Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
FEELING INSECURE? JOIN THE CLUB
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Anees joins Ross to discuss the idea that everyone, even the rich and famous, deals with insecurity. Tangents include: Squirrels; Disney VIP; quinceanera, chivalry; quick sand; chamber buckets; Folgers coffee commericals; Killer Bees; low hanging fruit; diapered mini-horses.
Notes:
- Folgers Coffee Commercials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjjkgIO3Ck
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
If you're hungry, do they slip you a wiener or something?
SPEAKER_03Whoa. This is a family show.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention, and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today is a very talented person who is known for many things, but especially for ordering drinks that match the color of her outfits. It's Anise.
SPEAKER_03Hello.
SPEAKER_01Welcome. It's so good to have you. I wanted to tell you that since the last time you and I have been together, I finally got COVID. And you'll hear it in my voice. I don't have it now, so don't panic. Um, but you'll hear it in my voice, ladies and gentlemen and others. You will hear the creaky, croaky COVID, post-COVID voice, which I expect to have for the rest of my life. But maybe I'll get more creepy acting parts because of it. And welcome everyone to the show. We're so glad you're here listening. It's a delight to have you. If you want to help us, you know the best thing you can do is share the show with someone you think will like it. You can give us a five-star sparkling review on Apple Podcasts. That helps us in the magical Apple algorithm. Most of all, we just appreciate that you're tuning in, you're listening, and you are welcome here. You are part of our family. Now, Anise, we know there are many reasons for people to feel some level of insecurity. You know, we just doing this pandemic thing, the economy, work stuff, political stuff, social stuff going on, relationships. Today, I want to talk about mainly the general feeling of insecurity and why so many of us struggle with it. In my lifetime, insecurity has been sort of treated as a personality defect. It's like there would be arguments where people would say, Oh, don't be so insecure. You're so insecure, as if that's some unusual, abnormal state for someone to be in. And let me just start right off the bat asking you, do you ever feel insecure?
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna say yes and no.
SPEAKER_01Okay, can you explain?
SPEAKER_04Okay. Well, let's first start off with you know, where does insecurity come from? I uh blame our parents.
SPEAKER_01Yes, can we? Yes, I'm so mad at them.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. It is absolutely their fault. Um what did they do? What and what they didn't do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what didn't they do?
SPEAKER_04So I would say my parents gave me a lovely foundation for a few years, thanks mom and dad. So because of that, I feel like I have some fairly good self-esteem. I think of myself like I'm wonderful. I'm great.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04The problem is the rupture in attachment and the the issues that happened in a little bit later childhood makes me believe like knee-jerk reaction makes me believe that no one else will be able to see that I'm great and I'm wonderful. So I know it, you won't know it.
SPEAKER_01Oh. And and so that causes you to feel how?
SPEAKER_04Oh, many things, right? I can feel reactive. Definitely in my uh emerging adulthood era, I felt very reactive about people accepting me or loving me or picking me. Um now as I'm older and wiser, I feel like uh maybe even startled or surprised when people compliment me. Like, oh, you you see me?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Now I should disclose that you are a psychotherapist.
SPEAKER_04I am a counselor. I specialize in children. Um they're my favorite to work with, but I work with, you know, anybody of any age.
SPEAKER_01Why do you think I have so many friends that are therapists? That's weird, right? Because I have a lot of friends who are therapists or psychologists. What's the deal?
SPEAKER_04Or actors.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Or both. Or both. Yeah. Yeah. Those that's my main friend group. Actors, comedians, musicians, therapists. So basically, losers. No, I'm not calling anyone a loser. Well, actually, I just did. You did. I'll try to take it back. So I'm going to argue in this little podcast because I have a take, and my take is very simple is that insecurity is the natural state for all living things. Even normal, so-called normal, healthy people feel insecure. Have you ever seen a squirrel in the park? Yeah. They don't look secure. They're scurrying all around or look crazy, frantic. Nature is not secure. Nature is any animal I've ever seen is freaky weird because they're worried about when am I gonna eat again? Is anybody like taking my eggs? You ever seen a bird? Birds like they never relax.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh. I was just thinking of a squirrel guarding eggs from like the grocery store. That was the visual I got as you were describing.
