Going Off-Brand

Summary

Bewildered — "Going Off-Brand" (May 6, 2026)

Hosts: Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan

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Episode Overview

In this candid and laugh-filled episode, Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan tackle the tricky terrain of personal branding. With their signature blend of humor and sincerity, they explore what happens when society pushes us to reduce ourselves to "brands"—fixed, marketable identities that can be summarized in hashtags and color palettes. The conversation winds from playful personal anecdotes to deeper reflections on authenticity, human complexity, and the relief of letting go of expectations (both cultural and internal) about who we're supposed to be. “Going off-brand,” for Martha and Rowan, becomes both a source of bewilderment and liberation—a pathway toward living from one's truest self.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Personal Branding as Cultural Pressure

• Introduction to Branding: The episode opens with Rowan joking about "demystifying and destabilizing the idea of branding and reducing these complex beings that we are into a series of hashtags." (00:25)
• Superficial vs. Deep: The hosts note that the conversation will pivot from the superficial nature of branding to more profound insights about self and authenticity.

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2. A Tangled Journey: Personal Anecdotes about Misguidance and Identity

• Martha's "Lost in the Catskills" GPS Story: Martha shares a hilarious (and slightly harrowing) story about getting lost on the way to Philadelphia due to a GPS setting—meant to avoid highways—which becomes a metaphor for blindly following external directions and losing one's own sense of "true north."

  • Memorable Moment: “There's a bald eagle. That's all I can see in the way of traffic. Why are you taking me on this path?” (06:13)

• Rowan’s “Coming Out” Story: Rowan recounts trying to maintain an illusion for her visiting mother while living in a "glass house" with her partners, humorously conveying the awkwardness and futility of constructing and sustaining a facade.

  • Memorable Quote: “And then I get to the gravel and I go, crunch, crunch, crunch… But I've committed to what I'm doing.” (13:49)
  • Her mother's ultimate zinger (16:04):
    “Does that mean that next time I come, you’ll be able to come out the normal door? We can skip the whole gravel routine.”

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3. Personal Branding: From Cattle to Hashtags

• The Branding Trap: The hosts reflect on the absurdity of the personal branding imperative—how a concept from business and marketing (branding livestock) has seeped into self-concept and social media personas.

  • Martha: “Apparently the Whole thing of I'm going to brand my cattle… has just monged over into, ‘I always have to be the same person all the time...’” (23:29)

• Essentialism and the Attention Economy:

  • Rowan explains how social media values instant recognition—forcing people into “one thing” identities.
  • Rowan: "It's about…essentialism, right? Saying, 'I don't contain multitudes. I'm really easy to understand. I'm this noun. At best I can have an adjective.'" (36:25)

• The Cross of Consistency: Both discuss how being “on brand” can come at the cost of authenticity, change, and self-discovery.

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4. The Reality of Change: Complexity vs. Consistency

• Life Changes vs. Brand Consistency:

  • Both hosts reflect on personal experiences and public figures (such as Elizabeth Gilbert) being "pigeonholed" by branding, and how that conflicts with natural evolution.
  • Martha: “Do we try to show up and be the same thing every day on social media? The same thing every year?” (32:26)

• The Rebranding Struggle:

  • Rowan describes a friend's challenge in "rebranding" life after personal upheaval, noting how hard it is for a living person to “step out of one identity and into another.”
  • Rowan: “It's so interesting online to watch the struggle to, like, rebrand. And it's like rebranding is such a fascinating thing when you're talking about being a human.” (29:20)

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5. Cultural Participation: Agency vs. Conditioning

• Not Simple Victims: Rowan points out that people aren’t just victims of “the algorithm”—we actively participate in this culture of branding and engagement (43:59).
• Pre-Built Shorthands: Our brains naturally seek shorthands for complexity (think: “moms at drop-off” or baby zebras recognizing their mother’s stripes), which marketing exploits but doesn’t originate (40:02, 41:38).

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6. The Core Dilemma: The Need for a Fixed Persona and the Fear of Change

• Philosophical Depth:

  • Rowan suggests that the urge to never change—a “fixed persona”—may be a way to avoid facing our own mortality:
    • Rowan: "...that desire to appear as something that is unchanging... is basically about wanting to avoid facing our own death. Because if you change, then you are going to die." (48:26)

• Pop Culture Parallel: Martha invokes "The Talented Mr. Ripley" as a metaphor for how far people will go to sustain a constructed self-image, even to their own detriment or destruction. (46:38)

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7. Coming to Your Senses: Wildness, Presence, and Relinquishing the Brand

• The Relief of Authenticity:

  • Both describe the delicious sensation of letting go of identity and just being present.
    • Martha: "We're so afraid to be nobody. But it's delicious." (58:26)

• Mindfulness as a Way Out: Presence in the moment is described as "the wild state"—the place where branding and cultural narratives fall away.

  • Rowan: "If you're in the present, you can just put [identity] down, and you can just be behind your own eyes and behind your own ears and receptive." (58:57)

• Metaphor of Blocks: Rowan recalls a poem by their friend, the theme being that we’re made of blocks that can be rearranged—a counterpoint to rigid branding.

  • Poem quote: "I have beliefs, and someday those beliefs might change. ... I have blocks that I like to arrange and rearrange." (54:06)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Contradiction:

  • Rowan: “Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.” (20:37) — quoting Walt Whitman.

• On Brand Inflexibility:

  • Rowan: “So you're gonna skip the gravel next time?” (16:07)
  • Martha: “Can you even do that? ...There's a strong push to create a brand and be consistent, make it simple, make it consistent. And our culture reinforces that and we feed into that. But by nature we do contain multitudes …” (47:45)

• On Losing Self in the Present:

  • Martha: “When you get to that point... what you are is watching. What you are is listening. What you are is feeling. What you are is absolutely receiving input from everything around you… And you don't need to be anybody.” (57:22)

• Metaphor Mania:

  • From zebras and branding cattle to ducks and sand dunes, animal metaphors pepper the conversation to highlight human behavior and the folly of seeking tidy categories.

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Important Timestamps

• [00:25]: Rowan introduces the destabilizing of branding—"reducing these complex beings…to a series of hashtags."
• [06:08]: Martha’s GPS story kicks off the metaphor about following external directions.
• [13:49–16:07]: Rowan’s "crunch, crunch, crunch" coming-out story and her mother’s witty response.
• [22:12]: Rowan’s decision to become a gardening influencer and the rabbit hole of "brand fusion."
• [36:25]: Essentialism summarized: "At best, I can have an adjective."
• [46:49]: When life forces you off-brand—how do we handle it in the culture?
• [48:26]: Rowan’s theory: personal branding as death-avoidance.
• [54:06]: Quoting the poem: “I have beliefs, and someday those beliefs might change. … I have blocks that I like to arrange and rearrange.”
• [57:22]: Martha on letting go of identity: "And you don’t need to be anybody."

