Love, 32 Years Later with My Parents!

Reese Brown (00:00.888)

So we're going. Okay. Hello, mom and dad. Thank you for being here with me today. I'm so excited to do this. Of course, listeners, dedicated listeners of Making Meaning will have seen your faces and have heard your voices before as you've each had your own episode where you discussed Making Meaning. But as season three,

has been coming to a close. I didn't have a guest for the finale that I was super excited about to, I don't know. There was something about it that I wanted to feel special. And as I was thinking about how, who should I have as the finale episode? And then at the same time I was thinking about, also need to talk to mom and dad. I haven't talked to them in a little bit. And I was like, wait, here we go. So thank y'all.

for doing this, I'm excited.

Mike Brown (01:01.449)

I'm excited too. Thank you, Reese.

Paige (01:01.719)

your thing. Always.

Reese Brown (01:03.913)

Well, you'll kind of know the drill. So we'll start with the first question we always start with, which is what is one thing that you are grateful for?

Paige (01:18.433)

So I'll say I am grateful for my health and I'm grateful that I guess sure my health but maybe that's not even a good one because my health hasn't been the best lately. However, I know a lot of people that aren't able to do all the wonderful things that we get to do.

Mike Brown (02:23.979)

Thank

Reese Brown (02:39.859)

Yeah. Well, and I do think it makes me, anytime you think about like, well, I am thankful for this thing, but it's like, but also it's hard sometimes. There's a quote in Perks of Being a Wallflower where the main character's dad is telling him like, finish your dinner because there are starving kids in Africa, you know, the classic thing. And the protagonist is writing and he's like, you know, that may be true. And that's really,

sad and horrible, but that also doesn't make my hurt hurt any less. And it's like, you're allowed to have your hurt too and also still be thankful for the other things. So it's a spectrum and it's complex.

Mike Brown (03:26.379)

Well, I'm grateful for our family and the time we get to spend together.

Reese Brown (03:33.553)

Yeah, even virtually with slightly pixelated screens.

Paige (03:37.641)

Actually, I am extremely grateful for technology because we're able to see you all the time.

Mike Brown (03:37.674)

Yes.

Reese Brown (03:43.569)

Yeah, truly, if that is... I don't know if I would have been able to just emotionally move far away if it wasn't for the capacity that we have to stay connected and in touch for sure. Totally. so it's like in that way, technology really has afforded us a lot of things, not just...

staying connected while you're in one place, but being able to travel and move and be anywhere you want to be and still be connected. To move into the second question, slightly different than the first time, the second question is always, is your story? And so of course we kind of got into that solo story with both of y'all, but I was thinking about this and kind of prepping for this episode as much as one can prep to interview their parents.

But like, what are the things that I know about mom and dad that we didn't really get to or talk about in their first episodes and y'all's relationship to each other? Well, it was a part of the conversation, right? It wasn't really one of the things that we like super dug into. So what is in light of this being a duo episode, right? What is the story of y'all? How would y'all describe

Your story.

Paige (05:14.897)

Your dad looks so serious over there. It's just so funny.

Mike Brown (05:17.352)

I'm just just trying to be a interviewee

Paige (05:23.655)

Well, you're misleading. You're totally misleading the audience because you haven't interrupted us once.

Reese Brown (05:25.129)

There's no such thing.

Reese Brown (05:37.827)

Aww, what a great start to y'all's story!

Mike Brown (05:37.845)

So anyway, our story is quite, our story is really nice story. And I think part of it, part of the reason you didn't hear a lot, Reese, was that we spent a lot of our time focusing on you guys, you and your brother. And I think that's something that it's really important to be careful for couples because what we realized is that we put so much of our time and energy and effort into you. We allowed some things to kind of come between us at times.

Paige (05:37.913)

Okay.

Mike Brown (06:08.099)

Create some you know ups and downs and pickups between us, which it's really important to set aside time Couples to set aside time for themselves. I think and that was one thing, you know in hindsight we could have done a better job

Reese Brown (06:27.091)

I think, well real quick mom, is there anything you wanna add to that before I have a follow up thought?

Paige (06:33.807)

Well, no, he's completely true, but that's not our whole story. Right? Right?

Reese Brown (06:39.889)

Yeah, well, so we'll get into more of your story in a second, but I suppose to start with that, because it is kind of the entryway with, you know, me and how I relate to y'all, you know? I think one thing that really sticks out to me as like this being part of your story is knowing one, how long y'all dated before...

Mike Brown (06:40.095)

No, that's not a line.

Paige (06:46.115)

Okay.

Paige (06:54.863)

True.

Reese Brown (07:08.559)

getting married and two, how long you were married without kids before making the decision to have kids. So it is interesting when I hear you talk about having kids and how much that changed your life that there was so much of your story before that too, right? And of course you'll never really know life post like after having kids, there really is, you'll always have kids now. but

Paige (07:33.923)

Mm-hmm.

Reese Brown (07:35.879)

I think that also really speaks to the nature of having been together for so long. And one of my favorite things is when we're at a wedding together and they play the game of like all the couples get on the dance floor and dance. And then if you've been married for, you know, more than five years, stay on the dance floor. If you've been married for more than 10 years, stay on the dance floor, more than 20.

and then they'll get to like 25 and it starts to look like, a lot of these people look really old. And then there are my parents and then it's like 30. And now it's like, there are people like in their seventies sitting down and my parents are still up there and y'all are always like the youngest people there. And I think not that, you know, getting married young isn't a virtue in and of itself.

but I think there is something really beautiful about having been married young and built, building a life together as a couple and then entering into the decision to have kids together. And you have been together for so long, you know, it's like that.

Mike Brown (08:53.003)

But I don't see us as having gotten married young. were, what, 28 and 20...

Paige (09:04.001)

23 and 27.

Mike Brown (09:05.769)

Yeah, okay.

Reese Brown (09:06.931)

So can you imagine me being married for two years at this point in my life,

There you go. Right? It's like, it is, right.

Mike Brown (09:17.759)

But it's different because you're a different, I know you differently, right?

Paige (09:26.571)

I mean, everyone's different. Everyone comes from a different life situation. And you can never plan when you're going to meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with,

Reese Brown (09:30.931)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (09:38.993)

Yeah, well, and theoretically it could have happened for me in high school. It could maybe not happen for another 10 years or for the rest of my life. know, I think that's so true. Yeah, so I guess then to go back to the beginning, mom, you said that is a part of our story, but it's not our whole story. What else sticks out to you that you want to share?

Paige (10:07.507)

I mean, like you said, we had a huge nine years, almost 10 years before your brother was born. So we had a full life of so many firsts together, I think is a part of what is really fun. of course we met at work and I was a waiter and your dad was a bartender.

and he made Super Mike Margaritas, which margaritas are still my favorite. And we traveled a lot. I always wanted to travel. We didn't travel much growing up. mean, when I say not much, it really wasn't much at all. We had one trip to Disney World when I was in fourth grade and a couple of trips to the Gulf Coast, Texas.

Mike Brown (10:40.885)

you

Paige (11:06.431)

when I was growing up. But that was literally it. I think I remember three family-ish trips.

Reese Brown (11:16.561)

Well, and even within that, it's like the difference between travel and vacation too, right? Like those are very different things going to Disney versus like going to a place to experience that place because even though Disney is in Florida, it's like, it doesn't really feel like you're going to Florida. You're going to Disney, right? So it's like, it's still different. When I remember the first time grandma went out of the country was with us for JT's wedding for my

Paige (11:37.512)

Right, right.

Reese Brown (11:45.897)

cousin's wedding, which is kind of interesting to think about. So yes, this travel that you had in common.

Paige (11:53.992)

So we enjoyed that. mean, we learned all about food and restaurants. And I think we gave each other the support and the space to do things that maybe we wouldn't have done alone. Go to nicer restaurants that we wouldn't have probably tried.

You know, Mike, what else did we do together? did a lot of stuff.

Mike Brown (12:21.835)

Well, we also had a lot of opportunity to talk about stuff and learn about each other's value systems and interests and how we felt about kids. Do we want kids? How many? What's our spirituality? Where do we stand with religion? And how do we want to do we have a particular set of beliefs that we want to instill in our children?

is that how important are each of these values and how flexible are they? Because when anybody comes together with another person, when you're a couple or a group or a team or what have you, there's a lot of differences, individual differences that come into play and you have to respect each other's differences and play into that. But it's great, it was really good for us that we had a lot of.

It was kind of a casual organic learning about each other. It wasn't forced. wasn't, okay, we've got, you know, X number of days to figure each other out. And then if it works, you know, we check the boxes and we get married. It never really happened that way for us. It just, you know.

Reese Brown (13:30.033)

Right.

Paige (13:32.259)

No, we were very not serious at first. And as we continue to date, you know, eventually we, I guess became exclusive and we took, we spent just a lot of time together, lots of road trips, lots of talking, lots of singing, talk about JT, my nephew, who's wedding we went to, all you ever do is sing and have fun and laugh. Would you just stop? Which was,

Reese Brown (13:33.661)

But...

Reese Brown (13:52.489)

You

Reese Brown (13:59.964)

You

Paige (14:02.628)

kind of just made us laugh even more. But yeah, we did have a...

Reese Brown (14:04.713)

Right, of course. But what a... Because I think kids naturally... I mean, part of self-individuation and growing up is rebelling against the caretaker figures. So it's like the fact that that's what he found to rebel against. It's like if you have to rebel against something, you know, that's a pretty good one to feel like, he couldn't find anything but that.

Mike Brown (14:25.813)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (14:31.227)

Right? Which of course not say that it was flawless or that there weren't difficulties either. But I think that that's, it's just really awesome. And also really funny to think about a little kid saying that with this idea of like, it just happening organically, naturally, it wasn't rushed. I know mom in me not being someone that's like, you know, marriage is a priority.

Mike Brown (14:32.319)

Yeah.

Paige (14:42.81)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (15:01.521)

us talking about that a lot, you have always been very honest about the fact that it was like, I did not want to get married. That was not a thing that I wanted until I met your dad. And it was like, even then this is fun until I was going to say until it wasn't not that it wasn't fun, but it's like, but that it's like that that's no, that that's not the sole purpose of this anymore. Right. And it's like that actually changed. And I think dad, don't want to

Mike Brown (15:16.843)

Thank

Reese Brown (15:30.825)

project anything onto your experience or assume anything, because I don't think I've, we've maybe ever talked about this explicitly, but it seems like at that point in your life, the idea of like settling down and having a family wasn't the goal either, if there even was like a clear goal. And so I wonder if part of it is, this is such a leading question, but is this kind of knowledge that it's like, this is for fun? This doesn't have

Mike Brown (15:46.953)

Absolutely not.

