Life North of the 54th

Transcript

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 01:26 - Previously On
• 07:05 - Odd Jobs
• 15:46 - Both Mind and Body
• 24:21 - Life as a Parent
• 30:28 - Pondering the Possible Future
• 40:03 - Expanding Horizons
• 44:03 - Goodbyes

00:00 - Introduction

Opening Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff]

Garett:
Welcome back to Life North to the 54th. I'm Garett Brown. This is our final episode of Season 2, so we're glad to have you with us. We thought it would be nice to end the season with the extended conversation that I had with Stephen Makus from Episode 12. Steve and I spoke for nearly two hours, and I only published the first 45 minutes or so of the conversation, so we thought we would have the second half of that conversation as a treat for you. So thank you for joining us. If you are interested in getting the full conversation, then feel free to go back and listen to Episode 12. However, I tried to keep most of the relevant conversation that we refer back to in this edit, so if you don't feel like going back and listening to the episode, that's fine too. I hope you enjoy this conversation that I had with Stephen. There was a little bit less of a focus on the Peace Country and more of a focus just generally on how we were doing and the feelings that we had about life in general. So I hope you appreciate it and I hope you learned something from it the same way that I did. Thanks again for joining us.

01:26 - Previously On

Garett:
Did you work at all when you were in high school?

Stephen:
Yeah, I actually started working for a drywall company when I was 12 years old. All I was doing was hauling out scrap drywall, throwing it in the dumpster, sweeping floors.

Garett:
I worked with you on that job too, right?

Stephen:
I'd already been working with Todd for like three seasons by that point.

Garett:
I also had that drywalling job in high school and it was a great learning experience.

Stephen:
Like I stopped working for a bit in high school, but then towards the end of it, I did construction for a bit doing odd jobs. I worked for like a reno company and then I got a job with a spray foam installation company, which great concept, but man is it really terrible for your health.

Garett:
Yeah, did you find it negatively affecting your health? Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. The chemicals that are used to make it, you can only filter so much of it out of your breathing space. And then I got a job with Planadin and then I've kind of been in the oil and gas sector, not necessarily in the field. A lot of it was spent in the shop, but I've stayed in that sector ever since then.

Garett:
Yeah, so that was sort of a transition for you from high school to adult world, like adulting, but it's also sort of like transition from construction to oil and gas.

Stephen:
Yeah, I don't know if a transition to adulting.

Garett:
Yeah, I mean-—

Stephen:
For me personally, it really took a long time to really kind of, I guess, grasp what that meant.

Garett:
Yeah, for sure.

Stephen:
And like kind of figure that out for myself, like I would easily into my late twenties for sure.

Garett:
I agree with you, Stephen. I moved to Fort St. John basically after finishing high school and worked in a tire shop for a year. And then I served a mission for the church in England for two years and then got back to the Peace Country and then went down to Utah to go to school. I did my bachelor's degree, but it really wasn't until towards the end of my bachelor's degree or really when I moved to Toronto that I began to understand the adulting experience. And like what it means to be an adult. And like, you know, by then you're like in your late twenties, basically starting to be 30. It takes a long time. And even though I had like distinct transitions from like moving cities and countries, it was still a number of years before I really realized what it meant to be adulting.

Stephen:
Yeah. I thought, I definitely thought like in my head at the time, you know, being young and naive, that moving to a different city would make me more of an adult. And that kind of motivated me to move to Edmonton all those years ago. But I would say the final hurdle really was through long periods of self-reflection during my time off in COVID. I think that was the final one where I kind of came into my own and actually felt like I was an adult for the first time.

Garett:
Yeah. Thanks for sharing.

Stephen:
Yeah. Well, and especially to like now I I'm definitely, I'm definitely kind of done with the city and I'm actually looking to move back somewhere in Grande Prairie there, rent a place. The ideal goal would be to get an acreage.

Garett:
Yeah. There's something quite stunning about it, but I totally agree with the, the city life and the country life. I think having experienced a pandemic in such a big city, it's very motivating for me to not live in the city my whole life.

Stephen:
Yeah. But that being said, I'm just, I'm kind of done with city life. Yeah. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe that's part of it. [laughs] I'm an old man prematurely and it's like, I just want to sit on my porch in the country. Watch the sunrise. But I definitely, I definitely share the sentiment of the nostalgia and, you know, for a first little bit, it's like you said, it's the, the tangling of the nostalgia and your childhood and the area. And it's like, no, I think just the area is just like a lot nicer. And I think you would have to, you know, spend a lot of time there to truly appreciate it.

Garett:
So I have another philosophical question for you, Stephen.

Stephen:
Just my jam.

Garett:
How do you feel that living in a Peace Country has influenced your outlook on life?

Stephen:
I think growing up in the Peace Country was only half of it. I think I needed to have that contrasting environment to not only just appreciate the area and appreciate the, you know, the growing up and the great times that I had there, but just as an outlook on life in general, there's a lot of inherently good beauty in nature.

