The Daily Stoic - A.J. Daulerio on Recovery and Finding Peace With Stoicism | What Can You Get For Free?

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to writer and blogger A.J. Daulerio about his involvement in the famous Hulk Hogan and Gawker lawsuit, his journey to recovery and making peace with his past, how he came to study Stoic philosophy, and more.A.J. Daulerio is an American writer and blogger. He is the former editor of Gawker and Deadspin. Daulerio famously published an excerpt of Hulk Hogan’s sex tape, which led to a lawsuit and the bankruptcy and sale of Gawker Media. In 2020 Daulerio founded The Small Bow, a website and newsletter primarily dedicated to articles about drugs, philosophy and stories for those in recovery.Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s The Daily Stoic, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist in the Talkspace platform 24/7. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Make sure to use the code STOIC to get $100 off of your first month and show your support for the show.DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing everything you need so much easier. Get your DECKED Drawer System at Decked.com/STOIC and get free shipping.Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. ***The first production run has only a limited quantity, so do not miss your chance to buy this beautiful new edition of The Obstacle is the Way! To order your copy, head over to https://dailystoic.com/obstacleleather.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoicFollow A.J Daulerio: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmallbow Homepage: https://www.thesmallbow.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. What can you get for free? If there was ever a success strategy, it's this, using what life throws at you. The actress Kate Winslet, who was not classically trained, recently explained that her secret on camera was to ask herself that question. What can I get for free? Meaning if she's tired that day, she uses it in her character. If she's nervous, she puts it

into her character. If her arms hurt and her feet are sore, same thing. Instead of thinking, I can't today because she takes the stress, the same factors, the same difficulties and things. she takes the stress, the same factors, the same difficulties and things. What can I do because? And this was Marcus Aurelius' strategy to a strong stomach digest what it eats. He says, a fire turns everything into flame and brightness. We use what happens to us in life. Because it's all we've got. We can either be made worse by events outside our control or be made better. What will it be? We can try to purchase things at great expense through our brilliance, through our raw determination, through good luck or whatever, or we can accept and utilize what we've been given for

free and which seems like a more cost effective strategy. Life is going to give us a lot, a lot that we don't want, that we wouldn't choose if we had a choice. So all we can do is figure out a way to transform this into material. All we can do is put it into our character, put it into our work. All we can do is use what we get for free. That's what the idea, the obstacle is the way it means. I have it tattooed on my arm. This thing isn't in the way, this thing is the way. It's giving me something to work with. I love the Kate Winslet is talking about it.

It's what I try to apply. It's what I try to do in my own work. I remember I was writing Trust Me I'm Lying and I got on a bike accident and I broke my elbow and I could have said I can't write because instead I said I'm gonna go for a lot of long walks. I'm gonna have to delay this process a little bit but the book is gonna be better for it having happened. The obstacle is the way. And really exciting news, we have a premium leather bound edition of The Ops School is the way in the daily stokes store. I've been hard at work at this for a really long time.

I love the book, I'm so proud of it, but now it's five, six years old, more than that, I'm seven years old, and people's copies are starting to be a little bit worse for wear, which I take as a high compliment. And I wanted to make an addition that would really, really last. It's got a genuine leather cover, foil stamp logo, comes into this cool box, so it makes a quick gift. It's on this munkin' cream paper,

one of the best papers in the world. It's got end sheets and a ribbon, if you wanna mark your place, if you come back to the book a lot, there's illustrations we had done, the illustrating part one, two, and three. There's a letter from me explaining the book and it comes with an obstacle is the way challenge going so you can carry the book with you wherever you go. The content in the book hasn't changed but the packaging is new and improved and I think perennial and quite wonderful. I'm really proud of this. You can check it out at dailystow.com slash obstacle leather. If you order it right away, it might come in time

for a Father's Day gift. No promises, check out all the details there. But check out the premium edition. The obstacle is the way, get obstacle is the way, challenge coin, which you sell for like 26 books in the store anyway. So it's a cool package. Check it out, the obstacle is the way, Use what you get for free. The book's

not free, but the coin is free with it. Check that out. DailyStoke.com slash obstacle leather. Hey, it's Ryan Holliday. Welcome to another episode of the DailyStoke podcast. My guest today is actually someone who makes a very brief appearance in my first book, but makes a much larger appearance in one of the books that I'm proud of stuff. It's a different kind of book for me. I'm talking about my book Conspiracy, which is about the sort of insane conspiracy that Peter seal in barks on to take revenge on justly smite down depending on your interpretation, Gokr media site that had outed him as gay, roughly a decade earlier.

And one of the main characters in that book is AJ Delaria, who, as we talked about in today's episode, I met 2012. We'd known each other. I was at American Apparel. Gawker would sometimes write about American Apparel. We were on these very different journeys, and then those journeys intersected when I was writing conspiracy, but they intersected in a deeper way because, as AJ talks about, his life gets destroyed. He ends up $200 million in debt. He's cross-examined sort of publicly in the course of this trial. He's considered sort of public enemy number one.

It's this devastating period in his life, in a more deal that I can only imagine going through. And he's also in the middle of getting sober, dealing with some childhood trauma. And he ends up discovering stoicism. And so he and I had this sort of strange series of conversations over the years where, on the one hand, I was interviewing him for this book,

which he probably assumed was not going to be favorable to him. On the other hand, he was wanted to talk about stoicism, kind of had this weird, compartmentalized relationship. Previously, we were sort of not fans of each other, not friends with each other. I actually came to like him a great deal and struggle as I wrote about him in the book.

It's an awkward thing about writing about people that, as we talk about in our interview, that you know where real people are going to read this. It was a strange, surreal experience. That book, because of the struggles that went into it for me, I'm ultimately really proud of it. It's not the same as my other books. It was a challenging sort of, it was a mountain I was trying to climb. It's up to you to decide how successfully I did that or not.

I will say it's the only one of my books to be optioned to be turned into a movie. But anyways, what I really wanted to talk to AJ about was what is it like to have your life turned upside down? Put aside blame or responsibility. What do you do when you find the full weight of the legal system on top of you when you're trying to get sober? What do you do when you look around the wreckage that once was your life and and realize you probably can't do your old profession anymore? How does one? How does one pick up and move on?

