Rowan Mangan:
So Marty, we’ve got quite an episode ahead for the listeners today. Is that fair?

Martha Beck:
For those who do not mind the occasional lapse into profanity.

Rowan Mangan:
Or the frequent lapse into profanity or the near–

Martha Beck:
Near-continuous lapse into profanity.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, so there’s a few F-bombs in this episode, but it is an episode where we really, I think, plumb the depths of what it is to live a good life.

Martha Beck:
I think so.

Rowan Mangan:
All through a metaphor, and I really need to stress that it is a metaphor.

Martha Beck:
Wait, wait, it’s a metaphor?

Rowan Mangan:
A metaphor. So it’s not when we– we’re going to talk about golf. If you keep listening, you’ll get there. But the golf, people, is a metaphor. It’s not about golf.

Martha Beck:
You don’t have to know how to golf to listen to this episode. You don’t even. No. At all. You don’t have to know anything.

Rowan Mangan:
For instance, neither of us have a goddamn clue.

Martha Beck:
Ever.

Rowan Mangan:
What it’s about.

Martha Beck:
Never golfed. And yet we’re doing an episode that mainly relies on the concept of golf as a metaphor and swearing like a wounded pirate.

Rowan Mangan:
There you go. So if that doesn’t get you going and keen to listen, I don’t know what will have fun, y’all.

Martha Beck:
Hi, I’m Martha Beck.

Rowan Mangan:
And I’m Rowan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered. That’s right. The podcast for people trying to figure it out.

Martha Beck:
Yes, it is. And I, yeah, I think I’ve figured everything out.

Rowan Mangan:
Oh thank God. I’m so glad.

Martha Beck:
Wait. No, I just lost it. I had figured it all out.

Rowan Mangan:
It was on the tip of your tongue.

Martha Beck:
Yeah, it’ll have to come back to me. Anyway, what are you trying to figure out?

Rowan Mangan:
Okay, so just sometimes I feel like we live in some sort of scripted comedy show in our house. You know, we have an unusual family structure, there’s all kinds of different people floating around. And the other night, I had to write down a little snatch of dialogue that went on because we have our family time, but I’ve got to say, Marty, we’re together and yet in some ways we’re still apart. Do you know what I mean? In some ways, in some ways like the fact that despite the fact, the fact that we’ve promised we wouldn’t have our phones at family time, we always inevitably have a screen. The truth is we do. We just do. Okay? So we’re sort of together, we’re sort of apart, and it just can lead to such comedy. And I wanted to tell our listeners about this moment that happened because for whatever reason, I was more present than you and Karen at this time. Adam is always present and probably is laughing very hard at it on the inside. But Karen on this particular evening was watching football on her phone, which is a weird thing to do, let’s be honest.

Martha Beck:
I know! We have a television. Football is not easy to watch on a phone screen.

Rowan Mangan:
I’d have thought.

Martha Beck:
It’s a lot different issue.

Rowan Mangan:
Anyway, so this is what goes down. Karen, watching football on her phone: “Throw it! Oh, so dumb!” Right? That’s Karen. Then Marty pipes up, she’s over in the corner watching a watercolor video tutorial on YouTube, and Marty says, “What’s dumb?” In that voice. Then there’s a long silence. So to help Marty, I think Karen probably can’t hear her very well, so I said, “I think she was saying he should have thrown it.” And Karen looks up and she says, “Yeah, he’s still got the ball, but he has no right to after the way he’s been playing.” And you looked at Karen and you said, and I quote, and with quite a patronizing tone, Marty, if I dare say so: “I’m sorry. I have literally no idea what you are both talking about.”

Martha Beck:
It’s an odd thing when you don’t know. Because I was watching the video, I didn’t know she was watching a football game, and both of you are now talking about somebody who should have thrown it. And I thought, “Adam? What’s he supposed to throw?” Yeah, he’s the only “he” in the room, and he’s innocent.

Rowan Mangan:
So the only word you’d heard was “dumb” then because you had asked quite clearly, “What’s dumb?” You had asked for more information.

Martha Beck:
I didn’t hear it in the sense that it got to my consciousness. I heard it in what’s called a phonological loop. There’s a little thing in the brain that just repeats a sound.

