#803: Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale

0:00 So to do this thing where There was basically a month built in where I wasn't gonna see these responses. And then my dog's vomiting. Give me a sec. That's a new one for the podcast.

0:13 I know. I guess sorry. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Give me a second to deal with this. Never had my dog vomit while I'm recording a podcast.

0:26 Right next to me before. That's a new one. This is the glamorous life of a podcaster, folks. I Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show where it is my job, every episode, to deconstruct world class performers, people who are the best at what they do, people who are The deepest in the deep end.

0:50 of whatever their specialty happens to be. This episode That you were going to hear. is my second interview, my second conversation with Craig mod, a gem of a human being. Love the guy. Now

1:02 Important note though, you do not need The first interview to enjoy this one. This, what you're about to listen to, is perfectly self sufficient as a standalone conversation. So go forth, enjoy. But if you also want to check out our first combo, which covers his early years and his winding path to Japan. You can find it at Tim.blog slash mod.

1:23 M O D. Today's episode will dive very deeply into Craig's walking philosophy and practice. I'll explain what that means, why it's relevant, his incredible experiences and experiments with publishing of all sorts, independent and traditional, his unexpected celebrity in Japan. Which is Wild. Yeah. Just so fun. And the profound impact of reconnecting with his biological family. And we'll get into all the nuances and background necessary for that. This is a packed episode.

1:56 Craig is such a joy to listen to, great storyteller, and there are a lot of takeaways. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Who is Craig? He is a writer, photographer, and walker. We'll talk about that a lot. Living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan, he is the author of Things Become Other Things and Kissa by Kissa. K I S S A. Don't worry about it. We'll get to it. He also writes the newsletters Roden and Ridgeline and has contributed to the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, and more. He has walked thousands of miles across Japan in every conceivable place, and since 2016 he has been co running

2:32 Walk and talks with Kevin Kelly. Perhaps the most interesting man in the world. In various places around the world, the Cotswolds Northern Thailand. Bali.

2:43 Southern China, Japan. Spain, which includes the Portuguese and French Caminos, and much more. You can find Craigmod at Craigmod.com. That's the HQ for everything, Craig Mod, C-R-A-I-G-M-O-D.com. You can find him on Instagram at Craig Mod and on Blue Sky as well, Craigmod.com. And with that. And just a few words from the people who make this podcast possible. We'll get right into the meat and potatoes of Craig Mod. As many of you know, for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Midnight Lux mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs, and feedback from friends has always been fantastic.

3:23 Kind of over the top, to be honest. I mean they frequently say it's the best night of sleep they've had in ages. What kind of mattresses and what do you do? What's the magic juju? It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever. I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite. in a new guest bedroom, which I sometimes sleep in, and I picked it for its very soft but supportive feel to help with some lower back pain that I've had. The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort while putting the right support in the right spots. It is made with five tailored foam layers, including a base layer with full perimeter zoned lumbar support, right where I need it. and middle lay with premium foam and microcoils that create a soft contouring feel. Which also means if I feel like I want to sleep on my side, I can do that without worrying about other aches and pains I might create. And with a luxurious pillowtop for pressure relief, I look forward to nestling into that bed every night that I use it. The best part, of course, is that it helps me wake up feeling fully rested with a back that feels supple instead of stiff. That is the name of the game for me these days. Helix offers a 100 night sleep trial. fast free shipping and a fifteen year warranty. So check it all out.

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4:45 Tim. With Helix. Better sleep starts. No. About three weeks ago.

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7:01 Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then also question. Now what is the same thing? A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscellary. Moto za Ohio got you.

7:28 Come on. Combo up. Exactly. Time zones. lots and lots of time zones between us. And I suppose that is as good a segue as any To ask you a question related to something that you Said in passing.

7:44 In our last conversation. Which was Living in a six to Tommy Mat room. For many people listening, they may not know exactly what that means. What does that mean?

7:55 In Japan you used to measure everything by Basically Tatami Mat. So Tatami Matt It's like two meters by Half a meter or something like that. It's a rectangle. Matt, basically. And

8:06 Yeah, you had rooms. Rooms are kind of like classical Japanese rooms are based on Certain Tami Matt. Numbers. Six mat room, eight mat room, ten mat room, twelve mat room, things like that. And I lived For most of my adult life.

8:20 From like age. twenty two to thirty five I was in like a six mat tatami room. I lived a really aesthetic. Sort of twenties and early thirties. Yeah.

8:29 Super affordable in a you know, in the middle of the city. It worked out. It worked well for me. So I'm looking up the name of a movie that I saw recently. If people want a visual on a roughly six to Tommy from perfect days. Perfect is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. The amazing thing about that movie is I think they wrote it and

8:49 Shot it in like j a matter of just like three weeks. Four weeks. They shot it so fast. But it works. Which is part of the beauty of An independent film like this. So you can control the locations.

9:02 If you're not throwing in a bunch of CGI, if you can apply some constraints, you can make a beautiful little film. That's really does the trick and you can rely on that old fashioned thing called storytelling and character development. I will say that this particular film Perfect Days just as a Warning. Slash promise to people. It starts off very slow.

9:27 It gets to a point, at least it did for me, where it starts to get repetitive and almost annoying, but then at some point that I could not put a finger on. It starts to become really hypnotic and then it gets very reassuring. Yeah. It ends up very endearing. It's worth the whole push through. I think it's a good piece of film. But basically where the guy, the protagonist

9:50 Of perfect days lives is exactly the sort of room I lived in. for like roughly thirteen, fourteen years. It's worth checking out. The rumor I heard, this was second or third hand, so I have not fact checked this, is that At some point I guess it was Tokyo. Or whoever actually I imagine it's the municipality that owns the toilets.

10:14 was looking to do an advertising campaign. featuring some of their more unusual Sort of art piece toilets. Which

10:25 And that somehow Wim Wenders, the filmmaker got Wind of this. And said. That all sounds great, but why don't you just give me your entire budget and I'll make a film.

10:36 About a toilet cleaner. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty astonishing. Yeah. It's pretty it's pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What Chump. Two.

10:49 The meat and potatoes. Of Craig Mod two point oh. Which is Huge walks. Yes. We covered so much ground.

10:58 Pun intended. I'm T Yaga. We covered so much crowd. In the last conversation. We never got to. What a lot of people want to know from you, which is huge walks.

11:13 Why? How? Where What is it like all the things? Where should we start? What is step one here? I mean step one is just

11:22 Like I arrived in Tokyo, I'm nineteen years old, I'm walking through the city at night. And I'm just mesmerized. You know, there's just something about Being able to move through the city without worrying about anything, without thinking about safety. Yes. And People's lives are really I want to say exposed.

11:41 Like you walk down a street and you can hear everything and you can hear the baths being drawn. You can hear the kids laughing behind, you know, closed doors. You can smell someone having a cigarette in their kitchen as they're listening to the radio. And there's something about all of that, I think, that really Many, many things kept me here, but like those walks, those late night walks around Tokyo when I was Nineteen twenty. I mean that really set Something.

12:03 Moving in my heart. And I think I kinda held on to that. For a long time. So before we segue from that Why were you walking around at night?

12:11 Was it insomnia? Were you taking photographs? What were you doing? I mean I was just drinking too much. Skulking around with bottle in hand. So yeah, no sweet drinking, but like I would be, you know, I was going to Golden Guy. You should explain what that was and what it is for people who don't know. Golden Guy was a post war, almost like a black market drinking area in Shinjuku, next to Kabuki Cho, which is like the big red light district. And it was a whole bunch of ramshackle shacks, you know, one story, two stories, and then they all had addicts and it was all for prostitution. So you'd go to these bars post war and then there'd be prostitutes there and they'd take you up.

12:48 If you go in some of the bars in Golden Guy still have these like Attic rooms. And that would be where The Rock Sand stuff would happen. Yeah, where Rock Sand would turn on a red light. And um anyway, over time it became a place of like artists, filmmakers, directors, poets would gather and drink there, kind of in the

13:07 I'd say probably in like the seventies, eighties. nineties. Another Wim Wenders film, Tokyo Ga, where he's kind of explor he's like chasing Ozu And he goes to a body. Ozu is sort of like if you had a lot of people know Kurosawa, so you have seven samurai. Ozu Oh, it was like the Kurosawa contemporary where

13:25 If you flipped all the action of Seven Samurai and created like the inverse of it, where nothing happens and the camera just sits on the ground. That that is Ozu, but it's Ozu made so many films. Ozu never got married. Never had any kids. І мэй со мні фільм, ерисин. is about a daughter leaving her father to go get married. And the father being like super depressed and sad. Like and the daughter being like I don't want to leave you and he being like, No, you have to and

13:54 You should watch if you're gonna watch one Ozu film, watch Samanuaji is what it's called in Japanese. I think it's Samanuaji. Sammanuaji. So the taste of math. Samma. Samma. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sammanuaji. I love that film. The taste of mackerel. Yeah, beautiful. Uh beautiful title. He was a huge drinker too, and he would kinda go into the mountains with

14:15 Some of his writing partners and they would measure how far they were on their script by how many bottles of s empty bottles of sake they would line the room with So by the by the end of a script, and I don't know why it took him so long, because literally every script is the same script, but like they would they would end up, you know, kind of filling the room with these sake bottles. But so you'd you know, like there's sort of like this Ozu kind of element of people and Wim Wenders In Tokyo Ga, he came to Tokyo in the eighties, I think it was like eighty four. And he was

14:42 Kind of hunting down what was left of Ozu, he's kind of like chasing Ozu. But he what he ends up doing is he captures a bunch of Tokyo in the 80s, and it's amazing. And one of the places he goes to is a bar in Golden Guy, which is still As of like five years ago, it was still active and the same woman was is still running it. And you could go there and you you watch the Wim Wenders film and you see this bartender and this room that's like literally I mean, it holds like six people max, you know, and it's like this tiny little closet of a bar. And she's been standing behind that Bar forty plus years.

15:13 And she's still there and she's got like a little Wim Wenders poster up on the wall and you know, just kind of Immortalized in that film. So it was then that in the eighties and the nineties, and I started going there around two thousand.

15:26 And it was still like Should I be here? I mean it was very shady. It was sort of like you know, you kinda had to really work your way into these shops. And then about ten years ago with the tourism boom starting here and like really Resurging. Um

15:40 really for the first time ever, Japan having a mega tourism boom. began about ten years ago. People found Golden Guy because of social media. It's now like you go there and everyone's just Instagramming and live streaming and it's A circus, basically. I haven't been here a while. It's really painful to go to now. But Yeah, that sounds rough. I would go to Gol Golden Guy. I would go to

16:01 Otokichi or Brain Busters, I think was the bar that I used to go to. That's not there anymore. And have a few drinks and then I'd walk home. And I just like walk home with this like really wistful You know, kind of like Floaty feeling and just I don't know. Those were really special weird

16:18 walks for me when I was that young. It was teaching me something. I'm adding a footnote to this, which is just a recommendation for folks. Since you invoked the demon of social media by mentioning it, I will mention someone I found on Instagram. Even though I haven't had any social

16:36 apps on my phone for two years because it's like having heroin around the house. There is a website, T Muze Photo, T E M U S photo. Dot com it. And it is almost entirely

16:51 Nighttime shots. Uh. Japan. and urban Japan and it gives you Actually a very he loves rain. It is not always raining in Japan. Yeah. But these are beautiful shots.

17:06 Talks about his setup and which camera he uses, et cetera. But it is A really beautiful compilation and if you browse through You'll get some. Of the feeling.

17:17 That's Craig is referring to. Alcohol and Golden guy walks.

17:28 More What would we call it? Epic. Yeah, epic. Truly epic. So I co Authored slash co produced a book called Arts Space Tokyo. And it came out

17:40 Two thousand seven, two thousand eight. And then we re printed it with a Kickstarter in twenty ten. It was one of the first book Kickstarters, actually. So it's kind of this novel. Thing to do.

17:50 And I met this guy through doing that, this other art related guy named John McBride. A mutual friend connected us. And we sat down for breakfast. at like ten AM and we didn't get up till like five PM. It was just like instant like just like go go go go go. He's twenty years older than me and he's just lived this kind of really incredible, rich, interesting life. When he was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, he was a

18:13 Mombu Show scholarship student here in Japan. He went to Gaigo Dai. Uh. Right? Yep. And he had like a full scholarship and he was just a Japanese student at Japanese university, basically. He's Australian.

18:27 And while he was doing that, he started doing walks because his literature professor They were reading things like Basho and he wanted to understand What was Basho seeing? So he went and did like the Okun Hosomichi walk. You know the narrow road to the north. And he went and he walked the Tokaido, and he went and he walked Shikoko and he so

18:44 He started doing all this when he was really young, and then he had this whole career, this wild career, incredible, ridiculous career. And Right around the time we met He started getting back into walking. And in twenty thirteen he invited me

18:56 To come and do Kumano Koto with him. Mm-hmm. And I had never heard of Kumano Kodo. I had never heard of any of this stuff. I didn't even really know what the Tokido was. I knew there was a Shinkansen that was called the Tokido Shinkansen. I didn't really know what the Makasendo was. I didn't know what any of this stuff was.

19:11 Basically John was like, Hey, come, let's do some research, like it'll be interesting. And he brought me to Koyasan. Which is this Shingon Buddhist sort of epicenter.

19:22 In Uh I think it's just in Nata Prefecture, but it's on the Key Peninsula. Um it's part of Humano Cold. And

19:30 I was just blown away. I mean Poi San is one of the most Amazing, beautiful. Power spot.

19:38 Places I think I'd ever been. And I have not been. So I need to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:45 We need to do another walk. Just to wrap a little context around that, it is well, I'll keep it simple and let you fill in the gaps, but it's more than a pilgrimage trail. It's like a pilgrimage delta of sorts. But you're going up the delta as opposed to out to the ocean in a sense. And it is the if I'm getting this right. World Heritage Site.

20:10 sister pilgrimage trail to the Camino de Santiago. Am I getting that right? Right. Yeah, yeah. So when you get a stamp book for one on the opposite side of that piece of paper that's folded, you have The other pilgrimage trail. Exactly.

20:26 So yeah, there's only two UNESCO World Heritage Pilgrimage Trails in the world. It's Compostela de Santiago and then Come on, okay. Actually this year is the twentieth anniversary of them getting the UNESCO, so there's all these Banners and they're very excited.

20:40 The commander coto is very confusing because It's a network of trails. So there's Kohechi, Nakahechi, Ohechi, Eseiji And Omine Okogake Michi. So that those are kind of like the five main ones. Everybody got that?

20:54 And the problem is is like when people are like, Oh, I went and did Kamano Koto, they've 99.99% of the time they walked what's called the Nakahechi And It's a very cool bit, but it's a very, very, very tiny Bit of the whole. But

21:08 That's an interesting we can talk more about it if you want, but it's an interesting exercise in branding. Like how The Nakahechi became the thing that all essentially foreigners would come to do to do the Kamanukodo. Blitz sidebar. How the hell did that happen? I'm super curious. Because I

21:24 did part of the Nakahe with my brother long ago. Yeah. And if we were to, as we did go to a guiding company in Japan and say we want to do the Then Lo and behold, that's where we end up.

