Steven Ho: How Do You Follow Your Bliss? | Metaphysical Milkshake with Rainn and Reza

welcome to metaphysical milkshake i am one of your hosts reza aslan and i am the other one of your hosts rayne wilson hi reza hey rayne i got a question for you did you yeah ever think when you were young you know a young impressionable kid growing up in the pacific northwest yes do you ever think that one day you would be doing a podcast about existential questions with reza aslan i mean did that dream ever occur to you my dream came true i'm doing a podcast about life's biggest philosophical spiritual and psychological questions with raza aslan b reza aslan i mean this is the pinnacle of your journey welcome to metaphysical milkshake the show where we go deep we get weird and we search for the meaning of life along the way presented by cast media and soul pancake [Music] truth be told you're onto something with this question because from the get-go i always wanted to be an actor i don't know why i was just in my dna literally my mom had been an actor but i had i just wanted to act more than anything in the world but i also wanted to dig into life's biggest possible questions more than anything in the world i always loved um deep conversations i always loved pondering like what happens when we die and trying to imagine what infinity was you know wondering if i had free will wondering like how and why emotions worked the way they did just kind of like what makes human beings tick why do we do what we do where are we headed as a species etc the list goes on and on so the fact that i was able to kind of transition my acting life of being like uh which ended up being kind of the silly sitcom actor and i was able to transition that into soul pancake here it is for those of you just listening i'm showing off my soul pancake t-shirt um uh to dig into life's biggest possible questions and end up i'm currently writing a book about spirituality and uh having these conversations with you and the caliber of the guests that we've had i mean it's it's amazing it really is a dream come true and um it's kind of like joseph campbell says follow your bliss it was kind of like i got to follow a double bliss because my my true bliss is um is really uh digging into life's biggest and most perplexing questions and having um elevated distinctive inspiring conversations about the human experience so um it's like you took quite a very circuitous route yeah this is that's not this place it's not point a to point b to go like go do a do go do a sitcom where you play a weird paper salesman and this will allow you then to meet with oprah and uh start a uh a digital media company and and a podcast that deals with life's biggest questions um it's not the normal route you have searched the world for other comedians you won't find many that went on this same path but i would say for you too you know there's aspects of your story uh your journey that are just so kind of inspiring and kind of frankly puzzling and weird that you have two master's degrees a phd you studied creative writing you studied theology you studied sociology um and uh you know a religious scholar like this transition for you how did how did this work how did you come to be having these discussions with me and and the same discussions you've had on various shows on cable tv and other podcasts vis-a-vis going to divinity school well i mean it's weird but like this was the plan all along you know uh all my life this is kind of what i wanted to do like if you had asked me you know at the age of 13 what do you want to do with your life i would have said public intellectual which is absurd obviously right it is a public intellectual isn't that like socrates he was just a guy who gets paid to think out loud like that was like is that a job i'm i'm sure that's a it was a job in the victorian era did you make a dream a dream board with that a guy who gets paid to think out loud like how does that i just don't understand look i guess the process the past i think the truth is is that probably so you had to you had immigrant parents i thought you've talked about this before they thought it was just absurd that you want to be a writer yeah why you want to be writer you can you'll be writing on the side value our doctor well that's kind of exactly what my mom sounds like uh it was it was more like like did i even know what the phrase public intellectual meant at 13 probably not but i knew i wanted to be a writer i knew i wanted to be a famous writer i didn't want to just like you know write for myself i knew that i wanted to be in the public i knew that i wanted to talk about big ideas and like you know it's just like that's what i wanted to do and i wanted to do it in an accessible way i wanted to be i wanted to be on tv i wanted to be you know on radio and and yes you're right look i had immigrant parents and you know you can't explain stuff like that to to you know parents who gave up everything in order to come to this country so that you could have a better life uh i've told this story before that when i told my mom that i wanted to be a writer she said who's stopping you from writing right like right right you can write nobody is you go be a doctor and then you write and and i was like no i want to be a writer like i want that to be a job my job and she said that's not a job that's not a real job and so you know that's how i went i got a degree and i you know became an academic because i