Rowan Mangan:
God almighty. Yeah, and it’s a trick that you used to make it sound like you’re listening when you’re not. And you answer questions, you also ask questions from this place where you are absolutely not there. And sometimes I try and play with you and in this way because I try to see how far can I push you before you’ll realize that you are having a conversation that’s completely insane. And I remember it wasn’t that long ago, actually, we were lying in bed. You were in probably a freaking watercolor tutorial. I’m a watercolor tutorial widow, or at least kind of third of a widow. So I’m like, “Listen, Marty, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And you’re like, “Mmm.” So then I push it a bit further: “I think we should spend half the year in Costa Rica.” And you’re like, “Okay, that sounds good.” I’m like, “Do you think we should ask Karen?” You’re like, “No, it’s not needed.” I say okay. Then I just went. Then I just went, “Marty, Marty, I really think we’re the new Oprah and Gayle.” And you went, “Yeah.” And that’s when I knew I had truly lost you. I had truly lost you and I’d never find you again. Anyway, I rush to reassure our listener: It was a joke.

Martha Beck:
I was pretty far gone if I, yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
I don’t think that we’re the new Oprah and Gayle. I think Oprah and Gayle are the new Oprah and Gayle.

Martha Beck:
Yes. I have way too much respect for them to say that we are.

Rowan Mangan:
I would never. I would never. I wouldn’t dream of it. Never. Marty, what are you trying to figure out? Or are you just going to mumble incoherently and watch a YouTube video?

Martha Beck:
I’m trying to figure out watercolor, obviously. Obviously. Yeah. And then occasionally I go for a snack and I go, and when you got pregnant, you had such high ideals for organic food all the time. Everywhere. All the child will ever eat is like kelp or something. And we have this three-year-old now who, if a birthday cake goes by that’s for the next table in a restaurant or something, will dive headfirst into the cake. And she doesn’t take after you in her religious attitude toward healthy food. So you’ve really mellowed, I have to say.

Rowan Mangan:
Thank you.

Martha Beck:
You’re so relaxed.

Rowan Mangan:
I’ve literally had no choice.

Martha Beck:
Yeah, there’s no choice.

Rowan Mangan:
I’m not always relaxed on the inside, babe, but yeah.

Martha Beck:
I know. But she wore you down. And then I go to open the fridge the other day and I can’t. I literally can’t. It’s padlocked.

Rowan Mangan:
Not padlocked. Combination locked.

Martha Beck:
Oh, okay. So

Rowan Mangan:
It’s locked. By the way, this isn’t some sort of fatphobic, eating–this is not that, by the way.

Martha Beck:
No, but she gets completely insane and she gets a rash when she eats too much sugar. So we’re trying.

Rowan Mangan:
And plus, half the time she gets in the fridge and what she eats is fizzy water, Perrier.

Martha Beck:
And olives.

Rowan Mangan:
Sparkling water and olives.

Martha Beck:
She loves “All-lovs.”

Rowan Mangan:
She’s a weird kid.

Martha Beck:
She wants odd things, but just because there was something in there, there’s this little lock on the fridge because you are a gizmo girl and you find a thing to do everything. And I said everybody–

Rowan Mangan:
Also, sorry. Also, in my own defense, she was climbing into that fridge.

Martha Beck:
Yeah, she was alarmingly climbing into the fridge and she’s really good at tucking herself in small spaces. So yeah, not, okay. So I am trying to navigate this lock and there is a combination. So I said, and actually Lila was there and she was asking me to get her something and I was going to give it to her because I have no boundaries.

Rowan Mangan:
No boundaries.

Martha Beck:
I’m a terrible permissive parent, but I couldn’t even be my permissive self because here’s this combination lock. And I said to you, I found you eventually, I think I called you and said, “Our refrigerator is literally locked.” And you’re like, “Yep, I know. I put it on there.”

Rowan Mangan:
I just thought you would intrinsically know what the combination was.

Martha Beck:
Because the combination, y’all, is 6, 6, 6. The sign of, if you do not know this as a very scary number in the Bible, it is. It’s supposed to be a scary number.

Rowan Mangan:
In the Bible or in the you know–

Martha Beck:
Something.

Rowan Mangan:
Horror movies.

Martha Beck:
Yeah, it’s supposed to be. So we have the devil’s fridge now, and I’m–

Rowan Mangan:
Well, we’ve got the devil’s child, that was the point. It was protecting against.

Martha Beck:
Oh, okay. So what’s in the fridge is the devil, not the child herself.

Rowan Mangan:
Oh no, the child is the devil.

