Summer Jean | Unschooling - Living Without the Need to Prove Yourself

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We're together with Summer Jean.
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And first of all, Summer, welcome.
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Thank you.
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It's nice to see you again.
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Likewise.
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And for the people watching, normally I have my wonderful wife next to me, but we are in Tarragona, Spain, where we are hosting what we call World School Village, which is a giant event where we have invited a lot of world schoolers, and we are around 40 families with teens who all are unschooled, homeschooled, world school travelers who live in the same place for a month.
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And my wife is super busy with that event.
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She's the main one running it.
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But I really wanted to get an episode recorded this week.
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So here we are, just me and you, Summer.
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That sounds amazing and so cool what you guys are up to.
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It is a, I would say, overwhelming, fantastic experience because a lot of the homeschoolers out there, and you have probably felt that growing up or know that kind of feeling.
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Many of them they meet so many like-minded people in the same place.
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And I think we have more than 40 teams around the same age, just hanging out, chatting, no bullying, just relaxed and enjoying life and talking.
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That's beautiful.
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It is amazing.
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And when we when I was uh when I was a kid, my older brothers, when they were teenagers, they got to go to NBTSC, not back to school camp.
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And like back in the early days when it was new, when Grace Llewellyn was still leading it herself and everything.
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So my older brothers were some of the early members of Not Back to School Camp.
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And that was cool.
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And I always wanted to go when I got old enough, but then my family moved to Hawaii and it just never worked out for me.
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But it was a hugely impactful experience for them to get to be around so many other kids who came from alternative or different kinds of families and different kinds of education and upbringing, even though there was this vast, vast range between like my family's style of like not doing schooling and other families' styles.
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I mean, everyone, it's such a vast, vast range, right?
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Because the education is only like this tiny, tiny part of the wider world of parenting and relating to children and everything.
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So even though the range was so huge, there were certain elements of just being together with other kids that aren't in that system that was hugely connective and very like reassuring for them and really like gave them a lot of confidence because we didn't have a lot of people in our immediate life, you know.
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Like when I was young, homeschooling was barely heard of, let alone like what people are calling unschooling now or self-educated or whatever.
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There's so many terms.
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And so it was really cool for them to meet so many other kids that had at least that were at least different from the the set system of public schooling, even if it wasn't quite like our family.
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Just that it was different was a way that we could relate to other kids that we met who, you know, um didn't follow curriculum or you know, just had some different kind of freedom or structure in their in their education.
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And so that was really so it's beautiful what you're doing.
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I think it's really important um for so many families to have to be able to get together and connect and the kids and for the parents just to be like we're not alone.
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Yeah, it's really sometimes I get very easily emotional, and I actually had a cry about it today when I talked with my kids because I just got so happy uh thinking about seeing some of these teens a week ago and then seeing the now interact, and you can just see the ease of life in them and how they relax in each other's presence presence, and it just made me really, really happy.
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Uh so I think yeah, yeah.
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Somewhere, I've been considering some questions, and and one of them is um this it's not philosophical, but it is for me who have been in the system of public schooling, even though I, in many ways, compared to many other people, are kind of rebellious in the way that I didn't want to go to university, even in a country where it's paid and you even get a salary for taking it.
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I wanted to make movies and creative projects and all that.
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So I just went ahead and had what people would call six to seven gap years uh before it did anything.
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But I still run around with this little uh productive um mindset that I need to be productive somehow.
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And and sometimes when I look at my old the oldest of the ones who have been homeschooled, we also have a wonderful daughter who's 26, but the oldest of the ones who has been home unschooled and homeschooled, he's very good at enjoying life and just being alive.
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Um and part of me is envious, and I can also, as a parent, be afraid.
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Will he figure out to make an income and all that?
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And then the other part of me is considering how must it be to grow up without this constant nagging of you need to create a career, you need to be productive, your life needs to look like this for you to produce.
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Yeah, you have to, yes, you have to you have to justify your existence with productivity.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And even though, as I said, I told my story of kind of being rebellious and doing a lot of stuff, I still have this justification towards myself, but I don't see it in the same way in my son and you who have been uh unschooled all the way.
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I'm curious where you are on this um on if you also have it under your shoulder sometimes, or how you're handling it.
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No, it's a it's a beautiful thing to consider, and it is philosophical.
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And I've contemplated that quite a bit, and I have discussions about this with my mom.
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And I think that to some extent it's unavoidable because we're in this modern society, and it's so it permeates everything.
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Like you can't really, I don't think that you can raise children without that affecting them to some degree.
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But I think you can lessen the degree.
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And yeah, I think that school has a huge, huge bit of that.
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But I got some of it myself simply from the family I grew up in, from the relatives that I was around, from the parents of my friends, from it's everywhere.
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It's from TV and movies and everything, everything is pushing this narrative that you have to, that your value is in what you can produce as far as monetary success.
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So it's not even what you can produce, like, look at this amazing piece of art that I created.
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It's like, yeah, but how much can you sell it for?
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That's what's gonna matter.
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Because that painting only has value if someone's willing to pay a certain amount of money for it.
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So we've put everything onto it's all about what it's what its value in dollars is instead of just its like spiritual value, it's emotional value, it's like all of these other things.
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And so I definitely have that programming as well.
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But I have noticed when I look around, I mean, I'm I'm 37 now.
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And um, like you described me as being unschooled, and that is still accurate if you're going by the original definition of unschooling.
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What I say is the true definition of unschooling, because the guy who actually made it up made it, made up the term unschooling to apply to something he'd already kind of formulated, and he's the first one to make that connection.
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So unschooling, according to John Holt, who created the term, is actually um child-directed learning or self-directed learning, child-led learning or self-directed learning.
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That's basically that's the like the absolute core definition.
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So when I use the term unschooling, that's what I mean.
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And that means 100%.
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It means there is no adult implemented learning activity whatsoever.
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There's no pushing on the adult side.
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There's no, I would say, yes, guiding maybe, but there's no actual like you're gonna do this at this time, ever from an adult.
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There's no required learning or adult-implemented learning, I would say.
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So I just want to say that because I see a lot of things today that are saying, oh, we unschool sometimes.
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That's not a thing.
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That's called homeschooling.
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If you're doing the weekend, if you're doing any kind of adult implemented learning, it's some form of homeschooling.
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Unschooling means there's no schooling perpetrated on the child.
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So you can't unschool certain subjects or unschool sometimes, or that's not that's not how that works in my world.
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So that's where I'm at with that.
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So I was, according to that definition, I was unschooled.
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There was no adult implemented academic learning in my life.
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Um, no one ever sat me down and made me do any kind of worksheet.
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I've never, I've nothing.
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I've never opened a textbook, or at least not.
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I mean, I've opened a textbook because I got curious a few times, quickly closed them.
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And we didn't have a curriculum, we didn't have any of that kind of thing.
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We had a very my mom focused on relationship and connection.
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My mom focused on relationship and connection.
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And she told us, which I'm going to bring this back to your question.
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My mom raised us constantly reminding us that all she wanted for us was for us to find our sense of rightness in the world, like to find, to connect with a passion, to do what we loved, to find our flow.
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And she would support us as long as it needed for us to do that.
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She had no expectations of what that would look like for us.
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She had no attachment to what we would become or or how that would look.
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She had no attachment to us having any kind of, you know, success in the world.
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She didn't need us to be impressive, to get degrees, to do anything.
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She was like, I don't care if you're the garbage man.
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I just want you to find peace.
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I want you to live in a way that is in alignment with your own sense of rightness.
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Um, so that's the message I got growing up.
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And I'm super, super grateful for that.
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And I think that I knew my mom meant it because of how she treated me every day.
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So it's one thing to think that consciously and be like, of course I want that for my children.
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And most parents will say that.
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Yeah.
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It's, you know, and they mean it.
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They're not lying.
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I know they mean it and there's genuine intention.
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But the actions and the way that you speak to your child every day and the way that you treat them every day is where the message is.
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That's the message they're going to get, not from you telling them, I just want you to be happy.
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Because then you turn around and you say, No, you need to sit here and you need to complete this math worksheet.
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Because if you don't, you're going to be a loser.
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Like that's what you're telling them.
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If you don't do what someone else thinks you should be doing and accomplishing tasks set by other people that are important to other people that you have no interest in, you might be uncomfortable with, you might not be ready for, it might feel totally wrong to you.
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But if you don't deny your own sense of rightness and what feels safe for you and good for you and comfortable for you, if you don't crush that, your own sense of what is right for yourself and follow someone else's direction, some higher authority somewhere out there always knows what's better for you.
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And you need to do what they say, otherwise you're going to be a failure.
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And that's the message that people are telling their kids every time they make them learn something their child has shown no interest in.
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Every time that you're forcing your child to use their mind in a way in which they are uninterested in, uncomfortable with, unready for.
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And they're the only ones that can know what they're ready for.
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You don't get to say.
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No one gets to say what another person's internal world is like or what they're actually ready for or comfortable with.
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Um, and when I say things like this, I really like to make sure that people get the point that I'm saying mentally, because you know, you still need to wash your dishes and brush your teeth and like there's things like that.
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But you can think whatever you want about it.
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You're free.
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You can feel however you want about it, you can think whatever you want about it.
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You can even say whatever you want about it in my family.
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As long as that person, and when we get into these kinds of freedoms, there's like a where's your freedom, where's my freedom, where do our freedoms meet and curb one another's?
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Because you might have the freedom to say like something really nasty to me, but I have the freedom to be upset about that and not want to talk to you for the rest of the day.
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So it doesn't mean there's no consequences, and kids get to just say whatever they want and act however they want.
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It means that the consequences are natural.
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They have they're actually natural, they're not planned out by an adult.
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They're not, there's no adult manipulating and creating consequences, even within themselves.
