Hello, welcome back to infoquest podcaster. Totally different recording session. I done with one, rest, stop recording and then start again from the last. It was listen to on Tuesday, definitely we're wearing different clothes, different things have happened, and how was your Wednesday? Wow. My Wednesday happened, it sure it's freshly. Did that time has elapsed you
get hit by a bus tomorrow, you're going to be sewing. - oh, I don't want you to get hit by a bus, but there aren't many buses around here, so there's little be okay. No, there's actually, no buses. Yeah, I think that's what that's why you have to seek out of us to get hit by. That was that's what put me over from moving from California. I was like no significantly less like it's part of your life and the need to pay for gas that oh God I see you forgot about how
much it sucks painting. I think we're not screwed years. I lived in a city. I would just fucking Transitive it sucks. Dude. Also Saudi listener. This is a continuation of our last weeks or last two on Tuesday's episode. So if we're just jumping in the middle of a conversation here, so that's and the last week's fire, early yesterday, is podcast titled something? Interesting, something interesting, but I so I on my Twitter and today I ended up telling a long story about cooking.
So I've been thinking about my life as a cook lately, I was a cook for the last 48. Years, before I started doing this. Specialized in sour dough pizza, but I was very seriously in the cooking world in in California. Thanks, your welcome is my ear, it is visibly. It is God's. Sorry. I have an appointment tomorrow. It's okay. I have an ear infection. Don't really bad for you. Just looks really uncomfortable. Handed me a thing. A total kleenexes, but We have an appointment for tomorrow.
Yeah, I'm so proud of you for making it. It's about an hour away. You all come with you if you want. You look, I mean, sure. But I'm with you go on a doctor's Adventure. Hello dr. Adventure, you know, the most common kind of Adventure kind of license plates or something where I said in the parking lot and try and find coffee. The last time I did that with you, I had to like I like went into a hotel and I hid in a hallway and it was really fun.
I felt like a spy. When was that it was when the first day that you went to therapy, when you drove, There's like a hotel and it has like a bunch of like Conference Center like rooms on the second floor and so like a went up into the conference room. She's like completely can just like vibed and it was great. That sounds really nice. It's really fun. It's got like, I have a bunch of
work to do before finals. Yeah, it was very, it was very much like chilling in the library, but anyway, used to be a cooker. Well, so, I used to be a cook and I So a long time, this is the podcaster tired of hearing me, give this explanation but for contacts, so every like a line cook shift, which is what I was the first half of it is prep. So you show up for hours or so
before service. However, long before service you prepare your shit, make sure your workstation is fucking and the second have a service where you're actually taking orders and you're doing the stuff second have the service. I was very like I was always just intuitively sort of good at because it's fast paced. It's you know, all you have to think about That is the next five ish seconds, you know.
Yeah. I mean you're ultimately you're thinking about very long-term things but it's always just blocks very small blocks of time which freaks a lot of people out. But for me, it was perfect. The part I sucked at was the much slower Pace, too much more methodical prep session. The first four hours when you have just a set of tasks that have a certain priority in a certain duration in a certain location in which they need to be done and all that stuff and you need to organize that time
sufficiently. So that you're ready for service because if you're not serving Going to fucking suck. So my day had a bunch of small tasks that needed organization. However, over time I got very pretty good at the prep section I had to because I couldn't sort of do it for a lot of people sort of automatic. They just I'll be able didn't write like prep lists. They just kind of knew and it was fascinating to me. Crazy. Oh yeah, there's some like mental superheroes and kitchens.
I don't know how they do it but For me, the driving factor of like getting better at the prep section and learning how to make prep list and all that stuff was made much easier by the fact that ultimately every day I had one and exactly one goal which was to have a good service, that's it. I was like that was the goal, have a good service. Get my orders out on time. Don't hurt yourself or anybody else make obviously make the food properly and and you know all that. That's tough.
