All The Feelings • The Sins & Virtues
Patience & Kindness: The Two Heavenly Virtues of Not Being a Big Dumb Jerk
Thu, 24 Oct 2024
Pete and Tommy are back for a two-fer! This time they're tackling not one, but two of the heavenly virtues: kindness and patience.Join them as they explore what these virtues really mean, from navigating grocery store lines to reflecting on the DNC (dated references and all!). They dive deep into the idea of mindful patience, even touching on the ancient practice of Vipassana. Tom tries to cultivate more patience in his daily life, and they both ponder how kindness and patience (or the lack thereof) play out in modern culture, including a half-assed takedown of that Pepsi commercial. ---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. Visit our website to learn more.
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This episode... Kindness. Patience.
Hello, everybody! It's me, Pete, from the podcast, and that's Tom, also podcasting, and we're thrilled to be here patiently and kindly for our last major episode of this season.
All the sins, all the virtues, one place, Pete. I mean, we haven't. We still got two. We got two big ones, and we decided to do a twofer today. Why is that again? Oh, right, because neither of us could add.
Because neither of us could add, and we got to the end, and I think it was... Our choice was... You know, we could always do 13 episodes. And you said, nope, we do 12. That's all we do ever. Really? Well, I'm just thinking as a fan, the people will revolt.
an extra episode 100% what will we do it's the one line that's keeping us here in democracy safe if we break the 9-12 we end up making a thousand episode season and that would be unsettling we wouldn't know when to turn off and then we would just like feeling friends would see us and we'd have big long beards well that's you during the winter I guess I would have a big long beard yeah
Foster would have a big, long beard. Can you grow a real big, long beard? I don't think so. I don't know.
I bet it'd be patchy as heck. What would I give to see you in a beard? AI?
AI. A beard. That breaks AI.
Cannot imagine not enough testosterone. Oh, you know what? That seemed like a little, I was doing my impression of a robot. Should we start this process and kick things off by talking about today? We are talking about kindness and patience or patience and kindness. I say we throw to our good friend robot. Robot, please define kindness.
Kindness, noun, the quality or state of being kind.
Oh, yep. Fair enough. I did not see that one coming. Okay, please define kind.
Kind, adjective of a sympathetic or helpful nature arising from or characterized by sympathy or forbearance.
Perfect. Now let's close it off. Please define patience and we'll get started.
Patience, noun, the capacity, habit, or fact of being patient. Okay, I should have definitely seen that coming.
Robot, you understand that I don't want you to define words by using the same words, right?
Of course.
Okay, well then please, Robot, please define patient.
Patient, noun, an individual awaiting or under medical care and treatment.
Yeah, okay, now I see what's happening here. Is there an adjective near there?
Patient, adjective, bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint, steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity.
Great. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. Thanks, Robot.
That was an excellent exercise, though, don't you think? In the world of AI, we just really are crushing it.
Yeah, we are going to find a new draft of that next time. All right, so patience and kindness. Pete, where do you want to start? Where would you like to start?
I want to know what you think about when you think of patience and kindness, especially right now. And I'm going to date us, right? I'm going to date us probably pretty hardcore because as we record this, we've wrapped up the Chicago DNC. Right. And have you watched any of it?
I did. I watched quite a bit of it. And I was surprised they didn't get the hot girl. I'm further dating us. I was assuming that the Hawk girl would be all over the DNC, but nope.
Nope. What was your take on the general tone and tenor of the DNC? It's a loaded question.
Of course. It seems so optimistic and it seems so rallying. It's really energizing. And it doesn't seem like I mean, I liked it a little bit more before people started using their speeches to criticize the other side. I liked it when it was just more of a I know this is not Harris's thing, but more of a yes, we can less of a no, they can't. And here's why I get it.
They've been poking fun at the other side for a lot. So they have it coming. But still, I like it when it's just straight up positivity. And here's what we're going to do. And here's how we can do it. With that in mind, you asked, what do I think about kindness and patience?
I think if you had to boil everything down, these are the two things that I think are the most important for what we always need and what we need now. Because if you have kindness and patience, everything else seems like it falls in line. I mean, you can keep a little bit of lust on the side. But kindness and patience, kind of by definition, cancels so much bad stuff out.