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Tone, Style, and Final Takeaway

This episode is vintage Bewildered: wide-ranging, unguarded, and peppered with laughter and irreverence. Martha and Rowan mix self-deprecating anecdotes with literary references (Whitman, "The Talented Mr. Ripley," Elizabeth Gilbert), all to drive home the paradox of being human in a “hashtag world.” While branding tempts us (and, in many ways, pressures us) to freeze our identities, genuine wellbeing and "wildness" lie in embracing change, complexity, and unbranded being. Letting ourselves drift off-script is, they argue, not only freeing but essential—an act of self-compassion and societal rebellion, one laugh at a time.

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"Stay Wild" Wisdom

• The urge to be “on brand” may be a defense against the uncertainty and impermanence of life—but it’s also what keeps us from authentic joy and connection.
• The challenge is to “arrange and rearrange the blocks” of who we are, allowing for growth, contradiction, and spontaneity—without apology.
• Cultivate presence: “If you would be given everything, give everything up.” (63:53)
• It’s more than okay to be bewildered, to change, and to go gleefully, utterly off-brand.

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Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm Martha Beck.

[B]

And I'm Roan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered, the podcast for people trying to figure it out.

[A]

Trying to figure it out. What's our topic today, Ro?

[B]

Today we are talking about the wild and woolly area of personal branding.

[A]

How exciting. It sounds like a business seminar.

[B]

I know. Welcome to marketing with Ro, Ro and Marty.

[A]

We don't know what we're doing, so

[B]

we're gonna, like, demystify and also destabilize the idea of branding and reducing these complex beings that we are into a series of hashtags.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we end up, I think, you know, we're gonna go to some pretty deep places, starting from a very superficial beginning.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Hashtag superficial, hashtag deep, hashtag paradox. That's how you do it. So I hope you will listen and enjoy and we will see you on the other side of Bewildered.

[A]

Hello, the lovely peoples. This is Marty, Martha, inviting you to a free masterclass that I have made called five paths to your Purpose. Probably the most common question I get from people is, how do I find my purpose? Why don't I feel that I'm on purpose? Well, it turns out there are certain things you have to do to find your purpose, and I broke them down into five and I made a little master class about it. So if you'd like to see it, just go to marthabeck.compurpose and you will be able to watch it without any charge at all.

[B]

So what are you trying to figure out?

[A]

Well, as so often happens, I am basing this on a visit to the Doctor that does happen a lot. It's not that I'm at the Doctor, like, all the time. It's just something was said by my Doctor several months ago that has come to haunt me. I can't forget it. Well, we were talking about we're about the same age, so your metabolism slows down. Whatever. And my doctor goes, yeah, and your eyesights get bigger. And I was like, wait, what? Go back. Wait, what?

[B]

Go back.

[A]

That's like my new mating cry. Wait, what? Go back. Maybe not mating just to cry, but, yeah, just to cry, apparently.

[B]

Cry in the darkness.

[A]

When you. As you age, your eye sockets get bigger. And I have this now I'm haunted by this feel, like my eyeballs are just like, in there. Like lost souls wandering around in these vast eye sockets.

[B]

Do your eye sockets get bigger or do your eyeballs get smaller?

[A]

Or both? It's probably both. But anyway, that's not what I'm here to Talk about. No, because I was thinking about how my eyeballs are like lost souls wandering in my eye sockets. My increasing enormous eye sockets. And I was driving Adam to the doctor in Philadelphia or some Adam who needed to have stitches taken out of his eye.

[B]

Eyeballs.

[A]

It is. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, one one's eyeball, singular.

[A]

Oh, goodness. Anyway,

[B]

Not his eye testicles.

[A]

This is all wrong. Stop laughing. You're making me laugh. Between the eye testicles and the huge eye sockets, it's real close, but it's an eye related theme. So that made me think about it. But I set off to drive from like Woodstock to Philadelphia where he had his eye surgery done. Yeah. And I started driving and it said that would be like five hours and 30 minutes, which is. I thought it was three hours, but apparently it was rush hour or something, Right? So I toodle off. And I'm going by the gps. I'm following the gps. I'm blamelessly following the GPS up into the Catskills mountains into a series of tiny mining towns that are like, there's only a goat and an old silver mine that hasn't been used for centuries. I'm like, where am I going? Why am I at the top of a mountain? Where's Philadelphia? So I called Garrett and I said, when you go to Philadelphia, because she does sometimes, do you have to drive through the mountains and tiny silver towns? She's like, where are you? And I'm like, I think I'm in a town called. Or a hamlet. More of a hamlet called something like, everything is in the Catskills. I mean. And she was like, that's insane. What are you doing there? And I said, I'm following my GPS. So she's like, Put in Highway 287. So I put in Highway 287. It says six hours to highway. Just any stretch of Highway 287. We're up there, it's snowing. Adam's got stitches in his eye. I'm completely lost. The GPS is. Has betrayed me. No matter what I say, I'm like, I don't want the six hour trip to 287. I just want to go straight to it. And it says, this is the fastest you can get there given traffic conditions. And I'm like, traffic conditions? There's a bald eagle. That's all I can see in the way of traffic. Why are you taking me on this path? It turned out after much calling, I was like, karen, I'm turning off the gps. I'm going to need you to navigate. And she was like, roger that. It was like a movie. She's like, okay, I've got you on the map. I'm like, okay, now I'm going to conky honk. Whatever. They're all, oh, my God, is that terrible? Yeah.

[B]

I think you're insulting a whole raft of people right now.

[A]

But I'm sorry, it's just the way it sounds. Did you know skunk is an is. I think it came from this part of the. The North America. It was an indigenous word for a skunk. There's no non indigenous word for skunk, which I think is great. Anyway. Sorry. Oh. Anyway, as I passed the Mohonk Preserve, and that is a real place in the mountains, I stopped at a parking lot to check on the map, and everything changed because you had been brought into the picture and you were like the Tom Cruise character when Jack Nicholson is like, you're damn right, I ordered the colored red. Karen and I are like, we're now navigating. You're like, have you checked the settings on Marty's GPS? What do you mean? There's a setting on my GPS that says avoid highways. Avoid. Avoid highways. Go 300 miles or 200 miles south without ever going to a highway. All in tiny villages. It was going to take me six and a half days to get my son for eye surgery to Philadelphia. It would have been faster with a horse.

[B]

Well, only if the horse was willing

[A]

to go on highways. But here's the thing is, on one hand, you saved the day because I went in and I found the setting and it was set to avoid highways. Other thing is, though, I think you may have caused the problem in the first place.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

No one else knows how to go into my GPS settings. Just you.

[B]

Here's what I think happened. What? I think, like, you got overruled by the GPS itself. That just went. I think for safety's sake, let's just turn this on.

[A]

I'm not sure you should be on a highway. Let's just stick to the slow roads. So I think there's gotta be a traitor because somebody had to go in and do that. And I don't think Lila's. Lila would do it if she could. She would do it in a heartbeat.

