Heavyweight - Jonathan Goldstein on Wild Card

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

This week, Jonathan joins the ranks of A-list celebrities as a guest on Rachel Martin's show, Wild Card. Death, ghosts, the pleasures and perils of talking to strangers... Rachel and Jonathan talk about it all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Hello, everyone. Hello. Hi. Hello. Hi. Here we all are in the studio. Yes, indeed.

And today we've got something a little different. Ooh, but Kaylee, I don't like different things. Well, Jonathan, you might just have to give it a chance because sometimes trying new things can be scary, but. Rewarding. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, here comes the choo-choo train of listening. What do we got here?

Recently, you're a guest on a show called Wild Card. Do you remember that? Of course I remember. How can I forget? I was interviewed by Rachel Martin. How did it feel, Jonathan, to be in the guest seat? It felt, I didn't like it. It was a tremendous loss of control, I have to say. It was like the spider had become the fly or something. But, you know, here's the incredible, this is nuts. It doesn't even make sense to me. I'm just looking at their past episodes, okay, of Wild Card. You know who was on two weeks ago?

Who? Someone that's so famous, they're known by one name. Share. Adele. It wasn't Cher or Adele. Actually, dare I say, maybe someone more famous. Obama. I'm going to say as famous as Obama may be more famous.

What? All right, I'll just tell you, Oprah. Oh, amazing. She interviewed Oprah. Last week, she interviewed Melinda Gates. She's got more money than you. Oprah has more money than me. Let's see who else has more money than me. I would say almost every guest is probably richer than you. You know, honestly, so I'm on her website right now on the wildcard website and I'm scrolling and I'm like, I'm looking like Melinda Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford? I mean, crazy. And then I saw my name and I got nervous. I thought like that that's a mistake.

Do you think they had someone fall through that week? Well, it's funny. Okay, so I did ask her that. Like, why am I on the show, basically? And I thought, you know, the answer would be something like, oh, what are you talking about? Like, of course you, you know. But she was honest. She was like, well, you know how it is.

Like, sometimes you do like a biggie and then sometimes you just do a small one or something like that. I don't know. I think she was more complimenter than that. I don't know if she called me a small one. It sounds like she just wanted to talk to you, which is really nice. It is. Who wouldn't? Thank you.

That is very nice. You know, me and Stevie usually are in on like the, you know, we're producing the conversations you have. This is one that we got to come to just as listeners. We just heard the edited version at the end. And I really enjoyed it. I felt like it covered a lot of territory beyond just the typical, like, how did you come up with the show? Like, I felt like you guys kind of went deep in a really interesting way.

I got an interesting. text from my mother-in-law after she had listened to it. She said that she had never had anybody expressed something about life and death that she had always felt. Whoa. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. And after I got to text, I told my wife, I said, Emily, you married your mother. Congratulations. Yeah. So we're going to listen to that episode. I think listeners will really enjoy it. Yeah, we did. And if you don't, we'll send you a check returning your full purchase price. If you don't, try the Oprah episode.

You know, maybe you'll like that more. But first, a word from our sponsors. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Did you ever wonder what is like to live alone? Hidden in the woods not speaking to a single soul. for 30 years. A wander to the desert

uncover a hidden well and died to the bottom of the deepest waterhole for 2,000 miles. The Snap Judgment podcast takes you there with amazing stories told by the people who live them with an original soundscape that drops you directly into their shoes. Snap Judgment, listen and subscribe

wherever you get your podcast. Just a heads up, this episode does have some strong language. Do you think people can really change? Oh, yes. I mean, I have to believe that. I mean, even if I don't believe it, I have to believe that. And I think, like, that's the struggle. It's like the paradox. I mean, like, we are who we are. But I think as long as we're alive, we're able to change. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. Questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me.

My guest this week is Jonathan Goldstein. I was writing and no one was buying what I was selling. I just couldn't get anywhere. And I just kept doing it because I felt compelled to do it like a spider spinning a web. Jonathan Goldstein believes in closure, which is what is massively popular podcast heavyweight is all about, helping people move on from some kind of unfinished business in their lives. Maybe that's helping someone make amends or to say thank you to a stranger or to help a person turn a page on a traumatic experience. And yes, the word heavy is in the title, but it doesn't feel that way, in large part, because Jonathan is very funny. And he's also got this lightness about him.

