Good Life Project - John Hodgman | An Unlikely Life

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

John Hodgman started his career as a literary agent, but found himself launched into TV when, after an appearance to promote a book on “The Daily Show,” he was invited to return as a regular presence on the show. This let to an unexpected career before the camera, becoming the “Personal Computer” in a series of iconic commercials for Apple computer, and more recently appearing on Married, Bored to Death and The Knick. Along the way, he kept writing books, including his most recent, Medallion Status, while hosting the popular Judge John Hodgman podcast, where he settles serious disputes between real people, such as “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” and “Should we tell our children the TRUTH about Santa Claus.”You can find John Hodgman at: Website-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today, John Hodgman, is a writer, comedian, and actor. You may know him as the personal computer in a series of long-running commercials for Apple Computer, or from his recurring roles in TV on shows like Married, Bored to Death, and The Nick. But he actually started and built his career in the world of writing as a literary agent in New York before stepping into the role as a writer of his own books, then finding himself on The Daily Show in a simple segment that he thought was just about promoting his first book. But that segment would land him a series of recurring roles on the show as the quote, resident resident expert and then the

deranged millionaire, and launch him into the world of TV and writing, acting, producing, performing on stage, and hosting the long-running Judge John Hodgman podcast, where he settles really important disputes between real people. Things like, is a hot dog a sandwich? Now the author of multiple books, including a series filled with fake facts and invented trivia and his latest memoir, Medallion Status, kind of a meditation on status, what we value, strive for, and relinquish as we move through sort of the changing seasons of life. We explore his remarkable, perpetually shifting journey in today's conversation. So excited to share it with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk.

You grew up outside of, I guess, Brookline's like kind of part of Boston, suburb-ish. So my early growing up was on the much more suburban western end of Brookline, which was now very affluent at the time. Upper middle class to affluent, I would say. I didn't mean to move to New York ever. I always thought that I would move back to Boston. Only kidding. But my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, had moved to New York and said, no, you're going to move to New York. And I did.

I hated it. I never liked it. I never liked Manhattan at all. I mean, obviously Manhattan's wonderful. It's just like, it's the center of so much. And yet I had grown up sort of being in love with underdogs. And Manhattan is a top dog. You know, like, even though I was not a sports fan growing up,

I understood the Red Sox and could feel a kinship because they were losers. Whereas the Yankees were like rooting for bullies, you know, at the time. And moving to Manhattan felt like a real betrayal of that to some degree. And also, I just found everything to be too narrow. The sidewalks were so narrow and I was constantly bumping elbows with people in stores and stuff. It's okay to bump elbows. Just don't eyeball anyone. No, I know. Well, I mean, yeah, the

incredible human density of New York and really any city is such an education and how much you can tolerate. Like, it's, you know, one of the things that happened to me when I first moved to New York, actually my

girlfriend at the time, now my wife, was sharing an apartment with our close friend Christine on the Upper East Side. And I was visiting them and I had a job or a job interview downtown. So I was taking the, whatchamacallit, the 456 train. Very, very small trains. Very, very crowded. And I moved my way into the center of the car like you're supposed to do. I knew that. And a guy who's, you know, standing up holding a strap, and there may have even been a strap at that time, turns around and goes, stop touching my back. And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I must have inadvertently brushed his back with my elbow or my bag or whatever.

And he looked at me and said, stop effing touching me. And I said, I'm sorry. And then he hit me. And all of a sudden, this crowded train was just him touching me. And I said, I'm sorry. And then he hit me. And all of a sudden, this crowded train was just him and me. Like, everyone moved away. It was like somehow they found space to get out of our way. And he just hit me. He hit me with his elbow.

Like, he was holding the strap and just elbowed me in the face. And I was stunned. I didn't move. Everyone freaked out. He sat down into one of the now newly empty seats. And we were all stuck together on that train. And it was very terrifying. A couple stops go by.

I mean, we have to be there together. You know what I mean? And a couple stops go by. And he's in tears. And he said, I'm really sorry. I'm just having a really bad day. I really apologize. I'm like, it's okay. And I think about that all the time. You know, we live in a time where we're having real difficulty tolerating each other as neighbors, and there's so much suspicion of other people. And I feel happy every day I'm

in New York, and in particular in Manhattan, because it is denser and more diverse than where I live in Brooklyn. Like, yeah, you know, there are people who are freaking out over immigration, cultural difference, diversity, feeling threatened by it. It's like, I'm so lucky to live in a place that is so dense and diverse with different cultures, backgrounds, languages, points of view, that I don't even think about it anymore. I was like, I get why if you're in a world where your human landscape surrounding you pretty much all looks the same. And this could be parts of Michigan or Wisconsin. It could be Maine. It can be lots of parts of Massachusetts. Do you know what I mean? Like how diversity could feel a little scary. And this isn't to poop on these parts of the world. Like, there's incredible virtue in, you know, rural landscapes.

I'm not saying that cities are necessarily better. But cities do offer you one thing. You're stuck together. And you realize it's not a big deal. It's going to be fine. Like, diversity is great. It's like we all get along. It's terrific.

I mean, yeah, sometimes someone punches you in the face. But then you're stuck together and you realize, oh, this person's crying. We're all suffering. Right. What an amazing moment. And do you ever wonder, like, what if you or he had sort of like, you know, the doors had opened seconds after that had opened and one of you chose to exit and you never had the full circle moment in the intervening seconds where all of a sudden, instead of just being offended or hurt or pissed off, you're like, you had the opportunity to acknowledge and see another person's humanity and their suffering. Yeah. I mean, it was the fact that we were stuck together that allowed us to see each other as humans over time. Not a long time. Didn't take

long. But I mean, yeah, if the doors had opened and I had gotten out, I had to get to work. You know what I mean? I couldn't get off the train, and he had to go wherever he was going. But if one of us had gotten out, I don't know what we would have thought of each other necessarily. I'm grateful for that experience. But that narrowness is what I associate with Manhattan. And it's true that when I came out with a book and went on TV and like we were going to leave New York altogether because we couldn't afford to raise a family here until I had this accidental creative and financial windfall of going on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And then the Apple ads after that, we were able to stay here, you know, because the city is not designed for medium income people. And we moved to Park Slope.