21:40 So How did that happen? So essentially it's about prefectural investment in infrastructure and like sort of Inbound facing books, guides, websites, things like that. In Wakayama Prefecture, and actually the city of Tanabe in in

21:56 Yeah. had a I think he's Canadian. This guy named Brad. He's kinda like this epic I've never met him. I've never met Brad. Brad. Brad ended up living in Tanabe City for some reason for like a jet program.

22:11 And right around the time, I guess when it got the UNESCO This is an English teaching program. Right. English teaching program that kinda puts you in the countryside. You know, you kinda come to Japan, you don't live in Tokyo, you don't live in Osaka, you get Far flung. And so he ended up in Tanabe, and it was right when the UNESCO thing happened.

22:27 And he just ran. He became like the Oh, he's like, I'm gonna make all the English literature. I'm gonna do and they just focused on that Nakahe bit. And so that just became it. Yeah, Walk I am up with the money in they Put up the signs, they made the the pamphlets, they worked with the tour agencies and then you know.

22:44 They kind of won the One the tour's bucks. So That's amazing. So John brought me to Coason and that just activated like everything in my

22:53 body about like Things I wanted to explore. I didn't know the side of Japan existed. These archetypes that you have or don't have, these mentors that you have or don't have that open up. Entirely new pathways and This one little trip. was sort of like, Oh my God, there's this network of

23:09 Pilgrimage trails and there's these other trails. I just became immediately addicted to it. Like in the Instantly had to do all of them. What?

23:18 Grabbed you. Right, what had teeth? What was it that took a pit bull Grasp on your Mind or soul and wouldn't let go. It was the combination of incredible

23:30 Fecundity. We'll use that word again. Fecundity of Of the nature. I mean, it's just you know, the Key Peninsula is one of the wettest places on the planet, actually. It gets more rainfall than the Amazon. And you just feel it. I mean, it is just green and mossy and lush. This is what you described, I think, as the dangling penis of Japan in the west moist. It's moist. It's a moist dangling penis of Japan. So there's just this incredible richness of nature. The air was amazing. the religious and spiritual syncretism that's happening there. And one of the reasons why it's UNESCO

24:06 World heritage is that Japan Throughout most of its history, Buddhism and Shinto Shinto's the native religion, the sort of animist Native Japanese

24:16 Sort of spiritual. Philosophy theology. Shinto, which are shrines, and Buddhism, which is temples, they used to coexist Extremely. Yeah.

24:26 On the same grounds. And then The Meiji restoration happened. And part of Essentially imbuing or creating this God narrative around the Emperor.

24:36 They said, Hey, we have to split these things. We want Shinto to be stronger. This is like a a very TLDR And so Buddhism and Shinto were forcibly split and a lot of temples were destroyed. And What was special about the Key Peninsula was because it was so kind of far away from Petal It's so far away from Tokyo.

24:52 They kinda didn't split. So it's one of these places there's a few places left in Japan. Yamagata has Dewa Sanzan. Which is the three mountains of Dewa. Which also has uh a lot of syncretic History that's still present.

25:04 And Kumano Kodo is also very syncretic between Shinto and Buddhism. So that was exciting to see that. It just felt Great. The ceremonies are amazing. The temples are amazing. You can do shibol. Which is

25:16 What's it called when you stay at a temple? Very easy to do, very affordable. The graveyard up in Koyosan was just astounding. One of the absolute most beautiful places. So peaceful and it's like all these like Shogunett and Daimyo. It's like the the Hollywood Walk of Fame for like

25:32 Japanese samurai. It's pretty interesting. So I want to give people just a little bit of context real quick. So Meiji restoration. This says it began around eighteen sixty eight. This marked the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. And restoration of imperial rule and then that was also

25:52 Correct if I'm getting this wrong, but sort of a signpost. And an opening for a lot of the Rapid modernization and transformation of Japan. Yeah, that we think of even extending into the Mid

26:07 Nineteen hundreds. And then one last thing I just want to say Bushel for people who were like, Who the hell was that? You mentioned it briefly. I don't know who the other foreigner was who was wandering around Japan, I blanking out his name, but he was like, I want to see what Bosho saw. Which yeah. John. Yes, right.

26:24 Yeah. The most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period. And He put Haiku on the map. He put Haiku on the guy who made Haiku cool, and there you have it. Tell me if I'm getting my timelines right.

26:40 Did part of the appeal of these trails? coincide or maybe it was just reinforced at a later point by you getting sober and deciding to run. And move around in that way. Or did that come later? For sure. Yeah, yeah. And this is an extension of that for sure. I think

26:59 Getting sober and And that stint I had living in Palo Alto and kind of Just upping Like we were talking about self worth. The sense of scarcity, getting rid of that sense of scarcity, creating more senses of abundance in your life. I felt a real abundance here, you know. And

27:15 And then also watching John, because John John is this I mean truly I don't think anyone's had more of a a bigger, more positive impact on my life than John. In in my book that's coming out in May, that things become other things. He's featured Everily in it as kind of this background character. We started doing walks together. We'd spend like weeks and months together.

27:33 every year in starting about twenty twelve, twenty thirteen. We do, okay, let's do this walk, let's do this trip, let's do this. And it was just so easy. We just traveled together effortlessly. It was like one of these things where. It just totally on the save wavelength. Completely Copathetic, just totally easy. And I would watch John, and John's Japanese is so exceptional.

27:53 So Perfect. So high register imperial because so he started doing tea ceremony when he was like nineteen in Kyoto. Yeah, like a Super hard to get into the

28:03 T ceremony. Temple. He just kept knocking on the door until they finally let him in. And He's been doing that for forty years. He was the CEO of Sky TV. Which was Rupert Murdoch's first

28:16 Cable satellite. network that was launched out of Japan. He ran that for ten years. He is just Operating at this extremely high level. So we would be walking, we'd be doing these, you know, walking the Kohechi, walking the Nakahechi, and I would watch him interact. With farmers And I'd watch him interact with locals.

28:32 And I had never seen Someone move people through the use of polite language and curiosity about their history. Curiosity about

28:46 What was happening nearby. What had happened nearby. And watching everyone become our ally. In this way that was so profound and exciting. That was another big part of it because I was trying to figure out

28:58 What am I doing in Japan? Because I wasn't working for Japanese companies. I didn't have a Partner then. And

29:06 I was like, Okay, I have the language ability and this is my base, but like what am I really Doing here. And spending that time with John watching him move through these old roads, these pilgrimage routes And in Sorcel, everybody that we met with this love In Sorcel? What does that mean? You know, just just do a little magic trick on them to like just totally pull them over to your side. It's a magic trick just to use that word. It was so profound for me to watch that happen. And then I started emulating it. And then basically that became

29:39 A foundation for me. After I'd say it took me about three years before I felt like I had studied enough with John. to start walking on my own. So it it wasn't until about twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen how much of the studying was roots, where to stay, and how much of that was the interaction piece. I'd say it was like Eighty percent interaction.

29:58 And twenty percent roots. I Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide, and I've known the team since 2008 or 2009. But prior to that, I wish I had personally had Shopify in the early two thousands when I was running my own e-commerce business. But the tools then were absolutely atrocious and I could only dream of a platform like Shopify.

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31:25 This is gonna get nerdy, but a lot of my listeners are nerdy, so they might enjoy it. You mentioned Politely speaking. And I don't want to gloss over this because Politely speaking in the US is like please thank you. Yes, sir, yes, ma'am. There's a lot more to it in Japanese, right? You have

31:46 Kegel, you have exalting language, which you can use to put the person on a higher pedestal. You have humbling language, you've got a million grades, you have this whole spectrum in between. There are entire books written on how to write short letters that are polite at the right level with the right combination of ingredients. Yeah. What made the language that he used So

32:13 Enchanting maybe, so Recruiting for The people he interacted with in the countryside. I think it was like okay. He had spent forty years doing tea ceremony, and tea ceremony, by the way, is not just like

32:27 you know, five minutes, you fold a handkerchief, you pour some tea, you're done. It's like six, seven, eight hours. You know like a full tea ceremony. And you're you're cooking meals and you're presenting stuff and it's like It's a really involved thing. And so there's a lot of language connected with tea ceremony. So first of all, he's he'd just been studying this kind of imperial T ceremony language. And then I think, you know, being a CEO where a hundred percent of interact his interactions were in Japanese, I mean, he just learned to talk.

32:52 at like a CEO level with everyone. So we're walking through, we're meeting farmers. And he's treating them. With the same reverence he would Treat Son Sun, you know, the the CEO of SoftBank with whom he'd have breakfast with like once a week or whatever when he was, you know, writing his thing. And so I think these people, first of all, were just Blown away that

33:09 We could speak Japanese to begin with. But then secondly that They were being seen in a way that they had never been seen before. They felt I think elevated in a way that no one had ever elevated them before. And kind of weirdly, no Japanese person would probably think to elevate them.

33:24 And John, I think, just has this intuitive sense of like How to make people feel great. You know, and he wants it comes from this totally genuine place and he's He's so encyclopedic.

33:37 Sort of versed about the history of the area. So he'll be asking questions, these deep historical questions, and you can just be see people. So moved by it. Like, oh my God, this person really cares about where we are. And then on top of that, he's just using verb conjugations or like you know, they'll give us They'll say, Would you like some tea? And he'll be like, Oh my God, it would be my most cherished honor to accept your humble tea. You know, like something something like that in Japanese, which doesn't sound you say it in English and you're like, All right, shut up, you you dickhead. But like In Japanese. It's if you could do it if you do it it the right way, it's sort of like wow.

34:10 Oh wow, okay, cool. This person gets it. Wow, okay, yeah, come on in. So That was profound to see because like look, I come from a place where we Spoke it's like working class. Hotty mouth to the max.

34:24 I grew up with that and then I got to Tokyo I studied or whatever, but they weren't teaching us tea ceremony Japanese at school. And I was playing music and so I was in the studio. I was in Clubs, you know, I learned that like Yakuza Japanese. I was at Golding Guy around drinking with guys, guys who are like missing pinky fingers and stuff. So like a lot of people speak Japanese. This is the danger. It's like you don't speak Japanese. That opens a lot of doors. You speak a little bit and people are like delighted that you speak a little bit. And then once you cross the threshold, they expect more of you, and then you don't hit That politeness and then you're kind of insulting in a weird way. Yeah.

34:57 You know enough for them to take it. Yeah. Personally when you do it. Yeah, for them to for them to play. Yeah, why are you you could level up a little more for me, I think. So I was not not polite, but I was definitely not in The super polite zone. So I would say in the last decade My Japanese went up multiple, multiple levels thanks to again, you know, like we were talking about in in the previous episode, about having people near you that are better than you.

35:22 Just a couple levels better than you, and then you learn so much from that. So When I travel with John, like I don't say anything. I'm just listening, taking notes the whole time. You know, it's like, Oh yeah, wow, you can say that. Oh shit, you can say that. Cool. Okay, yeah, that's amazing. That's so cool. And just to underscore the

35:41 A lot of Younger. generation native Japanese speakers. Have trouble with a lot of this politeness. And they screw it up and they make mistakes.

35:53 And you could probably give a good example. But The more polite you get. And that can take a number of forms the longer everything gets. Right. So you would have like I'm trying to think of a good example. I I'm not gonna be great at this because it's been a hundred years, but

36:12 This also doesn't translate well to English. None of it translates well. But I remember my friend's father, who is from New Zealand, but worked in Japan for like fifteen years. He was somewhere, I want to say in the US. And these Japanessmen came in and they were speaking Japanese. And he very politely sort of edged into the conversation and was like, Thank you so much.

36:37 Four. Indulging me. With your beautiful Japanese. Effectively that's a bad translation, but it was like that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which yeah. Otherwise would be super, super, super short. I don't know if I fuck that up, but No, and for the listeners out there, like Tim's Japanese is very, very good. Like very, very good. Yeah. You're doing well. Thank you.

37:02 Yeah, thanks. It's been twenty five years. More twenty seven years. I gotta get back. You've inspired me. So Quick sidebar in Japan. You've like a lot of folks here like what do we all look the same? Like a an Asian person might say because white people have sometimes trouble or just non Asians have trouble telling some Asians apart. But when I was in Japan, they were like, You know who you look like? I had two people say this to me, but different celebrities. And I was like, No, who do I look like? And they're like Harrison Ford. I'm not sure about that. But John, when you say his Japanese is very good. That

37:36 makes me kind of take a step back because When we walked in Japan, I was taking notes. And you had adopted the John Playbook so well that Whether it was a farmer we bumped into Or in the case, and we'll get to this, I'm sure, of a small semi-ghost town that we would walk through and the mayor would chase us down in his little utility boat. That was insane, yeah.

38:06 And give us all little plush town mascots. That's another thing we could talk about. In any case, just incredibly impressed with your Japanese and Yes, you've been there a long time. But It seems to me like the vast majority of

38:22 Folks who live in Japan, even if they're there for a long time. as non natives really do not learn much Japanese. That's my impression. Maybe that's unfair, but at least The vast majority of people I know who have moved there Barely speak a lick. Yeah, you have to commit. I do think there's a new generation. I mean I think

38:40 Now we're seeing more and more people who Are really great. A Japanese who are coming in. And just sort of existing I mean, I think YouTube is just full of people that Yeah. Speak amazing Japanese now and stuff like that. So I think there's this new generation. And and actually I mean part of

38:56 What This book also kind of talks about is being I feel like I'm one of the first True. Immigrants to choose to not live in America, to choose to leave America. To like look out into the world and be like, where do I want to live and have America not be that place? And I think we're seeing more of that. And I just anecdotally from

39:13 My experience. I've been encountering More and more incredible. Super talented. Brilliant. Great Japanese speaking. Foreigners here.

39:22 In the last like five or six years than I have certainly fifteen or twenty years ago. And I think there was in the eighties and nineties, the expat. trope was you come here, you teach English, you make an insane amount of money doing that. And you don't really learn any Japanese besides Bar Japanese. And I think that was that was very, very common for many people. Yeah, my reference point might be outdated because I was there in ninety two, back in the Pliocene era, and that was that could peak David Specter. Days. Looked.

39:53 Exceptionally non Japanese and spoke Pretty good conversational Japanese. You ended up on television. As you know, Gaijin Tarento Like foreigner talent. Okay, let's get back to the walks. I took us on a huge side quest. When did after

40:10 Study at the knee of John and getting comfortable with doing these walks on your own. What form did that take? And what purpose did it serve for you? I was doing these and I was just having such an incredible time doing it. And I started kind of writing about it a little bit on my blog where I tweet about it or something.

40:30 And actually Kevin Kelly reached out. And he said, Hey, I'm gonna be giving a talk. In Tokyo. Now you knew who he was. Now I had walked in Pacifica a couple of times. He's like, Yeah, I'm giving a talk in Tokyo. I'd love to walk part of the Nakasendo, and I'd done Nakasendo with John a couple of times, like bits of it. I was like great like

40:47 Let's walk it together. So me and me and you. And so To prepare for that I went and walked a little chunk of it on my own. I was like, okay, this is good. I want to make sure I don't kill Kevin Kelly. And we set that up and we did that walk. And that was probably twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen. And It was so much fun that just the two of us and we were like, Oh my God, we need

41:05 to invite more people to do stuff like this. So we did. So in twenty sixteen. And then I was thinking about at this point, I was like These walks there's a richness here because like just the people you're meeting, the conversations that you're having. The photographs.

