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)

Serenity Now

February 24, 2026 • Ben Johnston & Scott Johnston • Episode 47

0:00 | 48:01

Ben and Laura (his mom) swap stories about church, meditation, dance, and the lost art of a shared Sabbath, tracing how ritual, rest, and community shape attention and belonging. Between memory palaces and eyeglass rants, we look for teachers, practices, and spaces that make patience feel possible.

• growing up Catholic as routine not worship
• memory palaces and extemporaneous hosting
• managing kids in church and small-town community
• Buddhist meditation versus ten-minute sermons
• the value of Sabbath, rest, and ritual
• delayed gratification, good teachers, and momentum
• attention economy pressures on children
• modern parenting empathy and resources
• dance as worship and embodied practice
• lenses over frames and choosing substance

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Warm-Up And Memory Palaces

Ben 0:00

I can. Recording in progress.

Laura 0:05

Okay, we're on the air.

Ben 0:07

We're on air. Okay. Welcome.

Laura 0:12

Thank you.

Ben 0:14

Nice background, Mom. Yeah, I'm trying to be humanity.

Laura 0:19

I'm trying to be conscious of what's going on around me. No, actually, my boss said he died.

Ben 0:29

You know, he died a while ago.

Laura 0:32

Where's did you know we celebrated his birthday last week?

Ben 0:37

I I did, in fact, know that. Yeah. I live in county, you know. Pardon? The little logo for King County is little negative, positive, little uh sh uh contour of Dr. King's face. Oh what were you saying?

Laura 0:57

No, my boss sent it around a week or so ago. I usually don't. Now I have to figure out how to change my zoom my Zoom background. It usually takes me a little bit more.

Ben 1:09

Well, if you could figure out this is a lot more complicated, but if you could figure out how to get rid of the Martin Luther King Jr. day, if you could just get rid of that day, then you could just be celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. all year long. Exactly. And he's always relevant, you know.

Laura 1:28

So he is always relevant.

Ben 1:30

And then everyone will know that, you know, that you think that you will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in if you commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights.

Laura 1:44

Are you reading off community? So you're reading what the background says, I can tell.

Ben 1:52

Well, I'm just quoting him. I have his whole catalog of every word spoken in my brain.

Laura 1:57

Wow. That is very impressive. Yeah. Well figure it out. Yeah, you can tell maybe it's distracting for you.

Ben 2:09

No, I'll I'll get used to it.

Laura 2:12

I have to figure out how to change it. I don't know if I can do it during our event.

Ben 2:17

Don't no, don't, don't worry about it.

Laura 2:20

Okay. You can't tell that it's a very sunny day here.

Ben 2:24

You're already eating your breakfast. Don't distract yourself with a whole lot of task and you know. Multi-tasking is impossible.

Laura 2:33

It is. I'm working on more protein.

Ben 2:37

Yeah, that's it. Wow, you really gotta focus on your breakfast then.

Laura 2:41

Yeah.

Ben 2:42

Yeah. Um I was thinking this morning that you know, I never write anything down for these podcasts. I just think of questions.

Laura 2:53

Yeah, I thought so. Extemporaneously.

Ben 2:56

Yeah. And then after thinking about that, I ended up actually writing writing down the things I thought of for the first time ever.

Laura 3:06

But after it's done.

Ben 3:09

After it's done.

unknown 3:11

No.

Laura 3:12

After the podcast is done.

Ben 3:14

Like I'm taking like patient notes on the podcast. No. I don't know. We have a recording. What's the point?

Laura 3:20

That's true.

Ben 3:21

No, I mean I like I write I I didn't write notes, I wrote down like the the different topics that I was thinking of.

Laura 3:31

Okay.

Ben 3:32

Not to say I just to give uh just to flip the hood a little bit.

Laura 3:38

Sure.

Ben 3:39

For listener, for you. That's good. Just to give people the background on how to run a really successful podcast.

Laura 3:46

That's I'm sure you're a good example. You are a good extemporaneous speaker, so oh you think so?

Ben 3:52

Yeah, I think so. Oh the improv must help with that. Yeah. Oh man, I wish I wish I was still doing improv.

Laura 4:03

Yeah.

Ben 4:03

But new friends always tell me that they're surprised by me by my ability to make characters and to do improv. So that's good feedback. No, usually I make a memory palace. Have you ever heard of that before? A memory palace?

Laura 4:18

Palette?

Ben 4:19

Palace.

Laura 4:20

Palace. I thought you said palace. No.

Ben 4:23

So the the like the world champions and memory athletes, I think is what they're called. The world champions of memory apparently aren't particularly like it's not like they have better genes or a better brain structure, better hardware for remembering things. It's that they have a certain strategy that they just commit themselves to. And I remember hearing that a memory palace is how they do it. So they imagine themselves in a place that they're super familiar with.

