SPEAKER_00 0:34

Welcome to the Better Two Podcast. I'm your host, Donna. Today's guest is Bet A. Bet A has a book out called Slow Stories, but we talk more than about stories. We talk about art. We talk about her collaboration with Brian Eno and well, the world in general and how art can actually help humanity. So tune in. Hi Bet, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I I'm good, and thank you for coming on. You are in Amsterdam, correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

So this is gonna be kind of off topic, but because of the way the world is, how are things there?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Oh, that's a a tricky question. I would say um, on one hand, same as always. Um and as we're all in our own bubble, I will be speaking from my bubble, which is uh artists, activists, people who uh um engage with the world and usually have a really uh soft nature, and we are worried. Um I think there's a lot going on in the world, and it's confusing and overwhelming. And most people I speak to uh appreciate that their day-to-day life is pretty great, and uh a little bit of uh concern about what's happening in the world. So that's kind of a big answer to a small question how's it going in Amsterdam?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Well, and I mean, and and to and to be fair, you know, I'm I'm in the US and yes, daily life seems to go on as normal.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

However, there is, yes, that underlying current of is everybody gonna be okay? Are we gonna make it through this? So I I understand, and I'm not putting you on, I'm not meaning to put you on the spot when I ask that question. It's just one of those things where it's like we all try to give ourselves this comfort of everything being okay. We're inside, we're all just kind of freaking out and holding on for dear life.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yes, I'm wondering what we can do. It are the things that we are doing useful, where should we put our attention? Are the things that are happening too big for me to even make an indent in it? And should I just smell the roses and be happy I'm alive? Should I try things? Should I keep showing up? So, those are a lot of questions. And I I have students that I teach in art school, so they have those questions as well, and they are younger, and they also have questions such as will I ever have an apartment? Uh yeah, and as a teacher, you try to pretend to have some answers. But at the moment, I'm also a little bit confused, but I'm uh also feeling a sliver of hope in the fact that I see more and more people appreciating what we do have and wanting to protect what we have, our freedoms, our care for each other, and standing up for it and doing it in small ways and big ways. So I think there's there's something big brewing, and I hope it's it's something good. Um, even though I'm not really sure what it is and when when we will know. Um, but as a as an artist, I always engage with the with the problems in the world in my story. So I do have a an outlet for it, for these concerns and questions that I have in my mind. So that that helps me as well. It informs uh my art. And what's that like for you? Does it inform your your daily work?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

For me, I mean, I I am an author as well, and I mean I tend to just write fiction, so I have my escape valve. So when things get to be too much for me, I I get to write. Uh last year when I was going through chemotherapy, I had some real bad issues where I couldn't really leave the house at all except to go to chemo. And the only thing I found solace in, because I was exhausted, was writing. So it get it's always given me that escape. And that's the one thing, you know, people I've talked to, because I've I've read cards for people before, and they're always like, it'll come up that they're creative, and they're like, I'm not creative. And it's like, yes, you are. And I think that's the biggest misnomer that we we have. People that have gone to school here in this country, I'm not sure over there, and we've had it, they've had a teacher that says, Oh, that's rubbish. That's not good. You can't draw, you can't do this. But the thing is, art is an expression, and it's something that actually soothes us and and calms us. I mean, I had an art teacher, I actually flunked art my freshman year in high school, because I had, but it was because I had a personality conflict with the teacher. Um, and she kept coming over and and redrawing what I had drawn, and finally I just traced over it. And she came back over and she looks at me and she goes, that's wrong. And me being a smart ass, excuse my language, just I basically just said to her, I said, but you drew it and I traced it. That basically set me up for the failing year for the rest of it because I went against her. But the thing is, art, whether it's writing, music, drawing, painting, it's all part of who you are. And nobody can really judge that or should judge that.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

