35: Explosions of Heinousness | Black Insomnia Coffee | Kong | Final Four | Tim Ferriss | Falling Up | Equal Opportunity | Demon Hunter | Ellogram

It's Brian vs Bryan to ring in Superhero Friday! The culmination of 16 years of friendship spills out in explosions of heinousness. We've got a full lineup for you... including Final Four, Black Insomnia Coffee, the difference between equal opportunity and equal treatment.

In This Episode

Welcome Bryan!
Bweenese: the language of the highly caffeinated
Final Four, Falling Up, Ellogram, Demon Hunter
New slogan for The Real Brian Show! What do you think?
Sameness vs Equality

Explosions of Heinousness

You know how it is when you are around one of your oldest friends? The inside jokes, the ease from familiarity, the shared memories. As an introvert, these are some of my favorite conversations to listen to because I can sit back and just let them do all the talking while I absorb the dynamic and chemistry between two people. That's definitely what Brian and Bryan bring to the table, here.

I have this sort of rapport with most of my family, believe it or not. We spend a lot of time together, so it stands to reason I'd have a similar punchy ease with them as the Bri/yans do. Part of the problem, if you'd qualify it as a problem, is that most of the women in my family are really quick with a laugh (a fairly genuine laugh, too). When we're around each other and they get me going, we're the loudest, laughiest bunch you'll ever meet!

After exposure to my family in this capacity, a friend once told me: "Your family laughs too easily. Some day you'll get out into the real world and discover you're not all that funny." This comment has been the premise of our easy rapport for near on a decade now! I don't think my friend meant anything malicious by it, but I think she was right that being around my family gives me a greater confidence in my wit. Whether that wit is truly as refined as my family makes me think it is... well, I guess you can all be the judge of that. I take no offense either way.

Sameness vs Equality

The word same is overused in our culture. Same, literally, means identical. I'm glad that the Bri/yans broached this topic because it's another opportunity to define terms and wrap our brains around the words we toss around on a daily basis. A couple months ago, I produced a podcast for Stuff I Learned Yesterday about being no one but myself. The idea came from something once said by the poet e.e. cummings: "To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

Society sends a horrible mixed message about individuality. We're supposed to be the same, but different. We should all be treated the same because we are the same. No. No, no. Words do matter, as we say over and over. I, Brian, and Bryan have nothing against a pursuit for equality - for showing each person love and respect and providing people with an equal opportunity. But because we are all unique, because we all have different skills and interests, we do not perform the same tasks in the same way and, as such, can and should be considered differently in different situations. This is far from being a bad thing, it should be a good thing. We should be celebrating the fact that we don't all have the same skill sets and, thus, pursue opportunities that play to our strengths.

Sometimes we fall prey to society's misconception about equal opportunity. There is this mentality that because we provide equal opportunity here in America, it will naturally translate into equal treatment. I think this is a dangerous lie because it makes many people launch from a bad starting point! And when we don't start right, how can we hope to end right? We need to fight to be different, to avoid sameness, because we are not identical. Don't run from it, embrace it!