He's the kind of guide who makes it clear no matter what happens around the next bend. He'll be there rooting you on. I am so very happy to welcome Jonathan Goldstein to Wildcard. Hi. Hi, thank you so much. It would have taken me about 10 tries to get that and so much editing. I don't believe you. It's true.

It's true. I'm going to hold up three cards. You pick randomly, one, two, or three. Okay. First three cards. First three cards. Now, one is on my left. I tend to think of one being this on my right.

Oh, yeah. Okay, that's my left. Okay. I'm trying to make this as confusing as possible for myself. Because I'm hoping, I guess my subconscious wish is that you're just going to say, you know what, forget it. We're going to do a rerun this week. Okay, sorry, it doesn't matter. You know what? I get the impression as a child magician that you're trying to force the number two card.

Oh, fascinating. Oh, fascinating. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay, now you're forcing the one and the two. I just want to please you. I'll take the number two. I'm not pushing.

I promise. Although I do like this question. Okay. Look what happened there. Okay. What's an ordinary place that feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there? Okay. You see, it's very difficult for me to talk about places because I'm not very place aware.

Oh. I live so much of my life up in my head. for many years I thought of it as like internal and then like through therapy I've begun to see it as disassociative possibly. I will say broadly, movie theaters are kind of like I think Pauline Kale called them like her church and I think that's a little bit the way that I feel about movie theaters. Yeah. And there's one particular, I live in Minnesota, Minneapolis and there's an old mid-century theater. theater that used to be walking distance from my house and I would just go see anything that was playing there and always sit way way way back in the back row because I like to take it all in

by yourself by myself yeah it had I'd like going there with people but I you know if I had my druthers who was by myself and that just felt um like my place in the dark looking up at this big screen feeling like a baby being held by somebody, you know. Maybe that's a part of it. I don't know. What was the extraordinary part of that experience? I think this particular theater, because it's mid-century, I had the experience last Christmas of going to see It's a Wonderful Life there.

And I found it to be a very emotional experience. a man like it it it's just i mean it's just a room but it i don't know all of this stuff sounds very corny i mean my father used to watch these black and white movies and refer to it as like a time machine and it is kind of like that um there is this feeling of um the past kind of erasing and you're kind of existing in all times at once Beyond that, it's probably just pretty banal. It just, yeah, there's just something extraordinary about in this day and age being able to kind of like turn your phone off and shut out the world for a couple of hours.

I mean, thank God. Hold on. There's one sound on here. I need to make sure it goes away. Is it my voice? You figured out the one thing that's dragging down this podcast. Okay, three more cards. I'll take one this time. Were you intimidated or excited about leaving your parents' house? Leaving my parents' house, I have to say, and this is kind of like you just don't know what you don't know back then, but I was nothing but excited. I didn't enjoy my childhood very much

and the idea of being able to make my own rules was very exciting. And I remember when I, I hearken back to it now that I got a kid, I think about how sad my mother was, how she was sitting on the edge of my bed, and yelling at me for what she called dismantling my room for the stuff that I was taking,

you know, like I, and all I was taking was these milk crates. I didn't even have like a bookshelf. It was just like I kept my books and stuff in milk crates, and she was like very upset that I was taking them. And I remember I wore cowboy boots, which were a very impractical thing to wear in the summer when you're moving boxes.

But there was something about it that felt very romantic. I had these cowboy boots that I only wore like once a year. Yeah. And it felt like that was an occasion for the cowboy boots, even though they were slippery. Where were you going to? Where were you moving from and to? So I was living in Montreal. That's where I grew up. And I was moving to a very cheap part of town called Pointe St. Charles. Yeah, it was probably no more than like a half an hour car drive.

Yeah, but it can be a whole world away. Yeah, it felt great. There was a $5 liter of Apple wine that they sold at the corner store. and there was all these $1.99 breakfast places. Wow. It was like 1934. It was, yeah, back, this is back in the 30s. Yeah, I could listen to all the jazz music I wanted. Yeah, no, I don't know.

It was just, yeah, it was just the feeling of being free. It really, yeah, it felt free. Yeah. Last one in this round. One, two. Or three. I guess three. Oh, I feel like I'm putting all these place questions to you.