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I'm gonna react a certain way so my kid learns a certain thing.
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It's actually just being super authentic and genuine and present.
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And that's what I got with my mom.
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So I got a lot of really beautiful support of being in beingness and not a huge push on the doing.
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And I wasn't purposefully taught by my mom that my value is in my productivity and what I can create, but I still got some of that programming just because I grew up in this world, and so it happened.
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And I think there's a little bit, and for my older brothers, this is very much true because they're four and seven years older than me, and they had a lot more pressure and influence from my dad's side of the family, which were the ones that were super, super freaked out about us, and so there's a lot of fear-mongering, and it really gets to you when you're a kid, and those are the people that and we would have to spend weekends like alone.
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You know, my parents split up, so there was weekends with my dad.
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So we spent a lot of time alone with these grandparents and aunties and uncles.
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There was a lot of negative influence, a lot of judgment, a lot of fear, a lot of criticism, and that got to my older brothers more than me because I was a lot younger.
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And by the time I came along, my mom had really detached a lot more and more from that side of the family.
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So I didn't get as much of an influence.
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Then we moved away when I was 10, and I hardly saw most of that family, anyways.
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But my brothers got a lot of it, and I think it really got under their skin in some ways to where they almost it almost increased that feeling that you're talking about about having to do and putting all of your value in what you um what you achieve, like success-wise, according to society.
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And I think that my one of my older brothers for sure really felt the need to prove something, like to prove that he could be successful in the system and in the world, even though we were raised in this very different way.
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And that I I could really see that coming from my grandparents.
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There was so much disapproval and fear and anxiety that my brother wanted to know, see, I can be good, I can be successful, like and defending my mom and our way of life.
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I think that all of us had a little bit of a desire to prove something to the world because we were so harshly judged and criticized for so much of our lives for being so different and so weird.
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And my mom was very unusual in a lot of ways.
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We're not just talking because you know it's all connected, right?
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So it wasn't just education, it was also like the medical stuff and it was the spiritual stuff, and it was the health stuff, and it was the all of the things.
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And so there was a lot of judgment, a lot of criticism.
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My mom went through a lot.
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I mean, we had we had CPS at my door.
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Grandma called CPS to have us taken away from mom because we were being neglected because we were vegetarian and we were homeschooled.
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And my dad actually and my stepmom took my mom to court and tried to force us to go to public public school and get all the vaccines and do all the stuff.
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And so um the fear was real, you know, like we actually as children experienced things that made us realize that we could actually be taken away from our mother if we didn't pretend like we were fine.
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And I learned how to tell a lot of tall tales really young out of survival.
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I had to survive.
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I had to tell grandma when I'm six, like, oh yeah, no, I'm sleeping in my own bed because if you're six years old and you're still co-sleeping, something's wrong.
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So this is the world I grew up in because 30 years ago in California, in Northern California, 30 years ago.
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Yeah, no one.
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No, no one.
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So it was like my mom wasn't just a little weird, like she was so far to the other end of the spectrum from my dad's super right-wing all American cattle ranching family.
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And she was this weird hippie chick who decided to do everything different.
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And so they weren't only insulted because they took it as an offense against their way of life.
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So they actually went after her.
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Like there was a lot.
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It's just uh so my mom really got crucified, and we were all deeply affected.
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So I think there was a strong urge for us to prove ourselves against that, against that world, against my dad's family, against my dad himself.
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And my older brothers had it much worse than I did.
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Being men, for one thing, it's very patriarchal family.
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Nobody really cared what I did.
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They just wanted me to be cute and quiet and pretty.
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There was no real expectation for me.
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Um, and I rebelled against that by by like getting really tough and strong and loud and doing the opposite and become a glass blowing artist and stuff.
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But I'm really, really grateful that I got a little bit less of that influence than my brothers did because I can see it in them.
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I can see, especially in one of my older brothers, that desire to prove yourself to the world and that money being the mission.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So he makes the most money, he's the most successful.
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And in my opinion, and he went to college, like he's the one that went to school.
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He went to college, he got great grades.
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I remember him telling my mom he got into UC Berkeley, which is kind of a big deal.
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And I remember him calling my mom.
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My mom has reminded me of this quite a few times because she's like, I don't know how I got a kid like this.
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It's so funny.
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He calls her and he says, This is your moment of glory.
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Like, I got into UC Berkeley, mom, this is your moment of glory.
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And she was so confused because she was like, I don't care.
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Like, why would I care if you get into college or not?
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I didn't raise you to like prove that you could be successful according to society and the set standards.
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I raised you to find your own joy.
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And and I really feel like that had a lot to do with my that all that negative influence and my dad's family and just growing up in that society and all of that pressure.
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And he's actually like, I uh and I feel like he's the one that went to college.
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He got the degree, he got the degree in political science, he works for some fancy startup company working on computers from home.
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He's married, they own a house, they have a little girl, they have a dog, they have the perfect American dream life.
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And I was just there visiting him not that long ago.
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And honestly, I think he's the most miserable ahead of all of us.
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Yeah.
00:20:16.110 --> 00:20:32.269
But that's the interesting thing, which is what is happiness and when are we really happy and have many of us learn to listen to our bodies and when we are happy and when life is good.
00:20:32.830 --> 00:20:42.269
Funnily enough, trying to live up to what success means to other people, like accepting other people's standard of success, accepting society's standard of his success.
00:20:42.269 --> 00:20:44.350
I know a man here in Mexico.
00:20:44.350 --> 00:20:47.630
I live in a gorgeous little jungle beach town in Mexico.
00:20:47.630 --> 00:20:53.790
I know a man here who just walked out of everything, and he lives out in the jungle.
00:20:53.790 --> 00:20:56.190
I don't know who nobody owns the property.
00:20:56.190 --> 00:20:57.790
He lives way out in the jungle.
00:20:57.790 --> 00:21:01.870
He's made himself like a hammock fortress in this like tree.
00:21:01.870 --> 00:21:04.110
And he's just so happy.
00:21:04.110 --> 00:21:06.910
He's one of the happiest guys I've ever met.
00:21:06.910 --> 00:21:14.029
And he lives with nothing, and he walks two miles to come into town, and then he goes back to his tree next to the river and he lights a fire to cook.
00:21:14.029 --> 00:21:18.990
And he is the happiest, most content, peaceful person that I know around.
00:21:19.710 --> 00:21:32.670
Yeah, and I almost get anxiety thinking about it because I even as a free-spirited man who unschool my kids, uh or with unschool kids, you don't unschool them per se.
00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:35.710
I'd be like, who would I be able to do that?
00:21:35.710 --> 00:21:41.550
But yeah, with the small steps, and I'm trying to remove the layers one by one.
00:21:41.550 --> 00:21:46.910
Since we talked the first time on our podcast, and people should go listen to that episode.
00:21:46.910 --> 00:21:56.110
I found myself a hobby after many, many years of not really finding time for just doing what would be looked upon as nothing.
00:21:56.110 --> 00:22:02.830
I whipped with spoons and I love making spoons, and often when I make them, apparently I make quite pretty spoons.
00:22:02.830 --> 00:22:05.390
People are like, oh, shouldn't you sell them?
00:22:05.390 --> 00:22:08.990
And I'm like, hey man, it takes me five hours to make this one.
00:22:09.310 --> 00:22:09.550
Right.
00:22:09.630 --> 00:22:12.750
What can you possibly if you should pay it?
00:22:12.750 --> 00:22:15.070
I wanted $500 for it.
00:22:15.070 --> 00:22:16.509
I will give you the spoon.
00:22:16.509 --> 00:22:20.830
I've enjoyed making it, and I give you it, and you will enjoy using it.
00:22:20.830 --> 00:22:26.750
But but don't insult me by giving me $20 for five hours of my time.
00:22:26.750 --> 00:22:35.230
I could, I mean, I could work with whatever if it was, but just that joy of just sitting in the sun, relaxing, talking, and doing stuff.
00:22:35.230 --> 00:22:39.710
I'm starting to relearn that, but oh my, it's a big journey.
00:22:40.670 --> 00:22:56.670
Starting to uncover like your your own curiosities that you lost somewhere because guaranteed they were showing up when you were little, but then you had to be, you had to redirect all your energy focus and attention to to focus on things other people think you should be focusing on.
00:22:56.670 --> 00:22:59.790
And so you lost your own sense of what you like.
00:22:59.790 --> 00:23:02.830
I know so many people that don't know how to make decisions.
00:23:02.830 --> 00:23:14.990
They don't know how to make a choice, they don't know how to make decisions, they don't know what they like, they don't know what they want because they've, especially young people, because they get out of high school and they literally have never had a chance to practice that.
00:23:14.990 --> 00:23:20.830
It's always been this is where you're gonna be at this time, this is what you're gonna do with this time, this is what you're gonna spend your time.
00:23:20.830 --> 00:23:29.390
Like it's all it's all mapped out for them, and even what they should be thinking about, they're being told what to be thinking about.
00:23:29.630 --> 00:23:29.950
Yeah.
00:23:30.110 --> 00:23:31.630
And so they get out of high school.
00:23:31.630 --> 00:23:36.590
And I remember this when I was that age, and my I had a lot of friends who were in high school.
00:23:36.590 --> 00:23:52.269
And I remember being, I would say any there was a couple years, especially when I was about 20, I think, actually, because it was like a little after high school, you know, and I was living on the big island and I was like work trading on this organic farm type weird hippie community situation.
00:23:52.269 --> 00:23:55.310
And I remember there was a few other people around me.
00:23:55.310 --> 00:23:58.430
I dated one guy who was like 23.
00:23:58.430 --> 00:24:02.830
He'd gotten out of college, he had graduated with all the fancy degrees.
00:24:02.830 --> 00:24:05.550
He was the valedictorian in his high school.