SPEAKER_01I would love to see that.
SPEAKER_04They were just guarding the eggs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you go down to buy some eggs in the dairy aisle, and they're a bunch of like gangsta squirrels. Uh-huh. OG squirrels. So my feeling is that that's a natural state. We were we evolved into a dangerous environment as our species and any other living species, where nature's always trying to wipe us out. Like pandemic, hello. Nature's always out there trying to hurricane us or earthquake us or fire us or disease us. Animals are always trying to get us. It's there's chasms, there's sinkholes, there's catastrophe around every corner. Quicksand. I always loved the movies that had quicksand. There was something just very I was so intrigued by the idea of quicksand. Yeah. And that's like the whole sinking and then the slow sinking and don't struggle.
SPEAKER_04And and thinking that it would be a much bigger problem than it has been in my life.
SPEAKER_01Same with killer bees. They told us and and they keep running that story every 10 years. But when I was a kid, they told us killer bees were coming to get us. And we believed that stuff because it was before the internet. So we thought that stuff people said was true. Now we know that nothing, everything's made up. But back then it was like killer bees are coming to get you. Like I remember talking to my friends, like, what are we gonna do? And it's it's like, can't will they come through the house? Can they get through a door? What if it's a steel door? Should we surround ourselves in lead? Yes. The killer bees never came.
SPEAKER_04They still could. Are you feeling insecure?
SPEAKER_01No, I did then, but now I just feel disappointed. It's like when they told us cars would fly. It's all just a bunch of crap they were saying. So my argument is, and I'm so I want to separate the idea of insecurity. When I say everybody feels insecure and it's a natural state of being, I want to separate that from all the arguments we can make about inequality in the world. There's tons of that, and that is not distributed equally. But insecurity I would maintain is, and I would argue that everyone feels insecure, even people who are billionaires. In fact, the more junk you have, the more money you have, the more insecure you're gonna feel because you have more to lose. You have more to lose, you have more concerns about what do I do with all this money? And will someone take it from me? What if I run out? What does it mean? I don't have as much as the next billionaire. And this is a bit of a side note, but personally, I think being rich puts you face to face with your mortality. When you don't have any five financial concerns, what do you got left to think about? Death. Either consciously or subconsciously. That's why they're always buying all that stuff. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. You're trying to ward off as if you could. You're trying to distract the reaper from reaping you. The richer you are, the more the reaper is taking up space in your head. That's one of my takes.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01What do you think about it?
SPEAKER_04Um, I'm gonna fight you.
SPEAKER_01I want you to so bad.
SPEAKER_04All right. I disagree with you. Yay!
SPEAKER_01Talk to me about it. Well, where shall we start? Let's start with outfits. No, let's go.
SPEAKER_04Um I think there's two separate things here, right? We should always be we we do need to have some sense of awareness and anxiety to survive. And those are the questions of like, you know, am I gonna survive? Is this dangerous? Is this not dangerous? All of those things. And they may be a reflection upon you, which I think insecurity is kind of what you're pointing at is something internal that tells you some information about the world or an interaction you just had. Okay, fine.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, but to me, the antidote to insecurity is learning resiliency.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And what does that mean exactly?
SPEAKER_04That means so hopefully your parents taught you this or you learned it along the way.
SPEAKER_01I thought we decided our parents are bad.
SPEAKER_04They are bad, they're terrible.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, but you can still teach yourself as an adult. You just reparent yourself, we'll do it together.
SPEAKER_01Reparent. I like that.
SPEAKER_04So the to me, the most effective way to teach resiliency in children and ourselves is being okay with making mistakes, yeah, being okay with bad things happening, and believing this is the important part. Believing that it's all gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_04So I don't worry about a lot of things. And yes, that could have to do with my privilege, um, that could do with me having natural resources, a family, what have you. Um, but I there's so many things I just don't worry about because I believe that I'll get through it. If someone doesn't like me, someone doesn't want to be around me, maybe that's okay.
