Friendly Steps Towards A Better Society - 1 Brand New Day

We're going to try something new and once in a while, there will be these short bursts of episodes, each one a task we'll complete to make our world better.

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Transcripts - Friendly Steps 1 Brand New Day

[00:00:00] Fawn: Hello. Welcome. Welcome, welcome to our friendly world everybody. I have something new. We're going to try something new and once in a while these will be like short bursts of episodes, but there'll be a really powerful, are you ready for my idea? No, don't be scared. They're like, so I wouldn't call them,

we know we had, before we had friendly reminders, we'll still have them sprinkled around but friendly reminders came from Santa Monica. They were, we called them nuggets of wisdom. They came from the friends in the neighborhood. So I want to try something, I'm going to call friendly steps.

We may change the name. I'm not sure, but they're like baby steps and it's not like, step one, step two, step three., You have to go in order, anything like that. They're just baby steps to get our society going to that beautiful little utopia that we envision. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, baby steps.

And today I want to start with a brand new day because it just, this is something that's bothered me ever since I can remember. How people completely go wild on new year's Eve midnight, the stroke of midnight. They start cursing the year that is about to end and saying, Ooh, brand new year. Welcome. Love you and cursing the one that's just leaving. Right? Inevitably, it just feels like every party I've gone to, every show I've seen late at night, midnight watching our society ring in the new year. They do that. And it always horrifies me that, oh my God.

Just, if you can think of it as a second ago, like a year ago, just a second ago, you were saying the same thing about this year that you're now cursing goodbye, right? Like it was horrible. I hate you. Bye. Get outta here, you know, in fact not, and not respecting it because it has brought you to where you are, you were alive, you are here, you're breathing and it has brought you here and is ceremonially leading to a brand new day where in fact, every day is a brand new day.

So this is the friendly step today. It's about the brand new day and every friendly step, what I'm going to do is have you do something so teeny tiny. Just do it and see what happens. Today, or, when you think of it, when you feel, when you're moved to do it, the keyword being move, notice anyone, someone. Maybe start with a stranger. Preferably I prefer to do it with a stranger. Oh, don't, don't take that out of context. Um, look at someone and find something extraordinary about this person. You can do this from a window and the person can be far, far away, but you can still see them when you spot that extraordinary thing.

It could be a glimpse. Shout it out to them. When you notice that one spark about this person, it could be a sweater they're wearing. It could be a shirt, it could be a vibe, but it has to be something beautiful. And then when you shout it out, when you yell at this this person from far away, now yelling as in like a happy, yay kind of yelling.

Like I see you

[00:03:30] Matt: not to get off my lawn.

[00:03:31] Fawn: Hey, no, not, no. Get off my lawn. Like I see you. Wow. You're beautiful. Do you know what I mean? Something extraordinary, but you have to notice it. It has to be sincere. So something. And it will show it's on every single person. It will show itself. It's a spark and wave with a smile.

As you're doing. And I'm not talking about the crazy smiles that I see as a photographer. Oh my God. Don't okay. Have you guys noticed, just look on any TV commercial in the United States when people are trying to sell you something or they're posing for a picture,

they think all they have to do is stretch their lips. Is it, are these. They scratch their lips. You know, the things over your teeth, your lips, they stretch them ear to ear and they get their lips really. And it's just burying your teeth to me. When you look at the person's eyes, the expression hasn't changed.

All they have done has been stretch their lips, right? It is horrifying when people do that to me, because it is the most scary insincere... like it lets me know what's really going on. And usually when that happens, when that expression happens, what's really going on is this person has not a spark of happiness or love.

It is just pure either insecurity, a pain, hate it's all negative. Sometimes it's

[00:05:01] Matt: disinterest or they're tired.

[00:05:04] Fawn: Sometimes. No, you can be tired and still exude the love. Yes, no, but what I have noticed as a photographer. Okay. I'll have to put that on the table, like heavy handed, Matt. What I've noticed is not tired.

You, when someone is tired, they have a sense. They could have a sense of pure love about them. And gentle sincerity. But usually when I see people do this, they're running on a very low vibration of hate or hate is I know it's a really strong word for it, but you'll notice once you notice what I'm saying, when you feel something, when you smile, you should really be thinking of something that makes you really happy.

Bearing your teeth is not, is not it. It's very scary. Don't do that

[00:05:55] Matt: for me, the smile

is in the eyes anyways. It is, it does have something to do with the mouth, but it's in the eyes.

[00:06:01] Fawn: Well, the thing is that you can be on the phone and smile and someone can feel it. You can be on the phone and bare your teeth like that, that I'm talking about.

People will feel that too. It's insincere. You can definitely see it in the eyes, but it also works on the phone. When you can't see the person's face, you can tell that there's no smiling happening here. It's not happy. It's not gentle.

[00:06:27] Matt: Anyways,

, it's a bit, it's very important, Matt. I understand because the part of the step is you have to wave with a smile.

[00:06:35] Fawn: So you can't just bare your teeth. I want you to understand that. So I want you to wave wildly, right? Don't worry about what you look like. Except for the smile part. And then wave a closing wave disappearing as suddenly as you appear to them. I would do this in Santa Monica. I would notice someone from a block away and I would do that.

