The Kirk Fox Effect

In the past couple of months (let's call them Quarantine), I've averaged daily walks of about seven and a half miles.  Often that's broken up into two sessions: a mid-morning and an evening stroll.  They're not high impact -- there's a lot of literal stopping to smell the flowers and stare at a cool cloud formation or wonder at the expanding wildlife I'm discovering in this inner-ring Cleveland pseudo-suburb.  While I walk and contemplate the beauty of the world around me, I listen to podcasts.  God knows how many I've blazed through during this bountiful alone-time.  It probably helps me feel more connected, honestly, because many of the podcasts I enjoy are conversational: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes and Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend  and WTF with Marc Maron -- even the more political automatic downloads, like Love It or Leave It (hands down the best podcast in the current rotation) or Pod Save America or FiveThirtyEight are pretty chatty.  Don't even get me going on the joy brought into my life by Race Chaser, a podcast about RuPaul's Drag Race hosted by former contestants Alaska Thunderfuck and Willam. They give me the sensation of sitting in a coffee shop just eaves dropping on fascinating chats.  And since pre-Quarantine, I was very, very far behind in my podcast listening, it's sort of incredible not only to clear the queue but to then wonder what I should do about the dwindling options.

I mentioned recently, I think, that I've been returning to old episodes of You Made It Weird -- the "Pre-Valerie" days of Pete Holmes, when he was still, ya know, interesting.  It's not that he's not still occasionally great now, it's just that he's in this phase of Pete where he thinks he's got it all figured out.  He's Enlightened Pete and he's such a White Male and it sometimes irritates me to listen to him drone on about his close, personal friendship with Ram Dass or how he looks at his baby daughter and channels god through her.  Some of it is borderline......delusional.  And some of it just feels kind of icky.  But I keep listening because his guests are sometimes very interesting and because I want to hang in there with Pete's evolution.  I just no longer dive into the newest YMIW as soon as it hits my podcast downloads list.  That, for a lot of reasons, is a bummer for me.

But with all of this extra listening opportunity right now, I've taken a deep dive back into old YMIW episodes -- they're all still available on Apple Podcasts and I imagine other places, too.  I've been re-listening to some old favorites and it's been incredible.  I've mentioned a couple of them in these pages.  And yesterday, I re-listened to another that is pure magic: the Kirk Fox episode.

Kirk Fox is a comedian and an actor.  A droll, mellow fellow who I knew nothing about prior to his chat with Pete.  It's one of the few episodes where a guest gives Pete a run for his money.  Most of the time, the guests yes-and's Pete while he flaps his big golden-retriever mentality all over them.  I would imagine it would be hard to resist his enthusiasm and charismatic sense of control over the situation, especially given that he's the podcast host.  But Kirk wasn't so compliant.  He remained more aloof and more detached than many guests while still somehow coming off like it was actually his show -- that Pete was sort of a buffoon, but in an endearing way, still.  

For example...  Pete would say, "Can I ask you a question?" to which Kirk would reply, "Sure.  You can do whatever you want.  But it will be up to me if I want to answer."

There is a lot of that in this episode.  And while that might seem tedious or maybe even obnoxious, I found it so refreshing.  It's so right where I am in this moment.  Kirk's guru-like demeanor throughout this entire two hour interview coursed through my veins.  This is everything.  For many reasons, I sent the episode to my friend Shira who listened to it immediately.

And then we had our own two-hour conversation -- not just about Kirk and Pete's talk but about a lot of things -- that somehow kept linking back to Kirk's handling of Pete.  One of the big ones -- which also happened to one of (the many) reasons I dropped this podcast in Shira's lap -- was a discussion the two men had about sleep.  I'll paraphrase the conversation which was essentially Pete saying that he'd been waking up at 8am in recent days, just ready to jump out of bed, but that he sort of wished his body wasn't eagerly asking him to start his day so early.  "I really would rather sleep in and burn more of the day, ya know?" Pete said.  Kirk immediately jumped on that.  "Yeah, but you have to ask yourself why that is -- what is it about your life that makes you want to waste it like that?"  What is it about himself that makes him not want to eek every possibility out of every moment?  Why did he want to deny himself that time to be vital, awake, present, active Pete?

At the time, Pete was still a drinker and he was single.  He was searching for something but he didn't know what -- he was trying to grow in a lot of different directions, allowing the sun to pull him this way and that.  He was gangly in his approach, free-wheelin' with a shrug.  He wanted....what?  What did he want?

To sleep away his life.  Apparently.

It's funny to hear this version of Pete now since Enlightened Pete sucks the marrow out of every single breath he takes these days.  It's fascinating to see his transformation over the course of his podcast.  He no longer drinks, he found himself a wife, he's a dad now, he's reached a moderate level of success in his career.  Pete Today is a great deal more settled than the Pete-Who-Talked-To-Kirk-Fox and it's wild to whisper, "You'll figure it out, dude.  Eventually." 

Listening back to this specific episode of Pete's show makes me think that it was a turning point in Pete's thinking.  I can't recall him ever citing this conversation with Kirk in future episodes but there is so much richness that can be applied to the changes Pete ultimately makes in his life.

I probably listened to this episode for the first time back in 2016-ish -- I binged the entire series over the course of a year or two and so much of the wisdom in these very long talks gets sort of mushed together.  But I remember being delighted by Kirk's ability to set a healthy boundary with Pete and force the host to listen and not just drum up a new bit.  

And Kirk did that by the simple method of saying, "You do you.  I'll do me.  And we'll see how that goes."

That's so my speed in this moment, as I mentioned before.  It ties in with my favorite Hamlet line, Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.  Life isn't scripted.  You can ask a question but that doesn't mean I'll answer it, ya dig?  You do what you want and so will I.  There is real wisdom in that.  It breaks the coded notion that just because x happens y must be the result.  It reverses the idea that we all know how this will end because of how the first domino fell.

We don't know shit -- especially when we're dealing with confidence or arrogance or mental illness or addiction or gratitude or magic.  It says that we need to adjust our expectations outside of the deep grooves of common expectations to allow for a different result.  

I can want something -- I can work hard for it -- but I may not get it.  That's not about fairness or what's right, it's about the way the wind blew in a moment.  It's about nature which is both predictable and not.  Letting go of the notion that an outcome can be controlled is true freedom.

Having a person point at a thing you said (I'd rather burn away more of the day) and ask a simple question (why is that?) can be all you need to figure  out the answer to a question you didn't even realize you needed to ask.  Maybe you find out there is something about your life that is unsatisfying, and that's why you sleep so much.  Maybe you find out you're nutritionally deficient or have some kind of underlying health condition that is wearing you out.  Maybe you start to pay attention to how you feel when you wake up in the morning and compare/contrast that to how you feel when you go to sleep at night.  Maybe it makes you start paying attention to other factors in your life -- like how often you drink or use drugs, how often you partake in those recreations to the point of blackout, how often you gravitate towards junk food, how often you feel bored.  Maybe you start to notice when certain people or topics stir up strong feelings in you and maybe you start to connect some dots about why that is.

One simple throw-away comment with a well-timed simple question of "Why is that?" can be the biggest game-changer there is.  If you let it.

During this Elective Quarantine era we've just begun, it may become more and more relevant to understand how to move forward with our lives during this pandemic.  People are still deeply afraid and that comes across as rage in some and perhaps willful denial in others.  I think of the people who were so insulted that a business asked them to wear a mask while shopping that those people returned to the establishment with a gun and shot the person dead.  What kind of insanity is this??  How is it so harmful to your freedom to participate in an act of social solidarity and wear a simple cloth mask for the duration of your shopping experience that some people find it punishable by death?  How is it humiliating or degrading or otherwise injurious to put on the damn mask in the first place and avoid the confrontation all together?  What is going on with these people who are there to pick this particular fight?  What does it serve?  How does it help?  What is the meaning of this?

Those who would rather kill or be killed than don a cloth mask in public places are clearly coming from much deeper-rooted understanding of what the pandemic means and what the request to wear a mask says about their willingness to participate peacefully in this moment in time.  Maybe they think they're being duped or that the masks are dumb or who knows.  As someone who has worked with the public all of her adult life, I can assure you that people say and do unexpected things all the time.  

It's not about how you act -- it's about how you react.  

It's not about right or wrong -- it's about why you think it is such.

Our justifications and rationalizations of our decisions are the very fabric that creates us.  Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.

And if you've ever worked for or with me, you know my schtick about this:  when someone is a jackass to me, I just get way nicer to them.  The more condescending their tone, the more pleasant mine becomes.  Nothing diffuses a bomb faster than kindness.  It's very hard to be an ass to someone handing you a bowl full of sunshine.  Not impossible, mind you.  But certainly not satisfying.

In the case of Kirk Fox, he doles out that sunshine with sheer simplicity and precision of language.  He asks to-the-point questions, he refuses to accept the premise, and he never sacrifices his core self to please his host.  It's artful.  I hope you'll give the podcast a listen.

"A lot of jerkin'-it talk, though," Shira pointed out.

Yeah, Pete talks about sex and masturbation a lot.  I don't bump on it -- but maybe others would.  Consider this a warning not to listen to You Made It Weird with your kids.

I love the episode because it opened a new window to let in different fresh air.  It made me think.  It made me pay attention.  And it clicked deeply with who I am in this moment.  I suppose there is no coincidence that I plucked this episode from the archives when I did.  I wake up between 6:30am and 7am almost every day without an alarm clock and can't wait to start my day.....even if my day will consist of eating meals, going for walks, doing a little writing, doing a little work, showering, and picking out a movie to watch before bed.  My life is very, very simple right now and it's giving me so many opportunities to think clearly.  To see the world and better understand my place in it.  That is epic.  Why wouldn't I be excited to hop out of bed and get goin'?

Thank you, Kirk Fox.  Thank you, Pete Holmes.  Thank you, that-moment-in-time that held the space for the conversation to happen at all.  A lot of things had to converge for such a gift to be dropped out of the blue and into my earbuds.  The lessons will resonate for awhile and feed into how and why I think and feel how I think and feel.  What else could I hope for during a walk around my neighborhood?  I wouldn't even know how to ask for such a thing.  That's what makes me love it.  That's what makes me feel present and connected.  That's what makes me see the trajectory of how a person can get from Point A to Point B.  Little ripples make big waves on a long enough timeline.  Stick by the river and you'll see.

Originally written on May 21, 2020 for the I Spy in 2020 daily writing project.

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