Laura 4:58

Yeah.

Ben 4:59

And then everything they want to remember, they just place in that in that place. Yeah. They're super familiar with. Yeah. And so if I have like more than two questions that I want to ask during a podcast, I create a memory palace.

Church With Kids And Family Discipline

Laura 5:16

Okay. So you're visualizing a space.

Ben 5:21

Yeah, can you guess where I would be visualizing?

Laura 5:24

Oh gosh. That's very familiar.

Ben 5:29

Yeah.

Laura 5:31

I don't know. I feel like a bedroom.

Ben 5:34

A bed, yeah. Yeah. It's actually the house back in San Carlos.

Laura 5:39

The house.

Ben 5:40

I just imagine myself like walking down the street.

Laura 5:43

Okay.

Ben 5:44

Walking through the through the pathway, through the front yard, into the house, into the big kitchen, into the living room, into the back, depend and then maybe into the backyard or go upstairs if I if I need to. And just yeah.

Laura 5:59

Does the topic have to fit in certain rooms or not necessarily?

Ben 6:03

No. No. Today what I was wondering was why I remember you telling us the story at some point, but why you stopped taking us to church when we were younger? And so what I'm imagining is walking up into the house, and instead of just the regular roof, there's also like a church steeple with a big cross and uh and uh big big bell, church bells.

Laura 6:30

Yeah, and it was Catholic church, and it was Cat.

Ben 6:32

So there's a big cross. I don't do they they probably don't that's probably no, they have a big cross on top of a church, they don't really do that.

Laura 6:41

I don't know. I guess they probably I think of the altar. It's not you know there's a crucifix, and there are definitely a lot of crosses in the church, among other things. Yes, um it was a struggle because you got well, I won't say you, but you know, I started out when there was one child and then two, and it was just hard to keep you reined in. I mean, I have a feeling you probably sat there, but trying to get Peter to sit still, and then people would turn around and look at me, and I just baby up.

Ben 7:16

My God, yeah, pardon, they would say shut that baby up.

Laura 7:20

Yeah, well, it wasn't part of it, is probably because I didn't this is so disappointed in you. Yeah, I mean, you didn't grow up doing it every week, I suppose. And so I guess it's understandable. Pardon?

Ben 7:33

We didn't get used to it, yeah.

Laura 7:36

I think so. And I mean, that's a long quiet time, you know.

Ben 7:40

I know, I mean, I I vaguely remember going and hating it. It's like I don't this is so this is yeah, I cannot sit still.

Laura 7:52

But you know, it's interesting. I mean, we grew up, of course, and the seven of us or six of us would would line up.

Ben 7:58

But I was wondering what was it like for you growing up?

Laura 8:02

Well, you didn't even turn around, you know. My dad would be immediately if you were sitting three away from him, you might end up right next to him. Yeah, or he'd come out with his big hanky and wipe your nose, or you just did not you behave wipe your nose, you misbehave and he wipes your nose. Is that well, no? If you were sniffling or something and he'd come with it, he always had a big hanky in his pocket.

Ben 8:28

Oh, okay, got it. Yeah, no, that wasn't shared a hanky amongst seven children. Probably family of nine.

Laura 8:35

I would say we weren't all sniffling at the same time. That's a good point. I never thought of that. Two or three of you, you know, on certain let me tell you, you know, there's nine years between me and my oldest sister, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't wiping their noses when they were teenagers, you know what I mean. Probably, yeah. Yeah, just the toddlers.

Ben 8:56

Okay, so there were only four people with the double of a yeah, maybe wiping at a time.

Laura 9:00

Yeah, zero to four would have been, yeah. Marge America.

Ben 9:06

Seems like it it that would be a good way to get a child to quiet down, but or I mean, or it would have the opposite effect. Yeah, not that I you know, it's not like screaming and you just threat it.

Laura 9:20

I I realized he didn't use the Kleenex to quiet us down, but it was my dad was just pretty forceful, you know, in whatever. Right. But he'd grab your arm and like sit down, or yeah, but but quietly. So of course I wasn't gonna sit down. Yeah, right. And you weren't you weren't about to no, I mean I would just try to give you quiet things to do, and then they wouldn't last very long. And but you know what other parents do, I think in the modern era, is they send their kids to little Bible classes.

Ben 9:57

Yeah, and then the kids get a little yeah.

Laura 10:00

And that's kids get a little lesson and they drop, you know, they color things.

Ben 10:05

But yeah.

Laura 10:06

I feel like that's kind of a comment first.

Ben 10:09

That wasn't a oh, interesting.

Laura 10:12

Well, I don't know.

Ben 10:13

They're still at church, yeah.

