It's another Jerry Banfield YouTube video, day 4,985, January 21st, 2025. I'm really enjoying myself as a YouTube creator today. I filmed four ICP crypto videos right before this, and now I'm filming my vlog, which will be my fifth video of the day. I only filmed three videos yesterday. It was a light day, not much work. I spent some time with the family. I had a date with Laura, which was really nice. We went out to eat at the restaurant near our house. They had a veggie bowl with crispy lentils and coconut avocado rice, a spicy hot bowl, and it was so good. Laura got a burrito with some guacamole in there. It was awesome.
It's funny, I can barely remember what I did yesterday now, a day later. I went to yoga first thing in the morning. The class was crowded because it was a holiday. I went to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the morning and enjoyed sharing there. I barely remember what I said, but it's nice that every day I wake up and I'm grateful the kids are back in school. I do love doing this most days. My biggest accomplishment yesterday was that I made a dance song I absolutely love. It was my 304th song. I got in my studio and spent a couple of hours setting up this new dance set in Ableton. Wow, I've made a lot of songs, and this one really hits nicely. I'm not sure what I'm going to name it yet, but the YouTube video is coming out today on my main music channel.
This morning I woke the kids up to get ready for school and got them off. It's a little cold in Florida today. When I woke up I think it was in the 40s, so I got the kids off to school in jackets. After this I'm going to go to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and then go see my massage therapist. She's moving soon, so I'm only going to get to see her a few more times before she moves to the opposite side of the country. She's been one of my best friends in St. Petersburg over the last year. We've both learned a lot and helped each other, talking about all different aspects of life.
Relationships are the real wealth
What I'm really grateful for today is that I feel like each relationship I have where there's real connection and help leaves me richer. To me, the main form of wealth in life is relationships. You can have all kinds of money, but if you're sitting alone in your house, you're going to be a sad person drinking, watching TV, doing drugs. In my experience, the real wealth in life is having people you love and are loved by. That is how you truly become rich. The materialism and stuff fades next to that. If you're in an environment where you really have people you love and they love you, the material stuff is mostly transactional or not that important. And if you have all this beautiful material stuff but no love, it's like your life is worthless.
What's really nice is that no matter where you're at, if you want to find some more people to love, you can do that. I remember I have an aunt who, at the time, was in her 60s and had just gotten divorced from her husband. She was trying to date again and she was frustrated. I suggested she try online dating. She had a couple of dates that didn't go well and she was ready to give up. I said, why do you think you should just be able to go out with two guys, and if it doesn't go well, decide online dating doesn't work? You need to put the effort in to have meaningful relationships in your life, and failure is part of that. It's the same with trying to have friends.
I've seen a lot of different massage therapists over the last 10 years, and I've only had close friendships with three of them. I've done yoga with a whole lot of people, and I don't know that I have close relationships with any of the people I've done yoga with. I've met lots of parents at my kids' schools. It's amazing: when you can develop a closer relationship with someone, certain environments tend to foster that. Massage tends to put you in an environment where a close relationship is more possible than in a lot of other contexts. The same is true of dating. Just because you're dating someone doesn't mean you're going to have a close relationship with them, but dating someone gives you the opportunity to have one. Having kids and a family does the same thing, and so does working with other people.
Oh, I do have a yoga instructor I've had a pretty close relationship with. Alcoholics Anonymous has put me in a great position where I've had lots of close relationships too.
Loss, space, and being filled again
When I was first sober, one of the most devastating things that happened in terms of losing someone was that I was really close with my grand sponsor, and he died when I was two years sober. That was just as painful as losing my father, except what was different is that I knew I was a space. I felt richer because I'd had a father who loved me and whom I loved, and now I'd had this grand sponsor who was like a father in my life and whom I loved. That's when you get this spiritual awakening. I've come to believe I'm not Jerry Banfield; I'm the space to love and create. To me that is the essence of God, the space in which love and creation happen. I love this body, and I'm kind of having a relationship with it right now, but when this body passes, I'll have another body and I'll love that one as I loved all the many bodies I created before. I love the life and the story I'm in right now, and I've loved many lives and many stories before this, and I'll love many lives and many stories after this.
This also leaves me feeling very peaceful, because a lot of us, when we do have close relationships, carry this huge fear of losing it, with the underlying idea being that you can't replace it. Now, yes, when my father died, no one has replaced my father specifically and exactly, but other people have filled the same space and time in my life that my father filled. My grand sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, and several other men after him, have filled the same space. When my father died, it cleared such a huge space in my life that it took many people to fill it up.
Having what might be my best friend in St. Petersburg move away, yes, I'm sad to have that space cleared out in my life. I'll call her on the phone, and we're planning on keeping in touch, and I hope I'll see her again someday. At the same time, it will not be the same kind of relationship as in person, and it will make space for someone else, either a relationship I already have becoming deeper and getting more time and attention, or a new friend coming into my life.
Choosing who to get closer to
When you realize you're the space, you also see that, at least on a moment-to-moment basis, you have a limited amount of time and space for people. There are lots of people I'd love to be better friends with at Alcoholics Anonymous, at yoga, other massage therapists I'd like to have more time to befriend, my family, my coworkers, people at ICP conferences, but I only have so much time. Especially since I get a good night of sleep, do my yoga, my AA meetings, and my fifth YouTube video of the day here, I only have so much time for people. So I try to pick the people to get closer with whom I have the most excitement being around. They're the most fun, the most playful, the most joy, and that is mutual.
There's a movie a friend told me about called I Love You, Man, about a guy realizing he needed some new friends, and he was essentially trying to date new guy friends to make new guy friends. Often making friends can be more challenging than dating someone, because dating is like a fixed container. Family and coworkers are kind of a fixed container too, but friendship is not so clear as to where you go to find friends. I know they have apps now where you can essentially friend-date, where you try to meet up with friends.
I love that the more people I am friends with who fill the space at one point in my life, the richer and richer I feel. At this rate, whenever I do pass, I'm going to feel as wealthy as you could possibly feel, with all the people I've loved in my life. What I love also is that when I started this vlog, I had no idea what I was going to talk about, but now I'm sure I've talked about something very meaningful. This is one of the most powerful ideas in my life today, and one I'm intent on remembering. If you want to follow more of these everyday reflections, you can find them in my Life playlist.