The Perfect Words at The Perfect Time

Below is a transcription of a podcast I listened to recently.  Let me start by highly recommending listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast. Such riveting conversation on there.  The Transcription below is JRE #134 featuring Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith is a director/actor famous for such films as Clerks, Mallrats, and Dogma. 

So below is a small portion from the episode. The transcription below is not mine, and is not perfect, but you get the gist of the message.

These words hit me at the perfect time, and led me to making a very important decision, to take a job in Dubai or not. I definitely think these are words to live by, so wanted to share them with others. Enjoy!

You can listen to the podcast from the website, on ITunes, or watch it on Youtube as a webcast.

Kevin Smith:  Play it with passion. Do it. Here’s my philosophy.  It’s everybody’s philosophy. It’s not even an original one.  One life you fucking die.

Kevin Smith:  That’s it. You don’t know what’s on the other side.  We hope for this and that. We hope for candy land.

Kevin Smith:  But we don’t know.  It could be as simple as getting in a box.  Stay there for fucking eternity.  You had your shot.  You’re a computer, we shut you down and you’re finished.  So if that’s the case, it…it…behooves you to shoot for your dreams every time.  I know it sounds so dopy and Tony Robbins-ish

Joe Rogan: But it’s real

Kevin Smith:  It’s real.  In a world where you’re gonna fuckin die. Like this is what I think about it.  An example that’s real close to home. My old man was a good dude.  My father, good guy.  Not many good men in the world.  This was a good fucking guy.  Did work at a post office.  Ah cancelling your fuckin stamp.  What a soul killing horrible job that is.  For years just to pay for a fucking family.  Who knew if he had dreams?  Maybe his only dream was to like.  Oh get married and have kids. Work wasn’t maybe a big deal to him.  He did what he had to put food on the table.  And stuff like that.  Good dude, took me to the matinees.  Every Wednesday go see a movie.  Take us out of school a half day.  Go see flicks and what not.  Not a Parent who fucks around with a kid or anything like that, or Oh he’s all good except there is that. Good straight arrow fucking dude. Went to church cause his wife made him.  But wasn’t big into the church.  Fucking mowed his mother-in-law’s lawn all the time.  Good guy.  Raised pretty good kids.  Or at least 2 good kids and me.  And so, my father would go out to eat one night.  He’s about 68 years old.  We go out to eat at Morton’s in Philadelphia.  Ah.. and its one of those special nights where whole family winds up in the same place.  Hadn’t been that way in years.  My mom, my dad, me and my wife’s with me.  My sister and her husband.  And she lives out. At this point I think she was living In Kobe, Japan or something like that.  So she rarely back in the states.  And my brother, he’s married to a dude.  But his husband wasn’t with us.  He didn’t make the trip that time unfortunately.  Here we are at the back room at Morton’s.  You know, eating having a great time.  Chit-chatting. (coughs)  And the old man is putting away a steak.  Cheesecake.  A couple of manhattans.  That was his fucking poison.  And you could tell. And I don’t even like paint this in retrospect.  But it was clear on the night.  Parents love seeing their kids all in one place.  Happy, healthy, not fucked up in the heads or something like that.  And you can tell he’s enjoying it.  Their worst kids shooting the shit.  Everyone is making each other laugh and shit.  Trying to make him laugh.  He.. everyone sits.  Everyone’s paying attention to everyone else.  Maybe no one is paying attention to him.  Maybe too much cheesecake that night.  Fuck it we’re all having a good time.  Put him on a cab that night.  Hey now see you all in the morning.  He’d come out to Philadelphia to see me do a Q&A at the ah.. Wizard Comic-Con.  Off he goes in a cab.  Go home.. ah.. go to a hotel. Go to sleep.  Got a phone call 6 in the morning from my brother.  And my brother was like uhm..  You gotta get down to the hospital on Walnut.  And I say why?  Cause Dad..  And uhm my father was in and out of poor health.  He was diabetic and what not.  He had like ah.. strokes, heart attack and what not..

