This week on All the Feelings: Sins & Virtues, Tommy and Pete tackle the weighty topic of diligence. It all starts with a seemingly simple question: what does it mean to work hard? But as the duo delves into the nuances of global work cultures, things take a philosophical turn.From the "Huguo Shenshan" spirit of Taiwan's tech industry to the "karoshi" phenomenon in Japan, Tommy and Pete explore how diligence can be both a source of national pride and a potential path to burnout. They ponder the meaning of a "good day's work" in a world where some find fulfillment in building tangible things, while others navigate the abstract world of finance.You might just find yourself questioning your own relationship with diligence - and maybe even yearning for a siesta. ---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. Visit our website to learn more.
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All the feelings presents Sins and Virtues. This episode, Diligence.
Ooh, Pete, are you ready? Today we are rubber meets the road, pedal to the metal, other car things, because we are going to give this maximum effort. today maximum effort yes yes this topic what what have we done so far gluttony give me a break what have we done rash but that's kind of exciting those are all the easy ones yes this last i could feel horny on a dime please Yes.
But no, today we are really digging down. And it's interesting because it's ironic between you and me. This is the episode that I've done the least amount of work for. So that's perfect. Because should we have the robot tell us what we're talking about today? I think it's because we are talking about diligence.
Robot. Diligence. Noun. A steady, earnest, and energetic effort. Devoted and painstaking work and application to accomplish an undertaking.
Thanks, robot. See? We did okay. The robot's doing great. Yeah, doing great. Yes.
The robot hasn't messed up its job once. Oh, okay. So, diligence. Yeah. I did the usual thing, and I started looking up the, you know, it's a sins and virtues show, right? We have to talk about diligence. So you went back to the scrolls. As a part, I did. I have my scrolls in my personal Roman library. Yep. And as a part of the, you know, the combination of the cardinal virtues,
And the cardinal sins, that's what we're talking about this season, of course. Diligence, it has been valued throughout history and across cultures as this important character trait, right? And ethical principle that has sort of transcended the canonical virtue. And it is one of the seven heavenly virtues. It stands in opposition to the deadly sin of sin. Do you know which one? Sloth.
It is sloth. That is the truth. You have been listening. Yep. So that's Christianity. Bible's got diligence in it. The hand of diligence will rule while the slothful will be put to forced labor. That seems vindictive, Proverbs. Buddhism has it apparently, according to those who were there, the Buddha's last words were reportedly, strive on with diligence. So how's that for a guilt complex? Wow.
In Buddhism, diligence is one of the six perfections. Oh, okay. It is seen as crucial for spiritual progress, apparently. So, you know, right. Hinduism, diligence is associated with Dharma, righteous living, and is considered essential for success and, wait for it, ethical profit. Okay.
What? So you're working hard and doing good? And making good money. And making good money. Got it.
I see. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. In this case, we're talking about very, very old texts. And I think it is possible that profit could be seen as something different than monetary value. But I do find it funny.
That's what I was kind of assuming. But I like that everything keeps going back to capitalism.
It's all back to capitalism. Yeah. And it sort of reminds me of like the Ferengi in Star Trek, which I know you're probably not, that might be lost on you.
Are they those fluffy little balls that keep on flying? No, no, no.
Those are the, those are the triples. The Ferengi have giant ears and their entire system of governance is based on profit. And they have like this, their, their gospels are like the, the 900 rules of profit and everybody has to memorize the rules of profit. And, I find it very, very funny. And that is what I, you know, diligence is associated with the Ferengi and their worlds of profit.
It's in the Quran. I mean, it's everywhere. Diligence is everywhere. Modern perspectives on diligence. I mean, I think we kind of know where this is. Education, it's seen as a key factor in academic success. You work hard, right? You're persistent. Research shows that diligent students tend to perform better academically. Research had to show that. Studying makes things easier? Great. Yeah.
Apparently, especially younger students, the more you study, the better you perform academically.
Thanks, science.
Way to go, science. Yeah. And it's obviously a personal trait, right? A crucial trait for achieving long-term goals and success. But let me tell you why I am thinking about diligence today. Oh. And it comes from another podcast. What? There are other podcasts? I didn't know it either until this week. I did some diligent research and it turns out we're not the only one.