41:21 that I was taking, the stories I was hearing. I was like, I want to give shape to these things. They're so immaterial. Like you do the walk and it disappears. It kind of it just goes up in the air like smoke. And I was like, I wanna do a book. And so Dan Rubin is a photographer friend of mine. From ages ago. And I was like, Dan, let's walk the Kamano Koto. And we'll do like Eight days, nine days.

41:40 And we'll photograph it and then we'll hide in a farmhouse. And we'll be in the farmhouse for a week and we have to produce the entire photo book in that week. And it's like we just have to time box this, we're busy people, like we just gotta do this.'Cause I just wanted to These walks just really demanded like give them a shape. Give them a shape. This is twenty sixteen. What do you mean by give them a shape?

41:59 Give them a form, like make them immutable in some way, because they were just so Immaterial. And so Yeah, I was like, Okay, what's the like the minimum most minimum viable shape you can give it? It's like a photo book kind of felt like that. And so we did it. We did the walk, we hid in a farmhouse, we made the book. Kickstarted it, you know, sold it.

42:17 Did really well. And that activated something in me too. It reminded me of how much I love books,'cause it had been a while since I had Made a book book. And then Kevin brought over uh Hugh Howie.

42:28 Who's the author of The silo series and the silo Apple TV show. Wool, all that. So Kevin, Hugh and I then walked the Kamano Koto in the fall of twenty sixteen. And that was

42:41 So much fun. And we were like, Oh my God, we got to do this with like bigger groups. So it was this really organic kind of escalation of like, okay, you know, this is an interesting thing. But at the same time, like as much as I enjoyed being with these people, I was doing these exploratory walks on my own. And I realized that there was definitely a Register. Or a tenor of the walk that only existed when I was alone.

43:03 And I want to explore that more. And then that is what really Kicked off the big solo walks. Let's hear about it. And maybe you could include your

43:13 A discussion of your rules of walking. The first I would say Big. True walk I did.

43:20 Was twenty nineteen I had just launched my membership program. Basically in twenty eighteen I'd spent the year working on a bunch of magazine articles about walking in Japan. That got rejected from every magazine. And I got ghosted by editors and I was in this really depressed kind of

43:35 Space. And I had been doing the writing residencies and I've been working on a novel that I couldn't sell. Anyway, there there's a bunch of stuff going on. And I was like, daughter who leaves her father? No. Ha. That was after I had all the bottles of Dion shoes sitting around.

43:52 So it was the end of twenty eighteen. I was like, What should I do? And I did Zoom calls with Every journalist friend I had.

44:00 And they're like, Craig, like You have an audience. I had a newsletter that was like mildly popular. Like you have an audience, you know what you want to write about, like just launched a membership program. And at that time, like Substack was sort of nascent and like there was this

44:14 subscriptions were kind of becoming a thing and memberful had launched and Patreon had launched and like people were kind of okay with the idea. So I I launched a membership program in January twenty nineteen. And then I It took me a little while, but Within a few months I was deriving a certain permission from the fact that people were paying me.

44:33 To be A walker. Essentially that was the pitch. It was like you don't get anything by joining this membership program. Now you get a ton of stuff. Like if you join the membership program now, you get like 120 hours of video, like like what like there's so much stuff you get access to. I'm gonna I'm gonna walk and tell you. This is like NPR. I'm gonna walk and I'm gonna write about it and like you're Funding that.

44:54 And enough people joined where it was like, Okay, this is a thing. And so for my first big walk I did Nakasendo. So You know, I have a place. I was based in Kamak mainly in Kamakura then.

45:06 And so I walked Kamakuta up to Tokyo, Tokyo All the way. Uh. Through Saitama. Nogano.

45:13 Into Gifu. All the way to Kyoto. And then from Kyoto I ended up going down, I walked Some other bits in the Key Peninsula, but the main thing was the Nakasendo. What distance are we talking? What does that add up to?

45:25 It took thirty days and I wanna say it was about six hundred kilometers, something like that. It was a pretty s it was a serious walk. Which is roughly three hundred and seventy three miles. Just for people to put that in perspective. And up until then the longest

45:40 Solo thing I'd done was about seven or eight days. So this felt like a pretty big jump. And It was really hard. I was doing I miscalculated all the distances. My I like underestimated By day four, I was like, Oh my God, what am I gonna do? And I didn't really even know how to wear my backpack properly. It was like cutting into my shoulders. I wasn't doing the

46:02 Waist straps. Wildly under experienced. I should have known better. But the days, you know, I was doing like thirty, forty K days. I was in shock, my body was in shock. And every night I was publishing a little thing. I was publishing a photo and I ran this SMS experiment. I had this Thesis that

46:18 People were kinda tired of email. And People were tired of social media and like the most intimate space on the phone was kind of your SMS. Messaging app. So I built

46:26 A one to many SMS tool. that would allow me to publish every night to everyone could subscribe, put their numbers into this thing, and they would get an SMS from me. Every night at the end of the day. And it'd be a photo. It'd be like a little like three sentences about the day. And so I did that.

46:42 And You could respond to it, but I couldn't see the responses. So wait, what is that? You couldn't see the response of what happened to them. So so so hold on, so hold on. The sponsors were being collected in this database. Okay, there we go. And then I hired I hired I hired a designer

46:57 To lay it all out for me in a print on demand book. And all of the responses, my little photo of the day. My little like three sentences, and then all the responses for the day would be laid out in a book. And I had no idea how many there were. And then the idea was that at the end of the walk I would come home and the book would be waiting for me at home. So I'd have this

47:14 Analog experience of like I got home from the walk and the book was there and it was So incredible. It was Thousands and thousands of these messages from people. And

47:26 Then I spent months writing essays responding to all the questions and messages that people sent in there, like and and putting that up on my blog. So it was this beautiful kind of like Really long. The loops for social media are so tight.

47:39 Right. There's seconds. You post, you get responses and like there's something terrible about that. You don't have any time to reflect, you don't have any distance from the thing that you're doing and what the expectations are on the part of your your audience. And so to do this thing where There was basically a month built in where I wasn't gonna see these responses.

47:56 And then give me a sec. That's a new one for the podcast. No. I guess sorry.

48:07 Yeah, you're talking about the second just to get me a second to deal with this. Never had my dog vomit while I'm recording a podcast. Right next to me before. That's a new one. This is the glamorous life of a podcaster, folks. All right. Give me give me one segment. Don't please don't lose your your place. Sorry, bud. That was gross. All right. Um Ha ha

48:31 That could be worked into the the intro. That'll be like the cold open of the show. Okay. Where were we? So I got home and I got the responses and I got that book. Yeah, right. Then you spent months responding and then the loops. That's where it's because it was it ended up being this thing of like, Oh wow, actually these social media The tightness of the social media loops feels really detrimental and and there's something really negative and there's something being lost there.

48:57 And not having more time and space between very hurried fallen response. Exactly. Exactly. And and you you felt it in the responses too, that everyone knew I wasn't gonna see them in real time. So There were some really moving things. And people were very it was all anonymous and people were very

49:14 I mean it was almost like a confession booth. For some people. I mean, you know, it was it was shocking. You know, it was like you know, like my mother just died. yesterday and I'm thinking about this as you know, I'm reading, you know, I'm getting your message. I'm thinking about where you are on the walk and it thank you for doing this. And it's just like these with th how people want to, you know, weave what you're doing and you know, this kind of epic thing that you this journey that you're on and help them like put in perspective things that are happening though. Anyway it was Good to see that and good to experience that.

49:41 And that led me to think about my own rules for how I wanted to be when I walked. Let's do it. I'm just cognizant of the fact that like sometimes I I'm just in bloviation mode. But like the Basically, here are my rules. No news. Good good T shirt.

50:05 So By walk rules, you can't read the news, you're not allowed to read the news. There's no social media. And by you, that means Craig. That means yeah, if you're walking or if I'm walking, I've always talk about me in the third person. So you can't read the news, you can't do social media, you can't touch any of that stuff. Basically the idea is

50:25 to just be radically present, radically, radically pres and radically cultivate like a boredom, an incredible sense of boredom. And never teleport. I mean I think One of the weirdest things about being a contemporary human is like, first of all, we're never bored because we always have this stupid black mirror slap in our pocket, right? That's like always distracting us with some other dopamine hit. And We're constantly teleporting. If there's any

50:48 millimeter of friction. If there's one millisecond of friction in your life, you just pull that stupid thing out and start Sucking at the teeth of whatever. Information. You know cow is in there, right? So It's kind of profound to feel boredom, you know. And actually I do in twenty fifteen

51:07 twenty sixteen I did a ten day vipassana retreat. And that Foundational for me for thinking about this stuff. I don't know if have you ever done the ten day?

51:18 I have the seven day. Not a sender. So Maybe you experienced this on the seven day. When did you do the seven day? How old were you? I was uh wanna say maybe think about this, ten years ago.

51:29 Something like that? Okay. So maybe. Yeah, I guess Geez twenty fifteen. Would have been late thirties. Yeah. So for me

51:38 When I went did the Fascinating Kyoto, which was great, by the way, it was amazing. It was Really well run. Food is amazing. This is great. It took me like three days, four days to arrive at the retreat center, like

51:49 psychically. I just wasn't there. It took me about a day to realize I was I was experiencing information withdrawal. Or stimulation withdrawal too. Right. Yeah, stimulation, information, withdrawal. And I was getting angry and I was like, What is it? Where's this anger coming from? You're just sitting there for ten hours a day.

52:03 You know. observing your body, the physiological like phenomena that's happening in your body. And I was just observing this anger And going, wow, this is so bizarre because I don't know what's triggering this. And I realized, Oh my God. I'm so addicted to Information.

52:16 And just being stimulated by A phone or the internet or whatever. And so getting over that three, four days in and then having all the mystical, you know, breaking down into particulate matter which is something that I felt and could control by the end of my It was

52:31 Pretty bizarre. That Feeling. Of attention control. Which is, you know, basically what you're learning when you do that.

52:38 was foundational for I think a lot of you know, these rules that I ended up applying to my walks. And so the walks End up for me being It's weeks. It can be two, three, four, five, six weeks of walking.

52:51 And what's critical is the repetition, and what's critical is actually the length. Doing it every day, day after day after day. And being off Those tight loops of social media. And being radically present.

53:05 Not teleporting, saying hello to everybody. I force myself to say hello to every single person I see. And With photography too, I kinda have these rules where I'm like I have to take a portrait of someone before 10 a.m. I I set these really arbitrary rules. And I just find that By doing that, by setting a

53:21 Not an unreasonable number of them, but like a few arbitrary rules, it really opens up the day. It kind of like really sets the tone. And you know, it would be like nine fifty-five in the morning, I'd be like, Oh my God, I have to hit my ten a. No one's holding me to this, but like I, you know, I just feel this covenant I've made with myself. I can't break the covenant. And I would just run into a shop. Like there'd just be a shop next to me wherever I was on the road. It would be like a Tatami shop in the middle of nowhere in Saitama, and I'd just be like, Hey, hi, can I please take your portrait? You know? And You would end up having this Conversation, this incredible conversation. And it would fill you

53:51 What I found is it filled me with this Sense of possibility and joy. In fullness. And That just kept escalating. And I realized the Nakasenda walk was kind of the first big one, but

54:04 I wasn't operating at full walk mode yet. I was operating at about sixty-five percent, seventy percent walk mode for that first Nakasendo. And Full walk mode for me. Is

54:15 I get up at eight. I walk. Twenty, thirty, forty. Sometimes fifty K a day. Carry my pack. Sometimes I have two, three, four cameras on me.

54:25 Sometimes I'm shooting video, sometimes I'm doing binaural audio stuff. I'm talking to people all day. I am dictating notes. Constantly. I find that when I

54:36 Cultivate that radical bordom, that radical sort of like in the momentness. My mind immediately just wants to write. I just It can't Not right.

54:46 It's just writing about what I'm seeing and I so I just I set up like these series scripts. To be able to dictate And not really have to interact with my phone. What do you mean by series scripts? So you can kind of do shortcuts in iOS now where you can sort of tap a button on your home screen and it appends to a

55:03 Note in notes. It does like a a transcription. So you don't have to interact with your phone. You can just like tap a button. You can set up C it's a Siri call out you can do as well. And you just dictate and it transcribes it pretty well. I'm just walking and dictating and talking to myself like a crazy person. And I'll see someone. I'll interact with them. I'll photograph them. I'll have a

55:22 Fifteen minute, twenty minute conversation. What was it like around here? Like w you know, what's your background? What are your kids doing? Where do they live? What's going on? You know, and just Doing this all day long. I get to my inn. I get to my hotel at like five.

55:34 PM, four or five PM, that's the ideal. Start doing laundry. Oftentimes I'll just grab something from the Conveni because then I'm gonna write and edit photos. Convenient is a convenience store. Convenience store just grab a sandwich, grab an Udon. And then I'm writing every night. for four or five hours writing and editing photos every single night.

55:54 So I'm doing eight hours of walking and then I'm doing five hours of creative work every night. And I'm writing two, three, four thousand words a night. And then publishing it as well. And that For me.

56:05 That mode, that's the max of what I can do. Eight hours of walking, talking, photographing people, being radically Totally bored and present. And then at night. Just living in 'Cause you forget so quickly.

56:19 If you don't write immediately, you you really do things just like evaporate. Just everything you experienced and felt and saw that day, the highlights, a certain conversation. You know, I'll be walking and there'll be a conversation I have and I'll be like that. Is it. That's the hook of the essay for tonight. This one moment, this one person, this one way. And it just got me First of all, it was this

56:38 Epic. Sugio. Which is aesthetic training. So like The mountain asceticism here in Japan, Yamabuchi. is a certain kind of asceticism. And you train in the mountains and you do

56:48 smoke inhalation training and you don't sleep and you whatever, there's like all sleep deprivation and all sorts of stuff. And fasting and whatnot. And I had concocted essentially with these walks my own aesthetic training. And If you spend thirty days

57:03 Doing that physical activity every day to that degree. Your body changes You become what I call a bobbing consciousness. Like by day twenty, twenty five on the road where you're walking twenty, thirty, forty K. Your legs are just so powerful.

57:18 And because you're not teleporting, it feels like you are a in a VR helmet. That's just floating down the road. It's Totally surreal. It's totally bizarre. And then Cranking out every night an essay.

57:31 Two three thousand words, editing photos, so creating this visual Narrative. Mix. Doing that every night. thirty days and I've done now, you know

57:41 Many, many walks where I've done this for multiple weeks and months at a time. You just develop this confidence that You can do that. Which is Wow. I think this is how newspaper people feel, like in the olden days.

57:52 You're in there, you got your your pencil and your the thing comes in, you got twenty minutes to write the lead, you got to get this thing done. Like I feel like there was a version of journalism, newspaper writing. That trained you in like the sixties, seventies, eighties, fifties, whatever that Is maybe harder to access today because we don't kind of maybe The newspaper room doesn't work at such an insane kind of pace anymore. I don't know. I haven't worked in a newspaper, so I'm just talking on my butt. But Doing these kind of weird aesthetic walk training.

