TAGQ (That's A Good Question)

Ben Johnston talks to his father Scott about improv comedy, forestry and landscaping, as well as computing, cooking, and music, and whatever else these characters are interested in.

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TAGQ (That's A Good Question)

Basket Breathing

November 18, 2025 • Ben Johnston & Scott Johnston

Two brothers chase one thread through many lanes: how meditation, language, craft, and city trees point to a more grounded life. We end with a simple tool for singing and everything else: ask how to enjoy it 10 percent more, and let the body lead.

• Nonduality and the Zen of simple attention
• Craft as presence through pottery and baskets
• Work and leadership as spiritual practice
• Self‑reliance, emotional fluidity, and team trust
• Reframing sin, repent, and mercy
• The Sopranos as a lens on grace and fear
• Urban forestry myths and real benefits
• Foraging, stewardship, and regulation
• Soil, gratitude, and interdependence
• Singing, primal sound, and active relaxation

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Scott: 0:09

Welcome once again to That's a Good Question, where for the second time in a row, we're gonna have Ben interview a brother of his this time, Peter Johnston, joining from his studio in Los Angeles.

Peter & Ben: 0:38

Yeah. You heard that, huh? Oh no.

Ben & Peter: 0:42

Oh no. I had to start the recording. Sorry. On the record. Wow, it's a studio. I was just looking through the Zoom, Zoom settings and everything. And there's an option to do audio for professional studio settings. Should I turn that on the show? Yeah, there's audio for me turn that on.

Peter & Ben: 1:10

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if you want to. I'm just kidding. If they've been if it's been working, don't fucking touch anything.

Ben & Peter: 1:20

Oh. I swore. You you're allowed to do that here. Well, I'm uh I'm here with uh Peter Johnston, everybody. He's uh getting a PhD in chemistry at the University of Munich doing research on doing research on spooky isotopes. Spooky isotopes.

Peter & Ben: 1:49

Oh what's what's a spooky isotope?

Ben & Peter: 1:54

Well, welcome, Peter, I guess. Hi, thanks, thank you for having me. It's good to be here. That's what they say in podcasts, right? It's good to be, it's really good to be here. It's really good to be here with you. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks so much for having me. And then you make so many judgments on the person based on their tone of voice and how they said 40 minutes. It's like, how did they say those like three words? Like it those four words. It's good to be having me. Oh my god, thanks for having me. It's like, oh it's like instantly you're like, oh, who is this person? Where did they come from? Why are they here? Amazing. Yeah. Um, I was trying to imitate Sam Harris with that with that intro. Have you ever listened to his podcasts? I fucking hate that guy. That guy's crazy. He's crazy. No, I don't hate him. I don't really understand him, but I think he really hitting the ground running here. Do you know Rupert Spira? That's the guy that, or maybe I'm getting him confused, but that's the guy that thinks about his spine and his brain and heals his spine. No, that's Joe Dispenza. Oh, there you go. I yeah, I get those guys mixed up. Dispenza Spira. Very fucking Dispenza. Very different and very much the same. Rupert Spira is a is a like non-dualism, like kind of boot like Buddhist Vedant, like I think of the Vedantic tradition. Yeah. Which is basically like, you know, who is the one who is who is the one that's fill in the blank. Right. As you're doing as you as you're doing your meditation, you're sitting there and you're like, okay, I'm aware of all these sounds. Who is the one that is. Yeah, but I think what it's really effective for me is that when and and like I don't know, I I don't that stuff can get so heady. It's it gets very, very heady. Very yeah. But you're not supposed to get heady. Stop it. Stop. No, it's like he talks about when you're angry at someone, it's like who is the one that is angry? Oh yeah. And then and the the idea, I don't know what Rupert Spear says, but Sam Harris says you're looking for like an actual sensation or an actual like like sensation for like that thing that you call yourself that is doing the looking. Like, where are you? And people, you know, usually you go and it's like, oh, I'm up here, I'm in the head. But then if you look closer, it's like, oh, there's not really actually anything there. To the point, yeah, you're supposed to like all at once, like, whoa, I'm there's really no self here. Wow. But it's like people have no, it's just confusing because you're trying to find it through the mind, and the mind can't see itself, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I don't know. I think for some people, I mean it's a really, really rich tradition that goes back way back into the history of Buddhism, but it's I don't know. It's it's just like any other meditation practice, it's just a different approach, and it's confusing. Well, I like Zen more because it's just like just pay attention. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. Zen is more strict. The Zen temples, from what I've heard, are more strict. And like, it's just about like what's your meditation posture? What are you just like pay attention to your breath. Don't close your eyes. If a f if a fly lands on you, like the the the irritation becomes the meditation. It's just so much more simple.

Peter & Ben: 5:57

Yeah.

Ben & Peter: 5:58

The thing, but I think if you really dedicate yourself to who is really there, I think if you can do that over a long period of time, I do think that it's it's a the question, who am I? I think if you can turn it into more of like an experiential question rather than uh trying to figure it out in your mind kind of question, I think it's right. Yeah, well, I still like Sam Harris's app. If it works forty dollars a year. If it works, it works. Yeah, but Spira talks about him. Does he have a podcast? No, but he has a lot of a lot of people like videotape. He does have a YouTube channel and he does talks. He does Dharma talks.

Peter & Ben: 6:53

He does, he talks, yeah.

Ben & Peter: 6:55

He talks, and people film it and they put it on the internet. So dumb. Why would anyone do that? And he yeah, he just talks about that like Sam Harris is kind of like he's kind of missing the point. He talks about Sam Harris like that. Yeah, he has he has mentioned Sam Harris in that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can send you the I can send you the pod. Fucking hell. Oh wow, he's he's he's he's a good looking guy. He looks a lot like Henry Shookman. I love I love Rupert Spira. He's he's from London, I think. I think he's English. Nice. He's an author and potter. Yeah, he's a potter. He's really big into ceramics. That's a big Zen thing, too. Yeah, right. Just craft. Just making went to that. I was telling you on the phone earlier yesterday, actually, that I went to that urban forestry symposium. Urban forestry just being like forests, but in like cities, you know. And as time goes on in the last few decades, people have you know learned a lot about how important they are socially and ecologically, just trees and cities and stuff. And this uh symposiumslash conference had a really, really big focus on indigenous uh people in the area. And there was for like a two-hour talk, there was a guy that just talked about the baskets he made. And I see so I just talk talk about Rupert Spear and his pots. I just see so many parallels between like basket making in indigenous traditions and then like pottery or woodworking or carving or whatever in Zen traditions. Like baskets are about like both just the fact that they're baskets, but they're also about like absolutely everything at the same time. But uh, but it's like but they're also just baskets, yeah. Rupert's bureau. Yeah, I mean that's the thing, right? When you do the spiritual path, it's like I think things get to the point where you're like, it they're just pops.

Peter & Ben: 9:12

Yeah, exactly.

Ben & Peter: 9:13

You know what I mean? It's like it's like dude, you're thinking I I just I think I I feel like I see a lot of a lot of spiritual teachers get to that point in their teachings where they're like, it's really not that big of a deal. It's not that just yeah, yeah, it really is what it is. Yeah, but yeah, it's interesting you talk about that because I think with indigenous traditions and triggering. Careful what you say. White people talking about indigenous fascinating. The indigenous are so fascinating. I got my phones on. It's why am I doing it so unprofessional? So I think that no, it's just it's applying that everything I think indigenous my my perspective is that I've been thinking about like how do you how do you find like true like satisfaction in life? How do you find like satisfaction in something like a basket or whatever? And this this is I I'm gonna walk you through okay this concept of spirituality in everyday life in in a few different podcasts that I've watched in the past. It's gonna be my next question. What other podcasts have so this is great. All right. Okay, so Phil Stutz, my main man, actually not a podcast. He's still alive. He is still alive. His I think it's Parkinson's. His Parkinson's is he kind of sits there in a chair and like like goes like this while he's talking. Yeah, but it's still very articulate. Listener, you can imagine what Peter's doing. You don't have to see it. Yeah, no, I'm putting my legs, I'm flailing my legs around. He's upside down right now. And he and he like, you know, he has his eyes closed as he's like talk like articulating his ideas, but he recently put out, you know, there was some kid probably our age, probably closer to my age, like in his 30s, did a podcast with Phil. And he kind of just went through Phil's basic principles, you know, which is the tools. And the way that the podcast started is Phil was, you know, he works with like millionaires, but not just like millionaire, but you know, he works with like famous actors that he's not allowed to, not allowed to say who he works with. He has interviewed a couple famous actresses that that you know you they you know share their name and stuff, but he basically talks about, you know, you can have all this success and that's great. And this is it's like such a contrived thing to say like success isn't fulfilling, but I mean it's it is true, and you know, monetary success and all that stuff is is not necessarily fulfilling. But he says that like in order to be satisfied with things, like you need you need like some kind of connection to a higher force, to like some kind of spiritual force. And that ties into this other pod. My fav what my favorite podcast, The Art of Accomplishment, with Joe Hudson, and I think it's like Bert. No, wait, Bert Chris is the comedian, that's the like racist comedian, the guy who takes his shirt off, the Joe Joe Rodin guy. Oh no, I I can't remain. I think it's Brett Bert something. Brett something. Bert from Severance. Yeah, don't watch that show. But he Joe Hudson talks about everything as a spiritual practice, right? He works with like the guys who are creating like AI, you know. He works with like those CEOs and stuff, and tries to make their business. So he was a venture capitalist before you mean by better, more money or more like morally more integrated. Money is part of it, but just like getting the the culture of the of like the relationships, and you know, like CEOs come in with these things, and they're like, How do we increase our bottom line? Or how but it's mostly like, how do I get my people to listen to me more? Right. You know, like how do we get each other all on the same page? Depending on the company, but often for the end of increasing your bottom line. He says most of the time that's what it is, and then what he ends up getting into is emotional fluidity, yeah, things like that. But he swears by not he he can see what the underlying problem is for these guys, which he says nine times out of ten is self-reliance, they're addicted to self-reliance in a way. He doesn't say addicted, that was my own spin, but um, you know, he tries to solve their problems first. Like he doesn't force them to go. You have a problem with being self-reliant, that's why you're not you you don't trust your team or a control freak or whatever it is. But yeah, he he just he talks about he was a meditator for like eight years. He meditated like I don't know, some like eight, twelve hours a day, you know, and then was poor, was like broke, and and then he started doing venture venture capital, and then found more fulfilling ways to do venture capital by being involved in companies that were more aligned with like you know helping communities, helping education and stuff. And then he was he just kind of found that he was a good coach. So he started doing that. Yeah, and then he created this thing. He has this the their their like their kind of main course is called the connection course, which is connection. Yeah, I don't know. I I don't that that's a whole that's a whole thing, but it's just the idea of like business as business as a spiritual practice. If you can get everyone in the company aligned with like the concept of what you're doing in the business is like self-discovery and how important relationships are in that, how important you know, just like all the self-help, exploring judgment, all that kind of stuff. Like how how that ties into just everyday life. And I'm gonna bring it back to the baskets. Like, I think the indigenous cultures, their whole everything was wrapped in was in was wrapped in higher forces, exactly. Yeah, so like that's why, yeah, you're making a basket, you're super grounded in we actually need this basket, you know, to carry stuff. But woven into that was but they're so much, but they're literally like they are constantly aware of where did all of this stuff come from, you know, and what's allowing all this to happen. Right. And if we don't think if we don't pay attention to that, there will be consequences, you know. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, like if you tie the thing wrong or what I don't know, if you don't respect the I think a lot of modern day thinking thinks like of a lot of those like little things that they had, like, oh, you have to you have to make the L's on L design on your basket the right direction, otherwise, you know, you're gonna get fucked. And people think of that as like, oh, it's just a bunch of superstition. But like it actually kind of had a lot of like really important practical implications at the end of the day. Um, what is the definition of superstition? Super, what is stition? I don't know. Yeah, excessively credulous belief and reverence for supernatural beings.

Peter & Ben: 18:18

See, that's not a that's you know, that's like not necessarily theory, I think.

Ben & Peter: 18:23

What is the etymology and origin of balance the word superstition? I do that a lot.

Siri: 18:32

The modern word superstition comes from the Latin superstitious, it was a term that the Romans applied to mysterious beliefs that lay outside the mainstream of their religious culture. So this is from Historic Collection.com.

Ben & Peter: 18:44

It's a pretty badass word, yeah. It is all it is is things that we don't, it's just things that we don't understand.