And as it turns out, AJ turned to Stoicism, specifically he read James Stockdale's book Courage Under Fire and sort of went down the rabbit hole that I know many of you have gone down. So we talk about that. We talk about recovery. AJ has actually a really, this sounds kind of sad. A really sweet website that he runs now called

The Small Bo, which is a recovery newsletter. I've actually read most of the articles there. I really like it. He has a great one that really hit me, he talks about what's the point of truth if it destroys hope. I'll just leave it at that, but I think you should absolutely read it.

It's been wonderful to get to know AJ over the years. I appreciate the wisdom that's come out of the very real human struggle that he's undergone. I shudder to think how I would respond to something like that. I wonder how you would respond to something like that. And, you know, writing this book has made me realize that life is not so simple. Life is complicated. People are complicated. We're capable of of, of inflicting great harm on each other. We're capable of great dignity amidst struggle. No one is too far gone for a second act. And this notion of justice, which the Stokes talk about, is complicated as well. It's also mercy being an underrated virtue as well.

Anyway, here's my interview with AJ Delario. Do check out the small bow. You can go to patreon.com slash small bow. And check out conspiracy if you haven't and tell me what you think. I was thinking about how weird life is. I was trying to think about when I met you or the first time. I mean obviously I knew of your work but I was trying to think the first time I met you and I'm pretty sure I was walking in the bowry and I spotted you through a window you were you were having a drink with bird level. Is that's the first time? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because bird was the agent of my

girlfriend at the time. Cat or cat. Yeah. And it was it struck me like just how much insane stuff has happened since then. This would have been what, like, oh, nine, maybe. No, 2012, I think it was. Okay. Yeah. But just like how much stuff has happened to you and to me and also to the world.

I mean, even how much stuff has happened since we last talked when I was writing conspiracy. I mean, just an insurrection and a pandemic and two impeachments and a couple of other crazy things. The pandemic, yeah, yeah, you named them all, I think. Yeah. Well, and then we both have kids and or long-term relationship.

Like, I'm not sure, would you have guessed this is where you would end up to say nothing of the whole gocker, whole Cogin stories. This is where you would end up to say nothing of the whole gaucker, whole Cogin story? Is this where you would have guessed you'd have ended up? Well, because the gaucker trial was so kind of leveling for me in the sense that it's just, you know, everything that I had known prior to that had kind of disassembled. I was starting from the ground up, so I had no idea what was going to be next for me. And I mean, I stayed in that space for about a year, that headspace for about a year, I would say.

What does it like to be level? Like, I feel like you might even have some insight into what these characters in a Greek or a Shakespearean tragedy go through where everything is lost. To blame, it's also completely disproportionate and devastating and beyond comprehension. Like what is that like to go through? Well, this is what it was like initially, I mean, when I'm, you're in the thick of a lawsuit as big and kind of absurd as that one was, and caught between lawyers, right?

Where I'm either a villain or a victim, and now that one of those things feels great, and to have to be either one of those things for close to two years. I was completely stripped of any sort of kind of personality or life that I was used to at that point. But the things that I, what I discovered was the things that I was like, you know, holding on to and the stuff that I thought was being taken from me was actually the stuff

I needed to let go of, right? That once I began to kind of just say, you know, my life is going to be without these things that I held so dearly, most of those with my career and whatnot. And what does that look like? And can I move forward from that? And then, you know, after a while, and I want to say 2017,

things started to get better. I still had nothing tangible at that point, outside, like it professionally, but I mean personally, I mean, my life was wonderful. You know, I mean, I was in love and I moved to Los Angeles and we had a baby on the way and, you know, I had friends and family that were kind of rallying around me. So I mean I had things. It was just that the perception based off of everything that happened with the trial was that I was kind of just like you know this washed up

loser who was kind of thrown in the wilds of Florida left to kind of just like you know wait for a phone call to let him out, right? But that was not the case. Yeah, because you woke up at one point, there's this scene where you wake up and you have a $200 million hold on your checking account. Right. I got to imagine that even if your personal life is somewhat in order or looking up, it's still sort of completely disorienting and intimidating. Well, that was before my personal life story broke up. So, I mean, that was,

I believe that happened in August of 2016. And the buildup to that was very frustrating because it was kind of like, I mean, you know, if you probably have more knowledge of this than I do at this point, but you know, Gauker and my former boss had declared bankruptcy, so that kind of let me expose. And you know, it's getting two different sets of advice. They're just like, you know, Bobber bankruptcy or not. And then the middle of me even deciding what to do, Hulk Hogan's attorney said, put a lien on my checking account for the full amount of the jury award, which was $115 million. Now, for whatever reason, Chase, my bank, decided to double it, I think, for insurance purposes.

But the funny part about this, and this is where it kind of snapped me out in terms of how, you know, not real this is. Like Chase had sent me an email basically thanking me for being a valued customer for all these years and they were waving the $15 processing on it. But it was one of those things where I'm like, okay, what does negative toward it? Like, I mean, it's a power ball type number, right? I mean, it's basically just like they're telling me, like, had I had $100 million, I'd still be 15 short, right?

I think it was just, it's absurd amount of money that meant nothing to nobody. I mean, it was just kind of like this bully tactic and I was being held hostage by these guys. But the real crappy part was when I got the call from Gawker's attorneys about two hours later saying they had to drop me. So I mean, then I was kind of left to fend for myself

through all this stuff. Which I mean, I got through. I mean, it wasn't as real. It was just like, and people started to be a little more reasonable with it. I got another attorney and it worked through it. They all worked itself out. They settled. I moved on. Everybody else moved on. And, you know, I mean, the other guys took over the world essentially. Well, I remember when I first met you,

what struck me is there was kind of a glossed over looked to you. Like there was, emptiness sounds judgmental, but I could feel sort of a disassociation from yourself and from the world around you. And so I wonder, like, one of the things I think people don't understand about the story is that, because it elapses over this long period of time,

like the person who puts the article up, and then the person who is, you know, sort of cross-examined in front of the court, these are different people. So, you know, I remember you're sort of, you get sober in between then, so you're going through your sobriety in the midst of this trial, was it weird or different

that like you were feeling this stuff for a change? You didn't have the tool to not have to deal with the enormity of the crisis you found yourself in. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny because I'm still heavily involved in recovery now. And you know, when I tell people and we share my story, it intersects with the trial basically perfectly. I mean, I was around three months out of rehab when I got thrown into that trial. And, you know, if you tell anyone that's sober that story, they're like,

oh my god, because I mean, the first year, I mean, it's just a matter of kind of getting used to this body and this brain that have been kind of abused and misused for so long, right? And the analogy that I made several times is just like it's like having kind of reconstructive knee surgery and then joining a roller derby leave right afterwards. I mean, that was kind of just like the emotional tumult that was happening with me at that time.

