Harry Weidner: 0:05

Alright. Welcome back to our tangled minds. Welcome to

Jack Weidner: 0:09

our tangled minds. I'm Harry Weidner, I'm Jack bagnatto,

Harry Weidner: 0:14

and we're back with another week of everyone's favorite podcast. Are tangled minds. What's going on with you? Jack,

Jack Weidner: 0:24

nothing. So there's a lot going on with me, but like, I mean, the problem is, I don't know the work. Okay, this is what I was like, The world is crazy and conventional institutions would like us to continue to speak about the world as if it is not insane. And if one person looks at me and says, the one certainty in life is change again, like they are, like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. I will do something that I shouldn't say on the podcast. Yeah, it's

Harry Weidner: 1:08

hard to feel right now, like this is normal.

Jack Weidner: 1:13

Everyone's just talking about how this is like, this is fun, where they're like, changing, like, their juice berry mix up, and they're like, I tried raspberries instead of strawberries, and it was just the right amount of zing. And you're like, shut up. Like, this is crazy. Like, people are putting cocaine in their smoothies. Like this, isn't you? Like, getting a more tart smoothie. This is cocaine in the smoothie

Harry Weidner: 1:35

in a way, in a way, like, you almost have to laugh. And I think we're in fortunate positions to laugh.

Jack Weidner: 1:43

You're incredibly privileged to be able to laugh about some of the things that are happening.

Harry Weidner: 1:48

So, you know, the other thing the other day, I was laughing. I was like, so we're gonna buy we're gonna buy Gaza.

Jack Weidner: 1:57

Some of it's funny, like, that is from who saying, Well, that and that you write, yeah, who you write the check to? You know, technically, it's under Israel,

Harry Weidner: 2:06

yeah? But, like, you know, buy it.

Jack Weidner: 2:10

What you think the people there would see any of the money? Anyways? No, no. It's so

Harry Weidner: 2:15

bizarre. It's so bizarre. And did you see it's a crazy maps, like on Google Maps, it's now officially the Gulf of America. Yeah, of course. Why? Like,

Jack Weidner: 2:25

that's been weird. They he, he banned an AP reporter from coming into the White House press room because they didn't legal. They didn't change the name. They didn't say according with their according with their standards. Crazy.

Harry Weidner: 2:43

Yeah, absolutely crazy. It's like I,

Jack Weidner: 2:48

because we have the smallest of public platforms, what keeps me up at night is like I feel not like I have to not not like I am worthy of saying something, but that it feels disingenuous to not address what is happening and that people's lives are being uprooted in unprecedented and terrifying ways. But also, I feel like we are the wrong people at this moment and point in time to like two white guys of the podcast, like, what the hell yeah, sure. Can we it's nothing. We shouldn't but it's just like the amount of ripple, the ripple effect of everything that's going on, and just like sitting with other people feels very important. So Harry and I won't say anything, but we will sit with you and listen and just be present with you through the insanity that is happening right now.

Harry Weidner: 3:57

And we'll try and still come out with regular podcast episodes.

Jack Weidner: 4:01

Yeah, sorry. So what's new with you?

Harry Weidner: 4:06

Dude? Nothing. Nothing. Past couple weeks have been stressful, but we've made it through. And I you know, we'll talk a little bit about it later. But yeah, it's hard. Things are things are hard. Things are hard. Hey, question outside of the world, but what's up?

Jack Weidner: 4:24

How is the funding freeze for, like, scientific research affecting you? Is it? Have you guys talked about this? Well, so

Harry Weidner: 4:33

it was going to, but then it was blocked. We have our dean is really great. Yeah, it was, it was blocked. And as of now, things are okay. Okay, that's good. So I know that the Dean of the School of Medicine was in DC, like communicating with lawmakers and, you know, leveraging his connections and talking about how it actually. Really impact the lives of millions of people. He's a great guy. No,

Jack Weidner: 5:06

I'm sure that that's wonderful. I think my problem with your statement is that that implies that Congress has a part in what's going on right now, and Congress hasn't done a thing like this is coming from a different branch of government. Like, I'm glad he's, like, rubbing elbows with congressmen, but like, congressmen have been a little quiet,

Harry Weidner: 5:26

I know, but what other what other avenues do we have? None.

