What We Can Learn From Our Bad Wolf with Matthew Quick

or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.

Our guest on this episode is Matthew Quick. He's the author of nine novels, one of which is the New York Times bestseller The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Oscar winning film. Matthew's work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and he's received a Penn Hemingway Award Honorable Mention. He was the l A Times Book Prize finalist and a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. Today, Matthew and Eric discussed his book We

Are the Light Him Matthew, welcome back. Hey, it's great to be here with you today. Eric, thank you for having me. So when you were on last time, I said you were our first three time guest, and you were not the only person in that club. Some other people have joined you. But I do believe if you are now breaking ground again and you are the first four time guests. So congratulations, Thank you. I feel very honored. It's amazing that you've been on four times, given how

long it's been since we last talked. Yeah it's been I think we were saying about five years years. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to be back. Yeah, and you've been on a quite a journey. We're all on a journey, but you've been on one since then. We'll get into but let's start like we always do, because we have to do the parable and I think this will be your fourth crack at it, so hopefully you'll get it right

this time. There's a grandparent talking with a grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second, looks up at their grandparents, well, which one wins, and the grandparents says, the one you feel.

So I'd love to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. But you know, I've had a long relationship with that parable as a listener and you know, being on the show, and I've heard many people answer it, and it's interesting how my take on it it's changed over the years, and in my life right now with my creative work and the personal work I'm doing, has been heavily influenced by Young in analysis. So the way I looked at it now is would

probably be a very young and take. And one of the things that Young teaches is that it's very dangerous to relegate things to shadow, and so why you might not want to feed um the bad wolf, so to speak. You definitely want to get to know the bad wolf. And a lot of times what we're afraid of, what we label is bad or wrong or ego, weeutend to not really deal with that. And there's two reasons why you want to get to know the dark side of

your shadow or the bad wolf. One is because when you push it to unconscious, comes wild and when it comes back, because it's in you, it's never gonna leave. It will come back aggressively, It'll act very wild, it won't be domesticated, you won't know it, you won't have a relationship with it. So for example, if you label anger as as bad and you relegate that the shadow, when you need your anger and it comes out, it will it will come out in a way that it's

very childish or you know, not very mature. And the other thing that young An's talk about is that there's gold in the shadow that again, sometimes you might need anger, you might need fear, you might need those things that we label as quote unquote bad, and they might have

gifts that you can integrate into your life. So my work with the shadow work and the young and stuff that I've been doing is trying to go and tame the bad wolf, to get to know the bad wolf, and to integrate that all of the many aspects of my personality which are both good and bad, to integrate them all so that I can be whole. And that is part of my healing process. I love that, and

I think it's so true. I'm curious what was it that drew you to Young in analysis as a way that you really did most of your healing, because in you know, reading the newsletters you've been putting out, reading your latest book, which has a lot of that, that's clearly been a really big and important piece for you. I'm kind of curious, out of all the different modalities that are out there, was there something about that that you were drawn to or how did that happen. Young

was a bit of a mystic, you know. He was definitely a scientist first, but he was very interested in the transcendent. And I grew up in a very religious family, fundamentalist Christian and so that dance with the transcendent was kind of ongoing as a child. And then I kind of banished that two shut up. I went to college and I got educated. You know, I learned about the world, and you know, religion just seemed kind of silly to me.

But Young talks a lot about synchronicity and just things happening for a reason, which can sound very like wooo. But I've always been drawn and curious about Young. I've been drawn to and if you read The Good Lucky Right Now, which is a book I published I think in two thousand fourteen, a very tongue in cheek played with the idea of synchronicity and a lot of Young's ideas in a way that I thought was kind of goofy at the time. But again, I think I was

dancing with it. Actually, my wife Alicia started listening to this podcast called This Young in Life, where every week they'll tackle a modern problem or you know, an issue or a symbol, and they'll deconstruct it, they'll it'll circumambulate it, and then they'll analyze a dream. And I started listening to this and I got really really into it, and it just kind of clicked. It felt like a way forward for me. And then I started researching and I found an analysts and it just felt like this was

the thing for me. Interesting too, Young had a very big role in starting alcoholics Anonymous, like he was consulted, and so I think my alcoholism that I was not dealing with for decades, it was more than just you know, wanting to drink. It felt like this archetypal force that I needed to really kind of combat and I needed to go deep. I needed to go inside of myself.

And the young and frame really allows you to have that, to be very introspective, to not be as concrete, to kind of dance with the trends, and I think that that was really really important for my recovery process. Yeah, the young In idea that he gave to Bill Wilson that has always stuck with me is that the alcoholic was looking for the transcended that the very word spirits that we use for alcohol speaks to that desire for spirit,

for something greater, for something bigger. You know. We could certainly talk about the ways that we use alcohol as a numbing agent to avoid things, but for me, it's always felt more true to say that I used alcohol as a connecting agent. I used alcohol as a way to connect me to life. We were talking beforehand that some of the things we connected to we probably shouldn't have been connecting to, or weren't the right for us. But alcohol basically brought life to life for me. It

wasn't entirely oh, I'm trying to avoid. It really was I'm trying to connect and I didn't know how to do that, or I had tamped down my ability to do that. So I think, yeah, that's something about Young that has always drawn me towards him, and I've always had sort of an ambivalent relationship with some of young stuff. Some of it resonates very strongly, some of it is a little bit more challenging for me. But I just loved seeing it come through in your latest book so much.

