109: Tim Hickson | ‘Hello Future Me’ – Journey To One Million Subs On Youtube

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The following is a conversation and podcast with a Kiwi of note, the host of the ‘Hello Future Me’ youtube channel… Tim Hickson.

Tim is a writer, worldbuilder, video essayist, bread connoisseur, and person who talks about The Last Airbender probably a little too much. Tim is also an immensely successful self published author. He has an extensive bookshelf of stories ahead of him yet to be realised, but so far has published to tremendous success, two volumes on Writing and Worldbuilding.

In This Podcast With Tim Hickson, You Can Expect To Learn About…

The Light Hearted To The Less So.
John Green & Moments Of Serendipity.
Storybuilding & Worldbuilding.
Religion, Mental Health, Lord Of The Rings… & More.

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Time Stamps With Tim Hickson

• 00:00 – Introduction.
• 02:10 – On The Journey.
• 11:52 – How Do You Explain The Popularity Of The Book?
• 20:19 – Are The Classics Just Survivorship Bias?
• 22:57 – Feeling Self Conscious About Self Publishing.
• 27:25 – Business Ideas.
• 34:20 – John Green & Big Moments Of Serendipity.
• 40:50 – Where Did Your Fascination For Stories Come From?
• 44:50 – Religion.
• 50:20 – Something People Don’t Understand About Tim?
• 56:59 – Mental Health.
• 01:16:05 – Tim’s Take On The Heroes Journey & Jungian Archetypes.
• 01:29:13 – Tim On Productivity.
• 01:41:19 – What Do Great Storytellers Share In Common?
• 01:45:27 – Are The Eagles Deus Ex Machina (& Other LOTR Questions)?
• 1:51:36 – What Fictional Place Are You Most Sentimentally Attached To?
• 1:52:15 – What Is A Moment You Cannot Believe You Were A Part Of?
• 1:56:55 – What Is A Country You Are Particularly Bullish On?
• 02:00:50 – A Conversation Between Any Two People Of History.
• 02:03:17 – Afterthoughts & Ambition For The Podcast.

Episodes Of The Curious Worldview Podcast Mentioned.

• Matthew Dicks – The GOAT Of Storytelling.
• Angus Fletcher – Inventions From Literature & Alternative Take On The Heroes Journey.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The following is a conversation with a Kiwi of YouTube of Fame, the host of the brilliant Hello Future Me YouTube channel, Mr. Tim Hickson. In Tim's own words, which I found on the Hello Future Me About page, Tim is a writer, world builder, video essayist, bred connoisseur, and a person who talks about the last airbender probably a little bit too much. Tim is also an immensely successful self-published author. He has an extensive bookshelf of stories ahead of him yet to be realized, but so far has published in various forums multiple fictional stories, mostly short, but most notably has self-published two tremendous successful volumes of on writing and world building. Tim and I run the gamut in this chat, ranging from lighthearted to the less so. We started with a bit about Tim's authorship, John Green, a person he admires very much, something we don't know about him, serendipity, where Tim's fascination of stories and the construction of stories and the characters within and different world building comes from. We also speak about religion, mental health, Lord of the Rings, and as well, as I will hope you agree, some fun questions interwoven throughout the piece. Alright, and look, even though Tim is a New Zealander, he's alright. He's about to cross the million subscriber threshold. So if you're interested in the wonders of storytelling, your favourite characters from fiction, world building, avatar, Lord of the Rings, and much more, do yourself a favour and go and subscribe to his wonderful channel called Hello Future Me on YouTube. There will be a link to it as well in the chat. And as well, I think this podcast is uh subtly informed by two other episodes, number 47 with Matthew Dix, and as well episode 27 with Angus Fletcher. I think these two podcasts kind of complement the storytelling and world-building aspects of what makes a good story in this podcast with Tim. So do hang around to the end, please, to hear my ambition for this podcast and to hear my afterthoughts, but with absolutely no further ado, here is the amazing Tim Hickson. Mr. Hickson, hello, thank you for joining me. Hello, hello, I'm glad to be here, glad to talk. So your first upload was about six years ago. Among the titles was Evil Penises and Society.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

And Evidence the Earth is flat. Uh you've now published two books selling more than 50,000 copies, you said in one video, but I assume that's high now, which you know puts you top 1% of the publishing distribution. And you have essentially a million followers on YouTube. So if you would please guide me and the audience between here and there.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Oh man, uh, it's a bit of a a bit of a running joke in kind of my more niche community that they'll they'll refer to uh whether Voldemort likes bacon and kind of these old really niche uh ones that only if you really dig into the past of the channel that you would you would know. And whenever people bring it up, I have to I have to cringe. And you'll notice that all of those were filmed in or a lot of them were filmed in lecture theatres when I was at university because I was terrified of people hearing me record, hearing me, I guess it's perform. Uh and you can see how viscerally uncomfortable I was at the time that I filmed those. Uh and I was I was just having having fun trying stuff. I was I've I've had a long history of just trying different kind of small business ideas, I guess, in a way. Oh, cool. Um, you know, when I was a lot younger, I tried to start a jewellery business, funnily enough. Nice. Um I tried that for for for months and it didn't quite pan out. I I I I I I've tried a lot of different things and YouTube was just kind of like one of one of the uh one of the latest. Uh it didn't take off at the time that those videos were filmed, to be clear. Uh it took off after I stopped. So I made I made videos for six months and uh they were just kind of random skits and no one watched them. I remember thinking, you know, I got 60 views on this video, that must be good, of which I'm sure 20 were mine. Um And uh I can tell you from experience that if you set a if you set a tab to reload on a video to count as another view uh over and over again, YouTube picks up on that. I can tell because I tried to do that with one of my old videos when I was that small. Uh and in my last kind of few weeks I was trying, I I said, okay, okay, it's not working out. I will try and do a few different types of videos. And I did kind of a literature analysis one where I did this Shakespeare thing, and don't watch the Shakespeare one. It's terrible and it's wrong. Um, it's terrible. And then I did this one about like kind of moral philosophy, and gang, that's terrible and wrong, and do not watch it. It's it's awful. Uh, there's kind of this indefensibility of um freedom and making stuff you know no one's gonna watch because you don't feel like there's any real consequence to what you make, and so you're a lot less careful about what you say, and it shows. Uh, and then my last video, I decided to talk about how to train your dragon, which is a kid's film series that I kinda liked. Because no one else was talking about it. I was like, oh, this is an interesting question. How did the Night Fears disappear? And I looked it up, no one was talking about it. I was like, alright, I I guess I'll do it. I made that video, no one watched it. No one watched it, and moved on. Okay, I was like, okay, YouTube's dead. I tried that, next thing. Um and then six months later, it it got 200,000 views. And I got 500 subscribers. And I was like, what do I do with this? What do I do with this? And so I built on that. I I created more and more videos addressing that series. And then uh eventually I knew right from the start that I can't do how to train a dragon videos forever, not only because that wouldn't last, but also because I as much as I liked how to train a dragon, it wasn't a passion of mine, you know, like it was cool and I liked it, but I I I wanted to do something more meaningful that was more fulfilling in the long run. And I needed to diversify. So I added in Avatar The Last Darebender and Lord of the Rings, which are kind of cornerstones of the channel and have been for a long time. Um and then things really changed when I added in the writing and world building stuff. Writing and world building being a long passion of mine. Um and that really kicked my channel into a new gear, brought in a whole bigger audience that was in interesting education and learning, and I felt like I was doing something that mattered. Um and in particular, I wanted to make videos that I didn't feel were being made, and it kind of is a response to my own arts degree because I I hated my arts degree. I didn't like how they were teaching, that sort of thing. I was like, I I can do it better than this, I guess. And so I did. Um and uh from there, as I made these videos, I turned those writing videos, I refined them and rewrote them, and edited them, and added in better examples and descriptions and analysis and turned them into books. And it was honestly, it was a gamble. It was a total gamble. You know, I'm sinking thousands of dollars into wit into the into selling these books, and um they would and and turns out they were a massive hit. Um and there's a bit of a funny story about the first volume um going beyond my audience, which I can tell you if you're interested. But um, yeah, I've published two of those now, and um, they've sold about 50,000 copies, and they're just educational textbooks, really. Um, and I'm I'm proud of them in the sense that I think it is good advice, I think it's good good work that's gone into them. Um But uh yeah, yeah, so that's that's sort of where that happened, and things have grown since then, and I have published short stories and magazines, which is really cool, and I am out publishing uh fiction books now.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Mate, it's so so cool, and it also is kind of like quintessential potential of the sort of new distributed economy and people living on the internet. Uh, the amount of serendipity that have you've created and invited into your life due to uh the success on YouTube and your passion in it is yeah, culminating all these different things, which is so cool. Uh, but yeah, tell the funny story in the in the first part.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Okay. So genuinely, 100%, when I made that first volume, you know, I I've always had kind of a expect low, expect have low expectations on your own. It's the key to key to happiness, but also uh on online, um success is never guaranteed. Um falling apart is inevitable, and um the collapse of everything that you've built is uh only a matter of time.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

So on the long enough timeline the survival rate of everything is zero.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, so I uh I I I never expected much. Uh and funnily enough, I remember telling my girlfriend very distinctly, uh fiance now, but um I remember telling her very distinctly when my first writing video came out, I said, this is not gonna go anywhere. This is gonna get me 10,000 views maximum. Um and it got hundreds of thousands, and that was that was a massive change. So expected low, but um same with this this book, this On Writing of World Building Volume 1. I expected it to go only within my small niche audience. I I set my barriers, I think I had to sell 500 or a thousand copies to break even. Um and I was gonna be happy with that because it was more it was also about me kind of understanding the self-publishing process. And I, because of that, I only wrote it for that really niche audience. And of course, because of how my channel is built, there's a lot of references to Avatar the Last Airbender. And everyone else who everyone who bought the book in my audience, in that niche core core audience, knows that. And so they read it and they go, ah, he's referencing Avatar the Last Airbender, it's a thing on his channel, it makes total sense. But then it started to get so popular that it went beyond my audience to people who did not know who I am and were just seeing this writing book getting sold a lot and getting good reviews. And so basically, I started getting reviews of people going, This guy is obsessed with The Last Airbender, a children's show. It it he keeps on referring to it, and I'm going, oh no, like I mean, like, it's not the best example of everything, but it is an example my audience understands, and so I did not anticipate in the slightest that that was gonna happen. So I got a bit of flack from that from the outside audience. But the result of that is that volume two is written for the broader audience, um, and I think that is really better, that really has really bettered the um book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, the the volume one I was looking just before it had like one and a half thousand reviews, five fully filled-in stars. I mean, it's it's like overwhelmingly positive, but then I did read those exact comments. For some reason, Amazon filters right to the top. The two or three comments that you probably don't want the people to read. Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Well, the the the reason is people upvote negative comments more than they upvote positive comments. Um which I brought the commentary. I don't I don't read Amazon reviews anymore. It's it's too stressful. Yeah. Uh but um yeah, no, that's that's just the the nature of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