Martha Beck:
Ah, okay. Well if you’re trying to get healthy eating out of her, that’s the point. So I’m setting it and I’m like, it really alerted me that I have to be cautious about giving her healthy food. So I’m like, “Okay, I think I can get the fridge open, Lila, but I can’t give you like whatever sugary thing is in there, if there’s a cake or a pie, I can’t just let you eat the whole thing.” And she said, “Yes you can, Muffy, I will cheer for you!” And then this is why she wore you down. She’s too adorable. She’s too adorable. She’s cheering for me.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, she’s really into cheering. She’ll cheer for you, no matter what. She’ll cheer for you on the toilet.

Martha Beck:
A lot. She accompanied me to the potty the other day and I said, “Okay, close the door for privacy.” She said, “No, I will leave it open so that people will apologize at you.”

Martha Beck:
She’s got straight what happens in the bathroom.

Martha Beck:
Yeah. Basically she wants everything open: the fridge, the bathroom, and everything in between.

Rowan Mangan:
We’ll be right back with more Bewildered. We don’t say this enough. We are so glad you’re a Bewildered listener and we’re hoping you might want to go to the next level with us. By which I mean if you rate and review the podcast, it helps new people find us so we can keep Bewildering new souls. And you know how much we love that. Ratings are very much appreciated. Obviously the more stars you give us, the more appreciation is forthcoming. Reviews are quite simply heaven and we read everyone and exclaim over them and we just love you all.

Rowan Mangan:
So today’s episode, Marty, I can’t wait to get started, but I do need to give the listener fair warning before we get started. We’re always quite potty-mouthed, speaking of potties, but I have to say that today there’s going to be quite a number of F-bombs dropped because we have to in order to talk about what we need to talk about. If you are someone who is horrified by four-letter words, go do a Wordle because they’re five letters. Then I would just switch off now because we’re going to be dropping F-bombs.

Martha Beck:
Dropping the F-bomb. Boom.

Rowan Mangan:
This episode begins with a joke. The joke is actually I have to give credit to Aaron Sorkin, the writer of The Newsroom where we first heard it and boom, Marty, please tell us a joke.

Martha Beck:
Yes, okay, so this is from The Newsroom. Jane Fonda delivers it much better than I ever could, but this is how it goes. So Jesus and Moses are out playing golf, and Moses steps up to the tee, whacks a beautiful drive right down the center of the lane, 250 yards. And he’s like, “Yeah, that’ll do.” Smiles at Jesus. Jesus goes up to the tee, hits a terrible hook into the trees, but he drops his club, he raises his hands and suddenly a storm boils up and torrential rain falls over the trees and it forms a river where the golf ball floats. And as it floats along, a fish comes and grabs it in its mouth, at which point a hawk dives down, grabs the fish, wouldn’t be a hawk, it would be like an osprey. An osprey comes down, grabs the fish, flies up, and as it passes over the green, the ball drops from the fish’s mouth straight into the cup for a hole-in-one. And Jesus turns around, puts his arms down and nods at Moses who says, “Okay, do you want to play golf or do you want to fuck around?”

Martha Beck:
So that’s what we’re talking about today. Do you want to golf? Do you want to fuck around?

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, you wanna play golf or you wanna fuck around? So I recently had to have Marty tell this joke, this is what Marty is to me. I have a remote control. And I’m like, “Marty, illustrate my story with this.” So we were talking–

Martha Beck:
Good for something.

Rowan Mangan:
We were talking to a new friend. We were having quite a deep conversation. Or she and I were, Marty was in the bathroom having people apologize at her. And so I was saying to this, we were talking about the meaning of life and all of that and how people can waste their lives in jobs that don’t fulfill them and that are just miserable and dah, dah, dah. And I’m like, the best way to demonstrate this would be to have Marty come and tell that joke so that I can show her, our friend, that come on, we’re here to play golf. Let’s get serious. Let’s make the most of this life, this time we’re given on Earth. So I wait for Marty to come back. I’m like, “Marty, I need you to tell the Jesus and Moses golf joke.” So Marty tells the joke and I turn to our friend and I say, “So you see? The point is–” And she just burst out laughing and she goes, “That we’re here to fuck around!”

Martha Beck:
Right.

Rowan Mangan:
Oh, I was so humbled because she was absolutely right, and it was the exact opposite of where I was going. And I was just like, “Ro! The culture! The voice of the culture!” Oh yeah. And it took a civilian, a civilian to tell me that I had it exactly wrong. Isn’t that bonkers, Marty?

