It feels like everything
is completely different now. I'm at a loss as to what videos
I can or even should make. We need talk about
Strange Parts. But first I need some tea. A lot of you have been reaching
out to check in to see if I'm OK. I'm fine. I've been in self isolation
for the past four weeks now and I've been in the US
since Christmas so I'm pretty sure I'm not sick and I'm
working really hard to stay that way. But a ton has changed in the
past few months for me. In fact purely just about
everything in my life has changed and I imagine
things have a lot for you too. I think it's… I think everybody's dealing
with a lot of change and some of that stuff's
been in the works for a while. In December I went back
to China to shoot and you guys have been
seeing a lot of the videos that have come out. I shot a lot
of factory videos. And the other part of that trip
was to really figure out do I really want to set up a full
office and workshop in China again. I tried to do that last
year and it didn't work out for several reasons. And I decided I don't want to do
that and it's a hard decision and it's one I'm still
wrestling with and I'm still sad about. But, as of March 1st I rented
a house in Phoenix and so I officially
live in the US again. I own furniture again
for the first time in five years which is super strange.
And yeah, the plan was to keep
travelling and shooting both in China and other places. Be gone for four to six
weeks at a time. But I really wanted to home
base and I realized I wasn't totally happy
with my life in China, in many ways. I wanted to eat more healthy
food and I don't know I… Shenzhen's a place
that everybody comes to to seek their fortune and… it just… Nobody really wants to settle
down there for the long run. And so it's just kind
of this revolving door of people and you make
friends and then they leave in a year or two. Dating
was equally hard. And it just… it was a lot of fun for the
three or four years I was there and I still want
to go back and I still wanna spend a lot of time there. But I realized I was kind
of looking ahead and I was looking at
you know do I really want to settle down and make
a life here for the next five or 10 years. There are parts of me that so
badly want to do that. I wanted to set up the coolest
workshop factory space in Shenzhen and there
were just there are a million more videos I want to make
there. And yet, I just was having
a really hard time with the personal side of it.
Of, you know, what happens when I'm not
working and when I'm off camera. I decided that I really
would like to have a home and a life here in the US still.
And so yeah, right now, Phoenix is home and we'll
see what happens from there. The plan was to keep traveling
to China and to other places. I had trips planned
tentatively to Nigeria and India and Bangladesh
and Vietnam this year, as well as obviously going back
to China for at least a few months, and all of that is now
off the table. And I'm kind of at a loss
for for what to do. I wanted to do a whole
bunch more factory tours. I wanted to do a bunch more
exploration and kind of adventurous industrial
travel in all of these new places and I don't know if or
when I'll be able to do that again. And it's been this gradual
closing down. In January obviously I knew
something was up. I was watching what was going
on in China and I decided okay I'm not
going back to China anytime soon. And then I had a trip planned
to Vietnam in February and I cancelled that. And I decided okay I'm not
going to do any more international travel
for the time being. And then by March, March 1st, I arrived in Phoenix
and I said you know what I'm not a fly on planes
anymore right now. That doesn't feel safe. And now I'm self isolated along
with a lot of other Americans. And I very much think
that's the right thing. I think it's a safe thing. I'm relatively young
and healthy still and I personally don't want
to get it. I really think it's pretty bad. And I've read a lot of the
reports and I don't think it would be at all
a good time and potentially would have
long lasting health effects. But also I'm in a situation
where I'm close to some people with compromised health
and it would be quite a bit more dangerous for them to get
it — potentially fatal. And so it's really changing
my risk tolerance around getting sick and that's
obviously changing my desire to travel.
And so yeah, I'm really hunkered down. And now we're in New Mexico on a
very rural Native American reservation. We don't know if we can get
packages delivered this all I imagine seems pretty
weird and maybe extreme but given some of the unique
peculiarities of our situation and some
health issues, not mine but some other
people that I'm living with, this made the most sense.
The net result, is that I have no idea what I'm
do it Strange Parts right now, at all. All of the content
that I had planned for the next few months,
six months, is stuff that I can't
do right now. A lot of it I can't do anyway.
And so I'm a bit lost. And so… I don't know. I don't know
what I'm doing. I feel like yeah, I'm really aimless
and definitely been getting to my head. But I also realized that I owe
it to you and myself to reconnect with you
and to continue to put stuff out there. To continue to make things
and put them out the world. And… and so I'm just going
to experiment. I don't quite know what I'm
going to be able to make. I have pretty limited resources
and access to tools and interesting
things right now. But I'm gonna see what I can do
and I'm just gonna experiment and throw stuff
at the wall and see what sticks. And so
I think as part of that, now is a good time to end
season two of Strange Parts and start season three, whatever that ends
up being here. And so one of the things I'd
like to do is solicit ideas from you. Given that I have limited
access to receive packages, I have limited tools
and supplies, and I am pretty much stuck
either indoors or out in the woods — what videos would you like to
see me make? If you have ideas,
I'd love to hear them. Leave them down
the comments below. I have a few ideas. I have some very old footage
pre-Strange Parts that I have been dusting off and so I have
at least one video to show you. It was part of the zygote
of the idea of Strange Parts and I shot
it before I even really knew that I was starting
a new YouTube channel. I was just playing around. It's a tour of a factory
in China. And I think you guys
might enjoy that. We're going to re-edit it, since I didn't know much
about editing video back then, and I don't have a copy
of that edit — I just have some
of the raw footage. We're trying to dig up
the audio portion of that. I have the audio
out of the camera, but had some lav mics. I also
have a handful of things, some things that I was given
it at CES. Some things that I ordered
in the mail, some things that you sent
me that I'd like to show you and maybe even take apart
or try and do a project with. I have some tools
and supplies here, but not at all what I
normally have, particularly what's in China. And then I have at least
one video that I recorded in China in December,
on my last trip there, that we haven't released yet,
and we're editing that now. So I'll share that with you.
And then lastly, I guess I just want
to acknowledge how lucky I feel. This… I keep saying crazy, but,
this… I've never been in any
situation like this, as I imagine most of you
haven't either. And it kind of feels
unprecedented, bizarre, scary. And I feel
particularly lucky. I am… I have a job that I can do
more or less from everywhere. It's obviously really
different right now. But I have a lot of experience
working from all sorts of different places,
working from home. I don't have an office
I have to go to. I don't have work I have
to go to right now. And I have the luxury
of ramping back my work a little bit or even
taking a break entirely. And most of all, I'm grateful to have been
invited to a place that's relatively removed
from populated areas, that's quite a bit
safer than being, say, in New York City
or San Francisco. And that feels like a big
gift right now. And, you know, it's I'm very grateful
to have that opportunity and very grateful to the tribe
for allowing me to stay here. And I wanted to acknowledge
that you might not have those same luxuries. You might still be having to go
to an office or go to work. You might be laid
off or out of work. You might be stuck in your
apartment all by yourself and getting lonely and bored
and maybe a little bit crazy. You might be having
to cook for yourself more than you ever have. I know I'm doing a lot more
cooking than I ever have. I am proud to say that I
successfully baked bread for the first time
this week which came out well. You might be stuck in a house
or an apartment with a bunch of people
that are driving you crazy. And I just want you to know
that my heart goes out to you, wherever you are, whatever your
situation is. This is not easy. It hasn't been
easy for me. Those of us, the people I'm
living with, we've been joking that everybody
gets their turn to have a meltdown. And I certainly had one last
night. Yeah. I'm just struggling
with a lot of crisis of meaning and purpose
and what should I be doing with my life. And I imagine that you might
be having some of those similar concerns and worries and fears. And I just want to let you know
that my heart goes out to you. This is a crazy bizarre time
to be alive in the world. And it's one that's filled
with fear and uncertainty and this deep sense
of powerlessness and we're all in it together. I will see
you again soon. I do have a list of videos
planned and I hope that you'll have a lot
more suggestions for me. If you have suggestions,
things you'd like me to make, leave them in the
comments below. I'll see you again soon. I'm going to try and put
out a video next week, is my plan. We'll see how
that goes. I'm trying not to be too
hard on myself to put out content super frequently,
but yeah, I want to be with you during
this time and I want to share what's going on my world. And hopefully give
you a little bit of entertainment and distraction
from the worries in your life. I'm Scotty from Strange Parts.
Stay tuned. I'll see you again soon.