00:24:05.550 --> 00:24:16.029
He had a really like super strict religious upbringing and was the good boy, like the perfect golden boy, straight A's all the way through the whole deal.
00:24:16.029 --> 00:24:23.470
And he got out of college and he was completely incapable at life, at basic living.
00:24:23.470 --> 00:24:29.070
And then he fell into such an incredible depression because he had no direction and no one to telling him what to do.
00:24:29.070 --> 00:24:37.630
And he literally had no sense of even how where to go within himself to find what step to take next.
00:24:37.630 --> 00:24:44.670
He lost his connection to any kind of motivation or curiosity or interest or drive at all.
00:24:44.670 --> 00:24:45.950
It was gone.
00:24:45.950 --> 00:24:53.550
And um, and so it was really interesting because we only we dated very briefly because I was the opposite.
00:24:53.550 --> 00:24:57.950
I had never had a problem saying what I like, what I want, what my opinion is.
00:24:57.950 --> 00:25:01.230
I know exactly how I feel about this, and I'm gonna tell you all about it.
00:25:01.230 --> 00:25:04.910
I have no, I can't relate at all to not knowing.
00:25:04.910 --> 00:25:07.150
And my mom had a similar experience.
00:25:07.150 --> 00:25:10.190
My mom somehow, maybe she's just a very strong soul.
00:25:10.190 --> 00:25:10.750
I don't know.
00:25:10.750 --> 00:25:18.509
But when she was married to my dad, and she tells me this story where she had a conversation with him, I don't even know what it was about, doesn't matter.
00:25:18.509 --> 00:25:22.910
Where there was some kind of upset, and she was trying to be like, Yeah, but what do you think?
00:25:22.910 --> 00:25:24.509
How do you feel?
00:25:24.509 --> 00:25:28.990
And he broke down and he was like, I don't know.
00:25:28.990 --> 00:25:30.830
I'm not like you.
00:25:30.830 --> 00:25:36.110
I don't know where to go inside myself to know to find the answers.
00:25:36.110 --> 00:25:48.830
And I feel like that's a really great example of what happens to so many people in childhood going into the public school system, and then also just from the way parents are parenting unconsciously, is we strip that from children.
00:25:48.830 --> 00:25:50.430
We because I think we're born with it.
00:25:50.430 --> 00:25:52.190
I think we're all born with it.
00:25:52.190 --> 00:25:59.790
With our, we know likes and dislikes and what feels right and what feels safe, and like intuition and gut feeling, all of that's intact.
00:25:59.790 --> 00:26:01.630
I believe that's all intact.
00:26:01.630 --> 00:26:10.750
And I think we strip it away from children by denying them the freedom to follow those impulses or explore those impulses or find out which ones are correct.
00:26:10.750 --> 00:26:13.950
And oh, this feeling, does it mean I should do it or not?
00:26:13.950 --> 00:26:15.150
Well, I don't know, try.
00:26:15.150 --> 00:26:17.470
Okay, oh no, I think that meant I shouldn't have done it.
00:26:17.470 --> 00:26:19.310
I'll pay attention to that feeling next time.
00:26:19.310 --> 00:26:27.710
We don't allow them to develop relationship with their own signals coming from their own body and their heart and their mind and their gut.
00:26:27.710 --> 00:26:32.509
We don't allow them to explore that relationship and develop that relationship.
00:26:32.509 --> 00:26:42.190
We say, uh-uh, cut that off, develop a relationship with an outside authority and follow them no matter what, even when it contradicts your own sense of rightness.
00:26:42.430 --> 00:26:45.710
And this is how we've gotten here.
00:26:45.790 --> 00:26:53.310
And this is how, like, I see, I'm a marriage, I live in Mexico, but I still follow a little bit about what's going on politically in the US.
00:26:53.310 --> 00:27:01.790
And I'm not on either side, so I'm not here to argue anything, but I see so many people that are just blindly following one authority or the other.
00:27:01.790 --> 00:27:08.910
I don't care what side you're on, there's so much blind following going on of whatever narrative is being put in front of them.
00:27:08.910 --> 00:27:15.310
And and if you sat them down and you questioned how do you actually feel about this part, they would they wouldn't know.
00:27:15.310 --> 00:27:18.029
They would be like, Oh, do you I would be like, Do you agree with this?
00:27:18.029 --> 00:27:19.230
And they'd be like, Yeah, I'd be like, why?
00:27:19.230 --> 00:27:20.670
Well, because so and so said.
00:27:20.670 --> 00:27:27.150
Yeah, not because it actually makes sense to you or feels right to you, or like use your own discernment and sense of judgment.
00:27:27.150 --> 00:27:30.990
Just because someone else is running into the ocean doesn't mean it's safe.
00:27:30.990 --> 00:27:39.310
You need to watch the waves, you need to look and see, and you need to use your own experience and your senses and your everything to make that judgment for yourself.
00:27:39.310 --> 00:27:42.269
But we don't encourage children to learn how to do that.
00:27:42.269 --> 00:27:45.230
We don't allow them and we don't need to teach them how to do that.
00:27:45.230 --> 00:27:50.750
We literally just need to allow them to explore that for themselves and remind them they know.
00:27:50.750 --> 00:27:55.310
Ma, I remember moments in my childhood where I would be like, Mom, I don't know if I should go.
00:27:55.310 --> 00:27:57.870
And she'd be like, Well, nobody knows, honey.
00:27:57.870 --> 00:27:59.790
I don't know either what you should do.
00:27:59.790 --> 00:28:01.870
You're the only one that knows what you should do.
00:28:01.870 --> 00:28:07.070
And she goes, one of the great things she used to ask me is if you did know, what would be the answer?
00:28:07.870 --> 00:28:08.590
That's a good one.
00:28:08.590 --> 00:28:09.150
I like that.
00:28:09.950 --> 00:28:11.070
Remind me all the time.
00:28:11.070 --> 00:28:12.750
She's like, You do know though.
00:28:12.750 --> 00:28:13.790
You always do know.
00:28:13.790 --> 00:28:18.670
We all do know, you know, when something feels right or not.
00:28:18.670 --> 00:28:32.350
Yeah, it's just sometimes we don't really want to know the answer, or we're uncomfortable with the answer, or you know, we don't want to face it, or we trust it, or we don't, you know, there's a lot of different reasons, but I'm really, really we haven't or we haven't learned to listen properly.
00:28:32.509 --> 00:28:47.150
One of the things I'm on a path to explore right now, and I might end up putting it down in a book, is to relearn the feedback system that are in our body and mind.
00:28:47.150 --> 00:28:50.110
Uh how to live a happy life.
00:28:50.110 --> 00:29:02.430
Because if you look at the hormone production and all the things that are released of good stuff in our brain, it's like maybe there's a recipe for the good life just in our bodies.
00:29:02.430 --> 00:29:10.830
For example, singing together, cuddling, all of that releases oxytocin, which is like a happiness hormone.
00:29:10.830 --> 00:29:17.070
And or when you run or exercise a certain period of time, you get a little kind dopamine kick.
00:29:17.070 --> 00:29:21.390
And it's like your body is trying to tell you, hey, this is good, do that.
00:29:22.110 --> 00:29:35.070
Yeah, and you see that you see that children, you know, they sing before they can talk, and they dance before they can walk, and they all of those things, and we forget, we forget the things that make us feel whole and healthy, yeah.
00:29:35.070 --> 00:29:37.230
Um, because we're told to focus on other things.
00:29:37.230 --> 00:29:50.910
And it brings me to um what I feel like is literally like the underlying basic the thing is um what you actually believe about what you are as a human being.
00:29:50.910 --> 00:30:00.590
And that's gonna dictate how you treat children, how you view children, and how you raise them and how you educate them is what you actually believe is going on there.
00:30:00.590 --> 00:30:05.550
Because my mom she saw her babies and she was like, Oh, you're perfect.
00:30:05.550 --> 00:30:07.710
You're perfect, whole, and complete.
00:30:07.710 --> 00:30:14.830
You are already totally equipped with all of the tools and intelligence that you're gonna need to live the life that you're meant for.
00:30:14.830 --> 00:30:22.430
My only job is like, is here to just hold you, support you, love you, be there for you, hold your hand, remind you that you're amazing.
00:30:22.430 --> 00:30:23.150
That's it.
00:30:23.150 --> 00:30:24.430
She's like, that's my job.
00:30:24.430 --> 00:30:30.110
Keep you safe, keep you healthy, you know, help you stay in your natural state of balance.
00:30:30.110 --> 00:30:33.070
But my job is not to control the direction.
00:30:33.070 --> 00:30:37.630
It was literally just to hold space for us to find ourselves.
00:30:37.630 --> 00:30:39.950
And and that's really, really beautiful.
00:30:39.950 --> 00:30:47.790
But what I think most people the fear is is like what what you're talking about is um.
00:30:47.790 --> 00:30:58.190
Well, if I do just follow my instincts, follow my feelings, listen to my you know, intuition, blah blah blah, I'll never get anything done.
00:30:58.190 --> 00:31:02.750
I'll just eat cake and watch movies all day, or I'll just whatever.
00:31:02.830 --> 00:31:06.590
Like you're not even a fault cake, or you won't have a house to sleep in.
00:31:06.830 --> 00:31:15.390
You won't have a house, you'll end up homeless, crazy lady on the street, you'll like or I'll be in a straitjacket in a mental institution, or I'll end up in prison, or I'll do whatever.
00:31:15.390 --> 00:31:17.230
That's what you're afraid of for your children.
00:31:17.230 --> 00:31:31.630
You are afraid that if you trust who your child is as a human being and what they're equipped with, yeah, that that somehow they're gonna end up horrible losers and you'll have failed as a parent by not forcing them to be good people.
