the zurkie show - was the past even that good?

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

don’t look through nostalgia’s rose tinted glasses.https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

I'm sorry you missed peak life. Summer 2016, that was the best it will ever get. There will be nothing that will compare to it. I mean, what, this summer compares to summer 16? No, I lived through summer 16, and you know what? How do I even... No, I can't even describe it. You had to be there.

But was summer 16 really that good? Were the 2010s really that good? Were the 2000s even that good? were the 90s even that good. In certain aspects, they really were. Maybe economically, you wouldn't be paying $60 for a chili. You wouldn't be paying a lot of money to take a hinge date, partner, potential soulmate to chilies and getting two triple dippers and some drinks and paying your entire salary on one dinner.

But I kind of have beef with this idea of romanticizing the past. Because I think it's so easy to do. I think it's so easy to point fingers and look at how good the past was. To be fair, though, there are a lot of things that have changed. There are a lot of things that have made living in today's society very difficult for a lot of people. I think all of us are kind of struggling to a certain degree, whether that's financially or just with how we interact with our society today. you can't help but think man like maybe i had to be there maybe maybe it's cooked like maybe it's over and and what are the 2020s even going to bring for us other than maybe an ai girlfriend and

more distance i'm sorry you missed the peak i really am but maybe your summer 16 or your you had to be there moment is right now maybe it's all always going to be right now because the beauty of humanity and the beauty of living is that every moment is kind of special. Even the ones when you're down bad, when you're in the pit, when you were left for the person that they told you not to worry about, when you have basically lost everything in your life. Maybe that was a loved one. Maybe that was a certain friend. Maybe that was a passion. Maybe that was a potential career in sports. But you're injured and you just realized you didn't have it in you.

You will not realize how important this moment right now, this moment in your suffering, this moment in your joy will be until the time passes. That is the truth. And I have learned that you just kind of have to treat the present with the respect it deserves because even when you're in that argument with your girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, partner, even when, like, you are slamming the door shut on your parents when they're trying to explain to you that it is important to come to family dinner and not just hang out with your friends all the time. You want to believe that there's better. And there is better,

relatively speaking, but that in itself, that experience, it's still an experience, nevertheless. less and I think that so many times we have a tendency to demonize the bad in our lives instead of looking at it as this is something that happened. This is something that I can't lie and say, no, no, it didn't even happen. No, it did. Things are feeling a little less human these days, aren't they? But isn't the whole point of progress to make things more human? That's why, at TD, when we design a product, whether it's an app for making trading easier,

or monitoring your account for fraud, we ask one simple question. How does this help people? That's how we're making banking more simple, more seamless, and more intuitive. But most importantly, that's how TD is making banking more human. Sometimes you can't even convey how you felt to other people. You just, you had to be there. I'm not jealous of people who lived through the 2000s. Actually, I'm envious, because y'all got to see Daft Pun

live for the last time and that is insane. I would time travel and see daft punk. Okay, that's literally all I would do. If I got a time travel machine, I would go see a daft punk concert, maybe like two or three. Anyways, I'm not jealous of people who live through the 90s. Like, there's this kind of addiction to romanticizing the past and looking at it through a certain lens. And I think it's easy to say that we do that, you know, even in the short term past, like you'll think about a relationship, you fumbled or, you know, that summer fling that you had that you wanted to turn into your main squeeze and you just, it wasn't meant to be, but you look back and you're like, bro, the circumstances were so good. Why did I mess that up? It just, it didn't work. It

didn't work. And this hyperfixation on the past is really, I think it's dangerous. I think in real time we're seeing how dangerous it is. I think a lot of people are hung up on like how the country used to be in the past, how the world used to be in the past. It's never going to be like that. It won't. It won't. We're moving forward. Like we are going to have to deal with all of the BS that has happened before us. We have to inherit it and we got to figure something out. And yeah, I can focus on the fact that like, man, life was so awesome in 2016, 2018. Yeah. But like, that's not reality.