And if that's the case, if you're fully prepped and your, you know, it's a joyous experience has the lights euphoric in a way because you're just, it feels effortless almost. When you get into the flow of it, you're just producing like excellent food and you're just like, how you just sort of float above yourself?
Like, how am I fucking doing? This is amazing, but ultimately, it was only that one goals, have a good service in order to do that, you know that broke into several things, were having a good service means being prepped, on time, for whatever and being you. Attentive during service. How do you do that? Well, those break into more and more tasks and then it gets more difficult. But so anyways, my cure is the reason I'm talking about this is
my curiosity, is why Is one. How did I get good at that? Given that it was so counter to my nature. To do that first half of service, the prep organizing time in a very precise way. How did I get good at that? And for what I don't want to say, like I got amazing at it. I think I got proficient at it. Yeah, it took me eight years to get proficient and I got proficient and then became not
proficient. Several times during the process during those eight years, which is fascinating, you know, I would get really good at it and then I would move restaurants, or Or move stations or whatever and all the sudden all those procedures that I had put in place to get proficient or now, I just forgot the existed and so I'm trying to extract as much information about my process there, such that I can apply it to this and I've been singing this song for two years.
I better get on it, but I'm trying to figure out what a good day of this looks like, what is my one goal for the day? Yeah, one not, make sure to make content and This is what is the one thing, and how do I break that down? I mean, that's, that's exactly why I tried. Like, I wanted to reconfigure my calendar.
That is precisely precisely was my goal was I want to have one goal per day, like one tangible thing, but the problem was that I literally sat down on my twitch stream and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this gonna break this down to make a calendar and then I realized East. There cannot be just one like there can be one like you know super mega Ultra goal. But it's like the the nature of this work means that I have to have multiple smaller goals you know. Yeah.
And and that was so frustrating. That was so frustrating because I like I sat down and I was like, okay, my goal for Monday is going to be, you know, make a tick tock which is such a small, go, like in the grand scheme of things. But it's like, okay, but I also really want to start going back to the gym. I also need to make sure that Bailey goes out. I also need to make sure that I
check my email. I also need to make sure that I do this that and the other thing, you know, and so it's like by the time twitch stream, you know? And so is like by the time I got through just the basic sort of like admin of. Like when do I eat when do I pee? Is my dog taken care of? Like, I was like, I'm already so far behind schedule that I'm just like fuck, you know, and it and I feel like the same thing. I mean, I don't want to speak for you, but I feel like the
same thing with your prep. Stationing happened to me with Stage management, like in like because it's very similar in a lot of ways where I would prep a show you know and my goal is go in you know you get to you get To the theater, a couple hours early and you set the props and you check the costumes and you check in with the actors. And you make sure everybody has shown up for their shift and you know all of that stuff with the goal being to have a good show to have a good show you know.
And so like I got really good at that. I was I was such a good stage manager but the difference between this work and a stage manager, is that the and I think this is the part where like the neurodivergent see really. Like shine through was that, when you're a stage manager, it's the same every night. You know, it's the same as the same props, get set in the same location and they're picked up by the same person and the costumes were the same, and
everything is the same. And so, once you have your prep list, once you have that established, you just go down the list as you checklist checklist checklist and then it's done now stuff might go wrong, you know or like stuff might break or the costume rips or whatever. But like that was where I accept that was like my version of service where it was like you know I knew that I had okay. Like in this bot if anything goes wrong I got five minutes
until the next change. I've got five minutes until the next shift or seven minutes or whatever. And I had all of that broken down in my script. So I always knew like do I have time? Do I not have time? When do I pee? Like where do I eat when? Is it snack time? Zach time was always between act two and three of Peter and the starcatcher. You know what I mean? So like that kind of thing and so like but I don't have we
don't have that anymore. And we don't have a service or shares, there's no service, there's no show and it's just, it's just moving constantly. It's just, you know, because someday like Thursday, it's seven interviews, seven interviews with Isis and then, you know, Friday, I had like one interview Buzz. I kind of You know, and so, you know, stuff has weight stuff has more weight and less weight.
