Tom Bean

Sziasztok, Jánó vagyok. Közép-Európa első világra szóló podcast csatornáját hallgatjátok Magyarországról. Ez a Budapest.fm. Hi, my name is Ray, and you're listening to the number one podcast station in Central Europe, Budapest.fm, podcasting to the world from Hungary. Wow. Oh, what's up? Can you hear me? I can hear you great. Can you hear me? I can hear you great as well. You look great, dude. Let me see if I can get this. I love the standing mic. This is actually incredibly, incredibly good news because I found these headphones literally less than three minutes ago. That's cool. And at first I was like, okay, maybe it wouldn't matter that much because, like, at least the speaker quality is, like, decent on the computer. But then I guess the problem is actually that, like, then you can hear the reverberation from you. The feedback. The feedback. So anyway, now we have these headphones, and they seem to be working well. And the quality is really good compared to last time. Yeah, the quality is great. Are we live live, or are we, like, riffing? I think we're live. I mean, live, baby. Oh, right on. I think we're as live as we could possibly be. So how's your day? Very good, very good. My day is going great. Let's see, I had work, and then I just went for a little bike ride to appreciate where I'm living, this part of the city, the park, got some bread from a new bakery, just trying to eat it all up because I might not be living in this part of the city come next week. Oh, right, you mentioned something about that last time we spoke. So right now, where are you living in? You're living Sixth District, like right in the heart of Pest, basically? Basically, yeah, right next to the Kodály körönd, near Oktogon, you know, right in the middle of it, right in the thick of it. And, you know, the way I've been looking at it is I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I went to high school there, went to college in Middlebury, Vermont, as you know very well, Willie, also basically in the middle of nowhere. And then I moved to Budapest, and as you've said, I've been living in the belly of the beast, in the middle of a big city. And now it's time to, you know, try something somewhere in the middle. So we're gonna move out of the suburbs of Budapest. So you're finally coming over to the Buda side. We obviously lived in Pest together, and I've been personally speaking the praises of Buda ever since I moved there. I'm living in District One, which I think I might have mentioned once or twice in this podcast. Honestly, I've lost count of most things, not just with the podcast, but with life in general. It's really hard to just keep your eye on math while you're over in Spain. It's a sort of mathless country. But either way— They're terrible at math. I don't know if they're terrible, but they're definitely too relaxed to participate in too much math. But either way, what district are you thinking of moving over to in Buda? The place we're looking at is in District 2, which is pretty cool. I don't know that much about Buda other than the, you know, wonderful praises you've been singing, like the little birds I hear in the background. Yeah, so it's in District 2, pretty close to the mountain lands. Pretty excited to have close access to more green space. Városliget's great, but I don't know. I think there's steps up to be made. For sure. The Városliget is great. It's a good park. It's a very historical park. It's got a lot of different features and elements. I've actually grown to like the Városliget more and more as time's gone on, which is strange because it's sort of, from an objective perspective, been completely destroyed by pretty unnecessary construction projects. But still, it's one of those parks where, like, you find more elements of it. What were you going to say? The construction projects, you don't mind them too much, do you? Have you been there lately? I mean, yes. It's kind of ridiculous how long it's taken and how much of the park has been under construction. But the southeast corner of the park now is insane. It's amazing. Like, the sports facility is really nice, and there's two— so there's like seven courts, and there's two courts that you can just schedule time on an app, and you get a little QR code and you have an hour where the court's just yours, and it's like a super nice court, very well done. And yeah, I'm really impressed. So, yeah, actually, you know what? Disregarding the potential construction corruption going on, I mean, like, honestly, that park that they made in the middle with the giant hot air balloon is pretty cool, and they redid that, like, turn of the millennium or the Hungarian Millennium Exhibition in the middle. 1896 was the year they celebrated a thousand years of Hungary, and that was very prominent in the Városliget, actually, when Heroes' Square was built. Wait, they redid that castle? No, there's, like, not the castle. There's, like, a little pavilion. It's near where we play soccer tennis with Budapest Celtic, and it's, like, a nice old-school sort of Hungarian building, and it's kind of like a monument and a museum about this 1896 millennial exhibition, which took place very prominently in the Városliget. Anyway, just another, like, little construction part. They've done a decent job, and then they have that huge enormous, like, ramp thing. I don't know if you saw that on the far end. I have no idea what's going on there. Yeah, a lot of things going on. Who knows? Long story short, you're moving to Buda, and there's a lot more green space in Buda. District 2, Rózsadomb, a very sort of, like, elegant, refined, well-sought-after part of the city. And then you have District 1, which is more backside of the castle, front of the castle, whatever. District 11, obviously, and then 12, so on and so forth. We don't need to go through all the districts, but Buda's got a lot of green space and a lot more fresh air than the Pest side. So, as we mature, we all get pulled over to Buda, I think. It's a mature place, you know. And I'm happy that hopefully they welcome me with open arms, but we'll see. And if I understand correctly, when are you moving out of your Buda flat? Because I'd love to have you over at the new place. Yeah, we ended the lease, which we were always, always planning to do, or we're going to end the lease. I think June 1st is, like, our last day in the flat. Actually, it's interesting because when we got that flat, we were only supposed to be there for, like, seven months, and it ended up extending, extending, coronavirus, this, that, and they let us stay for, like, an indefinite period. And now we are, yeah, we're done with that flat. But obviously— Have you already moved out though? No, no, we haven't moved out. We have a lot to do, actually, because we got Spain and then we're coming back next week. And then it's like three days of quarantine or four days, however long you have to stay in the house. And that's going to be probably our big accelerated packing up and moving out of that flat time, I guess. Right. Well, when you move out, you're welcome, you know, down the street, as they say. Yeah, that's great. We will definitely be taking you up on that, I'm sure. Within the next year, we'll be in that new apartment for an extended period, which I'm very excited about. Yes, that sounds good. So how was your day, Willie? Tell me, tell me, tell me what it's like in the south of Spain. My day was good. I would say, in comparison to last week when we spoke, I was like very sort of frenetic and kind of trying to, like, find my place here. I think I've realized that no matter what the capacity or the reason or the amount of time that you're in a place, it always takes at least two weeks to get fully acclimated. And obviously that's a different case when you're only in a place for a week because you can't get acclimated. So then you're sort of like hit the ground running, don't even think about it, go see a bunch of places, go do a bunch of things, and you're not—it's sort of like apples to oranges. So I'm not saying that you can't enjoy yourself if you're only in a place for a week. Of course you can. But if you're there for like a month or more, then those first two weeks are really getting into the flow of things. So compared to last week, I feel like amazing. I feel much more relaxed. We've had a great, since we last spoke, a great couple, maybe three, four days of, like, traveling, seeing stuff, really cool experiences, which I'll get to, I'm sure, throughout this podcast. And then also, like, my running regimen has been just really going well. I've migrated, instead of, like, running along the beach, now barefoot just wearing shorts, running on the beach. It's a lot warmer here now, so that is, like, you know, really phenomenal fitness. Yeah. How do you deal with the—my issue with running on the beach is there's a slope. So, you know, we're gonna be looking at Miss Balanced Willie if you keep running the same direction. I guess you come back the other way? Yeah, you come back the other way. I feel like I'm always a little bit out of balance, so I'm not too concerned about it. Maybe running on the crooked beach will actually straighten me out. There you go. That sounds like a beautiful thing. Yeah, I can't wait to do some running in the Buda Hills, man. Yeah, that's always very nice. I mean, I think that you're just gonna, you're gonna love Budapest. I know I heard some murmurs from you about like, oh, it takes 15 minutes. Well, obviously you love Budapest, but you're gonna love the Buda side. You were saying, oh, it takes 15 minutes to get into the city, but really that's nothing. I mean, compared to most commutes. That's why, like, it's nice to live in Buda because it's sort of a nice mix between living in the suburbs and living in a city. You're still within the Budapest grounds, and yeah, you have very easy access. You have a car, you have a bike. You also have like a jet pad or whatever the hell that crazy skateboard thing you bought in Austria was. Yeah, I really gotta find someone to lend that to because I don't have the cojones to ride that thing. Too much power for me. What's it called? The boosted board? Yeah, the boosted. I got like this fastest boosted board. Such a stupid decision. I've seen that a lot on Casey Neistat's YouTube. Yeah, he probably sharked me on that. And also that South African guy that he makes videos with. For those of you that don't know, Casey Neistat, very famous, well-known YouTube vlogger, and he was like very well-known because he made 800 straight days of a daily vlog. And not just like, oh, hey, like look at my life, it's so cool, but actually like artistic, cinematographic, sort of like the Martin Scorsese of vlogging. And he did one for 800 straight days and catapulted to like millions of subscribers. And anyway, he is a very big tech guy, and he would ride around on this little electronic skateboard. And one of the guys that he used to make videos with was this South African guy named Dan Mace. And in one of the episodes of Casey Neistat's vlog that I saw, Dan Mace like took the boosted board out on a rainy day. And he got, like, hit by a car, slipped and busted up his shoulder. So they are pretty dangerous. I only rode it, I don't know, like ten times maybe, maybe more than that. But I rode it to work one day. I was like, Oh yeah, I'm riding a boosted