Trifle

Fawn shares her experience on one of her photoshoots in India and explains the correlation to the beginning of moving back to Santa Monica and a very unusual message she received (a tiny little message that normally may have gone unnoticed) that was the first of many from this city that became her mentor. This pearl of wisdom leads us to this episode’s topic of paying attention to TRIFLES.

Trifle definition:

 noun,

1: something of little value, substance, or importance

2: A small quantity or amount of anything.

3: Pewter of medium hardness.

4: a dessert typically consisting of plain or sponge cake often soaked with wine or spirits (such as brandy or rum) and topped with layers of preserves, custard, and cream

Verb,

5: to deal lightly or without due seriousness or respect.

6: to amuse oneself daily

7:  to play or toy with

8: to act or talk in an idle or frivolous way.

9: Nine to waste time to idol,

10: to pass or spend time idly or frivolously

Fawn and Matt discuss A Book of Five Rings and the philosophy of Musashi Miyamoto, a Japanese samurai, from whom the lesson “pay attention to trifles” comes from.

Teaching from Fawn’s college professor, Hank Wessel: pay attention to what seems boring or normal. And in that, you'll find immense beauty and profound, mysterious qualities. Pay attention to things that everyone ignores. That is where the genius is.

Fawn’s thought: This also goes for paying attention to ideas and people that often go ignored. Pay attention to the aspects that the main stream is not looking at. The qualities and details that most people do not look at, recognize, or see, is really the thing that is the most interesting and soon to be followed by these same masses that have to be shown by other “trend setters” as what is cool or beautiful. The masses are just stragglers on the wave of profound thought. They are piggy backers.

Matt: If you stay alert and aware, even when everything seems so ordinary, you can spot the extraordinary. That's, when sometimes you'll see $20 on the street or, you know, you'll be paying attention and somebody will say something that'll key something. One of those interesting moments, and it's a way to become closer to people. People love to tell you about the things they feel passionate or interested in, but sometimes they only hint at it or they give you a whisper… They'll say one word and you can choose to follow them down the rabbit hole or not.

Fawn: Sometimes it's not a word (that exists as a trifle). Sometimes it's the disappearing of the lips that will happen in a split second. There are micro movements people make that will tell you everything in a tiny split second of a shrug of a shoulder will tell you everything.  If someone's in pain and they're hiding something, or when their lips disappear, it means the person is not comfortable hearing or seeing something that's in front of them. Paying attention to the tiny details will give us a better understanding of one another and therefore better friendships; and not just with friendships, but with family. Like especially with kids: Question: “How are you doing?” Answer: “Fine.” Question: “What'd you learn today?” Answer: “Nothing”.  But within those short statements we'll come across with a shrug of a shoulder, which means there's something uneasy, something that they're not sure about. So we have to figure out a way to communicate past that trifle of statements. If someone asks you how you're doing and really we're trained in society to say “fine, how are YOU?” where we can't really unload our pain because it'll scare off or overwhelm the person who asked you how you’ve been. But paying attention to what their eyes say or some tiny little detail (could be anything it's different for everyone), but paying attention to that could save their life or give them love. Pursue that one tiny trifle that you pick up and don't ignore it.

Matt: “People like to open doors and leave it open to other people to figure out whether or not they want to go through them.”

At the close of the show, we discuss the loneliness epidemic and how finaly we are talking about the loneliness issue because of the pandemic of the corona virus. The truth is our friendship culture has been fragmented for a long time.

Matt: “…truth is a hard thing. That's why advertising exists in the first place is an attempt for us to deny truth; for example: My life will be super spectacular if I get that as UV, Cause I'll go kayaking and wind surfing and you know, base jumping (Yeah. Right).  And that's why advertising exists. It's offering a quick fix to kind of deep seated issues, even though it doesn't, it offers the illusion of a quick fix.”

Fawn about the New Year: Every day is a new year. Don't disrespect the previous year, no matter how many hardships that offered it, brought you very gingerly and perfectly in a way to this new time. And. It scares me when people celebrate New Years like “Woo, yay! F you! Good riddance” about the year they’re leaving behind because the the next year they're saying the same thing about this year (basically saying an “F-you” to every year). It’s like having a two faced friend say, Oh, I love you. Oh, I hate her. Do you know what I mean? Don't do that with your time. It's all precious. And if you are here, and you're hearing these words and you're breathing, you were brought gingerly into this time and you belong here. You are meant to be here right now. Honor every day.

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