00:31:31.630 --> 00:32:31.020
So you actually think what you actually believe, if you admit it to yourself, you actually believe that there is something inherently flawed with your children and with yourself at birth, that something is wrong with you intrinsically, that you cannot be trusted.
00:32:31.020 --> 00:32:33.260
And you were taught that.
00:32:33.260 --> 00:32:34.860
You were not born with that belief.
00:32:34.860 --> 00:32:37.500
That's not a knowing, that is a belief.
00:32:37.500 --> 00:32:48.940
You do not know that to be true, you believe it to be true because it was rammed into your head so forcefully and so repetitively your whole childhood, that you cannot be trusted.
00:32:48.940 --> 00:33:05.340
That left to your own devices, you will be a loser, you'll be crazy, you're a you'll be a raging monster, you'll be out of control, or you'll just be lazy and weak and stupid, you'll have no skills, you'll have no abilities, you'll have no friends, you'll have no job.
00:33:05.340 --> 00:33:08.140
Like we that's what people actually think.
00:33:08.140 --> 00:33:10.700
That's what they think we are, and that's what they think we are as humans.
00:33:10.700 --> 00:33:18.300
But but someone crazy, lazy losers with no motivation, no intelligence, no, like that's what you think.
00:33:18.780 --> 00:33:19.020
Yeah.
00:33:19.260 --> 00:33:22.700
But someone did just then end up homeless and all these things.
00:33:22.700 --> 00:33:25.020
Oh, you're an okay human being.
00:33:25.660 --> 00:33:33.660
It depends on your standard, and that's the thing is that people have different standards and they don't recognize that they're imposing their standards on their children.
00:33:33.660 --> 00:33:35.740
It's like my friend out living out in the jungle.
00:33:35.740 --> 00:33:41.420
His parents probably think they're whole that he's a horrible loser, that they failed, and that he's lost.
00:33:41.420 --> 00:33:44.300
But he's happy and he's content.
00:33:44.300 --> 00:33:45.820
So what's your problem?
00:33:45.820 --> 00:33:48.940
And he's not a burden to society.
00:33:48.940 --> 00:33:55.420
He comes into town and he mentors young kids and he and he tutors like teenagers, and he's amazing.
00:33:55.420 --> 00:33:57.900
He's a brilliant, beautiful human being.
00:33:57.900 --> 00:34:03.340
He just prefers to live without money and live out in nature and mind his own business.
00:34:03.340 --> 00:34:09.420
And it's like, well, who are we to say that that's not a like a valid way of living on this planet?
00:34:09.740 --> 00:34:09.980
Yeah.
00:34:10.139 --> 00:34:12.860
So I think it has to do with what's your standards, what's your judgment.
00:34:12.860 --> 00:34:15.659
According to my standards, I think I'm doing just fine.
00:34:15.659 --> 00:34:16.860
I'm doing fine.
00:34:16.860 --> 00:34:18.139
I live in Mexico.
00:34:18.139 --> 00:34:19.820
I moved to Mexico.
00:34:19.820 --> 00:34:29.340
I was, so I spent, I mean, I think I probably told you a little bit of this before, but for anybody who's listening, I was a very successful glass blowing artist for many years and I had my own business.
00:34:29.340 --> 00:34:33.579
I started as a teenager and making glass on a torch.
00:34:33.579 --> 00:34:38.220
And then I got into furnace work, large-scale fine art, glass blowing in my 20s.
00:34:38.220 --> 00:34:48.139
And then I pursued that career for many years and uh worked out of a couple different hot shops on Maui, Hawaii, and um and sold my work in fine art galleries.
00:34:48.139 --> 00:34:52.380
So I did pretty well for myself for quite a while as a glass blowing artist.
00:34:52.380 --> 00:35:00.460
And then, like most people, um, I was deeply affected by all the lockdowns through COVID, and it changed a lot of things for me.
00:35:00.460 --> 00:35:03.099
Or I should say it sped up a lot of things for me.
00:35:03.099 --> 00:35:26.059
And long, long story short, but my mom and I ended up moving down to Mexico, and I was still doing my jewelry business, glassw, and I have my studio here in my house, and I do still do some of that, but through a series of magical happenings that I can't quite explain and would take describing so much.
00:35:26.059 --> 00:35:31.820
Um, my mom and I ended up opening our own cafe, and it's a tea and chocolate cafe.
00:35:31.820 --> 00:35:37.820
So it was actually a dream from when I was about 14, and my mom took me to, it was my 14th birthday.
00:35:37.820 --> 00:35:46.540
My mom took me to the Boulder de Shaugneby tea house with a couple friends to have high tea for my birthday, and it was the most magical experience.
00:35:46.540 --> 00:35:51.340
And I just decided in that moment that I wanted to give that experience to other people.
00:35:51.340 --> 00:35:58.540
I wanted to share that with people because it was exquisite, and I just felt that's how life ought to be lived, is in that kind of moment.
00:35:58.540 --> 00:36:00.860
And I wanted to share that.
00:36:00.860 --> 00:36:05.580
So I told my mom that I wanted to have a tea house and she was totally on board.
00:36:05.580 --> 00:36:08.060
She's like cooked everything from scratch my whole life.
00:36:08.060 --> 00:36:13.180
And so over the years, through my teen years and everything, we actually almost did it a few times.
00:36:13.260 --> 00:36:13.420
Yeah.
00:36:13.580 --> 00:36:25.900
Um, opened a bed and breakfast, or like we even looked at places for rent, but it was Hawaii and the the prices are, it was just totally insane in Hawaii, like to try to pull something like that off and all the rent tape and all the everything was just so ridiculous.
00:36:25.900 --> 00:36:31.020
So it kind of became like a just a some nice fantasy we had at some point.
00:36:31.020 --> 00:36:36.460
Occasionally we would take it out and dust it off and and and you know, brainstorm again.
00:36:36.460 --> 00:36:45.180
And I had a Pinterest page for it, but it was more like it was so long now, you know, that it became this like dream I had once upon a time.
00:36:45.180 --> 00:36:49.580
And then living here in Mexico, everything just kind of shifted.
00:36:49.580 --> 00:36:54.780
And my mom wanted to start up her chocolate business here because it turns out there's not really any good chocolate in this area.
00:36:54.780 --> 00:36:58.780
There's a lot of Canadian and American expats, and they want their chocolate.
00:36:58.780 --> 00:37:04.700
And um, so my mom was like, I'm gonna start making chocolate again and just selling locally because she had a chocolate business years ago.
00:37:04.700 --> 00:37:12.700
And I also love making chocolate, but I also love baking sourdough bread and I love making different fermented elixirs and drinks.
00:37:12.700 --> 00:37:22.060
And so we stumbled upon this place one day, and it happened to be for rent, and it was the spot that I said I had wanted if I was ever gonna have a place, even though I knew I would never have a place.
00:37:22.060 --> 00:37:24.060
And then it turns out now it's my place.
00:37:24.060 --> 00:37:31.980
So it's really, really crazy, a lot of coincidences, a lot of magical things kind of coming together and happening.
00:37:31.980 --> 00:37:34.300
But we're in the third year now.
00:37:34.300 --> 00:37:38.460
Um, yeah, I've been flows for the last couple of months because it's slow in the summer.
00:37:38.460 --> 00:37:45.020
I'm reopening on Sunday, and it's called Andanza, and it's a tea and chocolate cafe in San Pancho, Mexico.
00:37:45.020 --> 00:37:51.100
It's like a super magic little town, beautiful community, very creative, full of art, full of everything.
00:37:51.100 --> 00:37:56.220
It's it's uh my mom came here years ago and she called me and she said, I found your town.
00:37:56.220 --> 00:37:57.740
And I was like, Yeah, whatever.
00:37:57.740 --> 00:38:01.100
And then and then, of course, she was right.
00:38:01.100 --> 00:38:02.140
Mom's always right.
00:38:02.220 --> 00:38:18.220
Um, uh, but it leads me on to one of the things that I, along the years, have come to load or be more curious about how we can change and what we can do to change it.
00:38:18.220 --> 00:38:30.540
Is uh the way the nuclear family have been like the altar of good a good life is you live in your own house with your own kids and your family lives somewhere else.
00:38:30.540 --> 00:38:35.020
And now you're starting a multi-generational uh business with your mom.
00:38:35.020 --> 00:38:39.740
Yeah, and for me that's it's a nice dream.
00:38:39.740 --> 00:38:46.380
Where for some other people they would be like, oh, but your parents should live somewhere else, you should have outgrown them or something.
00:38:46.380 --> 00:38:54.220
And I think it's a loss for society, for culture that we remove ourselves from our families in that sense.
00:38:54.700 --> 00:38:59.980
Yeah, definitely, for sure, especially like coming from American society.
00:38:59.980 --> 00:39:13.100
If you just start looking into the history and why some of these things were implemented, and you'll see that it was very carefully organized to destroy the family, to tear the family apart, and so the state could raise the children.
00:39:13.100 --> 00:39:33.500
So it was industrial revolution and this whole idea of a nuclear family living in a house to begin with, one family living in one house, and then a man leaving the home to go make money, yeah, while a woman stayed in the home, isolated, without community, without support, without her husband, without blah blah blah, right?
00:39:33.500 --> 00:39:47.500
And then the kids, and then of course, like through the feminist movement, and don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for a lot of what was going on there, but there was an agenda to remove the mother from the home as well, so that the kids could go in school.
00:39:47.500 --> 00:39:59.660
And the material that was actually originally intended to be taught in school was really only like what, two, three hours in it, or so it was like it was maybe two hours, I think, something like that, and would have taken a couple of years.
00:39:59.660 --> 00:40:03.020
And they actually purposely said, how can we fill in more hours?
00:40:03.020 --> 00:40:09.020
How can we stretch this out so that we can actually have more time with the kids for brainwashing, basically?