board. This is back when we lived together, and it's, you know, it's like ten minutes to get to the—like, less. It's very short. And it had just been raining, and the bike sidewalk on the road is, like, a horrible material because it becomes very slippery when it's wet. And I was in the middle of Oktogon, like one of the biggest intersections in Budapest, and I just wiped out super hard. And, like, total yard sale. Like, my phone fell out of my pocket, my headphones broke, my— and the board went in the middle of the street, and it was ridiculous. That was crazy. Something going on in my flat as well. My cats are freaking out. They've been freaking out for the last two days. Just, like, abnormal behavior. And it was very abnormal behavior at the same exact time the stream died. So something's going on. Spirits. Do you think the two things are connected? Maybe because I noticed they've just been freaking out consistently, like, for the last four hours probably, and I just noticed because there was no more audio. That's probably what happened. But I do believe in divine connection. What are your cats' names, by the way? I mean, I know the names, but what are the— Vincent. Vincent and Tio. Tio as in uncle in Spanish, and Vincent as in Vinny, like my cousin Vinny, the movie. And how did you get those cats? What's the story behind that? My girlfriend's brother was just walking through Debrecen, which is the second biggest city in Budapest, and just saw these two cats on the street and— Picked him up, and he knew that we were looking for cats, and so he was like, Hey, found these two cats, and we were like, Bring them over. And then the next weekend, we had two cats. That's a very nice and heartwarming story, but you're such a man of the capital, calling Debrecen as the second biggest city in Budapest. It is. In Budapest. What? Did I say Budapest? I meant to say Hungary, the second biggest city in Hungary. Yeah, you have a very Budapest-centric perspective. You think the whole country is Budapest. I cannot argue with that. I do. I am guilty as charged. You're a snobby man from District One in The Hunger Games. I also cannot argue with that. I would be getting all kinds of gifts from the people upstairs. Oh, but funny thing about the cat names. So Vincent Tio. Tio came from just, it's a cool name. Vincent, my cousin Vinny. I think it's a good name for an animal. But someone let me know that Vincent van Gogh's brother's name was Theodore, and most people called him Tio. Or Theo. So cats are loosely named after, you know, a wonderful artist. So you mistakenly stumbled your way into, like, a very sophisticated icebreaker at a party. Yeah, yeah. That's nice. It might be kind of hard to get there for an icebreaker, but yeah, I think it could happen. You have cats, I have cats. You want to know their two names? Yeah, we didn't mean to name them this, but, you know, you like art. Well, something like that. I think I could see it happening. Yeah, maybe. I guess, yeah. Only a very certain type of party would that be a good icebreaker. Cap party. Cap party. So what else, Tom? What else? What's on the docket the rest of this week for you? Okay, there's actually a lot of my projects are coming to fruition, actually. So, been doing some technical shit with some people from work, basically building— What are these projects? Like work projects? Outside of work, mostly. So one of them, a lot of them don't sound that great. Anyway, so one is I'm trying to build a school, a website school, to teach people how to play this game called Kendama. And it's just like a website that makes the learning of the game more interactive and fun because right now there's a shit ton of really long videos on YouTube, but it's like not something you can just— like it doesn't lead you down an educational journey of the sport, which is what I'm trying to— sport, game, whatever you want to call it. No, no, no, you can call it a sport. And tell me, Kendama, it's that little, like— can you give us a little demo? Like, obviously only the viewers will be able to see this, but show us just like how to catch. Yeah, Tom knows all sorts of crazy tricks. And this is like a game, if I'm not mistaken, like it was invented in nineteen— or potentially earlier, like ancient Japan? I mean, you know, there's like games like this that have been around forever. I mean, in Mexico they have another name, but it's usually— there usually aren't so many. It's usually just ball and a cup or a ball on a spike. There's a lot of renditions of this all over the place, but this specific version, I don't know when it was invented, but in Japan at some point, it's a hand-eye coordination toy, and in Japanese public school they actually have— Like some of the PE classes, as far as I'm aware, teach kendama for, like, discipline and hand-eye coordination, which is pretty cool. That is very cool. So, yeah, you can actually say that about, like— no, no, you can just say that about, like, most of the things that Japanese, or the Japanese do. It's like, yeah, that's pretty fucking cool. That's pretty cool. They have a good grasp on the pretty cool. They turned around from losing a major war to being the largest, like, electronics-producing country in the world or something like that. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Anyway. Yeah, I mean, the Japanese, they really reinvented— like, reinvented themselves. I mean, they had, up until, like, 19th century, even talking about before World War II, but up until, like, the middle of the 19th century, 1850s or so, like, they were a very, very sort of— I think backwards is a little bit of a misnomer, but a very antiquated society, like super traditionalist, super old school. And then, like, they just, like, seized upon the Industrial Revolution and all that stuff in, like, a hyper, hyper-kinetic, super quick way. And then they sort of took it too far, and then obviously, like, complete destruction after World War II. And now one of the most technologically— Didn't they, like, had closed borders for a long time? Like, when, like, global travel started happening, like in the 14, 1500s, wasn't, like, Japan completely closed off from the rest of the world for a long time? That sounds right. I can't give you an informed answer there. That does sound right. No, I think that's right. I think that's right. During, like, the shogunate era, I think Japan was, like, a very insular, isolated society, and that's one of the reasons that they took such a long time to grasp the industrial wave, I would say. And then you can see how, like, how crazy it drove them into. I mean, the Japanese during World War II, like, you know, in some respects, like Hitler and the Germans get all the headlines, but, like, the Japanese were fucking crazy. Like, insane, the stuff they were doing back then. But we don't want to— Yeah, take it another direction before we get too far into that topic. Basically, we're building a fucking school for this online, and it involves— basically, I don't know, it's hard to explain, but, like, making a mathematical model for every trick and, like, combination of this toy, which is more complicated than it seems. But with a friend from work, we had a lot of fun and actually seemed to figure it out. So we'll see in the next couple weeks how the website comes along. You're gonna love this one, Willie. This right here is my— oh, now I can't hear you, but it's a hat. It's the— well, let me put my headphones on. Is that the crazy brain stimulator thing? Yeah. Well, yeah, brain reader. It's a DIY EEG helmet. Oh my God. You can 3D print this, but when I started digging into how, like, how to do it, it's beyond my 3D printing ability, and so I just, like, didn't want to waste my time messing up. So I ordered this from a website called Shapeways, which is basically like, you can just send them a 3D file and they will print it, and it's amazing. I also use them for another project, anyway. So inside these little holes, I will be putting some nodes, which attach to your head—not attached, they just sit on your head—and they read changes in magnetic field around your head, which is created by electricity being fired in your brain. That is insane. It's crazy. So with that, you can roughly, I mean, you can discern some things about what's going on in someone's head without them saying anything out loud or, yeah, it's pretty crazy. Wow. And where did you procure such a science fiction-sounding item? I'm trying to remember, like, where this initial fascination with the brain reading came from. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Don't change the topic. I'm just wondering, like, where exactly did you get that? Like, is that like from a normal online shop, or are you trying to hide some potential, like, a back-alley dark web connections that you have? No, no, no. Nothing dark going on here. This is actually OpenBCI. It's an open-source company. I think it's an American company, and they're basically, like, building—so they build the electronics. So you basically need, like, a small computer, like a little chip, that attaches to all the nodes that I will put on this helmet that does all the, like, reading of the electrical signals and turns it into something a computer can read. But it's all open source, like basically like an Arduino, and they're doing it to make, like, brain studies more approachable for people. I mean, this thing, like, if you buy just the equipment, it's like $400, and most, like, professional-grade EEG machines are, like, on the order of, like, tens of thousands of dollars. And, like, this is a research-grade quality if you do it properly. You are truly a man from the future. Let's— Hoping to build a little brain writing. So this, in general, these kind of machines are called brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs. So I want to build a very primitive BCI that's very easy to make, which you can use to write messages just with thinking, just with your brain. That's cool. That would be great applications for people with, like, Parkinson's, for instance, like my grandpa, if he could just wear a little helmet and, like, communicate with people. Yeah, that would be awesome. A lot of this stuff already exists. Like Stephen Hawking did, like, he spoke with, like, eye tracking, which is not the same. He's actually, like, they have a camera following where his eye was going, and that's how he could, like, you know, signal what kind of letters he was trying to say. Nice. But BCIs are pretty cool. This is what, like, Elon Musk's, like, one of his side projects basically is the Neuralink thing, which is basically like this on steroids. So with this thing, there's just going to be something sitting on the top of my head reading electrical, like, magnetic changes around my skull. But his project is, like, inserting electrical wires into your brain, like hundreds of them. And this, I can only read information from the brain. But— How, wait, hold on, hold on. How is that, like, something to be celebrated? Like Elon Musk inserting hundreds of electrical wires into people's brains. Is that really the direction— For exactly what you said. I mean, the initial target audience are people with, like, neurological disorders and, like, the inability to, you know, people who've lost— The initial target audience until, like, a Malfeasant or— Unsavory actor gets their hands on it and starts, like, literally forgetting about, like, even obviously you can go, like, broad conspiracy and say, like, the governments are going to start controlling people, but just think about, like, a little tiny cult. Like, you just have a few brain control devices. Oh, try this on, drink the Kool-Aid, all of a sudden, like, little cult army. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's— I mean, think, if you look at it, it's like, so the technology is so primitive. Like, that the idea that someone could use something like Neuralink to control someone's actions is, like, a very far away thing. It's like, it's like when someone created the first light bulb and someone was like, Oh, wait a second, like, a century from now, someone's going to create Facebook, and with that, they are going to create, like, huge discourse and, like, do malinformation to make a crazy person in charge of the most powerful country in America. And, you know, to say that then, would you be right? Yes. But should you stop developing the light bulb? No. That's true. And there's also, there's a lot of, like, cultural relativism that we take in both directions, both thinking that things are, like, worse now and better now and comparing them apples and oranges. Humans always, throughout history, like, the more you learn about history and the more you contemplate the future, the more you realize that, like, human behavior is just, like, a set of parameters and it's put through a certain filter depending on what era you're born in, and it just manifests in, like, slightly different iterations from each other. But it's hard to really say, like— Actually, I want to read you one quote that I found from my book yesterday. It's by this guy who wrote about the Moorish history in Spain, and he's talking, and he wrote— he was a British author, I think. He wrote in, like, the early 1900s, maybe, and he is writing a passage right here about this guy who was called El Cid. El Cid was like a very famous warrior in 11th century Spain. And basically this was when the Muslim Empire, the Moors, had a grasp over most of the country. But slowly but surely, the Christian kingdoms were starting to win back land, like the Kingdom of Castile, the Kingdom of León, the Kingdom of Navarre. Not super important, but the 11th century was when, like, this finally started to accelerate and the Christians started to come back in. And El Cid was an interesting character because he's thought of as like a huge hero for Spain, like sort of their King Arthur in some respects, although more of like a mercenary badass fighter. But he fought on both sides. He fought for the Muslims and he fought for the Spanish. Eventually he ended up fighting more for the Spanish, and that's why he's such a hero. But he's like revered in Spain and thought of as like El Cid, like this huge hero. But— Which war was this? Sorry, sorry. At the time? No, no, no, no, no, no. Good question. What were you saying? Which war was this and where was it fought? So I don't really understand, like, is this part of the Crusades? No, that's the thing. I've been just, like, bathing in Moorish history now that I kind of forgot that it's— Okay, so basically the Moors are the Muslims that conquered Spain in the 700s. 711 is when they first came over from the north of Africa, and they came in and they conquered Spain, and it was known as Al-Andalus. And Spain, from the year 711 until 1492, had a huge Muslim influence over the country. And this slowly retracted, retracted, retracted, retracted, retracted. 1492, the year that the Muslims were basically kicked out of town, all that was left was the Kingdom of Granada and the beautiful palace of the Alhambra. And that's when Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish monarchs, who Columbus asked for permission to sail to the New World—Ferdinand and Isabella, they, they, they completed... The Reconquista, which was like the reconquest of Spain away from the Muslims who had taken it over in the 700s from the Visigothic Christians. And over the next 700 years, little by little, Spain clawed their way back until they finally kicked out the Muslims at the beginning of the 700s. In between this whole— 1700s. No, 700 to 1492. So it's a 700-year period. Oh, yeah, over that time. Okay, okay, I see. Over that time. Gotcha. And in the 11th century, it was a time of, like, chaos because in certain points there was, like, the golden age of the Moorish Caliphate when they had, like, a real flourishing of the capital city being in Cordoba and tons of art, tons of poetry, tons of music, sophisticated, a lot of academia. I mean, this was really, at this time, which is sort of like a dark age in Europe, Cordoba and Spain and Muslim Spain and Moorish Spain was really like a flourishing and a bridgehead between the beauties of classical antiquity with Rome and Greece and into the future of the Renaissance. Muslim Spain at this time was the connecting fiber. Very interesting. That being said, this guy El Cid came about in the 11th century, and the point is that today he's thought of as like a huge Spanish hero. But, like, when this guy was writing in the beginning of the 1900s, there started to be some critiques against this El Cid guy, and people were saying, Oh, he was actually not a good guy. He was a murderer. He was this, he was that. And they sort of like what you hear today about, like, you know, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, that type of thing. So this is what this author, who's writing about El Cid, has to say about that phenomenon of, like, people disgracing old heroes because of their moral sins. So here we go. And it does not make the Sid anything but what he always was, a hero of the rude days of yore. If we are to limit our definition of heroism to characters that display all Christian virtues—long-suffering, gentleness, and pity—we shall have to dismiss most of our old friends. Achilles was not very gentle or compassionate when he dragged the body of Hector around the walls of Troy. But Achilles is the hero of the Iliad. Nine out of ten of the heroes of antiquity committed a host of acts which we moderns, with our superfine sensibilities, call cruel, ungenerous, even dastardly. It is a pure perversion of history to apply latter-day codes of morality to the heroes of bygone ages. Let us admit that they are not all gold, and then let us delight in their great deeds—the mighty swing of their sword arm, the crushing shock of their onsets, their tall stature and flashing eyes as they ride to meet their foes. We do not expect them to be philosophers or strict advocates of the theories of political economy. We are quite satisfied with them as they are: heroes, brave, gallant leaders of men. That's a quote. What do you think? There you go. Beautiful. I love it. And, like, a beautiful point. I mean, like you said, people getting critiqued for, you know, the social and ethical rules of today, and just, I don't know, there's so much context lost. I mean, I don't know that much about this Sid guy, but— You said he came around in the— what most fascinated me with what you said is how during 1100, that's what I want to say, but that's not, the 1100s. So that's when he came about, and that was also what you were saying about, like, Moorish Spain having a huge influence on the Renaissance. Was he involved in that, or is that just those times just coinciding? No, no, no, no, no, not at all. So, so basically, like, that time, the Moors, or, like, for shorthand, the Muslims in Spain, they were a culture that, like, celebrated poetry and they celebrated philosophy. And, like, there's a Moorish philosopher; his name was Averroes. And without Averroes living in 1100s Córdoba, we would not know half of what we know about Aristotle, because he was the one that translated a lot of the texts. Anyway, that's just an example. The point being that this Moorish Islamic culture, they were the ones that gave us, like, a foundation in the idea of algebra, in math, in modern medical science, in literature and poetry. This guy, El Cid, he was a Spaniard, but he existed as, like, this mercenary figure of, like, heroism and gallantry and bravery. And anyway, for a long time, everyone was just like, El Cid is the coolest guy, and then he started to get rocks thrown at him, just like we see a lot of the people today. But I have to say that, like, I'm more interested in this quote as the foundation of a debate, because there is another side of the coin where, like, maybe some of our heroes should be more aspirational figures, and as we gain a modern understanding of the past, perhaps we should only cultivate examples that are actually people that we should look up to. I don't know. Well, yeah, but then it comes back to the question of we, like, retrospectively judging people's actions of a different time. Right. Is it fair, you know? I mean, that's, like, you know, yes, of course, today you should be, you know, living to a certain code. And if people, you know, from days past didn't live by the same code, it doesn't mean we have to, you know, ridicule them for their actions to some degree. I think you hit the crux of the issue right there. And it's that even if, like, someone does have a flawed past, like, you can acknowledge that flawed past, but also appreciate their virtues and, like, the good things that they did. So, like, maybe it is a little bit privileged to just sit there and say, like, no, like, I only want my brave knights that I heard about in the medieval times to be my brave knights, and I don't want to think about, like, the fact that they might have murdered a bunch of people. You can think about that, but also acknowledge that, like, you, as, like, a 21st-century keyboard warrior that's writing for, like, a women's fashion blog from your gentrified loft in Brooklyn, maybe if you were thrown into, like, the riffraff and, like, the hoi polloi of 12th-century Spain, you might not be so, like, woke, let's just say. But, you know, that's all—I'm not trying to throw any rocks at, like, specific people here, but that's the example that comes to my head. Yeah, on the nose. On the nose, I think. But as I sit here, I start to feel myself sliding into, like... I disgruntled a middle-aged man more and more by the minute, so what are you gonna do? Hey, comes with the territory, right? Sitting on a porch in Malaga. Is this in your house, this little patio that you've got here? Yeah, this is actually, this was advertised as the Orange Tree. So unfortunately there's no oranges, but it is the house of the salty orange. So that's like the grounds of the house. This is the big ticket item, the big orange tree without any oranges. The big ticket. How is it so much more sunny in Spain? Maybe the weather, I guess. It looks like you still got a lot of sun. Also, the sun sets a lot later here because it's very strange that we're on the same time zone as Hungary since, I say we, but I've been here for like two and a half weeks. But either way, the Spanish, like, longitude is basically equivalent with England, which is obviously an hour back from the rest of Europe. Spain chose to stay with the rest of Central Europe. So, like, Spain is on the same time zone as Budapest, which doesn't make any sense, which means that always the sun sets a lot later here, which is one of the many reasons that Spain has such a