SPEAKER_01Ah. So yes, that's um I like that a lot. And that's something it took me a while to learn myself to get okay with people saying, Well, you're not my favorite person. It's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Like, why would I be everyone's favorite?
SPEAKER_04You can't be everybody's favorite.
SPEAKER_01No, and you don't want to be, because that's too many birthday cards.
SPEAKER_04You know, it's just so many well wishes from people on your birthday.
SPEAKER_01And one of the things about people with birthdays is like they're inviting me to these little parties, but they're not saying no gift. So now I gotta bring a gift. Can't we, once you get to a certain age, can you just show up and get buy the person a drink or a donut and be on your way?
SPEAKER_04Do you have to Well, that is a gift. A donut is a gift.
SPEAKER_01I know that's all I want to do. I don't want to shop.
SPEAKER_04You gave me sandwiches today. Teeny tiny sandwiches.
SPEAKER_01Little sandwiches for a niece. She deserves them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01She deserves sandwiches. Um, I I like what you're saying, and I do agree with your argument. I think that even the even though when we get to a state when we can really accept who we really are and be okay with the fact that we're not everyone's favorite, so that gives us a certain amount of freedom and and a and the uh it lowers our base level of insecurity. I still think it is always present for every human, even no matter who you are, your hope is that you can get to a low level of insecurity where it just flares up here and there, little things happen in your day, uh, and it flares up and you question, hey, well, am I actually safe? Am I good enough? Am I worthy? Whatever the question is that you're feeling. I think that we live in a world that's constantly preying on this base level of insecurity. And just let's take the low-hanging fruit. Because I'm a big fan of low-hanging fruit.
SPEAKER_04I know. I've heard that about you.
SPEAKER_01I I have to own it. If there's low-hanging fruit, you know I'm gonna pick it. So uh, I mean, I would be crap at an orchard. I would not get any bonus because I would leave the tree pretty much untouched. Just the low stuff would be taken.
SPEAKER_04Well, there's also squirrels that are guarding the eggs. They're guarding the eggs, they're guarding the fruit.
SPEAKER_01Freaking squirrels with their egg guarding. So um every single ad, almost every single ad, no matter how innocent it appears on the surface, if you look just beneath that thin veneer of beneficence, there's a message of insecurity attached to the ad. I've got three examples.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01You are too young to know about these old Folger coffee commercials. These commercials, you need to watch them on YouTube. They are fun. They're black and white. So I don't know if someone as young as you are can even process black and white video. We probably don't see anything. Everyone followed the same formula, and basically the formula was man scolding wife for making bad coffee. Wife goes and talks to an older German lady who recommends using Folger's crystals, and then man is now happy with wife, and she can feel less shame. And I just want to play. So they're all the same, but some are juicier than others, and I just want to play one. Give me a moment. All right, so I've got it.
SPEAKER_00Just a decent cup of coffee. You're kidding. I'm serious. Honey, your coffee's undrinkable. Pretty harsh. Well, so's your coffee. You know, the girls down at the office make better coffee on their book plates.
SPEAKER_01Whoa! So it's like it's like that's a double, that's a double slam because it's basically it's a it's a sexual innuendo. Yeah. It's like I can get better from the girls down at the office. It's horrifying, and all those commercials are horrifying. But what does it do? It preys on like this idea that I'm being a bad, in this case in the 1960s, a bad housewife. Instead of just saying, make your own damn coffee, bitch. Why aren't you making me coffee? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um it's hard to talk about that commercial without talking about like power dynamics.
SPEAKER_01Let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, that's why why would she be insecure about anything if she felt like this relationship will be fine no matter what?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04It'll all be okay. But the whole message said, no, it's I'm gonna leave you for my secretary, which probably was true anyway, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. He was just gonna leave for the secretary. He was already, he'd already chosen a secretary.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01He'd gone through tens. I mean, I watched Mad Men, I know what they do. Yeah. But but that whole idea, so that's a very obvious example of an uh the ad or a for a product making us feel uncertain about our own worth. That's like a blatant example. But I think they all continue to do that, although more subtly. Like even we get bombarded with car commercials, and they're always telling us this is you need this car. If you want to look cool, if you want to be people to think you have money, if they want you to think you're tough, if you want to be have the latest gadgets, you gotta have this car. And if you don't have this car, there's something wrong with you. Medicine, medicine, you've you don't feel the right way right now. You need to be different, you need to feel different, and we've got a pill for you. And by the way, a lot of these commercials, and I don't watch a lot of commercial television anymore, but I kind of started watching some just to kind of remind myself what what they're doing. They're yelling at you during these commercials. They yell. And that's unsettling, like that or sort of an arresting approach. Uh the news media makes us feel is designed, is designed to make us feel insecure. So we'll keep reading, watching, streaming their stories. Breaking news, alert. This is what you need to worry about right now.
