Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 594: David Stuart MacLean

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

David Stuart MacLean, author and one of Duncan's oldest friends, re-joins the DTFH! You can find David's books everywhere you buy your books! Check out The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia and keep an eye out for David's new collection of essays, coming soon! Interested in writing? Check out David's online class at StoryStudio Chicago: The Six-Month Spark. Sign up now! Class starts January 11, 2024. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Lumi Labs - Visit MicroDose.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout for 30% Off and FREE Shipping on your first order! Rocket Money - Visit RocketMoney.com/Duncan to cancel your unwanted subscriptions and start saving!  AG1 - Visit DrinkAG1.com/Duncan for a FREE 1-year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase!

Greetings to you friends, it is I D True Cell, transmitting to you from a kimpton in in Charlotte, North Carolina where I've been doing stand up comedy. I want to give a shout out to Richard Fossette from the New York Times. Thank you so much for the awesome ride up. you. Duncan Trussell family hour and more. Check it out. It's pretty cool, completely unexpected. Definitely the last place I expected to see my podcast appear in, but it definitely made my ego feel especially puffed and pulsing. Thank you, Richard. Thanks for listening to the show. We have a wonderful episode for you today. With us here today, returning to the DTFH is an author, one of his books which I would highly recommend is the answer to the riddle is me. It's David Stewart McClain. He is a dear friend of mine. We actually went to college together. And I love him so much and you're about to see why.

This is a great episode. He is about to publish his next book, which is a series of essays about parenting and depression. And we had one of my favorite conversations of the year about depression and my God, the experience of trying to be a good dad while simultaneously being depressed, which is something that David struggles with.

It's an honest, beautiful conversation, and I'm excited for you to hear it. But first, some quick business. I would love for you to subscribe to my Patreon. It's at patreon.com forward slash DT F H. You'll get commercial free episodes of this podcast, and I try to gather as much as possible with my dear patrons So it's a chance to hang out with some of the most wonderful brilliant people. We have a

Meditation group a family gathering check it out. It's patreon.com Ford slash DT FH. I've got some dates to announce January 11th to January 13th, I'm gonna be at the Denver Comedy Works. Then after that, you could find me at the Helium Comedy Club, January 25th, in Indianapolis and April 12th and 13. I'm gonna be at Hyenas Comedy Club in Fort Worth and Dallas.

Also, most of the shows have sold out, but if you don't have any New Year's Eve plans, come to the comedy mothership. And Austin, I'm doing a week in there and a special New Year's Eve show. I would love to bring in the new year with you. Okay, let's dive into this episode with David Stewart McClain.

If you love David and you love his writing, then I would highly recommend his upcoming course, The Six Month Spark Plan and Build Your Novel. It starts on January 11th and you can find the sign up at storystudio Chicago dot org. If you can't remember that, the link will be at DuncanTrustle.com. And now everybody, welcome back to the DDFH, David Stewart McClain. Welcome to the DTFH. It's good to see you man.

How are you? It's good to see you. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm great, man. You know, trucking along the holidays just did a two week vacation with the family. You know what that's all about? You're a family man. You know, the family man. It's true. What's the longest vacation you ever took with toddlers? Oh, probably just a week. A week, yeah.

That's why I couldn't do much more than that. See, that's intelligence there. You know, even after we got back, we're frazzled, exhausted. We told our pediatrician, yeah, we took a two week vacation. And she's like, don't do that. Don't do that. You can't do that. It's crazy.

What were you thinking? Why would you do that to them? And it's all my fault. My wife, when we were planning it's all my fault, my wife, when we were planning it, she's like, should we do a week or a longer? I'm like, let's do two weeks. You know, in your head, you're like, I'll bring beach books. I'm going to relax, read a book, get some downtime, just completely forgetting you have kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the toddler phase is just impossible. Yeah, it's it's a may, there is such powerful emotional creatures. It is incredible to be around them and to watch raw, completely unfiltered humanity just pouring

through them. No, they haven't developed their limbic system. They can't censor themselves. It's amazing. It is amazing. I sort of love it. Now the minor eight and ten, they're becoming sati socially. Oh wow. And so that's like a whole other thing. What's that like? You sort of move from the protective to the supportive, yeah, which is really hard because you were in protective mode for so long. Right. And then you realize that like, I'm now a support staff. Yeah, right. And I guess you're like, I imagine like you don't, you can't understand the memes, right? Like you can't understand the memes, right? Like you can't understand whatever the particular culture is unless you were to be some creep that disguised yourself

as a kid and hung out at, what grade is that? It's fifth and third. Yeah, so how do you even cross that cultural boundary that exists between adults and kids when they start taking on their own? Culture when they start right Yeah, no, and it's weird because fifth and third are like grades that I can remember Right, and so I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember what it's like to be in fifth grade. Yeah. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no idea. What's your screen policy with them? Oh, all the time, anytime, whatever they want.

Right. Just, yeah. Yeah, that just seems to be an inevitability. Like you have to, right? Right. Because all the other kids have phones and stuff and you want to be able to contact them and But how do you do you know what they're looking out on their phones? Like how do you control that?

Right now they're watching Phineas and Ferb. Okay. This is a lot of Phineas and Ferb. They don't know how to go on the internet Like they couldn't go on for a chance if they wanted to No, no, no, no. Although my son is already radicalized. Ha ha ha. You really? He got radicalized. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks radicalized. They got him is already radicalized. He really got radicalized. Yeah, yeah, he's radicalized. They got him. They got him. They got him right away.

It's over. Oh, what is that behind you? I'm looking at like what looks like a bricks with some gray pillows or something on it. What is that? That is a fort my son built this morning. He's home school from school today because he's sick. Oh, yeah. And so that's what he did this morning was build a fort.

I like that he spent time on the roof of the fort. Yeah. That's really cool. Any explanation for what that represents? It's his deep desire to return to the world. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty, what is that third grader? That's the third grader. Yeah, yeah. Man, we have been like hit by old testament level plagues. You know, that's the other thing about having like

young kids in preschool, is it's just, it's an endless wave of disease. Yeah, they're little petri dishes. It's so intense, man. Like, it's such a grind. Like, you know, you get these little moments where no one's sick and then inevitably, it starts over again and over again and over again and over again.

Yeah. Was it weird? We're just trading a cold back and forth between us for the last months. Yeah, dude, it's so fucked up. It's so fucked up. I know, they collect everything from school and just sneeze it into your mouth.

Yeah, man, it's incredible. They do, they whip my kid on vacation, literally puked into my mouth. Like, that's weird because you asked them to do that. Well, so what? I want them to feel comfortable with his life. I don't want them to be ashamed of puke. Everyone in my family.

