This week on All the Feelings: Sins & Virtues, Tommy and Pete explore the sin of gluttony, exploring its historical and cultural evolution. From its origins as a necessary caution against overconsumption in times of scarcity to its modern-day manifestation in our capitalist society, gluttony takes on new and surprising forms.Our insatiable appetite for more than just food has led to a culture of excess, where instant gratification and the pursuit of profit often come at the expense of our planet and future generations. But can we really blame ourselves? Amazon's ability to deliver our every whim overnight has warped our perception of normal. Maybe that has something to do with it? We’ll never know.And speaking of insatiable appetites, Tommy confesses to a gluttonous indulgence of his own: negative fantasies. He's been gorging on imagined slights and criticisms, experiencing what he calls "daymares." Tune in as Tommy and Pete try to unravel the root of these anxieties and explore the ways in which our thoughts can consume us if we're not careful. ---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. Visit our website to learn more.
Here's another show you can enjoy in the True Story FM family of entertainment podcasts. Hey, Pete, ever wonder what Steven Spielberg's favorite film is? You know, Andy, I've heard he loves classics like Lawrence of Arabia, Meet Me in St. Louis. Imagine chatting with him about why those films resonate with him so much. That's exactly what we do on our podcast, Movies We Like.
We've had incredible guests like actress Dee Wallace, cinematographer Eric Messerschmidt, director Steve Miner, and former Disney animators Tom and Tony Bancroft.
They share their favorite films and the impact they've had on their careers, offering fascinating insights into the craftsmanship and storytelling techniques that make these movies so special.
If you're curious about the magic behind the scenes, subscribe to Movies We Like from True Story FM on your favorite podcast app. New episodes are released on the fourth Monday of each month with early access for our members.
Join us on Movies We Like as we explore the movies we all like with the people who make them. And Stephen, our people will call your people. Let's make this happen, puppy. Subscribe today.
What's up, most excellent friends?
It's Chrissy and Nathan from the Most Excellent 80s Movies Podcast.
It's a podcast where a filmmaker and a comedian and their most excellent guests adventure their way through the 80s movies we think we love or might have missed with our grown-up eyes to see how they hold up.
Join us for delightful discussion, rollicking recaps, ratings, and deep-cut recommendations.
Plus, members get some extra fun chit-chat with the hosts after the show.
Download the most excellent 80s movies podcast today at truestory.fm.
Or find it wherever the finest podcasts are stored.
And do remember to keep the most excellent 80s movies podcast motto in mind.
Be excellent to each other and... Party on, dudes.
All the Feelings presents Sins and Virtues. This episode... Gluttony.
Ooh-wee! We got a humdinger today, Pete.
Oh, we're on the farm. We're on the ranch.
We're on the farm, and we're knee-deep in the trough.
Yes.
Because, well, we're back to the sin side. The last one we did, what did we just do? Chastity?
We did Chastity. That was good. You'll remember Chastity because of the Bluetooth-enabled lock for your genitals.
And like Bitcoin, I immediately forgot the password.
And I am hurting. And today, yeah, we're talking about gluttony. We're talking about gluttony over the years and our relationship with gluttonous behavior. And, oh, I'm here for it. It's once again, like chastity, made me a little mad.
Interesting. I want to hear what you're so angry about. But wait, what are you angry about? What are we really talking about today?
Well, in order to get there, we need to engage the support of our own AI malcontent, the ATF robot. Robot?
Gluttony. Noun. A. Given habitually to greedy and voracious eating and drinking. B.
a great capacity for accepting or enduring something okay so yes i normally think about it as well because everything i do every morning i get up i watch seven david fincher's seven just over my morning uh constitutional yeah yeah um and i always think about it as gluttony being just um
um voracious eating and drinking but then yeah i mean if i'm caught up with a phrase of quick use glutton gluttony or gluttony in a phrase it's glutton for punishment and that doesn't have to do with eating or drinking at all no it really doesn't what's so interesting about this and you know how much i love cracking on the uh ancient religious scholars who penalized eating
It's just fascinating to me where this came from, right? Because, of course, gluttony is classified as one of the seven deadly sins, naturally. It's why we're here. But why? Why was it a deadly sin? Do you know? Like, do you have a sense?
