we are rolling now hey everybody adam savage here in my cave taking questions from tested patrons
about my early employment history and this is an amazing set of questions uh this one comes from
andrew lewis he says if you could set aside international fame and reputation thank you
andrew i'm not sure i enjoy international fame anymore but sure will stipulate for the sake of
the argument if you could set aside international fame and reputation for a few weeks of every year
without penalty which of your previous occupations would you choose to practice for that time
such a good question um and the answer is immediate it would be theater it would be theater
theaters where i got my start theater is where a significant portion of my heart is
there are things that can happen in a theater that can't happen anywhere else
there are experiences you can get in a theater and again i'm all about the experiences right
there are things that can happen in the theater that just won't feel like any i've seen special
effects in a theater that made my heart jump in ways that no movie ever could because i
was in the building i was in the building with the thing that seemed not possible
um and i'm i'm a theater junkie to every aspect of theater whether it's design or mechanical problem
solving or props or costumes or even writing or directing or performing i clearly what i want to
do is i want to join a small theater troupe for like six or eight weeks a year does that sound
amazing i do have this this this idea in my head that i will spend some time in my later life like
uh working in the community theater working with the community theater because seriously theater
here's what i'll say about theater it is the first art form that would survive an apocalypse intact
like if 95 or whatever giant percentage of the world's population is wiped out in
some cataclysm and there's only a few hundred or a few thousand people left
they're not gonna be painting paintings for each other but they're going to gather
around a campfire and start telling stories and those stories are going to get more elaborate
humans narrative narrative is so important to human consciousness for reasons i still don't
understand and i don't know if anyone does there's something inherent in a narrative in a theatrical
narrative in an aristotelian arc as it were that i think speaks to our souls and i've had some
stunningly remarkable moments in theaters both from the stage and from the audience um
and and frankly it doesn't matter what size theater like i had those transformative
experiences in 100 person black box theaters and i've had transformative experiences um
performing for 250 000 people that is the yeah that's the largest number i jamie and i were
the opening act at the rally the stephen colbert and john stewart's rallied to restore sanity and
or fear back in when was that so like 2010 it's a long time ago anyway if i could set aside my
entire schedule and do something else for a few weeks a year it would absolutely be theater um
in any capacity as i've said yep andrew thank you for that mental exercise i hadn't thought
through it like that and frankly as i'm coming out of covid it's causing me to examine uh
both the stasis we were all in for a long time and what are the pros and cons of that stasis what do
i like about how simple life was six months ago versus what it is now and like i'm super stoked to
see everybody and to socialize again but there's also a peacefulness to the limited options that
covet brought that i find were really like that i enjoyed i know it's weird um so it's nice to like
i'd consider it always an important exercise to imagine how you want work to feel how you
imagine you want your life to feel um and i try and concentrate on that as much as i concentrate
on the details like what job do i want to do what tv show etc do i want to pitch um i'm also
i try and remain very cognizant of how i want those things that i want to do how they will
integrate into the rest of my life and not take it over and so asking questions like that what could
you do if you could do anything those are really great questions one of my favorite exercises is if
i could wave a magic wand and get exactly what i want out of this situation what would it be
and sometimes the answer is surprising try it um thank you so much for that great question
i really love talking about employment history and specifically like the way in which it informs
the person you become all right thank you guys uh adam savage out and i will see you next time