What details do you remember about your childhood bedroom? The milk crate, the wall-to-wall posters of David Bowie. Nice. A very big David Bowie fan. To this day, my father will call me up on the phone if David Bowie's on TV. And he'll say, oh, your buddy's on TV. He just didn't get it. No, but I love that he knows that you like him, and he's like trying to connect with you.

Yeah. Yeah, just a lot of, like, pictures taken out of magazines and newspapers and it must still be the same way for kids. But it was like your whole personality was splayed across your bedroom walls. Like, if it wasn't on your bedroom wall, then you weren't in the world properly. You know, you had to lead with all. all of these things on your wall. I had this little card table with an electric typewriter that I wrote on.

What were you writing at the time? Oh, such junk. I remember when I applied into the creative writing program at the university in Montreal Concordia, with such high hopes, because from a very young age, I was always writing and making plays and making radio plays and forcing my friends into performing in them.

And I applied, put together what I thought was my best work, and I applied to this creative writing program. And the guy, the professor running the program, rejected me, and I couldn't understand why, and I made a meeting with him. And he said that someone that wrote the way that I did needed a therapist more than they needed a creative writing program, which was probably true. But it was still like a very heavy thing to hear at like 18, you know.

Not helpful guidance. But it was all like nuts. I mean, like young men are, or at least me and my friends, I mean, we were just nuts. We were just really pushing boundaries and, you know, loved Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac. I mean, that's, there's nothing, no offense, but there's nothing extraordinary about that. That doesn't signal depression. That's just being an angstrid. No, I was just depressed on top of that.

Oh, oh. Yeah, that was just a whole other side project. Truly? Yeah, in various dark places, you know, very caught up in like what's it all about. I had like during my teen years like a foray into becoming religious and then kind of losing my faith and feeling that brought on a really heavy depression. Oh, that'll do it. I wanted to believe and I just couldn't figure my way into it. And, yeah, just like from a very young age,

it's very caught up in the big questions, I guess. And not that that's necessarily a formula for depression. But for me, I don't know, there was something very dire and desperate about it. I remember asking my father, like, at a very, very young age, like where God came from. And that feeling like a very basic question, because God was a given, but like, okay, so then where does God come from? And I remember him telling me that I should look it up, and I had these trials encyclopedia set, and looking up.

What did you look up? God. Yeah, like God. And, like, I thought, oh, well, I'm going to get to the bottom of this in two seconds. The answer is definitely going to be here. Right. And it wasn't. I remember, like, looking at the Bible and thinking, like, oh, it must be before Genesis.

Like, before, but, you know, there's, like, no preface. There's no, you know. There's nothing there. It just starts with the big bang and that's it. But I don't know, it was probably also more banal. Like I probably couldn't meet any girls, you know. Yeah, that's a big existential stew of things. Yeah, yeah, very profound.

Very, yeah. Shopenhauer-esque, is that a word? Sure, it is now. Yeah. Yeah, but I think dealing with that, the uncertainty of, life at that but i couldn't yeah but i know you know it's still something that i i struggle with i mean i just want to really let go and and uh give myself over to life but i don't know there's always just been this feeling of like if you're not totally invested in it it'll make death easier you know

like if you live your life as though like you're kind of um you know here's life and here's death and they kind of are side by side adjacent to one another on a shelf, it'll be more of a lateral move. Good night, folks. It's not too late to like run the rerun. I'm just trying to understand it. It means putting as much effort

into the thinking about death as the thinking about life and they are equal experiences and so then it's a lateral move. Yeah, if you're sort of like braced for death from a young age, you know if you don't fully you know throw yourself into the whole life thing then when the carpet is yanked out from under you you're going to be braced for your fall

no i i get it i like do this in my own mind i'm i am the worst case scenario person it is how i live my life is to prepare for the worst things and so i i i practice not being around anymore it's dark but and you don't want to model that for your children i have two of them i i don't think that's a great way to live, but it actually doesn't bring me down. I don't get bummed about it. Oh, that's wonderful. I just go there for a little bit. I try it on and then I come back and I'm like, everyone was okay. When I was gone in my imaginary death, everyone grieved and then they lived beautiful lives. And then it was fine. Oh, that's wonderful. So you're thinking about your own absence. Yeah. From the perspective of those you love. Yeah, I guess. That's, that's, that's the mark of a

superior human being. That's not how I was thinking about it. I was thinking more fuck all y'all. No, no, no, I'm just kidding. Hey, everyone. When heavyweight returned last year, we were so encouraged by the heartfelt messages from you, our dear listeners.