So it's a nice time to have that.
I think so, too. And I think, you know, the watching just the clips that seem to have resonated out of the DNC, the clips of of Waltz's son crying in the audience. And I mean, those kinds of things I find really moving and motivating in a way that the antithesis of those feelings do not. Right. Right. It's it's harder to motivate in response to rage and and.
Oh, that's interesting. Right. Yeah, that if the – and we won't say who. I don't even remember which side it was. But just continually saying we're a nation in decline, everybody's in trouble, nobody's safe, that starts to get really numbing. Yeah. Or it has for me. I'm just not even hearing those words, and instead I am on this surge of positivity, which is really interesting and exciting.
It is interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. That is – I like what you just said though. In my desperate effort to hear my voice, I just started immediately talking. I like that you say that usually you would think that fear would be the bigger motivator and I think for a long time it was, that it has been. It worked. For lack of a better word, fear works. Yeah.
uh i'm still on green um but maybe that that button can only be pushed so long and then it just doesn't work anymore because nothing has burned down i am right my nation is not in decline and i was just outside on a walk i didn't catch fire once like not like that
I was not robbed or murdered. Yeah, exactly. I still take water out to traffic accidents at the corner. We're okay. I think that is the most interesting perspective is when your worldview runs headlong into a contrasting ideology.
Right.
What we're hearing is one thing. What we experience is something completely different. And I can choose to believe what I experience or believe what I hear. But when you can't rationalize those two things, I think you run into just confusion. And I have less confusion in some of the messaging that I'm hearing now from Chicago.
So, you know, patience traditionally seen as the ability to endure difficult circumstances. According to the histories, circumstances include delay, provocation, or adversity without becoming annoyed or upset. It's often associated with forbearance, perseverance, and the ability to wait calmly. Okay.
So I'm interested in some of those words because that's not necessarily, I mean, we look at patience, the capacity or habit or fact of being patient, bearing pains or trials calmly without complaint, right? I think those things are in alignment, but that's never what I think about when I think of patience. When I think of patience, I think about, oh, I need to chill out because someone's late.
Right. Yeah. This line, someone just remembered their print coupons and they're hidden somewhere deep in their purse. And I'm already line committed. So I'm not going to go somewhere.
I'm line committed. That's totally it. And not, oh my gosh, I'm being provoked. Right? Patience is not the thing I call on if somebody's, you know, trying to get at me.
No. No, I see what you're saying. No, it's not the way that I think of it. That would be more restraint.
Yeah, but that's not a heavenly virtue restraint.
No. But that's – yeah, I feel that patient is a very passive reaction to a fairly passive situation. It's more just like it's not – holding yourself back from beating someone up. It's just try not to get so annoyed at Ralph's. Like, that's it. Can you tell that I spend too much time at Ralph's?
You spend a lot of time at Ralph's, yeah. What's interesting about the way you said this is that patience doesn't necessarily have to be a passive response. Patience isn't just standing there. Patience can be an active internal journey to do something which is not get provoked. What happens if patience becomes active?
What would be an example? And then how does that differ from restraint?
Well, maybe it's all in the same bucket, but maybe that's what it is. I feel like mindfulness, then it becomes mindfully aware of where I am in space and the interactions that I have with people around me. And I can exacerbate difficult situations by being aggressive. Or I can actively choose not to act in a way that would make things worse. I think that's the interesting thing about it.
A type of kindness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So kindness, another of the heavenly virtues. You know, I mean, kindness, friendliness, consideration. It is seen as the antidote to envy. And it is really a central theme in many religious teachings, right? It's a banger in spiritual circles. That's what the Pope says. Kindness is a banger.
The interesting thing about kindness... Kindness slaps.
Unto you. Throughout history, kindness has been used to foster community and social cohesion. Foster, yep. What do you think about that? Like social cohesion encourages people to act selflessly and consider the well-being of others.
Well, it's exactly what you were talking about of fear only works so long that you can scare people into doing something. Or if you're nice to them, hopefully that will cause more empathy. And that just spreads and spreads because you are forced to realize it's not just you against the world.