And it absolutely, you know, just to circle around to what you said, it absolutely felt like Brookline, Massachusetts to me. It's like, this is where I breathe. Four or five story homes, wider sidewalks felt just like the Back Bay or Brookline, Massachusetts. Yeah. With easy access to the madness in Manhattan, a couple of subway stops away, hopefully without another. Easy access. Yeah, absolutely. You grew up, so Brookline also, you're an only kid also, which is really interesting in the context of what you just described too, because as an only kid, a lot of the sort of like the

wraparound that is, you grow up in a way where there's amazing benefits, a lot of attention, but also not necessarily this built-in opportunities to tolerate and endure conflict and see as like healthy interactions that are adversarial. Yeah. No, I mean, I had a, you know, I described being an only child as being a member of the worldwide super smart, afraid of conflict, narcissist club. And the conflict of the afraid of conflict part is very intense because if you are an only child and if you're like me and had no natural inclination or interest in sports, you didn't have siblings to tussle with or fight with, yell at and be yelled at by. And similarly, you didn't even have the benefit of playing a sports game and taking the wins

and taking the losses and those frustrations and rehearsing the ritual of conflict, getting so mad at the other team and then whatever, shaking hands with them or like, you know what I mean? Like healthy conflict that teaches you that it's not automatically fatal. And I just presume that any disagreement was fatal. And not only that, but like any highly charged emotional one-on-one personal interaction

was terrifying to me for the same reason, even affection. So it took me a while to shake that off. Well, it seems like you also, It seems like you almost started to create personas to step into at a pretty young age. Rumor has it, rocking high school with long hair fedora and a briefcase. Yeah, I was many different styles all at the same time. So was that you putting up barriers to protect yourself or searching for a sense of identity? I really, I mean, there are a couple of things. Like a lot of pretentious only children, I really wanted to be interesting. And being interesting was very important to me.

And I attempted to be interesting the way a lot of people try to be interesting, which is through affectation, you know, through weird signals like, I have long hair, but I also wear a fedora. Am I a hippie or am I Indiana Jones? And I carried a briefcase and I wore a big overcoat and, you know, I tried to steep myself and, you know, not non sort of, you know, not the popular bands, but the cool, like, talking heads. Laurie Anderson. I was trying, like, I was the kind of

kid who, like, I wanted to play a musical instrument, but and I was offered violin lessons. I'm like, I'll take viola. Violin's a little on the nose. Everyone does that. And I'm like, and I'll add clar lessons, I'm like, I'll take viola. Violin's a little on the nose. Everyone does that. And I'm like, and I'll add clarinet, not saxophone. It's like anything just to not be the same.

Yeah. There's nothing particularly unique about my desire to be interesting. I think we all want to be recognized for having valid interests, but I wasn't cultivating interests so much as I was cultivating an array of affectations that would make me seem interesting to other people. It's not like I was afraid of being uninteresting. I think I was pretty interesting anyway. But the other thing was, I never thought about it as trying to hide myself. I affected, even though I was trying on different styles very early on, I, you know, I kind of was, I was kind of was born at the age of like 39,

39 to 44. You know, that was kind of where I saw myself because I was so terrified of the sexual part of adolescence that I wanted to skip it and just become the sexless gentleman bachelor that I, that I wanted to skip it and just become the sexless gentleman bachelor that I thought I was destined to become anyway. Kind of this Edward Gorey type asexual figure who wore a long fur coat and tennis shoes. Only because I was not into furs, the only reason I didn't try to rock that outfit. And because I was an only child and we lived in this

huge house that my mom and dad got for a song because it was falling apart in Brookline, there was this whole wing of the house that we had rented out to various tenants over the years. And once I was in high school, the tenant left. And before my parents could rent it to another one, I took possession of this suite of rooms. I mean, this apartment within the house so that I could pretend to be a grown-up. Like, I had my own living room. I broke apart my bunk beds because all only children have bunk beds. It's a symbol of our material excess and ultimately our deep loneliness. And I took them apart and put them in an L-shaped formation to kind of create a sectional sofa with some bolsters.

I had an old school desk. I put a manual typewriter there with a library light and a fern that I found. I mean, I don't know where I was getting ferns at that time, but it was my study, you know. And to some degree, I think that sort of affected intellectual adulthood was designed to signal not available for scary hugging and kissing. But I think it was also designed very much to signal available, but only if you get this. You know, like, I'm sending out signals to the weirdos of the world. I'm with you.

And I hope, and not surprisingly surprisingly there are other weirdos and we all found each other in high school and we're all great friends right it's like a beacon this is yeah yeah yeah

exactly it's like come join let's go for walks I'm lonely come roll 20 sided dice with me right

because you ended up on the radio in high school also right yeah yeah that's true I

I had started a a zine which was a thing that existed at the time, for those of you who were born in the contemporary era, in the 80s and 90s when I was a teenager in the 80s and into the early 90s. And zines were photocopied do-it-yourself magazines. They were everything. Yeah. They were how weirdos found each other before there was the internet. And, you know, a lot of them were organized around music or countercultural obsessions, true crime, weird films, whatever it was. But you would write your zine, photocopy it, and then you would buy a listing in Fact Sheet 5, which was this big directory of zines, and the guy, I can't remember his name, would review the zines. You would send it in, and he would review it and write it up, and then people would order it from you.

So some friends of mine and I in high school did a zine called Samizdat. It was so pretentious, Samizdat being the Russian term for Soviet dissident literature that was hand distributed because we were underground at the high school. We're an alternative literary and cultural zine within the high school, Brookline High School, an alternative to the sanctioned, you know, quote unquote, high school newspaper and literary magazine. And we just like published weird stuff but we were like the it it was i i wish i could say it was not lost on us but it was totally lost on us that our underground zine are like my co editors among them were the son of the principal of the high school and he gave us permission to print the thing off at town hall like hindsight you know. You know what I mean? But we had to get a, to be sanctioned,

we had to get a faculty supervisor. And so we knew exactly who we were going to get. It was going to be this guy, Joe McClellan, who was a mysterious faculty member. We've figured out that he was essentially the permanent substitute teacher in the French department. He had to have been 35 or so at the time. Had long hair and wore a leather jacket and rode a motorcycle and wore a beret and spoke French. And we were just like, who's this dude?

