Episode 9 - Joy
[00:00:00] 
This is a chapter of my unpublished memoir, Dance Me Through the Panic called Mercy Street. And it's about my agoraphobia , and my fear of flat places and in this chapter, my friends and I are about 23 years old, and it's 1993. 
Mercy Street. 
I awoke. A faint star in my window stared at me, a silver, constant eye.
Jody and Jim were asleep, having crashed at my tiny apartment all weekend, and somehow they'd frightened off my panic. They gave my fear of open spaces and the night sky a short bout of amnesia. I scratched at my balls. Friends are medicine. I didn't want my medicine to leave, even though I hadn't said a word to them about my secret.
But a door had opened in my head recently, and at any time, stars and the universe could rush in. At this time, I had no language or [00:01:00] mental framework to process this unreal reality. And now, from afar, I see myself like a marionette figure, lying on this bed, surrounded by my two friends. And though I had control of my life inside my apartment, if I walked out into the great theatre of the outside at night, or into a vast open space like a parking lot or a beach shoreline, I'd transform into a petrified wooden puppet to be pulled by strings light years long, shaken and twisted.
Jim woke, crammed beside me, coughed, Move over, Jesus. You know, Jim said, pushing his legs against mine for more space. As handsome as you are, I don't want to have sex with you. I laughed, happy to talk away my thoughts. Jody was asleep inside a rolled up carpet, hair a sleeping vole. Empty cans of beer around him sprouted cigarette butts.
Well, I [00:02:00] don't want to have sex with you either, Jim, I said, pushing his legs back on on his side. Jim and I were fully awake now talking about this, almost emotional, giddy about the lack of wanting to have sex with each other and reconfirming we were like brothers. 
We recalled our trip out west, talked of our girlfriends.
We rarely talked of Mattawa, where we had grown up. Where I sang lying back on my pillow. Ah, sing that once more Deegs. Where you're Peter Gabriel, Jim said. That's Peter Gabriel. You know, Mercy Street was a poem by Anne Sexton first, but it's more Peter than Anne. We'd played this musical game for years.
Where you're inside out. We sang together, Jim harmonizing. 
Dreaming of Mercy Street. Where you're inside out. The single [00:03:00] star went to sleep outside the large window in the branches of a maple tree. Jody's hair stirred. Dreaming of mercy. Our voices still soft. In your daddy's arms again. Boys, Jody said, pushing off his carpet.
Dust rising up. No singing before coffee. You know the rules. You know the rules. Remember waking up in Nice on the beach, I said to this man below. I remember sand in my mouth, wind, the smell of your feet. Jim said, yawning and getting off the bed, I should have gone with you guys. He lit a smoke at the beer can filled table and prepared a bottle toke, laying the hash on the lit cig end, the oily ember starting to burn.
And when we woke up, Jody said, lying back, as if on that beach in France, hands behind his hair. It was so hot, but we found that shade, remember? Best shade. Best shade I've had since 1976. [00:04:00] Jim said, don't make me laugh when I'm trying to get high. We all smoked up and I made eggs. And then at the doorway, Jody handed me a copy of The Wars by Timothy Finley, my new favourite book, he said.
Hey guys, look, you can totally crash another night, I said. Trying to sound easygoing. But they had to go. After they left, I lay down, stoned and sleepy in the deep quiet. The city became strange. In my stonedom, and to calm myself, I thought of our night, and how after we'd played catch under the floodlights, three of us had read to each other, and listened to music until it was almost dawn, and said over and over again, I love this guitar solo.
You gotta listen to this song. This piece of music. Hey, read this. It's beautiful. Check this out. Partly lying there stoned that morning and fearing going outside alone, but I think mostly long after this time, I realized that these songs, classical music, poems, books, [00:05:00] were our expressions of love. I played them requiem moments, Mozart's and the Kyrie of forays, and then cajoled them into quiet to hear the third movement of Beethoven's late A minor quartet, the entire opening before the change.
The most beautiful shift in music ever written, I'd said, cocksure, so freed from panic or otherworldliness, but truly wanting them to hear the motif shift from darkness to light. At some point, Jim took out his acoustic and sang Bruce Cockburn's All the Diamonds in the World. And before dawn, Jodie read to us from The Lord of the Rings.
All of these offerings, I think now, were emblems of our inside worlds, our inner cities. The old houses we still lived in, inside our minds, but had never shared with one another. Our streets of mercy, which were dark even to us, like burned out street lamps, but which we invited each other [00:06:00] into through pages and melodies and lyric.
Lyrics. Hey, man, listen. Listen to this.