58:17 Exercises for me. It was like going to writing boot camp. It was going to life boot camp. And I would finish every day on these walks. Get in bed and just feel That was the fullest Possible way.

58:31 I could have experienced that day. Given the cards dealt to me. Of this day. There was no fuller version of this day. And feeling that over and over and over again and understanding what that fullness can be like.

58:45 When you come out of the walk, you bring that back to your everyday life, which you can't operate at that intensity all the time. But you can bring back that archetype of what a full day feels like and man That bleeds into your relationships with your friendships of fullness, you know, with my stepdaughter. You know, with my family, with people I love. It is totally pulled back.

59:04 Into that space of life. So It's a pretty powerful thing. Well a few things strike me. First is a

59:11 Recommendation for folks if you want to see some pretty interesting moun aesthetic practice, the marathon monks of Mount He, if people wanna see some Fantastic photographs and also descriptions of some of these practices and the tiny modicum of food these monks consume while they're running around in these woven sandals. It's wild. So people can check that out. Also, what I was gonna say is that What you just described strikes me as

59:41 Almost Vipassana retreat. In motion. Because part of what allows your mind To ultimately settle. Right, for the snow globe to settle and for you to experience the thing you experienced is this reliable daily schedule and scaffolding.

59:59 So that exactly. You are not distracted by trivial choice. And Shifting conditions.

1:00:09 So similarly, when you're going on these walks and you have this schedule and you have these rules by ten o'clock, I must do X, it's like Your A rock climber, let's just say on an indoor route, could be outdoor, where you have the same route every day. And on the first day you're figuring it out. Then on the second day you get a little more comfortable. By the tenth day. your mind starts to go interesting places while you're doing it with this automaticity. that you couldn't experience

1:00:38 If it were a different route every day. So to speak. It's not the perfect metaphor, but you get the idea. So I guess one of my other rules for these walks too is like everything has to be booked in advance. Whenever I leave on a walk, I have a giant spreadsheet. It has all of the distances, it has all of the bookings. For the inns.

1:00:55 I know what meals are included or not included. Because like I don't wanna think about logistics for one second when I'm out. in the field. Exactly what you're saying. Some people hear that and they go, Oh my God, but don't Aren't you missing out on like the romance of like you might meet like an interesting farmer and they want to take you to their house. It's like

1:01:12 Hey, if I meet an interesting farmer, I get his number. I live in Japan. I can just come back after the walk. We can have our event. It's like I don't I don't need to have that in the walk. This is a different thing. That's a different thing. And so for me, I absolutely thrive on that. pre scheduling of it all precisely f because it gives you the freedom. To be so radically present and so I think

1:01:34 observant and committed to the the craft of what you want to produce that day. Thinking about where you're gonna stay tomorrow night. Is a huge cognitive burden. It's huge. Making the reservations, calculating the it's like it sucks. It could take an hour, easily an hour. You think it's like, oh, it's a 10 minute thing. It can easily take an hour. So I spend probably if I'm gonna do a month of walking, I spend a week of making reservations.

1:01:59 To do a month of walking. And just for people who are like, Wait, what? A week? The way that I sometimes this may not be fair. Tell me if this is as outdated as my perception of foreigners speaking Japanese, although I still think there are a lot of lazy non Japanese who don't speak Japanese, but The description I give people when they're like I'm going to Japan and I'm gonna live there. If they're visiting and they're gonna stay at a nice hotel. It's a different experience. But if they're like, I'm gonna move there for two months, I'm like, Okay, let me just tell you.

1:02:27 That You think Japan is blade runner. And I'd say it's sixty percent. Blade Runner, depending on where you are.

1:02:37 And then it's f at least forty percent. DMV. Like the number of Triplicate copies that you're gonna have to sign. The amount of fucking paperwork.

1:02:48 The number of times you're gonna have to try to get a hold of someone is going to shock you. So Right, a week of of settling logistics, yeah. A week of settling and a lot of it is calling people because they don't have websites or they don't take online bookings, and like it's shocking how much trust There is. It's like You know, you call this in, you go they go, Hey, who hello, it's the inn. You know, that's kinda like what they sound like in Japanese basically.

1:03:12 And you go, Hey, I'd like to oh, honorable sir, I would love to book. Hey, you wanna okay, you wanna stay? When are you staying? Okay, me May twelfth? Okay, su okay, yeah, sure. How m wa what do you okay, what do you what oh, you want dinner? Okay, uh sure. Okay, guy we'll see ya May twelfth, bye. Like that's how reservations are sometimes done. And you're like and you arrive you arrive on May twelfth and you're like, Are they are they did that really a reservation? I had this experience firsthand with you, so You and Kevin and I and a small group.

1:03:45 Did a walk in Japan. You'd show up and you'd be like Are they here? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. We'll find out. We'll find out. Okay. And it's not like if they're not there, you just walk four doors down and you have no holiday. The experience of booking is probably what it was like booking in the nineteen fifties. Like honestly. There like it that hasn't changed much.

1:04:06 Japan is Blade Runner. Is is what we imagine the future would be in two thousand, and then it just never evolved beyond that, basically. It's been stuck. It's been stuck in two thousand for the last twenty five years. So question for you. Yep.

1:04:21 Twenty twenty one. Yeah, is is what I have written down here. You had an essay piece come out in Wired magazine walking across Japan. disconnected and bored. I remember reading this piece. And you did certain things You impose certain restrictions, say on digital distractions, to induce productive boredom. I'm wondering if you could

1:04:43 Maybe describe briefly what you did then. And what you do now. That wired essay kind of Is exactly what we've been talking about. Just the no social media, no distraction, no podcasts, no music even.

1:04:57 Basic flip phone, right? You downgraded to the basic flip phone and an offline Kindle. Am I getting those right? I didn't downgrade to a flip phone, but I I ran software on my iPhone that disabled everything. It disabled like'cause I needed GPS. I d I needed a map. I needed to have a map. So I needed G I I mean, I didn't need GPS, but I could have gone even more analog, but I had GPS. I r ran the software called Freedom. Which is actually pretty good. Freedom.to is the website. I've used that for a while to like basically break my devices to make them Yeah, my friend and also fellow writer Neil Strauss uses it all the time.

1:05:31 Yeah. I would say a lot of what I've accomplished As a writer is Thanks to freedom turning off. The internet at night and keeping it off until after lunch.

1:05:41 So yeah, that Wired article is a good if you're listening and you're like, Oh, I just kinda wanna re give me the Three thousand word. distillation of all this. Like that's a good place to go. And I remember when that came out and you mentioned it, I think, on your podcast. And you said you had printed it out and put it up on your like part of it on your wall. I think you've got a quote.

1:06:00 Yeah, I was like I was very moved to hear that. And also I got so many freaking emails from people who were like, Uh, Tim Ferris, print out your article, man. Cool. I was like that's good to know. Ha ha. I still print. Maybe I'm part Japanese. You fax I'm surprised. I'll fax you the next one.

1:06:22 Yeah, they do love st I mean, is faxing still a thing in Japan? It is. It's gotta be. Yeah. Must be. That wired article came out of that Nakasendo walk as well. There's just a few things that came out of that Nakasinda walk and then also So okay, let me explain what the Nakasendo is too. In the Edo period.

1:06:39 You had the show gonna take over. And to consolidate A certain amount of wealth and power. They enacted this thing. called Sankin Kotai.

1:06:47 Where the Daimyo, the rulers, the local rulers had to Basically keep residents in Edo, which is what Toky used to be called. And they Commuted to Edo. Every year they had to do like a a commutation. And so

1:07:01 They had to build roads, they had to build infrastructure for all these daimyo, which sometimes, you know, for the bigger Prefixtures, the band of people would be two thousand people long. That would be Traveling with the Daimyo. To go to Edo. Hell of a notrage. It's a big entourage. They had you know, it's like turtle, um just imagine turtle, like two thousand turtles, you know, and uh

1:07:20 That character from the show. No one remembers turtles. I have no idea what you're talking about. You got me thinking about two thousand turtles, though. We should never think about turtle. But so so they built infrastructure. Turtles from the show. I was thinking actual turtles with shells. I was like, I don't know where this is going, but I'm in I'm in for the road. Okay, got it, yes, turtles. And so they built infrastructure in Nakasendo and the Tokido were the two main arteries of essentially The commute. It was like the

1:07:47 one oh one of Edo period Japan. And so the Nakasendo Kinda goes north, it's more mountainous. It has fewer river crossings and so people liked it. Even though it was more arduous in the mountains, people don't like river crossings. And in the Edo period Essentially you weren't really allowed to build bridges in order to protect domains from Attacks. So all of the river crossings kind of had to be on people's shoulders or ferry to cross. So it was kind of a pain in the butt to cross rivers. And the Tokedo.

1:08:15 Which If you've come to Japan and you've ridden the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, you may have ridden the Tokido Shinkansen. The bullet train. The bullet train follows the old Tokido route. Roughly. Which was Kyoto to Tokyo, kind of along the coast.

1:08:29 And that has many river crossing and so people would Not Love that, for example. And even on the Tokido, there's like kind of detours. They're called the Hime Kaido, which was like a detour to avoid this one river crossing. It's called the princess route, because women didn't want to ride on the shoulders of strange porters or something. I don't there's All sorts of different things why people chose Nakasendo, or they'd go on Nakasendo and they come back on the Tokaido just to mix it up, just to have some fun in the sixteen hundreds. And so The Nakasendo is the northern mountainous route, and that's the one I walked in twenty nineteen.

1:09:01 I've since done the the tocaido twice. So I'm walking the Nakasendo, I'm going up into these mountain villages What I'm witnessing is depopulation firsthand. So there's two buzzwords you hear in Japanese.

1:09:13 Shoshka Monday, which is child Birth problem. There's just like no children being birthed. I think Japan's at one point two Now is the

1:09:23 Her woman sort of number of children being produced. Korea Gideon Lewis Kraust just wrote this amazing article about Korea situation, which I think is point seven or point six. Yeah. Not a great situation.

1:09:36 They just Hate kids there. Anyway, so Japan's not quite that bad. I could explain more. related to that. I don't know how much of a digression we want to take, but there are actually a bunch of structural problems that help to produce that in South Korea. But we'll come back to it. For instance, I'll give one example that doesn't get talked about very briefly, very briefly, is that Rent is very, very expensive. A lot of people move to say so. And in soul.

1:10:01 to upgrade to a larger apartment, you would often have to put down like a six to twelve month Security deposit. And people can't afford to do it. So a lot of the reasons for fewer kids relate to some of these. I don't want to say intractable, but systematized. Economic.

1:10:23 hurdles that people just can't clear. Anyway, please continue. Hey man, my home stay there was one kid living in a closet, the other kid slept between his parents. Like you could do it in a tiny zone. Just make the babies. So you have Shoshka Monday right, which you hear this a lot, but you don't experience it in Tokyo because Tokyo's growing and there's actually a lot of kids in Tokyo and it it feels very vibrant. Tokyo is growing Pretty steadily. society. So uh like basically aging aging population. And you know, you hear these words

1:10:53 bandied about all the time. But you don't Feel them until you really Walk the countryside. So the Naka side was the first time I felt that. Like Palpably.

1:11:03 viscerally every day. And I would walk through these villages that were essentially disappearing. And there were two things left in all these villages. And it would be a barber shop. That was like Very bizarre. And I actually I up until last year I had been shaving my head for five years. And so part of the reason why I was shaving my head was

1:11:20 'Cause you get your head shaved anywhere and it's like pretty easy and fast. And so I would start going to these barber shops in the middle of nowhere to get my head shaved because it was just like they were there. And then the other thing that's around is Kisaten. So these are the Old style, basically Shoah era. We were talking about Ozu, his films kind of embody the Shoah era and if you want to see what Shoa looks like.

1:11:43 Twenty six to eighty nine. And Shoa is the post war Japan. The mid century Japan, it's mid century modern architecture and like design. And Kisaten were one of the many

1:11:54 sort of local mom and pop things that kind of grew out of this post war economy. And people who didn't want to join the workforce, didn't want to be a salary man or salary woman, they opened Kisa ten, which are little cafes. And They became de facto community hub in a lot of these villages. And they're one of the few things that are left. So I hadn't planned to go to Kisa 10 every day, but it turned out Nothing was left for me to go have lunch at. So I'd be walking and like basically the one bit of logistics was I had to figure out where I was gonna have lunch.

1:12:23 And I realized by like Day ten. Every day I was going to a Kisa ten and every day I was eating pizza toast. Like I was just like, Oh wow, I've had a lot of pizza toast. on this walk. Like this walk is uh kind of fueled by pizza toast.

1:12:36 And that's toast with some tomato sauce and cheese on it? Basically yeah. So like The food that Kistan serve. Is again a post war construction. Like people didn't have money. Japan was extremely impoverished post war. Again, watch Ozu, you can kind of see some of that in action. And so

1:12:52 Kisa 10 would open and it'd be like, Well, what is the minimum viable food products that we can make? Essentially two things came out of it. One is Toast and pizza toast. If you have a toaster oven, you can make pizza toast with like craft cheese. She's singles. Spaghetti sauce out of a can. Maybe you get some peppers you cut up.

1:13:10 And some onions, and that's it. That's your pizza toast. Maybe like a salami, like a cheap salami from the shop. And then the other thing is Napolitan spaghetti. Which is just Basically spaghetti with ketchup.

1:13:24 Spaghetti with ketchup and pizza toast fed a big chunk of Japan in like the fifties, sixties, and seventies. So I was eating pizza toast all the time and I was like, this is really fascinating and kind of amazing. And it's interesting because like We might make pizza toast in America, but like A shop would never think of serving pizza toast, it's too weird. So I became obsessed with that. And then that grew uh into

1:13:46 An article which then grew into my book That I launched. During Covid in twenty twenty Called Kisa by Kisa. Yeah, that's right. Fifteen feet behind me.

1:13:56 Yeah. That title is a reference to Bird by Bird, which I think you've talked about before. As a book, Yeah, and Lamont, of course. Bird by Bird. Yeah. I love that. That's also actually now that I think about it, literally bird by bird is probably Two bookshelves above your book and I never put it together. Right back there. That is a hundred percent homage to to Ann.

1:14:18 And so yeah, Kisa by Kisa, which was Basically me riffing on pizza toast and these cafes. Along this walk. And producing a book, Covet had hit. Covet hit is it was April twenty twenty.

1:14:32 And I was like, Okay, well All this travel I planned on doing I'm not gonna do. And it was actually a big relief. I've been doing Too much travelling. internationally. I've been teaching at Yale every summer I'd been teaching at the Yale Publishing Course. I've been

1:14:45 So giving the keynote lecture about Books and Digital publishing, blah blah blah. Anyway, I'd I'd run out of stuff to say anyway. And so I was like okay, let's produce A really beautiful book based on this walk. Kind of again, like the Dan Rubin book that we made was like

1:15:02 One version of it, one degree of it, and then that One off. Print on demand SMS book. was another kind of like oh wow this is really cool. And then this was gonna be like, okay, what if we took all that and really did the apotheosis of like a beautiful walk?

1:15:14 book with photos and the narrative. And I made this book. And I priced uh a hundred dollars a copy. I launched it in August twenty twenty.