Martha Beck:
It really is. I mean in all the lip service we give this thing and we still are saying, “Oh yeah, we’ve gotta– let’s do what we’re supposed to do now. Let’s use our time in the way that it has been allotted. We are on a golf course, we will play golf.” And the fact is that the golf course we’re on, the culture we’re in, we’re not good at golf. I really suck at golf.

Rowan Mangan:
In fairness, the reason that I can’t even tell that joke is I don’t even know the word. I don’t have the vocab, the golf vocab to tell it. That’s why Marty has to tell it. I can’t use the words.

Martha Beck:
Just to be clear, though, it’s a metaphor. So the metaphor is that–

Rowan Mangan:
Wait, what is golf and culture? I thought we were talking about golf.

Martha Beck:
No, we’re not talking about, we are talking about golf as a metaphor for the things that are normally done. Like you go, this is your career, and imagine your career as a golf course. You play golf, this is what you’re supposed to do and there are things you’re supposed to do in our culture. Get up early in the morning and do a brisk walk and eat a healthy breakfast and then do something that is serious and good for the people.

Rowan Mangan:
But I just want to say that golf, not to be too much about the golf, but golf isn’t just mainstream culture that says you need to have a career. In this instance of this time when we were telling it, golf was standing in for something that was woo, but it just goes to show how culture can look like anything. I was making golf into making the most of our time on this earth while we’re wearing our meat suits and experiencing everything. And so anything can be golf, not just mainstream culture. Culture can crop up and turn anything into golf because our brains will do that. Anyway, as you were.

Martha Beck:
Yes, our brains say, we need to do something useful, we need to do– it basically boils down to we need to do what we’re supposed to do and we need to have control over it. So this situation, it controls our behavior and our behavior in it has to be controlled in a way that maximizes benefit. It’s this very, yes, that’s it. Yeah, very transactional. The fact is that you and I, though I really enjoy being us, most of the golf courses we’ve been on of all kinds, we don’t really enjoy golf.

Rowan Mangan:
Just to be clear, golf’s a metaphor.

Martha Beck:
It’s a metaphor.

Rowan Mangan:
I’ve never been on a golf course with you.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
I don’t even think I’ve been on a golf course with someone else.

Martha Beck:
We’re gonna get stuck on this golf thing. It’s like if we had been golfing, we would just be talking about it. But since we’ve never played it, it’s this great mystery religion. Now the point is that any given place I’ve ever gone, I’m not very good at doing what I’m supposed to do there.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
I literally, my freshman year in college, I picked a bunch of courses that I thought were just normal and I went and showed it to my faculty advisor. I had an advisor. Every freshman.

Rowan Mangan:
Where were you at college, Marty? I don’t–

Martha Beck:
Let me think. Let’s see, it escapes my mind. A little place called Harvard. So I was 17, I was a complete freaking idiot and I bounce into my faculty advisor and he’s like, “What classes are you taking?” And I’m like, “I’m taking statistics, Shakespeare’s English, studio art, beginning Chinese, and philosophy of science.” And he was like, “What the hell is wrong with you? What are you going to do? That is the weirdest grab bag of courses I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Rowan Mangan:
Do you want to go to Harvard or do you want to fuck around?

Martha Beck:
Exactly!

Rowan Mangan:
And your answer was?

Martha Beck:
Where’s it going to take you? Yeah, it was like–

Rowan Mangan:
You wanted to fuck around.

Martha Beck:
The book I just wrote relied heavily on all five of those courses.

Rowan Mangan:
Oh my God, Marty, the book I just wrote relied entirely on me skipping class all throughout undergrad because I didn’t write one.

Martha Beck:
Anyway, and my point is what I was doing, he was like, “You’re here to play golf. If you’re an English major then take Shakespeare, but take composition, take this and that.” And I was like, “No, I want to do what I’m interested in.” Which I now realize is a symptom of ADHD, but then a zillion years later, now, it’s working for me. Because here’s the thing, actually, when we let ourselves not do the golf, whatever the golf is–

Rowan Mangan:
It’s a metaphor though. Yes. It’s probably not going to be actually golf.

Martha Beck:
Probably not. Could be. Probably not.

Rowan Mangan:
Could be.

Martha Beck:
My experiences were pretty good at fucking around. And when we just fuck around, good things happen to us.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
And people say that’s not true. “Oh it’s fine to believe that your life can be magical and enjoyable, but you gotta pay the rent, you gotta play golf, you gotta sell your soul to the company store,” whatever it is. But when we don’t do that, when we fuck around, really good things happen to us.