Only my only guess would be and I'm just thinking about this for the first time is that it's taking more of your share. So it's robbing it from people that might need it. And so it's wasteful, but it also has potential effects on those around you. You're taking out of the mouths of babes. Sorry.
Yes. I think about Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When I think about this concept, because what you just said is spot on. Right. And in the beginning, in the medieval times, right. When you had like, you remember when they have the filth farmers, they come and talk to the people and they're like, Oh, and they're just like moving. And they're just moving mud around. Right.
And they, they start talking about politics. And I think that's really, really funny because, you know, the church is,
came together and said gluttony is a serious moral failing right if you are taking more as you said more of than your share then you are contributing to moral decay and spiritual emptiness but also we don't have the capacity to make enough food for everyone so we need you all to believe that it's a moral failing so you won't eat so much so it's just a survivor manual again right Yeah. Right.
And so being religious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly it. And that's why when food production improves, it's the French who are the first to lift up their heads and say, hey, you know what? It turns out we actually like food and. When we put our minds and hearts to it, we're really good at it. And so they came up with this synonym for gluttony, gourmandise, which is the variant gourmand, right?
Gourmet. That's a synonym for gluttony that has a positive connotation.
a twist to it right it is an appreciation of indulgence in food indulgence in amount or indulgence in like how fancy it is because i think of gourmet not as like overeating but definitely you know taking all the best parts of everything and putting them all together
Well, I think you're right on both counts, right? But what we're talking about here is that food production improves, scarcity decreases, attitudes change, right? And gluttony becomes something that's less of a cardinal sin and more of a, I ate too much and I'm sick. And that leads to more modern sort of interpretations of gluttony.
And I think that's where it gets really interesting because we have... You know, the certain understanding of eating and mental health, eating disorders, binge eating disorder. Right. And those are very, very complicated mental health disorders. But there are actually reports of religious figures petitioning the pope to say we need to take gluttony off the list. It's just it's really too much.
Yeah, there are. It's just a really sort of complicated, you know, complicated thing. And because we have such a moral, it has such moral weight, it's hard to change cultures. But just like the French did, when scarcity decreased, you can change cultural identity around culture.
gluttony so i think it's really interesting and gluttony has the way it's evolved over time is when the first thing i think of when i think of gluttony is seven and the second thing i think of when i think of gluttony is wall street oh sure oh sure right
So that's the thing that's actually more interesting to me about all of this is that it went from this thing that we were so preoccupied with food and having this moral failing, spiritual emptiness related to food. And now gluttony implies greed of other things, taking more than your share. How do you relate to that?
Well, how do you separate gluttony from greed then? Because those are two different things.
sin that's interesting i've never thought about the relationship between the two before isn't that interesting i think it's really interesting how do you separate gluttony from greed like gluttony is and maybe that's why we're you know we look at the changing impact of gluttony as a cardinal sin it's sort of already covered right right it's also already covered in lust right like uh you know we've got this sort of over indulgence in a thing and we have decided
you know generations ago that it's a bad thing but when you stop and and look at it maybe it's is it a bad thing in and of itself uh should we change the way we look at it uh i don't know one thing that i just shooting from the hip that i separate greed and i don't think this is even if you look at the definitions i don't know if this checks out but greed seems more like hoarding like i want all of that and i'm going to keep it in my back room gluttony is i want all that i'm going to consume it
Yeah, okay.
Like gluttony seems like more of a use of something, for better or for worse, whereas greed is just being sort of a miser.
Yeah, I can totally get that. And I think that's why we get so much. That's why I think about Wall Street, right? Right. That's why I think about this idea of gluttony and its relationship to capitalism.
Yeah.
And the change from feudalism to a capitalist market was a drive for power and acquisition and consumption, right? And that's sort of how we land here. where we are today, a consumerist society that has no real democratic, significant democratic ownership of goods. And as a result, we each need our own thing of everything that we have, and we need to consume
And when COVID strikes, we need all the toilet paper. We're in buttons for a toilet paper. Right. Like those those kinds of things, I think, are are a really interesting model for how we think of acquisition and consumption and frankly, continuous growth and profit. Right. Profit is we can be gluttons for profit, too. Sure. So it feels to me this is why I think this is so interesting.