I can safely say that without you, heavyweight wouldn't exist today. So, thank you. And if you want to take your valuable support to an even higher, invaluable level, consider signing up for push It makes us look good to our bosses, and you'll get to listen to Heavyweight ad-free, because you'll be the sponsor.

Plus, and this is what really puts the Plus in Pushkin Plus, you'll also get bonus material. If you want to get 25% off an annual Pushkin Plus subscription, head to Pushkin.fm slash plus and use the code Heavy 25. Thanks for your support. Let's talk about your show. for a few minutes. Because it is a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing that you have made.

Thank you. Heavyweight. Been nine years, over nine years? Yeah. Yeah, we're doing our ninth season. Yeah. There was a little break. The show was canceled.

Yeah. At the end of 2023. And then it found new life. And it's, as a listener, I think this is a wonderful thing. I'm sure when it was canceled, you were like, like, maybe, maybe I'm going to do something else, lean into my writing and, you know, but you were given this other shot. What do you love about making this show? Well, the simplest is that I like having a job. I found out when the show was canceled that I

wasn't very good at not having a job. I had been kind of on various deadlines. Like, before this, I had a show in Canada on the CBC for 11 years. It had been just kind of like 20 years. of deadlines. This is wiretap, right? Wiretap, yeah, that's right. I found not having a job difficult, and being back at it has given me a renewed appreciation. But I love, I think I love, it is a way for me to feel things

and, like, live, interact with people and life in a way that, for me is preferred, I guess. There's a certain kind of safety about being alone in the attic studio a lot of the time and thinking things through in a way that I can't in real time. I don't feel like I'm great in real time. We should just take a second and explain to people who haven't heard the show. I mean, I nodded to it a little bit in the intro, but you really are getting into very intimate parts of people's lives.

You're helping them through specific regrets. and longing and helping them find closure. Like someone who's, you know, did something to someone wronged them 20, 30 years ago, more. You literally go find that person for them and help them sometimes confront them and have a one-on-one exchange. Sometimes you don't find the person, but somehow through the journey, they've been able to understand their life in a more intimate way. I mean, it's very emotionally intense work. I mean, you say you do this work in part just to feel things. That's a lot of feelings, Jonathan.

Like, it's a lot of living that you are navigating through other people's experience. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely like, you say closure. I think like that is, yeah, that is always kind of like the imaginary finish line. I don't think most of the episodes get there, but it is true what you also say about the process of getting there. And sometimes it's the thing that people are searching for is somewhat of a McGuffin. Like there was one episode called Scott where this former heroin addict had sold all of, like many prize possessions that belonged to his father, among which was this gun that his grandfather, his father's father had taken. off a Nazi in World War II, and he had sold this gun to a pawn shop to buy drugs, and he wanted

to get the gun back, and he felt like he owed it to his father. And spoiler alert, he gets the gun after, I mean, I didn't think we were ever going to find this gun again. It might have taken a couple of years. We finally got it. He gives it to his dad, and his dad's like, no, thank you, You know, and it's just sort of like, Jesus Christ, like, that's not going to make a very satisfying end. It is the closure that we thought we wanted, but then it turns out that the conversation he ends up having with his father, the gun is merely a pass key that allows us into this emotional space where his dad is able to talk about his feelings about his dad and that gun, which he never liked and he had mixed feelings about his own father. And it ends up getting to this point where the dad's able to say to him, like, I don't really give a shit about the gun. I was afraid of losing you. And I'm so glad to have you back.

And I don't care about getting the gun back. But I got you back. And it's sort of like we spent two years searching for the gun just to get us to this other place. So it's sort of like sometimes like if things wrap up too neatly and too quickly, it's not good. There needs to be that struggle in order to really get someplace and to get someplace emotionally and internal. And it's hard to dramatize that. You know, sometimes you just need the gun. You need that.

McGuffin. I really love interactions with strangers. They make me very happy to give me life. They make me feel connected and alive. And I think you might love strangers even more than I do. because it's your whole thing is like a random person will come into your inbox and all of a sudden you, I imagine you fall in love a little bit with them and their plight or their struggle. Yeah, yeah. It's complicated. When you said that about loving to talk to strangers, I don't even know if this is really, if this makes sense. but it occurred to me this morning.

I was on a run, and I saw these two kids. There was something very sweet about the two of them. They were wandering, you know, wandering. I was kind of like on a running path, and they were just taking a leisurely stroll, and they were coming towards me, and they had such open faces. They looked like they were wearing pajama bottoms.

Maybe that's just what kids do, but it had the affect of, like, feeling like they had just rolled out of bed, and maybe they were, you know, in love and were just happy to be spending the morning together or maybe they were on ecstasy, I don't know, but their faces just seemed so open

and I felt like stopping and telling them that that's a wonderful thing to see. And then I also thought about how like if I was their age, that would be like my... So creepy. Yeah, and that made me also, it makes me aware of just like, how like clenched my my face is like I'm just waiting to get punched in the face and like I'm just all like

you know and and it's my natural like at this age I mean this is what my face has become and I realize that a part of my fear is going through life with my face open like those two kids for fear that a weirdo like me is going to come up to them and so I kind of keep I've kind of like after 50 odd years my face has just become this close to and don't talk to me yeah And like, what would be the worst case scenario if I did walk through the world with an open face and meeting people's gaze and not afraid of having people approach me, strangers approach me, what would be the worst case scenario? But you've developed a way, you've made a whole job for yourself where you get to meet strangers under your terms. In safety, in a way, with parameters and a context. Round two, insights.

Okay, and I haven't even skipped or flipped. No, you haven't skipped or flipped. But you're not judged either way. I mean, I don't know what's in there. That's right. You know, there might be something that's so embarrassing. So that's why I've been saving them. Yeah, save it.

We've moved. We've moved. So I can only imagine that this is getting more intense. More intense? Okay. One, two, three. One. What's a sound that instantly puts you at ease? That's a person who lives in sounds.

I think a laugh maybe Anyone in particular or all of them All the laughing And this is coming from someone who does not Unfortunately for me like have an easy laugh Being in the business that I am in It would be a nice signal to somebody Of like hey I'm enjoying you

But I think Yeah all kinds of different laughs It lets me feel like the person isn't taking me too seriously I feel dangerous when I'm being taken too seriously. You feel dangerous or the situation is dangerous? I kind of feel like I shouldn't be taken too seriously, and I feel like my old friends don't take me that seriously. Like my friend Jackie, who opens the show, who I phone,

who has a very endearing, distinct, kind of insane laugh. I like hearing it. It makes me feel like, it makes me feel free to say all kinds of really dumb things, you know, because I feel like I'm not hurting anybody when I hear the laugh. It's a signal that I'm not hurting anybody. And I think that's a biggie. I have a friend who told me a while ago, he's like, is this stupid? I go through life just always being afraid that I'm going to get yelled at. And I was like, no, I think I relate to that.

you're afraid that you're going to hurt somebody, get yelled at, or, yeah, you just want to be, you just want to feel like you're not, you're not messing anything up. And I don't know, laugh. Yeah, laugh is like a really nice thing. Yeah. One, two or three? Three. How much do you rely on the validation of others? I think in some ways not a lot because, you know, harkening back to that. story about trying to get into a writer's program when I was 18 for a very long time. I mean, I was writing and no one was buying what I was selling. And I was getting rejections.

And I'm not talking like big magazines, but like zines and chapbooks. And no one would, I just couldn't get anywhere. And I just kept doing it because I felt compelled to do it, like a spider spinning a web. And in that sense, I think I was kind of like free of needing any validation. And maybe that's just the cockiness of youth or not knowing any better. But I think I still have that. I think I would still be doing what I'm doing regardless of whether anyone liked it. That being said, I do like to know what people are thinking.

I think laughter, you know, getting a laugh or something is a form of validation. and I like that. That sounds like just the right healthy amount of caring. Not that you need me to validate your sense of whether validation is important. I can't believe I'm doing something healthy. Did you ever wonder what is like to live alone, hidden in the woods not speaking to a single soul for 30 years? Or wander to the desert, uncover a hidden well,

and died to the bottom of the deepest waterhole for 2,000 miles. The Snap Judgment podcast takes you there with amazing stories told by the people who live them with an original soundscape that drops you directly into their shoes. Snap Judgment, listen to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We're moving to round three. Beliefs. All right. Oh, the red cards. Red cards. One, two, or three.

I'll take one. Do you believe in ghosts? I don't not believe in them. I don't know that I've ever seen one or experienced one, but I believe in the idea of them. We moved in a couple of years ago into this turn-of-the-century Victorian that I catch all kinds of weird smells in that I feel are kind of like ghostly remnants of people that lived here

that died here probably. And do sensations like that, are they pleasant to you? Is that something you enjoy thinking about or is it disconcerting? Mm-hmm. Or neutral. Neutral, probably. Yeah, like I'll smell cigarettes all in a sudden. I'll be like, that's so weird.

There must have been a, there's something about the weather that's bringing out the smell, but it, you know, of some long-dead smoker who lived here, it feels like you're just kind of passing through that maybe one day you'll just be a faint smell. I think it's probably more towards the positive if I had to, if I had to choose. A scribe a feeling, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, if I saw someone crab walking on the ceiling, less so. But just something subtle.

It depends on if they have an open face, right? Right, right. Like a kind of spectral sort of, you know, zero mastel maybe. One of the first long text exchanges I had with my wife was about ghosts. She had finished reading a book about ghosts. And I thought, wow, this is a real kooky chick. Tell me more. I mean, not you tell me more, but you were like, tell me more.

I'm into this kooky lady. I was like, yeah, bring it on. Yeah. Yeah. Three more cards. One, two, or three. Two? Have you made peace with mortality? Some days I feel like, yeah, take me. This is a good day to die. And I feel like one of these stoic guys in a spaghetti Western. And then other days, no. I guess it really, it's crazy to think that something like that would be so mood dependent. Is that possible? Right. It's so final.

Mm-hmm. Sometimes it just feels okay and sometimes it just doesn't. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. And then other times it just feels like, well, we all got to go sometime. That's one of the things I liked about drinking was that feeling of like, of getting philosophical about that. Like, I was someone, I'm not a great flyer, and that was when I relied the most on, you know, I would travel with the little bottles of booze in my pockets. So just feeling them there gave me a sense of security.

And sometimes during turbulence, I'd pop one of those or two of those, and it just felt kind of like, yeah, you know, we all got to go sometime. Yeah. I think that planes often summon internal conversations. about living and dying. I mean, for me, for sure, too, as well. But, and sometimes it's like, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, I was just going to ask you. Like, it's, it's, that's sometimes not a bad feeling. It's sort of like you feel like crying sometimes when you watch sentimental movies on a flight. Oh, yeah. And the complaints are my favorite place to cry. Yeah. It feels like safe. There's like strangers around and I find comforting. One of them might say something to me and I

might be open to that or I might not. I don't know. But I like the idea. that it could happen. What did they say to you? Oh, just the possibility that they could say, are you okay? And then that, look it, it makes me emotional thinking about it. That breaks me when you're in a vulnerable place and a stranger extends themselves at all. It like makes me feel good. But now I pivoted this to myself and I didn't want to.

No, no, no, no, not at all. What do you say? What do you say if someone asks you, are you okay? Do you say not at all or do you say yes? Oh, I'm thinking of one circumstance in particular. And I said no. And I didn't want to talk about, I didn't want to say anymore. But I really appreciated that they asked. Did you tell them that? No, but I said no, but it's okay. And that was it. And I think. And I think. think am I trying too hard to sew this together? But I do think there's something about being suspended in air in a situation where you could die because planes don't make sense. And those being more truthful spaces because what the hell do you have to lose? So I get the plane thing for sure.

And I also, yeah. Yeah. No, no, go ahead. No, no, no, please, please. No, I was just going to say you were saying at the beginning that it feels like dangerous to be so dependent on one's emotional state to determine whether or not one is okay with dying on a particular day. But maybe this is just me. I think that's a sign of a healthy person who wakes up and, like, observes the question, you know? Like, how is my life?