figured well that's as close as you get to you know but even while i was getting my degrees i was i was writing novels and i was you know trying my hardest to kind of uh become as much of the public conversation as possible i had like this very clear you brought up joseph campbell that was me like i had a bliss and i was following it and yes i like you went through a bunch of different hoops and and you know some dead ends and some u-turns uh but i can say that today right now in the year 2021 the year of our lord it's 2022 reza oh [ __ ] slight correction happening [ __ ] idiot are you serious leave me alone you got the year wrong you just turned 50. twenty twenty nineteen seventy two here i am at 50 years old in 2022 and i can say without a shadow of a doubt that i have followed my bliss that i am doing what i was meant to do what i've always wanted to do i i made it this is where i am that's amazing i i feel really truly i feel the same way um i'm i i hope that listeners aren't rolling their eyes like oh these guys are bragging because we're trying to get at something here you know um i uh this is absolutely incredible i i wake up with such chronic dissatisfaction and i think this is such a normal human kind of uh response to the world i think we survived because we have an anxiety response to the world around us we have survived as a species because of rustling in the bushes might mean it's a tiger and we need to be worried about rustling in the bushes and so now we don't have tigers eating us but we have that anxiety over rustling in various bushes happening all the time this morning i needed to order some dutch doors for an office that's being built and i'm like i'm we're never they're never gonna finish the dutch doors in time um with these with the assembly line delays this is tara i was i spent my entire morning in misery over the idea that i had to order these dutch doors so but the but the point is is that i have to through the tool of gratitude i wake up in the morning and i have to remind myself this is incredible rain okay maybe you're not a movie star but you've had an amazing career you're a weird looking old dude and you had an amazing career people love what you do and now you get to write books you get to travel you get to talk to reza um so i have to remind myself that i am in my bliss but these stories of how people got there is so interesting and i think the guest that we're bringing on today exemplifies this more than any other story i've ever heard i mean this guy stephen ho um you know essentially emergency room nurse uh turned comedian superstar with tens of millions hundreds of millions of followers across social media uh and it all has happened so fast it's all happened in the last two or three years i can't wait to see what he has to say about this yeah and i think we wanted to have stephen on the program because i think that you know what you and i are talking about what stephen has gone through is what i think a lot of people are dealing with right now you know what i'm saying because it's a great resignation right the great resignation exactly that we hear about all the time i think a lot of people out there are thinking to themselves you know i had a dream and i kind of put that dream away i had a bliss and i ignored it and you know did the thing that i was supposed to do or the thing that i thought would bring me you know comfort and stability as opposed to bliss and happiness and now i think a lot of those people are looking around and thinking to themselves jesus christ you know i think if you know now is the time am i if i'm gonna make a change if i'm gonna follow my bliss now is the time to do it and here's this kid stephen ho who did it he's an er technician uh you know in the middle of the pandemic staring at death every day and realizing that you know this isn't this is not his bliss so this is our big question for today how do you follow your bliss stephen ho working 12 hour shifts in the er being a frontline hero in the pandemic starts uh making funny videos using his kind of love of comedy and his knowledge of hospitals and these videos started picking up steam and uh started getting noticed by everyone he's got over 10 million tick tock followers uh just millions of subscribers just you know is it he's one of these new celebrities the social media stars um and he quit it all quit quit the the er game moved to la got an acting agent continues to do stand-up comedy um it's a pretty inspiring fascinating story let's welcome to the show stephen ho aka stevio hi how's it going how are you guys uh so just before you came on you uh said that this was only the second podcast you've ever done so i'm assuming that you were living on mars until just what like a couple of days ago no you know people have been asking me to do podcasts but i just you know i i'm afraid i'm gonna say something that's gonna go online forever that like that i can't edit myself so look we talked a little bit about uh your journey uh to you know the place where you are now but uh why don't you take us back a little bit so um you were an er technician what by the way what exactly is an er technician i actually i don't i realize i don't know what that means do you plug in the defibrillator that's your job you plug things in no it's no it's not really a technician i'm so the emt is emergency emergency room technician that's essentially it was i was an emt so you know i'd be in the er i'd help out i'd uh set up uh procedures for the doctor i would be on call for cpr i'd clean out wounds um i'd wrap people up help me get home i would do splints which is to help you know put fractured bones back together it was an array of things that was essentially the emt but in the er just a quick question did you ever see something so gross that it made you puke oh close there was i've seen a lot but there was one thing that made me gag and it was a homeless guy who came in he had his leg wrapped in a garbage bag and i took it off and it was just flesh eating maggots that fell alright thanks thank you everyone good night it's great talking to you stephen oh the one thing that ever made me go i've seen i've seen people's arms that were falling off like calf muscles that were hanging by like a skin but the one thing that made me just nearly gag was maggots yikes i can't believe you left that job anyway uh so the thing that i'm curious about before we get to you know uh your transition is how this came about like i mean what what made you decide to become an uh an er technician i'm assuming your mom made you oh you're spot on sir yeah i can tell you and me you and me i could tell it was one of those situations where like i knew i knew what i wanted to do but you know my parents i mean it's just it's such a like a cliche story my they immigrated from vietnam in the early 80s you know and when you're not from america getting an american education was like the pinnacle was the best thing you could do for your child so them risking their lives three days and four nights on a boat right yep so when they got here like all they want to do is get a job get build up enough money to put their four kids through university which they did and they're like listen as long as you get a degree any like viable degree like science you're gonna be fine so stop messing around go get a science degree and go become like a nurse or a doctor or something like everybody else in this country right this is an old story right right i mean you don't you don't have to be just an immigrant a lot of people have this story where it's like you know you had this dream about something that you wanted to do and maybe it just seemed impossible or maybe you just didn't even know like how you go about doing it or maybe it's pressure from your family for one reason or another and so you know you're going and that was the thing like i didn't even know what it was that like i wanted like i was the the pressure of them telling me to just to get to college get a degree wouldn't even let my mind wander to what it could be right i was completely like i don't want to say brainwash because that's a little mean they didn't brainwash me but they essentially didn't let me think about anything else you know stephen something that interests me so you have this dream um and it has something to do with comedy it has something to do with expressing yourself it's it's characters and voices and jokes and just this this longing tugging at your heart and here you are cleaning out the maggots from a homeless man's leg i'm not gonna stop with that i'm gonna reference that about five or ten more times are you kidding me this is fantastic i didn't know such thing was possible that is really gruesome and kind of exhilarating but take us through what happened here over the last couple years because it's super interesting you were a front line worker and um before we kind of get again to your your transformation and you you're following your dream front lines covered you know 2020 2021 what was that like yeah man it was i mean it was rough it like i mean the er is already a pretty you know hectic and stressful place right add on a pandemic where everybody thought everybody didn't people thought kovid was radioactive right i mean it's it was a deadly virus don't get me wrong but you know if we had just i mean i was like we messed up and tried to like tell people how and what to do right there was a lot of like things in the media that were scaring people like the cdc was kind of going back and forth with all these rules it was just such a [ __ ] show and and and what happened was in the er we were trying to get everybody to stay at home right if they would just listen stay at home like don't spread the virus it's gonna be fine but what started happening was you know people started coming to the er for these little things like say i don't know if you guys remember back then it was like i i went to the er because i had a fever i think i might have covet i'd like a cova test and it's like well i mean you're not dying you don't need a ventilator you're fine just stay home wait for it to pass instead of coming out and potentially infecting other people with covid and getting kovik coming into the er right it was just it was it was just this thing that was driving everybody crazy and like and and also on top of that they're asking that when they come to the er they would ask questions like was this bed used for covet patients do you keep covet patients in this building and it's like oh yes like it's a pandemic we have it's all over yeah so that prompted me to get on tick-tock and be like listen everybody it was also a way for me to it was it was an artistic outlet for me because before all that happened i had a sketch show i was doing comedy i i was doing improv and that all shut down right and i had no artistic outlet and then i turned to tick-tock well and that's because that's what i wanted to ask steven like was it something specific about that coveted time that made you kind of do this transition to comedy on social media it was some was it it was venting it's because you couldn't go out to comedy clubs yeah so it just kind of came out sideways into tick-tock and i imagine at the same time everyone for the first time i'm i'm kind of guilty of this myself i was like oh frontline workers yeah there's all these people wow in a situation like this they're putting their lives at risk they're they are on the front lines they're seeing patients in in ers they're working ambulances even the grocery clerks like they have to be selling food to people we can't starve and i think for a lot of folks that kind of their eyes were open and had a newfound appreciation for a lot of the workforce that you know i hadn't really thought of as heroes before but what was it specifically about that time to make this transition i mean you know everybody was kind of just locked up in their their apartments like by themselves right and i think that's when tick tock really took off because we couldn't go out so we were on our phones a lot and tiktok was just the new like it was this new app that was booming and everybody was trying to like get on like hop onto the trend before you know it got away from us like you know every other social media platform or every other app so i i essentially went on because my friend suggested hey like i know you're bored at home and like you got nothing to do you should make a tick tock i think it's gonna be huge like great the first three tick tocks had nothing to do with coping but after i picked up some steam i started getting a little bit more personable about like you know what was exactly what was happening in the er in my life right um and yeah it just took off because at the time people people were hungry for what was they needed they wanted to know what was going on right the news was giving it was the headlines of the news was all like scared like everything was meant to scare you and nobody had any idea right and we were washing our groceries remember when we were washing our groceries oh my god i spent so much time bleaching down my cartons of eggs my sister would leave her groceries outside of her apartment right let the covet air off of it i'm like let it breathe exactly remember that you can get covered from touching the gas station handles i'm like what are you talking about right all this stuff that they were saying and i'm like that's not that's not true not just stay at home but wash your hands and like you know keep away from each other for a little bit so you're surrounded by all this confusion all this death you know fear everyone is just you know nobody knows what the hell is going on and you start doing this you know these little tick tock videos they're fun they're funny they're informative you know they start to become uh popular um and at a certain point now now you're at that place right where it's like ha people are actually paying attention to to me and what i'm doing here um i wonder like what what was it like to kind of make that decision that okay look this has been my passion all along this has been my dream all along i'm i'm removing you know uh maggots from homeless guys uh leg because my mom made me to do you know i was making her happy it's making mom happy uh but here i am surrounded by all this death and uncertainty right so many of us were in that in that situation we're reevaluating our lives reevaluating the paths and journeys that we've taken and is that kind of what the the feeling was like for you where it's like huh this is not just an opportunity now but i i'm looking at you know my life and all this death around me and i'm thinking i i you know it's time yeah no it was definitely all of that but it was also you know like i i've been i was acting before that for like six seven years i think i did a lot of theater this was i was i've been waiting for this opportunity you know it's one of those things where i like yeah i know what's happening here this is gonna be big and i have to take advantage of this but on top of that yeah it was also like working with the er being called a hero right and it was like we're getting killed like this is not what i want to do anymore you know i'm not sure if i ever wanted to do it in the first place yeah you're staring death in the face yeah and here was this opportunity it was blowing up and at one point like i was getting in trouble with my job right they're like you gotta stop making these videos like could you go back to saving lives like you're in the hallway they can make a video like code blue yeah that's exactly what it is they're like hey they like they somehow found out where you work the internet mob is insane they found out where it worked and they're like so my job was like you got to start making these videos so so i had a choice at one point either stop making the videos or you know stop making videos go back to work or like leave the job and make the videos cause you can't have both and at the time i think i had maybe two million followers across the board but i just i just knew this is it i knew this was like this was something that i mean look that's a look that's a lot of followers but it's that's a scary decision isn't it like to like you're getting a paycheck it was because health insurance yeah all of that health insurance paycheck my mom like what the [ __ ] are you doing free jello freaking selling all the jello you did and also i was applying to nursing school and if i wanted to get into nursing school i needed you know the job and the recommendations from my bosses and nobody's going to accept a guy who's screaming [ __ ] to the world into like a nursing program so um yeah it was just it was a lot a lot that went into the decision but you know i just wait when you know you know i thought this was like my big break right so you you were doing comedy before and then obviously now you're doing comedy after but where does your what is your comedic voice where does it come from um there's immigrant story and now on tick tock it's much more about ers and the world of ers etc and and nursing and health care but you're branching out from there as well but how would you define that voice and from where it started what you went through and where it is now yeah i mean i wasn't doing comedy for too long i think i was a year in and that you know the pandemic happened but a lot of the stories was about like being vietnamese living in america my family having you know a very strict mother but now anytime i go on stage everybody knows me as like stevio the [ __ ] from the er so all they want to do is hear about all they want to hear about is our er stories yeah our stories yeah so i've had to write which you want to talk about comedy man you know suffering death and sickness that's uh it's comedy gold coffee gold yeah right so um yeah i mean i don't really even know what it is right now i still think i'm such a young i'm still young right up two years in which if you ask like any comedian they would think they would say that's brand new still yeah so you're two years in where where do you see this going where do you want this to go what what is your your dream we're talking about finding your bliss following your bliss you know you started down this path where does this end up i wanted i want it all like i came to la i wanted to be you know on tv like you i want to you know be like like part of the office like like me or reza we're both on tv which one oh no i think he's talking to you the office i've been on tv a little more i i love the office i mean we're actually talking with uh some people right now we're putting together a pitch deck to make a mockumentary style show like the office but in the er hopefully have that oh nice that and a pilot done by the end of the month so we could pitch it to networks nice oh fantastic good i better be getting a call about that one stephen yes you'll be the first one well steven okay so you know i i think this is an issue that honestly a lot of our our listeners are confronting right now you know ray and i have talked about you know what it was like for us to follow our dreams and you know the circuitous route that we have taken uh in kind of you know getting to the place where you know we always wanted to be i think you know we talk a lot about the great resignation you know that people are quitting their jobs you know and and pursuing other lines of work and um and i think honestly the pandemic like in this you know as we as you we were talking about the pandemic has played a huge role in that i think a lot of people are like you maybe not literally staring death in the face but are thinking about death all the time and and are in that place where you know they have the opportunity to possibly take a big jump quit the job you know no more paycheck no more stability no more health insurance and everything that goes with it and to maybe do something crazy to follow their dreams to follow their bliss what kind of advice can you give um people who are in that place i mean you're on the other side of it now yeah but go back to thinking about how scared it you must have been to to make that leap and uh like you know what can you what can you say to people who are in a similar situation like when i said when i was still working as an er tech i was up at stanford like six years but i started taking i i started taking a theater class and i loved it and i started doing theater shows right and and i didn't want to give up my job because i was scared right giving up the stability you know plus i was like applying to like nursing school so you know i was working 7 p.m to 7 a.m going to school from 10 to 5. right i was working two to three days a week going to school i was i was in a theater conservatory because i like i loved the first class and that's so i said i applied for the conservatory and then i was doing theater at night but i mean what i'm saying is like if you really want to transition out of your out of your day job to like whatever your passion your bliss is um you know you can have to quit cold turkey and go do it but hopefully you've you've saved up enough to you know mitigate any risks that you're gonna take or you or you do it like me but i did it both at the same time and just kind of killed myself luckily i was still in like my mid-20s when i did it i would never dream of doing it now right but i mean if you're god if you want to do it man like but here's the thing too like people these days i know like the fomo is real because there's so many people on social media who are blowing up and and a lot of my friends who see it look at it and think oh this is easy i could do this right because that's that's what we make it look like we make it look like this is just life we're just filming life but it's also like it's also a lot of hard work and it's also like a full-time job so if you're not if you're not dabbling it already don't just quit to go do it try to maybe ease your way into it i like i like what you're saying with your advice you know i what i honestly what i assumed that you were going to say was just do it follow your bliss don't worry about it it'll all work out and you're like no actually listen maybe you should make sure let's see that's like that's the immigrant mentality in me is speaking again right like the vietnamese mother and you'll be like are you sure you're gonna be okay right like imagine that right if only it could be that easy where you could just quit and do it and like for some people they do they absolutely do i've seen it work out but i've also seen so many people who have like you know they go they try and they become bitter and it's ah doesn't it just come down to like what you have to do it's like what you have to do like for me in acting like i would still be acting if i wasn't getting paid for it i was in fact my wife and i were talking about in the early 2000s before the office not long before like do we move to like seattle or minneapolis and do i just do some theater and maybe start a little theater company and teach acting on the side and take some classes and you know because i just had to do it i had to do it it wasn't a choice it wasn't kind of like well i should set it aside and i could i couldn't do anything else i could not do anything else i just had to do it but aren't you saying that the acting bug for you kind of worked in the same way i mean you just would have found a way to keep doing it even if you were 47 years old and still doing like kooky improv at thursday nights at lulu's coffee house you know then that's what you would have been doing so be it after even after you'd gone to nursing school yeah but you know it's like again like it's like but you have to make that realization i remember when i made that realization right like i'm gonna get paid the 20 bucks an hour for whatever the emt is doing and i was gonna i had a sketch show right before the pandemic sketch show that i loved i was doing comedy i was getting five minutes and i was forced to bring five people right i was so happy and i finally thought oh my god if this is all ever this is all it was for the rest of my life like this is what i want right this is it this is it that's it but i think like you have to come to that realization that like this might be it like right a lot of people go into thinking like i'm gonna go to la and i'm gonna be a [ __ ] huge star next week you know what i mean no so like i think i i think for me this is what i'm talking about it's like not you weren't you weren't you didn't do it to pursue fame you did it because you had to do it it was part of you and it brought you tremendous joy so in this idea the old joseph campbell idea of following your bliss it gave you bliss even if you're doing five minutes of comedy you had to drag five friends there there were like 17 people in the house you were like this is awesome i could do this for a couple more decades let's go let's get so that i really admire that about you and your story because the fame thing gets really tricky and where social media gets a little troubling for me as the fame seekers on the talentless fame seekers fortunately you had talent you have talent you became famous fortunately i had some talent and hey guess what reza i became a little famous too you not so much don't worry you'll get there eventually i've actually never been with you until this podcast right so okay um but um but so that's the path i always tell uh young artists and actors uh that i speak to about like is is just find the thing that ignites you and that you just have to do you know there's a great quote from the reverend harold thurman that oprah winfrey always quotes it says don't ask what the world needs and do that find what makes you come alive and do that because what the world needs are more people who have come alive and i like that idea find what makes you come alive and do that thing and then guess what i don't know if it's the mystery of the universe i don't know if it's just kind of like general psychology i don't know if it's god and fate in the holy spirit but doors open up when you're doing what you love because you're sharing joy you're making other people joyful you're providing a service and your path will become more and more clear oh yes amen amen i know and again right like i i i have to believe that right i i did at one point i still do but like when we're talking about people who are like me who who are in a profession who are a little older right and who now are thinking like like there's so much death people are dying like maybe this is not really what i want to do like i want to do something else right i think what i'm saying is that like you know go maybe go dabble in it first if if you really enjoy it then yes you have to take that leap but a lot of people like i think ah i sound so i felt like a terrible person when i say stuff like this i don't know i'm just like you know like i'm so i'm still so cautious even now i'm still so cautious and uh i i i i i'm still learning to break out of that myself too right but i did at one point i did take i did take the leap where i said listen i'm done with the er you know i'm done with this i'm done pleasing everybody i'm gonna go do what i want um that was a big bold leap and i will tell you that early on in my acting career i saved a guy's life with the heimlich maneuver oh so we got that you could have been an er technology you couldn't i could have totally done it because we were having alpine burgers at a diner on the upper west side and alpine burgers means they put swiss cheese on it and um we were laughing and laughing and he was joking and turned bright blue like robin's egg blue couldn't like blue is this shirt and i just did the old thing and boom it flew out of his mouth 30 feet was that the first time you've done it or that was the only first and only time i did it but uh um the dude uh i i got a little taste of yeah i might yeah i might reza i might i might leave the uh performing or i might i might need to go to nursing school follow you i felt followed exhilarated i felt exhilarated removing the alpine burger from his gullet uh stephen hill this has been a very enlightening conversation and you know it and like it's inspiring you know and and don't don't worry about the fact that you're still a little bit cautious and nervous that's just that's called being the child of immigrants that's just a normal thing i'm still i still think that someone's going to knock on my door and take me away i'm still like every time there's a knock i'm like what is that for me i hope they do yeah thanks thanks rain uh but listen it's you know i think your your story of following your passion following your bliss and obviously you've had enormous success is is a real inspiration to a lot of people out there who who are kind of thinking about doing the same thing right now and um it's possible i mean if they're out there if you're thinking about it let me tell you it's possible just you know there's work to be done though so be prepared well listen um we brought you on your second podcast ever if i decide to go on the tick tock will you will you pop my tick tock cherry hell yeah say that can peace say that can we say that i think that's what happens on tick tock you you pop cherries instead of follow is that how it goes i i we could pop a cherry on your first tick tock video oh my goodness oh my goodness this is getting this is getting very confusing but if i decide to go on tick-tock will you bring me on show me the ropes and help launch my tick-tock career yes yes sir this is not why we brought you on the show by the way we love your story we didn't want to capitalize on your tick-tock fame that was my only goal in this conversation and if i ever need a an epidural i'll i know who else to call yeah 9-1-1 the hospital like what yeah stephen's like not me don't call me dad yeah that conversation with stephen ho it was enlightening for a lot of reasons uh first of all i love how you know you can you can take the immigrant kid out of the er hospital but you can't ever remove the immigrant kid part like he's still like yeah hey make sure make sure you've got things lined up before you jump right even for himself he's like i i better keep things lined up just in case just in case uh yeah but you know one thing that it made me think about rain is uh yeah we're talking about how you and i ended up where we are now and and you know the paths that we have taken and that we both followed our bliss and here we are in this in this place and i i wonder just for fun like what if you were to do something else right what if is there like another bliss behind your you know the bliss that brought you here a third bliss let's assume there's another acting the kind of writing talking thinking about philosophical spiritual and sociological topics third one there is actually you know football player nfl linebacker am i right well i have been playing a lot of competitive tennis recently but i am uh i am a mere uh uh i am people don't know this about you or you're actually quite a a skillful tennis player i'm i am mediocrity uh personified on the tennis court but i'm pretty good i would kick most listeners butts you know that's a challenge folks but but truthfully um and i know i played a beet farmer on a television show a long time ago but there is part of me that would like to get back to the land there is part of me that would really enjoy a farm in oregon and having bees and growing interesting things and working the land and having animals on that land and um i i think that uh this could be another bliss for me there is there's uh there's an aspect of me that is i'm very very social love being in crowds i can put on a good show it really uh excites me it innervates me no enervates is not the right word energizes me um but there's kind of i've got also a hermit side of myself as well and um you know i i i i'm saying goodbye to my penthouse and going back to my plow basically i think um that could be deeply and richly satisfying for me and if this whole showbiz thing continues to give me headache after massive headache i might just turn my back on the whole thing and go wow farm some bees farmer rain i can i can see it i can see it you sort of kind of look like a farmer actually is it the beard or what the beer i'm not sure holiday would be cool about it but you know centuries of farmers in my in my background centuries norwegian farmers going back to the dawn of time what about you reza is there you got a a bliss beyond this bliss it's tough it's tough because i i feel like you know for better or worse i've kind of single-mindedly been on like i said earlier a path that has brought me to this place which is exactly where