I remember them being older than, than 00:24:22.605 --> 00:24:24.825 Bones and older than warm blood. 00:24:25.425 --> 00:24:28.785 And I thought the moon was in there too, because yeah, at some point 00:24:28.785 --> 00:24:32.685 the Earth is what, six, six point something billion and at some point 00:24:32.685 --> 00:24:35.055 there was like a, a huge impact. 00:24:35.235 --> 00:24:36.645 Rupert Isaacson: Well, and there's some people who say that the moon 00:24:36.645 --> 00:24:40.815 is just an, a hollow space station for various types of aliens who 00:24:40.865 --> 00:24:42.395 the, the lizard people or whoever. 00:24:42.395 --> 00:24:45.605 And if you throw rocks, love that it, it resonates and rings 00:24:45.605 --> 00:24:47.045 'cause it's hollow on the inside. 00:24:47.045 --> 00:24:49.295 And people say all sorts of things about the moon. 00:24:49.295 --> 00:24:49.595 Right? 00:24:49.695 --> 00:24:53.325 So I don't see wine in one's imagination. 00:24:53.325 --> 00:24:57.165 Two, one couldn't have a mountain range that's older 00:24:57.165 --> 00:24:58.515 than that, older than the moon. 00:24:58.515 --> 00:24:58.815 But, 00:24:59.245 --> 00:25:02.245 Jarod Anderson: It's, it's, it's funny, I I sometimes love those age comparisons. 00:25:02.365 --> 00:25:02.425 Yeah. 00:25:02.425 --> 00:25:07.105 You know, like, like, sharks being older than trees was one that I latched onto 00:25:07.105 --> 00:25:11.485 for a while, or, you know, in Halloween I would, I would post something like, 00:25:11.525 --> 00:25:11.975 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 00:25:11.975 --> 00:25:14.795 Jarod Anderson: You know, tentacles are older than, than leaves. 00:25:15.095 --> 00:25:16.475 So, you know, sweet dreams 00:25:16.925 --> 00:25:18.965 Rupert Isaacson: it seems, and what I'm pulling up on Google now is, is 00:25:19.055 --> 00:25:23.180 ev it seems to be telling me that the earth and the moon are about 4.5 00:25:23.180 --> 00:25:24.545 billion years old. 00:25:25.095 --> 00:25:29.895 And that the Appalachians are 400, but 480 million, it's still pretty old. 00:25:29.895 --> 00:25:31.605 I mean, it's, it's older than. 00:25:32.940 --> 00:25:36.300 If the Cretaceous period of the dinosaurs is what, 60 million, you 00:25:36.300 --> 00:25:37.590 know, and then you're going back, you're going back, you're going back. 00:25:38.190 --> 00:25:41.340 And what's interesting too is I think that it, there comes a point where these 00:25:41.340 --> 00:25:45.690 things are almost moot because in our experience, like from my mind, if, if 00:25:45.690 --> 00:25:52.880 one believes that the moon is a God or a goddess, or if the moon is an alien space 00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:00.810 station, or the moon is you know, younger than a mountain range, or these things are 00:26:03.670 --> 00:26:06.170 I think we're allowed to have mythologies and mm. 00:26:06.880 --> 00:26:10.120 You know, I, it it'd be very interesting, wouldn't it, if we, if 00:26:10.120 --> 00:26:13.900 I was interviewing now somebody who was, you know, from a culture that 00:26:13.900 --> 00:26:16.060 believed that the moon was a goddess. 00:26:16.930 --> 00:26:18.040 And I said, well, that's rubbish. 00:26:18.040 --> 00:26:20.440 'cause it's like someone might say, well, Rupert, you're racist. 00:26:20.470 --> 00:26:21.850 You know, because that's, that's their belief. 00:26:21.940 --> 00:26:22.060 Mm. 00:26:22.150 --> 00:26:27.640 So I, I totally actually get that the, that belief systems are really important. 00:26:28.040 --> 00:26:29.390 And that they're also true. 00:26:29.390 --> 00:26:30.920 I think they're all true to a certain degree. 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:35.210 And I think, I think that's the important thing about, about writing 00:26:35.300 --> 00:26:39.110 like yours, you know, if someone say, well, it's fantasy about cryptids. 00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:39.590 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:26:39.590 --> 00:26:41.240 Rupert Isaacson: And you can say yes, yes. 00:26:41.780 --> 00:26:44.360 And at the same time, this is a product of the modern human brain. 00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:48.020 Reinterpreting a mythology of nature as well. 00:26:48.020 --> 00:26:51.240 And it's also, you know, a metaphor on mental health. 00:26:51.300 --> 00:26:56.490 And it's also a metaphor on where we are in our relationship with nature right now. 00:26:56.490 --> 00:26:59.070 And in finding ourselves precariously balanced. 00:26:59.070 --> 00:27:02.400 And, and, and, and, and why can't it not be all of these things at once? 00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:06.960 Why, why, why does it have to always be a hard and fast dry sort 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.330 of allopathic, you know, thing? 00:27:09.670 --> 00:27:11.920 'Cause I don't believe that's the way the world works, you know? 00:27:12.040 --> 00:27:12.669 You know what I mean? 00:27:13.300 --> 00:27:13.570 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:27:13.899 --> 00:27:19.330 You know, I'm, I'm, I'm so often looking for points of unity and it's zooming 00:27:19.330 --> 00:27:23.350 in and zooming out is a thing that I like to do in kind of my own, my own 00:27:23.350 --> 00:27:27.330 practice in both imagination and mental health of like, you know, if we zoom 00:27:27.330 --> 00:27:31.830 out further about me misremembering even the Appalachian Mountain thing, right? 00:27:32.370 --> 00:27:38.129 It's like, all right, but the rocks of the Appalachian are older than the moon, 00:27:38.129 --> 00:27:40.110 but the moon is also of those rocks. 00:27:40.169 --> 00:27:40.439 Indeed. 00:27:40.439 --> 00:27:42.419 Like how far back do we wanna go about, 00:27:42.419 --> 00:27:43.344 Rupert Isaacson: about the arrangements? 00:27:43.344 --> 00:27:45.299 Well, I mean, that's the thing that the moon and the earth are the same. 00:27:45.809 --> 00:27:49.979 And the, and the moon was a bit of earth that broke off or something. 00:27:50.129 --> 00:27:52.620 Well then it is of those mountains. 00:27:52.620 --> 00:27:53.820 And those mountains are of it. 00:27:54.360 --> 00:27:56.219 Jarod Anderson: Which I love, you know, I love, I love yeah. 00:27:56.280 --> 00:27:59.100 Kind of looking up at the moon and thinking of it as distant and 00:27:59.100 --> 00:28:03.659 disconnected and then, and then taking a moment to think, well, not really. 00:28:03.810 --> 00:28:06.810 But then you can sort of do that with any aspect of the universe 00:28:06.810 --> 00:28:09.090 is, is the way I, I often view it. 00:28:09.170 --> 00:28:09.350 Rupert Isaacson: Hmm. 00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:14.570 Jarod Anderson: Because connectedness has become something of my, my spirituality 00:28:14.570 --> 00:28:18.790 in general that has developed in concert with the mental health practices 00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:23.170 we're, we were talking about the novel, but, you know, the first writing that 00:28:23.170 --> 00:28:27.310 really, that really found me an audience was I would write nature, poetry and 00:28:27.310 --> 00:28:29.230 poetry about, about mental health. 00:28:29.350 --> 00:28:34.840 And that built up a surprising social media following for me. 00:28:35.320 --> 00:28:39.550 And then a lot of people would reach out to me and wanna talk about their 00:28:39.550 --> 00:28:41.350 own, their own mental health struggles. 00:28:41.860 --> 00:28:45.700 And that led to me writing a book called Something in the Woods. 00:28:45.700 --> 00:28:46.330 Loves You. 00:28:46.540 --> 00:28:48.370 Rupert Isaacson: That was what I was next gonna ask you about. 00:28:48.520 --> 00:28:48.940 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:28:49.720 --> 00:28:54.070 So that really arose out of those conversations where I was getting a lot of 00:28:54.070 --> 00:29:00.100 these messages from people who, and, and sometimes especially men sent me a, a kind 00:29:00.100 --> 00:29:06.580 of message that I, I recognized myself in as the sort of hesitance to talk about it. 00:29:06.680 --> 00:29:11.610 And the idea that I was talking about it I think they, they were either directly 00:29:11.610 --> 00:29:14.250 or indirectly asking me how I got there. 00:29:14.940 --> 00:29:20.160 But I said to my wife, like, messages on Instagram were not the 00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:22.320 best context for this conversation. 00:29:22.530 --> 00:29:26.820 Like I, I, I needed to take these people on a camping trip, like we needed to 00:29:26.820 --> 00:29:29.160 talk about it for, for days and days. 00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:29.580 Rupert Isaacson: Hmm. 00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:32.760 Jarod Anderson: And so I started to talk about it as the long talk. 00:29:32.760 --> 00:29:36.270 And, and Leslie, my, my wife, said like, all right, well, 00:29:36.270 --> 00:29:37.590 you know what this is then. 00:29:37.590 --> 00:29:38.460 This is a book. 00:29:38.820 --> 00:29:45.160 And I just had a, a fortuitous moment where the publisher, timber Press, 00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:49.750 who, who does Nature Books of all Stripes, reached out to me and said, 00:29:49.750 --> 00:29:51.610 Hey, we, we really like your poetry. 00:29:51.610 --> 00:29:53.500 Have you ever thought about nonfiction? 00:29:53.650 --> 00:29:59.350 And I, I could say, well, here's an outline and here's the first six chapters. 00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:04.810 So I was just in this, this position to accept their, their offer to take a look. 00:30:05.560 --> 00:30:10.810 And that book is really my thoughts on, on my journey of, of 00:30:10.810 --> 00:30:12.910 getting a handle on mental health. 00:30:12.910 --> 00:30:18.070 But it is focused on my relationship with nature locally. 00:30:18.550 --> 00:30:23.110 The book's divided into four seasons, and then each of the seasons has five 00:30:23.110 --> 00:30:28.570 chapters titled After a Planter Animal That, that I have a, a relationship with. 00:30:30.340 --> 00:30:38.140 And so each one weaves metaphor between nature and, and the self 00:30:38.290 --> 00:30:40.670 and my struggles with mental health. 00:30:41.360 --> 00:30:46.370 And you know, I, I was nervous writing that book because I didn't wanna 00:30:46.370 --> 00:30:48.140 tell people I had it all figured out. 00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:49.640 That sort of wasn't the point. 00:30:49.760 --> 00:30:52.430 I didn't want to universalize my experience and say, 00:30:52.430 --> 00:30:53.540 this is the way to do it. 00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:57.770 I, I, I had one review I really liked that said the book was a 00:30:57.770 --> 00:31:00.405 me too, not a how to that Okay. 00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:02.000 That I really appreciated. 00:31:02.080 --> 00:31:06.820 And it still felt so important to me because I felt so alone and isolated and 00:31:07.030 --> 00:31:08.950 in my own struggles I didn't talk about. 00:31:08.950 --> 00:31:12.220 So I really wanted to be open and vulnerable and, and 00:31:12.220 --> 00:31:13.330 put it out into the world. 00:31:13.900 --> 00:31:16.790 Rupert Isaacson: Some, someone who is becoming a nature writer, who's, 00:31:16.850 --> 00:31:20.120 who's a good friend of mine and has also has a social media following. 00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:21.710 She's called Jane Pike, who's New Zealand. 00:31:21.710 --> 00:31:21.800 Yes. 00:31:22.450 --> 00:31:27.160 She often talks about how when you're going through the landscape and 00:31:27.910 --> 00:31:32.350 observing the landscape or admiring the landscape, what if the landscape 00:31:32.350 --> 00:31:34.120 is observing and admiring you? 00:31:35.020 --> 00:31:40.390 And, you know, I think many people, we, you know, awe is something that's been 00:31:40.390 --> 00:31:46.470 talked about a lot now and the healing power of being in that state of awe where, 00:31:46.500 --> 00:31:50.580 you know, one's own problems melt away in the face of, you know, the oneness 00:31:50.580 --> 00:31:51.750 of the universe, blah, blah, blah. 00:31:52.170 --> 00:31:53.070 The. 00:31:54.105 --> 00:31:58.395 Idea though of feeling small and sometimes perhaps a bit threatened by 00:31:58.785 --> 00:32:03.985 being not the top of the food chain or, you know, potential potentially, 00:32:03.985 --> 00:32:07.075 you know, washed away by that wave or fall off that cliff or whatever. 00:32:07.345 --> 00:32:12.925 Which leads to that or I don't think many of us get the message 00:32:12.925 --> 00:32:19.455 very often that the landscape is really benignly relating to us. 00:32:19.455 --> 00:32:22.785 But the reality, and she's pointed this out and I think she's right, this is 00:32:22.785 --> 00:32:26.175 where I was very interested in your writing and your perspective, was that 00:32:26.175 --> 00:32:31.635 well, actually no, most of the time what nature is trying to do is keep us alive. 00:32:32.085 --> 00:32:37.575 Mostly it's trying to provide us with foods, it's providing us with medicines, 00:32:37.935 --> 00:32:40.755 it's providing us with warmth and shelter. 00:32:40.965 --> 00:32:42.945 It's providing us with what we need. 00:32:42.945 --> 00:32:43.035 Mm-hmm. 00:32:43.605 --> 00:32:48.895 And whether that's our gut biome or whether that's the mountain 00:32:49.915 --> 00:32:51.385 that's sort of what it's doing. 00:32:51.385 --> 00:32:52.885 And it does mean that, yeah, sure. 00:32:53.095 --> 00:32:57.415 Sooner or later you're gonna return to the mountain and give your bits to the 00:32:57.415 --> 00:33:00.385 mountain back, and then the mountain's gonna re, you know, reinvent you as an 00:33:00.385 --> 00:33:02.690 earthworm or a tree or Jared Anderson. 00:33:03.265 --> 00:33:06.565 But I liked this idea. 00:33:07.600 --> 00:33:08.620 That's something in the words, love you. 00:33:08.620 --> 00:33:11.890 And the person who turned me on to you, let me tell you about her. 00:33:12.100 --> 00:33:17.230 So she's this really interesting person who's I think going to emerge as a 00:33:17.230 --> 00:33:20.290 writer soonish called Leanna Tank. 00:33:20.290 --> 00:33:23.350 And she works within, she's an occupational therapist. 00:33:23.350 --> 00:33:28.399 She works within the criminal justice system in, in Michigan with people who've 00:33:29.570 --> 00:33:33.499 committed some gnarly crimes and they can't be allowed back into society. 00:33:33.499 --> 00:33:36.200 But they committed these things in moments of psychosis. 00:33:36.260 --> 00:33:39.899 So they're actually acquitted but they just can't be allowed, 00:33:40.139 --> 00:33:41.399 you know, properly back in. 00:33:41.939 --> 00:33:47.070 And she exists as an interface between those people and, and she uses nature. 00:33:47.289 --> 00:33:51.909 And she turned me on, said there's, there's this bloke, Jared Anderson, 00:33:51.909 --> 00:33:55.449 who I find his writings very useful in the work that I do. 00:33:55.449 --> 00:34:00.269 So you should know, Jared, that I can, I can report directly to you that at least 00:34:00.269 --> 00:34:06.869 one person I know is using stuff from something in the woods loves you for Thank 00:34:06.869 --> 00:34:07.889 you, you for that, that sort of work. 00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:12.719 So it's clearly doing what it needs, the job it needs to do. 00:34:13.109 --> 00:34:15.389 I would be grateful if you would read something. 00:34:15.909 --> 00:34:19.210 I was trying to find on my cell phone just now what she had sent to me, but then I 00:34:19.210 --> 00:34:22.900 thought, Sodi actually, you know, Jared should pull up what he wants to read. 00:34:23.170 --> 00:34:24.820 So could you read us a bit? 00:34:25.450 --> 00:34:25.780 Jarod Anderson: Sure, 00:34:26.230 --> 00:34:26.470 Rupert Isaacson: yeah. 00:34:27.760 --> 00:34:28.540 Jarod Anderson: Let's see. 00:34:30.775 --> 00:34:31.915 I'll give you a choice. 00:34:32.784 --> 00:34:35.394 Well, no, you're, I I have a, I have a thought. 00:34:37.194 --> 00:34:42.444 This is a, a thing I sometimes reflect on about this book, where the fear 00:34:42.444 --> 00:34:47.784 going into it was that as somebody who struggled with depression, I just really 00:34:47.784 --> 00:34:52.914 didn't wanna write, go touch a tree and you'll feel better at the same time. 00:34:52.919 --> 00:34:53.109 Even though 00:34:53.109 --> 00:34:53.934 Rupert Isaacson: one often does actually. 00:34:53.934 --> 00:34:54.174 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:34:54.174 --> 00:34:54.414 Right. 00:34:54.414 --> 00:34:56.514 At the same time, I often touch a tree and feel better. 00:34:56.514 --> 00:35:00.535 So that's sort of the, the joke here is that this is a little section about 00:35:00.535 --> 00:35:02.154 me touching a tree and feeling better. 00:35:03.169 --> 00:35:03.459 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:35:08.725 --> 00:35:10.104 Jarod Anderson: Pardon me while I find it here. 00:35:11.064 --> 00:35:11.394 Alright. 00:35:11.394 --> 00:35:11.664 Right. 00:35:13.404 --> 00:35:15.294 So this is from something in the woods, loves You. 00:35:16.644 --> 00:35:19.975 It was a chilly wet 11:00 AM on a weekday. 00:35:19.975 --> 00:35:22.794 In October, there was nobody at the park. 00:35:23.064 --> 00:35:26.305 Why would there be other people have real jobs? 00:35:26.725 --> 00:35:28.434 Depression always has a comment. 00:35:29.305 --> 00:35:32.754 I didn't wanna be there, but I was committed to running a small experiment. 00:35:33.234 --> 00:35:37.254 I wanted to see if it was possible to have a miserable, successful day. 00:35:37.914 --> 00:35:41.934 Whether I like it or not, all my versions of success require effort. 00:35:42.325 --> 00:35:45.444 It's one of my old beliefs, and I can bend it, but not break it. 00:35:45.955 --> 00:35:47.484 Human worth is innate. 00:35:47.664 --> 00:35:50.245 Success means overcoming resistance. 00:35:50.334 --> 00:35:51.265 It means work. 00:35:51.865 --> 00:35:53.694 The air was crisp and misty. 00:35:54.294 --> 00:35:57.654 I trudged through squelching mud, churning red and gold leaves 00:35:57.654 --> 00:35:59.094 down into the hungry Earth. 