I think so. I don't think you should be able to fail it in school as long as you're doing it and expressing yourself. And we're judging it by the wrong standards, I think. We're judging it by drawing, for instance, is very often judged by photorealistic standards. I mean, we can take a photo if we want. We don't necessarily need everybody to be really great at photorealistic drawing. But you will hear kids when they hit the rational age of about nine or ten, they will start saying, Oh, it doesn't really look like a dog. I'm bad at drawing. Or in your case, your teacher even says you're doing it wrong. And then much later, people wonder why did I stop drawing? I enjoyed it so much. Well, it's because it was ruined for you by your art education, which was incomplete or incorrect, and didn't tell you you're doing it for yourself. And as long as you are getting something out of it, you're doing it right. And if you want to make money from it later, that's a whole other story than you need to get other people to like it. And I think, yeah, I I care about this topic a lot. It's it's important to me. And I hear from a lot of people like you say, Oh, I'm not creative or I don't do art, I just I'm a welder and I just do welding. And then when they finish their work, they get into the car, they listen to heavy metal, they let go of all the stress that they had at their job, then they go home, then then perhaps they set the table in a in a way that appeals to them. Put on some more music. It's all art, art, art. And people are using it too. They use it to feel better, to express an emotion, um, to escape something. So I'm a big uh uh supporter of the idea that everybody should be included in the conversation of about art, uh, because we're all doing it, like you said.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Well, and and to and to be fair, there is a happy ending with my story because I ended up moving because at school, when you failed art, you couldn't retake it. My first school I went to. So if you failed, you were done. So when I changed schools, I went to I took art again. And guess what? I was a straight A student. Amazing. But as far as like the welding, my uncle, who has been an artist since I was before I was born, he's a painter, but he's also a sculptor, and he also takes welding and makes sculptures out of that. And I think that's where people, if it's not the norm, it can't be right, it can't be creative, but it is, and and creativity, it can it can ground you. That's the one thing that nobody really thinks about when you're getting that out. If I don't write, if there's say I don't write for three or four days, I start feeling it in my bones that something is off that I have to create.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, because it's the way you engage with your feelings, and we need to do that emotional maintenance every day. And and one other mistake that we often have in language is that there's a a boundary between this is art and this is not art. Well, many things have a little bit of an arty side to it. So I'm wearing this blouse, so I'm not naked, which is functional, um, because it would be strange if I showed up naked, so I'm wearing clothes as a decency, but it doesn't have to be blue and it doesn't have to be like this, and that's the art side of uh art side of it. And I I wrote it um with a musician and artist Brian Eno, I wrote a book called What Art Does. And Brian had been lecturing about art for decades and thinking about what does art do? Why does everyone do it? And of course, we hit the definition part. So when is something art and when isn't it art? And we said to each other, you know, there's a point when somebody's walking and maybe they're moving their shoulders a little bit, where you can say, Oh, he's starting to art. Uh, you know, is he's walking, it's functional, he's getting to the bus, but he's doing this thing with his shoulder, which is not necessary. He's starting to art. It's uh there's a little bit of art in the shoulder. So that's how we defined uh art, everything you don't have to do. And we said the function is to make a feeling happen happen or explore a feeling. So that's it's also a language matter. It's also about how do you use the word art, and you can talk about that for centuries and go in circles, but that's how we we use the word. And um, yeah, I like what you say about uh the welder who also makes sculptures. I think there's also welders who make uh boats who maybe put a little bit of art in it, who make a line just unnecessarily a little bit more tight or a little bit more like this, and then maybe they're arting a little bit, you know, starting to art. So that's how that's that's how I see it.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Well, as soon as you talked about you and Brian's conversation about the man walking, all I could think of is the John Travolta scene from Saturday Night Live where he's strudding. Because there is an art to that walk. You know, there's certain things. There's a movie called Blow that Johnny Depp walks through the airport. And between the music and the way he's strutting through the airport, there's art there. It's something that when I hear that song now, because it's Black Betty, I always will hear that song and I will always have that visual. So art can be as simple as what you described: somebody walking down the street, somebody smiling a certain way. I mean, that that's the thing. We we put such a narrow definition of it, but it can be so much bigger. And I mean, I know this must be like your third collaboration, then slow stories, must be your third collaboration with Brian, because I also noticed that you had another collaboration with him that says what art does, an unfinished theory.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yes, that's the book I just mentioned, uh the book What Art Does.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Um, and we that I think that was our first collaboration. Um, but if you're in the studio together and we're both working on a lot of projects, you end up helping each other quite a bit. So it's hard to say. How many collaborations? So if when he's stuck with lyrics, he always asked me to help out a bit. I don't know if it's useful, but I try and I I ask him to help out help me sometimes. Uh so we wrote this book, What Art Does, which is a nonfiction book, very short, quite simple. It's called an unfinished theory because we wanted to make a beginning of a very clear way of talking about art. Why do we do it? What is it for? And we wrote it as um kind of because we felt that it should exist. There are so many complicated books out there that I had to read an article about what art is, and it makes it very complicated, uh kind of elitist uh yeah, difficult topic. And Brian had this idea that we need to write this from a perspective of an artist. So every artist can say when they apply for funds, or when they say I need this space for my art product, they can say, they can say art is useful because we use it as society for this, or we use it as individuals for this. So we made the book together and I illustrated it. And then we also painted a lot of t-shirts just for the fun of it, which was an unrelated project just for the fun of it. And um, and then at one point I told them that my short story collection was coming out and uh that I wanted to record two stories to music. And five minutes later I was he was placing a microphone in front of me in his studio, and he was completely ready to uh start recording. So before I could get nervous, we were already doing it.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

And I want to say, I, you know, reading the press release and everything, it he talks about that it needs to be slow. And the fact that you were talking about the fact that being having the having it much slower, the story being read much slower, and it does give you that time. It's almost in a way, because I've done I've listened to guided meditations before, in a very it's a very similar style that you get to have that creative visualization of what is going on in the story. And a lot of times when we listen, especially with technology today, we we go through a story in an audiobook and we're doing something else, we're not paying attention. We may be grasping the story, but it's not consciously going slow so we can pay attention. It's like you and I having this conversation. If I if I start doing something else, I'm going to have to rewind. But by going and listening to it slowly, it's forcing you to sit there in the moment and pay attention.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yes, and that's what it happened in the recording studio. So Brian said, he said, okay, read your story. Choose one from the collection that you like and read it. So I read it as I normally would for an audience. And for an audience, you don't leave silences. That's awkward. Um that people are waiting during the silence for the next thing. What's gonna happen in the story? So I read it at a normal pace, and Brian said, slower, please. So I I read it slower. Uh a girl was born in a desert, and he said, Oh, much slower. So I thought slower. Okay, uh, a girl was born, and that already felt very awkward because I'm also very aware that Brian has a really busy schedule. I'm quite lucky to spend time with him in the studio, and here I was taking up all this time with my silences. And then he put his music on on headphones, and he said, Maybe this will make you feel more comfortable. And it did, and then I understood what he uh meant. Because with his music, when I read A Girl Was Born, because the music is there, the that awkwardness doesn't arise, you are calm and you allow your mind to generate all these images, so it's less plot plot-based, less okay, take writer, take me to the next thing. It's more diving within yourself. So, what kind of girl do you picture? Is it your little baby niece who you held two months ago? Is it uh the way you were as a baby? Um so you generate all these basically a mental video, like you say, as you do in the guided meditations, um because you have this pleasant um kind of cushion to rest your brain on, which is Brian's beautiful music. So that's when when I did it like this, and we put his music on it, and we both realized this is this is how it should be. So an eight-minute story became 30 minutes, uh, and it just unfolded like a flower.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

But the thing is, and it for like I said, it forces you to slow down, slow down. And I think when you're talking about how you were worried about his time, you were worried about taking up too much of his time, working worried about this. And the fact is, because the way our society operates in general, just in general, we are always worried about that clock. We are always worried about taking up too much space on somebody, we're always worried about being inconvenient instead of just being in the moment and taking as much time as we can in that moment, and to realize this this time's not going to come back to us. We have to use it at our as our at our best abilities. And there's the gift there that if we can stop, because we have become such a society that is always running. But if we can slow down and appreciate what we have in that moment, that moment of the conversation, that moment of listening to the music, of creating, there's a gift in that self just for you, not only for yourself and him, but that gift translates into that recording.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

For me, yes, absolutely. And I'm happy to hear you say that. That makes me very happy. Um I we were hoping that the the record is kind of a leg up into a daydream. You know, when you were young and you were in school, you were bored, and you just daydream for an hour. I would daydream that I would find a wild horse and I would ride down the beach, and that's that imagination muscle. Um, and it's actually a way to develop your your dreams, your desires. Um, it's very helpful in life to keep your imagination going. That's why I think uh these kinds of uh guided daydreams, as I would call it, um also help you uh alongside things like meditation. Meditation helps you to become still and quiet inside yourself and be in the moment and be still. Um, these kinds of artworks helps you help you reignite your medit uh imagination and use your inner world. Because as you say, so much is thrown at us all day, and we're always on to the next thing. We always worry are we doing it right? Are we achieving the results? Are we doing it in time? There's so much to think about, forms to fill out, garbage to take out, leaking roofs, uh countries bombed, uh everything. And we need to build these oases into our day where we just um tune out of the noise and tune into ourselves. And we can do that through music and we can do that through a story. And in this collaboration, we try to make it an extra slow experience where you can really dive into yourself and um spend some time there.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

And one thing that you know that you talk about is imagination there, and the sad thing is one the one thing that we didn't touch on real quick is the fact that the rise in AI and people are turning to AI, and they've they've said there's been studies that show since AI has started, critical thinking is down, imagination is down. And it I I had a recent experience where I was hired by somebody to help work on their book. And as I'm working on it, things don't feel right, and I realize it's AI. I had somebody actually call me out, but that's a whole you know, call me and say, hey, this person is using AI to do this. And they left prompts inside the document, which I would eventually get to. So I ended that relationship because I am totally in generative AI. I am totally against that because it takes away from the art, it takes away from the imagination. And I don't know how we stop that because some people just think it's oh, I'm creating something, but you're not. Because there's a joy, there's a passion when you're actually creating whether it whatever it is, even if it's dinner. I mean, we could we we we could even talk about how creating a meal is art. But yes, absolutely. But if I can turn it into a prompt, and because it can get I can get money, and that's the problem, I think. When you want to monetize everything in society, you lose some of the beauty of it. Because especially turning it into AI, you're doing it because you want to make money. You're not doing it because you really want to be an artist.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I think that uh is an important factor. And um when you want to make money, it means you are result oriented, not process oriented. And art is very often process oriented, you draw something. It looks strange. You like how strange it looks. So you you think, oh, it might not be an elephant. It actually looks like a big house. And then you can continue in this. You're process-oriented. You don't necessarily have to get somewhere. And that's where the interesting thing happens, where you can surprise yourself. And where you can actually make new things that surprise other people. And I can tell when my students use AI. I'm sure there will be a day where it will be harder to tell, but it's extremely mediocre. So aside from the tells in the language, there's this mediocreness that is just in it. And it's not flawed. There's no personality. If there's flaws, they're just like giant fake news things, but there are no quirky little flaws or personalities or things that are sparkly and new. So uh if you use it as a tool to polish something or to get somewhere, um it's it can be quite useful. Um even though I'm not a fan of it like you. But to think that you are creating something unknown, and you you're still you're you're robbing yourself of the enjoyment of creating um when you create through a a machine, mediocre machine like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Well, there was something I don't know. Well, there was something in that book that, you know, there was a scene in this in this story where this girl, her mother had left her when, you know, I think it was like when she was 14. And here's seven years later, and she's going to see this her mother. Her mother suddenly she shows up somewhere. There's no emotion in it, there's no feeling. And I'm thinking, if I hadn't seen my mother in seven years and she flat out disappeared, there's gonna be emotion. There's gonna be there's gonna be joy, there's gonna be sadness, there's gonna be anger, but there was nothing.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

No, yeah. It's interesting, and if there are emotions, it's very generic, so there's it's not specific. And there's a couple of words. If there's chat GPT, there will be the word echo, and the word hum will be throughout the whole thing. It's a massive flaw. The quiet hum in the hallway, the hum of loneliness. It's just so awful. Yeah, so but it I guess also the fact the people who own it, you know. I'd love for some art students to make creative AI, and I know artist students around the world, so some of them are are working on it, to to work with technology in a creative way and to create something that can surprise us. And and these tools, they're just ways to suck money, uh well, data out of us and get money. And um, I don't I don't trust it, and it's sad, and we don't need it actually.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

No. It loses it loses the human condition, the human emotion, the human feeling. There's no humanity in it, and the people behind it really don't value humanity. And we will go away from that conversation because I don't want to get either one of us in trouble. Um but you know, forward slow stories, the you have donated the proceeds to charities, and you have a charity called Heroines Movement. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 25:25

That's correct. Yes. I started uh with Rod DeWies and Anne Faxelera. I started a foundation, a nonprofit, where we work together with scientists and artists around the world on social projects with the desire to have some practical impact and use our skills and our knowledge together to do things that we hope are uh useful or fun or good. And one of these projects is the heroines movement, which is a storytelling movement where we make stories about women role models across the world. And local teams are doing it. So I was involved in the Dutch book, I'm Dutch, and they made a school book for children about Dutch women role models from diverse backgrounds, just to balance out a little bit that the school books are full of men and the history books are full of men, and there's less women role models. So it's just a rebalancing act. And we also did a school program and we did an impact study, and it had a great positive impact on all the children. Um, in Nepal, the local team has made a book, it's been distributed to 800 schools. And in Afghanistan, there's a woman who is at the moment anonymously making a book about Afghan women who are uh role models in Iraq, in Italy, Slovenia. So that's been an amazing project, and through these kinds of uh fundraisers like the one I'm doing with Brian, we can generate some funds to pay people, print books, so on.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

And I know he's got his own charity, he's doing the Earth Percent. And then there's also, is that Troz T R O S E.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

That's the name of the foundation, that's the overarching foundation. Yes.

unknown 27:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

So I mean, and the thing is, you're doing, once again, we're going back to you're doing this with a cause. You're doing this, yes, you're looking to raise money, but it's not for you. It's looking for a universal beneficial moment to give back. And I think that's something that hopefully we are going to, after we get through this rough period, we're gonna see more community and in being willing to give back and help others instead of the mentality of, and that's I think that's what we're battling right now in a lot of ways, is I have mine, screw you. And and that's a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yes, yeah, it's a competition mindset. So I think we've been tricked in our Western capitalist society into thinking that's human nature. Well, actually, you see everywhere in the world, if somebody trips, another person hurries to help them up. It's human nature, too. There's been research into this. That is also human nature, mutual aid. So, yes, we are competitive. Um, and we will choose ourselves and our families if things are uh really awful, but we need communities and we need that cohesion uh for also for our mental well-being, and we are inclined to help each other. So the way we have structured our societies now is robbing us of a part of our humanity, and I think that's also a source of a lot of anxiety that people feel. If it's really I got mine, screw you, you're very unsafe. What if that person turns against you? Who's gonna help you? If it's all me, me, me, we're all very unsafe. And we need to build big fences and big walls and put alarms on our doors. And that's not necessarily the only way that humans can live. You can see throughout history and throughout the world that people have lived in in very different constructs where no one was uh without a home or uh hungry in in tribes or communities. So it is possible, and I think that will that is very anxiety-reducing to know that we're caring for each other. So for me, helping or being in exchange with others where I try to bring something positive uh just makes me feel a lot better. And I think many people have been robbed from that opportunity. And I I've been in the US and I know some people work two jobs and they cannot even uh pay their rent, and then it's really hard to then also go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, that's I'll finish my talk. Um if you won't have time to help others and it and it enforces that competition mindset. Uh so that's and then if you also think you have to help someone, you'll also go bed go to bed feeling guilty uh that you're not helping other people. So I just I always want to acknowledge that this that many people don't have that opportunity in their schedule at all.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

No, and and if you look at, you know, over here, it one, you know, if you get sick, that could be devastation, and not just because of the health issue, but because monetarily and everything else. So it it's it's not necessarily the easiest thing to be a living human being in this world today, because there's always some pressure on you to continue. It doesn't matter if you're sick, you still need to go pay for your mortgage, you still need to pay for your rent, you have to keep going. And and that's the thing about our world now, because with social media, that's a whole other aspect of showing, look, and I was gonna it touches kind of what you said. If somebody falls, you go and help them. Except on social media. On social media, we're gonna film that person falling and then laughing about it. But if you didn't help them and you just did it as a spectator sport, aren't you missing something? And social media constantly has us doom scrolling. So it's all these things of if we actually sit down and unplug and try to, I don't want to say step back from technology, because technology is good, but if we step back and try to get creative and try to look at humanity as a whole instead of, and this is a big thing, because I know right now the US is kind of a pariah of the world, but the thing is you can't judge us solely on who's in power, and that's the problem. We have people that are in power across the world that would rather burn it all down when all of most of us in the world would just want to live and be happy and functioning and have peace.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

And that's go ahead and have a safe life for your children. That's a universal desire. And I think in America is very often ahead of us in Europe. So we see something happen in the US, and then four years later, we also have politician politicians who use who make fake news videos and have weird hair and are populist. So very often what happens in the US happens in Europe. That's why I when I see the resistance in the US and people standing up, I feel very positive because I think go it, do it, show us, show us, show us the way. Um and we have to judge people individually because the Dutch have a terrible track record around the world, we're a tiny country with we've done terrible things. Um and and we need to all uh try to heal together and um and judge each other on a personal level. And I when I did my first book tour in the US Um in New York, they said, Oh, you'll when you're in LA, you'll see that people in LA are really different, they are so and so, and people in LA said people in the Midwest are so and so. For me as an outsider, I just saw Americans. I thought they were very open, very warm, very giving, very enthusiastic. I had such a warm welcome, people were genuinely interested. So if I see what for me as an American, I always think of this experience that people are uh really are inclined to believe in something in a positive way that we don't have in the have in the Netherlands. You had a president whose slogan was yes we can, and you said yes, we can. That was enough, three words. And so you have this enthusiasm and this belief and this um energy to make things happen. And right now in your government, and you see it in other places as well, there's a lot of guys who have never set foot in a humanities department who seem to be missing some, they're like companies in a human body, and they miss a whole element of life. And and it's just a mistake uh for all of us to have given them so much power. Uh, but they don't preserve they don't embody who we are. Um, they don't understand actually what humanity is, what community is, what family is, what love is, what neighbors are. They don't understand at all.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Without naming names. I mean, when you have to put your your picture or your name on everything, that is not about the people of this country. That is about ego. That is about I am the supreme leader, whatever you want to call it. I mean, dare I say, if I want to pick a character from a movie, Darth Vader or the Emperor Palpatine, you want to you want to be something that is bigger than life. And the truth is you're very small-minded. And yes. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

I yeah, I see what you mean. I with the heroines movement, we have a school, an online school for women in Afghanistan, which I started with Afghan poet Somaya Ramish. Um, and we the Netherlands have invaded Afghanistan together with uh America and a whole bunch of other countries. And then we left, and then the women were handed over to the Taliban, and now they're not allowed to leave the house, to raise their voice, show their face, nothing. And we don't talk about politics. Um we we are very similar uh when we work on our poetries and our stories, we're very similar in our feelings and desires. There's mutual care, there's a mutual understanding that we don't want violence, we don't have hatred, we don't have any issues with difference. Uh we just want security. And I think with women, and I work a lot with women across the world, also women in Palestine, women in Israel, and they they were who work on peace projects, and they also say we just want security, we don't hate anybody, we want the violence to stop. And those voices need to get louder because there's now really loud voices who tell us everything that's strange is dangerous, everything that is other, we need to keep out. Um, and that's not how many people feel. A lot of people feel differently.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Um, so well, I think I think the bigger thing is, and it goes back to the money thing, is when you look at who's making money off of this, and that's the thing, you know, whether it be AI, the war, whatever, if you actually look at who is making money off of this, this is why it will never stop, unless they cannot make money. If you cannot profit off of this, then we would be in a better place. I had a conversation with my dad when the war first started, and he's just like, well, you know, solar, solar and wind is not viable. It oil is, and I'm just thinking to myself, you are so far behind the times. And and we have to we have to start focusing on nurturing the planet and nurturing humanity. Otherwise, neither are going to exist.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yes, and we will always have people who will tell us this is not possible and that is not possible, and your dream is silly and naive, you little girl. And uh it takes some wisdom and courage to say, actually, I do believe in this fish. I don't think it's that silly. I don't think we necessarily all need to bomb each other and so on, and then extract things from the planet and from each other. And if you look, if you study and you look at anthropology, history, you will find that those things that people say are impossible actually exist somewhere. You will see that in in the UK the cops don't have guns and it works. You will see that um in the Netherlands we have health care, and if you need a pacemaker, or if you have cancers, one thing you don't have to worry about is the bills uh because you are held by the society financially in your illness. Uh, and we are being told that that's not possible, it's a silly dream. And doing research actually helps um helps you, you know, it helped me when I doubted myself, or and I could point at things where I could say that society actually has that, that society actually did that. So it is it's not that silly, it is possible. And if we're not caught in a red race and we're not worried about I'm never gonna get an apartment and I'm never gonna get if uh money for my health, if if we are secure in our lives, then we have a lot more space for our feelings uh and for art. Um and we realize actually I've I don't need it to be like this. I can actually imagine other worlds, I can imagine other ways to live together. But if if you grow up in a red race under a lot of financial pressure and you see your parents struggling and you see that your grandfather uh cannot get a Harvey replacement, then you grow up in that competitive mindset. So I hope I have no I'm not good at predicting the future at all, but I hope we will get to a place where we see this and we can do it together.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Well, you know, the the interesting thing is we tend to repeat history every 80 years. There's a cycle of every 80 years that we repeat things. And I'm looking at here in the US, right now we have Nebraska that is on fire. There's parts of Nebraska that are burning up. And if you go back in history, we had the Dust Bowl. And that's kind of with the drought situation we have, with the heat that we have and the fire burning, and now, of course, the fertilizer issue, but that's another thing. That's all gonna create a dust bowl. We're gonna be reliving in the stock market, it's gonna end up fluctuating because of this war and everything in the AI bubble. So you look at all this and it's like we're repeating. And the thing is we keep repeating until we learn. So when are we gonna actually learn that? Hey, you know, just because it was one way then doesn't mean it's gonna play out the same. We can change it and we need to change it.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah, I hope so. And but actually, when I met Brian the first time I met him, we were at a dinner and I was discussing my foundation and activism, and I said, you know, there's so many big things in the world happening, and sometimes I don't have confidence. I think it's a waste of time that I do that I'm doing this. I feel like um, as we say in Dutch, it's like carrying water to the sea, it won't make a difference. And Brian said, and he's very good with words, he said, if you want the new world, start making it right now. Start making the world you want to live in, in objects, in conversations, in projects, and experiences, and it comes into being. And that made such a big impact on me, and I've been living by that ever since. I don't know if the school with the Afghan women will make any change. But it exists in that world that we want to have, where we are in exchange and where what they want is education, what I want is a connection, and in that moment it exists. So start making objects, conversations, parties, tables, houses that belong to that world, and then that world comes into being. So that has really helped me to look at it from this small perspective that might grow instead of from this helicopter feel of oh no, what is happening? I can never fix it.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

I spent a lot of time when I was younger, I could manifest things, I could say things, something, and it would bring it into reality. You know, I was gonna meet somebody, I ended up doing that. And the the scary thing is right after he was sworn in as president, I ended up getting the cancer diagnosis. And I had a friend who isn't intuitive, and she starts telling me all these things about that the dark stuff that's coming, you know, that you better stock up on food and all this other stuff. So in the back of my head, I'm kind of like, well, what am I fighting for? Why am I gonna go battle cancer if the world's going to go to hell in a handbasket? So fast forward, I beat cancer, and but there were still moments as I look at at society slide that I'm sitting there going, well, why did I beat cancer? And I realized after doing that project, because with that project that I worked on that they that didn't come to fruition the AI project, I ended up realizing because I pushed one of my deadlines back to accommodate this other person. I think one of the biggest things with all of this is when we get lost in the drama and get lost in the unstuff that we Cannot control, we tend to abandon ourselves. We abandon what we want, we abandon our life, we abandon everything and start trying to help fix everybody else because it's easier to help fix other people. And I'm not saying to be selfish, but we have to take care of ourselves and take care of others, but we can't abandon ourselves. And I think fear allows us to abandon ourselves. Because and that's that's a lot of what comes across in TV as far as news, as far as social media. Here's this fear-mongering. And what that does is triggering us to manifest that fear, to bring that fear in instead of focusing on, as Brian told you, focus on what you want to create, the positive you want to create. So as long as when I find myself sliding, I sit there and go, don't abandon yourself. Don't abandon yourself to those thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Yeah, I think that is so hard. We are triggered to react to scary things. So if you see scary things in the news, it's very hard not to react to it. That's they've they did research where they uh saw how people reacted to, for instance, a happy picture, a nostalgic picture, a scary picture, or an angry picture, and what kind of response that invited. When people saw a happy picture, they were more inclined to go outside or do something nice. When people saw a scary picture or an angry picture, they were more inclined to share it on social media. So it's a whirlpool of fear and hatred that is designed that way. And I I'm really sorry that you had to go through this, and I'm happy to hear that uh the cancer is in the past, uh, even though I know it it does always a possibility. Well, and I know it's not always over. When it's over, you took a blow. And um taking care of yourself is uh is so important and it can be so hard. And I I don't know what it's like in the US, but I I I can imagine it's it's very scary uh without the safety net that we are so lucky to have. And for me, when I went through really difficult times uh with my health or with personal things, it was art that sustained me because it allowed me to tap into my emotions, to explore my emotions, and not always put labels on things, and because even in our mental health, we're at the moment we're so inclined to label everything immediately and everything has to be fixed immediately. But art allows you to just be there in your feeling when you dance in a certain way, it allows you to be in that feeling when you write a story about uh a girl who discovers a distant village that nobody understands, like I did. It allows you to explore that feeling of longing, of the unattainable. So art really helps us when things are difficult and we don't have words or we don't have methods, and when we care for ourselves, we have way more uh strength to care for others. I try to banish the word help from my dictionary because it feels so top-down. You are a poor person and I'm gonna help you. I see it more as an exchange. Um, and the women that we are teaching in Afghanistan, they are often secretly online. They tune in without a camera. Most of them I've never seen their faces. Sometimes they have to hang up because somebody comes inside. Some of them never leave the house. Many of them had to break off a career or studies to be a doctor. A lot of them are in in marriages that they didn't choose. Uh, and they all make art. They risk their lives to make art and they have hope and they have joy in life. They see the beauty in a flower, in the laughter of their children. So I think I can say that they are in the darkest of dark. Uh, and they are the light, they manufacture the light. They the hope is there just because they make it so. And that's the incredible thing about our humanity, is that we have imagination, and as soon as we can imagine a different world, we start trying to work towards it. And I think that's why we turn to art all the time, because that's where we can explore these imaginations that we have about how our life could be a little bit different or a little bit better, whether it is for ourselves or for everybody. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Well, one thing I want to touch on about what you said about the creation of things. In your in the write-up, it talked about how this book, these short stories have been in like two decades in the making, and how you had an idea for the story, but the story ultimately changed. And and I've I've had that experience, you know, I had this vision of writing a great short story, and by the time I was done, it was not the story that I had set out to write. And I think that's, you know, as a writer, yes, you can sit here and plot everything and make sure you're organized and all. But the true joy of writing comes when you connect with the character you're writing or the story you're writing, and it takes you, the writer, on a journey.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Yes, yeah. We don't always know what it is that we're setting out to explore. And I I often feel that my stories are smarter than me and more interesting than me. Um, more interesting than my opinions and smarter than my ideas, because they take me somewhere that surprises me. And there is a truth there in the fiction that I'm not all able to access in my daily language, in my rational world, but it is there in a more ambiguous way. So even now, when I read those stories that I wrote 20 years ago, I think, oh, now I know what that was about. 20 years later, uh, or when I read a review where it says uh one review said, nearly every story is about the other and how to live with the other. And and I thought, it is true. I never realized this. And that's for me, that's where interesting, that's where my art is most interesting, where I abandon all my desire to say something and my rational ideas and my little opinions, and where I I allow it to surprise me and hopefully an audience. Um, yeah, so I I agree with you. I have the same experience. It's maybe taking you somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

And the and the thing is, it's even more magical, like you were saying, when someone else interprets it something maybe that you didn't write. My first book, I I have a dark character in there, I admit. But it's amazing to me when I started getting reviews, because some people are like, oh, this man is the most vile man ever. And I'm like, okay. And then, you know, I have this other person that's like, oh, he just needs a hug. He just needs somebody to take care and comfort him. And I'm just like, okay. But it it's interesting because just like visual art, it's open for interpretation. And I think that's even that's where the gift of art expands because everybody can see something different, it can hit somebody different. And that is a big gift in itself. And you know, when you're talking about the hope of these other women, it is an amazing story that you're sharing with the fact that these women that have such dark lives are still finding hope, and that's what gets them through. The small things. And we sometimes miss out on those small things.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Yes, and if we're constantly being told that everything is terrifying and horrible, it's also very hard to focus on the small things. You get into a state of alarm. Other cultures are are slightly better at it traditionally to um build spaces for it and moments for it. We seem to have lost this somewhat this skill of slowing down and and tuning into the smaller things.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Well, and I think part of the reason is because now we have this whole theory that feelings aren't facts. And feelings are a fact for you, they're a fact for me, they're my feelings. Maybe they're not completely true, but they are still factually based for how I feel. And I think that's where the whole because I have a couple of people that have said that to me before. Feelings aren't facts, they're my facts, they're how I feel, and and we shouldn't devalue or devalidate somebody because I don't understand why you feel that way.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Absolutely, and that's how I see a political defiance, for instance, in the Netherlands. I know who is who I disagree with, and I know what they are afraid of. And a lot of people in the Netherlands, for instance, are really afraid of immigrants. I'm not afraid of immigrants, I quite like them in my experience, and I like other cultures, and that's my personal experience. But I can dismiss these people, but that doesn't make their feeling go away. Feelings don't tend to go away because you say that feeling is stupid. So you do need to acknowledge and engage with the feeling. So even though some of the things are not real, like for instance, your president said that immigrants are eating pets or something.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

Well, wait. The latest wait, the latest one said that he was asked to be the new Ayatollah.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

Yes, so some things are aren't real. Yeah. Uh, and those are facts that you can deny and you can prove that they aren't real, but the feelings underneath they are real and you cannot wish it away. You cannot dismiss it and say stupid feelings go away. So that's where the big challenge for us is to acknowledge the feelings of others that we do not like. Also, for instance, in I do a lot of gender equality projects in feminism. Uh, there's a lot of there's a rise now in I don't even know how to say it.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

In in misogynistic in in women have no yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

And also in young men. So I can say I don't like those feelings, they're stupid, they should go away, but they won't go away. We have to engage with it, we have to understand the source of it, and that's very hard and tiring work, but we need to keep talking to each other. And I again I think art is a great method to keep understanding each other because it's it's um art is safe. If you watch a soap opera, for instance, uh, where for instance the a character has an abortion, you can discuss that with your neighbor, and she might be opposed to abortion, but because you're discussing it about this fictional character, there's this level of safety, and you understand the feelings of all the characters because they've all been explained to you. So you understand all sides of the story, and that's where art can play a huge part in understanding each other, getting to deeper truths, uh, diffusing uh tensions, and even like you said before, like um the feelings that are not that much on the surface, the more ambiguous things. We also have art for that, where you write a story, like you said, and people actually use it as a mirror. Oh, that's a file man, I don't like him, or he just needs a hug that says that tells you more about that person. So art can also leave a lot of room for people's feelings to come up in a safe way, and that's that's what I uh I love about getting reviews. Now that my my book is out, uh, and that story that I mentioned earlier about a girl who discovers a distant village that nobody sees but her. I had one person saying to me, This story is about science, a scientist. Uh he said this story is a critique of science. Another person said to me, This story is about if you fall in love with someone else, she'd just fallen in love with someone else. And another person told me this story is about Trump's America. Uh so wildly different interpretation. So I love that. I love it when an artwork allows you to put so much of yourself in there, uh, so much of your own interpretation into it. Like what happened to your dark character in your book.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

And that's a gift. So I know you got to get going. So Slow Stories is the book that's out, it's available on Amazon. Uh, I know the the recording is a limited edition, and I'm not sure how many are still available by the time this airs. But is there anything that we did not cover that you want to add?

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Um no, I think we covered a lot of ground, and it was very good to talk to you and a testament again to how we're not so different across cultures, and we can speak really easily because we have similar feelings, which is what unites all of us. And I tell everybody lately do more art. Just do more art. So I just want to want to end on that note. Let's let's put that message in the world. Everybody do more art.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Thank you, Bet.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Thank you so much. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 57:59