Laura 10:15

You're right, and they're they are getting that we're all in the same room together. It's probably more age appropriate, I suppose.

Ben 10:24

Yeah. But you know what?

Laura 10:27

When we did you guys would have hated that.

Ben 10:30

I mean, there's I know, I of course, yeah. I I would have much rather been sitting next to my parents just getting exactly like you just sh shaking, just being, yeah, I can't sit still, but I'm going to. I don't want to draw attention to myself. Yeah. I would have, yeah, every time I had to like go hang out with kids I didn't know or were from like a demographic that I didn't feel totally comfortable with. Exactly. Just like scared out of my skin.

Laura 11:02

Yeah. But I do think then that it's I remember looking at other families though and thinking, it is a community, you know, if you do it every week, they're gonna be your friends back.

Ben 11:13

Right, exactly. So maybe if you know, if I did it for you know half a year, I would have eased up to the point where it would have just been like being in class.

Laura 11:22

Yeah, yeah. For me, it was always tough.

Ben 11:27

Yeah.

Community Versus Worship

Laura 11:28

For me, it was would have been tough to get through that first those first few weeks of discomfort and I know, yeah. I mean you know, not just discomfort because you guys would have yeah, yeah, wouldn't have been easy.

Ben 11:41

Yeah, it was not just discomfort, but revolting.

Laura 11:48

Yeah.

Ben 11:49

Yeah. Sometimes yeah, it's interesting how different different children respond to that. Yeah, for sure.

Laura 11:59

You know, now I actually and going to church, it's a nice quiet time. And I don't didn't go to church necessarily to worship God or religion. Just it was almost like a meditation.

Ben 12:16

Yeah, it's more of a meditation thing, which I practice with presence and attention, just like yeah. I'm in this quiet place that smells nice. This is good.

Laura 12:28

Not always smells nice because the incense can be stinky. Yeah. But it also just made me think more about like things past or I don't know. You just reflect a lot more.

Ben 12:41

It's a it's uh I really wish I had more access to that like physical space that is church and community, you know. Yeah, I think it's yeah, I think it's really important. And I mean, when I lived on Whitby, going to the temple every Monday evening, the Buddhist temple, was was that same thing. Yeah, that's the kind of church that I'd really enjoy going to. And they do that here, it's just like an eight-minute walk from my house.

Laura 13:11

Uh-huh.

Ben 13:11

But it's way too long. It's a two-hour it they wouldn't, I don't think they would call it a service. What would they call it? In this reflection. No, it's like, well, we go and we meditate for an entire hour, and then there's an hour-long Dharma talk. Dharma meaning like teaching.

Laura 13:33

Yeah.

Ben 13:34

Teaching about like the I'm gonna butcher this, but like the truth, Dharma. I think I think there are a lot of different translations for it, but dharma is just like, you know, the the Buddhist word for like truth and like the teaching itself.

Laura 13:52

Well, is it like the equivalent to like the priest giving a sermon?

Ben 13:56

Yeah, exactly.

Laura 13:58

Which is usually only 10 minutes, exactly, right?

Ben 14:01

But for some reason, some Buddhists think that it's like, yeah, these these you know lay practitioners want to hear me talk for an entire hour.

Laura 14:11

And it's like, nah, can you get up and leave?

Ben 14:16

I mean, technically, yes, you could, but I don't I don't really see I mean, maybe this is my own, maybe I'm like putting constraints around this that I don't need to, but it's just like getting up and leaving, it's like I'm leaving the area and container before it's like finished, you know. And part of the reason I would want to participate is like for the community.

Laura 14:39

Yeah.

Ben 14:39

It's like if I'm like coming and leaving earlier and later, it's just like I don't really feel part of it. And so point being is like it's two hours of meditation and listening. Yeah, really, it should be cut in half. There should be like a half an hour of each, which is the way they did it at the temple I went to on Whitby.

Laura 14:59

I mean, there are different temples.

Ben 15:01

There are, but this one's still close by and it's the same, it's a very similar Buddhist tradition as the one on Whidby. So it's something that like I vibe with spiritually and intellectually, and like just but it's and but I yeah, it would just mean like that's I go somewhere else on my Sunday mornings, yeah.

Laura 15:27

Which isn't the end of the world, but it just takes a commitment that I haven't really and then you'd spend that hour going to where you need to go instead of and getting the dharma, if that's the right, yeah. But you know, it's practitioner dependent, I'm sure, right? Just like I don't know, of the churches I've been to. Some priests have the they just have different ways. I mean, it's their house, right? They kind of do whatever exactly, exactly.

Ben 15:52

And I mean, I I know a lot of people that have been in Buddhism and have been Buddhist for a long time, they they shop around and like check out different temples for sometimes years and years before they settle on a teacher and a place where they're like, this is yeah, this feels like really right for me. This is yeah, what I'm looking for.

Laura 16:15

I mean, when you're in a city, you have that opportunity. When you grow up in a little town of you know, 1200 people, right? You get what you get.

Ben 16:25

Yeah, yeah. And it it's it was just cool that I'm I guess it just speaks to Whitby and how aligned it is with me generally, and that yeah, oh the spiritual community here too. It just I went right, I went there, and it's like, oh, this is like if I lived here, I'd be making a whole thing of this probably my whole life.

Sabbath, Rest, And Routine

Laura 16:43

Yeah. So I mean you brought up the Yeah, you brought up the thing of going to church and being in your demographic, and I mean that's the other thing is I don't know, it just didn't didn't click. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Ben 16:59

But in small towns I haven't gone on a big search family when you were a kid, it was oh yeah, I mean you knew everybody, right?

Laura 17:10

When you leave church, you like there's this family and that family, and yeah.

Ben 17:16

We only had one same people you go to school with, you know.

Laura 17:20

Exactly.

Ben 17:21

And my dad was a teacher, so yeah. Yeah.

Laura 17:25

And your good friends, you'd like eye them across the church or on their way to on your way to communion, you know, or you talk with everybody on your way out. I mean, my dad, right? He could he could I'm exaggerating, but it would take him a while to get out of church.

Ben 17:44

Yeah, right.

Laura 17:45

You know, later in life, because he was just yeah, so popular. Yeah, so friends.

Ben 17:51

I mean, well, I mean, it makes sense the older you get, you know, the more connections you have. And I don't know, maybe well, dance church on Whitby every Sunday morning, it was a really similar thing, you know, and they call it dance church largely because of the timing, but also because you're going for the like actual physical space and coming together with other people, yeah. And like, and it's a it's a form of, you know, it depends on who you talk to, and you can talk for ages about this, but it's a form of worship in a way, but then and then we end every dance with you know a little community circle, people that like have anything to say can say something, and usually the facilitator speaks for a few minutes about something going on or their life, or there's always some sort of teaching involved, too.

Laura 18:43

Um teaching about does it have a base, a religion base, or no?

Ben 18:50

It's no well, so earlier on in the dance, they will do like a dance-based, movement-based teaching, and say, like, think about like, you know, for instance, it could be like think about moving from your different body parts, and she'll like walk you through, like, you know, your head is the leader now. Feel what it's like to like move with the head as a leader and just like let it let loose as much as possible. And it's kind of the idea is like giving up as much surrendering as much as you can to just the body and letting the body guide you for the for those two hours or whatever. Um so it's some sort of like movement-based, like aligning, aligning thoughts with the body and like giving things up, yeah. You know, so it's spiritually based, but it's not like any organized religion, and there's a certain like form of dance that it is also, so that kind of informs what the teachings are. It's a particular kind. But at the end of the day, I'd say most of the time she doesn't say anything, it's just she just like leaves it up to the community. Anyone that wants to speak can speak, and there can be a little discussion, but sometimes she'll talk for a few minutes about pretty much anything and everything. Maybe current events, even and then she has yeah, little her her perspective on her part of the world and tries to make us feel hopeful or whatever.

Laura 20:30

Yeah.

unknown 20:31

Yeah.

Laura 20:31

We went to uh the open mic last night, and now I'm gonna forget what he said. But one of the guys he got very good musician, you know, guitar player, got up there and he was the guy that wrote the song about Clock Tower Music Store. No, that's a different guy. This guy is a better musician than that. But or yeah, I think so. Yeah, it was a different one. But he had said, I'm I'm so bad at there's my memory, I need a memory palace. Just basically, let's think about have a peaceful day. And he took it from some quote or something like when you get up every day, that's what you tell yourself. Have a peaceful day or something like that.

Ben 21:20

This a speech, or was it in a song?

Laura 21:23

No, he said it before he started singing. He would he got up there to play, and he's like, Oh my gosh, I can't remember the melody. Oh no, what am I gonna do? I'm totally my mind is blank. So then he was taking up space and trying to he's like, Okay, while I'm trying to get the you know, the neurons to fire.

Ben 21:41

He was talking about something else, and he's just like, peaceful day, peaceful day.

Laura 21:46

Yeah, there's still some of the day left. Have a peaceful, let's have a you know day.

Ben 21:52

Serenity now, serenity now. He's stressed out, serenity now, yes.

Laura 21:59

There were a couple. People who got up at this open mic who and they were also pretty accomplished, I mean, pretty good musicians, but they of course were more relaxed. But they also a couple of them got up there and just like, oh my gosh, I can't remember what I was gonna sing or what was I gonna do, and they just made it, you know, very entertaining as they were extemporaneous, yeah. Obviously, very humble about you know, this happens to everybody kind of thing, but anyway, it was funny.

