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  • Good morning, John.

  • Two days ago, I was holding my beautiful son in my arms like this.

  • He looked me directly in the eyes and we're having a very good father son bonding moment as he sneezed into my mouth.

  • Long story short, I have a cold.

  • So my brain's got tiny chickens in it and I'm not thinking super clearly, but I did watch your video and it didn't make me think a bunch of things.

  • And I want to work through this.

  • So let's do a back and forth like we're having a real conversation except that I know what you're gonna say and you have no idea what I'm gonna say.

  • God, I kept thinking about that.

  • E E.

  • Cummings poem that begins spring is like a perhaps hand, which comes carefully out of nowhere.

  • I like how Here you assume that I know an e e.

  • Cummings problem.

  • It's adorable, and I had to listen to this line like seven times to start to get my mind around what it means, which sometimes I feel like it's the point of poetry, like it's one of those boxes that you have to do a secret to figure out how to open it, except it's made of words.

  • It sounds like I'm whining, but I like those boxes anyway.

  • None of this is my point back to your video.

  • For me, doing nothing means not making an active choice to do something.

  • This is a really great insight, but for me, at least, it doesn't quite get to the whole thing.

  • I agree that part of what doing nothing is whatever that is, is that it's a passive choice.

  • But I don't think that's the whole thing.

  • Doing something feels like making a choice and doing nothing feels like not making what I think.

  • I'm figuring this out through the haze of a rhinovirus here.

  • For me, scrolling through Twitter is nothing because it's the default that I end up with when there's no structure left in, all of the things run out.

  • It's what I bled, too, just like think thing.

  • But for me, taking my medicine is the default choice.

  • There are lots of things that we don't really choose to do that are not nothing like work being a pretty big.

  • That's how I do like 95% of the things that I do I make the non choice off something.

  • Does that make sense?

  • I hope so.

  • Okay, I'm just working this out right now as I'm recording, Here's how I'm trying to understand.

  • You have active and passive and you have nothing and something you have active.

  • Nothing's where you choose to do nothing, and that's good.

  • You have passive nothing's, which is like the worst thing where you end up choosing to do nothing, just cause there's nothing else to do and that doesn't feel good.

  • There's active some things, which is hard to do.

  • And then there's the best thing.

  • And I swear I didn't mean for this to happen.

  • There's passive something's I'm sorry feels way better for me to use the limited mental energy that I do have to create more passive something like, I'm just gonna be annoyed if everything is an active choice.

  • I don't have it in me is like most of the appeal of a meal kit delivery service for me, like I have to do it or it's going to go back.

  • But I wouldn't make the active choice to do it because it's just too hard, and then it's already 6 30 in your uber REITs and crispy cream.

  • I'm not choosing between doing something or doing nothing.

  • I'm choosing which something to do.

  • This is absolutely true, but I can't imagine the world this way.

  • It sounds exhausting.

  • So with the choice making energy that I have, I feel like it's better to set up like you do everything I can to set up these passive something.

  • I want to make some active choices, absolutely.

  • But I want to also be realistic about the fact that I just don't have that many in me in a Sunday like as an example.

  • What if every Tuesday is Call your mom day or draw something day or do a podcast with your friend day?

  • What I need most days is toe have my non choice be not nothing.

  • How do you do this?

  • How do you set up passive Some things I don't know.

  • I've had a lot of practice, and I'm still not great at it.

  • Like you don't want to see my YouTube history.

  • I watch a lot off lock picking lawyer videos.

  • For some reason, I mean, this guy carved a pencil from a pencil from a pencil, so I did not actively choose toe watch.

  • That video is great as it is.

  • It's a passive nothing.

  • Let's be honest with ourselves, Hank.

  • Thank you for doing this.

  • Something with me for the last 12 years.

  • I will see you on Friday, John.

  • You're welcome, you dork.

  • I'll see you on Tuesday.

Good morning, John.

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