i had planned on being and here i am and so it's hard it's hard but if i were to if i were to really really think about it if there's like another bliss that i i i've had but i never really truly followed see you're going to laugh you're going to make fun of me if i tell you i probably will yeah at least you're being honest i appreciate it that comes with the territory yeah so tell me anyway i think that maybe i you know would have liked to be an actor like you know i don't know come on come on oh that's right i did a lot of i did a lot of like you know uh acting when i was younger i you know performed in in some some theatrical what role some of them serious some of them real did you did you play like the water jug and beauty and the beast or something what what were the no but you played but i was a uh i was one of the the little brown kids in south pacific uh for a big production of south pacific yeah uh we sing the d temwa song i don't know if any south pacific fans out there no one nobody anyone anyone any south pacific fans no no could i have been an actor but here's here's what i will say i've had i've spent a good deal of time sort of behind the scenes you know in the in the entertainment industry sure yep and in the producer's chair yeah oh man is it oh god is it hard to be an actor oh jesus christ is it hard thank you you're like wow well you know you're already famous but i'm talking about like those poor sacks who just go from audition to audition to audition day after day just you know getting shat upon day after day after day you know you finally get you finally get your big break you get on set and they're like uh the lighting isn't good on you so we're gonna get somebody else like what uh it's just my heart breaks for actors so if i were to be honest i don't think i could do it i don't think i could do it yeah it was i don't think you could take the the the rejection and the um and the the the kind of the constant whoring oneself out there so painful i'll never forget driving my beat up tattered volvo in 2002 um i had three auditions in the day i had one like way out in burbank one in like down in like korea town and then one in venice so i couldn't go home all day and one was like i had to wear a suit and look like a business professional and one was like i had to be like a homeless guy and one was i had to be a doctor and they wanted you to have a doctor they like said please bring your own doctor bring your own stuff bring your doctor white lab coat and i had to go buy a lab coat i spent the entire day in my dilapidated 1984 volvo um you know didn't get any of the jobs of course and it was just it was just soul-sucking yeah um so my heart goes out to all the actors yeah forget it i got it it's a tough yeah you you wouldn't and i and by the way and by the way i have no fantasies about farming because i know how hard that must be i can i mean i can only imagine it's it's great in fantasy you see biggest little farm you're like oh that's so sweet but i mean come on plows and moving rocks and fertilizers and like cleaning up pig dung and it's hot and you you know you've got blisters i i i think it's got to be some of the hardest work on the planet i mean is it harder than acting i'm not sure anyway folks what about you do you have a bliss that's just calling you is it in the back of your brain just like beckoning to you saying follow me stop what you're doing follow me uh or have you done it i mean did you did was the pandemic the moment in which you realized okay no more ignoring this siren call i'm gonna go do it we'd love to hear from you tell us all about it you can find us on social media at reza aslan at rainwilson and on twitter at metamilkpodcast or on instagram at metaphysical milkshake let us know about your bliss and who knows maybe we will add you as the third host of the podcast metaphysical milkshake if your bliss is is being a podcast hospital we might make it happen in that direction hundreds of dollars per episode hundreds and remember to follow rate and review metaphysical milkshake on apple podcast and wherever else you listen to podcasts thank you all my bliss lovers metaphysical milkshake is executive produced by rayne wilson reza aslan and colin thompson it is produced by safa samazadeh yazd harris lane mick dimaria hashem self and dj lubel cast media is the production and distribution partner original music by jeff tang you're not gonna tell your parents who survived a four-day boat trip to come here with nothing i i think i might be a comedian yeah thanks for the sacrifice i'm gonna go tell jokes and for seventy five dollars a night at the yup yuck's comedy not 75 bucks a night you think i am like i'm getting like i feel like i'm getting a free drink and maybe like some nachos maybe some nachos yeah that's headlining sorry forgive me hey thanks for watching you guys for more fantastic videos just like the one that you watch please subscribe to our youtube channel thank you

Channel: Metaphysical Milkshake with Rainn & Reza

Views: 721

Keywords: Rainn wilson, soul pancake, reza aslan, reza, Rainn, Dwight, the office, metaphysical, meta, metaphysical milkshake, philosophy, deep questions, celebrity, talk show, podcast, pod, funny, comedy, meaning of life, quirky, office, soul, pancake, kast, kast media, podcasting, microphone, long form, celebrity talk show, late night

Id: Z2z2inp-EAc

Length: 48min 7sec (2887 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022