Our 9 Year Old's Philosophy is "Life is Only Two Minutes Long"

Josh stops masking his ADHD, which accidentally launches one of the deepest conversations we've ever had. After feeding years of podcast transcripts into AI, we discover what artificial intelligence thinks our personalities actually are and it isn't entirely flattering.

Along the way we wrestle with uncomfortable questions about identity, memory, and whether there's even such a thing as a single "real" version of ourselves. Then our nine year old casually delivers a line that sounds like it came from a Buddhist monk instead of a fourth grader.

Also...World Cup musings, and Game Time from Amanda.

It's an episode about identity, neurodivergence, parenting, pressure, and why every conversation in this family somehow ends with ancient Greece or medieval France.

Super Familiar with The Wilsons 
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Transcript

Cold Open And Welcome

Amanda 0:00

Welcome to Super Familiar with the Wilsons, where there is absolutely no judgment here at all now that we've started this podcast.

Josh 0:09

No, you're Josh. You screwed this all up. What's happening?

Amanda 0:12

Because I said I said it and then you screwed it up and you said, Well, you said it funny anyway. Like I we had to start over because I said it funny.

Josh 0:20

Alright, we're gonna try this again.

Amanda 0:23

Welcome to Super Super.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

You are made of meat, my friend, all the way down.

Josh 0:29

The following podcast uses words like and and also if you're not into any of that shit, then now's your chance.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Three, two, one.

Josh 0:39

Run.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Welcome back to the conversation. Tell me who I'm talking to. You don't down to imagination. You want me and I am you. I want to be familiar.

Amanda 1:18

Welcome to Super Familiar with the Wilsons. I'm Amanda.

Josh 1:21

And I'm Josh, and this is the podcast about marriage 2.0 with kids.

Amanda 1:25

And side quests.

Josh 1:26

And all the ADHD.

Amanda 1:29

Yeah.

Leaning Into ADHD At Home

Josh 1:30

So I've been leaning into the reality that I have ADHD and have done for all of my life.

Amanda 1:36

So you don't think it's adult onset? Like you think this is a thing that you've been just living with and masking or kind of trying to control yourself.

Josh 1:43

Listen, baby. This is how I've been my whole life. This has been me the whole time. I have not changed. And it's an interesting thing to try to not mask it. And I wonder if it's jarring for you because it's really been this week that I've been leaning into it more. Have you noticed any difference or no? And if it's no, that's fine.

Amanda 2:02

The difference that I notice is now that you are acknowledging it and you are looking for ways to cope with it instead of trying to just push through with it. Like, I mean, you've done lots of different things, like journaling and listing and all this stuff, but now you're doing it sort of with an intention and understanding sort of the neurodivergence. And I think that um I'm noticing more of you're coming from it like more of a positive space or like more of a hopeful space because now you're understanding it, you're looking for ways to, you know, proactively deal with it.

Josh 2:36

Are there things that I do now this week that are different that you can tell?

Amanda 2:40

Or you're just No, this is you've been like this since the beginning. But what I'm saying is that you are trying to find ways to deal with it. I've noticed that this week.

Josh 2:48

I am trying less to mask it, particularly here at home. At work, you kind of got to do what needs to be done at work, right? And so the interesting thing will be navigating that. But at home, I think that I'm more likely to say, Oh, well, no, I'm not gonna do it. I feel like I just did it in there where you wanted me to do something or to think about something. I'm like, no, I can't do that right now.

Amanda 3:10

Yeah, and I appreciate that. I asked you, do we want to hang this back up? And you said yes, but not right now. But I think that it what's helpful for me because you said, not right now, because I'm getting setting up for the podcast or I'm looking for the equipment, like you gave me a reason why. Where I think historically, to me, that just feels like putting it off or I don't want to deal with it, but you've given words to why, because if I ask you to go do that, then you get distracted and then it like prolongs things. So I don't think of it as a bad thing. I think if anything, it's given me an understanding for why things like you seem to forget things, like we talk about we need to do this, and then like you forget it, and and that can be frustrating to me. And so now I understand. Lord, you have to deal with my anxiety, which is my neurodivergence, but also my perimenopause friend that has moved in with us. So I can certainly deal with your ADHD.

Josh 4:02

It's very

AI Judges Our Personalities

Josh 4:03

interesting that you are taking a little bit of time to describe what you think's wrong with both me and you, because one of the first things I wanted to do with our episode today was talk about how I had AI um analyze us, right? So I fed a bunch of transcripts of these episodes into AI, and I said, okay, apart from the podcast, like I don't want any sort of their show does this or their show does that. I said, I just want your personality assessments of Josh and Amanda.