Like, this is the kind of weirdo that I wanted to become. And Joe had a, I was going to say podcast, but there weren't such things at the time. Joe had a radio show on WMFO, which was the Tufts University College Radio Station. And Tufts University, WMFO, I should say, had a policy of reserving a majority of time on air for student DJs,

but they reserved a certain amount of time for community members because that was their mission, to bring in members of the community to feature alternative voices. And what I think their mission was, was like, let's bring in underrepresented minority voices in the Medford-Somerville community or political dissidents or, you know, I don't think they had in mind that they were going to feature someone, not even from the community, someone from three towns away who was a junior or senior in high school just to play Billy Bragg and Tom Waits songs. Kind of gamed the system a little bit.

I gamed the system. Well, Joe had this radio show and he was going on, I think he was going on summer vacation. And I was like, I'll fill in for you. And we arranged it. And that's how I started doing it. And we had very, I mean, I had very few listeners. There was one guy who would call in from Cambridge. I would take requests.

It's like, play the saddest song you know. I played Man in the Iron Mask by Billy Bragg. And he called back. He said, really, is that all you got? It's like, not sad enough. Give me the cure. Give me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, this is pretty sad. Pretty emo song. But, but yeah, no, I mean, I loved it. But that was sort of like for a very, I was, I was a very good kid who followed the rules. I was a good student. I did all my homework. I didn't, I was basically completely straight edge, as we called it, until senior year of high school when I began occasionally drinking a beer, but never did drugs, never got in trouble, whatever. I was still looking for adventures of one kind or another. I really, really, really wanted to have jobs.

I really wanted to get into the adult world. I liked high school. I loved all my friends. But I think there's nothing more than, at least this only child, wanted than to be an adult. And so as soon as I could get a job legally, I was working in the stock room at a furniture store on Newbury Street and working at the movie theater, you know, washing dishes at a weird restaurant in what was called the Combat Zone at the time. Not a weird restaurant, just a small and eccentric restaurant. And, you know, like if I saw an opportunity to host a radio show Friday afternoons, I was going to get in there.

Have at it. Yeah. You got to earn that briefcase. Yeah. No, right. I had to put some actual interesting life work into that case in order for it to not just be an empty shell. Yeah. display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple

Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. You go from there and you end up in Yale.

Same time as Jonathan Colton. You guys become buddies. Yeah. I guess really good friends to this day. I would dare say best friends. Yeah. But don't tell him I said that. Of course not.

Because we're both from New England. Crippling emotional reticence is what we're built of. I think it would freak him out. It's the DNA of your existence. He's from Connecticut. I'm from Massachusetts. There are no best friends in our world. Then you jump into New York, as you mentioned.

And you jump into New York coming out of Yale with a degree in lit also, straight into the publishing industry. Also had a really interesting time in publishing because a lot of stuff is changing around that time. I ended up pretty quickly getting a job as the receptionist at a literary agency. And Seth Godin came in and gave the PowerPoint presentation that he was going around giving to publishers. And as a favor to Amy Burkauer, who was our fearless co-commander, incredibly smart person, she said, come in and show this to our people. And he did. And we all went up to the second floor dining room and he showed us this PowerPoint and he mapped it out.

Amazon knows more about readers than any other publisher ever. They have hard data, whereas every other publisher and bookseller has kind of soft data. They have bare statistics uh they have the addresses of all the people who bought stuff from them they're able to do direct permission marketing that was his big thing at the time permission marketing and they are developing a platform to deliver electronic books directly via the internet and you you see this coming together. What possible reason would there be for Amazon not to be a content creator and publisher in the near future? It'll never happen. I think that was a reaction across the entire industry.

Right. Everyone was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Well, because it was almost too terrifying. Yeah, exactly. To contemplate. Right. I mean, that's i mean this is not me this is not me saying i was smarter than my senior colleagues i think that they saw there was a big shift coming in the industry and they they were wary about jumping on exactly what what that shift what shape that shift would take

they were taking a kind of a wait and see attitude and for me i i basically knew like i gotta get out of this business like it wasn't like i knew better i was like i'm out of here i don't know i don't know what's gonna happen but you got out of the agenting side but you didn't get out of publishing and writing. In fact, you went- No, right. Confluence of things. Like there's this, your mom passes right around there also, which also sounds like that happening played a major role in your decision to also say, you know what?

I need to actually, I need to change the role I'm playing in this space. Yeah. Well, I mean, because part of the reason that I was at the agency in the first place was that I was afraid of being a writer and being a creator, which is what I knew in my heart I wanted to do. I had applied to like some MFA programs and got accepted to some, got waitlisted at others, decided I didn't want to deal with it because I thought, you know what? Why don't I live in the city with my friends whom I love and these new colleagues and this wonderful townhouse and find other writers to do the hard work and I'll take some of their money? Maybe I'll be a businessman. Well, I'm a tarot businessman.

Like, how can someone who is – like, I was great at finding writers and interesting ideas and I was great at having lunch with editors and sort of talking about books and thinking about books. Creatively, I was in tune. But how could someone who was terrified of conflict ever be a good negotiator? Like, I was awful at it. I was the worst negotiator in the world, and I knew it. And that is fundamentally your job as an agent. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, it's a beautiful townhouse. And we get to have these long lunches and afternoons off on Friday.

And we think about books and we talk about books. But at the end of the day, we're selling widgets. It's a sales job. I was like, oh, this is not for me at all. So that's where I was sort of in this world of grave discomfort as my time and complacency wore on there. And I was moving into my seventh year, sort of repping people and trying to do my best, but also writing for magazines a little on the side because I had friends who now were, you know, working at magazines and assigning at magazines and magazines still existed so when seth godin came in and you know projected the writing on the wall i was already beginning to feel like this is this whole business is changing and i don't want to i don't want to

stay in it but my clients will get so mad at me if i quit and as you say you know as you know i do not like conflict i don't like people being mad at me. But then of course, my mom got very sick with cancer, lung cancer diagnosed, and the illness progressed very quickly. And I went home to Brookline to help take care of her. And I was there for six months before she passed away. And I stayed a couple of months after that because it was summertime. And I realized that the world, you know, I realized two things. You know, one, it doesn't last forever. You're not here forever. And the world will go on without you.