SPEAKER_04This sounds like other people's problems.
SPEAKER_01What do you mean, other people?
SPEAKER_04Well, it all of these examples to me are just highlighting that it's other people making trying to make you feel bad so you'll consume something or you'll do something.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's exactly what they're doing.
SPEAKER_04But that people aren't inherently insecure unless there's some kind of power dynamic or some kind of I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Well, I agree that there there are all sorts of inequalities that come into play, but I also am arguing that even if you just strip everything away and put human beings in the world, they their natural state is to be nervous about their their safety and well-being. They just that's just how we survive. The people who were relaxed and were sitting around and lazy boys, the cave people who got lazy boys. So they're living in a cave, they get a lazy boy, they're reclining, and they're sipping a beverage. Those people are got out of the gene pool. They didn't make it.
SPEAKER_04But they needed, I mean, we're assuming that they had some adrenaline that could help them in a moment be ready for some kind of danger, not always be consistently.
SPEAKER_01They weren't out there fighting the squirrels for eggs, I'll tell you that right now. And so that they did not get the nourishment that they needed to continue on.
SPEAKER_04Think about how big the squirrels were then.
SPEAKER_01They were huge, probably very big. Saddle those guys up and ride them. Oh, I want one. You know, squirrels are so close to rats, and yet people hate rats. We did a whole show on rats.
SPEAKER_04Really?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because rats are one of the top ten smartest animals in the entire animal kingdom.
SPEAKER_04There was a rat in front of my house. I named it Rizzo.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's pretty stereotypical. Um Ratzo Rizzo.
SPEAKER_04And the movie was blankly staring at Ross. I don't know, I'm just staring. What? What?
SPEAKER_01Was it Midnight Cowboy?
SPEAKER_04Um Rizzo, as in Rizzo the Rat from the Muppets.
SPEAKER_01Well, the Ratzo Rizzo was a character in a movie from the 70s, I think, called Midnight Cowboy.
SPEAKER_04Alive. I was an egg.
SPEAKER_01You were being guarded.
SPEAKER_04I was being guarded by the squirrel still.
SPEAKER_01You were in an egg going, man, I'm so glad. I'm really comfortable with the security given by the squirrel. So the I feel like the news media is selling us insecurity. I feel like social media is bombarding us with insecurity every second. Every time we go through scrolling, we're feeling less than, and we're feeling like maybe we're not doing something right because there's all this advice.
SPEAKER_04Well, there's been studies on that too. Like we really shouldn't let kids on social media because it can give them eating disorders, disorder eating, lots of bad feelings about themselves because they're not keeping up with people who use these filters to make them look a certain way.
SPEAKER_01And it's and you know, I don't think social media invented this, these problems, but they have intensified these problems. And it's all about I think what drives eyeballs to media is is exploitation of our base insecurity. The wellness industry, the goop people, that's all about you are not okay. You need to have a vagina egg or whatever it's called, which by the way, I feel like I do need. Do you? I don't know, but I would like to see a squirrel guard my vagina egg. Is that wrong? Is that a weird fantasy? We can talk about that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's a different episode, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a really different one we probably shouldn't do. There's this idea that there's something unwell about you, you need to buy stuff to get well. The weather channel sells fear. Uh, people in school feel constantly feeling, you know, anxiety over their performance, and they're constantly being measured, and they're constantly being told you have to do something more to go farther. Uh, if you're at work, they're tracking you, they're measuring you, they're judging you. You're c and it's all designed, I feel like, to make us feel uh or not to make us feel insecure, because that's the point you were making. This is something other people are doing. They are doing it, but I think they're exploiting something that's there. So even if If we're able to be solid enough with our self-esteem and our confidence and our feelings of self-worth to have a very low level operating level of insecurity, like it's just there in the background, it's not influencing our life. There's these all these forces that understand that they can control us or get us to buy things or get us to do things if they ramp up our feelings of insecurity.