00:40:09.020 --> 00:40:10.620
And I'm not making this stuff up.
00:40:10.620 --> 00:40:13.820
Like you can look, you can find, I'll send you links to the history.
00:40:13.820 --> 00:40:16.060
I've got the books, I've got the facts.
00:40:16.060 --> 00:40:21.500
It's not hearsay, it's not a theory, it's actually legit historical fact.
00:40:21.500 --> 00:40:27.580
And John Taylor Gato, he's the one that you want to listen to if you want to get into the nitty-gritty history of it all.
00:40:27.580 --> 00:40:38.460
He talks about how the public school system was very specifically designed to raise the next generations of humans and to have less influence from the family and more influence from the state.
00:40:38.460 --> 00:40:50.300
And it was all about creating a compliant workforce that wouldn't ask too many questions and would just go along, pay their bills, pay their taxes, pay their medical, but then not question, not look at labels, not read ingredients, not any of that.
00:40:50.300 --> 00:40:52.060
And that was the whole point and the whole purpose.
00:40:52.060 --> 00:40:53.980
And it's not even hidden, like it's there.
00:40:53.980 --> 00:40:54.860
You can look it up.
00:40:54.860 --> 00:41:03.580
And the thing is, too, is now you have a lot of people who are like, oh, you know, going back to tradition and the nuclear family and the this going on.
00:41:03.580 --> 00:41:05.580
That was not traditional either.
00:41:05.580 --> 00:41:10.540
That was like a tiny blip in the 50s where you had stay-at-home housewives and men who went away to make money.
00:41:10.540 --> 00:41:21.580
Before that, throughout most of history, all over the planet in many, many cultures, families lived in communities that were basically larger families in a town, a village, or whatever.
00:41:21.580 --> 00:41:23.660
And then you worked together.
00:41:23.660 --> 00:41:25.100
You had family businesses.
00:41:25.100 --> 00:41:27.260
It was like, oh, yeah, my dad is the butcher.
00:41:27.260 --> 00:41:40.460
So you're raised in the butcher shop, and the wife is usually there and she's helping manage the business, or you have a farm and the man is working on the farm, and you're not so separated from your spouse or from your children for so many hours a day.
00:41:40.460 --> 00:41:43.900
So you're actually able to have stronger relationships and connections.
00:41:43.900 --> 00:41:49.660
And it's so weird to me that we expect a family to function or get along when they barely spend any time together.
00:41:49.660 --> 00:41:54.780
You're all off in different worlds and different lives with different people and different influences and all of this.
00:41:54.780 --> 00:41:58.540
And then you come home and parents are mad that their kids are not adopting their values.
00:41:58.540 --> 00:42:05.180
Well, dude, they're not even like being raised by you, they're being raised by strangers.
00:42:05.180 --> 00:42:09.340
And then, of course, why wouldn't your kids want to get out of your house as soon as possible?
00:42:09.340 --> 00:42:09.900
Oh, yes.
00:42:09.900 --> 00:42:19.980
Oh, yes, at their own place, and then not want anything to do with you, and then not, you know, it's like, and I have my own family has has we got pretty scattered, you know.
00:42:19.980 --> 00:42:22.540
My mom and I are probably the closest.
00:42:22.540 --> 00:42:38.140
My older brothers, like I said, there were they had a bit of a different life than I did because a little bit older, and then so much influence from my dad, and spending so much more time with my dad and being boys, which was a very big difference in my family on my dad's side.
00:42:38.140 --> 00:42:41.180
Um, and then my younger brother is from my stepdad.
00:42:41.180 --> 00:42:43.260
So that was a whole nother influence.
00:42:43.260 --> 00:42:48.300
And so my family was pretty there was a lot of things going on, a lot of different parts.
00:42:48.300 --> 00:42:53.980
So my dad remarried and had my little sister who was raised totally different than we were by my stepmom.
00:42:53.980 --> 00:42:56.220
And so there was a lot of that going on.
00:42:56.220 --> 00:42:58.940
So it's not a mystery to me why my family is scattered.
00:42:58.940 --> 00:43:00.300
Like we started out that way.
00:43:00.300 --> 00:43:04.380
We were never really um that full-on nuclear family.
00:43:04.380 --> 00:43:07.900
But my mom and I have have stuck together on and off over the years.
00:43:07.900 --> 00:43:11.900
We've even lived together on and off over the years, probably more than we should have.
00:43:11.900 --> 00:43:17.420
But part of that is because it was kind of us against the world in a way.
00:43:17.420 --> 00:43:27.500
And um, and it could be, I think that there was a lot of negative and positive aspects of that in a sense.
00:43:27.500 --> 00:43:34.380
And we've worked through so much, like as an adult, having an adult relationship with my mother, like it's a whole different world.
00:43:34.380 --> 00:43:38.940
And we've worked through so much of that, and we've both evolved and transformed so much through that.
00:43:38.940 --> 00:43:54.460
And we know that we shouldn't live together in the same house, but that's partially because we're both very strong women who like things the way we like things, and we want things the way we want things, and we're both homemakers, and we're both we want to be the woman of the house.
00:43:54.700 --> 00:43:55.020
Yep.
00:43:55.180 --> 00:44:03.420
My mom and I both are the woman of the house, and so it doesn't work out so well for us living together, just the two of us.
00:44:03.420 --> 00:44:06.300
But we'd love to be neighbors and share resources.
00:44:06.300 --> 00:44:10.540
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:10.940 --> 00:44:13.100
But how are you handling the whole thing?
00:44:13.100 --> 00:44:14.940
Am I productive enough?
00:44:14.940 --> 00:44:28.060
Is it a question that comes to your mind, or have you actually just found a life where you're like, I like doing this, this is meaningful, and then the whole money thing, well, money, yeah, we need money.
00:44:28.220 --> 00:44:33.580
So it was still I've been through I've been through a lot.
00:44:33.580 --> 00:44:38.220
I've been through a lot over the years with that question in myself.
00:44:38.220 --> 00:44:51.020
And this is where I think like people that fear got to me myself as well, is like wanting to be part of the world, but feeling like it's not made for me, in a sense.
00:44:51.020 --> 00:45:02.860
So I think that that's what people are trying to do oftentimes is we're trying to raise children to fit into the society as it is already, and that's where we're making the mistake.
00:45:02.860 --> 00:45:10.780
And I recognize that in myself where I'm still trying to fit myself into this because I think that's the only way that I can have these things that I want.
00:45:10.940 --> 00:45:11.180
Yeah.
00:45:11.420 --> 00:45:16.940
And telling myself I have to do things the way other people do things in order to achieve a certain way.
00:45:16.940 --> 00:45:29.260
And in in in some, so it's it's very, very difficult, I would say, with the way that modern society is set up, for me to remain true to myself because I think so much of it is just absolutely ridiculous.
00:45:29.260 --> 00:45:34.540
Like, um, it's a little more free in Mexico, which is why I'm so much happier and more comfortable here.
00:45:34.540 --> 00:45:38.860
Because living in Hawaii, the American government controls.
00:45:38.860 --> 00:45:47.660
I mean, down to the part where like this beautiful little old Hawaiian lady can't sell banana bread on the street anymore because she needs to have a cottage food license.
00:45:47.660 --> 00:45:59.900
And so she has to go and apply at the county and fill out all this stuff and do all this paperwork and pay all these fees and then be investigated and have her kitchen checked and so that she can sell banana bread on the street.
00:45:59.900 --> 00:46:02.540
And so I don't want to play the game.
00:46:02.540 --> 00:46:09.420
And that's where it's difficult for me, is because I don't, I don't align with, I don't trust the government.
00:46:09.420 --> 00:46:14.140
I don't believe in a lot of, I don't trust American society, most modern society.
00:46:14.140 --> 00:46:20.700
I don't like the way it's set up, I don't like the systems, I don't like the things you have to do to be part of the system.
00:46:20.700 --> 00:46:27.420
And it's really hard to be part of it a little bit and live outside of it a little bit, and it's a weird deal.
00:46:27.420 --> 00:46:35.260
But I would rather go through all the pain and struggle that I go through than just give in because I think it's wrong.
00:46:35.260 --> 00:46:41.180
Um, I think a lot of it is is wrong, and I refuse to participate and play along and play that game.
00:46:41.180 --> 00:46:42.220
And so I left.
00:46:42.220 --> 00:46:44.700
I live in Mexico where I can have a cafe.
00:46:44.700 --> 00:46:47.180
No one's breathing down my neck about any of that.
00:46:47.180 --> 00:46:50.780
The rules and regulations here are so different.
00:46:50.780 --> 00:47:00.780
And I felt like in the US they were so ridiculous and pointless and arbitrary, and you're not allowed to question them, and they're unchangeable.
00:47:00.780 --> 00:47:11.020
And if you want to do this, you have to pay all these things and you have to fit into this box and you have to go through all these hoops and all this stuff for like for what to be myself, to bake bread?
00:47:11.020 --> 00:47:14.140
Like, I can't just bake bread at my house and sell it to my neighbor.
00:47:14.140 --> 00:47:15.020
It's illegal.
00:47:15.020 --> 00:47:16.860
Yeah, I'm sorry.
00:47:16.860 --> 00:47:18.300
No, that's bullshit.
00:47:18.300 --> 00:47:20.460
I don't want to be part of this system.
00:47:20.460 --> 00:47:23.980
So I and I don't want to raise kids to fit into that either.
00:47:23.980 --> 00:47:40.060
I don't want to raise children and teach them that you need permission to go to the bathroom because that's setting them up to need permission to give their neighbor a loaf of bread or to grow tomatoes in your yard or to catch your own rain in the backyard.
00:47:40.300 --> 00:47:40.460
Yeah.
00:47:40.700 --> 00:47:42.860
I'm sorry, no, that's wrong.