But how do you explain the popularity of it um going beyond your your very well it wasn't a small niche, but at least your particular niche, because it is a very niche book, right? Presumably the only people interested in it would be who themselves are trying to create a world. Um obviously that it goes beyond that as well, but it you know, to sell that many copies for essentially a textbook is is how do you explain that?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

It's uh I have an advantage which is I have an audience, obviously. Um I don't want to demand I don't want to like pretend like the book is just so amazing that everyone bought it, like everyone just sc just caught got word of how incredible this textbook was and couldn't help but spend money on it. Uh people did buy it partly because they follow me and trust my advice. Right. Um I know that a lot of people bought it because uh videos are kind of unwieldy. Um if you want to find a piece of information, you it's not easy to scan through a video. And and it's it's it's also a little bit harder to retain that information. Um and books just make it easier. So that's why some people bought it, and I think that's why people bought it necessarily more than I was thinking. And I probably underestimated how big that core audience was to start with. But in terms of getting bigger than that, a lot of people buy self-help books, you know, how to do this, how to, you know, how how many how many times do people buy how to start a business books, right? Um, or parenting books, you know, they're all about learning and education, but what the one thing that they all have in common is that they're people trying to further a passion of theirs, right? Something that's incredibly important to them personally in terms of their construction of self and their goals in the in in life. Um and the books really fell into into into that audience, I think, in in many respects. People who want to learn how to write, but aren't necessarily sure where to start. Um or or or or in my particular case, most books in that in that um area are written for uh an older audience. And and what I mean by that is the examples that they use. Like I've got a bunch up there. I've got John Truby's The Anatomy of Story, I've got Awesome Scott Card's science fiction um and fantasy writing, I've got uh KM Whalen's stuff. K and Whalen's stuff is is is is good for what I'm about to talk about, but they use older references, okay? They use references to films that came out in the 60s, they've used uh they use a lot of classic book references. And I think that those are good, you know, these films and stuff are classics for a reason, but they're not actually that accessible to younger audiences. Um they're not actually that accessible, like even people in their 30s and 40s, you know, um, who grew up in the 80s, 90s, um, 2000s, they have an entire different set of stories that that that we sort of draw on and we remember. And one thing I've always wanted to do with my stor with my uh videos is make them accessible to that audience, use references that they know. And I do incorporate classics and I do incorporate those iconic cornerstone stories, but um I want to to people are gonna internalize and understand points that you want to make if you you do it in the context of stories that they know and love. Way easier. Um especially because a lot of the time when people write, they write to emulate stories that they love. They had an experience and they want to create that for someone else. And a lot of these writing books just don't have those references, those contexts that are easy for a lot of younger people in particular to relate to. And so I feel like a lot of younger people, you know, 30s and under, were buying my book and finding my book helpful over some of those older ones, potentially. It's a pet theory. I don't really know, but it is something that I do get feedback on. I know that in in in my comments and stuff, people say that they really appreciate that I use those more accessible examples. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Did you also, as a part of your research or just your own personal interest, have you consumed those classics, the films and the books?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, I mean I've I'm I'm it sounds really obnoxious to say. Like I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty well rounded in terms of my exposure to classic books.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Give me an example of what is a classic. A classic book or classic film or what these other world-building books are referring to.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Oh, um you know, they'll uh give me a second, I'll get one second. So John Truby's here, he's got references to uh Goodfellas, uh uh Priz Prizy's Honor, The Cherry Orchard, um Madame Bovary, uh Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which a lot of people have, um The Odyssey, you know, um Dracula. Yeah, the Dra Dracula, uh, and uh We got Shining here, which is you know, it's a classic book um that a lot of people have read. That's that one's that one's newer. Uh what else we got? It's Chinatown.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

It's just the reason I ask is I wonder whether the references you have are they just as good as these classics, the lessons and the stories within, you know? Uh or is there another element of the stories have evolved, and so the lessons have also evolved, rather than you just simply readapting the the the old truisms for the new stories?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

There's there's two um there's two things I want to say to that. Uh number one, I do not always use the best example I can. Um there are there's there's there's a few reasons for that. Uh I might refer to Lord of the Rings or or or Avatar the Last Airbender, you know, uh for a particular beat. Uh partly because online, on YouTube, you need to make it um kind of clickable. There's a clickability element to that, and people click on things they know, um, and so you want to attract that audience. So there's definitely that element. Uh but also I don't think that I think that you need a good example, you don't always need the best example. And the classics are sometimes better examples to use, and I do use them. If you go through my videos, um, you know, I've got So I've got a list of references at the start of each chapter. Let's go. Handling pacing. So I've got uh The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, uh I've got uh Bear Town by Frederick Bachman. And those are all kind of more modern stories. Uh but then we've also got, you know, Wizard of Earth Sea, we've got uh we've got, you know, references to Shakespeare, uh, we've got references to to to 1984, uh, we've got references back to uh uh Jane Eyre, you know, as well, uh thrown in there. Um so there are I I I try to give a mix of um classic references and uh modern references. Uh and I think that that balance is really valuable, really important, um because I think that returning to the classics, you know, they're classics a lot of the time for a really good reason. They are profound, they are uh literature-changing, they are incredibly important.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Sorry, could it be that they're classics just because of survivorship bias? Not all of them, obviously, but a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Uh yeah, I mean I'm not gonna dismiss that as a possibility. Um There are times that where I think that if books came out now, uh books that came out now came out beforehand, you know, they would be viewed as masterpieces for the ages. Oh yeah, give us an example. There is always uh I I would probably say I'd say things like House of Leaves by uh Mark Z. Danieluski. It's the most bizarre book I have. Yeah, it's the weird, weird book. It's it's incredible. It's amazing. But uh yeah, it it's it's it's absolutely insane. Um Susanna Clark's Perinessi um is is really quite profound. Uh it has actually won awards, so it is getting a lot of recognition for that, which is really good. Um but I mean I I don't know what its longevity will be. Um I reckon a lot of Adrian Tchaikovsky's work, um Children of Time, if that came out now, uh if that came out during the Clark era, during the early science fiction era, he would be renowned as easily the best science fiction writer of the day. The thing is, uh like you look at Those early sci-fi books, they're they were so they were so co so much a cornerstone writing because of the ideas that they developed and introduced and stuff like that. They were new in many senses. The writing, a lot of the time, isn't that good. Asimov is not a good writer, okay? I've read his books. He's not a particularly good writer. His prose is very wooden, his characters are entirely flat, and his ideas, though cool, are okay. Yeah, like they're pretty cool, but I mean I've seen books that do what he does better. And so there are a lot of books that come out now that if they came out then would be equal as classics or if not better. Um so I do I do agree that there is sometimes um there is sometimes a reverence for classics because they're classics and not necessarily because they are inherently better than examples we can provide nowadays. Which is something that I've always wanted to be consciously aware of, and it's why I like um referencing modern stuff as well, because I think there is so, so much good stuff that has come out in the last decade, two decades that uh deserves just as much credit, really.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Take take me back to uh the self-publishing question. Um I was really interested in that as well, because of the volume of the books you were selling, and uh, presumably a lot of the audience being in the US. I mean, you're over in New Zealand. Were you sort of printing them locally and shipping them off yourself? You know, you and the missus. No, no, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

So No no no. Uh no, no, no. That's that's all done by Amazon. Um I there's no printing in New Zealand at all. Yeah, Amazon, Amazon prints it. Amazon has their own press. Uh the second volume was also done through another company as well, um Lightning Source or something. And uh they all print it and distribute it to other people, and it's relatively hands-off on my end. Uh yeah, but uh I did one time, yeah. Goodness, I am not processing 50,000 books. Goodness. I I tried to, for patrons, I said, you know, you guys can buy signed copies for this much, uh, and like 200 of them wanted one. I was like, oh gosh. So I I had to single-handedly package and sign and send off 200 packages, and that was that was a mission. I turned up at the post office with like a huge wheelbarrow, and it's just like I need to send off 200 books, and they they sent over one guy, and he's like, Alright, this is your job of the day. So, yeah, no, I would not want to do that 50,000 copies.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

And what about uh Audible? Are you gonna narrate it?

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Uh there is an audiobook of volume one out, and volume two should be out really damn soon. Are you narrating it? Um No, no, I I So it's really hard to uh it's really hard to to to to do audiobook narration for me because I'm so critical of how I sound. Um it's a lot easier when when you're the one approving it, it's so much easier to have someone else read it because you don't pick up on all the imperfections in their own voice, really. Sure, sure. So when I record a video, you know, when I record a video, if I'm recording a 4,000-word video, it'll take me a couple of hours, alright? And the audio version for that doesn't need to be nearly as perfect as it would be for an audiobook. Yeah, the standard's so high. So it'd just be absolutely awful. I hate going through my own voice. Absolutely not. So I've paid a friend to do it.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Okay, nice. Um, I I want to circle back to the first thing uh that you mentioned. You said that you were recording in a in a in a university lecture hall. Surely that wasn't the most private place you could find.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

You know what I mean the lecture halls were were empty. Um yeah, they they provided, I don't know, they were it was at university. I had to I had to film at university because I didn't feel comfortable filming at home. And generally I had to film somewhere inside. So Because of judgment from the family? Uh like I mean not judgment, they weren't judging me. I've always been a weird kid, you know, they were not gonna judge me, but I felt self-conscious about it, definitely. Um, and they could arrive home at any time, so yeah, no, no, do it, do it at university.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

How how self-conscious are you today when you do it?