Yeah, totally. It we purge. Totally. It's the baby bird experience. I'm teaching him that if you start feeling anxious and stressed, do what daddy does, go and make yourself vomit. And you'll feel better right away,

and you'll get all the extra calories out, because we're trying to make them very body aware, you know? Yeah, you gotta be body conscious. Yeah, you gotta have enough shame of the body. Yeah. And just so embarrassed by this meat sack we walk around in. Yeah, that's every morning. That's how I wake them up. Yeah, every morning.

Sort of like, I'm so sorry you are still inside this body. Purge, boy. Go purge. Purge, boy. Get there. Like I did, like your grandfather did, where a purge and family, we don't keep food down. We let it out. In and out. What did I just saw? It's salt burn. And they said she has fingers for pudding.

Who's Saltburn? Saltburn is a new movie with Barry Keegan. Okay. It's great. It's so fucked up. Are you currently working on anything you writing right now? Yeah, I have a book at my agent of essays about depression and parenting. Depression and parenting. That's a fun nexus. Yeah. So, is this, so obviously this is something you've been dealing with, is simultaneously being depressed and being apparent, which is a terrible burden, a terrible burden. Because, I mean, depression already makes you feel completely ashamed of yourself for

being depressed. And then as a parent, you want to be perfect. And so there you are in the midst of some numb, cold, heavy, entropic darkness. Yet you want to demonstrate to your kids, right? Some vitality, just the bark of life. Right, right. And you want to play hot wheels. You want to play like, like, I don't see the purpose of hot wheels. Yeah. Yeah, right. So what have you done?

What do you do to balance those two things? It's weird because the shame of depression gets sort of multiplied because you're like, please don't practice your trumpet. Daddy is sleeping. Fuck, man. Daddy. Oh, fuck man. Daddy needs to sleep right now. He can't be a dinner.

He needs to lie down. Oh, fuck dude. Now, is this connected to what happened to you in India? Is this a side effect? It might be, you know, it's hard to say this many years out, but it's pretty rough say this many years out, but it's pretty rough. How many years? It's 21.

You've 21 years since you were in India, but how long have you been dealing with depression? Like the last 15 years. 15 years. Is it, does it go into remission or has it just been 15 years. 15 years. And is it, is it been like, does it go into remission or has it just been 15 years? No, it goes into remission. It slides away for a bit. Like now I'm using ketamine. Yeah.

And so I'm doing ketamine treatments and that's helped a lot. Yeah. Like a much better. That is an incredible thing that they figured out. You know, that's such a fast thing. Like I read that, you know, they were using it as general anesthesia and they started noticing people were coming out of the anesthesia with an improved mood state.

And then they realized, holy fuck, this could be the next anti-depressant or maybe the only truly working anti-depressant. Anti-depressant? Yes, that's a surprise. Remarkable. Remarkable. or maybe the only truly working antidepressant. Antidepressant. Yes, that's a nice, remarkable. So how often do you do that? It's every three to six weeks. Three to six weeks.

You go to a clinic? I go to a clinic. I listen to box cello sweets, and I trip for about an hour. Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird because like the trip, it's not like LSD or mushrooms

where it's seen as the trip is a thing. Rather, the trip is a side effect. Yeah. That the trip is just, if they could get rid of it, they would. Yeah, isn't that, I guess I get that because I think some for some people being dissolved or shrunk down into an essential like atomic particle in the universe isn't as pleasant

to them as it is to me. Now, what they expected, what they went in for that. Now, what they expected. Now, what they expected, what they went in for that. Now, what they expected. Yeah, considering this the mythic view, this sort of view that is entrenched throughout history, that view that you get to view during ketamine treatments probably isn't everybody's favorite thing. Yeah, not everybody wants to see their past life symbolized like fish eggs in some primordial ocean

and then viewfinder on an elephant's trunk. But, you know, I loved it man. When I got addicted to that stuff for two years, I don't do anymore, but I can remember, like, you know, when I used to like really wrestle with depression, I can remember getting therapy to ketamine, being incredibly skeptical that this was going to have any impact at all. You know, anyone who's familiar with depression, and it's not like depression is making you

optimistic. Right. So, you know, but I figured why not? And I remember getting back to my hotel room and just how astounding it was to suddenly feel like this lightning of this thing where when you have it, like you have no idea how long it's gonna last.

You don't know why it comes, why it goes. And then suddenly it's like, wait, this is, it's like when you get a cold, and you're strapping in for a few weeks of sniffling, you know, it's gonna go on, and then suddenly the cold just goes away. It's astounding, it's astounding. So how long does it take when you do your treatments,

how long after the treatments before you start experiencing some kind of result? It's so, I mean, immediately, recently, I've been feeling as soon as I get out of it that my capacity for joy has been dilated. as soon as I get out of it that my capacity for joy has been dilated. Like I can see what joy looks like and how it would function in my life again. Yeah. And then it's usually about a week that the daily symptoms alleviate. So maybe you should be doing more academy. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, right. Just every day. Well, I mean, I tried that, but sadly, it doesn't seem to work the way you would want it to when you're doing it every day, unfortunately.

Though, one of my friends was telling me, is they're exploring various treatment options. One of them is some kind of spinal implant that just drips ketamine into you like constantly. So you have this constant amount of ketamine in your body to treat depression, which you know, if you've never struggled with depression, that might sound extreme, but put it in my fucking spine. I don't care.

Absolutely. As long as I don't have to go there anymore, I just don't wanna fucking go there. It's just such a horrific, it's the worst, man. Like when you think of mental illness, like if you were given a menu of mental illness to choose from, you know, you would think, maybe you know what, I'm gonna take depression over schizophrenia from, you know, you would think, maybe, you know what, I'm gonna take depression

over schizophrenia, because, you know, you feel like it's manageable, but honestly, if you've really experienced it, I think I'm gonna go schizophrenia over depression with schizophrenia with medication for the schizophrenia. Because at least they have like anti-psychotics that will like level you out.

I'm sorry, and he's schizophrenics out there. I've never experienced it. It's gets a failure. You might be like, fuck you. I'll take depression any day of the fucking week. Right, right, right. Yeah. It's hard to rank mental health symptoms that you haven't had. Yeah. Great. Fun game, though. Fun game. We have the own version. But yeah, no, depression has been really awful. And it's been something that like I've been surprised how much it affects my life. Before I was getting treated for it, you know, I just self-medicated with alcohol and cigarettes. Yeah. Because I didn't have health insurance. And so that's, it made sense,

like alcohol made me go to sleep and cigarettes helped with anxiety. But then, yeah. But then, no. Then that was untenable. Yeah, I mean yeah, because the alcohol That's just gonna make you more depressed long term. Yeah, you're not getting good sleep You know, so you're just well at least you're so open about it man I mean that's I to me that's the first and most important step in dealing with this shit It's because when I get quiet about it like when it's happening to me and then I decide, like I'm not gonna talk about it, because if I talk about it, you get superstitious. If I talk about it, it will accelerate or amplify it.

And so I'm gonna pretend I'm okay. And then even though everyone around me can like smell me, you know, everyone around me, it's clear that this is not a good moment for me, but I'll ignore the looks of concern when they ask if I'm okay. I'll be like, ah, yeah, I'm fine. Just still a little under the weather. And then that's where it gets scary.

Then the suicidal ideation start and you want to, you know what I mean? And then that, then you're just like, oh, it's no big deal. That's just thinking. It's just my thoughts. But then they become a little more like suddenly you're summon like, oh, it's no big deal. That's just thinking. It's just my thoughts, but then they become a little more, like suddenly you're summoning them up. They're not intrusive anymore. Then you're kicking around.

And you're having plans. Yeah. It's like, once you start to have a plan and you're like, you're like, oh, I'm just playing with this idea. I mean, if I were to do it, I would go to the public pool and take a bunch of Xanax and dissolve into the water. And then it's like, oh shit, I'm actually thinking about doing that.

That's not a bad plan. Let me, hey, let me add, let me write that down. And that's my plans. I like you to show public pool over like finding, like maybe like a private vacation rental with a pool. Right, right. You decided to like do it in front of people at a public pool. You know, I've already got a membership to the pool. So I mean, might as well use it. I want to thank Lumi Labs, not just for supporting the DTFH, but for supporting my consciousness

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Thank you, Jesus. To learn more about microdosing THC, go to microdose.com and use code Duncan to get free shipping and 30%. After your first order, again, it's microdose.com. Code Duncan. Microdose.com. Code Duncan for 30% off. Thank you, microdose gummies. You know, I've already got a membership to the pool, so I mean, might as well use it. Problem is, public pools have lifeguards, David.

Damn it. So how difficult was it to while depressed in being a parent, right? Essays on the experience of being depressed and being a parent. You add this third spinning plate to two. Yeah, it might be impossible plates to spin. How the fuck did you do that? It's the only way I can do it. It's the only way I can actually feel like I'm... Like I'm actually weaponizing what's going on for use.

Right. Rather than that, it just feels useless. And that just compounds everything. At least, like, if I'm going to go through this, I can write about it and share it with others and make it useful. Because useless suffering is untenable. I use that word already, but it really is. It's untenable. Did you look up any statistics?

Are there statistics out there for the amount of parents struggling with depression while parenting? I haven't looked at those statistics now. It's gotta be massive, because so many people are depressed. So it's gotta be just this a plague. It's gotta be this fucking plague that more than, I mean, you could, wow, I can't even imagine. The lifespan of the normal male has dropped significantly

and that's because of suicide. Whoa, that's why? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's uh, yeah, it really is like, you know, so much of that, so many people are not documenting it And so many people are probably completely unaware that they are in a very, very big boat with lots of really bummed out parents who are just, you know, in a fight for survival. And you just, like, you know, anyone is not a parent that has any kind of mental illness at all knows how hard that is. It's a kid.

Yeah. Because you want to help. Just to understand it. Yeah. Just to understand it. Like, how do you, and then you blame yourself for it? And then, so how do you talk to your kids about this? Like, how do you explain to them what's going on?

What's going on? You know, I got, I went into residential treatment for depression. So I was gone from the family for like six weeks. Which was really hard to explain to my children why dad had to go away. And hard to explain to myself like, because it seemed, it seemed selfish. Um, but it was also like, dad has an illness. Um, and this is how dad needs to get treatment. Right. Um, and so dad's going to a hospital with a bunch of other sad dads. Oh, fuck. Yeah. What does residential treatment for depression look like? You know, it's a lot of mindfulness. It's a lot of dialectical behavior therapy.

Can you explain to everybody what that is? Dialectical behavior therapy was developed by, oh, I can't remember her name. I read her book and I can't remember her name right now. Sorry, everybody. I know. We'll look it up. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Google exists. Yeah. So I don't have to. But dialectical behavior therapy is this idea that like, your therapy is this idea that like you utilize holding two different thoughts, competing thoughts in your head at once. And by doing that, like, you're able to tolerate those emotions better. And so there's lots of different acronyms that they use. It's a treatment center, treatment modality that's based entirely in acronyms, it seems.

But you just sort of utilize these different techniques of like, I'm doing this, but that doesn't mean I'm a failure. I failed at this, but that doesn't mean I'm a failure. How can I hold these two thoughts at the same time? Yeah, and then there's a lot of somatic stuff. The woman who developed it, she was schizophrenic and became a Zen master as well. And one of the things that she, when she was a young kid in different mental institutions, a young kid in different mental institutions, was they would have frozen blankets,

and when you were going through a fit, they would strip you naked and wrap you in a frozen blanket. Wow. And leave you there. Wow. But it turns out that that is actually makes a little bit of sense.

When you dunk your face in freezing water, your blood, your pulse level goes down, your blood pressure goes down, like you self-regulate that way. Yeah. And so it's like learning these different techniques of how to not always be in the rapture of a manic episode. Wow.

And to sort of like figure out different ways to ground yourself through it. So yeah, this was, I remember when I was a kid and would watch like old Westerns, if somebody was strung out inevitably. And this is in movies too, like the old thing was, you go in the hotel room, drag them into the bath, cold shower, and they're instantly better like the cold shower completely

transforms them. They're no longer alcoholics. It was like the cure all for alcoholism. Just the cold showers, are you? But cold shower goes toacea. Throw them in a creek. But it's actually, yeah, there's a lot. I mean, so many of my friends are really into this right now. Like they have these high-tech cold dips, that cold plunges, that are just above freezing. And anytime I've gone in those things, I am definitely reset.

Like for the whole day, you know, you cryo chambers, people going to you to like freeze themselves down and somehow it regulates your nervous system. It does so much benefit. I'd you're here about that lady. I don't know if this bullshit or not. Like they found her the next day. I guess she was an employee, one of these cryo frees places and she went in there after when they were closing. Something went wrong with the machine. And like she got stuck in there and just froze her to fucking death, just turned her into an ice cube basically. That's awful. Is that awful? Yeah, especially considering this probably took place in a strip mall and

DeFreece to death in a strip mall is like its own sort of hell Like I was like Cell phone store was right next door all of the access to the world was right there and I'm All of the access to the world was right there. Right there. And I'm, and next door was a supplement store. And I could have gotten an extreme way powder. And I got nothing. Right there.

That's where you blinked out of existence. You never thought that was going to, you thought your family was going to be around you. Yeah. You thought, you know, maybe like a wild animal attack. You never thought you would be in a fucking strip mall. Strip mall. Freeze next to a restaurant.

Freezing to get. Well, people were like, on Everest, we're probably freezing to death. You were, yeah, somebody was like putting a shitty picture in a frame, not aware of the fact that you are like being crystallized right across the polished tile floor. Wow, man, that's why. That's why. But you know, depression really is like if you were to, like if I had to like, and we, you know,

I'm sure they did this to you in the, or taught you this in the treatment facility, like, and you know, in Buddhism, there's a lot of like, instead of just saying, I'm sad, I'm angry. Like, go a little deeper than that. Like, how big is the sadness? Is it hot?

Is it cold? And depression is fucking cold. And Dante's in Ferno, isn't that the last layer of hell? It's the, it's the traders or something, right? The traders get frozen. In ice. And that, doesn't that ice like go around the waste of Satan or something like, he's.

Those are on the waste of Satan. And Satan is three heads and he's chewing three great traders Judas. And then two others, I can't remember who are the other great traders Judas and then two others I can't remember who are the other great traders they could show tune up by Satan for eternity. I mean it is really getting the punishment there. You know you got to wonder it's like you're poor Satan. You got a chew Judas forever. He's like oh I guess so. He walked around it sandals. And so it's very sandy. Oh, you got that grit in your mouth.

You got that chewed his taste. The traitor sweat. You got that. Yeah, traitor sweat. The traitor sweat, the regret, the phrase probably got some kind of weird ancient Middle Eastern disease. We don't even have a name for it yet. So some kind of weird ancient Middle Eastern disease. We don't even have a name for yet

So some kind of and he's got 30 pieces of silver that keep getting caught in your garden your fucking teeth You just want to spit him out, but for some reason you're you just keep chewing forever Yeah, and just the sound I mean not to mention your frozen and ice and you're a trader But to have to listen to the chopping, slurping sound of a three mouth, fucking demigod, chopping on traitors, the whole things of mess. And the traitor next to you is always trying to start up a conversation.

And he's like, yeah, it's bad today, isn't it? It's like, shut up. But you don't want to make friends with him because he's like, yeah, it's bad today, isn't it? It's like, shut up. But you don't want to make friends with him because he's a fucking traitor. Traitor is going to throw you under the fucking bus and then maybe grow a fourth head and then he'll get you. Now it's four miles chewing. But to me, I think that's sort of the mystical

quality of depression. Is it because, you know, as they say, opposite stand back to back? Because it's, because it's like, you know, Dante's in Fernow for those of you not familiar, this was a, what was it, a Marvel comic book came out in 1987? Stanley.

Stanley. Guy has to go down into hell or the, but you, the way out of hell is through hell, right? Like you can't go the other way. You have to go through the center of hell, and I think you have to climb down or up. You have to climb up Satan, and then the gravity turns, and then you're climbing down Satan,

and then you're climbing up because the gravity turns like a rival and then you emerge in Pergatorio and that's where Beatrice brings you because the guide It's a interest brings you pizza now the the Now, the, again, we must have sympathy for the devil here, as the Rolling Stone say. And now, not only are you having to chew these assholes up, but you're getting climbed on all day long by escaping fucking humans.

No, I'm on. Jesus. The ones that don't belong. Yeah. Yeah. So it's an annoying, you're essentially a metaphysical escalator that in some way, shape or form, is revealing a malfunction in the entire justice system of the universe because these people didn't belong there,

meaning whoever put them there was kind of off a little bit, bad filing or something like people who escaped from prison, but they're innocent. But with depression, because we are as humans capable of imagining opposites, it weirdly creates a perfect way of understanding Nirvana. Like, in the sense that just from a reversal of the way you feel when you're depressed,

you get a very clear idea of the opposite of depression. You know, you're not tired all the time. You have energy. Your mind's not all fucking gummed up. You're clear as a bell. You're connected to people around you. You want to interact. You want to return phone calls.

You want to return emails. You're engaged in the world. So weirdly, something about being in that state has within it the path out, you know, it has within it at least, you know, it's the shadow of joy. You are living in the shadow of joy. And somehow, even though when you're depressed, it's like, great, all right, I'll add that to more things that talk about this. Like I'm in the shadow of joy. Right. Although, although like when you're sick, like the way you exoticize what health looks like,

um, and once you get to health, you just sort of, oh, I'm not sick anymore. Yeah. You just sort of like shrug it off. You're like, oh, I guess, I guess when you're, when you're well, you don't exoticize sick. You don't like, oh, those days in bed. Yeah. And sneezing all the time. Oh, those days. Well, it's it's give me motivation, though, man, it's like you can like, man, I just I just got diagnosed with diabetes. And so I've been off sugar now. I know type two, I've been off sugar for a little over a month. And you know, the way I feel now compared to the way I felt with undiagnosed diabetes is so good that I'm still not eating fucking sugar which I was you know binging on this

shit because my body was desperately trying to fix itself and so I do I mean like I look back at that like anytime I'm looking at like a cookie Right, I just bring to mind. Oh, you want to do that? You want to wake up in the morning and be like a fucking monster like that people are afraid to talk to because you're Beardable and you're like mildly confused, but you're like trying to pretend everything's okay. It's just something I do a lot and it has yet to work, but I'm pretty sure at some point it will. Some point, I'm going to will the world into my desires. But you know, it's like when you alchemize a thing like depression by writing a book about

it, which is for sure, going to help God knows how many people. Anytime this podcast will help you, anytime I talk about the pressure on the podcast, that's when I get the most responses from people because so many people are in the closet when it comes to depression, completely isolating, completely alone, feeling ashamed, not aware of how common a mental illness. It's one of the most common forms of mental illness out there. In fact, I imagine we don't have the data on it because as opposed to other forms of mental illness, people won't tell you. They've just been silently enduring it, waiting for the universe to kill them before they

kill themselves. And so anytime, you know, you like what you're doing, you come out of the depression closet, which is the opposite of what it wants. If you ask me, that is the beginning of getting, at the very least, getting out of the fucking ice. Like I'm not sure if you're clambering up the leg of Lucifer passing that giant

beautiful very suckable cock. They don't talk about that in Dante's Inferno but that's the final temptation. A tremendous thank you to Rocket Money for supporting this episode of the DTFH, my friends. If you want to end your year in a good way, I would invite you to check out Rocket Money and let them scan for subscriptions that you may have signed up for years ago, if you're me. And completely forgotten about subscriptions that are just like little digital leeches hanging all over your body. Rocket money will help you identify those leeches