SPEAKER_04I agree with you. And I'm gonna highlight something that I think might be interesting, and I bet a smarter person would know a lot more about this than I. But this also sounds generational.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Because so I work with a lot of kids, a lot of teenagers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And they are not No damn good.
SPEAKER_01No, you weren't.
SPEAKER_04No, they're wonderful humans. Oh, sorry. I jumped. They're wonderful humans. They aren't as anxious about the things you think that they would be anxious about, like their school performance and stuff. There's so much apathy actually going on. They kind of DGAF about a lot of stuff and are more on the depressed side.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Versus I'm thinking just jumping back to like my dad's generation and maybe older. Like I'm thinking of aunts and uncles, my dad, when they retired, how much that scared them and made them feel very insecure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I I agree that that that's probably transforms over time. And maybe younger people if we're setting aside the people who feel depressed and apathetic, because I feel like that's kind of a um a uh desensitizing. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's absolutely a response to all these huge stressors that my generation got rose-colored glasses to deal with or just had no awareness of. I'm a millennial. Um, but right.
SPEAKER_01But I but I but I agree that the the way in which people have interpreted, you know, the changing the changes in the world as we've gone ahead probably has an effect on how they manage their basic feelings of insecurity. When you think about uh older generations, they were defined by their job. Yeah. So when they stopped doing their job, that's why all these guys used to kick off and have heart attacks immediately after they retired, because all of a sudden they realize I am actually nothing anymore. I have nothing. I don't have any value. I have no answer to the question what when I go to a cocktail party. You know, if you're a farmer in the 1940s and you're working a farm and then you retire from farming and you're at a cocktail party, you know, like a fancy cocktail party that Midwestern farmers would go to, and you're sitting there with a martini and a cow, and somebody says, What do you do? and you don't have an answer. You can't say, Well, I'm working on my trumpet solo. I mean, but today people have all these. I think one of the things that I've noticed about younger people is they're not just one thing. They're about a lot of different things. And they don't necessarily define themselves by any kind of work they do, and they don't necessarily define themselves with what one thing that they do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's good, but I still think at bottom, at the bottom of it, there is this insecurity that has the tendency to be used as a way to control us by the people who want to control us, by the people who want us to spend money, the people who want us to work harder or sacrifice something or give something. And everything we do to satisfy these messaging that we get only makes us more invested in a system that there's no base security in it anyway. There's nothing secure about any of those things. So if I go out and buy Volger's coffee, it actually doesn't change anything with my partner who's still a jerk, jerkwad.
SPEAKER_04Um I gotta tell you a story.
SPEAKER_01You got to.
SPEAKER_04Um, so you know in The Jerk, yeah, where he, you know, he's finally in his mansion, he's finally made all this money, and he the his butler brings him a cocktail, or maybe it's just scotch. I don't know. It's just like straight booze. It has the little umbrella in it, and he's like, ah, and he brings up the picture and it says, be somebody. And he finally has his cocktail with the umbrella, be somebody. So when I got my first job, I made my mom go take me to dinner, and I got a cocktail with an umbrella in it, so I could be somebody.
SPEAKER_01And how'd that feel?
SPEAKER_04It felt great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And did it match your outfit? Did the drink match your outfit?
SPEAKER_04I wasn't quite doing that yet. Um Ross is referring to the fact that I mostly wear yellow and orange, and somehow I it's not always intentional. I I get drinks that match my outfit.
SPEAKER_01I just last time I was with you, you had a drink selected because it matched your outfit.
SPEAKER_04I didn't know what it would look like.
SPEAKER_01Okay. But then it looked exactly like you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it did.
