The Power of Kindness: Stories from the Best of Humanity with Lucia Knell & Gabe Reilich

Episode Transcript:

00:00:00 – Lucia Knell
There’s an opportunity on social media to use it as a tool, but it really does in some ways, go back to the user again, taking a conscious stock of who am I following? How does it make me feel? And is there an opportunity here to start unfollowing the accounts, purge the accounts that make you feel down, and start to fill it more with accounts that inspire you, make you laugh, lighten you, enlighten you, and allow you to go outside, offline and live your best life.

00:00:35 – Chris Forbes
Welcome to the one you feed throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts. We have quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good. Wolfenheid thanks for joining us. We have two guests on this episode, Lucia Nell and Gabriel Rylik. Lucia is the vice president of Upworthy. She has spent her career championing the belief that the Internet could and should be used as a tool to unite people versus Stoke division. Her expertise in social media has garnered millions of engagements and catalyzed a movement to combat negativity online. Her work has been covered in the New York Times, Glamour, Vogue, Fast Company, and mental health publication made of millions. Gabriel is the head of content and innovation at good and upworthy, devoted to his mission of spreading optimism, he believes the Internet can be a force for good and is dedicated to leveraging it to amplify the best of humanity. He has crafted impact campaigns for numerous respected brands, nonprofits, and non governmental organizations such as Google, GoFundMe, and the World food program.

00:02:29 – Eric Zimmer
Hi Gabriel. Hi Lucia. Welcome to the show.

00:02:31 – Gabe Reilich
Hi.

00:02:32 – Lucia Knell
Thank you so much for having us.

00:02:34 – Gabe Reilich
Thank you so much. We’re so happy to be here.

00:02:36 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah, I’m excited to have you guys on. We’re going to be discussing your book, which is called good stories from the best of humanity, which is a title that I couldn’t resist the minute I heard it because we all need more good stories and we’re going to talk all about that. But before we do, we’ll start with the parable. In the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild. And they say in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, thinks about it for a second, looks up at their grandparent and says, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

00:03:25 – Lucia Knell
First of all, I love this parable, and I was excited to think about what it means to me
I’ve done a lot of thinking and work around how you treat yourself first. And I think it really matters how you talk to yourself, what kind of behaviors you implement to show your self respect and show yourself that you love yourself, so that you can then be empowered to go out into the world and exhibit those behaviors towards others. And so to me, the one you feed again needs to start with being mindful and self aware of what kind of language am I using towards myself today? What sorts of behaviors have I set up to either show myself that, eh, I don’t really care that much, or I actually really value myself and I’m treating myself like I would a friend. That’s where I begin. I think it starts from that place before you can go out into the world and act from a place of love and kindness and bravery and respect, etcetera.

00:04:23 – Gabe Reilich
Yeah, I think it’s a great parable and it really got me thinking as well. I think my first instinct upon listening to it is to be like, okay, we have two wolves here. I’ve got to ignore this one wolf and concentrate on the one that embodies more noble characteristics. I think there’s a danger in that, in that instinct, because you can’t look away from the negative impulses, you can’t look away from the difficulties, because if you do that, that wolf might be gorging itself behind you and gaining strength. So I think it’s important, at least when I was thinking about it, to approach both sides from a sense of curiosity, what is motivating these two wolves? Why am I drawn to one or another, given what’s going on in my life? And to take it from there. And then I think it’s a lesson in approaching things in a very conscious way. And then the other word that I couldn’t help but think about in the parable is just the word feed. And this is a pretty prominent word in our culture right now, and particularly in the work that we do in the space of social media and digital environments. You are exposed to a feed all the time. Okay? You open up the app, and that’s what it’s called, a feed. And it’s constantly pouring out at you. And I think it is important to actually put it in that context of food as potential nourishment, as attention, and where that is being directed and what kind of force and power that it has and how you are shaping that, because I think that feed is also being directed towards those two wolves inside you.

00:06:03 – Eric Zimmer
Back to what you were saying, Lucia, I thought was interesting as I was listening to you, is I thought that your book is about finding the best stories about people, like, finding people doing good things, right? And it occurred to me that that can also be implied internally. We can look at the good things that we do and choose to focus more on those things than the things we do that are not as good. And yet we do exactly the opposite generally. Right. We generally amplify our problems and don’t pay attention to our good things. So I think this applies internally. And then, you know, Gabriel, obviously, to your point, the feed that we’re getting fed to us has a tendency to way over amplify the negative. That’s nothing new. Media has been doing that as long as there’s been mass media, and yet that is what we take in most of the time. And you guys, as a social media company, are actively going the opposite direction from that. You’re actually trying to put some positivity into the feed.