Ben 22:31

Yeah, huh.

Laura 22:32

Good for people to see who are trying to get up there for the first time.

Ben 22:37

Forgetting the melody is contagious, like yawning. Yeah, maybe not an airplane.

Laura 22:43

Forgetting the words.

Ben 22:45

Yeah. So you didn't care much about Catholicism, huh?

Laura 22:54

You know, it's interesting, it's one of those you grow up in a small town and you just do what you're supposed to do.

Ben 23:01

Just what's there, yeah, and in your brain. And then once you make it to Silicon Valley and Palo Alto, then it's like, well, there's the world's not so small anymore.

Laura 23:14

Yeah.

Ben 23:16

And I decisions.

Laura 23:18

I mean, I have a feeling many of the people I grew up with sort of have the same feeling I do. They didn't say it was sort of it was just something you did, kind of an option.

Ben 23:29

It wasn't like you weren't going to church because there was a special affinity for the religion.

Delayed Gratification And Teaching

Laura 23:35

No, it really wasn't about the religion. It was more about like the community and the education, or not the education, maybe that as I got older, the meditation or something.

Ben 23:46

Yeah, right. Just the and the uh the ritual of it, you know.

Laura 23:50

The probably show, yeah. It was not a worship thing.

Ben 23:55

Right, right. It was set in setting the routine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's really missing. I've heard a lot about how the fact that modern society has kind of lost the universal Sabbath day of rest. We have no day of rest anymore, and that I think is connected in all different sorts of ways to a lot of like the I think what's a good way to phrase it? The sense of like belonging and like fulfillment in in people's lives. It's like there's not really any ordained time anymore to just like stop and to just like let yourself be. There's there's no structured rest time anymore. No, and it's there's it's not it's no longer agreed upon by society. And the and when everybody was on the same page, like Saturday or Sunday was your day. Christians, yes, yeah, amongst Christians, I think Jewish folks also, right? I mean Judeo Christian.

Laura 25:10

Yeah, I don't think of the weekend, but the Sunday was the day.

Ben 25:14

Right.

Laura 25:14

Where you'd like, you don't, you know, you go to church and maybe go to breakfast, but like you don't, you know, no, I mean it was the one day my dad would sit and read the paper, and the bag of candy would come out at 2 p.m. or whatever on Sunday afternoon, you know.

Ben 25:30

Yeah, it was truly structured leisure time like through and through. It was. Yeah, kind of and it coins and that and the loss of that coincided with the loss of sort of rural tradition also.

Laura 25:59

And I mean, the impression I have, I feel like other religions try hard to recognize what their day of Sabbath is.

Ben 26:14

Yeah, right.

Laura 26:14

I mean, Christians, you well, do you want to go to church on Saturday afternoon, evening? Do you want to go Sunday morning, noon, night? You know, it's like Christianity is expanded so that, well, what do you need so we can have you? I don't know.

Ben 26:31

Right, yeah. What do you need so you can go to work and you know yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's funny. We can be flexible about this.

Laura 26:42

It's like no, yes, yeah.

Ben 26:44

Like I I think good religion finds a balance between flexibility and tradition and regimentation. Yeah, there's an important balance to be had there.

Laura 26:56

Yeah. Oh boy, there's it shouldn't be life-threatening.

Ben 27:01

No, no, it shouldn't. But there's also something to be said for you know, making some sacrifices to be there for your community and your and your uh I don't know, spiritual figures.

Laura 27:17

Yeah. I know when I think of I I often thought when you guys were younger, wow, if we actually were a member of a church, you know, I looked at friends and how they it if the kids are kind of used to going to church and sitting quietly or hanging out with you know, kids their age at the back and learning the bio, whatever it is, would you have more of a sense of community than what you did growing up?

Ben 27:44

You know, right, yeah. It's a good question. It's hard to say, you know, for good, better or worse, probably just different. Um because I I don't know, I think there's a lot there's also I think yeah, I mean, this is really general, probably not totally true, but it just seems like modern, I think in a lot of places and a lot of modern religious not institutions, but religious, just like the the different Catholic churches, you know, I think they a lot of like creative freedom of thought, you know, and it really depends. So it's like I know a lot of people that did that Sunday school thing and all that, but they're and they might have a better sense of community in certain ways, but maybe they don't think for themselves as well, you know, and it's just yeah, yeah. I feel like it just trains different things, you know.

Laura 28:42

Yeah, I just feel like there's a lot of rules, at least in Catholicism. So, you know, even when your dad and I got married, we had to sit down and go to a class because he grew up Lutheran. Oh my gosh, wow, and then they brought up things like artificial insemination and all that, and yeah, you know, we kind of just they made the priest happy. He was very traditional, and I thought, okay, fine, let just what do we have to do to get married?

Ben 29:11

That's one of the uh things about Catholicism is that it's like this this is how you run your private life.

Laura 29:18

Yeah.

Attention Economy And Kids

Ben 29:18

Here are all yeah, here's this checklist, and it's yeah, swinging, swinging really hard in that whole direction of this is what you're gonna do. It also just makes me think about like, you know, you can get the same sort of community sense of community from like, you know, if I continued to play soccer throughout my whole childhood, you know, it probably would have come from that. But it's a really similar question of like, how much discomfort is this five, six, seven-year-old willing to put up with for delay for that delayed gratification that might not really start paying off until he's 12, 13, 14, and really not pay off until he's yeah, potentially, you know, much older when he gained proficiency in this skill and has a sense of belonging and this avenue towards connection and play when he's in adulthood, you know. It's something that like I wish I but as a child, it's like you're not really able to make that judgment call, you know. It's like if a six-year-old, I'm not like delayed gratification, playing trumpet, if I keep playing piano, if I keep practicing soccer, I'm gonna be so good by the time I'm 30 that I'm gonna have like my day-to-day life is going to be much more rich. It's like that investment is like no parents in the modern world, it's like, how do you you know? I don't know if it's a question. Yeah, I don't know. I think just put up with it, but it's like that's kind of impossible. It's like, what's the right call there?

Laura 31:03

Yeah, I mean, part of it is overcoming that, you know, that initial yeah, discomfort or anxiety, and some people can get past that and you know stick to it, or you also have to like it, you know, not everybody likes it. Exactly.

Ben 31:18

I didn't really I didn't like music enough to do that, didn't like soccer enough to do that. Yeah, so when I have all these other things that have such instant gratification, how do I end up liking anything that requires effort? It's like it's so much easier for me to just log on to RuneScape and instantly be so happy.

Laura 31:38

I mean, there's gotta be some other motivation, right? I'm thinking, why did I decide to start playing piano? You know, I didn't most things I actually did kind of later, but like when I was in seventh, sixth, seventh grade or something, for some reason I started piano lessons. And was the motivation because I don't know, because my sister was playing? Was I mean I was never that great at it, but I mean I practiced a lot and took practice to you know get better. Is it because you know my best friend eventually was in music? And so obviously that was a big motivator.

Ben 32:15

So yeah, something makes you want to continue doing right, and may it could just be the inherent like human desire to just like make stuff and to like play around with something and like creating creating order out of chaos, you know. It's fun to be able to like, wow, like I've noticed improvement, but I think like the best teachers, the one that really get us to stick are the ones that like really leverage that, more or less just desire to like have fun with something, you know. Yeah, and I don't think I think of all my teachers, Jim Allen, the piano teacher at Clock Tower Music, was the best at that, but quite enough. I mean, compared to you know, Miss Kunzelman, the central middle school band teacher who had you know 200 students to exactly so she didn't she probably could have if we were having private lessons, but and then my trumpet teacher Frank Davis, who I had later, was really bad at that. His understanding was like you just like practice, practice, practice, practice makes perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. And he didn't he try I could tell he tried to like relate to his students, but didn't really if they didn't have like this drive to just do better, then he was not the teacher for them. Your drive was to want to play the Pink Panther, which you know he he leveraged that and he noticed that like that really lit me up, yeah. But it kind of but you we just couldn't keep the momentum going after that, I think. Yeah.

Laura 34:04

Such a great song. I can still remember sitting in his living room with one of the chairs, and you were sitting. I'm just it was so amazing.

Ben 34:13

I can still remember it too. I that was like one of the feel like one of those first experiences you have where you're in front of someone giving a speech or performing. Yeah, and like you kind of just like stop thinking. You just like I don't have no idea how well I played it. It just I don't even know.

Laura 34:31

That's one of those songs there is there's pauses, you know, worked into the song, so it all works out.

Ben 34:37

Well, yeah, and it's like the kind of timing is irrelevant at that point, you know. Yeah, it makes it entertaining.

Laura 34:45

Yeah, no, it was definitely the most entertaining piece of that recital for sure.

Ben 34:50

Yeah, they were all he really loved his like like I don't even know what you call them. They're like Cadence number four by Tchaikovsky, and it's like bro, we're not living in like 1800s Russia right now. Like this is yeah, well, that's that's true. Well, which is where the Pink Panther came in, you know. That was that was that was everybody's hype man for the day. I kept the energy up.

Laura 35:20

Yeah, that's great. It takes all kinds, yeah, I guess that's funny.

Ben 35:28

Yeah, I you know, now I'm learning guitar and I have that different perspective on it, but and it's good to keep trying new things when you're older.