You know, stuff takes more time and less time, it's not like Hamlet where, you know, the runtime is 2 hours and 37 minutes. It's maybe this interview takes an hour, maybe this interview takes three, you know.
And I'm bad at that. I'm realizing just how bad I am at a job where everything is changing all the time because it's fast paced isn't as challenging, and as Pressure heavy as stage management is running the Renaissance Festival is what was changing their on the day-to-day was like the emergencies, the problem solving, it wasn't the foundational core of the job. Hmm.
And I think I just had a podcast break who like in this moment but yeah and so like I think that's one of the reasons why I've really been Struggling is just because I'm just, like, I don't know, like know what can I be today? Who knows? Maybe PBS will call, you know. Yeah, that's the thing that happens. Now, casual, I think I know I qualified too much but just to call II, you know, before I say, one of us, I just want to.
I never, this isn't to imply that I have the answers or I'm holier than anyone else or anything like that. But I think the reason The you know, taking like just prep for service. The reason I was at all capable of managing that was because I was able ultimately I didn't notice at the time but sort of in retrospect I was turning many goals into one goal. Yeah. So You know, I had to blanch the blabbity blah up and peel the whatever's, But ultimately, my goal was to complete the proper
list. Yeah, it was, it was I only had to do one thing which was completely fabulous. That is composed of many things, but the goal was just that one complete the prep list. So perhaps like, you know, what is your one goal for the day? I think, The goal should be General and Consolidated. So like the goal is not make of
this and complete that email. It's, you know, finished the list, one goal, finish the list, what's on the list but but the one goal is finished the list and, you know, and I think that I mean, and I've done that before with this job but I think anytime we can consolidate many tasks into one because most people do that automatically, most people I made a video a long time ago. Apparently it is but I made a video a while ago now about Romanesco as an analogy.
So Romanesco is a type of well technically Romanesco is Oh my God. All over, Asia. Brassica oleracea. I think is the name is the technical name for the plant but it's a bunch of different like kale collard greens cabbage, brussel sprouts. All of those are technically the exact same plant. They have the same DNA, it's a plant called Brassica oleracea.
I swear to God look it up. It's just, we've selectively bred them for a long time till the, so, that now they produce this very different results, these different strands of it. But ultimately it is exactly the same plan. It's pretty crazy right? Brassica oleracea. I promise, look it up. I really thought you were about to describe an art technique. We've been watching so much pottery and I was like, yes brass a Cola with caught the ball in metal and scrape it away.
I don't know. It's like I just like made up a whole thing of my head about what you were going to talk about and then he complete and then he started talking about brussels sprouts and I was like, what? Well, we just got too many pottery wheel, so maybe we'll invent some shit tonight. Yeah, Yes. Sounds like a Monday and a half right there. But anyway, so Romanesco is this type of that. It is kind of like cauliflower, but basically what it looks like
is, it's fractal. So, a fractal is a thing that branches off into smaller things up, branches off into something so, on, so on infinite. Yes, what, what the movie Frozen is that from Frozen? What know, there's, there's a part and for have I ever told you my fractals rant, you know, but oh, there's this part where I'm sorry, this is so stupid. Please, please, please, there's this part in. Let It Go with the classic song. Let It Go.
She's like singing about whatever and then she said his, it is spiraling in, frozen fractals, all around. And it's like this really weird moment. And so I always just like and it doesn't really go with the rest of the song, like it's in the bridge.
And so, I always pictured this like thing where, like, the song writers were sitting around and then somebody's like, hey, Jerry, I'll give you 25 bucks if you can fit fractals in the song and then yours like that and then, so that's why that line is in the song. But that is why, I know what a fractal is because I Like that's such a weird fucking word to put into a song, sung by Disney princess.
