Next time you’re feeling anxious, remember this

This week’s episode of Death, Sex & Money was a collaboration with PJ Vogt’s new(ish) podcast, Search Engine (you’ve got to respect the Slate industrial complex, it’s always working overtime). I was a fan of Reply All — who wasn’t? — and my superficial relationship with the facts behind the Vogt controversy means that I was pleased when he popped up on my podcast feed again. I know, I know, I will do my due diligence soon, just, like… not right now.

ANYWAY, all this to say that part of the DSM episode was dedicated to airing an episode of Search Engine entitled “When Is It Time to Stop Drinking?” In it, Vogt speaks to AJ Daulerio, the journalist who (among other things, but this cannot be ignored) precipitated the demise of Gawker, about addiction, recovery, and how VC bros fell for his hungover chaos agent vibe (spoiler: a visor was involved).

I listened to it on my walk to my studio this morning, and one thing Daulerio said sent a chill through my body. He said: “You might be someone’s bad memory.” Which, I know, is like: duh, but I think human nature makes us get so caught up in cataloguing all the ways the people in our lives have wronged us — truly, that shit can spark joy like very little else — that we can forget that our behaviour doesn’t exist in a vacuum. That, for as much as we think to ourselves, no one’s paying attention to you, no one’s thinking about you, they’re just thinking about themselves, the way we brush up against people, however tangentially or briefly, can leave a mark.

It’s a bit like that cheesy but true thing, people might not exactly remember what you said or what you did, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.

Something to think about the next time you feel like doing some hardcore ruminating.