 
 
Welcome to this episode of What Kind of Man Are You, the podcast about men, masculinity, and how happy we are to be men. Right, Degan? 
Absolutely. this is joy. Welcome to joy. 
Welcome to joy. 
And this is also going to be the last podcast, in our first season, so we're going to end off. We did, shame, shame, shame last time, and now we are opening our arms wide, and 
heading into Joy.
You may recall in an earlier episode, Degan was like, please, can we [00:07:00] talk about joy? So, we're going to devote a whole episode to it. 
Beautiful. 
Do you want to talk about that first, that opening? 
Yeah. 
Until now, I've been reading a poem from my book, What Kind of Man Are You?
Because this is the last episode and we are launching into other universes after this. On the same subject, but we're going to look at the form and how we're going to do things for the next season we thought we would just try a different form. And so I have a memoir which I have just finished.
I am now just sending it out to publishers and the rest of it and it is called, Dance me Through the Panic. And it's a study, about panic and kind of memoir about my own experiences and becoming a therapist and that sort of thing and so I chose this segment because this was myself and two friends who, were, we were in our early 20s after I had begun having panic attacks and I had never shared with anyone what was going on, but [00:08:00] I really just wanted to be around people, I wanted to be around my friends, and so this was this night of us it's the morning after, but me thinking back to, all the connections, what we were sharing.
And so we weren't sharing, joy, of each other's friendship in a very overt way. But we were sharing songs and poems and music and ideas. And that was really, I think going back to the very first episode of these podcasts, when we talked about often men having objects that they congregated around to connect, we were sharing these, lyrics and our favourite moments.
And that was a kind of love. So when I think back on that time, first, it was like a bomb, B A L M, for panic. And it was also incredible joy, to, I think back of, how many times I've shared with you, Chris, songs I love, or, TV shows, or moments, or what have you. And yeah, it brings me a lot of joy to, to think about the way I did that as [00:09:00] a teen, or a man in my early 20s.
Yeah, and I think,
it's really easy in these days to, focus on the problems of the world, of, issues of culture and wars around the world and, being a man is I do believe it's hard to be a man these days. So we just want to end this season on a high note and talk about some positive things, maybe that, we feel about being men.
And it's funny, just to say, when you say it's hard to be a man, it is sometimes, but I actually, Really feel filled with, I have a busy life with kids and jobs and writing and everything, but I feel an enormous amount of joy in life. Awesome. 
Yeah, I really do. yeah, 
Do you want to, do you want to maybe, talk about where that comes from?
Why you feel that way? 
Yeah, 
 I am in my early 50s and I feel like there's something about this age [00:10:00] that feels like wherever I spend my energy, it's the place I want to spend it.And I think so much of my earlier life had been trying to figure out where to put my energy and it just feels incredibly focused.
And there's something about that, that,is rich, and, there was the writer, Annie Dillard says, what you do with your hours is what you do with your life. And so there's something about being attentive to those hours for me that, is when I reflect back, it's oh, life is good.
I'll tell a little story that starts off in a negative way, but, I hope ends in joy. 
I guess it was June of 2023, so a little over a year ago. I was let go from a job that meant a lot to me and [00:11:00] there are lots of reasons why that happened. and I'm, not I don't know that i'll ever be one of those people saying that it losing my job was the best thing that ever happened to me but I do think it was for the best and certainly, the way things were going, it was probably better that I wasn't going to continue there.
And it's, so it wasn't terrible, but I set about looking for another job and figured, how hard could it be? I've been in had really progressively more responsible roles for most of my career and, quite familiar with the field with my field and very experienced, but it was not a good experience.
 It was very challenging, very demanding, very rough on my mental health. And, in all of this, I was able to find some joy. Like one [00:12:00] thing I will say about, not having a job all of a sudden, there's a level of freedom that is, uh, kind of unrecognizable, maybe for the, like that I hadn't felt in 20 years.
So there, there's one piece. But, I got lots of interviews and I put on a suit more times than I care to remember, but,nothing was coming through and I was getting frustrated. And back in February, I was, I had really had it. And I said to my wife, something's got to change.
And we were going on a trip and I said, when we come back, something changes. And, that was, 
Didn't you have a dream? 
Oh, did I have a dream? 
You told me that you told me. Yes. 
I don't remember it though.
I might remember some of it and [00:13:00] it was immensely powerful. And I think it was around the time of that trip because there was, I think you were either doing something with a large group of people and either leading or,
it was something that there was some immensity to it and Yeah, anyway, I remember a dream. I remember a dream shaking you and you talking about that as an impetus to actually begin this podcast or begin thinking differently about how you can find joy in a different way how you can find your life in a different way.