[B]

Our daughter probably would. But I just want to point out that I. In your. In your narrative, I'm just like. I'm brought in, like, onto the stage from the wings at a certain point to perform my duties.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I have. I also have, like, a subjective existence in the world.

[A]

What.

[B]

And what I was doing at this time was trying to convince a prospective babysitter that we were normal. A normal. Oh, a normal family raising a adult man and a five year old, not

[A]

someone screaming from the wilderness of the Catskills.

[B]

Help me.

[A]

I'm trying to find Philadelphia.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so my eyes are wandering around. There's sockets.

[B]

And so periodically, Karen would come in and saying. And be saying, right now she's crying and saying that she's up a mountain. And I would just be like, oh, yes, this happens sometimes. It's very normal.

[A]

Just like normal people do. It took me six hours to get to Philadelphia.

[B]

All's well that ends well.

[A]

True, dad. Yep. His eye is fine. What are you trying to figure out?

[B]

I trying to figure out. I am trying to figure out, as usual. Really, if it really comes down to it, I'm trying to figure out from where do I get the audacity?

[A]

Do you know, I've often wondered that about myself, but also about you.

[B]

Hey, we're audacious people.

[A]

Where did you get the audacity to change my settings? We'll talk about that later. Why are you trying to. Only one person would be able to press the button.

[B]

That means settings.

[A]

You're the only person I've ever known who could do that. All the people I know are busy trying to see out of their own eye sockets. I'll stop. Okay. I want to know why you are worried about your audacity and whence it cometh.

[B]

I had a memory recently of a moment in my life that was. It was a difficult moment, and it was a long, difficult moment.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And it happened when my mother came to visit us in California.

[A]

Your lovely mother. She really is one of the loveliest people in the world.

[B]

I'm not denying that. That I stipulated. Lovely person. Nevertheless, I used to be inside her body. And then I came out and became a human. And so she's my mum.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

And she came to stay with us on the ranch in the middle of nowhere where we were living, I remember. And I hadn't quite had the conversation yet with my mother who lived on the other side of the world about. So some updates to my love life situation.

[A]

Just change it on Facebook to throuple.

[B]

No, I just changed it to.

[A]

It's complicated. Oh, that's good.

[B]

Yeah. And so we were recently together. You, me, Karen, the whole catastrophe. Some people call us us among them. And so I was pretend. Oh, God, this is so embarrassing to talk about.

[A]

I think I know where you're going with this.

[B]

So there was a bedroom on this side of the house. And there was a bedroom on this side of the house. And I had very strongly implied, if not outright stated that I was sleeping in this bedro.

[A]

Because we're all just good friends. That's right, just friends.

[B]

And so I thought, no problem, Mum's in the house, I'll just. We don't need to have this conversation. This is exquisitely uncomfortable conversation that is coming.

[A]

Oh, it's one thing to come out to your mom. It's another thing to come out under those circumstances.

[B]

Well, I didn't. I just went out and I. I went out and. And decided I was going to walk around the house forgetting perhaps that that house was almost entirely made of glass.

[A]

It was. It was built by nudists who really wanted. They didn't just want no clothes on, they didn't want walls either.

[B]

Yeah, we heard a lot of stories

[A]

from the neighbors, but yeah, it was basically a see through house.

[B]

Yeah, it was a see through house surrounded by gravel. Which is also something that I hadn't like, I'd. I didn't not know it, but I hadn't really thought deeply about the implications of that until the moment when I started marching from where I had actually slept to where I said supposedly slept.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So as to perpetuate the illusion, the

[A]

ongoing illusion that we were just good friends. Such good friends.

[B]

Oh my God. And so my mum's sitting in the kitchen like a good girl, drinking a cup of tea or something proper like that.

[A]

That.

[B]

And that's. And I'm scurrying around, I'm like, this is perfect. What could possibly go wrong? And then I get to the gravel and I go, crunch, crunch, crunch. And I can. And then I. I detect my own mother in my peripheral vision clearly right there. But I've committed. I've committed to what I'm doing.

[A]

And so I crunch, crunch.

[B]

And my mother kind of looks over and I'm just like, no, Crunch. This is not. This is not happening. It's just not happening. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

[A]

And it just kept going.

[B]

The glass, the glass.

[A]

Crunch, crunch.

[B]

And where were you? Were you there?

[A]

I was hiding in the other bedroom.

[B]

Oh, that's right.

[A]

I was waiting for you to stealth come around. Karen and I were waiting for you to come around the side of the house and we'd all have a very like, Good morning. Ho. Good morning to you, ma'.

[B]

Am.

[A]

Yeah. Oh my God.

[B]

Hello, fair person of my acquaintance. Yeah. So it went on and on and on. And she was there and I was here and it was just class like, every footstep was like, isn't that horrific? And then I got round and I went in, came into the house through the door. And then it got even worse because then I had to open the door into the room where my mother was with. And it was like we both knew.

[A]

What?

[B]

It just. It was like there was no person who didn't know that we both knew. And we knew that we knew and we knew that we knew that we knew. And still. But I.

[A]

Good. Did you sleep well? Right. But this is why your mother is. I mean, she is a saint. She just went along with it.

[B]

She.

[A]

Did we. When did we finally actually say the words?

[B]

Oh, you weren't there. I was in Australia with her. Many moons.

[A]

What did you say?

[B]

And I said we were having some sort of, like, come to Jesus about things we hadn't spoken about from the past. And I was like, oh, this is a good moment. Speaking of things we haven't spoken about. And she's like, yes. And I'm like, well, you know, with Marty and Karen. And she goes, yes. And I said, yes. And she said, yeah. And I said, yes. And she said, does that mean that next time I come, you'll be able to come out the normal door? We can skip the whole gravel routine. And I. Oh, my God. Immediately died.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

And fell on the floor and was buried and had a lovely funeral.

[A]

She is so great. Like, she pretended that whole time she was just, like, blissfully ignorant.

[B]

Oh, good morning.

[A]

The thing about her is she is so lovely and mannerly and with the perfect diction and the perfect posture and,

[B]

like, the elocution class.

[A]

Like, she is so just put together and gracious and all this. And you think that she's just this sweet la. And in fact, she's, like, lived with hippies out in the bush and, like, walked 500 miles across Scotland. And so, like, she. She can go there.

[B]

She's hardcore.

[A]

But she pretends.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That she's just blissfully like, Miss Marple.

[B]

She goes under the radar.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Very, very Miss Marple. Like, and then just when you relax, she's like, so you're gonna skip the gravel next time?

[A]

Oh, zing.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

You know, it's good to get that out. You have to come out about how you came out, I think, yeah, like, give it 10 years and come out again.

[B]

Oh, please, no. I never want to do that again.

[A]

Still happening.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, crap.

[B]

Should we do a podcast?

[A]

Why not? Let's do it. Let's do it. So we talk a lot on the podcast about Coming to our senses. Which sounds like you could do it by yourself, but weirdly, it isn't.

[B]

No, you actually can't do it alone. And I think especially right now, when everything out there feels very polarized and overwhelming and noisy, people really often don't have a place where they can just go and be completely themselves.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So.