I was listening to the Accidental Tech podcast and they were talking about, they have for a long time been talking about TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor. And I'm going to paraphrase this, but I'll include in the episode, I'll include the audio clip because they had a listener write in saying, about some of their comments about Taiwan Semiconductor in Taiwan.
Part of the context of this is around TSMC, the company. They make chips. trying to open a plant in Arizona. And the leadership of TSMC, the Taiwanese leadership, says, you know, we can't get anything done because the Americans don't have the same work ethic that the Taiwanese have.
Oh, they're going to open one for us, but we're going to be working there.
You know what? I can do better. TSMC comments about American work ethic. Asic. The American engineers complained of rigid counterproductive hierarchies at the company. Taiwanese TSMC veterans described their American counterparts as lacking the kind of dedication and obedience they believed to be the foundation of their company's world leading success.
One of the complaints was if a machine breaks in Arizona at two in the morning, it'll be fixed sometime the next day. If a machine breaks at two in the morning in Taiwan, it'll be fixed at three in the morning.
And everybody who works there knows that, and this was another bit of the quote that has riled some folks, that the people who work at TSMC in Taiwan, their wives all understand that that is the nature of the work that they do, right? Right. I think by calling out their wives is also an illustration of the cultural divide between our two places.
What does that mean? So it means like if you work at this place in Taiwan, your family knows that that is the top priority. Yeah.
And they're all men.
Oh, I didn't even understand that distinction. The doctor was a woman. Shoot. Oh, I totally messed it up. I see. Okay. Why did they choose Arizona? I thought the whole idea was to send work overseas, not overseas to us.
No, no, no. It's actually, it's turning the other way because a lot of the legislation is about insourcing and making sure that we're giving, we're growing American jobs. And so, you know, like look at the big EV battery legislation over the last year as part of the Environmental Act that Biden passed. It all included that
in order to maintain your car as manufacturer, your car's like $7,000 rebate, all of the materials in your batteries had to be sourced from the United States or some, right? I see. And so most of the cars on the EV list no longer had the rebates. It ended up being terrible. All of the materials are being sourced elsewhere. So they're really trying to grow this part.
I'm not an expert on that stuff in particular, but this gets us to the clip that I thought was really interesting about Taiwan. And I will play it now.
This is Ryan Lee. And Ryan writes, Taiwan's work ethic is unique even among Asian standards, and it's related to the second half of your TSMC conversation. It's hard to talk about Taiwan without mentioning geopolitics because it affects every aspect of our lives. I'm coming from a pro-status quo perspective, which is the predominant geopolitical perspective in Taiwan.
It means we don't provoke war, but we believe in the right to defend ourselves if attacked. What does geopolitics have to do with work ethic? The answer is TSMC, but here's the context. To be Taiwanese is to live with an existential threat for every aspect of your life. This existential threat comes from the mainland China's current practices and future threats to diminish us.
China's been very successful in diminishing us. They outpower us in population, size, economy, and military. How does that oppression affect the national mood? There were traditionally two popular perspectives. The pro-China view is that China only allowed us to exist due to its graciousness. The pro-U.S. view is that China hasn't attacked us because the U.S. will save us.
Ironically, both perspectives are self-diminutive. But then TSMC changed everything. Now there's a third perspective, one that is neither pro-China nor pro-U.S., but rather pro-Taiwanese. TSMC becomes so integral to this third perspective that it even has a name, Hugo Shenshan. It's roughly translated as war deterrence by economics.
The idea behind this is solidified by the 2020 chip supply chain crisis. A war with Taiwan would cause a global economic crisis at such an unparalleled scale that Taiwan has made itself indispensable to American interests. War with Taiwan would be too costly for any party. So how does TSMC's success translate to the Taiwanese work ethic? TSMC's success is viewed as Taiwanese self-actualization.
Hugo Shenshan is part of a general narrative. If you work hard, then you save your freedom and democracy. Mind you, this is just a narrative you'll find in the media and family gatherings. In reality, I know people who hate their jobs in media tech and other tech companies. But the narrative persists and is a pervasive part of work culture.
My cousin who works at TSMC is viewed in the family as a national hero. Where else can you replicate a work culture so motivated by an existential threat? There's no equitable stakes in America. So when TSMC announced their factory in Arizona, Taiwanese people knew it wasn't going to work out.
So that was Casey List reading feedback to their podcast about their conversation on TSMC. I think it's really fascinating, this whole idea that... that it's their national identity is tied to the diligence of their workforce. Right. They're national heroes by going to work at their chip plants. And I think that is just bonkers because I don't think we are motivated the same way.
That seems to be a massive rift, a massive difference in how we see what diligence really looks like.
And is it just for the people that, my apologies, I don't know if it said it in the clip, but is it just for the people that work at this chip plant or is it anyone that goes out and does a day's work?
Well, I can't answer that specifically because they didn't talk about that. The context was around the chip plant, but that is a major, like manufacturing technology is such a major industry there that it's not just TSMC, it's all of the associated industries. It is a it it is taken diligence to this. It's not just a professional trait, but a cultural value.
It's rooted in Confucian ethics and emphasizes, you know, this kind of work ethic. And I don't remember the last time I felt so strongly about going to work.
Well, not for me personally, but I remember during the pandemic when we were hitting pots and pans out our windows for nurses, doctors. So we have had times where we have really elevated.
Yeah, to a point of national pride.
Right, exactly. But it's interesting to... doctors and nurses seem very different than chip makers. Although I'm sure the chip makers actually are influencing more lives than nurses and doctors, but it's, they're influencing, influencing nurses and doctors, right?
The chips are in everything. They're in the medical equipment, they're in everything. And, and so I, that I think is interesting to me. What is it like, as you just reflect on, In Taiwan, it's a point of national pride and political and economic power to go to work for the country.
What is it that we have, do you think, that American companies motivate, or I'll say companies in the West, motivate to that same level? Do you think there is an argument that business leaders make that could motivate American workforce to the same level?
I keep just going to different types of careers, like how we elevate firefighters, how we used to elevate law enforcement and now very much do not generally. But those are those are people that are putting their lives on the line.
Is that what it takes? Do you know, like, is that what it takes to actually have that level of national pride in the work that you do every day, going to a chip plant? Like we have people who go to chip plants every day. I kind of wish we could hear from some of them. If you work at a chip plant, do you feel like you are a national hero in your family? I want to know the answer to that here.
If you work at Intel, I just don't know what that looks like. And I don't want to say that I don't appreciate hard work. I feel like my history with diligence and hard work didn't start with this national identity or this ideology that probably started in school and people worked real hard. Like I was a nut in school. Like I did not know what I wanted to do.
I worked just enough, just barely until graduate school when I actually figured out what I wanted to do. And then there's passion. Yeah. Diligence became an application of, of, the choices that I was able to make. Right. If somebody else made the choices for me, I didn't care. But if I got to make the choice, I could work hard at it.
I like what you said about it, that it must be starting at school. It must be starting in the family, like very young, just going out and doing this type of job, which is physical labor for the most part, is... It's painstaking, but it's also like a really a source of pride. We don't have that. And I think one of the reasons maybe is because it seems like so many.
I'm sort of just saying this out loud, and I don't know if this is really true, but it seems like in America, so many of the people that make the most money.
don't actually do things like it's like you know it's like stockbrokers or people in finance like they're just moving things around that they're not actually producing a that's why they say like construction workers have some of the highest job satisfaction is because they can see something yeah be created out of nothing we have a lot of just moving numbers around and buying and selling short and all of that which maybe isn't as romantic yeah
Well, I did a little bit of look on into this idea behind one of the other evolutions of diligence. And that is that in some cultures, it's seen as insufficient and some as excessive, right? Where you have this, the TSMC leadership saying there is insufficient diligence used. I'm using that as a code for work ethic. Yeah. We might look at that and say, you know, it's excessive.
What you're asking is excessive and there's no work life balance. So how do you balance inefficient versus excessive diligence? And the first thing I thought about was like Southern Europe, because one of the bits of reputation in Southern Europe is that those people know how to rest. That has been the thing that I've carried in my head, right?
And Mexico, for example, you go and you know what a siesta is. Like I've known that a siesta exists since I was in grade school. So in the U.S., right, long working hours and constant productivity are seen as signs of diligence and commitment. Compare that to Southern Europe, like Spain or Italy, the American work ethic is lampooned as excessive, right?
Got it.
The whole concept of work-life balance is more pronounced in those cultures where the lunch breaks and siestas are common. In Japan, what would you guess the Japanese model for work ethic is?
I am guessing it's through the roof. That there's work hard, play hard. They just stopped at work hard.
Right. And in fact, the word karoshi is, I mean, you laugh because you'd be crying. It's death from overwork. That is a concept that exists in Japan. It just highlights the extent to which diligence is pushed. And you compare that to many Western countries, that's insane levels of intensity. Why would we be that unhealthy and eventually counterproductive?
In Korea, Samsung, the company Samsung, decided, you know, we're having some trouble meeting our goals. So we're going to go ahead and go to six day work weeks for everybody. Right. Like that, according to the most rational sort of human science, human resources science or sociological research, that's counterproductive. People need more rest and rehabilitation, recuperation time to be right.
Germany, what would you say? How would you say you contrast comparing as Germany, German work ethic?
I would think that Germany would also be very steadfast in work until it's done.
Yeah, it's interesting.
They just still seem, and I think this is a very old personalization for them, but they just seem more rigid now. than some other countries.
That I get out of this. But what I was able to find out was sort of a balance between those things, that the work culture is known for efficiency and punctuality, really celebrating completing work tasks within working hours. So I wonder if there's a measure of productivity per hour if Germany is high on that mark, right?
Meaning, does that mean like, don't take, do your job so you don't have to take any work home with you?
Yes.
Got it.
Yeah. So during your workday, you work hard, but at the end of the workday, you're finished and you are able to turn off work better than many other cultures. I think that's interesting. Compare it with something like Brazil, which is, you know, much more relaxed approach to time and deadlines.
And what is largely, especially you compare it to someplace like Germany, it's vastly insufficient and not diligent compared to Germany. So I think that's just really interesting stuff. And here we have this concept of diligence that is supposed to be you know, enshrined in our moral and ethical fabric across humanity. And it is wildly disputed in practice in cultures around the world.
It is so, so different. Like, I don't. How do you live up to it? How do you live up to this concept of diligence? When you think about where we could be in the world, that, that is the open question that I am left with thinking about this particular heavenly virtue.
I wouldn't, I, it never would have occurred to me, but it makes so much sense that it would be so different around the world. And the idea of making like in Taiwan, making your job honor is, and making your job worth it and you're a hero sounds great and terrible. I mean, I think when you first started saying it, I was like, oh, why don't we do that?
But I don't want to do that because I mean, I brought up the phrase work hard, play hard. The play hard is what you're going to remember. You're not going to remember. I guess maybe it's like legacy or you talked about what somebody said when he died. I already forgot who it was. But like no one's going to remember. Oh, Buddha. Oh, that seems important. I should have written that down.
It wasn't just somebody. As Carl said, okay, Buddha, that's someone that I should have remembered. But you're not going to remember like, oh, that 19th chip. You're going to remember the between times. it sounds like that could also lead to a capitalist nightmare and what some people maybe are living. But on the other side, if you are trapped in that and you do have to work,
Because working gives you money to pay for things and your family. If you find real honor and achievement in that, then that's also good. I don't know. It's torn both ways.
Yeah. Yeah. Just talking about it, you're tied in knots. Yeah. Right? Like it is one of the more interesting concepts we've come to because it's not just do I get up in the morning and work hard to finish things? Right. I try. Every day I get up and I try to create something new. And, you know, for a long time, we talked about like the thing that,
that I like to check off at the end of the day is, did I ship something new? Did I finish something and put it out in the world? And for me, it's pretty easy because I measure it in episodes or web content or something published. And so I try to publish something new every day in some capacity for someone. But I also feel like the practice...
is trying to let go of the fear that drives me to unhealthy levels of diligence. I see.
Right. What is that? What is your motivator? Is it that you are providing something or if you don't do this, you disappear?
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. That's the huge, huge question that if I don't provide something, if I don't end up doing this thing, that anxiety of like, I won't get that next job, I won't get that next client is is still very real. And on. You know, as we record this in two weeks, I'll have been doing this 18 years and I still carry that incredible anxiety every day. Yeah.
Oh, man.
Is that crazy?
Do you know what we as podcasters need? What? Pots and pans. Whenever we start recording, it's ironic because the one thing that will mess up our doing our job is people banging on pots and pans. So we'll be like, thanks, but okay. Okay. As we put more and more padding around our entire room.
It's not enough padding.
And now, an excerpt from Be Diligent by Adebayo Tajuddin.
Education elevates. Struggle to be good at it. Many will play at it, join them not. Suffering awaits the indolent, wailing for the truants. Play not with the dawn, be diligent. Time waits for no one.
In the lush tropical rainforests of Thailand, a tale of diligence and manipulation unfolds. This is the story of the noble and unsuspecting ant and its ever-present pursuer, the Cordyceps fungus.
The Cordyceps fungus, particularly the species Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, has evolved a unique and cunning relationship with these hardworking insects, one that demonstrates ultimately how the life of the carpenter ant of the rainforests of Thailand is an unmitigated suckfest. The story begins when spores of the Cordyceps fungus find their way onto an ant, penetrating its cuticle.
Once inside, the fungus begins to grow, methodically feeding on the ant's internal organs and tissues. As the fungus develops, it starts to exert a strange influence over the ant's behavior. Under the control of the fungus, the ant is compelled to leave the safety of its colony. It climbs with a singular focus to the underside of a leaf or twig.
There, in a final act of submission, the ant bites down, locking its mandibles in a death grip. This precise position, carefully orchestrated by the fungus, is crucial for the next stage of its development. From the ant's head, a fruiting body emerges, a stalk bearing the fungus's spores. As this happens, the ant's life comes to an end, its body now merely a vessel for the fungus's reproduction.
The fruiting body then releases its spores, which drift through the forest with purposeful determination, ready to infect more unsuspecting ants and continue the cycle anew.
And so, in the heart of the forest, this eternal dance of diligence between fungus and its hard-working host plays out, a testament to the complex and often astonishing relationships found in the natural world, where determination and persistence can lead to the most remarkable adaptations.
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Pete.
Uh, Pete. Oh, hi. Hi. Feeling friends know that we teased why, to your words, I look so tired. No, I am not a fruiting body. I have not been taken over by some gross, horrific funk guy. No, instead, yesterday I was on set all day. A good friend of mine named David is directing a
feature film a horror film out of his place and he asked me to be script supervisor on days that i'm on set oh this is very exciting do you know what a script supervisor does well i absolutely do and because of i don't want to outshine your segment i think you should tell everybody what a script supervisor does Well, it's interesting because script supervisor is something I've never done.
And I made it very clear to him, I don't know how to do this. So we had to talk about what kind of things do you need to know? And then I wrote this down. So I made this sheet called a script supervisor report because all the templates that were on the computer land were filled with too much information he didn't need. Basically, a script supervisor more or less is in charge of continuity.
So when actors do takes over and over and over again, you have to make sure that they do the same things as far as physically acting. and interacting with props around them, or else continuity will be broken, and when you cut from one shot to another, cups will be flying all over the place.
This actually happened to me once for the feature that I directed, 30 Nights, where we didn't have a... Oh, no, we did have a script supervisor. Unfortunately, they didn't notice that in half of the takes...
uh actor johnny gd giacoloni uh picked up a whiskey bottle and put it on the table to his right and then in half the takes he put it on the table to his left and unfortunately the whiskey bottle was in all the coverage that means i had the amount of shots that i could use was cut in half yeah because you can't have the whiskey bottle jumping around it wasn't that type of a story so
I don't know what type of a story that would be, but it sounds awesome, I guess. So yeah, so my job was to run... Someone else was running the slate. That's the thing where you go 23, Baker, take one. The first AC was running that, but I have to take notes about every single take about what they do with their hands, what they do with the fork, and I have to remind them every time.
We just did... It was the first day yesterday on set, and it was... Fairly easy for everyone except for three people, I would say. The actors, because they have to memorize their lines. It was very long dialogue scenes. And respectfully, me, because they were sitting at a table and eating. And that is a million props. There's so many different things.
So you have to write down a little note every time that they take a bite. What he does. That's why I mentioned the fork is he picked up the fork, took a bite. Then when the argument starts, he put the fork in his left hand and re put it down on the napkin and has to be that way over and over again. And so it's a way of diligently, painstakingly taking all of these.
What hand did he use to bring his chair out? When did he start rubbing his eyes? When did he cross his arms? It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be close enough. And then I have to not breaking the actor's actoriness. sort of just slide in after the director gives his or her or their notes and just say, and remember the fork is in the other hand. And he's like, I know I felt that.
And I'm like, great, do it that way. And it's a lot of that. And one of the other things that I did is I'm in charge of keeping track of eye lines. And I actually saved, I was lucky enough to save two eye line mistakes. Eye lines are, if you were picturing two people sitting across the table looking at each other, uh, in a film, one of them is going to be looking left to right.
One is going to be looking right to left. I know that sounds confusing, but it's just how eye lines work. If they're both looking left to right, then neither of them are talking to each other. Everyone's just staring off. And so I have to take notes about that. And yeah, It's a really fun and terrifying position because every department, every department in a film is fun and terrifying.
But this is the department where people I'm working with sound because they're constantly asking what take. We're on, I'm working with camera because I have to work the slate with the first AC. Actors are asking, the director needs reminding about eyelines. It's a lot of work.
And my reports, real quick, my reports look like I was the guy, speaking of our trailer for this season, the guy from Seven. Like I just have this box and I have all this incredibly small writing, tiny, tiny, tiny writing.
And like all the empty space is filled in with spirals. Like, is that kind of how bad did it get? Yeah. There is just about not, like, I'm just thinking about it because I think, oh, it's fun to do any job on the film set. I love film sets. And then you described one that would be the worst, like the most horrible. And I'll say maybe this is the spiritual cousin of diligence, but attention.
is not a thing that I tend to have a lot of in these kinds of scenarios because my attention is so fractured. I should say that differently. Attention is something I have a lot of because it's so fractured. Like my attention is in a million different places, in dizzyingly busy scenes for detail, and I miss, as a result, actually a lot.
And I think you have painted a picture of a job that is terrifying to me.
Well, it's – there is pride also speaking of sins and virtues that in diligence there is pride because you're doing – the script supervisor is doing their job so everyone else can best do theirs.
Yes.
The director is concentrating on the actor's faces and the emotions they're doing. I'm the one that says – that makes a little note and says you can see his lavalier, his microphone cord. It got loose of his shirt. And so the director's not... And I sold out my script supervisor for 30 nights about the whiskey bottle. Constantly, they were like, you can see this, you can see that.
I mean, they saved my life completely. So I'm even doing like a real poor man's job of it. Like usually script supervisors have all of these codes and the signals that they do down the script. I'm just doing the basic version of it. And it's already...
diligent night where are you i just a question about the job like where are you on set when this is happening because you can't be everywhere how do you see all these things traditionally you would be in what's called video village with the director watching the coverage you're watching on a monitor all of what the film because all you care about is what the camera can see yeah this is low budget enough we don't have a video village so i'm just right there
On the side, I check the frame and then I'm not looking at the frame anymore. I'm just looking at what they do and making notes. So I'm just one of many weirdos slightly rocking back and forth, which is my want, which everyone frees everybody out. Just like really painstakingly looking and trying to find every nuance that I can. Okay.
You called me, we texted a little bit yesterday, and you were exhausted. And you still managed to come through with something I needed from you late last night. But my question is, and I think this is part of the discussion of diligence, which is stamina. You put in these incredibly long days, and I'm curious your take on what happens to you. It was 12 and a half hours. Okay, 12 and a half hours.
And so you put in on these days, what happens to your... to your desire to see it through by hour eight, like how do you muster whatever it takes to be, to be present until the very end? Is it just, you're excited about the job? You like it so much. You got to be there. You made the choice. What is it?
It's excitement and fear. As I said, it's a terrifying job that you are, if I let something go through, if script producer misses something and an eyeline is missed or changes, that's going to mess up that entire scene. And you won't know that it's messes up the entire scene until a month from now when the editor is going through things. So it's really, it's people pleasing.
It's desperately wanting to do a good job and, you get a feeling of reward when there's a disagreement about which take or anything, and you say, okay, things are getting weird. Let's go from Charlie to Delta just to clean slate. So you're always calling things out, which makes it kind of cool. And also the thing, anyone that has spent time on a set is it's –
if the set is run correctly, like this one is, like my friend is running, it's really a relationship. I mean, you just make these intense friendships for a short period of time, almost like you kind of would. I always kind of compare filmmaking to going to war a little bit. Don't tell a veteran that. But the idea that you're encamped with these people working overly long hours.
It is summer right now, and we're filming in the valley. And so the heat is insane because you can't have air conditioning running while you're filming. So it's just very the camaraderie that you feel makes you want to do a wonderful job. And then you get home after the day and you crash because you're also kind of working a little bit on adrenaline.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How many days do you find you can do this kind of thing in a row? Do you have any sense of it? And I'm, and I'm, we're probably asking back to 30 nights because you, you had a number of long days right in a row.
Yeah. We filmed for, I think we filmed 14 days over 17 days. So yeah, it's every single day. I mean, you just, you arrange everything in your life around it. Like one of the things that I had to do during 30 nights is I had to put Foster up at his favorite camp because I couldn't have another thing to come home to be in charge of. And I was just on set yesterday.
I'm not on set for the next two days, but then I am on set Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Foster's going to camp because I know I just need all of the extra time to be able to sleep or eat or start a drug habit. I don't know exactly what's going to happen.
Well, you know, that's an interesting – like you joke about it, but the idea of compensating for diligence is the thing that makes diligence so complicated to me. Like we, if diligence is such a cultural norm that we are, you know, that we're, that we work so hard to the point that we have to like compensate for our work habits with substance. Do you know what I mean?
Like that's the, the problem is that that diligence hyper diligence is workaholism. And that's the thing that makes diligence so confusing, right? It's a virtue and it's,
we at some level we revile it and we talk about how we work life balance is so important and I think it's easier in situations like making a movie because making a movie starts and ends right there's an end to it and you can see it when you are working at making chips in a factory When does that end?
There's always going to be more chips.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's why, yeah, filmmaking can be kind of a, it's a marathon, but it's really a sprint hiding in the guise of a marathon. It's a long time, but then it will all end. And these people that you become remarkably close to, you will never see them again. Right. You'll see some of them, some of them become like lifelong friends, like Liz did for 30 Nights, our producer. Interesting.
And a lot of the other people I've never talked to again, not because for lack of want, but just because while... That's the nomadic nature of the business. Right. While I was editing the feature, they moved on and met nine other Toms in the time that it took me. There is no other Tom. Thank you. That was a test. That was good. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. This week's tune is Go Get It by Jasmine J. Walker and Lalinaya.
Coming up next week, Tom, do you even know? I have no idea. I'm not on. Oh, wait, I can find out. It's a secret. We don't have to record to record, if you know what I mean. Wink. It's a clips show.
That's right, because we've already covered two of the what? Sin and virtue, right? Pride and envy. Pride and envy. We did last season. Yeah. Listeners will know. That's right. So we are going to have a little bit new information coming. Or maybe we will react a little bit to what we said back then.
Cause I have no idea what we said, but yeah, we're going to be, it's like a summer break for us, but not for you listeners. You get to listen to us from before. Is that a good way to describe a clip show?
It's perfect. Us from before. Until then, I'm Pete Wright.
And I'm Tommy Metz III. Thank you so much for downloading. We will sort of see you next week on All the Feelings, Sins, and Virtues.
Egg.