Like, those clients didn't care that I was gone. They felt they cared that I was gone because they felt bad for me. And they cared about me. And when I called them to say, I think I need to do something else, they were like, yeah, you do. I was like, yeah, I'm going to start doing it right away. So luckily, my friend Mark Adams was a signing editor at Men's Journal at the time, offered me a chance to write about food. That was my first regular column for a magazine. From then on, I just kept getting rescued from one failing business to another. I got rescued from book publishing by magazines. I got rescued from magazines by cable television.

And I don't think I got rescued from cable television. I think I went down with the ship. You kind of kept going for a long time there. Kept going for a long time. Because you end up eventually. I got semi-rescued by some streaming services, including Amazon. Right, to a long time. Because you end up, you end up eventually. I got semi-rescued by some streaming services, including Amazon, you know.

Right, to a certain extent. Yeah, like I got hired to, you know, my very unexpected on-camera career, I started to be able

to do some comedic acting and like, you know, I worked on a couple of episodes of this show called Red Oaks, which was being produced

by Amazon. I'm like, if Seth Godin could see me now, like they became what he predicted they would become not not necessarily a publishing house of books because they realized why that's too low a margin right but they became they became content creators yeah yeah they became a studio 100 you end up actually you go from writing articles and columns to then writing books that That's the thing that then leads you. You end up on cable for years.

But that whole thing starts also from you end up on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart promoting your first book. Right. And that turns into then them saying, huh, maybe, like, well, this was fun. Maybe there's some other role you can keep playing with us. Yeah, it was astonishing and truly hallucinatory experience. I mean, to explain, so by the time I left

Writer's House, I had cobbled together a little living writing freelance magazine articles. Initially mostly for Men's Journal and then moving on to profiles and stuff for the New York Times magazine. I was also writing for dave eggers's mcsweeney's yeah literary journal and humor website called mcsweeney's and for mcsweeney's and you know it's like there are a couple of people who truly changed the course of my life and i don't't think I necessarily credit Dave publicly as often as I should because I started writing

sort of absurdist humor for McSweeney's and Dave was like, keep doing this. This is what you should be doing. And he was absolutely right. You know, Dave and Mark Adams both are like, you, I thought my job

was to be profound and interesting. Remember when I was 14 years old and I was trying to be profound and interesting. But both Mark and Dave said to me, you know, you're funny. I'm like, yeah, but that's, that's lesser, isn't it? And they're like, no, like Mark Adams is like, you should, you should go ahead and be funny when you're writing for magazines. Like not everybody can do it. I'm like, oh, really? They can't? What's wrong with them?

It's just part of life. But isn't that cheating? Because it's just what I do. Yeah, exactly. And George Saunders, you know, in an interview with Jesse Thorne, my good friend and co-host of the podcast, but Jesse is a great interviewer and was interviewing George Saunders, and George Saunders said something that really resonated with me, which is like, when I learned it was okay for me to be funny, because he thought the job of an author was to be serious.

When I learned it was okay to be funny, I felt like I had been in a boxing ring my whole life with one arm tied behind my back, and now I had use of both of my hands. And that's what it felt like to me. So I started writing this column for the McSweeney's website called Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent, because I was one, where people would write in with real questions, and I solicited real questions. And they initially were advice about how to break into the industry and i would give them advice from the point of view of this deranged authoritative blowhard

who had a very limited grasp on reality who had been a professional literary agent and left and his name was john hodgman but if you asked him you know what kind of novel should i write it's like really what kind of hat should you be wearing? Like, what style of beret should you be wearing? How do you make yourself seem interesting? And then the advice got more sort of diverse in subject matter. kept presenting the most ridiculous, absurd falsehoods with the deadpan authority of a straight, white, Yale-educated man. And this was a shtick that I enjoyed. And I ended up translating that into my first book, The Areas of My Expertise, which was just a list of complete world knowledge, all of which was made up by me, but presented in a very deadpan way.

So it would be a book of a list of fascinating historical trivia, but unlike other books where it would be like the nine U.S. presidents who smoked cigars, this would be the nine U.S. presidents who secretly had hooks for hands. And we never, no one in the 40s and 30s, no one ever talked about FDR having a hook for a hand because, you know, it was shaped like a wheelchair or something like that. Just absurd stuff like that. Or I think the joke was that he was only photographed from the wrist up in the way that, you know, in real life, no one ever talked about him having, you know, polio because they never showed his wheelchair, you know. Anyway, the areas of my expertise came out, and I went on The Daily Show to promote it. And Jon Stewart and I had a good time talking about all those fake facts.

And Ben Carlin was the executive producer at the time. And much to my, I mean, you know, I went into that thing. The book itself was weird. I'm a weirdo. And I had a feeling like, yeah yeah this book might only resonate with about 5 000 mcsweeney's readers nationwide if i'm lucky maybe it'll hit bigger but but maybe it just won't maybe it's like a thousand weirdos like me will get it and indeed that was coming true as i went on my first book tour before The Daily Show. I was going into bookstores and 7, 8, 9, 15 people were there and they left confused.

They did not know what I was talking about. They did not get the joke at all. Or one or two maybe did. But then I went on The Daily Show and I told the same jokes and heard the most remarkable sound, which was people laughing at the jokes, including John. You're like, I found my people. Well, yeah. I mean, he – but he basically, you know, another obviously person who changed the course of my life. But he gave people permission to get the jokes.

Yeah. And that was something that I realized people, in order to enjoy what I make, people need a permission structure. Because it's easy to look at them and go like, this is not really about anything, or this isn't meaningful, or this is funny but not that funny, or I don't get this. What does this joke mean? And John really gave people permission to you know he really gave it an endorsement yeah and i think he also created this container yeah with like certain set of rules and values and expectations where people are like all right i'm signing up for this yeah yeah exactly right he was a curator of talent and i was astonished enough that he would have me on the show at all. And I thought there will be nothing more life-changing than this.

Because indeed, the next day I flew to Seattle to pick up the book tour again. And instead of 17 people, there were 300 people. I was like, literally overnight. Yeah, Wow. It went from, the book went from somewhere in like the 14,000s ranking on Amazon to seven on Amazon. So, you know, I hadn't appreciated, I was excited because I was on my favorite show in the world. I hadn't appreciated how much of a difference that was going to have. I'm like, this is life changing. I will be able to write another book.