late-night lifestyle. I mean, obviously more so because of the heat. And obviously when the sun goes down, you can actually enjoy yourself and go out and all that. But that being said, like, literally the sun does set a whole lot later here, which I kind of love. It's very nice to have, you know, nine o'clock and it's just beginning to get dark. That is crazy. I never knew that. That's really cool that that actually gets later there. Yeah, time zones are ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous. Doesn't China have one time zone? I refuse to—I mean, I'll look that up because I refuse to believe that China has one. If they do, that is insane. I don't know. I think I heard that maybe it's a different place, but I do know that Venezuela has like 45. No, you're right. You're right. Yeah, no, China is almost as wide as the continental United States. The whole country is officially in just one time zone, Beijing time. So when it's 7 a.m. in the Forbidden City, it's also 7 a.m., 2,000 miles to the west in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, even if the stars are still out there. Crazy, dude. What a ridiculous, unpractical— or maybe it is practical. I don't know. Get everyone on the same page. I don't— yeah, get everyone on the same page. But I'm just trying to think of, like, scheduling calls with people. It's like, Hey, man, 8 a.m., good for you? No, I'm usually sleeping until noon. I don't know. It's confusing. Yeah, or maybe everyone wakes up at 8 a.m. and they just, like, have a vastly different personality because their breakfast is like— I don't know, if you have breakfast under the stars every day, you're probably a little bit of a psychopath. Yeah, I mean, I know a couple people like that, and they're certainly psychopaths. Not gonna name any names. They might be from China. I'm just kidding. No, I don't know that many people from China. Neither do I. I'm trying. I thought has escaped me of a question I had for you. But what, so what about this Sid guy? Is, like, did you recently see some of his monuments or something, or what brought him into your studies? No, no, no. I've been reading a lot about the Moorish period more and more by the day, more and more by the day. How quaint. But no, he just comes across a lot of texts as being this very heroic figure. Like, his name is El Cid, or my Cid, they call him. And Cid is not actually his name; it's C-I-D. And a Cid was basically like a challenger. It was a word for a challenger. So back in 10th century, 11th century Spain, in the Moorish time period, and I'm sure not just Spain, I think this was a pretty universal concept, but before the big battles between two militaries, there was usually two men that met in, like, single combat. You see this in Game of Thrones, but in Game of Thrones, it's, like, taken a little bit further in the terms of the fantastical element of being like, Tyrion's gonna either live or die based on who wins this fight. But at this time, it was sort of like either a motivator, or it was just a thing that armies did. Like, before they fought and killed each other, they had this little conquest, and El Cid was known as El Cid because he was, like, the challenger that won all the time. No matter what, he always won. And then the kingdom that he lived in, which was Castile, the monarch got super jealous of him because everybody loved him. He was, like, much more beloved than the king, and he threw him out of town and he said, Get the fuck out of my kingdom. I don't want you to be here. And he gave him like nine days, basically, to get out, otherwise he would be imprisoned. So he went around the country for nine days, and everyone was, like, forbidden to even talk to him. If you talked to him, you got all your lands taken away, and you got blinded. So he went through the towns expecting a big welcome, because everyone loves the sit, everyone loves El Cid. But whenever he went, ghosts, silence, nothing, until one little nine-year-old girl was brave enough to come out and say, I'm sorry, my Cid. The king will not let us speak to you, or else we will be blind. And so he was like, Oh, that's fucking bullshit. And he put all his children—he had like four daughters—and his wife into a convent under, like, the care of this very nice bishop. And he went out and he conquered the entire Muslim territory of Valencia and became the leader of a huge swath of lands as this, like, mercenary swashbuckling pirate. Yeah, and that's why he's revered. How did that story end? He died in battle. He died in a battle. Oh, okay. And basically, yeah, I think the guy even says, like, all soldiers of this nature, eventually their luck runs out and they end up dying. But, you know, a thousand years later, he's being discussed on, like, a futuristic medium across continents and oceans and timelines. So I think that he can be considered a success. This is a—this is a, I mean, we're touching on two things. I want to go back to the other aspect, which I wonder how you think about, that's like how we value our lives, how we, you know, what's the meaning to it all, and, like, something that Marcus Aurelius says in the Meditations, and, like, it's part of Stoic philosophy as well, is that, like— You shouldn't care about fame. Like, everybody is dead and gone at some point and forgotten. Like, and he even says in his letters, like, thousands of years from now, I know that people will forget my name and shit like that. And, like, not that he's very much, like, still in contemporary, you know, art and, like, just everywhere. So, I don't know. And also, also, as much as I love Marcus Aurelius, like, kind of I'm calling bullshit on that because he was the emperor of Rome. So I don't know where he gets off. I don't know where, even though he was, like, a philosopher king and, like, a much more stoic and well-thought person than, you know, your average Joe emperor, at the same time, like, he had to have known that people were going to talk about him for at least, like, a few hundred years. Yeah, and they're always talking about, like, you know, the meaninglessness of money and shit, and it's like, bro, you're the king of the world. Like, how can you be saying these things? And, you know, I don't know. It seems—I don't get that part of their whole shtick. And let's not forget, as much as I love Marcus Aurelius, his son was Commodus, who was a terrible emperor. He was the one that, like, Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator was based off of. Really? Yeah, like, I mean, I don't know. I've always had this sort of cognitive dissonance in my own head where I think, like, oh yeah, Marcus Aurelius was such a great emperor and his son was such a son of a bitch. But isn't, like, the ultimate testament to your legacy sort of how you raise your children? Sure. I mean, I don't know. It depends on how you look at it. I mean, if Marcus Aurelius did a lot of great stuff, I mean— That's true. Sometimes people are just, like, you know, schizoid. And back in, like, the Roman times, it was sort of a flip of a coin whether or not, when you're raised inside such a crazy set of circumstances. I mean, literally, like, No modern people will ever experience the type of, like, power and wealth accumulation that those people had. Obviously, there's still, like, a disproportionate amount of power concentrated into the hands of the wealthy or to the politically powerful or whatever you may be. But at the same time, like, the amount of concentration that went into a small, tiny, teensy percentage of society back then, in my mind, was more. But maybe that's also just looking at things in, like, a historically ignorant perspective, and I don't know. That's— But was it? Was there that? I mean, yeah, maybe, I don't really know. I mean, there's still, like, insanely mega rich people. I know there's mega rich people, but I feel like it's been sort of diffused around this, like, I don't know, we have certain forms and ways of doing things now that don't really let you have the type of coercion and power over an individual that you used to be able to have. Obviously, like, in a philosophical sense, you can say that, like, modern capitalism is still, like, hugely coercive. But, like, the emperors of Rome literally had slaves that could do, like, so much crazy fucked up shit. Especially, like, the sadistic emperors. That's when you really see how much power there actually was in the state, because they would just have, like, constant orgiastic, demonic rituals being performed on their every whim. And, like, slaves that were just, like, I don't know, you just hear, like, you know, the city had to give a tribute of a thousand women of their city every year, and that was just, like, a thing. That's how the world works. You conquer a city and you got, like, a thousand fresh nubile young women every year. Okay, I'm starting to see what you mean. And I was going to take it like a kind of a more, I don't know, juvenile direction with food. So when I was in Italy last year, like in Sardinia with a friend of mine, and we were just like eating, I don't know, because I got really interested into Italian cooking over the last few years and just loved making pasta, like more just kind of like really simple, straightforward, like three-ingredient pasta. And then I got to Italy and I was like, Oh cool, I'm here in the belly of the beast. And then I started asking myself, like, when did Italian pasta become a thing? Because someone told me that tomatoes never were an Italian thing until like the 1800s, which is also true. And then I started looking into it and like pasta, what we know of as Italian pasta, is like such a fucking modern thing. Like the food from the Roman Empire was like insane. It was just like fresh, it was just fruit and vegetables and like roasted meat. And like there was like very little culinary creativity because I don't, I mean, from like, I don't know, a few articles that I've read, but that made me raise the question of like, wow, it's really hard to put ourselves in the shoes of like times so far gone because it's like the world looked so different. I mean, echoing what you were saying about, you know, thousand human tribute. No, I think that's true. And it's also, it's what's the interesting thing about like historiography, which is like not only the history, but the way that you study the past. It just shifts so much over the ages. And like if you look at a lot of the sources even of like how we know what happened in ancient Rome, it's from, let's say, a 14th century scholar, and he had his own set of biases and his own sources that he was getting from a few hundred years before that. And it's all this sort of crazy, like artificial matrix that none of us really know what's happening, let alone back then, none of us really know what's happening now. I mean, it's just, it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming, to be honest with you. Kind of freaky to start going down that. You can identify some of these, like, scary paths. It's like, okay, I know where that road's going, and it's going to, like, a certain form of insanity, and I don't know if I want to go there. But that's where nihilism and hedonism becomes more and more attractive by the day. Like, my impression of both of those concepts is that nihilism is sort of like—

