It's my 4,998th day on YouTube, and today I tested out doing some crypto comedy. I've experimented with stand-up comedy over the years, and it's something that's genuinely challenging. The ICP price was so crappy today that I thought, I'm just going to show up and make jokes. This is another one of those days where I'm really burned out on the sensational nature of YouTube. If you want to grow, you so often need to make these sensational, hype, dopamine, clickbait videos. What I want to do instead is give people a real education. And I want to help people laugh, because people are so serious.
Getting Obsessed With Fun Again
One of the things I've been obsessed with lately in my life is fun. As a kid, I was obsessed with fun. But adults seem to take life too seriously. Now, yes, there's a time to take life seriously. I don't believe in having too much fun while you're driving, for example. Driving is not the time to be driving crazy and scaring people. What's nice as an adult is that you can turn on being serious when you need it. Sometimes my kids need to be able to get serious too. But I'm trying to see how much fun I can have.
Take tennis. I got out there and I really had fun playing tennis today. I was just bouncing around on the court, keeping myself loose, because what ruins playing tennis is getting too tight, too stressed out, all upset with your performance. I want to have fun, and we had fun today. I was playing with a guy who was born a couple of years after my dad, but his first son was born the same year as me. So my mind is just going, all kinds of jokes, like, you're gonna let your dad beat you out here, boy. I was having fun. One time both of us were about a foot away from the net, and I hit this little shot because I could barely get to it, and I just started laughing. I said, dude, he could kill me right now, he could smack a ball right in my face. But he just dinked it over to the other side where I couldn't reach it.
Often I'd be kind of tense and serious out there, standing all locked up, all serious with my racket. Today I was moving around, almost like dancing. You don't quite know what I'm doing or where I'm going, and I'm having fun hitting shots. And if I miss a shot, oh well, I'll learn from that, and I let go of that last shot too. It's really fun to see how good my body can play tennis, and I did great with that.
Yoga, Meetings, and Moving the Energy
At yoga today, I had fun too. There's a mom there I haven't been able to catch up with in months, and I saw she was there today, so I put my mat down. The class was pretty spread out at that point, so I ended up being the only person with my mat directly between two people. I could just picture the lady next to me being all toxic about it, like, wow, out of all the places, he had to put his mat right next to me. But I was happy to catch up with that mom today and to move the energy around my body. A lot of the way I've done yoga over the years has been very serious, like I need to hit this pose and hit it perfectly. No, I just want to move the energy around my body and have a good time with these people.
At AA meetings, I often try to help people laugh. To me, a sign of life is having fun and laughter and joy. Those all go together. And sickness and seriousness go together a lot too. In my experience, the people who are the most sick often seem to be very serious, obsessed with personal problems, constantly condemning the state of the world.
I'm Fired
I looked at my crypto videos and I made one today called "I'm Fired." It's framed as Jerry Banfield crypto fired after ICP price approaches zero. The big takeaway I get out of the current state of things is that I don't want to be so serious anymore. Yes, I'm big into ICP, and I'm devastated by the disgustingly crappy price. But let's take things a little more lighthearted. Let's go around, let's have fun, let's play. And I'm happy to see any of you out there playing, because it can be tempting to hop on and play video games or do instant gratification stuff like watching a movie or watching YouTube. Me getting out there and playing tennis today was so much more fun, healthy, and a so much better connection than if I'd played Marvel Snap for two hours. After that I'd probably feel like crap, I wouldn't have connected with anybody, and it would all be about me winning. But I go out there and play tennis, I'm having fun, I'm getting to know somebody, and I'm keeping my body healthy.
What I Believe a Quality Life Actually Is
To me, one of the most valuable forms of wealth is health. I was talking with the guy I played tennis with today, and he told me his dad is over 100 years old and has no quality of life anymore. He said he's not as interested in living long as he is in enjoying his life. Me too. What I care about most is quality of life. In my experience, quality of life matters much more than quantity. Quantity without quality is worthless.
I have an agreement with my body. You will be healthy, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you healthy, to feed you right, to get you some sun like I did today, to play and have fun. For me that's non-negotiable. I'm not going to live some sick life where I'm at home by myself taking drugs every day, or in some nursing home having somebody change my diapers. I'm not interested in living like that, and I've come to believe I won't. I'm not afraid of that either, because I know I won't experience it. The guy today said he could just have a heart attack at 85 or so and be perfectly happy. Yes, exactly. But if I could still be this healthy and this active at 100, I'd be happy to take that too.
When you ask what exactly a quality life is, for me it means a healthy, functional body. Maybe not everybody agrees on that, but I love being able to have a body that can play tennis and make music. I love having a healthy, functional body. Now, some souls have chosen to incarnate here with less functional bodies for their own reasons. I've personally picked a healthy body, I love it, and to me that's quality of life.
Quality of life to me is also having connections with others. Not just being alone, sitting at home worried about my crypto portfolio and my future, but out there playing tennis and talking with somebody, hanging out with my wife and kids this morning, even seeing what you all have to say while I'm recording. A quality life to me is being healthy, having connections with others, and having a joy for living. A manifestation of joy is being playful, having fun, screwing around. The opposite of a quality life, to me, is having a dysfunctional body, being alone, and being serious all the time. You're alone, you're serious, or you're with people you have no connection with and don't care about.
What I hope to help with is to clearly define what a quality life is, because then you know what to aim for. A lot of us put too much time and energy into trying to be wealthy when really the greatest forms of wealth are health, relationships with others, and a playful, joyful, laughing approach to living instead of being so serious. That's real wealth. Financial wealth is nice, but it won't make you happy. It won't make you healthy. It won't bring you connection with others. It won't make you laugh or be playful. What really makes a quality life is all free. If you want to follow along with more of this side of things, you can see it in my Life playlist.