00:47:42.860 --> 00:47:47.500
You don't get to tell me if I can drink the rain coming out of the sky, okay?
00:47:47.500 --> 00:47:50.300
Like, I'm not gonna play this game.
00:47:50.300 --> 00:47:54.300
So when you ask this kind of question, that's where I go with it.
00:47:54.300 --> 00:47:58.540
I'm just like, no, I live in and out of this world.
00:47:58.540 --> 00:48:11.260
Like, I have to play parts of the game in order to participate to some extent, but I'm this close to joining my friend in that tree in the jungle because this is getting ridiculous.
00:48:11.260 --> 00:48:12.780
I'm this close.
00:48:12.780 --> 00:48:16.140
Because no, I don't want to accept credit cards at my cafe.
00:48:16.140 --> 00:48:17.340
I want to be cash only.
00:48:17.340 --> 00:48:21.580
I want to be a cash-based business because that's like between you and me.
00:48:21.580 --> 00:48:24.700
You want to pay for something and I want to sell it to you, and that's between us.
00:48:24.700 --> 00:48:27.100
I don't think a bank should be making any money off of that.
00:48:27.100 --> 00:48:31.500
So, can you just live according to your sense of rightness in this society?
00:48:31.500 --> 00:48:33.100
You might have to leave.
00:48:33.100 --> 00:48:35.100
You might have to leave.
00:48:35.100 --> 00:48:36.060
I don't know.
00:48:36.060 --> 00:48:43.420
And maybe that's what people are really afraid of, and that's why we keep controlling ourselves and controlling our children because we're too scared.
00:48:43.420 --> 00:48:48.780
We're too scared to stand up and say no and do our own thing because we're gonna lose a lot.
00:48:48.780 --> 00:48:52.140
There's a lot to be lost, and I get that, and it's scary.
00:48:52.140 --> 00:49:29.020
But we all have our threshold, right?
00:49:29.020 --> 00:49:34.140
We all have our threshold is like how far will you go before you're you can't do it anymore?
00:49:34.140 --> 00:49:37.740
How far, how much will you participate in this?
00:49:37.740 --> 00:49:43.500
What I think is just wrongness, um, as far as people controlling other people and all of this.
00:49:43.500 --> 00:49:44.540
Because to me, it's the same.
00:49:44.540 --> 00:49:49.900
Public school is just a microcosm of the greater authority dictating.
00:49:49.900 --> 00:49:54.940
But some and I don't it doesn't even matter like what how you want to live.
00:49:54.940 --> 00:49:58.860
I'm not even you want to live however you want to live, just leave me alone.
00:49:58.860 --> 00:50:09.020
Yeah, and that's some reason it's difficult for me to live according to that sense of rightness, and I have to every day, it's a struggle because I have to check myself.
00:50:09.020 --> 00:50:13.180
Am I compromising too much in what feels safe and right for me?
00:50:13.180 --> 00:50:18.140
And being productive, I am naturally a very productive person.
00:50:18.140 --> 00:50:19.900
Do I make a lot of money?
00:50:19.900 --> 00:50:28.940
No, I was when I was blowing fine art glass, but now I'm working probably harder than I ever have, and I'm hardly making any money.
00:50:28.940 --> 00:50:37.260
But I have these interactions with humans that I see the look on their face, or I have, and it makes everything worth it.
00:50:37.260 --> 00:50:50.060
It's like I have a different calling and purpose that I'm fulfilling here now, and I'm not making a lot of money, but I am I'm deeply fulfilled in what I'm doing here.
00:50:50.060 --> 00:50:59.020
And I am teaching dance and I am still doing my some of my glassware, and I'm just one of those people that has like a million passions and projects going on at any moment.
00:50:59.420 --> 00:51:16.860
So do you think that it came from being not controlled that you have this perspective of seeing where other people might been to the rules or are not free?
00:51:16.860 --> 00:51:20.060
Um it's the real built in.
00:51:20.700 --> 00:51:22.940
Yeah, I think partially, partially.
00:51:22.940 --> 00:51:27.420
I think that it's it's it's impossible to know for certain, right, how much comes from what.
00:51:27.420 --> 00:51:37.820
But I would say, from what I can tell in myself, in my own personal investigations into that, because I got super curious pretty young, why am I different?
00:51:37.820 --> 00:51:42.860
For one thing, I think that my mom is an extremely unique person.
00:51:42.860 --> 00:51:50.300
And she did go to public school and she had a very normal kind of life, a very normal upbreaking, pretty darn normal in in most ways.
00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:57.420
But both of her parents possess, I would consider a high level of intelligence and empathy as well.
00:51:57.420 --> 00:52:19.340
And and so my mom was very unusual from a child, you know, she made very strong decisions for herself as a child and like became vegetarian at 13 all by herself, not because anyone, no friends, no family, because she saw something on TV about factory farming and the animals were suffering, and that was it.
00:52:19.340 --> 00:52:26.700
She had that kind of that kind of personal conviction, yeah, unshakeable by others.
00:52:26.700 --> 00:52:28.700
And I don't know where that comes from.
00:52:28.700 --> 00:52:31.180
My grandfather, very similar though.
00:52:31.180 --> 00:52:44.140
So I don't know if there's a hereditary thing going on, but she had this very strong sense of personal conviction and very strong sense of her own sense, like of of what I call sense of rightness, and and was unable.
00:52:44.140 --> 00:52:50.780
She says, she's she's like, I'm not special, I'm not people would call her, oh, you're so courageous, you're so brave, you know, for doing things different.
00:52:50.780 --> 00:52:53.340
And she's like, I don't feel like I am, I'm terrified.
00:52:53.340 --> 00:52:55.340
She's like, I don't do it because I'm brave.
00:52:55.340 --> 00:52:57.980
She's like, I do it because I feel like I don't have a choice.
00:52:57.980 --> 00:53:00.300
I can't not do what I feel is right.
00:53:00.300 --> 00:53:07.420
She's like, I can't know, I can't unknow what I know, and I can't not do what I feel is right.
00:53:07.420 --> 00:53:09.820
And so I feel similarly.
00:53:09.820 --> 00:53:12.380
And I don't know what that is or where that comes from.
00:53:12.380 --> 00:53:25.340
And I think that part of it was fostered in the way that my mom raised me, yes, but I think that there has to be a maybe a little bit of it inherently, and I think every human being has a little bit of it inherently, and then it can kind of go one way or the other.
00:53:25.740 --> 00:53:28.140
Then we compare that lying towards ourselves.
00:53:28.140 --> 00:53:43.980
I I remember when I re-found being a vegetarian, yeah, I stopped lying towards myself on more on different many more different levels.
00:53:43.980 --> 00:53:49.020
It was as I couldn't accept the dishonesty I had taken.
00:53:49.020 --> 00:54:07.100
And people can eat meat and do whatever they want following their convictions, but mine was that I don't like the kill of the animal, um, and then claiming oh, it's okay, they're bread to it, or whatever excuses I made for myself when I ate meat.
00:54:07.100 --> 00:54:18.060
Where does that moral-breaking thing go in your life if you start in one way and accept that you don't follow your convictions?
00:54:18.060 --> 00:54:20.940
I'm not talking about eating meat or not eating meat.
00:54:20.940 --> 00:54:30.540
I'm talking about you have a conviction, you have something you feel deeply, but you compromise it for some reason.
00:54:30.540 --> 00:54:35.980
Maybe it's to fit in among people, maybe it's to not be the weirdo when you go to work, whatever it is.
00:54:35.980 --> 00:54:45.500
I just felt when I took that step and kind of came more in sync with my convictions on this area, I could see how I cleaned up in many other ways.
00:54:45.500 --> 00:54:46.300
And it's consistent.
00:54:46.540 --> 00:54:49.020
Yeah, it was kind of like you admitted something to yourself.
00:54:49.020 --> 00:54:54.060
It was always true, but you finally came to terms with it, admitted it, and accepted it about yourself.
00:54:54.060 --> 00:55:00.700
The only thing here is I can I can I'm hearing other people's voices, like what people might say about this conversation.
00:55:00.700 --> 00:55:10.940
And I'm I'm recognizing that it's important to make a distinction between just like what's a true sense of rightness and like what I just feel like right now.
00:55:10.940 --> 00:55:13.660
Like it's not that's not it's not the same thing.
00:55:13.660 --> 00:55:20.700
And also, it's not about a belief either, because I I very strongly I love the quote.
00:55:20.700 --> 00:55:26.220
It says, never form attachments to beliefs that are unchangeable in the face of a higher, more sensible truth.
00:55:26.220 --> 00:55:32.060
So I find for myself that it's also very important to be open to new information changing that conviction.
00:55:32.060 --> 00:55:41.580
So you might have a conscious conviction of, you know, what that vegetarianism feels right for you, but be open to that changing at some point.
00:55:41.580 --> 00:55:46.700
To not like, to not like bet your life on I'll be a vegetarian forever kind of thing.
00:55:46.700 --> 00:55:51.740
You're just saying that this is what feels right for me right now, and I need to be in alignment with what feels right for me now.
00:55:51.740 --> 00:55:53.020
And that's beautiful.
00:55:53.020 --> 00:55:57.340
But and but allowing space for transformation always.
00:55:57.340 --> 00:56:13.580
So when I, and I'm just saying that because when I talk about this, like doing what feels right for you aside from whatever da-da-da, I think some people are gonna take that to be like, oh, so you're just gonna do what you think, even when there's evidence to suggest that you're wrong, or that's gonna be this or whatever.
00:56:13.580 --> 00:56:15.100
And I'm that's not what I'm saying.
00:56:15.100 --> 00:56:21.820
I'm saying that, like when someone says, you know, uh no, you how do I say this?