That's what this means. I didn't know it would mean that I would be called five weeks later to come back and do it again by the show and join the show as a cast member. And I had my life kidnapped by television. I didn't see that coming at all. I mean, it's so interesting how that happens. It's like this, it just out of the blue,

it's this random thing that completely changes the trajectory of everything yeah because you ended up so you end up being a regular on the daily show as resident expert um yeah doing the same the same sort of like stick for the ideal almost a decade yeah yeah no i was there from i started in early 2006 and i ended with John in mid 2015. So nine years. And I was initially, I was the resident expert. And this was obviously a direct riff of what I was doing in my books of fake complete world knowledge. Now everybody's doing alternative facts.

It's very, very popular. But at the time it was just me. You were trend spotter. I was. But I was like, I recognized like, you know, the paucity, you know, the hollowness of expertise. And people were being brought in to cable television all the time to be experts on a particular subject. And you had no sense of whether they were an expert or not, other than the chyron beneath them saying expert. And I, you know, when Ben Carlin said, do you want to try to do some more stuff for the show? I said, yeah, what you guys need is a tweety know-it-all white man who simply because he looks like an expert, everyone will take

seriously, even if he's talking about the most obviously absurd or even awful things. And then I transitioned later in the show to a different role, which was the deranged millionaire, which was based on Donald Trump. That was when I was like, yeah, you know what's happening in cable now is a angry white maybe billionaire is wandering onto the Fox set to spin conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's birth because he wants to talk right now. We need someone like that. So I became the deranged millionaire. Because this happens. So this all kicks off in 2006. Yeah. And this sets in motion this whole career for you.

At the same time, you're getting known for that. You're getting known for the books. You're getting known for the role on The Daily Show. And then this commercial drops, which, you know, like if The Daily Show had a large but very focused and sort of, you know, like very specific audience, somehow you land in this commercial, like the I'm a Mac, I'm a PC commercial. Right. Playing the role of the PC. I'm a PC. And that becomes this massive national thing that turns into a series of commercials that run for what, like another three, four, five years?

Three to four years. Right, which gets you known on a completely different scale and also for a completely different reason. Yeah, I mean, it was astonishing and hallucinatory. As I say, I thought I had fallen down the stairs and I was having a dream. Because here's the thing, like I went on The Daily Show to promote the book, and I thought, nothing crazier is ever going to happen than this, that I'm on The Daily Show as a cast member, you know, by January of 2006. So I went on the show as a guest November of 2005. See, I've got it memorized because I think about it all the time.

By March of 2006, I'm being asked to audition for these ads. I love adventures. I love jobs. I'll audition. Why not? I'm curious. I'm curious to find out why they were thinking of me for these ads. I love adventures. I love jobs. I'll audition. I'm curious. I'm curious to find out why they were thinking of me for this thing. Turns out they're thinking of everyone in the world. But I was like, I'll go in audition for this thing, for this job I'm never going to get. Maybe I'll get a story out of it. But then I got the job and it ruined the story. And suddenly I'm on this national ad campaign for Apple Computer, which is a, you know,

company that I, everything that i had ever created of any value i'd created on a apple product computers is what they made at the time it's before there were phones you know working at you know with justin long who played the pc and phil morrison uh the director of all those ads but But now suddenly in this world, and two still both very good friends of mine, but now in this world of both outward facing and inward facing celebrity that I had no understanding of. Outward facing celebrity meaning, unlike The Daily Show, which was seen by,

I think, two million people a night. Those ads were seen by millions and millions and millions of people. And they did not know my name. But they would see me, and they're like, aren't you? And people would freak out because I was- The PC guy.

The PC guy. And visual fame is very different than podcast or radio fame. Because podcasts and radio or writing, too, you know, like novel writer fame or whatever, that's very intimate. You live with that person. They're in your house.

They're in your mind. But visual fame, TV, movies, you just see the glamorous image of a person in your screen. You don't expect to see them at the urinal next to you. And it's astonishing and weird. People freak. It tests people's understanding of reality. So then you're a part of their hallucinogenic dream.

And the interfacing part of celebrity, of course, is just the sheer amount of catering. First of all, literal sandwiches and snacks, but also emotional catering. Whatever else is on the rider. Yeah, right. Emotional catering that is given to a star. And look, I'm not a movie star, I'm not a TV star, but in the context of those ads, there are two people who are in every one of them. We were co-number ones on the call sheet, as they say. Right.

I mean, you become a highly recognizable person. Right. Well, right. So highly recognizable and all of that. As a character. Right. All of that is external. Like walking into the Apple store at that time and feeling the whole energy of the store shift as the news. Like I'm just there to buy a dongle or whatever. And all of a sudden, they put me up on the television, you know, the big screen, and people are coming over to take,

I don't know if they were taking pictures with me at that time, because there weren't, I mean, there were phones with cameras in them, but that wasn't, selfie culture wasn't a thing until Apple changed the world a year later, you know. But this is 2006. But I think the more secretive and corrosive warping sense of reality is that private bubble of celebrity,

which is that people are just doing whatever you want. Like, suddenly my emotional state matters than anything else in the world. I'm being driven everywhere. Everything is being made for my comfort. I'm being flown first class. All sorts of things that, you know, even though I come from a relative place of affluence and culture, like we didn't fly first class in my family, you know? Like we didn't stay at the fancy hotels.

Like we stayed with family. A man picking me up at the airport in a limousine to take me to a fancy hotel that I would never have to pay for. Like, it wasn't even like, I'd stayed in hotels I didn't have to pay for, but I had to submit my receipts to the New York Times Magazine and they would give me guff, right?

This was all just carte blanche. When I, you know, I had to, in the first round of shooting, I had to do a thing where I fell over a bunch of times onto a mattress. And the production was so concerned about my well-being. They're like, we're going to send you a masseuse to your room tonight. I don't, what does that mean? Like I have to take my shirt off? No.

Why does my emotional comfort matter to anybody? I don't feel any emotional comfort ever. So why are you trying to put it shirt off? No. Why does my emotional comfort matter to anybody? I don't feel any emotional comfort ever. So why are you trying to put it on me? It's like straight back to the 12-year-old. Like, no. And, you know, what I came to understand, of course, is that when you are an actor

in a film or television or commercial shoot, and the whole shoot revolves around you, A, being there, and B, being alert and awake and able to do the job, that is the number one priority. And so they're not going to trust me to report to set on time. They're going to send a minder to pick me up and put me into the set. And they're not going to trust me to go get my own sandwich. They're going to be like, what can we get for you? They're going to keep me in sight at all times.