Sort of like, you just don't really care, and, like, everything is sort of meaningless. Which can be, like, filtered out into the extremity of, like, being a goth 17-year-old that slits his wrists and wears black clothing. Or to just being like, you know, kind of the guy in, you know, the movie Office Space. Uh, no. Maybe. The movie Office Space, it's like a famous '90s movie where the guy is working in a very menial job, and he's like, Give me the TPS reports, give me the TPS reports, and then finally he gets into a meditation session, or a hypnosis session, and he gets hypnotized into not caring about his corporate job. And he ends up, like, hooking up with Jennifer Aniston, who works as a waitress, and all this crazy stuff happens. But either way, it's sort of like, he's sort of like a benevolent nihilist in the sense that he's, like, not a goth emo 17-year-old. He's more just starting to go through his life with a sense of ease and complacency and, like, not really giving a fuck. And it ends up reaping the benefits because of his relaxed personality. So I'm saying nihilism is attractive, and then hedonism being just like, let's have orgies and raves and parties and just live our lives to the fullest extent of anything possible, which is sort of like, in a lot of ways, how a lot of people in ancient Rome and ancient Greece lived, is they just had these crazy Dionysus-based festivals and feasts and all this sort of stuff, so. I mean, yeah, I mean, hedonism, I don't know. It feels like we're all just, like, hedonists. I don't know. These, these... Well, definitely not all hedonists, because a lot—I mean, just like today's society is sort of hedonistic. It's like, hey, you need this, you need that, go do this, go do that, and all that shit. It's like you're never satisfied, basically. But that's not really what hedonism is, I guess. Hedonism is like, yeah, it's like constantly chasing satisfaction, sort of. Constantly chasing satisfaction. But I would almost say that it's more—my understanding of it is more like indulging in satisfaction, whether or not it's ultimately fulfilling is another argument or another debate. But at least, like, having that be the guiding principle or philosophy of your actions is to go in the direction of indulging your base satisfaction. Which I would say, like, I don't necessarily have a hedonistic philosophy, because I think that's one of the things that we get from, like, our American perspective of the Puritan work ethic and, you know, always working harder and hustling and things like that. It's sort of driven into our heads from an early age that the harder you work and the more you deprive yourself of pleasure, the better you will be. And that's sort of like, in contrast to, let's say, like, the French philosophy or the Spanish philosophy even, where it's just like, relax, have a good time, drink, chill, don't worry too much. And then you have, like, the American philosophy, which is always like, work harder, don't sleep, make money, and you'll be successful. Were you—do you genuinely think you were fed that philosophy? I wouldn't say directly. I think that, like, I'm maybe a little bit biased, but I have to say, I think, like, my mom and my immediate family did a good job of keeping me grounded and not necessarily pointing me in that direction. But I think certainly from just the advertising and a sort of— Educational perspective, that is the American M.O., which works to our benefit. I agree, I agree. I mean, I agree to some extent. I'm just not sure, like, how those, you know, how that M.O. or that philosophy gets pushed to so many Americans. Yeah, but I guess it's through everything. Yeah, because I agree. I think I was also fortunate. My parents pushed a sort of different approach to life, largely because, you know, I grew up pretty fortunate. But, like, the idea was always, you're going to spend a lot of your life working, so love what you do. Like, work—like, your goal, like, as we were growing up, they were always just like, find something that you, like, find joy in doing, and you can find work out of that. But I think it, yeah, it's just like a little bit of a different look at it that's not easy for everyone to do. But yeah, my brother—okay, this is something my brother said about his comparison to how Americans live life to how Spanish people live life, and it was, you know, Americans live to work, and Spanish people work in order to live. Like, so work is just a means to an end for them to sit on the patio in the afternoon with a beer and some olives. Like, the work is just a means to an end, and the life is what's important. Yeah, I think that's beautiful. That sounds really nice. That's great. But then again, in America, it's sort of like, I think it's a symptom of the grass is always greener sort of crisis, where everything is very much a competition. But this also, I have to say, does work to our favor in some respects. For example, I'm just thinking of, like, when I played soccer on my soccer team in South Africa. There was always a few American guys on the team, and they were always, like, some of the better players. Not because they were the best players, but because the American soccer philosophy, which is sort of reflective of our society as a whole, which doesn't necessarily lead to the most success or the most elegant total team. If you have a team full of Americans, you don't really want a team full of Americans, but you always want an American on your team because the Americans are getting stuck in. And this is also the same in Budapest, I would think. Regardless of our actual skill, most people would want us on the team because we're working hard, and that is sort of driven into you from, like, the crazy American coaches, the philosophy. And I don't think it's the best result, and I'm not vouching for it necessarily, but there is certain areas where that, like, relentless, relentless work ethic does pay off. And it's also like, I don't know, it is like, yeah, you should fucking work hard. I mean, it is, like, a little bit envious to say, like, yeah, it would be nice to just relax and sit there, but at the same time, you know, working hard gets you results. Yeah. It's so funny that you say— yeah, I mean, it's really funny to look at, like, I don't know, nationalist approaches and philosophies to life, like based on my experience in soccer. I used to go to this camp when I was in, like, before high school, when I was younger. It was called Bogolsinger. It was created by a Swedish guy named Bogolsinger. I don't know if he was a semi-famous professional player, I don't really know. But he developed some technique for striking the ball, and it was like, sort of like yoga. You sat on your butt on the ground, and you would just, like, repeat this process. And anyway, it was really fun. But one of, like, my coach in high school was, like, his apprentice, basically, and started running this camp. And we would wake up at, like, 5:30 in the morning and do this two-hour half workout, half, like, training session that was so American. And then in the afternoons, one time when I was at this camp, I had this Italian coach, and he would get so pissed off at everybody, and he would just be like, What are you guys doing here? Like, you don't care. Like, you are— and everyone was working hard, so we didn't understand. He was just like, You don't— you're not passionate about the game. Like, you don't, you're not, you don't have passion for this game. You're just here to work hard. And it was like a very weird feedback to get. He was just like, No, you need to be having more fun. Like, go out and, like, have passion for the sport, not just for, like, I don't know. I never, I couldn't really understand what he was saying, and maybe in retrospect I started understanding more. But yeah, he was always just saying, like, whenever I coach Americans, they don't fucking, like, love the game. They have no passion for the game. This guy, though, he was gonna say, he woke up in the morning getting ready for his big, like, Americans don't have passion for the game speech. That's probably true. No matter what you guys did. Why was this Italian guy coaching soccer in Iowa? How did that come about? It wasn't, I think it was in Michigan I went to. This camp, Vogel Singer did, look it up. Vogel Singer is, like, a big deal. Okay, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to dismiss Vogel Singer. No, but that is true. Like, the Italians with football, or as they call it, calcio, especially are much more, like, finesse, even tactics. They have a much more, like, elegant perspective on things. I don't know. Fucking Italians. I was thinking about this today on my run. We got to get, like, Marco and Alberto and maybe even Lorenzo just in, uh, maybe we'll have, you know, two or three podcasts, if possible, before we go to Georgia between when I get home and that trip. And it would be nice to have an Italian day, because I have always thought those three were just meant to argue with each other on the radio, and I think it would just be funny. That would be pretty cool. We should create some talking points that just, like, cause friction between them and just, like, see where it goes. And we should also put tallies on who's winning, and constantly update after each talking point, like, Okay, Lorenzo, you should pick it up. You're clearly in last place. Yeah, you're right. I think we could steward a great vociferous conversation between the three of them. But also, in terms of coming up with talking points, it would be nice to be well prepared, but we could also just say, okay, bread, and then you would have like a 20-minute debate. I mean, that's what I meant by talking points, like one-word catalysts. Yeah. All right, that sounds good. Let's keep that on the immediate bucket list. All right, so we've been here for an hour and seven minutes, more or less. I think we can keep this going for another 30 or so. What do you say? That sounds good to me. Let's, yeah. What should we cover next, Willie? We have a few things to talk about, I think. I think you just touched on one. As you come back to Budapest, we're going to have some time before we, you know, make this little jaunt to Georgia. There's some topics in there, and I'm pretty curious on what's been happening. I like that alliteration that you just hit upon, because I'm a sucker for alliteration, and a jaunt in Georgia sounds—even if the letters don't match up—a jaunt in Georgia sounds spectacular. I think I'm going to hit upon that thread. So thank you for that, Tom. And what was the general gist of the question before the jaunt in Georgia? Was it what's going to happen in Budapest? Yeah, I mean, we just have some, you know, we have some things to plan for. We have, while you're here in Budapest, and then we, you know, clearly have a two-week adventure in Georgia. We have some, you know, we have some ideas to knock around, I'd say. Don't play coy with me. What are these ideas? I mean, I was hoping we could talk about them. I would also like to share a—this is a quote that you know. I would just like to play it for you, if I can. I'm going to have to switch my audio source, but it's a short one. It's from The Rum Diaries by— Hunter S. Thompson, and it's from the beginning of the book. He is in Cuba, I believe, or Puerto Rico, and he's about to start on a pretty epic journey. He had just landed, and he's in a cab. And it's, I think we've talked about this. It's a similar feeling when you start an awesome journey, and I think you're actually in the middle of one, going to Spain for a month. But now you'll come back to Budapest, maybe get grounded a little bit before a much bigger journey going to Georgia, to America, and eventually, you know, to infinity and beyond. So let's see if I—I'll just switch. It'll take me a second, but give me a signal if you can hear it. Hold on, before you press play on that, just for everyone that doesn't know, Hunter S. Thompson, phenomenal writer, probably best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is also a great Johnny Depp film, but sort of a hedonist, a nihilist, and all sorts of things that don't really even have a label. But he was a great American writer, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, even up until—I think one of the last pieces that he wrote was like literally the day of 9/11 when the two towers hit, and he just predicted—he predicted everything that was going to happen afterwards, like all the stuff with the Patriot Act and like the repression of personal privacy. Anyway, great writer. Don't need to belabor the point. I think Tom has got a great quote from him, which is from the Rum Diaries, as he just mentioned. Let's see if this—if you can hear this. I'm curious. Tell me, like give me a signal. Are you hearing something or no? No. Okay. You can continue. I know the problem, but... What's the problem? It's just not. I thought my, like, nothing. Okay. Now you won't hear me. Now we won't hear you. Are we going to hear you ever? Okay, well actually, I think, you know, Hunter S. Thompson, amazing writer, sort of like a little bit of a hero of mine, just because of his— The palms in the past and the big sun burning down on the road ahead. I had a flash of something I hadn't felt since my first months in Europe, a mixture of ignorance and a loose, what-the-hell kind of confidence that comes upon a man when the wind picks up and he begins to move in a hard, straight line toward an unknown horizon. That's nice. That's very nice. I'm glad that you got that working in the end. So basically, I think from what I remember of this quote, he's on his way to the airport to go down to Puerto Rico, where he's basically just going to start over working as a journalist for a fledgling newspaper in Puerto Rico. And he's probably around, like, my age, early thirties, late twenties at the time of this being written. And like most of his books, it was a fictional book, but it was based very much on his life and basically nonfiction, just obviously, like, you can never really know where the truth starts and the flourishing of literature begins. But either way, he's now referencing when he was, like, first in Europe. As an early twenties vagabond journalist, and he talks about—what does he say, Tom?—the hard straight line with an unknown horizon. So where you're just basically, my impression of it is that you're just moving out into the future and you don't know where you're going and you don't really care either. It's, yeah, yeah. It's an aspect of not knowing where you're going, not caring, but I think that what I loved about it is, like, this just unstoppable force that's sort of pushing you, and you're just feeling this flow that you're caught up into, and you're headed somewhere. You don't really know where. I think you kind of do care. You know that it's something epic, and you know that it's going to be, like, a really amazing feeling. But, yeah, it's just being caught up in that feeling and, yeah, heading on to the horizon in an unstoppable manner. And I think—what do you mean by epic? Grandiose, larger than life. Something that is difficult to put into words, probably should never be put into words, can never be. Something like that. Epic in all proportions. So, you know. Is that how you felt? Did that sentiment that he hit upon, did that capture the way that you felt when you first moved over to Hungary, let's say? Yeah, no, no. When I moved here, when I was here for the interview—so Prezi used to do this crazy thing with on-site interviews. So there was a really long interview process, and at the end you had to come to the office and work for three days with your prospective team. And the idea was to make sure that you enjoyed the team and the team enjoyed you. And so they flew me from America to here for a week, and while I was here at that point... Especially after I was done with the assessment, it totally felt like that because I was back in the place that I had studied, and I was here for the reason that I created at the end of my study, like, okay, I need to be back here for a more immersive adventure. And I was there, and it was like the beginning of something, and I didn't know if I was going to get the job. I didn't know if I would live here. It was just like a taste. And after the assessment, it was all free. Like, I didn't care. Like, it was amazing to have been here, had the opportunity, and at that point I felt that just caught up in the beauty of opportunity and travel. Do you still have a harnessment of those emotions and that feeling now, or is that something that's sort of dulled with age? Because from my impression of the quote, it's like Hunter S. Thompson is sort of rediscovering this feeling, and maybe there's been like an intermediary time where he has had that sentiment or that emotion softened, and now it's sort of re-emerging. So was that something that you felt like you've ever lost at any point? Yeah, I think there's this aspect of, at least for me personally, of sort of like fluctuating from extremes, like between extremes. So there's something I learned in college about the middle way, this concept of like Buddhism or something, I don't really know. Learned it in a Chinese Buddhist class. Yeah, yeah. So the middle way is that you never feel—one interpretation of the middle way is to not be extremely happy or extremely sad or, you know, you just always ride in the middle emotion all the time. And there was another interpretation that I heard once, which is like you're constantly bouncing between extremes, which means that your average is sort of in the middle. So you might be going on some extreme travel binge for six months to a year, but after you've been traveling, bouncing from place to place for a year, That way of living becomes mundane or becomes usual, and you find comfort and, you know, you feel comfortable in this way of life, even if it is constantly changing. And then you might need a time to settle and be still. And this sort of exemplifies me wanting to go and move in Budapest, move to the outside of the city a little bit maybe, because now I'm craving this, let's be still a little bit and let's, like, just embrace and be more calm. There's no need to be in the city until, like, I don't know, there might be some relationship there. But certainly, I think to answer your original question, some of it faded with time. But then how does that correspond, like some advice that you gave me once, which I've probably taken to heart more than many of the things that you've told me? Not that I don't take a lot of it to heart, but this was one thing that I remember in particular, was like, when you find yourself in a period of comfort, that is usually the signal that, like, you should move to the next challenge. Yeah, that's coming from this saying, like, as soon as you've reached a feeling of comfort on one side, or, like, on one edge of an extreme, like, I mean, in this way of living, the middle way, at that point you should pursue the other extreme. Okay, I see. Right. But I don't think I abide by this really because it's not that easy to reach an extreme, really. I think there's—I've found at least, at least I've tricked myself into believing that there's progression to things and that... Yeah, it's hard to reach that. I don't know. Someone told me this was from work, but it's just like, as soon as you feel like you're this—yeah, it's kind of comfort. As soon as you feel like you're not being challenged by anyone around you or in whatever you're doing, it's time to leave, like if you want to grow. If you want to lead and you want to just, like, be a shepherd among men, then maybe it makes sense to, you know, you don't need to learn from people, and if you're okay with that, then. But if your goal is to grow, then you should never feel like you're the most capable person in your circle. Well, maybe if you feel like you're the most capable person in your circle, you're also, like, a little bit arrogant, and maybe you can also learn from making more challenges within. You know, I don't know. I don't think—yeah, this advice would work for someone who's, like, arrogant. Anyway. Self-aware, arrogant. No, it's all very interesting. I appreciate you talking about that. It's just making me think. It's making me think. How—okay, so how have you taken that to heart now? Were—like, are you thinking you're in the middle of an extreme switch? No, it wasn't really in the sense of extremes that I was talking about. I was more thinking, like, when you—not even the, you know, I feel that, like, successful—it's not really about success. It's more about, for example, traveling right now, for me, doesn't make a lot of sense in, like, a conventional career-oriented perspective, in the sense that, like, now I feel like after sort of three years of, like, throwing shit at the board and scratching and crawling and whatever you want to say, I finally found, like, a basis of, like, professional comfortability in Budapest where I can get— Jobs, and I can get all these things based on my particular expertise in, like, Hungarian cultural and historical matters. And this is now the time when I'm choosing to leave rather than staying and being sedentary and building upon that platform. And one of the reasons that I think that, like, I'm doing that is because I feel like that is the time when it's, like, best for me to move on to, like, a broader challenge. And not to say, like, in terms of my plans with Budapest, I still plan—I mean, Alexa and I are going to be together forever, and, you know, I'm going to be in Budapest more often than not. But at the same time, like, this year, I want to, like, test myself in new waters. And that is, like, sort of a callback to—I remember, I almost—I have a very vivid memory of you telling me, I think it was, like, the same conversation that we had with the whatever the fucking guy—I never can remember his name—the Hungarian guy, like, Janos Csikszentmihalyi, whatever the fuck. Is that it? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Yeah, yeah, that guy, that guy. And you were talking about the flow state. It was all in the same day. We might have played a game of chess. I might also be grouping, like, 20 days in my head into, like, one night that happened in Dohány utca. But either way, you said something on that proverbial night about, like, going towards a new challenge when you feel most comfortable, and that that is the way to do things. So, thanks. Absolutely. I think—and I think that you are hitting—that's cool. Yeah, yeah. I would say that this, what you've done, fits into that. Really well. And I also see why it would make sense for you too. Like, you're using the progress that you've had. Like, this is one of the best times for you to go and try another, like, creative endeavor, let's say. I think. Could be. I think it's a good idea. So, and yeah. I also, just thinking about this, making me question whether I'm properly listening to my own advice, because I sort of feel like a broken record when referring to my professional career, because I keep saying like, Oh, still learning, but, and I will leave it later. But I think that's true, though. I genuinely think I'm still growing. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And also, you're at like, I know it's kind of cliched to talk about ages, but like, you're like a different—your own life than I am, where like, you, I don't know. I mean, it's just, I feel like when you're—ah, I don't know, that's—I don't want—I think that that's kind of— Yeah, yeah. Let's—yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not really about age. But either way, you seem like you're making great process in your own career, and like, I don't know that necessarily just because you're comfortable somewhere that means that you should leave. I think that that would probably be pretty crazy advice to take in an absolute— I think this—yeah. You could—probably, for all we know, you could be leading me in a bad direction. I could end up face down in a ditch next year somewhere. Now that I remember, I think I know what this is coming from. From this Chinese poetry class I took in college, we were in this section where we were focusing on these cells. I think they're called celles or something, and they're these old tombs or like stone monuments that are found in the forests in China. From the Tang dynasty in the 700s. And there were just these, like, small, I think they're like four-line poems. They're sort of like haikus in the same way that they have a certain rhythmic nature. And I don't know, I think there was just like this—there was a lot of, like, opium involved with this. Like, people who were writing this poetry were a lot of crazy opiates. And anyway, I think this poem might have been from a crazy guy, so let's not abide too hard by this. No, I, you know what? You know what? Most visionaries are pretty crazy. Actually, you want to know what? We were in Cordoba the other day, and do you know about Cordoba? Is Cordoba the one with the crazy chapel that's like half Moorish, like half Muslim, with the crazy arches everywhere, but it's a Christian church? Exactly. Yeah. Have you been there? Yeah, that was hands—I mean, next to the Alhambra, that was so incredible, just like a crazy visual experience. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. And Cordoba actually, like during the years 900 to 1100, Cordoba was like the place to be in the entire world, at least from a Western European perspective, because Cordoba had the largest university in the world. They actually had 0.1 percent of the entire world's population. In the year 1000, Cordoba, the city, had 0.1 percent of the entire world's population. So one out of every 1,000 people in the entire world lived in Cordoba. And they had a thriving scene in terms of, like, philosophy, arts, literature, music, and it was the caliphate of Cordoba. So you had, like, the Prophet Muhammad, he came around in, like, the year 600, and after him... There was, in Saudi Arabia, or modern-day Saudi Arabia, and then in Damascus, I think in modern-day Syria, you had the caliphate. And then the caliphate moved to Baghdad, and it was the caliphate of all the Muslim territories. I don't want to bore people here with too much caliphate talk, but either way, the first separatist movement happened in Egypt with the Fatimids and their own separatist caliphate. And then in Spain, in Al-Andalus with the Moors, they also proclaimed another caliphate. So it was the caliphate of Cordoba, and it was like an enormous, basically like center of an empire, Cordoba. And that's when that mosque was built with all the crazy arches. And Cordoba was just like a triumphant, magnificent city back then, which slowly fell into disrepair and decline, and now is like a pretty beautiful city with a lot of cool archaeological historical things, but it's also kind of just like, you know, a random city in Spain. There's nothing too tremendous about it besides the magnificent history. Anyway, we went there the other day, and we saw the mosque, and we saw the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, which was like a beautiful palace. And then we met probably the craziest motherfucker I've ever met in my entire life. Just saying a lot. Yeah, I've met a lot of freaks. In fact, I think I even have like a little bit of like a magnetism towards like crazy, freakish individuals. And this guy was the biggest Cracker Jack Looney Tunes nutjob of the lot, I would probably say that. I want to hear more, and I also think you should create a little collection, like Willy's Circus or something. I mean, in the most endearing way, I mean, you know, see if we can— Like Conrad. Like Conrad. Taking a page. Exactly. Yeah, straight out of Conrad's book. Conrad spends a little bit more time with the circus. Conrad has, like, not only does he meet the freaks, but he, like, befriends them and has them, like, enter into long-term relationships with him. But either way, this guy, his name was introduced to us basically after this Palos de los Reyes Cristianos. Alex and I wanted to go to this archaeological site called the Medina Zahara, and it was like a site of archaeological ruins a little bit outside the city. It said on Google Maps that it closed at seven, and it's about 5:30, so we figured, okay, we're gonna get a quick drink at this bar and then go there. And we got a drink. I think I got a very nice cold beer, probably an Alhambra beer, actually, yeah, in a giant, like, goblet. For some reason they serve the large beers in, like, huge goblet-shaped wine glasses in Spain. And then Alex got a Coca-Cola sin azúcar, without sugar. And pretty soon into our initial sips, this guy who was sitting at the bar, scraggly-looking fellow, very Spanish-looking, but, like, a little bit more, like, dark complexion, swarthy, and he was wearing suspenders, kind of haggard-looking, actually, like a little bit pseudo-potentially alcoholic homeless. He came over to us and he said something along the lines of, Are you married? Sort of joked, like, oh, the lines are blurred, like whatever. And he took that as, like, a little bit of bait and just started rambling, rambling, rambling about God knows what. After about two minutes of his nonsense, like, he went and sat down, and he had, like, this huge dog. I don't even know if it was his, but this huge sort of massive white, very cute golden retriever-ish looking dog kept coming up to our table, and he was saying things to it sort of belligerently. Eventually this all died down. And I, like, wanting to capture the scene because I was in the middle of making a YouTube video, I pointed the GoPro over in his direction. And it was almost like a fisherman, like, getting a fish on a hook, because immediately he came over to the table and asked us if he could sit down. And he said his name was Juan and all this stuff. All this is in English. It’s all in English, yeah. It’s all in English. It’s very, like, broken English, but also, like, clearly, like, intelligent and, like, high-functioning brain capacity. Like, everything was, like, weird, but, like, very intelligent and quick and quick and quick and quick. And I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, which, you know, for me, like, I can’t usually shut up, so it was, like, just ranting about various subjects. And then he, like, showed us this book that he had been sitting with at the bar. And there was another copy of the book behind the bar inside a basket. And he told us that he wrote the book and he was an author. And I open up the book and I see this, like, picture, and it doesn’t look anything like him, but, like, the nose is exactly the same. He just looks like literally, like, 50 years younger. And it said that it was written in, like, 2013, so only, like, seven years ago. But either way, like, this guy who was, like, a fairly, like, young-looking, not handsome, but clean-shaven, well-adjusted member of society had now transformed into, like, a deranged, deranged-looking person. But he was an author of a book, and so he seemed, like, you know, legit as far as, like, legit can go. But the book was written by David Samar, and I was like, dude, are you Juan or are you David? And then he just, like, started talking, and for the next 10 minutes didn’t shut up once. Saying, Oh, but I am schizophrenic, I am this, that, something about Picasso locked up in his studio, so many things I couldn't keep track. At some point, he invited Alexa and I to come up with him into his apartment and said we would have a one-of-a-kind view over the city of Córdoba, over the magical river of the Guadalquivir, and, like, all this crazy stuff. And he's like, My 18- and 19-year-old niece and nephew are going to be there. And, like, to me, it sounded a little bit like, okay, like maybe, you know, as crazy as this guy is, maybe this is like a sign, like, yeah, let's just go. This could be fun. But then he started to veer onto, like, the side of, like, too crazy, and he got super annoying, and he started talking about just, like, all this nonsense. And then we said, Oh, the time is getting late. This place closes at seven. We want to go to the Medina Zahara, to which he instantly responded, Oh, I'm making a documentary about this Medina Zahara. I will take you there in my car. And we were like, Well, we have a car. He's like, I will come with you. I will smoke marijuana. I will come with you to the Medina Zahara. But it's closed now. And we're like, No, it closes at seven. He's like, No, no, no, they're not going to let you in. They're not going to let you in. This actually ended up being the only thing that he was correct about, was that, yeah, that's true. They did not let us in, which was fucking his fault. But regardless, he starts, like, continually going on about all this crazy shit, and, like, we kind of made it clear to him that we had to leave, but he wanted us to come to his apartment and all this stuff. So he said, like, Okay, I'll take your number down. And he was like, How long are you staying in Córdoba? And then I said, Well, we're just staying here for another few hours. At this point, he said, like, he had already introduced himself, but, like, he said, What is your name? And he shook my hand. I said, Willie. He said, What is your name? Alexa shook her hand. And then he stood up and, like, took—he had, like, three pairs of sunglasses for some reason, and he took one, like, one of them on, put the other in his pocket, and he said— I cannot believe you will stay in my magnificent city, historical city of Córdoba, for only one day. It is at this point that I am insulted, and I will abandon you forever. And then he, like, started to walk away, and then came back and kept fucking badgering us for the next ten minutes. Finally, we left. We got to this archaeological site, and the last bus that takes you from the main center to the ruins had left, like, three minutes before, so it was all his fucking fault that we missed it. And then— Did you get to the bottom of this guy? I mean, did you ask him, anybody at the bar, like, what the deal with this guy is? No, no, because he was, like, seemingly like a