SPEAKER_01Oh, capitalism thrives on bad feelings.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01In 1930, there was a trade magazine that explained to uh people who are marketing things that satisfied customers are not profitable. This is going back, you know, a hundred years. They've been figuring this out. There's no money to be made by telling people, hey, you're okay, everything's okay. Don't worry. You're fine as you are. That you don't buy anything. If you're fine as you are, if you're well enough, if you're smart enough, if you're important enough, just as you are, there's no money to be made. You're not gonna turn on the news to find out everything's okay. That's boring. It's like watching the weather in Portland. We know it's gonna rain. Why watch the weather? It's like, oh, it's gonna rain today. Yeah, okay. Like, why do they even have a weatherman here or weather person? They got nothing for me.
SPEAKER_04They're meteorologists.
SPEAKER_01I don't care what they're doing.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Then predict a meteor, do something. Also, we know that insecurity correlates with higher rates of physical illness, depression. You're talking about kids being more depressed. Well, there's correlates with insecurity. Also, anxiety, drug abuse, and addiction. It's not good. So we're surrounded by messages that prey on. This is my take. I know you don't completely agree, but we're in this world. We come into it with a base level of insecurity that once upon a time helped us evolve because it got us out there trying to find the right cave and the right eggs, and let's keep going, let's feed ourselves, let's make a community, let's do a farm, let's do all the things that we do, let's build some buildings and junk, let's gentrify uh all the stuff we did. Let's make vinyl records. It's a list. There's all the I gotta I'm not sure what the order of things were. I don't know when vinyl records came in. I think it was after the dinosaurs, but I have to check the timeline.
SPEAKER_04It was between when the squirrels were giant and when they got tiny.
SPEAKER_01Giant squirrels listening to vinyl recordings while guarding eggs.
SPEAKER_04With their little hands moving the needle onto the Yeah, the little hands.
SPEAKER_01But with the but the and then the weird thing, then the most unsettling thing about that was the giant squirrel with little hands. That was just incongruous. Is it incongruous or incongruous? How would you say it?
SPEAKER_04We'll say both.
SPEAKER_01So I've got some suggestions. Okay, and I want to see if you like any of them.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Or if you hate them. So number one is recognize that this is a base state. This there's nothing wrong with having moments of insecurity in your life, even if you feel it every day a little bit for some reason. And usually there are a multitude of reasons that you can feel insecure. Just driving down the road, you can feel insecure, depending on how other people are driving. So accept this, recognize there's nothing wrong with you if you feel insecure. So the people say, Why do you have to feel so insecure? Shut up. Everybody does. Okay. Number two, low, medium, and high. There's you want to go for low. Medium could happen. What you want to avoid is high levels of insecurity. And that's where it's good to seek out somebody like yourself who can help them process that. You want to spend as much time as you can in low levels of insecurity, realizing that you can't maintain that all the time. It's gonna, you're gonna have moments when you feel unsettled and insecure. Number three is try to limit the amount of time you're on screens and watching all the stuff that's designed to make us feel insecure. If you limit your screen time, you limit the act the your exposure to those toxic messages that are designed intentionally to prey on our base level of insecurity and raise it. Number four, I've only had six things.
SPEAKER_04Okay. I was like, this is a list.
SPEAKER_01It's a list. Yeah. But it's exhaustive and it ends at six. Okay. There's no more things that could possibly put on this list. Number four is get rid of as much overhead. That is, get rid of as much stuff as you can. So you have very little stuff that you're paying for or paying rent on to have. The less stuff you have, the less insecure your boss can make you feel, your job can make you feel, your neighbors can make you feel. The less, less, less stuff, the less you worry about protecting your stuff, hiding your stuff. What happens if someone breaks in my house and steals my stuff? And we gotta have an alarm system, we gotta get a ring cam. Is that what those are called? We've got to watch that all day. Like, what happened? Somebody went by the house and shook a package. And we've got to live in the right kind of neighborhood. Maybe a gated community will pen more and more money to be safer and safer so our stuff can be safe. But if you have less stuff, then you don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_04Or if you just believe that any stuff that gets stolen or ruined or taken could be replaced, or that you don't actually need it.
