Demetri Martin - If I

now on BBC four comedy from a Perrier Award winner from last year's Edinburgh Festival and wow them there again as we speak and with strong language Demetri Martin the unexamined life is not worth living Socrates said that over 2,000 years ago and I agree with him I would just add man the unexamined life is not worth living man because that hits me here but when you do examine life can you go too far how much is too much man that's the question I had to ask myself recently because in examining my life I got carried away you see some people are passionate about money or power other people are into sex or cats while I like three of those things my passion is for something less tangible I love figuring things out the process of exploring a possibility to discover something new that's my passion that's a simple pleasure I've enjoyed since I was a kid but recently things got complicated that's what I want to talk about tonight this is a story about what happens when one man's obsessive analytical mind goes too far and turns on itself my story starts with one little word if and one medium-sized person I if I the statement if implying possibility I implying Dimitri because you see it's in the if that I seem to have lost and then rediscovered the I to put it another way I figured since I don't have a job or a girlfriend or much going on back in my flat why not write an entire show about one word if but what does that word mean where does one find meaning in life a dictionary the Nerds Bible hello old friend this dictionary is American which means it's probably fat okay let's look up the word if has five meanings these are the five chapters in my story tonight let's start at the beginning if meaning in the event then okay a sample sentence always helps let's do one if I eat another brownie I will have explosive diarrhea or in my case when I was a child if I was uncomfortable or insecure I would escape into my mind you see I believe that every person has a lens through which they see the world each of us in this room has a unique lens and that lense determines the meaning of everything you encounter people places experiences even simple objects for example I have a bottle of beer here this is a bottle of Rolling Rock beer an American beer that you might find in a bar or the linen closet of a depressed housewife but it's more than that depending upon your lens an artist might look at this and see something green that's lit from the front and the sides an ad executive might look at it and see the centerpiece of a billboard a guy in a fraternity might look at it and then beat up somebody gay or brown my point is each lens is unique because it's derived from specific experience I'm no exception when I was a kid I'd sit in class in school and I had trouble paying attention my mind would wander and I needed something to entertain myself something to bring into class to amuse myself you know sneak in my own reading but it was never anything cool like muscle flex or sophisticated like jugs no you know what I snuck into class puzzle books like this Mensa presents mighty mind Busters yeah that's what I'm sneaky and I'm a hiding this behind my notebook while other kids are daydreaming about pecs and tits in my head there was a very different sound if a crab and a half way a pound and a half but the half crab weighs as much again as the whole crab what do half the whole crab and the whole of the half crab way yeah baby hurts so good I had a pile of these books obnoxious titles gains for the super intelligent brain workout brain workout for I can't even remember all the titles I think one of them was I'm smart how can I prove it five and I would toil over these problems when I got one right I would be like yes I am smart these other idiots don't know how much the crabs weigh what I do is I just spent Saturday working it out i matter see that was a way to feel validated as a kid you have definite problems in front of you with definite answers in the back you hook it up banana yeah I'm right definitely cool I'm better than I was this morning I progress besides I had a plan 11 years old I figured it out career corporate lawyer done check what's for lunch I just knew where I was headed class yeah whatever teacher I got my little puzzles I'm gonna do my own thing a cowboy of academics on the edge besides look other things may have contributed I wasn't athletic I was on the church basketball team but that was because I was Greek and had legs and ladies the chicks didn't get what I was about despite my performance on the math team ladies that's cool squared sounds even worse now whatever the reason I spend a lot of time as a kid doing these puzzle books and it came to shape the way I see the world so now as an adult I see the world in those terms for example to me a phone number is always a sentence or an equation like my friend Becky her number is nine seventy one which is nine minus seven quantity times one equals if we do a little work we see her numbers just two equals two that's much simpler or my friend Michael if you look at the numbers on a telephone the letters that go with them make this sentence out of his number Oh or okay Oh ZK what does it mean I don't know he doesn't know but that's how we start every conversation even when I walk down the street things look a little different the signs the letters dance around it's like it becomes a little puzzle for me so say mobile the gas station becomes limbo Starbucks becomes racks bust Carphone Warehouse ah once our crap we when I meet somebody if I meet you for the first time you tell me your name I spell it immediately expelled in the air and then I try to rearrange the letter see if I can get something out say I meet a girl Denise Houston good to meet you Demetri Denise how do you spell your name that's what I thought Denise are you aware that the letters in your name also spell she not snide ow not the coolest way to meet a lady which unfortunately usually makes Demetri Martin mired trite man and I get frustrated and I just want to say darn it Merritt me it's cool though I know that somebody I'll meet the right lady I'll rearrange the letters in her name and it will make trim TN a ride me but I digress I just feel like there's a parallel world right in front of us that's revealed with a small shift in perspective like sometimes when I look at a doughnut it looks like a zero it's like it's saying this is how many of me you should eat but then other times you see a bunch of doughnuts in a row and it looks like it says ooh eat all of us then I do when there's one left it says oh not cool fatty I don't own a poncho I don't have a poncho but if somebody says to me do you have a poncho I don't say no I say not right now because I do have a blanket and scissors at any moment I am four minutes from a poncho if you wait here I will be back with a serape made out of a comforter in four minutes even this bottle of beer this simple object when I look at this when I see your words printed all over it in the design and the warning on the side and the message on the back and I start to wonder is there more meaning on this simple object that appears at first glance what if somebody took every word off this bottle and rearranged them could it reveal more meaning about beer and bars people who drink beer a lot that's what I did I took every word off this it's the first poem in your program tonight it's every word off of this bottle in a different order if you haven't read it you don't have to read it now read it after the show and think of me in a bar alone uncomfortable insecure completely lost in my mind which raises the question why why would a guy sit down with a napkin and a pen a bottle of beer and write rolling rolling enjoyment taste beer the answer lies in the second meaning of the word if if meaning although possibly even though okay sample sentence she was an enchanting if toothless woman or in my case I spend a lot of time doing time consuming if completely unproductive things by the time I got to college I wasn't doing puzzle books anymore I was becoming a man an adult I had evolved a more puzzle books now I was making the puzzles I went to the school paper and I said hey I want to do a crossword puzzle for you guys but I feel like I've seen the flat thing done before I wanted more of a challenge what about a three-dimensional crossword puzzle like this you see this goes across down and back that's three ways to say I'm lonely I made five of these when I was in college I spent more time on these puzzles than any class there is no use for these puzzles I don't even know if there was a use when I made them and then when I was in class I still had trouble paying attention same problem is great school but now I found a sick way to up the ante I found a way to give myself puzzles to solve by the end of class like this one is 9 variable substitution you see I am NOT a dork if I can find a number for every letter so that this mathematically works by the end of class I win and here's the solution eight equals five M equals to K equals and sometimes a simultaneous equation comes true with the same numbers I'm not a dork I am a nerd I wanted to improve my vocabulary look I was in college I thought yes improve continue to become better expand your vocabulary if you want to do that maybe you read some books hang out with English teachers become friends with a poet I said no no let's take out the middleman I don't have time for that I'm gonna read the dictionary all the way through starting at the beginning like a book in the ACE and every time I come to a word I don't know highlight the word then in groups of ten I put them in this notebook you see so I could quiz myself ten at a time walking around I'm in the eyes here I'm in the 450s invective jangle jape intrument walking around quizzing myself when someone does this you might call them abecedarian more likely you're gonna call them asshole but for me this all sprang from a growing need to feel validated and the way I did from a puzzle book as a kid it was a way of feeling like yes I'm getting better I'm succeeding in small increments but now it moved off the page of the puzzle book and into the world at large just little challenges that's what it became daily challenges not big ones I'm not the guy who climbs Mount Everest you know oh thank you I'm the guy who spent two months last year learning how to write with his left hand forcing himself to write with his left hand so then I'm in a situation I'm like yeah cool you haven't broken your right hand but you know what it's good to have it yeah right both ways I end up at the banks aid he's a cute teller filling out my deposit slip we flirt a little bit slide it into the glass and she's like this guy's retarded but I'm thinking ambidextrous genius yes you'll have it if I'm on the street and someone stops me for directions I give them directions but I try to do without using my hands because it's hard it's a challenge where's the mall then I look sneaky it's over there just go I don't do this one so much anymore but there's a time where if I had to pee I had to go the bathroom I would hold it in I'd say okay it's a systemic challenge your body's telling you urinate I'm saying no mind over body I don't have to pee I'm gonna hold it in one time I failed that challenge the challenge then became how do I explain my boss the wet spot in front of my pants without giving myself away I think I pulled it off because I went man these are some sweaty balls when you do this over time daily self-imposed hurdles every day you develop what I call a number of useless talents yes things that are not important use less talents why why why why do that why doing something why why why space clean your room take a shower why you are not a unicycle when did I become that guy college sophomore year second semester when I joined the antigravity society you don't want to be the unicycle guy