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Oh no. Five years into it, mate, nothing, nothing fakes anymore. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. You you you get over that slowly. I I can sit down and record anytime. Um, and it's it's I'm very comfortable on camera now, and you can see the difference. You can see how comforta uncomfortable I was. In my early very early days, I couldn't, I didn't I didn't know the difference between being expressive and being comfortable on camera, and so I would just try to hype myself up and just be really expressive. Hey, how are we going? And so this is what we're doing today. We're gonna talk about this dragon, we're gonna talk about this this chapter things, and uh I it and so so I to sort of get over that nervousness, I would just go one, I would just go ham, you know, camp. And now I don't really have that. Now I'm a lot more measured, I'm I'm very comfortable talking in front of the camera.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

And give me some more examples of your small business ideas because like you said, off air, I mean you're 26, you started YouTubing with 20. Um, I feel like uh, you know, I mean, have you have you worked like an office job ever or or a regular job? Or has it just been YouTube has like paid the bills from from the go and um yeah, what basically asked like 10 questions there, but I I am very, very lucky.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Uh so I at you when I was at school, I tried to get my writing out there. Um, Wattpad. Yeah, I uh uh on Wattpad. I did it on Wattpad. Um Wattpad's like a you put you put writing up online and there's people who read it. That's pretty much it. And I actually had some success there. I put like 50,000 reads on a book I wrote. Holy shit. Um and it's and I and I did it, funnily enough, I did it right through to the very start of my um in some capacity, right through to the very start of my YouTube channel, which is when you look at my earliest videos, you can actually see I say, go check out my Wattpad. Go check out my writing. Because I wanted that to be, I want I thought, well, like if I get a really popular video, a really popular book on Wattpad, I can get a publishing contract to become an author, blah blah blah blah blah. But um I very quickly realized, oh crap, that's not good. I wanna get don't want people reading that, so I deleted that. And so there's a message you can go to my old Wattpad account and you can find thank you very much for checking this out. It's very kind that you thought you would check out my writing. Unfortunately, I'm not prepared to show what I had written here. Uh so that was one thing I did. Um, I tried freelance editing and writing and proofreading for a long time. I actually had some success with that. I did basically on Fiverr and people per hour, those sort of um uh things. It's a very, very difficult industry to break into. You have to you have to do a lot of work for absolute pennies. Yeah, so um yeah, it's it's it's crazy. Uh so I definitely I I tried to do that. Um and I I I did contracts, I did short stories for people, um, for for board games, and that was contract work basically. I didn't make a huge amount of money, but I did it for a while. I did try to run a jewellery business by buying secondhand jewellery or buying jewellery that didn't sell uh at a really cheap rate and then reselling it at a higher price. Um and that didn't pan out either. Um What happened there?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Uh Auckland's local money muscle got involved.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

No, no, no, no, no. It's uh I I sold it on Trade Me, which is basically New Zealand eBay, and um it just I mean people bought some stuff, but I was usually barely breaking even, um, and the supply of jewelry wasn't um always guaranteed. So yeah, it was it was very uh it was very guess guess and wishwashy. I what else did I try? Uh I'm sure I tried other stuff. I tried uh I tried other stuff. I tried when I was really young to become a chef and like make my own mewsly bars. Legend. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah, yeah. Uh but I I was a um I was a lifeguard throughout um after my after I finished school, I became a lifeguard at a pool, which I trained at for my entire life. Um and uh I was also a horror maze actor at the time. So I on Fridays and Saturday nights I would go and be a horror maze actor, and I would um I would I would scare people in corn and dress up and stuff like that. And paid pretty well. Yeah. Um but the lifeguard thing, that was alleywork. Yeah, it was it was a brilliant job. It was a lot of fun, and then the government stole our land.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

So jobs.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Um yeah, yeah. Uh so I did that and I and I was a lifeguard as well, which was, I mean, that's about as boring as it sounds, uh, except for the time that I nearly poisoned the entire pool. Um, yeah. So and then YouTube, I started doing YouTube in like my second year of uni or something like that. Didn't take off, and then in my final year of uni, or or second to last year of uni, it started to really take off. And I was like, okay, if I'm gonna make this work, I need to put on all my hours. And so in my last year, I basically said, I'm not gonna worry about my grades, I'm just gonna focus on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Right on.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

And I did, and um my grades actually didn't take a hit, funnily enough.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Yeah, but you're a smart guy, and like you can pass, you can feign interest at university, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:33

I mean Well, I I I liked law, I actually really enjoyed law.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Oh, you're doing law? I have two degrees. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

I have two degrees. Yeah, I I I have a two I have two degrees and a double major. I've got an uh a law degree um and an arts degree with a double majority. I take back my comment and political philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Nice, wow. So you managed to without putting in much effort be able to pass sufficiently enough to graduate with a law degree. I mean, that's a that's a massive achievement, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Uh I mean, I I yeah, like I wasn't just past like I mean I'm like a I mean like I was like an A student. Like, I mean I I yeah, I I I I I didn't like give up because I could not let myself give up, you know. But I I I was like, it's okay if I get less than an A minus, you know. I sort of let myself have that that breadth. Um I I I wasn't gonna let myself fail anything, and I wasn't probably gonna let myself get a C. I was not doing I was not doing C's to get degrees, but um I definitely was l lowering the standards for myself, I guess, in that final year. It paid off, and by the time I finished university, I was doing um really obnoxious being like I'm an A student. That sucks.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Uh but um yeah, no, I by the time I finish university, YouTube is ready to go, and so I just continue with that.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

And that was, I guess, four years ago. Forgive me for being so specific about the the timeline. I was just really trying to get a sense for you know your story, what it was like.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

2017, I think.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Yeah. So two years into the YouTube graduating you're graduating university, and now four years later, yeah, you've got all these uh yeah, business proposals and opportunities coming your way. I suppose this is maybe something I could that could wait for later, but it seems like a natural time to ask. Um, what's the most sort of serendipitous uh opportunity or serendipitous outcome that has uh been presented to you because of having such a big audience and uh producing in in the niche that you yeah, presumably own on YouTube at least?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

There's so many answers I I could give to that. Um if you asked my 12-year-old self, then I'd say the ability to talk to Christopher Paolini, the author of the inheritance saga. Um, the inheritance cycle. Because when I was 12 years old, I I loved Eragon and Elder Stembersinger and Inheritance like that series that that was my world. Uh and I so wanted to be him, pretty much. Um so if you asked if you have that, uh the most serendipitous moment. It's it's not really a moment, but it's it's more the sense that a couple of times I've had like projects which I've poured my heart and soul into, which would be the complex relationship between mental illness and fiction, probably Azula's psychology, which were just deep passion projects for me, and getting that the reception that they did. You know, there's something deeply personal and validating about putting a lot of effort into something you love creatively and getting that feedback. And it was kind of the first time I'd had that level of positive feedback on something creative. And it's it's really what it's all about, I guess, for me in a sense. And in a more broader sense, it would be that this job has given me the freedom to write. Uh in my as part of my job, you know, I try to take at least one day a week to sit down, sit down and write fiction books. And at some point in the future those are gonna come out, and that is an opportunity that I do not have, I would not have if I was doing a 95 job, if I was doing a law job. The ability to write in the way that I do is just life-changing. It's deeply personal, and it is the thing that makes my life like I can't imagine my life without it, really.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

You you must look up to John Green so much. Like the sort of educational YouTube turned author, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Did you did you pick up on that, like so when you say I must look up to John Green, did you know that I'm a John Green fan? Or is that like you through deduction?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

No, no, no. I I know that in your book on the seven no, sorry, your video on the seven books or stories that changed my life, it featured John Green. Um, and I think I saw on the bookshelf in one of your things. I I mean, presumably, I think it was like four or five John Green books, but just as you were saying it, I don't know. It it it it made me think that No, I I It's a similar trajectory to John Green.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

I don't really I really do like John Green's writing. Um one of his books, Paper Towns, really did deeply affect me, and I talked about that. Uh I don't think he's the best writer in the world, but I don't think that someone has to be the best writer for them to be your favourite, you know, or anything like that. Uh uh the stories just have to affect you. And I really like his honesty in dealing with mental illness, I like his honesty in I like his introspective headwriting um a lot. And I like his um ethics and approach to an online world, I guess. Um and he's been a leader in that area. So uh yeah, I I definitely I definitely have a lot of I I definitely look up to John Green as someone. His my favorite quote actually is from him.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Oh great.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Uh and the the the quote is I think there's uh something about uh knowing something. Uh there's I think there's something about not knowing whether something exists and yet choosing to still believe. That's a lot of life to me. Uh uh yeah, choosing to invest things with meaning regardless of whether or not they have inherent meaning. And he said that on a podcast, just like off-handedly. And that that stuck with me because it is it is so true in the sense that so much of life is is about finding meaning and constructing meaning and seeing where personal meaning is. Um I I have I have in many senses developed that in my own writing. So yeah, John Green is is is someone that I do do look up to.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

And that uh favorite quote of his suppose foreshadows the religious question that I want to ask you soon as well. Um, but this isn't a question, it's just a uh a comment. You spoke about sort of the the one of your favorite um projects might be trying to uh communicate to an audience, very difficult, mental health, you know, and and the theme of it written in fiction and so forth. Uh and your videos uh do remind me a lot of like stories of old sometimes. I think like stories of old is, you know, I don't know what you think about it, presumably you like it, but I think it's just such an amazing channel, beautiful, like it really makes you feel, you know, and um yeah, it's not a question, it's just a comment. Uh that specifically sometimes your channel really reminds me of it.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Yeah, like Stories of Old does some good stuff. We have had a few exchanges back and forth. Uh he he's got a really nice, unique take to uh writing and to to stories.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

And he's one of the few Dutchmen who sound good in English.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Um the the mechanics of storytelling, it seems like this isn't something that you saw was a a decent opportunity on YouTube and then it became an interest of yours. It sounds like just from the get-go, you've been fascinated in that. So, yeah, did like when did it sort of start? This interest in trying to understand the mechanics of of a good story.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