I would notice something extraordinary about them and give them kudos about it. And then I would duck back into the, back into the apartment. So they, they would turn around and I would come back up, like it wasn't me. And they would be looking to see who said that to them. And they knew it was them that they were talking about.

Right. And I could see a skip, like a little lightness in their step, like it helped them. Right. Right. So as you disappear, don't worry about it. You may or may not see them again. You probably will at some point. Let that magic or SPANDA happen. Spanda comes from a form of yoga and what it means w what it is, is it's a primordial vibration of the universe and of your being. It usually refers to the creation of the universe. It's a Sanskrit word. It's derived from the root spoddy, which means movement, motion or vibration.

It's something that you can't see. It's a divine power. Spanda. So that's what you're doing. It's a new day. And we're going to start with new little baby steps, friendly steps, along our way to making our society a better one. And as you've listened to our show, how long has it been? A year and a half?

[00:08:26] Matt: Something like, yeah,

[00:08:27] Fawn: We have done almost a hundred shows 90, maybe 95 sometimes. I don't, I don't, I don't really know the number. Friends who have been listening, you know, but we're not beating anyone over the head with, look, this is how to be a friend. Our show is our friendly world.

We're just going to live it. We're just going to speak it. And we're not going to say, Hey, this is it, this is the way. But the art of friendship is what we're all about and we're just going to be it. And we're going to have that circle about us always. And it's kind of like live by example. And the, one of the prime examples of the art of friendship is to have beautiful conversation and it, and the beautiful doesn't always mean flowering and happy.

And as you all have listened, Matt and I have argued. Matt has dropped the mic and walked away because he's upset about something that I was talking about that he didn't want to get into, and then we had to work it out and have him come back to the table and finish the conversation. So it's not always like that kind of beautiful where it's like roses and butterflies and tweeting birds.

It's, it's a conversation and that's what needs to happen in our society. That's one of the things we have lost is that it's like the lost art of conversation, the art of friendship. So there's a reason why we do this at our table, at our kitchen table, we are creating a circle of friendship and we share, we share our life experiences.

We share our ideas. We share the things that we see out there that can turn into the absurd.

[00:10:17] Matt: Sometimes

[00:10:19] Fawn: you're the first person I ever heard say this, Matt, when we first met, I was having trouble with work and I would come into aikido. You could tell visibly, like had a bad day and you could tell I had cried a lot.

Right, right. Before stepping into aikido. And you would tell me, I wish you could remember the exact words you would say to me, it's okay because sometimes life can get so, so many things can happen that it reaches the realm of absurdity. Oh yeah. What did you say to me or something like

[00:10:52] Matt: that? Yeah, absolutely.

Sometimes the world does. The absurd realms where it's like, okay, I can't believe this just happened. I mean, it's just like, it's almost like I nowadays I would say Punchdrunk, but it's just like, the world just keeps hitting you.

[00:11:05] Fawn: And when it reaches that form of absurdity, you can start laughing at it and start laughing

[00:11:11] Matt: at it because it's like,

[00:11:12] Fawn: what else can you do?

[00:11:13] Matt: You know, other, stuff's going to keep, just keep rolling. So, you can either laugh or you can cry. So

pick your poison.

[00:11:21] Fawn: If you have a friend, one of you can cry. One of you can laugh and then you can switch back and forth until you get a handle on it.

[00:11:27] Matt: Right. And that's the whole point is you have to realize sometimes you don't have control.

It's like being caught in a current.

[00:11:35] Fawn: So what do you think about before we close off? What do you think about this one baby step of noticing someone's spark. It has to be. I don't want, I don't want to say it has to be, but I would prefer you start with a stranger,

[00:11:50] Matt: right? On some level. It's certainly easier if you start with a stranger.

But what's interesting that you mentioned because just this week I was reading from somebody. God knows who, because I read way too much, but they mentioned how at the end of every zoom call, they will just look at the camera and wave wildly and guess what? Everyone else at the company is starting to do it too.

[00:12:12] Fawn: Right? I did that

too.

[00:12:13] Matt: You know, people generally tend to wave at the end of a conversation, but I find even the beginning when you're like, oh my God, should I say anything? Say something, say, Hey, I see you. Call out people when they show up. If they don't announce themselves have

fun.

[00:12:28] Fawn: Right. Well, yeah, exactly.

[00:12:30] Matt: That's the whole point is have fun with this and be honest and be, you know, really try and take in this person.

[00:12:37] Fawn: Thank you, Matt. Exactly. That this is about having fun. You're a little kid spying, not in a creepy way, but just like, you know, you notice someone and you're just going to shout it out to the world, how fabulous they are.

[00:12:50] Matt: There you go.

[00:12:52] Fawn: All right. So that's our friendly step of the day, baby steps. And again, this is meant to be fun. Fun, fun. All right. So we'll talk to you in a few. This is it just a short, quick one, but we'll be with you holding hands with you, vibrationally as you do this, I want to hear what happens, let us know.

By the way, if you really enjoy our show, we would appreciate if you could partake with us in a cup of coffee, there's an app. It's on our website, our friendly world podcast.com. If you could support our show in any way you can, we would be over the moon over all the galaxies. If he could buy us a cup of coffee, that would be amazing.

Again. Thank you all for listening. We'll talk to you in a few days. Be well, bye everybody.