Ep. 540: "Appointed Holes"
John: See, you have to click on the thing about the meeting being recorded before you can unmute your microphone.
Merlin: That's true.
John: Yeah, so I did it.
John: I did it again.
John: Is that the start?
John: I dood it.
John: I dood it.
John: Good boy.
John: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: Okay, we're going to fix this.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Oh, how's it going?
Merlin: How's it going?
John: It's going.
Merlin: How?
John: My coffee's all the way over there.
John: That's how it's going.
John: That's how it's going.
John: Go get it.
John: You built some shelves, I hear.
Merlin: Oh!
John: Heard it on the internet.
Merlin: You don't want to get me started on shelves today.
John: Are they good?
John: Are they good?
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: I got a whole thing going on here.
Merlin: It's huge, John.
Merlin: Huge.
Merlin: Wait, is it a system reboot?
Merlin: Are you changing everything?
Merlin: That's a very good question.
Merlin: And if you're having fun at my expense, that's okay, too.
Merlin: It's a pivot.
Merlin: But it's a pivot that reflects an ongoing cycle of life and learning.
Merlin: An ongoing cycle of life of what?
Merlin: Ongoing cycle of life and learning.
Merlin: I was trying to sound really dramatic, but I just sounded like I had a speech problem.
Merlin: An ongoing cycle of life.
John: Rural juror.
John: The rur-juror.
John: So I understand that, you know, in your where you are, that things.
Merlin: I really don't like paragraphs that begin like this.
Merlin: I've heard so many paragraphs that begin like this.
Merlin: So Merlin, we know how you are.
John: There are new systems all the time.
John: Systems, systems, recapitulating systems.
John: So the shelves fit how?
John: No, you don't really want to do this, do you?
John: Oh, sure I do.
John: I woke up this morning, and you said, I woke up this morning, and you said, let's push the show a little bit.
John: I'm working on some shelves.
Merlin: Have you noticed that I'm the pusher lately?
Merlin: I'm your pusher man?
Merlin: Have you noticed that, that I'm the pusher?
John: You used to be the pusher.
Merlin: Now, that's me.
Merlin: I do that.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: You're like, oh, oh, oh, I need another half hour.
Merlin: But have you noticed that I do it preemptively?
Merlin: yeah except when i don't mostly i do no no no oh hey hey we're all friends here mostly i can anticipate you know um oh boy you know they say when everything starts seeming connected that's when you know you're nuts it's all connected though john it's all systems there's systems inside of systems and the systems are integrative
Merlin: They represent our past leavings and learnings.
Merlin: Integrative.
Merlin: They're integrative.
Merlin: And yeah, so at the point when I'm buying new shelves, and this is Merlin 2024.
Merlin: We're not talking here about Merlin 2005.
Merlin: This is a different Merlin Service Release 5.
Merlin: Merlin 4.0.
Merlin: Yeah, you need to hit the button to start talking when you talk to me.
Merlin: And there is no volume or off button for me, as you know.
Merlin: I... Boy, I don't even... See, you know, John, that's like me asking you about Gibson guitars or something.
John: I've got some stories.
John: You know, I've got some stories.
Merlin: The short version is that... I'll do this in two quick tracks.
Merlin: You wish.
Merlin: Um, one track is I do a lot of stuff now with 3d printing and the, the, the, uh, liberal arts around 3d printing, which is like a whole world.
Merlin: It's like a big world.
Merlin: It's like, like sort of like, you know, you go to, well, I was about to say, you go to like Adam's, uh, shop, you know, where he makes lightsabers.
Merlin: It's just in my case, I make a low poly Snorlax.
Merlin: My family doesn't want, you know, but, but there's many allied, uh, arts, uh,
Merlin: around 3D printing.
Merlin: And so I've made a big step forward to accommodate and improve that process.
Merlin: But that's part two, because part one is I've learned a lot over the last couple of years about this stuff.
Merlin: And that, John, the second part, that's where I differ from the old me a little bit.
Merlin: The old me, on more than one occasion, and I've mentioned this in other places, but this is really, it's an embarrassing thing that's true, which is I used to fall into that trap of believing that you could solve a lot of problems with organizing.
Right.
Merlin: Oh, you've, wait a minute.
Merlin: Say that again.
Merlin: I used to fall into a trap that a lot of us fall into, which is believing that we can solve, let's put it this way, solve a lot of our problems by being more organized.
John: Yes.
John: That was kind of your brand.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And I think in fairness, yes.
Merlin: But Merlin Mann says that organizing your email is like alphabetizing your recycling.
Right.
Merlin: So that's the problem.
Merlin: The problem is, if you're organizing stuff that you don't need, don't want, never need, never want, never will need, nor want, and you're organizing that at scale more efficiently, you're moving the wrong way.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: So like in the same way that, and the reason I invoked my email days is that it's something I've, I think I've always been pretty skeptical about and have advised people to be careful about is like, be careful how much time you spend doing stuff like quote, you've heard people say this before, like organizing my email or, you know, dealing with this thing and people to move stuff around.
Merlin: Long story short, I used to be the sort of person that would go to the container store and buy newer, nicer bins, newer, nicer shelves.
John: And then keep your old bins in.
Merlin: It's pretty much so close, honestly.
Merlin: Like shit that I've had since college that I have a weird emotional relationship, but I'm not ready to get rid of or do anything about it.
Merlin: It just gets organized into a different box that says college stuff.
Merlin: And now it's slightly more water resistant.
Merlin: And then I end up warehousing the past in a way that I don't think is wholesome.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Does that make sense?
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: seemingly obvious process.
Merlin: You say, oh, you buy a printer.
Merlin: Well, like, what do you do?
Merlin: You buy, you know, if you buy a printer for your computer, you buy some ink, you put paper in, you print things, end of story, right?
Merlin: But this is a good deal more, just in terms of John terms, this is probably a little bit more like rethinking your signal chain.
Merlin: where you go like, okay, well, there's definitely some inefficiencies in this, whether that's your stomp boxes or how you process audio to a deck or a board or whatever, right?
Merlin: Where you go like, oh, like, John, have you ever moved something?
Merlin: And then underneath it, there's just feet and feet and feet of...
Merlin: cables power cords you don't know what anything goes to and in my case i've torn stuff like that up and like well over half is just not connected to anything and hasn't been for years and yet that's that's infrastructure that you carry forward on your balance sheet that's cubic inches of your life being taken up by kipple so like you know do i need i've been trying to you know socialize this with my wife and my kid who are very keen for me to get rid of a lot of stuff oh wait they are
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, I've really, I take up too much of the house.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Especially given that I've got an office.
Merlin: But the thing they don't want to hear that I believe very heavily, and I don't even say this in the house anymore, even though it's the smartest thing I ever said, to do anything first, you got to make a hole.
Merlin: First, make a hole.
Merlin: I heard a bird in the house the other day.
Merlin: It's like two in the bush.
Merlin: I couldn't get it out.
Merlin: But, you know, the first thing I did, I opened a window.
Merlin: Because what's the point of catching a bird or scaring a bird if the bird can't get out?
Merlin: And, like, if you come from hoarders like I do, you know what first make a hole means.