00:35:59.754 --> 00:36:03.294 On that walk, I didn't feel happy with either my beliefs about success 00:36:03.294 --> 00:36:07.104 or the day's experiment, but I asked my legs to move and they did. 00:36:07.314 --> 00:36:12.444 One more commonplace, miracle, moment by moment, stubborn, step by stubborn 00:36:12.444 --> 00:36:15.084 step, I reached the shag bark hickory. 00:36:15.924 --> 00:36:20.874 I reached out to the rough bark, the cold, wet, depressed, and contrary. 00:36:20.874 --> 00:36:26.004 Part of my mind wanted to be cynical about the tree and dismissive of its presence. 00:36:26.544 --> 00:36:31.344 I wanted to mock myself as a cliche, a crunchy, new age fake. 00:36:31.344 --> 00:36:35.934 I wanted to call the day a waste, but that part of me fell 00:36:35.934 --> 00:36:37.704 silent when my fingers met. 00:36:37.704 --> 00:36:40.884 The tree here was 80 feet of hickory. 00:36:41.124 --> 00:36:46.164 Over a century of life, turning dirt and pale Ohio sunlight into food. 00:36:46.164 --> 00:36:49.524 I could eat straight from the ground into the oxygen. 00:36:49.524 --> 00:36:52.554 I'd been breathing since before I knew what breathing was. 00:36:53.184 --> 00:36:54.414 There was no ignoring it. 00:36:55.014 --> 00:36:58.524 I could feel it there, really feel it alive. 00:36:58.614 --> 00:37:03.954 Electric beneath my aching fingers, an ancient creature, silent and grand 00:37:03.954 --> 00:37:06.684 beside a crooked little footpath family. 00:37:07.825 --> 00:37:10.104 That Hickory stood tall over me. 00:37:10.104 --> 00:37:14.634 And for a moment, it was the only tree in the woods, the only tree in the world. 00:37:14.874 --> 00:37:19.075 The first tree, the last tree, the concept of a tree. 00:37:19.704 --> 00:37:23.334 I tried to calculate its value, and in that moment I saw how 00:37:23.334 --> 00:37:26.365 absurdly useless the word value is. 00:37:26.365 --> 00:37:31.495 When applied to nature, like trying to pin a price tag on rain or sunlight or 00:37:31.495 --> 00:37:36.834 gravity, I tried to imagine the tree as a human technology, and suddenly 00:37:36.834 --> 00:37:41.365 I was standing in the presence of an impossible work of science fiction, a 00:37:41.365 --> 00:37:47.345 solar powered self-replicating carbon, fixing automaton, producing oxygen, and 00:37:47.490 --> 00:37:49.914 building materials on a planetary scale. 00:37:50.634 --> 00:37:56.334 I tried to shift genres, fantasy and magic, and I found I was a small, 00:37:56.334 --> 00:38:01.704 fleeting pilgrim who walked in the shadow of giants living off of their size. 00:38:02.484 --> 00:38:07.825 How much of my own form and evolution was quietly shaped by trees, an opposable 00:38:07.825 --> 00:38:12.604 limb for climbing posable thumb, for climbing shelter and refuge from 00:38:12.604 --> 00:38:17.974 predators, fuel for cooking, unlocking more nutrients to build larger brains. 00:38:18.904 --> 00:38:21.994 I know touching a tree does not cure depression. 00:38:22.474 --> 00:38:23.764 Of course, I know that. 00:38:24.514 --> 00:38:29.764 I also know that on that October day, the hickory didn't need to cure my depression 00:38:30.154 --> 00:38:32.104 in order to take away its power. 00:38:36.739 --> 00:38:37.789 Rupert Isaacson: That's good writing. 00:38:38.329 --> 00:38:38.869 Jarod Anderson: Thanks. 00:38:39.439 --> 00:38:39.949 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, 00:38:40.129 --> 00:38:40.939 Jarod Anderson: I've practiced. 00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:44.449 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that's some good shit. 00:38:44.869 --> 00:38:45.619 Okay. 00:38:46.399 --> 00:38:50.479 What I like very much there too, apart from the fact it's just really 00:38:50.479 --> 00:38:57.220 good writing, is I like this idea that you don't have to cure things. 00:38:57.759 --> 00:39:02.919 So I don't know if you've probably haven't read any books that I've written, but 00:39:03.189 --> 00:39:06.879 the book that I am sort of known for is a book called The Horse Boy, which 00:39:06.879 --> 00:39:12.109 follows a journey which I did with my autistic son when he was five, across 00:39:12.109 --> 00:39:13.789 a chunk of Mongolia on horseback. 00:39:14.269 --> 00:39:19.419 And I've lived a lot of my life with hunting and gathering people, so I have 00:39:19.419 --> 00:39:25.089 engaged in a lot of shamanistic stuff because that is what goes on if you spend 00:39:25.089 --> 00:39:26.349 time with hunting and gathering people. 00:39:26.829 --> 00:39:31.169 And so it was very natural for me to go look for that, but I never had in 00:39:31.169 --> 00:39:32.879 my mind that I was looking for a cure. 00:39:32.879 --> 00:39:32.969 Mm-hmm. 00:39:33.889 --> 00:39:37.489 That to my mind, the autism was who my son was and is. 00:39:37.949 --> 00:39:41.459 And that there were enormous gifts with that. 00:39:41.519 --> 00:39:44.729 And that's like saying, I, I, Jared, I want you to stop being an American 00:39:44.729 --> 00:39:46.529 man, or Jared, I want you to. 00:39:47.144 --> 00:39:47.444 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:39:47.714 --> 00:39:48.104 Rupert Isaacson: I don't know. 00:39:48.344 --> 00:39:52.454 Be, be something else, but No, you're gonna be Jared, you know, so you 00:39:52.454 --> 00:39:55.544 don't want to, you're not trying to take someone's personality away, but 00:39:55.604 --> 00:39:59.684 let's say I'm your friend or your dad and I see that you're suffering. 00:40:00.314 --> 00:40:00.404 Mm-hmm. 00:40:00.644 --> 00:40:04.304 Through some aspect or other, then yeah, I would, I would like to see if I can 00:40:04.484 --> 00:40:07.154 help ameliorate or assuage that somehow. 00:40:07.544 --> 00:40:12.434 And so the journey that we were on was about healing amelioration, 00:40:12.734 --> 00:40:14.474 assuage, not about cure. 00:40:15.044 --> 00:40:15.464 Yeah, of course. 00:40:15.464 --> 00:40:20.324 What happened was that every single person who interviewed me about that book I would 00:40:20.324 --> 00:40:24.484 explain that and say, I'm not looking for a cure and I do not believe you should 00:40:24.484 --> 00:40:26.744 have a cure for autism and dah, dah, dah. 00:40:26.944 --> 00:40:31.114 And of course it would always be titled he went to Mongolia to look 00:40:31.114 --> 00:40:32.974 for a cure for his son's autism. 00:40:32.974 --> 00:40:36.484 And then everyone would shit on me, you know, for saying, you can't say that like, 00:40:36.484 --> 00:40:39.274 well I never said that, but journalists will say whatever they wanna say. 00:40:39.274 --> 00:40:40.474 I know that 'cause I'm a journalist. 00:40:40.844 --> 00:40:42.734 And one just accepts that that is the case. 00:40:42.734 --> 00:40:47.264 But the fact is there is this difference between healing and cure. 00:40:47.264 --> 00:40:52.754 And I think it's a really good one to talk about for a moment there. 00:40:52.784 --> 00:40:54.254 'cause you've touched on it twice. 00:40:54.494 --> 00:40:55.364 Once with this. 00:40:55.394 --> 00:41:00.094 And the other thing with your cryptids, that the cryptids are not, 00:41:00.394 --> 00:41:04.114 I think from what you've described, it's not, it's as if they know. 00:41:04.984 --> 00:41:09.154 That like everything in nature, that there's an always a falling outta balance 00:41:09.364 --> 00:41:12.664 and a coming back to balance and a falling outta balance and a coming back to balance 00:41:12.964 --> 00:41:16.804 and the falling outta balance is as necessary as the coming back to balance. 00:41:17.044 --> 00:41:20.374 The, the horned wolf could not survive if it didn't have prey, right? 00:41:20.434 --> 00:41:20.644 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:41:20.794 --> 00:41:22.234 Rupert Isaacson: If unless there were your, your orbital 00:41:22.234 --> 00:41:26.074 kingfisher, unless there was this many mouth shadow would die out. 00:41:26.104 --> 00:41:26.374 Right. 00:41:26.374 --> 00:41:27.934 Because that's, its, that's its food. 00:41:28.274 --> 00:41:31.884 So we might say, well thank God for the orbital kingfisher because 00:41:31.884 --> 00:41:33.684 it's taking away this shit thing. 00:41:33.954 --> 00:41:36.294 And the orbital kingfisher will say, thank God for the shit thing, 00:41:36.474 --> 00:41:38.034 otherwise I wouldn't be able to survive. 00:41:38.344 --> 00:41:39.304 And both are true. 00:41:39.844 --> 00:41:39.964 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 00:41:39.969 --> 00:41:44.174 This, this book I structured it starts in winter where I was really going 00:41:44.174 --> 00:41:48.344 into a rough time with depression, but, but I end in autumn and part 00:41:48.344 --> 00:41:52.124 of the point I am making is that depression is not a thing I cure. 00:41:52.784 --> 00:41:57.494 It's a thing that I understand has cycles and seasons that my own mind is a part 00:41:57.494 --> 00:41:59.474 of nature and has cycles and seasons. 00:42:00.014 --> 00:42:03.704 But reaching for nature metaphors helped me get past my 00:42:03.704 --> 00:42:05.894 main hurdle, which was shame. 00:42:05.894 --> 00:42:09.464 The idea that I needed to be cured or fixed. 00:42:09.774 --> 00:42:12.434 Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm 00:42:12.434 --> 00:42:19.614 an autism dad and we have a whole career before this podcast in helping 00:42:19.614 --> 00:42:24.334 people with neurodivergence, either who are professionals in the field. 00:42:24.414 --> 00:42:25.254 Are you a therapist? 00:42:25.674 --> 00:42:26.944 Are you a caregiver? 00:42:27.334 --> 00:42:28.344 Are you a parent? 00:42:28.779 --> 00:42:30.809 Or are you somebody with neurodivergence? 00:42:32.249 --> 00:42:37.189 When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004, 00:42:37.229 --> 00:42:38.859 I really didn't know what to do. 00:42:39.059 --> 00:42:44.329 So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult 00:42:44.369 --> 00:42:47.169 autistic woman who's very famous, Dr. 00:42:47.319 --> 00:42:48.209 Temple Grandin. 00:42:48.409 --> 00:42:50.049 And she told me what to do. 00:42:50.099 --> 00:42:54.339 And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years. 00:42:54.689 --> 00:42:59.139 That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped 00:42:59.399 --> 00:43:03.149 countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal. 00:43:03.489 --> 00:43:07.389 Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings. 00:43:08.419 --> 00:43:12.859 If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed 00:43:13.079 --> 00:43:15.119 approach, it's called Movement Method. 00:43:15.779 --> 00:43:19.137 You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply. 00:43:19.137 --> 00:43:21.399 It's almost laughably simple. 00:43:22.339 --> 00:43:25.039 The important thing is to begin. 00:43:25.969 --> 00:43:29.119 Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr. 00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:32.409 Grandin and see what results can follow. 00:43:33.439 --> 00:43:36.369 Go to this website, newtrailslearning. 00:43:38.639 --> 00:43:41.144 com Sign up as a gold member. 00:43:41.584 --> 00:43:44.474 Take the online movement method course. 00:43:44.964 --> 00:43:46.334 It's in 40 countries. 00:43:46.944 --> 00:43:49.004 Let us know how it goes for you. 00:43:49.204 --> 00:43:49.974 We really want to know. 00:43:49.984 --> 00:43:54.484 We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there 00:43:54.834 --> 00:43:58.114 live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens. 00:43:59.104 --> 00:44:03.389 Jarod Anderson: And I mean, we could get into the idea that a lot of mental 00:44:03.449 --> 00:44:08.669 issues have more to do with arbitrary and unwelcoming context we create for people 00:44:08.739 --> 00:44:10.779 indeed, as much as the issue themselves. 00:44:11.724 --> 00:44:16.404 But the metaphor that I got to through reconnecting with nature 00:44:16.514 --> 00:44:17.504 I mean, it sort of goes like this. 00:44:17.954 --> 00:44:24.974 I instinctually and easily love nature, and so I do not easily and 00:44:25.004 --> 00:44:30.014 instinctually love myself in finding the connection between these two 00:44:30.014 --> 00:44:36.134 things is a way for me to understand that I can turn that instinctual 00:44:36.134 --> 00:44:39.464 love for what nature is on myself. 00:44:40.214 --> 00:44:43.544 And I did that with the shame hurdle too. 00:44:43.644 --> 00:44:44.694 And I'm a, I'm a poet. 00:44:44.724 --> 00:44:47.964 I'm a writer, so I work in metaphor and, and the metaphor 00:44:47.964 --> 00:44:50.094 I landed on, it goes like this. 00:44:50.844 --> 00:44:55.794 If I planned a picnic and it was canceled by a thunderstorm, I could be 00:44:55.794 --> 00:44:58.824 disappointed, but I wouldn't be ashamed. 00:44:59.244 --> 00:44:59.754 Why? 00:45:00.234 --> 00:45:00.654 All right. 00:45:00.684 --> 00:45:03.954 Well, the thunderstorm is a known natural thing. 00:45:04.434 --> 00:45:06.264 We know that I don't steer the clouds. 00:45:06.264 --> 00:45:07.974 I didn't invite a thunderstorm. 00:45:08.454 --> 00:45:12.204 So why would I be ashamed if a thunderstorm arrived? 00:45:12.714 --> 00:45:13.194 Okay. 00:45:13.734 --> 00:45:15.024 Depression's no different. 00:45:15.474 --> 00:45:17.454 It's a known natural thing. 00:45:17.724 --> 00:45:18.684 Nobody invites it. 00:45:18.954 --> 00:45:20.544 I don't steer those clouds. 00:45:21.564 --> 00:45:29.334 So with my day is derailed by depression, disappointment perhaps, but not shame. 00:45:29.814 --> 00:45:35.454 And I, I tie that to this Nordic saying I love, which is there is no bad weather. 00:45:36.099 --> 00:45:37.899 There is just bad clothes. 00:45:38.139 --> 00:45:38.379 Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm. 00:45:38.609 --> 00:45:43.139 Jarod Anderson: And so if I think of my own emotions, my, my struggles 00:45:43.139 --> 00:45:47.639 as brain weather, all right, maybe I can't steer the clouds, but I 00:45:47.639 --> 00:45:52.229 can change what hard weather gear I have hanging beside the door. 00:45:52.289 --> 00:45:54.479 I can improve my shelters. 00:45:54.479 --> 00:45:59.189 So, so no, I'm not vanishing depression from my mind. 00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:00.689 I can't. 00:46:01.199 --> 00:46:07.229 But what I can see it as is, is brain weather as part of the same push 00:46:07.229 --> 00:46:11.339 pull, natural cycles that I see in love and recognize the importance 00:46:11.429 --> 00:46:13.409 of out in the natural world. 00:46:14.189 --> 00:46:14.429 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 00:46:14.429 --> 00:46:18.359 Well, I, one thing I've often thought about that as, as people's moods, emotions 00:46:18.359 --> 00:46:21.689 as weather or similar to weather, and we even use those metaphors, right? 00:46:21.689 --> 00:46:21.959 You know? 00:46:21.964 --> 00:46:22.194 Mm-hmm. 00:46:22.274 --> 00:46:25.109 He's got a dark cloud over them or something, or he is a sunny person. 00:46:25.589 --> 00:46:30.149 Makes complete sense that our endocrine system, which creates our moods, would 00:46:30.149 --> 00:46:35.579 reflect the nutrition and the ecosystem that creates the endocrine system 00:46:35.579 --> 00:46:37.229 that creates us in the first place. 00:46:37.439 --> 00:46:41.729 Why would it not reflect the thing that creates it? 00:46:42.329 --> 00:46:50.309 And something which I have been fortunate to discover in the course of spending a 00:46:50.309 --> 00:46:54.059 lot of time in nature with hunting and gathering people, is that what sits, I 00:46:54.059 --> 00:47:00.119 talked about the shamanic, what sits at the center of any community like that is. 00:47:00.764 --> 00:47:01.484 Are the healers. 00:47:02.294 --> 00:47:04.214 And it's really interesting. 00:47:04.214 --> 00:47:05.204 Why are they there? 00:47:05.984 --> 00:47:12.044 Because the human in the natural wild state is not top predator, right? 00:47:12.044 --> 00:47:18.044 So we are halfway up the food chain, but we have this superpower. 00:47:18.104 --> 00:47:22.664 You know, people talk about us being homo sapien sapiens, but that's actually 00:47:22.844 --> 00:47:27.824 not descriptive of us because the thinking ape anything with a brain 00:47:27.824 --> 00:47:29.324 thinks, and lots of things have brains. 00:47:29.324 --> 00:47:30.704 In fact, some things have many brains. 00:47:31.094 --> 00:47:34.664 So, but what is this, this atoms apple that I've got here that you've 00:47:34.664 --> 00:47:39.884 got, which is this enlarged larynx through testosterone, the larynx with a 00:47:39.884 --> 00:47:41.624 speaking ape, with a storytelling ape. 00:47:41.654 --> 00:47:42.404 That's our thing. 00:47:42.614 --> 00:47:46.484 So with a strategizing ape, and of course when we get together in a group and we 00:47:46.484 --> 00:47:51.314 strategize, we are sort of unbeatable to the point that we're victims of 00:47:51.314 --> 00:47:52.754 our own success destroying the planet. 00:47:53.354 --> 00:47:58.034 But when one sees that at work, what one realizes in that halfway up the food 00:47:58.034 --> 00:48:02.084 chain existence, which is the reality of say, living hunter gather existence 00:48:02.084 --> 00:48:05.414 in Africa or something, there's lots of predators out there that will eat you. 00:48:05.844 --> 00:48:10.464 That if there's fragmentation within the group, everybody 00:48:10.464 --> 00:48:12.114 will get eaten by the hyenas. 00:48:12.144 --> 00:48:16.674 So if conflict internal or external gets beyond a certain 00:48:16.674 --> 00:48:19.344 point, then we're all at risk. 00:48:19.344 --> 00:48:23.874 So therefore, all of the healing stuff is about conflict resolution. 00:48:24.699 --> 00:48:29.379 And that is naturally who we are, which means that there must 00:48:29.379 --> 00:48:30.669 always be a conflict to resolve. 00:48:30.879 --> 00:48:36.199 And indeed when one is with those cultures, it's about every 10 days 00:48:36.589 --> 00:48:38.359 there's some sort of healing ceremony. 00:48:38.569 --> 00:48:43.369 It doesn't need to be because I fell down and broke my leg, or you 00:48:43.369 --> 00:48:44.569 got bitten by a snake or something. 00:48:44.569 --> 00:48:49.009 It could be for that, but it could also be just to wash the psychic dirty 00:48:49.009 --> 00:48:52.789 laundry of the group to kind of keep us all cool, to make sure we don't 00:48:52.789 --> 00:48:54.139 all fragment and get eaten by her us. 00:48:54.139 --> 00:48:58.849 'cause we're funky monkeys with funky brains that are quite 00:48:58.849 --> 00:49:01.789 brilliant, but also fragile. 00:49:02.089 --> 00:49:07.429 So that mechanism which is there in our most natural state is inbuilt. 00:49:07.699 --> 00:49:09.499 And in our culture, we don't have it. 00:49:09.919 --> 00:49:14.269 And we, we've gone from the predator never being your fellow 00:49:14.269 --> 00:49:19.909 human because there's so much out there that you gotta band together. 00:49:19.909 --> 00:49:23.119 I guess to now in our society, having wiped out all those 00:49:23.119 --> 00:49:27.469 predators, the predator is always and only your fellow human. 00:49:27.619 --> 00:49:29.449 And that I think, drives us insane. 00:49:29.719 --> 00:49:32.719 So I think, you know, when one is, you know, in a position where one says, well, 00:49:32.869 --> 00:49:39.079 you know, I have, I have depression, or I have a tendency to psychosis, or I have 00:49:39.379 --> 00:49:43.969 one of these things, I think there's never been a human that hasn't had those things. 00:49:44.749 --> 00:49:48.559 But now we're in a, in a, in a state of living where those things 00:49:48.559 --> 00:49:51.169 are no longer able to be addressed. 00:49:51.874 --> 00:49:54.814 In the natural way, and now we have to flounder around. 00:49:55.954 --> 00:50:00.394 But that's why I think that kind of writing that you're doing is very good, 00:50:00.394 --> 00:50:03.814 because it takes the place to some degree of the shaman and the healer. 00:50:05.974 --> 00:50:07.774 Jarod Anderson: That's, I mean, that's part of the hope, right? 00:50:07.774 --> 00:50:12.304 Is that that's strategizing a part of you know, I, I love to 00:50:12.304 --> 00:50:16.504 think of writing as a magic, as a magic that connects mine to mind. 00:50:16.504 --> 00:50:20.284 Sometimes I, if I'm struggling to write, I'll go sit in a library where 00:50:20.284 --> 00:50:26.254 I can see, I can see sort of this temple to words where people come for, 00:50:26.614 --> 00:50:29.344 for real reasons to have real impact. 00:50:30.064 --> 00:50:32.884 And so, you know, that that was a huge part of why I 00:50:32.884 --> 00:50:35.374 wanted to, to tell the story. 00:50:35.474 --> 00:50:41.894 And I love writing as entertainment, but I do think that, like the brain 00:50:41.894 --> 00:50:44.174 weather metaphor, if I can explain that. 00:50:44.174 --> 00:50:48.914 Well, I, I've had speaking engagements where somebody had come up to me 00:50:48.914 --> 00:50:52.664 afterwards and said that they wrote it down and just kept staring at 00:50:52.664 --> 00:50:56.534 it and thought like, okay, I feel lighter every time I read this. 00:50:57.374 --> 00:51:02.594 And it's like, all right, well that can be the power of that storytelling. 00:51:02.594 --> 00:51:04.574 Hey but only if, you know. 00:51:05.024 --> 00:51:06.944 I actually bother to, to write it down. 00:51:07.274 --> 00:51:08.534 And to get it out there. 00:51:08.924 --> 00:51:12.884 I'm sure you've gotten the same sorts of comments on, on your story. 00:51:13.034 --> 00:51:19.514 And, you know, it's, it was so scary leaving that academic job, but, but 00:51:20.204 --> 00:51:24.764 this, this just feels like such an amazing calling and an ama amazing 00:51:24.764 --> 00:51:26.474 privilege to, to get to do this. 00:51:26.474 --> 00:51:27.974 Rupert Isaacson: How long ago did you leave the academic job? 00:51:29.054 --> 00:51:29.744 Jarod Anderson: Geez. 00:51:29.864 --> 00:51:31.814 I feel like it's been like seven years now. 00:51:31.964 --> 00:51:32.414 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:51:32.504 --> 00:51:32.714 Jarod Anderson: Right 00:51:32.714 --> 00:51:33.104 Rupert Isaacson: around there. 00:51:33.284 --> 00:51:34.364 And that's not, that's not that long. 00:51:34.364 --> 00:51:39.434 And the reason I ask is for someone with depression, I know very much as 00:51:40.394 --> 00:51:48.854 a professional writer, it's a scary puff because you are only as good 00:51:48.854 --> 00:51:50.534 as the last book that you wrote. 00:51:50.594 --> 00:51:51.194 It takes, I was 00:51:51.194 --> 00:51:52.304 Jarod Anderson: just talking about this. 00:51:52.334 --> 00:51:53.324 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 00:51:53.834 --> 00:51:56.714 You know, just the fact, you know, and maybe your last book was 00:51:56.714 --> 00:51:59.954 successful doesn't mean your next book is, and doesn't mean that your 00:51:59.954 --> 00:52:03.254 publishers or your agent necessarily think your next book will be. 00:52:03.774 --> 00:52:05.129 Doesn't mean that they'll, it's, 00:52:05.364 --> 00:52:08.694 Jarod Anderson: I was just talking about this in terms of like, things 00:52:08.694 --> 00:52:12.984 are going well right now, but as you said, I have no control over, over the 00:52:12.984 --> 00:52:17.424 market or the next book, or I don't know, supply and demand that stuff. 00:52:17.934 --> 00:52:18.289 And so. 00:52:19.934 --> 00:52:24.789 I, I, I'm constantly thinking about hedging my bets and part of that is, is 00:52:24.789 --> 00:52:29.649 sort of a, a mental health thing where, because I feel good right now, that's 00:52:29.649 --> 00:52:31.809 the time to build support systems. 00:52:31.959 --> 00:52:32.049 Mm-hmm. 00:52:33.039 --> 00:52:37.809 You know, I'm like, who will value these, these publishing accomplishments? 00:52:37.809 --> 00:52:40.509 And it makes me think like, do I need to get an MFA so that I 00:52:40.509 --> 00:52:42.219 could teach creative writing? 00:52:42.219 --> 00:52:43.179 Do I need one? 00:52:43.179 --> 00:52:47.414 Like I, I, I'm, I'm constantly looking at these other paths and it's 00:52:47.414 --> 00:52:50.469 Rupert Isaacson: never a bad idea to add some skills to your hunting kit. 00:52:50.559 --> 00:52:50.889 Right? 00:52:50.889 --> 00:52:51.189 Yeah. 00:52:51.189 --> 00:52:52.689 I mean, as a hunter or gatherer, 00:52:53.229 --> 00:52:56.769 Jarod Anderson: well, that words, that was the thought with like the M FFA 00:52:56.769 --> 00:52:59.919 or teaching creative writing is that there's synergy there because it's not 00:52:59.919 --> 00:53:01.959 as if I'm going to stop writing ever. 00:53:01.959 --> 00:53:02.049 Right. 00:53:02.529 --> 00:53:04.419 So Neat. 00:53:04.419 --> 00:53:08.769 It would be fun to be in a, a, a creative writing degree program. 00:53:08.819 --> 00:53:10.769 Because I would be doing what I would be doing anyway. 00:53:10.769 --> 00:53:13.409 Rupert Isaacson: So think you then have those stacks of essays to mark of the 00:53:13.409 --> 00:53:14.669 people who didn't wanna write them. 00:53:14.759 --> 00:53:15.359 Jarod Anderson: That's the thing. 00:53:15.359 --> 00:53:15.689 Right. 00:53:15.789 --> 00:53:17.199 It's like, why would I go back there? 00:53:17.199 --> 00:53:17.319 Paying 00:53:17.319 --> 00:53:18.999 Rupert Isaacson: the rent is, is a little bit more 00:53:19.689 --> 00:53:20.079 Jarod Anderson: less. 00:53:20.799 --> 00:53:21.069 Well, yeah. 00:53:21.099 --> 00:53:24.909 My, my, my wife kind of teases me about it because she's 00:53:24.909 --> 00:53:26.529 like, everything's going well. 00:53:26.529 --> 00:53:28.599 Like, you're, you're kind of living the dream right now. 00:53:28.599 --> 00:53:33.309 It's like, yeah, but this, this isn't a dream that comes with a, a pension. 00:53:33.819 --> 00:53:34.269 Exactly. 00:53:34.299 --> 00:53:35.874 So it's, it is. 00:53:36.684 --> 00:53:37.704 It, it always is tub 00:53:37.704 --> 00:53:38.489 Rupert Isaacson: me at the back of my mind. 00:53:38.489 --> 00:53:38.649 Yeah. 00:53:38.649 --> 00:53:41.694 How do you, because, you know, I, I, I also like everyone have my ups 00:53:41.694 --> 00:53:45.134 and downs mentally and emotionally, and I've definitely gone through 00:53:45.134 --> 00:53:47.554 times where you know, the fear. 00:53:47.944 --> 00:53:48.184 Jarod Anderson: Mm-hmm. 00:53:48.244 --> 00:53:50.434 Rupert Isaacson: And also, you know, as you know, having had a book 00:53:50.434 --> 00:53:53.934 that has been successful I had a book that was successful and that, 00:53:53.934 --> 00:53:57.624 but leading up to that had lots of books that were not so successful. 00:53:57.844 --> 00:54:03.694 And there is that thing of when you finally do get something that's 00:54:03.694 --> 00:54:06.304 successful, and it could be anything, I think anyone who's listening 00:54:06.304 --> 00:54:07.474 to this or watching this Yeah. 00:54:07.504 --> 00:54:12.459 You know, can, can put their own professional life into 00:54:12.459 --> 00:54:13.334 this doesn't have to be a book. 00:54:13.334 --> 00:54:18.854 It could be whatever, but when suddenly people are giving you 00:54:18.854 --> 00:54:24.914 validation in a big way, it's very, very hard not to get attached to that. 00:54:25.274 --> 00:54:30.654 And in fact, I think you're going to, you, you, you can't not you're only human. 00:54:31.074 --> 00:54:37.914 And then of course life goes on and it might go from strength to strength, 00:54:37.914 --> 00:54:41.634 but it's more likely to have cycles and, you know, troughs and, and, and 00:54:41.634 --> 00:54:43.434 crests and waves like anyone else's. 00:54:43.854 --> 00:54:49.524 So this is a particularly challenging field to be in if you're someone who 00:54:49.524 --> 00:54:53.544 struggles with self-concept, with mental health, with so forth and so forth. 00:54:53.544 --> 00:54:55.314 You know, this the ups and of the downs. 00:54:55.524 --> 00:54:58.224 So tell us, tell me how you navigate that. 00:54:59.949 --> 00:55:02.649 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, I have, I have a few answers for this. 00:55:02.759 --> 00:55:05.699 Kind of the, the meta stuff and then the day-to-day stuff. 00:55:05.809 --> 00:55:10.339 It took, it took me over a decade to break in and get an agent, 00:55:10.429 --> 00:55:12.319 like in fiction, for example. 00:55:12.379 --> 00:55:12.469 And 00:55:12.469 --> 00:55:14.989 Rupert Isaacson: by the way, lad's listening, it really does, it takes 00:55:14.989 --> 00:55:17.449 a while before someone was back here. 00:55:17.569 --> 00:55:18.259 Yeah, yeah. 00:55:18.319 --> 00:55:22.279 Jarod Anderson: And so, Leslie, my wife, she was in the same boat. 00:55:22.279 --> 00:55:25.069 We, we were both sending novels out to different agents. 00:55:25.069 --> 00:55:27.949 And, and so the thing we would say to each other when we got really 00:55:27.949 --> 00:55:30.799 frustrated, the kind of running joke was, what are you gonna do? 00:55:30.799 --> 00:55:31.219 Stop. 00:55:32.149 --> 00:55:35.599 Because we'd always loved telling stories. 00:55:35.719 --> 00:55:40.999 And so my, my advice to writers who feel like they're banging their head 00:55:40.999 --> 00:55:44.929 against it right now and the thing that worked for me as somebody with 00:55:44.929 --> 00:55:49.939 depression was, was process goals over outcome goals, which can feel a little 00:55:50.059 --> 00:55:52.159 fuzzy, but I mean it in this way. 00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:57.519 Like, I never controlled if an agent liked a query or if I sold 00:55:57.519 --> 00:55:59.379 a story or a poem or whatever. 00:55:59.379 --> 00:56:00.399 I didn't control that. 00:56:00.669 --> 00:56:03.069 So that would be an outcome goal, process goal. 00:56:03.129 --> 00:56:04.239 I could control. 00:56:04.239 --> 00:56:08.769 I'm gonna do six queries this month, or I'm gonna send out this many stories or 00:56:08.769 --> 00:56:14.679 poems, or, or I'm gonna write this many words, you know, a week process goals. 00:56:15.894 --> 00:56:19.164 Keeping in mind that I like this, I know it gives me energy. 00:56:19.404 --> 00:56:24.714 Focusing on that and the process and then letting all that other stuff be on the 00:56:24.714 --> 00:56:31.584 back burner was really helpful to me for that long span where I couldn't find an 00:56:31.584 --> 00:56:35.514 audience and I couldn't get a foothold in any kind of traditional publishing. 00:56:37.314 --> 00:56:41.814 And then as somebody who has serious ups and downs with depression, then the 00:56:41.814 --> 00:56:43.344 challenge is how do you write a book? 00:56:44.064 --> 00:56:46.884 You're not gonna write a book because you have a good week. 00:56:47.544 --> 00:56:50.334 It's, you know, it's a, it's a marathon. 00:56:50.724 --> 00:56:50.874 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 00:56:50.874 --> 00:56:53.304 And often your best writing actually doesn't come in those times. 00:56:53.544 --> 00:56:54.414 Jarod Anderson: No, no. 00:56:54.534 --> 00:56:56.634 Rupert Isaacson: Comes at your times of most vulnerability often. 00:56:56.919 --> 00:56:59.544 Jarod Anderson: I, I also firmly believe that, like, I can't tell, 00:56:59.814 --> 00:57:01.284 I can't tell until much later. 00:57:01.284 --> 00:57:04.434 What's the good and what's, what's the bad like for me? 00:57:04.524 --> 00:57:04.884 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 00:57:05.154 --> 00:57:07.704 Jarod Anderson: But what I do know is that if I'm not consistent, 00:57:07.794 --> 00:57:09.414 I lose hold of the pacing. 00:57:09.534 --> 00:57:11.934 I'll lose, I lose hold of the story I'm telling. 00:57:11.934 --> 00:57:18.414 And so even on the bad days, I have a sliding scale for that process goal. 00:57:18.594 --> 00:57:25.074 Like if, if I'm in a book, I, I try to do at least 500 words a day, but I do have 00:57:25.074 --> 00:57:28.374 an out where I can also do a half hour. 00:57:29.574 --> 00:57:33.534 Where if I'm, if I'm in the chair sort of rereading and planning and writing 00:57:33.534 --> 00:57:38.574 notes, if nothing comes I can still call a half hour of victory because 00:57:38.574 --> 00:57:40.824 I'm still attached to the narrative. 00:57:40.914 --> 00:57:43.944 I'm still squirming in the chair. 00:57:44.394 --> 00:57:48.834 And I have to do that because of the way my brain works, where if 00:57:48.834 --> 00:57:52.934 I say 2000 words a day or nothing I know where that leads for me. 00:57:53.234 --> 00:57:53.354 Yeah. 00:57:53.354 --> 00:57:57.114 That means like writing becomes touching a hot stove and Yeah. 00:57:57.794 --> 00:58:00.464 I, I am not a rules guy. 00:58:00.734 --> 00:58:04.244 Like that was a, has been a problem for me in the past. 00:58:04.244 --> 00:58:10.934 Like, I, I, I am not motivated by, by rules, external or internal. 00:58:10.934 --> 00:58:15.194 So like, I have to find ways to celebrate victories, to stay friends with writing. 00:58:15.404 --> 00:58:19.094 So I really do kind of move the goalposts on what counts as a win. 00:58:19.099 --> 00:58:20.384 Rupert Isaacson: That's, that's very, that's very clever. 00:58:20.384 --> 00:58:20.684 I think. 00:58:20.684 --> 00:58:21.944 'cause you know, I struggle with that too. 00:58:21.944 --> 00:58:24.584 And, and sometimes I go through times when I, I won't write. 00:58:25.064 --> 00:58:26.984 And I'm asking myself, why, why aren't you writing? 00:58:27.584 --> 00:58:30.494 And well, we know the answers 'cause I'm scared. 00:58:30.854 --> 00:58:32.194 But the, 00:58:35.194 --> 00:58:42.184 I haven't cracked it, I think even this far into my career to always get to the. 00:58:42.679 --> 00:58:43.729 Computer daily. 00:58:43.789 --> 00:58:47.059 And I distract myself 'cause I have other thick ways that I make a living 00:58:47.389 --> 00:58:50.209 and other very pressing things that I do. 00:58:50.539 --> 00:58:53.389 So particularly, you know, work with autism and things like that. 00:58:53.389 --> 00:59:00.799 So, you know, I can definitely kid myself that I'm doing such a necessary 00:59:01.129 --> 00:59:08.869 work over here and it is necessary that I can kind of ignore yeah. 00:59:08.869 --> 00:59:13.969 The call to write and then I know that if I do that for long enough, it will 00:59:15.979 --> 00:59:16.549 punish me. 00:59:16.549 --> 00:59:16.609 Yeah. 00:59:17.389 --> 00:59:19.069 Emotionally, mentally, and so on. 00:59:19.369 --> 00:59:25.759 So it's amazing if you can bend the rules like that, but do you ever actually 00:59:25.759 --> 00:59:29.289 fuck up to the point where you look up and you say, actually fuck, you know, 00:59:29.919 --> 00:59:31.929 two, two months just went by there. 00:59:31.959 --> 00:59:34.239 Three months just went by there and I didn't actually do anything. 00:59:34.959 --> 00:59:36.159 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, absolutely. 00:59:36.459 --> 00:59:36.729 Rupert Isaacson: Good. 00:59:37.269 --> 00:59:37.749 I'm reassured 00:59:37.994 --> 00:59:40.119 Jarod Anderson: at, at, at, at this age. 00:59:40.179 --> 00:59:43.359 Like, you know, now sort of deep into my forties here. 00:59:43.359 --> 00:59:46.929 Now, at least what I have though is the track record of thinking 00:59:47.319 --> 00:59:49.149 Yeah, this happens, you know? 00:59:49.154 --> 00:59:49.164 Right. 00:59:49.164 --> 00:59:50.234 I come back to it like, 00:59:50.499 --> 00:59:52.059 Rupert Isaacson: and I probably will get there. 00:59:53.019 --> 00:59:55.839 Jarod Anderson: It, it's also, you know, there comes a point where 00:59:55.839 --> 01:00:00.429 it's, it's, it's part of the, the furniture, it's part of the identity. 01:00:01.059 --> 01:00:06.129 Where I think that's part of why it feels so bad when it's not happening 01:00:06.129 --> 01:00:10.389 or when you have a, a bad month or two or three, is it's like, all 01:00:10.389 --> 01:00:14.859 right, well, you know, writing is who I am and I'm letting who I am down. 01:00:15.369 --> 01:00:15.549 Yeah. 01:00:15.554 --> 01:00:19.569 In, in some way that's more painful than, than not folding the laundry. 01:00:20.049 --> 01:00:26.109 But again, like I, I, I try to come back to the, like, seasons and cycles thing 01:00:26.349 --> 01:00:31.119 that I firmly believe, but I don't wanna lie to you and say that I always feel it, 01:00:31.659 --> 01:00:36.759 you know, it's funny having written this book, sometimes I have to crack it open 01:00:36.759 --> 01:00:39.879 and remember my own viewpoint on things. 01:00:40.029 --> 01:00:40.479 You know what I mean? 01:00:40.479 --> 01:00:41.034 That's interesting. 01:00:41.034 --> 01:00:41.274 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:00:41.274 --> 01:00:41.394 I 01:00:41.394 --> 01:00:42.274 Jarod Anderson: do be because 01:00:44.694 --> 01:00:45.064 into what? 01:00:45.099 --> 01:00:46.989 Because one also forgets what one writes. 01:00:46.989 --> 01:00:47.649 Yes. 01:00:47.654 --> 01:00:50.619 And, and, and baked into being a human being is knowing things and 01:00:50.619 --> 01:00:54.129 forgetting them and relearning them, and knowing a thing and failing anyway. 