How then do you see kindness and patience? The dynamic duo of passive goodwill. Yep. How do you see these things motivating and constraining modern culture?
I think it happens a lot more than we think it does. Mm-hmm. And I also think that showing a TikTok of someone being quiet and kind isn't as interesting as showing someone screaming at someone else in an airport. And so it makes it seem like society is coming apart at the seams all the time. And it's just really not.
There's something, I mean, there's something kind of nicely boring about being just sort of everyday positive. You don't have to be running around like Mr. Beast and buying Hummers for people. I don't actually know who Mr. Beast is. Does he like give away a bunch of money or something?
He gives away a bunch of stuff.
That's wonderful, but you don't even have to do that because that is such a concentrated thing. But one of the things, speaking of patience, and if we're saying that kindness is an offset of this, that I've been really trying to explore recently, not just because of this episode, is I guess it's mindfulness.
I don't know, like saying that word in myself, I don't seem like a very mindful person, but is when I start to feel impatient or start to feel like I'm getting frustrated, to step outside of it and go, wait, am I actually frustrated or am I just thinking I should be frustrated? Meaning, just because this line, someone butt in front of me, is that really making a deal?
Or is my sense of weird justice making it seem like I have the right to be mad, so I should be mad? Or who cares? Do I really, really feel this emotion? Or is it just that I'm supposed, that I'm afraid I'm supposed to feel it? I'm making it into a riddle. Does it make sense what I'm saying?
What's interesting is I think you're actually describing Vipassana. What? Have you ever heard of Vipassana? No. What? Vipassana? Can you spell it? Vipassana. Can I spell Vipassana? Yeah. V-I-P-A-S-S-A-N-A.
Oh, I guess I don't know.
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. Fair enough. Go ahead. So Vipassana is an ancient Indian meditation technique. Okay. Okay. And... It's, it's why I mean, like 2500 years old, this, this thing, Vipassana, and it is a practice of transformation through self observation. or just general observation of the world.
So it focuses on the deep connection between mind and body and curiosity about that experience and what you're seeing, what you're taking in from your senses. And it encourages exploration there. So Vipassana meditation is a meditation of curiosity. I interviewed a Vipassana expert on a different show. And it was fascinating because on the surface...
I had a really difficult time not relating it to Seinfeld. So Vipassana is about nothing. You're just doing nothing. You're just sitting and just looking around and doing nothing. But what's interesting about it is he started with a fascinating example that really works for me. So say you're laying in bed late one night. And I don't know why I laughed at that.
I was about to make some sort of a joke. It wasn't going to be funny. And so I derailed. I ran out of runway. Yeah. So you're laying in bed one night and you get an itch and it's at the bottom of your foot.
Hmm.
Now, you might naturally be drawn to lift your foot up and start scratching it or get up and walk around. It's the unscratchable itch. Maybe it's an itch below a callus. Those are impossible to resolve. But what if you stop and you say something more like, huh, that's an itch. I wonder why the nerve is acting up there. I'm curious about that.
I'm thinking, actually, I'm observing my experience of having that itch. What does it make me want to do? Well, it likely would make me want to reach my foot up and scratch it, but what if I just see where the itch is going? What if I just wait? What if I do nothing and just observe? I'll be damned, Tom, the itch goes away. The itch runs its course.
And I look at what you're describing, that sort of observational nature of introspection and curiosity is this sort of Vipassana approach to kindness and to patience. It is, I'm going to look at the world curiously, but through that curiosity, I'm going to attempt to understand it in a new way. And I think that's really fascinating.
I think that's really... I'm probably... I'm also now making a riddle, I think. But I think it's fascinating.
