[cheerful synth music]
♪
Of course, we schedule a time to start recording
and then there's-- somebody's moving in,
there's like a-- you know, with one of those carts that,
going down that metal thing that comes out of a truck
and is like... [imitating clanking]
...the whole way down. Listen, you can probably hear.
[crickets chirping]
If you can't, just insert a funny sound there.
Anyway, I can hear it, but I don't know if you can hear it.
But every 30 seconds, like a dolly, like...
[imitating rattling]
It's driving me nuts.
Gerald, at what age did you know
that you were different?
Leave me alone, Josh.
[laughing]
Oh, Lord. What were we even talking about?
I don't know.
I'm more fascinated with your annoyance at sounds.
Yeah. I don't know, it just, like... you try
so hard to control the environment, I suppose.
Like, you do all these steps and put sound,
you know... your microphone, and everything.
And then there's just somebody just clanging metal, you know?
Now this is a real question because I'm super,
super sensitive to sounds
and I've always kind of had this suspicion.
Do you think you're on the spectrum at all?
Oh yeah. Full tilt, full spectrum warrior over here.
Really?!
Yeah. High functioning obviously.
For feet, so you can, like... yeah?
♪
I definitely have Aspergers, you know,
classic case when it comes to if we're talking--
or is it because the sensory stuff, you know,
like sound and light and everything?
Yeah, I'm super, super sensitive
to sounds, like they really annoy me whenever something
interrupts me, like, it totally interrupts my focus.
And I just have always assumed that that might be some sort
of ADHD or OCD or whatnot.
But now I'm thinking that it might be shifting on
the side of, you know, on the spectrum a little bit.
And I look at all the other things, like I value things
and not relationships, sometimes.
You know, it's hard for me to, like,
you know, invest in social experiences versus, like,
shiny new products that I do a video on.
-You know what I mean? -Right.
Like, those are all-- all these things kind of play in there.
I'm like, I'm just starting to realize that maybe...
Maybe there's a little bit there? I don't know.
But have you ever... have you ever been diagnosed with it?
Or is this just your, kind of--
No. Like, when I was a kid, you know,
growing up in the 80s,
everybody just... they put everybody on Ritalin
and they just kind of thought everybody was hyperactive
or something.
And I feel like there was more and more,
you know, people talking about autism and stuff
like that as the years went on.
But by the time I was an adult,
I kind of had to figure it out myself by, you know,
there's YouTube videos.
There was things on TV and books and articles
and stuff that, they all just started pointing,
every time I read something or every time there'd be like
a study of somebody with Asperger's or there'd be
a character, I was like, "This is... I'm watching me,"
you know? And so eventually I just did a lot of reading
on and it and was like, yeah,
I have every single one of those--
Like, I'm like a textbook case. There's this great--
I think he's an Australian guy who tries to, like,
communicate to adults with Aspergers.
And he was like, "These are some things
that you might experience."
I'm not talking about that astrology thing
where you think everything applies to you.
I'm saying, like, literally very specific things--
-Like what? -Where it's like...
So the sensory one is a huge one for me.
And it's not just sound.
In fact, when I used to shoot YouTube videos,
I used to wear sunglasses and stuff like that,
not just to emulate Casey Neistat,
but because the light--
like I'm pretty severely photophobic.
And so I have to sort of do my lights
-in a way... -What?!
...where it doesn't bother me.
And I blink a lot like a maniac usually,
and stuff like-- if I go outside after being inside,
I can't see for a while, I have to, like,
squint and look down. So light really bothers me.
How have I never noticed--
Wow, you cover this up great, dude.
-Holy crap. -You think so?
Dude you're great on camera.
You're not blink-- I don't know.
People are going to notice now. They'll go back
and they'll be like, "Yeah, he does blink a lot."
But everything. Sound. If somebody lights a candle
or something and it's not a smell
that I find welcoming--
I describe everything as almost like a headache.
It's not a headache. It doesn't feel like a headache.
But it has that kind of sense of where it's just
sort of up here and it's frustrating.
And you need it to stop
because it's all-- kind of like how
a really bad headache is all you think about.
I think of it as more just like this--
And it doesn't matter what the sense is, if it's--
it can even be, I get these types of t-shirts
because they have a tight crewneck
and the tag can be ripped out cleanly,
because if there's anything--
-[cackling] -Anything that kind of like
messes around my neck area, I can't concentrate.
If I go to the movies and there's a tag in my shirt,
I can't watch the movie because I'm just like...
...the whole time and then I'm twitching in my seat
and it's annoying the other person.
So yeah, it's all senses.
-Wow. You are full tilt. -Yeah.
That's way worse than me.
Mine is like a slight annoyance over sounds.
Like, that's all I got, I just got the sound thing, you know.
Smells, I mean I'm putting out bad smells all day,
it doesn't bother me.
[laughing]
And then there's the, there's the... you know,
the difficulty in sort of social situations.
So I don't pick up on...
A lot of people like to communicate with subtext
and with cues and this kind of thing, you know?
And I don't pick up on them at all.
So I usually have to tell people, like,
"You got to be direct with me. I'm not going to be offended."
But if you're like,
"Okay, it's time for you to go," or something,
then I need you to just be like,
"I'd like you to leave now,"
versus, you know, if you're hinting
around the bush, I'm going to be like,
"I don't know why you're doing that,
or talking about that, or moving your hand like that."
So I've had to train myself to almost be like,
"Is that a cue that suggests that you'd like me to leave?"
You know, it's like, "Yes." "Okay, thank you. Goodbye."
I need I need direct--
Do you find yourself getting stuck on things?
I don't know. I was going to say if anything,
that, sort of, one of the problems
kind of works out to be a pro for me,
which is that I... you know,
the classic sort of focus thing? For YouTube,
it can actually kind of, be kind of beneficial.
A lot of people that know me well know
that I have this thing where I can work
for like sixteen hours without stopping to, like,
eat or sometimes even go pee,
like even go to the bathroom. Somebody checks up on me,
"When's the last time you ate or even went to the bathroom?"
It's because I'm just, like, in there doing what I'm doing.
If I have a computer to fix or a computer to build
or something, I need almost like to set alarms to keep me--
You're in the zone.
Yeah, the productivity aspect is great.
There's months in 2018, 2019,
where I did 10, 12, 14 videos in a month.
You did twelve videos in a-- Oh my--
Yeah, I think I've got, like, June, July of like 2018
or something like that. And these were when
I was doing videos where they were, you know,
maybe not as in-depth reviews, but I was also doing some of
those like nerdy explanation videos with all the little
graphics and stuff. And I was churning out ten videos
a month like nobody's business, just because
I sort of engaged YouTube mode and I didn't turn it off
-for like six months. -Wow.
And that's, I guess like, that's a pro and con obviously.
Then you could argue that your relationships suffer.
Right? So. But you can leverage it,
-you can leverage-- -This is your...
this is your superhero power right here.
You have the power of selective autism.
[chuckling]
Selective autism!
But there's things where it requires
so much mental effort to try to get over something where,
yeah, it's like, if something's really annoying you
in the environment, I feel like it takes
so much energy to not be just consumed by it.
Or the amount of... when I have
a conversation with somebody, like
a first impression conversation or the first
kind of like meet and greet thing, it requires--
I feel like I have to do three times as much work
as another person who it comes naturally to them
just to kind of... yeah, and I feel like I can
come across as pretty charming.
I feel like I can do an okay job
on a first impression, but it requires a lot of work.
I have to, you know, "What do people normally do here?
What are they expecting when they say that kind of thing?
What's the appropriate reaction?
What's that face mean? Am I making that face?
Am I giving off--?" So I have to kind of like there has to be
a lot of calculations done every second to just sort of
have a normal conversation, you know?
You get better at it, though.
It becomes routine and habit forming.
Right now, though, for example,
there is something over here, could be a distant lawnmower.
Let's see if the mic picks it up.
[crickets chirping]
But it just started maybe...
while I was talking that last paragraph is when I noticed it.
And now I'm not going to be able to not notice it,
but thankfully the move in stopped happening.
So that's good. But now there's this...
Now it's now it's stopped.
["Temptation Sensation" by Heinz Kiessling]
I wonder if... and this is like such
a large controversial topic,
but like, I wonder if autism is actually
like the next evolution of, you know, human.
In order for us to kind of tolerate all of this
onslaught of information coming in,
it's like a survival mechanism.
The counterpoint-- because I've heard that before.
And it's obviously nice to think about
if you're on the spectrum. And this is a tricky topic.
This one reply is tricky for me.
This is what I would say.
There is a spectrum, they call it a spectrum,
and some people are suffering, like adversely-- like obviously
I brought up some issues that are troublesome for me.
But the reason why I specified,
like high functioning is because I can--
actually I have a lot of trouble having a normal job,
but I've found a way in order to have relationships
and make a living and, you know, lead a happy life.
There's other people that-- I'm not saying they can't be happy,
but they have a lot harder time with those other aspects,
or that it would... it would lean on
the side of them needing assistance,
and, you know, they just don't have
the same regular abilities that we take for granted.
So I think that any time that you make a statement--
and I'm not saying you did anything wrong here,
but I've heard it before,
like say something like it's the next step.
I feel like because it's such a wide gamut
that it doesn't fairly... it doesn't fairly
bring everybody into it to be like it's the next step.
Because for some people it's very--
I guess I'm more leaning on is that
I know that it's very challenging for some families,
like as a new parent, you know,
the one thing that I wanted and my wife wanted
was just to have a healthy baby, like just have--
Sure, everybody can relate to that. Yeah.
Like, can we just have a healthy baby
where it's like you start out at zero.
And I know that that's-- like, we're lucky,
like, that's not the case. And we still don't even know,
like our kid could be autistic. Like, you don't know that
for, I think, until they're one
or two and they start picking up on certain cues
or not picking up on cues, you know?
But I know that on one hand you can think of it
as some debilitating thing, but on the other hand,
you can look at it like maybe it's the solution,
maybe it's some sort of mechanism that is there
in place to guide us to the next step
or to correct something that's wrong in our society.
I think that if we were to talk about evolution
from the sense of mutation, um...
I'm sure that... [X-Men cartoon theme playing]
I'm not going to go as far
as to call everybody with autism mutants.
But you need to have
a whole gamut of just different things happening
all the time in order for something to emerge
as stronger, better, fitter. So--
Right.
There's nothing necessarily wrong.
Like, you know, humans are where we are now because
the smarter ones prevailed.
And that's why we're such a-- like a conscientious species,
you know, compared to the primates that... before us.
So definitely developments
of the mind can lead to developments as a species,
as a whole. I just don't know where, you know,
different parts of autism
and that kind of thing fit in in terms of, you know,
evolutionary mutations or whatever.
That's well beyond my pay grade,
you know, as far as understanding any of that.
I think that there is some nice comfort in it,
if that, if you are somebody who is, you know,
functioning but you have some challenges
and you look at, like, me, for instance,
I can be hyper focused,
but I have trouble with interpersonal relationships.
There's probably a comfort there for me where
I could be like, "Well, this is the-- you know,
I'm just more evolved because I can look at all the--
look at my output, look at my productivity, my efficiency."
But I guess it comes down to... I don't even know what
the goal of existence is to the sense.
So maybe the output
and productivity, efficiency isn't even worth anything
and I'm worse off, you know what I mean?
And the interpersonal relationships is what it's all
about, and other people have me conquered in that
regard all over the place. It's an interesting topic.
I wonder that too sometimes.
Especially because, like, you know, as you get older,
loved ones start passing away,
you've had some loved ones passed away, obviously.
My uncle just passed away
like five days ago, and so now I'm thinking of, like,
should I be spending more time at home?
You know, with my kid?
You know, like what am I sweating YouTube stuff for?
Right? Like, is it just money?
At the end of the day, I can't take it with me.
You hear about the end of life stories, right?
When they're dying, when they're on their death bed,
you know, there was like this kind of debunked--
It was a letter from Steve Jobs of, like,
him on his death bed.
But it's now been debunked as not true.
But it was kind of that notion of don't value things
or money, but value people,
because that's how you are remembered, you know,
the relationships that you had with people,
and how people that are dying,
that they often regret how much time they spent working
and how much more time they spent with their loved ones
because that's, you know, that's everything
at the end of the day.
[gentle piano music]
We just we went into a whole new chapter here.
♪
By the way, editor note,
while Josh was doing his last bit there,
you should duck my audio because I had
the trash compactor and the lawn mower going.
Just duck me while Josh was talking
what he was talking about.
[upbeat synth music]
♪