Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] Welcome to our first episode of We Are Supported by.
[1] Hi, Kristen Bell.
[2] Hi, Monica Padman.
[3] We get to do this.
[4] I know.
[5] It's very exciting.
[6] How are you feeling today?
[7] I'm feeling great.
[8] How are you feeling?
[9] I'm feeling good.
[10] Well, I will say one thing just to kick us off since we're talking about female relationships that I was very scared this week because I had to do a job that was scary.
[11] And you were so supportive and lovely And I don't think I could have done it without you I would have been very scared Well, we can agree to disagree Because I do think you could have done it without me But I also won't deflect the compliment That's my job as your friend To hold space for you when you're super happy And making me laugh And to hold space for you when you're nervous And I need to be there with you with encouragement And I was so proud of you I'm proud to be your friend.
[12] Me too.
[13] Yeah.
[14] That's our job as people, right?
[15] To be there when our friends are happy, but also there when they're not.
[16] Yeah.
[17] You know, like trying to change someone's mood or tell them like, cheer up, but it'll be fine.
[18] Isn't always the greatest thing.
[19] But I just wanted you to know that I was like right behind your back for the whole week.
[20] I could feel it.
[21] I think that's an interesting thought that maybe people aren't thinking about.
[22] You have to be there even when you don't want to.
[23] or even when it's feeling hard on you.
[24] Yeah, or even just when you're experiencing discomfort because the other person isn't happy, go lucky.
[25] I mean, I experience this all the time where, you know, 80 % of the time, I'm super outgoing and happy, and 20 % of the time I can get pretty low and I can feel the energy in a room shift completely into rejection of my character when I am not the smiling happy person.
[26] And it always pains my heart because what I want to scream is I'm still worthy of this friendship just because I'm not trying to brighten the room.
[27] Right now, my light is dim.
[28] Let me be dim, but don't leave my side.
[29] Yeah.
[30] And I think it's so easy for people when they hear someone's going through a hard time or might need support or is nervous or is anxious to just go, well, we can fix it.
[31] like, you know, just work out or, you know, it'll be fine, like, to brush it off.
[32] But really, that's just projection.
[33] I think it's also trying to find a solution to help because it can feel helpless on the other side.
[34] I was having this realization the other day, or I think maybe me and you talked about it, but friendship, female friendships can be so much more intimate than a romantic partnership because there is this expectation of one another that sometimes doesn't get put.
[35] on romantic partners.
[36] Sometimes it does.
[37] You know, whatever, I'm not painting with like a broad brush here.
[38] But the things that make a romantic relationship bloom are the same things that make a friendship bloom.
[39] Communication and letting people have their own space.
[40] You know, all of that stuff.
[41] Listening is all so relevant to female relationships too.
[42] And I know, like, when you're feeling down, sometimes I like, I also want to fix it.
[43] But I never, ever, ever, I never want you to feel rejected in that moment.
[44] I think it's just also that I can sense that energy.
[45] I mean, I can only speak for myself, right?
[46] And then I can only speak for how I try to hold space for other people of like what I've learned that I need is not a, uh -oh, when I walk into the room and I'm not a super caffeinated, uppity, cheerful girl, that it's just like, oh, how are you?
[47] And then if I say, I'm okay.
[48] than not trying to fix it, but just holding space for me to be there and allowing it to be.
[49] And it is very uncomfortable for people to experience helplessness.
[50] I guess I am sort of of the Brunay Brown School of helplessness is going to happen.
[51] Yeah, for sure.
[52] It's going to be felt and it'll pass.
[53] And I can only speak from me, but like what I need in those moments is just someone to not try to adjust how I'm feeling.
[54] because I just need to let it pass.
[55] Yeah, yeah.
[56] Having two people interact and it go well, the fact that that happens 99 % of the time is astonishing.
[57] It's amazing.
[58] Wait, what do you mean?
[59] When you think about you as a person and your 40 years and all of your baggage and all of the people and all of the trauma, the fact that that being can interact with another being with that same amount of stuff and it go well, is an accomplishment.
[60] Oh, yeah.
[61] It's, we have to also be comfortable with like, yes, sometimes those interactions aren't going to go perfect because we are coming to the table with so much stuff.
[62] And I always, like, I get nervous and I know I think other people do.
[63] That, like, if someone's upset, it means they're mad at me or it's about me, which is so selfish making it about yourself.
[64] But that's the feeling.
[65] Of course.
[66] That's why communication about this issue in particular is good.
[67] And people who have anxiety and depression, I think have, if they want to help themselves, have a responsibility to talk about it and be like, hey, sometimes I get quiet.
[68] And that's because I'm swirling in my head.
[69] It has nothing to do with you.
[70] Stating your needs is really hard.
[71] And anticipating someone else's needs is also really hard.
[72] So I'm certainly glad that however I acted this week was helpful as a opposed to like...
[73] No, it was.
[74] Female friendships is something we talk about a lot because we have our pod girls who decided sometime in the beginning of the pandemic, why on earth aren't we having a once a week away from everybody else?
[75] Right.
[76] Time.
[77] Like, I love my relationship and it is super intimate.
[78] And I lean on decks for so many things.
[79] But this serves a completely different purpose.
[80] having you guys once a week going to your apartment and you cook first of all you learning how to cook is the best thing that's ever happened to us shout out alison roman shout out because the dishes were delicious i mean that's kind of what got us here talking about females helping females and i hope that this podcast reminds people but especially women that we are on the same team if we think we are Yeah.
[81] All you have to do is think you're on the same team.
[82] Exactly.
[83] As someone.
[84] Like it's so easy for your brain to go into that evolutionary survival mode and go us and them.
[85] Well, she's in competition.
[86] But then if you just stop and go, no, wait a minute.
[87] We're all on the same team.
[88] We're just going to lift each other up.
[89] And it is going to be like that picture that came out where like one woman is helping.
[90] It's my favorite.
[91] Another woman climb up.
[92] And then the other woman is helping her foot and her foot.
[93] And it's just a bunch of women climbing that beautiful drawing.
[94] And I hope that this.
[95] inspires women to be reminded that a lot have come before us and done a lot of the hard work and now it's our turn to pick up the torch and continue the work for our daughters.
[96] And pass it on.
[97] Yeah.
[98] Agreed.
[99] And we have an incredible first guest.
[100] Oh, baby.
[101] Gloria Steinem.
[102] Gloria Steinem basically started feminism.
[103] She did.
[104] Let us be clear.
[105] She was a journalist and working for New York Magazine and then decided she was tired of writing about pantyhose.
[106] Duh.
[107] And started Miss Magazine, which kicked off women reading about themselves for the first time.
[108] Exactly.
[109] And writing about themselves.
[110] Yeah.
[111] It really revolutionized the role as opposed to being on the second tier.
[112] She brought them up to the first tier.
[113] Yeah, and she gave them choices, and people started seeing publications and also buying it.
[114] It wasn't, you know, a failure.
[115] And that was the first time that that sort of, wind blew through everyone's household of like, oh, huh.
[116] And then in 1971, she co -founded the National Women's Political Caucus, which does training and support for women seeking to be elected.
[117] She also co -founded the Women's Action Alliance.
[118] I mean, she's, she also was responsible, did you know this for Take Your Daughter to Work Day?
[119] No, I didn't know that.
[120] Yeah.
[121] She helped establish it in the 1990s.
[122] And I remember going every year with my dad, Take Your Daughter to Work Day.
[123] And that was to get young girls to see in the workplace, yeah.
[124] Oh my God.
[125] She's incredible.
[126] Yeah.
[127] And we're going to talk to her.
[128] And you get to hear it.
[129] I hope you enjoy Gloria Steinem.
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[185] Gloria.
[186] Hi.
[187] Hi.
[188] Thank you so much for joining us.
[189] Thank you.
[190] It's so nice to see your faces.
[191] I wish we were in the same place, but this is the next best thing, right?
[192] I know.
[193] Well, actually, we kind of wish you were happy you aren't in the attic because there's an egg salad over there that's creating a not -so -great smell.
[194] Yeah, we got exposed wires.
[195] It's not the tidiest.
[196] In truth, I think we wish we were at your house because you where you are looks absolutely lovely.
[197] Do you know where I am?
[198] Because I'm not in New York.
[199] You know, I'm in California.
[200] Undisclosed location in California.
[201] No, I spent the first three months of quarantine in my New York apartment.
[202] And then I had the opportunity to come here to my friend's ranch where I'm in a wonderful old farmhouse and I can walk around in the sunshine.
[203] Oh, lovely.
[204] So I've been here since April, I think.
[205] That's the way to do it.
[206] My heart has definitely gone out to a lot of people that live in studio apartments in any big city where they're being told to stay indoors.
[207] I'm like, everyone's going to be scratching at the walls.
[208] It's true.
[209] The writers are so We used to.
[210] Do you feel comfortable in isolation?
[211] Yes.
[212] No, no, no. I've never had a job in my life.
[213] I've never gone to an office, you know, so I'm better prepared than most, probably.
[214] That's true.
[215] You know, we had the magazine office, but then it was our office, you know, so it was different.
[216] We didn't have to be there nine to five.
[217] Yeah, and you didn't have to, like, you know, wear a suit or anything like that.
[218] No, no, definitely not.
[219] You're making your own rules.
[220] Making the rules for the rest of us, too.
[221] Thank goodness.
[222] Goodness.
[223] Yeah, could you be in charge of just all the rules?
[224] If you could just take the rules from here on now.
[225] Well, you know, I bet that the way we work is going to change, don't you think?
[226] Because people now have become accustomed to working in a different way.
[227] I think so, too.
[228] I think it'll become a lot less formal moving forward.
[229] I hope.
[230] Yeah.
[231] And I think also some good things will come out of it where it won't be so regular that we see everyone that will sort of cherish that a little bit more, especially when we get back into it.
[232] I've for a very long time.
[233] thought a lot of things could be done over Zoom and no one took me up on that.
[234] I'm like, but I don't have to fly to New York to do this show.
[235] Just like sat me in.
[236] I'll be here because I didn't want to travel and it was always the space on either end of whatever commitment I have.
[237] But now I feel like when I do get to see people, it will be just a much more beautiful experience that I'll cherish.
[238] And then when I do get to stay home, I'll also love it.
[239] So I see some good things coming out of this.
[240] Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see what changes.
[241] I think a lot of changes may persist.
[242] Yeah.
[243] Well, I just wanted to bring up something real quick because obviously this is a very fun day to be talking to you because, oh, any day is a fun day to be talking to you, but especially so because of the inauguration yesterday and obviously our first female vice president.
[244] And I was thinking when I was watching it, there's something really special in a way about being a part of a group that is marginalized.
[245] Like, that's kind of a weird thing to say.
[246] But when there's progress, when there's things you can check off, there is a unity that's so special.
[247] Like, you know, I was watching it.
[248] I was smiling and I was thinking about Kristen and I was thinking about like all of our girlfriends are on a text and everyone's, just like, yay!
[249] You know, it feels like we all get it.
[250] I think we felt the win together.
[251] Exactly.
[252] You feel it in a different way.
[253] And a part of me is like, oh, like the straight, white male, do they even, they don't really get that.
[254] Well, I don't know.
[255] I mean, I was thinking while you were speaking.
[256] I mean, we get it because of deprivation, you know, because it's the first and it means a lot to us.
[257] But I wonder if they don't have a different version of it because of hierarchy.
[258] I mean, I I remember the days when the advent of a woman on a board seemed to devalue the board.
[259] If a woman can do it, how great can it be?
[260] So I think our goal is to get out of our categories, ultimately.
[261] No, that's for sure true.
[262] I guess that was just like a silver lining that I was, you know, you take them where you can get them.
[263] I agree with you.
[264] No, it made me happy to see her climbing the steps.
[265] Absolutely.
[266] I have a five and a seven -year -old and, oh, five and six, I guess now.
[267] Who knows how old they are at any point?
[268] They're strangers.
[269] Because you know why?
[270] The ages keep changing.
[271] And I'm like, how am I supposed to keep up?
[272] Well, I know.
[273] Listen, I've been reading you on parenting.
[274] I just need you to know I'm not qualified for any position I've ever had or have been hired for.
[275] No, we all feel that, or at least women especially feel that.
[276] But it's not true.
[277] Well, thank you.
[278] Yesterday, when we were watching the inauguration because their school put it on during the morning meeting, I was sitting next to them.
[279] we were all huddled up on the couch and I was obviously crying.
[280] I mean, but that's for me, that's like not a big deal.
[281] I watch a folder's commercial and I break down in tears.
[282] I have a lot of emotions and that's fine.
[283] But I was watching it with them and I was crying and they were looking at me and they are sort of still in the time in their brain development where they have categories for emotions and they couldn't understand why I was happy crying and I was trying to articulate it and I came up with I said to them because when I looked at, at any history book or textbook in school growing up, all the people that were in power never were women.
[284] They never looked like me. They were all sort of the same version of an old white male.
[285] And now I know for a fact, you will not have that same experience, that you will open a textbook and you will see a female face in front of you.
[286] And what that means for the roads that you see yourself on is everything.
[287] I think that's absolutely special and true.
[288] and I remember when Shirley Chisholm took the white male only sign off the White House door, essentially, by running for president.
[289] That was 1972.
[290] And there were Victoria Woodhull.
[291] There were all these people before who ran for president.
[292] So it's been a long journey.
[293] What Kristen just said I thought was so interesting.
[294] You're crying all the time.
[295] You're an emotional gal.
[296] All the time.
[297] Good, bad.
[298] If I'm not between a three and a seven on the emotional scale, I'm crying.
[299] I just want to say the tears are good.
[300] they contain stress chemicals.
[301] So it's part of the reason that men don't live as long on the average as women.
[302] So crying is a good thing.
[303] Okay.
[304] So it is a good thing.
[305] But I think women struggle so much with balancing their emotions with what they put forward and being austere, being respectable.
[306] You know, even when I was emailing with your staff yesterday and I wrote like, we are so excited for tomorrow with like capital S .O and so many exclamation points.
[307] And before I hit send, I deleted it and I changed it to, we are very excited for tomorrow, smiley face.
[308] Like there's something about being enthusiastic that feels silly or feels like female and that can get tossed aside.
[309] And I hate that.
[310] But maybe not being enthusiastic is being male and repressed.
[311] Yeah, well, it definitely is.
[312] Yeah, right.
[313] I mean, there's no normal.
[314] There's you.
[315] You get to express how you uniquely feel and me too.
[316] And we find community or we educate each other because we learn from difference, not sameness.
[317] Yeah.
[318] I just think it's the idea of conforming we have to at least think about.
[319] I love that perspective because being such an emotional person, heightened emotions for me, just they come out like, fireworks, no matter what.
[320] So if I'm going to be enthusiastic, it's going to be really big.
[321] I get easily excited.
[322] If I squash a bug, I need to like take a minute because I'm genuinely...
[323] Tell me, where did you grow up?
[324] Detroit.
[325] Oh, well, okay, you've just ruined my theory.
[326] When I moved from the Midwest to New York, it seemed to me that in New York, they would shout and scream and carry on and say things out loud that we wouldn't even whisper, you know, right?
[327] It's a kind of Mediterranean tradition or something.
[328] Yeah, I mean, I was thinking that I have for so long tried to reposition the insecure voice that said, don't use too many exclamation points in an email, don't put too many smiley faces.
[329] And at one point, I just said, no, you know what, fuck that.
[330] But it took a lot of coaching myself and a lot of repeating the Eleanor Roosevelt mantra of no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
[331] I had all these emotions and I think that there is a big portion of women who, they think they're weaknesses, but they're actually their strengths, your emotional investment in something.
[332] I mean, I remember being greatly educated by a woman executive who was saying that when she got angry, she cried.
[333] And she, for a long time, repressed that because she was one of the few women in that position.
[334] And she felt it was a sign of weakness.
[335] Somehow it was a womanly thing to cry.
[336] And then she's decided that's me. So she said, now, I get angry.
[337] I cry.
[338] I say to my colleagues, you may think I am sad because I am crying.
[339] No, I am crying because I'm angry.
[340] I like that.
[341] Just explain yourself.
[342] Yeah, and she just goes with it.
[343] You know, I think that part of the reason that the human species survives is because we're adaptable.
[344] So we take to be normal and adapt to what's around us.
[345] And that is crucial.
[346] But it also can suppress our uniqueness and our individuality.
[347] So we need to be together in small groups that we relate to and support us so that we can express our individuality.
[348] In a way, that's what social justice movements are.
[349] We're supporting each other in changing or adding ourselves to the norm.
[350] Sometimes people are afraid of movements because they feel extreme.
[351] And they're not.
[352] We're just vying for rights and equality and all of that.
[353] So, I mean, all of the movements, the social justice movement, Black Lives Matter, I know putting words to it, like feminist movement, immediately it turns some sector off.
[354] And I don't know why that is.
[355] Well, that's their problem.
[356] If they are put off by people naming themselves, that's because they've been claiming the noun.
[357] I mean, there are doctors and black doctors.
[358] There are philosophers and female philosophers.
[359] Part of democracy is saying, okay, if one group has an adjective, everybody has an adjective.
[360] Otherwise, nobody has an adjective.
[361] And as a writer, that's not so easy to follow.
[362] I understand that it's right and that's the democracy of it.
[363] But to say white doctor, because I've just said black doctor, it's important to do.
[364] Yes, and we're living in a world right now where we're trying to almost erase specificities.
[365] And, you know, some people are like, I don't see color, you know, all these things.
[366] And I struggle with that.
[367] Yeah, but anybody who says they don't see color is just lying.
[368] Because we see color when we look at flowers.
[369] Why would we not see color when we look at people?
[370] And it undermines the struggle of a group of people.
[371] And I feel that about women as well.
[372] And then we're, you know, we're in this weird kind of political correct time where you have to be careful.
[373] about labeling gender, even starting this podcast, there was a question of, like, does this feel like we're leaning into female when right now people are trying to make gender so neutral?
[374] And then the goal is more to be open to the numerous categories that exist.
[375] I'm always fascinated with the way the brain works.
[376] There was this invisibilia podcast about categories, and it was all about how we have this urge to clearly define categories.
[377] It saves you so much time and effort as a human being because if you can walk into a room and you see couch and you know couch is not going to hurt you or hurt your children or take your food, then you're safe and you know those things about couch.
[378] There's this sort of antiquated software in our brains that makes us box people in.
[379] I just don't believe that because we don't learn from sameness.
[380] We with a group of people who all look like me. I know I'm in the wrong place.
[381] But it depends on the culture, I think, because as far as I know from Cherokee friends and so on, they kind of started events by addressing all four directions and the earth in the sky, the winged and the four -footed, the two -legged, you know, just as a routine because they were addressing the whole earth and all living things.
[382] Well, I do think, though, we've gotten to a point where there's so many people, there's so many categories and types.
[383] I think what you're saying is the brain defaults into putting them in sections.
[384] Simplifying.
[385] It's why a lot of people are read, like the first time you hear about a different gender other than male or female, it is uncomfortable to that person's brain because they're asked to look outside the categories that they knew.
[386] But I mean, again, in native cultures here, there were people who, I don't know what the words were, but were male or female.
[387] And then there were people who were twin -spirited.
[388] Twin -spirits.
[389] I think that's this.
[390] I think you just gave us a new category because that's what this feels like.
[391] No, you're right.
[392] It is what the culture lays out.
[393] If that's, quote, normal, then you never think to question it.
[394] You know, as I was saying before, I find it helpful just to say to myself, okay, either nobody has an adjective in what I'm writing or everybody, has an adjective.
[395] It's just whatever it is ought to be equal.
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[442] I have your book here, the one that my girls read all the time.
[443] I know this isn't your memoir, but in our house it is.
[444] Oh, that's so wonderful.
[445] No, I'm so honored to be part of your family life there.
[446] It's a great honor.
[447] Oh, my gosh.
[448] My girls love this book.
[449] And actually, I have a couple questions from them.
[450] They read this book often.
[451] And one thing, my friend Ben Hart always says, which I love stealing as a parenting technique, which is he says to his kids, learn as many stories about as many people as you possibly can because it will only make your world bigger and better.
[452] That is wonderful.
[453] Because I think that is the way we have always been learning.
[454] about everything, sitting in a circle, listening to each other's stories.
[455] Everybody gets to speak.
[456] Everybody has to listen, going around the circle.
[457] There's nothing more important than that.
[458] Yeah, but a couple people, one type in particular, has been holding the conk for quite some time and we just got to get it out of his hand.
[459] Yeah, well, that person is cursed with not learning.
[460] Yeah, that's very true.
[461] What a great also way to say it.
[462] You're talking too much.
[463] You're not learning.
[464] Yeah, you don't learn while you're talking.
[465] That's so true, and it's a real deep cut to a lot of us talkers.
[466] Okay, so the five -year -old wanted to know, first, what is your favorite color?
[467] Purple.
[468] Me too.
[469] Excellent.
[470] And Kristen has a book called Purple People.
[471] I wanted to ask you about that, too, because I think, I mean, Alice Walker wrote the color purple.
[472] You've used purple, obvious purple people.
[473] And Alice always pointed out it's the most rare color in nature.
[474] I don't know if that's why you chose it.
[475] Wow.
[476] No, but Benjamin Hart, who I just cited, my dear friend and I, three years ago, were sitting at a family dinner realizing we were exposing all this polarizing conversation to our little ones.
[477] We were thinking how they're turning on the television and they see two different colors.
[478] They see an us and them and they see red or blue.
[479] And the world felt like you needed to pick a side and that you couldn't even communicate with the other side.
[480] And we wanted to put a little bit of language of listening to other people's stories and looking towards your fellow humans.
[481] So being a purple person in the book is sort of the five pillars that we thought were inarguably great.
[482] I mean, the mark of narcissism is that you can't empathize, which means you can't listen.
[483] I often have this fear because I'm a rambler.
[484] And even though from my heart, that comes out of like an intense desire to communicate my emotions and feelings come in my body well before words, but then can't tell you how many times a day when I'm asked a question, I think, how long have I been talking?
[485] How long have I been talking?
[486] And it's just always checking myself to never become that person.
[487] Well, one thing I find helpful because, of course, writers have this problem of running on too long, you know, is I try to think poetry, not prose.
[488] Because poetry has, not that I'm writing poetry, I'm not, but a few poured water on each word, it would become a paragraph.
[489] That is a sexy thing to say.
[490] Well, we had David Sedaris on Armchair Expert really early on, and he said something that I've never forgotten, because I definitely fall into the category of overriding.
[491] And he said, if you like a sentence too much, you should cut it.
[492] Because it probably means it's overwritten or it's flowery.
[493] And I was like, oh, gosh, that's such a good.
[494] good rule.
[495] No, that's helpful.
[496] I mean, and perhaps another way of saying something similar is if you can cut a word or a sentence or a paragraph and the text says what you wanted to say, then cut it.
[497] Okay, from my second daughter, the seven -year -old and the apologies because it is verbatim, how did you feel when you sticked up for women's rights?
[498] Relieved, I think.
[499] And I had not been working in a group.
[500] and had a job.
[501] I was being a freelance writer.
[502] And so I had to learn how to be part of a group.
[503] And the women's movement or political movements altogether helped with that.
[504] Because the model was and is a circle where each person gets to talk in turn and everybody else has to listen.
[505] It is the Native American model of a democracy.
[506] It is the model of a democratic circle.
[507] You know, even if you go into a classroom.
[508] I notice where they have those chairs that you can move around.
[509] If instead of putting them in rows, you put them in a circle, it changes everything.
[510] I've recently been applying that when my girls have a problem and we need to talk it out, I call a family triangle, so that the three of us have to sit with our toes together so that it's sort of like our version of a circle so they have to look at each other.
[511] And I find so much more comes out of those conversations when I'm trying to get these tiny people to talk about big emotions because they're having to face one another.
[512] It's a powerful thing, the circle.
[513] No, that's great.
[514] Talking about empathy and narcissism and I know that people in power don't want to give it up.
[515] So that's part of the issue.
[516] But how do we get those people on board with talking in a circle and not talking from a pedestal?
[517] Like, how do we convince people who are benefiting from inequality to join the cause, I guess I'll say, you know?
[518] Like, how do we reach those people?
[519] Because we do need them.
[520] Well, there are a lot of answers.
[521] But I do think ridicule is very helpful.
[522] All right.
[523] Okay.
[524] Hold on.
[525] Because who wants to be isolated?
[526] I think women may know this a little better because we get to see worlds by going out with the men in them.
[527] So by going out with rich white guys, I discovered boring.
[528] Even if the guy wasn't boring, the circle was boring.
[529] It was too much sameness.
[530] Yeah.
[531] I think we also have to make it cool to hold people accountable.
[532] Well, I don't want somebody to just sit there and hate me and not tell me so I can do something about it.
[533] Yeah, but that's also because you're an open person.
[534] And I think that the hard people are the ones who like talking, who don't want to listen.
[535] And I mean, I guess we just have to wait for all those people to die out.
[536] I was going to say, sometimes I do lose faith.
[537] Well, no, I mean, you don't have to wait.
[538] You can just leave the room.
[539] Actually, yes.
[540] That is a really good tool that I never use, that I'm always just like kind of screaming.
[541] The exit?
[542] Yeah, I never use the exit.
[543] And you're really.
[544] Right.
[545] That's really powerful.
[546] Is there a situation that you found yourself in that you're describing?
[547] So I co -host armchair expert with this woman's husband.
[548] And we get into it quite often.
[549] We have different opinions on a lot of things, which is part of the fun of the show, I think, is showing these different perspectives.
[550] But it's hard to not get all wound up.
[551] I mean, I just immediately get so emotional, I would say, emotional about it.
[552] And then I kind of feel guilty about getting emotional because he's not getting emotional.
[553] And I'm like, oh.
[554] No, but why?
[555] I mean, let him feel guilty for not getting emotional.
[556] You know, he's more likely to get ulcers.
[557] Let him feel guilty for being dead inside.
[558] Right, right, right.
[559] Yeah, I love that.
[560] I think it's easy for us to feel like there's a right way.
[561] No, but that's the result of hierarchies that shouldn't exist, that women feel that the right way to be in public life is the male way or that men feel the right way to be in house domestic child -rearing life is the female way.
[562] And racially and ethnically, you know, it's who establishes the norm that it just doesn't make sense, you know, because we're missing the authenticity of a lot of people.
[563] We've got to allow for each other.
[564] Every day I wake up and think, how can I encourage myself and those around me and be an example of someone who allows for other people?
[565] And also, there are a variety of decisions.
[566] that other people participate in that I don't need to have a say in because it's not about me or it doesn't affect me. Whether this person is gay and going to get married, that doesn't affect me. Whether I believe in it or not, which I wholeheartedly do, but it doesn't affect me. There was a funny meme that someone wrote that was like, if you're against gay marriage, just say no when a gay person asks you to marry them.
[567] Right.
[568] Exactly.
[569] Exactly.
[570] Exactly.
[571] No, but I think that women especially have a motive, an extra motive, in supporting gay marriage, even if they are not lesbians, because the purpose of marriage is companionship and love and support, not necessarily producing another human being.
[572] And so if we want to be free to decide for ourselves when and whether to have children, then we have a motive, I would say, being free of the pro -creative idea of the purpose of marriage.
[573] Yeah.
[574] And I think we're heading that way.
[575] Like younger generations, they're getting married less in general.
[576] And I think that's part of it because these strict guidelines of what it means to be married are starting to fade, I think, which is really heartening.
[577] Yeah, because you shouldn't have to link up with someone just because everyone else says you have to.
[578] I mean, you were just reading a parenting article where I was jabber on about something.
[579] and I'm not qualified to talk about, but I am raising two people, and those are my guinea pigs.
[580] And so sometimes when people ask me, I say, well, look, here's what I've tested and tried because they're my subjects, right?
[581] But in many, many of the times I'm asked, I try and slip in that, like, look, I chose to have kids because, and by the way, I didn't even want to have kids right before I had kids.
[582] I went through a long experience of not wanting them.
[583] I finally decided to, but some of the closest people in my life do not want and will never have children.
[584] And that is perfect.
[585] That's totally fine.
[586] And I think especially hearing women who have children say that out loud, because I also want to say it's one of my favorite things about my life.
[587] I mean, I love them.
[588] Yeah, both things are true at the same time.
[589] Yeah.
[590] Right.
[591] But also hearing someone like me who talks about her kids all the time vocalize that like, if you don't want kids, you do not have to have kids.
[592] Like it is not for everyone.
[593] Yeah, kids are annoying.
[594] They are By the way, they are so annoying.
[595] They're so annoying.
[596] Oh, I had a question about mistakes.
[597] I'm sure you've seen the gambit of this movement.
[598] I just wonder for you being one of the vanguards of it, does it feel like there's extra weight on you to be, quote, perfect in this realm?
[599] And have you made mistakes and transgressions and how do you adjust those?
[600] because you're one of the voices for something.
[601] There's an extra pressure.
[602] We've put you, your name, on this pedestal.
[603] Well, yeah, you're a children's book.
[604] As you're saying that, I would say the opposite is the case, because if I tried to be a no -mistake person, I would be a terrible role model because it would be unreal and we learn at least as much from our mistakes as we do from our non -mistakes.
[605] It's just trying to be in balance, you know, as I was saying, to listen as much as we talk.
[606] And when we make a mistake, to be willing to say, I fucked up, I made a mistake.
[607] Exactly.
[608] I own it.
[609] And also to ask your friends to tell you.
[610] Oh, yeah.
[611] Sometimes you have to invite them to tell you.
[612] That's what I'm saying.
[613] Make it cool to hold people accountable.
[614] Yeah.
[615] Well, also, it's what friends are for.
[616] Yeah.
[617] Because I trust that they will tell me. What worries me way more is there are people who won't tell me, you know, who will just, let me go on making an ass of myself in some way and not say cut it out.
[618] Well, be best friends with me because I'll always call you.
[619] I call everyone out all the time.
[620] You'd be five minutes from having something in your teeth.
[621] I'm calling you up so you can call me out.
[622] Okay, great, great, great, great, great.
[623] Monica, she has a wonderful sense of honesty, but you also, you abide by most times what my therapist Harry always says honesty without tact is cruelty.
[624] So having a little bit of tact in there is great.
[625] But yeah, honesty to your friends, it's vital.
[626] It's the lifeblood of the friendship.
[627] Yeah, twin spirits.
[628] You know what we say about mistakes in our household?
[629] Do we say mistakes are proof that you are trying?
[630] Yeah, I like that.
[631] I mean, usually it's in reference to like someone's handwriting that's janky that day, but like it can also be applied to adults.
[632] But it is tricky because like, so we interviewed someone on armchair.
[633] I won't say who it was a few years ago.
[634] and that person had been accused of some sexual misconduct.
[635] And in our little post -chat that Dax and I have, we were talking about it, oh, or maybe it was actually during the episode, we were talking about it.
[636] And I said, and I do have regrets about saying this, but I said, you know, women, God, I wish I could remember the exact phrase, but it was something along the lines of like, well, women can lie too.
[637] And then I got a lot of heat, as you can imagine, for that phrase.
[638] I wish I hadn't said it.
[639] But I also was struggling a lot with the fact that, like, well, what I said was true.
[640] But I do think it just...
[641] There's a time and a place to say that right now is still the moment where we're angry about a lot of things.
[642] But balancing that, balancing like not being able to...
[643] to say sometimes what's true.
[644] No, well, it is true.
[645] I think, I was just thinking as you were saying that, I think what we mean when we say believe the women is that your first impulse is to believe, but it doesn't mean you're blind or deaf when it is not accurate.
[646] Exactly.
[647] We're living in such binary worlds right now in black and white worlds that some people, I think, have a hard time finding nuance in that.
[648] And they hear, oh, that just means you like don't believe women.
[649] I'm like, that's not what I'm saying at all, but maybe it's too new to hear it.
[650] Like, maybe the pendulum is not in the center yet.
[651] Well, it's certainly not in the center.
[652] I mean, I remember when the phrase sexual harassment was invented in the early 1970s by women at Cornell University who were trying to describe what happened to them on summer jobs.
[653] Oh.
[654] And then we at Ms. Magazine did a. whole issue or of cover story, I would say, about sexual harassment.
[655] And we had on the cover puppets, you know, with a woman sitting at a desk, because we didn't want to be too shocking with real people.
[656] And there was a male puppet kind of reaching down.
[657] And even that got us put off the newsstands in supermarkets.
[658] Really?
[659] Then sexual harassment was written into sexual harassment law, then two or three women, black women, brought lawsuits about sexual harassment leading all the way up to the congressional hearings and Clarence Thomas.
[660] So it's been a long journey.
[661] And we are still on this journey.
[662] And only the Me Too movement, in my experience, has made it national and international.
[663] Exactly.
[664] So that now people feel okay about speaking up.
[665] But what we're saying, I think, just has to be the basis of democracy.
[666] Our bodies belong to us.
[667] Yeah.
[668] You can't touch us, male or female, whoever, without our permission.
[669] That's it.
[670] Again, I've definitely tried to incorporate that into the raising of our girls.
[671] And let me tell you, in a parenting situation, it can backfire in a pretty major way because your body is your choice.
[672] My body, my choice is a phrase that's been thrown around a lot because I want that to be on the forefront of their lips.
[673] at all times.
[674] And then now and in years past, when I've said, grab your shoes, we got to drive to grandmas.
[675] They've said, no, my body, my choice.
[676] Definitely.
[677] Definitely can backfire.
[678] Yeah, no, you do have to have a little elasticity in there for caregivers or something.
[679] And also how short you are.
[680] You can't reach the steering wheel yet, yeah, right?
[681] Exactly.
[682] I have been invigorated in the ways that I can teach my girls versus the ways I was taught versus the ways I read that women were taught in years past because, I mean, we have a book at home called C is for consent.
[683] And then now the practicing way of going into the pediatrician is that before the baby even speaks, the pediatrician will say, mom, is it okay if I take off so -and -so's diaper right now?
[684] Is it okay if I look at her vagina?
[685] And then the pediatrician looks to you to respond.
[686] That's huge progress.
[687] I don't know if your daughters experience this, but in schools, there are the good touch, bad touch programs that kids understand it's not no touch versus touch.
[688] It's trust your instinct.
[689] If it makes you feel uncomfortable, then feel free to say so.
[690] Oh, that's a great distinction.
[691] Yeah, because I do like that.
[692] I don't like the idea of just like, well, no one can touch you because also that's not helpful and that's not true.
[693] No, that also assumes you're a grown -up.
[694] They were in schools.
[695] I don't know what happened to them.
[696] Good touch, bad touch programs.
[697] I thought they were helpful.
[698] I'm bringing it back.
[699] I'm bringing it back.
[700] Consider it brought back.
[701] I'm on it.
[702] I have one question for you.
[703] You have seen incremental change for a while.
[704] And in just like thinking through the lens of history, you've been an activist your whole life and you've seen sort of what works and also tried things that didn't.
[705] And now with so many young activists out there for a lot of different causes for BLM, for climate change, for gender identity, who often, their first instinct is to rage against the world and don't necessarily understand the incrementalism of growth or change.
[706] I just want to know what you think the mindset of someone who's trying to be an activist should be in order to have the stamina to see some real change.
[707] Well, I strive not to get into shoulds too much, but to say, how can I, as a unique individual be most effective because I have particular talents or knowledge or whatever.
[708] How can I contribute them?
[709] Where can I contribute them?
[710] And not to get a case of the shoulds.
[711] There is each person's unique way, you know, I'm joining a community, but there is not one particular right way.
[712] If you look at leaders and how so -called leaders have been effective, there's been a huge difference.
[713] I mean, Gandhi was hugely different from Malcolm X, say.
[714] Those were two really different people, and yet their purpose was essentially the same.
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[719] And it's gorgeous, it's in black and white, and you discovered Framebridge and sent that away, right?
[720] Yeah, because I was like, look, I want to get this framed, but if I go to, like, some frame store or something, it's going to be so expensive, yes.
[721] But Framebridge is so affordable, and the quality is 100 % perfect, and I love it.
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[738] Me and you made a Hello Fresh meal just last night.
[739] You bet we did.
[740] For the whole gang.
[741] It was so delicious.
[742] I cook mainly vegetarian and I'm always looking for vegetarian dishes that don't just seem like a side of carrots.
[743] Exactly.
[744] Here's your meal.
[745] And this was a flat bread and it had like zucchini and tomato and lemon ricotta.
[746] Oh my god, yeah.
[747] And chili flakes and honey.
[748] And there were so many tastes and it was delicious.
[749] And everybody loved it.
[750] And we never could have made it up.
[751] That flavor profile is far too elevated.
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[767] You know, we're in this social media culture where it feels pressurized.
[768] If you're not being loud, it's going to look like you don't care.
[769] I think we need to get out of this mentality of everyone should be doing it the exact same way.
[770] You know, I have such empathy for how you deal with that because I did not grow up in the social media era.
[771] It's on the one hand a great advantage to women or people with less power because it's supposing that you at least have enough money for a computer, which is a big supposition, because a lot of the world doesn't even have electricity.
[772] But anyway, then for women especially, I think it's a way of learning and discovering and organizing in safety from home.
[773] And that's very good.
[774] But another level is up to us to sort out what we care about and don't care about.
[775] The closest thing my generation had to it as teenagers were personality books.
[776] In school, they would put the name of the person at the top of each page of a student.
[777] And then people would write underneath anonymously, you know, cute but knows it, things like that.
[778] Oh, wow.
[779] Cute but knows it.
[780] Oh, my God, that's great.
[781] But it was the closest thing to the anonymity and the ability to just pass judgment.
[782] Closest thing to the comments section.
[783] In Brian Stevenson's book, Just Mercy, he talks about proximity being the necessary element to activate deep empathy and you had this experience in India where you saw so many different things outside your circle.
[784] I had like a modicum of that experience where I lived in Brazil for three months when I was 19 years old and I was volunteering over there and I saw a world that was completely different than what I had experienced.
[785] It was nothing I ever had in my bubble in Michigan and it formed a lot of my opinions about the world and my perspective.
[786] But in the age of social media, is proximity of the Internet bringing a, closer to seeing other people's stories or is it driving us further apart?
[787] Well, that's a good question.
[788] I think it is a way of learning intellectually that's very important, but we can't empathize unless we're present with all five senses.
[789] The oxytocin, the tendon befriend hormone, that if you're holding a baby male or female, you're flooded with oxytocin.
[790] If you see somebody having an accident, you want to help even if you don't know them.
[791] The oxytocin, I asked my friend neurologist in New York if we could experience oxytocin online, and she said, no. You have to be there.
[792] I mean, it's very valuable.
[793] You can learn intellectually.
[794] You can find people.
[795] But probably without all five senses, you can't really fully empathize.
[796] There's something lacking.
[797] Well, that's what's so fascinating.
[798] When you think you're getting oxytocin because you're actually getting a dopamine hit, Because it's that casino or the, you know, the slot machine or a long time ago, ooh, a berry, ooh, a berry, ooh, a berry.
[799] When you're a hunter -gatherer, like, that's what you're getting, but it's not the true.
[800] Yeah, but in casinos, I never thought it was that great.
[801] I mean, you've sat in those Las Vegas things.
[802] Exactly.
[803] Well, it's a thing you like are the quarters coming out.
[804] I was going to say, did you ever hit a jackpot?
[805] Because when you win, even if you only win $5 .99, but it's all in dimes, it feels like a lot.
[806] Yeah, it's a trick.
[807] It really is a trick.
[808] And it's a good trick.
[809] But I do think it's really important to make that distinction because nobody is.
[810] When they see a like, you know, they do get the dopamine hit and it feels like love.
[811] Oh, somebody loves me. And it's not that.
[812] And that's why we are chasing it so much.
[813] Acknowledging the why or the distinction of dopamine to oxytocin is now something that I will take away and I will say out loud to other people.
[814] And I will even say to my kids of like, when you're on your iPad, that's called dopamine.
[815] I mean, when you're in my arms, that's called oxytocin.
[816] I mean, I believe that the most universal punishment all over the world is isolation.
[817] In ancient parts of Africa, where people were shunned or set aside for a while.
[818] But then when they came back into the culture, there was a long ritual amount of time in which every person who knew that person told them every good thing they ever did.
[819] So they were knit back into the culture.
[820] Now, we could do that.
[821] But unfortunately, we isolate people in prisons, but we don't knit them back into the culture very well.
[822] So sad.
[823] We're failing there.
[824] I had a personal question.
[825] So you've talked pretty publicly about your mom.
[826] And I love the way you described.
[827] We both listened to your interview with Terry Gross.
[828] Well, you had multiple interviews with her, which I loved the one that kind of compiled them all because it was like going through a time machine.
[829] It was so cool to, like, hear the evolution.
[830] You know, I'm losing my memory, so I should get that.
[831] Yeah, no, it's great.
[832] It's a really good listen.
[833] It has one from like early 90s and then 2004 and then in 2015.
[834] Uh -huh, they compile all of them.
[835] And you and Terry are just on fire.
[836] You really are.
[837] But you say in one of those interviews that your mom struggled with a lot of stuff and what it boiled down to, in your opinion, is that her spirit was broken.
[838] And you were witness to that.
[839] That's a lot to be a child of, you know, to be seeing that.
[840] And I wondered, you know, we talk a lot about an armchair expert about aces, adverse childhood experiences, which being a child in an environment like that would be definitely considered multiple aces.
[841] And I was wondering if seeing all that and seeing your mom's spirit broken is part of what has made you challenge the status quo.
[842] Has that been a driver for you?
[843] I'm not sure I felt that movement motive in the beginning.
[844] It was a personal motive not to live the same fate as my mother and end up as a woman by herself with a child, not able to do the work she loved.
[845] So it was a personal motive, but it probably took me longer to understand what I had learned from her.
[846] And I wonder how many of us have parents, women are men, mothers or fathers, but the world being what it is, probably more often mothers, who could not become the people they were meant to be.
[847] That is the saddest thing to me. I got so excited and pumped when I read a New York Times article five or six years ago about how working when, because I, you know, went back to work of two or three months after my kids were born and I'm lucky to be in a profession where I can bring them.
[848] And I have a lot, a lot of luxury there and privilege to being able to stop and nurse my baby while I'm being an actor.
[849] But like the idea that your kids won't realize it while they're young, but once they've grown up, they will have seen a working woman and it will have been an excellent example of the fact that your mother didn't wither away just to be in service of you.
[850] No, I think you're 100 % right.
[851] And the only other 100 % is that they need also to see nurturing men.
[852] Yeah.
[853] Now, if there's no man in the household, then maybe get male babysitters.
[854] They need to know that men can be as loving and nurturing as women can.
[855] It's a libel on men to say that's not true, just as it's a liable on women to say that we can't be as achieving or whatever in the outside world.
[856] I know this to be true because my husband's love language is touch and snuggling and smooching.
[857] And he is sometimes, it is the problem, let me tell you, the real problem here, Gloria, he's so big, right?
[858] He's large.
[859] And sometimes it's a big, it's a hug.
[860] It's like those books we have about, you know, Arnold, the hippopotamus hugs too tight.
[861] heightened and he needs it to survive and we sort of all know that.
[862] But that's wonderful.
[863] That's absolutely great.
[864] Oh, yeah, it's beautiful.
[865] I mean, the best thing I've ever heard from kids, not just in this country, but in other countries and other languages, is some version of, you are not the boss of me. And I always think, okay, that's it.
[866] That's the basis of every movement.
[867] Can we talk about your new book?
[868] Yes, yes.
[869] So it's actually not a new book.
[870] It's a book this lasted longer in print than I think anything, but it has a brand new preface.
[871] I wrote a new preface for it.
[872] Oh, got it.
[873] And what was the updated preface?
[874] What made you want to do that?
[875] You know, a book is like a person in a way.
[876] So I was telling the life story of the book because when it first came out, the word self -esteem was not okay.
[877] It was thought to be squishy or soft or not for serious people or something.
[878] And so this book is two things.
[879] It's got the word.
[880] reviews of anything I've ever written.
[881] And it has lasted the longest in print.
[882] Wow.
[883] So it was very painful.
[884] And also it was somewhat geographic because the reviews in intellectual New York were the worst.
[885] And then as I voyaged across country, when I got to the Midwest, they got better.
[886] I got to California.
[887] They were quite good.
[888] Oh, yeah.
[889] When you got to squishy soft California, they're super good.
[890] So what?
[891] What would your take on self -esteem that was new at the time.
[892] At this point, do you feel like we've all made it to embracing it?
[893] Well, the reason I wrote it really was because in wandering around the country and speaking and our sense of ourselves as women, especially, not only, but especially as women.
[894] I mean, just lacking confidence was so clearly part of the problem.
[895] And so I started looking for books to give to people.
[896] But the books that were about self -eastern, esteem behaved as if the problem was internal.
[897] And the books that were about politics behaved as if all the problems were external.
[898] So I was just trying to create a book that said, no, it's a continuum, that we need to understand that we're not better than anybody else.
[899] We each are unique and, you know, everything we now know.
[900] But it took a while for this book to find itself, I think.
[901] Oh, I love that.
[902] What was the year you originally wrote?
[903] wrote it?
[904] It was the 70s.
[905] But your dedication, I'm going to read it.
[906] I'm going to read you your own writing, which is the best thing I could possibly do.
[907] It says, this book is intended for everyone, women, men, children, and nations whose power has been limited by a lack of self -esteem.
[908] It is inspired by women of all races whose self -esteem is making the longest, deepest, and most peaceful revolution.
[909] And it is dedicated to anyone who values the unique self inside every child.
[910] I just love it so much.
[911] Geez, Louise.
[912] You're a good writer.
[913] Do you know that?
[914] Well, it became clear to me that it was a problem of nations, too.
[915] There were entire nations that didn't think they were equal to other nations because they'd been colonized.
[916] Oh, absolutely.
[917] That's so much of the race issue as well.
[918] You know, my parents are from India, a colonized country, of course.
[919] And, you know, even colorism within India.
[920] Yeah.
[921] The darker you are, the less valuable you are, you know.
[922] And I think hopefully that's changing.
[923] But that's a real marker of how colonization has impacted confidence of a nation, I think.
[924] No, it was so.
[925] And even before the British, I think that the more fair -skinned so -called Aryans or whatever coming over the Himalayas had, which makes no sense at all, especially when you consider Carolas.
[926] Uh -huh.
[927] That's where my family's from.
[928] Really?
[929] Oh, that's my favorite.
[930] That is, I mean, I don't mean to be, you know, but it seems to me the best part of India.
[931] So I only went there once when I was four.
[932] I haven't been back since.
[933] My dad is trying very hard to get my whole family to go on a family trip.
[934] And I would really like to, obviously, we'll have to wait until COVID.
[935] But Carolla is the one place in India that has no COVID.
[936] Really?
[937] Oh, I didn't know that.
[938] But that was true as of a couple of months ago.
[939] They had maybe one case or something.
[940] Because I was looking at all the female -headed countries or islands like New Zealand because they were doing better, not because women are so smart necessarily, but they seem to have a more family -oriented idea of health care.
[941] So they were doing way better in the COVID department.
[942] And at that point, I think Carol, I only had one case.
[943] Oh, my gosh.
[944] I got to tell my parents, they're going to be so happy.
[945] They're going to be so happy.
[946] They're going to be so proud of them.
[947] themselves, even though they have nothing to do with it.
[948] They can take that credit.
[949] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[950] I can take some ownership over that.
[951] But it was matrilineal.
[952] Oh, yeah.
[953] All the names get passed down through the mother.
[954] That's so great that you come from there.
[955] That's wonderful.
[956] We should meet there.
[957] Yeah, now that we're best friends and I'm going to call you out.
[958] I love being on houseboats and going through the waterways.
[959] And it's so beautiful.
[960] I would love for you to take me on a journey to Carol again.
[961] And my twin spirit will come as well.
[962] Yeah, I mean, I didn't want to insert.
[963] I mean, obviously, I was waiting to be invited, but I'm not going to, this seems like a very special trip.
[964] So only if you guys, I could like carry the bags or anything to.
[965] Have you not been as a grown up to Carolyn?
[966] I was only four years old.
[967] Oh, I see.
[968] So I have very little memory.
[969] It's wonderful.
[970] It's absolutely wonderful.
[971] I really have to prioritize making that happen for sure.
[972] I'm watching the sun setting behind you in this like gorgeous, looks like, to be honest, set decked version of what a beautiful, if I was like, hiring a crew to build a beautiful house.
[973] And I don't know who your friend is, but it's beautiful where you're staying.
[974] Is this your bedroom?
[975] No, I'm sitting at the dining room table.
[976] I'm so lucky to be here.
[977] But do you have your own bedroom or are you bunking with someone?
[978] No, I have my own bedroom.
[979] Okay, good.
[980] And there's a friend who comes and occasionally stays and works here.
[981] And there are people we're sort of all in our own isolation here, you know, because if it's a ranch, the 400 -acre ranch.
[982] And so I can walk to see the horses every morning and say hello to the horses.
[983] It's wonderful.
[984] Have you been keeping busy?
[985] Are you playing any games at night or anything?
[986] We've been playing a lot of cards.
[987] So much.
[988] No, busy is not my problem.
[989] Busy is so not my problem.
[990] I mean, I have a book I'm supposed to be writing.
[991] I've had three Zooms today.
[992] You know.
[993] Girl, you've got to get through that to -do list.
[994] I'm living in Zoom City, you know.
[995] Oh, my gosh.
[996] You're making me feel very unaccomplished because you're still writing books.
[997] Well, but I'm not.
[998] I mean, I'm here running my mouth instead of writing me, right?
[999] Well, God, we appreciate it so much.
[1000] We're happy to let you procrastinate.
[1001] Adam Grant says sometimes procrastination is what you need.
[1002] Well, and also it's wonderful.
[1003] I mean, I wish we could be together with all five senses.
[1004] Me too.
[1005] Back to empathy and so, but this is the next best thing.
[1006] I'm so glad to see you.
[1007] Absolutely.
[1008] Oh, my God.
[1009] Do you still love dogs?
[1010] I read that you love dogs.
[1011] Dogs?
[1012] Oh, yes.
[1013] Okay.
[1014] Yeah, I just wanted to feel, I just want to feel part of the game.
[1015] Because the Indian thing was really cool and then you guys planned the trip and I just felt embarrassed.
[1016] I inserted myself.
[1017] But I just want to say, like, dogs, Ohio, you know.
[1018] We do.
[1019] Oh, my goodness.
[1020] Well, we appreciate so much you giving us a lot of your time that you should be using to write your book and help change the world even more than you already have.
[1021] We appreciate you.
[1022] No, well, it's fun talking to you.
[1023] I really enjoy it and email me things I should know or do or, you know, let's stay in touch.
[1024] Absolutely.
[1025] Right back at you, because we've put you on this pedestal.
[1026] No, no, no, no pedestal.
[1027] Listen, as some very smart woman said, I think, in the suffrage era, a pedestal is as much a prison as any small space.
[1028] So forget pedestals.
[1029] We're in a circle.
[1030] A circle.
[1031] Okay, circle.
[1032] Well, that's, I mean, that feels.
[1033] feels crazy because of what, you know, in looking at the resumes, but if you ask us to think of it as a circle, we certainly will.
[1034] That makes me put you on a pedestal even more, if I'm being honest.
[1035] I mean, you know, we're different in ages, but that just means we have different things to teach each other.
[1036] It's not about a hierarchy.
[1037] You know, sometimes at my age, my advanced age, you know, people ask me who I'm handing the torch to.
[1038] And it always.
[1039] struck me as a wrong question.
[1040] So finally, I've realized why, because first of all, we each need a torch.
[1041] Otherwise, we don't know where the fuck we're going.
[1042] So we're each using what torch we have to light other people's torches and go forward together.
[1043] And set the whole world on fire.
[1044] Living in the light.
[1045] Yeah.
[1046] A hundred percent.
[1047] Well, and I have you both going into the future and your daughter's going even more into the bigger future.
[1048] No, makes me happy.
[1049] Well, thank you, Gloria.
[1050] Thank you.
[1051] Thank you.
[1052] Bye.
[1053] Bye.