That's right. There was a dream. I don't remember the details of it, but it did have a feeling of both ending and new beginnings and when I came back that was when I you know, it was March of this year. And that was when I approached you about doing this podcast. [00:14:00] And, I started getting fired up about life again.
And, and I've since, little, little bit of, insider information here. I have since approached other people to do some other podcasts, so stay tuned for that. I will. I will, as those things develop, I will keep people informed, butI've been getting really excited about my work again.
And I went to see So I go for a monthly massage, and I, it's one of those, it's pure joy, self care, and my massage therapist, I've gotten to know her pretty well and,one month I was just talking about what a hard time I was having, but I started talking about this.
These podcasts that I'm working on, I'm just like, Oh, wow. [00:15:00] That's so cool. Blah, blah, blah. And I started telling her about it and, anyway, I,month later I went back and she's like, wow, you really look. Like a different person. And it's because I'd started recording with you and I was, I was feeling joy about working.
And, as much as I tried, I really tried to not be angry about losing my job. And it's not that I wasn't trying to be angry. I, you can't really stop that, but it was more like I was trying to reason with myself that, this is probably for the best and it's all going to work out in the end and blah, blah, blah.
And it, sometimes it worked, but sometimes it was not effective. Sometimes I was just really angry. I was upset about not getting hired. And here I am, feeling very much,the, in control of what [00:16:00] I'm doing next and, talking about a subject that you and I have wanted to explore in depth,for decades.
A large chunk of our friendship. 
 What strikes me here is we're talking about a hard earned joy here we almost like and I don't want to make a cliche of it but this is like end of job like when we talk about end of marriage, something, you know those kinds of moments where we are forced to reinvent ourselves And, we literally have two roads.
The, my memoir is very much about these subjects as well. but, so I've been thinking about it a lot. And this is this well earned joy where you, lose this job and then literally reinvent and say I'm going to do this and this is the beginning of the road of your reinvention, right? There will be many right?
I know and I know you we you and I have started a magazine together. You're a writer. You've worked a number of jobs. This is now another [00:17:00] iteration of you and I think that just to say, there's a couple of books that come to mind, one, by, Thomas Moore, M O O R E, called,IDark Nights of the Soul,and it, I read that book at a time where, when I was, reinventing myself, moving,after my marriage ended, and that was a very, powerful book and that idea of you're going into the forest like Dante's famous line, you know I walking I'm walking I walked into the dark forest and I was not sure which way to go. You know, and that's where you were at in February and in March you find, you know some light through the trees and there's there's something another phrase for this period of time like the middle years.
There's another book called The Middle Passage by author , James Hollis, which is very much how do we change. And I think that's this really deep, turning into, okay, what, how will I, where will I go next?
And, there's that, and then there's like [00:18:00] the dailiness of joy, right? There's like, how do we find it? And I've been reading a book called Inciting Joy by Ross Gay, R O S S G A Y, Ross Gay. he's a poet from the United States. And, I wanted to read a little bit. he asked in this book, what incites joy?
And he answers that and says, I'm going to talk about pick up basketball and skateboarding and school and time and gardening and music and things like that. And then he says afterwards, what does joy incite and he says in the end joy actually incites unbounded solidarity like the joy itself leads to connection because it draws people in and it amplifies itself and grows but I wondered if we could switch for a moment to what you've expressed here is this big, huge, tectonic plate shift toward a new continent of joy.
And these are the daily things. And I wonder, what gives you joy? I thought we could just exchange some pieces of things, [00:19:00] moments that have given us joy, particularly as men, and, or seeing men, being joyful in life. 
Sure. Well, you start. 
Sure. 
I've been thinking About what makes me just light up thinking about being a man or men in general, and I think one of the themes underneath is that, the script which we talk about so much, it tells us that we're not too overly enthusiastic about things, right?
 We don't express ourselves in an effusive kind of overly joyful way often. So whenever I find, a man expressing something in whatever way, shape, or form, that is about something that really means something to them. I'm always really touched by that. And I wanted to give a few examples.
So this was probably a couple of years ago. I was biking through, U of T down from Harbord street,through, is it King's College Circle? Yeah. Yeah. King's College Circle. And there were some arborists there with their big machinery and the ladder [00:20:00] and, the chainsaws and, I was walking or biking and I stopped and, looked up at these trees and I just said to the person, are you cutting this down?
Is there something wrong with the tree? And he just stopped and said,put his chainsaw down and said, These are the most beautiful trees in the city. There's not a chance. We're just trimming branches. But there was something in his eye as he said it. This deep love with it.
And I think you don't often hear that, especially from a stranger. And I just felt oh, like I love that moment. And so I've been writing down a couple of beautiful ones like that. Oh, these are ones for me, like what gives me joy, finding a great shirt at Value Village, like I can shop all the time, or I do have a very good pair of Italian shoes that, that I still love and they're falling to pieces, but I still get them like re sewn at the bottom because they feel so good, brown leather and, and they're like, honestly, 20 years [00:21:00] old.
And I remember getting, I haven't shopped, I haven't bought myself new clothes for a while, but a beautiful blazer from Zara on special for $200, that just, that European fit, there's something about that, I remember a long time ago, do you remember the site, the Sartorialist?
I don't know only because you told me about it. 
Yeah, it's just a site around men's fashion, but Includes the most wonderful some of it is Milan and Paris and you know think okay This is like these people have a lot of money, but there's also people who just dress really well that really express themselves in this way.
He does men and women and I would always go through the men's fashion and just be taken with these people that were just wearing clothes that really express themselves. I thought there was a lot of joy in that. And I, say a little something else, this is maybe less specific to a particular object or something.
But I think, going back to the, piece I read, my friends and I were listening to each other. We were offering something and we were listening. [00:22:00] And I think,to be really listened to in what you're offering, either yourself or something that you love. It's such a human need to have that exchange.
And I think there's so much joy in that, to share it and to receive it. There's a line of poetry,listening is a form of love. That's from a poet named Spencer Rees, and so I, I just think in that the sense of, thinking about our friendship, thinking about, the act of therapy, which I think in his way is a kind of form of joy and love.
There's something. in really being heard, and I think for men because we don't express a lot when the light comes through the cracks, you know these little places I feel I really stand by the warmth of it, because it feels special. 
Apropos of nothing but you know that line about what is it something about cracks?
Oh, yeah There's a crack in everything. That's where the light gets in, Leonard Cohen. Yeah,
Leonard Cohen is credited with it, but you know who said it [00:23:00] first? 
No. 
Groucho Marx. Oh yeah. I had no idea. I looked that up once and it was like
Talk about ambassadors of joy. Yeah, exactly.That's beautiful. Yeah, he sings that. You can steal much more readily in songs I think than you can in poems, it's funny we have that because that's from, I think Democracy, the song. And you can, you can borrow.
Although I'm just looking at a novel here of W. G. Sebald, and he said you can steal from anything. He said it joyfully in the interview, so maybe he's right. 
So
Ross Gay was a, football player for about four years, and talks a lot just about,the violence of football and also the camaraderie. And there was a moment where he's been hit really hard, on the field and he's, wavering and his body is about to go down and his colleague, his teammate just touches his back.
[00:24:00] and rights him, and he stays up and there was no eye contact, no talk about it afterwards It was just that and I think I felt a lot of joy in that and this is I think very much about when we talk about being socialized as being men We've talked so much in this podcast about how the lack of expression is difficult You It's difficult in relationships. we, it's,I've been talking a lot about the need to go in and have this heroic journey inward and be able to express ourselves. A
nd I think in thinking about this podcast, I quite love this understated way that men can be. And it feels very calming to me.
That they're these gestures, which are, gestures of love or care or support, which don't have a lot of fireworks to them.so I, I feel like I, I think I enjoy, yeah, that part of being a man. 
Yeah, so what I would like to do is maybe take a break right now. 
[00:25:00] Yes. 
And then we can come back and I will share some little bits of joy. 
Wonderful. 
Okay, welcome back to What Kind of Man Are You the Joy Edition. So Degan my turn I There's a, yeah, you were talking about,moments of joy in the everyday, I can think about that in terms of, there, there are lots of ways I experienced that, and one of them, is, cooking,and there's a real, there's a lot of talk about how men like to work with their hands.
I think in general, working with your hands has a, it's just something so different from working with your mind only. And, the stereotype of men is that they like to do woodwork, or they, I don't [00:26:00] know, like to build things, or whatever, and I don't like to do any of that, but I do like to cook, and I mentioned to you unrecorded, that I had a, that Mary and I had a guest, a student from Afghanistan who stayed with us for a week until she could get into her apartment.
And beyond it being a really eye opening experience and having a chance to host someone who has, had a vastly different experience from myself. We talked about, of course, we talked about food, and, she, she mentioned Biryani, and I was intrigued, and she was talking about what it was, and I've had Biryani before, but only at a take out, I think at a takeout Pakistani restaurant.