Laura 35:38

Yeah, important. One of the things when I had at Grandpa's funeral, and you know, the few words that I said, I feel like that's what he taught me was the delayed gratification. Yeah, totally, and it I feel like I appreciated that early on.

Ben 35:57

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, how do you is there any really any way to teach that without just kind of like making your kid wildly uncomfortable at certain points? I don't know.

Laura 36:08

Yeah.

Parenting Then And Now

Ben 36:09

I just I was on the uh light rail like a month or so ago, and there were these children that were just unbelievably unruly. It was uh the screams were just so piercing. And it just got me think it just like I couldn't help, but like all my attention just went there. Like my brain was just like the thoughts were just like, holy smokes, this is this is this is so obnoxious, you know. And my brain, I'm just like, I just have to think about this for however long they're on the train with me now. I all I debated like just getting up and like quickly moving to a different car.

Laura 36:56

Yeah.

Ben 36:56

Because of just both of these children were just um you didn't have your earpods. Gosh. I don't know. I I also was probably, you know, making a little bit of practice with it, just being like, just noticing it. And it wasn't, I always I still had compassion. I had a healthy dose of compassion there because it was I was constant, I was just asking myself the whole time, like, I wonder what is going on in those children's moros and heart spaces. What are their emotions like? What are they what are the sensations in the head? What's going through their head? Like, is it is it a brain chemistry thing? Like, is it a it's totally a combination of things? And the parents were there and like trying to do their best, but it's I rem just like I wonder what it's like at home. Oh my gosh, like what do these parents have to go through every day? Like, oh my gosh. And I very seldom like see kids like that, but nowadays I especially wonder like how much more prevalent that sort of behavior behavior or demeanor or orientation or temper is for kids, yeah. Because of just how inundated we are with products that are literally just designed to extract our attention from like anywhere else, you know?

Laura 38:29

And the fact like, how do you well it's a child distance gratification, right?

Ben 38:36

Yeah, exactly. And I don't know how much of a like I don't I didn't see any iPads or phones, I don't think, with these kids on and it's like how easy is it to just you know give your kid your phone and then for the next 45 minutes you're home free?

Laura 38:55

Yeah, maybe I don't know.

Ben 38:57

I don't know, but it does just get me thinking like if I had such a hard time sticking with something like soccer or music, how to like what it's amazing that like kids still do those things at all to me.

Laura 39:13

Yeah, but like everybody likes different things, you know, and their brands are wired differently.

Ben 39:18

So I mean everybody likes different things, but these these video games are designed for us.

Laura 39:25

Everyone seems to like video games, yeah.

Ben 39:28

Right, right.

Laura 39:30

I guess so.

Ben 39:31

Or TikTok reels.

Laura 39:33

Yeah, I guess I don't know. I'll have I've you know, I don't hang around with little kids. I'll have to ask, you know, my grand niece and nephews and say, so what do you guys think about video?

Ben 39:45

That's a good conversation starter. Yeah, because time we're in Minnesota. Yeah, I don't get the impression they're totally into, but I mean most of the kids we hang out with when they're out there are so seem pretty well behaved, and they're seems like their default is to play with each other and to play outside and to make up games like I always did, you know.

Laura 40:06

Yeah, yeah.

Ben 40:07

Just put them in the same room together and they figure it out.

Laura 40:10

Well, they know each other well, right?

Ben 40:12

So is really refreshing to know that despite these billion trillion dollar industries to to to demand our attention, like playing with other humans that you that you know continues to be the uh I also think parents are more or I think of my nieces and nephews, that the parents are, you know, it used to be okay, this is what you're supposed to do.

Laura 40:43

You're gonna sit in church for 45 minutes, period. Well, if their kid is not handling that well for whatever reason, they're not gonna make him do it, you know, or they're gonna figure out why don't you like doing this, you know. I feel like they're more they're more apt to say, okay, what's going on, or rather than make every kid follow this certain path. And so that may be the other reason, you know, what we don't see these kids that much, but everyone has their yeah, you know, right issues. But I just feel like parents have a little more curiosity and you know try to figure things out before it was just like, oh, this is the way it's supposed to be.

Ben 41:30

Yeah, right. You get you get your slaps on the wrist or get get your nose squeezed with a hanky before they can ask a question.

Laura 41:40

That's right.

Ben 41:41

That's true. Now parents are a little bit more empathetic, maybe.

Laura 41:45

That's probably a good word for it. And also thinking, okay, how can I help how how can I figure this out? You know. Yeah, right.

Ben 41:55

Yeah, yeah.

Laura 41:56

Yeah, but I think that I think that society is more is more well, I don't know. They're giving I feel like they're giving more resources, you know, to figure those things out. Giving parents, families more resources. Yeah, but it they're not handed to you, you still gotta search.