Rowan Mangan:
Well let’s not forget that in the original scripture of the joke, Jesus is the one who gets the hole-in-one. Right? And how does he do it? Fucking around. So the moral of the story in a sense is that fucking around is good. And we don’t mean sleeping around, by the way. I was quite nervous about this because in Australia you would often say fucking around to mean being promiscuous, which is great. Go for it. Just saying, whenever we say we’re fucking around, we don’t mean, we just mean we’re silly, we’re being silly.

Martha Beck:
We using fucking around as a metaphor, you see.

Rowan Mangan:
It’s a metaphor.

Martha Beck:
It’s a metaphor for the things you do.

Rowan Mangan:
Much like, much like in this conversation, for the purposes of this conversation, the game of golf is also a metaphor.

Martha Beck:
Golf is a metaphor. Fucking around is a metaphor. We’re using two, they’re out on the golf course, both metaphor, metaphorically doing things. But you’re right, Jesus, he does not do badly when you read the Bible. And Moses never made it to the Promised Land. Spoiler. I think he was just too busy playing golf.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah, he probably was. Yeah. Oh, I just thought of another Jesus and Moses joke, but it’s probably too offensive to Christians, so I won’t. So I think the point of all of this, Marty, is that life is too serious to be taken seriously. And when I was talking to our friend, I fell straight into the trap where I was like, life is too serious not to be taken seriously. And she just had to flip it on me to remind me. So it’s like, okay, so that’s my lesson from that conversation is where can we let go of things or at least let go of being so fucking precious about ‘them? I had it exactly backwards because I took my eye off the ball, the metaphorical ball.

Martha Beck:
Oh yes, you did. Hashtag sports metaphor. And that would work in either metaphor by the way. At least if there was a male, cis male anatomy involved.

Rowan Mangan:
Taking your eye off the ball? Yeah, that’s weak to me, that’s weak.

Martha Beck:
I’m here to fuck around.

Rowan Mangan:
Hey! And she wins again. So there was this cool thing that when we were in South Africa last year, we were talking about a lot, and it’s a hard thing for me to explain in an audio-only medium. Some of you’ll be watching this on video and God love you. It’s going to be much clearer to you than if I try to paint a word picture. But I’m going to do it all right. I’ve had a lot of coffee. If you hold out, this is another metaphor by the way. If you hold out a pen and you’re holding it and you’re holding it in a closed fist that is with your fingers down, what’s the back of your hand is up. This is what we think we are doing with life because we are gripping it and we think that if we open our palm a little bit, relax a little bit, it’s going to fall.

Martha Beck:
And it does.

Rowan Mangan:
And it does. But what if that’s not metaphorically how we’re holding it? What if we’re actually holding it palm up and we are clutching it? We think it’s upside down, but if we just open it, we’ve got a beautiful pen metaphorically on our open metaphorical hand. Because if we can just loosen up a bit on things, then we can find more. We can see more about them. We can see more options, more possibility.

Martha Beck:
Yes.

Rowan Mangan:
Tell me where I’m wrong.

Martha Beck:
No, no, you are absolutely right. And what’s interesting is that the part of our brain that wants to control also causes our hands to grip. It’s the same side of the brain.

Rowan Mangan:
Oh, so it’s literal as well as metaphorical.

Martha Beck:
But you can hold that metaphorical pen. The interesting thing is you can walk around with your hand open all the time or with your hand relaxed. So the difference between playing golf or gripping the pen and fucking around holding the pen on an open hand is what is the most relaxed thing you can do right now? Good point. So if you’re gripping life because you’ve approached it that way and you relax, what you’ve done will fall away, you won’t be able to manage it as well. But if you approach life from the beginning doing things in a relaxed way, then even if conditions change or you make a mistake or whatever, you’re working with the forces of gravity. So the more relaxed you get, the more likely you are to be able to hold on to the thing without effort.

Rowan Mangan:
I have another thought, which is that if we, like you’re talking about the left hemisphere of the brain is the part that wants to grab, but isn’t it true also that to my point about not taking things so seriously, that the right hemisphere where all creativity is, is also the part that handles jokes?

Martha Beck:
Yes. And I have to be, I mean neuroscientists are so obsessive about it: “It’s the whole brain working together.”

Rowan Mangan:
If you are one of our listeners and you’re a neuroscientist: complaints on a postcard, throw it out your window.

Martha Beck:
And creativity requires bouncing back and forth between the left and the right. But that is true. The right hemisphere is not involved in most verbalization. And the places where the right hemisphere, which is more creative, more present, less able to track time, and so very much more free from anxiety and able to appreciate and have blissful experience, it uses language for poems, songs, and jokes, especially jokes. So when you’re really relaxed and joking around, you’re actually working with your whole brain. Whereas if you’re gripping something tightly with your mind or with your body, you are more likely to fail.

Rowan Mangan:
And I just think culture is so serious. There’s so much serious in culture. So much of culture is built on serious and taking itself seriously.

Martha Beck:
You know what’s really weird? It’s so weird to see how quickly it arises because there were books that I just sort of wrote because I was in a rush. I was doing a million things I wrote in the middle of the night and I just put stuff–

Rowan Mangan:
We won’t tell you which ones.

Martha Beck:
I put in stuff in articles too for Oprah magazine. And then later I’d get emails from people who were having violent arguments over the exact meaning of something that I wrote in the middle of the night when I was just goofing off. And they have made it scripture. Like if it’s in a book, it has to be interpreted correctly. And they’ll be like, what do you mean by this? What do you make of this? And I’m like, I have no idea what you people are talking about. But don’t worry, it’s just something someone thought up in the middle of the night. Do not take it so seriously. That’s one where I know that it’s ridiculous to take it seriously. And yet the moment it becomes sort of a cultural artifact that people are talking about and using to guide their behavior: deadly serious.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny, isn’t it?

Martha Beck:
And I actually think that looking for the letter of the law is very much the way we play golf. So much of our culture is written down and prescribed and people argue about it. Like in the middle ages, the theologians would argue about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, or does the Sabbath day begin, how dark does it have to be to say that the Sabbath day has ended? Okay, you have to be able to tell a black thread from a white thread if it’s dark enough, not that you can’t tell a white thread from a black thread, then it’s dark enough to say the Sabbath has ended. But how far away are you holding the threads?

Rowan Mangan:
Oh my God, are they playing golf or are they fucking around? Or they actually can’t tell anymore?

Martha Beck:
They’re playing golf. They have clubs in their hands. And another thing is when people are playing golf and they get it wrong, they go nuts. They like bash things with their clubs. Because apparently it’s very difficult and frustrating. So the letter of the law is the opposite of what I think the key to life really is, which is relaxing and going in any direction that brings wonder, awe and levity at the same time.

Rowan Mangan:
And the silliness, the laughter, the looseness, the lightness, I feel like. Okay, so there was this story, we’ve told it on the podcast before, but I’m going to tell it again. It’s something I heard Deepak Chopra say on a recording somewhere. And he was talking about being in a group of people who were working on some sort of lala, world peace, save the world sort of project. And they were having all these really big ideas and it was like with some guru guy, sorry, Deepak, I’m sorry, I know you listen to this and this is probably my lack of specificity is killing you. But anyway, there was a little guru guy there. Sorry.

Martha Beck:
You don’t know how big he was!

Rowan Mangan:
I don’t. I know. But it’s in the past, so far in the past that he’s gotten small because it’s in the distance. And anyway, so there was a guru guy of indeterminate height. And he was sort of sitting there all bemused while everyone’s like, yeah, these big ideas. And he’s loving it. And then someone says, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, this is all very well, but where’s the money going to come from?”And at that point, the guru guy kind of looks at him and he says, “Well, it’ll come from wherever it is at the moment.” And I just think if we are talking about magic and we’re always talking about magic in a way, if we’re talking about fucking around, we’re talking about making magic. It’s just like that’s the attitude of don’t worry about the golf so much metaphor, so much. Not real golf. You can whatever. I don’t even know what that is. You have to wear weird pants. Don’t worry so much about the golf because if you stay in the creative, light, loose space, the money will just come from wherever it’s at the moment, you silly sausage!