trust me I did my show in New York my first run I bring my unicycle to the theater every night and this is how people on the train would look at me but in college I'm riding around campus thinking I'm the only guy on a unicycle when I should have been thinking I'm the only guy on a unicycle but I thought yes you're different you're special yes you bruised your balls a few times but you're different now I'm older look I'm I'm a little wiser I'm still obsessed with challenges I can't change that but they're more creative painting music sewing I made these for the show and I think the ass is crooked all right it's okay most recently I took up photography I feel like you know it provides a literal lens and I'm not saying I'm a great photographer but I feel like I have potential and I want to show you guys some photos I took is what I'm talking about I call this society over there men and women what's the hury in that direction this is a fruit stand devoid of color I say to the viewer figure out what kind of fruit it is based on the shape mofo this is a portrait of a pig much later I was at a party there was a guy offering people Milk Duds this candy back home it's popular out of nowhere I'm solicit hey man you want a dud you want a dud I was like well where's my camera photo op BAM look at that frame nicely but everything most people if they even shoot a balance beam are gonna go this way well I took this sucker long ways we call that perspective in the biz I was in an Army store army supply store I wanted to buy some army boots and GI boots I found that they were too big for my feet I thought hmm symbolism me in the military not a good fit one-handed photo right there man this is a bicycle with a sombrero on I think this speaks for itself I was sometimes I set my camera up on a tripod and capture myself one moment in the day unexpected this was 10:00 in the morning after kind of a rough night I some tylenol you know I had a headache but look there's a MANET on the wall I like his work I just thought it was framed nicely kind of during my Jesus phase it's like a Trinity of being hung over and then I was walking by this bus stop in the village I saw look at this a black guy a Hawaiian guy a South American girl and a Hasidic Jew all waiting for the same bus I was like oh my god that's like a melting pot bus scenario capture that so I did it's funny though when I was looking at the pictures I developed my film and I noticed a weird coincidence I discovered between all the photos which was each picture could be described with a palindrome you know a word or a phrase is the same forward and backwards if we go back I'll show what I mean first one the man of the woman I realized is actually picture of sexes se xes it's the same running back in the fruit stand I noticed no lemon no melon mmm-hmm dude dud if you fall it's tons nuts fellas I found that the GI boots too big for my feet I'll cycle ten am lonely Tylenol man ay yo Aloha Ola boy I'm not a photographer I'm a guy who's obsessed with palindromes to give you an idea what I'm talking about here's one of my notebooks one write on the subway yielded this and one of my notebooks this is me working it out yeah you see I'm figuring him out when I come up with a good one I put a box around it so I can use the palindrome later for something red nuts it fist under that's a keeper Wow one man's tit Oh got its name now ow Shakespeare for the retarded I don't know who that is Tony H why not okay what does this lead to all this work the crown jewel and my kingdom of useless talents a 224 word palindrome the whole thing is the same forward and backwards by letter it's the second poem in your program tonight about an alcoholic mailman kind of right in the middle if I the show itself a tiny palindrome in the middle of the big palindrome in the middle of the show all woven together and it doesn't make me any cooler it makes me a guy who spent a lot of time doing something wildly unproductive which brings me to the third meaning of the word if if meaning whether okay sample sense the small hairy man wondered if it was wise to wear the tank top in my case I started to wonder if I couldn't deconstruct anything with a little bit of analysis the satisfaction I was getting as a kid from puzzle books from someone else's problems and then from my own little puzzles did I need that the challenges and everything couldn't I just derive the game or the puzzle from things just by looking at simple things and finding it within and then things started to emerge like swimming for example swimming to me that's a confusing sport because sometimes you do it for fun but then other times you do it to not die and when I'm swimming sometimes I don't know which one it is I got to go buy the outfit trousers uh-oh bathing suit okay naked we'll see I think about drowning I think drowning would be a horrible experience but I bet a little less horrible if right before that you're really thirsty zhenia like man I can use a drink oh that's good whoa too much that's when I swim I always bring pretzels I think the worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades especially if your teammates are bad guessers I was at a party I saw a guy wearing a leather jacket and I thought that is cool ten minutes later I saw a guy wearing a leather vest I thought that is not cool and that's when I realized that cool is all about leather sleeves I like fruit baskets a fruit basket enables you to mail somebody fruit without appearing insane you just mail somebody some apples are like the hell is this but if you put those apples in a basket they're like this is nice I keep a lighter on me at all times you know my back pocket I'm not a smoker I just really like certain songs I believe that you can learn something in every situation for example this summer I was at a party and I learned that there's a small but important difference between peeing in the pool and peeing into the pool location location location I don't like thank-you cards because I don't know what else to say what do I put on the inside man seafront I use this product called I can't believe it's not butter because sometimes when I'm having toast I like to be incredulous how was breakfast unbelievable I grew up near the beach and uh I liked it I liked the beach I like to get there really early before everybody else shows up and I take like 30 bottles with notes in them and throw them into the water and then I wait for everyone to come to the beach once someone goes to pick up one of the bottles I go up behind them because when they open it inside there's a note that says I'm standing right behind you you see to me this was a self-contained enjoyment little games that I was just finding everyday walking around the street you know just in a store sitting on a train things just started to pop up but something strange was happening at the same time kind of a parallel development you see I was on my course achieve achieved goal one after the other to law school from eleven years old and I get there first year law school in New York I arrive and surprise one weekend I hate it it sucks you have to understand this was the plan I'm the guy who's 12 years old people say what do you want to be when you grow up and I say I don't know either litigation or corporate mergers I'm not quite sure what a prick but then I get there and it's no it's no good Socratic method that's what we have in American law schools Socratic method you come into class the first day of the semester pick a seat surprise that's your seat for the year the professor has a seating chart you can just put your name in there and look down and say mr. Martin state the facts in the case Bowers V Hardwick and just calls on you such a power place this this is not for me what am I gonna do I got to put this into terms I can understand make it a game and that's when word of the day started at my law school word of the day was if you get called on you have to use the word of the day in your answer in class and I will give you the word of the day before class right outside so now there's a hundred and ten of us in the class and one professor and there are a hundred ten people waiting to hear the word bagel and one guy who has no clue so game on one of the first words was aroused gave it to the class my friend gets called on yeah I believe that issue first aroused excuse me a rose in the case yeah nice go and Jason everyone's kind of looking around like impressive hobble this law was designed to prevent people from hobbling into court with any old claim good job Rob now I'm doing the reading I'm becoming a good student for all the wrong reasons just so I can show off so that I can prove I can use the word cupcake in a contracts case change the whole dynamic so the game went on but you know what like any game people learned it it got too easy so I'd to up the ante after a few weeks to a harder word sassy that's a hard one to use in a legal context we had five classes a day no one could use sassy through the first four classes then the last class criminal law we're doing battered wife syndrome of all things my friend Louise gets called on she gives a real answer and then she says I just want to add that I think it's wrong that some men hit their wives just because they're being sassy and an s-sound came over the whole room cuz everyone turned to their neighbor and went sassy when I was a god I wasn't a God I was a guy who was I was becoming the crazy guy at Law School I was never the crazy guy in grade school or high school college pretty normal but now I think it was a bad fit I was out of my skin I was becoming someone in recognize I was I was crazy Demetri you know that guy who starved for attention every situation becomes about him trying to be funny that's what I was doing for example I was in this one class called Criminal Procedure it was an evening course it was worse than the first-year courses because in that class you were on call it wasn't the whole class getting called on it was just five people at a time every class session just five people got called on so they tell you the day before you five you're on call tomorrow so do the reading make sure you're here cuz you're gonna get every question man so I went out to dinner with my friends before class we went to a Chinese food restaurant and crazy Dmitri decides to strike I go to my friend hey man see that fortune cookie you're holding open it up whatever it says inside I'm saying is my answer in class he's like all right man if you do that I'll get up and say I agree with Dmitri all right don't dare me cuz you're gonna get burned so we go to classes like seven of us that know about it we're getting we're like hey he's gonna read a fortune cookie man it's crazy she's guys crazy do it man yet so the moment comes the professor calls on me he was like a Fourth Amendment case or something I just my chance I look forward I just bail I don't do it I felt like it was disrespectful or something I don't know I just I crushed and I just gave a real answer my friend you know kind of gave me a glance like stupid I knew what you weren't doing such felt defeated then the professor asked another question and he ends it with Demetri again I'm like wait a minute second chance here I got to go for it you got to take it do it man so I just look forward clear my throat I just go when love and skill are combined expect a masterpiece six guys go crazy 100 other people look at me like what the hell was that and this is how lost I got this out crazy the professor didn't say Dmitri again he said Denis him again that was the next name on the list it was alphabetical of the on call but in my head I'm hearing Dmitri again now's your chance go for it this poor girl gets call on pressure situation some schmuck on the other side of the rooms yelling at combined love and skill Denis got lost my own little world of crazy Demetri you see it's funny sort of is a harmless thing to say sort of doesn't really mean anything it's a filler you know what I mean but after certain things sort of means everything like after I love you or you're going to live what I'm trying to say is I went to law school sort of you see I made it through two years of law school I made it through two of the three years the hardest parts the first year done second year I hung in there but then couldn't do it after two I said I'm out of here and it was a crazy moment to have a plan from 11 years old and just kind of every choice every summer classes extra activities SATs essays leading to that one big goal and then being that close to it and realizing I made a huge mistake I have to admit it cut my losses I'm out of here and it was a total crisis a total crisis of relevance because I was now an adult yes okay it's cool to be quirky maybe on the side do some puzzles make puzzles whatever you learn how to ride a unicycle that's cool when it's liked on the side right and you have a plan what happens when you remove the plan what you'll have with is a guy who likes to do anagrams and doesn't have a job sweet that's a catch that brings me to the fourth meaning of the word if if used to introduce an exclamatory clause indicating a wish you know what no sample sentence here if I could just figure out my life that's the point I'm getting to that was the big question that's what it all turned on if I could just figure out my life I realized I don't want to be some guy who has no purpose no application I mean what am I gonna be as an older guy creepy uncle Demetri who's like come here I'll show you clench oh yeah that my achievement that I can like do something with a yo-yo oh no and so I turn my analysis away from extraneous things from irrelevance to time I said okay I'm wasting a lot of this seem to have trouble managing it can i harness it can I use it better and maybe will that lead me to being a more productive person and this is when I had a breakthrough slash breakdown see I found a way to make myself the puzzle finally I became the puzzle to solve a point system and turn myself into a weekly point system 7 categories 5 points in each category to be tallied every Sunday night 35 points maximum possible Demitri week situation in an effort to get better see here's some of the categories body subcategories to high it and fitness / care ok fight you 3 fruits and 2 vegetables every day of the week for 7 days I get a point at the end of the week that means you ate better work down for 3 days if I did a leg workout if I did crunches whatever fb5 was and floss 5 days a week I get a point for that it's a bitchy one but I get a point at the end of the week and even fancy stuff I get variable here I can run as many miles as I choose at the beginning of the week I chose 10 this week I ran zero that's a zero point body week not very good mind ok I did a little better in this category this week read two books do 30 minutes of puzzles brainstorm for an hour so that's like ok think about something starting now and go cool done awesome you got a point use lateral thinking for 3 hours how do I do that hey man could you tie me to this chair and if I get out and listen you know like about 3 hours of the great I get a point for it thanks one of them were creative so is like alright two drawings paintings or sculptures that gets a grab-bag yeah that equals you're a creative person next category contribution okay cool it's not all about me I found a spot for the rest of the world in my point system one little corner I broke the world into people I know family and friends and others help someone solve a problem do something for another person if I help a stranger in some way uplift another person or try to see another's point of view maybe I can combine those three into like a triple score you know pick up a strange baby and be like what are you thinking BAM three points right there relationship gaze shared my subcategories did something for Jen I was with Jen at the time that makes sense here's my expression or equation for how you have a successful relationship with a woman if during the week you talk less than she does that means you were listening see that we can she talked more than me so it was good I was a listener I was getting a relationship stronger did my share see even here when on a romantic date had two dinners together I was trying to keep the relationship strong in a way that I could tally vision / ethics the most embarrassing category internal and external visualise / focus for more than a half hour during the course of the week cool centered you know like a yogi or something's great what about this reflected and rededicate itself that's my favorite one of the whole thing that's me giving myself a point for filling out the point system guaranteed one point week every week I just open it up I'm like yes you're reflecting and rededicating yourself right now it's great and then even here demonstrated moral courage how do you do that I got to find someone being persecuted make the right moral choice step in be courageous and then have my paper and record it on one move it's hard conveyed unassailable confidence all this stuff it's like kind of embarrassing you know I used to look at my feet a lot at that time so I was trying to be more forthright proactive confident so as I guess unassailable that's the kind of confidence I want great vocabulary word thanks notebook here's where it gets interesting I did this system for 27 weeks in a row I'm on week 18 here I'm already on version 10 of the point system you see if I wasn't getting enough points the problem was not with me it's the system fix it and towards the end Wow boxes with little boxes in them it's all justified I did this inward this is very difficult I did an analysis of the analysis of myself I found that over 27 weeks I averaged 11.2 points out of 35 that's 32 percent that sucks I failed I failed miserably that's half an F that is horrible my worst week was 4 points 4 points what the hell was I doing help an old lady eat a banana for Christ's sake I got one point for filling out the chart highest week 24 points okay you know what I thought that would be my lowest week like mid-20s I was figuring yeah you'll be high-functioning up near the 30s maybe max out at 35 a few times and then you know just up all the goals self-actualize great yeah do it up worst category score was management management I'm the manager I created the whole world I got 18 percent in the managed world that I created best category score relationship all right 62 percent that's more than three out of five every week for 27 weeks for half a year footnote Jen and I got married footnote 2 Jen and I got divorced but that's a different show that's a longer more complicated show and the the charts are really different and skewed what what do I learn from all this what can I conclude from all this analysis I have no clue I spent a half a year of my life doing this every week I don't know I honestly don't know you know I look back on and I realized my intentions were good I was trying to become a better person I was trying to methodically record what a better person would be for someone like me and what I could do every day capturing every moment trying to move towards that but I failed pretty miserable now I look back and with a little bit of distance I wonder what was that going for like who did I think I was gonna become what would the 35-point week have been like I lost sight I was so busy trying to figure out who I wanted to be I didn't realise who I was actually becoming I would walk around with the point system my pocket all the time just tallying whatever I could get thinking I was figuring out my life yeah I could ride a unicycle I could do puzzles whatever blah blah blah tallied myself but look at the same time I was a dropout from school divorced already my job proofreader at law firms from midnight to 8 a.m. in the morning that was my that was the career that I'd carved out for myself couldn't just figure out my life that became clear that brings me to the final meaning of the word if where we started in the first place a possibility conditioner stipulation sample sentence there will be no ifs ands or buts you're going to fat camp or in my case I believe that every if is a possibility but more importantly it's an opportunity a chance to make a choice those choices determine the I I think about some of the past ifs that led up to this moment tonight this if and if I had chosen differently with some of those past ifs how would this moment in time right now be different for example if I wasn't on the math team when I was in high school well in central New Jersey I would have been considered cooler I would hung out more would have gone out with a girl named Gina maybe with really big hair we had a Camaro Demetri and Gina and script on the window smoked some pot listener Zeppelin hang out a bunch one thing leads to the next right now Employee of the Month at my family's diner and I say things like dude and whatever a lot more and sentences like dinner whatever what if I paid attention in class no puzzle books no games just focus I would have been a better student you know what I would have finished law school I have one year left I would have finished I'd be married right now to a doctor we'd have a cool car , stereo maybe a couple kids a nice house Society would respect us and right now funny guy at the law firm in this stage my stage would be the watercooler I'd be the guy who stands there's like you have a good weekend hey pull my finger he's crazy man he's got a tie with clowns on I think I should you stand up okay what if I focus no useless talents practice one sport instead of all the useless talents maybe I could get really good at that sport maybe I get great at it self-esteem goes up I do better with the women travel I can become an international sports star traveling the world signing paddles having all kinds of headbands I don't even know it's a dream life okay I'm not an athlete fine maybe I'm not an athlete I'm a nerd okay I accept it how about I apply that focus develop some clarity contribute something to the world don't be so self-centered with the games and the puzzles maybe I could maybe I could change the world okay maybe I'm getting carried away but I think I did figure something out I equals all of the ifs added up over time the ifs those are the possibilities that's infinite for all of us every day they're just millions of them time that's finite for each of us no question there maybe if you divide the choices by the amount of time you have the real I can emerge depending upon those choices so in the end all I can say is you can't figure out a person definitely not yourself you can't maximize a life what you can do is try to be honest and the choices that you may be true to yourself no matter how embarrassing those choices are life is not a science I realize that but if I told you that right now I don't have a point system of some kind I'd be a liar look I'm a guy who does palindromes tell jokes about leather jackets because that gives me some meaning at least for now you know what I apologize for none of it because the unexamined life is not worth living man

Channel: Aleck Lugt

Views: 508,055

Rating: 4.6775107 out of 5

Keywords: Demetri Martin (Author), show, cool, If I

Id: l2kN7pEME4o

Length: 48min 16sec (2896 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 13 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/feels_good_man]

This was really entertaining and it really hit close to home. I don't even have as many useless talents as this guy.

[u/JBrad0322]

I'm a bit jealous of his incredibly unique outlook on life. Just the way I feel that Louis CK is unique, Demitri Martin is also unique.

[u/babaganate]

Went to the same highschool as him.

Had his German 2 textbook. He didn't leave any Mensa puzzles in there.

[u/[deleted]]

I used to have a checklist too...