00:56:21.820 --> 00:56:30.060
It's like when someone gives you rules and a structure and they tell you you have to follow this whole structure or you're gonna be a loser.
00:56:30.060 --> 00:56:32.220
All I'm saying is check that.
00:56:32.220 --> 00:56:38.060
Check that against what does it doesn't something just feel a little funny about that for you?
00:56:38.060 --> 00:56:40.940
And then maybe that is what investigate.
00:56:40.940 --> 00:56:42.060
That's what I'm saying.
00:56:42.060 --> 00:56:46.940
I'm not saying you should just stick to like, oh no, that's all wrong because it doesn't feel right for me in this moment.
00:56:46.940 --> 00:56:59.420
I'm saying like listen and follow that, and then you can use your mind still, use your logical mind, but when that little funny feeling comes up, it's just telling you where to look.
00:56:59.420 --> 00:57:10.860
So, like, check it out, do some research, which is how I got into finding out about the history of the public education system, and it's just how I went all down all of these rabbit holes.
00:57:10.860 --> 00:57:15.820
I'm I'm not really great at talking about certain topics.
00:57:15.820 --> 00:57:18.460
Like I'm a lot like my mom.
00:57:18.460 --> 00:57:23.900
I'm a deeply feeling person, and I I much more prefer the emotional and psychological aspects of things.
00:57:23.900 --> 00:57:35.580
I don't retain facts and data and and dates and things like that very well enough to like go and argue about the efficacy of this or or whatever when it comes to like politics and medical stuff and whatever.
00:57:35.580 --> 00:57:39.580
Like, I don't get into those arguments because to me, that's all on top of something else.
00:57:39.580 --> 00:57:41.900
It's all on top of something else.
00:57:41.900 --> 00:57:56.860
But I just wanted to say that there's a difference between like what you're saying is like something didn't feel right for you, and then you were willing to look at that and make a choice and realize this doesn't feel right for you.
00:57:56.860 --> 00:58:14.140
And it's not about like you're not denying anyone else's experience, you're not saying this is right for wrong for everybody else, and you're also um not just denying probably whatever evidence comes up that might say, eh, maybe you should rethink that one way or the other.
00:58:14.940 --> 00:58:27.580
But the interesting part was when I stopped compromising my moral morality, um, or my feelings of my sense of this is right and this is wrong.
00:58:27.580 --> 00:58:39.580
Yeah, when I stop compromising that, I think a lot of people have gotten used to compromising their inner beliefs of of uh what is good and what is right.
00:58:39.580 --> 00:58:41.260
In small labels, yeah, you beats.
00:58:41.260 --> 00:59:09.740
Yeah, one one of my big things is I'm sitting here with my iPhone, something big, and my MacBook Pro, and I know how they're produced, and I'm I'm happy still to compromise that because I love the computer, and at the same time, I'm like, oh my god, I wish I had a stronger conviction on this and wanted fair trade inside the whole computer world, but I'm not yeah, yeah.
00:59:09.980 --> 00:59:17.500
Like I said, I'm aware that at some point I might get to I might get to where I can't do this anymore and I'm gonna end up in a tree in a jungle.
00:59:17.500 --> 00:59:18.060
I don't know.
00:59:18.300 --> 00:59:18.860
No, no, no.
00:59:19.020 --> 00:59:19.900
I I don't know.
00:59:19.900 --> 00:59:21.580
I don't, I don't know.
00:59:21.580 --> 00:59:40.620
But before that, Somerji, then from the time that we're tiny, you know, you you you do, you have to ignore those things because it's like, no, you you don't get to follow that urge to go be barefoot in the sunshine, even though that's what your body's craving, that's what your mind is craving, it's probably exactly what you need right now for your natural development.
00:59:40.620 --> 00:59:43.020
You actually have to sit here and do this math problem.
00:59:43.020 --> 00:59:55.020
So we're constantly being taught to deny those that those impulses and those urges and those what feels right for us and what our body needs, what our mind needs, what our emotional body needs, all of that.
00:59:55.020 --> 01:00:03.820
Because we think that if we allow our children to just run out in the sun and play all day, that they'll never be become anything, they'll never achieve anything and they'll never succeed at anything.
01:00:03.820 --> 01:00:17.180
But if you look at, if you just even just take a two-year-old or a three-year-old, like they will display everything you need to have faith in the human spirit.
01:00:17.180 --> 01:00:30.220
Because I have baby, I've spent so many years in childcare, and I don't understand how anyone can think that someone would just grow up to be lazy and do nothing if you if you allow freedom and you focus on emotional well-being and connection.
01:00:30.220 --> 01:00:36.860
Because I mean, kids will literally push your hand away so they can climb up the stairs themselves.
01:00:36.860 --> 01:00:39.660
They will push your hand away so they can feed themselves.
01:00:39.660 --> 01:00:44.780
They want to walk on their own, they want to run on their own, they want to do it themselves.
01:00:44.780 --> 01:00:49.980
And then they're incredibly thrilled when they gain a new skill and they become more capable.
01:00:49.980 --> 01:00:55.020
And if we just stop controlling that process, it'll continue.
01:00:55.020 --> 01:00:59.500
I don't know why we think that at a certain age we have to come in and derail that process.
01:00:59.500 --> 01:01:00.700
It's already happening.
01:01:00.700 --> 01:01:06.300
They learned how to walk and how to talk, and they would do that even if you tried to stop them, they would do that.
01:01:06.300 --> 01:01:09.340
They would do that and they will learn how to read.
01:01:09.340 --> 01:01:18.780
I did because I wanted something for myself that had nothing to do with anybody else or what anyone thought of me or what they thought I should be doing or achieving some success someday.
01:01:18.780 --> 01:01:27.260
It was literally because right now, I have a strong enough desire to find out what happens next in Harry Potter to overcome the discomfort of learning how to read.
01:01:27.260 --> 01:01:29.180
That was it for me now.
01:01:29.180 --> 01:01:30.220
That's it.
01:01:30.220 --> 01:01:35.980
You know, and guaranteed you're not going to have a 16-year-old who's like, no, I'm not gonna get my driver's license because I don't know how to read.
01:01:35.980 --> 01:01:39.500
They will literally go and teach themselves if they have to.
01:01:39.500 --> 01:01:46.780
You cannot stop the human, human nature and a human desire for independence and achievement.
01:01:46.780 --> 01:01:49.740
We all want to achieve, we want to build, we want to create.
01:01:49.740 --> 01:01:52.300
We are natural born creators.
01:01:52.300 --> 01:02:02.380
Now we've created these ridiculous systems to try to monetize those creations into something we call money that then we can tax and we can do all of this stuff.
01:02:02.380 --> 01:02:04.940
But but we're natural born creators.
01:02:04.940 --> 01:02:14.940
And yeah, maybe you won't have money making wooden spoons, but I'm super happy for you that you found your a creative outlet for yourself because it's important for your health and well-being.
01:02:15.180 --> 01:02:15.500
It is.
01:02:15.500 --> 01:02:15.900
It is.
01:02:16.220 --> 01:02:17.340
I don't know what I would be.
01:02:17.340 --> 01:02:18.540
I am, that's what I do.
01:02:18.540 --> 01:02:20.780
I make things ever since I was tiny.
01:02:20.780 --> 01:02:24.060
That's all I do is craft and make and build and play with fire.
01:02:24.060 --> 01:02:33.900
I was pyro obsessed, and I'm so grateful that I had a mom that trusted in my innate nature and my abilities enough to allow me to explore that at a young age.
01:02:33.900 --> 01:02:36.540
She bought me matches and made sure I was safe.
01:02:36.540 --> 01:02:41.580
You can play with fire, but let's do it right here in the fireplace while I'm in the room.
01:02:41.580 --> 01:02:47.180
And then as I got older and I got more safe and more comfortable with it, I was allowed to have fires in the yard.
01:02:47.180 --> 01:02:50.780
I got to build little fires in the yard and cook on them and do my own thing.
01:02:50.780 --> 01:02:52.060
And I was a total pyro.
01:02:52.060 --> 01:02:53.340
So was my older brother.
01:02:53.340 --> 01:02:56.780
And then I became a glass blowing artist, melting things in fire.
01:02:56.780 --> 01:02:57.820
Like there's a reason.
01:02:57.820 --> 01:03:07.580
And if I hadn't been allowed to explore that from a young age, I wouldn't have developed the understanding of that element and that material and that substance.
01:03:07.580 --> 01:03:17.100
Like I knew fire so well by the time I got into glass blowing that I got to just skip the first year of learning, you know, because I already had this.
01:03:17.100 --> 01:03:22.540
And people would tell me that the first glass blower that I worked under, oh, I'd already been working on a torch for a while.
01:03:22.540 --> 01:03:24.620
And I caught onto that really quick at 14.
01:03:24.620 --> 01:03:26.780
And I'm self-taught bead maker.
01:03:26.780 --> 01:03:40.460
And um, and then when I was about 20 and I got into a hot shop and I was working for this artist as an assistant, I just was literally like standing there opening and closing doors, and then I got into doing a little bit of myself, and he was shocked.
01:03:40.460 --> 01:03:41.740
And he was shocked.
01:03:41.740 --> 01:03:45.980
He was just like, I've never seen one pick seen anyone pick this up so easily.
01:03:45.980 --> 01:03:47.820
Like you're so comfortable in here.
01:03:47.820 --> 01:03:49.820
And I was like, fire doesn't scare me.
01:03:49.820 --> 01:03:51.580
Like I am so comfortable with fire.
01:03:51.580 --> 01:03:53.260
I have this relationship with fire.
01:03:53.260 --> 01:04:02.620
I know all about how it behaves, what makes it grow, what makes it small, what makes it like I already knew all of that from my own relationship with it, my own experimentation through my childhood.
01:04:02.620 --> 01:04:06.940
So I'm a safer, I was a safer glassblower right off the bat.
