Transcript of That Feeling That Something's Missing, and How To Find It | Vinny Ferraro

Hello everybody, welcome to the Ten Percent Happier podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. One of, if not the most potent sources of human suffering is compulsive wanting. You know what I'm talking about: no moment is ever good enough, nothing's ever complete. We're always looking for the next thing, the next bite, the next scroll, the next achievement, you name it. But what if you could achieve some sort of contentment, of enough-ness? That's what we're going to talk about today with one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Vinny Ferraro.

Thanks for having me, Dan. Good to see you.

It's a huge pleasure. Thanks for making time to do this. I know that all of the folks in my world would be happy to hear your voice, see your face again.

Thanks, bro.

Okay, enough. Enough-ness. Contentment. Compulsive wanting. We reached out to you and said, "Hey, we'd love to have you back on the show. What do you want to talk about?" This is what you said this was like topic number one for you. Why?

Well, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's because I've worked so hard in 20, 30 years, and it's just like, "Yo, but like, you've succeeded, okay? You did what you want to do. You have meaning and purpose and beautiful family." And so I was just kind of wondering, what is ever enough? You know, like, is there a happiness to be had in this life? You know, I'm not waiting on any blood test to come back.

I just want to point out that that reference to the parole board was not tongue in cheek. In earlier parts of your life, that was a live issue for you.

Yeah, yeah. But it just becomes alive for me now, like with having a son and watching his childhood, just how quickly it's moving. And so over the last year or so, I just feel like everything I've been teaching has been somehow wandered into this territory of what will ever be enough for the mind, and where else can we look for what's enough?

There's something about, I don't know, I spent too much time on raising boys since not everybody listening will relate to that, but I was just literally right before this podcast in my son's room, and he was talking at length, as he has wanted to do, about the National Football League, and I could feel myself getting a little bored and thinking of all the shit I could, you know, be crossing off my to-do list. And yet, and some other part of me is like, "Dude, you should soak this up because in five minutes he's going to be moving out of the house."

Yeah, man. Yeah. You know, it goes by fast, and it's like, is there anybody here to receive this experience that's happening? Right? Like, you know, there's that old church raffle phrase, you know, you have to be present to win, you know? And it just feels like that. It's like, yo, if I'm always on my way somewhere, always strategizing, always trying to get the drop on the next moment, I'm literally missing what's in front of me, and I don't want to do that.

Why are we like this?

I don't know. And I don't know if that's the right question. You know, like, the why question has been a labyrinth for me. And yeah, we could say, "Oh, yeah, there's a primordial fear of slowing down and always getting the drop on the next moment." You know, great evolutionary benefits, you know, all that stuff makes sense to me, but it doesn't really satisfy the real question of like, can I actually pause and not be driven by this kind of compulsive quality that comes with this nervous system and these bodies and these minds?

How are you doing with that, the not grabbing the next vine?

It's getting easier, right? It's like anything we practice, I feel like we get better at. And so I've been noticing it more in the moments when I actually fail it, and it's like, "Oh, wow, okay, I can take this kind of backwards step and return back to the moment because it's a short commute." You know, it's like, you know, I can come back and find my feet on the floor or, you know, whatever's present, you know?

And it's just as simple as seeing, "Okay, I'm not here anymore. What was it that took me back to seventh grade, and how do I get back?"

Yeah, not so much the former. I don't care what distracted me because that's just more distraction, right? I still haven't arrived because I'm backtracking and trying to find the breadcrumbs of where did I go wrong? And it's still just more narrative, more story. It's like, "No, dude, there's an experience like right here," right? And so that's what I mean about returning to the present moment. But I like the question about reach.

I want to dig into the reach and the things we can do about that, about the reach and that key moment of noticing it. But let me just ask one last larger question here, because I think sometimes people get a little squirrely around this issue of wanting and not being in the present moment because they feel like, "Well, don't I need to be, don't I need this wanting in order to get anything done?"

That old trope. Let's trot that out. Right? Like we have been taking our marching orders from the mind for a lifetime. It's great benefits, but it can't be the only source of wisdom because what has ever been enough for the mind? How many times have you felt in your life, you know, great success, right? How many times are you just like, "You know what? This is it, man."

Embarrassingly few moments of that.

Right? So if we know that, that it's not based on conditions, because we, you know, there has been success, right? We have gotten what we wanted 10,000 times, and it's like, "Wow." So it's just not a great, you know, the mind is not good at gauging what is enough. You know, one of my teachers told me early on, she said, "Samsara is this endless urge to improve."

The Buddha did distinguish between healthy desire and unhealthy desire. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Well, I hate to be the mouthpiece for the Buddha. I am sure if he's rolling around anywhere, thinking about me paraphrasing his teachings, but yeah, it does come down to, well, what's the quality of the awareness? At least for me, I can notice what's the tone of this desire, right? And how much are we saddling on experience? I've had low riders almost my whole life, you know? So there's always been like the next one, right?

Yeah. So what do we do about this?

You know, the practice is to slow it down, right? To get a little bit more discernment about where are we taking these marching orders from. And I kind of know what part of my personality is operating or running the show at any certain time because it comes with certain tones, right? There's the tone of me that feels 15 with a leather jacket on, right? That young rebel punk kid, you know?

So it's training up the wherewithal to notice when we're about to reach or mid-reach and checking it out.

I think so. Just pausing for 10 seconds, feeling my feet on the ground before grabbing the next thing, right? So can we feel the urge without immediately obeying it? And noticing whether the desire remains after the urgency softens, you know? Because a lot of times I'm like, oh, no, I'm actually okay. You know, like I'm kind of surprised that I'm okay because the mind is like, no, no, no, you need, you need, you need.

So I think what you're saying is that, like, you can kind of, and I've tasted this when I can remember to do it, you can kind of red pill yourself that you, okay, you notice a desire arising, or like I said, you notice your zombie hand moving toward the phone. And once in a while, speaking personally, I'll wake up from that and I'll just let the desire be there. And then, like everything, it will come and go. And the other side of that is there's something pretty delicious on the other side of that, but it's not as jangly as the initial desire.

Yeah, yeah. It's not a shiny new thing, right? For me, it actually feels like, can I receive what's here already before reaching, you know? Like, can I receive and recognize enough? And that's a practice, right? That doesn't come factory stock, no. Not in me anyway.

Should we feel like a failure if we don't manage to catch most of our desires?

Definitely.

That was not the answer I was hoping for.

No, listen, the mind's going to judge every step of the way. You know, it's how seriously do we take that, you know? Like the inner critic is alive and well in me and in you, you know? So it's like, okay, we know that tone, right? So we're just talking about what part of our personalities is operating. We generally know by the tone. I know the tone. Again, when have I ever been enough for the mind?

Okay.

I had to start over. I just needed to leave the East Coast. And so here I am, state trooper car, Harley in a trailer. I make it to Capitola on the bike. And I'm seeing dolphins in Dayglow and, you know, people chilling on the beach, right? I'm 22 years old. And I was blown away because I had never seen this kind of like, you know, it's like a Netfunicello vibe. Like, you know, it's like, you know, I hadn't seen beach culture yet.

Yeah.

And suddenly I understood, yo, that's who I am in the timeline. I get to be the one who calls back and be like, you're never going to believe what I'm looking at, you know? So I got to bring this good news home. And so I walked toward the phone thinking about everything they hadn't given me. And by the time somebody picked up, I was thinking about what I could give them. Now, this is before I knew much about meditation at all. I didn't know hardly anything. But there's a wisdom that we have.

And now you get to do it as much as you want because you still live at the beach or near the beach.

Yeah, I do. I mean, I'm the luckiest person I know.

Well, that, actually, that sentiment, I'm the luckiest person I know, is interesting because it gets us right back to enoughness. Like, can we, you know, we can do what we've discussed earlier, which is try to muster some mindfulness to notice when we're reaching for things. But can we recognize on the other side of it what satisfaction is, what contentment is? Because the culture is pushing us toward dopamine and the next, the more all the time.

Yeah, and we could end up like bullying ourselves into gratitude. You know what I mean? At least the difference for me between gratitude and enough, you know, I can make a list of everything I'm grateful for and still spend the day reaching for the next thing. Right? And so that's why I feel like enough may come first. Because enough means I'm not demanding a different moment before I'm willing to be present.

But that does require some slowing down. I think, as you describe it, letting the, to use a low rider metaphor, letting the engine idle.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's things that make the idle higher, right? When I'm surrounded by my extended family, I could notice the idle just a bit more, you know, ready to punch it. You know what I mean? Ready to hit the eject button, you know, ready to escape, right? And then there's things that, you know, time and nature for me now, I've never lived anywhere but cities. And now there's like this natural slowing down for me.

Oh, happy birthday.

I'm kind of surprised at it because I've always been right in the middle of everything and, you know, music and art and shows and, you know, all the things. And now I know that when I take a walk in nature, it kind of does something to my nervous system, something I really like.

Can you enjoy that without holding onto it?

Sometimes. You know, for me, when I'm in nature, it's like this endless display of life and death that's just always unfolding. So living in the mountains here with the redwoods and the creeks and mudslides and everything that it means, it's like, I know I'm going to be a different person after scrolling for 20 minutes or taking a stroll in the garden for 20 minutes.

I personally, I can have moments of, okay, this is great. But then another kind of wanting comes in, which is I don't want it to end.

Yeah. We come by it all so naturally.

Yeah.

You know, that's really important to me. In particular, what you said before about the judging mind. That's just like, oh, dude, you're even going to fuck this up. Right? Here you are. You have this beautiful moment and you just want to squeeze every bit. You want to extract every bit of happiness out of it. It's like... This is another kind of reaching or clinging, right? That grasping. So we could know that and we can soften it, right?

In terms of that judging mind, and I may have told you the story before, so I apologize if I'm being repetitive, but I was on a retreat years ago with somebody who I think is a mutual friend, a meditation teacher named Spring Washam. And I was kicking my own ass for being distracted and she said that a potentially useful little mantra from when you wake back up is, great job, welcome back.

I like that. I like that.

It just, for me, it just changes the whole nature of that moment.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to assume you live in as a busy mind as I do, but very, very busy mind. So early on, I really just turned the practice upside down. It was like, yo, bro, we're not here trying to force awareness to stay present. My only job is to welcome it back every time. You know, we're not forbidding awareness from wandering.

Yeah.

You know, it's impossible. It's just like one insult after another, one failure after another. And it's like, no, no, no, if you just pay attention to this other part of the experience, how much more will we come home if we knew we were going to be warmly welcomed?

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

You're disincentivizing waking up if every time you wake up, it's to a thrashing.

Exactly. And it reminds me of being at, like, let's say our front door, right? And let's say in our living room is the practice. And every 10 seconds, I find myself in the middle of the street. It's like, what the hell am I doing here? I didn't remember leaving. So then we're already back. But if we walk in the house, we're like, you know, look at this rug, look at these curtains, these cabinets are so freaking old, man. You know, if there's always criticism, it really deincentivizes. I like that.

It does. I think it does. Just checking with you that it seems like you've kind of co-opted the wanting mind so that when you notice, oh, you know, this hot dog could use some more mustard or whatever it is, that's a trigger, that's a mindfulness bell in and of itself.

That's right. That's right. Because we have to use something. So we use the breath a lot, right? Many of us use the breath. Why? There's not some magical key to enlightenment. It's like, no, it's constant. Oh, what else is constant? My desire for things to be otherwise. Okay. So if you're, you know, not good at ground balls, what's your baseball coach going to do? Hit your ground balls. So, you know, I don't know much about a mind that doesn't have much thought.