00:07:12 – Lucia Knell
That’s exactly right. We have set out on a mission, a noble mission, dare I say, to inject points of light into a feed that otherwise feels pretty dark. And I think the difference between how news and media used to work is that you’d get the paper every day, you’d rifle through it, you’d sort of read the sections you want to read, put it down, and then move on with your day. And now we have an addiction to something that lives in our pocket, and we have this impulse where every time we feel bored, every time we are standing in line at the pharmacy, every time we are multitasking on a meeting, we’re looking at this feed. And if the majority of what you’re seeing in sort of this inundation fire hose of information you’re getting all the time in real time, is negative or is stressful or anxiety or fear inducing, of course you’re going to feel that way. And so I think we’ve been able to step back and look at the reality a little bit and look at this behavior and sort of the state of social media, as it were, and say, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is happening really quickly. So what can we do to actually act as a counterbalance to that sort of information that’s being fed to Gabriel’s point constantly? And we’re really proud of it.

00:08:32 – Gabe Reilich
Yeah. You know, to Lucia’s point, you know, social media and information in general, I mean, it’s a force, and it’s a tool. You know, we’re not completely passive in the way that we use it and our agency and how we engage with it. And interestingly, you know, in terms of the genesis of ad upworth on Instagram, it started in a simple way where we wanted to have more agency in what we saw. Lucia and I started building the account shortly before the pandemic, and the reason we started doing it was because we just wanted to see more proof points of human decency in the world. We knew they were out there. We thought it would be great to have a place to catalog them so that we could refer to them ourselves and that so others could, as well. And at the time, five years or so ago, this was a pretty novel concept to kind of create a feed in this way. Now there are many more accounts that share positive news and vibes and ideas out there, and I’m so glad that there are. It’s great to see the idea taking a foothold. And so we started doing it for ourselves in the sense that, like, well, what can we do with this tool? You know, even just thinking of it as a way to bookmark things that’ll be beneficial to ourselves, because it’s hard to, you know, be prescriptive about what the world needs, necessarily, but it’s easier to understand what you need as a person. And when we started doing that and given some world events that happened shortly after, we found out that this was something that people wanted in their lives, and it grew really quickly, and it was a confirmation that, you know, these stories aren’t something to be dismissed, that people coming together, that moments of kindness and decency and love and joy and compassion are compelling and important and fulfill a fundamental need for people.

00:10:16 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah, you said prescriptive, and I think that’s what’s interesting about a lot of the quote unquote positive content that’s out there is that it is prescriptive. I mean, this show has a huge prescriptive element to it.

00:10:30 – Gabe Reilich
Right.

00:10:30 – Eric Zimmer
We’re bringing people on talking about how to live their best life with the idea then that people who are listening can apply that to their life. The challenge with prescriptive, though, is there’s a pressure in it to be different. What I love about what you guys do is that’s not what this is. It’s stories about basic goodness of people that all we have to do is take on board. There’s nothing to be done. I think the term is moral elevation. It elevates us morally simply by hearing stories of people doing good and decent things. And I’m a big believer that for as much bad as there is in the world, and there’s plenty of it, that there is way, way, way more good. We just never see it. You know, for every bad thing that’s happening, there are tons of moments of just the smallest little kindnesses or love or decency that is never amplified. So I love the idea of using social media to amplify that. I’m curious why being a social media company and stepping into that fray, which I think is great, to use the technology for good, you’ve now pivoted to a much older form of technology, a book. Why?

00:11:41 – Gabe Reilich
I’ll start with this. It is interesting. We can post something onto social, onto Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and reach 10 million people in a couple hours, which is an incredibly powerful thing. And it’s a little bit of the Spider man mentality. With great power comes a certain amount of responsibility, pivoting to a book where it’s like, okay, you’re going to be reaching one person at a time, maybe a couple, if someone’s reading it out.

00:12:07 – Eric Zimmer
Loud, and it’s going to take you a couple of years to do it. I mean, the length of time in a book publishing process is hilarious compared to social media.

00:12:17 – Gabe Reilich
And I think that’s where the truth about this lies is. The length of time. I mean, this book took a long time. This was a multi year long project of gathering stories, interviewing people. Our followers, each one of them came from a follower of the account to understand their experiences, to learn more about them, and to share that with the world in a way that really mattered. When we could have just taken a screenshot of a comment that they left and shared it with people. And we do do that, and it reaches a lot of people. The problem is the ephemeral nature of content on the Internet. You can have something that really is profound and hits people deeply, but then it’s on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And that is the nature of the beast. And I’m not putting a moral judgment on it one way or another, but it’s just the reality of what we operate in. And some of these things that we would see, we would ask a question to the audience, tell us about a moment that you experienced kindness from a stranger, what comes to mind? And we would get thousands and thousands and thousands of responses. We could maybe elevate one or two of those, and we wouldn’t even read most of them, and we wanted to. And when we did, we saw that there was such a strong power that these had to influence people’s. I’m not going to speak for other people, but for myself to influence my perspective on the amount, as you said, the amount of untold decency and goodness that is happening out there. And it was a lot. And we thought that these stories deserve to be treated with the kind of respect that only a book can provide. You put it on the page, it’s there, and it lasts forever in a way that things do not last forever on the Internet. I mean, how many times have you read a quote or seen something that somebody said or a post, and you’re like, oh, God, I wish I could find that again. And you’re frantically searching, and eventually you give up and you get fed the next thing that piques your interest. So the main goal was to bottle that feeling that people get from reading these and to synthesize it and put it in a place where people didn’t need to look at a screen to get it and knew where they could find it at any moment. And, Lucia, I know you like to speak about that as well.

00:14:21 – Lucia Knell
Yeah, I mean, something I think about now, and maybe this is a controversial thing to say. Gabriel’s like, don’t say it is. Reading a book has become a radical act in 2024. A physical book. I mean, no kindles, no offense to kindle readers, they’re great sometimes, but being able to pick something up, touch it, smell it, you can’t touch the Internet, you know? And there’s something to think about that where, to Gabriel’s point, something that actually, we know has the power to resonate with. People were able to give those stories what they deserve, which is to be able to preserve them and preserve the feeling they give people versus just watching them sort of tragically swept away. And these algorithms are now built to get you to keep moving and get you to keep clicking. And so they’re actually built to have your attention for maybe, you know, two, 3 seconds, half a second, whatever it is and then say bye bye onto the next thing and keep you hooked. And so I guess moving to a book format kind of from, like, a mindfulness perspective, which I would love to talk more about with you, Eric, gives you the chance to get offline, take a deep breath, take a break from screens, get in bed, you know, read a couple stories of this book, and just breathe for a second, give your eyes a break, give your brain a break, and focus in a way that social media does not afford us in 2024, and we’re really proud of that.

00:16:19 – Eric Zimmer
That all makes a ton of sense. I will not get into the physical book versus kindle debate.

00:16:25 – Lucia Knell
Sorry.

00:16:26 – Eric Zimmer
It tears at my soul on a regular basis. Anyway, kindles are okay for the type of reading I do for this show. They’re a lifesaver because I can highlight and export those highlights and work with them. And I love a physical book. And so I’m always sort of torn between the ability to capture things that I want to go back to, which kindle gives me, versus the desire to hold a book in my hand and the fact now that I’m old, glasses. Right. And do I have the right lighting and all that, where a kindle, you just kind of adjust all that. So it’s an internal battle.

00:17:00 – Lucia Knell
Okay. Prokindle. Prokindle.

00:17:02 – Gabe Reilich
Whatever it is, it, you know, gives you the opportunity to stay with something a little bit longer.

00:17:06 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah.

00:17:07 – Gabe Reilich
And that’s what matters.

00:17:08 – Eric Zimmer
Exactly. Exactly. So as you guys went out there and cultivated these stories, they were not new to you. You were seeing stories like this and posting stories like this for a long time. So that’s not new to you. But you then chose to pick a subset of them and talk to the people who had submitted them to get more information about the story, and I assume to rewrite it in a way that makes it sort of compelling for a book and it. While still honoring the person’s voice and all of that. I’m curious, what did you learn about people or something from this later process that you didn’t already know from being exposed to all these types of stories anyway?

00:17:50 – Lucia Knell
Yeah. There’s a hunger from people to tell stories about people in their lives that impacted them positively. You know, we have a chapter in the book about teachers. Who’s that teacher who changed your life? And upon, you know, asking people, can we hear more about this person, you know, from 30 years ago who impacted you in some way and then influenced you and encouraged you to, you know, take this program, and now you’re a lawyer, and you want to talk about it, and you never got to thank them, etcetera. People were chomping at the bit to talk about these things. And so, for me, it’s like everyone has a story like this. If you think about who’s that teacher who changed your life? Or what’s the time you experience kindness from a stranger? Or when you think of the term good, good people, who comes to mind? You know, don’t think too hard about it. Everyone has a person, and everyone wants to talk about them and share that story. It’s a beautiful thing.

00:18:46 – Gabe Reilich
Yeah. I mean, that hunger is a real thing out there, you know? And I think a lot of times, even though the tools are there to make it different, it’s a one way communication that’s going on in digital environments. You’re putting something and you’re talking at people broadcasting your life. You’re broadcasting your views, what you think, your values, and there is a real desire for it to be a conversation and for people to be heard and a hunger to connect. And I think that was the initial thing that surprised me about what was happening on our account, which is that when we would ask a question or even when we would share a story that resonated with people, that so many folks would start commenting with experiences of their own, that it would trigger a memory that they needed to share, that they needed to tell people, that the world needed to know about someone in their life or an experience that they had that was like this. And that was interesting to me, to know that there was such a well of desire to share these moments of human connection and profound impact. And so to give people the opportunity to tell those stories in a way that would last forever, and then also for people to open up and be willing to do that, I think was something that surprised me and moved me a lot.

00:20:02 – Lucia Knell
There are 101 stories in this book. Gabriel and I have our own stories, which is very exciting, but 99 people from our community opened up and shared their stories. It’s a lot of people.

00:20:13 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. I’m sure you had way more than that and had to select which ones actually go into the book. Yes. This might be a good time to pause and allow you guys to read. Each of you read a story. Not your story that’s in the book, but a story that you really loved. So whichever one of you has a story first can just jump in and read the name of the story, and we’ll go.

00:20:37 – Lucia Knell
This is a story. In our chapter, our first chapter called the kindest of strangers.

00:20:44 – Speaker E
It’s called sky’s the limit by Brittany FDA I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelors in government. So as you can imagine, I had been rigorously prepared for my first job out of college, waiting tables at the cheesecake factory. Im the oldest of four girls and spent the greater part of my life raising little sisters. When I was 14, my father was sentenced a 99 year prison sentence. Less than a year later, my mother, who struggled with substance abuse, left. Rather than let their failures deter me, I worked even harder, finishing high school and college. I wanted to show my sisters I could do it so they would be inspired to do the same. Unfortunately, I graduated college in December 2008, right smack in the middle of the great recession, so jobs were pretty tough to come by. I was lucky to have any job. I knew that. Still, I wanted a bigger slice of that proverbial pie, not just a literal cheesecake. Desperate for advice, I visited an old UT professor and pled my case. He told me to go to law school.

00:21:46 – Lucia Knell
People in my family aren’t lawyers.

00:21:48 – Speaker E
They need lawyers, I retorted. Britney, he replied, you don’t even need to practice law with that degree. Just having it already opens up so many doors. I thought of my sisters.

00:21:59 – Lucia Knell
We needed open doors.

00:22:00 – Speaker E
When I got home, I booked an LSAt test. I studied hard on my own, and when I sat for the test, I scored 158 out of 180. It was an okay score, but I needed a great one to get into a competitive school. I looked into test prep courses. I knew they gave people an edge.

00:22:17 – Lucia Knell
But that came at a price.

00:22:18 – Speaker E
$1,200, to be exact. I’d need to clock in 165 hours to cover the cost, and that’s not factoring in the living expenses. No way I could afford it. I went to bed feeling like I’d been stabbed in the heart. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to go to school again. On one particularly glum Sunday morning, I wove through the restaurant, pitcher in hand, summoning up every ounce of will to smile. Among the tables, I noticed sky, one of our regulars, sitting alone in an old dress, her grey hair swept into a low bun. I filled her glass, and the smile we exchanged was genuine. It was nice not having to make the effort. I walked back into the kitchen, leaned against the walk in, and closed my eyes. Britt, a coworker, said. I opened my eyes. Skye was just talking about law school. You want to do that, right? You should talk to her. It was a slow morning. None of the managers were working. I decided that it would be a good idea to have that conversation. Skye, I said. Can I sit with you a little while? Of course, sweetie. I heard you know a lot about law school. I was wondering, do you know anything about applying? Skye told me that some years prior, she’d opened an accounting firm with her husband. It was so successful in the last year that she decided to follow an enduring dream of practicing law. She signed up for an LSAT prep class, fully intending to take the exam.

00:23:37 – Lucia Knell
When, tragically, her husband died. So she decided to pursue an MBA.

00:23:42 – Speaker E
Instead, a skill more relevant to the firm. I recommend taking a prep course 100%, she said. Her kindness put me at ease and encouraged me to open up about my childhood. I know I can’t get into the best schools with the scores I have now, I said. But those courses are out of my league, financially speaking. Skye nodded her head as I spoke. Everything will work out. I’m sure of it, she said, recharged by her empathy. I got up and went back to work, refilling ice water and delivering factory specials. Here you go, sir, I chirped, presenting an enormous order of fettuccine Alfredo. The dish clinked on the table, wide noodles sprawling across the plate like my underutilized, college educated brain. A few days later, Skye returned, another old dress, same grey bun, sitting at her habitual booth. I greeted her with a big smile, but before I could speak, she interrupted, I want to give you my prep course. My eyes widened. I already paid for it. She put up a hand, shooting down potential protest. They’re telling me it’s not allowed for me to transfer it over to you, but I’ll figure it out. And she did. I finished the prep course that summer and took the LSAt the following fall. My score jumped from a 158 to a 167, which put me in the top 93%, which in turn got me Boston College law school. I graduated cum laude in 2013, moved back to Texas, passed the bar, leaving me with only one final hurdle. I had to choose between corporate law or public service law. I chose the latter because of sky. Sometimes it feels like life is stacked against you, a tower of dirty dishes piled high in a restaurant sink. Other times, it feels like life’s a friend you didn’t know you had a sweet older woman in a booth at the cheesecake factory who decides to help you achieve your dreams. Because of sky, I’m no longer shackled to that restaurant, unable to move forward. Instead, I’m a lawyer working hard for the people. As a rule, I strive to emulate sky by listening to and supporting my clients, giving them a fighting chance in this world.

00:25:44 – Eric Zimmer
Thank you, Lucia, for that beautiful story. I’d like to ask you guys about a term that I saw in your press kit, and it’s mean world syndrome. What is mean world syndrome? And how is upworthy affecting that?

00:26:02 – Gabe Reilich
Yeah, you know, mean world syndrome is one of those things that I can’t remember how I came across it. Maybe just a random Wikipedia dive one day, but it’s a terminal. That was coined by media professor George Gerbner in the 1970s. Basically, it posits that when people are exposed to violence related content to negative, reinforcing narratives about the world and people around them, that it increases fear and anxiety and pessimism. Basically a heightened state of alert. You see more threats around you, you perceive more threats, so you are in a more anxious state. Basically, it states, well, if this is true, then the narrative that we are fed influences how we perceive the world. And so if all you see are negative narratives about the world around you, that it’s dangerous, people are greedy, things are bad, you’re going to start thinking that that is reality. And while it is certainly true that these things exist, that there are evil forces at work there and there are bad people, it’s not the whole story. So if you buy into it, then you start engaging in the world from a place where you feel that there is danger all around you, and that affects how you interact with people. So that got me thinking. And I think this is something that we all inherently know to be true. This is the parable of the wolves. This is, what are you feeding the two wolves inside you, which wolf are you feeding? But is the opposite also true? You know, if you shift your perspective, if you take a look at the good that surrounds you, the joy, the compassion, the decency, both far away, you know, stories that don’t affect you, and also stuff that happens to you on a day to day basis or reflecting on things that have happened to you through your life, how does that affect your perspective? If it allows you to see that there’s more good happening and you carry that feeling with you out into the world, it almost becomes a bit like a self fulfilling prophecy, right. You are more likely to treat people kindly. You’re more likely to engage with folks out there in a positive way, and therefore, more of these moments are probably likely to happen. And so the perspective is kind of like the first step in crafting the kind of world that I think we would have like to live in.

00:28:27 – Lucia Knell
I think it speaks to this idea of creating this space in your body and your mind for goodness to enter and for the possibility that there’s good all around you if you look for it. And so I think it enables you to operate from this mindset of giving people the benefit of the doubt that we’re all doing our best day to day. And this could be in a micro sense, too, right? It’s like if you’re open to noticing things, like someone holding the door open for someone else, someone holding the subway door open as someone’s running to the subway, if you’re living in New York City, smiling at a stranger when you pass them on your street, little things that signal to you, you know, even in traffic. We’re both based in Los Angeles in traffic, letting someone go in front of you and then giving the little wave. It’s like these are, dare I say, like, sweet, cute, human things that I think happen all the time. And they’re lovely if you let yourself experience them and not overlook them of, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then focus on something, you know, angry or me and someone did that day. And so I think there’s so much positive energy and good energy around us, but for all the things based on all the things we’re talking about, we’re so conditioned to focus on what’s going wrong.

00:29:49 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. I thought of a couple things as you guys were talking. The first, Gabriel, to something that you were talking about. I was thinking about another set of scientific studies that I’ve seen that show that the more people are socially isolated, the more they start to believe the worst about other people, which, of course, then causes you to be more socially isolated, which then causes you to believe the worst. Right. And it’s a self perpetuating loop and mean person syndrome, I think, is a similar thing. Right. Once you’ve got a little of that orientation, we look for what we already believe. That’s how we do things. And so, for me, really actively going against that has always felt important. And it made me think of another phrase that I use a lot, which is, is this useful? And I think about that a lot when I’m thinking about my thoughts, because oftentimes, there’s not a truth that people are good or that people are bad or that there are good things in the world or there are bad things in the world. There’s absolutely both. However, what’s the more useful orientation for me to take a. To have the best outcome in life that I want and to be the person that I want to be. And my experience is that is a way of orienting to the world that sees the best in people and looks for that in people. And then I think you’re often surprised because that’s what you get, and not in a Pollyanna way. It doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen. It just means if I have to think about how I want to oriented, there’s a conscious choice, I think, to orient away from mean world syndrome and a conscious choice to say, if I’m going to be engaging in social media, can I be making sure that my feed is cultivated with things like upworthy, that are putting those things in front of me?

00:31:46 – Speaker E
Yeah.

00:31:46 – Lucia Knell
I talk sometimes about healthy habits on social media and what, you know, I recommend to friends and family, which is to do what I call a social media cleanse, where it’s sort of taking stock of what you’re seeing often or what the algorithms are serving you based on what you’re clicking and how are they making you feel. So listen to your body, right? Are you getting a rapid heartbeat because you’re looking at something and then it’s activating some comparison culture or some comparison inside of you? Is it stoking fear and anger? Again, it’s not about being Pollyanna and turning away from problems, but you have an opportunity on social media to curate a feed that inspires you, that uplifts you, that feeds your curiosity about the world, or encourages habits or hobbies, rather, that make you feel like you, or make you feel excited to be you, or inspired to go out and take that dance class, or inspired to go out and garden because it makes you feel good? And so there’s an opportunity on social media, to Gabriel’s point, to use it as a tool. But it really does, in some ways, go back to the user and say, again, taking a conscious stock of, who am I following? How does it make me feel? And is there an opportunity here to start unfollowing the accounts, purge the accounts that make you feel down, and start to fill it more with accounts that inspire you, make you laugh, lighten you, enlighten you, and allow you to go outside, offline, and live your best life.

00:33:26 – Gabe Reilich
And, you know, to what you were speaking about, Eric, you know, you spoke about loneliness, right? And the surgeon general and others, you know, they speak to the epidemic of loneliness that is happening in this country and throughout the world. And it’s not an epidemic, and it’s not a problem because it’s sad. It’s sad that people are lonely. I mean, it is right that we’re ahead, all so hungry for connection, and we have these wonderful tools at our disposal, and they’re not necessarily giving it to us what we’re actually looking for, but it is detrimental to the fabric of our society. Like you said, you know, the more that you are removed, the worse that you think about the world around you. And that’s why it’s so important to be plugged in and to be supported and to feel a connection to community. And there are ways that social media can give that in a really positive way. There are ways that social media gives that in a very dangerous way that reinforces the worst in us. And that’s why I think it’s important to take stock of our relationship to it in general. Is it giving you what you need in terms of how you want to feel about the world? And, you know, I’m sure for many people, it is. It’s like you’re sharing funny memes with people. That’s a wonderful way to connect, and it makes you happy, and it’s a great thing, but in other ways, it could be reinforcing the worst impulses. And if that’s happening, you know, I think there’s an interesting thought experiment that you can do sometimes, which is like, what are the things that make me angry about the world or mad about people or distrustful? And where am I seeing that? How often am I experiencing that in real life, in my interaction with people? And how often am I just being exposed to that through a screen? And if you find yourself saying, oh, I mean, everything that’s making me angry is coming through a screen. And, sure, yeah, it’s peppered around with good jokes and nice crafts and fun things and distractions. Well, that’s something to pay attention to, because what really matters is what’s happening in real life and your interactions with people in real life, because that is reality. What’s happening on a screen, there are forces at work that are beyond your control. There is money to be made. There are narratives to be sold. There is attention to be gathered for whatever purpose that people wants it. Sometimes wonderful purposes, sometimes not so wonderful. When you’re out in the real world, you are the one in control. And so I think it’s just important to keep that in mind.

00:36:06 – Eric Zimmer
Now, Gabriel, let’s have your story that you wanted to read.

00:36:09 – Gabe Reilich
So, this is a story called Curly Fries by John v. I was pretty bummed out. I’d been driving for hours and wasn’t much looking forward to the destination. I was 23 and working for the coast guard. I’d enlisted three years earlier, just a few months prior to 911, and emerged from boot camp two weeks into a war. After training at forts across the country, I was sent to Port Aransas, just south of Corpus Christi, to act as a sea marshal under the newly formed Department of Homeland Security. The majority of my time there was split between high risk boardings on incoming foreign ships and search and rescue missions along the Texas coast. The dangers were high, the hours were long, and the sleep was inconsistent. We’re talking 72 hours on call shifts filled with a whole lot of pressure and not much compassion. I’d get homesick often and would visit my parents nearly a full day’s drive north of Erie, Illinois, whenever I could. I was coming back from one of these visits and still half a day’s journey ahead of me. The night before, I’d slept in my truck as usual, craving human contact as much as food, and I pulled into a diner just outside of Texarkana. I looked awful but figured I’d be in good company. Here I was sitting at the counter when a man walked in. Long black hair, goatee, face full of scruff. He had dirty jeans and a chain wallet. Classic trucker vibes through and through. What struck me the most was his shirt. It depicted curly from the three Stooges holding a fork into a light socket. Underneath it simply read curly fries. Maybe I was delirious from the solitude, but it got me good. I started laughing. Cool shirt, I told him. We got to chatting. Everything about me screamed military coast guard shirt, high and tight haircut, 0% body fat and mouth like a sailor. The trucker moved to sit next to me and revealed he was a Vietnam vetted. Vets like him love talking to enlisted guys like me. Barring Desert Storm, most of them haven’t had a chance to feel understood by the generations that came before us. There’s a bond there that’s difficult to describe but easy to understand if you’re in our shoes. He could tell we were part of the same brotherhood. I guess he could also tell that I seemed down. How you getting back to Corpus Christi? He asked. I told him I usually took the I 35 to San Antonio and then the I 37 east. Hell no, brother. I’ve been driving loads down there for years. Let me tell you how to go, he replied, leaving his eyes. Its a way better route. He told me I needed to see the real Texas, not just the interstate. I was game. I grabbed the mapquest printout from my truck and handed it over along with a pen. He took his time, outlining turn by turn directions for me, noting the best restaurants, towns, and miscellaneous sites to take in all the way to Corpus Christi. It was a humble gesture, but his enthusiasm and care were contagious. I was already feeling less bummed out, even if my 23 hours trip was about to turn into a 30 hours one. My turning point came at the city limits of Lagrange. Until then, I’d been contemplative, enjoying the sights, but still too aware of what I was driving back to. But something really shifted at Lagrange. The ZZ top song of the same name, for the uninitiated, was a fave to play on the boat patrols. And now, here I was, just outside the real McCoy. I took a picture of the sign with my disposable Kodak and hopped back into the truck. I felt different after that. I noticed the miles and miles of open, untouched land, the deer in the fields, the pastures full of cows, the wild hogs, the enormity of it all, the state I lived in. It took me by surprise. For the very first time, I cranked up the music, and a sense of peace washed over me that I still feel to this day. None of this changed the fact that I was now behind schedule. Of course, my brain was stressed, but my brain was always stressed. My soul was happy. That was different. When I finally got back to Port Aransas, I shared the story of curly fries, the first of many times I would do so. It was one of the first things I told my wife when I met her in Corpus Christi. I can’t even tell you why. I guess it just made me happy and brought me that sense of peace. Two months after I left the service, my first daughter was born. Her birth was complicated and she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The years that followed were filled with many, many trips to the children’s hospital. When you live through something like that, you spend a lot of time looking to the past instead of living in the present. Curly Fries was a story and a feeling, so I went back. Often. Somehow it even got linked to another song somewhere down in Texas by Jason Boland. I’d sing my daughter that song, and inevitably the story would follow. She passed when she was six, but I’d spent her life sharing the feeling of that day with her. It’s a simple thing to draw a new route for a stranger and shine a light on places they haven’t yet considered. It’s just as simple to take a leap of faith and follow that route. The result of that exchange is a little more complicated to understand. The trip Curley made for me eventually connected memories, songs and people as much as it did places I think of one and then another follows, all colored by that sudden sense of peace. It’s become a roadmap for my mind away from chaos and sadness, straight to a mysterious joy. Thanks, Curly.

00:41:02 – Eric Zimmer
Wow, that’s beautiful and sad, and yet that’s great. Thank you for reading that one.

00:41:08 – Gabe Reilich
Thank you. I mean, it’s honest, you know? And, yeah, that’s what hits me so deep. It’s one of those stories that reminds you how sadness and joy are so intertwined, inextricably so, you know, that you can’t have one without the other. You know, there’s a, I forget what the exact quote is, but it’s something the effect of, like, you know, you can only fill your well with joy as deep as you’ve dug it with grief.

00:41:34 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah.

00:41:34 – Gabe Reilich
And that’s one of those stories. And it really sticks with me too, because, you know, it talks about, it’s a small thing, and it just meant so much to him. And now I carry that feeling with me where I’m like, okay, what is it that I’m gonna do that might have an impact like this on someone? You never know.

00:41:49 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. The other thing I loved about that story even more than, you know, Curly, and the kindness he offered was how this gentleman was able to take a feeling of peace that he experienced and continue to go back to that. That’s what really stood out to me. And I’ve had moments in my life. I’ve been a Zen student and studied fairly deeply. And I’ve had some of what they consider those sort of enlightenment moments, right. Where, like, everything comes alive and becomes one thing, and then those pass. And the challenge I found is how to live from that place even when the feeling isn’t there. And that’s what this guy was trying so hard to do. And he was connecting things in his life back to this thing. He was trying to start from an orientation of peace and latch things onto it. I just think it’s really beautiful how he used that beyond feeling peace for two minutes as he drove through the Texas countryside and actually used that as an anchor for the way he navigated the world. It’s really, really impressive in that way.

00:43:10 – Gabe Reilich
Yeah. You know, those moments, and I think it’s another thing that most of us have, something where we’ve experienced a feeling like that, and those are gifts and to remember them and to use that mysterious power that they hold to transcend time and space and transport you back to that moment where you felt that and then carry it with you in moments when you need it. I mean, it’s a real thing, and it just takes some reflection sometimes to try to remember what they are.

00:43:41 – Eric Zimmer
Yep, I’m gonna pivot from childhood cerebral palsy to bipolar disorder. I am a bag of laughs around here today.

00:43:52 – Lucia Knell
Honestly. That is funny. I genuinely find that funny to you.

00:43:58 – Eric Zimmer
Lucia, because your story in the book, and I mean, by your story, it’s not the one that you read us, it’s the story that you wrote for the book about you, talks about being diagnosed with bipolar, and I was wondering if you could a share the kindness that came out of that for you. But then I’d also just love, if you’re open to sharing what managing that in an ongoing way has looked like for you.

00:44:24 – Lucia Knell
For sure.

00:44:26 – Speaker E
Yeah.

00:44:27 – Lucia Knell
I mean, first of all, I think it’s important to recognize the stigma around, in my case, bipolar two. I think that was a huge part of my journey, was just being able to accept it, you know, accept and grieve, in my case, that this is a disorder that I was diagnosed with, and it’s one that’s hard to swallow. For all of those reasons, I think a lot of mental health issues and diagnoses the folks, beyond having to suffer from the effects of the disorder, also have to grapple with the stigma, the shame, the perceived judgment from people, from society. Talk about social media feeding into harmful stereotypes, and media in general feeding into harmful stereotypes around mental health issues was a huge struggle to Gabriel’s point. You know, with grief comes joy. A joyful piece of this journey for me was my community coming out in droves when I was suffering. And so in the moments where I was unable to get out of bed because I had a depressive episode that lasted six months, the story depicts my brother flying out from New York to LA the same day when I called him, saying, I can’t get out of bed. And he ended up living with me for six months. My family, my friends coming out to, you know, while I was going through various treatments, calling me, saying, hey, hey, I’m gonna come with you to Cambridge, Massachusetts, while you’re going through this. And me saying, what are you talking about? And a friend of mine saying, I wouldn’t think twice. And so, looking back now that I’ve recovered and being able to recognize how profoundly moving it is that my community rallied in the way that they did is profound. I feel so lucky. And also, you know, Gabriel really came through, not that I wouldn’t expect it, but as my colleague and friend, we were going through this book process, literally, when this all happened. To me in the middle of the book process, like, really bad timing. And he was the one to call.

00:46:48 – Speaker E
Me when I was literally at a.

00:46:49 – Lucia Knell
Treatment center towards the end of it saying, hey, I need you to work on this with me. I need you back. And that was everything to me, in fact, that helped me get through this in many ways. And so there’s a deep connection to this process for me and my community that came from a moment in my life that was deeply painful. As far as managing the diagnosis and mental health experience, a lot of it is actually really relevant to this conversation where I practice a modality of therapy called DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy. And it’s really rooted in mindfulness. So taking moments away from screens, going outside, noticing smells, noticing colors, listening to birds, it’s, like, very sensory, and it really helps me to ground myself. Day to day routine is huge for me of being able to self regulate. Most of it, for me is about self regulation. Also medication, like, please believe. And so huge advocate for meds. Huge advocate for therapy. Again, community. It takes a village. Feeling supported and heard and being able to check in with people when I’m not doing well and knowing that they have my back and it’s hard and joyful and weird and scary and exciting, and it’s kind of become a huge part of my life.

00:48:18 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah, I think you’re similar to me in that I sort of. My phrases, I throw sort of the kitchen sink at my depression. Right. It’s been everything. It’s not one thing. It’s not just medicine or it’s not just therapy. I’m significantly older than the two of you, so I’ve been in this for quite a long time. And so what? Those things are. Have changed over time, but I found a way of, by sort of stitching all these things together to be relatively symptom free.

00:48:48 – Lucia Knell
Amazing. I love to hear that. I also think going through something like this or any, you know, trauma, once you get to the other side, brings a real sense of gratitude, where regardless of what’s going down, you know, day to day, I kind of look at it and say, I’ve been through a lot worse, and I’m actually grateful that these are the kinds of problems I’m dealing with, or challenges, rather. I’m like, not too bad, you know, like a bad day at work, a bad day in this. It’s like, I can get through that, so I’m very grateful.

00:49:18 – Eric Zimmer
Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I think that’s a great place for us to wrap up. Gabriel, Lucia thank you both so much for coming on the show, for the work that you’re doing with upworthy, of putting good things out into the world. We’ll obviously have links in our show notes to upworthy and to the book, so and congratulations on your first book.

00:49:39 – Gabe Reilich
Thank you so much Eric. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

00:49:41 – Lucia Knell
Thanks Eric. It’s great.

00:49:59 – Chris Forbes
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