But I mean, I think that was really it. I mean, the legal stuff and whatever happened there, I mean, I had no control over it, but I mean, emotionally, I was so unprepared for what was to come. And that was the most jarring part of this. And especially kind of doing it without, any of the things that used to help me get through those sort of

ordeals. I feel like we all have that even if it's not directly a substance, which is that feeling things is painful. So we come up with ways that we don't have to feel things, whether it's work or sex or drugs or just sort of getting sucked into conspiracy theories, right? Like we all sort of find some sort of thing to go inside. So we don't have to face the terror of the world or like look down to see just how big the canyon beneath the tightrope that we are on happens to be. Yeah, I mean, and I,

if we can kind of just see, you know, merge into stoicism, because I'm actually kind of intersects with this whole ordeal, and a perfectly permeate, because I mean, and it was a little before I first started talking to you, was just like when I was agonizing over this,

and I was just, you know, I was not humbled by this trial. It made me angry, right? You know, I mean, I just, that was all I could feel constantly. And just being kind of pummeled by these thoughts of revenge and I have to get back at these people and I have to kind of just like make a comeback

and write my own redemption story and do all this publicly, because I mean, it of just like make a comeback and write my own redemption story and do all this publicly because I mean it's just like that's where all of this stuff was happening, right? And I remember kind of just like I mean googling kind of revenge plots and then coming across the Marcus really is quote about the best way to get revenge on people is not to be like this. And then we started talking, and I started looking into the work that you've done. And then what I landed on the most transformative book for me during that time was Carriage Under Fire, the Stocktail Book. And I have that just completely marked up. And I was looking at it before we talked,

because I have so many little notes in the margins, basically just like Gokker Hogan, Gokker Hogan. And the thing that really helped me from that book was talking about epictetus, basically, just like feeling like a victim, right? And that that was a choice that I was making. It may have been made for me, just based on the legal situation, but my feelings of just inferiority and all that stuff that I was taking on was stuff that I had to work through letting go up.

Now, I wasn't going to help me in that moment because most of this stuff was already running a rib shot all over me right there. But moving forward, I was like, I never want to feel this way again. And how do I become emotionally prepared for things that I'm not prepared for at this time? And that's when this whole thing opened up for me, especially just, it, sobriety helped with that. I mean, a lot of those things are kind of, you know, crossover in a lot of ways.

But I mean, that, that was truly wonderful was to kind of be able to practice a lot of this stuff and apply it to that trial and then try to apply it to real life and being a father and you know kind of just the building from never complaining about the kind of things that were happening to me. And just letting go of externals and all the things that are there. I mean, it was just completely wonderful because it was it came with the perfect time in my life. Yeah, there's There's this Socrates quote that I struggle with. He says sort of nobody does wrong on purpose and one of the one of the Insights I had into that quote was talking to you and to Nick and to Peter and Terry and all the

different people involved in this case. What was surreal about it was nobody saw themselves as the bad guy. So you're talking about you, you know, you were angry, you wanted to get revenge. But that was also the frame of mind of literally all the other characters, right? Like everyone was convinced that the other person was the bad person and that they were the one doing the good thing or that they were the one that was the victim, which I think is interesting and sort of reminds you that like you never really know

what someone else is thinking, what's motivating them, but it's almost always a pretty good bet that they're not maliciously hurting anyone. And in fact, doesn't see themselves as someone who is capable of doing such a thing. Right. Well, I mean, I think I would have to kind of push back on a little bit on this just based on how I felt

the whole entire time, which was really, I mean, and this is something I could not say at the time, but I'm still in the mindset that's basically just like, you know, that story was 100% newsworthy in terms of just like, you know, what gockered the term it is newsworthy. But it was also an invasion of privacy, and we lived in that world. I couldn't say that And we lived in that world. I couldn't say that at the time, but it would be naive to sit there and say, oh, this is something that I mean,

we're completely in the clear up, right? I mean, I worked there for a long time, we're closely with Nick, I knew who I was and I knew what my job was. So, and I've been sued several times before. My biggest downfall was not treating that thing seriously. And obviously, there's tape of my deposition, there's tape of a lot of things that I had said and done

because I never expected this thing to go to trial. And to be fair, I don't think many people did. I'm not a cursaid. But I mean, like I said, I mean, I knew what I was doing in the whole entire time. It was a very disproportionate, just a jury award and an outcome for that. I mean, I think if we were just world,

a tape of me having sex with somebody would come out and then Hulk Hogan would block and make fun of me about it. You know, and then everybody goes home. But it didn't happen that way. I'm fine with how things turned out for me personally. I hate the fact that Gaucker got destroyed over this. I don't think that should have happened at all. There were too many good people at that company

who had nothing to do with this and who were doing stuff that was nowhere near the things that I was doing personally that suffered for this. And I think that was wrong. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. right back to the show, stay tuned. Kai has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some

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I want to go back to that because I am fascinated with this sort of gocker diaspora. But to go to this point of like sort of, everyone is sort of convinced of their own sort of position. The stockdails are good example of this, and I was thinking about this because I'm writing about him in the book that I'm just finishing now. So the one hand obviously, you know, torture is is indisputably wrong. Everything that these prisoners go through is a violation of the Geneva conventions. Taking the ropes, right?

And he's an incredible, you know, his survival there is this incredible feat of human strength. On the other hand, we shouldn't have been there, right? And I think about, so I contrast, like I'm fascinated with the heroism and the sacrifice of Stockdale, and then also the sacrifice of the monk who lights himself on fire in protest of our horrible allies and the evil that we were complicit in there in Vietnam.

It is this tricky thing where you find yourself in these weird scenarios in life, sometimes they're of your own doing, sometimes they're not. But at a certain point, they're irrelevant. It's just sort of like how do you bear the consequences of that, right? Seneca sort of goes out in this painful noble way. It's also totally his fault that he gets himself into that position by working for Neuro for so long. So it's kind of like ultimately a little bit irrelevant as well.

I got to imagine it's just difficult to go through that trial to be, to have this enormous judgment rendered against you. All of that is just more than a human being is sort of equipped to deal with whatever their circumstances or a culpability. Right. I don't know. I guess I don't see it that way anymore. I saw it that way at the time, but I mean, it was an important moment in my life.