Merlin: Which is, like, first you need a place to put your wallet and backpack.
Merlin: Like, don't assume that that step is doable in a hoarder house.
Merlin: But saliently to this point, and I really do think this is true, and it drives my family crazy because I know they find me ponderous.
Merlin: But, like...
Merlin: Unless and until you have a plan for the stuff that needs to leave your house, you're not going to do a very good job with it.
John: There's got to be a plan.
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: I'd like to know what you think.
Merlin: I know we probably differ on some of these things, but if you wanted to, just the one of you mowing your lawn, would you go out and start mowing your lawn with the catcher on your lawnmower full?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Like it kind of doesn't make sense because there's nowhere for the grass to go.
Merlin: Well, the problem is because of, and I'm going to go on your thing here, like partly because of ADHD.
Merlin: Part of my thing is like, I need to see through and beyond a project beyond the like, oh, let's just make a nice pile here.
Merlin: Because if I make a nice pile here, pretty soon I have 12 nice piles and I'm living in chaos.
Merlin: I need a plan.
Merlin: There's stuff that I... The first hole you need to make is you need to make a hole to put the places that aren't where they belong.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: Does that make... Honestly, does that make sense to you?
Merlin: Because I'm realizing I need to articulate this more clearly.
Merlin: There's a...
Merlin: there's a contingent of people who absolutely understand what I mean when I say first make a hole.
Merlin: And there's a lot of people who don't.
Merlin: So like in this, in this example, you know, we have a garage slash basement that if left to its own devices tends to get pretty, you know, it gets, you get like, you know, boxes and stuff.
John: It gets full of half, half consumed cans of soda water.
John: That's where I keep them.
John: Yeah.
John: That's kind of like a museum.
John: Flat soda water cans.
Merlin: And each one half full.
John: Amazing.
Merlin: Eight cups, yeah.
Merlin: And so the thing is, though, okay, so what are we going to do?
Merlin: We're going to clean up the pantry upstairs.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So everybody else goes, oh, let's clean up the pantry.
Merlin: I'm like, oh, God.
Merlin: Spoken like somebody who is not the trash person.
Merlin: First, make a hole.
Merlin: Well, first, I can tell you that our trash cans, our municipal trash cans, are currently full, as they are most of the time.
Merlin: It's a bad time to clean out the pantry.
Merlin: Well, here's the way I look at it.
Merlin: And I understand that this is not how everybody thinks of it, but maybe this will land with somebody who has my problems, similar problems.
Merlin: But so my first thought is like, oh, first of all, I'm like, please don't save that piece of chicken.
Merlin: I know we argue about leftovers.
Merlin: Please don't save those leftovers because that's just future trash that we're refrigerating.
Merlin: And like, but the thing is,
Merlin: In order to clean up the compost, let's say, your crisper, right, where you got that old nasty lettuce and the broccoli you meant to eat and all that stuff, where does that go?
Merlin: It goes in the compost.
Merlin: Well, the compost can inside is full right now, and the compost can outside is full, so where will it go?
Merlin: It's like Michael Stipe says.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: And so in my case, if we wanted to, for example, clean out an area that's gotten really crazy and it's full of stuff that we kind of need.
Merlin: But like, for example, like two or three times in the past, we've kind of like collected and moved all my kids' old books downstairs.
Merlin: And so those go into boxes and they go in an area.
Merlin: And once we feel mentally or emotionally ready, they can go somewhere.
Merlin: But if there's not a place to put those downstairs, where do they go?
Yeah.
Merlin: And here's where the ADHD comes in.
Merlin: That is a blocking, a mentally blocking task for me.
Merlin: As in, like, it's difficult for me now to get the enthusiasm to do the dishes because the dish rack is full of the hundreds of bottles and lunch containers that don't actually live anywhere.
Merlin: So anytime I want to be a good boy and do the dishes, I first need to figure out where all that stuff goes.
Merlin: You're just moving stuff to other places.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: You have to make a whole, and part of making a whole is if there's stuff in your life that doesn't belong in your life, you need to figure out where that needs to go, whether that's the dump or the goodwill or whatever, right?
Merlin: And you need a plan for that.
Merlin: And then you need an area.
Merlin: All this stuff here is stuff that's going to go to the dump or is going to go to goodwill or whatever, but...
Merlin: I've said before how Madeline and I are a good complementary fit, or bad complementary fit, I think it's a good fit, in that I see trees and Madeline sees forest.
Merlin: So, like, she's really good at, like, zoom, she just cleaned something and it's done.
Merlin: Like, she's just really good at it.
Merlin: Whereas I'm like, ugh, like, how does this fit into, like, where the stuff goes?
Merlin: I don't mean to overthink it, but let's just say that when I get to the point where we've got, like, 12 plastic shelving units full of bins that are just old garbage, that does not feel like a success to me.
No.
Merlin: And that's what I've learned over time.
Merlin: Does that make sense?
Merlin: Where do you fit on this spectrum?
John: Well, you know, I'm unmarried.
John: And so there is no forest seer around here except for me.
Merlin: It's just the titular tree locator.
John: But I'm also, you know, like the forests that I see are either from 80,000 feet or from one inch off the ground.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Depending on the moment.
Merlin: I could spend all day on one tree.
John: So what happens around here is that things get, there needs to be a hole for things to go.
John: And there are seven or eight appointed holes around, normal holes.
John: And one of them is right by the front door where things that are going out the door stack.
John: But they almost never go out the door.
Merlin: It's like putting stuff.
Merlin: Syracuse and I talked a lot about back when I was a kid and growing up in a townhouse, the stuff that gets put on the steps to where your steps, whether it's kind of meant to be, it starts out as simple as, well, here's some folded up clean socks.
Merlin: And then pretty soon it's a trumpet.
Merlin: And like, before you know it, your stairs, a third of the side of your stairs turn into shelves.
John: Yeah, you can't get through.
Merlin: Does that resonate with you at all?
John: Well, so, you know, and I have stuff that's going to go to the thrift store.
John: I have stuff that's going to go to other people's houses.
John: I have stuff that's going to go to other places in this house.
John: And by the front door is where that's the crossroads of all those places.
John: Oh, yes.
John: In the back, I have a couch that is where things go when they've been...
John: Worn once, but not enough to wash and not enough to put away.
John: People wash their clothes too much, John.
John: Well, they do.
John: And if you've worn it once, you don't want to just hang it up again because it's been worn.
John: But you don't want to put it in the wash.
Merlin: You're not a monster.
Merlin: But, like, no, there should be a space in between.
Merlin: This is why you need a valet to take care of this stuff for you.
John: That's right.
John: And that's what that couch does.
John: And then there's the twin-size bed where all the things that are getting put...
Merlin: On eBay, eventually one day... Okay, so just so I'm up to date, you've got the couch where stuff that's been lightly worn goes.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You've got a... And what is the first twin-size bed for?
John: The twin-size bed is for the things that are going out, but they have to be photographed and arranged because they're going out on eBay one day.
John: Someday they're going to get posted on eBay.
John: So they go on the bed.
John: And then down in the garage...
