Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week, at the round table of dim lighting, we’re going to be talking about our preparations for some upcoming trips. Now that may sound like, why are we going to talk about preparations? Well just wait, these are special trips. ‘Cause these trips are special. Well, I mean, we should say, you’re going on a solo trip. Yeah. And I’m going on a trip that I visualized a lot in my mind. And that may be a problem. But you’re not going solo. But not to make me look bad. We’ll talk– Yeah, right. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. We’ll talk about the fact that I’ve planned my entire trip to make you look bad? Really? That’s a sign od dysfunction. But I chose to go on this trip first at this time. And then you were like, “Well you know, “we usually travel at the same time.” But you were like, “Well I’m going to take my wife.” And I was like, “You trying to make me look bad?” And by my wife, I mean, your wife, you’re not taking my wife. We’ll have you talked to her lately? I wonder what she’s up to. I mean, we’re leaving, tomorrow’s the big prep day. And then, so 48 hours from right now, we will both be on the road. Hopefully, but there’s a lot of question marks associated with that. Enough to talk about for an entire podcast. Another question mark is, where’d you get that shirt you’re wearing? I know this was your shirt. No, that is my shirt. There is no was about it. You gave me this shirt. No. I have given you some shirts that were too small for me. That one fits me perfectly. Well I feel like this shirt is a little too big for me. Yeah. But, there’s an orange one and this one, and they’re the same. And you said these don’t work for me. And I’m like, “Okay, well I’ll take these.” They’re not the same. So, not a sponsor. That’s an Elwood shirt, which I like, and I wear. It’s got a big neck. It’s got a bigger neck, but it also, it’s a little bit longer fit. It’s a little longer. And those work and they haven’t shrunk. The orange one was like a $6 one, like a blank that I got off of Amazon. What I’ll tend to do is I’ll buy blank shirts that are the same kind of shirts that we print on here at Mythical. I don’t even know what brand it is, Next Level or something like that. I’ll find blanks, ’cause I like to wear plain t-shirts. But sometimes not everything’s, they’re not always the same size, depends on the color. And that orange one got a little bit too small. There was another one with the orange one, it was this one. That one, I wasn’t, I didn’t– What am I gonna do? I go into your rack and take it. I Didn’t mean to give you that shirt. Can I get it back? What’s in it for me? There doesn’t have to be– Do you have another? The orange shirt. You can keep the orange one. I don’t like orange on me. I gave it to you cause it didn’t fit me. Will you change the color of the orange shirt? I’ll dye it for you. Like tie-dye, bleach it? I’ll dye it, yeah. Just stain it thoroughly to where it looks like a different hue. And then I’ll give you this. I mean, do you want it right now? You want me to do this shirtless? No. I do not want that. Some people might, but I do not. We also need to catch up. Well, first of all, we need a cat update because, the presentation. There was quite a build up there. Yeah, ’cause theoretically we could have a kitten right now. But the plan was, when we get, Chris and I, get back from our trip, then we will get the cat. Oh. So it’s happening. ‘Cause the kitten will be old enough. We decided that we’re going to get this kitten. And of course in the presentation it was Yeti, the white cat. And then that cat, turns out that cat was adopted. That’s what happens usually. And she was like, “Well, I’ll just take the black cat.” which she’s calling Opal. But then I, and it may have been right after we recorded, I went home, or a few days later, and there was this whole kerfuffle. That cat was adopted out from underneath her too. You gotta act fast with cats. Well, we were, they were, Lily and Christy were upset because they did the paperwork, the adoption paperwork, the application that said, this is the cat that we want. We’ve been in contact with the cat. Just to kind of clarify the whole thing. And the application was approved. And then the next day is when they found out that the cat, oh, somebody else came in and adopted another cat. But then because they were willing to adopt two cats, they were given preference and they were given your cat. Of course she didn’t say, “Your cat.” And that just doesn’t seem right to me. It didn’t seem right to any of us. But ultimately, after the person at the adoption agency ended up saying, “Listen, you know what? This is my fault.” It seems like if she had to do it again, she would have given Lily the cat, but she was not going to go take the cat back from the people who adopted two kittens. So the long and short of it is we did not secure this cat. The cat has been unsecured. It has been adopted by another family. Just get another black cat. Along with a sibling. Just get another cat. I was like– You had already settled for the second cat. Yeah, That’s what I told– Settle for a third. Either that, or let’s just not get a cat. So, I mean, so are you saying that when you get back from your trip, you’re going to go and your gonna pick the cat? A new cat? Lily was so mad. Well I understand that. That there’s been no other plans made. I think the assumption is that there’s some cooling off period, where, whenever we talk about it, she’s just so hot under the collar about it that we can’t get to, Well let’s actually look for another cat. And I’m not pushing the issue. I was not me that wanted a cat Maybe this is part of the system. Maybe they do this with everyone, it’s a test. Let’s tell them we gave their cat away and see if they’re a reasonable person. Got to think about that. Gotta think about everything. Lily let them have it and then– She talk to them directly? Yeah. Lily got on the phone with the– Good for her. You know what? Listen. That’s what these– And I was really proud of her. That’s these kids should be doing. Yeah, she talked to her on the phone, it wasn’t a text. I know I sound like an old man a lot. Well, I am, I’m 42. I mean, 43, probably, I’ll be 43 about couple of weeks after this comes out. Listen. You young folks, you can’t handle life’s issues either via text or via your parents. Just gotta get on that phone. Do something. Yeah, I was surprised. Take control of your own issues. I was very proud of her for getting on the phone. Of course it didn’t help. And the moral of the story is, yeah, you shouldn’t have said that. You should have said it worked, convinced her. Well it didn’t work, I mean, so now it’s just, it’s been like a week of not really talking about it. Cat cooling off period. So we’ll see what happens. Okay. I’m waiting anxiously. Now another thing that we have to update you on. Again, I don’t know exactly when this is coming out, but I do know that it will have been a few weeks since this happened, but I, well, no, you tweeted, you tweeted something. Oh, okay. The boot tweet. Yeah. Well, okay, yeah. I tweeted, this is Saturday night after I did my listening party with Britain and, let’s see. Where is this? Where’s the text? Scroll, scroll, scroll. Well, it’d probably be under your Twitter. There’s another way to do it, but you’re just– Yeah, just at 9:30 at night. What I tweeted out was, “Just got a text from Rhett that said, come to living room to discuss boot.” That’s it. No period, no follow up, no nothing. And I’m just staring at that. Now don’t, please don’t share the followup text yet. Okay. We’ll get to that. So that’s what I tweeted. I tweeted that and then– Well, no, well you also tweeted back at me. You texted back to me, you’re like, “Can I tweet this?” And I was like, “Sure, tweet it.” Yeah, yeah. You tweeted it. I responded to you. The mythical beasts who are tuned in to our Twitter conversations. It’s a certain set. You guys were very concerned. There was a lot of conjecture about what may have been meant, whether or not I was at Links house. Were are we going to discuss boot? So right now we’re about to clear up the discussing boot controversy. And let me tell you, every single possible idea that you have about it is more interesting than the actual explanation. And that’s why I’ve let it sit for a while. I have not heard the actual explanation, except the– The follow up text. Except the followup text. But I mean, my followup tweet, when you did not tweet anything back to my original tweet, just got a text from @rhettmc that said, come to the living room to discuss boot. And then people are like, “Seems very urgent.” “Just go meet up with him.” “He’s waiting for you.” “You sure it’s Rhett this time?” And then I wrote back, I