Thank you. I think to the first point, alcohol can be diaingne easy, and you know it can take us through another level. In an analysis the other night, I asked my analysts if if I used to use alcohol to get my ego drunk, just to get my ego out of the way, to allow for the transcended to come through and so that I could write, because ego is always screaming like this has to be perfect. You know you're going to get in trouble, like people are

gonna hate you, you know. So I think for me it was to knock the ego offline and allow like the work to come through. And when I got sober, I went through a period of very awful five year writer's block, which was just really really awful for me. And to your second point, you know, young is not for everybody. You know, there's a lot of things when I talked about some of the young and stuff that works for me obviously might not work for everyone. And I think that's with any type of recovery or any

type of mental health. There's always things that you can glean. But I think we're drawn to certain paths for a reason, and for whatever reason, this was just my path for the last five years. So last time you and I talked, you had started making some big life changes. You had started to run a lot, you had lost at that point, you know, a lot of weight, you had started to question your relationship with alcohol. You were still sort of mildly ambivalent. I think about, you know, does it really

have to go completely? But I'm recognizing it's not great for me. So that was sort of uranize last real connection point. And as you describe it, you sort of, I think went deeper into that healing journey after we talked, and then that healing journey really turned very difficult for you, and you alluded to it with the writer's block. But talk to me a little bit more about what happened and how it sort of transpired. Well, I tell people that, you know, you want to get your right together, you

want to lose weight, you want to stop drinking. There's a lot of hooray, you know, that's great, like, you know, you look wonderful, like everybody's so proud. But then after you dropped the weight and you get drinking under control, for me at least, I started to realize why I was doing so much eating and drinking in the first place, and it was to know pain that I wasn't dealing with very real and deep psychological problems and never had gotten the tools to kind of manage my own spiritual,

psychological and emotional being. And so after that kind of initial ego hit of wow, I did this, like I got my drinking under control, and in very much wasn't ego hit. It was like, okay, well, next, you know, and I woke up one day and I was facing all of the pain that I didn't face for twenty five years or you know, like you know, since I was a teenager since I started drinking, and so I had to really look at that in a sober light, and it wasn't a lot of fun by any stretch

of imagination. And I had kind of drawn this line that I wasn't going to drink. And I think one of the things that kept me from drinking was almost this kind of masochism, that relief is not there for you anymore, like you need to suffer through this. And I spent about three years doing pretty much nothing but running in insane amount of miles, trying to write and being holed up in my house and spending time with

my wife. My life got very, very, very small, and a lot of the things that I thought I enjoyed doing when I was drunk, I did not enjoy doing at all when I was sober. One of those was going to NFL games, you know, which was a lot of fun when I was hammered and you know, I was drinking all day. I just didn't enjoy it as much when I was sober, and that felt really alienating. I started to think, do I even know who I am?

You know, I've been drinking so much over the last twenty years, do I know who I am, and when I sat down to write, I could not access the part of me that makes writing easy. I am an intuitive creative, so I don't sit down with a plan. I sit down and connect with something inside of me, and I just kind of let it flow out onto

the page. I did not have access to that anymore when I stopped drinking, and I think it's because I was dealing with this overwhelming reality of not knowing who I was and not having any relief from that at the end of the day. Whereas that might be a nagging concern fifteen years ago, but I could drink enough scotch to make that go away. And then I was hung over in the more earning and it was caffeine,

and then it was get to work. And there was parts of me that were just so deadened by that process that kind of knocked ego offline and allowed me to just access those parts of me that you know, it's no secret that many musicians and many writers they use alcohol and drugs to access that creative spark. Accessing it sober for me was much much much more difficult. That surprised me, That scared me, and that just kind

of rocked my world. In a way that I was not prepared for it, and I didn't have anyone to help me at that point. I wasn't in analysis, I didn't have any spiritual practice. I did not go to a A. So I was doing this all on my own, and it took me to a very dark and paranoid place for a couple of years, and it was a very lonely place. I can totally imagine. I mean I got sober both times in a A. I think everybody finds the path they need to find, so sort no

bias towards one or the other. I do think one of the things things that was helpful about A for me was the normalization of Yep, that's what you're going through. That's normal. But it's interesting because you really turned to running for a while, running was your way, and then it was sort of when running got taken away from

you by injury that things really collapsed for you. And it's interesting because in A one of the things I think A A does both well and then you know, like anything, you you overplay something and it becomes a problem. Is this whole idea of help others, help others, help others help others, which is a very powerful and transcendent thing to do. It's a great thing to do, but it can be used to the point that you never

look internally. Now, luckily a has the steps, and if you follow the steps, it will cause you to some degree to go internal. But I had a similar experience to you. I got sober a few years and things were awesome, and then my wife and I split and I fell apart. You know. I had a two year old son at that time, and I was separated from him, and that drove me into my deep internal work, you know.

But the other thing I want to touch on, though, I think it is really important what you said there, which is that for creative people, change from a life that's filled with substances to a life of sobriety can be enormously difficult, and I think it's important to lay that out and be honest about that. Otherwise I think it's very disorienting. My experience is most true creatives eventually find their way back. They learn how to create without it. But boy, it's hard. I mean I went through as

a musician. I just was like, it seems like it's gone. Two things come to mind, you know, in the young and work I do my analysts is always hammering, and there's a cost for everything. Oh I love that if you want to get sober, you're gonna pay the costs. And if there was no cost, everyone wants to say, sure, I want to have a problem with alcoholic drugs, but

there's a real cost that you have to pay. And I also think too that creativity is is something that people that are trying to scam money out of you will say they can teach you how to do, but it's not. You know, nobody can teach you how to write a great novel or to write a create song. It's something that's very intimate and it comes from parts of us that I think are damaged. I think it comes from parts of us that are trying to get

needs met. I think it's very, very, very complicated. And for whatever reason, alcohol allowed me to hang in and do that dance in a way that I didn't really give it credit for. And I want to be careful. You know, I'm not saying that I want to start drinking again, but I didn't realize how much work alcohol was doing for me. And when I had to give it up, you know, for health reasons, and you know, for many reasons, it was a good idea to give it up. I had to find something else that would

take the place of the alcohol. And for me, I can say without a doubt it was the relationship that I had with my analysts and and doing the young in work and dream analysis and trying to find the transcendent in different ways, and coming to the realization that I needed to get drunk without alcohol. I needed to find a way to be creatively drunk, to be spiritually drunk,

to be emotionally drunking, like the most positive way. Yeah, I couldn't take that shortcut anymore by just buying a bottle at the store and you know, dumping and down this room. Yeah, I think that's a great way to say it. And sort of back to what I was saying earlier, like I had to find a way to connect to life sober, you know, I had to find a way to go Well, the world looks completely bleak and gray to me. Okay, I know that's not the

truth of the way the world really is. So how do I turn the lights back on without the ease of a bottle? And I think what you said also that is so important is we've got to have something that comes in it takes its place. I mean, I think that's what a a does for so many people. It fills a void. Again, I'm not saying it's the only way to do it, but I think we have to find our way to what is the thing for us that brings us to life. And I really love that idea of thinking of being sort of drunk, but

in a really positive way of the word. Yeah. Yeah, And I think for me, I am just such a hardcore introvert and so alcohol was the thing that allowed me to be around totally people for long amounts of time. So for me, you know, it wasn't so much I thought, oh I don't want to do it was just I don't want to be around anybody, you know. And ironically, the thing that happened during that time was I started to really crave community. And when people read We Other Light,

it's it's a book that's totally about community. And so it was this thing that like in my ice and relation and my alienation, I had to find this sense of community through my art. And as I started writing, one of the things that happened is I started reaching out to people almost like one of the steps is like make amends, right, Like, I started writing people that I lost contact with, I started reaching out to old friends.

I started to really take some risks with some of my male friends, you know, being intimate and opening up and talking about things I've never talked about before. That was later on in the process, it was like year four. But when I started to do all that, that's when I started to reconnect with my writing, and that's when things started coming back online. So it's interesting that you brought up that need for community because I think very masochistically,

I denied myself that early on. I think there was a big part of myself that was dealing with a heavy sense of shame and unworthiness that I needed to wrestle with. Part of it, I look back and think, like, wow, I was really punishing myself unnecessarily. But I think that that was part of the process. I think I had to deal with that, and for me, I didn't want to put that on other people. And I know that that's that's like kind of a negative masculine characteristically, that

kind of lone wolf. But I do think that that was a really really big part of my journey because I got so low that the value of friendship, the value of community, it obvious at that point. Yeah, and so I'm not recommending it, you know, I'm not saying that's ready to go. But for me, it took a

lot of pain before I allowed myself to accept love again. Yeah, it's so interesting to think about that because I've been more or less around the recovery community and people recovering for twenty five years at this point, even if you take the few years I went back out and drank. So I've just seen a lot of different people and a lot of different things. And you know, there are so many paths, but I do think that for everybody at some juncture in their path, not doing it alone

becomes part of the game. Like if you remain alone, and where you get that support could be a therapist, it could be friendships, it could be a support group like a A or recovery Dharma, or it could be your grandma. I mean, it could come a lot of different ways. But we just stay alone, we will not win this very difficult struggle. I totally agree. My wife was with me the whole time, and I think that

was really grounding. Yes, I always Satealicia. I had a few close friends, and then I really think the work that I did with my analysts. I spent three or four hours a week with my animists. So yeah, it's very, very, very intense, and that relationship has allowed me to work through a lot. And that's a community of two, but it's also it's there. It's a steady thing, like I need that every week. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean a community of two is still a community, I mean not

being alone. So is your analyst their local is it someone you see in person? Is it virtual? Was it local in person? And then it went virtual during the pandemic? I'm just kind of curious. Yeah, it started off during the pandemic, I think, so it was two years ago, so I think we're in the middle of a pandemic. Then it's a blurned together in my head. But it was all it's always been virtually, very much like what we're doing here. Okay, So I've got to ask in

the book, your character is writing to his analysts. In a lot of the book, that's sort of the structure. It's letters to his analysts, and we can use that to splore some different points. But one that made me laugh was at one point the character basically says my analyst told me he loved me, and I had to go home and google what do you do if your therapist says I love you? Which made me laugh, but it made me wonder is that real? Did that really happen?

And did it sort of cause you to go like whoa? You know, there's different ways to look at it, but I think I definitely fell in love with my analysts in a very like platonic way. You know. Part of that process early on is projection, and you go through

all these different phases. But I just think that somebody's showing up a couple of times a week for me and willing to you know, lift up the hood of my metaphorical car and like tinker with me and just have my best interests at heart was something that felt far into me, especially from you know, another older man,

and so that to me was was so overwhelming. You know, the men that I grew up with in my life were damaged by war and didn't have access to their emotions, and I think they loved me in their own way, and you know, maybe not in the way that I needed to be loved growing up. That is the thing that I didn't know. You know, there's this term father hunger. I was going to that. Yeah, I think I just

had extreme father hunger. And when I had access to an older man who is teaching me, giving me tools that like I could use and seem to have my best interests at heart, two things happened. Like immediately I tried to find out subconsciously, I was always scanning for the trick, you know, where's the trick here? Where is it gonna pull the rug out? Like when is this

gonna you know, hurt me in some way? And the other part it was I just became paranoid that something was going to happen to him, Like what happens if my analysts exsit by KR and dies, you know, then I'm all alone again? Or what happens if you know, my analyst has a heart attack, or what happens if I say the wrong thing in analysis and doesn't want to work with me. And it was just like it's kind of parent nooia um that I think it's probably pretty natural, But it was a very young part of me.

I think I got drunk, you know, when I was in college and never really was allowed to grow up, and so part of that is dealing with those young parts and hanging in there, and as my analysts showed up and made that dedication with me every week in the most appropriate way. I don't think that the analytic process can happen if there's not some type of love. And I don't mean that we write letters to each other,

like I don't hang out with him. I just think that as human beings, we care about each other and we're trying to accomplish something that requires love, and that is to get my psyche back online in a good place. And I don't think you can do that if there's not a part of you that is loving and caring. You know. I just think that that is a very

necessary thing. There's been some studies that show that lots of different methods have useful results, but the key thing that matters most is rapport with the person you're working with. If you don't have that connection, if you don't feel cared for, and I know that you know a lot of people are like well, but it's a paid relationship. But a paid relationship doesn't mean that there can't be love and care. You know, I do coaching work with people,

and I care deeply about them. They're paying me, but it doesn't mean I don't grow a deep feeling of care towards them. And I think you're right. All relationships thrive on that if if you don't have it, you don't have a relationship that works if both people don't

feel cared for. Well, I also think, you know, in the analytics setting, my analyst talks about a container and the importance of having a container, and so the exchange of money creates and energys container, and so I can say things to him that I can't say to my buddy because there's a container and we have an agreement, and so it's very important that I wouldn't say things I say an analysis and I wouldn't say that today with you here, because we don't have that type of relationship.

We don't have that container. Our relationship is much different. So I struggle with the money part of it a lot. At the beginning, you know, it felt like it invalidated it. But over time and uh, with some heroic efforts on the part of my house, I grew to see that. Yeah, Like just like when I was taking money for teaching, it didn't mean that I didn't care about kids. Of course, you know, like and I was taking a lot less money for teaching, but that's just part of the deal.

They have to eat, they have to live, of course, that's right. So going back to father hunger, I had not heard that phrase before, but the minute that I read it, I didn't have a word for it. But I've noticed throughout my life anytime an older man steps into my life and is an admirable, caring person, I just am like more more, I want more, I want more, you know. And unfortunately for me, over the years, most of those men not to feed your paranoia died. Sorry,

things that happened with the old man. Unfortunately, these guys died young, unfortunately too young. I'm sorry. Yeah, that father hunger really really resonates with me. And I think there's probably an archetype in there too, of the wise Guide, right, that's right. You know. I first came across that term, I believe it was Robert Blithe's Iron John, which is an interpretation of a fairy tale, the fairytale Iron John psychoanalyzes it and it was part of the Men's movement.

When I read that book, it was like whoa, you know, like a lot opened up and I didn't know how Young and It was when I read it, because it was before I got into Young and Elsis. But I immediately recognized that I was longing to be initiated into manhood, you know, And I think that that is something for thousands and thousands of years, men initiated boys into manhood,

and that is something that we don't do anymore. And my grandfather went away to well we're two very young, and his psyche was completely destroyed and he didn't have what my father needed. When my father has grown up, and so since my father didn't get that, how could he give it to me? And so I'm at a point now where I look at it and say, people can't give you what they weren't given. And so the work that I try to do on myself to break

that cycle. You know, I don't have a son, but I hope that by doing this work and putting my work out there, you know, late in this book, we are the light, it will ameliorate or you know, less than other people's father hunger. And you know, women can have father hunger too, by the wayst it's not a completely masculine issue. Yeah, you talk about that idea of

breaking the cycle. There's a phrase in the book about when you redeem your father, when you heal, and something in me felt that really deeply because to your point you said it earlier, I think you said it so well. They loved me, but not in the way that I needed to be And so this is one of those things that I found like it took a little while to get to and it's one of those times where the and word is really helpful. Like they loved me and I needed more than I got. Both those things

are really true, and so I love that idea. And I've been so focused with my son on breaking the cycle. As I've spent more time with it, I've gone, well, I think breaking the cycle is too binary for me. What I think is probably more accurate as if I was handed a hundred pounds of suffering from the generational stuff that came down. Hopefully I only passed on twenty

pounds of it to my son. Like I don't think it's possible to do this thing perfectly, this job of parenting, and I know I surely passed on some of my stuff, but I do feel pretty good about the fact it it did take a lot of it and heal it. I think, you know, which felt really important, but I had not heard the idea of it redeeming my father. And my father right now is in a memory care unit. He's he's gone, you know, if he's not gone, he's very close to it. But you might find this interesting.

Is my analyst teaches me that all of the fathers are inside of you. You know, um, your grandfather, you're great, everyone, all of them are inside of you. When you show love to your son, all of them get to experience loving a son, And when your son goes on to do that, you will experience it too. So you redeemed

the father that's in you. And at the beginning of my analytic work, my analyst was very adamant about find a way to not only love your father, but admire him, because if you don't, you'll never admire yourself because that's in you. His d n A is in you, is being is in your You cannot get that father out of you. It's kind of like the bad wolf, like that's in there. You can way it went bad, But if you don't integrate it, and you don't find a way to to to find peace and make yourself whole.

All that hatred you're projecting out at someone, it's just really you're just projecting it on yourself. You know, it's just just gonna come right back at you. I was mentioning when my wife and I split, when my son was too and I was several years sober, and I sort of plunged into a deep depression. That's when I did what I would call my most intensive inner work as far as excavating my past. It was not with a young an analyst, but it was a woman that

the term I hated at the time. I still don't love it, which was inner child work, but it was excavating all that stuff. And so it went through a phase of being really angry with my parents, and you know, that's kind of gone. But what I've really been thinking about lately is exactly what you just said, which is I tend to look at the good parts of me and I'm like, well, look at what I've created, and then I look at the bad parts and I go, well, look at what my parents gave me, and I'm like,

you know that's not really fair. Well it's not really true either. You know, they passed something into me I couldn't be the person I was. And so what you're saying, and I've been working on this is looking at like it's easy for me to see what I don't admire about them, the ways I want to be different, the ways I am, But what can I admire? And it's interesting because the one with my mom that I got was I was like the greatest love of my life has probably been reading. And I got that from my mom.

And I don't know why it took me till I was fifty years old, fifty two years old to put those two things together and go look at that great

gift she bestowed on me. I think the beginning of your analytic journey, you do a lot of complaining about your parents, right, and it's and I would say things like my dad was always working, you know, like he wasn't he wasn't around, And my analysts would say, oh, so, like, you know, he had a really great work ethic and that's what allows you to work twelve hours a day and write your novels and you know, have accomplished all

the things that you accomplished. And I would just I would be so angry when you say things like that, because it was true you know, and it was there. There was a lot of things that I gleaned from my father that had been extremely, extremely useful. And you know, to put a kind of happy note on this, as my father is retired and you know, he's kind of mellowed out. As I've been going through the analytical process, I find that my dad is at an easier time

relating to me. And my dad never said he loved me for forty seven years, and now every single time I call him, he says he loves me. And it's weird because I want to be cynical about that and say why now, And it's like, maybe he got old, you know, maybe you know, he's scared about getting up. But maybe as I changed, you know, maybe I made it easier for him to love me because I'm doing

this work and I'm not bitter anymore, you know. And so I think there's real power in using the right lens and sing people in their entirety, and even things like my analysts would say, oh, in your childhood, did you did you ever not have a meal? Like did you ever go hungry for a day? And I'd be like, no, he's like your dad did that? Like your dad gave you food, you know, like, do you give him credit for that? Like he gave you heat, you know, he gave you clothes, Like do you give him any credit

for that? And and just like thinking about those things, that's not nothing. You know, there are times when a man would get incredible points. You know, two hundred years ago, if you put food and clothing, that was a big deal. But you know, we we take those things for granted now, and we don't give our father, you know, the credit for doing those things that have just become expected now that it just comes so taken for granted. I agree.