[A]

And that's why we started Wilder, which is our online community. And it's for people who really want kindness and connection and belonging without the strident, divisive argument that seems to be everywhere these days.

[B]

Yeah. In Wilder, we explore a new theme every month to help us stay in touch with our true nature. And there are all these live events on Zoom that are so fun from, like, body doubling, co working, parties, meditations,

[A]

teaches meditations and classes.

[B]

Marty does Earth School, which is brilliant, and frequent meditations that we do together. And it is just a group of people who are the best. So if you've ever listened to this podcast and thought, I wish I could go deeper with this, or I wish I could talk to more people about these kinds of ideas, or Wilder is where that happens.

[A]

It really is. So if you want to come join [e-mail], we would love to see you there.

[B]

Hi there. I'm Ro, and I'll be your podcaster for today. Do you know how to tip your podcaster? It's actually pretty easy. You can rate our pod with lots of stars, all your stars. You can review it with your best superlatives. You can even subscribe or follow Bewildered, so you'll never miss an episode. Then, of course, if you're ready to go all in, Our paid online community is called Wilder, A Sanctuary for the Bewildered. And I can honestly say it's one of the few true sanctuaries online. You can go to wildercommunity.com to check it out. Rate, review, subscribe, join, and you all

[A]

have a great day now. So let's get into it.

[B]

Okay, what's the topic today? We're talking about refusing to be one thing because the culture wants us all to be one thing. And this. This popped into my head because we were driving into town to record the podcast. We were like, we should talk about something on the podcast.

[A]

On a highway, probably. I don't remember. Anyway, go on.

[B]

Yeah, because it was me driving, and I can be trusted.

[A]

You can.

[B]

And we started talking about a potential topic, and then we realized that if we talked about that topic, we would end up almost certainly contradicting something that we had said in a recent Episode.

[A]

Directly refuting, like the last thing we said.

[B]

Yeah. And I thought, that is interesting because. Do I contradict myself? Very well.

[A]

I contradict myself.

[B]

I am large. I contain.

[A]

I contain multitudes.

[B]

Mr. Walt Whitman.

[A]

And

[B]

it's just strikes me that. Oh, well, I should say by way of context that I have decided to become an influence.

[A]

Oh, yes. Talk about this. Okay. Yes. The truth. It is true. Little.

[B]

Little professional news.

[A]

She's been influencing me all week.

[B]

Yeah, I'm very influential.

[A]

So tell them about your influencing career.

[B]

I spent too much money on garden stuff. So I wrote to the gardening company and I said, can I influence about you? And then you can help me pay for all my gardening things and my gardening stuff addiction.

[A]

You said the most interesting thing. I think it's the most elaborate victim statement I ever heard. Because they sent you an email saying, yes, you can be an influence, and now you can have $300 worth of our things. And you said to me, you're looking at your phone. You said, marty, they have forced me to be given $300. Wow, that's elaborate.

[B]

You gotta really want the victim story. Anyway.

[A]

It's awesome.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you started influencing right away, I think, didn't you?

[B]

No, I haven't. I haven't started influence. Well, I've been. It's like, been a soft launch

[A]

of influencing.

[B]

Like, just privately, I'll say to people, you know what's good? Gardening? Would you consider it?

[A]

And.

[B]

And so, as a recent influencer, I've been thinking a lot about personal branding. Because if. If I'm gonna be. And this is true, like, this is serious. Like, if I'm gonna be so literally doing ads for a company, then I'm like, creating an identity that is sort of fused with that company online. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then it becomes my brand that I do this.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And this idea of branding is so freaking interesting. It's a brand. It's like you put on a kettle. It's.

[A]

Ow. Hot.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It defines you. It says where you belong. And, like, when I first heard about it, I'm gonna say, I do branding for a living. This was like 30 years ago. I'm like, what the hell? You're. You're searing the sides of cattle. And then they were just saying, no, no, I create a. Like an image for a thing, for a person. And I was like, why would you. But apparently that is how you succeed in business. As you said, it's. But that culture being the Western industrialist, capitalist, patriarchal white supremacist nonsense. Okay. So, yeah, apparently the Whole thing of I'm going to brand my cattle and there will only be mine and I can never change my brand because that's. My brand has just monged over into. I always have to be the same person all the time and I have to be. It's presentation of self. Yeah.

[B]

1. Well, yeah, I guess so. It's like saying, this is what you're about. And thou shalt not contain multitudes. Right. And it's, it's, I think, catering to a very simplistic idea of what people can handle in terms of complexity of. Yeah. The way that you present yourself. I mean, online is largely what we're talking about now when we talk about personal brand.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And ew.

[A]

Well, fill me in on this because I'm not really so into the social media thing, Right. But I have like started companies and things and I'm always being told, do that. Not this, because that's more on brand. Right. Like, no, you can't. For example, I started going into the woods a lot and they were like, whoa, we're gonna have to. The people that were working right around me, they were like, we're gonna have to switch your brand for that. I'm like, okay, let's switch all my online things. So I'm always in the woods. And then I was like, now I'm moving to a city and I'm like, okay, do I have to still go out and photograph myself in the woods? Like, there's this weird thing of being captured in social media and people appear this thinking of you as this kind of caricature and you can't go out of the caricature. And for somebody with enormous amounts of ADD who just wanders from thing to thing getting hyper focused, it's very hard to even understand a world in which you're always supposed to present as one thing. Is that the demand being made now in the sort of out there?

[B]

I think it's. I think part of it is the like, attention economy. It's like saying you've got three quarters of a second to get people's attention before they scroll past you. So you be incredibly clear in that, okay, three quarters of a second in terms of what you are and make it one thing and make it easily identifiable and make it to what end? Because you're selling something.

[A]

It's always about selling something, isn't it? It's about monetizing and commercializing literally everything. We've talked about this before. Just the fact that we live in a society that monetizes things that used to just be nature.

[B]

Yeah, but I think people aren't only doing personal brand for money. I think it's like insidiously spread into the culture so that people are kind of accustomed to the I am this, this, and this. I can only have three hashtags, you know, or, you know, it's, it's just I have to be visibly comprehensible as one of a set of, you know, one out of a set of maybe 10 things.

[A]

So if you're not selling something, you still want that. I mean, I had a social media coach once who tried to tell me, you've got to be, you've got to have a really clear brand, you've got to stick with it. And I was like, dude, I don't stick with anything from day to day. Like, what do you even mean? And I wasn't trying to sell anything at the time. And he's like, no, because you're an author and everything, so people need to associate you with a very strong branding image. And I tried and I literally started to have nightmares. He was like, always show up funny and like hang out with the people. Brand yourself as being accessible and lovable because you're a self help author or something. So I would try and that was kind of part of my personality. But then I was supposed to be pushing it and driving. I literally ran away. I started having terrible nightmares and I ran away to the woods and I never went back. And that's why I'm asking you these questions. I have no idea why people would be doing this unless they're a gardening influencer.