John: There's the section of things that are also like the top of the stairs.
John: Doesn't it suck to think about all this shit?
John: It's like they're at the top of the stairs, but they're too big to be on the stairs.
John: They're in the garage headed the same five directions that things are headed from the top of the stairs.
John: But what happens with me is if I'm over at someone else's house, let's say I'm over at my daughter's mother slash partner's house.
John: Partner's house, yeah.
John: And the dishwasher is done, and there are all these lunch boxes and thermoses and stuff that don't actually live anymore.
Merlin: Ugh.
John: So I have a lunchbox that I'm taking out of the dishwasher.
John: Nobody else is around.
John: And I'm like, well, okay, where does the lunchbox go?
John: I know where everything is in that kitchen.
John: And I open up the thing where the lunchboxes should go if this was my kitchen.
John: But in there, there's a bunch of unorganized Tupperware.
Merlin: She's a pretty tidy, organized person, right?
Merlin: Does it bother her to have things like Tupperware out and about?
John: Well, she's like Madeline, I think, in the sense that she's very tidy, but it's hippie tidy.
John: We call it hippie clean here.
Merlin: which is that everything gets put away and the house looks great, but there's no real... You haven't improved... This, for us, is right before Christmas every year, where it has become very clear that...
Merlin: I need to pull way back on a bunch of the stuff that's out and about.
Merlin: This is way too much to get into, but I think you'll know what I mean.
Merlin: Like if you've got a bunch of kippel and clutter out and about, and it can't be where the trees in the room where the trees kind of go, that's got to go somewhere.
Merlin: So any tiny little beach heads I have made with organizing a little bin of things, like all that has to be heaped into a pile of bins in the closet, which then over someday.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You start over, but also in the meantime, you're living this provisional life out of boxes of stuff and you can't find your things.
Merlin: And it takes a little nick out of your quality of life.
John: Well, so in this instance, this is just a for instance, because this happens all the time over at my daughter's mother's house.
John: Yeah.
John: I will say, well, this is just untenable.
Yeah.
John: And so I'll sit on the floor and I'll take every unorganized Tupperware out of this place and I'll put them all out on the kitchen floor, stack them and arrange them by size and use and shape and color and history.
John: And then I'll say, well, this isn't going to work unless I get all the Tupperware from all around the house, wherever it is scattered, and bring it here so we can see it all in one place.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: People push back on that all the time, and I totally agree.
Merlin: It sounds like the craziest thing in the world because you're fighting clutter.
Merlin: Why would you go and try to create more?
Merlin: To me, that's like when I'm doing the dishes or running the dishwasher, I do this weird thing where I walk around the house and see if there's any glasses and silverware that needs to go in.
Merlin: Of course.
Merlin: I don't just do what's at the sink, family.
Merlin: I go and I find the other things.
John: The problem with that is as I go around the house looking for all the other plates and cups and stuff, I'm carrying a cup of coffee, obviously, and then I have to put that down in order to carry the other things.
John: And that's how I get a half a cup of coffee that I find in the closet 10 days later.
John: I'll go on eBay eventually.
John: so so then all the tupperware is spread out all over the kitchen floor and i'm arranging it now if i get interrupted at that point we're in real trouble right because then my daughter's mother slash partner comes home and to her eye
John: there there's it's madness they don't they don't understand they don't understand you got to break eggs but if i get it all if i get through that task without being interrupted then her tupperware drawer is marvelously arranged and it has room for all of the orphan lunch boxes and it slides in and out really well because i might have oiled the casters as i've gone
John: But the problem is then she comes, she opens the drawer, she opens the cupboard or whatever where the lunchboxes are.
John: The next time she has something at Tupperware and she just throws it in, knocks down all of the towers.
John: Or she looks at it and goes, this isn't what I want.
Merlin: Does she like the way that it looks when you do it?
John: No, she doesn't see anything about it.
John: So sometimes I'll clean out her entire refrigerator.
John: I'll get rid of all the old moldy things.
John: I'll get rid of the 20 different packets of mustard.
John: I'll get rid of the pickles that nobody ever ate, the 20 cans of beer that are in there for some reason.
John: Nobody drinks beer.
John: And I'll put the refrigerator just like, it just looks like a museum.
John: And she does notice that.
Merlin: I think everybody likes, it's one thing, it's nice to have a well-stocked refrigerator, but there's something also, it feels like a weight off your shoulders when you open the refrigerator and you realize that somebody has done a good job of cleaning out the refrigerator.
John: Yeah.
John: It's a nice feeling.
John: The thing is that my own house, if you walked into it,
John: It honestly looks like an abandoned house that the person died and left all their things in, and then it was ravaged by raccoons.
Merlin: Yeah, the kind of thing where you might get YouTubers, the kind of people that go to an abandoned mall, you might get people like, you know, not to be harmful or steal things, but might want to break in and at least get some videos of that place while it's still around.
John: yeah or they would just yeah you would walk in if you were a normal person and you would say how did these raven shaped bookends end up on top of this guitar why is the globe in a candy dish why how did he even find a candy dish big enough to hold a globe you know like these things it's all connected
John: But at her house, I'm like, look, this refrigerator is out of control and I'm the man for the job.
John: So sometimes, like one time every nine months, her junk drawer, I go in and organize it.
John: Batteries and screwdrivers and rubber bands and all this stuff.
John: It takes me all day.
John: And it stays like that for, you know, so if I were a husband, if I were living in that house, I would be doing what you're doing, which is creating problems all over the house in the form of stacked up things that I forgot to get back to.
Merlin: I told you about how I have a box called adhesion.
Merlin: I have a box that boxes in little crates and things for like knives and sharp things, things that cut other things.
Merlin: And like if I'm only partway through organizing all of those and then I have to throw in the closet, you will not see it until St.
Merlin: Patrick's Day.
John: Well, and what I don't understand is how she can live in a house where the meat scissors are with the spoons, the soup spoons.
John: And she sees it, I think, as I don't use these very often.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
John: This is, I don't use these very often drawer.
John: And I go, but these are sharp things.
John: These are round things.
John: How could you possibly know?
John: And she's like, well, because I don't use them very often.
John: So if I'm looking for something I don't use very often, it's in the I don't use very often drawer.
John: It's got a logic to it.
John: There's a wonderful logic.
John: This harkens back to the old argument between Jonathan Colton and his wife, Christine.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Do you sort the silverware before you put them in the dishwasher, or do you sort them when you're emptying the dishwasher?
John: Hmm.
John: One person believes that you should put all... I think Jonathan sorts them before.
John: He does, and he believes it's very, very important that you put all the spoons together.
John: Christine says, if you put all the spoons together, then they nest with each other and they don't get clean.
John: Hmm.
John: What difference does it make whether you sort them before or after?
John: And he says, if you sort them before, then you just reach in, grab the whole...
John: Putting them away is really easy because you're reaching.
Merlin: You care for your cutlery.
John: But she says no.
John: And I, you know, back when I was close friends with that family, I sat in the room and heard that argument six times between them.
John: You know, it's a real argument, too.
Merlin: Oh, believe me, I know.