So Bet and I were very honest and frank about the conversation about what's going on in the world. And I think at this time, I've talked about it a little bit before, but I've always kind of been a little leery about it. And I think that has to do with the fear. The fear of, well, do I want somebody showing me showing up at my door? I'm not hiding my face, I'm on camera, but I can't take a stand any other way. And I did not vote for who's in power, and that's the thing that has been eating at me for quite a while now is the fact that we have a situation where, and not just here in this country, but we have a situation where there's people in power and they want to feed the beast, and I'm sure they have people that are behind them that are are making money off of this, that are are pushing them to do it. Um but most of the people in the world don't want this. Most of the people in the world would like to have peace. And when you look at the bigger thing of the news cycle where we're gonna talk about immigrants, we're gonna talk about this, we're gonna talk about that. And there's a political ad not too long ago here, um, because we had our mid we had the primaries for the midterms, and there was a gentleman talking about how his daughter was killed by an immigrant, raped and murdered by an immigrant. Okay. But here's my question how many other people have been raped or murdered by a person, a citizen? Why are we making this a flagpole point because oh, he's an immigrant? But what about all the regular people that are here that could do murders and rapes? And you know, it's a false equivalency because it's a buzzword. It's something that we make it seem like, oh, well, this person, well, really? And I'm not saying that there aren't good people and bad people everywhere, because there are. Yes, this guy did this, he is wrong, but do we need to make it a political commentary? I've known immigrants most of my life, and I haven't had a problem with them. And, you know, there's people that I have met that they were citizens, they're born in this country, and they are the biggest jerks in the world. But the fact of the matter is we paint these things, the narrative. We always have to create a narrative, and the narrative is there to control, to create fear. It's like organized religion. And that's the other thing about this war. We have certain people in power that are sitting there saying, I want to create a holy war. I'm going to do this. We're gonna do, we're gonna bring about the book of Revelations. Okay, firstly, folks, the book of the Bible has been written, re-written and rewritten how many times? And books have been removed, and and you know, I want to look at the dude who's saying this and go, dude, are you wearing a polyester blend? Because if you are, well, you know, you're you're in violation of the Bible. Do you eat shellfish? Oh, yes, I think there was something about the Pentagon's budget having shellfish in there. Once again, a big no-no. But we we pick and choose in in what fits the agenda. So we get the we get the we get the people that are so hyped up on right wing Christianity that, you know, we're gonna get what we want. And, you know, we have the Heritage Foundation to thank for that. The the think tanks that should not be in power, the think tanks that give money to create pol to to supply our politicians with their talking points so they can get their agenda through, which has nothing to do with the people, but that's a whole other point, and that was given to us by the Supreme Court and Citizens United, you know, because corporations are people and packs are allowed, and you can give as much money as you want. So basically legal bribery, but we we dress it up in a different bow. But when we look at this, we've created this narrative, we've creating now we're creating this whole war. We want to, we want to bring it to, we want to bring hell on earth here. Okay, because if we create the holy world, we create end of times, end of days, what happens? Oh, yeah, you get to go to heaven or you get to go to hell. But hey, you get to you you get to be judged by the supreme leader, God. Okay, well, I want to say something, and it's not that I don't believe that there's a higher power. I'm not saying that at all. But if you look at organized religion throughout the the eons, organized religion comes with a creation story. There's creation stories in Egypt, there's creation stories in other religions, but we don't talk about that. You know, it's it's all a narrative that we have to fit. And how do we control? We control by telling you, well, if you commit this sin, then you know you're gonna go to hell. Only thing that'll save you is if you repent. Okay, but let me ask you this. And I know what does this have to do with art? I'm getting there. But what do you have to do? You have to repent. Okay, so you repent on Sunday, you go back out, and you do the same damn thing during the week, and then you go back and repeat repent on Sunday and everything all is forgiven. Does that sound like you really are repent repent repentative, or does that sound like you are just gaming the system? Just saying. So, what does this have to do with art? There's a big reason for it. Because if we're all fear-based controlled by politics and religion, our thoughts are not clear, our thoughts are not hopeful, our thoughts are being constantly judged, whether it be political or religious or whatever, we're all judging. We're labeling everybody, we're looking at people, and it's almost like, since we live in a technology-filled world, it's almost like looking, you know, down the street, and you've seen it in movies, where these little words pop up, and it's like, oh, there's a widow, oh, there's a there's a fat girl, oh, there's a, you know, an immigrant, there's a here's the thing: why are there labels there? Why does it matter? Why do we judge? Because the thing is, and I've talked about this before, the book cover situation, just because somebody's book cover looks awful doesn't mean that they're a bad person on the inside. We need to look into the pages and and read a couple of chapters, not the first few, because that's all superficial. We're not going to give you the full picture. So as we look forward, if we look at the person and we actually unpack these things and we actually start looking at creating, creating a friendship, creating a relationship. That takes energy, that takes work. Same thing with art. Energy. Energy, creativity, imagination. But there's a bigger picture. And she and Bet talked about this a little bit. When you look at art, it's a form of energy, it's a form of creation, it's a form of manifestation. And if we take those things, those elements, we take those elements and we combine them all together, we can create something better. We can create something that's outside the narrative, outside of the control. But when you look at this, when you look at AI, and I type some prompts in, I've typed a prompt in. I've never used Chat GPT or OpenAI or any of that. But I know enough now, after my thing, which I wrote a piece on about generative AI and that whole experience. I now know what a prompt looks like. So I'm gonna take maybe a thought I had, and I'm going to end up creating this whole thing. That as Bad said, isn't gonna be mediocre. Not going to have human emotion. And I've taken my imagination and my creativity away. I've handed the keys to my kingdom to this machine. Once again, you're taking your energy, your thoughts, putting it on something else, and then not getting really what you want. It's not going to be as satisfying. Because when you have that piece of art, whether it's music, drawing, painting, that book, when you have that in your hand, that tangible piece that you created, there's no feeling like it. Because the project has been finished. And I'm sure, you know, and somebody's going to say that's ridiculous. But I'm sure when somebody created a light, you know, a lamp, a decorative lamp, the joy they felt when they saw the final complete project had to be no different than what I experienced when I finished my first book. Or finished my second book. Because there's always joy in the completion of seeing that you brought something to life. The very interesting thing about that AI situation, besides the fact that it wasn't really emotional, is when I look at that, the person swore wholeheartedly that they didn't use it. But you left prompts in there. And I leave notes sometimes in my stories for me to go back and rewrite something. But there was something missing in the whole piece. And the story jumped around. When you're an author, when you're a creator, you know that piece, you know those characters, you know that music, you know that chord progression. Even if you change it, you are aware of the things that you are creating. When you get so wrapped up in chasing numbers and chasing money and chasing material things, you lose something in your your humanity. So when Bet is talking about in the in the fact that when Brian said, no, go slower. If we actually stop and go slow and just take a moment to breathe, there's something freeing in that. To be able to sit there and just listen to a bird tweeting or singing. To smell the flowers. And I know those are all cliches. But as I've talked about before on the show, I could look at a sunset, but my husband couldn't. He couldn't see the vibrance that I did. Because he had rods taken out of his his vision in his eyes. The cones and rods were partially destroyed to stop blood. So he couldn't see it the way I did. And that's the thing with art. We all see it differently. But we all have to appreciate what we have in this life and in this world. Because even in our darkest moments, there's still something to see. It may be horrific, it may be traumatizing, but there's something that is still going to be stuck in our mind that will create something else. Because whether we admit it or not, every moment of our life we are creating something. Even if it is just a thought. So be careful what you think of. Don't get trapped in fear. Don't get caught up in control. And don't abandon yourself. Because no matter how scary things are, it's important to be here. And it's important to find community. And I'm still trying to find my community because I started out doing this podcast with a community and that shifted. And I kind of regret it. But now I have to find a new community. And that's even scarier. Because now I have to decide who I can trust. And that is a question or a feeling that a lot of us have to go through is how do I know that I'm with the right people? And what you have to realize is that even if that person is the right person at the right time, that doesn't mean they're always going to be there. It doesn't mean that they're going to be the right person two years from now. We have to understand that life is flexible and we are changing and the world is changing. Because if you would have told me, I can't say in 2008, because in 2008 I made mention to my husband something about that I didn't want a uh McMansion. I wanted a smaller house because eventually we were going to have a civil war. We haven't had one yet, and I hope we don't. But that was something that popped in my head, being an intuitive. And I hope we don't get there. But there has been talks. There was even a movie about it. And that's the other funny thing. You know, when we talked about life and art and everything else, and that the fact is when I look at movies, certain movies, I go, well, were they just trying to show us what was to come? And I mean, you know, with the AI surveillance state, we have, you know, Enemy of the State. We have uh there was Eagle Eye, I think it was, with Shia LaBeouf. We have, you know, Terminator, all those movies that were kind of showing us things, you know, with the possibility of yes, there's all the talk of food shortages. Do we have the Hunger Games? All these things were they trying to show us ahead of time what the future was going to look like. Personally, I would have wished it would have looked like the Jetsons, but we still don't have flying cars. But in all serious folks, I know we're in scary times. And just take care of yourself and help when you can. But don't call it help. Assist. Because help, yes, does have that meaning of maybe the person doesn't want to ask for help because they're scared that they're gonna be deemed a failure or unworthy or uh fearful of rejection. Allow yourself to be supportive, find the community you need, and do what you can to create the life you want. Because while things may be scary for the next couple of years, because we are repeating times, know that we're gonna get through this eventually. This isn't the end of the world unless somebody decides to burn a nuke. But hopefully, self-preservation in humanity kicks in. So, on that note, I hope you enjoyed the show. Um, it's kind of a heady conversation, but not too bad. I think art is something that we all need to do, and never tell yourself that I can't create, I'm not an artist. Because if you make a meal, well, you're creating. Even even if you take that precooked meal, if you start seasoning it and stuff, well, you're creating. So think about that. Even if you're in the shower and you're shampooing your hair and you make a mohawk, or you're you're still creating. It all is a form of creation and being creative, singing in your car. While you're just repeating the words, there's a vibration that you're of creation in your soul. So I thank you for tuning in. I thank Bet for coming on, and I thank Fast Susie for the intro and outro music. And most importantly, I thank you guys for tuning in because that's why I do this. And, you know, I'm not chasing the dollar, obviously. In fact, this cost me money, but I still do it. I still do it because deep down inside, whether I admit it or not, I really do like having these conversations. So, on that note, take care, guys. I gotta catch you next time. Bye.