Yeah.. he was.. bad health dude.  But I’m.. but.. so when my brother is like..  Dad is in the hospital.. Okay like,  What now?  Fuckin throw a rock and dad’s got it.  My brother you could hear in his voice.. and he was just like.. you gotta get down here now.  And I was.. oh shit!  So I was like.. hang up, got dressed, went down.  I get to the emergency room.  Open the door first thing I see is.  My mother who looks more scared, than I have ever seen in a human being in my life. Fucking terror on her face.  Not.. I’ve seen my mother cry in my lifetime, you know.  I’ve made my mother cry in my lifetime.  I’ve watched her cry.  I watched her cry to fucking falcon crest when I was a kid.  This was different.  This was like terror.  Fear.  You know, almost like there was a fucking gun to her head.  And off of her face, I looked to my brother, and my brother just says this expression where it just kinda gives me a slow nod.  Which is he’s gone.  You know my father is dead. And I went and I saw him on a gurney and shit. And it was so strange.  I go outside.  I was a smoker like cigarette smoker in those days.  I was gonna have a cigarette.  And uh.. Donald comes out.  And I was like ah.. Oh this is a shock.  Oh whatever, you know.  Your upset and stuff.  And ah.. how was it?  Cause he was there.  So what happened?  Donald felt, his story was like.. Dad woke up and had this like big reaction. Where you just like.. I’m hot, I’m hot.. then thrown his sheets off.  And mom freaked out..  what’s the matter?  what’s the matter?  She told Bob call an ambulance, call the hospital.  And he was gone within seconds.  So.. that’s.. you know.. bad enough.  You know, he was hot and uncomfortable.  You don’t want to hear it like.. Oh he died in his sleep.  And we woke up and he just didn’t.  But then my brother says this thing,  probably defined my life.  My brother goes.. ah.. he died screaming.  And I go.. what?  And he goes.. he died screaming.  And I was like.. I mean is that a figure of speech?  He goes.. No he literally died screaming.  And you could see my brother was haunted by it.  And my father wasn’t like ah.  I wouldn’t say he was a butch man or strong man.  But he wasn’t a soft man by any stretch of the imagination.  And I never heard him get real loud or anything like that. Then the notion of my father dying screaming.  Changed my life, cause I was like.  Even a good man in this world.  He played the game.  He played it straight.  He played it by the rules.  You do everything you’re supposed to.  You’re gonna die screaming. 

At that point, there’s no point in not trying to accomplish every stupid fucking dream I got.  Even this dumb shit.  Like fuckin.. you know.  Oh my god, I always want to collect this many fucking Wayne Gretsky cards in one binder.  Or if its like, I wanna make a movie.  Or if its like, I wanna put on podcast.  I wanna do a TV show now.  I wanna write a book.  Chase it all down.  Chase some whimsies for what I have been doing for the last few years.  Smoking weed and chasing and went whimsies.  Anytime I’m like.  Back in the day, I had a good idea.  Something I really want to follow through on.  You know, suddenly you get scared.  You start thinking, what some motherfucker is gonna say.  It will be like, oh that’s stupid why would you fuckin do that.. fuckin why? why? why? 

A lot of why people in this world. I try to surround myself with the why not motherfuckers.  It would be like, I wanna try this.  Like.. why not?  Lets go, lets give it a shot.  You gotta be game, Man.  People help you achieve your dreams and shit.  So for me ah.. the last few years.  I’ve just been trying to accomplish every dopy dream.  Big shit, the little shit.  You gotta do them all.  You cant just do the.. climb every mountain shit.  You know, sometimes lay the bar down, step over it and be like Tadah!  So you feel accomplished.  But chase it all.  Do it all.  Cause we all gonna die screaming.  And you might as well enjoy it here.  And when I say chase it all.  Don’t fuckin do it at the expense of someone else obviously.  Don’t hurt somebody else.  But go after your dreams, man.  If you dream is like.. I wanna kill 12 children.  That’s.. I’m not saying.. I’m not talking to you.  But go after your dreams if that’s not gonna hurt anybody