Like if you look at the bell curve of like, you know, understanding of gluttony, it starts as a moral sin, but it's a moral sin to drive appropriate consumption of food because we can't produce enough food and people are starving. Then we figure out how to handle food. That changes in the Middle Ages a little bit.
And we have entire cultures that develop around appreciating food and eating a lot of it, especially when we look at, you know, the royals, right? Like those are the best examples of lampooning gluttony, right? Is that they have these feasts of forging themselves. Like that's the stereotype. Gluttony changes and it's sort of becoming a sin again, right? Right.
Like we look at the people who are hurt by a culture of consumption and profit, the furthers class separation. And I think that's all rooted in sort of the evolution of gluttony toward capitalism.
Yeah. Well, and there's there's so many more now that you're bringing it up that way and opening it back up to capitalism. There's so many byproducts of a gluttonous system where we have, you know, even just like single use plastics and everything is wrapped in this tiny little wrapper.
And then it all goes to a landfill and then it all affects future generations that it's not just I'm really full. I ate too much pie. Instead, it's I ate too much pie and I'm blocking out the sun with my horrible, with the ramifications of me doing so many single serves, so many, don't think about the future, just think about the future. Yeah.
Well, and you I think you just made a really good point that it's that it is gluttony is the immediacy of consumption to write like that is the present that's living in the now and consuming in the now. Like, yeah, like being able to to do that. Do you have a tendency to be a glutton over anything?
Well, we're going to talk about it. During my – I have been gorging on one thing in particular, and I'm not exactly sure why, and it's not what you think. Is that a BuzzFeed title? Yeah. And number eight will surprise you. No, I just assumed you were thinking ice cream sandwiches. For once, it's not ice cream sandwiches. Oh, you know what I haven't had in a long time? Ice cream sandwiches.
I got to write that down. But no, like when I get a hankering for something, let's say just food or drink, I never want like nine of them. That's the kind of thing I think I always assumed. I think I was such an aspirational glutton as so many people are when they were a kid.
Because when you're a kid and you don't have any money and you don't have any agency, you're like, when I grow up, I'm going to have all of the Skittles, every single Skittle, and I'm going to melt them all into one enormous Skittle and then like eat my way in and then eat my way out. And now I'm like, Yeah, I have like three Skittles when I walk Foster. That's enough.
Kind of makes my tongue hurt after too many.
You know what hurts? Citric acid. Like, I love tartness. And after a while, it's like eating a syringe. Like, why am I doing this? It's just prickly. That's not fun. That's evolution's way of keeping us alive. Yeah. It keeps us alive because it wants us to get older, to experience all these things. And then by the time we're alive, we're like, oh, right. A lot of joy is dead. So I'm not going to.
Make the world's biggest skittle instead. I'm probably going to have like a salad.
100%.
So this is what I'm getting at. And I feel like this was the interesting awakening for me is that this cardinal sin of gluttony, this thing that is in this movie that is so important to both of us that was a horrific, sequence in the movie, you know, this cardinal sin actually sprouted a whole new thing for us to feel bad about, right?
That we have created this overconsumption culture that is truly damaging because we're only able to live in the present. And I think that the shift towards sustainable consumption has to involve
reducing individual consumption, just like the pope did in the 17th century, and also challenges these underlying economic systems and social structures and things that we've put into place that are poisoning us.
And yeah, and the market has rewarded us. I mean, Amazon. The idea of getting whatever you want a day after you order it, that's insane.
Or by like six o'clock that night.
But it became sane really quick. And now if you order something and it shows up two days later, Amazon's like, I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
What are you talking about? Sorry. Exactly. Oh my God.
This is what I've been thinking about so much, which is just, and I think you, you just opened the door to it, which is how quickly we trick ourselves into believing this thing is normal and indispensable.
Oh, sure. Right. And it becomes normalized. And so therefore any deviation from that, it's yeah, we, the, we have the elephant, we have the elephant, we have the memory, right? What of a fruit fly? Where did elephant? Oh, because elephants have really big memories. Elephants have great memories. Yeah.
So like an elephant fruit fly, we have extremely ephemeral memories when something new, when we level up, all of a sudden that becomes like the floor again. Yeah. And we don't spend a lot of time being like, wow, remember when instead of why not even, why not even faster? Why not even faster?