1:15:24 And I was like, okay, based on my publishing history, I know how these things sell. I'm gonna make a thousand copies. And I'll be lucky. If we sell

1:15:36 out of that print run in like A year or two. I was like, it's an expensive book. It's a weird subject. Like no one's gonna really be into this. I launch it. We sell a thousand copies in like

1:15:47 Thirty six hours. So what happened? Why did that happen? I had underestimated the audience I had built up, I guess. And People were just

1:15:56 excited about these walks and what I was doing and they wanted They were just psyched about it. It was like very weird. Maybe not weird if you think about the timing. Also. Right. I think the timing was really good.

1:16:07 And what I did that was really smart I'd been running the membership program by that point for eighteen months. And I was like okay, I want to Do this book and I wanna have it be expensive, but I wanna offer a big discount to members. So if you're a yearly member, you're pay a hundred dollars a year to be a member.

1:16:21 This was like the first real perk I'd ever offered members and it was like kind of like a thank you. And treating the membership payments almost as like a Investment to like allow me to do these things and then I want to give a little bit of that investment back to you. Pay a little dividend.

1:16:34 And so I set up a thing. I looked at Kickstarter and I was like, Kickstarter hadn't really changed in like ten years. And I was like, why am I gonna give these guys like such a high percentage? You couldn't do coupons. I wanted to offer coupons at Kickstarter didn't have like coupon functionality. And so I looked at Shopify.

1:16:50 And I have my engineering background, I know how to program and You know, enough to get me in trouble. And I was like, Well You know, Shopify is actually amazing and you can modify the templates. And so I cloned Kickstarter and I called it Craig Starter.

1:17:02 And I basically added. It's on GitHub. You can clone it if you want and like start your own Craigstar. But like I wanted to own the whole stack of software. And like it's weird with Kickstarter, like you get all these Purchases and then to get the addresses into the shipping software. It's like different software. It's kind of dumb. Everything's all over the place. So Shopify, everything is just right there. And I was like this makes sense. So I made Craig Starter.

1:17:27 And I made some promises. I was like, oh, if we you know if we sell if we do three hundred copies, I'll sign them all. If we do five hundred, I'll Include postcards. If we do eight hundred Then I will make a documentary about pizza toast. I was like, I'm never gonna have to make this documentary. And we sold a thousand immediately. And I was just like oh shit, all right, I gotta make this documentary but What the real I think

1:17:49 sort of piece de resistance that I I figured out. By accident. was by offering the discount. It was like a forty or fifty dollar discount off the hundred bucks if you were a yearly member. The conversion rate I got Of people buying the book.

1:18:03 So basically you'd land on the page, you'd be like, Oh yeah, I want this book, it's a hundred bucks, sure. Plus, by the way, like thirty dollars in shipping because we were doing DHL and yada yada yada. And it was expensive to ship. It's still expensive to ship. So it's a hundred and thirty bucks. So it's like you could do that or you could pay. Another hundred dollars to become my member. Join the membership program, get

1:18:21 a discount on the book, then buy the book. So basically it was like you could spend a hundred and thirty dollars or you could spend two hundred dollars and get the membership. And the conversion rate of people who did the membership was like Thirty percent of everyone who bought it. Wow. Which is insane. Insane. That's wild. And I was like, Okay, we just unlocked something special. That for me was this like light bulb moment of

1:18:43 Okay, this is what I'm doing for the next twenty years. Got it. I wanna make these books, I wanna do these walks. There's an audience here. There's like a Product market fit. Use that terrible expression.

1:18:55 But PMF. Somebody just texted me yesterday. I was like, what the fuck is PMF the product market fit? I was like, Oh yeah. I know the full word version. Yeah. Yeah. So that was this really like Whoa okay, this is

1:19:11 Interesting and special. And like look, I'm operating at my scale. My scale, you know, whatever. You have people on here selling four hundred trillion books and stuff like that. I love my scale because it's sustainable. It gives me total creative freedom. Because Noah Kagan is a friend of mine. Considers scale to be almost a four letter word. Because people become intoxicated and make Bad decisions chasing in some cases a false idol.

1:19:38 Or worshiping a false idol. So maybe you could speak to that. And I'm going to Offer and on ramp. In the form of something of yours that I printed. Yet again. Yes.

1:19:50 Yes. And what I printed People can find this at Craigmod.com. Slash essays slash membership underscore rules. So these are your membership community rules, which are of great interest to me.

1:20:05 Because I currently have Really for the first time. An active community Or certainly the first time in a decade, an active community of Test readers for the new book.

1:20:19 That I'm working on. And we have about a hundred, which is the right scale. Like eighty five to a hundred. I'd say. started off with super, super high engagement, like ninety percent posting. And then it became more manageable, at least for me, since I'm

1:20:35 Consuming and digesting and synthesizing the feedback. Probably at a nice kind of thirty five percent in terms of lurkers to active posters, but here I'm gonna Not touch. everything that I'm gonna run through real quickly here. So here are some of the rules. One. Have clear creative goals. Mine are make books.

1:20:55 And educate. Number two, staple those goals to your walls, your mirror, your forehead. If you ever have a decision to make, ask yourself, does it help me achieve these goals? Number three, all membership activities are in support of these goals. Four. The program exists for the goals, not the members. I'm gonna say that again. The program exists for the goals, not the members. Number five, equally important.

1:21:16 That's my wording. That may sound cold, but if you frame it properly, the members understand and enthusiastically support this. Six. Fundamentally you're building a community. Seven, but your goal is not to manage a community. And then there are a number of bullets under that. Hey.

1:21:32 By the way, deadlines are not only your friends, they are the only way Work gets done. So obsessive irrational adherence to deadlines and work is not negotiable. Number nine, and there are a number of bullets underneath this. I won't necessarily get into all of them, but you can certainly elaborate. Don't let the shape of membership software determine the shape of your activities slash work. Ten, make strict decisions, but be willing to change your mind. And then it's Parenthetical, I renamed my membership program eighteen months into it, and I'm glad I did.

1:22:00 As an example. Eleven and finally, know your scale. This is why I wanted to bring this in. So know your scale, then there's a link to that. Yeah. Or I should say a link under those three words. Know your scale. What scale do you want to work at? What scale makes you happy? Use that knowledge to drive membership decisions. All right.

1:22:19 Take it away, Craig. Scale. Yeah, I think a lot of people are, to use the word again, ensurcled by this like idea of mega scale. They're just like, you know, I remember in the in the late Two thousands.

1:22:35 I Did not have a great impression of Facebook. I was very early of not being like, Oh, I think this is a great thing. I did not love it. I was sad. Seeing so many talented designers go to Facebook in like two thousand eight, two thousand nine, two thousand ten, two thousand eleven. Who were previously up until that point doing incredible independent work and doing kind of like almost like what you could say art

1:22:55 projects and things like that. And they went to Facebook and a lot of them We're saying things like well How else can I affect a hundred million people? Or you know, same with people going to Google and saying that too. In tech This is a very common trope, you know, like I wanna have this impact on like hundreds of millions of people, this is the only way to do it. And I think, okay, yeah, sure. And then you kind of go to these places and you realize in the end that like

1:23:17 You're a very, very tiny cog. And the amount of change that you can affect on these things is quite small. It's like you're a worker on the Titanic in a certain degree. And you're you're gonna hit an iceberg whether you're causing genocide in Myanmar or something that like you just don't see coming. And so I think it's kinda like a false narrative to be like, Oh yeah, the only way to have a real effect in the world is to like be operating at this crazy mass scale. And I had a little bit of that working at Flipboard. I mean part of like going there And working with those guys was to both give myself confidence that I could

1:23:48 hang with top tier people and Be surrounded by great, incredible, loving Generous, talented folks, but also to touch that scale a little bit. Like that app had a huge scale, you know, and we launched I remember we launched the iPhone version of it and I just felt Nothing. I'd been very attuned to like does my heart move or not?

1:24:06 And I remember launching that and just being like, That was cool to work on, but like I felt absolutely nothing seeing like user feedback come in or whatever. Whereas at the same time, by that point, I had made many books that had sold thousands of copies as opposed to millions or hundreds of millions or whatever data points that we're hitting with flipboard. And those hundreds of readers, thousands of readers to me, felt so good. I just felt drawn in that direction. And I remember The first time I told someone at a party, I was like twenty three.

1:24:34 And I was at a party and they're like, What do you do? And I was like, I work On books, like I run a little publishing company, and I remember being so Happy I said I could say that. Something felt so right about that. Right from the very first I remember exactly where I was standing, I could picture it.

1:24:52 Apartment block, I was saying like anyway, it was this real Moment of like, okay, this is something to follow. This feeling is something special, and we need to protect this. So for me scale I had spent my twenties working on my art projects doing independent publishing and for me that was a scale that really resonated.

1:25:09 with my heart and made me feel good. And I knew there was a way to do it sustainably, in part because of the cost of living thing that we talked about. happening in Japan. And so When Kisa by Kisa hit like that. And

1:25:21 We're going back to print. next week and we're doing like the sixth edition. So we sold like six thousand copies of this thing. So it's like six hundred thousand dollars in book sales. Also non trivial number. Not to invoke the Kraken of Scale, which is not what I'm doing, but like that is not a trivial number of books.

1:25:39 Right, my initial Print run for my random house book, my very first book. Which was intended to have national distribution was ten thousand copies. Right. And

1:25:49 Did not sell all of those immediately. Six thousand copies is enough. In a soft week. To put you on a lot of national bestseller lists. Depending on the category you end up in. Like that's a real number of books. Also, this is an art book. It sells for a hundred bucks. That's like you don't sell this many books normally. You talk to publishers like Mac Press.

1:26:10 in the UK is doing some of the most beautiful photo books around and their print runs will max out at a thousand. You know, they'll do f runs of five hundred. So the fact that this book sold Six thousand is just Bananas.

1:26:21 And continues to sell. And you know, that's why we're kinda going to print again. It just moved me. And for me, that is like such a beautiful scale. It's totally uncompromising. I can do exactly the kind of book I want to do. I'm lucky enough to have Incredible editor friends.

1:26:36 I'm getting editorial feedback. At the highest level I would get. With anyone else. And I have enough design experience and I'm connected with incredible designers like Gray three eighteen, John Gray.

1:26:46 Who's Done all of Zadie Smith's covers. Like I can just call John and be like, Hey, can we go over like I'm working on this cover for my book and you give me some feedback and John hops on a Zoom call with me. So I'm very, very lucky. I'm able to be totally uncompromising about this stuff. Which is why the the random house relationship is really exciting for me too, because it's kind of stepping outside my comfort zone of scale.

1:27:06 And it's Moving up to this different Different level for the book that's coming out in May. Why did you decide to do that? And was there anything interesting or of note in terms of deal structure or how you thought about approaching it? There was.

1:27:22 Because you're sort of like the McGiver who's done every job, right? So you're coming into it with a much broader awareness of how all the different pieces move and how you can move them. It's a different situation. And I have a you know a relationship with a printer. I have a distribution network set up. I have my Shopify thing. Like so I'm I'm all set. So but This book, Things Become Other Things. The story of it. About Brian.

1:27:45 Essentially me doing this Three hundred mile walk around the peninsula during The peak of Covid. And walking through this depopulated peninsula, very spiritual, and kind of reflecting on my childhood and reflecting on this friendship.

1:27:59 There was a kind of Political element. Very subtle, it's a very sly political element. But commentary on the state of America again, like

1:28:09 Who's being supported? Why are people being supported? Why are some people Not being supported, why are certain towns supported more than other towns? And then reflecting that through the lens of my experience in Japan, which is like, The foundational societal baseline is so much higher. Like the the social safety net is so high here.

1:28:25 Relative to what I experienced. Growing up in America Those themes to me. feel like they warranted Potentially a larger scale than I could bring on my own. So let me reframe that for a second. Just for people who are like, Oh, the P word politics.

1:28:41 I'm out. Where's the parachute? Is it fair to say it's more of a societal commentary than a political diatribe, right? It's not a left versus right, right versus left. It's more of a societal commentary, right? Cultural commentary. It exists between the lines. There's nothing didactic about it at all. I'm telling a story of friendship with this Kid Brian.

1:29:04 Who I dearly loved. We were best friends all through elementary school. We graduate and he's murdered. It's reflecting on That

1:29:13 Basically the first eighteen years of our life And in reflecting on that It's invariable that Certain Commentary about society just comes is just embedded in that reflection, embedded in that story. And it's not didactic. There's absolutely nothing didactic about it.

1:29:29 And it's all the whole time I'm talking with all these you know, farmers and fishermen and port people and you know people working at the inns and you know there's this incredible colorful cast of characters of the peninsula of Japan that you will never Be able to meet. In any other context, unless you've lived here kind of as long as I have and you've started to do these walks and things like that. So it's both you get this adventure in Japan.

1:29:51 And then alongside that adventure is this Story of friendship. But I just thought that story of friendship because it was there was kind of a universality to it that was more than just like, hey man, pizza toasts and wacky mid-century cafes. I thought, let me try to pitch this to some publishers and some agents in New York and see if anyone's interested.

1:30:12 Everyone rejected me. I'm gonna push at that for a second. So Why see if people are interested? Is it to reach more people with a lower entry point.

1:30:22 Because it's a story that maybe has broader appeal than the Kisa by Kisa. Why explorer? The traditional Route, so to speak. First of all, it's meant to honor both

1:30:35 I think like the people of this peninsula and I think they are really amazing and they deserve Kind of a big platform. And then also to honor Brian and this friendship and his memory. And I almost felt like for Brian, this story should be

1:30:49 Given Every opportunity To hit the scale that it wants to hit. You finish a book and it's out of your hands. And I was kind of willing to say, like, well let's go explore where this book

1:31:00 Could possibly go. And I love talking about the themes of it. Just the reality of the world is that there's a status connected with Having a big publisher behind you. That publishing something independently you'll never accrue.

1:31:13 And it's not because like oh like that makes me feel good, but it's like oh to do like an NPR show. If you want to Ontario Gross. It's true. It's true. You know, if you want to do something like that, you need penguin, you need random house behind you, unfortunately. You know, and I just felt like This may be one of the only stories I ever tell.

1:31:29 You know, I have my next five books I'm in the middle of writing and they're like they're definitely weirder Five books. Yeah. Good Lord, Craig. All right. Well that's I guess that's what you can do if you can write four thousand words a day. For fuck's sake, Craig. I need to eat whatever you're having for breakfast. Oh my microbiome. Yeah. Oh my. Yes. I had a a MRSA infection last year and I was on a heavy antibiotics.

1:31:55 Nasty. Yeah, it was pretty nasty. And I blast myself with antibiotics and that got me on this mega Nato Kimichigo Han. And I've got to be a Freaking love it. My body just craves it now. No. So I just thought, look, I'm talking with Kevin Kelly and he's like, Craig Just try new things. Just Bitch it to these people, like give it a go. You know, he's like, Why not? Why not? Might be a fun adventure.

1:32:15 So I went out and I pitched to a bunch of agents,'cause you're supposed to have an agent before you go to the publishers and blah, blah, blah. And everyone rejected me. This is shocking to me, Craig, because you are a very good writer. You had a number of things Go viral, do very well. Online with reputable outlets.

1:32:34 You can point to your self publishing track record with these abs I don't want to say obscenely expensive, but by a traditional bookstore Let's just say trade paperback hardcover standards, very expensive books. Did anyone give you a Plausible reason for saying no. Most of it was like hey.

1:32:55 You're interesting, but I don't think we can sell this book. That's kind of How many followers do you have on TikTok, though? I know. So In the end it was this weird thing.

1:33:06 One of my members actually of the membership program Runs a podcast at Penguin Random House. And he was like hey Look. I love your work.

1:33:17 I think Andy Ward, who's the publisher of Random House He's the editor of George Saunders, who I if I'm listing my favorite author's George Saunders. George's top top five. human being and author just incredible, incredible. Person, just amazing. And

1:33:32 Andy Ward, my friend Matt goes, Hey, look You gotta meet Andy Ward. You just pitch this thing to Andy Ward, and I was like, Okay, and I was gonna be in New York for something. And Andy was like, Hey, I'd love to meet you. Let's meet up. I went to Andy Ward's office Penguin Random House.

1:33:46 It's me, Andy Ward, and the Vice President. Andy's like the president of Random House, right? And we have like the most high energy mind meld. I bring Kisa by Kisa. I'm like, look, I sold some thousands of copies of this thing. I got this next book and it's this walk and blah blah blah and Brian and yada yada and all this stuff. And he's like, This sounds amazing. Great. Send it over. Let's make this work. And

1:34:07 Four months go by crickets. And like This is just what happened with everyone else too. Like everyone just ghosted me and I was like I was in a really dark Please.

1:34:19 I was just like, what? Yeah. Like, how am I supposed to do? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm like coming at this. really vulnerably. And I you know, I've gotten thirty rejections or whatever for this thing. And so I go, okay, I'm gonna do it on my own. I'm gonna do it on my own like I've done everything else. Blah blah blah. I queue up printer time. I'm like buying paper and I get this email and it's from Andy and he goes hey, yeah, we want the book.

1:34:43 This is like, you know, four months later, like zero feedback or anything. So I hop on a call with Molly who ends up being the editor, my editor. And she's just like, I love the book. She's saying all the right things. She just totally gets it. And I go Look, I just booked printer time and I'm gonna be producing my fine art edition in of this in November.

1:35:03 This was July. I said I'm gonna go do this. I would love to produce it in addition with you guys, like Can you get me an offer in the next like two days?

1:35:12 And she's like okay. We'll get back to you in two days. So Two days later. A call with Molly and Andy and they're like

1:35:19 Can we pay you not to do your version of the book? I was like Look. I don't think these are gonna compete. The fine art editions could be a hundred dollars. Like it's just not gonna compete. We're gonna re-edit it for you and blah blah blah blah.

1:35:31 I felt so broken by the process and all of this rejection. I was just like, if I don't protect my fiercely independent Capabilities of doing the work I want to do. Then I don't want to be in this position where I'm that vulnerable. I'm that exposed. I was like, look, I'm just gonna do my addition, like, don't worry about it.

1:35:50 And I was able to stand my ground and We were able to come up with a contract. I think it's one of the first contracts in Random House history where It was written into the contract. Like I got fine art Rights to the book. And there's a price

1:36:04 minimum that I'm I'm not allowed to sell under. It's capped how many I can produce. But after we sell a certain number of the random house, I can produce more and yada yada yada, all this stuff. So that felt Really good to keep that.

1:36:16 Yeah, it must feel fantastic. It's like a psychoemotional insurance policy. Well, it it's funny listening to Brandon Sanderson talk about like getting the leather bound, you know, rights back for his books. It was sort of like oh that was interesting. But this was like from the get go, it's like okay, I'm gonna do this edition. And so I Published it. I kinda like talking about this makes it all really complicated.

1:36:37 But I published my edition sixteen, seventeen months ago. And what was great about that It was sort of like getting You're talking about your test readers. I basically

1:36:46 Produced two thousand copies. And we sold all of those and so In doing that I got amazing feedback. And amazing emotional

1:36:56 letters responses from people. But because I had done that. It freed me as a writer. It was a crazy thing psychologically. And when I went back to do my revisions for Random House, and Molly basically took my manuscript that I had published. And she Just peppered it with questions. She put like eight hundred questions in the manuscript.

1:37:14 And I loved them. They were amazing questions. And I was so hungry. Because I had done my addition uncompromisingly, it felt like The weight was off my shoulders, I could relax and like let's go for it. And the thing that came out, I doubled the length of the manuscript by simply responding to Molly's questions. Unlocked it. All of these layers of the story that I had wanted to get to, but

1:37:36 I didn't really know how to, and I was nervous and I was kind of like uptight about it. And so this random house addition to me. Like this relationship has been really, really good. It got me to a place I couldn't have got to on my own, which is always what I'm looking for. in working relationships and editorial relationships. It's like when I publish with the New York Times

1:37:54 Or published for The Atlantic or whatever. It's like it's always about that editorial back and forth. Here's an essay, how do we make it even better? And so this book, I can say This random house edition I am so proud of and it taps into this emotional vein I couldn't get to on my own. And I love the fact that it's gonna be like twenty two bucks or whatever. It's like you can pre-order it now.

1:38:14 on Amazon or or bookshop and it's like I think twenty eight dollars for the hardcover or whatever. Like That's also a price point I've never operated at before. So That's exciting. Super exciting. Super exciting. Super exciting.

1:38:26 Things become other things. Craig's writing is amazing. Everybody Go get the book. You'll be glad you did. And I want to hop to a few other things.

1:38:37 You're wild and strange celebrity. In Japan. Around promoting mid sized cities. How did this start? And what the hell is going on?

1:38:48 Because I remember reaching out to you not too long ago where like Yeah, I'm really busy'cause I'm doing like twelve T V shows and doing this and doing that. And then I'm like, What? What are you doing? Yeah. And this was the explanation. So what's the backstory? How did it start and what is it now? This is another reason why I love independent and I love operating at my scale and doing the weird things and following Basically funding quirks. You know, it's like the membership program funds my quirks. And so I was doing all these walks. I would take trains to kinda like go to the start of the walk or whatever and like

1:39:21 There's all these cities I pass through, the Shinkansen would stop at, no one would get off at. And I always thought like what is this city? And so in twenty twenty one, I decided to go on a ten city tour. Of mid-sized cities that no one ever goes to. Across Japan.

1:39:38 I went to Hakodate. I mean these are like people go to these cities a little bit. We call'em the B side of Japan. So I went to Hakodate, Morioca, Sakata. Macumoto Sudiga.

1:39:49 Ono Michi. Yamaguchi. Karatsu, Kagoshima and Matsuyama. That was the ten. That I went to.

1:39:56 And My Thesis was I would go to these cities, do three nights, four days in each city, and I would force myself to try to walk fifty kilometers inside of the city limits. My thesis was that if I tried to walk fifty kilometers.

1:40:10 I was not only gonna like touch Most of the city. And In just doing that, having that weird rule of walking fifty kilometers, I was gonna meet a bunch of people. It was gonna be an adventure. And so I did that. I had an amazing time. The tour was called

1:40:25 Tiny Barber Post Office. That's what we named it for some reason. That was like that was what it was called. And I name all my tours strange tour names. And it was incredible, incredible. That was in in November, December 2021. And then I was writing stuff for the New York Times. I do an article every now and then. And in the fall of twenty twenty two, my travel editors reached out to me, and as they reached out to hundreds of people a year, and they say, Hey, we're doing our fifty two Places to visit this year. And we want you to recommend somewhere.

1:40:53 And I Done that 10 city tour and one of the cities that really moved me because The people were incredible, the coffee was great, there was a sense of independence, there was a vibrancy, the the cityscape was beautiful, the history was interesting. It had it was an old castle town that had a beautiful park.

1:41:10 Two rivers connecting a beautiful mountain in the this I was like, this is just a great city. And I was like, and literally In twenty three years of living in Japan, not one person has ever told me to go to the city. So I'm gonna effusively go to bat for the city to the New York Times. So I wrote my little pitch to the Times people. And they're like, oh, that sounds great. And Timing wise, Japan had basically been under lockdown and

1:41:33 For Covid still, and it was just coming out at the end of twenty twenty two. And so this list comes out in January twenty twenty three. And so they don't tell you where they're gonna put these places. And I knew that it had gotten in.

1:41:46 Which city was it that you'd recommended? It was Mordioca. Which is up in up in Tohoku. It's up in the north. It's in Iwate Prefecture. If you go north on the Shinkansen, you go to Sendai, you go to like Fukushima, Sendai, and then everyone gets off. No one keeps going. Morioka is kind of like the next stop on the Shinkansen. So Moriooka I knew it was gonna be in there. I had revised my pitch. You read a little three hundred word article, and in January the list comes out.

1:42:11 Number one is London. And number two is Morioka. And Japan. went bananas.

1:42:22 They We're just like what is happening. Who Wait.

1:42:29 London and then Morioca? Like what? How I mean the equiv what would the equivalent be? It would be like I mean it would be like Paris and then uh I mean not Flint, Michigan necessarily. Not I'm not throwing shade on Flint, Michigan, but I'm just imagining the response. Two.

1:42:47 Like you know, a parallel universe. It would be shocking, right, for this place that Everyone skips in Japan to end up number two. It's a little bit like Asheville, North Carolina, to a certain degree, but the difference is that Asheville people like have pride in Asheville and they're like super psyched about Asheville and they'd be like, Yeah, yeah, number two after Paris, that makes sense. Japanese people, you know, aren't like, Oh, dude, our city's awesome. Like they actually that's one of the things that these mid sized cities kinda have to overcome. They can be great places, but they're really bad at self promoting. And they feel like, oh, you know, like maybe we aren't that great, or like, you know, yeah, we're a cool city, but like we shouldn't be number two, not after London. That doesn't make sense. So

1:43:24 It was this perfect storm of Of so many things happening and then Word got out to Japanese media that I spoke and then that was The end of things. Like The unlock this title wave.

1:43:39 Of Pandora's box stage left. Every single TV show, newspaper, magazine. radio show. I did forty or fifty TV shows and radio shows in like three months. And so it was weird because You might be like, Oh my God, this is my dream. Like I'm on media in Japan. Like, oh, I'm a famous like on the TV now. Like I had no desire to do this at all. And so the reason why I said yes to everything.

1:44:07 Was I felt so bad. For putting the spotlight on this place. And I felt like such a sense of duty. To help them get the most out of it. And for them to gain the most benefit from this spotlight, which I knew could be really annoying.

1:44:21 You know, they didn't come to me. They didn't they weren't saying, Hey, like, please send people to Morioka. But I also knew it was remote enough that you wouldn't get You it wouldn't suffer from over tourism. Like you weren't gonna suddenly have a trillion. The conversion wasn't gonna be off the charts. It wasn't gonna be off the charts. But I felt this real need. To help them believe in themselves. And so it ended up being A duty, an obligation.

1:44:43 For them to have pride. If I was speaking to anyone, I was speaking to like the kids in the town, the high school kids. I wanted to instill the sense of like, Hey, your town It's kind of amazing. There's amazing companies coming out of it. There's amazing cafes, there's amazing music spots. These places only can exist because of this mid sized city life

1:45:02 baseline that they give you. Like the cost of living is quite low, running a business is quite low, and yet you have universal healthcare and like all these other infrastructures there. You got the Shinkansen, blah, blah, blah. And so like If you do go to study in university in Tokyo, think about coming back because your city's kind of amazing. So that was kind of the my theory, and that's why I went on and did all these shows. That was really bizarre and really surreal. And I thought, Okay, great, six months of doing that. That's the end of that. Last year

1:45:29 The New York Times asked me again and I was like, Okay, yeah, I'll recommend another city, Yamaguchi, another one of the other places I went to. I was like, This is a really cool place. They put it at number three. On the list last year. Again.

1:45:40 Just this torrent. So and by then I was pretty good at it. Good at which aspect? I was good at Judoing the conversation. Into like

1:45:50 Weird places because they would be like all the typical questions are like Uh Modo san, like what's your favorite noodle in Morioca? And I'd be like My favorite noodle is universal healthcare. You know, it's like I because I was like the really interesting thing isn't the noodles. It's the fact that like these these places exist and they exist because we have a good healthcare system here. And everyone's like, Oh my God, yeah, we've never thought of that. So Those conversations were really fun to have. The peak of it was last year.

1:46:20 I've never owned a TV in Japan. I've never watched TV in Japan. I don't know anything about Japanese pop culture. I just don't have an interest in it. I have a vague sense of celebrities, but I really don't know who they are. I got this email. And I I get so many emails I had to hire an assistant just to deal with media arbitrage because it was there's just so much coming in. And I got this email and I ignored it.

1:46:41 And then The team reached out to the soba shop in Morioka that I'm like I'm friends with the owner now. And they were like, Hey, Moldosan won't respond to us. Can you poke him? And this Soba guy this this Soba guy reaches out to me and he's like

1:46:54 He's like Modelsan. You need to do this TV show. This is like the biggest TV celebrity in Japan, and he will only come to Morioka. If you agree to come And walk with him. And I was like, Who is this guy?

1:47:07 I was like, I don't really want to do this. And I was like, I'm gonna do this other walk and like the timing is really bad. I don't I really didn't want to do it. The team came out and met me, and they're like, please, Motosan, do this thing with this guy and like da-da-da. And I was like, Okay, this will be my final gift to the city. Because like clearly Everyone loves this guy and he's never been to the city.

1:47:27 And he wants to do a special about the city, and we're gonna walk together for two days or all around the city and just talk to people. And I was like, Okay, fine, let's do it. So we did this thing and it was The craziest Experience I've ever had in public in my life. So this guy's name is Tom Modi Sun. Tom Modi T A M O R I. He's 80 years old now. He's been on TV every day.

1:47:50 For like fifty five years. He literally every day. Like he hasn't been canceled. There's no Me Too stuff about him. He's like I think he's like genuinely like a pretty good guy. He is Smart. He loves history. He has a walking show called Buddha Tamodi that ran for like decades. You know, John watches it and like the theme music comes on, he starts crying. Like people like just love this guy, right? And

1:48:12 I didn't know anything about him. I literally knew nothing about this guy. And we meet up and he's got this team. It's like a thirty person True. of this TV shoot. There's like five cameras, like everyone's holding like mics and stuff. The first shoot was in front of the trade station and they're like, Okay, Modelsan, stand here. And then there was like another announcer with us, this like beautiful young woman who was like kind of like

1:48:33 Also Just in the mix, like Talking about history. And she was standing there. And then they're like, Okay, we're set. Call out Tamodi San, bring him out. And he comes out of like this like vault in a van, you know, he's like protect it. And We hadn't been introduced. And I'm just like, what is happening? And this like tiny little dude in a suit with sunglasses on, he lost his eye when he was a kid. So he his thing is he always wears these dark sunglasses. He comes out and he stands up next to me. And they're like, Okay.

1:48:58 All right. STATO. You know, like it was like totally this w lost in translation moment. And and Tomisan is like Yogoso is like Tamori Des and then the the woman's like Whatever name was Muritas. And then I just go, ah, I just scream. And I grab Tamori's son and I start shaking him. And I go. We have dog before this starts and the the crew I swear to God like six people almost committed ritual suicide in front of us. Like I I had never seen people so terrified that I like I don't think anyone had ever touched Tamodi Sun before. And like I'm like

1:49:35 He's this tiny little dude. I was just like, dude, we gotta say hello. We can't just I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done a TV show like this before. Well hold on. How did he respond to that? Did it just go into like a deathly silence? Did he was he like He kind of laughed. Taken aback and then thought it was awesome? He kinda laughed and he was just like, What? Who is this Joker? I thought we had a pro. Like, you know, it's like. I'm like sorry. Sorry, Taboni S. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I've just you know, I'm like a talking head on TV if I'm doing anything. I'm not like doing location stuff. So Anyway, that was trial by fire ice bath to start it.

1:50:10 And we're walking through town. And it is like walking with John Lennon. It is Insain people are Stopping their cars, buses are screeching, construction workers are screaming down, Tom Modisan, Ohio goes I bus. Like we went to the market.

1:50:28 And there were like hundreds of people in the in the morning market. And it was like Moses partying the Red Sea. Old ladies were jumping up and down crying. I was getting this contact high. I had never Like Ben in proximity with someone. For whom the beams of love were so intense, and it was just like What is going on? And everyone in town knew who I was too. I was like Modo san. And I so everyone was coming up to me and like hugging me and being like, Mono san, you brought Tamudi san to our town and like shaking my hand and like Mono San, thank you so much for bringing Tomorian. I was just like, what the fuck is going on? Because I had no cultural context. I was just like, all right, I'll do this thing with this guy. Everyone wants me to do it. Sure, let's do it. That was the peak of it.

1:51:11 Pretty insane. Pretty insane. Yeah. And just for those who might think you're exaggerating about His ubiquitous appearance on television. I just looked him up and I'm like, Oh yeah. I saw that guy. Every time the fucking television was on. Yeah. When I was fifteen, as an exchange student.

1:51:30 Literally fifty five years every day. T V. Consistently. Yeah. Just incredible. So have you retreated into the Cave of creativity, have you forsaken The glamorous television life? Or are you gonna put something at number three or four again and then you're gonna get thrown right back into the arena. Well this year I recommended Toyama City and that one was on the list. Not

1:51:55 three or four, if they learn their lesson. Like it's kind of a one trick. You can't do that every year. But it beat Osaka, because Osaka has the expo this year and it was ranked higher than O Osaka. But now what's happened, what's really interesting is that The fifty two places thing is now a brand, and it kinda doesn't matter where you are. And just to be on it is a big deal. And it's like and it's become Modelsun's pick of the year. And like everyone in January is waiting with bated breath to see what city

1:52:22 I'm gonna pick and I get emails constantly from like cities that are like, Please come walk in our city. Like we'd love to have you walk by the coast in this city, you know, in the middle of no you know, over here and whatnot. It's very sweet. But I now batch it all.

1:52:37 Soyama wan, you know. wanted me to come out and, you know, meet the mayor, meet the governor, and like kind of do some press stuff talking about why I picked the city. And I'm gonna do that all in the fall. I was just too busy. In the spring. I just got too much going on. With the random house stuff. What has been the

1:52:52 Economic impact, if you have any idea, what has been the economic impact of The spotlight that you've put on these Different cities. So Morioka has definitely been the biggest one and In part that was because Morioka had a couple key people in the city who were really good at promoting. So like they

1:53:10 When this happened, they were ready to run with it. They were like totally prepared. So they were able to I think catalyze more activity. More inbound. It's not just inbound from Abroad, it's a lot of like

1:53:21 Japanese people traveling. to these cities now too, because like just A buzz. picks up people moving to the cities. So one study was done and I think they estimated the impact in Morioka over like the first two years is something like close to a hundred million dollars.

1:53:37 Like a financial Yeah. Which like I wrote three hundred words, so whatever that is, that's like Hundreds of thousands of dollars of what's so cool. I'm never, ever, ever

1:53:50 gonna impact something like that. I mean, that's just insane. So we'll see. Yeah. We'll see Mold We'll see. But it's been two years in change in Morioka. I was just there, I just launched a book there. I ended up forming this relationship with a great indie publisher and we put out a Japanese edition of Kisa by Kisa. We launched it in Morioka. It was so wonderful to be able to

1:54:13 Do this event in the town. And have everyone come out. And see everyone and Honestly. I think it's been a little bit more than

1:54:20 Almost entirely positive and It has added this Like a bit of vigour to the town that w that maybe wasn't there before And it has not burdened them. And I think it's been really heartening to see. And it's kind of a relief for me as well.

1:54:34 Two years later. I didn't ruin this place. Yep. I'm just going to do it. It wasn't the hug of death. It wasn't the hug of death, thank God. If you're listening, you should totally go check out Morioka if you get a chance. It's a cool s it's a cool place. What is a place you have not written about in the New York Times or shared widely? That people should check out in Japan.

1:54:53 If they do not speak Japanese, I'll just make that a condition. Well, so when I recommended Yamaguchi City. Part of it was because there's a great walk there, and it's called the Hagi Olkan. And it connects Yamaguchi and Hagi City. And it's a two day walk. You can actually do it in one day. If you really power through, you can plow through in one day. There is an inn to stay at in the middle. It's above a tofu shop. Oh, that one.

1:55:17 What's it called? I just stayed there last week. Anyway, if you search for the inn on the Hagi Okan, it's the only one that pops up. How do you spell that? H A G I Haggy? And then or

1:55:29 O K A M Ocon. Anyway, it connects to Hagi City and Hagi City Is this really beautiful Kind of

1:55:38 Very undervisited, mainly because it's kind of a pain in the butt to get to. But A great combo would be to go to Yamaguchi. City. Which has Utah Onsen, which is a great little onsen town that's basically

1:55:52 connected with Yamaguchi. And there's an amazing inn called San Su En Which is a beautiful bunkazai cultural heritage. In From Taisho era, so it's about a hundred years old.

1:56:06 Amazing baths. Beautiful gardens. Wonderful owners. The original family still owns it. And you can walk from there over the Hagi Okan to Hagi, and I'd say spend a couple of days in Hagi. It's an incredible city.

1:56:19 This is good. We'll introduce a little friction. for people who want to hunt down This Easter egg of sorts meaning. The Yeah,

1:56:29 near or off of or in A Hag Yokang, you can send that to me afterwards and we'll put that in the show notes for people. So they can track that down if they're Sufficiently motivated. You can stay there if you don't speak Japanese, but the people who run it don't speak English.

1:56:46 But like you can figure it out. It's a little bit of work. Google Translate's become pretty good and other tools like that. The tofu's amazing. The dinner is amazing, truly. All right. We're gonna Keep this particular

1:56:59 Part short. But Lest people think you've only done big walks in Japan. Where are other places outside of Japan where you've done big walks? Well, I haven't done big solo walks elsewhere, but I've done the walk and talks. Walk and talks with Kevin Kelly.

1:57:16 You know, I did the Nacenda with Kevin, then Hugh Howie comes out. We did Commander Coldal. And then we were so excited by that we've done now I don't even know how many seven or eight or nine others around the world we've done Southern China, Thailand, we've walked across Bali.

1:57:30 We've done England twice. We've done Japan with bigger groups again. It's been Great. We've done Spain once and I'm actually doing Spain again with him.

1:57:41 A different uh part of the Santiago, community Santiago. Next week. Heading out next week. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah, I'm busy. It is a busy period. Kevin's an enthusiastic walker as well. And both England trips were

1:57:54 The Cotswold way. Cotswold, yeah. And I also did Independent of Kevin, I walked with uh another friend We did Wayne's right. Coast to coast, which is in northern England. And it starts in the lake district on the west, and you walk across the coast to coast across the country. And that is a

1:58:11 Pretty amazing. It's three hundred kilometers. It takes about Ten to twelve. And that is beautiful. If you Think of England and

1:58:21 As you should, you think of it as rolling hills. Lake District is like serious mountains. It's very cool. It's very beautiful. It's wonderful. Highly recommended. So what I also highly recommend

1:58:32 is that people go to The source of all good things. Craigmod.com. And if you go to Craigmott.com slash ridge line, one word slash one seven six, you could also just Google this. It'll be a lot easier. The walk and talk. Subtitle Everything We Know. This describes how you and Kevin architect these walk and talks. And I've had the good fortune to

1:58:57 Walk with you guys and the basic idea, there's a lot more to it, but the basic idea is You are walking extensively every day. And then you have a group meal at the end of the day, which is Jeffersonian style. Meaning there's only one conversation.

1:59:15 And the participants in the walk get to choose the topic or the question that they want people to explore. And it's wonderful. It is just such a lovely experience. And so counter to

1:59:28 So much of what we experience. As you described it earlier with the Increasingly contract. feedback loops of social media and so on, which

1:59:41 We're not evolved to metabolize very well. So I encourage people to check that out. We'll put the link in the show notes. Craig, I have a very important question. That I need to ask you. And that is Is Maud your birth name? Where does mod come into things? Mod.

1:59:57 It's not my birth name, but Because I'm adopted The parents who adopted me got divorced. When I was basically Eighteen months.

2:00:05 Two years old or whatever. And my father, whose name I ended up Didn't go back to her maiden name. There was a point in teenage years where it just seemed weird.

2:00:17 He wasn't raising me, he literally taught me Nothing. He was like an anti archetype. It was like okay, this is like what you shouldn't do. Amenkjosika. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

2:00:27 Yes, the opposite opposite teacher. Somebody who r who who role models The opposite of what you want to do. So Look, he had a really tough childhood and he came from a place bereft of archetypes as well. And so he didn't know how to be a dad. But anyway, it just seemed weird

2:00:42 Have this name and so yeah, no, I uh Just changed it. That is A little

2:00:50 E T. Reese's Peace's trail to lure you. into telling the fucking wild Story. Related to

2:01:00 The recent chapters in your Adoption. Journey. I will cue that up and you can tackle it. Any way you want.

2:01:11 I think adopted People in general. you can have very different experiences of being adopted, but I think a common one is like I explained in part one of what we were talking about in my my history. You know, you feel apart from things. You do not feel

2:01:26 Necessarily. Of a group. Of a family. The family who adopted you can Do all the right things and you can still not feel that way. You feel like there's kind of a a mythology out there elsewhere?

2:01:38 And It can kind of haunt you. You know? And I think different people can want different things from that mythology. And as twenty three and me and Ancestry.com and all these like DNA testing things have become more and more commonplace, I think it's become more and more easy for people to find out who their birth parents are. And so

2:01:54 All my life. You know, I had never really Been that curious. About Whom I birth. Parents were.

2:02:02 Part of it is I think you don't want to dishonor Your adoptive parents? By Sure. And I think I the w if I was going to give a piece of advice to adoptive parents, it would be You have to work so hard to remove the stigma of curiosity around

2:02:16 Where you come from as an for an adopted kid. And you actually have to have so many more conversations than you think you have to have. You have to really get the taboo out by Airing that conversation over and over and over again, beating it to death in a to a certain degree to say, Hey, you know, like do you want to look up your genetic background? If you ever want to connect with your birth mother, let me help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to give you support for that. My family didn't do any of that. So I think I kind of

2:02:39 Suppressed a lot of the Curiosity. But it's always there. And the one thing I did have, as I explained last time, was I had adoption paper notes and my birth mother was 13 when she got pregnant. And my birth father

2:02:51 According to the adoption notes, there's a Car accident and he was murdered at the site of the car accident, so he was dead. And that's all I knew. And I joined twenty three and me like twelve years ago and I got Yeah, whatever, fourth cousin hit. We're probably like third cousins or something. You know, it's like everyone's a fourth cousin, fifth cousin. It's sort of meaningless. And nothing really close.

2:03:10 And then I was on actually a walk in England two years ago, three years ago now. Three years ago with Kevin and everyone, I was like, Yeah, you know, I did twenty three and me. And they're like, Oh, dude, you gotta do Ancestry. That's where everyone is. And I was like, really? I was like, All right, I came back, did ancestry. And lo and behold, boom.

2:03:27 There's my mom. It was like oh Okay, I guess yeah, people are on Ancestry. So I get a name. I was mainly interested just in

2:03:36 genetic history and health history. You crest forty. And If you have things you want to live for, you start thinking about Health.

2:03:45 Stuff just starts popping up. And my relationship with my stepdaughter became so profound to me in the last five years and gave me such a strong sense of self worth. All of this other stuff was rationing up, like I talked about the sense of scarcity, this lack of myself having value. That I felt all through my twenties. And if there's one thing that supercharged all of it.

2:04:03 of abundance and value. Self value. It was the relationship with my stepdaughter and It's particularly the when she was eight, nine, ten, eleven years old. And working through conflicts with her, not big conflicts, just weird little things that We'd get in these little fights. She wouldn't get up to go to school. I'd like squirt her with a water bottle and then she wouldn't like talk to me for three weeks. That stuff.

2:04:25 You know, it's just like whatever, little little girls could be kind of insane sometimes. And like I Was driven So such places of sadness by that because I had never seen reconciliation.

2:04:37 I had never had that modeled for me. And I thought this little girl is gonna throw me away. Because that was my default for all of my relationships in my life. This person can throw me away. And what I realized was not only does she not want to throw me away. She really wants to reconcile.

2:04:52 She really wants to repair things and she Desperately, desperately wants even more of me in her life. And once we went through a few cycles of like She kind of got upset at me for something dumb or whatever, like, you know, she was acting up or whatever, and I was like, I took away her iPad or something. And Once we went through a few cycles of that.

2:05:09 I realised How Much of a great dad I could be. And that was something I never believed because I never had it modeled for me. And so This is an important thing to queue up.

2:05:19 you know, connecting with my birth mom because By the time We matched on ancestry. I had gone through so many I think iterations of self.

2:05:29 And the self I was when we we connected, when we we matched. I was really proud of And I felt really good about it and I believed in my value. I had like empirical evidence of it. And

2:05:40 I was anonymous on Ancestry because I'm protective of A lot of stuff even though I'm like Being quite open here, I'm also Quite protective. As you are.

2:05:48 To a certain degree, as we all are. And so she couldn't see my name. And we matched and then we didn't send each other a message for a year. And I was just like, Oh, okay, she doesn't want to match, maybe her family made her join. She you know, she has a traumatic experience. In my mind it was like Being pregnant with with me was tremendously traumatic.

2:06:06 And I was like, Okay, I don't want to rustle Uh Feathers, I don't want to disrupt your life. I had her name. I found out everything about her. I could just like Google, you know, you get all the records. I knew where she worked, I knew where she lived, I had her home address, I knew who she was married to, I knew she had been divorced, like that, all this stuff. I could see that. And I was like, Okay, cool. Like I Just kinda know who this person is. I don't feel the need

2:06:27 To meet her, I don't feel this need for like a mom. Like I have my mom, like I don't need another mom. I like there's none of that. And then a year later she sent me a little message that just said Hi. With like no punctuation. It was like Hi, I think we're related. Do you live in Japan? It was like the weirdest message.

2:06:44 And it was like you think we're related. We share fifty percent of DNA. Like we're definitely And it triggered this thing in me where I was like, I grew up with not having a lot of adults be adults around me. And she sent this message and it just made me feel like Okay, here's another adult.

2:07:02 Who doesn't want to do the hard emotional work. of being the adult, of being a parent in this situation and being like Hey. I'm your mom. This is great to match. I joined because of these reasons. Would you like to connect? Da da da. Instead it's this weird cryptic

2:07:17 Bizarro message. So I didn't respond For three months and then I finally like After stewing on it for a while, I was like, Okay, what would I want to get if I was her? Who I had this kid when I was you know, thirteen, fourteen.

2:07:30 And so I wrote her this message that I stayed anonymous in. I said, look, I just like kind of outline my life and I just I was like look Not everything has been easy, but I've gotten to this place and I've been really lucky and I've been really blessed in a lot of ways. And I have this amazing relationship with This young Daughter and I you know I've been

2:07:48 successful in many ways and like I'm so grateful. And I can only imagine how hard it was for you. To have done what you did. And thank you for having me and thank you for going through the the process of putting me up for adoption. To assuage any sense of worry about who I might be or what had happened to me.

2:08:04 To give her that gift. And so I sent her that. Message. And I'm still anonymous. And I get no response from her. And I'm like, oh my God, okay, this is like a lost cause. And then three months after that, I get

2:08:17 This message and it's like Oh my God, I don't have notifications turned on for Ancestry. I am so sorry. And it's A five thousand word Letter.

2:08:29 That is the most emotionally intelligent, beautiful Thoughtful thing. I had never gotten. And it was just like this person is so tuned in and I was like

2:08:42 Do I do with this? I was like so overwhelmed. I was launching my fine art edition of T-Bot and like things become other things, and doing all this. I was like, Oh my God, how do I process this? And then a week later she sends me another five thousand word. Let's go and she's like, I'm so crushed that I didn't respond to your other message. I just want to tell you about my childhood. I want to tell you about like where you came from. I want to tell you about like the family you come from and like. I'm the youngest of five siblings, and my father died when I was nine. And so like I had to work at a sandwich shop when I was thirteen, and I was super entrepreneurial. And like it was just like I we had pet turtles and I had three goldfish and six cats and this thing and that thing, and I was like

2:09:16 Oh my God. I couldn't Process it. I wasn't ready. For someone to be So hungry. And she was just like

2:09:25 I know you may not want to meet I am happy to talk on whatever terms you want to talk on. Here's my address, here's my phone number, here's my email. And I was just like I couldn't process it. I had so much going on in my life. And I Sent her a little email at the end of the year, a little message at the end of the year, still anonymous. I just said, Hey, look, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm gonna get back to you in the new year. And she's like, No worries, don't worry.

2:09:46 I didn't respond. Mother's Day comes. She sends me a letter. I'm thinking about you on Mother's Day. Like I hope you're with your adoptive mom and I hope you're she's giving you a big I'm just like oh my God Like now I'm a terrible son to like two moms and like I have you met this person And finally, I'm with Kevin. We're on a walk, we're in Bali. I'm talking about this and Kevin just goes. Craig, just go have lunch with her!

2:10:07 Yeah. You know what? Yeah. Screw it. All right. I messaged her still anonymous. I said, Hey How about we get lunch in August? I'll I'll be in Chicago. I'll meet you out there. She lives in Chicago. And she was like great.

2:10:18 Let's do it this day, this time, blah blah blah. We set it up. I'm still anonymous. I still haven't told her my name. I'm like I don't want her to Google, I don't want her to know anything. I fly out to Chicago Pretty nervous.

2:10:31 Don't know what to expect, but also. I'm not going into this needing Something. I'm not like, oh, I need her to be this. I need this relationship. I'm just like, this is kind of a fun adventure. Like, let's go meet this person. She's standing outside this like steakhouse that she booked for lunch. And I see her and I like, hi, you know, I'm I'm the anonymous weirdo that I'm like, I apologize for not like telling her my name before we met.

2:10:52 I give her a big hug and we go into the steakhouse. And sit down. And it takes us two hours before we order Drinks. Like it was just

2:11:03 We sat down in this booth, the waitress came over and was just like, Honey's you've got something going on. I'll come back when you're ready. And She goes. I've been thinking about you. Every day on your birthday.

2:11:17 And she pulls out of her wallet a baby photo of me that the adoption agency had given her. And she goes, I've been carrying around this my whole life. And She goes. I

2:11:29 I've thought about you every year. I've wondered who you've become. And I've never once Felt.

2:11:36 Bad I have no negative feelings. I have no negative Emotions around the experience. Actually getting pregnant with you, it was this accident, but it was totally

2:11:46 Copacetic, and by the way, your father's still alive. I lied, she was thirteen. She's like He was twenty two and that was gonna cause a bunch of problems. So I just picked a guy out of the newspaper who had been murdered and I said that was the father. I was like, Oh my God. Like super just like she was so Strong headed. She was just like I was just gonna

2:12:06 Handle this pregnancy on my own. But in the end, my sisters helped me out. And I I moved out with my aunts and uncle in Connecticut. That's how you ended up in Connecticut. And everyone was so supportive. And it was so beautiful. And it was such a great experience. And the school The high school supported me and they gave me like a mentor. And she's like, When I gave birth to you in the hospital, I held you I could only hold you for two days and I wrote you a letter. Did you get the letter I wrote? I was just like, Oh my God. It's just

2:12:31 She's telling me all this, and my Genesis story is just being completely reconfigured in real time, and I don't know what to do with it. And she tells me her story. And she's just like she's a computer programmer and she runs a consultancy and she's totally self-taught. She's like, I bought my first car at sixteen, my second at eighteen, my first house when I was twenty four. I was just like Who are you? And we're sitting there and I'm and I just go

2:12:53 This Is the first time ever in my life. That I understand Where my brain comes from. We have some features that it wasn't like looking into a mirror.

2:13:03 But it was like listening to Someone who had jacked into my brain talking about their life. Like they had used my I was like that's this is where my brain comes from. 'Cause no one in my family has any of the impulses I have. No one in no one I grew up with has any of these impulses. And it was just so Clear. Like how she handled everything in her life is exactly how I've handled everything in my life. And it was this

2:13:24 It was so surreal. And she goes, Do you have friends in Chicago? And I go, Yeah, I have friends. I'm gonna have dinner with one tonight. And she goes, You have dinner plans? And I was like, Yeah, I thought we were just getting lunch. She's like, I got us tickets to the symphony. I got us a riverboat ride. We have pizza dinner. I was just like, Oh my God. I'm like, obviously I'm gonna cancel my plans. You know, like of course. Let's go to the symphony. And we ended up, you know, spending the whole day talking, going to the symphony, going to get pizza. It was so surreal.

2:13:54 And at the end of it all, we're gonna do more. And I just said, look, I need to be alone now. And she's like, I totally get it. And she gave me this little gift basket. And the whole time we hadn't cried, we hadn't gotten emotional. At the end of brunch on Sunday, she goes I can't tell you how much this Meant to me.

2:14:11 Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for meeting up. This means so much, and I hope this isn't The end of this relationship. And Here's this gift basket. She's like, Don't look at it now, it's embarrassing.

2:14:22 And I opened it up later and it had like Chocolate bars and Twizzlers, and it had this like this print on demand book of like my entire family tree. And history and family photos, and like my grandparents and you know, all of her brothers and sisters and This is who you come from, and this is like when they came to America, and it was just like The whole thing was just so overwhelming and so moving.

2:14:45 And I feel like the timing of it was so perfect because I could go to that meeting with her. Not needing anything from it. To just be there in the moment to be totally radically present. Focused.

2:14:58 And also just so I know this sounds weird to say, but proud of who I was, who I had become. To say hello to her, to meet her. And you just saw it in her as well. Like I was I was like, Oh, I'm doing this thing and this she's like, I can't believe you're my son. She was just so proud. And it was obviously on Saturday night she went home. She went back to the hotel Saturday night and she called everybody. She called her aunt and uncle who she stayed with when she gave birth to me. I started getting all these emails from

2:15:22 Cousins. I you know, I get this email from someone in like Wyoming. They're like, Hey, I run a flower shop in Wyoming. I'm thirty-three. I'm your cousin. Like, let's do a zoom. I'm like What? I've suddenly got all these aunts and uncles, all these cousins, I've got this whole family. And she was like obviously so proud of like who I was and who I had become. And I don't know, the whole thing has just been really Really cool. And it turns out that I also have a half sister who's twenty eight.

2:15:44 She lives in Alaska. We did a Zoom call. Like a month ago, and she's awesome. She's so cool. She's married to this coast guard. They're gonna come out and do a walk in Japan. I'm gonna go to Alaska and go hunting.

2:15:56 And I'm doing a book tour in America in May and June. They're gonna fly out and join like one of the dates on the book tour. She's also an only child. I'm an only child, and we're both like. We love that we now have a sibling. We're like this is so cool. Texting every day, sending stupid photos. It's a very weird, unexpected chapter of life that Came out of nowhere and

2:16:17 I'm here for. I'm ready for it. I'm excited by it. So you went into it not needing anything. Initially you did not have the impulse to reconnect. What does it feel like now? Like what has it done to you?

2:16:30 You know, it's been eight months since we Mm. And the sister thing is just like a month ago. It takes a long time to unravel. The mythologies that you've set for yourself, your Genesis story.

2:16:41 And I feel it. It's almost like these Tightly wound springs of tension. are slowly unwinding like a spring and a watch or something like slowly on like loosening.

2:16:54 And I just feel like my heart is opening in a weird way. That It's never been open to before and Again, that sense of value. It's like I don't Come from this place of

2:17:04 I thought, you know, thirteen years old raped, the guy's murdered, he's like a gangster, it's like terrible, blah blah blah. It turns out it wasn't. She was just Kind of a sexy thirteen year old, I guess, and like looked older and was like older for her age or whatever, and I guess my biological father, whatever, like his dad owned the sandwich shop that she was working at. So like I guess he'd come to get sandwiches and they met. And whatever, they wanted to have sex, so they had sex and it happened.

2:17:29 So it wasn't like Yes. place of pain there and and the pregnancy wasn't painful, like It's just weird to think all these things. And so it just takes time. And it's just slow, but really, really

2:17:43 beautiful unraveling and opening of the heart and I don't know. I think it's gonna take even Even more time. And we're going slowly. We're just taking it very respectfully in b in both directions. And Not too much communication.

2:17:56 Not too much expectation. And just being like this is cool. Let's have fun with it and And just See where it goes. That's great.

2:18:04 It's really good. I'm so happy for you, man. So happy for you. I remember I guess it was over a dinner. When you first shared pieces of this And

2:18:15 There were a handful of folks there at everyone's Jaws dropped, mouths agape, like wait. What? Such a beautiful story. And it's still

2:18:28 Unfurling, right? This is the first steeping of the tea leaves. With many more steepings. left to go. And the flavors and the Aromas, the entire texture of that emotional experience I'm sure will continue to develop.

2:18:43 Not to mix too many metaphors. I was gonna say like photograph in a dark room, but it's true. Right. If it's like certain things you see, certain things you feel. I'm really excited for you, man. Super happy for you. I'm psyched to have a younger sister. I'm just like Cool. I won't you know, ask me questions. I know about stuff. Ask me questions. It's like I wanna help you, I wanna give you knowledge, I wanna like, you know I'm happy to mentor you about stuff. I don't know, like that impulse is just so intuitive.

2:19:07 I look forward to cultivating that relationship. It's just so weird to suddenly to go from like Being an only child. Who You know, th my adoptive family is very tiny. There's like

2:19:18 Three people left alive. It's a go to having this like there's an aunt in Switzerland who's like a yoga teacher and I've got like fourteen cousins now and you know, all this stuff. It's like it's pretty interesting, pretty exciting. Yes. Well,

2:19:33 Man. So you gonna connect your Stepdaughter with your family? I'd love to. Yeah, I'd love to do that. If the the timing works out, do like a little trip to the States with her and have her Ever meet everyone? That'd be fun. Well Craig

2:19:48 This is not something I often say on the podcast. But You have a beautiful soul. I love spending time with you.

2:19:56 You also write beautifully. And I really want to encourage people to check out things become other things. I mean, this is the tip of the iceberg and The way you weave prose. And

2:20:10 Sort of inject. nostalgia and liminality and Good word. Yes, it is. And The emotional experience.

2:20:22 Uh. Moving slowly. And then historically flashback moving quickly through the world, all these things that you put into a beautiful Tapestry. Uh.

2:20:35 A reading experience. I really encourage people So things become other things. People can find all things Craig Mod at Craigmod. Easy to remember. Is there anything else you'd uh like to say, Craig, before we Wine to a close?

2:20:51 Just to like extra plug the book because like Why not? Yeah. But you know. Yesterday, two days ago, I got a

2:21:00 Incredi from David Mitchell. Who'd read the book. Explain who that is. For people who may not recognize it. David Mitchell wrote. Cloud Atlas, that's probably his most famous book.

2:21:11 But he's done number nine dream, ghost written cloud atlas. There's one it's like green swan, black swan or something. It's uh that's actually one of my favorites of his. Black Swan Green, I think is what it's called. He's an incredible writer. He's someone that I've admired.

2:21:24 And have been reading his work. in Japan. He lived in Hiroshima, he taught English in Hiroshima. Some of his books take place in Japan. I've always admired this guy. And the felicity with which he writes and the these use of language, everything. He's he's a beautiful Oh, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoe, I think is

2:21:41 His book about Dejima. Over in Nagasaki. Historical fiction, beautiful book. Anyway. If I was gonna pick like three authors in the world that I'd be honored to have them read the book, he would be top three for sure.

2:21:54 And the fact that he read it. He sent over a two thousand word email. Just Saying how much he He loved it. And it was

2:22:04 Like honestly, it was just like one of the most shocking emails I've ever gotten. He blurbed it, he did a nice blurb. But like David Mitchell really, really, really, really liked this book and like He was Like quoting.

2:22:17 Extensively. I was just like I was embarrassed by the end of this email. So just putting that out there. It's like if you're a David Mitchell fan. If you're David Bishop, if you like Cloud Atlas. You'll like things become other things. Possibly.

2:22:30 Maybe. Anyway, I'm not of that. It made my week. Yeah. Oh, you should be. I mean, while we were texting as it happened. Yeah. I was like, oh my God, David Mitchell, this is insane. It was so wild. So wild. And just God, talk about in a full circle. In a way.

2:22:49 I'm excited for your next chapters, Van. There's a lot. Who knows what. I also Hope to do a walk with you again soon. So I'll have to figure out what that looks like. And

2:23:01 That's all I got for now, Craig. That's all I got to do. God knows what time. It's like one AM where you are. At two A. M and I need to get to the airport. So Everybody out there. Crazy.

2:23:16 And we will link to everything, including some Easter eggs. In the show notes. So that's Craig's Homework assignment is the end name. And you will be able to find that at Tim.blog slash podcast. As always, and until next time. Be just a bit kinder than necessary.

2:23:35 Two others. But also to yourself. That's an important piece of the puzzle is Check. Cornfield would say, if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. Yeah.

2:23:46 And thanks. For tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcasts.

2:24:32 guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out Just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser. Tim dot blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. About three weeks ago, I found myself between 10 and 12,000 feet going over the Continental Divide, carrying tons of weight.

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