It's not. Yeah. When I watched those 90s, you know, VHS videos from people in high school, it seems like people were really intertwined. And there was this aura of everyone, you know, cared. But like, that's not right now, dude. People are struggling right now. to talk to other human beings. That's like the main problem that we have to figure out how we're going to solve.

And we're not going to solve it by, I think, old methods. Because that just doesn't pertain to us. It's not something that I think speaks to us as a generation. It's just not. So we have to figure something out that's like unique to us that actually excites us. We won't ever get another summer 16. And I don't think we should bank on the fact that, oh, we might get something similar. No.

It's done. We need to build new things. We can take a look at how things collapsed. We can take a look at how, you know, we got in this place where we don't want to be social, and we can learn from it. But to expect that we're going to emulate the past right now, I think it's foolish.

I think it's foolish. That's just my take. I don't know if you agree. with that. That's my take. But like, same thing with music, man. People are getting like upset that, oh, how can people listen to net spend? Like, how can people listen to all this underground stuff? How can people listen to fake make and all? It's like, dude, because that's, that is what gets put into your ear at this age when you are the most impressionable, when you are having some of the strongest emotions for the first time. And it will stick with you forever. A lot of my

music that I listened to in high school, like in, in college. college, it's still six with me today. Like, and I'm still, you, you can always be discovering. You can always be learning new stuff. But again, certain things will get solidified in your mind as part of the past and as part of a certain period in your life. And there's nothing wrong with that. And you don't owe anybody an explanation.

And if somebody wants to sit there and be like, well, what, that's not how it was when I was like, I was listening to real music. It's like, dude, well, guess what? You had to be there. This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what?

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to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. You'll never understand it. You just had to be there. And if it makes you feel any better, I got roasted all the time by old heads about what I was listening to or like,

are you listening to that dubstep? I was a dubstep kid, bro. Dead Mouse, Scrillix, Monster Cat was my jam. I stood by it and I still stand by it. I'll throw on a, you know, banga ring once in a while in the car and it's fire. Bangoran, go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's sick. And there's also, you know, learning about that music and having a love for that music,

It made me fall in love with artists right now. Like I'm in love with house music. I love house music. You are developing taste. You are developing things that you like. You are developing a certain view of the world. Like, let yourself develop that. Because this is your moment.

This is your moment where you're going to look back and be like, dude, you had to be there. And if that's a moment of sadness, if that's a moment of despair, if that's a moment of just being like, dude, like, this is mid. I can't wait to be an adult. Like, let it happen. happen. Let it happen. Let yourself feel that way. Let yourself understand that also this is, this is like the only time you'll get that moment. So don't be too hard on yourself and just live it. Don't be too preoccupied of like, well, what are people going to think of, you know, if I don't use this time all the way wisely? And the truth is people won't care. The only person that's

going to be caring is you. So if that's the case, free game. Oh, but what will my parents think? I mean, dude, at some point, you got to separate yourself from your parents and you got to understand that you're going to do what you want to do and your parents are going to have an opinion or they're not. And that's just, that's that. You had to be there. You had to be there. For a lot of you, you will remember this moment as a turning point in your life. Maybe you are about to go to a new school. Maybe you're about to graduate.

Maybe you're just like kind of feeling a better sense of self and you're feeling like I really want to do some work to who I am and what my personality is, what I'm interested in, the people that I'm around. That's great. That's great. Don't let yourself lose that feeling. When you get that kind of calling, when you get that kind of pressure of like, I want more, I want to do more. There is a big guilt trip that happens. a lot of people think that wanting more or wanting something very specific and something niche that's in your mind is a bad thing because it doesn't fall in line with usually how people think and I am sitting proof to tell you that that is just not the case you can have a crazy dream you can have an outlandish idea that on paper doesn't make sense and you just have this this this human condition that is making you believe. you know what I could probably make it happen. You can have these things.

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More like Habinier Yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Welcome aboard Via Rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. Yeah, it might be a little bit scary. Yeah, it might be something that you can't share to your group of friends right now because they would probably troll you and laugh about it. Don't. Just don't. Bryson Tiller, don't. Famously. Bang your song. Pull up, skirt, get in the ride. Come on. Man. Anyways. Like, you can have these things. You can have these things. I have a lot of moments from when I was in high school where I

would lock myself in my room with my computer, teach myself editing, and all of my friends would get insanely upset at me that I wasn't popping out, that I wasn't coming out to hang out, and I just didn't want that. I wanted to do the thing that I was passionate about. And I guess in a roundabout way,

you had to be there to understand that. I can't really explain that to anybody except myself. Like, you know, people might ask me, why did you do that? You could have lived your youth. And it's like, that was living my youth. That was having fun. When I tried to do things that weren't in line with my character and what I knew I loved, I felt so out of place when I would go to high school parties and lie to my parents about where I was.

What? Who said I did that? do those things like that's when I was kind of like this is mid like this is just not me again the world will change we will have new things come into our lives we'll experience this on a macro level right with society and the way that the world is but we'll also experience this on a micro level like just we will have a lot of change in our lifetime I don't think you really understand that when you are our age You don't get that.

But dude, no matter who I talk to who's an old head or just in my like 23 years of Unk experience, this life takes you on very interesting journeys if you let it. And if you kind of have this playfulness to it that like, dude, surprise me. Let's see what happens. I know what I want to do. But maybe the way in which I'm going to get there or how I'm going to do it, it's just not going to be exactly. concrete and that's okay. Maybe I'll have to take a break. Maybe I'll have to go and do a side quest really quickly before I can get a little bit further on the main mission. Maybe the main mission is wrong and I'm supposed to be doing something completely like different. What I think

happens is people romanticize the past version of themselves. They created in their mind and they don't give themselves any wiggle room to change. And that is what's happening right now with society too. People are just stuck in the past. They're stuck in the way that they're are. I mean, let's just not make that mistake. Like, maybe we can just try things to try them. And sure, like, maybe they won't work. That's fine. But this idea that, oh, you had to be there. That was, those were the golden years. That was the best time. Sure, maybe for your perspective, but for other people, it's probably a whole lot of Schmid. Maybe if I was living at that time, I'd be like, yeah, this is whatever, but this time is way different.

Everything is so subjective. There is no perfect generation that you could have been born in. Sorry, been born in. Maybe things would have been easier in certain regards, but then again, you wouldn't have grown up the way that you grew up right now. You wouldn't have had the knowledge that you have right now, and you wouldn't have gotten it in the way that you've gotten it right now. It was a whole different world.

And just to say that, like, right now is a whole lot of schmid. I think a lot of the tools are in front of us, Zerky Show, a lot of the community, a lot of the happiness that we seek on a day to day, a lot of the meaning. It's just in the simple things. That's only if you allow yourself to seek that out. If you don't and you want to believe that you peaked,

you're cooked, your unc, and I guess you had to be there. What more can I say? Today's episode of the Zirky Show was filmed in beautiful Croatia. Look at these mountains, bro. Oh, shit. Oh my gosh.

Okay. That was awesome. Croatia is beautiful. I'm on the way to split Croatia right now, and this is off the side of the highway. So, wow, that was embarrassing. Okay. Did you know that the Zerky Show is everywhere you go? That is correct.

You can watch it. You can scroll. You can stream it. The choice is yours. If you want to tap in, tap in. It's the Zirky Show everywhere we go all over the globe. So if you want to tap in, tap in. Do the things that bring you joy.

Get back in the gym. What's holding you from the gym if that's your thing? Yeah, maybe you haven't gone in a little bit, but like do something active, at least on a base level. Take a walk. Man, go for a hike. That is awesome. I hiked yesterday all day. I'm sore, but I feel so content.

and I feel very, very happy. Manzurkey show, just know if you're trying something new, I believe in you. And as always, I am sending you lots of love. And peace!