[B]

Well, obviously, yeah. And I'm not really sure either because I'm not like deep in that world. But I, I do have like someone that I met a while ago who is like my, my kind of glimpse through the porthole or whatever into the world of influencing. This is someone who makes a living through. Okay, influencing.

[A]

Now we're talking.

[B]

And I just follow this, literally follow this person online and just watch. And I'm always like, oh, what's that? The, Well, I mean, to the brand thing, it's like, have a color palette. And I'm like, but the clothes and your house don't all conform to the color palettes. Like, well, they should.

[A]

Really. You actually have like, like, I only get certain colors for the rest of my life.

[B]

Well, this is what this person does. Like, don't interrogate me. I'm not under oath here. Okay, I will, I will take the fit.

[A]

The truth.

[B]

I can't handle the truth. I can't even understand the truth. I don't.

[A]

Like, we just switched roles. Anyway, go on. So I think I know what you're talking about. And the interesting thing is that the person's life did not stay on brand.

[B]

Yeah. And that's the tricky thing, right. About being a biological organism. Right. In a hashtag world. Because it's like, yeah, this person was building a brand over. Around a certain type of image. Their life sort of imploded and looked different. And. And the. It's so interesting online to watch the struggle to, like, rebrand.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Around that. And it's like rebranding is such a fascinating thing when you're talking about being a human. Like, it. You have to. It's like you have to, like whole cloth, step out of one identity and into another. Announce it hard, launch it.

[A]

Yeah. So, like, I'm remembering a podcast I used to listen to. It was made by a couple, and then the couple broke up and they tried to keep recording their podcast.

[B]

They were lesbians. So, like, that it makes more sense that they tried sexes than it would if it was.

[A]

But I've seen it with straight couples, too, where they try to keep going on. And it just. And everybody says at the beginning, oh, this is. We're going to carry on consistently in terms of everybody around us. We're not going to change our identities at all. We're not going to change the identity of the relationship even. It's just a slight change of status. Nobody will even notice it. And the energy shifts so dramatically that it's like looking at two different people, even though they're trying to be the same.

[B]

Are you breaking up with me right now?

[A]

I'll be launching my own new podcast

[B]

single Martha,

[A]

through with Throuple Now. I don't even like saying that. That hurts my feelings. I like being in Throuple. No, but we would have to deal with it, would we not? It's quite a daring thing because here's the deal.

[B]

Tell me.

[A]

We just wanted to make a podcast. We weren't like, let's be our lesbian throuple brand. It was just like, here we are.

[B]

As we talk about, we kind of actively resist that.

[A]

Yeah. But basically, here's the thing. You're supposed to brand as an artificial thing, like, you make yourself. We've got the cattle branding as the start of it. But what does it mean in a corporate brand? It's where you create an image, you create a look, you create slogans, you create a mission statement for your company, and then you just are consistent with that. All the way through. Okay, so then you take just ordinary people like us, you get the Internet involved. Whatever we do then gets schnucked up, just schlooped up by the big branding machine that says everybody who is like, it went to radio, then it went to tv, now it's online. But it was like, oh, everything we see on TV has to be recognizable, has to fit the brand of the company, or we won't look at it anymore. It can't change too much or it will make us nervous. Which is one thing when you're watching, like, a tv, a soap opera or a sitcom where I remember once I wrote a premise script for a sitcom, and I read up on how to do it, and they said, here's the thing. It has to be exactly the same every week with different things. But if you write a situation comedy episode that departs from the brand, the whole thing blows up. It has to be the same every week, but fresh. And I thought, as you're talking to me now, I'm thinking, do we try to show up and be the same thing every day on social media? The same thing every year?

[B]

Well, I mean, I think you're conflating two different things in a way, because you were saying, first it was tv, then it was this, it was radio, blah, blah, blah, as though there's some external force. But what's interesting with social media that differs is that it's. It's. People are choosing to do this. And that's what I was meaning about attention, economy and everything. Right. Is it's like what gets you the engagement, what gets you the thing. So you're opting in to this and wanting to become comprehensible in these very narrow categories. And it is interesting because while we can, like, try and sculpt the image that we present.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In our own social media. I was just thinking about what you were saying about the throuple thing. And you can be branded with something if there's something interesting and unusual enough, like, you know, you're a little bit notorious and. And we have an unusual home life. Right. It looks unusual. It's actually pretty freaking boring. Yeah, it is, but. And so if I Google my name, it's like. It's like, thruffle, thruffle, thruffle. She is such a freak. It doesn't even matter. We could break up right now. I would have that brand on my hide.

[A]

Yeah, you would.

[B]

And I don't. I don't want that. But then I like. And I agonized over it. People were like, oh, you're the one who's in the throuple with the famous lady.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

And then, and then like. Anyway, it's just like, it's this love hate thing where you will be branded if you stick your head above the parapet. And then. So then is it empowered to revenge self brand?

[A]

Revenge self brand.

[B]

Revenge self brand.

[A]

That's really interesting. Can you even do that? Because I think what you're saying is there's a culture that is shaped mentally to the mentality of selling and to the mentality of advertising and branding that came along with it. And I'm sure that was always a thing back in the artisan days, but with mass media, it really became huge in the 20th century. So you've got this society that is used to seeing everything advertised and branded and then it sees someone else who just shows up and says, hi, I'm a person, I'd like to talk to you. And immediately it goes, okay, what's your brand? How do I label you? How do I pigeonhole you so that I know what to expect? Okay, now you're going to be that. So if you tried to show up and say, I'm just a gardener, and people would say, no, you're a throuple. How are you going to influence people for gardening when your brand is throuple?

[B]

Well, because then. So then what you do is you say, all right, if I want to sell some fucking gardens, what I'm going to do is I'm going to create the handle gardening throuple with all three of us. But three of us doing that. Who's that painter who has the farm cover?

[A]

I don't know, but.

[B]

No, you do.

[A]

American Gothic. That's all I remember. I don't remember the artist's name, but it's called American Gothic. Oh, you Google it. This is all you.

[B]

If anyone's watching the video, this is all you need to know. It's like this. Yes. And there's you, me and Karen in that place, right? And then that's our profile photo. Gardening thruffle. And then we've got two markets, right? We've got the freaks from the polyamory community. They love us. We've got the freak show curious. Right? And then we've got the gardeners.

[A]

So that is just expanding your brand for. That's not revenge rebranding. That's like, I can bring many things into my brand here.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, to a point, Right? That's two things. But I think two things is probably about the limit because it's. It's it's all about essentialism, right? It's about. It's about saying, I don't contain multitudes. I'm really easy to understand. I'm this. I'm this noun. And at. At best I can have an adjective.

[A]

Yeah, right, that saucy throuple, you know, random adjective, any adjective. Monstrous.

[B]

My brain just came up with nine things I can't say out loud. And so, yeah, so you might be able to get away with an adjective and that might be like a cool little niche clarifier that. That gets you more drilled down. But I think that the point of it is, is to completely take ambiguity or spontaneity out of the equation of how we perceive each other. Yeah, right.