Jack Weidner: 5:30

That's the problem. I think, I think that's the I think that's the issue. But we'd about to get into that. I just, yeah, well, I mean, I would like to say to video, good, oh go ahead. No, you go ahead. I was just gonna say I watched a YouTube video this morning about if you're listening to this podcast, I assume you relatively like to nerd out about specific things. And it was just about how this funding freeze for the sciences dramatically trickles down into YouTube, even like scientific YouTube channels and scientific education outreach. And there are YouTube channels that are going to that would be severely affected by this, like Crash Course and minute earth and all of their different channels and SciShow and things like that. So we'll link that in the description. And if you would like to start joining, if you are so capable of joining, like Patreon or things like that, to support the scientific community and support scientific outreach, I feel like this will be a really important you should be talking about the science. I shouldn't be, and I'm sorry that I'm doing this. I just I feel that it's an important message to especially like, with today's day and age, of like, how information is getting to the public, important things to support,

Harry Weidner: 6:48

yeah, my dude, I don't know, like, it's so challenging for me when things are you know, the world is changing so much. And my role right now as a medical student like that really is my, my primary role. And outside of that role, how much time exists to to do anything else? Yeah, that's that's hard. How do I stay updated? That's a challenge. How do I advocate that's a challenge. I'm really excited about this new thing that I'll be starting as a patient navigator that will be really great. I think it's in the free clinic here, so I will hopefully be able to help the people who get care at the free clinic navigate not only the complex healthcare system, but also the complex changes that are happening around them and in community, because there are a lot of undocumented folk in Denver. So I think I will learn a lot from the patients, and I'll learn a lot about the system and what people are going through. So I'm actually, like excited about that that's starting up here a couple weeks.

Jack Weidner: 8:02

That's awesome. I'm really proud of you. Do you want to tell people what exactly that role is and what your role is in the hospital?

Harry Weidner: 8:09

Yeah. So it's not in the hospital. We have a we have a free clinic called the dawn clinic, and a patient navigator there. Sort of it's, it's not a social worker role, but it's social worker adjacent, just being there for the patient, answering any questions they have about connections to care, maybe following through with primary care appointments or emailing different providers and saying like, Oh, this patient, and Being just being a patient advocate and helping them navigate how complex it can be to get from primary care or a free clinic to a specialist when you need or any of the resources that are available, like SNAP and Medicaid, And I'm not even sure what resources are available. So I'm on. I'm really excited to learn myself. I'm excited to learn what resources we have for patients. Generally, in the

Jack Weidner: 9:13

I was gonna say it sounds like the greater Denver, you'll get to learn a lot as well, which is not why we help people. We don't help people to help ourselves, but it is a result of,

Harry Weidner: 9:21

well, yeah, in me learning, then I can, you'll be able to help more people. Yeah, I can carry those things with me through the rest of my life, just to know what resources are available to people and if individuals might benefit from resources connecting with them efficiently and effectively. Yeah. So that that that is what I have done to hopefully make myself feel better about I mean, most of my day I just sit in a classroom and that doesn't feel good, especially now, when I just want to be doing things and I know like i. That's my job right now, and ultimately it will help people, but it feels really useless right now. Yeah. And how do you how do you grapple with that? I have no idea. I

Jack Weidner: 10:17

think what's interesting is, and this is not going to be backed up by science. It's a little bit backed up in philosophy. But like, what I have noticed is that America constantly puts a burden with whatever you know, abstract concept is, onto the individual. So it's like, you know, take environmentalism, for example, it's like, okay, what are you, you know, why are you having a plastic straw? Like, don't do that. Like, you need to not have plastic straws. You need to be better about your plastic bag use. You need to bring Canvas totes around. Or mindfulness. You need to start doing meditation. You need to, like, figure out how to cope with the culture you need to there's just such a heavy burden placed on like, it's just, you know, it's very nice, because it's like, almost this idea of, like, A Bug's Life, where it's like, united, we can, like, overcome all of this stuff. And what is not talked about is that systemically, they are not changing these institutions that have the greatest power to change things. So like, we, and I think we are ingrained in this idea that, like, I need to do my part. I need to do that. And I'm not saying that that's not important. But also, like, there is an incredible amount of stress on the individual, either they blame themselves, you know, for mindfulness, right? Like, why am I not happy in this world? Why? What am I doing wrong? Why am I not happy in my corporate job? Why can't I find time to meditate for 60,000 hours a day when I'm also working 20 hours overtime, instead of saying, like, Why does my company require me to be so stressed and work 20 hours of overtime? Like, that's not there. So there's a level of stress, and I feel like a level of blame that people put on themselves just being ingrained in that, like, you being like, you know, like, how you asking yourself as a medical student. Because I think the idea is that the sustaining democracy has now trickled out and been like, like, how, how are you sustaining democracy as an individual? And like, you know, like the freaking straw thing, like an executive order was just signed banning paper straws. And it's like the little individual things that we could do to help are just like being pulled out of our fingers. And it's like, how do I help democracy? What can I do? This like, incredibly abstract, impossible to define concept, like, what could we as individuals do to help democracy? And it's so it's disheartening. It is angering. It is annoying to me that we have taken that approach, this individualistic approach, like I don't even feel like it's like local communities anymore, like I really feel like it's just like you need to know what to do. And I'm not saying that individuals, like everyone, should do their part, and that's so important, and that's so amazing that people, and there are so many incredible people that are changing the world and doing it on an individual scale. But just the idea in this country that everything is on the individual and it's like we're not going to hold X, Y, Z accountable, is insane to me. Like you're a medical student, you shouldn't necessarily, like you should be engaged in the world, but maybe you shouldn't feel the guilt of the idea of democracy slipping through fingers in this country, like, like slipping through Uncle Sam's fingers like sand. That's insane. Ty, that was a long rant. I just, I, don't know what to do anymore.