And it goes back to what you were saying earlier, like as a kid, like someday I'll – well, as soon as the floor resets, someday I'll have all of the whatever it is that we are fascinated about. So I think it's really – like I laugh about it because – It is to keep you from screaming, not laugh. You would be screaming. Right.
That's that's kind of where I feel like I started reading about this stuff. I was like, oh, this will be a fun one because, you know, that scene in seven is so great and gross and we'll talk about food. And then I realized, oh, this is actually actually underpins the unraveling of our entire culture and society. So that's great. That does not feel as good as I wanted it to.
I better have a Snickers.
Yeah, exactly. It's like overnighting from Amazon a how to survive the dystopian society kit. But you need it right away. Yeah. You need it with free shipping. How to make fire in your living room because there's no more power. There's no more. Right.
100%.
Yeah. When can I, when can I, how can you overnight this self-fulfilling prophecy? Yeah.
Gluttony by Joseph S. Salemi.
A fixed and immutable law, says your belly and gullet and ma, demands satisfaction and digestive action, so stuff what you can in your craw. Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign that something is eating us.
When novelist Peter DeVries shared that thought in 1961, one wonders if he was somehow able to predict the future of North American fast food, a place where new levels of culinary horror are offered every year in an attempt to redefine gluttony itself.
It's hard to pin down exactly where to start clocking humanity constructing this tower of gobble, but 2010 shines as a banner year for both artery clogging and insane fast food creations. First advertised on April 1st and originally assumed to be a practical joke, KFC launched the Double Down, a heavily sauced bacon and cheese sandwich that used two pieces of fried chicken as the bun.
Washington Post food critic Tom Saitsema reviewed it, saying, quote, There's nothing really enjoyable about eating this other than the fact that you accomplished it. It's sort of a poor man's Everest.
Not to be outdone, later that year, Wendy's offered up their own barely digestible calorie mountain named the Quadruple Baconator, an update on their original Baconator, which was a sandwich sent back from the future to give the American people heart disease. It consisted of four quarter pound patties, 12 slices of bacon, mayonnaise and ketchup, and one would assume an insulin chaser.
Speaking of food mountains, four years later, Arby's offered up its own towering creation, and their sandwich was actually called the Meat Mountain. The $13 sandwich was made up of turkey, ham, corned beef, brisket, Angus steak, roast beef, bacon, chicken tenders, Swiss cheese, and cheddar.
Of course, the response to this food disaster piece was immediately negative, and the sandwich was quickly pulled from the menu. Just kidding. You can apparently still order the Meat Mountain today. And since 2017, you have the option of adding a fish fillet to the meat orgy in case you want the chance to eat all of God's creatures all at the same time.
Speaking of creatures, this progression has continued in Dietary Creatures Great and Small. And what of little old KFC, the chain who arguably started it all with its fried chicken as buns science experiment?
Seven years after introducing the Double Down, the chicken chain limped back into the ring with the Kentucky Fried Chicken and Donuts sandwich, this time putting the chicken in the middle and using two full-glazed donuts as the bun. It was an offering that would once have seemed outlandish, but was now just more fried food for the trough.
Nevertheless, while Colonel Sanders may not have won the war, he certainly started the battle. Rest well, Colonel. We thank you for your service. Want to gorge on something while you both tighten your belt and loosen your purse strings? Then tuck into allthefeelings.fun and pig out on all the amazing features you'll receive as a feeling friend.
For just the one-time blue plate special price of $35, you'll get exclusive access to live streams, delicious special bonus content for each episode, and special member-only episodes that you can shove in your ear pie holes. What? Okay, plus you'll get access to our trailer library featuring famous voiceover talent.
And you can corned beef hash things out with us on our Discord channel and so much more. So put down the Ozempic and pick up your keyboard and head over to allthefeelings.fun and dig in. And now, back to the show. And now, a thought about gluttony from Fergie.
I'm famous for splurging at fast food places. I'm currently obsessed with Taco Bell's bean and cheese burritos with extra green sauce and extra cheese. Gluttony.
Peter, we are seven eps in, and I think things are going both hunky and dory. How about you?
Oh, absolutely. The twins of success, hunky and dory.