Because if I disappear, if I wander off and do a bunch of drugs and fall down the stairs or whatever, and they don't know me, they don't know John Hodgman's going to be there all the time. It doesn't matter. Like, there's a chance that I might disappear and then the whole thing ends. And if I'm doing a bad job, they're probably going to say, they're not going to tell me I'm doing a bad job because they're not going to say you need to do better because that might risk sending me down into, you know, an emotional soul chasm that I won't be able to come out of and time's wasted and costs money.

And if I'm doing a great job, if they tell me I'm doing a great job, they're probably lying. I mean, it's not that I didn't do a good job on the thing, but what I came to understand was all of this is being, because I am on-camera talent, and the talent, in this case, along with Justin, the only talent that is meaningful to this production, the whole world was being bent around my needs, whims, and wishes. And it didn't take me very long to A, become very accustomed to that, but at the same time also appreciate how corrosive that would be to a human being. To live in a world in which everything is organized for their comfort. Not merely their creature comfort, but their emotional comfort. And how famous people can become monstrous as a result, or become simply suspicious and

distrustful because they don't trust anybody to tell them you're not doing a great job anymore because people are making money off them. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. running off. Charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. I mean, at the same time, the backdrop of this is on the personal side of things. You end up marrying that girlfriend that we've talked about. You end up becoming a father, having two kids. Yes. And raising a family. And also interestingly enough, starting to bounce your time between New York and Maine, which has a

profoundly different ethos about how to live. And it's really, you're navigating these worlds of hyper-focus, hyper-status, you know, like all it's you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you. And then at the same time, trying to step into everyday life as like the, and also thinking about, okay, so how do I want to be in relation to this person who, you know, like I hope to spend the rest of my life with? How do I want to be in relation to my kids? What do I want to,

what do I want to radiate out to them about the appropriate way to live and what to expect from the world? Yeah. What to give to the world. I would be lying if I said I gave a lot of, like, thought and consideration in that way. I mean, it was in the background. The thing is, the quality of my life, for me, is always having a lot of jobs.

A lot of different worlds to live in. I enjoyed the seven years of living in one world at the literary agency. But the only stable world that I need personally is the stable world that is afforded to me by my friendship and love affair with my wife, whom I've known since high school. And then the stability of or the attempt to be stable for our kids. And we already had, by the time I started The Daily Show, our second child had just been born so we we already had two kids within this framework that were already and that's automatically very humbling you know when you are sleep deprived because they don't care if everybody else is lavishing stuff yeah right exactly and so that so that was very grounding i guess for for lack of a better term. But in terms of what my interests were beyond that, I didn't feel this as anything more than an extension of what my approach to life had already been, which is there's an opportunity to guest host this radio show in Medford.

I'm going to try that. And that's the same as, do you want to try having a small role in this movie because we saw you on the Satellite? Yeah, I'll try that. Do you want to do a voice in Coraline? Yeah, I'll try that. Your mom has passed away, and your wife is a high school teacher. Do you want to spend two months out of the year up in rural western Massachusetts? And then later, rural coastal Maine. Yeah, I'll try that too. I like living in different worlds. And probably to my detriment, like, this is not the only world in the world.

Like, this is not the only world for me. Like, I auditioned for and got booked on an incredible TV show. I should have taken the job. Didn't. I used as an excuse the fact that it was shooting during the time that my paperback book tour was happening. Truly, I was just scared to spend that much time away from my family. I wish I had done it. It would have been a great job,

but it wasn't untrue that I had a paperback book tour. Like I had another, I have five different careers, you know, add to that later a career in podcasting. And that's the way I like it. So I think that to some degree that hamstrung me in terms of certain, like, you know, you have, if you want to be a success in television, you have to work in television. You know, if you want to be a success

as an actor, that's what you got to do all the time. Right. But clearly you don't. And it's not that you don't want to be a success in any one of those one things. It's that the trappings of being exclusively ultra successful in one domain is not your personal definition of success. I have always been profoundly emotionally monogamous. I mean, literally monogamous with my wife. And I would say equally kind of like devoted to a small group of friends that I care a lot about. I'm not seeking to build, you know, experience other worlds of emotion, but professionally polyamorous always. I just love being in different worlds and in particular, absenting myself from the world

of New York city or Hollywood for six or eight weeks to go up to rural Western Massachusetts. And then later, because my wife loves Maine more than any other place or person on earth to Maine, that afforded something equally very, I think, or hope, a point of view for our children that was very different, you know, to see how people live in a small community. When you look at all the different things and you also like along with all of this, you've ended up dropping into different roles in TV and film, developing kind of a one man show slash comedy slash stand up. Like it's really your own thing. Yeah. It's very.

That's toward around. Yeah. My brand is very complicated. Ended up being a Netflix special. So you had all these things. I guess my curiosity is if you look at all this and, and the, the polyamorous approach to your professional life, do you see or feel a through line through all of it? Is there something that you can sort of look at and say like, this exists in everything that I do? Like this, and if it doesn't exist, I don't think I would say yes. I mean, when you described my standup act, it's, even I had to hesitate before I said standup.

There are a lot of standups who would get angry that I called it standup. And even i'm not sure that it is you know i did i was i was a touring performer for starting with the book tours but then starting in 2013 through you know 2016 just standing on stages and telling stories stories that became my book's vacation land and then medallion status. But, you know, it is hard to describe. Is it stand-up if it's not necessarily designed to be funny all the time?