Harry Weidner: 14:04

I don't think anyone knows what to do. I don't know if, yeah, I have this Masters in Public Health. But what can I do with that? When at the from the very top, from the structural level, everything is changing. I spent last Thursday so upset about USAID. It's like there are millions of people around the world that are gonna die because the world's richest man is taking away any access to secure food that they have that doesn't make any sense? No, no, so I don't know,

Jack Weidner: 14:51

and I think to tie in this individual aspect that I was talking about us. ID is something that, from the articles that I've read about it, you know, it's very easy for them to cut something like that, because we are so individualized in this country. And we see not with blinders. And obviously this is a generalization, so not everyone does that. I know I see with blinders, but like, I'm not gonna, you know, ascribe that to everyone, but we see with such blinders that something like global aid, you know, we see how much is spent on that, and it's so easy for people to be like, I don't see any benefits of that. Like, why are we wasting so much money on this? And it's hard to describe the public education about what this, what USA ID does, is so poor and really not like they've never had to really justify their existence, as they did in like, a week's time, you know, and by that point, it had misinformation, has already taken off,

Harry Weidner: 15:53

disbanded, yeah,

Jack Weidner: 15:54

yeah. So, like, it's just crazy, you know, like we are, on one hand, do not see ourselves. We see ourselves as the global force, and, on the other hand, don't understand the intricate web that we have built as the perpetuator and the kind of like World Maker, you know, as someone who takes care of that, we don't see how we play into that web and what institutions do that. Like, how many people knew about USA ID before? You know, two weeks

Harry Weidner: 16:28

ago? No, yeah, I guess not many

Jack Weidner: 16:30

I knew about it only from you we, yeah,

Harry Weidner: 16:33

we come from such a weird spot where, like, to me, These things seem so second nature and like they make sense, and I don't know how to change communications around the importance of USAID so that that is a concept that everyone assigns importance to. How do we do that?

Jack Weidner: 17:01

You're asking the question of, like, how do we change people's minds? And the pessimist in me is, like, it cannot be done, because as many books and I you and I have talked about this, as many books as I've read on it, it requires two parties going in with an open minded outlook. And how often do we engage with people with an open minded outlook in like, good faith?

Harry Weidner: 17:32

Less often than I'd like to think, I guess, yeah, I don't know. It's all very disheartening.

Jack Weidner: 17:41

So speaking of disheartening, watch this transition. Yeah, disheartening. Harry wants to talk about failure today.

Harry Weidner: 17:53

I would love to talk about failure today. And why would I why? Yeah, why do I want to talk about failure so we had really high stakes exams two weeks ago now, and so I'm a little removed from the issue, but we had high stakes exams two weeks ago. We had an exam Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or at least my schedule worked out that way. And and my exam on Friday went well. My exam on Monday went well. My exam on Tuesday went well. And my exam on Wednesday, which was my clinical skills assessment, did not go well. And I think it didn't go well for a multitude of reasons, but the we're supposed to get a history, do a physical exam, and then an aspect of this exam was like patient education. So teach, teach them something, and then develop an understanding of a plan moving forward. So it really was like the structure of most clinical encounter. And I spent a lot of time collecting the history. And then I was doing the physical exam, which was a cardiac exam, and I ran out of time. They said learners five minutes remaining. And I said, oh boy, we gotta hurry through this. So I just ran. I just ran out of time and and I left that feeling so horrible, and I don't know why, so I figured Jack and I could talk about failure, the feeling of failure, what it actually means there's there, you know, there are high stakes failures and low stakes failures. This was very low stakes. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, no one got hurt. I don't know that I actually failed this quite yet, but it feels bad still, so I figured Jack and I could just kind of unpack failure. My

Jack Weidner: 19:53

favorite thing that ever happened after this, I just want to say, you, you said, what? Like this? So Harry is fresh off of his exam, and he's like, What do you want to talk about in the podcast this week? I said, I don't know. I haven't really thought about anything. Like, it's been, you know, just kind of a crazy few weeks. And he said, Well, I kind of want to talk about failure because of this experience. And I thought how amazing that was, and how incredible, like, you know, like, that's so you all know Harry, or have known him from this podcast, like attacking something head on when he's feeling down, is such a Harry thing. And then he takes a second asks me, and he goes, have you ever experienced failure? Obviously, Harry, I experienced nothing but failure. I was like, What kind of question is that? He's like, Have you ever failed? I was like, yes, all the time, nothing. But I think I've never succeeded. Shut up. You've done very well. I just couldn't believe you asked me that. I was like, What a ridiculous thing to ask. I

Harry Weidner: 20:54

don't know. I spent a lot of time thinking about like, Why did I feel that way? And it's important to feel that way, so that I learn from it and don't make the same mistake again. But it also says something about how

Jack Weidner: 21:10

had you failed before?