I remember when I was younger sitting down and getting Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone out and trying to understand why this book works. Like I sat down and I took notes and I went through it, and I was like, why is this story resonating with me? Um, yeah. And I did that, I did that for fun. I've always done that for fun. And like when when I would come out of, you know, movies, I would, I would talk to my friends and they'll be like, what did you think? And I'd be like, Oh, I love the literary symmetry between these two elements. I felt like it made the thematic dimensions of the story really resonate a bit. And they'll just look at me and be like, What are you talking about? So I I've always had a very mechanical approach to to stories and figuring out why they work, you know, the the an anatomy of these stories. And um I guess what happened was I was looking on YouTube for writing advice videos in in many senses, and I was I was seeing, you know, it'd be like, oh, how do you write a first chapter? And it'd be like, introduce your character. And I'd be like, Yeah, obviously, what does that mean? Uh and so I decided to look through stories and go, okay, how do they actually introduce characters? Why do these chapters work better than others? And I looked at those commonalities and I broke that down and I wanted to be more specific, I wanted to be deeper. Uh, and so then I presented that in my own video on first chapters. Uh and then a counterpart to this was I did an arts degree with English, and I did a creative writing course, and I hated it. Um I skipped the classes because I mean that's that's a long story, but um basically it was just so shallow, so surface-level look at creative writing, and I was like, w I feel like there's so much deeper we can go in looking at understanding stories. Um and so I wanted to do that, but that love for understanding stories has always, always been there. Um and a lot of that comes from I've always enjoyed literary commentary from the authors themselves, looking at authorial intent. So um I always liked reading, you know, why did they write this particular thing this particular way? It's because they wanted to do this, they wanted to do that, they wanted to uh they wanted to to to explore a particular theme. having that context made me enjoy reading the book more. Um and then likewise at school when I was doing English, you know, I would go out of my way to kind of explore things intentionally. You know, I wasn't just there, I guess, to get an get a get an excellence, which is the you know, the it's getting an A or whatever in New Zealand we have a terrible grading.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

What's wrong with a good old date?

SPEAKER_01 44:30

We don't do it. We have excellence merit achieved almost achieved and not achieved.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

That's absurd. That's dope.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

It's the dumb yet.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Almost achieved.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

But I wasn't there almost achieved. I know, I know. I wasn't there to to kind of like just get the grades or mimic back what the teacher wanted. I liked exploring these things. So that interest has always been there.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

You were or are at least a religious man, but you grew up in a religious household. Did you ever you know I presumably you I don't know read the Bible I've I've never read it but I I just assume maybe you might have it was part of school or whatever. Did you apply this sort of world building critique and worldview and sort of narrative construction to the stories in there?

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Oh man, that's such a that's such a weird question. Um it's I mean you can look at the Bible as a thematic study, right? As breaking down the meanings and intentions behind why it is written why it is and so sermons are in many respects taking a passage a scene a section and exploring their context around the surrounding context and then the intention behind that the deeper meaning than just the surface level what is written there. Uh and that is a very thematic way of approaching it so I did that inherently by the community that I grew up in, you know, going to church each Sunday and reading the Bible. Um and there there were there were definitely times when I when I when I looked at it from a literary point of view there's some beautiful writing in in the in the Bible. There's a famous phrase through a glass darkly now I see through a glass darkly and there's a bunch of books called Through a glass darkly and John Green funnily enough wanted to call one of his books Through a glass darkly and and what it means is basically I don't see things clearly I am biased I have uh misconceptions I have made mistakes I by nature of being a limited human do not see things perfectly and understanding what that means and deconstructing that in the context of our own lives was a fascinating exercise for me and so that that that verse kinda stuck with me for a long while um and then you look at uh you look at um oh my knowledge is fading on me but um there's uh let me give me a second I will look at okay yeah um um hitchens said Christopher Hitchens you know like famously dogmatic atheist but he was like you know it's it's actually quite a good book in parts um which uh you know like because of the writing fascinating book to study yeah yeah but go on back to study oh I no I think Christopher Hitchens was right in that sense that it's a fascinating book to study and if you look at it from an historiography point of view uh and a poetry point of view there's a lot of really interesting stuff in there um Ecclesiastes is is I I'd say James and Ecclesiastes were the were the books that resonated with me most um because they were so grounded in their look at life and what it means you know Ecclesiastes being all about you know life is futile and yet we we life is futile and yet we survive life is misery and yet we find happiness life is uh life is suffering and yet we find peace and it's all about that look into the almost nihilistic nature of the world and constructing meaning for ourselves out of it and finding that meaning where it can. And James on the other hand it's a very practical book about um morality in in the sense that you know what's the point in doing um what's the point in in in in being good if you're not doing good if you're not actively doing good or you can't just be passively good you can't just be step back and kind and listen you've got to go out of your way and actually help people. And so those resonated with me a lot in terms of applying it to my own life um and from a literary point of view they were written in ways that I think uh kind of captured a lot of my feelings. Yeah. So I definitely approached it lit in in a literary sense um as a young way to do it yeah in many many ways. Uh probably I was a young boy.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

As a young boy I didn't really think that much but um yeah yeah yeah as an older person definitely yeah and today are you still religious oh man questions are up in the air right it's uh uh I uh I am as Christian as the clouds are grey okay and I'll leave it at that through the glass darkly yeah there you go there you go um so in this book we've mentioned John Green already we've mentioned Paper Towns already but in Paper Towns uh particularly the theme no in Paper Towns you said that the reason why it was such a powerful story to you was because of the theme of the difference between how you uh think of someone how you think they are versus how they really are and so what are people missing in their understanding of of you? What's where's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Aha nice yeah nice nice twist on that question um yeah okay what are people missing about me? It's you know being an online personality in many senses there is so much of me online uh but people also do have a very cultivated understanding of who I am through my videos. You know everything I say in my videos is scripted. Everything all my jokes most of my jokes are scripted um confidence is in many senses scripted. I am a confident person um I always have been uh and so I think probably something that a lot of people miss about me is they probably think I'm quite extroverted um that I'm quite out there potentially I I am a very introverted person I d seem to be very happy on my own um and I don't need a lot of people you know interaction that sort of thing uh what are people missing about me people know I'm a cat person, people know I'm into board games people know I am uh re I'm into reading people think that I am a really avid world builder funnily enough when people people think about my books you know what they expect me to write they think I'm gonna come out with a really in-depth sci-fi world with huge world building and empires and if it's gonna be a big adventure fantasy science fiction series and to be perfectly honest I like kind of more literary science fiction you know I don't really care that much for big world building I like looking at it from kind of a study point of view I like kind of figuring out how the world works I've always enjoyed lore dumps uh but it doesn't hold that much interest for me to write you know I loved Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation which is not a book big on world building but it is an incredible science fiction book about deconstruction of the self and the connection between oneself and one's past and one and the world around you um and those ideas are what I'm there for and so into people think I'm also really big on fantasy and I used to be I will be honest I used to be I I used to be a massive fantasy reader and writer but I have over the last kind of five years four years three years maybe I have definitely begun to prefer science fiction and I prefer literary science fiction and fantasy stuff which isn't epic fantasy you know big battles and and and and and chosen ones and stuff like that. I like stuff that's a lot more low key um and that really comes out in the in the reading and writing that I kind of do. You know I just finished Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the end of the lane which is a very subtle piece about it's a love letter to the world view of children. And it's not a big it's hasn't it's got it's got very soft world building which is a term I discuss on the channel um about kind of using minimalistic world building that uses the unknown to invite the you to imagine more which is also very much Jeff Andamere's Annihilation. So yeah I I I think that's probably the biggest misconception people have about me and my reading and writing preferences and so when when people come out well I've got two books. I've got a new adult book which deals with mental health of which there is almost no speculative element and people are gonna be pretty shocked with that and then there's also a science fiction book which I'm writing which yes has world building but I don't really care if it's realistic. It's all about the vibe and atmosphere that I'm creating.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

It's an exploration of loss and grief and identity in the wake of that tell me more about the the mental health book is this the sci-fi that you just said you like have submitted to publishers recently so I I it's it's to call it sci-fi would be dishonest.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

It has a science fiction element but it is not a science fiction story. It's no more a science fiction story than I'm trying to think of good comparison. I shouldn't have put myself on the spot like that. Patrick Ness's The Rest of Us Just Live Here is a story about um kids who are going through issues and mental health and their relationships breaking apart and there's one guy who has magic powers basically and those magic powers don't play a key role in the story um except he heals something at the end pretty much and that is it. And that's kind of the same vibe is that it it sure there's a science fiction element but it is only there to support the thematic exploration of uh mental health and self-harm and suicide and what it means to help someone and how helping someone can damage us and how we heal from that how we put up boundaries how we put up um how we kind of manage those feelings of duty and responsibility um so yeah though those those are definitely that that's that's sort of the mental health book it's it's about learning what it means to help and it's about learning the consequences of helping that dragging ourselves into it can mean we feel responsible can mean we feel well like it's all down to us. And that's something that I have a lot of experience with and it can be pretty damaging.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

And so I wanted to write about those experiences I guess.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Mm-hmm. Tell me if it's too personal um but you used to work at the suicide and self-harm hotline. Still do. You've just um spoken about oh you still do? Yeah and you've just spoken about um a book you've written about in the topic of mental health and it's something you've dealt with personally why is it uh such a fascinating interesting maybe the wrong words but that's at least how I interpret it like topic to you and and condition that uh um yeah it's it's it's it's it's a mix of uh past struggles of my own but also being I I've I've been in in in in a relationship in the past where the person I was with was um in a very dark place and they tried to kill themselves multiple times and I was too young to deal with that.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

I was at school and you know I got a text saying I love you but goodbye. I'm going to kill myself now and I I did not know how to handle that and I didn't handle it well um and that had a long-term effects on on me and my my sense of like what I should have done differently. And so that was kind of it led me along the path to wanting to learn more about how to deal with that to get confidence with it. I've also a lot of my closest friends have been in similar dark spaces and so I've always I've been surrounded by it for a long time um and that really drove me to join that helpline and get those skills and I've been with it for about five years now four years five years yeah and and how did you um deal deal with that uh and continue to to deal with it being so close to it uh learning yourself yeah uh learning getting confidence the the biggest scariest thing is not knowing what to do really at least it was for me uh it was this sense of you want to be able to fix it but you don't know how um and one of those one of the things you sort of learn is that fixing it isn't necessarily possible at least not for you and fixing it is a very long-term struggle change uh that you can be there for that you can support but you can't make happen you know and so there was therapy involved and it was very much a journey towards knowing what I can do at what time and knowing what I can't do and knowing when something does go wrong what h what what do you do? Um and having that knowledge feels like you're prepared, you know um and so understanding the most important elements of risk and stuff like that um even knowing who to take them to uh if if possible and watching out for those own thought for for my own thoughts and learning how to handle those.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Um yeah so it it's it's it's a complicated world really um but I am really glad that I have learned in uh what I have and have grown since and yeah I think uh what you said when you were describing the the book that you've written on the topic um you said that the how when you get involved dealing with the fact that maybe you've taken on the responsibility and then you might feel maybe not burdened but you'd feel like you're now in you're now almost irresponsible for what ends up happening. I mean I think that's a like a really good insight um but you're also there at the self-help line uh do you feel like that this is you sort of plunging yourself into um taking on the responsibilities of others and I I I this isn't a prepared question it's just something that came up the the to draw the line between the two points.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