SPEAKER_01Right. If you already have the stuff, then just divorce yourself from it emotionally. So you can still have stuff.
SPEAKER_04It's just stuff.
SPEAKER_01But recognize that the stuff is doing nothing for you, even though you were encouraged that it would. You buy this car, if you take this pill, if you own this pony. Oh the pony. Actually, a pony could probably that sounds nice though.
SPEAKER_04You could get, yeah. Like a little pony.
SPEAKER_01I always worry about where they're I just worry about the cleanup. Oh see, ponies are nice, but if you don't, if you live in an apartment, it's just awkward. Yeah, no, I know people diaper their small horses. I've talked about this in very the very first show we did, we talked about diapering horses so you can take them on a plane if they're comfort horses. The shrunken ones. Yeah, the mini horses. People were taking on mini horses on the plane and they would diaper them up to get them on the plane and to be make them more socially acceptable.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01If you've ever seen if you've never seen a diapered up mini horse, uh I don't travel enough. You clearly you have not seen a pathetic sight. Number five, seek solidarity with other people. So devalue comparison, value presence, value simplicity in your relationship with other people, and you will feel by making yourself available to other people and really being there for them and um finding ways to be connected to them, you start feeling less insecure. You feel more part of something. You're not alone, you're not the only weirdo in the bunch. You may be the most weird person, but you're not the only weird person.
SPEAKER_04Is this why you have friends that are weird? Weird.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Number six, and the final point try to be nice to someone every day. Just a little nice. Do some nice little thing. And I think it's a way to feel uh um good about yourself, but it's also a way to feel like you're you do have some control and you do you do have a place in the world. And one of the things ways you can do that is just let someone go ahead of you in line or buy a stranger a coffee or let's you know uh help someone cross the street. Do they still do that? Somebody asks you to cross, help, ma'am. Can I help you cross the street? You probably give them a punch.
SPEAKER_04Oh well, what if they took off their jacket, put it over a puddle? Yeah, so let my my feet their jacket and put it over a puddle. That would be gonna have to touch the puddle.
SPEAKER_01Oh, we gotta do that.
SPEAKER_04That's a cool move.
SPEAKER_01I have never seen that in real life. I've only seen it in the movies and cartoons and junk.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because why don't they just walk around the puddle?
SPEAKER_04There's a lot of potholes here though.
SPEAKER_01Oh, here. Don't forget about it.
SPEAKER_04That's no, you'd you need to need a lot of coats.
SPEAKER_01You need like to build bridges. A coat's not gonna do it. I've seen whole roads just collapse here.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_01You know, in the old days, the roads were made out of mud. And they also and poop. Yeah, they were filled with poop, and also people would throw out their uh chamber buckets right out the window. The old chamber bucket, you know, they didn't always have indoor plumbing, some of these buildings, like all of them. So people wouldn't you think about what do they do with those chamber buckets? Well, they just threw them out the window, and you just had to look alive when you're walking down the street. So there were lots of opportunities to be nice to people. Like if you're walking with somebody, you walk on the inside, so you get the chamber bucket. But you could also walk on the outside and take the mud splatter. You have to choose.
SPEAKER_04Actually, the the best thing that my dad ever taught me, and I think about it all the time. Um, very grateful for this kind of care and teaching. Um, when I was little, my dad uh would say, pay attention to the sidewalk where we're walking. See, do you see a bunch of bird poo? Don't walk right there, because that's where the birds poo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So even if it's not like dog poo or something, you know, just avoid the spaces where you see poop a lot of bird poop.
SPEAKER_01So this is a meaningful intervention.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. I still think about it now. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01If you see poop, that's where the thing is pooping. Yeah. So don't walk there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. There might be a little ledge, there might be a little awning, something where the birds hang out. Right. And I don't want to be pooped on.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. Okay. Well, that's a nice way to kind of bring to a close this little episode about insecurity. If you know where to walk, you can feel more secure.
SPEAKER_04I do feel very secure when I walk, except for all the damn puddles.