No, that all makes a thousand percent sense. And... I like that there's a word for what that is. I'm just... Yeah, that's the kind of thing I'm trying to do. Not about that whole itch thing. That would make anyone insufferable. What if you had to say all of that out loud? And now the toe! And your partner's like, okay, Steve. The idea of someone...
is looking at their phone at a stoplight, doesn't see that the light changed. You give a little beep beep and then they go. But then you aren't allowed to go through the light. Yes. Your first reaction is, come on, this is unjust. And this is but then that's what I'm catching myself right away. And more and more is, oh, I don't care. Like, yeah, I'm not late.
one light cycle is not going to change anything. I'm sitting in an air conditioned car, listening to a podcast just because something didn't go exactly as it was supposed to be. Doesn't mean that I need to react or make me upset by it because it's fine.
Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I start thinking like this entire sort of approach is something that gets me thinking about, okay, let's just – what if we are curious about that situation? My response normally might be, ugh, I'm mad, like you said. I'm just. But what I could be saying is, wow. I wonder what's going on in that car that caused them not to pay attention. I hope they're okay.
And that's the kind and patient approach that says, I'm sacrificing my current experience and I'm selflessly now trying to be aware of the world around me in a way that's kind and patient and just letting it go.
Yeah, I can't hear what was going on in that car. There could have been two small kids screaming in the background. The parent was just trying to get a moment of peace on their phone. Or they had just been poisoned and were trying to call the hospital. And I'm like, beep, beep! Exactly.
Yeah, you're... You're the ass who doesn't recognize that they've just been poisoned by a Russian spy. Yeah, exactly. I just read that in a Jean Le Carre book, and I'm sure that's happening on the streets of Burbank, right? Wherever you happen to be driving, Hollywood mogul you. So anyhow, I think that's really interesting. Now, this is the cultural thing that got me thinking.
Look at the civil rights movement, right? I don't want to talk about any specific sides other than I'm pro-civil rights. Yeah, I think we can be on the record. Civil rights is great. That's not the point. The point is, look at the riots.
Look at any of the riots where you have lines of police and you get the students or protesters throwing rocks and bottles and Molotov cocktails at the lines of authority and there's conflict in the streets. We recognize... That's an unkind situation. And perspectives of each side recognize the other side as unkind, right?
And we all relate, I think, because of the noisy culture that we're in, that this is a horrific situation and we should not have gotten to this point. And yet... You see a commercial that displays the scene of a riot and you get a child going up to a police officer and handing them a Coke. Yeah. And it becomes the joke that, you know, lasted for ages.
Yeah. And it was Pepsi. Yeah. I know exactly the ad that you're talking about. You know what I'm talking about? I know the name of the ad executive who was immediately fired.
Okay. This is the point. That ad comes from a massive corporate industrialist advertising machine. I get it. Right. But also it's an ad with a message of kindness and it became a joke to the Vox Populi immediately. Yeah. Why is that?
Well, I agree with the Vox Populi in this one because it wasn't genuine. It was using people's emotions. People were really fighting for rights and feeling discriminated on by police. And someone thought that a good idea was to try to sell soda for it. It trivializes it. Yeah. There's something that just trivializes it too much that it's not genuine. There is no genuine. There is no empathy.
You have a model stepping off of a getting her hair done, walk across the street and hand a Pepsi to... someone who probably was just clubbing someone in the, in the back alley. And everyone is like, thanks soda. That's gross. I hate it. See, I agree. But I mean, that's just not the way to do it. That's, that seems like fake. What's a word for fake kindness. It's virtual disingenuity. Yeah.
That hurts more than just not having that there or showing two people that like sharing a Pepsi in a hospital waiting room after being beaten by the police. Like that would make me identify with Pepsi a little bit more because at least it's putting things in perspective.
It's so interesting because I totally agree with you, and I think that is the general sense. But what it tells me is that the eighth sin should be like capitalism because we don't understand the other virtues if this is our answer to kindness, if this is how we're going to try and display what genuine acts of kindness are.
Right.
And I think that's the thing that sort of, I don't know, that hurts. That's the thing that hurts. Yeah, I agree. That causes me to be reflective is the gap. So, you know, I mean, patience and kindness, my usual drill. What is it that motivates positive behavior and constrains negative behavior? We got a lot of kindness-focused campaigns that aim to redefine social norms and
to reduce aggression and conflict in communities, promoting patience as a virtue discourages road rage and impulsive acts of anger. These are things that tend to work, tend to start early. model good behavior at home and at school, most importantly at home, actually allows kids to rewire their brains and become young adults that actually display these virtues.