Harry Weidner: 21:13

Like, had you actually, like, Have you experienced, like, gut wrenching failure? I experienced failure, like, every day, every day I don't know, of course, yeah, as every day I don't get as many things done as I'd like to get done. That's

Jack Weidner: 21:26

just every day I wake up, I don't make my bed, and that's a failure. You know what I mean? Like, I'm a failure. I'm a walking failure. But like, have you that was that, like, what you would describe as your first kind of catastrophic failure, experiment, like, experience?

Harry Weidner: 21:41

No, that's happened. I didn't do well on some, plenty of exams in undergrad, okay? And I think they're always learning experiences like, there's obviously a reason that I don't, that I didn't do well, or don't do well on things. And, you know, you kind of sit down with it, and you do a root cause analysis. How about that? Of

Jack Weidner: 22:05

this will be fun. You and I handle failure differently.

Harry Weidner: 22:10

You do? You figure out why and why did I fail this, or why did I maybe possibly fail this medical medical exam, because I spent too much time talking to the patient and not enough time doing the physical exam. I didn't get to three skills, which is fine, it's not the end of the world. But I think that brings up how, and this is just because what, it's what I think about all the time, how medical education is designed for failure. I think it is deliberately designed to have you fail in super low stakes environments where it doesn't matter. You know, we have these clinical skills assessments with actors that come in with a story that everyone has, and if you fail a communication skill, or you fail a physical exam skill, no one's hurt. You leave the room. They go back to their their normal life, which is hopefully very healthy, and you walk away and think about the encounter, what went well, what didn't go well, and you learn how to do the physical exams and catch abnormal findings. It's not like they throw you and tell you to put a central line in first day of medical school. I think I always say this, and I used to question why medical education was so long, and now I have an understanding of it's designed to let you succeed only when you're fully ready to and it lets you fail every step along the way. So, like I just was in the ICU Thursday night, and there was a student we had to do a thoracentesis. He was a first year resident, and it was his first thoracentesis. And I was like, so he went to four years of medical school and he hadn't done one. How does that happen? And no, it's like, it's super deliberate, like, I don't I think next year, during my clinical year, I'll probably get some hands on skills, but I think most of those skills are reserved for residents, because that's when they're truly ready to not fail. Huh?

Jack Weidner: 24:26

Okay, so you think that the medical system had prepared him at that moment, even though he had not done one before, but to succeed, yeah, in that moment, and

Harry Weidner: 24:37

it would happen if and Dr Hirschberg, okay, watched him and guided him the whole way through. And it ended up being, what is

Jack Weidner: 24:44

that? Is it gross? Do I want to ask what a thorough antisus is? A thoracentesis

Harry Weidner: 24:49

you source essentially remove, yeah, removing fluid from the pleural space between your lung and your thoracic cavity.

Jack Weidner: 24:59

I. Be okay, wall that makes sense.

Harry Weidner: 25:03

Between he had fluid between his lung and sure, his thoracic wall, not a little gross, but outside his lungs. So you kind of shove a needle through,

Jack Weidner: 25:14

but you don't want to puncture the lung, obviously, but

Harry Weidner: 25:16

you don't want to puncture the lung. So that's where it gets a little tricky. So you have to, like, to have your

Jack Weidner: 25:20

hands. That's where the skills involved, that's where the skills involved.

Harry Weidner: 25:24

Only when you're truly ready will you be allowed to do things like that.

Jack Weidner: 25:31

You sound that's kind of the I was gonna say. You sound like. You really admire that aspect of medical school. Well,

Harry Weidner: 25:38

I think it's important, right? Because you don't want people failing when lives are on the line. Absolutely. So I think it's very deliberately designed. I was

Jack Weidner: 25:51

gonna say from the outside, I think medical school, like they have, and everyone jokes about, like, a weaning out process, because, like, people will fail. I went to a small school. We had a large PA program. If people failed an exam, there was a stigma that, like there, I think when I was going through, people did not expect to fail. People, it was really like, kind of looked down on and some of my friends that I think were really going to be incredible. Pas or nurses, sometimes failed the most exams, but they really like dug in. There was a lot of grit, and they were so determined to learn these skills and really and then they blossomed in their clinical experiences. And they really attributed a lot of that to the failures this weaning out process, which I think, like, the outside world might say, Oh, I think it's like, oh, you're gonna get like, you know, this certain grade, right? Like, people are just gonna, like, the exams are so hard that people are gonna get back grades, and then they're gonna leave. Is, is it more of a mental weaning out that? Like, if you can't take that failure early, you'll leave. But like, if you have the grit and drive to stay, you will stay in. And that's part of the process.

Harry Weidner: 27:14

You know? I think that's a good question. It's, this is not like undergraduate organic chemistry. Yeah, this isn't, this isn't like the the process to get into medical school is so strict that once the time you step through those doors and they they hand you your white coat, and you go through your white coat ceremony, they're so invested in your success that they will help you through along the way. Wow. It's not one of those things where, like, if I fail, they're looking to kick me out or get me out of here. It's like, if I fail, let's find the reason for it, let's grow and let's move past it so that you can be a great doctor one day. And I think that's different from even medicine from other like medical fields. So then the nursing program here, I know a lot of students don't get through that the Yeah, the dental program, I mean, I think plenty of students get through, but our first year is pass, fail, like you either pass or you don't, and if you don't pass, then you remediate, and it's they're not gonna throw you out. And I don't know, I mean, we've talked ad nauseum about how impossible medical admission is and how much the whole process sucks, but I think it's really, it's almost deliberate, because once you're saying you're really there for the long run, the med school admission process, I think there is some element of randomness, and it's a little stochastic, but I think Once you get through and once you're in, they're invested in you, and they're invested in your success. So they let you fail when you're there,

Jack Weidner: 29:09

because it is part of a learning process. I mean to you have to fail to sometimes, like, break your ground and approach something from a different way, or, like, learn that you need to or just kind of build yourself back up. I feel like failure is so important to the learning process in every field. I was going to ask, if you feel that Denver is a specific has a really, you know, specific and good approach to that. If that's if they are unique in their approach to failure, or if you think that is across the board with medical schools, obviously you cannot speak to the specifics of that. But like, from what you know, like is Harvard that open to failure in their medical school. Do you do? You know? I don't

Harry Weidner: 29:58

know. I have no idea. Um. Um, and I don't want to pretend to know sure, but I think, I think as a medical education, I think as medical education evolves into this next generation, I think they're encouraging failure more and more. So then you're you're willing to try more and more things. An example of that is with our exams being pass fail, they encourage you to try different study techniques to see what works best for you. And it like, say, you fail one of our quizzes at the end of the week. Okay, so that study method that you used for that week didn't work. Try something new. So it's not the end of the world. And I think that most schools who have reformed their curriculum from like traditional curriculum that is, that is a really key component of new medical education.

Jack Weidner: 31:01

It's funny that you, you mentioned how that's kind of changed, and it I don't know why this popped into my mind, but you and I both grew up watching mash because of our grandfather, and it was interesting that Hawkeye, this show was made in the 70s. Hawkeye Pierce was always he. There would be episodes where he would try something and he would try something new, a new technique, and often it would be amazing and he would succeed. But there were times in that show where he would fail, trying the new thing and and the he would lose the patient, or it wouldn't work the way that it was supposed to and I don't know if you remember those episodes, but that was always shocking to me, because I was so used to thinking that, you know, if you're trying something new, or you're regardless of if you're in a war zone in Korea, you know, it should work, right? Because you're trying the new thing. And I was used to like neat and tidy stories, and I think mash was one of the first few times where I was I watched someone do something incredible, and it failed. And that seems so important to to medicine, and I think that that was really important and to my understanding of medicine that you had mentioned that you obviously don't want someone to fail when they are, you know, when lives are on the line. But I, and I wouldn't say it is a failure of doctors, but sometimes patients don't make it for whatever reason, that is regardless of what you do. And I feel like starting that, not that you're getting used to, you know, them used to losing patients, but the idea that regardless of what you do, sometimes things result in a negative, in a net negative outcome, and, you know, bouncing back from that. And would you say that that's also part of it, that, like there is a degree of failure within medicine, that it will just never go away, because you are in a very precarious profession you are in that you occupy liminal space.

Harry Weidner: 33:06

Do I think that?

Jack Weidner: 33:10

I guess I'm asking, Do you think that introducing failure and the processing of that, regrouping from that and bouncing back from that also prepares you for the very harsh reality that is being a full medical doctor. Like, obviously, you don't want someone to fail during your procedure, but sometimes you will lose, like surgeons will might lose a patient on the table. Doctors might someone might code. You know what I mean, like those things just happen. Do you think that that is them starting to prepare you for that early?

Harry Weidner: 33:47

I don't know. That's a really, really, really insightful question. I and that's one that I don't have the answer to. I think it definitely doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt the reality of practicing medicine. I don't know. I don't know. And it would be interesting to get the perspective on from someone who has gone through a sort of traditional medical school curriculum and grew up in medicine in a different way than I'm growing up with it, because it's changed. I don't know. I'm still really early in my training to talk on, on, like, real high stakes failure.