01:04:06.940 --> 01:04:15.420
And I was much better at it, like from the beginning than most people, because I was allowed that exploration of something that interested me when I was young.
01:04:15.420 --> 01:04:20.540
I wasn't told to take that time and that energy and attention and focus it on something I didn't care about.
01:04:20.540 --> 01:04:24.620
I was allowed to spend hours playing with fire in my front yard.
01:04:24.620 --> 01:04:29.500
And I was allowed to spend as many hours as I wanted doing little crafting projects.
01:04:29.500 --> 01:04:31.580
And then I brought those two things together.
01:04:31.580 --> 01:04:37.260
I brought my love of like fantasy art and crafts and my love of fire, and I put them together.
01:04:38.220 --> 01:04:39.340
It's wonderful.
01:04:39.820 --> 01:04:41.500
And I couldn't have done that, you know.
01:04:41.500 --> 01:04:45.900
I don't know if I'd ever found that if I hadn't been, I everyone else was in high school.
01:04:45.900 --> 01:04:49.660
I remember 14, 15, 16 years old, those years.
01:04:49.660 --> 01:04:51.820
15 and 16, the same thing.
01:04:51.900 --> 01:04:53.740
And you were just burning shit up.
01:04:54.300 --> 01:04:56.700
I got well, my mom actually bought me a torch.
01:04:56.700 --> 01:05:05.180
I I fell in love with glass bead making, and my mom could see that this was like not just a passing fancy, but like a legitimate passion because I was obsessed.
01:05:05.180 --> 01:05:06.380
It's all I could talk about.
01:05:06.380 --> 01:05:07.900
Everyone wanted me to shut up.
01:05:07.900 --> 01:05:17.260
And so she actually bought me invested what little like we were not wealthy, so it was a big deal, and bought me my own equipment and set up a little studio.
01:05:17.260 --> 01:05:25.420
And I spent, I mean, I was it was ridiculous, hours and hours like this, and I self-taught.
01:05:25.420 --> 01:05:29.980
Everyone else was in high school while I was doing this, learning my craft.
01:05:29.980 --> 01:05:40.460
And so then by the time I was um 16, I started selling my work to local like gift shops and galleries, farmers markets, craft fairs, all that kind of stuff.
01:05:40.460 --> 01:05:44.300
And then in my 20s, I had I didn't know I was good.
01:05:44.300 --> 01:05:50.060
I didn't know there wasn't a lot of glass makers around, I wasn't in the community, I didn't know.
01:05:50.060 --> 01:05:59.260
When I got into my 20s and and people started taking notice, um, like posting photos online or whatever, and other bead makers were like, Who are you?
01:05:59.260 --> 01:06:04.220
And then they'd be like, I haven't seen anyone, you know, like how long have you been doing this?
01:06:04.220 --> 01:06:05.500
And at that point, I'm like 24.
01:06:05.500 --> 01:06:07.100
So I'm like, oh, like 10 years or something.
01:06:07.100 --> 01:06:08.620
And they're like, in your 24.
01:06:08.620 --> 01:06:14.380
Like, most people don't get into bead making until they're it's usually it's more like women over 40.
01:06:14.380 --> 01:06:16.700
Yes, is a beading thing.
01:06:16.700 --> 01:06:38.380
So then I was getting asked to do tutorials in in bead making magazines and uh and people telling me I should enter my work to win awards and all this stuff, and and that's all because I was allowed to obsess and direct all my energy and attention to perfecting a craft at a very young age instead of learning lots of random shit that had nothing to do with the life I was going to be living.
01:06:38.380 --> 01:06:43.820
So I got to focus it all and become a master at something really young.
01:06:43.820 --> 01:06:45.900
And I'm super grateful for that.
01:06:45.900 --> 01:06:49.900
And I did turn it into a business and I did pretty well with that for a long time.
01:06:49.900 --> 01:06:51.420
And it's a business that's still going.
01:06:51.420 --> 01:06:54.860
Like I still make all this stuff to send back to the States.
01:06:54.860 --> 01:06:58.140
I still sell to some of those glassblowing studios I used to work at.
01:06:58.140 --> 01:07:01.420
And so it's like uh a skill I have for life.
01:07:01.420 --> 01:07:15.020
And and it's not, and when you're young, when you're young and you you don't have to make a living and you're a teenager, that's the time you should be obsessing and working on these bizarre interests of yours, like instead of being in school.
01:07:15.020 --> 01:07:18.540
Like work on the bizarre interests, master a weird thing.
01:07:18.540 --> 01:07:34.220
Do it when you're young, because then you have that skill for life, and then you're not 40 and wondering what you've done with yourself, and you know, realizing you had a career that you hated, and then not knowing what your passion is and not having any curiosity or enjoyment of anything.
01:07:34.220 --> 01:07:35.180
Do I like painting?
01:07:35.180 --> 01:07:35.900
I don't even know.
01:07:35.900 --> 01:07:45.020
Do I like, you know, like you don't even know what kind of interests or skills you have because you've just had to been making money this whole time at a job you don't like.
01:07:45.020 --> 01:07:53.500
So yeah, I had to make money the whole time, but by the time I had to make money, I already had a skill set of things I enjoyed doing.
01:07:53.820 --> 01:07:54.140
Yeah.
01:07:54.540 --> 01:07:59.820
Things I knew about, things I knew at a level higher than people older than me.
01:07:59.820 --> 01:08:02.860
I was already an expert in certain things.
01:08:02.860 --> 01:08:18.140
And then I'm as I got older and older, and I got into the hot glass studio and working with people who'd actually gone to school, like art school, people who'd gone to glass blowing school, and they're walking up to me and being like, I've never seen anyone use a tool like that.
01:08:18.140 --> 01:08:18.940
Why did you do that?
01:08:18.940 --> 01:08:19.820
I'm like, I don't know.
01:08:19.820 --> 01:08:26.540
I had a need, the tool was there, I figured it out because no one taught me how to use that tool proper properly.
01:08:29.500 --> 01:08:30.060
I love it.
01:08:30.060 --> 01:08:34.220
Yeah, so summer, it is time for us to round up.
01:08:34.220 --> 01:08:40.860
I really have enjoyed our talk, and I look forward to when we find time together the next time.
01:08:40.860 --> 01:08:47.340
For people traveling to Mexico who wants a good tea and chocolate experience.
01:08:47.340 --> 01:08:53.180
Can you please plug what is the name of the city and again the name of your cafe?
01:08:53.180 --> 01:08:59.180
And also if they want to find your uh glass online, please share so people can find.
01:08:59.659 --> 01:09:03.579
Yeah, so my cafe is in San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico.
01:09:03.579 --> 01:09:06.140
It's about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta.
01:09:06.140 --> 01:09:09.739
So if you're coming to the Puerto Vallarta side, it's not too hard to get to.
01:09:09.739 --> 01:09:12.460
And it's a beautiful, magical, magical little town.
01:09:12.460 --> 01:09:35.020
And my shop is called Andanza, and it's right near the beach on the corner of Plaza del Sol, next to a little wine shop and a little health food store, and and uh the plaza where all the kids, there's a lot of really cool homeschool families around here, too, and very cool like alternative schooling going on and a lot of really amazing, very family-oriented town, gorgeous community center with kids all the time hanging out.
01:09:35.020 --> 01:09:36.060
It's amazing.
01:09:36.060 --> 01:09:38.619
So, yeah, come to Mexico, come check it out.
01:09:38.619 --> 01:09:39.819
It's beautiful.
01:09:39.819 --> 01:09:47.420
And then if you want to check out my glasswork, I'm mermaid art glass on Instagram and all those places.
01:09:47.420 --> 01:09:57.340
There's not much new going on there, but you can go and check out all my my blown glass work and and uh see the studios I've worked in and and all that kind of stuff.
01:09:57.340 --> 01:10:00.220
And I'm hoping to, I would really love to do it someday.
01:10:00.220 --> 01:10:03.579
Open my own little hot shop here doing only recycled material.
01:10:03.579 --> 01:10:11.100
And I'd like to teach, I'd like to share the skill with other young people and just there's not really a lot of that in Mexico.
01:10:11.100 --> 01:10:12.939
There's not a lot of glass art in Mexico.
01:10:12.939 --> 01:10:19.579
There's really only a few hotshops scattered throughout the country, and they're mostly focused on production glassware.
01:10:19.579 --> 01:10:28.779
And I would love to have a little like art studio where I could introduce and teach and have it be from recycled glass because the material's here, it's free, it's easy.
01:10:28.779 --> 01:10:32.460
All we need now is some propane to melt it and a few tools.
01:10:32.460 --> 01:10:36.219
And so that's my next project after this cafe situation.
01:10:37.340 --> 01:10:38.300
It's under control.
01:10:38.779 --> 01:10:43.420
Um, Pacho and blow glass with me, which would be what I would really love.
01:10:43.739 --> 01:10:49.099
And we're here in Tarragona, Spain, uh, now a world school village with the 40 families.
01:10:49.099 --> 01:10:55.979
And we have actually been dreaming about should we we were in Mexico in 24, the winter 24.
01:10:55.979 --> 01:11:01.739
And I've been considering should we go over there again, spend some months.
01:11:01.739 --> 01:11:04.380
Uh I miss the food, I miss the vibe.
01:11:04.539 --> 01:11:04.699
Yeah.
01:11:04.939 --> 01:11:07.819
And why not have a village in your village?
01:11:07.819 --> 01:11:08.619
That could be fun.
01:11:08.619 --> 01:11:10.779
It could.
01:11:10.779 --> 01:11:12.300
But thanks a lot for your time.
01:11:12.300 --> 01:11:13.579
It was a big pleasure.
01:11:13.899 --> 01:11:14.779
Thanks, Jasper.