Martha Beck:
Yeah! And creativity, wonder, awe, and levity aren’t, there’s a cultural assumption for us that really important things, accomplishing really important things comes with seriousness. And even awe and wonder are serious things. Joy, lightness, those two don’t go together. It’s like the way our golf rules are in our culture is: Laughter and levity go on one side, serious things and also deep wonder and awe and revelation go in another. And those two don’t—never the twain shall meet. And I agree with Nietzche who said, “I must believe in a God who dances.” He wanted a God who was joyful, delighted. And he also got really emotional about a horse he saw on the street, ran up to it, put his arms around it, kissed it and– metaphorically or really?– went crazy. No, he really did. He really went crazy. A lot of philosophers: kind of nuts. And then we think, “It’s written down, they wrote stuff down. So it doesn’t matter if they’re kissing horses and crying on the street and going to an infirmary for it and then writing something. It’s like Nietzche says, ‘God is dead.’ Okay, there it is. It’s written down.” God says Nietzsche is dead. Yeah, I’ve seen that bumper sticker too. Yeah, I saw it on a toilet wall. But I’m going to go back to our original joke because the point is that the surrender to the idea of magical capacity, like the ability for us to get things done in wild and crazy ways, that yes, you can find magic and trust it. That actually comes when you surrender. When we surrender to our yearning for awe and joy, meaning and delight, we’re out there saying, brainstorm hawk fish. That’s fun. It is. We’re told that it doesn’t work.

Martha Beck:
But could I, here’s the strange thing. Wonder in awe and joy come to me when I draw or paint as you have noted earlier, or watch tutorials about it. And when I got to the end of my many years as a student trying to learn to be a professor and living in Cambridge and doing various jobs to get by as a student, as I went through my various degrees, I got to the end of my time in Boston or Cambridge and I was getting ready to leave and I did all my little accounting, my taxes and everything and I realized that I had actually made most of the money that got me through my degrees by either selling or teaching art.

Rowan Mangan:
Ooh, say more.

Martha Beck:
And I was like, that’s really weird because it felt like I didn’t, that was the most fun I ever had. I got to be a teaching fellow in this art course taught by Will Ryman, this amazing artist, an amazing human teacher. And it was pure joy. And then I would just go to some advertising firm and say, “I really need money for Christmas.” And I would take a job and do some art for them. And it didn’t feel like work. It felt like joy.

Rowan Mangan:
It felt like fucking around.

Martha Beck:
I was fucking around, yeah! So that very woman who said we should fuck around advised me to start taking my art more, putting it more centrally, but not taking it seriously at all. And I’m like, “All right, I’m open to the possibility that I can just sell this stuff.”

Rowan Mangan:
And what happened two days later?

Martha Beck:
It was the next day. I made a sketch of the place where we were, did a little color study that you put online. I didn’t even do it.

Rowan Mangan:
I didn’t even put it online, I just it, I just sent it as a message to a group, a handful of people.

Martha Beck:
And someone called and said, could I please? He literally said, “Is there a world in which I can buy this?” Which is a really interesting way to put it because: Is there a world? Because to me it was, yes, he’s talking about a world I never dared believe in where I can actually be an artist.

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah.

Martha Beck:
I just didn’t expect it.

Rowan Mangan:
So fuck around.

Martha Beck:
Yeah.

Rowan Mangan:
Right?

Martha Beck:
My favorite books when I was little were magical. And my favorite magical books were the Narnia books and The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And both those dudes were serious professors, and they got mocked and sneered at for fucking around when they wrote the Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books. And guess what everyone remembers?

Rowan Mangan:
That’s right.

Martha Beck:
Guess what changed the world most?

Rowan Mangan:
Yeah. Golf. Metaphorically. No wait, no. Fucking around. Fucking around. I’ve got it.

Martha Beck:
That’s what did it. You just fell into the golf reverie. We can’t even keep it straight. This is such a novel concept for our brains. So for me, I’m going to be putting more priority on wonder, awe, levity, and all the things that our culture considers to be fucking around.

Rowan Mangan:
Because there might be…there might be money in it!

Martha Beck:
The ultimate golf goal.

Rowan Mangan:
And also because we’re here, if not to fuck around, then what? Yeah, then I want out. I want out too. But before that, I’m going to fuck around and I’m also going to stay wild!

Rowan Mangan: 
We hope you’re enjoying Bewildered. If you’re in the USA and want to be notified when a new episode comes out, text the word ‘WILD’ to 570-873-0144.

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For more of us, Martha’s on Instagram, themarthabeck. She’s on Facebook, The Martha Beck, and she’s on Twitter, marthabeck. Her website is, MarthaBeck.com. And me, I too am on Instagram. Rowan_Mangan. I’m on Facebook as Rowan Mangan. And I’m on Twitter as RowanMangan. Bewildered is produced by Scott Forster with support from the brilliant team at MBI.