Hunky and dory. That being said, I know I've been neglecting my duties so far this season, and it's high time I owned up to it. Pete, we are long overdue for a WTS slash ATF guided meditation. Are you ready?
I can't believe it's been so long.
It's been a long time, right? Yeah, do it. All right, everyone. You know the steps. Take off your shoes and socks. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And clear your mind. Envision yourself outside. The warm sunlight on your face. The cool grass on the soles of your feet. Because as usual in these meditations, you are barefoot.
And as usual, you hear that same inexplicable construction site nearby. There's always a construction site nearby, but you're not heading over there right now. And you're relaxed and you're breathing in. And you remember something funny your wife said at dinner last night. And you smile and you're relaxed. And then you hear the construction workers in the distance chattering as they work.
And then you think back to the dinner again and... Actually, did your wife seem exasperated with you? I mean, she was laughing, but was there an edge to it? And you're breathing and you see the construction workers look your way and you're relaxed. And all of a sudden the construction workers get a bit quieter. Are they talking about you? maybe about what you're wearing.
You've worried that maybe the T-shirt you're wearing is too tight and that people think the same thing but are too afraid to tell you and you're relaxed. And you hear a bird chirping and wait, that's not a chirp. Is that bird laughing at you because of your T-shirt?
Or does your hair look a little weird from the top, but it's hard for you to see because the angle, and everyone thinks so, but won't tell you when you're breathing. And now you're wondering if your wife told the construction workers how exasperated you are, and that's why they're still stealing glances your way.
And now you're having trouble stopping your thoughts as they rush in faster and faster, and you open your eyes, relaxed and refreshed. Wake up. Wait, that wasn't, that's what you do for hypnotism. This was just a guided, doesn't guided meditation end with, That's what they say.
When you're coming out of a meditation, it's best to do it like cold turkey. As abruptly as possible. As abruptly as possible. Yeah. You just have like an air horn next to your box of Kleenexes. Right. How are you feeling, Pete? Feel good? I don't understand why you decided to, your segment made me feel so bad. Yeah.
Yeah. For this episode, I would like to combine our current seasonal topic of gluttony with a throwback of sorts to our What's That Smell days, where we talked about individual anxieties we are going through.
Yeah.
Because I am going through something, and it snuck up on me, and I don't know where it's coming from. I do not have an answer for this segment. I want to sort of work through it a little bit together in the hopes that either talking about it will help. You may have some insight. The lines are open if you want to call in. Just kidding.
That's not a thing.
Mm-hmm. So you remember the second part of the definition that the robot read on top was having a great capacity for accepting or enduring something. Yeah. Okay. So gluttony. I have been, as I said, up top, I've been gorging myself on one thing for the last few weeks.
Construction sites.
And I'm not sure why the menu isn't changing. Pete, I cannot get enough of these construction sites. No. No, for once, it's not nachos. It's not ice cream sandwiches. I am gorging myself on negative thoughts that I'm imagining people are having about me. that has always been on the menu for me, but it has become so prevalent that something has shifted. And I don't know why.
In other words, for the listener, I'm having negative fantasies and filling in conversational voids with negativity pointed my way from other people. Uh, and it's gotten really strong and really consistent. I have started, I've restarted calling them a day mares. It's not like, cause it's not daydreams. It's day mares. Um, May I give you a very quick for instance?
Well, I just want to ask because I'm such a narcissist. What have I been saying about – what has Head Pete been saying to you? You are free and clear.
Am I?
Yes. Okay.
That's wonderful. That's a good way to maybe start. Especially because you put the word narcissism in it. But no, that's true because the first thing that if someone said that to me, I, not narcissistic like you, you're actually being empathetic. What you're saying is, have I been, do you have me adding to this hypothetical made up problem? If so, I want to take myself off that list.
You are not on this list at all.
Yeah, good. Because if your ears are burning and literally on fire, that's a problem.
That would be, yes. Well, they are because I can't use air conditioning in my dumb apartment while we record. But here is an example, and I'm not going to use really any proper nouns for the most part, but just in the past, let's say two weeks, I made a quick note of things. I convinced myself that I did a terrible job and a performance that I was actually really proud of.
I was really proud of it. I did well. Later, I convinced myself I did a bad job. And then I went on to assume that the director of that show was disappointed in me, as was her husband, because her husband didn't particularly say, I loved you in this performance. So, of course, they are both talking about how I did a bad job and let the show down.
