Henry Driver

an interesting point of view. But I don't think you think less deeply though. I mean, I feel like you are pretty considered person. Thank you, You're welcome. I taught you well why you did. Yes, Hello, I'm mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always loved fust questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions and there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything.

So I took the format of Proof's questionnaire and adapted what I think are seven of the most important questions you could ever ask someone they are, when and where were you happiest. What is the quality you like least about yourself. What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be

your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more we begin to see what makes us similar and what makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I am honored and humbled to have had a chance to engage with. My guest today is Henry Driver. Henry is a thoughtful, curious, quick witted lover of video games, music,

and dungeons and Dragons. Henry is also my son. He's been part of the creation of this podcast from the beginning, both as intellectual and technical support. I mean, on numerous occasions she used to fixed my computer. I mean mostly you know, it just wasn't turned on. But he also helped me formulate the questions themselves. I wanted to include the voice and thoughts of a twelve year old boy living in this time of social dislocation and remote everything.

I always learn a lot from talking to him and interviewing him today was no different at all. I'm gonna ask you the first question, when and where were you happiest? Wow, that's already deep. Um. I think I'd have to say on my dad's hammock out on his porch, it was it was not that long ago. I think it was just it was like a week ago or something. I just I've never really felt so peaceful at any point in my life of just laying down and kind of just being in nature. And no, no, no, like offense

to you, mom, none taken my darning. Do you do you equate happiness with peace? So is that your your idea of what of what real of happiness is is feeling peaceful? I think that's one of the things that go into happiness. I think happiness is definitely at various from person to person. Like one person will think this is happiness. That's some other person will think this is happiness. And I think it's just where you feel like yourself the most is where you are happiest. Why do you

feel like yourself the most? I like that dying. I gotta stop calling you downing because you're a guest and sorry, Henry, Yes, I think that that is actually the incredibly good advice to give yourself in your life, which is where you feel yourself the most, is where you will be the happiest. We've talked about this quite a lot, but looking for of anything all the time, it's probably folly. So thinking that you're going to be happy all the time, it's

probably not going to work out. Yeah, it's not possible. I mean, there's always going to be those moments when you drop and you're going to be sad. But sadness has to balance out the happiness. So I think it all kind of just comes into a giant circle dying. I love you so much, we do what question, which you most like answered? Okay, So I mean where does everything go? What's the point of it all? Like, well, what happens? We're we're all just sort of living, right,

We're all just sort of living on this earth. We're doing what we do. But why? And I just I want to know why because it doesn't really in the whole scheme of everything. What does us doing anything matter? That's my question. I know, it's it's weird. It's like, believe me, philosophers have been pontificating about this for time immemorial, What does it mean? And does they have to be meaning? I think we search for meaning, we want to attach

meaning to it. But I think that's a very human trait. Yeah, I definitely think that as well, because you wouldn't find a pig questioning its own mortality. I mean, no, a big is just a big. In fact, Stephen fo I talked about tree frogs. Tree frogs don't question how they tree frog. They just do it. They do it because it's instinct. But when you're able to like conceptualize it, it kind of gets messed up in your own head.

Do you think it's because we think we're so much better than everything else human beings that they we we think there should be a meaning, like that, our lives are so important, there must be a meaning to it. Yeah, Like over the thousands of years, humans have been sort of thinking there's always superior, and I think that definitely puts on a mindset of we're more important, We're the ones that should live forever and where we can do everything.

But in actual fact, what what are you doing? I mean, well, what exactly what? How? So how can those two things be true? How can we think that we're so important? And yet be destroying the planet in such and and now conscious way, Like we know what's happening, and we're not we're not changing at a fast enough right, So why there's still people that don't believe it's true? Like how it's so obvious that we are messing the planet up, but in our heads we think it's gonna be fine,

everything's gonna work out. We're human, Well, we know what to do, but in actual fact we don't. So do you think there's just a fundamental arrogance and us having been so if at the top of the food chain for so long and we've become complacent and just think we're owed answers and we can do whatever we want with this planet, Like do you think most of that's kind of what's happening? Yeah? I think if you get used to something for so long, you just sort of kind of you just put it at the back of

your head. You don't really care about what's happening to it, right, But then as it gets worse and worse it has you have to kind of realize something that it's just kind of going wrong. What do you think is what do you think it is all for? The messy business of living us being terrible custodians of a planet? Like, what do you think do you think there is a meaning or do you think that there actually isn't. I

don't think there's a meaning to what we do. I think we live our lives and the people that do what they want are the people that live. And I think that's the meaning of why we live, to do what we want. But what about society owning and mortgages and constructs and all the stuff. That's what people have created.