[A]

That's so interesting. I remember committing this very crime against nature. When I first met Liz, Liz Gilbert, we were speaking at the same conference and I had just. I think it was right after Committed had come out. And I read all her books. I loved them, I loved her. And we ended up at the same table, like signing books or something. She had 400 people, I had 12. And I said, so you don't want

[B]

to go head to head with Elizabeth Gilbert?

[A]

No, you don't signing in any area of the world. You just sort of sit there and be amazed. She's awesome.

[B]

Just bask.

[A]

Yeah, you bask. And she Basque sounds better, though.

[B]

That's what they speak.

[A]

Never lose that accent. It's your brand.

[B]

It's what they speak in northern Spain.

[A]

Oh, back to the topic now.

[B]

I'm thinking about adhd.

[A]

Yeah, ADHD hurting in the Pyrenees. Basque culture. I'm talking to Liz, right? And I say to her, in a short, in a break, with my line having ended and hers, like, having to take a break because they'd been standing there so long. And I said, so what are you, like, doing now? What are you writing? And she's like, I don't really write anymore, I garden. And I was like, what am I going to read? Then I was like, gardening. What is this? You're Liz Gilbert. Elizabeth Gilbert doesn't garden. Well, I didn't know she was going to write a signature of all things, which is 100% about moss. Well, no, it's about 10% about moss. It's about many things, but that came out of her gardening.

[B]

Some people say it's about moss and masturbation.

[A]

Well, yeah, we didn't talk about that so much at the book signing. But the interesting thing about Liz is she makes everything into some. I mean, now I just see her As a creative genius. And that's sort of. But I branded her again. I need a simple pigeonhole.

[B]

So this is the thing that I'm trying to like pin down is that I think our brains do a shorthand. And I like the example from my life is mums at school, drop off. Right. Moms and dads, parents. Actually, in. In defense of. Of the dads, there are a lot of dads at drop off. And. And I can see my brain going. It's got like three flashcards for each person at most, so that if I'm awkwardly flung into conversation with them, I'll be like, bam. Are you thinking of starting a garden? Because if I got an affiliate link

[A]

will force you to be given gardening.

[B]

Yeah. No, my big one is like, say something about how we're not American and you're from England and I'm from Australia, and that means we have things in common. Yeah. And then. And then they'll just be like, oh, I love it here. I love everything about it. And I'm like, sorry, but you could

[A]

say things like, we've both been on an airplane.

[B]

We've both been on an airplane. Huh? They love me at the school game. I know they do. They love me there.

[A]

I avoid them. So I think that may be natural. And as you're speaking, I'm thinking about zebras, of course, because that's how I

[B]

do on this podcast, the zebras have come up.

[A]

Now, what's so interesting about them is that when the babies are born, the mothers have to go off from the herd. And they have to keep the baby from seeing the herd for like a couple hours after they're born. Because for a couple of hours, it takes them that long to imprint on their mother's stripe pattern. They have to know the exact. Because every zebra has a different stripe pattern than every other. And the baby has to know its mother.

[B]

Yes,

[A]

its mother, which will politely look the other way as it walks across the gravel into its zebra thripple. But like, it needs to be able to have shorthand. Okay, that's my mom. She's got the weird stripe on the flanky flank or whatever. And you have zebra stripe patterns of the parents at school. And so we all. I think you're right. I think the brain does need like little brands of a way in a way.

[B]

So then that tendency in our brains gets co opted and kind of commodified.

[A]

Well, I think it did. Like, yeah.

[B]

I think it is happening all around us all the time.

[A]

Well, I do think advertising and marketing, when they went vast and global, just drilled hard into that tendency of the brain and made it even more.

[B]

And what's so interesting, you know, like speaking of shorthands, on this podcast we have like a running shorthand, which is the culture inflicts upon me. I'm just trying to be wild in the woods, poor me. We are all participants in the culture. Right. The culture is only ever going to be an exaggerated, upscale, fractal form of what the average person is. Right. Writ large, yes. Culture, though we don't treat it this way, actually contains multitudes.

[A]

What? What? What? Yes, it does.

[B]

But it also has, you know, sort of broad tendencies and broad trends. Right. And then. So what I'm trying to say is that the really distinct thing about personal branding in this time one, you're not talking about a company, you're talking about an individual. Right. Who may or may not be selling something, but they are chasing engagement and clicks.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

For something or other. Even if it's just eyes on their stuff.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Maybe it's, maybe it's versatile and economically environmentally sustainable. Raised beds for your garden. Spring's coming. And, and so there's this tendency. No, what is it? It's like you learn to participate in the workings of the algorithm. Here's this, this clip. Sound clip. That's the trending sound clip that is going to get you more eyes on your thing. We're going to do this weird thing where we do a dance while we. Words come across the screen. Because that's the trend on TikTok. And so, and, and so we're, we're not having, we're not having it done to us. We're not being forced to be given 300 worth of garden.

[A]

Forced to be given a brand.

[B]

Yeah, we're not. I'm saying we're not being forced to. We're actively doing it. That's so interesting. What do you do then? When your three dimensional life is not on your color palette and the story that you're telling the world, it becomes so important to you and you're so invested in it. Because the, the whole way of presenting is I'm only one thing. It's really clear.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I'm this one thing. And, and so when life doesn't participate, which inevitably it won't at a certain point, then what?

[A]

This is a really fascinating idea. And it reminds me, if you go to the absolute extreme situation. Did you see the film the Talented Mr. Ripley? Yeah. So it's about this man played by Matt Damon, who is closeted and gay. But he also pretends to be very upper class, when in fact he was raised poor. And he pretends to be a member of all these upper class things. And he goes, I think it's in Europe. So he's like trying to be feted by all the royal families. And he's this little nobody from nowhere. Right. And he creates this brand of himself. And this is where I think your comments intersect with what I'm thinking. Once you've created a brand because you want eyes on you in that way, you want to be admired, you want to be celebrated, there's this sort of push toward fame for God's. I don't know why. Fame is a terrible thing. Wealth and power, more useful. But fame, some people want it and I don't know why, but they want it and they want positive attention. And they'll do anything for the positive attention in the Talented Mr. Ripley because it's a movie. When people start seeing through to parts of him as he really is, he starts killing them. Sorry, spoiler alert, folks. But he ends up having to destroy people, including people he loves, because his brand is so important to him.

[B]

Right. To protect the brand, you'll do anything.

[A]

So where do we actually violate our nature to protect a brand that wants to change? Right. Like, we want to be made of multitudes, but we have a brand that we now cherish because it's got eyes on us and people's opinions of us are being influenced by how we show up. And now we're changing and do we keep trying to present the brand? A lot of people do, something bad happens to them, they try to pretend they're the same as ever, or when we're ready to just go totally off brand. How do we handle the cultural pressure around that? Yeah.