That's beautiful. You've created these guided meditations for the app, 10% with Dan Harris. One of the little takeaways, and this is just something simple that people can insert into their lives, is leaving one small gap alone for 10 seconds. What are you pointing at there?

Yeah, a lot of what we've been talking about, right? Which is this almost compulsive quality of leaning towards some other moment. And so when that is present, we could say that's the opposite of freedom. When we're allowing that to run our lives, that urge. So what does it mean to slow down and to just settle back in our experience and see what's actually here before launching into the next thing? So my wife finds me regularly sitting in the car.

I don't know if anybody who hasn't quit using drugs will fully understand that, but I remember those first few weeks after I stopped doing cocaine, getting texts from my dealers and dodging them. And what you're saying is let's not do that with the present moment.

Exactly. And it's funny how that urge or that sense of kind of like moving faster than we want to move. It's like, dude, the good news is you're close by. You can slow down anytime you want. It's like, well, can I? And it is a practice. It is a practice of like letting there be gaps between all the doing and all the becoming.

Just to go back to what you were talking about, the 10-second pause or whatever, however many seconds you want, dealer's choice to be a little cute, different type of dealer. If I'm hearing you correctly, you will just at random intervals through the day, walking up a set of stairs, pulling into your garage or drive, you know, driveway, you'll just stop and look around.

Yep. I'll stop and be with my present experience. Even if there's this urge to keep moving, it's like, oh, I can watch that arise and pass away. I can feel my feet on the floor. It's something about being grounded for me that it doesn't feel like a story. Like it's like, no, but what's actually happening? Okay. What's not a concept? Okay. I can feel myself being supported by this chair. I can feel myself catching my breath.

I had the great good fortune recently of having a very cool house guest once or twice a year. Joseph Goldstein, the legendary Dharma teacher, will come stay with us. He stays in our guest bedroom, which he calls the guru suite. And having him around kind of just throws into stark relief for me all of my neuroses.

Yeah.

And just, you know, we were kind of moving, we had to do an event together and then we had a little dinner at our house the next night and there were a lot of moments of not doing anything, but all of that, having him around. Just made it so clear to me, this habit of mind, of mind, of trying to, what's next? What do I got to do next? How do I control what's happening right now? It's like a helicopter parent. And I did what I think you've been pointing at through this discussion, which is not use that as an excuse for self-flagellation, but as a moment to wake up with some interest and curiosity.

That's the important thing. How does it feel when I'm paying attention to it? I like that, Dan. Because what is this about? Or why am I like this? And, you know, how long is it going to get me to where Joseph is? It's like, you could let all that shit go because, you know, we're talking about 40 years of three-month retreats. You know what I mean? Like.

60 years.

Goddamn, I got to update that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the comparing mind, you know, it's like, okay, how can this be in the service of awakening? What am I waking up to? Oh, wow. Sharp relief. What's the difference between his nervous system and mind, right? Yeah. How can that be in the service of awakening, bro?

Awakening is a big word. What are you pointing at exactly when you use it?

I'm talking about waking up to the life that's right here, right? There's like story, narrative, this kind of rocky mythology, you know, we're training every day, we're going to get better, you know, la, la, la. I've never seen that deliver. Not once, not never. And so it's like, okay. I like the way Gil Frondsdale put it. He said, when it comes to enlightenment, it's not you that gets free. It's like you free everything else.

Right?

So it's like, yo, don't waste the suffering. We always talk about, don't waste the suffering. Like, you know, if you find yourself in a contracted state, feel that shit. Let it guide you because you don't want to do it in the future, but it's here right now. So we're not just going to like, oh, no, no, no, I'm interested in, you know, awakening. Okay, how can I be more awake? It's like, this is still more striving. There's an experience right here of contraction. Can I be with that? You know, Mark Marin, he said, you know, wanting a positive experience is a negative experience.

Yeah.

And accepting a negative experience is a positive experience. So it's not the conditions. It's like, how can I be with this experience? You know, even if it's unpleasant, right? Even if it's that urge that we've been talking about, about moving faster than we want to, or, you know, being in this cycle of becoming or saddling too much on the next experience. None of that has to be wasted.

Cycle of becoming, what does that mean?

You know, we're always on our way somewhere. Dan, you're on your way somewhere, dude. You know, you made this huge transition, right? From news anchor to whatever the fuck this is. Right? But there's got to be a lot of becoming in that, right? I've been in this thing of becoming, right? I'm going to become a meditation teacher, right? I became a father, you know? And it's like, there's always this, you know, that's what I love about practice, that even though the mind wants to turn this into the next thing I'm becoming, I'm becoming a good meditation teacher or a good practitioner, good student, whatever.

Right.

When I can answer questions like him and give people options, no matter how stupid the question was. His intelligence makes the question smarter. Every time. He's just watching this dude in his 80s. It's just like, you know, so there can just be this, the comparing mind and the becoming and we're always on our way somewhere. And it's just like, do you know Aya Kema, the German nun? You know that name?

I've heard of her.

Yeah. So she's written some great books, but she's got a mantra that I use a lot. And I'm not much into mantra, but I'm into phrases. And she has this one that she used to use for walking meditation that I use in walking. And it's like, you take a step, nowhere to go. Take a step, nothing to get.

Oh, I like that.

Take a step, no one to be. Right? Nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be. And I don't know, man. It just makes shit panoramic for me, my awareness.

Yeah.

Because it's not shrouded in the story of Vinny and, you know, this welfare kid that's on his way. It's like, dude, enough with the story and the narrative and the drama. Ugh. And it's so shrouded in self. And so when I'm able to feel into that, that this is not some becoming story, I'm not on my way anywhere, then there's a simple experience waiting for me and that feels a lot more awake to come back to that word, awake to what's actually in front of me instead of this Sisyphus, you know, story of becoming.

Nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be. I like that.

Just as a moment. We're not talking about like, okay, yeah, there's nothing to do. There's nothing to get in your whole life. No, no, no. There's shit to do and there's shit, you know, but there's my practice has the same laundry list of, you know, checkpoints. Okay, you got this first two genres. Okay, you did a 10 day. Okay, how about a six week? Okay. You know, and it's just like, we don't want to do that with the practice. This is the one place we get to say, T, bro, on all the becoming, on all the getting, on all the acquisition and transaction.

There's a phrase that I probably picked up from Joseph, I don't know, somewhere, but when I'm doing my walking meditation, two words, just this.

That's nice. Yeah, I like that. And what does it deliver you? Like, you know, like when you feel into that, when you can actually taste the resonance of that, what's the effect?

It can land in different ways, depending on the moment. It can be just a simple bringing it back to whatever's right here, but it can also be just a tiny little ego death, like an extinguishing moment of the Dan story, because there's no Dan to be found if you're looking in that way. Not with like some sort of aggressive microscope. It's like, yeah, okay, well, just this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then by what? Known by what?

Yeah. You know, I'm not a religious person. I really don't like religion. And I'm really glad that the Buddha didn't ask us to have faith, you know, especially in the beginning, right? You might be able to have faith in your teachers, but like in regards to like the practice, it's like the Buddha had faith in us first, right? He said, you could know this for yourself. Don't take my word for it.

It's a good life every time I let it be.

Yeah.

Is that an off the dome coinage right there? Because that's really good.

I've been saying it for years because it's a really good way to remember that I'm the common denominator here, not the conditions of my life, right? You know, that I get to rest in that fundamental okayness whenever it comes to mind, you know, or most, you know, mostly, you know?

We've been talking about wanting the, and we've been talking about the Buddha, and the Buddha's promise was that there was an end of craving, an end of wanting. At your, where you're at in your practice right now, like how does that promise land for you?

I think I'm still in the suffering part. You know what I mean? I think I'm still in the like feeling the cost of wanting, right?

Yeah.

You know, one of my teachers said, you know, all wanting really wants is the end of wanting, right? And it's like, yeah. Yeah. It's not the thing that delivers the satisfaction or the release. It's just that you stop wanting for a moment. So I've felt that, you know, around material things or even around ways that I wish I was different, right? But I haven't seen the end of wanting.

Have you been able to keep up that renunciation?

Mostly. I mean, I get, you know, I like shiny things too. You know what I mean? I got a fucking sheepskin in the hot tub. You know what I mean? Like I like pleasure, you know? So it hasn't been adhered to with a monastic discipline. Don't get me wrong. But many, many times when there is a promise of more, I don't take it. Yeah. I don't say yes to many things anymore because everything is already enough, right?

Yeah.

Not only this year, but like in this life. So it like inspires me to kind of show up for my life, you know, and not just kind of, you know, get more done, but like actually enjoy what's here.

Pre-game is over for sure. Yeah. I mean, I try to remind myself all the time. Actually, speaking of which, I wanted to ask you because I think it was as a result of talking to you almost two years ago right here on this show who got me to make a practice out of what the Buddha calls the five daily remembrances, which he, just for people who are unfamiliar with it, recommended you do twice a day, which I now do right before, right when I wake up and right before I go to bed because of you, Vinny, I say this body's of the nature to get sick, to get old, to die.

That is true. But we are in touch with reality, right? Like, you know, it is, there is some sadness in it. And if we can find like, well, what is the actual sadness connected to? Sometimes for me, it's connected to how much I've missed, right? Like it's just like, oh shit, dude, you've been living like this is never going to end and you're sorely mistaken, right?

Yes.

You know, something about it that just feels like the cat told it straight. This shit is undisputed for 2,600 years. It's okay to feel sad, you know?

Yeah.

It's okay. Especially if it inspires us to be present instead of performance evaluation of where I've been for the last 60, you know?

Looking at these blunt facts straight in the eye twice a day, which, and it accumulates force over time as I've, at least in my experience, yeah, I kind of miss not thinking about this shit.

Yeah. Yep. We want that, what is it? The blue pill? Or is it the red?

I can't remember.

You know, of course, you know, delusion, you know, sometimes we want to choose that, right? I do. I don't always want to look at reality. It's like, oh, okay, what part of my personality is that? It's like, ah, the one that feels like I'm already cynical enough. You know what I mean? Like I've already like, I've always felt like a heavyhearted kid and then a human being, right? And it's like, oh man, am I using this to fortify some identity?

The one that's just stayed alive for me really is, I'm going to die, you know? I haven't gotten that.

You don't give a shit about your loved ones. You're just like, whatever, bro. You know what I mean? I don't even like these people that much, you know?

I just, that's when I lose my loved ones if I don't lose them before. So it's all kind of part and parcel.

Yeah. Have you been in close proximity to death?

Yeah. I was a hospice volunteer for many years.

Oh, really?

And I've seen family members die and yes. And I was a combat correspondent for a long time. So yes, I've seen quite a bit. So I was familiar with the truth of death, but not as intimate as I now am.

No.

Thanks to you.

Yeah. Well, I hope it's inward and onward leading. You know what I mean?

Yes.

They're certainly not meant to bum us out, you know?

No.

Yeah.

That's not the, that's, I don't want to give the impression that it's the only effect. I think one of the major effects is that I have, as you just said, I kind of have the 85-year-old version of me, if I make it that long, sending me letters like, you know what I would give to be back in this situation where I'm talking to my son and he's still 11 and he wants to tell me about his current rankings of the top five football teams and I'm bored, but I know like, let me wake back up. That's a huge impact, but there's also a kind of pervasive poignance slash sadness that I feel as well.