No it's it's doing it in a safe context um because I mean you can sort of I mean I mean I could be brutally honest and look at it as sort of like a making up for my past mistakes or making up for you know like I couldn't do that before I can do it now if you really want to do that draw that sort of line. Putting myself purposefully in in that area it's you know it makes you feel good that you're you're doing that that you're helping that um but you're doing it in a safe context you know for one when I leave that place I can put away what's happening there. Like people ask me you know it's funny the more experienced ones at the helpline you know will be asked you know oh what what if what calls have you had what texts have you been having um you know what discussions have you been having and most of us will be like I have no idea I can't remember any of them because you you compartmentalize it um and that's a good thing we're encouraged to compartmentalize it when you're there you're there when you're not you're not because um you can't spend time remember trying to figure out you know um making you know trying to make sure everything's handled all times and it's so that it was it it it is in many senses the people who struggle with that sort of dynamic in their real in their day-to-day life it's the inescapability of it one of the most difficult feelings is I shouldn't be thinking about this when I have this worry about this other person. I don't know what they're thinking right now, I don't know how they're feeling they could be trying to kill themselves right now. And you are that that feeling dominates your thought process and on top of that there's this sense of I can't be happy because there's that stuff going on. How can I take time to do this thing to be happy when I've got this responsibility on my shoulders and that's really self it's it's really self-destructive in in in in in a sense and so being at the helpline you know you don't you don't have that um it's a very safe way to help but knowing that there is a safety net when you leave the other people will take over um yeah yeah so you you're not like the person's one point of contact and and that and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

Yeah yeah it it that's that tends to be the case uh and I've dealt with some pretty dark stuff at at the helpline um you know I I can't give details but it's people on the bridge type level of stuff um children are definitely the most difficult um but uh it it you're doing it in a set context I wonder how much this resonates uh with you I don't remember where I heard it from whether it was a TV character movie character or book character but it was that um some people just have a nerve-ending expose to the world and that was a way to explain mostly sort of manic uh behavior and and and mood swings and um you know I just you you can uh see it and in in in people and I just wonder how much it resonates with you because um you know maybe I I don't know I don't know it just in the in the context of speaking about uh mental health I think that's a um you know something that always stands out to me and I can sort of see that in specifically the cases of just quite simply like a chemically induced depression people that can be ecstatically happy and then you know terribly down and and sad. You know I think it was just it's quite a beautiful they just have their nerves exposed to the world. It's like it's as simple as that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Yeah some people do have that sort of feeling I I actually probably am not that sort of person I think. I'm very affected by my own experiences but I I I guess I I am not constantly wrapped up in the horrible things of the world which is in a way a good thing. Um but I I try to be aware of those most horrible things, at least.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

I don't think it was a comment necessarily to say, like exposed to world events, but just that they themselves, their own emotions, were uh not under a layer of skin, right? They were they were on the top and therefore more sensitive and and sort of easily rubbed. Like that that I think that was more the interpretation.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:26

Yeah, some people, some people are like that. Um it uh yeah, some people like that, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Look, I I I think I will transition, but just and I'm editing, right? But just so you know, I mean, I I do think it's like an interesting conversation as well, broader sort of uh depression, and I'm not sure what it's like in New Zealand. I mean, I'm in Sweden, uh famously Yeah, I'm in Stockholm. Oh wow, so it's like you know, famously um, you know, one of the highest suicide rates per capita and uh the most antidepressants um per capita, all these sort of stuff. Um and I just I I do find it um really, really interesting. But yeah. Um what do you reckon? Is it worth talking about or should we transition back into world building?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Uh well I can tell you New Zealand has the highest youth suicide rate in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

Does it actually?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Yep. Higher than Finland, higher than Sweden.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

What is the explanation of that?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Oh, it's complicated. I mean, I would be going into speculation on that. Actually, is is Sweden on this chart? Are you guys in the O you guys are in the OECD, surely? Yeah, for sure. Where are you guys? Sweden uh yeah, you guys are a bit. Yeah, we are um yeah, 15 to 19 OECD countries. Uh oh, this is from 2008, though, so it might be outdated. But uh yeah, New Zealand is at 15 point something, followed by Finland at about 12.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

Ki I mean, um, can you speculate as to why that is? I'm shocked to hear that for New Zealand, because you know, the classic explanation for the Scandinavian countries is just the winter depression, you know, a combination of a Yeah, it's like a combination of a lack of serotonin, not serotonin, um the vitamin D, whatever that is, lack of sun, uh, in addition to just being extraordinarily illegal egalitarian. This is me sort of projecting my own theory, but like such an egalitarian culture where you're born being told your whole life you're in one of the best countries in the world, the most equal countries in the world, and so you can do whatever you like. You know, there's like no excuse for not being able to become the person that you sort of know deep down you might could be. And not everyone can become the person they want to be, just because it's a hard thing to do. And so um, because of that, there's like um I I think that like story your whole life and then sort of becoming an adult and realizing it's not that easy and then disillusioning really yeah, and then having such an easy access to um antidepressants, I think makes it worse.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Yeah, you guys have huge amounts of drug consumption, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Drug?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:19

Like uh sorry, when I say drugs, like uh antidepressants, like I think. I think I remember um yeah, I think I remember something like Norway has you know, like is just like huge amounts of uh antidepressants being consumed. Uh shitloads. Uh why New Zealand has such a high youth suicide rate? It I am not an expert in this field. Um I can only really speak to kind of my personal experiences and the data and and stuff that I sort of picked up a bit kind of through osmosis, they're working at this uh suicide helpline. Um It's partly because of high rates of child abuse, I think. Um there's strong correlations between child abuse and suicide in teenage years, um, suicide attempts. Uh and we have a shockingly high child abuse rate. Uh and that's reflected. It's it's complex socioeconomic stuff. Um being in a post-colonial country, um there is uh uh uh poverty elements that that kind of um lower socioeconomic elements that that build into that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:38

Um like an overrepresentation by the minorities of New Zealand.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

Well, I mean it's it's it's it's I mean that's that's not entirely true, no. Because uh I mean if you if you want to look really deeply at um the data, you know, um it's in fact, to be honest, it's probably not worth getting into this particular discussion on the podcast, but I will tell you that um child abuse rates are higher on average in certain demographics, partly because they are in poverty, but if you look at like pedophilia data, it's an overwhelmingly uh uh European problem in New Zealand. It's complicated and I don't want any listeners to get the impression that what I'm saying is child abuse is a result of cultural differences. Um, because I'm not an expert and that'd be a terrible conclusion for me to be coming out with. The the the the reason that I would say is probably uh it's shockingly high rates of child abuse, um, which translates to suicide rates later on in life. Um we don't have a pretty we don't have a particularly good mental health support system, uh, and part of that is cultural. In New Zealand, talking about your problems is pretty it's not like I don't know what it's like in Europe, but um talking about talking about your problems not not particularly not particularly encouraged. Um culturally speaking. It's it's especially among men, um there's very much the sense of uh leave people alone, leave people to their own issues, it's a bit weird to talk about it, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

That's the worst, isn't it? It's the same in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:25

Yeah, yeah. Uh New Zealand and Australia have that in in many senses uh in common. Um and then uh there's there's an interesting statistic, which is that suicide rates are just way higher in higher econom um socioeconomic countries. Um at least by the data that we have. The data of really poorer countries, we obviously is very hard to get. Um you know, you're not gonna get accurate suicide rates from North Korea. Um but uh there's there there's a bunch of reasons for that, which are really complicated, and if you are interested in learning about that, I recommend looking it up and studying that a bit more for yourself because it is a very strange statistic that basically higher economic earnings lead to higher suicide rates on average for some reason. Um yeah, but that's that's uh that's that's why it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:22

I actually I kind of think that it it is a very simplistic take, but just because it's simplistic doesn't mean it doesn't have an element of truth. Um if you look at, I mean, and the reporting's not as good as maybe in the OECD countries, but it's still it's still you can still get a decent a decent slice for uh how people are dying within a populace, right? And so you can then extrapolate out and know how the cause of death. You know, India's a billion people, China's a billion point four. Um there's shit tons of people around the world in uh I mean Mexico as well, 150 million people, and they have famously low suicide rates. And I think the reason why it might be higher in um you know high socioeconomic countries could just be the simple reason that things are easier, there is less difficulty, and when all of your needs are met with very low effort, you start asking the bigger questions, and that's not enough to um I mean for some it is, but generally that wouldn't be enough to sort of make you depressed, you know, looking for meaning in the world and so forth. But uh that in combination with what I said before, you know, sort of being told you can do whatever you want, but then realizing that you in fact might not be capable of doing what you want, um, it's like one of the hardest truths ever. And and um then you have throttle depressants, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:48

Yeah, so suicide is typically connected to things like um massive changes in one's life, like losing a job, um, losing a partner, uh, it's connected to anniversaries, you know, like this is the the time that my my my daughter died, that sort of thing. And I think those I think potentially those moments become more important in a life where everything is in many ways provided. Um you know, you look at Japan, which has a very high suicide rate, um, and the uh the people build their identity around their job a lot more. Um which yeah, it's it's it's pop speculation on that front, but um I I I don't know. I'd have to look into it more to give you an exact answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:45

Yeah, I mean I'm not asking you for the for the for the answer, but just uh generally um to to speculate. But um, okay, let's uh transition back into the well building, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:58

No, of course. We can change gears, go from super dark to to super light.