I mean, it was absolutely as just life changing in a way that I didn't expect, but it turned out okay for me, right? I mean, like I said in the beginning of this, I mean, it was just like, the stuff that I thought I'd lost was actually a lot of the things I need to let go of. And, you know, that person that was sued is not the person I am today.

And I don't want to be that person anymore. I mean, it's tough for people to kind of wrap their head around that sometimes, and I get that. And I really do, I'm on the outer edges of media right now. I mean, I don't kind of just like, you know, participate in the way I did before. I have no desire to do that. But, you know, I mean, I have a lot of peace. And I think that the best way that I kind of, like, achieved that was also wishing for

peace with everyone else, wishing for peace for everyone else, wishing for peace for Nick, for Hulk Hogan, even for Peter Teal. I mean, it's just like, you know, I needed to kind of just, like, you know, walk away from this as cleanly as possible. And that meant kind of forgiving some of these people I thought had, you know, put me in a situation unfairly.

Well, Lance Armstrong told me something similar. And I think he was cognizant of not seeming flippant about it, but he was saying, would I do it again? Absolutely. Not because he's not sorry or doesn't have regrets or doesn't see roads he went down and maybe wouldn't have done again. But had he not gone through the ups, but then also the catastrophic down, he wouldn't have ended

up where he ultimately ended up. I think people have trouble hearing that though because it's sad. We want to hear someone say, I regret it all. I wish I could do it otherwise. And we want them to almost sort of wallow in that. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there were parts of it obviously that where I felt that because like I said, I mean, I adored Gokka, I loved Nick, I loved all of my people, everyone I worked with.

And I felt guilty for everything that I'd caused personally to make this go the way that it went. But, you know, after a while, I'd see just like I had to kind of just like take the focus off me and look at it a little bigger and see that there were some other moving parts where they, you know, you know, just start to accept part of the responsibility, but not all of it. Because if I accepted all of it, I mean, I think that takes a little bit of narcissism on my part as well, right?

And I just, I wanted to kind of just, you know, look at this and I applied it obviously to it. Like the, as bad as it was to be in early sobriety during that, it was also great because I got to kind of roll that up and to kind of just, you know, how I recovered. And that was a big part of my recovery. It was working through the, you know, I guess the damage and the ashes of that.

And it was helpful for me to basically have gone through that. And you know, it meant a lot of other people who have had similar experiences and have moved forward with it. We have a mutual friend who was basically, you know, one of the most helpful people and one of the only helpful people during that time because he had been through something a lot worse and something a lot worse and had a lot of similar feelings than I did. I'm talking about James Fryman, I have to be cute about it.

Right. But, you know, I mean, he and I had known each other before all of that stuff. I never read a million little pieces and I missed that stone. And, but I mean, you know, when I was going through the gocker posts, Mortem stuff, when all the movies and the books and all those things were coming out, and that was the stuff that was really, really aggravating me. I would call up James and he would have an equally more absurd story that he had to go through,

dealing with the million little pieces fall out. And, you know, the most helpful thing that he told me, and this was 2017, and I believe like he was talking about, like there was a salon.com article that had come out where it had compared, and it sent something along the lines of James Rye as the perfect author for the Trump era. And he read it and he went right back to that angry place that he had not been in 10 or 11 years. And what he told me is,

it's like this stuff is always going to be attached to you. It's just a matter of just like, you know, not reacting to it. And figuring out a better way to kind of just like, you know, live your life outside of this. Like your life is going to continue, but this will be attached to you in some way. You don't, you can accept that, but I mean, it also doesn't mean that you have to kind of push back on everything. You don't

have to email back every single reporter that says a crappy thing about you. You don't have to kind of just get mad over a book that's for you. You don't have to get mad over all the stuff that, you know, I have no control over. But I do have control over basically just like who I am as a person. And it's tough sometimes to kind of just like let that stuff go. Business annoying.

It's gonna be attached to you, but it doesn't mean you have to be attached to it. Exactly, exactly. But that's very difficult to work through sometimes. I mean, like I said, I just said all those nice things about wishing those people peace that were involved in the drop. But I mean, there's still some people I wake up to every single day. And I'll get a little piece of news that

you know, is in conjunction with the, either Gaukers Resurrection or something along those lines. And then get sucked back into it again. We get briefly mad and one of fire off like an angry medium essay, all this kind of stuff. All these things that I'm trying to kind of control that I know I can't. Sometimes it lasts a day, but I have resources. I have people to talk to now. I have kind of tools that I can apply there. And again, said the best thing for me at this point has been talking to other people who feel

as a drift or had felt as a drift as I did during that. Sometimes they're going through this publicly. I have people like that that I sort of have this sort of slow boiling resentment slash frustration with. And if you catch about on a good day, I can say all the things that you just said, I wish them well, I'm grateful for the good things they added to my life.

I'm grateful for what they taught me. I'm grateful for what the conflict ultimately put me on. I wouldn't trade my life for anything. But then yeah, I catch you two minutes later and you can go right into that sort of dark place. So I got to imagine part of it and this is why I think the Stokes repeat themselves so much is that you're trying to will yourself to believe a thing that maybe deep down in your soul it's going to take you a whole lifetime to actually make true. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that the how I how I saw it is because I mean,

the most frustrating part for me was having so many other people kind of just like take control over the narrative of my story. And I was a writer and nobody would let me do it myself. Yeah, I couldn't. Yeah, and I couldn't not get in front of that. And I kept walking into the same walls. I kept talking to reporters or you or other people kind of expecting some sort of redemptive arc that if I could participate in this, then people would see my side of things. And then is a fatal mistake when it comes to just like trying

to kind of heal from this sort of thing. Because I mean, if I have one regret, it's basically just like trying to kind of heal from this sort of thing. Because I mean, if I have one regret, it's basically just like talking to people, during that all, it's our effect. Because I mean, that only cause more problems for me. Yeah, I've found that with, I finally had to do this with American apparel, where every few months,

somebody would wanna do a documentary or a story or something they'd want to talk about it. And I did the same thing you did. I was like, you know what? I'm going to do it. And I spent a countless amount of hours trying to put together something that ultimately went nowhere. But eventually, it took no small amount of willpower to go like, I'm going to start saying no to these media requests. I don't have to have a part-time job forever talking about this thing.