I really liked it, but it had been a long time. I was intrigued. So I [00:27:00] decided to try it out and she couldn't believe that I was trying it. And, I had so much fun doing that. And it was just so nice to, because one of the things we were wondering is what should we feed her, It's gonna be weirded out by our North American diet orI will say she did take to maple syrup right away. So we didn't really know what to do.
she likes bread. She like anyway, the We worked it out, but I really felt oh If I can do this right, it'll be a treat for her, and I think she really enjoyed it. At least she said she did, so she's either very polite or,genuinely liked it. Didn't she say you over spiced the rice, but I think she genuinely enjoyed it.
Yeah, she did enjoy it. She exactly said that. And also I put raisins in that in there and shouldn't have been in there. But, but I really enjoyed it. and it tastes like it tasted really good, but even the act of making [00:28:00] it, I was, I just, it's, cooking is one of those places where I really feel, you know that the that sense of flow right where I'm it's probably one of two or three activities I can do where I can completely immerse myself in it and I just love that feeling where everything, your whole attention is focused on that, and,just making sure, I didn't have all the right ingredients, so I had to, improvise, and that, I just, I love that about cooking,and then, having people like it or not is great.
is a bit of a reward, but it is cooking is one of those things for me that really is its own reward. 
Yeah. 
And it makes me think when I was talking about this Inciting Joy book, and, he talks about what incites joy. and then what does joy insight like?
This idea that, you love it and I've come over to your house many times where you've made an [00:29:00] incredible meal, and that's joy. 
beyond, into others. 
That's really true. there is that feeling of, sharing what you've done with others. people you care about. and there, there is a joy in that. It's almost it's joy piled upon joy.
So when I'm, I, when I'm cooking that's definitely a time I really do feel that. And in fact,there was a time where I would get all freaked out about not getting something right and especially if I was having someone over. And some of that is just building experience and confidence.
But also I think there's a lot of letting go that you need to do with cooking because, sometimes you are going to screw up a step or you're going to forget to buy a ingredient. 
That is so true. You talk about [00:30:00] ingredients, like how we find joy, in my work at Michener, the Michener Institute as a counselor, I'm often working with people who are perfectionists.
Students who are perfectionists and it seems like literally one of the ingredients of joy is to let go of this idea of something being perfect. Because you are bound into this like tightness with this thing that you want to produce whether it's a mark or project or meal.
And it's like the joy gets drained out of it, and this idea that can you be, be gentler with yourself and absolutely enjoy it. 
I think that when you are not fully aware, you think that perfectionism is just a desire to, get it right.
But perfectionism is actually an impediment to getting it right because the idea that it has to [00:31:00] be perfect becomes like the your obstacle. 
And that's definitely something I let go of early on with cooking but even with writing even with podcasting, you know, these sorts of things likeall the stresses I had about what if I do this wrong?
Or what if I do that wrong? This is a turn. T
his is a turn chris But okay, I was thinking about poet feeling being filled with joy and the poet Walt Whitman Great American poet who writes these long lines, right? That's very much his style and I've got a couple of lines and I want to read them and I feel like he does have of course a beautiful measure as a poet, but he also spills over the edge of that and I feel like he's a poet, I think about the American project at least you know from Mayflower on the colonial male American project and he I think he was like the [00:32:00] great heart of so much of that, and I don't think of him as a perfectionist I think of him as this, singer of the body singer of the soul and I just want to read a couple of lines these are well known lines, but "I sing the body electric The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them."
And later, "the love of the body of man or woman balks account. The body itself balks account. That of the male is perfect, that of the female is perfect. The expression of the face balks account. The expression of a well made man appears not only in his face, it is everywhere. in his limbs and joints also. It is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists."
And he goes on, and Walt Whitman, of course, was, loved men. He took men as lovers. and, so he's paid a lot of attention. But there's something about these kind of, flowing lines, that to me seem like he's a [00:33:00] man who took incredible joy in the world,and in all aspects of it, he has a lot of list poems where he'll talk about, the indigenous peoples close to him,the men who are soldiers, he was writing around the time of the Civil War, when you think about it, a time of incredible unrest, and somehow he kept seeing them,
the joy, the possibility, the beauty of existence, and, anyway, I mentioned that because he seems particularly, a poet of light and that. We were talking about beat poetry earlier, Ginsberg and Kerouac and all those, and he almost seems, in I Sing the Body Electric, a bit like, a really early beat poet, and and he did, he, I think he, he didn't hitchhike around because there were no cars, but he jumped on trains and he, he wandered and he spent time with the men who were fighting and all the rest of it. So he, he was one of those wanderers in that way,yeah. There's something beautiful there. I've been thinking a lot about the United States [00:34:00] and America and,there's, there's always so many sides, right? You think about Donald Trump who seems so joyless, talk of him recently, does he actually laugh, except when he's, really laughing at somebody else or demeaning them in some way, but then you have the opposite of that in this sort of, in, in America, and which is this abundance, this incredible,
incredible joy. 
In fact,that is a primary message of the Democratic Party right now is joy. And they're using it strategically. and, And thank God it's about time, let's make our politics about something other than grievance, And you can feel it, can't you? You can feel the change really as soon as Biden dropped out that sense. It's a curious piece, isn't it? How the waves of hopeand for something different and a message that is not, two ancient men battling on stage, it's lifted up the continent, I think it in a [00:35:00] way, in a strange way, it for us who are, who, sleep beside the, the lion, the,the elephant, stand on the 
sidelines.
Trudeau had his sunny ways. I'm not so sure he's going to bring sunny ways back to, the next campaign. let's hope for some joy in, in next year's election.
 
I wanted to get back to, cause when you talked about Walt Whitman, a lot of that energy actually,a lot of people get their joy from,their religious community or their religious,beliefs and faith.
That's not really something that is true for me, but I will say that I find a lot of joy in finding peace. 
huh. One of the things that I do sometimes is I will, you were [00:36:00] talking about people you read, I was thinking about the Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh, And I would say that he died recently, but I don't think that he would consider it dying.
He would consider it continuing on to his next, existence. But,
he talks in very simplereally about, like you said, finding the joy in every day and, sitting and watching a leaf in the fall as it clings to the tree and then separates when the wind just blows it strong enough and like floats to the ground and you know those kinds of things for me just reading that can bring me to a place of peace that gives me a lot of joy.[00:37:00] 
And sometimes I'll put on a YouTube of him talking. I don't even listen to what he's saying. His voice is just so easy to listen to and so both assured and calm at the same time. It's something that really, takes me right back into my body, brings me to a place that feels like home, no matter where I am.
And related to that, the sense of body,I talked about using my hands, but also I, I like to run and, a lot of people will listen to music when they run because, it keeps their energy up and it, It can actually be really helpful in maintaining a certain pace, but I really love to run and I love to run for a long time, although I'm not as good at it as I used to be.
And I just love that feeling of moving [00:38:00] in space, and my body being something that can take me to other places and,that awareness and you have these, because running, distance running is a, also a mind game,you have to talk to yourself and say you can keep going, or listen to your body and say, okay, the, there's something wrong, can I run through it, or do I need to go home? 
And there, there are moments of just, again, it's that feeling of just being in myself, being, where, who, how I want to be, and, nothing else. 
 And, whether that be like listening to someone very calming to me talk or, or, moving my body through space or even, being affectionate with my wife, all those things where it's just the moment everything slows down and becomes that moment.[00:39:00] 
And the only other thing I had written down here was being by water. And I think it's the same experience, either a river or watching waves come up to the shore of a lake or the ocean. it's that same feeling where I don't go far from where I am right now. And the joy, that's where the joy is for me.
If I start to get pulled in a lot of directions or I start to freak out about things, obviously it's less, less joyful. 
I love that you began this, your own story about the job and about finding yourself reinventing and then now coming to these very small, like seemingly small moments of just like watching a leaf and,it sounds so simple, but I think it's really true.
And sometimes I'll just walk into the city and I might have a big notion. I'll go and, I don't know [00:40:00] have a tea or coffee or something but just to be like taking in the city and glancing at things and not rushing. It seems those are the moments of aliveness You know Agree in that just the simple ways to find that kind of joy and how replenishing it is I want to break there Yeah, we'll break there And,we'll be back shortly for the end of the podcast.
Okay. 
 All right. We are back for our final segment of our first season. Degan, should we start with questions or should I try my dad joke on you? 
I like the questions. I want to do, I want to, I've, yeah, do you have a question for me?
I have a question for [00:41:00] you, which isn't personal so much as, something I'm trying to understand, which is, given the theme of our, episode. 
what do you see the difference being between joy and happiness? Because I hear a lot of people talk back and forth about these two things and, I'd love to hear your take on that.
Yeah.I don't, I've never thought about this, so I'm just gonna riff. Okay. Your riff, What's first coming to mind is that happiness seems more like a deep rooted kind of, how do I wanna live my life, as a man, as a father, in, in, in a way that's going to sustain me.
and the idea of happiness being like, like I thought a lot about happiness, I think, and to me, it's like one of the things about being, in my 50s now, which I really love, is that I feel like the immediate [00:42:00] gratification thing, I'm not as interested in it anymore. I'm interested in okay, like last night I went to sleep earlier than I have been.