Ben 42:16

But there's yeah. Good parents and bad parents will always exist. Under resourced parents will always exist as well.

Laura 42:27

Or they're just they're not quite you're all ignorant when you start, that's for sure.

Ben 42:32

No, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um we again this podcast is not going to cut us off. I tried to set it for 45 minutes, but to no avail, it looks like. And we don't have a sponsor yet.

Laura 42:53

Oh and I we didn't stop for music.

Ben 42:58

Oh no.

Laura 42:59

Your dad does that little whatever jingle.

Ben 43:02

Producers to make a note, make a note, Andy.

Laura 43:07

Let's see a sponsor.

Ben 43:09

You're gonna you're you know, talk to talk to the producers, okay. Andy, got it, okay. Andy's our tech guy, so oh, okay, good Andy. He's sitting over there.

Laura 43:20

Okay. Well, give Andy my compliments. He's you know, done a great job.

Ben 43:26

He's done a great job.

Laura 43:27

The history of the podcast, yeah.

Ben 43:29

Yeah, he's an he's an intern, so that's kind of all we can afford these days. But that's all right. This podcast is brought to you by Costco opticians, because I don't that's where you're gonna go. I don't like Warby Parker, and I want to get Costco glasses again. But they don't have as good a styles, so I know, but do mine look so bad, you know. Oh, yours look great, but I just don't know maybe that you know you. More their clientele, I think.

Laura 44:02

Well, I did try to get the kind like you have on.

Ben 44:05

Really?

Laura 44:06

But it was hard to. I don't know.

Ben 44:09

Maybe Osco didn't have those options.

Laura 44:12

Not exactly. They were too small or something.

Ben 44:16

Something like that, yeah. I can't remember. Yeah. I don't know. Well, for the big game that Warby Parker talks about, like being not part of the big guy. It's like one, I don't know if that's actually true. And two, it's like, yeah, you give me cheaper glasses, but you give me cheaper glasses.

Laura 44:33

The most important thing about the glasses are the lenses.

Ben 44:37

Exactly.

Laura 44:37

And these are so the frame is just fluff, I'm telling you, right?

Ben 44:42

Yeah, right. Right.

Laura 44:45

So from someone who's been wearing them since she was, well, almost 60 years. There you go. Wow. Dang.

Ben 44:56

One day.

Laura 44:58

You know what I learned? It's I I didn't really think about this, but you know, they didn't have these different materials. Your lenses were glass. And of course, when big lenses were in, oh my gosh, my poor nose and my ears still had these huge dents. So somebody said, you know, the smaller your lens is, anyway.

Ben 45:22

Oh. You're adding about twice as much weight to your face than you need.

Laura 45:27

Yeah. And then also if you're like the thickness, I think that's the other part. The smaller your lens is, there's a bigger differential between them the center and the outside.

Ben 45:40

Oh, yeah. Wow. So it's like an extra.

Laura 45:42

So that's where the coke bottle look comes in, which nice.

Ben 45:46

Yeah.

Laura 45:46

I don't ever remember worrying about that.

Ben 45:48

But and why certain people used to have those really tiny little circles that looked extra funny.

Laura 45:55

Yeah, yeah.

Ben 45:56

Maybe.

Laura 45:58

Anyway. The lens is key. Those are pretty foggy, Ben. It looks like your lens is glaucoma.

Ben 46:05

I know. They have glaucoma.

Laura 46:07

They have they have cataracts.

Ben 46:10

I look like Sophie the dog.

Laura 46:12

It's terrible, Ben.

Ben 46:13

Yeah, they're really bad. It's that's they're so terrible.

unknown 46:17

Yeah.

Laura 46:17

You need to go in like now.

Ben 46:20

Yeah, I need to make a and I still I still haven't pulled the plug and gotten that Costco.

Laura 46:26

And you don't have contacts either.

Ben 46:28

So I don't have contacts right now.

Laura 46:30

I'm not sure you could pass a driver's test with those. Probably not.

Ben 46:34

Probably not. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

unknown 46:38

Yeah.

Ben 46:39

In the northwest. All right, all right. Maybe today I'll I'll pull the plug and do it. Schedule an appointment. I think you should do it today. Yeah. Oh, maybe I could. I have to. Yeah, I well, that's never never mind. I'm gonna start talking about chores. That's we should probably end this before I talk about my chores for the day.

Laura 46:58

Yeah. Set up your Costco, though.

Ben 47:01

Yeah, exactly. Aaron's. All right. Thanks for being here, Mom.

Laura 47:08

Uh you're welcome. Thanks for the invitation.

Ben 47:11

Good rest of your Sunday.

Laura 47:13

It's not Sunday, but I'll enjoy my Sunday.

Ben 47:17

Well, Sunday's tomorrow though, so you'll enjoy the rest of it then.