unknown 1:16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

Um Tim, to make a rather awkward transition, but one we've agreed to make nonetheless. Um in our email exchange, uh, I think you articulated really, really well how um I feel about the hero's journey. Because I thought the hero's journey, well building, you know, Tim's gonna be all over this. Um, and you said Campbell was writing about why stories resonate and the structures of those stories, uh, what they share in common, rather than giving this explicit list for how to write a story, you know, and the writer's journey, which was adapted by Joseph Campbell's uh Hero of Thousand Faces, you know, famously has just got its tentacles into all of the big Hollywood um um stories. You know, I heard in an interview John Favreau say that his movie Chef was just written explicitly from the hero's journey. And you can actually, after he said that, I watched it because it's a great movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:04

George Lucas did the same, by the way. He um he was very, very close to I think he I think he lectured under John Campbell or something. Um really? I didn't know he has some he has some more explicit connection, but he basically just like wrote Star Wars to be the hero's journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

Exactly. But it's so funny once you once you sort of just take a very casual look at the steps and it's like call to action, refusal of the call. Yeah, and then you actually go on the journey, you know, venturing into the the the dragon's lair, you know, as explicitly as possible sometimes. So anyway, I just um uh with that as the preamble, basically, I wanted to ask you about if you could sort of reflect more openly on uh the hero's journey and where it sort of fits into your worldview.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:57

The hero's journey is, as I said in the email, it's descriptive, not prescriptive. Um, it's describing why stories resonate rather than describing how we should write stories. Um to me it doesn't hold that much importance. It's kind of like you know, using the 3x structure in a way. The 3x structure resonates for a really good reason. Um but to tell someone you should write your story with a 3x structure with this explicit structure in mind to me is limiting. It's a quick hand way of getting them to a point where a story is functional, you know. If someone knows nothing about storytelling, telling them do the hero's journey, have a darkest hour, um, have an inciting incident, it's a quick hand way to get something that resembles a functional story. Um but that's about as useful as it gets for me. I think it's actually more useful for someone who wants to understand stories conceptually and then wants to challenge those conceptions. So if you understand why the hero's journey works, you can understand potentially why your story isn't resonating as well as people might think, because, well, it doesn't have a darkest hour. Oh, oh I don't have a darkest hour. That's right. Uh, and people really like darkest hours. Okay, great. Um but also you can look at those story elements and you can rearrange them and you can challenge those um assumptions and you can subvert those structures to be more um to to write the story that you want to write. Uh keeping in mind kind of why people like certain types of stories and finding new ways to achieve that. Finding new ways to achieve that. Um Yeah. So I it doesn't hold that much importance to me personally. Uh I I I I think it's too broad to be applied as helpful advice. Um and it's it's it's a lot more to do with teaching people the basics, I guess. What he wrote was profound for its time because he articulated something in the subconscious, um which is a very interesting thought process, it's an interesting thought experiment. Uh but there's nothing that I would kind of like worship as particularly profound. You know, he's kind of pointing out stuff that's underneath all the stories that we write. Uh but he's good at articulating why they resonate. Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't really know how to answer that question.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:07

No, no, it's good, it's good. Perhaps this one might uh make a little bit more sense, and it does get a touch woo-woo. Um, but what about Jungian archetypes? How do they fit into the world building? And and how seriously do you take them? Um because I noticed, by the way, I I I went on the search of your channel and there was no video with the name archetypes in the title, so I found that quite perplexing.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:34

I don't really know that much about Jungian archetypes. As far as I'm aware, they're a lot more to do with psychology than they are with writing.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:43

Yeah, but they're they're like the whole idea, I mean that's what Campbell was going off, Jungian archetypes. The idea of this subconscious uh subconscious characters and subconscious storylines that play in our collective subconscious. That's why it gets a little bit woo-woo. Yeah, no, it's it's his it's his like explanation of of uh you know theory of everything almost. Why we feel like why we like what we like.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:10

You know. Um yeah, Jungian archetypes, I I I This is such a we I don't know off the top of my head. I would say I would say Jungian archetypes are an interesting way of analysing stories, but they're not like ways to instruct someone to write a story. I I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:38

Um Maybe a way to write characters, not the story as the whole. I mean, because they are like the whole point of the archetype is a character specific, and if one archetype is there, then it sort of requires one to complement it here. I mean it's throughout Lord of the Rings, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:54

Yeah, but like I mean for every story. I guess I'm just I'm I'm I'm quite wary of I don't know. I really don't know how to respond to that. I'm so sorry. Um I've never thought about Jungian archetypes as as a way to. Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:19

I shouldn't have brought up Jung. Well, maybe maybe one day when you come through Switzerland.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

Um more than like archetypes for writing. Um, they're definitely in there. Absolutely, but they're What I will say is that stories that play on the collective subconscious, because I do think that there is a collective subconscious, stories are used to discuss things in the abstract. Um You do think there's a collective unconscious. I think there's a collective unconscious in the sense that human humanity and society as a whole is always having ongoing discussions. Um, and we're often using stories to vicariously discuss those. And we look for stories uh that resonate with things that lack in our lives. Um, you know, there's a reason that some people will, you know, re- be really touched by a story with a with a mother archetype, you know, a grandmother archetype that the where they don't necessarily have that in their own lives. Um and you'll notice that stories say if humanity is in a particularly hopeless period, we use stories to reflect those to those um those feelings and to find meaning. You know, you look at stories written during the war, um, you look at I think it was the myth of Sisyphus, which was written, I think that was written during World War II, or at least it was written when when he was um when he was when he he he was he came out of World War II or something. And uh there's a lot of discussions about how do we process the fact that this giant world war kinda just happened? Um on a on a collective level. How do we face the fact that everything feels like it's falling apart? And so I think that stories do address those. And I like stories that on some subconscious level address things that we are concerned about and personally worried about, and a lot of like epic fantasy doesn't necessarily do that for me. Um, you know, y you look at a lot of epic science fiction, epic fantasy, and and and a lot of them will be really fun stories with great characters and they're a lot of fun, um, but the reason they don't necessarily resonate with me is that they don't spend a lot of their time delving into the deeper psychological stuff that I'm really interested in in reading about, I guess, which a lot of the time plays into that collective subconscious type thing. Um Yeah. And I would think like a a recent example of that would be um things like Arrival or Blade Runner 2049, which are these films that that delve really deeply into uh Blade Runner 2049 delves into a desolated world. Um is desolated a word? Desolated's a word. Desolate is a word, but I think you can desolate something, right? I don't even know. But sounds about right. Uh it's it's this desolated world and finding meaning and the smallness of the individual, which is something that in the Western world is resonates with a lot of people. Um, at the moment in particular. And arrival, you know, reckons with kind of a changing understanding of our place in the universe. Where before there was kind of this utopian vision of humanity will ascend to the stars and will connect with the world and we will be their equals. Arrival makes it so much more alien. Um, with this sense that actually we're pretty small part of whatever's going on out there, and it's it's it's kind of frightening. Um Yeah, yeah. So Sichen Liu's um books, the Remembrance of Earth Past trilogy, does that as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:49

I'm really surprised to hear you say that you believe in the collective subconscious. I mean, Jung did see it as like a a literal shared place where the history of generations past lived.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:03

Um and I mean and you're talking to someone who does not know Jungian psychology that well. Yeah yeah. I think collective unconscious you just mean like society's kind of shared concern.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:17

No but that's that's kind of the funny that's kind of the funny thing about Jung. And forgive me for bringing him up honestly I I I I I I I I wouldn't have if I if I knew like it was an interesting or two but like that's the thing about Jung he he he he was a he literally meant what he said um but he's been interpreted in interpreted in hindsight as being very um metaphorical with what he's saying or allegorical I don't think humanity has a hive mind no but that's what he thinks that's what he thinks okay and and and furthermore he thinks that like we are predetermined archetypes and we will then manifest our journey according to that and it's just anyway anyway that's why you see um particularly with some of Jung's worst takes that's why you find him pretty heavy on like the hard right of the internet you know because it's all about like um predetermined destiny and power and and then you know bad takes of the Ubermensch get thrown in there and stuff like that. So anyway. Alright this is one which I'm sure you keep the cards close to the chest but how many different drafts do you have sitting in your computer of like of different stories? How many stories have you started that have their own unique world characters plot?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:41

It's funny you say you know like I'm pretty sure you're gonna play your cards close to the chest I'm like what on earth is he going to ask after he's asked all these previous questions about the other topics like mental health and religion and slits like I was like what on earth could this be? How deep is he delving? Um okay so uh alright I have um I have half a draft of the first draft of this sci-fi novel that I'm writing I have four drafts of uh four maybe three three four complete drafts of uh of my other book my my NA mental health book sitting there I have um and those were full rewrites um or at least the last one possibly wasn't a full rewrite. The first three were um I have a half of a book of of a stupid Hogwarts but it's angels and demons book I have a few chapters of a um of a cyber cyberpunk dystopian post-apocalyptic steampunk book about twins who live in New Amsterdam and one of them the guy is the smart one and the girl has a mechanical arm and leg and it's like the brain and the brawn and like twins. I thought it was a really cool dynamic and to be perfectly honest I would totally write that still like the whole plan was they were gonna they were gonna they were gonna you know figure out that it's a world owned by multiple corpor it's a city owned by multiple corporations and the corporations have a kind of feudal kind of feudal relationship with their employees. And they have a tense relationship with one another doesn't matter and then they these twins find out that one of the companies is doing like brain transplants. I don't know it's so dumb. And then I have and then I have uh a s fantasy series which is buried deep inside my uh files somewhere it is I have countless countless drafts of that and to be clear I'm not going to write that book. That book is done I went scorched earth on it it is never going to be published um it's even though it's completed two of the books are complete. Two of the two I mean c complete in the sense that I have full drafts shit shit tons of words down.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:26

Yeah um and two and a half books actually I it was the it was you know like a lot of fantasy and science fiction writers that I am around that it's that baby series that they've been working on for years and years and years and I started writing it when I was 12 and I quit writing it when I was 2021 I think um and I rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it draft draft draft draft to the Yeah to the number of times I cannot even tell you how many times I've rewritten it.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:54

Why is it Scorched Earth then?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:57