Reese Brown (15:59.987)

to be anything, it takes this amount of pressure off of it, like you said, mom, to really give each other space. It's like, that's the overwhelming message that you have space. And I wonder if taking the pressure off of it allowed that to happen more. I don't know.

Mike Brown (16:09.385)

That was...

Paige (16:15.67)

Maybe I was very goal driven and I had the things that I wanted to accomplish in my life. And I did not want a partner to get in the way of that. was just not, I really enjoyed going out with my friends and going out on dates. But I did not want to have someone to share my life because I wanted to be able to control my own life.

Reese Brown (16:45.149)

Yeah.

Paige (16:45.943)

And so I had my goals and having a boyfriend wasn't part of that and I did not want to compromise what I wanted to accomplish for anybody, you know, at the point.

Reese Brown (17:01.043)

Yeah.

Mike Brown (17:01.387)

Yeah, I a really big lesson I learned from your mom was that this is fun. This is fun. This isn't like pressure. you see a lot of people going into relationships and they're thinking in terms of, okay, is this going anywhere or not? Because if it's not going anywhere, I'm going to move on. And we never really looked at it that way. We never really thought of it that way. We thought of it live in the moment, live in the present. It's working for us. We're happy. We each have

you know, individual goals and we had our, know, as time passed, lot of our individual goals, we realized had a lot in common with each other. And eventually, you know, and I think, you know, you bring it up goals page makes me think of this. One of my really good friends was asked me, I was talking to him, I think this is going to be the one. And he's like, but what, you know, don't you have things you need to accomplish? And I said, if we do this now, if we get married, we're going to.

become a team towards these common goals. Instead of two individuals with individual goals, all of a sudden now we're a team and that kind of makes light of the relationship. And I don't mean to do that, but what I'm saying is that there's now collaboration, there's support both ways. When I'm down, she brings me up, when she's down, bring her up, you know, and there's this encouragement. And so I really do look at it as a team effort towards common goals now.

Reese Brown (18:22.824)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (18:28.617)

Well, and I actually don't think that that makes light of anything at all. I mean, I don't want to put anything onto mom's reaction to that because it's about y'all's relationship, you know. But to me, that is like a bias from being raised by y'all for sure. But it's like, is that not what anyone would want? And a partnership is a partner. And for it to feel like these goals that

I don't know why I'm starting to get emotional, but these goals that are so important to me, this purpose that I feel I have, to have someone else see that and to say, let's do this together.

To me, it's like that is the only reason to get married. You know, is like to kind of enshrine that commitment to one another in a really beautiful way. So I don't think that makes light of anything, clearly. As I'm crying.

Mike Brown (19:36.843)

And it's certainly not the only way to have a relationship or the right way. There's not a right or a wrong way.

Reese Brown (19:41.603)

No, and not to say that someone, not to make light of someone's relationship that is different than that, but my two cents, so.

Mike Brown (19:51.813)

And that's not what I saying. think it worked for us and it fit us and it was quite magical and I think it still is quite magical to tell you the truth. But you don't want to also just kind of ignore the fact that we are individuals and we still have differences as well. mean, it's the magic of commonalities and common goals and sharing towards things like that is great.

You can't forget we do have individual interests and things that we pursue individually. And it's hard because sometimes they overlap in good ways and sometimes they overlap in a frictional kind of a way. And so, you know, I think you just have to realize that part of the group goal is some individuality. You don't want your identity to be the other person. still have to your own identity.

Reese Brown (20:50.075)

Yeah, I like the way you said that of you don't want the group goal to be the other person, right? It's also not like, for me in like, theoretically getting to the age where, I mean, like all my friends are getting married or in serious relationships or blah, blah, blah, blah. I say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we've talked about this so much, but you know, it's like...

when you get to be in your mid-20s, especially in Texas and in the Bible Belt where it's it's normal to like ring by spring in college, you get married, you settle down. So I think being surrounded by that energy and really thinking about what I want, it's like, it's not just looking for a partner to look at my goals and my purpose and say, yes, we're chasing that together to have like, it's not just a cheerleader for me.

It's also finding someone whose goals I would be proud to be a cheerleader for too, right? It's the reciprocity of that, that it's like, really does make both of you a better person in that way.

Mike Brown (22:06.421)

Yes.

Reese Brown (22:07.975)

Yeah. One thing that I want to ask about specifically, because I was thinking about this the other day as I've been making more content about like my religious deconstruction slash reconstruction journey. One thing you mentioned, Dad, when like talking about, OK, is kids something we want to do? Where do we align on religion, spirituality? I have always been pretty

clear about the fact that neither one of y'all, even when we were going to church, was religious. However, it was still like a belief system that was something we held. And again, this is something I know Mom, you've said explicitly to me before, that's like, is, again, Bible Belt, so the framework that is most common where I grew up, where y'all grew up too, is Christianity. And

I know, Mom, you said that it's like, well, for kids, you kind of want something that is a good answer for these really complicated, hard questions. And religion serves as a nice framework to build something on while also keeping the door open for questioning. Was that what y'all were kind of on the same page about in terms of religion? And is that something that...

Like, do you feel like y'all used to be more Christian and so raising your kids with Christianity was more important? Or has it always been this kind of like, well, not only is it like kind of a social thing in Dallas, like in Texas, that it's like, that's most people you meet are going to have a church community. And it's like, it's the water you swim in. So that's helpful. Plus also if a kid is like,

where do babies come from and they're three or four and you don't want to get into it yet, you can say God and you have the really easy answer or you can pull a page Brown and draw them a very descriptive diagram to assuage their anxiety when they were like nine, which I got to say was what I needed. That was what I needed.

Paige (24:16.013)

Okay.

Mike Brown (24:17.035)

Hahaha

Paige (24:22.389)

No, you were like...

Mike Brown (24:23.179)

I think that's the same diagram she showed me.

Paige (24:30.635)

it was. I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't necessary. was so necessary. like I have to

Reese Brown (24:30.983)

to fruit. It was.

Reese Brown (24:36.893)

Yeah, for-

Mike Brown (24:38.379)

Which one? Hector or me?

Paige (24:42.047)

Okay, but I should have given Tucker the talk. That is just, should have. I think there were some gaps. He does now, I hope.

Mike Brown (24:47.381)

Come on.

Mike Brown (24:52.469)

I think he's got it all figured out. Okay.

Reese Brown (24:54.665)

I mean, if you ask him for right for, for listeners to have a bit of a, of a framework, I guess, to map this conversation onto Tucker is my older brother. And so we're the, the two kids of our interviewees today. so when you hear that name, that's who we're talking about. And also this one story when I was younger, I must've been seven or eight.

Paige (24:59.689)

We can ask his wife.

Paige (25:22.503)

I you were seven or eight, honestly.

Reese Brown (25:25.265)

Yeah. And you and dad were going on a work trip of some sort with dad's company. And so I was staying at grandma's house and I had your brother, Casey, and his kids were in town. And the only cousin I have that's younger than me, Jade, we've always been good friends, which is always fun to have a cousin that's also a friend. And we were little kids, you know, so we're taking a bath together and

Jade at some point jumps across the tub and I start having a meltdown thinking that this means because we were naked and she somehow touched me that I was going to get pregnant. And I literally was having a panic attack about this and Uncle Casey called you and was like, you need to talk to your daughter.

Paige (26:04.67)

You're both naked.

Paige (26:18.824)

And we were literally in the line to board the airplane. We were in the line. And so I talked to you, just trust me, sweetheart. It is impossible. Just trust me, it's impossible. Just let it go and we'll talk about it whenever I give back. And that pacified you. You're like, OK, mom says it's not going to happen and she'll give me the answer.

Mike Brown (26:34.347)

you

Paige (26:46.289)

Uncle Casey went in no part of explaining that to you. no, he handled it right. He handled it perfectly actually.

Reese Brown (26:49.979)

and I'm glad he didn't. That probably would have been bad.

Reese Brown (26:59.261)

I actually, I don't even know if I told uncle K, I don't think I told anyone except for you on the phone why I was freaking out, which I'm sure if anyone heard over the phone, they know, which my childhood memory, I don't know, but I remember it just being like, I need to talk to my mom. I need to talk to my mom because I'm freaking out. And I do think knowing myself, one,

anxiety is real and it's genetic, you know, it's like, what a great example of that. But also I think to kind of tie it back to this original question of religion and using that as a framework, I think it's almost a catch 22 where you do want a strong framework to raise kids with, but also some kids really do benefit from not just having the like easy answer that is God to

kind of pacify some of the anxiety. like in this instance, not to say there weren't different circumstances and moments where I might've needed something different, there almost certainly were, but in this moment, what I needed was supreme clarity. And so when you got home, you sat me down and drew a diagram and it wasn't graphic. wasn't like...

Paige (28:18.107)

Well, you kept asking and I was like, okay, a girl cannot get a girl pregnant. And I explained the whole, you know, reproductive system and all that. And you're still, well, you kept asking questions and I said, you cannot accidentally get pregnant. It's just not going to happen. Even with a boy, you cannot.

Reese Brown (28:23.443)

Right.

Reese Brown (28:33.755)

It doesn't happen on... Well, it can... It can accidentally happen, but not in the way that I was thinking.

Paige (28:41.914)

You're not going to trip and a penis land inside you. And that was kind of where we were in the conversation. You just kept asking the questions.

Reese Brown (28:46.045)

Right, right.

Mike Brown (28:51.883)

Can you say penis on a podcast?

Reese Brown (28:56.657)

Yeah? Can you?

Paige (28:57.126)

Sure.

Mike Brown (28:57.994)

Okay.

Paige (29:00.774)

But that really was where you just kept, you know, we were going down farther because you're curious. It's like, no, it can't accidentally happen. And so I had to show you by diagram.

Mike Brown (29:01.139)

No.

Reese Brown (29:06.792)

Yeah.

Mike Brown (29:09.14)

Okay.

Reese Brown (29:12.121)

Right. Be explicit. And it was helpful. It completely answered my question. And I think also knowing like one thing that both of y'all did a really good job of, at least in my memory and what, again, anytime I say a good job of, it's like, it's so couched and biased. like just right up top owning all of that. I think one thing, at least that was really good for what I needed was

Paige (29:32.869)

Right.

Reese Brown (29:42.673)

There was never a because I said so there was never a that's just the way it is. It's always well, you need to do X, Y, Z. And it's like, well, why? It's like, well, actually, here is the answer. And so, for instance, the classic like, hey, you might get cold later, you should take a jacket. And then it's like, well, why? I don't want to take a jacket. And it's like, okay, you don't have to, but you may get cold and you're going to want to have a jacket.

if you get cold and if you get cold, like, and then if you don't have one, you're SOL, you know, which you didn't say that to a kid, but, and then later, if I chose not to have the jacket, it was like, mom was right. I am cold and now I do wish I had the jacket. It's like it built natural trust in both of you because it was the just almost like reality of life that you upheld. You didn't treat us like,

like adults, but you didn't treat us like we were dumbasses, you know, that just don't understand things. It's like the idea of Tucker and I not understanding the real world was never a piece of it because it's like, no, you are operating in the real world. We can talk to you about the real world, but within the framing of like what's appropriate for you at your age and your current state, but in anything it was like,

If I had a why question, I would get an answer. And I think that that made it feel a lot safer in the future that like, if there was an emergency situation or something went wrong, it's a whole lot easier to just like, take mom and dad's word for it because the trust there is built, right? If the whole, your whole life you've heard, because I said so, in an emergency situation, like there's a high likelihood that the kid doesn't.

Trust that, right? Whereas if the entire time I've had any questions about any like punishment or consequence or the way something worked, sure, it takes a little bit of extra time to explain it fully. But then in the future, when it's like, this is a dangerous situation and I just need you to do this real quick right now and we don't have time to explain it, I'm going to do it because it's like, mom and dad will explain it.

Reese Brown (32:06.747)

once they're back from work trip and she has the time to draw the diagram.

Paige (32:11.297)

I didn't go in thinking I was going to be drawing the diagram, right? I didn't know that's where it was going, but...

Mike Brown (32:13.483)

that.

Reese Brown (32:14.81)

hahaha

Reese Brown (32:19.411)

Yeah.

Mike Brown (32:19.691)

But I think back to your original question about Christianity and did we use that to help explain things? And I think you've answered that we didn't, but our goal wasn't, I think primarily we wanted to expose you to a variety of life and experiences and allow you guys to grow and make your own, you know, learn and make decisions for yourselves and decide for yourselves, you know, how you.

Reese Brown (32:45.459)

Mm-hmm.

Mike Brown (32:47.755)

what your spirituality is going to be and what your value system is going to be. We did not want to plug our values into you. Although there are some that I find fairly universal, we didn't want to plug those in. We wanted you to discover those on your own.

Reese Brown (32:55.539)

So with.

Reese Brown (32:59.293)

Right.

Reese Brown (33:03.879)

Yeah, and I will say, I think that that message was clear to me. Now as an adult, I'm just curious about, I do think that was the intention, absolutely, and this isn't me trying to like criticize anything, but then why only go to Christian church services? We didn't go to Buddhist church service, you know, or any.

Paige (33:23.358)

Right, I don't think that was necessarily exactly where we were. We weren't hardcore Christians. I would definitely say we were Christians and we believed in Jesus and so forth. But we weren't as hardcore as the people around us. And as we...

Reese Brown (33:35.131)

No.

Reese Brown (33:48.446)

Yeah.

Paige (33:49.919)

learned and grew in our philosophy of life, you know, and our place in the world. I think our outlook on spirituality developed and changed. You know, also our experiences within the church and how the church related to you and how we saw your relationship with the church

also informed our decision to kind of develop separately from the church.

Reese Brown (34:22.066)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (34:25.737)

Well, and I don't want to implicate Tucker in anything, tell his story for him or a story that he may not want to share, but I think it's safe to say that his relationship with the church also informed that too, right? It was both me and his kind of, so we both had really fascinating journeys with that.

Mike Brown (34:48.043)

And our relationship with the church too. think that was part of it. I think a lot of the reason, to answer your question, that we didn't attend a variety of religious churches was that we grew up in those environments. We grew up in a Christian environment, both of us off and on, more or less. So that was a big part of that. But I think exposing you to, allowing you to explore and ask questions about all the various religions and...

Reese Brown (34:50.192)

Yeah, totally.

Reese Brown (35:02.61)

Yeah.

Mike Brown (35:17.055)

take that as far as we thought you guys wanted to take that.

Paige (35:20.751)

a big turning point for me with and you know I've been kind of struggling with what what do you tell your kids that you don't really believe in all of the things they've been learning when they've been growing up in church you don't want to say yeah we've been going but we really don't believe it I mean you really kind of just credit yourself and so it's tricky but whenever you had

Reese Brown (35:39.497)

Right.

Paige (35:48.496)

that friend, and she's still your friend, Amelia, with the Baha'i faith. And it was so lovely. Her mom had the group, you and your friends, girls of faith, and everyone kind of came from a different position of faith. Of course, Amelia's family is Baha'i, and you were, I would say, Baptist at that point. And I see your face.

Reese Brown (35:50.789)

I just thinking about the same thing.

Reese Brown (35:59.539)

Girls of Faith.

Reese Brown (36:05.661)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (36:12.103)

Yeah.

Paige (36:17.21)

I think they were Catholic and maybe.

Reese Brown (36:19.689)

There was another Christian denomination. I don't want to be, I don't know exactly. I don't remember her denomination, but like another Christian Mormon, a Catholic, Baha'i and an atheist. One of my friends in that group was an atheist, but we still had this girls of faith group that was, I think it was once a month, we would get together and it was like our,

Paige (36:28.912)

Right, right, right.

And then maybe...

Right. Yes.

Paige (36:41.242)

Great.

Reese Brown (36:47.603)

girl group from elementary school and do a service project, which was awesome. And then have a conversation about some sort of value, right? Like whether it be charity or kindness or something and talk about it from our perspective of our faith. I guess part of me wants to say lack thereof because one of my friends was an atheist, but I think atheism is its own

Paige (36:50.352)

Yes.

Paige (36:53.797)

It was.

Paige (37:10.074)

Mm-hmm.

Reese Brown (37:16.797)

flavor of faith, right? There is still a faith that there is nothing or not nothing. That's a way over simplification, but you understand what I'm saying. Right. And I will never forget the conversation. Like after the first time I stayed the night at Amelia's house. Yeah.

Paige (37:24.514)

It's not a lack of faith.

Paige (37:34.766)

That's where I was going and you were just, you really had this crisis because the church was saying if you don't believe in Jesus as your Savior, you're going to go to hell. Well, obviously her family is so lovely. We know that if there is a hell, they're not going there, but it's of a high faith and they do not explicitly believe in Jesus.

Reese Brown (37:54.82)

Right.

Reese Brown (37:59.422)

Great.

Paige (38:02.937)

They actually do believe in Jesus, but that's not explicitly, you know, their belief. And you were, you were so distraught that your friend Amelia was going to go to hell. we had to have, sweetheart, I don't believe that. And I, and I know, I don't think I told you that upfront. said, do you think that makes sense? Do you think that the Bible, you know, do you think God, our God,

Reese Brown (38:03.026)

Yeah.

Paige (38:31.402)

is really that way. Do you think that all the good people in the world who have never heard of Jesus are just going to burn in hell? I said, you know, just think about it. You know, use your heart. just because the church is telling you something, Jesus says, and it's in the Bible, we need to question. And you question that. And your faith is yours. And you believe what you need to believe.

Reese Brown (38:53.116)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (38:58.857)

Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting how, like you said, it's difficult as a parent, which again, I don't want to sound, clearly I have no kids, so I'm like, but I can imagine how difficult it would be as a parent to hold really strong convictions about like needing to have some sort of framework.

for your children, both socially, right, within the culture that we were in, but also like with these bigger questions, but then this kind of you don't want to discredit yourself, but also it's not as though, like any of the quote unquote bad things that I ever heard about Christianity never came from y'all, right? Like all of the teachings that I ever really got were from church.

leaders, which is interesting to think about. And I do think that with deconstruction, everyone kind of has the first pull on the sweater that starts doing it for them. And I think that was probably mine is like this girl who was my first friend when I went to a new school in the middle of the year, didn't know anybody and immediately wanted to be my friend, invited me to sit with her at lunch.

was like, no, I want to play with you at recess. just like, I don't think she even realized that it's like so taking me under her wing and just being so kind. And it's like, and that's the type of person that's going to go to hell, right? It's like, how can that not be a snag in that sweater? Dad, what do you think about this in terms of like y'all being open about

Paige (40:41.994)

All right.

Reese Brown (40:54.779)

your own critiques of the church, even while you're raising us with this framework. It's like wanting to have a framework that you're aware of the flaws in it, but that there may still be some merit in the framework itself.

Mike Brown (41:10.385)

I think the framework is a value system and I think there's a lot of parallels in certain values and I think that's where the church or Christianity in general can help with a lot of the overlap in certain values and kindness and caring for other people and understanding empathy that people, everybody's struggling, everybody has these...

personal things and everybody's going through something. And so learning that empathy, learning the value system. And I think you've said on many of your podcasts, how, you know, what we're discovering is that purpose, it's hard to have purpose without including others and the either kindness or helping or some connection to all these other people that we're here with. So that was my view and my view.

was to, know, the other thing is there's a lot of questions in the world, you know, there's certain things we know if it's cold outside and you don't have a jacket, we'll get caught. We know those things. But we didn't know the bigger answers. We didn't know, we didn't, I still don't know the answers when it comes to religious, when it comes to God, when it comes to spirituality. I don't know those answers. And so the last thing I want to do is speak to you convincingly.

Reese Brown (42:24.232)

Yeah.

Mike Brown (42:35.005)

or with some sort of confidence when I don't know myself.

I think that's just a critical approach.

Paige (42:40.9)

I think it's a good starting off point. we definitely had your dad and I agreed, know, everyone, mean, in America, not everyone, of course, there's people of every, you know, faith out there, religion in America, but Christianity is what dominates. And so that really is the place to start. You start with the mainstream.

you know, and the one that your dad and I was, we were more familiar with and go from there. As we know, the commonalities between all of the religions is huge. We're all, they all have so much more in common than not. So I think it was a good place to start.

Reese Brown (43:14.043)

Right.

Reese Brown (43:23.901)

Right.

Reese Brown (43:34.491)

Yeah, would either of y'all do it differently? Not like in general of parenting, because I'm sure there's with anything that I can think about like a project or something that I've released, I'm like, well, I would do a million things differently if I were to go back and do it now. And I'm sure with parenting, that is just like tenfold the amount of things that it's like, well.

You just have all these thoughts and feelings about it and wanting to do it as best as you can. But with regards to religion specifically, I think looking back on it, it's interesting because there are parts of me that's like, well, why didn't we just not go to church? But then on the other hand, it's like, and there were certain things about like,

Paige (44:14.415)

important.