tweeted, replied to myself, just to give an update. And I was like, “We are not in the same house. I’m scared.” Which just seemed to send people into a tizzy. But I mean, the texts that you sent back to me privately, after come to living room to discuss boot, was “Whoops, sorry.” “That was meant for Locke.” And then I said, “Can’t imagine how that text “would not be strange for anyone to receive.” Right. So it was a… You sent it to me. You meant to send it to Locke. I still have no clue what you want to discuss boot with Locke. Come to living room to discuss boot. Let me tell you that the Link/Locke mix up has happened before. I can’t, this is definitely the funniest example of it, but I go to my phone to text someone, my son in this case, and I just see, it’s like, I think I’m about to press Locke, but I press Link. And then next thing you know, I’ve sent a text. Anyway. So I’m gonna make this short cause it’s uninteresting. Locke sprained his ankle on Thursday. And he’s like me, he’s a hypochondriac. And he has catastrophized how bad the ankle sprain is, and what it’s gonna mean, and all this stuff. And he’s had some issues with his ankles. High arches. And so he’s like talking about, “Dad, you gotta get me one of those boots. “You gotta get me one of those immobilizing boots. “We got to go tomorrow and get it.” And I was like, “Locke, we just can’t. “There’s no place you can just pick this up. “I can order you one like on Amazon. It’ll get here Monday.” Well, I needed to discuss that with him. ‘Cause he was like, figure out where we’re going to go– Hold on, I bet you were in living room. And I was in the living room and he was somewhere else. And I texted him, “Come to living room to discuss boot.” So you don’t yell through the house, you just text, as a form of intercom. We have Google home. So we will sometimes broadcast. That’s right, you can do that. But he was, I had some reason to believe that he was not next to a speaker. I can’t remember. I thought– I’ve never used that feature by the way. Oh, it’s constantly happening. You don’t use the dinnertime feature? If you say HG, cause I’m not going to say it. ‘Cause I don’t want your Google devices to go up. That’s considerate. If you say, HG, it’s dinner time, she rings a bell. Come and get it, ding, ding, ding. Really? And it rings everywhere, at all your Google homes. Oh, what? I didn’t know about that. We use it, in fact, this morning as I was leaving, I heard Jessie say, “HG, broadcast, Shepherd, get up now.” ‘Cause she doesn’t know, where, he could be anywhere in the house asleep. Well you can actually broadcast directly to a person’s room now, that’s a new feature. In the past one month you can say, “Broadcast to Shepherd’s room. Get up now Shepherd.” So Locke has a sprained ankle. So you’re making him come all the way down all the stairs on his sprained ankle, there’s other stairs even into the living room. No I think he was outside. The living room is the farthest point. He was outside. And also, again, I was handling all this for him. He’s a 16 year old kid. Let him let him discuss his own boot. He should discuss boot in his own mind, and buy boot. Cause listen, we bought boot. And yesterday boot arrived. Yeah. And he tried to put boot on and I could tell he could not figure boot out. How hard is it to figure out boot? Well, it’s a complex boot. It’s just a bunch of Velcro straps, right? I know, but there’s a valve, and it inflates. And there’s things that you stick in. There’s a valve? Yeah. It was $75. So probably not all of them. So I said, “I knew this was going to happen.” I was like, I saw they’re fumbling with it. I was like, “You figuring it out?” And he’s like, “Not really.” I was like, “Well I believe in you.” And I just walked away, because I’m just, I don’t want to, they got to do things on their own, man. One of these days, it’s just going to be you and boot, and no help. Does that count as discuss boot. Like what you just talked about. Does that count? Yeah. I believe in you. Yeah No, just that part was discuss boot as well. Anytime we talk about boot, is discussing boot. But people thought so many different things. Like, lots of people were like, “Is it book? “Are they writing another book? Discuss book?” I would text you, come to the living room. Some people say you left the Y off. Booty? Come to living room– Discuss booty. I’m not going to be showing up for that appointment. Yeah. So it’s much less interesting than you all thought, And it’s an actual boot. But I did go into my living room. You weren’t there. Yeah. Which I tweeted, I believe. Well we just caught everybody up on everything. We’re so caught up. Now we can move into the future and talk about our big plans. I have this sense that we’re gonna talk about these plans and then something’s going to happen to one of us and this is going to be– Oh gosh. I don’t know, it’s just– I hope it’s you. I have this sense of impending doom and I almost wish I didn’t say anything. And there’s good reason for that, which we’ll get into. But first we want to remind you about the Vote Like a Beast campaign. votelikeabeast.com. Check it out. Just go to the site. It can’t hurt. Yeah, and another thing I love about the internet is I love all the conspiracy theories about Vote Like a Beast. You can’t do anything today. Like, if you say, listen, this is a nonpartisan effort to get the vote out. No, no, no. That’s not good enough. People are like, “No way it’s nonpartisan. No way.” This is the comments. Is it in a particular place? Like, is this on Facebook? Where are you seeing this? No. Facebook is a cesspool. I don’t go to Facebook. But the, I just saw it in, when I first posted just the picture on Instagram, which was just Vote Like a Beast, and just said something about, inform yourself about the candidates, whatever. It was like, oh man, it just, first of all, you’ve got the partisan stuff happening on the post, which I get it’s the election. But the conspiracy theories about the color choices of this, the fact that the beast hand is red and the other hands are blue. And it’s just like, I love it. And the text is white. Oh my gosh, it’s red, white, and blue. Yeah, ’cause we’re in America. But anyway, it was… Next year we’ll do, or next year, four years from now, we’ll do green and yellow. No, we won’t. We’ll do red, white and blue again. What is green and yellow? I just, it’s not red and– I know that, but like what is that? Like Brazil, I guess. It’s for the elections in Brazil. There’s a little blue, in the Brazilian. Am I wrong about that? There’s a little bit of blue somewhere? I think there’s a blue circle of some kind. There’s a symbol that’s blue. A little blue in it. That’s what we’ll do. Yeah. Anyway– I mean, it can work for any global election. Just so you know, it is a conspiracy. We are backed by the Illuminati. And you go to votelikeabeast.com at your own peril. So there you go, votelikeabeast.com ‘Cause watch out, you might find the tools necessary to vote and to connect your actual beliefs and passions with the candidates that are on your ballot. Watch out. The best one was a guy that said, “Interesting. They’re finally big enough “for the government is using them.” And there was like 20 thumbs up. So this guy and 20 other people are like, “Yeah, that is interesting, the government’s using them.” Government’s using us. I love being used by the government. It’s, you know, I’m glad you can have a sense of humor about it. That’s why I don’t read the comments because it just, it perplexes me and it’s hard for me to– Don’t be perplexed, man. To see it in a comedic light. People believe all kinds of stuff. Okay, votelikeabeast.com. All right. So, as you said, this is a solo trip for me. And this is something that I have been planning for, I’ve been intending for a long time. So ever since I started going to therapy, a couple of years ago, one of the things that my therapist does on a regular basis, is take solo trips. Like, he’ll go take like a, he can do like twice a year. He’ll do over a week long trip. Well that’s a sabbatical. If you go over a week you’re taking a sabbatical. He’s always talked about, and I’ve known lot’s of friends who, they kind of got into a rhythm where each year both the husband and the wife would take like a week long solo trip. And people have talked about this being, he’s been encouraging it for a really long time, both for me and for Jessie. And Jessie is heading off on a solo trip a few weeks from now. And again, he’s just like, it’s just a different vibe. Especially when you are, you’ve never done it before. And each person has their own reasons why they would want to do it, and what might be the benefits of it. But he’s just talked about, he’s just like, “You unplug and you kind of have an intention, “and you just get out there “and you don’t really know exactly what’s going to happen.” But he’s just like, at this point I couldn’t do without them. They are like my reset button, right? And you hear people talk about this. Like, I don’t know if it’s an urban legend, but like Rivers Cuomo goes off for a month every year into a silent, he does like a silent retreat. So he doesn’t speak for a month every year. There’s places you can go. Yeah. Like monasteries, I think, and do like– That would be an option. Silent retreat. A yoga retreat would also be nice. Especially out here in Cali. There’s plenty stuff. I mean, it is a tenet of mythicality. I mean, in the book of mythicality we devoted a whole chapter to isolate yourself with yourself. And so on this very podcast, we talked about the first solo trips that we each took years ago. So if you’re interested in our first solo trips, you can look that up. I went to Slab City, which is like out in the desert below Joshua Tree. And you went– Joshua Tree. ‘Cause we didn’t go at the same time. I don’t think so, yeah. Yeah, you went off into some BLM land, which Bureau of Land Management. Yeah. You have to clarify that. I noticed that the other day. ‘Cause I was looking for some BLM information about– You can camp anywhere on Black Lives Matter. I was looking for some BLM, Bureau of Land Management, information for dispersed camping and it’s just like, oh yeah, yeah. okay. Yes. The hashtag has been taken over. You have to spell it out now. Which is great. That’s good. That’s good. That’s really good. So yeah, and that trip, that was only a night or two. I think it was, mine was three nights. You went longer than I did. But I wasn’t alone. I went to Slab City and interacted with people. I was alone a lot, but not the whole time. To clarify, I’m not necessarily going to be out of human contact. But let me just– I thought you were. Well, no, I am going to be out of human contact for most of the time, but I’m not, I’m going to places where there is likely to be other people at times. So it’s not like I’m not going to speak to people. I’m not going off into the wilderness, completely isolated in one area for six days. ‘Cause I think that’s what it is, I think it’s five nights, six days. But you could get, you could certainly go two days. Oh easily. Without seeing or talking to anybody based on what I’ve heard of your plans. Well that’s kind of, I mean, we’ll get into like why that might be the case. So one of the things that my therapist has talked about, and this is, I mean, this is not exclusive knowledge that he has. This is just common knowledge, I think, at this point. But most people who go off and spend time alone are like, you don’t really experience the benefit. Anybody I’ve ever heard talk about a meditation retreat. You really don’t experience much of the benefit unless you get past like day three, right? A lot of times, right around day three, some people say day five, which is like almost a total time that I’m going to be out there, is when something clicks. And you’re like, you know– When you really start to go crazy. That’s what some people may be thinking right now. It’s like, if I’ve never been alone that long, is that, are we talking about a breaking point or a break through point? They might be one of the same. But this trip, for me, represents– But that’s something, your therapist tells you is that it doesn’t need to be a short trip. It needs to be as long as you can make it so you can get past that turning point. Well, and specifically, and this is for me, but it probably applies to a lot of people. It takes a couple of days. I mean, I notice this when I travel on vacation just with the family, it takes a couple of days for me to finally adjust to the pace of a vacation. I think about so many things. I am constantly, have a low level of anxiety about like 28 different things that are related to us professionally. I was thinking about this the other day that, you guys know a lot of the things that we do. You see a lot of the things that we do publicly, sort of the ongoing things that we do, but we don’t talk about what it’s like to run a company and to grow a company and to deal with all the issues that come with that. We don’t talk about all the other projects that we’re trying to get off the ground. We don’t, there’s a whole lot of things that we don’t talk about, just because we keep some things to ourself. We talk about a lot. But sometimes it hits me, even when I’m sitting down and trying to meditate, and the point of the meditation is to just focus on my breath and not think about anything else. Monkey brain, right? I have monkey brain, just like most everybody and I can’t just stop thinking about a million different things. So what I’ve been told by people who try to unplug is that, listen, it takes a few days just for, to grab all the knobs and turn them off. You’re just finding another knob and turning it off. And for me, the whole point of the trip is, I’ve been on this quest to try to connect with myself more. And I don’t say, I’m not saying that in a self absorbed way, I’m saying that in a, I tend to be very much in my head. Don’t spend a lot of time in my heart. Don’t spend a lot of time understanding what, knowing what I’m feeling. Really getting into my feelings and understand what that means. Just knowing myself, right? And every step I’ve taken towards that has been beneficial. Not only for me, but for all the people in my life who I love. And I’ve been doing, one sort of outward manifestation of what I’m trying to do internally has been me growing my beard and my hair out. I talked about that on an episode of Ear Biscuits. And I’ve been intending to do this solo trip for a really long time, thinking that it was going to be 2020. Of course COVID happened, and so things, a lot of people’s plans got turned upside down. But I finally got it on the books. You know, we said, let’s just carve the time out and then we’ll start figuring out what we’re gonna do. So this was a couple of months ago that we were like, okay, this is when the time is going to be. It was before, before COVID hit, I think. It wasn’t, it wasn’t for me. I am going North from Los Angeles. One of the things that my therapist has done many times, and is kind of into, is going throughout through the Western United States and going to hot springs. And I’m a huge hot springs guy. I love hot springs. I love hot water. And I’m, I’m not, I don’t believe a lot of woo stuff. So I’m not, I don’t necessarily think that there’s some like spiritual thing that’s gonna happen to me at these hot springs. Maybe I’m open to it, but that’s not why I’m going. I just love hot springs. And I love the idea. He sent me these pictures of places he’s gone, where he drives his four wheel drive vehicle through these mountains and comes to this hot spring. And then he’s got this hot spring to himself. And there’s nobody there. I mean, it is really cool. It’s mesmerizing to think about it. ‘Cause you look on a map and you can see, I mean, when we’ve gone off-roading, our first experience with hot springs was when we went on that trip to Death Valley. And then you get to this one little oasis in the middle of this valley that has nothing. But way down there in the bottom of the valley You see there’s some palm trees. I mean, just what you would think of an oasis. And there was a hot spring there and there was some naked people. We talked about that on a GMM episode when we came back. And those are more, that’s like on a road that most cars can get to, there might be an RV. Some of the ones that he’s shown me, that I may or may not be able to get to, are more isolated than that. Yeah. You’ll just see on the map, it’d say hot springs, but it looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere. And some of them don’t even, aren’t even on the map. So, okay. So anyway. This is where I, and I don’t want to get too in the weeds on this, but the thing that is very, sort of the key struggle that I’m dealing with at this point, two days out from departure, is what I’ve been dealing with for the past two months. Which is the balance of being prepared versus having unrealistic or even specific expectations. Because for me, the whole exercise, the whole point of the trip, is to not want to accomplish anything. My life and my brain is sort of completely centered around accomplishing things, right? And I can’t vacation without thinking that I need to learn how to do, I need to learn how to surf. I need to, I have these things that I get in my mind that I feel like I have to accomplish in order to make it worth it. And when you go on a solo trip, there is this like, well, I’ve got to come back with some wisdom. I’ve gotta come back with something. But also I, what if I can’t find these places? Or what if I get there and there’s people there? What if I get there, and the big, huge question mark that has suddenly sprung up in these plans is the freaking wildfires that are consuming our state. And I’m not driving. I am driving directly towards one of them, but it’s one that’s not as big as some of the other ones. But if you look at satellite imagery of the state of California, there’s smoke everywhere. I mean, wherever I go, I’m going to be covered in smoke to some degree. And not only that, but just last night, because of this latest fire, it was a bunch of fires that just happened. Having just started recording those. I mean, there’s been multiple fires, but there’s a couple more that just started over the weekend. And now the Santa Ana winds are coming in. They’ve closed all the national forest. So like Sequoia’s closed, Inyo is closed. And both Sequoia and Inyo, especially Inyo, are ones that I would have been camping in. That’s right, yeah. And so I don’t know what that means for all the BLM land. ‘Cause you’ve got the Bureau of Land Management, which is like, usually crappier land, that wasn’t good enough to be designated as a national park or a forest, but you can do disperse camping. And I’ve got this rooftop tent on the FJ cruiser. That, basically, if I could find a place to park, I can camp. But there are no fires allowed, and not just no fires, no stoves, no gas stoves. So you can’t even get hot water. As of last night, you cannot have a gas stove fire anywhere in a national forest in California. But that, what does that mean about BLM? I’ve got my little bullet water boiler that I’m just, to make like quick meals and stuff. I won’t do that in a forest, in a national forest. But I’m going to do it on BLM land ’cause I got to eat. But I mean, there’s no fire risk in that. What you don’t need to do is you don’t need to fire off one of those gender reveal rockets. Basically, that’s where this is all about. I’m going to go into the desert and do a gender reveal of myself. That’s why, I mean, that’s what it said, that the fire South of us started by a freaking gender reveal party. I know. Well, why, what are they doing having a gender reveal party? And it was over a hundred degrees and they’re outside firing off a pink or blue smoke that caught fire. They tried to put it out. It goes over the hill and then they evacuating thousands of people. And did you hear what they’re saying? They’re going to– Nightmare. They’re going to make that family be responsible to pay for the damage of the fire. What do you mean? Are they billionaires? Cause otherwise, no. I mean, they should obviously be held accountable, but I saw an article like family has to pay. I was like, pay? Out of what? They’re sorry. That’s all you can, I mean, they learnt, they’ve been made an example of. So that’s complicating things because fires are– Fires are so sad. I don’t have a, I have, I’ve got all these apps and all these maps downloaded. And I’ve got like, my family laughs at me because every single weekend I’m out there putting stuff into the truck and I’ve got these drawers in the back of the FJ now with all my stuff in it. I am so prepared. And I’m really excited about the rooftop tent. Oh yeah, that’s nice. But my route– I plan on using that. My route takes me up into, basically heading up towards Mammoth and that whole valley all the way up on the 395 has got, there’s hot springs and stuff. And then my options after that, depending on how I feel, I could go all the way up to Northern Nevada. I could go all the way to Idaho if it hits me. But I think I’m going to get too far away at that point. And it would be too tough to come back. But there’s wildfires all along this route. And so I just don’t know, every single night I’m going to have an intention on the general area in which I would like to sleep and kind of bed down. But it’s so up in the air, there’s no, I’m not doing any formal campgrounds. I have a portable toilet with a privacy pop-up thing. I have a solar shower. I am going to be completely self sufficient. I don’t have to stop anywhere except for gas. Let me share my plans a little bit. And, cause I, and then I want to come back to what is going to be your practice, ’cause I’m, I’m interested in that. But just to kind of skip over to my thing. Yeah, once you carved out those dates, it’s so much easier to say, “Oh, I’m going to do the same dates. “I’m going to plan my own trip.” And I really like the idea of doing another solo trip. And I definitely have this feeling that I could really benefit from that and I definitely want to do it. But I’ve had this thing that, I’ve told you about the vans. I started this hashtag vanlife stuff. I’ve started following all these people who live out of these Mercedes Sprinter vans that have been modded out with a bed and a kitchen. And some of them have a bathroom inside and they can have four wheel drive. Oh, it just looks so good on Instagram. Oh, just look at those pictures of that person. Just a van in the middle of nowhere. And I’m like, I can see this in my future. And I start talking to you about– You can see it in you’re future. I’m gonna get one of these vans. Can you see it in Christy’s future? Because it’s in her future an this point. Yes, I’m really romanticizing this idea of, not selling my house and living in a van, but having this van, it’s basically the cool hipster version of an RV. We had our RV trip to Grand Canyon a few years back and Lando was excited to do it again and Christy had a good time but the older kids, it just didn’t resonate that much with them. And I’m like, well, I can see in retirement, me and Christy are gonna– Be that couple. It’s like, once Lando is out of the house. So like, you know– Yeah, when he’s 14, you’re going to send them off early. Well let’s just say eight years from now. It’s like, I could see that we could do something like that. Me and Christy could just have these van excursions. And she can see this as well? I’m starting, I started to show her pictures on Instagram. I was like, isn’t that cool? Look at where they are. How does she respond to that? There’s this specific one that floats around. And it’s a point of view shot of someone getting up out of the bed in their Sprinter van, going over to the burner and taking the hot coffee in a mug, opening the door to the Sprinter van and then– I’ve seen this. Jump, then walking out of the Sprinter van, walking onto this little dock and then jumping into this beautiful mountain lake, with the coffee. Are you going to make those kinds of videos on your trip? And I’m like, I’m showing this to her. And I’m like, we’re going to make these types of videos in our retirement years. And then I’m like, you know what? Screw retirement. I want to know now if this is even viable. So I bought one. No. You can rent these Sprinter vans. This is like, there’s a site called outdoorsy, which is like the Airbnb for RVs. Does the having a bathroom? The first one I was going to rent didn’t have a bathroom. But then I was like, you know what? This is so much about, so much hinges on us having a good experience, me and Christy. And again, it’s just the two of us. We’re not taking the kids. It’s like, if she hates this, there’s, I see no way forward. Is this a bathroom you can take a shit in? So I’m like, I’m renting one with the bathroom. So it’s a toilet that, yeah, you can crap in there. And the toilet is in the shower. So it’s a toilet in a shower. Well I shit in the shower already Sign me up. It’s a shower with a grateless drain. Wow. No, you just, you put the lid down and you can sit on the lid of the toilet or like, I dunno, I guess hover. Where does it go though? Where does the feces go? Onto the highway. No, it goes into a container. Yeah, and then you take that container around with you and it makes the whole van smell. No, well, I don’t know. Maybe the technology’s gotten better. You have to test it out. I can sus it out for you. There’s a seal. There’s definitely– There’s a seal down there that eats it. That’s why it costs so much, ‘ cause you have to have an environment for a seal. That poor seal, man. That’s what you should feel bad about, that you got to seal this that’s eating you and your wife’s crap the whole trip. C thought Sea World was bad. And it’s. When we did the RV it was like, there was no crapping in the RV toilet, that was our rule. Just like when we were on tour. And that was based on our experience in 2008, being on an RV and somebody saying, don’t nobody crap in this thing. No, but we gonna crap in this thing, and we’re going to figure it out. We’re going to see, that’s part of the test. Otherwise these other Sprinter vans that don’t want to dedicate the internal space to a shower, they’ll have a shower hanging off the back and then they have a portable toilet, like what you have, and you just you’ll just do it in the middle of the van or you’ll do it with a curtain around you. What you’re talking about mine. Yeah, mine is a, it is a, it folds up to like a briefcase, but then the legs come out, and then you sit on it, and there’s a bag that basically, and I’ve got like 12 bags or something. Like a Diaper Genie? It’s basically like a diaper kind of bag. And so, and I was reading the reviews and this one mom was like, “Our family of five used one bag for the three day trip.” And I’m like, what? But see, I think, what it is is you take that bag and you seal it up and then you put it. So I’ve got the trasharoo which is my out, it’s the trash on the outside of the truck, that’s on the back spare. And then I think you just take that bag and you put it out there, so it’s outside. And so it’s not in your car. You can’t do that in bear country, but I don’t think you’re going to bear country. You’re going to– Yeah, well I would be going, and I do have bear spray, by the way, I’ve got two cans of bear spray. If I go to the West of 395, which is where you’re getting up closer to the Sequoia and everything, that’s bear country, If I were to go hiking or whatever. But you’re not going there anymore. But the problem is, is that’s where all the fires are. So I’m probably going to go on the East side. There might be bears out there. You’re saying the bears, you’re not talking, you’re talking about just the trash being on the outside? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. If I’m in a place that I think that there’s bears then I’ll put everything inside. So you can boondock, which is basically you can camp in your, you can car camp anywhere that is X amount of feet off of a road on either national forest or BLM land. And you can’t start fires everywhere, or really anywhere right now. But you have this, there’s a sense of freedom that you don’t have to reserve a campsite. I mean, with COVID you can’t really reserve campsites anywhere that’s that the best destinations anyway, they were already reserved and the capacity was severely taken down. But my plan was, we were going to go up the coast to Big Sur and we were going to, we’re going to camp there one night and then we’re going to keep going up to Monterey. And then we’re going to go across to Yosemite. I mean, when I made these plans, the state was not burning. But then all of a sudden Big Sur caught on fire. Yeah, it’s all burning. So I was like, well that’s going off of the list. I’m just going to go to Yosemite and we can stay outside of the park. There’s places you can stay, spots you can stay at, I should say. But now the air quality there is so bad. The fires, at least right now, aren’t in Yosemite, but there’s so much smoke coming in that it is not going to be a good experience. There’s still a chance we may go, but I’m pretty much have decided that we’re not going to Yosemite. So now I’m like, I was literally just looking at the fire map of the Western United States and trying to figure out where we could go that wasn’t on fire. And I was like, I think Utah is hard to burn. ‘Cause if you look at, just based on the fire maps, now I think I’m going to Utah. Now Zion is very restricted. Yeah, you got to get a shuttle to go in there. So I don’t think we’re going to Zion National Park. But, my understanding, because I may end up in Utah. So my route, one of my routes takes me all the way to Utah and then down through Zion, and I’m just, I would still just be on BLM, National Forest land and stuff, not going into the actual national parks. If you get too far into Utah, there’s just not a lot of burn. I mean, I’m speaking out of turn here, but that’s just the impression I get. It’s a bunch of rock formation, there’s no forests. That’s why all the fires are West of the 395, because even on the Eastern side of the, so I guess that’s the Eastern Sierras. You just look at a satellite map. It’s like, it’s, there’s just not a lot of vegetation there. But I’m trying to find a place that’s not wicked hot. It’s not going to be that hot at elevation. I think we’re going to Bryce Canyon, or we’re going around that area. But again, we’re just gonna, we can find places to, we’re doing the same thing you’re doing. I’m just doing it in a really nice van. So that I’m glamping and you’re just roughing it. I mean, mine’s gonna be, it’s not really roughing it. I mean, this, it’s not, it’s not glamping, but it’s easier than regular camp. And the, I mean, the whole idea for me is the, is to be like, I don’t know exactly where I’m gonna park tonight and then roll this tent out. I want to be alone, right? And so my philosophy, going into this, is I’m driving North, kinda gonna feel it out. And I’m doing as much as I can to literally like follow my instincts, follow my heart, wherever might go. It’s an embodiment practice, right? It’s like, I’m physically going somewhere. I don’t have specific plans and I’m going to take it as it comes. And I’m gonna try to have an attitude, correct me if I’m wrong, of embracing whatever situation presents itself. No expectations. And that is a very difficult thing for me to do, because I’m thinking about like, I’ve been looking at this, looking at these maps and like thinking, oh, I could go to this one. Or am I going to be in the mood to drive that far if I want to go to this one? What if I get there and it’s closed because of the fires? Or it’s closed for some other reason? Or there’s just a bunch of people there, and I can’t like, or in many of these places, there’s a bunch of naked people there. I don’t mind that, but what if I wanted to get naked? Am I gonna get naked with a bunch of people that I don’t know? Anything’s on the table. So the whole, the exercise is to let go. Are you, if you show up at a place, a spring, and there’s naked people there, what are you going to do? I’m just gonna get in with my bathing suit on, probably. If they’re naked? Yeah. I don’t, I mean– Just be naked. I haven’t thought about it. You know what? I’m going to wait and I’m going to follow my heart in the moment. If my heart says, let it all hang out. It is going to be hard. It would be hard for me, I’ll put it this way, to not be thinking about the report that I would come back and give to you. I mean the last solo trip, it, there was meaningful things that happened. But I do remember constantly thinking about how it was going to, what kind of stories I was going to be able to tell that would make it more valuable, but not in, that’s not the value you seek here. But I talked, so I talked about this aspect. I actually, I hesitated even talking about this trip for this very reason, right? And I talked about this whole process with my therapist. ‘Cause I said, I have a tendency for a couple of things to happen. Number one, I can be so focused on not accomplishing something that, that becomes something I’m trying to accomplish. I’m so focused on letting go that if I feel like I can’t let go, then I feel like I haven’t met the expectation of letting go of expectations. So you really get inside your own head, right? But the other thing is, is I think that I have to have something to bring back. And that can be, this is what happened in my mind and my heart while I was on this trip. This is the epiphany that I had. This is the realization that I had at the third day, in the middle of a meditation, while I was tracking the sun, you know? Or some funny has gotta happen. So I’ve got the story of whether or not I got naked at the spring, so I can come back on Ear Biscuits and tell it. And so my mission, and again, there’s really no way to let go of this seeming like a mission is to not have a mission and to literally be like, I don’t, I’m not trying to get myself into situation. I’m not trying to take, a lot of times we’ll do something or take a risk. Like the time that I went to that yoga class on my, solo, we’ve taken a couple of solo. I went to Joshua Tree one time. But then another solo trip is when I went to the beach and I took in that yoga class. And I was the only guy in there. And it was a hilarious story. There’s a part of me that went to that yoga class, knowing that something funny might happen that I could talk about on Ear Biscuits. And I like living life like that in certain ways, in some ways, because I feel like it leads me into better experiences. But for this trip, I can’t even promise that I’m going to even tell you how it went, because it may be that I get something that I feel like is just for me and to share it would make it, would ruin it. So it may be that I’ll wait and share it later. Cause I honestly, I don’t, I’m just trying to be open. I am going to try to make contact with aliens. That is one of the things that is going to happen. Well, okay. You’re talking about after that Netflix rec. No, I know we we’ve talked, there’s been a number of documentaries that we’ve watched. Well, okay. So again– That seems like a totally different path. Yeah, we’ll talk about this more later, but, and here’s the thing, I don’t believe that any of this is real, but I’m just trying to be a person who doesn’t just conclude things before being open to them. And the whole Dr Steven Greer thing, he’s got a couple of documentaries on Netflix. He’s the guy that had some access, he worked at area 51 or whatever, and he swears that there’s extra terrestrials and they are, people are in contact with them. And then he has this whole app where the idea is that through meditation, usually group meditation, you can make contact with these aliens. Now do I believe that this is what’s actually happening? I would be so surprised if that’s what’s actually happening, but if it was what was actually happening, wouldn’t it be cool. You know what I mean? And so I’m just, again, coming from, and a lot of this is continuing to peel back the layers of spending my entire life, up until about 10 years ago or so, really entrenched in an evangelical worldview. And one of the things that comes along, for me personally, with the evangelical worldview, is just the belief that you have arrived at the ultimate truth. I specifically remember, even as a college student, thinking, man it’s so cool that I believe the correct thing. It’s so cool that I know that Jesus is the only way to have a connection with the creator of the universe, and that I have a relationship with him, and that I have arrived at this truth that is the ultimate truth. I remember thinking that as a college student. And 20 years later, I’m at this place where it’s just like, the only thing I know is that I don’t know anything. And it’s a completely different place to be. But when you have this worldview that it’s all about having this systematic theology, all this stuff kind of wrapped up together and it’s kind of impenetrable, right? And you’re not really supposed to poke it. And if you do poke it, you’re supposed to do it for the sake of just building it up and make it even making it even stronger. To me, it’s a good exercise for me to be like, now I have absolutely no reason to believe that I’m going to have contact with aliens, but what does it feel like to sit down, in the middle of the desert, and I actually bought, because they suggested that you buy this chair. That is one of those chairs, the antigravity chair, basically that you can kinda lean back. You float? Okay, a recliner. It’s basically a recliner for the desert or the beach. An alien recliner. And stare at the sky. Does it, it points your butt hole in the right place for a probe? Right, yeah. It opens you straight up to it. There’s going to be a moment where I am– Just relax, let it in. In a place where I’m out there. It’s just me and nature. And I’m going to be open to extra terrestrial interaction. Now, Rhett– And if it happens, I will talk about it. We remember what happened when you got scared on your solo trip and you ran into your tent and watched Superbad on your laptop. I certainly expect that that is going to be a struggle. I certainly expect– You’re gonna get scared. That being scared, and the funny thing about that is that I actually could hear the highway and see cars a couple of miles away. I’m going to be in some places, if I can get to the places that I want to go, where, like I have a satellite phone, FYI. ‘Cause I’m going to be by myself and I’m going to be well outside of any sort of cell service. I’ve got a satellite phone that sends, oh and by the way, you’re listed as the second emergency contact behind my wife, so, which may not be great, ’cause you’re going to be on your own trip. But I will have the ability to do an SOS. I have the ability to text and basically text my location and I can get somebody to come rescue me, for a lot of money, if things get real bad. Okay. But I plan, I am definitely going to get scared. I definitely relate to the expectation thing. I mean, in general, in my life, I’m trying to deal with, how I place expectations on things, and how I seek to control things, and perfect things. And one of the questions that I’m learning to ask is what is my desired outcome? Because I’ve, and through that, I noticed that a lot of the things that I do and actions that I take to assert control that make me feel good, actually don’t move me towards the desired outcome, if I were to state what that is. Now that’s actually different than, I think you’re describing an exercise that is, let go of desire for an outcome. So I’m not going to say that. Whoa, you’re moving the whole table. Well, you keep hitting the table, and it’s making noise, and I’m trying to– Well, what you’re doing is not making noise. I made it worse. That got it. That’s good enough. That’s basically where it was. Just embrace the wobbliness of the table. This is what we found. Here we are. Right. That’s good. This is good exercise. Be here now. And I usually don’t care about this kind of thing. Usually you would be the one that cared about it. I know. I was making a point. Okay. Good. I don’t remember it because you shimmied the table. That was a test. Aggressively. It was a test. I think those are, I mean, they’re two different, knowing what my desired outcome is for me and stating that is just a, is an exercise to help me know if I’m fixating on things for the wrong reason, just for the sake of control. I think it’s just a different exercise what you’re doing. But I do think there’s an element of that for me in this trip as well, that I’m trying to. Okay, my desired outcome is to have a quality experience with Christy, for us to have a good time together. For us to come back and have a good time. Just period. You know, we had to cancel our 20 year anniversary trip. We were going to go to Big Sur and stay in this cabin. It was going to be really cool. We had to cancel all of that because of COVID. And instead of trying to rebook something like that, I’m going with this van dream, test type thing. But yeah, I could very easily put so much pressure on her to have a good time, and to like this thing, and to embrace my dream and fantasy for us, like living the van life. Or/and put so much pressure on myself to create an experience that would win her over. Versus this may be the only experience we have in a van. It may suck. It may be great. But it’s gonna, we’re gonna be together. And it’s, I just want to set it up for quality. And it’s not about going to a certain destination and then saying, okay, well if we go here, these are the pictures all of these people take on Instagram. These are the things we gotta see, okay. That means we’ve got to do this trail. We got to hike this trail. Well that means we’ve got to get on this shuttle. That means we’ve got a park here. That means we’ve got to, you know, all of these things that are about, well my desired outcome is not to have Instagramable moments or be able to say that I did, when I say I went to Bryce Canyon and someone says, Oh, did you do the so-and-so? It doesn’t matter if my answer is yes or no to them. It’s interesting how I can fall into that trap so easily. It’s like, unless I meet someone who knows more than me about something that I’m doing, if I don’t meet their expectations, then I failed because I haven’t done, I haven’t had a perfect trip. And there’s a fear– Oh well, you didn’t see the so-and-so. And then there’s the fear of missing out too. I mean, I remember the first time we went to Disney world with my wife’s family, right? So this is a big trip. Her parents, I guess, at that point, we may or may not have had any kids. I can’t remember. But my brother and sister in-law had at least a kid. And then we had Gaga and Papa with us. May they both rest in peace, but they were both alive at the time. Okay, that makes it easier. And the idea, so what I did, when I found out we were going to Disney world. Itinerary, man. And here’s, the funny thing is, I talk about it, like I, when somebody, when your best friend is as efficiency driven as you are, you begin to think that you’re not. You begin to think that you’re this happy go-lucky guy, until you interact with normal people or people who are on the opposite end of the spectrum. And then you realize that, I realized that I am so much more concerned about planning and efficiency then my wife’s family. And also, probably, than the average person, right. Or I’m probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. But for this trip I bought the book. And I was like, okay, we’ve got five days here. These are the parks we need to visit. This is the, we need to literally go around the park in this direction, we need to get fast passes for this ride. We need to skip this ride. And I was like, if you, cause we want to hit all the hotspots. So I remember– But that wasn’t– Breaking that plan out for them. And it was almost like, okay, Mr Ruin Everyone’s Fun. You know what I’m saying? That was their take on it. Their philosophy was let’s just go in. Let’s, you don’t, why do we have to get up so early, and have breakfast, and get there before people, and make sure you do this. Can’t we just go in there? Now there is a balance. Let me just say there is a balance because if you take the complete opposite, no planning, no foresight, you might go and be like, we didn’t do anything fun. All I did was wait in two lines all day ’cause I didn’t think about this. But when you get in my, that’s what I’m trying to, I’m trying to strike the balance. The balance between being prepared and having a plan, but having no expectation that that plan will be met and not thinking that success is the plan being accomplished. Right. These certain expectations. So being prepared, but having no expectations, it’s like those, those are two very different– Maybe we’re saying– I think we’re saying the same thing. Maybe we’re saying the same thing. ‘Cause I’m like, if I say my desired outcome is to enjoy Christy’s company and for her to enjoy mine. And that means I have to stay in a certain mind frame. That’s enjoyable, you know. I can’t fall from my own traps, which make me someone who’s not fun to be around because I get in my head about, oh, this isn’t working out, I’m a failure. But also you stop having fun. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. So it’s, if that’s my desired outcome, then it’s, oh, it’s not about going on the right trail, or getting to this certain place, or camping at the place with the most perfect view. And then if it happens, you’re like, wow, bonus. Is that the same, is that similar to what you’re saying, in terms of letting go of expectations? Yeah. It’s the same thing. I mean, for you, again, I think this is that whole enneagram one, enneagram three, presenting in a very similar way in the way that they approach things. For you it might be about controlling it and doing it perfectly. And for me it might be a slightly different twist on that of just like accomplishing a certain number of things. In it’s effect, it’s kind of the same thing. It’s like, I’m going into this trip. I’m thinking that, now I don’t have, and because I am not trying to go to anything, other than there’s a couple of hot springs that I definitely want to see. So if I didn’t see those, if I didn’t make it to those, or something about that aspect of it was screwed up. That’s gonna present itself as a disappointment. But it’s not really a sightseeing trip. It may be the case that I drive into the wilderness on day one. And then I’m just like, I’m going to stay here for six days. I’m gonna keep my truck right here. And I’m just gonna stay here. And be okay with that. ‘Cause being alone and driving, and being alone in one place, is a different thing. I do expect at least one of the places to be a place that I would be like, okay. ‘Cause it’s not like every morning I’m going to wake up. I’m going to eat some breakfast really quickly. And then I’m going to fold my tent up and just get back on the road. I fully expect that I’ll be like, well today I’m just going to stay here. I’m going to sleep in the same exact place. At what point do you think you’re going to start speaking audibly to yourself? Early on. Early on, huh? Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder if I would speak. I’m not even going to, there’s not going to be a time. I would do that anyway. Yeah. I think it would, it would take me a good number of days before I start speaking out loud to myself. But then once I did it, maybe that would open up a whole stream of self realization. Well, the thing is, I’m trying to figure out what is the best way to document it. Again, I often will journal something and I’ll journal it in a way as if it will be read in the future. Because I cause, well, case in point, when we did the the deconstruction, the lost years, I read from my journal. And I am narcissistic enough to have this idea that someone will be interested in reading my journal. And the idea that for this thing, it’s like, okay, well what am I going to do? Am I gonna– You haven’t decided what you’re going to do? Well I’ve got multiple options. I’ve got, I mean, I’m going to have my computer with me. I’m going to take my computer for typing things. But I was also, there was a part of me that was like, what if I just take a pen and a notebook? I don’t write well, and I get some carpal tunnel situations when I try to write, and I have writer’s fatigue with my hand, and much better at typing. But then I was like, should I just do voice memos? Should I do a video? Don’t do a video because then you’ll tempted to film it in a way that can be turned into something. And then I’m like, well, I’ve got my drone. And it would be really interesting to get a drone shot of everywhere I stayed, for my own sake. But you know, when I’m doing that, I’m going to be thinking about, well one day, not anytime soon, but years from now, I’ll be like, I went on this trip and here’s all the drone footage. Maybe next week. And so that’s what I’m struggling with right now. ‘Cause I also have, I’ve got my, I’ve got lots of tech. So I’ve got my 360 camera. So I’m like, okay, I could do a 360 shot of every campsite. And that again, I’ve done that in the past because it’s cool to be able to put VR on and be there again. I think you should do the 360 camera thing. That’s nice to be able to. I mean, if you’re spending time at a spot and you’re like, you should, I mean, obviously you’re going to journal. I think that’s a good idea. ‘Cause then you can, at certain moments of insight in my past, it’s like, it’s nice, like if I was listening to certain music, it’s nice to put that music back on. And it’s a way to go back there. So the VR thing is another way, like literally you could go back to that spot if you’re listening to music and you’re on VR in the spot again, it could really, magically, bring you back to a spot where it could be special for you. I think so, I think so. Like a happy place, or maybe it’s a sad place. It’s a poignant place. So I think that’s a cool idea. Yeah. The video thing is, that would be difficult. But like pictures. I mean, again, we’ve talked about this on a whole episode. You got to take some pictures, just do it for you. Yeah. And again, that’s the thing. It’s like, how can I be in the, and this is it’s really, this is just a microcosm of what I want my life to be. And this is a whole ‘nother can of worms. But how can I be in the world in a way that isn’t about look at me and look at what I can do? And that’s a very difficult thing for someone who makes a living saying, look at what I can do. Or saying, if you don’t look at what I can do and enjoy it, then I don’t make a living, I don’t have a company. The hair thing is an easy place to point for that quandary. Because as we discussed, you have your reasons for doing it, yet you knew, at the time, and you’ve definitely seen it playing out, that people have to comment on how big your hair is. How big your beard is. That type, so you knew that it was going to present some sort of tension. And I think that there’s– So what’s the update? I’m curious on the update there. Update on my hair? Well, I mean, it was, you did it as a form of embodiment. It’s related to all of these things. It’s like it’s a physical representation of something that is going on within you and your mindset. But you knew that you would, you have to deal with people’s reaction to it, response to, it discussion of it. Well, I think I’m kind of past the point of, I’m not past it, in other words. Yeah, I’m fully aware of that dynamic and that struggle of it being like, oh, well people were saying they really liked my hair. How do I not gravitate towards that type of commentary about it? And actually get something from it. It’s rewarding to have people talk about how they like your hair, right? For me, it’s more about this idea that when I look at pictures before I grew my hair out, it feels less like me. Now, I’m not saying I’m not going to go back to short hair or whatever. I’m not saying I’m gonna have long hair forever. But I do think that part of the exercise was you have this, I think that life is about, to use a meme, becoming your final form. And I think this is what every religion teaches ultimately. Is like, you are trying to continue to move closer to something. If it’s an Eastern philosophy, it might be enlightenment. Christianity is like, you’re trying to become more and more Christlike. We’re kind of talking about very similar things of, trying, having some sort of trajectory in your life. And for me, this idea of getting more in touch with myself, not just being in my head all the time, following my heart, I have begun to feel a cohesiveness with that, when it comes to having a big beard and big hair. So that aspect of it is like, not mission accomplished, but sensing that, yes, that there is something to that. I feel that I look more, I think I look more like I feel about the world now. So that’s the update is that that has happened to some degree. I don’t know where it’s gonna go from here. So next week, next time we record it will be after the trip. ‘Cause we’re about to go on these trips. Who knows, if we’ll even decide to talk about it at all. It seems like I’ve got a lot more leeway to talk about it than you do, but maybe not. Well that was the last thing I was going to say was– It’s not a desired outcome of mine. I think I have to get to a place where I can’t expect the environment and the way that the world works to change in order for me to be okay. I can’t expect people to stop talking about a change that I make physically. That’s going to continue to happen whether I’m on camera, on people’s computers, or not. But I could, but I do believe I could get to a place where it really doesn’t matter. And it’s not about accolades or getting some sort of feedback outside of myself. It’s this idea that what I need is not some external thing. It’s not some validation. It’s not my environment being what it should be. I shouldn’t have to curate a solo trip in order to get to the place that I want to get to emotionally, spiritually. Now those may be helpful to do that. But ultimately, wouldn’t we all like to get to a place where, regardless of the circumstances, you had this equanimity that you can access, right? And so I think that that’s the challenge for me, is go and don’t overthink it. You want to drone, you want to break the drone out? Just break the drone out, do it for yourself. If you don’t do anything so that you can talk about it or share it, and then you come back and you want to talk about it or share it. Secondarily, go for it. Right. Finding that, getting to a place where you can just be motivated by, I just wanna do this. ‘Cause the only person who’s going to miss out is you. Right. Or me. If that’s our mentality. I mean, Christy may miss out on some of me and I may miss out on some of myself and you might miss out on some of yourself, if you’re doing things for the effect or the story. So maybe you can tell me about it ’cause I’m going to want to know. But don’t think about me and don’t think about these people listening while you’re out there. I don’t think about you at all. And let’s not get close to any fires. I’m committed to that. That’s one thing we didn’t talk about. We’re not getting close to any fires. It’s not necessarily just staying away from the fires that are already happening. You go into the wrong place in the forest and a fire starts and there’s one way out, that could be a whole different kind of story. I mean, I didn’t– Neither one of us are going to forests. I think it is. I’m not going to forests. I’m not going, well, I mean, there’s going to be some forest-y areas that I’m going to be going in. Well be careful. But I have thought about this and here is my take on this. You tell me if you think this is a good plan. If I find myself in a situation where I wake up in the middle of night, I’m like, “Oh crap, there’s a fire coming towards me.” And there’s just one dirt road that came in here. And I can look down this mountain and see that the fire is coming towards me and I got no way out. Okay. My theory is you just drive right through it. Gosh, I didn’t want you to say that at the end of this podcast. After everything I just said was for the effect of, anyone listening, wouldn’t be worried about it. Oh my God, I can’t wait until the next Ear Biscuit to see if they live. Hold on. Fire burns in a line. Here, I can this? I’m saying this, as not, I’m not an expert on this. Let me say this. Just to put you at ease, listener. If something were happened to either one of us, you would have heard about it before this episode even came out, this one, this conversation we’re having right now. So well cut this out if I die in a fire. That what you’re saying? Yeah. Okay. So, but if I lived through it, this will be pretty awesome. If you’re listening to this, you know that this didn’t happen. So now you can cut the fool all you want about driving through a fire. ‘Cause it’s like– You’re not even supposed to drive through a flooded street. Hold on. But this seems worse. No. Okay. If I feel like there’s a way that I can get to a place– I wouldn’t, by the way, I wouldn’t camp anywhere that there’s only one way out. Well that’s the only the kinds of places I’m going to be, man. I mean like if the road kept going and there was a second way down the mountain or whatever. That’s my advice. All I’m saying is that fire burns in a line. So there’s this fire burning, the perimeter of the fire. And on the inside of the perimeter of the fire, it’s not like the whole things of blaze. It’s black. It’s just burnt. It went through and, I mean, the fire burning zone is probably no more than a hundred yards. I’m not going to respond to this. If you get fast enough. Sure, both your tires will probably pop. You may almost cook. But I’m saying that if there’s no other way out. I’m driving right through the fire. I think you should do some research. And I will film that. Do some more research. Okay. If that’s what you’re thinking you’re going to do, do some more research before. I’m sure it does. You think you’re going to go on some site and it says, if you find yourself in this situation, drive into the fire. No one in any survival book is gonna to say, or suggest, that you could– So you’re joking? No, I’m saying that they would never suggest that. But I’m saying that there’s gotta be circumstances where that is the thing that you should do. Read about it. Now I don’t take my advice, do your own research. He is not giving advice. I’m not giving advice. This is just my personal philosophy that I’m conjecturing about. See, I knew there was an impending doom feeling that I had for a reason. I have a rec. Rec baby, rec. It’s your week. As we do with many recs, we tend to recommend things, like movies, that have been out for awhile because we just slowly get to things. So no one’s talking about this anymore, but that’s why you should go watch it. That Andy Sandberg movie, Palm Springs. I mean, I heard people saying, you know what, it’s a good movie. It’s a really good movie. It’s just a, you know, it’s obviously a comedy. But it is a, you probably already know this because this is how all the trailers and everything that it’s been about. It’s basically an update on the Groundhog day idea. And it is so well done. And it’s like, they sat down and thought, oh man, let’s revisit this concept of somebody being stuck in a time loop. But really just think about it in a way that any conversations that people have had over the past 30 years about Groundhog day, let’s put some of those things into a movie. And you’ll understand when you watch it. But also it really asked some interesting questions, like not real directly, they’re pretty subtle, the idea of the meaning of life, and how you find purpose, and where that comes comes from. And I just really enjoyed it. Huh? Palm Springs. How long is it? It’s not too long is it? An hour and a half. Okay. Again, all the good movies are an hour and a half now. Maybe even 85 minutes. You got to get up– You don’t have to watch the credits. If you can’t tell the story in 90 minutes in 2020, then you probably shouldn’t make the movie. I mean, that’s my new philosophy. Unless you’re Zack Snyder. Yeah, okay. What, is he making three hour movies? I think the Snyder cut was like, it’s like four hours or something, the way that they’re releasing it. Okay, you know what, I might check that out. Palm Springs, Andy Sandberg. It’s, I have a problem watching Andy Sandberg. Because I have this weird thing where it’s like, he was, he’s in Lonely Island. We used to have all these comparisons, I, you guys are like Lonely Island, but not as funny It’d be like, you’re right. Yeah. I mean just embrace it, man. I know, and then, it’s like, it makes me not like to enjoy him. That’s my own problem. I will enjoy. He’s really good in it. He’s definitely better than we would be. Yeah. Okay. I’ll check it out. #EarBiscuits, wish us luck, even though, again– I’m not going to drive through a fire, don’t worry about it. We’re already back and we’re still alive. And maybe we’ll talk about it next episode. Maybe we’ll talk about why we’re not going to talk about it, but we’ll, you’ll get an update. We’ll talk about something. #EarBiscuits To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.