Peter & Ben: 18:53

That we don't understand.

Ben & Peter: 18:55

Yeah, but the thing is, in indigenous cultures, it was not superstition because everyone was like collectively that it wasn't outside the cultural beliefs, right? Or whatever it was, yeah, right. Yeah, I feel like that word itself is like a mechanism of like putting indigenous thought on the margins to be like this is this is like well, yeah, because I think geographically it was literally on the margins, right? Well, I mean, not necessarily though. I mean, yeah, I don't know. Were pagans living within within like the Roman Empire, you know, and they were just yeah, but they were I would say they were on the margins of society, yeah, exactly, but not geograph geographically means like they were literally like outside. Yeah, I guess when I I'm thinking about indigenous, it's like they they were like literally, it's like oh over there if you go over those hills, those people are oh yeah, right, yeah, yeah. But it's like are they even if they're in the middle of Roman A. Or are you superstitious about yeah, exactly, but they're not superstitious about so yeah, I I've been with the with the Bible, the Bible words that bring up judgment that pertain to God, like sin or repent or God's mercy, you know, yeah, like the etymology of those terms are actually very like endearing and like sin means you're missing the mark. Yeah, you're missing the point. I think I talked about that with dad at some point on this podcast too. And yeah, I've talked about that with dad before. And sin is yeah, you're missing the mark. Repent means yeah, repent means to just go back home, go the other way. It does not mean, oh please, God, I'm sorry, I'm a bad, evil boy. Right, it's so much baggage, yeah. Yeah, and then it just like puts all this weight on you instead of in both of those cases, it's just like just just just try again. Yeah, brother, it's just they're just baskets. They're just God is literally just being like, just just try again. They're just that they're just baskets. Yeah, the stitch was bad, but try again. Yeah. What's the third mercy of God? Yeah, so I was watching the Sopranos, and they're Catholic. They're Roman Catholic, right? Italian Roman Catholicism. And the the kind of younger guy who's who's kind of climbing the ranks in the in the I don't know, gang mob. I don't know. Christopher? Yeah, Christopher. Christopher! Christopher and Carmen, Tony Soprano's wife, who is just very, I mean, she just is like, I know what Tony does, but we don't really yeah. He supports the he supports the family, so you need to go to therapy.

Peter & Ben: 22:24

I'm so glad you're in therapy.