Jack Weidner: 34:32

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Sorry, that was probably an unfair question. I was just thinking about that and how. I don't know, like, there's like, I think in the humanities, like that article that I sent you about how writers fail all the time, like, it's just like a part of it, you know what I mean? Like, you fail a draft, you fail submissions. There's so much failure. And in the humanities, I think you know, because our state. Peaks are so much lower, you know that starting there, but also our ideas are more abstract. There's less black and white. Failure becomes less, sometimes even less recognizable, that it's just more expected this idea of failure, and you know, you kind of have to, like, brush off, like, and again, like, like, I'm adjusting, or, you know, you scat, you know, like a note failure is, you know, is it a failure? No, that's like, a different question. Was there a better note? Probably, like, when you're improvising and things like that. So, like, you know, that kind of me growing up in that world, failure, I think was a little bit more talked about. But in the sciences, where you have black and white, yes, no, there seemed to be a very clear distinction between failure and success. And to be a good scientist, you needed to be on that success like you needed to have the right answers all the time. To be a good doctor. You needed to you needed that success.

Harry Weidner: 36:03

Yeah, I but I think it's, I think it's really powerful in admitting that you don't know something, yeah, to a page to a patient, especially like if they have a question, and you say, I don't know the answer to that, but let's, let's explore it together, and let's look into it together, and you do the research with the patient. I think that's communicating a lot of things. One that you're human, and you you can not know everything that's possible. And I think that does another thing, where you're teaching a patient that education is constant, and you can teach a patient how to do some of the education bits themselves, and read literature and understand good publications from bad publications and good information from bad information. So that does a lot of things to say. I don't know. Let's look into that together, but I do think that there is this illusion in medicine, and more broadly, that people don't fail like, have we stigmatized failure to such a degree where we have, we've removed the normalcy of it? Like, I think people fail super regularly. And I'm interested to hear your perspective from the arts on failure in the arts, because those are things that I have no idea about. You know, you only see great publications.

Jack Weidner: 37:34

This is interesting. I think Hank Green was talking about this in the sciences, where there is such a stigma in the public right now, because we want, we seek, we look to scientists for these answers and them to be right all the time, where we have negated the process. And he was talking about Anthony Fauci, and he said a big problem with COVID is what Dr Fauci did, was what a scientist does, where he says, the best scientists, the best science right now, tells us X. And everyone thought, okay, x is the only possibility. That is the only answer, and that better be correct, and it better be 100% unchanging. And when Hank Green said, is like when you get more into the sciences, what you understand is it's more of like a football game. Okay? You're the quarterback. You line up at the line of scrimmage, you you think you have a great play call, and then the defense lines up, you know you're seeing zone. So you make the call an audible, because the information and you're readily changing different things. And that really helped me understand that, that I think that conversation really started to like change my entire stance on the idea that like someone, like a not changing value consistency is not is an overvalued trait in my mind. Nowadays, after hearing that conversation and the idea of failure, you know, like, information changing and this kind of give and take with like, what are we doing right now? How can that change? Okay, this was wrong, but like, let's pivot being so important, but not really being a well appreciated idea and culture today.

Harry Weidner: 39:21

Well, tell me more about failure in the arts.

Jack Weidner: 39:25

Oh, I mean, there's like, I feel like there's different levels of failure. You know, like failure in the arts. There's black and white failure. There's a call for submission, for poems or art or whatever, right? You submit and they spit on you, and they say, this is terrible. And you're like, Okay, well, that was a failure, and that will happen all the time that I don't want to I don't know the percentages, but like, nine out of 10 times, right? You're getting rejected because your work is subjective. Objective, reviewing, it is subjective. So that is failure. Also, there's like little failures to, I think, you know, I had a an art teacher. I'm not a visual artist, but I took a modern art class that just spiraled into me loving visual art. And he's, he's, he was a painter, and he, he is a painter. And he said, when he goes to paint, he's having a dialog with the page, and it's a blank canvas, and you put a stroke, and then you say, Whoa, that was not there before. Okay, how does, how did that change the whole room, make another stroke. How did that change everything? And when you were having a conversation, sometimes you, you know, you misspeak, you you put a stroke there. That wasn't right, you know. And I think that that's like a little failure, but it changes, you know, like, when I'm writing and I hit a word, like, even if I'm in uninterrupted flow, and I hit a word that, like, is a failure, that's a failure. But I think the more you do that, you have to not think about it, and you learn to continue your flow past that. So like, the little failures within art, you know, I'm like, a word doesn't work, or a plot point doesn't work. It's like, how do I pivot? Or how do I use that failure to create something? Or, like, when I said that, I was scatting, you know, you're going up and down, chromatically aligned. Oh, that was the wrong note. But like, how do I make that interesting? I'd say, like, conventionally, those were failures, because they were wrong. But in the arts, I'd say, like, as you kind of grow as an artist, you learn how to make those What does Bob Ross call them happy accidents? Like actually meaning that, because they are happy, because, oh, they changed everything that changed the way I looked at this piece, the way I was understanding the flow of this information, the way, okay, that that, that gave me a really unique perspective. So it's using that failure instantly in the moment, you know, you look at you listen to Jacob Collier talk about chords, oh, you know, like, oh, okay, this is, there's no wrong notes, there's better notes. But like, Okay, this is interesting, right? You're like, in a, you know, you're in B, but you play an A chord, and you're like, Oh, that's a is not in there, but like, I kind of like that, that vibes. So yeah, that, I think that's cool, that I think is like an interesting thing of failure. But then there's just, like, life failures. Like, my whole life, I wanted to get, like, my biggest, like, one knocked me down for weeks. Freshman year, I wanted to transfer to Columbia, and I applied, and I didn't get in, and I was wrecked failed. I was like, I'm never gonna be I'm never gonna amount to anything, you know, like, it was just the world crashed down and burned, and that was horrible. And, you know, like, that sucked. And that was outside of art. It was related to art because I wanted to pursue art. But God, that sucked,

Harry Weidner: 43:13

dude, those things, those things feel so bad.

Jack Weidner: 43:18

Oh, my God, I just cried for like, days. And the worst part is it's like, you, you wake up, you know, and that it's still there, you know, like, failure happens and you and it happened to you, and you can't change it, you know. It's not like a dream. It's very it's very present in the room, and it's about, you know, what do you do with that there? Like you wake up the next day after failure. It's like that didn't go away at midnight. It's still there. It's still sitting next to me. I That happened to me. I experienced that. I I think I'm worse at it than you are, because I I am still haunted by a lot of them, like as, as I say, like artists are good at, like pivoting. There are some things that I still think about, that I dwell on, that is not healthy, that is not helpful, that is not productive, but it's definitely a part of my life. Like I not every failure has been a growth opportunity. There are often, like periods of shame that I think about it throughout, and that's just a very true fact about me living my life. What were you gonna

Harry Weidner: 44:31

say? I was gonna say that reminded me of like the med school admissions process. For me, it was day by day, failure, failure, failure. I mean, I applied to 26 schools and I got into one or two, yeah, count Penn State, but, like, and I got off the wait list. You know, it's not like I got accepted to any school that I applied to outright and to get those letters, emails, um. Of of like, we don't want you, we don't want you, we don't want you. And to that point in my life, I had worked pretty much daily to be in medicine that felt so horrible. Yeah, yeah, and I can feel it

Jack Weidner: 45:25

now like it's

Harry Weidner: 45:28

still there. It's still there. I mean, thank God, everything fucking worked out. Holy shit. Because imagine, I don't know what kind of spot I would be in had I not gotten in, probably not great for a bit. I would have figured it out, I'm sure. But it I mean, what do you do,

Jack Weidner: 45:52

thinking about failure, even if you've gotten past it, and maybe this means that you haven't gotten past it, but it can just

Harry Weidner: 46:03

like, make you feel ill,

Jack Weidner: 46:05

like I presented at a conference the month our grandfather passed away, and I bombed this conference. I bombed it. I couldn't think. I couldn't put thoughts together, like I had a great idea for this paper. I couldn't sit down to write it. I was all over the place, and I bombed, and I'm sitting here thinking about it, and I want to jump off my balcony, because I just don't. And I know that the next time I get ready to present at a conference, I will think about this, and it will inspire me to do better out of fear, which is, I don't know if that's healthy or not. I know that that will happen, but God it, it just sucks. Like, I it definitely will, like, drive me and guide how I move forward in the world. But holy crap is awful.

Unknown: 47:00

Yeah,

Jack Weidner: 47:02

and me, Me saying, like, I probably didn't do well, because, did I pass away? Doesn't matter, because the people that were the audience didn't know, like, I didn't, like, get up there be like, sorry, my grandfather died. So this is gonna suck. They just think, like, I was a schmuck, like, there that I would, you know, that I sucked. And it was like, ah, that sucks.

Harry Weidner: 47:21

Now I'm thinking about future failures. Isn't that horrible? Yeah, isn't that terrible? Like I'm thinking about the things that I am not currently doing that will ultimately result in failure, in things that I regret, and so that sort of ties in the fear of failure aspect, yeah, but it also brings in regret, and a lot of those feelings are not good, scary, actually, like, terrifying, terrifying, terrifying, um, Yeah, like, Okay, I'll say, I'll be vulnerable here I am. Yeah, crazy. I I worry about me being in Colorado, and I'll give an example of when this me being halfway across the country, if anything were to happen to our family, which is the nucleus on the East Coast, we had a pipe burst outside of our house, I receive a call from my mother. Did I talk about this already? I receive a call. I think you've

Jack Weidner: 48:36

talked about it on the podcast. You and I have talked about this. Yeah,

Harry Weidner: 48:39

I receive a call from our mother. She's FaceTiming me, and she has the camera turned around to a pipe that's on the outside of our house. And this thing is, is fire hydranting water. I mean, I mean, at a rate of that, I've never seen water move out of a pipe before, like this thing and and our mother, not young or the most capable. Our grandmother, certainly not young, feels like she's the most capable she is outside in her nightgown with a shovel, shoveling water off our side patio. And I have never felt more useless in my entire life. And so here I am, 1000 or so miles away, and I'm like, What do I do? And so moving forward, how will my being here impact things that might happen in the next three, four years? Am I going to feel like a failure for being in Colorado? I don't know, but I'm it's scary. Yeah, yeah.

Jack Weidner: 49:52

I, you know, I share that fear. I stayed close. I stayed close for years. Yeah, I. Yeah,

Harry Weidner: 50:00

I don't know it's, uh, it's one of those things like, am I? Am I a failure for being in Colorado? I don't think so. Because I'm following my dream.

Jack Weidner: 50:09

You're following your dreams, and you're, I feel like this, you've touched on something that's really interesting. I think a lot we have spent kind of talking about failure is like the only failures that you can have are kind of like career wise. But I don't think we have acknowledged the fact that we, that human beings, us included, are multifaceted. And what does it mean to fail, you know, like you're talking about familial failure. What does it mean to fail as a family man? What does it mean to fail as a professional? What does it mean to fail as a partner? What does it mean to fail as a friend? And all of those things, and how succeeding in one line of that often means failing in another. You know, there's the adage like, Can women have it all, and we are not women? I'm not going to answer that question, but not women. We are not women, and I can't answer that question, but it is interesting to, you know, to see my female friends, who are, you know, working a lot, some of them are thinking about having kids and being faced with that, you know, how do I be the best mother that I can and the best employee and the best partner, you know, spouse, and it's crazy, and I feel like every person on earth deals with that. And there were obviously less expectations of men, right? Like men, I think, could allow failure of the family, failure of certain friendships, because they were succeeding in work and professional life. And, you know, like the world is changing, and now I think we're more cognizant of those fit, you know, we're trying to be well rounded people, and how and what failures can you I guess, the question is like, what failures can you live with? What failures are useful to you? Because we, we've spent a lot of time talking about how, you know, we can learn from failures, and failure changes that. But, like, the very harsh reality is, like, you know, you fail in a family way. Is there growth from that? Like someone not being able to come to a loved one's like funeral and not be able to get there in time if they're passing away? Is that? Is that a failure that like betters us? Does all failure better us? I don't know. That's Oh, that's scary.

Harry Weidner: 52:41

I don't like that. Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't, I didn't like that at all.

Jack Weidner: 52:49

Oh, my God, this is such a dark episode we need to show. This is horrible. Why did we do this? About it? Because I don't know what else to do, because we have to. There's no other way to get through it. Living is so hard. It's just so hard.

Harry Weidner: 53:10

Yeah, yeah, I don't I feel less good than when we started this.

Jack Weidner: 53:18

Do you know the fucked up thing? I feel the same because I always feel like this. Oh, my.

Harry Weidner: 53:25

Well, I talk to us, I've reached my limit here. No if there are any experiences or insights about failure that anyone has to offer, please reach out. I mean, I'm always interested to hear. We love engagement with people. Reach out. Message us. Text us. If you have our numbers, there's a number that you can text us through, through Buzzsprout, which is our hosting website. We have the the email as well. I don't know, gmail.com

Jack Weidner: 53:59

Yeah, I check out every every week, at least twice. Cool,

Harry Weidner: 54:04

yeah, I don't have any parting messages. I

Jack Weidner: 54:07

can end on a little bit of optimism, great. So I was spiraling and tired of my therapist, and I said, I just don't know what I do if something were to happen to the family, but it can be anything. I said, I don't know what I'd do if I was away. And she said, Jack, you'd get on a plane. And it sounds so simple, but I think you know, with failure comes this idea that we tried, and that I really think is sometimes that's all you can ask of people, and that you know, like you we're talking we ended with talking about fear of future failure. And I. Think the idea is that the fact that we will try and that we will fail is part of this human experience, and that everyone has tried and that everyone has failed is almost unifying. But there is something valiant about the effort there. So what will any of us do if we are needed somewhere else? What we are trying to achieve something else we're failing at something else, is that we will try to get on a plane, because we have to so

Harry Weidner: 55:42

thank you for that.

Jack Weidner: 55:45

Well, if you're listening to this on a plane, I hope your plane lands safely. I hate wishing people a safe flight, because you have no power over that. Speaking of individualism, I say I hope you have a great flight. That's all I can do for you. But anyways, I had that with a joke. I don't know what else to do. Yeah, I don't know to do it. Thank you so much for sticking around seeing how this is my son, Ravels. We look forward to talking to you guys again in about two weeks, having to grab a great one. All right, you