And after another friend described she's going through some imposter syndrome for a class that she's going to be teaching, I wrote her some things that I've learned after my struggles with imposter syndrome and gave her just like a tip or two about how to try to get out of your own head, focusing on what you know. And she said she'd print it out and look at it every day. She was very thankful.
And I felt great. And then I tore it apart, imagining that she was rolling her eyes and just saying that. So I'd stop trying to help. And as we talked about in the Feeling Friends cold open, I was recently on a family trip in Florida. And at one point, my uncle walked, I was staying with my uncle, my parents were staying in a hotel.
And at the end of the night, my uncle walked them out to their rental car. And it took a little while for him to come back in. This is – anyways, I decided that they were – They must have been talking about you. Yeah, that they were talking about me and probably how much weight I've gained, even though I have not gained a bunch of weight. But that's where I decided. That's what it must have been.
Yeah. It's coming at all times now, and I don't know why. And I want to talk it out because, again, I do believe this is a form of gluttony. I am force feeding myself with these daymares all the time. And it feels just real quick because you brought up narcissism.
It also feels especially gluttonous and ironically greedy because even though it's negative press, it imagines a world where everyone is talking about me all the time.
Yeah.
So there's no good side of this. I'm shining a spotlight on myself suffering from spotlight syndrome, but I'm in charge of the light.
Yes. You're in charge of the light and the cues and everything. Right. Right.
Something has really gotten through and I'm, I'm finding myself three sentences in to this daymare before I realize what I'm doing. When did it start? You remember when it started? I would like to say there's I tried as hard as I could to find a flashpoint. But it feels I've been really noticing it within the last like three to four weeks.
Three to four weeks. All right. What was the what was the first one? Was that the show that you did?
That was one of them. Yeah. Yes, I performed. I was a closer in the show.
Yeah.
And I felt I did a good job. And then I saw the video. Oh, okay. Yeah, I saw the video later. I forget that the video always seems a lot flatter than it felt like during the time. And then... I filled in the void, meaning people stopped talking about the show. It was like a week or two after the show. Oh, so no, let me make this about a month and a half. Then I'm starting to spread back.
So like two weeks after the show, no one's talking about the show anymore other than words like this. But so I filled in all that silence with misremembering. If I'm rational, I can say misremembering glances, misremembering silence. And to the point that I actually apologized to the director and, And she said, I did. And she said, I said, I hope I didn't let you down.
She says, I haven't watched the video, but the video is always so much flatter and everything. I remember being fun and exciting. Yeah. And I was like, okay, good. But, you know, text or text and you can reread them however you want.
Like, it's just, I think it's sometimes good to remind yourself in the cold light of podcasts. What is the utility of that? Right. Like so rethinking about that. And I you know, it's sort of a meaning. What do I see? What do I think I'm getting out of it? What is the utility of of relitigating your performance in that video after the the initial curve of enthusiasm has has sort of gone down?
Just of that video in particular or just of that performance? You want to keep it detailed?
Let's just start with the performance because I think that's the interesting thing. You picked up on this performance and you felt so strongly about your head canon of it that you decided to initiate a review of it with the director. Right? And you open yourself up to criticism in a way that feels a little bit like... You know, remember the young ones at Great British Show?
No, but I've heard of it. It was like an MTV. It was on MTV here, right?
Yeah, BBC, MTV. Yeah, it was on MTV here.
And there's a sequence where one of the characters is like... Hey, Rick, man, what are you doing with my crucifix, man? I really think I should lay this one on you, man. That's a really negative way to kill yourself, you know? Like, I've tried it hundreds of times. There's no way you can hammer in the last nail.
It's just awful. British humor is outstanding. But that's kind of what it feels like to me, right? Like, it's all dissipated. So I want to ask the utility of opening this up again and trying to find pain and recruit others into examining pain on your behalf. Right. How good is it?
Well, the answer is none. But irrationally, I think... There's two things going on. There's potentially... I didn't know it at the time, but there's potentially a poor me, poor me, give me compliments. Like I'm fishing. Right. Potentially. Or there's some sort of weird...