And that I was like, oh frankly could because it's like, he's like shattering the ice and it's like, okay, that's cool. But yeah, it was sorry. I don't roll know, it's funny. I was trying to put your weird digression. I was trying to fit the word. Paw goes into my brothers. I'm glad you said in summary, I'm glad you did a good job after meeting all the people that were there and I just quote it for tonight. Yeah, probably. It's like A lot of foreign a close, but you did a very good
for everybody wondering at home. How Eric did officiating brother's wedding? Thank Eric. Did the best job and he's now ordained so air can host your wedding. He can, or he can marry you. That's funny. My sister Lee. My now sister-in-law was like, you know, Eric you better be careful what you say around, people, you might like accidentally marry, some people might in line at the store, like, I accidentally got assigned something, I'm pretty
sure. But, you know, well, as far as God is concerned know, like, if I Pretty crazy, right? It's like yeah. Nah, they're cool though. He said it. That's they said the thing that that's the words. But anyways for one interesting practical and sorry anyway it's sort of let's reminds me of like some Dog Millionaire, how like everything he liked, all the answers, they had like a story about why he knew it like that's your fractal answer. Okay, that's why I know.
But so anyways, I was using a Romanesco or as an analogy where tasks are fractal. Every task is Posed of smaller tasks, which is in turn composed of smaller tasks. So on like pretty, I mean, you could argue infinitely down to like specific muscle movements. Like, I mean, ask somebody who's had like, you know, from attic brain damage like yeah, tasks are individual muscle movements. But apparently people without any HD, they're like base level of task is like, doing the
dishes. That's like a task and unloading, his water is like a task. That makes I physically cannot comprehend that for me. That is absolutely not the case. I can't read some tasks. Yeah. It's, you know, one, it's getting out of your chair to ask. Everyone has number one standing up. Cool going downstairs. You know, are you going to wear gloves? Do you have gloves with Yahweh? We totally bought gloves. All right. Now the task is remembering where you put the gloves?
Wait, but I'm not actually sure if we did buy gloves, task. Number three, trying to find the receipt from the store that you need to see if you bought gloves and there are infinite It's of ways to spiral away from the original task between all those smaller tasks. So yeah tasks are fractal. Most people can sort of group tasks in a button, you know all these tasks together as one task called doing the dishes for us. That's not the case. I literally just posted a tech.
Talk about this. Did you really like two hours ago? Did you really? Yeah, I'm opposed to my posted at one, I might join to I'm out. I'm doing this for long enough now where I have to start repeating myself and it feels weird but yeah, it feels weird but I've been reposting because it Have you helpful?
Yeah, alright, dude, it's good. I mean, I already worked really hard to say it exactly how I wanted to say it two years ago, Ray, I could re record the video but it already exists, but anyways, so I think we have to do that manually. Yeah, we have to take those that group of small, tasks and manually in our heads, or on paper, turn it into one task.
Where like I, this is one of those like, I working in kitchens for me was as much Like an existential exercise for me as it was a study in just other people and how other people operate for a lot of people. It was fucking incredible. Like, I incredible. I mean that literally like, well, I do believe it but like it's really hard for me to believe that some people could just Do stuff.
I didn't know they could just do stuff like they would go to the walk-in and just grab the stuff that they needed, they just knew and would go back to their station and they would like process the vegetables from left to right and then it was done, which is where I eventually ended up doing that, but I had to do it manually. I had to manually. Go. Okay, what do I need these things like which seemed is so intuitive. Apparently to some people, but for us we have to do them in
many ways. I think it helps me to remember that, at least makes me feel But remember that that it's not our fault that we have to do that. We don't intuitively. Do these things but we can do it manually. You have that agency. And it's frustrating. It's fucking hard. But any time we can turn all those little fractals of I have to do a million tiny things. Anytime we can turn that into one thing or less things is good
lists help. It's also such a good explainer about, like, why It'd be like this all the time. No, because you're just constantly, right? Like your, you constantly have to do everything manually. Like every single time I take a shower, I have to remember to wash my face. I have to remember to wash my hair that I have to second-guess whether or not. Did I put in conditioner? Yeah, did I rent out the condition? I always forget to read
something. Every time I take a shower I have to remember that that's what I was doing by the time I get there like I'm just like all right you know? Like and it's that kind of thing we're just like but it's like constantly that's like you have to run your entire life on me. Annual those like on, you know, it's like, oh my God, like I actually got up and eat breakfast and walk my dog.
