Keyan - Product of Education

This interview breaks one of my early, probably unnecessarily arbitrary rules. Keyan is an architect who works in New York City. He is an immersive hobbyist who loves motocross. A deep thinker who loves deep, meaningful conversations. He's also my son in law, and I've told myself I wouldn't interview family. 

So much for rules.

In our conversation, we talk about gripping things too tightly versus just being present. We talk about discovering slash, creating your best self, and how Keyan changed his dissertation for his master's thesis in architecture to an artistic self-exploration that revamped his core being. 

We also talk about the limitation of words, the beauty of art and creativity, what makes a conversation truly great, and the stifling deterrence of traditional masculinity in meaningful relationships. 

In the end, I think that breaking my rule was the right decision. 

TOPICS: conversations, honesty, transparency, life formulas, success, being present, masculinity, hobbies, deconstruction.

Transcript

SYK 119: Keyan - Product of Education

MUSIC

Keyan [00:00:04] If there isn't certainty in some areas of our life, we living in absolute chaos. I went from thinking that everything was eternal to thinking that absolutely everything is temporary. It absolutely shattered everything that I thought that I knew. For a long time, I kind of wallowed in that, shattering of the certainty that I'd been living in. Then I had a realization of how freeing that realization was and that nothing is permanent. US human beings can change anything you want at any time in. 

Brian [00:00:32] Your search for understanding, meaning you come up with nothing. 

Keyan [00:00:36] I've come up with nothing in everything, except I think that nothing is guaranteed and everything is possible. 

Brian [00:00:48] This interview breaks one of my early, probably unnecessarily arbitrary rules. Keyan is an architect who works in New York City. He is an immersive hobbyist who loves motocross. A deep thinker who loves deep, meaningful conversations. He's also my son in law, and I've told myself I wouldn't interview family. So much for rules conversation, we talk about gripping things too tightly versus just being present. We talk about discovering slash, creating your best self, and how Keyan changed his dissertation for his master's thesis in architecture to an artistic self-exploration the revamped his core being. We also talk about the limitation of words, the beauty of art and creativity, hat makes a conversation truly great and the stifling deterrence of traditional masculinity in meaningful relationships. In the end, I think that breaking my rule was the right decision. 

MUSIC

Keyan [00:01:38] If you got the intro, whatever you say can and will be used against. 

Brian [00:01:43] You, then you've been warned. 

Keyan [00:01:45] I just live in. I live in a world of thoughts. I guess. I just I think that 2020, in a way, was a blessing for me. I've always been a little bit of a selective introvert. I, I extrovert when I want and I introvert most of the time. And 2020 came along and everybody was talking about how heartbroken they were that they couldn't see people or talk to people. And for me, I was like, Let's go, man now. No, but now nobody's trying to get me out of the house. Now I can just chill. That's gotten a little bit old now, though. I'm grown out of that a bit. 

Brian [00:02:23] You got out of the house today, though? 

Keyan [00:02:25] I did. I get out of the house a lot more than I did during that period of time. 

Brian [00:02:29] And is it better getting out of the house some days? 

Keyan [00:02:33] And depends on what we're getting out of the house for. And I don't know. I try to be very selective about what gets me out of the house. I'm very, very picky about where I spend my time because I am about where I spend money. And my patience for mediocre experiences has dwindled recently. So I yeah, I mean, granted, my reason for getting out the day was work. And I don't really choose that because we live in America. So you work 90% of your life. 

Brian [00:03:05] Yeah. Give me a couple of ideas of what is a mediocre experience and give me some ideas of what is a non mediocre experience. 

Keyan [00:03:14] That's a great question because I think it very much depends on the moment. And fortunately I'm married to someone to hopes helps force me to go to mediocre experiences to become less than mediocre experiences less. 

Brian [00:03:31] Than mediocre or better than mediocre. 

Keyan [00:03:33] Or better than mediocre. 

Brian [00:03:35] I just wanted to be clear. 

Keyan [00:03:36] Yeah, let's rephrase that. Better than mediocre. And so yeah, let's, let's see a mediocre experience. You know, that's tough because I haven't been taught in a while. I for a long time it was social, social gathering. There would be periods where people would want to hang out with a group and say, hey, we're, we're watching the whatever bowl, the super the super basket hoops game and big sports. Yeah. Oh, huge. I'm a huge sports guy. I go sports teams and they would, they would invite us over and then yeah. You'd get that fun divide between like all of the, all the females would go to one area and talk about things that were interesting to me. And then all the males would go to the other area and talk about very surface level things that weren't so interesting to me to talk about so and so drafted whatever pick and he's going to turn around the season or whoever from wherever. And I was like, I'm going to go hang out with them and I'd go hang out with the hanging out with the girls. Yeah, I just found that they, I, I've always been more interested in, in social interactions with women simply because I feel that they don't have to deal with the masculinity barriers that I feel I run into with men so often. 

Brian [00:04:57] Meaning? Meaning what exactly? What's a masculinity barrier? 

Keyan [00:05:01] Talking about anything that might be revealing of vulnerability or weakness or something you might not particularly good at just that. Most, most my years growing up, it just always felt like competition just at all times of, you know, just who knew more about what. And I don't know, I just didn't feel like I could relate with most of the conversations because I'm a much more surface. What would be the right word? My my emotions are on the surface. Heart out on my sleeve. I don't know. I don't know what the word for it is. But yeah. 

Brian [00:05:41] I'm not sure. I'm not sure I would describe you that way. I would say that your emotions are a larger percentage of who you are, as opposed to what you're doing or what you know may have been some of the masculine kind of traits. It's like talk about all of the games and the sport things and places you've been, and I use you as an example all the time in that like you want to start a conversation with what happens to us when we die. Yeah, right. That there's, there's your small talk at the start there. 

Keyan [00:06:12] Yeah. Something like do you actually think you're going to die of old age or it's going to before that. 

Brian [00:06:17] Yeah. Yeah. So I wouldn't say that you wear your emotions on your sleeve. I kind of looked at as someone that you can tell always what kind of mood they're in. And I think you hide that very well. Well, that you're hiding it. You hide that like most people have been conditioned it. Nobody wants to look at you and know what mood you're in. The guys also don't want an ever know and. I want to ever uncover that and ever want to talk about it where most of the women do. It's what they want to talk about, right, is their emotions and things that are closer, more personable, more personal, certainly more vulnerable. Was a word to use that I'm a big fan of. 

Keyan [00:06:52] Yeah. Yeah, I think that I think the words that I would use to describe myself are honest and transparent. I think that I've always found that the just absolute honesty 99% of the time is the best way to go. You can always argue like some rare white lie cases, but for the most part, I've always felt the honesty is maybe difficult at the beginning of relationships. But Addy had a hard time. My spouse had a hard time. Early on with she would ask me about outfits. So does this one does this look good? And I would say, no, it doesn't. And for a long time she would be surprised by the fact that I would say that. And everybody always told me, like the answer to that was always yes. And I was like, But what if it's no good? 

Brian [00:07:42] But sometimes when I was clearly No, why. 

Keyan [00:07:44] Would I say, why would I say yes? That's no, I just never really didn't really make sense in my brain. And she grew to appreciate that down the road just because she knew that whatever she knew that when I did say yes, I actually meant. So she never had to look, I feel like if you're just a yes man, then like asking your opinion kind of becomes futile because they don't actually know if you mean it or if you're saying it to be nice or, you know. And so I think that when they know that you're truly honest or something like that, when you say yes, you mean yes. And that's obviously that's just an example. But I find that to kind of be something that I do a lot, gotten in a lot of trouble, be articulate. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly in school and career settings. But yeah, that and then in the transparency that in between the two, I think it's a matter of I think the two of those together is really crucial for me in the communication realm. I think that it really helps me to understand. I think a lot of people when I start expressing things like I just I disagree with that. I don't understand. Like I feel that this might be the case or when I started truly, genuinely expressing my opinion, a lot of people take that as questioning of authority or hierarchy or whatever it may be. And it's simply just an attempt at that understanding for their situation. And so maybe that's not as much honesty as anything else, but. 

Brian [00:09:11] Would you say in those instances you focus more on your communication is more focused on a problem and the issue at hand, and others may put more of an emphasis on the social niceties and the hierarchical and the I don't know, the social norms of when someone asks me, is this a nice outfit? The answer is always yes. When someone says, Don't you agree? The answer is yes, even when you don't. But yeah, is that a kind of a good way to kind of separate those two, do you think, or am I missing something? 

Keyan [00:09:40] I, I think that my mentality is like may the best, most effective and most logical idea when regardless of who or where it comes from. And I think that applies in a lot of circumstances that like my mentality is there's always a better way, almost always, not always. And I accept that better way isn't always mine, but I think that it's there. And that leads to this drive for efficiency. I guess it leads to I don't know, it leads to a yeah. Just, just logical efficiency. I think it's something that, that I run into a lot and especially within the design realm for, for my career, I always think about it and it drives me crazy when, when the answer is, well, do it because the boss said so, or because the hierarchy were like, throw down this, this trump card. Like, I have this position. So therefore this is how it goes. And, and I've always struggled with that as answer. Yeah, I think that for me it's like, well, explain to me why that makes sense and that drives that. 

Brian [00:10:50] Does make sense. Explain it to me. Right. 

Keyan [00:10:52] And that drives people crazy a lot. 

Brian [00:10:54] So you argue that it's in your way is a logical efficiency. And I think that's from your side. But I think the other side it's it seems to me it's ego. 

Keyan [00:11:04] Ego in ego on their end ego in that they're detecting ego from my questions. 

Brian [00:11:09] No, I don't think they see that. I think they're just used to being treated as because I'm the boss and I should never have to say that. And because I'm the because I'm your spouse. You should never tell me I don't look good. Right. Because I'm your and you're like, I thought were talking about the issue. I didn't know. Right. So you're talking about the logical efficiency of the conversation they just wanted. That's a great idea. We should do. 

Keyan [00:11:34] That. Yeah. Yeah, it's those. It's that. That apparent answer that because I say so. And I was always the child that just kept asking why. And then when they answer, you ask why to that question and the answer that when you ask why, again, people just get frustrated because I'm trying to understand that at a core level, like then trying and trying to follow the logic of what's being described. And I understand that there's a place in time and people don't always want to take the time to explain the logic. 

Brian [00:12:02] To a three year old who wants ice cube, wants ice cream. And the answer is clearly no. 

Keyan [00:12:06] Right. Right. But then again, you know, as I think I'm not a parent at the moment, but I think, you know, like I want to be the kind of parent that takes the time to answer those kind of questions, you know, and whether they're old enough to understand it or not, you know, and obviously, there's that's a whole bag of worms that I don't want to open. But I think that a lot of times we don't give people credit for just how much they do know and do understand. I think a lot of that came from that same as Keegan mentioned in his podcast about being the youngest and having a big gap between him and his next sibling. I was the same way. And so that I just lost my train of thought where I was going. 

Brian [00:12:51] Well, I don't know if this is where you were going or not, but in that situation, you are never the one who has an opinion that matters. Everyone else is. I'm older sister. I'm the parent. I'm the brother. I'm the big sister. I'm the. And all you had to rely on was that stupid. And a better answer would be this. 

