The Random Show — Lessons from Tim’s Sabbatical, Alzheimer’s Breakthroughs, Kevin Tries a Medium, Fitness Tools and Protocols, Book Recommendations, and More (#766)

Hi Tim,

I’m a long time listener, but this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to comment. I have thoughts on the approach you are taking to finding a mate and starting a family.

Just as background, I am a 61 year old mother of two young adults and have been happily married to my husband for almost 35 years.

Based on the many comments about starting a family I’ve heard you make over the years, this seems like something you are anxious and excited to do. My question is: why do you feel you need to find a mate to do this?

Here are my thoughts on why you should do this alone (to start, anyway) and soon.

First, you’re not exactly young anymore. By the time you find someone to date, get to know, bond with and have a child, several more years will have gone by. Do you really want, and is it fair to a child, to be in your late forties or early fifties?

Second, based on the many of your podcasts I’ve listened to and the way you trained Molly when you got her, I’m going to bet you have a lot of thoughts and plans on how to raise a child. Are you going to be open to someone else’s ideas on how to do things? Not to mention in-laws/grandparents. I can tell you that of all the rough times in my marriage, finding common ground on how to handle different parenting situations were among the most difficult and stressful to both me personally and on my marriage.

Finally, but most important, you seem like the type of person who is going to do everything in their power to consciously raise a child. Raising a child is the most time consuming thing you will ever do. Not just physical time, emotional as well. It occupies almost every second of your life. Even though if might only be in the background while you are doing something else, thoughts and worry for your child’s welfare are always there. Whatever relationship you’ve established with your mate will generally take a bit of a backseat to the little person needing your attention…in ways too many to count. Imagine how you felt when Molly was a puppy. Now multiply it by 10 and make it 24/7 for at least a few years.

Anyway, I’ve taken many helpful ideas from your books and podcasts. For what it’s worth, this is a change of perception I thought might be useful to you.

Best wishes,

Jodie

I don’t watch videos of the podcast very often. Do you always do the Random Show without pants?

Hey Tim – below are two quotes I recently pondered…

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
– Henry Betson

“We are but one of innumerable organisms crawling along the skin of a living rock, wrapped in a film of air, whirling through the vacuum of space at unfathomable speed. The universe is indifferent to us, moving inexorably toward a state of maximum entropy in which living planets like ours – in which life of any kind – will be impossible. Earth is a beautiful rebellion and precious miracle: a garden in the void.” – Ferris Jabr

If you haven’t, you should look into Joe Hippensteel’s program for your back issues. He works with Navy SEALs, athletes, and people with injuries (some pretty severe). I’d avoid his book, but the seminars and online videos are valuable. I’d imagine his one-on-one sessions are, too.

Hey Brother,
I hope that your sabbatical has left you refreshed and recharged.
I am pretty new to the Tim Ferriss cult. I have only recently picked up the 4-Hour Workweek. Just like this episode of the podcast, it is so jam packed with resources and wisdom. I am going to have to watch, read, listen to it over and over and over!
I am here for it! We think so very much a like that I believe we could sit and have an 8 hour conversation like this and not get tired.

Whelp, I guess I better get started prepping my cold call script email for a chance to meet my new role model. 😉 (Comfort challenge – chapter 9)

Cheers!

Congrats on ten years of the podcast! I enjoy listening to an episode every once in a while, and this week has been such a time. What strategy have you developed as you are searching for a partner to start a family with? And are you leaving room for someone you haven’t specifically imagined? I ask because as I was listening to the Kevin convo and you were describing things you’re looking for, she sounds very much like a finished product. But one you’re trying to enmesh into your own life and I’m curious how you’re going about it. It seems kind of like merging two high speed performance cars on roads to different cities to me. Since you’ve spent a lot of time with experts in their field and focus on doing things optimally, I figure you must have a particular process you’ve come up with. I’m recently out of the Air Force after ten years as an Intelligence Officer and have had no luck myself. I’ve mostly blamed it on my job and location (previously dictated by said job), combined with not being a particularly talented flirt. Shockingly, women in uniform don’t seem to benefit romantically the same way men do. Now I’m 34 and about to be going back to school with 20-year-olds. But, my professional life is the most open it’s ever been to focusing on a relationship. You know, since it’s currently non-existent 😀 Give me some hope, Tim! If you can’t do it with all your resources, then I’m afraid it really is all down to chance. 

Is it possible for you or Kevin to share the details of the medium? Thank you

First, you’re not exactly young anymore. By the time you find someone to date, get to know, bond with and have a child, several more years will have gone by. Do you really want, and is it fair to a child, to be in your late forties or early fifties?

Hi Tim, my input for your search for future podcast guests/content:

I think you are missing out on something that did present itself for you in this podcast. As you said yourself, you could either talk to guests that everyone knows, or find guests who are the best at what they do, but hardly anyone knows them.

What about the medium that Kevin talked about? She obviously has great talents. And in a field you know not much about – or reversely could learn a lot.

“We do not have an explanation for it.” What if the simplest explanation is just that there is something we could call “ghosts”/souls of deceased people and some people are able to communicate with them?

I have the feeling you build a distance to such topics because you do not want to upset your main audience that is, in general, probably more on the materialistic side of things, which would be sad for someone who is always on the search for truth and beneficial, but hidden, knowledge. I could be wrong though.

I would love you to explore more fringe topics. There are many people who are serious experts on their field. I think the time is ripe.

This was fun. I think you might appreciate this short clip called “Doing Nothing Meticulously” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAwnxiu1J8U

Really enjoyed this random show, as usual. I found especially interesting the section you highlighted in the recap episode, because it seems like you came right up to the edge of an important showdown between two competing methods or schools of meditation: simply put, the sit-still-and-focus-on-nothing Zen approach, vs. the more kinetic, action-as-focal-point style, which shows up in some Taoist practices and thought, but also seems to be a thread running through many traditions. From Thich Nhat Hanh’s walking meditation, to Alan Watts’ thoughts on doing the dishes, to the practices of yoga asana and tai chi, which are really meditations in motion, and many more – you’ve got a wide array of allies and templates for the active approach to mindfulness.

I realize the two methods aren’t mutually exclusive, and almost certainly complement each other. Still, I’d love to hear Ferriss and Rose really go mano el mano on the issue: do-nothing Zen vs. meditation-in-motion. Maybe a rematch, next random show?