Reese Brown (44:20.691)

friends that you make there and the community and learning like having charity and service projects through the church and then also

Paige (44:28.721)

And just the idea of spirituality is first and foremost what it's about, right? And it's such a big part of our life. So, but yes, all those things, community, yeah.

Reese Brown (44:36.806)

Right, like with it, yeah.

Reese Brown (44:42.481)

Yeah, but if, so with regards to just this religion slash spirituality piece specifically, would you do anything differently in terms of when we were going to church regularly, when we eventually decided to stop going to church regularly, which was pretty young for us when it, like, and I think we stopped when it became clear that it was no longer a beneficial thing.

It's like we only did it so long as it was a productive aspect of our development. Yeah, is there anything that you would do differently? And I hope that it's clear that I'm asking out of pure curiosity and not judgment at all.

Paige (45:24.279)

No.

Mike Brown (45:24.991)

Right.

Maybe a little, because I think part of why we did it I mean, it sounds like these were all very well thought out, purposeful decisions that we're making with analysis. And I think a lot of it was we just thought it was what we were supposed to do. think just that feeling of, this is what we should do. And I think...

Paige (45:28.079)

Please.

Reese Brown (45:46.686)

Mmm.

Mike Brown (45:54.197)

part of the byproduct was this framework of value system. But we were always open and flexible to change. And I think that's why we make changes and we did things differently. So would we do a different? I wish, I don't know. I think we did the best we could at the time with what we knew at the time. I probably wouldn't have locked you in a closet quite as long, but other than that.

Reese Brown (46:03.817)

Right.

Paige (46:17.945)

Pitch you in the pokey.

Reese Brown (46:18.993)

The pokey, yeah. That's so funny. Well, and I do think it's it is one of those impossible questions of like, if you knew exactly like how everything would have worked out for Tucker and I, maybe the answer of what would have been right or wrong would have been more apparent or like how our brains like best learned and.

Mike Brown (46:45.717)

Can you repeat that statement?

Paige (46:47.585)

Yeah, you just cut out big.

Reese Brown (46:47.982)

yeah, am I cutting out? I'm sorry. I think it would be easy to say that like...

you know, knowing what you know about Tucker and I now and the way that we learn and how we process things a little bit, it would be much easier to go back in hindsight and say, well, now knowing y'all, it's like, clearly this process probably would have been the best way to go about it. But it's like from neutral, from a nothing stance. Can you really do anything differently? And I think the overwhelming message is

you do the best you can with what you did. And that has never been something I've doubted with y'all, at least in terms of like your love for us and the effort there, right? Like that has always been obviously clear.

Paige (47:45.083)

I for the church thing, I appreciate Mike's position that he just thought it was the right thing to do. I think for me, because I came into the church situation with my family hoping that we would find a church that we felt a part of, because my experience wasn't always positive growing up, right?

I was hoping it was just, you know, my experience was maybe unique or, but I just learned that it really was, but it's not church. is any institution made of people. know, those types of things are just hard whenever you complicated, whenever you have all those people and all those different ideas and

But it was a good foundation. think it, and it did, Mike, I agree with you, it seemed like the right thing to do. Yeah.

Reese Brown (48:53.0)

Yeah.

And I do think like knowing even in hindsight, looking back now, it's my ability to question, interrogate and like speak truth to power all certainly started with the church. And it's like, those are qualities that I'm really proud to have that I think are necessary qualities in the information age, right? So I do think

regardless of the negativities that can come from it, as three people who don't call themselves Christian, you know, it's like, it is interesting that that is still, there are a lot of goods that do come from the kind of social aspect of religion and like that, right, right, exactly, like charity, community, grief structures.

Paige (49:45.745)

and charity.

good works and

Reese Brown (49:55.273)

counselors, like leaders outside of your parents, peers. There's just so much that arises out of any religion and that's not unique to Christianity, but yeah. To move into a slightly different topic, because we kind of talked a little bit about how y'all had almost 10 years, just the two of y'all before you had kids. And then of course, kids change everything and you had...

two kids that weren't easy. But now that you have two kids that are adults that are on their own, I mean, of course, we're not like on our own, on our own in the sense that, you you don't still. Well, but.

Paige (50:38.536)

Yeah, you are. I mean, you are.

Mike Brown (50:42.953)

They're as on their own as you get.

Reese Brown (50:43.347)

I suppose it is as much as you can be, right? But it's interesting because when you hear like, well, and they're on their own, it's like, in my mind, it's always like, so you don't talk to your parents about anything, you know? And it's like, no, I'm on my own. But yeah, I still call my dad to help me with my taxes. You know, that doesn't mean I'm not on my own. It means I need my CFO. But.

Yeah, but now that you have kids that are grown and out of the house and one of them is married, I'm not the one. If that wasn't clear, it is my brother that is married.

And so you also have a stepchild, step and stepchild. Whoa, that is not what I meant. Daughter-in-law, wild, total. You also have a daughter-in-law. What is it like? What's the difference between this time that you have by just with the two of you for the first 10 years before kids, and now that you have so much time, just the two of you after kids, how is that?

kind of, I don't want to say alone time, because it is together time, but how are those different? How are they similar? And yeah, I guess we'll just leave it there. What comes up.

Mike Brown (52:11.307)

Well, for me, in a lot of ways, it's a lot more difficult than I ever anticipated, probably because I had a tough time making decisions. And when we were younger, a lot of, you know, we were just, were doing what was presented, what was in front of us. were more present. were, by default, we were more present. were, you know, day to day, you you set the alarm, you go to work, and you change jobs when it's time to change jobs.

You you go out together when you can. So a lot of those things, there weren't a lot of open-ended decisions. And today we have, you know, so many decisions and dreams and goals, and I have a really hard time committing, other than to your mother, I have a hard time committing to things for fear and worry about the future. So it's a lot harder for me than it used to be because

There are so many options.

Reese Brown (53:12.705)

Hmm. So in this, what I'm hearing in your answer is that like the fact of your partnership hasn't actually changed that much in that you are still partners that are still constantly striving to share a common purpose, a common goal. Now that purpose and goal is just so much more open ended in general.

that that is kind of the challenge.

Mike Brown (53:41.461)

Exactly. Exactly.

Reese Brown (53:46.409)

Mom, what about you?

Paige (53:47.405)

Who knew life would be harder whenever the kids are at house?

Reese Brown (53:51.222)

it's so hard to be retired and get to, where do I fly to this weekend?

Mike Brown (53:55.111)

Ha

Paige (53:58.051)

Exactly. Yeah. So the question is...

Reese Brown (54:04.519)

No, I don't mean to make light.

Mike Brown (54:04.939)

Well, it is. think realizing that time is our most valuable resource, this fear of wasting time. I waste time by being afraid of wasting time. And I don't want to speak for your mom on that, but it's, and at my age, you don't have as many years left, right?

Reese Brown (54:21.033)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (54:26.973)

Yeah. What were you gonna say, mom?

Paige (54:29.099)

No, we have as many years today as we'll have tomorrow.

Reese Brown (54:37.097)

That's technically true.

Paige (54:41.57)

But you know what I mean, we don't know when our last day is going to be. So having less constraints really makes, obviously you have so many more options. And so it does make decisions a little bit more difficult. so you really, like we do not have to consider necessarily you and your brother and our other family.

Reese Brown (54:43.72)

Yeah.

No.

Paige (55:10.709)

Before we had kids, we did consider our families of origin, right? Like, do we want to move away from our families? Do we want to stay close? You know, a lot of our lives involved making decisions with them in mind. And then whenever you have kids, you consider that family, but

Reese Brown (55:32.541)

Right.

Paige (55:39.231)

You really try to put your kids in your poor family first. And now that we don't have as much on that going on, really is well, we're really truly just making the decision for ourselves without having to consider.

Reese Brown (55:44.606)

Right.

Paige (55:59.329)

Everything and whenever you guys are out of the house, know, of course you live in a different country. So and your brother and Abby his wife, we they don't know where they're going to be because of their education, right? Wherever that leads. And so.

Reese Brown (56:15.144)

Right?

Reese Brown (56:18.771)

Well, and they're very much in the first 10 years portion of your story, right? Which it's exciting to bear witness to how they figure it out and how they traverse it.

Paige (56:22.773)

Right.

Paige (56:31.322)

Right. And so, you know, like in the back of my mind, it's like, well, if the kids ever have kids of their own, we'd to be great present grandparents. But we don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. So we really don't have anything to box us in. And so it does make decisions harder. You know, it's like going out and buying a dress and

You know, if you're on a limited budget, it's like, well, there's only five dresses I can choose from because all the other ones are out of, I can't even consider them. Or when you don't even have a budget because you have tons of money, it actually does make the prospect a little harder.

Reese Brown (57:20.369)

Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways.

Mike Brown (57:21.739)

But that's clearly, that's not our case though. I mean, our budget is different. Our budget is different than it was when we were younger, but we still have a budget, yes. Okay.

Paige (57:25.987)

No, no, we still have a budget.

Reese Brown (57:29.661)

Well, right, right, right. I think mom was using the right, the the but the money consideration being kids, family, future. Well, in like, I mean, the finances of having kids is a part of that, too, right. In that it's like, OK, now you have a lot more freedom with like, well, they're taking care of themselves and making their own money. And we don't need to provide for them so we can kind of

Paige (57:32.401)

It was an analogy.

Reese Brown (58:00.027)

take different risks that you may not have when you had kids and it was like the idea of a calculated risk doesn't have to be quite as calculated anymore. know, it's like you have a bit more flexibility there.

Reese Brown (58:22.033)

Yeah. In this idea of like, being in, cause y'all are both retired. You both, I know, mom, your journey to retirement isn't the one that I think when you say the word retired, people like think of because you were at stay at home, mom, and you still, you know, went back and forth with teaching dance and, all sorts of counseling. Yes. I'll, I feel like there was another one in there.

Paige (58:45.606)

counseling.

Paige (58:50.364)

Interior design.

Reese Brown (58:52.113)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like all sorts of different things and projects in there. And for dad, it's... Yes. And for dad, it's much more like clean cut that it's like corporate job, retired, right? But being in this retired phase, when you think about what these shared goals are, if that is kind of the challenge now is like...

Mike Brown (58:57.579)

She's multi-professional.

Paige (58:59.964)

I'm not a professional, yes.

Mike Brown (59:01.387)

I'm

Reese Brown (59:20.563)

there's so many options. How does the idea of pursuing something change with like,

you know, in the first 10 years, it's like, well, we are having fun. We are building something together, but the goals are not, not, not long-term in the sense that like you're building to something, but the thing that you were building to was like a stable relationship, a stable family, being able to have a stable house, right? Like these things that are now checked, right? Like you did it.

And now the next goal is like, there's not really, it just feels much more open-ended. How would you categorize that difference in the goal? Like what is the goal now and how is that different than how the goal used to be? Goal isn't even really the right word, but that's the one I'm using.

Paige (01:00:23.386)

think our decisions now are based more on quality of life. How are we going to spend our time at this particular place? Relationships that we have? How are we going to be able to incorporate as many of our current relationships and continue that? Because those are really valuable to us.

make decisions that we can, know, family and friends can share with us. That's definitely part of it. But it is, you know, what am I going to do at a certain location? Is this a place that I can sink into and find, I don't know, a way to spend my time that's fulfilling?

Reese Brown (01:01:20.073)

Mm-hmm.

Paige (01:01:20.493)

That's, think I'm more in limbo about that right now than your dad is. Your dad's a hobbyist, if anything, know, he has all these different hobbies. I'm not as much of a hobbyist and the things that I like to do require commitment generally. So I'm trying to figure that one out for myself, you know, so.

I don't know, what do you think Mike?

Mike Brown (01:01:52.639)

Well, I agree with you that I am the hobbyist, but I think we're both in a similar place in that the goals felt a lot more traditional, typical career-focused, family-focused, achievement-focused goals then. And now it's more

the, for me, deeper questions. And that's, think when I'm trying these hobbies and I'm seeking, you know, what is, you know, what's a greater purpose, you know, you know, I think we kind of had a purpose. I didn't know what my purpose was back then, but I think in hindsight, my purpose, you know, was the traditional kind of goals and objectives and family.

Reese Brown (01:02:44.091)

or you lived as if your purpose was.

Mike Brown (01:02:47.967)

That's a good way to put it. Yes. And now, now it's kind of like, well, what are the deeper questions? What is, why are we here? Is it to commune with others solely or is that a means to another end of a greater purpose? What is this spirituality? What, know, so that makes it hard. And I think through the hobbies allows, you know, an exploration and a searching and testing of yourself.

which is why like doing those things. But it's also maybe a distraction to searching for the deeper truth. Why do these things, where is fulfillment? Where does fulfillment come from?

Reese Brown (01:03:34.409)

That's interesting. Do you think it's a distraction? Because in terms of hobbies, you're a sailor, you do bonsai, you're a scuba diver, you-

ride your bike avidly. There's all sorts of things that you really enjoy doing and you're a student of them, which is really funny because I don't think you ever would have considered yourself a student, but you really are a student of things when you want to learn them. Like that you're very dedicated to the academic understanding and pursuit. And I do think that in the same way that like,

we were talking about Christianity as being almost like a frame that you can bounce off of. It's like you need some sort of benchmark in order to understand all of the other stuff. Otherwise it is all just kind of limbo. And so I think in that similar way, like going to church was really helpful to be able to say, these are the things we're talking about. I have something that I can push back against.

And if I didn't have a framework to push against, who knows the framework I would have developed in a vacuum. And so I think hobbies can be similar, that it's like in having something to like, I guess, pursue purpose through, it allows the purposefulness to arise and you can take note of it. Because also, I mean,

Mike Brown (01:04:55.177)

Okay.

Reese Brown (01:05:14.781)

I don't know, would you say that if you're just like meditating, you feel the sense of fulfillment, like when you're done meditating? Cause that doesn't feel particularly fulfilling. when I'm done, even if it's been like a really great meditation session, it's not like it ends and I'm like, wow, life is worth living, man. It's like, I feel good. I feel centered. I feel aware, but I feel like it helps me do the other stuff and it helps me better be aware.

Mike Brown (01:05:26.731)

growth.

Mike Brown (01:05:34.473)

That's right.

Reese Brown (01:05:44.561)

of the other stuff. But it's like, there is something else to it, I think that, yeah, I don't know, sorry, I'll let you.

Mike Brown (01:05:47.381)

Sure, think.

Mike Brown (01:05:52.693)

That's kind of what I meant. That's kind of what I meant. You said it a lot more eloquently than I did. And I do think that the hobbies are more of a framework or a structure allowing the exploration of the other things. I don't think which specific hobby, I don't think any one particular hobby has value over another particular hobby.

But I do think pursuing something that pushes you or challenges you to stretch and explore yourself as well as others. mean, all of these are most of this and most of what I do, you know, involves teamwork at times. There's individual work and teamwork involved in most of these. So there's a lot of different dynamics. Not closet.

Reese Brown (01:06:40.733)

I've always said bonsai is a team sport.

Sorry, I'm being snarky.

Mike Brown (01:06:48.959)

Yep. And it moves so fast that I'm having a hard time keeping up with it too.

Reese Brown (01:06:52.713)

That's funny. But no, the point for sure stands that it's not, that these other like community and hard work and like all these other values can come through in those things. As a self-proclaimed not hobbyist mom, I don't think that hobbies, while it's helpful to have that to kind of push up against,

I think there are things that you do that with that maybe just aren't considered hobbies or maybe don't fit under the umbrella of like a hobby, but you're still very thoughtful in this way. How do you kind of conceive of this thing that we're talking about?

Paige (01:07:39.674)

finding fulfillment in retirement? that what you're...

Reese Brown (01:07:43.141)

Yeah, yeah, but also like the difference between doing that like with having something like a hobby that is a structure that like you've built into your routine to like kind of check in with. I think that can be helpful to do this, but it's not necessary in order to find that fulfillment. So what does does that make sense?

Paige (01:08:04.495)

So I think I agree with your dad in doing things that stretch us. Like I was in the band for a couple of years. That was very, who would have thought my three years of piano lessons in elementary school would have led to being in a band,

Reese Brown (01:08:29.679)

And your choir solos.

Paige (01:08:33.942)

So there's that. And that was very much a stretch, right? was a performance. and I have that from my dance and teaching dance. But that was definitely stretching. So I do think, you know, when I was doing CASA, that was something that stretches you in a different way.

emotional stress, but you feel like you're getting back in that regard. Whenever I was teaching dance, that definitely felt like I was providing more than just dance to those kids that I was seeing every week. But I also, go ahead.

Reese Brown (01:09:08.957)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:09:21.981)

Yeah.

Well, and I wouldn't, I just, I wouldn't consider like, kasa, I might call the band a hobby, maybe, even though that feels almost like rude to say, but it's like, kasa and teaching dance, not hobbies, right? But they still serve that function that we're kind of talking about.

Paige (01:09:41.368)

See, see that's.

Paige (01:09:45.503)

Right. that's why it's like I guess the hobbies that I have is the crafty things I do on occasion.

Reese Brown (01:09:53.043)

Well, and I was gonna say reading, you're such an avid reader. And that, think, similarly, engaging with media is another way that, it's another touchstone to bounce off of too in considering these questions.

Paige (01:10:11.528)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, it's...

I tell you one conflict I've had since retirement and I know your dad probably has, I don't know, tell me what you think about this, Mike. This just popped into my head. It's the dichotomy of we're getting older that the news and everything, the world today is just a mess, right? And part of me wants to unplug and

You know, I just, you know, at a certain point, you don't want to hear about the bad stuff. It's just, I don't want to hear it because it just, it's depressing. It's depressing, right? On the other hand, it is our responsibility to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, right? So we need to educate ourselves and, but it's definitely, I'm having conflicting feelings.

Reese Brown (01:10:57.769)

Yeah.

Paige (01:11:16.266)

about my place in society and what I can do to make things better versus, oh boy, it's a lot.

Reese Brown (01:11:28.731)

Yeah, I think that's a really important thing to bring up. And one thing I was actually thinking actually was like how this relates to like in terms of fulfillment and like impact on the world, like social, environmental and economic justice, that is like a really big, in terms of the big questions, it certainly relates to this life, right? Not the afterlife or.

But it's like, if you wanna talk about values, like it is grounded in that, but it certainly, it feels like the most pressing thing. And yet you can't just sit and consume every single piece of news that you see, like that's deeply unhealthy. And also what is one to do? It's like, think,

you do a very good job of the arguably most difficult thing, which is having the hard conversations with the people in your life on a daily basis. Like I think that is the thing that a lot of people struggle to do that actually would have the most impact is, I mean, I'll just, as an example, I'm very good friends with a lot of people that have radically different political and social beliefs.

And it's really, really hard for me to have conversations with them about that in a productive way. And that is something that I think you lean into in a very impressive way. a lot of people, and not to privilege one set of like activism or change making over another, but a lot of people might be going to protests every week, donate a lot of money, raise a lot of money.

but they can't talk to their boyfriend about him being racist. You know, it's like in the difference there. So I suppose I'll throw that out there to give you your flowers on that. But also I think it's an important question to be asking too, as people who, like you said, getting older, y'all are still young, but.

Mike Brown (01:13:30.632)

Thank

Reese Brown (01:13:51.473)

I mean, even as I am now like not a child any, I'm still a child, but I'm not a kid anymore. I think about like, what kind of world do I want a 12 year old to have right now? And I can only imagine that that feeling grows. So I think that's important.

Mike Brown (01:14:10.527)

And I think you were spot on when you said your mom is very open to all ideas and exploring those things, but she's also a really good person for dialogue and to challenge you. doesn't let me just walk around spouting off nonsense and it go without a discussion. And I think that's great. I do think that's what everyone needs to, that's part of this.

personal challenge and a challenge yourself to be a better person to think better. And I do think it's hard to find where to direct your energies to make a difference. And I think that's a big part of where I think we both struggle with that right now. I mean,

Reese Brown (01:14:56.593)

Yeah. Well, and then where to direct your energy. That's kind of like the crux of all of these things, right? Like where do you direct your energy to get fulfillment? Where do you direct your energy to make a difference? Where do you direct your energy to make the world a better place, to make yourself happier? Like it all starts from like almost how you're angling at it. And it almost feels a little bit

backwards because I think so often we're told, know, get the hobby and then find a way to map your purpose onto it or do the social justice work because it's important. And then you kind of figure out like, this like charity actually makes me feel really good. Do you think that that's an appropriate way to approach these big questions or should there be something more that's like,

No, I have a kind of code, for lack of better term, that I start with that then allows me to engage with things in a certain way. For an example, I think that's a weird thing that I just said, so hopefully to make it more clear. I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about with social justice how so many people feel so much pressure to do everything. And it's like, need to be an anti-racist. I need to be a feminist. I need to be...

like LGBTQIA plus ally, need to like be going to protests and raising money and an advocate and having these hard conversations for every single possible thing that you could believe in, right? And this person was saying, pick one, pick one and do a good job with that one, you know? And...

Paige (01:16:38.166)

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Paige (01:16:47.862)

DeFroz, you're gone.