Keyan [00:13:10] Yes, there's answer that I started running into very, very frequently in my life as it is when I discovered critical thinking in my life and started to discover all these contradictions that I had just accepted as truths, I started to ask and started to bring some of these topics up. And one of the most frustrating and condescending answers that I ever heard and still hear is I used to think that way was when I was when I was in college, I wanted to be a revolutionary, too, or when I was being taught certain things, I remember, well, you'll grow up and that acceptance and it's that mentality of then into that mentality. So many places in life this like and maybe others will follow the stream of thought that blue collar work ethic of like I had to earn my stripes this way. And so you need to earn it the same way I did. I put in I moved from A to C. And so you need to know what it's like to move from A to C. And in my mind, I was always like, Absolutely not, because you went from A to C so that you could have the knowledge to share with the next group so that they could move from B. D and then the B to D group. Can that the next one move from C to. I don't need to go through all the things that you went through just because you went through them. You already did it for us. Yeah. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to run into my issues. You know, this is something that happens at generational conversations all the time. Like the whole I walked uphill both ways, dragging ball and chain in the snow, you know, like somebody choking me. And that just gets more exaggerated every time you hear the story. And so you can, too. But it's like everybody has their difficulties, no matter which points they're traveling between. It doesn't matter if you're going to see or beat a D or C to A or it doesn't matter where you're going, you're always going to deal with your own difficulties. And this idea of like, I had to deal with this. So you do to like in the workplace, you know, like I had to earn my stripes to get here and, and this and that and the other. And I kept running into it and I ran into it all the time. And, and it was so frustrating to me because I was like, that's that is now progresses. But, you know, you don't make progress by making everyone go through the same thing over and over again, that stagnant water. 

Brian [00:15:37] So going through their mind when they're telling you how they did it, is it lack of awareness that there could be another option or is it. Well, I'm clearly older and have more experience and more wisdom. Let me tell you how this is supposed to happen, because I only know my experience. So let me give you some of that when really you're saying your experience is irrelevant. This is my opportunity and my issues. And so what do you think is going through their head where they think that is the answer? 

Keyan [00:16:10] I don't I would never say that anyone's experience is irrelevant. I would I would just say that it isn't necessary to duplicate. Okay. And I think that there are a lot of things going on in those circumstances. I think validation is probably one of the most sought after things on this planet and one of the least provided things on this planet in that like people, people talk about how difficult. Their circumstance is because it was hard for them and they probably felt a sense of achievement for overcoming that. The fact that they have achieved what they have and they've gotten to where they are, it took work. And to say that I don't want to do the same thing you do sometimes in their minds might translate as I don't what would you have? Or I don't want to work for what you have. And that's not necessarily the issue. You know, I think it's almost always an issue of communication. But I think one part you had somebody say, I want validation for how difficult it was for me to get to where I am. And I'm giving you this knowledge for free. There should be some gratitude involved here. And then on the other hand, there's a my issues are different. We all enjoy learning history because we don't want to repeat it. But I don't want to go back and relive the Great Depression just so that I can understand it. You know, like I, I, I've got my own issues to deal with here. I've got to got a pandemic and got housing prices that are unbelievably high with student loans that are right behind it. And they're in I mean, like I'm afraid of I'll ever be able to own a home, frankly. And on the other hand, people are like, well, you know, I mean, like we were making food out of it. We'd go crush the branches in our backyard and stir it up with some hot water. And that was our breakfast for the morning. Know, like you have it so easy. And that's not an easy discussion, you know? Yeah. Because it is both scenarios are totally different ways. 

Brian [00:18:07] So I hear part of the answer to that is that across the board, humans need to do a better job of validating others of what they've gone through, what their experiences, what wisdom they carry and their accomplishments, and just really understand that. Yeah, it's nice you got a diploma on the walls like. Yeah, but consider what went behind that or whatever their accomplishment is right now. Consider how difficult that was for them and how much time and effort and while they were working and whatever all of that went in there. So the validation is part of it. What do you think is the appropriate way if you have someone now coming to you that's just graduating from high school and is looking at repeating your path and thinking, tell me how to do this, what would you how would you approach that differently, not just give them advice, but what would your approach be differently than say, well, this is how you do it? 

Keyan [00:18:56] Yeah, I think that’s somewhat of a simplified scenario just because it is like it is a meth mouth in particular, something that doesn't seem to change very quickly. So in that case, maybe the solutions might be similar between generations. Granted, there are kids in the third grade that are learning more than I learned at my senior year in college. Right now in math. 

Brian [00:19:18] But skip career bit say that they're not following your career as an architect or following your career of graduating high school and going out into the world, understanding where they fit, who they are, and how they belong. Because you had a path with that separate from school. Maybe if the other one was overly simplified, maybe that one would be so. 

Keyan [00:19:40] So, so. So the question is how to find your trajectory in life after. 

Brian [00:19:45] Yeah, I think so. Yeah. You find your. 

Keyan [00:19:48] Yeah. 

Brian [00:19:48] How would you go about giving that advice given the fact they're starting at a different place and they're going to end at a different place and they want to know, how do we do this? And your only experience is where you started and where you are now, not even where you ended. 

Keyan [00:20:03] Yeah, well, I'll answer that with a math analogy where. 

Brian [00:20:06] You're stuck with the math. You got the numbers in your head today where it was. 

Keyan [00:20:12] Yeah, yeah. We hopped in with math and tucked ourselves in there. No. So for me it's the same thing but that I kind of realized within my career as well. So I mean, obviously, like I can I understand things in a way that I can relate to, to my own life. So I think that a lot of people are looking for solutions, but not very many people are looking for the equation. And I think that most of the time it's the equation that you really want. I had a physics professor at the community college and it drove me absolutely crazy. I was a straight-A student, 4.0, and have never gotten less than an A in those classes, which was a turnaround from high school. But we're not going to dove into that. But I came in guns swinging and ready to conquer world, and he gave us this test and I got all the answers right, and he marked the questions wrong. And I was like, Why? This is the correct answer? Why? Why don't I have a lot of money on this assignment? And he said, Well, I asked in the instructions that follow the process that we learned in class, which is you circle the variables that you have and you put a square around the variables that you don't have. And you didn't, you didn't go through the steps of the process on, on the test. So I don't care if you got the right answer, you didn't get the process. And I followed with him for so long and ended up going over his head. We tried to get this poor guy fired at one point because I was just so frustrated by the fact that he was making me jump through these hoops that just seemed so unnecessary. And it wasn't until almost the end of the class. Maybe it's after the class was over that finally it clicked for me that he didn't care about the answer to the question and cared that we learned how to solve the problem. And that was what that was. What he was trying to teach was problem solving, not the specific content that were solving the problems. And that was a very eye-opening experience for me because that tactic, problem solving, transferred far beyond physics into all of my other classes. And like you can do it with word problems, you can do it with whatever it is, you know what I mean? Like, if you just break it down, say, this is what I know. This is what I don't know. Especially in a test situation, the answer is in the question. So if you have what you know and you find out what you don't know, what you don't know is what you're looking for. And what you do know contains the answer to what you don't. And so you just have to break it down. And then it's a matter of, okay, what are the equations that I know and can I start plugging in these variables? And one of these equations is either going to give me a variable that I needed a different equation, or it's going to be the equation that helps me solve this problem. And, and so that's in a long, roundabout way canal over the answer that approach to you know what I mean? Like, how do I find a trajectory for my life? Not so what career do I want to have? It's how do I you know what I mean? Like, how do I find something that's filling me? Mean, how do I. And then you just keep going back. Know what brings me fulfillment? That if you don't know that, then you keep going back and then you start playing around with, okay, you know, what do I know? Don't I know? And how can I take what I do know to start solving some of the things that I don't know? I don't know that make sense or not know. 

Brian [00:23:26] It is very interesting. It would just remind me of something else that I'm not sure I want to jump into it yet, so I'm not going to. So rather than helping them reach your destination, you're going to walk them through your equation and suggest that their equation might be different in some respects. 

Keyan [00:23:42] Sure. I mean, if the conversation becomes how to find an equation that's a different conversation, then this is the equation that I used. But I think that if you're going to say, you know, like this is the equation that I use, let's say I'm X plus B, I'm X plus B equal C, you can plug in any random set of numbers and it's going to give you answer. But as soon as you change one of those numbers, it's going to be a different answer. And so if someone else I mean, that's the cool thing about equations is that they're able to solve more than one problem. And so if someone else, someone else could potentially use the same equation that I've used and come out with a totally different result by using the same method but not necessarily the same means for them. It says Yeah. 

Brian [00:24:23] And their equation may have to include a constant and they may have to say minus six for whatever reason because of their situation. Right. You didn't have that. That wasn't part of your equation. But still, the equation still holds true. 

Keyan [00:24:36] Right? Or they might be missing two variables. And I was only one. And maybe they need to find another equation to find one of their other missing variables before they go ahead and solve that problem. 

Brian [00:24:45] Trying to bring that now down to the situation where someone was asking you advice and they're telling you how all of their great accomplishments and you feel like I don't want to go from A to C, I'm a B, D guy. So in a real conversation that's similar to that, how do you get around that and go about B D? I guess you could just talk about the equation, make sure you're talking about the equation and not the answer. 

Keyan [00:25:07] Yeah, yeah. And I, I don't know. I don't know how far we can stretch the analogy. But I also that's one of the reason I love conversations like this just in general is I just find how much I contradict myself all the time. I'm just a giant contradiction. Yeah, but I mean, like, in that scenario, you mean like maybe the person saying I moved from A to C is trying to communicate. This was the equation I used. Perhaps you're only hearing I move from A to C, so you need to do it too. You know. 

Brian [00:25:36] You're not listening for the. 

Keyan [00:25:37] Equation, right? Maybe you're just hearing, I'm old, you're young, you have it easy when in reality, you know, like there's some motivation in there that you should really be picking up on. That's something I failed to do a lot of time, especially in hierarchical situations where someone has experience on me or time on me or whatever it may be. A lot of the times I'm so eager to prove the validity. I'm so eager to be validated in where I am that I'm not listening to where I could be if I just backed up a little bit and absorbed some of what I was thinking. 

Brian [00:26:09] Yeah, I guess it comes back to ego again on your case in that aspect, right? You're saying, look, old man, I'm not trying to get from A to C, trying to get from B to D. And he said, Look, young whippersnapper, I'm not telling you how to get from A to C, I'm happy. I'm telling you how to get from a point to another point, right, where those two points are, you get to determine that. But that's not and you know, so I guess if ego get out of the way of both of those which is very difficult for. Everybody, right? I mean, that's interesting. So now I'm curious. I want to stretch this analogy. Tell me parts of your equation like what went into your equation? 

Keyan [00:26:47] I we're I apologize to your listeners this whole episode. It's just going to be a bunch of analogies and metaphors because that's how I work in the movie Arrival. Familiar, I think. I love. 

Brian [00:27:00] That show. Amy, out. 

Keyan [00:27:01] Of the yes, they are trying to communicate with this alien species that has come down to earth and they come down and they figure out that they can rape or whatever it is. However, they're finding this way to communicate between the two and they the aliens spit this image. And so the humans just get so absorbed in this one image. You I can solve this. How do I solve this? And then spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the movie, it is. 

Brian [00:27:30] Ten years old. 