member of the community, and, like, the waitress kept kind of, like, giving us little side glances. But, like, I don't know. To be honest with you, I think he was just, like, the local crazy person, a little bit deranged, and he probably does this every day. I mean, it seems like— Do you think he wrote the book? Yes. Yes, definitely. I definitely think he wrote the book. It was him, and he also, like— I'm telling you, he wasn't like your, like, bog-standard, just, like, random guy off the street that was talking nonsense. Like, he was saying, like, somewhat intelligent things, and he just veered onto the side of, like, too annoying to go and take the chance. There was a little bit of me that, like, maybe would have done it if I was alone. But, like, I'm also glad—there's no regret about not going with him. Like, I don't think it would have been fun, because he wouldn't let you talk. Like, you couldn't say anything, and he didn't ask any questions. He just went and went and went, and it started out, like, entertaining and quirky and kind of idiosyncratic, but then it veered, like, just on that, like, wobbling edge of, like, annoying and, like, didn't want to be around sort of bad energy. But, yeah, he was also kind of, like, charming and nice, but he was just—he was too far off the deep end. I think something happened with him since he wrote that book that just... anyway, enough about him. Since I met him, by the way, I've now told this story about him, like, probably much more than I've told stories about other people that I met. He has somehow, like, incepted himself into my mind. And another thing before we move on— Maybe you will become this guy. I hope not. I really, really hope not. Let's hope not. If I become this guy, I'm holding you responsible because you should have told me way before that final step happens, unless I'm way closer than I thought I was. I will hold you personally responsible for my erratic behavior. Fair enough. I will be held responsible. All right, let's move on from David Wan, whatever the fuck. He's David Wan. He's David Wan. All right. So how about, so do you have any other, like, wild stories from your recent adventures? Yeah, I mean, we close it out. Go ahead. Yeah, I think we should probably wrap up pretty soon. We've had about a good hour and a half of talking now. I think anything beyond that, and we might be heading into the realms of hedonistic indulgence. But then again, this has been a very wonderful chat, so, you know, it could probably go on for another 30 minutes. I was going to say, should we close it out with a little Georgia, with a little, just a little, just a little Georgia idea party, just for five minutes, just to see where we're at, where we might be going? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you filibuster for 30 seconds? 30 seconds. Filibuster. Yeah, I counted, I counted, actually. It only takes me 30 seconds to pee before while I was sitting in the green room. Yeah, to filibuster a bit about these projects. This brain reader thing is going to be cool. Well, actually, let's talk about this Croatian wine we've got here, Slatan Plavac. So. Doing with this wine is pretty simple. I bought it in the store because it has the name Zlatan. And I get the lookalike callout with Zlatan Ibrahimović quite a bit when I put my hair up and I have a goatee and I, you know, play soccer. So basically—well, that's crazy. Some applause there. So yeah, I just bought it in the store because it had Zlatan in it, and sometimes people call me Zlatan, which is pretty nice. And it's a pretty cool wine. And to cover this brain computer—oh, here—oh, Willie's back. Was talking about the wine I was drinking. Caught me mid-fill of us. Mid-fill of us. What were you saying about the wine that you're drinking? It's from the Zlatan winery in Dalmatia, in Croatia. I bought it only because of the winery's name on the first day, and then I bought almost exclusively Zlatan wine after that. Is it a Hungarian wine? No, it's Croatian. This is part of my alcoholic goodie bag that I brought back from Horvátország. Yo, nagyon jó. And speaking of wine in other countries, we want to just wrap up with, like, discussing a little bit of talk about Georgia. So first, let's lay out, like, before we say any specifics, what do we still have to do? Because we have our flights there. I don't know about you and Vivian, but Alexa and I still have to buy our flights back to the States. Have you done that? We have our flights to the States. And we have our flights to Georgia. We need to buy our flights back, but that's to Hungary. Okay, so forget about the flights to the States. Have our flights to Georgia. Did you, by the way, did you get like some weird notification from Turkish Airlines saying that the flight was changed, but it was only like two minutes? Yeah, that was bizarre. But forget it. You know, get me all worked up into a— Shit's going on in Turkey right now, by the way. I don't know if you know this, but like Turkish citizens are not allowed out. There's like a hardcore lockdown. But if you're a tourist in Turkey, you can do whatever you want, apparently. I talked to some Turkish people the other day. That sounds very strange, and it also validates my initial decision to go to Georgia instead of Turkey, because initially we were thinking about going to Turkey, and I said the coronavirus situation looks like it's spiraling out of control there. I don't trust the Turkish government. I mean, we want to— don't sidetrack this conversation with talk about, like, reprehensible dictators, but Erdogan, fuck that guy. Anyway, much better to be going to Georgia. So now what we still have to do in terms of, like, what our plans are in Georgia is decide, like, how we're going to carve up this two-week period. We have Tbilisi, and we have to be there at the beginning, and we have to be there at the end because of the flight situation and because Tbilisi is a great city. And then within that chunk of two weeks, we pretty much can do whatever we want. We could probably even go to other countries, but, like, just for the sake of, like, keeping ourselves sane, let's keep it in the beautiful country of Georgia, and now we have to decide where we're going to go. Right. And I think, again, like I said, my priority is backyards. I want to find myself some Georgian backyards, see how they cook meals when they're hanging out outside. See what they do and just chug some wine while doing cheers. That's pretty much my only goal over there. All right, well that sounds good. So then if that's our main goal, then we have to put ourselves in the best position to, like, get into a backyard. And if you want to get into a backyard, you have to, like, probably spend a little bit of time in each place that you're in. So I think that that helps set up the skeleton of our trip. I mean, Tbilisi, which should be our easiest backyard to get into because, like, we know some people there in terms of, like, Nino and all that, but, like, almost that's almost not probably what we're even— Anyway, Tbilisi will be the easiest place to, like, meet people and have a sense of community. And then there's the rest of the trip. And I would say, if we're thinking of breaking this down, if we're there for 14 days, we'd probably want to spend—what would you say? Would you be more of, like, a five days in Tbilisi, nine days in the country guy, or would you be more of, like, a seven and seven guy? Well, it— I'm down to split it down the middle. I mean, I'm down to spend half the time in Tbilisi and the other half elsewhere. Okay. But like you said, we're— Yeah. Well, that does limit you in some respects, because then that makes it so that—I mean, a seven-day road trip sounds great, but that also, like, in terms of feeling comfortable in a place, you probably want at least two or three days. So then that means that you have, in between Tbilisi, if there's only seven days, you have maximum probably three destinations, which doesn't sound too bad, actually. Yeah, from Tbilisi, yeah. I mean, I was thinking, like, one or two other places than Tbilisi, but I'm also a bit of, like, a hermit, so let's not let me drive. No, no, no, no. I like that. I like that, and I think that also allows you to get into more backyards potentially, because then you have, like, a bigger, like, rootedness in the community that you're in. And after, you know, you talk about travel days, if you're staying in a place for four days, then, you know, the first day and the last day don't really count. So then you have, like, two days potentially to go backyard somewhere. And the first day is probably going to be kind of tough. First day is going to be doing a lot of spy shit, trying to scope out places where there's an easy entrance, where you can break through the wall maybe. Who's not home? You know, who's got a pool? Who has friendly-looking dogs? You know, these are the kind of analyses we need at least one day for. So I'm just imagining you, like, scaling a massive wall and just, I finally got into a fucking backyard. Just getting tased on the way over and falling. Oh no. Hope it was worth it. Anyway, yeah. So maybe, okay. So now, forgetting about the days, because that's, like, insignificant, we need to find places to stay in Tbilisi, and also, like, which of the magnificent destinations in Georgia are, like, good base camps for exploring further places in the region. Because I think that will be probably the way to do it, is, like, look at, like, a basic route to take from Tbilisi to place one, to place two, back to Tbilisi, and then think about which of those two places give us good vantage points for taking day trips or just, like, good views of nature and whatever you will have. So, I don't know. I personally probably need to do a little bit more research into that. Me too. I think that I'm happy to say that we have, like, the basic skeleton of our trip. Sort of figured out. And a lot of it, like always, will be based on the parameters that are handed us, and we'll see what kind of accommodations exist and take it from there. Sounds like a plan to me. I'll just research, figure out what looks cool. We should send Nino a message, make it clear that we're trying to get into a backyard, see if she has one. We're gonna take our tents through her house. Like, I thought you knew we wanted to be in a backyard. I thought you understood what this request meant. We want to be in a backyard. I don't even have a backyard. What are you talking about? All right. All right. On that note, on that note, I think that we will just say everyone should try to get into as many backyards as possible this summer. This has been another wonderful thought-provoking episode of Talking with Willie and Tom. I've heard there's a little bit of a rebrand potentially in the works so that we can do hashtag twat, even though that's missing one of the Ws. But either way, I think it works. It's very harmonious. It's got a nice sort of je ne sais quoi, if you say quoi. And yeah, you know, that's all you got to say. Anything else, Tom? Full throttle. Into the horizon. As always, much love to all out there. Don't forget to head into that unknown spot on the horizon with that flow of life behind you. Something like that. As fast as possible, as fast as humanly possible. All right, thank you everyone. See you off Stokminiknek, and we will see you very soon.