Yes. Yeah. And I think that was the most important words to learn was no. And I said no. To a few people here and there, I still say yes to some people I probably shouldn't have because I mean I'm just a gas bag when it comes to a lot of these things. We said yes to me I was I was actually a little surprised. Well because you know I had to kind of I because you you're an interesting

person in this journey because I mean I had such contempt and resentment towards you when you were writing that book. But based off of just like you know like all these things that I just said and it was just like you know here's another person who's profiting off of this in a way that is I feel like is unfair, right? But, you know, I mean, we've had a lot of good email back and forth. I mean, I think we've kind of just like, you know, applied a lot of this philosophy to things. And I have great conversation with you about that.

I mean, but I mean, you can easily be one of those people that can turn fun real quick if you ask the wrong question or bring up your book in a way that I feel like is just gonna make me wig out, right? Interesting. But I had to kind of just, you know, I was talking to my wife about this. I'm like, you know, I'm gonna go on Ryan Holiday show and she's just like, is that gonna be good for you?

And I'm like, I don't know. But I want to talk about this stuff because I believe so, so firmly in stoicism and what is brought to my life and what is brought to the outcome of that trial in my life since then. And I want to just be honest about that. And like I said, honest about my skepticism of you and whether or not this is healthy for me,

because it's still a little raw five years later, right? There's still certain parts of all of this that if it gets poked, I will lash out. You know, I mean, I had, and just prime example of this, which just like, you know, you are not in this exclusive club because we don't know each other that much. I mean, two friends of mine wrote the gocker pilot for Apple. And, you know, when I found out about that, and these are guys that I keep in touch with, and we'll go to their weddings and their baptisms and their funerals and just like, you know, people I was really close with. And I lost by mind when I found out about that and just said completely awful things that I didn't mean

because it was coming from that place of trauma, right? Which just like, I mean, once this stuff, I have to kind of respect that experience in the way that it's still was very big and has left a mark, right? I don't know sometimes when it's going to kind of reappear. Yeah, let me ask you because you've been through this at a level that I think few of us have, but then also I think I have some sort of vague connections to different experiences that you've had. I go through this thing, so I'll just be honest. So anytime I get my parents

reach out, it ripples through my sort of personal life. Like I'm a shittier father, I'm a shittier person at home, like I'm tensor, like even if it's about nothing, even if it's... I didn't know we could curse it here by the way, so that's why I'm doing it. Oh yeah, you could say whatever you want. Yes. I'm sure some people mind, but it's... I'm trying not to.

But like so, and my wife picks up on it. She's just like, I can just tell that it's happened before that it's happened. The energy is there and she's like, it's not tell that it's happened before that it's happened. The energy is there. And she's like, it's not fair to everyone else. So how do you, given that it's outside your control, right? Like a Google alert comes up, you know, Tim Cook, submarines, a pilot written by people that you wish hadn't written it in the

first place. Like, you know, you can't, you can't create a reality in which these things don't intrude. All the stokes would say, all we can do is try to sort of limit how far it travels through us. How do you, how do you limit like the spiral that that those things send you into? And I'm sure there's other things like not just Gokner that does this to you or, you know, obviously your, your issues, pretty day, Gokner. not just Gokkmer that does this to you or, you know, is obviously your issue's pretty day, Gokkmer. Yeah.

Um, you know, I, like I have, I, I, I have an emergency routine in certain situations where if Gokkmer comes up in the news and my name starts getting dragged and I don't have to look at it to know what's happening because the text messages will start rolling in. And the ominous, are you okay, text messages? And then it's basically just like, I can feel myself kind of freezing, right?

And then starting to tense up and being started with draw. And obviously, my wife can see it as well. And, you know, I have a couple people that I worked with who are intimate with kind of just like, how frustrating this was for me. And I talk to them and then look, I'll go to a meeting. I will do all the recovery work that I need to do to put that front and center. Because I mean,

if there's one thing I can't screw up, it's my sobriety. And you know, I mean, just the emotional kind of turmoil that comes up in me when the stuff pops up is not good emotional sobriety. And so I absolutely just like, you know, use the program and kind of bail me out in those situations. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show, stay tuned. So for someone who's not in the program,

because let's say that's not what they have, what kind of, how do we translate that into a normal person or just has some, none of us are normal? But let's just say like how do you, the trauma pokes up? Like, you know, we've sort of come to derisively talk about trigger warnings, but I actually feel like life is very triggering. It's not, it's not usually like,

oh, someone used the wrong pronouns, but it's like life reminds us of where our wounds are. I heard someone joke that hand sanitizer should be called like like cut locator, you know, like it tells you where you have cuts on your hands basically. I feel like life does that. It finds where you have soft spots and it pokes them. So what do you do when that happens? Well, I'm a pretty rigid, rudely routine that I stick to, which is also really just like, you know, I journal,

I meditate, and I read. And, you know, what happens to me, emotionally, when something like this takes over is I begin to forget about those things. But then I remember and then I kind of double down on that stuff. So that's really what is part of my recovery. And then, you know, obviously, I'm going to call other people and try to be up service and being up service is calling with someone else and to listen to someone else's problems

is how I use it. So, I mean, because I've been sober for five years, I mean, I can be of service to someone who's only been doing it for six months to a year, right? And I will reach out to those people and make that kind of just like my preoccupied my mind with helping someone else as opposed to kind of just like you know, roiling. No, that makes total sense.

So what else from the stokes really hit you? Like it is interesting that you went to Stockdale and Epictetus and probably got their asses handed to them by life more than any of the other stokes. But what else has struck you? Well, I remember, you know, Senaq is stuff about anger was always something that kind of just stuck to me as well.

Because I mean, I don't even know if the quote is associated with him, but there is, the quote about anger and its uselessness that it only kind of leads to lawsuits wore jail, right? And, you know, obviously, I mean, I dealt with a lawsuit portion of the tank. And I think that that is something that I just applied it to. And just like, you know, I grew up in a household with a very emotionally abusive father

and kind of just like, you know, I could have been a mom and just like there was sexual abuse when I was younger and all this other stuff. So I was very, very like in touch with anger and how I processed it poorly. So anything basically out of the epistles that kind of just like you know, as anything do with anger, I gravitate towards that when a lot of this stuff comes up.

I mean, he's the perfect stowa for me when I'm feeling angry. There's actually a translation, I stuff comes up. I mean, he's the perfect stoeb for me when I'm feeling angry. There's actually a translation. I don't have it with me, but James Rom, who I had on the show and he did that biography of Seneca. He did like a collection of Seneca of writing on anger. I think it's called How to Keep Your Cool. But you might like that one.