Merlin: I've heard about these dishwasher families where, like, you practically come to blows over, like, whether the plates go facing in or whether the lids are belonging there at all or the glasses are going to break if you put them there, that kind of thing, right?
John: Yeah.
John: And this is the hippie clean thing, because if you look at my daughter's mother slash partner's dishwasher, which she and this is her system that she's taught my own child, my progeny.
John: There is no, I see no plan at all, sir.
Merlin: What's that apocalypse now?
John: I see no method at all, sir.
John: I'm like, but how is this even, this is boggling my mind.
John: Why is this here?
John: This is, and there's, look at this.
Merlin: Do you feel crazy when she says that or do you think she seems a little crazy?
John: I just can't fathom how you could load a dishwasher like that and still go to bed at night and just lay there thinking about other things.
John: Because my dishwasher is arranged as though life depended on it.
John: Things go in ways.
John: They don't all go in always the same way because you don't always have the same dirty dishes because you don't always live the same week.
John: But a thing goes into the dishwasher in relation to other things.
John: It's not just in there on its own, independent of the things around it.
John: They are all together.
John: It's a family of things going to a place.
Merlin: I agree with you so much that it makes me uncomfortable.
Merlin: I feel like I must be nuts that I feel so strongly about some of these kinds of things.
Merlin: But there's a globe in the candy dish.
John: But you found the right size dish for it.
John: Well, it's a great candy dish and a great globe.
John: And at the moment, that's where the two things belong.
John: In relation to one another.
John: Everything is in relation to everything else.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: They think you're nuts when you say that.
Merlin: I think you're nuts, right?
Merlin: Because everything to them is an individual thing.
John: Well, that's like trying to play Jenga with one piece.
John: That's not a game.
John: It's just wood.
John: It's trying to play 60 games of Jenga with one piece to each game.
John: It's true.
Merlin: I'm trying to be cool about this, but you're getting at the problem now.
Merlin: It's more than just like habituation.
Merlin: It's more than just how you grew up, although that all factors into it.
Merlin: It's also just like your mental model of the world.
Merlin: Some people's mental model of the world can put up with almost anything.
John: and like i just i find it bewildering if you walked into this house it was you would go there's no there's no method here at all sir but if you said to me can you find those pins from different nasa uh like satellite launches that some fan sent you a while somebody's gonna ask and you're gonna need to find them and i would go oh yeah
John: That's right over here.
John: And the thing is, where it is, is it's on the couch of clothes that had been used.
John: Yes, John, but all locations are contextual.
John: That's right.
John: And the reason it's there is because I took down the box of ties one time because I was looking for a particular tie.
John: Yes.
John: And then I had the pins at the time in a different place, but I was like, oh, right, the box of ties needs to go back.
John: And pins aren't ties, but I did use a pin as a tie tack.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think sometimes I think I have, I don't know if I have precisely what people call a photographic memory, but I do know that I have in my life been aware of times where I was able to, and you can prove it, like shut up Syracuse, you can prove it, like where I was able to say like, oh, it's on this page at the bottom of the page and stuff like that.
Merlin: And I think at this point in my life, I have enough photographic memory to be dangerous.
Merlin: In the sense of, like, I have an association that's like, oh, I know it was—and it sounds dumb when I say it, but I'm like, I know it was near whatever, some kind of a thing.
Merlin: And you're like, I know it was near that, and then I did that.
Merlin: And sometimes I'm making this arm gesture like this where I'm going up and down like a Robbie the Robot kind of thing.
Merlin: That means my brain's trying to find something.
Merlin: But in your brain, there's no—
Merlin: Do you have any uncertainty that it exists?
Merlin: Do you have uncertainty that it's somewhere?
Merlin: No, you have certainty that like, and you know, if you guys would leave me alone, I could come up with a system where I would be able to find things all the time because everything is contextual.
John: i know where every book in this house is and there are stacks of books everywhere but if you ask me you know can you like your reviewer for the new yorker you do that thing where you like you stack them you know yeah yeah yeah they're all they're all stacked everywhere but if you asked me where is thorstein veblen's theory of business enterprise i would go okay that is right that would that's well duh it's obvious where it is you should buy one 85 000 bookshelf for that
Merlin: Nothing else goes there.
Merlin: Nothing else goes there.
Merlin: No time to argue.
Merlin: With a light on it.
Merlin: I know there's Veblen goods, but are there Veblen bats?
John: One of the great things about what's been going on with ADHD for me is that it has made the conversation around it has made everybody aware that it's a real thing, unlike what Syracuse would have us believe.
Merlin: It doesn't mean you have to like it, but just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's made up.
John: And a lot of the things we do around here, of course, is point out one another's foibles and then we all have a good chuckle.
John: You know, the other day I said, because there's also, my sister is constantly bringing in this love language business.
John: And also all the other woo insanity that she brings in.
Merlin: She's such, she strikes me as such a wild card in almost all of your situation.
Merlin: Every situation she, she, she will come in and say, you know, the other day, it seems to me that Ari is an orange and you're a tangerine.
John: My mom said in, in answer to the question, what's your love language?
John: My mom said, well, I guess of those choices, I would say acts of service.
John: And this is 100% true.
John: My mom and I both.
John: I think your mom's love language is keeping it to yourself.
John: Well, so I said, when Susan said, what's your love language?
John: I said, leave me alone.
John: And she said, that's not one of the options.
John: But then mom said, well, I guess I'm...
John: acts of service and i can confirm that 100 if you if you walk into my house you will find just as just as when my daughter's mother's last partner walks into her kitchen and finds that all the tupperware has been put as it should be together temporarily floored yeah
John: Um, in my mom's case, I I'll, you know, I'll go out to the garden or to the, uh, to the garage and like, oh, all, all the rakes are together.
John: And there were two of these rakes that had been lost in the forest, you know, and here they all are.
John: And that's wonderful that, but Susan said.
John: I'm also an acts of service person.
John: And we both sat, I mean, my mom and I, I mean, both sat and, and, and stared out the window trying to think of what she was, what she meant.
John: And then I realized and said to her, that was my mistake.
John: I shouldn't have said it, but I said, Oh, you see, here's the difference.
John: You see telling people what they're doing wrong as an act of service, right?
John: And there was like a long pause.
John: By saying that you're implying that it isn't.
John: that you don't think it is.
John: And I was like, well, I mean, when I say acts of service, I mean, go through the house and look to see every burned out light bulb and then go get the light bulbs and change the light bulb.
Merlin: I mean, couldn't that also just, not just, but like for me, that's like picking up trash on the street.
Merlin: Like, it's just like, I want to, I would like to, to the extent possible, I would like to leave this area.
Merlin: Well, within the constraints of what this environment is and what it's for, but I tend to want to leave an area better than I found it.
John: Right, except if they catch you in the middle of making it better than what you found.
Merlin: Well, especially if it's somebody else's Tupperware and they weren't home when you came in.
Merlin: Yeah, or... And you start yelling, first make a hole as they're dragging you out.
John: And the problem is, you know, it's like, first make a hole, but then what do you do if the air raid sirens go off?
Merlin: It's a good, it's a very good... They, like, you know, Britain, 1942, they face that constantly.