Uh it's it's complicated but basically I realized uh years ago now that the book was never gonna be finished and the reason for that was I wanted the book to be something else but I wasn't let to willing to let go of the elements that I invented when I was really young. And so there was this tonal inconsistency between the ideas I had when I was like 12, 13 and the story that I really wanted to write when I was like 21. Um there were the holdover of these cheesy bad ideas that I had that I just wasn't letting go. And no matter how many times I was rewriting it it was a cosmetic change right it was a cosmetic change. I can rewrite the beginning as many times as I wanted but it was still about four kids who each had an element that they could control. Um going and finding a magical world that um they imagined was real. I mean I was 12 you know it it it's it's not like the worst idea but it was I was never gonna be happy with it because I both loved and hated those ideas that I had when I was young. And so I decided I was like I need to get away from this or I'm never gonna write anything and so I just decided to stop it. It was it was a learning process and I needed to write other things and so I actually went scorched earth on it after I wrote another book. Um oh yeah I have two other books as well um sorry I wrote I I stopped when I was like 20 or something like that and I decided to write a romance novel a YA romance novel basically the Fault in our stars. Uh it was called Letters to St. Jerome and it was about two people who start exchanging letters without knowing who the other person is by leaving them in a certain spot on the library and they find out who each other are and they develop a relationship and then one of them dies. It's nothing particularly profound. I wanted to write something different and so I did and I loved doing that. I loved writing from a new perspective I loved writing in a new genre until I was like oh my gosh this is incredible. And so I wrote another book the following year uh called uh Little Village East of here which was about uh three kids uh three three Sue me adults like 20 21 year olds traveling Europe and it was about kind of identity about how much of who I am is decided by my me growing up and how much of who I am is my own choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:32

How much of who I am do I really have control over and there was the struggle that I was sort of going through at the time um and I I questions yeah so I've got I've got a couple of drafts of both of those books as well um and yeah so that's that's as that's how many drafts I've got yeah look I that's amazing I I I didn't expect you to say so many fully completed books.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:56

I mean that's hundreds of thousands of words so I mean this might this is pot this is probably out of um out of character but I I would like to hear about if you could say at least you said earlier you spend about one day a week writing how do you find the time or do you make the time if you could say like a bit of a you know like uh not a hustle culture question but just like you know what how do you do it like how do I do it well with my so many words down basically how do I do it I wake up at 4 a.m and only 4 a.m and then you've got to make sure you have your protein shape you've got to get that it's like um it's don't forget the cold showers yeah yeah I like warm showers I love showers I will stay in the shower for like an hour no uh it's um okay I that whenever someone asks me this question they say how how do you do it and I need to say this right up the front I'm paid to do this okay it's part of my job and I cannot explain how much of a help that the fact that I will make money when I do this stuff that it can be counted as part of my work is a motivator. And that means not only as a motivator but I can just stop doing work during the day and write you know I'm not writing in the evening. Well I I do write in the evenings as well and like weekends I absolutely do but I I I can write during the week when everyone else is at work in offices doing jobs that they don't necessarily want to do. I'm so fortunate in having that opportunity and being able to do that is just a totally different ballgame of being able to write um but okay with that out of the way how do I do it um I set myself a low goal for the day and usually that's 2,000 two and a bit thousand words and I and I just take my time. A lot of people will write you know like I don't know 8,000 words in a day or something like that and I I just can't do that. Um I need to think pretty deeply about how I write everything and so 2,000 I usually get if I have an eight hour day I'll probably get two to three thousand words out. I got 3,400 3000 on the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:21

So two days and that's raw words or that's edited good to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:26

Raw words at the moment I'm going through a first draft of a sci-fi novel I'm about 4000 words in um it's actually an expanded version of a short story funnily enough but um yeah so I I set myself a low goal and I just let myself take my time uh put your phone away like throw your phone on the other side of the room don't look at it um disconnect yourself from the internet going to a physical place that is different so for example when I write I don't write at my desktop here with two screens I write on my laptop um because there's one screen which only has my book I don't have anything else to look at uh and I write in a different room because it's it's just feels different. You know when I'm in here it feels like I'm in here to work on other things. And so having that physical space that physical distance a change of mindset is really helpful for me personally. Yeah let yourself sleep beforehand so uh on days that I want to write I make sure I get sleep beforehand because yeah gotta gotta think a lot I was listening to an interview with Martin Amos.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:34

You're familiar with him? No I've never heard of his name Martin Amos uh is a famous British novelist um best friends of Christopher Hitchens uh he wrote a great memoir called Experience I think his most famous book is called Money he's the son of Kingsley Amos who is another really really famous um author who wrote a book called Everyday Drinking which is one of the funniest books I've ever read in my life but um Martin Amos is like a um a savant when it comes to the English language he wants it to be done perfectly you know and he will like throw up in your face if you use a lazy cliche he's like that type of guy um in an interview he said that and he's a full-time novelist right you know that's his job as well he doesn't have anything else to do you know he's not making YouTube videos he's not running down business projects Martin Amos just puts words onto a screen and he said that he'll do about a hundred pages a year and I was like that is a hundred pages a year that's what he said hang on I need to look something up what is Martin Amos's net worth he's worth 20 million dollars that's why he can do 100 pages a year no but it's it's like uh a commitment to I suppose really really good writing yeah I I am definitely someone who prefers to do good writing rather than a lot of writing um because I'm just like if I'm just gonna re- if I'm not gonna get anything from this in my second read what's the point of writing it you know and people go well you just gotta get the words out on the page but what I tend to find is I get the words out on the page and then regret where I took the words you know and I have to go back and rewrite it. Is there a thing in common that all great storytellers share?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:35

I know it's a bit of a not a great question but just since you've spent so much time thinking about storytellers and you've got such a wide um sort of arid aridite knowledge of stories in general is there something that the authors share um that we can like you know um the only thing that would come to mind is a form of empathy um the capacity to write inside the heads of another probably one that isn't you uh it's often the the mark of a great writer for me is the ability to to take the mindset and the way someone thinks that is nowhere near you and to explore that in depth um and there's parts of you or parts of your you and all you're writing I know that much um but the ability to bring someone to life I guess who is not just you is is incredible. You know you look at Dostoevsky and stuff and those characters that he's writing are obviously dealing with stuff that he dealt with in in um crime and punishment and stuff but um his capacity to write from the perspective of other people is just incredible. Shakespeare is the same right Shakespeare's characters are just so full of life and empathy you know like he is not King Lear and he is not Hamlet he is not Othello but th the way that he brought those characters to life is is just amazing. And so I I I I think that is that is the case. You can tell when a writer is just sort of putting themselves in a book or the character isn't really that in depth you know um yeah I think Jeff Vandermeer is very good at that as well. Um yeah I absol absolutely the what would I say is Frederick Bachman's Beertown is great as well with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:51

Yeah that's a great answer. Um I wasn't sure if anything was going to come out of it but I really like that. Do you think empathy is experience or is it nature?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:02

Oh it's both right I mean you you you've met people who are empathetic towards certain things um because of their experiences. Some people might describe me that way in some senses that I'm empathetic towards those with mental health problems but not necessarily other problems. And so there are definitely experiences which make people more empathetic. Some people are just way more empathetic by nature um and that's a great strength of theirs.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:37

Yeah it's a it's a mix Tim listen I have uh I've taken way too much of your time you've been very generous by uh giving it to me as well I just want to say um there's a couple more questions I'd like to ask um one or two on really one a world building and then three that I like to ask every guest if possible so absolutely let's let's go I'm enjoying this conversation this is this is really fun this was this has been really deep questions I've really enjoyed that man me too and and if it wasn't you know recording right there's a there is still a level of sort of performance that as I as the host need to guarantee right but otherwise I would just ask you rambling questions about Lord of the Rings and stuff but maybe another time but um anyway so I um think about well classically like the Eagles and Lord of the Rings and um what what do you think about Deus Ex Machina events? You know where where do they where do they fit into your worldview? Is it is it lazy or I don't know is there something profound about them like specifically to do with the eagles? No don't not specifically the eagles but just generally as a as a I I actually have a video on Deus Ex Machina coming out soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:58

Specifically on whether or not a thing is Deus Six Machina but um Deus X Marchina is it it it it's the reason Deus Ex Machina sucks is because the audience feels like uh the problems are solved without any setup, you know when you've invested so much in the characters and their decisions and their skills and the you've kept track of like the little points of information that the reader has given you and then suddenly a solution to the problem doesn't come from that information that the reader that the author has given you it feels cheap. It feels annoying it's kind of like oh so all of that stuff that I knew all of that all the story the build up what was it gonna pay off to um yeah so there's there's that it it a lot of the times to do with kind of Shikov's guns do you set up the the the thing in the first act that you're gonna use in the third um and sometimes people think Deus Ex Machina things are Deus Ex Machina when they're not um often because something unexpected happens but it's it's thematically relevant. So people read stories differently um some people read stories very literally some people read stories very thematically some people read stories very um uh psychologically I guess and what'll happen is that because of those different ways that people read things they'll expect different endings. They'll expect this to the story to resonate with a particular type of ending and in I have encountered some stories like Avatar the Last Dearbender is actually one example of this where there's an ending that is thematically resonant. It fits with the setup of the story thematically but it doesn't necessarily fit with the literal setup of the the story the things that that that the character has learned and and we've been keeping track of and that gets a lot of flack and criticism. So I I can understand that in those cut cases the Deus Ex Machina it it can be viewed as that but it's also a bit more complicated than people often think and are the eagles Deus Ex Machina Well they don't really do much in the Lord of the Rings. Like they they said like Tolkien was asked you know why don't they just fly and he's just like that'd be boring is that what he said well he didn't he didn't say that exactly um he said he said that it wouldn't make for much of a good story or something along those lines um that's almost like admitting that it was a a weak point in the plot is yeah he said he said um the eagles have been criticized before and um I don't really want to become too dependent on them so I'm just not gonna use them. Yeah like you can come up with oh there's technically lore reasons like the the the eagles are the um agents of Manway and Manway was said that he couldn't intervene too much in the affairs of Middle earth and if they they helped the the ring get destroyed that'd be directly intervening which is what they're not meant to do. They're only meant to subtly do it and you can you can you can argue that but I mean ultimately Tolkien just made a thing that got a little bit too out of hand and he he didn't want to use them too much. That's basically it. Yeah so there's there's that um the eagles they kind of help in the Hobbit a little bit I guess um but but the Hobbit is in a way a fairy tale and Gandalf sort of does miraculous things and that's why he sort of vanishes from the story because he can't help them get Escape out of everything. There's this sort of transition of Gandalf is keeping this this group safe for the while. Um, and as long as he is with them, they're safe. And you definitely get that, because he's this wise, powerful character, but then he leaves. And it's meant to be a tonal transition to oh, now Bilbo's on his own, now Bilbo's gotta make it on uh uh now Bilbo has got to um figure stuff out. So there's that. And then at the end, like the eagles show up a little bit, but they're not fundamentally, you know, like they don't destroy the ring, and they don't fundamentally do that much in the battle. The the the battle changes once the ring's destroyed. So, yeah, I'm not I'm not too hard on the eagles. I especially don't really care because I'm kinda like, I don't know, it's like a small discrepancy, I guess. It's t it it's it's at best a minor flaw. Um it's not something that I particularly care about. And Tolkien didn't actually end up using them that much. So yeah, a at the end of the Hobbit, you could say that they're Deus X Machina, but it was Bayorn that really turned the tide of the war because he killed Bolg. Uh yeah, Bog. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:15

And Bayorn was set up, so and did uh Gandalf say fly, you fools, or or to to literally fly? What what's your uh take on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:28

No, he did not. My goodness, that is the dumbest theory I've ever seen. Like, no, he did not! He did not say that. That's so dumb. Oh, he just said leave, go away, run.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:42

Okay, uh, you asked this question at the end of one of your videos, and I thought it was such a fantastic question, so I want to turn it on to you. What fictional place are you most sentimentally attached to?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:55

Oh, Middle-earth, probably. Like, you can there's a lot of fictional worlds that I love and I'm attached to, but a lot of them are really bad. Like, I wouldn't want to live there. Whereas you kind of want to live in Middle Earth, it's a bit fantastical, it's a bit mythical. Um maybe the Avatar world, theoretically. Um, it'd be between those two, probably.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:19

Uh the only other one would maybe be Artemis Fowl, because Artemis Fowl was my Harry Potter. I grew up with Artemis Fowl, and uh being in Haven City and stuff like that would be pretty damn cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:31

Cool. Cool. Um finally, Tim, these are the three that I try to ask um as many guests as possible. So the first is what is a moment in your life when looking back on it, you can't believe that you got to be a part of it? And let me know if you want more context for that question.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:52

Oh my gosh, that I got to be a part of it. So it's gotta be. It's gotta be so.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:58

You were experiencing it and you were like, How did I be so lucky? Or so how did I get to be a part of this? This is so amazing. You said earlier, sort of having a correspondence with an author that you loved when you were a younger boy. Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:15

That's that one was definitely kind of that was the most visceral example of wow, look how far I've come, I guess. Um, you know, I can be like be a part of it, like, oh I published books, but books, but that's not really the sort of thing you're going for. I would say the moment I turned up and I said, hey, I'm gonna be meeting fans at this particular place at this particular time, and like 25 people turned up was insane. I was just like, oh my gosh, there's people here. That's crazy. Um yeah, so that was that was in that was in Australia, um, when I went to VidCon. Uh so so probably that moment of VidCon or when I interviewed Brandon Sanderson and uh Christopher Palini, those would be the two most visceral, wow, I can't believe how far I've come moments that I've had. Um I'm not I haven't been a part of a huge number of things because I live in New Zealand and being a part of things physically is is very difficult. Nothing really happens in New Zealand. So at best I get like digital versions of that, you know. Um Yeah, and I guess the big wow moments for me tend to be just pondering the things that I get to do on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:28

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:30

You ever thought about relocating, you know, going to America and getting involved in the the big bad gravitational pool of that nation?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:43

You know, I've thought about it, but I I'm a New Zealander at heart. I love living here. It is my home. There's nothing it's it's perfect in so many ways. Uh my girlfriend and I, my partner and I, we want to move to Europe for a couple of years, probably. Um I'd love to go live in Scandinavia in some way. She'd love to live in Italy. Yeah. Uh why Scandinavia? Those are I like the cold and I like forests and I like waterfalls and I like uh yeah, just that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:18

So oh man. You gotta you gotta hit me up when you make that decision. Though I think your uh your fiance actually probably has a better, a better, a better grip on uh the realities on the ground, to be honest. Italy is much nicer place to live.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:33

What? No, that can't be true.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:36

Look, Tim, Scandinavia is is unbelievably beautiful and a great place, no doubt about it. Um if you're if you're coming here for the nature, you probably want to live in Norway somewhere. It's unbelievable, right? But there is a difference between popping in for a couple of weeks, soaking up the midnight, uh, the aurora, the snow, you know, the three, four hours of daylight. There's a difference between popping in and doing that and then copying six, seven months of it. Um, not every day's good weather, most days aren't. My first year I was here, my first winter, December had four hours of sunlight the month. Because there was clouds so thick throughout the majority of the days, and it's so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:26

But I mean uh we also want to live in Germany, so you know, there's there's Germany. Um yeah, I so I have thought about it. I've never seriously contemplated going to America. The I mean I I I work online, I have friends in America, but I couldn't move to the United States. Like it's just too big. It's I mean, I went to California once and I stepped off and I was like, it's just so dry. The air smells bad, you know, the water's terrible, it's just oh my gosh. So I I don't think I could I don't think I could do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:05

Alright, mate. Um, I don't know if you saw, but this podcast is kind of largely geopolitical, which does make this for a for a for a random appearance, but um you know it's only that way because it's an extension of my interest. Ultimately, this show is an extension of my interest. So I ask this question to as many people as I can. Pass it if you don't find it interesting. But what is a country that you're very bullish on looking into the future? Very bullish. Uh you bullish. Bullish on. What's that mean? You think you you anticipate it to have a very bright future. You say if you're bullish on a share or a stock or a company, you think that they've done it before. Yeah, it's it's like uh fundamental investing terminology, bullish and bearish. If you're bearish on something you think it's going down, bullish you think it's going up.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:59

Ooh, okay. Well, I mean, uh has a bright future.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:02

Um you're bullish on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:05

Yeah. So it depends what you mean by has a bright future. So China is probably gonna keep ascending over the next while. Uh it's becoming uh, you know, I mean I'm looking at I'm looking at American hegemony at the moment, and um you you're looking at the way that China is investing in Africa and the like, and it's definitely building its own geopolitical sphere. And what's really interesting is you can look at a map of recognition of Taiwan, of the countries that recognize Taiwan as a legitimate nation, and you can see over the last 20 years it's been ticking down and down and down and down and down, uh, particularly as countries in Africa and the Middle East stop recognizing it largely because of Chinese investment. And so China is ascending in that sense, um, and their quality of life is increasing and increasing and increasing. India is in many senses the same. Its quality of life is increasing rapidly, um, and they're becoming a world power of their own. Uh I mean they are a world power, they're the world's largest democracy. Um but uh yeah, we're we're gonna keep seeing those trends. Um I I think we're gonna see a continual decline in Great Britain's um in Great Britain's hegemony, then their influence in the world order, which we've already seen with the ascension of Germany being kind of the predominant European power now, um, as uh uh particularly under um uh Merkel, you know. But um of course she's gone now, but the influence still there remains under Schultz. Um countries that are gonna continue, I I reckon we're probably gonna see uh I think we're probably gonna see Oh man, it's like hard to put it all down into words. We're seeing Brazil become a bigger power, but um I I reckon I'm probably I'm probably more interested in seeing South Korea and Japan ascending to heights that they currently aren't at.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:23

Yeah. Fascinating. Nice. It's cool to see your your own geopolitical worldview mapped out there. Um there's a great book called uh The Second Continent by Howard French. It it does this unbelievable job at uh what you said there, sort of China buying influence in Africa. Him really getting on the ground for several years, several different countries, and explaining just how it is all happening. And it's a largely a grim picture, as most things with China kind of tend to be, uh, on the international stage, at least. Yeah. Um finally, Tim, this is my favorite question, and um I'm very keen to hear what you who you answer. If you could witness a conversation between any two people of history, dead or alive, no language barrier. So if you were to listen to a podcast, who would you like to listen to?

SPEAKER_01 2:01:23

I would love to listen to a conversation between maybe Shakespeare and Tolkien or Oscar Wilde and uh you know, someone like Ernest Hemingway Um But if I was going political, then I'd love to hear a conversation between um uh oh my gosh, my the name's Blackion, the German unifier. The What's his damn name? The the guy responsible for like German unification. What's his name? On Bismarck. Bismarck. I'd love to see a conversation between Bismarck and uh someone like you know what? Bismarck and Donald Trump would be really funny. That'd be hilarious. So let's go with them.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:46

Nice! Love it, Tim. Love it, love it. And uh, yes, thank you for giving me the time, despite my uh really unstructured interview today. I promise you they're not all like this, but um, I I really, really, yeah, I appreciate you uh give me the time. It's it's uh it's a real it's a thrill. Yeah, it's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:07

No, thank you very much for having me on. It was a it was a real uh real pleasure. Um and I and I like talking about some of that deeper stuff. It was it was it was great to talk.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:17

So thank you again, Tim, you absolute legend. Um just for the audience who's still listening and still hanging around, you know, we were in correspondence for a while, and this was actually recorded shit six months ago or something. Um, and the intention was to just talk about Lord of the Rings. But the more I dove into his channel and the more I realized um the depth of some of his videos, um, they kind of touch you. Some of them are very emotional. And as you saw with pieces of this conversation as well, Tim does have incredible depth and um is yeah, I really liked him. So thank you again, Mr. Hickson Brew, and uh congratulations on the million subscriber threshold, which I'm sure you'll shortly plunder down. Now, my ambition for this podcast, what is my hope for this podcast? My ambition is to corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities, no matter what country it is that you're listening in from. Now, key limitation to this ambition is the fact that there is no genre or category for eclectic curiosities. There is general interest, um, but that doesn't quite cover it, I think. And there are kinda there are shows like uh um how I built this or stuff you should know that just completely dominate this category. So if I am to somehow reach this ambition, I would just implore you, please, my dear, dear, dear listener who's listened this far in. Oh, and as well, I should say, to all the new listeners who potentially wanted to uh who potentially learnt about this podcast because of Tim, swipe up your phone and give me the juiciest, healthiest review that you can muster within your Spotify application. The same for Apple, the same for wherever you're listening to the podcast. Feed the algorithm with positive signals that the Curious Wovel podcast is being enjoyed and listened to, and share it with your mates, share it with your dog, share it with everybody that you think might be interested in this show. Again, Mr. Hickson. Thank you very much, sir.