It's just Seneca on anger. Yeah, yeah, because I have a crappy version of on Anger. Yes, yes, I do. Well, but I mean, it's one of those kind of just like, you know, Amazon books that people just like kind of Photoshop and photocopy and then staple together. And I'm like, yes, this is one of one. But, you know, I mean, I have to dig a little bit and I find that stuff, but I'd love to read that. That sounds great. So, you'd ever struck me as an angry person. Maybe I sort of associate anger

with sort of, sort of, loud aggressiveness. Do you feel like your life, you kind of channeled that anger into your work, sort of taking on, you know, entrenched interests or the sort of gocker belief that it was attacking hypocrisy or phonies or what do you feel like anger was kind of the through line that motivated you as a journalist?

No, not at all. I mean, I think like I mean my anger was basically either was quite impressive or drunk and abusive. And also just, you know, I mean, I got into some physical scraps here and there. I mean, and I mean, there were just a lot of places where pop up that I realized I couldn't control it, right?

And, but I mean, as far as just, you know, my work went, I mean, work was work for me. I mean, just like, blogging was blogging and it was just like, I mean, obviously, I mean, I had some personal stuff that was happening the whole entire time, but I tried to kind of keep those things separate as best as I possibly could.

The reason I asked is this was a weird experience for me writing the book and it sort of changed my relationship with social media. Obviously by writing the book, by sort of taking some of the stances that I took, I didn't have a lot of friends in your sort of group of former colleagues. But I have found then and since,

I have never checked the Twitter feed of like sort of somebody in that world and left feeling good. Not about myself, because it's not about me. But there does seem to be this kind of sort of stewing resentment, anger, hatred for the world and how it is. I don't want to say it's generationally. It's much more of a scene, I guess, because there are different ages. But it's all, that was the, whenever I talk to them, whenever I read about them, whenever I read, read stuff that they wrote, it didn't feel like these were people that were having a good time.

I don't know who we're talking about right now. I'm, this is obviously a generalization. I just mean that there, I guess I'm making two commentaries. So one is that sort of, there was an ethos of sort of Ots and Mid Ots journalism that I felt like was motivated by sort of anger and resentment. But I'm also just saying that anger and resentment does, even if it's productive for the person,

is ultimately not a fun space for them to live in. Yeah, I know things. I mean, I can say here's a, here's a primary example of just like, you know, personally, here's one experience that I had that is one of these experiences that I will wake up to and still get mad about and still harbory great resentment towards this person. So there is a media reporter at an MPR who I'm not going to name, but it's easy to figure out who it is.

So I'll just like kind of slag on that way. And he had written a lot of things about the trial, but I mean, it was always, I was kind of a fixed character in his mind. And he was on a show kind of recapping the whole thing and said basically three untrue things about kind of something that I had done along those lines. And I knew nothing about it. Right?

The only reason I heard about it was apparently one of my colleagues that kind of just like gone after him pretty hard on Twitter. And then he calls me, cold calls me, kind of out of the blue. And was acting like I should know who he was. Briefly kind of recited back to me, just asked me questions about this thing, started, you know, clack clackety clacking, typewriter or something, computer sorry, and typewriter. Yeah, when was it? It was 1950, obviously. But so bottom line was just like, you know, he said something along the lines and just, you know,

at NPR we treat these kind of mistakes seriously. So I really want to get to the bottom of this. And he didn't. It was just like, he made this big spectacle about kind of just like wanting to correct the record and all this kind of stuff. And then, you know, his approach was really, really just grinding me. And so I called him back. And I was just like, you know, you did say something that was incorrect.

Could you please do that? And he wanted to go and research this a little further. And I lost my temper when I called him a fucking twerk. Yeah. It just came out of me. Like I'm, again, we're back in 1958. I'm like Biff and like back to the future calling people twerk, but I mean, it just like jumped out at me.

And I was like, man, why am I acting this way to this guy? He does not give a crap about me. He does not give crap about getting this right. He's got his own thing that he's working on right now and I should just leave it alone. But it still comes up. And I mean, when I have those little flare ups, he's one of the first people I go to

where I'm basically just like, you know, maybe I can kind of just like start to plant some really rotten crap about this guy into the universe that will cause him as much aggravation as he caused me on that one day. It was a piece of... You know what's tough about it too is like he is probably not far about you once since that happened. And so you end up carrying the people just in the way that, you know, Owen Thomas writes the piece about Teal, and again, whatever you think of whether he should, it should, or shouldn't have probably immediately forgot that you wrote it. And it is firmly, however, lodged in Peter's brain.

And it's the sort of thing driving him. So that's something that I've, I've had to realize it's like this conversation you're having with the person is totally one-sided because if you're right, like if they are as shitty as you think they are, then they are definitely not thinking about what they did to you because you were nothing more than a means to and in the moment that they've immediately moved on from. Right, and I believe the phrase that's touched around in recovery room, just kind of just like, you know, drinking the poison to try to kill somebody else, basically, and some variation on that.

And I had so much, you know. But I mean, it's one of those things where I'm just like, you know, why did this particular person bother me so much? And it was tone, really. It was just this, this, he, he could not hide the fact that he just thought I was unimportant and not a human, right? And that was what stuck in my head, right? And that was, having those sort of conversations during that time period, we're just infuriating. Well, ironically, because I've talked to many, many people

who, you know, their reaction to what Peter did to Gokker was like, he's a hero, right? Like, thank God. Like, it was the worst website that ever existed, right? And almost invariably, the reason they think that is that the site wrote something about them at one point or someone that they cared about at some point. And they had the exact, their motivation is exactly what you're talking about, which is this was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. Right. And hear this reporter or this blogger, this website, is treating it like it's nothing.

So I guess my point is not trying to litigate whether Gokras is good or bad. What I'm saying is that it's an immutable fact of life, which is that other people take actions that affect us negatively. We take it personally, and really it had nothing to do with us, and there's nothing that we can do about it. Right. Well, I mean, to be... And this is...

And I remember that, and I recognize that. And I have done my best to start to amend some of the stories that have hurt people. I mean, I've been very committed to that. And, you know, sometimes it's been great. I mean, there are a couple of people that I have wonderful relationships with now. We help each other kind of just get through

these bad feelings. Oftentimes, I mean, people don't want to let go of it. It's easier for me to be a bad person. And I get that too, because I mean, I had this NPR reporter in my head and my, that's, that's choir writer in my head, where it's just like, you know, the worst thing that could happen to me is they say, I'm sorry. Because then, that means, that means I have to move on and I don't get that rush of anger, that kind of just like, it's still satisfying to me on my worst days.

So how do you move how do you move on? Because I had someone that that it sort of wronged me quite severely someone that I sort of regularly have drunk that poison on that sort of looms large in my life and they did apologize, right? Like they were like, Hey, you know, it was kind of a bullshit, let's say it's kind of a bullshit apology. They didn't really understand what was happening. But maybe this is just what I'm saying.

So I don't have to sort of fully accept it. But I appreciated it. It was what I said I wanted, or I thought that I wanted, but I still struggle to move on from it. Yeah, and I don't think it's okay if you don't, right? I mean, it's just, it just can't overtake your life, just like this can't overtake my life. Just like, I mean, I can't,

like I think where it becomes really damaging is if I keep those people in the back of my mind and look for an opening where I can kind of just like, say something shitty that will make them feel bad. Right? And I still plot that way sometimes, where it's just like, man, if I achieve this sort of level and have this sort of access and this sort of like ability to kind of write this story, I'm going to take these guys out because I know how to do that. That's my skill. I'm very, very good at that.

But I also just know that it's just a terrible place to live, right? And I mean, I have to kind of sit here and say just like, okay, I'm gonna like look at my, the good and bad checklist that I have right now. And it's overwhelmingly positive, everything that's in my life right now. And if I've got these two reporters that have kind of wronged me five years ago now, then I'm still hanging on to, that's my problem. And I have to work with it. Yes, Senna could talk about returning the bite

to a dog or the kick to a mule. It's like, it doesn't, they don't care. Yeah, it does. And, but that's what we do when we lash out when we're angry. We think that if I bite the dog, it will address the pain in my arm, which, of course, is impossible. Yeah, yeah.

And that's something I work through constantly. I mean, before I do my gratitude list every single day, I write out a fear. The first thing that I feel in the morning is sometimes there's a fear that exists. And sometimes it's obviously just these huge things where it's just like, my children will be injured or my wife will be hurt or like,

I'm going to get canceled for the 85th time or something along those lines. But I mean, it's like most of this stuff that I have to address head on and write it out just because it makes it smaller. And it's easier for me to kind of just like digest and say that just like, you know, I have no control over this whatsoever. I cannot focus on this negative stuff. And then I'll go right into my gratitude list. It kind of really elevates the gratitude list.

Yeah. And Frank writes that paper is more patient than people. I do find that the journal helps dissipate the anger for sure. Yeah, and I think that the 10th step in AA, which is kind of just like, you know, really writing, doing something at the end of the day. And I've going through and making a checklist and kind of just like, you know, seeing exactly just where improvements can be made. You know, it is a very crucial part of just my healing as well. You know, I and look, I mean, I absolutely have become a better person in ways that I didn't quite understand I was capable of being before.

I didn't understand that it was work. I didn't understand how busted up I was. And I also need to be medicated. Medication has helped to turn wonders. So if anybody's kind of just like on the fence with that, I highly recommend it. Yeah, I would say I don't think it's at all a contradiction of the stoicism either.

Like the stoicism either like the stoics existed in a time when we didn't understand any of these things and to ask to ask for help Or to need some sort of further You know sort of intervention Does not I mean obviously if you can avoid it, you should avoid it. But if it solves the problem after exhausting the other means, I mean, what would be the problem with that exactly? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I think that there's, it's controversial and

recovery circles for just like Ms. M.A. purist, I think that just like anything you put in your body may appear as to think that just like anything you put in your body that is mind-altering, then you're not sober. But I mean, when someone like myself who has a very severe mood disorder, I need this stuff or I act out in ways that is no longer healthy for not only myself but for other people. Well, so speaking of intervention, one, I think we both may in our lives, you don't live in New York anymore. I live in Texas instead of Los Angeles or New York. How much was sort of deliberately leaving and setting up

a much quieter, sort of less attention-seeking life part of the sort of healing slash recovery process for you. It was huge, but it was probably the hardest thing to do, right? Because I mean, I think that, because I'm not really on Twitter or any social media channels at this point, I mean, I kind of keep a very, very low profile, which was tough to do at first, especially just like, because I'm like,

well, how am I gonna get work? How are people gonna know I'm alive? And, you know, I discovered that it's just like, I can do work and if the work is good, it'll find a home someplace. You know, I can have phone conversations with people like the human and let people know that I'm available or that I'm willing to do stuff.

And that's been great. I mean, just like geographically, I mean, I think it's, it wasn, it's, it wasn't as important as basically just like, you know, what I was doing publicly. And it was something I still struggle with, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's parts of me that kind of just feels like I need to, when I get lazy or when I feel bored, I mean, it's just like, you know, eating cookies or something else, I can dive into my phone for an hour and just like read junk.

But, you know, I don't actively participate in that world anymore, which was kind of just, you know, a huge part of my job at one point. Yeah, it probably felt like committing career suicide or something. Well, I talked to, I never used Twitter properly to begin with, but, you know, because I mean, I didn't need it, I mean, I was editing Gokero's,

I think deadspin, I mean, I was out there in the world in some capacity, better or for worse. So, but then they kind of have to re-enter without all of those things, and with basically just like this giant asterisk in my name, just that felt like an uphill battle I didn't want to participate in. Like I mean, I think that that's really the biggest loss that I experienced from this whole thing, which is not a loss at all, which is I'm unable to have kind of heated arguments

on Twitter about dumb shit. You know, that's really it. That's really the biggest thing that I no longer have in my life in terms of just public persona. No, that's what I mean. You look at some of these people, like people we both know, and you pull them up on Twitter

and they'll say how many tweets they've done. And it's like, oh, just 40,000 tweets. Like that's so many. You spent so much time shouting into this void, trying to be heard over other people shouting into this void. That can't, first off, just the opportunity cost must have been immense, like to your family, your health, and your own self-improvement.

But that can't possibly be good for your health to sort of align your soul with that algorithm. Like I never pull up Twitter or Facebook. And afterwards, I'm like, I'm so glad I did that. Yeah, exactly. I always feel worse. Yeah, I have not had that happen in a decade, probably. I mean, when Twitter used to be fun

and used to kind of just like make dumb jokes about people falling on the ground, I mean, it's just like, you know, or someone saying, with sports Twitter was fun for me for a while. But yeah, it just, it became real rotten, especially in the last four years, obviously. And not something that I want to participate in at all. And it's not good for my emotional sobriety.

Yeah, and has helping kids help you with that in the sense where like I go like, look look if I was by myself and I was just gonna like sort of get emotionally Drunk and then hung over or if I was just gonna torture my soul by experiencing some of these things I suppose that would be fine, but then when you realize you have these sort of Innocent little vessels running around your house who get the brunt of that nasty. It's like why you're supposed to take your shoes off when you come inside because you've stepped in

and walked over God knows what germs. I kind of feel like being able to create barriers for the mood or the influences or the inputs that you bring into your house, sort of having kids makes that much more visibly obvious. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, when I haven't experienced this in a long time, but my wife is pretty big on Twitter,

and you know, I had a following, and then it's had a couple of things go viral that have just like, and she's been like, oh man. And I'm like, yeah, like some of the stuff gets brought to our doorstep that we don't want there, right? Because it just like, it takes over. Because then she's just like, oh man,

just like, do I have any old tweets I have to run and worry about? And basically just like, are they gonna bring you back into this small type of thing? Like, you know, why? Like, are they gonna bring you back into this all time? Like, you know, why, like, and we don't have to do it, right? And at all. And I think that there are just, you know, choices that I can make every single day, where I know, full well, this will make me feel bad and restraining will make me feel better.

I'm like, the hardest thing to do in that moment, but I know that'll make me feel better. Might be the hardest thing to do in that moment, but I know that'll make me feel better. I know acting out will make me feel worse. Yeah, that's what I'm writing about now, the virtue of temperance. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, how do you not do stuff when the, it's like the immediate payoff is, you know, low to negligible, but the long term cost

is the real thing that you have to, I think we're really bad at not doing that stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think that, and you and I talked about this recently, where I just like, you know, one of the things that I have to kind of grade myself on as restraint every single day. And, and, you know, because I mean that, that helps really, really just balance out everything for me. Because I mean, my biggest problem, like historically, has been over indulgence, right? And I can do that in so many different ways in life.

So I mean, I just have to be like, acutely aware of basically just like, oh, am I doing this to kind of just like make myself feel temporarily good, that'll make me feel bad for a long period of time. Am I doing this thing? Here is this decision I'm actually capable of kind of controlling in this moment,

and withdrawing from this whole entire situation before it gets messy. Yeah, that's the whole struggle, I guess, is the short-term gratification versus the long-time costs. And if we were naturally good at that, recovery wouldn't need to exist and we would never get in cells in a trouble. But of course, that's not how it goes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, you know, I like this side of things.

I like working at this. I like the journey of trying to become better and stronger and more self-reliant on this stuff and not getting taken out by, you know, giant, hundred million dollarers when they come knocking at my door. Right? You know, I'm going to take that. This has been helpful in that sense.

I think I might have messaged you about this during the pandemic, but it strikes me if I didn't, that it was something I at least thought of. You must have at least had some sense having gone through whatever that or deal was and come out You know if not in one piece then not shattered in a million pieces. You must have at least had some sense like Hey, I I'm pretty sure I can get through this well I mean it was I was pretty sure that I and look this, this is more along the lines of just, you know, recovery than anything else is just like,

there's that saying that wherever you go, there you are. And it's more along those things that, you know, the no matter what club, everything that, you know, I still have to kind of just like keep my head in these situations, or I know what that will get me, right? Because I never want to go through feeling like I did during the 18 months of just like that trial in the aftermath again.

And I'm very much kind of just like trying to get out ahead of that every single day. So yeah, I mean, the pandemic was a challenge in horrifying and just so sad for just for an on every single level but You know, I I saw a lot of people doing their kind of to-do list every single day Or just like meditate 10 minutes do this is that I'm like I already had that locked in right? So I had I had a program that I could kind of lean on during that that was very very helpful

I mean I didn't do it perfectly obviously, but I mean, no, and I do hope people, I have been trying to tell people that it's like, you just survived something historical, you know, sort of a once in a century event, your year. If you don't emerge from this with at least some sense, like, not saying we all responded perfectly, but you are still here. And I'm not trying to imply the people who didn't survive and did something wrong. But the point is, you just went through the fucking ringer and you're here, that should give you some sense, the Stokes talk about the intersididil, that should give you some sense of what you're doing with as far as an intersited El goes and help you, if not, sort of, not be afraid going forward,

at least aware of your capacities going forward. Yeah, and here's a story that was always been top of mind. It was one of the most destructive things during the trial, and I've carried with me ever since, was about just like, you know, how I was reacting to everything that, you know, I had always said that it was happening to me and then like, you know, all this,

the 2015 and 2016 were these years that, you know, month after month, I felt like I was getting hit by a truck. I think I would use that phrase. And, you know, I'd forgotten about that, you know, my friend Emma Carmichael was my deputy gocker and was also just like part of the trial. You know, I had showed up there and also got grilled and you know, the the the trial like affected her in some ways, but she kept her cool and she kept like composure and she had actually that summer been hit by a truck. So she was coming out

in public for the first time with this limp and facing the world for the first time ever since she'd gone through this horrific accident where her whole entire body was shattered and she'd go through this rehabilitation period. And I'm like, you know, I've got nothing to complain about, right? I mean, that was something that she made it through. And she also made it through the trial without falling apart like I'd. So I mean, I always try to kind of remember and never use that phrase unless it actually happens. Like I mean, I just cannot kind of just like, you know,

compete with that level of perseverance. And she's just like, you know, been one of the most inspiring people in my life. Right. It's like, you feel like you got hit by a truck. And one of the things you should remind yourself of is that some people actually have been hit by a truck. Yes. And what is worse? Yeah.

And, and, and are doing a better job at getting through it than I am, right? Yes. My imaginary truck is somehow hitting harder than the one that actually hit that. That's how it goes. That's how it goes. We'd like to feel sorry for ourselves. Yeah. Well, I am, I'm really glad we got to do this.

I am, I think back, I remember one time we were talking and you sent me an email. You were like, hey, don't email me anymore. And I remember thinking, well, I have that sad, but I am glad that he's like taking care of himself. But I'm glad that you followed up with me. What was that like a year later? I'm glad that we did get reconnected. Yeah. Well, I mean, I needed that time to kind of just decompress and just like, you know, I it was, it was kind of unavoidable at that point when you were doing press for that book. And you know, it was getting asked questions about and stuff like that. Just like, we're just thinking the book. And I was

like, I'm never going to read that book. Please don't ask me about that. No, I can I completely understand. And it's the power of no man. Of course, yeah, that's the, what Mark's really says is this essential because most of what we are asked to do is not, is not essential. Yeah. Well, we will talk soon and maybe I'll see in person again

one of these days. Absolutely, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts.