WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.860 I think what I've learned in my own experience and through studying this so much is just there is an infinite amount of ways that humans connect and we kind of need a variety of different ways of coming together. 00:00:11.860 --> 00:00:16.740 And so we need the spaces for depth and emotion and vulnerability. 00:00:16.740 --> 00:00:20.940 We also need places for play and joy and release. 00:00:20.940 --> 00:00:22.600 We need shallow connections. 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:25.540 We need deep connections, loose ties, strong ties. 00:00:25.540 --> 00:00:28.840 We need to wave hi to our neighbor, but also have a best friend we can call. 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:33.060 Like, we just need a variety of different forms of relationships and communities. 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:40.020 So I stopped even trying to, like, weigh them as, like, some are good or some are bad or some are better or more important than others. 00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:45.900 And I just try to look at it holistically as what does a person need to feel socially healthy and connected in their life. 00:00:45.900 --> 00:00:50.640 There's a different kind of sickness that comes from not seeing people in the flesh. 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:57.400 We spent years locked in, logged on, doom scrolling through a world that doesn't exist. 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:05.360 But out there, in pubs, in living rooms, on mountaintops, at knitting circles, people are still finding each other. 00:01:05.360 --> 00:01:06.540 This is Real Meet. 00:01:06.540 --> 00:01:08.200 I'm your host, Brian Feister. 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:09.560 Let's go meet someone. 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:14.060 Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Real Meet Podcast. 00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:18.700 Today, I have with me a guest that I've been excited to speak to. 00:01:19.180 --> 00:01:23.140 David Spinks is the author of The Business of Belonging. 00:01:23.140 --> 00:01:33.840 He has a coaching practice where he works with community founders and helps them in their journey and also was the co-founder of CMX, another community-based organization. 00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:39.100 David, thank you so much for taking the time to join me and chat with me today. 00:01:39.100 --> 00:01:42.420 Thanks, Brian. 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:43.920 I'm excited for our chat. 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:44.540 Yeah, great. 00:01:44.780 --> 00:01:47.680 So we talked a little bit before this. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:57.800 And, you know, I think before we get into the whole question of, you know, virtual versus, you know, in-person and how you can go deep on both. 00:01:57.800 --> 00:02:03.200 And by the way, I love these conversations that I get to have with folks like you because I do get to go deep. 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:04.200 And it is virtual. 00:02:04.260 --> 00:02:09.100 So, you know, that's a valid, you know, mode of operating in the world today, too. 00:02:09.100 --> 00:02:19.300 But I'd like to hear a little bit about just your background and, you know, what was the kind of earlier spark in you that made you passionate about pursuing community? 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:22.400 I mean, maybe it was when you were a kid, maybe later in life. 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:24.780 But tell me a little bit about your origin story. 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:36.900 Yeah, I think I was always a very social kid and really wanted to kind of be friends with everybody, very involved in student groups and sports and just was kind of just love being around people. 00:02:36.900 --> 00:02:50.380 And then around middle school time, which is the case for a lot of people, a lot of men, my wanting to be included clashed with people not wanting to include me. 00:02:50.680 --> 00:03:07.140 And so, you know, I had some rough social experiences and had experiences of feeling pretty isolated and alone and disconnected and ended up finding community a lot through the Internet back when that was still not a very normal thing for a middle schooler to do. 00:03:07.140 --> 00:03:09.500 But I was very active online. 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:11.440 I was really active in video games. 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:14.860 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 was like my game of choice. 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:23.540 I became really good at that game, like world-class level, and ended up starting a clan and a forum that did really well. 00:03:23.540 --> 00:03:32.760 And that was kind of my entry point into online communities and taught me what it was like to lead a community. 00:03:32.760 --> 00:03:39.660 And we were running contests and, you know, moderating trolls, like doing all the things that online community managers do today. 00:03:40.760 --> 00:03:46.500 And that kind of just became the thread that ran through a lot of my, the rest of my life and career. 00:03:46.500 --> 00:03:54.660 I went to school for business, but I was always looking at how business was evolving around the different ways that people were connecting through technology. 00:03:54.660 --> 00:03:59.620 I helped my school start our first social media course because that wasn't a thing then. 00:03:59.620 --> 00:04:00.720 Nice. 00:04:00.720 --> 00:04:07.000 And then right out of college, my first job was a community manager, which wasn't really a job yet. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.280 But I was writing about this stuff on my blog. 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:13.600 A company came, found my blog, asked me to be their intern for the summer. 00:04:13.600 --> 00:04:15.820 That company ended up being SeatGeek. 00:04:15.820 --> 00:04:22.560 I was part of the founding team of SeatGeek as their community manager in the little accelerator we were doing in Philly. 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:36.540 And that launched just a whole career in entrepreneurship, building companies and building community and kind of this whole intersection of business and technology and how humans connect with each other through both. 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:37.380 That's awesome. 00:04:37.380 --> 00:04:38.100 I love that. 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:41.220 And I just, you know, I relate a lot to that story. 00:04:41.220 --> 00:04:42.560 It's very similar to mine. 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:43.160 You know what I mean? 00:04:43.200 --> 00:04:45.960 I also felt like kind of alienated as a teenager. 00:04:45.960 --> 00:04:58.320 And like you said, and I think it's a good point that's also fair that, you know, men maybe tend to struggle with this and not talk about it, I think, is something that is worth exploring, too. 00:04:58.320 --> 00:05:00.620 I remember AOL in the 90s. 00:05:00.620 --> 00:05:02.040 You know, I'm not sure how close that was. 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:08.180 It sounds pretty contemporary with what you're talking about with the Tony Hawk early start that you had. 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:09.960 Great summary just of your backstory. 00:05:09.960 --> 00:05:11.100 So thank you for that. 00:05:11.100 --> 00:05:12.880 Tell me a little bit about SeatGeek. 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:17.960 Yeah, it's actually that, you know, I didn't notice that when I was browsing your, you know, work history or something. 00:05:17.960 --> 00:05:19.480 What was that like? 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:25.180 Because that's a, you know, like you said, in terms of entrepreneurship, you're definitely in the right place at the right time. 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:26.720 It seems like they're doing pretty well. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:29.100 You know, like tell me a little bit about your time there. 00:05:29.100 --> 00:05:29.900 What was that like? 00:05:29.900 --> 00:05:42.760 Because they're, you know, they're an events organization, but I guess the challenge there is sometimes I think about concerts are like a really big mob and not necessarily the intimate community that, you know, people might be. 00:05:42.760 --> 00:05:44.820 Be looking for, if that makes sense. 00:05:44.820 --> 00:05:53.080 But I'm just curious about what your experience was like building community around that, because maybe I'm misunderstanding the business or, you know, something like that. 00:05:53.260 --> 00:05:56.840 I mean, I have to say that I worked on SeatGeek for a month and a half. 00:05:56.840 --> 00:05:58.200 Okay, okay. 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:03.720 So we started with a different idea, pivoted halfway through the Accelerator program. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:07.440 And so I spent, yeah, about a month and a half on SeatGeek. 00:06:07.440 --> 00:06:15.840 And then the original idea we had, the guy who bought it brought me over as I basically became the CEO of that company. 00:06:15.840 --> 00:06:18.680 So I didn't have deep experience with SeatGeek. 00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:20.800 I have lots of experience going to concerts. 00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:27.820 I was just at the Muse concert the other day and thinking about, like, what this form of community is like. 00:06:27.820 --> 00:06:40.160 And, you know, I think what I would say there is I've spent my whole career pretty much, like the last 18 years, thinking about this question of what is community and what isn't community and what is meaningful and what is not. 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:47.700 And it's such a good common thing for people to do is like, oh, concert, fan base, that's not a real community. 00:06:47.700 --> 00:06:51.900 And they have something else in their mind of what dictates a real community. 00:06:51.900 --> 00:07:00.840 And, you know, I think what I've learned in my own experience and through studying this so much is just there is an infinite amount of ways that humans connect. 00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:05.140 And we kind of need a variety of different ways of coming together. 00:07:05.520 --> 00:07:10.560 And so we need the spaces for depth and emotion and vulnerability. 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:15.100 We also need places for play and joy and release. 00:07:15.100 --> 00:07:16.780 We need shallow connections. 00:07:16.780 --> 00:07:19.700 We need deep connections, loose ties, strong ties. 00:07:19.700 --> 00:07:23.020 We need to wave hi to our neighbor, but also have a best friend we can call. 00:07:23.020 --> 00:07:27.240 Like, we just need a variety of different forms of relationships and communities. 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:34.880 And so I stopped even trying to, like, weigh them as, like, some are good or some are bad or some are better or more important than others. 00:07:34.880 --> 00:07:40.580 And I just try to look at it holistically as, what does a person need to feel socially healthy and connected in their life? 00:07:40.580 --> 00:07:42.020 Yeah, that's so good. 00:07:42.020 --> 00:07:43.200 I really appreciate that. 00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:44.780 And I think you're right on. 00:07:44.780 --> 00:07:59.340 And I appreciate the kind of correction there because I think you're right, which is that, and it's really something that I talk about often, is that what people need or want in terms of human connection or whatever they define as fulfilling, it varies by person. 00:07:59.440 --> 00:08:02.300 It even varies depending on what phase in life you are. 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:09.340 And, like, over time, one person will define community and, like, in terms of, like, what they're looking for in different ways. 00:08:09.340 --> 00:08:11.180 So I think you're right on about that. 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:11.800 I had a thought. 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.800 Could I share an experience that came to mind for me? 00:08:15.960 --> 00:08:23.420 Yeah, so it reminds me of the game four of the Knicks, the Knicks finals run they just had. 00:08:23.420 --> 00:08:26.860 I went to a bar and, you know, so it was game four. 00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:29.900 They're up 2-1 in the series. 00:08:29.900 --> 00:08:36.460 And the Knicks go down by, like, what was it, like 30 points or something like that in the first half. 00:08:36.700 --> 00:08:45.400 And so, like, everyone at the bar is just really sad, really down, like, oh, the Spurs are going to tie up the series, and now they're going back to San Antonio. 00:08:45.400 --> 00:08:46.760 Like, everything was bad. 00:08:46.760 --> 00:08:51.580 And then as we're just chatting, you know, the Knicks start chipping away and chipping away and chipping away. 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:57.620 And, of course, they end up winning with this just, like, ultimate comeback of all time. 00:08:57.760 --> 00:09:05.440 And just the wave of emotion that went from, like, totally distraught, down, depressed, to just absolute euphoria. 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:11.360 And, you know, I'm not even exaggerating when I see, like, college kids were hugging moms. 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:12.980 Like, people were high-fiving. 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:14.360 I saw a guy crying. 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:22.320 Like, it was just this, like, shared spiritual experience that people were having watching a basketball game. 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:27.760 And none of those people are going to go talk to each other after that moment. 00:09:27.760 --> 00:09:29.480 That was a moment in time. 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:36.960 But in that moment in time, the level of connection and just, like, openness that people experienced was beautiful. 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:38.460 It was profound, right? 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:39.160 Yeah. 00:09:39.160 --> 00:09:43.940 And yet you'll hear people say, like, well, community has to have longevity. 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:47.000 A community has, you have to be connected over time. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:51.380 It has to, like, there's this time element that people have a community of what's real or not. 00:09:51.380 --> 00:10:00.200 But, like, you know, in that moment, that was such a beautiful communal moment that lives in all the people that experience that together, right? 00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:10.720 And so sports fan bases, music fan bases, like, coming together for a moment, but in that moment having this, like, deeply connective experience. 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:18.100 Like, who's going to say that that's less important than, you know, being a member in something that goes on for 10 years? 00:10:18.100 --> 00:10:33.220 Yeah, it's interesting because I talk about this often because as a software engineer, you know, one of the challenges with that being the mode in which you are operating so much is that it makes you a bit, you know, turns you into a bit of a robot, right? 00:10:33.280 --> 00:10:40.700 And the reason I say that is just because when you talk about judging something or measuring whether it counts, you know, it's like there's some time. 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:42.900 It's like, well, the time can't be your whole life. 00:10:42.900 --> 00:10:44.100 I mean, is it one minute? 00:10:44.100 --> 00:10:45.420 Is it your whole life? 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:53.640 You know, I think it's kind of like it's up for debate as to what constitutes enough or sufficient in terms of, like, time. 00:10:53.640 --> 00:11:00.160 And that's my point is that we tend to make things, we tend to turn things into a binary, an algorithm. 00:11:00.160 --> 00:11:13.420 It's all, you know, we try to measure all the inputs and outputs of everything and then say, like, OK, does this meet some sort of criteria that has to do with some volume of time that must be sort of satisfied, you know, 00:11:13.420 --> 00:11:17.660 in order to, you know, count as community, if that makes sense, you know. 00:11:17.660 --> 00:11:25.180 Yeah, so it's funny that you talk about the length or duration of community or relationships. 00:11:25.180 --> 00:11:35.400 In fact, my last guest or very recent guest was talking about how she likes to design things to include their end in terms of community. 00:11:35.400 --> 00:11:40.640 You know, the idea that you're not actually assuming that this is all going to continue indefinitely. 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:51.380 And I think that that raises a really interesting point because for me as a software engineer, you know, there's this sort of pull to turn everything robotic, right? 00:11:51.380 --> 00:11:52.680 Which is very not human. 00:11:52.680 --> 00:11:56.580 And that includes the sort of idea of measuring everything. 00:11:56.580 --> 00:12:00.160 Everything has to have a, you know, it's like everything's black or white, right? 00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:04.360 It's like it's either enough to qualify as community or it's not, you know. 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:20.760 And so I think a lot about that and I like what you said about the idea of just that moment because, you know, I think that who's to say whether one month, you know, meeting once a week is community or whether 20 years, you know, certainly it's not your whole lifetime because nobody's going to achieve that. 00:12:20.760 --> 00:12:25.340 So I don't know. I like, I like your analogy about the idea that that moment is community. 00:12:25.340 --> 00:12:27.680 And I think that, I think you really nailed it there. 00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:38.900 And I think that it kind of, it belies something that's problematic about how we look at the world, I guess, is what I'm trying to say, which is that we tend to sort of try to make everything good or bad a binary. 00:12:38.900 --> 00:12:42.460 It's like, is it yes or is it no? Is it community or is it not? 00:12:42.460 --> 00:12:45.340 So I think you're really onto something. 00:12:45.340 --> 00:12:55.840 But, and actually, I think that's a good segue to talk a little bit about this bridge between virtual and in-person because, you know, the podcast is about in-person connection, of course. 00:12:55.840 --> 00:13:03.160 But community spans that, as we said, with AOL and, you know, your Tony Hawk tournament days or whatever. 00:13:03.160 --> 00:13:06.100 These things are not that tidy, right? 00:13:06.180 --> 00:13:14.660 Like, we have real relationships with people that are, I mean, I have relationships that are spanning 20 years with people that I go in and out with, you know, over the years. 00:13:14.660 --> 00:13:16.320 And some of these are my closest friends. 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:31.960 So I guess the question in there for you is, what do you think the future looks like as we, our work has become virtual, you know, gradually over more recent years because of video chat and technology there and the internet. 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:40.780 But I guess I'm curious what you think the future is like and also what you think is healthy for people, you know, or what do you think is ideal just for human thriving, really? 00:13:40.780 --> 00:13:43.760 I think that, uh, I don't know what's going to happen in the future. 00:13:43.760 --> 00:14:04.280 I don't know what's right or wrong necessarily, but I think that if we look at how a lot of people have used technology, it's been used as a way to disassociate and as a way to disconnect from body, disconnect from each other. 00:14:04.380 --> 00:14:10.880 Which is ironic because sometimes we're using something to connect with each other and yet somehow we feel more disconnected than ever, right? 00:14:10.880 --> 00:14:16.940 And, and that's because the way we're using it is, is a way of almost detaching from ourselves, right? 00:14:16.940 --> 00:14:24.240 And so there's a version of being where we are just attuned to our environment, to each other, right? 00:14:24.300 --> 00:14:37.180 Even in this room between me and you right now, Brian, like there's a conversation, there's a relational space and, and I can be conscious of that and aware of that, or I can be kind of lost in my head or trying to avoid it in some way. 00:14:37.180 --> 00:14:52.080 And we do that every day, many moments of the day, some, for some people, every moment of the day is they're on a screen, they're on a zoom call or, you know, creating some product or now they're in Claude Code. 00:14:52.260 --> 00:15:00.180 You know, you can just lose hours and hours and hours, and then you go to your, your couch afterward and you look at your little screen while you watch the big screen. 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:09.020 Like it's just, we, we can use technology in all these ways to basically dissociate from ourselves and from the world and from each other. 00:15:09.020 --> 00:15:10.960 I think that's what a lot of people have been doing. 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:12.780 Yeah, I agree. 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:16.360 And we can keep doing that. 00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:20.920 And I think that's just going to lead to greater suffering, anxiety, violence. 00:15:20.920 --> 00:15:24.620 A lot of the bad things we see in the world, I think, come from that very pattern. 00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:25.800 Yeah, yeah. 00:15:25.800 --> 00:15:34.020 Or we can, we can use technology and just be in the world in a way that's more closely attuned to ourselves and to each other. 00:15:34.020 --> 00:15:38.760 Even using social media, like people paint social media as this objectively good or bad thing. 00:15:38.760 --> 00:15:48.640 But like imagine using it in a way where you're totally conscious and aware, you're really present, you're really attuning to other people, you're opening up really meaningful conversations. 00:15:48.640 --> 00:15:50.120 Like there's a way to use it. 00:15:50.120 --> 00:15:54.360 It's hard because it's not designed to facilitate that kind of interaction. 00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:57.580 It's designed to make us dissociate. 00:15:57.580 --> 00:16:00.100 It's designed to make us lose ourselves in it. 00:16:00.100 --> 00:16:01.820 And so it takes a lot of work. 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:13.300 My hope with AI and everything that's happening now is that so many of the things that we've used technology for as a way to dissociate, which a lot of it's like work, right? 00:16:13.300 --> 00:16:15.340 Like we throw ourselves into work endlessly. 00:16:15.340 --> 00:16:24.700 Well, when AI takes a lot of that work away, now we either have to find something else as a way to dissociate from life and from ourselves and from each other. 00:16:24.940 --> 00:16:36.780 Or we realize like, oh, shit, this is the one thing left that we can do that AI can't do is the way we connect and relate to each other and actually be humans in the world. 00:16:36.780 --> 00:16:47.700 So my hope is that it actually shines a light on just how dissociated we've all become and guides us more toward our own consciousness and awakening, essentially. 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:56.820 Yeah. What I like that you said there and something that's been on my mind a lot, you see these two camps in people who are kind of AI enthusiasts. 00:16:56.820 --> 00:17:11.020 I know there's less people that I know personally in the camp, the optimism camp that's around like the idea that, hey, you know, you've got CEOs with a vested interest of really large companies saying like, oh, nobody's going to have to work. 00:17:11.020 --> 00:17:19.660 And I think that there's, you know, this is a gray area in my personal opinion, which is that I've seen the amount of leverage as a software engineer that is provided by AI. 00:17:19.660 --> 00:17:26.080 And you do actually get to choose. Do you go deeper? Do you get like sucked even deeper down into that hole? 00:17:26.320 --> 00:17:32.700 Or do you actually say like, well, actually, I turns out I can accomplish the same thing in fewer hours. 00:17:32.700 --> 00:17:36.080 And do I spend that with people, you know, like kind of to your point. 00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:41.260 And so I think that's that's a really interesting place in all of this. 00:17:41.260 --> 00:17:49.680 So I love that you're highlighting that because I I wonder about this and I I have said to other people something to the effect of what you're going to have in the future. 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:55.180 People always think that the future is going to be one way, but it's what happens is over time. 00:17:55.180 --> 00:18:02.500 And I feel like as a sort of person that's really into culture and community and the many expressions of it, maybe you'll appreciate this. 00:18:02.500 --> 00:18:05.320 It's like there's this kind of splintering that happens. 00:18:05.320 --> 00:18:06.760 That's not a negative thing. 00:18:06.760 --> 00:18:13.380 It's like you the number of different flavors of how people sort of connect just seems to only increase over time. 00:18:13.380 --> 00:18:17.280 And in a similar way, I think you're going to have people next door to each other. 00:18:17.280 --> 00:18:18.120 One person. 00:18:18.120 --> 00:18:20.760 I don't think everybody's going to land here. 00:18:20.760 --> 00:18:26.000 I do think that there will be people that are so fully jacked in that it I mean, it might as well be the matrix. 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:34.040 I mean, there will be that person and next door lives somebody who has a dumb phone and, you know, like found a way to get a landline. 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:39.360 And they don't even like get on the computer like these people will all live, you know, next to each other. 00:18:39.360 --> 00:18:41.160 And I think to me, that's really interesting. 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:47.060 There's also the question about the health of society as a whole and sort of overall influence of these things. 00:18:47.060 --> 00:18:56.480 But I think that people, you know, we always want to group people and sort of like make things simple, you know, make it make it mathematical and make it a math equation when it's not, you know. 00:18:56.480 --> 00:18:57.820 Yeah, I think that's well said. 00:18:57.820 --> 00:18:59.240 Life's complex. 00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:00.160 Society's complex. 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:01.220 Humans are complex. 00:19:01.420 --> 00:19:05.140 And so my prediction for the future is that it will continue to be complex. 00:19:05.140 --> 00:19:05.560 Yeah. 00:19:05.560 --> 00:19:09.820 Yeah, that's true. 00:19:09.820 --> 00:19:12.540 That's yeah, that seems likely. 00:19:12.540 --> 00:19:20.000 And also, I think that like I think complexity also, I'll say as a software engineer, it takes a toll that's a little bit invisible. 00:19:20.460 --> 00:19:26.480 And I think that's one of my concerns with AI and stuff like that is that there's this book I haven't read that I keep talking about. 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:38.300 Somebody told me about this book, I guess it's written in the 80s about a theory that says that societies tend to collapse when they reach a sort of critical point with regard to complexity, you know. 00:19:38.380 --> 00:19:50.780 And so I don't know, you know, I'm not predicting the downfall of society, but I do know that things seem to increase in complexity or at least where we are today feels more complex than, you know. 00:19:50.780 --> 00:19:51.200 And I don't know. 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.140 Do you think that that's just my imagination? 00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:54.180 Is it always? 00:19:54.180 --> 00:19:54.600 Is it? 00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:55.380 I don't know. 00:19:55.380 --> 00:19:56.920 I can't decide about that. 00:19:56.920 --> 00:19:59.760 You know, are things more complex today than they used to be? 00:19:59.760 --> 00:20:01.500 Are things more complex now? 00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:07.720 Yeah, it feels to me like, yes, but maybe that's because I'm too close to AI, you know. 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:08.740 Yeah, I don't know. 00:20:08.740 --> 00:20:11.260 I mean, I guess it depends how we're defining complexity. 00:20:11.260 --> 00:20:21.240 Certainly, like the individual human has greater access to way more information and people and connections and all of these things than ever before. 00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:34.060 So the sheer amount of information and data that a human brain has to hold and process is greater and we could say that that increases the level of complexity. 00:20:34.060 --> 00:20:37.440 There's just many more variables and players in there. 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:42.400 But then another part of me kind of goes into my Buddhist path. 00:20:42.660 --> 00:20:56.600 You know, I'm a Zazen practitioner and, you know, just just seeing that the universe is and has always been one that contains infinite complexity, but that complexity is all interconnected. 00:20:56.600 --> 00:21:06.560 And so, like, if we really want to zoom in to the complexity that lives on a cellular level and how it's all interconnected, like, I think it's all the same as it's always been. 00:21:06.560 --> 00:21:14.560 It's just we perceive it as more complex because our individual brains are getting access to more pieces of what's happening in a way. 00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:15.480 I think that's well said. 00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:16.440 It's actually interesting. 00:21:16.440 --> 00:21:17.600 I'm glad you shared that. 00:21:17.600 --> 00:21:19.860 I appreciate you sharing that about your own practice. 00:21:19.860 --> 00:21:25.460 I don't consider myself a Buddhist today, but I was the president of the Zen Buddhist Club when I was in college. 00:21:25.460 --> 00:21:33.300 And, you know, so it's always fun to meet somebody else because I feel like Buddhism doesn't find its way across my path as much as it used to. 00:21:33.300 --> 00:21:36.360 So I'm honored, you know, to hear that about your story. 00:21:36.360 --> 00:21:37.580 So that's that's very cool. 00:21:37.580 --> 00:21:38.680 Yeah, very neat. 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:42.180 And I and I still I still try to practice mindfulness, of course. 00:21:42.180 --> 00:21:43.380 You know, I kept that right. 00:21:43.380 --> 00:21:44.320 Like I still meditate. 00:21:44.320 --> 00:21:45.740 I still try to be present. 00:21:45.740 --> 00:21:51.520 And I don't do enough of it with two kids under three years old, but I need to do more of it. 00:21:51.520 --> 00:21:52.680 It is hard. 00:21:52.680 --> 00:21:54.620 I got three, three under five. 00:21:54.620 --> 00:22:01.300 So, OK, yeah, I sit as much as I can until someone bothers me in the morning. 00:22:01.300 --> 00:22:02.320 That's awesome. 00:22:02.320 --> 00:22:03.100 It's interesting. 00:22:03.100 --> 00:22:08.120 This I know what you mean, like the idea that we've kind of sort of peeled back the curtain, right? 00:22:08.120 --> 00:22:15.120 Like we're kind of seeing more of the complexity, you know, and I often tell people that the reason I deleted myself from every social media network, 00:22:15.120 --> 00:22:30.720 other than LinkedIn five years ago is because I just in this experiment, you know, what if you knew everything that everybody you ever met thought and they like posted on a website called Facebook, you know, it turns out I don't actually didn't want to know what everybody thought. 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.260 I mean, maybe like I want to know what you think right now. 00:22:33.260 --> 00:22:34.820 It's all context, right? 00:22:34.820 --> 00:22:43.900 But there's no context with Facebook and the sort of like vomit of like everything that everybody's ever thought all in one sort of infinite loop of whatever. 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:55.360 But I think like when I think about stuff and go back, go way back, I think about the Luddites and like the sort of anti-technology movement and community that used to be more just like you didn't have a choice. 00:22:55.360 --> 00:22:57.900 Your community is just, you know, you're not very mobile. 00:22:57.900 --> 00:22:59.780 Planes haven't been invented yet. 00:22:59.780 --> 00:23:05.420 You know, moving very far away is unlikely or near impossible just for a lot of people. 00:23:05.620 --> 00:23:11.920 You know, when you go back to that, what do you think is the difference between the way those people lived and the way we live today? 00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:16.020 Or do you think it is just like a sort of assumption that we project onto it? 00:23:16.020 --> 00:23:18.600 You know, like what are your thoughts about that? 00:23:18.600 --> 00:23:20.680 What's the assumption that we're projecting? 00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:22.700 Well, I guess what I mean is that. 00:23:22.700 --> 00:23:23.640 Yeah, thank you. 00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:25.140 I should have explained that more. 00:23:25.340 --> 00:23:35.400 I guess what I mean is that people, because society has become more efficient, I feel like people are more attuned and aware and like focused on things like my lack of community. 00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:47.080 You know, and when I think about people really long time ago, you know, what do you think that that's just because of efficiency and sort of the march of civilization in that way that we have more time to think about it? 00:23:47.080 --> 00:23:58.460 And then we we sort of navel gaze on it or I mean, like compare that to the meaningful difference of somebody who lived a very long time ago, you know, and the way they experience community. 00:23:58.460 --> 00:24:00.040 Does that does that make more sense? 00:24:00.040 --> 00:24:00.520 Yeah. 00:24:00.520 --> 00:24:01.020 Yeah. 00:24:01.020 --> 00:24:02.560 I think about this stuff a lot. 00:24:02.560 --> 00:24:03.880 It's fun to think about. 00:24:04.260 --> 00:24:08.520 It's it's hard to know where we definitely project our own biases. 00:24:08.520 --> 00:24:18.040 And there's like, you know, the common trope of like the Kumbaya symbiotic tribe that's in, you know, one with itself in nature. 00:24:18.040 --> 00:24:24.780 And like there was violence and drama and exile and like lots of lots of things happening then, too. 00:24:24.780 --> 00:24:38.220 But I mean, as you're talking, the question popped into my mind of like, did they even consider community to be like, was that even a term or is that just that's just life? 00:24:38.220 --> 00:24:40.220 Like, what do you mean community like community? 00:24:40.220 --> 00:24:42.920 Like this is just what what else is there? 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:43.460 Right. 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:51.660 I think about just how ingrained it was into humans lives from the day they're born to the day they die. 00:24:51.660 --> 00:24:54.400 And there's no no other way of doing it. 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:59.360 It wasn't like you got to choose your community and go go go choose a different tribe if you don't like this one. 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:00.780 Like that was just your life. 00:25:00.780 --> 00:25:05.200 I think a lot these days about our need for each other as well. 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:10.760 And I think communities back then were just a matter of survival. 00:25:10.760 --> 00:25:11.860 Alone, you're dead. 00:25:11.860 --> 00:25:13.260 Together, you survive. 00:25:13.260 --> 00:25:14.700 Alone, you have no food. 00:25:14.700 --> 00:25:15.880 Together, you have food. 00:25:15.880 --> 00:25:17.740 Like it was a very practical thing. 00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:27.260 You needed your intimate community for everything from food to protection to spiritual guidance to learning anything. 00:25:27.260 --> 00:25:29.880 Like you needed the people around you for everything. 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:34.560 And what technology has done over time is slowly chip away at our need for each other. 00:25:34.560 --> 00:25:35.500 Yeah. 00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:36.040 Yes. 00:25:36.040 --> 00:25:38.260 And not just technology, but also scale. 00:25:38.260 --> 00:25:38.680 Right. 00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:43.120 Like as we scaled into more urban environments, like, do you know your police officers? 00:25:43.120 --> 00:25:47.020 Do you know your firefighters, even though they're providing you with safety and protection? 00:25:47.020 --> 00:25:52.940 So even the ways we are reliant on each other, we become farther and farther removed from that. 00:25:52.940 --> 00:25:55.040 How is our food produced? 00:25:55.040 --> 00:25:55.400 Right. 00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:56.420 We have no idea. 00:25:56.420 --> 00:26:00.140 We're so far disconnected from the people growing our food. 00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:01.100 And where that comes from. 00:26:01.100 --> 00:26:13.920 And so our sense of connection, our need for each other led to this really strong sense of connection because we are so intimately attuned to what everyone else is doing and how we are reliant on each other. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:18.700 And now that that's been taken away, one, we're just having a lot less interaction with each other. 00:26:18.700 --> 00:26:19.700 Right. 00:26:19.700 --> 00:26:21.420 And we're seeing it with AI now. 00:26:21.420 --> 00:26:34.420 Instead of asking a friend for advice on what to do when my kid's having a temper tantrum, I might go to AI and say, generate a report from the top 40 experts in the world on child behavior. 00:26:34.420 --> 00:26:38.420 And like that's a more efficient thing to do in many cases. 00:26:38.420 --> 00:26:42.920 Like from a pure knowledge standpoint, that is the smarter thing to do. 00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:45.240 But now I lose that connection. 00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:50.020 I lose the texture of another human's lived experience. 00:26:50.100 --> 00:26:53.920 That is actually a form of information that's really important. 00:26:53.920 --> 00:27:09.080 And then but on a larger scale, we're also just become there's this illusion that we don't need each other, that we can be fully independent, that our actions aren't impacting other people, that I can have a lot of money and they can be homeless. 00:27:09.300 --> 00:27:18.660 And that doesn't affect me, right, because because technology is just created all of these, you know, steps of removal from each other in that way. 00:27:18.660 --> 00:27:21.060 Yeah, you made me think of something that's interesting. 00:27:21.060 --> 00:27:30.920 I used to one version of community I've done over the years is like play Dungeons and Dragons for many years, you know, and when I was younger, I did that for 25 years. 00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:47.260 So when I was older and younger, it spanned quite a lot of my life, but you reminded me of, you know, I obviously won't name a name, but I just, somebody just kind of came to mind when you were sharing about that, thinking about the sort of distant past versus the present and like, what's the difference? 00:27:47.260 --> 00:28:00.180 You know, it's like I was reminded of somebody who, like, it felt to me that this person didn't really see anybody outside of this, like, you know, maybe once every two weeks when we got together to play D&D or something like that, you know. 00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:15.880 And I think that that, you raise a good point, which is that there have always been people that had trouble fitting in, but they kind of had to, like, I mean, you can die or you can, like, fit in enough to participate in the community in the very old tribal sense of what community is or whatever. 00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:17.640 But that is a big change, right? 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:25.640 Like the idea that you can just sort of, I don't know, work at the gas station or maybe something that's even, yeah, maybe you label AI data. 00:28:25.640 --> 00:28:28.260 Yeah, you have zero interactions with humans, right? 00:28:28.260 --> 00:28:37.000 And then you're still able to sort of survive because you can get money and you can turn that into food and you can sort of choose to never interact with anybody. 00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:42.040 And I think you, I think you're really onto something when you say that that is, I think that's the key feature. 00:28:42.040 --> 00:28:49.720 That's very, very different when you think about the older idea of community versus like in the digital age, you know, like how is it different? 00:28:49.720 --> 00:28:52.140 I think, I think, I think that's really well said. 00:28:52.140 --> 00:28:52.500 Yeah. 00:28:52.500 --> 00:28:59.440 And also like the way we work today, it's turned everything into more of this like transactional element. 00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:07.520 Like to some degree, you have to have this transactional element to your relationships because, you know, you don't just have a community that's going to take care of you no matter what. 00:29:07.520 --> 00:29:07.820 Right. 00:29:07.820 --> 00:29:15.840 I think of something I've been thinking a lot about in community is the conditions under which you get to be a member of that community or a part of it. 00:29:15.840 --> 00:29:16.060 Right. 00:29:16.060 --> 00:29:21.340 And if you think back to those older communities, those older tribes, like it's unconditional relationship. 00:29:21.340 --> 00:29:26.620 You would have to do something really, really, really fucked up to, to be exiled from that community. 00:29:26.620 --> 00:29:29.860 Otherwise, like, you know, conflict is held in the community. 00:29:29.860 --> 00:29:31.160 You can make mistakes. 00:29:31.160 --> 00:29:37.300 You, even if you don't provide value, like there's going to be some way that that community still holds you. 00:29:37.300 --> 00:29:37.620 Right. 00:29:37.620 --> 00:29:46.980 Whereas the way society is designed today, it's like, you have to have some value or else there, you know, at least in the U S there, we don't have that kind of social safety net. 00:29:46.980 --> 00:29:50.720 We don't have this way of holding people unless they're providing value. 00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:51.760 So, yeah. 00:29:51.760 --> 00:29:55.880 And that changes all the community dynamics as well. 00:29:55.880 --> 00:30:06.260 You know, our, the, the ability to like borrow a tool from my neighbor, like I even have, the only reason I have that luxury is because I can afford to pay for the house that I live in in this neighborhood. 00:30:06.260 --> 00:30:06.720 Right. 00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:20.620 So you have to meet this bar of transactional value in order to get access to the unconditional relationship and that more just like human to human support that, that I think is what we really, a lot of us long. 00:30:20.620 --> 00:30:26.440 And I think what we're missing in our lives today is this unconditional non-transactional relationship. 00:30:26.780 --> 00:30:28.020 Yeah, that's really well said. 00:30:28.020 --> 00:30:40.140 I think that, uh, that's, you know, in case it wasn't obvious that when I talk about how we tend to make everything a binary and everything's about outputs and, you know, I, I feel like I've probably quoted this on this podcast recently. 00:30:40.140 --> 00:30:44.420 So I'm like, I might sound like I'm being quite repetitive, but I love this talk. 00:30:44.420 --> 00:30:47.000 This guy was a Tolkien expert being interviewed. 00:30:47.000 --> 00:31:00.240 And, you know, he was, they were, him and the interviewer were smoking a pipe and he was, he asked the guy, he said, well, how do you, how do you square with the idea that like, uh, you know, this might be a bad habit, you know, like maybe it's not healthy. 00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:08.540 You know, and the guy said, you know, he said, we have this tendency to think of our lives as nothing more than a sum of the inputs and outputs. 00:31:08.540 --> 00:31:11.100 And man, when he said that, that's just like, I don't know. 00:31:11.100 --> 00:31:13.040 I feel like I don't need to go much further than that. 00:31:13.040 --> 00:31:14.080 That just blew me away. 00:31:14.180 --> 00:31:35.200 You know, and I think that that's what you're saying when we talk about how we try to translate everything into some quantificate quantifiable number, whether it's dollars or minutes or hours or like all of this is just part of this weird attempt to make things a mathematical equation that cannot be, you know, and I think that to me, that's really, that just haunts me. 00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:38.720 I literally think about that like almost every day, you know? 00:31:39.580 --> 00:31:41.160 Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. 00:31:41.160 --> 00:31:50.900 It makes me think of, I'm going through the second level of my training for my coach training program right now called Aletheia and Steve March is the guy who created it. 00:31:50.900 --> 00:31:51.540 He's a teacher. 00:31:51.540 --> 00:32:04.260 And one of the core tenets of Aletheia is this distinction between technological attunement, which is what you're talking about and how a lot of us see the world today with inputs and outputs. 00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:28.420 And the alternative as he describes it is poetic attunement and poetic attunement is this just almost more of this like poetic dancing with the world, with the universe flowing, like presence, not looking at this as, as the world is something to fix or improve, not looking at ourselves as something to fix or improve, not looking at our bodies as like this inputs and outputs. 00:32:28.420 --> 00:32:51.360 How do we just get more value out of ourselves or out of other people and, and taking this more, yeah, the poetic attunement, all that kind of planning and, and trying to fit everything into this rigid input and output structure into, yeah, just, you can almost imagine the feeling of poetry, of feeling poetry, of hearing poetry and like relating to the world and to each other from that place. 00:32:51.360 --> 00:33:01.560 What's funny is that the speaker who I was speaking of, he's a poet, so it's funny that you should say that because I think, and I totally immediately get what you're saying. 00:33:01.560 --> 00:33:03.720 And yeah, that really resonates for me. 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:05.400 I think you're, I think you're right on. 00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:06.480 Yeah, nice. 00:33:06.860 --> 00:33:14.340 Well, it's, there's no good stopping point for such a wonderful conversation, but I do want to be sensitive to your time. 00:33:14.340 --> 00:33:21.840 And I myself have to, unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of things, I have to, I have to go to something else, but I've got a few minutes left. 00:33:21.840 --> 00:33:28.120 Um, I wonder if you have anything that's just on your mind that didn't come up in the course of, of conversations. 00:33:28.120 --> 00:33:33.080 So this is, you know, the story of, of you and your, you know, journey with community. 00:33:33.080 --> 00:33:44.440 Is there anything that to your audience you want to share, uh, whether that's projects you're working on, uh, maybe any encouragement, just anything that you want to leave us with or leave your, your audience with? 00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:53.820 Yeah. I mean, I think like one of the core themes that I've been thinking a lot about in community these days is, um, we were so focused on belonging with each other. 00:33:53.820 --> 00:34:02.840 And yet my experience is that I was trying to find belonging from all these other people and by building communities and being this community leader. 00:34:02.840 --> 00:34:08.220 And it was all a way to try to make myself feel like I can belong within myself. 00:34:08.220 --> 00:34:08.780 Sure. Yeah. 00:34:09.220 --> 00:34:32.520 And my experience has been that by seeing the ways which I didn't belong to myself, which I haven't been able to accept myself, seeing those ways I was abandoning myself and like healing those parts that totally transformed the way I was able to start connecting and relating to other people and how I build a community and the types of communities I'm able to engage in. 00:34:32.700 --> 00:34:58.740 And so it's not one or the other, it comes together, but as just an invitation to folks to when they think about belonging and if they find themselves engaging in community constantly and yet still feeling this loneliness, this emptiness, there's probably something going on inside in your own belief system and the relationship between the parts within you that, um, that are worth exploring. 00:34:58.740 --> 00:35:06.440 So, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, that's, that's really deep and very well said. 00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:07.020 Yeah. 00:35:07.020 --> 00:35:15.720 And I'll, and I'll just agree and say that, um, you know, I think that I remember having more anxiety about community expectations, you know, that sort of thing. 00:35:15.720 --> 00:35:22.620 And I think as I've become more, you know, accepting of myself, it's certainly, I felt a lot of that pressure has lessened over time. 00:35:22.620 --> 00:35:33.900 So I think that's really wise and I think that I hope that people who, the people who are out there, like, like kind of clenched and like feeling like they're trying and it's not working and, you know, and why? 00:35:33.900 --> 00:35:44.820 And, you know, I, I think that, I think that's really good guidance for those people because I think, you know, for me, not to shame anybody else, but it's like at some point you have to face that the common denominator is you. 00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:51.220 You know what I mean? You know what you, you can't escape yourself when you take yourself in all these communities, you know? 00:35:51.220 --> 00:36:09.640 Yeah. If people want to follow along, I'm David, you can find me at davidspinks.com. I have a sub stack called Enough Already. And, uh, yeah, I coach community leaders and founders and help them build their own communities, but also do that, that kind of inner work within themselves so that they can show up to the work from, from a more, yeah, health, healthy place. 00:36:09.640 --> 00:36:12.620 And so anyone, anyone can feel free to reach out anytime. 00:36:12.620 --> 00:36:27.100 Great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time, David. Uh, it's really honored. Uh, I'm honored to speak with you because I, uh, I really value a lot of things that you're sharing and what you're doing and putting out into the world. So please keep it up and, uh, we'll catch you later on down the trail. 00:36:27.100 --> 00:36:28.440 Thanks so much, Brian. I appreciate it. 00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:28.820 All right.