01:00:54.219 --> 01:00:56.649 Or having good advice for yourself and not taking it. 01:00:56.679 --> 01:00:59.919 I mean, the best thing I can say about it is it's all just such a 01:00:59.919 --> 01:01:04.389 natural and inevitable part of the process that, that you try to shrug 01:01:04.389 --> 01:01:07.839 at it a little bit, even though, even though it's painful sometimes, 01:01:08.739 --> 01:01:11.139 Rupert Isaacson: what, let's go now to the other side of the scale. 01:01:11.139 --> 01:01:16.009 So when you are on that successful wave and 01:01:18.229 --> 01:01:21.079 one self-concept gets tied up with, I'm now a successful author. 01:01:21.079 --> 01:01:21.169 Mm-hmm. 01:01:21.469 --> 01:01:23.959 You know, and therefore, you know. 01:01:24.784 --> 01:01:25.954 It's like a football game. 01:01:25.954 --> 01:01:28.564 You know, I've, I've scored a touchdown, you know, now I've 01:01:28.564 --> 01:01:30.094 gotta keep scoring touchdowns. 01:01:30.304 --> 01:01:33.994 And you know, that inevitably, you know, you may or you may not, but 01:01:34.264 --> 01:01:38.014 you, you may well score quite a few more touchdowns, but you will also 01:01:38.254 --> 01:01:39.814 not score quite a few more touchdowns. 01:01:40.234 --> 01:01:43.254 And anyone looking from the outside says, well, that's perfectly fine. 01:01:43.794 --> 01:01:44.814 That's just normal. 01:01:44.814 --> 01:01:48.354 That's just, but of course, from the inside it's, it's, it's much trickier. 01:01:48.874 --> 01:01:52.534 Now that you've become successful, how do you navigate that? 01:01:52.534 --> 01:01:54.754 Because that's another tricky one for mental health. 01:01:56.104 --> 01:02:00.714 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, I was listened to writer v Schwab's podcast, I 01:02:00.714 --> 01:02:02.334 think it's called Know Right Way. 01:02:02.764 --> 01:02:06.534 And they were having a conversation about this and the conversation was, if your 01:02:06.534 --> 01:02:09.564 book does well, you need another book. 01:02:09.834 --> 01:02:12.684 And if your book doesn't do well, you need another book. 01:02:13.319 --> 01:02:13.849 Like, ugh. 01:02:14.604 --> 01:02:15.264 True. 01:02:15.264 --> 01:02:16.044 That's so true. 01:02:16.049 --> 01:02:16.189 True. 01:02:16.189 --> 01:02:18.309 But how, how brutal to hear it said that way. 01:02:18.309 --> 01:02:18.384 That is 01:02:18.384 --> 01:02:18.834 Rupert Isaacson: brutal. 01:02:19.194 --> 01:02:19.704 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:02:19.754 --> 01:02:22.304 Rupert Isaacson: And the problem with books is you gotta write the bastards. 01:02:22.754 --> 01:02:22.964 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:02:22.964 --> 01:02:23.924 It takes a long time. 01:02:24.404 --> 01:02:25.334 Rupert Isaacson: Oh, it takes forever. 01:02:26.054 --> 01:02:26.504 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:02:26.504 --> 01:02:30.674 I, I find that I have to do this serious compartmentalization, right? 01:02:30.674 --> 01:02:34.784 We're like, I've, I'm very interested and here's one compartment and I'm very 01:02:34.784 --> 01:02:38.834 deeply interested in this book I'm doing and this idea, and it's my whole world. 01:02:39.404 --> 01:02:39.704 But. 01:02:40.184 --> 01:02:44.924 I have to keep it in its compartment because maybe 01:02:44.924 --> 01:02:46.304 it'll do well, maybe it won't. 01:02:46.304 --> 01:02:49.964 I'm gonna read brutal one star reviews for it. 01:02:50.384 --> 01:02:52.004 I'm gonna read five star reviews for it. 01:02:52.004 --> 01:02:55.004 But I'm, those aren't the ones that I'm gonna remember exactly. 01:02:55.054 --> 01:02:59.794 You know, and so it's like, all right here's this thing that 01:03:00.184 --> 01:03:04.024 was, my whole world still is in a way, it's in this compartment. 01:03:04.654 --> 01:03:08.794 And I have to say to myself, in some level, the reception 01:03:08.794 --> 01:03:10.414 of it is none of my business. 01:03:10.894 --> 01:03:11.524 Rupert Isaacson: Yes, 01:03:11.944 --> 01:03:16.024 Jarod Anderson: because like, I believe that art is a funny thing where like, 01:03:16.054 --> 01:03:21.604 I've done my part and now whatever art is happens in this space between the thing 01:03:21.604 --> 01:03:23.734 itself and the person interpreting it. 01:03:24.514 --> 01:03:28.714 And, and somewhere in that interaction, that space between those two, those two 01:03:28.924 --> 01:03:33.454 molecules, the, the electrical bond, like that's, that's where the art is happening. 01:03:33.904 --> 01:03:37.714 And all I can do is provide my one molecule. 01:03:38.164 --> 01:03:42.814 And then, you know, I've done what I can, and I try to say to myself, if 01:03:42.814 --> 01:03:48.724 the book has found its people at all mission accomplished maybe the book 01:03:48.974 --> 01:03:52.094 let somebody write a a mean review. 01:03:52.094 --> 01:03:53.564 And, and they really enjoyed that. 01:03:54.404 --> 01:03:57.074 You know, like I try to, I try to be shruggy about it. 01:03:57.074 --> 01:03:57.084 Yeah. 01:03:57.674 --> 01:04:01.004 But again, as we've been talking about, then there's the financial 01:04:01.004 --> 01:04:03.074 component and the career component 01:04:03.149 --> 01:04:03.439 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:04:03.704 --> 01:04:04.094 Jarod Anderson: And all that 01:04:04.094 --> 01:04:05.144 Rupert Isaacson: feeding your kid component. 01:04:05.264 --> 01:04:05.684 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:04:05.684 --> 01:04:07.064 All that stuff's terrifying. 01:04:07.244 --> 01:04:07.484 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:04:07.534 --> 01:04:11.104 Jarod Anderson: And the only thing I can do there is think of it as 01:04:11.239 --> 01:04:14.449 terrifying in the same way getting hit by a meteor is terrifying. 01:04:14.449 --> 01:04:15.229 Like, nah. 01:04:15.259 --> 01:04:17.599 I, it's so far outside my control. 01:04:18.529 --> 01:04:23.329 I try to say to that fear like mm-hmm Well I'm gonna do the part I can do. 01:04:24.109 --> 01:04:24.259 Yeah. 01:04:24.559 --> 01:04:25.099 And that's it. 01:04:25.099 --> 01:04:25.159 Yeah. 01:04:25.789 --> 01:04:26.194 You know? 01:04:27.824 --> 01:04:28.114 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:04:28.399 --> 01:04:29.209 No, good advice. 01:04:29.759 --> 01:04:30.209 Alright. 01:04:30.239 --> 01:04:34.189 You said that you had ended that book with autumn coming into winter. 01:04:34.189 --> 01:04:35.209 So now you've teased us. 01:04:35.209 --> 01:04:35.989 Now we've gotta hear it. 01:04:36.229 --> 01:04:37.369 Can you read that bit, please? 01:04:38.269 --> 01:04:38.809 Jarod Anderson: Oh, sure. 01:04:38.869 --> 01:04:39.619 I can read some of that. 01:04:42.469 --> 01:04:43.669 Let me find a good spot. 01:04:44.719 --> 01:04:48.969 I I'll tell you, a lot of these chapters have to do with learning 01:04:48.969 --> 01:04:51.189 something from an animal, right? 01:04:51.189 --> 01:04:51.249 Yeah. 01:04:51.309 --> 01:04:52.539 Or, or a tree. 01:04:52.869 --> 01:04:53.079 Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm. 01:04:53.319 --> 01:04:56.289 Jarod Anderson: And much like the art thing I just said, that meaning is 01:04:56.289 --> 01:04:58.749 happening between me and the animal. 01:04:58.809 --> 01:05:00.069 The animal isn't the meaning. 01:05:01.029 --> 01:05:06.009 It's, it's this idea that I, that that fact and, and truth 01:05:06.009 --> 01:05:07.809 are sisters, they're not twins. 01:05:08.559 --> 01:05:12.789 It's like there's the fact, here's a raccoon and then the meaning, the 01:05:12.789 --> 01:05:14.769 truth behind it is something else. 01:05:15.069 --> 01:05:15.159 Mm-hmm. 01:05:15.579 --> 01:05:15.599 It's related. 01:05:15.599 --> 01:05:15.854 Mm-hmm. 01:05:16.119 --> 01:05:20.139 But, but I have, I have a, a, a part to play. 01:05:21.219 --> 01:05:21.579 And so. 01:05:23.064 --> 01:05:29.144 As I am making peace with the idea that depression isn't gonna be gone forever. 01:05:29.174 --> 01:05:32.144 The animal I reached for was the raccoon, 01:05:35.114 --> 01:05:36.224 Rupert Isaacson: big fan of raccoons. 01:05:36.644 --> 01:05:37.244 Jarod Anderson: Me too. 01:05:38.684 --> 01:05:40.599 I I run into them a fair amount. 01:05:40.599 --> 01:05:41.379 I around 01:05:41.379 --> 01:05:41.469 Rupert Isaacson: here. 01:05:41.469 --> 01:05:41.589 Yeah. 01:05:41.589 --> 01:05:47.049 In, in, I just have, I've been living in Germany for a long time and raccoons were 01:05:47.109 --> 01:05:52.509 released into Hesen, which is the part of Germany we're in and about a hundred 01:05:52.509 --> 01:05:54.219 years ago now, there's raccoons around. 01:05:54.549 --> 01:05:54.639 Mm-hmm. 01:05:54.709 --> 01:05:58.589 And I get a kick out of the fact that there's raccoons in Germany just being 01:05:58.589 --> 01:06:02.309 a little bit anarchic there in the woods and people Oh yeah, they're invasive. 01:06:02.309 --> 01:06:02.549 Dunno. 01:06:02.549 --> 01:06:06.929 Well, maybe, but they're there and I'm certainly en as entertained by 01:06:06.929 --> 01:06:09.449 them there as I am in North America. 01:06:10.409 --> 01:06:10.889 Jarod Anderson: Okay. 01:06:11.039 --> 01:06:13.649 I think this is a part that's relevant to what we're talking about. 01:06:13.649 --> 01:06:14.639 Let's try this. 01:06:16.709 --> 01:06:21.629 I once growled at a raccoon that was approaching my campfire and he just 01:06:21.629 --> 01:06:26.429 stood on his hind feet as if to say, if you're feeling froggy, then jump. 01:06:26.429 --> 01:06:26.999 Big guy. 01:06:27.899 --> 01:06:30.179 I laughed and shared my sandwich. 01:06:30.929 --> 01:06:34.799 The primary thing raccoons seem to do is thrive. 01:06:35.429 --> 01:06:38.699 They thrive in human spaces and wild spaces. 01:06:38.729 --> 01:06:39.119 Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm. 01:06:39.359 --> 01:06:42.269 Jarod Anderson: They're versatile, intelligent, and exude an 01:06:42.269 --> 01:06:44.489 air of crafty stubbornness. 01:06:45.449 --> 01:06:50.909 It can be romantic to glean life lessons from herons and hawks and 01:06:50.909 --> 01:06:52.739 deer leaping through thickets. 01:06:53.219 --> 01:06:56.879 But there are many seasons in my life when what I really need 01:06:56.939 --> 01:06:59.249 is the teachings of raccoons. 01:06:59.999 --> 01:07:05.019 The fall the fall we retreated from Seattle was one such season. 01:07:05.709 --> 01:07:09.849 The fall when my recent successes in fighting depression seemed to 01:07:09.849 --> 01:07:11.859 be slipping away was another one. 01:07:13.089 --> 01:07:18.189 I imagine these two disappointing autumns transposed one on top of another. 01:07:18.849 --> 01:07:23.049 I saw the raccoon pawing at the apartment door in Washington state. 01:07:23.709 --> 01:07:26.949 I saw the raccoon peering out of my dumpster in Ohio. 01:07:27.609 --> 01:07:33.249 Both creatures spoke with one mouth asking an essential question, who 01:07:33.249 --> 01:07:35.379 says survival has to be pretty? 01:07:36.519 --> 01:07:37.569 I didn't want to hear it. 01:07:38.349 --> 01:07:42.699 I had spent months working with my counselor Mark toward a stable 01:07:42.699 --> 01:07:45.039 mind, and I felt it slipping away. 01:07:45.729 --> 01:07:46.479 It hurt. 01:07:46.809 --> 01:07:47.529 I hurt. 01:07:48.159 --> 01:07:49.329 It was the old hurt. 01:07:49.479 --> 01:07:53.469 Winter's hurt the kind of depression that sits on your chest until 01:07:53.469 --> 01:07:57.579 your ribs ache and your lungs burn until you just want out. 01:07:59.589 --> 01:08:04.419 And I go on a little later in this section to picture that raccoon 01:08:04.479 --> 01:08:08.799 sitting on my kitchen counter, you know, eating Doritos with orange 01:08:08.799 --> 01:08:11.919 dust all over his face and, and. 01:08:12.669 --> 01:08:16.239 Restating that like you're not in a beauty contest, like you're 01:08:16.239 --> 01:08:17.769 struggling with mental illness. 01:08:17.769 --> 01:08:20.469 You need to change your definition of what success is. 01:08:20.799 --> 01:08:21.099 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:08:21.459 --> 01:08:25.869 Jarod Anderson: Because, you know, I just had this, this swell of confidence 01:08:25.869 --> 01:08:28.959 in my ability to control my own sadness. 01:08:28.959 --> 01:08:35.979 And when it came back, as it inevitably does, I felt crushed that, oh no, I 01:08:35.979 --> 01:08:37.989 have not solved this once in forever. 01:08:38.019 --> 01:08:39.099 Of course I haven't. 01:08:39.849 --> 01:08:44.409 And it went back to the way I started that shag bark hickory section 01:08:44.409 --> 01:08:53.869 of learning to have sad, hard, successful day and understanding that 01:08:53.869 --> 01:08:57.149 success is completely subjective. 01:08:57.569 --> 01:08:57.809 Rupert Isaacson: Mm. 01:08:57.869 --> 01:09:01.169 Jarod Anderson: In terms of judging my own life circumstances. 01:09:01.679 --> 01:09:07.409 So yeah, I could catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realize that I hadn't 01:09:07.409 --> 01:09:11.039 changed out of sweatpants for 24 hours. 01:09:11.039 --> 01:09:13.709 But, you know, is that a huge failure? 01:09:14.069 --> 01:09:20.339 Who says, you know, and feeling like I have never cured depression, 01:09:20.639 --> 01:09:25.409 but wow, I have gotten some great techniques for rejecting shame. 01:09:26.039 --> 01:09:31.679 And that has taught me that shame was such a big component in the old 01:09:31.679 --> 01:09:33.539 suffering that I didn't recognize. 01:09:33.949 --> 01:09:38.389 Because if I can leave aside shame, then suddenly I get to be on my own side. 01:09:39.649 --> 01:09:45.589 Before it was depression seemed against me and I was also against me because I 01:09:45.589 --> 01:09:47.719 was judging myself for having depression. 01:09:48.139 --> 01:09:53.239 So there, there didn't seem to be a lot of people in my corner inside my own skull. 01:09:54.499 --> 01:09:59.389 So finding a way past that shame and understanding that there were 01:09:59.389 --> 01:10:03.979 seasons when I need the raccoon is, was really a big, a big help to me. 01:10:07.609 --> 01:10:11.839 Rupert Isaacson: Interestingly, you know, shame when I have talked 01:10:11.839 --> 01:10:17.449 to, again, hunters and gatherers who are not saints, by the way. 01:10:18.229 --> 01:10:18.469 Jarod Anderson: Sure. 01:10:18.569 --> 01:10:19.949 Rupert Isaacson: They don't deal in shame. 01:10:21.629 --> 01:10:22.739 It's so interesting. 01:10:23.129 --> 01:10:25.289 And it's not that it, the emotion doesn't come up. 01:10:25.289 --> 01:10:30.659 It's not like we've invented the emotion of shame since agriculture, but 01:10:31.589 --> 01:10:38.609 their mechanisms for dealing with it are so useful in that what they sort 01:10:38.609 --> 01:10:41.429 of say is , it's almost like they, they would almost use, I think, a 01:10:41.429 --> 01:10:45.519 metaphor like you would for with your orbital kingfisher or your horned wolf. 01:10:45.519 --> 01:10:49.729 That the, the that the shaming exists almost like a demon shadow side of 01:10:49.729 --> 01:10:54.879 ourselves that has a function to a degree, which is to basically show us 01:10:54.879 --> 01:11:00.579 where we don't wanna be but shouldn't be allowed to get beyond a certain point. 01:11:01.159 --> 01:11:06.739 And then you bring in your ancestors or your shamanic help meet your horned 01:11:06.739 --> 01:11:08.539 wolf, your orbital kingfish, or whatever. 01:11:10.009 --> 01:11:14.119 However, if one wants to get people to do what you want to do. 01:11:14.869 --> 01:11:17.869 And of course, in hunter gatherer culture, nobody does that. 01:11:18.589 --> 01:11:18.799 Jarod Anderson: Mm. 01:11:18.989 --> 01:11:20.609 Rupert Isaacson: It's not built into the economy. 01:11:20.759 --> 01:11:21.749 There's no need for it. 01:11:21.839 --> 01:11:25.079 In fact, it's counterproductive because it leads to conflict, which 01:11:25.079 --> 01:11:28.319 leads to fragmentation, which leads to everyone getting eaten by hyenas. 01:11:29.519 --> 01:11:33.059 But when agriculture comes into the picture and toil 01:11:33.989 --> 01:11:35.919 and going out there and just. 01:11:37.589 --> 01:11:42.149 To plant the crop and to pull that crop out of the, you know, and to deal with 01:11:42.149 --> 01:11:45.329 the fact that the crop might fail and actually now you need slaves because 01:11:45.329 --> 01:11:49.379 it's, it's so, to which means you need war and you need that and well 01:11:49.379 --> 01:11:51.209 then shame is a very useful thing. 01:11:51.239 --> 01:11:51.929 Oh, it's so useful, 01:11:51.929 --> 01:11:52.289 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 01:11:52.589 --> 01:11:54.749 Rupert Isaacson: To get those people to go out and do what they don't 01:11:54.749 --> 01:11:57.629 want to do for their entire lives. 01:11:58.409 --> 01:11:58.709 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:11:58.799 --> 01:11:59.759 Rupert Isaacson: You need shame. 01:11:59.999 --> 01:12:01.019 Otherwise no one would do it. 01:12:01.619 --> 01:12:09.059 So here we come along 10,000 years plus ish after that inheritors 01:12:09.059 --> 01:12:12.509 of that, especially, you know, if you're in Ohio, why do people go 01:12:12.509 --> 01:12:14.159 to Ohio to be agriculturalists? 01:12:14.159 --> 01:12:14.459 You know? 01:12:14.489 --> 01:12:14.699 Mm-hmm. 01:12:14.849 --> 01:12:20.189 And so you're gonna get, you know, huge reinforcement of that. 01:12:20.759 --> 01:12:26.759 Not surprising that in the absence then of a good medicine man 01:12:27.209 --> 01:12:30.059 who would've been there at one point, but isn't there anymore. 01:12:30.209 --> 01:12:34.229 But there is the shag bark hickory under which the medicine man would have 01:12:34.409 --> 01:12:40.379 operated and that that medicine man or woman would have drawn resources from. 01:12:40.739 --> 01:12:42.929 And we are still the same species as that hunter. 01:12:42.929 --> 01:12:43.139 God. 01:12:43.139 --> 01:12:47.699 So there's still this innate rebel part of us that knows that shame 01:12:48.179 --> 01:12:53.939 is a mofo and wants to absolutely look it in the eye and reject it as 01:12:53.939 --> 01:12:56.849 the demon, as sauron as you know. 01:12:56.879 --> 01:12:57.989 How does Sauron get. 01:12:58.394 --> 01:13:00.374 You to put the ring on. 01:13:00.614 --> 01:13:04.184 What does, you know, what's putting the ring on all about? 