Hello, welcome back to infinite quests. Thanks for being here. So, Kate is sick this week. We just got back from a convention. It is not covid. She's tested several times, but she is not feeling super hot. So on very short notice. I texted a friend of mine. Tim Ahern from Tick-Tock. Who is Tim underscore Ahern underscore art on Tick, Tock, please go follow them. I called them and asked if they wanted to come chat with me. Podcast this week. So what follows is my conversation with?
Tim Ahern, we talked about his diagnosis history with ADHD. We talked about how video games support persistence and learning. We talked about how failure is super important to the creative process and to bettering yourself as a person and what not. So have a good time. I hope you really enjoyed the conversation. It starts sort of officially at about 7 Minutes in. If you want to skip the little intro where we Bailey, Can I get two fucking seconds, please.
Can I get two seconds? I know a podcast is so far outside of your realm of understanding, but it for just a second, we can dr. Dolittle this, that would be amazing. Thank you very much Bailey. Anyways, enjoy my conversation with Tim Ahern. Well, mr. Tim and her, and thank you so much for being here, dude. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming on. Such short notice. I, for those of us for context. I probably said some of this in the intro, but Katie got abruptly sick and couldn't do
the podcast today. So I just had to call somebody who I like, who admittedly has ADHD and who I have the contact for and you checked all those boxes fantastically, especially the first one you're great. I like you very much. Thank you. Well, my plan all along has been to take over Katie's space. Ehsan Tick-Tock. And so, this is just the obvious next step to take over the podcast. And, and who knows what happens next year? Naturally.
Next is, after that the glasses after, that's the dinosaur. Yeah. Exactly. I'll start challenging you with some crafting things. I think that the two masters degrees in Shakespeare. I think that's going to be the longest time commitment to it, but you'll get there, you'll get there. I'm hyper Focus. Anything is possible. Exactly. Right? How you doing? What? You been up to? I'm not. Well, I mean, I would, I that's not true.
I was about to say not too much. But yeah, I've been, I've been doing a lot of carpentry and woodworking, which is, you know, I feel I talk about this sometimes on my Tick Tock, but I always feel really guilty when I start a new hobby, or whoring hyper-focus. Because originally, my whole Tick-Tock in my whole, like, reason for being was, I was going to make an art. That's why my Tick Tock is Tim. I heard art. The whole idea was I was going
to make a bunch of art content. And now, now I'm doing a gaming table and building a deck and thinking about making Dean decomp content, and I just learned Hero Forge, which I will do. You have you ever heard of hero for lunch? That's where you make like the the models for D and D the little, the little guys, right? Yeah. Yeah.
It's ridiculously awesome. It's a if you had got any 3D modeling experience, it mean, If you don't have any, it's like the best thing ever, because it's very much point-and-click, but then you can, if you do have 3D modeling experience, you can basically build your D&D character, 80% of the way, export an STL and then modify it further and then 3D print it and make your. So I have a character right now who's a frog and so and like surprisingly, I was able to make
an entire frog monk character. Who's Got marvelous, magical paints and looks very timid and and confused. And yeah, so whole penis to. Yeah, I mean, well actually, you know, my blog is my frog is intersects because we don't know, you know, he could change his gender at any time. Depending on the ratio to mail the females, exactly as frogs are famous for doing. That's right. Life. Finds a way. So, I am building a modular penis that I can attach to them
at some point. Or are you actually doing that? No, I But they're just boys fucking lying. That's amazing. The most ridiculous thing. Like some kind of modular magnetic penis that I can attach to my frog depending on his gender and and also, you know in combat situations which oh, yeah, which is when you use the miniature. So yeah, of course in Mayan Katie's D&D campaign, we have a talking horse named or talking Unicorn named Tony whose main weapon is his own penis.
That's nice beats beats. In fact, I think Me saying that out loud now is the first time we've ever actually canonized that like it's strongly implied. But we usually try to like, cut it off. But now it's official, if any of you were wondering, Tony is just beating people up with his big ol, massive Bad Dragon, you know, that's that's amazing. He hey, I'm trying to think there's got to be some unicorn joke. I mean, it doesn't happen again. He's a Duo. Corn was born on the corn.
You two horns. I don't know. I suppose he did do a whole bit in the Getting we're like, he used like unicorn healing Magic on my character blumpkin, but he, he was like, yeah, you gotta gotta suck on my horn first and so he did and it was very funny. Yeah. Anyways, go ahead circles to digress from fantasy animal, penises of varying, sizes, and and danger levels. I would love to ask you about your idea to history if that's all right, with you. Yeah, yeah, um.
Trying to think of where the best place to start is your dad's balls. Yes. So I used to live there, straight back to penises. Oh my God. I'm usually I usually do this podcast with with man men. So it's like, oh, I have another, dude. You're gonna make stupid dude. Dick jokes, huh? Goddamn. I did not expect it to be this bad though. Yeah, Katie leaves for like five minutes, Souls all dicks. This way around. I can't talk at. We're gonna start talking about n ftes or something like that
pretty soon. Oh, yeah. Cryptocurrency. Yeah, dude. Yeah, totally. If I'm not talking about my dad's balls. I'm talking about cryptocurrency and all right. If he wasn't talking about his dad's balls, talking about cryptocurrency. Yeah, but my autobiography for sure. And let's just be clear. He never really talked about cryptocurrency. I'm here to talk about cryptocurrency and my dad's balls and I'm tired of talking about cryptocurrency. Jesus Christ. Oh, man. So, excuse me.
You're very serious. Mental mental disorder that we were discussing. Pardon me. I'm sure. Your dad is a lovely. You gotta edit all this out, right? Yeah. It's gonna be one long beep. Good. Good good.
Yeah, so I was I think like a lot of people you, you see people with ADHD growing up and living your life and my gut reaction was always basically like Wow, I definitely don't have ADHD because I can sit down and like, I learned how to oil paint, you know, I taught myself how to oil paint and I would do it for 13, 14, 15 hours, straight and stay up all night, oil painting. So like that's not ADHD because ADHD is when a little kid can't sit at a desk and pay attention.
Like that was my only real definition and that was, you know, I think that's the popular narrative. A lot of people have is ADHD is just children. Are hyperactive. And then they take Ritalin or Adderall and and are somehow lesser than afterwards, which obviously is patently false or You know, basically never was part of my narrative, that there are, there's a whole spectrum and different manifestations and different types of ADHD.
And so, I just grew up feeling stupid and, and had anxiety and depression and all the comorbidities that come with ADHD and and it was it was strange because like I didn't have like a ton of issues with School per se, I was able to basically, I think I was very motivated because I had so many hobbies and extracurricular activities, and I knew that if I my grades had slipped too much. I would lose the ability to do
those things. You know, my parents would meet up my parents not to villainize, make them sound like overly strict or anything. But, you know, if my grades were to slip Beyond a certain point, they really want me to College,
they really had all this stuff. And so, I had this fear that if I didn't Excel to a certain level, that I would lose my ability to be in three different bands and also be part of the drama club and also be part of chorus and also have D&D every weekend, because I had a D&D group from 6th grade up through college, same people, and it was really cool. Yeah, it was actually like a very formative experience in my life. Is I ended up in a D&D group in
sixth grade. And I, and I like, literally, I'm planning to get together with them for dinner and I'll get like, like they live all over the place now, but, but like they are just like lifelong friends. Wow, that's frankly, impressive. I have a really hard time doing stuff like that. Keeping up with groups of people, or that's really impressive. Say that that's like categorically good. There's nothing wrong with not doing that. But anyway, it's best thing to me.
Well, I mean, in every other part of my life, I've had that kind of object permanence issue where I just and, and again like basically, when I got diagnosed, I took a notebook and I wrote every single thing I didn't like about myself and then I was like, this is all these, these are all ADHD. Comorbidities think and a big one was like object permanence and we as it was relates to people sometimes.
Yeah, like they're there are times where I kind of look back and I'm like, well, I literally just stopped talking to that person and and that probably was like really hurtful or I didn't end that relationship in a very clear way or in a positive way. And those are like the things that keep me up at night and I used to really blame on myself and not that I don't.
Not to say that. I'm absolved a blame or responsibility for how I handled interpersonal relationships, but it does After I got through the idea that my entire personality was just a list of negative symptoms related to neuro Divergence. I was kind of able once I came to terms with it and went to therapy for a while. It actually gave me a great language to describe myself in a way that wasn't pejorative or explain myself, especially to my spouse. One of my favorite stories.
So man. See this is, I've you ask me a question. I don't even know. I have got like three different ways that I want to get to the end, please basically like Am I talking too much? By the way, we're not. You are absolutely not talking too much. This is a podcast. You ask me a question. I'm just gonna do place. Also. I just want to tell you. Have you ever been on a podcast or do you have a podcast?
I don't, I've been on, like, my friends had a podcast but I don't know if they marketed it or we're taking it very seriously, but like I'm, this is the first like, like official podcast I've ever been on. So, thank you again for having. Oh, you're very welcome. Thanks for being. Um, but yeah, you yeah. In the beginning, you generally feel like you're talking too much bigger. Like, wait a minute. That's the point of this.
That's what this is. So please, if anybody's listening right now, they're listening consensually because they want to hear what you have to say. So everybody listen to me right now. Okay. So yeah, basically the main the main catalyst for me getting diagnosed was I'd been working at a company for a while, as video editor. Oh, so you were diagnosed later. Yeah. Yeah. So, so sorry I was diagnosed. Most just like two years ago. Actually, right right during the
presidential election, really? Because I remember feeling super calm. I had just gotten medicated for, I got an Adderall and I had gotten Lexapro and I remember sitting on the couch and everybody was kind of freaking out and I just remember thinking weird. I feel a lot better than I usually did and everything feel I know everything. Bad and stressful.
But I actually like my, I'm usually, if I, if my normal level was like a 10, then I feel like I'm at a three right now and that created this whole debate of like, what am I? Am? I a bunch of neurochemicals firing off and now I've altered them with substances permanently and I've changed who I am inherently and, and like, and I'm saying that while taking a sip of beer.
Right now, which was, you know, before I was medicated, I was drinking 9 cups of coffee a day and then drinking a bunch of bourbon at night. So it's like at some point. It's like, why don't you have a doctor do that for you? If you have somebody like, help control that safely dial it in. Yeah, so like that, that ended that debate for me. But yeah, so basically, I had been working as a video editor. And I was humblebrag very successful at it.
And then I got to a point in my career where I wasn't editing as much, I was managing a team and help talking to people about their Career Development and how they could progress further in a company and trying to do, you know, process improvements for our workflow, and all of these different things, that weren't really work creative. We're much. Or organizational and much more strategic, I guess.
And, and that wasn't my favorite, you know, there was a lot of Confrontation, a lot of scheduling, a lot of organization, a lot of meetings and I was realizing that that wasn't kind of what I wanted. I wanted to be doing, I wanted to be drying, I want to be painting. I want to be making videos. I want to be creative and my wife. At the same time was having the opposite experience of she was working part-time.
Employee at a company and a stay-at-home mom and she got this crazy opportunity where they were like, hey, like you could make this huge jump and get all these new responsibilities, but you'd have to be full-time. And so, she came to me and she's like, I've been a stay-at-home mom for five years. You keep complaining about how your job is not quite what you want it to be. What if we switch had originally?
I had tried freelancing at the beginning of my career, but I, that was the beginning of my career. And now I had These industry contacts. So I was like, yeah, like that's a great idea. So we made, I gave my notice at the company. I was working at. And then literally the next day, the economy crashed. And then a day later.
I was taking a week off. So my wife could could fly out on a business trip and then there was a travel ban and then and then I never got to go back to my office because the sale Home order happened. So it was kind of like in the end. I was like, why did I quit? My job to stay at home. When, if I, if I had done nothing, just working from home. But the what, what was really the moment of of real frustration, or, or Clarity, or whatever, or Agony was, we made the switch.
And my wife started working full-time and I was taking care of two toddlers and nobody could come and help me. Because it was quarantine. I couldn't take them anywhere. We couldn't go anywhere and, and I In my mind, I knew that I knew intellectually. I was like, this is what I've always wanted. Like I have the freedom to work. Whenever I want on whatever project I want. I'm being financially supported. I'm in a loving relationship.
I'm getting to spend a lot of time with my children who I, you know, with a commute to Boston and at where I live, you know, I was spending hours and hours away from home and getting home when their kids were going to bed and never really A chance to see them as like, everything is great. This is kind of the dilek situation. I can paint all day. I can be creative. I can do all this stuff. Why can't I get out of bed anymore? Why am I feeling so depressed?
I started disassociating and having like some severe panic attacks and it didn't help that. There is a pandemic and we were trying to sell our house and we were having to do all of these different. Things like there was a lot of other end, you know, the presidential election. Like I said, like, there's all this stuff happening, but I was like, I'm so ridiculously unhappy. And what I started to realize was, even though I didn't realize it. I had developed.