And when you're saying, today's a good day to go, what you're really saying is, I have lived a good life. Yeah. Anyway. I don't know if this is a quick story, but I feel,

I feel like I kind of got, felt like I got the license to think about it in that way from a story, a heavyweight story. It was about this woman who was in her 40s and felt like her life

had kind of gone. off track because her foster mother didn't allow her to stay in stay with basketball because her grades weren't good enough and she felt like her life would have been better if she could have pursued basketball. She would have gotten a scholarship. And so we went and found this foster mother who she hadn't spoken to in years who was now this 94 year old woman to ask her why. Why didn't she allow her to pursue basketball when she saw it was her one passion?

and this woman was a tough old bird. Like it would have been so easy to say, oh, I'm sorry. And like she just wouldn't. And she had had a hard life herself. And I felt like it was almost like she was unclear on the concept of regret. You know what I mean? And I was trying to explain it to her. And she was like, no, no, no, I know what you're saying.

And I honestly don't know if I had a chance to do it over again with her, whether I would have done it differently. And I think it really depends on my mood, what mood I was in. And I was like, wow. Wow. That is something that is seldom acknowledged. It is. You know what I mean?

It is. But isn't it the whole ballgame? Not to make that bad pun. But it is. Like, yeah. Or more of it than we acknowledge. Yeah. You know, just how drunk a lot of these founding fathers were when they were coming up with their laws and ideas.

You know what I mean? And they echo through the years. That was a journey. that question. This is the last one, Jonathan. One, two, or three? Three. Do you think people can really change? Oh, yes. I mean, I have to believe that. I mean, even if I don't believe it, I have to believe that. And I think, like, that's the struggle is to really try to believe that. And I do think people are capable of change within limits. You know, it's like the paradox. I mean, like, we are who we are. But I think as long as we're alive, we're able to change.

You know, I'm working on a story that should come out this season. It's about a woman who is 102 years old who one day her kids who are, you know, in their 70s said, you know, you're getting on in age. we should probably clean up the storage room. And while they were doing that, they found this box containing 256 letters that had been sent to her by her fiancé at the time when she was like 20, who was in the war, this was World War II, who died in the war. And she had not opened up this box and looked at these letters in over 80 years. and had never really mourned the loss of this man and this relationship.

She put it aside and she married a man named Irving, stayed married with him for 60-odd years, had three kids, and then finds his box and then finds herself at the age of 102 falling in love with this long-dead young man from her past. And in that process, like she, you know, a person who was very used to, and maybe that's a little generational too, is like you just pack it up and put it in a box and move on. But it sticks with you, you know what I mean? And like, you know, she she went through a lot of changes even at that age, which is kind of like a beautiful thing to see. You know what I mean? As long as like we're alive and as long as we keep going, there's always going to be change.

You know, maybe not the change that other people want to see, but there's going to be changes. We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine where you go back and revisit one moment from your past. It's not a moment you would change anything about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. I know there are many. You could pick anything. whatever comes to the four. I mean, I guess the first thing that comes into my head is my child's birth.

Yeah. I guess. My wife says that I, you know, like I was saying, I'm not an easy laugh. I don't, I wish I smiled more. But she said that like all through labor, I had such a big smile on my face, which kept her going. just such a wonderful, wonderful day and just filled with so much hope and wonderful and wonderful expectation and beginning.

Yeah, I think that. And I also really love the hospital cafeteria. It was at NYU. It was really good. Jonathan Goldstein, it's been such a pleasure. You can hear Jonathan on the newest season of his amazing show, Heavyweight. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening. If you like this episode, I think you would also dig my interview with Jonathan's former boss and host of this American life, Ira Glass. Ira was super open and honest and way funnier than I expected. Check it out. This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Patrick Marlon. Mary and Jimmy Keely. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sanweni. Our theme music is by Ramteen Arablewee. You can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We're going to shuffle the deck

and be back with more next week. Talk to you then. Hi, it's Jonathan here again, breaking out of the straitjacket of being a guest. I just had one further announcement. We here at the show have started a free newsletter. And, you know, it's a... It's a lot of fun. Kalila Holt, wouldn't you say? Yeah. Come on, step it up, step it up. It's fun.

I'm still not convinced. In these dark days, you can open up your inbox and have a little sunshine. That's right, as opposed to all of those fishing scams and viruses in there. We will not try to take your information. No. Well, we will take your email address, I guess. That's how you get the newsletter. Okay.

Well, yes. Yes, indeed. But in return, you're going to get fun, fun, fun, till your daddy takes your Patreon newsletter away. No social security number required. If you get something in your inbox, the claiming to be from us where they're telling you to trace your safety deposit box key

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