I'm just – instead of saying the word irrational, irrational, irrational over and over again, know that like when I look at it, you said in the cold light of podcast day, when I look at it straight on, I'm able to realize the fallacies. But that's not what happens at night.
No, of course not.
Right. The – I think there's some sort of power or I think I'm protecting myself in saying I know. We both know but know that I know.
Yeah.
That there's something about like – It's tough to, the more damaging part of it, the scariest part is people talking behind my back about things and me seemingly not knowing at all and being like, la, la, la, la, la, la. There's something worse about that. So it's almost like pointing out that I know, or at least bringing up the idea that I think is protecting me in some way.
That if I assume people are disappointed in me, then it won't hurt as much if it turns out to be true. And it also won't make me seem naive and just sort of skipping through life when other people are feeling differently about how I'm living my life or my performance. None of that works or makes sense, but that feels right.
No, I think it does make sense. It makes a lot of sense from the irrational I'm up at night thing. But also because I know you are you have when there is that conversation, potential conversation that's happening outside of your purview. You want to regain control of the narrative, right? Like I'm a part of this. If I'm not a part of it, I have no agency.
Yes, that if it's happening behind my back, that I need... Yeah, that in such an uncontrollable situation, for me to at least envision the worst possible scenario, then that does give me some sort of weird... Feeling of control or feeling of agency. You're right. I said it would just be slower. But it only works.
I just realized I used all the words you used as if I was coming up with them on my own.
But it only works. Like that whole plan is great. Like I am an absolute advocate for imagining the worst so that when something slightly better but also bad happens, it's not as bad. But that only works if you can stop yourself from perseverating about it.
Right. And that's where I seem to have lost a bit of control. Yeah. I don't even notice. It's like background music. I don't notice that I'm doing it. And the real worry of that is I know myself enough that daymare will become truth. When I'm not looking, I will write down of that performance, well, you can't win them all.
Instead of I've twisted something that was wonderful into something painful, but then I decided that was the truth. And that's not the truth. That sucks. So that's why I'm really glad. I mean, the first step is being aware that you were doing it. And I'm on all cylinders. I'm bringing it up in front of a podcast, in front of all of our listeners.
This goes back to the first definition of gluttony, right? That habitually greedy and voracious eating and drinking and will substitute eating and drinking for negative behavior. sort of negative narcissistic thought spirals. Right. Right. Maybe our favorite word, perseveration. Right. Exactly. And so I think that's the, that's the, the piece that like it's habitually greedy. Right.
And I am, I really think that, that an object lesson here is to figure out like, how do you break that habit? If you get into this spiral and you are unaccustomed to being in that spiral and you are not living with sort of, um, you know, chemical imbalanced OCD, um,
that leads you to those sorts of spirals that maybe there is something that you can, you can think about that, uh, allows you to break that habit, find some new triggers. You know what I mean? You know, and, and I would say like, does, does it potentially coincide with a change in medication? What does Bonnie say?
I have not brought it up to Bonnie yet because that is the sign of a perseverative narcissist right there. Interesting. Okay.
That I'm going to figure it out myself, you mean?
Yeah.
Right. Right. There has been no change in medication. But yeah, it almost feels like there was. I kind of wish there was. Right.
There was a change in something. There was a change in something. And I think that that's one of the most interesting things for me. It's like I can go on a med for a long, long time and there is no change. But something changes in me that causes the medication to have a different effect. And right now, everything's hunky-dory. I'm feeling fine.
But everything you're describing says to me that something changed, and it's either emotional, behavioral, or chemical.
Right, the animal, mineral, or vegetable of whatever's going on in my dumb face. Isn't that funny? Like, that's funny and horrible. And maybe it's just I... Took my eye. I mean, this is negative ideations. This kind of thing has been something that I used to truck in for a long time.
Maybe I just took my eye off the ball a little bit and it crept back in that these things are always there, but I've learned how to control them, not to just deny them, but control them and see, I mean, I'm already doing better. As I said, I'm just going to repeat one thing. The biggest step so far is that I'm aware of it.
Yes.
I've become aware of it. And now I'm putting the spotlight on it versus on this other thing. And then the other thing that I've been trying to do, you talk about trying to break out of it, is because it makes me uncomfortable, instead of just banishing the thought, skittering it away and thinking about something else, I look right at it and I just generally Occam's razor it.