In the stand-up comedy world, they call what I do storytelling. And they call it that with a real sniff. Prejudice. Yeah. A real, like, what is there to say about a 90-minute comedy show that starts with me speaking very honestly about my life as a father in my 40s, and then ends with me dressing up as Ayn Rand and singing We're in the Money in a phony Russian accent. So it's very hard for me to find a through line. You know what I mean? I am, as professionally as I am polyamorous, I think my creative impulses are as eccentric in the literal term of bouncing all over the place. But maybe it is the notion that everything that you've done is driven by the opportunity to

exercise the creative impulse. Everything has some substantial act of creation in it. Well, I was thinking about that because I'm working with a friend now on a pitch for a TV show. And I was just thinking about it this morning. It's a good idea for a show. And yet to me, it still feels the term I came up with is arbitrary. Everything I've done, I've done because I tuned into some point of curiosity and felt compelled to follow it. Even the Ayn Rand Act, you know, there was an arbitrary prompt for it, which was I was supposed to go on a podcast hosted by my friend Paul F. Tompkins called the Dead Authors Podcast, where comedians would imitate authors. So that was an arbitrary prompt. But I had profiled an Ayn Randian objectivist bridge player. It was my first big profile for the New York Times Magazine.

I had read about half of Atlas Sh shrugged and i think i got the gist i was fascinated with ayn rand and then i watched these to sort of get a sense of what my act would be i watched these youtube videos of when ayn rand used to go on the phil donahue show and the rapport that i mean obviously politically and ideologically very separate, but it was very clear that A, Ayn Rand had a sense of humor. She was poking Phil Donahue on purpose and Phil Donahue loved it. I was just like fascinated by Ayn Rand in the 70s being this,

having this weird on-camera love affair with Phil Donahue. And that became the point of curiosity that I had to follow to the point of becoming this alternate version of Ayn Rand. So it's like, I don't know what the triggers are.

I bet someone looking back over my career could connect a lot of things. I remember when I was first starting to tell some of the stories that ended up in my book Vacationland, I started telling them on stage first, stories about spending more and more time in Maine and renting this house in Maine initially, transitioning from this world in Western Massachusetts, where we'd really put down real roots and now going to this other place. Not even hearing that the central but not even hearing

myself the central conflict of the stories i was telling is like i have two summer homes is this relatable it wasn't until i was telling these stories and my friend john roderick was a musician we were performing together and he back announced me and said ladies and gentlemen the privileged comedy of john oderman it's like you know, someone looking from above could probably connect a lot of dots of sort of this certain obsessions that I have, certain points of curiosity that are mine, as well

as the certain white male cishet point of view, Yale-educated, kind of affluent, affected twerp that sort of defines my point of view. But from my point of, but from inside my head, all I'm looking for is what's the next thing I have to do.

So when a job is offered to me, if I can't find, if it feels arbitrary, truly arbitrary, and I can't find a point of connection, a point of personal obsession or curiosity, I'm not sure there's any reason for me to do it and i've done lots of arbitrary prompts like i've been hired to adapt and to write screenplays they've never been produced but like adapting a documentary but there was already some i for this one documentary which was about live action role-playing gaming i was like i I know nerds. This is the world. And I know where this should be set.

And I know, like, immediately that arbitrary prompt became a point of, like, I need to go down this road. And yet right now I was, you know, taking the train up here thinking about this project that my friend and I are doing. And I don't think for – and I was just like, this still feels arbitrary to me. I'm not finding that point where I have to do this. And that's the guiding principle for me. I'm not sure how this brand looks to the outside world. lots of evidence that it looks pretty darn confusing. Because unless I get someone like Jon Stewart to say, this amalgamation of weird ideas, interests, and eccentricities is okay, there are a lot of people

who just go, no, not interested, not interested, not interested. I'm a weird flavor because I have all these different interests. But from my point of view, I know it's because I couldn't not do it. Yeah. And if that's the thing, it's just an inner knowing. It's like, look, I can't tell you what the criteria are. But I know when it's a yes and I know when it's a no.

And maybe the needle can be moved a little bit. But unless it gets moved, I can't tell you what's going to necessarily move at all. So, I mean, I'm sure there are common themes and patterns and stuff like that. Well, one of the things I learned, I mean, you know, at the literary agency in particular is a lot of people want to be writers. Yeah. Something like 95% of the people say they have a book in them. Yeah. And, you know, people feel that if they write a book, that that's going to be validating to their lives somehow, to their experience,

to their inner lives, you know? And so it's very important to people to have written a book. And people who are writing a book just to have written a book, those books are no good. You can spot them a million miles away. But when you're reading a book because that person had to write that story, then you're in, you know? So it was a long time before I figured out that I wanted to write a book and then what that book would be before I stumbled upon the idea of a fake book of trivia, the areas of my expertise. But once I hit on that idea, I was like, I have to do that. And I think I wouldn't want to waste anybody's time with work that I at least didn't feel utterly compelled to put into the world. Yeah. And I mean, which really brings us nicely to your latest book, A Dinosaur.

It really does. We set it up so good. It was like, let's just slide it right in here. Train professionals, people. That's right. Which is really kind of interesting because you're in this window right now Where you know we have everybody Fill out this thing before they come on the show Is there anything that's really on your mind you want to talk about

And I was struck by what you shared Which was one sentence which you said for the first time in 15 years I honestly don't know What my next step is And when I think about Medallion It's really it's a meditation On the It's a meditation on status It's a meditation on status.

It's a meditation on the loss of status and grasping for it. And then surrendering it. Right, and then surrendering it. And we're talking about fame, talking about parenthood, we're talking about medallion status on Delta Airlines. Right. Which becomes the proxy when you lose all the others. Yeah, exactly.

This one thing, I can figure out how to get. Yeah get yeah the other stuff it's harder to hold on to and you know like lots of people don't enjoy any status whatsoever so it's still a point of view of privilege but anyone who has been a parent when your kids are little and i'm not talking about infants but when they're a little bit older, you know what fame is. You're the most famous person in the room when you come home. Every time you come home, they're like daddy, mommy. In the same way,

when I used to walk into the Apple store, it doesn't happen anymore, but like, they'd be like, PC, you are seen deeply and appreciated. Even if it's a complicated relationship. Anyone who has had children knows what it feels like to be really, really famous. And anyone who has teenagers knows what it's like to lose fame, because that's when your audience starts to turn on you. And they're like, yeah, we're all human beings.