Garett:
Yeah, for sure. Right.

Stephen:
And once I got into that, it's like, you start to see that same natural beauty wherever you go, rather than it just being like a local place, like, oh, this is, this is the only beautiful place in the world kind of thing. It's like, now I see it as like, you know, I like the Peace Country because it's unique in itself. It's weird, but then I start seeing that same kind of uniqueness in other places as well.

Garett:
Yeah. That's really insightful.

Stephen:
I started to see, I guess, in a way, I started to see the world in a way with a wider lens. I would say, especially in the last couple of years. But I don't know if I would have gained that perspective had I not seen the other side of it. The side I'm not so keen on. Maybe I'm just biased. Maybe I'm just biased to my home soil.

Garett:
Yeah, that's true.

Stephen:
Actually, funny enough, I'm actually in Dawson Creek right now. I'm not even in Alberta.

Garett:
Nice.

07:05 - Odd Jobs

Garett:
Do you have some other thoughts you want to share, Stephen, or any questions for me?

Stephen:
I think it's pretty neat that you're doing this show. I think it's really good. And I think, like, specifically, I guess the topic you're going after, right? At the very base level, you're kind of chronicling experiences in the area with the people you grew up with.

Garett:
I also appreciate that it can span so much. It's not focused really on a specific topic.

Stephen:
Well, I mean, you and I almost ran away with some tangents here earlier.

Garett:
I mean, it's sort of human interest, like, that you talk to people about their life stories and what they are interested in doing. And, you know, maybe we get overexcited about talking about tech because we like computers, we like the hardware.

Stephen:
And this is now a computer show.

Garett:
[chuckles] But on the other level, you know, we talk about farming, we talk about, you know, other people's employment and work experience, talk a little about the oil and gas industry, because, you know, that's sort of like what dominates it.

Stephen:
Yeah, that's crazy right now.

Garett:
Or, you know, just people's speculations. I know at the beginning of this year, when Preston and I talked with Rob Blum. Rob had a lot of stories to talk about the Peace Country and went on about gold that you might be able to find in the Peace Country and, you know, the geology and glaciology of the region. A lot to talk about.

Stephen:
Yeah, I mean, with my work, I actually get exposed to a lot of the geology in the area. It's actually quite a lot of it's quite interesting knowing what was there all those years ago under the ground in the time of the dinosaurs.

Garett:
Yeah. I remember working on the rigs in the summer, a couple of summers. You know, we're drilling down and we got to make sure that we're drilling in the right formations, looking for the right spot to get the natural gas. And the geologists would come up every so often to look at things. But one of my jobs was to take samples off of the, oh, I don't remember what it was called, but basically as you're drilling down, you're using a fluid to lubricate the drill and also to bring up the slough or like the stuff that the—

Stephen:
I believe the term you're looking for is invert mud.

Garett:
Invert mud. Yeah. I definitely remember the invert mud. Mostly because like you were saying before about the health hazard, the health hazard of invert mud is pretty strong.

Stephen:
Oh, yeah.

Garett:
You get paid. It was like when I was working, it was like 25 or 50 bucks a day just to work with the stuff. It's like a health hazard compensation. It was not great stuff. But anyway, yeah, I would be taking samples for the geologist so that he could analyze them and see where we were digging to make sure we were in the right spot. And it's pretty interesting to like see the stuff come up and talk to the geologist about what's going on.

Stephen:
So what's interesting is that I'm on the completion side of it. So we get in basically right after the drillers and we're there from the frack all the way to the handover, basically that whole portion. Like in Canada, we're called testers. In the States, they're known as flow back operators. Just basically try to get all the food and sand from the back out, clean it up before they can send down the pipeline. But a lot of times what happens is because of the shale formations and some of the velocities and forces in which this is all coming out of the ground, it brings shale with it as well. And I remember taking the first, like the first handful ever. And I was like looking at it and you think about it and you're like, okay, that's from the late Triassic period.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Stephen:
And you're like, looking at this rock and you're like, this is the first time in the entire history of this rock that's in my hand that it's been exposed to solar rays. This is the first time ever.

Garett:
Oh, wow! Yeah, you're right!

Stephen:
Hundreds of millions of years. Cause it only, that shale only formed underground. So like its existence has been entirely down there. And so you pull it out, have it in your hand. You're like, this is the first time it's ever seen the sun.

Garett:
Wow.

Stephen:
And funny enough, that shale, all it is is decayed plant matter. So in a way you're kind of just holding a solidified piece of the sun.

Garett:
Yeah. Because of all the energy that it took, the plant took from the sun to photosynthesize and take the carbon from the atmosphere and turn it into cell structure.

Stephen:
Yep.

Garett:
Yeah. Wow. Thanks. I had not thought of that before.

Stephen:
Actually at home, I've started collecting little containers. I have pieces of shale from different formations or different sections of formations across Alberta and BC, just kind of like souvenirs and be like, cause different kinds, right? Like it's different kinds of rock. Sometimes it's like, you know, kind of like big, more sandstone, kind of more porous rock. And other times it's this, it's really black that it's kind of like tiny, almost kind of looks like shards of glass and it's all really dense. And don't worry, go. Sometimes it's different colors. Sometimes it's reddish, bluish, something like that.

Garett:
I remember a big chunk of coal coming up with the invert mud. I think it was like two inches wide and like half an inch thick. It was a nice big chunk of coal. It was pretty exciting.

Stephen:
Throw it in your fire.

Garett:
Yeah. I never did take it home and burn it or something, but it was just one of the things that astonished me about it was actually how light coal is compared to other shales. Like it's so much more porous.

Stephen:
A lot of the formations that we deal with, right. Is all ancient seabed. Which is actually kind of interesting in a way too, because all that porous shale holds inside of it within like, so the natural gas is contained in between the shale and also inside the shale, depending on the porosity of it, but also molecules of ancient seawater, seawater trapped in the porosity of the shale.

Garett:
Wow.

Stephen:
And so when they like, when they crack it and they break it with sand and like the hydraulic pressure, it, you know, it splits this rock apart and you get your gas, but you also get your ancient seawater. So like we, we monitor fluid samples and stuff like that. And one of the things we look at is salinity and you can, you know, the salinity of the fluid actually can tell you a lot because it can either increase the salinity if a new area is now opened and flowing.

Garett:
Right.

Stephen:
Or it can go down. It can freshen up the water, depending on what's in the rock. You never know.

Garett:
Wow.

Stephen:
But sometimes it's a lot, sometimes about higher than I guess normal seawater is right now.

Garett:
Yeah. Yeah. I imagine the, the surrounding rock has something to do with it too. Maybe there's some more dissolving going on as it comes up.

Stephen:
I mean, if you think about how much water is on the planet and it's what, 1.5%, almost 2% average in the ocean.

Garett:
For salinity?

Stephen:
Yeah. But if you were to take all the water and separate it from the salt, there's a lot of salt. That is a lot of salt.

Garett:
Oh yeah.

Stephen:
One could make the assumption that there's a lot more salt in other places, but you need salt.

Garett:
Yep.

Stephen:
You need it.

Garett:
Yeah. One of the things that I have not studied very in-depthly, but it's sort of fascinating to me because I study astrophysics and on one level I'm not super concerned about the evolution of stars, but since I study astrophysics and I go to conferences, people talk about the evolution of stars. And as the sun is fusing things together up to iron, you pass through sodium and chloride and potassium and-

Stephen:
Other metals.

Garett:
These other sorts of elements that essentially in the normal process of a star going from birth to death, you get all of these elements which are really essential for life.

Stephen:
Yep.

Garett:
Right? Like these are like the really common elements that are essential for life in terms of the vitamins and minerals that are needed to be healthy. And it's usually the heavier elements, things heavier than iron that are not essential for life. But those are the things that are the more precious metals like gold and platinum that are created in different but more rare events. And so it's really fascinating to me to see that connection too. Like that the common things that we see on earth are commonly made in stars, but at the same time, just the way that it all works together is just incredibly fascinating to me. It's all connected and put together.

Stephen:
Yeah. I've always found it really neat too that it's like when you go through the fusion reaction of a dying star and it starts eating up all the hydrogen and then starts using the heavier elements. But it's crazy that once it gets to iron, that is the one. Like if you don't make it to iron, you can, the star will live for a little bit longer. But the second it hits iron and starts fusing iron, it's a dead end. And iron is one of the more prevalent metals, but it's also one of the most versatile metals.

Garett:
It is. Yeah.

Stephen:
I mean, the human species, it's like, this is the material that kills stars, every star, not one or two, it kills everyone. Once it hits this one, it's game over. And, you know, we build cars out of it, machines out of it.

Garett:
It's amazing.

15:46 - Both Mind and Body

Garett:
See, Stephen, this is what I mean. In a show like this, you just get to talk about anything you want.

Stephen:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's one of the things that didn't change, I would say with me is that like, although I've never approached secondary education, I guess that natural curiosity and that natural inclination to learn never left. It was more just a, I like to work with my hands, I guess. I like being, you know, boots on the ground. But I think that's actually an important thing that people need to always, at least, maybe not necessarily have a desire for. But I think that's one of the big lessons I learned in life is never stop learning, never stop trying to learn at least.

Garett:
Yeah.

Stephen:
If it's not interesting to anybody else, who cares? If all of a sudden you take a huge interest in the life and death cicadas for no reason whatsoever. Go for it.

Garett:
Yeah. I do understand the boots on the ground feeling though. Growing up, you know, after high school, I was really eager to go to university, but I was working and saving up money and so on. And, you know, working in a tire shop, working construction, working in drywall. And it was fine. It was good. But I also, you know, got tired. I was tired of the on my feet all day, tired of the, you know, getting really cold because of the weather or really hot because of the weather. And just the appeal of sitting inside an air conditioned building and at a desk and, you know, just thinking instead of, you know, putting in so much manual labor and working so hard in that sense, it was very appealing. But now I have essentially for the past almost 10 years been doing desk work as I've been a student. And there is a huge appeal to the physical labor part of it now to me. And I think my PhD advisor also feels similarly. He moved to a new place a couple of years ago, and he turned his basement basically into a woodworking shop. And he just makes furniture and stuff because after working on scientific problems all day, sitting at a desk and a computer, he likes to go downstairs and work with his hands and manipulate things and create something tangible because it's very different and it's very satisfying.

Stephen:
Yeah. I'm just on the opposite side. I do a lot of the manual physical labor, which depending on some of the jobs that I've had, though, like machinists, for example, there's actually a lot of thinking and math required in machining, a lot of very, very crucial spatial skills.

Garett:
Yep. Absolutely.

Stephen:
Even in my job, really. So it's kind of weird. It's like to have that thinking aspect to the job that I do is a huge asset, but it's not required. It's weird like that. You can do it without having any sort of inquiry into how things work the way they do. You just like, there's a lot of guys I work with is coming in, just do the motions and leave. Without thinking about what's going on. But yeah, I'm on the opposite side. I still read a lot or try to as much as I can. But yeah, just having interest in science, even math. But as I got older, that was the weird one is I actually started, I don't know if it was because in my head, I started to, it was like sometimes in my mid 20s, I think it was when I was pushing to be machinist. And I had to kind of grasp a little more math, which I never became a machinist, by the way. I have like second year level skills, and that's about it. But that was the first time in my life, I guess math really started to click in my head naturally without having to try, I guess. I could just think about it. And that was really nice. So yeah, still have a huge love from, actually have a pretty big love for math and with the sciences, physics, chemistry, biology is meh, it is whatever.

Garett:
It's fundamental to life, but it's not where my focus is.

Stephen:
The problem I have with biology is it's just a lot of facts and remembering facts. It's just remembering information. I think both sides are important. I think it's equally as important to exercise your body as much as it is to exercise your brain and vice versa. And if you miss out on one or the other, it can be detrimental depending on who you are.

Garett:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I learned that pretty quickly in 2020. The lockdowns in Toronto were pretty long. And we tried, especially with our daughter, who at the time was less than a year old, we tried to stay inside and away from people as much as possible because we didn't, you know, didn't have the information to make adequate risk assessment and didn't understand how things were. So we stayed inside, a lot. And there's a pretty small apartment. It's only a two bedroom apartment. And by August of 2020, my muscles, like my glutes had atrophied so much that it was painful for me to go from sitting to standing or to go from like lying down to sitting or something like that. Like basically just moving and stretching had become excruciatingly painful because I had basically become more sedentary as a student. And because I was focused on trying to study and, you know, not so much on trying to exercise my body. But yeah, 2020 essentially like broke me almost physically because I had not moved for so many months. Essentially my one part of exercise for the day of like walking to campus or back had been taken away from me. And so I essentially was doing zero exercise.

Stephen:
Right. Yeah.

Garett:
Yeah. And it hurts. And it took a few, like a number of months of physiotherapy to like get back into being able to sit up without having shooting pain down my leg and stuff like that. So yeah, I totally understand first hand like the importance of both.

Stephen:
I have bad back just from the fact that when, you know, gaming kind of more came around, I spent a lot of time in my youth in a computer chair. It's to the point where if I'm not taking care of myself physically, it gets like bad where I can't touch my toes. It's difficult getting to bed, stuff like that. Lifting is hard. But for you, luckily, I've spent a lot of time researching the subject or being inquiring into the subject. Studies have shown is like this kind of this double edged sword. So you were super athletic in your youth, which is good, that's great. It builds a great foundation. But the downside is, is compared to like, say, somebody who wasn't super athletic, the effects of sedentary lifestyle are more pronounced on people who are athletic in their.

Garett:
Oh, interesting.

Stephen:
It's weird. It's just one of those weird things where it's like, basically, if you don't maintain the decline happens, not worse, but it just faster. And I definitely noticed that, like, I'm not going to the gym, semi-regularly, even just stretching. I noticed that my physical condition gets not so great really quickly. But the upside to that is muscle. So if and when you decide to train your body again or whatever, it comes back quicker than it would for the person who was more naturally sedentary. It's a weird double edged sword.

Garett:
Interesting.

Stephen:
Basically, it goes away really quick and it also comes back.

Garett:
Oh, that sounds so tiring to maintain that, though.

Stephen:
But it doesn't take much, though. That's the thing.

Garett:
Yeah, it probably doesn't on one level.

Stephen:
The two biggest ones, honestly, like if you were to boil it down to take like two things, what are two things you could do? Honestly, it's just like full body stretching and core exercise. That's it.

Garett:
Yeah, I have learned that core exercises are very fundamental.

Stephen:
You want to do like do those two? You'd be good.

Garett:
Being a parent is hard to find time to do stuff like that because you get tired and then you want to rest. But, you know, you have more things to do as a PhD student. So I mean, but I would say last year we got a scooter for our daughter because she saw a lot of kids have scooters and she was pretty jealous. And, you know, we wanted to get her something. We got her a scooter for her birthday. Now, a year later, she is pretty proficient on her scooter and it was getting difficult to keep up with her. I would have to run to keep up with her, which is quite tiring. So I got a scooter so that I could scoot along with her. And I had no idea the reliance of glutes on scooting, just like because you're constantly squatting, like you're sort of constantly in a half squat and you're constantly pushing with like your hamstrings and your glutes. And it's been really great for me.

Stephen:
That's good.

Garett:
For me, in terms of the physiotherapy exercises that I was doing to heal and the muscles that I work when I'm scooting is a really large overlap in that Venn diagram. So that's really great that I can now do something that is fun for my daughter so that she wants to do it, but is also highly beneficial for me. That's a great win-win.

Stephen:
Yeah. I mean, that's pretty great, actually, is having your child basically motivate you to be more physical. You know, you hear that story a lot, actually. So I want to get in shape so I can keep up with my kids. Like, oh, that's good. Use that motivation. There's nothing wrong with that.

24:21 - Life as a Parent

Stephen:
How is the life as a parent treating you?

Garett:
It's good. On one level, it's really hard because you constantly are doing things you've never done before. And on another level, as I try to be better myself and like more aware about how my life experience has shaped me, I try and help my daughter to have life experiences that are positive and good for her. And I also want her to learn how to express her feelings and her emotions, but also control them so that she doesn't have outbursts and doesn't hit people. You know, things like that.

Stephen:
Yeah. Being aware, not only just aware, but also in control of your emotions is a highly, highly undervalued thing, I would say.

Garett:
Yeah. So, you know, it's in part me being more aware of my emotions so that I can better feel them. Right? So on that level of, you know, emotions are going to happen and just stifling them is not going to be very helpful for managing mental wellness.

Stephen:
I can agree with you on that one.

Garett:
So feeling them, so like if you feel a positive emotion or a negative emotion, understanding the feeling and experiencing it is sort of what you have to do to process it healthily. At least that's how I understand it. And then, you know, in something like anger or frustration, you can experience the anger and frustration, but you also have to control yourself so that you don't do things that you will regret later. So it's this level of feeling and experiencing, but also controlling. And being a parent means often getting very tired. And, you know, when you're tired, it's more difficult to control your emotions. And so that's sort of what I find the most difficult is when I'm feeling frustrated, my daughter is tired and feeling frustrated. And then we're just a bad feedback loop of both of us making each other more and more frustrated. It becomes more and more difficult to control what's going on. And things just sort of become much less pleasant.

Stephen:
Yeah.

Garett:
There's that. But also, she helps me to feel and experience positive emotions more easily.

Stephen:
That's good.

Garett:
Because she's adorable. And she does funny things. And she's silly and ridiculous. So she doesn't take life too seriously. Because, you know, she's three. And that gives me an opportunity for me to learn how to better experience my positive emotions and have a better understanding on how to not stifle the happy feelings that I do have.

Stephen:
I mean, I don't think anybody should take like, when I say don't take life seriously, I don't mean like, I think it needs to be taken less seriously. Okay, here, I guess here's a good maybe analogy. Imagine you're on a hiking trail. But you're so focused with getting to the end of the hiking trail, that the entire time you're looking at your feet, you're looking at the ground, because you're taking the hike as an activity too seriously. I think that could be translated into life as well. Whereas if you take life too seriously, you may miss the small moments or the beauty that's exists around you. And then when you look back, me personally, I just I have a hard time taking life super seriously. But I don't know if that's a me thing, or what, but that's kind of how I roll. Mostly now. It's just like, I can't, you take life too seriously. Yeah, it just gets too stressful. Way too stressful.

Garett:
Yeah, for sure.

Stephen:
I just think, you should, you should live a life that's respectable. It's happy. Treat the people around you well. And, you know, maybe inspire a few people here and there, but I think it should be taken super seriously. I think a lot of people get caught up in that.

Garett:
Yeah, I feel like on one level, it's because there's this constant push to maximize productivity or like to maximize output, or to maximize the experience. And so whatever definition you're using under that to reach your full potential or do something to the fullest, sometimes it can, you can take it too seriously, right? Like the your goal of the hike is to finish it the fastest or the best under some criteria of best. And then yeah, you miss out on the views or the experience or the time with others.

Stephen:
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't mean you shouldn't go like try to reach your goals or whatever, but.

Garett:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. That's not, that's not really what I meant. But yeah, in terms of like, if you're taking things too seriously, then you can get too caught up in productivity or accomplishing something. And sort of miss the serendipitous opportunities that come.

Stephen:
Yeah. I was very, I used to be very much like that way.

Garett:
Me too.

Stephen:
Trying to take life too seriously. Yeah. Again, with back to the hiking analogy, maybe because I just like hiking, but back to the analogy again, it's the same thing as life is a unique experience for each person. So living life to the fullest is subjective based off the person is right for some, maybe, you know, it's being a writer for you, maybe being a physicist, you know, being ultra dedicated to your family, the human experience is unique person to person. And I think people need to remember that. Like I have friends and it's sad to watch and they get caught up in certain things or like just completely tunnel visioned on a single track and like, they're taking life too seriously or they're just too blind to everything else. And they have like friends that are trying to like, be like, "Hey, you know, like you need to slow down a little bit." Or I think, yeah, I think a lot of people just as cliche as it is to say, stop and smell the flowers. That's good that your daughter brings that for you. I'm happy to hear that.

Garett:
Yeah. And thankfully the pandemic hasn't seemed to be too detrimental to her social ability and her playing with other children.

Stephen:
That's good.

Garett:
Yeah. She's in daycare and she has lots of fun at daycare.

Stephen:
Probably too young to remember it anyway, depending on how good her memory is.

Garett:
She does have a pretty good memory. So I'll have to quiz her when she's older. She does remember a lot of things, especially when you promise up to her.

Stephen:
But you, but you said—

Garett:
Yeah, exactly.

Stephen:
That's good. That's good man.

30:28 - Pondering the Possible Future

Garett:
[sighs] Well, thank you so much, Stephen.

Stephen:
I appreciate the invitation of being part of your show, being in just on the podcast.

Garett:
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming and for taking the time to catch up with me.

Stephen:
Anytime message me, call me whatever.

Garett:
And you can message me anytime too.

Stephen:
If I don't get back to you, it's because I can't get back to you. I don't want it to that.

Garett:
Yeah. That's how it is for me too.

Stephen:
That's why you guys are such good friends. It's because just pick up where we left off.

Garett:
Yeah. It's great. I really appreciate that.

Stephen:
They say that is the test of a true friend. When you see a friend after many years, it's as if you never missed a day between,

Garett:
I appreciate you being a friend like that for me, Stephen.

Stephen:
Yeah, man. I appreciate you being the same friend, Garett. We have known each other for most of our lives. So there's that.

Garett:
That's also true. Yep. It's also true.

Stephen:
Since we were wee children. Now we're in our thirties. We're getting old.

Garett:
Yeah. And I'm still in school.

Stephen:
You know, it's crazy. So, okay. I'll just, I'll just do a short summary. It's going to be this weird roundabout thing. So right now I'm working towards a lifelong dream and the lifelong dream is to take a sailboat and sail around the world.

Garett:
That's a great, ambitious dream.

Stephen:
Yeah. So right now I'm using kind of this job is to provide the finance and also, like I got back from Vancouver this week from a course, like an actual school course, sailing school. But yeah, so three, four years from now, I'm going to go do it for a couple of years. But weirdly enough, when I come back, I'm split between, I'm like, if I want to stay in oil and gas, I want to go all the way up, go as far up as I can. But if not, I might actually go to school for teaching. I've toyed with that idea. Just like teaching, like, you know, maybe middle school or junior high, high school, something like that. Something that's not incredibly difficult to learn how to teach. Like, obviously probably like math, sciences, gym or something.

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah.

Stephen:
But I don't know. Yeah. I've thought about that. There's also been times where I've thought about like, maybe I should get into politics. Who knows?

Garett:
It's only ever briefly crossed my mind. Only when I'm in a frustrated state. And then when I start thinking more logically, again, I always decide against it.

Stephen:
I think the hardest part about politics is picking a spot where you want to stand in the eyes of the public. I think that'd be the hardest part.

Garett:
I think so too. Because I personally feel like I would change if I take some stance somewhere and then somebody comes up to me and provides me with some evidence or like some really clear argument that I feel like, you know, I might change my mind. And then what? Right? That's not a very good politician. What kind of politician goes around and just changes their mind all the time? I mean, don't we wish that people would change their mind? But that's not how modern politics works.

Stephen:
No, it was like one of those things that popped up in my head. It's just like, oh, would that be fun? Could it be fun?

Garett:
[laughs]

Stephen:
Because like, you know, a lot of these politicians are in their elder years. Right? Again, fifties and sixties is like, okay, so, you know, maybe I have a more complete worldview by then. I do love this country. I love the people in this country. And I don't know, I think depending on how I, that's like a, that's like a super, super end of the line open door, but yeah, maybe we'll see. Probably not though. Might end up just being, I live out on a farm in the country.

Garett:
Yeah. So as Rob Blum was saying, he always enjoyed farming, but he spent his time doing concrete that now that he's in his seventies and he has time to farm, he's old and in the seventies and he gets really tired. But yeah, I'm not sure what my future plans are. It's so difficult to tell.

Stephen:
Well you got a PhD to finish at least.

Garett:
Yep. That's, that's where I'm focused now. Got to finish my PhD.

Stephen:
And then, you know, maybe you don't want anything to do with astrophysics after. Who knows? Maybe that could be a thing, but at least it'd be Dr. Brown.

Garett:
Yep. Or if I wanted to go by Doc Brown, if I wanted to be associated with Back to the Future.

Stephen:
Don't be making any time machines now. Temporal mechanics, as they say, is a very fickle thing.

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah. A lot of me hopes that time travel is not possible just for the complicated nature of it.

Stephen:
I think under certain circumstances it would be, well, okay. Probabilities. If it's doable, it already exists.

Garett:
Right. Yeah, exactly. Cause if it's doable, then in the future, somebody may figure it out.

Stephen:
But if somebody had figured it out, you know, maybe there's something like laws or we're just in a period of time. That's not interesting to time travelers.

Garett:
Yeah. Or the time travelers travel in such a way that it's unknowable to us.

Stephen:
Or, you know, there's also the whole parallel timelines. Also true. Every, every choice you make has an action. And therefore, if you go back in time, you can never go back to your same timeline. Even if you go back to the exact same moment.

Garett:
Right.

Stephen:
Have you ever watched the movie primer?

Garett:
No, I haven't.

Stephen:
You should watch that movie.

Garett:
I'll make a note of it.

Stephen:
I think you would like it. It's a kind of an indie. It's like a low budget indie movie, but it's about time travel as really good. And the person that introduced it to me was Dave Woodruff.

Garett:
Oh, that's great. I definitely want to have Dave on the show at some point.

Stephen:
You'd probably get him pretty easily. I mean, him and still talk and we're still good friends.

Garett:
Yeah. He and I had a great chat and meet up when I was living in Provo, in Utah.

Stephen:
Good old Dave.

Garett:
Yeah. So—

Stephen:
Before we move on there, with my one piece of advice to you as your friend would be if by some chance, when you finish your PhD, you want to move on to something else. Don't get caught in the feelings of that's not the right thing to do because you shouldn't feel shame in changing something. Even though there's a lot of time invested, there's nothing wrong with changing your horizons because the skills that you've gained along the way are no longer, it's not like they become immediately irrelevant, all the knowledge, all the skills you've gained along the way. So in the event that that happens, I guess, just don't worry about it too much.

Garett:
Thank you.

Stephen:
Move on to the next thing. If you want to try a new thing. If you don't like something, you don't have to stick with it.

Garett:
I personally think that anybody who makes it through a PhD and didn't think or seriously consider quitting or leaving or changing everything, you know, rethinking your whole life plan. I kind of feel like if they made it through that without, you know, having some existential crisis in that regard, I don't know about like what their experience of a PhD is. It just seems different from so different from mine and different from every other PhD student that I've ever met. [chuckles]

Stephen:
So, I mean, it almost seems like a prerequisite that you need to have an existential crisis midway through.

Garett:
Yeah, I did have a crisis through it and I did make it through and I'm determined to finish. I'm closer to finishing that I am to when I started. [chuckles] But yeah, it's yeah. Thanks, Stephen. I don't know what will happen, but I also feel like being open to change and open to opportunity and new opportunity is mostly what I'm headed for.

Stephen:
That's good. Good mindset. Yeah. Just don't be afraid to try something not like it and then move on to something else. Who knows? Maybe you'll go through when it comes time to do a job. I know you're talking to me about employment afterwards. Who knows? Maybe you might sift through a few different related fields of work or like you said, pursue maybe try teaching, being a professor for a little bit. That might be fun. But you know, you never know. Keep an open mind. You might have to sift through a little bit before something you find something you really love.

Garett:
I think mostly my existential crisis of going through a PhD was related to, I believe, the Dunning-Kruger effect. Are you aware of this?

Stephen:
I've heard the name, but a simple explanation?

Garett:
Yeah. So the Dunning-Kruger effect from the definition is in psychology, it's a cognitive bias where people with a limited knowledge or competence in some area greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that area. So this is really the path of like most people from the beginning of like a bachelor's degree to the end of a PhD, where as you study more on your bachelor's degree, you begin to feel like you have a great confidence or like an understanding of what's going on. So your confidence in your mastery over the subject is really high. But then as you go along, you begin to learn more and more and you begin to realize how little you know. And so your confidence decreases until you get to a point where you actually know a lot, but you're also so aware of how much you don't know that you're extremely unconfident. And then as you continue to push through and learn more and more, you start to become more confident in understanding what your mastery over the domain is, or like your mastery over the subject matter. And so you better understand the bounds of what you know and what you don't know. So generally people will become more confident again.

Stephen:
Yeah, I have heard of the effect.

Garett:
So yeah, that was mostly what my existential crisis was of like going through that, going down that really low point of feeling like I didn't like, you know, completely lacking confidence that I could actually accomplish or do any part of what I was trying to do. And now I'm feeling more confident.

Stephen:
Yes, that's good. I mean, as you describe it, where you say like, the more you realize you don't know is what crushes your confidence. I find for myself, at least that's actually kind of confidence boosting in a way, knowing that I know less about subjects than I previously thought, simply for the fact, because it means there's more learning to do. There's more things to learn about the thing I thought I knew about. But then there's this extra layer of stuff I didn't know. And then for me, that's where that natural curiosity of learning kicks in. It's like, okay, now I got to know what this little thing's about. And then I just kind of, sometimes I kind of tunnel vision.

40:03 - Expanding Horizons

Stephen:
I've also in the last year been reading a lot of more ancient literature. And that's also been a huge eye opener for me.

Garett:
Yeah, yeah, it really is. Absolutely.

Stephen:
A lot more ancient philosophy. Like I love history to begin with, but a lot more into like ancient philosophy, especially across different cultures, different societies through time.

Garett:
Yeah. Also, for me, the more I've spent in a PhD, and the more time that I've spent talking with other PhD students who are in the humanities, and you know, who don't study science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, the more that I realized that the problems that the humanities discipline grapples with are so much bigger. And so much more complicated, and so much more consequential than anything in physics. Like, you know, physics, it's flashy, because it has, you know, huge particle colliders and trying to uncover secrets of the origin of the universe. But like in the humanities, you're talking about like this, these overlapping interests and deeply rooted understandings, and really like the whole struggle of humanity, like in the sense of like grappling with what it means to be human, what it means to interact with other people, what it means to be good or bad. Like these questions are so much bigger and more complicated than why is there more matter than antimatter, or why is there so much dark matter in the universe?

Stephen:
Yeah. I mean, in that regard, I think that's where I maybe derived a lot of, I guess, a lot of personal insight in regards to, I mean, society's a mess, to be real here. It is an absolute mess right now.

Garett:
Yeah.

Stephen:
But I think a lot of the principles that are taught in these ancient philosophies, I think more or less could be applied. Like, I guess one of my favorite books, again, probably cliche, is the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. If you've ever read it, or if you haven't. I have not read it. Great book, I would read it. It's just like, basically, the memoirs of a Roman general, and also emperor. And basically, it's just a letter to his family on just like, I guess, just tidbits of wisdom that he picked through life, you know, certain things. Like, one of the bigger ones for me, at least, was that life in itself, whether you believe in a creator or not, doesn't really have any inherent meaning.

Garett:
Right.

Stephen:
But life not having any inherent meaning gives human beings the opportunity to give it meaning in its own way.

Garett:
Yes. Yeah.

Stephen:
Right? It's not just going to create itself. There's no purpose to life, which can be really crushing to people. But it's also kind of beautiful because now, again, whether you believe in a creator or not, from both perspectives, I think, in a way that makes life a lot more beautiful, because it's a truly unique experience.

Garett:
Yeah. You imbue meaning into life from your own perspective or from your own approach. And so the meaning that you imbue into life is the meaning that you get out of life.

Stephen:
Exactly. If you want a reading list, I have a whole pile if you're interested.

Garett:
Oh, I am interested. But I also understand that my reading list is, it always grows longer and it never could never get it shorter.

Stephen:
Ebooks, man. I'm telling you.

Garett:
Well, I mean, yes, but people publish new scientific papers every day, and I try and keep up with stuff like that, too. It's endless. It's always endless.

Stephen:
Just tons of papers, eh?

Garett:
Yeah.

Stephen:
I mean, I read a paper from time to time, depending on what the subject is and depending on if it's within my grasp. And sometimes it's not.

Garett:
Yeah, even for me, it's not. Scientific writing is [ugh] a mess of jargon.

Stephen:
The funny thing is, though, is like a lot of the times when I do read the papers, it's like I understand the jargon, but I don't understand the math. And that can be good and it can be bad sometimes. Because if the math's not really super critical to the concept, it's easy. But when it is, I have no idea where you're coming from here. I'm sorry.

44:03 - Goodbyes

Garett:
Well, Stephen, I think I need to go now. It has been an absolute pleasure talking with you.

Stephen:
You as well, my friend.

Garett:
Thank you.

Stephen:
You as well. Well, I guess I'll end on saying what I think you're doing here is pretty great. And I think that more people need to talk about their life stories and just life in general. I think people need to do that more and share it or even listen. I think there's something for everybody out there. I think, yeah, I think what you're doing is good.

Garett:
Thank you. And thank you to those who do listen. If you want to email us feedback, ask us questions or write in a story for us to share, you can email us at lifenorthofthe54th@gmail.com. But we're really grateful for you to come on the show with Stephen.

Stephen:
Like I said, I'm grateful to be here.

Garett:
Thanks. I hope you have a great day.

Stephen:
Yeah, you as well.

Garett:
See you around and talk to you again.

Stephen:
Yeah, for sure.

Garett:
Bye.

Stephen:
Ciao.

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