What is the more likely scenario? Yeah. that they're talking about what they're going to do tomorrow or when they want to meet for breakfast or that you've gained weight in Florida when everyone weighs too much and you haven't gained a bunch of weight. Like what? Yeah.
I just, just to stop in the tracks and look at it and try to bring it out again into the light is something that I'm really trying to work on more and more. Yeah. Because yeah, I'm getting full. Yeah.
Yeah, right. I think it's – man, it's so hard when – because those part of the – The reason those things are so diabolical, these kinds of changes in patterns, is because it is a specific lack of agency or lack of control that allows them to fester. Right. And it is only when it's like, I don't know, it's like ants in your kitchen, right? You see one.
Why? Oh. Why would you? Oh, no! Oh, my God, are those ants making fun of me? Do those ants know that they're not really scary?
I'm so sorry. I even brought that up. But for the listener, I feel like I have to finish. You see one, then that's one thing. But you see a couple more, and there might be a million in your wall. Nope. Nope. Nope. You see one, and you say, that's the only ant in the world.
I got them all. If you're a new listener, I have an irrational phobia of ants, and Pete is what's known as the worst. Yeah. So yeah, it's something that I want to just keep an eye on, be very conscious of. I'll probably check back in later this season about it, just because it is something that is going on.
I know it might be a little bit of a stretch to connect it to gluttony, but it is the thing that I have been most consistently and voraciously dealing with.
Well, and I don't think, yeah, I think that's like, you know, we talk about other, as the evolution of gluttony has, as it's adapted over the cultural shifts of our Anthropocene era, like the glutton for punishment is the other most used term, right? Like that's exactly what you are right now. This is the worst and you are begging for more of it.
And repetitive and negative thought spirals is no joke.
I think I have one other way to potentially try and deal with it. And I wanted to try it by you just real quick. I'm going to fill those silences in with, I'm going to start talking so much crap behind everyone else's back. I am going to, after every single social engagement, I am going to write down all the dumb things they said, how tight their stupid shirt was.
Then I'm going to go across the street to the construction workers and be like, get a load of this guy.
in a scene with Steve, dude.
What a jerk. Yeah, I'm going to fill the void with my own toxicity and no one will see it coming.
What do you think? I think it's good. I think you need to make sure that it's balanced with some conversation to their face.
Oh, to make sure.
Yeah.
Not to say, so I'm going to talk about you.
Yeah.
It's going to be negative, but why don't you try to guess what it is while I go over here?
I'm about to aggro fan fiction. The fact that I can see your nipples through that tight shirt, dude, and it's unpleasant and you should just know about that because my journal is going to be heavy with ink tonight.
And your nipples look exactly like something, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. And you're awake. This whole thing has been a guided meditation.
I told God, I'm coming to your country. I'm going to eat up your cities, your homes. You know, I've got a stomach full. It's not a chip on my shoulder. I've got this growl in my tummy. And I'm gonna stop it today. I eat too much. I drink too much. I want too much. Too much. Thank you all so much for joining us this episode. This week's tune is The Lollipop is Poppin' by Captain Jaws. Jaws. Nope.
Jaws. Yeah. It says Joe, but that was an autocorrect. It's actually Captain Jaws.
Oh, you nailed it.
Yeah. Coming up next week, Tommy, what are we talking about?
This is we're going back to the good side. The Anakin side. Wait, Anakin. Was he good or bad?
Anakin is not a great example.
Oh, I don't remember. Was he Luke Skywalker?
He was good, then very bad.
Oh, he was Darth Vader. Did I just ask if Anakin was Luke Skywalker?
Yeah, you did. That's not great. No, okay. All of this is staying in, by the way.
Well, some would say I didn't do my due diligence about Star Trek or whatever we were just talking about. Yes, everyone's going insane. Yes, we are talking about the heavenly virtue of diligence. which seems exciting and seems less gross than this week's topic. Diligence, just one step ahead of the other.
Oh, no!
So we're just staying in gluttony from now on? We're going to be in gluttony for a while, everybody.
So I look forward to talking about that. Until then, I am Tommy Mess III.
And I'm Pete Wright. Thanks for downloading. We'll be back next week right here with all, and I mean all, the feelings.
Lollipop is popping.