That's what people have created to make it so that you can live how you want in the confines of being like an okay, im moral person, right yeah, air quotes and I mean you have to live your life how you want it. Otherwise how how are you going to be happy? Ever? So, do you think what Grandpa said to me when I was a kid, which was find what you love to do and get someone to pay you to do it. I think that is a huge part of it. I want to be out in

the world, right, that's me. Other people can do them. So would you rather not have very much money and sort of live out of a van and be doing what you want? Whatever? That? If that's how it goes, then yes, yeah, I would rather live out of a van. Wait if if what goes, how if that's how I want to live, then yeah, that's how it goes. See, you really are a libertarian. You just want to You just want to do what you want. I have no idea what that means. Well, there's two meanings to it.

There's a political meaning to it, which is a particular way of thinking, which is literally sort of you get to do what you want. No government, no nothing, nobody tells you what to do. It's sort of like First Amendment on steroids. But a libertarian also, I mean they it means, you know, liberty. It's freedom, So the freedom to do what you want, be who you want. I'm interested to see what you want when you grow up, and like, what kinds of things do you think you're

going to want? I honestly don't know really, but you kind of want to have the space to be able to figure that out. Yeah, I think that's that's how we live, right. Question three, what relationship, real or fictionalized defines love fear? Now this is the one that I thought about the most. Well, I'm a TV connoisseur, as some would say, so I I do like to watch TV. I'm an enthusiast. Some may say, so I have had my fair share of TV, and I'd like to take

mine from a certain television show called Adventure Time. And it's between two people called Simon Petrokov and Betty, and I find that their relationship is it's it goes through thousands of years, right, and in the shortest explanation that I can make, is one of them, Simon Petrokov he can basically live forever, and his wife, who he wants to be his wife, Betty, cannot live forever, and her seeing that he can live forever, she runs away. She

does not want to be with him anymore. But thousands and thousands of years into the future, he finds a way to get her to love him again and goes back, and she takes him back. And I find that love is just a place where you care about somebody so much that you would go through change, you'd go through everything just to find them again, even if you lost them. So I feel like it's just a connection that you

cannot be broken if you actually truly love someone. I think that's very true, and I think that idea of forbearance, which is a really great word. I don't know. I do know what forbearance means. I mean, I can kind of guess, but not not exactly. It's like waiting something out, being strong through time, having the temerity to bear something and being strong, and I think that is a corner stone of loving for sure. Well, I know how much he loves adventure time. I love adventure time as well.

You taught me everything I know about advantage time, and we both love it. I like that it taught you about love, just because I'm twelve and I literally have no idea about relationships. You know what, baby, You've got to start somewhere. Your first relationship and love is actually with yourself, which nobody really tells you, and the way that you treat yourself, on the way that you sort of barely up to your own life. You're in the right place. You're doing I think you're doing all the

right stuff. And you know, one day you'll have a relationship with a person and you'll listen to this conversation and wonder why I didn't give you better advice. I think is pretty great. Mom. Thanks Darling. Henry Henry, Mr Driver, Mr Driver, Mr Driver so what quality do you like least about yourself? I think a quality that i'd like least about my self it would have to be the I'm not like a perfectionist or anything. Just to sort of back up this question, I just never think I

get things perfectly correct. So I'll make something that I'll be like, oh, this is cool, and I'll be like, wait a second, that's that's not right. Let me let me read that, and I'll just keep on doing it until I just never finish it. So I feel like that's and I know it. I'm trying not to make it perfect, just acceptable, and I just can never reach that. Well, you don't feel like you can reach acceptability, So it's not perfectionism, it's acceptable, is m. Yeah, I guess that

is the correct term for that. Yeah. Yeah, I just I always think there's a detail that's incorrect. It's interesting. I wonder if you get that from me. You're very hard on yourself, and yeah, your as well, I know, And I feel like, actually, it's funny hearing you say that. I kind of get a bit of a drop in my stomach because I recognize that of being really tough on yourself. But I see you give to really most of what you do and working very hard. And I also know I do that, but I don't think either

of us give ourselves quite enough credit. Yeah, I definitely think that's true. Well, that's just taught me hearing you say that is great. I passed on the quality I like least about myself to my child. Good work. But I mean, it's not like it's not the worst thing that could have come out of anybody. I mean, there's always like different things that could be so much worse. But I think that is just what I find to

