Well, I said I wouldn’t do it but here it is and we are live for our very first podcast. I’m looking here at the numbers. I know our stream has started. I think we should have visitors here. Anyway, while we are waiting for the visitors to show up. Welcome. I hope we have an interesting something to talk about today. We are going to talk about having a meaningful life. Or what it means to have a meaningful life. Or what it means to have respect for something like a meaningful life. If it sounds a little hazy, it is. They don’t let me edit this. Welcome to podcasting. Anyway, with me today is my sidekick renfro. Say hello renfro.
Hello.
Renfro is my eating partner. We like to go out and check out the local scene. I am a connoisseur who doesn’t mind picking up a weight. Renfro here is just working on his pre-diabetes.
I like what I like.
Hey renfro, why don’t you tell me about that chicken we had earlier today.
There are no words but renfro goes into a dance where he’s hopping around like a chicken. He is a really big boy. He is humming. This all means it was magic to him and made his body happy.
And it wasn’t even really meat! That’s what I’m talking about. Anyway, so we are working on our health here and we started thinking about the difference between life eating fast food and life not eating fast food.
Renfro here stops dancing and his face takes on an extremely hurt expression. I don’t think it’s a good idea to take food away from renfro.
Yeah, I get you bro. But what I’m trying to say is, this year it’s not really food. No, I know that’s difficult to understand because you put it in your mouth and it gives you pleasure. But it’s not actually nourishing your body. I mean, you do understand that. Of course you do. You know. And the thing is, we don’t mind checking out the fast food scene but we have to understand that it’s drugs and not nourishment.
Even renfro here has to agree and nods solemnly. It’s going to suck but the truth is the truth.
Anyway, this brings us to our first guest. This guest is Adriana McPhilovich, and she has written a book called “writing books is the most meaningless experience in the world”. Hi Adriana! Can you hear me okay?
Sure, sure. Everything is fine. It’s a good connection. I’m just surprised I can actually talk to you.
Why is that?
They control the media in Russia. There is nothing anyone can do. We can’t communicate with each other. They monitor everything. They demand everything and etc etc etc. It’s the end of the world! These people are insane and they don’t care about anything.
I understand. Well what made you write this rather intriguing book?
Tell the truth, did you read the book? The whole book?
Well, I understand the point you’re making. If you want my accreditation as a reader, you know I didn’t play you short. I’m just kind of a text master so I know how to read a book really quickly, right?
All right, smart guy. Go ahead with your questions.
I liked how it was anecdotal. I’d like how it moved around and you kept trying to find a connection between everyone but it was never there. And inevitably, it was the connections that weren’t made that made all the difference in the world. The stories universally were hopeless in the end so, yeah, pretty depressing book to read all the way to the end. But, I think the genuine understanding was in the missed connections. Especially in these situations where something was genuinely possible, they just wouldn’t do it even though doing it would have relieved the problem. And in the end it was hopeless.
Don’t you find that this is true? You are a creator. You are a writer. You notice things. Don’t you find that people will go to scandal every time? I know women do this but I find men will do this as well. No matter what, something will happen and suddenly there’s an argument and then there it is, canceled! Y’all don’t exist anymore. Go away. Bother someone else. Of course, this leads eventually to unbelievable loneliness. And of course you get caught up in the hopelessness of it all more often than you would like to admit.
Why am I a writer? How many years ago did I decide that this would be my hobby and my craft? Why does someone decide something like this? If no one has offered you money to do this specifically or if you’ve never trained for this specifically but suddenly you decide that you will get into this as an art form, why else?
There is a pause in the room. Eventually, renfro nods and puts his hand on his friend’s shoulder and the Russian writer just starts talking again.
So in the book, there are a few heroes. I liked the heroes. I like their stories. It’s always interesting when you run into a hero. It’s this self-sacrifice thing. Some people have it. It’s really important to them. I think that’s why certain soldiers really love being soldiers. It really gets into their feeling of sacrifice. Or of course this is in our DNA and it’s something we need to get rid of. Or not. If we can simply be local, it would be wonderful if all the men wanted to make sure everything was well taken care of everyday. No meaninglessness on that.
You are a utopianist. I love it. We need more.
I couldn’t agree more. I could make a rant. I could make a rant about junk food. Look what you guys do. You go to these terrible restaurants and eat this terrible food. If people ate like you everyday they would die. There’s no food in that food. At least they would get ridiculously fat. But they don’t know. They don’t understand anything. They say I need this. And you want them to ask. You want them to stop and think. You want them to say what do you need? What is so important to you? But they don’t. People are trained and bribed and well-rewarded for making spastic hysterical decisions. The crazier the decision that wastes the most money seems to be the most interesting thing on the social networks to play with. It is consumer hell. And the issue in any drug seeking lifestyle is the non-existence of a world outside the seeking of drugs. Nothing else in the world can exist unless those drugs are not there to bother us anymore.
I guess this means we’re right back to food again, renfro. You can’t eat your way to happiness.
You can’t eat your way there. You can’t fuck your way there. You can’t work your way there. You can’t design your way there. You can’t run there or walk there or get there through meditation. If it was possible to get there, it wouldn’t even be interesting to us. If it was actually possible to be there in that place where we dream we really want to be, it wouldn’t be anything at all. It would be daily life. That’s what the eventual Utopia is. Remove the government and the religions and all the overseers and allow people to have their communities to themselves. We have communications now and we can use them to make sure that we don’t have a bunch of crazy men running hungry and bothering people. If nobody’s hungry and everyone has a job to do, I can’t imagine we’re going to have too many problems with race or sex or whatever.
Sometimes when you meet people you just start dreaming. I was already sort of in a dream when I saw you from having read the work. It’s not the meaninglessness of the act of writing the book to you, it is the eventual discovery that it was just something to do along the way.
But was it meaningful? I think that’s the greatest question in the world because sometimes I think yes and sometimes I think no. If we want to talk about writing and about whether or not your writing will last, this is always a question of politics more than anything else. Markets are fickle unless you can rip it open with your bare hands.
I was thinking more like asking you to marry me.
That’s really nice of you but not appropriate or wanted. However, what you like is the music that we make together. We have energy because we agree on things. And maybe we are both good talkers. You love words and I don’t mind using them. But what we both crave is not having one person to cling to but to have an entire community to be a part of. It’s really interesting to live in a world where you might actually be happy to go home to your own home to sleep. I mean, there is sex and there are long-term partnerships but it is also possible to live with a lot of people and stay in contact with them and work as a community with them and still go to sleep alone at night.
So what you’re saying is that this Utopian vision of a simple agrarian society where people kind of deal with the food and then make their own fun using good carbon footprints etc and try to make the most of an interesting life is the only way. That’s the only survival of the human race.
Maybe the math we are looking for in this conversation is really simple. If it’s not completely sustainable, it’s garbage. And even if it’s something that is working perfectly right now, if it is not completely sustainable meaning biodegradable basically, compostable, or at least be able to be refitted retrofitted or made use of in some way, it’s garbage. It’s just more garbage and we need to stop getting garbage. But more importantly, we need to stop making garbage. Because the more we rely on this economic nonsense of keeping everybody chasing money and spending it wildly as they can is not only non-sustainable but the most egregiously harmful thing that could possibly go on in the planet right now. And that they are doing this openly and happily as leadership means simply that we are infested by cancer in this world. Any right thinking person would just remove these people who are advocating these incredibly horrific tortures on the world and allow peace to start again. Hopefully once and for all.