I think this stuff is really interesting. The biggest challenge of thinking about like patience and kindness is that we don't think about patience and kindness enough as the things that they are. We go about saying, be kind, be patient, And that is not introspection. That's not teaching each other what it means to be kind and patient.
It's just words you're saying.
It's just words. It's just words. It's just like telling people what to do without background. I'm saying that as a parent. And it makes me reflect on the times that I've said, you have to be kind at school without actually saying, what does it look like? To be kind, because I assume everybody already knows.
When in fact, what just reading about it this week has told me, I often don't really know what the kind answer is to a particular conflict situation.
When was one of the last times you caught yourself being impatient and caught yourself meaning like you had a, oh, I'm doing this, like what I'm talking about, more of like a Vipassana. Vipassana. Vipassana. Vipassana. I tried to write it down.
V-I-P-A-S-S-A-N-A.
Okay. Vipassana reaction. Do you know? Do you remember?
Yeah, because it was like 45 minutes ago. No. No, we've been recording for 45 minutes. So it probably 90 minutes ago, 90 minutes ago, because I've had a morning filled with just busyness. And that causes a lot of anxiety. Like, when am I going to meet the next day, I had to call you and say, hey, I need to push a little bit because I'm not ready. And it's because my day's out of hand.
I felt bad about that. I was not being kind nor patient to myself. And we've talked about it before. The worst insults you'll ever hear are the insults you use on yourself. And that's just a thing I'm always working on. And having to stop, and I really did. I stopped before we came online when I wrote to you and I said, I'm ready. And I thought, Tom is a calming factor in my life.
I'm going to be ready for that. I'm going to come in open. to not being triggered or angry or impatient and just ready to like laugh and talk about these things and curious about whatever comes next, not anxious that I haven't done enough or I'm not ready enough, you know, or that just curious. If I could just be curious about what comes next in this show, it'll be fine.
I love that. And because I learned that maybe your patience would have been running a little bit low or your kindness like this, I started the process of getting ready to record 45 minutes before you showed up because, of course, my mic didn't work and I couldn't open the computer and the volume was down. I started that process last night so I could be ready for you.
So I'm just curious that I'm still alive.
Real calming factor. Real calming factor. And now, The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider.
It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, how the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, how the floor receives the bottom of shoes. Or toes, how soles of feet know where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience of ordinary things, how clothes wait respectfully in closets, and soap dries quietly in the dish, and towels drink the wet from the skin of the back, and the lovely repetition of stares. And what is more generous than a window? The End
It was the summer of 1939. War loomed on the horizon as a shadow crept across Europe. In a dimly lit office in Whitehall, London, a group of civil servants toiled away on a top secret mission. They're tasked to create a series of posters to bolster the morale of the British people in the event of invasion.
Three designs were chosen, each bearing a simple yet stirring phrase in the symbolic Tudor crown. The first poster urged, freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might. The second, your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory. And the third, well, the third would remain shrouded in mystery for years to come.
As the summer waned and war broke out, the first two posters were distributed across the country and plastered on billboards and windows. But the third poster, with its now famous phrase, was never officially sanctioned for public display. Over two million copies were printed, only to disappear into the dusty archives of history.
The few that made their way into shop windows and government offices were soon forgotten as the war raged on. Some say the design was too similar to the other two posters. Others claim it was held back in anticipation of a German invasion that never came to pass. Whatever the reason, the poster and its message faded into obscurity as the paper was pulped and recycled to aid the war effort.
For over 60 years, only a handful of original copies survived, tucked away in attics and closets, unaware of the power their simple message would one day hold. That is, until one serendipitous day in the year 2000 at a small secondhand bookshop in Northeast England. The shop owner was sorting through a box of dusty old books when a flash of red caught his eye amidst the yellowed pages.
As he pulled out the small poster, he couldn't help but chuckle. at the irony of the simple yet apropos phrase printed in bold white letters. It's wine o'clock somewhere. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. It actually read, live, laugh, love. I did it again. I totally had you. This is a riot. No, it was the keep calm and carry on poster.
You know the one because it's on a mug sitting in the people also bought section on Amazon where you look for world's second best lawyer Tumblr. Not a joke. Anyway. Little did he know the stoic British wartime slogan that had been lost to time would go on to become a cultural phenomenon, a reminder to stay strong in the face of adversity and stay patient for the long fight ahead.
What began as a failed wartime propaganda campaign has now inspired countless generations to do just that. Keep calm and carry on and laugh and love and drink too. Want to join a club that doesn't even need a wartime slogan to be cool? Become a feeling friend today.
For just $35, you can get your patriotic jolt of the old-fashioned way, knowing that you're a supporter of this season of all the feelings. Plus, you'll get access to your very own member-only podcast feed, chock full of member-only extended editions of our episodes, member-only episodes, our trailer archive, just so much stuff. So jump in now.
Support the season and know you're also supporting us and our continuing efforts to launch our own political party, the Anxietatem Party, under the banner of the ostrich. This week's update, look for our new wartime poster, Always Aware, Never Prepared. Visit allthefeelings.fund to show your wartime support today.
A little patience.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Need a little patience. Yeah. Just a little patience. Yeah. Some more patience. Yeah.
G.N. Roses.
pete live laugh love tom live laugh love pete that's gonna be our uh and and unto you it'll always be like uh yes yes uh live laugh love wine o'clock um pete i want to tell you a tale that i've told before i've told you oh good but the kids love repetition oh okay all right as far as i can remember not on any podcast and there's a chance i told it on this podcast
because we stopped writing down on coda all the things we talked about we stopped doing that a long time ago and that was a mistake huge mistake okay yeah so you may remember as the story is going along that it sounds familiar but i want to tell it in a different light are you intrigued oh yeah okay uh yes and harrowed well i was going to say this story can be best described in one word
Harrowing, Pete. Harrowing. Actually, for once, that's actually not true. What could have been harrowing was rendered relatively harrowless, if that's a word, by the two topics we're discussing today, kindness and patience, and the new word that I just learned, vapapasana. What is it? Vapapasana? That's too many. Vipasana. Vipasana. Vipasana. Vipasana. It's Vipasana. Okay, let's dive in. Yeah.
Let me begin by setting the scene. I'm going to move this over here. For this hero-ish tale, we are going all the way back to November 27th
2023 pete to put this bygone era in perspective the number one song on the billboard charts was cruel summer by taylor swift and the number one movie in the country was the hunger games colon the ballad of songbirds and snakes and for me that's still in the dollar theaters 100 this was not very long ago I just wanted to say colon Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
As for me, on that day, I received a call. Did I answer the call? No. What am I, a sociopath? I didn't recognize the number, so I immediately sent it to voicemail. And I listened to it later that day, and there was a pleasant but bored-sounding man who said they were calling from the LADWP. That's the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. They keep the lights on and the water afloat.
He said that they had noticed that my bill was, quote, a little higher than normal. this cycle, and that if I wanted any helpful hints on how to reduce my electrical usage, I should call them. I was like, well, that's nice of them, I thought. I wonder how much higher it could have been. So I hopped online to check.
Pete, as you know, and our avid listeners know, I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my dog, and I pay my water electric bill every two months. Is that how you do it? Is it every month or every two months? I don't know if that's universal. That's how they do it.
I think ours is every two months.
Every two months. And my average bill is around $180. I don't honestly know if that's a lot or a little. It goes up in the summer because the San Fernando Valley is built on the sun, but it's usually about $180. And so I got that nice call message from that nice call man, and it was going a little bit over. I was guessing what? Maybe 250, 260? Sure.
1,200.
600?
$1,044. $1,044.
That's just under six times more than my average bill. And that guy called to see if I wanted any tips. This is not where you get. What was his tip going to be?
I'm trying to imagine. Like, do you want us to send an ambulance because you might be drowning in the water we're pumping into your apartment? Yeah.
Like, sir, have you tried unplugging eight of the nine refrigerators you just bought? Like, I couldn't understand what tip. Like don't use all 300 of the electric blankets you just got from Amazon. So obviously the meter reader guy read the meter wrong or she, my apologies, the meter reader person read the meter wrong. And so I called customer service and I wait on hold for 48 minutes, Pete.
And I know I'm in the right. And I know this is all annoying and I'm getting a little bit annoyed and And I'm waiting and I'm waiting. And the hold music I remember is somehow insanely loud. Like I turned my phone down, but it's piped in so loud there's distortion. It's like... So it's really hard.
And just so you know, that's about $21 a minute. Yes. Based on your bill.
Yes, exactly. I was using my electric phone. I would crank it up. And every 12 seconds, a voice would come on the line telling me that I was on hold. Got it. I'm there. Have you ever had... There's a rash of facilities out here in Los Angeles that they don't say, we'll be right with you. They say, you are currently on hold. But they don't tell you like what place you are in.
Not at all.
They're just reminding you exactly the purgatory you're in. It's like when I go to an AMC movie theater and there's an ad for, hey, do you want to try AMC? I'm here. I am doing it. So 48 minutes. And I was getting really frustrated. It was, I mean, it turned off my air conditioning because I was afraid that I was going to lose my apartment.
And then I tried to change my way of thinking, and guess what it was, Pete? It was Vipassana.
Now I know.
It was Vipassana. Because even though I was in the right and was suffering for reasons I didn't deserve, was it really that big of a deal? I was able to just sort of sit back and be like, I didn't have to cancel a meeting to be on hold right now. I'm sitting in my incredibly expensive, now I know, apartment, just draining electricity into the ground. And...
Why not just see it for the ridiculousness that it was? So I took a deep breath and just decided to go through it with as much kindness and patience as possible. And this is going to have a reason that this exists. Well, the next step is I met Janelle. Janelle finally came on the line. And in a bit of a monotone, she introduced herself and asked how she can help.
And as cheerfully as I can, I explained that I believe there's a problem with my bill and I'd like to see what the options are to help with it. And with all due respect, Pete, Janelle is ready for me. And I don't mean ready to help me with open arms. I mean, she is ready to explain exactly that the only problem is me and there's nothing to be do about it. And.
instead of becoming defensive or cutting her off or coming back at her because I was in this Vipassana type of mood, I was like, she just must be yelled at all the time.
All the time. Everyone calls customer service.
Every day. No one says, thanks for the water. Click. Why would you do that? That's what a crazy person would do. No, she just deals with people. She is like the LADWP customer service must be like every airport person that like sits at the different gates. Like all you're doing is Hurting cattle. Taking problems. Taking problems that you did not cause and you are not in charge of.
And so, and yeah, so obviously her defenses were up very high. So again, patience, kindness for Basana. I didn't talk over her, shut her down. I let her say her whole piece. And then I very calmly and very cheerfully asked, do you mind, could you just pull up my bill so we can look at it together? Yeah. And she starts typing away. I can hear her typing.
And she starts a new speech about how bill fluctuations happen. And they're almost always accurate representations of usage. And other than payment plans, there isn't a lot they can do. And whoa, that's what she says. She stops at mid-sentence and goes, whoa. And she says, yeah, that is certainly a jump, huh? And I laugh and I say, that's why I was calling. And that's when everything turns.
This is a very simple Aesop fable involving the LADWP. But because I was patient and kind, she was extremely patient and kind in turn. Here's what she did. She thanked me for my patience. And because I was in such a ridiculous situation, she went out of her way. She said the next step was to have someone come out and reread the meter. But that could take a really long time.
And I would keep getting notices about bills. And I'd be worried about collections. It was hard to jam that up. She said, instead, let's just take care of it together while you're on the phone. She walked me where to go to read the meter. I knew where the meters were, but she helped me find... It's like a blizzard of cords and weird dials and everything.
She helped me find my actual meter that belonged to my particular apartment. She had me take a photo of...
of it with my phone and send it directly to her while i was on the phone she forwarded it to another department who immediately confirmed that the guy read it wrong he read it backwards yeah they kind of looked like clocks he read it backwards so instead of some power i used all the power and it got solved that afternoon yeah So you've apostatized your way right through that.
But I'm not if this isn't supposed to be a story of, hey, check me out being a real sweetheart. It was, I guess, a karmic situation that because I didn't, if I went in hot, and then she was forced to sort of apologize. And I was like, yeah, you're right. That wouldn't have been solved for a week or two. But instead, she stopped everything. So
i think it's just how kindness and patience can be instantly rewarded with more kindness and patience kindness and patience seems like something so altruistic but you also get something from it like if you want if it helps you to be greedy about being kind and patient fine as long as it leads to more kindness whatever you need whatever weird backflips you need to do as long as you don't
beep back at someone that beeps at you and you're in the wrong and they're in the wrong. I mean, just every day. Don't even get me started on Ralphs. Have I mentioned Ralphs in the last three minutes?
If we were just all able to just take a deep breath and see the absurdity around us for just that and show kindness and patience, so many things, as we said in the very top of the episode, so many things would fall into place. And that's it. That's my fable, Pete. I love that. I almost had to pay a bunch of money and then I didn't. It's not that great of a story.
But I really wanted to give a shout out to Janelle. I just sort of went through the story again in my head and I'm like, that maybe didn't need to exist.
But still, I still live in my apartment and I'm doing great. And yet I'm going to pitch it to Disney Plus because, you know, they might want to get a tight six episodes out of it.
Yeah. Well, no. Yeah. Do it to Netflix. They'll drag it out to 12. Yeah. They'll do me staying on hold in real time as a whole.
It'll be experimental, and that's what'll get people to watch. I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.
Noted racist and adulterer Roald Dahl.
We did it!
Peace, sins, and virtues.
100%.
Because these are words, kind of like you said, kindness and patience are words we use, but we don't think about it. I can put every single episode, every single word on that list. That I would just use the word wrath and not think about it. I would use the word envy, but not think about how it related back in the day to religion.
All of those things was really exciting and really fun for me because these are such backbones. We think of them as just seven deadly sins, but you're really only thinking about the David Fincher movie. You're not thinking about them being sins. And so, yeah, I was really enjoyed this. I thought this was fun. I like themes.
I like themes too, and I think I had two big awakenings. One, the number of, well, it's seven out of seven, pretty much, the number of sins that were used to control people throughout history for reasons that were not based in moral fabric. They're used to control people. That was illuminating to me, I think.
And the other is the number of sins that today can be seen as virtues in some cultural context. That is alarming. And also, you know, let lust off the hook, everybody. Come on. Sure.
Yeah. Splash around. My biggest takeaway was I learned what the seven heavenly virtues were and that there were heavenly virtues behind them. I legitimately had no idea that there was an offset. Of course there would be, but to all the seven deadly sins. So yes, to say, did I learn something? I learned about the existence of an entire canon of thought. So that's very exciting.
Well, this is super fun to answer the question that no one's asked yet. Are we coming back? Well, guys, yep.
Sorry. Sorry. Well, guys, good news, bad news. Yes, we are. And yes, we are. We do not know in exactly what capacity, if there's going to be a new theme, if we're going to stick with all the feelings. We don't know. It's Willie Nails, baby.
You never know.
We're shooting from the hip here.
But I do know that we have already scheduled hiatus episodes for members. We've got five of those bad boys in the tank.
Yeah, so now is the time. If you're still thinking about becoming a feeling friend, now is the time to lock those in because we're probably going to be eating and drinking weird things with our friend Mandy Kaplan. One would assume we're going to have all sorts of check-ins. We will get you through this dark podcast-less winter together. It might be insects. Nope. Nope.
I have been incredibly clear. I am never eating insects. I don't care what type of road warrior situation we end up at.
So you're saying there's a chance. Okay. Thank you everybody so much for joining us. We appreciate you being here and hanging out. This week's tune is Sin Control by Donner and Ty.
Thank you all so, so, so much for downloading and spending the season with us. It is an honor to be able to do this. Thank you for coming along. Until we speak again, I'm Tommy Metz III.
And I'm Pete Wright. And this has been All the Feelings, Sins, and Virtues.
Ya no soy aquel amigo.