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Money rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions monitors are spending and helps lower your bills rocket money as over 5 million users and it's help save its members an Average of $720 a year with over 500 million and canceled $720 a year with over 500 million in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash Duncan. That's rocketmoney.com slash Duncan. Rocketmoney.com slash Duncan. Well, you know, Dante, the way it begins, is Dante's on the road of life and he's the road of life is blocked by like a lion,

a fox, and some other animal and he can no longer progress on the road of life. And so it's a really good antelong for depression because there's something blocking you. You can't go further. And so you take this side trip through hell. Yeah, and that side trip through hell is its own horrible awful journey. But you go through it and emerge through the other side. through it and emerge through the other side and we start the journey on the path of life and it is. It's like tolerating that side journey is nearly impossible. Yeah. Yeah. I've had recently a bunch of, when I say a bunch, I mean like four guys from my high school have committed suicide recently. Ooh.

And it's just sort of like them going through that and I'm like, I know where you're at. Yeah. Well, I don't know, I don't know going through with it. I only know up to the point of feeling that awful and feeling that hopeless. And I just don't want other people to go through that. Yeah, man. It's, or at least not go through it alone. Did you talk to them before, did you have any contact with them? You just found out. I have a fact.

Just found out after the fact. Yeah, if you've ever talked anybody, I did once, someone was like, can you just talk to them because they are, they're gonna kill themselves. And I did, but it's like, it's the strangest kind of drowning, because you can't do anything about it.

You even talking to them, it's like talking to someone already so far away. And it's, it's, it was just such a strange, sad moment, I think, for, for both of us, in the sense that they were already kind of ghost-like in nature. They were, they'd already sort of turned their back on the world and were heading out. And that's the sort of, like, you know, my, another friend of mine, a long time ago, his mom had been suicidal for years and was constantly saying that she was going to end her life. And and was constantly saying that she was going to end her life. And this time it was for real.

And he had residing himself to this reality, like he was done trying to save his mom, which says a lot, because he was a good guy. And so he left, he was hanging out with us. And then I told my friend that I was like, you know, don't we have some ethical obligation at this point to call us to a side of hotline, like they say, call the suicide outline.

Just because we know that someone's about to kill themselves like tonight. So we call the suicide outline. And the operator said, yeah, there's really nothing you could do. Like that was their response was like, yeah, you can't, you once it gets to that point, if the family has already been involved and they've attempted hospital, as they've tried everything, really,

you can't, what are you gonna do? Put them in a straight jacket for the rest of their lives, tie them up, monitor them, sedate them. It was, you know, it just really illuminated to me how we just aren't very sophisticated in how we deal with depression when it reaches that point. What can you do? And when you are struggling with it, and you're doing what you're doing, though, I mean, I do think that is like, you know, that's moving towards life. That's like moving towards life versus moving away from life because it's, it is something that

you know, it sounds so like heavy handed to say this, but it saves lives, man. Like for sure, because that is the other thing about depression is it is treatable. You can treat it. It doesn't have to be as bad as it is for you right now. Yeah, and you're obviously doing that you're getting Academy therapy. Yeah, no, it's and you know, it's one of those things where you're like you also have to commit to the idea that the Treatment might not work forever and that you'll have to try different things, right? But just because it stops working doesn't mean that you're hopeless. Right. Like that there's still different alternatives and different ways to go. I just want to plug the 988, the suicide hotline, because they do great work. And you can text and you can

call 988. It's a really great service. Yeah, I've heard that. And God blessed the people who work there. Like that is my God, man. I mean, like working for 911 is a brutal job, but like taking on that level of responsibility, you know, when you're like sort of the last hope for a lot of people, holy shit.

I knew someone who did it and they would tell me these stories that were hair raising. So, so absolutely terrifying and sad like all of the suffering out there. Do you, do you know anything about these statistics, these data points, like, are there, is there any kind of explanation for why the lifespan has gone down due to depression right now?

Like, what's happening that so many people would choose to end their lives? What's happening culturally, or do you have your own theories on it? I mean, men, it's primarily men. And you're a father. There's this point where I just stopped interacting with friends because I could just stay busy with kids

and leave this other part of myself totally untended to. And it's still a struggle to hang out with friends because you got to make plans, you got to do some. Yeah. But it is. It's this lack of connection. That sort of drives this. Is it so yeah, that's something interesting. That's an angle I haven't really thought about is the nature of parenting that

even though you are interacting with humans, you know, the sort of interaction that you're having is like bizarre to put it mildly. sort of interaction that you're having is bizarre. Put it mildly. And it's definitely not gonna be scratching all the itches that happen when you're hanging out with adults. But you're still with people, so you can trick yourself into thinking, well, I'm interacting.

Right. But you need both. You can't just have that. But it's so fucking hard. There's one of the things that got me through was like teaching that sort of connection with just intellectual life and then students' lives helps me so much. And so does, I got a job at a bookstore. And it's just a job at a bookstore.

But like I get those connections with my coworkers because I was just working by myself and parenting and not seeing anyone and those were my connections. Oh my God. And it just wasn't connections. Oh my God. And it just wasn't enough. Oh my God. And so even those weak connections with people in the bookstore

have done revolutionary work for me to be reminded like, no, I'm a person who can be responded to. I can be addressed and I can be of use and service to people. And that's been really helpful. Yeah, wow. Yeah, that, you know, maybe it's, this is a technological issue. This, you know, the much-lauded working from home, which, my God, I, you know, what a dream, if you've ever fucking worked in an office and experience that hellscape, working from home, beautiful, but then suddenly you don't have to be around

people anymore. There's, you're just you, your family, you're, you're, you're technologically isolating, you're, you've, your world has been transformed from 3D space to 2D space. If you are interacting with people, they're on a screen, which is incredibly surreal over time. It becomes really weird to know people in 2D. Maybe it's something to do with that. It's just that the technology is allowing us to stay in the cave, so to speak. And yeah, and I think, you know, COVID drove us all into the cave. And I think we're all having trouble

emerging from that cave. Yeah, totally. It did. I remember that was one of the scary thoughts I had during COVID. It was like, oh, I died. This, you know, my idea of what the Bardo or the afterlife is like, really, what it looks like is like all the people that were in 3D space go into 2D space, you're communicating with them maybe in their dreams or something.