Ben & Peter: 22:31

And Christopher, it's so it's insane. It's like really heavy. He gets shot because these guys he's been working with are they're like, man, they're not respecting us, you know. What do we need to do? So they kind of misinterpret this other guy who's considered a captain in the mob or whatever. Basically, is like Christopher, like that, he's a crazy guy. You know, this guy's insane. He's like, he's like there, you know, everyone's like that. Pauly's like, is dark energy's that guy, you know. Right. Um the captain you they go, they go, yeah, like this captain, captain of dark energy. And he says this thing to these guys who come in and they're they want his respect, right? And they say, like, Christopher's bad. And they were like friends with him. He Christopher was like helping them out more than anyone, right? And he was like, Look, this is just part of the game, you know, like you you just you you kind of take you're getting hazed a little bit, yeah. And so they go, they take this captain's thing of like kind of just saying kind of hitting on Christopher, and they go and they go, Well, we're gonna whack him, we're gonna kill him. Yeah, and then the guy comes back and he's like, We tried to whack him, we did it for you. And he's and the guy's like, What the hell? you know. So, anyway, Christopher goes and he almost dies. He does literally die for a minute. He has a near-death experience, he sees the light, and he goes to what he thinks is hell, and he and he sees his dad, his fat his father, and his his dad basically tells him, I'm in hell, and you're gonna go to hell. Yeah, and then he comes back and he's like, Oh god, you know, but before he comes back, his heart stopped. He goes into this surgery. Carmen goes into this other room and prays to some, you know, some saint. And she's like, you know, please, like Jesus, like, you know, give him vision, you know, give give Christopher vision, you know. And then Christopher comes back and he's like had this near-death experience, you know. And so Carmen comes in and she's like, she's she talks about mercy. She's like, Lord have mercy on his soul, basically. And I'm sitting there in bed, I really should be asleep. It's like midnight. And I'm watching this episode, and then I go on Chat GPT, and I'm like, where did mercy come from? Like, what is that what does that word actually mean? And I'm gonna go back in my in my chats here. Origin of of mercy. Original language, Kirizia, I don't know how to pronounce this word, to soothe, to tend to, to care for, to pour oil on word on wounds. It comes from the same root as olive oil used in healing. Wow. See that I'm hurt. The paraphrases, see that I'm hurting, place healing on this pain. But I feel like we take like somewhere people turned mercy into like God, like you know, he could be punishing you, but he's gonna take mercy on you, right? So, yeah, anyway, that's why because I like I got this grab Mercy, mercy, someone with soul of wrath, just kind of like off like just off the cuff. Like you have to beg to this guy not to beat the shit out of you for messing up, yeah. They for all intents and purposes, they're like just gonna totally like bring it up. Yeah, basically, God is not actually judging you. If He's actually con He He He is holding He's holding this space for you, and all you need to do is you just you sinned, you turned away, all you need to do is repent and come back and ask and His mercy is all always there, and all you need to do is ask for it, and all it means is like love, you know. So yeah. Anyway, yeah, those are the repent. Those are the podcasts. My favorite podcast right now is Joe Hudson. Been listening to the book. I've seen every single Phil Stutz or Barry Michaels, that's his partner who he wrote the first book, The Tools, with. And I actually work with a coach who studied basically like studied with Barry Michaels. Barry Michaels. Like she knows she knows Barry, and she like talks about talks about him every once in a while. And I've seen every podcast they've been on, and they had a podcast, but it's like not available now. They like took it down or something. They repented. It's so witty. Yeah, and then Sopranos is my other podcast. Yeah, yeah. Sopranos to me always felt like like a like a book club that I could do alone. I feel like there weren't many other it might have just been a point in my life, but I feel like I could watch that show and like think, think about it by myself and like research it by myself in a way that I hadn't been able to with like other books or movies or TV shows. Maybe it's just, yeah, might have just been where I was at in life. I just had more energy for that sort of thing. But yeah, I would ask shit like that all the time with Sopranos. For some reason, it just like got it out of me in a different way. That's why it's such a good intention of mercy. It's like it brings up, it brings up these questions, right? Because what karm, the funny thing is she comes back and she's like, she's like, Christopher, I prayed for you. I prayed for you, Christopher, and I I wanted I asked God to grant you vision and give you a new life, and and God and and God gave that to you, you know. You saw Jesus, and he was like, Girl, I did not see Jesus. I dad and he said, I'm going to hell. Yeah, exactly. And uh, oh my god. Yeah, I love that show because it's all about it's it's a it's about a a mob boss basically going to therapy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And his wife's obsessed with religion, yeah. You know, yeah, there's so much there. Yeah, yeah. Is that uh is that a front door behind you? A front door, yeah. That that door over there. Is that your is that your is your studio in the foyer? What is four what does that mean again? Is it a foyer? A foyer is like the little like kind of vestibule that you first step into. A foyer. A foyer, maybe that's a no, this was a garage. Oh, okay. Back when the original people always make fun make fun of me when I say that it was a death. I have to specify that it was a Jewish family, but I think it's important to say that. It was like there were they had like seven kids, and they they're still the landlords. They live in Israel now, and their son Sam now kind of like you know, he's the guy we contact when like the pipes are messed up. Jewish. There's roots growing in our pipes. Oh boy. They had to like dig up the front lawn. Just like in uh The Last of Us. Did you see that? Yeah, but yeah, thankfully, these pipes don't have cordyceps that turn people into zombies. Okay, good. Wow, roots growing into pipe. What kind of roots? What the fuck? I have no idea. I wanted to be like, can I see it? I'd be like, that sounds crazy. Yeah, no, when my roommate said that, I was like, that's sick. It might just be, I mean, people have talked about that with like trees growing near infrastructures. Sometimes the tree roots are so strong. Probably especially in California where everything is so drought stressed that they're going into them for water. Plants are really plants can actually hear water in certain places. So they could be growing against the pipes and then be feeling the vibrations and then being like, it's in there. So I'm just gonna everything I got, I'm just gonna drill through this shit. That's just a hypothesis, but yeah. I mean, I think that's why I thought it was a and I didn't think about that, but I'm like, yeah, why did the why did the roots why'd they go there? That does not, I don't know how common it is there, but I've never heard of that happening out here. It's not by chance. They they go, trees don't just like ah, you know, they have a they have a right.