Reese Brown (01:16:49.809)

I think I just cut out again. I'm gonna pause.

Paige (01:16:53.888)

Mike, are you there? Okay, you're just being so still.

Mike Brown (01:16:55.307)

I'm here.

Reese Brown (01:16:59.163)

Am I back?

Mike Brown (01:17:01.611)

You there? Yes. Okay.

Paige (01:17:03.286)

Mm-hmm.

Reese Brown (01:17:04.265)

Sorry. But this person was saying...

Mike Brown (01:17:08.341)

So you're on, just pick one and then you froze, okay?

Reese Brown (01:17:11.099)

Yeah, okay. So just pick one and do a really good job at that, right? Like whatever cause is the one that like lights your soul on fire that like this feels important. And the one that he was talking about was renters unions and like renters rights was really important to him as someone who had had a really difficult experience with renting and he...

lives in.

Missouri, question mark? I'm forgetting where, but some Midwest state, and he is a big advocate of that within his local state laws. And I thought that that was really helpful, right, to start with, that it's like, that's a really beneficial thing to think about, but also really astute in that it's like, we do all feel like we need to be experts on all of these things. So no wonder everyone's burnt out.

And I think that goes back to the bigger, I mean, in the big picture of coherence, right? Like social justice is a part of that, purpose is a part of that, spirituality is a part of that. Like we've touched on all of these things, community, family, and then the self-fulfillment piece, right? Like all of these things. And I think sometimes it's so overwhelming to look at

all of those, that it does go back to exactly what y'all were talking about with the analysis paralysis of, I don't have a budget. Where do I even, which store do I start at?

Paige (01:18:52.288)

So one thing that popped into my mind was self-awareness and knowing your values and just living your life with intention and...

Paige (01:19:12.766)

you know, being aware of your values and living your values, you know, not letting things just go or not even thinking about the fact that the person over there just did something that is egregious and you just go, you know, I think part of our obligation as a society

and to make society a better place. We've got to do better. I'm hearing that everywhere now. We have to be better. We have to do better. And you hear that everywhere now because that is reality. We do need to do better. And all it takes is to open your eyes and not do nothing. That's it. Right?

Reese Brown (01:20:09.107)

Wow, yeah, because my gut instinct, that's really powerful, mom. When you first said the like, I'm hearing this everywhere, the we need to do better. And I don't disagree with that, right? At the same time, it's so hard to hear when it's like, but I'm trying my best, you know? And I don't wanna undervalue anyone or minimize that feeling that it's like, but I am trying my best. And it's like, yes.

So maybe like take the bar down and hit that one bar really well. And I think what you said about like really minimizing the goal, it's like you don't have to raise thousands of dollars for a charity or start your own nonprofit or any amazingly important things that people do, but you do have to open your eyes and not.

Like you said, if you're just out somewhere and something happens, don't just like, well, people are people. It's like those actually are the small things when I think change happens. And one thing in the most recent episode of Bow Down, the podcast that I do with Dennis, he was talking about where do men come into play within safe spaces? And he actually is as

feminist who is a man, he's like sometimes I'm confused about like what is the sacred space that is just for women and what is a space that like is actually good for me to use my voice? And I was like that's such a valuable question and we really got into the nuances around that and I was like actually I think a really great place for men to be doing this work is when women aren't there. Like are you only being a feminist when

there are other women there that will support you in it, you know? Or when you're with your guys watching the game and someone says something that's like, that was a little questionable. Are you gonna do the thing that's like, I'll let it roll off my back. You know, it's this guy and I know he's a good guy, but he's my friend and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, that's the moment. That's the time. That's the thing.

Reese Brown (01:22:30.845)

And I think that that's an easy example for me to go to, because it doesn't implicate myself in it. But I'll go back to my friends, right? That having really good friends that I have vastly different political beliefs with, there have absolutely been moments where it's like, someone has said something questionable, and it's like, okay, but I know this person and they have a good heart and I know they didn't mean it, just let it go. It's like, actually, no, that was the moment to...

Paige (01:22:36.141)

Right, but it's true

Reese Brown (01:23:00.453)

Not in a rude way, in a hateful way, but in a, right.

Paige (01:23:04.598)

Even with humor, you could just express that's not OK and hold up a little mirror.

Reese Brown (01:23:12.977)

Right. Or that makes me, I now feel weird because of the thing you just said, right? Like not even trying to be like, right, like you just said something racist instead of being like, Whoa, that is that what? Hang on. You know, like just calling attention to it. Yeah. Dad, thoughts on this.

Paige (01:23:19.361)

Is that really what she meant?

Paige (01:23:27.673)

Bye!

Mike Brown (01:23:34.985)

And I think it's really difficult because when you call somebody out, you're making a judgment on what their intent was when they said or did something, right? And that's really tough to know where somebody was coming from. So I have a hard time with that. I really struggle with that because it is tough.

Reese Brown (01:23:38.461)

Yeah.

Paige (01:24:00.075)

It is such a, it's such a, like you said, it's such a fine line, right? Where, but if everybody gives, there's one thing giving someone the benefit of the doubt, right? That we all need to give each other the benefit of the doubt. But when does giving someone the benefit of the doubt turn into giving someone a pass? I don't.

Reese Brown (01:24:15.143)

Right.

Reese Brown (01:24:18.845)

Yes.

Reese Brown (01:24:26.398)

Right.

Paige (01:24:26.874)

And it's hard. It really is hard, Mike. I agree.

Reese Brown (01:24:30.473)

Well, and I think, yeah, two things. One, I think it's also important for this kind of thing, the implication not to be hypervigilance, that every single time something happens, you need to be the justice police. No, that's one, a completely unreasonable expectation, but also if these are people you know and love and you wanna maintain good, growing, healthier friendships as you grow.

in this work together and you actually want to help someone understand things a little bit better. And if they have a problematic view, help them educate themselves, not educate for them. It's like doing that slowly is important and also giving yourself grace for, yeah, every single time it happens, you don't need to be jumping on it.

Mike Brown (01:25:10.859)

Thank

Mike Brown (01:25:26.867)

to do this well, mean, we each, each of us theoretically has to be a trained psychologist to do this well. You know, back to your example, hold on, hold on, back to your example of guys watching a football game, the guy's watching the football game, you know, at some point, you know, yeah, a sexist comment is made, and then the question becomes, well, are you, is, is a response to the comment going to be effective?

Or is it going to, you know, in affecting change over the long term or is a, you know, what kind of a response will affect change? What kind of response causes that person just to shut down and just disregard you? And then you're no longer effective at all if you're being disregarded.

Reese Brown (01:26:06.696)

Yeah, I-

I think that's a really good point. One thing that I think I go back to is, like you said, you don't know someone's intent, right? And so I think it goes both ways with like, impact is the thing that kind of matters with this stuff, even if someone's well-intended. you can say,

accidentally racist things and not mean it to be racist, but it like is and it's like, what is that like unconscious thing coming through there? And sometimes it is just like bringing awareness to it for someone even if that wasn't their intent. It's like it was still harmful. But I think it goes the other way too that like if we're giving people who are making these transgressions the benefit of the doubt to wanting to hear their intent.

I think the work is also like staying open that if someone is like put the shoe on the other foot, you're not the person doing the, you know, acknowledgement of what just happened. You're the person that's being like, hey, what did you just say? You know, and someone's calling you out, which I don't really like that language. Cause I think calling someone out feels very aggressive and it doesn't have to be aggressive, but for lack of better term,

you're the one being called out, trying not to shut down, right? And trying to stay open and mindful about it is really important. And if someone isn't necessarily calling you out in the most graceful way, giving them the benefit of the doubt too, that they are also doing their best in this work, like that has to go both ways. And I think too, in terms of like affecting long-term change,

Reese Brown (01:27:59.593)

This is kind of a cop out to what you just said, because I think what you just said is a really, really important tension here with wanting to affect change with people you love and care about. But at a certain point with like certain people, it's like if you're really doing your best to be like, hey, this is a thing that made me feel uncomfortable. I'm using humor and being gentle.

you know, trying all these strategies and techniques and no matter what, they are just like, so you think I'm racist? so you think I'm sexist? you can't take a joke. whatever, whatever. Then I think we get into the territory of I'm not going to be able to be the one to change this person. So do I want to be associated with them? Like I think at a certain point you cross that line. But one thing I also think about

Mike Brown (01:28:46.505)

out.

Reese Brown (01:28:53.377)

is, and I know we talk about this a lot, the sermon that Pastor Steve, in church growing up, gave about not being necessarily in evangelical proselytizing, which is problematic in so many ways, but that there's a ladder right to Christ. And you may be someone, if there's 10 steps to someone being saved, you may be the 10th step.

and the one that gets them over the finish line and you are there praying with them as they ask Jesus to come into their heart and forgive them of their sins. You may be the seventh step and it feels like, they're really passionate about it and they're close, you're just not, they're not there yet. But you also may be the first step where they leave angry and upset, but...

you're planting the seed and you never know where that person goes. I think the same is true of this too, where it's like, who knows where you are on the ladder to someone's...

There's so many, right, and I'm like, I try so hard to not be pretentious or judgmental or patronizing either, because it's like, who's actually better or worse than any of this? But in social justice work too, but also in fulfillment work, it's like, you don't know where on someone's journey you're meeting them and how you are helping them and you may never know. And you also...

Mike Brown (01:30:01.577)

Enlightenment.

Reese Brown (01:30:29.137)

You may not see it even if you want to stick around to see it, but also it's not your job to stick around to see it. If sticking around to see it means bearing witness to a bunch of things that you're not comfortable with. I don't know. I agree. It's really hard and fraught.

Mike Brown (01:30:49.589)

But do think it's a great thought to know that at any step of the way, we are only a small piece of someone's path. And it's unfortunate that we may not see the fruits of our labor, but you have to know that even planting seeds or a little water here or there still makes a difference over the long term. And I agree with that.

Paige (01:31:14.258)

And the counter is true too, right? Our bad works, because we all fall prey to the evil one. And we all do that, right? And we want to, no, not you Mike. Well, sometimes, no, just kidding.

Reese Brown (01:31:14.301)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:31:38.045)

Hahaha!

Paige (01:31:43.054)

But you know.

Paige (01:31:47.861)

I don't know. You know what I'm saying. We should try our best. think trying our best and not to think we've got to do everything all the time, but you know, just.

Reese Brown (01:31:49.801)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paige (01:32:04.525)

Just try to, don't be an asshole, you know. I don't know, it's like, that too much to ask? But it is. And that's when you just stay home. It's like, I'm being an asshole today. I'm just gonna stay home.

Reese Brown (01:32:04.638)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:32:09.191)

Yeah, yeah!

Reese Brown (01:32:14.089)

Hey, it is sometimes. It is sometimes.

Reese Brown (01:32:23.763)

But even that is a step better than some people, but also like good and important to know, but also like sometimes stay home because other assholes are out, right? Like knowing your capacity and your ability, your bandwidth for things on any given day. Like that's also part of it is even with like the really fun purpose stuff, I think it's really fun to be like.

Paige (01:32:27.543)

Right.

Reese Brown (01:32:51.365)

what is my purpose? But I think other, right, other people may be like, you mean an existential crisis? No, thanks. But

Mike Brown (01:32:51.943)

Hahaha

Paige (01:32:53.709)

Party!

Paige (01:32:59.794)

No, I'm calling that my purpose party. You call it Existing the Crisis.

Reese Brown (01:33:02.821)

Yeah, existential crisis, more like purpose party. That's, I'm, I will be using that. That's so good. And that's exactly what it is. This is my purpose party. So, but even with like the more fun, cause to me that's way more fun than trying to like have a conversation about a like accidental sexist thing that a friend said, right? then I know

Mike Brown (01:33:11.083)

Hahaha

Paige (01:33:13.003)

haha

Paige (01:33:27.019)

But you know, you could say something just as the, it's so easy for me to play, you know, morning, crew back, but it's like, that kind of made me feel yucky.

Paige (01:33:41.823)

That's not offensive, it?

Reese Brown (01:33:42.953)

And you know, I think having some good like go-to phrases in your back pocket is actually really helpful for this. One that's really popular right now is, well, that's a weird thing to say. Like that's a good one just to have that it's like, I'm not trying to like say whether or not, right. It's just, except for that it's weird.

Paige (01:34:03.339)

I'm not putting a judgment on it, but I'm acknowledging it.

Reese Brown (01:34:09.021)

But it's it's weird. I'm not saying good or bad, but it's like, that's an odd thing. But also like, that makes me feel yucky is also kind of like a good back pocket phrase. That's like, you may not want to get into a whole conversation, which inevitably sometimes it will anyways. But I think even to go back to what I was saying about like, even with the fun purpose stuff versus like the justice stuff feels much more,

It's just not as intuitive for me to do that work as it is the purpose work. Like one just feels like my frequency, you know? And so doing the fun purpose with all of it though, knowing that you don't have to do it every day nor should you, right? That like, that's something even though like with coherence, I've been...

doing our daily ritual, because it's like, don't you want to build a little bit of coherence into your daily routine? I think that is what we should be striving for. But also like some of the practices that I suggest for that are purposefully really easy so that it's like, you don't need to like journal for 30 minutes every day. Sometimes you just need to go scream and then go to work. And like...

Mike Brown (01:35:31.904)

Right.

Reese Brown (01:35:32.297)

Call it good and know that even if it's something you love, some days you're just not going to have the space for it. To try and move us towards my last question before the final question, it's being mindful of time. But what, is that scary?

Paige (01:35:53.993)

No, it just made me think of the final solution, which is Nazi stuff. That's just where my, you said that, I was like, well, that's weird. Nazi, Hitler.

Reese Brown (01:36:03.911)

Which is not C stuff?

got it. I heard, I heard N-O-T-S-E-E, not N-A-Z-I, yeah, not Elon. Right. On that note, but to me, no, no, that's okay. Actually, it went really right. It went like fascist hard alt-right.

Paige (01:36:14.801)

Let's see.

Mike Brown (01:36:18.378)

Speaking of social justice...

Paige (01:36:26.449)

Sorry, that just went left, sorry.

Paige (01:36:32.743)

I need to not.

Yeah, but if you keep going, if you keep going right, yep.

Reese Brown (01:36:40.913)

It's a circle. It's a circle. But one thing I've really been thinking about is this idea. Wait a minute. No, it is because think about it, right? extreme, extreme will alt right and alt left both lead to if you have socialism or not socialism because that's not even really the most extreme.

Mike Brown (01:36:46.101)

Wait a minute.

Paige (01:36:48.957)

Your dad once...

Mike Brown (01:36:51.243)

So

Not all right is bad.

Mike Brown (01:36:59.209)

extremely and extreme anything is part of it.

Reese Brown (01:37:09.725)

And I think most people actually are somewhat socialist, whether they like that word or not. I know dad vehemently disagrees with the statement I just made, but that's for another day. But alt left like the communism that is made out to be like, no one's going to do any work. Everyone just has a baseline salary. And we're all like Edward Scissorhands houses, like horrible, like

that level of like utopian society that's actually a prison on one, on the bottom of the circle. And then you have like fascism or not fascism, like Nazi Germany on the other end of the circle. Both are fascist. This axis is fascism, right? It's like you go so far left and so far right that you get to the same thing.

Mike Brown (01:38:03.369)

Right, and that was the only point I was gonna make. Either extreme is nonproductive. So I didn't want that to be confusing.

Reese Brown (01:38:05.682)

Yeah, yeah,

Paige (01:38:09.23)

But at a certain point, look the same. Yeah, at a certain point, they actually look identical.

Reese Brown (01:38:15.365)

It's circle. Yeah. But the thing that I have really been coming back to with both my own work in really wanting to move through the world, like as an activist, as an advocate, but also like feel good at the end of the day and still see other people's humanity. Like even when

Like someone is on stage doing the Hile, like literally Elon is on stage doing a Hile. How can I still see his humanity as a human being? Because I think that's really the only way that we can move forward with like productiveness is to see humanity. I'll go back to Santana's episode of making meaning and this quote will always stick with me. It's so powerful, but dehumanization anywhere.

is a threat to humanity everywhere. And that even goes for the people that you think are doing horrible, horrible things. You cannot dehumanize them back. That doesn't work. And in the solution for this, I do think it comes back to love, which is so trite, but it is for a reason. And I wanna add context here because one thing I've really been thinking about is how love is actually not love and light.

that it is so often couched with, but it's more yin and yang, right? Where it's like, we all know a love that is comforting and secure, or I say we all know, I hope we all know a love that is comforting and secure, that is a mother's hug love, right? We also all know a love that is fighting for something, that is standing for something that you believe in, that is bared teeth, yes.

Paige (01:40:10.604)

fierce.

Reese Brown (01:40:14.505)

It's all of this. And I think that is like the nuance and tension of holding love for other people and for the world that we're in is that it is all of these things. And if you truly love something, you do fight it, right? Like couples fight all the time because they love each other. Also you fight for it. So as my lovely mom and dad who have a relationship that has had

waves and peaks and valleys and memories and so many things. But I think the most important thing I want to add in the list of all of the things that you could describe, plus 33 years y'all have been married now, I want to say, right? Or 34, 32. Next year, your marriage will be as old as Jesus. But also,

Paige (01:41:02.786)

32.

Reese Brown (01:41:13.489)

a deeply admirable.

Paige (01:41:14.272)

He lived to 35.

Mike Brown (01:41:14.635)

That's when he died.

Reese Brown (01:41:19.271)

at 33.

Paige (01:41:19.369)

He was in 35, is 33.

Reese Brown (01:41:22.426)

It's only said in one of the gospels and it's like so not, you know, but.

Mike Brown (01:41:23.061)

Either case, is that...

Paige (01:41:29.427)

just always thought it was 35, that's when it's irrelevant.

Reese Brown (01:41:31.847)

No, no,

Also a deeply admirable relationship to me because of the way that you so clearly evolve with one another and as individuals, and that that is a facet of your relationship. And in the way that it makes things difficult sometimes, it's like the bugs are also the features, right? That it's like, because you make so much space for each other to evolve and change,

it makes it hard to make space for someone that's constantly evolving and changing because you're constantly learning and relearning them as you're learning and relearning yourself. But to me, that is like the only way I would want to do a relationship. Again, with the bias that that's the example that's been set for me. But with all of that said, and a little bit of my two thoughts on defining love, how do y'all define love?

Reese Brown (01:42:34.045)

and I'll let you take it as romantic family, friendship, global, however you want. If you wanna talk about it all as the one thing or as a smaller thing, up to you.

Mike Brown (01:42:49.332)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (01:42:51.421)

Just an easy one to like...

Paige (01:42:51.613)

What?

Mike Brown (01:42:53.629)

That's a great question and it's something that I haven't... How do I define?

Paige (01:43:00.221)

Because love is not like, know, I can tell you what it's not. You know, I can tell you people have notions of love and the hearts and Cupid, that's not love, right? It, you know, it.

Reese Brown (01:43:21.417)

Well, and even in, what is it, 1 Corinthians 13, like love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It's like, even in the Bible trying to define love, it's only defined in relationship to other adjectives. It's like, okay, but what is it?

Paige (01:43:39.613)

Well it's like pornography, you know it.

Reese Brown (01:43:42.505)

Hahaha!

Mike Brown (01:43:52.203)

So I think vulnerability has to be a big part of the definition because it's a...

Paige (01:44:01.297)

Well, I don't know because.

Mike Brown (01:44:02.035)

It's a trust, there's this combination of trust and vulnerability because we're all insecure to some extent. But I think when I truly feeling loved, when I feel loved the most, I feel I could say or do anything and be myself without fear of recrimination, even though age holds me accountable.

Reese Brown (01:44:11.299)

I've never been insecure.

Mike Brown (01:44:31.499)

It's still unconditional. Does that make sense?

Reese Brown (01:44:39.537)

Yeah, totally. Well, it's like the safety to fuck up.

Mike Brown (01:44:45.865)

Right? But also it's not just the safety this to it's also is feeling of.

Security, think security in your vulnerability.

Paige (01:45:01.445)

You know, I don't disagree with any of that, but there are so many different types of love and I can't remember. In college, I took a few weeks of German and I remember. The German teacher saying the English is the only language that only has one word for love. You know that that there's so many other languages that express it so much more beautifully.

than we do in the different types of love. Because you're not wrong, Mike, but whenever I hear love, I also think of, how about...

How about the people I love?

Paige (01:45:49.263)

that don't really love me?

Reese Brown (01:45:54.321)

or that you...

Reese Brown (01:45:59.835)

Yeah, that don't love you in the way that you love them. Their definition of love is flawed, yeah.

Paige (01:46:05.271)

Right. So sorry about that.

Paige (01:46:13.472)

That's why it's almost indefinable.

because it's so intrinsic to who we are.

Reese Brown (01:46:24.647)

Yeah, well no, and I think that that's almost kind of what I was trying to say with the yin and the yang, right? That it's like, how can something so beautiful also be the thing that hurts us the most?

Paige (01:46:41.014)

Right, and that's why I was saying, Mike, that you're not wrong, because the vulnerability, right? Because only the things that you love the most can hurt you so badly, right? And I've not experienced a lot of that.

Paige (01:47:02.85)

But that's love.

Reese Brown (01:47:07.016)

Yeah.

Mike Brown (01:47:08.931)

That's it.

Reese Brown (01:47:13.379)

damn it. Sorry, I'm cutting in and out.

Reese Brown (01:47:23.401)

Can you let me?

Paige (01:47:25.324)

can hear you. We can hear you.

Reese Brown (01:47:28.241)

Okay, gosh, need to, okay.

Paige (01:47:31.574)

But I'm OK with it cutting me out there, but are you still recording?

Reese Brown (01:47:35.783)

No, but... Yeah!

Paige (01:47:42.007)

So, you know, I'm just thinking of that song, love hurts, love bleeds, you know, it's like, but love is also all of the lovely fuzzy, soft, cuddly, it is all of those things too, right? But.

Mike Brown (01:47:52.19)

You

Reese Brown (01:48:04.605)

Right. Well, and even when I was talking about it being like the yin and the yang, I didn't even think about like the aspect that you just talked about that's like...

the people who don't love you back, that it's like, doesn't mean you don't, that you love them any less. It's like, there's also something.

It's deeply a choice, but it's also deeply not a choice either, because it's like it would be a whole lot easier to just not love some people. But you can't. But at the same time, don't you wake up every day and choose to love people.

Paige (01:48:39.702)

Well, and.

Paige (01:48:46.336)

Well, and that's like whenever you were talking about Elon Musk and his humanity, right? And even though we may deeply fundamentally disagree with him, he's human and he loves people and people love him. you know, hate and love are two sides of the same coin.

Reese Brown (01:49:09.147)

and I'm like, look at his daughter who is estranged from him because she's a trans woman and he has like completely... It's a really, really unfortunate situation that he is like, I don't have a daughter and really, really horrible. But it's like...

Paige (01:49:31.293)

can't imagine that pain he must have though. Honestly, I can't imagine ever feeling that for a child. And so he's got to hate himself.

Reese Brown (01:49:46.001)

Yeah. Well, and I think too, like, why is that so hurtful to his daughter too? Because she loves her dad, you know? And it's like, the source of joy is also the source of pain, but it's making me think there's a Carl Jung quote that, I think it says like, the cracks are where God gets in or something like that.

Paige (01:49:47.688)

That this happened.

Reese Brown (01:50:15.313)

Or it's like the wider you break your heart open, the bigger it gets, right? And there's something very much that about it that's like, do I wish that love was easy? Yeah. But then it wouldn't be love. then we wouldn't have, gosh, do I wish that love was easy? Yeah. But then it wouldn't be love.

Paige (01:50:34.227)

Yeah, you.

Reese Brown (01:50:44.529)

it wouldn't be the thing that it is and we wouldn't have that experience. And it's like the people who have hurt me most in the world are the, not y'all, but it's like the people that I love the most in the world have the capacity to hurt me the most, right? And yeah. Any final thoughts on love before I move into our last questions?

Paige (01:51:00.36)

Right.

Paige (01:51:14.494)

I love y'all.

Reese Brown (01:51:15.625)

I was about to say, love y'all though. Okay, second to last question.

Paige (01:51:18.625)

Hahaha!

Paige (01:51:23.653)

We're from Texas. We use y'all non-ironically. It really is.

Reese Brown (01:51:26.259)

I love y'all. Right? It's a good word. mean, okay, words that are difficult to define, love. Words that are not difficult to define, y'all.

Such a good multifaceted word. And also everyone in Italy knows exactly where I'm from all the time. But second to last question, in light of our conversation and everything that we talked about, did we miss anything? Is there anything you want to go back to? Is there anything we need to clarify? Anything you want to add? Anything that we didn't touch on at all that our conversation would be remiss if we didn't have?

Mike Brown (01:52:00.939)

Thanks.

Mike Brown (01:52:11.819)

I'm good.

Reese Brown (01:52:15.261)

It was the perfect conversation.

Paige (01:52:18.661)

I'm thinking is I'm not sure why anyone would want to hear it. I'm just like

Reese Brown (01:52:18.953)

You

Mike Brown (01:52:19.188)

I would.

Mike Brown (01:52:24.875)

I've enjoyed it.

Paige (01:52:26.147)

What do you think Mike? No, I enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it, but I'm like, I'm not sure what anyone would take away from it other than we're your parents and we've been married forever and we've known each other longer than we've known.

Reese Brown (01:52:31.209)

No, I know what you're saying, but...

Mike Brown (01:52:31.463)

Okay.

Reese Brown (01:52:45.037)

Do you think that you've, do you feel like you, this is a genuine question. Do you feel like you have taken away any, have you, over the course of the last what, hour and 52 minutes, you have gotten, you have something more now than you did before.

Paige (01:52:52.977)

Okay.

Mike Brown (01:53:07.723)

course.

Reese Brown (01:53:10.984)

Why?

Paige (01:53:11.599)

I if only the conversation with us, right? I really value all of our conversations, no matter what they are. And it's a good conversation to have. And I guess I'm wrong whenever I say I don't know what someone would get out of it.

Reese Brown (01:53:18.995)

Right.

Paige (01:53:40.801)

I watch a bunch of crap and I get stuff out of that. You know, it's like, always glean things in the most unexpected places, right?

Reese Brown (01:53:45.289)

Bye!

Reese Brown (01:53:53.575)

Well, I do hear what you're saying though in the like, was not, your intention behind the statement was it's just us talking about us, right? Like how it's not quote unquote special. But I do think that's part of why I was so excited to do, part of why I like to interview friends and family and people is that like so many people don't view their story as special, but it's like,

I don't think there has been one conversation on making meaning that has felt pointless. Sure, some have been better than others, but I will say the ones that have been the best are certainly not just the people that are supposed to be the most interesting or that have the coolest accolades, right? And I do think that there's important about showcasing these conversations and

in spaces like this, like there's a lot of podcasts out there that don't do the same thing but are doing similar-ish things, that I don't think this is something that is explored there. Yeah, so all that to say.

even though you may feel like it's just you, I'm really excited to share it with people.

Because also on one hand, y'all are never just you to me, right? Because y'all mean so much more than that to me. But I think the conversation is special, not just because y'all are special to me, that the conversation is special to me. I think there's something else in that too, that isn't just worthwhile, but is important.

Reese Brown (01:55:55.934)

dad, you said, of course. Why did you say, of course, as though it was?

There's no way you couldn't have gotten something.

Mike Brown (01:56:03.643)

Always.

I always go away with lessons, more to think about, with additional insight and information to ponder when we have conversations. So, I mean, I couldn't pinpoint what I'm gonna glean from it until tomorrow, but I'll let you know.

Reese Brown (01:56:31.369)

I would love to know. Okay. Last question. What is one word that describes how both of you or one word each that describes how you are feeling right now?

And if it's not love, you fail.

Paige (01:56:50.666)

What's the name? Lev?

Mike Brown (01:56:50.803)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:56:51.301)

No, right. Or you're not allowed to use love. No, you can use love if that is the right word,

Paige (02:01:11.321) I am feeling motivated. There's been a couple of projects that I've been simmering about to be the next step. And it's been a...

difficult for me to kind of figure out how to incorporate purpose in the new lifestyle that your dad and I are anticipating having, because we're looking to do a lot more traveling and spending time, extended amounts of time away from our home. So typically the activities that I do are things where I'm plugged into

you know, an organization close to home. And so whatever I do has to be something I can do from anywhere. And I know with technology, it's easier to be plugged in everywhere, but it's.

Reese Brown (02:02:16.265)

But you can't exactly host trivia if you're not... yeah.

Paige (02:02:21.858)

Right, right. So, or I can't teach dance, can't host trivia, can't, you know, there's things, my typical things that I enjoy doing require a specific location. So me figuring out how to, and I've got a couple of things that, and you know, in my mind, I keep thinking I'm going to wait until we're in the place to start. And that's just silly.

That's just an excuse, that's just pushing it off and postponing. And so I feel like this conversation's kind of motivated me to just get started already.

Reese Brown (02:03:03.923)

Hmm. I don't think that it's... Yeah. I don't think that it's silly to feel that way. I think that makes a lot of sense because there is this certain,

The same way humans are completionists, where it's like we want things to be rounded out with a nice clean answer. I think that's also how we like things to begin, right? It's like having a nice clean starting point feels good, but life is messier than both of those things. And so I think that's a good reminder that it's like.

Paige (02:03:37.099)

Yeah, and you know what Reese, what that just reminded me of and I think this is something that kind of makes, it's what makes one of the things that being a parent a little difficult is there's a hard start, but there's never a finish. There's never a tidy bow. You guys are out of the house.

Reese Brown (02:03:38.281)

And in, yeah.

Reese Brown (02:04:04.297)

Well, and actually a hard finish is arguably the worst thing that could happen to a parent, right?

Paige (02:04:06.635)

Bet it.

Paige (02:04:12.316)

Right. And so and maybe that's why it's complicated and tricky at negotiating life after the kids are gone. Mike is that. You know, we have an empty nest, but we still have a nest.

Reese Brown (02:04:33.555)

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that, yeah, that's really beautiful. And as one of the birds...

Mike Brown (02:04:46.48)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (02:04:46.897)

I do like the idea that like, I do like that there is still a nest, right? It feels good, but I also have faith, but the nest is not a place, the nest is y'all. And like, this is nest too, right? Yeah. Dad, one word.

Paige (02:05:04.755)

Right, right.

Mike Brown (02:05:12.469)

I feel good.

Mike Brown (02:05:18.059)

I was trying to think about it. mean, part of me is just really proud of you, Reese, and proud of you, Paige, and I'm proud of Tucker and Abby as well. Part of me feels lucky to be your husband and your father. Part of me is honored to do this. So I just feel really good. Big roundabout.

Paige (02:05:19.295)

Na na na na na

Mike Brown (02:05:45.931)

full, satisfied kind of way.

Reese Brown (02:05:47.977)

Hmm

You know, that's, good is good.

Mike Brown (02:05:55.645)

It's good to be good.

Reese Brown (02:05:56.487)

It's good. It is. Mom, dad, thank you so much for, think maybe the longest episode of Making Meaning I've ever had. So that's fun. Well, we'll see after all the edits. No, no. But.

Paige (02:06:09.927)

gonna say you're gonna be chopping a lot of the stuff out

Reese Brown (02:06:18.481)

So thank y'all. And I love y'all. Yeah. Well, and there.