Keyan [00:27:31] So keep an eye out forever. Skip forward. Fast forward 15 seconds, but a couple times. And then at one point, the one alien just blasts out of a million different symbols and they can't figure out their how are we going to figure all this out? And finally, the scientist realizes that there's a ratio between the solid and the void of what's been provided. And it wasn't so much what was being written as what was being framed between all of what was being written. And I think that was kind of what happened for me was I from Earth was given an equation and this equation had answers to everything constantly. And then in my many years and years of exploration, I discovered a couple other equations and then and then that moment happened where just something, something shattered. And all of a sudden I could see how many billions of equations were out there. And just that understanding of the fact that my equation might not be suited to solve all the problems that I would confront, that there may be other equations and that those solutions might work better for some and not so much for others. And I think that one of the big thought moments for me, one of the realizations for me, I have to be careful with saying realization because that's taking what I realized as a given or as a truth, which it could very much not be, is that nothing can be known with absolute certainty. One thing that's taught in the church I grew up in was there's a there was a children's song that said they maybe saved children. So it was just a regular song. Faith is knowing that the sun will rise each and every day, and people use that example all the time. Well, I know that the sun's going to come up in the east and set in the West, and I would be like, Well, how do you know that? Well, let's wait until tomorrow morning. You know, if it comes up tomorrow, then I was right, which is a great analogy, unless you live in Alaska and that it doesn't make sense or if you're up on the North Pole, that it is not necessarily knowing the sun will rise every day because there's a couple of months where it doesn't rise at all and then there's a couple of months where it doesn't set at all. And all it takes is something to shift and that thing can no longer be real. And so I just there's this paradigm shift for me when I realized everything that I took as absolutely certain could at any moment be shatter proof in the opposing hour, the sun could not rise. And that's a possibility. Maybe it goes supernova. Maybe we have so much smog that we can't see through. I mean, there are a lot of scenarios in which sun might not arise. And I think that's true of so many things that we take for granted. And sure, there are things that are much more certain than others. And repeated like repetition of that thing happening allows us to rely on them. Because if there isn't certainty in some areas of our life, we really in absolute chaos. But just that realization that nothing is. I went from thinking that everything was eternal to thinking that absolutely everything is temporary. And it did absolutely shatter everything that I thought that I knew. And for a long time, I kind of wallowed in that shattering of the certainty that I'd been living in. And then I had a realization of how freeing that realization was and that, like nothing, nothing is permanent. You, you, as human beings, can change anything you want at any time. And like, sure, some things take a while to change. Like nothing is necessarily instant, but you are in absolute control. To cut back contradictions, here we are again. But you are capable of guiding events and the. Things that you allow in your life. And I think of people in tough scenarios, like people who are in abusive relationships. Like a realization like that to say, I could walk away from this. This isn't eternal. This isn't something I'm stuck with forever. This isn't something. Okay? These aren't the cards and the cards I've been dealt. Isn't the only hand that I get to play with. Like I can lay these down and walk away. And when you truly know that in your life, it makes you appreciate things that you choose dating on to like relationships, whether it's with family, whether it's with friends. At any moment in time, choose to no longer have that. But you choose to keep it and the other person chooses to keep it. And that choice between both those people makes it so much more validating than if it feels obligatory because you think it's an eternal relationship. Does that make sense? Try not to ramble too much, but maybe that answers your question a little bit of. 

Brian [00:32:33] Yeah, it's part of I'm going to try to summarize it. Tell me if I'm getting closer if I missed the point. Part of your process, if we're grading the process and not the answer, part of your process is to question the constants and as well as the entire equation. There may be a similar solution. There may be one that's more elegant, accomplishes the same work or comes to the same results. But also consider just because something is a given constant, there are situations where you can change. Like you said, almost any constant water boils at a certain temperature. Under certain atmospheric conditions change those atmospheric conditions and water boils that are different temperature and freeze or it's not a constant. Yeah, we act as if our life is a constant and it is very helpful to kind of shave off some of those errors, assuming that within these parameters, as a human being on earth at this time, living at this latitude, the sun will probably come up tomorrow. There's a very strong possibility. So for all intents and purposes, constant. But you're right, don't take that north of 33 degrees in the winter and assume that the sun will come up as what was once a constant hit. You've now had a variable in it, and so we need to be more aware of those variables. 

Keyan [00:33:47] Yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate, I think. I think that I would say more so than just questioning confidence and equations. I question everything. 

Brian [00:33:57] Including the source. 

Keyan [00:33:58] Absolutely everything. The source. The source. The source of source. The source. You know what I mean? Let's take it all the way back to the beginning. Let's question that, too. 

Brian [00:34:07] So in your search for understanding, meaning you come up with nothing? 

Keyan [00:34:12] I've come up with nothing in everything, except I think that nothing is guaranteed and everything is possible. I can't say that the religion I grew up in is false any more than they can say that it's true. I can't say that my current set is any more valid than theirs, any more than they can say that it's not. Because I think every single human has different variables to bring. And it's like, I don't know, it's, it's, it's, it's paradigms. So let's say you've got to say you've got a yellow wall and you've got one person with red sunglasses, one person with blue sunglasses. The one person says, this was orange and the other person says This was green. And they're both right. But they're also both wrong because it is orange to the one that it is green to the other. Through that particular lens, you take the lenses off, it's yellow. But then again, every human's eyesight is one might be colorblind, but we won't get into the color. 

Brian [00:35:09] No, but that's an interesting point. It's another discussion that I had with Delaney, and we're talking about politics. And were talking about your value, your highest priority value is love. Then you will see a certain political issue only one way. And it doesn't make any sense to you that someone could see it a different way. Your highest value is is fairness or integrity. Then you could only see that same value a different way, and you can't see how anyone else could see it differently. In reality, the wall is still yellow. You're both perceiving a difference. You're both right and you're both wrong. But you've chosen to put on a certain value as your sunglasses. And so you're seeing that part of the world a certain way that someone else clearly does not and not that your sunglasses are better or worse than anyone else's. You need to realize you're both wearing glasses and neither one of you have a direct view of the wall. Even when you take your glasses off, you're not having the same direct view of the wall. Like you said, people are color blind, there's different lighting scenarios, whatever. 

Keyan [00:36:13] But yeah, it's yeah. And I think that I recognize that my approach I mean, if we want to we want to throw it into another metaphor analogy. Life is like this art museum and people throw on their pair of glasses and they walk through and they see the art museum. And with that pair of glasses on and I'm the weirdo in the corner that has a backpack full of glasses. I just like. Of switching them out like a blue red, like, cause this one's rad. And then they're like, please leave the usually at the museum or closing. And I'm like, Well, I only looked at one of the pieces for one day. You I get to go look at all the rest of it. And so, I mean, I think that it's tough. And that's something that I've been grappling recently, is we've got a finite amount of time to do things, you know what I mean? Like, are you the type of person that wants to view the whole museum, a blue tint? Or are you the kind of person who wants to view a few different art pieces in a hundred different tints? Because there's not enough time to do both necessarily. And that's something that I've been really struggling with, is the more life I experience, the more life paths I discover that there are that are attractive to me and the more of this like urgency that I start to feel and anxiety in a way to pick one. Because it's like choosing a character beginning of a video game. Now, like Assassin's Creed, for example, you get to pick a character and you can't change that character till you finish the game. And who you pick changes the experiences that you have throughout the game and feel like I'm at one of those points. Well, I'm always at a point like that in life where it's like you need to make decisions that are going to affect the rest of your life. And I guess sometimes I get so caught up in fretting over evaluating my decisions that I forget that. I mean, sometimes it's just a game and it will be fun regardless of which character you choose. But I run into it so often now, you know, I mean, like, do I want to pursue this or do I want to pursue this? And the problem is that all of those options require years and years and years of foundations and building and work and experience. And so it's not like I can say, Oh, I'm going to dabble in this one and I'm going to go down on that one. I'm an immersive hobbyist. When I do something I want to get into it. I want to bury myself in it. And I want to, like, get all the way to the top of it because the beginning parts of it are usually not good. And those are the parts that I hate the most. I love being that it's absolutely love, but that's always how I've been. And unfortunately, through a lot of my teenage years, that led to me participating in a bunch of different things. And so I got decent at a lot of things, but I was never good at anything and that drove me kind of crazy because I wanted to be I didn't want to be second place things. I wanted to be first place. And I was always, always outperformed because I was stretched so thin. And then I feel like that's kind of where I'm at life to like, I don't know, the time scarcity. I don't have enough time, you know, I don't I can't do them all and I need to choose. And the longer I take to choose, the less time. 

Brian [00:39:25] Yeah, yeah. Again, it's part of the equation, right? You look at many individuals that we revere as being successful, the Jeff Bezos of the world and Steve Jobs and how much they focused and how far they pushed and stuck with that one thing. And at the sacrifice of everything else, in many cases, family and friendships and everything else. 

Keyan [00:39:48] Almost always everything else fails. 

Brian [00:39:50] Yeah. And so but then you see second generation coming by from these self-made billionaire state. They don't want to pick one thing. They do not want to sacrifice family. They want to be with family and they want to spend time with this. And now they're in a privileged position because they've got all of this money and success and maybe even a little bit of fame by riding on the coattails of ancestor. But they've also seen what it cost them. And I think very rarely do you see a second generation self-made billionaire, because they're like, Yeah, my parent got the number one trophy and I'll take a third place now and then. I'm good with that. Yeah. So it's like those, I don't know. When I was younger, they had these Choose Your Own Adventure books and you know, you don't get to have all the ending even if you tried, you go back and reread it, which you can't do in life. There's an interesting book called The Midnight Library where someone goes on to the next life and it's this library and it's just this massive library with all these volumes. And they walk in and it's the only thing they can see. So they go into this library and they meet the library and then they're like, Oh, DC you're glad you made it? Like, What are all these books and these? And she said, These books are all you every one of these books is a different life that you could have led in a parallel universe. And you get to choose which one is your final story. 

Keyan [00:41:04] That's my nightmare. 

Brian [00:41:05] And yeah, right. I mean, because there are just billions of these books and she's like, Well, I used to play the guitar, show me one where I followed that. And so she opens the book and it pulls her into that, and she's pulled into being this rock star on tour and selling out stadiums. And she lost one of her parents. She doesn't have a relationship with her brother. She's like, Oh, no, no, wait, I want that. So she goes back and tries it again and tries it again, and she's like, Well, how do I know which one's right? And the librarians looking at her like, How am I supposed to know which one's right? 

Keyan [00:41:35] There is no. 

Brian [00:41:36] Right. There is no right. And so I think one of the things that I would put in my equation similar to yours is be aware of the now and be aware of what is currently possible. Don't get so focused on the C or the D, but just enjoy this part. And yes, you want to work towards something. So caught up on getting there that you miss all of the. Hey, today we get to do this right? Right. I think that's something that I learned. And I think I spend a lot of my youth in A to B, to C, D, E to E. And I had it all planned out. And I did a lot of it and realized, this is my book now. This is this is where I was. What about all of these other things? What else is here? Well, this is where you want it to be. Okay, you know what? Now, how do I learn to ride a motorcycle like Ian? 

Keyan [00:42:21] Well, yeah, it's like you. 

Brian [00:42:22] Could never ride a motorcycle. IKEA personal. I get that. I mean, I've seen the videos. 

Keyan [00:42:27] It's pretty hard to crash that much. No, they it's like when we like when we play super complex board games. You spend all of this time planning it out, you know what I mean? Like these big actions that you want to do. And by the time you finally have all the resources and all the things you need to accomplish that action, the game is over. 

Brian [00:42:46] Somebody else has the game. 

Keyan [00:42:48] Yeah. And you're like, Well, well, hang on. Like, we need to play again now, because I didn't get to do that, you know, and that was a realization I had recently as well in my life was this Western idea that we need to sacrifice the now to invest in our future, you know what I mean? Like, you need to be miserable now so that you can be super happy later. And I was thinking I was like, I can't imagine how incredibly frustrating that would be if I invested 59 years of my life getting all, let's say, 64. What's retirement age? 65? If I invested 64 years of my life preparing for that 65th and like somebody hit a straight golf ball and it hit me in the temple and I die before I hit 65. All of that time, I had spent just like blinders on, like not aware of anything else happening because I'm just laser focused on this one thing that just has to happen, that I'm obsessing over this, one thing that has to happen and then not make it. That's a waste of a life. 

Brian [00:43:47] Yeah. And you could also wander around the golf course, picking up loose balls and playing half and half around here and half around there and being 64 and getting ready to retire. And you can't because you didn't do anything but putts around the golf course all day and enjoy every day. 

Keyan [00:44:02] Right? 

Brian [00:44:03] So now you've got another 25 years to live and you're just going to have to sell golf balls at $0.50 apiece for your retirement because that's all you're qualified for and. 

Keyan [00:44:14] Right. Yeah, I that reminds me of a concept in racing motocross that I recently learned and I first learned it through my own experimentation and then later saw some videos by some coaches that talked about the same thing. But I was going out into these races and you get all that adrenaline go and your heart rate's at 180 beats per minute and you're just like, ready to go and your hands are super tight. You've got this death grip, white knuckles, and the gate drops and then everything is a blur. And you're just in this manic like mode of trying to beat everyone else. And you go out and it's all this blur, and then all of a sudden the race is over and you look back and you're like, I don't even remember what happened for the past 15, ten, 15 minutes. Like, I don't even know what I did. And I was like, I was pushing super hard. And I think I got like, there was this big qualifier race and I think I got like ninth place for a 21st place. And then the next one I went out and I got 90 place. And then the next one I went out like, really give it everything I have to push harder than I had in the other two. And I am 23rd world is happening and I was like, You know what? I'm already out of a qualifying position. I have nothing to lose at this point. I'm just going to back it down. I'm going to run it about 70% and you know what I mean? Like just try to be a little bit more tactical about some of the decisions that I'm making. And so I backed down 70% and I think I got 30. It was my best result yet and I was putting in less effort. And I realized that when I was blinders on, pushing so hard, so focused, I was making mistakes, stalling the bike in corners, that I was slipping up with some of my tech and some of my form because I wasn't allowing enough capacity to buy marks and really like execute things that I knew that I should be executing. And I was like so laser focused on this that when I finally learned to dial it back, I started performing better because I was minimizing mistakes, I was making Spyder choices, and frankly, I was being more efficient. I wasn't as frantic, I wasn't gripping as tight, so I was conserving energy, which allowed me to last longer into the race before hitting an exhaustion point. And so I don't know if that transfers over to our are we supposed to run like 70%? And that's how we live. So we live our best life. You know, like we see all these examples of people who run 100% like, you know, like you're Elon Musk or your for Steve Jobs. Maybe I don't know if they're actually at 100% or we think they're 200% and we see what they've achieved. But maybe that wasn't always their hundred percent. Maybe that's it. Yeah. 

Brian [00:46:45] Yeah, maybe they have four microprocessors and we're still stuck with one. Maybe that's. But I also think there's another term in sports that they do frequently called overspeed training where you if you're at like a junior high team, you play a high school varsity team several days in a row and you just get trounced. But you're working really hard. So by the time you play a junior high school team, the next week, you're like, Oh my gosh, this is it. You're all over the place. I mean, you're just killing it. Yeah, maybe that's part of it. Maybe you play a couple of rounds up, hyperfocus, doing everything you can, and then you come back at 70% and it just like, Oh, so now this can all fit in. I don't know, maybe there's up. I even get that in some star our video game that we're sharing right. Yeah. Play some of those really advanced those extreme modes and you go back and play something hard and you get your best score on it. It's like, no, it's so much easier that time because they were you're all amped up, ready to go, and then you just get a hard one, right? Right. Whereas if you played that hard one, three or four times in a row, you weren't going to improve on it. Yeah. So, I don't know, maybe that's part of the equation too. I like building this equation. 

Keyan [00:47:46] I know that's it's funny. As soon as you were talking about that, that correlation, I just couldn't help but imagine a public school. That's a public school. It felt like to me it was like a middle school team playing a high school varsity team. But I always felt like I was just getting trounced. My or my whole experience through, like, school was an absolute nightmare. 

Brian [00:48:06] Full stop, Exeter. Is there another topic you want to come to your mind? I've got a couple on my mind, but. 

Keyan [00:48:14] I did have a thought one. And as we talked about that idea of being so worried about like where we're trying to get to it, I found that kind of put my foot in my mouth on that one because in my thesis we had one of the big realizations that I made in my graduate program was, oh, there it is. Yes. 

Brian [00:48:35] That was one of the topics I was going to change to my perfect. 

Keyan [00:48:38] We'll get over there that one might need an episode at all so easily. Yeah, we could talk about that. We could impact out for a long time. But one of the things that I learned in my master's program was, you know, I mean, just like life in general and work and school experience had always rewarded me for being three steps ahead. And so, like, I would always I always knew where I was going to be in advance. And so it helped me to get there really quickly. Like I was one of the students who had my final project done at midterms. Um, well done, please. Air quotes here. I had my final project at midterms because I had already decided where it was going to be right when I started. And I thought I was hard stuff because I could create things out quickly and really, you know what I mean? Like, just really, like, pump out work. And it was refined because I had already formulated and knew where it was going to go. And then I got blessed with having this professor in my master's program who just called B.S. on a lot of the things that I was doing, because I would start doing things and he would call me out on it because well, he would see me over at my desk thinking and he would get upset. What are you what are you sitting there for? I was like, Well, I'm trying to plan out what I'm going to do with this model. And he's like, Don't plan. It is like, just go do it, just go make it. I was like, Well, I don't know what I'm going to make. He's like, That's why you got to do it. I was like, That doesn't make any sense. And once I started into that, I started discovering this like new experience, which was being present. There's a concept existing, existing in the moment and not existing in the future because the future hasn't happened yet. So if you're not in the moment, you're not really existing either. But yeah. So I started to, I started to learn how to be where I was. And in so doing, I found that for most of my school career, I had been selling myself short, I had been finishing, and that's why I used air quotes earlier. Having a final project early was the it wasn't develop. I didn't take it far as it could have gone. I didn't allow it to develop. I didn't allow it to grow. I put this plant in this box. Once built the box, I was like, It's done. And I didn't know that. Let the plant out of the box. It would eventually grown fruit. It was really good to, you know, like I, I was so focused on making the plant fill the box that I had decided that it still that I could. I never gave it the credit that it deserves as its own entity. And so that's what I say when I say that I kind of put my foot in my mouth is that maybe I didn't learn my lessons. When it comes to applying that to my life is that I'm still so concerned about where I'm going to be in the future of my life that maybe that's causing me to lose a little bit of maybe that's causing me to lose a little bit of the value of something here now. And obviously, there's always some planning that needs to take place because you can't get on a flight that you didn't buy a ticket for, but. Yeah. Yeah, I just. I needed to learn. I needed to learn how to be in the moment. And that was something that was very difficult, that are still difficult. 

Brian [00:51:44] While you were talking about that, I was thinking of a snowboarder and a mountain and plant is his run all the way down in the best possible run. And your professor was like, what are you doing? Well, I'm planning my round is like, no, you go snowboarding and you don't know the route. When you get up there, you might see something over here and you might see some powder and you might see something. You can't plan the route from here. Right? You need to just go do it. And it's and it's not even about getting back down. We know you'll get back down and get in your car and drive home. We know that's going to happen. What are you going to do up there that matters? You know, I think there's a good balance to that. And I think part of it as well is realizing, okay, so you don't nail it. You're sometimes you're out snowboarding in the powder when you should have been planning route down. Right. Sometimes you're planning the route down when you should be out playing in the powder and just blowing the day off, you know. Yeah, but I think more importantly is to realize that neither one of those are something that you should regret because you've learned something from both of those experiences that are going to shape what you're doing now and what decisions you're going to make moving forward, and you're going to make more mistakes in the future. And that's okay, too. There's no one perfect book for you in the library that shows your entire life. Yeah, they all have things that we regret. They all had things that we learned. They all had amazing experience that we never even knew were there until we got on the plane without buying the ticket. That it's called life. It's just don't you can't live it perfectly. There’s no VM that holds up a sign that says 10.0 on it. 

Keyan [00:53:13] It's yeah. It's funny I think of both like my dad's career but also your podcast couple podcasts ago, your, you were doing a little experiment where you guys went back and forth with the careers that you'd worked. And it's just funny to like hear how much people, how much people bounce around. And sometimes some of their favorite experiences in their career were things like they never could have planned it. I don't think that maybe even a year ago, but definitely not five or ten years ago, you would have ever thought that you'd be sitting on a microphone every week chatting with no other people. 

Brian [00:53:50] I would say not even four months ago, three months ago. But I mean, it's just crazy. 

Keyan [00:53:55] And so I mean, it's and those are the kind of things that don't happen if you're not I don't know if you're too busy. If you're too busy, like running down the hallway, you're going to miss going through some of the doors that open for you. 

Brian [00:54:09] And you can't go to all of them. You can't open all the doors. You're not going to do it right? 

Keyan [00:54:12] No, it's like trying to see a whole museum. And one day, you. 

Brian [00:54:15] Know, with all of your different colored glasses. 

Keyan [00:54:18] Yeah. Even without how it is some of these museums man I get it like a quarter of the way through and they're like, oh, we have this whole other building. Wait, what? 

Brian [00:54:25] No, you don't have. 

Keyan [00:54:27] Time for all that. 

Brian [00:54:28] How many times have I seen this at Disney World, where I've seen families, they're going to see the entire part, whether they have to drag their kids through it or not, they're going to see the whole part. This kid wants to sit and play right here on the steps on Main Street. They never even hit to the end of Main Street. This kid's going to have an awesome day, right? How is his day going to be made? Better by checking every box for every ride in the entire and all four parks. Right. It's not. But something in our head says well paid the full amount. Right. We have to see the whole park and it's like, no, you paid the full amount you need to maximize your enjoyment. And right now with him on the ice cream sitting on the stairs, this is it doesn't get better than this for him, right? 

Keyan [00:55:07] You asked us, the US, that was your favorite part. He's like, we hit absolutely everything, right? 

Brian [00:55:13] We nailed all of them. 

Keyan [00:55:15] And then you ask his kids like, Well, what was your favorite part? The kids like, Oh, we stopped at Wendy's afterward and I got it. And I, I got a frosty a large, you know, it way. We just paid all that money to go to Disney World. Your favorite part was the frosty up. 

Brian [00:55:28] Yeah. So this happened our last when I work at Disney World. When were leaving, we asked Bremen and Addie, your last time here, what do you want to do? Anything you want. They wanted to go to the pool at the yacht. They didn't want to go to the park. They didn't want to do the water parks. They didn't want to do they wanted to go play at pool. Right. And, you know, and we do that ourselves, too, as parents, we think that taking them to the pool at Disney World is going to be a better experience and more memorable for them. Whereas I think some of my one of my kids, their favorite location is when went to downtown Salt Lake and stayed in the hotel and walked down to the gateway to see a movie and the planetarium and then came back and swam in the pool and had room service. That was their favorite vacation. So sometimes we get caught up in, in these ideas of what the perfect vacation is, when really it's just, what do you want to do today? 

Keyan [00:56:16] Right. Well, and those are the things, you know, like that's where that's where our that's where the downfall of those three steps ahead plans are, is if you're so set on hitting such and such and such, just going and hanging out in the pool doesn't it's not in there. And you want to be like little do you know that at that pool. You're going to be somebody who's going to have a friend who is going to make your career. You know what I mean? Like, there are things that happen in those moments that can only happen if you've got the blinders off. And if you are like if you're ready and just open in, like if you're open to life happening to you instead of you happening to life, I don't know if that's a good way to put it, but sometimes you have to give up control of things to really enjoy the experience. 

Brian [00:57:08] Yeah, but you see it on the freeway. I mean, every car has one person in it. Everybody has to drive their own car, be in charge, and they have a place they have to hurry and get to. And then they have to hurry and be someplace else in a hurry and be someplace else. And it's like, why don't you just go get on a bus and let it take you wherever they're going for the day? 

Keyan [00:57:22] Yeah. Yeah, that's that was a funny realization I made was I use Waze here because driving in New Jersey is an absolute nightmare. And I would like try to beat that time estimate and it just did it. 

Brian [00:57:37] To win, you have to win. 

Keyan [00:57:39] It would say I would be at a place 2 hours from now. And I found that whether I was going ten over the speed limit or the exact speed limit, the arrival time was always within of one minute. I was like. 

Brian [00:57:50] On a two hour drive. 

Keyan [00:57:52] On a two hour drive. 

Brian [00:57:53] You change lanes and getting ahead and passing and everything else. Right. 

Keyan [00:57:56] Yeah. It's like I'm zooming in and out of all the stuff and it's like you're, you're getting upset at everyone because everyone's terrible driving. And so you're getting upset at everyone and you're risking, you know what I mean? Like you're risking time and money by speeding because at any moment in time, you could get pulled over and you'd be waiting more late than you would have been if you were just gonna speed in the first place and money of the ticket. Plus your chance is going to go up. Plus, I mean, like, there are so many risks to speeding for. I mean, in some cases, if you're good at it, if you're good at speeding and if you're good at navigating traffic, you could potentially save yourself like 5 minutes for a two hour trip. 

Brian [00:58:35] So you're saying you're not good at it because you never saved 5 minutes? You saved one minute. 

Keyan [00:58:38] I must not be I must be terrible at it. And then we all know that you're going to get home and you're going to hop on your gonna hop on your phone and scroll through 5 minutes of social media that you're not going to remember ever again in your life. And so it's like you spent all of that emotional energy being stressed to, you know, to get there. And I think that's the same way with a lot of stuff that I find in life is just like just slow down a bit and I mean, like, take the blinders off, appreciate what's happening. Like you're E.T.A. is about the same regardless. 

Brian [00:59:10] Long term it is the exact same long term, your life span it's. 

Keyan [00:59:13] The same, right? And yeah, it's just there's it's things aren't as urgent as they need to be. But again, contradiction because I talked about how urgent it was for me to do with my take, you know, take it or leave it. That's my favorite part about conversations like this is we could have another one tomorrow night. I would tell you all the opposite things I said. 

Brian [00:59:29] Okay, so recording it and sharing it means that it has to be the truth, right? Because it's captured now. 

Keyan [00:59:35] Yeah, yeah. No, it's it will be to whoever hears it. 

Brian [00:59:38] But again, question your Constance and question your equation and question everything. Right. 

Keyan [00:59:43] Yeah. 

Brian [00:59:44] So, okay, so what makes a good conversation? Not only let's narrow it down a little bit. We can have good conversations at parties or with someone else. We already talked about some where you're vulnerable. You're talking about something that is personal, that is important to you. Not necessarily small talk, I think are most, most conversations. But when you're listening to these podcasts, what part of them do you like? I love this part of it. What part? Or like we should have left this to half an hour out. 

Keyan [01:00:14] Well, the first thing that came to mind is that it's investment. And I think that's the case with a lot of things. But it's the level of investment of the parties involved. I always said I would always tell people like and I think I had it as my bio on my social media for a while. I only care what you have to say if you care what you have to say. And it's that idea of like what people are passionate about, something it's interesting to me. I don't care if it's like you for your career are a septic take sucker as you're passionate about it. That's going to be fast conversation and I'm interested it could be. 

Brian [01:00:51] Underwater some cool shit. 

Keyan [01:00:54] But. 

Brian [01:00:55] Dad jokes got to sneak one in. 

Keyan [01:00:57] Yeah, I, I, I appreciate it, but yeah, I mean, it could be underwater basket weaving, it could be architecture, could be I mean, like you. 

Brian [01:01:07] Equate those two is kind of interesting. You came up with those one after the other. 

Keyan [01:01:10] But I'm trying to cover the spectrum of the but I mean, it can be literally anything. And like and as long as the person is passionate about it, it's interesting. And so passion is part of it. But the reason I didn't say passion is being the key to a good conversation is that people aren't necessarily passionate about talking about their dark moments. Yeah, I'm not passionate about the. Darkest moments in my life, but I am very invested in them because there's a lot of risk involved with that kind of conversation. It's like it's like how it's like the difference in a game of poker. If everybody has a dollar on the table and everyone has their life savings on the table. One game is going to be really good, really good. And one game is like this fun. Let's go get some drinks. Nobody remembers the time they played poker, but the one time that everybody had everything on the table. That's the game that everybody wants to watch. 

Brian [01:02:03] Like that's watch but not participate. 

Keyan [01:02:06] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, if you're the participant, that's like those are the moments that we pour. I feel like as human beings, this is when you when there's a lot on the table, when there's a lot involved. There are moments that I live for as a human, I need to stop throwing everyone under the blanket. I have a terrible habit of thinking that Erin is the same as me, and they're not. But like, it's the high, high investment situations that are interesting. That's why I like conversations. If they're surface level, I have a really hard time with them because they're not necessarily invested. They're trying to go through like your social steps of, you know what I mean? Like it's a pretty hard date, isn't it? Yes. Yes, it is very hot. Humidity level is 72% and it was 73% yesterday. You know, like they're not invested. I'm not invested. And in the end, like, it's just costing us both time. And so, you know, like, let's do both of us a favor and either talk about something interesting or go do something interesting, whether it's together or not together, I don't really care. Let's get to something that we are invested in. Yeah. And so yeah, I think, I think that's a key element of, of a good conversation because you can handle it over the long service level conversations. I just I'm gone from on a different planet. Yeah. 

Brian [01:03:26] So I keep wanting to come back to this. I read this again. 

Keyan [01:03:29] Let's do it. Let's talk about it. 

Brian [01:03:31] You had a couple of quotes in here that I it's interesting at the beginning, you use the term conversation, you used the term vulnerability, you didn't use the term deconstruction, but you did talk about the space that connects it all together. And we can come back to all of those as well as your some of your comments were brick stone and what were very interesting but I part that I one of the quotes that I just loved a lot and I think it's directly relevant to our conversation today is I'll just read the direct quote. I made a mistake. I predetermined a form against all my rules. My form was ruined, my form. I think that is very found and insightful. Tell us a little bit about what was going on and because for those of you that are listening, it part of his master's thesis was poetry and an art book that talks about tolerance. And at the same time that you were going through your master's degree architecture, you were doing some pretty heavy deconstruction of your own. And both of them came through beautifully in this thesis. And anyway, so yeah, if you want to kind of tell me a little bit about how your form was, now let's. 

Keyan [01:04:44] Let's dove into it. This is, this is what everybody wanted to hear anyway. They want to hear my life. Glass office. 

Brian [01:04:50] So this is part of your life philosophy. This has become part of your equation. I mean. 

Keyan [01:04:54] This is it. Yeah. So yeah, I go for an architecture thesis. Everyone else is designing a building and drawing floorplans and coming up with this result to an architectural problem that ends in this commercial building or office building, or some sort of cool typology. And then I pumped out like a book of poetry and talk about anxiety inducing. Try to present try to present poetry as your final thesis to an architecture group. 

Brian [01:05:27] Which could very easily ended up with just a big F. You misunderstood the assignment. I mean. 

Keyan [01:05:32] Oh, I risk absolutely everything on that. Yeah, I. 

Brian [01:05:36] Am. Just for you. Get started. I got to watch this because it was online. All in all, a zoom. I got to watch the entire thing. And your pressers absolutely loved it. And I felt really, really bad for the girl that had to follow you, because I think she was coming in there with a typical architectural project and the professors had just had their worlds blown away by this profound experience that you shared with them. And now they're all of a sudden back to their regularly scheduled program, and they didn't want to go back. And I felt really bad for the next person because it was so beautifully done and so moving for all of the professors. So anyway. Yeah. 

Keyan [01:06:21] Yeah. Well. 

Brian [01:06:22] Not an effort. Not enough. Not enough. 

Keyan [01:06:25] I would like the record to state that I did get a master's degree. So, I mean, I used to get degrees, know it went over. We will. And I'll and I'll preface this with saying I've always been better at writing than I have at speaking. I always prefer to text and email people. And I have complicated things to talk about because I always stumble over my words. So you'll probably be able to read it faster than I can try and talk about it. It's on my website cadence and. 

Brian [01:06:56] We'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. 

Keyan [01:06:58] Yeah. Still under construction. I don't own anything yet. So this is all. Build it yourself. Build it yourself. Plan. So websites are a work in progress, no judgment. But under the academic portion, you can either view it online or download a copy of my thesis book called Tolerance. It takes like an hour to read to click, and that's almost in a format that I prefer to experience it, because I think that I mean, one of the many things that I learned in that program was that for any I would consider any verb form of communication when we normally would, we think of communication, we think of voice and words and written word or spoken word in language. And that's how we communicate. And I really learned through that final program that we're always communicating in every link of any verb that you could possibly think of. And if you're communicating something in a different publication. And so the book with the Whitespace, that was a lot of the images, the way that the words are placed on the page, there's a lot of that goes into how those are correlated or where the breaks are and where the white spaces. And so obviously that's the ideal format. But yeah, so going into my thesis, I, I struggled as I do in most areas of life, not finding an idea but in having way, way too much. And I was trying to like, oh, well, what if I, you know, I'm going to do my thesis on material, but also on phenomenology, but also on this and also on this. I'm going to look them all into this grouping and everyone kept like in all my critiques, they're like, that's not that's not a thesis. That's a wish list. You know, like that's you need to narrow it down because you've only got a year to do it. And I was like, No, I can do it, you know, like a fast worker. But I was blessed to have a professor who helped me realize the work was actually interesting to me. Was the space between and so similar to the analogy to the reference to arrival earlier that the real message was, was the white space between all the symbols that were provided by the aliens. The same thing was happening for me. It was I wasn't interested in material per say and I wasn't interested in phenomenology per say. I was interested in what connected them all because they were connected. And there's a reason that there is a reason that I was drawn to all of them. So and all tenuously that there were call it fibers called energy something connected those topics in a language that really drew me and so it took forever to try and wordsmith that entity that latency that's a word I use a lot is latency which basically is just my form of saying this unformed something that's waiting to become call it, you know what I mean? Like your religious background may influence what you do. Call it a call it spirit, call energy, call it chakra, call it not, call it whatever you might. There was there was a not non-material matter that wanted to form. And I finally kind of settled on the term tolerance because it had multiple definitions and it hit the many areas perfectly. And so tolerance is a word that's used a lot in architecture because we talk about, you know, in the digital age, you have things that you draw out on a computer. But when you draw two boards coming together on a computer, that line is super tight and perfect. And when you actually constructed a real world, you're not going to have absolutely some to zero decimal tolerance between those two objects. There's going to be warping in the world. There's going to be. And so it's difficult to try to communicate like that, that kind of real world raw this in this non real digital realm. And also how much you have to deal with that. You deal with in architecture, you deal with take a look at the next large brick building that you see and you'll see that every dotted 20 feet or so there's a vertical line cuts through the whole thing. And it's because they have to create a brick because of thermal expansion. Different materials expand at different rates in different distances. And it's not a big deal over the course of one brick, but when you get 100 of them lined up, if they all expand. The fraction of which now, I mean, like buildings or buildings are changing in size all the time. It's just happening in very small increments. And so you have to design in that tolerance for to move to shift. And different materials have different qualities. Another one of the terms for tolerance was being able to remember exactly the definition. 

Brian [01:11:55] Got all three of them right here. 

Keyan [01:11:56] You mean reading? Yeah. Yeah. 

Brian [01:11:57] So the first one. The first one was the ability to or willingness tolerate something in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. 

Keyan [01:12:06] Yes. 

Brian [01:12:06] And the one you were just talking about was an allowable amount of variation of a specified quantity, especially in the dimensions of a machine or part. And the last one is the capacity to endure tinued subjection to something without adverse reaction. 

Keyan [01:12:21] Yes. So, yeah, at that moment in time, I was dealing with a big transition. I was dealing with the death of a family member. I was dealing with depression. I was dealing with isolation. I had moved away from everyone. I didn't have hardly anyone that I knew. I lost my community through that. I always relied on through religion I was raised in. And I had basically most of the things that are difficult obstacles to handle in life. I was kind of going through all of them at the same time and somehow ended up using my architectural thesis to grapple with that. 

Brian [01:13:10] I don't know if it was somehow I mean, your brain was struggling with all of this. Your emotions were struggling with all this. Anything you were doing at the time, it would have come out in the fact that you were doing something creative is just kind of another form of expression. Of course it was going to come out right. 

Keyan [01:13:24] But not as I think that the difference is that those things can affect someone's work. But in my case, it became my work. 

Brian [01:13:32] It was center stage. Yeah. 

Keyan [01:13:33] Yeah. That was my thesis was like, I, I got up and presented me grappling with the death of a grandparent in front of a group of panelists and critics. 

Brian [01:13:46] Yeah, but one of my favorite quotes that I like from this was this thesis is not my contribution to the field of architecture. The person that I became in the making of it. 

Keyan [01:13:55] Is exactly. 

Brian [01:13:56] Which I thought was absolutely. 

Keyan [01:13:58] Beautiful. Exactly. And that's and that was kind of the gist of it. That was on the big realizations that I made was that although there are three or three realizations that are made in there. One of them is that I was the product of education. The goal of education is the people that it creates, not necessarily the degree that it gives you or the grades that you get or whatever it may be. People always talk about, you know, like, Oh, what should I get my degree? And most of the time my answer is it doesn't really matter because the goal is to become the kind of person that can make it through that system. Not not not necessarily this specific result. Sure. In architecture, you need a masters quote. You needed accredited degree to get licensed. There are hoops to jump through. But to me, being a product of my education. And so, yeah, I, I created a snapshot in time of who I was and put it into poetry and sculpture and threw it out there in front of a bunch of people to critique. And I think that's what every artist does in a way. I really gain an appreciation for the artist having been at an art school. But yeah. And so the method that I took was an investigation into Serial. And so I wanted to use material, I wanted to say material and talking about like tactile architectural material. I used specifically stone, wood and brick, but I wanted to use those to understand both tolerance or architectural tolerance, but also social tolerance. I think that there is embedded knowledge in things that we can learn from. And so, yeah, I began a like you mentioned conversation, quote unquote, inanimate objects. Covid had just hit the studios had closed down. I had no access to the shops. I had some chisels and a hammer and a Dremel. And I was in a 400 square foot apartment. And so my space became my front porch, and I sat out on my little two and a half foot by two and a half foot concrete patio in front of my door. And it created a snapshot of my life. And I didn't really know what I was doing because I hadn't planned it out. And that was kind of the point. And so I just I kind of took a break and I just grabbed a Dremel and I randomly picked a bit and I just turned it on and started. Everything away. And I don't really know. I don't really know what to do that this process was something that I had learned in a previous class. It was a drawing class, and she had us do an experiment where we draw from memory. So I literally took the pencil. I don't remember what I had. And she wanted us to do a self-portrait from memory. And so I just kind of put the pencil down and just started moving it and super awkward and it looks like scribbles that it doesn't look like anything. And then like you start to see some shapes form. And I do this all the time when I'm trying to brainstorm now is I just start scribbling page just nonsense thing and a lot of times it doesn't become something. But in this particular scenario it did. And all of a sudden I started to sketch this perspective portrait of myself, and it was from behind and to my left over my shoulder. It was actually surprisingly accurate and I'd never, um, terrible, tragic events, particularly myself. But this like image of myself just manifested through these scribbles. And it was incredible to me that I hadn't forced it. I didn't sit down, say, I'm going to draw this perspective on myself. This is how it's going to happen. I just like I sat down and just started doing something. 

Brian [01:17:53] Because it wasn't that part of your brain that was drawing this. You've intentionally shut off that part of the planning and thinking and whatever. It's like, Nope, this is going to have to be a different part of me that's drawing this. 

Keyan [01:18:04] Exactly. Yeah. And so it was just straight instinctual body movements to paper that started to draw the sketch. And then it became this perspective sketch of myself. And it was probably one of the best human drawings I've ever done in Human Survival to draw. And that's what I kind of learned like this, this process of discovering something. And that's when I really started to understand art and drawing and making, not as a not as like a method of creating something that was predetermined, but as a method of discovery. 

Brian [01:18:42] And sometimes I'll do that with writing. If I'm stuck and I don't know where to start, I will just sit down and just start writing what I'm seeing, what I'm looking at, what I'm and a paragraph or two later, an idea starts to come out of it. I just follow it and I just go through and delete the first two paragraphs kind of thing, you know? Yeah, yeah. But absolutely came to this point and this perspective or this concept that I didn't even know was there. If I had waited for that to come there, I never would have started writing. 

Keyan [01:19:07] Totally. You sit there with writer's block? Yeah. Just needing something good to come out and it's like it's blocked because it's got a bunch of not good things in the way. Yeah. Not good things out before you can let the good things kind of start flowing and, and yeah. And we actually learned this really cool method that I've also carried over into a lot of my work now where there was this, this trifecta of drawing, writing and making. So you draw until drawing isn't telling you anything else, and then you shift. Then you go to writing and you write about it until writing isn't giving you anything else. And then you shift. Then you get to making and you just get something and start doing until that doesn't tell you anything else and you don't ever get stuck because as soon as you do get stuck with one, you move to a different method. And so you just bounce around between these and you start producing things and it's this, this and the do top ten movie don't think, just do just you just start with something Patty has been dealing with then up at her summer program right now, like I don't know what I want to do. I want to have something at the end, but I don't know what it is. I'm like, That's kind of the point. Just start doing something like, I don't care if it's putting a paintbrush on paper or with you start carving something out of a paintbrush, or whether you just go start pushing dirt around with your foot and like just physically start doing something and, and let that like instinctual like form of, of, of whatever that latency is, start communicating itself however it needs to you just like you just have to put things in motion for things to evolve and for things to come out and say, Yeah, I started carving into this brick and then all of a sudden I started to discover it wasn't necessarily the forms that were resulting, but I was discovering that there were different levels of hardness I would push and it would sink really quickly into this brick until it would get to certain spots and those would be really hard. And so I would find those. And then I started pulling those out. So I would carve away all the soft spots from the brick and just leave the hard spots. And the hard spots created these forms that were really cool to look at things that I never would have identified. 

Brian [01:21:16] So I don't know if I'm ever going to release these videos, but I'm holding up a picture of one of them. 

Keyan [01:21:20] Yeah. And, and so anyway, like the things that started to resolve these cool forms, but they, interestingly enough, were reminiscent of arches. Things that I'd seen in southern Utah and. And so I just started discovering that like I was talking, it wasn't using words. It wasn't like were telepathic or communicating. It was like this. It was a conversation that was happening through the verb that I chosen to interact with it. And it was starting to tell me these things and some of these realizations that I was making as I'm sitting there on this porch carving this brick. I'm also grappling with these incredibly difficult life circumstances. And these correlations are starting to appear. And the different correlations that were made became foundational to who I am now. And they helped me to work through the things that I was having a really hard time with. It, like started to help me understand my relationship with my dad, started to help me grapple with passing. My grandma started to help me understand my own frustrations with myself for a lot of like just social ignorance that I had discovered and wanted to make better. And so as I'm discovering this tolerance within these materials, I'm also finding these metaphors and analogies tolerance that I was seeing in the social world around me and in myself, and starting to learn these lessons of things that maybe some were hard for me to swallow and maybe some were better. But it was just this really cool space that was dark but extremely rich in mental nutrients, if that makes sense. 

Brian [01:23:11] Since you since that event, how many times have you been able to have an experience similar to that? I mean, this was an all encompassing part of your life where you're out there 60 hours a week working on this, working through some stuff. I mean, that's a luxury that we don't get very often been able to approach that again or replicate any in any of that. And if so, how? 

Keyan [01:23:33] I, I can't say that I sit on my porch with a driving. 

Brian [01:23:37] Record. 

Keyan [01:23:38] Very often anymore. I did when, when I was allowed through, through certain firms that I worked with, I did take that approach in discovering some of the concepts for some of the architecture that I was designing. Still, one of my favorite approaches is to go to the site and find an artifact from the site, be it a stone or a root or a flower or an arrangement of objects on the site, and then take them if possible, and use whatever means necessary to start a conversation. And it doesn't take too long once you've done it a few times to start hearing the things that it has to say and those result in forms that inevitably work the site from which they came. I mean, how better to how better to figure out what will go well in a certain piece of property than asking a piece of property, you know, sounds real hippie, but the point is it work and it's fun and it creates something that's it's alive. It's it's different. It's very different. Then coming in saying, well, I like this cantilevered piece of building and I like this material and I'm from California, so I kind of want this like California look in plaster and we're just going to collage together things that we've seen on Pinterest and mash it into a form. And we're going to call this architecture that works cool results and that's art that it's own way. But then you get this other approach where it's like you've discovered a story, and then that story has given you a form, and then the story continues to give form to everything I did. I did a project where I kind of discovered that the site was all about lifting. And the house from the beginning starts with this garage in the ground, and then the building slowly lifts up and out of the ground and then turns and continues lifting until it hangs off the edge of this cliff. And inside you step into the house and then you go up a step, and then you go for a while and you go up another step and it just continues stepping and stepping, but then it continues to carry into other things, like we would pull away parts of the ceiling and create these recessed lights so that it felt like the roof was lifting off of the space and just finding all of these areas. The home where that story continues to evolve, continues to play a part. And in the end, it's not a house. It's it's a, it's an entity in a way. Yeah. And to add to be able to create that even more and as jealous as I am to be able to live it, it will inevitably like something like that will inevitably play a role in who and how you are. Whether you spend enough time or something like that. It becomes a family member in a way. And it changes. Like I always tell people, if you go on a trip for three weeks with somebody who. Has a tendency of saying one particular word in one particular situation. When you come back from that three week trip, chances are pretty high that you may have picked up on using that word in that particular situation, because we're integrally connected with the spaces around us, and it's no different with our environments. I mean, if you spend I think statistics show that you would spend 90% of their time indoors. I mean, you spend 90% of your life in a house. What was the house doing? I mean, like, how is that changing how you act? How is that changing how you are changing how you feel? And how does that repetition change your personality? Change who you are like? They're subtle, but it's happening. And it happens in so many aspects of life. 

Brian [01:27:20] Yeah, but intentionally or unintentionally, I mean, whether your house was just designed to be 100% efficient or the cheapest design or materials that's going to affect every day of every minute that you're in that house. 

Keyan [01:27:33] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you think of some of the most powerful experience. I mean, if you ask any person what some of their most powerful experiences have been, it's likely be very, very much based around the environment in which the experience, whether it's nature or whether it's in a temple or whether it's going to be like some space. I mean, the environment to which things happen plays a very, very integral role and presents itself. And a lot of times we sell ourselves short because we've identified that communication happens with words written and spoken. 

Brian [01:28:09] And in the words imprecise, and we attach more value to them than they actually convey. We think that they mean certain things, but they may not be interpreted as that. And they're very crude instruments to try to capture these beautiful, rich thoughts and feelings with a word like nice. 

Keyan [01:28:28] Yeah. 

Brian [01:28:28] It just. It doesn't they're. It's a crude approximation. 

Keyan [01:28:31] Well, yeah, they're an abbreviation of a concept. And we're communicating with a bunch of abbreviations and hoping that people unpack those abbreviations in the same way that we impact them. But a lot of times people don't. 

Brian [01:28:44] Yeah, well, it even in modern times, we're even taking phrases and turning them into acronyms and everything else in our texting where we're dumbing them down even further. We're ripping out whatever energy or meaning they used to have into a33 letter snippet. 

Keyan [01:29:00] Yeah. Idk. Right. Yeah. Which is interesting because they're in their own way becoming a new entity because even something like 80 K doesn't actually mean the same thing that I don't know means it now that means something totally different. But, but, yeah. So yeah, these are this has played a very big role. 

Brian [01:29:19] How much how much do you think that you said your thesis provided a snapshot of that key and how much of that you think still represents now? 

Keyan [01:29:30] And my analogy, muscles are working. I'm trying to decide. I want to say that the humans are like stacking bricks. And so, I mean, you're built on your built on the previous. Each thing that happens is your life is it's a stack of that pile and things are kind of piled on top of that. But I think that's maybe an oversimplification and maybe it's not the right one. But is it so? Well, it might be right. Yeah, it could be that as well. I think the I mean, if we're going to say super Stu, like I would definitely say that my thesis is like some of the main ingredients in the current status of the soup. Like you could taste those ingredients and you can taste soup and you can see that those ingredients are a very large portion of the flavor of the soup at that point in time. But yeah, I think they are, I think they are pretty close. But I think that it was a snapshot of an awakening for me, a releasing of pressure and a I use the term equalization pressure in there. Yeah. And, and it was a very balance event. It was something that really laid this foundation for me to start evolving to, to where I am now. And I don't know, as I was walking home from work the other day, the streets of good old New York City. And I was thinking to myself, I was thinking, I have the absolute best version of myself that I've ever been. And I was happy about that, but I was also ready to keep going at the same time. 

Brian [01:31:03] I was can't tell you how powerful that was that just hit me, by the way, how happy I am for you for not only being there, but coming to that realization while you're there. It's yeah, I'm overwhelmed. 

Keyan [01:31:15] It's such a powerful and a liberating thing to feel. I think that I'm hypercritical and I've been very, very hard on myself and who I am for most of my life. Yeah, I regret it a lot of the way that I was. I always wanted to be something else that some elements. Of the culture I was raised in caused me to be extremely self-conscious physically. And I also think that I just I never felt comfortable in my own bones. I wasn't happy with the character that I'd chosen my video game. And I wanted to learn to choose a different one. And at some point I wanted to give that character up. There were there were plenty of times where I was unhappy enough that didn't really make sense to I didn't want to know how the rest of the book with. I just wasn't interested. I just wanted to read someone else's book or just maybe not read. And those were tough times as well. Those happened a lot before my thirties and fortunately not so much recently. But those events led to me feeling isolated and alone. And I just I think that like most people going through things like that, you just think that you're the only one who's dealing with that. Your party, part of it's ego. You just want your situation to be harder than everyone else's. No one else could possibly be going through something as difficult as be my love, my loss, the worst that there is. Don't try and prove me wrong kind of thing. And, and then yeah, I've, I've gotten to a point now where I can, I can look at myself in the mirror and be like, This is a cool character. Like, kind of I'm kind of starting to enjoy this, this game. Like it's you're developing in cool ways, you know, and starting to. I'm fortunate to have started to understand that the equations that I use usually have pretty outstanding results. And so I've developed the confidence to know that no matter what I get into, my little box of equations is going to pump out something pretty rad on the other side. And that's kind of all I can rely on a lot of the time. But it does create some anticipation and hope for a lot of circumstances in my life. It's like I know, like, no, let's, let's use that word again because it's happened enough times that it's highly probable that the I'm going to do something or be something cooler or better after this thing that I'm going through. And I've learned to trust my conscious self has learned to trust that my unconscious self isn't totally reckless. And that's been a big learning experience for me as well. Growing up in the growing up in the church, I always was afraid that if I let the unconscious self go and not be charged with the conscious self, that it would just self implode and that it would if I ever if I ever kind of let the train just go, it would run itself off the tracks or explode or start doing reckless things or. 

Brian [01:34:27] Become it did run off the track and it's in a beautiful place and is doing just fine. Yeah, right. That, that fear wasn't, wasn't, was, there was nothing to that fear. It is in a much better place because it got off the track. 

Keyan [01:34:39] Right. Yeah. It's yeah, it's tough. And there are so many people, there's so many people in my life that I wish genuinely believe that. Yeah. About my, about my scenario. 

Brian [01:34:50] Can't do anything about what they think about your scenario. 

Keyan [01:34:52] No, absolutely not. 

Brian [01:34:54] You, you hit it on the head, you, you feel comfortable. You do have a very cool character. You have a lot of great future and faith in yourself, knowing that whatever that picture is, whether than sitting here and worrying about it, you know, that the ends got this, future kids got this. There's going to be rough spots for sure. Right. But it's going to be able to take care of that. 

Keyan [01:35:16] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's there's so much peace in that. And it's like not like I don't have to micromanage myself. I don't have to babysit myself because I trust myself. Yeah. And that I know the you know what I mean? Like, without trying to separate myself into multiple identities, identify what that is, it's hard to really explain it, but like when I say myself, we're talking about one self trusting another self, whether it's spiritual or mental within mental or there's something entirely different. I mean, I don't know. But there's so much peace in knowing that I don't have to be a control freak over myself. Yeah. 

Brian [01:35:57] But I also don't beat up that past version of yourself, because as difficult as that person was, they're the ones that got you to this point that control freak part is the reason that you were able to do some of the things you did and then and do it the way you did it. And I think being grateful for that aspect of it, it's like still knowing old equation, but you're holding onto it loosely and you're just aware of it and you can use it where it makes sense. And maybe for right now that doesn't make sense. We put the Dremel down and we pick up something else for right now, and when we that runs out, then we come back to something else or when that runs back. We come back and pick up the Dremel right. 

Keyan [01:36:36] Now and. 

Brian [01:36:37] I get to be a little hard on myself for my past self, for things that I don't like about myself, that I'm still trying to break some habits and I'm like, person me, get where I am, so I need to be a little bit kind to that person. It wasn't as big of an asshole as I'd make him out to be. Sometimes he's still got a problem. 

Keyan [01:36:55] Now, you've been pretty rad the whole time I'm here. 

Brian [01:36:58] Oh, come on, y'all. Your first time we had you up the lake, we strapped you to the cabin. Yeah. 

Keyan [01:37:01] With a broken rib. Yeah. 

Brian [01:37:03] Oh, yeah, right. I forgot about that. You don't bring that up every time we talk about it. 

Speaker 3 [01:37:10] I had a. 

Keyan [01:37:12] I had a thought the other day. Was it the other day? Was it today? They're all the same. What was it that. All of my regrets, frustrations about the past are based on hypotheticals is it's always. I'm upset that it was this way because it could have been this way. 

Brian [01:37:29] Yeah, and you don't. 

Keyan [01:37:30] Know, but I don't know. And that's a hypothetical. 

Brian [01:37:32] And all of your anxieties about your future are also hypotheticals. 

Keyan [01:37:36] Totally. 

Brian [01:37:37] One of the things that Hardy brought up is he says you can only understand the future by looking backwards, knowing that, hey, I know you're worried that I'm going to do this, I'm going to screw this up. But look at the things that happened like this in the past and every time we handled it okay. Right. That's the only thing we know for sure is when we did things in the past that we didn't expect or where he got caught with an issue, we handled it fine. So know that in the future, when we get caught with another issue, we'll handle it. Fine. 

Keyan [01:38:00] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's those. My mom. My mom caught me in one of those hypotheticals one day because I was talking about my family being so religious. Sunday's we're off limits for creation. And the sport that I absolutely love the most is very sun centric. All the big races, but on weekends usually practice Saturday, racing Sunday. And I was chatting with my mom about how I was sad the that because the Sundays had been restricted. I mean my so my dad and my brother and one of my brothers in law we bonded for a large period of time over motorcycles, motorcycle riding, motocross offroad motorcycles. And there was a period of time when we would duck races and then hang out. There's this sense of community that happens and this like bonding that happens when we are participating in those events. And I was sad because I was thinking about how many Sundays could have been we could have been bonding like that. How many how much of that could have been happening that I was watching? That was the Ford versus Ferrari. Yeah. Great show where he sits down with his son on this runway of this racetrack. It's talking to them about engines and this like father son bonding moment. And I was thinking, you know, like I think if religion hadn't been there, I think that motorcycles would have been that for us. And so I created this tree in my head of what I had lost. And then I was sad about this thing that I created that I never had, that I was and my mom called me out and she was like, well, that's like that's just a dream, though. Like, you know, there's no guarantee that would have been the case. And she was right. And I realized how often that happens, you know, somebody that thinks I'm like bummed that this was what I did with my younger years because what I could have been doing was this. But also, I wasn't 30 years old back then. I wouldn't have made the decision that I would have made for myself now as a youth, you know, so, so many things are just based on hypotheticals that I get myself all disappointed over because I'm like, oh, could have been this. And they might not have and probably wouldn't have been most of those things. But we get real. We are real tied up with that. That's hypothetical anyway, because I thought I had good thought. I like it. I have them. 

Brian [01:40:20] Sometimes you have any other and you want to cover before we sign off. I mean, like you said, we can do this again next week and have a complete temptation. 

Keyan [01:40:28] Yeah. Yeah. There was a there's a concept that I wanted to get into that is a whole conversation in and of itself. But I don't know if we want to jump on to an already, already long conversation or split into another one. But it had everything to do with me finding purpose outside of religion and meaning. 

Brian [01:40:48] Do you want to take a little break and keep going or are you done for the night or. 

Keyan [01:40:52] I'm chill and I'm just worried about creating an hour long. 

Brian [01:40:56] We can always edit it and add and put it off as a separate one. Okay. If you if you're up for it, I want you know, I'm respectful of your time, too. It's laid out there. Yeah. The Holy Ghost goes to sleep at 10:00, so. 

Keyan [01:41:07] Yeah, now's when the demons come out. Buckle your seatbelt. Yeah. 

Brian [01:41:13] Just give me just one minute so I can go talk with Gap and catch up on something. And I'll be right back. 

Keyan [01:41:18] Okay. Go to work. 

Brian [01:41:20] I said, okay. Okay, go. 

Keyan [01:41:22] Okay, go. All right. You know, it's tough because when I listen to all your podcasts now, it's nice. That's nice that I have your podcast now, because now I can like curiously have conversations with people without having have conversations with people. I know that's probably not what you intended your podcast to do, but I. 

Brian [01:41:39] Having conversations with people I never thought I would meet. I don't I never would have met them. Yeah, which is fantastic. Talk about an interesting perspective. 

Keyan [01:41:48] I was listening to that one during work today. Well, I don't know that I have any experiences that are interesting after some of those. 

Brian [01:41:55] Right. 

Keyan [01:41:55] It's pretty wild. 

Brian [01:41:56] And she's just her experience with the Nomad Alliance and with the homeless. I mean, her bringing up the idea of there is there are no two socioeconomic parties that are more separate than the sheltered and the non sheltered. Like I never considered that, but it's absolutely right. 

Keyan [01:42:14] It was actually ironic because as I was listening to her talk about homeless the like the homeless minority group, I walked past a man on the street who was homeless, who was yelling at the top of his lungs about the miscarriage of homeless people in New York City. Yeah, I was just like it was I mean, it definitely opened up my eyes. I wanted to start just, like, giving people hugs and handing out cash. But , yeah, I think they've all been. I think they've all been really cool. It was like going somewhere with that. I don't know that I had like a follow up question to. Oh, I know where I was going. It's tough because as I listen to all this conversation, I want to interject, maybe not interject, but participate or jump in and be like, Yeah, because of like this or Yeah, because of that. And then I was like, Oh, I need to start writing all these down. Like, if we have a chat, I wanna talk about all these. And I was like, That's not the point. 

Brian [01:43:08] It is though. I want to pull other people in. So two things on that. One, you may not be here, but when Delaney and Charlie come back for their Utah portion of their wedding, Amanda and Santiago will be here and so will several other people that I interviewed. I'll live here. We're all going to get together for like a dinner and maybe make it like a live event or invite people that want to come say hi to all of them. I'm not quite sure what that would work. If you come up with some interesting ideas, I'd love to know. You know, people that are listening, if you want to come by and meet 90% of the people that I've talked with are going to be at one place. But also I just started a community on Facebook that I'm dying for people to start having these conversations and to start asking these questions of these guests. They're all members of that community as well, and start having those conversations online because I want that or listening to this to be able to participate and ask specific questions. It's like, Yeah, but how did you handle this? Or How did you work out this? Or did you ever? And I want that conversation to continue. And everybody that I've interviewed has been very open with, yeah, just let me know. I mean, they will participate in answering the questions, but nobody's asking questions. Nobody's inviting nobody. Nobody's getting them involved with it. I'm like, I'm dying for this to happen because I think once it takes off, it'll be just this most amazing online conversation with all of these people that we kind of all know, but they're completely different. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my ramp. That's my new. 

Keyan [01:44:34] Thing. You're going to make celebrities out of the. Out of some of these guests. It'll be pretty rad, right? Yeah. It's I've been stoked on, like, some of the diversity that's come through and some of like, yeah, I just it's really cool, but it's also hard sometimes for somebody like me because, like, I want to feel like I'm going to feel like I'm unique, you know, I need to if everyone else is doing something I have to do sometimes. Yeah. Like, like when I moved to Provo, I didn't. I didn't want to be a Mormon because I was in Provo because everyone else was. And so it's hard when I start to realize how many people are having similar issues as me. It's like, Well, I need to come up with different issues then, you know. 

Brian [01:45:12] Right, right. It's all the same thing as different as we are because we all like to think we are. It's the same issues. 

Keyan [01:45:18] Where you where you're having family friendly relationship issues. Yeah. Oh, oh well that, that I don't know right now I'm dealing with I, I'm dealing with depression. But you have dealt with that one. Oh what you have. 

Brian [01:45:30] Oh and anxiety and yeah. And every my inner critic won't shut up. Yeah. Yeah. 

Keyan [01:45:37] It's good though. I mean it's unifying. 

Brian [01:45:40] Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think when, when everybody's social news algorithm tells them that they're the only smart ones and everyone else is an idiot. Kind of nice to get together with someone who has a completely different perspective on it, completely different view of the world and realize, Oh, that's a legitimate way of looking at that too. Yeah. You know, whether you agree with it or whether you don't, it's your experiences led you one way. Their experiences have led them in another way, and they put as much thought and heartache into their choices and where they are to as you have with yours. Yeah. And again, the wall is yellow, but neither one of you are seeing it as yellow. So who's right and who's wrong? You both are. Yeah. Counts. Right. So just leave some room for that. And when you're talking passing people on the street, homeless people or whoever else, you're passing on the street. Just keep in mind that, you know, if we change goggles right now, if we change complete glasses, probably see the same thing that they were seeing. The same background, right? It's just my glasses don't make me smarter or better. Yeah, it is my glasses. 

Keyan [01:46:39] I remember. I remember reading. Did you ever read Visions of Glory? No. So there's a book by guy who member of the church and had many near-death or actual death experiences and had out-of-body experiences and visions about the second coming and a lot of that sort of stuff. And it was very detailed, very robust and gave me all sorts of anxiety for a long time about me dying and everyone dying. But anyway, there's one moment where he talks about this experience where as he came out of his body and was just spirit, he was experiencing other people and like basically like he couldn't feel anything but love for them. Even like, like when you uncork the history of someone and you can see everything that's happened from them from beginning to current, there is no judgment involved because you know that A led to be at the sea and what's happening right now is very much a result of everything that's happened before. And so the judgment goes away. And I always kind of thought that was cool and it was kind of a perspective that I was to take is kind of like in my, in my dad's experience of joining the church. I mean, he had a bit of a tumultuous childhood and a little bit of instability, maybe a lot of bit of instability, and was really looking for this happiness and unification that he was seeing in some of his friends and then his friends as families. And he found that the one thing that all of the friends that he admired and looked up to, the one thing they all had in common was they were members of the Mormon Church. And that's when he wanted to have that. He wanted that in his life. He wanted that happiness. He wanted that family unity that those people had. And so, I mean, like the more of the puzzle pieces I learned and discovered over the years about him, the more it makes me understand that everything makes sense. I mean, like where he is now and the way that he sees things, they make perfect sense. And like, it's and that's one of those situations where it's like a flower. In his scenario, I probably may have another hypothetical. I'm not a listener, so I'm not going to guess what I would have done. But I can't. I can't judge from my perspective someone else's perspective. 

Brian [01:49:04] No, but. Right. But you give them the benefit of the doubt because given who they are and the situation that they went through, they were doing the best they could. The led them to where they are now. 

Keyan [01:49:13] Exactly. 

Brian [01:49:13] You've got to give them that benefit of the doubt. Right. You can't say what they would have done it differently or, you know, there's no way you could know that. Right. And there's just an equal likelihood that you would have screwed it up. Made it worse. Yeah, but we don't consider that, right. We're like, oh, no, I would have definitely. Yeah, no, you would have turned made it made you could have made it a bigger yeah. 

Keyan [01:49:33] Yeah, 100%. So yeah. I think, I think the more that, the more of that you discover about someone, the more and more their decisions start to make sense. 

Brian [01:49:40] And the less they affect you. Right. Because you, you get to decide what do from there if you're allowed to get off the track. Right. If you're allowed to if you're laying your own track and you're doing that, then there's a lot more there you can kind of work with. 

Keyan [01:49:56] Yeah. 

Brian [01:49:57] But if you are still following in someone else's game plan, kind of on you too. Right. 

Keyan [01:50:02] Right. Well, yeah, it's that's funny because in some of the chats with other people who have left who've left the Mormon Church, you talk a lot about how you would never wish that negative experience that somebody went through on someone else. Yeah. And I was making the correlation there with. No, don't want the negative, but you do want the positive. Yeah. 

Brian [01:50:27] It is worth the price. Right. 

Keyan [01:50:29] And, and that idea of like when they tell you and you're on your, on a missionary and you get released from being this missionary that you should never stop being a missionary. I haven't. I just am a missionary for what is making what caused me joy now. Yeah. And so I found that interesting because a lot of people think of it as trying to bring something down or something of that sort, when in reality, when you find something that brings you joy, people want to share it, recapture for sure. So I wanted to talk about the moment that I realized that we as humans are not the. I wanted to talk about how I began to understand our connectedness things. And it was through this lesson. And you know what? Maybe we do need to do an episode. 

Brian [01:51:19] Okay, we can do that. 

Keyan [01:51:20] We can break that up because I think there's a couple of topics there. I think that I think there's a faith transition conversation. And I think that there is and I think that there's that big lesson that I learned that. We are not that our body is not the extent of us that we are actually we stretch beyond our boundaries and that there actually are no boundaries which creates this interconnectedness between everything. And just the other idea that the idea that we are not these individual entities moving around, but we're all part of one very big interconnected and interdependent entity. That was a huge realization for me, both architecturally and outside of that. And I think that I think those would be good to dove into it another time. 

Brian [01:52:06] I would love to do that. Did you talk about that with Gaby? She talks about getting eaten by the bear. Was that part of your conversation with her a couple weeks ago? 

Keyan [01:52:12] Yeah. Yeah, there's some core realizations that we made in that conversation. So part of it was realized the master's thesis. Part of it was realized in additional conversations. That's why I love this kind of stuff, is because this is in a way become my this has become my life. These are my fireside. These are my. Yeah, right. These these are the moments when, like, I am learning and growing spiritually is during conversations. And I rely on conversations for that. Those are my source now. And so that's I think that may contribute to I have a low tolerance for shallow conversations. 

Brian [01:52:44] Oh, you were talking about the spiritual growth of the fireside. And I one of the things that I get out of it is that connection with other humans, interconnectedness, not only of the similar trials and successes, but just deeper sharing of our inner core with another human being and becoming connected with them. I mean, I follow up with almost every one of my guests, probably at least once a month, sometimes once a week for some of them. And just we just have this ongoing conversation now with these great people, and it's going on in their life and their new job and pretty interesting. 

Keyan [01:53:20] Awesome. It's it's been nice. That's been nice for me because I mean, I am always driving on the weekends and contracts are all about an hour and a half away. So getting on the podcast, I listen to one on my way there and went back 

Keyan [01:59:17] So then I love that so much. 

Brian [01:59:21] I think these digressions are some of my favorite parts of the conversations. 

Keyan [01:59:24] Yeah, yeah, they're good stuff. 

Brian [01:59:28] Thank you for listening to strangers. You know, if you're enjoying our conversations, please share us with a friend. Continue the conversation by sharing and liking on Facebook and social media, or for exclusive content and detailed show notes. Visit our website at www.StrangersYouKnowPodcast.com where you can subscribe to our newsletter or make a donation to support the show. Thank you for your support.