We don't need you anymore. You're canceled. Okay, boomer. Bye-bye. And you know what that feels like to lose that, to lose fame. And while I thought that I was very inured to the panic that is associated with the specific status loss of declining fame as, you know, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart came to an end and I chose not to go on with Trevor. And then the TV show that I had a small part on after two seasons came to an end and now

it wasn't on television regularly at all. And, you know, acting and other sort of famey opportunities were becoming fewer and farther and farther between. Even though I thought I was inured to that panic, I felt it. I was like, oh, I'm slipping. I'm slipping and it feels terrible. How do I make up for it? I know, leave my family again and fly across the country to, you know, hit an arbitrary goal on Delta's loyalty program to make me a whole human being again. I had to think about why that was so powerful, even though I knew better. Even though I never expected television fame.

I always looked at it as like a weird fluke, and I never expected it to last. And so here it's happening. I mean, it's in a different phase now. Why do I feel terrible about it? Well, it's because when I go into the Apple store now, no one says anything. No one recognizes me. No one remembers. A generation has grown up not knowing those ads at all. I could, I was thinking about it on the subway here, like that feeling that I never expected to have during the highest sort of recognizable part of my life. That any room that I walked into, someone would be like, oh, that's John Hodgman, even if they didn't say anything.

And lots of times they did. People want to write books because they want their inner life to be validated. They want to believe that they're special and that when they write it down, other people will see them as being special. When I first made Gold Medallion on Delta, because I was flying across the country so much for television, I didn't even know what had happened. They just suddenly said to me as I was boarding the plane, thank you for being gold.

I didn't know why they were saying it. It's like, what is this, The Outsiders? Yeah, I know. Stay gold, Tony boy. I was like, thank you for being gold. Like, I was shook to my core. Because I realized in that moment, it's like, yeah, when I was an only child putting on fedoras and stuff, it's because I wanted everyone to see my gold. I thought I was gold.

I wanted the world to see I was gold. But inside, I was worried that I wasn't gold. And then maybe someone would call me out and go, you're not gold. You're silver medallion. Get out of here. That's the worst medallion. And it made me appreciate that being seen, literally being recognized on the street from television, but in general, being seen, recognized, affirmed, validated, appreciated, being seen is not something that happens to everybody.

Lots of people go through life not being seen at all, even within their own families. And losing that dopamine hit of the simple affirmation of, it's John Hodgman. I know you from a place. As that declines, you're dealing with withdrawal. But we all go through drops in status. We all go through drops in status. We all go through changes of where we are in life, and we all ideally survive them, and ideally with grace. Yeah.

I mean, it's sort of like what is the... If there's a loss in status, if there's a loss in recognition, whatever it is, what's the space that's being opened up on the other side of the pendulum as it's swinging away from status? Right. You know, it's sort of like, I think we get mired so much, whether it's a loss of status, whether it's grief,

whatever it is. And like you said, in your context, yes, it's sort of public notoriety and fame, but in the context of apparently we all, there's something in us that all strives for status. I just recently wrote an email to sort of our community about how I'm a meditator and I use an app and they gamify your meditations.

So like every 10, you get a gold star. And I was on a streak and I was coming really close to 500 and I had all my stars. Right. And just something happened to me one day where I was at 496, I was four away and I couldn't meditate that day for the first time in a year and a half.

Right. But the app has this function where you can actually backfill a session if you want to. And it was this moral dilemma. It's like, nobody's going to know if this is the perfect meditation crime. Yeah. Right? I could just backfill it.

Many different styles of meditation crimes. The stars keep going. And I was like, this is entirely about status. Yeah. And I was like, fascinating. I'm like, I've been meditating for almost a decade. Shouldn't I actually be past this? Right.

I mean, especially since I am not a meditator. I'm a regular napper. Same thing. think to some degree of just turning off that kind of anxious self-reflection and instead being quiet and open and disappearing to a certain degree. You know what I mean? So that you have tied up your meditation with a star rating system. Yeah, that's complicated. For sure.

Well, I mean, and that's the thing. It's like people, you know, one of the things that I've been, that I guess blessed with, that feels very theological, but you know what I mean. Like, I'm lucky that my brand is as confused as it is. I'm lucky that I never had, I'm lucky it's hard to describe what I do. I'm lucky that I brand is as confused as it is. I'm lucky that I never had,

I'm lucky it's hard to describe what I do. I'm lucky that I never had one job title. Because lots of people do. Lots of people have a career as a thing, and if they age out of that career, or they get fired, or made redundant, or that career disappears because of technological change.

That's, you know, you don't have to be a coastal elite to experience that loss. Like if I've defined myself as, you know, I think about both my grandfathers worked in the paper industry, one at literally a paper factory in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the other in the printing room of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Those jobs, those were jobs that allowed them to raise families of three to seven children with only one income back when there was a real middle class. But I mean, those jobs don't exist anymore. Like what, you know, they retired before those jobs disappeared. But like, we're dealing, you know, in this country with a real status anxiety. People who feel that this nation itself

has lost status that they imagined for it when they were growing up, a mythology of the United States that never really was quite real, but they wanted it to be real. Their anger at the coastal elites is simply a signifier of a different kind of status, the virtue of the rural working class, right? That virtue is its own kind of status,

and it has to be held. You have to demonize others in order to hold it. These are signifiers of who we are. And obviously, we'll never escape from signifiers of who we are. But when things change, when we age, when our signifiers become meaningless, when we lose our jobs or go into our empty nest phase. All we're left with is us. And, you know, I think that you'd best prepare for losing your signifiers before it happens so that you're ready for it when it does, inevitably. And you'll be like, i'm i will survive this i'm i am i am something other than my job title or my role as a voter for a particular candidate or my religion or whatever i'm me feels like a good place for us to come full circle also so sitting here in this container

of good life project if i offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Remember you only get one. I mean, act out of curiosity, not fear. Don't be afraid. Or try not to be. Or, you know what? Better. or try not to be. Or, you know what? Better, more like the spoken ritual from Frank Herbert's Dune,

Fear is the Mind Killer, I Shall Not Fear. I'll face my fear and let it pass through me, and in its wake, only I will remain. Something along those lines. That old hippie knew something.

Like, you face fear and you let it pass through you and you survive. So, that's how you deal with fear. Yeah, and, you know, don't try to be interesting. Just be interesting. You are interesting. You don't need a fedora or long hair to prove it. And if you look back at the photos of that time, you'll be sad. Those are a lot of different things.

Were you looking for something a little bit more pithy? No. I'm incapable of it. No. That's absolutely perfect. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you so much for listening.

And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to

click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th... Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot?