0:00:00I brought all my good gear to the studio now.
0:00:03- Oh yeah?
0:00:03- Yeah, a couple of weeks ago I realized
0:00:05my good audio interface, the one that I like the most,
0:00:09USB Pre 2, that's been at home for,
0:00:14it never came to the studio.
0:00:16And I was using my Zoom kind of recorder here,
0:00:19which is like a traveling piece of equipment.
0:00:21So I swapped them over a couple of weeks ago.
0:00:24Felt like I made a bit of a commitment to the studio
0:00:27that way, which is nice.
0:00:29- So you're doing 100% of your podcast recording
0:00:31from the studio now?
0:00:31- That's one of the reasons that made me do it
0:00:33is I don't record anything from home now
0:00:37unless there's like some very particular reason.
0:00:40Like I recorded something really late a couple of nights ago
0:00:43and so I just did it from home.
0:00:44But yeah, now all of my regular shows,
0:00:47they're all recorded at the studio now.
0:00:50I'm here every day,
0:00:51like I'm here at least five days a week.
0:00:52- No, but bringing all the good equipment over,
0:00:54that's an exciting final step.
0:00:56- Yeah, it was a commitment.
0:00:57Yeah, you're really committed to this office after only 18 months or so.
0:01:05Yeah, something like that.
0:01:08Well congratulations for bringing the last piece of audio equipment over.
0:01:10Yeah I've got this whole thing all set up nicely.
0:01:13I've got my nice yellow iMac and it sits on this like stand, right?
0:01:17Because Apple refused to make the stands tall enough.
0:01:20Oh yeah, I know.
0:01:21The shortness of their little feet for the monitors are incredibly frustrating.
0:01:25But I have a nice stand made by a company called Grovemade. You've probably come across
0:01:30this company before. They make a lot of these kinds of stands and cases and that kind of
0:01:35stuff. It's nice because it's made of the same kind of wood as my desk, so it all matches
0:01:39in quite nicely.
0:01:40Very nice.
0:01:41And I have a second monitor now, which is great. I used my old Dell monitor that I was
0:01:47using for the Mac Mini before. Now it just sits off to the side of the iMac, and that's
0:01:52where I put all the recording apps. I'm feeling pretty settled here now. It's quite nice.
0:01:57- Have you built yourself a little booth? I just realized I don't know what the final
0:02:02setup for your audio was. You didn't want to build yourself a little recording call.
0:02:06So I don't know what the final result was for dampening the audio.
0:02:09- It didn't change. So I have two sound-insulating panels behind me and then I still have the
0:02:15curtains. Remember the big curtains? I still have those on the left and right of me. And
0:02:20I found that it does a pretty good job.
0:02:22Actually, just before we were recording,
0:02:24when I was talking to you,
0:02:25I could hear an echo to the left side,
0:02:27and I just adjusted the curtain a little bit
0:02:29and it's gone away.
0:02:30So, it's doing a good job.
0:02:32They are not pretty, but it's functional.
0:02:35I mean, ultimately, having been here
0:02:38for the time that we've been here,
0:02:39and there's still things that I want,
0:02:41and there's still things that we want to do,
0:02:43but we're thinking that it's ultimately,
0:02:48it's kind of like a similar thing
0:02:49to wanting to own our own home,
0:02:51we kind of want to own our own office space.
0:02:54And so I think that is probably the plan
0:02:56for the next few years,
0:02:58because it's very restrictive when we're renting here.
0:03:00There's only so many things we're allowed to do
0:03:02and we can't put anything on the walls very easily
0:03:06or we have to, it's just like a whole thing.
0:03:08And like the shared bathroom and shared kitchen experience
0:03:13is kind of as you would expect it to be
0:03:15and it's less than ideal.
0:03:16So we'll probably be here, I reckon, for a couple of years.
0:03:20But the long-term goal now, I think,
0:03:23is to try and find something in our area
0:03:28which we could acquire through the business
0:03:34and own our own space.
0:03:36I don't know how realistic that's gonna be or possible,
0:03:39but I think that would be my ideal.
0:03:43I don't really like being in a situation like this
0:03:46that we can't fully control.
0:03:48And I just say, I never lived in rental accommodation.
0:03:52I lived at home until I was ready to buy.
0:03:54Just the way I am as a person,
0:03:56I kind of don't like being beholden
0:04:00to a landlord in that way.
0:04:02And so I was lucky enough to have a home environment
0:04:06that was good for me until we were in a point
0:04:10where we could buy our own home.
0:04:12And so being in this kind of environment now,
0:04:16it's like it's a bit weird.
0:04:17It's like we want to fix something.
0:04:18Well, you can't fix it.
0:04:20- Right, you have to get the landlord to fix it.
0:04:23- So it's like there's all these little things
0:04:24that it's like, oh, you want to replace the window?
0:04:26You can't do that.
0:04:28Okay, will you replace the window?
0:04:29No, there's nothing wrong with it.
0:04:31It's like, yeah, I know, but like,
0:04:33we would like a different kind of like lock on the window.
0:04:36Ah, no, no, no, it's fine.
0:04:38This is like stuff like that.
0:04:40I think that's going to be a long-term goal.
0:04:42We'll probably be in a yearly theme at some point
0:04:44in the future, within the next couple of years maybe.
0:04:47And it's like one of those things we look,
0:04:48like see what's available.
0:04:50And most commercial property stuff in our area
0:04:53is all retail and you can't just buy a shop
0:04:57and not be a shop.
0:04:58Like it's not how it works.
0:05:00An office space seems hard to come by.
0:05:02- Yes, yeah.
0:05:03I looked into that at one point and I was like,
0:05:05"Oh, commercial real estate, this is interesting.
0:05:08Oh, no, I can't do what I want.
0:05:10Can I set up like a fake shop in the front?
0:05:12You know, like the office equivalent of money laundering.
0:05:15It's like, oh, that coffee shop.
0:05:17It's only three feet deep in that retail space.
0:05:19What's behind there?
0:05:20Oh, nothing.
0:05:21You know, it's just an office space.
0:05:23- That reminds me of that 368 that Casey Neistat set up.
0:05:26They had a little shop in the front.
0:05:28It just made me realize.
0:05:29Was that because of zoning laws?
0:05:31- Boy, you know, that's an interesting,
0:05:34but I mean, look,
0:05:35there's a lot of interesting questions around 368.
0:05:39but that's a very interesting question.
0:05:42- Maybe we could just set up a very tiny cortex brand store
0:05:47that is open for half an hour every three months.
0:05:51- Right.
0:05:52- And just the rest of it's very selective
0:05:54and the rest of the time it's closed.
0:05:56But then we have wonderful offices behind it.
0:05:58- What's the minimum amount of retail that would count?
0:06:01Could you have a like a
0:06:03buy appointment only shopping experience?
0:06:06- Why not?
0:06:07(laughs)
0:06:08- I don't know.
0:06:08feel like us talking about it here makes it harder for us to realize this dream.
0:06:14No, I'm not sure about that, Myke. Just because we're talking about office space laundering.
0:06:21Our podcast is admissible in court is what I want to know.
0:06:27Judge, I was just joking. I don't understand why you took that section so seriously.
0:06:31It's a comedy podcast, by and large.
0:06:33Yeah, if it's a comedy podcast, none of your words count. Everyone knows that.
0:06:38[Laughter]
0:06:39So yeah, I'm very happy here, but as always thinking about what my future will look like.
0:06:46But I do feel very wedded to the idea of an out-of-home office.
0:06:50I really do like that experience.
0:06:52It's been a very nice adjustment for me.
0:06:54Yeah, I just think it's funny that you have only just brought over the last piece of equipment
0:06:58and already I'm hearing about "well…"
0:07:01And then the next place is on the horizon already.
0:07:04Yeah, I mean this was always step one.
0:07:07I had just decided I had to be out of the home and we basically went for the first place
0:07:14we found. Which is honestly not that different to when we bought our apartment. It was like
0:07:22we want to move, we have to move now. We spent one day, we looked at four apartments and
0:07:26then we just put an offer on one of them.
0:07:28I didn't realise it was that fast.
0:07:30Yeah, I mean, but then it took an awful long time to complete. I feel like I'm with this
0:07:35kind of stuff realistic in knowing that they don't need to be dream homes because I feel
0:07:41like the dream home or the dream office comes later in life. It's not the first one or at
0:07:46least it's not going to be for me. I don't live in that part of the world, right? Like
0:07:52if I want to stay in London, I can't get the dream. It's going to take a long time and
0:07:57I'm going to have to move somewhere different probably. But I also don't know what it would
0:08:01be. But like this has been a very good test case of understanding what I want. And I think
0:08:07the main thing now that we know we want is we need rooms. There needs to be dividing
0:08:12walls in the space.
0:08:14Right. So not just setting up zones for different things, different spaces in one big open space.
0:08:19You want physically separate rooms.
0:08:21Yeah. And so that's, that's like a thing for the future is like if and when we do this,
0:08:26rooms will be key.
0:08:27I wish you luck on your search.
0:08:29Oh, I'm not searching.
0:08:30Two years hence.
0:08:31you can wish future Myke some good luck.
0:08:34He's not, I'm not in a rush.
0:08:36I'm not in a rush.
0:08:37Gonna set some homework for the next episode.
0:08:40We haven't done a book club in a while
0:08:41and I'm realizing where we are in the year.
0:08:45And if we don't do one now,
0:08:48'cause I did really want to do one this year,
0:08:50but if we don't do one now,
0:08:51I don't think we're going to be able to do it.
0:08:53Because I think I was talking to Adina about this yesterday,
0:08:55that we maybe have like five more episodes
0:08:58and like three of them are set, like the topics are set.
0:09:00- Oh God, Myke, you're making my whole year feel
0:09:03like it's just slipped away.
0:09:04- It's about to, yeah.
0:09:05- Oh my God.
0:09:05- It really is wild when you think about that.
0:09:08It's like you do like maybe somewhere between 12
0:09:10and 14 episodes a year.
0:09:11- But it's only March now,
0:09:13like it can't possibly be that far into the years.
0:09:15- I feel like I have something terrible to break to you,
0:09:17but maybe we'll deal with that later on.
0:09:19So we wanted to do a book club.
0:09:21We're gonna do something we haven't done before.
0:09:24Neither of us have read this book.
0:09:25So we don't know what it's gonna be like,
0:09:28but it is one that I've had recommended to us every time we talk about book recommendations.
0:09:33This one always comes up. So there's probably a reason for that and it is thinking fast
0:09:39and slow by Daniel Kahneman. Is that how you say it? Kahneman?
0:09:44I think it's Kahneman. I'm not 100% sure on that either but this also was one of these
0:09:48books where when we were looking through potential options. It's definitely a book I've heard
0:09:53lots of people make reference to and people have recommended it to me. So I've been aware
0:09:59of it for a long time. I've just never gotten around to reading it. And it's also one of
0:10:04these books that I feel like I think I might never read this unless we do do it as homework
0:10:09for book club. So yeah, we're going to –
0:10:11That's the same for me of all of these books. I will never read them unless they're set
0:10:16as a task I must complete because I've promised people I will have read it.
0:10:20- Right, I guess I forgot for you
0:10:22that that is the case for literally every one of the books.
0:10:24- Literally every book, every single,
0:10:26every book, these are all books.
0:10:28I'm looking at the cover of this now on Audible,
0:10:31this book, and it's fun to me.
0:10:32Like, so it says, "The international bestseller,
0:10:34"Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman,
0:10:37"Winner of the Nobel Prize."
0:10:38So Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winning economic scientist,
0:10:42but putting it on the book kind of makes it seem like,
0:10:45if you're not paying attention,
0:10:47that he won a Nobel Prize for this book.
0:10:49- Right.
0:10:50- This book is a Nobel Prize winning book.
0:10:53Peace on Earth because of thinking fast and slow.
0:10:56- Yeah, so my understanding is it is a book
0:10:58about decision making in general,
0:11:01how do humans make decisions?
0:11:03And so I feel like that very easily fits in
0:11:05with our book club, so yeah.
0:11:08And I will be happy in the future
0:11:10to have actually been able to say like,
0:11:13oh yes, I've read that book and I have thoughts on it
0:11:15the next time it comes up in conversation, so.
0:11:17So you have about a month if you want to follow along,
0:11:20because that'll be on our next episode.
0:11:23- Yep, get started people.
0:11:24It's 20 hours on Audible.
0:11:26- I'm definitely not gonna read it on the Kindle.
0:11:31I'm not gonna put myself through that again.
0:11:32I'm gonna listen to it.
0:11:34- I forgot, what was the book that you tried to read
0:11:36on the Kindle, which one?
0:11:38You made yourself really miserable with one of the books.
0:11:40You actually tried to read it and I was like, oh no.
0:11:42- Was it, which one?
0:11:44Hold on, let me log into my Amazon account maybe.
0:11:47Was it the effective executive?
0:11:48What is that?
0:11:49- Did we read that?
0:11:50I don't even know anymore.
0:11:51- What is that book?
0:11:52- Maybe we've been doing the book club for too long.
0:11:54I have no memory of this.
0:11:56- From November, 2018.
0:11:58I have zero memory of this book.
0:12:00(laughing)
0:12:01That's terrible.
0:12:02I don't remember it at all.
0:12:04By Peter Drucker.
0:12:07Five talents is essential to effectiveness.
0:12:10This must have been one of the really bad ones,
0:12:12but like not even in a good way.
0:12:15I have zero memory of this book.
0:12:16I remember many of the others.
0:12:19Like I remember "Creativity Inc."
0:12:20I remember when we did "E-Myth" and "Seven Habits."
0:12:24I remember all of those.
0:12:25I remember nothing about "The Effective Executive."
0:12:27So probably not that effective.
0:12:29- "The Uneffective Executive."
0:12:30This is not a very popular business book.
0:12:33- This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Fitbod,
0:12:36the fitness app that provides a personalized exercise plan,
0:12:40a fitness plan that actually fits you.
0:12:42When it comes to fitness,
0:12:43Fitbod believes that everyone can be better.
0:12:45It doesn't matter if you're working out three days a week or twice a day, Fitbud has an algorithm that uses data and analytics to help you build on your previous workout so that your next workout is scientifically proven to be better than the last.
0:12:57This is super impressive stuff that has been fine-tuned by certified personal trainers to bring the very best practices of strength training to you, no matter where you are or what equipment you have.
0:13:07Your workout program is tailored exactly to your needs so it's going to perfectly
0:13:11suit your unique body experience environment and goals because look it
0:13:15can be really hard to know exactly how much you should be doing while
0:13:18exercising and also what you should be doing. So Fitbod will figure all of that
0:13:22out for you so you don't have to worry about under or over training or even
0:13:25coming up with what exercises to do. Fitbod's then gonna mix up your muscle
0:13:29groups, exercises, sets, reps and weight over time to help keep you on top form
0:13:33while making sure that you stay on the path that's right for you to take the
0:13:36steps that you want towards becoming a better version of yourself. Fitbod has
0:13:40tons of wonderful bodyweight only workouts great for indoors and outdoors
0:13:44if you have access to gym equipment they have tons of great workout options there
0:13:47too it doesn't matter what you have or what you have access to fitbod is there
0:13:51to help you with any exercise routine that you need. Something that's really
0:13:55important to me when I'm working out or doing any kind of exercise is knowing
0:13:59that I'm doing it properly like I want the instruction I want the help I want
0:14:02the guidance and that's one of the things that I really value about Fitbod
0:14:05fitbod.com
0:14:20Fitbod is available on iOS and Android and you can get started right now by going to fitbod.me/cortex
0:14:27That's where you'll also get 25% off your membership.
0:14:30That's fitbod.me/cortex to try out Fitbod for free and get 25% off your Fitbod membership.
0:14:37Our thanks to Fitbod for their support of this show and Relay FM.
0:14:41You seemed to be kicking yourself a little bit in the subreddit thread for the last episode.
0:14:48Oh no no no don't forget to-
0:14:52You seemed upset at yourself with the way that you explain magic.
0:14:58No no I- look listen listeners if you're ever in a position where you have to explain something
0:15:05then you have to listen to a recording of yourself explaining a thing.
0:15:09I guarantee you that 100% of the time you will be unhappy with that recording.
0:15:15Like you'll go, "Oh, I thought I was doing a great job."
0:15:18And then you hear yourself and you go, "That was terrible."
0:15:21And I feel that after literally every one of the shows,
0:15:25every time I listen to the recording, I'm always going,
0:15:28"Why didn't he explain his thoughts more clearly?"
0:15:33But I don't think I can even do this,
0:15:35but we talked about magic for a while last time.
0:15:40And I think I have never been more uncomfortable
0:15:43listening to an audio recording of myself, I'm like, "Oh god, I'm just doing the
0:15:46worst job explaining this ever." So I'm just, I'll just rank this up as like, "Oh
0:15:52my god, I was incredibly uncomfortable with that segment, I just thought I did a terrible
0:15:57job." But I don't know, the feedback seemed to be reasonably positive and people liked
0:16:01it anyway, so...
0:16:02I think people were just excited that we spoke about it more than anything else.
0:16:06Yeah, maybe that's what it was. All of the Magic players in the audience were like, "Oh
0:16:10"Oh my god, Gray is talking about it."
0:16:12But honestly, I think I would die if I tried to do it again.
0:16:17So we could just put that in follow-up of like,
0:16:22OMG, that was incredibly uncomfortable for Gray.
0:16:25I just did a terrible job, I don't know why.
0:16:27And when I was listening to that editing,
0:16:30I caught myself starting to make notes for a script of,
0:16:35"Well, here's how I would explain it better."
0:16:36And then I was like, "What the (beep) are you doing?"
0:16:38I deleted that straight away.
0:16:42I'm like, this is done.
0:16:45This is done.
0:16:47You don't need to have another go at this.
0:16:50We can just let it lay at rest forever.
0:16:54Gray still plays a lot of magic. He totally loves it.
0:16:57But he doesn't need to try to make a second go at explaining why.
0:17:02So you are continuing to play? It's still your game of choice at the moment?
0:17:05Oh yeah, totally. I still completely, completely love it. I've been playing a lot of magic
0:17:11on the couch, you know, while my wife is watching TV, and it's fantastic.
0:17:18How are you feeling with your work patterns right now? I feel like this has been something
0:17:25we've touched on various times during pandemic season. You know, like we were a bit all over
0:17:33the place at the start and then you brought Weekend Wednesday into the picture.
0:17:39How are things right now?
0:17:42Yeah, it's interesting.
0:17:46I was kind of thinking about this a bunch.
0:17:50This pandemic year has been an interesting one, although now we are very well into the
0:17:55pandemic year and a half is really what we're approaching up on, even though in my head
0:18:01I do still feel like it's March, but things like there's only five episodes left in the
0:18:06year.
0:18:07I really go, "No, no, we're very well into 2021."
0:18:11Myke, do you know the Twitter account?
0:18:15It's called something like Year Percentage.
0:18:18Do you know this Twitter account?
0:18:19I've seen it.
0:18:20It's like an account that fills up a progress bar, right?
0:18:23Yeah, it fills up a progress bar over the course of a year.
0:18:26So every day it just has one tweet and it says like, "We are," with a little bar.
0:18:30percent of the way through the year and I don't log on Twitter very much but whenever I do it
0:18:35tends to be one of the top ones and it must be it must be because Twitter knows that like my mouse
0:18:41cursor always hovers over it in horror right like oh he really engages with that tweet because there's
0:18:47something just totally shocking about seeing how fast the year has gone and there's something about
0:18:53about that progress bar one that really gets me every time.
0:18:56- 51% Gray.
0:18:58- Oh no, really? - We passed it, yeah.
0:19:01We're over 51% now.
0:19:03- I literally cannot believe that.
0:19:06- I know what the date is, right?
0:19:08But still, right?
0:19:09Like, but still.
0:19:11(laughing)
0:19:14- Oh my God, that's awful.
0:19:16So yeah, we're officially to like 18 months
0:19:19of pandemic time.
0:19:22So yeah, I think it's, there's been a lot like, sort of nothing has changed over the
0:19:27course of this time, but also there's been so much change.
0:19:31And I think the way that I would describe the past, I guess, two months.
0:19:37Oh my god, great.
0:19:39I just got lost on his Twitter account.
0:19:41They make a Mac app, a menu bar app.
0:19:44Oh, yeah, that shows percentage of day, month, year, and you can also put life in which is
0:19:49horrifying.
0:19:51So there's like the people that make that account they have an app for the Mac which
0:19:56does this.
0:19:57I just sent it to you.
0:19:59I was like you need to send me this link.
0:20:00It's called progress bar.
0:20:01But also I don't know if this is a good idea.
0:20:03Oh so the one that's life you can choose your own deadline.
0:20:06They put life in there because I guess that's kind of funny but.
0:20:09Right yeah.
0:20:10Your deadline with death.
0:20:11It's actually quite a cute little app actually.
0:20:12Oh man.
0:20:13I think I'm because this is like.
0:20:18God damn it Myke. This is one of these things where I am not going to be able to resist
0:20:24installing this.
0:20:25I've just bought it.
0:20:26And I'm going to hate it every day.
0:20:28I just bought it. I own it now.
0:20:30Yeah. Okay. Great. Are you going to put your life in there or are you going to put the
0:20:33year in there?
0:20:34I don't know what I'm going to put in there. Maybe now I'm going to put in like fully vaccinated.
0:20:40Hmm.
0:20:41I think I might put that in there.
0:20:43That's much more cheerful.
0:20:44Widget Smith. I have a page of Widget Smith right now where there's like three countdown
0:20:50widgets. I have like a page on my home screen. One is countdown to my second jab, then it's
0:20:56countdown to fully vaccinated, and then countdown to a hopeful holiday that we would like to take.
0:21:04B: How confident are you feeling about that?
0:21:06You gotta give me odds here, Myke. Percentages.
0:21:11M- Fifty-five.
0:21:1255% that you will take the vacation?
0:21:16Yeah, it's going down though.
0:21:18It's going down though, okay.
0:21:19It's going down.
0:21:22So the vacation that we want to take, we want to go to Hawaii.
0:21:26And things are moving in some level of like favor for us, because like Hawaii had its
0:21:32own completely separate "you've got a test process" like than the rest of America.
0:21:38No, Hawaii was not screwing around.
0:21:40- No, I think great, you go for it Hawaii.
0:21:42But they've actually just changed it.
0:21:44So now all you need to do is just prove
0:21:46your vaccinated status, right?
0:21:48So some things are improving.
0:21:50The issue we have right now is just,
0:21:52legally I cannot go to America.
0:21:55- Oh, right.
0:21:56- That's the issue.
0:21:57- Right, I forget this.
0:21:58- As a non-US citizen, I legally cannot go, so.
0:22:03- So yeah, that's gonna be--
0:22:04- That's really gonna kinda mess it up.
0:22:07(laughing)
0:22:09[laughter]
0:22:11Yeah, that's gonna be a problem.
0:22:13If you want to take a trip to Hawaii, for sure, that's gonna get in your way.
0:22:18[laughter]
0:22:21I mean, I could go for you, but we all know how I feel about Hawaii.
0:22:25So I'll pass on that, but...
0:22:27So that's why your percentage is creeping down day by day.
0:22:31- Because there's zero news on it. - Right. Yeah.
0:22:35[laughter]
0:22:36I'm sorry. I'm sorry to hear that. It's only at 55%. But this is like, okay. But so this is you have encapsulated exactly how I have been feeling for the past two months, which is in my head, I finally coalesce this under, oh, I've been living in the season of uncertainty.
0:22:55That's what the past couple of months have been.
0:22:59And some kinds of uncertainty are easy to deal with,
0:23:02but I have found the current types of uncertainty
0:23:06in all areas of my life just infuriating and frustrating
0:23:09and very difficult to deal with.
0:23:11- Yeah, I think we got used,
0:23:14so there was like a lot of uncertainty, right?
0:23:16Like we were dealing with just an obscene amount
0:23:18of uncertainty for a long time.
0:23:21Then it felt like things kind of calmed down for a while
0:23:24and it felt like I know what this is all about, you know,
0:23:29we just got to hunker down, settle in.
0:23:31- Yeah, and also I would say like my experience
0:23:33at the beginning was what I mean by like different kinds
0:23:36of uncertainty.
0:23:37My feeling at the start was, okay,
0:23:39there is a lot of uncertainty about the pandemic,
0:23:42but I am very certain that I'm not going outside, right?
0:23:47So like, there's a way in which that's very easy
0:23:50to deal with, like, cool, I'm just gonna stay here.
0:23:54You're totally right, like things did level out eventually into just this is the routine
0:24:02of life, but even at the start when uncertainty was high, I still felt like this is uncertainty
0:24:07that I can deal with very easily.
0:24:09Like my personality is tailor-made for this kind of uncertainty because part of it is
0:24:14certain.
0:24:15now that we're in the reverse of that, the coming out uncertainty I just find 10 times
0:24:25more frustrating in every possible way. And also all of the things in my work life have
0:24:32conspired to be uncertain difficult things to deal with as well. I don't know how you're
0:24:38but I just, I find the planning, any kind of planning,
0:24:42is just killing me.
0:24:45- Yeah, yeah.
0:24:46- I don't think we talked about it on the show,
0:24:48or maybe I mentioned it in more text briefly,
0:24:50but it like, it even just started with
0:24:53trying to get my vaccine ended up being
0:24:56just a real nightmare of a process
0:24:59for like reasons I will not totally go into
0:25:01'cause it's just nobody cares that much,
0:25:03but I had messed up NHS records
0:25:06and so I just wasn't able to book a vaccine appointment.
0:25:09And they were like, "Well, we'll see if we can fix that in the system."
0:25:14Who? Who's the we? When?
0:25:16And they literally would tell me like, "I don't know, come back in a week and we'll see if it's fixed."
0:25:21- "We'll just ask nicely." - Yeah, like, who would have been fixing it?
0:25:25Like, I don't even understand. Like, I totally know you're either trying to get me off the phone
0:25:30or when I went to my doctor to pester them in person.
0:25:32Like, you're trying to get me out of this office. Like, nothing's going to happen.
0:25:36I did eventually get that solved in like a weird, shenanigans kind of way, but like whatever. So
0:25:42even just that of like, "Can I even get this vaccine?" was incredibly uncertain
0:25:46and it like threw off all my timelines and then just like with your trip, I've had a bunch of
0:25:53these things that are existing out in the future timeline of like, "Oh, maybe this will happen."
0:25:58It's like, "Oh, there was a conference that was supposed to happen that I was really kind of
0:26:02forward to, and it just kind of kept getting inched back and
0:26:06inched back of like, Ooh, it won't quite happen now.
0:26:08Maybe not quite happen now.
0:26:10And then suddenly bam, four months in the future.
0:26:12It's like, Oh my God, all of that stuff.
0:26:15I just, I find so psychologically hard to deal with in, in a way that like, I
0:26:23know it's disproportionate because nothing in my life has actually
0:26:27changed on a day to day basis.
0:26:30But this is definitely the part that I just have a much harder time with.
0:26:35I just like to know, "Okay, when am I going to be traveling if it's on the horizon?"
0:26:43And, "When am I gonna go see my family in America?"
0:26:46It's been in my head under this vague category of "soon...", right?
0:26:53But even now, as we currently record, there's a lot of questions about this new variant that seems to be spreading like wild.
0:26:59and it's like "oh, okay, uh, you know, Myke don't count on the borders opening up anytime
0:27:06soon to anyone from the UK going anywhere." So yeah, I don't know, I don't know about
0:27:11you but like I've just found that really hard to deal with. It bizarrely just like disrupts
0:27:17my regular time in a way that it totally shouldn't, but it just, it does, like it puts me in a
0:27:23like a weird kind of mental chaos.
0:27:25it was easier when it was harder in a way.
0:27:29Like, mentally at points, I was able to kind of resign myself to this is just it for a long time, right?
0:27:40Like an unknowable amount of time.
0:27:42Like back in the time when people were like, "Hey, there might not be a vaccine for four years," or whatever, right?
0:27:49Like, which is pretty early on.
0:27:50And that was like, it friggin' sucked,
0:27:53but I felt like I was at least like,
0:27:56well I'm in this, this is it, this is what I'm in.
0:27:58And it is that like, you feel like it's on the horizon,
0:28:05but then the horizon just keeps moving.
0:28:09Like we had this like when we were waiting
0:28:11to get our first shot, which was,
0:28:15it felt like it was for about six weeks,
0:28:19it was always gonna be by the end of next week.
0:28:22Like it just felt like surely it's gonna be
0:28:24by the end of next week that we'll be able to book.
0:28:26Oh no, oh okay.
0:28:27Next week though, right?
0:28:28Like, no, all right then.
0:28:30Like it just felt like that kept going on
0:28:31and on and on for a while.
0:28:33And now it's like, okay, we now know the day
0:28:36that we'll be like fully vaccinated.
0:28:39But that kind of doesn't mean anything.
0:28:41Just like you might be able to do all the things
0:28:45you wanna do, but does the rest of the world
0:28:48think you can or should.
0:28:49- Yeah.
0:28:50- We'll find out.
0:28:51- Yeah, it's a weird thing to say,
0:28:55but it totally is true that I've, you know,
0:28:57rewind two months ago and I started to have the feeling
0:29:01like, oh, this is all gonna be over soon, cool.
0:29:03I can start making plans.
0:29:05And then like, just like your trip to Hawaii,
0:29:08day by day by like, oh, I'm 90% confident
0:29:11this will all be over soon.
0:29:13I'm 89% confident this will all be over soon.
0:29:17I'm 88% confident, oh and a thing got canceled that I was planning on, oh okay well so then
0:29:22that's not gonna happen that changes everything.
0:29:2582% confident, like god damn it, it's so much worse.
0:29:32You know where is it where is at the start where people were talking about oh they you
0:29:34know we'll have a vaccine soon I was like what are you crazy I give it a one percent
0:29:38chance we'll have a vaccine in five years.
0:29:41I was like I was way wrong but that kind of planning is much simpler.
0:29:45- But the one way I try and console myself a little bit
0:29:48is like things change and have been changing so fast
0:29:51in all directions.
0:29:52- Yeah.
0:29:53- Right, so it's like, it does feel like it's a bit bleaker
0:29:58at the moment, especially in the UK,
0:30:00it feels a little bit bleaker right now,
0:30:03no matter what everyone else seems to be saying.
0:30:06But things, they swing in all directions
0:30:11and it is that like I remember the vaccine, right?
0:30:14where it was like everyone just had their own opinion
0:30:16as to whether it was gonna happen or not, if anytime soon.
0:30:18And I remember I was a bit more optimistic than you.
0:30:20We would talk about this, right?
0:30:23But it was still like, there was just for a long time,
0:30:25like, all right, we've got people working on it,
0:30:27but who knows?
0:30:29And it ended up, I think,
0:30:30exceeding people's expectations on time
0:30:33of when these things would be available.
0:30:36And that was great and it's working great
0:30:38and everyone should get one and it was awesome.
0:30:42but now it just feels like it's closing in again.
0:30:47It's uncomfortable.
0:30:49This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace,
0:30:53the all-in-one platform to build your online presence
0:30:55and run your business.
0:30:57From websites and online stores
0:30:59to marketing tools and analytics,
0:31:00Squarespace has got you covered with the all-in-one,
0:31:03one-stop shop for everything you want
0:31:06for building a website.
0:31:07You get unlimited hosting,
0:31:09you get top-of-the-line security,
0:31:10you get 24/7 customer support,
0:31:12You don't have to patch anything, you don't have to upgrade anything, they take care of
0:31:15all of that for you.
0:31:17Squarespace combines cutting edge design with world class engineering, making it easier
0:31:21than ever to establish your home online, make your ideas a reality.
0:31:25Whether you want to put your business online, whether you want to show off your art in a
0:31:29portfolio, publish a blog post, promote your business, announce an event, it doesn't matter
0:31:33what you want, Squarespace has got it.
0:31:35You can create something really beautiful, really modern, you start with a professionally
0:31:39design template, use drag and drop tools to make it feel like your own, you customise
0:31:43the look, the feel, the settings, the products you have on sale, yes you can sell stuff so
0:31:46easily on Squarespace, it all just takes a few clicks and it's going to look great on
0:31:50every device.
0:31:51They also will let you quickly and easily grab a unique domain name, take advantage
0:31:55of SEO and email marketing tools, they really have it all and that's one of the reasons
0:31:59that I have been a very happy Squarespace customer for like 10 years now.
0:32:03Go to squarespace.com/cortex and you can get yourself a free trial with no credit card
0:32:08required. Then when you're ready to launch use the offer code "CORTEX" and you'll save
0:32:1210% off your first purchase of a website or domain at squarespace.com/CORTEX and then
0:32:17when you sign up use the offer code "CORTEX" to get that 10% off your first purchase and
0:32:21show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of Cortex
0:32:25and Relay FM.
0:32:26[Music]
0:32:27So the reason the reason that I'm calling this like the season of uncertainty though
0:32:32is because it's just been like, you know,
0:32:36you ask how I'm doing work-wise and it's like,
0:32:38work-wise these past two months have just been the worst
0:32:43of the last 18 months.
0:32:45And it's because the uncertainty of the outside world
0:32:48has also conspired with the uncertainty
0:32:51of just like the stuff that I'm working on
0:32:53and it's just, it's been so infuriating.
0:32:57I was trying to look over my video catalog earlier today
0:33:00And I was thinking about the last classic Gray Explains kind of video that went up was the metric paper video a while ago.
0:33:10And that video was a big project. And after that went up, I was very conscious about, "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna pick a couple nice easy videos."
0:33:21Now of course, I know that I always think this and I also know that I'm very frequently
0:33:28wrong about what will be an easy video.
0:33:30I actually had a friend basically laugh in my face the other day when I told them about
0:33:34like, "Oh, I'm gonna do this thing and it's gonna be an easy thing."
0:33:37And he's like, "Do you know how many times I've heard that?
0:33:39You're gonna pick an easy video?"
0:33:41It's like two years later, you're still working on that thing.
0:33:44Like I know that this is just a thing that happens, but looking over my video catalog,
0:33:50I think I can confidently say that I have never been more wrong twice in a row about
0:34:00this will be an easy video and it's the sharks video and then it's the one that I'm currently
0:34:05working on trying to finish which I was maybe one of the most confident I've ever been would
0:34:11be like, "Oh, this will be a nice simple video.
0:34:14Look, this topic is already well known and you can just write your take on this little
0:34:19thing and then it has exploded into literally going through hundreds of pages of medieval
0:34:28documents and it's like oh no.
0:34:30Do you not do this yourself though? Like did you have to go that far? Like if everyone
0:34:36knows about it and it's simple like why not just put why not just restrain yourself?
0:34:40Okay okay you know why Myke? Do you wanna know why you have to go this far? Because
0:34:45look.
0:34:48Because the abyss of what is true lies underneath every page of every book.
0:35:01This is also why it's been the season of uncertainty.
0:35:04I've complained about this kind of stuff before, but you think like, "What is true?
0:35:12How do we know that a piece of information is true?"
0:35:16part of the reason why these things always explode into much bigger projects, or I should say very
0:35:21frequently, you know, sharks exploded into a whole other thing for different sorts of reasons.
0:35:25But the current thing that I'm working on is totally like, what is true explosion?
0:35:31Because I can't just let it go. Because I'll read about a topic and there'll be some sentence and
0:35:35you'll go, "Huh, that's really interesting." And then one of two things pops into your head.
0:35:42How do they know that sentence?
0:35:44Right?
0:35:44Or I would like to know more information about that sentence.
0:35:48And that's, that's all it, that's all you need to start falling into the abyss of,
0:35:52wait, how does anybody know anything?
0:35:54And he just like, okay, let me give you an example.
0:35:59I would love one.
0:35:59This will need to be a little bit abstract because I don't want to give away the topic,
0:36:02but I think I can make it clear enough.
0:36:04So I'm trying to track down when was the first time a thing happened, right?
0:36:11You go like, "Okay, things happen. When was the first time this thing happened?"
0:36:16And there are a bunch of articles that will go like, "Oh, this thing happened in the Middle Ages."
0:36:22"Oh, that's interesting. When? When in the Middle Ages?"
0:36:25The Middle Ages is a range of time that's like 600 years wide.
0:36:30So what year in the Middle Ages? How do you know? When did this occur?
0:36:34And so you start to try to track it down. And when you try to track it down,
0:36:41you immediately will run into references that go nowhere, or references that don't say the thing
0:36:47that the original article says that it says. Which is always a particular delight, especially on
0:36:52places like Wikipedia. I find it horrifying how many times you click the link that's the citation
0:36:56link, it's like, "the webpage doesn't even mention the thing that this is citing." Like,
0:37:01okay, I don't know how this citation got here, but it, you know, it looks like in school when
0:37:06I would just fraudulently populate citations in my essays after I finished writing the essay.
0:37:11You know, it's like, "Oh, the teacher needs citations.
0:37:13I'm gonna bet they're not gonna check my citations, so whatever!"
0:37:16You know, here's just a bunch of stuff.
0:37:19So as an example, just trying to track down one thing in history.
0:37:24When did this happen?
0:37:26When was the first appearance of this thing?
0:37:29Find that it's supposed to be sourced in this book that's in the Middle Ages.
0:37:33It's like, "Oh, okay, cool.
0:37:35Well, we'll track down this book."
0:37:37But you can't find any originals of the book.
0:37:40It turns out the originals of the book like don't really exist anymore.
0:37:44And what you have, the only thing that exists in the modern world is like an annotated version
0:37:50that some guy in the 1700s wrote.
0:37:54And the thing that's supposed to have happened in the middle ages isn't in the book at all.
0:38:00It's actually in a note that the editor made in the 1700s.
0:38:06And so this is the problem.
0:38:08You go, "Oh, wait a minute.
0:38:10So all of these places that say this thing happened in the Middle Ages, the source that
0:38:14they're pointing to never mentioned it.
0:38:17It actually didn't show up until some dude like annotated the book hundreds of years
0:38:21later.
0:38:22And just like this is why I have particularly such a hard time with history because I cannot
0:38:30tell you how often this occurs.
0:38:33Where it's like, where did this come from?
0:38:36A person said it.
0:38:37Where did they say it?
0:38:38in this book and you go to that book. Oh, somebody else said it is what that book said. Oh, okay,
0:38:43cool. Let me find that book. Oh, yeah, a guy told me. Great. Who's the guy? Oh, I don't know.
0:38:49When did he tell you? Oh, this is the primary source and it's a hundred years after the event
0:38:54occurred. Fantastic. It's just like, I've really fallen down another one of these frustrating holes
0:39:00And this is why it can't be easy, because then what happens is, okay, sure, I could
0:39:09write another one of like this topic, like several people have written little articles about it.
0:39:14It's why I thought it would be nice and easy. Sure, I could write a little script that covers
0:39:20the same kinds of things, except that I would know now that it's full of total f***ing bullshit.
0:39:25The things that they're referencing just aren't true.
0:39:28Because I bothered to try to look.
0:39:31Like, that's the thing that kills me.
0:39:33Right, but you see, I understand where you're coming from.
0:39:36You can stop, though, right?
0:39:38Like, you can--
0:39:39I cannot look? Right? That's what you're saying?
0:39:41No, no, no, you could be like, you could look so far,
0:39:43realize you're going down one of these holes, stop that,
0:39:46and then when you're in the script to say, "It is said,"
0:39:49it is argued, you know, you could--
0:39:50But I know you don't want to do that.
0:39:52That's the coward's way, right?
0:39:54That's so cowardly.
0:39:56If I would say efficient, because ultimately when you get into one of those
0:40:00situations, it doesn't matter anymore anyway, because like, how would you ever
0:40:04find the true, the actual answer?
0:40:06Like once you start down one of these rabbit holes, you can't trust anything.
0:40:11So like, why would you ever get to a point where you're able to trust something?
0:40:15Well, at this point, me and my assistant, who has done a tremendous amount of work
0:40:22in multiple languages, I'll just comment on this topic.
0:40:26I think we have found the answer, and so that's why, right?
0:40:30Maybe sometimes you can actually find an answer.
0:40:32You think.
0:40:33To a thing, yes.
0:40:34I'll put it this way, at the very least, we have been able to establish a very early date
0:40:40for when is the first time this thing occurred.
0:40:42It's like, great.
0:40:43Okay.
0:40:44Right, so this is the problem.
0:40:46It makes me think a lot about, it's just a general problem of knowledge work, right?
0:40:52you can't estimate very well at all how long a knowledge work project will take.
0:41:00And I think that that can be something like writing, it can be something like programming.
0:41:04There's lots of jobs like this where you go, "Oh, how long will it take?"
0:41:08Well, it might take two weeks if everything goes right. But if it doesn't go right,
0:41:12it might take two years. And there's just no good way to know ahead of time when that's going to
0:41:18occur. I think I have learned a little bit of a lesson from this one, which I've tried to formalize
0:41:26as a policy within my company, which is, "Hey everyone, the next time I say this topic is going
0:41:34to be easy, if the topic in any way at all is related to history, tell me no. Like, I'm not
0:41:44allowed to do that. Well this is a minute ago I was going to say to you if you have this problem
0:41:49why do you make history focused videos? Like if you don't like dealing with sources well then what
0:41:55are you doing to yourself? Well I think part of it is there's a way in which it's not always obvious
0:42:02if something is going to start relating to history. Like you just sort of think oh a person wrote in a
0:42:06book about this thing that happened and it's like oh cool oh let me just double check right and then
0:42:10it's all over. Let me just double check and it's like, oh no wait, there's no- history isn't real!
0:42:14Like this is all just full of lies. So I do think that that is a thing that I have
0:42:20like newly established as a please remind future me of this because I know that I will forget
0:42:27and also there may be ways in which to other people it is much more clear, you know, this might
0:42:33end up, you know, being history related in some way. Maybe don't, maybe don't pick this one.
0:42:39- I don't think that this system's gonna work for you
0:42:42as well as you think it will.
0:42:44Because if you haven't realized it,
0:42:46someone will say it to you,
0:42:47and you just say, "No, it'll be fine."
0:42:49(laughing)
0:42:51Unless someone can actually stop you,
0:42:54I don't think that this system--
0:42:54- No one can stop me, Myke.
0:42:55- Well, there you go.
0:42:56So this system's not gonna work for you.
0:42:58You'll be like, "Oh, I'm gonna make this video
0:42:59about this thing, it's gonna be super easy,
0:43:01this one's simple."
0:43:02All they need to do is just find this,
0:43:04and then someone's gonna say to you,
0:43:05"Hey, no, this is a bad idea,
0:43:07because you're gonna get stuck in this forever,"
0:43:09and then you just say, "No, no, no, this is an easy one."
0:43:12(laughing)
0:43:13There isn't, there's no checks and balances in this system.
0:43:16- Yeah, I mean, Myke, here's a literal thing that happened.
0:43:18How difficult can it be to find the skull of a person
0:43:21from the year 1300, right?
0:43:23How hard can that be? (laughing)
0:43:25- Incredibly hard. (laughing)
0:43:28How is this a question that you can just pose?
0:43:30(laughing)
0:43:32- So anyway, that's the kind of thing that pops up.
0:43:34(laughing)
0:43:36So like, here's the thing.
0:43:37I do know what you're saying.
0:43:39I get it.
0:43:40But I also think this sort of thing exists everywhere.
0:43:45I just, I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment
0:43:49with the history stuff and it makes me so mad.
0:43:51Like I can't even begin to tell you how angry it makes me
0:43:54when people write history books.
0:43:55And it's like, none of these sources check out.
0:43:58Like what are you even,
0:43:59why are you writing a history book?
0:44:02But all topics have this exact same thing.
0:44:05Like even I think something like my beloved personal opposite of history, you take something
0:44:11like physics, and even there, very quickly, you can start running into this exact same
0:44:16problem of, "Well, what do you mean by that word?"
0:44:20Right?
0:44:21Or just like, you know, the metric paper video, how do you want to phrase the state of knowledge
0:44:26around here?
0:44:27It's a little bit better on the what is true dimension, but it still butts up against the
0:44:33same kind of problem and like what is the way that you talk about it? How confident
0:44:38is your ability to talk about it in this way? So I just think there's almost nothing that
0:44:43doesn't come against this in in some way and yeah it's it's just been part of this like
0:44:49season of uncertainty that the Sharks project was filled with a lot of uncertainty for different
0:44:54sorts of reasons and the current project has just been real frustrating where it seems
0:44:59like, "what an easy topic!" I was like, "oh god, none of this checks out!" Even the very thing that
0:45:04I thought was like, "oh here's a definitive statement that someone in the modern day said
0:45:08about a thing!" and it's like, "oh let me look up what she actually said!" Oh, she didn't say the
0:45:12thing all the articles say that she said, which started this whole thing like, "god f***ing damn
0:45:15it!" It's so infuriating. Also, just as a sidebar here, which we don't need to get derailed by, but
0:45:23when I'm in the middle of all this stuff, I can never help but think, I can't believe that people
0:45:28just want companies like YouTube and Facebook to be able to decide what is true and remove
0:45:34untrue things from their platforms? Like, do people have any idea how difficult this is as
0:45:39a problem to solve? You're like, oh, I just like, they should just remove the things that aren't
0:45:43true. And when I talk to people who think that it always ends up that what they actually mean is,
0:45:47well, I know everything that's true, so Facebook should just remove the things that I don't agree
0:45:52with. And it's like, oh, god damn it. This is like the seed of the issue I was having a while ago
0:45:57with news. Because a lot of the time, truth is defined by what people's belief system
0:46:05is, and that's super tricky. It's like, when I say everything that's true, it's everything
0:46:11I believe and agree with. If two sides of a thing both believe something's true, it
0:46:17can be really tricky to point at truth. You have to point at logic and I don't know, it's
0:46:22messy.
0:46:23I think it goes deeper than perhaps you should think about, you know, on that question.
0:46:28But it's also why I just find it outrageous when people are like,
0:46:31"Oh, I just want YouTube to remove misinformation."
0:46:34It's like, "Oh, cool. I didn't know YouTube had the canonical truth about everything in the universe.
0:46:42Boy, we should ask YouTube the answer to all of the questions that we don't know about.
0:46:46Like, boy, they should have just told us everything about the pandemic or whatever.
0:46:51Like, everything about the current political state in every country in the world.
0:46:55Like, YouTube knows that? Wow! That's incredibly impressive.
0:46:59What a fount of knowledge they are. Great, Facebook could just take all the things that
0:47:03aren't true off their platform. What an incredible gift to humanity Facebook can perform.
0:47:09Or, wait a minute, is this like an incredibly difficult problem that really comes down to
0:47:16individual people making calls that they like, right? Or that are what most people want them
0:47:27to make. Like that's a very different kind of thing and so I'm always just- I'm just
0:47:31shocked at how quick people are to join the like "Oh, just remove the untrue thing."
0:47:38- And this is super different, like this conversation, because I think people hear these things in
0:47:42in certain ways, like we know what we believe to be true.
0:47:46That's not the question.
0:47:48It's like, but then is what is the objective truth?
0:47:50And what about when things change?
0:47:52And what about when we don't know all of the things
0:47:54that we think we know?
0:47:55And like this pandemic is like the perfect example of this.
0:47:58Where like at the beginning,
0:47:59people were told not to wear masks, right?
0:48:02And then we were told it was transferred by surfaces.
0:48:06And then it turns out, oh no, that was wrong as well.
0:48:08Human understanding only goes so far
0:48:10we pick up things and we learn and adapt over time, so trying to ascribe truth to everything
0:48:16all the time can actually be an incredibly hard thing to do when we're still learning.
0:48:20B: Yeah, oh yeah. This is also season of uncertainty, like, many things are really uncertain,
0:48:26but it's alarming how fast people are willing to jump on the like, "Oh, this is- we know this now,
0:48:33right? So you can't- you can't say anything that's not this thing." It's like, "Oh, okay,
0:48:37boy, I hope we got it right the first time. It's absolutely shocking. So it's just one of these
0:48:43things that floats through my mind as I'm just trying to work on some like what I thought would
0:48:48be innocent and fun little video and just get infuriated with sloppily written books or articles
0:48:54on a thing and you know that all just repeat each other in a circle and no one went to go look at
0:49:00the book that they all think they're referencing. I don't even know how this happens. It's so
0:49:04so infuriating. But yeah, I just feel particularly frustrated because, especially after sharks,
0:49:10which was just very hard, which was supposed to be an easy video after metric paper, which
0:49:15was like two years in the making, or 10 years if you want to count like developing it from
0:49:20one of the lessons that I taught, it's like "Oh, I'll have something easy!" and then
0:49:23it was sharks. It's like "Oh, that was terrible. That was a terrible experience."
0:49:27And they're like "Okay, I know this one will be easy." And it's like "No, you
0:49:31lose again. You lose so hard. And also, here's your monthly dose of falling down the into
0:49:39the abyss of what is true dimension. Like, oh, great. Here we are again in this situation.
0:49:46So yeah, it's not been an amazing two months work-wise. And it's been on my mind now that
0:49:54maybe all of this is coming to an end, but maybe not. I'm just trying to think about
0:49:58stuff like, you know, Myke has his cool office space.
0:50:02One of the things I was doing at the start of all of this was
0:50:05investigating office spaces.
0:50:06And it's like, is that a project that I start again?
0:50:08So this home office has been fantastic to me.
0:50:12I think, I think I've literally done some of the best work thus far in
0:50:16my career in this home office.
0:50:18It's been amazing.
0:50:19But do I want to be in this home office indefinitely, forever?
0:50:26No, I definitely don't.
0:50:28but you know I just I find it impossible to plan or to think about like what would it mean to try
0:50:35to find another office space and I don't know I'm just kind of bummed about that because I'm just
0:50:39not in a I feel like I'm in a no-win situation for trying to find an office space so that's just kind
0:50:46of frustrating it's like oh I don't want to only have my home office as the working space but
0:50:50there's just no good solution for finding something outside of my home space even if I was comfortable
0:50:57like going out and checking out office spaces right now, which I'm still not quite comfortable
0:51:02doing, so I don't know. That's just like a whole other thing.
0:51:05I mean it probably is a good time to look.
0:51:07[sigh]
0:51:10Yeah, I know what you're saying, but the problem that I'm in here is that I just don't think
0:51:17I can reasonably work in the kinds of offices I've worked in the past in the future. I think
0:51:24my needs for private and separate space are just too high at this point, and where I am
0:51:32there's just, you know, there's just no office space that's like that.
0:51:35Yeah, you're not gonna get something like that within any kind of reasonable budget
0:51:39range.
0:51:40Yes, that's the key thing.
0:51:43It may exist for many orders of magnitude more than I am able to spend on office space
0:51:49and still be able to turn a profit on the business.
0:51:52So that's one of the other things that's just been in the back of my mind and sort of frustrating.
0:51:56It's like, well, I know there's no good solution to this, but it still is like this little
0:52:01thorn that I keep thinking about of, I do want to work outside of the home, but what
0:52:06does that mean?
0:52:07What could you reasonably rent to do something like that?
0:52:11Oh, nothing.
0:52:13Is there something that you could buy like Myke and maybe buy an office space at some
0:52:16point in the future?
0:52:17It's like, uh, no.
0:52:18It's gonna be worse for you than it is for me.
0:52:22Oh I know, yeah, it's hilariously impossible.
0:52:26Again just where I am centrally located it tends to be like, if you want to purchase,
0:52:30you're purchasing the floor of a skyscraper or nothing.
0:52:35Like that's what it is.
0:52:37So yeah it's just I find that just like a really frustrating extra level of uncertainty
0:52:41that I just really have no idea what to do about so...
0:52:44- It's time to consider the outer rim.
0:52:46(sighs)
0:52:49- I know.
0:52:52- So it's the only thing you can do.
0:52:54I'm in the outer rim and I'm struggling,
0:52:56if I look around there's barely anything for me.
0:52:59- Yeah.
0:53:00- You're never gonna find,
0:53:01and I'll tell you right now,
0:53:03you will never get a private office in central London
0:53:06within a budget range that you're willing to accept.
0:53:08I will tell you this categorically right now.
0:53:11It's never going to happen for you.
0:53:12- Right, but also Myke, I don't wanna move
0:53:16out of central London.
0:53:18- You don't have to move.
0:53:19Like commuting is a thing people do.
0:53:22That is an option for you.
0:53:24- Right, but I know how far you are out
0:53:26and that's not a daily commute that I want to do.
0:53:30- I'm not far, but also like you can get to one of the
0:53:35major train lines that take you into different parts
0:53:38of London.
0:53:39As long as you get the train at the right time,
0:53:40You could be there every 15 minutes or whatever.
0:53:44- Maybe.
0:53:45Maybe that, maybe like-
0:53:46- How fast you can get to the airport.
0:53:48- Yeah.
0:53:49I'll get an office at the airport.
0:53:52- There you go.
0:53:53Easy, I'm sure that's the justice check.
0:53:54- Cortex listeners, if in the future
0:53:57you suspiciously hear a plane every 15 minutes,
0:53:59you know what I've done.
0:54:01- Greg Gotti's airport office.
0:54:03- Yeah.
0:54:07I mean, maybe-
0:54:09I think you need to start taking a look at train lines and then identify some areas around
0:54:15train stations that are outside of central London and then start trying to look in those
0:54:21areas.
0:54:22Right.
0:54:23But isn't that also just silly and absurd?
0:54:25Like isn't there something that's just ridiculous about that?
0:54:28I think that feels ridiculous.
0:54:30I don't know.
0:54:31What's ridiculous about it?
0:54:32It feels ridiculous because in some ways it's like, dude, just move.
0:54:38this weird reverse commute is just ridiculous. It seems like a silly thing to do, like you
0:54:44should just move closer to where you are.
0:54:46I mean, yeah, but it depends on what you're looking for. I think that this would probably
0:54:52be the start of you considering moving, which is like a similar thing to what we're going
0:54:57through because we're also thinking about moving, right? Like we always had planned
0:55:03to be in our apartment for five years and then we wanted to get a house and so to get
0:55:07that we're gonna move further away from like still in South London but further
0:55:12away from Central is the plan because then you know the further you are away
0:55:16the more your money can get you right yeah and so that's the thing that we're
0:55:22starting to consider the last year and a half is kind of proven to us that that
0:55:26would be perfectly fine because like we don't actually need to go into London
0:55:29for anything we can just go whenever we want but we're looking to kind of stay
0:55:34on a main train line so it's easy enough for us to do it but like I think it would make sense for you
0:55:39to try and get an office in a different part of London to then realize why you might want to be
0:55:46out of central London or what the benefits to you would be for being out of central London.
0:55:50Yeah I know you're right I know you're right but there's some part of my brain which goes
0:55:55oh if you move out of zone one because it's cheaper why don't you just move to Wyoming
0:56:03Like, there's some part of my brain that just says that.
0:56:06- I've been having this thought recently too.
0:56:08- Okay, tell me your thoughts on this.
0:56:09- So I've been thinking about the things
0:56:12that I think are, like I find important.
0:56:14What I consider as like the things that I hold
0:56:18to make me feel comfortable and what I would like.
0:56:21And what I would like is more space
0:56:24and I really enjoy peace and quiet in my home life.
0:56:29I don't like to be bogged by other people.
0:56:33I don't like outside sound.
0:56:35I like kind of when I'm at home
0:56:37to just be secluded in a way.
0:56:42So when we're looking to buy,
0:56:44I kind of want to try and find a home
0:56:46that's not like a terraced house.
0:56:48We have a lot of terraced houses here in London.
0:56:51Because you've got people on both sides of you.
0:56:53We've been very lucky in our apartment building
0:56:55that we've actually, we haven't had any problem neighbors
0:56:58or anything like that.
0:56:59But this is a thing I've experienced in the past.
0:57:02And so I was kind of thinking about this recently,
0:57:05of like, what if we just moved to the middle of nowhere
0:57:10kind of places?
0:57:12Again, it's just something I've had in my mind.
0:57:14I don't think I want to do it yet.
0:57:16I think it could be maybe something
0:57:19that I would try and bring to the family council
0:57:24at some point in the future, like much later in life,
0:57:27if it's something that I still want,
0:57:29to be in a more secluded part of the world.
0:57:33I feel like this is maybe just a thing
0:57:34that a lot of people get into as they get older.
0:57:37But yes, to echo that point, yeah, why not just move to,
0:57:41I don't know why we picked Wyoming,
0:57:42but why not just move to Wyoming?
0:57:44- Because it's beautiful
0:57:45and you can go there and be a cowboy.
0:57:46- Okay, cool, I mean,
0:57:47I don't really know anything about Wyoming, honestly.
0:57:49- Myke, their slogan is, "Forever West."
0:57:52Come on, that's amazing.
0:57:54- None of that really means anything to me.
0:57:58Again, like, just you saying Forever West, it's zero to me.
0:58:01Like, I have no attachment to this.
0:58:04- You don't culturally understand.
0:58:05- No, it doesn't, I don't really get it.
0:58:07But so, you could do that,
0:58:09but that's maybe a bit too extreme
0:58:11when there is an opportunity for that kind of middle.
0:58:15There is a middle opportunity,
0:58:17which is like, you can still be in and around the thing.
0:58:21I mean, why do you even want to be in central London anymore?
0:58:25Like what is the thing that makes you want to be there?
0:58:28- It's an interesting question.
0:58:29And I can't answer it any better than simply to say,
0:58:34I really like it.
0:58:35I really like living in central London.
0:58:37I've talked about moving and the ultimate thing is just,
0:58:41I like it and I'm not ready to go.
0:58:44Like I would be sad if I left.
0:58:46And that's not an amazing reason.
0:58:49There's nothing specific in there.
0:58:50Like if you're making a pro and con list.
0:58:52- It's emotional, you can't explain it.
0:58:53and that's important.
0:58:56So this is why I maybe recommend
0:58:58thinking about that reverse commute
0:59:00and seeing how that feels.
0:59:02'Cause there are lots of pockets of London
0:59:04that have some of the benefits that you'd be looking for,
0:59:07like nice places to walk around in,
0:59:10there's interesting things,
0:59:12but they're just not skyscrapers.
0:59:14- I think maybe part of, if I try to coalesce it,
0:59:18I feel like one of the nice things about London
0:59:21is that the interesting density is very high just geographically.
0:59:28You know, like that's always the advantage that a big city has is
0:59:31like interesting density is high.
0:59:33But that's probably about as well as I could put it.
0:59:36But I think that's, this is partly why my inclination is, has always been
0:59:42like, I don't like middle way solutions.
0:59:45I like to min max stuff.
0:59:47So it's like, Oh, the city is great because interesting density is very
0:59:51high, I just like it. A city is a very particular kind of way of living. You have to minimize
0:59:58a lot in order to do it, including your ability to save, like it's very expensive, like
1:00:03there's a whole bunch of really good reasons not to live in a city, but you're maximizing
1:00:07the benefits that you get out of a city. But it's why when I think about "oh, moving
1:00:13out a little," my brain goes "yeah, yeah, no, no, min-max the other way, right? Go to
1:00:19place where you can get the maximum space, right, where you could have a house that is exactly the
1:00:25way that you want it because you can just get a whole bunch of space because land is really cheap
1:00:29and like min-max in the opposite direction if you're going to make a change, I just
1:00:35temperamentally don't love the middle solution. So I think that's part of the reason why like
1:00:42I'm also resistant to leaving because I'm not ready to min-max in the other way right now.
1:00:50And so I think that's, if I'm trying to articulate it, it's partly why like, oh, the office space
1:00:56that's the reverse commute feels a little bit like the middle path, but maybe you're right.
1:01:01Maybe I should just give it a try and see how it is.
1:01:03- Well, you can't min-max the office.
1:01:05- What do you mean?
1:01:06- You can't do the min-max of an office space.
1:01:09- Yeah, yeah, I mean, I can get the minimum amount of space
1:01:13with the maximum amount of money is the kind of--
1:01:15- I actually don't even think that this option
1:01:17is available to you.
1:01:19Even the minimum amount of office space
1:01:21that would be acceptable to you
1:01:23when a walking distance of where you live
1:01:25would be outside of the budget that you could afford,
1:01:29not even would want to.
1:01:30Just 'cause of like, it will be even rarer to find,
1:01:35so someone with more money's already got it.
1:01:38- Yes, exactly.
1:01:39And so this is what, like the min max of the office
1:01:43is probably what I'm talking about.
1:01:45Right, because this is still a thing
1:01:48like having any kind of like private space
1:01:52is really expensive anyway.
1:01:53No matter where you are in London,
1:01:56'cause everything is trying to find it,
1:01:57it's impossible to find it.
1:01:59Unless you wanna open a tiny little store.
1:02:02- Right, unless you wanna commit fraud.
1:02:04- I feel like we need to look into this.
1:02:07Is this feasible?
1:02:10I feel like I need to get an answer to that.
1:02:13Because we technically do own a retail brand now in a way.
1:02:18So we have stock.
1:02:20- This could be the fun start of a long battle
1:02:22with a local council.
1:02:24That's the way this could go.
1:02:26(laughing)
1:02:27- That's exactly what we've been looking for.
1:02:29- Right, how much of a store is a store?
1:02:33We can have this be a philosophical question.
1:02:35(laughing)
1:02:36We could have two outlets, Ethan, you know?
1:02:38- Yeah.
1:02:39- I have an outlet and you have an outlet, perfect.
1:02:41- Yeah, that could work.
1:02:43I will tell you, there is one real definitive advantage
1:02:46that I can mention with being in central London,
1:02:49which is that it makes traveling everywhere super easy.
1:02:54Like, I do really like that.
1:02:56I feel like London is an amazing jump off point
1:02:59for going to lots of different places
1:03:02because London has direct flights in the world
1:03:04like everywhere and also living on GMT makes traveling to lots of places very easy to do
1:03:11as well as long as you're willing to hold the time zone.
1:03:13I don't know how far you think South London is. Add 30 minutes to the journey. That's
1:03:21all it is. If you're gonna travel for nine hours an extra half an hour is not that bad.
1:03:28No, that's the killer one.
1:03:30I don't know what you think, like, is happening here.
1:03:33[laughter]
1:03:35Myke, like, once you're off the plane, it's like you wanna be done, right?
1:03:39That's the plane travel is the only travel, then that's it, like the...
1:03:43-Mm-hmm. -...the traveling across the city
1:03:47and then down south afterward? Forget it. -Down south.
1:03:50I don't wanna do that. [laughter]
1:03:54You act like I don't know where you are. I know exactly where you are.
1:03:56[laughter]
1:03:57I've been out there.
1:03:59We pack supplies.
1:04:00- Oh my god.
1:04:01[laughter]
1:04:02- No, like, all joking aside, I mean this in the sense of why do I want to stay in London
1:04:10just full stop, right?
1:04:12I'm not like seriously saying no South London thing.
1:04:15This is the why not travel to some place with like local.
1:04:18- But I as a subscribe to all of this, like, I'm totally in on this.
1:04:22And like even when I talk about moving out to more space, London's really big.
1:04:27Like it's bigger than you think, like than a lot of people think, and you can still like
1:04:31quote be in London and live in a very different set of circumstances.
1:04:36Yeah, it is it is something that for people who visit the city, you just don't realize
1:04:40that the geographical area of this like the geographical area that the tube covers is
1:04:45huge.
1:04:46Like it's like the the actual area is much bigger than New York City is like it's the
1:04:51same number of people but they're just spread out over a much larger area.
1:04:55And yeah, there's a lot of different kinds of living situations within the city.
1:04:58I just meant it in terms of, "Oh, if I move to Wyoming, it'll be a lot more difficult
1:05:03to travel to places."
1:05:04That would be a real inconvenience.
1:05:06Yeah, because then you connect in flights.
1:05:07If you've got to get connected in flights, then we're into a different…
1:05:10You know, it's like I felt like, what would it be like to maybe move to a different part
1:05:14of the United Kingdom?
1:05:16But that's further than I'm thinking even would consider right now.
1:05:20Much love to the rest of the UK, but then we're in that problem of like, do I need
1:05:23to connect to Heathrow to go to somewhere, right? And it's like, I don't want to do that.
1:05:28And the answer is yes. The answer is 100% of the time, yes.
1:05:31Yeah, you always need to connect. I don't like connecting flights, not because of the
1:05:35time, just because of the aggravation, the stress, you know?
1:05:38And the uncertainty. I can make that connection.
1:05:39That I hate that feeling. I mean, this is, I mean, this all stems from the first time
1:05:43I went to America, I missed my connecting flight.
1:05:45You've been traumatized ever since.
1:05:47So like I have this inbuilt trauma of being stuck in Philadelphia and I had no idea what
1:05:55I was doing or where I was going in the hotel.
1:05:58It was like a whole mess, just like a big mess.
1:06:01So like I've experienced it and it's horrible so I try to avoid it and having to connect
1:06:06before I've even gone over the Atlantic feels like horror to me.
1:06:11Yeah, that's not a great situation to do that.
1:06:16Scotland. You don't want to live up in the moors? But this is I think Scotland's beautiful and I
1:06:21guess like this this again this other thing of like even going to another big city right that's
1:06:27not London but it's still just not it's just not what I want. Yeah this is the season of uncertainty
1:06:33it's just it's just very frustrating trying to make any kind of plans and thinking about the
1:06:39future and I feel like I'll be very happy to fast forward two months.
1:06:47I feel like maybe I will live to regret these words but I feel reasonably confident that
1:06:52in two months time the uncertainty level will dramatically drop.
1:06:57We'll know more about the state of the world.
1:07:00Without a doubt the current video project will be published and I will 100% have correctly
1:07:07chosen. Finally, a nice easy video to do after the current project. There's no way that I'm
1:07:14going to make a mistake in that selection. Hopefully some travel plans will actually
1:07:18be set in the calendar so I can know what my life looks like. So yeah, I'm confident
1:07:26that two months from now, the season of uncertainty will 100... 85%, maybe 60% be over.
1:07:35I just made a note for myself for episode 120.
1:07:40Check Grey's statements at the end of the uncertainty discussion.
1:07:46I think that's a really good thing to do.
1:07:47Like I'm a big fan - I'm sure people who listen can hear it - but I'm a big fan of trying
1:07:53to express things in bets and percentages and I also think it is - it's not always easy
1:08:00to do but I do try sometimes to write down the like guesses at certain points in time
1:08:06and I think it really it's really helpful to like sharpen your thinking and it's it's
1:08:11something that I've done really starting this year is to try and be like make a note of
1:08:17what probability you give to a future outcome at a certain period in time and I think I
1:08:22think it's an interesting and new sort of way that it feels like to me to connect your
1:08:28future and past selves again, you know, a bit like having a notebook at all. So I like
1:08:33that you are you're making a note there to check in with me on is the season of uncertainty
1:08:38over in two months. Very confident it will be. I can't wait to find out what my future
1:08:46video project will be then. Nice and easy.
1:08:49Nice and easy. No history.
1:08:52No history.
1:08:53This episode is brought to you by DoorDash. Hey, did you forget that thing at the store
1:08:58so you just come home and you're ready to settle in for the evening,
1:09:01but you forgot that all important snacks for your movie night.
1:09:04Well now you can get snacks, drinks, household essentials in 30 minutes with DoorDash.
1:09:09You know that DoorDash will connect you with the restaurants that you love
1:09:12right now and right to your door, but you can also now get those grocery essentials too
1:09:17with DoorDash all delivered in under an hour. Ordering is super easy, you just open the DoorDash
1:09:22app, choose what you want from where you want, and your items will be left safely outside your door
1:09:27with their contactless delivery drop-off setting. With over 300,000 partners in the US, Puerto Rico,
1:09:33Canada and Australia, you can support your neighbourhood go-to's or choose from your
1:09:37favourite national restaurants like Popeyes, Chipotle and The Cheesecake Factory. I know for
1:09:42me sometimes I'm working late and I really just can't be bothered to cook something and I love to
1:09:47be able to just get something brought to me and what makes it even better is when I can get that
1:09:51burger from my favourite place or I can get those tacos from the place that I love across town.
1:09:56This is the stuff that you can get with DoorDash. You can get those fun meals, the things that you
1:10:00really want to eat, delivered right at home, in the comfort of your own home, on your own sofa.
1:10:05For a limited time, listeners of this show can get 25% off and zero delivery fees on their first
1:10:11order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter the code "CORTEX". That's 25%
1:10:18off, up to $10 in value and zero delivery fees on your first order. Just download the DoorDash app
1:10:23in the app store and enter the code "CORTEX" one last time. That is the code "CORTEX"
1:10:27for 25% off your first order with DoorDash. Subject to change, terms apply. Our thanks
1:10:32to DoorDash for the support of this show and Relay FM.
1:10:36So I have a #AskCORTEX question that I actually think dovetails quite nicely with our uncertainty
1:10:42to discussion. It comes from M55 who says "Has the pandemic made you feel less motivated
1:10:49in your work?"
1:10:51How would you answer that?
1:10:52- So I recently had a feeling and stated it out loud
1:10:57and felt it a little bit since then.
1:11:01And I don't know if it's related to this,
1:11:03but it is something that I've noticed
1:11:06where I think that right now
1:11:09I am doing the best work of my life.
1:11:11- Really?
1:11:12- I feel like right now in a lot of the projects
1:11:15that I'm doing, I think I'm putting in as much work
1:11:19I've ever put in them, if not more. I think the output's good and I feel like I'm split
1:11:27across a few different areas that are all going well and are making me feel good about
1:11:32them. I don't think that this is necessarily because of the pandemic, but I have been,
1:11:39because of it, nudged in certain directions. And this is kind of how I've come out. I think
1:11:45I'm doing right now, like some of the best stuff that I've done.
1:11:50And I don't think that that's something that I necessarily feel like it's just
1:11:54because of time and experience. Cause I haven't always felt like I can look back
1:11:58at different times in my professional career and feel like some things were
1:12:02better than others at different times.
1:12:04But right now I feel like by and large the stuff that I'm doing is as good as
1:12:08it's ever been.
1:12:09When you say nudged in certain directions, like what do you,
1:12:12what do you mean by that?
1:12:13I think I've accelerated some projects out of fear.
1:12:17And I've also had a unbroken amount of time
1:12:23to put things in action.
1:12:25I was meant to mention this when we were talking
1:12:28about working life patterns and stuff,
1:12:30which is like, I have not taken a vacation
1:12:33since January, 2020.
1:12:35It was the last time I took a vacation.
1:12:37So that has its own problems,
1:12:40which I am looking to address.
1:12:43But other than vacation, it sounds a bit harsh.
1:12:46I was thinking the work travel, right?
1:12:48Which is probably a better point to mention here.
1:12:50- Yeah, yeah.
1:12:51- That I haven't had these big chunks of the year
1:12:53that have been broken up because of me having less focus
1:12:57on not being able to put the same level of focus
1:12:59on something 'cause I'm somewhere else
1:13:00doing a different thing.
1:13:02And I think that that has helped,
1:13:05but I don't think it's because of that, but it's helped.
1:13:07And then it's stuff like all of the membership content,
1:13:11it's just additional things that I'm working hard to try and make as good as it can be.
1:13:15Yeah, I feel pretty good about the stuff that I'm doing and the areas that I'm
1:13:21working in.
1:13:21And so I would say probably like the pandemic has helped in my motivation.
1:13:28And I think some of that motivation, as I say, came from like fear and uncertainty.
1:13:33But right now I feel pretty content with the stuff that I'm up to.
1:13:36It's interesting that you, yeah, I just think it's interesting.
1:13:38you don't think that it's because of the pandemic,
1:13:41but like the pandemic is a facilitating event, I guess.
1:13:46Yeah, and you sure we're busting your butt
1:13:48over the membership stuff at the beginning of all of this.
1:13:51- Yeah, it's good 'cause this is,
1:13:52I don't think any of the things that I'm doing
1:13:54are things I wouldn't have done.
1:13:56But they probably wouldn't have all started
1:13:58and happened at the same time.
1:14:00Like it was like an acceleration effect.
1:14:04- And so you just feel like also just the,
1:14:06like the podcasts that you're making are better?
1:14:08Like when you just say it's like the best work of your life,
1:14:11is it content wise and business wise?
1:14:13Is that what you mean?
1:14:14- Yeah, I think that, I mean, this is always,
1:14:17it's difficult to say, right?
1:14:18'Cause people are gonna have different opinions.
1:14:20Like I have no doubt that there are people like,
1:14:22no, Myke's shows used to be better.
1:14:24'Cause that's just how it is, right?
1:14:25Like I want the old Myke back,
1:14:27whatever that might have been, you know?
1:14:28- Right, whatever that might have been
1:14:29in that person's memory as well.
1:14:31- Exactly.
1:14:32- Is the point.
1:14:33- And I have no doubt about that.
1:14:34and that doesn't bother me honestly.
1:14:36But for me personally, my own sense of satisfaction,
1:14:40I feel very happy with what I'm putting out right now
1:14:43across all the different shows that I work on.
1:14:45I feel very good about the work.
1:14:49And I don't always feel good about the work, right?
1:14:53But I do, I feel good about the work
1:14:55and then I feel like my other ventures are going well, right?
1:15:00I feel like Cortex brand is going really well,
1:15:02like we're in a better position than I think we thought
1:15:05we would have been at this point.
1:15:06Plus, I'm feeling like I'm learning so much
1:15:10and having that feeling of feeling a bit more confident
1:15:15and in control of stuff than I did before.
1:15:19And then even kind of like my hobby type things, right?
1:15:23So like the Twitch streaming, I'm like really enjoying it
1:15:26and it's going great for me.
1:15:28I think they're all coming together pretty well.
1:15:31- That's really good to hear.
1:15:32Maybe this is something you shouldn't say out loud, you know?
1:15:34I'll find out, I suppose, but it is how I feel about my work right now.
1:15:39Yeah, yeah. It can be difficult to talk about this stuff.
1:15:43Like, especially when you just, you know that there is the inevitable
1:15:48judgment by the audience about, like, their own feelings when you say,
1:15:52"Oh, I'm making the best stuff that I've ever made."
1:15:56Like, you will hear from everyone who disagrees.
1:15:58Yeah, but my feeling is that I read these comments all the time anyway.
1:16:03So like, but it hasn't changed my opinion.
1:16:05That's good. Like I'm glad to hear that as well, because that's the kind of thing that you need as the creator,
1:16:10is to be able to separate yourself from that a little bit.
1:16:12Yeah, it's interesting.
1:16:15I think about that because like, as much as I have complained about it,
1:16:19I think that sharks video of mine is maybe one of my favorite videos that I've made in a long time.
1:16:23Oh, it's so good, man.
1:16:24It just came together exactly the way I was hoping.
1:16:28Like there's a couple minor things that I would tweak, but, you know,
1:16:32most of the time when I make a video, I'm like, "I never want to look at that again."
1:16:35But I actually have re-watched the shark video a few times.
1:16:38I'm like, "No, that came out great."
1:16:39Like, "I'm pretty happy with that."
1:16:40And like that definitely wouldn't have happened without the pandemic for sure.
1:16:46I wouldn't say that the pandemic has made me feel less motivated in my work.
1:16:51I feel...
1:16:52[sighs]
1:16:54I think I feel...
1:16:58some combination of...
1:17:01more motivated.
1:17:02I think in the past year I've been, like...
1:17:05just been thinking about potential future projects a lot more intensely than I have
1:17:12in the past.
1:17:13So I don't know, I feel like there's more of a motivation to get things done combined
1:17:21with a little bit of this frustration as always of like, "Oh, I just work slow?"
1:17:28But also a kind of acceptance of that.
1:17:31But I don't know, I feel like that's also just been my arc for like the past two years
1:17:37in general.
1:17:38I don't know, I don't feel like the pandemic has really changed my feelings one way or
1:17:47the other.
1:17:48With a few things that I wanted to work on, it disrupted plans, but I think I'm just
1:17:53on the same kind of arc that I've been on for the past couple years, and the pandemic
1:17:57hasn't really affected things one way or the other.
1:18:00S: Louis had a question about the sharks video, actually.
1:18:04Gray mentioned how he avoids unnecessarily referencing dates in his videos but in sharks
1:18:09he says you must go see them this month. Was this intentional or was it unnoticed?
1:18:15B: There's nothing in the videos that's unnoticed like that I'm saying out loud.
1:18:19E; Yeah yeah everything's intentional.
1:18:21B; Of course except for the things that are unintentional.
1:18:23E; In the podcast there can be things.
1:18:25B; Yes.
1:18:26E; Because they're different because it's like Stemporaneous versus very well planned
1:18:30and edit it and edit it and edit it and then record it and edit it and edit it, you know?
1:18:34It's different.
1:18:35B: Right, yeah.
1:18:36Or again, if I had my way with the podcast, I would have just re-recorded that entire
1:18:39section of me talking about magic and go "No, that was awful.
1:18:42I'm gonna re-record all my lines explaining it again."
1:18:46And that's why podcasts can exist.
1:18:47Yeah, it was funny because when we were talking about that, I already knew that that line
1:18:51was going to be in the video.
1:18:53I was aware like "Oh, I bet people are gonna pick up on this when it actually comes out."
1:18:57cortexins who are paying attention.
1:18:59Like, my whole thing about timeless content is about
1:19:04thinking about if you need to reference a specific time
1:19:08and my annoyance with content that needlessly places itself at an exact moment in time.
1:19:16And the sharks video was intrinsically about that exact moment.
1:19:22And there are dates all over that video.
1:19:25every time I'm showing the past competitions you can see like, "Oh, this was the 2020 winner. This was the 2021 winner."
1:19:31And I could have gone and tried to scrub all of that stuff out, but it's like it doesn't matter.
1:19:38And the fact of the sharks being there now, but if you want to see them you have to go this month.
1:19:46I feel like that's part of the content of the video.
1:19:49And sure, I could have phrased it in a different way, like if I wanted to. I could have said,
1:19:54"Oh, you need to go see the sharks super soon!"
1:19:59But I just don't think that would have had the same impact on it.
1:20:03And I'm also okay with it because I was thinking, well, in the future, most of the, you know,
1:20:09for most of time, the sharks are not going to be at this location.
1:20:14Like I was pretty confident that they were actually going to get moved.
1:20:18So I'm actually very fine saying you must go see them this month because it in a weird
1:20:25way it makes it true in the future that the viewer knows oh they're probably not there.
1:20:31But I also like that it just it introduces a little bit of doubt so I don't know if this
1:20:37will really happen but I suspect that there's a way in which that going forward will get
1:20:45people to investigate on their own a little bit, "Hey, what happened to those sharks?"
1:20:50In a way that if I said, "Soon," I feel like it's not as obviously motivating when someone's
1:20:56watching it in the future. They go, "Oh, okay, they're not there. Where are they?" instead
1:21:01of just not thinking about, "Are they there now or not?" So it was a very deliberate decision.
1:21:07If there was some universe in which the story of the sharks was not time dependent, I would
1:21:12have written it that way, but like that was not the story of those sharks and I also just
1:21:18wanted to let people know like you really need to go see them now and lots of people
1:21:22did and I was very happy to see like messages from people from everyone who went out to
1:21:27investigate those sharks. My personal favorite is there was a guy who was getting married
1:21:34and went out to see the sharks before his ceremony. I was like that's amazing, like
1:21:37stuff just warms my heart. Some people who clocked that like, "Oh, these are other people who've
1:21:45watched the shark videos." So I found that just delightful. I absolutely love that stuff. And I
1:21:51think it is much more motivating the way that it is phrased to get people to like, for real,
1:21:56go right now. Are they gone? They are gone now. Like huh, okay. Yeah, it's very, um,
1:22:04oh god it's exhausting to even say for the thing that I'm currently working on
1:22:09I was trying to find someone's grave and so when I was doing that
1:22:14Indiana Jones over here you're looking for a skull a grave look at you
1:22:21I happened on my way to trying to find this grave
1:22:25cycle past the location of the sharks and happened to hit them as they were being removed
1:22:32which was just very surreal. It was a surreal experience. So I know from first-hand accounts
1:22:39that the sharks were taken away because I saw them get taken away in the process of
1:22:46going somewhere else to try to find a thing.