Peter & Ben: 31:49

It's like it's it's like, oh, this is really this is this feels like rock and metal. I'm gonna keep trying this way. It's like, no, they're gonna grow around it because it's easier to go around it, but unless they have a reason to, yeah.

Ben & Peter: 32:03

Yeah, it's crazy that they were powerful enough to basically break through the pipe. Yeah, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, want to learn about that. Damn, but yeah, trees and cities. What's up? What's what's that about? How important is are they reasons? Are there reasons they're important other than giving us more oxygen? Yeah, I don't know if that's too much of a reason. Like, people talk about purifying air, but like for how much trees actually purify air, I don't think it's really making any difference. I mean, sometimes you'll see on the internet, like, oh, you should get up some houseplants because they purify the air. It's like, dude, you would have to live your the inside of your house would have to look like the understory of a rainforest in order for there to be any appreciable difference. So and then you're snow and then it would be so humid and wet in there, right? Yeah, it's yeah, it's you would have to no it's for obvious reasons. What other what what other reasons would you but shade is a really big part of it because trees are mostly water when sun beats down on a city, like all the reflection that they absorb so much of the or no, they reflect a lot of the infrared rays that are coming down, and so those just go back up into the atmosphere. So it's it's a temperature regulating thing because there's so much water in them, they regulate a lot the temperature. So like places that are treed well could potentially be like 20 degrees cooler than places without trees. I mean, that's kind of on the extreme end of things, but also like just biodiversity in general. I mean, you know, our front yard, for instance, you could imagine if that whole block was just grass, whereas if every if the whole block looked like our yard, it's like the number of animal, like we might end up fucking having probably not. Like if the whole neighborhood and all of San Carlos was like that, we might end up having fucking coyotes running around. Well, we do. That's true, yeah. I've seen them, but they would like continue to creep further and further and have more resources to use and to live off of if there was like which I don't think people want. No, it's not not what people want, but like to an extent, you want some sort of biodiversity, it's like you have more birds, and so when drought and other major disturbances hit, you end up with a lot more ecosystem resilience. So that yeah, the weather probably certain if certain patches of plants or certain neighborhoods die on all these various scales, whether it be like one person's yard or maybe it's like an entire neighborhood that gets wiped out, like there's like refuge in the surrounding areas to like. I guess this is less of an urban forestry concept and more of like a I think it could affect the urban forestry thing too. Right. I and I think a lot of it too is just like human contact with nature. Like Seattle, for instance, is really, really special in that there are so many parks everywhere and there are so many trees, and studies have shown that when people have just that in their surroundings, they're better off. So a lot of it's just like human nature contact. Yeah, which I think is like the higher the the higher forces thing. Yeah, and a big part of it too is like in these larger parks that aren't quite in a city but aren't quite way out there, like in a national forest or something. Those in-between spaces, there's a lot, there's a lot to be said for like smaller scale forestry where you're like harvesting timber from those places and more actively managing those places, as opposed to just having them be like set aside for like a single use or something. So that's a really big part of it, is like getting small landowners or small public parks to like expand their purview of what could we actually do with these parks. That's also a part of it. Yeah, people love parks. Yeah, I will say though that as a field, urban forestry has like kind of like been I don't know, hasn't appealed to me that much because I feel like a lot of the time people sort of overstate. I it's well, water purification is a really, really important part too, and it's flood control arguably might be the most important piece of like having trees and things in yeah, in terms of like architecture and city infrastructure, yeah. Yeah, right, because they just like pull down water and put it into like put it to use as a opposed to just like flying and then also with it taking all like the chemicals and pollutants and processing them or at least storing them so they don't just end up into the ocean. But urban forestry in general has like, I don't know, it's just it's always been one of those things that doesn't super appeal to me. But maybe it's just because I don't know enough about it and feel like that's the case with anything. Like yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was on campus, so I thought like, oh I should should just go to this, see who I meet. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting to me too, because I think so much about like, oh, I really like I want to have like a ranch or like you know, a like a property somewhere. I always think like I don't really want it to be in California. But then I think about how important like being near a city is just for myself. As like being connected being connected to I don't know, but there are places that have more trees, right? I would prefer to live there, be like close to the city. Because Los Angeles has Runyan Canyon, right, and it has Griffith Park. There's a lesion too, but a lesion is in in like east, like Silver Lake, and it's it's mostly just grass. Yeah. And those are all like public, anywhere that's like privately owned, like a ranch that you could buy near LA would be much further away than those places. Yeah, people do there's a word for it. You see people going into those areas and like the collecting plants that they eat and stuff like that. They what? Like they collect like certain plants that you oh yeah, you know, and they actually put something out that said, like, people need to stop doing this. It's like this fad, and you're like kind of messing with the you're like you guys are overdoing it. People are foraging too much. Yeah, you're just foraging, but you're not like cultivating the land, right? They're just taking without like actually managing yeah. I mean, in a way, it maybe it's bet it's moving in the right direction to getting people connected to the land, but totally, but people, yeah, people think like, oh, it's wild, it's here, it's like, oh, this is so good. It's like this is what you do, you you know, go take what's that right off the land to support yourself. But it's like, but if you're not there taking care of the land and not like getting it to give back, you know, two or three, five or ten times what it gives you, then yeah, it's like people have these community gardens, right? And it's like Griffith Park could be a giant community garden. It could, yeah. Right. It's just people, I don't think we have, you know, bring it back to the baskets. Like people don't have the we don't have the like social like restraints or social practices to get people to actually do that in a responsible way. This is why, and that's why we rely on like written law so much, because there's not that higher power to be like, take less than half of what you see. And before you even consider taking less than half, ask the plant, how much is it okay with you taking? And you need to stick by the answer you get. And like in a in a world absent of like actually, you know, reading landscapes, people don't won't you need a written law to just like spell it out for people to be like, you can't take that plant, you can't take that plant, you can take that one, and it's just you have to like, yeah, you have to get into such nitty-gritty detail about it. So when you think about making like like a nature preserve into a park, it requires so much regulation that it's like starts to get really like mind-boggling. And the fact that we have so many people also makes it extra difficult because places like that get so congested to the point where it's like yeah. I mean, indigenous people like had uh huge, huge territories that they like cultivated and too over and there were so many fewer people, so it's kind of a double whammy where they had more space and fewer people, and they knew exactly how to garden and to cultivate everything so that they would come back next year and it would be even healthier. And so when you combine all those different things together, it's just like how did they need like manage something like that? Well, they needed it to survive, and I think like what happened, which is the you know, what Sawguru's on right now, which is the soil, and you know, we had this, we had a little pizza party last night. You and Sawguru, yeah. No, like me and my roommates, and one of my roommates brought home some pizza. It was it was not good pizza, and they were like, Man, this is so good. And I was like, dude, what? This is terrible pizza. It's so weird. Did you ever tell them that? Why would you no? I'm not gonna yuck their yum. Yeah, okay. You know, there's places to speak your truth, and then there's places where speak your just speak your truth to yourself. Yeah. I think that I, you know, we were, you know, we were kind of like, man, this is this is great, man. Like, thank you. We were like kind of going through gratitude for like thanks, thank you, Fez, for and then like kind of as a joke, you know, we were and and I was like, man, thank the wheat, you know, the wheat that made this bread and all this stuff, and like thank the you know, the farmers. And then my roommate was like, Man, just thank the two people that fucked to like make the guy who made this. And then I was like, can you imagine? Like, imagine how much sex had to happen to make this pizza. Like a lot of sex, like a lot of sex had to happen in order to make this pizza. There's a there's a particular cod, I don't know what they were, benedicting my I don't know, but I remember there's a prayer that they say before they eat, and it's thank you to the innumerable beings that came together to create this food that's in front of us. That's yeah, and what I what I got to was like I was like, most of all, like, think thank the thank you to the dirt. Yeah, there's a lot of sex happening in that dirt, dude. So much reproduction, yeah. Like trillions, yeah. Trillions of beings, like a handful, like yeah, exactly. Like a handful of dirt is like billions or like to, I don't know, like trillions of beings. Yeah, and like I think I think like pain is the ultimate teacher, and I think what is going to happen is we're actually gonna start being like, oh, we might like start starving because our soil is messed up. And then we're gonna have to figure it out. We got a lot of we got a lot of technology to putting that off, so we'll see how it works. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have a lot of technology that might make it so we it doesn't we'll just have these like indoor greenhouses that are soilant! Soilant green.

Peter & Ben: 45:52

Woo!

Ben & Peter: 45:53

Yeah, see that movie, but yeah.

Siri: 45:57

When you were my love that song.

Ben & Peter: 46:01

Me too. I've been listening to it.

Peter & Ben: 46:03

I gave you all my money.

Ben & Peter: 46:08

If there was if if someone wanted to, we uh uh looking at time, we got like a couple minutes left before Zoom kicks us off. Theoretically, they're not it's not going to because I have a I have a professional account thanks to all the money I give to University of Washington. Nice. But if you were gonna sing and someone wanted to be better at singing, what is one thing you tell them to do? It's a lovely question. It's cause I mean that's literally what I'm gonna do for the next 20 minutes after this before I go to my coaching appointment. Yeah, I like body. Just get it get in touch with your body and what it's actually for. We were meant, I've been getting into this woman, Heather Lyle, and she does something called vocal yoga, and she was singing opera, and she talks about these big people who have these tiny beautiful voices, but they're tiny. And she talks about primal scream, and it's like you know, she talks about the idea that it's almost like before you even sing, like, can you get in touch with your primal scream? Because our bodies were built, our voices were built to like yell over a field, you know, and you need to be you need a level of like relaxation is the key, but it needs to be active relaxation, yeah. Right. So so that's what I would say. That that's where I'm at in my journey. It's nonlinear. Do it for your own enjoyment, for like almost like a spirit, almost like a spiritual thing, you know, treat it like a therapy. I would say the main the main thing is like use it to like get in touch with yourself and constantly ask, like, how can I enjoy this more? And I would say that for anything. But with singing specifically, like if you get in touch with your body, with what your body is actually for, then you you'll you'll just you'll just you're gonna want to sing, yeah, and it's gonna feel good, and that's gonna make you want to sing more. It's gonna increase your connection with yourself and increase your connection with other people. So I think if you kind of get in touch with those with those things. I think like I I really think everyone should be, should, whatever. It's fine, you don't have to do anything. But like singing, singing is is really important, you know. Sounding. She talks about sounding, sounding just making sounds, yeah, and she talks about the importance of breath, like you you can't sing without breath. Literally, singing, sounding, talking is turning the air you take in and using your vocal cords to turn it into a tone. Yeah, yeah, that's most fundamental sort of uh yeah, and and and like it's proven to stimulate your vagus nerve, which cal which calms you down, helps you make better decisions. Yeah, right. Yeah, so yeah, okay, relaxation and like you your body is built to sing, so just get out of the way. That's that's seems like that's the answer. Get out of the way. Yeah, just just do it. Body, the body knows yeah, just do it and go, how can I enjoy this 10% more? And then you will find out what's getting in the way. That's a beautiful question. How can I enjoy this 10% more?

Peter & Ben: 50:39

Yeah, and you know, yeah.

Ben & Peter: 50:41

Yeah. I wish I lived in a place where I was closer. Where I could do a primal scream. Yeah, yeah. I mean your car. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. You can do it in the car. Yeah. While you're driving. You know? Shh. I've done it uncontrollably. All right. You heard it here first. Thanks, Peter. Thanks for all this talk about spooky isotopes. Uh really oh shit. You know what? We didn't have a sponsor. So our sponsor today are Soil. That's our sponsor. Yeah. Yeah, we wouldn't be here without it. I'm sorry to the producers, sorry to the team that we uh kind of fucked that up and uh didn't have to. You just did it. No, but yeah. I know it's just usually drop it in halfway through the conversation. So it's I think it makes sense to do it at the end. Well, yeah, good. Yeah, you just have to do it in the middle because then pecause people don't listen to the end. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But luckily, soil does not get paid through money. Soil gets paid through love, through attention, yeah. All right. Enjoy your uh enjoy your day. Thanks. Thanks for being here.

Peter & Ben: 52:19

Yeah. Hell yeah. Bye. Bye.