01:13:04.184 --> 01:13:05.564 It's about doing the wrong thing. 01:13:05.564 --> 01:13:06.464 It's about shame, right? 01:13:06.854 --> 01:13:09.314 And being seduced into doing the wrong thing until you eventually 01:13:09.314 --> 01:13:10.364 become a shadow of yourself. 01:13:10.364 --> 01:13:13.994 And then you become the nasal who are, you know, consumed, consumed by shame. 01:13:14.084 --> 01:13:17.684 They do actually get to ride around on cool dinosaurs as well and live forever. 01:13:17.684 --> 01:13:18.794 But apart from that, yeah. 01:13:19.154 --> 01:13:19.884 Jarod Anderson: It's How many 01:13:19.889 --> 01:13:20.209 Rupert Isaacson: cool 01:13:20.209 --> 01:13:20.299 Jarod Anderson: noise? 01:13:20.304 --> 01:13:24.199 Lemme lemme just say that like the stubbornness I, I I I locked in on that 01:13:24.199 --> 01:13:27.769 word when you said it too, because I think that that was part of what helped 01:13:27.769 --> 01:13:34.009 me in understanding that, that shame has most of its power when we think 01:13:34.014 --> 01:13:40.039 we have to keep up this silent facade that we are perfect and unquestionable 01:13:40.039 --> 01:13:42.229 and publicly or beyond reproach. 01:13:42.679 --> 01:13:47.599 And so, like stubbornness and rebellion, like me sharing it all 01:13:47.599 --> 01:13:54.259 publicly, continually is a little bit for me rebellion of, of, of 01:13:54.259 --> 01:13:58.819 saying, you know, of given, given the middle finger to like that impulse 01:13:58.819 --> 01:14:00.439 I had for years to stay quiet. 01:14:00.829 --> 01:14:00.949 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:14:01.029 --> 01:14:03.879 Jarod Anderson: And then moving past that fear over and over again, I felt 01:14:03.879 --> 01:14:09.999 like I get stronger and stronger because I am so open and honest and vulnerable. 01:14:09.999 --> 01:14:13.299 And then I have people telling me, oh, me too. 01:14:13.959 --> 01:14:17.289 So then the isolation starts to melt away, right? 01:14:17.289 --> 01:14:18.189 Rupert Isaacson: Community comes. 01:14:18.219 --> 01:14:18.699 Yeah. 01:14:18.699 --> 01:14:18.709 Yeah, 01:14:19.089 --> 01:14:19.299 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 01:14:19.299 --> 01:14:23.619 Because all of a sudden I don't have some uniquely detestable thing. 01:14:24.219 --> 01:14:28.929 I have an issue that lots and lots and lots of people have, and as soon 01:14:28.929 --> 01:14:30.849 as we start talking about it openly 01:14:31.449 --> 01:14:32.259 Rupert Isaacson: Common humanity 01:14:32.409 --> 01:14:32.649 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:14:32.649 --> 01:14:34.119 Then what role does shame have? 01:14:35.949 --> 01:14:39.359 Rupert Isaacson: If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm 01:14:39.359 --> 01:14:44.039 guessing you're somebody that, like me, loves to read books about not 01:14:44.039 --> 01:14:47.939 just how people have achieved self actualization, but particularly 01:14:47.959 --> 01:14:51.649 about the relationship with nature. 01:14:52.099 --> 01:14:55.279 Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything. 01:14:56.019 --> 01:14:58.969 And I'd like to draw your attention to my books. 01:14:58.979 --> 01:15:03.659 If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps 01:15:03.659 --> 01:15:08.119 you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy 01:15:08.819 --> 01:15:13.789 and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered, 01:15:13.849 --> 01:15:15.999 what started Live Free Ride Free. 01:15:16.019 --> 01:15:19.799 And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing 01:15:19.799 --> 01:15:22.289 Land, which tells the story of. 01:15:22.994 --> 01:15:28.384 My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people 01:15:28.384 --> 01:15:32.544 there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned. 01:15:32.794 --> 01:15:34.054 Come on that adventure with me. 01:15:34.079 --> 01:15:34.259 Yeah. 01:15:34.259 --> 01:15:36.809 Well, shame gets you to pay your tithe to the church is what it does. 01:15:36.869 --> 01:15:37.589 Jarod Anderson: Oh, that too. 01:15:37.709 --> 01:15:38.099 Yeah. 01:15:38.099 --> 01:15:38.109 Yeah, 01:15:38.249 --> 01:15:38.459 Rupert Isaacson: yeah, 01:15:38.459 --> 01:15:38.729 Jarod Anderson: too. 01:15:39.419 --> 01:15:41.739 Rupert Isaacson: Interestingly, I have a raccoon kitchen 01:15:41.739 --> 01:15:43.539 story, a really cool, real one. 01:15:43.959 --> 01:15:45.459 I lived in Texas for a long time. 01:15:46.149 --> 01:15:48.349 We had a cat door for years and years and years. 01:15:48.349 --> 01:15:51.379 The cat door was not exploited by raccoons until one day when it was. 01:15:51.829 --> 01:15:54.759 And you always know when the raccoon has come in because it lands with 01:15:54.759 --> 01:15:58.419 a particularly heavy thump on the floor that it's, that's thump enough 01:15:58.419 --> 01:15:59.889 to wake you up in the bedroom. 01:15:59.889 --> 01:15:59.949 Wow. 01:16:00.159 --> 01:16:02.259 That is away from the kitchen. 01:16:02.679 --> 01:16:05.649 And I remember waking up going, I bet that's a raccoon. 01:16:06.009 --> 01:16:10.719 And going in and finding the raccoon in my kitchen and like looking at him 01:16:10.719 --> 01:16:14.679 and like I'm standing there stark us and thinking, oh, you know, I really 01:16:15.039 --> 01:16:18.279 wanna, I really don't corner this animal. 01:16:18.609 --> 01:16:18.669 Yeah. 01:16:18.669 --> 01:16:20.409 Without a suit of armor on, you know? 01:16:20.519 --> 01:16:24.659 And sort of suggesting to him a little bit with the broomstick look, dude. 01:16:24.659 --> 01:16:24.869 Yeah. 01:16:25.259 --> 01:16:27.539 And having him kind of go, no bummer. 01:16:27.539 --> 01:16:28.109 All right, fine. 01:16:28.109 --> 01:16:30.629 But it's not like he ran and this went on and this went on. 01:16:30.659 --> 01:16:31.799 'cause he was after the cat food. 01:16:32.609 --> 01:16:35.429 And no matter where I put the cat food or whatever, he always found the cat 01:16:35.429 --> 01:16:36.779 food or she always found the cat food. 01:16:37.349 --> 01:16:39.839 And so finally we came up with the idea one day of buying 01:16:39.839 --> 01:16:42.419 like this really super duper. 01:16:43.394 --> 01:16:48.044 Difficult complex Tupperware thing with this big complex Tupperware thing, 01:16:48.044 --> 01:16:49.754 lock thing on it with the cat food. 01:16:50.084 --> 01:16:55.034 And sure enough, I hear thump and then I hear the door, and then I 01:16:55.079 --> 01:16:58.334 hear the stuff comes out of the cupboard and blah, blah, blah. 01:16:58.334 --> 01:17:01.844 I'm like, I wonder if you've got to open that cat food. 01:17:01.844 --> 01:17:01.934 Yeah. 01:17:02.114 --> 01:17:02.684 I've got a know. 01:17:02.684 --> 01:17:02.954 Right? 01:17:02.954 --> 01:17:06.734 So, so I go in and there was this bonding moment between me and the racoon. 01:17:06.734 --> 01:17:07.394 The racoon. 01:17:07.394 --> 01:17:09.764 He's like there and he's trying to figure it out. 01:17:10.244 --> 01:17:12.344 And you can see, he's like, I've got a thumb out. 01:17:12.344 --> 01:17:14.954 And his tongue out and his, and he looks up at me. 01:17:15.284 --> 01:17:17.234 And in that moment it's like he's got any ideas. 01:17:18.014 --> 01:17:18.434 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:17:18.434 --> 01:17:18.944 Right. 01:17:19.424 --> 01:17:19.814 Rupert Isaacson: And I'm like, 01:17:20.564 --> 01:17:21.374 Jarod Anderson: don't just stand there. 01:17:21.374 --> 01:17:21.974 Pitch in. 01:17:22.154 --> 01:17:22.544 Yeah. 01:17:23.054 --> 01:17:26.654 Rupert Isaacson: The reason I bought that Tupperware was to protect that 01:17:26.654 --> 01:17:31.544 cat food, but hats off for, and then you could seem like a bummer. 01:17:32.054 --> 01:17:32.144 Yeah. 01:17:32.144 --> 01:17:34.244 And then he just kind of moves out of the 01:17:34.874 --> 01:17:35.354 Jarod Anderson: Around here. 01:17:35.594 --> 01:17:35.864 Rupert Isaacson: What I 01:17:35.864 --> 01:17:36.854 Jarod Anderson: often, yeah. 01:17:37.154 --> 01:17:38.834 Rupert Isaacson: It was a, a bonding moment. 01:17:38.834 --> 01:17:41.324 And there was this part of me that really actually thought rather, 01:17:41.324 --> 01:17:43.844 like you saying, well actually then I just shared my sandwich. 01:17:43.844 --> 01:17:44.144 You know? 01:17:44.594 --> 01:17:45.914 Jarod Anderson: I have, that was a real story. 01:17:45.914 --> 01:17:45.974 Yeah. 01:17:46.034 --> 01:17:49.724 I mean, a raccoon came right up to me at, at the fire and I, I thought to myself 01:17:49.724 --> 01:17:51.884 like, should I run this raccoon off? 01:17:52.124 --> 01:17:53.804 And I'm like, I'm gonna give him half of my sandwich. 01:17:53.804 --> 01:17:55.454 And he took it like with hands. 01:17:55.454 --> 01:17:57.194 It was such a strange moment. 01:17:57.824 --> 01:17:58.754 And more than once. 01:17:58.754 --> 01:18:02.024 Now around here, I've, I've rescued them from my, my dumpster outside. 01:18:02.024 --> 01:18:06.044 'cause they crawl in to look through the trash and then have a moment of, oops. 01:18:06.389 --> 01:18:07.169 They can't get out. 01:18:07.439 --> 01:18:10.469 Rupert Isaacson: Isn't it interesting how, particularly in our culture, 01:18:10.499 --> 01:18:13.439 there is this real kind of, you're not supposed to like raccoons, 01:18:13.829 --> 01:18:15.809 you're not supposed to tolerate them. 01:18:15.989 --> 01:18:16.079 Yeah. 01:18:16.079 --> 01:18:19.079 You're supposed to wag the finger at them, but they're so charming. 01:18:19.364 --> 01:18:20.414 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, absolutely. 01:18:20.819 --> 01:18:21.149 Yeah. 01:18:21.449 --> 01:18:24.209 Rupert Isaacson: And as you say, also, I think they are a real 01:18:24.299 --> 01:18:28.289 metaphor for thriving, not just surviving, like anywhere they can be. 01:18:28.319 --> 01:18:29.849 Anywhere you'll find raccoons. 01:18:30.209 --> 01:18:33.509 And one things I also love about raccoons is that you can be in the 01:18:33.509 --> 01:18:40.439 really shy urban environment in the US well in Canada too, and actually 01:18:40.439 --> 01:18:43.259 Mexico, and you'll always find a raccoon. 01:18:44.009 --> 01:18:44.219 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:18:44.309 --> 01:18:46.379 Rupert Isaacson: And that raccoon will always be doing well. 01:18:46.589 --> 01:18:49.019 In the uk we have a very similar thing with foxes. 01:18:49.289 --> 01:18:52.589 Urban foxes, urban red foxes are a real thing. 01:18:52.619 --> 01:18:57.149 And you get these people like, oh, I'm like, no, they're 01:18:57.149 --> 01:18:58.649 reminding us of the wild. 01:18:59.099 --> 01:18:59.249 Yeah. 01:18:59.249 --> 01:19:02.819 Like how amazing that you could have that 01:19:03.569 --> 01:19:06.119 Jarod Anderson: We have urban coyotes on an uptick too. 01:19:06.124 --> 01:19:06.414 Indeed. 01:19:06.414 --> 01:19:06.974 Around here now. 01:19:06.974 --> 01:19:07.254 Indeed. 01:19:07.254 --> 01:19:07.494 Indeed. 01:19:07.894 --> 01:19:08.279 I indeed. 01:19:08.969 --> 01:19:13.409 Talking about shame and what animals are, we're allowed to like I have a chapter 01:19:13.409 --> 01:19:17.379 about gray squirrels and the whole metaphor there is, you know, I went to a. 01:19:17.969 --> 01:19:19.739 Store that sells bird feeders. 01:19:19.739 --> 01:19:23.999 And they had half the stuff there was aimed at how to keep gray squirrels away. 01:19:24.689 --> 01:19:29.189 And you know, I have this moment of like, wait, why I love gray? 01:19:29.189 --> 01:19:29.999 Squirrels are great. 01:19:29.999 --> 01:19:31.229 I I love seeing them. 01:19:31.709 --> 01:19:35.839 You know, there's all this bird seed laced with cayenne and all these baffles 01:19:35.839 --> 01:19:42.594 and I, I reached for that as the metaphor of of society arbitrarily making any 01:19:42.594 --> 01:19:44.574 kind of neurodivergent unwelcome. 01:19:44.574 --> 01:19:46.614 Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's the, it's the, it's right. 01:19:46.614 --> 01:19:51.369 It's the wild animals that can thrive in our controlled environments Yeah. 01:19:51.594 --> 01:19:55.314 That we detest the most because they, we fear them. 01:19:55.314 --> 01:20:00.684 I think because they remind us that the wild is just as you can pave over 01:20:00.684 --> 01:20:04.104 nature, but then cracks will appear and that forest is gonna come back 01:20:04.104 --> 01:20:06.894 up and that we cannot control things. 01:20:07.404 --> 01:20:09.804 Jarod Anderson: I'm writing a short book about dandelions right now 01:20:09.804 --> 01:20:12.674 for the same publisher that did something in the woods loves you. 01:20:12.674 --> 01:20:16.544 And it's the same kind of thing of suddenly there's this billion 01:20:16.544 --> 01:20:20.084 dollar industry of herbicides trying to get rid of dandelions. 01:20:20.084 --> 01:20:23.594 And why, you know, why, why do we hate dandelions and one of 01:20:23.594 --> 01:20:25.454 Rupert Isaacson: the most nutritious plants on the planet? 01:20:25.784 --> 01:20:26.144 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:20:26.204 --> 01:20:26.804 And health 01:20:26.804 --> 01:20:27.224 Rupert Isaacson: giving 01:20:27.644 --> 01:20:28.514 Jarod Anderson: great for pollinate. 01:20:28.514 --> 01:20:32.054 I mean, you know, the deep tap roots area of the soil on and on and on 01:20:32.054 --> 01:20:33.704 about the values of dandelions. 01:20:33.704 --> 01:20:39.794 But all of a sudden because of lawns and this weird 18th century European. 01:20:40.169 --> 01:20:44.039 Aris, you know, aristocracy, landscaping trend. 01:20:44.039 --> 01:20:49.529 Like now we, we don't want dandelions, like monoculture lawns are, are terrible. 01:20:49.529 --> 01:20:51.959 They're, they're really broken landscapes. 01:20:52.169 --> 01:20:52.949 Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely. 01:20:52.949 --> 01:20:53.219 Jarod Anderson: Absolutely. 01:20:53.259 --> 01:20:56.769 But I, I also think we distrust things that are free and 01:20:56.769 --> 01:20:58.869 things that are, are abundant. 01:20:58.869 --> 01:21:03.939 Like yeah, dandelions are more nutritious than spinach and kale, but like, but 01:21:03.939 --> 01:21:06.639 they're growing along the roadside and you don't have to pay for them. 01:21:06.819 --> 01:21:08.379 So we just trust that. 01:21:08.379 --> 01:21:08.469 I 01:21:08.469 --> 01:21:09.114 Rupert Isaacson: think we attach value to them. 01:21:09.264 --> 01:21:10.194 Yeah, absolutely. 01:21:10.694 --> 01:21:14.764 We better shame them so that and they were too, too common, nor were the red screw or 01:21:14.764 --> 01:21:16.624 nor were the raccoon, nor were the coyote. 01:21:16.654 --> 01:21:17.854 It's, it's interesting. 01:21:17.964 --> 01:21:22.614 I, I've got a, a great squirrel story, so then I want to hear yours. 01:21:22.764 --> 01:21:26.044 So I, I have a couple of stories that are I live in Texas moments. 01:21:26.464 --> 01:21:26.554 Jarod Anderson: Mm-hmm. 01:21:26.824 --> 01:21:30.514 Rupert Isaacson: And one of them was shortly after I moved into rural Texas. 01:21:30.594 --> 01:21:33.174 I let the battery of my truck run down accidentally. 01:21:33.384 --> 01:21:37.044 And so I had to try to wave down someone to jumpstart my truck. 01:21:37.434 --> 01:21:41.784 And I waved down a truck at the bottom of the driveway and it's this old 01:21:41.784 --> 01:21:48.054 black dude with his granddaughter who must be about 21 or so, two loaded 01:21:48.054 --> 01:21:50.934 shotguns pointing out of the window. 01:21:50.934 --> 01:21:55.744 They're both drinking beer and as they pull out and I'm about 01:21:55.744 --> 01:21:57.484 to say thank you for stopping. 01:21:57.484 --> 01:22:01.354 I've got jumpstart before I can open my mouth. 01:22:01.414 --> 01:22:03.094 Bloke says, garnish squirrel. 01:22:04.594 --> 01:22:05.854 And I'm like, garish squirrel. 01:22:05.884 --> 01:22:06.424 Garish squirrel. 01:22:06.424 --> 01:22:06.814 What does that mean? 01:22:07.444 --> 01:22:09.874 Oh, do I have any squirrels? 01:22:10.714 --> 01:22:12.904 I'm like, well, yeah. 01:22:12.994 --> 01:22:15.004 I mean, the woods behind the house. 01:22:15.004 --> 01:22:15.814 I see them. 01:22:15.814 --> 01:22:18.934 I mean, but I wouldn't say I have one. 01:22:19.264 --> 01:22:21.094 But anyway, here, here's the problem I've got. 01:22:21.094 --> 01:22:21.964 And I go, ah. 01:22:21.994 --> 01:22:25.804 So he comes up and he looks at my engine and he criticizes it and he says, oh, your 01:22:25.804 --> 01:22:26.919 engine is, you know, blah, blah, blah. 01:22:27.099 --> 01:22:28.294 And he says, where are you from? 01:22:28.294 --> 01:22:29.404 And I'm like, well, I'm British. 01:22:29.404 --> 01:22:30.664 And he goes, well, that's in Europe. 01:22:30.664 --> 01:22:30.784 Yeah. 01:22:30.784 --> 01:22:32.914 And then because he turns out he was stationed in Europe, 01:22:33.094 --> 01:22:33.994 you know, during the war. 01:22:33.994 --> 01:22:37.534 And he, you know, he's actually traveled a lot and blah, blah, blah, blah. 01:22:37.714 --> 01:22:38.344 And he's right. 01:22:38.344 --> 01:22:40.474 My engine is a bit of a shame. 01:22:40.804 --> 01:22:45.194 And he, but he jump starts me and wishes me Good day. 01:22:45.584 --> 01:22:50.264 And then he and his granddaughter drive off sipping beer and I watch him 01:22:50.264 --> 01:22:54.224 go outta the driveway and then I see them put the brakes on like that, the 01:22:54.224 --> 01:22:55.364 two shotguns come outta the window. 01:22:55.399 --> 01:22:56.504 Boom, boom. 01:22:56.504 --> 01:23:00.314 As they're shooting at the squirrels in my trees below on the road there. 01:23:00.614 --> 01:23:01.514 And then they drive off. 01:23:01.514 --> 01:23:03.164 And that's an, I live in Texas moment. 01:23:03.734 --> 01:23:04.994 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, that's pretty Texas. 01:23:04.994 --> 01:23:05.354 Yeah. 01:23:05.804 --> 01:23:06.224 Nice. 01:23:06.614 --> 01:23:08.894 Rupert Isaacson: Could you read us your gray squirrel? 01:23:10.104 --> 01:23:10.704 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:23:11.694 --> 01:23:12.684 Can do that. 01:23:14.454 --> 01:23:16.074 Rupert Isaacson: Another will not be shamed animal. 01:23:16.074 --> 01:23:16.614 I love it. 01:23:18.504 --> 01:23:19.464 Jarod Anderson: Let me find it. 01:23:20.874 --> 01:23:23.664 You'd think I'd have ency encyclopedic knowledge of where 01:23:23.664 --> 01:23:24.894 things are in this book, but 01:23:24.894 --> 01:23:26.634 Rupert Isaacson: I can't remember anything that I write about. 01:23:26.634 --> 01:23:26.754 That's 01:23:26.754 --> 01:23:28.884 Jarod Anderson: just not how my brain works, you know? 01:23:29.634 --> 01:23:32.214 Rupert Isaacson: Also, I love to think about long, long format 01:23:32.214 --> 01:23:33.174 podcast is, it doesn't matter. 01:23:33.174 --> 01:23:34.314 You could take 10 minutes to find it. 01:23:34.314 --> 01:23:35.604 We weed, you know? 01:23:35.664 --> 01:23:36.204 Jarod Anderson: Oh, I love it. 01:23:36.444 --> 01:23:36.864 Yeah. 01:23:36.864 --> 01:23:41.694 I yeah, this is, this is my, my strange squirrel story here. 01:23:42.574 --> 01:23:49.084 I went to school for, for my master's in Athens, Ohio, which is this hilly town. 01:23:49.874 --> 01:23:51.734 It's in Appalachia, Ohio's interesting. 01:23:52.334 --> 01:23:55.004 Two thirds of it, flat corn fields, and that's where the 01:23:55.004 --> 01:23:56.744 glacier came down and stopped. 01:23:57.164 --> 01:24:00.614 But where the glacier stopped, that's where what is officially 01:24:00.644 --> 01:24:02.744 Appalachia and the US begins. 01:24:03.104 --> 01:24:08.934 And so a third sort of southern eastern counties of woods of 01:24:08.934 --> 01:24:11.244 Ohio are steep hills and woods. 01:24:11.274 --> 01:24:13.344 And that's not what people picture for Ohio. 01:24:13.344 --> 01:24:13.434 And 01:24:13.434 --> 01:24:14.814 Rupert Isaacson: stunningly beautiful, by the way. 01:24:14.874 --> 01:24:15.084 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:24:15.084 --> 01:24:15.534 Oh, I love it. 01:24:15.534 --> 01:24:15.924 Yeah. 01:24:15.984 --> 01:24:16.194 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:24:16.224 --> 01:24:17.274 Jarod Anderson: And so that's where I went. 01:24:17.274 --> 01:24:22.404 I went to, to university I, my memories of Athens, Ohio, the brick 01:24:22.404 --> 01:24:24.594 streets are always wet with rain. 01:24:25.074 --> 01:24:29.514 It's an unseasonably warm winter day that smells like overripe autumn. 01:24:29.934 --> 01:24:35.274 The sycamore is gleam like bleached bones, jutting from the hilltops, bright and 01:24:35.274 --> 01:24:42.084 distinct among the sober university halls re tan, bronze, and weathered concrete. 01:24:43.389 --> 01:24:48.909 On one such day, the one endless day of my Athens memories, I was walking to my 01:24:48.909 --> 01:24:53.919 English department office in Ellis Hall when I noticed a line of halted traffic. 01:24:54.849 --> 01:24:58.839 I couldn't see why they had stopped until I reached the front car. 01:24:59.649 --> 01:25:01.509 I made eye contact with the driver. 01:25:02.079 --> 01:25:04.629 She looked to the road and I followed her gaze. 01:25:05.229 --> 01:25:09.939 There on the wet bricks was a gray squirrel tailed down, limbs 01:25:09.939 --> 01:25:14.409 tucked inward, seemingly awake and aware, but stoned still. 01:25:15.339 --> 01:25:19.479 The driver gave me a micro shrug and continued to wait for the 01:25:19.479 --> 01:25:21.369 squirrel to do whatever it would do. 01:25:22.569 --> 01:25:26.529 Somewhere down the line of cars, a horn blasted, an angry 01:25:26.529 --> 01:25:29.889 voice rose and fell on impulse. 01:25:30.009 --> 01:25:31.359 I did something foolish. 01:25:31.929 --> 01:25:33.279 I walked up to the squirrel. 01:25:34.329 --> 01:25:35.259 She didn't move. 01:25:36.219 --> 01:25:39.459 I reached down and laid a hand on the squirrel's back. 01:25:40.179 --> 01:25:43.959 She was warm and her heartbeat drummed against my fingertips. 01:25:44.289 --> 01:25:45.399 She still didn't move. 01:25:46.269 --> 01:25:50.079 I scooped her up with two hands and carried her out of the street. 01:25:51.129 --> 01:25:55.599 And the years since that day, I have been acquainted with wildlife rehabber 01:25:55.869 --> 01:26:00.849 who have puckered scars from squirrel bites, but I had no such experience. 01:26:00.849 --> 01:26:06.879 Then behind me, I heard the traffic resume, tires muttering on slick brick. 01:26:07.674 --> 01:26:12.114 The squirrel was a soft furnace vibrating like a tiny engine. 01:26:12.984 --> 01:26:16.134 I considered what I knew about tending to injured wildlife, 01:26:16.164 --> 01:26:17.304 which was nothing at all. 01:26:18.294 --> 01:26:22.104 The Road University Terrace was cut into the hilltop, hemmed in 01:26:22.104 --> 01:26:26.634 by sidewalks and a low stone wall beyond which was a vast lawn. 01:26:27.414 --> 01:26:31.824 I don't recall anyone commenting on my actions, but Athens is an odd 01:26:31.824 --> 01:26:36.624 place, a small Appalachian college town where a man carrying a squirrel 01:26:36.624 --> 01:26:38.154 might not rate a second look. 01:26:39.414 --> 01:26:43.224 I placed the squirrel carefully in the grass and expected to spend the 01:26:43.224 --> 01:26:47.394 next few minutes as an uncomfortable witness to the small creature's final 01:26:47.394 --> 01:26:52.644 moments, standing sentinel as whatever injury that had stilled her body. 01:26:52.794 --> 01:26:54.174 Finished taking hold. 01:26:56.034 --> 01:26:59.064 I withdrew my hands and stood the moment. 01:26:59.064 --> 01:26:59.724 I did. 01:26:59.784 --> 01:27:04.944 The squirrel rose and raced off toward the nearest tree, a sprint and a leap. 01:27:05.154 --> 01:27:09.294 Her plane of motion shifting from horizontal to vertical as 01:27:09.294 --> 01:27:12.984 she skidded up the trunk, then vanished behind thick bows. 01:27:13.974 --> 01:27:18.984 I wondered at her experience of events, imagining her perspective, the fear 01:27:18.984 --> 01:27:24.234 in the road, the inscrutable cars, the touch of human skin, the return 01:27:24.234 --> 01:27:29.334 to grass into a frantic moment of escape, a rush, an arc through the 01:27:29.334 --> 01:27:34.494 air, the flat winter sparse horizon, transitioning to a branching highway, 01:27:34.554 --> 01:27:36.774 stretching up toward a limitless sky. 01:27:38.244 --> 01:27:42.234 I don't know if the squirrel had fallen and was momentarily stunned. 01:27:42.714 --> 01:27:46.614 I don't know if she visited the road to lick salt and lost consciousness 01:27:46.614 --> 01:27:48.474 due to some unguessable malady. 01:27:49.194 --> 01:27:54.294 All I know is that the change in position brick to grass, a return to 01:27:54.294 --> 01:27:59.364 a familiar context, unlocked whatever mechanism had held the creature. 01:27:59.364 --> 01:28:00.294 Motionless. 01:28:01.374 --> 01:28:07.194 We understand the world through stories, the stories we hear of others, 01:28:07.374 --> 01:28:09.534 role models and cautionary tales. 01:28:09.924 --> 01:28:14.184 The stories we tell about ourselves to ourselves, the constantly 01:28:14.184 --> 01:28:16.194 unfolding saga of identity. 01:28:17.154 --> 01:28:21.204 But what of the squirrels, they clearly function just fine. 01:28:21.204 --> 01:28:23.034 In a world without human narrative. 01:28:23.814 --> 01:28:28.734 Is it possible for us to step outside our own stories and imagine their worldview? 01:28:31.854 --> 01:28:37.374 So that story and placing it in the grass, unlocking it is kind of the 01:28:37.374 --> 01:28:44.304 beginning of me getting to the metaphor of sometimes the context is really what is 01:28:44.304 --> 01:28:47.454 important, and it can often be invisible. 01:28:48.114 --> 01:28:51.954 This idea that our identities are built of stories, our understanding 01:28:51.954 --> 01:28:53.754 of the world is built of stories. 01:28:54.324 --> 01:28:58.224 And at a very young age, we're handed a lot of stories that we 01:28:58.224 --> 01:29:00.774 internalize and those become. 01:29:01.554 --> 01:29:04.074 Our fundamental building blocks of reality. 01:29:04.974 --> 01:29:08.784 And so seeing those stories and understanding that as storytellers we have 01:29:08.784 --> 01:29:15.054 a role to play in shaping and reshaping them is such a key part of, of what I 01:29:15.054 --> 01:29:17.634 wanna tell people about mental illness. 01:29:19.302 --> 01:29:22.422 Rupert Isaacson: It's really interesting when one encounters these things 01:29:22.422 --> 01:29:28.992 in nature that seem to go against the physics of what should happen. 01:29:29.052 --> 01:29:35.202 Like when a squirrel not only sits their motionless and lets you pick it up, but 01:29:35.202 --> 01:29:36.882 then also doesn't panic and bite you. 01:29:37.212 --> 01:29:37.542 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:29:37.872 --> 01:29:41.772 Rupert Isaacson: But then seems to return to its immediate health and go, 01:29:41.772 --> 01:29:43.302 you know, what on earth is going on? 01:29:43.632 --> 01:29:45.612 And you have to walk away and say, I just don't know. 01:29:46.062 --> 01:29:46.212 Jarod Anderson: Mm-hmm. 01:29:46.812 --> 01:29:51.432 Rupert Isaacson: But I'm so grateful I had that experience. 01:29:52.002 --> 01:29:52.272 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:29:52.372 --> 01:29:54.427 Rupert Isaacson: And I think experiences like that in nature, 01:29:54.427 --> 01:30:00.607 those kinds of ordinary miracles, but nonetheless, when you tell anyone that 01:30:00.607 --> 01:30:02.347 story, they're like, whoa, no way. 01:30:02.557 --> 01:30:05.977 Because all of our understanding, all of our story around squirrels is not, 01:30:05.977 --> 01:30:13.867 that means that somehow something went on that allowed you to have that 01:30:13.867 --> 01:30:16.207 experience and then relate that experience 01:30:18.247 --> 01:30:19.417 in healing context. 01:30:19.417 --> 01:30:22.507 As you say, the context is always invisible, is often invisible. 01:30:22.507 --> 01:30:23.197 I like that. 01:30:23.437 --> 01:30:24.337 That I think in. 01:30:25.582 --> 01:30:27.082 A lot of things happen for healing. 01:30:28.262 --> 01:30:32.432 And I, I, I, we can't see it frequently at the time. 01:30:32.432 --> 01:30:34.892 Serendipity, I think, you know, comes into that. 01:30:35.462 --> 01:30:43.052 I'm often intrigued by why do animals and plants and rocks seem 01:30:43.052 --> 01:30:50.792 to sometimes see what we need and generously offer it across species. 01:30:51.992 --> 01:30:53.762 Why do you think that is? 01:30:56.912 --> 01:31:00.842 Jarod Anderson: I think, I think honestly the question is, is the thing that we 01:31:00.842 --> 01:31:06.632 have to interrogate because that idea that we internalize all these early 01:31:06.632 --> 01:31:12.602 stories, I think one of the big ones is this idea that we're visitors to 01:31:12.602 --> 01:31:17.852 nature, that we're like aliens coming and, and visiting and tending and 01:31:18.242 --> 01:31:20.932 controlling which is, you know, nonsense. 01:31:21.062 --> 01:31:22.952 It's manifestly untrue. 01:31:23.042 --> 01:31:27.512 Like every, every breath we take is a call and response with phytoplankton 01:31:27.512 --> 01:31:29.222 and the nations of forest. 01:31:29.222 --> 01:31:33.242 It's, we're only alive because we are fundamentally 01:31:33.242 --> 01:31:35.102 intrinsically part of nature. 01:31:35.222 --> 01:31:41.462 So why shouldn't it be there as, as family for us? 01:31:41.972 --> 01:31:42.062 Mm-hmm. 01:31:42.062 --> 01:31:46.292 And, and be reaching toward us anytime we reach for it. 01:31:46.472 --> 01:31:53.942 I mean, sometimes I, I find that just the intention of going to 01:31:53.942 --> 01:31:56.072 nature, and that could be the woods. 01:31:56.222 --> 01:31:59.312 You know, it could be, it could be looking into the sky. 01:32:00.002 --> 01:32:03.452 It could be finding a patch of like, and on a sidewalk, but going with 01:32:03.452 --> 01:32:08.642 the intent of connecting with the broader world and sort of the, the 01:32:08.642 --> 01:32:11.912 wholeness of, of the life around us. 01:32:11.912 --> 01:32:16.112 And, and that's part of our story and part of us just that intent 01:32:16.202 --> 01:32:20.222 is, I think where you find that nature is reaching back to help. 01:32:20.222 --> 01:32:20.312 Right. 01:32:20.432 --> 01:32:21.062 Give us what we need. 01:32:21.062 --> 01:32:22.322 Rupert Isaacson: We have to do the outreach. 01:32:22.382 --> 01:32:22.592 If 01:32:22.592 --> 01:32:23.012 Jarod Anderson: yes, 01:32:23.132 --> 01:32:25.202 Rupert Isaacson: yes, if we reach out it, we'll reach back. 01:32:25.652 --> 01:32:28.292 Jarod Anderson: And it can be imagination, you know, it can be 01:32:28.472 --> 01:32:30.782 physically going to nature, nature. 01:32:30.782 --> 01:32:32.132 Often it's both for me. 01:32:32.462 --> 01:32:32.522 Rupert Isaacson: Hmm. 01:32:32.672 --> 01:32:35.642 Jarod Anderson: But I find I do different kinds of reaching for different days. 01:32:35.642 --> 01:32:41.222 Like, there are days where I need movement and I will go and I will, I will do 01:32:41.822 --> 01:32:44.372 three miles in the woods pretty fast. 01:32:44.372 --> 01:32:48.542 And the movement and the trees and scanning my environment 01:32:48.542 --> 01:32:49.862 is what feels healing to me. 01:32:50.192 --> 01:32:55.412 And there are other days where I go, I walk until I can't see a, a 01:32:55.412 --> 01:32:58.742 parking lot or a car or, you know, I, I can't see anything but trees. 01:32:58.742 --> 01:33:04.112 And I just sit, I sit at the base of an oak tree very still and 01:33:04.112 --> 01:33:08.852 just let the scene unfold and. 01:33:09.827 --> 01:33:12.437 There's nothing stagnant or stationary about it. 01:33:12.617 --> 01:33:15.647 You know, as I sit all sorts of different animals come and 01:33:15.647 --> 01:33:16.967 visit, I see different things. 01:33:16.967 --> 01:33:18.077 I hear different things. 01:33:18.077 --> 01:33:20.657 It's a completely different experience than when I'm 01:33:20.657 --> 01:33:22.667 trying to put miles behind me. 01:33:23.387 --> 01:33:29.207 And it can be the same location, but those are very different experiences 01:33:29.267 --> 01:33:31.247 that fill different needs for me. 01:33:31.497 --> 01:33:35.337 So what we take with us is, what I'm saying is, is so important. 01:33:35.707 --> 01:33:37.297 Rupert Isaacson: I I also like the fact that you say it's all right to go 01:33:37.297 --> 01:33:38.587 into nature in these different moods. 01:33:38.587 --> 01:33:43.057 You know, frequently we're told we must go in there to be still, or we must go 01:33:43.057 --> 01:33:44.497 in there to forage, or we must go in. 01:33:44.497 --> 01:33:47.137 And, and, and the truth is we must go in there to do all these things. 01:33:47.317 --> 01:33:49.447 And, and no, no one is better than the other. 01:33:49.447 --> 01:33:51.097 'cause nature is where we live. 01:33:51.217 --> 01:33:52.087 It's planet Earth. 01:33:52.087 --> 01:33:56.107 We might have forgotten that, but outside the walls of the apartment 01:33:56.107 --> 01:33:58.987 that we are living in, actually it's, it's the same as it ever was. 01:33:59.287 --> 01:34:05.382 It, these ideas, these kind, you know, storytelling can be as negative as it's 01:34:05.382 --> 01:34:07.812 positive as you know, shame is a story. 01:34:08.382 --> 01:34:08.472 Mm-hmm. 01:34:09.102 --> 01:34:12.462 So your orbital kingfisher hunting out. 01:34:13.902 --> 01:34:16.932 The shame perhaps, and, and, and I'm projecting my own story 01:34:16.932 --> 01:34:18.192 onto your orbital king Fisher. 01:34:18.432 --> 01:34:22.002 'cause I'm deciding that I like the fact that it's hunting out shame. 01:34:22.032 --> 01:34:25.122 'cause that makes me feel healed in some way. 01:34:25.522 --> 01:34:28.132 It may at all not be what your idea of it was, but that's a 01:34:28.132 --> 01:34:29.152 lovely thing about stories. 01:34:29.152 --> 01:34:31.852 We can project ourselves, you know, into and through story. 01:34:32.162 --> 01:34:33.722 But the fact is it is a story. 01:34:34.592 --> 01:34:39.002 And you know, animals presumably must be living their own stories too, and 01:34:39.002 --> 01:34:44.282 having stories and trees must be having stories because we cannot be, if, 01:34:44.282 --> 01:34:47.372 if, if things are, if it's, if it's a conscious universe, if it's, if it's if 01:34:47.372 --> 01:34:53.312 interlocking fields, if, if the quantum state of reality is what physicists are 01:34:53.312 --> 01:34:58.402 now beginning to agree upon then how can we be the only storytellers out there? 01:34:58.432 --> 01:34:59.032 We can't. 01:34:59.422 --> 01:34:59.542 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:34:59.542 --> 01:35:02.122 Rupert Isaacson: It's just that, you know, so did your squirrel have a story? 01:35:02.302 --> 01:35:07.162 And the other thing I like about your squirrel story is that what 01:35:07.162 --> 01:35:10.102 really stands out to me naturally, of course, is the squirrel's 01:35:10.102 --> 01:35:13.042 behavior and, and the enigma of that. 01:35:13.462 --> 01:35:21.742 But also the lady in the car who was willing to stop and wait, knowing 01:35:21.742 --> 01:35:23.242 that all those people behind her. 01:35:23.992 --> 01:35:27.772 Eventually someone will probably get out and probably give her a hard time. 01:35:28.552 --> 01:35:30.442 But she was going to. 01:35:31.192 --> 01:35:32.692 Not run over that squirrel. 01:35:33.292 --> 01:35:36.802 And she also wasn't gonna get out of her car and try to chase the squirrel off. 01:35:37.282 --> 01:35:42.382 There was something in her that was saying, it's worth instinctively 01:35:42.382 --> 01:35:47.002 in this moment to give this squirrel the space, even though 01:35:47.002 --> 01:35:48.922 I'm going to be shamed by the Yeah. 01:35:49.252 --> 01:35:50.422 People behind me. 01:35:50.992 --> 01:35:53.212 And then also something that instinctively, and you 01:35:53.212 --> 01:35:55.912 said, this is the moment to 01:35:58.402 --> 01:36:00.862 take that story to its next chapter, 01:36:03.562 --> 01:36:05.512 that lady stopping the car. 01:36:06.952 --> 01:36:11.242 You picking the squirrel up, the squirrel not biting you. 01:36:12.742 --> 01:36:18.087 Again, just makes me think about how loving nature is this idea that it, you, 01:36:18.092 --> 01:36:19.762 you say something in the woods loves you. 01:36:21.062 --> 01:36:21.962 And we are the same. 01:36:21.962 --> 01:36:23.612 We are a very loving species. 01:36:24.062 --> 01:36:28.382 You know, not everyone automatically tries to run the squirrel over or chase it off. 01:36:29.102 --> 01:36:35.972 Not everybody instinctively thinks, well I, I can't pick that squirrel up because 01:36:36.122 --> 01:36:38.432 it might mess me up and, and it might. 01:36:39.272 --> 01:36:39.632 Jarod Anderson: Mm-hmm. 01:36:39.638 --> 01:36:42.782 Rupert Isaacson: But maybe your gut in that moment for whatever, you know, 01:36:42.842 --> 01:36:46.322 so they're the animals living this, there's nature living it's stories 01:36:46.322 --> 01:36:50.012 in, in relation to us, and there's. 01:36:50.117 --> 01:36:56.027 Th those three, you, the squirrel, the lady are all 01:36:56.027 --> 01:36:57.797 behaving in a very loving manner. 01:36:58.937 --> 01:36:59.207 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:36:59.597 --> 01:37:01.847 Rupert Isaacson: And that, that seems to me the basic energy 01:37:01.847 --> 01:37:03.257 of nature is that it is love 01:37:04.907 --> 01:37:08.927 Jarod Anderson: to, to go on a complete tangent here, but it's related my mind. 01:37:08.927 --> 01:37:11.572 That's, that's a thing I'm often thinking about in terms 01:37:11.632 --> 01:37:13.857 of modernity and social media. 01:37:13.947 --> 01:37:14.907 That worries me. 01:37:15.477 --> 01:37:19.857 Because I mean, what's the opposite of the idea that there's sort of 01:37:20.007 --> 01:37:23.007 internal loving mindset to reality? 01:37:23.277 --> 01:37:29.877 Well, social media and a lot of people seem to be living inside 01:37:29.877 --> 01:37:34.497 these virtual non-space as if it's their real environment these days. 01:37:34.497 --> 01:37:35.037 And 01:37:38.307 --> 01:37:43.347 I don't think everyone really understands the fact that it's 01:37:43.347 --> 01:37:44.817 not a natural environment. 01:37:44.907 --> 01:37:51.627 Like the algorithms we have science that show that it steers you toward posts, 01:37:51.627 --> 01:37:56.367 engagements meant to trigger kind of fear, anxiety, anger, because those capture 01:37:56.367 --> 01:37:59.127 your attention and keep you scrolling. 01:37:59.667 --> 01:38:04.647 And so we have these evolved brains that, you know, walk, 01:38:04.707 --> 01:38:06.957 walk the path, scan for threats. 01:38:07.407 --> 01:38:11.337 And then we have these, these marketing engineers who have 01:38:11.337 --> 01:38:13.167 found a way to kind of hack that. 01:38:14.247 --> 01:38:14.607 All right. 01:38:14.877 --> 01:38:18.672 We'll give you a thread, every three steps and then, you know, give 01:38:18.672 --> 01:38:19.072 Rupert Isaacson: your attention. 01:38:19.102 --> 01:38:19.392 Yeah, 01:38:19.462 --> 01:38:19.752 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 01:38:19.957 --> 01:38:24.397 And we find ourselves living in this, this space, and I feel like it's really 01:38:24.397 --> 01:38:30.427 doing some damage to the idea you were saying that nature is loving, that the 01:38:30.427 --> 01:38:34.087 world is loving, that there's something intrinsically loving to the universe. 01:38:35.077 --> 01:38:38.017 Well, there are a lot of people who are living through their screens and 01:38:38.017 --> 01:38:43.387 thinking that it's a window, it's not a window, it's not showing you reality. 01:38:43.387 --> 01:38:48.757 It's showing you a very specifically crafted kind of experience that is 01:38:48.757 --> 01:38:54.427 telling you that you live in a world of threat and, and danger and outrage. 01:38:55.207 --> 01:38:58.117 And that's not to say that, you know, a, a lot of the issues aren't 01:38:58.117 --> 01:39:03.787 real, are manufactured, but it's the concentration and intensity of 01:39:03.787 --> 01:39:08.557 the way you get them presented when you're living through, through screens 01:39:08.617 --> 01:39:11.737 instead of walking a landscape. 01:39:11.787 --> 01:39:12.197 Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm. 01:39:12.412 --> 01:39:15.262 Jarod Anderson: And it really worries me kind of about, about the general 01:39:15.262 --> 01:39:19.792 outlook I see in the zeitgeist about what nature is, what the world 01:39:19.792 --> 01:39:21.832 is, what our role is in nature. 01:39:22.942 --> 01:39:24.102 I yeah, go, go ahead. 01:39:24.162 --> 01:39:24.972 Rupert Isaacson: No, you go ahead. 01:39:25.422 --> 01:39:29.922 Jarod Anderson: Well, I, I got a, I've gotten messages before from people who 01:39:29.952 --> 01:39:36.122 just see humanity as a cancer and that it's a mistake and that, you know, 01:39:36.152 --> 01:39:38.252 we are, we're a but you'd be behaving 01:39:38.252 --> 01:39:39.302 Rupert Isaacson: like that that way a bit. 01:39:39.302 --> 01:39:39.722 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:39:39.722 --> 01:39:43.142 And, and certainly, you know, the, the threats and the harms are real. 01:39:43.142 --> 01:39:47.522 But the idea that there is no positive interaction between human beings 01:39:47.522 --> 01:39:51.302 and nature, that the best thing you can do is stay away or not exist. 01:39:51.412 --> 01:39:54.322 And, you know, that's, that's kind of heartbreaking as someone who 01:39:54.322 --> 01:40:00.082 feels like, you know, we're intrinsic parts of nature that we're, we're 01:40:00.082 --> 01:40:01.732 animals on the, on this planet. 01:40:02.872 --> 01:40:05.512 Rupert Isaacson: Well, also somebody who, who's, you know, you're wearing 01:40:05.512 --> 01:40:08.572 the mental health, you know, thing on your sleeve that, you know, it's, 01:40:08.572 --> 01:40:10.432 that's letting the, the shame story win. 01:40:10.462 --> 01:40:10.732 Right. 01:40:10.732 --> 01:40:12.712 You know, and you don't have shame. 01:40:12.712 --> 01:40:12.892 You 01:40:12.892 --> 01:40:13.642 Jarod Anderson: are shame. 01:40:13.642 --> 01:40:14.092 Yeah. 01:40:14.097 --> 01:40:15.322 Rupert Isaacson: That's, that's brutal. 01:40:15.322 --> 01:40:15.802 Indeed. 01:40:15.802 --> 01:40:15.812 Indeed. 01:40:16.102 --> 01:40:17.242 We are shame all of us. 01:40:17.242 --> 01:40:17.422 Yeah. 01:40:17.812 --> 01:40:26.572 But the, what I would say to that, 'cause I'm an eternal optimist, is while 01:40:26.572 --> 01:40:31.522 it is true that people have replaced sex cells with fear cells, with anger 01:40:31.522 --> 01:40:36.832 cells, and that is kind of been the progression of the social media evolution. 01:40:37.072 --> 01:40:41.722 What is also true in those algorithms is people are going to find your book and 01:40:41.722 --> 01:40:45.562 they're going to find this conversation through an algorithm, and they're going 01:40:45.562 --> 01:40:52.072 to find a conversation about why shame is actually a construct through an algorithm. 01:40:52.072 --> 01:40:57.712 And they're going to find a conversation about why we are a loving species. 01:40:58.612 --> 01:41:00.532 And nature is essentially. 01:41:00.952 --> 01:41:02.962 Benign, I think, through an algorithm. 01:41:02.962 --> 01:41:08.092 So no matter how much social media tries to do that, or the architects 01:41:08.782 --> 01:41:14.882 who are perhaps not such great actors who are controlling it, 01:41:15.572 --> 01:41:15.902 Jarod Anderson: yeah. 01:41:15.962 --> 01:41:20.552 Rupert Isaacson: Even they can't control the natural mycelium type 01:41:20.552 --> 01:41:23.072 growth of the whole thing to say. 01:41:23.072 --> 01:41:23.312 Yeah. 01:41:23.312 --> 01:41:27.032 But, you know, Ru and Jared are gonna kind of come together through Ru's 01:41:27.032 --> 01:41:31.292 mate Liana, who's doing this work for the, in the, you know, penitentiaries 01:41:31.652 --> 01:41:34.222 or whatever, the Lockdowns in Michigan and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. 01:41:34.472 --> 01:41:39.872 And, you know, well that's gonna come through an algorithm too, 01:41:39.872 --> 01:41:41.222 so I wouldn't have found you. 01:41:41.252 --> 01:41:41.582 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:41:41.642 --> 01:41:41.852 Rupert Isaacson: It's, 01:41:42.002 --> 01:41:42.182 Jarod Anderson: it's a 01:41:42.182 --> 01:41:42.572 Rupert Isaacson: good point. 01:41:42.572 --> 01:41:43.232 I, yeah, 01:41:43.772 --> 01:41:46.832 Jarod Anderson: I live on a little one way street next to a, a cemetery 01:41:46.832 --> 01:41:48.182 in a town that isn't very big. 01:41:48.212 --> 01:41:52.532 So Yeah, I'm, I'm having a lovely conversation with a writer in Spain right 01:41:52.532 --> 01:41:55.442 now, and that's, there's no reason that would be happening if not for Right. 01:41:55.442 --> 01:41:56.402 We're the technology 01:41:56.402 --> 01:41:57.857 Rupert Isaacson: because this will go through YouTube and 01:41:58.322 --> 01:41:58.562 Yeah. 01:41:58.562 --> 01:42:01.712 Rupert Isaacson: Apple or something or other, and all those other portals 01:42:01.712 --> 01:42:03.302 that people find these conversations. 01:42:03.302 --> 01:42:04.322 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, yeah. 01:42:04.322 --> 01:42:05.312 The connection is real. 01:42:05.312 --> 01:42:09.502 I just sometimes worry about, about you know, in terms of intentionality, 01:42:09.502 --> 01:42:10.552 ly context, a couple of old 01:42:10.552 --> 01:42:11.482 Rupert Isaacson: buggers, but Yeah. 01:42:11.542 --> 01:42:15.172 Jarod Anderson: Well, yeah, but the, the intentionality and context 01:42:15.172 --> 01:42:17.242 and just kind of being aware of. 01:42:18.517 --> 01:42:19.807 Storytelling animals. 01:42:20.017 --> 01:42:23.497 We understand the world and our place and through stories, but there are so many 01:42:23.497 --> 01:42:30.217 people there ready to hand you a pre-made story and without your participation. 01:42:30.217 --> 01:42:34.297 And just being a little bit aware of that and what impact it has 01:42:34.297 --> 01:42:41.467 on you is, is, is a huge just a vital, a vital task for all of us. 01:42:41.537 --> 01:42:44.867 Because a lot of people will hand you stories that, that have nothing to do 01:42:44.867 --> 01:42:47.387 with serving you or, or your happiness. 01:42:47.392 --> 01:42:47.912 Rupert Isaacson: Certainly. 01:42:48.107 --> 01:42:48.767 Certainly. 01:42:49.187 --> 01:42:53.037 And we've had that since we've had, you know, cautionary fairytales and scaring 01:42:53.037 --> 01:42:55.107 each other around the fires at night. 01:42:55.437 --> 01:42:56.247 Jarod Anderson: Homilies 01:42:56.607 --> 01:42:58.347 Rupert Isaacson: right now, some of those things are actually 01:42:58.347 --> 01:42:59.517 designed to keep you alive. 01:42:59.947 --> 01:43:03.997 But also you can just tell 'em 'cause they're scary just for the sake of scare. 01:43:04.477 --> 01:43:04.567 Yeah. 01:43:04.647 --> 01:43:08.067 The thing about, you know, one could say, well, all you need to 01:43:08.067 --> 01:43:11.877 do in order to rebel against that is go for a walk in the woods. 01:43:12.957 --> 01:43:15.747 And then I thought, yeah, but what if you can't reach the woods? 01:43:15.752 --> 01:43:16.052 Mm-hmm. 01:43:16.137 --> 01:43:24.667 And I had this writing student who was a little girl from South Korea who 01:43:24.697 --> 01:43:27.227 came to us in Germany to our stable. 01:43:27.617 --> 01:43:28.867 And she was. 01:43:29.287 --> 01:43:34.057 Passionate about horses, had her between the ages of eight and 10, and she was one 01:43:34.057 --> 01:43:36.697 of the sweetest human beings I've ever come across to the point that people in 01:43:36.697 --> 01:43:40.957 my team, we'd almost fight for who got, who got to go with Suji that day, we'd 01:43:40.957 --> 01:43:42.367 be like, no, no, you had her last week. 01:43:42.517 --> 01:43:44.617 Because just being in her presence was really healing. 01:43:44.617 --> 01:43:46.537 She was just one of those people that carried that light. 01:43:47.437 --> 01:43:52.207 And she knew she was gonna have to go back to Seoul, and that when she got 01:43:52.207 --> 01:43:56.977 back to Seoul, there would be no horses and there would be no German forest. 01:43:57.937 --> 01:44:04.367 And when the week came approaching her having to go back, I was 01:44:04.367 --> 01:44:05.447 thinking, what, what can I do? 01:44:05.447 --> 01:44:06.167 What can I do? 01:44:06.897 --> 01:44:11.037 And I thought what I need to do is implant this experience of riding in the German 01:44:11.037 --> 01:44:16.917 forest in her psyche in a way that she feels she can call upon it anytime. 01:44:17.607 --> 01:44:25.227 So we made these rides, meditations into imagining herself in an apartment 01:44:25.227 --> 01:44:29.337 in Seoul, imagining this ride, and then imagining where the ride would lead 01:44:29.637 --> 01:44:35.727 and watching herself grow up and making money, and then being able to buy horses 01:44:35.727 --> 01:44:40.197 and then being able to buy a place in the forest and being able to find 01:44:40.197 --> 01:44:43.947 a partner that liked horses and live that life and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. 01:44:43.947 --> 01:44:47.457 And she then really ran with this and began to construct 01:44:47.457 --> 01:44:49.107 her own stories as we rode. 01:44:49.817 --> 01:44:53.567 And that occasionally she, of course, she did go back to Saul and 01:44:53.567 --> 01:44:55.817 exactly what she feared happened. 01:44:56.282 --> 01:44:58.412 Would happen, would happen, happened. 01:44:59.342 --> 01:45:04.862 But she does write me from time to time and say, I follow those stories and 01:45:04.862 --> 01:45:10.292 I know that those stories will lead me to back to a horse in a forest. 01:45:10.892 --> 01:45:15.632 I think the work that you are doing where you say, okay, let's say you 01:45:15.632 --> 01:45:21.182 can't get into nature, but you can imagine it and maybe you don't know 01:45:21.462 --> 01:45:23.742 maybe you're not a actress, you're not a budding David Attenberg. 01:45:23.742 --> 01:45:27.132 So you dunno what tree it is or what bird it is and okay, then there's 01:45:27.132 --> 01:45:31.752 the shame of not, or you can imagine something completely different like you 01:45:32.382 --> 01:45:35.082 horned wolf or your orbital kingfisher. 01:45:35.232 --> 01:45:39.352 And if I've been at the trance fires with the sun Bushman healers and they 01:45:39.352 --> 01:45:43.132 describe to me the entities that they encounter when they're in the spirit 01:45:43.132 --> 01:45:48.832 world, many of them are not dissimilar from the orbital kingfisher and the many 01:45:48.832 --> 01:45:51.112 miles shadow and the, and the horned wolf. 01:45:51.112 --> 01:45:53.752 You know, we are love it the species that we are, we're going to come up 01:45:53.752 --> 01:45:57.142 with these metaphors, you know, no matter where we are 'cause nature's 01:45:57.142 --> 01:45:58.462 in us and we are nature and so on. 01:45:58.672 --> 01:46:03.622 But one of the things I love about your work is that for people who are 01:46:03.622 --> 01:46:06.772 in that situation, whether they're like my friendly Anna's people who 01:46:06.772 --> 01:46:11.692 are perhaps not able to access nature despite living in the middle of Michigan, 01:46:12.652 --> 01:46:14.577 unless she takes them out in it or it's. 01:46:15.337 --> 01:46:20.767 My friend Suji there in Seoul, or even just someone who is in nature, but 01:46:20.767 --> 01:46:25.417 just so locked in their head through depression that they can't feel they 01:46:25.417 --> 01:46:26.797 can access the loving side of it. 01:46:26.797 --> 01:46:31.147 I think that those works of imagination bring imagination and nature together, 01:46:31.717 --> 01:46:38.017 which is a shamanic experience as old as humanity itself, but must be reinvented 01:46:38.017 --> 01:46:40.327 and reinterpreted for every generation. 01:46:41.587 --> 01:46:42.757 You're doing that work. 01:46:44.077 --> 01:46:44.437 Jarod Anderson: Oh, thank you. 01:46:44.437 --> 01:46:45.187 I think it's you. 01:46:45.637 --> 01:46:46.687 Rupert Isaacson: You are doing healing work. 01:46:46.687 --> 01:46:46.957 Yeah. 01:46:47.887 --> 01:46:49.357 Jarod Anderson: Can I read a poem or two? 01:46:49.417 --> 01:46:49.537 Rupert Isaacson: I 01:46:49.537 --> 01:46:49.747 was 01:46:49.747 --> 01:46:50.557 Jarod Anderson: reading into this topic. 01:46:50.857 --> 01:46:51.217 Rupert Isaacson: Yes. 01:46:51.667 --> 01:46:52.027 Jarod Anderson: All right. 01:46:52.027 --> 01:46:55.547 You're you, you made me think of a poem here that this is a poem called 01:46:55.547 --> 01:46:58.337 Orcas, which I do not have in Ohio. 01:46:59.747 --> 01:47:00.557 Somewhere. 01:47:00.587 --> 01:47:01.907 There are orcas. 01:47:02.507 --> 01:47:07.487 I'm in my little gray house in Ohio surrounded by the stale air of winter 01:47:07.487 --> 01:47:11.147 indoors, but somewhere there are orcas. 01:47:11.807 --> 01:47:13.727 It's an easy fact to forget. 01:47:14.327 --> 01:47:19.307 It's easy to shrink your world to what you can see, but thankfully 01:47:19.607 --> 01:47:21.887 somewhere there are orcas. 01:47:22.607 --> 01:47:28.427 Sometimes my world is all sun faded, plastic scrolled along the roadside 01:47:28.427 --> 01:47:30.647 and a scribble of petty meanness. 01:47:31.187 --> 01:47:33.767 But somewhere there are orcas. 01:47:34.637 --> 01:47:39.287 We all know facts that are as inert as chalk dust, but 01:47:39.287 --> 01:47:41.357 some knowledge is medicine. 01:47:46.097 --> 01:47:51.107 So I, I never see orcas, but they can still be medicine for me. 01:47:51.207 --> 01:47:54.327 And sometimes I reach for the fantastical in imagination, and 01:47:54.327 --> 01:47:57.537 sometimes I reach for just literal facts. 01:47:58.227 --> 01:48:00.837 And sometimes it's animals and sometimes it's a concept. 01:48:00.867 --> 01:48:04.527 Let me, let me drop one short poem on you, that it's a concept 01:48:04.527 --> 01:48:06.297 in nature poem that, that I love. 01:48:06.847 --> 01:48:08.467 This one's called Naming the River. 01:48:09.607 --> 01:48:12.577 The water in your body is just visiting. 01:48:13.327 --> 01:48:15.577 It was a thunderstorm a week ago. 01:48:16.177 --> 01:48:17.467 It will be an ocean. 01:48:17.467 --> 01:48:22.447 Soon enough, most of your cells come and go like, morning due. 01:48:23.377 --> 01:48:26.227 We are more weather pattern than stone monument. 01:48:26.617 --> 01:48:28.057 Sunlight on mist. 01:48:28.477 --> 01:48:29.467 Summer lightning. 01:48:30.067 --> 01:48:32.467 Your choices outweigh your substance. 01:48:34.537 --> 01:48:41.797 Like I, I'm constantly ruminating on what just the bare facts of my physical reality 01:48:41.797 --> 01:48:48.547 are, and then taking those and running them through a filter or a lens of, of 01:48:48.547 --> 01:48:55.867 my imagination, taking my sense of wonder and connection, and then letting that 01:48:55.867 --> 01:48:59.557 interpret these, these bare facts for me. 01:48:59.737 --> 01:49:06.157 And even when I can't get out of the house sometimes that's all I need too. 01:49:06.907 --> 01:49:08.917 To feel that connection to nature. 01:49:09.397 --> 01:49:12.667 Which is funny because sometimes it feels like a leap of faith. 01:49:12.667 --> 01:49:19.027 And, and other times I think to myself, well, all I'm doing is looking at sort 01:49:19.027 --> 01:49:24.907 of bare uncontestable facts, like, like the water cycle or orcas exist. 01:49:25.567 --> 01:49:31.357 And I have a 6-year-old son who, who sometimes reminds me of this process 01:49:31.387 --> 01:49:33.337 just, just through his questions. 01:49:33.337 --> 01:49:37.267 I mean, he, he came up to me once and asked me if electric eels were real. 01:49:38.257 --> 01:49:41.617 And I thought, wow, what a reasonable question and, and what 01:49:41.617 --> 01:49:43.507 a bizarre answer I have for you. 01:49:44.527 --> 01:49:45.037 Yes. 01:49:45.757 --> 01:49:46.477 And I've seen him 01:49:46.477 --> 01:49:48.937 Rupert Isaacson: and thank heavens that my answer is the bizarre one. 01:49:49.087 --> 01:49:49.567 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:49:50.347 --> 01:49:54.067 But I mean, so much of our, of the bare facts of our world are bizarre. 01:49:54.067 --> 01:49:58.357 It's just that it can fade from, from your mind and from your 01:49:58.357 --> 01:50:00.607 awareness through familiarity. 01:50:01.867 --> 01:50:06.307 But I've seen my son shake with excitement about a bumblebee, you know? 01:50:06.307 --> 01:50:06.517 Yeah. 01:50:06.697 --> 01:50:11.947 And, and if you think you'd been, let's use our imaginations and think 01:50:11.947 --> 01:50:16.477 we've been traveling through space for a thousand years, and you're in 01:50:16.477 --> 01:50:20.917 a vacuum, and you're in, you're in a, a clean, white lined spaceship. 01:50:21.217 --> 01:50:22.567 Traveling, traveling, traveling. 01:50:23.377 --> 01:50:25.177 And you encounter a bumblebee. 01:50:26.017 --> 01:50:32.437 What a singular, fascinating alien, amazing mind blowing thing. 01:50:32.887 --> 01:50:33.217 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:50:34.327 --> 01:50:36.877 Jarod Anderson: And, you know, we, we can take for granted that, 01:50:36.997 --> 01:50:40.967 that I see 'em bouncing around the forest floor in, in May. 01:50:40.967 --> 01:50:46.067 But, but I try not to let that familiarity rob me. 01:50:46.457 --> 01:50:48.827 I mean, I said lichen on a sidewalk earlier. 01:50:49.307 --> 01:50:52.577 If you don't know, look into what lichen is like. 01:50:52.577 --> 01:50:55.127 Lichen is two animals living together. 01:50:55.127 --> 01:50:56.957 It's a garden and it's a gardener. 01:50:56.957 --> 01:50:57.797 It's a shepherd. 01:50:57.797 --> 01:51:03.377 And it's, it's a, it's a herd and it's hard to tell which is which when 01:51:03.377 --> 01:51:07.667 you're looking at the photosynthesizing organism and the fungi and like 01:51:08.027 --> 01:51:13.247 lichen is fascinating and I kind of defy you to show me a place where you 01:51:13.247 --> 01:51:17.717 can't find it outside of, you know, the permafrost, you can find lichen. 01:51:18.647 --> 01:51:21.797 It's just reaching for the wonder. 01:51:21.947 --> 01:51:27.287 If you really reach sincerely for wonder and, and you come to it as a student, 01:51:27.587 --> 01:51:29.477 I think you will find it reaching back. 01:51:30.467 --> 01:51:33.257 Rupert Isaacson: If you reach for wonder and you come at it as a student, 01:51:33.347 --> 01:51:34.997 you will find it reaching back. 01:51:35.147 --> 01:51:36.047 Have you written that down? 01:51:36.827 --> 01:51:37.337 Jarod Anderson: No, 01:51:37.667 --> 01:51:38.042 Rupert Isaacson: I think you should. 01:51:38.122 --> 01:51:38.362 I should. 01:51:38.362 --> 01:51:38.522 Huh? 01:51:38.522 --> 01:51:39.082 Should that down? 01:51:39.887 --> 01:51:40.187 Jarod Anderson: I have, 01:51:41.177 --> 01:51:42.227 Rupert Isaacson: I want 50%. 01:51:42.287 --> 01:51:43.337 No, I mean 80. 01:51:43.337 --> 01:51:43.637 Sorry. 01:51:43.637 --> 01:51:43.877 As you're, 01:51:44.147 --> 01:51:46.337 Jarod Anderson: thank you for your writer brain pointing out that I should 01:51:46.577 --> 01:51:46.847 Rupert Isaacson: Yes. 01:51:47.117 --> 01:51:48.077 Write it down quickly. 01:51:48.077 --> 01:51:49.007 That is very good. 01:51:50.198 --> 01:51:52.148 Jarod Anderson: I mean, the student part is important, right? 01:51:52.238 --> 01:51:52.928 It's, I think 01:51:53.258 --> 01:51:54.128 Rupert Isaacson: because it's humility. 01:51:54.578 --> 01:51:54.998 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:51:55.058 --> 01:51:59.678 And, and the times I have felt most stuck and trapped and stagnant in my life is 01:51:59.678 --> 01:52:03.578 when I, I let my ego get out in front. 01:52:03.818 --> 01:52:04.028 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:52:04.028 --> 01:52:09.608 Jarod Anderson: And like, I've figured it all out and it sucks, you know? 01:52:10.538 --> 01:52:13.778 Rupert Isaacson: Well, because figuring stuff out, figuring it all out would suck. 01:52:14.528 --> 01:52:14.948 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:52:15.013 --> 01:52:15.443 Rupert Isaacson: Isn't that 01:52:15.518 --> 01:52:16.568 Jarod Anderson: and is impossible. 01:52:16.628 --> 01:52:19.568 Like I, I sometimes look out my, my window here and, you know, I 01:52:19.568 --> 01:52:25.058 can see a blue spruce tree and if I dedicated my entire life to just 01:52:25.058 --> 01:52:27.068 being a student of that one tree. 01:52:27.248 --> 01:52:27.518 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:52:27.523 --> 01:52:27.543 I 01:52:27.543 --> 01:52:30.428 Jarod Anderson: don't, I don't know that I ever stopped being a neophyte, 01:52:30.638 --> 01:52:34.388 a newcomer into what that tree is and does and feels and how it's 01:52:34.388 --> 01:52:38.948 connected with a host of microorganisms in the soil and on and on and on. 01:52:38.953 --> 01:52:39.223 Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm. 01:52:39.223 --> 01:52:39.623 Mm-hmm. 01:52:39.778 --> 01:52:41.458 Jarod Anderson: And that's just one tree I can see. 01:52:41.458 --> 01:52:46.468 Like, the world is amazing and full of limitless opportunities to be amazed. 01:52:46.738 --> 01:52:46.888 Rupert Isaacson: Yes. 01:52:47.668 --> 01:52:50.458 Jarod Anderson: But she's not gonna kick down your door, you know, 01:52:50.548 --> 01:52:53.008 you do have to, you do have to go. 01:52:53.678 --> 01:52:56.708 Or just open yourself up and invite it in. 01:52:57.668 --> 01:52:58.208 Rupert Isaacson: Yes. 01:53:00.728 --> 01:53:05.438 Listen, we are at the two hour mark. 01:53:07.028 --> 01:53:10.238 I would like you to come back on this show. 01:53:10.688 --> 01:53:10.988 Jarod Anderson: Great. 01:53:11.018 --> 01:53:14.588 Rupert Isaacson: And talk about some specific things about some of the, 01:53:14.948 --> 01:53:20.088 the themes that we've touched on particularly somewhere there at Orcus. 01:53:20.898 --> 01:53:21.198 Jarod Anderson: Hmm. 01:53:21.438 --> 01:53:23.748 Rupert Isaacson: Because yeah, this idea that 01:53:25.938 --> 01:53:28.908 the fact that it exists beyond your site can give you fact. 01:53:28.908 --> 01:53:30.948 Like, you know, people say, well, prove to me that God 01:53:30.948 --> 01:53:32.268 exists 'cause you can't see him. 01:53:33.018 --> 01:53:34.488 That's a really nice analogy. 01:53:34.488 --> 01:53:35.808 It's like, well, I can't see orcas. 01:53:36.618 --> 01:53:36.828 Jarod Anderson: Hmm. 01:53:37.278 --> 01:53:38.178 Rupert Isaacson: But I know they're there. 01:53:39.048 --> 01:53:39.138 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:53:39.218 --> 01:53:39.698 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:53:39.698 --> 01:53:43.358 I haven't seen a documentary with David Ner about God with pictures of 01:53:43.358 --> 01:53:48.128 God, you know, ju leaping through the Arctic Ocean, unless the orcas are God. 01:53:48.818 --> 01:53:49.088 And then I, 01:53:49.093 --> 01:53:50.678 Jarod Anderson: I think I'd rather have Steve Irwin on that one. 01:53:50.678 --> 01:53:50.768 I know. 01:53:53.718 --> 01:53:56.448 Rupert Isaacson: So I think people are gonna, you know, 01:53:56.448 --> 01:53:57.928 find you have a website, right? 01:53:58.498 --> 01:53:59.368 Tell us the website. 01:53:59.398 --> 01:53:59.758 Jarod Anderson: I do. 01:54:00.178 --> 01:54:00.448 I do. 01:54:00.448 --> 01:54:02.668 It's, it's jared k anderson.com 01:54:02.668 --> 01:54:06.088 or you can find me anywhere on social media as Jared k Anderson 01:54:06.088 --> 01:54:07.768 or the Crypto naturalist. 01:54:08.098 --> 01:54:10.528 Rupert Isaacson: And the, is the crypto naturalist still going? 01:54:10.528 --> 01:54:11.378 The podcast? 01:54:11.738 --> 01:54:15.728 Jarod Anderson: It's on hiatus, but there are, I think, 70 episodes up. 01:54:15.768 --> 01:54:16.988 And you can kind of start anywhere 01:54:17.168 --> 01:54:18.148 Rupert Isaacson: to get their teeth into that. 01:54:18.578 --> 01:54:18.868 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:54:19.213 --> 01:54:21.853 And now this, the book I have coming out in February is sort of 01:54:21.853 --> 01:54:24.163 a, a capstone to that whole series. 01:54:24.163 --> 01:54:24.313 So 01:54:24.313 --> 01:54:26.823 Rupert Isaacson: tell us again the, the, the name of the the book, 01:54:27.103 --> 01:54:30.553 Jarod Anderson: It's called Strange Animals, and it comes out February 10th. 01:54:31.483 --> 01:54:32.533 Rupert Isaacson: Ballantine books. 01:54:33.073 --> 01:54:33.373 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:54:33.373 --> 01:54:38.423 Which, which I was really warmed by them buying it because I, my copy 01:54:38.423 --> 01:54:40.103 of The Hobbit was from Ballantine. 01:54:40.103 --> 01:54:43.313 They're, they're sort of an old classic fantasy publisher. 01:54:43.313 --> 01:54:46.793 So there were, there were maybe a few tiers when, when they 01:54:46.793 --> 01:54:48.833 decided to, to publish that novel. 01:54:49.883 --> 01:54:51.563 Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna ask you to leave us with one more poem. 01:54:52.613 --> 01:54:53.363 Jarod Anderson: Absolutely. 01:54:54.353 --> 01:54:54.833 Hmm. 01:54:54.893 --> 01:54:55.763 Choices. 01:54:58.278 --> 01:54:58.578 All right. 01:54:58.583 --> 01:55:01.343 I think I have an appropriate one for us here. 01:55:03.803 --> 01:55:05.333 This one's called Woodland U. 01:55:07.223 --> 01:55:11.333 It's easy to look at the contours of a forest and feel 01:55:11.333 --> 01:55:13.193 a bone deep love for nature. 01:55:14.063 --> 01:55:18.923 It's less easy to remember that the contours of your own body represent the 01:55:18.923 --> 01:55:25.223 exact same nature, the pathways of your mind, your dreams, dark and strange as 01:55:25.223 --> 01:55:27.653 sprouts curling beneath a flat rock. 01:55:28.223 --> 01:55:32.663 Your regret bitter as the citrus rock of old cut grass. 01:55:33.353 --> 01:55:34.763 It's the same as the nature. 01:55:34.763 --> 01:55:39.863 You make time to love that you practice loving the forest, the 01:55:39.863 --> 01:55:42.863 meadow, the sweeping arm of a galaxy. 01:55:43.583 --> 01:55:49.133 You are as natural as any postcard landscape, and deserve the same love. 01:55:57.593 --> 01:55:59.513 Rupert Isaacson: I'm very glad that my friend Leanna turned me onto you, 01:55:59.723 --> 01:56:00.953 and I'm very glad that, thank you. 01:56:00.953 --> 01:56:02.963 Other listeners asked me to have you on. 01:56:03.593 --> 01:56:04.043 I would come 01:56:04.043 --> 01:56:04.133 Jarod Anderson: back. 01:56:04.133 --> 01:56:04.373 Thank you. 01:56:05.063 --> 01:56:05.603 I'd love to. 01:56:05.783 --> 01:56:06.773 Yeah, I would love to. 01:56:07.433 --> 01:56:10.493 I you might, you might have gotten a sense I could talk about these things forever, 01:56:10.553 --> 01:56:14.483 so I I had no idea that was two hours. 01:56:14.483 --> 01:56:14.663 If you 01:56:14.663 --> 01:56:15.288 Rupert Isaacson: hadn't, we enjoy it. 01:56:15.803 --> 01:56:17.483 Well, that's the lovely thing about these long format. 01:56:17.483 --> 01:56:21.053 I, I, I love the fact that one has the freedom to explore. 01:56:21.053 --> 01:56:24.223 Like this is, you know, I I, it was always something which I always 01:56:24.223 --> 01:56:26.353 found, you know, rather stressful. 01:56:26.503 --> 01:56:29.743 You know, when people interview you and you know, you've gotta be interviewed 01:56:29.743 --> 01:56:33.973 and plug the book, blah, blah, blah, and they, you know, you know, you've got 15 01:56:33.973 --> 01:56:36.763 minutes or you've got eight minutes, or you've got three minutes, or you've got 01:56:36.793 --> 01:56:37.033 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:56:37.693 --> 01:56:40.003 Rupert Isaacson: That's what I love about podcasts and maybe this is one of the, 01:56:40.003 --> 01:56:42.313 the nice things about social media now 01:56:42.313 --> 01:56:42.613 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:56:42.823 --> 01:56:46.153 Rupert Isaacson: Is actually, you know, you can just let, let it unfold 01:56:46.153 --> 01:56:49.063 naturally because, you know, people are just gonna listen to it in chunks. 01:56:50.023 --> 01:56:50.083 Yeah. 01:56:50.443 --> 01:56:53.683 Jarod Anderson: I've never, I never like a podcast and wish it was shorter. 01:56:53.743 --> 01:56:55.543 I don't, I don't understand the mindset of No 01:56:55.933 --> 01:56:57.613 Rupert Isaacson: un unless it just happens to be a great 01:56:57.613 --> 01:56:58.993 short conversation, then Sure. 01:56:59.053 --> 01:56:59.383 Brilliant. 01:56:59.383 --> 01:56:59.563 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:57:00.133 --> 01:57:02.983 Rupert Isaacson: But yes to say, well this is a 20 minute format. 01:57:04.213 --> 01:57:06.793 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, it's, it, it's me thinking of, of, of shows. 01:57:06.793 --> 01:57:10.273 I know where they cut the interview off because they're reaching the, 01:57:10.363 --> 01:57:11.803 the 30 minute mark or something. 01:57:11.808 --> 01:57:12.258 It's like, why? 01:57:12.403 --> 01:57:13.303 It's a podcast. 01:57:13.303 --> 01:57:16.033 It's not like you're, you're in the way of the next show. 01:57:16.033 --> 01:57:16.753 Like, just keep going. 01:57:16.753 --> 01:57:16.993 Right. 01:57:17.263 --> 01:57:17.533 You know? 01:57:17.563 --> 01:57:19.303 Rupert Isaacson: It's because the podcaster has to go change the 01:57:19.303 --> 01:57:20.293 nappy on his kid or something. 01:57:20.293 --> 01:57:22.418 Jarod Anderson: Well, that, yeah, that could be, that could be right. 01:57:22.483 --> 01:57:22.903 Yeah. 01:57:23.383 --> 01:57:24.493 Well, thank you so much. 01:57:24.493 --> 01:57:26.413 This, this has been so lovely and yeah, yeah. 01:57:26.413 --> 01:57:26.623 Really nice. 01:57:26.623 --> 01:57:28.483 Excited to talk, talk to you again. 01:57:28.933 --> 01:57:30.613 Rupert Isaacson: I'm, I'm really grateful for this. 01:57:30.613 --> 01:57:31.723 It was, it was brilliant. 01:57:31.933 --> 01:57:33.733 I'm gonna go feed ponies. 01:57:33.893 --> 01:57:34.193 Jarod Anderson: All right. 01:57:34.518 --> 01:57:36.048 I'm gonna try to get some words written. 01:57:36.648 --> 01:57:37.278 Wish me luck. 01:57:37.278 --> 01:57:39.738 Rupert Isaacson: Well, now I'm feeling shamed, so I, I better go. 01:57:40.758 --> 01:57:41.508 It's not your fault. 01:57:41.868 --> 01:57:43.038 But it's, no, it's inspiration. 01:57:43.038 --> 01:57:44.718 I need to, I need to work a bit more on that. 01:57:44.718 --> 01:57:49.098 Jarod Anderson: I'm, I'm up against a the dandelion book is due in, in January. 01:57:49.208 --> 01:57:49.688 So, 01:57:50.048 --> 01:57:51.278 Rupert Isaacson: but we love a good deadline. 01:57:51.308 --> 01:57:54.068 It's, it's, it's, I love a good deadline. 01:57:54.398 --> 01:57:54.848 Jarod Anderson: We do. 01:57:54.848 --> 01:57:58.688 I, I, I both hate them and recognize their value, and so we need 01:57:58.688 --> 01:57:58.898 ' Rupert Isaacson: em. 01:57:59.318 --> 01:57:59.588 Jarod Anderson: Yeah. 01:57:59.623 --> 01:58:03.023 I, I, I keep jumping into them because I know it's, it's how I get things 01:58:03.023 --> 01:58:03.143 Rupert Isaacson: done. 01:58:03.143 --> 01:58:03.313 It's nature. 01:58:03.313 --> 01:58:07.778 Again, you're not gonna go hunt and lay down the meat for winter and the 01:58:07.778 --> 01:58:09.638 firewood unless, you know winter's coming. 01:58:10.238 --> 01:58:11.183 Jarod Anderson: Yeah, yeah. 01:58:11.198 --> 01:58:11.708 Yeah. 01:58:12.128 --> 01:58:15.158 Jarod Anderson: It's one of the one grateful things I am too, about being 01:58:15.158 --> 01:58:18.398 in traditional publishing because I self-publish the poetry collections 01:58:18.398 --> 01:58:20.588 and the traditional gives me deadlines. 01:58:20.588 --> 01:58:20.948 So 01:58:20.948 --> 01:58:21.308 Rupert Isaacson: indeed, you 01:58:21.758 --> 01:58:21.998 Jarod Anderson: know, 01:58:22.358 --> 01:58:22.508 Rupert Isaacson: and 01:58:22.508 --> 01:58:22.898 Jarod Anderson: All right. 01:58:23.138 --> 01:58:23.828 Thank you, Ru. 01:58:24.518 --> 01:58:25.448 Rupert Isaacson: We'll see you next time. 01:58:25.748 --> 01:58:26.078 Jarod Anderson: Bye. 01:58:26.083 --> 01:58:26.433 Rupert Isaacson: Cheers, man. 01:58:26.768 --> 01:58:27.158 Bye-bye. 01:58:27.158 --> 01:58:30.538 I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did. 01:58:31.368 --> 01:58:35.118 If you did, please help us to make more. 01:58:35.118 --> 01:58:38.998 Please like, subscribe, tell a friend, give us a thumbs up. 01:58:39.448 --> 01:58:44.698 If you'd like to support us on Patreon, please go to my website, rupertisakson. 01:58:45.018 --> 01:58:45.368 com. 01:58:45.568 --> 01:58:48.748 And if you'd like to find out about our certification courses with. 01:58:49.138 --> 01:58:53.088 autism, education, horsemanship, everyday shamanism. 01:58:53.148 --> 01:58:55.488 There's a whole range of cool stuff. 01:58:55.908 --> 01:58:58.938 Putting a show together like this is not an easy task. 01:59:00.188 --> 01:59:05.118 If you'd like to support us, please consider going to our Patreon page 01:59:05.628 --> 01:59:06.858 and showing us some love there. 01:59:07.498 --> 01:59:12.948 Even the 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