John: It's very difficult to get organized.
John: And I feel like I face it constantly because the air raid sirens are always kind of going off.
John: Well, everything's an emergency if you have access to the siren.
John: Yeah, or if you're looking for Tupperware and you end up opening the junk drawer and realizing, like, ah, you can't do one without the other.
John: Where's my meat scissors?
John: But what's been nice is that this awareness on the part of everyone...
John: Now there's a certain amount of leeway, but also a certain, a certain amount of health, help, help, proffered help.
Merlin: Because to, to like, accept how you are and be cool with supporting it.
John: well that and a recognition i think that what i'm doing is i'm not doing it to be difficult i'm not doing it because i'm nuts i'm not doing it because i don't because i didn't have the phone number of the guy
Merlin: Oh, it keeps coming up.
Merlin: I accused Syracuse of something.
Merlin: He was like, he was complaining about my desk.
Merlin: I had the bad sense to send him a photo of my desk.
Merlin: And he said, there's a lot of stuff on your desk.
Merlin: And I said, you know, I don't like to invoke John Roderick too often here, but you might as well just tell me there's an 800 number out there.
Merlin: You should get help.
Merlin: Oh, thanks, bud.
John: That's great.
John: You're the one who should get help.
John: Oh, the good one around here was, well, why don't we call a task rabbit?
John: And I'm like, a TaskRabbit?
John: It would take me longer to explain to the TaskRabbit what the system was than it would for them to do the job.
John: And the answer to that was always, but the job isn't getting done.
Merlin: Is it also accepted, though, I mean, in terms of, I'm jumping ahead a little bit here, but like, is it...
Merlin: Is it regarded as a power move?
Merlin: In this case, on your part, when you organize the Tupperware, is that perceived as a power move, a power grab?
Merlin: Certainly overstepping.
John: Overstepping.
Merlin: Yeah, okay.
Merlin: Yes, exactly.
John: Certainly, like, this was not a thing you were charged with.
John: This is not in your portfolio.
John: There are other things you could be doing.
Merlin: I've heard this so much.
Merlin: Oh God, I hear this so much.
Merlin: If you want to get organized, why don't you blah, blah, blah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: What are you?
John: And I'm like, well, I couldn't go past this drawer one more time as it currently is.
John: Uh, and there, you know, and the answer is, and the thing with my mom, of course, is that, uh, that she also doesn't have a part of my mom thinks she's on the spectrum has been saying this for many years.
John: And part of why she thinks so is that she has no, she has no ability to, um,
Merlin: feel what you were feeling she feels that you're upset and and it makes her upset but she doesn't know how you're upset she doesn't know why you're upset i i respect that a i respect that so fucking much and b i'm gonna get in so much trouble for saying this but i think way more people like well i think what we call the spectrum right now maybe may contain a lot more multitudes than we realize and i feel like i run into it every day
Merlin: And just to be clear here, it's not that, oh, you can't understand me.
Merlin: You are emotionally mute to my needs or whatever.
Merlin: It's more that just like, no, I have a role in all of that too.
Merlin: People just have a really hard time grokking each other.
Merlin: And the people who can go like, oh, I've realized I have trouble grokking and getting grokked.
Merlin: That's a good human to realize that.
John: yeah well and it's because we're always in conversation about it around here because i can absolutely feel everybody's feelings like to the down to the little detail of why they feel that way how they feel how it must feel to feel that way absolutely and and so for me it's waves and waves of that all the time that's that's very overwhelming but also it's like a superpower and if i were a if i were a sadist or a
John: or a sociopath i would use all that to advance my own ends but i don't but i'm not so i don't have ends to sort of um apply that opportunistically for malign purposes that's how con men con they know what you're feeling first it's not that they care but they know they know what they know what you want and then they somehow figure out how to almost kind of get you to ask for it
John: yeah and they know your weakness they can feel your vulnerability yes and so that's how they exploit you but i don't exploit people i'm trying to help so i'm constantly like oh i have to put these tupperware down because somebody in the house is upset right now and the only reason you can tell is that they close that drawer in the bathroom in a certain way oh yeah and i know what that means i'm very sensitive to those things
Merlin: If somebody's a little too loud in the kitchen, I'm like, are you mad at me?
Merlin: No, honestly.
Merlin: I say that all the time to one of my family.
Merlin: It's like, what is wrong with you?
Merlin: I'm like, well, you usually don't sound like that at 7 o'clock.
John: And that's the thing.
John: You also learn with people that you know.
John: What are the boundaries of who they're mad at?
Merlin: I feel like I know more than they do.
Merlin: Like, I know when my wife is getting sick before she gets sick.
Merlin: I know when somebody's mad at me before it's been a blow up.
Merlin: That doesn't make me a good person, but it does make me like, oh, I'm like, I'm screaming at the world.
Merlin: Please tell me how I can be better at this.
Merlin: I'm really not trying to be, I'm not trying to be a problem.
John: I think it's one of many roles that we would have in a differently constructed village other than the village that we live in, which is a village that's just being run, I think, by farmers and merchants.
John: And so what ends up happening with us is that we're like, here, this is my job.
John: And it's like, nope, that isn't even a job.
John: And you go, oh, right.
John: Okay.
John: Not even a job.
John: What the hell are you talking about?
John: It's like my main job.
John: Nope.
John: That's not even a job.
John: Somebody seems to think it's a job that doesn't exist in the world.
John: And it's like, well, well, what happens if, uh, what happens if the, the attack comes at night?
John: Yeah.
John: Nope.
John: There's no attack coming and it's not day or night.
John: Doesn't matter anymore.
John: There's maybe we should buy gas before we're out of gas.
Merlin: Is that a crazy thing?
Merlin: I feel like I'm always the person who's like, I'm on the one here who like is, is a retired project manager who feels like you should think things through before you do them.
Merlin: But again, I know that's because I'm all about the trees.
Merlin: And that makes me a real pain in the ass when mom is just all about, she's like doing whatever it's called, like woo-way, like wire work, you know, like crushing tigers.
Merlin: She's just flying over the trees.
Merlin: She's just jumping on the bamboo.
Merlin: And I'm down here going like, boy, this really needs to be watered.
John: well you know and flying over the trees is how like mortgages get paid that's true you know that's not we don't we don't do that very well and that is all that's often a problem but for me i also of course have the problem of having bipolar in addition yep and that and that results in a lot of the time me going um saying things like well this gas station just doesn't suit my needs
John: And the gas is on the, you know, it's like the light is already on.
John: But I'm like, no, I can find a better gas station than this.
John: Just trust me.
John: I didn't say we're perfect at it.
John: No, I know, I know.
Merlin: But like, I'm not taking forever, quote, to leave the house because I'm trying to frustrate you.
Merlin: I just know, and I could put it in a real dick way.
Merlin: Here's a real dick way.
Merlin: Well, I'm making sure we have all the stuff we need for this trip.
Merlin: like whatever this trip is.
Merlin: And oftentimes that includes something like a phone charger, because why in the year of our Lord, 2024, would you ever run out of phone charge?
Merlin: We have like dozens of phone chargers in the house, but they, I do need to make sure that they're charged and I need a cable for it and I got to grab it.
Merlin: And pretty soon I'm like, I'm Johnny, Johnny tree name.
Merlin: And like everybody else is like, let's just go get ice cream.
Merlin: And I'm like, yeah, but what if your phone dies?
John: It's a balance, it's a balance, but you know, so there's a lot of forgiveness for me, at least right now,
John: Uh, because there's also, I think a lot of, because, because in the conversation lately, I've finally, for the first time, been able to articulate to the, to the whole group in the whole family unit here, which is, which is multi height, multi-headed Hydra to say, there is a reason that I'm invaluable to this group.
John: And we spend a lot of time.
John: talking about the way that I inhibit or thwart progress here, but you also all need to take a moment and think about what your lives would be like without me.
Merlin: How do you think all this stuff happens?
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: I mean, do you like, are you just, are you like so incurious?
Merlin: And I sound like I'm yelling at my family, which I kind of am, but like just in any situation, it's like that phrase again, a phrase, I, I, something I say a lot, if you don't know who's doing your emotional labor, it's probably everyone, you know, like, are you just, are you, are you that incurious about like how anything gets accomplished?
Merlin: Cause if you, if you had taken out the compost anytime in the last six weeks, you'd know that it's full a lot and
Merlin: And you wouldn't just... The classic, of course, like in recycling, when you're the recycling dad, like somebody who just literally puts a box into the recycling.
Merlin: And you're like, do you know how many cubic inches of life you just took away from us with that box?
Merlin: Because now it's my problem.
John: Well, I don't know if you're this way about it, but you can't put a box in recycling with plastic tape on it.
John: And sometimes the plastic tape is very hard, so I have to stand out by the recycling and take all the plastic tape off of all the boxes.
John: The things you do...
John: The things you do in this world.
John: Yeah.
John: But I think that you're not on Instagram.
John: No.
John: But Instagram, it's been a great gift to me in the sense that the ladies in my life are all on Instagram and trade videos back and forth with each other.
Merlin: And there's a whole... Just to be clear here, I'm the weirdo here.
Merlin: I don't have TikTok.
Merlin: I don't have Instagram.
Merlin: And when I say that, people are like, what are you, live in the hills?
Merlin: And I'm like, well, no, I just... When you send me links to things that you enjoyed on TikTok or Instagram, there's no pattern I can identify into whether I can see it at all.
John: It won't show it to me.
John: In my, I've never been on TikTok, but a lot of TikTok ends up on Instagram.
John: And my understanding of it now from having been a part of this new Instagram, old Instagram was just like old Twitter.
John: It was just your friends and you were making jokes with each other.
Merlin: Fucking birds on a wire.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It really was.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, there's more birds on the wire.
John: Oh, it's your feet on a boat.
Merlin: That's nice.
Merlin: Thanks.
John: But now it's just this constant barrage, this curated by an algorithm barrage of things.
John: And for me, my barrage is insane because it's like, well, this week I like to watch...
John: like farriers trim cow hooves, and next week I'm really into watching jumbo jets have trouble landing in the wind, and then I didn't even realize that there was a... You watch one Adolf Eichmann video.
Merlin: One Adolf... You watch, let's say, be honest, you watch three Adolf Eichmann videos, and pretty soon that's all you're getting.
John: You know, then I went through a phase where it was like, guys in India unclogging culverts, and then... Oh, I love drain-clearing videos.
John: Yeah, drain-clearing, and here comes water.
John: But what there is is in those multitude of algorithms, the multiverse, there are now hundreds of content creators who make videos, and they're from around the world, where they look straight at the camera and they go, if your ADHD partner does this, this is what they're trying to do, and this is what you could say that doesn't help.
John: And they do it as like, I'm putting out a video every six hours in order to gain followers in order to make money.
John: There's a reason I quit blogging.
John: But a lot of them are just little snippets where, where when they send the video to me, I go, huh, that does sound like me.
John: Yeah.
John: And I, and so, but they watch it and it isn't me.
John: So they don't have an emotional connection to the problem.
John: They just were watching some guy in Australia talk about it and they have the like, Oh,
John: That's just like, oh my God, you know, that reference.
John: And then the sympathy that I get, like all of a sudden a thing that's been driving them crazy for years.
John: Now they have sympathy for it.
Merlin: Probably because they figured it out.
Merlin: I'll just make this a comment instead of a question.
Merlin: I wonder if you get this.
Merlin: That's going to be you in a few years, dad.
Merlin: I hear that.
Merlin: Twice a night.
Merlin: Something happens on TV.
Merlin: And it's like, that's going to be you in a few years.
Merlin: And I was like, you know what?
Merlin: I was about to say that.
Merlin: That's totally going to be me in a few years.
Merlin: Whatever it is.
Merlin: But you know the type.
Merlin: You know it's somebody who is trying to build his own clock out of cereal boxes or whatever and feels misunderstood.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, so my daughter's not quite that sophisticated yet because she doesn't have that content to watch on her own.
John: She's only watching her mother's feed.
John: I see.
John: And so there's a lot of stuff on there that's like, oh, there's a woman in Britain named Trini and Trini makes videos where she just walks through her enormous closet.
John: and teaches you how to buy things cheap at zara but combine them to make a very fashionable to make a capsule wardrobe and so you go oh zara oh and then you combine them and it looks like you just dump plastic in the ocean
John: Why don't you just go shred up some Tide pots?
John: Just drop them right in Puget Sound.
John: Everything grinds.
John: And then your closet can also be insane.
Merlin: This high fashion tea can be worn as many as two times.
Merlin: The armpits are falling out, but I like that part.
John: And I'm, you know, and I'm over here going, ah, there's no soup and they're serving it on a garbage can.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Hippie clean, hippie tight.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: We're running short on time probably.
Merlin: You know, here's one thing.
Merlin: I have a question and I'm like, okay, so I'm already feeling I'm getting myself in trouble with this.
Merlin: I don't know if I'm getting you in trouble with this, but I feel.
John: Nobody in my family listens to my podcast, so they wouldn't.
John: You think mine do?
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
John: My mom has said recently that she loves reading transcripts of my podcasts.
John: And so sometimes she'll find a transcript and she can read it.
John: But because she doesn't have to read emotions, she can just read the words and then she gets some of the jokes and she's like, oh, that was a really fun episode.
Merlin: But transcripts only.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: I mean, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, it makes more sense than listening at triple speed.
Merlin: But, like, this is one where, like, and I'm trying to, as I ask you this question slash comment, it's, I hope there's some amount of self-awareness in this.
Merlin: But I feel like one distinction, and I don't mean this to be, like, a dichotomy, or let alone a false dichotomy, but I think there are people who cling...
Merlin: Clean, tidy, whatever word you want to use here.
Merlin: Organize.
Merlin: There are people who do that aesthetically, and there are people who do that functionally.
Merlin: And I think that's one place where I feel a little bit up against it.
Merlin: Where, like, my wife, who's very good with the trees, is like, shoo!
Merlin: And the kitchen's really clean.
Merlin: But it's like, oh, jeez.
Merlin: Why don't you always put that one dish on top?
Merlin: We never use that dish.
Merlin: I want to be able to do everything in here with one hand, but I can't because everything in here is like with the way you organize the Tupperware.
Merlin: Is it made to exactly fit the number of things you have or is it made to brilliantly reflect the five things you need?
Merlin: And that is such a big deal.
Merlin: Just having a nicer stack is not a solution.
John: I was watching the Ferrari movie last night with with Kylo Ren in it.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And at one point he's designing some manifold and his little illegitimate son is there.
John: And he says and he walks him through the manifold design.
John: And then he says, listen, if a thing is efficient, it's more than likely to be beautiful.
John: And I was like, hmm.
John: He was like, don't try and make it beautiful.
Merlin: I think if something is, I don't know if this is a corollary or just a made up thing, but I think another way to look at that is, well, first of all, a lot of things that are inefficient are in fact not very nice to look at.
Merlin: But, you know, I think that it's
Merlin: If something if something is well, I don't love this phrase, but I get it if it's well considered, and you have really like thought through how you will use this, like, you know, I'm never gonna buy another car.
Merlin: But if I bought it, I wouldn't buy a Tesla because it doesn't have stocks.
Merlin: It's got no stalks.
Merlin: It's got no stalks.
Merlin: Everything's like a capacitive button.
Merlin: They don't have turn signals and shit.
Merlin: Everything's on a touchscreen.
Merlin: There's all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: We were like, I see how you got to this.
Merlin: I see where you're going.
Merlin: I don't want to turn this into a Tesla thing.
Merlin: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: We were like, oh, I see what you were going for.
Merlin: Like somebody who has not thought through the organization of, say, a kitchen drawer.
Merlin: I can see how you got there, especially Merlin 2005, where I'd be like, well, these are all things that are taller than they are wide.
Merlin: Let's put them here and not open it for six years.
Merlin: But like, I'm so into the expectations game of being able to open a drawer and know that's exactly where the meat scissors are going to be.
Merlin: That's exactly where the spoon is going to be.
Merlin: And I don't need to move anything to get, you know what I'm talking about?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: But now in fairness, for me, that means also I make things that are not always from the jump aesthetic to people, but also that I sometimes do let perfect be the enemy of good.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: perfect be the enemy of finished in some ways.
Merlin: So I'm, I'm trying to become more cognizant of that, but like, it's just, that's, that's, and this is why, this is where I get back to this old idea where we all started, where we started with all of this earlier, which is like, yeah, there was a time when like, we did a major purge.
Merlin: There's a book I talk about all the time.
Merlin: People have heard me talk about it too much, but it's a wonderful book called It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh.
Merlin: Which had a huge impact on the way I think about just stuff in life.
Merlin: And after reading that book, I realized what I'd been getting wrong for so long that for me personally, it's just I had very unhealthy relationships with a lot of physical objects that basically consisted of being emotionally fretful about it and then ignoring it.
Merlin: But then like, oh, if I can organize it in this better way, it's like, well, no.
Merlin: What is the place that this object has in your future?
Merlin: Instead of trying to create a museum about who you wanted to be a long time ago, how do I build an infrastructure that works for everybody and supports the life we want rather than the myriad lives we never had or think we had?
Merlin: Or like, why do I keep all these pants?
Merlin: My kids started, finally, my kids started stealing my pants because I can't wear them anymore.
Merlin: My kids walking around, I was like, those are cool.
Merlin: I was like, well, are those Levi's unwashed?
Merlin: He's like, yeah, they're yours.
Merlin: I was like, oh, con gusto.
Merlin: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: I know there is a balance to be struck and you need to have a quiet life, but that's where I am right now with this new shelf thing that I'm working on.
Merlin: So going back to one of the things I wrote down here, utility knives, rakes, you described earlier, right?
Merlin: Tupperware.
Merlin: Well...
Merlin: Do you really want to just grab every piece of this certain kind of thing?
Merlin: It makes sense for toilet paper rolls, right?
Merlin: Toilet paper rolls should be with like with like, but it'd be in the right place to be deployed and all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: But like, is there really that much benefit in making a point of collecting every cable you've ever gotten with a device?
Merlin: And then keeping it forever.
Merlin: In my case, like a USB-A to USB mini, one of those, like the ones you get like with, you know, like lots of little like smart home devices and stuff.
Merlin: And like, I need two of those.
Merlin: Sure, of course.
Merlin: I don't need every one of those that I've ever gotten.
Merlin: And I certainly don't need every one of those that...
Merlin: I've well organized because we confer value on things when we organize them.
Merlin: Sometimes that value is completely baseless in my experience.
Merlin: So just because you've done a good job of putting every black cable that has some kind of a connector on it into the same file.
Merlin: five bins like is that a happy life and then you label them really well and like all that stuff like there was a time when i would keep every different kind of cable in a ziploc bag which i think is really smart you have them all in one thing you can always find what you want but you know what the real pro move is like throw almost all of them out well yeah but what if i need that are you do you really think in my case i'm talking to me do you really think you would have that much trouble getting a cable that goes from this thing to that thing in 2024
Merlin: Is it worth warehousing all of that stuff?
Merlin: So that's what I'm trying to get at is like that.
Merlin: Now that's me falling victim to an aesthetic fallacy, which is like, oh, this will be better if I keep all this shit I don't need in one place.
Merlin: And it's in pretty rows and it looks organized because that's madness.
John: And you have the additional issue, I think, like, like in my house, there is no Tupperware because I many years ago decided that all my storage containers would be glass.
John: Like old jars and stuff.
John: Well, and, and whatever those nice ones that you find at Costco that are not made of plastic, but are made of glass and they have little snap on lids.
John: They're like Tupperware except they're made of glass.
John: And I decided there would be no plastic Tupperware here.
John: But I cannot make that decision for other people.
John: I can't say you don't have Tupperware.
Merlin: Do we need this many?
Merlin: We say Tupperware.
Merlin: That's a brand name.
Merlin: But do we need this many rectilinears for holding food?
Merlin: We have, John, we have...
Merlin: Bottles, water bottles, and plastic or glass things for holding food.
Merlin: We got it all.
Merlin: Yeah, of course you do.
Merlin: Fancy people.
Merlin: I don't see why we need all of these.
Merlin: And where do they go?
John: But so you have, you have you for sure, but you also have someone else at the level of implementation that I don't.
John: And in a perfect world, if I were, if, if this world was made the way it should be, I would have an implementation person that also believed in my system.
Merlin: Can I just say, yes, also, but somebody who is beyond sympathetic to your system, somebody who sees it, it's the way of God, that system.
John: So it's either a partner who believes in the system or an employee who is there, is being paid to implement your system.
Merlin: A fawning intern who's 100% bought into the Roderick Group.
Merlin: Right.
Right.
John: And I have neither thing.
John: And I think the problem in a lot of marriages is probably that the system person and the implementation person do not agree.
John: This is the thing about implementation people.
John: System people know they're not implementation people.
John: Right.
John: But implementation people think they're also system people.
Merlin: That's a pretty good distinction that goes for a lot of things well beyond dishes and dishes and honestly, beyond dishes and doctor's appointments.
Merlin: It goes for a lot of different things.
Merlin: And it's what leads you to the kind of thing that one will sometimes find oneself saying, which is like, if you have that strong of an opinion about it, how about you just take care of all of this now?
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I mean, but you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like, if you care that much about the dishwasher, like, do it and do a good job and don't complain about it.
Merlin: But like, and when other people are doing your work, when other people are executing on your systems, so which one are we?
Merlin: Well, that's the thing.
Merlin: Are we implement tours or systemators?
John: This is this is the extrovert introvert problem in a nutshell, too, which is the extroverts fail to see that not everyone is like them.
John: Introverts know that there are extroverts and introverts.
John: Hell yeah, we do.
John: Right.
John: This is the white privilege thing.
John: White people think everybody are like them.
John: Black people know for sure that they are that there are different kinds of people.
John: And it's true across the whole spectrum.
John: They've had to learn our system for 500 years.
John: Well, and every day they walk out the door and they're like, oh, well, here it is.
John: That's right.
John: Oh, that's right.
John: I'm me.
John: You know, and the majority always assumes that the majority is everybody.
John: And the minority knows for sure that it's not.
John: I detect no hegemonic ideology here.
John: Whatever could you mean?
John: And so, you know, but you encounter these hegemonic ideologies all the time, and a lot of the time you don't recognize that yourself is a minority.
John: You're just like, why can't I make this happen?
John: Why can I not get to the dentist at 8 a.m.
John: like everybody else seems to be able to?
John: What's wrong with me?
John: Why am I broken?
John: And I think one of the problems of modern day is that everybody's decided they're a minority and they're just looking for ways to be a minority.
John: But there are ways in which we are...
John: It's the people that are different that are much more able to say, I know there's a way.
John: I know there's a normal way.
Merlin: Can I attempt to put a spin on that and you feel free to reject this?
Merlin: Because just minority, I realize minority is a very charged word for a reason, but you mean minority in the sense of less than 50%, right?
Merlin: But also in the sense of being a deviation from the norm.
John: A, what's the term?
John: A neurodivergent.
Merlin: But in the case of like, I guess a good example might be being left-handed.
Merlin: Where, you know, hey, I'm just as God made me, sir.
Merlin: But like, it's hard for me to write in English because my hand keeps smearing the page.
Merlin: Because right-handed people probably invented writing.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like one in ten people.
Merlin: One in ten is gay.
Merlin: One in ten is left-handed.
Merlin: But you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like, in terms of like, well, that's just what I have to deal with.
John: My mom is left-handed, and only in the last 10 years has she started to say, I need to sit in this chair at a table, because if I sit anywhere but this chair, I'm going to be bumping elbows with the person next to me through the whole meal.
John: But if you will just make sure that I sit in this chair, then I'm free.
John: Then my elbow is free.
John: And realizing that her whole life, she'd been sitting at a table bumping elbows with the person next to her.
John: People rolling their eyes about, oh, special treatment for the minorities.
John: Well, not even that.
John: For 50 years, she didn't even realize what the problem was.
John: And sitting next to a person who's like, God, stop bumping me.
John: And she's like, I don't know why.
John: And it's because she's eating with her other hand.
John: And that she's just sitting next to somebody.
John: They're both trying to share the same armor.
Yeah.
John: And it's only this awareness that led to her going, oh, that's why every dinner makes me uncomfortable.
Merlin: Oh, this is me and trauma.
Merlin: There's so much stuff where I'm unpacking all this really embarrassing stuff about myself going, oh, it was a pretty small thing, but that definitely it came up a lot.
Merlin: And that definitely was part of a trauma for me.
Merlin: Like, that sounds dumb, but you know what I mean?
Merlin: You'll discover once you're honest with yourself and vulnerable with yourself, even if you don't tell other people, you eventually go like, well, that may not be a big deal to other people, but apparently it was a big fucking deal to me.
John: Right.
John: And I think one of the problems of the way that we're
John: framing neurodivergence right now.
John: Not all neurodivergence is the same.
John: We're not all members of a society.
John: You can be somebody that's left-handed and an extrovert.
John: So 90% of your life you think is normal.
John: What are you talking about?
John: Why don't you, why can't you make the doctor's appointment?
John: But also I'm a special person because I need this.
John: I need to sit in this chair.
John: And it doesn't make us all equal and it doesn't make us all friends.
John: And there are a million ways in which I am the beneficiary of normal systems or the big system, the overarching system.
Merlin: We were always, I mean, I grew up always being the first choice in all, you know, fill in radio button things.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: White guy, you know, America, all those things.
Merlin: Like I was the default, gorgeous, very well organized.
Merlin: A really lovely mover.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, you should see me build these shelves.
Merlin: But what's that phrase they use in feminism?
Merlin: Oh, shoot.
Merlin: Oh, that wonderful term about like, you know, oh, yeah, it's not just that I'm a woman.
Merlin: It's the men's fault?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: There's one like, I'm not just a woman.
Merlin: I'm like a black gay woman.
John: Oh, I'm not just a woman.
John: I'm a black gay woman.
John: I'm sorry.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: No, no, no.
John: Right.
Merlin: I see what you're saying.
Merlin: What's the word for that?
Merlin: But I think that's in the neurodiversity thing, let alone in, like, God, the culture of queer people.
Merlin: Like, how many more letters can we add?
Merlin: Like, it's just a whole bunch of stuff because we're still kind of responding to, I'm not the default checkbox.
John: For those folks.
John: Right.
John: And and yet they're all they are the default checkbox in their own worlds in so many instances.
John: Right.
John: There's very few people are at the absolute bottom of the totem.
John: And that thing that you're describing where black feminists had to at a certain point go, wait a minute, white feminists aren't speaking for us.
John: You know, when white women are talking about unequal pay statistics, they're lumping us in to skew the statistics.
Merlin: The kind of moms that showed up for women's lip stuff in the early 70s would definitely have looked askance at like Shirley Chisholm showing up there.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Like, oh, this is, oh, you coming to our thing?
Merlin: It's like, well, no, I'm coming to our thing.
John: And that's the trick, right?
John: When you see your own neurodivergence, you also have to recognize the many, many, many ways that you're not.
John: And right now, I think we're living in a time where it's just like, oh, well, I'm not for the majority.
John: You know?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What if you're an undiagnosed asshole?
Merlin: The thing is, so many assholes are undiagnosed.
Merlin: It's a travesty, and a lot of them just don't seek the help.
Merlin: You say to them, well, there's probably an 800 number you can call and get diagnosed, you know?
Merlin: Get some help, you say to them.
Merlin: Get some help.
John: I'm constantly trying to be less of an asshole, which is kind of my main neurodivergence, I think.
John: That's my first box, too.
John: And in some ways, I feel like sorting someone else's Tupperware is a great act of service, and they see it as me being a real asshole.
John: Because one of their first experiences is that I'm judging their drawers, right?
John: Why are you in my fucking kitchen judging my system?
John: How long have you been here?
John: I see no method at all, sir.
John: That's the show art this week, by the way.