Like, all your life is so hard and it's like, no. But like, within that are like 48, separate tasks that usually begin with Bailey took, one of my shoes in the night and now I have to wander all over the house, looking for the shoe in order to take her outside. And whether or not we even get outside because by the time that I get up to my office, to find my shoe, like, oh shit. I guess I'm here, I could check. Email. And managing those tests have
Gardens fractals. Yeah. Those tests have margins in, which you can get lost and like, if you were to think of each task as having, like, there's a period between one task and another one where you have to transition, transitional period. Yeah. Like, as you divide, those tasks into their constituent Parts, eventually, it starts to look like all margins.
Yeah. And it's all opportunities to get lost, which is, I think what I struggle with the most call dibs on that are going to make a Tic Tac. I'm also going to be okay, mine's going to be Or than yours because I'm going to, I already know what I'm going to use as an example. Oh cool. I'm going to use visual metaphors. So who I was in the user visual metaphor? Well, although I am talking about this on podcast but I discovered that I may well be have hyper faiza.
Fuck off where my brain compulsively thinks of things visually you dick, which is pretty cool. Yeah. What's that like that must be nice. It is pretty nice. You know I got real sad last night thinking something that I didn't bring up at the time but I would like I wanted It. I want to like open a discussion about this so please do email us at ask it infinite Quest podcast.com but like I like art a lot, like visual art. Yeah, I like it. Yes. And I can picture it.
Like I can picture the Mona Lisa right now, I can picture manet's Olympia. I can pick whatever like I've seen, I can picture it, right? So the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of the times that I have quote-unquote seen the Mona Lisa has been in my own head, okay? We're as a person with a Fantasia can only see the Mona Lisa, if they have access to it and can look at it. Yeah, which is kind of makes me sad. Well, it's like why like Bailey so much is because I always
forget what Bailey looks like. It's like when I go home I got my dog is so cute. Yeah, pleasantly surprised by my dog, every time I see my dog because I can't remember what she looks like. And then there she is. That Sarah, she is. I like she's very cute dog shockingly. But I like I can't like like I'm aware that she's cute. Like I know that like his information but it's also weird because I think If you were like sketch the Mona Lisa, I was like, no, I couldn't do that.
But I think like if I'm if I'm like trying to picture the Mona Lisa, I'm like I'm like trying legitimately and like I can like it's sort of, like, It's sort of like if you like if you made it into like a 3D model but then you exploded it. But it was only in black and white and it was all in like like relief layers, you know, she liked putting the so you're going like layer by layer by layer can MRI. There's like I could. Yeah. So it's like so I can like think about.
Like like I have an awareness of what the Mona Lisa looks like. Like that is just like information. I can't conjure like a Mona Lisa in my head but I can go. Okay, I know that she's you know, Sitting like this because I know that isn't formation. I know that she's like, doesn't have eyebrows. I know that she's got like, fuck off like, you know, I know that the the record. That's not how she's holding your watch like a documentary one time about how like, the land behind her is like,
off-kilter a little bit. And so, like, you know, I know that as a fact because I heard it in a documentary about. So then I like kind of put that there and then it's like, okay, I know that she has like a weird forehead and so I put like, got like the, you know what I mean? But it's like I can't picture the whole Thing, I just know the facts, like I know empirical facts about the Mona Lisa that inform like, but I can't just be like, oh yes, the Mona, Lisa, and my head is weird.
I was talking to Pappa member of the quest graph server. This was a while ago, but we were having a, he's in different time zones. Sometimes when I can't sleep will be three in the morning and he's like, so, you know, we were talking about a bunch of stuff and we talked about a Fantasia and something that Confused me and can content will continue to
confuse me the rest of my life. There's no way around it, but is also deeply heartening and in joyful and beautiful, is that we've talked about poetry and I like poetry because it evokes imagery it fundamentally like when it when you know homeboys describing the grass or whatever like I can see it. As they're describing it, it builds an image in my head which is the way that I experienced stuff and I kept thinking like, people with a Fantasia, don't do that, you don't do that.
But you also have a profound and deep appreciation. I mean easily / founder & deeper than mine. Obviously, you know, you studied it for years and years to master degrees like all without being able to picture, which means for
one that was like, oh what? That's like almost a scary thought to me, like, whoa, but then also, that means that there are ways of experiencing Beauty and passion and intimacy of life in ways that are fundamentally inconceivable to me, like as infinite as my own inner world, is there are other infinite inner worlds that are completely unlike mine that I thought I
mean. I didn't realize this until we talked until pep and I talked about it, but I for whatever reason just took for granted that being able to visualize stuff was a was a necessary pre-waxed prerequisite for enjoying literature which obvious, obviously, it's not admit, but I'd never addressed that thought until but obviously
clearly and obviously, it's not. So there are ways of appreciating art in a deeper way perhaps than I do that are completely unlike the way that I appreciate our, which is An amazing and I'll never understand it because I will only ever be one person. I can just only hope that I have lovely and intimate relationships with other people. Sufficient to, hopefully, get a glimpse of it. I feel like I have to figure out how to explain How I experienced
poetry for like next podcast. I'll report back. I'll think about it report back. Oh, it's time. Is it time? This time for real time. It is everybody. Thank you so much for being here. We've been infinite Quest apologies for how long it's taken me to get the last two episodes of the first season of ADHD and D out there's issues.
Well as fascinating issues that I won't get into but basically our mic cables are very long because we had a lot of mic cables in the computer was far away and it picked up radio signals. So throughout the entirety of the last two hours of recording. You can just hear the radio in the background, those Billy there are ways around it, you can fix it. I've had kind of that problem before but it wasn't as widespread.
So I'm just trying to Basically the end product is going to be less good that I want it to be and I'm just sort of like coming to accept that. So anyways, apologies, thank you so much for your patience. I really appreciate it. If you like the podcast and would like to help support us, please do consider becoming a member of our patreon patreon.com infinite Quest. They're all sorts of tears and whatnot but the only reason we're able to do this is because
of listeners support like yours. So please do consider joining next episode. We will miss you. Hear that hallway buff that was allowed hallway through a flawed, how a puff? I think it's side but next episode, we will catch up on the patreon song. If you don't know what the patreon song is Buckle in because it's the best thing. But otherwise, you can find us on all sorts of social media is, if you would like, to listen to us Billy. So, mad at we've been in here
for so long. We have YouTube channels, we have twitch channels. We have tick-tocks, we have Twitter's, we Instagrams. And we would love for you to join us on all of them. I have been dropping more a barking, dog. Because dogs, huh? Gasps dog. Um, I've been dropping more D&D content on YouTube and also some more sex ed content, especially specifically related to neuro Divergence e and we're really excited to do. More not Tic Tac.
So indeed, come on down and I'm I've sort of revamped might. Which dream to be more crafting oriented. Don't worry, we still chat the entire time, but I'm generally tinkering. So, if you'd like to see my chaotic crafting streams, I stream every weekday at 12:30 Eastern at twitch.tv/esa goood, come on by, for cattle, crafting
and classical music. It's, it's a really great time, but until then remember, to eat a snack, remember to drink some water, remember to take your meds, remember to be kind to yourself, remember to be kind of others, I remember that. We love you now. Did it. Okay, bye everybody. See you next week for real, for real. See you next week. Okay, bye.