[B]

And thinking again of, of this person I know that I was talking about before, who's the influencer and very, very branded, very on brand.

[A]

It's.

[B]

It's so interesting to watch them try to do a rebrand as though the next thing can hold in a way that the last thing didn't. Yes. You know, and, and it's like we really are participating in the idea that what is organic and constantly changing can be pinned down like a butterfly. Right. Like on one of those disgusting boards.

[A]

You know, this is exactly what you were doing, creeping around the back of the house like you were this.

[B]

Don't worry, Mom. Your daughter's not a complete freak. No, Crunch, Crunch.

[A]

I'm just a free spirit who travels the world staying with friends. Crunch, Crunch. Oh, my God. Yeah, but that's exactly what we were doing. We were trying to. To preserve the brand.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's hard because I think whether biology or the nature of our social constructs right now, or whatever it is, but there's a strong push to create a brand and be consistent, make it simple, make it consistent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And our culture reinforces that and we feed into that. But by nature we do contain multitudes and things could change radically at any moment simply with an epiphany inside our heads or with something that happens in our lives.

[B]

Like I just had that epiphany.

[A]

Seymour.

[B]

This is pretty out there thing to say, but I'm gonna say it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think it's possible that on some deep psychological level the. The need for a personal brand, which is only the most recent way of saying a fixed Persona or whatever, you know, like it's not, not specific to this, it's. To this moment, but it's exaggerated that that desire to appear as something that is unchanging and thereby, or therefore inorganic is basically about wanting to avoid facing our own death. Because if you change, then you are

[A]

going to die 100%.

[B]

It's. Yeah. Well, it's is dying. Right. Check. To change is to be dying.

[A]

Yeah. The caterpillar never makes it out of that cocoon alive.

[B]

Poor bastard.

[A]

I know. The angel comes out. It's a butterfly.

[B]

Can I tell you something really cool that I just found out?

[A]

Yes. Is it about gardens?

[B]

It's got nothing to do with anything

[A]

we're talking about that's not on brand.

[B]

Tell me, do you know, it's actually so on brand for us. That's why I feel comfortable talking about it like this is a safe space. I got a message from someone who lives in the area we've moved to saying right now is the time when the salamanders and the frogs need to cross the road. And she was saying her friend and she, when she was living in like right where we are, would go and stand on the road and. And direct the traffic around so that the salamanders and the frogs could make it across. And she's like, they can live 30 years if they just don't get squished.

[A]

Oh my gosh. I saved so many salamanders in the fall. I still started seeing them and I thought they would always be there, but it was just this one day.

[B]

Yeah. And now it's an. It's another day. They're going back, they're going to have sex with each other. Not the frogs, with the salamanders.

[A]

Can you hear them on the gravel? Do you know I have to. Sorry, I have to do this totally. Last night, it was on brand for

[B]

us to not be able to follow up.

[A]

So last night, I was going home from the main house over to my little apartment studio.

[B]

Crunch.

[A]

Yes. Crunch, Crunch, crunch. And I'd put some cardboard boxes outside because I was gonna take them to the recycle. So I went outside in the dark, and I reached down, holding the flashlight with one hand and going, bears. Bears.

[B]

I'm here because that's what you literally do.

[A]

You're supposed to see it. You are rather. I got eaten by a bear.

[B]

No, I gave you a bear stitch. I made you a bear stick.

[A]

I sat down while looking for bears with my eyeballs. And I picked up the cardboard boxes, only my hand was on something weirdly squishy. And I thought, this cardboard has gotten very, very wet. And I looked at my hand, and I was holding a frog.

[B]

And what did the frog say?

[A]

The frog said, help.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I just hope that, like, I didn't have any soap on my hands or anything because their little skin is delicate. But it was very, very weird to reach down for a cardboard box and bring my hand up with a squishy living creature in it. But it's so on brand for me. Right. I will never lose my brand of being obsessed with animals, ever.

[B]

It's so cool because we're like. This is called Bewildered. Our brand is that we can't. We, like. We don't know what we're doing.

[A]

We're literally wandering around like me in the woods with no highways or my own eyeballs in their sockets.

[B]

You're really trying to make this eyeball socket thing fly. And I just don't think. I just don't think it's got a strong momentum.

[A]

It hurts me when I think about it. Keep going.

[B]

It doesn't easily get incorporated into the existing brand.

[A]

Oh, damn it.

[B]

Yeah, it's a little bit edge, Case. Just stick with animal stories, okay? Cute animal stories.

[A]

Frog in hand, bear not there. Yesterday. What were you saying? Salamanders.

[B]

Yeah. Cool, right?

[A]

Really cool. They're orange with little. Sorry. We need to get back to the.

[B]

Let's get back to the serious discussion of zebras.

[A]

I am going out there. Okay? Now, here's what I think is so interesting, because the way to come to your senses. So the coming to consensus is, like, we all buy into the nest necessity of having our brand consistent. I mean, think about Jane Austen's novels. Somebody loses fortune. They spend their lives trying not to show it. Right. They have to look like they're the same person.

[B]

Oh, I thought you were talking. Yeah, I thought you were talking about Jane Austen's brand. And I was like, yeah, good point. Very consistent. Boom ends with a wedding.

[A]

But all the people are, like, desperate with presenting themselves in certain ways. So hierarchical societies are even more that way than others. So the culture pulls us into a consensus that says, get a really strong, positive brand and just live it out your whole life. But coming to our senses is like, I'm not the same person I was when I got out of bed this morning. I don't know who I'll be in an hour. Like, I have no brand and no idea.

[B]

Poet laureate of the show wrote a song slash children's book called the Knowing, which I am. Children's slash children's book.

[A]

Don't slash children.

[B]

No, but read the book. Yeah, it's a short read. It's a picture storybook. But she. It's so sweet because the refrain is, it's a kid talking about themselves and their life. And then they're saying, but all of these. You know, it's not. This is not the whole of me.

[A]

I have a name, I have a place where I was born. I have a story, a favorite food,

[B]

and all that stuff, but this is just what's showing. Underneath all that I know is the knowing. Right.

[A]

But I just give that a second that it's just. I love that line so much. Underneath all that I know is the knowing. And it just pops you right out of the cultural frame of reference.

[B]

It sure does. But the line that I really wanted to highlight, because it's. It's just so perfect in its simplicity. I have beliefs, and someday those beliefs might change. And then she just follows it up with the most wonderful line, which is, I have blocks that I like to arrange and rearrange. And I'm like, that's my brand. I am just like a series of blocks. And the blocks will always be there, Right? But they're just going to be in different shapes.

[A]

And yet, I think she wrote that song partly because when she tries to change, like, she gets identified as gay, then she marries a man, people get mad at her because she fell in love with the wrong person because they're in favor of being. Love is love. Well, doesn't that kind of mean she's okay married to a man? Right. You know, exactly. Yeah. I thought you were gonna quote a different song, though. It's about. It literally talks about branding. I don't need to know where I stand. I just didn't need to show up for the thing at hand.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think that's the coming to our senses.

[B]

Well, yeah. And we've talked. I think we've bound to have talked about, like, the present moment is the wild state, Right. The uncultured state, because the culture is going to be in the past and the future, or imagining the past and imagining the future. And the wildness, as I'm sure we've said before, is being in the present, like, completely in the present. Not in our fantasies about the past, which is all we have of the past, or our fantasies about the future, but to actually, genuinely be present in the moment, show up for, like, what's right in front of me, what is the moment we're living in. Because I think the extent to which we can be in the present, we can be outside culture. Yeah. Do you think that's true, Mother Bear?

[A]

I absolutely do. And you're really. This is kind of rocking my socks because you're reminding me of what it's like to meditate for a long time until you forget what you are.

[B]

People always say that to me.

[A]

And then they force you to be

[B]

given a garden people trowel. Like, when I'm with you, I feel like I'm sitting in silence, bored off my tits for hours on end.

[A]

The more you forget who I am, what's my brand? Why am I not on a highway?

[B]

I'm so sorry. Talk about meditation.

[A]

Now, it's really interesting because when you get to that point, when you're absolutely present and it's very elusive for a while, and it took me hundreds of hours before I even was introduced to that space, because it's always gone. As Byron Katie says, even the present is now in the past, right? It's gone. But when you get to it and suddenly you're in it, there's a sense of not existing to your old personality or anything. And in that moment, what you are is watching. What you are is listening. What you are is feeling. What you are is absolutely receiving input from everything around you. And it's as though it never happened before. And you don't need to be anybody.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I just did a teaching session with a bunch of coaches before I came. Literally, like, we walked here from them and we were talking about when something shocks your life and you have to change who you are. And they were all asking questions in the chat on the zoom thing, what's happening to me, blah, blah, blah. And then I said, okay, we're on this call for 50 more minutes. Here's the deal. Don't be anybody for 50 minutes. Don't be anything. Don't do anything. Like when that timer goes off at the hour, you can go be whatever. And then I said put in the chat. What happened to your stress? And like 200 coaches were like 000. And we'd put in numbers before and they were more stressed than that. The one thing they thought would be most frightening which was to let go of all identity when I said, okay, let's do it, everybody. People were writing. And I just heaved the biggest sigh of relief. Oh my God. This feels so good. We're so afraid to be nobody. But it's delicious.

[B]

I just got the image of all of us walking around. Not just now in this specific culture but like as part of the psychology or whatever of being human. Of like, it's like we're walking around with the selfie camera turned on all the time. Right? And we're like, angle. How's my hair? You know? And. And that's what identity feels like. That's what believing in identity feels like. Is just constantly like, how's this angle?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And if you're in the present, you can just put that down and you can just be behind your own eyes and behind your own ears and receptive. Like you say. I had this epiphany last week. I was telling you about where I was walking along the street and I had that moment of like, what am I wearing? What am I doing? Like. Like one does.

[A]

Like you have. Coming stumbling out of someone else's apartment every other night. What? Why am I wearing this?

[B]

And I think you. What are you wearing? So. And I suddenly realized the person

[A]

for

[B]

whom it matters least what I'm wearing and how I look is me. I don't. I'm the only one around here who does not have to put up with that shit. It's so great. I can't even really smell myself. You know what I mean? Like after a while.

[A]

Most of the time after a while,

[B]

like just kind of, you know, whatever. You get used to it. Yeah.

[A]

That whole sense of being self in as. As a social primate, like obsessed with hierarchy, obsessed with relationship and everything. When you. It's not even that you're saying I'm just looking at. From behind my eyes. They're just eyes. They're not even my eyes. They're not even my ears. Just seeing. Just hearing, just knowing, you know?

[B]

I don't know if I've ever mentioned a musician called Ani DiFranco in the last five minutes.

[A]

I have no idea who you're talking about.

[B]

She recently put out a book with a woman called Lauren Coyle Rosen called the Spirit of Arnie. And it's like a kind of. It's like a brilliant conversational format of, like, describing a kind of spiritual perspective.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And one of the chapters, I think, think one of the chapters or one of the things that she says in it is this line, which I could just like, almost meditate on. Anita Franco is a shirt. She says, you know, oh, that's great. Isn't that great? It's like this. This idea of something. And so she's there and she's a touring musician with a merch stand. Right, Right. And there's her face on the T shirt. And everyone who buys the T shirt has a different version of her. Like the facsimile of the image. And there is no essential person.

[A]

No, there doesn't ever. Like, you know, this body, this mind, none of it. It's all continuously changing, like a sand dune or a river. It is nothing. It's not anything because it's not stable. It is continuously changing. It's just an event, this here. It's just an easy. We are events.

[B]

We're not even things at best. Yeah. We're just like the moment where a dust mote catches the wind in the afternoon.

[A]

But the weird thing is we resist that. But when you come to nature and you let it be so everything in you comes home. Yeah.

[B]

It's an enormous relief. And it's so funny to be these funny little creatures where I know we torture ourselves with lies even after we've shown ourselves that the truth feels so much more relaxing.

[A]

I know I say this stuff and then I go home and when I'm washing the dishes, I narrate. She's got the forks now. She's doing very well. I like the sports commentary of myself washing the dishes. I've been doing it since I was a child. Can't help it.

[B]

Do you do it when you're doing other things other than the dishes?

[A]

Sometimes picking up boxes.

[B]

She thinks it's a box. It turns out it's a frog. It's a frog. It's an easy mistake to make anyone good to you. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt. I mean, you could put something inside the frog.

[A]

Conceivably. I think after this, though, I am going to go home and, like, try to be just the knowing. More like try to be just the seeing, just the hearing.

[B]

When you started talking about, like, the being in the present and the way. And I don't know if it's like, for me, I don't know if I've thought about this a lot or will practice this a lot, if it's as easy for other people as for me. But when you started talking about it and I started trying to drop into that state, what. The first thing I noticed was how present in my body I felt. I could almost feel my. My blood sort of singing, you know that feeling?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it's one of those wonderful paradoxes about kind of following a spiritual path is it's like the more you give up on this identity that's walking around in this body of that being anything Anita Franco is a shirt. Then suddenly it becomes so delicious to have a body.

[A]

Reminds me of a line from our friend Stephen Mitchell.

[B]

Oh, thank God.

[A]

Translation of the Tao to zoo Anita Frankenstein. No, it's not. It's very simple. It says, if you would be given everything, give everything up. Yeah, and that's, I think, this whole branding thing, that's what we do. We have to give it up to find out who we are. Because that is how we stay wild.

[B]

Staywild. We hope you're enjoying Bewildered. If you're in the USA and want to be notified when in new episode comes out, text the word wild to 570-873-0144. We're also on Instagram. Our handle is Bewildered podcast. You can follow us to get updates, hear funny snippets and outtakes and chat with other fans of the show. Bewildered is produced by Scott Forster with support from the brilliant team at mbi. And remember, if you're having fun, please rate and review and stay wild.