I feel so much better today. I am so happy because of that. But that's, it's like these kind of, structural pieces, and this idea of choosing to be an adult, which is I think all the way through my twenties and thirties and parts of the forties, it was ah, this Screw it,
I'm going to stay up late. This is what I want to do. And of course I still do that sometimes and whatever but there's something about making these decisions that in the moment feel like a downer, but to be like, oh my god, I feel great today after this i'm going to be working on my novel for a while, that gives me a kind of happiness that is, it's like it's ingrained into life and it's not always it's always easy, right?
I'm working on it. this is my first novel and i'm so in it at the moment and just over the last few days actually it was giving me a lot of there were a lot of questions and I had this feeling in [00:43:00] my body like okay, this scene is not working and I didn't know how to solve it. And I stayed with it and I mean at times it's pretty agonizing, it's all the thoughts of shame come like should I even be doing this?
Is this even worth it? And then when I stayed with it and thought of a couple of changes, it suddenly all flowed back to life. I wrote quite a bit, and it was super exciting. And that, to me, that was happiness in this adult sense of Okay, I can look at my life and say, this is how I'm living now. And joy. I'm sure joy can rub shoulders. You could do the Venn diagram or whatever. There's lots of connection in it. 
 Joy to me. I think if I'm just riffing on this Feels like the moment itself that is full of kind of wonder or really good things like last night, or yesterday I went with my twins and a friend and her daughter and we went to Toronto Island and there were moments like just looking out at the water and and [00:44:00] seeing this beautiful sparkles on the water and that made me think of something a friend of mine had said a few weeks back when she was looking at the lake.
 I just want to eat those sparkles. I thought it was so beautiful. And so to me, I think joy is like eating the sparkles in the moment, you know, taking them in it was really hot for a moment. We just we went into Wards Island beach and it was so cool and wonderful and the kids are playing and that was just like pure unadulterated joy, you know. So I guess that's how i'm defining them 
I have thought about this a lot and, I, I have heard the definition of one or the other being the feeling you get
when something good happens in your life, and then the other being your attitude towards things and the, it's not just the attitude, but the kind of, way you approach life so some people will say that [00:45:00] one of those is happiness and one of those is joy. And I've heard
both applied to either one. I think, a lot of people saywe spend too much time worrying about happiness. Yeah. And in my mind, it's like, why is that a bad thing? But I think the idea is really, Am I getting are things happening to me that make me happy enough? And that's where I think it's likethat's just an endless fruitless pursuit in a sense But, if you bring a joyful attitude, then happiness is your, it's not a goal so much as the, approach you take to life, which I, I really try.
Sometimes it's harder than other times, but, so I don't even know which word applies to which, but that's how I differentiate.
 I had mentioned Thich Nhat [00:46:00] Hanh and, He talks about bringing
compassion and joy to everything you do. I would add kindness. I feel like kindness and compassion are closely related. But, but kindness is more of a, compassion is more of a, way of. Seeing it and kindness, I feel, is more the action side of it. But, and I guess in that way, joy is your way of being.
And happiness is how you're going to feel if you're able to, bring that joy as often as you can. So I guess that's how I'm going to define it for now. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. 
I love thinking about Thich Nhat Hanh and thinking about compassion and joy, and also it just seems, obviously we spend so much of our lives, particularly in a big city, racing from one place to the other, and being on [00:47:00] phones, and just there's something about walking for me if I take an evening where I don't have anything planned or one thing planned and or just you know, I started before the summer Which became hectic with kids and schedules and stuff.
I was walking to work once or twice a week, and taking a full hour to walk there, and there was something so joyful about that, and that might have been just like, I don't know, seeing someone's face, hearing a snatch of conversation. Seeing, the trees. I don't know something really simple or just feeling in your body and then looking at seeing how many steps I walk, which is the 10 000 that kind of thing. Well, listen, this leads to the question I have for you.
Oh, okay. 
Because I've always thought because the school year begins in september It's always felt to me like that September is more the new year than January. Yeah. And of course, in the Jewish [00:48:00] tradition, you have Rosh Hashanah, the new year and everything. And so I would like to ask you, as the new year, this kind of new year comes upon us, are there any intentions you have for it, for yourself?
Plans or ways of thinking or being that you're thinking of?
I think in some ways, my question was an answer to your question in the sense that,I'm not big on New Year's resolutions or anything. I tend to just have wishes for the upcoming year.
And yeah, there are three times that feel renewing in the year. One is, one is now, with the new school year, and as you say, it's the Jewish New Year. There's New Year's Day January 1st, and then there's spring where everything is starting to grow again. And each of those times of year, I don't necessarily always consciously do it, but I [00:49:00] will start to develop feelings of wishing for something, how things are going to be different.
Maybe, really, this is a whole new time for me because,I'm starting a little podcast enterprise here.This is one of, one of a couple of podcasts I am starting. And this is the first one where we've actually recorded and done a season, but I have two more that I'm working on.
And so I think in some ways I would like to live some of the stuff we've been talking about in this episode, bring a sense of joy, bring a sense of,live my values, which is, you know, I worked for a university, a very large university for a long time, and, you try to live your values there, but you come up against bureaucracy [00:50:00] and, the frustrations of hierarchy.
And maybe what I'm hoping here is to live my values and share joy and kindness, with the people I work with and in the work I do. 
It makes me think to,the very beginning of this podcast. I read that piece about my friends and I in our twenties sharing, music and songs and like a kind of happening back to that very first podcast. We did the idea of like men often using some medium to express, emotions and connection.
And I say that without any judgement and, makes me think I'd love you and I to meet again, and do what we love to do every couple of months, which is sit down for and have a drink and play music one song after another. Oh yeah. Those songs. 
Yeah. We haven't done that in a while. 
No, we've done that in so many places.
We've done it outside Peterborough. We've done it, cabin in Flesherton. We've done it in our houses and it's, I think on one of my birthdays and it's one of my, it's so fun because we end up, we have this medium, medium of [00:51:00] music, and we have the entirety of the history of music at our fingertips with,Youtube and Spotify and we just go on this journey and they're just some of my favourite moments so that's okay.
that's one of my intentions then for the fall. let's get a time and do that 
Okay, I will add that to my list too 
So you had a joke I believe 
Yeah, one other intention I have is to tell you a another dad joke. This is my own joke. So I didn't even steal this off the internet. So I think I've talked to you about how I've gotten into coffee in the last couple of years and now I make my own coffee,on the stovetop with a moka pot, but you also know that for the longest time I was a only a tea drinker.
Now I'm both. And it took, like at first I would just throw a bag and, in a mug and pour hot water over it. And that was [00:52:00] tea. I realized it's really hard to make good tea and it took me a while to really make good tea. But you know what, I forgive myself because it's a steep learning curve.
All right. I was wondering where this was going to come in. All right. Yeah. Honorary dad. 
I could have made that a short joke, but I had to like, yeah, I was, I'm a storyteller 
being ambushed by a dad joke. 
Like you think you're walking down the street and it's safe. And then, yeah. All right.
Listen, Chris, this has been a wonderful season. thank you for asking me to share my, the pieces of my poems, great joy, great happiness, all of that. and, Thank you for this, for sharing these pieces. We, it's been a gamut of,intimacy, interiority and, and joy and, and just, I've loved doing it with you.
Our friendship means the world to me. Yeah. I'm glad, 
I agree and I'm glad we're [00:53:00] ending this on a joy topic because, it's, it really has been a joy to do this and I, I feel like I'm learning as I go, which is. the thing that I really enjoy the most in the world is learning. So it's been a pleasure and asking you questions and hearing your perspectives on some of the things that
we may talk about casually, but actually formalizing it a little in this podcast has been really fascinating and exciting. So thank you. 
We'll see you on the other side. 
 
Hi everyone. This is Chris. I'll read the credits shortly, but I wanted to send out a big thank you on behalf of Degan and myself, to those who have contributed to this podcast, our friends, family, and random listeners who have donated their money, their time or their ideas. This is a labour of love, so far at least. [00:54:00] And this is not a money making venture for us. 
So your support is so valuable. We're super passionate about this podcast. And we have learned so much just by talking about the subject. This first season has been a journey within where we share our own experiences and readings. And now we'd like to expand our scope. So send us your suggestions for other topics or guests. 
And now the credits. Thank you for listening to What Kind of Man Are You? The podcast is hosted by Degan Davis and Chris Garbutt. Produced by Chris Garbutt and VQC Media. Music by Degan Davis. We would love your feedback. 
Check out the show notes for ways to get in touch with us. Leave a comment or email us at chris@vqcmedia.me. Contact Chris about advertising and sponsorship opportunities. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and please give us a [00:55:00] thumbs up or a five-star rating on your favourite platform. Subscribe now to get updates on season two, coming later in the fall. [00:56:00] [00:57:00]