All these coping mechanisms for ADHD kind of as a like a A way of surviving and they all depended on isolation. So I would be on the train and I would get a bunch of writing done because I was always trying to write a novel or something. And then I would binge my podcast on my 45-minute walk from the train station and then I would drink eight cups of coffee a day. Sometimes probably more and I would I would go for long walks. I would go for a long thought,
full walks. I'd go for walks to get coffee. Um, and if I had a hyper-focus like I hyper-focused on chess, I'd go, I'd be to chest book where I'd play chess online at eat my lunch by myself and kind of recharge. I would I'd had a little watercolor kit in my backpack. I'd go in somewhere and I would paint people and do people watching and sketching and then when you're home with kids in theory, you can create your whole routine, however you want,
but they are always there. Like they, they tend to need a lot of help when they're toddlers. They can't just go to the grocery store and it's not like, but I mean, there's like you everybody knows that being a stay-at-home parent is hard and that managing a household is hard and keeping it clean and going grocery shopping and meal planning doing laundry. All those things are hard but there is a flag for the first three weeks.
I was the happiest guy in the world and then I sort of came to this. Addition of like, there's no break. There's no weekend. This will never end. I will never finish the laundry. I will never finish cleaning this kitchen.
I will never even poop by myself again because every time I try to go to the bathroom, there is someone kicking the door in quite literally and saying, like, somebody broke my thingamajigger or like I can't make this work, you know, and I love my kids and like, I'm so grateful that I get to be with them, but there was a There's just this glass shattering, like, oh my God, I cannot manage never-ending long-term projects and manage my own routine every day with no break.
A no reset time and my wife was super supportive and she was like, take your time figure this out. But after a few months she was like, yeah, what's up? Okay, are you doing, okay? And so I went to therapy and and I honestly I think at some point I was on I was figuring out and learning Tick-Tock and looking at Tick-Tock sighs. I probably saw content by k.t. And by you and some other creators. And I did that thing that I think is typical of a lot of people with undiagnosed ADHD.
When they say everybody goes through this, everybody laughter uses. Everybody picks something up, and then turns around and it's gone. Everybody, you know, does has all these problems where they feel like, they're lost all the time and can't remember anything and and I really struggling with mundane things kit and you know, No, feel stupid depressive, pushes. The Piano Man of ADHD Skeptics. Yeah, a free bird or something. And finally, my wife was like dude.
No, I don't relate to a single thing that you are saying. Do you really feel that way? You really feel that strongly that this is like a common experience and I was like, ah you okay. And so then I talk to somebody. I got diagnosed. I didn't believe them. So I went I was like, really I was like, you're obviously this person's a hack and so, I went and got a second opinion. I got diagnosed again and I was like jeez.
Okay, that's crazy. Because I just I just like really felt this kind of initially. I just felt this defeat in a way like, oh like this confirms. There's something wrong with me. Hmm. This confirms that like It was really hard at first, for me to like. Celebrate and being their
neurodivergent. Because I had spent kind of my whole life trying to prove to people that I was as smart as them and feeling kind of inadequate, and having self-esteem issues, and all these things, and then learning learning that I was different for real. Really, like, hit me in a way that wasn't great. And then I and then I started taking medication and then and then I had a second. Like morning of like dear Lord. Is this? How is this? What it is? Like to be normal?
Like I took Adderall and I was like, yeah, I'll God, it's like someone went into the my brain settings and switched. Everything. I was like the toilet is so disgusting like I gotta clean this. So did you know, what do you mean morning? M ourn ing? Yes, like I was grieving all of the time that I lost and end and I remember telling my wife, I was like, I now know that I'm actually pretty smart.
And I can do all of these things that I'm capable of understanding and focusing and interpreting and having conversations with clarity about complicated topics, but literally, no one else will know that. Like everybody has this expectation of me. That is so low because of how I functioned my whole life and I just felt this like really yeah like this grief of like, I always I always felt like, Like, somehow simultaneously that I was smarter than everybody. I knew.
And the also, the dumbest person that's that had that hits really close to home because I always sort of felt that to, like, throughout High School. I was always like, I'm the smartest fucking guy other but I'm failing all my classes and I'm like, so clearly even if I'm that smart. I'm pretty stupid to not use it, you know, or something like that. It was, it was always some mental gymnastics that eventually ended in me thinking
I was a piece of shit. And, and, you know, it just turns out that like, there's a diversity of intelligences and, and skills. And like, I have a lot of weaknesses. Like I have trouble perceiving time. I have trouble organizing myself in a in a very like, clear way. And, and geography, and names,
and numbers. Like, if I took a history test, or somebody asked me, like, even it's a joke that like, I live in a town and I couldn't really tell you where all the other towns that I go to all the time are in relation to my town. That's like, well, that's pretty common. That's a lot of people can't do that. Do you? Do you have a Fantasia by any chance? Can you picture things in your
head? What kind of well, I'm as an as a visual artist, I can definitely Picture things in that way and envision them and I often will do, but I will often rely on tools like Photoshop and, and like, and kind of do photo bashing to plan out, a painting to sort of help because I'll see how I have a vision of how I want things in my head, but it's not clear. It's very hazy. I have to kind of iteratively work it out which turns out to be my learning style and what I've I didn't ever feel
confident in growing up. look like, For some reason, when always Pops in my head, first is mowing the lawn. Hmm. My dad wanted me to mow the lawn when I was a teenager and he had this very specific way. He wanted me to mow the lawn and I would get so nervous and anxious about failing or disappointing him or doing it wrong. That I wouldn't be able to have a it incredible working memory, but a terrible long-term memory, but by working memory doesn't work.
Great when I'm like in fight or flight mode. And so I would do think I would just would never quite figured it out and what I've and he and then he eventually just was like, okay, like never mind. I'm not I don't think you're going to figure this out and and you know, that kind of pattern of things contributed over time to me having super low self-esteem feeling. Like I just couldn't get things
that other people could get. I didn't know how to drive from my school to my house because I was always reading Being in the car and didn't really care. I was like a GPS will tell me if I need to. Like I have other things that are more important and I want to remember. But what I've discovered light too late in life is that failure is such an important part of progression. And, and I like, even like this. I'm rebuilding my deck right now. I've never built a deck.
I've just, I keep finding wrought. All I had I was going to just replace some And I realized the railings were dangerous. So I took all the railings and and I learned what a balusters was and I was like, now I'm like a expert at the code of our state on how this deck should be and and I refuse to ask anybody to come over and help me do it. Like, talk, like people. Keep offering. Okay, I'll come over and help you. And I'm like, no, no. Don't come over because I need
to screw this up a lot. And if you're there, Giving me advice or preventing me from making the mistakes. Then I won't make those mistakes and then I won't have a, I won't have internalized the error. Like I with painting, I had to paint so many things badly and learn. How long does oil paint needs to dry before. You can do another layer. How much medium do you need to
mix into it before? It becomes a transparent gloss and he to ruin You need to ruin so many things before that, those lessons internalized because otherwise otherwise just watching tutorials and having someone tell me, I just don't pay attention. Just goes in one ear and out the other. So like, I've become, I've started off as a terrible, terrible Carpenter and and
ruined so many things. And, but through all of those mistakes, I have now become like very competent at a lot of different Hobbies. Because I know that that smile, Learning style. I know, I have to make all the mistakes and find all of the roadblocks that I'm going to face. And then when I'm watching tutorials, I know exactly what information I need because there's so much information out there. But if I know like, I just can't figure out why my posts are
wobbly. And I've tried doing this. I've tried doing that and I've tried these screws on try, this technique. Now. I know now I have a problem actively that I am trying to solve a very short term goal. I'm not trying to learn how to build an entire deck. I'm trying to learn how to do one small, baby step and I went. Oh, he needs two carriage bolts, and that's not what you have right now. So I go by those and I put them in and I do it wrong. Like, okay. Well, why why did that not work?
And then I go and find more tutorials and that's and that's been a style of learning that I think is kind of demonized in our culture. Like if you fail at something a lot of people will give up. Yeah and and like the lawn mowing such a scenario. Like when I failed I was met with disappointment and I was met with kind of like, okay, never mind you're not. Good at this.
We're not going to do this. And so now, when I'm playing game video games with my kids or, or they do something and they, they don't quite meet their own expectations. I'm trying so hard to make a point to them. I'm like, it's so cool. How hard you're working. I like, and I'm so glad that you you went outside of your comfort zone and like reached out to try to achieve this thing that you did not already know. Like, why would you try to learn something that you're good at? You know?
Yeah, but it doesn't, if you're good at it. You don't need to learn it. So like you are doing Something brand new and exciting. And, and that's what failure really is. Yeah, and I think too many people turn it into this self-worth conversation. Internally. Yeah, it's almost like it's a measurement. Like, I'm measuring my worth with this task, and by failing at it. I have received a measurement that I'm a piece of shit or I'm in invariably bad at this, no matter what. Right. Exactly.
And and the secret that I've learned through have, Having thousands probably a hyper focus is at this point is that there is almost nothing that you can't learn with enough patience. Like I never thought I was smart enough to do electronics because I saw something like Ohm's law and I was like, no, I'm not good at math. I can't do this. I started playing chess really aggressively because I because I was like, I've never been good at chess, and I know that I'm
bad at logic, like I'm not good. Taking the next logical step. I'm not smart enough to plan multiple steps ahead and and that's sort of Talk is very limiting and very prophetic. Like, what's the word? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, I can talk all day about how bad I am at logic, but the, the actual obvious answer when you pull yourself back from these societal Norms as well. That's where you should be
leaning into that. You should be leaning into what you perceive as a flaw or a shortcoming because Practice is what makes progress. And so by learning chess. I started to be able to think three or four moves ahead during chess games and I started learning all these chess openings, which then made it easier for me to learn scales on my guitar because I was like, wait, that's kind of cool.
The scales of my guitar kind of feel like chess openings all of a sudden because there's a bunch of different patterns that I'm learning on the board. And there's a bunch of patterns. I'm waiting on my fretboard and they are all Malleable I can change my guitar scale slightly to change its mode and I can change my chess opening to compensate for what my players do it. Like, I'm playing this type of Sicilian now, instead of that type of Sicilian in chess.
And and then from there, I was like, well, now that I have all of this East new memory skills and logic skills and and patterns skills. Why don't I go back and try programming again? Because last time I tried that, I sucked at it and, and lo and behold Old taking a long break from that Hobby, and and learning about learning, which I think is really the true hobby that that I have.
Yeah. At this point, if I'm being honest with myself, like what I love is learning, most of all when I went back to programming there are a bunch of shortcomings that I had perceived in myself that no longer felt like shortcomings because I had exercise those muscles. So now it was like, Oh, like, I can actually logically think through how this programming Loop might work, or how these these different patterns work.
And so it's just kind of, it's interesting how all these different things eventually play into. Sorry. Like I hear my son crying and it completely shattered, my my thought process. Okay. Do you need to do you need to go do a son related? No. No. My wife is there. It's just children have emotions. He's totally safe and finding Justin to. I'm glad I'm glad you feel. Free to express his emotions. That's important. Yeah. I also think a couple things one about first about video games,
something. I always thought was fascinating. I thought I started thinking about this, when I was around 12 years old, playing the video game. I think it was Jack to of the Jak and Daxter series. Oh, yeah. Yeah. One series. If anybody's looking to get into some PS2 games, what I was, I was trying to fight this boss and I was just getting my shit rocked, every time just getting blasted.
Every fucking time. But I kept going back and going back, and going back, and going back, and going back and eventually I want. And after that the feeling of satisfaction after winning and all that was great, but then I kept thinking like no matter how strong any given boss is in any video game and no matter how weak, any given character is like whatever character. You're playing matter. How weak they are. The boss is 100% of the time,
hopelessly outmatched. Mostly outmatched so long as you keep going back. It's like a dormammu situation. Like you can get defeated as many times. But if you just keep coming back, it doesn't matter about the differences in the strength and whatever its persistence is the main strength and I always found that fascinating. It's what I see like kids like getting your shit rocked in a video game, but they just keep going back. It's like, you know you the boss only ever wins.
If you quit, if you stop lying right? You quit playing then the boss wins, but if you keep going back, you inevitably Ali will win. Have you ever played Celeste know? It sounds familiar. I feel like that's been recommended to me before. Maybe was you, I would Nikolas.
It's it's um, I think you know, everybody talks about Elder during and dark souls and all these games that provide this challenge similar to what you're saying, but Celeste also kind of thematically integrates that idea into itself. And I think I cried at the end of that game. So the game is, is it Platformer, kind of like it's got some metroidvania elements to it. But it's also it's like if you mix Metroid with Super Meat Boy, it's like just a ridiculously painful, jumping puzzles.
That you keep gaining abilities. And keeping like, oh my God, now that I have this new ability, the entire thing is change and now I can do all these things with that now. Yeah, it's this like, very Apple mechanic very amazingly dialed in physics for the jumping. But the story is also about a person trying to climb a mountain and everybody's telling them this mountain is impossible to climb. You're not going to make it to the top of this.
This character is having all these doubts about their ability to do it. And that's happening. Concurrently with you dying, literally a hundred two hundred times in a row trying to beat these. It very, very difficult jumping puzzles. And the further you get into the game.
The more, the, the main character in the game is sort of, I'm trying not to spoil anything, but there's there's a whole is like a dark version of the main character that eventually becomes a focus of the game and, and depression and overcoming. Obstacles, both real and emotional. And I mean not to say emotional and mental obstacles aren't real because our life is all just experienced from our brain. But but it's, it's a game that that takes that idea of like, You have infinite chances to
learn. How do you have? It's Groundhog Day. You can live this day over and over again until you succeed. The only way to lose is to stop playing and and it integrates that into the story and into the character progression within the game in a way that's incredibly satisfying and very cathartic. And another realization. I had that that you made me think of was at one point. I was playing like dark souls or and I was losing over and over
again. And I just had this sudden revelation of like, They designed this game to be beaten. Yeah, like like a bunch of designers sat down and they were like we need to make the game hard. But nobody in that room was like, let's make a game that end and this is impossible. Also, we're going to design will prefer context. Hello, dear listener.
If you don't know what Dark Souls is, Dark Souls is a video game series has been out for a while now, but it is notoriously difficult is insanely difficult there. No difficulty setting is it is just as difficult as it is, and that's the end of it and the whole game you're just losing Losing over and over and over and over.
And you have to memorize exactly the pattern of like a bosses attacks and know exactly how many times you can cast a certain spell before having to drink a potion that you've put in a certain slot. So it's accessible and it was, it's a game that you have to try exceptionally hard in order to beat, it's become synonymous with difficult to know. And people will be like, oh, this is the Dark Souls of like programming language. God. This is the Dark Souls of mountain biking.
When people use an analogy, when people say, you know, it's the Dark Souls of, I don't know guitar pieces or something like that. I want to go. Okay, so it's really fucking hard but I also go. Oh, but it's doable and immensely rewarding, right? And and like, yeah, and that's like the whole idea. And that's that's something that I think video games actually taught me. Growing up, was that it was sort of this. Like I was saying earlier that
failure is part of the process. You can't beat any bus and Dark Souls. I think, if we're being honest, without losing a few times, you have to see what the next boss stage is going to be, you have to get familiar with the moves and see what unexpected things are going to happen. If you could beat every bus and Dark Souls the first try there and well, yeah, that too. It would not be a fun game.
And I think that's something people miss out on to is like, difficulty is actually sometimes the most amazing part of our experience. Oh, yeah. In life. Like, there are a lot of things where I'm, it's when things get easy.
I'm I abandon them. Yeah, because because there's there's this inherent conflict that I think everybody craves in the world and and if you're not Because I mean like all every story, every movie, every book you read the whole point of that is, there's a contract and there's somebody growing and facing a challenge in overcoming it and was soon as your I don't know if I've just read too many books or watch too many movies.
But as soon as I find my happy ending with a hobby or a video game, like I was I got obsessed with Call of Duty recently out of nowhere because I've always hated that culture and that game but then I was like, wow, I can't stop playing this and I like I like beating these people online that I And I'm facing. And then as soon as I unlocked all the guns that I wanted to, I was like, I have no ambition to play the second. It seemed everything I wanted to and now moving on to talk to me.
Well, I'll and that's it. Sorry. Go ahead. Oh, well, one more task. You've brought up a couple times. But I love just about the importance of failure and failure. Practice, as I sometimes call it, you know, like in Elden ring, which is one of, is a Dark Souls game, your listener. Yeah. They're a lot of times when I go into a new boss like I know, He's a big boss area because they gave me a bunch of health and shit. Before any Lego shits about to
be a big bad? The first ten easily, ten, or so attempts at the bus. I intend to fail. Like I don't even try to wit. I just see what happens or what happens if I just stand here and do so, like the default move set of this boss. What do they do? Okay, then I die. When I go back and I go, okay, what happens if I maintain a constant distance from the boss? What if I just try to stay as far? Okay. I don't do as much, and then they do this move followed by this move.
And if I'm at this distance away, when that second happens, they'll do this third one. Okay, and then I died again and the okay, what happens? If. And so the first, however, many times failure is the goal. I'm just trying to get information, and I'm often try to, I often, you know, say as advice, but I try to live by it, when intending to do something scary that, I know I'm not particularly good at. I'm sometimes, I deliberately
set out to do a bad job. Bob, like, if I have to clean a room or do dishes or settlement, like I'm just going to do a shitty version of it because even if I do a shitty version of it, one is better than doing no version of it. And do I get to know what doesn't work about it like in the in the culinary world. I was a cook for eight plus years, The Culinary world was all about doing things, right? The first time in the only ever doing them correct, which is
fine. Yeah, you know, it makes sense because you have to sell the food but I always wanted to see what happened. If it was fucked up so chef. You have to do this this way and I'm like, okay what happens if it doesn't and I would get some form of, it doesn't work or you just don't or something, but why did you know why? I'm so I would if you know if the boss was ever not looking and I sort of had the time and whatever I would just like deliberately fuck something up and then I would go.
Okay. That's why. So now I'm not just like doing this thing because it's gospel. I know what I'm trying to get to not happen. So if I clear my desk off in a shitty way one, it's clear than it was before, but I also got to know. Asado this doesn't work because my pens are Out Of Reach or this doesn't work because the garbage can is too far away.
It's All Information Gain and it's difficult to apply that kind of thinking, you know, take it from video games or take it from like, keeping your desk clean and then applying it to emotional skill that you might not have or emotional literacies that might not have those curious of asking you are there any instances in your life where you find it? Notably difficult to take that failure, practice mentality and apply it. I mean, yeah, everywhere.
I mean, like, there's, there's no way to be when I don't I have not found a way to 100% be comfortable with failure. No, I think it is discomfort. And I think it's necessary because, yeah, ultimately the, I mean, well, the goal is to not if to not fail at some point, I spoke. Well, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here, but I get your one. I think, I think what it is. I think you. You said it perfectly in that you built. You need to build it in as part
of your process. So like it took me forever to figure this part out because I eventually internalize the idea that failure was important, but then I would still come upstairs from the basement after a day of painting and be like, Kate fucked up a painting. I can't paint faces. I'm never doing this again. I'm a failure I suck at life and I should I've tried and you know what the universe is going to implode anyway, and all this will be burned and everybody who
ever remembers me will be dead. So like why even bother trying to do anything at all, and she'd be like, you know, is Art fun for you like should you maybe stop doing healthy things? And like, I would go in these spirals, but then what I eventually figured out by watching people, you know, I was hitting these blocks and I was like, I am definitely the only person who's ever tried to paint something and had not work out. Like anybody who's good at painting will paint something.
It'll just be perfect. Right? But then what you find out is that painters do the same thing you are doing in Dark Souls, they sit down and they take the
biggest paintbrush. They've got and they paint the face in the most basic stupid way possible with the biggest strokes and the fewest colors that they can and it looks like a blocky blurry blob and and they're like now I can Exit, like the important part here is to now, fix it, and refine it, because before I had a blank canvas, and if I had made the perfect eye and then made another perfect. I they might not be perfect in relation to each other.
They V2 perfect eyes pointing in different directions and it would make a terrible painting. But now that everything is simple. I don't have to undo any any effort that I put in, I can just fix things forever, until they are perfect, the way that I want them. And, and that Is the cross training that I think you benefit from learning, many different. Hobbies when you are writing a novel.
If your FB, if your goal is to do, like what Kurt Vonnegut claims to do, which is to just write a page until it's perfect and then go to bed and just, like finish your book, and it's done or like Stephen, King's was just like dumb. Like you, you're what most authors do, is they write a terrible book as their first draft. They write a terrible terrible. Look. And then they put it away and then they come back in six months and they read it as if it's a brand new book that
they've never had before. And then they say, wow. This is a shitty book and then they think about it now, like, why is this shitty? What would I change if this wasn't my book and I was just somebody who wanted to enjoy this book. Oh, like there's a, There's No Kata conflict isn't personal enough. And the, the character needs to have a bigger conflict overcome and their character Arc sucks. Then they rewrite the whole thing. Thing. And then they send it to an editor.
And the editor is like, know this book still sucks. You need to fix it again and then they make all those notes and it becomes this whole collaborative process. And when you video at it, you do a whole scratch edit, you, you record your own video, even though a professional will come in and read it later and you do what's called an assembly edit where you just take the cuts from b-roll that you think are
kind of cool. And some of the shots from the commercial that seemed kind of nice and you put a few assembly Cuts together. And then The creative director and producers come in, they say these are terrible. This is not at all. What I imagined like when I was on set. I thought this was the best take and you have to learn to not take that personally because You are there to fail. So that you can iterate and
improve. Yeah, and if and if you just stop at that first part you would be, you would be missing out on what is an essential part of the creative process. Like, and that's why I think, like, when people get too much creative control, that's when a lot of the quality of their creative work drops, because you definitely need a lot of people to come in and be like, no, no. No, you've, you have failed. And then you need to be able to Realize that and be like great.
So how do I you need to be able you need to be knowledgeable enough to say, what is this feedback mean? Because when people tell you that you failed, are that something's wrong. They're not always right. And sometimes they don't even know what is wrong. They might try to be prescriptive and tell you like what you should change and that might not be at your just. You just know that you're not. If you're not have any impact that you want to have with your art or your video, or your novel
or whatever. I think it's About sort of collecting data and data points. Every experience in thing, that happens is a data point, whether it was pleasant or unpleasant at the time. So, like whatever, I make something creative, whether it's a video, or a thing, I built or anything and, you know, your to talker. So, you know what? It's like to get a comment that goes like this is done. Fuck you. I hate you. Like, that's like my whole life on Tick. Tock for me.
I always say that, like, all criticism. Is useful, but not all criticism is valid. It was that or was the other way around. But like, so if somebody comes up to me and says, you know, somebody who doesn't know anything about what I'm trying to do and says that sucks for X y&z reason. Yeah, I don't have to give a shit and I don't have to change it. But I do. Now have the data point that. Oh, this person doesn't like the
thing. So if I'm looking, if I'm trying to make something that's going to please, this person or people like this person, then that might be necessary for me to know but it's all About trying to take it as data points and I think yeah, artists times to do that, you know, get practicing taking notes on stuff and and creative Pursuits and I consider life a creative Pursuits. So let's go ahead and include that taking other people's advice and or hearing other
people's advice in deciding whether to tell them to go fuck themselves or not, or take the know because they know what they're talking about. You know, that at least has this hard line of X being external. Thing outside of me and my brain has said this thing, or given me this feedback about this thing.
When it gets much fucking harder, I think, is when it's you, when you were the one giving herself he back and you're like, is this a moment when I need to tell myself to go fuck myself, you know, am I being too hard on myself. Am I being too nice? Like like a myself. Am I being too forgiving of myself? Did I really fucked that up or am I just socialized to believe that I fucked up? Then it gets much fucking blurrier and much fucking harder.
Well, I think when you can accept that failure and feedback are part of the creative journey to a destination and you can stop taking it personally, which and I'm saying those steps is if they're like an easy one to thing, but it's taken me my entire life to, you know, go to a meeting with other creatives and have them tear my work apart and not leave feeling like I'm a piece of dogshit. Like once you stop doing that, then it just becomes about. Well, who is my audience?
Hmm, who am I actually trying to speak to? Because if these people don't like it, who cares, and what am I getting out of the creation of this intrinsically? Because what, I had to discover with Tick-Tock was, What I did discover through Tech because I never intended to be a tick tock Creator. I actually went on Tick-Tock initially to vent about my ADHD experiences because nobody there, I didn't know anybody there.
I knew a lot of people on Facebook and Instagram and Tick-Tock I had zero friends 0 followers, and everybody I ever talked to you was like, it's just for people who are children and they like to dance and I was like great. So if I go on and Tick-Tock and talk about ADHD, like it's fine and then and then things went viral.
And then my I texted me and he's like, wait, you have ADHD has a crush it, like what I did what I learned through that was that the more authentic and risky and vulnerable and, and batshit. I was on Tick. Tock the more, I every time I posted a video, or I would say, literally, nobody will relate to this. And I'm the only person who
probably feels this way. Those are always the videos that It up like blowing up or going off, and that kind of was the first time I ever felt, like I had a tribe or an audience that wasn't, it wasn't an audience that I was begging to be with me. There's a come on, cool kids like accept me in your popular club. Like it was like, oh my God, like the more me that I that I share the more acceptance I'm getting and and then I had to
carefully. Think about am I just falling into the Again, of getting extrinsic value from people-pleasing. Am I just performing like a monkey and getting likes and meow? Meow beans and feeling really good. Because other people tell me I'm good. Or am I expressing something authentic about myself and feeling a sense of belonging for one? I don't think those are mutually exclusive.
Sure, but you can definitely I think there's a trap that that you can you can try too hard to be performative and fit what other people want or try to predict what other people want and give them what you think they want rather than risking. Your own self expression. Like I think it they're not mutually exclusive, but there is sort of It's important in the
Genesis of an idea. I think if you're starting off trying to appeal to everyone, you will probably end up with something that's a little bit mundane or muted. But but like my favorite one of my go-to examples is like ridiculous movies like The Room by Tommy Wiseau. I will argue to the end of my days that that movie whether it is critically acclaimed as a good film or not. It has such a point of view. It is such a distilled version of someone's perception of reality that I find it.
So, fascinating and can't look away. The original Total Recall with our own Schwarzenegger. That movie is batshit, be re watch that movie or like, this doesn't make any sense and it's crazy and they shouldn't have made this, but it's also really good. And then they, then they remade it for the masses with the, the intention of like, well, we're going to make this something that everybody will enjoy a nobody like, Like that. So like one guy made this crazy, insane thing.
And everybody was like, this is cool. It became a cult classic. And then somebody said, let's remake this, but for everyone and then when you make it for everybody, it's for nobody at the same time. And so I don't remember what my original plan was. But oh, No, I don't remember when I. Yeah, I think I think I think that what I was trying to say was I had to be, I've learned that the more you can just the moment when you find your audience.
Well, that was getting too. So, I've got this hat. If you go on my Tick, Tock Channel, you'll actually see the hat that I'm wearing, but it's a hat that I've basically, I painted all my favorite things. Are you got it? Mario star looks. Like yeah, it used to just be a blank hat with a white star on. It looked almost like a Dallas Cowboys, huh? And also it's just got is this got all these things on it now from time going on up there?
Yeah. Pokemon like all sorts of stuff and and and I was talking to my wife about this the other day. I will go out in public wearing this crazy hat that I've drawn all of my passions on and some people will give me kind of side eye and be like, hey, this guy's a weirdo. Wearing this crazy hat and then some people will come up to me and be like, this is the coolest hat I've ever seen. You are the coolest person I've ever met. Did you draw this stuff? Tell me all about how you did
that? How did you get so good at dry? And and then I get really socially awkward and and like, I'm like, you know, I don't know, and then I leave and run away. But what, what, what that tells me, I could take that two ways. I could be like, the people giving me side eye. Are telling me that I'm not doing something socially acceptable, and I should change myself to fit. It in better, but what I like to think is it's a forcible way of finding my tribe really fat.
Yes, the people giving me side I are probably not people. I'm going to get along with and they're telling me right away. They're just telling me right away. Like no, I don't like any of that stuff, and I think you're weird, and it's good. Fine. I don't want to people, please you. I don't want to be part of your tribe. We're good. I don't need to. I don't need you to like, there's a lot of time. Frankly. It seems so much time.
And and now when I meet people who like my hat on like can we be friends? And give me your phone number? Let's hang. Like let's do this. Yeah. I mean, I think that's why, you know, people can live their lives. However, they want and so far. They're not hurting anybody
else. But I do think being as vividly and unapologetically yourself as possible is just the way to do it, you know, you might make less friends because a lot of the people who, you know, like you a little bit until they found out you're weird and then it up letting whatever, but the friends you do make are going to be the fucking shit. They're gonna like you for precisely who you are. And I think, That's really valuable.
And yeah, I spent way too much of my life trying to do the wrong thing and try and like we just wishing like, oh, I how come these people don't like me. I should, I should do everything I can to make them really like me. I should I should start learning football and like, maybe I'll, I remember like, I even was, I was a vegetarian, but I was still like, Dad. Maybe I'll go hunting with you and I think he was like, that's that's bullshit.
Like, no, don't go hunting with me like you I'm going to like it and I was like, but but I want to have more in common with you and like it just doesn't work. Like, you have to be yourself. And ultimately like that leads you to the better relationship, when people see you shine because you're genuinely enjoying yourself in genuinely, you know, making the world better because every I think everybody has that potential to just give something awesome to the world.
I think be yourself be Sorry, what was the second one? Be yourself. Be don't do drugs or drugs. That's right. Be yourself. Don't do drugs. Stop, drop and roll. Um, I had a whole, I had a cool thing. I was going to sound. So fucking smart. God, damn it. Sorry. No, no said it. This is me. I interrupted myself. Something happened in my brain. It was a, Oh, be persistent, be patient and be yourself. I think he's persistent. Just keep going. Keep going, keep rolling the dice every day.
I know you get a bunch of shitty roles in a row. Sometimes you might get some good ones, be yourself and and be patient. Sometimes it takes a while. But yes, an answer your question. That's how I got diagnosed with ADHD. Oh, wow. Wow, that's so I'll start with my dad's balls and it ended up with dark souls, I guess. But we do have to go. We're profoundly over time, but it has been lovely. But I did want, we I always ask one. There's a question.
I always ask all of our guests that Katie thinks is dumb, but I love it. So I'm going to keep doing it. Okay, but I have one question for you, my friend. If you could wave a magic wand and all of a sudden be able to speak every language in the world fluent, or be able to play every instrument in the world masterfully. Which would you choose? Oh, I think music for sure. I don't I don't like to talk to people that much. I mean I like to talk to certain people when I when I find people
who are cool. Like you I obviously can talk for hours non-stop, but most of the time I just want to be in my basement fiddling with things. And if I could play guitar masterfully or play instruments masterfully, you'd probably never see me again. I probably just be in my Garage forever, recording, cool stuff. It doesn't make you immortal, you would still be there for the duration of a human life.
You don't know that learning how to play instruments masterfully wouldn't eventually lead to some version of immortality. Yeah, maybe it's like Infinity Stones or something like that. You, if you play the fiddle long enough, the devil will challenge you to a duel and then you can win a mortality and live forever. And then, I mean, it's so obvious to me what and then and then I can learn languages. Every language and warming up for the rest.
Imagine Unity center in a in a universe where learning every instrument masterfully leads to immortality. I'm imagining like so, you know, some protagonist is out there and they've collected every single one except for like the tambourine and like all said, it's their final Tabor Ian lesson and they go deleting and all of a sudden like the sky opens up and like there's electricity in there.
Like I'm going to some tambourine instructor like what the fuck just Tap and they had no idea what they just witnessed. I'm pretty sure I just gave you the best answer. You've ever got a question. This is pretty good. One. I learned all of the instruments and all the languages and I'm
Immortal now true. So I went to my favorite answers was that's like name-dropper were but we had been Brainerd on a year and a little bit ago and we asked them that question and he said language and at some point I was being kind of snooty and I was like, well, come on man, like music is the universal language. He's like no Eric literal Universal. Language is the universal. Like let's like putting it up against literal universal language. That was like, okay wait though.
Are you including programming languages? And I suppose I do and like mathematical like math is sort of the language like the actual fundamental language over the universe because physics suppose that's true. But I mean, then you could also say that leg is music theory language. And if you're going to say that math is language or programming, then I would also argue that music theory is a language own which case you would have. So if I'd chosen language, As I would have also had control of
physics and math. We're also sort of like face and music, you know, identifying a line here between the ability to think and understand in a language versus the ability to speak it. Because if you you, if you spoke fluent music theory, you would still have to have the physical dexterity to realize that theory through the instruments. So you could also losing ironically know all the languages but not be able to pronounce shit. You know, maybe that's the monkeys possible situation.
Okay. Yeah, this sounds like a curse like I can, I know what I want to say, but I have like, like what in syndrome or something like, I could talk to this Turtle, but I can't miss the Saddles. I could, I could communicate with whales, but I can't make the frequencies necessary under water God. We just got wild. Shout out to The Wild Thornberrys. Well, I'm reading, I'm reading the Animorphs real obsessive. And another ignoring this did like the little cages where they turn into the guy.
What's up? Okay, I know that I'm a well, it's my life. This is my last thing today. You're good. I just want to take up your time. I I just I anytime I can evangelize the Animorphs. Anybody I have to because they really freaked me out. When I was a kid. Everybody thinks that they're these goofy books, but they literally are the most intense action books that a ten-year-old could read all the characters have PTSD by like book five. Like they are having psychological.
Traumatic things occur. I was reading, I was reading the third one to my daughter who's, like, seven and I had to start editing what I was saying out loud because spoilers one of the characters gets trapped as a hawk forever. Whoa, and they start trigger warning, basically expressing ideation. Wow, of ending things because they Are trapped as a hawk for and they still thinking like a
human language, right? And, but, but when you transform as an animal in these books, part of the animal brain, is there. So, like when you transform as a bird or something, there's there's an animal brain that you can let take over to help you learn to fly and like heavily instincts of animal which is like 20 a catch-22. Because like if you become an ant, you could immediately get Consolidated into the hierarchy of the social insight.
Um, world, or if you become a wolf, you might have like, some hierarchical issues with a posing Wolfpack. And, and so, he's like trying desperately to not eat mice. Won't. And he's like, he's like, I'm a hawk forever. I'm no longer technically a human. So, should I be fighting aliens to protect Humanity? Because I'm not human. And I'm not an animorph, because I can't morph anymore. I'm just a hawk. Talk and like should I eat nice or will that turn the into a full Hawk?
Will I lose all of what's left of my humanity and then he has a mental breakdown and tries to fly into a glass window and I'm like, hey seven-year-old daughter is this okay, his book, they get soaked right? That's book 3 and there's 50 of that cheese and the affair. It's been, you know, however, many years since I've written an entire book. Well, so remember it has it also touches a lot on sort of other innocent it. Like, I remember there would be like aliens that would come down.
That were like vilified, but through like learning and they like learn like, oh shit, like this guy's just trying to get home or like this guy's, you know, something like that. I think the coolest thing I learned from this books, reading them as I grew up, was one that Adventures are not good. Like, you know, you read all these Adventure fantasy books.
Me like I wish something cool would happen to me and then you read the Animorphs and it's like, oh God, like they're trying to hold their intestines into their Guerrilla bodies while like running for their lives and And they've achieved almost nothing. And like this is terrible. And then, and then by, like the middle of the series, they blur the lines very hard. Like, everything is kind of black and white at the beginning, like the yeerks are bad, and they're taking over Humanity in.
The Animorphs are good. They have to stop them but it doesn't pull back from this idea of like most of their enemies are slaves being mind-controlled by brain slugs. And so every person that they Or hurt or injure is also a non-consensual bystander of this war.
And so, if you are trying to escape with your life from this alien base, and you have to make a choice between being captured and infested and having all of your friends identities revealed as the brain slug takes over your body, or you have to kill a bunch of innocent bystanders that are being controlled by these aliens. Like what is the morale? It's basically the tram problem over and over and over again.
Every book until the characters are basically all completely shattered as and their child soldiers, in an Intergalactic War. But bike. Everybody sees them in there. Like, oh cool. They can transform into animals. The covers are weird and I'm like, no, their school books ever, man. You gotta read them. And that's my, that's my pitch. They'll make you super depressed and you'll be like, why were these are in for 10 year olds, but also, I'm so thirsty
incidental. Famous book series animal Spike or a karmic Cormac McCarthy. Naturally, he wrote the road and then really any ghosts with the animals this trouble for Ghost Riders, just like, as I was wondering why they were no like capital letters and population. It's just really weird choice for a young adult novel. Tim. Thank you so much for being here. I do. Appreciate it. Are you can you okay? Thank you for watching. You want to do a plug? Where can people find you my
friend? I'm on Tick-Tock at Tim Ahern. Art. Sometimes I'm an Instagram. I was this was all supposed to be about my art. I used to, I did, I do art sometimes now, I just like I just ramble about a Animorphs and and so look for me there and and yeah, I hope I hope Katie feels better, me too. Sorry. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me on but also double edged sword. I hope Katie feels better soon. Well, yes, of course.
Thank you for being on cheese. And I don't mean to benefit from her her Misfortune. But as soon as the zoom lens like, you, like, screw a flask, like a poison or something like that, put it on your ear. You're like shelf of the bunch of poisons labeled, like, Katie. Asaurus. Hey goo, everything has gone. As I have foreseen.
This was poison. Um, thank you so much for being here and I'll talk to you by. Thanks again to Tim Ahern for being here on such short notice and being such a lovely person. If you enjoyed this episode, please, do go follow him on all of his stuff. Again. It's t IM underscore ahe. RN underscore art on Tick Tock. You makes fantastic content. He's building robots. He's building decks. It's a good time. Anyways, thank you so much for being here.
I do appreciate it. Oh also, did you know that we have a patreon patreon.com infinite Quest. So if you'd like to help support the podcast, it would mean the world to me. If you thought of going 200, we got a ukulele coming on up all over by and the Patriot we're going to the patron song. Okay, so we can Mark. Yes. I'm so sick. I'm going back. That was a mood. That was a goddamn Anthem dating.
I almost, I almost burned our house down with with the lighter that I was furiously, waving in the air. I didn't. Please don't write a letter to, to that song. Although you will likely feel the urge. Anyways. Thank you so much for being here, and we will see you next week. Bye.