I've often thought about my father and I thought, like, sometimes I feel like you got a little bit of a raw deal, Like maybe this happens to all of us, right, maybe, but it felt like he was taught to be a certain way, this is what a good man is, and was that and then part way through the rules change, yeah, yeah, And it was like, yeah, you're doing all that, Yeah, you're providing for them, you're doing everything you're supposed to do,

blah blah blah. But you know what, that's not really enough. Now, we also need you to be this type of person. And to your point, they were never given that. So it's again that and it's like I can look at the ways that I didn't get what I needed from my parents, and I can heal that because I have to do that, and I can use the lens of let me look at what I got from them. Those things are not mutually exclusive, and I think oftentimes we get stuck in one or the other. I see lots

of people like, my parents are fine. I had a good life. They did everything they could, And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not saying they weren't, and you might want to look at a little bit deeper than that. So I think we can get stuck on that side of it, but we sometimes flipped to the other where we get stuck on how bad they were side. Well, I think it's important to see people as whole people, you know, and that good wolf and bad wolf is within every

single person. That's right. And you know, sometimes when you think about, well, which one are we going to focus on in us? But which one are we going to focus on? And the people around us? You know, we only going to look at their bad wolf or are we going to look at their good wolf as well? And see the struggle in the kind of dance that's happening inside of everyone. Yeah, and which which moment are

you're gonna take a snapshot out? Because there's a lot of moments you know you're gonna take that snapshot in a good moment or a bad moment. That's a beautiful way of saying it. It's interesting. I know that you've got some of that from your analyst, but boy, it

was really apparent in you before that too. I mean your last book, the one before this, right, that book, The reason You're alive is is about that, right, It is about that basic idea of like, look, we can't just say, based on a few things that a person is good or bad like they're both, you know. And that is what I love about the peril. I don't love the part of the parable actually that sort of makes it sound like we should isolate or cut off

these other parts of us. But the part that I do still always really resonate with is the normalization I hope of We've all got the good and bad in us. We all do. It's what it means to be human. I think the parable is a wonderful tool, you know. I don't I don't think it's some kind of catch all, you know, key to life. I think it's a tool that you know, we can rub up against and try to frame and discuss. And look how much my lege

you've got out of it. Wow, Like I mean, it's it's amazing how far you've come with just that one tool. I mean, I know you're using much more, but you've framed, you show around this really powerful parable that I've answered completely differently throughout my life, and I'm probably answered differently again, you know, in five years, yes, yes, power to thank you.

I hope it's not five years. Let's talk about the newest book, because you are a fiction writer and a great one, and I'm so happy to hear you got through your writer's block and I was so excited to know that there was a new book coming. And I have to tell you that I take getting to bed on time or close to on time fairly seriously. I need my sleep. I'm an old man, right, So I try not to let whether it be a book or a TV series or anything, sort of co opt that.

Like I'm not saying I'm perfect, but it's been a while since a book caused me to be like, all right, I gotta finish this thing like it's midnight. I gotta get done. Thank you. But at a certain point it was like, all right, this is like a locomotive, and I'm just I can't. I can't set it down. And it's a beautiful book. I was listening to our older conversation and the compliment I gave you then and it's still true, is that you can make me both laugh and cry, not just in the same book, but often

in very close proximity. And that is the definition of the sort of fiction that causes me to deeply love it, because when those two emotions, which I think are actually very close together, but they're very difficult I think to put close together in art. Most art is one or the other, it seems like. And I love how yours really puts those two together. And so again, congrats on a new book. I'm so happy that called has it.

Thank you, Thank you. Yeah. And I'm going to read what you say, we Are the Light is about, and then just allow you to kind of at this juncture, say anything you'd like about the book. You said it's about a lot of things, but it's mostly about the tiny little ways in which we save each other. It's about how we too often cut ourselves off from love because we are afraid. And it is my him to the life saving importance of breaking away for a time.

So elaborate on any of those ideas if you want, or tell me what the book represents to you now, if it's different than when you wrote that. Sure, Lucas good Game is the protagonist of the novel is not supposed to be me. He's not an altered ego, but he's very much informed by this kind of process that

I went through that we've been talking about. He's not an alcoholic um, but he is somebody who suffers this unimaginable tragedy that puts him in this position where he has to make a decision to do something that he really would never do, has to get into uch with his dark side. And because of this, he's kind of seen as a hero for doing something that he finds terrific.

And he also loses his wife through this tragedy and he falls apart, and his psyche tries to find this way to get him through this very difficult, awful time, and lo and behold, you know no surprise coming. Based on what we are saying. It's his community and the love that he has for his community and the love that he has for his former students, and this kind of belief in using art and conclusion to create these safe spaces where people can come together and love. And

he's very heroic that way, very very heroic. So the book really celebrates things like friendship, like simple friendship, like going to the movies for somebody, or you know, talking about local project that you might do, or getting together to make art with people in your community, things that are really simple that maybe people would say for granted or not really see the power of, but for people

who are really suffering, these can be extremely medicinal. And so when I was really down and I was out, one of my best friends and I started a movie club and once a week we were picking an old movie and we'd watch it and get on the phone for an hour and talk. It seems like a very simple thing. It was a lifeline for me when I

was down and now like I needed that. It was like an essential part of me keeping my psyche together, or just going to the beach once a week and playing coube with my my two best friends and swimming in the ocean down here like that is a simple thing, but when you're in a low place and you're dealing with depression, you feel like your life is spiraling out

of control. Those simple things are so so important, and I think they're always important, but I think we learned to realize just how important they are and how medicinal they are. What I really wanted to do with this novel was to show the importance of simple, simple acts of love and kindness and how transformative they really could be.

I also wanted to look at this idea of positive masculinity as an antidote to toxic masculinity, you know, like we need strong, positive men to clean up the masculinity. That's really really important. I also think too, like the need for a political spaces. Politics are important, but I do think that we need places in our community where we come together in a deep polarized setting to lift each other up rather than tear each other apart. And so that was also a theme that I was experimenting

with in the book as well. In these polarized times, you know, I've seen so many people just hit it against each other and just beating each other up and destroying each other. And I think art is really a great place, start to do some work there, to start bringing some people back together. And that's really what I wanted to highlight. Yeah, yeah, I see all those themes and they're beautiful. What you were just saying about these small acts of a movie club with your friend, you know,

once a week, go into the beach with friends. I think what's so interesting about that is it's not like any of those things one time pulled you out of depression. Right, there were something that just over time and consistency, we're a great aid. And that's one thing that I think our modern culture, quick fixed culture misses, and it's that we're told like, hey, this thing would be good for you, it would help you, and so we do it once or twice, and nothing magical happens, and we go, well,

that must not work. And you know, it'd be like if you had gone three to five hours a week with your analysts for a couple of years now, would have been like going twice to him and concluding that young in analysis doesn't work, you know. And I think that's such an important point about these healing modalities is they can be very healing, but they're rarely totally miraculous in that like, we show up a couple of times and boy like you sit down in medicain eight twice

and all of a sudden, your problems are gone. I had a moment in analysis. I think it was about the one year anniversary. It was one year in and I felt like, wow, I've been doing this for a year, and I said to my analysts, like, man, are we almost done? You know, I've been doing this for periously, like, well, you know I was in analysis for twenty years, because that was kind of quick. But I think the point is that it took forty seven years to get there.

It's forty seven years of pain, and thinking that's going to go away with you know, one or two sessions is just completely arrogant. And I also think too, it's not just going to the beach or having a movie club. It's showing up and being intimate with people. You know. The movie club was the thing that got my friend

in Kent and I together. But we talked about our parents, we talked about how we feel, we talked about our childhood, you know, we we talked about so many things, and it was the intimacy and it was the consistency of this is going to happen once a week. We're gonna show up for each other. We're gonna make the time. It's gonna be about watching a film, but it's also going to be about supporting someone else as a human being.

And the same thing when I have lunch with my friend Triubis here, you know, like we get together and we talk about our life for an hour every week, and sometimes it's just jokes and laughs, and sometimes it's like really serious stuff. But that hour is sacred and

we make that time for each other. And I think in our current where we think that putting up a selfie online or you know whatever it is, that like this kind of quick fixed thing, we think that that can replace the work of having deep intimacy with other people. And I think that, you know, we're finding out that

that's not the case. One thought that came to mind as you were talking was certainly this idea also that there's no there there right, like if we could talk about the healing journey and being like, well, you know, it's going to take a lot of years for it to happen. I think it's important also that we recognize that every step along that way is a healing path and it's it's always our life. It's not like we have to do it for a certain amount of time

and then we're healed. It is an ongoing thing that comes out. And then the second thing. I've often analyzed why does a work for some people? And I often analyze why doesn't it work for lots of other people? Because it doesn't work for lots of other people. But one of the things is the repetitive nature, at least when I got so where they were like ninety meetings ninety days, like you're going to a meeting every day.

You just did it, and you kept hearing the same thing, And some of the time I'd be like, if I have to hear them read those steps again, I'm gonna cut my hat off. But I've learned this in my Zen practice that like sometimes reading the same small thing again and again and again, you encounter it differently over and over and you're like, oh my god, there was a lot of depths here that I certainly did not get the first thirty times. Or I'm changing, and so

the text is changing with me. Kind of back to what you were saying about your father, Maybe he's changing. He probably is. Humans do and you're encountering him differently because you're a different person. Yeah, we're both changing, and I think we're all changing all the time. And to be humble about that. Think, that's what I've learned over the last five years is humility. It's not fun, you know, it's it's not like it's great when ego feels it's

in control and as everything you know just so. But he really don't learn if you're not dealt those blows. And my analyst always says that every defeat for the ego is a victory for the self. And when he says the self, he means that in like the transcendent. I really believe that if I didn't have those blows, if I didn't have those ego defeats, like I'm not sure I would be where I am today. You know, I read a great book recently. It's called Falling Upward

by Richard Rord. You know it so like he says, you know, the second half of life is about the soul, in the first half is about the ego. And for people that are doing real well and their ego feels good, why would you ever do the soul work? Because you just keep going. It's the people that have the spectacular fall, they are the ones that are gonna do the soul work.

And so the fall was necessary, and that's where you get humble enough to slide into that second half life from when I start to do the work that's hard but very necessary. Yeah. Richard Roar is amazing. We've been out to interview him a couple of times in New Mexico and it's just been it's been amazing. He's a very wise man, very wise man. Yeah. You actually say at some point in the book, you're talking about how difficult some of the past five years have been, and

you said it wasn't much fun. But true education seldom is. And I think the healing journey is hard work. It's rewarding, it's worth it, and oftentimes it's the only game in town for many of us. To your point, like why would you do this if you didn't have to? But it can be helpful to keep that perspective sometimes that like, yeah, I'm in the middle of it right now. It doesn't

feel good, but some faith that it's going somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, And I know for me, my process with writing is months years of horrible, horrible like doubt and fear and just not being able to find the opening and trying things that are wrong over and over and over, and then one day I sit down and the right opening appears.

And that's the way it was for this book. It was five years of every day sitting down and failing over and over and over and over, which forced me to go into young analysis, which forced me to start thinking differently. And then all of a sudden, all of that information that picked up through failing and searching, it all came together, and then, you know, the novel just

it came out of me, you know. And it's easy to say, I wish I could just do that on the first try, you know, I could just sit down every day and write, you know, a novel that's publishable. But you forget that. It's it's all that work. And a lot of times, you know, young writers will say, you know, what do I have to do to be

a novelist? And I say, well, you go spend a bunch of years suffering, you know, and and like that is not an InVogue thing to say, but you do need to go through difficulties in order to glean the information that you need to create something. That transcends you, that is better than your daily reality. And in my experience, I have not found a way to do that, um,

without doing some necessary suffering. Yeah, you've got this newsletter that you send out and and we'll have a link to your website in the show notes and so people can get on the newsletter. To call it a newsletter is to give the wrong impression. It's a personal note from you each month that I have loved getting to you know, you know, feeling just like you know, it's just great to hear from you and see what's happening again.

And so you talk a lot about the writer's block, how difficult this novel was, and I was kind of curious about that. What felt different this time for you than other times where you worked and worked and worked and couldn't find the opening. Was it that it was longer this time? Was it that you were sober and so it felt worse. What was different this time, because, as you said, like, there's been plenty times in the past that you've sort of had to just write the

bad stuff out till the good stuff came. What was different this time? Well, I think, you know, I think it was longer. Um, you know, so like six months of that was just pretty routine. Five years of that is it is not routine for me, I think, not having the escape into alcohol at night, and also just it's just really feeling unmoored and alone because I lost my culture that alcohol proloded, you know, the people that

I was around, so I felt very alone. My analysts and I have pondered this lot that psyche might have just shut down my ability to write for a while because I was too fragile to put a book out at that time. And the more that I think about that, I really do think that, you know, in young in terms, you would look and say, there's no coincidence. You know, in retrospect, that makes a lot of sense. Right now, I think if I had published a book two years after a reason year alive, I probably had had a

mental breakdown during the tour. Like I just was so fragile and all in vulnerable and young. Um, I just I was like a newborn baby. There are things coming back online that I had not dealt with. Just like I said at the beginning of the show, like when you know you honest to shadow or unconscious, that's what alcohol does, you know, like you drink and you just send these feelings to oblivion and then when they come back,

they are wild. You know, they are not civilized, and they are raw, and they are young, and they want to be dealt with right away. And so I don't think that that would have been a good look to be doing podcasts at that point. So at the time, ego was screaming, you know, is you can do this. You know you should be able to have control. But ego is often wrong, and uh, it was an overdue process, and I think that you know the reason you're alive.

I feel like it's an amazing book. I love that book, but I feel like We Are the Light is more a book that is reflective of who Matthew Quick is on a deeper level. I had to go through this process to get to this um and it's taught me a deeper respect for the craft too. You know. It's like I had this idea, I'm gonna pump out a novel every year, and you know, it's gonna be easy. And you know, when I was drunk and young like that,

that seemed like a great idea. But now I think there's some wisdom in taking some time and battling and really being careful about what you want to say and really thinking it through. And and I think more than ever with this novel, I'm much more confident about what I am saying because I know, like I've been through a lot. There's no doubt, whereas in the other novels I had a feeling of like, yeah, this feels right,

but I hadn't done all of that work. And so what I am hoping is I am leaving that ego phase like Richard worstays, and going into a deeper soul phase. And you know, I'd like to think that We Are the Light is a progression towards doing deeper and more meaningful work. And that's not a dis on my earlier work, which I'm still very proud of. It's just this is a very different Matthew Quick. Yeah, well it's a beautiful book, and it's been so great to catch up with you again.

We're kind of out of time, but I feel like I could do this for another six hours. But yeah, I've really to this, Eric. It's pleasure to be back. I hope it's not five years before we talk again. Like I said, we'll have links in the show notes for our website and all that and where people can buy the book. Fantastic. Yeah, thank you, This is wonderful. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You

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