Amanda 4:36

And so it's for context, we have been married for this December will be 12 years. We've been doing the podcast for six. So over half, or not over half of our marriage, uh you fed into AI, basically.

Josh 4:48

Well, I didn't feed that many episodes in, but uh a good sampling. So this is what it said. And I sent you part of this, I didn't send you all this. And I'll start with you. It says, at her best, Amanda is warm, perceptive, competent, socially generous, emotionally honest, and fiercely attentive to the inner lives of her family. That's all true. At her worst, she can be impatient, true, judgmental, rigid about how an interaction must proceed, and abruptly intolerant when physically or emotionally overwhelmed.

Amanda 5:21

Yes. Abruptly intolerant means perimenopause kicked in. That's what that means.

Josh 5:26

At one point, didn't it didn't it say something about unlike Josh, who may intellectualize his reactions, Amanda is more likely to name the reaction directly rage, annoyance, exhaustion, worry. She does not always control it, but she rarely hides from it afterward. Right? So that's you.

Amanda 5:45

Do you feel like that's true about me?

Josh 5:47

Yes, especially the rage part. Now, at me, it says at his best, Josh is curious, imaginative, affectionate, self-examining, and alive to the peculiarities of the world.

Amanda 5:57

True.

Josh 5:57

All true. Now, I just want to stop here. For both of us, the at our best uh section is very short. The at our worst section is overwhelmingly more detailed. So it says, at his worst, he can be overstimulated, categorical, defensive, impatient, and so committed to explaining his perspective that acknowledgement begins to sound like another argument. He knows these things about himself. Amanda knows them better. I feel like AI is being a little sassy there. Their conversation suggests that much of his adult growth has involved learning that insight is not always the same as regulation, and that being able to describe a behavior brilliantly does not remove its effects on other people.

Amanda 6:44

Oh, I like this AI.

Josh 6:46

It says they value now, it's us as a couple, they value kindness, though neither confuses kindness with constant pleasantness.

Amanda 6:55

So we're kind, we're not pleasant all the time.

Josh 6:58

Not all the time. Amanda can be blunt, judgmental, and angry. True. Josh can be irritable and cutting. I don't know about all that. You can listen, their idea of kindness seems closer to sustained human regard than to politeness. You may be annoyed with someone, criticize them, and laugh at them, yet still try to understand what is happening and avoid reducing them to their worst moment.

Amanda 7:21

I feel like all of this is true. Do you feel seen?

Josh 7:25

Do I feel seen? I feel like a version of me is seen in that description.

Amanda 7:32

Okay.

Josh 7:33

The version that I I guess I let out in the podcast. Yeah. But it kind of got me thinking like, is there a real definition of who we are? I feel like there's a whole bunch of definitions of versions of us out there because we are different things to different people.

Amanda 7:51

Right. We're perceived through different people's lenses, sure.

Josh 7:53

Well, sure. Like, for example, I am quite certain that I am a different person to my supervisor than I am to the people that I supervise. I know that I'm a different person to each one of our children individually than I am to you. Right? There are things that my kids don't know about me, right? Yeah. Not intentionally, it's just it's never come up or whatever. The stuff that that that you know about me. There's stuff that I don't even know about my myself. Sure. I mean, hell, I there's parts of my childhood I do not remember. Yeah, right.

Amanda 8:25

That's intentional.

Josh 8:26

So, like, there's a version of me that exists to me that might not even be the whole picture of me.

Amanda 8:33

That's really like mind-trippy.

Are We One Self Or Many

Josh 8:38

So then the question starts.

Amanda 8:40

Is there a real reality?

Josh 8:41

Huh?

Amanda 8:42

Is there a real reality of who we are?

Josh 8:44

Well, this is what I'm saying. Is there an us? Doesn't us exist? I don't know, but now my head hurts. Well, the thing is, is like, and then who I am and how I behave also changes around all these different people because that's appropriate. Of course. Um, so does that mean that I'm with you and I'm a different person than I am than when I'm with?

Amanda 9:08

No. It's that you're no, it's not that you're a different person. I would say innately you are who you are, but it is that we all have different societal norms, and so you know that there are behaviors around me that are okay that are not around other people. So it doesn't mean you're a different person. It just means that you have filters for different people.

Josh 9:29

If I go outside right now and a coconut hits me on the head and I forget my past, right, am I the same person or am I a different person?

Amanda 9:38

Well, I mean, that's that's the whole thing is that your reality is shaped by the things that you know. We've had this conversation about the um the I was telling you the about a colleague who watched this Netflix documentary about two brothers who are twins. Yeah, go ahead. And one of them, I'm gonna totally mess this up and I can't even remember what the thing is called, but it's it's two adult male twins from the.

Josh 10:00

So in other words, you're gonna you're gonna tell me a version of this documentary.

Amanda 10:04

Right, right, right, right. Uh and one of them uh was in a bad accident as a teen and lost his whole memory, but only remembered his brother. And so his brother constructed his life again for him and gave him all of the memory so that he could fill in all the holes. But it turns out that the brother who could remember things gave the other brother a different version than what actually happened because they came from a very abusive family with a very abusive mother. Right. And I mean, like she trafficked them sexually, like it was a bad, bad, bad situation, but he didn't want his brother to have to relive that, so he gave him a life without it, but then it became very hard for him because the brother who had had amnesia had a good relationship with the mom because she had changed, and so it's just this really super interesting. I'll need to look it up by the end to recommend it. I've not actually ever seen it. Um, but my colleague was saying, you know, how how good it was, but it also gets at who are we? Like what is the actual nature of who we are? And we've talked about that. Like you are so when when your sister found you, and that's been a lovely journey, and you know, we've both gotten to know her and and and appreciate very much that she took this risk in finding you, but you went to bed one night without a sister and woke up the next day with a sister. Now, in reality, for 54 years, 55 years, you've had a sister or 53, because she's two years younger than you or whatever. You've had a sister.

Josh 11:29

I don't think you're supposed to tell women's ages, but go ahead.

Amanda 11:31

Yeah, anyways. But the reality is you didn't actually, your reality as it actually happened did not change, but how you understood yourself changed. Because for however many years you had a sister, you just didn't know you had a sister. So that reality has always been the reality, you just haven't been aware of it. And this is like way trippy and way too early in the day for this conversation now.

Josh 11:55

It's 1037 a.m. It's not too early.

Amanda 11:57

I've only had one cup of coffee, and the more we talk about this, the more I keep staring at that bottle of wine that's sitting right there because like this is getting real heavy, man.

Josh 12:05

Well, you want to know the funny thing is we're talking about what is the nature of Josh and the wine that you're looking at is Josh wine, Josh Tellers.

Amanda 12:12

Josh Reserve. You were bourbon barrel-aged.

Josh 12:15

I I was. I was. That's part of who I am. It is trippy and it starts to get into the whole Buddhist idea of there is no self, there is just existence. And yeah, it's all crazy. And all of that um was triggered by this damn AI and meeting the.

Amanda 12:35

AI is ruining the planet, man.

Josh 12:37

I don't know if it's I don't know if it's ruining the maybe it's helping me towards insight, maybe it's helping you towards enlightenment. Who knows? I would like to know what the audience thinks. Okay, so familiarwilsons at gmail.com. If you can distill for me the meaning of it, what it means to be you. Uh a couple, three, four sentences if you can.

Amanda 12:58

You but short.

Josh 12:59

That's right.

Kids Drop Unexpected Philosophy

Amanda 13:46

Well, he has historically, since he's been little, just and it always happens when it's bedtime, and then his brain doesn't shut off, so he starts going down these like really deep thought situations. Like when he was like four, he said, What if what if this is all there is? Like, what if we die and then just nothing? And we had not talked really about any kind of eternal anything with him.

Josh 14:10

Are you sure that he wasn't just asking you if there wasn't any more milk in this hippie cup?

Amanda 14:13

Yeah, and I mean he was just so anyway. So the other night I'm laying with him and he said something. I how how did I you wrote it down because I came in and said it to you.

Josh 14:22

Yeah, what he said, because I wrote it down instantly, because I'm like, we're gonna talk about that shit. He said, Life is only two minutes long, but the clock resets every time you breathe.

Amanda 14:31

Yes. And he said he doesn't like to tell people that because he doesn't want them trying to hold their breath longer than two minutes and then die.

Josh 14:38

Okay, first, first of all, this is not a sentence that a nine-year-old should say. This is a sentence that, like, you spend your life trying to get a meeting with the Dalai Lama. Yes. And and he meets you and he says, I'm gonna only tell you one thing, my son or my daughter. He says, Life is only two minutes long, but the clock resets every time you breathe. And he touches you gently on your head with his middle finger and then you're off, and then that's it.

Amanda 15:04

Yes. Well, I got it the other night when I was just like, please just go to sleep. I didn't, I but then I tried to explain to him that you know, we can't hold our body will make us breathe. So then we got into anatomy conversation, but it gets, I'm telling you, it we had the other night we I wound up teaching him about feeding tubes at bedtime. Wait, what? Because he was talking about, he said, Mom, my favorite thing is something that always goes with me, and that's talking. And I said, I do know that you love to talk. He goes, Well, I guess it's my mouth because I wouldn't be able to talk if I didn't have my mouth. It was like then I wouldn't be able to eat and I wouldn't be able to swallow. And then he was like, Well, what if I didn't have a nose? Then, you know, smell is is 50% of taste, and then I wouldn't be able to taste things. Like, so he was going down this rabbit hole. And then I felt the need to explain to him that if somebody was unable to swallow, oh my god, they could be fed through a feeding tube. I cannot believe that this is our bedtime conversations with one through.

Josh 15:57

Oh my God. I'm surprised you didn't get into DNRs at that point.

Amanda 16:01

I mean, I didn't want him to think that somebody who couldn't swallow it would die. Like there are well, then you start doing bedtime. I just this is where we get our deep philosophical conversations.

Josh 16:14

Here's the thing negotiating life with children is all about the art of redirection, right? And so, and weirdly enough, life with uh people with dementia, same thing, redirection, because their sense of reality starts to change. But I'm not here to talk about work. Let's talk about let's talk about home. Redirection, the art of redirection. Somehow, anytime you feel yourself yearning to talk about feeding tubes, and oh, we might have to remove your leg at the knee. If you could somehow pivot the topic to Winnie the Pooh, pivot to poo.

Amanda 16:48

I think that because I had such a traumatic situation with being his age when my brother got sick, and people not telling me what was happening, and then him dying and it feeling like the rug was pulled out from underneath me. I feel that, and I'm not saying this is a dying situation, but I just feel the need for them to have the truth.

Josh 17:07

And I understand that that's not they don't have to have all of the truth though.

Amanda 17:11

Okay, not yet. You are welcome to come to bedtime again. You are welcome to come to bedtime. This is when the deep things start. Did we talk about this on the last podcast where he was talking to me about if yeah, I think we did, right? That if if the light if light travels faster than sound, can you see me before you hear me?

Josh 17:30

I don't remember talking about that on the podcast.

Amanda 17:32

So it was one day last week I was home with him and he's he's said, if light can travels faster than sun, I mean sound, can you see me before you hear me? And then he made me test it out. Like he went in a different room.

Josh 17:43

No, this is a conversation that we had not on the podcast. Believe it or not, we still have those every now and again. And I was saying that that it would be, yes, it's true that light moves much faster than sound, but that you wouldn't be able to tell in such a small scale. Right. So And then that's when I told you.

Amanda 18:00

I know, but hold on, because you're gonna you're bearing the lead. Can you just hang on one second?

Josh 18:04

Yeah, I just wanted to just I'm gonna forget this.

Amanda 18:05

I know you're gonna talk about if you could hear the sun in the freight trains. I know, I got it, I'm on it. I need to explain how I know I'll remind you, I need to explain how it unfolded. So I'm upstairs, he's talking to me about this. It had to have been last Saturday or something, and I he said, let's test it out. I'm gonna go in the bathroom, you say a word, and then I I'm gonna say a word, and you say it as soon as you hear it, I'm gonna count, right? The difference, right? Right. Okay. Well, then he kept thinking well, he wasn't far enough away. So we anyway, I come downstairs to you, and I said that I just had this conversation with him, and then you start going on about freight trains and the sun, and it's you can say your thing now. But I'm like, this is where it comes from. The two of you just talked to each other. I was just upstairs trying to write a paper. I had a paper due last week, and he came up and wanted to talk sit with me, which was fine, but then he wanted to talk about space and sound and everything, and so but then when I tried to like get some sort of empathy from you, you started talking about it. So I think that maybe you are the impetus for all of his deep thinking late at night. And so you should now explain your freight train.

Josh 19:11

If we could hear the sound that the sun made, it would sound like a freight train in our ear 24-7.

Amanda 19:20

Yes. But sound but space does not conduct sounds.

Josh 19:23

Space is not a good conductor of sound, so we don't. So we are spared that. However, if the sun were to go out, then we wouldn't know that the sun had gone out until eight minutes after it happened, because that's how long it takes the light of the sun to reach us, right? We would still hear the sound from the sun for 33 years. Yes, because that's how slow or relatively slow sound travels compared to light. And so that was the thing I was trying to tell you that was just spurred by the fact that that you had this conversation. I was happy to empathize with you after I got that cool fact out.

Amanda 20:01

But I'm saying this his brain is clearly your brain, but with my anxiety, so like all doubled over.

Josh 20:08

Awesome. Well, all I know is that back to the original thing, life is only two minutes long, but the clock resets uh every time you breathe, is actually very deep. Yes. When you consider the fact that we tend to take the weight of the world on our shoulders all the time. We want to take responsibility for and have agency upon our entire timeline right now, when really we should just be dealing with the moment that we're in. It's really what he's doing is he's expressing his belief that we should always be in the present.

Amanda 20:43

Yes, I know.

Josh 20:44

Which is a lovely thought.

Amanda 20:45

It is a lovely thought, but it's a lot when it's 8 30 at night.

Josh 20:51

Well, I I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna fetch him some monk robes. Do it, I'm gonna shave his head into a tonsure and buy him his sacred book collection and off he goes.

Amanda 21:02

Okay. You let the school system know that he is no longer he's gonna be homeschooled to be a monk.

Pressure At Work And In Sports

Josh 21:07

You know who could have used that kind of enlightenment?

Amanda 21:09

Who?

Josh 21:10

The England Football Club.

Amanda 21:12

Yeah, they had a rough day and then a good day. How's it feel to be uh British right now, friends?

Josh 21:17

Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. So, for those of you who don't know, the World Cup is happening right now here in the United States and Canada and Mexico, and we are winding up. Actually, today is going to be the final. Yesterday was the third place game or the game to determine who comes in third, and it was played between England and France. England just got beaten by Argentina, who are happily on their way to a FIFA sponsored championship, and they played like nonsense. Now there were tactical things I think the coach did wrong, but also the players, once they got up a score, got scared, or they were timid, or whatever it happened, they let the pressure get to them, right? This game. That was just played the third place game. Both teams played with such abandon. It is the highest scoring game thus far in the World Cup.

Amanda 22:08

Do we think it's because the pressure's off, though?

Josh 22:10

It's be clearly it's because the pressure was off. Actually, I don't think France wanted to be there, to be honest, or at least in the first half, and they got their shit together in the second half. But no pressure. They just played football the way they know how to play football, and it was a fun game. It really was especially if you didn't have a particular side, you just wanted to see a beautiful, fun, um, exciting, high-scoring game, then it was great. But that pressure, man, it got to England. If they played with that abandon against Argentina, they absolutely had a chance.

Amanda 22:44

Oh, they would have won.

Josh 22:46

So again, that pressure, pressure is terrible for life in general.

Amanda 22:51

All right. So all of our uh England listeners, can you go talk to your boys and let them know that life resets every two minutes?

Josh 23:01

Well, it's interesting though how much our fight and flight reaction or response screws up our life. Yeah. Oh, yeah. See, the reality is that the fight-flight mode was helpful for us when we were trying to run away from tigers in the jungle. But these days it activates whenever we read the term as per my last email. Oh my God. You know what I'm saying?

Amanda 23:22

It's like it's I hear the team's call and so forth spikes.

Josh 23:26

But why is that? Why, why have we why are we not able to gain perspective that listen, life is only two minutes long.

Amanda 23:36

But you know why? Because we now live in such a capitalistic society that our our livelihoods are no longer running from tigers, but they're being able to pay our bills. And that is contingent upon us doing a good job at work. And so that's why, per your last email or the team's call, um, that's what causes the cortisol spike.

Josh 23:56

There are definitely things in our system. Listen, me with ADHD, I'm not built for the world in which I live, right? Which is a fun little fact to find out at 55 years old. Beyond that, a lot of this is self-inflicted wounds. It's like one of the reasons why we have the jobs that we have is to support the lifestyle that we enjoy. Um, yeah, we pay the bills. Yes, we eat, yes, we take care of our kids, we do all of those things, but also we have nice phones and we have we're sitting in this pub that we constructed. We went ahead and built a pub. We built a pub. We have a TV in the pub and we're doing okay. You bought lots of footy flags. I okay. Well, those are cheap. Get off my back. Not my point. My point is that some of this is systemic and then some of it is self-inflicted. And so our job really is to figure out like how much of this can I affect and then go ahead and change that.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Yeah.

Josh 24:51

Instead of just stewing and being like, oh, this everything sucks and I'm so miserable and all that. What's the point in that?

Amanda 24:58

Okay, so so what now what? Like, what are you gonna do now that you've realized this? What's your what's your step for this week?

Josh 25:03

I don't know because I've just gotten I've just gotten a notification on my phone that tropical depression too has formed in the North Atlantic. Jesus Christ.

Amanda 25:13

Hurricane season in Florida.

Josh 25:16

Oh, fuck. All right, well, give us advice because I don't know what to do. This is gonna be one of those segments that just has to end because I have no answers, and then I was hit in the face with that. Familia Wilson's at gmail.com. Help us out.

Renaming The Show

Josh 26:07

I've been trying to come up with a shorthand for the podcast. Okay. Because super familiar with Wilson's it's very long. It is. Um so S F S F W W.

Amanda 26:23

That's what it would be. S F W W. It's kind of fun, do it.

Josh 26:34

This is a weird ASMR thing. How about we take the first few letters of of each word and we make a phrase out of it?

Amanda 26:44

All right, what would that be?

Josh 26:46

Super familiar with Wilson's Sup fam. Sup fam. Sup fam. That works. Sup fam. Sup fam, we. Sup fam, we will. Sup, fam, we will. There you go.

Amanda 27:04

Welcome to Sup fam, we will.

Josh 27:05

Oh, there we go. Done.

Amanda 27:08

Some I'm gonna be welcome to.

Josh 27:11

Yeah, but you can't put you can't put on a t-shirt.

Amanda 27:15

You can't. S F W W.

Josh 27:21

Super familiar with studies show that your happiest memories are only about 50% accurate. But why stop there? At Artificial Nostalgia, we fabricate the other 50. We'll give you memories of safe neighborhoods, competent adults, affordable houses, and a future that everyone assumed would work out. Artificial nostalgia, because if we can't fix society, we might as well remember one that never existed.

Amanda 28:27

That song

Flashback Quiz And Random History

Amanda 28:28

by our son AJCW means it is game time, and today we have a flashback. We haven't done a flashbacks in a while, Joshua.

Josh 28:35

Um I'm looking forward to it, as I always do. Although I feel like the last flashbacks quiz we did, I was really bad at. I didn't know any of the things.

Amanda 28:44

I think it was around Memorial Day, so it's definitely been a while since we've done it. So we'll see if you know anything from the week of July 18th in history. So for those of you who might be new, this is a New York Times game. You can go play it yourself. What we're gonna do is do not a sponsor. Eight. I wish they were. Get eight uh things that have happened in history, and Josh is gonna put them on a timeline. All right, so the first one, now the New York Times will situate this for you so you have an anchoring time, but Josh is gonna try to guess. So the first one is Princess Diana shakes hands with an AIDS patient. It helps break the stigma around the disease.

Josh 29:18

I was just reading about this, and by reading it, I mean I saw TikTok about it. Uh let's say 1988.

Amanda 29:27

Oh, 1987.

Josh 29:29

Oh, wow.

Amanda 29:30

But if you're one, if you're one on either side, you get the point for it.

Josh 29:33

Okay, very good.

Amanda 29:33

So I get a You get a point for that, even though it's the game doesn't give you a point because it's the anchoring one. All right. Now you just need to tell me if this was before or after Princess Diana, but then you also give yourself an added b uh challenge of trying to guess when it was. Yes. All right. So the second one is weary of seeing people pick their teeth with daggers. Cardinal Richelieu?

Josh 29:55

Richou?

Amanda 29:56

Rish no, Richelieu, has knives blunted in royal France. It helps popularize the table knife.

Josh 30:02

Oh, no shit.

Amanda 30:04

So stop picking your teeth. I'm gonna round this thing off so you can't.

Josh 30:07

Okay, so obviously that's before 1987.

Amanda 30:09

Yes.

Josh 30:10

So I need to pick a date for that for an extra bonus point. I would say that that is let's say the 1720s.

Amanda 30:24

1637. Yeah.

Josh 30:25

So do I get I don't get a point for that.

Amanda 30:27

You get a point because you knew it was Diana, but you don't get an extra point when you get the time right. Okay. In China, Confucius preaches harmony. His ideas are later used to discourage violently spearing food with a knife and instead promote the pacifist chopstick.

Josh 30:44

Is this gonna be all about cutlery? I think so. Okay, Confucius is like shit. I have no freaking idea. Let's say 1200.

Amanda 30:53

Circa 500 BCE.

Josh 30:55

Oh wow. 500 BCE for Confucius. Okay.

Amanda 31:00

Alright, a British composer, Euphemia Allen, writes a waltz played with the Pinkies in a chopping motion. Her song is later known as Chops Chops.

Josh 31:09

Chopsticks.

Amanda 31:11

So it we might be about cutlery, this whole thing.

Josh 31:16

Okay. Uh when was Chopsticks invented? Let's say that that is 1827.

Amanda 31:23

Okay. 1877. So you got in the right decade. I mean the right century, sorry.

Josh 31:29

Okay, chopsticks. Got it. So I just get one point for that.

Amanda 31:32

Okay, so having forgotten his can opener during a picnic, Ermal Frase has to pop his beer can open on his car bumper. He soon patents the pull tab for canned beverages.

Josh 31:46

Okay. I think that's earlier than you think. I think that that is 1920.

Amanda 31:52

See, it's actually later than I think. 1959. Oh. So how did these jokers get into their beer before then? I guess bottles?

Josh 31:58

1959. How did they get into their things before? They use the um the knives that weren't blunted into steak.

Amanda 32:05

That's right. That's right. Okay. Catherine the Great enjoys sledding down icy ramps during the Wait, wait, wait.

Josh 32:11

Sledding?

Amanda 32:12

Sledding.

Josh 32:12

Oh, sledding, not sludding.

Amanda 32:14

Not sledding. I mean I mean, I don't know what she did. She was great, but I don't know what she did.

Josh 32:17

Well, that's how she got her nickname on the bathroom of the Kremlin, it said, for a great time called Catherine.

Amanda 32:22

Sledding down icy ramps during the winter. She has wheels added so the ride works in the summer, pioneering an early roller coaster.

Josh 32:32

That's bullshit. That's not. That's not an early roller coaster. That's a sled with wheels. Get out of here. Of course, she's Catherine the Great, so she's like, I just invented the roller coaster. No, you fucking didn't. Um I Catherine the Great. Come on now. These are ridiculous. Okay, let's say um 1850.

Amanda 32:54

1784, but you still got it on the right place on your timeline.

Josh 32:58

1784. Okay. Go ahead.

Amanda 33:02

Okay. The scientist Alfred Wagner notes that the Americas and Africa fit together like puzzle pieces. He proposes that the continents drifted apart.

Josh 33:13

Oh, continental drift. Let's say that was in the 1750s.

Amanda 33:24

Okay, so uh before Catherine the Great is roller coaster, but after the cardinal makes the knives go. Sure. Ooh, 1912.

Josh 33:33

So I didn't get that one. No. Okay.

Amanda 33:36

The Korean alphabet is created under King Seijong during the Josan dynasty. Many letters are shaped like the mouth when pronouncing them.

Josh 33:50

I'm not gonna make any jokes here. Um let's say that that is before Confucius.

Amanda 33:58

Okay. Oh no, 1446. What? They didn't have an alphabet until 1446.

Josh 34:05

Oh, those crazy people. Okay.

Amanda 34:07

Alright, here's your last one.

Josh 34:09

Thank God. I just wanted to go on record. I've hated this quiz. Go ahead.

Amanda 34:13

I've learned interesting things, like Catherine the Great invented roller coasters.

Josh 34:16

You've learned nothing. Go ahead.

Amanda 34:17

By comparing shadows at two locations, a Greek polymath, Aerotesthenes, mm-hmm, becomes the first person to accurately calculate the circumference of the earth.

Josh 34:31

What's a polymath mean? That's someone who likes to have math with many different people. Let's see. Aerotesticle did what now?

Amanda 34:42

Aerotesticle became the first person to accurately calculate the circumference of the earth.

Josh 34:46

Oh, I don't know. Let's say I think my go-to answer from now on, for anything I don't know, is the 1750s.

Amanda 34:53

You think they didn't know the circumference of the earth until this Greek polymath with this name that sounds really long didn't do this until the 1750s?

Josh 35:02

Okay, let's say 1750 BCE.

Amanda 35:04

Okay, so 250 BCE.

Josh 35:10

So I didn't even get that.

Amanda 35:11

Yeah, you didn't do great. You only got five correctly placed this week, and I'm not sure how many extra points should be.

Josh 35:16

Plus three bonus points. So I got eight. That's okay.

Amanda 35:19

So if you would like to know why.

Josh 35:21

I don't know this is this is all I want you to read. Uh I want you to read um the thing that has to do with roller coasters, because that's interesting to me.

Amanda 35:30

Five new roller coasters to make you scream this summer.

Josh 35:33

Oh, boring. Never mind. So what was what was the theme of of this of this whole thing?

Amanda 35:37

I don't really know. So it started with Diana for really sad reasons. The US is gonna end AIDS funding in South Africa.

Josh 35:45

Please stop. Can we just be done with this segment? It's been nothing but bad.

Amanda 35:48

Okay, but no, no, the beer can thing, America's enterprising spirit is booming after a long slump. Tectonic plates pulled apart. Scientists observed the creation of a new seafloor for the first time this week. Few composers can sell out arenas. This is one of them. Who do you think is a composer that can sell out arenas?

Josh 36:06

Harry Stiles.

Amanda 36:07

He's not a composer.

Josh 36:08

Sure he is.

Amanda 36:09

No. His name is Joe Mama. I don't know what he's just racist. No, he's Japanese. I was trying my best. Okay. Anyway, there's I want to know why we learned about the knife thing, though. That's what I want to know. Why'd I learn about this knife thing?

Josh 36:26

I don't know. Um I'm I'm pulling the plug on this side.

Amanda 36:28

The pain in a patient's tooth baffled every dentist. What was wrong? Let's see what was wrong with this person's tooth.

Josh 36:33

What's happening right now?

Amanda 36:34

Um I don't know, but something was wrong in her brain that made her tooth hurt. Okay, I'm telling you why that New York Times felt like this was the interesting news this week.

Josh 36:42

Okay. All right. Folks, if we've kept this segment in, uh then you just need to question uh everything about us.

Amanda 36:51

You can cut out me explaining why they were all in, but you need to wizen, because we all need to know that Catherine the Great invented the roller coaster.

unknown 36:58

Okay.

Amanda 36:59

And that beer cans didn't have pull tabs until 1959. That is also interesting to me. And that Confucius that's interesting. That the chopsticks are pacifist. That I like. That's not interesting to you?

Josh 37:12

No.

Amanda 37:13

Why not?

Josh 37:14

I don't know. ADHD.

Amanda 37:18

Live to this podcast.

Josh 37:20

I've lost my desire to will. Yes. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

No one likes to be told what to do.

What We Are Watching Now

Josh 37:26

And now is the time in the program where we tell you what to do. Amanda, what should we do?

Amanda 37:30

Well, I don't know that I can recommend this documentary I talked to you about because I haven't seen it, but my coworker recommends it, and it's called Tell Me Who I Am, which is really an interesting title based on this whole conversation we were having about who are we actually. What I'm sorry, you were looking at your phone. You didn't really process what I said.

Josh 37:48

I did process what you said. I want to know who is this coworker who's now apparently a part of our show. Who's who's the coworker who suggested this?

Amanda 37:56

Rachel.

Josh 37:56

Okay. Rachel suggests that that's Rachel's recommendation that you do this. Didn't know that was a segment in the show, but from now on, Rachel recommends. My recommendation, you know, the guy who's here doing the show is there is a show that we've started watching on Netflix called Mo. And it is about a Palest undocumented Palestinian living in Houston and his family. And we're a couple episodes in, and it looks super, it's very engaging, looks super interesting.

Amanda 38:25

It's sad, but it's funny.

Josh 38:26

I don't know how you're it's not the comedy that I thought it would be, but it's very, very interesting to me. And it's it's an interesting snapshot into the lives of undocumented people.

Amanda 38:36

And it's difficult to watch, but we should, I mean, for a reason. Like we we should have to sit through the discomfort.

Josh 38:42

Oh, so it's funny.

Amanda 38:43

It is funny.

Josh 38:44

All right, so there's there's my wreck.

Email Us And Closing Thanks

Josh 38:58

Alrighty, friends, that's all there is. There is no more. Amanda, what'd you think of that mess?

Amanda 39:04

I mean, we were all over the place, but that sounds like what AI thinks we are anyway.

Josh 39:07

So AI or ADHD. One of them thinks that we are, or both of them or all of them. Folks, tell us what you think about all this. Please email us at familiarwilsons at gmail.com with your thoughts, your musings, your suggestions, uh, your anecdotes, any of the things.

Amanda 39:26

Oh, did you need me to say something? Yes, please email us. I'm sorry, I don't usually talk now. Why are you just staring at me?

Josh 39:33

Wait.

Amanda 39:34

Can I have the wine now? You told me I wasn't allowed to open the wine until the podcast was over, and I'm done talking.

Josh 39:39

Alright, go ahead. Have some wine. Well, you're uh drink. Don't drink all of it. That's all of our wine, and I I want some wine too.

Amanda 39:45

Okay, that is not even a half a glass, but I will purchase more wine. I have to go get pizza for the game anyway.

Josh 39:51

Okay, yeah, I'd like some wine for the game. I would like to thank the following people for their support, um, their ongoing support and love and compassion and empathy. Thanks to Antonio, to Justin, to Matt, to Brendan, to JK, to Daniel J. Buckets, to Leo, to Monique from Germany, Terry, Inky, Blinky, Confucius, Frank the Garbanzo Bean Monger, Chicken Tom, RAP, Ryan Baker, Jacob, Jason, Michael Malley, Tasha, and Kate and Tony, Mark and Rachel, and Dan and Gavin. Thanks to Ricky Candle for our theme song, Chris Barron for our additional theme song, AJCW for the song that you are listening to right now, and of course, Muffy and Winthrop and Daniel and Andrew.

Amanda 40:42

The wine made makeup.

Josh 40:44

Good. Did you drink it all?

Amanda 40:46

I did not. Okay. Get out of here. You bring me a possessive of the wine bottle that has your name on it.

Josh 40:54

Until next week, y'all. Go have fun. Be kind. Bye.

Amanda 40:59

Bye.