And this is just me in the spirit world now come in and then you'd order like in LA you could order fucking margaritas. You'd like have that thigh order margaritas. Try to forget you thought that. But yeah it's it's no the dream you get the body attended to through apps, you can get all of that without having to leave your home. And then you just talk to people who were in these little boxes. Yeah.

This is my mind work. You can tell I've studied. Wow, this is good work, dude. That was incredible. That was incredible. I mean, I think it's great that you wrote this book on being a parent and struggling with depression, but kind of would have benefited from a nice book

on how to do my work during Zoom calls. You gotta say, I have a master of the fine arts. Oh, beautiful. You're in natural. Thank you. Really? You do just say that to all your students. I do say it to all my students. Oh, fuck. But for you, it's real. I knew it. For those

listening in audio, if you just saw what I did, it was incredible. I did some classic, forget it. Did it? This is not even worth describing. No one cares. You, um, No one cares. You, like cheesy question, but what, like, right now, in the midst of depression, what do you have to say to all the folks listening to this right now who are like holy fucking shit? folks listening to this right now who are like holy fucking shit. I didn't, like I didn't even occur to me. Somehow as someone who has dealt with depression in the past,

I'm so dense man. I never even like thought about parent, like being a parent and dealing with depression. But what would you have to say to folks listening right now, man, who are like, holy shit, I don't feel quite as alone as I did before. Like, what would you have to say to folks listening right now who maybe are still sort of hiding this reality from their family? Yeah, yeah, I mean, the thing is, is like finding people to talk about it that you trust, like finding a therapist that you trust,

finding a psychiatrist that you trust, like I've had bad psychiatrist, and I blamed myself for that. I've had bad therapists, and I blame myself for that without realizing it. Go get another one. Yeah. That's all you have to do. Go get another one. Yeah, but it's like, Mother, fuck, man, like I can remember when I like in that state, man, doing God damn anything's impossible. If you finally made it to get yourself out of bed, to go to a therapist, that is like already this heroic act. For those of you listening, you haven't dealt with this, please don't roll your out. You just can't imagine what it's like.

You are on a sticky trap and it just anything, it's like the gravitational field of the earth has increased exponentially. So, anything that you're doing, like your metabolism's all fucked up, you're not eating right, you're not bathing, you don't want people to see you, because you know what you look like, you're unkempt, you're completely fucked up. And so, you know, even going into the light feels weird, the light itself, when I get depressed, the light feels weird. The light, the sun looks wrong. The light itself, when I get depressed, the light feels weird.

The light, the sun looks, the sun looks wrong. Like the sun hurts. Yeah, yeah. It's like so fun. So you now you're in an alien, you're on planet Earth, but it's not the planet Earth you grew up on because the sun's different. And, and, and you know, you can, it's sad because like I've seen this on conspiracy threads and having dealt with depression, I know what's really going on with them, is people will post, something's wrong with the sun.

The light seems different now. And I'm like, oh, you're fucking depressed. The sun's not malfunctioning, friend. Yeah, the sun's just doing its thing. You're fucking about, there's some weird way you're fucking about there's some weird way you're you're you're processing photons even in showers don't feel right. The water doesn't feel everything feels off. So just to get to a therapist and then suddenly you're not vibing with the thing.

Going, yeah, yeah, going to the bathroom is a pain in the ass. Like you don't want to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Oh, yeah, baby. That's right. You start thinking about, I'll just wash the sheets, man. I'll just wash the fucking sheets. I'll just stay here and this will pass. What if I just let it pass? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. God damn, it's the worst. It's just the fucking worst. So it's like, you know, talk about that. Like how did you get out of bed? How did you even get yourself Motivated enough to start doing self-care for this thing that is actively Inviting you to not do anything just fucking die just die

Yeah, I mean I not do anything, just fucking die, just die. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I credit my wife with so much of like being with me through it. Yeah. And really sort of staying on me and getting me to exercise, getting me out of the house, getting me, getting me out of the house, getting me, um, getting me help. Um, yeah, it was, it was awful. It was really awful. And I was thinking about killing myself like 30 times a day. Um, and I didn't think that was a problem. Yeah. I thought that was just, it's just some truths of thoughts. It's no big deal. But then I told a therapist about it and they're like,

oh, you need to get into treatment. Yeah, like yes. Like when I actually told someone my symptoms, they were like, they were like, Jesus man. This is bad. It's the only like, it's like, the other fucked up thing about it, man. This is bad. It's the only like it's like the other fucked up thing about it, man. And mental illness in particular, but like you walk into emergency room with a fresh gunshot wound, you're fucking arm and your arm's hanging off and you could see tendons. Nobody's like,

so what are your symptoms? What's going on? It's like, get him, no, fuck it, he, God damn it, get a turn to get on that. But with the press and you have literally the same thing happening psychologically, like you have a gaping, festering wound that is just getting worse every day, but this is a sentient wound that is saying to you, don't put a bandage on me. Endore the pain.

Just sleep it off, motherfucker. You know what? The way to cure this is to kill yourself. Just get some Xanax. Go to the fucking public pool. You've got, did you lose your fucking card? You idiot, you lose everything. You dumb fuck, you can't keep tracking anything, did you lose your fucking card? You idiot, you lose everything, you dumb fuck, you can't keep tracking anything, can you?

So it's the worst kind of wound because it talks to you and it invites you to not treat it. Fuck. I think what somebody's gonna do is gonna take the last 30 seconds of audio of you saying that and just play it for themselves over and over and over again. And they're like, they're like, no, Duncan's right. The voice of the wound.

Do not dream the wound. Do not dream. Don't dream. Stay in your eyes. Stay in the fucking eyes and listen to the devil chew traitors, motherfucker. It's the only like self-canceling disease. Yeah, man. Yeah, maybe in that maybe like when augmented reality takes off and we get neural implants and AI as the ability to instantaneously diagnose everyone around you correctly with whatever they're going through,

we'll have a way to like project on people around us what wounds they're walking around with. And I'll tell you, it's gonna be a much more compassionate world when you go to the fucking bookstore and the person you're pissed off at because they don't know where to find the obscure Buddhist text you're looking for has got a massive gaping hole in their chest filled with screaming demons.

And you know, like I think that we will, it will be a much kinder world at that point. It's one of those questions you always get when you're getting treated for depression is like, is there a history of depression in your family? And it's like, yeah. But none of them are diagnosed. Yeah, yeah. But none of them are diagnosed. Yeah, A.G.1 for supporting the DTFH and for saving me from the cellular drought that

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your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com-fourth-dunkin. That's drinkag1.com-fourth-dunkin. Check it out. Thanks, AG1. It's one of those questions you always get when you're getting treated for depression is like, is there a history of depression in your family? And it's like, yeah! But none of them are diagnosed. Yeah, right.

Like my grandmother, when she died at 99, I found in her library a copy of a book called Final Exit by Derek Humphries. And it's a, it's a suicide recipe book. And she had a posted note in it of one of the recipes written down in her handwriting. And I know when she got the book was when she was like 65. And so like, I have the book, I have a copy that the cop her copy still throw it away I tried to know I can't yeah I actually can't why because it lets me know that somebody else walked this path and struggled with it and was at that point

somebody else walked this path and struggled with it and was at that point and still managed to live to 99. Yeah. And she's a survivor. Right. Like it's like the best testament in my life to struggling through this. Wow. Is that somebody else struggled through this and that I knew her doing it. Wow. That's beautiful. So yeah, I'm not throwing it away. That book is uncomfortable to have around, but it's important to me.

Wow. By the way, great Christmas gift, that book. Not passive aggressive. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas is a good bug. Check it out. Do they have final exit on Audible? Oh, I wonder, it's a two. Can you imagine having to read that? I gotta look it up right now.

Hold on. Hold on, is that good? Let me look, please God, don't let look at it. Please God don't let this exist Please God don't let this exist. Please God don't let there be a final exit Audible Let's see it's read by like Rowan Atkinson Yeah, it's unottable Okay, oh my God come on Really, you're gonna do this.

Well, the practicat, well, Jesus fucking Christ ordered. Yeah. Not, dude, I mean, I'm like some, some, like, I feel like a lot of what I was thinking was depression was untreated diabetes. And that like cause the symptoms can be weirdly similar. You wanna sleep all the fucking time or one was leading to the other or something. I'm not sure.

But I just wanna use this to make hip hop beats. Seems like for a great app, hip-hop album. Do you, David, are you OK? Yeah, I think I'm OK. I think that's as close as I get to OK as being like, I think I'm OK now. OK. I feel better and I'm being productive. And I'm not just watching TV all day.

I'm reading, whenever I'm reading, I feel like depression isn't around because I can concentrate enough on a book and experience that outrush of empathy. Yeah. But I feel like I'm okay. Yeah. Yeah, man. God, damn it. Getting off those screens. Like, you know, we, we, um, just, you know, took the kids off screens. Um, is a kind of like experiment. Like what happens, you know, and holy shit. The change is so profound. Wow. So profound.

And aside from like parental guilt, because you know it's easier to put them on screens and you're busy and you, it's, what are you gonna do? But what ends up happening is, it's like kicking any other thing. It's like over time when the kids don't have that to extract dopamine, they start playing. They get bored.

Their boredom leads to imagination. The imagination leads to like exploring their world, like living in 3D spaces that have 2D space. But you know, as a parent, it's easy to be like, oh, I'm not gonna let my kid do that. It's so bad for them. I'm not gonna let my kid have so much sugar. It's so bad for them. Meanwhile, you're like eating fucking Oreos,

watching the news, like, ah, I would never, I don't want to poison my children, but you're poisoning yourself. It's, yeah, that's, but anytime I like give my brain a break and read, it is just the most remarkable shift in consciousness and it doesn't take a long time. It's like my brain is so relieved to not be bombarded by so much fucking color and manipulative algorithms. And you step backwards in time, too. It's like you go out of whatever this bizarre age that were in,

into some kind of like place that used to just be normal. That's what you do, you'd be. Yeah. It's weird because like staying on Netflix was definitely like one of the symptoms of my depression. And I think it was because it replicated the feeling of depression, which was, this is the way I was feeling about my own life, was that it was external. And I was watching all of this shit happen to me and I wasn't engaged and I just was sheltered and distant from everything and everything seemed to be screen-like.

Yeah, man. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it's just it really is this you're just Yeah, it's just, it really is this, you're just compressing your reality down, you know, fucking rectangles and it's digitization. And it's so... It's like you're trapped behind a piece of transparent glass and you can see the world out there, but you're sort of stuck in there tapping at the glass. Yeah, and you just trying to get out.

You want it, like to me, like you want the real like litmus test for how fucked up the zeitgeist is right now. When you have kids and you go on vacation and you don't have your Apple TV connected yet and there isn't like the option to go on Netflix kids, you flip through the channels desperately trying to find the kids shows.

And flipping through those fucking channels, how quickly you have to press forward, because every other channel is like murder on the highway. Death, rape, murder, murder, dance moms, death, rape, dance moms, murder, death, death, rape stories, murder stories, death, dance moms, and then finally you get to like Nickelodeon. And it's like a little oasis.

But this shit is selling tickets, man. Like people just are watching the most horrible garbage out there, date line, you fucking name forensic files. Like, just, our society has just become like, an echo of phileacres, and we're just obsessed with corpses right now. It's weird because, like, I think about the fiction that I really love, and, like, I loved, like, detective fiction from the 40s and 50s, like Ross McDonald. I wonder what the difference is between that and watching CSI.

I think it's the level of interaction, like the fact that you are engaging with the written word and your empathy is engaged in whatever, and it's not just spectacle of corpse. Yeah. It's not just spectacle of whatever you're engaged with the problem of it and solving the problem of it rather than just engaging the problem of it and solving the problem of it, rather than just engaging the spectacle of it. Yeah.

It's a collaboration. Like when you're reading, it's a collaboration between whatever year of particular ability to manifest a visual world and the author's ability to articulate it in a way, but it's a unique experience for every reader. You're not being shit, you're not getting, you know, when you're watching TV, there's no, how much you're, sure, you're seeing your projections and everything, but there's no real collaboration there

other than your judgment of the actors or your critique of the story or something like that. You become way more critical, whereas the other one, you're assembling this world via the code of the writing to author your an active participant rather than just passive. And being active mentally is one of those steps out of those sort of isolating places. You you must be the best teacher. People must be so happy to have you as their professor that like you're so good at talking

about this stuff. They feel like if I was in college and got lucky enough to have you as my English lit teacher, Jesus, fucking Christ, man. That would have been... Thanks. Incredible. I mean, it was fun going to college with you, but it would have been nice if you were like,

a teacher there. I'd not know offense to the teachers at Warren Wilson. They're great, but... Yeah, they were great. What is your, like, what is your technique, man, when you're you know, I just look back and think of the hot car, but you're always turning in that I thought was good riding because I didn't know anything about riding. Well, it is your technique for like, how do you, are their times when like a student

submit something and they think of themselves as a great writer and you're looking at this and you're like this is atrocious but you what do you do of how do you like not like accidentally ruin someone's future as a writer by being over critical or Popping a balloon or does the balloon need to be popped? What's your I always think like when I see somebody's work Like I you also are dealing with what they they wanted to have and So like part of the process is like being like, let's not talk about what the text wants to be, but what it is and what you actually have here. Because

you have that ghost text that interferes with their ability to see what they've done. And so you have to really emphasize what's going on in the text that's actually in front of them. Wow. And sort of talk about that and be able to say, reflect back, like, if this was operating at its best, what would that look like? So let's talk about that.

And that's another ghost text that you sort of invent as you read. And then one of my favorite things is just pointing to moments of weird energy in the text and being like, what's this? Right. What's this weird energy? Like suddenly when you talk about Nabisco wafers like Electricity happens. What the hell just happened to you? Yeah. Let's talk about that. Right.

Right, like you're finding like untapped veins of gold. Like that is, this is the whole, the rest of the stuff is just like a shell or an egg or something. And there is like the heart of the thing. There's the embryonic thing trying to be born and surrounded by all these other useless words. And you point that out. And you just sort of like help them recognize what they're good at. Because I think sometimes like one of the hardest things to do is a writer is like

listen to yourself and listen to your work and find out like what you're good at. And to be able to point to someone and say like, no, no, when you talk about your mother, like holy shit, everything clarifies and crystallizes into something really exciting. Like the work is embodied, I feel a character, I feel like Verve and Dwenday in the work. But when you're just sort of talking about walking down the street. It's not as exciting. And it's not, I know sometimes when I'm writing, it's like an airplane circling around something I'm trying to get to that I want to write,

that I'm excited to write, but for some reason I feel like I have to do this shitty boring pilgrimage around it to get to it because to just start there feels like, where's the build up? Don't you have to build up? Yeah, yeah. And it's also an anxiety of, if I write that thing that I really want to write about,

what will I write next? So it uses anxiety like using up. Yes! And it's like just write the thing, write the thing, and other things will come. Like you don't need to avoid writing the thing. I spent years avoiding writing about India because I was scared of it. And finally I just had to like sit down and write it because I was in a hurricane, and I couldn't do anything else. Holy shit. Everything else was shut down.

And so all I had was, like, the Guinness and Pursuto, that was the only thing left at the grocery store, and my computer. It, and so I had to. You've got to crawl down Satan's leg. You don't tip toe around hell. You know, what do we, why do circumambulation

on a lake of traders just get to the devil's cock and start sucking? This is. And. And. And. And. I mean always. David, I am excited that you're actually offering a course now that people are

listening at their writers and they want to get going. Can you talk a little bit about it? It sounds like a real intense course to teach. Let's hear about it. Yeah, so it's called a, it's called a spark, a novel, spark class. And it's for people who want to write a novel or have started writing a novel, want to write a novel or have started writing a novel and just giving sort of accountability and craft discussions about writing the novel and then accountability in the form of all the other members of the group and workshopping the different things that you've come up with. And so it's really collaborative. It's a really fun class to teach. It's six months every two weeks. And it'll be a lot of fun. It's a short, at storystudioChicago.org. And you just sort of look around and you'll find it. Great. Yeah. And if you want to find that link, folks, it'll be on the website, dugatressel.com.

Okay, great. We'll get the link there if you're interested in taking a class with my friend, David, which I bet you are after listening to this brilliant human. Wow, that's so at the end of this course, so this is like how to write a novel. It's how to start a novel. It's how to start a novel and sort of like get your feet under yourself to get that first draft done. Wow, that is so cool because that's the hardest part, isn't it? Starting the damn thing. Like getting it going.

First drafts are the worst. The worst. Like the fucking worst. They have to be. And you have to have a community of writers. And like some people just don't have that because they haven't gone to classes. They don't know any other writers. And they so they thrusted upon their friends. And their friends aren't equipped to deal with it. And so it's really nice to have like a community of writers to sort of nestle into when they're writing into the world.

Gotta help you if you send your fucking writing to the wrong person. God, help you. You're the worst. The very worst is the no response, but you know they read it. Yeah, the ultimate slap in the face, you know they read the shit. They're just worried about you. They don't know how to tell you. This is garbage. You're a fuck you. Right.

Fuck you. Or are we even friends anymore after you send me this horse shit? Deeming pile of, and instead like, we all write shit. Like, we all write shit. Like we all write shit. But it's sort of like recognizing the sort of undigested chunks of gold that are within that shit that you eat other people to help you like get the latex gloves on and dig in.

Thank God this is not how we mine for gold. It would transform the wedding ring industry. Just little flex left over. Ethically mine, gold. This was like taken out of the shit of very healthy consenting adults who just like to eat gold. Yeah. David, thank you so much. This has been a revelatory conversation.

And thanks for being so open and honest and courageous and talking about this with the world because My god, we all need to hear it man, especially around the fucking holidays. Everyone knows the statistics about that. Thanks to Grimlands Remember that Grimlands for those of you don't know what I'm talking about because I'm old They like happen to inject into Grimlands the suicide rates go up. The suicide story. Yeah. Christmas.

Oh, um, not a happy way to end an episode, but what a great episode. David, thank you. Again, the links to spark to sign up. When is it again, David? It starts January 11th. January 11th will be at dougartrustle.com. If you want to find those, if you didn't have a chance to write it down, I hope you will take David's class. Thank you so much, David. Thank you. Love you. Love you.

That was David Stewart McClain. You can take his course at storystudioChicago.org. It's six-month spark plan and build your novel, David Stewart McLean, check out any of his wonderful books. A big thank you to our sponsors and happy holidays to you, my dearest friends. I hope that you are having an above average holiday. What a harm way to an apart. I hope you're having the best fucking holiday anyone's ever had. I hope your veiny nips are oozing some kind of brand-new ecstatic love chemical that all your friends are

Lapping off of your delightful nipples as the Slaybell's jingle overhead. I'll see you next week. Until then, Hade Krishna There are over 5 million podcasts in the world, covering topics from pen enthusiasts to beefbacks, a podcast for every person, every interest in every lifestyle, no matter how unique. So if anyone knows the importance of choice, it's podcast listeners, like you, and the brand with over 20 million electrified vehicles sold globally, Toyota, from compact sedan to full-size pickup, Toyota has spent over 20 years developing the most complete range of electrified vehicles.

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