Yeah, man. I mean, I haven't been able to find a once, you know, anywhere where you can buy a single side of a piece of paper. You know what I mean? Not yet. I've been looking, you know? I really just want the good shit, you know?

It's always such a pleasure to talk to you, Vinny. I mean, and I'm always really grateful to you for making time for it and also for making these meditations for the app. I have a few other questions I want to ask you before I let you go, but on the subject of wanting and anything else you want to say or you feel like we covered it?

It's not as hard as you think. You know, the mind makes slowing down really hard. And so we have to trust a different wisdom. And I think that's maybe in our bellies or in our bodies or whatever it is to say, okay, I'm here with you, you know? And I know it's scary to slow down, but it's not as scary as we make it out in our minds. And it doesn't take as long either. So, you know, all of these reasons that we have for keeping it moving, you know, when we start calling bullshit on that and, you know, and actually arrive in our experience, we're usually quite surprised by what's waiting for us.

Just for the audience, if you haven't heard about this, we've been playing with most of our episodes of doing this little segment where we'll see if it works. And what's good, we've basically been asking guests like, is there a TV show, movie, book, record, anything that you're digging right now that you would recommend? And then I'll give you one from my side.

Yeah, right. Yeah, man. I think "Declon Tyrone" was like one of the best movies I've seen in the last 10 years. Like when that came out, I was like, "Declon Tyrone?" You know, Jamie Foxx, you know, it's got a whole bunch of people in it. Did you see that?

No, I've never heard of it. I feel like so culturally illiterate.

Well, you know, it's kind of, I don't know. I think we could say it's like Afrofuturism a bit, right? Where we have these filmmakers making these films that wouldn't occur to me, right? But when I watch it, I'm just like, oh my God, all of these different voices, all of these different perspectives. And I found it really compelling and just funny, you know? It's like a romp where it's just like, I don't know what's going to happen next here.

That has to be one of the greatest movie titles of all time, "Declon Tyrone." That is phenomenal. Can I show that to my son?

Let me see. It's a bit violent. There's some violence in it, but it doesn't, it's kind of strange the way it starts. It looks like a gang movie or something. You're like, whoa, this is intense. And then all of a sudden it becomes very surreal and absurdist. And you're like, oh my God. So I don't know if you're watching stuff like that with your boy. I haven't turned my boy onto it yet because he's super sensitive, but I hope too soon.

All right. I'll take a look. Okay. So there's a record that came out the other day that I really like. It's by, I'm since age 15, just a diehard indie rock, underground, punk fan. And there's a ton of great bands coming out of Australia these days. And there's a band called Old Mervs, M-E-R-V-S, Old Mervs. And I think they've got a new record. I forgot the name of it, but it's really good.

When's the last time you listened to something aggressive, bro? And what was it?

Oh, yesterday working out. I was listening to my heavy rotation list, which was filled with super aggro stuff. Turnstile, I love. A couple weeks ago, they were on SNL. Who else do I like? Military Gun, which that's not a band name that I fully understand, but I think they're really good. How about you?

I mean, you know, my taste is wide as many of us is. You know, I listen to a lot of, you know, old Cold Train and I listen to a lot of metal and I listen to some punk, you know, mostly like Bad Brains, you know, it's all older stuff, you know, because that's when I was that age, you know what I mean? It was just like, oh my God, look at this expression, you know? And so there's still a part of me that maybe that kind of the reminiscent part of that chapter in the 90s or 80s or whatever it was, you know, it just brings me back.

That's amazing. Just finally, before I actually let you go here, so I mentioned that you're doing some meditations on the app and you'll be doing some live stuff with us on Tuesdays. And you've got this course that you do every year with Spirit Rock Meditation Center. It's called A Year to Live. Now would be the time to sign up. It starts in January. It sells out every year. Check it out at spiritrock.org. And I'll put the link in the show notes if you're not like holding a pen right now.

Yeah, dude. Great pleasure to be with you, man. To be continued.

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