SPEAKER_01Right. You need people with jackets. You need people throwing those jackets down. And I again, I would love it to see that come back. If it ever was a thing, I'm not sure it ever was a thing. Because I only saw it in movies and cartoons. Now, cartoons, of course, that I can believe, but the movies, we know that's all made up.
SPEAKER_04But but cartoons are based in reality, usually.
SPEAKER_01No, in my life, Dave. I mean, I'm 10% cartoon.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I believe that.
SPEAKER_01So, I mean, I they're real for me. They're very real for me. Well, I want to thank you, Anise, for joining us to talk about insecurity. It's been a delight to have you, and I am so glad you've come back to the show. Anise was on in season one and talked about Disney culture or cult. And uh, you're going to Disney again, I think. Planning another trip.
SPEAKER_04In October.
SPEAKER_01And some kind of special trip, you told me.
SPEAKER_04It's for my nephew's 13th birthday.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. And then you're going to um do some kind of special package or something.
SPEAKER_04So VIP to where they walk you around the park and we get you on the rides. So you don't have to wait in line. Very excited about that.
SPEAKER_01No waiting in lines.
SPEAKER_04Uh a lot less waiting in lines, and there's other perks to it. I don't know. I don't know what we're doing. I don't know. I just said I want to do it, and so we're doing it.
SPEAKER_01If you're hungry, do they slip you a wiener or something?
SPEAKER_04Whoa.
SPEAKER_03This is a family show, sir.
SPEAKER_01First of all, no. And second of all, there's nothing wrong with a wiener at uh Disneyland. I like their wieners.
SPEAKER_04They have corndogs. Okay. The corndog stand is popular for sure.
SPEAKER_01So I was just wondering if they feed you on the VMP tour.
SPEAKER_04Well, they make reservations for you, which is nice.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_04So that you don't have to do it yourself.
SPEAKER_01Is it super expensive, this thing? Is it like ridiculous? It's gotta be a Disney. When am I even why am I even asking that question?
SPEAKER_04But it's the 13th birthday. We're not gonna do this, you know, every year. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Is the is there a special so I know 15 is an important birthday for female identifying Hispanic people. Is that true still?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, uh, that's a thing. Um, I didn't get a quince um because my mom said I wasn't Mexican enough.
SPEAKER_01Wow, mom, what's happening there? I don't I see that's the kind of messaging that can make you feel a little insecure about yourself.
SPEAKER_04Well, or you can say, I'm taking this into my own hands, and when I turn 45, I'm gonna have a triple quince. So watch out for that invitation. There's it's gonna be a huge party. And I'm reparenting myself by saying I'm absolutely Mexican enough.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Enough to have a giant party.
SPEAKER_01I don't even know what that means, that you're not Mexican enough. What was she wanting you to do differently?
SPEAKER_04Or be or uh these are great questions.
SPEAKER_01You so maybe it's there's an endless list, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04My sister got a party for her 15.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I hate that.
SPEAKER_04But she didn't do like the like the full quinceay is like, you know, you go to church, you have like dancers, you have like a chambalaan, you have like Yeah, stuff, you y yeah, there's like performances. Um she didn't have that. She just they rented a hall and she got a fancy dress, but when it was my turn, I got nothing.
SPEAKER_01Well, that sucks, and I hate that for you. But let me ask you so for the boy, is there anything at 13 or is it just go to Disney and hope for the best?
SPEAKER_04We're just going to Disneyland and having a great time.
SPEAKER_01Hope somebody slipped you the wiener. Oh, because I I don't know why that's so offensive to you. Thank you again for doing the show, and thank you to everyone for listening. We appreciate you. We appreciate you being here and supporting the show. Reach out to us on Instagram or on email. The email is in the show notes, and talk to us. We love chatting you up, and we will respond to your thoughts and questions, and your we love your compliments and encouragement because we're not making a bunch of money in it.
SPEAKER_04Hey Ross, a spider right there, and it's making me feel very insecure.
SPEAKER_01There you go, bug insecurity.
SPEAKER_04Little, but I can see it, it's going up to the ceiling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's watching you. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are a giant squirrel with small hands guarding eggs, or just someone reparenting yourself about how to walk around poop, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Bye, everybody. Bye.