be the most disliked by me. M. It's also like having an awareness of it means you're infinitely more likely to change it, right if you wanted to, I'd say so. It's it's easier to like, it's easier to get rid of something if you can recognize it first. I think you have to recognize it first, don't you, Otherwise you might just be getting rid of bits of yourself. They are actually quite good. Yeah, I mean it's a metaphor

for life. Yea, what in your life has grown out of a personal disaster, And you know, by a personal disaster, I mean something that at the time seemed very hard, or like it was something not working out. So I'm twelve, so I haven't had many personal disasters in my time. I think I don't want to go sat, don't sensor yourself,

love and say whatever you feel. I think when really past, I realized that nothing is really permanent in a way like death will come, but just like you have to make the most of the time you have until the end point comes. I think that's just a thing that will happen at some point, but you always have to think, but what can we do now instead of what that does happen? And I think that's what definitely came out

from Grannies passing. Did you really think that that after she died, it was like, Wow, we better live every moment because it really is, it's gone in an instant. It's temporary. Yeah, I think that was some big thing that came out of Grannies passing. Definitely. Do you think that's also where you really want to do what you do, what you want and not follow any kind of mainstream idea in your life. It's just like go live live it's your life. Yeah, baby, I want you to do

that too. Liberal liberal libratarian liberty liberty, libertarian, same thing a libratarian. I wouldn't mind if you're a libratarian, because that means that it will probably be about free libraries. I mean I would run for that if I was a president, you'd run on a platform of free libraries. Yes, I'm a libratarian. Libraries are free. I mean, I guess you have to get a card. Maybe it'll be on a platform of like it was against the law to

close libraries now, definitely free libraries. That's quite ast of Homer Simpson platform free libraries. They're already free. But I don't care. I mean, yeah, well, everyone gets a library, no matter who you are, you get a library. All right, my little libratarian, What person, place, or experience has most altered your life? I think it was definitely moving to England because that changed, That changed everything, and it kind of opened up my perspective to the world. I just

my view completely widened. Everything just kind of it was just different and I liked it being in a different place. I thought it changed how I looked at the world a lot. Can you say some of the things that like, either you suddenly saw how you thought about them before and then how you thought about them differently once you

were going to school in a different country. Yeah, I thought in l A, that's how I thought you were supposed to live by a certain routine and you were supposed to have this blank blank blank set out for you, right, But then when I moved to England, it's sort of it all changed. There was no there wasn't a routine. I would go to school and then I would maybe I'd walk over to my cousin's house, maybe I'd go to the park, maybe i'd walk somewhere, just anywhere to

the train as well, by yourself with your cousin. Yeah, it would be completely different to just go to school, come back home, do homework, watch TV, dinner, go to sleep. Right, it just changed, which I just thought it was amazing living completely differently. Do you think that you You know, the other thing about me, your mother, is that I have such a difficult time with change, and I love things to stay the same and for a routine, And

which is probably why why fourth that on you? Did you always know that you liked to change before or did going to England really show you that this was something that you could embrace and take on into the rest of your life. I definitely think it was going to England because before I just thought routine was how how it kind of went. I think that was my plan, but it changed definitely as I went to England. It's

sort of my perspective expanded. As I say, you left behind an enormous amount, like you left behind your whole life, your friendships, your everything. I didn't leave them behind. I still have them as friends. You're completely correct, but you you stepped out of that. Did that feel exciting or

scary to you both? Honestly? I mean there was certain aspects like I was horrified that I was going to lose my friends, but at the same time, I was excited that I was going to make new friends, and just everything was kind of different now and it was going to be cool. At least I hoped it was school it was, so do you appreciate that about yourself? Like, can you sometimes get the perspective go, wow, you know

I did that. I actually did something that was really hard and overcame it, yeah, and moved, you know, opened up the aperture to experience something that was very different. Yeah, I definitely think that. I think opening up to new experiences is just it's how how it's how it goes.

But do you process that yourself? So in terms of going, I'm a person who can accommodate change and flexibility, and like, I just want to make sure this is going into the basic architecture of who you are because it's Having watched you navigate all of this, it was pretty mind blenning. Yeah, for me to kind of watch you because you just you asked if we could go. It wasn't This wasn't driven by me or my boyfriend Addison. This was this

was you saying, can we do this as a family? Yeah, I definitely think so, and I think I I sort of it was an independent is decision because there are still some things that I had to consult with you guys, but it was still relatively independent and that felt good. I liked it good. Remember that turning one very important lessons. Now, last question, Yes, okay, so what would be your last meal? So like within the government confines of like or what

you're immediately putting yourself on death row? What's happening? Oh, oh my god, darling, what did you do to get on to death rock? I don't know if you asked the question. It doesn't. It doesn't. Oh my god, it's so awful that that's where you think that that's where it would be. I mean, I suppose, I suppose last meal.

That's what the last meal means. Is there really only a certain amount of money abortion for for prisoners on death you can only get certain things and it has to be within a certain amount of money, and it can't be like it can't be. It's like you can't get more than a certain amount of items. I think it's a whole thing, good gracious, all right, Well, you know you can frame this within a prison because it's your choice, but it really could be your last meal

like a hospital. I guess. I actually think it's very interesting that you're making this location specific. Let's say it was like you knew you were gonna you knew you were going to die. Yeah, but you had enough time that you could have whatever you want to eat, cooked by whomever from wherever before you went. Mm hmm. But I sort of want to hear the penitentiary version as well.

But like, tell me the dream version first. Okay, dream version is I would have like a Thanksgiving feast like we do on Sundays in England with the whole family and didn't have the whole family there because I think that's that's like the best. Sometimes the turkeys dry, but I don't care. It's still tastes too lazy. What yeah, well, just there's the base the turkey a tanney a bit more. Next time turkey is notoriously dry. It's a notoriously difficult meat.

We try to inject it with the juices. You've seen me with the syringe. It's a nightmare. I wouldn't cook it if it wasn't Thanksgiving. Yeah, still pointers, mom, and you should be writing us down. I love Okay, so Thanksgiving, So Thanksgiving feast all like what we have on a Sunday, which is usually roast chicken. Yeah, so like turkey, roast potatoes. Auntie kids once they're amazing. I know yours aren't bad. Anti kids are the best. Yes, she does make the

best one green means sweet potato, marshmallow mash pie. It's all delicious. That's just that would be my last meal. But what about pudding. Granny is apple crumble? Oh god, she did make the best apple crumbell that is chef's kiss. You know she used to when we were kids, Henry. We'd be driving along and she's suddenly like screeched the car over to the side of the road, and she'd be like, those apples are just going to fall on the ground and as somebody eat them, and we'd be like,

but are they and somebody else's garden. Yes, yes, but they're going to waste and waste not want not. And so the next thing we knew, we'd literally she'd be hiking me and Kate over somebody's fence into their garden where surely they did have thousands of apples that were you know, but nonetheless we were scrumping, which is also a polite way of saying stealing. And so she'd get us to stuff these apples up our jumpers so in

case anybody came. And I always used to go, if somebody comes, they'll know we've got apples stuffed up our jumper. I have done that as well, just to say I've taken apples from somebody's true, and they tasted amazing, And I think I think we've all done that. I'm not. I know that it's it is stealing. However, the stolen apples that Mom would make apple crumble with always tasted the best. I I wish I could have tried them.

I know, Darling, Well, well, I know I do know how to make the apple crumble, and I shall teach you, Yes you will, Yes, I will. I just want to circle back because I did say dream version of your last meal? But what would be your penitentiary mail? So you're so penitentiary being like actually sticking to what would really be able to happen if it was your last

male and you were in prison. M hmm. Well, I I've heard of a few people that had some weird last meals, like a grain of rice and a birthday cake. But I'd go I'd go more subtle. I'd go more rustic, with a platter of rice and beans and a sand Pellegrino. It's not it's not expensive, and it's delicious, and maybe some hot sauce because hot sauce makes everything taste better. Some rice and beans and some hot sauce and a

sam pellagreen. Now, but they're like the spiciest hot sauce they have, because I'm going out with a burning mouth, and that's probably within twenty Yeah, definitely, as long as you don't buy one of the bigger packs of Saint Pelagreeno is just like one can on the shelf, you know, and you're not buying a case of sam Can. Yeah, because that's that's like ninth that's like, that's like ten dollars. I'm not spending ten dollars on a single pellagrain. No, no,

why not? It's your last meal, because that's ten dollars wasted when I only can spend like fifty. I forgot the exact amount. I am not wasting my last meal on a flavored sparkling water and on that bumbshell that insight into what it is to Tina America. I'm glad you're thrifty, darling. Save your pennies for that Campa van that you're going to travel around the world. Then, yes, it will be a Voxwagen. What are the Barbie ones?

Thank you, Henry, I don't even worry about it. Henry is charting his own path in his life, and as such has decided that he wants to go to boarding school in the fall. I am having to love him with extremely loose hands and let him go and figure out this next adventure. I cannot wait to see what he does next. Many questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, Supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver,

Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison O Day, Lisa Castella and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver,